6th Man of St. John's Basketball
St. John's Red Storm => In The Jungle... => Topic started by: Foad on June 01, 2016, 05:57:09 PM
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Twenty-two-year-old Rysheed Jordan, who attended Edward W. Bok Technical High School, is charged with attempted murder, robbery and other offenses.
http://6abc.com/news/former-philadelphia-basketball-standout-arrested-in-shooting-/1366993/
Rest assured Steve Lavin will visit him in prison
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WWJD?
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Wow...very sad. Over a cell phone. or what someone was willing to pay for a used cell phone. Now he can play in the Pennsylvania Penal League.
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Bigtime loser from day 1. I think he now surpasses Jayson Williams
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Some of us got to know Sheed during his time with us. Good kid but found himself with a bad hometown crowd far too often. We all saw this was going to lead him astray at some point. Very sad, super-talented and had promise if he made better decisions. Lets hope God helps him and this experience humbles him. His poor family now is in a tough place. Oldest of many siblings. Feel bad for his mother too.
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Some of us got to know Sheed during his time with us. Good kid but found himself with a bad hometown crowd far too often. We all saw this was going to lead him astray at some point. Very sad, super-talented and had promise if he made better decisions. Lets hope God helps him and this experience humbles him. His poor family now is in a tough place. Oldest of many siblings. Feel bad for his mother too.
More enabling
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Some of us got to know Sheed during his time with us. Good kid but found himself with a bad hometown crowd far too often. We all saw this was going to lead him astray at some point. Very sad, super-talented and had promise if he made better decisions. Lets hope God helps him and this experience humbles him. His poor family now is in a tough place. Oldest of many siblings. Feel bad for his mother too.
I feel bad for Steve Lavin, this tarnishes his legacy.
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Well I hate to say I was right but I said Jordan would never make a living playing ball. Now someone else will make a living playing with his balls.
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Some of us got to know Sheed during his time with us. Good kid but found himself with a bad hometown crowd far too often. We all saw this was going to lead him astray at some point. Very sad, super-talented and had promise if he made better decisions. Lets hope God helps him and this experience humbles him. His poor family now is in a tough place. Oldest of many siblings. Feel bad for his mother too.
More enabling
I agree.
Prior experiences didn't humble him, when they should have. Hopefully this time is different.
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Guess he will be playing in another court. Next game will be for cigarettes in the yard. At least he will now learn he can't go home anytime he wants.
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Now he makes his shots. I wonder if he tried to Eurostep around the officer that chased him down.
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I'm not as old as some on this board, but he is the biggest waste of talent I've seen at St. John's and in the top 10 that I can recall in college basketball. This kid had the skills to be on par with Kris Dunn, when you consider his size, athletic ability, etc. Could do it all when he had his freaking head on straight.
It's been stated by some on this board that his mother was a big part of the "enabling" issue and part of the reason he went home all the time. But the kid has no one to blame but himself. A different coach wouldn't have put up with his nonsense, as talented as he was, and as good as he was at times at the end of his freshman season and parts of the sophomore year. I had no issue with Lavin taking a risk on the kid, with all the red flags, including Jay Wright's decision to stop recruiting him, when we know Jay Wright has taken kids with some risk and given second changes to others (like Pinkston). But if our former coach had kept recruiting like he did the first two years, he wouldn't have had to bank his career on Sheed and Obekpa, which is essentially what he did (and led to his downfall).
Some of us got to know Sheed during his time with us. Good kid but found himself with a bad hometown crowd far too often. We all saw this was going to lead him astray at some point. Very sad, super-talented and had promise if he made better decisions. Lets hope God helps him and this experience humbles him. His poor family now is in a tough place. Oldest of many siblings. Feel bad for his mother too.
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This kid just couldn't get out of the hood huh? Waste of life, waste of our air.
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Why is everyone making such a big deal about this, he only winged the guy.
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Well I hate to say I was right but I said Jordan would never make a living playing ball. Now someone else will make a living playing with his balls.
Why does this mean he will never make a living playing ball? He's more NBA now than ever before.
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Well I hate to say I was right but I said Jordan would never make a living playing ball. Now someone else will make a living playing with his balls.
Why does this mean he will never make a living playing ball? He's more NBA now than ever before.
Street cred! :up:
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Some of us got to know Sheed during his time with us. Good kid but found himself with a bad hometown crowd far too often. We all saw this was going to lead him astray at some point. Very sad, super-talented and had promise if he made better decisions. Lets hope God helps him and this experience humbles him. His poor family now is in a tough place. Oldest of many siblings. Feel bad for his mother too.
I feel bad for Steve Lavin, this tarnishes his legacy.
It doesn't tarnish Lavin at all. Rysheed Jordan didn't arrive at St.John's with a criminal record. Lavin had just as much to do with this as Carnesecca had to do with Jayson Williams shooting his limo driver. Lavin made plenty of mistakes. There's no need to attach blame where it doesn't belong.
Jordan did this to himself, and I suppose he also did it to the guy he shot.
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It doesn't tarnish Lavin at all.
Exactly my point. Steve Lavin is an educator first and foremost and if he can't reach a kid from the ghetto like Michelle Pfeiffer was able to in Dangerous Minds or even Hillary Swank in Freedom Writers, well, it's only because that ghetto kid was too ghetto to be reached. And just because Steve Lavin's most important recruit evah will end up in prison after two years of Steve Lavin's tutelage that doesn't mean that Steve Lavin is to blame for that.He tried damn it! Any other coach who was trying to get his contract renewed would have treated Jordan with exactly the same tough love Lavin did, such as when he burned a year of Felix Balamou's eligibility to prove to Jordan that if Jordan left school without permission Lavin would punish someone else very harshly for it. And as to this reflecting on Lavin's character, just last week he took Felix Balamou to dinner and posted pictures of it on his Instagram account (and probably Twitter too but I didn't see them because he blocked me). I believe Felix had the fish and now Jordan is a fish so we've come full circle. But you're exactly right, Jordan shooting someone during a robbery a short remove from two years of learning that there are more important things than winning at the feet of Steve Lavin is the same as Jayson Williams accidentally shooting someone 20 years after graduating from Saint John's, because Lavin deserves only credit for his successes like recruiting Federico Mussini and not blame for his failures such as when one of his players tries to murder someone over a flip phone. Steve Lavin wouldn't be caught dead with a flip phone.
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Well I hate to say I was right but I said Jordan would never make a living playing ball. Now someone else will make a living playing with his balls.
Why does this mean he will never make a living playing ball? He's more NBA now than ever before.
He's got the prison part down alright.
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Incredibly sad, we witnessed his transgressions from day 1. His body language and interactions w teammates/coaches were never positive. His psyche appeared impenetrable. He was a wild child, as teachers often say, you can't reach them all. For every D'Angelo there's a Sheed. He never once came off as a kid who was willing to listen to anyone, and was always out for himself. His neighborhood swallowed him whole, as North Philly does to so many. When you fail out of school, get released from a DLeague team two weeks in and hang out around in that environment without any ambition, this eventually happens. Very tough to swallow seeing talent wasted, but I'm not surprised knowing the environment that surrounded him everyday of his life.
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Incredibly sad, we witnessed his transgressions from day 1. His body language and interactions w teammates/coaches were never positive. His psyche appeared impenetrable. He was a wild child, as teachers often say, you can't reach them all. For every D'Angelo there's a Sheed. He never once came off as a kid who was willing to listen to anyone, and was always out for himself. His neighborhood swallowed him whole, as North Philly does to so many. When you fail out of school, get released from a DLeague team two weeks in and hang out around in that environment without any ambition, this eventually happens. Very tough to swallow seeing talent wasted, but I'm not surprised knowing the environment that surrounded him everyday of his life.
He was given every chance plus some, to straighten out and do something for himself and his family. No one to blame but himself.
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Sad situation but can't really feel bad for the kid. As has been said he had a opportunity that a lot of kids from a tough background don't have. He had the skill to be an NBA player and he threw it all away. He was one of the more gifted players I have seen play here, such a big waste of talent.
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Sad. Traded in taking shots on a basketball court to possibly taking shots from behind.
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Incredibly sad, we witnessed his transgressions from day 1. His body language and interactions w teammates/coaches were never positive. His psyche appeared impenetrable. He was a wild child, as teachers often say, you can't reach them all. For every D'Angelo there's a Sheed. He never once came off as a kid who was willing to listen to anyone, and was always out for himself. His neighborhood swallowed him whole, as North Philly does to so many. When you fail out of school, get released from a DLeague team two weeks in and hang out around in that environment without any ambition, this eventually happens. Very tough to swallow seeing talent wasted, but I'm not surprised knowing the environment that surrounded him everyday of his life.
He was given every chance plus some, to straighten out and do something for himself and his family. No one to blame but himself.
Its an unfortunate situation for him and his family Although I agree that ultimately its was his decision, it would be ignorant though to believe that his environment didn't impact that process. Many of you wouldn't be the person you are today if you were raised in the same environment he was. It's not an excuse, its reality. That is the biggest problem in our society, we are too rich of a nation to have so many of its children living in poverty. Children don't decide who their parents are, or what support systems they are born into. I've seen some horrific situations. Children living on the streets, not 16 year olds, five year olds! F*&# ABC's...I'm trying to survive! Until you've walked in their shoe's, I wouldn't be so dismissive. I'm angry that he squandered his opportunity to help himself and his family, but I also understand what contributed to him being the way he was and that is also upsetting. It's not enabling, its reality. It's not easy to teach an old dog new tricks. The only difference is he was a basketball player, there are many more who suffer the same fate who are not 6'4" who could get to the basket.
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Incredibly sad, we witnessed his transgressions from day 1. His body language and interactions w teammates/coaches were never positive. His psyche appeared impenetrable. He was a wild child, as teachers often say, you can't reach them all. For every D'Angelo there's a Sheed. He never once came off as a kid who was willing to listen to anyone, and was always out for himself. His neighborhood swallowed him whole, as North Philly does to so many. When you fail out of school, get released from a DLeague team two weeks in and hang out around in that environment without any ambition, this eventually happens. Very tough to swallow seeing talent wasted, but I'm not surprised knowing the environment that surrounded him everyday of his life.
He was given every chance plus some, to straighten out and do something for himself and his family. No one to blame but himself.
Its an unfortunate situation for him and his family Although I agree that ultimately its was his decision, it would be ignorant though to believe that his environment didn't impact that process. Many of you wouldn't be the person you are today if you were raised in the same environment he was. It's not an excuse, its reality. That is the biggest problem in our society, we are too rich of a nation to have so many of its children living in poverty. Children don't decide who their parents are, or what support systems they are born into. I've seen some horrific situations. Children living on the streets, not 16 year olds, five year olds! F*&# ABC's...I'm trying to survive! Until you've walked in their shoe's, I wouldn't be so dismissive. I'm angry that he squandered his opportunity to help himself and his family, but I also understand what contributed to him being the way he was and that is also upsetting. It's not enabling, its reality. It's not easy to teach an old dog new tricks. The only difference is he was a basketball player, there are many more who suffer the same fate who are not 6'4" who could get to the basket.
I think the point is that he was 6'4" and could get to the basket though. There are a lot of people who fall into that way of life because they don't have an "easy" way out (easy as in a gift you are born with, obviously still takes a lot of hard work). But Jordan was gifted with his athleticism and a scholarship to a University. If he would have stuck with either of those he wouldn't be in this situation. Instead he couldn't get out of his own way and somehow didn't realize that he was given every opportunity that I'm sure the people he grew up around would love to have been given to make a better life.
It's a shame and a cautionary tale, but as others have said, can't say I really feel bad for him.
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http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_top/381625551.html
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Plenty of people who are born into similar situations and avoid robbing and shooting people. Jordan is s gangster. He is where he belongs
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Well I hate to say I was right but I said Jordan would never make a living playing ball. Now someone else will make a living playing with his balls.
Why does this mean he will never make a living playing ball? He's more NBA now than ever before.
It's not the 80's and 90's anymore. These NBA players are the sons and nephews of former NFL and NBA millionaires, from well to do families here or abroad, or have been pampered with gifts, gear, and travel by AAU clubs, brokers, boosters or agents.
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Plenty of people who are born into similar situations and avoid robbing and shooting people. Jordan is s gangster. He is where he belongs
So you don't think its a problem that "Plenty of people are born into similar situations"? Just because everyone isn't like that doesn't mean many would not be. It's a mentality, regardless of his gifts. Not everyone has the capacity to get smacked in the cheek and turn to him the next. At some point you have to say the problem isn't limited to what action the individual takes, although they should still be held accountable for them, but you also have to start thinking.. Why are you smacking him in the cheek?
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Plenty of people who are born into similar situations and avoid robbing and shooting people. Jordan is s gangster. He is where he belongs
So you don't think its a problem that "Plenty of people are born into similar situations"? Just because everyone isn't like that doesn't mean many would not be. It's a mentality, regardless of his gifts. Not everyone has the capacity to get smacked in the cheek and turn to him the next. At some point you have to say the problem isn't limited to what action the individual takes, although they should still be held accountable for them, but you also have to start thinking.. Why are you smacking him in the cheek?
Or stop having children if you do t have the means,desire or maturity to raise them properly. At some point, people have be responsible for themselves and stop blaming society, their own parents etc.
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Plenty of people who are born into similar situations and avoid robbing and shooting people. Jordan is s gangster. He is where he belongs
So you don't think its a problem that "Plenty of people are born into similar situations"? Just because everyone isn't like that doesn't mean many would not be. It's a mentality, regardless of his gifts. Not everyone has the capacity to get smacked in the cheek and turn to him the next. At some point you have to say the problem isn't limited to what action the individual takes, although they should still be held accountable for them, but you also have to start thinking.. Why are you smacking him in the cheek?
Or stop having children if you do t have the means,desire or maturity to raise them properly. At some point, people have be responsible for themselves and stop blaming society, their own parents etc.
Pointing out faults in a social system doesn't mean I'm not for accountability. Self responsibility is important. To overcome social issues however you have to acknowledge certain constructs exists which contribute to a social culture. Someone is going to fall within that segment of the population, it has nothing to do with personal choice. If everyone in the United states had an MBA that would mean there would be a large portion of the population with MBA's living at/near/or in poverty. Education and hard work does not necessarily equate to economic prosperity. There isn't an infinite amount of high paying jobs, regardless of your education and/or work ethic. Some of us are more fortunate than others which perpetuates the belief that anyone can do it. However true in theory that may be, that isn't true for everyone. Stay strong Rysheed, hope you use this experience as a spring board to a better future.
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Incredibly sad, we witnessed his transgressions from day 1. His body language and interactions w teammates/coaches were never positive. His psyche appeared impenetrable. He was a wild child, as teachers often say, you can't reach them all. For every D'Angelo there's a Sheed. He never once came off as a kid who was willing to listen to anyone, and was always out for himself. His neighborhood swallowed him whole, as North Philly does to so many. When you fail out of school, get released from a DLeague team two weeks in and hang out around in that environment without any ambition, this eventually happens. Very tough to swallow seeing talent wasted, but I'm not surprised knowing the environment that surrounded him everyday of his life.
He was given every chance plus some, to straighten out and do something for himself and his family. No one to blame but himself.
Its an unfortunate situation for him and his family Although I agree that ultimately its was his decision, it would be ignorant though to believe that his environment didn't impact that process. Many of you wouldn't be the person you are today if you were raised in the same environment he was. It's not an excuse, its reality. That is the biggest problem in our society, we are too rich of a nation to have so many of its children living in poverty. Children don't decide who their parents are, or what support systems they are born into. I've seen some horrific situations. Children living on the streets, not 16 year olds, five year olds! F*&# ABC's...I'm trying to survive! Until you've walked in their shoe's, I wouldn't be so dismissive. I'm angry that he squandered his opportunity to help himself and his family, but I also understand what contributed to him being the way he was and that is also upsetting. It's not enabling, its reality. It's not easy to teach an old dog new tricks. The only difference is he was a basketball player, there are many more who suffer the same fate who are not 6'4" who could get to the basket.
+100 it's unfortunate that so many kids are born into bad situations like this -- by no choice of their own. be it bad neighborhoods, bad parents, poverty, whatever. definitely shouldn't happen in america. as you said, doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable if he did commit a crime as an adult, but does bring that issue into stark focus.
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https://mobile.twitter.com/CBarcaQC/status/738429245991620608
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Why not?
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https://twitter.com/MullinsHood/status/738394568413089797
Aunt Jackie smoking some shit if she believes he didn't do it
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Don't usually say this . Baldi is 100% right .
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Baldi is 100% right .
Per your opinion. He could be on point when it comes to Jordan not having anyone to blame than himself. But SJUFAN truly puts things in perspective, IMO.
