Discussion Start With Michael

 
 

This is going to be a long one:  I can see this string going over several weeks.

I sent Michael a link to an article over at "The Automatic Earth" View From The Brextanic, and as always, Michael delivered with a thoughtful and pithy comment and discussion that raises more questions than answers

I am posting this late today, because this week has been a full-on shit sandwich. 

A. died today

I am an emotional wreck. 

But life goes on and I can't let these important questions go unaddressed.  I do not presume to say answered, but I am thinking that my questions may well lead to something more resembling an answer than the ongoing proliferation of questions that I have been experiencing of late.

Michaels Comments

Leaving aside the bottom ~20%, it is the next big group up (the lower/middle and middle segment of income earners/spenders in the US) who determine which jobs stay in the US and which don’t; it is not the “elite” (unless “elite” means this big group - which is a reasonable use of the term if it is meant to relate to those who do not care enough about the lower 20% to help them).

With regards to American jobs staying or leaving, the job given to a CEO of say GM, is to determine what this big group of people want them to do; not what the “elites” want them to do. I suspect that most liberals would scoff at this claim and consider it naïve. The reason why this explanation is not naïve, is because the actual elites (those very wealthy via capitalism) want the same decisions made as the middle class does.  

Alexander Aston, the author of this Brexit article, says: “I don’t know the answers to our predicaments”. How is this admission not just another way of saying that the fundamental problem has not yet been identified? What the author has identified, is a state of affairs - and we are supposed to accept that this points directly at the problem itself. This is bullshit - it may be entertaining, but it is not informative or helpful. So, on second thought, perhaps the article is not so good; I should have said that it was entertaining to read, not “good”.  

I am supposed to agree that the “elite” are guilty because I am supposed to start from the foundation belief that I myself am not guilty. Thus, in my view, this article offers no insight into the roots of the “predicament” - only observations that inflame emotion and invite the type of negative reciprocity I mentioned before. Allow me to state something that I myself find much less entertaining: I am the problem - not the elites. What I said above, which is supposed to be naïve, is not naïve; it is me admitting that I am the problem.

If it is true that the elites care little for the common man, this cannot be considered something new/changing that explains new conditions. What news could be older and less interesting than this? This “news” has always been supposed; in fact, in almost every case these days, this negative characteristic is implied by the way the term is used. Are we supposed to think that this is a new condition - that the elite have now somehow learned to care less than the previously assumed zero - and that this new magic is what is moving us downward? Our “predicament” is not due to some enhanced form of corporate/elite greed that did not exist before; the same maximum greed existed during the periods of greatest prosperity for the middle class.

The real problem is that “we the people” have the very-same bad characteristic that we like to point out in the elite. The true enemy is us - we the people. We are not better than conditions suggest. What on earth gives any people the right to claim that they are better than what they have done or what they are doing? Talk about bullshit - and this is the thought that is allowing most Americans to keep their spirits up these days. Perhaps it is time for a real Newsflash! Real newsflashes tend to be poor entertainment, so nobody should hold their breath.

It is not entertaining (or rationally justified) to think of oneself as a better human being than those who are poor and doing worse; however, it is quite entertaining to think of oneself as better than the elite, especially if one envies the elite. “We the people” know the truth - that we are not better human beings than the elite. “We” know this, but we refuse to admit it. The force of this belief is what maintains the elite.

The way out of our “predicament”, is for us to become better human beings than the elite. The problem is that “we the people” have swallowed the entertaining story that we are already better than the elite. The elite are not delusional, “we the people” are delusional - about ourselves. Look around and judge what you see. Are we better than the elite? I wouldn’t bet the ranch, but I am prejudiced by the fact that I have a ranch.             

Ask the 3,000+ GM workers that were laid off this week (from GM closing the Volt factory) who is responsible for their predicament, and probably they will point at the CEO and other corporate elites and claim that their jobs were lost due to greed - that CEOs and wealthy investors are prioritized over them. In fact, they themselves, in concert with all the people just like them in the other 49 states, are nearly completely responsible for the loss of their jobs. If greed is to blame for the loss of American jobs, then it is the greed of the middle class that is responsible - the very people who are pointing at the elite.

If the CEO were to ask these 3,000+ laid-off workers whether the Volt plant should stay open, probably most would say yes. But when the CEO asks all the other similar middle-class workers and their families around the country the same question by offering them the opportunity to buy a Volt at the best price possible, all the rest of the country votes NO, in fact, “Hell no” in this case. Regardless of global warming, etc., all these people want to buy big SUVs and 4WD pickups instead of efficient vehicles, but this is not the only way they tell the GM CEO to close the Volt plant; they do it by investing in retirement savings plans and even by participating in the Social Security system.

If people do not understand why this is the case regarding investment and SS, then this situation points to an education problem that needs to be worked - IF it is true that the middle-class cares more than the elites.

It makes a good story that the elite have gotten greedier, but the entertainment value of the story drops radically if the non-elite characters have demanded and insisted that their elites get greedier. This leaves the bottom 20% standing alone in the cold and while they are left standing there, everybody points toward the elites as they walk by.

If you think it is hard to get the top 2% to change their ways, imagine how hard it is to get the next 78% to change. On the other hand, maybe it is true that “we the people” are already great, and the elites are trying to destroy us. Sound reasonable? No, it is not so simple unfortunately. The elites may be greedy, but they are not blind or delusional. If the elites are removed, what will remain is a big group of greedy people who are also delusional, mixed with a much smaller number of very poor people.