[quote]Beowolf wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Sounds like you grew up in a lily-white suburb and have no concept of achievement.
I grew up in a miltary family with a mother who rarly worked beause of the desolate locations my father was stationed at.
A college education doesn’t do one any good if there is no industry to support it. I get you grew up poor–only poor people can act the way you do once they become well off. You did nothing to gain your wealth other than marry correctly.
It just amazes me you forget how hard you had to work and can think that other poor people aren’t in the same shoes now that you were in then.
Think out your posts before letting your anger get the better of you. Your emotions are not an argument; they simply show that you are illogical.
These aren’t may emotions speaking in the least. Is it always the poor persons fault life didn’t go the way it was planned? Please don’t talk about logic. I’ve read many of your posts. I can’t believe for one second you actually teach math.
My wife was NOT wealthy when we were married. We were graduate students. I had no knowledge that her grandfather was so well off. Hell, he gave us $100 as a wedding present and lived like a miser.
I can’t believe for one second you work in a lab, except as a janitor.
You didn’t marry her for her money, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t get lucky.
What if she was poor, do you think you’d be as well off as you are now? Would that be your fault?
[/quote]
She’s a tenured prof at a university and makes pretty good $$$$. We make 6 figures together (easily). So, we’d be pretty well off, but not this well — she gets way more in dividends than my annual salary!
I grew up poor; not starving poor but sometimes having to scounge the couch for food money. My father was crushed by a truck while on the job (not his fault) and the Teamsters fucked him out of his pension with a fine print clause. I shed no tears for James R. Hoffa, that’s for sure.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
And the point about living within one’s means is crucial - how many people claim to “work hard” but just “can’t get ahead” when they think that a flat-screen TV, a new SUV, and $45 haricuts are bare essentials to survival?
[/quote]
I have an advanced degree and I do not own one of those things on your list. (I only paid more than $20 for a haircut once, before my wife and I renewed our vows and she insisted that I treat myself after years of $3 hi-n-tights).
I have to question how complicit media is in brainwashing people to believe a flat screen TV or an SUV is a necessity. We live in an age of commercialization and product placement. I cannot watch 5 minutes of television with out being advertised to and it goes beyond commercials.
Pop culture is all about the newest and biggest product which is why I find myself disgusted most nights in front of the tube. I have to wonder how many people even question the BS that passes as information. Why does my 60 yr-old father-in-law think he needs a state-of-the-art $2000 laptop with all the bells and whistles just so he can check his hotmail account once a month?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I have to question how complicit media is in brainwashing people to believe a flat screen TV or an SUV is a necessity.[/quote]
How is it the media’s fault is someone is stupid enough to believe that? Isn’t anyone ever responsible for their own decisions nowadays?
If you can’t afford an SUV or a 50-inch flat screen TV, but you still go and buy them on credit, how is it anyone’s fault but your own that you’re broke for the next 10 years?
It’s like on those “Credit Repair” specials they have on 20/20 or Dateline. You have people, often entire families, who’s part of the brain that controls use of the credit card is apparently completely disconnected from the part that pays the bill.
They know they’re near bankruptcy, yet they keep spending like there’s no tomorrow. And it’s somehow the credit card company’s fault.
At some point, you have to stop trying to pin the blame on someone else.
[quote]pookie wrote:
At some point, you have to stop trying to pin the blame on someone else.
[/quote]
The blame is ultimately the person who bought something they cannot afford but you know as well as I do people are targeted with advertising…why do you think cigarette advertisers can’t run commercials on TV anymore and are banned from using cartoon likenesses?
I think there is room to share the blame. Marketing is meant to manipulate stupid people. You cannot completely refute that claim. Why else would they use behavioral psychologists to help develop marketing strategies?
You will never see a commercial that asks its potential customers to think before they purchase.
Opportunity doesn’t mean guaranteed success. You can work very hard and still fail.
Exactly. Any free society will have levels of income disparity. There is no equality of result, and no one should try and mandate such an absurdity.
That said, I have no problem with having a system that tries to encourage equal opportunity because naked capitalism can be fairly brutal. But it should be done minimally and always with an eye to create equal opportunity.
