Time to face the truth

[Delija]

Originally Posted by mgeoffriau

I'm about to leave for work, so I don't have time to collect names, but off hand the first large group that comes to mind is the hip-hop industry. Most of the rap artists and moguls came from poor ghettos, and yet now sell platinum records and direct mulit-million dollar companies and labels.

I am not disagreeing with your basic contention, but to "name" people who have exceptional artistic talents, or athletic talents isn't really an effective example to demonstrate how "anyone can work hard and make it".

How many of us can "learn" to dunk a basketball?

And how many come out of the "poor ghettos" to star at golf or tennis (which weren't even played for money until relatively recently....while conversely prizefighters always fought for the prize).

Peace,
D.

[one-eyed-fatman]

Liberals like bd, and cynics like fatboy, want you to feel that your are entitled to other peoples money because that is the ‘fair’ thing to do and that only then will there be world peace....

Hell ya! I'm going on welfare so I can make more money than Walmart employee's. You say the goofiest things.

[mgeoffriau]

Originally Posted by Delija

I am not disagreeing with your basic contention, but to "name" people who have exceptional artistic talents, or athletic talents isn't really an effective example to demonstrate how "anyone can work hard and make it".

I'll agree that better examples exist, but I still defend those examples, because I think it's fallacious to assume that artistic and athletic talents allow one to succeed without hard work. Just as in any other field, it's not the particular talent or skill that makes the success - it's the hard work spent in developing and applying that skill.

I'd be willing to bet that for every rap artist that made it big, there are 10 back in the ghetto that were not willing to put in the amount of work it took to really pursue music as a career. Very few people can actually say that they are the most talented at what they do. It's the hard work that separates those who succeed from those who fail, generally speaking. Of course there are exceptions, but for the most part, hard work is rewarded.

[Waldo]

Originally Posted by bd

Can you give examples of people from the lowest economic groups who have worked hard enough to make it to the highest in the last 10 years?

I keep hearing that as a defense but no one ever actually names any names.

Who are these mythical people that have come from sheer poverty to become self-made billionaires?

What percentage of the population does this on a regular basis?

Bill Gates is the last one that comes to mind but he was certainly not from the lowest "class" of people in this country.

Unless you can prove me wrong I'm going to say that 99% of the ultra rich in this country inherited their wealth. I know it's not their fault, but working from the bottom up ---- please give me a break.




bd

Bernie Marcus, the son of Russian immigrants born in 1929. He couldnt afford to go to medical school so he built cabinets to make his way through pharmacy school. Him and Arthur Blank were fired from Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers. In 1979 they founded a small comany called The Home Depot. The Home Depot has made both of them billionares. He is now one of the Top Philanthropists in the Country. In less than 20 years he created the fastest growing retail store in America and the second largest retailer in the United States and the largest home improvement retailer in the world.

Not bad for a little jewish-russian kid who grew up in a crappy apartment complex.

Zell Miller, grew up in a single family home in Young Harris GA. Lived with his mother. Former Senator, and Governor of Georgia.

John Harold Johnson was born in 1918, in poverty, in Arkansas City Arkansas. He went on to found Johnson Publishing Company that publishes Ebony and Jet magazines, just to name a few. He was the first ever black person put on Forbes 400 Rich people list. He dies last year with a worth of about $600 million dollars.

Sam Walton was born in 1918 to a small farming family. His father couldnt make ends meet so before the depression he went into the mortage business. In college Walton waited tables in exchange for meals and was an ROTC officer. He went on to own his own variety store, that we know as wal-mart today.

Those are just a few, I could go on all day.

Putting an irrevelant time of "the last 10 years" is a nice trick. Gates didnt make his money in the last 10 years. Also, the personal histories of every person who rose from poverty will show, unless you win the lottery, it take a little more than 10 years to become among the richest in America.

[Brickboy240]

On the class issue...


Let's be honest here and not get caught up in the usual rhetoric...this class warfare sh*t is really getting old and we all here are educated enought to understand this basic concept. If a public school graduate B/C student, red-stater like me can figure this out...so can you.

