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At 10/10/11 07:18 PM, adrshepard wrote:
I know. I've worked with poor people for years. 95% of the time it's their own fault that they are working-poor. It's all due to poor decisions they made at various points in life.

That right there, is a flat out incorrect pile of shit.

Oh hai guise, I chose to develop cancer and have hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical debt hurr hurr.

There are a lot more people who are poor as shit than 5% because of medical bills. But what can we expect? You pulled that statistic right out of your ass.

At 10/10/11 07:18 PM, adrshepard wrote: No, it isn't, unless you can identify the mechanism behind it.

Very true. Shortness of breath and a pain in the arm mean nothing, unless they are indicitive of a heart attack...

A lot of the "inequality" and decline of the "middle class" has to do with outsourcing manufacturing jobs.

Again, 100% agreed. Sure, there has definitely been some corporate greed involved in the process, but at most it amounts to maybe 1/4 of the reason.

Decades ago, someone could earn a middle class income with only a high school education, thanks to union wages and a lack of foreign competition.

I would actually add in a consumer habit section here. Consumers before the 1990s valued quality. They were willnig to shell out 25-50% more money in order to get a quality product. These quality products came from American factories. (As all outsourcers have learned, 3rd world labor makes 3rd rate products.) There used to be a sizeable mid-level consumer market. People either had the money to buy expensive luxury, to buy quality goods for a higher, but reasonable price, or buy cheap goods for cheap. Now that middle market has disappeared due to the consumer ace to the bottom (what I like to call the WalMart effect). You either have the money to buy luxury, or you buy super cheap, thus forcing manufacturing into cheaper locales.

Now, you either need a secondary education or have to be really, really good at a trade to be middle class.

Even then, the value of a bachelor's is dropping like crazy. Everybody and their dog has jumped on the college bandwagon, thus saturatin gthe market. Today's Bachelor's is equivalent to yesterday's Associate's, and today's Master's is equivalent to yesterday's bachelor's.

Sure, they're trying hard now. But they weren't trying hard when they had kids out of wedlock with no reliable income to support them, or when they went to prison for a few years on a drug charge and are on probation, or when they didn't study in school.
I know. I've worked with poor people for years. 95% of the time it's their own fault that they are working-poor. It's all due to poor decisions they made at various points in life.

That fact, while true, is also quite misleading. How many of the white collar class ahven't had similar mistakes? Not that many. The difference is that when you have a stronger wealthier suport system, you have the luxury of a few mulligans. Someone from a lower class family has only 1 mistake and they're done. Someone from a middle class family has 1-2 mistakes before they're done. Someone from a wealthy family has a HUGE number of fuck ups before they are done.

They do. The labor market takes care of that. Any other definition of "fair wages" is divorced from reality. People with little to no job skills are replaceable, and shouldn't be paid very much.

I am not convinced that a 100% free market is even close to 100% fair. In a true free market nepotism is more important than skill, and profit is more important than nepotism. It sound like a pretty idea that the free market would do what is best for itself, but remember, the market is run by people, prone to high levels of greed, favoritism, and bias. If you don't believe that, just say so, and I'll drop some truth upon thee.

Pretty sure you don't know what the 3rd world and 3rd world countries refers to.

At 10/10/11 10:30 PM, MercatorMapV2 wrote: Pretty sure you don't know what the 3rd world and 3rd world countries refers to.

OK, school me then. Tell me exactly what you claim I don't know, but actually do know.

At 10/10/11 10:37 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 10/10/11 10:30 PM, MercatorMapV2 wrote: Pretty sure you don't know what the 3rd world and 3rd world countries refers to.

OK, school me then. Tell me exactly what you claim I don't know, but actually do know.

After you, wikipedia brown.

At 10/10/11 11:31 PM, MercatorMapV2 wrote: After you, wikipedia brown.

How about you actually say something. I made some points you could try to respond to. All you do by attacking something and then not explaining it is scream that you have no response. So either explain yourself, actually debate, or just keep admitting defeat.

