Musk: American workers are lazy. Chinese workers are awesome.

[Sawbonz 27669]

3 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

I appreciate your concern for what I teach my children.  How not to be poor in America takes 90 seconds to teach, so we've covered it before. 

Have you ever been poor?

[Guest]

40 minutes ago, trauma babe said:

This is a man who says he doesn't hate the poor. Yet in one simple sentence, he strips every person suffering under poverty and economic stagnation of their inherent dignity. 

Nah.  Your low expectations already did that.

[TwiceHorn 31627]

12 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

That's easy to say and almost impossible to validate

 

I don't see anyone saying that?  

It's also damn near impossible to fully validate the disincentivized, either.  A lot of people are just no damn good.

[TwiceHorn 31627]

42 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I’ve probably posted some version of “our interconnected economy is in incredibly complex system” 1000 times on this board, so spare me that particular lecture. There are literally thousands upon thousands of material inputs, some we can control and many we cannot.
But the macro truths remain: we are still an incredibly productive society, creating incredible wealth, and everyone’s share of that wealth, except for the top few percent, has declined in the past 40 years, at the same time that our social and political investment in our people has declined. That’s a broad social and political choice, and it’s a shitty one. And we’re paying the price, across the board.

To turn it around a bit, it wasn't just WWII, it was the Depression that the post-war years were aimed at solving.  And the Depression was accompanied/partially caused by a big shift in society, from agrarian and rural to industrialized and urban.

We're facing a similar big shift, presently without the world war part.  Unfortunately, this one may be tougher to solve because the shift is not merely from manual labor on the farm to manual labor in a factory, but from "unintellectual" labor to "intellectual" labor.  And not all intellects are created equal, in fact, about half of them are pretty shitty.

What are we going to do with the morons?

[fattyflattie 4638]

51 minutes ago, trauma babe said:

This is a man who says he doesn't hate the poor. Yet in one simple sentence, he strips every person suffering under poverty and economic stagnation of their inherent dignity. 

How is that? What dignity have I stripped anyone of? 
 

13 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

Have you ever been poor?

I don’t know. I’ve lived thru some pretty tense debt ratios, so maybe. Throw me a scenario or two you think qualifies and I can better answer your question. I grew up in a very poor area, but it wasn’t a have to situation. 

[Sawbonz 27669]

1 minute ago, fattyflattie said:

 

I don’t know. I’ve lived thru some pretty tense debt ratios, so maybe. Throw me a scenario or two you think qualifies and I can better answer your question. I grew up in a very poor area, but it wasn’t a have to situation. 

Your mom ever not eat supper so you could?

you ever come home to

lights off or gas off or water off?

you ever get an eviction notice?

any of this despite your mom working 2 jobs?

[MrBig 5447]

Elon is comparing American work ethic vs Chinese work ethic, but each labor force was brought up believing in two different economic & political systems. 

Comparing both is like complaining about the difference between an A cup vs C cup tittyfuck. Of course it’s not the same. Situational awareness is key for squeezing out the best results. 

But here we are, discussing the root causes of wealth disparity and attitude changes of American workers. We should be discussing how our country let someone with Elon’s labor beliefs create a huge personal stake in the automotive industry and space exploration. 

[Thatguy 8895]

4 hours ago, 52-80 said:

I hope to god you know the $300b wasnt “cleared”. certainly not by todays closing hours. and the guy you mentioned had 0 guaranteed comp, as his pay was tied directly to the value of his company, whose equity is shared to his employees, and where the price appreciation benefits all the shareholders who approved the pay. 

America is good. It could be better. IMO one improvement is instituting a wealth tax, and collecting more “from the top”. 

Thats a good conversation to start, but not with people blasting in with the premise that “the system is all fucked and everyone is out to get the poor”.

 

  It's like you don't know what billionaires do to prevent from paying taxes.

[Thatguy 8895]

4 hours ago, RatJuul said:

With all due respect, you really don’t get it if you think “it’s really not that hard at all.”

