wkfan;1153739 wrote:You really believe this??

Obviously, you have never interacted with a CEO or seen what they really do.

It was sarcasm bro. I was just playing along.

2kool4skool;1153721 wrote:Based on your tales of intramural greatness, I always assumed you were.

Enough to beat a soccer guy 100-0 on a basketball court...that doesn't make me Lebron James, it just makes me able to stop someone that can't dribble, can't shoot and can't pass - and on the offensive end can't stop me. I'm not 6'8" like Lebron, but I'm tall enough (or "long" which seems to be the term of the day) that I can shoot over most people under 6'0" with some success, with the obvious exceptions..namely against exceptional basketball players that excel despite their height (Iverson, Rondo, etc.). It is a completely different class of athlete.

Manhattan Buckeye;1153687 wrote: If we have a child that is born on 3rd base, we're the ones that put him/her on 3rd base and we aren't apologizing for it.

Nor should you (and all around great post BTW, 100% agree).

It does raise an interesting philosophical question. No, you shouldn't apologize for the opportunities YOU worked to create for your children. But I think the great logical fallacy in the liberal idealogy is that it's actually a leg up. Even for the rich, without talent and hard work the trust fund baby is backsliding - maybe not significantly, but they aren't getting wealthier. Families with generational wealth that really give a leg-up- the Kennedy's, Bush, Trump, etc... - are really a very small minority, and even a fraction of the 1%. Trying to change that really won't accomplish anything for the 99%, it will just make that 0.1% a little poorer (maybe).

The other logical fallacy is opportunities available to your children aren't available to others. The most critical component is valuing education and grades and the work that goes with it, something even less educated parents can do just as well but typically don't because they typically don't embrace the value/importance of education in the same way but give it lip service, at best. And if you do excel in school, you can get into a good college and even get a scholarship, but loans are quite affordable. And then the workplace is largely a meritocracy.

If we put the 1% argument aside for a minute, whether you are in the 95% or 5% is largely entirely of your own doing/ability. The real key is not to take more of Steve Job's money, and to have less Steve Jobs, but MORE Steve Jobs and companies like Apple paying skilled workers well. This whole class warfare crap is nothing more than a short-term placebo that threatens the long-run success of America.

Y-Town Steelhound;1153473 wrote:So what you're saying is that the problem is that parents who work hard and are successful should not be able to give their children every opportunity that they can? Yea that's a great message to send...

yes and it is such a great message, poor you are and poor you will remain onto the generations. one step back toward feudalism

gut;1153500 wrote:I think she's saying we should arrange marriages because smart, successful people passing on those genes and work ethic to their children provides those children an unfair advantage. I don't know, maybe we should consider this - I would certainly be open to being set-up with a supermodel.

it is too bad that he probably would not be interested in you.

gut;1153783 wrote:Nor should you (and all around great post BTW, 100% agree).

It does raise an interesting philosophical question. No, you shouldn't apologize for the opportunities YOU worked to create for your children. But I think the great logical fallacy in the liberal idealogy is that it's actually a leg up. Even for the rich, without talent and hard work the trust fund baby is backsliding - maybe not significantly, but they aren't getting wealthier. Families with generational wealth that really give a leg-up- the Kennedy's, Bush, Trump, etc... - are really a very small minority, and even a fraction of the 1%. Trying to change that really won't accomplish anything for the 99%, it will just make that 0.1% a little poorer (maybe).

The other logical fallacy is opportunities available to your children aren't available to others. The most critical component is valuing education and grades and the work that goes with it, something even less educated parents can do just as well but typically don't because they typically don't embrace the value/importance of education in the same way but give it lip service, at best. And if you do excel in school, you can get into a good college and even get a scholarship, but loans are quite affordable. And then the workplace is largely a meritocracy.

