gut;1156302 wrote: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).

The countries we were being compared to France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark weathered the recession in better condition than the US.
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the_United_States
And we have seen increasing number of Americans going downward because of the policies that began with Reagan.

gut;1156323 wrote: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?

What I find interesting is the degree of suffering you wish to inflict on your fellow Americans. You won't be happy until we see Sudanese starvation or at least Mumbai suffering for American poor.

gut;1156309 wrote: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.

It is sad that all Americans do not have the opportunity for quality academic or vocational education.

BoatShoes;1156430 wrote: And, yes, Steve Jobs had a leg up over most of the kids in East Cleveland. For one, he had good parents.

How do you know the parents of Steve Jobs or the parents of the kids in East Cleveland?

isadore;1154757 wrote:it is too bad that he probably would not be interested in you.

Now that was funny...well played sir.

thank you

isadore;1156503 wrote:It is sad that all Americans do not have the opportunity for quality academic or vocational education.

If they are lazy POS then no they don't. If you work hard you can get free college tuition. If you aren't a good student, you can bag my groceries or flip my burgers.

It's a land of equal opportunity, not equal outcome, no matter how hard you liberals want it to be the latter.

sleeper;1155034 wrote: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.

This seems to imply that less people were poor and suffering when there were no safety nets which simply isn't reality.

sleeper;1156571 wrote:If they are lazy POS then no they don't. If you work hard you can get free college tuition. If you aren't a good student, you can bag my groceries or flip my burgers.

It's a land of equal opportunity, not equal outcome, no matter how hard you liberals want it to be the latter.

equal opportunity is an equal chance to have a quality education unhindered by financial restraints

sleeper;1156571 wrote:If they are lazy POS then no they don't. If you work hard you can get free college tuition. If you aren't a good student, you can bag my groceries or flip my burgers.

It's a land of equal opportunity, not equal outcome, no matter how hard you liberals want it to be the latter.

Working hard gets you free tuition? Not for my kids.

^^^^ not for mine either. We paid the full rate.

I think what sleeper was implying is that if you are 'less fortunate', then there is money available to help you at school if you are a good student.

GI bill did wonders for social mobility a similar program for even a wider audience would take a giant step toward that goal of equal opportunity.

isadore;1156591 wrote:equal opportunity is an equal chance to have a quality education unhindered by financial restraints

Then shut up and write a check.

Footwedge;1156598 wrote:Working hard gets you free tuition? Not for my kids.

You white?

HitsRus;1156604 wrote:^^^^ not for mine either. We paid the full rate.

I think what sleeper was implying is that if you are 'less fortunate', then there is money available to help you at school if you are a good student.

Exactly. It seems we discriminate against the middle class families who aren't poor but who aren't rich either. The poor have the little to blame but themselves for not getting free money for being mediocre.

isadore;1156498 wrote:What I find interesting is the degree of suffering you wish to inflict on your fellow Americans. You won't be happy until we see Sudanese starvation or at least Mumbai suffering for American poor.

A) fellow Americans aren't suffering, ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY if you are going to compare them to 95% of the people on earth.

B) Nationalism is a total cop-out. If you truly cared for the plight and suffering of man, you would support outsourcing. You don't get to play the noble moral superiority part when you it only extends to, in this case, an arbitrary border. It's hypocritical, and wreaks of self-interest.

C) In case you haven't figured out where I stand, outsourcing is win-win. Because I TRULY care about REAL pain and suffering, and outsourcing is lifting the lives of the truly desperate. The problem is you want to keep the crappy jobs here instead of creating the economic conditions to provide truly better opportunities (as opposed to failed and ineffective redistribution attempts). The difference between me and you is you favor short-term band-aids at the expense of the long-run health of the American economy.

And Europe has been a dog for years. If it came out of the recession better than the US (and you must not read the papers, because Europe is in a lot of trouble right now), it's because it didn't have as far to fall after decades of sub-par growth.

It also bears mentioning that people who want to subsidize American worker or disincentivize outsourcing is playing a zero sum game, well actually it's a net negative because the govt bureacracy takes its cut to try to maintain that failed philosphy. Costs are passed on to the consumer, therefore what we are able to prop-up as far as wages is simply going to higher prices to pay for those higher wages.

BoatShoes;1156430 wrote: And, yes, Steve Jobs had a leg up over most of the kids in East Cleveland. For one, he had good parents. .

