Krugman: America's Unlevel Field

[Scuba]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/opinion/krugman-americas-unlevel-field.html?_r=1&emc=eta1



..snip..

Last month President Obama gave a speech invoking the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt on behalf of progressive ideals — and Republicans were not happy. Mitt Romney, in particular, insisted that where Roosevelt believed that “government should level the playing field to create equal opportunities,” Mr. Obama believes that “government should create equal outcomes,” that we should have a society where “everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to take risk.”

As many people were quick to point out, this portrait of the president as radical redistributionist was pure fiction. What hasn’t been as widely noted, however, is that Mr. Romney’s picture of himself as a believer in a level playing field is just as fictional. Where is the evidence that he or his party cares at all about equality of opportunity?

...

Americans are much more likely than citizens of other nations to believe that they live in a meritocracy. But this self-image is a fantasy: as a report in The Times last week pointed out, America actually stands out as the advanced country in which it matters most who your parents were, the country in which those born on one of society’s lower rungs have the least chance of climbing to the top or even to the middle.

And if you ask why America is more class-bound in practice than the rest of the Western world, a large part of the reason is that our government falls down on the job of creating equal opportunity.


..end..

[BlueJazz]

1. Of course, the only ones that scream this bullshit are the people that have had...

....every break known to mankind in order to be where they are....or have screwed
their fellow citizens though out every action that they have performed.

True, there are some in our society that have risen from the depths of hell/poverty, etc but they
are the extreme exception to the fact...not the normal flow of events.

I always love to hear people who have had the Golden Goose handed to them since birth complain
about the 99 % who have had nothing but rotten eggs throw in their face.

[Scuba]

2. I forget who said it, something about being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple. n/t

[bvar22]

6. I believe that was Ann Richards, referring to Bush-the-Lesser...

...when he was running for Governor of Texas.

[Scuba]

9. You mean the Chinese guy? ....

Dim Sun.

[ProSense]

3. Krugman makes

a great point:

Think about it: someone who really wanted equal opportunity would be very concerned about the inequality of our current system. He would support more nutritional aid for low-income mothers-to-be and young children. He would try to improve the quality of public schools. He would support aid to low-income college students. And he would support what every other advanced country has, a universal health care system, so that nobody need worry about untreated illness or crushing medical bills.

It's in line with the personal account in this diary:

I was born a poor blah child

by Eclectablog

<...>

Ah, yes. The Blah People. As it turns out, I myself was born a poor blah child.

My mother was 16 when she got pregnant with me. Taking calculus and German in high school she dropped out, ignored her priest's suggestion that she give me up for adoption and become a nun, and went on to raise me and my brother. By the time I was eight, she had gotten her GED and was attending Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. A single mom with two young boys, we struggled. She worked a few hours a week at the local K-Mart but there wasn't a hell of a lot of time for her to work. She had college classes to attend, studying, and, of course, two sons to raise.

So, yeah, we were Blah People. We got food stamps. My mom got welfare checks. We even got those charity Christmas gifts delivered to our door because we got on someone's list somewhere. My mom was young, gifted, and blah.

My mom didn't need a job at that moment. What she needed was some help so that she could finish her education and move up in the world. Welfare and food stamps were what allowed that to happen.

By the time she passed away at the tragically young age of 55, she had become a well-paid executive at Chrysler and retired early with a handsome pension. In her life, she easily repaid in taxes every cent (and then some) of the welfare she had received.

- more -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/07/1052518/-I-was-born-a-poor-blah-child

[zipplewrath]

4. We're telling fiction again

"And they have, of course, pledged to repeal a health reform that, for all its imperfections, would finally give Americans the guaranteed care that everyone else in the advanced world takes for granted. "

I can always tell when supporters realize that what they're supporting is hollow. They make claims for what they support that aren't true, as oppose to touting what it actually does.

HCR did NOT "guarantee care". It required insurance. It made care easier to obtain for some, not many but some. And it standardized the insurance to higher standards than it had been before. But it is a long way from guaranteeing CARE for "everyone".

[bvar22]

7. THAT fact will become painfully clear in 2014,

when between 40 Million - 70 MILLION already hard pressed Working Class Americans will be FORCED to BUY
"Bronze" (Junk) Insurance Policies that most will be unable to use due to High Co-Pay/Deductibles.
Even with a "subsidy" (which immediately goes into the coffers of the For Profit cartel), most will be forced to dig into near empty pockets to put up their part....every YEAR.

They won't be happy.
They WILL blame the democrats,
and rightly so.

A Perfect Storm Approaches.

[Romulox]

8. Agreed. Krugman's point is largely blunted when he advocates for mandatory private insurance

as a way to compare more favorably to other developed nations, ALL of whom have some form of government CARE (not mandatory private insurance.)

[Zalatix]

5. Go, Krugman! K&R!

[MellowDem]

10. Krugman nails it pretty well as usual. nt

[JHB]

11. Horatio Alger: the Myth and the Reality, as told by Mark Twain

The man lived in Philadelphia who, when young and poor, entered a bank, and says he: “Please, sir, don’t you want a boy?” And the stately personage said: “No, little boy, I don’t want a little boy.” The little boy, whose heart was too full for utterance, chewing a piece of licorice stick he had bought with a cent stolen from his good and pious aunt, with sobs plainly audible, and with great globules of water rolling down his cheeks, glided silently down the marble steps of the bank. Bending his noble form, the bank man dodged behind a door, for he thought the little boy was going to shy a stone at him. But the little boy picked up something, and stuck it in his poor but ragged jacket. “Come here, little boy,” and the little boy did come here; and the bank man said: “Lo, what pickest thou up?” And he answered and replied: “A pin.” And the bank man said: “Little boy, are you good?” and he said he was. And the bank man said: “How do you vote?”—“excuse me, do you go to Sunday school?” and he said he did. Then the bank man took down a pen made of pure gold, and flowing with pure ink, and he wrote on a piece of paper, “St. Peter”; and he asked the little boy what it stood for, and he said “Salt Peter.” Then the bankman said it meant “Saint Peter.” The little boy said: “Oh!”

Then the bank man took the little boy to his bosom, and the little boy said, “Oh!” again, for he squeezed him. Then the bank man took the little boy into partnership, and gave him half the profits and all the capital, and he married the bank man’s daughter, and now all he has is all his, and all his own too.

My uncle told me this story, and I spent six weeks in picking up pins in front of a bank. I expected the bank man would call me in and say: “Little boy, are you good?” and I was going to say “Yes;” and when he asked me what “St. John” stood for, I was going to say “Salt John.” But the bank man wasn’t anxious to have a partner, and I guess the daughter was a son, for one day says he to me: “Little boy, what’s that you’re picking up?” Says I, awful meekly, “Pins.” Says he: “Let’s see ‘em.” And he took ’em, and I took off my cap, all ready to go in the bank, and become a partner, and marry his daughter. But I didn’t get an invitation. He said: “Those pins belong to the bank, and if I catch you hanging around here any more I’ll set the dog on you!” Then I left, and the mean old fellow kept the pins. Such is life as I find it.

Source:

Mark Twain, “Poor Little Stephen Girard,” in Carleton’s Popular Readings, Anna Randall-Diehl, ed., (New York, 1879), 183–84.

[maggiesfarmer]

12. anyone have a link to the referenced 'report in The Times last week'?

[maggiesfarmer]

13. n/m

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

[Scuba]

14. Here. It was linked in the article...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all