Nineteen Eleven

Rambizzle wrote:

You can't just post pictures whenever the **** you want. There's an art to appropriately posting funny pictures/gifs. You can't just blow your internet picture load over any thread you want because you feel like it.

****, Ricky.

Clever little poster. By almost any measure (IMF, World Bank, Forbes) America have living standards that are the envy of the world. If people think things are so great elsewhere, they are free to leave, and I'll give it a month before they're begging to come back. You come back to me when Americans are on rafts to leave America the way others risk their lives to come here.

I am throughly disgusted by the average American when I look around. They use credit cards to purchase TV's, shoes, clothes, and vacations----paying HIGH interest on things that have no expected return. They pursue degrees that put them worse off financially than had they never went to school at all. They purchase the fanciest car they can find, eat the depreciation, or lease time and again. Well, all these decisions stack up year and year, until one day there's a wreckening. The longer you live above your means, by utilizing credit, the more debt service you expend until it eventually crowds out the rest of your spending. It's a treadmill that they put themselves into because they lack disapline and do not put their money to work for them, like the rich do.

I often hear people say you can't make it on minimum wage with a family. No shit. Minimum wage is just that. The minimum. It's designed to be just enough for someone to basically exist and sustain themselves to be able to go to work the next day.

I don't care if the wealthier have to pay more. You're barking up the wrong tree. Lots of other countries do it, and it works great. My family is part of the class that would get taxed more, and they accept that responsibility as having benefited from the system with an unfair advantage.

And will others accept responsibility that maybe they don't work hard enough to work themselves up the social latter? While they were out making 2 children and drinking and partying for their 20's, others were studying their ass off. Networking at job fairs. Spending money on suits instead of cigarettes and lottery tickets. Spending Saturday evening over a book.

I see pictures in our newspaper at job fairs of people slouched over and dressed in what I wouldn't even consider business casual. They can't write a resume or a cover letter without littering it with errors. If I can't trust you to write correctly on the one glance I have at you, how can I expect you'll do anything correct on the job?

When I just left my corporation for a better opportunity, they practically begged me to stay. She had over 25 interviews and was absolutely stunned by the "slim pickens" in an area with 15% unemployment. RIght down the street a well known company had 100 engineering jobs. They could not fill any of them.

Another business is pulling out because they cannot get people who are willing to take a drug test or who can actually fill out a god damn application.

Do you expect me to have sympathy for these people? Do you expect me to believe that they are doing everything they can? They are lazy, ignorant, and place the blame everywhere but on themselves. They THINK everyone got to where they were because someone else handed it to them or they "knew" someone.

They only see the end product of where people are and say "look at those successful or rich people". They fail to see the daily journey of struggle that people overcame to get to that point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPmiIusW ... re=related

What's funny is my dad left America because everything about it is too political - his work in public health

So he moved to Canada, where there's government run healthcare? Does it get any more political then that?

fu bro.

BrentMusburger wrote:Clever little poster. By almost any measure (IMF, World Bank, Forbes) America have living standards that are the envy of the world. If people think things are so great elsewhere, they are free to leave, and I'll give it a month before they're begging to come back. You come back to me when Americans are on rafts to leave America the way others risk their lives to come here.

Correction: the upper-middle class has living standards that are the envy of the world. If you take the "net living standard" of our entire population, it's arguably really shitty compared to places like Canada or France.

I am throughly disgusted by the average American when I look around. They use credit cards to purchase TV's, shoes, clothes, and vacations----paying HIGH interest on things that have no expected return. They pursue degrees that put them worse off financially than had they never went to school at all. They purchase the fanciest car they can find, eat the depreciation, or lease time and again. Well, all these decisions stack up year and year, until one day there's a wreckening. The longer you live above your means, by utilizing credit, the more debt service you expend until it eventually crowds out the rest of your spending. It's a treadmill that they put themselves into because they lack disapline and do not put their money to work for them, like the rich do.

Okay. I agree that people should be smarter with their money...

I often hear people say you can't make it on minimum wage with a family. No shit. Minimum wage is just that. The minimum. It's designed to be just enough for someone to basically exist and sustain themselves to be able to go to work the next day.

Which sucks for people who lose their job once they already have a family and then can't make enough to sustain. From basic sociology courses I've taken, it's pretty clear that the minimum standard of living is NOT covered by minimum wage alone.

And will others accept responsibility that maybe they don't work hard enough to work themselves up the social latter? While they were out making 2 children and drinking and partying for their 20's, others were studying their ass off. Networking at job fairs. Spending money on suits instead of cigarettes and lottery tickets. Spending Saturday evening over a book.

This story is totally typical of unemployed people. Good job.

