A Complete Waste of Space

Pudfark wrote:So, in between, the gap, folks should sit at home and wait for the check?
Or, should they go out and get another job?

no, they should be able to get one job, full time, and get by. If they wish to make more money, of course, a second job or an enhanced education is the ticket. Worked that way for years, now, didn't it?

I worked multiple jobs all my life prior to retirement. 70-80+ hours a week for 28 years straight. That's what it took. That's what I did. It was my choice. It's theirs.

yes, that is the choice, now....it isn't right, though, and it hasn't worked for our society.

It's yours. However, no indefinite "free ride".

the only people with an indefinite free ride in our society are those who were born to an inheritance. Fact.

and congress, senate, VP and POTUS.

Gotta take my dawgs to the Vet....annual check up. Back later.

Pudfark wrote:and congress, senate, VP and POTUS.

not really....they work to get there, and hardly a free ride, even though I have misgivings about politicians, it certainly isn't an EASY gig. To get or keep.

Well, one term and a free ride for life, was my point.

callmeslick wrote:What were we doing wrong all those years, trying to build a middle class through generational change, not change in status over a career?

"WE" did not create the middle class. Personal and economic freedom (individual effort), technology, and cheap energy did.

Pudfark wrote:Well, one term and a free ride for life, was my point.

except for the Presidency, that isn't how it works.

Barfly wrote:

callmeslick wrote:What were we doing wrong all those years, trying to build a middle class through generational change, not change in status over a career?

"WE" did not create the middle class. Personal and economic freedom (individual effort), technology, and cheap energy did.

hardly the case. Government and long-term planning were CRITICAL. The roads, bridges, airports and other research and development money spent by the government fueled it. Taxation capping top-end salaries fueled it. Economic freedom? Hardly, the options were quite narrow for many people.

That's a good list of some of the few things that government can do to to varying degrees to enhance commerce, but they didn't build the middle class. Your "top down" perspective, which puts emphasis on government control of the resources accrued by productive people, if allowed to continue to take hold, will destroy the so-called middle class.

the middle class, I hate to tell you, IS DESTROYED NOW, and it was years of 'deregulation' that did it. In present day America, the only determiner of any significance for adult prosperity is the prosperity of ones parents, and more wealth changes hands through inheritance than wages every year. So, sorry, Barfly, your idea doesn't fly.