To those who believe in the "American Dream"Follow

"Barry Bonds used steroids?!? I don't believe a word of it!"

Sin,
pickleprince

















Totem

danreynolds, I agree with much of what you have to say in theory, but the fact is that you're basing your entire point of view off of the hypothetical case of the "Person Who Can't Get Ahead In Life Because There Are No Opportunities To Do So" (or insert overly convoluted acronym here.) This person may or may not actually exist in great numbers, though liberals blab on endlessly about him/her as though he/she is not only a set-in-stone fact, but actually comprises the vast majority of the poor in America. Before you try to prove your argument, you must prove that this person exists in great numbers. If you cannot, then anything you say based off of that premise is moot.

ROFL, why does everyone mistake me for someone else's sockpuppet?

Twas merely a good natured slap at your beliefs.

Merry Xmas, fuc[i][/i]er.

Or it just needs to be given its' nuclear program by the United States...

Totem

Eh? Why do you keep pretending I said something different then I said. I very deliberatly did not say "poverty rate is lower". I said that our standard of living for the "poor" is better then it was 80 years ago. How about you respond to the point I was making instead of tossing out nice sounding, but otherwise irrelevant rhetoric?

I used "standard of living" because "poverty rate" is a very hard value to judge. The calculations we use to determine poverty rates have changed over time, and the relative cost and values of the goods we have based those values on in the past have changed over time as well. That's why I avoided using the term. Sure. Our "poverty rate" today is "higher" then it was. But that's largely the result of 40 years of Liberals continually re-inventing the meaning of poverty from 100 years ago where it meant that you couldn't afford to eat and aqcuire basic shelter, to today where we define it as not being able to support a 4 person household in a home that's vastly better and more expensive, with luxuries undrempts of back then, on minimum wage (just to bring the whole thing full circle).

People with the exact same relative earnings might have been considered middle class 80 years ago, but are dirt poor today. A family living in a modest wooden house with a dirt road, a well out back, wood stove, and chickens and a garden in the yard for food, with a single breadwinner making almost nothing working at the local mill would have been considered in decent shape in almost any part of the country back then. Today, we'd consider that person/family impoverished. They are impoverished not because they are starving, or unable to live, but because they are unable to buy the nice things that we've come to think all people should have. If you sew your own cloths instead of buy them, you are poor, right?

I've been arguing this all along. Our standard of living has increased dramatically in the past hundred years (actually most in the last 60). Our expectations have grown with them. "Poor" no longer means unable to afford to eat, but unable to afford to shop at the mall. Huge difference. The average poor person today live in luxury compared to a lower middle class person 80 years ago. But we still call them "poor".

It's also why for the most part, your statistics are meaningless.

Okay, you seem to be completely missing my point gbaji...

You seem to think that I'm arguing within the context of the current system. I'm not. As far as I'm concerned the current system is BROKEN.

Capitalism tears at the cohesiveness of society because it requires competition between individuals rather than cooperation between members of that society. It worked in the past solely because there was always a way out. If you couldn't compete it was always possible for you to move west, where there was less competition, more of a chance to suceed. We no longer have that luxury however.

We are living in an ever shrinking world where we no longer have a frontier that we can move onto in order to gain more opportunity. We have to start realizing that the key to our survival as a culture is NOT competition, but rather cooperation. And the people who cling to this outdated, broken idea of capitalism are doing nothing but holding society back.

You talk about opportunity, and how everyone has the same opportunity. I ask you, what chance does a young black woman have of getting into Harvard, or Yale? What are the chances of someone from the ghetto who went to the local community college getting an internship with a large New York law firm? And how about the free schools that you trumpet. Do you think that a suburban christian school is equal to an inner city school? You can't tell me that the opportunities are equal for everyone. Not only are they not equal, but not all the same opportunities exist for everyone. Now, as for your opportunity, if I choose not to climb the economic ladder of success by stepping on those around me, and anyone who gets in my way(and that is the basis of a capitalist society), would you say that I had squandered my opportunities? Perhaps in your system I have, but I'm sorry, I just can't see that as being a good way to live, pushing others down so that I can get ahead.

And I hate to tell you this, but money is just a concept, as is value. What's really important is distribution of resources. You look at the distribution of resources in this country and then tell me that things aren't seriously screwed up...

