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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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A mix of true and false....
You get what you pay for, my friend. Or rather, what the Waltons pay for.
So, how much must I pay in order to "buy" a genuine work ethic?
When I was 17-18, I was a vet assistant for a single-vet office. My job was to clean out cages, clean up poop from the dog-run, clean animals, squeeze anal glands (not making that up), and pretty much a host of other excrement-related chores. It was the job I could get as a young college student, and it paid minimum wage, which was pretty "minimum" then.
I lived in a tiny apartment with a room mate, drove a beater car, and (most importantly) didn't imagine that I was ready to have/support a family on my "salary".
I made it just fine by being frugal, and I wasn't complaining because back in those days nobody imagined that a minimum-wage job was suppose to support a family!
I also worked my tail off and was extremely conscientious. I had a serious work ethic, and the vet noticed. I also made some suggestions about how to better handle the animals' transition from cages to surgery, etc.
Pretty quickly the vet took me from 3/4 time to full time, doubled my wage, and made me a surgical assistant. I still had my other chores, but I also helped in surgery.
The point is that even in a low-level, excrement-related CHORE of a "job," I strove to excel, and it was noticed that I did. That work ethic got me a significant raise, more hours, and a much more interesting aspect of the job. I did that for almost two years before dropping out of college and getting a commercial license to drive rigs (which paid much more).
Nobody "purchased" my work ethic with more money. I brought that ethic to the job.
This idea that striving for excellence at any "level" of employment is something that an employer must purchase is flatly one of the most ridiculous elements of the moaning-proletariat argument!
When somebody has a job, works steady, yet till qualifies for foodstamps and Section 8 housing, while the corporate owner rolls in taxpayer subsidized billions, yeah, that might give somebody a screwed up attitude.
The idea that unskilled, uneducated workers should (now) expect to raise a family is what is ridiculous! If you are at the absolute bottom of the labor strata, what you SHOULD think is: "I'd better keep my weenie under control, because I CANNOT afford to start a family!"
No, instead, we've bred generations of entitlement-thinking people who are "all winners" and who feel that society MUST, morally-speaking, be the absolute backstop for WHATEVER totally stupid and self-serving lifestyle choices they might make!
NO!
If you are a minimum-wage worker, you had BETTER be looking to better your skills, and you had BETTER not imagine that you AND A FAMILY should be able to make it on your wage!
GET EDUCATED, either college or a trade, and THEREBY increase your skills, your labor-value, and your wage. And meanwhile, HAVE a decent work ethic (which will usually be noticed and rewarded) even IN your minimum-wage job.
The high management salaries are an entirely different issue, which I'll return to in a moment.
The real problem is that there is no respect for the work ethic in this country.
SO true! Of course, not in the way you intend it. See above.
We believe only paper shufflers and Wall Street con-men deserve to be enriched for what they do. Somebody who does an honest days work can go pound sand.
Ahh, the blue-collar/white-collar class warfare. What utter garbage!
While finding my way, I've moved mobile homes, cleaned up mountains of animal crap, worked as a gofer in an automotive shop, worked as a gofer in construction, drove truck, and on and on....
I also worked to get a Ph.D. and taught at several universities. I've been blue collar and white collar. And I've had exactly the same work ethic throughout. I can also tell you that I worked far harder as a professor than ANY blue-collar job I ever had. And I now work FAR harder than ever before, now that I'm running the company I founded.
It's a matter of expectations! Today the most unskilled blue-color worker feels ENTITLED to "respect" and a high wage. And by "respect," they expect to be treated and paid just like the "paper pusher" that gets paid so much more. What a crock!
Look, if you are bending burritos (or cleaning up dog crap, as I did) for a "living," because that's the only skill you bring to the labor market, then it is ABSURD for you to think that you should be getting paid like a worker with more desirable skills! It's ABSURD for you to think that you SHOULD be able to have/support a family on that wage!
This whole "everybody's a winner; nobody's a loser" CRAP is just that. Bring SKILLS to the market, and you'll find a different class of job. When you are competing in the labor market for the minimum-wage jobs, you are GOING to get a LOW minimum-wage because, frankly, workers like you are literally a dime-a-dozen. You want to rise above the milling herd? Then get SKILLED!
And from what I've seen, far too many of these drone workers do NOT "do an honest day's work." As I said, the work ethic is something that's IN YOU rather than in the wage! Most today just feel entitled and DEMAND to have that ethic purchased from them. But employers know that you cannot purchase what character is not there to begin with.
