Apologies for the long absence -- have been travelling, a lot. Some personal observations after nearly a week in Washington DC and New York. Plus a wonderful book & movie recs.
Great piece. I moved to California from the UK in 1993 and your observations are spot-on. As a recent blog headline read, we are now in the 44th year of the Reagan era, and the wealth gap gets wider every year. Back in ‘93 it didn’t seem anywhere near as bad.
Yes, the middle class is slowly being eroded away. College tuition can be absurdly expensive (although some places, such as the University of California, are still within reach of the middle class); health care is absurdly expensive, and elderly care is eye-watering. A local nursing home charges a quarter of a million dollars per year per resident and is full.
Other random comments:
- In Manhattan, the affluence of the neighborhood is inversely proportional to the smell of weed on the street.
- We can only hope that trump has frightened so many women that they vote in Harris.
thank you very much for your report and your observations. Very, very interesting again!
(I have had it translated for my family - DeepL).
But I have to disagree with you on one point. Or maybe I didn't understand you correctly?
You write: “Here in Europe, I get frustrated with socialism in action, as I see it rewarding people for not doing things, for not working, for not trying harder, for having more children than they can feed.”
Do you mean unemployed people with “not working”?
In my opinion, unemployment benefit is a hard-fought legal entitlement from the times when capitalism was gaining strength.
“In July 1927, the Reichstag passed the law on the introduction of state unemployment insurance by an overwhelming majority. The compulsory insurance was to replace the unemployment benefits provided by the municipalities. For the first time, blue- and white-collar workers had a legal right to unemployment benefits, ...” from: https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/weimarer-republik/innenpolitik/arbeitslosenversicherung-1927
And having more children than you can feed has nothing to do with socialism either. Look at Africa & India.
Not everything that is not “hard core capitalism” equals socialism ;-)
But apart from that, I can understand your thoughts and feelings very well. Thank you very much for the time and effort you have given to us.
Great piece. I moved to California from the UK in 1993 and your observations are spot-on. As a recent blog headline read, we are now in the 44th year of the Reagan era, and the wealth gap gets wider every year. Back in ‘93 it didn’t seem anywhere near as bad.
Yes, the middle class is slowly being eroded away. College tuition can be absurdly expensive (although some places, such as the University of California, are still within reach of the middle class); health care is absurdly expensive, and elderly care is eye-watering. A local nursing home charges a quarter of a million dollars per year per resident and is full.
Other random comments:
- In Manhattan, the affluence of the neighborhood is inversely proportional to the smell of weed on the street.
- We can only hope that trump has frightened so many women that they vote in Harris.
Dear Tanja!
thank you very much for your report and your observations. Very, very interesting again!
(I have had it translated for my family - DeepL).
But I have to disagree with you on one point. Or maybe I didn't understand you correctly?
You write: “Here in Europe, I get frustrated with socialism in action, as I see it rewarding people for not doing things, for not working, for not trying harder, for having more children than they can feed.”
Do you mean unemployed people with “not working”?
In my opinion, unemployment benefit is a hard-fought legal entitlement from the times when capitalism was gaining strength.
“In July 1927, the Reichstag passed the law on the introduction of state unemployment insurance by an overwhelming majority. The compulsory insurance was to replace the unemployment benefits provided by the municipalities. For the first time, blue- and white-collar workers had a legal right to unemployment benefits, ...” from: https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/weimarer-republik/innenpolitik/arbeitslosenversicherung-1927
And having more children than you can feed has nothing to do with socialism either. Look at Africa & India.
Not everything that is not “hard core capitalism” equals socialism ;-)
But apart from that, I can understand your thoughts and feelings very well. Thank you very much for the time and effort you have given to us.
LG Regina
P.S. We'll go to see the movie :-)