The risk of income inequality

[rightwinger]

The big myth about income inequality that just won't die - The Week

Modern life is fraught with very expensive risks lurking around every corner. A sudden illness or accident could render you disabled and unable to work. A recession or economic restructuring could render you unemployed and render the skills you've spent your life learning useless. Reaching old age with inadequate savings could mean living your golden years in poverty.

Many societies have created robust social insurance systems to protect their populations from these kinds of risks. The U.S. has done so as well, but to a much lesser extent. Because social insurance in the U.S. is so inadequate, it is incumbent upon people to self-insure against these risks. That means they need to have enough wealth to draw upon as a cushion if they end up facing hard times. But here's where the social contract fails: When the bottom half of the country owns basically none of the country's wealth, they can't self-insure themselves against these risks. Instead, they must lead a relatively perilous life in which one misstep or mistake could wreck them and their families.

 

[editec]

Yeah the thing is, RW, the kind of people who think massive income inequity is okay, also look forward with glee to poor people dying of poverty.

Oh they won't admit it but their primary joy in life is feeling that feeling of Schadenfreude when other people have misfortune.

Theirs is a kind of mentally sick social sadism. (We read examples of how these pathetic creatures think on this board pretty much every day)

So if you hoping to change their minds based on logic, or their love of their society? Forget it.

Their kind of mental illness has no honor, no integrity, very little understanding of how societies actually work, either.

They are BULLIES. They are walking undifferentialted ANGER looking for scapegoats to pin their angst upon and the POOR are good targets because the poor cannot fight back.

Their sickness is more than simple selfishness.

It is coupled with FEAR FEAR and MORE FEAR.

I suspect I'm telling YOU nothing you don't already know.

 

[Spiderman]

You people love to whine, make excuses and blame others don't you?

 

[rightwinger]

We never intended Social Security to be your total retirement system. It was expected that workers would own homes and have a financial nest egg to ensure they could retire comfortably
Then we allowed ourselves to destroy that nestegg. Leave a worker barely enough to live on and forget about saving for the future. Go into debt if you want your children to be educated. God forbid you get seriously ill and your life savings are gone. This is the society we have created and it is an embarrassment for a great nation

 

[RandallFlagg]

You people love to whine, make excuses and blame others don't you?

Can you believe these guys?? There has been income inequality since the beginning of "income". You have some guy raising hell because he flips burgers and makes minimum wage and the Surgeon down the street makes 200,000 per year.

Here's the best advice I can give you worthless socialists - GET A BETTER JOB!!!!! Oh, that's right, I forgot - your boy has done nothing to encourage business for the last 5 years!!!

Get off your lazy asses and go to school, get a marketable trade and move up. YOU CAN'T START AT THE TOP!!!

Stupid little socialists.....

 

[RandallFlagg]

We never intended Social Security to be your total retirement system. It was expected that workers would own homes and have a financial nest egg to ensure they could retire comfortably
Then we allowed ourselves to destroy that nestegg. Leave a worker barely enough to live on and forget about saving for the future. Go into debt if you want your children to be educated. God forbid you get seriously ill and your life savings are gone. This is the society we have created and it is an embarrassment for a great nation

Again .....WAAAAAA!!!


I have owned 4 homes in my lifetime. I have retired from (count em) 2 careers. I'm no smarter than anyone else - I was just raised to work hard. I live on a VERY GOOD retirement and my Wife still works and brings home a great salary. We own 260 acres of land with a house, a few cattle, horses, chickens, 2 barns and a pond.

Do you think that was just GIVEN to us?? Get a clue - better yet, get a job. Don't waste your time getting a BA in Fine Arts and expect to make a living. Gain a marketable skill and stop all the damned whining like little babies. Geezz....

 

[Seawytch]

When income inequalities persist, violence ensues.

 

[Redfish]

I was going to jump in here, but Randall covered the entire subject quite well.

Get over your libtarded envy of successful people and go to work.

YOU have equal opportunity, equal success is NOT guaranteed. YOU are not entitled to what I have worked for.

 

[bedowin62]

When income inequalities persist, violence ensues.

THE gap in income is growing larger FASTER under Progressives


go figure

 

[Spiderman]

We never intended Social Security to be your total retirement system. It was expected that workers would own homes and have a financial nest egg to ensure they could retire comfortably
Then we allowed ourselves to destroy that nestegg. Leave a worker barely enough to live on and forget about saving for the future. Go into debt if you want your children to be educated. God forbid you get seriously ill and your life savings are gone. This is the society we have created and it is an embarrassment for a great nation

Bullshit.

