You guys though I was tough...
Check out this article by Michael Lewis:

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- So right after the Bear Stearns funds blew up, I had a thought: This is what happens when you lend money to poor people.
Don't get me wrong: I have nothing personally against the poor. To my knowledge, I have nothing personally to do with the poor at all. It's not personal when a guy cuts your grass: that's business. He does what you say, you pay him. But you don't pay him in advance: That would be finance. And finance is one thing you should never engage in with the poor. (By poor, I mean anyone who the SEC wouldn't allow to invest in my hedge fund.)
That's the biggest lesson I've learned from the subprime crisis. Along the way, as these people have torpedoed my portfolio, I had some other thoughts about the poor. I'll share them with you.
1) They're masters of public relations.
I had no idea how my open-handedness could be made to look, after the fact. At the time I bought the subprime portfolio I thought: This is sort of like my way of giving something back. I didn't expect a profile in Philanthropy Today or anything like that. I mean, I bought at a discount. But I thought people would admire the Wall Street big shot who found a way to help the little guy. Sort of like a money doctor helping a sick person. Then the little guy wheels around and gives me this financial enema. And I'm the one who gets crap in the papers! Everyone feels sorry for the poor, and no one feels sorry for me. Even though it's my money! No good deed goes unpunished.
2) Poor people don't respect other people's money in the way money deserves to be respected.
Call me a romantic: I want everyone to have a shot at the American dream. Even people who haven't earned it. I did everything I could so that these schlubs could at least own their own place. The media is now making my generosity out to be some kind of scandal. Teaser rates weren't a scandal. Teaser rates were a sign of misplaced trust: I trusted these people to get their teams of lawyers to vet anything before they signed it. Turns out, if you're poor, you don't need to pay lawyers. You don't like the deal you just wave your hands in the air and moan about how poor you are. Then you default.
3) I've grown out of touch with ``poor culture.''
Hard to say when this happened; it might have been when I stopped flying commercial. Or maybe it was when I gave up the bleacher seats and got the suite. But the first rule in this business is to know the people you're in business with, and I broke it. People complain about the rich getting richer and the poor being left behind. Is it any wonder? Look at them! Did it ever occur to even one of them that they might pay me back by WORKING HARDER? I don't think so.
But as I say, it was my fault, for not studying the poor more closely before I lent them the money. When the only time you've ever seen a lion is in his cage in the zoo, you start thinking of him as a pet cat. You forget that he wants to eat you.
4) Our society is really, really hostile to success. At the same time it's shockingly indulgent of poor people.
A Republican president now wants to bail them out! I have a different solution. Debtors' prison is obviously a little too retro, and besides that it would just use more taxpayers' money. But the poor could work off their debts. All over Greenwich I see lawns to be mowed, houses to be painted, sports cars to be tuned up. Some of these poor people must have skills. The ones that don't could be trained to do some of the less skilled labor -- say, working as clowns at rich kids' birthday parties. They could even have an act: put them in clown suits and see how many can be stuffed into a Maybach. It'd be like the circus, only better.
Transporting entire neighborhoods of poor people to upper Manhattan and lower Connecticut might seem impractical. It's not: Mexico does this sort of thing routinely. And in the long run it might be for the good of poor people. If the consequences were more serious, maybe they wouldn't stay poor.
5) I think it's time we all become more realistic about letting the poor anywhere near Wall Street.
Lending money to poor countries was a bad idea: Does it make any more sense to lend money to poor people? They don't even have mineral rights!
There's a reason the rich aren't getting richer as fast as they should: they keep getting tangled up with the poor. It's unrealistic to say that Wall Street should cut itself off entirely from poor -- or, if you will, ``mainstream'' -- culture. As I say, I'll still do business with the masses. But I'll only engage in their finances if they can clump themselves together into a semblance of a rich person. I'll still accept pension fund money, for example. (Nothing under $50 million, please.) And I'm willing to finance the purchase of entire companies staffed basically with poor people. I did deals with Milken, before they broke him. I own some Blackstone. (Hang tough, Steve!)
But never again will I go one-on-one again with poor people. They're sharks.

No it doesn't auto keep you there. Poor people make it out all the time. But the fact is, it isn't easy, and it takes an influence outside of your social circles some times.

