You lot try to insinuate that socialists are against the rich, against
endeavour, against reaping the benefits of your labour.
We advocate reaping the benefits of labour—if you are prepared to work
hard enough to have a five story mansion and 10 cars—go for it-it’s
your life—do what is important for you—that’s the idea—that’s real
freedom.
What we object to is that this system allows those possessing wealth
in the form of capital to be able to have undue influence over the
lives of others resulting in exploitation.
The claims you have made are also flagrant disinformation
The problem under cap“Measure of America” report documents social
decay of the United States
US ranks 42nd in life expectancy
By Patrick Martin
19 July 2008
A new study released Wednesday, entitled “The Measure of America,”
provides a wealth of data demonstrating the profound and deepening
social decay of the United States. Commissioned by the Oxfam charity
and several foundations, and published by Columbia University Press,
the report documents, using government figures, the dramatic decline
of American society relative to other advanced industrialized
countries and the mounting social disparities within the US.
The study takes the methodology employed by the United Nations
Development Report, widely recognized for its insights into the social
conditions of less developed countries, and applies it for the first
time to the study of an advanced country. The result is a portrait of
America that shows much of the country’s population living in
conditions that are closer to the “Third World” than to the “American
Dream.”
The report analyzes figures provided by the US Bureau of the Census in
its 2005 census of economic and social conditions. It thus lags
significantly behind the actual deterioration in conditions of life,
since the census was taken before the collapse of the sub-prime
housing market and the ensuing plunge of the US economy into
recession. A report based on today’s conditions would be even bleaker.
The three social scientists who prepared the study constructed an
American Human Development Index which includes both median income
figures and data relating to health, life expectancy and “access to
knowledge” (school enrollment and the proportion of the population
with college and professional degrees.) The result is a broader
picture of social conditions than would be provided by a purely
economic analysis.
In terms of the human development index, the United States has fallen
from second place in 1990 (behind Canada) to 12th place. This decline
continued through both the Clinton and Bush administrations, with the
US falling to sixth in 1995, ninth in 2000, and 12th in 2005.
In certain respects, the decline is even worse. The US is 34th in
infant mortality—with a level comparable to Croatia, Estonia, Poland
and Cuba. US school children perform significantly below their
counterparts in countries like Canada, France, Germany and Japan, and
14 percent of the population, some 40 million people, lack basic
literacy and number skills.
Of the world’s 30 richest nations, which comprise the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States has the
highest proportion of children living in poverty, 15 percent, and the
most people in prison, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of
the whole population. With five percent of the world’s population, the
US has 24 percent of the world’s prisoners.
The report notes: “Social mobility is now less fluid in the United
States than in other affluent nations. Indeed, a poor child born in
Germany, France, Canada or one of the Nordic countries has a better
chance to join the middle class in adulthood than an American child
born into similar circumstances.”
In overall life expectancy, the United States ranks an astonishing
42nd, behind not only Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and all
the countries of Western Europe, but also Israel, Greece, Singapore,
Costa Rica and South Korea. The US spends twice as much money per
capita on health care as any of these countries, but its citizens live
shorter lives.
Two principal contributing factors were identified in the report—the
epidemic of obesity, a disease primarily of poverty and miseducation,
and the lack of health insurance for 47 million Americans. The report
also noted that homicide and suicide are among the 15 leading causes
of death in America.
The health crisis in the United States was underscored by a second
report, issued Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research
group based in New York. This study found that 75 million people are
either uninsured or under-insured, one quarter of the population.
Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, focused on the rising
cost and diminishing availability of health care. “The central finding
is that access has deteriorated,” she said.
A major factor is the immense administrative costs incurred by private
insurance companies which spend billions of dollars to avoid paying
claims. Much insurance company profit gouging is masked as
“administrative” expenses as well. Administrative costs take 7.5
percent of US health care spending, compared to 5 percent in Germany
and Switzerland, which also have private health insurers, and 1
percent or less in countries like Canada and Britain that have
government-run insurance systems.
Assessing 37 separate healthcare indices, the Commonwealth study found
that even in those areas where there was some improvement in absolute
terms, other countries had improved by a far greater amount, pushing
the US further down the table. For example, the US reduced the number
of preventable deaths for people under 75 from 115 to 110 per 100,000
over the past five years. However, other countries, led by France,
Japan and Australia, did much better. The US is now last among
developed countries in this measure, having just slipped below Ireland
and Portugal.
