From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Jun 18 22:06:05 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id WAA25035 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Thu, 18 Jun 1998 22:06:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from softweyr.com ([204.68.178.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id WAA24978 for ; Thu, 18 Jun 1998 22:06:00 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from softweyr.com (zaphod.softweyr.com [204.68.178.35]) by softweyr.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id XAA00785; Thu, 18 Jun 1998 23:05:56 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Message-ID: <3589F1B4.5D5DB378@softweyr.com> Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 23:05:56 -0600 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr llc X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2.6-RELEASE i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Frank Pawlak CC: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Lifestyles of the rich and shameless (no longer US Immigration) References: <980619030547.ZM16696@darkstar.connect.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Frank Pawlak wrote: > We could debate this forever. I find those numbers very hard to believe. I > spent the major portion of my university career in the study of Labor Economics > and the numbers you quote in noway represent anything that I've ever seen. I thought so. It's easy to see there will not be any reasoning in this "discussion." Of course you find those numbers hard to believe, they don't agree with your preconceived notion of what we're discussing. > The facts of this issue are that the real wages of the American worker has > fallen since the early 1970's. Which means that the average worker is less > well off than they were in the early 1970's. Real wages are the dollar wage > adjusted for inflation, or adjusted for the cost of living. Or are we just trying to buy more with similar wages? Does this "statistic" take into account the average American house built in the 1990s is TWICE THE SIZE of the average American house built in the 60s? Does it take into account the average American house now has something like 4 color TVs in it? Not to mention air conditioning, computers, video games, stereos, satellite dishes and/or cable, multiple phone lines, etc.? NONE of which were any where NEAR the norm for the (probably lower-) middle class neighborhoods *I* grew up in, in the 60s and 70s. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message