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06-27-2017 , 04:10 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
your future wealth is correlated much more heavily with your parents' wealth in the United States than in European countries.
I'm pretty sure part of the reason for that involves poorer Americans not valuing their children's education as highly as the poor in other countries. My Asian dry cleaning couple were celebrating when their daughter got into the Ivy League. Wheras my buddy from Rockdale Illinois tells me that his parents and their friends actively opposed higher education with words like "what, working in the steel mill like your father does, isn't good enough for you?"
06-27-2017 , 04:12 PM
Working in a launderette is not remotely comparable to working in a steel mill (though in the US the former probably does have more of a future).
06-27-2017 , 04:13 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by jalfrezi
Unfortunately as always with you we only have your word for this, and judged on past performance that's worth nothing. You do often work 80 hour weeks..
Nonsense. My schedule for the entire year is hanging in the office. I would offer you a bet but you wouldn't pay. If you'd like to escrow, we can do that. I can prove it easily.
06-27-2017 , 04:14 PM
I doubt there's anything you claim to be able to prove online that is proof using the accepted definition of the word.
06-27-2017 , 04:19 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by jalfrezi
I doubt there's anything you claim to be able to prove online that is proof using the accepted definition of the word.
You are constantly wrong about everything. I work the Dupont schedule. Go look it up. I have my entire year's schedule laid out, because it has to be. I work in a ten man crew in a rotating schedule, and I can easily prove it.

Select an amount and a judge and let's prove how idiotic you are about everything.
06-27-2017 , 04:23 PM
I'd put money on jalfrezi welching on the bet anyway.

A snowball's chance in hell he escrows.
06-27-2017 , 04:25 PM
Substitute "My friend or brother" for "I" and you'll see why no one trusts you not to wilch.
06-27-2017 , 04:29 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by wil318466
I choose Equality of opportunity, which is why I'd stay here. I have no desire to live and think like a(n?) European.
You have equal opportunity to move and it was your suggestion, so you have double the opportunity to move relative to someone who ain't going no where.
06-27-2017 , 04:30 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by wil318466
I can be harsh. Many people here deserve it, though. Note that I am not rude to people who aren't rude to me first. I don't speak to Chez or well named of spaceman the way I do to others. There's a reason for that.
I was asking why you keep bringing up the bathroom thing. This response has nothing to do with that.



Quote:
Originally Posted by wil318466
You've read Corvettes posts and really believe this?
Touche, corvette may actually think you are the root of all evil.



Quote:
Originally Posted by wil318466
Healthcare is messy. I've always said that. There's no real solution until the people are willing to say screw it and will accept single payer.

Healthcare is a complete mess and I predict it will stay that way. No one likes it. No one thinks it's great. No one thinks it'll be great. The entire thing is a sham and anyone who doesn't think it sucks, and always has kinda sucked, is kinda dumb. It's not fair and it's not equal, just like our society is.

Get a job and make sure you have benefits or your own money to pay for it. Everything else is a crap shoot. We all know it sucks, dude. You don't need to run around fist-pumping celebrating failure.
The problem is Trump and Congress are actively trying to make it worse.
06-27-2017 , 04:31 PM
Has that last bet not been settled?

Why don't you just get Original Position, Well Named, and Mattt Sklansky to post the name of who they believed won the bet by this time next week.
06-27-2017 , 04:35 PM
Jalfrezi may have gotten lucky in the fact original position got sick of trying to find judges.
06-27-2017 , 04:45 PM
lolwil

Not a single person outside of the quadrupeds mongi, BS and the banned-for-being-a-PoS <removed> thought you won. At best you're splitting the pot.

The forum should not be used as a vehicle to criticise the modding of other forums, 2+2 in general or (ex)posters with no right of reply.
06-27-2017 , 04:45 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by wil318466
Another thought about the above.

We are fundamentally different people. We are not Europeans, we are Americans and we believe in different things. We will never have a society of equals because we believe in equality of opportunity over equality of outcome. There is a good reason why things like healthcare and education in America are NOT EQUAL and NEVER WILL BE. We live in an unequally society and because that's what we chose. We aren't Europeans and we don't want to be.

If you want to live in that type of society, I encourage you to move, because that ain't happening here in our lifetimes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wil318466
You are being unfair about this entire argument. There is no dealmaking because there is no deal to be made. Be honest, what result would make you "happy"? There is only one outcome that would make the left happy - single payer. That's not happening, period. And every single person reading this thread knows that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wil318466
I choose Equality of opportunity, which is why I'd stay here. I have no desire to live and think like a(n?) European.
I just think in an advanced society that some basic necessities should be guaranteed to all. This is not "equality of outcome".
06-27-2017 , 04:47 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by wil318466
I know exactly what I'm saying. Do you not think I've sat and thought about this? By no means am I saying we shouldn't try to make things better. We should, but not when we step over certain boundaries.

