isadore;1701231 wrote:“not continuously stealing from the rich to give to the poor and help those less fortunate.” Gosh you must have always rooted for the Sheriff of Nottingham. I guess you would prefer that some years the rich pay no taxes to help the poor, then they would not be stuck continuously. The poor and less fortunate could just tough it out those years. Eating, wearing clothes and having a roof over your head are just luxuries, let’s give the rich a break. Oh that right for the last three decades they have been consistently given tax breaks in the form of deductions and much lower rates. This is one reason why their wealth has increased at such an enormous rate in those decades.
“Some people are born rich their parents worked for it. The same reason why people are born poor, their parents or grandparents failed to WORK for it.” anybody who is not rich has failed their family. Now that is an indictme,nt of the large majority of our ancestors. People who worked very hard. You seem to claim your family had it rough, but nobody else did. They were just losers for not becoming wealthy

This will be my last post to you, since you fail to quit ASSuming, inferring, and implying stuff that's simply not true.

Nowhere did I say, "let's give the rich a break." Nowhere did I say that "anybody who is not rich has failed their family." I never once claimed my family was the only ones that worked hard. I never once claimed nobody else did. I never once said anyone was a loser for not becoming wealthy. How hard is it to understand that? I am beginning to believe you are relishing this "troll" thing so much you want to continue without true discourse.

isadore;1701239 wrote:given your extensive education, you must be acquainted with the term begrudge. As you know it means to be envious or resentful of something given to another. Your statements reflect it.
Of course it is still a little shocking to see someone who thinks the poor are so lucky because they are allowed to go to public schools and use public libraries. Wow they actually let poor people into those places, unbelievable. They are so spoiled, look at all they have. I am sure everyone in America is lining and asking to be poor. Please, Please get my income under $10,000 a year, then my cup will runneth over. And then maybe I can “take advantage of some charity organization.”
The rosy picture you paint of poverty, does not fit the reality of the vast majority of those in the lower income quintiles. And it is much more difficult for them to obtain and complete a post secondary education than those in higher income groups.

You are the one that said the poor do not have any "resources and extended support system." I simply negated your "fact" with actual FACTS of true support and resources. Nowhere did I say that they are "so lucky to use..." Nowhere did I say, "they actually let poor people into those places, unbelievable." Nowhere did I paint a rosy picture of poverty. I simply stated the truth in exact resources and extended support systems that exist for the poor.

I suggest no one else feed the troll. I hope no one else does. I got caught up way too much in it and it hurts my head. Mr. Gosh simply cannot understand how to read and type like a normal person in a discussion. This is a discussion that could be quite positive and educational. However, Mr. Gosh continues to ruin threads by his inability to multi-quote and his illiteracy. Unless you, Mr. Gosh, step up and help "poor little old me" pay off my student loans since I wasn't able to qualify for federal aid and my parents weren't able to pay for my education, I had to go in-debt to get ahead in life. Put your money where your mouth is...help those less fortunate than you must be. Pay it forward. I'll be waiting.

Poor stealing from the rich

OSH wrote:We can achieve both---not continuously stealing from the rich to give to the poor and those less fortunate.

If you are not rich, your parents failed.

OSH wrote: The same reason people are born poor—their parents or grandparents failed to work for it.

And then on 494# along list of all the great things the poor get.
Oh and as to your debt
Maybe that 1000 acre farm you bragged about could be used to help you pay your debts.

The ignore function is just so nice. It's just too bad Mr. Gosh will make the forum cluttered with his inability to multi-quote.

OSH;1701276 wrote:The ignore function is just so nice. It's just too bad Mr. Gosh will make the forum cluttered with his inability to multi-quote.

Ignore function is not necessary. The scroll wheel on my mouse allows me to quickly move through the bullshit when I want. Mr. Gosh as you have so named him is not arguing on this thread with those of the evil 1%. Mostly middle and a few upper middle class folks. Most of those middle class folks Mr. Gosh derides on this thread have experienced upward mobility thanks in a small part to the resources made readily available by those that have in this great nation but mostly achieved through personal ambition. Our nation like no other provides an avenue for anyone with wisdom and ambition to achieve nearly anything regardless of the financial state the grew up in. You just can't fix stupid.

