Capitalism Has Destroyed / Is Destroying American Family Values

[evince]

Rather than a "screw you" attitude I have a much higher opinion of these people than you do. I do not think anybody has to "earn" the right to have a job (other than be qualified) and think everyone can develop talents and skills to earn a living. There are those who cannot "compete" who may be mentally retarded, disabled, or otherwise cannot function, but even some of them are capable of doing something. Microsoft recently started a program for autistic people who have no social skills but are very creative and can perform very well within their working group. If a person cannot care for themselves, we already have programs for them. But a person who lives at home with a part-time job cannot even live on his own, but he very well may be capable of doing so with experience and training. You want to write these people off by giving up on them making them dependent and psychologically helpless.

I taught a total of 44.5 years and saw many students who could not or would not perform academically. But many of them switched to nursing or some other type of occupational training and are doing quite will. One, who couldn't pass my class because he would not open a book, switched to plant processing and is now earning a lot of money. In your world this person would be eliminated from the "talented" class because he could not compete academically. Some students are only in college to get their grant money or whose parents health insurance requires them to be a full-time student for coverage. These eventually drop out but may return years later when they are more mature and motivated.

You take a very paternalistic view of these people and think society has to provide for them when many can do quite well when given the opportunity. We can't give up on people because somebody has decided they are not talented enough to have a job.

post 293

 

[Flash]

11/23/2007

the date on that study quoted

this poster is completely dishonest

dishonesty does nit deserve respectful treatment

Poor reading comprehension on your part. I said that is the latest Treasury study on income mobility. The studies are over a ten year period. Another study over the last ten years should be due soon.

I notice you can refute no information from the study.

 

[PoliTalker]

Hello Flash,

Rather than a "screw you" attitude I have a much higher opinion of these people than you do. I do not think anybody has to "earn" the right to have a job (other than be qualified) and think everyone can develop talents and skills to earn a living.

That is where you are flat wrong. Everyone can not develop the talents and skills to earn a living. We don't come out of the same mold. For an individual who is able to work and work hard, one who lifted themselves up through sheer perseverance it can be an easy assumption that anyone else can do the same thing. And that would be a natural assumption. But none the less incorrect. We just can't know what it is like to be another person. We are ourselves. We are not anybody else. Everybody's life is different, from beginning to end. Some simply find themselves in adulthood without any marketable skills, or perhaps with some skills but also with unaddressed serious mental issues, or possibly some issues which have been addressed and remain unsolved. We can't assume that everybody gets up in the morning and is all bright and cheery, well-rested, and ready to take on the world. Some of us are like that. I am. I love my life. I can do anything I want to, anything I set my mind to. But I know I am lucky. There are people who suffer from depression, people with eating disorders, people with allergies, people who cannot get a good night's sleep, people who find themselves in adulthood with or without marketable skills, with morning coming on, and dreading another day, possibly thinking of killing themselves because as far as they are concerned, life sucks.

People like that can't work. And no matter what kind of argument conservatives pose that they are 'simply lazy,' or 'gaming the system' does not change the fact that not everyone is capable to acquire marketable skills and convert them into a suitable income.

There are those who cannot "compete" who may be mentally retarded, disabled, or otherwise cannot function, but even some of them are capable of doing something. Microsoft recently started a program for autistic people who have no social skills but are very creative and can perform very well within their working group. If a person cannot care for themselves, we already have programs for them.

Are those programs sufficient to meet the need? I believe not. I think there are a lot of people falling through the cracks. A lot of undiagnosed cased of mental illness. I bet a lot of it is because of our chemical industry. This is an issue rarely discussed, yes, but hardly without grave implications. Another downside of capitalism attempting to be the first to the market with amazing new products. Our chemical industry is so powerful that they have manipulated our government to prevent proper oversight of what they do. New compounds and chemicals are produced with regularity, and incorporated into new products without any regulatory oversight at all. If it's something you are going to eat, that's one thing. There's lots of regulation over that. But if it's a product you are going to use or be in contact with, whether it is a bottle or a bag of something, or if it is an article manufactured with something, new chemicals pop up in use that we know very little about. Things you wear, things you have in your home. Things that are in your car. Things you apply to yourself. Cleaners, car and lawn treatments. It's infinite.

