This 6 minute video sums up the shocking facts of American wealth and inequality

[Cecilie1200]

Well if you had read then you'd know what I specifically think is wrong with inequality. I even provided links showing what happens to countries when inequality is out of control.

What you have provided so far is "It exists here, and this is a bad place, so inequality must be bad."

Try again.

Yes it is great if you love big government, unhappy people and high crime. Otherwise it is bad.

Once again, you simply make statements and assumptions, without actually substantiating them. "Income inequality causes big government, high crime, and unhappiness . . . because they exist in the same place sometimes!"

Correlation does NOT equal causation. So try again. We're not playing baseball, but you do still get a limited number of strikes, so you might want to actually plug your brain in for this attempt.

 

[Brain357]

What you have provided so far is "It exists here, and this is a bad place, so inequality must be bad."

Try again.

Yes it is great if you love big government, unhappy people and high crime. Otherwise it is bad.

Once again, you simply make statements and assumptions, without actually substantiating them. "Income inequality causes big government, high crime, and unhappiness . . . because they exist in the same place sometimes!"

Correlation does NOT equal causation. So try again. We're not playing baseball, but you do still get a limited number of strikes, so you might want to actually plug your brain in for this attempt.

Anyone even semi intelligent should see it is bad without much explanation. How about bad for the economy?
How Income Inequality Is Damaging the U.S. - Forbes

 

[JoeNormal]

Material resources are only limited if someone has a monopoly on them.

Do you want to expand on that a little? It seems to me that it's getting harder and harder to find enough oil to satisfy world demand. More Frankenstein science is needed to grow enough food to go around. And people, especially out west are fighting over water rights.

Water rights are an example of a government granted or taken monopoly. We live on a water planet there is plenty of water. The trick is that getting H2O to where people have decided to take up permanent living status can be difficult. I have my own water well. It's a thousand feet deep. If the county did not let me get my own water that would be monopolistic control over what's right under my feet. But I can also get nearly all the water I need by collecting rainfall if I so desired to create a large enough catch system for my acreage.

On oil, the folks telling us we are running out have been debunked. It appears there is money in publishing gloom and doom stories regarding oil availability, global warming, etc type doom and gloom science. Dry oil wells fill up. It's magic. Or not. The folks saw dead dinosaurs in tar pits and conjectured that oil is from the dinosaurs. ROFL yeah not so much. There is a moon around Saturn I believe where it rains oil. ROFL yeah no dinosaurs there, go figure. Maybe oil is really just a product of heat and pressure from the mantle? Carbon and hydrogen, the basis of fuels, are not rare elements.

On food... hell we have so much extra food that our government is paying farmers to not farm, and paying other farmers to convert their food to gas, and paying still other farmers to send food donations to countries around the world, many who are harboring terrorists desiring to kill us. We even have some cities that ban people from growing their own food in their yard cause the people would rather have manicured grass.

Interesting bit about oil. However, even if it does 'regenerate', if oil companies are fracking like there's no tomorrow, that tells me it's not regernating fast enough to meet demand.

Speaking of fracking, you'd better hope that they keep that shit away from your aquifer. Watch Gasland if you want to see the downside. And as far as aquifers go, the big one that supplies the midwest is shrinking. Probably a bunch of others too.

Regarding food, I'll have to agree with you on the conversion to alcohol. Short sided, wasteful... Sounds like capitalism. ;-) I don't know how many farmers are being paid not to produce any longer but also agreed, that has to go.

 

[JoeNormal]

Modest success? You are in a special class of ignoramus.

Science tells us that EVERYTHING is, at its core, energy. I'm sorry you find that "less than comforting".

Furthermore, what kind of shortsighted dipshit sits around thinking that we've only made "modest success" in the area of discovering new ways to make affordable, available, portable energy. Who was it that told you that history began with the day you were born, dumbass?



Your statements ignore the fact that you listen to too much "The world is ending! Turn all your power over to us, or die horribly!" leftist environmental propaganda.

In fact, we have made great strides in finding new ways to access, reclaim, and reuse large amounts of water . . . during the same period of time that we made all those great strides in finding new, affordable energy sources that you ALSO missed.



Not sure WHAT that has to do with your insane idea that we live in a finite world.