If we put the 1% argument aside for a minute, whether you are in the 95% or 5% is largely entirely of your own doing/ability. The real key is not to take more of Steve Job's money, and to have less Steve Jobs, but MORE Steve Jobs and companies like Apple paying skilled workers well. This whole class warfare crap is nothing more than a short-term placebo that threatens the long-run success of America.

that philosophy has helped create the present situation of declining social mobility in America. Most other advanced industrialized nations have a much more socially mobile situation. America as a Horatio Alger society is becoming increasingly a myth.

HitsRus;1151938 wrote:The upper 10% are getting all the good jobs...it's not fair for the poorer student. Honors students need to contribute some of their GPA points to their lower ranked classmates.

Just when you think that youth is a lost cause....these guys get it!
http://cnsnews.com/blog/ron-meyer/students-sign-petition-redistribute-gpas-some-are-too-greedy-lower-their-grades

Cute, but the analogy doesn't hold. For starters, the president has not advocated redistribution...his case has always been that the wealthier etc. ought to get soaked quite a bit as part of a plan to reduce short and long term fiscal gap. Whether or not it will work is another story, but that is his and the majority of democrats position.


No one is talking about increasing transfer payments to the poor, etc. No one. When you're 3-4% points below the historical average in revenue as a percentage of GDP, the senior population is going to be as old as ever, there's a lot of income at the top from which 4.6% points will do little damage to the marginal propensity to consume, it just seems like a reasonable part of a plan to get the debt/gdp ratio under 60% by the next decade.


Second of all, grades, unlike wealth and income, cannot ordinarily be stolen by the lesser students once they are earned. A student can't give part of his A grade to the School Board in exchange for an army to protect his A grade from some hypothetical aggression onto his private property or for insurance in case he suddenly starts getting F's, etc.

When 20% of Americans own 80-90% of the wealth in this country and we spend $1 trillion per year on defense to protect it, it's not outrageous that they ought to pay a little more for that protection.

gut;1153783 wrote:Nor should you (and all around great post BTW, 100% agree).

It does raise an interesting philosophical question. No, you shouldn't apologize for the opportunities YOU worked to create for your children. But I think the great logical fallacy in the liberal idealogy is that it's actually a leg up. Even for the rich, without talent and hard work the trust fund baby is backsliding - maybe not significantly, but they aren't getting wealthier.

Man, I'm lucky enough to be reasonably comfortable but I hope to high heaven that I never let it make me become this deluded. Maybe you can take a trip with me and Legal Aid to East Cleveland some day and we can talk about whether or not the Mitt Romney's of the world had a leg up.

Let's just stick with "It's not any concern of mine whether they live or die" as that position could be philosophically defensible.

To act like there's not significant advantages to being arbitrarily born with more talent or opportunities or wealth is absurd.

Manhattan Buckeye;1153749 wrote:Enough to beat a soccer guy 100-0 on a basketball court...that doesn't make me Lebron James, it just makes me able to stop someone that can't dribble, can't shoot and can't pass - and on the offensive end can't stop me. I'm not 6'8" like Lebron, but I'm tall enough (or "long" which seems to be the term of the day) that I can shoot over most people under 6'0" with some success, with the obvious exceptions..namely against exceptional basketball players that excel despite their height (Iverson, Rondo, etc.). It is a completely different class of athlete.

Why would you guys keep playing beyond, say, 30 - 0?

isadore;1154761 wrote:that philosophy has helped create the present situation of declining social mobility in America. Most other advanced industrialized nations have a much more socially mobile situation. America as a Horatio Alger society is becoming increasingly a myth.

Hasn't our current president come from what we would consider a lower economic status to become one of the most powerful people in the world. While I may agree with him on everything, he is a driven, motivated individual. It is a good thing that he didn't listen to people like you would have told him that he can't make it because he didn't come from a rich background.

isadore;1154761 wrote:that philosophy has helped create the present situation of declining social mobility in America. Most other advanced industrialized nations have a much more socially mobile situation. America as a Horatio Alger society is becoming increasingly a myth.