Consider the possibility or the question of, what if our American life, workplace and market economy which enables America to be the global leader in power and security, only works because of the violence that we embrace? The violence of unbridled ambition, potential, and power that comes with the “greed” of amassing immense and theoretical paper wealth so large you don’t have enough life in your lungs to count sequentially every dollar?

What if the disruption that causes exponential breakthroughs that drive innovation and growth and an ever-green growth of the pie is only because of the incentives and pay-outs that undergird our economy? I’m talking about such new paradigms that they sound like magic or insanity when first pitched. Industrial Revolution, PC and Internet Revolution, type shifts?

I guess we can always try to put a cap on rewards and appeal that people should be kind and nice and hope we don’t lose control of our own destiny while others allow their megalomaniacs and sociopaths (because from where I sit, that seems like who pioneer and blaze our trails), break new ground and strengthen their homeland. I just don’t see it. Maybe you do.

Lastly, I think we forget that when we want to pull up an exponential number of seats to the table of wealth in the name of equality and diversity and righting of historic wrongs, that this requires an exponential growth of the table as well to make room. That exponential growth means new innovations and markets. That means being on the cutting edge; an edge that not many people understand or can provide value or support, which means more and more work gets automated and what is left is the mundane or the lucrative but difficult while the middle-skill, middle-pay, middle-intelligent jobs start looking like the supply of a starter house. Either you had to get in on one of those jobs before private equity bought them all up or you are one of 2000 people submitting resumes for every one average job.

  We seemed to have that same ambition long before CEOs started taking trips to space while their company employees went without benefits because they decided to categorize them as "independent contractors". 2 billion will do a guy just fine. Cycle the rest of the money back to your employees.

[Thatguy 8895]

5 hours ago, gsoda3 said:

 

 

You don't know how this works.

  I know exactly how it works. The number is just to show how little it would take to improve the lives of our lowest income workers.

[fattyflattie 4638]

19 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

Your mom ever not eat supper so you could?  Negative.  

you ever come home to

lights off or gas off or water off?  Once,  my wife was pissed.  She neglected to pay the bill  

you ever get an eviction notice? Negative 

any of this despite your mom working 2 jobs? Nope   Dad worked a lot to pay moms med school tuition  

 

[gsoda3 3284]

  I know exactly how it works. The number is just to show how little it would take to improve the lives of our lowest income workers.

Ok, so long as you know Elon didn't literally take home 100+ billion last year.

Have you considered what distributing an extra $7/hr would mean? We are literally fresh off of the largest cash distribution to the public any nation in the world has ever given. Look at what has happened. Rampant inflation. Market volatility. If the past two years has taught us anything it's that there's a better way to address needs than handing out cash.

[Sawbonz 27669]

7 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

 

So obviously the way not to be poor is to be born into a two parent household with at least one having a post graduate degree. 

[Sawbonz 27669]

6 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

Market volatility. If the past two years has taught us anything it's that there's a better way to address needs than handing out cash.

There is literally no better way to address needs. You just can’t do it on the heels of a 2.3 T tax cut

[fattyflattie 4638]

5 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

So obviously the way not to be poor is to be born into a two parent household with at least one having a post graduate degree. 

I dunno. There was a solid decade where my brother was battling some demons that left him pretty fucking poor for awhile. 
 

Now do first gen immigrants. 

Edited May 14, 2022 by fattyflattie

[Sawbonz 27669]

Just now, fattyflattie said:

I dunno. There was a solid decade where my brother was battling some demons that left him pretty fucking poor for awhile. 

All by his lonesome?

[fattyflattie 4638]

6 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

All by his lonesome?

Not sure I follow? 

[Sawbonz 27669]

Just now, fattyflattie said:

Not sure I follow? 

What’s not clear? How much cash did your folks burn through while your brother was fighting his demons?

[fattyflattie 4638]

6 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

What’s not clear? How much cash did your folks burn through while your brother was fighting his demons?

None that I can think of.  He was an adult with a job and a wife and kid.  He had enough to live. He got better and while uneducated, works enough OT in the plants to have a solid middle class life. 

