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This is true. It goes back to that all-or-nothing thinking that has been brought up in this thread.
No one has 100% control over what happens to them. But almost everyone has some control, and probably more than they're willing to admit.
True.
And a lot of us have even made mistakes but about the only way to pick yourself back up is to actually look at that fact, figure out the role we ourselves had in our misfortune and then make sure we don't keep making the same mistake over and over.
Or even when it really was a matter of bad luck, you have to realize some of that just comes with life and you can either sit there forever feeling sorry for yourself, crying in your beer, or you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.
Reality is going to end up hitting some people pretty hard. They really think that some easy life is just around the corner, that everything is going to magically go back to how they think it once was for everyone in some past they actually never experienced.
They look at people who have paid off houses now, and a 401K plan and a high enough income, but they simply cannot realize that those same people once worked menial jobs, some picked fruit in the summers, some mowed lawns, some worked in factories to put themselves through college. Some were promoted up because of their strong work ethic.
The solution is savings. Once you reach the middle rungs of the income pyramid, it's possible to save/invest a significant part of your income so that you won't be dependent on job your whole life. Of course, the "it's impossible" crowd will insist it's impossible to save, too, no matter how many examples to the contrary are shown. As I said in an earlier post, there are whole blogs dedicated to it.
My grandfather has a plaque going back the Depression.
It said something to this effect.
Prosperity is earning a dollar and needing only 99 cents.
You either have to earn more or need less.
My Grandparents made the Depression very real to a young kid... they never missed a chance to encourage thrift...
Grandma's shopping day started and ended at the Bank... she never had a credit card and believed it would be my fanancial ruin... right along with money in the Stock Market. She always said without cash in hand she didn't buy.
How can I say she was wrong... modest home paid for, no debts and a small nest egg from years of secretarial work... no pension... in fact no one in my family has ever had a pension or paid medical...
Last edited by Ultrarunner; 08-04-2013 at 03:03 PM..
This is objectively false. Most of the bottom 20% take more in taxes than they pay.
Hello? They have a negative effective rate on federal income taxes because welfare-to-workfare put two major assistance programs (the EITC and ACCC) into Form 1040. At the same time the bottom 20% has high positive effective rates on regressive federal payroll and excise taxes and on also regressive state and local taxes. The bottom quintile loses about 16% of its gross income to taxation. For the top quintile, it would be a little over 30%.
Lord Oaktonite. you looking in the mirror again? If you want success in life follow and hang out with the positive people.
Yeah, I actually do that. I direct my own local 501(c)(3) and sit on the board of a larger regional one. This charitable work brings me into regular contact with some of the bigger movers and shakers in what is one of the more prosperous areas of the country. Of course, I already have way more money than I have any need or desire for (thus began all the charity work), so I really don't expect that the company I keep is going to have the sort of effect you seem to think it will.
Yes because like you said in that one post you made is that this is still the land of opportunity.
No, that's still just an advertising slogan. So is shining city on a hill. Toss in with liberty and justice for all, as well. It's all Madison Avenue hype and propaganda that you have fallen for. If you read the fine print, you'll find that next to none of it applies in the real world.
I direct my own local 501(c)(3) and sit on the board of a larger regional one. This charitable work brings me into regular contact with some of the bigger movers and shakers in what is one of the more prosperous areas of the country.
Which is, of course, why you sit on the board, and why you are such a blustering braggadocio about it.
Camus talks about this sort of thing in The Fall, through the more subtle example of tipping his hat to a blind man, and about behavior when nobody is watching. You might enjoy reading it some time . . .
Find it very surprising that young people are making less money now then when I was a kid working. I made more 40 years ago as a young guy then the average working kid does now...Things have gotten worse.
Not a single post on this thread said anything about it being easy.
Would you prefer "obtusely formulaic"? The Bootstrappers arrived as expected and have been spouting off as expected ever since. Nothing new here. Just the same old worn-out fiddle-faddle and folderol.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultrarunner
Also, this thread has been almost devoid of politics.
No mention of dependency-encouraging assistence programs? You must have skipped over a few pages.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultrarunner
If anything, posters shared how they moved up the ladder only to be ridiculed
What's more than legitimately ridiculed is the addled notion that any of these self-seving bloviations is going to be of any use at all to any one or more individuals still sitting in difficult circumstances. "Just do what I did" isn't an answer, and it won't be no matter how many breast-beaters proceed to propose it.
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