LMFAO. You can't be serious? Steve Jobs was adopted by a family of relatively modest means. He started Apple out of his garage.

But now simply being good parents is unfair? Maybe, just maybe we shouldn't incentivize bad parenting by becoming, well, literally a nanny state. Or perhaps secretly you covet that family values platform of the far right.

sleeper;1156621 wrote:Then shut up and write a check.

write'em all the time but I think I'll continue to contribute. The place needs some counterweight to all the selfish, self centered social darwinists who spew their randian ravings.

BoatShoes;1156430 wrote: 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.

Jobs didn't get investor capital for just an idea. If you have a patent and a working prototype, investors really don't care about your background. They can help with the business side.

isadore;1156614 wrote:GI bill did wonders for social mobility a similar program for even a wider audience would take a giant step toward that goal of equal opportunity.

anyone can join the military and get the education benefits from it

sleeper;1156624 wrote:Exactly. It seems we discriminate against the middle class families who aren't poor but who aren't rich either. The poor have the little to blame but themselves for not getting free money for being mediocre.

who is to blame for your mediocrity?

Al Bundy;1156676 wrote:anyone can join the military and get the education benefits from it

Despite the attitudes of someone like sleeper anyone in the military deserves great reward for their service. But with the GI Bill all society benefited from the economic growth stimulated by that massive increase in the well educated in our society. Making that educational opportunity available to even wider section of our society would help us all.

Al Bundy;1156676 wrote:anyone can join the military and get the education benefits from it

No, no. We should just give hand-outs with no-strings attached. Because hand-outs create incentive NOT to work, which then leads to more hand-outs, which liberals love.

isadore;1156495 wrote:The countries we were being compared to France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark weathered the recession in better condition than the US.

You might want to make a footnote that all these countries can spend less money on their defense needs because the US has their back. All but two have the US contractually obligated to their defense. Sweden and Finland can spend less on defense because nearly all of Europe is by contract under the US defense umbrella. A good gamble for them as NATO would likely have their back anyways as any aggression on them would be be seen as a threat to NATO's dominance in Europe.

gut;1156668 wrote:A) fellow Americans aren't suffering, ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY if you are going to compare them to 95% of the people on earth.

B) Nationalism is a total cop-out. If you truly cared for the plight and suffering of man, you would support outsourcing. You don't get to play the noble moral superiority part when you it only extends to, in this case, an arbitrary border. It's hypocritical, and wreaks of self-interest.

C) In case you haven't figured out where I stand, outsourcing is win-win. Because I TRULY care about REAL pain and suffering, and outsourcing is lifting the lives of the truly desperate. The problem is you want to keep the crappy jobs here instead of creating the economic conditions to provide truly better opportunities (as opposed to failed and ineffective redistribution attempts). The difference between me and you is you favor short-term band-aids at the expense of the long-run health of the American economy.

And Europe has been a dog for years. If it came out of the recession better than the US (and you must not read the papers, because Europe is in a lot of trouble right now), it's because it didn't have as far to fall after decades of sub-par growth.

It also bears mentioning that people who want to subsidize American worker or disincentivize outsourcing is playing a zero sum game, well actually it's a net negative because the govt bureacracy takes its cut to try to maintain that failed philosphy. Costs are passed on to the consumer, therefore what we are able to prop-up as far as wages is simply going to higher prices to pay for those higher wages.

Your indifference to the suffering of your fellow Americans is defining. It is Americans in the third, fourth and fifth quintile economically that send their sons and daughters off of sacrifice their lives to protect you and whatever gains you have made at their expense. We can see what you think of loyalty to your nation and patriotism with your quote about “arbitrary border.” Obviously the idea of loyalty to our nation, patriotism are repellant to you. Your loyalty is to profit rather than to the nation that gave you the chance to make them. Your loyalty is to money rather than those who put their lives on the line to protect you and our nation. You would prefer to outsource your personal safety and that of our nation to the lowest foreign bidder. Good luck with that. The suffering of Americans living poverty is real and your dismissal of the
harsh lives 15 million American children have to suffer living below the poverty level is selfish and repellant.
Your comments on Europe illustrate either a superficial understanding of the economic situation or blatant dishonesty in your claims. Several European nations came through the past economic crisis in far better shape than the United States. And they did a far better job of protecting their poorest citizens. Norway, Austria, Finland, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Czech Republic all seemed to have weathered the storm well with social welfare systems protecting their citizens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate