[quote]Natural Nate wrote:
I’d rather have stuff than money. That’s what money’s for, getting stuff. And services. Those misers in The Millionaire Next Door make no sense to me.[/quote]
And you know what? It’s because of people like you that our Economy stays afloat. If everybody decided to save (or invest in the stock market) all their disposable income, the whole Economy would collapse in less than a year.
[quote]We all know vroom to be a liberal and what he will say is that you had advantages in that your parents taught you something or you have the ability to learn from your mistakes that others don’t have. In other words, no matter what the issue those who are successful always have some advantage over those who don’t.
So liberals would say the system is unfair so we have to even it out by taxing the rich and giving it to the poor. Well, while this may sound feasible, there are always those, who against all odds are still successful. Those who had no parents and no advantages and are still successful.[/quote]
I’m glad my post made it in before this tripe.
Thanks for trying to make up my position for me, and doing an extremely shitty job of it as well.
I’m not at all interested in taxing the rich to give to the poor because there is unfairness in the world. Don’t be such an ass.
I am for realizing that many people grow up in situations that make it extremely hard for them to grasp opportunities, and then when they grow up and learn to make appropriate decisions, it is even harder then.
The difference is, that as a liberal, I’d prefer not to punish these people by assuming they are idiots and can progress no more than the poor choices made during childhood have left open to them.
People make mistakes. Parents are sometimes not very good at parenting. What I would like, is an easier way for people to find the ladder and start climbing it… and this doesn’t involve taxing rich people to give it to poor people because their success is unfair.
Why not pretend to actually be a compassionate conservative for a change, since that is the buzzphrase used so often these days.
Drop the hatred for the poor and realize that making it MORE possible for them to succeed takes nothing away from you. In fact, the more people we push up the ladder the better the economy will be and the larger the tax base.
Making poorer people succeed will make the entire economy stronger. Sure, some people simply don’t have what it takes, but I am pretty confident that most people, once they’ve been detrained of their hopelessness can accomplish a hell of a lot.
I simply want to make it easier for people to succeed and to overcome the hardships in front of them or poor decisions made during youth.
Wouldn’t that be a horrible thing…
[quote]hspder wrote:
Lorisco wrote:
Not lazy (well maybe some are), it is what they are willing to do. How hard are you willing to work? How many sacrifices are you willing to make now for future rewards? If anyone is willing to make the needed sacrifices they WILL be successful.
How successful are we talking about? Let’s say, over $10M in net worth?
Does that include moral and ethical sacrifices, including, but not limited too, lying, cheating, back-stabbing, etc.?
If it does, I’ll agree.
Do bear in mind that I am in a position that I meet successful professionals on a daily basis, so I’m pretty sure I have a very good sample…
[/quote]
The definition of successful is individual. It is whatever you are willing to do to achieve what you want. For many this doesn’t reach beyond making a comfortable living.
For some reason people like to believe that the only way someone can get rich is by cheating or screwing someone else. I doubt that that is the truth for the majority. Poverty is not virtuous and wealth is not immoral.
And they wouldn’t have any cool stuff!
[quote]hspder wrote:
If everybody decided to save (or invest in the stock market) all their disposable income, the whole Economy would collapse in less than a year.
[/quote]
[quote]hspder wrote:
I didn’t get you wrong, don’t worry. 
[/quote]
Good
I think the problem is most people are coming at this from a none wealthy perspective (i.e. they are not.) which gives you two options to look at how it is done. Optomistic, or pessimistic.
Agreed. I think the problem is they are taught to work for money, and not have money work for them, or they know how to but don’t want to take the risk.
Agreed see my reply to point A
I don’t think it take luck. I do think knowing the right people is important, but that goes along the lines of you become who you hang out with. I think Some wealthy people are unethical, but not all. Just like some middle class and poor are unethical, but not all.
define opportunity? I think your version of opportunity and mine are different.
