Do you think there could be a second Great Depression?

[Angus Forbes]

It's the first show of its kind to introduce racism, sexism, welfare, environmental issues, the political activism of the younger generations, guns, ageism, and on the list goes. And of course, back to the topic of this thread, getting by in a recession.

This brings me full circle -- the way that Lear addressed these issues was to dump the problems, largely, onto Archie, and therefore onto the working class man. But these were not situations controlled by the working-class man; rather, many have a long history grounded in hypertrophied self interest further up the food chain. Archie (and by extension the working man) was portrayed as an ignorant, angry bigot whose disappearance would solve the world's ills. I remember reading an interview with Carl (Rob?) Reiner (who played Meathead) where he said, as I recall, that he (Reiner) believed basically just this regarding the nature of the working-class man.

If you are interested in the origin of American racism, for example, read "The Mind of the South," by W. J. Cash, in order to understand how the little guy fit into all this historically (not to imply that the South is any more racist than the North). Too bad Lear didn't read it before creating Archie, although Archie was, I suppose, a New Yorker (New Jersey?).

 

[John in Covina]

Actually, it would be fairly easy to have a 2nd great depression. It 's all based on confidence, and when that fails we'll all be out of work.

The idea that institutions are too great to fail is like saying that God cannot sink the Titannic. Believe me He's up to the challenge.

The financial market remains a great chain that we all move along and when whole countries like Greece and Spain are dragging it down it is easy for the momentum to go the other way.

Our dollar is a promisary note that has no true backing and much like the stock market and our economy it loosely based on the optimisim of the country and those that invest in our economy to keep the float going. Here we only need a small series of downward trends to slip us into another milaise that will take a decade to recover from.

The true unemployment figure is never given so to bolster the enthusiasm of investers and the confidence of the people. We are in far worse shape than either side will admit for fear of driving things even lower.

Confidence is muted and the industrial core of this country is being atttacked by the EPA and by regulation meant to stifle and subjegate it. The Dept of Energy is how old now? it was formed to break our dependence on what? (Foreign Oil) Domestic drilling is being stymied at every turn and both the EPA & the DOE are used as a hammer to keep the oil companies in line. Here the politicos wield power to their benefit not ours.


If you go shopping for food what are the prices doing? Going up as the dollar is devalued. The pound of coffee can is down from 16oz to 11 now and the price is still creaping up. The half gallon of ice cream is 48 oz now. Tuna went from 7oz to 5 and the size of nearly everything gets smaller and smaller because a buck doesn't buy hardly anything anymore. Why? because the dollar is devalued as a course to allow the debt to be devalued.

Politicians know their jobs are secure because they consider themselve like the garbage man, no matter how bad the economy gets there is always the need for the garbage man. They will survive and prosper no matter what and since their jobs are to spend other peoples money on other people why should they care a fig?

 

[Angus Forbes]

Our economy depends on consumer borrowing. For a rational person, the willingness to borrow depends highly on job security. Job security is now a thing of the past for most of us. No willingness to borrow, no consumer economy. No consumer economy - kaplop!

 

[John in Covina]

Job security = confidence

 

[William Stratford]

Our economy depends on consumer borrowing. For a rational person, the willingness to borrow depends highly on job security. Job security is now a thing of the past for most of us. No willingness to borrow, no consumer economy. No consumer economy - kaplop!

Indeed. The modern economy is a consumer economy (which is why government is obsessed with GDP). We always have to spend ever more money in order to not slip into "recession", but this is potty because it also requires us to value something only until we get it....and then once it is ours we are then to discount its previous value and instead seek something new once more. Which probably explains the divorce rate....

I am increasingly considering then whether the economy SHOULD be allowed to collapse because it is built on faulty values....which, of course, puts a whole new light on the politicians running around trying to "save" the economy....

 

[LizzieMaine]

Archie (and by extension the working man) was portrayed as an ignorant, angry bigot whose disappearance would solve the world's ills. I remember reading an interview with Carl (Rob?) Reiner (who played Meathead) where he said, as I recall, that he (Reiner) believed basically just this regarding the nature of the working-class man.

