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Open Thread: Quantifying the Expressions of Unease

by: William Tucker

Sat Nov 19, 2011 at 09:07:00 AM EST
The New York Times today analyzed data from the Census Bureau using a new measure meant to better count disposable income. Even the Bureaus's chief poverty statistician was startled by the results: 100 million Americans — one in three — live in poverty or are just barely scraping by.

After a lost decade of flat wages and the worst downturn since the Great Depression, the findings can be thought of as putting numbers to the bleak national mood — quantifying the expressions of unease erupting in protests and political swings. They convey levels of economic stress sharply felt but until now hard to measure.

This is an open thread.
William Tucker :: Open Thread: Quantifying the Expressions of Unease
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Open Thread: Quantifying the Expressions of Unease | 13 comments
That's astounding (0.00 / 0)
Do these figures reflect the official poverty definitions? Because you can earn more than those limits, and still be struggling mightily, especially if you have to have a car, have to self-insure, are self-employed, etc.


Includes what sociologists define as "near poor", (4.00 / 1)
and that you refer to as "struggling mightily."  I think you're phrase better describes the condition.

In the immediate aftermath of Since the start of the financial crisis, the Fed/Treasury lent, spent, or guaranteed $28 $29 trillion to save the banking system.
[ Parent ]
If you live in the NH countryside, (4.00 / 3)
where you have to have a car, you have to heat your house at least 6 months a year, and you have to pay NH property taxes, it's easy to be "near poor."
Rural poverty is at epidemic levels - (4.00 / 1)
it is under-reported (I think it's worse than the Census Bureau is reporting)and there is still a stigma of shame associated with not measuring up to the rugged American individual.  



In the immediate aftermath of Since the start of the financial crisis, the Fed/Treasury lent, spent, or guaranteed $28 $29 trillion to save the banking system.

[ Parent ]
Most of us 99%'ers (0.00 / 0)
live on the edge.  It's only the Mitt Romneys who inherited it and hustlers like Newt Gingrichs who have scammed their way into the 1%ers who aren't living in fear of what might happen tomorrow.  

I don't remember that this was always the case.  Perhaps I'm too old and my memory is going.

OT:  I saw a bumper sticker today that I liked.  It read:  "Teaparty" sounds better than "racist, homophobic mop."    

LEARN TO PROOF READ (0.00 / 0)
MOP should be MOB.
[ Parent ]
I think you are right (0.00 / 0)
in saying that for most of us, this feeling of being on the edge is new.  We may not be a lot poorer, but we are a LOT more insecure, because we can no longer count on not having the rug pulled out from under us.  I know that I have been through periods of financial difficulty before, but now I am in a place where I should feel reasonably OK, but I no longer trust that it will last.  
Why?  Because there are a bunch of people in my state and my country that are threatening to take my money and hand it over to the 1%.  
[ Parent ]
Employment volatility, (0.00 / 0)
and the benefits that this condition produce (for the 1%) is a feature, not a bug, of our current economy.  Either through public policy, or policy drift (the legislative art of never correcting past mistakes, or fixing a problem that the public identifies - like negotiating for lower prescription prices for seniors! Fkers!) policy-makers have essentially stalled worker mobility and tipped the scales completely in favor of business.

Greenspan used to talk about employment volatility to Congress like Stephen Hawkins talks about the cosmos.  With happy awe.    

In the immediate aftermath of Since the start of the financial crisis, the Fed/Treasury lent, spent, or guaranteed $28 $29 trillion to save the banking system.

[ Parent ]
Then today (0.00 / 0)
we have one of the puppets of the 1%ers, Kelly Ayotte, endorsing the candidate who is the 1%er!! I feel so much better now.  NOT.

Not surprising, though, since Ayotte will do whatever her masters tell her to so.  She surely doesn't represent NH.

[ Parent ]
Most of us 99%'ers (0.00 / 0)
live on the edge.  It's only the Mitt Romneys who inherited it and hustlers like Newt Gingrichs who have scammed their way into the 1%ers who aren't living in fear of what might happen tomorrow.  

I don't remember that this was always the case.  Perhaps I'm too old and my memory is going.

OT:  I saw a bumper sticker today that I liked.  It read:  "Teaparty" sounds better than "racist, homophobic mob."    

So we should be telling (4.00 / 2)
100 million Americans they should just move to where the jobs are?
Vietnam? That's a long trip in a 12 year old shitbox (4.00 / 1)
that gets terrible gas mileage.  All for $4 a day - although I wonder how long it would take before countries with jobs started implementing hostile immigration policies.  


In the immediate aftermath of Since the start of the financial crisis, the Fed/Treasury lent, spent, or guaranteed $28 $29 trillion to save the banking system.
[ Parent ]
Ayotte on the Mitt list (0.00 / 0)
This may not mean much, or anything even, but Kelly Ayotte was the one name Mitt came up with.

"There are probably 15 names of people, including Kelly Ayotte. I mean, there are terrific Republicans in the Senate, in the House, in governors' offices. You've got extraordinary men and women. We have a very deep bench," Romney said.

http://thehill.com/homenews/ca...

By the way, Mitt,  your bench is horrific. If it were good, you wouldn't be frontrunner.

Open Thread: Quantifying the Expressions of Unease | 13 comments

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