I hope the poor get poorer & the rich get richer..

The working poor are the ones that need help with the prices going the way they are now. We do need to stop coddling the freeloaders seriously. The freeloaders I am talking about are not the truly disabled or our senior citizens that have worked their entire lives, I am talking about the ones that have never had a job and never intend to get one.

 

I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad but someone that is barely surviving paycheck to paycheck doesn't have a chance because there is no money there to start with. I don't have a car payment, my trailer is 2 payments from being paid for but am still struggling to survive. I am not living above my means but still hardly have enough money to buy groceries. I don't think a person should have to work 2 jobs to make a living. Would also love to start my own business, but there isn't money for that either.

 

The trick is taking an extra job and dedicating the income from that second job to paying off debt and investing. I did this for a while when I was starting out, and it gave me a head-start on doing so. It also helps when you do this with a very specific and limited goal (paying off certain debts, saving $10,000, etc.) then actually quitting the job once that goal is met. This can be a great way to get ahead when your paychecks barely cover your bills. The trick is to not spend any of the extra money you earn on anything except those specific goals.

 

You raise some excellent points, particularly about the way you view various elements in society. I do however, view things a little differently.

The government, the courts, the police force, the social services, the public service, and the armed forces, are all parts of society. I cannot logically subscribe to the view that there is the government on one side, and society on the other. The same applies to the justice system, the public service, etc.

In any parliamentary (or congressional) democracy, it is impossible to have direct democracy (every major issue decided by referendum) but we elect political parties, and thereby members of parliament (or congressmen) to represent and enact society's wishes. They will not do so perfectly, and we will agree with some more than others, but it is a system which our respective societies have evolved, and is a part of society. Except in a militarily occupied land, no one has imposed government at the point of a gun, and the function of government is governance, not punishment.

It is the law enforcement agencies and justice system, acting in concert on behalf of society's wishes and standards, who fine, harasses or punish people who act in a manner that runs contrary to what society deems appropriate. Most law, including taxation law, has a basis in the protection and well being of society in general.

Government consists of the parties and people we elect to represent us - it is not an 'us and them' situation. If our particular form of government is not working out satisfactorily, it is up to us to change it (it has been done before,) and if the people we elect to represent us are serving some other purpose, it is up to us to elect someone else. But operating as it should, and with the scope it enjoys, government is the most efficient engine of social justice - and should be regarded and used as such. No other societal group has the capabilities and funding that national government enjoys.

 

....more of that "love."

 

Yeah, I think that if those three rich elites would give $$ to sterilize those teenagers then it would show they do have love in their souls. Good point. I think that money would be put to better use sterlizing them then to have the taxpayers pay for the sex sessions of our college students like a ms fluke. What say you?

 

I say you are full of hate and pathetically useless when it comes to political discourse.

 

op forgets that many are to poor to pull themselves up by their own boot straps BECAUSE THEIR TO POOR TO EVEN AFFORD BOOTSTRAPS.

also, OP seems to think its possible not to have a lower class. Like somehow the wealth could be messed around with and there would only be a a middle and an upper class... but wait.... that would resemble socialist tendencies! A healthy sign of capitalism and the free market is a large burdened, and ignored urban underclass!

 

also, the OP seems to think most rich people don't just sit on their asses collecting money off the stock market and from savings account interest...

 

Well.
For starters our current entitlement programs are not designed or regulated to help people get back on their feet, they are designed to continuously keep people supported to a minimum while funneling them through lesser educational programs.

Many people on entitlements are entitlement, and child abusers.

Our programs make it more profitable to be on welfare than to hold a lower level job and disable you from holding both.

On the rich side, corporate lobbyists are pushing through legislation that prevents new businesses from rising to eliminate competition to the establishment.

Both sides are ridiculously short sighted and are leading to a poor future for the rich and the poor alike.

 

Cry me a river why don't ya. Ever hear of self determination and will power?

Where did I say its possible not to have a poor class? Liberals like to say that we are all even by pushing for the equal rights amendment and socializing the people by dumbing them down to a lower standard of class, and by bashing the successful and or redistributing their wealth down to the poor. How would people striving to pick themselves out from the poor class label up to a middle class or higher class be considered an act of socialism? What is lacking in the liberal mindset is the old saying "Being the best you can be". Socialism, i.e. liberalism teaches its blind members not to succeed, not to set goals, not to be successful, for a socialist uncle sam will take care of you from cradle to grave, thus ensuring them that they'll forever represent a poor class of people.

Going back to the OP message: I'm hoping that under obama's socialist agenda and policy that the poor will get poorer (as they surely will), and that the rich keep getting richer so that the electorate out there will get a clear vision as to which candidate they'll choose in November. Will they choose the socialist candidate representing an America heading South toward government sponsored poor socialism, i.e. obamunism, or will they vote for a Capitalist man Romney who is a successful businessman with the plan to create jobs for everyone (including the poor) to where we eliminate the poor class altogether. Until I see the poor helping themselves, I'll just have to assume that they're happy with their lot in life by living the socialistic lifestyle.