[Sawbonz 27669]

6 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

None that I can think of.  He was an adult with a job and a wife and kid.  He had enough to live. He got better and while uneducated, works enough OT in the plants to have a solid middle class life. 

So he wasn’t poor. I think you have no concept of poverty. Lucky for you I guess

[fattyflattie 4638]

12 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

So he wasn’t poor. I think you have no concept of poverty. Lucky for you I guess

He was making an extremely shit wage and barely supporting a family.  By your logic, if that’s not poor, then no one we are discussing in this thread is poor. Congratulations, you’ve come around!!

[Sawbonz 27669]

6 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

He was making an extremely shit wage and barely supporting a family.  By your logic, if that’s not poor, then no one we are discussing in this thread is poor. Congratulations, you’ve come around!!

You said you know how to teach your children not to be poor, took you 90 seconds to teach them. I then asked you if you had personally ever experienced poverty, you asked for examples which I gave. Then you proceeded to tell me how rough you had it while your dad was putting your mom through medical school and that one time when your wife forgot to pay the light bill.  You then tried to use your brother as an example of poverty when clearly he was nowhere close to poverty. 

[fattyflattie 4638]

Just now, Sawbonz said:

 You then tried to use your brother as an example of poverty when clearly he was nowhere close to poverty. 

That's the point.  If you don't consider a non-living wage while trying to raise a family poor, then the basis for this whole thread is bullshit.  So is a single earner  with a young family scraping by on min wage poor, or no?  Is it only not poor in my personal anecdote, but poor for the rest of the thread?  I need to know where you draw the line of poor, I guess.  Because it sounds like anything above homeless isn't considered poor to you.  What income level would you make the cutoff for unlimited free billionaire relocation money. 

[Sawbonz 27669]

2 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

That's the point.  If you don't consider a non-living wage while trying to raise a family poor, then the basis for this whole thread is bullshit.  So is a single earner  with a young family scraping by on min wage poor, or no?  Is it only not poor in my personal anecdote, but poor for the rest of the thread?  I need to know where you draw the line of poor, I guess.  Because it sounds like anything above homeless isn't considered poor to you.  What income level would you make the cutoff for unlimited free billionaire relocation money. 

Of course I would consider a non living wage earner poor. As you describe your brother he was making a living wage. Or your folks and or his in-laws were helping them out

[fattyflattie 4638]

5 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

Of course I would consider a non living wage earner poor. As you describe your brother he was making a living wage. Or your folks and or his in-laws were helping them out

Bro. Skid fucking row apts. that the section 8 folks wouldn’t find acceptable in a coastal plant town. I promise you the average barista is living in much better conditions. Even if they have to live way out in Pville. 

[safe sex 11800]

2 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

How is that? What dignity have I stripped anyone of?

You're implicitly calling them too stupid or too lazy to learn how to not be poor in 90 seconds. I'm not surprised you can't see it. You don't want to see it. You might have to change your mind about a lot of things if you change your mind about this.

[fattyflattie 4638]

13 minutes ago, trauma babe said:

You're implicitly calling them too stupid or too lazy to learn how to not be poor in 90 seconds. I'm not surprised you can't see it. You don't want to see it. You might have to change your mind about a lot of things if you change your mind about this.

If you haven’t, I’d suggest you spend a few years overseas, in truly poor areas if possible.  It might change your mind about a lot of things.  You might come to appreciate what poor really means to you, and how the US is tremendously easy to not be poor in.  

[safe sex 11800]

1 hour ago, fattyflattie said:

If you haven’t, I’d suggest you spend a few years overseas, in truly poor areas if possible.  It might change your mind about a lot of things.  You might come to appreciate what poor really means to you, and how the US is tremendously easy to not be poor in.  