[h=1]U.S. lags behind peer countries in mobility[/h] By Elise Gould | October 10, 2012

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The notion that anyone in America who is willing and able to &#8220ull themselves up by their bootstraps” can achieve significant upward mobility is deeply embedded in U.S. society. Conventional wisdom holds that class barriers in the United States are the lowest among the world’s advanced economies. Motivating this belief is the notion that there is a tradeoff between market regulation and mobility; advanced European economies are characterized by higher taxes, greater regulation, more union coverage, universal health care, a more comprehensive social contract, etc. Because some see these policies and institutions as impediments to mobility, mobility is believed to be greater in the United States.
While faith in the American Dream is deep, evidence suggests that the United States lacks policies to ensure the opportunities that the dream envisions. According to the data, there is considerably more mobility in most other developed economies. The figure below, from The State of Working America, 12th Edition, measures the relationship between earnings of fathers and sons in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) with similar incomes to the United States and for which data are available. An elasticity of zero would mean there is no relationship, and thus complete intergenerational mobility, with poor children just as likely as rich children to end up as rich adults. The higher the elasticity, the greater the influence of one’s birth circumstances on later life position.

[h=4][/h]

The relationship between father-son earnings is tighter in the United States than in most peer OECD countries, meaning U.S. mobility is among the lowest of major industrialized economies. The relatively low correlations between father-son earnings in Scandinavian countries provide a stark contradiction to the conventional wisdom. An elasticity of 0.47 found in the United States offers much less likelihood of moving up than an elasticity of 0.18 or less, as characterizes Finland, Norway, and Denmark.


See more work by Elise Gould

http://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobility/

Now for the bad news: the Horatio Alger myth is still a myth. Relative to many other advanced countries, the United States remains a highly stratified society, and most poor kids still have few prospects of making big strides. I’ve already mentioned the finding that the odds of a child moving from the bottom fifth of the income distribution to the top fifth are less than one in ten, and have been that way for decades. For children who are born in the second fifth of the income distribution, those who might be categorized as working class or lower-middle class, the probability of moving up to the top quintile has fallen significantly. For someone born in 1971, it was 17.7 per cent; for someone born in 1986, it was 13.8 per cent.
It has been known for some time that social mobility in the United States is lower than in most European countries, and that it trails some of them, such as the Scandinavian nations, by a great deal.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/social-mobility-hasnt-fallen-what-it-means-and-doesnt-mean

isadore;1701311 wrote:
The relationship between father-son earnings is tighter in the United States than in most peer OECD countries

I keep telling you, stupid people have stupid children...and intelligence is correlated with earnings power.

There is no formula to fix stupid but their votes can be easily bought.

gut;1701315 wrote:I keep telling you, stupid people have stupid children...and intelligence is correlated with earnings power.

no, caused by flaws in our system and selfish resistance to providing the tools to rise.

isadore;1701319 wrote:no, caused by flaws in our system and selfish resistance to providing the tools to rise.

You can lead a horse to water...but you cannot make them drink.

isadore;1701319 wrote:no, caused by flaws in our system and selfish resistance to providing the tools to rise.

How many more "tools" do we need to provide freely to those who stupidly and selfishly refuse them?

We have had 50 years of the Great Society and we still have the same amount of poverty. You can continually give to the "lower quintile", and guess what? You'll still have a "lower quintile". You just change the definition of what the "lower quintile" is. Compared to 1960, you really don't have dirt poor people, you have poor people relative to someone else, but everyone who asks is provided with free medical care, food and housing. The debate here is whether to keep taking the fruits of labor of the "halves" and give more to the non productive in an attempt to satisfy a debatable point, that equality is better, than reward and incentive for hard work and productivity. The American dream is not about equality. It is about having an opportunity to better yourself, and that necessarily makes you unequal from someone else. That opportunity is something that is seized by work, risk and perserverance, not given to you.
There are programs and grants and scholarships available to lower income people who seize the opportunities. It is not necessary to continue to burden taxpayers to promote dubious programs that simply provide additional disincentive to save or sacrifice to better oneself.

All that does is create more dependency. That is what we have done in the past fifty years with our social programs. That is what socialism does.

