Is there at least a small group of people left in the world that think there are such things as too much and too little? Ho much is enough? I know that having too little can kill you. And competition doesn’t cultivate sustenance, the will to live does… given that one has access to resources. I really think that the average person has forgotten to apply the most basic concept of cause and effect to their thinking about socioeconomic problems. Judgment has become clouded by individual egos and the need to feel important. You were shaped by your environment and so was I. We were both born with a random genetic makeup… to the subjective experience. I think my final recommendation is the creation of a time machine, swapping rich and poor at birth and recording the results over time. Or we could just look at the statistics.

We did nothing wrong. We have “health insurance.” Yeah. We average $20,000 a year out of pocket.

I was raised upper-middle class and I have had many friends from all different classes. Many of my poorer friends are genuine and love people for who they are not what they are.

I am always curious about this claim by some immigrants. How did you get here? How did you get a visa? Where did you sleep the first day when you arrived? Where did you learn English? My experience is that most immigrants get a lot of help, whether from family already here or private organizations or the government. Or, in the case of Mexico and central america, they have a “coyote” who either works for employers or that they pay themselves.

The fact is people are poor for the same reason you were, they lack money. And there is no common reason for that, any more than people get rich the same way. There are ruthless rich and ruthless poor, what distinguishes them is how much money they have.

You’d be hard pressed to convince anyone that people today don’t know that smoking is bad, addictive and that they probably shouldn’t do it. I mean, it says so right on the package. It’s their choice to start though, right?Seriously, you aren’t one of those people who think they can take people’s choices away just because you wouldn’t make the same chouce, right?

Another reason the anti-smoking lobby fails is that most freedom loving people believe it isn’t their business if other people want to smoke. Sure, some pansies will complain about second hand smoke in a wide open park but then again, don’t most of them toke a little joint behind the outhouse or stoke up a BBQ grill with 100 times more smoke? Be honest now.

This “anti” anything movement, when applied to peoples personal preferences, is just as stupid as people thinking we have a personal or governmental responsibility to take care of people who make bad choices in life. i.e.- smoking, eating fast food, using too much salt or doing drugs.

If your insurance costs too much because of the fat diabetics the market could provide you with an insurance company with lower rates because they don’t allow diabetics to join if the pansies that lobby the government to force insurance companies to take people who make bad health choices shut up.

For example, this would naturally take care of most diabetics problems because responsible diabetics would eat healthier in order to get insurance.

Instead, we have a nanny state health care system that allows people to keep making bad choices at everyone’s expense! It is laughable because in effect, you’re paying people to continue their bad habits.

And.. the only thing the rich want the poor to keep doing is giving them their money in exchange for mostly useless yet gratifying crap.
Sadly, that seems to be the mantra of the poor also.

You seem to be a jealous whiner with a lot of excuses.

Before you call me an elitist or rich person,I’d be willing to wager that you make more cash than me. It is just that I am more content and happy with what I have and probably always will have compared to what most want and probably will never get.

This happy outlook of mine is simply because I am more “awake” in mindset than people, for example, who try to make points by quoting others rather than saying something original on the topic.

Sorry if this offends but, most most whiners who say there is nothing that can be done to change things don’t stop whining and change things untill someone calles them a poo poo spirited whiner.

If the poor really were sick of it, instead of just hiding their envy of the rich in rebellious talk and bravado, they would simply say “no” to the rich by not giving them their money and labor so easily, stop wanting things the rich wizards peddle to them. If the poor would tend to themselves by cutting their own grass and fixing their own clogged drains instead of the rich’s things might change. That will almost certainly never be done though because the envy most poor have for the rich’s wealth, power and lifestyle will always trump their need for true freedom from opression no matter how much they whine otherwise. This is because they fear losing more of the things the rich tell them they have to have. i.e.- the longest, most comfortable life possible while living in physical security provided by a “bully” class goverment that serves only the rich. Ironically, that “bully” class can be rich or poor because all it takes is someone thinking they know better than you or someone that will enforce another’s will for their own gain.

The middle class (police, non-elected officials, teachers, and private management) are usually (while mostly oblivious) used by the rich as enforcers of their policies by dangling the carrot of upward mobility in front of them while reminding them that they can just as easily end up poor if they fail to please their master.