And yet, as the series went on, more and more the Meathead was revealed as being a pretentious hypocrite -- while Archie was shown as a man capable of confronting and overcoming his prejudices due to his essential decency and common sense. A lot, lot more complexity there than could be seen at first glance.

 

[Feraud]

Didn't Meathead leave his wife and child?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep. Ran off with one of his students, leaving Gloria and the kid to fend for themselves. Archie was right all along.

 

[Feraud]

Archie may not have been the most eloquent but he had it where it counts.

 

[Angus Forbes]

I had forgotten all of this, or never knew it -- I must have given up watching the show by the time Meathead deserted his family. I am glad to hear that Archie was finally accorded some respect. Ah, the good old days of American TV . . .

 

[Angus Forbes]

Indeed. The modern economy is a consumer economy (which is why government is obsessed with GDP). We always have to spend ever more money in order to not slip into "recession", but this is potty because it also requires us to value something only until we get it....

Sounds like we may have a tiger by the tail.

 

[William Stratford]

Sounds like we may have a tiger by the tail.

Indeed. The only solution is to let it go, but if we do that it will maul us badly.

 

[Edward]

Limits vs Standards.

TV today has no limits or standards. AITF was full of standards, morals and lessons about life.

Jinkies, it must depend what you watch. The network tv i saw in the US was tamer than tame. I saw Rocky Horror in the NYC area on tv at eleven at night and it was censored to a laughable degree.

 

[Undertow]

Actually, it would be fairly easy to have a 2nd great depression. It 's all based on confidence, and when that fails we'll all be out of work.

The idea that institutions are too great to fail is like saying that God cannot sink the Titannic. Believe me He's up to the challenge.

The financial market remains a great chain that we all move along and when whole countries like Greece and Spain are dragging it down it is easy for the momentum to go the other way.

Our dollar is a promisary note that has no true backing and much like the stock market and our economy it loosely based on the optimisim of the country and those that invest in our economy to keep the float going. Here we only need a small series of downward trends to slip us into another milaise that will take a decade to recover from.

The true unemployment figure is never given so to bolster the enthusiasm of investers and the confidence of the people. We are in far worse shape than either side will admit for fear of driving things even lower.

Confidence is muted and the industrial core of this country is being atttacked by the EPA and by regulation meant to stifle and subjegate it. The Dept of Energy is how old now? it was formed to break our dependence on what? (Foreign Oil) Domestic drilling is being stymied at every turn and both the EPA & the DOE are used as a hammer to keep the oil companies in line. Here the politicos wield power to their benefit not ours.


If you go shopping for food what are the prices doing? Going up as the dollar is devalued. The pound of coffee can is down from 16oz to 11 now and the price is still creaping up. The half gallon of ice cream is 48 oz now. Tuna went from 7oz to 5 and the size of nearly everything gets smaller and smaller because a buck doesn't buy hardly anything anymore. Why? because the dollar is devalued as a course to allow the debt to be devalued.

Politicians know their jobs are secure because they consider themselve like the garbage man, no matter how bad the economy gets there is always the need for the garbage man. They will survive and prosper no matter what and since their jobs are to spend other peoples money on other people why should they care a fig?

Good Lord! I think this is the first on-topic post we've had since post 200! lol Thanks for your input, John!

 

[Undertow]

Ha, that sounds like my family get togethers.
I can remember my wife being intimidated when she first met my family. What she thought was screaming and fighting was (for better or worse) how the family communicated.

My paternal grandparents were very Bunker like. One difference being my grandmother was no Edith. She was as loud and crass as grandpa! My dad inherited a good part of that persona. Some might say I did too..[huh]

Oh my, yes. This is how my family communicates, too. And the same thing happened with my poor lady. After walking in the door to our blunt sense of humor, and after about 15 minutes peeling potatoes with my sister and I, she started crying and left the room.