I have spent plenty of time overseas, thank you. I lived in Germany and Turkey for five years while I was growing up, and we traveled extensively those years because the Air Force paid my dad to do it. I've been to my share of desperately poor villages, and I was there at a very formative age. I know what poor is in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and I know what poor is in America. The majority of my patients are caught in an endless cycle of being forced to choose between spending their money on food, rent, school, or their medication. You ever fucked a stranger so you can afford your HIV medication? That happens multiple times in Austin every day of the year. Why should that have to happen in America? Do you have any idea of what that kind of trauma does to a person? How it impacts their ability to function as a ~normal person? Are you capable of imagining such a thing? It happens every day. 

Even with that awful fact; even with Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton calling me a child abuser; even with the imminent loss of Roe, the right to privacy, and the right to marry whomever I love, I'm really glad I live in America compared to Guatemala or China or any other non-"Western" or "developed" nation. I'm not stupid, even though for some reason you have that opinion about almost every woman on this board from what I've read of your posting history.

Austin's EMS workers can't afford to live on the wages they're given. The benefits are a joke, and it's impossible to work a second job and keep your sanity when working intense healthcare like that. I can speak from personal experience. How does that happen in the greatest country in the world? That the people who respond to horrifying accidents; who resuscitate people from the brink of death; who assist in putting the pieces of shattered lives back together aren't able to live in the same community that they work in? That's obscene. Surely you agree? Like, what possible rationale is there for an Austin EMS worker not being able to afford to live in Austin?

Equally obscene is the person who reheats your burger patty not being able to save up for a home of their own, or to afford to go to school to find a higher paying career.

Everyone deserves to make enough money to pay for food, shelter, and other necessities of life while also being able to have a little fun and save up some cash to invest in the future—be it a house or fund or whatever—while working no more than forty hours a week. Shouldn't America, the so-called greatest country in the world, actually strive to come as close to achieving that for as many people as possible? Instead, we have the horrorshow that we actually live in, not the one in China.

It's so short-sighted and foolish to believe that just because there is much worse poverty in other parts of the world, that we shouldn't try to correct the still awful amount and type of poverty here.

Edited May 14, 2022 by trauma babe

[MaybeACoordinator 8350]

SIAP but this is how late stage capitalism works.

1. China and SE Asia and South Asia are the deepest pool of dirt-cheap labor combined with a certain level of manufacturing right now.

2. However it costs a lot of money to ship the goods across the planet on fuel-guzzling container ships.

3. Sooo....you break down American workers. Make them more like Chinese workers. Present trends are moving in the other direction but that is the dream they share when the billionaires break out the cigars and dream of a better world. 

 

[Thatguy 8895]

5 hours ago, gsoda3 said:

Ok, so long as you know Elon didn't literally take home 100+ billion last year.

Have you considered what distributing an extra $7/hr would mean? We are literally fresh off of the largest cash distribution to the public any nation in the world has ever given. Look at what has happened. Rampant inflation. Market volatility. If the past two years has taught us anything it's that there's a better way to address needs than handing out cash.
 

  Geezus you guys are....

   Everyone here understands how billionaires reinvest their money back into the company to prevent from being taxed on it and then take loans against their shares when they need cash themselves. So get off it already. It's just a tactic to avoid the tax man, and they employ plenty more of them too. Hiding money is what they do. There are trillions of dollars floating out there just to avoid taxation.

   That said, no one is advocating "giving away free money" like covid. What we are saying is the money is there at these companies to pay workers a more livable wage. The key phrase here is "workers". As in people who are clocking in and out and getting paid. You can do it without inflating the market too, but companies are too greedy to do it.  Uber can operate giving their drivers a 20/80 split, just as they did upon inception, but their desire to please their stockholders over their drivers has them collecting close to 50/50 now. Instead, any increase they give to their drivers is passed on to us the consumer when it doesn't have to be. Thus causing the consumers and the drivers to be unhappy, the two groups you need to function. The current system is borked, and every publicly traded company is on some form of death spiral, slow or fast, depending on how their run.