"Lower quintiles" is a politcally correct term and euphemism of "dependency class." I suggest that we quit adding to it.

wkfan;1701447 wrote:You can lead a horse to water...but you cannot make them drink.

but for most there is no water there

believer;1701622 wrote:How many more "tools" do we need to provide freely to those who stupidly and selfishly refuse them?

the tools are not there for most, free post secondary education would provide a major tool for not just the poor, but for the middle class to rise.

confucius99;1701653 wrote:We have had 50 years of the Great Society and we still have the same amount of poverty. You can continually give to the "lower quintile", and guess what? You'll still have a "lower quintile". You just change the definition of what the "lower quintile" is. Compared to 1960, you really don't have dirt poor people, you have poor people relative to someone else, but everyone who asks is provided with free medical care, food and housing. The debate here is whether to keep taking the fruits of labor of the "halves" and give more to the non productive in an attempt to satisfy a debatable point, that equality is better, than reward and incentive for hard work and productivity. The American dream is not about equality. It is about having an opportunity to better yourself, and that necessarily makes you unequal from someone else. That opportunity is something that is seized by work, risk and perserverance, not given to you.
There are programs and grants and scholarships available to lower income people who seize the opportunities. It is not necessary to continue to burden taxpayers to promote dubious programs that simply provide additional disincentive to save or sacrifice to better oneself.

All that does is create more dependency. That is what we have done in the past fifty years with our social programs. That is what socialism does.

"Lower quintiles" is a politcally correct term and euphemism of "dependency class." I suggest that we quit adding to it.

Poverty declined because of the Great Society programs. Then Reagan, “welfare reform” and the Bush recession undid those gains. Despite what you say, we still have dirt poor people in America, millions of whom are the working poor. In fact who makes up the lowest quintile largely handicapped, aged, and dependent children. And everyone who asks is not provided enough resources to feed their family and are not provided quality medical care. I realize how much it gripes you to provide aid for these non productive aged, handicapped and infirm. America is far from its claim of being the land of opportunity when compared to other advanced nations. Hopefully the majority of Americans will reject your social Darwinian views and come to adopt the policies that allow greater opportunity as is found in our fellow advanced nations.

Poverty declined because of the Great Society programs. Then Reagan, “welfare reform” and the Bush recession undid those gains

Oh, bullshit. All sorts of democrats and republicans, presidents and congresses, contributed to the bloated European style socialism we 'enjoy' today. Nowhere was free community college ever considered, let alone taken away.

In fact who makes up the lowest quintile largely handicapped, aged, and dependent children.

...and these people need free community college? And just FYI, the federal medicaid program that supports these people was started by a Republican (Nixon) since you insist on putting a partisan spin on this.

And everyone who asks is not provided enough resources to feed their family and are not provided quality medical care.

Anybody that falls within the federal gudelines for poverty is eligible for free food, housing and medical care.

I realize how much it gripes you to provide aid for these non productive aged, handicapped and infirm.

How pathetic your argument is if you have to rely on half truths and guilt trips. I've been reading back in this thread and that seems to be what you fall back on.

[Hopefully the majority of Americans will reject your social Darwinian views and come to adopt the policies that allow greater opportunity as is found in our fellow advanced nations./QUOTE]


LOL. Delusional as well as disingenuous. America has overwhelmingly, and repeatedly rejected the aberration of socialism, and its denial of human nature. More importantly, it's rejected it's very disingenuousness, so disingenuous that it tries to disguise itself by calling it's latest manifestation "Progressive". There is NOTHING progressive about it. It is simply retreaded socialism, rebranded to try and fool the less sophisticated. Why don't you call it what is ? SOCIALISM. The same socialism that failed in Russia. The same pathetic economic system that doesn't work.

confucius99;1701776 wrote:Oh, bullshit. All sorts of democrats and republicans, presidents and congresses, contributed to the bloated European style socialism we 'enjoy' today. Nowhere was free community college ever considered, let alone taken away.


...and these people need free community college? And just FYI, the federal medicaid program that supports these people was started by a Republican (Nixon) since you insist on putting a partisan spin on this.


Anybody that falls within the federal gudelines for poverty is eligible for free food, housing and medical care.



How pathetic your argument is if you have to rely on half truths and guilt trips. I've been reading back in this thread and that seems to be what you fall back on.

[Hopefully the majority of Americans will reject your social Darwinian views and come to adopt the policies that allow greater opportunity as is found in our fellow advanced nations./QUOTE]


LOL. Delusional as well as disingenuous. America has overwhelmingly, and repeatedly rejected the aberration of socialism, and its denial of human nature. More importantly, it's rejected it's very disingenuousness, so disingenuous that it tries to disguise itself by calling it's latest manifestation "Progressive". There is NOTHING progressive about it. It is simply retreaded socialism, rebranded to try and fool the less sophisticated. Why don't you call it what is ? SOCIALISM. The same socialism that failed in Russia. The same pathetic economic system that doesn't work.

