It is not great wealth in a few individuals that proves a country is prosperous,

“You can’t fight destiny because if you try to fight destiny then you have to fight the bouncers and the rest of the strippers too”

Charlie Sheen Winner

There’s 20 million millionaires in the USA. Is that a few?

As ye sow, so shall ye reap. --- God, year 1.

"There’s 20 million millionaires in the USA. Is that a few?"

Out of 328 million? Yes that's only about 6% of the population. I might just be one of them.

We have the highest wealth inequality of all G7 countries. Billionaires engage in ego trip space flights while people starve on the ground.

Being a millionaire now ain’t like it was ten years ago (let alone twenty). The cost of living just keeps escalating out-of control. (still I wouldn’t mind having $1 million to access now.)

Most Americans have a much higher chance of being homeless than they do of having a million dollars. Which really isn't even that much by today's standards.

I'd be happy with a living standard like they have in Finland or Switzerland. Very laissez Faire economies but without being the plutocratic shithole the US is.

Russia's been there, done that, couldn't make it work. There have to be rewards for working harder than average and risking one's savings. The strong historical evidence is that market-based rewards, based on stable property rights, are the ones that are effective. We do have a problem that a lot of honest, necessary work pays so little that people are choosing some kind of hustle instead. Nobody is sure how changes to the economic system will work out. Just big-time hustlers (aka politicians) who are good at hustling fools who won't accept this obvious fact. We have to go slow with changes to avoid doing more harm than good. Start with helping people who are hungry, don't have a warm place to sleep or basic medical care. BTW basic medical care doesn't include spending a bazillion dollars on some treatment that maybe has a 1% chance of working. Let's not let envy of the well-off cause us to shoot ourselves in the foot.

Of course we can make the system better. We can easily adapt to the social markets of the eu and promote sustainable development. But we're ruled by dinosaurs who believe jn a plutocratic kleptocracy

“Nobody has the right to the superfluous while somebody lacks the strictly necessary”

~ Salvador Antonio Edmundo Espiridión y Francisco de Paula Díaz Ibáñez

~ nom de plume: Salvador Díaz Mirón ~ Poet, Writer, Journalist ~ Born 14 December 1853 Veracruz, Mexico ~ Died 12 June 1928 (aged 74) Veracruz, Mexico

Since the 1980s, the percent of world population living in extreme poverty has more than dropped in half. And, the percent continues to drop. Thank you free market capitalism !

People live in poverty in the US, ever increasing. They tend to respond with drugs, alcohol, and psychotherapy. Thank you free market capitalism.

SJG

OK Boris youtube.com

nicespice distributes her glorious boobatar to all of us equally, who needs more Socialism than that?

I think it's time to HIDE this thread. Just not worth putting any thought into it. Bye, bye.

Actually Warrior does care about the topic. In the past the the sum total of his opinion is that anyone who cares is " jealous."

For anyone interested, wapo had a multi-part series on the topic starting here:

washingtonpost.com

Adios, poor thread.

"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."

~ President Gerald Ford

And now our government, very very big and with lots of courts, just helps the robber barons take from everyone else.

Considering that, quite unremarkable that before he could be President, Gerald Ford served on the Warren Commission.

SJG

Rainbow - Stone Cold youtube.com

Really all you need to make a comfortable life in America is a willingness to work hard. That’s it. Cut the bullshit. Ask any Mexican guy you see on any construction site.

Construction work is one of the higher paying blue collar occupations. But it also often involves extended travel, which will make family life difficult. And it often involves significant down time. And it is hard work, not everyone could do it, and not everyone would want to.

tuscl.net

And Mexican construction workers are still often living 10 to a room and sleeping in shifts, and also working without union protection or representation.

I have worked alongside former construction workers. They did that during summers when they were in school.

I worked along side a guy who worked on the NY subways, getting double time and triple overtime. Now they do other things where they don't get any overtime. They want to use other skills.

