U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
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90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
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80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
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90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Manny Rutinel
(D) Yadira Caraveo
50%
40%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
January 29, 2009 04:32 PM UTC
79 Comments
Too many drachmas to the Goths, I guess.
But not one farthing to the Emos?
State criminal courts devoted to U.S. war veterans are emerging across the country, from New York to Oklahoma to California, as increasing numbers of soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are showing up as defendants with a special set of problems.
State court judges are joining with local prosecutors, public defenders, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs officials and local lawyer volunteers to create courts with veterans-only case proceedings, because they have seen a common thread of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse, head injuries and mental illness underlying the veterans’ crimes.
They’re hoping the special courts – stocked with veteran mentors, Veterans Affairs staff, volunteer attorneys and social workers – can help rehabilitate veterans and avoid convictions that might cost veterans their future military benefits.
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/Pub…
The Colorado version is coming along a at a decent clip – Colo Springs already has one up and running, and by plugging in both VA, State and local resources we’ll be able to divert Vets out of a cycle of incarceration and into the treatment they earned. If Judge (and former Army General) Crowder had not taken the lead on this, it probably would not have happened.
Denver has been more problematic, in that there’s more resources for Vets, but less buy-in by the bench and the DA’s office. Our meeting Tuesday may have broken that wall down, and we hope to have things running in July.
Keep us posted, will you?
It wasn’t assistance to foreign lands but complete dependence on those foreign lands to produce everything but mouths to feed that did Rome in. That, over-reaching expansion and an entirely outsourced military. Heck, they didn’t even have emperors with Roman blood for their final death spiral centuries. When you produce nothing but consumers in the homeland, the foreign suppliers of everything tend to connect the dots.
At modern world speeds, it won’t take centuries for a super power to fade away. But don’t worry. If you can still afford it, just follow Bush’s immortal, inspiring advice following 9/11 and go shopping. Can’t afford it? Maybe try taking up the fiddle.
Rome and its environs were home to huge numbers of non-Romans. Yes, unassimilated immigrants. Romans became fewer in the land of their birth. The newer residents didn’t have that same drive to be Roman – because they couldn’t, unlike here – or hold the old Roman values, whatever they were.
Rome sort of just disintegrated. Look closely at what BC is saying, and there is America right now. Look at how many members of the military are not US citizens. Of course, “mercenaries” is too harsh a word for our PC culture, but that’s what they are.
to occupy Roman land was the fatal problem in the 4th and 5th centuries which led to the disintegration of the Roman Empire, not the presence of unassimilated immigrants, which was, in fact, the very nature of the Roman state, particularly in the imperial era (which lasted for 5000 years in the West, and 1500 years in the East).
We don’t have a problem with Mexican tribes organized under tribal chieftains, occupying but politically distinct from the United States. Though Mexicans assimilate more slowly, due to the numbers and the proximity of the home country, they do in fact assimilate within a generation. And they tend to then be anti-immigrant, and very patriot Americans.
this notion that an empire that lasted for 500 years in the West (and 1500 years in the East, now referred to as “The Byzantine Empire”) was in a “downward spiral” all of that time, that it is only the lack of modernity that accounts for how drawn-out their demise was, that the non-Roman latter emperors were a weakness rather than as strength (despite it having been an institution that lasted for several centuries itself), is a bit too convenient and a bit too divorced from reality.
Very few civilizations lasted centuries in ancient times: Most promptly lost the contest for political survival. Rome eventually crumbled under its own weight, having been, in essence, a military ponzi (sp?) scheme requiring constant expansion in order to maintain a militarily-supported civilization. It wasn’t foreign emperors, or too many foreign residents, or poor morals, or even iron in the drinking water. It was a simple matter of the life-span of a particular system dependent on a particular dynamic that was sustainable for a particular length of time.
Their system relied on constant plunder of ever more distant territories to feed the system. Its unsustainable.
now as then. But the stakes have gotten higher: Instead of political collapse and reorganization, we might be looking at imminent (in terms of human history) global systemic collapse and reorganization on a whole different magnitude. We need to get it right this time, but are acting very much as we always have.
By the way, that should have been “lead in the drinking water,” not iron. Oops.