I see pictures in our newspaper at job fairs of people slouched over and dressed in what I wouldn't even consider business casual. They can't write a resume or a cover letter without littering it with errors. If I can't trust you to write correctly on the one glance I have at you, how can I expect you'll do anything correct on the job?

See above comment.

When I just left my corporation for a better opportunity, they practically begged me to stay. She had over 25 interviews and was absolutely stunned by the "slim pickens" in an area with 15% unemployment. RIght down the street a well known company had 100 engineering jobs. They could not fill any of them.

Another business is pulling out because they cannot get people who are willing to take a drug test or who can actually fill out a god damn application.

Do you expect me to have sympathy for these people? Do you expect me to believe that they are doing everything they can? They are lazy, ignorant, and place the blame everywhere but on themselves. They THINK everyone got to where they were because someone else handed it to them or they "knew" someone.

See above comments.

Your anecdotal experience means nothing when we're talking about the pervasive and wide-spread nature of this problem.

They only see the end product of where people are and say "look at those successful or rich people". They fail to see the daily journey of struggle that people overcame to get to that point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPmiIusW ... re=related

Do you believe America is a system based on achievement? Or is it more an ascribed system?

Which is a greater predictor of future success: what family you are born to coupled with the geographic region you are raised in, or simply working hard? And let me elaborate for a second here on what I mean: if you can rate how hard someone works with 0 being "not at all" and 10 being "as hard as possible" - do you believe two people, regardless of who they are born to and where they are raised, both working at a "7" WILL see equal success? Or even have the same opportunities at equal success?

So he moved to Canada, where there's government run healthcare? Does it get any more political then that?

Canada's health care = take care of everyone. American's health care = take care of the elite and the rich.

I think you understand what I mean when I say "political." There should not be a political nature when it comes to who gets treated. Canada understands that, while America does not.

BrentMusburger wrote: Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100…

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7..

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do..

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20″. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).

The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,”but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!”

“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

Except that's not how it works. The tenth man in theory pays $59 but in actuality its more like that he pays his accountant 7 and pays the bar 11. That's due to intelligent tax planning and strategy along with a large sum of income being capital gains. The people who pay the most in taxes are people who make good money from pure w2 income with little that they're allowed to deduct.

Except that's not how it works. The tenth man in theory pays $59 but in actuality its more like that he pays his accountant 7 and pays the bar 11. That's due to intelligent tax planning and strategy along with a large sum of income being capital gains. The people who pay the most in taxes are people who make good money from pure w2 income with little that they're allowed to deduct.

You aren't telling me anything that I don't already know (see my PM). People who plan their finances intelligently, on average, acheive a better outcome. And why shouldn't they? People who plan their workouts intelligently get better fitness results. Football teams that put in more preperation have better execution of the feild. That's life.

The person earning capital gains is risking THEIR capital whereas the person getting pure w-2 income is not. This is simply the case of the tax code funneling rich people's money into creating cheaper capital by dangling lower tax rates. They receive better treatment, but they could very well have suffered a capital loss--let us not forget the burden of the RISK.

Of course I know you know. That was for the benefit of other non-accountants. The point is just because the tax code has higher rates doesn't mean those rates are being paid. And that logic justifies a 25% capital gains rate down from a 39.6% ordinary rate but I don't think it justifies 15% as it stands now.

Correction: the upper-middle class has living standards that are the envy of the world. If you take the "net living standard" of our entire population, it's arguably really shitty compared to places like Canada or France.

America is about competeing. This creates winners and losers. By and large, the average American is a HUGE winner compared to 90% of the world, even if they are "losing" compared to others. P.s why shouldn't they be losing out if they are not as good? If I'm the 127,000th best lawyer....well sorry I guess.

Places like Canada or Switzerland have high living standards because they have the benefit of not having to run empires, but see the benefit from ours. IE get to export to us on seas we keep open and not have to really worry about speading a trillion dollars a year on their military.

Okay. I agree that people should be smarter with their money...

Good.

Which sucks for people who lose their job once they already have a family and then can't make enough to sustain. From basic sociology courses I've taken, it's pretty clear that the minimum standard of living is NOT covered by minimum wage alone.

When I say minimum wage it literally means you should be able to make enough to eat bread or noodles and have enough to maybe take the bus or walk to work just to earn enough to make it another day to work again. It's basically a harsh exsistance rather than actually being able to live and enjoy life. However, what I routinly see it people with cellphones, cable, and any number of things that I would consider luxory items complaining that they can't "make it" anymore on this wage. Well, no shit.

Just a few weeks ago, I was watching that AE intervention show. The lady was complaining she didn't have enough money for gas to get to work anymore. As she pulled a $6 pack of cigarettes out of the car.