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I have a news feed after I unlock my phone. I usually get one line for each headline.
I saw the CBS headline as, "Former SJ's star Rysheed" .... The first thought that came into my mind was "Jordan was found dead..."
I was relieved to see a better, more likely outcome. I was sorry to read, but SJUfan laid it out best.
The road to ruin is littered with many talented, tormented souls. Another American tragedy in the making.
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SJUFAN says it better than I could. Respect!
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"Kid" is 21 years old
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Plenty of people who are born into similar situations and avoid robbing and shooting people. Jordan is s gangster. He is where he belongs
So you don't think its a problem that "Plenty of people are born into similar situations"? Just because everyone isn't like that doesn't mean many would not be. It's a mentality, regardless of his gifts. Not everyone has the capacity to get smacked in the cheek and turn to him the next. At some point you have to say the problem isn't limited to what action the individual takes, although they should still be held accountable for them, but you also have to start thinking.. Why are you smacking him in the cheek?
Or stop having children if you do t have the means,desire or maturity to raise them properly. At some point, people have be responsible for themselves and stop blaming society, their own parents etc.
Pointing out faults in a social system doesn't mean I'm not for accountability. Self responsibility is important. To overcome social issues however you have to acknowledge certain constructs exists which contribute to a social culture. Someone is going to fall within that segment of the population, it has nothing to do with personal choice. If everyone in the United states had an MBA that would mean there would be a large portion of the population with MBA's living at/near/or in poverty. Education and hard work does not necessarily equate to economic prosperity. There isn't an infinite amount of high paying jobs, regardless of your education and/or work ethic. Some of us are more fortunate than others which perpetuates the belief that anyone can do it. However true in theory that may be, that isn't true for everyone. Stay strong Rysheed, hope you use this experience as a spring board to a better future.
Been trying avoid commenting on this thread because its tragic what happened to this kid and there is no need to pile on here...
That said. . Rysheed Jordan is a bad kid and has been a bad apple since his high school days... amazing talents but he was either too dumb or just didn't care to use his abilities to help his family break the cycle they were in. He had the golden ticket for himself and his family and threw it away.
This is a kid that traveled the country playing basketball and saw first hand all the things that his hard work might deliver to him if he made right choices.
Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today. Not saying there are not issues in America but I am sorry, they just don't apply here.
This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc.... then he was handed the chance to get out on a silver platter. All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.. he chose to stop going to class, to walk away from his education and basketball opportunities..
There are plenty of kids in similar situations who don't make the awful choices he did.
The day he picked up a gun, he knew where it might lead and he obviously didn't care.
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He should be given a second chance after he is released from prison.
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"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
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You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know.
As this statement applies to Jordan... maybe it was what he knew as kid but he was able to get out of that situation and see a different world in college.... he saw that basketball could give him the way out and he obviously didn't care... he made adult decisions and now rightfully has to deal with adult consequences.
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Just a tidbit; apparently after his freshman year at SJU, Jordan was given opportunity to spend time with John Lucas program, but declined.
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You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know.
As this statement applies to Jordan... maybe it was what he knew as kid but he was able to get out of that situation and see a different world in college.... he saw that basketball could give him the way out and he obviously didn't care... he made adult decisions and now rightfully has to deal with adult consequences.
I caught beatings as a kid. I guess that would be a good excuse to rob and shoot people. Thug life for Baldi
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"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
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Just a tidbit; apparently after his freshman year at SJU, Jordan was given opportunity to spend time with John Lucas program, but declined.
. Funny because I thought that JL had done so much for D'angelo that he could have benefited from the JL program after his first year. Thanks for the info as it further illustrates what a fool he was.
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As this statement applies to Jordan... maybe it was what he knew as kid but he was able to get out of that situation and see a different world in college.... he saw that basketball could give him the way out and he obviously didn't care... he made adult decisions and now rightfully has to deal with adult consequences.
Do you think if he'd had a different child hood he'd have made different decisions as an adult? All the literature correlates single family households with crime, poverty, suicide, drug abuse and 100 other pathologies. I'm not saying it excuses his behavior, but its impossible to deny that his youthful deprivation made him the man he became.
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The worst thing to happen to the black family in the last fifty years is the LBJ "Great Society". Totally demasculated the black male and uninspired the black male for taking responsibility for his family. Why should the black male, who up until then had only mediocre patriarchal/father figures, marry the mother of his children, provide for his family and be a father to his children? Thanks to the "Great Society", single mothers and their children were given free housing [Section 8], free medical care [Medicaid], free money [welfare] and free additional benefits [WIC, Food Stamps, etc.] Why should the father of the children of single mothers get up at 4am to work a construction job? The state and federal benefits far outweigh what that man could have done in a legitimite blue collar or white collar job.
Its called a cycle, because there is no end, it just keeps going and going, generation to generation. Thank you LBJ and the Congress of 1965.
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The worst thing to happen to the black family in the last fifty years is the LBJ "Great Society". Totally demasculated the black male and uninspired the black male for taking responsibility for his family. Why should the black male, who up until then had only mediocre patriarchal/father figures, marry the mother of his children, provide for his family and be a father to his children? Thanks to the "Great Society", single mothers and their children were given free housing [Section 8], free medical care [Medicaid], free money [welfare] and free additional benefits [WIC, Food Stamps, etc.] Why should the father of the children of single mothers get up at 4am to work a construction job? The state and federal benefits far outweigh what that man could have done in a legitimite blue collar or white collar job.
Its called a cycle, because there is no end, it just keeps going and going, generation to generation. Thank you LBJ and the Congress of 1965.
Racist.
Just kidding. The democrat party comprises a permanent underclass maintained by a cadre of government and quasi government bureaucrats, unions and the chattering classes. The ultimate goal of the system is to diminish personal liberty in the name of the greater good and in favor of the benign fascism of an ever growing government leviathan. The destruction of minority families and communities is critical to that effort.
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Wonder who black Jesus is voting for this year?
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Wonder who black Jesus is voting for this year?
Felons can't vote.
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Wonder who black Jesus is voting for this year?
Felons can't vote.
That's racist
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The worst thing to happen to the black family in the last fifty years is the LBJ "Great Society". Totally demasculated the black male and uninspired the black male for taking responsibility for his family. Why should the black male, who up until then had only mediocre patriarchal/father figures, marry the mother of his children, provide for his family and be a father to his children? Thanks to the "Great Society", single mothers and their children were given free housing [Section 8], free medical care [Medicaid], free money [welfare] and free additional benefits [WIC, Food Stamps, etc.] Why should the father of the children of single mothers get up at 4am to work a construction job? The state and federal benefits far outweigh what that man could have done in a legitimite blue collar or white collar job.
Its called a cycle, because there is no end, it just keeps going and going, generation to generation. Thank you LBJ and the Congress of 1965.
Racist.
Just kidding. The democrat party comprises a permanent underclass maintained by a cadre of government and quasi government bureaucrats, unions and the chattering classes. The ultimate goal of the system is to diminish personal liberty in the name of the greater good and in favor of the benign fascism of an ever growing government leviathan. The destruction of minority families and communities is critical to that effort.
It amazes me how the republican establishment has been unable to have this argument resonate with those in poverty, despite the fact that constant progressive rule has done absolutely nothing to elevate these underprivileged folks out of poverty. The liberals have a stranglehold on these voters despite purposely holding them down.
Those in poverty overwhelmingly vote liberal, so liberals need as many people in poverty as possible.
Unfortunately as the youth of this country moves further to the left than ever before, completely ignoring how liberal policies have destroyed everything they've touched in the history of man, instances like this with young talented underprivileged kids and young adults like Rysheed throwing everything away for no reason will continue to be commonplace.
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"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
Respect you opinion but generous allowance? If by generous you mean enough to ensure survival then yeah very generous. Do you know what the allowances actually are?
Juice - 128oz
Milk - 16 qt.
Cereal - 36 oz.
Fruits and Vegetables - $8
Peanut butter - 18 oz
Eggs - 1 dozen
Beans - 64 oz
Whole wheat - 2 lbs
This is the maximum package a child will get per month and your only eligible if you are under 185% of the FPL, 1-4 years. Once the child hits 5, no longer eligible. School lunch and breakfast? Again great and its better than nothing, but I guess that means you believe that a child shouldn't eat dinner and since they receive school breakfast and lunch they shouldn't be hungry for the rest of the day. Many of you speak and criticize from the outside looking in making judgment based off theoretical applications and have no clue what is actually going on. Do you know how many parents sell what little benefits they have for drugs? Its much closer to Oliver Twist than you may want to believe.
Jordan's life was easier than most middle class kids is an insane comment. Its even more scarier that many may believe that notion. How many of your close family and friends were murdered? When you grow up in poverty, many children's' role models are the pushers, pimps, hustler's, gang bangers, and thieves. That's what they mostly see around them on a daily basis and grow up aspiring to be. Is that what the middle class kids see? Is their parents selling their lunch money for drugs? Or is there parents making sure they are fed, go to school, help them with their home work and maybe even read them a story before they go to bed in there very own room. Sure there are bad example in middle class as well just as there are some good examples of doing the right things in poverty ridden neighborhoods but it gets lost inside of all the madness. A kid sees some one who we may consider doing things the right way live on the same block as all the other hooligans. It gets lost.
Again lets not make any excuses for the young man, at some point he has to grow up and take responsibility for his actions. Lets not pretend however than somehow he and the multitude of young people like him (minus his ability) somehow had it better because they were eligible for WIC and schools free nutrition program.
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The worst thing to happen to the black family in the last fifty years is the LBJ "Great Society". Totally demasculated the black male and uninspired the black male for taking responsibility for his family. Why should the black male, who up until then had only mediocre patriarchal/father figures, marry the mother of his children, provide for his family and be a father to his children? Thanks to the "Great Society", single mothers and their children were given free housing [Section 8], free medical care [Medicaid], free money [welfare] and free additional benefits [WIC, Food Stamps, etc.] Why should the father of the children of single mothers get up at 4am to work a construction job? The state and federal benefits far outweigh what that man could have done in a legitimite blue collar or white collar job.
Its called a cycle, because there is no end, it just keeps going and going, generation to generation. Thank you LBJ and the Congress of 1965.
All this time I thought slavery was the ultimate cause of the disenfranchisement that plagued the black family/community. It was LBJ and Congress in 1965... dam those liberals, life was so much better for the black community prior to that.
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Wow!
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It's not the governments job to feed kids. If you can't take care of your kid or don't want to, don't have them. Keep your legs crossed and zipper up . If you can't take care of yourself, how can you possibly provide for your 7 kids?
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The worst thing to happen to the black family in the last fifty years is the LBJ "Great Society". Totally demasculated the black male and uninspired the black male for taking responsibility for his family. Why should the black male, who up until then had only mediocre patriarchal/father figures, marry the mother of his children, provide for his family and be a father to his children? Thanks to the "Great Society", single mothers and their children were given free housing [Section 8], free medical care [Medicaid], free money [welfare] and free additional benefits [WIC, Food Stamps, etc.] Why should the father of the children of single mothers get up at 4am to work a construction job? The state and federal benefits far outweigh what that man could have done in a legitimite blue collar or white collar job.
Its called a cycle, because there is no end, it just keeps going and going, generation to generation. Thank you LBJ and the Congress of 1965.
All this time I thought slavery was the ultimate cause of the disenfranchisement that plagued the black family/community. It was LBJ and Congress in 1965... dam those liberals, life was so much better for the black community prior to that.
http://www.quotes.net/quote/57364
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It's not the governments job to feed kids. If you can't take care of your kid or don't want to, don't have them. Keep your legs crossed and zipper up . If you can't take care of yourself, how can you possibly provide for your 7 kids?
The people are the government, and decide what they should or shouldn't be doing, in theory of course. But really, they are having kids even though they can't provide for them. Now what? What is the solution? This isn't a black/white issue but a socio economic one as more people from European decent are on public assistance. Kids grow up, get stronger, remove the safety net and you risk an uprising if your society continues to embrace a capitalistic system.
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It's not the governments job to feed kids. If you can't take care of your kid or don't want to, don't have them. Keep your legs crossed and zipper up . If you can't take care of yourself, how can you possibly provide for your 7 kids?
The people are the government, and decide what they should or shouldn't be doing, in theory of course. But really, they are having kids even though they can't provide for them. Now what? What is the solution? This isn't a black/white issue but a socio economic one as more people from European decent are on public assistance. Kids grow up, get stronger, remove the safety net and you risk an uprising if your society continues to embrace a capitalistic system.
Start with drug tests for welfare assistance. And those physically able that are on assistance need to do something...take classes, mop and sweep the street, something. I'm not talking about elderly, veterans or disabled. Random searches of the households that are on govt assistance. Weapons or drugs found, out on your arse you go. There is zero incentive to work or better yourself while your sitting at home waiting for the 1st of the month.
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It's not the governments job to feed kids. If you can't take care of your kid or don't want to, don't have them. Keep your legs crossed and zipper up . If you can't take care of yourself, how can you possibly provide for your 7 kids?
The people are the government, and decide what they should or shouldn't be doing, in theory of course. But really, they are having kids even though they can't provide for them. Now what? What is the solution? This isn't a black/white issue but a socio economic one as more people from European decent are on public assistance. Kids grow up, get stronger, remove the safety net and you risk an uprising if your society continues to embrace a capitalistic system.
Start with drug tests for welfare assistance. And those physically able that are on assistance need to do something...take classes, mop and sweep the street, something. I'm not talking about elderly, veterans or disabled. Random searches of the households that are on govt assistance. Weapons or drugs found, out on your arse you go. There is zero incentive to work or better yourself while your sitting at home waiting for the 1st of the month.
That would be an illegal search. A government benefit can't be conditioned on an unrelated requirement.
Youre eligible for food stamps if you're poor. You're eligible for a library card if you are of age and prove residency.
Drug testing or searching the homes of recipients would be like taking away grandma's medicare if she has outstanding parking tickets. It's unrelated to her eligibility for the benefit.
Also, Fun, braintrust and Co. ... I hate to be the one to bring facts to a cliche fight, but the War on Poverty has been a resounding success. It is undisputable that welfare programs reduce proverty. Both here and abroad. Prior to 1967 the poverty rate was 26%, today it's 15%. And yes, that includes inflation and the cost of living adjustments.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/study-us-poverty-rate-decreased-over-past-half-century-thanks-to-safety-net-programs/2013/12/09/9322c834-60f3-11e3-94ad-004fefa61ee6_story.html
Furthermore, every country that has initiated a "welfare state", has seen a precipitous drop in objective poverty. The morality and fairness of a welfare state can certainly be debated. But it is a fact that government redistribution reduces the poverty rate.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare%27s_effect_on_poverty
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It's not the governments job to feed kids. If you can't take care of your kid or don't want to, don't have them. Keep your legs crossed and zipper up . If you can't take care of yourself, how can you possibly provide for your 7 kids?
The people are the government, and decide what they should or shouldn't be doing, in theory of course. But really, they are having kids even though they can't provide for them. Now what? What is the solution? This isn't a black/white issue but a socio economic one as more people from European decent are on public assistance. Kids grow up, get stronger, remove the safety net and you risk an uprising if your society continues to embrace a capitalistic system.
Start with drug tests for welfare assistance. And those physically able that are on assistance need to do something...take classes, mop and sweep the street, something. I'm not talking about elderly, veterans or disabled. Random searches of the households that are on govt assistance. Weapons or drugs found, out on your arse you go. There is zero incentive to work or better yourself while your sitting at home waiting for the 1st of the month.
That would be an illegal search. A government benefit can't be conditioned on an unrelated requirement.
Youre eligible for food stamps if you're poor. You're eligible for a library card if you are of age and prove residency.
Drug testing or searching the homes of recipients would be like taking away grandma's medicare if she has outstanding parking tickets. It's unrelated to her eligibility for the benefit.
Also, Fun, braintrust and Co. ... I hate to be the one to bring facts to a cliche fight, but the War on Poverty has been a resounding success. It is undisputable that welfare programs reduce proverty. Both here and abroad. Prior to 1967 the poverty rate was 26%, today it's 15%. And yes, that includes inflation and the cost of living adjustments.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/study-us-poverty-rate-decreased-over-past-half-century-thanks-to-safety-net-programs/2013/12/09/9322c834-60f3-11e3-94ad-004fefa61ee6_story.html
Furthermore, every country that has initiated a "welfare state", has seen a precipitous drop in objective poverty. The morality and fairness of a welfare state can certainly be debated. But it is a fact that government redistribution reduces the poverty rate.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare%27s_effect_on_poverty
If the housing is paid by the government(us) in any way, how is that an illegal search? I have to pass a drug test to get a job which pays me, why shouldn't the govt do the same to people they are funding? I know it's the law, not really looking for an answer
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Lastly, the so called "welfare trap", or disincentive to work is rarely applicable now under reforms that have put time limits on benefits, require work or public service, or have gradual means testing for elidgibility. Benefit programs aren't all or nothing. You retain some elidgibility as you enter a low paying job so that cumulatively you're earning more than you did in just benefits alone.
