Pretty big questions, an-salad.

I'm a democratic socialist, so there's my bias. "Capitalism" is not a huge unitary entity. There are numerous players with often mutually exclusive aims -- hence the anarchy. Capitalist economies may be organized into blocks, like the G7. organized around shared values of pluralism, liberal democracy, and representative government. China is (some sort of quasi) capitalist country but it doesn't share the same values as the G7.

According to the world bank, 8% of the world's population (650 million) live in extreme poverty -- that is, they have less than US $2.15 to live on per day. Almost a quarter of the global population, 23 percent, lived below the US$3.65 poverty line, and almost half, 47 percent, lived below the US$6.85 poverty line, as reported in the 2022 Poverty and Shared Prosperity report (World Bank).

Capitalism IS responsible for the impoverished lives of many people who produce goods for export to the G7 and other countries. By contracting with ever cheaper capitalist operatives in 3rd world and developing countries, labor costs are driven to the absolute minimum--a level at which people in Bangladesh can not feed themselves.

Socialism has to be the shared system around the world if it were to make a significant difference. A few socialist countries here and there (even big ones) can't dismantle the capitalist system alone.

War and poverty have been around since Ur, a long time ago. Given that we are heading into a period of globally heated instability, I'm pretty sure there are going to be wars over ever diminishing necessities like fresh water, food, tolerable heat levels, and so on. From that point of view, I'm not sure any politico-economic system will be able to equitably administer the world's needs.

En-salad -- are you a socialist?

ECOWAS countries held a meeting today to contemplate sending a "standby force" to restore democracy to Niger after the military coup — ssu

It seems unlikely that ECOWAS will successfully restore democracy. I don't know how much power they can bring to bear (military and economic) on the Niger Junta. I can imagine one of the major powers attempting this and having the effort fall flat on its face. Or blowing up in their face. Some sort of face-losing experience.

Will we see even worse development, more famines and war in the region? — ssu

Famine, certainly. What desertification doesn't do, bad politics probably will. There were efforts being undertaken to slow the advance of the desert southward; the last time I read about that was years ago.

Africa is so big; the cultures so varied; the success and failure of various nations in doubt.

Thanks for starting this thread. I don't know much about Africa either.

This map demonstrates how big the continent is

This office / residential building in Norway is mostly wood -- all vertical and horizontal loads are carried by wood structures. There may be some diagonal bracing using steel; lots of metal fasteners; exteriors on wood buildings may not be wood, owing to harsh weather. Wood has lots of advantages, and some disadvantages. 1) because it is light weight, it offers less resistance to forces acting on the building. So, heavy wooden pieces need to be used in tall structures. 2) wood is not completely moisture resistant. Miami might not be a good place to use wood for high rises. 3). repair can be difficult



How the laminated pieces will hold up over 100 years... I don't know. Probably pretty well, assuming the building is consistently maintained. There are 60 to 80 year old buildings with laminated supports that are doing fine.

Soil is a natural carbon sink, but it doesn't capture and hold carbon just by existing, Plants put the carbon into the soil. Regenerative (rather than extractive) land management can increase the amount of carbon sequestered.

With regenerative agriculture the percentage can increase to between 5 and 8% over 10 to 20 years, by which time the soil will become carbon replete. According to them, each percentage increase represents 8.5 tons of carbon sequestered per acre: so between 25 and 60 tons per acre over 10 -20 years. — BMJ - UK

John Deere Co. recently retired one of its oldest plow models--the kind that turns the soil over. A lot of crop farmers have switched to minimum tillage agriculture, and rather than plows, chisels are used to create a narrow furrow, without disturbing the soil on either side. Planters are designed to create a little hole in the furrow into which the seed is inserted. Again, less disturbance of the soil.

Regenerative farming is far less capital intensive than trying to extract carbon mechanically or chemically from the atmosphere and then storing it deep underground in old oil wells.

Building with wood rather than concrete is another way to sequester carbon. By using cultivated forest products made into engineered wooden beams and plywood, the structure can store carbon.

Here is a 25 story wood-frame bldg. in Milwaukee. WI. Posts, beams, and other structural parts are made with many cross-laminated layers of wood which are very strong. They are also fire resistant.



Fast growing trees are another carbon sequester. Poplars and Cottonwoods grow quite fast and can be used in various wood products.

