Yep! Neither me nor my then-husband were college grads. In fact we were Hippies... a subculture that believed in being "poor" but spiritual and happy. Yeah, I know it sounds pretty stupid... but we lived in an old house, bought everything at yard sales and Goodwill, never bought new furniture, and never went in debt. Yes, my income is in the Low range, but I have never gone into debt, and if it wasn't for those planet-destroying developers, I'd consider myself happy!!

Of course I wish I could go to college NOW and study biology, but that's just 'cause I like it.

__________________
"I am happy to report that once again the universe is doing just great, thank you, purring with perfection, ever-changing same as always. Light is still cruising along at 186,000 miles per second, and the expanding universe shows no signs of contracting. At this rate, it won't be long before they'll have to let the photon belt out another notch."
Swami Beyondananda's 2007 State of the Universe address

In the extreme cases everyone's talking about of countries that have tried limiting wealth, how much was it limited? Was everyone supposed to have exactly equal wealth? Were the richest supposed to have only twice as much as the poorest? Were they supposed to have 5 times as much? Is it 12 times as much?

What about using a limit with a higher goal ratio than that, like a few hundred or a few thousand? That would still be lower than what we've got now, but not as drastic as the obviously failed examples people are talking about in this thread.

Both extremes are easy to point out flaws with, but that by itself doesn't mean there's anything wrong with an intermediate approach. If there is something wrong with an intermediate approach, we'd have to find that problem some other way, not just dismiss it with what amounts to a straw man about some other situation...

alright, i'll try to explain it without delving into politics

Basically what it means is that in Soviet Russia, you were often being watched or monitered to check up on your loyalty to the state, your good communist ideals etc.

thats the best i can explain it anyway

__________________
There is no dark side of the moon really, as a matter of fact it's all dark - Pink Floyd, The Dark Side Of The Moon

__________________
Now while I might be amused by Cthulhians, I don't necessarily distrust them to carry out the functions of government. -- JayUtah

What's it like being a skeptic in the Middle East? Check out my blog.

I believe it was in a Barbara Kingsolver novel that I read of a concept of Heaven and Hell where both were people sitting around a big pot with long spoons. In Hell, they were all unhappy; they were trying to feed themselves. In Heaven, they were all happy; they were feeding each other.

Clearly, however, there were no teenage boys in Heaven!

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I have read animal farm, and Fahrenheit 451 is on my list as well. Unfortunately, I'm working two jobs (trying to start a business while working full time) and working through a lawsuit right now, so my time will be limited this year. I'm hoping to be able to get back to nightly reading by early 2008.




This is a common sentiment, and I agree it's not accurate in every individual case. However, at least for myself, experience has shown that a large portion of those without money are there by choice. Sure, they may have been born with less than others, and they may have to work harder to make it to 'wealthy' status, but the possibility is still there. By definition, that makes it a choice. This description included my family in my youth.

That's not to say there's anything wrong with being poor. I'm relatively wealthy right now (judging just by my age and income) but I plan to retire early so I live as though I'm relatively poor. I plan to continue living that way as well. Money doesn't buy me enough to compensate for my lost free time. But that doesn't mean I should begrudge those who choose to work 60 hours/week and buy a new Corvette every year.




I admit that I've not been keeping up with developments in this area, but from what I have heard not many good jobs have gone oversees, generally just bad ones (low wage call centers, first level tech support, etc). I would welcome a reference that supports your statement.

I would question who you feel is receiving those jobs oversees. This kind of complaint always seemed very ethnocentric to me. Yes, an American is losing a job, but the net number of humans with jobs remains constant. I prefer to define myself in the latter group so I'm not sure how I feel about this, though I admit I haven't researched it very deeply.




I think this outlines the basic problem with any kind of economic limitation ever proposed. There is simply no way for it to be objective. How much is too much? I use four computers at a time when having LAN parties; that takes a lot of power. Am I affecting you too much? Do I need restricted? If not, why? How do you determine where the cutoff point is? Should my neighbor be stopped from having several trees removed from his property? How many trees does it take to constitute a problem? Ask a hundred different people and you will get a hundred different answers, each one subjective.

As soon as you make a decision about how their money is being spent, you set a precedent for allowing the public to make choices about how all of us spend our money, because there is no clearly defined class boundry between rich and middle class (in the US at least, I'm not sure about elsewhere). This makes for an extremely slippery slope.




Thank you so much; I've been wandering for years. I thought I understood the general idea, but it's nice to have it confirmed.

__________________
Nicholas Bostaph
http://NicholasBostaph.com
http://NightscapeCreations.com
http://FantasyMasterOnline.com

The chance of getting killed or wounded isnt really that much higher for military than it is for civilians. If you arent army infantry, a marine, or a navy corpsman, you have basically a zero chance of seeing any real action. Even if you decide to do one of the high risk jobs, it may double or triple your chance of being a casualty, but that is still single digit percents.