Yes, the rich have created a decline in social mobility. It couldn't be that with an ever expanding social safety net, that the incentive to be poor isn't at an all time high. Why work when you can get everything for free, and have expectation for more free things in the future?

Kill the entitlement programs and you will see social mobility increase 10000 fold.

isadore;1154755 wrote:yes and it is such a great message, poor you are and poor you will remain onto the generations. one step back toward feudalism

Your argument would have a shred of merit if not for the fact that there are plenty of rags to riches stories in this country we call America. Unfortunately for you it merely stands as bullshit.

sleeper;1155034 wrote:...
Kill the entitlement programs and you will see social mobility increase 10000 fold.

I believe that would probably be true.

BoatShoes;1154771 wrote:Man, I'm lucky enough to be reasonably comfortable but I hope to high heaven that I never let it make me become this deluded.

Deluded? How so? You've been drinking way too much liberal kool-aid. What I said was pretty reasonable and objective. Tell me, what leg up did Steve Jobs have? Education is there for everyone, but not everyone has the talent or work ethic to take advantage of it.

Like I said, this whole argument is really quite irrational and ignorant (unsurprising, it's often the ignorant complaining loudest about ultimately lacking talent and/or brains). It's no different than ugly people complaining about not being able to attract models. That's clearly an absurd argument, but somehow talent & brains has become an :unfair advantage" and needs to be equalized by big gubmit.

I don't think any argument is more repulsive than this imaginary glass ceiling of immobility that liberals have invented. The left hand is promoting handouts and subsidies for student loans, home buyers, etc....while the right hand waves in the air crying about how people can't help themselves and can't move upward in the society. If you truly believe the latter, subsidized student loans should be the first thing to go because it's clearly a waste of money. College doesn't matter if you don't start on 3rd base, and if you do then you certainly don't need a subsidized loan.

Now Obama is talking about bringing and end to schools "preying on vets", dishonest and misleading "recruiting" and not providing job placement services.

In other words, now even if you have the opportunity to go to college, if you fail it STILL isn't your fault it's not the school's.

gut;1155129 wrote:Now Obama is talking about bringing and end to schools "preying on vets", dishonest and misleading "recruiting" and not providing job placement services.

In other words, now even if you have the opportunity to go to college, if you fail it STILL isn't your fault it's not the school's.

Many of the for profit schools are rip offs and of course they would have your support in cheating vets.

As usual you folks have it backwards, the countries with the most extensive entitlement systems are the ones with the most social mobility. In studies of social mobility we rate near the botttom among the developed nations. Its no wonder with a system that so favors the rich in taxing and education policies.
"Several studies have been made comparing social mobility between developed countries. One such study (“Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults?") found that of nine developed countries, United States and United Kingdom had the lowest intergenerational vertical social mobility with about half of the advantages of having a parent with a high income passed on to the next generation. The four countries with the lowest "intergenerational income elasticity", i.e. the highest social mobility, were Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Canada with less than 20% of advantages of having a high income parent passed on to their children.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/10/oecd-uk-worst-social-mobility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the_United_States "

isadore;1155340 wrote:Many of the for profit schools are rip offs and of course they would have your support in cheating vets.

College is a good investment for some and a poor investment for others. Shouldn't each individual be able to choose whether or not it is a good investment for him/her?

Al Bundy;1155344 wrote:College is a good investment for some and a poor investment for others. Shouldn't each individual be able to choose whether or not it is a good investment for him/her?

so you are defending criminal enterprises that cheat veterans and other young people.They trick, lie and cheat
“
"exploit vulnerabilities of prospective students and that mislead students about essential issues, like the value of their degrees and credits, and the real costs they will face.”
　
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44073899/ns/business-school_inc_/t/us-charges-for-profit-college-fraud/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/davidhalperin/forprofit-colleges-attack_b_1440781.html?ref=college&ir=College

sjmvsfscs08;1152440 wrote:This is really a poor representation of what the left's position is. In this scenario, studying = hard work, and GPA = wealth; leading you to conclude: hard work determines wealth and studying determines GPA.

