The One Cause of Poverty That’s Never Considered

[metis]

I'm sure there are plenty of business that did poorly under Trump, but there were a lot that did good under Trump. Under Trump;

*The unemployment rate for blacks reached a record low of 5.2 percent and black labor-force participation reached 63.2 percent,
*Black home ownership rose to nearly 50%
*Black weekly earnings rose at a slightly higher rate than white weekly earnings.

African Americans and the Economy under Trump | National Review

Democrats may not have noticed how the black community benefited from this economy, but black voters sure did.

www.nationalreview.com

That doesn't deal with what he posted as he was not referring to just blacks.

 

[Kfox]

The Great Recession started under Bush, not Obama, and the congressional Pubs fought any bailout until they were told by economists that our entire economic system could crash until the DOW took a big noser and woke them up.

This refutes nothing that I've said thus far

 

[Kfox]

That doesn't deal with what he posted as he was not referring to just blacks.

When blacks are doing better, it is usually an indication that the poor are doing better

 

[Heyo]

Income inequality isn't the claim you're making.
How do the wealthy profit from poor people?
Or that the poor are picking up the tab for the wealthy?
It looks like the poor are just a burden.
Dang...losing track of what we're talking about.

It's not the income (or wealth) inequality, it's the increase in income and wealth equality. While wages (and wealth) for the majority have stagnated since the '80s, the rich got only richer faster. Is that because they worked so much harder? No, many of them don't work at all. It is that they got richer faster on the back of the working people.
And that is systemic. The taxes could have been adjusted to fit the opening gap but instead they have increased the problem. (And it wasn't only the GOP which cut taxes for the rich.)

 

[Kfox]

It's not the income (or wealth) inequality, it's the increase in income and wealth equality. While wages (and wealth) for the majority have stagnated since the '80s, the rich got only richer faster. Is that because they worked so much harder? No, many of them don't work at all. It is that they got richer faster on the back of the working people.

Can you give examples of the rich getting richer off the backs of working people? I know the top 10 richest people do work, with half of them well past the age of retirement but still working, so who are these super rich people who don't work?

 

[Heyo]

Can you give examples of the rich getting richer off the backs of working people?

Ever heard of a guy named Jeff Bezos?

I know the top 10 richest people do work, with half of them well past the age of retirement but still working, so who are these super rich people who don't work?

E.g. @Audie

 

[Kfox]

Ever heard of a guy named Jeff Bezos?

Yes! He started Amazon employing millions of people in the process. Is this your idea of getting rich off the backs of working people? Because if it is, we need more people getting rich that way.

E.g. @Audie

I have no idea what this means. Care to answer the question in a way it can be understood?

 

[Revoltingest]

It's not the income (or wealth) inequality, it's the increase in income and wealth equality.

There's the fundamental disagreement.
I see the problem as the poor being poor.
Lifting them up should be the goal, not
taking money from the rich.

While wages (and wealth) for the majority have stagnated since the '80s, the rich got only richer faster. Is that because they worked so much harder? No, many of them don't work at all. It is that they got richer faster on the back of the working people.
And that is systemic. The taxes could have been adjusted to fit the opening gap but instead they have increased the problem. (And it wasn't only the GOP which cut taxes for the rich.)

We live in times when high skills, the right
skills, & investing is how to make money.
So we need to....
- Help the unproductive become productive.
- Help the unproductive have a good enuf life.

 

[Audie]

Ever heard of a guy named Jeff Bezos?

E.g. @Audie

Ha. I was past retirement age at birth

 

[Revoltingest]

Ha. I was past retirement age at birth

Your job is educating the rubes on RF.

 

[Audie]

There's the fundamental disagreement.
I see the problem as the poor being poor.
Lifting them up should be the goal, not
taking money from the rich.

What do you do with people who think wealth is a zero sum game.

 

[Audie]

9th 0Yes! He started Amazon employing millions of people in the process. Is this your idea of getting rich off the backs of working people? Because if it is, we need more people getting rich that way.
Care to answer the question in a way it can be understood?

Understood? Whats to understand.
It's just an expression of basic communist thought
and imagery. "On the backs"; can't you see them in
the cotton fields?

Amusingly / ironic the communist belief was that the
contradictions in capitalism would bring it down,
though it happened the other way around.

