Will the standard of living in America continue to dwindle?

[Ridgerunner]

This, of course, is a huge social justice issue, which has not been even mentioned in the Presidential campaign by either candidate. Part of the solution may be related to some changes to the tax rates, as Mr Obama suggests, but that is a pittance compared to the larger issue, which is the structural change to the work economy. I am very disappointed that neither candidate has even mentioned that it is an issue.

It has been mentioned indirectly, at least. I certainly have not heard every speech, but Obama does maintain, or at least says, that taxing wealthy people would surely be beneficial to the economy. Romney maintains that job creation is the important thing.

I am not persuaded that 'structural change" to the work economy is what is needed. First, because I have never heard anyone clearly express what they mean by “structural change”. Second, if “structural change” means paying workers more and executives less, I have never seen anything to persuade me that a) it’s constitutional for the government to mandate wages, b) that it would do any good for the workers if attempted, or c) that there is any rational means for doing it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The U.S. insatiable appetite for goods and services at cheaper prices (which nations like China services us with) has had an adverse effect on the U.S. economy. It’s like a Catch 22 kind of thing.

At any rate… the U.S. standard of living has dramatically declined for Black-Americans within the generations of Generation X on down. It has already been reported - but I knew this from blatant observation - that said generations almost certainly move into the poor class if they were raised middle-class.

I like to tell black folks - because few of them realize it - that if it weren’t for all the middle-class housing of the black Baby-Boomers (parent of Gen X) the vast majority of the younger generations of Black-Americans would be forced to live in make-shift housing. Essentially forming the vast stretches of squatter camps called “favelas” in Brazil. Or the squatter camps that were typical in the U.S. during the Great Depression.

So, previous generations glories cosmetically, architecturally cover-up the true extent of the economic problem. Consider that at my age of 41 as a black male in Milwaukee with an income of roughly $12,000 a year I’m regarded as not great but pretty well off relative to most other black males my age and younger. Many haze the income of $0 (zero).

Furthermore, roughly 600 people are shot in my city annually, some years a little less and some years maybe a couple hundred more than that. But the actual homicides never exceed 100 usually. This in a span of 365 days within a year. And this with almost all the shootings and homicides occurring on the black sides of town.

So, the quality of life for black by both the Baby-Boomers and WWII Generation of blacks has plummeted astronomically for the younger generations. My generation (Gen X) is in fact often referred to as “The Lost” generation (meaning a whole generation wiped out to drugs, murder, prison, and unemployment).

Most the poor ethnic White-Americans like the Italians, Sicilians, and Irish left poverty in the 1960’s. Most of their Generation X and younger generations do better than their Baby-Boomer and WWII Generation.

For Black-Americans no loss - I hypothesize - has been so great since the end of Reconstruction Era when the KKK essentially took over various city and state governments.

City-Data.Com is pretty awesome site for statistical data on cities of the United States.

Source: city-data.com/city/Milwaukee-Wisconsin.html

From the link: Milwaukee city income, earnings, and wages data.

(a) city-data.com/income/income-Milwaukee-Wisconsin.html

For Whites: Distribution of median household income in 2009 (number of people). You can see for ages 25 - 44 the chart peaks at $60k - $75k.

For Blacks: Distribution of median household income in 2009 (number of people). You can see for ages 25 - 44 the chart peaks at < $10k [the symbol < means “less than”]

To what do you attribute this?

 

[Jeanne_S]

The poor get $60,000 per household from the working.

Bingo!

 

[SuperLuigi]

Corporate CEO’s seem to be doing well. The amount of millionaires is growing in the US.

Minorities and urban-dwellers- not so much.

Feel free to cut them a check anytime, Ringil.

 

[epan]

It has been mentioned indirectly, at least. I certainly have not heard every speech, but Obama does maintain, or at least says, that taxing wealthy people would surely be beneficial to the economy. Romney maintains that job creation is the important thing.

