The 1%'s have more money than me and I DONT CARE

I am not that old but I've basically been self employed my entire adult life except for the first couple years. I do remember the cost of living being much lower in the 80's but wages were also crap then.

Actually compared to now they weren't.

I'm 55. I was born in 1956. The time when my father worked as a machinist was in the 1950s and 1960s. Take after-tax income from a typical 40-hour job, adjust for inflation, subtract the cost of health care, and you'd have to be making something like $50 or $60 an hour to match it today. The slide began in 1973 but really got underway in the 1980s, so by that time (the Reagan years) not much damage had been done yet, although the process was put in train then.

Obviously the economy of the last couple years is probably a larger hurdle but it is not representative of who we are as a whole. It will pass then what will the red herring be?

It's not just the past couple of years. It's something that's been building over thirty years. The rules of the game have changed to give more of the nation's wealth to the most successful at gaming the system, less to everyone else. And that's just wrong.

Really, this has nothing to do with self-reliance or personal initiative or anything like that. It has nothing to with having "sympathy" for someone else's problems; it will always be true that everyone could conceivably be better of if they did this or if they did that. Well, almost always. But that's irrelevant here. The truth is we produce wealth in a society, not alone in a wilderness, and we are always doing it in conjunction with others and there are rules of the game that determine how the wealth is divided up. For the past few decades, we've been living under a set of rules that were designed to maximize the rewards, not of work, but of ownership, and we're seeing the results right now.

This is not the way it should be.
 
Did anyone ever stop to think that the income differences are a direct result of govt involvement where it doesn't belong? It isn't the rich causing the split.

For instance the govt has made access to money for education and housing so cheap that it is driving up the prices to an insane level. Access artificially drives up demand which in turn inflated the costs. Eventually leading to the bubble being unable to support its own weight. Then the ensuing collapse trickles down to everything and everyone else. Obviously the poor are hit the hardest because they have less of a cushion to rely on. Hardly the fault of the rich. Our govt has oppressed the poor for generations and the rich who were smart enough to avoid the traps have become the scapegoats.

I was as poor as you can get. I had 100 dollars given to me when I was released from prison. It took several years to escape my poverty but I did it none the less.

WHY CAN'T EVERYONE ELSE?

I listed the reasons in my first post. There aren't jobs out there and as a whole, wages are being held down.
Someone determines the wages, the purpose are clear why it is happening,,,the bottom-line. Holding down wages enhances the bottom-line. Shareholders enjoy the rewards of a great bottom-line. The uber-wealthy who have seen their income grow, while 90% of Americans have not as a majority of their income comes from investments. A huge majority of Middle Class lives from check-to-check and participates as shareholders in a marginal way via 401ks; etc.
As our economy sits today, very, very few can escape their situation. If this trend continues at the rate it has, one can basically kiss goodbye the opportunity you and I had to better their economic situation.
 
I'm not jealous or greedy. It's their money and their ingenuity that enabled them to aquire their wealth. I am responsible for me and me alone. It is not my job to worry about the wealthy or the poor. I donate to the poor and congratulate the rich. When I'm not doing that I'm trying to better my own life rather than obsessing about everyone else. The rich haven't held me back but rather provided the opportunity for me to take my first few steps to self reliance by providing me my first few jobs. Unlike many I wasn't content with minimum wage and educated myself so that I could become more.

I feel sorry for those of you who have no self confidence and choose to blame everyone else for your own situation. If "I" an excon can make it to a six figure income then there are no excuses for anyone else. Your lack of achievements are your own fault. Suck it up and do something about it.

I don't care either. Unless they buy up Republican politicians and change laws so what was illegal is now legal. Like with Wall Street and derivatives. Then I say to myself, "Those fucking Republicans. Worse than al Qaeda". al Qaeda managed to kill 3,000 Americans and do a billion dollars in damage.
Republicans managed to kill 4,000 Americans, wound 30,000 more, create 11 trillion in debt, deplete our military, create a friend for Iran, and bring down the world economy. And try to blame everything they did on Obama and the Democrats. Quite an accomplishment. Much more than what al Qaeda was able to accomplish. Republicans hate being shown up, obviously.

The housing bubble that led to our disaster started under Clinton not Bush. It was a bipartisan cluster fuck.

Are you ever honest with yourself?
and started with Jimmah Catah in 1977?
 
I don't care either. Unless they buy up Republican politicians and change laws so what was illegal is now legal. Like with Wall Street and derivatives. Then I say to myself, "Those fucking Republicans. Worse than al Qaeda". al Qaeda managed to kill 3,000 Americans and do a billion dollars in damage.
Republicans managed to kill 4,000 Americans, wound 30,000 more, create 11 trillion in debt, deplete our military, create a friend for Iran, and bring down the world economy. And try to blame everything they did on Obama and the Democrats. Quite an accomplishment. Much more than what al Qaeda was able to accomplish. Republicans hate being shown up, obviously.

The housing bubble that led to our disaster started under Clinton not Bush. It was a bipartisan cluster fuck.

Are you ever honest with yourself?

Oh, you mean you didn't know? Under Bush, Republicans deregulated Wall Street. More than 70% of the mortgage market was moved to Wall Street where they bundled the mortgages together after selling them to anyone who could sign their name. Then they sold those worthless "securities" to the unsuspecting overseas. Ahh, but first, they "insured" those so called "securities". So they got a little money from the sale of those securities and they got a lot of insurance money. That, they called derivatives.

Report: Fannie Mae manipulated accounting - Business - Corporate scandals

S.E.C. Sues Goldman Over Housing Market Deal - NYTimes.com

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. News - The New York Times

Try to explain, if you can, how Goldman Sachs, Barclays and the Lehman Brothers fit into "Freddie/Fannie". :popcorn:

Only one of these scandals caused the world market to break down. Guess which one.

yea I knew republicans tried to warn democrats but like you they were hacks and didn't care

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPSDnGMzIdo&feature=youtube_gdata_player]Democrats were WARNED of Financial crisis and did NOTHING - YouTube[/ame]
 

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