 

Sociology has proven 80% of people remain in the socioeconomic class into which they were born. Rags to riches stories are not the rule, they're the exception. Don't believe what you see in the movies. Of course.

If you see someone who's "successful", it's because their parents were successful before them. In many cases, their parents pulled strings to get them their good-paying jobs, and helped them come up with the down payment on their nice houses and cars.

The self-made man is generally speaking a myth.

 

The gross arrogance in this post is astonishing because it suffocates even a sliver of hope for information. You actually think you are in a position to judge millions and millions of people based on income.

The worst part is your standards would change upon being shown most poor people do work to change their situation. Nothing would be satisfactory because your only purpose is to whine.

 

So do you think single mothers of multiple children who can't find work because they have to take care of their kids should have to give their children up to the care of the state?

 

OP has watched "forest gump" and "the pursuit of happiness" to many times.

 

Good paying jobs don't make you rich. There seems to be a gap in most people's understanding of wealth and money that makes them look for a job to make them rich and to consider a job to be the only or best way to get money.

The people who figure out the way money really works and implement the principles of wealth accumulation are the ones who actually become rich. That is part of the reason that so few people go from poor to rich and so many people stay rich from one generation to another - rich parents teach those principles to their children while poor parents don't understand them and can't teach them.

 

No, the more accurate analogy would be the liberal will give the person a fish so they become dependent, while the conservative will beat up and steal the persons fishing pole, and leave them with nothing so they can die in the ditch, only for liberals to come and make them dependent!!

 

No, his solution is genocide.

 

It is funny that liberals always claim that conservatives like to take things from the poor, but never seem to find examples of such theft.

What does happen for your analogy is the person seeing the conservative's fish and deciding to trade away his own fishing pole to get the fish from the conservative, then complaining that the conservative tricked him or stole the fishing pole.

Or maybe the conservative hires the person to fish for him. The conservative provides a fishing pole, bait and training on how to fish in exchange for a fish every day he works. Then the poor person sees how many fish he brings in, and rather than working for himself he complains that the conservative is robbing him of the fruit of his labor and should give him more of the fish.

 

Here is a real life example:

In 1971, I was a young married man (20) living in Southern California. I worked at a Texaco station and my wife was a waitress at Bob's Big Boy Restaurant. We were both attending a State University after two years of junior college working towards degrees. Here is a rundown of our financial status at that time. She drove a '70 VW Bug that she bought new and I drove a '64 Impala SS that I bought used for $500.

I made $4.50 an hour x 160 hrs a month......$720 per month before taxes

She made 1.65 an hour plus tips x 160 hrs....$640 per month before taxes

$1360.......Gross Income

$1060.......After Taxes

Rent.........$185...(including utilities) Nice 2br in a great neighborhood.
Tuition......$35.....(if that, as we were both California residents)
Gas..........$40......(.22-.29 per gallon)
Food........$125
Car pmt....$89
Auto Ins...$45
Health Ins.$0.....(Paid for by my employer, full coverage for both of us including a dental plan)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Total fixed costs.....$519



We probably spent $200 a month eating out, going to concerts, buying records, a sack of weed a month for $15 bucks, getting away for weekends to Santa Barbara, Yosemite etc., and went to Maui once a year. We had a great life living as working students who were both children of blue collar parents.

Still we managed to save $300 or more a month and by the time she graduated from nursing school as an RN we had enough saved to put $8000 down on a nice 3br 2 bath house with a pool for which we payed $66,500.

This would be totally impossible in this day and age. College tuitions are ridiculous. Health insuance, payroll taxes and gasoline prices are off the map. I feel sorry for the children of regular American working people who are trying to make their way in the world today, as the deck has been stacked against them from the start. What happened?

 

10 years ago I acquired a bachelors degree in engineering from an in-state university. Normal costs of such university was about $10,000 per semester, or $20,000 per year. If you apply for financial assistance, and do well in High school to acquire scholarships you can significantly drive down the cost of education.

 

The point I was making is that even if the price of a University education was significantly reduced, by half to $10,000 per year, people such as myself and my wife would not have been able to afford it. You did not address any of the other issues having to do with the continual lowering standards of living for middle class Americans that have occurred over the past three decades of rampant corporate theivery and governmental corruption.

 

as for that "give a man a fish analogy"

an ultra con capitalist would not only steal another mans fishing pole, he would also patrol around the lake killing anyone who tried to fish in it so all the contents could be his.

 

You're living in another world. Capitalists don't steal from anyone. Liberals and socialists steal from people. Wealth redistribution is what you would call stealing, and that isn't something you see Conservatives or Capitalists participating in. We make our money the old fashioned way.....we earn it!

 

ROFL....that's funny stuff right there...I don't care where you're from. LOL