Barton Swaim's Message To Twitter Users: "Delete Your Account"

It now appears WSJ columnist Barton Swaim has some savvy advice for social media junkies, specifically to do with Twitter:

For Sanity's Sake, Delete Your Account - WSJ

https://www.wsj.com › Opinion › Commentary

He writes:

"One Saturday morning last fall, I sat down at my desk and deleted my Twitter account.I did it for a variety of reasons. Privacy, for one: The thought of people unknown to me prowling around my account made me uneasy. It was also a distraction. Most Twitter regulars will confess to wasting hours following the idiotic spats and tirades for which the medium has become famous."

Swaim adds (ibid.):-

"If you follow more than a small number of accounts, you're likely to find, in addition to some fine wit and the occasional useful link, an immense quantity of material that's by turns obtuse, absurd, mean and mendacious."



Adding:

"You'll look further into the exchanges in which they occur, and after a short time you will have considered a vast arrays of vicious, defamatory and inane utterances."

Most enlightening:

"Complaints that too many people are publishing their ill-formed thoughts are not new. In 1802 the Scottish critic Francis Jeffrey groused in the Edinburgh Review that ' hairdressers, and valets write amatory verses; coffehouse waiters publish political pamphlets; and shoemakers and tailors astonish the world with plans for reforming the constitution'.  That sounds hopelessly elitist  in our egalitarian era but Twitter is the ludicrous conclusion of the propensity Jeffrey lamented."

No surprise here. As I pointed out  in an earlier post (Nov. 23,  2017) Twitter is essentially a cartoon language medium by which I mean its 140 character limit basically excludes any potential for complex thought and most facts.  Or, I might add, any basis for proper explication of what one is communicating.  One is basically reduced to the equivalent of a series of language cartoons.  This also hearkens back to the medium used  constituting the basis of the message, as Marshall McLuhan first pointed out in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. 

Recall one of Trump's most inane, half baked early tweets from 2017  (concerning U.S. nuclear policy) and you see everything wrong with this superficial  medium:

"We need to strengthen and expand nuclear capacity until the world comes to its sense regarding nukes."

What the hell was he yapping about? Expand nuclear capacity? Was he nuts, ignorant or just stupid? As a number of strategic analysts pointed out, including staff from The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the U.S. already has just under 5,000 nuclear warheads in its active arsenal and more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. This is more than enough to turn the world to ash about six times over.
Meanwhile the clueless media, especially on TV, kept showing the tweet on large HD screens in bold relief, as they scratched their heads, openly wondering what the hell he meant.

Thus, no surprise the Trump team itself was scurrying to impose some semblance of meaning on the word jumble expelled.  In fact, as a Denver Post release a day later noted, the "Trump team offered only slightly more explanation of the comment later in the day when communications director Jason Miller said Trump was 'referring to the threat of nuclear proliferation and the critical need to prevent it'"

Let's be clear  that no sane person ought to be propounding nuclear policy via a cartoon language medium. The very choice to do so indicates that person lacks all his marbles. I would add that any person who defends such use also must be questioned as to his "lost marbles".

Besides, any medium which allows instantaneous reaction or instant aggression should be prohibited from being used by a president or national security officer to interject or propose nuclear policy or security issues. It can't be otherwise.   The nature of the medium is to cater to impatience and instant brain farts, baseless opinions- often from the minimally educated.  Why? Because it's simply too easy to spout off!   Contrast that with preparing something like a blog post for which at least some semblance of work, effort must be invested.

While it is true blog posts can also be polarizing, because inevitably many will take issue - at least they provide a space and time-extended forum to make coherent points and arguments to support a position. Comments, thoughtful and well reasoned, are also enabled - up to well over 1,000 characters - and provided that certain attributes are met.  Something a 140-280 character tweet simply can't do. Thus, a tweet is more like an infant's scream by comparison. Succinct, loud, abrasive and in your face, or  assaulting your ears. No wonder then tweets have converted so many into brash, over-sized toddlers with anger issues..