At 10/11/11 12:10 AM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 10/10/11 11:31 PM, MercatorMapV2 wrote: After you, wikipedia brown.

How about you actually say something. I made some points you could try to respond to. All you do by attacking something and then not explaining it is scream that you have no response. So either explain yourself, actually debate, or just keep admitting defeat.

The burden of proof is upon you my dear fellow. I have implied that you do not know what the term "3rd world" means. It is up to you to prove otherwise.

I'm admitting defeat. In your dreams, while you continue to spout ridiculous logic on an inconsequential board, while others are getting shit done, and I'm supporting them.

You're not winning anything, just making yourself perpetually look like a tool.

I'll just leave these income disparities here, and this link right here citing the sort of ridiculous shit that goes on in our banking system. Ya know, the one you are defending with your anti-OWS sheep like spouts.

Continue to be a sheep while righteous people who will not stand for this shit fight for your rights.

Anyone else find it hilarious how they'll complain about taxpayer money being used to bail out the banks, and in the next breath they'll demand student debt forgiveness i.e. to be bailed out with taxpayer money.

At 10/11/11 04:06 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: Anyone else find it hilarious how they'll complain about taxpayer money being used to bail out the banks, and in the next breath they'll demand student debt forgiveness i.e. to be bailed out with taxpayer money.

Um, not really, because in the latter case the money isn't being given to the people responsible for sinking the economy in the first place.

At 10/10/11 07:16 PM, adrshepard wrote:
So forgive me if I balk at appeals to the "plight" of lower-class Americans.

How much one makes is irrelevant if the CEO is making 100x more than the wages of the workers who actually generate the capital. Also, many in America struggle to pay the bills for their modest lifestyle no matter how hard they bust their ass.

At 10/11/11 04:32 AM, Cootie wrote:

At 10/10/11 07:16 PM, adrshepard wrote:
So forgive me if I balk at appeals to the "plight" of lower-class Americans.

How much one makes is irrelevant if the CEO is making 100x more than the wages of the workers who actually generate the capital.

So even if someone working for a CEO makes a great salary, the CEO mustn't be allowed to make 100 times more?

That seems to discourage financial success and has a disgustingly regulatory feel to it.

Also, many in America struggle to pay the bills for their modest lifestyle no matter how hard they bust their ass.

They didn't bust their ass when it mattered, and now they do after making poor choices in life....

Granted there are exceptions, but this is most often the case.

At 10/11/11 09:03 AM, Jedi-Master wrote:

At 10/11/11 04:32 AM, Cootie wrote:

At 10/10/11 07:16 PM, adrshepard wrote:
So forgive me if I balk at appeals to the "plight" of lower-class Americans.

How much one makes is irrelevant if the CEO is making 100x more than the wages of the workers who actually generate the capital.

So even if someone working for a CEO makes a great salary, the CEO mustn't be allowed to make 100 times more?

That seems to discourage financial success and has a disgustingly regulatory feel to it.

Why should they make 100 times more & get these huge "bonuses" when they have driven their company/banks to the point of collapse ?
They are lousy fucking CEO's & bullshit managers ...yet the American Taxpayer bails them out to the tune of trillions of dollars of debt to the average American...& the CEO's get another huge bonus !?!?!

That my friend is INSANITY, & anyone not complaining about it, is an idiot, or one of the few getting paid top dollar to FUCK UP !

Also, many in America struggle to pay the bills for their modest lifestyle no matter how hard they bust their ass.

They didn't bust their ass when it mattered, and now they do after making poor choices in life....

That's anther problem the rich paying the people who actually do the work a pittance & firing them for any preceived wrong or any down turn to the company, they attack the workers benefits, their wages...when if you look at say Japan.
If a company has financial trouble, the cuts start at the top.
The CEO's are the first to lose all their perks, all their Bonuses are taken away & if there are still problems the CEO's & top managers take a cut before any worker does.
THat is the model anyone with a brain should follow. You don't go cutting your skilled work force because your management fucked up, the mangement takes the biggest hit, becaus ethey deserve to.
If tax payer money is going to fund something education is IMO , a better use for it than paying some rich asshole (aka CEO) another million + dollar bonus !

