Now you're talking. I agree with you completely. Over here the only criteria for happiness seems to be, as the FT pointed out, the game of "out competing" your neighbor in money.
>Wealth, say economists, is of little value to one's state of well-being > once one is well-fed and adequately housed -- unless one is doing better > than everyone else. The NYTimes called it the "Art of making money" as in "Art for Art's sake." They are only happy if they are "winning." Being a loser in the game equals unhappiness in the same way that sports teams used to provide a surrogate for such feelings. Today the feelings are direct and every person is a player. That is the world of our illustrious "President" and the motivation behind giving the young their social security to "play" the market and have the opportunity to be the "winner." That is also the problem of the process that gave us the problem with the economists. For the economists the "bottom line" is the meaning of life. For Reagan the Actor it was the negotiation of life and death issues from a place of congeniality (Again I would recommend that movie that we saw last night called "Full Frontal" by Miramax's Soderman. For our current "President" everything is in the game of "winning". Winning is the source of his wealth and having a game to "win" is the source of his self-worth. That was why I liked Clinton. He was a politician professionally and not an amateur like these other folks like Fred Thompson, Tom Delay, and even the Democratic Chairman Terry MacAuliffe. Amateurism is not good enough in these days of complex global arrangements with companies as large as countries were in the past. For the record I was talking about comparing lobes not genitalia but you are probably right. When talking about Hierarchy it always comes down to sex anyway. God help us if the next President is a Psycho-analyst. Ray Evans Harrell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Hudson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 2:42 AM Subject: Increasing inequality > I was strongly tempted this morning to join in the fun between Harry and > Ray about the size of human genitalia, but as mine seem to have been > shrinking steadily with the passage of time then I seem to have lost > enthusiasm both as to their use and learned discussion about them -- > pathetic things that they are these days. > > Instead, let me turn serious just for a moment and copy an interesting item > from yesterday's Financial Times. This is the second in a series, "Changing > Britain", about social and economic trends in this island, but it's pretty > representative, I'd have thought, of what is going on in most developed > countries. > > The article tends to support my notion that the job structure of modern > economies is changing to an hour-glass structure, stimulated by the current > fashionable educational curriculum which extols credentialism at the > expense of honest-to-goodness 'middle-band' skills. In England, we are > enormously short of carpenters, decorators, electricians, plumbers because > our schoolchildren infer that these are of low prestige. > > There's also another interesting point which seems to lie under the surface > and this is that the better-off, already working long hours and relatively > happy, are hardly the sort of consumer market that manufacturers of many > consumer goods would like. These individuals have the money but not the > time or inclination to purchase any larger stock of gimmicks than they have > already. (If a future economic boom is going to unfurl in the future, then > it's unlikely to be in the field of tangible consumer goods. It's much more > likely to be in the health and educational services -- hence my > expectations of organ replacements and biogenetics generally as the next > big stimulus in future years.) > > Keith Hudson > > <<<< > RICH GET RICHER, BUT GREATER PROSPERITY FAILS TO BRING A WEALTH OF WELL-BEING > > For many better-off earners, more money would make little difference. But > it has got harder to be poor > > by Jonathan Guthrie > > Wealth, say economists, is of little value to one's state of well-being > once one is well-fed and adequately housed -- unless one is doing better > than everyone else. > > On that basis, higher earners have been the only people to benefit from a > sharp increase in median earnings, which have more than tripled in 20 years > against retail price inflation of 145 per cent. > > According to figures from the Office of National Statistics, last year the > top 25 per cent of full-time workers were earning more than £580 a week, > equivalent to over £30,000 annually. That was more than 130 per cent of the > average weekly wage, against 117 per cent in 1982. > > Meanwhile, Inland Revenue statistics show the number of people earning more > than £100,000 a year has jumped by almost 50 per cent in just four years, > to about 326,000, out of 28.5 million in employment. > > In 2001, half the British full-time workforce eas earning less than £19,000 > a year. This is equivalent to 83 per cent of average weekly pay. Two > decades ago their share was as high as 90 per cent. > > The bottom tenth of full-timers have seen their cut of average weekly > earnings drop from less than 60 per cent to less than 46 per cent, > equivalent to £10,600 a year. > > Mr Paul Gregg, an economist at Bristol University, syas pay inequality > accelerated fastest in the 1980s and early 1990s. Factors included cuts in > higher rate tax, a decline in the power of unions and an increase in the > economic value of highly trained professionals. Since then "there has been > a sharp slowdown in inequality, but no overall decline". > > Disparities in household incomes have continued to accelerate as a result > of social change. The trend for women to combine full-time work with > motherhood has lifted the joint income of professional couples. > > But more single mothers meant that "by 1996 there were three times as many > households with no work as in 1989", according to Mr Gregg. Almost 4 > million out of 13 million children live in relative poverty, defined as > less than 60 per cent of median income. > > Professor Andrew Oswald, an economist of Warwick University, believes many > better-off Britons have reached a level of affluence where further material > success -- even when measured against one's peers' achievements -- no > longer greatly improves well-being. Long hours, and, particularly in the > south-east, long commutes are cited in surveys as causes of unhappiness. > > The poor, meanwhile, are left gazing through a barred window of deprivation > at vistas of unattainable prosperity: of neat houses on well-tended estates > with gleaming vehicles parked on every drive. > > "It is harder to be poor these days," says Professor Carl Chinn, a > historian at Birmingham University. "A few generations ago most people were > poor. Now they are in a minority, constantly exposed to images of a better > lifestyle and dehumanised by terms like 'underclass'." > >>>> > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > -------------- > > Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England > Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ________________________________________________________________________