In any society, in any country, under any style of govt., there will always be someone on the top and someone on the bottom and loads of people somewhere in the middle. It is just human nature. Animals live under the same social structure. You can try to fight it...set up a govt. or society, where everyone is "equal" or there is a "level playing field" or whatever structure you think it totally fair, but this is how it will all shake out.

In most examples where societies HAVE tried to even everything out (like communistic and socialistic countries), it simply has not worked for long and it eventually imploded upon itself. In communist Russia and its puppet regiemes, you had mostly an underclass and a ruling group that lived like capitalists. Many other non-communist countries today, have a very similar societal structure like Mexico. Almost an oligarchy, if you will. Many of the underclass people are not inspired to improve themselves or their position in life and others long only to escape thier situation and live in areas where they have more opportunity (like the mass immigration to the USA from many Latin American countries).

In the attempt to equal everyone out, they created equal misery and a bleak view of the future and sucked the inspiration out of the populance. This is my problem with many leftists, anti-capitalists and others that want to introduce socialist-like measures in America. I detest the idea and don't think it will allow us to reamain a place that everyone wants to emmulate or immigrate to.

I also detest the "level playing field" and "classless society" promoters, because half of my family came from the country that the left holds up as the model for us to emmulate - Sweden. My relatives do NOT speak as glowingly of thier situation and many of them would immigrate to the USA today if they could. I do not think that Sweden is hell on earth or like Russia, but to hear Swedish natives speak of thier society gives me a very different view of what it would be like under socialism or a system that strives for a classless society.

So...what can we do? First, we can strive to NOT be the persons on the bottom. Its not easy and requires hard work and I hate to say it, but it is not all that important to everyone and if it was easy, there'd be more people at the top. Also...as parents...instill the value of education, a moral compass and a work ethic on our children, so they will have the tools to aviod being on the bottom. Somebody's going to be onthe bottom...try your best to NOT be that person.

When I was a young boy and was riding in the car with Dad, when we'd pull to in intersection and there would be sombody begging for money or digging a ditch, Dad would point to the person and say "that will be you, someday, if you do not get an education...you don't want that, do you?" This is something that stuck with me for the rest of my life. Many people these days would be horrified at the motivation my parents instilled in us, but it has kept us far from the bottom. It has nothing to do with materialism or screwing others out of a higher position in life...it is the instillation of work ethic and self reliance. I will NOT be on the bottom and I WILL make damn sure I stay far from it.

Parts of this rant may seem harsh to some, but I swear, its is the truth as I know and see it.

- Brickboy240

[bd]

Originally Posted by Waldo

Bernie Marcus, the son of Russian immigrants born in 1929. He couldnt afford to go to medical school so he built cabinets to make his way through pharmacy school. Him and Arthur Blank were fired from Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers. In 1979 they founded a small comany called The Home Depot. The Home Depot has made both of them billionares. He is now one of the Top Philanthropists in the Country.

Not bad for a little jewish-russian kid who grew up in a crappy apartment complex.

Zell Miller, grew up in a single family home in Young Harris GA. Lived with his mother. Former Senator, and Governor of Georgia.

John Harold Johnson was born in 1918, in poverty, in Arkansas City Arkansas. He went on to found Johnson Publishing Company that publishes Ebony and Jet magazines, just to name a few. He was the first ever black person put on Forbes 400 Rich people list. He dies last year with a worth of about $600 million dollars.

Sam Walton was born in 1918 to a small farming family. His father couldnt make ends meet so before the depression he went into the mortage business. In college Walton waited tables in exchange for meals and was an ROTC officer. He went on to own his own variety store, that we know as wal-mart today.

Those are just a few, I could go on all day.

Putting an irrevelant time of "the last 10 years" is a nice trick. Gates didnt make his money in the last 10 years. Also, the personal histories of every person who rose from poverty will show, unless you win the lottery, it take a little more than 10 years to become among the richest in America.