But the left's complaint is that the system is slanted to favor the rich staying rich while simultaneously screwing the middle class and poor. So in this scenario it would be like some of those with the 4.0 GPA only had to do 50% of the homework and exams. i.e. the millionaires and billionaires who grow their money via their stock options and little else.

There are some who only have to study 50% as much as other to get 4.0's. It is called being smart.

So it is a great representation of what the left believes.

isadore;1155342 wrote:As usual you folks have it backwards, the countries with the most extensive entitlement systems are the ones with the most social mobility.

Are you sure they don't score higher just because their social mobility is mostly downward? Because Europe ain't doing to well - the whole lot of them are becoming poor. But in this jealous and covetous society today, your neighbor doing more poorly makes you feel better about your own situation. That is the pyrrhic victory liberals would claim.

If I may add to Reagan's infamous comment:
A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
A depression is when you lose your job.
A "recovery" is when your former company goes bankrupt. (it's a fact that people actually measure wealth/success in relative terms).

isadore;1155340 wrote:Many of the for profit schools are rip offs and of course they would have your support in cheating vets.

Which is actually why Santorum was unjustly ridiculed for his comments about "everyone deserves an education" being elitist. If you can't get into a decent program, you probably aren't going to get much value of it. You might be incapable of getting much value from it even it wasn't a rip-off. Everyone could go to college, but the bottom 20% are still going to being picking from the leftovers. Their options are still going to be limited.

Question for you Isadore....Are you against outsourcing? Does your altruism and generosity stop at the US borders, or do you genuinely feel that people living in true poverty, starving and cardboard boxes for shelter deserve better opportunities?

jmog;1156211 wrote:There are some who only have to study 50% as much as other to get 4.0's. It is called being smart.

So it is a great representation of what the left believes.

Isn't it interesting that the party that fancies itself the intellectual elite pushes for a society that would diminish and devalue academic success/prowess? Going to Harvard is an unfair advantage, so we need to minimize that.

gut;1155060 wrote:Deluded? How so? You've been drinking way too much liberal kool-aid. What I said was pretty reasonable and objective. Tell me, what leg up did Steve Jobs have? Education is there for everyone, but not everyone has the talent or work ethic to take advantage of it.

Like I said, this whole argument is really quite irrational and ignorant (unsurprising, it's often the ignorant complaining loudest about ultimately lacking talent and/or brains). It's no different than ugly people complaining about not being able to attract models. That's clearly an absurd argument, but somehow talent & brains has become an :unfair advantage" and needs to be equalized by big gubmit.

I don't think any argument is more repulsive than this imaginary glass ceiling of immobility that liberals have invented. The left hand is promoting handouts and subsidies for student loans, home buyers, etc....while the right hand waves in the air crying about how people can't help themselves and can't move upward in the society. If you truly believe the latter, subsidized student loans should be the first thing to go because it's clearly a waste of money. College doesn't matter if you don't start on 3rd base, and if you do then you certainly don't need a subsidized loan.

No liberal is saying that people cannot obtain riches from rags. We just accept reality that not everyone can and that capitalism requires ditch diggers as well. We simply suggest that the ditch diggers need not live miserably despite their lack of talent or brains. Furthermore, it is in the very interest of those with all the talent and the brains because then the ditch diggers won't get together and steal rewards and wealth the talented have garnered.

And, yes, Steve Jobs had a leg up over most of the kids in East Cleveland. For one, he had good parents.

For that not to be true, you'd have to believe that the odds are just as great that Jobs become the man he did if he grew up in a house with a single mother on drugs in a dilapidated neighborhood going to dilapidated schools. And, you seem like a reasonably sophisticated investor and I doubt you'd make that bet if your hard earned dollars were on the line.