Does one really need an I.Q. higher than a hamster's to grasp that tweets  (and most Instagram  texts) are an inappropriate medium for communication, far less making nuclear policy or other national policy.  Must it really be spelled out for Trump and the media that often grovels for attention by posting his every brainless expulsion.?

This is one reason I never seriously considered ever using Twitter and never will.  I don't care if I'm only 1 of a million or even a billion or dismissed as "out of touch" . Popularity of a thing has never been cause to jump on the bandwagon of the moment. Whether that be the 'ice bucket challenge' or the endless posting of daft kitty -punching - doggy YouTube videos.   Oh, that goes for "selfie sticks" too - since I believe the whole concept of selfies is narcissistic and foolish. (Why I was elated on learning Prince Harry chastised an Aussie girl about her wanting to take a selfie with him, advising her to "stick to normal photos,  selfies you don't need!")

But that's the problem today, because too many simply give in to the latest craze,  putting their brains on ice and acting in "monkey see, monkey do" fashion. For example, trying to emulate  characters in the Netflix movie "Bird Box"  - walking with blindfolds on as they crash into walls and barriers- even holding their blindfolded toddlers' hands as they collide too.

Everyone wants to be "on the cutting edge" of the latest tech advance and so barely give a thought to the volume of electronic waste left in their pathetic wake. Or how addictive social media devices are destroying their intellects, engendering millions of tons of brain waste.

Then there is all the mental and emotional  bandwidth waste that sucks up terabytes as people spew forth on any and everything - from the size of a model's lips, to a political speech, to the new Miss America "not looking like a real American",  to the latest crazed buffoonery from Dotard.

Tweets may be cutesy modes of communication for the Millennials and many others but they don't make the cut as genuine writing -  any more than an ape's random paint splashes on a canvas "creates"  a passable work of abstract art.

As for Mr. Swaim, I leave his next to last paragraph  with  readers:

"The instantaneous awareness of so much folly is not, I think, healthy for the human mind. Spending time on Twitter became for me, a deeply demoralizing experience. Often especially when some controversy of national importance provoked large numbers of users into tweeting their opinions about it.  I would come away from Twitter exasperated to the point of madness."

More  reasons for others to also come away from the "madness" and delete their Twitter accounts.  Such a move, while it might seem drastic, is more probably beneficial.  It will clearly  make more room for genuine intellectual participation -  such as reading actual books-   instead  of  polluting one's own mind with gigabytes of bollocks and noise.

See also:

Your Smartphone Can Reduce Your Brainpower, Even If It's Just …

And:

Smartphone addiction creates imbalance in brain, study suggests …

And:

Brane Space: Newsflash! Your Kids ARE Digital Zombies!

And:

Science & Technology

Worried About Robots? Just Become One

2/3 Of Americans Yearn For The Political Middle - A Case Of Moral Cowardice?

Find a 'middle' with this asshole and his cult followers? Get real!

"The only things in the middle of the road are dead skunks and yellow lines."  - Progressive columnist Jim Hightower

In the interest of full disclosure let me come right out and admit I have no use or tolerance for the American political "middle". Hence, see no remote purpose in complying with the oft heard plaintive plea (from clueless pundits) that  we need to somehow find civility and "meet in the middle".  Why? As Tafari Jones writes in his TIME essay ('The Myth of the Moral Middle',  November 5, p. 56):

"I find myself annoyed by the hand wringing about how we need to find common ground. People ask how we might 'meet in the middle' as though this represents a safe, neutral and civilized space.  But this American fetishization of the moral middle is a misguided and dangerous cultural impulse. 

The middle is a point equidistant from two poles. That's it. There is nothing inherently virtuous about being neither here nor there.  Buried in this is a false equivalency of ideas, what you might call the 'good people on both sides' phenomenon. But when we revisit our shameful past ask yourself, 'where was the middle?"

