"Men are more downbeat than women about America's future."
CNBC: "Men More Downbeat Than Women About US Future":
A new CNBC All-America Economic Survey of 800 Americans shows 53 percent of men are mainly pessimistic, with 42 percent optimistic. Women are more evenly split at 48 percent pessimistic and 46 percent optimistic.
Put it all together, and the nation as a whole splits 50-44, favoring the pessimists over the optimists.
Married men are especially discouraged: 60 percent say they are pessimistic, compared to 44 percent of unmarried men.
Labels: economy
posted by Helen at 10:28 AM
52 Comments:
Married men are especially discouraged
Which brings up the old joke: Why to men usually die before their wives? Because they want to.
A suprisingly lot of pessimism overall. Says something about the liberal/left wing dream.
I suspect a lot of this has to do with the fact wages stopped going up in 1973, courtesy of government interference in the economy. Then Affirmative Action has squeezed men of many high-paying jobs (I have seen this happen to friends with Masters degrees). So many men don't have much to look forward to except working their lives at low-paying jobs.
Maybe because men can do math?
Look at the debt load the various governments are racking up. Now look at the promises made in terms of retirements. Now look at the number of baby boomers who will retire in the next twenty years. Do note that the first boomers will turn 65 this years, and some of them retired early.
And that doesn't include personal debt. One may argue with many things, but it is difficult to argue against math.
In the mean time, I'm concentrating on hookers and whiskey.
What?
Married men are especially discouraged: 60 percent say they are pessimistic, compared to 44 percent of unmarried men.
I wonder what the percentage is among American men who are married to women who weren't born and raised in the US?
I wonder how 'strong and independent' the wimminz will be when the shooting starts.
Gee, I can't imagine why.
"I wonder how 'strong and independent' the wimminz will be when the shooting starts."
---
They will be as strong and independent as ever, because men will continue to protect them out of chivalry until men no longer exist.
And then the women will bitch that the men "got out of protecting them" by dying.
It's just the cycle of nature, and I'm getting resigned to it. In reality, women will always take money and (if necessary) protection from men and then ignore that fact. Almost every woman I know. It doesn't mean I can't comment on it.
Nature set it up that way. Men produce things and protect women, and money flows in "society" (meaning through the anonymous conduit of taxes to government to women) ... to women.
Alimony flows to women (USD 7 billion per year). Part of child support (huh, $30,000 per month from P. Diddy?) may be "mommy support" and that flows to women. Dating flows to women. Drinks in bars flow to women. Casual prostitution ("Hey Carol, let's go to skiing in Colorado this weekend, I'll spring for it) flows to women. Welfare and "WIC" (Women, Infants and Children is the name) flow to women. Family assets flow to women (very substantial). Court orders in divorce cause unearned assets to flow to women (substantial). And on and on and friggin' on.
But women have men snowed that women are "oppressed" in Western countries like the US and the UK.
Holy shit are men stupid.
Women marry up. That says everything about how low men feel about themselves.
A guy who completed residency in neurology is only good enough for a nurse who isn't even competent or interested in her job. She quits right after the marriage so that Stupid can pay for her life.
An engineer with insight into new technology is just good enough for a community college dropout who works at WalMart. But she is really cute, damn it.
She won't be cute in 30 years, but you are going to have to pay for her. And pay and pay and pay.
The female teacher in a law school looks with a condescending glance at her fellow teachers ... she has bagged a partner in a law firm (as have a few other women in the law school), and the men there are more or less scum. She may continue to work, but her money is HERS, and the partner in the law firm paying for everything knows it.
And American society goes on. And women continue to bitch.
@JG
Two words: female hypergamy
Every society in world history was defined by those two words...and feminists think they can change it.
This ship is going nowhere but down.
Perhaps the reason these married men are especially discouraged is because they are, um, married.
I don't know about all, but I have a friend who... doesn't want me to discuss things like this around his wife. He is way liberal and I am not, but we discuss what we think is happening and a few other things, economic, political, the rest, and mostly 'not good to really bad'. I didn't think... liberals thought anything was even wrong before I met him. But it was "shhh", when she was around. And she isn't some dainty little woman, she is a professor of biology. Well, I suppose she might be considered the same. They are pretty sheltered in the Ivory Tower. Like em' as I do, that sort of is how I see it.
Perhaps the reason these married men are especially discouraged is because they are, um, married.
By George, I think you're onto something there.