  Take restaurants for example. Some guy comes up with a great concept. Creates a booming business. Decides they should open up multiple locations which end up doing well because they are all built upon the vision statement of the first location. THEN THEY GO PUBLIC. Shareholders want to see profits and growth. They start cannibalizing themselves through oversaturation. Then the company turns their eye inward in search of profits. Commissary kitchens are created. Food comes in pre-made to save costs. Guests are put off by the loss in quality. Workers are unhappy by the loss of income. Company starts the downward turn. Rinse and repeat. The same CEOs(or COOs), like NFL coaches, move around from company to company doing the same shitty job they did at their last stop. Shareholders jump on board, squeeze every drop from the company, then jump in the life boats when the company capsizes. On to the next. The only people hurt were the workers in the middle.  

  The current system is creating billionaires at an unprecedented rate. However, its also eating the middle class at the same rate. Greed is driving this country into the same black hole that has ruined all great civilizations. As a country we are basically following the same slow death spiral that I outlined above. Just replace a couple phrases like commissary kitchens with outsourcing and the parallels are alarming.

[Thatguy 8895]

11 hours ago, F250 said:

 

The not so secret part of these travel sports organizations is that the most talented don't pay much to play. They are subsidized by the other kids.

It's only expensive for the less than talented.

   In the vball world this part is true, but its a pretty small pool that doesn't pay because not every club employs those practices. You can tell who those clubs are because they are the ones who are always poaching players from other clubs. However, you have to remember that in the vball world a lot of these girls are coming from former athletes who can clearly afford to pay. Take Jermaine Oneal for example, not only DID he pay, but he started Drive Nation which is now one of the best vball clubs in Texas, just so his daughter(who plays at Texas) could play volleyball. Only cost him 12 million. Lol

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Sawbonz said:

Your mom ever not eat supper so you could?

you ever come home to

lights off or gas off or water off?

you ever get an eviction notice?

any of this despite your mom working 2 jobs?

Yes.  Did you get all that off a stupid video like this?  Fucking excuses galore. 16 steps, and I took zero.  So the fuck what.

watched car get repoed and knew it was Mom's only way to get to work.

our house was so shitty that it snowed in my brothers' room because their room was actually settling away from the main house.

Thought our fridge went out and then realized it was so fucking cold, it didn't need to kick on.

woke up to ice in the toilets on the regular in wintertime.

washed mice droppings out of a 50# bag of lentils and then cooked nasty ass soup just to have something to eat. Did that through most of one winter.

Had no medical care/ checkups. Only time we went to the doctor was for physicals for sports that schools paid for and that was a joke. You're fucking 15 and in brilliant health, but it wasn't healthcare.

I wore hand-me-down clothes through early high school when I could finally start working and getting my own shit.  My mother wore hand-me-downs too.

We lived in gov't housing for 4 years and our rent was $114/month for 2 bedroom apt. My mom was fully employed and going to school at night. We were broke AF. We moved out in 4 years after my mom had finished her Associates.  That's a huge reason why I do support gov't assistance, but also feel there should be real time limits.  People should be making progress, not just lingering. Hell, last year I paid 2x in taxes what my mom used to earn in a year.  I'd say that came back to society in a good way.

Fuck all that shit in the ass and no, I never want to experience it again.  It drives the living fuck out of what I do, and in that, I'm not seeking stupid wealth.  I work towards security for my family and having the financial flexibility to take on hits like the water heater going out or the alternator went out on the car.  Those were MAJOR setbacks in my childhood. I've talked about it enough and explained what good decisions do for your odds in life, that hopefully my kids and grandkids never experience it.

 

 

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

  Geezus you guys are....

   Everyone here understands how billionaires reinvest their money back into the company to prevent from being taxed on it and then take loans against their shares when they need cash themselves. So get off it already. It's just a tactic to avoid the tax man, and they employ plenty more of them too. Hiding money is what they do. There are trillions of dollars floating out there just to avoid taxation.

