BELOW ARE FACTS, which are diametrically opposed to what ‘conservative’/Rep*blican prognosticators have been telling us for decades. As usual. This is from an article titled “Are We Going to Be the Flintstones or the Jetsons?” by the Daily Take from the Thom Hartmann Program (February 17, 2014).
“Back in 1966, Time magazine published an article that looked ahead toward the future, and discussed what the rises of technology and automation would mean for working-class Americans. From the time of George Washington until the presidency of Ronald Reagan, with a few blips for wars, as American workers became more productive, their wages went UP or their working hours went DOWN, or both.
Even though productivity has increased 400% since 1950, Americans are working, on average, just two hours per week less, and are paid the same or in many cases even less than they were paid in 1950.
If productivity is four times higher today than it was in the 1950’s, then Americans should be able to work just ten hours per week to afford the same 1950’s lifestyle when a family of four could get by on just one paycheck, own a home, own a car, put their kids through school, take a couple vacations a year, and retire comfortably.”
FEATURED IMAGE: The image at the top of this page is from The Jetsons, a cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera. Despite being one of the studio’s more clever creations, and the fondness with which it is remembered, it was not a success: it only lasted from September 23, 1962, to March 17, 1963.
Mystically liberal Virgo enjoys long walks alone in the city at night in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig who strives to live by the maxim, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that just ain’t so.
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a college dropout (twice!). Occupationally, I have been a bartender, jewelry engraver, bouncer, landscape artist, and FEMA crew chief following the Great Flood of ’72 (and that was a job that I should never, ever have left).
I am also the final author of the original O’Sullivan Woodside price guides for record collectors and the original author of the Goldmine price guides for record collectors. As such, I was often referred to as the Price Guide Guru, and—as everyone should know—it behooves one to heed the words of a guru. (Unless, of course, you’re the Beatles.)
