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Ah the voice of reason... I really do love the mentality that I've quoted. While there are always people in life who do well, the lion's share don't. When I was 18 - 30, I didn't complain about being poor. I got a factory job, gained experience, and I then applied my experience, mechanical aptitude, and ability to work hard menial labor jobs in a factory as well as three shifts and four crews that involved working every weekend and holiday, and I landed a factory job that paid me 50% more money than my friend's household incomes, which included two breadwinners. I did all that by the time I was 21! I'd have to earn 120,000 a year to have the same buying power that I had back in the 1980s - 1990s. Unfortunately, that job and all like it left the country, so now it's just minimum wage. I've no marketable skills, and quite frankly, This load of rubbish about "gettting yourself marketable" is a myth.
The fact stands, jobs for the average Joe are gone. They left the country. I am a white man. White men used to get good factory jobs because we had a reputation for hard work and reliability. Today, all that's left are pink collar jobs, and with the demographic hole filling, they import blacks into my area because none live here, so when I go to the local warehouse for 8 - 10 an hour, I can't get it. Why? Because it's a gravy job compared to hard factory work and anybody can do it, so I'm competing with women, and they import black and Hispanic people from more than 20 miles away. Once they've filled all their quotas, there aren't many jobs left for white men, and even if I got a job there, I'd still be poor. 8 - 10 an hour... Hey, I left a job like that back in the middle 1980s for one that paid twice that, and we're now in 2013 and talking about 10 bucks an hour? This country's going backwards and meanwhile, the price of most items has doubled or tripled since that time.
I can't wait until this country worsens to the point where "bootstrappers" get the shaft as well! Since 2008, I've been gloating at all the people suffering out there. Now you know just how many of us factory workers felt when our jobs left the country. What cracks me up about this current lot of "bootstrappers" is I bet you're the same lot who used to sit about and complain because us lot of union factory workers made 2 - 4 times the income you college lot did, had better benefits, and then thought it was great when we lost our jobs. The ripple effect will catch up to you as well. I remember some of my former college educated and lazy state government worker friends who told me how it was ridiculous how much money I made.
The bootstrappers past, lazy government workers, and other jealous friends I had 20 - 30 years ago all could have worked the same job I did. However, their excuses were, "I only work dayshift, so swing shift is out, I'm not working in a hot factory, I'm not working in a cold factory, I'm not doing factory work, that's for losers, I'm not working weekends, factory work is too hard, you get too dirty, etc etc etc."
Not everybody is college material, so not everybody can go to college. Moreover, most people that go to college are no better off than if they'd just have gotten what was available. We have an abundance of workers, and not enough work for them. Furthermore, the days of single income families are long over. That ended in the 1970s. Today, it takes two incomes just to make it, which means even more competition for the remaining jobs out there.
When will you insipid lot of self-centered insensitive bootstrappers wake up to what's going on in this country? A lot of the problem with these bootstrappers is that they lack common sense. They couldn't even change a tire on their car, so I guess they don't seem to grasp what's going on all about them.
Signed,
Eating the popcorn and watching your ship sink wondering when you're going to realize that you're on the RMS Titanic.
Again, this is baloney. Just today, I read where the oil fields in North Dakota, automotive plants throughout the south, and the new Airbus factory in Alabama are scrounging for trained qualified workers -- and paying excellent money, too. So I'd advise you to, golly, get busy and find out where to apply.
There are rich people who work hard.
There are rich people who are lazy.
There are poor people who work hard.
There are poor people who are lazy.
and every combination in between.
For a lot of people, it comes down to luck.
Being in the right place, at the right time.
Knowing the right people.
The family they come from.
Etc.
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. -- Seneca.
Oh, to be sure, there's the occasional trust fund baby and the guy who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. But to claim that even a large majority of people are wealthy because of luck just shows that you have never known many wealthy people. The ones I know worked their tails off, were prudent with their money, and took the occasional calculated risks in their careers.
I don't know anyone who just kind of stumbled into it and kept it, for people who come into money out of sheer luck tend to lose it again. The perfect example? 90% of lottery jackpot winners burn through all their cash in five years, 1 in 3 are completely broke. Here all those people needed to do was find a good accountant and lawyer and not blow every dime of it to have an income for life better than 99% of Americans. Instead, they were too stupid and too improvident to actually make intelligent money decisions.
