As an increasingly leftist democratic socialist bleeding heart, who has studied economic theory thoroughly over three decades, I don’t see Marxism in the rant you posted in the OP.
Well, Chico maybe. But not Karl. Not even Groucho.
Depends on what you mean by “rich”, but -
Cite.
Coming from a stable family, going to a good high school, and getting a university degree are not the determining factors for becoming rich. Coming from a broken or never-formed family and dropping out of high school correlate with being poor, but that is not the same thing.
I will leave it up to you to show that rich people in America graduated only from top level universities.
A tip for the future - saying “this is my opinion” doesn’t achieve much. Especially when your opinion is based on things that are wildly wrong- that the Panama Canal was available in the 19th century, that J.P. Morgan made his money in the West, that it is a bad thing to create jobs, etc.
Regards,
Shodan
Some people protest so they can fix a problem. Other people protest so they can say “Look at me! I’m protesting! I’m special!”
One way to tell which group a protester is in is to check to see if they jump from cause to cause. People who do that usually don’t care about the actual causes; they’re just out there because they enjoy the act of protesting.
Having one million dollars in assets doesn’t make you rich in the modern economy. It generally means you have a five figure income and you own a nice house.
That was pretty funny. Believe me, I do have Marxist ideals, well actually you’d have to say that I’m strongly biased to the left and that the 100 to 200 pages I’ve read from Marx seemed to make a lot of sense to me. The parts where he lays out the ideas capital, wage labor, etc. I haven’t read any of his later works on how to implement communism.
Or, we can add sublimation (fancy word)
I feel frustrated and put upon and down and out in my own life. So, when I hear that the employee’s at the local McDonalds are picketing to form a Union, I go and join the picket line. Not a bad thing to do, no it’s not it’s a good thing to do. But at least be honest and say part of the reason I’m there is my life sucks too and I want to hold a picket sign and yell and stamp my foot…
:shrugs: It puts you in the top 10% in the US.
I look forward to you coming into the next debate on tax policy to say that millionaires aren’t rich.
Regards,
Shodan
So you get your economic ideas from the first 200 pages of Marx, and movie reviews.
Have fun picketing at McDonald’s. Make sure you take your shoes off before you protest in the bin full of plastic balls.
Regards,
Shodan
1- I can see that you are trying to make some valid points here. I’d like to talk about them.
2- I’ve had 0 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours so If I mess up and forget to say something like “look folks, this long paragraph is about the late 1800’s but I am using it as a general example of anti-capitalist ideas I agree with” well I’m not trying to be evasive or move goal posts I’m just really tired and it relaxes me to come here instead of looking out the window and worrying…
3- I will try to be specific in my comments and responses to you.
I completely accept the idea that Sixty-seven percent of high-net-worth Americans are self-made millionaires, according to the survey. Only 8 percent inherited their wealth. We are talking about people who own and run companies, basically, is that what we mean. If not a company per se then some type of (highly valued) service?
I believe that. The type of person to do that, their drive, their ambition, their creativity, their work ethic, it almost seems self explanatory how all that would fit into becoming a self made (multi) Millionaire. That type of person, I would presume, would excel regardless of their back ground and whatever help they did or didn’t get.
That type of person I admire. That type of person is a hero and deserves whatever success they get, financial or otherwise.
I’m attempting to agree with you here. I hope that is obvious. If I overlooked or exaggerated any point please tell me.
1-Ok, what then are the determining factors?
2- Are you saying just because you have a stable family, go to a good high school, and go to a good university that: That is not a guarantee to getting rich, you can get rich other ways and you can also have those benefits and not be rich?
3- Have I misstated or overlooked anything here?
Ok, are you saying those problems can contribute to a person having difficulty academically and in the job world but they don’t — have to — be an automatic gaurentee you will fail? A person can still work and rise above it? Is that what you meant?
So, here is my question, in broad terms, not to be evasive (with hold my opinion) or to be to direct on the other hand and say, you must answer this!!! Ok… so in broad terms do you accept the idea of privilege, in this case that a kid raised in the projects or the trailer park is going to have it easier than a kid raised in an affluent suburb. Can you accept that idea, on broad terms, or, not to be rude, do you think calling something like that “privilege” is a biased leftist term, or maybe you disagree on some other grounds.
Why did you feel it necessary to say that?
Sorry!!! I’m tired. I thought you said have fun — working — at McDonalds.
If you actually own the house, then yes, I think most people would be considered you to be rich. If you simply live in a house worth a million bucks, but the bank actually owns the house, then maybe not, depending on how big your mortgage is. The latter situation applies to many people in the area I live in NorCal. $1M gets you a pretty average house around here, but few people actually own the house they live in.
I’m not trying to derail the thread, just pass along an interesting comment
I’ve heard it said you’re not “rich” unless you can not work another day in your life and their is no major change in your lifestyle. In other words, a Thoracic Surgeon can’t just quit going to work… bills to pay… months or a couple years later he will be (1)broke or (2)living in a small apartment. The guy that sold YouTube for $150 million never has to “work” another day in his life. He is rich.
So your opinion seems to be, “Some people have more money than me and that’s not fair. They should give me money so I don’t have to work to make them richer.”