One of the big problems with the issue of climate-change/global-warming is that you have two sides screaming at each other and not listening to what the other side is saying. — Agree to Disagree

Factual matters (like gravity) don't have two sides. A creationist and a scientist will not benefit by "listening to each other". Some pairs of political ideas are mutually exclusive -- like dictatorship and democracy.

In my opinion it is almost impossible to stop global warming. The best that we can do is adapt. — Agree to Disagree

I'm not at all sure we WILL stop global warming, but given that it is caused by human activity (burning fossil fuel) it CAN be stopped--provided we get on with the task in a very forthright manner.

If global warming were something caused by a natural solar cycle of some kind, for instance, we would not be able to do anything about it. But that isn't the case.

At the time, 2011, it seemed like a big mistake to shut down Germany's nuclear generators. Granted, Fukushima was a major disaster, but Germany doesn't seem prone to severe earthquakes and tsunamis. Solar and wind w/o a reliable third generating source (and not coal/gas) are insufficient.

A lot of ideas are just bad ideas. — ChatteringMonkey

I have been a steaming kettle of bad ideas which seemed like good ideas.

At this point there is a disconnect between what would be needed to solve climate change and the ecological crisis more generally, and societal goals. — ChatteringMonkey

You hit the nail on its head. Full employment, continual GDP growth, new production, and all that are the national policy--the environment be damned. Unfortunately, a radical response to the ecological and economic crisis of global warming could bring about an economic disaster on its own. Carbon neutrality by 2035, '45, '55, '65--pick a date--would require so wrenching a change in society--one so severe that the outcome would be unacceptable. Fossil fuels are so central to the economy, and the build out of low carbon systems are so complex and time consuming -- and that is the case IF we had actually started the build out.

philosophically speaking it's a case of Kierkegaard's sickness until death, which is that we can't carry certain aspects of who we are into this new world we imagine. We have to die to change, and it's hard to let go. A crisis would take that part of it out of the equation. — frank

"Never let a good crisis go to waste", but if global heating isn't a sufficient crisis what did you have in mind? Something spectacularly bad but which we still survive...

Indeed, it is hard to let go of "this world" and die into a different one. I haven't become a vegetarian yet, which is NOT the toughest thing in the world to do.

If Mikie is right, then you are giving aid and comfort to those who for whatever reason are actively preventing people from reaching a consensus that would allow a collective response to a crisis that will cost many lives. — unenlightened

@Agree to Disagree appears to be invincibly misinformed. There isn't much that can be done for or with the invincibly misinformed, the invincibly ignorant, the invincibly stupid, etc. Every member of TPF, one by one, can beat him or her over the head with the facts, but the invincible are... invincible. So, move on; leave the close-minded sons of bitches alone.

@Agree to Disagree may want to plug up the conduit of consensus. I don't know why. However, some resistance can actually help solidify consensus.

We aren't in a very good position to change the policies of the extensive fossil fuel industry, it's outright owners or stockholders, invested banks, mutual funds, and private equity companies. Were TPF to be a $500B fund with lots of fossil fuel stocks, our consensus might disturb Exxon Mobil.

It isn't that we are completely powerless (and I definitely don't want to discuss how close to powerlessness we might be) so there are some things we can do on a personal level: recycling, eating a vegetarian diet, buying less, traveling less, consuming less--but BEING more. These are all pieces of a civic spiritual discipline.

We can try to influence those around us to take climate change (global heating) seriously. We can agitate, irritate, and aggravate do-nothing officials. We can vote when and if a candidate is available who might make a difference. We can engage in any suitable anti-corporate protest that might be available.

It's at least disgusting when some nattering nabob of negativity very reliably pipes up with "That won't do any good!" "It won't work!" "If one march doesn't lead to victory, why bother?" Etc.

In a culture which covers up the penis, then the penis isn't as important to gender-identity as many other things that we actually do get to see on the regular. — Moliere

Or the penis may become more important because it is always covered up.

Men whose penises have been blown off, shot off, or ruined by cancer greatly desire a replacement -- either one fashioned from his own tissue or a transplant (some penis transplants have been done). Even if the replacement is not 100% functional, the essential piece of tissue is present. Appearances have been preserved. Better, of course, if it works.