He has a salient point and there are numerous examples. For example, when Native Americans were being wiped out by the U.S. Cavalry in the 1870s- 80s and their tribal lands seized where was the "middle"?  Was it to kill all the braves and leave the women and children? Was it to make fake treaties to grab Indian lands - and then ship the victims (like Geronimo and the Apache) off to reservations where they withered and died- but not kill them?

What about slavery? Where was the middle there?  If we reject the basest extremes of chattel slavery, i.e. as portrayed in '12 Years A Slave' - where if Massah wanted some entertainment he'd use some excuse to take out his whip and flog one or more of the slaves while banjo music played- where was the middle?   Would it have been a softer 'indentured servitude' - which actually ensued during Reconstruction when "freed" slaves were allowed to remain on plantations and work the land- but only for a pittance-  and it was never enough to be truly free, and own the land?

In terms of Dotard's immigration policy, where is the middle? Is it only to separate migrant families but not to cage the  toddlers or infants?

Transferring the concept of the threat of  'the other'  to Nazi Germany, where was the middle? Was it to inter the Jews by the millions in the concentration camps - but not to gas them in the Holocaust?

In the end, the embrace of the middle is the position of the moral coward. Or as Jones puts it (p.57):

"The search for the middle is rooted in conflict avoidance and denial."

Going on to note that for too many Americans it is "painful" to accept there are actually racist and sexist knuckle draggers, homophobes and xenophobes in our midst.   Hence:

"Perhaps there is some way to look at this, some view from the middle - that would allow to communicate and realize a national identity is the tie that will bind us comfortably.. ."

Which is arrant twaddle because it suggests that "the fact we can't all get along is more significant than the issues over which we are sparring".  Thus, it will never ever come to being that I will "get along" with a climate denier because our views are 180 degrees opposite, and I believe the climate issue is one of national emergency, hell, global emergency..   I will also never get along with a racist, a white nationalist or Trumpie. No, I can't say I hate them like vermin rats- like wifey does -  but let's say I deplore them intensely.   There ain't no way I'd invite any of them to the Thanksgiving table.

All this is relevant after a recent NY Times op-ed in which we learn millions of Americans in the middle are now "tired of politics" - especially after the tumult of the midterms, and are tuning out.  We learn, for example:

"Most  Americans do not see their lives through a political lens, and when they have political views the views are far less rigid than those of the highly politically engaged, ideologically orthodox tribes."

This confirms what I've always suspected about the middle: they are simply not as well informed precisely because they are non-ideological and hence less politically engaged. Hence, they typify the kind of voter who'd cast a ballot for a presidential candidate  he "could have a beer with".  In other words, the bottom basement sort of decision framework.

Rather than being "rigid" the ideological, non-Middle voter has an orientation and vision.    It is ideology that gives one’s world and perceptions context and color. If you lack an ideology, as an old logic teacher once put it to me, then you will find yourself cast adrift and swayed by any and every meme, blabber or blowhard that might try to influence you. Of course, one always checks his ideology against reality, this is important! But one needs a central POV to make any sense of the world. This is  precisely the quality that those embracing the middle lack.

Anyway, the Times' piece cites a  study by a nonpartisan organization, More in Common,  that paints a picture of a society that is far more disengaged — and despairing over divisions — than it is divided.  The study itself was ostensibly conducted in an effort to understand the forces that drive political polarization, and surveyed a representative group of 8,000 Americans.

Of course, no formal study was needed to grasp the forces driving polarization and division, only common sense and logic.  Thus, if you believe babies from immigrants need to be grabbed and caged while I do not, then we instantly  have opposition - hence, division. There is no amount of modulation that will dilute or remove it.   Spread it over a large enough population - with separate segments holding these opposite views - and we have "polarization".  But that is a GOOD thing because: a) we don't want every manjack in the country believing infants ought to be caged and separated, and b) it isn't morally right - and can never be!

This also applies to a host of other "divisive' issues from climate change, to taxes, to voter suppression (such as recently happened to Stacy Abrams' voters in GA) and the nonsense claim of "voter fraud" by the Right. . In other words, there must be division and yes, polarization,  if a pronounced segment of the population embraces regressive  policies and comes into political power- Then it must be checked, lest that power metastasize, and we get an authoritarian state where the Constitution becomes just a piece of paper.. Similar to what happened in Germany in the 1930s  when all the "good Germans" grew dumb and numb as the Nazis took control over their nation.