It requires a broader view, but helping your neighbor helps you. Nobody wants to pay more taxes so that we can have benefits to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. But if your two neighbors are foreclosed on... your own home's value is going to plummet. Everyone in the neighborhood will suffer. Same is true for a single mother who is unemployed. A safety net lifts all boats, otherwise we'd have more ghettos and drug addicts roaming the streets and that means less customers ans markets for whatever it is you or your company sell ... and that results in less "good" middle class jobs etc.
Public assistance isn't perfect. And there can be fraud and disincentive. But it's the best option for a complex society. Tweak it to be more generous or restrictive .. whatever, but the notion that it can be done away with completely or even on a large scale... that's a fallacy.
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It's not the governments job to feed kids. If you can't take care of your kid or don't want to, don't have them. Keep your legs crossed and zipper up . If you can't take care of yourself, how can you possibly provide for your 7 kids?
The people are the government, and decide what they should or shouldn't be doing, in theory of course. But really, they are having kids even though they can't provide for them. Now what? What is the solution? This isn't a black/white issue but a socio economic one as more people from European decent are on public assistance. Kids grow up, get stronger, remove the safety net and you risk an uprising if your society continues to embrace a capitalistic system.
Start with drug tests for welfare assistance. And those physically able that are on assistance need to do something...take classes, mop and sweep the street, something. I'm not talking about elderly, veterans or disabled. Random searches of the households that are on govt assistance. Weapons or drugs found, out on your arse you go. There is zero incentive to work or better yourself while your sitting at home waiting for the 1st of the month.
That would be an illegal search. A government benefit can't be conditioned on an unrelated requirement.
Youre eligible for food stamps if you're poor. You're eligible for a library card if you are of age and prove residency.
Drug testing or searching the homes of recipients would be like taking away grandma's medicare if she has outstanding parking tickets. It's unrelated to her eligibility for the benefit.
Also, Fun, braintrust and Co. ... I hate to be the one to bring facts to a cliche fight, but the War on Poverty has been a resounding success. It is undisputable that welfare programs reduce proverty. Both here and abroad. Prior to 1967 the poverty rate was 26%, today it's 15%. And yes, that includes inflation and the cost of living adjustments.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/study-us-poverty-rate-decreased-over-past-half-century-thanks-to-safety-net-programs/2013/12/09/9322c834-60f3-11e3-94ad-004fefa61ee6_story.html
Furthermore, every country that has initiated a "welfare state", has seen a precipitous drop in objective poverty. The morality and fairness of a welfare state can certainly be debated. But it is a fact that government redistribution reduces the poverty rate.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare%27s_effect_on_poverty
If the housing is paid by the government(us) in any way, how is that an illegal search? I have to pass a drug test to get a job which pays me, why shouldn't the govt do the same to people they are funding? I know it's the law, not really looking for an answer
It's a fair debate, and I'm not trying to be a know it all but the answer is the 4th amendment gives us a right to privacy from the government, not private entities.
And for what it's worth your position has been upheld and several states in the south do require drug tests.
*edit, I take that back. Scotus struck it down on the grounds that Florida couldn't prove welfare recipients were more likely to be drug users than the general population.
in effect, Florida had no probable cause to search them. PC has to be specific to an individual person.
Regardlesss, this has gotten off track but I felt the safety net policies needed defending.
In Jordans case he was able to benefit from them and avoid more abject poverty, and still chose the path he did. He needs to be held accountable.
but there are plenty of people who used the small help that comes from public housing or school lunches to make a proud living and life.
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It's not the governments job to feed kids. If you can't take care of your kid or don't want to, don't have them. Keep your legs crossed and zipper up . If you can't take care of yourself, how can you possibly provide for your 7 kids?
The people are the government, and decide what they should or shouldn't be doing, in theory of course. But really, they are having kids even though they can't provide for them. Now what? What is the solution? This isn't a black/white issue but a socio economic one as more people from European decent are on public assistance. Kids grow up, get stronger, remove the safety net and you risk an uprising if your society continues to embrace a capitalistic system.
Start with drug tests for welfare assistance. And those physically able that are on assistance need to do something...take classes, mop and sweep the street, something. I'm not talking about elderly, veterans or disabled. Random searches of the households that are on govt assistance. Weapons or drugs found, out on your arse you go. There is zero incentive to work or better yourself while your sitting at home waiting for the 1st of the month.
That would be an illegal search. A government benefit can't be conditioned on an unrelated requirement.
Youre eligible for food stamps if you're poor. You're eligible for a library card if you are of age and prove residency.
Drug testing or searching the homes of recipients would be like taking away grandma's medicare if she has outstanding parking tickets. It's unrelated to her eligibility for the benefit.
Also, Fun, braintrust and Co. ... I hate to be the one to bring facts to a cliche fight, but the War on Poverty has been a resounding success. It is undisputable that welfare programs reduce proverty. Both here and abroad. Prior to 1967 the poverty rate was 26%, today it's 15%. And yes, that includes inflation and the cost of living adjustments.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/study-us-poverty-rate-decreased-over-past-half-century-thanks-to-safety-net-programs/2013/12/09/9322c834-60f3-11e3-94ad-004fefa61ee6_story.html
Furthermore, every country that has initiated a "welfare state", has seen a precipitous drop in objective poverty. The morality and fairness of a welfare state can certainly be debated. But it is a fact that government redistribution reduces the poverty rate.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare%27s_effect_on_poverty
If the housing is paid by the government(us) in any way, how is that an illegal search? I have to pass a drug test to get a job which pays me, why shouldn't the govt do the same to people they are funding? I know it's the law, not really looking for an answer
It's a fair debate, and I'm not trying to be a know it all but the answer is the 4th amendment gives us a right to privacy from the government, not private entities.
And for what it's worth your position has been upheld and several states in the south do require drug tests.
Yes, those states are a great start.
What I dont understand is - if the government is paying for your housing, how is that an invasion of privacy? They own you
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It's not the governments job to feed kids. If you can't take care of your kid or don't want to, don't have them. Keep your legs crossed and zipper up . If you can't take care of yourself, how can you possibly provide for your 7 kids?
The people are the government, and decide what they should or shouldn't be doing, in theory of course. But really, they are having kids even though they can't provide for them. Now what? What is the solution? This isn't a black/white issue but a socio economic one as more people from European decent are on public assistance. Kids grow up, get stronger, remove the safety net and you risk an uprising if your society continues to embrace a capitalistic system.
Start with drug tests for welfare assistance. And those physically able that are on assistance need to do something...take classes, mop and sweep the street, something. I'm not talking about elderly, veterans or disabled. Random searches of the households that are on govt assistance. Weapons or drugs found, out on your arse you go. There is zero incentive to work or better yourself while your sitting at home waiting for the 1st of the month.
Also, Fun, braintrust and Co. ... I hate to be the one to bring facts to a cliche fight, but the War on Poverty has been a resounding success. It is undisputable that welfare programs reduce proverty. Both here and abroad. Prior to 1967 the poverty rate was 26%, today it's 15%. And yes, that includes inflation and the cost of living adjustments.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/study-us-poverty-rate-decreased-over-past-half-century-thanks-to-safety-net-programs/2013/12/09/9322c834-60f3-11e3-94ad-004fefa61ee6_story.html
Furthermore, every country that has initiated a "welfare state", has seen a precipitous drop in objective poverty. The morality and fairness of a welfare state can certainly be debated. But it is a fact that government redistribution reduces the poverty rate.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare%27s_effect_on_poverty
uh, no.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2014/03/19/the-war-on-poverty-wasnt-a-failure-it-was-a-catastrophe/#2279a4517b6c
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/19/rector-the-war-on-poverty-50-years-of-failure/
"The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its annual poverty report. The report claims that in 2013, 14.5 percent of Americans were poor. Remarkably, that’s almost the same poverty rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty started."
Well it didn't go up so I guess it's a resounding success! Let's spend trillions more to keep it there!
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Well it didn't go up so I guess it's a resounding success! Let's spend trillions more to keep it there!
Piling on.
"This week, the Census Bureau will most likely report that the poverty rate last year was about 14 percent, essentially the same rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty was announced ... according to the Census, there has been no net progress in reducing poverty since the mid to late 1960s. Since that time, the poverty rate has undulated slowly, falling by two to three percentage points during good economic times and rising by a similar amount when the economy slows. Overall, the trajectory of official poverty for the past 45 years has been flat or slightly upward.
The static nature of poverty is especially surprising because (as Chart 1 also shows) poverty fell dramatically during the period before the War on Poverty began. In 1950, the poverty rate was 32.2 percent. By 1965 (the first year during which any War on Poverty programs began to operate), the rate had been cut nearly in half to 17.3 percent"
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/09/the-war-on-poverty-after-50-years
Even if Desco's "facts" were correct, the government spent 22 trillion dollars over 50 years and managed to reduce the poverty rate by 10 percent. That's not a resounding success. It's not a resounding anything. There are about 50 million people living below the poverty line. So the US spent 5 million dollars per person to move 5 million people from poverty to the lower middle class.
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It requires a broader view, but helping your neighbor helps you. Nobody wants to pay more taxes so that we can have benefits to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. But if your two neighbors are foreclosed on... your own home's value is going to plummet. Everyone in the neighborhood will suffer. Same is true for a single mother who is unemployed. A safety net lifts all boats, otherwise we'd have more ghettos and drug addicts roaming the streets and that means less customers ans markets for whatever it is you or your company sell ... and that results in less "good" middle class jobs etc.
Nobody's saying you shouldn't help your neighbor Gandhi. The question is how your neighbor gets helped and whether the "help" your neighbor gets actually benefits your neighbor. The federal government incentivizing single parent households doesn't help anyone. Instead, it creates a permanent underclass living in a culture of poverty, pathology and dependency.
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The worst thing to happen to the black family in the last fifty years is the LBJ "Great Society". Totally demasculated the black male and uninspired the black male for taking responsibility for his family. Why should the black male, who up until then had only mediocre patriarchal/father figures, marry the mother of his children, provide for his family and be a father to his children? Thanks to the "Great Society", single mothers and their children were given free housing [Section 8], free medical care [Medicaid], free money [welfare] and free additional benefits [WIC, Food Stamps, etc.] Why should the father of the children of single mothers get up at 4am to work a construction job? The state and federal benefits far outweigh what that man could have done in a legitimite blue collar or white collar job.
Its called a cycle, because there is no end, it just keeps going and going, generation to generation. Thank you LBJ and the Congress of 1965.
Racist.
Just kidding. The democrat party comprises a permanent underclass maintained by a cadre of government and quasi government bureaucrats, unions and the chattering classes. The ultimate goal of the system is to diminish personal liberty in the name of the greater good and in favor of the benign fascism of an ever growing government leviathan. The destruction of minority families and communities is critical to that effort.
Home Run, Foad. The Democratic party, its allies in the unions and mass media have 0% interest in helping poverty classes, uneducated classes and any under class rise to become educated and self sufficient. They stay in power by giving a man a fish rather than teaching him how to fish. The examples are too numerous to list. Posting the LBJ quote was spot on.
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The worst thing to happen to the black family in the last fifty years is the LBJ "Great Society". Totally demasculated the black male and uninspired the black male for taking responsibility for his family. Why should the black male, who up until then had only mediocre patriarchal/father figures, marry the mother of his children, provide for his family and be a father to his children? Thanks to the "Great Society", single mothers and their children were given free housing [Section 8], free medical care [Medicaid], free money [welfare] and free additional benefits [WIC, Food Stamps, etc.] Why should the father of the children of single mothers get up at 4am to work a construction job? The state and federal benefits far outweigh what that man could have done in a legitimite blue collar or white collar job.
Its called a cycle, because there is no end, it just keeps going and going, generation to generation. Thank you LBJ and the Congress of 1965.
Racist.
Just kidding. The democrat party comprises a permanent underclass maintained by a cadre of government and quasi government bureaucrats, unions and the chattering classes. The ultimate goal of the system is to diminish personal liberty in the name of the greater good and in favor of the benign fascism of an ever growing government leviathan. The destruction of minority families and communities is critical to that effort.
Home Run, Foad. The Democratic party, its allies in the unions and mass media have 0% interest in helping poverty classes, uneducated classes and any under class rise to become educated and self sufficient. They stay in power by giving a man a fish rather than teaching him how to fish. The examples are too numerous to list. Posting the LBJ quote was spot on.
Good thing, the Republican Party has a great leader in Donald Trump to fight for the poverty stricken people of our country. What a great man he is.
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The worst thing to happen to the black family in the last fifty years is the LBJ "Great Society". Totally demasculated the black male and uninspired the black male for taking responsibility for his family. Why should the black male, who up until then had only mediocre patriarchal/father figures, marry the mother of his children, provide for his family and be a father to his children? Thanks to the "Great Society", single mothers and their children were given free housing [Section 8], free medical care [Medicaid], free money [welfare] and free additional benefits [WIC, Food Stamps, etc.] Why should the father of the children of single mothers get up at 4am to work a construction job? The state and federal benefits far outweigh what that man could have done in a legitimite blue collar or white collar job.
Its called a cycle, because there is no end, it just keeps going and going, generation to generation. Thank you LBJ and the Congress of 1965.
Racist.
Just kidding. The democrat party comprises a permanent underclass maintained by a cadre of government and quasi government bureaucrats, unions and the chattering classes. The ultimate goal of the system is to diminish personal liberty in the name of the greater good and in favor of the benign fascism of an ever growing government leviathan. The destruction of minority families and communities is critical to that effort.
Home Run, Foad. The Democratic party, its allies in the unions and mass media have 0% interest in helping poverty classes, uneducated classes and any under class rise to become educated and self sufficient. They stay in power by giving a man a fish rather than teaching him how to fish. The examples are too numerous to list. Posting the LBJ quote was spot on.
Good thing, the Republican Party has a great leader in Donald Trump to fight for the poverty stricken people of our country. What a great man he is.
This
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It took all this for me to notice Ima be back soon #sheedwords
Dudes that i fed and looked out for can't even make sure that my family is ok I be back soon #sheedwords
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Well it didn't go up so I guess it's a resounding success! Let's spend trillions more to keep it there!
Piling on.
"This week, the Census Bureau will most likely report that the poverty rate last year was about 14 percent, essentially the same rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty was announced ... according to the Census, there has been no net progress in reducing poverty since the mid to late 1960s. Since that time, the poverty rate has undulated slowly, falling by two to three percentage points during good economic times and rising by a similar amount when the economy slows. Overall, the trajectory of official poverty for the past 45 years has been flat or slightly upward.
The static nature of poverty is especially surprising because (as Chart 1 also shows) poverty fell dramatically during the period before the War on Poverty began. In 1950, the poverty rate was 32.2 percent. By 1965 (the first year during which any War on Poverty programs began to operate), the rate had been cut nearly in half to 17.3 percent"
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/09/the-war-on-poverty-after-50-years
Even if Desco's "facts" were correct, the government spent 22 trillion dollars over 50 years and managed to reduce the poverty rate by 10 percent. That's not a resounding success. It's not a resounding anything. There are about 50 million people living below the poverty line. So the US spent 5 million dollars per person to move 5 million people from poverty to the lower middle class.
Don't think its that simple. I hear the pundits speak about how poor of a recovery we have from the "great recession" compared to previous recovery's and quote numbers to prove it. Its misleading. The economic landscape has changed drastically today from yester year. What is never mentioned is the fact that technology has given companies the ability to outsource a significant amount of their workforce as compare to 50 years ago. Mostly low/entry level positions. This undoubtedly impacts the poverty level. I cant deny that a side effect of public assistance perpetuate a pathology of dependency. There will always be a segment of the population that takes advantage of situations. However, by its very nature, a capitalist system will have a segment of its population in poverty, public assistance is not the cause, it attempts to be a solution. The question is then, how else should this population be addressed if you took away the safety net?
-
Well it didn't go up so I guess it's a resounding success! Let's spend trillions more to keep it there!
Piling on.
"This week, the Census Bureau will most likely report that the poverty rate last year was about 14 percent, essentially the same rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty was announced ... according to the Census, there has been no net progress in reducing poverty since the mid to late 1960s. Since that time, the poverty rate has undulated slowly, falling by two to three percentage points during good economic times and rising by a similar amount when the economy slows. Overall, the trajectory of official poverty for the past 45 years has been flat or slightly upward.