You want respect? Then EARN it. I've come from ABJECT poverty in the projects of Glen Avon in Riverside, California. And I scrapped and WORKED my way to an education and a better life. So, don't tell ME about the "downtrodden poor." There is NOTHING about poverty in this country I haven't lived through myself first-hand.
Hungry? Been there.
Cold? Been there.
Drug addicted mother and multiple "fathers" passing through? Been there.
You name it regarding "poverty," and I've been there.
And because of my terrible whiteness, I couldn't qualify for ANY of the help and greased skids that people of color COULD qualify for. So, I didn't even get the "helping hand" that SO many others COULD have gotten and just couldn't be bothered to get.
It takes discipline and commitment to make it. Most don't have that character, and a CHARACTER issue it is. It's far easier to "seek comfort" in sleeping around with any warm body, having a bunch of kids you can't pay for, and then moaning and sniveling about how hard life is on the "abusive" minimum wage, because those sorts of jobs are ALL you are "qualified" to do.
As John Wayne said, "Life is hard. It's harder when you're stupid." Make stupid choices, and there ARE consequences! Even in this ultra-liberal society. And you should NOT expect to raise a family on a minimum-wage job!!!
Sorry, I've BEEN there, and I just don't have sympathy for the "downtrodden" yet ENTITLED proletariat. Get SKILLED and grow an INTERNAL work ethic, and you'll make it just fine in this country.
Turn to petty crime to try to feed your kid, you're going to jail for a long time.
Ahh, the "feed your kid" crock of sewage! See above, and quit sniveling. In THIS country, there are SO many layers of handouts that NOBODY needs to turn to petty crime to "feed your kid."
And where did "the kid" come from in the first place!?!
This liberal/entitlement CRAP about having kids willy-nilly without a SHRED of responsibility leaves me COLD! And I mean COLD! It's not the kid's fault, but that does NOT make it my fault either!
There are consequences for terrible lifestyle choices, and that does not make them MY consequences. If ALL you bring to the labor market is the ability to churn out kids, well, surprise, surprise... ANYBODY can do that "job," and there's no MARKET for it!!!
Life is hard. It's harder when you're STUPID! Use birth control. CAREFULLY, because you KNOW that you CANNOT be having kids on your wage. And instead of sleeping with everything that moves and having a "social life" when you are at the bottom of the heap, exert yourself and show some character and discipline to GET SKILLED.
Steal the life savings of a widow and you're heralded in the Wall Street Journal as a visionary.
The abuses at the top do NOT justify the abuses at the bottom. Whether you're a petty or spectacular crook, you SHOULD suffer the full penalty of the law.
As I've written many times, I'm ALL FOR the big corporate crooks doing prison time. I've even advocated that the architects of the real-estate collapse and recession be shot for treason. I'm no softy on big corporate crime!
The HUGE irony here is that I'm sure you are all about getting Hillary elected, and that is irony indeed as you talk about big corporate corruption. If you don't think that woman is CORRUPT, then you are in the tiny minority of people in this country (regardless of party).
So, you want to elect corruption and then imagine that there is going to be some sea-change "at the top"? Repubs/Democrats... it doesn't matter.
That's just doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.
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Gary
Social climber
From A Buick 6
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The idea that unskilled, uneducated workers should (now) expect to raise a family is what is ridiculous!
Thank you for making my point.
And because of my terrible whiteness, I couldn't qualify for ANY of the help and greased skids that people of color COULD qualify for. So, I didn't even get the "helping hand" that SO many others COULD have gotten and just couldn't be bothered to get.
Yeah, things have always been tough for white boys in this country, one raw deal after another.
The HUGE irony here is that I'm sure you are all about getting Hillary elected, and that is irony indeed as you talk about big corporate corruption.
You couldn't be any more wrong.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Yeah, things have always been tough for white boys in this country, one raw deal after another.
Your sarcasm does not change the facts of my situation. The POOR have always had it tough, regardless of time or country or race. But I can attest that there IS a way out of poverty.
That way, however, is NOT class-warfare or moaning and sniveling about being downtrodden proletariat while popping out yet more kids.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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You couldn't be any more wrong.
GLAD to hear it! So I can count on one less vote for Billary, then?
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Gary
Social climber
From A Buick 6
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The POOR have always had it tough, regardless of time or country or race.
Very true.