Then, predictably, we read in the Times' piece:

"At its heart is a vast and often overlooked political middle that feels forgotten in the vitriol, as if the country has gone on without it. It calls that group the Exhausted Majority, a group that represented two-thirds of the survey".

But these poor little exhausted folks seem to forget - or never processed- that political combat in the present circumstances is needed. Is "vitriol" necessary? Perhaps not, but let's say that it currently goes with the territory given how Dotard Trump is setting the direction and odious example for much of  it.  And as I've written before, so long as he's around and his lying, outrageous comments - and actions- are evident,  there will be hostile reaction from many of us and that will indeed become vitriolic on occasion.  Hey look, at least I don't depict Trump hanging by his orange neck in all my posts attacking him.   The article then quotes a 36-year-old home health care worker in Topeka, Kan., (Jamie McDaniel)  one of several people in the study  who was interviewed for this article:

“It feels very lonely out here,  Everybody is so right or left, and you’re just kind of standing there in the middle saying, “What happened?’”

What happened, in case you missed it, is that a Russian stooge traitor took over this country in the 2016 mis-election, and is driving this nation toward destruction with his violation of the Constitution and embrace of authoritarianism.  Now, we could all make nicey- nicey and sing kumbaya - but then we'd be like the good Germans who allowed the Nazis and Hitler to take over Germany. This we cannot allow, so we fight against the minority faction in our midst and their dictator -Fuhrer,   Herr Trump, aka Drumpf.   If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem. Deal with it but don't stand there scratching your butt wondering 'what happened?' - that only confirms my belief of cluelessnness and ignorance.

McDaniel, sad to say, embodies the problem with too many Americans, as I've often observed:   that they are unpracticed and untutored in deep politics .  This is why so many adhere to the "middle" or what author Curtis White once called  "the Middle Mind". The 'Middle Mind' is a safe mental space where all the old verities are true. These are the tropes trotted out endlessly by our shameful politicos and news media to manipulate our consciousness, i.e.. we inhabit  the "land of the free" - never mind we have more people incarcerated than all the other nations together.  And we are the "land of opportunity"  never mind upward mobility has fallen steadily the past 3 decades leading to unbelievable levels of inequality."

Meanwhile, the media white washers seek to enshrine in the American people the political and historical memory of gnats. This is why politicos can play them over and over again, and why the targets never advance their insights as to what is happening to them and why. It is also why author Gore Vidal once referred to our nation as the "United States of Amnesia".   This is now evident in the "More in common" survey which conceivably could see more than half of Americans checking out for the crucial 2020 election - where we have the chance to finally ditch Trump in a legal fashion.  As 'Last Week Tonight' host John Oliver put it last night in reference to Trump and authoritarianism:

"The world is dabbling with something very dangerous right now, and America needs to be careful. Look, I know democracy can be often by design frustrating.  Checks and balances can be irritating and slow...but removing them opens the door to something much worse."

As for Tafari Jones, for him - as well as me - the choice is stark and never clearer:

Is the search for a misplaced "national unity" more important than our core values and  principles?   I.e. "is it more important we understand the motives of white nationalists or that we prevent them from terrorizing communities?"

At least for the people directly affected by the terror of white nationalists there is the sober recognition of no safety found in the "in between".  The rest of us need to grasp that too. 

