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What class do you fall under and what is your political affiliation?

What social class do you fall under?

  • Capitalist class/wealthy

    Votes: 9 11.8%
  • Upper middle

    Votes: 24 31.6%
  • Lower middle

    Votes: 23 30.3%
  • Working class

    Votes: 12 15.8%
  • Lower class

    Votes: 8 10.5%

  • Total voters
    76
Yup, and typically for that reason they don't do as well. The vast majority of American millionaires are first-generation (like, around 80% of them) wealthy, and never got an inheritance.

I agree that it is difficult to escape poverty, but it is always difficult to improve ones' station in life - whether you are moving from the lowest income bracket to the middle or from the middle to a higher one. There is a club for that called "life" and we meet at the bar. :)

Unfortunately, hand outs appear to make it harder for people to climb out of poverty, as they become dependent upon the aid, stunt their natural drive towards self-improvement, and begin to seek ways to enrich themselves not through increasing production, but rather through increasing the amount that they take from others. They get caught in self-destructive generational cycles of broken families, joblessness, and functional illiteracy. Our attempts to "help" through government have thus far exacerbated these trends, not reduced them.

If we actually want to help the poor, perhaps we should start taking a look at what works rather than what is easy.

Tens of millions of the working population are unemployed. There are at most four million jobs available in the nation.
 
Tens of millions of the working population are unemployed. There are at most four million jobs available in the nation.

Ah. And that, of course, is a static figure non-subject to change. Fortunately, we don't live in a static economy, but rather one populated by humans; wherein production begats production.


However, that is neither here nor there. In good times and in bad our poorest sections of the populace are less likely to seek or hold regular employment; for the simple enough reason that they are less motivated to do so.
 
First, refer to this image:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e5/Class_US.svg

I am democrat, voted for Obama, I fall under lower middle class smack dab in the middle of it making my situation better than roughly 54% of Americans.

I got to thinking about this question for a little bit before I answered. I belong to my own social class ie Sovereign American. To be honest I dont think in terms of class. I consider that to be an archaic european conceit. I consider EVERY American to be in the same class I am. Hence there is no class. The only real difference between a homeless American, me, and Bill Gates is the amount of money in our bank accounts. Thats it. It aint that much of a difference, when you sit down and actually think about it. Because with a turn of fate I could be in Bill Gates place, Bill Gates could end up in the homeless mans place, and the homeless man in my place. American economic strata is VERY fluid when compaired to the rest of the world. Millionaires are routinely added and dropped. One bad year for a millionare and they have to start over. In fact if you survey most of the millionaires and billionares you will find more than a few have lost all their money before and have been millionaires at least twice. Blue collor, white collor, proffesional. What does that really mean in this country? Not a a lot. It applies much more abroad than here. I am a prime example. I am not a college graduate. I work in the logistics and transportation fields. That you would think make me blue collor. The catch is I own a business and have clients that are on the New York Stock exchange and the fortune 500. I gross at least high 6 figures. I am not an exception in this country. Big Business in this country survives by utilizing the services of small business. People like me. Americans I think are much more difficult to pigeon hole. So what does that make me? My own class, the same class as Every other American, no class.
 
I got help from my family when my dad worked third shift at a mill at night and farmed during the day. His mom scrubbed floors on or hands and knees at a hotel to make extra money which she used to buy land--little lots at a time. Inheriting a work ethic helps too. In fact, some might say that is more important, but whatever, 4th and 5th generation welfare families won't mean anything to those who do not care that there are 3rd generation ones now.

That leads to the question, How did they become 3d generation welfare families? Yo blame welfare for it, saying it made them lazy. What you are saying is the the solution caused the problem in the first place.

I say that racial discrimination from African slavery to the current day caused the problem.

No doubt it has gotten a lot better now.

It's a lot tougher to get welfare now than it used to be.

I will admit that there are crurently too many people on welfare who are lazy and don't deserve it and are lying in order to get welfare.

This is where we should concentrate the reform.
 
Top Tip o'the Day, Mr LA! And when buying second-hand, always buy German or Japanese. Those Axis boys know how to make cars that last.

Chevys last pretty well too if you take care of them. I've also got a Dodge Caravan that's holding up pretty well - almost 200k.

Bad news is repairs on those can be a killer. In the past 2 weeks I've had to put new tires on the Blazer, and a new muffler and coil for the van (which also needs new tierods. That's put us back $1200. That's true of any used car.
 
