The Low-Hanging Fruit Is Picked and the Young Generation Is Spoiled - Really?

The conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks discusses Tyler Cowen's book The Great Stagnation in The Experience Economy. Cowen writes that the growth stopped in 1974 - the year before the Vietnam War ended. He attributes this to the fact that the United States by then had picked the "low-hanging fruit," resulting in "slower growth, slower increases in median income, slower job creation, slower productivity gains, slower life-expectancy improvements and slower rates of technological change." (Brooks) 

What happens when the music stops? Well, at first it looks like David Brooks is going to adress the really interesting discussion of what we are doing with our wealth and technological prowes, but his conservative superego quickly pulls him by the ear and leads him down the isle of repentance:

"It could be that in an industrial economy people develop a materialist mind-set and believe that improving their income is the same thing as improving their quality of life. But in an affluent information-driven world, people embrace the postmaterialist mind-set. They realize they can improve their quality of life without actually producing more wealth."

He then introduces us to Sam and Jared, a fictional grandfather and his grandson. Sam was born in 1900 and was a hard working manufacturer, while young Jared, born in 1978, "organizes conferences... brings together fascinating speakers for lifelong learning" when not writing his "blog on modern art and takes his family on vacations that are more daring and exciting than any Sam experienced."

Here we have the crux of problem: Young Jared doesn't want to do the heavy lifting his grandfather did. Oh, those lazy young people.... David Brooks tweaks the story in a predictably conservative fashion, rather than pointing out that it was thanks to big government, sponsoring big science, big production, big highways, big social programs and big space programs that helped us achieve all that post-world war economic growth. Unfortunately, we also had the big Vietnam War and the big unproductive military spending that went with it, undermining America's long-term economic potential. But why mention all these complications when it so easy to point to the moral softening of the young generation.

Hans Sandberg

Oprah, Olbermann and Orson Wells

Is there a connection between Oprah Winfrey launching "OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network" and Keith Olbermann's sudden departure from MSNBC? Well, maybe! And maybe even back to Citizen Kane...

The Wrap writes:

"With two years left on his $7 million-a-year contract, Olbermann was seeking a full exit package but he really has his eye on creating his own media empire in the style of Huffington Post, according to the individual. That way, Olbermann would control his own brand and, in his view, potentially earn far more as an owner." 

Did Keith Olbermann Bolt MSNBC to Create Media Empire?

Does that mean that it wasn't the big bad Comcast engulfing NBC that caused the radical TV-commentator to jump ship. Was it greed? Or narcissism!

What does it mean when media stars starts their own networks? Is this a good thing for democracy? What happens to editorial integrity when the media channel is so tightly linked to one person?

Makes me think of Citizen Kane.

"Kane's career in the publishing world is born of idealistic social service, but gradually evolves into a ruthless pursuit of power." (from Wikipedia)  

Hans Sandberg

Political Discourse in Tucson's Shadow: To Share the Blame, or Place It Where It Belongs?

The Wrath of Fools: An Open Letter to the Far Right
This is a hard-hitting letter by William Rivers Pitt, a young democratic activist and writer, who in 2004 was press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich. I'm sure it will be written off as fiery left-wing rhetoric by the same folks in media that never found an absurd and outrageous claim they didn't feel obliged to milk for ratings. Pundits, like the obnoxious Republican-turned-anchor, Joe Scarborough (MSNBC's "Morning Joe") are now preaching moderation, but such sudden even-handedness sounds fake to say the least. It's more damage control than serious rethinking.

Pitt doesn't mince his words. At first I felt that maybe he should tone it down a notch, but when you read the quotes at the end of the article, you can't really criticize him. The far right has pretty much had a monopoly on vitriol over the past decade or two, and they have gotten away with it. The left on the other hand has been feeble and defensive, ever afraid being called "liberal" or "socialist".

Hans Sandberg

Will the New Global Middle Class Adopt American-Style Bourgeois Values?

David Brooks discusses the new global middle class in an interesting column prompted by a new version of Hans Rosling's viral TED video about income growth and life expectancy. Brooks is usually good when he sticks to his forte, which is sociology, but his attempt to sell the U.S. model as the future for the new middle-class is to stretch it too far, way too far.

