[vision-master]

[Kristen]

In addition, the average American household income has hit the wall as the full employment of both spouses can no longer drive the economy forward. There is simply not enough working resources left per household to compensate for flat real wages, or as shown in the recent downturn to make up for a job lost or a job that pays less.

Could it lead to the expansion of the household to include extended family and friends? I guess what I'm wondering is, if the nuclear family can no longer support itself because two income earners can't make enough to drive the economy forward, what happens if more incomes are added to the support of the household?

Too many interpersonal problems. I believe you're referring to communes, something I have experience with in a participatory way.

I think it would take a lot for that to happen. but it could be in the cards. A lot of people in their twenties are living with their parents already. A lot of college grads aren't getting jobs because they are already taken.

[Sixstrings]

As I recollect, Stockman was the Wonder-Boy Voodo Priest who legitimized Reagan's so-called "Revolution" where government for-the-people and by-the-people was nullified in favor of the corporate free market. That was the beginning of the modern debt-based bubble economy.

Colbert asked Stockman if he invented "trickle-down economics" The guy was only momentarily flustered

Yeah it kind of sucks that people I respect in the political scene were a PART OF THE PROBLEM back when they actually had power and could have done something about all this mess. I'm thinking about Pat Buchanan here, and Paul Craig Roberts, and now Stockman. How convenient to start telling the truth AFTER you've left government work.

[Sixstrings]

I believe you're referring to communes, something I have experience with in a participatory way.

No, I'm referring to extended families.

Like most people live in worldwide.

I think there's a lot of that going on right now. I hear about it anecdotally.. adult children moving back home with the parents, the grandkids being raised in the same home. Maybe even an unrelated roommate or two. Across the street from me there's a mystery house I can't quite figure out.. looks like FIVE people have moved in.

None of them look over 22ish. Some show up with kids now and then, but doesn't seem like the kids live there all the time. And different people come and go.. there's something off about it, none of them looks like a homeowner. I can't figure out if this formerly nice home has become a drug house, a halfway house, or most likely I'm thinking an investor bought it and rents the rooms out to roommates on Craigslist.

So there's a lot of that going on, craigslist communes if you will. As for this being a good way to live, I don't think so -- a lot of lower income folks are very dysfunctional. It's just asking for trouble packing in five dysfunctional folks into a house. Don't mean to sound judgmental, just is what it is -- lots of drug problems, arguments, yelling in the front yard, everybody's hopped up on something whether illegal or Red Bull or pain meds or psych meds from a doc (or all the above).

The American family has utterly broken down, at least as far as the working classes go. These folks never learned the skills for successful, cooperative group living.

[Sixstrings]

What's "OMB"?

As a couple others have said, OMB is the Office of Management and Budget.

The OMB is part of the the president's administration -- it's the counter to the Congressional Budget Office. These offices do all the number crunching to figure out the economic impact of proposed polices. Both the CBO and OMB are pretty non-partisan, but sometimes they disagree with the OMB favoring the president and the CBO favoring whoever's in the majority in congress.

Basically, the OMB and CBO are the government's "bean counters."

[Sixstrings]

An additional note about my original post..

After thinking about it some more, I realize this is actually "old news." This has been going on for decades now, it started with Reagan. We all already know that the "bread winning" jobs have been disappearing for a LONG time -- that's why we have two income families in the first place, most folks can't do it on one income.

Women in the workplace has been part of the cause.. I'm all for womens' rights, but you can't deny that back when mostly men worked they earned a paycheck that could support a family. After women entered the workplace en masse, employers essentially split that breadwinning check in two. And then after that the combined incomes began to further erode, to the point where two working class parents make less than one breadwinner used to.

Compounding the problem is the breakdown of marriages and the family. People just aren't are staying together anymore; if they get married at all, what's the average length? Seven years before divorce? Broken families breeds more dysfunction and instability, and the whole mess snowballs.

So now we have a situation where it takes two incomes to support a family, but there aren't enough jobs anymore plus mommies and baby daddies can't get along well enough to live together in the first place.

[Ludi]

Women in the workplace has been part of the cause.. I'm all for womens' rights, but you can't deny that back when mostly men worked they earned a paycheck that could support a family. After women entered the workplace en masse, employers essentially split that breadwinning check in two. And then after that the combined incomes began to further erode, to the point where two working class parents make less than one breadwinner used to.

I think you have this part backwards. Women probably left left the house because housework became boring, with little to do. I imagine there was a time when running a home actually meant doing useful work, like preparing food, managing animals, gardens, and home businesses. Plus dual incomes became necessary as outsourcing and foreign competition lowered single incomes in the US

Six, Did I read you correct? You once admired those con men and schemers?

Women caused everything to become more expensive?

Wow, I had no idea we were so powerful.

[Sixstrings]

I think you have this part backwards. Women probably left left the house because housework became boring, with little to do.

It started with WWII -- women had to work, there wasn't a choice about it. Then the GI's came home and women were housewives again.. some got back to work after the women's lib movement started, but we still had a lot of stay at home moms right up until Reagan. That's when things changed and the floodgates opened and every woman was working and the kids were in daycare or latchkey.

