Thought for today

ziggy wrote:

Aaron wrote:No one's said anything about getting rich.

Cato did, and that is what I was replying to.

Cato wrote:

There is no theory to it Ziggy, We have seen it action in this nation for years. People have risen from poverty to rishes. People have wroked their way out of poverty. People who came from low background have went on the achieve great things. As I said some fail, but that doesn't disprove what I said.

Please try to pay attention if you are going to participate.

Considering that less then 1% of the people in America are rich, that's not a realistic goal.

That is what I have been saying. But it is Cato who would have us believe otherwise.

More Bullshit Ziggy.

Unless of course you can prove that NO ONE has EVER pulled themselves from poverty to riches.

Cato listed many different scenarios so why must you try to confuse the issues by focusing on one?

ziggy wrote:

Abraham Lincoln did not live in the times of massive government entitlement programs and socialism.

If anything, hard work would take one further in Lincoln's time then it does today as one could always heed John BL Soule and Go west and grow with the country. A fresh start was much easier without all the government regulation we faced today.

So, as a percentage of the population, were there fewer, or more, or the same numbers of impoverished people in Lincloln's time as there are today? Why?

If you want to start a thread discussing economic hardships and conditions of the mid-1800's, feel free. If I get the time, I'll address the mistakes you make.

Which should be many. You're 0 for 30 some today. Keep up the good work.

Aaron wrote:

ziggy wrote:

Aaron wrote:No one's said anything about getting rich.

Cato did, and that is what I was replying to.

Cato wrote:

There is no theory to it Ziggy, We have seen it action in this nation for years. People have risen from poverty to rishes. People have wroked their way out of poverty. People who came from low background have went on the achieve great things. As I said some fail, but that doesn't disprove what I said.

Please try to pay attention if you are going to participate.

Considering that less then 1% of the people in America are rich, that's not a realistic goal.

That is what I have been saying. But it is Cato who would have us believe otherwise.

More Bullshit Ziggy.

Unless of course you can prove that NO ONE has EVER pulled themselves from poverty to riches.

Cato listed many different scenarios so why must you try to confuse the issues by focusing on one?

Now you've joined Cato in that ponzi scheme sort of hype again- somehow suggesting that because someone went from rags to riches, then everyone can. But in actuality many of the rest desperately scramble to not be among that 5 or 6 percent counted, plus another 5 or 10 percent un-counted, who are expected- managed actually- to be absolutely un-employed. And as long as we can pretend that there are more jobs than there are willing workers- but while actually there are more willing workers than there are jobs available- then the race to the bottom is in high gear, while the few fat cats at the top- that one percent you mentioned- are laughing "all the way to the bank".

No, I don't think everyone can reach riches. They have the opportunity more so in America then any other country but not everyone will for numerous reasons.

As for willing workers, I've stated before, any unemployment rate under 5% is not good because ~5% of the population is pretty much worthless and businesses are better off without them. I think anyone that ate in a fast food restaurant during the Bush years when employment was consistently below 5% knows that.

The one thing you never refuted although you had plenty of time yesterday was my statement that the majority being held down are being done so by inane government regulations and the entitlement programs you champion. Why is that Ziggy?

Address that simple fact or move on.

ziggy wrote:

Cato wrote:

ziggy wrote:

SOME people have. But the system is intended to and does operate such that most will not.

So you are saying that the majority of people in this nation cannot and have not achieved on their own? That's pure BS.

That is not what I said, and I believe that you know it isn't what I said.

Using your example of people who have gotten rich, I replied that the system is such that most do not get rich. And for you or anyone else to pretend that everyone can get rich at the same time if they work hard enough is dishonest- especially when the cards are dealt such that some significant percentage of people are not even in the work force.

First of all, that is exactly what you said.

Secondly, there is no gaurentee that everyone is goign to get rich. Additionally, not eveyone will have the drive, desire, or willingness to take the necessary risks to become rich. That is just a fact of life. I have never had the desire or willingness to take risk, so I have spent my life working for someone else. I have everything I need, a home, clothing, food, I can retire whenever I want. I've put three kids through school. My wife and I have planned and saved so we have done quite well. I have no desire for anything else. However, what I am saying that if a person has the desire and the willingness to work hard and take risk, yes they can succeed, while not gaurenteed, they stand a fair chance of becoming wealthy. The only thing that really stands in one's way, outside of their own ambitions, is the bloodsucking parasites in the government.

