• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

America land of the glutinous

Have Americans become greedy little spoiled scum bags.

  • yes

    Votes: 19 48.7%
  • no

    Votes: 20 51.3%

  • Total voters
    39
Everyone on welfare now should be in the fields tomorrow and speaking of work, I better get going so if you want we can continue this tonight. Have a good day.:)

In February, just what would they be picking?

Maybe you want them to operate large equipment? Even pruning requires some skills.
 

The economic situation is out of control. Somehow in a period of high unemployment, low wages etc the problem is we're spending too much? Why isn't the situation that there's a structural problem that has seen good paying jobs dissapear and low paying jobs replace them? Why don't we fix that so that more individuals are in need of help?
 
The economic situation is out of control. Somehow in a period of high unemployment, low wages etc the problem is we're spending too much? Why isn't the situation that there's a structural problem that has seen good paying jobs dissapear and low paying jobs replace them? Why don't we fix that so that more individuals are in need of help?

:lol: :doh That is wonderful idea, have Obama, the economic genius, "fix that". Just who will write this "fix that" bill? What would you put into the "fix that" bill? I await that reply. :roll:

My point is that with ever growing gov't funded aid, voters (recieving that aid) are content to allow morons to remain in office.
 
:lol: :doh That is wonderful idea, have Obama, the economic genius, "fix that". Just who will write this "fix that" bill? What would you put into the "fix that" bill? I await that reply. :roll:

My point is that with ever growing gov't funded aid, voters (recieving that aid) are content to allow morons to remain in office.

We've had multiple debates over multiple policies that are intended to increase demand for the short term, increase wages for the bottom rungs of the income ladder, and control costs for some of the most expensive items that are decreasing disposable income.

There's no reason to have those debates again. It's obvious I disagree with the view that spending on the poor is the problem or that cutting that spending will solve anything.
 
It's a bit of privilege in this world to be accused of this.

First world problems. :lol:

Seriously though, there's plenty of people struggling behind the scenes as anyone should know. Being middle class used to be easier.

You are correct.

We are all spoiled-myself included! I require satelite tv or cable tv,

Car and house with working AC .

YES we're all spoiled!:peace

And fast access internet, don't forget that.

Wouldn't have it any other way. ;)
 
It's not even bad at all. We've had rapid consumerism many times before in our history, and indeed, yes, the exact same complaints were raised.

True. But, has that 'consumerism' trend been enjoyed by so many, on those previous occasions?

Paul
 
One more thing to prove my point about this. All these jobs that Americans won't do so we have to let Mexicans come here. A job you WON'T do??? WTF is that about? Are you too good to do manual labor just because you are an American? I don't get it.

That is just a party talking point. If you look at the statistics you will find that there are no jobs that Americans won't do. Indeed there are not enough illegals in the country to cover all the jobs that they do. The actual real point is that American's won't do those jobs for crap wages.
 
I worked at a Footlocker in a poor mall when I was younger, it was astounding how many mothers feigned ignorance to how they would pay rent as they bought their children "The new Jordans" which were always $120+

I knew a lot of poor people growing up, but you couldn't tell it by their children's clothes or iPods or a car at 16.

Yea, I never did understand the shoe thing. Dishing out so much money that could be better spent on groceries.
 
That is just a party talking point. If you look at the statistics you will find that there are no jobs that Americans won't do. Indeed there are not enough illegals in the country to cover all the jobs that they do. The actual real point is that American's won't do those jobs for crap wages.

All I hear from illegal immigrant defenders is they are doing jobs Americans won't do. Alot of that is BS because they are taking construction jobs from Americans but some of it is true because Americans won't do farm labor. If they would there wouldn't be so many people on welfare. Welfare enables lazy ass people to not work jobs they feel are to hard or beneath them.
 
All I hear from illegal immigrant defenders is they are doing jobs Americans won't do. Alot of that is BS because they are taking construction jobs from Americans but some of it is true because Americans won't do farm labor. If they would there wouldn't be so many people on welfare. Welfare enables lazy ass people to not work jobs they feel are to hard or beneath them.