Capitalism is working very hard to compete and bring you ever more choices of new and improved products. This may seem like a good thing, but the downside is that the unknown dangers of any of these developments are mostly not considered in the haste to make a buck. I think a lot of people are messed up in the head because capitalism never slowed down to ask if all these great new products are really safe of if they have hidden dangers which might take years or even decades to manifest.

A possible example: Microplastics in the water and in the air

But a person who lives at home with a part-time job cannot even live on his own, but he very well may be capable of doing so with experience and training.

'May be capable' is one thing. Assuming that he is is quite another.

You want to write these people off by giving up on them making them dependent and psychologically helpless.

I don't read that into what Frank is saying. I picture a system where anyone who can acquire a skill and find a remunerative application for it would still be able to do that. Just that there will be fewer needs for workers, and far more people than can fill those needs.

I taught a total of 44.5 years and saw many students who could not or would not perform academically. But many of them switched to nursing or some other type of occupational training and are doing quite will. One, who couldn't pass my class because he would not open a book, switched to plant processing and is now earning a lot of money. In your world this person would be eliminated from the "talented" class because he could not compete academically.

How do you get that? What is preventing any individual in a society which has accepted the need for a UBI from going out and getting a job, whether that job has education prerequisites or not? What can't that relationship between employer and worker be just as it is today? If an employer has a need, and an applicant appears able and available, why would that employer NOT hire that person? Do you think some rule or regulation would be imposed which prevents that? You know, there are a lot of people performing jobs which generally require a college education, but they don't have the necessary degrees. But they are still doing the work. And if they are doing it so well that their employer doesn't want to lose them why should they not keep doing those jobs? I've seen college teachers who don't have a BA, engineers who have no degree, executives who have no managerial training, CEOs without an MBA, technicians with no formal training, chefs who never went to chef school, computer geeks and IT people high up the corporate ladder with no degree, and on and on. There are multi-millionaire musicians who have never been to music school and can't even read music, yet there are people who have all kinds of degrees and musical accreditation who can't sell a song.

Some students are only in college to get their grant money or whose parents health insurance requires them to be a full-time student for coverage. These eventually drop out but may return years later when they are more mature and motivated.

You take a very paternalistic view of these people and think society has to provide for them when many can do quite well when given the opportunity. We can't give up on people because somebody has decided they are not talented enough to have a job.

I don't think it is a matter of giving up on anybody but one of doing the math.

Look at the number of work-age people in this country. Look at the number of jobs being worked, then add the number of unfilled full time middle class jobs available. The two do not agree. There are far more people needing a job than there are jobs.

Now, look ahead. AI is poised to eliminate millions of jobs, but it is not poised to create more than it eliminates. Not even close.

Houston, we have a numbers problem! And it is only going to get worse. Sooner or later we are going to have to face up to it. There is not enough full time work for everybody who wants a job.

Conservatives like to gloat about the unemployment rate. And it sounds great, doesn't it? Something like 4.1%? Wow! That's amazing! Only 4.1% of people who would like a job don't have one? That sounds so good it almost sounds too good to be real. That's because it is not real. You know what they say about something that sounds too good to be true. Do you know what counts as a job for that figure? Any job, even if the worker only works 1 hour per week. That's just not a realistic way of looking at it.

Why don't we have a comparable figure called the 'Underemployment Rate?'

Contrary to popular conservative beliefs, everybody who wants a good job can not have one. There are not enough good jobs to go around any more!

Capitalism did that to us. Capitalism is as capitalism does. Capitalism seeks to eliminate jobs. It has done well at that. As you say, many have become very rich. They have done so by investing in companies pressured to produce ever more profits, always more than last period. To do that employers need to keep making changes. The changes they make put the squeeze on the middle class. Sink or swim. Many have risen high on that rising tide. Sadly many more are underwater and unable to surface, frequently held down by the feet of those who have some breathing room.

Hey. If all the good jobs are taken then there are not enough to go around. And don't bother quoting how many are currently unfilled. I'll only quote how many are underemployed. And my number will exceed your number.