"Almost no increase in their standard of living"? What are you, twelve? I find it very hard to believe that you could be an engineer, since I know an engineering degree requires some core courses in history, and I also know it requires some degree of logical thinking, which you have yet to display.

Let's just look at my lifetime in the United States - I'm 44 - shall we? When I was a kid, heart bypass operations were rare, expensive, and only available to the rich. Heart transplants were the stuff of big news stories. Now they're routine, and widely available to people of all walks of life. Also within my lifetime, the use of antibiotics has become steadily more common, resulting in - among other things - a huge decrease in women dying from complications of childbirth. Leftists want to attribute that decrease to abortions, but the credit actually goes to better medical treatment.

I can remember when cable television was first invented. It was expensive, almost no one had it, and even if you did, it didn't have much to watch. Now, saying you have cable is almost as common as saying you have a telephone, and the idea of saying you haven't seen a movie because you missed it in the theatres is viewed as ludicrous.

And speaking of telephones, I can remember my entire family having to make do with one rotary phone hanging on the kitchen wall. Hell, my grandmother had a party line. Now homeless people at the bus stop have cell phones in their pockets (I'm not exaggerating, either. I've seen 'em).

I can go on and on about things that were luxuries for the rich just fifty years ago, and are taken for granted by virtually everyone today. "No increase in the standard of living". You need to put down the crack pipe and back away.

Oooh, tell me about science. You probably haven't taken a science class since eighth grade. As I said in a previous post, people have gadgets that seem like science fiction. I hope that's enough because in addition, they have tons more stress than they did thirty years ago and in spite of some stunning medical breakthroughs, they aren't living much longer.

Life Expectancy by Age, 1850?2004 | Infoplease.com

And as for standard of living, I'm sure you've already seen the adjusted pay scales by percentile so I won't bother to post them yet again.

Ooh, yes, PLEASE tell me how you know more about life expectancy than the CDC does, since they say that life expectancy has gone up by 30 years in the last century. But I'm sure that a hack loser on an Internet message board is MUCH better informed about medical issues than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

We're not talking the last century, we're talking the last 30 years. Try to keep up.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Do you want to expand on that a little? It seems to me that it's getting harder and harder to find enough oil to satisfy world demand. More Frankenstein science is needed to grow enough food to go around. And people, especially out west are fighting over water rights.

Water rights are an example of a government granted or taken monopoly. We live on a water planet there is plenty of water. The trick is that getting H2O to where people have decided to take up permanent living status can be difficult. I have my own water well. It's a thousand feet deep. If the county did not let me get my own water that would be monopolistic control over what's right under my feet. But I can also get nearly all the water I need by collecting rainfall if I so desired to create a large enough catch system for my acreage.

On oil, the folks telling us we are running out have been debunked. It appears there is money in publishing gloom and doom stories regarding oil availability, global warming, etc type doom and gloom science. Dry oil wells fill up. It's magic. Or not. The folks saw dead dinosaurs in tar pits and conjectured that oil is from the dinosaurs. ROFL yeah not so much. There is a moon around Saturn I believe where it rains oil. ROFL yeah no dinosaurs there, go figure. Maybe oil is really just a product of heat and pressure from the mantle? Carbon and hydrogen, the basis of fuels, are not rare elements.

On food... hell we have so much extra food that our government is paying farmers to not farm, and paying other farmers to convert their food to gas, and paying still other farmers to send food donations to countries around the world, many who are harboring terrorists desiring to kill us. We even have some cities that ban people from growing their own food in their yard cause the people would rather have manicured grass.

Interesting bit about oil. However, even if it does 'regenerate', if oil companies are fracking like there's no tomorrow, that tells me it's not regernating fast enough to meet demand.

Speaking of fracking, you'd better hope that they keep that shit away from your aquifer. Watch Gasland if you want to see the downside. And as far as aquifers go, the big one that supplies the midwest is shrinking. Probably a bunch of others too.

Regarding food, I'll have to agree with you on the conversion to alcohol. Short sided, wasteful... Sounds like capitalism. ;-) I don't know how many farmers are being paid not to produce any longer but also agreed, that has to go.

Regarding food, I'll have to agree with you on the conversion to alcohol. Short sided, wasteful... Sounds like capitalism. ;-)

Yeah, that's why government had to mandate it, because capitalism is wasteful.

