11-06-2003 23:07									#301
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Hmong - Laotian immigrant (the H is silent)

	11-06-2003 23:07									#302
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I'm sorry you feel that way Japher. It's not true though. Poor people are rational too. They want better, and if they see opportunity for themselves they will take it.

	11-06-2003 23:10									#303
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I am not saying they are irrational. True enough that a majority of the people who are poor don't want to be poor, but they do nothing to get themselves out of it. The only thing I do see, however, is the kids getting yelled at to good in school... It is more like they want their kids to do all the work, but them a house, and give them an allowance. Most of my friends who I grew up with that were poor are now successful ppl, their parents and some of their siblings are still soaking of the system.

	12-06-2003 00:22									#304
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious Damn, this is a hard point to make for you. I'm considering equal persons living in two different environments. One has more opportunity than they other. One of those opportunities is to see success all around you, and to have friends who are successfull.

And it's a hard point to make for you.

I didn't get an automatic rich person's kit at birth. I wasn't born with silver spoon in hand. When I left home, at 15, I lived in crappy conditions for a while in working class (at best) little boxy apartments surrounded by beer-guzzling white trash who fought with each other every night. One place, my roommate and I (another minimum wage underage hippie kid) lived upstairs, and this little pussywhipped runt of a guy who worked in a tire store (weighed maybe 130 dripping wet) and his 300 pound white trash wife (never figured out if she worked or not) lived right downstairs. One night, they got into a fight when he got home (as usual), but this time, the stupid ***** wouldn't shut up. "Are you a man or a mouse" for about three hours straight, nothing else, after two hours of them yelling and throwing stuff. (The cops never bothered to come by for that sort of thing.)

Finally, about two a.m., I went outside, yelled at 'em "He's a ****ing mouse, you're a ****ing shrew, and if you two don't shut the **** up so I can get some sleep, I'm going going to come down there with my varmint plinker and you're going to be a couple of dead rodents." (cheers from neighbors) (cops show up in two minutes ) I concluded I really didn't want to spend the rest of my life putting up with that crap.

You're seriously telling me that just because people don't live in rich neighborhoods and hang out with rich people, they are doomed and have no chance to make money or improve their economic situation? That's the kind of rationalization of failure that I talk about when I talk about attitude.

People who are successful figure out ways to do things. Losers figure out excuses why they "can't" (read won't) do things.

A lot of people figure out that they'd rather do other things than put in extra time learning new skills, or scrimping and saving money rather than buying nonessentials. A lot of people figure they have other priorities. But a lot of people rationalize why they "can't" do things, and then play victim.

In your world view, apparently nobody's responsible for their situation or for changing it, and everybody who isn't rich is just trapped.

	12-06-2003 00:41									#305
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quote: Originally posted by Japher I am not saying they are irrational. True enough that a majority of the people who are poor don't want to be poor, but they do nothing to get themselves out of it.

That is saying they are irrational. You are saying they have opportunity that they don't take. That's not rational.

	12-06-2003 00:47									#306
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quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat In your world view, apparently nobody's responsible for their situation or for changing it, and everybody who isn't rich is just trapped.

In your world view, trickle-down economics creates opportunity for everyone. Still you wont even admit that opportunity is limited, and the number of rags to riches stories are dependent on opportunity. If poor people have just as much opportunity as rich people then why do we need any policy? No, the object is to create opportunity. Oppotunity is not infinite in poor neighborhoods. Even if all the poor were to act just like you there would still be the same amount of poor, because the number of opportunities for them hasn't changed.

	12-06-2003 00:57									#307
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You just have to love it when the rich, overeducated and their children get together and take a great big intellectual and economic dump on the poor.

	12-06-2003 01:08									#308
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quote: Even if all the poor were to act just like you there would still be the same amount of poor

I don't happen to believe that opportunity is limited. I do agree that people who grow up poor (such as MtG) have less going for them than people who grow up with money (me, for instance). And there is much work to be done in America's poorest regions to help people improve their lot in life. But then again, please note that MtG is a lot more successful (at least financially) than I, despite my advantaged starting point. Why did that happen? I suspect it's because he set a goal and went for it, all-out. He was willing to work his butt off for it. Me... I'm a bit of a slacker.