There are not enough good jobs to go around.

That places financial stress on underachieving families, which often causes them to take defeatist attitudes and produce more offspring raised with poor family values.

And there you go. Capitalism eroding family values. Every day.

 

[Flash]

Ill go get your post and the post number

while you explain why you used a decades old numbers

Because mobility studies are done by decade and that is the latest decade study. Try to keep up.

 

[PoliTalker]

Hello Flash,

You carry on your "fight" on message boards. I have to go to court as part of my activities as a CASA volunteer (Court Appointed Special Advocate) for children.

You can put all those who are not talented enough to be competitive and have not earned the right to a job in the helpless class and I will continue to work to help them be successful. I never complained about them being lazy or non-productive, that is part of your knee-jerk reaction of trying to put me into your liberal-conservative dichotomy in which you pretend to know what others think. I hope you can eventually realize what people are capable of if people have a little faith in their abilities and future and not throw them away as untalented. I bet you think you will be part of the talented class who has earned the right to a job.

I completely commend what you are doing. I think it's fabulous. To take somebody who had but a glimmer of hope of being a productive member of society and give them a chance to help realize their dream, that is very admirable.

I don't want to fight you and I don't disparage your life. Unlike Frank and evince, I know we need all types of people, DIVERSITY, to make America great. America is great because we have liberals, conservatives, people who don't want to be labelled, producers and takers, different races, cultures, experiences, viewpoints, motivations and wildly different ideas. There is no one 'correct' point of view. We are all part of a much larger picture. That picture has beautiful aspects and ugly parts too. That's because it is real.

Of course, you may not realize it, but since there are not enough jobs to go around, every time one person is given a leg-up and is able to find and work a job, somebody else misses out on one. But that's fine. Nothing about having a UBI will change that. Some will get jobs, others will simply not. That's reality.

 

[PoliTalker]

Hello Flash,

More projection and bigoted stereotyping and problems with reading comprehension.

I think everyone deserves respect and never made any suggestions about cutting social programs despite Frank's cute little memes. You both want to imagine what conservatives think based on a forum message board and assume I must be conservative since I don't agree with all of your intolerant liberal views. Your intolerance and denigration of others you think are beneath you is what allowed Donald Trump to be elected--they reacted against your self-righteous views.

Nailed it.

You caught me doing that and you were right. I want to know when I am making incorrect assumptions. It's so easy to do. And after you catch yourself doing it, it becomes easier to spot it in others. What I see is Frank and evince attacking you personally when that's not what this Topic is supposed to be about. You know, I can see disputing ideas and perceptions of issues or policy. That's what this is all about. But as soon as it shifts from the Topic to denigrating an opposing poster and making assumptions about them, I am not on board with that.

You and I have different ideas, but we are on the same page when it comes to how we conduct ourselves on this board.

I wish more people would just drop all the personal stuff and stick to the ideas, the subject at hand.

It's like they run out of intelligent things to say so they start trying to attack the credibility of the opposing person. That's just lame. And lazy, btw.

 

[PoliTalker]

Hello evince,

being civil doesn't always work

That does not justify being uncivil.

Nothing really does.

 

[PoliTalker]

Hello evince,

flash lied

and pretended her numbers were up to date

she is not an honest broker


she has tossed the gift of respectful treatment in the trash

Flash never claimed the numbers were for this year. Looks to me like that study is performed every 10 years. Perhaps the most recent one is not complete. And why would we expect any change? The one Flash posted did say the results were essentially unchanged from the previous study.

I actually already knew that much of the middle class has risen in wealth. And that is really to be expected. The older you get, the more wealth you accumulate if you have any wealth-building assets. And if you keep working, the more experience you have so the more income you get.

I suspect the reason we have so many poor is we pretty much encourage the poor to reproduce, with our policy. The more kids they have the more govt assistance they get. There is no point in disputing that. The question is: How do we fix it? We could tell the poor they only get so much and if they have kids then the support of the kids comes out of what we give a childless couple. But we would have to give that childless couple enough to support themselves fairly nicely, such that if a family were to live more frugally on that income, they could raise kids. And we might have to say if they have more than two kids they are going to be strapped financially but it is their own fault for not thinking. A policy like that could really change the breakdown.