 

[RKMBrown]

Interesting bit about oil. However, even if it does 'regenerate', if oil companies are fracking like there's no tomorrow, that tells me it's not regernating fast enough to meet demand.

Speaking of fracking, you'd better hope that they keep that shit away from your aquifer. Watch Gasland if you want to see the downside. And as far as aquifers go, the big one that supplies the midwest is shrinking. Probably a bunch of others too.

Regarding food, I'll have to agree with you on the conversion to alcohol. Short sided, wasteful... Sounds like capitalism. ;-) I don't know how many farmers are being paid not to produce any longer but also agreed, that has to go.

The issue on oil isn't whether or not there is enough, it's whether or not it's easily available in large pools to keep the price low. Fracking that involves polluting water supplies sounds like robbing peter to pay paul. I have a neighbor that dynamites from time to time for sandstone. It fractured the bed of my creek. Now some times of the year the water runs underground. Ticks me off when I see the dry creek bed and I know it's running just a mile up and down stream. That's life. Sometimes your neighbors screw you over. Shit happens.

 

[JoeNormal]

Interesting bit about oil. However, even if it does 'regenerate', if oil companies are fracking like there's no tomorrow, that tells me it's not regernating fast enough to meet demand.

Speaking of fracking, you'd better hope that they keep that shit away from your aquifer. Watch Gasland if you want to see the downside. And as far as aquifers go, the big one that supplies the midwest is shrinking. Probably a bunch of others too.

Regarding food, I'll have to agree with you on the conversion to alcohol. Short sided, wasteful... Sounds like capitalism. ;-) I don't know how many farmers are being paid not to produce any longer but also agreed, that has to go.

The issue on oil isn't whether or not there is enough, it's whether or not it's easily available in large pools to keep the price low. Fracking that involves polluting water supplies sounds like robbing peter to pay paul. I have a neighbor that dynamites from time to time for sandstone. It fractured the bed of my creek. Now some times of the year the water runs underground. Ticks me off when I see the dry creek bed and I know it's running just a mile up and down stream. That's life. Sometimes your neighbors screw you over. Shit happens.

True that. In many cases, it doesn't seem like the offending party cares either.

As far as your creek bed goes, I'm obviously no geologist but could you pump some concrete down there or something?

 

[RKMBrown]

Interesting bit about oil. However, even if it does 'regenerate', if oil companies are fracking like there's no tomorrow, that tells me it's not regernating fast enough to meet demand.

Speaking of fracking, you'd better hope that they keep that shit away from your aquifer. Watch Gasland if you want to see the downside. And as far as aquifers go, the big one that supplies the midwest is shrinking. Probably a bunch of others too.

Regarding food, I'll have to agree with you on the conversion to alcohol. Short sided, wasteful... Sounds like capitalism. ;-) I don't know how many farmers are being paid not to produce any longer but also agreed, that has to go.

The issue on oil isn't whether or not there is enough, it's whether or not it's easily available in large pools to keep the price low. Fracking that involves polluting water supplies sounds like robbing peter to pay paul. I have a neighbor that dynamites from time to time for sandstone. It fractured the bed of my creek. Now some times of the year the water runs underground. Ticks me off when I see the dry creek bed and I know it's running just a mile up and down stream. That's life. Sometimes your neighbors screw you over. Shit happens.

True that. In many cases, it doesn't seem like the offending party cares either.

Ayup.. and that's why we need governments... to settle such disputes where one person's assets are being robbed by another.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Yes it is great if you love big government, unhappy people and high crime. Otherwise it is bad.

Once again, you simply make statements and assumptions, without actually substantiating them. "Income inequality causes big government, high crime, and unhappiness . . . because they exist in the same place sometimes!"

Correlation does NOT equal causation. So try again. We're not playing baseball, but you do still get a limited number of strikes, so you might want to actually plug your brain in for this attempt.

Anyone even semi intelligent should see it is bad without much explanation. How about bad for the economy?
How Income Inequality Is Damaging the U.S. - Forbes

Pardon my suspicion, but it looks like you ran a Google search on "wealth inequality" and then just linked one that looked like a reliable source that supported you. Having just read the article myself, plus the linked article which generated it, I'm curious to know what you think they said that supports your position, other than the title?