I am not persuaded that 'structural change" to the work economy is what is needed. First, because I have never heard anyone clearly express what they mean by “structural change”. Second, if “structural change” means paying workers more and executives less, I have never seen anything to persuade me that a) it’s constitutional for the government to mandate wages, b) that it would do any good for the workers if attempted, or c) that there is any rational means for doing it.

Romney claims to have the formula to create jobs, but keep his formula a secret, unless he means “trickle down”. Cut the marginal rate, and jobs will magically appear. This thinking is flawed and has been tested twice. It does not work. He needs a new plan.

Obama’s pandering to the poor by blaming the rich is disingenuous. Just as Romney knows his “plan” has already been tested and failed, Obama knows that taxing the rich will not solve the problems of the middle class.

By structural, I mean that the world economy has fundamentally changed. I was speaking in the past tense, but also that more changes are to come. Labor is no longer a local commodity for employers. Technology has “flattened” the world. In that sense, structure has changed.

 

[SuperLuigi]

We see it now in the steady decline of the median income of the middle class. Will America’s economy continue to dwindle to bring it in line with the rest of the world? Will the same happen in the European Union? Is this social justice?

It depends on what happens this election cycle.

If the R’s sweep, then what will happen is that things will get worse initially. They will have to bottom-out from all this artificial inflation of the economy that has done little if any good and then we would see a massive recovery, possibly in 3-6 months if Mitt gets his energy plan going.

If the D’s keep the Senate, it could delay a recovery.

If anything else happens, it’ll stay the same and it will be only a matter of time before China and others stop borrowing us money. Private bondholders will probably call it quits as well and OPEC will probably stop trading in dollars.

In this case, there would be calls for impeachment of the president; there’d be a run on banks and grocery stores and most US major cities would be under martial law and I suspect that huge tracks of farmland would be confiscated under executive orders.

There won’t be any money for government unions, especially colleges or local schools and many will shut down.

There will then be what could be considered a permanent underclass, to quote Jason Lewis, and people except for the upper middle-class to the rich ones (and the well-prepared) would have to get up bright and early every mornin to plant corn and potatoes and boil water for survival.

It’ll be just like it was before all the government goodies of neo-con/dem bailouts, Medicare, Medicaid, Great Society, New Deal and Social Security:

Frontier days.

Sure, the technology and infrastructure will be there, but you can’t boil water or cook with a computer, i-pad, cell phone or DVD player.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Romney claims to have the formula to create jobs, but keep his formula a secret, unless he means “trickle down”. Cut the marginal rate, and jobs will magically appear. This thinking is flawed and has been tested twice. It does not work. He needs a new plan.

Obama’s pandering to the poor by blaming the rich is disingenuous. Just as Romney knows his “plan” has already been tested and failed, Obama knows that taxing the rich will not solve the problems of the middle class.

By structural, I mean that the world economy has fundamentally changed. I was speaking in the past tense, but also that more changes are to come. Labor is no longer a local commodity for employers. Technology has “flattened” the world. In that sense, structure has changed.

It worked pretty well under Reagen and during the 1920s.

Even JFK was for cutting taxes.

Technology hasn’t flattened anything. A lot of people are too proud to have the jobs that the left bleats about are being replaced by machine and automation. They’d rather be on welfare and Section 8 it seems.

What’s flattened the world is irresponsible spending by neo-cons and elite leftists who are in crony government that is in cahouts with big business and union bosses.

 

[migueltojose]

We see it now in the steady decline of the median income of the middle class. Will America’s economy continue to dwindle to bring it in line with the rest of the world? Will the same happen in the European Union? Is this social justice?

Short answer - YES. Why - globalization. Why does globalization ‘dwindle’ the American economy? Technology has leveled the playing field for “intelligence” markets (engineering, software programming, etc.) And manufacturing continues to chase the lowest labor rates (I’ll talk like an economist here… all things being equal, labor is the difference). Is globalization good? Irrelevant - it is.