Capitalism is, in many ways, an evolutionary extension of this theme of ultimately unsustainable growth-through-plunder. Evolutionary in the sense that it is many times more robust and efficient than its predecessors; an extension in the sense that it depends on expansion and is robust in its production of destructive externalities as in its production of desirable wealth.
The challenge that is becoming ever more urgent, but still largely disregarded except as a topic of self-righteous smugness for the politically correct and cynical indifference for the politically incorrect, is to “exploit” nature in a sustainable manner, which, probably, starts with thinking in terms other than “exploitation.” We are embedded in complex systems, systems which comprise us, which surround and permeate us, upon which we depend, and which we take for granted.
It’s time for the politics of complex systems, not just post-capitalist transaction cost economics, not just environmentalism, but full-blown complex dynamical systems oriented policies.
It’s not the left, or the right, or the center. It’s not capitalism, or socialism, or anarchy. It’s not big government or small government. It’s the transcendence of all of these.
It’s the end of conquest and exploitation, and the beginning of wisdom.
but I fear that even though we are moving towards this type of wisdom as a human race, (sometimes 1 step forward and 2 back) that we are talking centuries before we reach it.
is one aspect of our cultural evolution. As social institutions and technologies facilitate the increased velocity of communication and information processing, social and technological innovations evolve along a constantly accelerating curve.
I don’t believe we’ll ever get it exactly right, but I do believe that systems analysis will gradually displace political ideology, with new ideologies becoming composed of conflicting theoretical positions within a systems framework. To some limited extent, one can already see evidence of it, and can see the history of its evolution going back a few centuries. That process, already underway, will just keep accelerating until those in the future, looking back at us, will be amazed that we could have been so incredibly ignorant as to adhere to such simplistic ideologies as “lbertarianism” and “socialism.”
spent its last two centuries degenerating, paying protection money to “barbarians” etc. before going out with a whimper. The Byzantine Empire was, by the time of the fall of Rome, quite distinct. When people discuss the fall of the Roman Empire, that’s what they are talking about, not Byzantium. The west spent the better part of two centuries a mess with a dizzying series of short-lived non-Roman Emperors in various combinations, sometimes not lasting a year, served by mainly non-Roman military, over its long decline. As for what Parsing says, that’s just Parsing. He’s a bigot and xenophobe.
as a major cause. The point I was making had nothing to do with Parsings anti-immigrant ravings. It’s that Rome itself, the homeland of the Empire, did stop producing anything of value, from the basics of life to leadership. In the end, it was easily starved, cowed and over-run.
it became unable to provide security, and so dissolved into local units around local lords, helping to lay the foundation for the feudal system. But that dissolution wasn’t due to a lack of leadership, or to Rome’s non-productivity. It was due to a systemic collapse that better leadership might have postponed, but could not have averted.
because we, culturally, are descended from the civilization that emerged from the rubble of the Western Empire, not because the Eastern Empire lacked continuity with the Roman Empire of which it was geographically and temporally continuous part. The distinctiveness to which you refer was simply the evolution of the society over time, and the geographical variation that had always existed within it. The Byzantine Empire is half of the exact same empire of which we are talking, and it lasted until 1453, when the Ottoman Turks sacked Constantinople (Istanbul).
The empire in the West fell because of a combination of pressures largely generated by nomadic movements of mostly Germanic tribes being pushed from the east by the jostling of peoples, combined with the necessity to expand in order to maintain the military on which it depended. The Romanness or non-Romanness of emperors was completely irrelevant. Some of Rome’s worst emperors were Romans, and some of its best were non-Romans. The non-Romanness of the military is a more complicated matter, but, by itself, wasn’t a relevant factor (combined with the political infiltration and incorporation into the military of INTACT german tribes, it contributed to that more relevant problem).
It’s “long-decline” was more a function of it’s structure and foundation, combined with the movements of people over which it had no control, than of any moral or demographic characteristics of the empire during that period.
Rome itself, the center of the Roman world, rotted away. And the era of non-Roman Emperors did produce many fine ones and many fine non-Roman generals too, with the leadership of the tribes that came under Roman rule in the early days very often sending their sons to be educated in Rome and with Roman citizenship expanding and brining in robust new blood.
