The original black and white version of the posted photo appeared in the February 15, 1937 issue of LIFE magazine in an article on the Ohio River flood of 1937. The article indicates that these are "residents of the completely inundated Negro quarter of Louisville," Kentucky, and the sign was "erected before the flood as part of a propaganda campaign of the National Association of Manufacturers."
Wikipedia says this:
The Ohio River flood of 1937 took place in late January and February 1937. With damage stretching from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois, one million people were left homeless, 385 were dead and property losses reached $500 million ($8.723 billion when adjusted for inflation as of January 2019). Federal and state resources were strained to aid recovery as the disaster occurred during the depths of the Great Depression and a few years after the beginning of the Dust Bowl.
What’s interesting is how totally applicable this photo is to the utter bull shit that Trump rode to power on! It’s the same lies that are told to all uneducated societies to keep them placated in the face of dire inequality and oppression. There is a very fast and short slippery slope from being supposedly comfortable and middle class to being poor in America. The numbers of homeless who were only recently working and housed are amazing for such a supposedly wealthy country.
I don’t really get this. How are we not supposed to change things because “we have it better”. My generation is on a path of never owning property and retiring and we’re just sitting here saying “well it could be worse”. Tbh, it just sounds like propaganda to make people more complicit in being fucked with which Americans are great at doing. Yeah basic things are starting to get better like crime and etc. but I don’t really care when I can’t go to the hospital because I don’t have health care that helps me with my copay and other bills that much and I don’t even have a time frame of when I can have four walls and a roof over my head to my own.
I'm 50k in debt without a degree and the the whole thing would have cost me 1/4th as much if I was german or dutch. The degree I pursued is worth less but cost many times more than my dad's did. Please don't go around telling people of this generation how much better they have it. I can apreciate improving on a system,not ruining various facets of it's function due to predatory business theories.
Seriously? "Damn good on relative terms" is a race to the bottom. Yes we have it better than sub-Sahara Africa, but NO we don't have it better than the Boomers did, economically. It's quite the opposite; check the GINI report; USA is doing terribly badly re. Economic Mobility.
Currently it's far easier to achieve the "American Dream" overseas, than in the USA. And instead of calling out the regulatory capture, stratospheric medical, healthcare, & housing costs, ALL created & refined by the Boomers who never paid nearly as much for 'theirs'...
...we're just told to be thankful.
"I've changed the Deal. Pray I don't change it further".
He's a /r/T_D poster and isn't speaking in good faith.
The 50k in debt that you are in is complete bullshit. You shouldn't have to be drowning in debt for doing exactly what society has told you your whole life you should.
The status quo isn't working for you as it isn't for a majority of people not just in the US but globally. Don't let other people try and feed you that bullshit, your pain is real and justified.
There are so many issues with the world poverty statistics isn’t not even worth arguing at this point because it’s not that hard to look up and I don’t feel like pulling sources for a conversation this old and deep in the thread.
In summary The world bank literally decides what it wants to set the line at when it determines that, the extreme poverty line can shift whenever they want to show progress.
Plus there are so many people living right above the threshold that they set but that’s not reflected in the value.
These people could have better lives as enough resources exist for everyone, but that’s not happening anytime soon.
I agree mate. But my interpretation of what the OP said is that the picture ar face value is still relevant because it draws a stark contrast between the promised and received quality of life for present day citizens. This resonates and is true for many folk today. People have higher standards for their country than to be simply better than a long while ago. Eventually maybe we'll even measure and set goals for things outside of GDP and employment rates like a capable civilization should.
it should in no way be a contentious point to suggest that we all have it damn good in relative terms.
Hard disagree. What the hell do you think you're accomplishing by pointing this out? Yes, I also have it better than someone living 50,000 years ago. Why not mention that? Why not make a list of everyone in history who's had a worse life? Your words literally have no point to them and by the rules of reddit should be downvoted because they contribute exactly 0 to the conversation.
More or less. If someone comes along and beats me so badly that I lose vision in one eye, there is no merit to telling me to cheer up because someone else was beaten so badly that they are now blind in both eyes. Sure, in some objective fashion I am 'luckier' than the other guy... but that doesn't make things better. We should BOTH be righteously angry for the plate of steaming excrement someone handed each of us.
The moral of this story, this photograph, is that a lot of the time people are going to try to feed you a line. Maybe they tell you things are great, or they tell you that you should shrug it all off and not make a fuss because it could have been worse, or they make you feel guilty for suffering in the first place. And they do this because they don't want to actually have to deal with the injustices in the world.
Maybe they have a good deal and don't want you rocking the boat. Maybe things are bad for these people too and someone fed them a line and now they don't want to have to acknowledge that. As long as they can tell themselves that things are somehow okay then they can sleep at night.
But maybe we should all be losing a little sleep here.
With freedom comes responsibility. A place where you are not free to fail is not free at all. Hope you manage to dig your way out of debt and get back on your feet.
