I'm the one who is entitled?

macman
reply to post by darkbake

 

If you expect others to provide for you, then you have the entitlement thinking process.

If you live off the Govt, then you have the entitlement thinking process.

Excuse me. I don't like leeches on society either
..I worked 7 days a week from the age of 5 on the farm...first additional job at a fertilizer plant carrying 100 pound sacks all day...started my own multimillion business at 40...

So I get you.

But unless I can't read...I don't see the OP acting entitled..just down on his or her luck and trying like hell to get working again.

KPB

Spookybelle
Well the increase in those receiving entitlements I think shows us that those who feel they deserve them are increasing rather than decreasing.

I have no statistics to back that up so I am only making a guess here but if I had to bet money I would say that more people feel they are owed something from the government rather than less people believing that.

I have nothing to verify that however so take it for what its worth. You could easily argue the opposite but that just doesn't seem as likely.

They do deserve the entitlements, as that is what they have paid for in the first place...

Any social policy is comparable to an insurance policy. Whether you or your parents pay for it monthly and when things go bad, you use these. If things get better, you stop using it and continue paying.

On government scale it is a bit different. Eveybody puts something in and when somebody is in bad situation, they get the "insurance". The system works very well when the economy is medium/strong and is good for the society as a whole preventing crime and in the long run better for economy (less worries for people -> better health -> better productivity -> more money for yourself and also to government by taxes). Killing yourself starving half of the time will cost far more in the long run to yourself and the country also, as when not healthy you are not able to work as well as you would when at full health. Bad nutrition even for a couple of months might lead to serious health issues in the future. Strong social safety net is very important for any society.

The fact that currently so many people are using welfare simply shows that the economy is in a very bad situation. There are still too many unemployed/part-time working people and the salaries compared to cost of living are far from what they should be.

Of course there are leeches, just as in any system, but the vast majority of people on welfare are currently in need of it. After all they did pay for it in the first place or their parents paid for or they will pay when they get into better situation. I do not know the US welfare system well, but I highly doubt somebody already earning above the average salary of the nation qualifies for welfare, unless very large family (at least that is what it is round here, net salary of the household per every member of the family determines whether one qualifies or not).

AliceBleachWhite

Typically, people 'own' houses because they WORK for them.
30 year mortgage? plus annual taxes?

A great majority of those houses you see are STILL being paid for what with, second mortgages in taking loans out against equity, etc.

That the problem and make me laugh when I read this.

You can work yourself dead now days and still have nothing to show for it.

A few of freinds would need to work 16 hours a day 7 days a week to afford a morgage. Yeah ok........

And you say find a better job? WELL THERE ARE NONE!

darkbake
So, my whole life, and especially lately, I have taken a lot of flack for being a millennial. Where should I begin? I went to school, was in the gifted program, I got good grades, and when I came home, I would get my homework done so that I could hang out with my friends, and learn guitar, and write, and spend my time doing things that were productive.

And how is hanging out with friends, playing a guitar, and writing being productive for other than picking-up girls?


My parents, who happen to be Baby Boomers, on the other hand, would sabotage my writing efforts by taking away the power supply to the printer, or take away the power supply to my amplifier, or take away the power supply to my computer, stuff like that.

And the evil parents took away your entertainment so you had to do something other than that, evil bastards!

I went to college and got some scholarships and studied math, physics, computer science, philosophy, ran a recording studio, wrote for the school newspaper, started an annual rock festival at my college, the list goes on.

And then you being a very bright person probably sat around smoking a little weed, listening to music, and enjoying the crowd.

And then the economy crashed and I have been unable to get work, except for door-to-door sales, and other random things that earn hardly anything. So I had to go on food stamps and the like, and I moved in with some room-mates, and I started working on counseling, and P.S.R. work, all kinds of things.

Living with room-mates, as equals, we had to learn how to get along and discuss our issues and work things out with each other because none of us had the advantage of just saying "Hey, I'm an asshole with more money than you, so I'm sorry, if you have an issue, too bad."

----------

What I am I entitled to? Knowing how to budget? Knowing how to interact with people on a personal level and work through problems in a way that doesn't infringe on their rights as human beings? Am I entitled to working really hard on my hobbies, interests, pursuing social relationships and putting a basic effort into life?

For someone that will put in 45 to 60 hours per week and then go home to only change to a non-paid job, this rather upsets me. In nature, you don't work (i.e. capture your food, build your nest) you die. But yet many of the love and light people say we should live in harmony with nature so much but do not want to follow its example.

Am I entitled to doing all of the above and still earning less than $800 a month, while people in the Baby Boomer generation do none of the following and live in houses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars?

You know what I think? I think the Baby Boomers came along, got really lazy because there were so many of them, and caused a general ruckus as kids, and when they got older, they used their strength in numbers to make it look like people who are enthused about more than watching television are the ones who are entitled.