The static nature of poverty is especially surprising because (as Chart 1 also shows) poverty fell dramatically during the period before the War on Poverty began. In 1950, the poverty rate was 32.2 percent. By 1965 (the first year during which any War on Poverty programs began to operate), the rate had been cut nearly in half to 17.3 percent"
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/09/the-war-on-poverty-after-50-years
Even if Desco's "facts" were correct, the government spent 22 trillion dollars over 50 years and managed to reduce the poverty rate by 10 percent. That's not a resounding success. It's not a resounding anything. There are about 50 million people living below the poverty line. So the US spent 5 million dollars per person to move 5 million people from poverty to the lower middle class.
Don't think its that simple. I hear the pundits speak about how poor of a recovery we have from the "great recession" compared to previous recovery's and quote numbers to prove it. Its misleading. The economic landscape has changed drastically today from yester year. What is never mentioned is the fact that technology has given companies the ability to outsource a significant amount of their workforce as compare to 50 years ago. Mostly low/entry level positions. This undoubtedly impacts the poverty level. I cant deny that a side effect of public assistance perpetuate a pathology of dependency. There will always be a segment of the population that takes advantage of situations. However, by its very nature, a capitalist system will have a segment of its population in poverty, public assistance is not the cause, it attempts to be a solution. The question is then, how else should this population be addressed if you took away the safety net?
I don't think anybody wants to do away with a safety net, however a safety net is way different than the runaway welfare state we currently have which deincentivizes people from working because they make as much or more in welfare than the would working a low skilled job. If you don't think there is a HUGE number of able bodied individuals that choose not to work because they are content with staying on welfare then you need to get out of the house more.
"However, by its very nature, a capitalist system will have a segment of its population in poverty".
What other system doesn't or wouldn't have a segment of it's population in poverty?
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Don't think its that simple. I hear the pundits speak about how poor of a recovery we have from the "great recession" compared to previous recovery's and quote numbers to prove it. Its misleading. The economic landscape has changed drastically today from yester year. What is never mentioned is the fact that technology has given companies the ability to outsource a significant amount of their workforce as compare to 50 years ago. Mostly low/entry level positions. This undoubtedly impacts the poverty level. I cant deny that a side effect of public assistance perpetuate a pathology of dependency. There will always be a segment of the population that takes advantage of situations. However, by its very nature, a capitalist system will have a segment of its population in poverty, public assistance is not the cause, it attempts to be a solution. The question is then, how else should this population be addressed if you took away the safety net?
In the first place, capitalism is the greatest instrument of social change the world has ever known. It has brought more people more wealth and more prosperity than all other economic systems combined. Whereas the socialism so beloved by progressives purposefully killed twice as many people in the last century than died in two world wars: 30 million dead of engineered mass starvation in the Soviet Union; another 30 million "reeducated" in China; two thirds of the population murdered in Cambodia. So I find it hard to take you seriously when you talk about the "capitalist system," as if there's another alternative. There isn't. Sweden wouldn't exist today if not for NATO, paid for by capitalism.
As to the poor, the poor will always be with you. As to the social safety net, I don't deny that there are those who need charity and that in a civilized society there is an imperative to deliver charity to them. By all means feed the poor, treat the sick, accommodate the infirm. The question is how to best serve those in need, who should do the serving, and who should pay for it. In my utopia local charities would care for local needies through voluntary contributions - even I give money to charity and I hate everyone. (Also in my utopia my bong would have a vagina.) In a republic state and local governments would tend to deprived citizens through reasonable and fairly legislated taxation. In the US today charity is administered by a ravenous brobdingnagian federal bureaucracy that perpetuates poverty and despair in the name of compassion, as a means of usurping the liberty of its citizens, with the goal of making them its subjects. The worst of it is the incentivizing of single parent households, which by every metric is a plague upon children and communities.
As to the economy, there was in the past a great depression, various lesser depressions, a couple of world wars, a civil war, various other wars, a dust bowl, and floods of biblical proportion. At the beginning of the 20th century 100 million people - 5 percent of the world's population - died from the flu. (Fortunately capitalism found a cure.) If the greatest threat to its security this generation faces is outsourcing, that's a pretty sweet deal. If the current cadre of whiny progressives hadn't spent their childhoods wearing bicycle helmets while playing T ball and not keeping score having to work a minimum wage job wouldn't seem as onerous as it does.
-
Well it didn't go up so I guess it's a resounding success! Let's spend trillions more to keep it there!
Piling on.
"This week, the Census Bureau will most likely report that the poverty rate last year was about 14 percent, essentially the same rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty was announced ... according to the Census, there has been no net progress in reducing poverty since the mid to late 1960s. Since that time, the poverty rate has undulated slowly, falling by two to three percentage points during good economic times and rising by a similar amount when the economy slows. Overall, the trajectory of official poverty for the past 45 years has been flat or slightly upward.
The static nature of poverty is especially surprising because (as Chart 1 also shows) poverty fell dramatically during the period before the War on Poverty began. In 1950, the poverty rate was 32.2 percent. By 1965 (the first year during which any War on Poverty programs began to operate), the rate had been cut nearly in half to 17.3 percent"
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/09/the-war-on-poverty-after-50-years
Even if Desco's "facts" were correct, the government spent 22 trillion dollars over 50 years and managed to reduce the poverty rate by 10 percent. That's not a resounding success. It's not a resounding anything. There are about 50 million people living below the poverty line. So the US spent 5 million dollars per person to move 5 million people from poverty to the lower middle class.
Don't think its that simple. I hear the pundits speak about how poor of a recovery we have from the "great recession" compared to previous recovery's and quote numbers to prove it. Its misleading. The economic landscape has changed drastically today from yester year. What is never mentioned is the fact that technology has given companies the ability to outsource a significant amount of their workforce as compare to 50 years ago. Mostly low/entry level positions. This undoubtedly impacts the poverty level. I cant deny that a side effect of public assistance perpetuate a pathology of dependency. There will always be a segment of the population that takes advantage of situations. However, by its very nature, a capitalist system will have a segment of its population in poverty, public assistance is not the cause, it attempts to be a solution. The question is then, how else should this population be addressed if you took away the safety net?
I don't think anybody wants to do away with a safety net, however a safety net is way different than the runaway welfare state we currently have which deincentivizes people from working because they make as much or more in welfare than the would working a low skilled job. If you don't think there is a HUGE number of able bodied individuals that choose not to work because they are content with staying on welfare then you need to get out of the house more.
"However, by its very nature, a capitalist system will have a segment of its population in poverty".
What other system doesn't or wouldn't have a segment of it's population in poverty?
Of course there will be people who take advantage of situations. I'm not denying that. However when you say people have no incentive due to them earning as much or more in welfare, I'm curious, do you know what the actual benefit amounts are for recipients? I'll tell you its not as much as you may think.
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Don't think its that simple. I hear the pundits speak about how poor of a recovery we have from the "great recession" compared to previous recovery's and quote numbers to prove it. Its misleading. The economic landscape has changed drastically today from yester year. What is never mentioned is the fact that technology has given companies the ability to outsource a significant amount of their workforce as compare to 50 years ago. Mostly low/entry level positions. This undoubtedly impacts the poverty level. I cant deny that a side effect of public assistance perpetuate a pathology of dependency. There will always be a segment of the population that takes advantage of situations. However, by its very nature, a capitalist system will have a segment of its population in poverty, public assistance is not the cause, it attempts to be a solution. The question is then, how else should this population be addressed if you took away the safety net?
In the first place, capitalism is the greatest instrument of social change the world has ever known. It has brought more people more wealth and more prosperity than all other economic systems combined. Whereas the socialism so beloved by progressives purposefully killed twice as many people in the last century than died in two world wars: 30 million dead of engineered mass starvation in the Soviet Union; another 30 million "reeducated" in China; two thirds of the population murdered in Cambodia. So I find it hard to take you seriously when you talk about the "capitalist system," as if there's another alternative. There isn't. Sweden wouldn't exist today if not for NATO, paid for by capitalism.
As to the poor, the poor will always be with you. As to the social safety net, I don't deny that there are those who need charity and that in a civilized society there is an imperative to deliver charity to them. By all means feed the poor, treat the sick, accommodate the infirm. The question is how to best serve those in need, who should do the serving, and who should pay for it. In my utopia local charities would care for local needies through voluntary contributions - even I give money to charity and I hate everyone. (Also in my utopia my bong would have a vagina.) In a republic state and local governments would tend to deprived citizens through reasonable and fairly legislated taxation. In the US today charity is administered by a ravenous brobdingnagian federal bureaucracy that perpetuates poverty and despair in the name of compassion, as a means of usurping the liberty of its citizens, with the goal of making them its subjects. The worst of it is the incentivizing of single parent households, which by every metric is a plague upon children and communities.
As to the economy, there was in the past a great depression, various lesser depressions, a couple of world wars, a civil war, various other wars, a dust bowl, and floods of biblical proportion. At the beginning of the 20th century 100 million people - 5 percent of the world's population - died from the flu. (Fortunately capitalism found a cure.) If the greatest threat to its security this generation faces is outsourcing, that's a pretty sweet deal. If the current cadre of whiny progressives hadn't spent their childhoods wearing bicycle helmets while playing T ball and not keeping score having to work a minimum wage job wouldn't seem as onerous as it does.
I'm not bashing a capitalistic market economy. As you stated it has been very beneficial. Although if we focus on addressing poverty, then a command economy would address that, however there are other issue with that as well. There is no magic bullet, the impoverished will always be with us, many complain about it yet are unable to provide a realistic solution.
"Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics asserts that inequality is the inevitable consequence of economic growth in a capitalist economy and the resulting concentration of wealth can destabilize democratic societies and undermine the ideals of social justice upon which they are built."
-
Don't think its that simple. I hear the pundits speak about how poor of a recovery we have from the "great recession" compared to previous recovery's and quote numbers to prove it. Its misleading. The economic landscape has changed drastically today from yester year. What is never mentioned is the fact that technology has given companies the ability to outsource a significant amount of their workforce as compare to 50 years ago. Mostly low/entry level positions. This undoubtedly impacts the poverty level. I cant deny that a side effect of public assistance perpetuate a pathology of dependency. There will always be a segment of the population that takes advantage of situations. However, by its very nature, a capitalist system will have a segment of its population in poverty, public assistance is not the cause, it attempts to be a solution. The question is then, how else should this population be addressed if you took away the safety net?
In the first place, capitalism is the greatest instrument of social change the world has ever known. It has brought more people more wealth and more prosperity than all other economic systems combined. Whereas the socialism so beloved by progressives purposefully killed twice as many people in the last century than died in two world wars: 30 million dead of engineered mass starvation in the Soviet Union; another 30 million "reeducated" in China; two thirds of the population murdered in Cambodia. So I find it hard to take you seriously when you talk about the "capitalist system," as if there's another alternative. There isn't. Sweden wouldn't exist today if not for NATO, paid for by capitalism.
As to the poor, the poor will always be with you. As to the social safety net, I don't deny that there are those who need charity and that in a civilized society there is an imperative to deliver charity to them. By all means feed the poor, treat the sick, accommodate the infirm. The question is how to best serve those in need, who should do the serving, and who should pay for it. In my utopia local charities would care for local needies through voluntary contributions - even I give money to charity and I hate everyone. (Also in my utopia my bong would have a vagina.) In a republic state and local governments would tend to deprived citizens through reasonable and fairly legislated taxation. In the US today charity is administered by a ravenous brobdingnagian federal bureaucracy that perpetuates poverty and despair in the name of compassion, as a means of usurping the liberty of its citizens, with the goal of making them its subjects. The worst of it is the incentivizing of single parent households, which by every metric is a plague upon children and communities.
As to the economy, there was in the past a great depression, various lesser depressions, a couple of world wars, a civil war, various other wars, a dust bowl, and floods of biblical proportion. At the beginning of the 20th century 100 million people - 5 percent of the world's population - died from the flu. (Fortunately capitalism found a cure.) If the greatest threat to its security this generation faces is outsourcing, that's a pretty sweet deal. If the current cadre of whiny progressives hadn't spent their childhoods wearing bicycle helmets while playing T ball and not keeping score having to work a minimum wage job wouldn't seem as onerous as it does.
I'm not bashing a capitalistic market economy. As you stated it has been very beneficial. Although if we focus on addressing poverty, then a command economy would address that, however there are other issue with that as well. There is no magic bullet, the impoverished will always be with us, many complain about it yet are unable to provide a realistic solution.
"Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics asserts that inequality is the inevitable consequence of economic growth in a capitalist economy and the resulting concentration of wealth can destabilize democratic societies and undermine the ideals of social justice upon which they are built."
Quoting an obscure Frenchman - and a Trotskyite -his criticism of capitalism does not impress me. As George Will said of Sartre - I paraphrase - he thought life absurd and thought so philosophy should be also. I'm happy to agree to disagree about that. But there can be no disagreement about the effect of single parent house holding on children and communities. To the extent that the government encourages it, the government is evil
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Well it didn't go up so I guess it's a resounding success! Let's spend trillions more to keep it there!
Piling on.
"This week, the Census Bureau will most likely report that the poverty rate last year was about 14 percent, essentially the same rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty was announced ... according to the Census, there has been no net progress in reducing poverty since the mid to late 1960s. Since that time, the poverty rate has undulated slowly, falling by two to three percentage points during good economic times and rising by a similar amount when the economy slows. Overall, the trajectory of official poverty for the past 45 years has been flat or slightly upward.
The static nature of poverty is especially surprising because (as Chart 1 also shows) poverty fell dramatically during the period before the War on Poverty began. In 1950, the poverty rate was 32.2 percent. By 1965 (the first year during which any War on Poverty programs began to operate), the rate had been cut nearly in half to 17.3 percent"
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/09/the-war-on-poverty-after-50-years
Even if Desco's "facts" were correct, the government spent 22 trillion dollars over 50 years and managed to reduce the poverty rate by 10 percent. That's not a resounding success. It's not a resounding anything. There are about 50 million people living below the poverty line. So the US spent 5 million dollars per person to move 5 million people from poverty to the lower middle class.
Don't think its that simple. I hear the pundits speak about how poor of a recovery we have from the "great recession" compared to previous recovery's and quote numbers to prove it. Its misleading. The economic landscape has changed drastically today from yester year. What is never mentioned is the fact that technology has given companies the ability to outsource a significant amount of their workforce as compare to 50 years ago. Mostly low/entry level positions. This undoubtedly impacts the poverty level. I cant deny that a side effect of public assistance perpetuate a pathology of dependency. There will always be a segment of the population that takes advantage of situations. However, by its very nature, a capitalist system will have a segment of its population in poverty, public assistance is not the cause, it attempts to be a solution. The question is then, how else should this population be addressed if you took away the safety net?
Outsourcing is an issue but it's not the only issue because the weak recovery isn't just here it's global. But the recovery has been weak compared to other ones. For me what concerns me the most which I think could really hurt us down the road is the spiral downward in interest rates not just here but globally. And the reason why is 2 words that could affect us. Baby Boomers. As boomers get older and exit the work force they start to live off savings and the less they earn the less they spend and they tend to spend less anyway once they stop working. I met with someone on friday who in 2007 was earning 100k tax free from investments and now as the bonds start getting called he could very well be looking at 50-60k per year. Now not that people should feel sorry for this one person but the problem now that person is going to be spending 40k less per year etc etc and not everyone has a couple million saved like that person
It's not just entry level jobs that are outsourced anymore anyway. Some tech and back office jobs going to india. Heck factory jobs ( if that's what you want to call entry level ) not just going to china anymore. I have clients shifting production from China to Vietnam and other countries over there. Even some things being produced in South America like Peru. Minimum wage there is something like 800 soles a month which is something like equivalent of $240 U.S
Ideally I'd prefer Fun's utopian society based on giving but unfortunately I think at where we are now we need some sort of safety net although I don't know what the right answer is for that anymore. I do know 3 separate people on a form of public assistance and 2 that definitely are working the system while the other is busting their ass but still needs help and deserves it
Also God Bless the Swiss
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/05/swiss-expected-to-overwhelmingly-reject-free-money-plan.html
Well I guess Jordan in Jail now is on public assistance. ( just keeping the post on topic )
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Well it didn't go up so I guess it's a resounding success! Let's spend trillions more to keep it there!
Piling on.
"This week, the Census Bureau will most likely report that the poverty rate last year was about 14 percent, essentially the same rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty was announced ... according to the Census, there has been no net progress in reducing poverty since the mid to late 1960s. Since that time, the poverty rate has undulated slowly, falling by two to three percentage points during good economic times and rising by a similar amount when the economy slows. Overall, the trajectory of official poverty for the past 45 years has been flat or slightly upward.