Nobody even attempts communism any more.,

 

[We Never Know]

It's not the income (or wealth) inequality, it's the increase in income and wealth equality. While wages (and wealth) for the majority have stagnated since the '80s, the rich got only richer faster. Is that because they worked so much harder? No, many of them don't work at all. It is that they got richer faster on the back of the working people.
And that is systemic. The taxes could have been adjusted to fit the opening gap but instead they have increased the problem. (And it wasn't only the GOP which cut taxes for the rich.)

• In 2020, the U.S. added 1.7 million new millionaires.
  This is a third of the total global number of people who became millionaires in 2020.
• From 2016 to 2020, it was estimated that an average of 1,700 people would become millionaires each day.
  This was on top of the 2.4 million people that were added to the U.S.’s tally of millionaires from 2010 to 2015.
• 79% of surveyed millionaires didn’t receive an inheritance.
  This means they made their own money instead of relying on wealthy family members for finances.
  In addition, 80% of these surveyed millionaires grew up in families that were at or below middle-income levels. Just 2% grew up in high-income families.

33 Incredible Millionaire Statistics [2023]: 8.8% Of US Adults Are Millionaires - Zippia

There are more millionaires in the U.S. than you may think, and chances are you even know one or two.

www.zippia.com

 

[Audie]

• In 2020, the U.S. added 1.7 million new millionaires.
  This is a third of the total global number of people who became millionaires in 2020.
• From 2016 to 2020, it was estimated that an average of 1,700 people would become millionaires each day.
  This was on top of the 2.4 million people that were added to the U.S.’s tally of millionaires from 2010 to 2015.
• 79% of surveyed millionaires didn’t receive an inheritance.
  This means they made their own money instead of relying on wealthy family members for finances.
  In addition, 80% of these surveyed millionaires grew up in families that were at or below middle-income levels. Just 2% grew up in high-income families.

33 Incredible Millionaire Statistics [2023]: 8.8% Of US Adults Are Millionaires - Zippia

There are more millionaires in the U.S. than you may think, and chances are you even know one or two.

www.zippia.com

And yet people complain.

 

[We Never Know]

And yet people complain.

I don't get what you're trying to say.

 

[Revoltingest]

What do you do with people who think wealth is a zero sum game.

Tell them that voting is a waste of their time.

 

[Stevicus]

MSN

www.msn.com

The 93-year-old billionaire co-founder of Home Depot blamed “socialism” for Americans’ lacking the motivation to work and warned the future of capitalism is in danger.

Bernie Marcus — who along with Arthur Blank built Home Depot into a nationwide empire from just two stores founded in Atlanta in the late 1970s — told Financial Times on Thursday: “Nobody works.”

“Just give it to me. Send me money. I don’t want to work — I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid,” Marcus said.

“Nobody gives a damn.”

The longtime Republican backer ticked down a list of people he blamed for standing in the way of private enterprise, including President Joe Biden, “the woke people,” the news media, Harvard graduates, MBAs, lawyers and accountants.

“I’m worried about capitalism,” said Marcus, whose net worth is estimated by Bloomberg at $5.25 billion. “Capitalism is the basis of Home Depot [and] millions of people have earned this success and had success.”

“I’m talking manufacturers, vendors and distributors and people that work for us [who have been] able to enrich themselves by the journey of Home Depot,” he added.

“That’s the success. That’s why capitalism works.”

He says capitalism works, but then he also says he's "worried about capitalism." Why worry about something that works? If it works, then obviously no one would oppose it and everyone would be happy with it. Why would Harvard graduates, MBAs, lawyers, and accountants stand in the way of private enterprise?

Besides, if lawyers and accountants are the problem, why would capitalists insist on employing them and paying them so much? Are we talking about people who actually build and create something to make people's lives better, or are we just talking about tricksters and manipulators who create nothing but illusions?

So, which are the people who are too fat and lazy to work, yet still want to collect a lot of money for doing nothing and creating nothing? It's not the working classes. It's the upper class. They do absolutely nothing of value, yet their only real talent is in manipulating and tricking people into thinking that they do. That's not real work. That's not productivity.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Naaw not reading your mind; just a common observation of human nature.