Some men (many?) seem to be anxious about exposing their penises to unflattering comparison with other men's dicks. A lot of this anxiety derives from too little exposure to what other penises actually look like. So, quite often there is furtive glancing to the side while standing at urinals.

Too much masculinity is invested in the penis--a mistake. Masculinity is found in the whole body and in the brain. The penis doesn't hang alone as the sole signal of masculinity, and the penis doesn't 'produce' masculinity. Men with big dicks are not more masculine than men with small dicks.

Much of the time we are all covered up--chests, breasts, vulvas, penises, balls, butts, arm pits, knees... "Why are we covered up?" has been asked and discussed often enough. Many people are embarrassed by their naked bodies because we are always clothed. There are a few situations when we are naked with strangers -- shower rooms at gyms and pools, for example. These are healthy settings, but are usually rushed. A sauna is less rushed, but time limited -- unless one wants to end up cooked.

A nude beach or nudist camp is more 'therapeutic' because our nakedness is prolonged and not instrumental -- naked for the purpose of washing up. Uncovering everything -- neck to ankle -- is good for anyone with "body issues" provided one is reasonably selective about where one undresses. A highly competitive gym might not be the best place for a skinny, out of shape, or fat person to compare physiques. Better are places with a normal mix of body types and details into which an individual fits.

Actually, one trip to a nudist camp or nude beach may be enough. The first time I undressed completely on a nude beach was the cure. The many repeat visits was just for fun.

Thank you for the lucid explanation.

Thank heavens COCA (Council on Child Abuse) has finally recognized the harm bad grammar can cause.

You don't have to do it alone — unenlightened

That's a relief. I was feeling slightly anxious about it.

In 2017 and 2018 the world produced 97,000,000 cars. More than I thought, but most of these were internal combustion powered. By 2025 the total number of electric vehicles on the road will be around 70,000,000 and somewhere between 10 million and 14 million are produced yearly in the world.

The numbers of electric cars are increasing rapidly, but it will be quite a few years before the CO2 burden of gas powered cars is lifted. Then we have to consider how the electricity for electric cars is being produced. Windmills? Solar arrays? Nuclear plants? Hydro? Natural gas? Coal?

Last year 12% of the world's electricity was from solar and wind--better than I thought, but still, a long way to go, especially in the US.

Fortunately I do not have to generate the world's electricity on my bicycle powered generator.

The world can be reconfigured quite easily, we have been doing it for centuries — unenlightened

We have been reconfiguring the world for centuries -- true. It was definitely not "easy".

The Industrial Revolution demanded extremely strenuous efforts from hundreds of millions of workers, animals, and machines. Further, it took a couple of centuries to accomplish (and, of course, raise CO2 levels enough to make life increasingly difficult).

Take automobiles. There are about 1 billion cars on the world's roads, almost all of them burning fossil fuel. Replacing 1 billion internal combustion engines with 1 billion batteries, and the building generating capacity to keep them all charged, will not be easy.

There are, roughly, 140 million houses just in the US. Most of them are heated or cooled with fossil fuel (directly or indirectly) and many of the houses are poorly insulated. Electrifying 140 million homes and building the requisite wind and solar generating plants will not be easy.

Even acquiring the land and permits to build wind and solar plants is difficult. Building long power transmission lines between windmills and cities requires the acquiescence of many litigious, uncooperative agents.

And so on and so forth.

Sartrean-type dilemma — Baden

Sartre wrote a short story in which a member of the underground resistance was captured and under torture revealed where the rest of his 'group' would be located. The captive made up as unlikely a location as he could, but it turned out to be exactly where his comrades had gathered. The Nazis killed them all.

I can't remember the name of the story, and perhaps it took place in Spain. The 'lesson' I took away from the tale was that 'absurd', even tragic consequences can flow from our best-motivated decisions.

Suppose an epic disaster is about to hit your town, and there aren't enough shelter spaces for everyone. — Paul

Greetings, Paul. Glad to see you visit your grand child (TPF, child of PF) every now and then.

Time is of the essence here, since whatever is going to happen is already on its way. Given a shortage of time, and given the faster speed of emotional decisions (as opposed to decisions based on working out the logic of it all), I would choose my mother. Most people would.