Weird, how I can drive around and see 1st generation immigrants opening up there own business everyday. I have neighbors who moved here from a war torn country and after just three years bought their first home. Couldn't speak our language, yet found jobs in warehouse work and truck driving. I asked them how they did it, when we have some people in our country with their fourth generation on gov assistance. Hard work, and keep their eyes open to opportunities.
I know those guys, too. My neighbor down the street is a Greek who came here in 1967, worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant without knowing a word of English, saved his money, opened a restaurant, opened a second restaurant, and now owns five restaurants. And yet these people have been born in this country, grow up speaking the Mother Tongue, get a free education, and whine, whine, whine all day. It's like they're saying, "We've been sitting here for years and nobody has helped us."
I quit reading this dribble after the first paragraph.
Here's the story of my life - thrown out of home penniless at 16; sexually harassed at my first job but kept working, working, working, left my home country to improve myself, kept working, working, working, met and married a working man, worked some more, had the two children we planned, then he took off and left me holding the babies and the mortgage.
Solution? Got a job, worked, paid him out, kept a roof over my babies heads and food in their mouths, worked, worked some more, built an extention on my house making worth double, working, working, got a great job with good pay, paid for my kids private school alone, working, working, worked even harder, asked for a rise, got bullied, working working, eventually quit after 4 years of underpay/work harrassment, had some sort of PTSD or breakdown or something and now haven't worked for 2 years because I cant remember anything.
All my own fault of course so yes I am a chitty failure as a human being. According to your rules.
I agree I made some terrible choices, not least having children with a dirty deadbeat old man but I did the best I could with what I had, which was what I EARNT. My kids are happy healthy both in uni both drug free so I haven't done too badly. How have your kids turned out?
Can I just ask, did you have a supportive, loving family growing up? or were you an abused and neglected latchkey kid from age 5 like me?
You quit reading after one paragraph because it didn't support your whiny thesis. Actually, my life growing up was nothing like Father's Knows Best. My father was an improvident man with severe emotional challenges who spent every dime he made. When he died, he left my mother with a $10,000 life insurance policy and a closet full of suits. The insurance essentially covered his funeral costs. So I worked two jobs when I left school. One for me and one to support my mother.
You seem to think that you are the only person on the planet who has had to deal with adversity, with crappy jobs, with overbearing bosses, and a host of other obstacles. Hate to break it to you, but no one has a nice smooth, straight path to success. The ones who succeed persevere. The ones who don't blame the world.
Marketers don't like the poor since they can't buy anything, politicians hate the poor since they make no campaign contributions. Many believe the government spends too much on the poor, though actual spending does not support this. And many insist being poor is a choice. Poor-bashing is great sport in America, but ESPN has yet to figure out how to make money off it.
Actually, this is the exact opposite of the truth. All kinds of items from additional telephone services to pay TV to gadgety tennis shoes are marketed to the lowest rungs of the demographic ladder because they are imprudent enough to buy those things. Meanwhile, people who enjoy long-standing wealth do not buy tons of gaudy over-the-top wealth. Yes, they send their kids to private college, but otherwise they spend their money on things that provide lasting value such as real estate. And they invest prudently, too.
Beats not thinking at all. There is not a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow, and there is not a recipe anywhere for how to track one down anywhere else. Blind squirrels find a nut and want to write a book about it. It's pitiful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultrarunner
I'm always approached by total strangers asking me to work for them...
You and the guys hanging out in front of the convenience store. Congratulations to you all!
If he would be the second he would have to offer a better service and or a lower price...People move up and down the ladder all the time.
Yes, it says that right here on page 2 of the Little Golden Book of Free-Market Capitalism. It's not actually true however. More and more in this country people are knocked down and then they simply stay there. They don't have the means or paths to move up anymore. Cleaning company guy was a longshot survivor. His equals and betters failed, and his survival now assures that someone else won't. His is not a path that can be repeated. Telling people just to do whatever he did is a total sham.
Poverty does suck, in that it sucks away at productive citizens tax dollars. You people get free health care, housing, food, phones, tuition, and God knows what else. And you have the gall to complain?
Just wash you hands of THOSE PEOPLE. Don't give them, a second thought.
So you're OK with stealing? Because, by your cryptic non-answer, that appears to be the case?
Are you daft? Stealing doesn't require anyone's approval. Once again, if you leave a desperate person only one option, he will take it. If you view that one option in a negative light, you'd better be taking some steps to assure that there is at least a second option available as well. Did you really need me to walk you through that?
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