Way too simple of an interpretation of the role welfare plays in society.
 
Way too simple of an interpretation of the role welfare plays in society.

It's not completely inaccurate either. Welfare and extended unemployment benefits are suppose to be a safety net, not a another indefinite and alternative income source.
 
It's not completely inaccurate either. Welfare and extended unemployment benefits are suppose to be a safety net, not a another indefinite and alternative income source.

Excessive reliance on welfare came about specifically because we started throwing trillions of tax dollars (mostly in public credit) on our foreign policy to allow domestic corporations to develop job-making, wage raising resources and infrastructure abroad while also allowing then selling it back for arbitrarily high prices in exchange for private credit. A bizarre, reckless policy that turned our greatest cultural and economic rival into a superpower in its own right and sent us on the fast track to recline. Looking back on it, I'm not why anyone thought it would work other than the vague promise of some transformation into a service-based economy where neither the training/education or demand for such services existed or could exist.

Huge unemployment, global recessions, and excessive dependence on welfare are all part of the package of helping rich people do whatever they want with no strings attached. Predictably, they run after their short term goals while assuming somebody else has the bases covered.
 
Last edited:
Excessive reliance on welfare came about specifically because we started throwing trillions of tax dollars (mostly in public credit) on our foreign policy to allow domestic corporations to develop job-making, wage raising resources and infrastructure abroad while also allowing then selling it back for arbitrarily high princes in exchange for private credit. A bizarre, reckless policy that turned our greatest cultural and economic rival into a superpower in its own right and sent us on the fast track to recline. Looking back on it, I'm not why anyone thought it would work other than the vague promise of some transformation into a service-based economy where neither the training/education or demand for such services existed or could exist.

Huge unemployment, global recessions, and excessive dependence on welfare are all part of the package.

It wasn't just domestic corporations but many that started here are international with offices in every major city. Unfortunately free trade was the next market evolution for continued growth. Any country that tries to become an island like Russia and China did, stagnate. Our politicians knew we'd take a hit but we also prospered some from larger trade agreements. I've said it before and will again we're a victim of our own success. We heated up the worlds economy to a pace of unsustainable growth, largely due to excessive credit that came back and bit us when the inevitable defaults started.

If we don't allow the markets to realize a closer to real value instead of a hyper inflated, nominal one the interest rates are going to go up and cause another crash. They're just kicking the can further and further down the road for now.
 
All I hear from illegal immigrant defenders is they are doing jobs Americans won't do. Alot of that is BS because they are taking construction jobs from Americans but some of it is true because Americans won't do farm labor. If they would there wouldn't be so many people on welfare. Welfare enables lazy ass people to not work jobs they feel are to hard or beneath them.

Sorry but there are over 2 million Americans that do farm work every year. To say that they won't is just simply wrong.

Also you should note that the people that are on welfare and don't work are a small percentage compared to the amount of people on welfare that DO work.
 
There was a point in my life when I could easily hire a maid to clean my bathroom - or buy $200 sneakers. Neither thought had ever occured to me. Nothing against quality footware - it's just that I would rather have books and tools, for the same money. And I am perfectly capable of handling a brush and a Chlorox bottle, whether I make $10/hr or $1000/hr...

Granted, I may be not a typical upper-middle class American - a first-generation immigrant, as a matter of fact, naturalized in 1988.

But in all my American experience, I haven't actually met too many native-born Americans who would fit the "greedy little spoiled scum bags" label.

Mostly I've met decent, hardworking people. Sure, many of them are easy marks for cynical politicians, many of them are pretty ignorant (especially those who think that having some formal education means automatically that they are not), many of them appear to be conditioned to worship the collectivist idols...all true.

But this is nothing like a truly ruined, mortally wounded society. Trust me, it is not. I've lived there.
 
There was a point in my life when I could easily hire a maid to clean my bathroom - or buy $200 sneakers. Neither thought had ever occured to me. Nothing against quality footware - it's just that I would rather have books and tools, for the same money. And I am perfectly capable of handling a brush and a Chlorox bottle, whether I make $10/hr or $1000/hr...