And the point about living within one’s means is crucial - how many people claim to “work hard” but just “can’t get ahead” when they think that a flat-screen TV, a new SUV, and $45 haricuts are bare essentials to survival?
Think about any basic household’s entertainment expenses. Then do another accounting.[/quote]
I’m not advocating a complete evening of the social classes. Equal opportunity is inherently unequal, as crazy as that sounds. Some people will fail. Why the hell shouldn’t the lucky ones help the ones who failed out a bit? Why should some live in utter squalor while others live in utter luxury? They shouldn’t be equal, but the poorest should be better off than they are.
In all honesty, I think we’ve done an ok job with it. But Europe has done better. Canada’s done better. Universal health care and MUCH greater consumer protection would be a giant step in the right direction.
I’m not talking socialism, and I think Europe goes a little too far sometimes, but to promote a system that causes the Rich-Poor gap to be so massive, I believe, is just cruel, social-Darwinist, nonsense.
Bill Gates, in my opinion, is another example of a wealthy person having distinct advantages, and becoming wealthier.
[i]
William Henry Gates III made his best decision on October 28, 1955, the night he was born. He chose J.W. Maxwell as his great-grandfather. Maxwell founded Seattle’s National City Bank in 1906. His son, James Willard Maxwell was also a banker and established a million-dollar trust fund for William (Bill) Henry Gates III.
Remind your parents not to send you to public school. Bill Gates went to Lakeside, Seattle’s most exclusive prep school where tuition in 1967 was $5,000 (Harvard tuition that year was $1760). Typical classmates included the McCaw brothers, who sold the cellular phone licenses they obtained from the U.S. Government to AT&T for $11.5 billion in 1994. When the kids there wanted to use a computer, they got their moms to hold a rummage sale and raise $3,000 to buy time on a DEC PDP-10, the same machine used by computer science researchers at Stanford and MIT.
Note: Recall that in the 1980s we venerated Donald Trump and studied his “art of the deal”. If Donald Trump had taken the millions he inherited from his father and put it all into mutual funds, you’d never have had to suffer through one of his books. But he’d be just about as rich today. [/i]
“Those who simper that they see no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip ought to learn the difference on their own hides… as, I think they will.”
— Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
For the sake of controversy rather than belief I’ll throw out the following:
Suppose that the statistical decline in upward mobility may actually be an indication that the US does and has historically had much greater opportunity for upward mobility than others. I think few would argue that intelligence correlates more strongly with financial success than any other intrinsic trait except perhaps- maybe- work ethic. Few would argue that intelligence isn’t influenced strongly by heredity.
So one might suppose that if the barriers restricting opportunity had previously been removed, the population may have generally reordered itself enough towards the direction of a natural equilibrium that social mobility would appear to decline, when in fact the opportunity available to any individual possessing the traits necessary to advance remains strong.
The ever popular social Darwinism…
[/quote]
This is a pretty decent thread that addresses the idea that intelligence has an effect on elevation.
The consensus is that it does not. My experience with the professional world is that the cut throat, lyeing, back stabbing, deceitful, person that kisses the most ass is the one that gets ahead. The smart person that does not kiss ass, and lie is usually the guy doing all the work for less pay.
A quote which I agree with from that thread:
"Intelligence has little to do with becoming a CEO.
CEO’s are less scrupulous, more cutthroat, and better connected than their rivals. "
Maybe, but I`d rather lose in the US or in Europe where 4 cheeseburgers are 4$ and even the public parks are better than the streets of Calcutta.
[/quote]
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
The blame is ultimately the person who bought something they cannot afford but you know as well as I do people are targeted with advertising…why do you think cigarette advertisers can’t run commercials on TV anymore and are banned from using cartoon likenesses?[/quote]
Tobacco company could advertise all they want for all I care. I would agree with not using cartoon characters, or not targeting children, who have not yet developed enough reasoning tools to know that an ad is tailored to show you exactly what it want to show you.
In fact, I’d favor banning ads of any kind targeted at children and letting anyone advertise anything they want to adults.
Stupid people will always be victims, there’s no helping it. “A fool and his money…” and all that. I’m not saying it’s right, but human nature is such that you’ll always have unscrupulous individuals who’ll have no qualms about enriching themselves by exploiting idiots.