The static nature of poverty is especially surprising because (as Chart 1 also shows) poverty fell dramatically during the period before the War on Poverty began. In 1950, the poverty rate was 32.2 percent. By 1965 (the first year during which any War on Poverty programs began to operate), the rate had been cut nearly in half to 17.3 percent"
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/09/the-war-on-poverty-after-50-years
Even if Desco's "facts" were correct, the government spent 22 trillion dollars over 50 years and managed to reduce the poverty rate by 10 percent. That's not a resounding success. It's not a resounding anything. There are about 50 million people living below the poverty line. So the US spent 5 million dollars per person to move 5 million people from poverty to the lower middle class.
Don't think its that simple. I hear the pundits speak about how poor of a recovery we have from the "great recession" compared to previous recovery's and quote numbers to prove it. Its misleading. The economic landscape has changed drastically today from yester year. What is never mentioned is the fact that technology has given companies the ability to outsource a significant amount of their workforce as compare to 50 years ago. Mostly low/entry level positions. This undoubtedly impacts the poverty level. I cant deny that a side effect of public assistance perpetuate a pathology of dependency. There will always be a segment of the population that takes advantage of situations. However, by its very nature, a capitalist system will have a segment of its population in poverty, public assistance is not the cause, it attempts to be a solution. The question is then, how else should this population be addressed if you took away the safety net?
Outsourcing is an issue but it's not the only issue because the weak recovery isn't just here it's global. But the recovery has been weak compared to other ones. For me what concerns me the most which I think could really hurt us down the road is the spiral downward in interest rates not just here but globally. And the reason why is 2 words that could affect us. Baby Boomers. As boomers get older and exit the work force they start to live off savings and the less they earn the less they spend and they tend to spend less anyway once they stop working. I met with someone on friday who in 2007 was earning 100k tax free from investments and now as the bonds start getting called he could very well be looking at 50-60k per year. Now not that people should feel sorry for this one person but the problem now that person is going to be spending 40k less per year etc etc and not everyone has a couple million saved like that person
It's not just entry level jobs that are outsourced anymore anyway. Some tech and back office jobs going to india. Heck factory jobs ( if that's what you want to call entry level ) not just going to china anymore. I have clients shifting production from China to Vietnam and other countries over there. Even some things being produced in South America like Peru. Minimum wage there is something like 800 soles a month which is something like equivalent of $240 U.S
Ideally I'd prefer Fun's utopian society based on giving but unfortunately I think at where we are now we need some sort of safety net although I don't know what the right answer is for that anymore. I do know 3 separate people on a form of public assistance and 2 that definitely are working the system while the other is busting their ass but still needs help and deserves it
Also God Bless the Swiss
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/05/swiss-expected-to-overwhelmingly-reject-free-money-plan.html
Well I guess Jordan in Jail now is on public assistance. ( just keeping the post on topic )
Bottom line is that jobs that went overseas are not coming back and any one who says they are is full of BS. The number of jobs that went overseas in years gone by have been reduced as they are being supplanted by technology in the manufacturing process. Also Americans would not pay for the cost of products made in the USA. people would rather pay $30 for a pair of jeans made overseas than $90 for a pair made here. Until Americans are ready to pay higher prices for US made products, the jobs will not exist here.
And to keep on topic--prison labor will not make the prices go down so Sheed will not help an economic turnaround.
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There have always been poor, there are poor and there will always be poor. There is no solution. The only problem we have is the decrease of the working lower to middle middle class blue collar worker. The only societys that have no poor are the primitives like the native Americans, true socialists. And the poor will always be attracted to the fast buck because of their economic situation.
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"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
Many of you speak and criticize from the outside looking in making judgment based off theoretical applications and have no clue what is actually going on.
Jordan's life was easier than most middle class kids is an insane comment. Its even more scarier that many may believe that notion. How many of your close family and friends were murdered?
My best friend since kindergarten was killed when I was 19. My grandmother was stabbed with a butcher knife. My brother died of brain cancer and my father and grandfather died within 10 days when I was a kid. The last thing I said before my dad died was that I hated him...over something childish. My mom raised me and my three sisters after all that having never worked before. I had a gun held to my head over throwing snowballs at cars with a group of friends. I've seen a car crash into the house next door during a police chase and then the driver getting fatally shot by police 150 feet away from me. My friend and teammate was shot and paralyzed at St. John's right near my dorm. I've been hit in the face with a baseball bat. In law school some drugees mistakenly shot my neighbor (had wrong complex) after first knocking on my door at 3 am and I saw a milk crate pulled up to my window and my screen removed the next day. None of that stuff even fazed me after middle school let alone served as the basis of a lifetime of excuses. After I saw the shooting I finished my cereal and then took a nap. I slept at my apartment in law school the next night after the shooting instead of at my rich gf's house in her gated community.
If you think bad role models are only found in inner cities, you are naive. Drug dealers in the suburbs drive BMWs and sleep with hot chicks. I had at least one hitman in my family and plenty of successful professionals who were/are shitty people. My longtime friend and teammate's father was the only man to escape Attica and had dozens of mob hits to his credit. Plenty of my friends dads are involved in organized crime. I chose to
emulate my grandfather, a former bus driver in Harlem with a third grade education whose life makes mine look like a vacation in paradise.
You'd be hard pressed to find someone who understands how hard it is to learn everything from how to shave and tie a tie to what it means to be a man on their own better than me. That is why I have volunteered my time to mentor kids with similar backgrounds for years.
You may think it's crazy that people can believe kids from the suburbs can live harder lives than kids from the inner-city, but I don't think you really understand how much more important family and support systems are than money and socio-economic status. I think it's pathetic people paint whole communities or races with broad strokes because they are too lazy or ignorant to judge people individually. Don't expect me to stand next to you during your apology for privilege tour.
Jordan is where he is now because he's an asshat...not because he is predisposed to be a failure due to his upbringing.
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"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
Many of you speak and criticize from the outside looking in making judgment based off theoretical applications and have no clue what is actually going on.
Jordan's life was easier than most middle class kids is an insane comment. Its even more scarier that many may believe that notion. How many of your close family and friends were murdered?
My best friend since kindergarten was killed when I was 19. My grandmother was stabbed with a butcher knife. My brother died of brain cancer and my father and grandfather died within 10 days when I was a kid. The last thing I said before my dad died was that I hated him...over something childish. My mom raised me and my three sisters after all that having never worked before. I had a gun held to my head over throwing snowballs at cars with a group of friends. I've seen a car crash into the house next door during a police chase and then the driver getting fatally shot by police 150 feet away from me. My friend and teammate was shot and paralyzed at St. John's right near my dorm. I've been hit in the face with a baseball bat. In law school some drugees mistakenly shot my neighbor (had wrong complex) after first knocking on my door at 3 am and I saw a milk crate pulled up to my window and my screen removed the next day.
Can you unfriend me on Facebook please before my flight thursday :)
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"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
Many of you speak and criticize from the outside looking in making judgment based off theoretical applications and have no clue what is actually going on.
Jordan's life was easier than most middle class kids is an insane comment. Its even more scarier that many may believe that notion. How many of your close family and friends were murdered?
My best friend since kindergarten was killed when I was 19. My grandmother was stabbed with a butcher knife. My brother died of brain cancer and my father and grandfather died within 10 days when I was a kid. The last thing I said before my dad died was that I hated him...over something childish. My mom raised me and my three sisters after all that having never worked before. I had a gun held to my head over throwing snowballs at cars with a group of friends. I've seen a car crash into the house next door during a police chase and then the driver getting fatally shot by police 150 feet away from me. My friend and teammate was shot and paralyzed at St. John's right near my dorm. I've been hit in the face with a baseball bat. In law school some drugees mistakenly shot my neighbor (had wrong complex) after first knocking on my door at 3 am and I saw a milk crate pulled up to my window and my screen removed the next day.
Can you unfriend me on Facebook please before my flight thursday :)
I find thinking "Please can this f*cking thing crash" will guarantee a safe flight. There was one close call over Morrocco on a discount airline, but it pulled through.
-
"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
Many of you speak and criticize from the outside looking in making judgment based off theoretical applications and have no clue what is actually going on.
Jordan's life was easier than most middle class kids is an insane comment. Its even more scarier that many may believe that notion. How many of your close family and friends were murdered?
My best friend since kindergarten was killed when I was 19. My grandmother was stabbed with a butcher knife. My brother died of brain cancer and my father and grandfather died within 10 days when I was a kid. The last thing I said before my dad died was that I hated him...over something childish. My mom raised me and my three sisters after all that having never worked before. I had a gun held to my head over throwing snowballs at cars with a group of friends. I've seen a car crash into the house next door during a police chase and then the driver getting fatally shot by police 150 feet away from me. My friend and teammate was shot and paralyzed at St. John's right near my dorm. I've been hit in the face with a baseball bat. In law school some drugees mistakenly shot my neighbor (had wrong complex) after first knocking on my door at 3 am and I saw a milk crate pulled up to my window and my screen removed the next day.
Can you unfriend me on Facebook please before my flight thursday :)
Where to?
-
"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
Many of you speak and criticize from the outside looking in making judgment based off theoretical applications and have no clue what is actually going on.
Jordan's life was easier than most middle class kids is an insane comment. Its even more scarier that many may believe that notion. How many of your close family and friends were murdered?
My best friend since kindergarten was killed when I was 19. My grandmother was stabbed with a butcher knife. My brother died of brain cancer and my father and grandfather died within 10 days when I was a kid. The last thing I said before my dad died was that I hated him...over something childish. My mom raised me and my three sisters after all that having never worked before. I had a gun held to my head over throwing snowballs at cars with a group of friends. I've seen a car crash into the house next door during a police chase and then the driver getting fatally shot by police 150 feet away from me. My friend and teammate was shot and paralyzed at St. John's right near my dorm. I've been hit in the face with a baseball bat. In law school some drugees mistakenly shot my neighbor (had wrong complex) after first knocking on my door at 3 am and I saw a milk crate pulled up to my window and my screen removed the next day.
Can you unfriend me on Facebook please before my flight thursday :)
I find thinking "Please can this f*cking thing crash" will guarantee a safe flight. There was one close call over Morrocco on a discount airline, but it pulled through.
I hate flying so much even though I fly a lot it's nuts. Being 6ft4 sucks on an airplane unless you are flying first class. I can't even tell you how many times I've had turbulence so bad people were crying. Heck my brother who is pilot took me up on 1 of those 1 propeller planes and as we were climbing all the sudden he is radioing to the tower to make emergency landing. I think he is f'ing with me since he knows I don't like flying and it was my first time flying with him and we are circling the airport but still climbing and then he tells me it's to get more air under us in case the engine dies. Then as we descend there are fire trucks flying down the runway and I ask him what they are doing and he said they are for us. lol
Luckily he is kickass pilot and we got down fine but oh man do I hate flying.
-
"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
Many of you speak and criticize from the outside looking in making judgment based off theoretical applications and have no clue what is actually going on.
Jordan's life was easier than most middle class kids is an insane comment. Its even more scarier that many may believe that notion. How many of your close family and friends were murdered?
My best friend since kindergarten was killed when I was 19. My grandmother was stabbed with a butcher knife. My brother died of brain cancer and my father and grandfather died within 10 days when I was a kid. The last thing I said before my dad died was that I hated him...over something childish. My mom raised me and my three sisters after all that having never worked before. I had a gun held to my head over throwing snowballs at cars with a group of friends. I've seen a car crash into the house next door during a police chase and then the driver getting fatally shot by police 150 feet away from me. My friend and teammate was shot and paralyzed at St. John's right near my dorm. I've been hit in the face with a baseball bat. In law school some drugees mistakenly shot my neighbor (had wrong complex) after first knocking on my door at 3 am and I saw a milk crate pulled up to my window and my screen removed the next day.
Can you unfriend me on Facebook please before my flight thursday :)
Where to?
China for 17 days. Since we decided against the olympics in brazil because of the Zika thing we picked china since neither one of us has been to asia other than the asian side of Istanbul
-
"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
Many of you speak and criticize from the outside looking in making judgment based off theoretical applications and have no clue what is actually going on.
Jordan's life was easier than most middle class kids is an insane comment. Its even more scarier that many may believe that notion. How many of your close family and friends were murdered?
My best friend since kindergarten was killed when I was 19. My grandmother was stabbed with a butcher knife. My brother died of brain cancer and my father and grandfather died within 10 days when I was a kid. The last thing I said before my dad died was that I hated him...over something childish. My mom raised me and my three sisters after all that having never worked before. I had a gun held to my head over throwing snowballs at cars with a group of friends. I've seen a car crash into the house next door during a police chase and then the driver getting fatally shot by police 150 feet away from me. My friend and teammate was shot and paralyzed at St. John's right near my dorm. I've been hit in the face with a baseball bat. In law school some drugees mistakenly shot my neighbor (had wrong complex) after first knocking on my door at 3 am and I saw a milk crate pulled up to my window and my screen removed the next day.
Can you unfriend me on Facebook please before my flight thursday :)
Where to?
China for 17 days. Since we decided against the olympics in brazil because of the Zika thing we picked china since neither one of us has been to asia other than the asian side of Istanbul
Nice. Turks and Caicos for me on Tuesday. F Zika
-
"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
Many of you speak and criticize from the outside looking in making judgment based off theoretical applications and have no clue what is actually going on.
Jordan's life was easier than most middle class kids is an insane comment. Its even more scarier that many may believe that notion. How many of your close family and friends were murdered?
My best friend since kindergarten was killed when I was 19. My grandmother was stabbed with a butcher knife. My brother died of brain cancer and my father and grandfather died within 10 days when I was a kid. The last thing I said before my dad died was that I hated him...over something childish. My mom raised me and my three sisters after all that having never worked before. I had a gun held to my head over throwing snowballs at cars with a group of friends. I've seen a car crash into the house next door during a police chase and then the driver getting fatally shot by police 150 feet away from me. My friend and teammate was shot and paralyzed at St. John's right near my dorm. I've been hit in the face with a baseball bat. In law school some drugees mistakenly shot my neighbor (had wrong complex) after first knocking on my door at 3 am and I saw a milk crate pulled up to my window and my screen removed the next day.
Can you unfriend me on Facebook please before my flight thursday :)
Where to?
China for 17 days. Since we decided against the olympics in brazil because of the Zika thing we picked china since neither one of us has been to asia other than the asian side of Istanbul
Nice. Turks and Caicos for me on Tuesday. F Zika
Cool ! How is your relative doing in the olympic swimming training ?
( sheed will have plenty of time to watch olympics. Just keeping it on topic )
-
"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
Many of you speak and criticize from the outside looking in making judgment based off theoretical applications and have no clue what is actually going on.
Jordan's life was easier than most middle class kids is an insane comment. Its even more scarier that many may believe that notion. How many of your close family and friends were murdered?
My best friend since kindergarten was killed when I was 19. My grandmother was stabbed with a butcher knife. My brother died of brain cancer and my father and grandfather died within 10 days when I was a kid. The last thing I said before my dad died was that I hated him...over something childish. My mom raised me and my three sisters after all that having never worked before. I had a gun held to my head over throwing snowballs at cars with a group of friends. I've seen a car crash into the house next door during a police chase and then the driver getting fatally shot by police 150 feet away from me. My friend and teammate was shot and paralyzed at St. John's right near my dorm. I've been hit in the face with a baseball bat. In law school some drugees mistakenly shot my neighbor (had wrong complex) after first knocking on my door at 3 am and I saw a milk crate pulled up to my window and my screen removed the next day.
Can you unfriend me on Facebook please before my flight thursday :)
Where to?
China for 17 days. Since we decided against the olympics in brazil because of the Zika thing we picked china since neither one of us has been to asia other than the asian side of Istanbul
Nice. Turks and Caicos for me on Tuesday. F Zika
Cool ! How is your relative doing in the olympic swimming training ?
( sheed will have plenty of time to watch olympics. Just keeping it on topic )
Trials at the end of June in Omaha
-
"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
Many of you speak and criticize from the outside looking in making judgment based off theoretical applications and have no clue what is actually going on.
Jordan's life was easier than most middle class kids is an insane comment. Its even more scarier that many may believe that notion. How many of your close family and friends were murdered?
My best friend since kindergarten was killed when I was 19. My grandmother was stabbed with a butcher knife. My brother died of brain cancer and my father and grandfather died within 10 days when I was a kid. The last thing I said before my dad died was that I hated him...over something childish. My mom raised me and my three sisters after all that having never worked before. I had a gun held to my head over throwing snowballs at cars with a group of friends. I've seen a car crash into the house next door during a police chase and then the driver getting fatally shot by police 150 feet away from me. My friend and teammate was shot and paralyzed at St. John's right near my dorm. I've been hit in the face with a baseball bat. In law school some drugees mistakenly shot my neighbor (had wrong complex) after first knocking on my door at 3 am and I saw a milk crate pulled up to my window and my screen removed the next day.