The construction industry is about 8% of the economy. You cannot force everyone into that. And most real long and deep recessions start with a real estate over build, and then the market freezing up, developers going bust, even the lending institutions going bust, and then there being no construction for a decade.

The greatest purchasing power for the working man ran from 1969 to 1972. Since then it has been on the downslide, further and further each year, forcing more and more people into things like Uber, Lyft, and Instacart.

We are turning into a third world country, and much of this is directly traceable to changes made during the Reagan Administration.

SJG

The undeniable truth is:

In the United States racism is baked into the creation of the United Stay of America itself, in the society and laws, it can, undeniably, be seen in the entire culture and history of the country, from the Declaration of Independence to today.

America’s institutions, the government, education, and culture, all contribute or reinforce, to this day, the oppression of marginalized social groups of poor people of every color and nationality while protecting dominant social groups of mainly rich white elites and their allies of every color and nationality.

"With therapy, someone with autism may be able to live a normal life."

^ “When haters go after your looks and differences, it means they have nowhere left to go...

And then you know you’re winning!”

“I have Asperger’s and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm,” she added. “And — given the right circumstances — being different is a superpower.”

“The world is waking up...

And change is coming whether you like it or not.”

~ Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg ~ Born: 3rd January 2003 Stockholm, Sweden ~ Occupation: Student, environmental activist

Awards

• Fritt Ord Award (2019)
• Rachel Carson Prize (2019)
• Ambassador of Conscience Award (2019)
• Right Livelihood Award (2019)
• International Children's Peace Prize (2019)
• Time Person of the Year (2019)
• Nordic Council Environment Prize (declined) (2019)
• Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity (2020

Honors ~ Doctor honoris causa, University of Mons

Books: ~ No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, Scenes from the Heart

A collection of eleven speeches which she has written and presented about global warming and the climate crisis.

Some of you have enough class privilege to be able to afford being impervious to the economic reality of the majority of Americans

You're an idiot Icee. The EU would have a social safety net that looks like a hula hoop if we didn't pay billions a year to defend them. Their social safety net is paid for by the American taxpayer. Socialism always works perfectly when their is a capitalist society to leech off. When their isn't socialism is China, Venezuela or North Korea. America became poor by permitting immigration to go wild and allowing the scum who come here illegally to stay. White privilege - work hard, get an education, save. No big fucking secret unless you're a fucking retarded progressive.

CJ forgot about you boy. Give an example of systemic racism instead of just shouting slogans like the typical left wing turd. If the system were racist Asians wouldn't succeed at a level as high or higher than whites and real Africans wouldn't succeed at a rate more than three times that of black americans. The only problem with the system is progressives. Latest survey 58% of Democrats said socialism was better than capitalism and yet people still wonder why you're my fucking enemies.

^ Based on what you say Mr. Skibum the smart EU countries a conning the stupid Americans into paying for their defense while they party on.

Maybe you like loser America but I like the WINNER countries!

Wait, you hate America too. Seems to me like you should also like the EU conning the stupid Americans. I guess we’re on the same side after all. Yay!

It’s an old Psych 101 experiment. Which of the following would you choose:

1. Everyone in the class gets $100 but the tallest person ( not you ) gets $500
2. Everyone in the class gets $25. No one gets more.

i’ll take the $500.

^ Ooo ooo I’ve got a better psych 101 experiment!

Everybody pays $1 to enter a lottery to win a car. But you win and it turns out to be a 1977 Mercury Bobcat.

Turns out the professor just wanted to get rid of his old Bobcat. And he made money! Yay!

Call immediate bullshit on anyone who talks about wealth inequality. If you have $50,000 in the bank, and you decide you really love Cheetos, you can get your $ and buy $50,000 of Cheetos. But Jeff Bezos could not buy a billion dollars worth of Cheetos, or any other consumable good. If he sold even 10% of his Amazon stock, people would think he had insider info about something bad that was going to happen to Amazon. Amazon stock would tank, and most of his "wealth" would then disappear overnight. What matters is consumption. Bezos may have 10,000 time your "wealth", but he doesn't have 10,000 your consumption. Maybe he wears $300 pants and you wear $30 pants. But his pants are at best twice as nice as yours, not ten times as nice. The pants company is making $240 from pure mindfuck. Is that the wealth Bezos in depriving us of, having money to support mindfuckers?