Ok. I can buy that argument. I was initially responding to the idea of raising minimum wage as a magical way to help out "the poor". If you think capitalism as we use it in the US is so crappy, then feel free to present a system that will work better. I happen to believe you can't, but you are certainly free to try.



About the same chance that I did. What's your point? Those are exclusive private schools where children of alumni are granted preferential treatment. If you don't have family that graduated from Yale of Harvard your odds are about 1 in 100,000 no matter where you were born or what color your skin.

How about comparing the odds of young black kid attending the local state college, getting a degree and making a comfortable living? His "opportunity" is the same as everyone else's.




Large New York Law firm? Depends on what he's interning as.

You're also deliberately picking and choosing professions that are the most "exclusive". You don't have to graduate from Yale or Harvard, or intern at a large NY law firm to be successful in life. We were talking about getting out of poverty. All it takes is a good paying job. One does not need a 6 figure plus salary to do that. If you make 50k a year, and aren't stupid with your finances, you will be able to live comfortably. You most certainly will not be poor.

There is nothing but his own choices preventing that kid from the Ghetto from getting a nice middle class worthy job. Nothing. You seem to work in extremes here. You think that because he's statistically unlikely to go right from the ghetto to Park Avenue, that the system is broken. There's a whole hell of a lot of very nice living in between those two extremes.



So no one who's ever graduated from an inner city school has been able to get a modest job making enough to raise a family? I never said that one did not have advantages. But that does not mean that opportunities aren't available for both. You *can* make something of yourself no matter how poor the neighborhood you grew up in. That is something that's actually quite unique in the US. In most countries, if you are born poor, you will die poor. In the US, you have a chance of success if you make good on what opportunities life presents you. I'll say it again, nothing is guaranteed. Does the kid in the middle class neighborhood have a better chance? Of course. That's the point. That's the reward that you can hand down to your children if you make something of yourself. If you don't have any chance to give your children a better life then you had, then what's the point of the whole thing? Think about it...



Of course they aren't "equal". I never said that everyone has the same exact opportunities, or that everyone will get the same numbers of opportunities. I did say that everyone will *have* an opportunities in life, just like everyone else. It's what you do with the ones you get that matter. Sure, we can point to statistics showing that people who are poor are much more likely to be poor later in life then people who were born to middle or upper class. You point to that as a bad thing. I see that as a good thing. That means that there is value to working hard to *not* be poor! If your chances for success were exactly identical regardless of what your parents did, then why should they bother to work hard? Why save up money for your college? Why move to a better neighborhood?

You're focusing so hard on once side of the equation that you're missing the whole point. There *must* be inequality, or there is no reward for being successful. As long as we measure success by value generated (remember when I said you earn money in return for value generated for others?), then this will be an absolute truth. But that inequality does not mean that those who are poor have "no" opportunities. They may have fewer, and they may have more chances to ***** up. But they *can* succeed if the make the right choices. That's the whole point of the system. Those who succeed do so because they proved that they deserve to succeed. We don't just hand it to you, or it has no meaning.




That's because you persist in the assumption that success comes at the expense of others. Interestingly enough, in a socialist society (or any sort of command economy actually) that *is* true. If you recive money instead of someone else, then that value is at their expense. But in capitalism, you recieve money as a debt for something you gave first. You provide something of value to someone (a good or service) but instead of taking or getting something back, you take money. Money is an IOU. You hold money because you already gave some value to someone else equal to the amount printed on the money. Thus, if you are wealthy it's because you have *given* others more value then you've taken. Not the other way around as you seem to believe.

While some work environments may be structured such that you have to step on others to succeed, that's not a component exclusively of capitalistic thought. You can see infighting in any system where there is a hierarchy involved. Not just capitalism.



Eh? We could do a whole thread on this one paragraph alone. You are correct. Distribution of resources is important. The problem I have though is that your idea is the resources should be distributed based on where they are needed. I believe that if we distrubute resources based on where they do the most good, then over time we will have *more* resources to divide up. What's funny is that this effect is exactly why today we have a higher rate of "poverty", yet the standard of living accross the board (even for those in "poverty) has increased unimaginably.

A Liberal says that the cake is not divided up evenly. A Conservative responds that the cake is divided up in a way to ensure that next years cake is bigger.

