dagblog - Comments for "Leave My Parents Alone, Bill Keller!"

If you listen to these people

Peter Schwartz — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 16:24:40 +0000

In reply to Or why won't they be my slave

If you listen to these people talk, you can hear certain things that remain unspoken.

For example, in this promo, the writer says: "I've made $28,000 and survived."

The idea is that he went on from there to make much more--in his case, millions.

But what isn't said is that he made $28,000 when he was young and starting out.

When he didn't have a mortgage. When he didn't have kids. When he didn't have bills. Before he'd committed to a career. And when his future was ahead of him.

But this is NOT the life station and situation of those who are out of work nor of the working poor. Nor does it take into consideration a macro view of the economy and the real possibilities for employment and upward mobility.

Or why won't they be my slave

cmaukonen — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 01:25:16 +0000

In reply to Love these complaints from

Or why won't they be my slave or indentured servant.

Love these complaints from

Michael Maiello — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 20:01:48 +0000

In reply to No time to really chew this

Love these complaints from employers who can't find willing takers for hard jobs at low salaries. It's like, nobody will sell me a Porsche for a price I'm willing or even able to pay. Do they not want to sell cars or something?

No time to really chew this

Peter Schwartz — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 19:34:49 +0000

In reply to Leave My Parents Alone, Bill Keller!

No time to really chew this over now, but...

We're witnessing what I think it is a stunning change in the country's mindset, provoked, I think, by the crash and the fear it has provoked. Not to mention all the other changes happening throughout the world.

Suddenly, large swaths of the country are obsessed with "some group of people"--the group varies by speaker--that thinks of itself as "entitled" to things it presumably didn't work for...that doesn't want to work...that doesn't have the old get up and go of previous generations...and so on.

Medicare and SS sort of get lumped in with welfare in this narrative. You could call it the "welfare-ization" of SS and Medicare. Really, of ALL government programs save the military.

I recently read an online promotion for a financial newsletter that had the stunning (to me) subhead:

Why Don't White People Want To Work Anymore?

(He backs off the obvious racist message here by saying that he's looking at white people because, presumably, they have no excuse not to work or be able to find work.)

The basic idea is that an overwhelming number of people (white people) will get some form of government assistance over their lifetime. And government is basically printing "free money" to hand out to these people and, in the process, going more deeply into debt.

Government assistance is sapping people's appetite for work and incentive to work. It is enfeebling them, both in terms of their spirit and their abilities. It is also impoverishing the country.

There are plenty of jobs, but people won't take low-paying jobs any more (the way the speaker once did). Landscapers seeking to hire people for what amounts to $28,000 go begging, because people can make more on some form of "welfare."

And so on...

Keller's article is just a more refined, "liberal" version of this same narrative.

Exactly. People like Keller

Michael Maiello — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 16:13:41 +0000

In reply to Every time we fight this same

Exactly. People like Keller like to act like they're realists, dealing with a budget crisis that is more important than everything else. But what I see, at the heart of this, is an attack on the idea that we should collectively provide minimal standards of living for each other. We have a $14 trillion economy that grows more years than it shrinks. We can afford Social Security, we just have to prioritize it.

Every time we fight this same

Ramona — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 16:00:00 +0000

In reply to Leave My Parents Alone, Bill Keller!

Every time we fight this same SS battle, we're fighting it not just for us but for our children and our children's children. It's not charity, it's an insurance plan almost all of us have paid into. SS should be sacrosanct and above political arguments, not just because it's a lovely historical entitlement that has given some kind of aid and comfort to every family in America, but because it's one remaining shining example of our waning united morality.

I'm old enough to have Boomer

Ramona — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:53:27 +0000

In reply to How could one really truly

I'm old enough to have Boomer kids and I don't remember any of my generation just sitting back and expecting the gov'mint to fix things. We fought for union rights, for women's rights, for civil rights; we fought against Viet Nam and against Nixon and Reagan and for preservation and conservation and brought the word "ecology" into the lexicon.