I think if you are willing to settle for a lower paying job that offers you security, and not look for a higher paying job. It is not the companies fault that you settled. My wife was working as a legal assistant and was under payed by over 20k. she was willing to take it for four years before she finally was was able to get over that idea of security. I don’t blame the law firm, I blame her for settling for below market value.
I agree. That is even biblical. (James 2)
Agreed that no one should be above the law.
I don’t think many conservatives would disagree with you on the issues of law. I actually worked at a law firm who did work for Enron, and no one approved of what they did where I work.
[quote]vroom wrote:
The difference is, that as a liberal, I’d prefer not to punish these people by assuming they are idiots and can progress no more than the poor choices made during childhood have left open to them.
People make mistakes. Parents are sometimes not very good at parenting. What I would like, is an easier way for people to find the ladder and start climbing it… and this doesn’t involve taxing rich people to give it to poor people because their success is unfair.
Drop the hatred for the poor and realize that making it MORE possible for them to succeed takes nothing away from you. In fact, the more people we push up the ladder the better the economy will be and the larger the tax base.
Making poorer people succeed will make the entire economy stronger. Sure, some people simply don’t have what it takes, but I am pretty confident that most people, once they’ve been detrained of their hopelessness can accomplish a hell of a lot.
I simply want to make it easier for people to succeed and to overcome the hardships in front of them or poor decisions made during youth.
Wouldn’t that be a horrible thing…[/quote]
All of this sounds great. It really does, and I could not agree more. What, specifically, is your proposal, though?
[quote]vroom wrote:
I’m glad my post made it in before this tripe.
Thanks for trying to make up my position for me, and doing an extremely shitty job of it as well.
I’m not at all interested in taxing the rich to give to the poor because there is unfairness in the world. Don’t be such an ass.
[/quote]
Hey bro, this is a reasonable statement as that is the position of the democratic party in the US. So your fellow liberals are indeed spouting this robin hood approach to social class manipulation. But I’m glad to see that you aren’t on board with that.
Many people come through this very scenario and do just fine. How can they do it and others not?
Next, no one is assuming they are idiots. And no one is punishing them. They have the same chances as the rest of us. Why is having them work through the system like everyone else “punishing them”?
Hatred? Dude, you are way off and this kind of rhetoric is over the top, even for you.
I totally agree that those that feel hopeless will probably not succeed. So what is your approach to help them have hope? Why do others in the very same situation (sometimes even from the same family) have hope and the ability to believe in themselves?
What you don’t seem to be getting is that this discrepancy of those who feel they can make it and those not is part of the human condition and can’t be fixed by handouts. There are always going to be people who are only going to go only as far as you pull them.
At some point the drive to succeed is going to have to come from inside the person or they will never succeed regardless of how much you give them.
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
The definition of successful is individual. It is whatever you are willing to do to achieve what you want. For many this doesn’t reach beyond making a comfortable living. [/quote]
So, how do you feel that correlates with the label “lazy”? Does that mean that the people that you describe, that have lower ambitions, do so because they are lazy, or is it because they have different priorities than making money?
It is a big difference you know… To put it in Christian terms, the difference between Sin and Contentment.
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
For some reason people like to believe that the only way someone can get rich is by cheating or screwing someone else. I doubt that that is the truth for the majority. Poverty is not virtuous and wealth is not immoral.[/quote]
I absolutely agree.
But you have to admit that assuming most people who are poor are lazy, and most people who are wealthy got there just through hard work is equally dumb.
“Innocent until proven guilty” also means that you have to accept the reality that many poor people are in fact hard working individuals that are indeed victims of a fundamentally flawed society and were never given a chance at achieving their ambitions. What I want, as a Social Democrat, is to give them that chance. Nothing more, nothing less.
Not that I don’t appreciate your stories about getting to the American Dream and all that, but one day you will realize that you are the exception and not the rule. Some guys are just smarter than others, some are more charismatic, and these people will rise to the top. Unfortunately, that doesn’t do a fucking thing for those of us that are not endowed with these gifts.
