"Zero Sum, Grab What You Can"
#1
"Slow growth strains everything else — meaning less opportunity, less optimism and more of the sort of zero-sum, grab-what-you-can thinking that Donald Trump specializes in. The slowdown has devastated American workers. Between 1985 and 2000, the total hours of paid work in America increased by 35 percent. Over the next 15 years, they increased by only 4 percent."







Most of us came of age in the last half of the 20th century and had our perceptions of “normal” formed in that era. It was, all things considered, an unusually happy period. No world wars, no Great Depressions, fewer civil wars, fewer plagues.
It’s looking like we’re not going to get to enjoy one of those times again. The 21st century is looking much nastier and bumpier: rising ethnic nationalism, falling faith in democracy, a dissolving world order.
At the bottom of all this, perhaps, is declining economic growth. As Nicholas Eberstadt points out in his powerful essay “Our Miserable 21st Century,” in the current issue of Commentary, between 1948 and 2000 the U.S. economy grew at a per-capita rate of about 2.3 percent a year.
But then around 2000, something shifted. In this century, per-capita growth has been less than 1 percent a year on average, and even since 2009 it’s been only 1.1 percent a year. If the U.S. had been able to maintain postwar 20th-century growth rates into this century, U.S. per-capita G.D.P. would be over 20 percent higher than it is today.

Slow growth strains everything else — meaning less opportunity, less optimism and more of the sort of zero-sum, grab-what-you-can thinking that Donald Trump specializes in. The slowdown has devastated American workers. Between 1985 and 2000, the total hours of paid work in America increased by 35 percent. Over the next 15 years, they increased by only 4 percent.
For every one American man aged 25 to 55 looking for work, there are three who have dropped out of the labor force. If Americans were working at the same rates they were when this century started, over 10 million more people would have jobs. As Eberstadt puts it, “The plain fact is that 21st-century America has witnessed a dreadful collapse of work.”
That means there’s an army of Americans semi-attached to their communities, who struggle to contribute, to realize their capacities and find their dignity. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics time-use studies, these labor force dropouts spend on average 2,000 hours a year watching some screen. That’s about the number of hours that usually go to a full-time job.

Fifty-seven percent of white males who have dropped out get by on some form of government disability check. About half of the men who have dropped out take pain medication on a daily basis. A survey in Ohio found that over one three-month period, 11 percent of Ohioans were prescribed opiates. One in eight American men now has a felony conviction on his record.
This is no way for our fellow citizens to live. The Eberstadt piece confirms one thought: The central task for many of us now is not to resist Donald Trump. He’ll seal his own fate. It’s to figure out how to replace him — how to respond to the slow growth and social disaffection that gave rise to him with some radically different policy mix.
The hard part is that America has to become more dynamic and more protective — both at the same time. In the past, American reformers could at least count on the fact that they were working with a dynamic society that was always generating the energy required to solve the nation’s woes. But as Tyler Cowen demonstrates in his compelling new book, “The Complacent Class,” contemporary Americans have lost their mojo.
Cowen shows that in sphere after sphere, Americans have become less adventurous and more static. For example, Americans used to move a lot to seize opportunities and transform their lives. But the rate of Americans who are migrating across state lines has plummeted by 51 percent from the levels of the 1950s and 1960s.
Americans used to be entrepreneurial, but there has been a decline in start-ups as a share of all business activity over the last generation. Millennials may be the least entrepreneurial generation in American history. The share of Americans under 30 who own a business has fallen 65 percent since the 1980s.
Americans tell themselves the old job-for-life model is over. But in fact Americans are switching jobs less than a generation ago, not more. The job reallocation rate — which measures employment turnover — is down by more than a quarter since 1990.
There are signs that America is less innovative. Accounting for population growth, Americans create 25 percent fewer major international patents than in 1999. There’s even less hunger to hit the open road. In 1983, 69 percent of 17-year-olds had driver’s licenses. Now only half of Americans get a license by age 18.
472COMMENTS
In different ways Eberstadt and Cowen are describing a country that is decelerating, detaching, losing hope, getting sadder. Economic slowdown, social disaffection and risk aversion reinforce one another.
Of course nothing is foreordained. But where is the social movement that is thinking about the fundamentals of this century’s bad start and envisions an alternate path? Who has a compelling plan to boost economic growth? If Trump is not the answer, what is?


