Russell Okung - Huh?
- Thread starter 77cowboy
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If you graduate from high school, don't have kids before marriage and get any job, you will not live in poverty long term.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2003/09/childrenfamilies-haskins
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2003/09/childrenfamilies-haskins
When the minimum wage doesn't afford people even a meager living, yes it's a major F'ing problemz
The minimum wage was never designed to afford grown-ass adult people ANY living, not long-term
Minimum wage workers make up 4 percent of the work force. Majority of those are secondary household income earners
Even if that's true, your argument is still completely F'ed...the median household income, adjusted for inflation, is LOWER now than it was in 1999. American Dream? Kiss my F'ing ass.
I can't imagine how you could be struggling. You obviously don't have anger issues OR appropriate language issues.
Why do you suppose income is stagnating?
Are there more or less ppl living in the average household now or then?
Also back to your earlier post; please define meager living
Few things are. Depressing that most mediums for discussion reduce them to that, though.
To me it looked like they were both talking about different things. Graham is talking about how you pretty much have to be in business for yourself if you are going to have a chance to be rich and pretty much only by having a "Startup". Graham states that most people think money is a limited pie where if they gain somebody else loses, Graham also states that you create value by making/providing something that others want and in these cases both party's win. He also states some people with privilege lie cheat and steal, get rules changed or bend them to make money and that these types add no value because they don't create anything. He also states they should be held accountable. (This occurs some at all levels in my book, from the street to wall street)
Russ is simply trying to say not everybody has an equal chance at the starting line or an equal chance to get to the starting line.
To me, neither are very high on an average Joe's chance to have much financial success.
To me, we need everybody to create value and to also have the chance to create value. Not a government that limits or punishes value creation or rewards non production
Russ is simply trying to say not everybody has an equal chance at the starting line or an equal chance to get to the starting line.
To me, neither are very high on an average Joe's chance to have much financial success.
To me, we need everybody to create value and to also have the chance to create value. Not a government that limits or punishes value creation or rewards non production
I'm a registered independent swimming in a cesspool of BS republican ideology that pervades this board. I'm from a state that pretends to be sanctimonious and a bastion of religious and moral high, yet we are one of the worst states in the country at paying teachers? Shit like that pisses me off, and both sides are to blame, yet the bitching and moaning never stops - just shifting the blame to another side.
I dont pretend to know everything about politics and social policy, but I know enough to not join either side. And how in Gods name could anyone vote for Donald Trump is beyond me.
We can all agree and identify the ones who have a head start, the others who barely have a fighting chance, and all the people in between. The on time the extremely poor man, the middle class man, and the rich man will be "equal" is when they have taken their last breaths. At that moment in time material things have absolulty zero value to said men.
We will all pass at some point, and it is our own free will that gives us the choice of choosing eternal life or eternal death. I want the best life has to offer. I am currently and will work my ass off th elevate my families well being. When it's over I know where I will be. Some perspective we easily forget about when we start point out the things we don't have instead of what we already own.
We will all pass at some point, and it is our own free will that gives us the choice of choosing eternal life or eternal death.
Dead men don't choose. We choose when we are alive.
I said spiritually dead. Do you agree that all men are born spiritually dead?
More and more if you solely get a W-2 at the end of the year in this country, you're screwed.
What is sad to me is, I know Mexicans who are legal, built a business doing the things that the last generation or 2 won't do. Most are clearing over 100k per year. Roofers, landscape, framing, painting contractors, ect.
Some parents have set their kids up for failure by not valuing a work ethic.
If the trend continues you won't have hardly any craftsmen left in this country that aren't Latinos.
Some parents have set their kids up for failure by not valuing a work ethic.
If the trend continues you won't have hardly any craftsmen left in this country that aren't Latinos.
"Privilege talking"? Now that's some total bullshit. Here's what you really need to know about Income Inequality from one of the smartest guys in the room:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376399/lefts-income-inequality-canard-thomas-sowell
Back to the original point by Okung, I heard recently that Jennifer Lawrence had a big problem with income inequality among male and female actors.
As a small business owner, I love hearing millionaire athletes and Hollywood actresses pontificate about economic injustice and the lie that is the American Dream. It's really entertaining.
I lived at or below the poverty line for two years when I started my business. It's called taking a risk. Even now, I am making a fairly modest middle class living after expenses, but I absolutely am living the American dream. It's not about net worth Mr rich guy.
What eludes RO, is this. He's right. Hard work alone does not advance you economically. Where he fails is here; You have to bring something to the table. Creativity, innovation, something that fills a need.
