The Rich and the Rest

So when I heard about people tell their stories of how they worked their way up the first thing that comes to mind is upward mobility in the current day and age and how that trend continues to change. Don't get me wrong I'm going to start school soon for CNC Programming so I still believe in going for it but let's take a second look at the reality of the situation.

USA News

"We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both," Associate Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said decades ago during another period of pronounced inequality in America

It's quiet obvious to anyone who can see that our country is trending towards a plutocracy of the wealthy elite ruling over everyone from their gated cities and isolated communities such as Santa Barbara.

What was once viewed as a fringe political issue is now at the heart of the angry, populist rhetoric of the 2016 presidential campaign. Personified by outsider candidates Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, economic inequality has resonated with broad swaths of nervous voters on both the left and right.

I believe the driving force behind the amazing presidential election cycle today is economic. Americans are really starting to feel the squeeze as those at the top become heavier and heavier while those at the bottom shoulder the majority of the responsibility.

The article goes on to list one of what I see as he biggest problems highlighted in my last thread here.

Something like the carried-interest provision in the tax code, when you explain it to ordinary citizens, they don't like the idea that income earned by investing other people's money should be taxed at a lower rate than regular wage and salary income.

Here is a problem I've been trying to highlight but have been met with deaf ears.

Having money makes you more money than actually doing the work, and for whatever reason the same people who claim personal responsibility and pulling yourself up by your boot straps are also the same people saying that the people who take the most financial risk are the ones who deserve all the money, not the workers producing the actual products but the investors. Not I've personally been involved in investments and businesses in different industries and the most value you can ever negotiate with for me is 30% of the company. That's it. Especially if I'm doing all the work. And that's generous if you ask me. If you read my last thread linked above you will see evidence for this flawed ideaology permeating the thread.

Interesting hypocracy isn't it?

But that's not it.

What a disgrace. The question you really have to ask yourself is... In a society that favors and values wealth over hard work does working hard really get you ahead anymore?

I tried the college thing years ago but I couldn't do it because I had to support myself also. Now We have jerks voting to take My money in taxes just so they can go to school for free and they call it fairness. How is it fair if I work for free just so someone can go to college for free especially when I was a drop out? I believe the problem won't be solved with taxes but starving the educational system until they lower their prices.

a reply to: jkm1864

Ah the old, "no one helped me so no one else should ever get help!" argument...

a reply to: jkm1864

I have be same issue cost of living while attending school.

It's a conundrum. I gotta work 60 hours a week in order to go to school how the hell am I suppose to dedicate my energetic resources to my education?

I'm doing it anyway but damn it's not easy.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

I see where he's coming from but I agree with you.

We gotta figure out a way to make college affordable not just tuition cost because you can go to school for free for two years usually but I'm talking cost of living. That's the real cost of college.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Actually it reads a lot more like "Why should I pay for you to experience something you want but are unwilling to pay for yourself?" It's a great question, too. How is it logical to expect someone to work harder to provide anything of tangible value to a stranger simply because the stranger expresses butt hurt and grief over expectations to contribute to their own expectations on their own dime?

After all, life's achievements only have the value you, YOURSELF, have invested into them... If we make college free, don't piss and moan when suddenly there are 50 pre-med students to every opening in the workplace. Also don't feign shock when half the taxpaying workforce says "screw this noise!" and quits working to go back to free ride college themselves, making the program completely unsustainable.

Finally, yes, if one personally EARNS something, they tend to be protective of the accomplishment and not wish to see it handed to others sans effort.

originally posted by: onequestion
We gotta figure out a way to make college affordable

Easy problem, easy solution: Not everyone should go to college. Stop adding worthless degree programs in the liberal arts and stop offering loans to those who want those classes. Also eliminate the federal subsidies on student loans completely. Make lenders actually have to weigh the risks involved with each borrower and let's return college to what it should be: an institute mostly filled with people who possess the merits between their ears to deserve to be there.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Wouldn't it have been nice if that person had a helping hand?

I think we gotta look at the betterment of society and it's priority of the needs of individuals and where we draw the line.

At what point does us having a better society make it better for the individual?

It's a tough conversation when your looking at the needs of individuals and the needs of societies.

What's important where do we draw lines I don't think it's as cut and dry as you think.

Maybe the real question is how do we make it possible for people to take responsibility?