The Measure of America report also documents the widening social gulf
within the United States, particularly in geographical terms, as it
breaks down the census statistics to provide a table ranking all 50
states and all 438 congressional districts. The report greatly
understates the degree of income inequality since the US economic
census counts only wage and salary income, leaving out dividends,
interest, capital gains and business profit, the principal forms of
income for the upper class. But even with these limitations, the
findings are devastating.
The executive summary of the report notes that “the average income of
the top fifth of US households in 2006 was almost 15 times that of
those in the lowest fifth—or $168,170 versus $11,352.” The top one
percent of households possesses at least one third of the national
wealth, while the bottom 60 percent possess just 4 percent of the
total.
The authors observe: “Growing inequality in income distribution and
wealth raises a profound question for Americans: Can the uniquely
middle-class nation that emerged in the twentieth century survive into
the twenty-first century? Or is it fracturing into a land of great
extremes?” While not drawing any conclusion, they admit, “the answers
to these questions will determine ... the future of America.”
There are staggering disparities in income, health care and
educational opportunities from state to state, between urban and rural
areas, and between relatively well-off areas like the Northeast and
Pacific Coast and impoverished areas like much of the South and the
Appalachian region.
The top ten states in terms of median income lie along the Eastern
seaboard from Virginia to New Hampshire. The bottom five states
include West Virginia and four states of the Deep South: Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. It is worth emphasizing that the
2005 census figures were compiled before Hurricane Katrina devastated
three of those states.
There are even greater disparities within states and regions. The
poorest congressional district in the United States is not in the
South, but in the central valley of California, around the cities of
Fresno and Bakersfield, where tens of thousands of agricultural
laborers toil under conditions not much improved from the time John
Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath.
In the 20th district of California, only 6.5 percent of adults have
graduated from college, and the median household income is $16,767,
below the US poverty line. Meanwhile, ten of the 20 richest
congressional districts are also in California, including the Silicon
Valley and the upscale suburbs of Los Angeles and San Diego.
The richest congressional district is New York’s 14th, encompassing
Manhattan’s east side: 62.6 percent of the adult population have a
college degree and median family income is $51,139 a year (counting
only wages, not the income from capital). A short subway ride away in
the Bronx is the 16th congressional district, one of the five poorest
in the US, where only 8.6 percent of adults have a college degree and
the median annual income is $19,113.
Summing up the findings of the report, co-author Sarah Burd-Sharps
writes, “Some Americans are living anywhere from 30 to 50 years behind
others when it comes to issues we all care about: health, education
and standard of living.” While the US remains one of the richest
nations in the world, it is “woefully behind when it comes to
providing opportunity and choices to all Americans to build a better
life.”
Just as revealing as the figures provided by the Measure of America
report is the response to it on the part of the American media and
political establishment. The report was published by Columbia
University, one of the most prestigious American colleges, and its co-
authors held a press conference on Capitol Hill to announce their
findings. But not a single major daily newspaper carried an account,
nor was the study mentioned on any of the evening television
newscasts.
The regional press in California reported the dismal last-place
ranking for the 20th congressional district, but not the wider
findings. And Talk Radio News Service, a web site serving the largely
ultra-right talk radio industry, posted an item that turned the
findings upside down, under the bizarre headline, “Report: Most
Americans doing better than fifty years ago.”
The silence of the media was matched by the silence of the Democratic
and Republican candidates for president. Neither Obama nor McCain made
mention of the findings, although both have made photo-op appearances
in poverty-stricken areas like eastern Kentucky, New Orleans and inner
city Detroit.
In that context, it is worth pointing out that Obama’s campaign is
making little effort in the five most impoverished states,
Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama and West Virginia. The last
four have been virtually conceded to the Republicans. The Obama
campaign hopes for a heavy turnout among Mississippi’s large black
population to vote for the first major party African-American
candidate.
In fact, neither party is able to advance any policy to address the
vast decay of American society. The Measure of America and
Commonwealth Fund reports are the latest in a series of studies that
depict a society—ravaged by poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, ill
health and inequality—that is going backward. The sclerotic two-party
system cannot provide any answer to the social disaster because it is
a corrupt instrument of the financial aristocracy that is plundering
the country to pile up ever-greater wealth for itself.
On Aug 14, 9:33 pm, Bruce Majors <[email protected]> wrote:
> Actually the US has more social mobility than other countries, though it has
> slowed with the growth of the welfare state.