-Arrian

	12-06-2003 01:16									#309
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious In your world view, trickle-down economics creates opportunity for everyone. Still you wont even admit that opportunity is limited, and the number of rags to riches stories are dependent on opportunity. If poor people have just as much opportunity as rich people then why do we need any policy? No, the object is to create opportunity. Oppotunity is not infinite in poor neighborhoods. Even if all the poor were to act just like you there would still be the same amount of poor, because the number of opportunities for them hasn't changed.

Another zero sum fallacy?

I was trolling on my original description of trickle-down, in response to the pseudo-Marxist babble that originated this thread. Overtaxation of upper income earners on a "progressive" system is opportunity stifling, and realigning maximum tax rates and government spending to a more sane level will stimulate growth. That is not trickle-down.

This isn't the 19th Century industrial world of Marx anymore, where you have evil capitalists and downtrodden workers, and nothing in between except the few middle class lackeys and stooges of the evil capitalits. Opportunity is neither zero-sum nor linear.

Of course, there are going to be **** jobs in the economy, but if people are proactive about improving their education, job skills, and position in the job market, those **** jobs are starting points, not lifetime achievements.

You can take dumps like parts of western Virginia and West Virginia, where a lot of my family is from, and yes, you'll have long term poor. Why? Lack of education, lack of relevant skills, and unwillingness to move to areas with more economic activity. People expect companies to locate there, but why would anyone? It's logistically inconvenient to everything except coal, and you have to import any skilled workforce of significant size, or spend years training locals from the ground up. No amount of money you throw at the the locals in terms of trivial tax subsidies is going to cure those basic structural problems.

	12-06-2003 01:41									#310
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian I don't happen to believe that opportunity is limited. I do agree that people who grow up poor (such as MtG) have less going for them than people who grow up with money (me, for instance). -Arrian

Actually, I grew up middle class for the most part, if you don't count that year we moved four times all over the US because my dad couldn't find long-term work, or the time my parents got both cars repo'd when an employer of his screwed him and everyone when it went out of business. (Oh, and they were Ford pintos too ) At that time, in addition to working full time, my dad workied a part time night job as a draftsman, and a weekend job as a gas-station attendent back before the self-serve days. They dug themselves out of the hole though, and moved on.

Yeah baby, we all were born with silver spoons in hand. My parent's parents and their parents were all reasonably well off, until they got reamed by the depression. My mom's side survived mostly off the inherited family farm (been in the family since the 1820's), my dad's side because of WPA nepotism from Uncle Fred. (Fred Vinson, owner/operator of the Kentucky Democratic Party machine, and buddy of FDR and Truman) They all survived but came out of the depression pretty much dead broke, like everyone else.

When my mom met my dad, she was a divorced single mom (in the 50's, my brother's dad was a useless punk) who worked in the friggin' Greyhound bus terminal in downtown San Diego, and my dad was an engineer a couple of years after graduating with his BSME, right after getting out of the Air Force, where he flew (flight engineer) in tactical bombers in Korea. He was out west for the first time, since there were no aviation or good mechanical engineering jobs back home in Kentucky or thereabouts, and my mom came out here when some of her family moved out here as well. He finished up college on the GI bill, while working nights in a fuels test lab where he and a couple other guys almost got their asses blown up more than a few times. For the most part though, starting from not much, they were middle of the middle class, and gradually moved on up economically through the 80's and 90's.

So that wasn't so bad, it was just when I decided to go out on my own that I got a real look at the way life worked, trying to go to school and support myself on $600-$800 a month in a good month. (that's rent, tuition, books, food, you name it) There were lots of not good months too.

So yeah, baby, we just sit here with our rich-person's Unfair Opportunity Kit^TM and our silver spoons in hand, while the colored help goes and fetches us our Mint Juleps.

	12-06-2003 01:46									#311
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"Even if all the poor were to act just like you there would still be the same amount of poor, because the number of opportunities for them hasn't changed."

If all the poor got better skills, they could bake a bigger pie.

My grandparents had about nothing; one granddad had an alcohol problem. My parents and their siblings started out with pretty much nothing.

It wasn't possible for them to study, back in the 60s. But they worked themselves into middle class (with the exception of one uncle of mine, but that's a rather odd story). I used the opportunities they could offer me, but guess what, some of my cousins are "slipping". Maybe it's really more about work than handouts?

