[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

The world has changed significantly over the past few of decades, and it gets worse every year. It used to be perfectly acceptable to do something with your life other than spend years in school, and you could still make a decent living.

That is the point exactly. It will never be the same. People need to get over it and move on, come up with new and innovative ways to make a living as well as come up with new plans, be willing to change jobs, relearn, etc. But most people are not willing to do that. Why? Now just wait for the government to bail them out. I will not defend the corps that go off shore, but I find it hard to condemn them as well. IMHO that all started with Clinton and NAFTA. It is only because of the current round of massive layoffs that people are now willing to do anything to get by. You want to blame all of this on Corps and that is a simplistic view.

People who worked in construction or factories, etc. made a decent wage, why is it their their fault that we have allowed corporations to go offshore in order to increase their profits by using cheap labor, or that corporations and rich people have chosen to hire illegals instead of giving jobs to Americans, so they can have cheap labor?

Who says it is their fault? Not me. Who says that corps and "rich people have chosen to hire illegal’s instead of giving jobs to Americans". That is a pretty damm broad sweeping list of allegations on which to blame all of the countries economic ills. I doubt you can back most of it up. How about Corps have gone where labor is cheap because it is a profit driven industry. You have this hard on for anyone who makes money. How about the companies have given jobs to people who are willing to work hard, not the slackers who would rather sit on their ass and complain about how the man is keeping them down and enslaving them while they spit out another baby from some baby daddy? How do you explain the Korean immigrants who moved to the most depressed parts of cities in America and opened hugely successful chains of grocery stores? How about the waves of immigrants from India or Pakistan and have opened huge successful chains of hotels and motels? Where is the American drive to do that among those who started with or had very little to do that? You can't blame Corps and "rich people" for all the ills of this Nation. That is a ridiculous notion. This country was founded on the tenacity, innovation, and investment of "rich people".

[quotoe]Not everyone is cut out to be a doctor or a lawyer, and the fucking people going to business school getting MBAs are a bunch of greedy morons who have crashed the entire world economy.[/quote]So people are greedy if they work hard to get an advanced education and take advantage of a system that rewards hard work? Wow. Envy much?

Why do THEY deserve so much money, when teachers and cops and soldiers get crap pay? Why is OK that CEO pay has risen to almost 500x the amount of average workers, while salaries have been stagnant for their workers, and even gone down? Why is OK for profit to outweigh everything else?

Who gets to say who deserves what in this life? I don't disgree that we have huge sectors of our society that is underpaid and under appreciated. You can't defend a socialist construct to me. I don't buy it.

As far as taxes go, our taxes pay for WalMart's employees healthcare, one of the richest, most successful corporations of all time.

And the millions of illegal aliens, and welfare mothers on the dole.

Our taxes pay for new stadiums owned by rich pricks who own sports teams, but we get nothing back from them, no benefit (yes, it may benefit the people in the city where they build them, but why is the rest of the country paying for that?).

Many people would disagree with that. You completely ignore the revenue that is gained from attracting millions of people to the events where they then spend money on the local economy.

Our taxes pay for the R&D of most drugs, but pharmaceutical companies jack the prices up in to the stratoshpere and many people (whose taxes helped develop those drugs) cannot afford to buy them.

Actually our high prices of medications pay for that, not our taxes. Get your facts straight.

IF you're going to be all pissed off about wealth redistribution, please, be angry at the right people. The rich have been stealing from the poor and middle class for decades now. It's time we got some equilibrium back.

I agree we need to get some equilibrium back and inact a flat tax so every single person pays the same rate, regardless of income. You make $1000, you pay $200 to tax. You make $100,000, you pay $20,000. No one gets a pass.

It's disturbing to me how indifferent you are sometimes to the plight of people who are less fortunate than you are.

It disturbs me that you judge me about what I do and how I feel. I take care of people everyday who are less fortunate than me.

What if something catastrophic happened to you, or someone in your family, and you lost your income and benefits (unlikely I know because you work in healthcare) and you were unable to support them? What if you lost your job, and your income, and you couldn't find another job, and you couldn't sell your house (assuming it's not paid for, which I know it probably is)? What the hell would you do?

What if I did? I would sell my assets and start over. And that is why I pay so much for insurance.

I know you probably don't care, but I have 3 family members who are afraid of losing their jobs right now (one works for Chatham Steel, one works for Toyota, and one is a fireman). Yes, they are all educated. They all went to college. They have all had these jobs for many years. If something happens, and they lose their jobs, they will be in danger of losing their homes as well. Whose fault is that?

Why are you judging my feelings again? There is much I could tell you about my family and their plights in life but it doesn't change the situation they find themselves in right now. And nothing I can say or do will change any of that. How for one fucking minute can you say that because of the plight of your family that I don't have my own issues to deal with concerning family members? What? Because I am not willing to put them on some public board? When times get tough we focus on our own families and issues, not yours. I have no responsibility for your problems or your families, my plate is full.

After the last bubble crash (the .coms), my cousin, who worked in IT and made a ton of money, lost her job. It took her over a year to find another one. Is that her fault?

Who said it was?

And a LOT of white collar jobs that require degrees are now also going byebye. If someone buys a house they can actually afford because they have a good job, and then a few years later they lose that job and can't find another one, because the economy crashed, why is that their fault? While it is true that a lot of people were living beyond their means, there are also a lot being hurt now who were not. Whose fault is that?

Well I know for one thing your simplistic view of who to blame is wrong.