Chevys last pretty well too if you take care of them. I've also got a Dodge Caravan that's holding up pretty well - almost 200k.

Bad news is repairs on those can be a killer. In the past 2 weeks I've had to put new tires on the Blazer, and a new muffler and coil for the van (which also needs new tierods. That's put us back $1200. That's true of any used car.

The Chevys sold in Europe are the Korean-designed models built in Russia, Poland and Romania, I believe. The models you see here are the Spark, Aveo, Cruze, Orlando, and Captiva etc. The Chevrolet wiki entry says that they are modified US models, but I don't think that's true. It also says models such as the Alero and the Trans-Sports are sold here but looking at the Chevrolet Spain website that doesn't seem to be true either. They are very cheap and don't have a great reputation for long-term reliability. Perhaps the US-built models are better made.

The US-built Corvette and Camaro are available, but I've never seen one on our roads.
 
The Chevys sold in Europe are the Korean-designed models built in Russia, Poland and Romania, I believe. The models you see here are the Spark, Aveo, Cruze, Orlando, and Captiva etc. The Chevrolet wiki entry says that they are modified US models, but I don't think that's true. It also says models such as the Alero and the Trans-Sports are sold here but looking at the Chevrolet Spain website that doesn't seem to be true either. They are very cheap and don't have a great reputation for long-term reliability. Perhaps the US-built models are better made.

The US-built Corvette and Camaro are available, but I've never seen one on our roads.

I'm pretty sure the Aveo's sold here might be re-badged Japanese cars. Like the old Metros (I used to own one) which were actually Suzukis.

The only Russian car I'd drive is the Volga Sibir (which they've stopped making), mostly because it was the 1st generation Chrysler Sebring after GAZ bought the design and machinery from Chrysler. Someday, just as a collector thing, I'd like to get a GAZ because my kids are from the Avtodzavodsky (literally, "car factory") district of Nizhny Novgorod where they are built (GAZ = Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod (Russia, Nizhny Novgorod), translated as Gorky Automobile Plant GAZ - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
 
That leads to the question, How did they become 3d generation welfare families? Yo blame welfare for it, saying it made them lazy. What you are saying is the the solution caused the problem in the first place.

I say that racial discrimination from African slavery to the current day caused the problem.

No doubt it has gotten a lot better now.

It's a lot tougher to get welfare now than it used to be.

I will admit that there are crurently too many people on welfare who are lazy and don't deserve it and are lying in order to get welfare.

This is where we should concentrate the reform.


I don't disagree with you (though it is not just African-Americans abusing the system. Plenty of white faces in that crowd too) but I have yet to see the left in DC support any meaningful reform that would go after folks. In my area Clinton effectively killed a lot of blue collar jobs that was letting people step ahead via NAFTA killing off manufacturing and the Justice Department lawsuits that gutted tobacco processing which was pretty good paying seasonal work for low income people.
 
my additional income from the Army Reserves puts me into the upper middle class. I have a graduate degree, republican and I voted against Obama
 
I don't disagree with you (though it is not just African-Americans abusing the system. Plenty of white faces in that crowd too) but I have yet to see the left in DC support any meaningful reform that would go after folks. In my area Clinton effectively killed a lot of blue collar jobs that was letting people step ahead via NAFTA killing off manufacturing and the Justice Department lawsuits that gutted tobacco processing which was pretty good paying seasonal work for low income people.

the welfare system is self perpetuating. Why should someone with little or no education and/or training work a crappy minimum wage job when they can actually get more money by sitting at home doing nothing collecting welfare? The nature of the system encourages people to stay dependent on the system
 
I don't disagree with you (though it is not just African-Americans abusing the system. Plenty of white faces in that crowd too) but I have yet to see the left in DC support any meaningful reform that would go after folks. In my area Clinton effectively killed a lot of blue collar jobs that was letting people step ahead via NAFTA killing off manufacturing and the Justice Department lawsuits that gutted tobacco processing which was pretty good paying seasonal work for low income people.

Waxman from california is an idiot.

I was not trying to play the race card but african americans are the ones most affected by the ghetto projects that breed crime.








what gets to me about the tabacco fiasco is that the smokke addicts wind up paying foir everything. They should have at least made the companies pay for programs for smokers who swant to quit.

Medicare wil pay for viagra but not for nicotine patches.

It reminds me of the opium wars in china.
 