How do you make more money to pay everything without an education especially since most jobs pay 10$ an hour unless your educated or have a trade and at that point what's the point?

Where's the balance?

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I don't think there exist a worthless degree I think we need cultural evolution as much as anything.

No one wants to live in a stale artless society which is what your advocating.

What else do people do without an education or a trade job? You do realize trade jobs are already stressed with applicants in most states right?

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: onequestion
We gotta figure out a way to make college affordable

Easy problem, easy solution: Not everyone should go to college. Stop adding worthless degree programs in the liberal arts and stop offering loans to those who want those classes. Also eliminate the federal subsidies on student loans completely. Make lenders actually have to weigh the risks involved with each borrower and let's return college to what it should be: an institute mostly filled with people who possess the merits between their ears to deserve to be there.

The education issue is much more complicated than that, but I will keep it simple and say that I agree.

Your basic premise is entirely correct.

a reply to: onequestion

It isn't a tough question, though. The RIGHTS of the individual outweigh the needs of society. That's constitutional.

How do you make more money to pay everything without an education especially since most jobs pay 10$ an hour unless your educated or have a trade and at that point what's the point?

Dunno. I got an education, working my ass off to get there. Grew up poor, for what it's worth...

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: onequestion
We gotta figure out a way to make college affordable

Easy problem, easy solution: Not everyone should go to college. Stop adding worthless degree programs in the liberal arts and stop offering loans to those who want those classes. Also eliminate the federal subsidies on student loans completely. Make lenders actually have to weigh the risks involved with each borrower and let's return college to what it should be: an institute mostly filled with people who possess the merits between their ears to deserve to be there.

By merits between their ears, you mean the money in their mommy and daddy's bank account to afford it.

a reply to: onequestion

There may not be a worthless degree, but there are sure as hell a lot of degrees that don't come close to paying for themselves and are, thus, fairly worthless to the needs of the individual and society.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I don't know because look at what protecting individuals has done for us now?

I mean we have 500 people who leverage their assets against everyone else who's working from dusk till dawn to keep their family alive.

With a better society we have stronger individuals.

Let me put it this way.

Society and culture are the operating systems think Linux and MS, and the people are the programs.

With a bloated virus prone OS you get bloated and virus prone programs and with a clean secure and autonomous OS like Linux you get a clean and autonomous program.

originally posted by: BubbaJoe

By merits between their ears, you mean the money in their mommy and daddy's bank account to afford it.

Really? Do I? Is that what I mean? Did you figure that out through some magical code reader?

Don't twist my words. I meant the brains in their heads, nothing more. You get out of college what you brought into college, frankly. It unlocks the regions of your brain and is essentially a 4 year brain training exercise. If you enter college with a head full of partying, protesting, sunshine, and farts, you'll exit college with a mind filled with the same AND with a hefty student loan bill you'll have no prayer of paying off... (leading you to support a politician who promises the moon and delivers jack squat.)

a reply to: burdman30ott6

According to the article it states that people with more money have a better advantage.

How isn't that true?

Can you quote the article and refute individual points or dos everyone stop doing that?

a reply to: onequestion

...and we have 45% of tax filers paying negative net taxes, taking more than they're paying in thanks to the bleeding heart factory of society.

I'd rather take my chances in a cutthroat world of capitalism where at least hard work and adding of value equates to meaningful paychecks and earned benefits.

a reply to: onequestion

The only advantage people with more money have is that they don't end up saddled with student loan debt... The rest of it reads like typical class warfare horsecrap to me.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

That's where we disagree because hard work doesn't always equate to success.

Don't operate under the illusion that everyone who isn't rich is lazy that's a ridiculous notion.

I still want you to quote individual points and refute them.

How come no one does that anymore?

If you don't think there's such a thing as a worthless education, you must not consider an education that can't get you a job to be worthless. There are tons of degrees out there that are totally pointless as far as getting a job goes.

I was wrapping up college some ten years ago- working full time for minimum wage to get by while racking up school at 20 credit hours a semester. The education was useless- and the degree meaningless, since it's in a field where the work was changing so fast that education was ten years behind. But having that stupid piece of paper got my foot in the door somewhere, and experience- the real education, has gotten me to a place where I'm considered middle class (around here, anyway- in the land of the blind...)