Now, THAT combined with hard work has limitless potential in this country. A hard working ditch digger is at best going to supervise other ditch diggers. Hard work is just part of the American Dream, which is not dead and is not a lie.
Not everyone will live the American Dream because not everyone will accept risk. And that's fine. But to say it's a lie is bullshit, and to buy into that bullshit usually means you've given up or missed t
As a small business owner, I love hearing millionaire athletes and Hollywood actresses pontificate about economic injustice and the lie that is the American Dream. It's really entertaining.
I lived at or below the poverty line for two years when I started my business. It's called taking a risk. Even now, I am making a fairly modest middle class living after expenses, but I absolutely am living the American dream. It's not about net worth Mr rich guy.
What eludes RO, is this. He's right. Hard work alone does not advance you economically. Where he fails is here; You have to bring something to the table. Creativity, innovation, something that fills a need.
Now, THAT combined with hard work has limitless potential in this country. A hard working ditch digger is at best going to supervise other ditch diggers. Hard work is just part of the American Dream, which is not dead and is not a lie.
Not everyone will live the American Dream because not everyone will accept risk. And that's fine. But to say it's a lie is bullshit, and to buy into that bullshit usually means you've given up or missed t
Mega...you're a white middle-class man. Your opportunities for success and chasing the American Dream compared to inner-city kids who were born into poverty are apples to oranges, man. And you KNOW it, so why conger up BS like that? That's why he started his foundation - to give those kids a chance.
As someone who has worked with these "inner city kids", I can tell you from first hand experience that it's guys like you and your misguided "compassion" (meaning welfare) that have created the breeding ground for this generational poverty. Useless parents who were raised by other useless parents who are now raising even more useless and entitled kids. And these kids WEREN'T born this way. They are good kids made bad by a welfare system that demands little to nothing from them in exchange for free stuff. Try that approach with your own kids and see what miserable little bastards you end up raising. In other words, liberal whites are the culprit. It makes them feel so good about themselves because they almost never have to set foot in those neighborhoods and see the mess they've created and continue to perpetuate. Out of the goodness of their hearts, they've put the poor on the government planation. It's sickening to watch as it's so extremely destructive to individuals and families and ultimately to society.
As the late great Earl Nightengale once so accurately put it:
"Broke is a temporary situation. Poverty is a state of mind." Amen, Earl. I couldn't agree more.
And one more thing, Clinton. If you think guys like Okung preaching that message to kids helps them in any way, shape or form succeed then you're dead wrong. His message is one of excuses to fail and blame others for it. That's a loser message and a loser strategy that will keep them poor, but even worse, make them bitter. Total bullshit. Once again, another liberal with good intentions (and I really do believe their intentions are well meaning) that leaves a pile of carnage and poverty in the wake of their convoluted logic that is never supported with healthy results.
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who has aspired to this? Who wants this? It's about as accurate as saying, "Okay, about 10 peole make all the money, and there's no capitol or opportunity for everyone else."
When someone instantly twists someone else's point and makes it as radical as possible, they're afraid of objective analysis.
Those schools are fine. The problem with them is that the kids don't want to learn because their useless parents (for the most part) do not instill the value of education in them and do not teach them discipline. You could spend a million bucks per kid and if the parents don't care about education it won't change a thing. It's a cultural problem, not a school problem.
Interesting..... so successful people are hypocritical if they acknowledge others' injustices and want to fix it. I guess only unsuccessful people can express that opinion? He won the genetic lottery and is pretty smart and hard working to boot. People that step outside of their own immediate self interest and try to fix problems that impact other people aren't hypocrites. They are altruistic.
An inability to distinguish between hypocrisy vs. intellectual honesty or altruisim suggests sociopathy, imo.
No, that's not true. Compare the education in OKC between public schools and private - the teachers, the curriculum, the quality of education... Do you have any experience lately in Oklahoma public vs. private schools?
I'm going to disagree with you here. What we have is generational poverty. Which is somewhat caused by federal programs that minimize the negative consequences of poor decisions and reliance of family. We've raised multiple generations who know that if they drop out of school or don't work that the government won't let them starve. Not that their families will take care of them. But that the government will.
As such, the need for families is diminished as well as the need to make good choices in your life. Breaking the generational poverty cycle is the real American problem. Fix that and a lot of other things fix themselves.
And you don't fix the problem by taking/taxing from someone else and giving it to another. That just perpetuate the issue.
Of course the private schools are better. I went to a suburban public school in okc which was a solid district. It wasn't Casady. My point is that OKC schools are good enough to prepare kids for college.
