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Substitute welfare? Do other forms of welfare have that high a risk factor? I worked at Jack in the Box for many years and never ran over an IED or been shot at by a sniper.
Apparently liberals think that any job (because yes, soldiers do "work") that they don't agree with is welfare.
Student loans. You're telling me someone who is on food stamps can't take out student loans? I'm sure there are grants that a person can try to get when they are in this position.
So you're advocating someone on food stamps to take out a student loan?
I don't know whether you're familiar with how financial aid works. It's 6 years of od enrollment. So if you're enrolled full time, then it is 6 years. If you are enrolled part time, it can take up to 12 years to reach the 150% cap.
Assuming you were in financial need, you could have stopped working and went full time off of grants and loans to finish faster and get into the workforce sooner.
I don't really understand how students get an education part time while working full time.
Financial aid, MFA. My dysfunctional family situation made me ineligible for aid. I was living with lower middle class relatives in NYC, too much income to qualify. They were claiming me as a dependent but not providing financial support; my father paid them for my support but he had legal issues from which he was running, and couldn't claim me as a dependent.
This whacked me just as I was about to graduate; an entry-level IT position went to someone with related experience in a Work-Study job - a campus job for which i was financially ineligible, so I got unrelated experience cleaning toilets and delivering pizzas.
Those people had extraordinary talents. JK Rowling and Richard Branson grew up in a country with a welfare system, they don't support your argument. Your next two guys used the Army and Navy as substitute welfare.
But, by all means, if you think most McDonalds workers could write Harry Potter or do standup, go and ask them why they're not.
It doesn't matter if they have that kind of talent or not. It's about getting off your ass and trying. Having four kids and working at McDonald's for a decade is not trying.
Financial aid, MFA. My dysfunctional family situation made me ineligible for aid. I was living with lower middle class relatives in NYC, too much income to qualify. They were claiming me as a dependent but not providing financial support; my father paid them for my support but he had legal issues from which he was running, and couldn't claim me as a dependent.
This whacked me just as I was about to graduate; an entry-level IT position went to someone with related experience in a Work-Study job - a campus job for which i was financially ineligible, so I got unrelated experience cleaning toilets and delivering pizzas.
Good lord. That ONE job was the only one available to you? So your whole downward spiral of 30 years of cleaning toilets and working fast food stems from that one lost opportunity?
I will repeat - we have very similar stories with regards to college (with the exception that you are a man and actually graduated with a degree), yet our paths split when I realized that you slowly move yourself up the ladder, while you waited for someone to pull you up. I lost quite a few entry-level positions to folks with better resumes as me. But I never once stopped trying to get a better job than my waitressing gig that paid my bills in school.
[quote=ringwise;35970919]Good lord. That ONE job was the only one available to you? So your whole downward spiral of 30 years of cleaning toilets and working fast food stems from that one lost opportunity?
I will repeat - we have very similar stories with regards to college (with the exception that you are a man and actually graduated with a degree), yet our paths split when I realized that you slowly move yourself up the ladder, while you waited for someone to pull you up. I lost quite a few entry-level positions to folks with better resumes as me. But I never once stopped trying to get a better job than my waitressing gig that paid my bills in school.[/quote
That ONE job was the only IT-related job available to me. One of my jobs was as an undergraduate teaching assistant in comp sci, but this particular employer thought more highly of the other candidate's job.
Good lord. That ONE job was the only one available to you? So your whole downward spiral of 30 years of cleaning toilets and working fast food stems from that one lost opportunity?
I will repeat - we have very similar stories with regards to college (with the exception that you are a man and actually graduated with a degree), yet our paths split when I realized that you slowly move yourself up the ladder, while you waited for someone to pull you up. I lost quite a few entry-level positions to folks with better resumes as me. But I never once stopped trying to get a better job than my waitressing gig that paid my bills in school.[/quote
That ONE job was the only IT-related job available to me. One of my jobs was as an undergraduate teaching assistant in comp sci, but this particular employer thought more highly of the other candidate's job.
The only one. Only. One. In the entire area (not to mention country).
So because an employer felt the other candidate was more qualified (it had nothing to do with what they "thought" of anyone), you stopped looking and started cleaning toilets.
What you are implying is that these people succeeded purely because of hard work.
That there was no luck, no unusual merits and no unusual advantages involved in the success of these people.
That a person with no lucky break, no exceptional talents, and no socioeconomic advantages will succeed purely through their hard work. That is why people keep pointing out that each and every one of your examples involves some exceptional talent, lucky break, or pre-existing socioeconomic advantage. You cannot and will not succeed from hard work alone, and anyone selling that story is making money off the hard work of others.
Yes lots of luck. Let me give you a definition of what luck is. Luck is when opportunity meets preperation. My brother was lucky when he was able to purchase his business. He had been working there and had known one thing that the owners had planned on closing the business. That meant he would be out of a job. My brother, that by the way is a high school drop out, went in with the idea of running the business for them. He got the idea to ask them to buy the business first, just on a lark. He had nothing to finance the business with. It turns out that they were willing to sell it to him and they would finance the purchase. It helped them out as they would not have to move much from the office. That was in 2007 and the business was a forclosure business that handles the paperwork for lenders, banks, and those holding notes on real estate. At the time he bought it they were doing 3 or 4 forclosures a month. By the next year it had grown into 15 or 20 a month. Its a cyclical business so you can imagine now that things have changed in real estate his business is down somewhat. Not to worry as he did what the former owners did and prepared for the next step in that cycle. To say the least, he is doing very well. He was lucky, he was prepared, and he had an opportunity that fell in his lap. He also knew the business as he had worked there for some time.
Yes hard work. Most people are not willing to put the time in to do what they need to do to succeed. The story is of a girl that was working at a McDonalds. I read another story of a girl that was working at a Denny's. She wanted a car and her mom, who also worked at Denny's could not ever afford to get her a car. This girl started working at Denny's when she was 16 years old. She learned that business from the ground up. Some how she found out that Denny's owned another couple chains and had a couple very low performing locations. She was able at a very young age to get a job running one of those locations. She ended up taking it over as an owner and did very well for herself. She decided to find other low performing locations and turn them around. Because she was young she did not know that banks would not lend to her. She ended up going to 60 banks till she found one that would give her the money to buy the location. She is now Denny's largest franchisee. Not largest woman franchisee, largest of anyone. She owns over 75 locations. She had no more talent than anyone else. She had no connections that did this for her. Most people did not take her serious. She was just a girl being raised by a single mom and it all started with a goal of making money to buy a car.
No you do not need any talent or special break's or even know anyone to make it in life. We have a family in town that are close to my family. They showed up here on our shores from Laos. They were the boat people of the 80's I think. They had nothing when they got here. no contacts and a language barrier. No jobs, no security, nothing. They started selling stuff they made to make money to survive. Then when they had saved some money up they rented a small store and started selling everything out of it. It was one of the first dollar type stores in our area. Junky if you ask me, but it worked for them. They lived in the store and worked from 6am till 11pm seven days a week. That store turned into another store. Eventually the entire family had stores. Two of the sisters started a nail salon. Now all of them own homes in the area. They have built other business's. All they had was hard work and the need to survive.
People succeed because they can and know that anyone can do the same. I have seen this time and time again. No one keeps you from making it in life other than yourself.
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