My kids grew up, as you might imagine, in a liberal household where they were taught that the world doesn't revolve around them and that compassion for others is a good thing. I went through two Dr. Spock paperbacks (my son tore the second one into shreds one day, I think when he was still eating baby food, so maybe you're right about Boomers not respecting authority), and I found them invaluable, since I was only 21 when that second one came along. But contrary to popular mythology, Spock never encouraged parents to give in to every whim. Just the opposite, in fact. He encouraged parents to treat their children with respect, but the message was that respect had to work both ways. And you're right--he did teach young parents to ignore old notions and go with their gut on most things. That was liberating to most of us, but anathema to those who wanted to maintain order and control.

As to the article about taking care of elderly parents, I couldn't get past the first page so I don't really know where it was leading, but what I got from it up to that point was that responsible elderly parents should just off themselves before their kids (or the government) have to be saddled with the problems of taking care of them long term.

Maybe it's because I'm going to be 75 soon and I'm now being forced to count my remaining life span in years and not in decades, but I don't find articles like that comforting. Lots of statistics, lots of excuses, lots of apologies for even thinking thoughts of shortening a parent's life.

Give me a break. We work with what we have. The fact that Boomers will age and swell the numbers of slobbering, infirm, incontinent vegetables already burdening a country not keen on giving aid anyway, is just that--a fact. It's going to happen and all the navel-gazing in the world isn't going to change it.

I get that it might be more humane to end a life no longer worth living, and who knows? I might even subscribe to that when my time comes, but we as a country should have been preparing for aging Boomers long ago. Universal health care is the only answer, with tax-payers paying more in order to take care of the problem. We live longer and apparently we take longer to die. We're going to have to deal with it in ways that go beyond hand-wringing and excruciating discussions about the ethics of prolonging life.

Maybe it's all about screwing

Resistance — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 09:14:00 +0000

In reply to Leave My Parents Alone, Bill Keller!

Maybe it's all about screwing the hippie movement, that ended the war.

Ending the war, killed the goose, that laid THEIR Golden eggs and evidently ours too?

The system that was used to enrich the war mongers, is overwhelmed with survivors. Not enough people were killed?

Another major war (WW3) and they'll find plenty of treasure to fund the money maker.

It'll always be YOUR patriotic duty, to die for a country, that'll kick you to the curb. when you're older and become a burden.

The peasants are useless, unless there's a war?

Well, DoubleA, that was

jollyroger — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 08:08:04 +0000

In reply to How could one really truly

Well, DoubleA, that was certainly an edifying article...I don't know how to thank you for the link...As for myself, I plan a glass case with instructions In case of need, break glass, remove contents. NOTE WELL:ROUND END GOES IN MOUTH

How could one really truly

artappraiser — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 07:50:23 +0000

In reply to Leave My Parents Alone, Bill Keller!

How could one really truly figure out if they have cut something/someone's benefits somehow with a system this complex?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2012/07/social-security-secrets...

I kin guarantee one thing--boomers in mass quantities are going to take advantage of articles like that one; no more reliance on some 10-page guidebook with funny line drawings from the gummint, like the Greatest Generation relied upon, with gratitude for whatever they ended up getting, and with few questions, no complaints.

I also believe profound changes will be coming to Medicare coverage in the next couple of decades, and I am talking about changes caused by complaints from the bottom up, not anything top down. I was pretty convinced before, this May 20 article which I only read for the first time yesterday and some of its many comments, convinced me further:

http://nymag.com/news/features/parent-health-care-2012-5/

Some call my generation selfish, others might rename that pro-active on one's own account--in the manner of not going to take with humble gratitude whatever life or the authorities-that-be hand out as status quo. Back in the day, the complaint was often that "kids these days have no respect for authority." As if sending them to college was supposed to make them respect "authority" more, rather than teach them that knowledge is power. Poor Dr. Spock got blamed by some by tossing out all those authoritarian child-raising themes (that radical even tried to convince their parents they should trust their own instincts more, authority less.)

(Examples: not a polite agreement to "you'll dress in a dignified manner and you'll like it, not acceptance of the moral lesson "you'll not have sex until your married," not polite agreement to "you'll listen to the music other generations enjoyed and you'll like it", not polite agreement with "the teacher is always right," not humble acceptance of "a women's place is in the home," not polite agreement to "you'll register for the draft and you'll like it, and if you are drafted, you will be proud to go," etc.)