> Grandchildren of poor people are more often rich, and grandparents of rich
> people are more often poor, than in other countries.
>
> Rich people here are more likely to have created the wealth they have.
>
> Why do you think someone who works fewer hours and speaks worse English and
> has less math competence than their parents or grandparents is "worth" more
> as a laborer than their parents were, dollars per hour? They are not.
>
> The price of labor tracks its marginal productivity -- how much buying one
> more unit of labor will increase output. As long as buying another $1 of
> labor will increase output another $1, people keep hiring,which increases
> wages as they are bid up.
>
> The only way to make a unit of labor more productive is to create more
> capital, either new plant property and equipment or new human capital.
>
> So called "friends of labor" like you Lonely, are always attacking capital
> accumulation and thereby lowering wages
>
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 7:01 AM, "Lone Wolf" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Sage, this is unbelievable. America is a degenerate plutocracy, where
> > the workers are being bleed dry and kicked into the gutter. Its not
> > about handouts or taxation--its about receiving the benefit of your
> > labor. How can 1% of the American population own more than the bottom
> > 95% and the bottom 50% just1% if workers are not being abused and
> > exploited? These debates serve to legitmize the rule of despots over
> > our lives
>
> > On Aug 13, 2:54 am, Sage2 <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > Lone Wolf,
>
> > > When you say Healthcare should be a right for
> > > all Americans or RESIDENTS I take it you are saying that we as tax
> > > payers need to pay for the healthcare of 15,000,000 " illegal alien
> > > immigrants " who are not " legal " residents. These are the real
> > > parasites along with sponge monkey groups like SEIU, ACORN, LaRaza,
>
> > **************************************************************************************************************************************
>
> > > On Aug 12, 12:35 pm, "\"Lone Wolf\"" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > Thats right, lets pay taxes, while we work for bugger-all and expect
> > > > nothing in return--while the gamblers that made trillions losing
> > > > trillions are guaranteed $23 trillion dollars in public funds to pay
> > > > off their debts. Some off that $23 trillion should be spent on those
> > > > that contributed the money--it could certainly go to health care,
> > > > social services, education etc. All I am saying if we pay the money,
> > > > can we please have the services--no more--no less
>
> > > > The first thing that has to be done is to restore democracy--America
> > > > is a plutocracy/financial dictatorship.
>
> > > > It's not even a matter of socialism or capitalism. If the majority of
> > > > people don't want socialized medicine (though the polls show
> > > > otherwise) and prefer to use their taxes for other things, that's
> > > > fine--at the moment the public has no say in what happens in any are
> > > > at all affecting their lives--the don't know where their money is
> > > > going --there is no transparency--and corruption is out of control--
> > > > big business own everything--they are screwing us and suppressing all
> > > > opposition and debate.
>
> > > > On Aug 13, 12:13 am, plainolamerican <[email protected]>
> > > > wrote:
>
> > > > > What is behind the opposition to the Obama healthcare plan?
> > > > > ---
> > > > > those of us who should not be forced to pay for the healthcare of
> > > > > others
>
> > > > > your healthcare is your responsibility
> > > > > it is NOT an entitlement that WE should have to pay for
>
> > > > > On Aug 12, 3:29 am, "\"Lone Wolf\"" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > > > What is behind the opposition to the Obama healthcare plan?
> > > > > > 12 August 2009
>
> > > > > > President Obama’s proposed restructuring of the US healthcare
> > system
> > > > > > has come under ferocious attack over the past week. Right-wing
> > > > > > activists, in many cases organized by groups affiliated with the
> > > > > > Republican Party or financed by sections of the healthcare
> > industry,
> > > > > > turned out at town hall meetings to shout down Democratic
> > congressmen
> > > > > > or Obama aides. There have been death threats and some actual
> > > > > > violence.
>
> > > > > > The right-wing attack combines hysterical distortion of the
> > provisions
> > > > > > of the Obama plan (frequently, and falsely, branded as “socialized
> > > > > > medicine”) with an appeal to the concerns of wide layers of the
> > > > > > American population who sense, quite correctly, that the healthcare
> > > > > > restructuring being promoted in Washington will come at their
> > expense
> > > > > > and will benefit only the big corporate interests.
