US Protests spread to 1000 cities

[Twin Fist]

hell, my friends mother started as a candy striper, got the hospital to send her to nursing school, then to RN, then to get her BS in nursing administration, then her masters in hospital admin, and now she makes, here in buttsnort east texas, almost 150K a year.

and she did it all while raising a kid.

anyone tells me the dream is dead, is either stoned, stupid or too lazy to do it

 

[Sukerkin]

Steady now, John. You and I both know it is possible to be born the lowest of the low and climb out if you try hard enough, on both sides of the Atlantic. But I've said before on these fora that I'm not so sure that people from poor backgrounds like mine would be able to make these days as the barriers to entry to the 'Middle Table', for those with ability, have grown. Likewise in the States I am sure.

If you are lucky and will not quit no matter how many times you get hit in the face with a wet fish then you can make it out of the poverty trap even now but I certainly don't think it's getting any easier.

 

[Twin Fist]

******** Mark

when i was young, it was HARD to go to college, now? now it is a joke to go with all the free money the government gives people to go to school

anyone that fgails in todays america didnt try hard enough i am not smart, or special at all, and i graduate in 2 months and i will never be out of work again

 

[Sukerkin]

ROFL ... well that's me told :lol:

Part of the problem over here in Britain is that in the past thirty years degrees have been so devalued that people who really are not bright enough have been getting them. Employers are not stupid either and they know that there has not been some miraculous improvement in general intelligence between when I graduated the first time (when 2 - 5 % of the population were bright enough) to now (where the government is pushing for 50% to go to university).

Couple that with the huge increase in fees and the way that education is now 'funded' and it's not a winning equation.

 

[Sukerkin]

By the way, I do get what John is saying about how there is still a prize to get if you push hard enough. I worked 'pumping gas', delivering papers, laying tarmac and ran a mail order mini-business whilst I was at University the first time round and had been 'working' as a milkman's assistant and on market stalls since I was 9.

Of course those last two would be illegal child exploitation now even tho' on the market work I got to keep 50% of the profits (less stall rental) I made for the stall owner :grr: (growling at the disincentive that is to young 'entrepreneurs').

 

[JohnEdward]

You can succeed. It's not easy, it takes hard work, it takes pain, but it can be done.

We have more -new- millionaires now than 20 years ago. What's that tell you?

My * comment was a tangent. All I was saying not in relation to Carlin' s comment. That in 1950 my father had more than I do now, and less education. He was middle class income with a high school education, who bought land to farm. Can't do that today. All his brothers and sisters were middle class, worked jobs that they didn't fear losing and had pensions. Some ran their own business, they didn't have to put everything they owned up to start it. They didn't have to try all sorts of different ones. They didn't have to retire and take another job. They didn't have to worry about medical bills ruining their lives, or homes taken away, or working from job to job getting laid off because it saved the corporation money. That was their parents generation, who after the Great Depression decided to change things. Prior to the Great Depression, their wasn't much but farms and lots of poor immigrant families barely surviving.


More Millionaires - thank Gates for many of them, and the stock market- if you know what I mean. You have to have money to make money, and few like I said hit home runs. Millionaires 20 years ago. Well that is relative. When I graduated from college back in the day, 20,000 job was a equal to what is 200,000 job today. There was more of them jobs than today. Millionaires in that sense are what is left of a health large middle class. Hell, pro-sports figures are multi-millionaires in basketball and football, but not soccer. Those high sports salaries are nothing compared to what the owners make, or a CEO of a large corporation. It clearly isn't what the average income is.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

People, including me, point at Gates and Jobs.
I've read 3 biographies on Gates.
He pretty much earned it. Yeah, born into a money family, but how much of that money went into Microsoft?
Jobs earned it too.
I've read several bios on him, look forward to reading the official one in a few weeks.

Gates, Allen, Jobs, Woz, Hewett, Packard, Bushnel, and a number of others. They earned it.
So did Dell.
So did Schultz.
So did that nerd who started a little site called Facebook, the same time we started Martial Talk.
(Bitter? Yeah, a little)

Gates would work all night, non stop. You'd find him out cold on his office floor having worked through the night.
How many of those complaining about their lot have done that?
Jobs made it all personal.
Got bounced off a wall at least once by a developer as a result.
How many of those complaining ever had that happen?

You don't get rich working 9-5, mon-friday. You don't get rich waiting for it to happen.

Those 'old money' rich? 12 hr 6 day work weeks were normal.

Hell, why's a doctor earn more than a burger flipper?
How many burger flippers you know willing to work 36 hours straight and put in an 80 hour week?
None here.

 

[Empty Hands]

How many burger flippers you know willing to work 36 hours straight and put in an 80 hour week?
None here.

I work that hard. Harder even. I'll be comfortable, but I'll never be rich. Hard work is necessary, but not sufficient. Luck is necessary too.

Like the luck needed not to get, say, ALS. Hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you can't move your hands. Or breathe on your own. Or speak.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

My * comment was a tangent. All I was saying not in relation to Carlin' s comment. That in 1950 my father had more than I do now, and less education. He was middle class income with a high school education, who bought land to farm. Can't do that today. All his brothers and sisters were middle class, worked jobs that they didn't fear losing and had pensions. Some ran their own business, they didn't have to put everything they owned up to start it. They didn't have to try all sorts of different ones. They didn't have to retire and take another job. They didn't have to worry about medical bills ruining their lives, or homes taken away, or working from job to job getting laid off because it saved the corporation money. That was their parents generation, who after the Great Depression decided to change things. Prior to the Great Depression, their wasn't much but farms and lots of poor immigrant families barely surviving.