I imagine there was a time when running a home actually meant doing useful work, like preparing food, managing animals, gardens, and home businesses.

It's a conundrum. There's no doubt that being a homemaker is BORING. Women should have a right to a full life every bit as much as men, and that means a career. But on the other hand.. kids do better with a mom at home. The whole family does better. Don't mean it to sound sexist, but I think the fact is a housewife is less likely to leave her husband than a career woman is -- that ends up being detrimental to the family unit. No easy answers here.. balancing the rights of women with the undeniable fact that the American family has fallen apart from their absence in the home.

Six, Did I read you correct? You once admired those con men and schemers?

I agree with what they say NOW. Reading his writings now, it's hard to believe Paul Craig Roberts worked for Reagan. And I've always agreed with Pat Buchanan on immigration, globalism and outsourcing -- but not all the culture war crap.

[dsula]

It's a conundrum. There's no doubt that being a homemaker is BORING.

Homemaker is A LOT less boring than most jobs out there. In fact it's as interesting as you want it to be. Innovation, creativity, trying things, being your own boss. Having a garden, making candles, making your own wax, making cheese, making cookies, making oil, preserving all kinds of food, making beer, making wine, having bees, selling at a farmer's market, growing hops, making sauerkraut, crafting, making soap, knitting, sewing, accounting, light repairs, setting up a webpage, managing, preparing for festivities, decorating, making candy, baking bread, feeding birds, composting, and and and and ....
You call that BORING?

[vtsnowedin]

Suburban house wives have it a bit more boring!!
Cook, clean, laundry
Cook,clean, laundry,
Cook clean, laundry, fetch a kid.
Cook ,clean, laundry.
Cook, clean, laundry, grocery shop
fetch a kid, fetch a kid fetch a kid,
Cook ,clean, laundry
cook clean, laundry, cook
Pretend to not be too tired when he pats your butt.
Hope he means it when he says you still look good with your clothes off.
Cook ,clean , laundry, fetch a kid, fetch a kid.
Why would any woman take an outside job?

[dsula]

8) Suburban house wives have it a bit more boring!!
Cook, clean, laundry

I know many suburban houswives who show innovation and have an amzing and fullfilling life. I know a many rural housewives who circle: "get welfare check, buy frozen dinner, go for a smoke, clean a little, bitch about how unlucky they are marrying some idiot, drinking a beer, watch tv, wait for the next check..."

It's as interesting as you want it to be....but with every job in life, most people are lemmings and need a boss to tell them what to do, because innovation and initiative gives a headache.

[Sixstrings]

Homemaker is A LOT less boring than most jobs out there ... You call that BORING?

Didn't mean to put it down. But if it's not boring, why were women so EAGER to go work? You have a great attitude about it, but most women I know want to work outside the home. Heck, from the way the unemployment numbers are looking women have more jobs than men now I think.

I would say that a man could be a homemaker too, but it's difficult -- not quite in our nature. A man's identity and self esteem is all wound up in his work. Women are becoming like that too, though I think it's still easier for them to be happy in a nurturing role.

[dsula]

Didn't mean to put it down. But if it's not boring, why were women so EAGER to go work?

2 reasons:
1. homemaker doesn;t pay well (except you make a fair sharing with your working spouse, which is not easy)
2. not boring also means it's difficult, many people cannot handle difficult, they need a simple job, they need to be told what they have to do every day.

[Novus]

This isn't about housewives or working women. The paradigm we have been living entire lives is coming to an end. The happy days of 2005, 1999, 1980s, or 1960s depending on your perspective is never coming back. There is no economic recovery and there never will be. What we are experiencing is a slow crash where things that are no longer sustainable crash and break. The low end middle class and working class is just one of the first casualties. There will be many more crashes and it will eventually come to your door unless you have prepared for it.

[Sixstrings]

This isn't about housewives or working women.

I don't know, I think it might be. I think SeaGypsy has talked about Filipino families being stronger and more stable than in the West; I bet the reason behind that is there's usually at least one woman in the home doing the homemaker role -- raising children, keeping the house up, looking after elderly parents (rather than dump them into a nursing home).

Everywhere you look in the world, those countries that still have traditional families and women in the home have stronger family units as a result.

The paradigm we have been living entire lives is coming to an end. The happy days of 2005, 1999, 1980s, or 1960s depending on your perspective is never coming back. There is no economic recovery and there never will be.

Doesn't take money to have strong family units. Even the poorest African villages have women running the home while the men go out and find something for everyone to eat.

What we are experiencing is a slow crash where things that are no longer sustainable crash and break. The low end middle class and working class is just one of the first casualties.

And so you have to wonder, what was the point of women joining the workforce en masse? The double income benefit didn't last long for the working class -- it just depressed wages to the point that it now takes two working parents to earn what one used to. Plus, with all the women out working you have childcare and eldercare expenses added in. Now add in the economic depression that's hit mostly men, and we have a situation where women are trying to be a breadwinner in a two income world, and men are unemployed at home with no cultural aptitude for "homemaking."