Sep 28 - Americans Have No Idea How Bad Inequality Really Is

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

I'd never actually argue as to which was better, I was just gonna google and see how the experts ranked them, but ill take your word for it that its an unfair comparison.

Most side by side comparisons of public and private k-12 ignore numerous performance measures such as graduation rates, college matriculation, future income, parental satisfaction etc. that give a decided advantage to private schools, even after controlling for student characteristics. They narrowly define performance as math scores on two national tests, ignoring the reading data that also show higher private-school performance.
The system is setup(by the state) to support the state in all it does.

Even school choice programs are actively campaigned against despite amazing results, which TWISM has flooded this board with.
When are we gonna admit state provision isnt the answer to education.

Those metrics are still biased

Parents who send and keep their kids in private school are obviously satisfied with them. Furthermore they are richer so their kids are more likely to graduate, go to college and have higher incomes. Your gripe with metrics isn't flawed but the success of kids coming out of private schools is hardly indicative of failures on the part of the public school system....... its not even an apples to apples comparo if you think about it.

Even if the private schools were better (and in my experience they're not), avg family cant afford to send their kids to them, so what good would metrics proving that change anyway? Red herring.

 

[GunRanger]

what is increasing the quality of life? Providing more money to CEOs? I guess sure they're able to afford a 3rd or 4th vacation house so YES technically someone's life is getting better...approximately 1% of the population is having a field day out there, everyone else is stuck in the 80's...but with better cell phones.

It's raising the quality of life in other parts of the world.


And Americans have a better quality of life thanks to better technology. Those are things you can't measure statistically. Cell phones are just one advantage of that.


Let's be real here, inequality only became an issue in this country, once white people started losing out to foreigners.

 

[DEAD7]

It's raising the quality of life in other parts of the world.


And Americans have a better quality of life thanks to better technology. Those are things you can't measure statistically. Cell phones are just one advantage of that.


Let's be real here, inequality only became an issue in this country, once white people started losing out to foreigners.

 

[Brown_Pride]

It's raising the quality of life in other parts of the world.


And Americans have a better quality of life thanks to better technology. Those are things you can't measure statistically. Cell phones are just one advantage of that.


Let's be real here, inequality only became an issue in this country, once white people started losing out to foreigners.

It's raising the quality of life in other parts of the world.


And Americans have a better quality of life thanks to better technology. Those are things you can't measure statistically. Cell phones are just one advantage of that.


Let's be real here, inequality only became an issue in this country, once white people started losing out to foreigners.

History is calling and it'd like you to visit it's section on the civil rights movement.
A more apt statement for you to have made would have been.
"Let's be real here, inequality only became an issue for white people when it started affecting white people."

America, for the better part of its history (and ironically in spite of its claim to history) is anything but equal.

 

[Futuristic Eskimo]

Who said anything about wall street?
I was speaking generally, and I clearly stated some of the regulations were good...

If you dont understand how regulations distort competition, and end up protecting fat cats, just ask me to explain...

@Melbournelad was talking about the greedy rats on wall street and you responded to that directly, even using his same language.

You always speak generally. Thats part of the problem with you.

 

[DEAD7]

@Melbournelad was talking about the greedy rats on wall street and you responded to that directly, even using his same language.

You always speak generally. Thats part of the problem with you.

I do speak very generally...

...but I don't see much value in surgically extracting one aspect of the economy or regulatory body and looking at it independent of the whole.

and I want to reiterate, there are good regulations, that serve good purposes.

 

[Futuristic Eskimo]

I do speak very generally...

...but I don't see much value in surgically extracting one aspect of the economy or regulatory body and looking at it independent of the whole.

and I want to reiterate, there are good regulations, that serve good purposes.

If your framework isn't applicable to every single industry, then it is useless and you should stop applying it as broadly as you do. If it doesn't work for the engine of our economy (Wall Street), I would say it is especially useless.

 

[88m3]

The middle class is poorer today than it was in 1989




By Matt O'Brien October 1 at 3:33 PM
looks precarious. Indeed, Obama will give a high-profile speech Thursday at Northwestern University, trying to remind voters of all the economic success he's had.

Unfortunately for Obama, though, voters have rewarded him for the upbeat economic news by starting to trust Republicans more on the economy. What in the name of Phil Gramm is going on?

Part of this mystery isn't one at all: the economy simply isn't as healthy as the headline numbers suggest. Unemployment has fallen, in part, because so many people have given up looking for work rather than finding it, and there are still millions of part-timers who want full-time jobs.