We seem to forget that at the beginning of the industrial revolution we had relatively inexpensive land, raw materials and labor. Major drivers of the cost of goods sold (COGS). We got another artificial boost after WW2 when basically all of the competition had been destroyed. Since then the other costs have come in line or even tilted out of our competitive advantage (energy?). So a major differentiator now is labor. When our labor was at it’s peak in terms of relative income, it was essentially artificial because we had advantages in othe COGS and that got passed along (thanks to unions, good or bad) to the labor force. Another economist type saying is that… all things being equal, supply and demand curves seek equilibrium. Well if we’re too high and others are to low, the market will seek to balance that out. So we go down while others go up. In the big picture (social justice?) this is good. Quality of life for the planet is improving across the board and rapidly. For us specifically, not so much. We need (besides a massive wave of authentic Catholicism) a National vision, with strategy and tactics derived from understanding where we were, where we are, where we want to be and how are we going to get there.

This in no way can cover the entire topic but I think it gets some of the major drivers and salient points out there…

 

[epan]

It worked pretty well under Reagen and during the 1920s.

Even JFK was for cutting taxes.

Technology hasn’t flattened anything. A lot of people are too proud to have the jobs that the left bleats about are being replaced by machine and automation. They’d rather be on welfare and Section 8 it seems.

What’s flattened the world is irresponsible spending by neo-cons and elite leftists who are in crony government that is in cahouts with big business and union bosses.

Actually, Reagan, for all his talk about reducing the size of government, increased deficit spending as a percentage of GDP more than any president since WW2. This is not what we need today. He had Friedman on his side, so people were willing to give his theory a test. The test failed, just as it did in the 1920’s and in the 2000’s. We ended up with the Great Depression and with the Great Recession. Trickle down does not work to shore up the middle class. It does bulge the portfolios of the wealthy. There are social justice issues too, depending on where your moral compass lies regarding the poor and social services.

By flattening the world, I refer to the phenomenon of globalization. For example, Wyndham Hotels does all of its accounting in India now. I don’t think I need to list what is going on. Perhaps you disagree that this trend has fundamentally changed the labor market, along with the early stages of computerization and robotics? The pace of change being brought by technology far outpaces the ability of governments to adapt, and is creating whole new business models and paradigms. The failure to even talk about this and its implications, is a marked failure of this current presidential race.

I’m sure that neocons and elite leftists have their role to play, but my opinion is that you give them far too much credit.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Short answer - YES. Why - globalization. Why does globalization ‘dwindle’ the American economy? Technology has leveled the playing field for “intelligence” markets (engineering, software programming, etc.) And manufacturing continues to chase the lowest labor rates (I’ll talk like an economist here… all things being equal, labor is the difference). Is globalization good? Irrelevant - it is.

We seem to forget that at the beginning of the industrial revolution we had relatively inexpensive land, raw materials and labor. Major drivers of the cost of goods sold (COGS). We got another artificial boost after WW2 when basically all of the competition had been destroyed. Since then the other costs have come in line or even tilted out of our competitive advantage (energy?). So a major differentiator now is labor. When our labor was at it’s peak in terms of relative income, it was essentially artificial because we had advantages in othe COGS and that got passed along (thanks to unions, good or bad) to the labor force. Another economist type saying is that… all things being equal, supply and demand curves seek equilibrium. Well if we’re too high and others are to low, the market will seek to balance that out. So we go down while others go up. In the big picture (social justice?) this is good. Quality of life for the planet is improving across the board and rapidly. For us specifically, not so much. We need (besides a massive wave of authentic Catholicism) a National vision, with strategy and tactics derived from understanding where we were, where we are, where we want to be and how are we going to get there.

