Damn it's good to live in the United States

[Ray From Cleveland]

I agree actually, that the chance of becoming stupidly rich is better in this country than most. But that is still a tiny chance. What is not better in this country is going from poor to middle class, that is harder to do here than other places based on the datat.

Harder to do here or that people won't make the effort? What I did just about anybody can do. Why not the poor?

I worked, found a career I liked that put me in demand, it paid the bills, and I invested my money. These are things anybody can do.

If anybody is stopping upward mobility it's our government especially when Democrats are in charge. We give the so-called poor so much food many are fat. Free cell phones. A house or apartment in the suburbs. Free daycare if they work. The more kids, the larger SNAP's card, larger suburban home, larger welfare check.

These people are happy this way, and why not? There is no need to move upward because they have no desire to.

There is nothing you did that could not be done in any country, including trading commodity contracts.

I know you can get ahead here, but it is not as simple as people wish to make it.

After getting out of the Marines in 2009 during the heart of the recession we as a family were barely above poverty level and I found out that 20 years in the Marines pretty much meant squat to most employers despite what we had been told as we got ready to get out.

The wife and I came to the conclusion this was not how we wanted to live. So I finished my Bachelors and got my Masters and she got her ASN and then her BSN...jump forward to today and we are now in the top 10% of income earners according to the Govt.

I do not say any of this to brag, but I understand we had a lot of advantages not everyone has. I had the GI Bill, without which I would never have been able to go back school. My wife had parents that had the means and desire to help her reach her dream. Thus we were able to almost quintuple our income in less than a decade. Not everyone has these things, we were lucky and worked our asses off at the same time. I do not think it is wrong to recognize not everyone can do what we did as they do not have the resources we did.

You don't realize that you reinforced my point. You worked for it and by doing so you did move up if you're telling the truth. A lot of people can do what you did just like a lot of people can do what I did. What's stopping them?

 

[Lisa558]

Harder to do here or that people won't make the effort? What I did just about anybody can do. Why not the poor?

I worked, found a career I liked that put me in demand, it paid the bills, and I invested my money. These are things anybody can do.

If anybody is stopping upward mobility it's our government especially when Democrats are in charge. We give the so-called poor so much food many are fat. Free cell phones. A house or apartment in the suburbs. Free daycare if they work. The more kids, the larger SNAP's card, larger suburban home, larger welfare check.

These people are happy this way, and why not? There is no need to move upward because they have no desire to.



You don't realize that you reinforced my point. You worked for it and by doing so you did move up if you're telling the truth. A lot of people can do what you did just like a lot of people can do what I did. What's stopping them?

So true. In my family, everyone (one generation up) went from an impoverished childhood to college-educated professionals in 10 years, and on to upper-middle class affluence 10 years after that.

This country is full of opportunity for anyone with the motivation, discipline, and intelligence to succeed.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

Once Biden implements his plan to give $450,000 to every illegal who was
separated at the border from their families and had undue stress put on them,
there will be less starving of illegals.

We're making a run to the border to cash in.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Harder to do here or that people won't make the effort? What I did just about anybody can do. Why not the poor?

I worked, found a career I liked that put me in demand, it paid the bills, and I invested my money. These are things anybody can do.

If anybody is stopping upward mobility it's our government especially when Democrats are in charge. We give the so-called poor so much food many are fat. Free cell phones. A house or apartment in the suburbs. Free daycare if they work. The more kids, the larger SNAP's card, larger suburban home, larger welfare check.

These people are happy this way, and why not? There is no need to move upward because they have no desire to.



You don't realize that you reinforced my point. You worked for it and by doing so you did move up if you're telling the truth. A lot of people can do what you did just like a lot of people can do what I did. What's stopping them?

I stopped responding to him.
Either trolling or just being obtuse.
Anyone with an objective brain knows the VAST majority of poor in America are there out of their own actions/inactions.
There was a day in this country when people, like other countries all over the world STILL are, can not escape poverty no matter how hard they work. That has not been true in America for at least 50 years.
As well as what is poor in America?
Someone living in a home with heat/ac, electricity, hot water, fast internet, cable TV ... are they really poor??

 

[Harpy Eagle]

You don't realize that you reinforced my point. You worked for it and by doing so you did move up if you're telling the truth. A lot of people can do what you did just like a lot of people can do what I did. What's stopping them?

Because not everyone has the advantages I did. Without being in the Marines I have no GI Bill and not college degrees. Without my wife's parents not being willing to help their adult child there might not have been a degree for her.

And all I ended up doing was getting back to where my parents were and not quite to where my wife's parents were when she was growing up. While we moved up from where we had fallen to, we did not really change our starting station in life. Part of upward mobility is being better off than your parents were.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

I stopped responding to him.
Either trolling or just being obtuse.
Anyone with an objective brain knows the VAST majority of poor in America are there out of their own actions/inactions.
There was a day in this country when people, like other countries all over the world STILL are, can not escape poverty no matter how hard they work. That has not been true in America for at least 50 years.
As well as what is poor in America?
Someone living in a home with heat/ac, electricity, hot water, fast internet, cable TV ... are they really poor??

and here I thought it was because you got called out for using almost 30 year old statistics to try and prove a point about today

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Because not everyone has the advantages I did. Without being in the Marines I have no GI Bill and not college degrees. Without my wife's parents not being willing to help their adult child there might not have been a degree for her.

And all I ended up doing was getting back to where my parents were and not quite to where my wife's parents were when she was growing up. While we moved up from where we had fallen to, we did not really change our starting station in life. Part of upward mobility is being better off than your parents were.

So what you are telling me is you and your wife were raised in the upper 10% bracket in this country? Please. How old are you anyway?