But then there are deeper factors at work. The economy has gotten bigger, but much of that growth hasn't reached the middle class. Indeed, the top 1 percent grabbed 95 percent of all the gains during the recovery's first three years. And that's not even the most depressing part. Even adjusted for household size, real median incomes haven't increased at all since 1999. That's right: the middle class hasn't gotten a raise in 15 years.

But one of the biggest, and least appreciated reasons Democrats might be struggling, is that the middle class is poorer, too. Median net worth is actually lower, adjusted for inflation, than it was in 1989. Even worse, it's kept falling during the recovery.

Yes, even after the economy started to grow again, and the stock market started to boom, and housing prices began to bounce back, the median net worth of the average American household continued to decline.

Survey of Consumer Finances
This is a story about stocks and houses. The middle class doesn't have much of the former, which has rebounded sharply, but has lots of the latter, which hasn't. Indeed, only 9.2 percent of the middle 20 percent of households owns stocks, versus almost half of the top 20 percent. So the middle class has not only missed out on getting a raise, but also on the big bull market the past five years.

The only thing they haven't missed out on was the housing bust: 63 percent of that middle quintile own their homes, which are more likely to be a financial albatross than asset. And it doesn't help that, with student loanshitting $1.2 trillion, people have to take out more and more debt just to try to stay in, or join, the middle class.

It's no surprise, then, that people are still so gloomy about the economy. The recovery just hasn't been much of one, if at all, for most of them. Middle class wages are flat, and their wealth is still falling. At least during the bubble years, rising home prices gave people access to credit that helped mask their stagnant wages. But no more. Home equity lines of credit are down almost 25 percent from their peak, and are still declining. The middle class, in other words, can't borrow from the future to pretend that the economy is working for them today.

But people won't be happy until they don't have to pretend anymore.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...s-poorer-today-than-it-was-in-1989/?tid=sm_fb

 

[DEAD7]

Yes, even after the economy started to grow again, and the stock market started to boom, and housing prices began to bounce back, the median net worth of the average American household continued to decline.

I wish they expanded on possible causes for this.

 

[jilla82]

It's raising the quality of life in other parts of the world.


And Americans have a better quality of life thanks to better technology. Those are things you can't measure statistically. Cell phones are just one advantage of that.


Let's be real here, inequality only became an issue in this country, once white people started losing out to foreigners.

Exactly...same thing w/ all those operation Wall Street demonstrations.
shyt is better for everyone...but now, you dont get a pass just because you are white. Everybody is feeling the effects of the new economy.
I see that as nothing but an opening for black folks.
The economy doesnt give a damn about anything else other than "what can you do for me".

Everyone who isnt preparing themselves is getting left behind.

 

[Consigliere]

Our government has a lot to do with the rise in inequality.

The ratio of CEO to worker pay is ridiculous too. Obviously.

But if our government didn't squander it's tax revenue on war and foreign aid and contracts that enrich the friends of bureaucrats maybe that money could be invested into increasing everyone's quality of life to the point where the concept of money didn't hold such significance.

 

[unit321]

Americans have an idea how bad income inequality is just no solutions.

So what do you propose?

ebola outbreak.






























Just kidding.
Actually, I propose a flat income tax. Example, you have a 15% federal income tax rate. Doesn't matter if you make minimum wage or $4,000,000 a year. No loopholes, no itemized deductions, nothing. What this does is prevent rich people from paying a lower income tax rate than middle and low income tax people.
I am able to take advantage of particular itemized deductions only sometimes. If you are really rich, you are able to take advantage of more tax loopholes. If you are poor, then most itemized deductions can't apply and you take the standard deduction. I don't like graduated income tax rate because as you earn more, you get taxed more. For the very rich, this is almost moot. A gain from $200,000 to $250,000 is great and the tax difference isn't huge. A gain from $24,000 to $74,000 is a jump from low income to middle income but the tax rate increase and difference is huge.
It's not the silver bullet to income gap solution but I feel it is more fair, and simplifies the whole income tax process. It would run most income tax services out of business. How can you not figure out your tax if you only have to multiply your gross income times one tax rate? Some states have a flat tax rate. Their income tax booklet is very thin.

 

[rapbeats]

thing is...in 2014 it is really easy to generate your own wealth.
its all a mindset. You can teach yourself anything, and learn about anything almost for free. You dont need a college education.

People who are poor tend to not focus on growing their worth.
Rich people read more, spend more money on self education, and obsess about money.

Its only natural that the rich get richer...its because they have the knowledge to create more systems to make more money.
Its like being surprised people in a gym stay in shape, while the average person in this country is fat.