The great majority of men fall between a certain IQ, I bet, and a certain range of pay that they make. This is fine…if you are a white male.
The issue, at least in America, is that of the government and the bosses trying tooth and nail to destroy every movement that benifits the greater good- the lassiez faire capitalism that people talk about is the same shit that led directly to slavery, child labor, anti-union sentiment and strikenreaking, the House on Un-American Activities, COINTELPRO, and all the other wonderful things that the ruling class of the government has thrust on the country. It is powerful men trying to, simply said, get more power.
What infuriates me is that if you read any Early American litatuure, this is exactly what the point was of starting thi country- to destroy the hierarchy and make this a country where all men were equal. Read Crevocuer’s “Letter from an American Farmer”, Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of Virgina”, or anything of Thomas Paine. The intent was to make men truly control their own destiny. This no longer applies.
What has capitalism got us? The most powerful spot in the world? This is true, but it is now on the backs of the sweatshops that make all the things that Americans buy nowadays. There is an old saying “You can sheer a sheep many times, but skin’em only once”. Well, we tryed to skin American labor, and they fought back with unions that can be quite powerful. So now, we send everything overseas where people will work for fifteen cents with no bathroom breaks. Do you think these people are retarded? What will happen if these people unionizes, and demand a human pay for their labor? Where does that leave America, who’s minimum wage is not even enough for an American to remotely live off?
What has capitlism gotten us? The super rich, the middle class, and the ghettos. Ironic how the highest ones are predominantly white, while the bottom of the barrel is black.
You can not talk about the rich and the poor without mentioning race. America is a racist country, who’s every aim for the past three hundred years has been keeping blacks down. Every time they organize, and a leader emerges, he is assasinated (iroically). When have you seen a KKK member assasinated? When does someone who supports the establishment get assassinated?
Capitalism has gotten us to the point where cops patrol the white neighborhoods, watching for every black face driving a shot to shit Hond Civic in the wrong place. It leaves the blacks down in the vallies of the cities like Paterson, where legendary housing projects are where whites fear to tread, and the sheriffs avoid.
And then, when the blacks make it to the top, and tell of the hellish world where they have come from, Wal Mart tells them that they won’t carry the records because they are “obscene”. No shit. What is obscene is that the educational systems in the ghettos are garbage, there is no incentive for them to do better, and they realize that the only way for them to “succeed” is in the drug trade. The Tookie Williams case is an example of this kind of thing. Brutality and physical strength is the measure of men in the poor neighborhoods, not how smart or educated one is (as in the upper classes). So why are you surprised when they start gangs that makes millions in the drug trade, then commit brutal murders to reinforce their dominance? America has given them no other options.
OF course, they could work at McDonald’s and try to work their way out of it. But capitalism is about taking all you can for yourself- so why work at McDonald’s when you can make a grand in a night selling? Capitalism at its finest.
I attack Conservative all the time for their “head in the sand” mentality. They come back with, “Well I made it” Good for you. Here’s your monument. But very few of you have any idea what is really going on in the streets, and the mentality that the poor have.
Instead of starting wars that suck up billions, why don’t we dump that money into education, and get these kids in the streets educated? Why not get them into college? That is where the good can be done. Not telling everyone to fuck off, when you are (as I am), essentially, a white male who has controlled everything since the inception of civilization.
Women, minorities, and all others who are not white males have started off on the bottom rung since this country was started. Capitalism has done nothing but exagerrate the differences, and make them larger.
Now, I don’t know if socialism is the answer to the world’s problems. For all I know, it could be an entirely different economic system that rises in the future. But all I can tell you is that if the new economic system doesn’t somehow benefit the moneyed classes, then it will be crushed.
[quote]haney wrote:
define opportunity? I think your version of opportunity and mine are different.[/quote]
My definition?
A chance of doing “X” that is completely independent of variables that you cannot control (gender, skin color, your parents’ income, where you were born and raised, who you know).