   That said, no one is advocating "giving away free money" like covid. What we are saying is the money is there at these companies to pay workers a more livable wage. The key phrase here is "workers". As in people who are clocking in and out and getting paid. You can do it without inflating the market too, but companies are too greedy to do it.  Uber can operate giving their drivers a 20/80 split, just as they did upon inception, but their desire to please their stockholders over their drivers has them collecting close to 50/50 now. Instead, any increase they give to their drivers is passed on to us the consumer when it doesn't have to be. Thus causing the consumers and the drivers to be unhappy, the two groups you need to function. The current system is borked, and every publicly traded company is on some form of death spiral, slow or fast, depending on how their run.

 

False.  Those wages ARE the market.  We are getting the results from that right now.  We're living it every day that this premise is bullshit.

[Thatguy 8895]

1 minute ago, slorch said:

False.  Those wages ARE the market.  We are getting the results from that right now.  We're living it every day that this premise is bullshit.

  What you are living is that the top .1% is hoarding all the wealth and passing any increases in pay to you as the consumer. It doesn't have to be that way you understand that right?

[Sawbonz 27669]

37 minutes ago, slorch said:

Yes.  Did you get all that off a stupid video like this?  Fucking excuses galore. 16 steps, and I took zero.  So the fuck what.

watched car get repoed and knew it was Mom's only way to get to work.

our house was so shitty that it snowed in my brothers' room because their room was actually settling away from the main house.

Thought our fridge went out and then realized it was so fucking cold, it didn't need to kick on.

woke up to ice in the toilets on the regular in wintertime.

washed mice droppings out of a 50# bag of lentils and then cooked nasty ass soup just to have something to eat. Did that through most of one winter.

Had no medical care/ checkups. Only time we went to the doctor was for physicals for sports that schools paid for and that was a joke. You're fucking 15 and in brilliant health, but it wasn't healthcare.

I wore hand-me-down clothes through early high school when I could finally start working and getting my own shit.  My mother wore hand-me-downs too.

We lived in gov't housing for 4 years and our rent was $114/month for 2 bedroom apt. My mom was fully employed and going to school at night. We were broke AF. We moved out in 4 years after my mom had finished her Associates.  That's a huge reason why I do support gov't assistance, but also feel there should be real time limits.  People should be making progress, not just lingering. Hell, last year I paid 2x in taxes what my mom used to earn in a year.  I'd say that came back to society in a good way.

Fuck all that shit in the ass and no, I never want to experience it again.  It drives the living fuck out of what I do, and in that, I'm not seeking stupid wealth.  I work towards security for my family and having the financial flexibility to take on hits like the water heater going out or the alternator went out on the car.  Those were MAJOR setbacks in my childhood. I've talked about it enough and explained what good decisions do for your odds in life, that hopefully my kids and grandkids never experience it.

 

 

I didn’t watch any video I lived it. I also watched friends and family live it and more didn’t make it out than did. There is zero margin for error when you grow up that way. Even if you make all the right choices. Realize you are the exception and be thankful you were blessed with a mother who didn’t abandon you and your brother despite her hardships, or become an addict, or find a guy that liked to get drunk and use y’all for punching bags, or get cancer and die when you were a kid. All of those things were realities for kids I grew up with. 

Where would you be if your mom had had a serious illness or injury while working and going to night school? With what I do for a living I see lives and families destroyed because the breadwinner gets hurt, misses too much work, loses their job and therefore insurance (if they could afford it in the first place), and can’t get a needed surgery so they can get back to work. Even if I did the surgery for free the hospital will want thousands of dollars up front, might as well be a million

It is rare to have the combination of talent, intelligence, drive, and lucky breaks you and I had to get from where we started to where we are. I would like fewer of us to have to rely so much on the luck part. Will some people game the system and take advantage? of course that’s human nature and always will be. But I would rather those inefficiencies than the loopholes in the system that further enrich those at the top. 

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

The magic trick the billionaire class has pulled to convince so much of the middle class that it's actually the poors that represent the greatest threat to their livelihoods instead of the billionaires themselves (that continue to pocket greater and greater percentages of wealth the middle class workers are helping create) is quite something.

This thread is a great example. It's about hard working factory employees. But then all of the sudden it's about the deadbeats. Magic.