"Reasons of the heart" may be quite different than the reasons of utilitarian logic. Mother dear will be a burden once the first wave of the epic disaster is over and we leave the shelter. She was a widely respected art dealer, for which the demand will be seriously diminished. Aside from art, she promoted nouvelle cuisine. Soon people will be lucky to have skinny cat for dinner. Hang out at your gallery, mom, and the bomb, meteorite, tsunami, level 6 hurricane, or shit storm will be your last customer. I hope the 20 year old who is taking your place will have loads of practical skills. We didn't have time to administer aptitude tests. He was close to the door so we grabbed him.

I will advise the in-shelter survivors not to dither over who survived and who didn't. Mass death obliterates morality. "The living will envy the dead" Nikita Khruschev said.

From a 'selfish' point of view, it is entirely in our interest to protect and preserve the earth--as a species, as a colossal herd of animals, as an apex species--in the final analysis, completely dependent on a complex environment.

If we do not, then we--as a species--might well be finished because the fucked-over environment will no longer support us, or much else.

IF we finish ourselves off in nuclear annihilation or run-away globe heating, we're dead meat--another bunch of rotting carcasses on the dying planet, forever guilty of suicidal ecocide.

I wish you fucking foreigners would leave the US politics to we Americans. — T Clark

Oh, look! Here's something in a foreign country, right next door, that we can obsess about: Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau are separating after 18 years of marriage. What effect will this have on Canadian-Australian relations? Did King Charles have anything to do with this? Were one or both of the Trudeaus untrue to the other? How will this affect the war in Ukraine? Will the firefighters in BC and Quebec be less efficient with a DIVORCED Prime Minister at the helm? Will Justin resign? How will this affect the trade balance between the US and Canada? Will global heating get worse with the first family of the frosty north breaking up?

the wear and tear — Dawnstorm

Tell me about it! I'm 76 and limping around (bad knees and hips).

I'm not at my best lately. — Dawnstorm

Checked your 'sell by' date?

Maybe the better question is -- how is it, given that meaning is public, that we understand novel uses? — Moliere

Well, sometimes we don't understand.

"Dope", for instance. The word was derived from Dutch "doopen" meaning 'to dip" or 'sauce' and was imported into English about 200 years ago. It has been used to mean a) a drug b) inside information c) a stupid person d) a thick varnish or a lubricant. It also has a meaning in semiconductor manufacture, It is both a noun and verb.

Those uses were familiar to me. "Dope" meaning 'cool' or 'high quality' -- dope shoes -- was meaningless to me the first few times I encountered this usage.

Things used to be "hot"; then they became "cool".

I read pretty widely, and I thought I had a large vocabulary. However, I keep coming across English words that are as unfamiliar as Sanskrit. I've been collecting them, along with their meaning. The words are not common at all -- I check them out on Google Ngram, which is a measure of the frequency that words have appeared in print during the last several hundred years.

Who the hell uses these weird words?

A medievalist would be familiar with destrier, a medieval knight's warhorse. But who uses instauration, the action of restoring or renewing something? Here's one with very narrow usage: floccinaucinihilipilification The Latin elements were listed in a well-known rule of the Latin Grammar used at Eton College, an English public school. Right. Not my neighborhood. But here is a rare word that one could use at TPF fairly often:

monocausotaxophilia, "the love of single ideas that explain everything, one of humanity’s most common cognitive errors." The novelist Kim Stanley Robinson may have coined this word in a Financial Times article. The article is behind a paywall.

Paywall is a new word we all know the meaning of.

So: we encounter new words that are familiar to other speakers; we can guess at the meaning from context, ask what it means, or look it up. If we hear the word several times, we might add it to our own lexicon. Or not: I read somewhere that after middle age, people tend not to learn new words. My guess is that this is not a brain phenomenon, but a cultural one. Life no longer brings older people into contact with people regularly using new and different vocabularies. Plus, other middle aged or older people find somebody using too many new words very annoying.

I have added this new word to my vocabulary: deliquesce. It means to melt, or fade away, It's what happens to a snowman on a warm winter day. There are times when I wished I could just deliquesce -- quickly melt and fade away from the unpleasant situation I was in. 'Deliquesce' also labels the unpleasant experience of becoming obsolete and irrelevant--another experience I've had (sob, snivel).