Until I see a black woman born and raised in West Oakland have EXACTLY the same chance at a specific job (all other things being equal) as a white man born and raised in SF’s Nob Hill, I won’t be happy.
[quote]haney wrote:
I think if you are willing to settle for a lower paying job that offers you security, and not look for a higher paying job. It is not the companies fault that you settled. My wife was working as a legal assistant and was under paid by over 20k. she was willing to take it for four years before she finally was able to get over that idea of security. I don’t blame the law firm, I blame her for settling for below market value.[/quote]
I can’t talk about your wife’s specific situation, but I can talk about the situation of many people I know.
You have to also take into account people that are stuck in their jobs BECAUSE THEY CANNOT FIND ANOTHER ONE. I know at least half a dozen people that have been looking – very hard – for a higher salary for what they’re doing for 3 years or more – to no avail. In fact, in the Bay Area, if you change companies odds are that your salary will DECREASE, because companies are systematically trying to push the salaries down.
Sure, you can refuse to accept the salary. But somebody else will accept it and you’ll have to keep looking. Maybe for years.
Before you start talking about the theory that if you offer a key differentiator you will be hired, there are some things you should take into account: 1. Many companies are more worried about salary than skills 2. Different companies will want different differentiators, some of which are completely ridiculous 3. You may be competing with people who know people, and if you don’t know those people – you’re out of luck.
Competition between workers drives the salaries down. Simple as that.
Unless there’s a Union in place that does collective bargaining – cartel instead of competition – but I have the sneaky feeling that you’re not really a proponent of Unions…
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
Hey bro, this is a reasonable statement as that is the position of the democratic party in the US. So your fellow liberals are indeed spouting this robin hood approach to social class manipulation. But I’m glad to see that you aren’t on board with that.
[/quote]
Maybe you should figure out who is a talking point person who doesn’t think for themselves before you slap labels on people.
Who cares. The issue isn’t that “we” as somewhat successful people are better than those that didn’t. It doesn’t matter whether some mixture of innate or external issues caused a failure to succeed.
Really, there is no point to your point. It doesn’t matter what “failings” your question might uncover. You say you don’t want to punish those that don’t make it, but with statements like this you highlight the reasons a person fails and hold it up and claim they deserve what they got.
The fact is that not everybody has the same chances. I also don’t feel it is appropriate to hold people to the fire for most of the decisions they make before attaining adulthood. Hell, people drop out of high school at a young age, before they realize what the real world is like.
Yes, they failed to make it through “the system”. However, it doesn’t fucking matter why. That is besides the point. The point is that finding ways to get more people through “the system” enriches us all. This is something I don’t even see an acknowledgement of in your post.
Why is that?
What would you call it when people take glee at anothers misfortune, as you appear to in this thread? Rather than figure out how to make it possible for them to lift themselves up, you are too busy pointing your finger at their mistakes and saying, tough luck.
Maybe it isn’t hatred, but whatever it is, it isn’t compassion.
Again, I don’t particularly care why. There will always be people who make it through any hardship, and making those with less hardship who didn’t succeed feel shitty about it is entirely the wrong direction to take.
Excuse me? Did I mention handouts? Am I for transferring money to these people or something like that? I am for making it easier for ALL people to climb up a few rungs of the ladder. It won’t take away from anyone else if more people can grab onto the ladder.
Why are you so resistant to letting people start to climb up. This is a recurring theme in a lot of threads around here. The little guy needs to have his face shoved in the shit so he doesn’t start to get uppity. Where the hell is this coming from?
Is this the same as putting someone else down to make yourself feel better or something?
Again, I’m not talking about throwing money at anyone. Of course the drive will have to come from inside. However, there are also many skills and attributes a person needs. If you have never seen them displayed around you, it will be very hard to pick them up.
I think there is a point in most peoples lives, those that missed the ladder altogether, that they realize they should have finished high school or made different choices than they did. There is no harm in making sure they aren’t virtually trapped in their position once they finally decide they would like to do something about it.