>
> > > > > > Chief among the distortions has been the claim, fostered most
> > notably
> > > > > > by former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, that
> > the
> > > > > > Obama plan promotes euthanasia and that millions of elderly people
> > > > > > will be hauled before a federal “death panel” to decide whether
> > paying
> > > > > > for their healthcare was warranted based on their “level of
> > > > > > productivity in society.”
>
> > > > > > The actual provision, Section 1323 of one version of legislation
> > that
> > > > > > has passed one committee in the House of Representatives, merely
> > > > > > states that Medicare will now reimburse doctors who hold
> > end-of-life
> > > > > > counseling sessions for beneficiaries who want to know their
> > options
> > > > > > on hospice care, living wills, and similar services.
>
> > > > > > Palin, who resigned as governor of Alaska July 26 in order to
> > pursue a
> > > > > > national career as spokeswoman for the fascistic wing of the
> > > > > > Republican Party, is appealing to the same Christian fundamentalist
> > > > > > elements who mobilized around the case of Terri Schiavo in 2005.
>
> > > > > > The popular disaffection with the Obama healthcare plan goes much
> > > > > > further, however, than the fanatical right-to-life constituency.
> > The
> > > > > > Obama administration has based its program for healthcare
> > > > > > restructuring entirely on the argument that healthcare costs are
> > > > > > bankrupting the US economy and that controlling and reducing these
> > > > > > costs is essential.
>
> > > > > > The logical conclusion of this policy—even if officially denied by
> > the
> > > > > > White House—is that somebody’s healthcare is too expensive and must
> > be
> > > > > > cut back or eliminated. Millions of people fear that that somebody
> > is
> > > > > > likely to be them and their families. One opinion poll published
> > last
> > > > > > week showed that 53 percent believed they would be worse off or no
> > > > > > better than before under the Obama plan.
>
> > > > > > Obama and the congressional Democrats have sought to use the
> > frenzied
> > > > > > outpourings of his right-wing critics to discredit all opposition
> > to
> > > > > > the measures that the administration is pursuing to cut social
> > benefit
> > > > > > programs like Medicare and impose even greater burdens on American
> > > > > > working people.
>
> > > > > > The crudest effort along these lines came in a column published in
> > > > > > USAToday Monday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority
> > > > > > Leader Steny Hoyer, which branded the opposition to Obama’s
> > healthcare
> > > > > > plan “un-American attacks.” They criticized the right-wing
> > disruptions
> > > > > > as an effort to suppress discussion, then pledged that the
> > healthcare
> > > > > > “reform” would mean higher-quality care, an end to insurance
> > company
> > > > > > abuses and “stability and peace of mind for the middle class.”
>
> > > > > > In his radio speech Saturday and at a carefully controlled town
> > hall
> > > > > > meeting in New Hampshire Tuesday, Obama sought to soothe popular
> > > > > > concerns over the implication of the healthcare cost-cutting and
> > put a
> > > > > > “progressive” gloss on what is a fundamentally reactionary and pro-
> > > > > > corporate policy.
>
> > > > > > The president told his New Hampshire audience that charges that his
> > > > > > program will cut Medicare benefits for the elderly were false.
> > “It’s a
> > > > > > myth that we’re going to be cutting your Medicare benefits,” he
> > said.
> > > > > > “We’re not.” He claimed that the only cut in Medicare would be $177
> > > > > > billion in subsidies to insurance companies that operate private
> > > > > > Medicare Advantage plans. But all the plans moving through the
> > House
> > > > > > and Senate—with full backing by the White House—call for
> > substantial
> > > > > > reductions in Medicare reimbursement to hospitals and doctors,
> > which
> > > > > > will inevitably be translated into cutbacks in care for the elderly
> > > > > > and disabled.
>
> > > > > > One of the first questions taken by Obama—no doubt prearranged by
> > > > > > White House political operatives—was from a woman denied coverage
> > by
> > > > > > her insurance company because of a pre-existing condition.
> > Expressing
> > > > > > sympathy for her plight, Obama sought to use the exchange to
> > present
> > > > > > his program as a benefit for those whose healthcare benefits have
> > been
> > > > > > cut back or eliminated by profit-driven insurers.
>
> > > > > > The real relationship of Obama and the Democrats to the insurance
> > > > > > industry was far more accurately described by BusinessWeek magazine
> > in
> > > > > > its current cover story on healthcare “reform,” headlined, “The
> > Health
> > > > > > Insurers Have Already Won.” The magazine details how
>
> ...
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
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