646
'We are essentially in a new Gilded Age’: As workers get laid off, CEOs and shareholders gobble up hundreds of billions in profits (fortune.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
48 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 24 points 2 years ago (2 children)

You're completely wrong about the idea that people who were poor in the 1970s were worse off than people today.

Hunter Thompson's book, "Hell's Angels" has a chapter on the economics of being a biker/hippie/artist circa 1972. A biker could work for six months as a Union stevedore and earn enough to hit the road for two years. A part time waitress could earn enough to support herself and her musician boyfriend. A kid who graduated high school and got a minimum wage job could rent a one bedroom apartment and party and still put money in the bank.

And don't say that today's tech is much better unless you can prove that real wages dropping resulted in the creation of the internet.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    stevedore

    noun.
    a person employed, or a contractor engaged, at a dock to load and unload cargo from ships.
    (Definitions from Oxford Languages)

    Edit: Reformatted for readability ease.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Add two spaces before a line break to preserve said line break after markdown formatting.

    Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
    noun
    a person employed, or a contractor engaged, at a dock to load and unload cargo from ships.

    > Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more  
> noun  
> a person employed, or a contractor engaged, at a dock to load and unload cargo from ships.
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Appreciate the advice, but I was aware of it. I was just in a hurry though, so I did a quick copy and paste and moved on. Figured the information would be conveyed well enough as is.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Fair enough.

    Personally the "learn more noun" bit tripped me up for a moment, so I thought to mention after figuring it out. The information is appreciated regardless.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    Yeah, I was just doing a community service after having done the lookup for myself, so I figured anyone with any reasonable mindset would forgive me for it not being formatted perfectly, considering it's still very readable.

    The information is appreciated regardless.

    You're welcome. It was a easy 'low-hanging fruit' way of making Lemmy a little bit better for all.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    But would you consider that poor then? Maybe money was easier to obtain, but starvation/malnutrition rates have constantly been on a steady decline until the last few years. Not often you see people using a burlap sack to cloth their families, child labor, things like that. And we do have a lot of social programs like SNAP that didnt exist pre-1970s.1980s had the Homeless act. The world has changed drastically in the last 50-100 years.

    But I guess you could make solid arguments that the economy is generally harder now, so its worse for the majority, incuding the poor.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Not often you see people using a burlap sack to cloth their families, child labor, things like that. And we do have a lot of social programs like SNAP that didnt exist pre-1970s

    Burlap sacks and child labor were prevalent in the 1930's Depression.

    Johnson's War On Poverty began in 1964

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_poverty

    Homelessness became rife in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan slashed spending. He'd done the same thing as California governor and should have known what would happen when he took his act national.

    https://www.sfweekly.com/archives/the-great-eliminator-how-ronald-reagan-made-homelessness-permanent/article_92c9b2ac-e881-502a-ae9d-5266cac03404.html

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    So, we have been progessing over time, until recently, correct?

    Now lets bring being poor as a different demographic than white male in history as well.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •