I understand your post and it's intent interms of job market fluctuation and a lack of zero sum games... but that has little to do with my point... when you have 45% of the country contributing nothing to the tax base and a large portion of that percentage not paying for their own rent/food costs/medical costs/clothing/entertainment and so on, but instead having those costs covered from the overall tax base, then someone else is picking up the bill...
no??
That's why I inserted earlier that maybe it's a region thing/ what we see... because I can assure everyone that in the majority of my area of So Cal... (some other posters live in my very city, forget who exactly, but hopefully they'll see and speak up)... the poor more often than not actively choose to be so and happily live off the backs of the tax payers without comtributing anything, working as a produce clerk for a major food chain and working in education in this area definately proven that to me. This one point has nothing to do with job markets or economic theory.
That's simply the mentality I am referring to in terms of some, like myself, being upset with. This seems more philosphical to me... does your code of ethics say it's our duty to carry the dead weight when the dead weight chooses to be so??... that kind of thing.
This is a really good point that I have thought a lot about; here is why I think there is so much strife when people talk about this issue, and so differing opinions:
1) Since the post-Civil War reconstruction, certain power and authority have pitted one group against another. The Irish versus the African-American longshoreman, all along the Atlantic and Gulf coast is a perfect example. So the minute we look at a different group, there is hatred and suspicion, and a clear image to focus on. Some people call it stereotype.
2) Lying with statistics. These numbers are mindboggling, nearly using your numbers, the bottom 40% of people control 0.2 per cent of the wealth in this country. I understand you are feeling the squeeze, because the top 10% owns almost 80% of the wealth. I have some good money, and I am sure you make good money, but I doubt either of us is in the top 10%.
3) Making you feel included without including you. Another way to look at wealth in American is that there are 400 families’ that have more wealth than the bottom 60% combined. That kind of leaves us out in the dark and cold.
4) All you have to do to fix things is fix the bottom. It's like a tree; you need the shallow roots to be intact for the tree to grow. Big limbs, trunks, leaves, it all doesn't matter. Without the fibrous roots, it is all for naught. That is everywhere in nature, in our bodies, our economy and our society.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polish Leppy 22
Is someone sick because of an unforeseen diesease like cancer? Or did they eat themselves to 400 pounds and get diabetes? Or were they engaging in sexual activity without protection and got an STD? Or did they drink/ smoke themselves to a disease?
Tell me at what point someone else's poor life decisions become my moral/ financial responsibility. You can't.
EPIC...
no seriously... I think this is really teh main divide in all honesty... I know it is for me... Maybe it's what we see regionally, what we see first hand kind of thing... I can't imagine it's the same as So Cal everywhere else when you consider what others are noting here... but here, those that "need" help simply choose to not help themselves.
When you live in a society.
People are either individuals or social beings. People that think they can live on their own without outside help are foolish.
It doesn't even matter whether it is a good society or a bad society.