At 10/11/11 09:32 AM, morefngdbs wrote:
Why should they make 100 times more & get these huge "bonuses" when they have driven their company/banks to the point of collapse ?

Well obviously I forgot to mention that I oppose bailouts.

Baling out failing companies violates many free market principles, and being somewhat libertarian in my ideology, I oppose bailouts just as much, if not more, than anyone else. Bankruptcy would be the better option for everyone.

They are lousy fucking CEO's & bullshit managers ...yet the American Taxpayer bails them out to the tune of trillions of dollars of debt to the average American...& the CEO's get another huge bonus !?!?!

...did you really just assume that I said that all CEO's deserve bailouts or something? I never argued that anyone deserved them. People whose businesses were supposed to fail shouldn't be saved by the taxpayer.

That my friend is INSANITY, & anyone not complaining about it, is an idiot, or one of the few getting paid top dollar to FUCK UP !

Although I agree with you on the issue of bailouts and stuff, I can't really say that its idiotic to support them. It may be highly objectionable, but not necessarily "idiotic." I mean, I think it would be good to respect both sides of an argument most of the time.

That's anther problem the rich paying the people who actually do the work a pittance & firing them for any preceived wrong or any down turn to the company, they attack the workers benefits, their wages...when if you look at say Japan.

And that's why unions should exist to protect these people's jobs.

If a company has financial trouble, the cuts start at the top.

No, the cuts can be made anywhere in my opinion, but the cuts must be equal at all levels of a business.

The CEO's are the first to lose all their perks, all their Bonuses are taken away & if there are still problems the CEO's & top managers take a cut before any worker does.

Workers generally know the risks that working with these kinds of businesses could entail, such as cuts.

No one should get priority in cuts. Everyone should suffer equally.

THat is the model anyone with a brain should follow. You don't go cutting your skilled work force because your management fucked up, the mangement takes the biggest hit, becaus ethey deserve to.

Or maybe the workers fucked up. I mean, workers do tend to be incompetent sometimes, but whatever.

And I'll just reemphasize my point about all levels of a business taking cuts equally or nearly as equal as possible.

If tax payer money is going to fund something education is IMO , a better use for it than paying some rich asshole (aka CEO) another million + dollar bonus !

Agreed.

At 10/11/11 09:03 AM, Jedi-Master wrote:
They didn't bust their ass when it mattered, and now they do after making poor choices in life....

Granted there are exceptions, but this is most often the case.

You continue with this misconception that you have made up.

The corporate executives that the people are pissed at aren't in charge because they worked hard, but because of who they know.

At 10/11/11 11:15 AM, Jedi-Master wrote:

At 10/11/11 09:32 AM, morefngdbs wrote: That my friend is INSANITY, !

Although I agree with you on the issue of bailouts and stuff, I can't really say that its idiotic to support them. It may be highly objectionable, but not necessarily "idiotic." I mean, I think it would be good to respect both sides of an argument most of the time.

;;;
Respecting both sides of it !
I don't follow you. These problems are 100% the fault of the financial companies greed, & taking chances that could & almost did bankrupt them. Anyone who deliberately puts themselves in such a position is an imbecil or at best idiot, is the usual term for someone that stund .

That's another problem the rich paying the people who actually do the work a pittance & firing them for any preceived wrong or any down turn to the company, they attack the workers benefits, their wages...when if you look at say Japan.

And that's why unions should exist to protect these people's jobs.

;;; there are good & bad unions, they are not all great. I happen to belong to a fairly decent one.

If a company has financial trouble, the cuts start at the top.

No, the cuts can be made anywhere in my opinion, but the cuts must be equal at all levels of a business.

;;;
I respectfully disagree.
If the company is in (as the financial sector was) a terrible position because of decisions made at the top, then the cuts should start at the top.
They made the decisions
They get hit the hardest...teaches them to smarten the fuck up !

Or maybe the workers fucked up. I mean, workers do tend to be incompetent sometimes, but whatever.