So I'm a tad bit sceptical towards daddyboys just as well as towards the "please, someone pull me out of my society-created misery" crowd. (Actually I can't stand either of them. )

	12-06-2003 01:47									#312
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian I suspect it's because he set a goal and went for it, all-out. He was willing to work his butt off for it. Me... I'm a bit of a slacker. -Arrian

Actually, I'm inherently lazy.

Ever heard that saying "When you've got a really difficult job, give it to a lazy person - he'll inevitably find an easier way to do it?"

There's gold in them thar hills of finding easier ways of doing things.

	12-06-2003 01:49									#313
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No, never heard that one.

Unfortunately, not only am I lazy, but I'm complacent. But I'm not complaining. If I was, I'd be outta line.

-Arrian

	12-06-2003 03:31									#314
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian I don't happen to believe that opportunity is limited. I do agree that people who grow up poor (such as MtG) have less going for them than people who grow up with money (me, for instance).

Total contradiction

	12-06-2003 03:34									#315
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quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat Another zero sum fallacy?

Please make the connection between finite opportunity and zero sum game.

	12-06-2003 03:36									#316
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quote: Originally posted by HershOstropoler "Even if all the poor were to act just like you there would still be the same amount of poor, because the number of opportunities for them hasn't changed." If all the poor got better skills, they could bake a bigger pie. My grandparents had about nothing; one granddad had an alcohol problem. My parents and their siblings started out with pretty much nothing. It wasn't possible for them to study, back in the 60s. But they worked themselves into middle class (with the exception of one uncle of mine, but that's a rather odd story). I used the opportunities they could offer me, but guess what, some of my cousins are "slipping". Maybe it's really more about work than handouts?

I'm not talking about handouts. I'm talking about work and wages.

	12-06-2003 03:59									#317
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There's no such thing as equality of opportunity. Believing in it is like believing in free will (at root the basis of the beliefs are the same).

If we equalize for social class and upbringing, then why don't we equalize for genetic endowment (since that is an accident). And if you want to talk about some people's natural propensity to work harder, then whether or not it's genetic or environmental it's largely a matter of luck. Of course if we equalize for all these things we will have an equal outcome (in the sense that everyone will have the same chance of achieving the good - in other words a dice throw). And more to the point, you can't set them aside without agreeing to some semi-religious view of what persons are.

EOO is just the middle class white people's favourite conception of equality.

Last edited by Agathon on 12-06-2003 at 04:17

	12-06-2003 04:22									#318
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quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat This isn't the 19th Century industrial world of Marx anymore, where you have evil capitalists and downtrodden workers, and nothing in between except the few middle class lackeys and stooges of the evil capitalits.

Really?

Been to a third world sweatshop lately?

	12-06-2003 11:23									#319
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious quote: Originally posted by Arrian I don't happen to believe that opportunity is limited. I do agree that people who grow up poor (such as MtG) have less going for them than people who grow up with money (me, for instance). Total contradiction

Not at all. If I had been born with the Silver Spoon brand Unequal Opportunity Taken from the Sweat of the Exploited Working Man^TM kit, and issued my million dollar trust fund at birth, I'd be farther along in life with less effort expended. The fact that I was in the wrong baby line so the stork didn't deliver my kit when he broght me hasn't really held me that far back, though.

Like the Marine Force Recon motto: Adapt, Improvise, Overcome

	12-06-2003 11:27									#320
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious Please make the connection between finite opportunity and zero sum game.

It's the connection you claim that "the rich" have opportunity unfairly handed to them, while "the poor" are unjustly deprived of opportunity, and the remedy is to tax the wealth of "the rich" to the point where you can distribute that wealth to the poor. If it's not zero sum, then why is your proposed "remedy" to what you see as a problem simply to transfer wealth from one party to another?

	12-06-2003 11:47									#321
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon There's no such thing as equality of opportunity. Believing in it is like believing in free will (at root the basis of the beliefs are the same).

Since free will is reality, thanks for affirming the achievability of equal opportunity.

quote: If we equalize for social class and upbringing, then why don't we equalize for genetic endowment (since that is an accident).