The fact is, true freedom brings great responsibility. Just as much as you may be free to responsibly live well, you can carelessly die free just as quick.

People who say they want true freedom yet would be the first to dial the police when someone tries to break into their home or wait for the city ran fire department to arrive when their kids “easy bake” oven catches fire instead of putting it out themselves are just plain phonies to the whole idea of true freedom, economic or otherwise. They want the benifits but not the responsibilities of being free of tyranical economic and social systems. They cry “freedom from economic and social opression” while ratting you out to the building inspector for not having a hot water heater properly vented in your home or call someone to take away your kid when you don’t parent the way they would. GIVE ME A BREAK!

As long as the poor keep being envious of the rich, there will always be rich people eager to rub it in their faces.

As long as the poor want power not just for their own lives but, also power to “get even” with the rich and “bully class” they aren’t any better than their opressors.

As long as the poor keep watching other poor be bullied around by the “bully class”, and do nothing about it because they fear risking anything, they will always live in fear of bullies that follow the policy of the rich or powerful.

That’s just they way it is folks.

“History is written by the rich, and so the poor get blamed for everything.”
I want you to read this quote. your response could be ” Complaints” but really, who has the power to get writings out, the rich because of their money.
we cant win.

A lot of wealthy people are rich because they kicked grandma to the curb and a lot of poor people are poor because, when their chance to be wealthy appeard, they couldn’t stand to see their grandma in the street so, they missed their greatest or only opportunity during their life.

Which is to be more admired or emulated?

There would be a larger middle of the road.

Most rich people are rich (even if they were once poor) because they became good at getting the poor and, less often rich, to give them their money for some product or service they could have really done without.

McDonald’s executives are rich because they convince a poor person their food is preferable to fixing an inexpensive home cooked meal.

People feel they need cars today because everyone has one due to being convinced early on in the automobiles history that life was too hard without one.

The people who give their money to these type of rich people fail to see that the world is dying from obesity mainly because of just two types of successful marketing of things not really needed i.e. cars and fast food being marketed as necessities of life.

It really is not as simple as poor and rich but, also stupid and clever at the extereme expense of the easily duped.

Medicine is no exception. Scientists used to be mainly concerned with cures and vaccines. Now, they are concerned with plastic vanity or managing illness through daily meds that aren’t designed to cure and vaccines that need to be re-vaccinated every year for illnesses that almost all people get over naturally withot the vaccine.

Poor people have no right to complain about being poor as long as they buy into the rich telling them they need to fork over their cash for stupid crap like video games, cell phones, cars, i-this and i-thats, get rich quick telemarketers, televangilists begging for faith seed in the form of money tithes, etc. Even utility companies get in on it by convincing people that they must buy electricity and water from them instead of producing it themselves the way people used to do early on in the game.

History could have went in a different direction if inventors made things that truly empowered the people. things like home produced electricity, useful software that doesn’t need a patch to work a week after you bought it and personal water entrainment from the begining but, people let them find a way to keep slurping from their monthly financial soupbowl.

Unless you are extremely wealthy, life will always suck for you if you buy into thinking you need most of what people tell you you do.

People who are self sufficient and smart, even though they don’t have any money, usually don’t think of themselves as poor unless someone else can convince them of it.

Shame on most rich people for cleverly taking money from the poor for needless things and shame on most poor for stupidly giving them their money for stupid reasons.

Poor people really can’t go around asking the rich to give them back money through curved tax scales so they can buy diapers when they gave their diaper money to the rich freely by buying that LCD flatscreen they just had to have or by having to repay that ultra high interest $200 payday loan they just had to take out with the rich money lender so they could get their nails and hair done before they went sportin’ at the mall for new top dollar shoes or to pay their overused cell phone bandwidth bill.

Sorry if this offends anyone but if you just step back and look you will find truthful examples of what I said abound in most families.

I used to believe very much what those lists and gurus say about the difference between the rich and poor. Now that I’ve suddenly found myself below the poverty line, and have friends in similar positions, I know why many are poor. My friends and I used to work good jobs, used to save and invest, used to own homes, used to have high net worth.