Men are more 'pessimistic' because they know what it takes to have the economy recover. Women seem to look at it like they would a melodrama. It's really sad in the middle, but after the 3rd commercial and before the end of the episode everything is resolved and becomes wonderful.
Since there are ever more many strong independent wimminz now than before, why aren't their super powered influences lifting the economy? Shouldn't their contributions be pulling us out of this slump?
Ssshhhhh! Don't talk about "wimminz accomplishments" or you'll send JG into an apoplectic fit!
He's still trying to find tweezers and a match big enough to get rid of them.
/sarc
There is much less to be concerned with - hell, worried about - when it is only yourself to be concerned with.
When the stuff hit the fan for me back in 1998, it struck me I had become imprisoned by everything I own and everyone who depended on me. It reminds me of the Steve Martin line in a movie I can't remember the name of: "My whole life is have to." For me it appears we live in a time where it is easier to get things than it is to keep them. Way to easy to get them, actually. Especially for people who have no idea, really, what it takes to "become" in order to keep what has been presented to them. Equal opportunity is being replaced by equal outcome. That will do wonders for the overall improvement of the human condition.
Well spotted, JG. It seems you men have discovered the truth at last. And since there's no point in denying it any longer:
Dating is prostitution (you're the johns); marriage is slavery (for men); and love is a lie (on our part). The vast variety of sensual pleasure lovers explore together is really just drearily predictable rutting a woman dupes a man into believing is an erotic adventure they both share. The thrilling excitement and feverish passion that mark all memorable love affairs is strictly a man's delusion. *You* may be feeling that, but we're just lying back thinking about money. In fact, counting money in our heads is the only way a woman can achieve orgasm, or as we call it, a "goldrush". Our mothers teach us how to do this when we're dressing for prom night - preparing for our first limo ride and our first expensive date.
Now, this sort of intelligence is highly classified, of course. We've guarded our secrets for thousands of years. But since you already know, I guess there's no harm in it. Still, I'll have to guard my identity more closely from now on. No more pictures.
A rather dramatic change of course for you, goldy, after your historical rant on The Manipulated Man (you referred to it as so highly imaginative only a woman could have written it).
And now YOU rewrite it again.
We are much impressed. Figure skaters don't change position like you do. Judges give you a 9 for form. A 6 for your outfit.
Ah, yes. I'd completely forgotten about that heroic whistleblower. How brave she was. How perfectly correct.
As for the 6 on my outfit, what on earth do you know about fashion? I distinctly recall our heroine rightly pointing out (as if it needed pointing out) that we are the beautiful sex, and as we spend nearly all our time adorning ourselves (for the benefit of other women who, after all, are the only ones qualified to judge such matters) in order to flaunt and celebrate that fact, and you men spend all your time with your noses firmly pressed to the grind stone, you are far too ignorant and tasteless to have an opinion.
Your job is to give me money, not backtalk. Kindly remember that, or you'll end up with a knee-high black suede boot with a four-inch heel clamped down on the back of your neck.
It reminds me of the Steve Martin line in a movie I can't remember the name of: "My whole life is have to."
Parenthood is the name of the movie.
I think part if it is women have more faith in government to solve the problem than men do, and women are also given more financial protections than men.
Oh, goldilocks. If by "our heroine" you mean Esther Villar, I have a hardcover copy of her tome at my fingertips, and the "beautiful sex" is not the female in her words.
Need I quote from the text, or are you man enough to admit your error?
[Turns his back now and walks away, gleefully awaiting the traditional nasal snorting, the stamping of little feet and the throwing of the snowball which, given the fact that she throws like a girl and runs like Steven Seagal, has about as much chance of hitting me as she has of hitting water if she fell out of a fucking boat.]
NB: Goldy, if the boots look like this...
http://www.leatherlollipop.com/pd_ballet.cfm
...I am fucking THERE!
Name the time and place, Missy.
What can I say? I got a thing for footwear. It's my Achilles Heel.
ZorroPrimo said...
What can I say? I got a thing for footwear. It's my Achilles Heel.
8:55 AM, July 01, 2011
I see what you did there...
@Dunk:
I didn't even notice that until it posted.
Talk about a stinky bad pun!