It took a little explaining. lol

 

[Undertow]

I really liked this article, too.

My family is blue-collar working class through and through for as many generations as I've ever known. I don't know where I land in that scheme, but I'd like to think I've reached a little higher. I have a college degree and a corporate job (albeit a wage-slave corporate job at an hourly rate) but the family is proud so that's all that matters to me!

Regarding the reference to AITF, I don't think it was the author's intent to make a value judgement on the program, so much as it was just to point out that it was an example of working class portrayed in media.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The insight that I took from the article was that the middle class has a lot it can learn from working-class folk -- that "preening about your job and your school" are far less meaningful in the long run than working-class community values, the whole "we look out for each other" ethos that seems to be utterly lost the higher you go on the socioeconomic scale. Middle-class folk, encapsulated in their blister-pack suburbs and their corporate/academic/materialistic hierarchies, seem to have left such ways behind -- but when the crash comes, those are the values that will matter.

Of course, I had to laugh out loud when he said, with a straight face, that "thrift" is a middle-class virtue. Tell it to the bankers.

 

[Angus Forbes]

The insight that I took from the article was that the middle class has a lot it can learn from working-class folk -- that "preening about your job and your school" are far less meaningful in the long run than working-class community values, the whole "we look out for each other" ethos that seems to be utterly lost the higher you go on the socioeconomic scale. Middle-class folk, encapsulated in their blister-pack suburbs and their corporate/academic hierarchies, seem to have left such ways behind -- but when the crash comes, those are the values that will matter.

You are exactly right. This is how my family got through the Great Depression -- uncles and cousins took care of cousins and uncles, kids helped grandparents, grandparents helped kids, and so on.

 

[sheeplady]

The insight that I took from the article was that the middle class has a lot it can learn from working-class folk -- that "preening about your job and your school" are far less meaningful in the long run than working-class community values, the whole "we look out for each other" ethos that seems to be utterly lost the higher you go on the socioeconomic scale. Middle-class folk, encapsulated in their blister-pack suburbs and their corporate/academic hierarchies, seem to have left such ways behind -- but when the crash comes, those are the values that will matter.

The problem is that we don't have much of a working class left anymore in my part of the U.S. We have the impoverished and we have the lower class, but working-class is a totally different section of society (filled with people who traditionally work blue-collar jobs and a few service-type occupations.) Most blue collar jobs are gone, and what we have is service economy jobs and public assistance. These jobs have a totally different culture to them- they are much more transient, pay less, and are very hard to have a career in. You could have a career as a semi-skilled or skilled factory worker. Or even as a good maid or nanny. Making a career as a telemarketer or a McDonald's clerk is not nearly as easy, and we don't even view these jobs as being a career the same way we would culturally view an auto worker, for instance. I think that view of what is a career is very important in impacting the culture that develops around these jobs.

Although, I have to say, I think everybody could learn something from the people I've met who live in public housing. They have the best sense of community I've ever seen, with most everyone being in one big family. It spans generations, racial differences, and backgrounds. It's really admirable. Beats the small village I grew up near by a long shot. That's saying something considering most people in the village were actually related by blood.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The problem is that we don't have much of a working class left anymore in my part of the U.S. We have the impoverished and we have the lower class, but working-class is a totally different section of society (filled with people who traditionally work blue-collar jobs and a few service-type occupations.) Most blue collar jobs are gone, and what we have is service economy jobs and public assistance. These jobs have a totally different culture to them- they are much more transient, pay less, and are very hard to have a career in. You could have a career as a semi-skilled or skilled factory worker. Or even as a good maid or nanny. Making a career as a telemarketer or a McDonald's clerk is not nearly as easy, and we don't even view these jobs as being a career the same way we would culturally view an auto worker, for instance. I think that view of what is a career is very important in impacting the culture that develops around these jobs.

Oh, I fully agree. But I'll submit that the working class didn't die a natural death in this country. It was taken out and shot in the back of the head in the 1980s and 1990s. And it was the upper-middle class that held the gun.