Civics Education in the US

And now a look at ACCUTE WEALTH DISPARITY - from the OECD, here:


Once again, our Top-Man is Uncle Sam.

Were there the will, there'd be the way. That is, upper-income taxation recuperates that difference (between the US and comparable Economies) off the US percentage (at 76%) and spends it on government funding of National "Healthcare and Affordable Tertiary Education"!

 

There's nothing wrong with inequality. People that work hard should be rewarded.

 

I own a small business, work very hard, support my family and others, and make good money.

You live in your mom's basement, produce nothing but complaints, and refuse to pull your own weight.

Yet you think you have a right to use government force to take from me what I've earned and reward yourself with the stolen loot??

That's pretty messed up

 

People who are stupid, lazy, or both, don't deserve the same income as those who are smart and work hard.

 

Goodness, what idiocy!

And, one must suppose you are the single judge of "stupid, lazy or both" and heaven-help anyone contrary to your notions. Just who are YOU to judge anybody else?

Let's leave that to the judges in court - where it's difficult enough.to judge human-behaviour but someone has to do it when it goes wrong.

The fairness of which I write is one measurable in economic terms. So, we are on totally different bandwidths ...

 

That has nothing to do whatsoever with income inequality.

Besides, all the responses so far has been by individuals fixated on personal-qualities. What I am talking about are several levels higher, and are within the functioning of the economy as a whole.

People like you fail to realize that the economy has 329.45 million spokes on its wheel and you are just one of them ...

And there is EVERY REASON to be concerned when that economic-inequality is very largely generated by far too low Upper-income Taxation in America ...

PS: But people like you cannot see that because you are looking at the world through a one-way economic mirror with only YOUR face on it ...

 

Communism doesn't work in case you haven't noticed.

You're historically, socially, and economically illiterate.

 

Thoroughly debunked, not responded to, typical for Complex hacks pushing their favorite lie narrative.

 

They have the self and political awareness of children.

 

If I choose to go to school for many years to become a brain surgeon (and get paid well), should government take a large chunk of my income and give it to someone who chose to drop out of school at 16 years old and work his entire life for $10 per hour?

 

So gold plated urinals at the local government office will change that?

I never got why the left thinks they will get something out of taxing someone.

 

Why? Doesn't that end up implying that to be rich one must be smart, and that to be poor one must be dumb? If that's the case, then isn't poverty just a result of someone being stupid and lazy?

 

Public education helps create American citizens. Public education comes from taxes.

 

In my opinion..... pretty much. My observations tell me that poor, lazy and stupid go hand in hand.

 

How do you know they are correlated that way? Let's take an example. Why do poor people smoke or drink? They shouldn't for all intents and purposes, yet we see them do. Why?

 

That would be where stupid comes into play.

If they were smart enough not to drink or smoke maybe they wouldn't be poor.

 

Can we think of counter examples then? Poor people who don't drink or smoke, yet remain poor? Or rich people who do drink and remain rich?

 

I think there are exceptions to the rule. I might be one of those exceptions. Many who know me would consider me poor and would attribute that my being lazy. Both of those are likely true; I am probably poor and also likely qualify as lazy. What I have on my side is the fact that I am not stupid. I choose to live the way I do, I don't smoke or drink and I have all I need in life.

PS I also pay my own way. I have a retirement income, an excellent medical plan and my home is paid for.

 

Sure there are exceptions to the rule, heck I'm poor but I might be considered kinda smart. But those exceptions don't make the rule sound. We need something more. We need another relationship. If it's the case we can think of counter examples, that shows there are limits to the rule. If so, then why not find a better explanation? Why not poverty causes people to drink and be lazy? What's the point in working hard if at the end of the day you're not going to make enough money? Better to save that energy trying to do things that bring a smile to one's face. Alcohol and drugs are wonderful at doing that.

 

Maybe your perspective is right. I don't know. I always look at the poor people in America and wonder why. I have a couple friends I met many years ago while serving in the military. They are both immigrants to the US; one came legally the other illegally as a child. One made a career of the military and retired at the highest enlisted rank. The other received legal citizenship through serving, used the GI Bill to obtain a BS and is now making a six figure income. On the other hand there are members of my family who are now into the third generation living off the tax payer. But hey, they must be happy with their alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. Given all the opportunity in America, do some people simply choose to be poor?

 

I worry that is the case. Why not be happy with drugs when there is no motivation to be better than they are today. But then again I worry that I might think knowledge is better than living through another day only because I can go home and have a meal. I try not to think lesser of a person by how they live. Maybe, if things didn't go the way they did, I would be someone they consider to be a failure.

I would look up deaths by despair, and see what is causing them. I think you would like to learn more about those.

 

Poverty is usually due to making poor decisions ... dropping out of school, doing drugs, getting pregnant before marriage, etc.

I don’t want my income to pay for someone else’s mistakes.

 

In briefly reading over deaths by despair and diseases of despair, it would seem the despair is caused by a belief that one's social and economic outlook is not great. Why do some believe that? Don't we all have the same or nearly the same opportunity?

Shouldn't the "motivation" be "to be better then they are today"? That is what motivates me.

 

Chicken or the egg? A person raised in poverty will likely be poor when they grow up. Poverty has been linked to performance issues (If you don't have food, you can't focus, more likely to get into fights, make stupid decisions), and I don't think I have to explain that those things will have an adverse affect on life. You may not want your income to pay for someone's mistakes, but those mistakes might be because they're poor and they can't get out.

 

Sometimes. We don't all have the same opportunities based on certain conditions in life. Some are born poor, some rich. Some are going to good schools, others not. Even though we might have some level of equality of access to resources, those resources may not value people, and show their recipients they are valuable in of themselves. In other words, we are motivated by those who believe in us, and we don't always have access to people and institutions that believe in us. But that's a weird conceptual way of phrasing "sometimes people can't believe in themselves, because they can't see themselves as something valuable".

We might be motivated by to do better than we are today, but that only comes with belief that tomorrow can be better than today. Imagine doing something that you want to be good at every day, but it never comes to you. Anyone would doubt themselves and what they're good at. That's good though, because we need to know what we can and can't do, and let go of things that hurt us more. But when there is no option but to keep going, despite it obviously hurting, then that's when despair kicks in. It's a necessary pain that never gets better. So give into the despair and try to salvage some happiness out of it.