Dating is prostitution (you're the johns)
one of the things that ross jeffries points out is you don`t date a girl you like. you meet her somewhere...frustrated chumps buy dinners, flowers, trips, cars etc. in ever-escalating spirals, until they fall down exhausted, only to find her doing the alpha boy at the drive-in.
i spent almost a year on dating sites and found ross`s stuff to be invaluable in making distinctions between girls who wanted a night out paid for and a real woman interested in me as a person.
and i found one.
people who don`t get the nuance of jeffries work for some (asperger`s) reason would be best to stay out of the dating scene.
it`s a veritable mine field of sharks, barracudas and watersnakes all biding thier time waiting for thier chance to take your 401k and head to florida.
how far they`d get on 30 thou is anyone`s guess...not to mention your 10 year old jetta.
and yeah, men are getting a shit deal, and pretty soon women won`t find suitable prospects, and they`ll have to change tactics....like in that town in italy where all the batchelors refused to move out of thier parent`s pasement.
fun times ahead.
Maybe because men can do math?
Bingo !
I have three daughters, not to mention two ex-wives. I feel for them. I really do. I could make it no matter how shitty things got (although I am getting old), but they were not raised to survive in a Hobbesian world. They may have to.
Someone once said that if women didn't have the vote, Democrats would never win.
I think they're right.
@asdsdfadf: That may have been Ann Coulter. I know she's decried women's right to vote several times.
The news focuses on bad news, so it exaggerates the true state of America. I have confidence that America will recover, after a Republican President and Congress restore a favorable business climate. But most Americans will have learned NOTHING, and will clamor for more government (read taxpayer) money for themselves, precipitating another deep recession.
A bit late, perhaps already covered, but in fairness, I meant to post long ago but was having computer issues. Ahem...
Actually, that is not good. Women have always been more optimistic (and Democratic). I would have thought the margin to be greater. I'm not sure if it is purely biological, somewhat logic or mood based for other reasons, or what. I am actually surprised women aren't much more optimistic, more so since they aren't being as highly impacted by the economic collapse since more of them have jobs and fewer of them are being fired.
Ah well. Depressed kittens are easier to attract.
Helen, you oft act the roll of a troll. You ask but don't answer. You are married to the online version of Glenn Beck. Yet you have not a personal life, to relate? No antidotes? Nothing a human being born into a female body might have to say given a world wide platform and megaphone? Every Instalanch, to you, is a melted snowball.
Your man has a high level of anti-testosterone known as estrogen. It is manufactured in fat cells in the middle of the body.
You have great "points":
Why so much talk about things primal without actually expressing yourself as a human being?
-=NikFromNYC=- Ph.D. in real chemistry, Columbia/Harvard
@Nik:
Did you learn social interaction skills from Hannibal Lecter, or did your mother just give birth standing up?
PS: It's spelled "role."
Does the D in Ph.D. stand for Douchebag?
"-=NikFromNYC=- Ph.D. in real chemistry, Columbia/Harvard"
--
What's the deal with people giving their degrees (whether real or fake)? People will be more likely to agree with their points of view or find them valid? Simple egotism?
What happens when they say really stupid shit? Does that negatively reflect on their college?
I don't go around rubbing my Associate's Degree in Spelling from Little Rock Community College in people's faces.
Someone who can say with a straight face that Glenn Reynolds is the online version of Glenn Beck has amply demonstrated a level of discernment that goes along with a degree history that includes Columbia and Harvard.
Zorro: Nik doesn't have a mother. His kind reproduces by fission, like all bacteria.
(Which explains why there are so many liberal assh*les in New York City.)
I'm no shrink, but Nik strikes me as the kind of guy that spent his childhood pulling the wings off of flies, and most of his adulthood wondering why women didn't positively respond to being given dead hamsters as Valentines gifts.
$10 says he's on a registry somewhere.
I also think his Ph.D. never covered the difference between "antidotes" and "anecdotes."
L
O
S
E
R
!
!
!
God, how I love this blog! Even though at times I have to wipe spewed coffee off my screen and end up halfway coughing up a lung from hearty guffaws and uproarious laughter.
I have to admit, that photo of Dr Helen that the recent sexual predator posted somehow reminded me of another photo I have recently seen...of Susan Lucci.
http://www.contactmusic.com/photos.nsf/main/susan_lucci_2675334
Lucci's wearing a white sweater.
"The LOOK" that bores into your very soul.
There's a similarity. It's in the eyes.
*******
This is a compliment thing. I'm not being a freak here.
STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!!!!
"My whole life is 'have to'!" was from Father of the Bride, where Steve Martin's stay-at-home wife pushes him to spend all his past and future income so their only child can have a perfect wedding. My first wife showed me this movie as a lesson on how men shouldn't be so stingy. Years after dumping her gold-digging ass, I watched the movie again with my current wife. She said that poor guy got screwed. Quite right.
