Whoa,now you two are only talking money. Assets are wealth., land, objects, skills, credit and sheer physical presence. Money is not the only thing out there as an asset. Land alone is an incredible asset. The average city home runs from 20,000 to 50,000. The overwhelming majority are privately owned. 20,000 multiplied by only 1 million homeowners is twenty trillion. That is only one million poor. How many are there in the USA that have that amount of equity in their homes or more? That is just land alone. Darn near everyone has a bit of gold, silver, copper, gemstones etc… Bank credit is an asset, tax refunds, Cripes guys, you are thinking single for the lower classes and group for the wealthy. Skills alone are cornered by the lower classes. That is hands down the single most important asset. That alone makes an incredible asset. They work together, we with all of that do not, Example:
Ten people in your neighborhood all leave for work at the same time in individual cars, they go in the same direction and work or whatever within two miles of each other. Ten cars consuming gas at $3.80 a gallon. You both can do the math over a year of consuming.
You bitch about the wealthy but, do we use our assets wisely? Why take from them when we have proven that we waste our own?
Kris. Do a search on this entire last page for the word “money”. You will find that you are the only person yet to have mentioned it (excluding this post). Both Smears and I have referred only to wealth, in both our words and sources.
I believe this negates the bulk of your retort quite succinctly. Further, all wealth can be quantified with money so your point wouldn’t mean much even if we had been talking about money.
1 million homeowners with $20,000 city homes does come to 20 trillion, but so do only 10,000 homeowners with $2million mansions. Property portfolios can extend far beyond $2million amongst the richest people. 20 trillion isn’t even that much when it comes to nationwide collective wealth in the US - so even though it sounds big enough to make the point you’re making, when you look at the facts and the other side of the story as well it really isn’t. Also, a culture of home owning isn’t actually that prominent in many parts of the world, nor is the culture of private transportation. I did the math for your example and it turns out that 10 cars running at 25 miles per gallon at $3.80 per gallon going 2 miles to and also from work per day 260 times a year (not including days off) only comes to a little over $1500 per year.
What I would like to say though, is that yes, the skills of the majority DO add up to way more than those in the rich minority. However, their market price plummets as soon as power imbalances, loss aversion etc. come into it, and the poor become metaphorical punching bags for the rich solely by virtue of their having more money than us. Which is the reality, making the skills of the majority amount to LESS than those of the rich in terms of both wealth and money. So perverse.
Do the wealthy use their assets wisely? Irresponsibility isn’t exclusively an attribute of the poor. Why should we cut down on the relatively tiny amount we waste before they cut down on the relatively massive amounts that they waste and splash out on things that aren’t necessary by any means, only to facilitate their ability to waste and splash out on such things?
Sure, we could endure even greater austerity for their sake, but I’m really not quite sure why you’re so dead set against yourself and people in relatively similar economic situations to you before those who have so very much more to spare in order to help the whole system.
The vast majority of those houses are actually owned by the banks. The ones that do get paid off, the banks make 300% of the original price of the house in interest.
I said equity.
Either way. Once you realize the carrot on the stick is impossible to obtain, people start acting crazy in the world.
That is because we act in opposite of eac other rather than in concert. We have been taught to do so.
Well I’m complaining about the people who’s actions are such that many people suffer for the extravagancies of the few.
And what about the extravagances of the poor?
What like spending welfare money on a 20 dollar fingernail job? Or high protein foods like steaks being bought with food stamps? Or god forbid, a person who’s getting help somehow secure an automobile that’s reliable and of a reasonable age. I’ve heard that some of these families even scratch and save up and occasionally take their children on short trips to beaches and eat fast food. Terrible!!!
Extravagancies of the poor? I’m almost positive this is a textbook oxymoron. I’ll wait for an expert but I’m almost sure.
You suggest we act in concert yet you will not act in concert with Smears and I. I don’t understand why you are so bent on incriminating the poor “with all their extravagances”. Sure, there are irresponsible poor people who are often more extravagant than they can afford. Does the scale of this compare with a rich guy who can blow 10s of thousands on a single night out? How can we act in concert with you if you are turned against us and yourself?
Smears, an oxymoron literally means “sharp dull”: two juxta posed contradicting terms used simultaneously to describe the same thing. “Poor extravagant” implies an oxymoron and is very close to one, but is not technically one. Extravagance is spending more than is wise, which can apply to both the rich and the poor. Though the word “extravagance” does hint at the notion of spending large amounts, even if applied to the poor, even though the poor don’t have large amounts to spend by definition - so if that aspect is taken as part of the meaning of extravagance, then it is an oxymoron.