I don’t think we should burden everyone with laws that are meant to protect idiots from themselves at all costs.
Shouldn’t that be implied? You can’t really expect Mercedes to advertise its cars and end by saying “A Hyundai will do just as well in 98% of situations and save you $50,000.”
One thing I would strongly support is teaching budgeting and money management in school. I think we could dispense with quite a few rather useless courses and replace them with something that can actually be put to good use once you go on your own.
You could call it “Real Life 101:”
How to establish a budget.
How interest works.
Mortgage calculations
Car loan calculations
Car purchase vs. loan
How to write your CV. (AKA Keep it short.)
How to prepare for a job interview.
How to write letters to companies, employers, congressmen, etc.
I have made a big deal about this in the past, but in all honesty that’s the nature of capitalism.
It’s not about being held down so much as it is lazyness. There are reasons that the conventions like the 9-5 rat race exist- people like it. They might bitch about it, but they secretly like it because if they didn’t, they would change it. Either they are too lazy to take on the workload that is required to advance, or they are too scared or comfortable where they are.
Capitalism rewards risk takers… it can also punish them. That’s the nature of the beast. I’ve seen shit jobs where no matter how hard you work you still get paid and treated like shit. If you stay there you’re an asshole.
Now, I’m not taking into account things like race, because a black man is at an automatic disadvantage- he has to prove he’s not lazy right away, whereas a white guy gets a fair crack. I’m still not sure how I feel about affirmative action… I think a certain amount is needed, but the government may take it to far.
Either way, upward mobility is possible. It takes work and luck, but it is possible. Is it always fair? No. Of course not. But life is so fucking unfair that if the most you can bitch about is how hard it is to get a promotion… well fuck me, you’re pretty well off, eh?
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
I have made a big deal about this in the past, but in all honesty that’s the nature of capitalism.
It’s not about being held down so much as it is lazyness. There are reasons that the conventions like the 9-5 rat race exist- people like it. They might bitch about it, but they secretly like it because if they didn’t, they would change it. Either they are too lazy to take on the workload that is required to advance, or they are too scared or comfortable where they are.
Capitalism rewards risk takers… it can also punish them. That’s the nature of the beast. I’ve seen shit jobs where no matter how hard you work you still get paid and treated like shit. If you stay there you’re an asshole.
Now, I’m not taking into account things like race, because a black man is at an automatic disadvantage- he has to prove he’s not lazy right away, whereas a white guy gets a fair crack. I’m still not sure how I feel about affirmative action… I think a certain amount is needed, but the government may take it to far.
Either way, upward mobility is possible. It takes work and luck, but it is possible. Is it always fair? No. Of course not. But life is so fucking unfair that if the most you can bitch about is how hard it is to get a promotion… well fuck me, you’re pretty well off, eh?[/quote]
[quote]pookie wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
The blame is ultimately the person who bought something they cannot afford but you know as well as I do people are targeted with advertising…why do you think cigarette advertisers can’t run commercials on TV anymore and are banned from using cartoon likenesses?
Tobacco company could advertise all they want for all I care. I would agree with not using cartoon characters, or not targeting children, who have not yet developed enough reasoning tools to know that an ad is tailored to show you exactly what it want to show you.
In fact, I’d favor banning ads of any kind targeted at children and letting anyone advertise anything they want to adults.
I think there is room to share the blame. Marketing is meant to manipulate stupid people. You cannot completely refute that claim. Why else would they use behavioral psychologists to help develop marketing strategies?
Stupid people will always be victims, there’s no helping it. “A fool and his money…” and all that. I’m not saying it’s right, but human nature is such that you’ll always have unscrupulous individuals who’ll have no qualms about enriching themselves by exploiting idiots.
I don’t think we should burden everyone with laws that are meant to protect idiots from themselves at all costs.
You will never see a commercial that asks its potential customers to think before they purchase.
Shouldn’t that be implied? You can’t really expect Mercedes to advertise its cars and end by saying “A Hyundai will do just as well in 98% of situations and save you $50,000.”