See also:

Trump and American Authoritarianism

Social Investment Stipend or UBI - One of Them Is Needed In The Age of AI

In his recent major article in the WSJ Review section by  Kai-Fu Lee:
The Human Promise of the AI Revolution - WSJ

We are informed that :

"Recent history has shown us just how fragile out political institutions and social fabric can be in the face of disruptive change.  If we allow AI economics to run their natural course, the geopolitical tumult of recent years will look like child's play"

He is referring here to the rise of reactionary, authoritative governments - not only here in the U.S. with the Trumpite Cabal, but in Hungary, Poland, and Italy as well as Germany.  For sure, no one in his or her right mind wants to see the ascendance of powerful and aggressive fascist dictators a la Mussolini and Hitler.   But as Jay Bookman aptly noted('The New World Disorder Evident Here, Abroad', in The Baltimore Sun, December 15, 1997):

"The global economy has been constructed on the premise that government guarantees of security and protection must be avoided at all costs, because they discourage personal initiative. In times of crisis, however, that premise cannot be sustained politically. In times of trouble it is human nature to seek security and protection and to be drawn toward those who promise to provide it. That is how men such as Adolf Hitler, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin came to power, with disastrous consequences."

Those are tough words to process but they are invaluable as a lesson in not forgetting the past, or how certain catastrophes arose.  Lee and other authors, most notably Andrew Yang in his book 'The War On Normal People' make that case cogently and that the rise of AI in human job displacement would well and truly mark catastrophe . Or it might mark promise, if we get our economic heads screwed on straight.

Regarding the approaching  economic cataclysm, Lee writes (ibid.):

"In the coming years people will watch as algorithms and robots easily outmaneuver them at tasks they've spent a lifetime mastering. I fear that this will lead to a crushing feeling of futility and obsolescence. At worst, it will lead people to question their own worth and what it means to be human."

Lee is referring to the fact too many people, especially Americans - but also likely many Germans- see our personal worth tied to the pursuit of money and success. This is how a capitalist, consumption society has programmed us and admittedly it is difficult to break that programming.

Lee's thesis in effect, comports very much with Yang's and we already know the major inroads AI is making to displace humans even now.  Barely a year ago, for example, I cited a WSJ  report ('Firms Leave The Bean Counting To The Robots')  warning that AI -based robots would soon be taking over CFO and accounting work across the land. That would essentially displace all those humans currently holding such jobs and likely pulling down big bucks in salary.  The article noted:

"One of Statoil ASA's newest employees, Roberta, spends her days in the energy firm's treasury department searching for missing payment information and sending out reminders.  Her boss, Tor Stian Kjoolesdal, said  Roberta's heavy orkload would improve overall efficiency in the group."

We then learned "Roberta doesn't have a last name, a face or arms. She is the first piece of robotic software to work in the Norwegian company's treasury department - part of Statoil's push to automation, robotics and artificial intelligence."

The piece went on to note that finance execs at Nokia Corp., Royal Dutch Shell and Orange SA were developing their own Robertas. Also:

"Two thirds of large global companies  expect to automate some or all of their finance department tasks over the next two or three years, according to new research by Hackett Group Inc. Hacket's report is based on benchmark and performance studies at hundreds of  large global companies."

The reason offered for the changes  in the WSJ piece was straightforward , direct:
"The new technologies are designed to cut costs, liberate workers from time consuming repetitive tasks and - in many cases - reduce finance and treasury department employee numbers."

I cited Jim Hightower  in the same blog post, who provided more inisght:

"With corporations socking away massive profits and the labor market still tight why are worker's wages stuck at miserly levels? One big reason is that corporate boards and CEOs have their heads stuck in a dreamy future. Nearly every economic sector is spending vast sums of money on workers p just not on human workers.

While few Americans are aware of it, bosses are investing in hordes of sophisticated autonomous robots powered by a cognitive technology called artificial intelligence. Instead of paying a decent wage to you, corporations are buying millions of these cheap, human-esque thinking machines in order to take a shocking number of jobs away - well, from you!"

So at the very least we can agree the AI specter is real and happening now.  There are, of course, differences on what the scale of displacement will be. But on discussing the changes (during a 2016 visit to Barbados)   with Alan Emtage - creator of the Archie search engine, which preceded Google -  he made it clear that by 2032 there would be virtually no jobs left that were exclusively human -conducted.  "Possibly with the exception of plumbers!" he mused.

