Why "x% of people have y% of the wealth" is irrelevant.

[pokerbobo]

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No I believe the statement was no one who builds cars or houses, which doesn't nec imply skilled unionized tradeworkers. Your average undocumented Mexican drywaller for example, might not even be making minimum wage, and is certainly not making much more than it. I personally know people that are working in both industries that are making the minimum wage. And later the statement became "anyone who is working in the US makes enough to have a house and car"

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the Mexican ILLEGAL ALIEN came here volutarily to work...he could stay in Mexico...if his job pays so poorly, why do they risk their lives jumping the border?

[PLOlover]

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f the standard of living of the individuals continues to go up, which it does in a capitalist society.

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US standard of living peaked around 1970, haven't read rest of this thread.

[pokerbobo]

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We can have a broader debate under what a liveable wage would look like, wages under capitalism, wage slavery, but I'm not going to have some nitty debate over the average wage of industry x in city y where the median home price is z just to refute a variation of the conservative assumption that poor people are poor because they don't work hard enough or they frivilously spend their money.

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Some do spend frivilously...Ive seen $4000 rims on a $1500 car. Satellite dishes hung from govt housing. A lady in front of me at the grocery store using food stamps for her food but buying 5 dollar helium balloons for her kids. (and going in the 8 items or less lane with 30 items...b!tch!)

Some do scrape by with almost nothing and dont waste money...those are the ones who may someday escape poverty. these other idiots are generational leeches on our country.

After my divorce...I had 200 dollars each month after I paid my mortgage and utilities. I drove a car with 135000 miles on it. 200 to pay for gas to get to work, food, clothing. (the basics) I did it..I didnt ever get a dime from the govt though. In fact I was paying taxes to pay for other people's sh!t. I would have had more money living in govt housing with food stamps and welfare checks...so dont tell me its impossible for a poor person to make it.

[AlexM]

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You are being pedantic as clearly the statement was later made "anyone who works in the US can afford a house and a car"

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This is a double misrepresentation of my statement. You keep replacing "home" with "house" which is not the same thing as saying "house" implys buying and owning a house, while home works for renting or whatever. Also, you once again left out the part where I said "unless they're wasting their money".

[AlexM]

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I don't even make $12/hour with a masters degree for [censored]'s sake.

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You need to find a better job then. $12 is below the average for a high school diploma and just a basic college degree is nearly double that on average.

[AlexM]

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PS. Why isn't the boy next door entitled to *your* money, and why don't you just hand it over instead of using force to take someone else's? My opinion is that the "compassion" that underlies this flavor of socialism is a hollow, empty compassion. The socialist doesn't actually care enough about the poor and the downtrodden to get off his duff or reach into his own pocket; he would rather stay on his duff and have a man with a gun reach into someone else's.

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I think that is a prejudice towards socialists, you find a lot of socialists that are involved in charity etc.. The same prejudice you also often find towards rich people. I think most people have compassion and want good for people around, regardless of their political belief. If enough charity was in place to achieve the goals, I wouldn't ask you for a single dollar of tax, but unfortunately it isn't.

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That's because much of it is outlawed. It's a great trick. Make it illegal to provide charity, and then claim there is a market failure in charitable giving. For example, the state makes one jump through an incredible amount of extremely costly hoops to set up any charity of significant scale. Why? Because those in government don't want the competition. For example, where I come from, it is a crime to cook food for the homeless.

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You could almost say the government is a very nice economic "corporation" which is a leach on society for the most part. And then you'll turn around and argue that once government is gone, other corporations will all be much nicer.

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Nicer or not, without their symbiotic relationship with government, corporations lose most of their power.

[AlexM]

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f the standard of living of the individuals continues to go up, which it does in a capitalist society.

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US standard of living peaked around 1970, haven't read rest of this thread.

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Yep, computers never happened.

[latefordinner]

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Some do scrape by with almost nothing and dont waste money...those are the ones who may someday escape poverty. these other idiots are generational leeches on our country.

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I've only been in this forum for one day and I've already decided that your posts are generally completely without any intellectual merit and is just irrational bitching about liberals - I'm glad you were able to work your way out of poverty. However, the anecdotal case study of one person does not imply --> in a capitalist economy, persistent poverty won't exist

[hmkpoker]

*Jeff Foxworthy voice*

If you...

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don't even make $12/hour with a masters degree for [censored]'s sake.

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...you might be a socialist!

[latefordinner]

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*Jeff Foxworthy voice*

If you...

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don't even make $12/hour with a masters degree for [censored]'s sake.

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...you might be a socialist!

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I LOLed