But there is no denying that for a very long time before the fall, the center of the Roman Empire, Rome itself, was an empty shell. Long strings of increasingly inferior emperors and combinations of co-emperors, one after another, failed to hold power in an increasingly degenerate state of affairs farther and farther from earlier Roman values. Not that Rome was ever a culture of choir boys.
Regardless, I don’t believe a path toward producing nothing in America but consumers and creative financial instruments is wise for the long haul. I clearly never should have gotten this whole Roman thing going!
I’m up too late
I don’t disagree with everything you’re saying here, but I think that the themes of “inferior leaders” and “moral decadency” are way overplayed in analyzing late Roman history. There were far more fundamental processes, with far more influence on the course of events, than these. To some extent they were symptoms rather than causes, and to some extent they were merely epiphenomena that may even at times have ameliorated some of Rome’s problems.
Rome was only an “empty shell” in the sense that it became an administrative rather than industrial center. It had been primarily an administrative center from the time that Roman expansion reached the point that the conquered territories could support an administrative center. There is nothing inherently dysfunctional about such arrangements.
In the modern global economy, the wealthiest nations with the most developed human capital move into the most information-intensive sectors of the economy. While other countries with sufficiently well-developed human capital quickly use the innovations produced as a result, America remains one of the great innovators of the world. Some of our innovations come back to bite us in the ass, like financial derivatives for instance, but, in general, this most information-intensive level of various economic sectors remains a source of wealth.
More importantly, international competition isn’t a zero-sum game. America probably will lose relatively to other nations, simply because there are natural, organic processes that create hegemonic turnover. That is why never once in the long history of human existance has any political entity ever managed to remain a hegemon indefinately.
But we will probably see a continuing general trend of increased absolute standards of living, despite our inevitable relative decline. Look at Great Britain: Completely eclipsed from its former glory, but, in reality, virtually all of its citizens live materially richer lives than most did at the zenith of their global power.
In other words, lighten up. It’s a rocky road with one of two destinations: Either we (global humanity, that is) sufficiently destabilize the intertwined systems of which we are a part and on which we depend and simply wipe ourselves out, or we will gradually produce a sustainable global paradise (though few will recognize it as such). America’s niche in the global economy isn’t likely to be the decisive factor in which of this outcomes is realized.
Are we that far apart?
Lesseee, we have a culture and political system that exists quite well, thank you, for hundreds of years. The political system and the nuts and bolts of daily existence become “un-Roman.”
The system gives way to outside influences and then collapses.
Does observing that outside peoples becoming a significant force at that time make me a bigot and xenophobe?
I’m not PC. I observe, see parallels, draw conclusions. Japan has had almost zero immigration since forever and yet they have maintained a position as the world’s number two economic power. And they are meeting the needs of an aging population with technology instead of cheap labor.
One, we are not, like Rome, the extent of the civilization of which we are a part. Increasingly, we are one political node, perhaps the dominant one, in an increasingly global civilization. To follow the metaphor, we are Italy, not the Empire.
Two, unlike Rome, we have not invited politically intact groups to use our territory as their state-within-a-state.
Three, we are not a system which survives by geographic conquest and expansion, which, combined with large nomadic movements, is what forced Rome to dilute it’s political coherence.
Four, history doesn’t repeat itself. Themes occasionally recur, but with different consequences and different implications in different historical contexts. Picking some perceived and exaggerated similarity between Rome and America, exaggerating the effect that factor had on Rome’s disintegration, and then arguing from that the supposedly similar condition in America is destroying us, is pure sophistry.
We can continue the debate over carne asada and margaritas next time you’re in town.
….but it rhymes.” Mark Twain.
That’s all I’m saying, there is a rhyme in place. The Romans lost their culture and political power by dilution of non-Romans, however they were organized.
Thas’ all.
And your comparing the US to Japan is completely off the wall. Japan is an ancient Island nation . We are a very recent by comparison creation, our identity not derived from centuries or millennia of a particular ethnic group’s culture or even by geography (states have been added within the lifetimes of people under 60) but from ideas on paper, the constitution.
From the birth of our nation as a construct of principles, a variety of old world nationalities and a mix of ethnicities and races have been present. There has never been the kind of homogeneity you seem to be positing to dilute in the first place and homogeneity has never been the basis of or strength of our “American” culture.