Having tweaked Ziggy on another thread, I better try and back it up on this thread. I think his fixation on the opinion by many economists that 5% unemployment is as close as we ought to come to full employment is unfortunate for at least a couple reasons: 1) economists who measure unemployment and opine that 5% represents full employment do not/cannot make adjustments that affect working Americans and 2) I believe that they find 3 to 7% of the working population between jobs (frictional employment). To the extent that economists prescribe 5% as a good working number is that 5% is the nexus on a graph where inflation and employment intersect, i.e., employment greater than 5% is deemed inflationary.

The one thing you never refuted although you had plenty of time yesterday was my statement that the majority being held down are being done so by inane government regulations and the entitlement programs you champion. Why is that Ziggy?

I don't have to "refute" it. It is simply a statement of opinion, with which I disagree.

You have yet to tell us why there were more impoverished folks in Lincoln's day than today- in an era WITHOUT the so-called "entitlement" programs you so hate.

I don't have to. That's not part of my discussion.

And you don't refute what I say becasue you can't. You have no idea what people being held down by the government go through and just how hard it is for them to get out from under the governments thumb.

All your doing is spouting tripe you know nothing about.

So again, why there were more impoverished folks in Lincoln's day than today- in an era WITHOUT the so-called "entitlement" programs you so hate?

Well zig it's kinda like before soc security the elderly pretty well got by as best they could.

Often as not moving in with one of the kids.

And before Medicare they went without health care services.

Likewise before unemployment ins. they just did without before FDR.

And before workers comp if you lost a leg or arm in the mines it's just tough.

Luck of the draw.

Not my brother's keeper.

No work, no eat.

And that goes for your parasite kids too.

Now we're all charitable. We let the government take care of our kids.

sodbuster wrote:Well zig it's kinda like before soc security the elderly pretty well got by as best they could.

Often as not moving in with one of the kids.

And before Medicare they went without health care services.

Likewise before unemployment ins. they just did without before FDR.

And before workers comp if you lost a leg or arm in the mines it's just tough.

Luck of the draw.

Not my brother's keeper.

No work, no eat.

And that goes for your parasite kids too.

Please show me where any of that is covered in our Constitution?

Again Ziggy, why do you champion a system that holds people down?

I'm curious Ziggy, what makes one support government give-a-way programs that holds people down? I mean, I can understand one championing the working man but that's not what you’re doing.

Seems to me you want to take the fruits of or collective labors and give it to the poor and oppressed when part of the very reason many of the poor and oppressed are there because of the government.

I don't suppose you can explain any of this, can you?

What was the system that "held people down" in the 19th century?

ohio county wrote:Having tweaked Ziggy on another thread, I better try and back it up on this thread. I think his fixation on the opinion by many economists that 5% unemployment is as close as we ought to come to full employment is unfortunate for at least a couple reasons: 1) economists who measure unemployment and opine that 5% represents full employment do not/cannot make adjustments that affect working Americans and 2) I believe that they find 3 to 7% of the working population between jobs (frictional employment). To the extent that economists prescribe 5% as a good working number is that 5% is the nexus on a graph where inflation and employment intersect, i.e., employment greater than 5% is deemed inflationary.

And so the net effect of all that is what? It is that there are virtually always some percentage of the people who are not at even the bottom rung of the ecomonic ladder, because they are unemployed. But some "nexus on a graph" does not enable health care, nor shelter, nor food on the table, nor clothing for the children of the unemployed.

Ziggy,

Are you telling me you don't know anyone who is chronically unemployed by choice? I could introduce you to several.

If unemployment is always a problem for Americans, than why do so many of our liberal elected officials insist we need immigrants to fill the tasks Americans are unwilling to do?

I love my grandmother. When I was a little girl I was her favorite she always made such a fuss over me. To this day she calls me "Dolly". She is 91 years old and was employed outside the home between 1968 and 1978. That woman has been collecting social security for almost 30 years. She has collected far more than what her and her late husband put in plus interest. Keep in mind my grandfather lived to collect SS for just over 20 years himself. It is insane that Grandma continues to collect SS.

Her adult son lives with her and has been collecting for 8 years himself. He barely fulfilled the requirements for SS eligibility because he spent nearly all of his adult life sponging off other people, the last 25 years primarily my father and their mother.

You find this all perfectly acceptable. I do not.

ziggy wrote:

ohio county wrote:Having tweaked Ziggy on another thread, I better try and back it up on this thread. I think his fixation on the opinion by many economists that 5% unemployment is as close as we ought to come to full employment is unfortunate for at least a couple reasons: 1) economists who measure unemployment and opine that 5% represents full employment do not/cannot make adjustments that affect working Americans and 2) I believe that they find 3 to 7% of the working population between jobs (frictional employment). To the extent that economists prescribe 5% as a good working number is that 5% is the nexus on a graph where inflation and employment intersect, i.e., employment greater than 5% is deemed inflationary.