There is no human nature as universal when it comes to culture. So what. can be a common observation for you about a specific aspect of your culture may not all to all culture.
The debates is always in the end about what different color glasses we wear. And those who think that only everybody else do so..

 

[Audie]

MSN

www.msn.com

He says capitalism works, but then he also says he's "worried about capitalism." Why worry about something that works? If it works, then obviously no one would oppose it and everyone would be happy with it. Why would Harvard graduates, MBAs, lawyers, and accountants stand in the way of private enterprise?

Besides, if lawyers and accountants are the problem, why would capitalists insist on employing them and paying them so much? Are we talking about people who actually build and create something to make people's lives better, or are we just talking about tricksters and manipulators who create nothing but illusions?

View attachment 73793

So, which are the people who are too fat and lazy to work, yet still want to collect a lot of money for doing nothing and creating nothing? It's not the working classes. It's the upper class. They do absolutely nothing of value, yet their only real talent is in manipulating and tricking people into thinking that they do. That's not real work. That's not productivity.

Worried for capitalism, for the future of it.

Why didn't he express it better? Maybe he wasn't an English lit major.
Maybe he didn't see communists analyzing one word like creationist
analyzing genesis..." each after its KIND", disproving evolution.
Similarly, they also characteristically think if one scientist
opposes the theory of evolution that tells you all about how
wrong it is.


Why would a disappointed old man look for someone besides
himself to blame for his failure? Surely you jest.*

As for the fat n lazy, the unemployed elsewhere may not be so, but it's
the low income low class in USA who are obese. The 7 million who
can't be bothered to seek work are hardly showing how energetic they are.

I grew up around scientist and business people, entrepreneurs.
My om was an outlier as an English lit prof. But she dropped that for
business. What do you know, up close.
Personal. On what level do you ever participate?
So that you know so much.

Now, there are upper class like Britain's " royals" , a communists wer
dream. Providing employment like ironing His Royals shoelaces every day.

Businessmen, entrepreneurs as I know them work harder and longer
than anyone you know and twice the hours, twenty times the brainpower of
anyone they employ.


* actually its me who is kidding. There nobody with
less humor than leftists.

 

[Stevicus]

Worried for capitalism, for the future of it.

Why didn't he express it better? Maybe he wasn't an English lit major.
Maybe he didn't see communists analyzing one word like creationist
analyzing genesis..." each after its KIND", disproving evolution.
Similarly, they also characteristically think if one scientist
opposes the theory of evolution that tells you all about how
wrong it is.


Why would a disappointed old man look for someone besides
himself to blame for his failure? Surely you jest.*

As for the fat n lazy, the unemployed elsewhere may not be so, but it's
the low income low class in USA who are obese. The 7 million who
can't be bothered to seek work are hardly showing how energetic they are.

I grew up around scientist and business people, entrepreneurs.
My om was an outlier as an English lit prof. But she dropped that for
business. What do you know, up close.
Personal. On what level do you ever participate?
So that you know so much.

Now, there are upper class like Britain's " royals" , a communists wer
dream. Providing employment like ironing His Royals shoelaces every day.

Businessmen, entrepreneurs as I know them work harder and longer
than anyone you know and twice the hours, twenty times the brainpower of
anyone they employ.


* actually its me who is kidding. There nobody with
less humor than leftists.

Well, if nothing else, at least this might explain why the lower classes in America may be unhappy - even though they ostensibly eat better and live better than their class counterparts in most other areas of the world. Here in America, we have billionaires who live better than the vast majority of people in the world, and even they're unhappy and worried. Why would that be? That's where discussions like this start to get really bizarre.

So, businessmen and entrepreneurs work longer and harder with 20 times the brainpower? If that were the case, wouldn't we see some sort of tangible results at street level? I'm not talking about the poor or the "fat and lazy." Forget them. If we look at the overall conditions of the country and the worsening geopolitical situation, I don't see very many people among the top leadership using that much "brainpower." I really don't, but if you say you hang out with smart people, then I believe you.

But the question would still remain: Why would they be scared? Why would they be worried? Why would there would be so much angst out there, if capitalism is so wonderful? Why would these brilliant entrepreneurs and businesspeople with super-sized brains be so concerned, if they've been running things so well and working so very hard for everyone's benefit?