The point I'm making is that if we put the lion's share of the pie into the hands of those who have shown an ability to make more efficient use out of it, then we improve things for everyone. As I pointed out earlier, we can see this to be true in the standard of living increases over time. We can't measure that economically since the relative costs of things increase as the pie gets bigger. But a bigger pie means that the "real" things are better. Not relative to the pie as a whole, but relative to the pie as it was X number of years earlier.

So instead of spending 8 hours washing cloths, you toss them in a washing machine instead. Instead of spending 3 hours each night preparing dinner, you order out, or microwave for roughly the same cost. Instead of reading the adventures of Huck Finn around a candle at night, you are sitting on a couch watching it on TV. You don't earn more relatively, and you don't spend more relatively speaking, but the life you live is vastly more comfortable.

You can't measure that in relative dollars Dan. And that's ultimately the flaw with the concept of controlled distrubution of wealth.

I promise you, Danny, that a child going to school in an inner city ghetto school who applies himself to his schoolwork and studies has a greater opportunity than the kid who goes to the private Christian school and never opens a book, assuming all other things are equal. I can equally promise you that A's from MLK High have more weight than D's from Your Lady of Grace.

College costs are another area which are negligable provided the A student applies for grants, scholarships, and low or zero interest loans. Couple that with a part time job and four years later they should be well on their way out of the slums and making good money.

Meanwhile, the middle class kid may be sitting in Mom & Dad's basement paying no rent, but his life isn't going anywhere.

Totem

Oh jesus, I didn't read the second part of your reply to me...



Exactly how much experience do you have with CPS? Most of the cases that are reported are for child neglect, not abuse or mistreatment. That can range from the parents aren't able to provide the basic necessities for the children, to parents who aren't at home to take care of the children because they have to work two, three jobs just to keep food on the table and the rent paid. Yes, there are abusive parents, and parents that would rather spend money on drugs than food, but that is NOT the situation that the majority are in.

I have met any number of parents who are doing their best, they're not drug addicts, they're not alcoholics, they're just poor people who are working themselves to death to try and raise a family. Who the hell are you to say that these people are dumping all their money on beer and dope rather than feeding their children when you haven't been there to see what they have to go through, or what conditions they have to exist in.

You say that I'm looking at poor people who just haven't been given the opportunity to make things better for themselves. Well, you're looking at poor people as just lazy bums who don't care enough to work hard so they can make things better. I'm sorry that you haven't experienced enough of our culture to understand that this "land of opportunity" hold little or no opportunity for some.

I'd suggest you spend a weekend living with the homeless in your nearest city, or volunteering with an organization such as big brothers/big sisters, maybe that will open your eyes to the fact that there are a LOT of people who just do NOT have the opportunity you or I do, and there are so many that are hard working, honest people who are doing everything they can just to survive, and that's the best they can do in our system.

You call me condescending??? Funny how when I say we all should be equal, and share a common level of prosperity that you feel I'm condescending, but you can't see the condescension in your own words when you say that anyone who is poor is that way because they just didn't make the right choices, like you surely did. Dignity and respect? Your comments about the poor show dignity and respect to no one.


Edited, Tue Dec 21 22:38:59 2004 by danreynolds

Yes, but not only is he confusing communism with socialism, but he is also selectively choosing some anecdotes to further his ingrained beliefs, effectively closing off his mind from learning about existing realities. Totem is quite obviously against communism, although, his methods don't allow himself to ask the question of whether or not these countries are so poor due to the inherent nature of "communism" (although I doubt he's ever read Marx or Engels; even if he claims to I would bet my life savings that he does not understand their works in the least) or "socialism" or if it is because of their totalitarian and incompetent governments? One could certainly point to quite a larger number of countries that have turned to "American"-style capitalism and have undertaken the IMF imposed structural reform policies that have been just as disasterous as Totem's simple-minded anti-communist(socialist??) anecdotes have been. He will undoubtedly point to government corruption, without even knowing to what degree this is factually true, and will do so simply to try and defend his preconceived notions about what does and does not make a successful economy. But on top of this, he biases will still be reflected in the simple fact that he is all to eager to point out that capitalist ssytems that turn out to be dismal failures are due to government corruption, while all "communist" or "socialist" countries that are in rough shape are because of teh inherent flaws in their system. It doesn't take a genious to point out this double standard.