From David Brook's column 2/21/17
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#2
Laughing Laughing  Cracking me up here!!!!!  How is Trump's name even mentioned for this article, instead of Obama and Bush????
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#3
(02-21-2017, 09:53 AM)Hugo Wrote: Laughing Laughing  Cracking me up here!!!!!  How is Trump's name even mentioned for this article, instead of Obama and Bush????

Only the comment "Slow growth strains everything else — meaning less opportunity, less optimism and more of the sort of zero-sum, grab-what-you-can thinking that Donald Trump specializes in."

Brooks is not blaming president Trump for things of the past. 
He is not even blaming Obama or Bush. 

He is suggesting that Trump's attitudes about government and business will not correct the economic problems of the past 50 years. If you read the piece, you will notice he puts at least some of the blame on the american worker/entrepreneur/investors and capitalist. And, he suggests that our capital centers have, to a least some extent, engaged in the "zero-sum, grab-what-you-can" practices that have lead us to where we are today. 

It's a cautionary tale. But he DOES point to the likes of president Trump for attitudes that won't help correct the path we are on. 
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#4
(02-21-2017, 10:11 AM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 09:53 AM)Hugo Wrote: Laughing Laughing  Cracking me up here!!!!!  How is Trump's name even mentioned for this article, instead of Obama and Bush????

Only the comment "Slow growth strains everything else — meaning less opportunity, less optimism and more of the sort of zero-sum, grab-what-you-can thinking that Donald Trump specializes in."

Brooks is not blaming president Trump for things of the past. 
He is not even blaming Obama or Bush. 

He is suggesting that Trump's attitudes about government and business will not correct the economic problems of the past 50 years. If you read the piece, you will notice he puts at least some of the blame on the american worker/entrepreneur/investors and capitalist. And, he suggests that our capital centers have, to a least some extent, engaged in the "zero-sum, grab-what-you-can" practices that have lead us to where we are today. 

It's a cautionary tale. But he DOES point to the likes of president Trump for attitudes that won't help correct the path we are on. 

Bullshit.  It is Fake News designed to make the reader associate the failures of the past with Trump.
Reply
#5
(02-21-2017, 10:20 AM)Hugo Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 10:11 AM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 09:53 AM)Hugo Wrote: Laughing Laughing  Cracking me up here!!!!!  How is Trump's name even mentioned for this article, instead of Obama and Bush????

Only the comment "Slow growth strains everything else — meaning less opportunity, less optimism and more of the sort of zero-sum, grab-what-you-can thinking that Donald Trump specializes in."

Brooks is not blaming president Trump for things of the past. 
He is not even blaming Obama or Bush. 

He is suggesting that Trump's attitudes about government and business will not correct the economic problems of the past 50 years. If you read the piece, you will notice he puts at least some of the blame on the american worker/entrepreneur/investors and capitalist. And, he suggests that our capital centers have, to a least some extent, engaged in the "zero-sum, grab-what-you-can" practices that have lead us to where we are today. 

It's a cautionary tale. But he DOES point to the likes of president Trump for attitudes that won't help correct the path we are on. 

Bullshit.  It is Fake News designed to make the reader associate the failures of the past with Trump.

Dear God. You are going to ride the "Fake News" thing to the very end I guess.  Wink
Pretty obvious you didn't read the piece. His only reference to president Trump was the continuing of practices that won't in any way help correct the problems we face.
Reply
#6
(02-21-2017, 10:24 AM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 10:20 AM)Hugo Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 10:11 AM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 09:53 AM)Hugo Wrote: Laughing Laughing  Cracking me up here!!!!!  How is Trump's name even mentioned for this article, instead of Obama and Bush????

Only the comment "Slow growth strains everything else — meaning less opportunity, less optimism and more of the sort of zero-sum, grab-what-you-can thinking that Donald Trump specializes in."

Brooks is not blaming president Trump for things of the past. 
He is not even blaming Obama or Bush. 

He is suggesting that Trump's attitudes about government and business will not correct the economic problems of the past 50 years. If you read the piece, you will notice he puts at least some of the blame on the american worker/entrepreneur/investors and capitalist. And, he suggests that our capital centers have, to a least some extent, engaged in the "zero-sum, grab-what-you-can" practices that have lead us to where we are today. 

It's a cautionary tale. But he DOES point to the likes of president Trump for attitudes that won't help correct the path we are on. 

Bullshit.  It is Fake News designed to make the reader associate the failures of the past with Trump.

Dear God. You are going to ride the "Fake News" thing to the very end I guess.  Wink
Pretty obvious you didn't read the piece. His only reference to president Trump was the continuing of practices that won't in any way help correct the problems we face.