So the question, as Lee frames it, is: What can be done?   He cites the "founders of the AI age" and how they feel "a mix of genuine social responsibility and fear of being targeted when the pitchforks come out."   Also, that many have seized on the idea of UBI or a universal basic income.   Andrew Yang agrees these techies for a UBI solution and that it is a sensible solution to mass joblessness.

However, Lee doesn't necessarily buy it nor does Edward Glaeser who reviewed Yang's book ('The Cure For Poverty?' July 10, p. A13).  Glaeser takes the  über  'Debbie Downer' position  that UBI will be no great "catalyst to human creativity" as Yang claims.   He offers this bit of history instead as a cautionary note and a pessimistic check on any rank optimists:

"50 years of evidence about labor supply in the U.S. suggests that giving people money will lead them to work less."

To which I would reply, 'So what?'    If that's what they choose to do with their time, work less or not at all, that is their choice. The purpose of UBI ultimately is not to produce a next generations of Picassos or Einsteins, but for people permanently displaced from their work to keep body and soul (figuratively speaking) together.  To keep food and shelter available.  Thus, all the labor reduction citations Glaeser makes are really irrelevant because they dodge the central pout.  He also appears to forget - or maybe he never learned - the famous words of FDR:

"Necessitous men cannot be free men"

In other words, it is NEED or want (for shelter, clothing, food etc.) that defines limits to liberty not work per se. UBI then addresses the issue of need first and foremost, so as to prevent the multiplication of men who perceive they are not free - and so reach for the nearest strongman who promise them that.  Give them UBI - say the usually cited stipend of $12,000 per annum, and they won't resort to strongman,  fascist populists. Doh!

Kai-Fu Lee's Review article is much more practical in terms of solutions, offering the annual stipend - but with the small  volitional aspect ("participation requirements wouldn't dictate the lives of citizens") to actively engage in assorted civic contributions.   So instead of "UBI" he calls it a Social Investment Stipend.

In terms of citizen contributions, he defines three general areas: care work community service and education.  Adding:

"These activities would form the pillars of a new social contract, rewarding socially beneficial activities just as we now reward economically productive activities."

Indeed, the former are clearly more important now in a world that can hardly tolerate further growth which translates into more pollution, more resource depletion (including of water) and more global warming.

In terms of the details for each:

"Care work would include parenting or home schooling of young children, assisting aging parents or helping a friend with mental or physical disabilities.  Service work would focus on much of the nonprofit and volunteer groups - leading after school activities, guiding tours at parks or collecting oral histories from elders in their communities,

Education activities could range from professional training for the jobs of the AI age to giving classes that turn a hobby into a career."

The beauty of Lee's solution is that there is no pretense of generating an explosion in. creativity in the displaced populace. Rather, the same old service skills that have always been used (and needed in human society)  will also be in the age of AI. 

More cogently, Lee's solution puts  the kibosh on Glaeser's Neoliberalish- ranting about how such UBI-type stipends would trigger a "dystopian jobless future", i.e. of millions of wastrels, alcoholics and layabouts.

Whichever way we roll, we need to seriously consider implementing one of these solutions, and probably  before 2025 - if not sooner.

No, Not Every American Is Crowing About The Great Bull Market

The endless paeans to the grandiose Bull,  market that is,  abound in the financial press,  see e.g.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-can-stop-this-bull-market-1534881350

But also usurp huge spaces in the regular press (Denver Post, p. 1A yesterday)  - and enough to make anyone with sense bring up his or her breakfast. Yes, the DOW (as well as NASDAQ and S&P 500) have reached new heights as well as duration, but do none of its worshippers in the media grasp how it's been jiggered to perform better?  See e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/07/trumps-asset-bubble-economy-based-on.html

And yes, some reports have also rubbed it in about those in the "ordinary middle class" who have been left out while the "rich get richer".   But no one who pens such balderdash goes on to explain why.  For example, that many in the ordinary middle class- squeezed by parental care and youngsters' college costs - are in no position to partake, given they have little or no disposable income, i.e. like the rich.  Hence, the lesson many learned from the 2008- 009 financial crisis and stock crash is don't buy into the Wall Street casino if you can't afford to lose.