Yeah, except for the fact that I actually have lots and lots and lots of money. Sitting in a trust fund. And, no, my life is not extravagant. My car is 15 years old, all the pots and pans we have in the kitchen come from wal mart, My blue jeans cost 25 dollars not 100. I don’t have a lot of money to spend now but I know I have it waiting on me.
No problem.
The point of the cite was to indicate that most rich people are self-made, and that their riches are not something they received without effort on their part. If you now agree with that, good.
Yes, that is what I am saying.
If you want to talk about the determining factors for getting rich in America, I recommend a book called (IIRC) The Millionaire Next Door. The short answer is that millionaires get that way by working in a well paid job, living on less than they earn, and investing for the long run. Most of them graduate from university, don’t get divorced as much as most people, and don’t live a very high-impact lifestyle.
Yes.
Yes, of course there is such a thing as “privilege”. A child raised in a stable, two-parent home, by people who value education and hard work and delayed gratification, is at a huge advantage over a child raised by a single mother on welfare.
But I do not call being raised responsibly as a “privilege”. That’s what I call “basic”.
The undoubted fact that a lot of people fail at this basic set of tasks does not mean that it ought to be abandoned as the standard. We don’t need to blame the children for the failures of their parent(s). We also don’t need to blame the children of the rest for the success of their parents.
We give a test to a set of students. 15% of them get an F, 10% get an A, and the rest get B’s or C’s or D’s. I would bet that more of the A students come from intact families where the parents make darn sure their kids do their homework. You can call that “privilege” if you like - but a “privilege” that most people can get with some work isn’t much of an injustice.
Obviously there are going to be people who fail thru no fault of their own. But that number is IMO quite a bit smaller than the number of people who fail overall.
It all depends on luck - and the harder you work, the luckier you tend to be.
Tend. I didn’t say it was guaranteed. YMMV, but it’s odd how often it doesn’t.
Regards,
Shodan
I’ve never read that book. My father has. Is it by the same author as Rich Dad, Poor Dad? As for me, I don’t save any money but I don’t have any debt, my credit card is in perfect order, and my wants/needs are reasonable. I don’t go to strip clubs or buy drugs and when I go out of town if I’m traveling by myself I stay at Motel 6.
— I deleted the other comments because we are more or less agreeing on a mutual set of terms and concepts to discuss ----
1- OK, so, totally at random and hampered buy my lack of knowledge of the world of Finance. — Self made riches — Ok, a top level executive, not a VP but one step down from that, is that person “self made”.
2- A situation I do know about. My Father is “self made” because he rose to the top of his field, top 3%. Not the top 3% of his company but the top 3% stacked against everyone else in the USA that does his specific Job. (True, not bragging). My Father is a Veterinarian and would work with the research groups doing animal research, he was in charge of anything and everything that specifically dealt with the animal in the case study. Sorry to go on, here is my point. My dad had side jobs too, consulting work, between 3 and 5 jobs at a time depending on circumstance.
All my dad had to do was go inspect the animal(s) in the cage, check their medicines, and call the MD or PhD if necessary but 90% of the time everything was fine. (I used to go with him on some of his visits). My point finally: My dad made the same amount of money working 4 hours, one day a month, 12 months a year… he made as much in that brief period of time as the cage washer did who was there 4 whole weeks a month. I think this is perfectly clear but in case it is not. My dad made $30K a year on average with these half day side jobs and that is as much as the cage washer made in a whole year, $30K.
Now, my dad is self made, best in the country at what he does, and deserves to be paid well, of course. Now the cage washer, does he need to drive a Mercedes? No? Should the cage washer be making as much as the Junior PhD attached to the project? No. But for one person to work 4 hours and get paid the same as another person working 40 is hard for me to justify. I am not an expert on Kant but I would think that Kant would say, we need to find some moral objective standard that better addresses this situation.
That’s the issue. Why are you out there protesting?
Is it to address issues like salaries and working conditions? If so, then you need to ask yourself if a public picket is the best way to cause change on those issues.
Is it to participate in the event? If that’s the case, then you could just as easily be tailgating at a football game as picketing at a McDonalds.
You have persuaded me over to your side of thinking. When you eventually get all that money will you please contact me because I am barely scraping by and I could really use it. It sounds like your better off than me right now.
If you got your…um “economic ideas” from 100 pages of Marx, as a conservative, I will personally beg you to never read Ayn Rand.
Oh, I was just making an analogy to show that activism can be linked to personal angst. I haven’t been to a protest event/picket line in at least 10 years. When Occupy Wall Street was going on I was about 30 minutes away from that location (very close in NYC time) I never went down there, not once, being around such a volatile militant group would not of been good for my mental health. Not good at all. I can get really really wrapped up in stuff like that if I am not careful. When I was in college, 15 years ago, I went to probably one activist type meeting a week, sometimes two, and probably at least one big event somewhere each month.
What do I do now? How do I fight the evil corporate overlords? Well, today I could of done all of my shopping at Wal Mart. Instead I went local chain grocery store instead. Turns out the one item I thought I needed from Wal Mart, dog shampoo combined with flea powder, they had at the grocery. So I didn’t even have to go to Wal Mart at all. I know, it was not that big a deal, only a small thing I did but I do lots of small things in the hopes that they add up to something good.