Your first commie fallacy is that we "equalize" for anything. That's just an excuse for a tribunal of party members sitting on their fat privileged asses taking out their limp-dicked frustrations on the intelligentsia and the bourgoisie. Next century, please.

Equality of opportunity means a removal of artificial barriers, such as race or gender discrimination, systematic lack of access to education, etc. We don't equalize, we remove artificial barriers, and let people work and educate themselves towards the outcomes on their own.

quote: And if you want to talk about some people's natural propensity to work harder, then whether or not it's genetic or environmental it's largely a matter of luck.

Bullshit, it's a matter of personal choice. Back in my hippie kid days, several friends of mine and I knew this rather friendly surfer-chick named Nola who lived in Santa Cruz. We were in our teens, cyclist/rock-climber/surfer hippies (I was a diver hippie, not a surfer one), and she was about 15 years older, always gave us a floor or sofa to crash on, and a surfboard to borrow. Never married, never had a b/f (or g/f), but had six cats and six surfboards and a beat to **** VW squareback.

After a while, she decided she wanted to go to where there was real surfing, so she moved to Hawaii, where she split her working time between picking pineapples and driving tourists around on this bicycle rickshaw thing. Mostly, she just surfed. And you know what? She was happy and enjoyed life, and did what she wanted. It's not about luck or genes, it's about people choosing what they want to do in life. Or not choosing, and just drifting through. In Nola's case, she had what she wanted and did what she wanted.

quote: Of course if we equalize for all these things we will have an equal outcome (in the sense that everyone will have the same chance of achieving the good - in other words a dice throw). And more to the point, you can't set them aside without agreeing to some semi-religious view of what persons are. EOO is just the middle class white people's favourite conception of equality.

That's why we don't equalize. We simply remove artificial barriers, and let people work towards the outcomes they desire.

	12-06-2003 11:49									#322
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon Really? Been to a third world sweatshop lately?

Would the little anonymous electronic assembly plant next to the Burritos Bol Corona four blocks from my old house here qualify, or do you really want textiles? (Not much of that here, we're a ways away from cotton country.) I live in the third world, not in a subsidiary country of the US that might as well be it's 51st state.

	12-06-2003 12:05									#323
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Investment does not nessarily mean playing around with the stock market. It could mean building factories and buying equipment.

True, but most investors don't have the time or critical mass to make direct investments like that, and hence use the market.

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Sure can. That's what handicraft is. Take a piece of wood, carve something out of it, sell it to tourists. Repeat. Sure, having money makes it much easier to make money.

The wood is capital, as is access to tourists.

	12-06-2003 12:19									#324
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious How can raw materials have any value. Labor is required to give them any value. They have no value without it.

So fresh water has no value, or do you include slurping into your thirsty maw as labor?

	12-06-2003 12:37									#325
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quote: If you're a libertarian, you ignore the issue entirely and launch into a tirade about how all taxes are theft and immoral, and therefore, you're within your natural rightsTM to shoot government officials for attempting to steal your property.

	12-06-2003 12:49									#326
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If "trickle down" doesn't work, explain the economic boom the US saw over the last 20 years.

	12-06-2003 13:15									#327
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon This just isn't true. In a society where there are decent jobs for everyone, almost everyone will work. We had full employment in New Zealand when I was growing up - everyone worked.

You are guilty of a common misperception, namely that what is valued in one society will necessarily be valued in the same way in another society. The same decent job might produce 100% employment in one area, and 20% in another based on cultural and economic variations.

The term "decent jobs" seems a bit vague. I would actually agree with your statement if by decent job you mean receiving head from a supermodel for $40K a year, and a month of vacation.

	12-06-2003 13:26									#328
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious Please make the connection between finite opportunity and zero sum game.

It's quite rational, in your world it's 1/1.

	12-06-2003 21:09									#329
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quote: Originally posted by Berzerker If "trickle down" doesn't work, explain the economic boom the US saw over the last 20 years.

What the hell are you talking about? Wages are barely changed at all in 20 years.

	12-06-2003 21:13									#330
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quote: Originally posted by Sikander So fresh water has no value, or do you include slurping into your thirsty maw as labor?

Fresh water like in the mountains? It has no value to you until you drive up there and get it. Therefore without labor it has no value.