This story is totally typical of unemployed people. Good job.

See above comments.

Your anecdotal experience means nothing when we're talking about the pervasive and wide-spread nature of this problem.

My anecdotal expirences would certainly form a statistical trend. People with several kids struggle more. People who spend their time on "trivial" tasks for years on end, spinning their wheels not working towards acheivement, end up less succesful. People who can't write or communicate effectively will struggle. People who do not keep up on their physical appearence will pay a price for it.

Do you believe America is a system based on achievement? Or is it more an ascribed system?

There's a little of both. That has always been the allure. There's the OPPORTUNITY to make it big no matter what your beginnings were. That's not to say that some people haven't been successful while being lazy, and that's not to see that some people who gave it their all every day ended up not succeeding.

Warren Buffet built his fortune from $2000 when he started investing as a 21 year old. Bill gates started microsoft from a basement.

And let me elaborate for a second here on what I mean: if you can rate how hard someone works with 0 being "not at all" and 10 being "as hard as possible" - do you believe two people, regardless of who they are born to and where they are raised, both working at a "7" WILL see equal success?

Of course not. Just like a business, individuals can be hampered by systemic or unique risk. However, I will say that there are opportunities for grants and assistance to help people pave their own way. The government loves to help boost people and turn them into productive citizens so as to not have to be burdened by supporting them. Of course being born in an affluent neighborhood and school district gives you a better chance than someone with shitty parents and a poor district.

Which is a greater predictor of future success: what family you are born to coupled with the geographic region you are raised in, or simply working hard?

A little story about the "importance" of family in acheiving your dreams. I worked in a miserable section 8 hell hole doing maintenance. It was the most vial and disgusting place on this earth filled with drug addicts and lazy ****. My aunt and uncle (the administrators) hired an accounting student in their office out of my same program and school. I was struggling to even be able to afford to attend school (I get ZERO assistance), and this girl drove around in a Mustang. I quit immediatly, and their decision rocked my world as a 19-20 year old kid (as you put it).

I could have easily let it destroy my dreams. I will never forgive them for it. A lot of people let things spiral out of control, give up, make excuses, or turn to drugs to dull pain.

Instead, I wore it as a cloak of defiance.

I graduated at the top of my class. I secured two accounting internships in school and built a relationship with an MBA and a CPA. Both of them served as mentors in my life, as professional references, and provided letters of recommendations. In the end, I got opportunities with all of the CPA firms that I wanted.

"Do not ever let anyone tell you that you cannot do something. You want something go get it. Period."

America is about competeing. This creates winners and losers.

I keep hearing this from people, especially in my more conservative area of Arizona, that America is about competition, or Capitalism is competition and that usually leads into this theory about how competition is just a manifestation of the natural world and therefore all these systems we have in place are 'perfectly natural'. But i really have to wonder why you don't willingly give weight to the many many systems and decisions that you make daily which are in the spirit of cooperation. Let me try and build my argument by showing a flaw in yours.

You seem to use competition as a synonym for survival. And "Survival of the fittest" certainly has an agressive tone, but it is commonly misunderstood and misinterpreted. You and I do not compete against the natural world, If we want to champion competition as the pure and glorious truth of human living then I suggest you start with your own body. Breathe something other than air, transport yourself on a surface that isn't land, consume something other than food. That is competition at an environmental and biological level. But when we talk about "survival of the fittest" we're really talking about cooperation just as much IF NOT MORE than competition. A group or organism able to co-operate with its environment will succeed. Whereas a group unable to will fail. The species isn't expected to dominate their environment in order to survive, it's meant to adapt. We just so happen to believe that we do an excellent job of bending the universe to our will. Whether that's delusion or reality is a different discussion, i think.

The place where your belief falls short is when you accept this human system as 'the way things are'. This is evident in the way you talk about America, the way you treat people who 'wear their defiance as a cloak' versus (presumably) the "vial(sic) and disgusting place" filled with "drug addicts and lazy ****." But america and the american system are not real things, they are cooperative values we (humans) accept and follow. That's called society, civilization, aka cooperation. So when you talk about "The way things are" as being reality, as being of the same class as the rising sun, you're equating an abstract value with as close to a natural fact as exists. You're engaging in illusion.

If we took your life story and ran back 200 years to Imperial England, or further, to the Roman Empire they'd probably call it utopic. And if we were to go back to each 'great civilization' as I think it's been called in this thread we could probably find both people like you AND people like Alex claiming the exact same side but using different setpieces. Nevertheless, it's abundantly clear that the environment as well as the quality of life IN those environments have been drastically different. Egypt different from Italy different from England different from America. Because each abstract system is implemented by multiple disconnected human beings, using concrete methods and institutions. It makes no sense, then, for us to talk about 'the way things are' when we have historical, verifiable evidence that 'the way things are' changes.

