As pessimistic as I am about our long-term outlook as a nation, culture, and species, every once in a while I hear something that gives me a little hope:
Dad, the world is full of amazing things… And I want to see all of them.
(My daughter after spending some time investigating a tide pool.)
See Bruder being interviewed on MSNBC here. And an excerpt from her article:
Aging isn’t what it used to be. In an era of disappearing pensions, wage stagnation, and widespread foreclosures, Americans are working longer and leaning more heavily than ever on Social Security, a program designed to supplement (rather than fully fund) retirement. For many, surviving the golden years now requires creative lifestyle adjustments. And for those riding the economy’s outermost edge, adaptation may now mean giving up what full-time RV dwellers call “stick houses” to hit the road and seek work….
“We’re facing the first-ever reversal in retirement security in modern U.S. history,” Monique Morrissey of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., told me. “Starting with the younger baby boomers, each successive generation is now doing worse than previous generations in terms of their ability to retire without seeing a drop in living standards.”
That’s what thirty years of Reaganism and neo-liberal (i.e. Clinton) economics gets us. It’s what happens when you piss on the New Deal. To my Democratic and Democrat-leaning friends out there, you’re deluding yourself if you believe for a moment that electing socially liberal multi-millionaire business people (or lawyers that serve them) will turn things around.
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Disconnection of water services because of failure to pay due to lack of means constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other international human rights.
– Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Related links:
xkcd:
Brad DeLong sends us to Rethinking the Social Contract. An excerpt:
What is the “social contract,” and what political message does it convey?
The social contract is an implicit understanding between people and the society in which they live about how society should be organized, how benefits are distributed, and how shared responsibilities are defined for all citizens. The beauty of the social contract is that it conveys many messages, not a singular one. It conveys the message of shared decisionmaking, but equally it conveys a political message of accountability and responsibility.
So, for example, a very liberal interpretation of the social contract is one that Rousseau talked about, in which society organizes itself according to the expectations that people have for human flourishing. Alternatively, the old Hobbesian social contract conveyed a political message of limited rights and freedoms. So, both the beauty and the frustration of using social-contract speak is that it can convey political messages across the entire spectrum, from the most conservative to the most progressive.
The whole interview is worth reading.
“I do not believe we are. I believe we are simply the children of two generations of Americans who dared to hope that resources were limitless and that we, as Americans, could do no wrong. I believe we are gradually learning that our parents and grandparents dream was wonderful; yet unrealistic.
I believe we are rapidly learning that we must live in balance with all the other forms of life on our planet; because to do otherwise dooms many of us as well as many of them. I also believe that beyond our daily needs and concerns we deeply love the beauty and the majesty of the world on which we live. We want that beauty and majesty to continue to live & prosper just as we want ourselves to continue to live & prosper.
In the past one hundred years Americans have had an almost unbelievable impact on the lives of all human beings. National Parks, automobiles, airplanes, hydroelectric power, electric power, television, nuclear power, interstate highways, computers, the internet, wind power. All of this and much more is our legacy & our contribution to mankind.
A line in an old movie I very much like goes something like this: “Act as though you have faith and faith will be given to you.” We can begin acting with a faith in our ability to positively change our impact on the planet, and that ability will be given to us.
We can dedicate the energy we devoted to those past accomplishments toward the creation of a society that lives in harmony with the natural world. In doing so we can make remarkable contributions toward improving the impact our entire species has on this planet and all its forms of life.”
Apologies to President Business but Tami Luhby suggests that perhaps it’s not, America’s Middle Class: Poorer than you think:
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