You also seem to be of the frame of thought the there is nothing like the American economic system when completely failing to take note that the American economy and global share in the marketplace has been on the decline for quite some time. The entire American ecnonomy is financed on debt that is currently showing its effects and will continue to do so at an increasing rate in the not too distant future. Anyways, this is a completey different topic that I really have little intention in starting.




First off, it's not "giving them what they want" what most of us are talking about here. It is giving people what they need to be able to afford what has been recognized by the majority of Western democracies to be the simple basic necessities of living a decent life. i.e. food, running water, electricity, a shelter. Of course there will always be deadbeats who will leach off the system, but these methods have also been proven to lift many people out of poverty by giving them a temporary safety cushion to either land back on their feet or create a new beginning where they are actually integrated into becoming a productive member of society. Have you ever studied social science?

Secondly, such ideas such as progressive corporate and income taxation to create a society that has many less disspossesed, have in fact worked quite well for generations in many countries around the world. Try knowing what your talking about before posting.



How do you know this? Do you work with and counsel single mothers who cannot afford to pay for basic necessities for her and her children? Have you conducted an independent study on child and single=-mother poverty in the US? Have you even read a book on this subject? A report? None of the above, I would rekon. And for those few single mothers who such an argument can be accurately thrown at, so what? Does that mean that her kids deserve to suffer because of her bad decisions? Should her kids be taken away from her (even if she is a loving and caring mother and her kids love her very much) to teach her a lesson or to send a message to future single mothers even though there is no evidence that would suggest that such "discouragement theories" actually work?


And unfortunately, no, not everyone can and will make it. There are always going to be people that fall through the very real cracks inherent in the capitalistic system. No system is perfect. Remember that.




Some? Yes. Most? Not even close. Are you a social worker or social scientist? Have you ever talked with one of either? Didn't think so. Next.



He doesn't have to prove it because it's already been proven! NOt enough is done not because it hans't been proven, but because business and special interests are far too influential in determining policies and intertwined in both American political parties.

Another reason is the American mentality towards taxes: too few Americans are able to grasp the benefits of progressive taxation policies geared towards setting up social assistance programs required by millions of people in need. Instead people are complacent with and tolerate the gross over spending on military and corporate welfare budgets. Think of how many billions have and will continue to be wasted on a Bush's anti-ballistic missle defense system. A system that doesn't even work.

The material exists if you'd really like to find out. Do some research yourself.





Blaming the victim is a classic and predictable argument. You simply don't know what you're talking about. Once again, there are many people taht this train of thought can be applied to, although the vast majority of those in situations such as these are there because they possess no skills that can lead to upward mobility. Someone is born into bondage and can't always simply get out of it no matter what they do. Not everyone is provided with the same opportunities. That is something you need to learn. True equality of opportunity simply does not exist anywhere in the world. This is especially so in the United States.





It comes as no surprise to hear you say something like that. Fortunatly, however, we have people in this world who value human life and dignity and feel that people should be helped out in a time of need. We are not animals; we are human beings. We have brains and have developed methods that can be successful in helping out others. When you strip away your compassion and your ability to help others from your priledged position, you effectively strip away a degree of your own humanity. The classic, stereotypical "individualistic" quality uniquely present within the American mentality certainly holds true to the bone in your case, gbaji.





Many people have gone from rags to riches. But for every person that has, how many people do you think there are that worked just as hard but didn't make it? The ratio may astound you.

Yes, multinational companies do have an interest keeping their employees happy; but to a point. They will get away with anything then can; and they do. You obviously have no idea how unsafe the working conditions are for millions of Americans. So many people in America are on the cusp of being out on the street and because of that are complacent and tolerant in the abuses and treatment that they receive from their employer.

There is also servely inadequate whistle-blower legislation in place to protect those few courageous workers that decide to speak up and fight for the rights that they deserve. There are so many ways for a company to get around these things.

How about mentioning when a company abuses consumers? How about all of the unsafe products that companies have knowingly put out into the market? They do cost benefit analysis and figure that it is in their interest to do so. Many progressives have fought long and hard to strengthen legislation to make sure that the very regulatory bards that are desinged to regulate certain sectors and industries, actually have the ability to hold corproations accountable for their actions and that these regulatory boards are not in league with the business interests that they are in fact supposed to be regulating. It is asountding how much more work there needs to be done to protect consumers from tyhe self-interested and inherent tyrannical nature of the corporation.