This in no way can cover the entire topic but I think it gets some of the major drivers and salient points out there…

Not arguing with you, but I think one could see more things in this.
First of all, notwithstanding lower labor costs abroad, there are things low labor costs just won’t make up for. Proximity is one thing. I look around me and I see industries that pay a lot more than people undoubtedly get in China, and yet the industries are profitable. Part of the reason for that is distance, or lack thereof. If, say,a window manufacturer can get its product to the markets, in abundance, in good condition and on time, then its cost of transportation and efficiencies make up for the low cost of labor in China. A lot of food products have to be fresh on arrival; more of them than we often think. The source has to be very near the market to deliver that without incurring astronomical costs.

So do raw materials. It’s no accident that, for example, cattle feed lots are in the grain belt. It’s a lot cheaper to ship processed fresh meat than it is to ship grain. That absolutely fresh steak on the table in Chicago is able to be there because the animal was born in Missouri or Oklahoma, fed out in Kansas on Kansas and Iowa grain, processed in Nebraska and shipped unfrozen, overnight, to Chicago. Location and transportation mean everything in processes like that.

But also, we need to consider the fact that energy is “additional muscle” to the arm of the worker, or perhaps we should say energy is “extra workers”. Resource energy is a great deal cheaper than muscle energy if it’s properly used and developed. Our proximity to low-cost energy (unless the left destroys the whole thing) is much superior to that of competing economies. Other than Finland, with its hydropower, kilowatt hours cost less by far in the U.S., Canada and Australia than in the next cheapest places. If one looks at the energy-producing resources (including in Finland) one can readily see why.

 

[manualman]

…
At any rate… the U.S. standard of living has dramatically declined for Black-Americans within the generations of Generation X on down. It has already been reported - but I knew this from blatant observation - that said generations almost certainly move into the poor class if they were raised middle-class.

Do you really think so? That’s a discouraging outlook. Can I ask some questions?

First, I admit I’m a suburban white boy, so please don’t laugh at my ignorance. Help me learn instead. Do you really think there is still a massive racial barrier in today’s society or has it transformed into a cultural barrier in which skin color is nearly irrelevant and cultural differences are a bigger problem?

I’m wondering because of my own experiences (which as I’ve already admitted are limited). In my engineering world work, I’ve worked with black men who do their work competently and have good leadership skills. Skin color doesn’t end up mattering one bit. But I’ll also freely admit that when our survey group needs new entry level field crew help and there is an interview that finds that one candidate speaks clearly, is professionally dressed, and demonstrates the basic math aptitude to solve field survey problems, while the other candidate has pants half hanging off his hips, speaks hardly intelligible slang, and can’t mentally add and subtact three figures in his head, that latter guy has zero chance of landing the job. This isn’t a rocket scientist job, mind you. We have several field crew guys with no more than a high school education. If the latter guy is black and the former guy is Hispanic, was it employer racism that cost the black guy the job? I don’t think so. Is it fair to ask if there are cultural problems in the black community that are at least partially responsible for conditions in those communities? Are the schools really so bad that there isn’t a genuine opportunity to learn to speak English clearly and achieve addition and subtraction profficiency?

Don’t take my questions as making generalizations about any race or community. We, in fact, DO have excellent black guys working in our field crews (and many more in the contractors that employ our services) with no employee race conflicts. But I’ll also freely admit that we seem to pass over rather a lot of black applicants who simply lack the skills needed to get the job done. I don’t think we bear the blame for that, do you? What DOES need to happen to improve the situation?

You made the statement that black youths raised in middle class families still have little chance of landing middle class jobs. In your experience, are these kids well educated, literate, math-capable and professional in demeanor? Or are the struggling ones more likely to have embraced a self-destructive culture in which they have rejected the cultural values necessary to thrive in America? (I’m asking, not asserting) I’m having a hard time seeing a 22 year old Barack Obama today having a lot of doors slammed in his face that would be opened to a similarly qualified white guy.

 

[Bill_7154]

It depends on what happens this election cycle.

If the R’s sweep, then what will happen is that things will get worse initially. They will have to bottom-out from all this artificial inflation of the economy that has done little if any good and then we would see a massive recovery, possibly in 3-6 months if Mitt gets his energy plan going.

