Sense of Entitlement!

Celticguy said:
so he is a criminal and you are as well since you aid and abet him. But setting that aside, i have to think you find him work to be satisfactory as you continue to pay him. That would suggest that he knows how this job needs to be done and could direct others to do these tasks in the same acceptable way. Whats to prevent him from findingother similarly capable guys and making a business of it ? This model has been repeated many times over and made successful men of ordinary folks. Chances are your laundry and resturant poeple did this.
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How about starting with the fact that he doesn't read or write, doesn't own and can't drive a car, and spends his waking hours scraping together enough money through odd jobs and manual labor to care for his family.
 
christiefan915 said:
How about starting with the fact that he doesn't read or write, doesn't own and can't drive a car, and spends his waking hours scraping together enough money through odd jobs and manual labor to care for his family.
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how about the landlord i kniw very well who left school in the 4th grade to scrape along on his own saving what he could and winding up with a portfolio of properties and a faithful customer base (they love him because they know he came from nothing and treats them right). Its a matter of desire.
 
grumpyone said:
the only point to this is the one on top of your head.....
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why don't you just adopt sam....there problem solved .....further get all your deep thinking friends to adopt someone off the street, out of poverty or maybe just getting out of prison.....you get the picture, put your money where your mouth is .....
 
Celticguy said:
how about the landlord i kniw very well who left school in the 4th grade to scrape along on his own saving what he could and winding up with a portfolio of properties and a faithful customer base (they love him because they know he came from nothing and treats them right). Its a matter of desire.
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Not just desire. Opportunity and luck factor in also. And I presume your landlord could read and write.
 
christiefan915 said:
Not just desire. Opportunity and luck factor in also. And I presume your landlord could read and write.
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Presume again. He quit dcjool in 4th grade for a reason. He did discover tatt he needed these skills and taught himself. He had no soecial opportunity, he came from the slums, and all he had for luck was a deep Christian faith. What he had was desire. It got him through doing without what must would deem requirements. Then there was another friend and collegue who had $10 a month from his gi bill to live on after rent and tuition (this means food). He did this for two years got his assoc degree and came to work for me. As he liked to tell me its amazing what you can do if you eant to
 
Celticguy said:
Presume again. He quit dcjool in 4th grade for a reason. He did discover tatt he needed these skills and taught himself. He had no soecial opportunity, he came from the slums, and all he had for luck was a deep Christian faith. What he had was desire. It got him through doing without what must would deem requirements. Then there was another friend and collegue who had $10 a month from his gi bill to live on after rent and tuition (this means food). He did this for two years got his assoc degree and came to work for me. As he liked to tell me its amazing what you can do if you eant to
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Good for him that he overcame his circumstances with desire and hard work. You said he scraped along on his own. Does that mean he didn't have a family to support while he was scraping? And Jarod said that Sam was one of the the hardest-working guys he knows, so obviously it takes more than that.

I don't understand how people can paint all the poor with the same broad brush and I really don't understand why people slam the poor for being poor. It doesn't make sense, in addition to sounding really Scrooge-like. Do the rich slam the poor and middle-class for not being rich?

Maybe you guys should just thank your lucky stars you're not in Sam's shoes. You know, there but for the grace of God...
 
grumpyone said:
why don't you just adopt sam....there problem solved .....further get all your deep thinking friends to adopt someone off the street, out of poverty or maybe just getting out of prison.....you get the picture, put your money where your mouth is .....
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Yep, that's exactly what I say to anti-choice people. Go out and adopt a kid or three, put your money where your mouth is.
 
Jarod said:
This morning I took a bike ride around my little town. Its a small suburban town outside of West Palm Beach.

My "Village" as they call it is unique in that it has a good variety of strata of middle class. You have one area where wealthy people such as Tiger Woods and Jack Welch live.

Then you have the middle class area, where I live. The homes on the water sell for 1-2 million, the homes on the Golf Corse sell for $500,000 to maybe $800,000, and you have the homes that abut each other that sell for about $150,000 to $500,000.

So we have an interesting mix, I know a lot of people and I know there houses and what they do for a living and a lot of information about who they are and where they come from.

I do not know a single family that lives on the water that was not born in a privileged environment. They paid for their homes with down payments provided from their parents, and most have jobs that their parents got them or don't work in traditional jobs. I do not know a single one that built what they have on their own. They, almost all, feel entitled to what they have! I don't begrudge them what they have, I simply want an honest prospective of how people got where they are in this nation. I want to use that perspective to evaluate how to structure our system so that hard working people have opportunity to have something to show for it financially. I want to evaluate where people are coming from when they talk about our entitlement system. These people on the water feel entitled to what they have even though it was mostly given to them. I agree with them to an extent, they are entitled to it, someone rightfully gave it to them.

I live on the golf course. My grandparents paid for my prep school education and undergraduate work. My father lent me $53,000 for law school and the government lent me another $83,000. I paid my father back and still pay the government. I inherited about $35,000 from various relatives. I was given a LOT, so again don't get me wrong, I am not self made. I used all of that to get experience as a lawyer, my first job as a lawyer paid $26,500. I finally opened my own firm and through various machinations I got where I am. I've worked hard.

I have a guy who works for me around the house. He has worked harder than I ever have in my entire life. His father was a drunk who hit him. His mother is a sweet uneducated very poor woman. Lets call this guy Sam. Sam in not intelligent or educated. He does not read, or write. He's a little older than me, I guess he's 48. Sam works hard every day, he takes Sunday morning off to go to church. (He always tries to get me to go with him.) Sam and I both have three kids. He rents a small apartment, with the money some neighbors and I pay him to do odd jobs. Sometimes Sam and his kids suffer without clothing they need or school supplies they need. Sam does not have a car, he rides his bike to the neighborhood with a huge vacuum cleaner balanced on the handle bars and a buffer in the basket behind the seat. This guy feels no sense of entitlement to anything but the money I agree to pay him, and sometimes he asks for lunch when he is doing an all day project at my house.

I personally think we need a system that will give Sam an opportunity to live better than those who do not work as hard as him.
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Then YOU should buy him a truck and give him more money.
 
Jarod said:
Okay, that is true. But we need a system that does not require Sam depend on benevolent middle class people like me.
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I sure didn't see any benevolence in your assertion.
What I did see is your desire to have Sam paid more, as long as it's not you having to do it.
 
Jarod said:
I do not know a single family that lives on the water that was not born in a privileged environment. They paid for their homes with down payments provided from their parents, and most have jobs that their parents got them or don't work in traditional jobs. I do not know a single one that built what they have on their own. They, almost all, feel entitled to what they have! I don't begrudge them what they have, I simply want an honest prospective of how people got where they are in this nation. I want to use that perspective to evaluate how to structure our system so that hard working people have opportunity to have something to show for it financially. I want to evaluate where people are coming from when they talk about our entitlement system. These people on the water feel entitled to what they have even though it was mostly given to them. I agree with them to an extent, they are entitled to it, someone rightfully gave it to them....
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Obviously you don't know all of them. But I agree that most of them probably are there because of inherited wealth. Just do the math; unless you are in the top 0.1% of earners, you won't be able to afford the PITI to live there. So how do they afford it: huge down payments from inheritance or gifts.

In my town we have an area where the uber-rich live. We call it the "old money" because that's how it was developed a hundred years ago. I tell my kids that the only difference between us and the folks that live there is that their grandparents were able to save money, invest it, and then pass it down when they died. When my father's dad died, I got his radio. When my mom's dad died, I got his favorite neck tie. (He gave me a few other things while he was living, and I cherish these things, but there is nothing of substantial value.)
 
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