My dad was a boomer and worked his tail off up until he retired. I get so sick and tired of driving to work and seeing a dozen people about 25 to 30 years old sitting around collecting welfare. I've had those 3 hours of sleep per night for weeks on end while I did my night school, I've lived away from my family for years because of patriotic duty, I've seen people living in the streets of the far east and a war torn country where children stop school at the age of 7 to work and help provide for their family. So this BS of entitlement does not sit well with me. STOP WHINNING.

----------

I would like to take a moment to say that I forgive everyone involved, things happen in cycles after all, but honestly. I'm sure my kids when I get older are going to happen to be born with a kajillion other ones at the same time and I'll have to deal with Baby Boomers myself lol.

edit on 28pmMon, 28 Oct 2013 12:49:48 -0500kbpmkAmerica/Chicago by darkbake because: (no reason given)

SaturnFX
It is large entity corporations that are trying to make the averages joes not look there way, saying the true bandits of society are their neighbors, and not a highly skewed tax system that rewards multibillion dollar cheating and fraud while punishing the poor as scapegoats

Bingo. People can't work jobs that don't exist nor can they just go out and start one. Anyone who thinks they can do it on a shoestring has never actually tried. Coughing up $500 for a business or vendors license is just the start.

Remember how throwing money at the rich was supposed to "kickstart" the economy by creating jobs? it never happened because the wealthy don't create jobs - it''s the working class and entrepeneurs that do. The rich keep socking away money or invest it to make even more money.

To place blame where it belongs one must look to the Clintons and Bushes who signed the GATT and NAFTA treaties that started the process of sending our industries overseas. It made big money for the investor class while millions of people lost their jobs leaving many of them with no training for anything else. As a nation we've done nothing to fill the gaps created by outsourcing nor have we pushed education to help get people trained for jobs in an information economy. As a final insult the Federal government allows millions of illegal aliens to work in the US taking jobs from citizens and driving down wages for unskilled labor. Again it's the corporations and investors who profit and the working class who lose.

We've been fighting an uphill battle for the last 20 years and losing our butts in the process. There was a time after the collapse of the Soviet Union I thought we would actually see the benefits of the "peace dividend" due to not having to spend half our taxes on weapons for the cold war. Leave it to .gov to create new enemies and threats and once again drain the economy to pay for military aggression.

Darkbake, you're entitled to whatever benefits you can get. Don't lose any sleep over that. Something better will come along just keep working towards finding it or creating the conditions to make it happen. Best of luck to you, you sound depressed about it all. You're a smart guy, I believe you will find something rewarding both monetarily and intellectually. In the meantime you can shred your frustrations away turning the volume up to 9. Rock on.

reply to post by SaturnFX


Here's the problem though - You can throw money at a problem forever and not actually fix anything. Look at how bad education is. Do you want a number that just astounded me when I saw it? They spend enough money per child in the DC public schools that if the parents could just save about $2,000/year more and get the money per child per year spent on their child in that craptastic mess of a district in a voucher they could afford to pay a year's tuition at Sidwell Friends Academy, the ultra exclusive school that all the DC power elites (like Sasha and Malia Obama) attend. You cannot tell that there is only about $2,000/year difference in the quality of education the average DC public school student receives and the average student of Sidwell Friends receives.

And this is not an isolated problem. So, if the money is NOT being spent to educate the children, where does it go? Well, like anything with a large centrally controlled bureaucratic apparatus, precious little of it actually gets to its intended purpose because everyone can sponge large amounts of it up along the way. We all know this, but you want us to keep sacrificing ever more of our hard-earned money to it?

No private business could run so inefficiently or it would go out of business.

reply to post by Cabin


Except that we are upside down now. There are now more people using that net than are working full time to pay in. How long does it take before the system implodes? And what do you think will happen when it does?

I have no problem helping those who truly cannot do for themselves, and then I see that hag from Memphis or people like my brother-in-law's brother who live on disability because they lost a toe or others who scam the system because they got their doctor to sign off on "chronic fatigue" right about the time their unemployment ran out so that they didn't have to settle for something less comfortable than what they used to have.

ketsuko
reply to post by Cabin

 

Except that we are upside down now. There are now more people using that net than are working full time to pay in. How long does it take before the system implodes? And what do you think will happen when it does?

I have no problem helping those who truly cannot do for themselves, and then I see that hag from Memphis or people like my brother-in-law's brother who live on disability because they lost a toe or others who scam the system because they got their doctor to sign off on "chronic fatigue" right about the time their unemployment ran out so that they didn't have to settle for something less comfortable than what they used to have.

The injustice caused by moochers is probably lesd than 10% of the injustice caused by the PTB. They make us fight each other. ...then...laugh all the way to the bank.