One thing I would strongly support is teaching budgeting and money management in school. I think we could dispense with quite a few rather useless courses and replace them with something that can actually be put to good use once you go on your own.
You could call it “Real Life 101:”
How to establish a budget.
How interest works.
Mortgage calculations
Car loan calculations
Car purchase vs. loan
How to write your CV. (AKA Keep it short.)
How to prepare for a job interview.
How to write letters to companies, employers, congressmen, etc.
Retirement planning: Start young!
etc.
[/quote]
Woo Hoo! Good shit here pookie.
I totally agree that such a class is needed in Highschool.
What my parent’s taught me about finances:
My father taught me to win the lottery. My mother taught me to marry a rich man. My statistics class taught me playing the lottery is stupid, my sex drive taught me marrying a rich man will never happen.
we disagree about a budget. I do not think a budget is the answer. I agree spending what you have not earned is a HUGE problem, and poor spending habits in general is a serious problem.
I recently started working at ricedelman.com , and have learned some things about spending.
Ric Edelman recommends creating a spreadsheet of your spending, all of it, and looking at it after several months.
That $3.50 you spend everyday on a cup of coffe, is actually $1,202 bucks a year. That $1,000 a year, invested at 10% for the next 30 years just turned into 300,000.
And so the logic goes. I went to my mom’s house the other day and punched her in the mouth.
I kicked my dad in the nuts the following day.
Fucking highschool drop outs that taught me shit about finances, highschool taught me nothing more, college taught me what re-paying a loan really means.
I had to get a job with a financial advising company to really get a grasp non finances.
Anyhow, spot on post pookie. I am 35 now, and if I knew at 18 what I know now, I would have over a million $ in investments. Colllege at the agae of 18 cost me several grand a year, if I had invested that money instead of paying for college/parking/books/gas/time/effort/ etc… I would be a rich man today, 17 years later.
[quote]Petedacook wrote:
Woo Hoo! Good shit here pookie.
I totally agree that such a class is needed in Highschool.
What my parent’s taught me about finances:
My father taught me to win the lottery. My mother taught me to marry a rich man. My statistics class taught me playing the lottery is stupid, my sex drive taught me marrying a rich man will never happen.[/quote]
Lotteries are a voluntary tax. Having worked at a convenience store for a couple of summers in my youth, I can tell you that the biggest customers of lottery tickets are the poorest people. The less money they had, the more ticket they bought.
Add that to my “Real Life 101” curriculum above:
Lotteries: Taxing ignorance.
You can certainly make do without a budget; but how do you know where your money is going? What’s your biggest discretionary expense? Where could you cut if you needed to save some cash?
It’s a bit like a training log. You don’t need one, but having one enables you to see more easily where some problems might be. A budget is just a tool to help you better manage your money.
[quote]I recently started working at ricedelman.com , and have learned some things about spending.
Ric Edelman recommends creating a spreadsheet of your spending, all of it, and looking at it after several months. [/quote]
Isn’t that called a budget? All it’s missing is a list of all your income (usually a much shorter list than the expenses) and the monthly difference between the two.
Yup. People tend to notice and remember the big expenses, like mortgage payments or car payments… you can’t really cut these out (unless you sell the house or car) but go through the month saying “ah, it’s only a few bucks.”
Bagging a lunch, cutting out the vending machine, smoking and drinking less, etc. All those little things can add up quickly.
The thing is: If you try something new for a month or two, how can tell if it’s working without a budget?
[quote]And so the logic goes. I went to my mom’s house the other day and punched her in the mouth.
I kicked my dad in the nuts the following day.[/quote]
Often, our parents weren’t taught any better than we were, at least at school. I know that here, they give free “money management classes” for adults at the local library. I was lucky that my dad taught me some good basics in dealing with money.
Budget; avoid credit card debt; pay off a loan if the interest is higher than your investments are bringing in; watch out for hidden charges and penalties, etc.
I simply can’t understand how something so basic, so useful for real life is not taught in high school. A vast majority of people will never use trigonometry in their life; yet they spent weeks measuring angles and doing lookups in sine and cosine tables… there is a priority problem somewhere.
[quote]Fucking highschool drop outs that taught me shit about finances, highschool taught me nothing more, college taught me what re-paying a loan really means.