That was brought home even more poignantly on the local evening news two nights ago when the economic crunch affecting many in our (EL Paso) county was discussed by a financial expert. The issue was sky high rents which have been rising into the stratosphere even as home prices have also soared (we're getting the excess demand from the overly pressured Denver market) and the accompanying wage stagnation.

According to the finance specialist appearing on KOAA-TV, the average renter in our county is in a retail service job and earning barely $10.22 an hour when that wage needs to be at least $20.65 an hour to make most rents and not pay more than 35 percent of income for them.   This bad news also comports with the enormous pressures on household mortgage debt  and auto loans - which have now pushed U.S. consumer debt to $13.3 trillion   (WSJ, 'Household Borrowing Hits High',  Aug. 15, p. A3)

We find (ibid.):

"Debts rose by $82 billion in the second quarter driven by rising mortgage, credit card and auto loan balances, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's quarterly report on household debt and credit."

Adding, ominously:

"Total debt is now higher than before the financial crisis when widespread defaults, especially on mortgages, contributed to the longest and deepest recession since the Great Depression. After paying down debt through 2013, in aggregate, consumers gradually began to borrow again and household debt is now nearly 20 percent higher than five years ago."


And nattering finance scolds and nabobs wonder why more middle class blokes are not in the stock market?  Especially when "aggregate household debt grew for the 16th quarter."

Another worrisome aspect:  "The total stock of outstanding mortgages climbed to $9 trillion, the highest level since 2009."

What gives? Well it's clear that people - too many in the middle class and lower- are treading water and going under with wage stagnation, so are trying to keep their standard of living by taking on more debt.  Epitomizing this pathetic situation is the news that one actually finds too many employees offered: The Promotion That Comes Without the Pay Raise,  e.g.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-promotion-that-comes-without-the-pay-raise-1534944636

What appears to be counter intuitive now that so many Millennials -  who've never experienced a bear market -  are in the stock market now and absolutely blase about the possibility. (41 percent of households age 35 and younger own stocks now compared to 23 percent in 1989)   In the words of one young Turk quoted in a piece in yesterday's Denver Post:

"It's going to sound terrible but I'm actually looking forward to the next downturn."

Well, you might regret it if the stocks (or mutual funds) you own turn out to be duds, leaving you waiting two decades (after 40- 50 percent losses) to reach the breakeven point.

Given all the above it's logical to point out that even the labor participation rate remains low because of the pathetic wage increases. Sadly, it makes more sense for many people just to grab disability or other benefits where and when they can than to plod away in a job that won't pay even a basic rent. So why not instead opt for Medicaid and a Section 8 housing voucher?   As WSJ columnist William Galston has pointed out ('Wage Stagnation Is Everyone's Problem', Aug. 15, p. A15), the "labor share has in fact declined".(The 'labor share' is defined as the share of national income going to working and middle class Americans).

Galston in his column considers several reasons, including the decline of union membership, but mainly points his finger at globalizaton, observing:

"In a 2013 paper for the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank economists found as much as 85 percent of the declining labor share may be attributable to increased import competition as U.S. producers responded by shifting production to countires with cheaper labor."

And oh by the way, that shift included tech specialists, and call agents as well whose jobs were shifted to Indians in Bangalore or Delhi.

Another less cited source of the declining labor share arises from automation.  As I pointed out, citing a WSJ piece, in November of last year:

Two thirds of large global companies  expect to automate some or all of their finance department tasks over the next two or three years, according to new research by Hackett Group Inc. Hacket's report is based on benchmark and performance studies at hundreds of  large global companies.

Adding:

The new technologies are designed to cut costs, liberate workers from time consuming repetitive tasks and - in many cases - reduce finance and treasury department employee numbers."