What has put us in such dire circumstances now? Divorce and legal bills (minimum $20,000). Not just divorce, but divorce from abusive or violent men. It means we have to sell and move. It means that litigation goes on forever because they abuse through the judicial system. It means that we have to find work after being out of work to look after children. It means that they find ways to financially screw us through all sorts of means.

Does it mean that we STAY in this position? NO – we have the mindset of the rich. But for the moment, and for the short-term future, we will be among the large group of people who rely on welfare payments. NOW I know that sometimes people become poor due to circumstances not of their doing or their choice.

In the end, given what we have lived through, most of us are just glad we are alive. Some of my friends never made it out alive.

I can tell you that I agree with both lists. The mentality in the hood is tread water, not learn how to swim to shore. The first step in fixing the problem is identifying it. Isn’t that what the article intended to do?

I think it’s more of an injustice to say shame on them for looking down on poor people than to say shame on you for not seeing that poor people NEED to hear this. There are people that after reading this, will think to themselves that maybe it IS how I think that is limiting my potential.

One may argue that relying on historic data to explain that it is “the system” that keeps poor people poor is unfair, in that there are people who have worked within the system to bring themselves out of poverty. Often, this argument leads to the conclusion of “bootstraps,” however, in stating that because one (or hundreds, or millions) of poor individuals have brought themselves out of poverty, than EVERY poor person can do precisely the same.

There are several personal reasons that I think this is a dangerous path to go down, but I think an important piece of reality we all must take into account is that capitalism relies on a section of the populous having less wealth than others. In order to give individuals an incentive to work, you must have something that they do not; money. For money to continue to be an incentive, you must not allow everyone to succeed in attaining all they that desire, and you must also continue to have a labor source that is willing to work in less gratifying and underpaid occupations (eg. McDonald’s employees, janitors, etc) and be able to pay more in order incentivize as well (eg. garbage collectors). Indeed, our economy would not function without these individuals, so it is imperative that we maintain a status quo there.

Additionally, don’t forget that this country was built largely on a practically free labor source, and as such the beginnings of income inequality were laid with a sturdy and legally sanctified base.

For an interesting take on income inequality, its history and its future, I recommend a report that the organization I work for just released (sorry for the shameless plug): http://faireconomy.org/sites/default/files/2012_State_of_the_Dream.pdf

Again, this is a fascinating discussion, and I love reading all of the posts and seeing people talking about wealth and inequality.

Ruth

There are some commonalities that most of us CAN control (or could have controlled) that does give us a heads up to become rich no matter what our origin of social class is. However, most of us prevent ourselves from becoming rich or building wealth. How? Well, they are spelled out in detail in “How We Prevent Wealth: A personal finance reflection.” These barrers include setting ineffective goals, not educating ourselves, and getting caught in the upgrade cycle.

The entire book can be read online for free at howwepreventwealth [dot] com.

Read the following:
http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/hertz_mobility_analysis.pdf

http://www.economist.com/node/15908469

A recent study that just came out concluded that it was much easier to move up in class in Western Europe.

There are elements which you have no control of (chance, stature of birth) and either you get it or you don’t. But the things that you do have control of (hard work, creating opportunity with the hard work, making conscious, informed and deliberate choices), make the most of it.

It is great if I win a lottery, but it would be foolish for me to hope/expect it to happen; downright stupid if I waste the windfall with bad choices.

To quote the Boy Scout mantra: be prepared. Read, talk to (informed) people, actively engage in worthwhile activities – so that when the opportunity does along, you know how to deal with it.

You know, trophy wives are part of the ultra-rich too. And Mother Theresa, Dorothy Day and Cesar Chavez were poor. The idea that having money reflects virtue is probably the most offensive part of this discussion.

those who do not think this is classist nonsense, though, tend to think that the alternative is socialism. the fact is that i am happy being middle class, and am uninterested in being wealthy. as such, it is fair for me to make less money than someone who is more invested in that.

that, however, is a completely different conversation. poverty and middle class are incomparable. and poverty is a symptom of societal problems, not individual problems. if these lists had compared rich to middle class, it would be significantly less awful.

Right on. 100% spot on.