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the welfare system is self perpetuating. Why should someone with little or no education and/or training work a crappy minimum wage job when they can actually get more money by sitting at home doing nothing collecting welfare? The nature of the system encourages people to stay dependent on the system

I don't disagree with that either. I would love to put a lifetime limit on it, or to require a HS diploma to even qualify, drug testing,or something, anything, to get people motivated to get off the public chuckwagon.
 
I don't disagree with that either. I would love to put a lifetime limit on it, or to require a HS diploma to even qualify, drug testing,or something, anything, to get people motivated to get off the public chuckwagon.

I wish they would drug test the politicians.
 
I don't disagree with that either. I would love to put a lifetime limit on it, or to require a HS diploma to even qualify, drug testing,or something, anything, to get people motivated to get off the public chuckwagon.

and that is my biggest complaint with welfare....there is absolutely zero motivation for people to get off the dole, once they are on it. I fear that, in the not too distant future, there will be more people trying to live off the system than there are people paying to support the system and the whole thing will collapse and there will be riots/anarchy/zombie apoppyclips etc.
 
... Those who claim "conservative and Christian", I wonder about...IMO, it cannot be both !
What would Jesus think ?
How about this explanation: The government delivers it's help without His message which is the most important gift you are giving as a Christian.
 
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No, Obama is the super rich's hero. Romney wanted a $25,000 maximum deduction.

The maximum tax deductions for the rich under Obama is $100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.00

The super rich LOVE OBAMA. He gives them hundreds of billions of dollars. Personally - literally personally - exempts them from having to provide their employees "ObamaCare" and gives them UNLIMITED tax deductions from their income.

Democrats LOVE the super rich and will give them anything and everything they want.

Who Democrats hate is the old couple that own the corner dollar store. They want them destroyed because they offer token competition to WalMart. Democrats love WalMart more than anything else on earth.

You forgot to add, IMO".
 
Came out as upper middle class. I voted for Obama.
 
Apparently for some the only way to break the cycle of dependence is going to be to stop giving them anything.

That has been tried in the past thru-out this world..
The results were not good.

We are crying about too many on welfare...
Has anyone spoken to "welfare queens" and asked them how they feel about this ?????
I, for one, feels its a problem of hatred and intolerance, and these will "go away", but very slowly - thank you - conservatives.
 
That has been tried in the past thru-out this world..
The results were not good.

We are crying about too many on welfare...
Has anyone spoken to "welfare queens" and asked them how they feel about this ?????
I, for one, feels its a problem of hatred and intolerance, and these will "go away", but very slowly - thank you - conservatives.


yeah...the solution to the problem of too many people on welfare is for those of us paying to support the system to be more "tolerant".... :roll:
 
Has anyone spoken to "welfare queens" and asked them how they feel about this ?????
I, for one, feels its a problem of hatred and intolerance, and these will "go away", but very slowly - thank you - conservatives.

I don't care how they feel about it. They are the ones who are dependent on me, not the reverse.
 
I don't care how they feel about it. They are the ones who are dependent on me, not the reverse.

it's like asking a flea how it feels about the dog scratching
 
it's like asking a flea how it feels about the dog scratching

The problem is, far too many people are concerned with the feelings of the fleas as opposed to the discomfort of the dog. Instead, they insist that the dog has an obligation to support the fleas and, in fact, to accommodate them and ensure their happiness.

It's absurd.
 
The problem is, far too many people are concerned with the feelings of the fleas as opposed to the discomfort of the dog. Instead, they insist that the dog has an obligation to support the fleas and, in fact, to accommodate them and ensure their happiness.

It's absurd.

That's a sophistic anology.
 
The Chevys sold in Europe are the Korean-designed models built in Russia, Poland and Romania, I believe. The models you see here are the Spark, Aveo, Cruze, Orlando, and Captiva etc. The Chevrolet wiki entry says that they are modified US models, but I don't think that's true. It also says models such as the Alero and the Trans-Sports are sold here but looking at the Chevrolet Spain website that doesn't seem to be true either. They are very cheap and don't have a great reputation for long-term reliability. Perhaps the US-built models are better made.

The US-built Corvette and Camaro are available, but I've never seen one on our roads.

If you see Camero or Corvette in person and take a look at the fit and finish you will find them to be quite good comparable to the better german and japanese cars. The cars built in europe are the "economy models" for out here. Fit and finish is sad to say cheap.
 
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