I am aware that this is not the correct thread to discuss these things — javi2541997

The Ancient Order of English Majors endorses grammar discussions in any thread on any topic. One must exploit the teachable moment.

I asked myself that question while I was writing the post. I think you're wrong. "We" is not the object of the prepositions, "Americans" is. — T Clark

I wondered about that as well. I agree that you are correct in claiming "Americans" as the object of the preposition "to"; but unavoidably, so is the attached pronoun.

Let us examine the sentence

"I wish you fucking foreigners would leave the US politics to we Americans."

"I" is the subject of the sentence, "wish" is the verb. The dependent clause "you fucking foreigners would leave the US politics to we Americans" is the object of the verb "wish". "Americans" is an object of a preposition, but so is the pronoun you used with "Americans". The pronouns "we" or "us" emphasizes that the speaker is part of the collective noun "Americans" and not a third party,

leave the US politics to we Americans — T Clark

Nattering nabob of nitpicking grammarians here... The sons of bitches should leave the US politics to us Americans. "Us" is the object of the preposition "to". "We Americans never interfere in other counties' affairs" (cough, cough). We Americans is the subject of the sentence.

The applicable sentence in Latin is "De gustabus non est disputandem".

The applicable sentence in Latin is "De gustibus non est disputandum".

"The cat is on the mat" is that you have spinach in your teeth. — frank

The sentence "The cat is on the mat" takes me back to 1968 and a very basic literacy workbook the Job Corps was using. There was a line drawing depicting "the cat is on the mat". Very basic literacy instruction.

I have never worried about spinach in my teeth, but I have come across several literary uses of worrisome spinach lodged in the narrator's teeth. Who eats so much spinach, I'd like to know.

I'll only take a minute of your remaining fame. — Moliere

But you are not "taking a minute of fame" you are contributing a minute (or seconds, really) of fame. For which I am grateful. Every second counts.

I hereby condemn Moliere to skim reading the entire wretched book as punishment for starting the topic. — unenlightened

Why wretched? I thought it a good read. — Pantagruel

I haven't read the book; perhaps the authors share valuable ideas. The authors practice a wretched style of composition I associate with 19th century academic writing: complex sentences containing way too many clauses and phrases.

Convinced as they are of the urgency of a stricter examination of language from a point of view which is at present receiving no attention, the authors have preferred to publish this essay in its present form rather than to wait, perhaps indefinitely, until, in lives otherwise sufficiently occupied, enough moments of leisure had accumulated for it to be rewritten in a more complete and more systematized form. — Ogden & Richards

Ogden was the creator of "basic English", a means of communication requiring less than 1,000 unique words. Basic English has some merits, but it would definitely rule out the kind of snarled sentence quoted above.

Insightful post.

Yes. I corrected the erroneous year. Thanks for pointing it out,

I don't want to focus on him — Moliere

Oh, go ahead and focus on me. I'm 76 and haven't had my 15 minutes of fame yet -- just -7 minutes and 23 seconds worth.

Is there a Public Shelf Meaning to:

"I walked home"? — Moliere

Yes; "home" has numerous Public Shelf meanings and usages.

a) baseball (home base)
b) the 'home' keys on the QWERTY keyboard--'f' and 'j'
c) magic (rub your ruby crocs together 3 times and say "get me the hell out of here and back home."
d) a place to die ("Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in." The Death of the Hired Man by Robert Frost
e) retail (Home Depot; the Home Store; HOM;
f) medical (a facility you may be sent to possibly against your will) old folks home; nursing home; a home for the very bewildered
g) a trait of animals -- homing instinct

Words have recognized usage. Where can you find a record of current and past word usage? In the 20 fat volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Words have denotations (their plain most direct meaning) and connotations (their nuanced, shaded meaning). "The armored car weighs a ton" is denotative. "She weighs a ton" is connotative.

Take away: The Public Shelf meaning of words has plenty of room to maneuver. It isn't necessary or desirable for each individual to supply his or her own meaning nor for each use of a word to have a unique meaning.

You could be like Humpty Dumpty: 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

Fine for the cracked egg.

Thank you.

(The poet) Carl Sandburg was working as a Chicago Sun Times reporter in 1919, the year of the Chicago Race Riot, set off by a black boy swimming into a white swimming area of Lake Michigan. He was stoned to death by white youths.