But I can attest that there IS a way out of poverty.
Yes, it's people organizing and standing in solidarity against the Robber Barons. It worked before, it will work again.
GLAD to hear it! So I can count on one less vote for Billary, then?
Since I never voted for either Bill or Hillary, it's not one less vote is it?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Yes, it's people organizing and standing in solidarity against the Robber Barons. It worked before, it will work again.
That is a good thing, and I'm all for a 20-million-person march on Washington (I'd participate) to hold corporate corruption accountable!
But that's not a sufficient condition! That merely puts the playing field back toward level again. But it's no "robber baron" mentality to have a low minimum wage. That's a function of proper market forces. When your labor skill are dime-a-dozen, then don't expect to get paid more than a dime. Manipulations to artificially turn that dime into a dollar necessarily have (often unforeseen) market effects.
The CORE issue with most of the chronically "poor" is character. That's the sad truth that the liberal, "everybody's a winner" society does not want to admit. So, yes, there are fixes that MUST be made to the "playing field," but such fixes are NOT going to turn Joe-average-looser into Tom Brady on that field.
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Banquo
climber
Amerricka
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Topic Author's Reply - May 5, 2015 - 12:05pm PT
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Hard work is often important to economic success in a career but I doubt it is the most reliable or most common route. Two really common ways are to be born into it or marry into it. That isn't to say such people don't deserve good salaries or that they don’t work hard but it may be the most common way to the top.
I know and know of nice working class guys who managed to marry into business elite families. A job in the family business or the business of a family friend is found. The guy is groomed and trained. He probably ends up being good at his job and has a successful career and although he may in fact work hard; the ladder he climbed was not hard work.
Similar is the guy who inherits the family business. I know some of these guys that are good at running their business and work hard but they got there through family.
I can't find a reference right now but I read a study that looked at universities and degrees that lead to financial success. As I recall, an MBA from Stanford was near if not the top degree. The secondary conclusion was that the success wasn't due to Stanford's MBA being any better or the coursework more relevant. The conclusion was that the graduates achieved success because of the contacts they made while in university. The source of good jobs was through the faculty and through fellow students who already had industry contacts.
I've retired from teaching but when I taught engineering, people I knew in industry who wanted to hire would call me and ask if I had any promising students they could interview. I would send not always the students with the highest grades or the hardest working students but the ones I thought best for the job or with the most promise. I found jobs for quite a few.
I’m no billionaire but I did manage to rise above my north Idaho working roots mostly by getting to know some helpful, connected people.
So, I think the most reliable route to a successful career is to make the right contacts though family, friends, marriage and education. This is probably true if you want to be a businessman or an artist.
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Gary
Social climber
From A Buick 6
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The CORE issue with most of the chronically "poor" is character.
That's one of the most insulting things I've ever read. Seriously.
Good day.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Having recently returned from Nepal
Oh, and here I was talking about "poverty" in the USA.
The "bar" will vary a lot from the leading industrialized/informationalized nation on Earth to an agrarian third-world nation, with wildly different expectations across all aspects of society.
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Banquo
climber
Amerricka
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Topic Author's Reply - May 5, 2015 - 12:30pm PT
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Economic mobility, up or down, is small in the USA. Rags-to-riches is a harmful myth.
To quote Stupidpedia:
The concept of "Rags to riches" has been criticised by social reformers, revolutionaries, essayists and statisticians, who argue that only a handful of exceptionally capable and/or mainly lucky persons are actually able to travel the "rags to riches" road, being the great publicity given to such cases a natural Survivorship bias illusion, which help keep the masses of the working class and the poor in line, preventing them from agitating for an overall collective change in the direction of social equality.[
Survivorship bias, or survival bias, is a logical error.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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That's one of the most insulting things I've ever read.
Oh well. Often the truth often feels insulting.
I've been there. I could tell you countless stories of what I've observed first-hand throughout my life. This is not "theory" for me. I've lived it throughout my life.
Here's just one.
When I was a TA at UC Santa Barbara, I had a huge section consisting of more than 80 students. It was my responsibility to lecture and manage assignments and grading. For a paper assignment, students got one chance to rewrite for a higher grade.
One woman wrote a terrible first draft, which I graded quite harshly (along with copious notes about how to succeed) and asked her to come into my office to get some very directed instruction about how to organize her rewrite. She came in, and we started to talk about her paper.