The matter of duration of Japan’s and our culture is totally beside the point. And let’s not forget that their culture did a huge makeover from isolation to empire in the course of some 80 years.
What you don’t seem to grasp is that the homgeneity of Japan has served them just fine. It’s not that our heterogeneity is some kind of superior way. For every benefit, I can name a disadvantage. One would be just look how much time Americans spend talking about race and immigration.
Not issues in Japan.
I understand that there never has been an American homogeneity. But the underlying framework of language, enlightenment politics, and law is being challenged as never before.
“E pluribus unum.” Good concept.
we have been successful at a degree of assimilation that gives us great advantage over countries that have remained more balkanized. That doesn’t change the fact that, with you, it’s not about standing up valiantly to PC as much as it’s about being a bigot and xenophobe. Sorry but that’s clearly what you are.
And why is xenophobe automatically considered bad? See, that’s PC.
trust me, you’re a bigot and a racist.
I think life is far more organic than many here (or anywhere) acknowledge. Sure, social coherence requires…social coherence. The most obvious and historically common form of social coherence is cultural homogeneity, but it is not the only conceivable form. Coherence (by which I mean the facilitation of interdependence, cooperation, and coordination through a set of functioning social institutions) fosters homogeneity, but it doesn’t demand it. And homogeneity facilitates coherence, but not exclusively.
Let me start with analogies: Bee hives and ant hills are built, respectively, on the basis of homogeneity. But ecosystems, which are also highly integrated, coherent systems of coordinated interdependence, are built out of diversity. Political economies depend on a balance of the two: Some shared rules, and a great deal of variety and experimentation within the framework thus provided. The shared rules in America are strong enough to embrace and hold together its diversity. The argument that not everyone shares the shared rules is, I think, a sham. Not all of the rules are shared, nor should they be, but there is a basic, solid foundation of social institutional integrity that no amount of imported or domestically manufactured diversity has made a real dent in. And that is our strength. That is the source of our collective genius.
but you’re ending your stanzas with “orange” and “aardvark” and calling it a rhyme.
I know, I saw it on HBO.
Because it might be true?
I can’t find any accreditation for it, but I’m looking.
Here is one of a couple of places I’ve seen it. The quote is widely attributed to him.
It certainly doesn’t seem out of character for him to have said something like that, though.
Whoever indeed said it was spot on, and we’re starting to watch it with this “stimulus” bill that does zero to stimulate anything except government employment (see: union member) rolls and generational theft of our children’s and grandchildren’s incomes.
Do you really believe that any of these entitlements won’t need to be “stimulated” again in a year or two?
Want an alternative?
OK.
Money for infrastructure improvements. Maybe 300 billion. State and Federal – prioritize them on a need basis in terms of safety, not State unemployment or political clout.
Then, eliminate capital gains taxes for 24 months, and lower the corporate tax rate to 10% for the same period if you add full-time jobs to your payroll. About $300 billion.
Then I’m on board.
If the goal is getting people back to work, giving billions to fucking ACORN and the National Endowment for the Arts, subsidizing COBRA and Medicaid is not the way to do it.
If you want to call it the “Democrat Massive Government Expansion and Lefty Payback Bill” that’s cool, but don’t act like growing the most inefficient black hole in history (U.S. Government) is going to put more than a few thousand people back to work for any extended period of time.
This is what I don’t want.
The market should, for the most part define job security and pay. Not marches.
It’s like the UAW ran a whole country and then was mystified why they were in the red all the time.
be about “hate”? It’s not about the Ben Franklin quote in particular. It’s just that almost every time I see something modern-sounding attributed to the founding fathers (or to Winston Churchill, or whomever), I search for an actual source and find it’s misattributed. And yet there are tons of matches on Google, because they show up all over right-wing blogs.
At some point somebody lied about the Jefferson/Ford quote, and it wasn’t long ago. That’s what I’m making fun of. Don’t worry, I’ve got more.
As for Franklin’s character, he didn’t strike me as an aristocrat, and that quote is an aristocratic thing to say. I could believe James Madison or John Adams or George Will or William Buckley said it, but when it’s attributed to Franklin I want a source.
If you don’t prioritize the funds based on unemployment, then your primary goal is obviously not job creation. Though I like that you’re willing to accept some actual direct job creation from the government.