;;;this is possible, but when a worker fucks up , they are disaplined or fired. They rarely get to be the sole cause of a businesses collapse

And I'll just reemphasize my point about all levels of a business taking cuts equally or nearly as equal as possible.

;;;
I agree with you on this point in say a downturn on the business bottom line. Where they say make a product & the sales are down, then cutting across the board to share the hurt , is understandable.
When A bunch of assholes who believe they are too big to fail , start buying toxic assets, paying billions of dollars for something worth maybe millions of dollars, then those bozo's deserve to suffer & the poor bastards mopping the floors & pushing the paperwork & answering the phones don't deserve to take the hit. When I heard that the US Gov used tax payers money to bail these failing companies out & they used the money to give big bonus checks to their top people...who were responsible for the fuck up in the first place....I got all of my money out of stocks & bonds & RRSP's & put it into what I consider safe havens, properties mortgage free, physical gold & silver. I also paid off my debts.

If tax payer money is going to fund something education is IMO , a better use for it than paying some rich asshole (aka CEO) another million + dollar bonus !

Agreed.

At 10/10/11 09:54 PM, MercatorMapV2 wrote:

I know. I've worked with poor people for years. 95% of the time it's their own fault that they are working-poor. It's all due to poor decisions they made at various points in life.

There are a lot more people who are poor as shit than 5% because of medical bills. But what can we expect? You pulled that statistic right out of your ass.

Of course I did. It was a figure of speech. But let's try to look at the real numbers.
In 2010, there were 1,146,511 Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings (we'll assume they are all non-business filings for simplicity), Chapter 7 meaning a complete wipeout of assets and an income below the median level for the state. Let's also the say the popularized, but not definitive, number of 60% of all bankruptcies are due to medical bills. That makes 687,907 bankrupcties attributable to health bills.
In 2010, the total number of Americans living below the poverty line increased by about 3.4 million. Plugging in the numbers, assuming that every one of the bankruptcies leads to poverty, the rate is about 20%, a 15% difference from the number I threw out. Not too bad.
But wait! None of those statistics take count of "middle-classness" that you went on about or employment status, which is what I discussed. If you look at the most recent 2009 information, only about 16% of the working-poor have college degrees. When you take into account the terrible job market for new graduates, who haven't had the chance to become "middle class", then the rate of middle-class people who have been reduced to shit manual labor jobs due to medical bills probably goes much lower.

So, an off-hand personal experience estimate of 5% turns to a researched probable figure of 12-13%. That's pretty damn good, if you ask me. I doubt you could have handled it, or if you've even kept up with what I've just laid out for you, but hell, if you can make a better analysis, go right ahead.

Just be warned, it's a lot more difficult than spewing snide one-liners.

At 10/11/11 04:27 PM, adrshepard wrote:
So, an off-hand personal experience estimate of 5% turns to a researched probable figure of 12-13%. That's pretty damn good, if you ask me. I doubt you could have handled it, or if you've even kept up with what I've just laid out for you, but hell, if you can make a better analysis, go right ahead.

Just be warned, it's a lot more difficult than spewing snide one-liners.

You shot yourself in the foot and destroyed your own analysis when you stated that you would assume that they are all non business filings for simplification.

Basically, the snide one liners are a lot better than your shitty analysis combined with passive aggressiveness.

But please, please do continue with your idiotic railing of the working poor and stating that it is their fault.

Just another sheltered suburb guy who doesn't know what it means to be poor, lacks empathy, and probably has never had to worry about being homeless.
Blame the victim. I bet you blame rape victims for how they dress as well.

At 10/11/11 04:53 PM, MercatorMapV2 wrote:

Do you always have to insult people when you disagree with them? You have your opinions thats fine but trashing anothers opinion is not good debating.

At 10/11/11 05:44 PM, ToddM wrote:

At 10/11/11 04:53 PM, MercatorMapV2 wrote:

Do you always have to insult people when you disagree with them? You have your opinions thats fine but trashing anothers opinion is not good debating.