I know only three women who have done anything about retirement. One is my twenty-three-year-old daughter.
My ex-wife threw a fit before our divorce when I told her I needed to save more for retirement and if she didn't want to live like a pauper, she needed to cut down on expenses and work more than a token amount. She's getting 40% of my retirement (I bought out part of her 50% share.)
The irony; alimony runs out in seven years, she'll hit retirement age in 16 years and she probably won't add a dime to her rollover IRA in the meantime. Simply doing a little more work and being much more affectionate and she would be retiring in comfort; now she'll have to work into her 70s just to put food on the table.
Nik, you're on the internet.
You need to remember that no one knows you're a dog on the internet.
Even if you post your academic letters.
"The irony; alimony runs out in seven years, she'll hit retirement age in 16 years and she probably won't add a dime to her rollover IRA in the meantime."
----
There have been a number of cases in which the woman got a high divorce settlement, blew through all the money, and then came back in twenty years and filed for alimony from the long-since ex-husband - and got it. There was a famous case in England in which the woman blew through millions - and was able to successfully tap her husband for more 20 years later.
Here's a case from the good ol' USA:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703399204574505700448957522.html
Paul and Theresa Taylor were married for 17 years. He was an engineer for Boston's public-works department, while she worked in accounting at a publishing company. They had three children, a weekend cottage on the bay and a house in the suburbs, on a leafy street called Cranberry Lane. In 1982, when they got divorced, the split was amicable. She got the family home; he got the second home. Both agreed "to waive any right to past, present or future alimony."
But recently, more than two decades after the divorce, Ms. Taylor, 64, told a Massachusetts judge she had no job, retirement savings or health insurance. Earlier this year, the judge ordered Mr. Taylor, now 68 and remarried, to pay $400 per week to support his ex-wife.
"This is insane," Mr. Taylor says, adding that the payments cut his after-tax pension by more than one-third. "Someone can just come back 25 years later and say, 'My life went down the toilet, and you're doing good—so now I want some of your money'?"
-------------
Another oppressed woman.
Men were more likely than women to lose their jobs during the last recession, and were less likely to find another. They aren't pessimistic, they are realistic.
JG, The situation you sited is in Massachusetts which specifically allows for lifetime alimony. Utah doesn't.
My lawyer assured me that Utah courts are very unsympathetic to adjustments in alimony especially if the ex-spouse is able yet refuses to work.
I've already warned my ex that if she ever challenges our divorce agreement, I will bury her legally. I'll also tell the world about all of her abusive behavior, using her name. She's scared to death of that, but running out of money makes you do nutty things.
Joe,
I didn't want to suggest that you are going to be stuck for something like that.
But here's the problem in general with family law (and even marriage):
The state can change the terms at any time. The law is not set.
Here's the perfect example (in almost every state, except New York, and even that state is thinking of changing):
A guy who got married in 1965 may have thought that if he did the right thing (supported his wife, didn't beat her up, wasn't an alcoholic, didn't abandon her, wasn't a homosexual - did I cover everything?), then he would have a say in a divorce. She couldn't just get out because she "felt like it" or because she found a richer boyfriend or because she was kinda bored. She also had a kind of commitment.
But then California changed to no-fault in 1969, and almost every state followed. Now the rules were different.
He married under one set of rules, and his wife could now easily divorce him under a different set of rules and really stick it to him as far as money goes.
Any state can change its divorce laws. And I doubt that they are going to make things better for men. That's not really how society works.
JG, I agree--I was referring to the here and now.
Then again, I just before our divorce became final, I also told my wife that if she went to court and won an adjustment of alimony in her favor, I'd simply leave the country and she'd never see another dime. I was serious.
(I just ranted to my brother yesterday that if conservative religions really wanted to help marriage, families and family relationships, they wouldn't be obsessing over gay marriage, but over our family court system! Two changes I'd make: prohibit alimony and make shared custody the presumption, not the exception. Recent polls support the latter and, I'll bet, the former as well. But politicians and most religious leaders are girlie men, so, as you say, they aren't going to make things better for men.)
As for me, I'm neither pessimistic nor optimistic. For me, it's all in God's hands and it's his will be done, not mine. I've found that has helped me in the long run, in good economic times or in bad, the Lord will provide. Folks just need to learn how to let go and let God and they'd be much better off, and not pushing themselves toward an early grave worrying about stuff they really have no true control over.
Post a Comment
<< Home