Entitlement mentality

[jstoesz]

CAR,

I was taught in school that when searching for clarity, one must go back to the most basic assumptions sifting through the layers until the initial disagreement about an assumption arises.

You cannot talk about calculus unless you agree that 1+1=2. Without that assumption, nothing else matters.

I think I have the root of our disagreement. You seem to be a post modern thinker, where one does not hold Truths to be Universal but instead relative to the pertinent situation.

At this point I am not sure that we can agree that 1+1=2, and that seems to be the rub.

[sreeb]

[quote=CA renter]
Wealth is relative, and most “poor” people don’t compare themselves to others halfway around the world; they compare themselves to those who are visible around them — in their own countries.[/quote]

If your standard for “poor” is relative to the population as a whole, we can give up on doing anything about poverty right now.

If you can come up with some absolute goals then progress is possible.

If your goal is “no one in the lower 10%” then it isn’t.

[blake]

Standing behind the “poor” people who pay for cart full of stuff with their EBT card at the Food 4 Less I go to made me feel relatively poor.

Once in a while, you’d see an interview on TV of a “poor” family. In the background is granite kitchen counter top. Flat screen in the living room w/ an XBox 360.

[an]

[quote=sreeb][quote=CA renter]
Wealth is relative, and most “poor” people don’t compare themselves to others halfway around the world; they compare themselves to those who are visible around them — in their own countries.[/quote]

If your standard for “poor” is relative to the population as a whole, we can give up on doing anything about poverty right now.

If you can come up with some absolute goals then progress is possible.

If your goal is “no one in the lower 10%” then it isn’t.[/quote]
Totally agree. There will ALWAYS be someone in the bottom 10%.

[briansd1]

Why not improve the baseline? That’s what progress is all about.

Standards today are not the same as those of 50 years ago.

[jstoesz]

[quote=briansd1]Why not improve the baseline? That’s what progress is all about.

Standards today are not the same as those of 50 years ago.[/quote]

Brian, I totally agree we should improve the baseline. Any caring person should try to improve the baseline. But those improvements need to be self-sustaining.

I can’t help but think about those people, who were not ready for easy access to credit. Giving people money to live like the middle class does not equate to giving them the Financial acumen to sustain living in the middle class. That is not a problem solved with easy solutions. I think if we incentivize people to not work, we will get less work. Anecdotally, I’ve seen this happen amongst my friends who have gone through long spats of unemployment. If I’m honest about myself, I too would fall prey to the incentives, with how little I enjoy my job and how much I enjoy recreating, but this would be disastrous for my family just like it’s disastrous for every other family.

[CA renter]

[quote=jstoesz]CAR,

I was taught in school that when searching for clarity, one must go back to the most basic assumptions sifting through the layers until the initial disagreement about an assumption arises.

You cannot talk about calculus unless you agree that 1+1=2. Without that assumption, nothing else matters.

I think I have the root of our disagreement. You seem to be a post modern thinker, where one does not hold Truths to be Universal but instead relative to the pertinent situation.

At this point I am not sure that we can agree that 1+1=2, and that seems to be the rub.[/quote]

That’s a very thoughtful observation. I think you’re onto something there.

I imagine techies and the like (who seem to be the majority here) are more inclined to think of the world in black and white, whereas people like myself (definitely non-techies) tend to think of the world as being 99% grey.

Interesting…

[CA renter]

[quote=sreeb][quote=CA renter]
Wealth is relative, and most “poor” people don’t compare themselves to others halfway around the world; they compare themselves to those who are visible around them — in their own countries.[/quote]

If your standard for “poor” is relative to the population as a whole, we can give up on doing anything about poverty right now.

If you can come up with some absolute goals then progress is possible.

If your goal is “no one in the lower 10%” then it isn’t.[/quote]

I think we can encourage a society that values skills in different ways. We need to be open to the fact that not everyone is the same, nor should we want them to be. Right now, many of “the rich” make their money not by working harder or smarter, but by being better connected. This is what angers me most.

IMHO, we need to reduce the power that money has over our government, and we need to create a more transparent government that is 100% accountable to ALL citizens, equally. My biggest gripe is with how money so totally corrupts our government, and how this manifests itself in tax and trade policies that so regularly benefit the few at the expense of the majority.

That would probably be a good start.

[CA renter]

[quote=pri_dk][quote=CA renter]those who have decimated manufacturing in this country[/quote]

Decimated? You could not be more wrong.

The US is the largest manufacturer in the world. For decades, manufacturing has grown within the US and has consistently grown at the same pace as the rest of the world.

The U.S. share of world manufacturing output was amazingly constant between 1970 and the early part of this decade […]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/246484-the-u-s-is-still-the-world-s-top-manufacturer

[quote]BTW, do you know **why** we turned against Russia? Figure that out […][/quote]

Help me figure it out…

Is it because the USSR was killing millions of it’s own citizens through famine, brutal prisons, and outright execution?

Is it because the USSR seized all private property? (just paid cash for a house near the coast? It belongs to the state now!)

Is it because the USSR sized Central Asia, invaded half of Europe and then never gave up control?

Is it because the USSR outlawed free speech, free press, and the free practice of religion?

Here ya go:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2010/07/100624_doc_useful_idiots_lenin.shtml%5B/quote%5D

From your SA link:

The chart above shows the U.S. share of world manufacturing output, annually from 1970 to 2009, based on data from the United Nations. There has been a recent decline in America’s share of world manufacturing output, from 25.3% a decade ago in 1999 to 16.82% in 2008…

Are you trying to say that’s not a significant decline?

Here’s a chart for you (not sure if it’s adjusted for population growth…if not, it’s even worse than it looks):

http://americanmanufacturing.org/blog/chart-day-us-manufacturing-jobs-jan-2000-through-july-2011

———–

A good article about why so many people are getting riled up:

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1

[sreeb]

It sounds like the cell phone problem is knocked.

Yahoo Universal Lifeline Story

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