 

[Brain357]

Once again, you simply make statements and assumptions, without actually substantiating them. "Income inequality causes big government, high crime, and unhappiness . . . because they exist in the same place sometimes!"

Correlation does NOT equal causation. So try again. We're not playing baseball, but you do still get a limited number of strikes, so you might want to actually plug your brain in for this attempt.

Anyone even semi intelligent should see it is bad without much explanation. How about bad for the economy?
How Income Inequality Is Damaging the U.S. - Forbes

Pardon my suspicion, but it looks like you ran a Google search on "wealth inequality" and then just linked one that looked like a reliable source that supported you. Having just read the article myself, plus the linked article which generated it, I'm curious to know what you think they said that supports your position, other than the title?

Like I mentioned in my post, it's bad for the economy. The economy slows as inequality gets greater.

Here is another supporting what I've been saying
Here's Why Income Inequality Really Is A Big Deal - Business Insider

 

[JoeNormal]

Anyone even semi intelligent should see it is bad without much explanation. How about bad for the economy?
How Income Inequality Is Damaging the U.S. - Forbes

Pardon my suspicion, but it looks like you ran a Google search on "wealth inequality" and then just linked one that looked like a reliable source that supported you. Having just read the article myself, plus the linked article which generated it, I'm curious to know what you think they said that supports your position, other than the title?

Like I mentioned in my post, it's bad for the economy. The economy slows as inequality gets greater.

Here is another supporting what I've been saying
Here's Why Income Inequality Really Is A Big Deal - Business Insider

You might have already seen this but I thought it was an especially good presentation of the spectrum of negative effects of wealth inequality.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw]Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies - YouTube[/ame]

 

[RKMBrown]

As far as your creek bed goes, I'm obviously no geologist but could you pump some concrete down there or something?

The creek bed is mostly pebbles and the pebble layer is really deep. We'd have to dig down under the pebbles to get to the bed of the creek. The water table has to rise before it runs in the creek. We have lots of caves here east of I35. When they dug my well the guy said there is a massive cave under my well house. He thought it felt like the cave was about 50' high starting from about 75' down. That would put the top of the cave at about the level of the creek. My guess is an underground river system is digging a massive cave system right under my house.

 

[MikeK]

As far as your creek bed goes, I'm obviously no geologist but could you pump some concrete down there or something?

The creek bed is mostly pebbles and the pebble layer is really deep. We'd have to dig down under the pebbles to get to the bed of the creek. The water table has to rise before it runs in the creek. We have lots of caves here east of I35. When they dug my well the guy said there is a massive cave under my well house. He thought it felt like the cave was about 50' high starting from about 75' down. That would put the top of the cave at about the level of the creek. My guess is an underground river system is digging a massive cave system right under my house.

That sounds kind of ominous. Is it?

 

[RKMBrown]

As far as your creek bed goes, I'm obviously no geologist but could you pump some concrete down there or something?

The creek bed is mostly pebbles and the pebble layer is really deep. We'd have to dig down under the pebbles to get to the bed of the creek. The water table has to rise before it runs in the creek. We have lots of caves here east of I35. When they dug my well the guy said there is a massive cave under my well house. He thought it felt like the cave was about 50' high starting from about 75' down. That would put the top of the cave at about the level of the creek. My guess is an underground river system is digging a massive cave system right under my house.

That sounds kind of ominous. Is it?

Nah. Gulp. Nah. Have not heard of any cave ins. They dug down to this cave about 10miles south of me. I suspect I'm above something like this:

It's all austin stone under my house. They mine it. Here's a pic of the stuff under the dirt under my house:

It's solid rock all the way to the cave. Only about two feet of surface dirt where I live. In really flat spots we can get a dozen feet of dirt, but mostly it's all rock here. But you would not know it to look at the land. My land is covered with oak, pecan, hickory trees, and juniper.

 

[MikeK]

You're assuming only "old people, disabled people and kids" are on food stamps.

Do you have a link to support that evidence?

[...]

I'd like to call attention to a large and growing segment of public assistance recipients few taxpayers are aware of, specifically the thousands of able-bodied men and women, many of whom are willing to work if they could get hired, but cannot because they have criminal records. Some of these individuals range in character from semi-literate low-life grifters to larcenous and/or assaultive screwballs with long rap sheets, so refusing to hire them is perfectly reaonable.

