Millionaires, Billionaires Own 79% of America's Wealth

So no sex unless you are 25 and in a stable career. That makes perfect sense!

Children are impacted by those life choices

Plenty of people (adults) have no family or have family but they are not an option. This isn’t an “exception”. What an absurd retort. I would say the the same “you’ve lose the argument” by ignoring examples but you didn’t have one to begin with.

Some people don’t have vehicles, so they would have to purchase one.
Some are limited to locations for work or to care for family members.
Some are already living in cheaper locations.

Everything isn’t black and white.

 

1) If that's your preferred method of avoiding children you can't afford, have at it. There are many options. People will choose what suits them.

2) CHILDREN are not making the decisions, adults are. Comes back to freely made choices, which is what this is all about.

3) Very few people have zero relatives, actually. It's up to us to preserve relationships, by being first and foremost a stable and reliable family unit, so that we may be of use to others in their time of need. And secondly by ourselves (as the person in need) being an honourable and good person, who's maintained relationships with those we might need one day. Even the poorest people can follow these very basic life 'rules'. If people choose not to, then they suffer the consequences themselves, or their 'down on their luck' relatives suffer for not having access to reliable support. Again, it's choices.

4) Why would they have to purchase a vehicle? Hire a dude with a truck. And no point saying people can't afford that .. unless the people you're talking about have demonstrated that even with a couple of years of strict frugality (not a cent spent on things like fast food or entertainment or recreational purchases or 'convenience foods' or bad habits etc), they couldn't save a couple of thousand to fund a move.

5) Yes, it is black and white. You either choose to do the hard yards of very disciplined financial management (which is even more important when you're poor), or you don't.

 

In the US, the increasing of human misery and assault on constitutional governance and the rule of law has been very much a bipartisan effort.

 

Nothing but excuses to justify murder if there is a will there is a way.

 

Adoption is always a choice. Prevention is an even better choice. While contraception always has a possibility of failure, nothing is more sure than not using it at all.

Knowledge. Information. Choices. No one holds a gun to people's head to go to a fast food place, rather than the produce department, or even growing their own when in season to supplement what they can afford to buy. Kids can influence choices by whining, but it is ultimately the parent that makes the final choice. If Junior doesn't like what's put on his plate, he will learn that hunger is no fun either.

Roommates. There are programs to assist with housing for those who need it. Ever share an apartment with 4 non-related people? I have.

Car pooling, ride sharing, public transportation.

No, not everything is black and white, but not everything is gray either. Adapt, improvise, make do.

There are too many people who just throw their hands up in despair instead of finding a way to make it work.

 

ahh... zero sum economics.

The lifeblood of the communist fallacy.

 

For ****s sake.

What is so difficult for some of you to understand about zero sum.

Our economy is quite literally NOTHING like the game of monopoly. We are in a constant state of creating more boards with more properties. There is not a set amount of wealth, that is a fallacy.

Please, I am begging some of you, please educate yourselves on the fallacy of zero sum economics. Your entire position is based on falsity.

 

sigh.


Our education system has failed us.

 

In fact he still doesn't own any sides of the original board. He created a whole new street on the board and owns it.

The idea of an online marketplace didn't even exist 40 years ago. At that time, there were zero dollars on the monopoly board for "online marketplace". He did buy or take anybodies property on the monopoly board... he create a brand new one. Call it "Bezos Place". And then, he grew that into an entire street of new monopoly properties.

The United States GDP is not the same as it was in 1800, and not just because of inflation. It is MUCH larger due to economic development, new products and services, and new real property.

In monopoly, there is a set amount of money, $1,500 for each player, to fight over total GDP of the board. It's all stagnant. There is no ability to either gain, nor lose, value.

In reality, new wealth is created daily. Basically, printing new monopoly money and putting it into the bank, and then into these new properties and new streets. This isn't inflation as that money is represented by assets.

In order for Jeff Bezos to create a new street in Monopoly, nobody else on the board lost money.

I am astounded by the number of people that support the idea of zero sum economics.... it simply doesn't exist in our economy.

 

This is misleading. How many small businesses have closed due to the likes of Walmart and Amazon?

 

You and crank buy the argument that humans are always rational and only rational when the reality is that this macho concept is one of the most destructive the West has lived under the last few hundred years. Human beings also have feelings and all sorts of things can interfere with their ability to be able to take the smallest amount of money and create a healthy meal - like being in that state might cause sufficient depression which interferes with the ability to think. The only people who only use head are Psychopaths. How we are living at the moment is psychologically unhealthy created by people who are incapable ot empathy - the psychopath. Time to bring them down.

 

Not misleading at all.

Unlike monopoly, people don't randomly roll to see what they have to pay. Our system is voluntary. Meaning, people intentionally take their dollars to his street instead of other existing properties.

Thats actually the opposite of monopoly and is free enterprise. Capitalism.

None of that changes the fact that the idea that we have a zero sum economy is completely inaccurate, and to be honest probably the foremost fallacy that exists in liberal land.

 

and have been closed or will be closed due to Covid when Bezos made - I canot remember the exact amount but I think it was billions - all due to lockdown. He apparently 'earns' about the same in a minute as the average worker earns in a year.