Granted, I may be not a typical upper-middle class American - a first-generation immigrant, as a matter of fact, naturalized in 1988.

But in all my American experience, I haven't actually met too many native-born Americans who would fit the "greedy little spoiled scum bags" label.

Mostly I've met decent, hardworking people. Sure, many of them are easy marks for cynical politicians, many of them are pretty ignorant (especially those who think that having some formal education means automatically that they are not), many of them appear to be conditioned to worship the collectivist idols...all true.

But this is nothing like a truly ruined, mortally wounded society. Trust me, it is not. I've lived there.

To the last sentence, do you think we're on our way soon or far from it?
 
It wasn't just domestic corporations but many that started here are international with offices in every major city. Unfortunately free trade was the next market evolution for continued growth. Any country that tries to become an island like Russia and China did, stagnate. Our politicians knew we'd take a hit but we also prospered some from larger trade agreements. I've said it before and will again we're a victim of our own success. We heated up the worlds economy to a pace of unsustainable growth, largely due to excessive credit that came back and bit us when the inevitable defaults started.

If we don't allow the markets to realize a closer to real value instead of a hyper inflated, nominal one the interest rates are going to go up and cause another crash. They're just kicking the can further and further down the road for now.

It's not a choice between globalism or island. To begin with, a fiscally responsible approach to globalism would have required the wealthy to pay higher taxes directly in proportion to the acquired profits (because maintaining the military and diplomatic corps that enables globalism is expensive, both privately and publicly) while relaxing the tax burden on the lower and middle incomes to compensate for the loss of jobs and wages, which would have assisted in keeping some lower middle class families above the poverty line and away from dependence on welfare. Common sense that should have been a huge part of our approach to globalism from the very beginning, but something that in thirty years we have gotten barely any traction on, due to whatever pretense the economic elite could trot out to discourage the public from demanding it and the government from implementing it.
 
Last edited:
To the last sentence, do you think we're on our way soon or far from it?

The slippery slope is always there. Are we , as a society, passively sliding down, to hell? No, we are not. All the ridicule apart (much of it well-deserved), the tea-party movement is something pretty much unimaginable in a society of spolied brats and brainwashed zombies. And (although I cannot help but cringe at the sheer stupidity of most of its manifestations) the Occupy-this-and-that carnival is also a sign of life - perhaps not "intelligent life", but life nevertheless.

We'll be OK. America is resilient. We will figure it out.
 
It's not a choice between globalism or island. To begin with, a fiscally responsible approach to globalism would have required the wealthy to pay higher taxes directly in proportion to the acquired profits (because maintaining the military and diplomatic corps that enables globalism is expensive, both privately and publicly) while relaxing the tax burden on the lower and middle incomes to compensate for the loss of jobs and wages, which would have assisted in keeping some lower middle class families above the poverty line and away from dependence on welfare. Common sense that should have been a huge part of our approach to globalism from the very beginning, but something that in thirty years we have gotten barely any traction on, due to whatever pretense the economic elite could trot out to discourage the public from demanding it and the government from implementing it.


I agree it could've been done different but today's elite have not learned a valuable lesson that their predecessors knew, which is you shouldn't take too much or there's not enough left for things to keep running. They take the "bottom line" to the degree of insanity. Too me it's similar to how they raise kids today with very little manners and no discipline. The parents simply don't understand the wisdom in teaching their children social etiquette that later translates into impulse control, patience and maturity.

Rome wasn't built in a day but it burned over night
 
The slippery slope is always there. Are we , as a society, passively sliding down, to hell? No, we are not. All the ridicule apart (much of it well-deserved), the tea-party movement is something pretty much unimaginable in a society of spolied brats and brainwashed zombies. And (although I cannot help but cringe at the sheer stupidity of most of its manifestations) the Occupy-this-and-that carnival is also a sign of life - perhaps not "intelligent life", but life nevertheless.