There is no justification for incivility because Flash posted what you were asking for. You brought that on yourself. Everything is not perfect, every study is not recent.

 

[PoliTalker]

Hello evince,

If a society finds itself with a faction of people who use lies in place of facts it is incumbent on that society to publically shame those liars until they accept facts or STFU


unless they do that their society is lost

But if somebody believes differently that is not a lie and we need to be able to discuss our different views.

 

[PoliTalker]

Hello Flash,

Because mobility studies are done by decade and that is the latest decade study. Try to keep up.

So far, that doesn't appear to be possible.

One thing is certain. If I were conservative, and had the same exact approach to how I post here, I would have evince on Ignore.

 

[Oracle Of JPP 714]

Different strokes for different folks. Not everybody can be borg.

 

[PoliTalker]

Capitalism drives parents to focus too much on making money and thus ignore their children.

Just look at the president.

Not much of a father to Barron.

 

[Irish Exit]

It's like they run out of intelligent things to say so they start trying to attack the credibility of the opposing person. That's just lame. And lazy, btw.

So everyone is less intelligent than you. Gotcha.

 

[Fentoine Lum]

American families are clearly on the decline. Divorce rates and out-of-wedlock child birth rates are up. Capitalism has played a crucial role in this evolution.

Decades ago, it took just one income to support a family. That included a 40 hour week, full health care, vacations, savings and retirement. Unions won most of those family-enhancing struggles. This represented a bit of a loss for capitalism as many of those family-beneficial victories came at the expense of additional profits for the richest.

But capitalism relentlessly seeks to maximize the profitability of any situation. A war on unions and worker rights was the response from capitalism to all those family-enhancing detriments to profitability. Good jobs with family-supporting benefits have routinely been downsized, offshored, mechanized, computerized, and broken into several part time positions with no benefits.

The traditional male/female roles where he works, brings home the bacon, and she is the home maker have now been relegated to the rich who can afford nannies, cooks, gardeners, etc.

Family values have become luxuries only affordable to the rich. Capitalism is the culprit.

Clearly, in order to make America great again, families are going to need something more than empty words of support.

Capitalism is a wonderful and powerful wealth-generating tool, but it is also dangerous to American family values. The lesson is apparent: Capitalism must be balanced with the proper amount of socialism. Capitalism is like a powerful engine. The engine of capitalism, without socialism as a governor, and left to run at wide open throttle, is bound to blow up. Our challenge is not a choice between capitalism and socialism, it is clearly one of how to blend the two.

Our young nation is at a point where we are falling behind the other older nations which have already figured this out. It is now time for us to accept this challenge and show that we can do it better.

Unfortunately the power structure is vested in defeating your challenge.

 

[Nordberg]

This is an old refrain.

Horace 20 bc. Our sires age was worse than our grandsires,.We their sons are more worthless than they . So in turn we shall give the world ,progeny more corrupt.

1624 Thomas Barnes youth were never more sawcie,yea never more savagely sawcie
the ancients are scorned ,the honorable are condemned the magistrate not dreaded.

This is not new.

Sawcie means insolent.

 

[Truth Detector]

Capitalism drives parents to focus too much on making money and thus ignore their children.

Just look at the president.

Not much of a father to Barron.

Another massive pile of stupid. You leftist just keep doubling down on moron. STFU

 

[Nordberg]

The sad fact is we accept the meme " corporations exist to maximize profits'. There should be an addendum about doing no harm' the forefathers chartered corporations and would take their charters away for doing harm . We seemed to have missed that part.

 

[evince]

greed and election cheating are harming the reputation of capitalism


well fettered capitalism is what gives us freedom

 

[evince]

Hello Flash,



So far, that doesn't appear to be possible.

One thing is certain. If I were conservative, and had the same exact approach to how I post here, I would have evince on Ignore.

thank you

 

[evince]

Hello evince,



But if somebody believes differently that is not a lie and we need to be able to discuss our different views.

if somebody believes a lie and the facts are offered to them its their fault


they deserve to be publicly shamed for that evil