As long we as we keep bitching at each other, hopefully we'll ignore the ever greater amounts of wealth we are all creating go into the pockets of a few.

[Celery Man 21020]

"if you want a human to work at your place of business they need to earn enough money to reasonably pay for their necessities" - that's the free shit brigade, that's the flow of free money that needs to be plugged to stabilize the economy.

[Sawbonz 27669]

13 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

"if you want a human to work at your place

They’re working on fixing that glitch. And when they do, the real fun begins

[gsoda3 3284]

There is literally no better way to address needs. You just can’t do it on the heels of a 2.3 T tax cut

Cash is a means to an end. Address the end needs.

[Celery Man 21020]

Housing costs are obviously a huge issue with a lot of factors involved but honest work for a decent living sure solves a lot of problems, as we've seen.

[Sawbonz 27669]

20 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

10 hours ago, Sawbonz said:

There is literally no better way to address needs. You just can’t do it on the heels of a 2.3 T tax cut

Cash is a means to an end. Address the end needs.

So you want to develop a cradle to grave nanny state? Give people money. Most will spend it on what they need. Some will game the system and live on the dole. Such is life. 
 

universal basic income is going to have to happen. Almost everybody posting here is going to be replaceable with technology.

[Hefeweizen 5347]

13 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

So you want to develop a cradle to grave nanny state? Give people money. Most will spend it on what they need. Some will game the system and live on the dole. Such is life. 
 

universal basic income is going to have to happen. Almost everybody posting here is going to be replaceable with technology.

Speak for yourself.   My combination of lack of empathy and narcissism can’t be replaced by any machine!

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

13 hours ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

What do you understand about that chart? What happened around 1980? Did the rich all the sudden get a lot smarter or harder working? Did the poor and middle classes all the sudden get dumber and lazier.

Tell me what you understand about that chart.

 

want to follow up here as i'm curious what you understand about this chart, @fattyflattie...

 

[fattyflattie 4638]

27 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

want to follow up here as i'm curious what you understand about this chart, @fattyflattie...

 

I understand that all is good in the hood here, bud. And that intellectual capital became disproportionately more valuable than manual labor.  Now a high school degree and a job at the tire factory is seeing its value. And currently, that value isn’t as valuable as being great at technology, making an argument, or sawing someone’s bones.  After a generation, the line is starting to separate further.  You are a smart guy who did well for himself young, iirc.  Are you going to be upset when your children, that I’m sure your assuring a great education to, also highly achieve? No. You will not. And that will continue to add to the delta in that graph.  

[Captainant 27862]

6 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

I understand that all is good in the hood here, bud. And that intellectual capital became disproportionately more valuable than manual labor.  Now a high school degree and a job at the tire factory is seeing its value. And currently, that value isn’t as valuable as being great at technology, making an argument, or sawing someone’s bones.  After a generation, the line is starting to separate further.  You are a smart guy who did well for himself young, iirc.  Are you going to be upset when your children, that I’m sure your assuring a great education to, also highly achieve? No. You will not. And that will continue to add to the delta in that graph.  

So for context, I'm on that big ramp up in pay too by virtue of being lucky enough to graduate with a degree in computer science from UT in the mid teens. I'm paying more in taxes this year than I took home in my first salary gig. But I also can recognize that it's not very sustainable as a system to have such huge income disparities in a population.

I've paid off all my federal student loans already and just have $50k or so of TX higher ed coordinating board loans left. I was a homeowner when I turned 30. I've been extremely fortunate to be prepared for the opportunities that came my way.

But all that good doesn't mean that I celebrate people falling further down the ladder. Life isn't zero-sum. Other people getting a benefit doesn't torque me off like it seems to with you and y'all. Those people doing manual labor aren't stupid - they just haven't had the same access to opportunities that I have.

[fattyflattie 4638]

7 hours ago, trauma babe said:

I know what poor is in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and I know what poor is in America

Good. A lot of people don’t.  Now you understand not being able to live in Austin, vs having a dirt floor and stolen electricity. 
 