Each time we compete on a larger scale we cooperate in larger and more profound ways. Each time we shed boundaries we build new ones. We engage in competition AND cooperation. Becuase, ultimately, we are all merely surviving. And it will be better for us to recognize that america and the american system is, firstly, a cooperative system. For a nation is not built to compete with itself. And an economy begins with a fundamental cooperative agreement as well. In a system of currency. It behooves us not to forget that point because, in essence, it represents the thread that binds our economy.

The moment we consider our mutual agreements as anything otherwise we invite any and every ill upon us. And what I see from these occupy protests, or tea party protests, or arab spring protests, is a monumental gaze being leveled at those very institutions and values that have spent a long time casting themselves as 'natural' and 'right' and 'good' and 'immovable'; those values and institutions you seem to consider axiomatic of the American Way. But they are all fantasy, and what we're seeing happen across this planet is a slow recognition of the edges of that fantasy.

So if we should follow your advice and "not ever let anyone tell you that you cannot do something" then we really shouldn't listen to anything you say about how 'life is' right? Because if we want a different world, then we should go get it. Period.

Sym wrote:

America is about competeing. This creates winners and losers.

I keep hearing this from people, especially in my more conservative area of Arizona, that America is about competition, or Capitalism is competition and that usually leads into this theory about how competition is just a manifestation of the natural world and therefore all these systems we have in place are 'perfectly natural'. But i really have to wonder why you don't willingly give weight to the many many systems and decisions that you make daily which are in the spirit of cooperation. Let me try and build my argument by showing a flaw in yours.

You seem to use competition as a synonym for survival. And "Survival of the fittest" certainly has an agressive tone, but it is commonly misunderstood and misinterpreted. You and I do not compete against the natural world, If we want to champion competition as the pure and glorious truth of human living then I suggest you start with your own body. Breathe something other than air, transport yourself on a surface that isn't land, consume something other than food. That is competition at an environmental and biological level. But when we talk about "survival of the fittest" we're really talking about cooperation just as much IF NOT MORE than competition. A group or organism able to co-operate with its environment will succeed. Whereas a group unable to will fail. The species isn't expected to dominate their environment in order to survive, it's meant to adapt. We just so happen to believe that we do an excellent job of bending the universe to our will. Whether that's delusion or reality is a different discussion, i think.

The place where your belief falls short is when you accept this human system as 'the way things are'. This is evident in the way you talk about America, the way you treat people who 'wear their defiance as a cloak' versus (presumably) the "vial(sic) and disgusting place" filled with "drug addicts and lazy ****." But america and the american system are not real things, they are cooperative values we (humans) accept and follow. That's called society, civilization, aka cooperation. So when you talk about "The way things are" as being reality, as being of the same class as the rising sun, you're equating an abstract value with as close to a natural fact as exists. You're engaging in illusion.

If we took your life story and ran back 200 years to Imperial England, or further, to the Roman Empire they'd probably call it utopic. And if we were to go back to each 'great civilization' as I think it's been called in this thread we could probably find both people like you AND people like Alex claiming the exact same side but using different setpieces. Nevertheless, it's abundantly clear that the environment as well as the quality of life IN those environments have been drastically different. Egypt different from Italy different from England different from America. Because each abstract system is implemented by multiple disconnected human beings, using concrete methods and institutions. It makes no sense, then, for us to talk about 'the way things are' when we have historical, verifiable evidence that 'the way things are' changes.

Each time we compete on a larger scale we cooperate in larger and more profound ways. Each time we shed boundaries we build new ones. We engage in competition AND cooperation. Becuase, ultimately, we are all merely surviving. And it will be better for us to recognize that america and the american system is, firstly, a cooperative system. For a nation is not built to compete with itself. And an economy begins with a fundamental cooperative agreement as well. In a system of currency. It behooves us not to forget that point because, in essence, it represents the thread that binds our economy.

The moment we consider our mutual agreements as anything otherwise we invite any and every ill upon us. And what I see from these occupy protests, or tea party protests, or arab spring protests, is a monumental gaze being leveled at those very institutions and values that have spent a long time casting themselves as 'natural' and 'right' and 'good' and 'immovable'; those values and institutions you seem to consider axiomatic of the American Way. But they are all fantasy, and what we're seeing happen across this planet is a slow recognition of the edges of that fantasy.

So if we should follow your advice and "not ever let anyone tell you that you cannot do something" then we really shouldn't listen to anything you say about how 'life is' right? Because if we want a different world, then we should go get it. Period.

Well written sir.