poor black kids who do everything right do worse than rich white kids who do everything wrong

[sealybobo]

"a paper by the FBI revealed that, by the time they are 40, high school dropouts born to rich families are as likely to be earning high salaries as college graduates from poor families."

race and class excuse nothing. they are not the crutches with which the misanthropic and morally ambivalent can prop themselves up as standing tall.

failing to understand that reflects a lack of imagination and empathy. take a bunch of teenage boys from the whitest, safest suburb in America and plunk them down in a place where their friends are murdered and they are constantly attacked. signal that no one cares, and fail to solve murders. limit their options for escape. then see what happens.

. I think one of two things have to happen. Either we need to bring economic opportunity to poor American communities or we need a better way of finding people jobs elsewhere. All the red states ragging on detroit. Are you hiring?

 

[MikeK]

I am absolutely opposed to that.

You prefer that we remain economically dominated by a one-percent minority?

Why are you opposed to a $20million limit for personal assets? Don't you believe $20million is a reasonable amount of wealth for any rational citizen? What, other than compulsive greed and an irrational craving for power, could drive one to want more?

Would you personally be satisfied with $20million in personal assets? If not, why not. What is it you might want that $20million could not obtain it?

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

A Seed Doesn't Grow in a Sandbox

It is a Negative Sum. Placing inferior people in unearned positions makes it dwindle away.

I think you might be contradicting what you just said regarding the class ladder and the heiristocracy (nice turn of phrase, I like that one).

If the heirs are the ones that set all the rules to financial success, why does the setup still allow for heirs to fail and their dynasties to crumble beneath them when they're not competent?

Seems like the rules favor not only those who inherit advantages from their predecessors (which, by the way, is the same in literally any economic system you might hope to erect), but also those who are competent (also the same in any system).

Inheritance Is the Hidden Cancer That Has Destroyed All Civilizations

The exception proves the rule. When a few spoiled brats lose it all, it says nothing about their overwhelming undeserved advantages and their absolute control over the rules for letting wannabes make it. In fact, one of the class-climbers' mottoes is, "You have to want it bad enough."

To be fair, it is only logical that 1% of those born in the 1% who wind up in the 1% actually belong there. But even those deserving successes make far more than 1%ers should. There should be no billionaires. So if Bill Gates is worth $50 billion, he ought to be worth $50 million but maintain his same rank among the wealthy.

If Aaron Judge hit 300 homers in a season, he'd still have only 50-homer talent. So conditions would have to change, such as giving every player the right to appoint his son to his position, which would conform to the prevailing economic structure. In that situation, the pitchers would be far inferior to what they are today.

the people who inherit the fortunes of wealthy predecessors often don't represent the most capable hands into which those fortunes could have landed, I don't believe that you or I or anyone else ought to have the authority to tell the predecessor who initially created and gathered that wealth what they have to do with it when they die.

The Nobility With No Ability

On whose authority does the HeirDad have the power to tell us we have to accept his destructive privilege of setting up his sons ahead of others with more ability? It is a fallacy to not allow the excluded and cheated to question the status quo, preaching that it has primacy and anything else is aggression.

Granting hereditary privileges is no better than bribery. Does the fact that the briber uses "his own money" justify his action? Are the investigators wrong for telling him what he can and can't do with his own money? Besides, it is dishonest to focus on the decedent, calling it a "Death Tax," when it is the undeserving HeirHead who would be taxed.

On who's whose authority? ON HIS OWN AUTHORITY AS THE OWNER OF HIS OWN SHIT!

How about, on who's whose authority do you decide what someone else does with wealth that you had no hand in creating?

those same natural advantages in basic competence and capacity that give a select, tiny few people that extra edge that turns Herculean effort into actual social dominance Stop trying to correct and maybe try focusing on how we can benefit everyone WITHOUT actively oppressing the achievers.

A Generation Must Fertilize the Whole Next Generation, Which Will Wither Without a Shared Legacy

The dead can't own anything. The HeirDad's employees, customers, and society all had a lot more hand in creating it than his heirs did. By only questioning one side, you lose the debate. You purposely don't consider, "How did the spoiled brats earn their inheritance?" Ignoring that question proves that you don't care about merit, being selective about who is allowed to qualify, restricting it to birth and your own brownnosing.

Why should we let spoiled brats have the authority you arbitrarily grant them? The rest of their generation owns the playing field and does not have to allow head starts. It does have the authority to repress the free will of heiristocratic enemies of democracy. Their aggressive ideology is like saying that only Edison's descendants can use light bulbs. The rest wind up in the Chicago Fire.

The Plutes' bootlickers play God by implying that the rich and their descendants derive their authority from being favored by Him. That's the real reason why the plutocracy pushes religion. It influences people to look for examples of God's reward and punishment on earth. This superstition is as self-serving as the idea that those who are born rich were morally superior, humble, and obedient in a previous low-caste existence.

The rich are overreaching. Abolishing inheritance is no more oppressive than taking away a boss's right to have sex on demand with his employees. You're automatically wrong if you grant them unlimited legal privileges.