Can you unfriend me on Facebook please before my flight thursday :)
I find thinking "Please can this f*cking thing crash" will guarantee a safe flight. There was one close call over Morrocco on a discount airline, but it pulled through.
I hate flying so much even though I fly a lot it's nuts. Being 6ft4 sucks on an airplane unless you are flying first class. I can't even tell you how many times I've had turbulence so bad people were crying. Heck my brother who is pilot took me up on 1 of those 1 propeller planes and as we were climbing all the sudden he is radioing to the tower to make emergency landing. I think he is f'ing with me since he knows I don't like flying and it was my first time flying with him and we are circling the airport but still climbing and then he tells me it's to get more air under us in case the engine dies. Then as we descend there are fire trucks flying down the runway and I ask him what they are doing and he said they are for us. lol
Luckily he is kickass pilot and we got down fine but oh man do I hate flying.
Haha
I thought for sure the plane was going down over Morocco. I was with about two dozen friends and all but one was crying and screaming. I couldn't stop laughing at all the men crying and acting like babies. The oxygen masks came out and lights went out and everything. Dying in a plane crash is the way I want to go.
-
"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
Many of you speak and criticize from the outside looking in making judgment based off theoretical applications and have no clue what is actually going on.
Jordan's life was easier than most middle class kids is an insane comment. Its even more scarier that many may believe that notion. How many of your close family and friends were murdered?
My best friend since kindergarten was killed when I was 19. My grandmother was stabbed with a butcher knife. My brother died of brain cancer and my father and grandfather died within 10 days when I was a kid. The last thing I said before my dad died was that I hated him...over something childish. My mom raised me and my three sisters after all that having never worked before. I had a gun held to my head over throwing snowballs at cars with a group of friends. I've seen a car crash into the house next door during a police chase and then the driver getting fatally shot by police 150 feet away from me. My friend and teammate was shot and paralyzed at St. John's right near my dorm. I've been hit in the face with a baseball bat. In law school some drugees mistakenly shot my neighbor (had wrong complex) after first knocking on my door at 3 am and I saw a milk crate pulled up to my window and my screen removed the next day.
Can you unfriend me on Facebook please before my flight thursday :)
I find thinking "Please can this f*cking thing crash" will guarantee a safe flight. There was one close call over Morrocco on a discount airline, but it pulled through.
I hate flying so much even though I fly a lot it's nuts. Being 6ft4 sucks on an airplane unless you are flying first class. I can't even tell you how many times I've had turbulence so bad people were crying. Heck my brother who is pilot took me up on 1 of those 1 propeller planes and as we were climbing all the sudden he is radioing to the tower to make emergency landing. I think he is f'ing with me since he knows I don't like flying and it was my first time flying with him and we are circling the airport but still climbing and then he tells me it's to get more air under us in case the engine dies. Then as we descend there are fire trucks flying down the runway and I ask him what they are doing and he said they are for us. lol
Luckily he is kickass pilot and we got down fine but oh man do I hate flying.
Haha
I thought for sure the plane was going down over Morocco. I was with about two dozen friends and all but one was crying and screaming. I couldn't stop laughing at all the men crying and acting like babies. The oxygen masks came out and lights went out and everything. Dying in a plane crash is the way I want to go.
Did you come out like the drummer in Almost Famous during your plane adventure?
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"Blaming the social cycle and the circumstances he was born into is ridiculous and part of the problem in America today."
How many times during your youth have you had to rummage through trash to find a meal to eat? Or sleep outside in the rain? Don't underestimate the circumstances that faces some of our youth today and the impact it can have on their thought process.
"This kid saw the world around him in which he grew up. . crime, drugs, criminals, people off to jail, etc......All he had to do was make the right choices and he did not , He choose to keep going back home, to stay in the cycle.."
You make it sound as if that should be a deterrent for a child. For some, yes, but if all you saw was crime, drugs, criminals, jail, etc.. growing up you may not see it as a bad thing, its what you know. If you interview some of these young adults and ask them if they think they were abused by their parent/guardian growing up and often times they would say no. Ask specific questions like, ever hit? yah, with an object? Sure, Any bruising? All the time. They don't think of it as abuse because that is all they know.
I'm not saying the circumstances he was born into "is" to blame. I'm saying it is a contributing factor. Rysheed shouldn't get a pass, he's an adult who was aware of what he was doing was wrong, he should be held accountable. However the ability to make the "right choice" as you say isn't as simple as you may think.
I think you've watched Oliver Twist one too many times. WIC gives mothers with children very generous allowances. Also, every school Jordan attended almost certainly gave out free breakfast AND lunch. That says nothing of the benefits he received as a superstar athlete traveling the country for free and getting per diem while loading up on piles of free sneakers and gear he could sell to his friends.
Jordan's life in the ghetto as a superstar athlete was easier than most kids lives in the middle class. He was the prince of North Philly. His downfall was that nobody ever told him no.
Many of you speak and criticize from the outside looking in making judgment based off theoretical applications and have no clue what is actually going on.
Jordan's life was easier than most middle class kids is an insane comment. Its even more scarier that many may believe that notion. How many of your close family and friends were murdered?
My best friend since kindergarten was killed when I was 19. My grandmother was stabbed with a butcher knife. My brother died of brain cancer and my father and grandfather died within 10 days when I was a kid. The last thing I said before my dad died was that I hated him...over something childish. My mom raised me and my three sisters after all that having never worked before. I had a gun held to my head over throwing snowballs at cars with a group of friends. I've seen a car crash into the house next door during a police chase and then the driver getting fatally shot by police 150 feet away from me. My friend and teammate was shot and paralyzed at St. John's right near my dorm. I've been hit in the face with a baseball bat. In law school some drugees mistakenly shot my neighbor (had wrong complex) after first knocking on my door at 3 am and I saw a milk crate pulled up to my window and my screen removed the next day.
Can you unfriend me on Facebook please before my flight thursday :)
I find thinking "Please can this f*cking thing crash" will guarantee a safe flight. There was one close call over Morrocco on a discount airline, but it pulled through.
I hate flying so much even though I fly a lot it's nuts. Being 6ft4 sucks on an airplane unless you are flying first class. I can't even tell you how many times I've had turbulence so bad people were crying. Heck my brother who is pilot took me up on 1 of those 1 propeller planes and as we were climbing all the sudden he is radioing to the tower to make emergency landing. I think he is f'ing with me since he knows I don't like flying and it was my first time flying with him and we are circling the airport but still climbing and then he tells me it's to get more air under us in case the engine dies. Then as we descend there are fire trucks flying down the runway and I ask him what they are doing and he said they are for us. lol
Luckily he is kickass pilot and we got down fine but oh man do I hate flying.
Haha
I thought for sure the plane was going down over Morocco. I was with about two dozen friends and all but one was crying and screaming. I couldn't stop laughing at all the men crying and acting like babies. The oxygen masks came out and lights went out and everything. Dying in a plane crash is the way I want to go.
Yeah I don't understand the whole crying thing. Don't get me wrong I get real tense in turbulence but usually it means just me clenching my fists or sqeezing Nathalie's hand so hard I cut the circulation off :)
A long time ago when we were in Argentina I got food poisoning so bad I couldn't hold down food for 2 weeks. Just Gatorade and water. You literally see me getting lighter day by day in the pictures. As we are flying from peru back to the U.S I was so sick they almost diverted the plane and we were right near cuba. I look at the map and tell the stewardess no way do you stop the plane that as long as you keep a bathroom free I'll make it. ( kind of the same feeling I would get with all the Jordan drama in school )
Then we hit god awful turbulence. Nathalie grabs my hand knowing how much I hate turbulence and planes and I looked at her and said " I don't even care about turbulence anymore. If this plane goes down I'm so sick God is doing me a favor ". LOL
So for me mainly it's just being uncomfortable on the airplane and actually sitting in the airport waiting is even worse
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"You may think it's crazy that people can believe kids from the suburbs can live harder lives than kids from the inner-city, but I don't think you really understand how much more important family and support systems are than money and socio-economic status."
I never dismissed the importance of family and support systems. I mentioned that as being important, and agree its even more importance than socio economic status. However, and I say this with respect, because some kids from the suburbs have been exposed to some harsh things that somehow makes them believe they know what the "hard" life is like? Come on man. You had a support system. You had help, from whatever direction it came, you knew your Dad, you knew your grand parents and what is was like being a grandchild, you knew and had relationships with your family, you knew what it was like to have that love, that bond, it creates a sense of importance. You had a home, you had a community that helped you focus on school.....you had options. Are there bad role models, yeah they are everywhere. You have had some unfortunate experience and so has many people, that is not uncommon. What I am speaking of is a life style.
Think about this....You never knew your dad, or anyone in your family outside of your mom. You may have other siblings but they are not with you. You don't have a stable place to stay, you bounce around from place to place, you have one pair of jeans and a couple of shirts. If you have a stable place its a rat hole, heater is always broken and no AC. The mice play around in the middle of the f'n living room like your their guest. You hear gun fire everyday, everyday. Someone gets shot or dies what seems like every week, every week. You go outside and our drug dealers didn't push a BMW. They pushed a Acura and busy cracking open a crack heads head, often there would be shoot outs from rival gangs trying to take over the spot or retaliate. Your mom is a crack head and doesn't give a shit about if you eat, when you go to sleep, where you are, or your schoolwork. (How do you think that impacts the development of a 5 year old) If you have a sister your mom starts pimping her out as soon as she develops so she can get some more dope. You see different dudes coming out of the room from bagging your sister while you stay in the living room with the mice. Often times you figure your better off not being there and that is often the case at around 14-15. You go into survival mode and do what you can, often end up a ward of the court, but often times it goes undetected until your an adult and you get caught and go to jail.
I was lucky, I had a stable upbringing, had both my parents, a home to call our own, but it didn't change what was in front of my face on a daily basis and who my associates where as a youth and what they had to go through. Not everyone was influenced negatively, many didn't choose a life of crime but they also didn't learn good study habits or the importance of an education. My parents weren't educated and didn't understand the impact the environment outside had on us. I was smoking weed when I was 12. There didn't seem anything wrong with that at the time, I felt like I was mature enough. I was a baby, learning how to cut up and package crack. That was the only industry I knew about. The negative influence is too great, my brother got sucked in and got murdered for it. I changed as I matured. I'm the first in my family to get a college degree let alone a graduate degree. But I'm not narcissistic to believe that since I was able to do it others should as well, of course everyone has the ability to, but statistics doesn't work like that.
Yes Jordan may have been a ass, or just another kid who got caught in the mix. It wasn't until I was in my early twenties for the light to come on, but I always went to school, its what my parents asked of me and supported me.
Here's to those who persevered.
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https://www.gofundme.com/27vcfqss
Lolololo
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Sheesh... Of all the pics... has to be one w/ SJ logo associated ?
Wonder if police confiscated that Jaguar that he was caught driving in... that would have gotten him part of the way there.
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Sheesh... Of all the pics... has to be one w/ SJ logo associated ?
Wonder if police confiscated that Jaguar that he was caught driving in... that would have gotten him part of the way there.
Poor Rysheed was relegated to driving a Jaguar because of awful upbringing
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Sheesh... Of all the pics... has to be one w/ SJ logo associated ?
Wonder if police confiscated that Jaguar that he was caught driving in... that would have gotten him part of the way there.
Sheesh... Of all the pics... has to be one w/ SJ logo associated ?
Wonder if police confiscated that Jaguar that he was caught driving in... that would have gotten him part of the way there.
Makes sense to associate himself with SJU as they are playing on our sympathies hoping some of us dopes will contribute.
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"You may think it's crazy that people can believe kids from the suburbs can live harder lives than kids from the inner-city, but I don't think you really understand how much more important family and support systems are than money and socio-economic status."
I never dismissed the importance of family and support systems. I mentioned that as being important, and agree its even more importance than socio economic status. However, and I say this with respect, because some kids from the suburbs have been exposed to some harsh things that somehow makes them believe they know what the "hard" life is like? Come on man. You had a support system. You had help, from whatever direction it came, you knew your Dad, you knew your grand parents and what is was like being a grandchild, you knew and had relationships with your family, you knew what it was like to have that love, that bond, it creates a sense of importance. You had a home, you had a community that helped you focus on school.....you had options. Are there bad role models, yeah they are everywhere. You have had some unfortunate experience and so has many people, that is not uncommon. What I am speaking of is a life style.
Think about this....You never knew your dad, or anyone in your family outside of your mom. You may have other siblings but they are not with you. You don't have a stable place to stay, you bounce around from place to place, you have one pair of jeans and a couple of shirts. If you have a stable place its a rat hole, heater is always broken and no AC. The mice play around in the middle of the f'n living room like your their guest. You hear gun fire everyday, everyday. Someone gets shot or dies what seems like every week, every week. You go outside and our drug dealers didn't push a BMW. They pushed a Acura and busy cracking open a crack heads head, often there would be shoot outs from rival gangs trying to take over the spot or retaliate. Your mom is a crack head and doesn't give a shit about if you eat, when you go to sleep, where you are, or your schoolwork. (How do you think that impacts the development of a 5 year old) If you have a sister your mom starts pimping her out as soon as she develops so she can get some more dope. You see different dudes coming out of the room from bagging your sister while you stay in the living room with the mice. Often times you figure your better off not being there and that is often the case at around 14-15. You go into survival mode and do what you can, often end up a ward of the court, but often times it goes undetected until your an adult and you get caught and go to jail.
I was lucky, I had a stable upbringing, had both my parents, a home to call our own, but it didn't change what was in front of my face on a daily basis and who my associates where as a youth and what they had to go through. Not everyone was influenced negatively, many didn't choose a life of crime but they also didn't learn good study habits or the importance of an education. My parents weren't educated and didn't understand the impact the environment outside had on us. I was smoking weed when I was 12. There didn't seem anything wrong with that at the time, I felt like I was mature enough. I was a baby, learning how to cut up and package crack. That was the only industry I knew about. The negative influence is too great, my brother got sucked in and got murdered for it. I changed as I matured. I'm the first in my family to get a college degree let alone a graduate degree. But I'm not narcissistic to believe that since I was able to do it others should as well, of course everyone has the ability to, but statistics doesn't work like that.
Yes Jordan may have been a ass, or just another kid who got caught in the mix. It wasn't until I was in my early twenties for the light to come on, but I always went to school, its what my parents asked of me and supported me.
Here's to those who persevered.
Very little of what you wrote applies to Jordan and stars like him. They are treated like royalty from elementary school.
You chose to sell crack at 12. My friend chose to sell weed at 12 (and still does). I chose to wash dishes off the books at a diner and caddy even though I didn't know the first thing about golf. I hung out at his place daily and turned down drugs (almost) every time. When I look at the roster of kids that used to hang out there, only a few of us didn't die from overdose, get locked up, or go to mental institutions. I don't think you understand how much drug use there is in the suburbs.
You are right that I did have help. My saving grace was that I wast fast and football, track, and baseball coaches took an interest in me. My biggest help was dating a coach's daughter for a # of years who was an angel. You had teachers and coaches too. Jordan had more support and interest than either of us. He could have found himself a good girl to keep him straight. He saw the world and what was out there and still chose to act like a selfish baby and stay in his little box. He chose that over making his mom/siblings/neighborhood proud. That is a choice. Jordan's problem is that he was spoiled.
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Very little of what you wrote applies to Jordan and stars like him. They are treated like royalty from elementary school.
He is a product of his environment. Was he treated differently as he got older sure, but it often doesn't change the conditioning. No different than a child who is raised in a racist environment. He's not going to automatically change because he's exposed to other rational minds, although some may, many do not. You keep saying he see's this, he see's that. Try explaining a color to a person who is born blind.
I know full well how much drug abuse exist everywhere. You are failing to acknowledge my point which is in the suburbs, it is a choice, for the most part. You had other options to chose form that don't exist in the hood. You said you got out because you were fast. You got out the suburbs?!?!?! All those clean streets and quite evenings must have been hard on you. We didn't have little league baseball, pop warner football, nothing. Wherever they were whose going to take you and sign you up? An 8 year old should know how to do this on their own and pay for it? My local High School didn't have a football team or a baseball team, with over 3000 students. Of course there are kids that grew up in abusing households in the suburbs and were on drugs, a hard life is often in the eyes of the beholder and can have similar effects as they have nothing to compare it to. However knowing what you do Its almost comical that you believe the ghetto is on par with the suburbs and there is no additional side effects predicated on the conditions that exist there. Your entitled to your opinion, we can agree to disagree.