Multinationals do get extremely rich out of abusing their employees, consumers and the general population. Wake up.


g


You think too much in terms of capitalist theory as opposed to actual practice. You are assuming to perfect competition exists. But it doesn't. We have oligopolies and monopolies that buy out their competition and consolidate their resources, alowing them to have an unfair decision to dictate prices and the number of available jobs in that given market or industry. How many executives cut jobs to increase "productivity" simply because they do not want to cut their own salaries?

You are also neglecting to mention how corporations manufacture wants to a certain degree. An example of this can be seen in small budget, and foreign films which used to be shown in smaller, lower-budget cinemas as oppossed to the new trend towards these giant multi-complexes where they have been increasingly phased out over the years. The sales figures show that it is not because there weren't enough people going to see these types of films, but rather simply because the companies decided to stop showing the films. In all likelihood this was due to teh ability to make more money off of the major, blockbuster Hollywood hits due to their major film distributors, not because American citizens weren't going to see the low budget films. So is that a good example of teh corporate culture giving the public what it wants? Is it a good example of demand? Hardly. Very often the system doesn't work in the same manner as it's theories are put forth in the textbook for econ 101. But then again, you would have to be willing to understand more than just econ 101 to grasp this.





Once again, not necessarily so. Take a look at the recent NHL lockout. The league is claiming to be loosing aprox 275 million per year. The NHL is hardly unique to this problem in the busines of sports either. A "free-market"? Whatever that means.





I completely agree.



[quote]gbaji wrote:

Ok. I can buy that argument. I was initially responding to the idea of raising minimum wage as a magical way to help out "the poor". If you think capitalism as we use it in the US is so crappy, then feel free to present a system that will work better. I happen to believe you can't, but you are certainly free to try. [/quote]

Many people have. Problem is you either don't want to listen or learn or you just don't care. Judging from some of your comments I would say the latter.

For one, the military budget needs to be significantly cut and that money needs to be redistributed into much needed social programs that so many people need and require. Just to name a few: Improved subsidized housing and access to basic necessities; improved outreach programs; improved healthcare for ALL Americans; more homeless shelters; more programs to help reorient homeless people back into society instead of leaving them on teh street to die. Corporate accountability and environmental standards also need to be improved. Geez, educate yourself if you really care, althoguh I strongly suspect that you don't. Continue to live your life of privledge in your little bubble of ignorance.




[quote]gbaji wrote:

How about comparing the odds of young black kid attending the local state college, getting a degree and making a comfortable living? His "opportunity" is the same as everyone else's. [/quote]

Not necessarily. Take a kid who is born into poverty a ghetto where his family cant get the help they need because people like you just assume that they don't need it to get out of their situation? Some people can; many people can not. Many young kids in these situations are forced or fel compelled to quit school and get a **** job to help teh famility afford their basic necessities. How is this person going to save up the money for a higher education? people who grow up in these types of situations can also be more prone to turning to crime. Maybe if these issues were addressed from their root causes, there wouldn't be so many people that feel compelled to turn to crime to get by. Your notion of opportunity is not relective of current realities.



[quote]gbaji wrote:

You *can* make something of yourself no matter how poor the neighborhood you grew up in. That is something that's actually quite unique in the US. In most countries, if you are born poor, you will die poor. In the US, you have a chance of success if you make good on what opportunities life presents you. [/quote]

And this is good enough for you? So even though, if tweaked, the US system is fully capable of offering an astronomically higher level of help for people in need, is is good enough just to say that they should be thankful that they were not born in a third world country? Did you know that the vast majority of those born into poverty in the US also die in poverty? Do you have a conscience?


[quote]gbaji wrote:

Does the kid in the middle class neighborhood have a better chance? Of course. That's the point. [/quote]

Yes it is. It is the reason why social assistance must be improved to give everyone an equal footing and chance to live a decent life of dignity.


[quote]Totem wrote:

I promise you, Danny, that a child going to school in an inner city ghetto school who applies himself to his schoolwork and studies[/quote]

Easy for you to say without worrying of whether or not your family will be able to put food on the table or the same degree of potential for violence at school or in the neighborhood.



Oh and danreynolds; rate up man. Couldn't have put many of your points better myself.

DDP

Edited, Wed Dec 22 13:04:04 2004 by Gadin