But there is an equal or greater number of stigmatized "offenders" whose only "crime" was possessing or selling relatively small quantities of drugs, often nothing other than marijuana. Aside from their drug "offfenses" these individuals haven't harmed anyone, nor are they inclined to harm anyone. In fact many of them, including one whom I am personally familiar with, led honest, productive lives before being arrested. While some of them were sentenced to prison terms, many others were released with probation and/or a community service obligation. But all of them carry the Scarlet Letter of a "criminal" record, which excludes them from the vast majority of (if not all) employment opportunities.

Being willing to work but unable to find employment qualifies one for many public assistance programs -- especially where children are involved. And the cost to taxpayers for this extremely counterproductive injustice is considerable.

 

[RKMBrown]

You're assuming only "old people, disabled people and kids" are on food stamps.

Do you have a link to support that evidence?

[...]

I'd like to call attention to a large and growing segment of public assistance recipients few taxpayers are aware of, specifically the thousands of able-bodied men and women, many of whom are willing to work if they could get hired, but cannot because they have criminal records. Some of these individuals range in character from semi-literate low-life grifters to larcenous and/or assaultive screwballs with long rap sheets, so refusing to hire them is perfectly reaonable.

But there is an equal or greater number of stigmatized "offenders" whose only "crime" was possessing or selling relatively small quantities of drugs, often nothing other than marijuana. Aside from their drug "offfenses" these individuals haven't harmed anyone, nor are they inclined to harm anyone. In fact many of them, including one whom I am personally familiar with, led honest, productive lives before being arrested. While some of them were sentenced to prison terms, many others were released with probation and/or a community service obligation. But all of them carry the Scarlet Letter of a "criminal" record, which excludes them from the vast majority of (if not all) employment opportunities.

Being willing to work but unable to find employment qualifies one for many public assistance programs -- especially where children are involved. And the cost to taxpayers for this extremely counterproductive injustice is considerable.

That sucks.

 

[koshergrl]

You're assuming only "old people, disabled people and kids" are on food stamps.

Do you have a link to support that evidence?

[...]

I'd like to call attention to a large and growing segment of public assistance recipients few taxpayers are aware of, specifically the thousands of able-bodied men and women, many of whom are willing to work if they could get hired, but cannot because they have criminal records. Some of these individuals range in character from semi-literate low-life grifters to larcenous and/or assaultive screwballs with long rap sheets, so refusing to hire them is perfectly reaonable.

But there is an equal or greater number of stigmatized "offenders" whose only "crime" was possessing or selling relatively small quantities of drugs, often nothing other than marijuana. Aside from their drug "offfenses" these individuals haven't harmed anyone, nor are they inclined to harm anyone. In fact many of them, including one whom I am personally familiar with, led honest, productive lives before being arrested. While some of them were sentenced to prison terms, many others were released with probation and/or a community service obligation. But all of them carry the Scarlet Letter of a "criminal" record, which excludes them from the vast majority of (if not all) employment opportunities.

Being willing to work but unable to find employment qualifies one for many public assistance programs -- especially where children are involved. And the cost to taxpayers for this extremely counterproductive injustice is considerable.

Oh bullshit. Most felons were losers long before they were ever convicted, and the jobs they are qualified for don't care if they're ex cons or not.

What they DO care about is the fact that they can't pass a UA, and therefore can't be trusted to operate machinery or do their job sober.

I have yet to see your imaginary "really nice, employable young man/woman with shining work history and lots of skills who sadly can't get a job because of an unfortunate drug offense". That person doesn't exist, except in your drug addled mind.

 

[Misty]

The point is there is money to earn. The government takes it or prints it that's how they earn it. Come up with something people want or need. Or invest in those that do, you can get your share just learn how to do it.

 

[Billy000]

The point is there is money to earn. The government takes it or prints it that's how they earn it. Come up with something people want or need. Or invest in those that do, you can get your share just learn how to do it.

We don't live in a fantasy world. Even if everyone in this country had a smart business sense, the system does not make it possible for everyone to become a millionaire or anything even close to that. 1% of the population controls 40% of the wealth. Does that not mean anything to you?

 

[koshergrl]

It means you aren't one of the one percent, and you want them to fork it over.