It was obviously going to be a lot of effort for her to rewrite her paper into minimally acceptable form, and she got more and more agitated about the prospects. She was sighing and squirming and obviously really upset that it was going to be hard to produce a passable draft.
Finally, she said, "Well, I really wonder if you are treating me fairly. I mean, there is this issue...."
I responded, "I grade fairly and consistently across the board. What 'issue' are you talking about?"
She said, "Well, I am a black woman, and you ARE a white man...."
I responded, "We are done here. Your suggestion is racist and sexist, and you are threatening my entire career. I will submit your paper to the academic standards committee and my department. You'll have nothing more to do with me from this moment forward."
I did as I said, and both bodies found her paper to be worse than I had even graded. And she was ultimately expelled.
This "poor," "downtrodden" black woman deciding that it is FAR easier to outright threaten a whole career and extort a better grade than to buckle down and get the job done. FAR easier to play the race and gender card than to actually get EDUCATED.
And SOCIETY has encouraged her to "consider all of her options" when deciding which "card" will most get her ahead. She chose to play both major cards, and it got her expelled, as it should have. Now she can pop out a bunch of kids and moan and snivel about how yet another white male "elitist" did her dirty. And the hate and classism gets passed onto another generation.
BECAUSE of her race, she was handed a FREE ride to top-quality university, and SHE squandered that opportunity. Nobody else got her expelled. HER character got her expelled. Always the "victim".... But I'm not buying into that song and dance. And it's NOT "insulting" to call the song and dance what it is.
I'm not kidding... I could tell COUNTLESS such stories from early childhood onward. This race, gender, class garbage has become the EXCUSE of the liberal mindset, and, having BEEN there, I am sick of it! I find the whole mentality outrageous, and it is actually demeaning to both people like me and to the very people that the liberal mindset is supposedly so "compassionate" about. Always the victim mindset.
There HAVE been inequalities. But in today's society, those are NO excuse. There are too, too many success stories of people from the EXACT same conditions as the majority that just wallow in their "poverty" and complain about it.
It takes WORK and effort and discipline and commitment and courage to pull yourself out of any hole. Those are character issues. Most people will have to have CHARACTER to get out of poverty.
Most of my life, I've been surrounded by people who HAD the opportunities to get out of the hole. What I heard was moaning and excuses to just take the easy path and then complain about how "hard" their self-made conditions were.
I'd say, "Come with me to the financial aid office. I know the ropes. I'll help you fill out the admissions and finaid paperwork. Let's get you on the path to success, and in fact it will cost you almost nothing. In fact, your finaid will pay for your necessities in addition to tuition. You won't have to have a job while you get through school!"
Then the next morning I'd find my friend semi-drunk, still hungover, lounging around with some new chick, and it would be: "Hey, dude, let's try it in a couple of days. Sorry, man, but I really partied last night."
Yeah, and EVERY night was party night. And then it was a couple of new kids (from different chicks), and then it was: "I've gotta deal, man. You know how it is. Gotta MAKE it." And then it was some prison time. And on and on.
Rinse and repeat countless times with endless variations.
Our society has GIVEN help and greased-skids-opportunities galore to SO many, so much more than ever before in human history! In the face of decades of liberalism, the jury is IN: character is the sweepingly common denominator in the "downtrodden masses" failure to rise up. There are many contributing factors, but character trumps all else.
Eisenhower said: "Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master."
We're seeing it happen in just my lifetime, and the liberal mentality just hastens the day when the State will be fully Master.
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SweetWilliam
Boulder climber
TheSand,Man
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my uncle is pretty poor. hes not too smart and always been a little slow. I don't get how hes supposed to get some college or something when he can barely read. hes nice guy and always goes to work cutting grass and stuff and works hard and on time but its not like if he just wanted to he could go get some mad skillz like a brain surgon.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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William, didn't you mean 'brain surjon'?
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Banquo
climber
Amerricka
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Topic Author's Reply - May 5, 2015 - 01:08pm PT
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So William, is there any joy in his life? Does he have a few buddies or perhaps a dog? What is wealth?
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Gary
Social climber
From A Buick 6
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Oh well. Often the truth often feels insulting.
banquo, there's part of the answer you are looking for. Poverty is lack of empathy for those less fortunate than yourself.
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Banquo
climber
Amerricka
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Topic Author's Reply - May 5, 2015 - 01:49pm PT
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Poverty is lack of empathy for those less fortunate than yourself.
A lack of empathy combined with a bit of sanctimony.