Sorry but if you can't name someone that has succeeded in our generation then it is not irrelevant. In a country of almost 300 million people naming a half dozen people who made it to the top doesn't prove any points.

bd

[Brickboy240]

It proves that it IS possible. Again, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it...but it is not easy.

It also proves that you are a class warrior.

I have said it before and I'll say it again. I really don't know how some of these class warrior, hate-everything, gloom and doom, glass is half empty people even get up the motivation to get out of bed in the morning. Life must be one big kick in the a** for all of you. I feel sorry for you all...having to go through your days with such a dim view of man, society, this country and generally everything around you.

I don't know how you do it.

- Brickboy240

[Brickboy240]

Wow...Walter Williams nails the "rich getting richer...poor getting poorer" BS pretty well in this article.

...see it for yourselves.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/col...iams010406.asp

- Brickboy240

[NewXD40fun]

Great Liberal busting article Brickboy.


The Poverty hype

Walter Williams

Despite claims that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, poverty is nowhere near the problem it was yesteryear — at least for those who want to work. Talk about the poor getting poorer tugs at the hearts of decent people and squares nicely with the agenda of big government advocates, but it doesn't square with the facts.

Dr. Michael Cox, economic adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Richard Alm, a business reporter for the Dallas Morning News, co-authored a 1999 book, "Myths of Rich and Poor: Why We're Better Off Than We Think," that demonstrates the pure nonsense about the claim that the poor get poorer.

The authors analyzed University of Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics data that tracked more than 50,000 individual families since 1968. Cox and Alms found: Only five percent of families in the bottom income quintile (lowest 20 percent) in 1975 were still there in 1991. Three-quarters of these families had moved into the three highest income quintiles. During the same period, 70 percent of those in the second lowest income quintile moved to a higher quintile, with 25 percent of them moving to the top income quintile. When the Bureau of Census reports, for example, that the poverty rate in 1980 was 15 percent and a decade later still 15 percent, for the most part they are referring to different people.

Cox and Alm's findings were supported by a U.S. Treasury Department study that used an entirely different data base, income tax returns. The U.S. Treasury found that 85.8 percent of tax filers in the bottom income quintile in 1979 had moved on to a higher quintile by 1988 — 66 percent to second and third quintiles and 15 percent to the top quintile. Income mobility goes in the other direction as well. Of the people who were in the top one percent of income earners in 1979, over half, or 52.7 percent, were gone by 1988. Throughout history and probably in most places today, there are whole classes of people who remain permanently poor or permanently rich, but not in the United States. The percentages of Americans who are permanently poor or rich don't exceed single digits.

It doesn't take rocket science to figure out why people who are poor in one decade are not poor one or two decades later. First, they get older. Would anyone be surprised that 30, 40 or 50-year-olds earn a higher income than 20-year-olds? The 1995 Annual Report of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that "Average income tends to rise quickly in life as workers gain work experience and knowledge. Households headed by someone under age 25 average $15,197 a year in income. Average income more than doubles to $33,124 for 25- to 34-year-olds. For those 35 to 44, the figure jumps to $43,923. It takes time for learning, hard work and saving to bear fruit."

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report listed a few no-brainer behaviors consistent with upward income mobility. Households in the top income bracket have 2.1 workers; those in the bottom have 0.6 workers. In the lowest income bracket, 84 percent worked part time; in the highest income bracket, 80 percent worked full time. That translates into: Get a full-time job. Only seven percent of top income earners live in a "nonfamily" household compared to 37 percent of the bottom income category. Translation: Get married. At the time of the study, the unemployment rate in McAllen, Texas, was 17.5 percent, while in Austin, Texas, it was 3.5 percent. Translation: If you can't find a job in one locality, move to where there are jobs.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report concludes, "Little on this list should come as a surprise. Taken as a whole, it's what most Americans have been told since they were kids — by society, by their parents, by their teachers."




Tom

[mgeoffriau]

Great little article. I'd like to read the original study - if anyone has access to it, please post or link if possible.