Being Poor is NOT a virtue!

I just don't understand how this type of comment seeks to elevate the debate in any way.

 

Actually, I got two kids. We're working on a 3rd. After 2 boys, she wants to have a girl.

 

Saintmicheal, your right on the money.

We have somehow turned poor people into being victims. It's not good.

 

I'm actually not pro-big government (it shouldn't be necessary, ideally), but this is just a wishy washy hogwashy string of words that you put together out of the blue without any critical reasoning behind it.

No offense.

 

Planning(frugality, saving, living debtfree) to be self-reliant is not a liberal value, I'm not surprised at your inability to understand it.

 

Frugality, saving, and trying to live as debtfree as possible are obviously smart things and benevolent things to do IMHO.

However, you miss the problem: what if there are so few jobs available that you have millions of people not having any source of income to even save with or be frugal about?

 

You are to be commended in every way, KSigMason.

God bless you!

My wife and I too have worked for everything we have. Her parents and my parents left us two small fortunes when each of them died, but we had worked hard and saved and made our own small fortune by the time this happened. To this day we remain very frugal and plan to leave the money we have saved to our children and to a trust fund for disadvantaged children who have demonstrated a good work ethic and are willing to work hard and accomplish something very positive with their lives.

These vaules are much more important and will do a lot more good than any material possessions we could possibly purchase and share ony with ourselves!

James Cessna

 

IndridCold, if people would stay in school, get a good education and work hard every day, they too would become very successful. But too many people today would rather take the "easy" way out, and then they "moan and groan" and complain because other people, the "wealth creators", who have worked hard all their lives, have so much more than they do! Sad ... Very Sad. These people have no one to blame for their misfortunes but themselves.

The follolwing chart clearly bears this fact out.



The unemployment rate among most college graduates today is less that 5%. Among people with a professional degree it is less than 2.5%. The "average" salaries of these people range from $54,000 to $80,600 per year.

Data are 2010 annual averages for persons age 25 and over. Earnings are for full-time wage and salary workers. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey.

 

You work harder than the guys around you. You produce better results. Once jobless, you look for anything, could be two part-time jobs. As a small business owner, I have road the rollercoaster the last 4 years, I have consistantly saved during this period with no fret.

If push comes to shove, you live with family, friends, a shelter or tent. People used to hunt and fish, get good at it.

Most people that want to be employed, usually are employed most of their lives. Living frugaly and debtree and saving consistantly, shelters one from hardships.

You either want to be independent and do the things it takes to be so, or you act like the cattle around you and moan when trouble comes.

 

Ok but:

1. what if school (especially college) is so expensive that the Big Man's children can afford it, but the common man's children can't? And,

2. frankly, I've come to the belief that education, whether public or private, is a scam these days. They force you, in both private and public institutions, to not only pay exorbitant fees but to take classes that will NEVER help you with your chosen career major (in my case mechanical engineering) in any way, shape or form.

What should happen is, companies actually *gasp* training their potential employees. Perhaps if they were made to do this themselves, they'd have a reason to educate these students in the most efficient way possible instead of relying on purposely inefficient rip off institutions that try to prolong your stay as much as unnecessarily possible in order to grub the most dough out of you as possible.

Badda bing badda boom!

 

Ultimately, with Coporatism and automation destroying the demand for human labor and well frankly, overpopulation racking humanity, it will become harder and harder for even the most dedicated people to ever find jobs.

In fact, at this pace, these problems will make it so that millions of people, people who are dedicated and hard-working, are starving and dying on the streets.

A huge question is this: what if automation makes it so that there simply aren't that many human-performed jobs needed in order to run society smoothly?

If a much smaller number of jobs are even required for society to operate (due to machines doing what humans once were needed to do), why should everyone have a job?

The reality is that if automation destroys the demand for human labor, that means that human labor is less needed. In that case it's not as though people who want to use their labor to perform a job, even have access to doing so, and in fact, such would be unnecessary and superfluous.

 

To some extent I agree, because in many public institutions, anyone and everyone can get accepted to college. That creates artificially high demand for college degrees. I know of MANY people who got hogwash degrees in things like art, philosophy, political "science" and psychology who will NEVER ever use said degrees for anything, and had to pay a great deal of money for them!

