[Rudolf Prikryl]

I've said nothing about either rich or civilized,

So "people who accumulate financial success" and "top three income quintiles" does not equal rich. People who "don't behave well" is not just a nicer way of saying 'uncivilized.' That's all news to me. You have quite a way with twisting words and playing pointless semantical games to cover up your actual position.

but in Western societies poverty can be avoided through avoiding bad decisions and destructive behavior. Why you seem to find this difficult to grasp escapes me, it really does.

Because it's categorically untrue, as my evidence has shown. You're saying "if those poors (ethnics) just didn't blow their money on booze and weren't lazy then they wouldn't be poor" which is not only not true, but completely throws out socio-economic realities and racial inequalities for the sake of creating some imagined level playing field.

It is simply delusion to the highest caliber.

I had no money. Neither did my parents. When I left home in the autumn after I completed high school, my parents had never owned a house or even a car.

They obviously had money if they even rented one or the other, or if you attended college.
Let's not play the "Oppression Olympics" to try and prove anecdotally that social mobility is guaranteed for most even in the US.
I guarantee you will lose.

Actually, statistically speaking, in the West today, this is not the case.

Maybe if you actually provided any statistics you could say this, but you didn't, and my actual statistics show that what you say is not true! Wow, how about that.
All of the information I've posted about educational success and wealth inequality in "the West" shows very clearly how wrong your conception is.

I will admit the situation is dire in countries run by stone Collectivists (Cuba, North Korea, Myanmar, Cambodia, etc.), countries torn by tribal strife (Somalia and most of sub-Saharan Africa) and those Muslim nations where only boys are "educated" and even then only in Madrassahs. So if those are the countries you had in mind you won't get much argument from me.

Yes, because the continuing US embargo of Cuba or Myanmar plays no role in their impoverishment (plus Myanmar privatized and became a dictatorial market economy in 1988 showing how little you actually know what you're talking about). And democratic, fast-growing, "mixed-economy" Cambodia is doing okay despite constant exploitation by multinationals. Surely a defeat for "stone Collectivists." I'm not going to argue in favor of North Korea, Juche is a shit idea by all metrics, even Marxist ones, so you can have that one.

If you think the problems in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa exist due to "behavioural problems" in those societies, then I don't know what to tell you, because that conception of national development is astoundingly ignorant of reality... and again, comes down to "those savage Browns and Yellows, we must educate them in the proper ways of behaviour of the White Nations of the West."

[Phred]

Phred I really dislike the way you respond to my posts, chopping them up into little decontextualized pieces. I would appreciate it if you responded to the ideas of my post instead of one sentence at a time.

When you are trying to build a case for an argument, each point you are trying to get the audience to accept is built upon a previous foundation - a "brick", to look at it metaphorically. All that is necessary for me to refute your case is to show a key brick to be vaporware. I look at your argument brick by brick. This is not an uncommon way of doing things, by the way, and I'm far from the only PoFo poster who handles discussions in this fashion. If you don't want me to refute you every few lines, don't provide so many easily refutable statements.

I'm not sure where you got that idea.

From your gleeful little "gotcha" of trying to show that since I used "poor" rather than "unsuccessful", you could therefore use "rich" as a synonym for "successful".

Well, yes. If you grow up in Somalia and die a malnourished child, then you didn't have much opportunity for success, did you?

I repeat that if you want to discuss the opportunities for success in such nightmare countries as Somalia and Cuba and North Korea and Afganistan etc., you won't get an argument from me. What... do I need to boldface this for you?

But if we're doing as I thought we were doing - discussing what is required to avoid poverty in Western countries where Libbies are commonly found (not a lot of Libbies left in NK or Somalia), then the simple fact is that all it takes to avoid poverty in those countries is to avoid bad decisions and avoid bad behavior.

We are a "developed" nation, where there is universal education, low-income housing, where even the poorest people have some potential for self-improvement.

Exactly. You are making my point for me.

This is because of the services that exist in this country that have the effect of ensuring some level of social mobility.

No, it's because the people in Western countries still have freedom to behave in ways that will increase their net worth.

In my opinion this society is still highly divided, not only according to class, but also according to race, gender, and other things.

Even if this were true, it doesn't change the fact that people in any class can make bad decisions, people of any race can behave in ways that increase their financial success, people of all genders can screw up.

I think universal health care and education through college would go a long way toward improving the situation here to truly level out the playing field.

What does "level playing field" have to do with what I'm discussing? The road to financial success is not a race where only the first one across the finish line is successful and everyone else eats mud and twigs for dinner. The field can never be level and doesn't need to be level for people willing to behave sensibly to avoid poverty. The goal is not to exceed the net worth of Steve Jobs or even Stephen King, the goal is to avoid poverty.

