Liberals, how did the rich become rich?

Because The Wealthy are their only real gods....it's a religion...as stupid and ignorant as all other religions...

 

(I just wanted to say something nice, and then I started rambling, sorry.)


I have heard several republicans recently speaking about the republican party expanding its base. These republicans want to attract more poor, working poor, and middle class voters. Maybe this group is small but perhaps they will be heard, just like the 8 republican governors that have joined Obamacare.

10 years ago conservatives used to talk about fixing the welfare system, trimming government waste, ex.ex.
But today conservatives talk about ending welfare, and abolishing every government agency from the IRS to public libraries.


Americas welfare system in general has become very wasteful.

People who don't need food stamps get them, and people who really need food stamps don't get enough. And this greatly hurts poor Americans that really need food stamps.

And we hand out $800 to each person for sect 8 housing every month, when we should be giving them $300 to $700 (depending on the person.)
And from sect 8 handing out so much money, they can no longer give sect 8 to waiting people. There are huge numbers of people who need sect 8 but they can't get it, because the government gives current recipients too much money. And this greatly hurts Americans who need sect 8 housing because they can't get it.


I thought about this idea. The US government has actually given people jobs in the past. I think during the dust bowl the US government gave people jobs cleaning national parks and building schools.

Here's an idea for welfare that makes people work for it. (just so you know I would never kill hard capitalism fully, I love thinking about creating new businesses.)


The US government could buy apartment buildings for (able bodied) welfare recipients to live. And in the mourning a government vehicle picks them up in the apartments parking lot, and brings them to work. (without them having to walk 3 miles to the bus stop, and waiting 45 minutes for the bus.) Or give them jobs cutting grass, or they could clean our cities, or clean Americas poor neighborhoods, or they could patch potholes.

Some of them could work in a daycare center at the apartment. And then parents with children could go to work.

Many of Americas poor people come from a culture where they just don't work (literally). Point is it may be hard for these people to hold down "full time" jobs in regular places. Perhaps (some) of these people could make certain products in a building close to the apartment. They could make fishing poles, disassemble computers, ex.ex. with people just like themselves.

With some jobs they could earn money and pay their keep. With jobs like cleaning our city streets they would be like government workers.

I think with regular paying jobs they should work part time around 20 hours a week.
To put these people in a full time job would be highly difficult for them (not working is literally all they know.)

But after time you could give them financial incentives to work more hours.


The apartments should be fairly nice, with a nice shared laundry room, and areas for young people to play sports, ex.ex.
It should have internet access, and low level cable access. (you have to let them feel like working people.)

And the apartment community should have a (few) low cost/low fuel usage cars to share. And each person could have use of a car, 2 to 3 times per week, for a few hours (just to give them access to things working people have.)


I think its possible these welfare workers could make a difference doing needed jobs around their cities.

And I think perhaps it could be good for welfare recipients too. They would be a part of society more, and have access to things like use of a car, computer access, and cable tv, and other things they presently don't have.

The program should try to get welfare recipients out of the program, perhaps by eventually getting them high paying jobs, where they can afford a nice apartment and nice car of their own.

Maybe? in some way they could be given the opportunity to start their own businesses, and then really live the American dream.

This program could also take in certain people who get disability checks. Perhaps these disabled people, could be responsible for less work hours than regular people.

I don't think this program should be mandatory, but I believe many people would choose to do it.

And if this program was run efficiently, I wonder how much of the programs financial costs, could be paid for by the actual welfare recipients ?
(Paid for by their paychecks (which the government would take), and paid for by services they provide, and paid for by products they produce.)


I actually think there's a fair chance some republicans will try to expand their base, and try to get more poor, working poor, and middle class voters. How will they try to do it ??

It will be interesting.

Chad

 

According Jesus a Christ; it is due to resorting to means, moral or amoral to better ensure a profit via that motive.

 

Just out of curiosity, where did Jesus say or infer that?

 

And this is the problem. The belief that it's supposed to be easy. It's not. Nor has it ever been. Which is exactly why most people prefer to choose to be a cog in someone else's machine than to build their own. Because it's less work and it's more comfortable. They then complain about the circumstances of the choice they've made because they don't want to put the additional effort in to reap additional rewards. It's the epitome of childishness. "I want what that guy has, but I don't want to do what that guy did to get it." Most people who complain about "the exploitation of workers" have never actually run anything in their lives. Because they have always chosen the safe road of working for someone else. Thus they don't actually know how running a business works. And so they get mad when they don't get paid what they feel they "deserve."

 

Don't be willfully stupid. Do you actually think that anyone, let alone 88 of the 400 richest Americans (22%) inherited that dollar amount? The 22% include people like Louis Bacon, who inherited a whopping $25,000, is #347, worth 1.3billion. Even if you think think someone who inherited $999,999 is well off, you're a f***ing joke if you think that means they just inherited the other $1,299,000,001.