The capital gains thing I’m just not at all interested in, though I like that you’re tying at least some sort of tax credit to actual job creation (and not just hoping on a wing and a prayer that it might happen if taxes are eliminated). More of this mandating and I might be persuadable.
And I already said I wanted to call the stimulus bill FLAG BOSS: Freedom to Let America Grow By Opening Stimulus Sources. Surprised that name hasn’t caught on yet.
A woman comes up to him after the constitutional convention and asks, “What sort of government have you given us?”
He replied, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”
and I like “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
But I don’t think any of those is legitimate.
“And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior.”
[1745 B. Franklin Letter 25 June in Papers (1961) III. 31]
He wasn’t talking about really old women but suggesting to a young friend that messing around with mature experienced women was a better idea than looking for trouble with young innocents.
This looks like the full letter.
saintly Founding Fathers we learn about as kids. And that’s not the half of it.
was Jefferson owning slaves. Next came several “fathers” thinking women shouldn’t vote. My devastation knew no bounds.
I suppose it’s best to take the broad idea and move on.
…politicians are people of their times.
Someday our descendents will look back on some new found sins of our current politicians with horror.
Come down off of your high horse before you fall off and break something.
NOT!
According to Moody’s Economy.com tax cuts are negative to essentially neutral in returning money to the economy.
For every dollar of stimulus, which programs return the most bang to the economy?
– Corporate tax cuts return $0.30
– Dividend & capital gains tax cuts return $0.37
– Across the board tax cuts return $1.03
Whereas:
– Aid to states return $1.36
– Extending unemployment benefits return $1.64
– Food stamps return $1.73
Some programs have ideological support. Some are actually useful. Now might be a good time to focus on useful.
How entitlements are better for the economy than creating new business. I’m serious.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/2…
THat’s a band-aid that makes people less likely to go out and work, eh?
It’s a stimulus plan. That means it’s short term. Give someone food stamps, and there’s no question about whether they’ll spend it. That’s all you can do with food stamps.
Plus think of all the food stamp factories you’d be putting out of work otherwise. (Joke)
I was beginning to think you’d lost your sense of humor, or you were just bitter at me that I haven’t been able to get up to my hometown to hang yet.
I thought I was doing pretty well. Everybody gets “the treatment” once in a while, but I was trying to keep it light.
In your post at 11:20, you posited:
I consider growing food and selling food to be admirable work. Don’t you?
Stimulating business growth does. Just feeding the stagnant beast at tremendous cost does zero for our future.
Id rather see a trillion go to only alternative energy research, like a Manhattan project rather than food stamps and entitlements.
At least we’d be working on an economic plus for the future.
But can you explain to me why I should dismiss the analysis from Economy.com suggesting food stamps are more effective at getting money circulating? I truly don’t have the expertise to winnow out the “economic-expert-chaff.”
FYI, when I read something along the lines of:
I have a tendency to dismiss any subsequent arguments as ideologically driven.
I still see stimulating and supporting food growth as pretty damn fundamental. Most working people I know eat food. Most of them also seem to perform their jobs better when they have food on a regular basis. I admit this is merely anecdotal, but …
If you just handed out cash that would probably have the highest return. Creating engine growth rather than just doling out methadone that keeps people afloat is the answer. Make it lucrative for people to create jobs and they will. Not even lucrative. Make it worth their time to create jobs and the will.
… that the returns would be greater than $1.73 for each dollar handed out?
Is there an analysis out there that would demonstrate this? And how do I evaluate whether this economic analysis is more or less reliable than that one?
They tried that already. People used it to pay down personal debts, rather than spending it all at stores. That’s the problem with just giving people money: you never know what they’re going to do with it.
(That’s why some people refuse to give to the homeless, because they’re not sure if it’ll be spent on food. I give to the homeless because I trust they’ll spend it on alcohol; that’s what I’d do if I were homeless.)
But if you give them food stamps, they can’t go to the bank, they can’t stuff it in the mattress, and they can’t spend it gambling. They have to spend it on food, usually domestic food. And that gets the grocer more business, as well as the farmers (or the giant food corporations, but you get the idea). They get more business, so they can hire more workers, and you’ve not only helped the hungry person but also helped preserve jobs.