Then we could maybe evaluate people according to their "behavior" without putting as much consideration toward environmental influence and social conditions.

It appears you are hung up on the word "behavior". I use it in this context to describe what actions people take (or don't take), what they do (or don't do). There's nothing more complex about it than that.

It actually is 100% true that success in this country is wholly dependent on environmental conditions.

That's bullshit.

Without a liberal democratic system, without the ability to speak freely and associate freely and vote, without the heroic actions of labor in this country, we would not have the social services that guarantee social mobility to even the poorer sections of our society.

And yet, even with all this, there are still people who act in a manner which guarantees they will be poor. You ignore the obvious fact that all of us - those who become successful and those who don't - are swimming in the same lake here. All those things you describe - the democratic system, free speech, education to age sixteen, etc., are available to all. It's not as if only the people in the top 5% of net wealth are living in a democratic environment with free speech and the right to vote.

We would not have the 8-hour-day or the weekend.

So what? Whether we have an eight hour day or a ten hour day doesn't change the fact that if you make bad decisions and act in ways damaging to your financial self interest, you are more likely to end up in poverty than if you don't.

And I have in mind countries run by dictators who were put into power by us, countries like Jamaica ...

This is just off-topic gibberish that bears no relation even to reality, let alone what it takes to achieve financial success. The US didn't put anyone into power in freaking Jamaica, fa cryin' out loud! Get a grip.

Would you like to source that?

"Despite the fact that most of us believe that the rich guy down the street inherited it all….only slightly more than a quarter of Millionaires inherited any wealth." source

"Among the US rich, 68 percent were entirely self-made, the report said. Just a 10th of the British multimillionaires have wealth that was all inherited, compared with 18 percent of American billionaires, the report said." source

"Only 5% of the wealthy inherited their money." source

"The survey, conducted by the Harris Decima research firm, shows that 94 per cent of Canadians with over $1 million in investable assets are self-made.

Only six per cent said they owe the majority of their wealth to inheritance.

“Perhaps there’s a perception that wealth in Canada is being transferred from generation to the next, but in fact it is not the case,” said Andrew Auerbach, vice-president of BMO Harris Private Banking in Toronto.

“I can tell you dealing in a private bank these results didn’t surprise me. Overwhelmingly the wealth is being created not inherited.” source

If these HNWIs (high net worth individuals) in the UK, Canada, and the US were children of those in the top quintile, or even of those in the top two quintiles, they'd be getting inheritances. Yet the majority of them don't.

If they were born into their circumstances, of course they are not responsible for their situation.

This is more bullshit. Of course they are not responsible for their situation at age twenty-five minutes. But they sure as shit can't evade responsibility for the next twenty-five years. And again, regardless what circumstances they were born into, they can always change their behavior. They can always make better decisions. Do you honestly believe your fate is fixed at birth? If so, no wonder you say the ridiculous things you say.

Still on this "behavior" hype, as if economic success or failure is only determined by how we behave.

You are deliberately misrepresenting what I say. Of course how successful one ultimately ends up being can be influenced by factors other than what you do and what decisions you make. I have never used the word "only" or "solely". But statistically speaking, in the modern Western world, if you behave in a certain way, you will almost certainly end up in bad financial shape, while if you behave in another way, you will almost certainly avoid poverty.

You can have the best behavior in the world and just not have the means to improve your own situation.

Not in the western world. You are just repeating bullshit now.

I would disagree with your initial statement that the rich tend to have good behavior while the poor do not.

Then you are not thinking it through. People who achieve financial success tend to behave in certain well recognized ways. This is nothing new, nor is it controversial. Pick up a dozen self help books on the habits of successful people and note their boring sameness. They all read pretty much the same because there is no mystery to what is required to avoid ending up in poverty in the Western world. It's pretty obvious stuff.

I think everyone here wants you to say what you really mean. Are you suggesting that there is some race- or class-based way of determining how someone will behave in their lifetime? Are riches indicative of genetic superiority, in your mind? I think you need to come out and say what you really think, instead of playing around with semantics.

Or for fuck's sake! Do you think you could possibly be even more a parody of a kneejerk Libbie than you are already?

I really wish the no flaming policy on this board weren't so arbitrary so I could type what I really think of your line of "reasoning". But since that would get me an instant yellow card, I'll try this instead:

I am suggesting no such thing, as anyone with the reading comprehension of an average middle school student would know by actually reading what I write rather than trying to read my mind. I have said nothing about how likely race or class or gender background is to lead to unsuccessful behavior and bad decision making, I said the exact reverse - that what counts is not your race or your gender or your class, but what you do! And I said that anyone - anyone - can change their behavior at any time regardless of those three factors. How fucking hard is that to fucking understand, Skippy? Christ on a crutch!