KPB

ketsuko
reply to post by Cabin

 

Except that we are upside down now. There are now more people using that net than are working full time to pay in. How long does it take before the system implodes? And what do you think will happen when it does?

I have no problem helping those who truly cannot do for themselves, and then I see that hag from Memphis or people like my brother-in-law's brother who live on disability because they lost a toe or others who scam the system because they got their doctor to sign off on "chronic fatigue" right about the time their unemployment ran out so that they didn't have to settle for something less comfortable than what they used to have.

The problem lies in the economy. There is no other way right now. Taking off the social security would simply create chaos, as there are not many jobs out there, while people need to live somehow. Crime would rampage. Not everybody are cheaters, majority of people on welfare actually do need it right now to survive. Most currently welfare have paid before to the budget, they simply did not use it back then. It would be like insurance company telling you won´t get coverage after paying years for insurance - cheating. Currently is the time people need these the most. If economy becomes better, the amount of people qualifying for welfare lowers.

The only solution I personally see is raising the taxes, not on middle class, but the absolute top and corporations, who have significantly lower taxes than among other advanced economies - even if the top salaries were taxed at 50-70% they would still be making millions a year- at the same time business environment for small businesses needs to be fixed by regulating the big ones , so people not corporations (who already hold the majority of jobs of the nation) would start creating jobs, as corporations seem to be creating the illusion of creating jobs recently, rather than actually making new decent paying jobs.

reply to post by KellyPrettyBear


I do know the problems compound each other.

I taught inner city school for about three years. That kind of poverty is generational and its a culture. As a teacher you are taught that your students won't have this or that because they're poor and living on public assistance, but then you hear them boast about how their mothers will drop them off at a local mall with $300 for their birthdays so they can get whatever they want. At the end of the year, you walk through halls littered with stuff left behind including coats that look brand-new with name brand labels.

This outlook and lifestyle is compounded by an educational system that fails them at every turn so they never have the opportunities to even be taught in a classroom why it's a bad idea to just give a kid $300 to blow for a birthday if you're living on public assistance. At least, my parents weren't on public assistance, and I was lucky if one of birthday presents approached $30 in value, and if I lost my coat, my mother was marching me back to the school double time to find it no matter what time of year it was.

And they'll figure out how to get the most out of the system even if it means not marrying their baby's daddy which is also enormously damaging to the kids, and that's a fault of the system itself more than theirs although they're the ones structuring their lives to accommodate things.

What kind of society has our system designed? Is it one that can grow strong and self-sufficient or one that waits for more and makes itself weaker?

reply to post by Cabin


That's not entirely fair. Corporations are operating under enormous regulatory and tax uncertainty at the moment. My husband has been directly responsible for creating about 5 or 6 new positions in his corporate job, but he also works directly with handling the regulatory burdens, too. He used to be able to handle things just himself and now it takes 11 people to do what he used to do alone. That might give you some idea of how much increased scrutiny extra hoops the business world is jumping through at present with more uncertainty to come. Until things are stable, they won't know what their long-term budgets will be to know what room their might be for new hires.

reply to post by KellyPrettyBear


I didn't accuse him/her of anything. I stated my take on things.

Down on your luck has nothing to do with feeling entitled.

reply to post by ketsuko


Certain regulations might be strong, althoughwhen comparing US regulations to EU, these are very soft. whether it comes to environmental, bureocracy, competition, employee/customer safety. Where I see the problems is the large corporations dictating the market. Your husband´s company might be trying, but many are not. As they are so large, small business are not able to compete with them at all, while small business should be the backbone of the economy and creating new jobs.

US small business sector is nearly inexistent compared to other advanced economies, while over 50% of people work for different corporations.

Usually during economic recessions US has used the lower taxes and increase spending policy. Although currently that is not possible, as the taxes are already extremely low and overall consumption very high. This might cause a lot of issues in long-term.

Some shift needs to come in policies. Maybe the corporations should not be taxed right now (or only very high profits), although taxing the high income harder seems one of the few ways of balancing the budget.

reply to post by Cabin


Again not entirely true. US and EU regs are roughly comparable in terms of toughness depending on what you are looking at. The only difference with EU is that EU is all-fired mess with the Western and Eastern nations all having their own standards and not trusting one another when it comes to what standards are good and what aren't. And a good amount of it is nonsense on top of that. Now, if you want to talk about really strict regs, we could talk about Japan. They'll reject something simply because they don't like how it looks.

reply to post by darkbake


yes there may be exceptions. BUT your generation is as mine was, increasingly impatient.

Houses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars...pfft.

