Posted on 09/20/2006 7:46:02 AM PDT by A. Pole
Wealthy people are quite capable to instigate wars and to push masses of people into poverty, corruption and crime.
I don't know. If honest and fair republic or good monarchy is not possible, then the next best choice is true aristocracy.
You should ponder the words of Theodore Roosevelt
"Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy."
and
:"The triumph of the mob is just as evil a thing as the triumph of the plutocracy"
Two, one large and one small. I don't remember what they cost or what percentage on my income it took to buy them. I don't remember how many channels were available ether. I do know that I only watched one TV and one channel at a time.
About 5 years ago I bought a TV with more features than I ever wanted or used. It died about a year and a half later. I replaced it with another new TV, again with so many feature it was bothersome. It died too - within six months. My next TV was bought at a garage sale and hailed from the late 1980s, still had more features than I needed and is going strong three years later. Turns out delicate TVs made in this century can't handle our frequent power outages.
I spend far more on books than I do on TVs. They cost more than they did 25 years ago, though they are still printed on paper and bound the same. The quality of the typesetting is diminished though.
What does this have to do with standard of living and how do TVs improve it? The basic technology, the ability to send pictures and sound through the air to a receiver was developed in the 1940s. Transistors were an improvement over tubes, and color over black and white, but the rest is all flash and dash as far as I'm concerned.
When I was married in the early 1970s, we lived in a large 1 bedroom apartment. We paid $150 in rent and that represented about 25% of our take home pay; my husband worked in a lumber yard and I worked part time as a student assistant for minimum wage at the college I was attending. The same apartment today rents for about $1,300. With our same jobs, we couldn't do it today and I wouldn't be going to school.
Two jobs, and a $1300 monthy rental payment represents 25% of your household income? You're correct. Your standard of living has fallen of the chart.
of=off
No that I think about, I believe your household lives well below the poverty line. Am I correct?
You said: Let stick to TV's. 25 years ago, how many did you own? How big was their screen? How many channels did you get? How much did it cost? What percentage of your income did that represent?
***
Those are valid questions. Further, though, what percentage of people here had those things in 1971 as opposed to today? Part of the measure of standard of living is what percentage of people have the things that, when they first came out, were only within the purchasing power of a few. I won't, for example, buy a large plasma TV today (I could, I guess, but I am a tightwad). In less than 5 years they will be within reach of most people who want them.
One primary assumption of the "rich get richer while the poor get poorer" crowd is that there is a static "pie" to be divided, when, in fact, by marginally increased effort, everyone can earn more. The fact that a wealthy person earns more does NOT mean that that additional wealth was taken from someone else. Wealth CAN be created.
So, our rich are richer than theirs ... and our poor are richer than theirs. Hence, the fact that there is a gap between the two groups here doesn't amount to a hill of beans
Which is better?
Is it better for the poor to earn a hypothetical $1000 a year, and the rich $10,000, or for the poor to be earning $100,000 a year and the rich $1,000,000?
If I were poor, I'd choose the second option. Give me the gap. The bigger the gap the better!
It really doesn't matter what the dollar amount is, but what purchasing power of a dollar is. If the relationship between the top and the bottom remain the same, then nothing has really changed. The gap refers to a change in the relationship.
Most poor will take the first option, as the saying goes, "Miserable beings must have other miserable beings around them, then they're happy."
We had six T.V.s; today, we have..........SIX T.V.s. LOL
As far as programing "quality", with so many cable channels to choose from, one can still find QUALITY programs and more of them.
We had an answering machine 25 years ago, but no cell phones. I have one today and NEVER use it. I got bullied into getting one ( I was taking a trip and yes, I did need it that one time ), but haven't used it since. It's our second cell phone and we also got bullied into getting the first one, because when we drive out to see our kids, we have to go through a long desolate patch and if something happened, yes, it WOULD come in handy.
Over time, ALL housing has increased in value; so have prices for many other things. OTOH, the prices of other things has gone down and shockingly so. Do you remember how much the early VCRs cost, T.V.s in the late 1940s/early 1950s?
If you had a high standard of living 25 years ago, probably not much has change. This is a bottom up change; the lower classes' standard of living has improved.
Spot on; wealth, at least in America, is not a zero sum game.
If the lower strata, in America, has the ability to have cars and T.V.s and clothes and food and housing and "goodies" ( which they do ), what difference does it make that the very top most strata can afford to have even more?
Whatever Comrade.....
OT - A couple of weeks ago I saw a circa 1950 Philco projection TV at an estate sale.
Ecclesiastes ch 2-
"17 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
18 I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.
19 And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless.
20 So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun.
21 For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune."
Your questions are as old as the Bible itself. The power of the government to confiscate wealth has never been the solution to this issue and it never will.
Do you mean like when a private interest teams up with government to condemn property it covets for its private profit? Kind of reminds me of the story the prophet told King David.
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