And no, riches aren't indicative of "genetic superiority" for fuck's sake, and how the fuck you managed to infer that from anything I've said here will remain a fucking mystery for the fucking ages.

I'm not fucking "playing around" with fucking semantics, I am typing in plain, readily understandable english using no big words and no ambiguous terms. I'm not trying to trick you or slip one over on anyone, I'm stating the fucking obvious - that by far the biggest factor in determining whether or not someone will end up well off or destitute - assuming the someone in question lives in a country like Canada or the UK or Australia or the US or Germany or Austria or some place similar - is the decisions one makes and how one acts on those decisions. One's gender, "class" (whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean) or skin color are factors so far below the importance of decisions and behavior that they fade into insignificance.

I've been trying unsuccessfully for the last fifteen minutes or so to find a paper by some sociologist I've had bookmarked for years but I have thousands of bookmarks and they're not categorized as well as they could be. So I can't provide the link to the paper but it's findings were pretty much like this (I might be off by a percentage or two, but not more than that:

In the US, to end up not poor you need to avoid just four things -

- dropping out of high school
- having children while still a teenager
- having children before getting married
- committing crimes

This professor's research found that only 8% of individuals born into "poor" homes (as defined by US government poverty criteria) who avoided all four of these things stayed poor. In other words, 92% of those born into poverty were able to climb out of it by accomplishing nothing more than those four common sense steps. Note that this doesn't even say anything about what one should do - work summers as a teenager, then take any job you can get right out of school, minimum wage or not, and show up every day on time, follow the bosses orders yadda yadda yadda. It just looks at things one shouldn't do.

I say that anyone can accomplish those four simple tasks. You seem to believe that only the children of rich parents can. So whose view of the poor is more disparaging, grassroots? Yours or mine?




Phred

[Rudolf Prikryl]

I have said nothing about how likely race or class or gender background is to lead to unsuccessful behavior and bad decision making, I said the exact reverse - that what counts is not your race or your gender or your class, but what you do! And I said that anyone - anyone - can change their behavior at any time regardless of those three factors. How fucking hard is that to fucking understand, Skippy? Christ on a crutch!

This indirectly addresses me, so I guess I'll respond.

You've said exactly that, while claiming the opposite. You've said that poor people (of whom a great deal are minorities put in that position due to decades/centuries of discrimination) would do better if they simply emulated those who have successfully accumulated money (of whom a great deal are whites). If they "behave well," you say, like the "successfully accumulated money" folks (whites), then they will at the minimum (but in all likelihood the maximum) "avoid poverty," whatever that means.

However, numerous studies and data (that I have posted!) show that this is not only false, but indeed the opposite is true.

I'll repeat it again, since you seem to have the "reading comprehension of an average middle school student" when it comes to my posts: if you are white and have a felony, you are more likely to be hired for minimum wage jobs than an African-American without a criminal record.

Now that we've "turned that key brick into vaporware:"
You then assert that "it doesn't matter what your race is!" while totally ignoring the very real, existing inequalities and conditions that make it difficult or nearly impossible for those who are discriminated against and disadvantaged to "avoid poverty." You claim to be "colour-blind," that race no longer matters as a factor in success, proving that you are simply blind of what is ostensibly your own privilege. This is that delusional "level playing field" people are talking about. You seriously believe in the face of the above that if someone just "tries hard" and "acts right" that they'll even be able to "avoid poverty," which seems ludicrous, and only true in a trivial number of cases, when tested against reality.

I won't even respond to any of your bullshit "Spectrem Group" WSJ data-twisting graphs since you've failed to respond to anything else I've accused you of, engage with any of my own data, or even acknowledge my existence as a dissenting voice. If you do, I'll be glad to rip them apart for the distortions that they are.

Instead, I'd like to focus on one point:

- dropping out of high school
- having children while still a teenager
- having children before getting married
- committing crimes

You know as well as I do (and the statistics show) that non-white Americans and the already disadvantaged were hit disproportionally hard by the financial crisis, and that their particular neighborhoods (even well before the crisis):

a. do not get adequate funding for high school/school in general (see: graph and news story)
b. do not have adequate access to contraceptive education/free contraceptives, have difficulty affording contraceptive options every time
c. I'd like to see data on this, this seems like a non-sequitur point.
d. live in neighborhoods that receive less funding for police/are constantly profiled by police/are forced into cheaper, higher crime areas

So you see, even in your supposed "golden 4 behaviours," there are basic environmental concerns that make the fulfillment of the (3) behaviours extremely difficult (even in this grossly oversimplified scenario you've cooked up that remains entirely disconnected from actual day to day existence, making me think you've never actually experienced what it's like to not have money!).