At the time 20% to 25% of the huge slaughterous industry in Chicago was black. The slaughter houses were unionized, and most blacks joined one of several unions. Unions provided a base and a rationale for working class solidarity. As one of the slaughterhouse managers pointed out, "Our workers have axes, cleavers, and knives in their hands all day." If there was conflict on the lines, it would have been instantly obvious. The only area of conflict was the reluctance of some workers to join the union.

The reported language that the NAACP, business owners, labor leaders, black workers, white workers, social workers, bureaucrats, etc. all reflected a very clear understanding of how racism worked, what its costs were, how detrimental it was to blacks, and what kind of solutions were needed. Decent housing (as opposed to deteriorating, low-quality slum dwellings); equal pay; good schools for black and white children together; adequate medical care, etc.

So, reading Sandburg's articles is deja vu.

It's why I'm comfortable saying there's no such thing. Identity isn't a psychological state one 'discovers' by interoception, it's part of our naming and storytelling practices, like 'hippy', or 'geek'. We collect performances into useful groupings and name them. The utility is about them playing a role in our stories so they're less surprising, and that works both ways - it's not imposed, it's agreed upon. — Isaac

I do not LIKE the idea that there is no such thing as essential "identity" that one discovers, but experience and observation tells us that identity depends on culture.

A heterosexual child doesn't have to wait long for his or her culture to supply the "guide book" for what "heterosexual" means. On the other hand, a rural homosexual child may recognize that he likes other boys, and understands that this is an outlier desire, best not discussed. He may not have a "homosexual identity" until he comes into regular contact with urban homosexuals who can supply the gay "guide book".

So, a gay boy in Los Angeles may decide he likes the black leather motorcycle look and proceed accordingly. There's nothing innately gay about black-dyed cow leather or motorcycles, but culture has made it so. A gay boy in rural Uganda is extremely unlikely to follow the same route. (At least until recently) rural Uganda had few paved roads, no motorcycle clubs of any kind, and covering up in black leather just doesn't make sense on the equator.

Moliere and Judaka seem to belong to the same Free Church when it comes to word meaning:

Every use of the word is itself a new meaning which isn't fixed by a Public Shelf of Meaning — Moliere

@Judaka I generally have the same issue with those who view word meanings as having stringent, objective definitions

Bullshit!

Saying I have failed to think clearly — T Clark

Claiming the first option (not thinking clearly) wasn't necessary on your part. There was the second option of failing to communicate.

Did you fail to communicate? Not to me, you didn't. Apparently you failed to communicate with Judaka. The failure in your case was that Judaka did not receive what you sent. Not your fault.

All I'm saying is that I reject the notion that a person's race entitles them to a specific history. The history of a nation should belong to the citizens of that nation. — Judaka

This statement I can agree with. WE ARE Puritans in Massachusetts; slaves in Texas; Ojibwes and Germans in Minnesota; Chinese and Americans in the Gold Ruch; New Yorkers on the Upper West Side; anarchists in Portland, OR; Appalachian holy rollers--e pluribus unum. Our common history extends back before Columbus; it extends to both sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific; we come from pirates, indentured servants, slaves, blue bloods, bigots, peasants, rabbis, pietists, common laborers, riff raff. All of it.

Virtue and sin are rolled up together. As Rabbi Heschel put it, "Some are guilty; everyone is responsible."

What we have here is a failure to communicate, or worse, a failure to think clearly.

As I wrote previously - white people don't like, trust, or respect black people.
— T Clark

This is kind of the same level as a business saying "The problem is we're not making enough money". — Judaka

A business saying "we're not making enough money" is a perfectly reasonable statement (assuming they are going broke) and so is "white people don't like, trust, or respect black people". If they did those three things, we wouldn't have a race problem,

Also, I reject racial and ethnic histories, cultures and groups. I don't think white people are responsible for anything, and as I told you before, I would prefer to see black Americans taking responsibility for slavery as Americans. That would represent the kind of progress I think would be helpful. — Judaka

Whoa! What?

shit can happen to anyone — L'éléphant

No comment to add, just felt that this truism needed to be repeated for the benefit of those to whom shit hasn't happened yet.

... real wages have flatlined since the late 70s. That’s a robust explanatory data point. — Mikie

Absolutely true.