In other words, corporations have found human employees to be more like drains on their profits than useful contributors.  Benefits alone clip the profit margins especially for providing any health care, or even sick days. Given these monetary limitations - and the fact humans get sick and machines don't  - who wouldn't  dedicated capitalists manning the corps want to ditch all the bio-based flesh and blood workers for machines and software.?

Jim Hightower provided even more insights that I also cited:

"With corporations socking away massive profits and the labor market still tight why are worker's wages stuck at miserly levels? One big reason is that corporate boards and CEOs have their heads stuck in a dreamy future. Nearly every economic sector is spending vast sums of money on workers p just not on human workers.

While few Americans are aware of it, bosses are investing in hordes of sophisticated autonomous robots powered by a cognitive technology called artificial intelligence. Instead of paying a decent wage to you, corporations are buying millions of these cheap, human-esque thinking machines in order to take a shocking number of jobs away - well, from you!"

Of course, in the midst of all this one will always find cocklemamey fantasies churned out by the delusionary elements of the media such as FOX News or some of its WSJ op-ed counterparts. One example: Phil Gramm's 'The Myth Of American Inequality" (Aug,. 10, p. A15), writing such bollocks as:

"The bottom 90 percent of German earners pay a share of their nation's taxes on income 77 percent larger than that paid by the bottom 90 percent of Americans".

Failing to note the Germans paying those high taxes get an enormous return including for top notch medical care (no worries over bankruptcy and pre-existing conditions), child care, generous unemployment benefits and generous pensions - oh, not the 401(k) kind Americans are forced to pay for on their own!)  Gramm's dreck was also scuttled in a subsequent WSJ letter from Martine Durand ('Many Data Sets Show High U.S. Inequality', Aug. 24). Ms.  Durand, the chief statistician and Director of  the Statistics and Data Directorate of the OECD wrote:

"The  claims by Messrs. Gramm and Early that the OECD  measures overestimate U.S. inequality are unwarranted.  The OECD relies on existing international standards and on source most suitable for international comparison."

Then today, more cheerleading devoid of reality touchstones, e.g. 'The Good Times Can Roll On', WSJ, p. A15,  where Edward  C. Prescott and Lee E. Ohanian wrote:

"The emergence of better job opportunities has reduced the number of people  on disability."

Well, maybe, but only because hundreds of thousands of disability CLAIMS have been tied up in the respective bureaucracies.  For example, we learned two days ago ('Backlog Stalls Veterans' Appeals', WSJ, p. A5):

"As of August, 2018, the appeals backlog (for VA disability) stood at about 238,000 according to VA data'"

The basic reason for so many appeals and their backlog is because the process itself is complex and difficult-- designed to thwart easy access to  disability monies. As the article notes "many veterans claim multiple injuries each of which requires its own decision."

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of civil  (e.g. Social Security Admin.- related) disability claims are tied up here in Colorado and other states - preventing genuinely disabled workers-citizens, as well as economic "refugees",   from gaining access to benefits.  In the latter case, the "refugees"  have made the rational determination they are on more secure footing with disability benefits than toiling in a low wage job for which they are getting chump change and can't even afford basic food or rent.  If the jobs for which they are qualified paid more, they likely wouldn't need to go the SSA disability (or for that matter, Medicaid)  route.  But the sheer number of claims puts the lie to the WSJ's "good times"   claptrap.

William Galston for his part is clear on what the solution needs to be (ibid.):

"There is only one way to go. The high earning Americans who have done so well in recent decades must pay higher taxes to support the portion of the workforce that is falling behind. This isn't charity, nor is it welfare. It's simple common sense, or self interest - rightly understood.  Because an economic system that fails to offer broad gains will end up with disruption."

Or worse, with extinction. So basically, Galston is proposing  - like FDR with his multiple programs after the 1929 stock market crash- of saving capitalism from itself. But perhaps the solution begins and ends with ditching American 'cowboy' capitalism for the more humanized manifestation of Rhine capitalism  (Google!)- say as practiced in Germany and Scandinavian nations.

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/10/did-you-know-poor-have-gained-most.html

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/paul-street/80803/trump-corporate-media-are-both-enemies-of-the-people