There is a lot of conflict advice in life, such as "Emphasize your strengths" verses "Work on your weaknesses." To be a well rounded person, it's good to work on your weaknesses (and everyone has them.) However, if you ever hope to be really good at something, you need to emphasize your strengths. No matter how hard I try, I'll never be a world class athlete. However, I channeled my passion for aviation, space, and computers into a good career.

Passion is a key element in being good at something. I've known people who go to college in the hopes of being a doctor or lawyer because those careers make a lot of money." However, if that's their only motivation, they're unlikely to make it through the rigors of medical or law school. Even if they do, they're unlikely to be very good at it as compared to those students with a passion for medicine or the law.

To be successful, you have to be willing to pay the price. By the price (which isn't always monetary), I mean the efforts required to achieve your dreams. One of my former students (I knew him when he was 15) is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Medical School. He graduated high school around 1987 and spent 4 years in premed, 4 more years in medical school, 7 years in surgical residency, and 2 more years in thoracic surgical residency. He actually completed the program in 2004. He paid a very high price in time, effort, and money to achieve his success. Few of us have the ability or commitment he displayed over such a long time. While I don't know his current salary, it isn't hard to believe that it's pretty substantial. Should we envy him his salary given the price he had to pay to get where he is today? Should we limit his earnings to something comparable to a high school graduate?

I read a report a year or go ago that stated something pretty profound, especially for women. It said that if a person did 3 simple things, he or she had an 85% chance of not ending up in poverty. Those 3 things were:

1. Graduate high school.
2. Don't have a child until you're married.
3. Don't get married until you're at least 22 years old.

I'd add "Don't abuse drugs or alcohol" and "Avoid gambling" to the list. I've known people who ruined their lives with drugs, drinking, and/or gambling.

When people made a series of bad choices in their lives, the fault is their own, not society's. They shouldn't then turn around and try to tear down others for being successful in life.

One thing I have heard that I will attribute to hearsay at this point is that Japan has an interesting way of limiting the comp of the highest paid employees and CEO's. What I've heard is that they are limited to a specific multiple of the lowest paid employees of their company. Can't make more than 10x the amount of the guy who cleans the bathrooms. You couldn't do it in privately held companies, but it would be possible in publicly traded.

Perhaps somebody can validate this for me. It's an interesting way to approach the issue, but I don't know how accurate it is.

__________________
Spock Jenkins of the Vulcan Jenkins'.

Lets say we could wave a magic wand and cap everyone's savings at one million. Forget whether it's enough. Forget whether it's right. Forget about enforcement. Let's just say for whatever reason, people/corporation/all other suggested ways of hoarding money just follow this rule.

I think eventually you'd just eliminate the money supply. First of all, this excess money being passed around has to go somewhere. Seems like eventually you'd reach an equillibrium.

Your proposal is that you have to buy something or give it away. I have to admit, that is very unique among most proposals. Most often I see that every ounce of wealth over one million is forfeit to the government. Since we're not considering that, I'll stop there.

Eventually, you'd reach a point where everyone has one million dollars. Why?

In order to spend or get rid of this money, eventually everyone, even corporations, are flat out going to have to pay people more. That sounds nice and generous. The problem is eventually everyone will hit the cap. And on the way there, everyone will have more money then they used to. This means inflation.

One million dollars will no longer mean anything. It will no longer symbolize stored up value for goods and services. It will cease to mean anything. At that point, there is no incentive to do anything... no incentive to go to work, make goods, provide services. What becomes the point?

Out of necessity, you'd find yourself in a communist system.

I'm not even going to try and sum this up with some inane point like: "See, capitalism is actually compassionate because it gives poor people purchasing power to at least buy dog food for dinner." I'm not here to critique an economic system. I'm just positing what I think would happen.

Awww... adding to the list defeats the point of the list.

I think the point of the list was to choose seemingly spurrious causes and link them to "not ending up in poverty".

Looking at that list I am sure why you can hypothesize why those three things would result in such a high probability.

A high school education in the U.S. probably means you were at least marginally educated about things like alcohol and druge and gambling, not to mention prepped for a college degree or basic working skills.

Not having a child until getting married means you probably didn't get drunk and knocked up (tongue in cheek), and didn't find yourself supporting someone before you were most likely ready to (no comebacks about responsibly choosing to have a child but happen to be out of wedlock).

Not getting married until you were 22 meant you probably didn't getting married while drunk or high in Vegas (again tongue in cheek).