And yes, 40% +22% is 'most.' As I said a majority inherited less than a million. 22% inherited something, but less than a million, and 40% inherited nothing. Do you actually disagree on what 40+22 is?

 

What you attempted to refute, which is not what was being stated on this thread when you popped in and said, "I already refuted that."

Again, not what was being said when you popped in and said "I already refuted that." You also have an extremely narrow view of what is productive, and no consideration for competition.

nut uh, yours is.

Really? I thought you refuted that the Forbes 400 were self-made? It looks like you just said (though you whined earlier when I said it) that you picked out 21 out of 400 (5.25%). How, the f***, do you think analyzing a select 21 proves anything about the other 379? This, again, is why no one takes you seriously. You claim your 'refuted' a statement about 400 people by analyzing 21.

And before you try whining, "but these are 21 that Forbes says are self-made," it was a left-wing think tank, United for a Fair Economy, that said 40% inherited nothing. Which you have yet to refute.

 

Fascinating comments. I have a few objections;

Most people do not build their own machines because they spend most of their lives in training to be able to work their little part of the machine, thereby they cannot know how to run a business.

The fact that most people cannot and do not build their own machines is a benefit to any economy. As an example, lets say instead that at the beginning of the car era everyone who got to a stage where they knew how to build cars built and sold their own cars. Firstly people would still seek the best and most reliable cars, these would be terribly expensive and the technoogical change that drives the general increase in wealth would not happen at the pace that it has - because most car makers instead of contributing to producing better and cheaper cars were instead sinking their lives into producing a few cars each.

Another example, medicine. Physicians spend their lives learning about the body, not the business of providing medical services. By this choice, we have had continual improvements in care, without this choice we would instead have hundreds of thousands of physicians trying to be millionairs on the basis of very limited knowledge.

I hope you will take answer these comments in the spirit they are offered.

Cheers

 

"Doesn't mean they're broke...."

Taxcutter says:
Yet.

They are on the way down.

This is the usual course of wealth. An entrepreneur makes a fortune. In maybe one in ten instances a descendant will increase the fortune (Bill Vanderbilt, the Koch brothers, David Rockefeller). In the rest of the cases the kids squander the wealth in a generation or two.

 

Not exactly, their goal is making money

 

"Most people who own land make a lot of money by doing so."

Taxcutter says:
Missed all those foreclosures, eh?

There's an old saying in real estate:
How do you make a small fortune in real estate? Start with a large fortune.

The vast majority of real estate investors lose money at it. How do you explain the volatility of REITs?

Do you know what a REIT is before you Google it?

 

This is interesting, are you saying that the relatively few people who own land in the USA have lost money over the time of their ownership?

Doesnt your contention go directly against natural physical law and the inevitable price consequences of scarcity?

 

No, YOU missed all those NON-foreclosures, which outnumbered the foreclosures by an order of magnitude. You also missed the fact that the foreclosures were typically on relatively new homes whose cost was mostly in improvements, not land, but whose improvement cost could not be justified by the underlying land value. Almost all of those people lost money by over-investing in improvements in the mistaken belief that the land's appreciation would rescue them from the improvements' depreciation.

No, there isn't. It's a saying about the stock market, not real estate.

That is blatantly false. The vast majority make money, and if you disregard the ones who borrow too much or on unfavorable terms to buy real estate, it's effectively 100%.

REITs are an investment vehicle, not land. There is a difference between owning land and making a bet on someone's real estate investment strategy.

LOL!

 

What I find most funny about nutty statements, like ones made by Roy, are that these guys seem to think they've figured out the sleezy ways the rich get rich - and they don't do it. They just sit and whine about it. I can tell you, if I found some sure way to become super-rich with no effort, no work, I'd have already done it.

 

Well, yeah, fear and a certain unwillingness to put in work prevent people from starting up their own business, but it's impossible for everyone to start up their own business. It's kind of like the too many Indians, not enough Chiefs thing. The reason why the established businesses do not want competitors (any more businesses starting up and becoming successful) is because it divides the market and decreases revenue. If everyone starts their own business, the average accumulation of wealth by any individual begins to fall. This s good to a degree, but everyone- or even half the nation- starting their own business seams counter-productive. It would have all the profit of vegetables in a world where everyone has their own farms.

Besides, there is never a shortage of people willing to enter the market. The problem is that the difficulty isn't starting a business, it is competing against other, larger businesses and sustaining yourself. A lot of businesses fail in their first or second year. Conglomerates like Walmart and Home Depot make it hard even for exsting smaller businesses, let alone start-ups. In the future, you may get a sprinkle hear and there, but unless it's a totally new concept, or the company in some way gains the permission of the larger corporations (and probably pays tribute) then you won't see many more businesses higher than the level of local food/liquor stores or the like coming about.

