I recently had a conversation with an acquaintance who contended that the United States of America is the best place to have the opportunity to make it rich & that compared to places like China, it has a self-correcting market economy (Adam Smith's invisible hand, I assume) that lifts all boats, in general.
Let's be frank: Most Americans are spoon-fed mythologies about their country from an early age & it becomes so ingrained into their psyche that any challenges to what they perceive as indisputable fact, are relegated to the dustbins of "conspiratorial' and 'anti-American'. The depth of their delusions are quite worrisome, to say the least.
Let me quickly dispel two inter-related myths right quick:
America is no longer the land of opportunity & the notion of a sacrosanct market-economy that is self-perpetuating if left alone is intellectual sophistry (utter rubbish),
The facts relating to opportunity (taken from Understanding Mobility in America, a study by economist Tom Hertz from American University):
- Children from low-income families have only a 1 percent chance of reaching the top 5 percent of the income distribution, versus children of the rich who have about a 22 percent chance.
- Education, race, health and state of residence are four key channels by which economic status is transmitted from parent to child.
- African American children who are born in the bottom quartile are nearly twice as likely to remain there as adults than are white children whose parents had identical incomes, and are four times less likely to attain the top quartile.
- The difference in mobility for blacks and whites persists even after controlling for a host of parental background factors, children’s education and health, as well as whether the household was female-headed or receiving public assistance.
- After controlling for a host of parental background variables, upward mobility varied by region of origin, and is highest for those who grew up in the South Atlantic and East South Central regions, and lowest for those raised in the West South Central and Mountain regions.
- Education, race, health and state of residence are four key channels by which economic status is transmitted from parent to child.
- African American children who are born in the bottom quartile are nearly twice as likely to remain there as adults than are white children whose parents had identical incomes, and are four times less likely to attain the top quartile.
- The difference in mobility for blacks and whites persists even after controlling for a host of parental background factors, children’s education and health, as well as whether the household was female-headed or receiving public assistance.
- After controlling for a host of parental background variables, upward mobility varied by region of origin, and is highest for those who grew up in the South Atlantic and East South Central regions, and lowest for those raised in the West South Central and Mountain regions.
- By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of
inter-generational mobility: Our parents’ income is highly predictive of our incomes
as adults. Inter-generational mobility in the United States is lower than in France,Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Among high-income countries for which comparable est iimates are available, only the United Kingdom had a lower rate of mobility than the United States.
Disturbing stats (I encourage you to read the full report), yet folks are still waltzin' around as if all's well with the world, self-satisfied by their miniscule slice of cake & mini-fiefdoms. Their motto: Get yours! Material comforts have a strange way of rendering many to political impotence & anti-intellectualism.
As regards to the myth of the market & its magical powers of unregulated self-correction, you would have to be on drugs to believe that crap. If the market were self-correcting, the global banking system would have collapsed a long time ago. It's all a highly sophisticated form of manipulation & if anyone took the time to follow the money, one would find a cadre of stupendously wealthy pricks rigging the game in their favor. I highly recommend the following books for detoxification purposes (Step 1):
Let's get movin'!
OneLove
:::MME:::