On the other hand, why are private colleges so much more expensive than public ones?

 

Good luck finding a machine to do my job (building and reupholstering furniture).

There will always be maintenance and things machines cannot do. Try finding a machine to be a nurse, fireman, policeman, electrician, heating and air, furniture builder, fisherman, food preparer, machine operator, Doctor, grocery stocker, oil field worker, engineer, architect, mason, sheetrocker, roofer, lawn keeper etc. etc..

The free market will always have things to do.

 

The simple but bold question is though, will it have enough to do?

 

And to emphasize my deep down point about this, what if there were robots with artificial intelligence that made them so realistically human-acting that they could do all of these things that you mention, only much more efficiently than humans?

Consider this: what if the above mentioned were to make it so that barely any human had a job? That way barely anyone could afford the services of said robots? Then there'd be no point in the robots existing in the first place!!

Do you not see how automating human labor as much as possible is really self-destroying in a society?

 

Is this like Obama decrying the ATM machines in the airporte, whining about how many tellers' jobs were replaced by them? Industries change and our response shouldn't be buggy whip bailouts. Some jobs are phased out of existence while others open up. We don't have full service gas stations anymore, but we do have internet website developers. When some doors close, others open. It's called the free market, something that will always mystify the Left in its uncanny ability to function on its own without cohersion.

 

So if 99.9% of jobs were replaced by robots that could act and even look human due to artificial intelligence etc., such that 999 out of 1,000 people were starving, would you like that?

Straight up question

 

Your hypothetical question is nonsense. I base my discussions on reality as it is right now. You can save your IROBOT fears for a science fiction forum.

 

No ducking allowed!! lol. It shows a very valid point. If that happened, would you be happy about it? Do you think that's what we should strive for?

It's certainly feasible. Electric impulses travel far faster than ionic charge impulses that human brain cells communicate by; why couldn't electric circuits be designed in ways that could imitate human intelligence, social behavior, empathy, emotions, etc., only way more effectively? Same applies to anything humans are able to physically do with their bodies.

 

I don't often find myself agreeing with you, but on this I think you are right. But there is a famous political scientist by the name of Joseph Schumpeter, who coined the term "creative destruction" to describe what you are saying. Here is a link if you want to read more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schumpeter.

 

It's a good read, thanks for the source. I think that Schumpeter correctly seizes upon the conflict within capitalism between the entreprenurial spirit that gives rise to industry and the resulting corporatism that stifles the entreprenuer spirit. Anti trust laws enacted in the early 20th century were in response to businesses using their success as clout to shut out competition. They formed monopolies and worked in tandem with politicians to insulate their business model from market forces. Having succeeded at capitalism, they now engage in the task of protecting themselves from it.

This conflict within the private sector gets all too little attention as too many people on the Left and Right fail to distinguish between true, entreprenurial capitalism and crony capitalism. Although we have some laws that protect smaller businesses, the laws get funded and written by large insurance companies, banks, and developers which queers the playing field in favor of corporate giants. A prime example is the Federal Reserve which by all rights shouldn't exist. But because it does, every bank is bound by its manipulations on currency and small, independent banks are often crushed mercilessly out of existence.

And more frighteningly, businesses today are forming unholy alliances with government. GM and GE, Fanny and Freddie are prime examples of this. At this level, capitalism is out the window and the game is all about power and control. When government controls the levers of business and business the levers of government, true capitalism is at an end and a socialist state takes over. I'll be honest with you. I've never heard of Joseph Schumpeter before, but his theories are right on the mark and are fast becoming a fulfilled prophesy.

Thank you again.

 

I have two questions then:

1. under a "free" market, would "entreprenurial" capitalism and "crony" capitalism both be perfectly allowable? And,

2. is this to mean that a larger number of smaller businesses is better than a smaller number of larger, more dominating businesses?

 

Of course not. Government favoritism is the antithesis to capitalism and free markets. Opposition to crony capitalism is one of the main tenets of libertarian free market philosophy.

What's "better" will simply be determined by the market, which is just another name for the aggregation of mutually consenting individuals transacting freely with one another. It's all about maximizing choices and decentralizing power.

 

Okay.

What's favored by a voluntary market =/= "better". The reality of legal rip off artistry, snake oil salesmen etc. would make it so that people are taken advantage of often.