A LIBERAL VIEW OF THINGS: Where are we headed?

Believe it or not, I read conservative columns and gain insight and balance as a result. I avoid certain right-wing ideologues because they, like so many pundits on the left, spout company line after company line. It gets boring and predictable.  There are a few writers like Thomas Friedman, Leonard Pitts Jr. and Maureen Dowd who are insightful, intelligent and entertaining. My favorite conservative writer is David Brooks, and this week he wrote a column that caught my attention.

Brooks discussed the long-held dream of most Americans, upward mobility. He mentions two kinds of inequality: Blue inequality, the type separating the higher salary earners and everybody else in and near big cities; and red inequality, the gap between college graduates and everybody else in smaller towns and cities.

In “blue” areas, 69 percent of the top 1 percent earners operate some sort of financial business. The other 31 percent are doctors, lawyers, athletes and engineers. You’ll notice there is no mention of the manufacturing industry.

In 1979, Brooks wrote, the average college graduate made 38 percent more than the average high school graduate. Today, that number is 75 percent more. More importantly, perhaps, is today’s college graduates have a much better chance of passing down their legacy to their children than those who do not go to college. In 1970, college and high school graduates had quite similar lifestyles. Today, the differences in divorce rates, smoking, longevity, obesity, friendship networks and community activism is much greater between the two groups, with high school graduates being on the downside.

Most of the attention the Occupy movements are garnering relates to the blue inequalities, but the “red” inequalities might be more important to how we extract ourselves from this economically difficult time.

Tens of millions of Americans have and are dropping out of college and high school for many reasons. This is a huge problem because it involves so many residents. Add to that, 40 percent of our children are born to unwed mothers and our workforce of skilled and semi-skilled labor is languishing in dormancy for lack of job opportunities. The key word here is “opportunity."

We might be disgusted at the blue inequality of CEO and star-athlete salaries compared to everybody else, but the red inequality is being saddled with the specter of having no hope. Studies show poor people have virtually no chance of upward mobility regardless of their education. The middle classes are showing a steep drop in upward mobility. Subsequent generations do worse than previous ones. Only educated people coming from already wealthy families show any upward trend in socioeconomic mobility. The dream of working one’s way to the top or out of poverty is rapidly dimming for most Americans.

While corporate America has hastily sent our jobs to other countries, there was no attempt to replace them. While we’ve let our infrastructure crumble, we’ve also cut our school vocational programs, thus depriving our society of skilled labor resources. We have dumbed down our school curricula for the sake of passing unfunded, but mandated, testing regimes that serve no purpose other than political expediency. The children become bored and disinterested and drop out to do any number of things, not all of which are legal or productive to society.

I hate to say it, but these trends look an awful lot like what describes a Second World nation. Is that what we are or where we’re headed? While the elites scurry to their gated McMansion communities, the vast majority of the working class, the poor and the underclass scrape for a dream of some sort to which they can aspire even as their opportunities to do so dwindle.

There are countless slogans decrying the state we’re in and how we’ve lost our national compass. It was the strong middle class that made this country great. They spent the money and became the engine of our economy.

Today, 50 million people live in poverty to varying degrees. They spur nothing. Today, the middle class’s job quality and rewards have degraded to a point where they no longer spur the economy either.

Is this where we are headed? If so, how do the elites expect to keep raking in their millions when nobody is making or buying anything other than subsistence?

Turner is a retired teacher and industrial engineer who lives near Marble Falls. He is an independent columnist, not a staff member, and his views do not necessarily reflect those of The Tribune or its parent company. "The Voter’s Guide to National Salvation" is a newly published e-book from Turner. You can find it at www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooks. He can be reached by email at vtgolf@zeecon.com.