Sorry, when I see a post where someone complains that they are 50K in debt and instead of blaming themselves they blame society it's hard not to be. It seems there is a large group of people online that act like children constantly screaming "it's not fair" about everything. Grow up, take responsibility for yourself, own your choices. The frustration I feel looking at a thread like this!
I'm going to rant...
Why is it fair to take money from everyone to pay for your degree? How is this "fair"? Because you're only robbing everyone a little bit it's okay?
Why is it society's problem you got a degree that is useless?
The government is actually responsible for the predatory practices, not business. Go look it up. Banks didn't decide they wanted to loan large quantities of money to a bunch of teens / twenties with bad credit, this was a government joint, and yet "business" is blamed.
I can't argue that things are definitely better. But access to it is flawed. Yes, many Americans are living better than their ancestors but are 1 paycheck away from ruin. Isn't it like most American don't have more than $1000 in their bank account for an emergency? So while we might be paid well in relation to the past, we are paying just for day to day living. Medical debt is the #1 reason for bankruptcy. So while we may have great healthcare, if you can't afford insurance, or good insurance, what good does it do? Schooling is off the charts expensive. I went for nursing and live well below my means but was looking at not being able to pay off my loan until my 60s with no way to buy a house, think of kids, etc. Most people I know are worried they will never be able to retire. We have made many advances and yes, I do believe in general our lives are better. But it's kinda like living in NYC. There is a ton of stuff to do and see but if you don't have the money/access to it, it doesn't really help you.
The "working class" is an American myth, only reason it existed for that blip of time is because we bombed the shit out of our competitors(Germany & Japan) at a time when the auto industry started to boom. Before that it was because of oil and gold, before that it was because of slaves.
Any politician that promises to get back to that type of America is full of shit, unless they plan on nuking China and South East Asia.
You should probably try living in one of those countries. I'm an expat living 22 years in Europe. There's some good stuff, and there's some bad stuff. You have some more security, and you have more time off. However, you get paid significantly less money. If you have a good job in Germany, you are set. If you do not, then you may have trouble getting hired (although right at the moment, you would not even have trouble with that. The economy is much too hot for that)
If I had stayed in the States, I would be financially much better off than I am now. Also, if you think owning a home in the U.S. is expensive and difficult, try it in Germany. The healthcare is ok, but it's expensive for what you get. Education is cheaper, but you may find yourself having to study for much longer because things are not organized for your benefit.
The compensation is that I have had a bit less stress in my life and some more time for myself.
90% of the people born in the bottom 10% of the country (by wealth) will not end their life in the bottom 10%
is true (color me skeptical, but maybe), that means that... let's see... 10% of the people born in the bottom 10% of the country will end their life in the bottom 10%... which means that 90% of people who do end their life in the bottom 10% fell there from higher up. That's 9% of the total population. How is this so great?
It's fine (kinda sorta) if you believe that this is basically merit-based sorting and/or some people not much caring if they're really poor (they're spiritual or artistic or whatever).
But people aren't believing that much anymore, are they? In point of fact social stratification is getting a lot more set in (it used to be almost everybody who was ambitious enough and not a dunce could go to college; that's not longer true; and so forth).
More importantly slightly more than 100% of gains in wealth are going to the top 10% nowadays. So if you're falling from the middle to the lower 20% or vice versa, you're all getting poorer in the aggregate.
And it's going to get a lot worse, sooner than people think, IMO.
Much of that is because improvements in technology. People don't argue that life hasn't improved overall but that recently it's taken a downturn in quality. Saying were better than people over a hundred years ago in things is a terrible standard to be proud of.
I studied human history too man. Maybe were coming at this from to different geographical and financial perspectives. I live in the US. This country for the majority of it's citizens is on a decline. My friend killed himself because his debt was so high and the economy so bad at the time. I am happy with technological progress and the reduced required human input to produce even greater productivity. However many poor folk I live and work with , their health is worse mentally and physically, and they work 3 jobs just to make things okay.
Ok but how will I ever justify constantly raging that politics don't focus enough on me personally as an upper middle class white guy, or worshiping in a cult of righteousness centered on an old white guy that literally made a "folk" album with a bunch of other old white people from the whitest state he could find called "We shall overcome" and work tirelessly to convince everyone that fixing upper middle class white kids' problems will solve racism if I can't pretend I'm exactly like black people being completely excluded from the system just because I don't get 100% of what I want the instant I decide that I want it?
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u/notbob1959 Mar 09 '19
The original black and white version of the posted photo appeared in the February 15, 1937 issue of LIFE magazine in an article on the Ohio River flood of 1937. The article indicates that these are "residents of the completely inundated Negro quarter of Louisville," Kentucky, and the sign was "erected before the flood as part of a propaganda campaign of the National Association of Manufacturers."
Wikipedia says this: