Is the "American Dream" dead...

Checkmite said:
I find it's highly typical for conservatives to maintain this contradictory duality - that it's the natural order of things that the comfort and convenience of some humans necessarily comes at the cost of its opposite, a reduced quality of living for other humans; and yet also that poverty is a choice, that the humans suffering from the lowered quality of living could, if they really tried, improve their circumstances and enjoy the same comforts and conveniences as those who are currently better off than them.

To this I say, becoming a populational majority and electing a government which provides more social services, safety nets, and perhaps even basic guaranteed shelter and food, seems to be a case of lower classes successfully working to make things better for themselves; but for some reason we're told they shouldn't be allowed to do that.
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No, what comes from conservatives is a majority of people find their way to the American Dream, therefore, others can to.
 
Venom said:
logger, I think we can consider poor people coming into your neighborhood to rob you a consequence ultimately of decades of inequality and stagnation. I think that's one opportunity cost, so to speak, of this ongoing inequality struggle; crime. You could say we for every little bit you give to the safety net you help lower the crime rate by a small amount.
Or maybe the health of people around you keeping you that much healthier as well, or you helping pay more for education so dumb people don't bother you or worse.
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Really? They literally have no choice but to rob people? What percentage of the poor have no other choice but to rob people?

Once again, all the tools are there for people to live the American Dream.
 
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logger said:
Really? They literally have no choice but to rob people? What percentage of the poor have no other choice but to rob people?

Once again, all the tools are there for people to live the American Dream.
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You're not even trying anymore. How many days will it be? The clock is ticking ...
 
logger said:
No, what comes from conservatives is a majority of people find their way to the American Dream, therefore, others can to.
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And electing a government that provides more social services and basic needs is just one more route to that end.
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
Why do you think that is? Do you think that if someone is born into the lowest (or highest) quintile, that that fact itself is the reason that they are likely to remain there?
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"It's complicated" - whole text books have no doubt been written about this subject with conflicting conclusions.

Someone born into the top quintile has (on average) a host of advantages over someone born into the bottom quintile. Whether it's the quality of the education that they are likely to receive, the access to capital should they wish to start their own business, the network of friends and acquaintances that they have access to, the role models they've been exposed to or even society's view of them - someone growing up in the top quintile is likely to be playing the game of life on a significantly easier setting than someone in the bottom quintile.

Heck, if you grow up in the top 1% it's likely that you could be completely indolent your entire life and still stay in that top 1% as long as your investments don't bomb completely.

That is not to say that someone in the bottom quintile cannot make it into the middle class but its much less likely and they face much greater hurdles in the US than in the last few decades and in any other developed nation.

A lot of my success isn't down to my hard work. Instead it's down to having parents who were very keen on education and who got me my first couple of jobs through their middle-class contacts (my Saturday job was through my violin teacher, my university sponsorship was through a friend of my parents' who was the HR director). I benefited from society providing me with a free university education and then in part got my first job because I got an adequate degree, had good work experience and have a neutral accent.

Had I been a harder working schoolmate with a strong Country Durham accent, parents who didn't have the same connections and who didn't push me, and the system so hard - well I know how that would turn out, a lot of my school friends are in that boat exactly and are working much harder on much less well paying jobs than I. :o
 
logger said:
No, what comes from conservatives is a majority of people find their way to the American Dream, therefore, others can to.
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Assumes facts not in evidence. Low (and decreasing) levels of economic and social mobility in the US show that this is increasingly not the case.
 
The Don said:
"

A lot of my success isn't down to my hard work. Instead it's down to having parents who were very keen on education and who got me my first couple of jobs through their middle-class contacts (my Saturday job was through my violin teacher, my university sponsorship was through a friend of my parents' who was the HR director). I benefited from society providing me with a free university education and then in part got my first job because I got an adequate degree, had good work experience and have a neutral accent.

Had I been a harder working schoolmate with a strong Country Durham accent, parents who didn't have the same connections and who didn't push me, and the system so hard - well I know how that would turn out, a lot of my school friends are in that boat exactly and are working much harder on much less well paying jobs than I. :o
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Mine was the opposite, learned a skill and worked hard to sell it. The way a lot of people do it who come from nothing.
 
logger said:
The reason poverty holds so many is their attitude towards getting ahead. So many tools available for them to take advantage of and they don’t utilise what’s in front of them. The reason people who are well off tend to stay that way is they’re Motivated and learn quickly to expand upon what they already have. Poverty in this country for the vast majority of poor is a choice just as much as it’s a choice for the wealthy to keep building. ...
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LOL

You must believe in magic. As if God bestowed individuals born into poverty with a different mind than people born into golden cradles.

Why - through what causes - do poor people have attitudes different from rich people from the start?

Suppose for a moment there was one big reform: All existing taxes and all welfare systems are ended, and instead, all inheritances are taken by the state, completely, and distributed equally to all children, to be payed out at their, say, 18th birthday, such that all start their adulthood at the exact same level of wealth.

Would that level the attitudes, or would those adolescents born into poverty still have the poor atittitude? Give reasons!
 
logger said:
Nonsense! Humans enjoy comfort and convenience at the EXPENSE of others. Every person suffers from it in some way.
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logger said:
No, what comes from conservatives is a majority of people find their way to the American Dream, therefore, others can to.
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logger said:
Once again, all the tools are there for people to live the American Dream.
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There's a continuity problem in your script, there.
 
The Don said:
A lot of my success isn't down to my hard work. Instead it's down to having parents who were very keen on education and who got me my first couple of jobs through their middle-class contacts (my Saturday job was through my violin teacher, my university sponsorship was through a friend of my parents' who was the HR director). I benefited from society providing me with a free university education and then in part got my first job because I got an adequate degree, had good work experience and have a neutral accent.
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Same here. I'm a lazy ****, and there is no doubt that my own success and comfort is based almost entirely on my father's hard work.
 
Belz... said:
Same here. I'm a lazy ****, and there is no doubt that my own success and comfort is based almost entirely on my father's hard work.
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Me too. I mean, once I was in my final full time career I worked pretty hard and climbed the ladder. But getting there was 100% my father/parents.

I was born into the right environment, that is, one with enough money and the "right" skin color for the time.
 
The Sparrow said:
Me too. I mean, once I was in my final full time career I worked pretty hard and climbed the ladder. But getting there was 100% my father/parents.

I was born into the right environment, that is, one with enough money and the "right" skin color for the time.
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Which is entirely expected. Parents want to give their children more than they had themselves. It's just that it's a lot easier for those with the means to do that.
 
Agreed. I've seen the odd example of someone who came from poverty and dragged his butt up to success, but it is extremely difficult.
 
The Sparrow said:
Agreed. I've seen the odd example of someone who came from poverty and dragged his butt up to success, but it is extremely difficult.
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As with many things, it's often a matter of luck and timing.

The beneficiaries often fall for hindsight bias, as we see in this very discussion: ascribing their own success story to their own "hard work" and neglecting the other contributing factors.
 
I’ll just answer with one post since it’s easier. The running theme here is the American Dream is dying dead or unachievable especially for the poor. And of course it isn’t the fault of the lower class because being human beings it’s near impossible for them to overcome the odds. What’s missing in this leftist thinking is the individual taking responsibility for themselves. It’s actually somewhat easy in this country. It starts with a free education, getting a job, which leads to a better job. Living within your means and growing a savings. It is literally that easy. I did it, many others around me did not. No one forced them to be train wrecks with their money and making poor choices.

I know folks on the left think the AD is pretty much dead, but then again libs would be out of a job if they didn’t work at keeping the poor....poor.
 
LSSBB said:
As with many things, it's often a matter of luck and timing.

The beneficiaries often fall for hindsight bias, as we see in this very discussion: ascribing their own success story to their own "hard work" and neglecting the other contributing factors.
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Nonesense, the proof would be the majority of Americans not in poverty. It actually takes a bit of luck and timing to be wealthy, getting out of poverty into the middle class truly is quite easy....for those who want to simply try.
 
logger said:
I’ll just answer with one post since it’s easier. The running theme here is the American Dream is dying dead or unachievable especially for the poor. And of course it isn’t the fault of the lower class because being human beings it’s near impossible for them to overcome the odds. What’s missing in this leftist thinking is the individual taking responsibility for themselves. It’s actually somewhat easy in this country. It starts with a free education, getting a job, which leads to a better job. Living within your means and growing a savings. It is literally that easy. I did it, many others around me did not. No one forced them to be train wrecks with their money and making poor choices.

I know folks on the left think the AD is pretty much dead, but then again libs would be out of a job if they didn’t work at keeping the poor....poor.
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It is ?

I thought people were saying:

- It's harder than it used to be
- It's harder than in other countries

But I suppose a strawman is easier to beat in an argument.
 
logger said:
I’ll just answer with one post since it’s easier. The running theme here is the American Dream is dying dead or unachievable especially for the poor. And of course it isn’t the fault of the lower class because being human beings it’s near impossible for them to overcome the odds. What’s missing in this leftist thinking is the individual taking responsibility for themselves.
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Still with the black-and-white argument. Who says it's either one or the other? How about: it's a lot harder for poor people to move up the ladder, so let's make sure that, if they DO work hard and take their lives into their own hands, they have good odds of succeeding? What's so evil about having both personal responsibiltiy AND help from your fellow man to achieve your goals?
 
logger said:
We are forced into that by the left, there is nothing at this point those on the right can do about it. But it is clear they are MORE tools people can use to get ahead and achieve the American Dream.
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Does this mean you're retracting all those posts you made in 2017 about how your side had all the power and there was nothing the left could do about it?
 
psionl0 said:
Yes, being born to parents who are sufficiently well to do and sufficiently motivated to give you a good start in life is quite a skill to acquire.
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You seem to not know anyone with the same story as mine? But it is how many go from poverty to middle class and middle class to upper middle class. I seriously doubt their parents set it ALL up for them. Does this really need defending?
 
Belz... said:
Still with the black-and-white argument. Who says it's either one or the other? How about: it's a lot harder for poor people to move up the ladder, so let's make sure that, if they DO work hard and take their lives into their own hands, they have good odds of succeeding? ,What's so evil about having both personal responsibiltiy AND help from your fellow man to achieve your goals?
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I’m wondering where I said it was evil?

While you’re looking that up, where did I say it WASN’T harder for the poor?
 
Polaris said:
Does this mean you're retracting all those posts you made in 2017 about how your side had all the power and there was nothing the left could do about it?
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No, you clearly didn’t understand what I meant. I’ll explain, those laws we were discussing are already in place, many for decades. The left still isn’t in control of anything.

Furthermore, those laws were supposedly put in so people could more easily acquire the American Dream, looks like many still don’t take advantage of it, their choice.
 
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So, since you can't guarantee success even with hard work, poverty due to hard luck isn't really a choice.

So what are the chances for someone to make it out of poverty, vs. chances for them not to make it, and are those chances increasing or decreasing statistically, and how much?
 
logger said:
No, you clearly didn’t understand what I meant. I’ll explain, those laws we were discussing are already in place, many for decades. The left still isn’t in control of anything.

Furthermore, those laws were supposedly put in so people could more easily acquire the American Dream, looks like many still don’t take advantage of it, their choice.
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FTFY
 
Can someone explain what "hard" work is?

I pushed a shovel for a while, considered it "hard". It kept me from starving, but never seemed to get me any closer to the "American Dream"- unless the American Drean is to have a prematurely ruined lower back and bad knees.
 
Distracted1 said:
Can someone explain what "hard" work is?

I pushed a shovel for a while, considered it "hard". It kept me from starving, but never seemed to get me any closer to the "American Dream"- unless the American Drean is to have a prematurely ruined lower back and bad knees.
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I can give you a list of some hard work but it can't really be explained. You have to experience it. You have to know how it feels to crawl out of bed at 5 am with every muscle aching, more tired than you were the day before, getting increasingly more tired each day.

Some hard work I've done, in no particular order:

Two-a-day football practices. Manually loading scrap iron into a truck in Texas in July. Concrete work. Manually loading boxcars with sacks of sand. "Rocking the mill" (don't ask). Cutting survey line through the northeastern Maine woods. Cutting survey line through Oklahoma briar and thorn tree thickets. Walking 10 miles through plowed fields in New Mexico.

Last but not least, manually spraying saplings with agent orange in Eastern Oklahoma in midsummer, with 5 gallons of agent orange on my back, wearing heavy water-soaked leather leggings intended to protect against snake bite. This was after they figured out what the toxic agent in AO was and got rid of it. Which explains why I'm still here.

That's not all of it. I left out the stuff that would be too difficult to even describe.

There are people who do hard work, and there are people who benefit from it. For the most part, that's two different groups.
 
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Toontown said:
I can give you a list of some hard work but it can't really be explained. You have to experience it. You have to know how it feels to crawl out of bed at 5 am with every muscle aching, more tired than you were the day before, getting increasingly more tired each day.

Some hard work I've done, in no particular order:

Two-a-day football practices. Manually loading scrap iron into a truck in Texas in July. Concrete work. Manually loading boxcars with sacks of sand. "Rocking the mill" (don't ask). Cutting survey line through the northeastern Maine woods. Cutting survey line through Oklahoma briar and thorn tree thickets. Walking 10 miles through plowed fields in New Mexico.

Last but not least, manually spraying saplings with agent orange in Eastern Oklahoma in midsummer, with 5 gallons of agent orange on your back, wearing heavy water-soaked leather leggings intended to protect against snake bite. This was after they figured out what the toxic agent in AO was and got rid of it. Which explains why I'm still here.

That's not all of it. I left out the stuff that would be too difficult to even describe.

There are people who do hard work, and there are people who benefit from it. For the most part, that's two different groups.
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That’s perfect!

And those people who do the hard work wouldn’t have that work if “others” didn’t benefit from it. It’s called capitalism, the bedrock of the American Dream.

It also involves risk, long nights and a lot of sacrifice, though I don’t think I’ve ever even come close to having to explain it in this much detail.
 
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Just a couple points on 'hard work'.

First, I attribute this manner of thinking as something generational. The baby boomers, simply put, need to shut up about it. Read something recently that their upward mobility was something in the lines of 90%. That large a percentage of their generation made more than their parents did. Do you think they are going to attribute that to working harder than their parents? Noooooope. And as their parents generation has died off, they have become more open about touting their own horn.

Second, a lot of people do not know how to translate hard work into higher wages. They don't ask for raises, they expect their bosses to compensate the extra effort without being asked or forced to do so. Some work hard but not in a way that will increase their value in the long run. They master and increase productivity on a medial task, while others work hard at increasing their skill set and overall value in a field.

Both of those efforts can also be severely impacted by being poor. Fear of losing needed employment, or lack of ability to find a better company that offers growth can waste away formidable working years where such experience and skills should be honed.
 
logger said:
You seem to not know anyone with the same story as mine? But it is how many go from poverty to middle class and middle class to upper middle class. I seriously doubt their parents set it ALL up for them. Does this really need defending?
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You appear to have denied that your parents had any role in how you got where you are. That is clear evidence that you are too shallow to have gone through the school of hard knocks.
 
psionl0 said:
You appear to have denied that your parents had any role in how you got where you are. That is clear evidence that you are too shallow to have gone through the school of hard knocks.
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You seem to have a misunderstanding of setting it all up and any?
 
logger said:
That’s perfect!

And those people who do the hard work wouldn’t have that work if “others” didn’t benefit from it. It’s called capitalism, the bedrock of the American Dream.

It also involves risk, long nights and a lot of sacrifice, though I don’t think I’ve ever even come close to having to explain it in this much detail.
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Look at you, shifting goalposts and not answering questions.

<snip>


Edited by Loss Leader: 
Edited for Rule 12
 
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logger said:
Really? They literally have no choice but to rob people? What percentage of the poor have no other choice but to rob people?

Once again, all the tools are there for people to live the American Dream.
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It may create the conditions in which crime thrives.

But I can't see a scenario in which the poor get rich nearly as much as the rich staying rich.
 
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