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Very little of what you wrote applies to Jordan and stars like him. They are treated like royalty from elementary school.
He is a product of his environment. Was he treated differently as he got older sure, but it often doesn't change the conditioning. No different than a child who is raised in a racist environment. He's not going to automatically change because he's exposed to other rational minds, although some may, many do not. You keep saying he see's this, he see's that. Try explaining a color to a person who is born blind.
I know full well how much drug abuse exist everywhere. You are failing to acknowledge my point which is in the suburbs, it is a choice, for the most part. You had other options to chose form that don't exist in the hood. You said you got out because you were fast. You got out the suburbs?!?!?! All those clean streets and quite evenings must have been hard on you. We didn't have little league baseball, pop warner football, nothing. Wherever they were whose going to take you and sign you up? An 8 year old should know how to do this on their own and pay for it? My local High School didn't have a football team or a baseball team, with over 3000 students. Of course there are kids that grew up in abusing households in the suburbs and were on drugs, a hard life is often in the eyes of the beholder and can have similar effects as they have nothing to compare it to. However knowing what you do Its almost comical that you believe the ghetto is on par with the suburbs and there is no additional side effects predicated on the conditions that exist there. Your entitled to your opinion, we can agree to disagree.
Although what you have written applies to, unfortunately, countless kids, you are ignoring that all evidence points to it not applying in this specific situation. The gofundme page is particularly galling. He's an asshat
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SJUFAN- Great posts in this thread.. Majority of folks understand the point you are trying to make. The other, well, they will never take that side, so why bother?
Gotta love white suburban kids comparing themselves to kids in the projects... Lol
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SJUFAN- Great posts in this thread.. Majority of folks understand the point you are trying to make. The other, well, they will never take that side, so why bother?
Gotta love white suburban kids comparing themselves to kids in the projects... Lol
No white kids live in the projects?
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SJUFAN- Great posts in this thread.. Majority of folks understand the point you are trying to make. The other, well, they will never take that side, so why bother?
Gotta love white suburban kids comparing themselves to kids in the projects... Lol
No white kids live in the projects?
White Mike. But he cool.
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SJUFAN- Great posts in this thread.. Majority of folks understand the point you are trying to make. The other, well, they will never take that side, so why bother?
Gotta love white suburban kids comparing themselves to kids in the projects... Lol
SJUFAN- Great posts in this thread.. Majority of folks understand the point you are trying to make. The other, well, they will never take that side, so why bother?
Gotta love white suburban kids comparing themselves to kids in the projects... Lol
No white kids live in the projects?
Rest assured they'll find an excuse why those kids somehow have it better.
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SJUFAN- Great posts in this thread.. Majority of folks understand the point you are trying to make. The other, well, they will never take that side, so why bother?
Gotta love white suburban kids comparing themselves to kids in the projects... Lol
No white kids live in the projects?
This isn't a race issue, it's a socioeconomic one. It touches many races however the statistics show that in urban centers the majority of individuals who live in these sub sections are typical of a certain racial background. So to answer your question, yes there are white kids that live in the projects, just as there are representation of every race in the suburbs. What's your point? That's a rhetorical question because there isn't any. A white kid from the projects would understand that kids from the suburbs whether they be white, black, yellow, orange, or green, does not have the same challenges in general as someone living in poverty and wouldn't be debating this nonsense.
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SJUFAN- Great posts in this thread.. Majority of folks understand the point you are trying to make. The other, well, they will never take that side, so why bother?
Gotta love white suburban kids comparing themselves to kids in the projects... Lol
No white kids live in the projects?
This isn't a race issue, it's a socioeconomic one. It touches many races however the statistics show that in urban centers the majority of individuals who live in these sub sections are typical of a certain racial background. So to answer your question, yes there are white kids that live in the projects, just as there are representation of every race in the suburbs. What's your point? That's a rhetorical question because there isn't any. A white kid from the projects would understand that kids from the suburbs whether they be white, black, yellow, orange, or green, does not have the same challenges in general as someone living in poverty and wouldn't be debating this nonsense.
I know its not a race issue, that was my point
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On this issue sir, I must disagree. But first i agree that If income and financial wealth is the only indicator of our well-being then Capitalism is certainly the answer. I also agree that if concentration of wealth among fewer and fewer people is the purpose of capitalism then i am compelled to agree againl. A recent Credit Suisse report on inequality shows that a person needs only $3,210 to be in the wealthiest 50% of world citizens. About $68,800 secures a place in the top 10%, while the top 1% have more than $759,900. The report defines wealth as the value of assets including property and stock market investments, but excludes debt. We can perhaps even add a third social change of Capitalism, namely, the single mother conundrum. To believe that Capitalism can solve this problem is somewhat far-fetched. The list of the number of negative social changes brought out by Capitalism can go on ... divorce, crime, etc etc ...
But before being labelled a commie, i will share with you my weltenschuuang of what governance should be about. I believe societies evolved criss-cross institutions to solve problems that one institution could not. Markets fail education, health for all, they exactly do not do wonders for the climate or the environment. This is where the state and communitarian institutions can take over and fill in key gaps. The key problem with Capitalism is the overwhelming belief in markets providing solutions to all our needs at the scorn of state institutions and communities. Socialism's belief in the state can provide solutions to all our needs is the same blind faith. Or for the anarchists that communitarian institutions can do it all ... again another cul de sac.
A key factor in why poor people stay poor is the whole issue of power. The reason the top 1% are top 1% is because they can effectively eliminate the poor from almost all the wealth available, if they cared to take it all. If I step outside of the United States, and examine how countries have made huge strides in poverty reduction, i come up with the following lessons:
• sustained economic growth, which is necessary but not sufficient for poverty reduction;
• economic growth in sectors that provide employment, production and entrepreneurship opportunities to the poor. These include sectors where the poor are more likely to find their livelihoods such as agriculture, fishing, forestry and other natural resources; and others where unskilled labor is important. In addition, a growing body of evidence suggests that access to energy by the poor can lead to benefits across multiple dimensions ranging from income to education and health outcomes and the well-being of women.
• redistribution of the benefits of growth through public spending in the provision of equitable, quality services (in health, education, water and sanitation and others) for the poor that helps improve their – and their children’s –skills and productivity. In turn, the poor boost growth when they are equipped with assets and resources to actively take part in the development process (this is a main reason for why you would want the poor to get out of poverty);
• pro-active focus on women, the excluded, and hard to reach population groups who may need special help to gain access to employment and quality services. These may have important multiplier effects, positively affecting several dimensions of well-being – for example, educated mothers tend to have better nourished and educated children;
• empowering the poor and marginalized – especially women – to play an effective role in the decisions that determine their long term well-being;
• providing protection against negative shocks (the proverbial safety nets) – including those arising from global crises such as those due to high food prices – so as to avoid slowdowns or reversals in poverty reduction.
This explains largely why even the poorest of the countries were able to make large tends into poverty. In the converse, this might also explain generally with this country has not been able to do it. Quality of education and health for the lowest wealth percentile along with other key services like skills, credit, etc etc perpetuates the inter-generational cycle of poverty.
So it is inaccurate to say that hand outs do not work. It is how they are designed. For example in Brazil, Bosla Familia programme (a social protection measure) gives the lowest wealth percentile cash income on the condition that their children attend school and undertake quarterly health checks. The results have been phenomenal in undoing some of the worst inequality conditions, and this country is not far in being one of the most unequal societies. This country can stay strong if it invests in its people particularly the lowest wealth percentile.
Thank you :)
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Today is Sheed's 22nd birthday as he sits in a federal prison awaiting his attempted murder trial. It must be one lonely introspective day.
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On this issue sir, I must disagree.
This is too long to reply to in full. But a few points. Note that I have <hosed> sections of your reply, not to as is usually the case take the poster out of context in the interest of mockery, but in the interest of clarity and brevity.
[...]
We can perhaps even add a third social change of Capitalism, namely, the single mother conundrum. To believe that Capitalism can solve this problem is somewhat far-fetched. The list of the number of negative social changes brought out by Capitalism can go on ... divorce, crime, etc etc ...
Capitalism does not cause crime. Cain slew Abel long before markets existed. Chimpanzees rape and murder other chimpanzees and they don't have Walmarts. Human nature causes crime, because human beings are venal. And divorce is caused by first wives. Don't get me started.
I believe societies evolved criss-cross institutions to solve problems that one institution could not.
Civilization came to be because a man alone in the state of nature is prey. That man now has the luxury of solving first world problems - like having clean drinking water and curing acne - is a product of a cooperative ecomony that provides a majority of its citizens with basic necessities like food, defense and shelter.
Markets fail education, health for all, they exactly do not do wonders for the climate or the environment. This is where the state and communitarian institutions can take over and fill in key gaps. The key problem with Capitalism is the overwhelming belief in markets providing solutions to all our needs at the scorn of state institutions and communities. Socialism's belief in the state can provide solutions to all our needs is the same blind faith. Or for the anarchists that communitarian institutions can do it all ... again another cul de sac.
Obviously the market is not perfect and it does not solve all problems. It has however solved more problems for more people than all other economic systems that have ever existed combined. Socialism solves problems by sending the problematic to the gulag or shooting them in the head. Capitalism solves problems by allowing citizens the power to improve their lot through intellect, effort, innovation and cooperation.
A key factor in why poor people stay poor is the whole issue of power. The reason the top 1% are top 1% is because they can effectively eliminate the poor from almost all the wealth available, if they cared to take it all.
I don't necessarily disagree with all of this, but who hold do you think holds the power? The Koch Brothers? Nazi collaborator George Soros? It's the government. The government has the power to regulate behavior, the power to tax, the guns to enforce their edicts and an ever expanding ravenous appetite. Warren Buffet is certainly rich, which yields to him the power to get a better table at Gramercy Tavern than Mahar and the rest of the serfs: he has more liberty than the rest of us by virtue of his wealth. But he didn't get rich by eating the poor's slice of the pie, he got rich by making the pie bigger and then shoveling more of it into his greedy maw.
This explains largely why even the poorest of the countries were able to make large tends into poverty. In the converse, this might also explain generally with this country has not been able to do it. Quality of education and health for the lowest wealth percentile along with other key services like skills, credit, etc etc perpetuates the inter-generational cycle of poverty.
This doesn't make any sense. The poorest of countries are poor. If they have made large inroads into poverty they would be poor no longer.
It's also not true.
http://www.photius.com/rankings/2015/economy/population_below_poverty_line_2015_0.html
The US is 30th out of 130 from the bottom, on about a par with a bunch of other civilized countries. Of the countries that are above it you have a bunch that are subsidized by the US economy, like Germany, which would be a third world country if the US closed its bases there. Countries like Norway and France, which would be no where as prosperous as they are if the US had not spent trillions protecting them from Slavic depredation. (Not to mention if the US capitalist economy did not have a ravenous appetite for lute fish, cheese and existentialism.) Then there are criminals like Switzerland, whose prosperity came chiefly from melting down gold from the teeth of murdered Jews and which sustains itself by laundering money for drug cartels and various mass murderers like Saddam Hussein. And China, which operates a slave economy. And at the top of the list you have the usual conga line of third world hamster in a wheel socialist shit holes, like Nigeria and Swaziland.
So it is inaccurate to say that hand outs do not work. It is how they are designed.
Except I didn't hand outs didn't work. I said the opposite: that in a civilized society it is imperative that charity be extended to those in need - but that the way charity in this country is designed and administered - via a massive inefficient centrally planned federal bureaucracy - is flawed and in many ways evil, because it encourages the very behaviors that give rise to the pathologies that cause poverty, which it purports to cure.
For example in Brazil, Bosla Familia programme (a social protection measure) gives the lowest wealth percentile cash income on the condition that their children attend school and undertake quarterly health checks. The results have been phenomenal in undoing some of the worst inequality conditions, and this country is not far in being one of the most unequal societies. This country can stay strong if it invests in its people particularly the lowest wealth percentile.
Again, I don't have a problem with charity. I don't have a problem with educating the uneducated or curing the sick or mitigating the suffering of the afflicted. A society must do those things to be a just society. I simply believe that those things are best done locally and in a way that encourages long term behavioral changes that will ameliorate the social ills that result in deprivation and despair. Simply giving people food stamps and section 8 housing does not do that, as has been amply demonstrated by the war on poverty.
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"Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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"Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
This quote and your tone in this thread makes it seem like individuals are powerless and their fate is determined by others and their circumstances. We all make choices. Some people are born on third base and think they hit a triple. Others have to work for it. It's not fair, but nobody is powerless.
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SJUFAN- Great posts in this thread.. Majority of folks understand the point you are trying to make. The other, well, they will never take that side, so why bother?
Gotta love white suburban kids comparing themselves to kids in the projects... Lol
No white kids live in the projects?
This isn't a race issue, it's a socioeconomic one. It touches many races however the statistics show that in urban centers the majority of individuals who live in these sub sections are typical of a certain racial background. So to answer your question, yes there are white kids that live in the projects, just as there are representation of every race in the suburbs. What's your point? That's a rhetorical question because there isn't any. A white kid from the projects would understand that kids from the suburbs whether they be white, black, yellow, orange, or green, does not have the same challenges in general as someone living in poverty and wouldn't be debating this nonsense.
I also don't think you understand what suburbs are. Some of the poorest most crime-infested neighborhoods in the country are classified as suburban or rural. When you use the term suburb, it seems like you are envisioning the Wonder Years. In NY there are very clear housing projects but in places like Miami and LA, it is very spread out and bad neighborhoods look like NY suburbs physically. Some of the poorest areas in the south are between suburban and straight up rural. Newburgh, NY is more dangerous than just about any place I've been in NYC and it either a very small city or a suburb. I lived in NYC then in a terrible neighborhood in a bad city (New Brunswick, NJ) then the suburbs of NY as a kid.
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Thank you for a very civil and enlightening response. On redmen.com when i challenged a poster on the merits of nuking the middle east, lets just say that bigotry was the least of the shortcomings of the response ... I presumed he received his education from SJU where i find the scholarship generally wanting. I presume you did not attend SJU but i was happy to read about your father's contributions to the University. And there can be no doubt that we both support Mr. Mullin and SJU basketball.
Overall, it seems we agree on most accounts. On some points I need to further clarify what I meant. And on some points, it is not about agreeing to disagree but rather which evidence and which lens makes more sense to use. My short responses below.
On this issue sir, I must disagree.
This is too long to reply to in full. But a few points. Note that I have <hosed> sections of your reply, not to as is usually the case take the poster out of context in the interest of mockery, but in the interest of clarity and brevity.
[...]
We can perhaps even add a third social change of Capitalism, namely, the single mother conundrum. To believe that Capitalism can solve this problem is somewhat far-fetched. The list of the number of negative social changes brought out by Capitalism can go on ... divorce, crime, etc etc ...
Capitalism does not cause crime. Cain slew Abel long before markets existed. Chimpanzees rape and murder other chimpanzees and they don't have Walmarts. Human nature causes crime, because human beings are venal. And divorce is caused by first wives. Don't get me started.
I partly agree with the above, and that's why in particular I stopped after the first wife lolz. Perhaps you want to say that capitalism can also cause crime. If Capitalism does not cause or lend to crime, then why the rampant colonization of poor countries moving from merchant capitalism to modern capitalism ... the rape and pillage particularly by the British to fuel their industrial revolution and propel its capitalism? Would you say that the destruction of societies, dispossession of lands and natural resources does not constitute a crime against humanity? Moving forward to present day the disenfranchisement of certain sections of the world or within societies by increasing concentration of wealth would not cause crime to emerge and remain?
I believe societies evolved criss-cross institutions to solve problems that one institution could not.
Civilization came to be because a man alone in the state of nature is prey. That man now has the luxury of solving first world problems - like having clean drinking water and curing acne - is a product of a cooperative ecomony that provides a majority of its citizens with basic necessities like food, defense and shelter.
Again I partly agree here. But i would state it differently. I think where Darwin got it less right was on natural selection, and the focus on the individuals within a species. I think group selection explains the phenomenon better. We needed to cooperate because we were a prey in order to survive. Now this partly also explains why some runts continue to exist - you know the middle east nukers. Group selection also partly explains the emergence of religion, which i call a moral framework ... that is, collective action and the rules and norms for survival. Finally group selection also partly explains the evolutionary leap our specie made because we needed to move on from primordial emotions and develop advanced emotions such as empathy and love.
