First I want to apologize for using the word YOU in subject line.
I have found when using YOU, two things happen. One, peoples ears perk up real quick! Two, then they tune the speaker out.

So no more YOu's.

I have not been doing my duty as an American Citizen since I turned 18. I did not serve in the military. I did not help change the direction of the country in a meaningful way. Yes, I used to vote until two years ago. Does that count?
I had a vacation day from work last week. Instead of running errands, working out or spending more time with my child, I looked at US! United States, cool how its also us, you and I. See our fore fathers were highly intelligent.

All I'm saying is if WE stop our busy lives for 12 hours, use all five, some have six senses, and look at this country. And please explain to me how it has not been going down the drain since 1988.

It started before 1988.

It started once we moved away from a manufacturing driven economy that had a trade surplus to a country that became a service based, debt driven, trade deficit economy.

There is a direct correlation between the time we lost our trade surplus to wage stagnation.

reganomics...

That's a big part of it. It also started with the "great society".

just depends upon whom you ask

its an imperfect world and we are an imperfect country like all others

we will always have things that need improving, and we will always have things that have improved,,,


I am not particularly nostalgic and cant think of a date or year that was 'better' or 'worse' than this one,, with so many things to consider

the last trade surplus was in 1975.


here is the wage/productivity chart





http://www.winningwordsproject.com/reframing_the_40_year_long_stagnant_worker_compensation_problem_in_america

A little late to the party.

I enjoyed reading it all.

What sticks out most is the quote by Becky Gerritson.

Lady has me fired up!!!

Reaganomics, good stuff, thanks InvictusV, forgot that I was taught that.

And msharmony, I have read a few of your post's. You have incredible perspective and it seems to me anyway, you are a very 'present' person. Refreshing.

And mightymoe... What are you? Cracks me up. Cross between Alf and a gorilla.

Excellent, all of it! I eat this stuff up for some reason.

But my mind keep going back, over and over again about what Ben and Very stated about Liberty. Let's all remember to teach our children that one.

Well put Sojourning

If I was such a fence-sitter, I'd never be trying to do what feels right.

Im fence maker

"Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?


Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things;it has predisposed men to endure them and often to look on them as benefits.


After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

And this is from a book written in 1835, more than 150 years before your proclamation. It is but a trait the founders warned us about when the constitution was written in 1787.

And what pray tell did that have to do with it?

And what does this really have to do with anything? Just another attempt of our power hungry political souls trying to convince the masses that to govern means to lead. Well not under our constitution for the republic where government is to act within the confines of enumerated powers that were ordained and established by the people. It is the people that are the leaders, the government our servant.

And Johnson was one of the most blatantly power hungry president prior to his time. Insisting that the blood drenched wife of his predecessor be by his side during the ceremony.

Especially when the one asked is like a top and loves to spin. Those type people seldom commit to anything, everything is always an opinion and opinions have nothing to do with truth or falsehoods. No need to get technical and actually have anything mean anything, it's all just sentiment.

Would that be what you are trying to imply?

But I fail to see what this has to do with the OP.



True, the OP has stated the start as since 1988 and yes it has been dropping quickly in the short past, but the worker compensation thing is but a symptom, not a root cause.

Well ... the graph would indicate that the problem (divergence)almost exactly coincides with the "Great Society". This program was supposed to remove poverty by giving to those who had little. It didn't work nor was that the actual purpose.

An analysis of the actual intent was to generate permanent voters for the Democratic Party by offering handouts. Not only did this program meet with great success, it is still the standard operating procedure of today's politics. The intent is to create a permanent class of poor reliant upon the Democratic party.

The program has been modified to include illegal aliens who have flooded the borders in search of the same handouts, victims for their crimes, and some actual economic opportunity. Last time I checked 47% of all illegal immigrants were on some form of government welfare. A HUGE percentage were committing crimes, and the government was looking at them as potential voters, not persons who had entered this country illegally.

A huge lie that is commonly spread is that illegals do not take jobs from citizens. Go to any construction project and see the number of heavy equipment operators, concrete finishers, plumbers, electricians, foreman, carpenters, etc., who can't even speak English. Only a moron would not grasp the fact that these people are illegal and have taken skilled jobs from American citizens.

The other big lie is that there are only 11 million illegals in this country. Check the records to see how long the "official" number has been unchanged while the Border Patrol estimates a million a year get past the safeguards. The actual number seems to be around 30 million. This 'underground' population exists on a mostly cash basis where taxes are not paid.

Kick out the illegals, give the jobs to the citizens, then take another look at the numbers. What is left of the able bodied are the poor who will always be poor because they are perfectly happy that way.

BTW, I am for legal immigration. I am against illegal immigration.

Not really, the graph has been stated as beginning in 1975 and Johnson's "Great Society" speech was in May 1964, some 11 years hence.

And illegal immigration while a marked detriment to our country and the citizen's thereof, where does the problem actually lie? Perhaps with the people themselves. And the illegal immigrants serve a very important purpose, doing jobs that the citizens refuse.

Construction is one of those areas where they do trades that are beneath citizens, doing excellent work for wages that are not so great.

But who is to blame, the illegals - not really. The government - again not really. The employers - bingo. The people - again bingo.

I posted what I meant to post. You can selectively infer whatever you choose to from it.

for those who didn't understand, I will put it more simply

give me a year that was 'better' than this one and I will show you examples of how it was not better

give me a year that was 'worse', and I will likewise show you ways in which it was better


when there are so many things to consider with quality of life,

health
wealth
employment
'freedom'
justice
equality
,,,etc,,,etc,,,etc,,


there are far too many issues to address to simply state any time was 'better' or 'worse',, unless addressing the specific issue which was 'better or worse.


people were in better or worse HEALTH
or people were more or less impoverished
or people were better or not as employed
people were freer or more enslaved

but at no time was all of it better , or all of it worse


was that too 'spinny' for ya?

if so, I give up explaining, my six year old would understand it.

But that would just be using a lot more words to say the same thing; nothing, no commitment, no declaration.

And yes it had way too much spin, first going that way, then this way, then the other way while reversing ways but never a concise path.

But as for spinny?

spin·ny
ˈspinē/
adjective
Canadianinformal
adjective: spinny

1. insane; crazy.