And so the net effect of all that is what? It is that there are virtually always some percentage of the people who are not at even the bottom rung of the ecomonic ladder, because they are unemployed. But some "nexus on a graph" does not enable health care, nor shelter, nor food on the table, nor clothing for the children of the unemployed.

How is it my job to pay for health care or shelter or food or clothing for them? You have no right to take the fruits of my labor, or of anyone else’s to provide for others because you think it's morally the right thing to do.

You're just as bad as the corporations you whale against for reaping the benefits of their employees. Actually, you’re worse. At least with a corporation, while they are profiting off of the labor of individuals, they're giving them a return of some sort for that labor.

You offer nothing in return to those whose labor your are profiting off of but instead give that profit to others who do not earn the profit in any way, shape or form.

ziggy wrote:What was the system that "held people down" in the 19th century?

That's not what we're discussing Ziggy and I see what you're doing here. And I'm not playing that game simpley because you can't answer my questions. If you want to address poverty in the mid-1800's, I'll do that AFTER you answer my questions.

Perhaps if you or someone close spent some time on Welfare or SSI, you would see how that system holds people down and you might change your view.

As it is, you don't have a clue as to what you're talking about.

None at all.

Are you telling me you don't know anyone who is chronically unemployed by choice? I could introduce you to several.

Sure. I have been unemployed by choice for almost 9 years. And as I am not wanting a job, I should not be counted as among the unemployed I am talking about- nor should others who are voluntarily retired and not in want or need of a wage/salary paying job.

Aaron wrote:

ziggy wrote:What was the system that "held people down" in the 19th century?

That's not what we're discussing Ziggy and I see what you're doing here. And I'm not playing that game simpley because you can't answer my questions. If you want to address poverty in the mid-1800's, I'll do that AFTER you answer my questions.

The question I am asking IS the answer to your question. You claim that the current system has "held people down". I have pointed out that something "held people down" in the 19th century too- in the days before the "entitlement" programs you so hate- that people were then even more impoverished in the days of Lincoln than in the days of Johnson and Carter and Reagan and Clinton and Bush and Obama. So what changed? Why are people overall in America better off economically than they were a century and more ago?

"How is it my job to pay for health care or shelter or food or clothing for them?"

Am I my brother's keeper?

I don't know if you are but I'm sure as hell not and you can't find one constitutional provision that would require me to be.

Remember, we don't live under the communist manifesto; our rule of law is the constitution.

I'm not talking about people in their 50's and 60's who opted to retire early. I'm talking about people who don't want to work period. I have a 39 y/o brother-in-law who (in between stints in jails in WV, OH & IN) had at least 2 dozen employers between the ages of 18 and 35 when he finally quit working altogether.

After 25 years of drinking, smoking, toking and eating himself into oblivion the doctors now say his heart is too damaged for him actually to work and he now collects disability as of 6 months ago. I'll never figure out how he manages to collect a dime. He has fathered at least 4 children by 4 different women, and he was only ever married to one of them and never has paid one red cent in child support. The only one I've ever even laid eyes on is the almost 5 y/o my MIL is raising and supported entirely (along with both her parents and her half sister) the first 55 months of her life.

Now there's a "man" who's collected some unemployment, by golly. He'd work for a few months cutting grass for a landscape company and collect unemployment for 6 months and McDonald's or BK part time when the unemployment ran out for a few weeks (or more often than not just sponge off his mother or the g/f of the month) until he could cut grass in the spring again.

sodbuster wrote:"How is it my job to pay for health care or shelter or food or clothing for them?"

Am I my brother's keeper?

Yes, YOU are as a matter of fact. The responsibility falls to YOU. Not one word is said about you being allowed to proxy you responsbility to the government, nor is anything said about about you reaping the moral benefit from the government extorting (stealing) money from one group to give to another. What I do in benevolence for one in need does not fullfill your personal obligation. You might want to take the time to read and understand the parable of the good samaritan.

Aaron and Stephanie both hit the nail on the head. Aaron's comment is right on point, it is not his responsibility to take ocare of folks you happen to think shoudl be taken care. Stephanie points out that so many aren't need, they are just plain lazy. As I reminded you, the Apostle Paul said if one won't work, neither should they eat.

While I don't mind helping a person the really needs help, I do mind having the fruit of my labor extorted to you can fell all warm and fuzzy inside, because you think by voting theives like Byrd, Rockefeller, mollohan, rahall into office you are excused from opening up your checkbook and buying votes from parasites.