And he knows that, how?  Again, the only reason to WRITE the piece, is to associate him WITH the problem, which you just admitted.

Dear God indeed.
Reply
#7
(02-21-2017, 10:31 AM)Hugo Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 10:24 AM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 10:20 AM)Hugo Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 10:11 AM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 09:53 AM)Hugo Wrote: Laughing Laughing  Cracking me up here!!!!!  How is Trump's name even mentioned for this article, instead of Obama and Bush????

Only the comment "Slow growth strains everything else — meaning less opportunity, less optimism and more of the sort of zero-sum, grab-what-you-can thinking that Donald Trump specializes in."

Brooks is not blaming president Trump for things of the past. 
He is not even blaming Obama or Bush. 

He is suggesting that Trump's attitudes about government and business will not correct the economic problems of the past 50 years. If you read the piece, you will notice he puts at least some of the blame on the american worker/entrepreneur/investors and capitalist. And, he suggests that our capital centers have, to a least some extent, engaged in the "zero-sum, grab-what-you-can" practices that have lead us to where we are today. 

It's a cautionary tale. But he DOES point to the likes of president Trump for attitudes that won't help correct the path we are on. 

Bullshit.  It is Fake News designed to make the reader associate the failures of the past with Trump.

Dear God. You are going to ride the "Fake News" thing to the very end I guess.  Wink
Pretty obvious you didn't read the piece. His only reference to president Trump was the continuing of practices that won't in any way help correct the problems we face.

And he knows that, how?  Again, the only reason to WRITE the piece, is to associate him WITH the problem, which you just admitted.

Dear God indeed.

Funny how guys like you always refered to Obama as our messiah and now you are acting like you married to Trump. You are so outraged that anyone could utter even one sentence of something that's not praise that you call an opinion piece fake news.
Reply
#8
Wonky3"Slow growth strains everything else — meaning less opportunity, less optimism and more of the sort of zero-sum, grab-what-you-can thinking that Donald Trump specializes in. The slowdown has devastated American workers. Between 1985 and 2000, the total hours of paid work in America increased by 35 percent. Over the next 15 years, they increased by only 4 percent."







Most of us came of age in the last half of the 20th century and had our perceptions of “normal” formed in that era. It was, all things considered, an unusually happy period. No world wars, no Great Depressions, fewer civil wars, fewer plagues.
It’s looking like we’re not going to get to enjoy one of those times again. The 21st century is looking much nastier and bumpier: rising ethnic nationalism, falling faith in democracy, a dissolving world order.
At the bottom of all this, perhaps, is declining economic growth. As Nicholas Eberstadt points out in his powerful essay “Our Miserable 21st Century,” in the current issue of Commentary, between 1948 and 2000 the U.S. economy grew at a per-capita rate of about 2.3 percent a year.
But then around 2000, something shifted. In this century, per-capita growth has been less than 1 percent a year on average, and even since 2009 it’s been only 1.1 percent a year. If the U.S. had been able to maintain postwar 20th-century growth rates into this century, U.S. per-capita G.D.P. would be over 20 percent higher than it is today.

Slow growth strains everything else — meaning less opportunity, less optimism and more of the sort of zero-sum, grab-what-you-can thinking that Donald Trump specializes in. The slowdown has devastated American workers. Between 1985 and 2000, the total hours of paid work in America increased by 35 percent. Over the next 15 years, they increased by only 4 percent.
For every one American man aged 25 to 55 looking for work, there are three who have dropped out of the labor force. If Americans were working at the same rates they were when this century started, over 10 million more people would have jobs. As Eberstadt puts it, “The plain fact is that 21st-century America has witnessed a dreadful collapse of work.”
That means there’s an army of Americans semi-attached to their communities, who struggle to contribute, to realize their capacities and find their dignity. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics time-use studies, these labor force dropouts spend on average 2,000 hours a year watching some screen. That’s about the number of hours that usually go to a full-time job.