And for families that have stable but insufficient income and expenses they can not defer or live without, like feeding, housing, and clothing themselves and their children; day care and pre-school (which enables both partners to work); medical expenses; car payments and house payments, savings isn't an option. Add on to that student loan payments and credit card payments. At this point for many families, frugality is not optional, it is mandatory. Savings accounts are just wishful thinking.

However, not everyone who is working class is equally distressed. Single workers and working couples without children have a better chance of getting ahead financially. The trap many fall into is that as their income increases, so does their spending. They are spending more, presumably living better, but still not saving anything, maybe running out of cash before the next payday. This trap captures professional class members also. Frequent flights, trips to Europe, better food and alcohol, fashionable clothing and larger dwellings -- it's easy to outspend the family's combined salaries.

I am well aware that the people in the bottom two deciles of the income distribution are pretty much screwed economically, no matter what they do. They either can not get work, can not get work with an adequate wage, or have too little income and overwhelming expenses (like from chronic disease or natural disaster),

The solution for everyone in the bottom 9 deciles is a greater share of the GDP pie. Who gets the biggest pieces of pie is a matter of POLICY, not talent, luck, prudent investing, or any such thing. Since the 1970s, policy makers have been steering the pie slices to the top decile of income and the very top layer of wealth, the richest .0001%. 90% of us are dividing up a couple of small pieces and arguing over the crumbs.

I remember when a $64,000 question was a seriously hard question that you had to go in a sound-proof booth to answer. — unenlightened

Right. $64,000 questions are now handled at walk-up kiosks on busy streets.

I also agree with that. I just disagree that it will make anyone rich. — unenlightened

Yes, the self-made multi-millionaire (multimillionaires to billionaires) is a fiction. Becoming rich requires the contributions of banks, investors, governments, etc. to convert a bright idea (or just as easily a bad idea) into substantial wealth.

According to informed sources...

In 1995 musk founded Zip2, a company that provided maps and business directories to online newspapers (he borrowed $28,000). In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later became PayPal, which specialized in transferring money online.

Musk apparently started his rise to uber-riches by selling services--no need for big plant investments, machinery, megatons of ore, etc. Just office space, young workers, and internet connections; selling new services to a new and rapidly expanding businesses. Beats me why PayPal was a success, but then, I don't have an entrepreneurial bone in my body,

That is not how most people become millionaires. — Mikie

A million dollars isn't what it used to be. Real estate is the vehicle that has made many people millionaires. Buying and paying for a house does require discipline (else the bank will take your house back). Policy makers understood that mortgages would keep people's noses to the grindstone in a way that renting didn't.

The problem with the valuable house is that you can't sell it and still live in it. But on a balance sheet, property and cash can make one "a millionaire".

I agree with Sushi on the importance of thrift and saving. Granted: it isn't possible for many families to save. The cost of basic care for parents and children may exceed the families income. But many individuals and families need not operate in the red. First, thrift. A lot of spending goes into products and services of little (or no) lasting value. Cut out the crap and many people will have money to save.

I practiced regular saving from my first job onward. My problem was that, while I had learned thrift as a child, as an adult I didn't know what to do with extra cash besides saving it. Even without investing it, savings made life much easier. (Eventually I did figure out investing.)

Simpler in theory, but I think much more drastic and therefore less likely for success. — Mikie

Of course, and it requires the Revolution to be over, such that the people could actually expropriate the expropriators. We are nowhere close to a constructive revolution, so I don't think the rich have to worry about pitchfork-armed peasants descending on them this year or next.

On the other hand, rewriting tax law such that 90% of income, inheritance, capital gains, and so on are collected by the IRS requires that the financial and social elite join with the government elite and labor elite to forge an alliance on behalf of the working class -- that group that composes 80% to 90% of the population. This doesn't require a revolution, but it probably requires something that feels like a national existential crisis. The Great Depression was the last time the elites came together with a program to redistribute wealth downward to the working class. FDR, the New Deal, and the post WWII boom were part of that. During those 40 years, wealth among the [white] working class was greatly increased, and wealth among the rich was greatly reduced,

The first time the American elites came together to redesign the system was the Civil War. One would rather not take that route again to achieve social justice -- the body count was quite high.