Oilguy "work hard, go to school"
Poor kids parents "drop out of school, McDonalds is paying $6.75!!!"

Economist speaking to oilguy "The fair tax has flaws"
Boortz to Oilguy "My plan is perfect, don't listen to namby pamby economists"

Going outside of your social influcences is a good thing.

Ixtellor

P.S. I read the article oilguy posted. Agreed with all of it except:
See if you can find the flaw.

__________________
_______________________________________
George W. Bush "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building"

Blasphemy is a victimless crime.

This illustration hits the nail on the head.
Parents aren't the only factor though. What's one of the human drives that nature itself puts over most rational thought?
Another issue is that women in poor neighborhoods, just like a lot of women sent to college, are often taught that they "need a man". This creates a burden on competative men to be "successful" in terms of the environment.
For middle class/well-off guys... easy. Finish school. Get a good job. Hell, if you want you can marry a woman who is successful herself (this is believed to be one of the main reasons for an increase in space between classes, but that's another story).
For working class/poor guys... Who is the better man to go for in the eyes of the woman looking for a man to support her? The guy who sacrifices some work hours to go to school? Or the guy who works a couple dead-end jobs and makes more money?
It's not normal to find people far-sighted enough to realize the guy going to school is doing better. Hell... there aren't enough poor women out there far-sighted enough to realize they don't "need a man".

So peer and parent groups are one part of the poverty trap. I'd suggest the social insistence on maintaining gender roles is also a liability for the poor.

__________________
"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

You always need to be reaching outside of your social circles to advance yourself... how to you get offer for a higher paying job? You have to go outside of your social circle... Going outside of that circle is "Change" and people fear "Change" because change is painful in a lot of ways... Change infringes on your comfort zone... Change also increases your chances of both failure AND success.+

I know you are not quoting me... I have never said that. And my advise to my kids is not "Work hard, go to school"
That part is not advise... they are my responsibility and those two statements are not advise but rather "Commands"... That is their job, and if they choose not to do their job >> They get the consequences.
My advise is Have a good attitude while working hard and try working smart... Work fast and take the rest of the day off ( I home school)
As for "Go to school"... I am responsible for primary school and I am giving them a foundation to carry that further if they choose to... I have already saved for their college >>> IF THEY WANT TO GO. I will educate them of the advantages and disadvantages of going to college.... But what I will teach them is how to own and operate a successful business... They will learn the ins and outs of decision making... they will learn how to communicate with others on that persons level... They will learn how to read, write, and speak the English language fully and accurately... they will learn how to be confident... they will learn how to negotiate.... they will learn how to be a good citizen...

>>>The main thing I want my kids to learn is to have a good "attitude".<<<

Are you trying to bring another thread into this one? or are you trying to change the subject?

100% agreed.

[/quote]
I didn't write it but I thought it fit with this thread so I posted it... I liked the #4.... I think the rich are owned a great big "thank you!"

I am not quoting you.
It should be your advice to people, because its true.

This is where I believe you are wrong.

Working hard and valuing education are both learned behaviors. Its not innate human nature. It is a learned behavior you get from your environment.

I am suggesting, some poor, not all, are NOT being taught this behavior.
And guess what?

I taught in the poorest school in Texas, I assure you that some are not.

Then I step in and say "work hard, go to school" Explain exactly why, showed them graphs, and stats, and income levels and all the evidence in the world as to why its true.
Then it becomes me versus their entire social world.

Guess who wins sometimes?

My mentioning FAIR tax was to illustrate, that we all have social influences. Some times we listen to sound advice (Go to school, FAIR tax has flaws)
And sometimes we dont - (drop out of school, be a Boortz ditto head)

We all do it. (Some more than others, see the "idiot test" thread.)

I know you didn't write the article you posted.

But did you find the flaw in his logic on the one point I disagreed with?

Ixtellor

P.S. Does everyone know you need a lawyer to look over a nice looking bankers fincancial documents?

__________________
_______________________________________
George W. Bush "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building"

Blasphemy is a victimless crime.

To other people... I tell them to work smart actually... There is a big difference between working "Hard" and working 'Smart">>> One uses everything you have from the neck down and is worth whatever minimum wage pays. The other uses what you have from your neck up and the sky is the limit! Of course that has to do with education... BUT >>it has a LOT more to do with attitude than it does with memorization of facts and figures.