Fifty-seven percent of white males who have dropped out get by on some form of government disability check. About half of the men who have dropped out take pain medication on a daily basis. A survey in Ohio found that over one three-month period, 11 percent of Ohioans were prescribed opiates. One in eight American men now has a felony conviction on his record.
This is no way for our fellow citizens to live. The Eberstadt piece confirms one thought: The central task for many of us now is not to resist Donald Trump. He’ll seal his own fate. It’s to figure out how to replace him — how to respond to the slow growth and social disaffection that gave rise to him with some radically different policy mix.
The hard part is that America has to become more dynamic and more protective — both at the same time. In the past, American reformers could at least count on the fact that they were working with a dynamic society that was always generating the energy required to solve the nation’s woes. But as Tyler Cowen demonstrates in his compelling new book, “The Complacent Class,” contemporary Americans have lost their mojo.
Cowen shows that in sphere after sphere, Americans have become less adventurous and more static. For example, Americans used to move a lot to seize opportunities and transform their lives. But the rate of Americans who are migrating across state lines has plummeted by 51 percent from the levels of the 1950s and 1960s.
Americans used to be entrepreneurial, but there has been a decline in start-ups as a share of all business activity over the last generation. Millennials may be the least entrepreneurial generation in American history. The share of Americans under 30 who own a business has fallen 65 percent since the 1980s.
Americans tell themselves the old job-for-life model is over. But in fact Americans are switching jobs less than a generation ago, not more. The job reallocation rate — which measures employment turnover — is down by more than a quarter since 1990.
There are signs that America is less innovative. Accounting for population growth, Americans create 25 percent fewer major international patents than in 1999. There’s even less hunger to hit the open road. In 1983, 69 percent of 17-year-olds had driver’s licenses. Now only half of Americans get a license by age 18.
472COMMENTS
In different ways Eberstadt and Cowen are describing a country that is decelerating, detaching, losing hope, getting sadder. Economic slowdown, social disaffection and risk aversion reinforce one another.
Of course nothing is foreordained. But where is the social movement that is thinking about the fundamentals of this century’s bad start and envisions an alternate path? Who has a compelling plan to boost economic growth? If Trump is not the answer, what is?


From David Brook's column 2/21/17
For every one American man aged 25 to 55 looking for work, there are three who have dropped out of the labor force.
I dropped out at 55 because there was not enough work.


Fifty-seven percent of white males who have dropped out get by on some form of government disability check. About half of the men who have dropped out take pain medication on a daily basis.

Well a certain amount of those men, MOST I would think have a REAL disability
.Brooks doesn't mention the fact that a large part of our population  are the baby boomers

Millennials may be the least entrepreneurial generation in American history.
The share of Americans under 30 who own a business has fallen 65 percent since the 1980s.
There's a lot to be said about that Sad

In 1983, 69 percent of 17-year-olds had driver’s licenses. Now only half of Americans get a license by age 18.
Millennial apathy. I see it in my GK and his friends. When I was a kid we took our drivers test on our 16th birthday. I did and I already had a job and owned two cars.
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#9
It isn't nearly as bad as Venezuela, the place she took my money and ran to - damn Matilda. Most Americans really need to spend a year down there in order to rid themselves of fat. Actually two years would be better. When they return, America won't weigh as much.

The article is very disturbing, and in no way am I denigrating the poor Venezuelans. This is simply my way of showing a contrast to our country.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/blogge...ts?page=10
Here’s how most Venezuelans lost an average of 19 pounds in 2016, and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again in 2017


In early 2017, a nationwide survey of the people of Venezuela showed that during the year 2016, almost 75% of the population had lost weight due to not having enough food, and that their average weight loss was 19 pounds.

Before I explain how this came to happen, I want to start out by explaining what did not cause this to happen.

Many media outlets have been blaming Venezuela’s food shortages on the 2014 collapse in the price of oil. But they are wrong. Other countries whose economies are heavily dependent on oil, such as Norway and Saudi Arabia, do not have food shortages. Furthermore, Venezuela’s food shortages began in 2003, which was 11 years before the price of oil collapsed.

Now, to explain the actual cause of the food shortages. (more at the link)
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#10
Threads like this are why I stick to Facebook these days. Jesus Christ, what dreck. Let's solve some problems.
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#11
(02-21-2017, 04:53 PM)bbqboy Wrote: Threads like this are why I stick to Facebook these days. Jesus Christ, what dreck. Let's solve some problems.

Go ahead...get it started.
Reply
#12
(02-21-2017, 04:53 PM)bbqboy Wrote: Threads like this are why I stick to Facebook these days. Jesus Christ, what dreck. Let's solve some problems.

It simply people posting about what they think of an article by Brooks. But Of course a right wingers had to complain because it didn't glorify the Orange Cheeto God. That part was like Facebook IMO.


Let's solve some problems.

Seriously? what problem was ever solved here?
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#13
(02-21-2017, 07:00 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 04:53 PM)bbqboy Wrote: Threads like this are why I stick to Facebook these days. Jesus Christ, what dreck. Let's solve some problems.

It simply people posting about what they think of an article by Brooks. But Of course a right wingers had to complain because it didn't glorify the Orange Cheeto God. That part was like Facebook IMO.


