How The Rich Are Winning

[gingermeggs]

LOL, another inane and meaningless point from Moonbeam.

There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle, when the gold loses its luster, when the throne room becomes a prison, and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

 

[gingermeggs]

Yeah, sort of like how not all but most financially successful folks are assholes.

Yes, there's something to be said about being able to sleep at night and having a happy, meaningful existence.

 

[HendrixFan]

we're not created equal. you work with what you were given and make the best of it.
a person's full potential might be upper middle class, and if he works towards it, it can be attained.
but he's not entitled to it. if he doesn't get his shit together, he'll be relegated to lower class poverty.
he has no one to blame but himself.

There are countless external factors that decide how a person's professional and financial life will play out. Family illness? Family in financial need? Personal illness? Not everyone who works can be upper middle class, for the exact reason already spelled out. There is not enough wealth to go around even if everyone did as you suggested. It simply is not possible.

Again, you are escaping the point of the OP's post. There is enough wealth for a better standard of living for the lower classes but the rich are absorbing it at an increasing rate. I can bet almost everyone (if not everyone) on this board is a member of the group that is not absorbing it at an increasing rate. It is not healthy for a society to be top heavy with wealth, and it goes against one of our core principles in founding this country.

Poor people aren't born inherently more lazy than those in the top 20%. Why are the kids born into such situations statistically less likely to succeed? Bear in mind that racial lines are nowhere near as important as financial lines when determining these things. The society that the poor are born into does not easily allow for upward mobility.

 

[HendrixFan]

First generation lawyer here. Born to a unsuccessful businessman father and a housewife mother. Lost our family home to foreclosure. First college grad in our family, first and only with an advanced degree.

Luck didn't get me into College. Luck didn't take the LSAT for me. Luck didn't get me into Law School. Luck didn't pass the bar for me.

I'm pleased for your success (honestly). I can bet that you are at least 95th percentile, if not higher, when it comes to testing. You had innate intellectual opportunities that the vast majority does not posses. Intelligence is a standard bell curve. It was your hard work and intelligence that got you where you were, but that doesn't mean the same hard work would get even half of the people out there to the place that you are at.

 

[Zebo]

For my money nothing is better than Westerners talking with aplomb about how they make their own luck, ambition is all you need, the world is your oyster, etc.

We're all as lucky as a fat pig to be here. Most of us would be drinking sh*t-tainted water if we happened to have been born in central Africa and don't you think otherwise.

--

Here are some adages for you:

It takes money to make money.
Money is power.

Even a child can be taught the simplicities of a basic monopoly and why laws have been constructed to counteract them. In a purely free market, one without sufficient rules, money (i.e. power) will be increasingly concentrated in the few.

Do you really think you're so special that without laws that are protecting you already you'd be one of the scant minority, rich and wealthy, and not one of the scrap-lapping chumps on the bottom?

This. I'd like some of these right wingers to experience a true free market. They have names like Chad, Somalia and Mexico they would not be caught dead in. You're either born into right family or you're stuck in life of poverty no matter gifts you come with. (unless an NBA scout sees you like Manute Bol)

USA is veering towards that with subsistence wages, shitty schools, onerous taxes on lower/middle class, selling out American workers, massive concentration of wealth, etc. Socialism for the top is a huge problem right now - "too big to fail" so lets make them bigger to fail with 2 trillion bailout, Perpetual copyright and patents, revolving door where Obama has more Goldman exes on staff than Goldman itself... and so on. People need to wake up or we will become like Mexico. Fabulous wealth for 5% and outside the gates - misery and destitution for 95%.

Franky I think it's too late to stop. Once our bond rating takes shit or interest payments come close to consuming 100% of tax receipts leaving no services it will be the end of the world as you know it.

 

[gingermeggs]

There are countless external factors that decide how a person's professional and financial life will play out. Family illness? Family in financial need? Personal illness? Not everyone who works can be upper middle class, for the exact reason already spelled out. There is not enough wealth to go around even if everyone did as you suggested. It simply is not possible.