How is anything really going to change and continue on a course of recovery with a fiat currency and since R’s have their own pet gov’t spending that they do, just like the D’s. I have heard it said that the difference between the 2 is that R’s want gov’t to grow at 1.5% a yr and D’s want gov’t to grow by 2%/yr, or something like that. And I don’t see where this is wrong (that R’s actually want to and accomplish gov’t shrinking), at least in my lifetime.

 

[Bill_7154]

Since inflation, taxes (including inflation and all of the different fee’s and fine’s that I also consider to be taxes) impact the lower classes basic standard of living much moreso than the upper classes basic standard of living (food, housing, transportation, clothing, furniture, essentials for living) I can’t see any solution other than reducing gov’t consistently decade after decade to be consdidered a solution. And since IMO gov’t is a monster, regardless of what one’s intentions are, once they become part of that monster they are part of that monster.

We have no money. We are #1 in debt above every other country on the planet. I hear and see that there is a lot of talk going on, but those talks don’t ammount to solutions as far as I can see, nor have I seen previous talks materialize into solutions nor do I expect to see current talks materialize into solutions. There is a dam with cracks in it. Different people talk about using different brands of spackle as solutions. It’s a big joke and the joke is on us.

 

[migueltojose]

Not arguing with you, but I think one could see more things in this.
First of all, notwithstanding lower labor costs abroad, there are things low labor costs just won’t make up for. Proximity is one thing. I look around me and I see industries that pay a lot more than people undoubtedly get in China, and yet the industries are profitable. Part of the reason for that is distance, or lack thereof. If, say,a window manufacturer can get its product to the markets, in abundance, in good condition and on time, then its cost of transportation and efficiencies make up for the low cost of labor in China. A lot of food products have to be fresh on arrival; more of them than we often think. The source has to be very near the market to deliver that without incurring astronomical costs.

So do raw materials. It’s no accident that, for example, cattle feed lots are in the grain belt. It’s a lot cheaper to ship processed fresh meat than it is to ship grain. That absolutely fresh steak on the table in Chicago is able to be there because the animal was born in Missouri or Oklahoma, fed out in Kansas on Kansas and Iowa grain, processed in Nebraska and shipped unfrozen, overnight, to Chicago. Location and transportation mean everything in processes like that.

But also, we need to consider the fact that energy is “additional muscle” to the arm of the worker, or perhaps we should say energy is “extra workers”. Resource energy is a great deal cheaper than muscle energy if it’s properly used and developed. Our proximity to low-cost energy (unless the left destroys the whole thing) is much superior to that of competing economies. Other than Finland, with its hydropower, kilowatt hours cost less by far in the U.S., Canada and Australia than in the next cheapest places. If one looks at the energy-producing resources (including in Finland) one can readily see why.

Agree and I did say…“This in no way can cover the entire topic but I think it gets some of the major drivers and salient points out there…”

I work for a Class 1 railroad, more later… gotta go to Church…

 

[migueltojose]

Not arguing with you, but I think one could see more things in this.
First of all, notwithstanding lower labor costs abroad, there are things low labor costs just won’t make up for. Proximity is one thing. I look around me and I see industries that pay a lot more than people undoubtedly get in China, and yet the industries are profitable. Part of the reason for that is distance, or lack thereof. If, say,a window manufacturer can get its product to the markets, in abundance, in good condition and on time, then its cost of transportation and efficiencies make up for the low cost of labor in China. A lot of food products have to be fresh on arrival; more of them than we often think. The source has to be very near the market to deliver that without incurring astronomical costs.

So do raw materials. It’s no accident that, for example, cattle feed lots are in the grain belt. It’s a lot cheaper to ship processed fresh meat than it is to ship grain. That absolutely fresh steak on the table in Chicago is able to be there because the animal was born in Missouri or Oklahoma, fed out in Kansas on Kansas and Iowa grain, processed in Nebraska and shipped unfrozen, overnight, to Chicago. Location and transportation mean everything in processes like that.