I always find myself asking this, but do you own a business?

 

The thread title is "how?" not, "inheritance or...?" I've stipulated that when I showed that those who become super-rich without inheritance almost always do so through privilege and scams, not production, that wasn't relevant to the (actually irrelevant) claim that most did not do so by inheritance.

No, I have a very accurate view of what is productive: what increases production. Competition is the essence of rent seeking, but rent seeking is by definition not productive.

I did. I showed that the ones especially chosen by Forbes for being self-made were in fact mostly rent seekers and scammers who got rich by parasitism and predation on society. That means the rest of the list were on average far less "self-made."

No FORBES picked them as being particularly notable examples of self-made-ness.

Very simply: they were the ones CHOSEN to be the best examples. If they can't make the productivity grade -- and I've proved they can't -- the rest can't, either. A sample of 21 from a population of 400 is not bad even if it is random. In this case, the sample was far better than random for the purposes of the thread subject.

But in fact, they do. Including you.

And I very much did, because the 21 were cherry-picked BY FORBES to exemplify the most self-made of the 400.

I have already stipulated that I did not refute that particular claim.

I have no need or motive to refute it, because rent seeking and scamming aren't inheritance. They're worse.

 

There are certain areas/ways that small businesses will never be able to compete. Wal Mart is a freakin' king because Wal Mart is one of the most efficiently run companies, and it doesn't seek big profits. It just wants a little bit of profit from freakin' every market.

Someone trying to start their own department store would have an extremely hard time competing with Wal Mart if they tried doing basically the same thing. It's simply a matter of efficiency, but I've seen a lot of small stores, especially grocery focused stores, succeed. They try to find a niche that makes customers want to buy from them, even if it isn't the cheapest product. Think of 'green' and 'organic' friendly grocery stores. Another small (to medium-size) business might be able to compete with Wal Mart's prices because it focuses on a certain area, like meats. When you break it down, Wal Mart's meats are actually pretty basic, and because it's products are so varied, a meat-focused medium sized store could low-price Wal Mart's meats, and offer a wider variety. I would love a meat shop that offered some real variety, where I could walk in and say, "you know what, I think I'll get wild boar today, with a bit of alligator tail."

 

I've done some of them. It always gave me a creepy feeling.

No one said stealing from society takes no effort or work.

Thus neatly demonstrating the principal qualification for becoming rich in every place and time: lack of scruple.

 

They're rich and lazy. Better to hire a few undocumented workers, break the law and profit from "THEIR hard work", while simultaneously whining about the undocumented workers.

I compare rich corporate employers to child molesters. The child molester is often able to molest a child because the child is unable to defend themselves against the molester, and the victim is indeed a child, and the adult molester is in total control. The corporate employer is very similar in that THEY control the desperate child like employees like the molesters that they are....paying garbage wages and reaping unlimited profits from their molestation of the poor employee. It's not a whole lot different than slavery in reality.
Used to be you could earn a decent wage and provide for your family, and have a somewhat loyal employee/employer relationship where both sides complimented each other. Not any more though. No loyalty anywhere. Just the cheapest and fast way that employers can find to cut their way into the biggest profit..RIGHT HERE...RIGHT NOW, and to Hell with anything else. The cheapest first, and we'll worry about tomorrow well......tomorrow.
Corporate America has destroyed this country, plain and simple.

 

I just don't get Republican's extreme hatred for laborers. They are sort of individual businesses themselves that sell their labor/skills. Not really sure why they find it fair that the business owners/executives get 100s of millions of dollars off the laborers but can't afford to pay for their laborers healthcare. I guess when you are fed all this supply side propaganda and you really aren't smart enough to make your own decisions, then you'd side with the multi millionaires and blame the poor people for asking for too much, lol. Republican's are disgusting individuals.

 

"...Republican's extreme hatred for laborers."

Taxcutter says:
Not hatred. Laborers get fair value for their efforts, as do successful businesspeople.

 

You must be joking. Walmart's success is built on virtual slave labor from third world countries and driving out local businesses. Walmart is all about big profits, that's why it's one of the highest grossing companies in the world.

 

Wal Mart profit margins are 3-3.5% steadily. You know the difference between gross and profit, right?

 

Stop flinging statistics around. What you should do is take a look into their business practices? Where is their manufacturing set up? What is their legal record? What is the production,transportation/distribution cost ratio? Don't just give me googled facts you spent 2 minutes looking at because they are out of context.

 

Why would I put in that effort for you when you've already shown your opinion trumps facts?