(To be a quality skeptic I have to ask if there's a hyperlink... )

Graduating high school by itself isn't enough to avoid poverty. However, dropping out of school can severely limit your job opportunities. That makes it less likely to end up with a well paying job.*

Becoming a parent outside of marriage means you'll have a much harder time of it. Being a single parent is a very tough job. All of the responsibilities of raising the child fall on one person who also has to be the sole breadwinner.

Getting married before age 22 (25 is even better) has a higher risk of divorce. If there are children involved, then the custodial parent (most often the mother) is now a single parent with all of the challenges that entails.

Here is one reference that backs up what I wrote:

Stay in School.

Simply completing high school greatly increases a person's chances of not being poor. The Census Bureau reports that:

Only 9.6 percent of high school graduates are poor, compared to 22.2 percent of those without a diploma. Of those people who complete some college, only 6.6 percent fall below the poverty line. This drops to 3.3 percent of those with a bachelor's degree or higher.

...

Get a Job.

Despite concerns about the working poor, most people who work full time, even at minimum wage jobs, avoid poverty:

Only 2.6 percent of people 16 years or older with full time jobs are poor, according to Census data. By contrast, 11.4 percent of part-time workers fall under the poverty line, and 20.8 percent of those who do not work fall below the poverty line. The advantages of work hold true even for at-risk groups, such as single mothers:

About 83 percent of single mothers who do not work are in poverty, compared to nearly 60 percent who work part time. But less than 18 percent of single mothers who work full time are in poverty.

...

Get Married.
Marriage is also a strong deterrent to poverty. [See Figure II.]

Only 4.0 percent of married couples without children are in poverty, according to Census data. In contrast, the poverty rate for singles without children is 8.6 percent. Moreover, married couples are less likely to experience long-term poverty. According to the OECD report:

Married couples without children have a long-term poverty rate of only 1.3 percent. By contrast, 7.9 percent of single adults experience long-term poverty.

...

Don't Have Children Out of Wedlock.
Having children outside of marriage is costly for both the individual and the child. The Census Bureau reports:

Of those households with two or more children under the age of 18, 7.9 percent of married households were poor, while 51.6 percent of never-married households were poor. Of those households with two or more children under the age of 6, 11.5 percent of married households were poor, while 62.4 percent of never-married households were poor. According to the OECD study, spells of poverty are 12.6 percent shorter for married households compared to female-headed households. Similarly, married households with children are much more likely to avoid long-term poverty than single parent households. Only 1.7 percent of married households with children suffer long-term poverty, while 26 percent of single parent households are poor long term.

This isn't the exact source that I read some time ago but the conclusions are pretty much the same.

Life can be hard. Making bad decisions can make it a lot harder.

*My brother Steve dropped out of high school in 1971. He eventually earned his GED but it was still a struggle. Along the way, he learned how to become a master machinist and welder. Today, he earns a very good salary. However, he went through many lean years before acquiring those well-paying skills.

After the Moon shot in the 60's, the space program sort of went belly-up for awhile. I don't know the details, not being involved with it. Engineers had a lot of trouble getting good jobs. Or maybe there were just too many of them...

That's my other take on the college degree being the guaranteed ticket to wealth... it all depends on what you major in. The major that's hot right now, could be way obsolete tomorrow. I do recall quite a few computer programmers being laid off for fairly long periods. Especially the ones over 50. Who's going to hire them when companies can hire hot young guys out of school?

I know one of these programmers who got laid off, who lives in a trailer and his wife's job as a medical transcriptionist is keeping them both alive. He's 55 and one of those non-conforming creative mavericks so treasured by early computer companies. Not now, though. He got fired from a temp job because he tried to write some code to make the job easier. The wife's job, of course, could be sent to India tomorrow. Two middle-class people who did all the right things--got married, no kids, no drugs--and could still end up destitute.

__________________
"I am happy to report that once again the universe is doing just great, thank you, purring with perfection, ever-changing same as always. Light is still cruising along at 186,000 miles per second, and the expanding universe shows no signs of contracting. At this rate, it won't be long before they'll have to let the photon belt out another notch."
Swami Beyondananda's 2007 State of the Universe address

How about limiting what you can DO with the wealth? As in how much land you can own and how much you can bulldoze it? I just don't think we need more and more shopping centers and banks as much as we need forests and growing things for the health of the planet. Also, I think we need farmers' fields/agricultural land more than we need those shopping malls. You can't EAT cheap mallcrap!

If Mr. Trump wants 3 Rolls Royces, fine. But I'm sick of seeing him gobble up my planet. Call me a greenpeacer if you want--I like this planet and I want it to be there for my descendants!

__________________
"I am happy to report that once again the universe is doing just great, thank you, purring with perfection, ever-changing same as always. Light is still cruising along at 186,000 miles per second, and the expanding universe shows no signs of contracting. At this rate, it won't be long before they'll have to let the photon belt out another notch."
Swami Beyondananda's 2007 State of the Universe address