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ClassIsInSession -> RE: ObamaCare and Mandatory Automobile Insurance (7/13/2012 2:24:22 PM)
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tj444: So... ya wanna run off to an idylic tropical paradise with me??
I've hinted before that since you would be coming to DFW possibly...
When I do retire, I've always said I would move to the Caribbean and basically live on a boat, a grumpy old sailor like Popeye's dad, Pappy.
I don't know if that's idylic enough...there is a shortage of un-claimed land masses in the world.
vincentML: When you isolate a class of people by economic status instead of integrating them into the larger community it should be no surprise that role models are absent and resentment increases. Highrise housing projects are an anacronism. The last tower of Cabrini Green in Chicago was recently demolished. The problems you cite are more a result of erronious social theory and planning than a lack of aspirations among the poor, and certainly not indigenous to the color of their skin. I'll bet you can find similar failure amongst whites in public housing in London and Dublin. We need to stop blaming the victims of class stratification and find a workable system toward upward mobility. Sending manufacturing jobs to China has not been helpful.
Actually vincent, at one time I lived in Norview, and not in the projects, for 8 years. There was an "integration" into my neighborhood, and the trash and graffiti moved with it, never mind the crime. It isn't, nor did I say it was, indigenous to the color of anyone's skin. It's just a matter of fact that the particular projects I referred to were populated with african-americans. I'm quite certain you would find the same results in an all white welfare complex or of any racial trend, and I'm pretty sure I elaborated the psychological reasons behind it. Don't pull the race card on me, that is intellectually dishonest of you to do. I am not a bigot.
As to workable systems toward upward mobility... I've had this discussion from time to time most of my life. I did not grow up with a silver spoon. I received the same public school education as those same project kids and went to school right along side them. I chose to take that public school education and follow it with college, not to mention I've read 2-3 books a week since I was in grade school. And I had to wait quite a long time to get that college education because I had to pay for it and I didn't do it with loans. The results I got came from hard work, self control and making good decisions. You can wish in one hand and crap in the other, which one fills up first? It's very simple to blame class stratification, but really, it boils down to being about more than just day dreams and talk. There are plenty of examples of people who grew up without means and went on to be very successful. It's been done.
I distinctly remember being in Norview High School and having a girl disrupt class repeatedly with outbursts where she would scream, you can't make me *explicative* learn. And I remember distinctly having guys I went to school with come up to me at the 7-11 parking lot while I was going to college asking me for money. And I told them exactly what I just told you, "I am paying for my own education with money I saved up from years of hard work. I'm not going to give you money that I can't afford to give you, you need to work just like I did, you got the same education I did."
There was nothing holding them back but themselves. I worked with plenty of men and women at the shipyard who had grown up in the projects, so you can't even say it was the hiring practices in that economy. In fact, often, it was harder for me to get a job because I wasn't a minority in those cases. Eventually, everyone has to take responsibility for themselves, and that has nothing to do with race, gender, sexual preference or economic level.
I agree with you about the manufacturing sector and the jobs going overseas, and I have been outspoken about it many times before. Our greatest challenge to the economy is the exportation of jobs, and the global economy. The case has been argued that we wouldn't have all the cheap products we enjoy today were it not for the trade agreements and job exportation, but I will argue that a certain degree of closing the economy to our borders would create a market place where the cost of products and the wages paid to produce them would begin to level out. That is the way it was for many decades here earlier in our history. And even now, if I have the opportunity to purchase American made products over Chinese manufactured products I will do so even if I have to pay more for them.
The solution will come as gas prices continue to escalate and shipping drives the price of imported goods high enough. At some point I believe that will trip the trigger for manufacturing to return. As much as I hate the 300-400% increase in the cost of gas (a major unspoken cause of inflation and economic hardship) at some point, people will build and buy local out of necessity.
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