Again, you are escaping the point of the OP's post. There is enough wealth for a better standard of living for the lower classes but the rich are absorbing it at an increasing rate. I can bet almost everyone (if not everyone) on this board is a member of the group that is not absorbing it at an increasing rate. It is not healthy for a society to be top heavy with wealth, and it goes against one of our core principles in founding this country.

Poor people aren't born inherently more lazy than those in the top 20%. Why are the kids born into such situations statistically less likely to succeed? Bear in mind that racial lines are nowhere near as important as financial lines when determining these things. The society that the poor are born into does not easily allow for upward mobility.

You answered it yourself- they don't have access to the capital it takes to build that success! Also they don't get enough wages to build up to that access either, but somewhere along the line most of them learn it is a folly anyhow- life is to be lived, not endued in the pursuit of wealth!

 

[HendrixFan]

You answered it yourself- they don't have access to the capital it takes to build that success! Also they don't get enough wages to build up to that access either, but somewhere along the line most of them learn it is a folly anyhow- life is to be lived, not endued in the pursuit of wealth!

I agree with you completely. What sucks about this thread and the ideas contained in it is the notion that anyone who doesn't make enough money (whatever arbitrary number is set, generally right around whatever that person makes) must be lazy and trying to steal from them. It simply isn't a matter of lack of compassion for the poor. It is utter contempt and disgust, since the argument is framed in such a horrible manner.

The hard core right panders to the ego in convincing people they were amazing and hard working in becoming what they are. Therefore anyone who hasn't achieved a similar social status must be lazy. It gets complicated, and should appeal to people's compassion (which is what formed societies in the first place), when you stop and think that maybe some people are handed a bum hand. That maybe it is next to impossible to make it out of the lower class. While there are notable exceptions, exceptions don't make a rule. But that gets depressing, and it is much cleaner and easier to just pump your ego and think everyone else is beneath you because they are terrible lazy monsters who are trying to steal your hard work.

 

[Zebo]

If only it were that simple.

Unfortunately, success is as much about luck as it is hard work and talent.

Luck? Rarely such a thing. You think those union organizers were lucky getting shot in the head for today's to enjoy some work place rights? You think it's luck top 400 only pay 15% tax or a hell of a lot of lobbying? You think it's luck Bill G sat in his Albuquerque strip mall office working 19 hr days? Everything has cause and effect save trust fund babies. To a large degree we make our own luck and Americans are failing at by accepting status quo.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

There are countless external factors that decide how a person's professional and financial life will play out. Family illness? Family in financial need? Personal illness? Not everyone who works can be upper middle class, for the exact reason already spelled out. There is not enough wealth to go around even if everyone did as you suggested. It simply is not possible.

Again, you are escaping the point of the OP's post. There is enough wealth for a better standard of living for the lower classes but the rich are absorbing it at an increasing rate. I can bet almost everyone (if not everyone) on this board is a member of the group that is not absorbing it at an increasing rate. It is not healthy for a society to be top heavy with wealth, and it goes against one of our core principles in founding this country.

Poor people aren't born inherently more lazy than those in the top 20%. Why are the kids born into such situations statistically less likely to succeed? Bear in mind that racial lines are nowhere near as important as financial lines when determining these things. The society that the poor are born into does not easily allow for upward mobility.

hmmm... and yet i don't care.
i worry about myself and my family and if i can provide them a comfortable lifestyle, why should i care that the elite are making a bazillion dollars and i'm only making $100k.

that's the problem with you liberals... always wanting a piece of someone elses pie.
worry about your own shit, not someone else.