In the end Kris, the result of letting these guys have the “freedom” or “liberty” to become billionaire titans of industry and whatnot comes at the expense of poverty for a very large number of people. When you find out they own 10 personal homes and have 17 cars and blow thousands on dinner it’s just too plain to see.
Love ya both but damn, that is all you got out of what I said? Don’t accuse me of not working with you when you have obviously not read or thought about what I said. Id you dont understand then ask. I know I have been trying to work it out and cooperate. If you can’t see that then I will try different ways, but, at least reread and think on it for awhile before you respond. Sit and think. Its a message board not a chat room. No rush.
Demonizing the rich and victimizing (ennobling) the poor will only keep rich people rich and keep the poor as poor. The poor will see money in negative terms, as (necessary) evil, or as a tool of oppression, and the rich will let them.
What I find surprising is that in a capitalism system such as ours more emphasis is not given in schools on independent thought, money management and private enterpreneurship. Instead, kids are encouraged to get higher education and find a stable long term employment (as a wage employee for a company).
Smears, you sound like a communist.
Well, we have the current way of determining what is fair, so however we did that is one way to arrive at a sense of fairness. I mean, the guys who are making million dollar bonuses do in fact, on occasion get pissed off and think it is unfair when they only get 900,000. How did they figure that out (and why does it work)?
You don’t control the media, for example. IOW the fact that it is not easy to organize, or even for many to realize the actual sources of their problems is already built in. It is not a matter of adding up numbers of people or even total wealth. Those with power have wealth and access and control - of a wide range of
things - to such a degree that it interferes on any of a number of levels with other people’s ability to use whatever power they might have if they…whatever.
To word it the way you do might make it seem like really the rich are simply taking care of themselves better and the poorer classes simply need to get off their asses.
Yes there are a large number of people already off their asses, making good decisions and still getting totally raped.
“Hurpa-durp you sound like a Communist” - seriously?!
You say this on its own as though it self-evidently implies he is wrong or at least “off” when all he’s doing is simply criticising how things are and perhaps even sympathising with wishes to change them for the better… Therefore he’s a Communist? Get real. That word is going down the same path as “pagan”, originally meaning something entirely valid and distinct within itself but turned into a writing-off word for “not with the status quo and therefore wrong/evil”. Not everyone who questions the faults and merits of the current economic system is a Communist.
Unless you were saying that with tongue in cheek… 
Money IS currently a tool of oppression for those who it restricts far more often than it frees. For those who have it in abundance (the rich) it opens up opportunity far more than it prohibits. It’s not a case of the rich “letting” the poor think this, it’s just what happens when something prevents one people and enables another. Any negative connotation with money amongst the poor doesn’t stop them from needing and wanting it - this attitude doesn’t keep the poor poor. It’s the fact that for whatever reason the system works against them (the majority).
I think the solution of schooling children more in a particular way is narrow minded. I think it’s more realistic to work with what we’ve got, which is a variety of approaches and attitudes towards life - some which make you/keep you poor given the current system, and some which make you/keep you rich. I say embrace the variety and cultivate it, and change the system to be able to cope with it or even thrive on it rather than make “what humanity is” into a problem compared to this idea of “what humanity should be”.
Damn straight.
If anyone stops and thinks, it’s me. However, if I missed something please do try different ways. What exactly is it that I/we have missed?
Isn’t that the entire point. Most working class folk are just trying to live their lives and do not engage in economic shenanigans for the purpose of obtaining some extravagant bullshit. Yet, the system is set up to reward the percentage pathetic enough to dedicate their time to this. That is some upside-down shit. This isn’t some pure state of affairs which developed naturally or some shit - the wealthy and powerful shaped it this way. Normal folks shaped it back the other way. And now we’re in some middle ground that is being erroded. Let us stop that and do the opposite.
I have yet to see someone even attempt to argue for the status quo. All I see is the equivocation my original post articulated. People acting like a description of how to “get ahead” in the status quo is an argument for maintaining the status quo.
Sil, did you miss how I pointed out ways to save money to get more? Lets go to a grocery store spend 100$ , you won’t get much unless you are a couponer but still you really have to educate yourself and make time.
I said carpooling, going to the butcher in a group, cooperative pooling of resources. The extravagance of the poor is noncooperation with those around them. Being independent and yet dependent upon govt help is extravagant. Butcher’s and most farmer’s markets take Ebt /foodstamps. 10 cars all going the same way and returning about the same time. That is alot of money. It is extravagant.
Yet combining resources is exactly what the wealthy do.
Yet, you all really dont seem to want to adress all of this, you just want to address that the wealthy should share, Well hell, if a friend of yours wastes then demands you give them some of what you have because they have nothing left. Would you hand them things every month watching them throw it away? I have only been saying and pushing, change habits .