What Happened To The Future?

Americans have always had faith in the future, that it would be better than the present, and way better than the past.   That's been the foundation for generations of Americans who believed that if they worked hard and focused on a goal, they could improve their lot in life as well as secure their children's future.  This notion has been used as a way to distinguish America from "those other countries" where economic mobility was difficult, if not impossible, to improve.

Apparently, that's not actually the case, and it's questionable if it ever was.  As recently reported on Marketplace, according to research conducted by Pew's Economic Mobility Project:

(the project) has calculated that about 60 percent of Americans whose fathers’ incomes were in the top fifth, stay in the top two-fifths themselves. And the same is true at the bottom. About 65 percent of those from the bottom fifth don't make it past the bottom two-fifths by the time they're adults.

What's this mean?  It means that your economic future looks pretty much the same as your father's was.   Whether you started at the bottom or the top of the economic ladder, you'll probably stay there.  

What could be worse than that?  Another researcher has compared the economic mobility, the ability to change your economic status, of Americans and citizens of other developed countries.  Guess what?   Our belief that we're better off than others in our ability to move up the ladder is unfounded as well

Miles Corak is an economist at the University of Ottawa. He's compared the U.S. to other rich countries, and found that Americans have less mobility across generations than Canada, Australia, and most of Europe.

I find this research very disturbing, both from the standpoint that our children seem to be trapped in whatever economic rung of the ladder that their parents occupy (of course, it's not so much "trapped" if you're nearer the top rung), as well as the realization that the United States, land of opportunity, offers less economic opportunity than most of Europe.

Has our "future" changed or was it an illusion all along?

World's First Blonde Guy Joke?

A friend passed this one to me recently.   I got a good laugh from it!

    The very first ever Blonde GUY joke..... And well worth the wait !!!!

    An Irishman, a Mexican and a Blonde Guy were doing construction work on scaffolding on the 20th floor of a building.

    They were eating lunch and the Irishman said,"Corned beef and cabbage! If I get corned beef and cabbage one more time for lunch, I'm going to jump off this building."

    The Mexican opened his lunch box and exclaimed,"Burritos again! If I get Burritos one more time I'm going to jump off, too."

    The blonde opened his lunch and said, "Bologna again! If I get a bologna sandwich one more time, I'm jumping too."

    The next day, the Irishman opened his lunch box, saw corned beef and cabbage, and jumped to his death.

    The Mexican opened his lunch, saw a Burrito, and jumped, too.

    The blonde guy opened his lunch, saw the bologna and jumped to his death as well.

    At the funeral, the Irishman's wife was weeping.She said, "If I'd known how really tired he was of corned beef and cabbage, I never would have given it to him again!"

    The Mexican's wife also wept and said, "I could have given him tacos or enchiladas ! I didn't realize he hated Burritos so much."

    Everyone turned and stared at the blonde's wife. The blonde's wife said,

    "Don't look at me. He makes his own lunch"

   

MYOB Facebook

I'm a Facebook (FB) user, and have found it's a terrific way to keep in touch with friends and family.   Many people I worked with before retirement are on FB and since I no longer see them in person, it's nice to hear what they're up to these days.   For family and extended family, it's an easy way to keep in touch, share photos and videos, and see what's going on.

A lot of people also use a variety of FB apps, like games, quizzes, birthday reminders, and such.   The calendar apps remind you of friend's birthdays (which FB does automatically anyway) and enable you to send FB greeting cards.   I don't really know what the games give you, but apparently a lot of people spend a ton of time playing them. 

My disinterest in these apps is based on two concerns: 1) using them seems to be another way to suck up hours and hours of time, even more than basic FB use consumes, and 2) virtually all FB apps demand access to my personal data (essentially anything I've told FB, like religious preference, likes, dislikes, you name it).   I share information with friends and family, but I have no interest in sharing much of anything with companies doing business on FB.   The bottom line is that the companies want this information in order to monetize it; to collect data to sell it to someone else who wants to make money with it.

I get bombarded with marketing efforts as it is, via email, snail mail, and those infernal phone calls, so I have no interest in facilitating some marketing types to target their efforts on me even more precisely.   That's why I don't play FB games or use all those apps my friends periodically invite me to join.   FB doesn't offer an option to say "No thanks" with those apps, just  "Goto App" or "Cancel."   

I'm not ignoring anyone, I just would rather not fork over my personal data to some app developer.  Here's more about what sorts of data FB apps collect.

Follow The Money Again

So United Airlines has decided to do away with "family boarding" before regular boarding begins.   This has been used in order to get families with young kids onto a flight before everyone else, so that aisles are less clogged up and families can easily sit together.

Why on earth would United pursue such a change?   There must be money involved.   Oh right, if they ditch family boarding, they can sell families seats together for an extra charge.  Or simply tell families they have to upgrade from Coach.  For more money.

Nice consumer-friendly, customer service, United.   It's getting harder to decide which airline is worse, lately.