Most all of us are doing better than our parents. Look at all the conveniences we have. I was born in the city. My father was a bricklayer that moved us out of the city and into the suburbs. We had a black and white television until my parents saved enough money to buy a color one in the 70's, and yes, we only had one. Like most all families back then, we had one family car. McDonald's? Boy was that a treat that we enjoyed once or twice a year. Today some families live off the shit. The few vacations we took were camping for the week, and that was rare. I never flew on a jet until I got a job that required me to take a jet back home after I dropped off a van in Harrisburg.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

So what you are telling me is you and your wife were raised in the upper 10% bracket in this country? Please. How old are you anyway?

I am 56. Her parents were better off than mine. But yeah I think the top 10% is a conservative estimate from what I know of them in their retirement. Mine made less, but I would think we were probably close to that based on how my father blew our money, he was not really into smart spending. But I do not know the exact dollar amount he made. Working overseas as he did a lot pays far better.

Most all of us are doing better than our parents. Look at all the conveniences we have. I was born in the city. My father was a bricklayer that moved us out of the city and into the suburbs. We had a black and white television until my parents saved enough money to buy a color one in the 70's, and yes, we only had one. Like most all families back then, we had one family car.

And that B&W TV probably cost more than my 65 inch flat screen. You also probably only had one parent working, which was our case till the kids were older and I was out of the Marines.

But yes, times have changed.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

I stopped responding to him.
Either trolling or just being obtuse.
Anyone with an objective brain knows the VAST majority of poor in America are there out of their own actions/inactions.
There was a day in this country when people, like other countries all over the world STILL are, can not escape poverty no matter how hard they work. That has not been true in America for at least 50 years.
As well as what is poor in America?
Someone living in a home with heat/ac, electricity, hot water, fast internet, cable TV ... are they really poor??

I couldn't agree more. People who come here from other countries laugh at what we call poor. They can tell you what being poor really is.

The beverage store I frequent is owned by a guy from India. He came here not knowing much of the language and certainly not wealthy. He worked night and day until he saved enough money to buy his own beverage store. After a while he parlayed his profits into income property. I believe he has 8 units. About six or seven years ago, he bought a hotel about 40 miles outside of Cleveland. His wife left the beverage store to run that.

In spite of their financial success, he and his wife are working night and day. When he leaves the beverage store he rides out to the hotel to help his wife. How many Americans are willing to do that?

 

[Turtlesoup]

It's too bad most of you let the media impair your ability to see that. I'm pretty thankful that I'm not one of those 3.7 billion people in the world that don't have access to the internet, possibly the most powerful tool we've created so far. It's also nice to live in a country where virtually nobody starves, unlike the 9 million people worldwide that die annually from starvation. Oh, and the government will take care of our badly raised children in public schools and even try to teach them to read and do math so we can go to work and make money. Yep. Life is so good that I have the ability to sit on my butt in an air-conditioned room, Starbucks in hand, and argue with other spoiled first worlders on an internet forum.

The world is grossly overpopulated.......perhaps if we let a few million more starve years/decades ago they wouldn't have had 4,5, 6, 7 etc more starving kids thusly cutting down on the number of people starving, pollution, wasted foreign and domestic aid, and global warming while leaving more space for wild animals to live.

 

[lennypartiv]

so, it is the brown people's fault we have bad social mobility.
Gotcha!
Thanks for letting us know

It's more complicated than that. Just wait until America is only 49 percent white. America's demise will be imminent.

 

[maybelooking]

My wife works with people from all over the world. India, Singapore, different parts of Europe, etc. They all have worked hard and make well into 6 figure salaries. They would laugh at what we here in America call "poor".

And they ALL CAME HERE TO AMERICA to work and provide for their families.

 

[SweetSue92]

It's too bad most of you let the media impair your ability to see that. I'm pretty thankful that I'm not one of those 3.7 billion people in the world that don't have access to the internet, possibly the most powerful tool we've created so far. It's also nice to live in a country where virtually nobody starves, unlike the 9 million people worldwide that die annually from starvation. Oh, and the government will take care of our badly raised children in public schools and even try to teach them to read and do math so we can go to work and make money. Yep. Life is so good that I have the ability to sit on my butt in an air-conditioned room, Starbucks in hand, and argue with other spoiled first worlders on an internet forum.

Some people are doing their best to destroy a good thing, that's for sure

 

[SweetSue92]

The world is grossly overpopulated.......perhaps if we let a few million more starve years/decades ago they wouldn't have had 4,5, 6, 7 etc more starving kids thusly cutting down on the number of people starving, pollution, wasted foreign and domestic aid, and global warming while leaving more space for wild animals to live.

Ebenezer Scrooge: "If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Ghost of Christmas Present: "If man you be at heart....forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus population is, and where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die?"

 

[Anomalism]

The world is grossly overpopulated.......perhaps if we let a few million more starve years/decades ago they wouldn't have had 4,5, 6, 7 etc more starving kids thusly cutting down on the number of people starving, pollution, wasted foreign and domestic aid, and global warming while leaving more space for wild animals to live.

Earth could support far more people than it currently does, especially with the help of growing technology. People are a resource. Having a big population is good for humanity.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

It's more complicated than that. Just wait until America is only 49 percent white. America's demise will be imminent.

And that is the Communist plan. Dementia is allowing people to come here from over 100 different countries. When there were problems in Cuba, he announced that no Cuban will be allowed in the United States. Why? Cubans are known to be conservative and vote Republican. It's the typical Nazi mentality.

Once whites are a minority it will allow them to have a single-party government. That will start the end of the Great Experiment. We will immediate be Socialist and Communism just a few short years away. That's the plan.