At least I assume that’s what the analysis involves.
but I could come up with a plausible scenario (that may or may not represent the real world). For example, with food stamps, people use them to buy essential food, which promotes the employment of a vast network of people that are responsible for turning photons into edible stuffs at the market. Close?
Enough from me on this. I’d be better off learning from those who know more about economics (most of you) than me.
Here’s the testimony of Mark Zandi (Moody’s Economy.com) before the House Budget Committee on January 27, 2009. See Table 2.
The Economic Outlook and Budget Challenges
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
Vote him up, show him some love.
Clinton’s budget – I think that was the year – was passed with zero Republican support. That budget laid the groundwork for seven years of unprecendented prosperity and peace.
Yesterday the Obama plan was passed in the house with zero Republican support……
they’ll take the losing side of history if it means they get to win elections.
Obviously they were wrong in 93, but sweeping into power in 94 was probably some consolation after being ass backwards wrong…
The Cicero quote here is made up too.
http://message.snopes.com/show…
Any of you herbal biscuits have direct involvement with a solar company that could install both photovoltaic and solar thermal panels on a large building?
But I do know where you could get some herbal biscuits.
Not everyone receives million dollar bonuses for losing billions and not everyone is sitting in the board rooms with friends setting their annual pay packages. For those people, life remains comfortable. For everyone else, add a few more years of hard work and hope for the best.”
Welcome to the new America. Is there an imbalance?
either to conceptualize America or the world in terms of class warfare, or to conceptualize America or the world in terms of the absence of class warfare.
Opportunity clearly is not equitably distributed, in part as a function of the mere fact of inherited wealth (but also because of the related facts of inherited social connections, educational opportunities, and differential socialization according to the life experiences and expectations of the parents). On the other hand, the production and distribution of wealth (taken as a single dynamic) is not a zero-sum game: Trying to increase equity by decreasing the wealth of the wealthy is a recipe for further impoverishing the poor. A robust economy creates and benefits from a somewhat inequitable distribution of wealth, though studies have shown (sorry, no links or citations handy) that the optimal distribution for GDP maximization is a far more equitable distribution than we have in America.
The bottom line, as always, is that we live in a complex and subtle world, and that simplistic reductions one way or the other just don’t do it justice.
There is nothing unusual or against human or animal nature to have unequal distribution of wealth or property.
Remember, the “poor” in this country on average have two televisions, A/C, and a car.
Some people have more. Lots more. Most of them deserve it.
Your statements neither conflict with nor address anything I said in the post to which you are responding.
Yes, “There is nothing unusual or against human or animal nature to have unequal distribution of wealth or property.” If you are saying that trying completely to eliminate inequitable distribution of wealth, then you are agreeing with what I said in my post. If you are saying that the current inequitable distribution of wealth, or that any inequitable distribution of wealth, is okay on the basis that it is not unusual or contrary to nature, then I would answer that you can justify murder with exactly the same argument. If your point is that there is no real poverty in America, then you are uninformed. If your point is that the poor deserve to be poor and the rich deserve to be rich, then you’re a fool.
There is an overwhelmingly strong statistical correlation between the economic condition of your parents at the moment of your birth and your future economic condition at adulthood. I did not say that there are no exceptions, only that there is a very strong statistical correlation. To what do you attribute this correlation? If you attribute it to the poor character of the poor, then you are implying that such poor character is a hereditary trait (and are simultaneously admitting to being a racist, since their is also a statistical correlation between belonging to a minority and being poor), because it is the correlation I am asking you about, not the cause of individual poverty (the latter inviting an answer intentionally and conveniently in disregard of the former).
Social mobility for the poor has essentially stopped.
In most of the EU a child born poor (and lets not forget that being poor there isn’t near as bad as here) is much more likely to rise one or two of five tier groupings than here in America.
Probably things like good health care, adequate food, and the promise of free college education for the qualified helps gets EU kids out of poverty.
It’s the “not” that keeps things interesting!
They are making A- Team, the movie
Really? By whom?
And this paragraph…
Well that just sounds stupid.
Although with the reimagined Star Trek movie coming out, I suppose it’s hard to say this is the worst idea Hollywood’s had this year.