No one's destroyed any nest egg. People don't bother to even save anymore and it's not because someone else is stealing from them it's because they choose not to.

 

[rightwinger]

There was a time in this country where you graduated school, learned a trade and got a job with a major corporation and you were set for life
If you were lucky, you got a union job with good benefits. You could work 40 years with the same company and when you retired you had a good pension with health benefits.

Now workers are on edge. They don't know if they will have a job in six months. They accept jobs rather than careers. No benefits, no security, no future. Don't like it....there is the door. Collective bargaining is a thing of the past. You are on your own

One false step and you are destitute

 

[RandallFlagg]

When income inequalities persist, violence ensues.

Well, I'll tell you what....you be the first one to attempt to take what I've earned over the course of a 57 year working life and watch what I do to you....it won't be pretty.

 

[eflatminor]

Another delusional soul that thinks wealth is a finite pile of cash from which we all must draw.

You want to talk about actual impediments to upward economic mobility that may prevent a person from "self-insuring themselves against these risks"? Fine, but to blame people that have succeeded in life and self insured themselves against the unforeseen is just asinine. It's akin to suggesting that if a man is hungry, it's because his food was necessarily eaten by a fat man. It's ridiculous.

There may be reasons that we could agree upon that poor people are not achieving that which you suggest is important to obtain, but "wealth inequality" hasn't a damn thing to do with it. To suggest so is only exposing your own jealousy of those that achieved in life that which has alluded you.

If you want to focus on impediments to the poor becoming middle class and the middle class becoming rich, we can talk...but they have to be REAL impediments, not just a thinly veiled and poorly constructed case for even more wealth redistribution.

 

[Seawytch]

When income inequalities persist, violence ensues.

It would not, if the effort expanded on violence were channeled into improving oneself and/or finding a better job.

Violence is the last resort of the malcontent and incompetent.

It's amazing you think the income inequality is a result of people not working hard enough. It's like ya'll don't fucking pay attention AT ALL.

 

[Redfish]

When income inequalities persist, violence ensues.

How much do the following give towards reducing income inequality? Pelosi, Reid, Streisand, Sarandon, Penn, O'Donnell, Schumer, Rahm, Rangel, Sharpton, Jackson, Baldwin.

Rich liberals are the biggest hypocrites of all, they preach all the income inequality bullshit while sitting in their million dollar mansions eating cavier.

 

[eflatminor]

Yeah the thing is, RW, the kind of people who think massive income inequity is okay, also look forward with glee to poor people dying of poverty.

Dumbest comment of the day.

 

[eflatminor]

We never intended Social Security to be your total retirement system. It was expected that workers would own homes and have a financial nest egg to ensure they could retire comfortably
Then we allowed ourselves to destroy that nestegg. Leave a worker barely enough to live on and forget about saving for the future. Go into debt if you want your children to be educated. God forbid you get seriously ill and your life savings are gone. This is the society we have created and it is an embarrassment for a great nation

Which hasn't a damn thing to do with the existence of wealthy people.

 

[Redfish]

When income inequalities persist, violence ensues.

It would not, if the effort expanded on violence were channeled into improving oneself and/or finding a better job.

Violence is the last resort of the malcontent and incompetent.

It's amazing you think the income inequality is a result of people not working hard enough. It's like ya'll don't fucking pay attention AT ALL.

just think wytchey, if you were straight you might have married a rich guy and be living in luxury rather than in a lesbian hovel and worrrying where you next meal will come from

 

[FJO]

There was a time in this country where you graduated school, learned a trade and got a job with a major corporation and you were set for life
If you were lucky, you got a union job with good benefits. You could work 40 years with the same company and when you retired you had a good pension with health benefits.

Now workers are on edge. They don't know if they will have a job in six months. They accept jobs rather than careers. No benefits, no security, no future. Don't like it....there is the door. Collective bargaining is a thing of the past. You are on your own

One false step and you are destitute

No need to be so pessimistic, rightwinger!

The "Hope and Change" president still has another three years to correct all the devastation and income inequality caused by Bush.

Maybe by the end of his second term will have stopped blaming everyone else.

 

[bedowin62]

the gap in income inequality has grown larger FASTER under obama and Progressive government than it did under Bush and Republicans


libs are losers who lie to themselves; fail and make excuses blaming others