Let's solve some problems.

Seriously? what problem was ever solved here?

Who knows? Maybe someone reads a post, has a beer, sleeps on it and finds a new way of thinking about something. 
Or maybe not. 
Any harm in putting it out there?
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#14
(02-21-2017, 08:22 PM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 07:00 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 04:53 PM)bbqboy Wrote: Threads like this are why I stick to Facebook these days. Jesus Christ, what dreck. Let's solve some problems.

It simply people posting about what they think of an article by Brooks. But Of course a right wingers had to complain because it didn't glorify the Orange Cheeto God. That part was like Facebook IMO.


Let's solve some problems.

Seriously? what problem was ever solved here?

Who knows? Maybe someone reads a post, has a beer, sleeps on it and finds a new way of thinking about something. 
Or maybe not. 
Any harm in putting it out there?
OK then who reads a post  , has a beer, sleeps on it and finds a new way of thinking about something. And then come back with a solution? Smiling
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#15
Here? Absolutely nothinf5.
I don't know what that word is but my phone spit it out. So I stand corrected.
My enemies are more fun over on FB. Maybe that's it.
Arguing here is like arguing with my wife.
Except she had nicer tits.
Reply
#16
(02-21-2017, 09:09 PM)bbqboy Wrote: Here?  Absolutely nothinf5.
I don't know what that word is but my phone spit it out. So I stand corrected.
My enemies are more fun over on FB. Maybe that's it.
Arguing here is like arguing with my wife.
Except she had nicer tits.

Yes and they're even dumber on FB if that's possible. Facebook is what fake news brought us.
Reply
#17
(02-21-2017, 09:09 PM)bbqboy Wrote: Here?  Absolutely nothinf5.
I don't know what that word is but my phone spit it out. So I stand corrected.
My enemies are more fun over on FB. Maybe that's it.
Arguing here is like arguing with my wife.
Except she had nicer tits.

Hey many of us are over sixty, we have nice tits too.
[Image: man-boobs.jpg?w=258&h=300]
Reply
#18
(02-22-2017, 07:23 AM)chuck white Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 09:09 PM)bbqboy Wrote: Here?  Absolutely nothinf5.
I don't know what that word is but my phone spit it out. So I stand corrected.
My enemies are more fun over on FB. Maybe that's it.
Arguing here is like arguing with my wife.
Except she had nicer tits.

Hey many of us are over sixty, we have nice tits too.
[Image: man-boobs.jpg?w=258&h=300]

On second thought, I'd rather read a weather report.  Wink
Reply
#19
(02-21-2017, 09:33 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 09:09 PM)bbqboy Wrote: Here?  Absolutely nothinf5.
I don't know what that word is but my phone spit it out. So I stand corrected.
My enemies are more fun over on FB. Maybe that's it.
Arguing here is like arguing with my wife.
Except she had nicer tits.

Yes and they're even dumber on FB if that's possible. Facebook is what fake news brought us.

I'll agree with that. But I've argued with Larry and Old so long I could write their responses.  At least it's fun to find new dumbasses to cause distress towards. 
The whole USA is full of Larrys. Big Grin
Reply
#20
(02-22-2017, 05:48 PM)bbqboy Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 09:33 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(02-21-2017, 09:09 PM)bbqboy Wrote: Here?  Absolutely nothinf5.
I don't know what that word is but my phone spit it out. So I stand corrected.
My enemies are more fun over on FB. Maybe that's it.
Arguing here is like arguing with my wife.
Except she had nicer tits.

Yes and they're even dumber on FB if that's possible. Facebook is what fake news brought us.

I'll agree with that. But I've argued with Larry and Old so long I could write their responses.  At least it's fun to find new dumbasses to cause distress towards. 
The whole USA is full of Larrys. Big Grin

What amazes me and also makes me king of sick and sad.. Is that our new president says the same stupids ass shit the right wing morons on FB say.

On the news they were talking about how people all across the nation are showing up in huge numbers at town hall meetings?
And that some were angry that their representatives were missing.

 From what My wife and I saw it was obvious that a hell of a lot of people were VERY upset and worried about losing their health care.
They are Americans. They are citizens.It is REAL And what does out idiot president say about it??? He tweets....


“The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists. Sad!” — Donald Trump, U.S. President



I'm sorry but that sounds like the exact kind of moronic excuse I would hear from the uneducated, Rush Limbaugh loving far right wing morons on Facebook would say.

But it's from the F***ing president Sad
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