But also, we need to consider the fact that energy is “additional muscle” to the arm of the worker, or perhaps we should say energy is “extra workers”. Resource energy is a great deal cheaper than muscle energy if it’s properly used and developed. Our proximity to low-cost energy (unless the left destroys the whole thing) is much superior to that of competing economies. Other than Finland, with its hydropower, kilowatt hours cost less by far in the U.S., Canada and Australia than in the next cheapest places. If one looks at the energy-producing resources (including in Finland) one can readily see why.

Valid points. Plus, I’m not so sure our standard of living is declining. We should be more appreciative of what technology and competition have done for us (more for less). While we may be giving ground in some regards due to globalization, our quality of life continues to get better and that’s on top of all the waste (non value added costs) we endure primarily due to government interference. We need to get smarter. We need to ‘manage’ our resources better as opposed to just trying to ‘preserve’ them. Government plays a necessary role because capitalism has no conscience. But government gets bit by corruption, unintended consequences, institutionalizing what was intended to be temporary, pork, back scratching, watchdogs who become lap dogs, etc. It needs to be thoroughly scrubbed.

But most of all, we need to get out from beneath this dark cloud of debt. There is no indication that we will. Polticians won’t do anything until the pain of doing something is less than the pain of doing nothing. That will be a while. We refuse to take the necessary medicine to cure what ails us. Maybe we will reach that point. I fear at some point it will take draconian measures, which will most likely not be very democratic.

Education is the key. Knowledge is power. Educate, evangelize and enlighten.

Tune In to the Holy Spirit, Turn On to Jesus Christ, Drop Out of the culture of death.

 

[migueltojose]

Since inflation, taxes (including inflation and all of the different fee’s and fine’s that I also consider to be taxes) impact the lower classes basic standard of living much moreso than the upper classes basic standard of living (food, housing, transportation, clothing, furniture, essentials for living) I can’t see any solution other than reducing gov’t consistently decade after decade to be consdidered a solution. And since IMO gov’t is a monster, regardless of what one’s intentions are, once they become part of that monster they are part of that monster.

We have no money. We are #1 in debt above every other country on the planet. I hear and see that there is a lot of talk going on, but those talks don’t ammount to solutions as far as I can see, nor have I seen previous talks materialize into solutions nor do I expect to see current talks materialize into solutions. There is a dam with cracks in it. Different people talk about using different brands of spackle as solutions. It’s a big joke and the joke is on us.

As an illustration… To restate the current situation let’s personalize it. Let’s say you make $87k per yr. But you spend $111k per year. So just to live for this year you have to borrow $24k. But you already owe your creditors $486k from previous loans. (Which you are not repaying but just covering the interest for now, you know, till you get your spending under control.) You go to the wife and kids and say we have to cut expenses and they agree, absolutely we must. We can cut $5k. But then they start to fight about it and threaten to blow up “the house” if you don’t relent and back off those absurdly draconian measures.

That’s the approximate situation with our annual/national debt, if multiplied by 333,333.

Fiscal responsibility is not a sin. What would you do if this were you? Nothing should not be an option. Of course, bankruptcy would work on a personal level. How sad is that. Lots of people do it. Ugh…

 

[Bill_7154]

As an illustration… To restate the current situation let’s personalize it. Let’s say you make $87k per yr. But you spend $111k per year. So just to live for this year you have to borrow $24k. But you already owe your creditors $486k from previous loans. (Which you are not repaying but just covering the interest for now, you know, till you get your spending under control.) You go to the wife and kids and say we have to cut expenses and they agree, absolutely we must. We can cut $5k. But then they start to fight about it and threaten to blow up “the house” if you don’t relent and back off those absurdly draconian measures.

That’s the approximate situation with our annual/national debt, if multiplied by 333,333.