Think of a healthy 25 year old guy, who makes $20,000 a year, lives in his parents' basement, and has 6-pack abs. Three times a week, he goes dutch with a hot chick to Taco Bell, then she fucks him in the basement for hours. I'd rather be him than Bezos.

Yes the government needs to help people suffering true hardships, and that will mean higher taxes on the wealthy. That might lower inequality as a side-effect, but I don't see how lower inequality is a good thing by itself. Once people are out of hardship, you can't be sure you'll make them happy just by throwing money at them. And you may very well collapse the whole society by trying that shit. Western Europe started in that direction in the 70s, and pulled back from it.

A workable form of Communism is the government distributes a lifelike Rosa Acosta sex android to all. As Rosa-droid is fucking your brains out, you will no longer worry about how much money Jeff Bezos has.

Most wealth inequality is in your head, maybe if you worried about what you can do to attain your goals, rather than concerned yourself with what someone else has, you might succeed, because sure as shit you ain’t going to be successful trying to take it away from the person who earned it.

Wealth inequality is very real and getting worse. Only way to not see it is to live under a rock.

@CJ

"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

• Carl Sagan

I don’t give a shit about wealth inequality because it is indeed true that some animals are intrinsically better than others. Well, rick animals are better than others an I’m sure there are some differences among the others because I’m a rick.

Anyhoo, I’m posting on this lame-o thread because I need to ricksplain something to the idiot ape who would rather be some basement loser ape makin’ $20K a year than Jeff Bezos. That may make sense if you’re a Cheetos lovin’ loser ape makin’ $10K a year by sellin’ your bodily fluids, but trust me...Bezos-ape has a better life than you.

Now Bezos-ape does not have a life that rick-better, because our intangible traits - our ricktangibles if you will - make our lives better than those of any other creature on the planet. But Bezos-ape comes in a close second. I mean really, he BLASTED HIMSELF INTO SPACE ON A GIANT ROCKET DICK.

Of course, his rocket dick was based off a rick dick, so we still come out on top. ROAR!!!

Something tells me rickthelion doesn't have dripping-wet chicks fucking him multiple times a week. So not putting much stock in his opinion.

Apparently living in a zoo is some people's idea of being better.

The quality of life in 2021 for the typical American is infinitely better than the wealthiest 1% in 1921. Quantity and quality of food. Universal education. Air travel. Antibiotics. Entertainment. International air travel. Refrigeration. Twice the average lifespan. Infant mortality vastly improved. Modern dental care. On and on.

Back then, we had anarchists who told us the system was screwed. The little guy would never get ahead. Sound familiar ?

Best was probably 1969 to 1972, highest purchasing power for working people.

But even today, there are large numbers of people who were totally cut out, and underclass and an untouchable class.

Created specifically to deal with the kinds of poverty which have been created by industrial capitalism. ssvpusa.org

SJG

Gary Clark Jr. - Bright Lights youtube.com

The United States has always been a place of great material abundance, yet we still have extreme poverty. And this is more true now than ever. So what we get are arguments about why the poor deserve to be poor. And people take this instead of understanding that they need to respond with lethal force.

SJG

Do I have to quote it again?

“It is not great wealth in a few individuals that proves a country is prosperous,

but great general wealth evenly distributed among the people . . .

It is the struggling masses who are the foundation of this country;

and if the foundation be rotten or insecure,

the rest of the structure must eventually crumble.”

~ Victoria California Claflin aka Victoria Woodhull

~ American leader of the women's suffrage movement ~ Victoria Woodhull ran for President of the United States and Frederick Douglass for Vice President of the United States in the 1872 presidential election for the Equal Rights Party.

~ Born September 23, 1838 Homer, Ohio, US ~ Died June 9, 1927 Bredon, Worcestershire, UK