 

[BoberFett]

The problem is that even with this ever increasing wealth, the poor even in this country are suffering. This isn't Star Trek where resources are effectively limitless. Knowing that stratification is inevitable unless we switch to communism, the only way for the poor to have a standard of living in line with our first world status is to pay them more for their labor

Suffering? Really? You think that many people (there are some who are truly destitute, but it's an extremely small percentage) are suffering? Christ, this is the only country where cable TV is a part of suffering. I bet the rest of the world wishes they had it this badly.

 

[BoberFett]

This. I'd like some of these right wingers to experience a true free market. They have names like Chad, Somalia and Mexico they would not be caught dead in. You're either born into right family or you're stuck in life of poverty no matter gifts you come with. (unless an NBA scout sees you like Manute Bol)

USA is veering towards that with subsistence wages, shitty schools, onerous taxes on lower/middle class, selling out American workers, massive concentration of wealth, etc. Socialism for the top is a huge problem right now - "too big to fail" so lets make them bigger to fail with 2 trillion bailout, Perpetual copyright and patents, revolving door where Obama has more Goldman exes on staff than Goldman itself... and so on. People need to wake up or we will become like Mexico. Fabulous wealth for 5% and outside the gates - misery and destitution for 95%.

Franky I think it's too late to stop. Once our bond rating takes shit or interest payments come close to consuming 100% of tax receipts leaving no services it will be the end of the world as you know it.

Goddammit, would people stop equating free market with anarchy? Free markets require rule of law, something which Mexico and Somalia don't have. Do you really think kidnappings and death squads are part of a free market?

 

[CitizenKain]

Despite your huge income you apparently don't understand some fundamental realities. Everyone CAN'T make 6 figures. Think about what the price of a hamburger would be if the guy flipping it made $100,000. And think about what the value of a dollar would be if the people at the very bottom made $100,000. That $100,000 would quickly be worth a fraction of what it is now. Please stop claiming that everyone can be rich if you can, because it's just not possible.

People who luck into their position in life rarely have any understanding of people who have to work at it.

 

[HendrixFan]

hmmm... and yet i don't care.
i worry about myself and my family and if i can provide them a comfortable lifestyle, why should i care that the elite are making a bazillion dollars and i'm only making $100k.

that's the problem with you liberals... always wanting a piece of someone elses pie.
worry about your own shit, not someone else.

My post was more concerned with people in social classes beneath me, you seemed to miss that point as well. The idea is that everyone should have equal opportunity to stand on their own, that their stake in life will be determined by their character and not their social class. This was one of the intents of forming the US, and one of the driving forces for our founding fathers. If you want to ignore the world around you, go ahead and do that. Nobody is making you read or contribute to this thread.

 

[sandorski]

Goddammit, would people stop equating free market with anarchy? Free markets require rule of law, something which Mexico and Somalia don't have. Do you really think kidnappings and death squads are part of a free market?

This wouldn't happen if the one's claiming to be exclusively Free Market, were not always whining/complaining/wanting abolished every single Law/Regulation on the books regarding Economic activity. The Moderate just take them at their word and show the examples of their advocacy.

 

[SammyJr]

hmmm... and yet i don't care.
i worry about myself and my family and if i can provide them a comfortable lifestyle, why should i care that the elite are making a bazillion dollars and i'm only making $100k.

that's the problem with you liberals... always wanting a piece of someone elses pie.
worry about your own shit, not someone else.

Because the elite increase their share of the pie by laying off people like you and shifting the tax burden to people like you. And if you own a small business, its your customers they're laying off.

Of course, this living in a bubble mentality is part of the Free Trade religion, so I don't expect any rationality behind it.

 

[bamacre]

Goddammit, would people stop equating free market with anarchy? Free markets require rule of law, something which Mexico and Somalia don't have. Do you really think kidnappings and death squads are part of a free market?

They think fraud is part of a free market. :\

 

[HendrixFan]

They think fraud is part of a free market. :\

Fraud is part of a free market. Only when outside forces intervene can fraud be diminished or repelled to some extent.