Fiscal responsibility is not a sin. What would you do if this were you? Nothing should not be an option. Of course, bankruptcy would work on a personal level. How sad is that. Lots of people do it. Ugh…

While I appreciate the analogy, the difference we are in is that we can not continue to live as a member of the family and also opt out of the absurdity.

We also do not have one member of the family printing money and loaning it to the rest of the family with a rate of interest attached.

I would divorce myself and the rest of my family from the family member who forces us to borrow money from him that he himself prints and loands to us with an interest rate attached. I would then begin trading goods and services with members of other families, avoiding the use of the fiat currency that a member of my family and members of other families print and insist we use, with an interest rate attached, whenever possible. I would be risking having the individual member of my family and members of other families who print the money sending men with guns after me and taking away things that I own as well as risking having them put me in prison but this is what I would do.

God Bless,
Bill

 

[TimeEntrance]

To what do you attribute this?

I would think many things. I doubt it’s one thing specifically.

I think the cases of Milwaukee and Detroit and the Clevelands’ (with Milwaukee being better off than the other two) and the case of Brazil demonstrates that for blacks or browns to advance as a whole, a prerequisite is that there needs to be a sufficient number of well paying jobs in their cities that can carry and sustain an economic growth for them.

A Black-American or White-American would look at Brazil and only see racism causing the stratification. I’ll acknowledge the stratification (upper-class white with brown skin domestic servants) is rooted in institutional racism. But there are other social and economic issues at work causing the long term problem (e.g., to few middle-class paying jobs historically, lower-classes rarely going beyond grade school level education). As the Brazilian economy grows and more middle-class paying jobs are added to the metropolitan areas you see more dark skinned people joining the ranks of the Brazilian middle-class.

Cities like Milwaukee, Detroit, and the Clevelands’ built their world renowned middle-classes off of the middle-class paying jobs of the former factories that existed in these towns. The loss of these jobs disproportionately impacted the Black-Americans in these cities.

Institutional racism is at work too if you look at all the industrial parks being constructed in predominately white “suburbs” that have a substantial distance from cities like Milwaukee. I would say billion dollars of development are going to those areas - that otherwise could have been going to cities like Milwaukee creating jobs and better supporting the tax base of the city.

Black-American culture among Gen X and younger are to blame too.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Do you really think so? That’s a discouraging outlook. Can I ask some questions?

First, I admit I’m a suburban white boy, so please don’t laugh at my ignorance. Help me learn instead. Do you really think there is still a massive racial barrier in today’s society or has it transformed into a cultural barrier in which skin color is nearly irrelevant and cultural differences are a bigger problem?

In the United States the black “race” developed into it’s own bona fide ethnicity. Consequently, it owns ethnic culture developed. You don’t really see this phenomenon in Brazil. In the United States historical racial segregation played a huge part in this. And ethnic Black-Americans have their ethnic roots in the U.S. South. Their culinary tradition is Southern and the way Black-Americans speak originally (not entirely now) grew out of the impoverished South.

So, the way they speak may be non-standard English and come across to some as “stupid.” But I’m from the Midwest and I can tell you there are a number of educated, white, professionals from Eastern cities like New York that I hear on TV speaking with non-standard English words at times.

But there are some very counter-productive cultural things going on in Black-America.

I’m wondering because of my own experiences (which as I’ve already admitted are limited). In my engineering world work, I’ve worked with black men who do their work competently and have good leadership skills. Skin color doesn’t end up mattering one bit. But I’ll also freely admit that when our survey group needs new entry level field crew help and there is an interview that finds that one candidate speaks clearly, is professionally dressed, and demonstrates the basic math aptitude to solve field survey problems, while the other candidate has pants half hanging off his hips, speaks hardly intelligible slang, and can’t mentally add and subtact three figures in his head, that latter guy has zero chance of landing the job. This isn’t a rocket scientist job, mind you. We have several field crew guys with no more than a high school education. If the latter guy is black and the former guy is Hispanic, was it employer racism that cost the black guy the job? I don’t think so. Is it fair to ask if there are cultural problems in the black community that are at least partially responsible for conditions in those communities? Are the schools really so bad that there isn’t a genuine opportunity to learn to speak English clearly and achieve addition and subtraction profficiency?

