[codingrightnow]

The American dream is dead and none of our politicians on the right and not enough on the left are talking about it. The American dream isn't to get filthy rich by providing an innovative product or solution and gobbling up an astronomical percentage of monetary resources. The dream is to come out of college with easy to repay debt or work a trade with a good union, be able to buy a home after a few years of saving, start a family, not go deep into credit card debt just to survive, and retire on time. None of that is feasible anymore and will not without major changes. Trump may think he's bringing that back with his tariffs but it's not a one fix problem. Many things need to be addressed that we are not willing to talk about.

[BosStartup]

One of the major problems is the income inequality between the lower half and the upper 10%. Tariffs in theory will bring manufacturing back to the US, but only by increasing the cost of those goods. As such the average person can consume less goods. Hopefully well paying jobs balances that out a bit.

One measure is the ratio of CEO compensation to the average employee in the same firm. That ratio was 21 in 1965, today it is 290. Imagine the average worker making 13x what they make today. The late stage capitalism of capital accumulating at the top is accelerating.

[parineum]

Then again, those same people have much more purchasing power and better lives thanks to, checks notes, capitalism.

[estimator7292]

Are you sure about that?

[Spivak]

Well the falsifiable part of his statement is at least true, median real wages are up in the US. Americans are wealthier than we have been since at least 1980. Especially women, as a group our real wages are basically a straight line up. Some confounding factors there obviously but still. As for whether you can attribute the growth to Capitalism specifically, *shrugs*.

[acdha]

It’s a bit more complicated:

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/comparing-the-costs-...

Basically some things have gotten cheaper – TVs, gas, etc. – but things like inflation-adjusted housing or college prices have increased so much that people affected by them have a very different experience. This is a constant refrain many people I know who are under ~50 or so have where older relatives simply don’t understand that, say, they could go to UCLA with a part-time summer job because prior to Saint Ronnie that meant book and lab fees, and at first tuition was an order of magnitude lower (adjusted for inflation).

That creates enormously different beliefs because someone who bought a house in 1982 and has been rolling equity forward ever since has no idea what the subjective experience is like for their kids who graduated with heavy debt service and rents 50% higher.