I had to get a job with a financial advising company to really get a grasp non finances.[/quote]
My dad used to say “If you don’t manage your money, it’ll be managed for you.” He meant, of course, that various credit and financing companies would be more than happy to loan me cash and then tell me how much I had to pay them every month. When I was young, I didn’t quite get it. I get it now, though.
We all would be a lot richer if we could go back. Why didn’t I buy Microsoft shares in 1984? I had a paper route when I was a teen and made (for a kid) rather good money. I blew it all on gas money, CDs, going out, etc. Doing it again, I’d still have fun, but I’d make damn sure to put a part of it aside.
Still, realizing that changes are required at 35 is still better than waking up at 60 and realizing that you’ll be depending on the government for your retirement income.
There’s nothing much to be done about past mistakes or missed opportunities, but you can wake up at 40 in a much better situation than you are now.
For the sake of controversy rather than belief I’ll throw out the following:
Suppose that the statistical decline in upward mobility may actually be an indication that the US does and has historically had much greater opportunity for upward mobility than others. I think few would argue that intelligence correlates more strongly with financial success than any other intrinsic trait except perhaps- maybe- work ethic. Few would argue that intelligence isn’t influenced strongly by heredity.
So one might suppose that if the barriers restricting opportunity had previously been removed, the population may have generally reordered itself enough towards the direction of a natural equilibrium that social mobility would appear to decline, when in fact the opportunity available to any individual possessing the traits necessary to advance remains strong.
The ever popular social Darwinism…
This is a pretty decent thread that addresses the idea that intelligence has an effect on elevation.
The consensus is that it does not. My experience with the professional world is that the cut throat, lyeing, back stabbing, deceitful, person that kisses the most ass is the one that gets ahead. The smart person that does not kiss ass, and lie is usually the guy doing all the work for less pay.
A quote which I agree with from that thread:
"Intelligence has little to do with becoming a CEO.
CEO’s are less scrupulous, more cutthroat, and better connected than their rivals. "
[/quote]
Who wants to be a CEO at that kind of level? Just because you will never be CEO of a Fortune 500 company does not mean your life is bad.
The great thing about this country is the middle class lives like kings and even the poor are wealthy enough to be fat and entertained 24/7.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
…a black man is at an automatic disadvantage- he has to prove he’s not lazy right away, whereas a white guy gets a fair crack. …[/quote]
Mr. Spock: “Captain, you almost make me believe in luck.”
Captain Kirk: “Why, Mr. Spock, you almost make me believe in miracles.”
I’ve been VERY lucky in my life, no question. But Money or not, I think of upward mobility in terms of integrity: If you believe in yourself, if you always do what you consider morally right, then it doesn’t matter if you live in a hovel or a mansion. You will be a man.
I’d rather live in some shithole and be an honest, moral individual than be a rich cretin who lost his integrity years ago and doesn’t care. What’s right is right and I would fight to the death for that right even if all I lasted was one minute. To me, that is ‘upward mobility’, to learn the difference between right and wrong and fight for the right.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
I’ve been VERY lucky in my life, no question. But Money or not, I think of upward mobility in terms of integrity: If you believe in yourself, if you always do what you consider morally right, then it doesn’t matter if you live in a hovel or a mansion. You will be a man.[/quote]
A good part of “luck” is seizing opportunities when they arise. I’ve also had “luck” in my career, but I could have decide not to pursue this or that opportunity when they were presented to me.
[quote]pookie wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
I’ve been VERY lucky in my life, no question. But Money or not, I think of upward mobility in terms of integrity: If you believe in yourself, if you always do what you consider morally right, then it doesn’t matter if you live in a hovel or a mansion. You will be a man.
A good part of “luck” is seizing opportunities when they arise. I’ve also had “luck” in my career, but I could have decide not to pursue this or that opportunity when they were presented to me.
I’d rather live in some shithole and be an honest, moral individual than be a rich cretin who lost his integrity years ago and doesn’t care.
Really? Then I’ve got bad news for you man…
[/quote]
Bad news for you too there, big guy: Remember your oath in the Jaws of Satan thread? Your ‘mobility’ might be in another direction, Pookie.