Not to mention one could avoid all 4 and still be poor very easily due to random chance, such as getting a main transportation vehicle damaged, becoming a victim of gangs or crime organizations, getting injured without adequate insurance, etc.

The list is endless, really. The random chances happen far more often than you seem to think, and can also be entirely deliberate and not random at all! hth

Oops! Looks like you really, really don't understand what it's like to be poor in the "western world!"

People who achieve financial success tend to behave in certain well recognized ways. This is nothing new, nor is it controversial. Pick up a dozen self help books on the habits of successful people and note their boring sameness. They all read pretty much the same because there is no mystery to what is required to avoid ending up in poverty in the Western world. It's pretty obvious stuff.

When your argument hinges on self-help books giving actually useful "obvious" knowledge, you should know that there's something wrong with that argument.
You should also know (had you done the barest amount of research into things that were provided to you, or even kept up on basic data collected from the crisis) that scores of people who "acted fine" and were middle class prior to the crisis ended up in poverty in the "Western world" through no fault of their own! Amazing.

This professor's research found that only 8% of individuals born into "poor" homes (as defined by US government poverty criteria) who avoided all four of these things stayed poor. In other words, 92% of those born into poverty were able to climb out of it by accomplishing nothing more than those four common sense steps. Note that this doesn't even say anything about what one should do - work summers as a teenager, then take any job you can get right out of school, minimum wage or not, and show up every day on time, follow the bosses orders yadda yadda yadda. It just looks at things one shouldn't do.

Doesn't sound like a particularly interesting or enlightening study, if it even exists, especially because the claims sound outright dubious if not completely fantastical.
Post the evidence first, before you talk about it as if it proves anything. We still have to see if it's done by anyone remotely credible, and if his data actually supports his conclusions.

[grassroots1]

Let me start by saying that history defines what we are as a society, how we function, why people look and speak the way they do, why we live in certain areas, why we have certain cultural tendencies. Now, people make history we do make decisions, but even those decisions have roots, and we should understand people and events in their context and not as isolated cases in a vacuum. One thing begets another, every moment is connected to the moment before it. For that reason, and because I don't know the experiences and the mind behind certain actions, I don't feel right judging a person based on a single action, or even many. "Bad" behavior, in every case, I'd say, has roots in the structure of society and family, and in the particulars of the case we're discussing. I guess this does mean that the position I inevitably fall back on is the one that says that every decision has roots, every action has a reason behind it. To me, the idea that you can reduce the success or failure of a person to "good" and "bad" behavior is a great oversimplification, and then to judge them on that basis is judgmental and frankly pretentious.

You said:

But if we're doing as I thought we were doing - discussing what is required to avoid poverty in Western countries where Libbies are commonly found (not a lot of Libbies left in NK or Somalia), then the simple fact is that all it takes to avoid poverty in those countries is to avoid bad decisions and avoid bad behavior.

Success in this country is still dependent on your position in society, and all you have to do is walk through a poor black neighborhood in a big city to see that. If you grew up surrounded by gangs and violence with only a mother, you might have trouble finding that "good behavior."

This is because of the services that exist in this country that have the effect of ensuring some level of social mobility.

No, it's because the people in Western countries still have freedom to behave in ways that will increase their net worth.

The freedom once existed without the mobility. Some degree of redistribution of wealth, a public educational system, some degree of public healthcare, safety standards in the workplace, a reasonable work day, a minimum wage, all guarantee some level of quality of life and potential for mobility in this country. When these things did not exist, there were conflicts between workers and employers to the point that working people considered themselves exploited and rose up against their employers to demand fair wages, benefits, reasonable working days, etc. The state, and the democratic control of the state, is the potential mediator here that can provide a foundation of life so that business can exist and people can live reasonably well.

The field can never be level and doesn't need to be level for people willing to behave sensibly to avoid poverty. The goal is not to exceed the net worth of Steve Jobs or even Stephen King, the goal is to avoid poverty.

We can work, as a society, to provide an environment where people can grow up to understand those "good" behaviors instead of falling into the "bad" ones.

When you are trying to build a case for an argument, each point you are trying to get the audience to accept is built upon a previous foundation - a "brick", to look at it metaphorically. All that is necessary for me to refute your case is to show a key brick to be vaporware. I look at your argument brick by brick. This is not an uncommon way of doing things, by the way, and I'm far from the only PoFo poster who handles discussions in this fashion. If you don't want me to refute you every few lines, don't provide so many easily refutable statements.