Some say that empathy is fundamental to humanity.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Poverty is lack of empathy for those less fortunate than yourself.
Poverty is also enabling irresponsibility and thereby destroying basic freedoms in the name of "empathy."
Regarding the poor, not too bright day-laborer, he is one of the small subset of the poor that deserves some ongoing assistance. Meanwhile, we would hope that he does not imagine to have and raise "his own" (really, the State's) family. There are people that should not reproduce, as they are incapable of being responsible for their progeny.
So, I wish him a happy, productive, fun and friend-filled life, and I'm all for assisting him in that quest... as long as he does not force me to pay for a whole additional family he cannot afford.
As a general rule: another person's irresponsibility does not suddenly place upon me a responsibility.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Some say that empathy is fundamental to humanity.
Oh, stop with the veiled insults. You don't know me. If you want to (and can) dispute my points, do so. But don't go off on wild, speculative tangents about my "empathy."
This thread proves the point that there is no end to which the liberal mind will go to justify stealing from some to give to others that COULD earn it but can't be bothered. Poor, "downtrodden" black woman who can't be bothered to actually EARN a grade and so would prefer to quickly and blithely threaten to destroy another person's entire career and thereby EXTORT a passing grade. Yeah, there's your entitlement mindset in a nutshell.
And recent developments have proved that liberals don't even care to go strictly after the "rich". As just ONE example, Obamacare has very directly gone after the MIDDLE class in order to GIVE "healthcare" to the "poor" who COULD afford it before but just didn't want to prioritize it. Far better to stand in the Walmart line, pay for junk-food with food-stamps, take the sniffling and already grotesquely obese kid to the doctor at State expense, and then put that big-screen LCD TV on a credit card. Oh, the "downtrodden poor."
Now the irony is that even the "poor" are finally realizing that they STILL don't have any actual health insurance in a practical sense. If you're that poor, you'll quickly find that a $6,000 per-person annual deductible is no "help" at all. Meanwhile, the middle class takes yet another hit. My previously affordable health insurance increased in price overnight by over 40%, with a doubled deductible. I COULDN'T keep my doctor or my insurance, as lyingly promised. And we now KNOW that we were very intentionally and knowingly lied to in order to "sell" the package that the INSURANCE COMPANIES lobbied so hard to get.
Helping the "poor," my hindquarters!
And I'm supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy all over because now millions of "poor" people have "insurance" that really isn't, while the insurance companies get even richer!?!
THIS is your liberal plan to express "empathy"?
Sorry, folks, it's not a lack of "empathy" that has me angry about the endless, liberal manipulations of reality with horrible side-effects for the middle class without even TOUCHING the truly wealthy.
Quit TAKING from me, and quit voting the utterly corrupt into office! You want a 20-million-person march on Washington to protest corporate corruption... count me IN! But then don't turn around and vote for server-wiping, "foundation" Hillary and pat yourself on your liberal back as though you have "empathy" for the poor!
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Banquo
climber
Amerricka
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Topic Author's Reply - May 5, 2015 - 02:30pm PT
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stop with the veiled insults
OK
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Gary
Social climber
From A Buick 6
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Some say that empathy is fundamental to humanity.
There's some who think there is a connection between lack of empathy and material wealth.
I remember years and years ago a conspiracy theorist telling me the world was ruled by blood-drinking, baby-sacrificing lizards. These psychologists were essentially saying the same thing. Basically, when you get them talking, these people [ie. psychopaths] are different than human beings. They lack the things that make you human: empathy, remorse, loving kindness.
So at first I thought this might just be psychologists feeling full of themselves with their big ideological notions. But then I met Al Dunlap. [That would be “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap, former CEO of Sunbeam and notorious downsizer.] He effortlessly turns the psychopath checklist into “Who Moved My Cheese?” Many items on the checklist he redefines into a manual of how to do well in capitalism.
There was his reputation that he was a man who seemed to enjoy firing people, not to mention the stories from his first marriage — telling his first wife he wanted to know what human flesh tastes like, not going to his parents’ funerals. Then you realize that because of this dysfunctional capitalistic society we live in those things were positives. He was hailed and given high-powered jobs, and the more ruthlessly his administration behaved, the more his share price shot up.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/
Can you enjoy material wealth while surrounded by abject, hopeless material poverty? Does that create a need to justify to yourself your status in relation to those less fortunate?
"They are poor because they are morally inferior."
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