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    benjaminalloverHamilton Nolan
    7/14/16 11:19am

    Whether or not we change it depends mostly on our own political decisions. If you trust wealthy Republicans to make those necessary political changes, you are a fool.

    This is a true statement, but is the implication true? Haven’t the policies of Democratic administrations also allowed or facilitated the entrenchment of this trend significantly, even if not to the the same extent as Republicans?

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      dbcooperbenjaminallover
      7/14/16 11:24am

      They voted against single payer at the DNC platform meetings, so....

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      Diarrheahelixbenjaminallover
      7/14/16 11:26am

      OK. Yes. But what about the online harassment Joan Walsh gets because she is a woman and not because her opinions are really really stupid?

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    BulfrightHamilton Nolan
    7/14/16 11:14am

    The Financial Times, dad jeans and a sleeping homeless man.

    Someone’s got an eye for composition.

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      Mount_PrionBulfright
      7/14/16 11:16am

      *inserts hungry vulture stalking homeless man*

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      EvenBaggierTrousers4Bulfright
      7/14/16 11:16am
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    Just so gratefulHamilton Nolan
    7/14/16 11:19am

    Globalization has shifted most of the upward mobility to countries with levels of poverty that make blog posts like this one look extremely privileged and doctrinaire.

    There are arguments to be made that our economy should take care of people who happen to be born in the USA before distributing wealth abroad, but let’s not just elide the whole debate.

    Oh wait—just noticed Hamilton Nolan wrote this post. Never mind, I should have expected the ham-handedness.

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      The Shape of Punk to ComeJust so grateful
      7/14/16 11:27am

      Globalization has shifted most of the upward mobility to countries with levels of poverty that make blog posts like this one look extremely privileged and doctrinaire.

      And your sentence demonstrates a poor understanding of nuance. Sure, China has a stronger middle class now than it did 100 years ago. But 20 million people died in their Great Leap Forward. So… Net positive because people have money now? And in Mexico, post NAFTA, plenty of wealthy people benefitted and their middle class grew… At the expense of a lot of lower class folk. How did Mexican farmers do post NAFTA… Well? Did they do well?

      Sure, globalization has helped some and hurt others. But since we’re in America, reading a story about the developed world (mostly Western) lets focus on that. Because almost all the aspects of globalization that are being discussed are negative when viewed under that lens. If you want to debate how globalization has changed the lives of others in less developed countries… Get your shit in order first. Your statement is as tone deaf as this article. But at least this article has focus.

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      Just so gratefulThe Shape of Punk to Come
      7/14/16 11:33am

      Oh, interesting. You think the failure of Mao’s central planning is a result of globalization.

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    Caucuses With TrollsHamilton Nolan
    7/14/16 11:26am

    I love how most gawker readers see Americans as mouth breathing, knuckle draggers, but then are upset that they arent doing better financially. If you can’t make it in America, you’re probably making poor life decisions.

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      Peter ThielCaucuses With Trolls
      7/14/16 11:28am

      Well, most Americans see gawker commenters as mouth breathing knuckle draggers, but only one is right.

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      WonderZimmsCaucuses With Trolls
      7/14/16 11:36am

      If you can’t make it as a white person in America, you’re probably making poor life decisions.

      #ftfy

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    ExtremeModerateHamilton Nolan
    7/14/16 11:55am

    Possibly because they’re trying to make careers out of jobs (such as, oh, I don’t know - adjunct teaching) and “chasing dreams” rather than pursuing proven career paths.

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      NicoExtremeModerate
      7/14/16 12:39pm

      If everyone becomes an engineer the supply of engineers will be higher than the demand and their wages will drop as well. Yes, there are people who could have made better life choices, but you’re oversimplifying things.

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      ExtremeModerateNico
      7/14/16 12:54pm

      Plenty of need for trades people. Read recently about a high school that started a plumbing program in cooperation with the local union to fill a growing need. $50k coming out of high school to apprentice, and then $75k+ 4-5 years later.

      They only had six kids register, and five quit in the first six weeks.

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    JamesLawhorneHamilton Nolan
    7/14/16 11:12am

    Hillary will solve this.

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      NicoJamesLawhorne
      7/14/16 12:46pm

      Yea, she knows that if we let more money funnel to the top it will surely start to trickle down any day now.

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      JamesLawhorneNico
      7/14/16 1:15pm

      Hillary has spent her life funneling money to the top.

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    Vanguard KnightHamilton Nolan
    7/14/16 11:30am

    Hamilton, before things change, the resentment felt by poor and middle class whites will be directed by the wealthy onto blacks and hispanics.

    Trump is pretty much proof positive that this will work for sometime before things change. All you need to do is go to Greenwood District of Tulsa Oklahoma to see how things will first play out....

    Wait, you can’t. It was burnt to the ground, and the middleclass blacks who lived there were murdered or run out of town.

    The swell of populism is always preceeded by black and brown corpses in America. ALWAYS.

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      cityzunVanguard Knight
      7/14/16 12:09pm

      Not just America, and not just black and brown. The "other" is always the first scapegoat, before those actually responsible are turned upon.

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      ShayfrayVanguard Knight
      7/14/16 12:22pm

      I haven’t actually read Marx but doesn’t he argue that this is exactly how the bourgeoisie suppress the proletariat? Sew unrest within the proletariat and make them fight amongst themselves to distract them from the real inequality between them and the upper class.

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    PetehammerHamilton Nolan
    7/14/16 11:22am

    In the (extremely limited) data you are presenting to support your argument, Italy has the exact same losses as the U.S. but is the only country listed to have an increase in Union membership. This tells us... what exactly? You should have come to the opposite conclusion? There’s no correlation? There is correlation but this data doesn’t demonstrate it?

    Based on this data (and what it doesn’t tell us) one might think you started with your conclusion and worked backward!

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      RealAmurricanPetehammer
      7/14/16 12:16pm

      Then go check out more data - Germany is a prominent example that is surprisingly missing from this analysis. Regardless, additional data just hammers home the point: higher levels of unionization do correlate to a higher share of income going to the middle class.

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      PetehammerRealAmurrican
      7/14/16 12:24pm

      It’s my job to support HamNo’s argument? He’s the one getting paid to publish this. If he wants to make his case, he should be presenting this data!

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    Jeb! & The HologramsHamilton Nolan
    7/14/16 11:25am

    “This—the triumph of capital over labor, the triumph of investors over workers, the triumph of the rich over the middle and poor—is the story of history.”

    Fixed that.

    It’s always been this way. The rich get richer and whenever the proles start making too much noise, the rich toss them the crumbs and table scraps, which placates them for another 25 years or so.

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      badchipmunkJeb! & The Holograms
      7/14/16 12:52pm

      Funny you post this on Bastille day. In any case, the last time we had that sort of mass protest and concessions, the poor tended to shout with one voice. Now, thanks to advances in media, propaganda, and technology, the rich have managed to co-opt a large portion of the poor and convinced them to shout against their own self interest.

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    OdinrebornHamilton Nolan
    7/14/16 12:02pm

    Maybe basing an economy based on constant growth and expansion is not a good long term model vs a sustainable model.

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      AK7007Odinreborn
      7/14/16 12:18pm

      I try to take this to the logical conclusion: demand is tied to population. Population will level out, maybe within the next couple generations. This therefore means that economies cannot grow infinitely.

      Nations need to start planning for this reality now so they don’t fuck natural resources to the point that the final carrying capacity of the planet is reduced. Our economic model is based on a 200 year window of exponential population growth that is likely to close soon.

      A business does NOT need to grow every year.

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