My only reason for saying it is because if you continually are quoting and "refuting" each one of my statements, you can miss the general message of what I say. For example,

Quote:
It actually is 100% true that success in this country is wholly dependent on environmental conditions.

That's bullshit.

Quote:
Without a liberal democratic system, without the ability to speak freely and associate freely and vote, without the heroic actions of labor in this country, we would not have the social services that guarantee social mobility to even the poorer sections of our society.

And yet, even with all this, there are still people who act in a manner which guarantees they will be poor. You ignore the obvious fact that all of us - those who become successful and those who don't - are swimming in the same lake here. All those things you describe - the democratic system, free speech, education to age sixteen, etc., are available to all. It's not as if only the people in the top 5% of net wealth are living in a democratic environment with free speech and the right to vote.

My initial statement was not meant as a serious claim, I was only trying to highlight the fact that the "environmental conditions" of a free society with some level of social services provides even the poor with some opportunity to climb the socioeconomic ladder, where otherwise that would be basically nonexistent. Of course there is a level of natural ability.

And I have in mind countries run by dictators who were put into power by us, countries like Jamaica ...

This is just off-topic gibberish that bears no relation even to reality, let alone what it takes to achieve financial success. The US didn't put anyone into power in freaking Jamaica, fa cryin' out loud! Get a grip.

I must have edited it while you were writing (because of the confusing language) but the original statement was something like...

"And I have in mind countries run by dictators who were put into power by us, countries like Jamaica who were forced to pass austerity measures as a condition for an IMF loan, and others."

It was confusing language, I wasn't claiming that we put anyone into power in Jamaica, although I'm sure you could find some type of involvement in our nation's history.

Lastly...

Of course they are not responsible for their situation at age twenty-five minutes. But they sure as shit can't evade responsibility for the next twenty-five years.

I think this is a strange word, responsibility. Before you respond to that statement alone, let me tell you why. I think what we can do is understand the context of a person's actions. Through examining the motivations of an action, we can begin to understand them and maybe even break down their source. I'm not suggesting that people should never be punished in the legal system, and in that sense "held responsible," I think that's absolutely necessary, I'm just saying that as observers we should refrain from judging a person without truly understanding the motivations behind certain actions. There is a tendency to demonize the criminal and the poor person in this society, without taking a hard look at the environment they came from. In the end, I think the way you're behaving towards other people is judgmental.

I'm not claiming I never make judgments on an everyday basis, either. You have to in certain areas near my neighborhood where you can be robbed or beaten up. But being able to separate yourself from the situation should give you some perspective, shouldn't it? You can begin to see roots behind "bad" behavior.

Or for fuck's sake! Do you think you could possibly be even more a parody of a kneejerk Libbie than you are already?

I really wish the no flaming policy on this board weren't so arbitrary so I could type what I really think of your line of "reasoning". But since that would get me an instant yellow card, I'll try this instead:

I am suggesting no such thing, as anyone with the reading comprehension of an average middle school student would know by actually reading what I write rather than trying to read my mind. I have said nothing about how likely race or class or gender background is to lead to unsuccessful behavior and bad decision making, I said the exact reverse - that what counts is not your race or your gender or your class, but what you do! And I said that anyone - anyone - can change their behavior at any time regardless of those three factors. How fucking hard is that to fucking understand, Skippy? Christ on a crutch!

And no, riches aren't indicative of "genetic superiority" for fuck's sake, and how the fuck you managed to infer that from anything I've said here will remain a fucking mystery for the fucking ages.

No it won't, because I'll tell you why it is right now. Often when you hear arguments about how the poor are just poor because they are lazy and irresponsible (essentially what you're saying right now), it is a cover for some racist beliefs about the fundamental superiority of one race (or class) over another. It's not in my everyday life that I've experienced this, it's actually mostly here on PoFo and I hear it mostly from people who share your own views. If you don't share them, good on you, I'm glad that's the case. There's at least one person touting some halfway respectable form of conservatism.

Also, man, I asked you a serious question based on what others have said in this thread, and based on my initial reaction to your statements. I don't see a reason that you need to be this rude to me, and I won't report it this time, but I'd appreciate it greatly if you could express your ideas to me in a more civil way in the future. I've made some snide comments about wanting you to "say what you really mean," for that I apologize. But nothing I've said has even approached the level of rudeness of the above quote. We should engage in the arena of ideas, not the arena of loud voices.

[Phred]

I won't even respond to any of your bullshit "Spectrem Group" WSJ data-twisting graphs since you've failed to respond to anything else I've accused you of, engage with any of my own data, or even acknowledge my existence as a dissenting voice.

