So True

[runamok]

[The Noof]

Very well said...too bad the only people that get it are not the ones that need to get it.lol.

[steveOtoo]

It's really hard to accept but our nation is in decline and our middle class seems to be a thing of the past. These large social media empires and corporations need to be split up as Monopolies have been in the past. The worker no longer has collective bargaining or unions to help raise the standard of living. Our leadership has let us down by allowing corporations to move all their operations overseas and operate as usual except we don't benefit because we lose those taxes not to mention the brain drain and innovation which a nation needs to survive and thrive. I know my generation at least had the ability to better oneself by getting an education and could be afforded but not so much today. I would not like being a young person today trying to make my mark and knowing i was $100,000 in the hole with no skin in the game. I don't know what the answer is but i do know we need a strong middle class to be a great nation...........sorry for the rant.

[The Noof]

It's really hard to accept but our nation is in decline and our middle class seems to be a thing of the past. These large social media empires and corporations need to be split up as Monopolies have been in the past. The worker no longer has collective bargaining or unions to help raise the standard of living. Our leadership has let us down by allowing corporations to move all their operations overseas and operate as usual except we don't benefit because we lose those taxes not to mention the brain drain and innovation which a nation needs to survive and thrive. I know my generation at least had the ability to better oneself by getting an education and could be afforded but not so much today. I would not like being a young person today trying to make my mark and knowing i was $100,000 in the hole with no skin in the game. I don't know what the answer is but i do know we need a strong middle class to be a great nation...........sorry for the rant.

Your/our generation was no stranger to hard work either bro.Honest hard work beats handouts all day long.
I found at an early age I was DESTINED to a blue collar role, not because I was uneducated or not very smart, but because of my love for cars.That made me a great mechanic at an early age.Self employed when I was 23.Never looked back, never doubted what I had chosen.
If people would just want to do better with hard work & dedication to a purpose, earn rather than demand equality, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

100 dollars earned with hard work goes farther than a 1000 dollar handout...

[dogdayz]

Having been born in the 50's most guys my age learned the value of hard work and money from our parents who had lived through depression and war. We didn't have luxuries and learned to appreciate everything that we had. There were no freebies and we learned that to get ahead you had to work for it.

[TLG]

Agreed ... your talking to us today

If we look around ,, the most of this world has been to war or is in war ,, just in my lifetime I can name 24 different wars ,, Korea , Vietnam, Kenya, Brunei, Indonesia, Suez, El Salvador, Haiti , Falkans, Gulf, Argentina, Africa, Palestine, ...... And the list goes on ... The world has always been in conflict , continues to be in conflict and is gonna be in conflict when we're gone from this world ... I say let's be thankful we live here , not there,

[zayden]

There is no "Equality of Opportunity" that is a fallacy. The table has always been tilted toward middle-aged white men which I'm guessing most of us here are, including myself.

Much of what we see in politics today can be defined by this struggle; those that have benefited from the way things have always been are not interested in seeing the table un-tilted.

[Gates07]

well the Saudies own the oil refineries in this country, guess who trump visited right away, they are also buying up real-estate thru LLC's as the Chinese, who can afford a house now days, not long ago we heard we need foreign investment let build a aluminum factory for Russia, we need a chip factory here, we need a car plant there, what B/S mean while the folks that ran our factories that made this a great nation sold out to the chinese, now to wash your cloths it comes from china, what use to be reasonable is expensive made with cheap labor and then the politicians all have there hand out in your hip pocket, its no longer what can i do for the country, snake oil salesman, make me rich, kiss my behind, degrade the courts, degrade the military, get every one angry, lets have another civil war

[pennywise]

There is no "Equality of Opportunity" that is a fallacy. The table has always been tilted toward middle-aged white men which I'm guessing most of us here are, including myself.

Much of what we see in politics today can be defined by this struggle; those that have benefited from the way things have always been are not interested in seeing the table un-tilted.

Yes we have equal opportunity..... you can cry about it all day.... or get up and change your circumstances. You get to choose. I don't cry because I should be a multimillion dollar athlete or actor and I'm not. I chose my path.

[The Noof]

Yes we have equal opportunity..... you can cry about it all day.... or get up and change your circumstances. You get to choose. I don't cry because I should be a multimillion dollar athlete or actor and I'm not. I chose my path.

Well said.I stated in a previous post that the ones that get it are not the ones that need to get it.
My personal childhood circumstances dictated that had I failed it would have been explicable.I chose not to.I swore to myself that my chosen family would have far better opportunity than I had, & here we are...get up,shut up & fix it.

[zayden]

Like I said I'm not talking about us middle aged white men we are a privileged race. We still run the goddam world.

If there were equal opportunity then mathematically you would expect to find the same "success" rates across the board but you don't.

It comes down to whether you believe that those who don't "make it" simply weren't trying hard enough or conversely that there are systemic reasons why some people will never get to where they want to be despite their efforts. I chose to believe the latter.

How is it so hard to believe (rightly) that we are not equal yet believe there is still equal opportunity ?

[pennywise]

Like I said I'm not talking about us middle aged white men we are a privileged race. We still run the goddam world.

If there were equal opportunity then mathematically you would expect to find the same "success" rates across the board but you don't.

It comes down to whether you believe that those who don't "make it" simply weren't trying hard enough or conversely that there are systemic reasons why some people will never get to where they want to be despite their efforts. I chose to believe the latter.

How is it so hard to believe (rightly) that we are not equal yet believe there is still equal opportunity ?

You really should pay attention, you don't know what you're talking about. Guess what demographic makes the most money in the US.......Asian, guess who is second....Indian. You really should look at facts instead of talking points from WHITE rich males and females I know, I know, minorities earn the highest dollars in the US, but they are not privileged. At some point you will just have to get off your privileged horse and acknowledge that people are responsible for themselves.

[runamok]

Yeah Indians living on reserves get a check each month for life and there kids not born yet will get checks.

[really_troubled]

Yeah Indians living on reserves get a check each month for life and there kids not born yet will get checks.

I don't think pennywise was referring to Native Americans.

besides would you give up what you've got, to live on a Reserve and get one of those checks ?

[really_troubled]

You really should pay attention, you don't know what you're talking about. Guess what demographic makes the most money in the US.......Asian, guess who is second....Indian. You really should look at facts instead of talking points from WHITE rich males and females I know, I know, minorities earn the highest dollars in the US, but they are not privileged. At some point you will just have to get off your privileged horse and acknowledge that people are responsible for themselves.

I'm curious, did you go to university ?

in general, those that make the most are the highly educated ... you just pointed out 2 ethnic groups that show that to be true

in your first post you said

I don't cry because I should be a multimillion dollar athlete or actor and I'm not. I chose my path.

that argument would seem to suggest that you could have been either of the above but chose not to ... something I find highly unlikely