To be middle class is to have money to spend on non-necessities. But it also involves a shift in values. Middle-class parents have fewer kids but spend more time and money cultivating each one. They often adopt the bourgeois values — emphasizing industry, prudence, ambition, neatness, order, moderation and continual self-improvement. They teach their children to lead different lives from their own, and as Karl Marx was among the first to observe, unleash a relentless spirit of improvement and openness that alters every ancient institution.

(...)
Americans could well become the champions of the gospel of middle-class dignity. The U.S. could become the crossroads nation for those who aspire to join the middle and upper-middle class, attracting students, immigrants and entrepreneurs. (David Brooks: Ben Franklin’s Nation)

This is a narrow American perspective, "bourgeois values — emphasizing industry, prudence, ambition, neatness, order, moderation and continual self-improvement." It excludes other values that have grown all over the world as more and more people are entering the middle class, values such as social welfare systems, universal health insurance, long paid vacations, paid maternity leave, abolishment of death penalty, and so on. I don't know if Ben Franklin would have objected to parental leave, but that doesn't really matter. For all their glory, the Founding Father's had their limits (as well as their slaves). The new global middle class will of course get "Americanized" as they become relatively wealthy, but that doesn't mean that they will give up their traditional culture or preferences for social security and a more humane society. U.S. observers often think they see themselves whenever somebody abroad opens a can of soda, but that is not always the case!

Hans Sandberg

Here is Hans Rosling's presentation:

Living Standards in the U.S. and Europe are Much Closer than They Appear to Be

If you compare the incomes in Europe and the U.S., it looks like people in Europe are much worse off than people in the U.S., but this could be an illusion according to a a research paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in the U.S. written by Charles I. Jones and Peter J. Klenow. The authors state that:

"...living standards in Western Europe are much closer to those in the United States than it would appear from GDP per capita. Longer lives with more leisure time and more equal consumption in Western Europe largely offset their lower average consumption vis a vis the United States."

What Will the Tea Party Folks Say When They Wake Up To a 2nd Stimulus Package?

As much as I am frustrated by Obama's seemingly unbreakable hope in "bipartisan" goodwill, I wonder if it might not be the Republicans that will have to pay the largest political price for today's "deal". What are they going to tell the tea party crowd now that they have betrayed the deficit fanatics. I suspect that many tea party people will go after Boehner & Co for adding another trillion dollars to the deficit. However ill designed the compromise is, you could say that it is a second stimulus package of sorts, as David Leonhard points out in New York Times.

Hans Sandberg

Call the Republican Bluff by Letting All of the Bush Era Tax Cut Expire!

Everybody (on TV at least) talks about the disaster that would strike if the Bush tax cuts were to expire, but you rarely hear any of the pundits specify how much people would have to pay in tax if the entire unfinanced tax cut were allowed to expire as it was intended to do. The bottom half of the population would have to pay between $5 and $836 more in tax in 2011. Big deal! The 3,4 % making 200-500.000 would have to pay $7,484, which is peanuts considering their income and the fact that their tax break for 2004-2010 was $54,707. Why all this hysteria? Call the bluff, and let the whole thing expire!

For more data, check out this link.

This in from Arizona: "Yes, We Can!" (Let You Rot and Die!)

Here is a story that is NOT written by Charles Dickens in time for Christmas:

Francisco Felix, 32, a father of four who has hepatitis C and is in need of a liver, received news a few weeks ago that a family friend was dying and wanted to donate her liver to him. But the budget cuts meant he no longer qualified for a state-financed transplant. He was prepared anyway at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center as his relatives scrambled to raise the needed $200,000. When the money did not come through, the liver went to someone else on the transplant list. “I know times are tight and cuts are needed, but you can’t cut human lives,” said Mr. Felix’s wife, Flor. “You just can’t do that.”

To which all stern scroogelike born-again or just born budgetcutters join in a fiscally conservative Christmas Carol:
YES WE CAN!
(Aren't their graveyards to take care of those who can't take care of themselves?)

David Kessler Talks About Fat, Food and Health

Also watch Charlie Rose's interview with David Kessler