 

[boomerang]

Because the elite increase their share of the pie by laying off people like you and shifting the tax burden to people like you. And if you own a small business, its your customers they're laying off.

Of course, this living in a bubble mentality is part of the Free Trade religion, so I don't expect any rationality behind it.

And if the government wouldn't step in to bail out those customers who were laid off, the system would be forced to correct itself. By artificially supporting those customers, the elite are allowed to further prosper. It's a continuing vicious cycle for which the end is well documented.

Governmental meddling is the root cause of the problem with the scenario you've laid out. Government is right now bailing out both the elite and the worker.

 

[bamacre]

Fraud is part of a free market. Only when outside forces intervene can fraud be diminished or repelled to some extent.

That's not what I meant, I mean, using that logic, it's part of every type of economic system.

 

[Zebo]

Goddammit, would people stop equating free market with anarchy? Free markets require rule of law, something which Mexico and Somalia don't have. Do you really think kidnappings and death squads are part of a free market?

As free as you can get. ROL can mean anything from despotism to democracy, you're just saying law is present - Mexico has law, controlled by elites like ours is becoming. ROL in USA case is nothing more than government receiving its powers from the people.

"Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." --Thomas Jefferson:

Everyone has heard those words but don't have a clue what they mean. The 'rich' don't have anything we don't give them, similarly for the poor and everything in between.. There is no “rational” hierarchy. Power flows from the bottom up, not from the top down. Choose wisely. Execute wisely. Do you want to live in a world were People with money help each other out exclusively and not help out people who don’t have any? Or shoot for something all share? Or something in between. Choice is ours.

 

[spidey07]

My post was more concerned with people in social classes beneath me, you seemed to miss that point as well. The idea is that everyone should have equal opportunity to stand on their own, that their stake in life will be determined by their character and not their social class. This was one of the intents of forming the US, and one of the driving forces for our founding fathers. If you want to ignore the world around you, go ahead and do that. Nobody is making you read or contribute to this thread.

Poor people can get free college education, job assistance, job training, job placement services, etc so that argument doesn't fly. The reason they remain poor is simply because succeeding in your work or career takes WORK and it is HARD.

NOTHING is preventing ANYBODY from becoming successful in life in America. Nothing, only themselves.

 

[HendrixFan]

Poor people can get free college education, job assistance, job training, job placement services, etc so that argument doesn't fly. The reason they remain poor is simply because succeeding in your work or career takes WORK and it is HARD.

NOTHING is preventing ANYBODY from becoming successful in life in America. Nothing, only themselves.

How do you explain the statistical lack of upward class mobility amongst the poorest Americans?

 

[spidey07]

How do you explain the statistical lack of upward class mobility amongst the poorest Americans?

Laziness. All the assistance is there for them, and yet they don't use it. It goes to what I was saying earlier - attitude and a willingness to do the hard work necessary. But nothing is preventing anybody from moving up.

 

[HendrixFan]

Laziness. All the assistance is there for them, and yet they don't use it. It goes to what I was saying earlier - attitude and a willingness to do the hard work necessary. But nothing is preventing anybody from moving up.

I'm not talking about individual cases. As a whole the bottom 20% lack upward mobility. How can an entire class of the population be lazy where other classes aren't? Is it genetic? Is there a laziness gene that causes them to be failures, which they pass on to their children? How does it manage to afflict all the races, but solely be dependent on income?

I got that you felt it was laziness in your previous post. I would just like you to explain how a socioeconomic group can exhibit specific personality traits that others don't seem to. How is it possible that people who are born into worse situations also happen to have a predisposition to laziness? How does laziness know to afflict people in certain classes and not others?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

LOL what?

OP, the shrinking of the middle class is a problem, but one that cannot be solved until we understand its cause.

Oh how philosopical, maybe we should fund a freakin study to uncover the cause Anybody who doesn't understand the cause has been asleep for the last 20yrs, or they are dense as a rock.