[quote]hspder wrote:
My definition?
A chance of doing “X” that is completely independent of variables that you cannot control (gender, skin color, your parents’ income, where you were born and raised, who you know).
Until I see a black woman born and raised in West Oakland have EXACTLY the same chance at a specific job (all other things being equal) as a white man born and raised in SF’s Nob Hill, I won’t be happy.[/quote]
Unfortunately, I think a lot of the measures people pull out to attempt to demonstrate that people face extreme disadvantages due to the factors you listed actually measure disadvantages due to other factors that are strongly correlated. And I think that in a lot of instances, the effect of those correlating factors isn’t nearly as problematic from a “fairness” standpoint.
Some possible correlating factors: IQ (meant as shorthand for the inherent intelectual ability), culture, citizenship, etc.
Even with gender, I think most would be comfortable with certain direct limitations (I could never be a mother, for instance), and could agree that “gender” might pick up some other factors, such as musculature, or even how one would value a given opportunity in terms of utility (hours of work required during prime parenting years versus salary or tenure-track, for example).
I think we should work to make certain people have opportunities to maximize their potential. I also think we should help people to overcome deficient starting positions in life, but I have a suspicion that we might approach that differently.
As for the “who you know,” factor, unfortunately, there’s not really much that can be done for that - even if one were to take all the opportunities in existence and put them in the hands of the government to distribute, someone still knows the government officials… (thus the problem with the USSR, for example).
As an observation related to the original point, I think people do underestimate the role that randomness can play in terms of the success or failure of a given enterprise.
If back in the early 80s I had a great idea for a company, got the funding and worked incredibly hard, the great idea and effort wouldn’t have mattered if that company’s success was dependent on the success of the betamax format over VHS (and wouldn’t have mattered that a lot of people considered beta superior technology either).
I think generally hard work is a necessary factor for success, but not a sufficient factor. But you definitely increase your odds of being successful if you don’t give up after a failure – and you’ll never achieve “rich” status from working/middle class (let alone from poor) without a whole lot of sacrifices and both the tolerance for risk and the ability to avoid stupid risks.
[quote]hspder wrote:
Lorisco wrote:
The definition of successful is individual. It is whatever you are willing to do to achieve what you want. For many this doesn’t reach beyond making a comfortable living.
So, how do you feel that correlates with the label “lazy”? Does that mean that the people that you describe, that have lower ambitions, do so because they are lazy, or is it because they have different priorities than making money?
It is a big difference you know… To put it in Christian terms, the difference between Sin and Contentment.
[/quote]
I don’t see it as lazy either. And I don’t believe they are content. Well, some my be content. I think it is their own understanding or beliefs that limit them. The don’t think they can achieve, so they don’t try.
I don’t get what sin has to do with it?
I’m sure there are those who didn’t work for it, but I believe the statistics show that most worked for it.
For this to be true you have to show how others in the same situation have been successful. If some people are able to make it is spite of a flawed system, then that shows that they did in fact have a choice in the matter.
Fighting : Iam thankful that those chinese sweatshops that employ people @ 1.00/Hr exist ,at least they have jobs. Without the advent of cheap manufacturing less jobs would be available. I think that we just need to get it outof our heads that the " detroit model " of a $40/ hour assembly plant job is what manufacturers will provide to people that cannot do anything else.
[quote]hspder wrote:
c) Getting wealthy requires luck, knowing the right people and, quite frequently, being willing to make ethical and moral “sacrifices”, i.e., putting your ambition ahead of ethics and moral values
[/quote]
You are an internationally renowned economist and this is what you believr?
BULL FUCKING SHIT. I live in the goddamn sticks and can smell your bullshit bias from here.
I just lost all respect for you. I know that must really hurt, but - geez. I know where I am not sending my son to business school.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Who cares. The issue isn’t that “we” as somewhat successful people are better than those that didn’t. It doesn’t matter whether some mixture of innate or external issues caused a failure to succeed.