We'll be OK. America is resilient. We will figure it out.

I think you're spot on. We've got some serious political and economic wrangling to hash out, especially since the near collapse of 2008. But overall I believe we're still the best game in town and too invested into the rest of the world to fall completely.
 
I think you're spot on. We've got some serious political and economic wrangling to hash out, especially since the near collapse of 2008. But overall I believe we're still the best game in town and too invested into the rest of the world to fall completely.

We are dangerously close to the point that there are more gov't benefit getting voters than taxpaying voters. All of the campaign cash in the world will not fix that. Just as the last presidential election gave us a choice between Obama and Obama-lite, we may well face those choices in most federal office elections from now on. We have seen a huge separation developing between the income of that top 1 or 2% and the rest of us, but also a huge co-joining of big money and political office holders - is that simply coorelation or causation?
 
We are dangerously close to the point that there are more gov't benefit getting voters than taxpaying voters. All of the campaign cash in the world will not fix that. Just as the last presidential election gave us a choice between Obama and Obama-lite, we may well face those choices in most federal office elections from now on. We have seen a huge separation developing between the income of that top 1 or 2% and the rest of us, but also a huge co-joining of big money and political office holders - is that simply coorelation or causation?

Big money and politicians is a result of being blinded by emotion (selfishness) and coalescing forces. And as Alexander Hamilton famously said, "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end ." Nobody wants to compromise to make things work for everyone and that is the real problem.
 
Part of it is inflation. Part of it is the rampant consumerism that started exactly from those 50's kids when they started making lots of money in the 70's and 80's. That's where the idea that greed is good came from. That's where Wall Street became more important than Main Street. That's where the idea that "he who dies with the most toys wins" came from.

Kids right now are not nearly as bad as you think, and the ones that are... they're merely emulating their parents.

So it would all just be better if people weren't making money, right?
 
Sorry but there are over 2 million Americans that do farm work every year. To say that they won't is just simply wrong.

Also you should note that the people that are on welfare and don't work are a small percentage compared to the amount of people on welfare that DO work.

Farmers have been trying to recruit from inner city areas that have high unemployment and welfare, they are desperate for workers and Amaricans refuse the jobs.

"Just raise the wage, you say, and an American would take the job? Not necessarily, and very unlikely if it's a farm job. Farmers have been trying that — for decades. They raise the wage. They recruit in inner cities. They offer housing and transport and countless other benefits. Still, no one shows — or stays on the job, which is outdoors and grueling and must get done, no matter how hot or cold or otherwise unpleasant the weatherare with little or no luck."



Without Immigrant Labor, the Economy Would Crumble - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com





"Peach farms in the Marysville region -- in particular, the peach farm of one Dalvir Gill -- are covered in rotting fruit, according to a report last Friday from Fox40 News. It seems there aren't enough workers to harvest the crops -- even though unemployment in the region is between 16 and 18 percent, more than twice the national rate."


Marysville, California Farms Are Desperate For Workers, Despite High Unemployment
 
When I was a kid in the 50s everyone except movie stars and Randolph Hearst lived in modest homes, drove modest cars and took modest vacations. Mom and dad loaded all 4 of us kids in the station wagon with the 16 ft Terry behind us and we went camping. Now you see people in 200K motor homes "camping". Houses are now huge and having a maid to clean it and a gardener to mow the lawn is common. Kids wear $200.00 tennis shoes, I wore PF Fliers. I could go on and on and give example after example but I think you get the point. IMO opinion Americans have become greedy, spoiled,voracious, rapacious consumers and I get sick of hearing people whine about not having enough. We have developed an entitlement mentality, "I am an American and I deserve to have everything I want". Makes me sick.

I grew up on a cotton farm in the 50's. It wasn't until I was in 7th-8th grade that we went to machinery cotton pickers. During the years we had our cotton picked by hand it was done mostly by blacks and hispanics and only a few whites. Biggest reason was even back then the best worker was the blacks and hispanics.
 
Back
Top Bottom