I hadn't bothered responding to you prior to this because there would be no point. Your posts indicate quite clearly you have no interest in reality. You prefer to lead a fact-free existence and that is of course your right. But this is your ride - you are free to steer the car wherever you want to go. Just don't expect me to be your enabler. Your style of "debate" is to spew vast waves of canned turgid memorized Marxist talking points, to deliberately misinterpret to the point of parody the statements of any non-Leftie attempting to engage in a discussion in good faith, to armchair psychologize, to make incorrect guesses about the messenger rather than responding to the message, to accuse (your word) me of all kinds of evil shit and to scream "racist" at every opportunity. If it were my first time reading this kind of hysterical bile-filled Commie rant, it might have at least provided some entertainment value, but after four decades of hearing the same gibberish over and over and over with never even a minor variation, I find it all just so boringly familiar and so, so tiresome.

Life is far too short to waste any of it indulging your ilk. Go away.




Phred

[Rudolf Prikryl]

Since you have failed to actually engage with the reality in the sources I posted or in the arguments I made, I'll assume you were talking about yourself.

I've therefore edited your post for clarity for whomever is left of the readership here:

I hadn't bothered responding to you prior to this because there would be no point. Your posts indicate reality quite clearly, I just have no interest in reality. I prefer to lead a fact-free existence and that is of course my right. But this is my ride - I am free to steer the car wherever I want to go. Don't expect me to be your enabler, I like my dreamworld.

Ah yes, the last logical refuge of the French aristocrat, and on the Bastille day no less!
Hope you enjoy the ultimate consequences of your failed ideology when they come to you.
I imagine it won't be much better than those you emulate.

The last bit doesn't really translate so well...

Your style of "debate" is to spew vast waves of canned turgid memorized Marxist talking points, to deliberately misinterpret to the point of parody the statements of any non-Leftie attempting to engage in a discussion in good faith, to armchair psychologize, to make incorrect guesses about the messenger rather than responding to the message, to accuse (your word) me of all kinds of evil shit and to scream "racist" at every opportunity. If it were my first time reading this kind of hysterical bile-filled Commie rant, it might have at least provided some entertainment value, but after four decades of hearing the same gibberish over and over and over with never even a minor variation, I find it all just so boringly familiar and so, so tiresome.

You've failed to actually engage my "parodies" and "armchair psychology" (which, I assure you, my arguments were not.. therefore you making the assertions that they are those things actually "deliberate misinterpretations" on your part) in a good faith discussion, so I'm confused as to what you're referring to here.

Why yes, MSNBC and studies done by major American universities, surely they are sources of "canned turgid memorized Marxist talking points." Actually, misinterpretation and stuffing up huge Red straw-men to the point of parody is a feature of your statements... despite the fact that I've laid out for you post after post exactly why you're wrong, and how what you are saying can be construed as racist with essentially neutral to centrist sourcing, you can then ignore all of it and point to the boogeyman of Marx and say that I am "anti-reality," when it is in fact you that is entirely disconnected from the reality in this country.

You've failed to actually explain (against my sourced argument) how you are not guilty of "all kinds of evil shit" that I have accused you of, and how your argument is not racist, and instead rage against imagined Communist "gibberish." This doesn't make you look like a person who is not a racist, and is not guilty of "all sorts of evil shit," it just makes you look like a bigot who got pushed on his bigoted ideas and got upset. Perhaps the reason you've heard the same thing over and over, for four decades, is because you are hilariously wrong, and, in fact, your arguments betray racist tendencies? Don't ask me how at this point, I've already laid that out for you over and over again. Try reading your posts and my explanations again if you still don't see it.

But please, by all means, ignore everything and don't begin any sort of criticism of yourself or your privileged life (and the distortions it has created in your thinking) because anyone told you that you were wrong or being racist. Just keep on ticking and ignore it until you suddenly can't anymore and explode at people for "canned Communist talking points" from American mainstream news agencies (take it to the Conspiracy Theories forum if you seriously think this), or rage at anyone pointing out the ludicrousness of your arguments and the biases in whatever inane bullshit source you can cook up to justify them, as being "anti-reality," when it is so painfully obvious you get the majority of your information from a self-reinforcing echo chamber, i.e. not reality, and simply ignore anything that challenges your pitifully small world-view.

"I'm not a racist, in fact maybe I have black friends, but let me spew some muddled racist shit that eschews the bigoted language of racists for blasé, bigoted, unrealistic economic arguments" is one of the last refuges of racists in this day and age, and you fit that bill perfectly.

Life is far too short to waste any of it indulging your ilk. Go away.

You first.

Seriously, I thought it would be difficult to top rik on projecting your own failures as a debater onto your opponent without making any argument, but you have fast approached that point in the span of less than a handful of posts.