Gosh a ruddies, those who will not see are the most blind

confucious9 wrote: We have had 50 years of the Great Society and we still have the same amount of poverty.

I explained

isadore wrote: Poverty declined because of the Great Society programs. Then Reagan, “welfare reform”and the Bush recession undid the gains.

You followed with profanity and empty, unfounded rhetoric.

confucius99 wrote:Oh, bullshit. All sorts of democrats and republicans, presidents and congresses, contributed to the bloated European style socialism we 'enjoy' today. Nowhere was free community college ever considered, let alone taken away.

Then we have your misstatement of fact, either caused by sloppiness, dishonesty or both

confucious99 wrote: And just FYI, the federal medicaid program that supports these people was started by a Republican (Nixon) since you insist on putting a partisan spin on this.

Medicaid was started by the Johnson administration as part of the Great Society

isadore wrote: The Social Security Amendments of 1965 created Medicaid by adding Title XIX to the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1396 et seq.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid
Many millions of those in the lower quintiles do not qualify for welfare programs. Other programs are underfunded. Per capita food stamp payment have been outrageously cut. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-weinstein/food-stamp-cuts_b_4218559.html
Government funded community college is just the natural extension of public education for the 21[SUP]st[/SUP] century.

confucious99 wrote: Delusional as well as disingenuous. America has overwhelmingly, and repeatedly rejected the aberration of socialism, and its denial of human nature.

Gosh really, they have accepted Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Only right wing loons want these programs abolished. In one election after another people have voted for a raise in the minimum wage. These are examples of their rejection of your social Darwinian views.

Gosh a ruddies, those who will not see are the most blind

open your eyes then .

You followed with profanity and empty, unfounded rhetoric.

The unfounded rhetoric as your and IT IS BULLSHIT.

I still think the best solution is to offer anyone who supports this plan a free ticket to a European country of their choice. Hell I'd pay for a first class ticket + relocation expenses to get the trash out of here.

Gosh a ruddies, those who will not see are the most blind

Then open your eyes!

You followed with profanity and empty, unfounded rhetoric.

It was your unfounded rhetoric that caused me to call "Bullshit" on you.

Medicaid was started by the Johnson administration as part of the Great Society

But the groups you cited, the disabled, handicapped and aged, are covered by SSI which was passed and signed by the Nixon administration.

Many millions of those in the lower quintiles do not qualify for welfare programs. Other programs are underfunded. Per capita food stamp payment have been outrageously cut. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/debora...b_4218559.html
Government funded community college is just the natural extension of public education for the 21[SUP]st[/SUP] century.

So if we are having difficulty funding the entitlements that we have, why do we need to make yet another of dubious value.

Holy crap. I'm guessing the WSJ printed this response for the sole purpose of embarrassing the guy. It's from a former BUSINESS prof of a community college in Brooklyn. I guess you get what you pay for. To be fair, maybe he taught marketing.:laugh:

------------------------------------------
The "Notable & Quotables" of Feb. 23, which is from the Tax Foundation’s report “Sources of Personal Income,” correctly points out that middle-class Americans earn substantial capital gain returns from pensions and other retirement accounts. The article doesn’t mention how unfair this is to the middle class. The entire distribution from a retirement plan, including the portion that represents long-term capital gains, is taxed at regular rates which can be as high as 39.6%. This is almost double the 23.8% maximum tax rate on long-term capital gains earned outside of a retirement plan. Investors pay less tax than retired workers on the same long-term capital gains. Additionally, contributions of wages to an IRA or deferred compensation plan, such as a 401(k), are deductible from income taxes, but workers still have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on the amount contributed. Investment income is never subject to Social Security tax, and only a reduced rate of Medicare tax applies to very high income investors. These are examples of how the tax code favors the wealthy and investment class at the expense of middle-class workers.
Em. Prof. Andre Montero
Kingsborough
Community College
Brooklyn, N.Y.

Just did some research for a friend of mine, there's some community college system in the Chicago-area (not sure if it's all Chicago schools, or scattered around Illinois). Full-time professors in the community colleges in that system were making over $110,000. Not a bad payday. That's tax money hard at work for such a low success rate.

OSH;1709586 wrote:Full-time professors in the community colleges in that system were making over $110,000.

Maybe I should consider that as a retirement option. I wonder what tenure rule are...