 

Aye, a very admirable chap he is. Sends his minions to sneakily interview people who are selling something he thinks is good - to get enough info so that he can make the Amazon model.

 

Thank you!

Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of people die each year for lack of reasonable medical care.

 

You said nobody lost when Amazon came along. That is untrue. I'm not speaking about the Monopoly analogy.

 

It is ironic that Sears was once a giant selling items you couldn't get anywhere else through the mail is going out of business while Amazon is selling the same crap you can get anywhere through the mail and is thriving.

It doesn't matter how big or small your business is, those that do not adapt to changing times are destined for extinction.

 

I can't speak for Crank, but those who cannot think rationally, I have a modicum of empathy for. That doesn't mean I should be responsible for supporting them.

I have not only been behind the right ball, I was in the negative zone up to my eyebrows. I lived on cream of chicken or mushroom soup over rice for over a year until I could get things moving in the right direction. 30 years later, my luxury is an actual box of Kleenex to blow my nose instead of TP. I didn't ask for other people to support me, I didn't apply for or use assistance programs, though I likely should have.

 

The reality is that people are not rational most of the time. That is human beings. Neo Liberalism is built on this premise and it just is not true. In addition it is a sick mentality and came from the sickness of the people who invented Neo Liberalism. That is their view of human beings. Milton Freidman believed we were all selfish people thinking only for ourselves. While I admit it sometimes appears that that is how people are here, that is a psychologically sick view. I am not sure what you are meaning by having a modicum of empathy but not supporting, comes from. If you have empathy you understand, can feel for another person in their situation. Generally speaking if you can understand you want to support. This is a very serious problem but I think it is what has been created by neo liberalism a system which deliberally took from the poor and gave to the rich. The poorest people in the US now in real terms have less than they had in the 70's. The next group has much the same, the next a tiny amount more and only the top 20% have secured a definate improvement in the standard of living with almost all of that being to the top 1%

People can be sick. I was watching in a program on homelessness in the US a man who had worked as an accountant till he had heart problems. He is now living in a camper van and he is not alone. It quite simply is not possible to be rational all the time. We are a lot more than head and all that is best in us is there too. When Carl Jung visited the States he was talking to some Indians and they told him they thought the white man was mad. Jung asked why? The Indian said they say 'they think with their heads'. Jung was puzzled and asked what they thought with. The Indian pointed to his heart. Jung said at that moment he thought of Western Civilisation in a completely new way.

That sounds as if it has been hard for you. I do not believe you deserved this and I am sorry that you experienced it and that you now feel other people should suffer like you did if they do not get things together. It is very hard. I suspect you think like this for one of two reasons. Either you have heard all the stuff about the American Dream which everyone can get it they are only prepared to work - something which has led to a massive increase in suicide and serious drink and drug problems among white working class middle aged American's who are not able to do this and blame themselves. The other reason you may feel like this is because it has been so hard for you you do not think it should be easier for others. Clearly you would not be expected to support others in need when your money is needed just to take care of your basic needs.

I am glad you managed to save yourself from the worst and can feel happy just to have a box of Kleanex. I would say however you deserved better being prepared to work and living in the richest country in the world - though I can understand you may not like to think that way now.

 

the only way America survives is if there is a strong and large middle class.

if all we have is very few rich and the rest are poor, America will die.

basically right now the Middle Class+ Rich make up 16% of the USA.

everybody else is in poverty, poor, or barely hanging on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Social_class

 

The psychopath is the one who thinks there are enough resources on earth to adequately feed and house seven billion .. and accommodate their "feelings". Somehow, magically, there is enough spare time and spare resources on earth to stop and consider the backstory of seven billion before carefully tailoring a comfortable life for each of them. That is actually beyond psychopathic, in reality. It's deep DEEP delusion. Positively infantile in its entitlement, and completely disconnected to reality.

More importantly, pursuing that kind of delusional agenda costs millions shelter and food, AND disables those who don't actually need it. When you convince already well fed and safe people that the slightest little thing is an excuse to sit down and wait for someone else to do all the work on their behalf, that's exactly what they'll do.

The finite resources of our small and very crowded planet mean that food and shelter are the priority. If you're not focused on that, you are not interested in the welfare of humanity. Need dictates that adults take care of their own 'feelings', and keep functioning. That's how it works in nature (because it's the only way any given species can survive), and humans are no exception.

 

Shh you are giving yourself away. A psychopath is a person who probably because at some time they have been harmed to a level they cannot deal with shuts their feeling self down. This happens unconsciously. Because they are incapable of feeling they cannot feel empathy. Now feeling is not the same as emotions. Emotions are generally reactions to something. Sometimes they are appropriate to the situation. Other times they are a reaction to something which happened a long time ago being unconsciously replayed. Psychopaths can still have emotions. You appear to want to be calling possible emotions 'feelings'. You would appear to know nothing about them.

 

I agree. People do adapt. That wasn't my point. Carry on.

 

Not a reasonable reply to my post, but thanks for the green light to carry on.

Interesting. What you are describing is California. Democrats enjoy a super majority in CA.

 

What’s so ironic is the same people will advocate for the Ponzi scheme of welfare programs that require compound creation of wealth to remain solvent.