Most baby boomers lived like peasants for plenty of time. My parents lived in a cramped crap apartment in the bronx for far too long until they worked like maniacs for enough time to save enough for a business. Then slowly but surely they made their way.

wasnt glamorous...my dad had 4 jobs like he was a Jamaican. Swept the buildings stairs and took out the garbage...worked a double shift as a butcher in the meat district, sold what ever he could in bars after that well into the morning....Jackets, shoes, perfume....what ever...he slept less than 4 hours a day for years.

He lived like a gypsy for almost a decade....Now, he is a sir...He didnt just get it one day because some school gave him a piece of paper.

He read and studied things like history and different cultures so as to be a better salesman. He worked with people of all walks of life so as to get as many connections as he could into all sorts of places that were not open to him.

You worked with people so as to share an apartment? AND?

My father ate, lived and coexisted with all sorts of cultures and stratas of life so as to make as many meaningful connections as possible...He was a baby boomer, and guess what? He was not an exception. They built the economy that allowed for the worlds largest population to get a college education at a time when that was unheard of. They created entire industries that are still world leaders today.

Your parents may have sat on their ass watching TV....most did not and made the world you take for granted.

I dont understand the reasoning that you millenials have that somehow you are being slighted by not having the very best that a first world nation can offer once you walk out of college.

How about you learn a little about life. What you are going through is normal. Its called paying into your own future.

You know how I lived for my early years as a young adult? I lived in my grandmothers basement with a wife and child working in any job I could get. We worried about our daughter being well off, so we wouldnt even go out to Mcdonalds...or like, rent a movie.

Its called life. Welcome.

ketsuko
reply to post by KellyPrettyBear

 

I do know the problems compound each other.

I taught inner city school for about three years. That kind of poverty is generational and its a culture. As a teacher you are taught that your students won't have this or that because they're poor and living on public assistance, but then you hear them boast about how their mothers will drop them off at a local mall with $300 for their birthdays so they can get whatever they want. At the end of the year, you walk through halls littered with stuff left behind including coats that look brand-new with name brand labels.

This outlook and lifestyle is compounded by an educational system that fails them at every turn so they never have the opportunities to even be taught in a classroom why it's a bad idea to just give a kid $300 to blow for a birthday if you're living on public assistance. At least, my parents weren't on public assistance, and I was lucky if one of birthday presents approached $30 in value, and if I lost my coat, my mother was marching me back to the school double time to find it no matter what time of year it was.

And they'll figure out how to get the most out of the system even if it means not marrying their baby's daddy which is also enormously damaging to the kids, and that's a fault of the system itself more than theirs although they're the ones structuring their lives to accommodate things.

What kind of society has our system designed? Is it one that can grow strong and self-sufficient or one that waits for more and makes itself weaker?

I don't like blaming the victims, but yes, I must admit that
what you describe is also true.

In the long-passed past, humans had to be sharp, or they
wouldn't survive. Now for various reasons, we are evolving
into the movie Idiocracy.

www.imdb.com...

It's hard to say if this degradation of the human animal
is entirely due to an evil plot by the PTB, or also due
to social intertia, and as I keep going on about, the
result of gene-meme co-evolution, and we are now in
the terminator-meme portion of our social evolutionary
cycle. I say all of the above factors.

Yes, we are screwed. Nature and nurture both have
our number.

I am not pleased with this state of affairs. I've had to
watch this slow motion madness for approaching 50
years.

Thanks for your excellent, but depressing post.

KPB

macman
reply to post by KellyPrettyBear

 

I didn't accuse him/her of anything. I stated my take on things.

Down on your luck has nothing to do with feeling entitled.

Ok, fair enough.. if I viewed your post inappropraitely,
then I apologize. If I err in my analysis when it comes
to people, it's proabably on the side of compassion,
and being 'annoyed with the machine'.

KPB

It never fails to astonish me that most conservatives hate entitlements for people but praise the corporate welfare, tax breaks, off shore accounting, $600 hammars, subsidies paid for by the American taxpayer and outsourcing jobs as just smart business practices.

Why are corporations ENTITLED ???

Welfare for American citizens pales in comparison to the Corporate welfare nanny state!!

thinkbynumbers.org...

reply to post by olaru12


Oh really?
Got any examples, from say, me or Beezer of such things?

reply to post by darkbake


I am a little confused on what your question is?

I appreciate your varied interests. Life sometimes forces us to choose a singular pursuit and relegate other interests to "hobby" status. If you choose to pursue something not immediately commercial or profitable, that is also a valid choice...aka..the cliché poor artist, musician, actor, writer, just eking by waiting for their big break. Sometimes family and obligations demand people abandon such pursuits when your responsibilities involve others who you love or care for. All of those CHOICES are part of life, but I am unclear why you feel cheated? You can pursue whatever you please in life, but you can't demand that others recognize and reward you for it?

Maybe I am confused on what you are saying?