More Millionaires - thank Gates for many of them, and the stock market- if you know what I mean. You have to have money to make money, and few like I said hit home runs. Millionaires 20 years ago. Well that is relative. When I graduated from college back in the day, 20,000 job was a equal to what is 200,000 job today. There was more of them jobs than today. Millionaires in that sense are what is left of a health large middle class. Hell, pro-sports figures are multi-millionaires in basketball and football, but not soccer. Those high sports salaries are nothing compared to what the owners make, or a CEO of a large corporation. It clearly isn't what the average income is.

If I had bought 100 shares of Apple in 1985 (at $30 a share), it would have cost me $3k.
Today those 100 shares would be worth over $30k.
If I had bought 100 shares of Microsoft in 1985, I'd have a similar growth.
If I'd bought a pound of gold in 1985, it would have cost me about $4k.
Today it would be worth almost $30k.
A $10k investment, grown to almost $100k.
I wish I'd had the wisdom then to do so.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I work that hard. Harder even. I'll be comfortable, but I'll never be rich. Hard work is necessary, but not sufficient. Luck is necessary too.

Like the luck needed not to get, say, ALS. Hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you can't move your hands. Or breathe on your own. Or speak.

Truth.

 

[Sukerkin]

You don't get rich working 9-5, mon-friday. You don't get rich waiting for it to happen.

Those 'old money' rich? 12 hr 6 day work weeks were normal.

That is a fair point, altho' it ignores a lot of those that 'make it' because they were born into the right 'class' - it's beginning to infect America too, sad to say. It's much easier to make money when you start with money - the old adage about the first million being the hardest is still a truism.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

True. But if we stole an extra $50B from the 'rich' and gave it equally to the 'poor', how many of them would invest it in their future, and how many piss it away on some fancy clothes, a vacation, a big tv or some beer?

Education's always been cited as a key. In the US, the first 12 years -are- free.
So why do we have under 40% attendance in some schools?

Hard to justify free college when so many refuse to show up to learn the basics.

Some people, just deserve poverty because they fight so hard to be poor.

 

[JohnEdward]

Bob, I goofed in my replay. Ignore it. I realize we are talking about two different things and my post isn't accurate or the way I want it to be. I simply am talking about availability of opportunity and not responsibility of wealth. And that is how I read Carlin. I haven't read your new posts, which I see you have posted in response. My retraction is based on moment of reflection in the mens room. .

 

[Sukerkin]

Can't argue with that, Bob, aye.

I wish the first bit was not true (the 'throwing away' of largesse rather than using it to improve your lot) but sadly it is. Reading David Eddings book, The Losers, written before he got into the hyper-successful part of his career, resonated all too strongly with my background, allbeit that Eddings was writing about the American experience rather than the British (the principles were still the same).

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Bob, I goofed in my replay. Ignore it. I realize we are talking about two different things and my post isn't accurate or the way I want it to be. I simply am talking about availability of opportunity and not responsibility of wealth. And that is how I read Carlin. I haven't read your new posts, which I see you have posted in response. My retraction is based on moment of reflection in the mens room. .

No worries.

I'm just of the mindset that there's still opportunity. If I wasn't, we wouldn't be having this chat/debate as I'd have shut down when the first person told me I couldn't possibly succeed.

As to Carlin, I actually get the opposite read most folks do from that rant. I take it as sarcasm, considering his own success.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

True story.

Most of you know I do model photography.
I occasionally get clients who want to pay for work. I pass this along to the gals I've worked with in the past who have been reliable.
We're working on a couple of calenders, the pay is $100 for non nude, $200 for nude. It's a 2 hr gig.
I have 5 who never replied to my direct invitation to participate.
2 who turned it down, to shoot freebies with someone else.
These aren't 'successful' or 'credited' models, but newbs.
1 is constantly bitching on Facebook about never getting any paid offers.
All messages were read, just not bothered with.
The 1 who turned down a $200 easy money payday is constantly complaining about being broke.

See a trend here?
I know a kid (hes 20) who quit a $10/hr job at Home Depot as a cashier because 'he was bored'.
He's now crying again about how broke he is and how much it sucks to not have a car, etc.

These are some of the reasons why my opinion is what it is.

 

[Sukerkin]

There is a downside of Social Security being enough for people to 'coast' along, bumping in the mud at the bottom but not drowning. But we really don't, as a society, want to go back to the concept of workhouses do we? A 'charity' so awful that people committed suicide to avoid it.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

The current system which seems to encourage folks make a career out of it, while others who really need it can't get it, has to change.
I'm ok with helping the needy, but the slackers need a boot in the **** and some old fashioned working up a sweat.

 

[Big Don]

I've seen people quit perfectly good jobs for boredom, as well, Bob. One of the ones I know is always bitching about how much CEO's get paid, he was really excited about how much certain actors and pro athletes get paid, though.

 

[Sukerkin]

I truly don't see how tho', Bob, not without a Psi Corps to winnow through the shirkers at any rate .

It has to be borne in mind that we had the Work Houses and the Industrial Schools when Britain was the richest country in the world (real wealth from the Empire, not the debt based, fractional reserve, fantasy we have now). How can we possibly make things better than the flawed system we have now without crime sky-rocketing as the more unscrupulous disadvantaged and unlucky take things into their own hands?