[Suska]

In a properly organized society specialists coordinate and share - in modern America, our financier's Heaven, they collude and monopolize. The collapse of 08 was predictable because of the obvious nature of society. That sort of thing isn't over by a long shot. It's like we hired a group of thugs to guard the money and people actually scratch their head wondering how they got so rich, even more bizarre when they complain about the laziness of the poor. You don't need to be lazy to be poor - just honest.

[rik]

Here's what's weird: You've said several times that liberals are lazy and want state slavery so they won't have to work.

Now you're saying that Socialism leads you to be a slave for the state. Same charge.

But the quote I just showed suggests you've suddenly decided to make a distinction between liberalism and socialism. Finland is only one, but not the other, right?

You're moving the goalposts on your definitions, so you won't have to admit you're wrong. Again.

I have no idea what you're saying here.

It does not necessarily do that. A very good case could be made that it does the opposite. Suppose I own a business that makes a million dollars. I am at a decision point. I can take the million in profit and spend it or I can hire more people and try to earn more money.

I don't need to prove anything. Just look at what is happening today. Obama threatens to raise taxes, and investors hold onto their money. Explain why.

Well, isn't that awfully hypocritical. You ignore my message, attack the messenger (me), act holier than thou, and back your continued assertions up with nada, zilch, zero facts.

In reality, everything you just said is a complete fabrication.

Therefore, the rest of your post doesn't get read.

If you want a response, start being honest.

[Rudolf Prikryl]

In reality, everything you just said is a complete fabrication.

Therefore, the rest of your post doesn't get read.

If you want a response, start being honest.

Actually, you're doing it again, since you've failed to actually address how what I've said (and quoted you saying) is a fabrication. You're not being honest when you make that claim without evidence, the same as all your other claims. Not reading dissenting posts, and still claiming you are right, is also not arguing honestly or in good faith.

I don't need to prove anything.

The entire onus is on you to provide proof for anything you've said, otherwise you're not discussing a damn thing, merely pontificating as if anyone cared what your baseless assertions were/acting as if you had been awarded the privilege to lecture anyone since you (believe that you) are "Ultimately Correct." If you're not willing to discuss anything, argue in good faith, or provide evidence, I politely suggest you stop posting.

[partisanin]

So, here I am, a multi-millionaire, providing jobs for a dozen+ people.

What do you have against me creating jobs for people? At the end of the day, only the rich can employ people. I don't remember ever working for a broke person before, do you?

I have a problem with this. You're saying this as if it's something good you're doing for others when it's actually something you want from others and you have money to do it. Maybe you should be thankful to others for doing jobs for you, it's like the other side of the coin. I don't have a problem with you creating jobs, but it's certainly not worth much. Money is hardly the source of good. You buy an expensive car and that's helping the world? That's an interesting (twisted) way to think about it. The same goes for your taxes paying welfare - everybody pays taxes, it's only natural that rich pay more. Like you said, you're rich because someone is poor (we can't all be rich), but it's not money that makes a person great.

I have a problem with political or economic system we have that puts too much emphasis on money. I don't have problem with rich people being rich.

[pugsville]

In capitalism the whole labour/employment/money is meant to be a exchange were both sides get something of value.

Why is that capitalists constantly stress one side, how workers should be thankful.

If it's an even exchange should not the capitalist be equally thankful?

Or are you saying it's not an equal relationship?

[Drlee]

So, here I am, a multi-millionaire, providing jobs for a dozen+ people.

If you are a millionaire you may or may not be providing jobs for anyone. In the US it is more likely that you are employing far fewer people and those at a relative (to you) lower rate, than in virtually any other country.

What do you have against me creating jobs for people?

Nothing. And through the judicial application of taxes I can encourage you to do it. I can also replace you and use your money to employ people if you refuse or try to employ them overseas.

At the end of the day, only the rich can employ people.

This is patently untrue. Small business people are creating jobs FAR faster than are large companies. Large companies are shedding employees while small mom and pop businesses are hiring them. FEW small business people are millionaires and few earn over $250K per year. These folks would be left alone under the proposed tax increases.

I don't remember ever working for a broke person before, do you?

Then you have never worked for a small businessman. My brother employes 6 people. All earn over 30K per year. He earned less than $100K last year and he is thinking about hiring another person. In the beginning he paid employees more than he paid himself. Clearly you do not understand the process of building a business.

SBA Says:
Small Businesses:
•
Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.

•
Employ just over half of all private sector employees.

•
Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.

•
Have generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years.

•
Create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).

•
Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer programmers).

•
Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.

•
Made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced 30.2 percent of the known export value in FY 2007.