A person that is very well education with a terrible attitude isn't worth squat... They are a drag on production and efficiency.

On the other hand you have a person that is not AS educated but has a GREAT attitude.... that is a person who will be an asset... they can be trained and will keep a good atmosphere around others and increase production and efficiency.

I agree with you that it is not being taught to some kids...
I thought you were talking about me... what "My" advise was to "My" kids was... That is why I said what I did... After you have taught kids what you are suggesting... you should have to do it again.. that is primarily my point... To me it is the same as teaching children to walk... after they learn to walk >>> they are then expected to walk.
After you teach a child to talk... they are expected to talk.
After you teach a child that they need to get educated and work hard... Again... that it then the expectation....
To do otherwise has consiquences and the child need to know what those are as well. So I agree that showing kids what can be expected of them if they don't value their education and if they don't learn to work hard is the right thing to do.

It doesn't help your argument to combine (fact with opinion) when you are trying to make a point unless your goal is to be abrasive and put the other person on the defensive.
I will get back to the other thread when I make time for it... I am not going to fire back out of emotion or irritation. Also... I am not going to let this thread evolve into another topic.


I actually found a couple of flaws in the article... But the overall point is why I posted it.

Oh... you're not suggesting anything contraversial at all. Socialresearch has shown pretty strongly that there is a big difference between the way middle class and working class people raise their kids (not to get into the super-rich who basically live in a parellel world completely alien to ours) and it's based almost entirely on what the parents learned over their time.
1. Poor people are more likely to embrace the unhealthy authoritarian parenting technique, which tends to make the kids less self-reliant, less self-disciplined, and more likely to duck confrontation and find deceitful ways to accomplish what they do.
This parenting technique is intuitively the smart way to go for the poorly educated because they think discipline and setting the kids on the straight-and-narrow is what matters... Of course in doing so they leave the kids unable to self-discipline and far better at taking orders than at thinking. They tend to rebel in adolescence and do so in an extreme and deceitful manner so that their parents will never catch them.
But aside from its intuitive value, poor people are likely to use it:
because their parents were also authoritarian...
and because they are used to jobs that require obedience and discipline rather than innovation or creativity... %#%@ jobs, in other words.
What it comes down to is that they are training their kids for $%@% jobs.
2. They don't know much about achieving in school. In most cases, if people did well in school and prepared for the future... they got good jobs. Most poor people who don't have good jobs... you can infer they were not big achievers.
So the question comes up... Even if they want their kids to do better, which they undoubtedly do, how is someone who doesn't know the first thing about success going to teach it?
What it comes down to is that they teach what they've learned... as explained above... but they add in a "Do good in school ethic". But unless that kid gets some outside help or is a prodigy... the kid's probably not going to do well in school... and even less likely to prepare for college or a middle class job.

It really comes down to something very simple:
How do you teach what you don't know?
How do you learn what no one around you can teach?

Attitude is important... but it's not everything and it's not immutable.
Without the proper knowledge, persistence is a crap-shoot. You might win. You might not (and being that it's luck at that point, what you learn is pretty flawed).
And enough failures will change anyone's attitude for the worse... just as a high ratio of success might make someone blindly optimistic. We think of attitude as a static item... but it's a work in progress.

The biggest problem in America today (oay, well, one of the biggest anyway)is that despite what we say, our culture is not one that values education. We value success but not the road to get there. That's why criminality is so tempting to the urban poor, why some poor end up in a trap, and why the well-off are largely unsympathetic to anyone who isn't successful (I won't get into the super-rich because, like I said... I don't think most of us even understand them).
If we valued education, we'd value more than just giving our kids an advantage. We'd value elevating all of society by helping to educate every child in America to the fullest extent possible... and as much talk as we have about this, I've seen little in the way of actual concern.
People are more concerned about tax rates and whether gay people can get married, whether social security will provide them with a retirement they don't save for (no real cares about the disabled and elderly) and whether it's okay for black or white people to say the n-word. People put more effort into those things.

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"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

I totally agree...
We are taught by pop culture to idolize celebrity and their behavior. And unless you have someone willing to step in and counter that school of thought... It is going to be a tough life for many of todays young.

Again... I agree.