7 hours ago, trauma babe said:

You ever fucked a stranger so you can afford your HIV medication? That happens multiple times in Austin every day of the year. Why should that have to happen in America? Do you have any idea of what that kind of trauma does to a person?

Your anecdote is someone knowingly passing HIV to people?  I’m not sure that person needs medication as much as a bullet between the eyes.  Fuck that person, and I have no sympathy for anything that happens to them. In fact, I hope nothing but bad things happen to someone who knowingly passes around HIV. 
 

7 hours ago, trauma babe said:

I'm not stupid, even though for some reason you have that opinion about almost every woman on this board from what I've read of your posting history.

Going to need some receipts on this one. I think there are very smart women posters here, and some that think they are much smarter than they are. Seems to align pretty well with the male, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, straight, gay, old, and young demographics here. 
 

7 hours ago, trauma babe said:

Like, what possible rationale is there for an Austin EMS worker not being able to afford to live in Austin?

I bet they could make it in Houston or SA.  I’d love to live in one of the best cities in America, that tops every category and list, where my property value grows at a 50%+ clip year over year.  We have dozens (hundreds?) of people on this board who will be millionaires simply due to buying a house there 25 years ago.  You, being a resident of Austin (iirc) have more to do with the current state of affairs there than I do.  Sounds like maybe some local govt not making shady real estate deals with their buddies in regards to homeless housing would go along way to fixing the EMS issue.  I can’t vote in Austin. Can you? 

[Starfleet Command 441]

Are you saying they should house EMS personnel in homeless shelters?  Maybe they should simply hire EMS from the ranks of homeless so they don’t need a place to live. 

[fattyflattie 4638]

2 minutes ago, Captainant said:

So for context, I'm on that big ramp up in pay too by virtue of being lucky enough to graduate with a degree in computer science from UT in the mid teens

First, after all these years, I thought you were a lawyer.   Luck is the incorrect word. 
 

3 minutes ago, Captainant said:

I've paid off all my federal student loans already and just have $50k or so of TX higher ed coordinating board loans left. I was a homeowner when I turned 30. I've been extremely fortunate to be prepared for the opportunities that came my way.

Awesome. Sounds like we’re very similar in that regard. 
 

4 minutes ago, Captainant said:

But all that good doesn't mean that I celebrate people falling further down the ladder. Life isn't zero-sum. Other people getting a benefit doesn't torque me off like it seems to with you and y'all. Those people doing manual labor aren't stupid - they just haven't had the same access to opportunities that I have.

I don’t celebrate people falling down the ladder.  But at the end of the day, I put my family’s well being above all else.  As long as we are disproportionally taxing people, it very fucking much a zero sum game. My sites have been chock full of manual labor workers every fucking day of the week for the last 15 years. Some are not stupid, some very much can barely tie their shoes, some are fucking lazy.  I’ll defer to you on computer shit, I’d bet dollars to donuts I have a better feel on the daily goings ons of the US, hell, and Mexican, Bahamian, Malaysian, Thai, Australian, Brazilian, and a host of other laborers than you. 

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

22 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

I understand that all is good in the hood here, bud. And that intellectual capital became disproportionately more valuable than manual labor.  Now a high school degree and a job at the tire factory is seeing its value. And currently, that value isn’t as valuable as being great at technology, making an argument, or sawing someone’s bones.  After a generation, the line is starting to separate further.  You are a smart guy who did well for himself young, iirc.  Are you going to be upset when your children, that I’m sure your assuring a great education to, also highly achieve? No. You will not. And that will continue to add to the delta in that graph.  

So much wrong with this view point, will chime back in when I have some time...but if you think that trend line is inevitable, then surely you understand where it ends, right? Throughout history, what's happened when wealth disparity has become so disproportionate?

[fattyflattie 4638]

2 minutes ago, Starfleet Command said:

Are you saying they should house EMS personnel in homeless shelters?  Maybe they should simply hire EMS from the ranks of homeless so they don’t need a place to live. 

Less govt fuckery = more money for legitimate issues.