Also...the bottom is pretty high in this country.
The poor in 1940 lived a much different life than the poor in 2014.

stop it. the rich get richer not because of the reasons you mentioned. sure those play a role. but a very small role. and people need to understand that. and stop repeating what you said. because thats to some degree a semi lie.

the truth is, the rich get richer because they hoard the money.

lets make it real simple. no reason to pull out the charts and graphs.

white supremacy, says mostly whites can get in on it. that already excludes a lot of other folks right from the start, especially blacks who whites say They (blacks) cant get in on it.

So from the jump you just made it a tougher struggle then normal. a white guy has to hustle hard to make it pop. a black guy has to hustle at minimum 5 times as hard to make it pop. asking a normal human being to hustle 5 times as hard is unrealistic expectations. Which is why you will never see an entire country full of black people hustling 5 times as hard. you dont see a country full of anyone hustling that hard. So again its not realistic.

You push this along the timeline .and you have a situation where people of color "in general" are on the bottom and whites (in general) are on the top.

The only way that blacks/people of color can jump the negative stat is by entertaining whites. which will pay a premium for your services. This is a very small group of people. Only a small group of people are given the God given talent to be a star level entertainer.

So now that leaves the Elite's(doctors, lawyers, scientists, etc). Those guys are ELITE and were BORN highly intelligent. Thats not the majority of people anywhere in any group.

So where does that leave the average joe black guy? poorer then the average joe white guy. thats where.

If google had to hire and they had a choice, average programmer white guy, asian guy, black guy.

the black guy would be last chosen. unless they are hooking him up on some Catch up type affirmative action stuff.

So lets go back in time again for you. Did you know that slaves were being insured?

That means insurance companies were making money off of black people's backs, where blacks were not reaping the benefits at all. but at least some whites were on both ends. the slave owner and the insurance company.

Some of these companies still exist today. some probably fell off, while others renamed/re branded themselves into other insurance areas(which they were probably already in to begin with.)

See the game is colder then you think.

If you have people already profiting off of slave labor. while not giving much to slaves. then guess who's descendants will be set up to do better at life in America?

So now you have a setup where Whites are on top on average and blacks are on the bottom on average. people even without the cism usually hire family, friends, then people who look, talk like them. So that already excludes more black people from the top levels based on this very fact. now throw in the cism(an intentional setup to keep blacks out) and bam. you see your poor.

Dont ask about other nationalites and why some do better then blacks. they were not slaves here like we were. even natives got some land and some tax breaks, etc. I mean we paid the japanese folks for those camps.

Pretty much anyone coming from another country(especially across the water) that can make it to america is already an elite vs the average person in their country. is say this because its very expensive to catch a flight to this country. but even with that. we have so many treaties and things in place to assist foreigners. all you have to do is know where to go and you can be setup ready to go. When people talk about why do blacks on average look/do so poorly in america in comparison to those foreigners . they are not realizing here in america you see ALL of black people(the super smart, the some what smart, the average joes, the not so smart, the special needs, the lazy, the superstars, the criminals, the doctors, the lawyers, etc.) we dont see every TYPE of person of those other nationality. because only a few are here in comparison to their home country. go to these people's home country and show me the poorest of the poor and show me how they are doing better then blacks here. not true at all. which is why comparing them to blacks here is an apples to oranges debate at best.

People at the top had a starting point that got them to the top if they didnt already belong to a family that was already at the top.

example. my man from West Coast customs. Ryan F.

Founder and CEO of The World Famous West Coast Customs. Started WCC in 1993 with a $5000 loan from my grandfather and haven't looked back since then.

Now ask your average black guy thats tatted up if he has a grandfather that has $5000 to loan him?
This is not hate. this is reality. I like dude. i love the fact he achieve the "american dream" but that dream was only made for white people. some others have slipped into the cracks. but best believe it was never made for all and definitely not people of color.

Jay had to go the illegal route, slang D to get Rocafella off the ground. that was his $5000 loan.
But his producer Just blaze never sold d. didnt have to. moms held him down. because moms had the funds to do so. She is the one who bought him his first set of turntables. Turntables back in the 80's cost a lot of money. What if you were to broke to buy them and you didnt go the illegal route of Jay? then no tables for you. if no tables. No just blaze.

You see how this game works? even the elite needs a boost, a push, Bootstraps. you cant pull yourself up by something you dont have.

 

[CHL]

TYT covering this story:

 

[bnew]

Spoiler: thread continued

Spoiler: full text & large images

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@_Zeets
Beautiful image of the police’s true function

[Quoted tweet]
NYPD literally locking arms to protect Amazon’s operations lol

2/2
@CynicalOrder
Jo, protecting the wealthy. Remember, 1973 was the good year for americans. Acab.



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