•
Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited.

Let me add that about 8% of the people work for government. (Not including contractors.)

And here, yet again, is an example of the hollow rhetoric we see from idiot "business first" folks. They simply do not have the depth of understanding to arrive at correct conclusions. So-called libertarians are the worst. THey simply do not get it. For them it is more important to jam the 'facts' into their very shallow belief system that it is to arrive at the truth. This is deliberate ignorance on the part of some of them.

[TruePolitics]

This thread is missing the big point. The big point is that it is totally unfair how rich people can get by so easily in life and yet poor people have to struggle a lot more and have a much harder time getting ahead. Everything depends on what you were born into. If you were born into more money than someone else, you're going to have a much easier life. This is the crux of this issue. People start their lives with different amounts of money. For the people who are poor, it's not fair that they have to work a lot harder for their money than people who already have a good start. Remember, it takes money to make money. If you already have money, it's a lot easier to make money with it. Liberals don't hate all rich people, but they hate the ones who claim that our capitalistic system is a perfectly fair system, when it clearly isn't. Not everyone is given the same amount of money when they're born. Thus, it's not fair.

[lucky]

People start their lives with different amounts of money. For the people who are poor, it's not fair that they have to work a lot harder for their money [...] Liberals don't hate all rich people, but they hate the ones who claim that our capitalistic system is a perfectly fair system, when it clearly isn't.

I don't often hear capitalism supporters claim that anything in life is "fair". The words "fair", "unfair" are more commonly used by the leftist types. I like capitalism for the output it can generate for me and others. I don't particularly pay attention to whether my income is "fair", I want it "large" instead. I don't mind if somebody else gets 100x more income "unfairly".

Life is unfair. If you're ugly, you have to work a lot harder to get a husband, if you are born with no legs you have to work a lot harder to get anywhere, if you're born with a smaller brain you'll have a tougher life than a genius, and if your parents are poor and can't help you, you'll have to work a lot harder than somebody that gets a huge help from parents. Not many capitalism supporters will deny any of this.

[grassroots1]

^See my arguments in this thread, agreed life isn't fair but if each person is educated then we will have a more productive society in general. There are ways that we can make things more "fair" and also allow for each person to fulfill their potential. I've said this so many times it kind of makes me sick to type it yet again.

[lucky]

it kind of makes me sick to type it yet again

Patient: It hurts when I do this.
Doctor: Then stop doing it.

[grassroots1]

Gotta do what you gotta do.

I'm just not gonna see this thread degenerate into an overly simplistic analysis of whether or not life is fair (and then have that used as a justification of unrestricted capitalism). This issue is more complicated than that.

[lucky]

I don't see how your post had anything to do with mine. TruePolitics said that liberals (presumably him included) don't hate all rich capitalism supporters, only those rich capitalism supporters that say life under capitalism is "perfectly fair". I replied that not many rich capitalism supporters actually fit that description. Do you disagree with that?

You said that there is a way to make a more fair system even though I said nothing to the contrary, in fact I said I don't particularly care about fairness. So why do you feel you need to tell me there is hope of doing that, when I don't care about doing that? It's as if I said I don't particularly care about meeting Jesus, and you then replied that meeting Jesus was indeed possible, and added that it made you sick to have to repeat that.

You're just throwing out some slogans (no wonder you get tired), rather than reading what the discussion is about.

[grassroots1]

Well on this forum in particular I've seen many people suggesting that the world system, as we are now, is "meritocratic" and essentially that everyone is in their place because that's where they SHOULD be. I definitely disagree with this statement and I think where different peoples are in terms of development has to do with a lot more than the natural ability of the different peoples.

But in general, you're probably right that "capitalism supporters" understand the fact that life is unfair, understand that there are different lots in life, and just don't care (like yourself, apparently). Others know and don't understand what it really means and they think that they are rich because they are superior. It just depends, I don't know what else to say.

You said that there is a way to make a more fair system even though I said nothing to the contrary, in fact I said I don't particularly care about fairness, so why would you tell me there is hope of doing something I don't really care about?

I'm not sure why you wouldn't care about it, it seems like a pretty callous way of looking at things to me, but maybe if you don't care about equality of opportunity as an end in itself, you care about creating a more productive society and a more educated people?

But you're right I kind of jumped the gun responding to what I thought you were saying instead of what you really did say. I've done it before, sorry about that.

[lucky]

maybe you care about a more productive society and a more educated people, if you don't care about equality of opportunity?

Indeed I do. I'm not particularly anxious though for you to repeat whatever political program you have, here. If you feel the need to present it, perhaps you better start a new thread with that topic. It would be off-topic here.