The vast majority of Black-Americans the inner-cities can speak English proficiently. And by proficiently I mean far better than their Mexican peers newly arrived to the United States that struggles with English, yet are employed. The vast majority of Black-Americans in the inner-cities, with or without a high school diploma, are far better at basic math than I am, and I have college education behind me. My poor ability at math is why I never really got into dominoes and dice or playing cards like most Black-Americans do (usually for money). They have to count very fast. Faster than I can anyways.

The ability to speak and read English really has little to do with getting a non-skilled job today in the United States or to get into an entry level skilled trade.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Don’t take my questions as making generalizations about any race or community. We, in fact, DO have excellent black guys working in our field crews (and many more in the contractors that employ our services) with no employee race conflicts. But I’ll also freely admit that we seem to pass over rather a lot of black applicants who simply lack the skills needed to get the job done. I don’t think we bear the blame for that, do you? What DOES need to happen to improve the situation?

You made the statement that black youths raised in middle class families still have little chance of landing middle class jobs. In your experience, are these kids well educated, literate, math-capable and professional in demeanor? Or are the struggling ones more likely to have embraced a self-destructive culture in which they have rejected the cultural values necessary to thrive in America? (I’m asking, not asserting) I’m having a hard time seeing a 22 year old Barack Obama today having a lot of doors slammed in his face that would be opened to a similarly qualified white guy.

Well… my brother is and he has an advanced degree and is working on getting a second advance degree. He works as a Milwaukee Public School teacher. Currently, he works at a predominately Mexican grade school or middle school. A lot of the kids are first generation U.S. citizens and they have a hunger to learn. So, he likes it there. He didn’t like it at the predominately Black-American school he was working at before. I think it was a high school. And he was teaching in the classes public schools put problem and learning challenged kids in. He was shocked by what he found in the school. He said it was something like off of TV. Just wild students and very few would ever do any homework. They wouldn’t even come to class with books or pencils. A few of his students ended up going to prison for different things including homicide.

But my brother had a very difficult time originally, finding a job. It started to impact him emotionally and psychologically. Especially, when his wife (then girlfriend) who is white, and at the time had just gotten off of welfare (she had a child before meeting him), I think a GED, no work history, and never been to college, but she was getting more calls for job interviews than him. He already at that time had college education and a work history as well.

It also bothered my brother that he had a few encounters during his long job search, where he would be told at a place of business that the position was filled and they are no longer hiring. Only to see the same place of business still advertising for positions available a week later.

As for the Barack Obama comment… I doubt few business would slam a door in a potential applicants face today just because they were black. That would open them up to a Federal lawsuit. Most white people today probably don’t have that level of personal racism inside themselves anyways. But I think institutional (e.g., police, church, business/industry) racism is the bigger factor. And institutions can adapt to contemporary climates of civil rights and lawsuits by in part using coded language. I remember watching some old news show from the 1980’s interviewing white people that worked in some major U.S. corporations in New York City explaining how they use coded language to deny black applicants jobs based only on their race. One white woman that obtained a position through employment agency stated she was told she looks “corporate” which she later found out meant in part being white.

But… on the positive note a black person today, if they have the ambition, the fortitude to keep trying, and the work or educational background in their favor, they can land a middle-class or upper-class paying job somewhere. Not all white employers are going to racially discriminate against them.
(It might be worth noting that Black-American rarely own major corporations or large grocery stores [Milwaukee is one exception] or own banks [Chicago/Milwaukee another exception]. You probably won’t find any corporation making heavy equipment in the United States owned by a black person. But you’ll find small shops - employing 1 or 5 workers - run by a number of Black-Americans. So, you might say blacks depend on whites for jobs.) *