[/quote]
It does matter as once you know that you can use it to help others succeed.
Come on bro, get down off your soapbox for long enough to think with your brain. It totally matters how those who are disadvantaged succeed so that info can be given to others to help them do it.
You are the only one saying you are better than anyone else. I never stated that.
Ok, I agree that the more people succeed helps us all. I agree. But what I don’t hear from you is how we do that? The fact is that there are opportunities already there that many don’t take advantage of. How are you going to help those people?
I know you think many have more advantages than others, which I agree. But again, why do many people make it in spite of disadvantages? If you learn that you can use that info to help those who don’t seem to get it.
Dude, you are totally reading things into my posts that I haven’t stated. I get no please from people not making it. My point has always been to hold up those who do make it and use them as roll models. If they can do it, others can to.
No, the point in saying that others have made it in spite of adversity is not to put down those who didn’t. It’s to show those who didn’t the possibilities, hope! If they can do it so can I.
So pointing out success is more productive than failure. It proves that it can be done and helps provide a road map for how to do it yourself.
I don’t feel that way and you have misinterpreted my posts.
Excellent point! That is why you use those who have succeeded as models to show how it is done.
Lorisco,
We are getting closer, but I’d suggest that “role models” in this sense don’t offer very much.
People need to learn skills and discipline. Knowing that others have done so is fine, but it is a very small piece of the puzzle.
We all “know” that people who succeed made the right choices… worked hard and so on. However, like watching our sports heros on television, we don’t gain their skills by casual observation.
The point I’m trying to make is that by the time many people smarten up and realize their mistake, or have learned a bit about how the world really works, then it becomes much more difficult to acquire education, training and the opportunities provided by those that are involved in teaching those skills.
The other point I’m trying to make is that a lot of folks, and perhaps not yourself, use the fact that some succeed to denigrate those that don’t. This makes it their own fault, and suddenly since people made bad choices, they deserve what they get. I also suspect there is an issue because of who some people perceive “the poor” as… but that is another discussion.
Anyway, this fault of the victim attitude is rampant around these parts, I’m sorry if I ascribed it to you incorrectly.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
As an observation related to the original point, I think people do underestimate the role that randomness can play in terms of the success or failure of a given enterprise.
If back in the early 80s I had a great idea for a company, got the funding and worked incredibly hard, the great idea and effort wouldn’t have mattered if that company’s success was dependent on the success of the betamax format over VHS (and wouldn’t have mattered that a lot of people considered beta superior technology either).
I think generally hard work is a necessary factor for success, but not a sufficient factor. But you definitely increase your odds of being successful if you don’t give up after a failure – and you’ll never achieve “rich” status from working/middle class (let alone from poor) without a whole lot of sacrifices and both the tolerance for risk and the ability to avoid stupid risks. [/quote]
Couldn’t agree more with the above part of your post. It’s refreshing to see a conservative saying the above, thank you.
(on the rest of your post – I guess we’ll agree to disagree… I think you just defined what distinguishes the moderate left from the moderate right… And we both know what side we’re in.)
[quote]rainjack wrote:
I just lost all respect for you. I know that must really hurt, but - geez. I know where I am not sending my son to business school. [/quote]
I appreciate that – if your son’s reading comprehension skills are similar to yours, well, he wouldn’t really get in either… so I guess that save us both some time… Thank you.
[quote]hspder wrote:
rainjack wrote:
I just lost all respect for you. I know that must really hurt, but - geez. I know where I am not sending my son to business school.
I appreciate that – if your son’s reading comprehension skills are similar to yours, well, he wouldn’t really get in either… so I guess that save us both some time… Thank you.
[/quote]
He’d probably rather contribute to society above and beyond helping to pay an aver stuffed ass like you anyhow - so I guess it really doesn’t.
I think if you were actually man enough to stand in front of me, you would think tewice before insulting my son. But such as it goes with elitist fucks like you. All talk and no balls. And when cornered decides to insult kids. Tough guy. Really tough.