Nothing in life is fair. It's not fair Brad Pitt is better looking than me and it's not fair Kevin Durant can make a fortune playing a child's game while I sometimes have to sleep on the side of the road because I'm so tired from work. Nothing is fair, but we can embrace a society that rewards hard work. It's called "hard work" for a reason, because it's ****ing hard. People who are willing to do it get ahead. The opportunity is there for all of us (in general). It's up to us to make that happen, not government.

How can an American not believe in that?
Like all we are saying is that the penalty for failing at this game shouldn't be that you literally die.
06-27-2017 , 04:49 PM
When you take into account that the dice are indisputably loaded against some people at birth or during childhood wil's position is even more abhorrent.
06-27-2017 , 04:52 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by wil318466
That's just the way it is. And I sure as hell don't want to pay for another entitlement. Do you?

Hell, I wish I could opt out of social security.
Yes, 100% absolutely. I will gladly pay a few extra percent in taxes to guarantee everyone gets healthcare. It's astounding to me that you don't.
06-27-2017 , 04:54 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by BitchiBee
I think you are working under the assumption that all humans produce relatively close to each other. Human production in pretty much all fields follow zipfs law, or the pareto distribution. A tiny % of people produce the vast majority of the yield.

someone like bill gates has produced more wealth than millions of regular human beings. his kids being able to be lazy and rich is not because of some flaw in the system.
It's amazing, your post is almost completely unrelated to the post it responds to.

wn: Inter-generational mobility is low
BitchiBee: Yeah but a small amount of the people create a lot of the productivity.

You are ******ed and in wil's ((meritocracy)) dystopia you are going to die begging on the street
06-27-2017 , 04:59 PM
wil, what do you do? How much of the >250k household income comes from you?
06-27-2017 , 05:04 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by wil318466
Who bears what means something. When taxpayers bear a cost they have a right to complain about it.
I don't think this distinction gets you that much. After all, taxpayers always bear the cost eventually. The issue is whether it's paid through taxation or through higher prices and less commercial activity, and how this cost is distributed. Anyway, a minimum wage is a government-enforced price floor on the price of labor. That kind of regulation also has a large impact on the market and so taxpayers have just as much right to complain about it as they do with their taxes.

I'll note that 62% of American Economic Association members from this 2011 survey supported expanding the EITC.
06-27-2017 , 05:06 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by wil318466
Jalfrezi may have gotten lucky in the fact original position got sick of trying to find judges.
Nah, just the replacement judge is busy and I don't want to remind him too often to get back to me. If he don't give me anything within a week I guess I'll find someone else.
06-27-2017 , 05:15 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by wil318466
People don't want to pay and they have a right to feel that way. I'm ok with it but if I said I don't want to pay for your healthcare, what argument can you reasonably make against that? I have healthcare, my family has healthcare. Why should I pay for you? (Not specifically me and you just in general).
Gold.
06-27-2017 , 05:17 PM
Remember, only a few months ago wil was a liberal allegedly. It must be all those 80 hour weeks he's been working.
06-27-2017 , 05:31 PM
Quote:
I *do* think that many Americans have attitudes about poverty which are excessively punitive. That is, I think they believe, without sufficient justification, that most people are poor simply because they don't work hard enough, and that therefore they don't deserve either government assistance or private sympathy. But mobility data illustrates the point that working hard is often insufficient, and that "equality of opportunity" is something of a myth.

The point, to me, is not therefore that we should create real "equality of opportunity" by using laws to entirely erase the benefit of being born wealthy. It's that we should stop framing debates about economic policy around this false premise that where people end up in life is purely a consequence of how hard they work, or don't.
yes you mostly correct imo

Although it is a strawman to say that people think " where people end up in life is purely a consequence of how hard they work, or don't." Very few people believe that anybody can climb high in the social/economic ladder, but we do believe that in the free west for the majority of people if you work hard and delay gratification you can lead a comfortable life.

The argument from the right about equality of opportunity accepts that the market creates distortions that are not entirely "fair" but that its not up to the government to use state force to hammer those distortions out.
06-27-2017 , 05:35 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TiltedDonkey
Like all we are saying is that the penalty for failing at this game shouldn't be that you literally die.
It isn't.
06-27-2017 , 05:47 PM
Game? Like concentration?


      
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