I find it entertaining yes. Especially since this forum is a timesink and has no effect on policy or otherwise.

Essentially arguing on this forum, where people won't do jack shit with their beliefs, is trivial and entertaining. Nothing more. Nothing less. I strive to make it as entertaining as possible.

At 10/11/11 04:53 PM, MercatorMapV2 wrote:

You shot yourself in the foot and destroyed your own analysis when you stated that you would assume that they are all non business filings for simplification.

That's because business filings were only 3.6% of all bankruptcy filings in 2010. My assumption actually overstates the number of individual filings, which works against my conclusion by raising each of the values down the line of the analysis.

Care to try again?

At 10/11/11 06:16 PM, adrshepard wrote:

At 10/11/11 04:53 PM, MercatorMapV2 wrote:

You shot yourself in the foot and destroyed your own analysis when you stated that you would assume that they are all non business filings for simplification.

That's because business filings were only 3.6% of all bankruptcy filings in 2010. My assumption actually overstates the number of individual filings, which works against my conclusion by raising each of the values down the line of the analysis.

Care to try again?

"I know. I've worked with poor people for years. 95% of the time it's their own fault that they are working-poor. It's all due to poor decisions they made at various points in life."

The burden on you is to prove that bullshit statistic that you made up. Not to prove anything else at this point. So. Care to try again?

At 10/11/11 01:00 PM, MercatorMapV2 wrote: The corporate executives that the people are pissed at aren't in charge because they worked hard, but because of who they know.

You want people to prove what they say, instead of making false sounding statistics, and blanket statements (and I wholeheartedly agree with such an approach, if you say it, back it. Let's all be honest). But then you go and make a blanket statement yourself that you can't possibly prove (since you can't possibly know the individual reasoning and mindset of "the people who are pissed"). Disappointing.

Was the disappointing comment really necessary? Or are you just condescending?

Lemme just throw in my two cents then. I'd find it disappointing if I ever spent so much time online that I was offered modship.

At 10/11/11 08:16 PM, MercatorMapV2 wrote: Was the disappointing comment really necessary?

Is your constant flameing really necessary?

Or are you just condescending?

Well, I know you are. Is this a case where you can dish it, but can't take it?

Lemme just throw in my two cents then.

Please do.

I'd find it disappointing if I ever spent so much time online that I was offered modship.

Well, I can always help you spend less time on this site anyway. Just let me know if a little enforced vacation ever appeals to you...or better yet, keep making whole posts that just rip into people and deflect from your own faulty postings and then the vacation won't be so voluntary.

At 10/11/11 08:34 PM, aviewaskewed wrote:

At 10/11/11 08:16 PM, MercatorMapV2 wrote: Was the disappointing comment really necessary?

Is your constant flameing really necessary?

Or are you just condescending?

Well, I know you are. Is this a case where you can dish it, but can't take it?

Actually I can take it just fine. However, as proven by your subsequent threat, it appears that you can't take it.

i'm gonna have to stick with the "corporate power came about through consumer demands" side of the argument, meaning that it isn't just wall street that needs changing. i'd be curious to see what factors influence relative wealth between CEOs and employs (as posted earlier), and whether or not it is legislation or society that has most influenced them. if it hasn't come about through legislation, protesting would have little relevance.

At 10/11/11 12:33 AM, MercatorMapV2 wrote: The burden of proof is upon you my dear fellow. I have implied that you do not know what the term "3rd world" means. It is up to you to prove otherwise.

It has two definitions.

It can mean the countries not alligned with the West or the Soviet Bloc.
It can also mean the whole of the underdeveloped countries.

Seeing as one definition is obsolete, and the other is in wide usage...

And you proved exactly what with this?

At 10/11/11 09:12 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
It has two definitions.

It can mean the countries not alligned with the West or the Soviet Bloc.
It can also mean the whole of the underdeveloped countries.

Seeing as one definition is obsolete, and the other is in wide usage...

And you proved exactly what with this?

Took you almost a whole day. Your google-fu must be weak. I can teach you if you want.