Markets fail education, health for all, they exactly do not do wonders for the climate or the environment. This is where the state and communitarian institutions can take over and fill in key gaps. The key problem with Capitalism is the overwhelming belief in markets providing solutions to all our needs at the scorn of state institutions and communities. Socialism's belief in the state can provide solutions to all our needs is the same blind faith. Or for the anarchists that communitarian institutions can do it all ... again another cul de sac.
Obviously the market is not perfect and it does not solve all problems. It has however solved more problems for more people than all other economic systems that have ever existed combined. Socialism solves problems by sending the problematic to the gulag or shooting them in the head. Capitalism solves problems by allowing citizens the power to improve their lot through intellect, effort, innovation and cooperation.
I completely agree here again but again would state it as .. markets solve problems much much better provided they are not interfered with inexorably ... that some regulations are required (we cant sell rat poison and call it white bread) ... that there is a level playing field so that all citizens can access the resources they need to engage in markets and innovate. Also knowing that markets fail, and where they do government and civil society institutions' intervention and cooperation is needed.
A key factor in why poor people stay poor is the whole issue of power. The reason the top 1% are top 1% is because they can effectively eliminate the poor from almost all the wealth available, if they cared to take it all.
I don't necessarily disagree with all of this, but who hold do you think holds the power? The Koch Brothers? Nazi collaborator George Soros? It's the government. The government has the power to regulate behavior, the power to tax, the guns to enforce their edicts and an ever expanding ravenous appetite. Warren Buffet is certainly rich, which yields to him the power to get a better table at Gramercy Tavern than Mahar and the rest of the serfs: he has more liberty than the rest of us by virtue of his wealth. But he didn't get rich by eating the poor's slice of the pie, he got rich by making the pie bigger and then shoveling more of it into his greedy maw.
If I apply the Foucauldian thinking then power is held in discourse ... the power to define the "other" and thus hold power over it and subject it to one's whims, so rich countries over poorer countries. But I will apply a more political economy lens, and this is where i disagree with your neat separation between the government, markets and civil society (or not so civil society). We all know about the special interests groups, pharmaceuticals for example, and how they exert power over the government and how this perpetuates the crime of kick-backs. Warren Buffet may have escaped all these shenanigans but a number of special interest groups here and the multinational corporations in poorer countries do not. I could cite a number of sources but i trust you will give me the benefit of doubt. Finally let me give you my definition of wealth and if we agree on this, i wholeheartedly agree with your statement "he has more liberty than the rest of us by virtue of his wealth." I see wealth as multidimensional where of course financial capital is an obvious and key one but to me this is incomplete so i include in it human capital (knowledge, skills, good health), physical capital (equipment, technology, etc.), social capital and increasingly natural capital (including our climate). I think you will agree with my definition particularly where the IQ of wealth is liberty (particularly from the serfs) ...
This explains largely why even the poorest of the countries were able to make large tends into poverty. In the converse, this might also explain generally with this country has not been able to do it. Quality of education and health for the lowest wealth percentile along with other key services like skills, credit, etc etc perpetuates the inter-generational cycle of poverty.
This doesn't make any sense. The poorest of countries are poor. If they have made large inroads into poverty they would be poor no longer.
It's also not true.
http://www.photius.com/rankings/2015/economy/population_below_poverty_line_2015_0.html
The US is 30th out of 130 from the bottom, on about a par with a bunch of other civilized countries. Of the countries that are above it you have a bunch that are subsidized by the US economy, like Germany, which would be a third world country if the US closed its bases there. Countries like Norway and France, which would be no where as prosperous as they are if the US had not spent trillions protecting them from Slavic depredation. (Not to mention if the US capitalist economy did not have a ravenous appetite for lute fish, cheese and existentialism.) Then there are criminals like Switzerland, whose prosperity came chiefly from melting down gold from the teeth of murdered Jews and which sustains itself by laundering money for drug cartels and various mass murderers like Saddam Hussein. And China, which operates a slave economy. And at the top of the list you have the usual conga line of third world hamster in a wheel socialist shit holes, like Nigeria and Swaziland.
I am not sure why i cant access the link you sent or the earlier one on the war on poverty. I am currently on the edge of a jungle in Zambia (look up South Luangwa National Park and within it Croc Valley Camp) which might explain it. I mis-wrote and instead wanted to say education, health and access for the poorest breaks the cycle.
I agree on the subsidizing argument but do not forget to include Israel. But also look up something called the Human Development Index, which also shows a more multi-dimensional understanding of well-being and this country starts to slip and continues to slip. And to my original point that Zambia was a very poor country but is increasingly less poor because of the investments it makes in its people. Also based purely on my observations and one key reason it is growing at 6% per annum is the work ethic of its people. No comment on China, who like earlier colonizers are sucking African natural resources dry but unlike earlier colonizers do provide tangible benefits to the Africans - the terms of trade are better.
So it is inaccurate to say that hand outs do not work. It is how they are designed.
Except I didn't hand outs didn't work. I said the opposite: that in a civilized society it is imperative that charity be extended to those in need - but that the way charity in this country is designed and administered - via a massive inefficient centrally planned federal bureaucracy - is flawed and in many ways evil, because it encourages the very behaviors that give rise to the pathologies that cause poverty, which it purports to cure.
My bad ...
For example in Brazil, Bosla Familia programme (a social protection measure) gives the lowest wealth percentile cash income on the condition that their children attend school and undertake quarterly health checks. The results have been phenomenal in undoing some of the worst inequality conditions, and this country is not far in being one of the most unequal societies. This country can stay strong if it invests in its people particularly the lowest wealth percentile.
Again, I don't have a problem with charity. I don't have a problem with educating the uneducated or curing the sick or mitigating the suffering of the afflicted. A society must do those things to be a just society. I simply believe that those things are best done locally and in a way that encourages long term behavioral changes that will ameliorate the social ills that result in deprivation and despair. Simply giving people food stamps and section 8 housing does not do that, as has been amply demonstrated by the war on poverty.
Whether one calls it charity or investing in your own people, it is a good long-term investment if it is done right. Here instead of a strong work ethic, a culture of entitlement prevails which doesnt help anyone.
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My short responses below.
Very poor job with the quote function, just saying
Perhaps you want to say that capitalism can also cause crime. If Capitalism does not cause or lend to crime, then why the rampant colonization of poor countries moving from merchant capitalism to modern capitalism ... the rape and pillage particularly by the British to fuel their industrial revolution and propel its capitalism? Would you say that the destruction of societies, dispossession of lands and natural resources does not constitute a crime against humanity? Moving forward to present day the disenfranchisement of certain sections of the world or within societies by increasing concentration of wealth would not cause crime to emerge and remain?
What I want to say is what I said. Capitalism does not cause crime, any more than it causes skin rashes: if it caused crime we'd all be criminals. Certainly capitalists commit crimes. Capitalists also perform acts of charity, but I'm guessing you wouldn't say that capitalism causes altruism.
What I'd say about colonialism is that certainly some of it was a crime against humanity - although I try not to condemn people for living in the times in which they were born - but that it is caused by natural human rapaciousness and venality. (That's what's so great about capitalism: it's based on the same things.) Territorial expansion was what people did; westerners just did it better than everyone else. Is there really a difference between the plague virus invading Egypt and Belgium invading the Congo, or is that just a biological imperative. Anyway, was Alexander the Great a capitalist? Napoleon? Caesar? Were the Apache - who invaded the American southwest and enslaved native peoples - capitalists? Were the Incas? Was Hitler? Stalin? If not does socialism cause crime? Or maybe it's wearing a toga that does it?
Again I partly agree here. But i would state it differently. I think where Darwin got it less right was on natural selection, and the focus on the individuals within a species. I think group selection explains the phenomenon better. We needed to cooperate because we were a prey in order to survive. Now this partly also explains why some runts continue to exist - you know the middle east nukers. Group selection also partly explains the emergence of religion, which i call a moral framework ... that is, collective action and the rules and norms for survival. Finally group selection also partly explains the evolutionary leap our specie made because we needed to move on from primordial emotions and develop advanced emotions such as empathy and love.
I'm not a Darwinian: evolution is a crock. It's easier to believe that we're characters in a video game 10000 years in the future or the remnants of a neglected cosmic fish tank than it is that Beethoven's 7th Symphony was the result of spontaneous generation in lake of mud. I do not believe that we are as a species evolving into always better forms of homo sapiens, upward towards god, any more than I think that a bacteria that develops a resistance to penicillin is becoming a better more enlightened germ.
I completely agree here again but again would state it as .. markets solve problems much much better provided they are not interfered with inexorably ... that some regulations are required (we cant sell rat poison and call it white bread) ... that there is a level playing field so that all citizens can access the resources they need to engage in markets and innovate. Also knowing that markets fail, and where they do government and civil society institutions' intervention and cooperation is needed.
I don't know that I agree with all of that: a bakery that sold bread that killed people would not stay long in business. Of course I do agree that there is a need for law, because man needs the threat of punishment to keep him from exercising his normal base instincts and descending into vicious mindless depravity. Cavils about how that law is promulgated, enacted and enforced is a different argument: every time a law is passed citizens lose more of their liberty and the government accretes to itself more power. I want as much freedom as possible and do not trust the government at all.
[...]
I agree on the subsidizing argument but do not forget to include Israel.
I didn't mention it because it has a higher percentage of people living under the poverty line than the US and thus was not relevant. I hope you are not an antisemite, that would be unfortunate.
But also look up something called the Human Development Index, which also shows a more multi-dimensional understanding of well-being and this country starts to slip and continues to slip.
A, the HDI was created by the UN, so it's somewhere between suspect and complete hooey and B, according to that index the US is the 8th happiest country in the world. I notice that it's behind Germany again, where 60 years ago they were shoving human beings into ovens and baking them like pop tarts. Nowadays half the German population thinks Auschwitz was a myth, which perhaps explains their self-satisfaction.
And to my original point that Zambia was a very poor country but is increasingly less poor because of the investments it makes in its people. Also based purely on my observations and one key reason it is growing at 6% per annum is the work ethic of its people. No comment on China, who like earlier colonizers are sucking African natural resources dry but unlike earlier colonizers do provide tangible benefits to the Africans - the terms of trade are better.
I'm not going to argue about Zambia with someone living in Zambia. However, 76 percent of the Zambian population lives below the poverty level, the HDI ranks them 5th from the bottom on the happiness scale, and whatever economic successes they've had recently seem to be the result of (a) jettisoning their socialist economy and (b) aid from the world monetary fund. If that's true they seem to be embracing the free market rather than rejecting it.
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"Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
This quote and your tone in this thread makes it seem like individuals are powerless and their fate is determined by others and their circumstances. We all make choices. Some people are born on third base and think they hit a triple. Others have to work for it. It's not fair, but nobody is powerless.
Individuals are not powerless, we all have choices. I’m simply saying that others do determine a person’s circumstance and that influence can impact their fate. I’m not condoning anyone’s actions or saying they shouldn’t be held accountable, just pointing out what contributes to a person making dumb choices. I think too many turn a blind eye to that and chalk it up to individual choice. Yes some people will make it through it, but those are the exceptions rather than the rule. We as a society will never effect change if we continue to ignore causation. Not everyone child/teenager commits suicide from bulling. Does that mean bulling isn't an issue and has no impact? I just want the shit that influences people to make bad choices to stop. Then we can truly focus on the choices they make.
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Individuals have the power to reject Social Darwinism and be careful about jumping back and forth between Nietzsche's good vs. bad and good vs. evil paradigms.
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"Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
This quote and your tone in this thread makes it seem like individuals are powerless and their fate is determined by others and their circumstances. We all make choices. Some people are born on third base and think they hit a triple. Others have to work for it. It's not fair, but nobody is powerless.
Individuals are not powerless, we all have choices. I’m simply saying that others do determine a person’s circumstance and that influence can impact their fate. I’m not condoning anyone’s actions or saying they shouldn’t be held accountable, just pointing out what contributes to a person making dumb choices. I think too many turn a blind eye to that and chalk it up to individual choice. Yes some people will make it through it, but those are the exceptions rather than the rule. We as a society will never effect change if we continue to ignore causation. Not everyone child/teenager commits suicide from bulling. Does that mean bulling isn't an issue and has no impact? I just want the shit that influences people to make bad choices to stop. Then we can truly focus on the choices they make.
I don't disagree with you that some people are born with the deck stacked against them. It's all about luck who ends up with which family and with which situation and environment. It's f*cked up. But a kid like Jordan had it better than most kids anywhere in the world. He was given a healthy body and was a genetic anomaly. He could get any girl he wanted. He flew all over the country and world. He was the jewel of his family, neighborhood, and school. All of his teachers and coaches took an interest in him so he never felt neglected. Think about kids that are born with crippling physical or mental conditions...children sold into slavery...children who were mollested, etc. Wluld you rather be from A tough neighborhood or that? And we can't even compare ghettos in America to others in the world where kids walk around with AKs at 5-6, become sexual slaves as children, drink water they sh*t and piss in, and don't have the hope of being in a country like America. They don't have Twitter followers, computers, cell phones, etc. Jordan did. Someone always has it worse than you.
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Thank you for your response. I am still not sure whether our differences are substantial. I will arrange my responses to address your thoughts according to those that are trivial to polemical to substantive.
Very poor job with the quote function, just saying
Building my capacity ...
I didn't mention it because it has a higher percentage of people living under the poverty line than the US and thus was not relevant. I hope you are not an antisemite, that would be unfortunate.
And I mentioned Israel because it was in 2014 the highest subsidized country by the US, and so in a similar boat as Germany and France in terms of their economic development and prospects. Obviously there is no relation to antisemitism. But since you ask, the persons who have provided the most inspiration to me to become a prolific researcher as well as to my world views are Dr. Norman Finkelstein and his mother, who was a Nazi Holocaust survivor and was in Majdanek concentration camp as well as the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Ironically he is labelled by some Jews both in Israel and elsewhere as a self-hating Jew.
What I want to say is what I said. Capitalism does not cause crime, any more than it causes skin rashes: if it caused crime we'd all be criminals. Certainly capitalists commit crimes. Capitalists also perform acts of charity, but I'm guessing you wouldn't say that capitalism causes altruism.
What I'd say about colonialism is that certainly some of it was a crime against humanity - although I try not to condemn people for living in the times in which they were born - but that it is caused by natural human rapaciousness and venality. (That's what's so great about capitalism: it's based on the same things.) Territorial expansion was what people did; westerners just did it better than everyone else. Is there really a difference between the plague virus invading Egypt and Belgium invading the Congo, or is that just a biological imperative. Anyway, was Alexander the Great a capitalist? Napoleon? Caesar? Were the Apache - who invaded the American southwest and enslaved native peoples - capitalists? Were the Incas? Was Hitler? Stalin? If not does socialism cause crime? Or maybe it's wearing a toga that does it?
I believe in a way you are arguing for me when you are say capitalism is based on natural rapaciousness and venality - only the primitive human emotions. An economic system in which private property rights, individual profit and self-interest motive, concentration of capital and to what end and so on. Territorial expansion was not just because someone one day got up and said hey lets go f**k with people ... oh i see some Native Americans around who have lots of land and other natural resources so lets take it from them for the fun of it.
You yourself say that Capitalism has been the biggest engine of social change; i want to acknowledge the negative aspects as well. I will however concede that the market mechanism is agnostic and is not to blame for the vagaries of human greed. I complete understand the logic of the markets. But an economic system that incentivizes individual short-term gain over larger social benefits may at times lead to social problems such as crime in which people poach elephants or traffic humans for self gain.
On the flip side Capitalism does not cause altruism, however there is a budding literature on the economics of altruism, to understand what causes altruism. Rather our species is not just primitive emotions ... we developed empathy, love and compassion.
I'm not a Darwinian: evolution is a crock. It's easier to believe that we're characters in a video game 10000 years in the future or the remnants of a neglected cosmic fish tank than it is that Beethoven's 7th Symphony was the result of spontaneous generation in lake of mud. I do not believe that we are as a species evolving into always better forms of homo sapiens, upward towards god, any more than I think that a bacteria that develops a resistance to penicillin is becoming a better more enlightened germ.
I will concede to that. I too do not think the word evolve is appropriate. we are changing in ways that are adding different dimensions to us while we are losing dimensions. I do not think that homo sapiens are at the top of any scale of superior species. Hope this makes sense.
I don't know that I agree with all of that: a bakery that sold bread that killed people would not stay long in business. Of course I do agree that there is a need for law, because man needs the threat of punishment to keep him from exercising his normal base instincts and descending into vicious mindless depravity. Cavils about how that law is promulgated, enacted and enforced is a different argument: every time a law is passed citizens lose more of their liberty and the government accretes to itself more power. I want as much freedom as possible and do not trust the government at all.
It might take a while for people to understand the link to poison ... it might take some time for people to figure it out while the baker goes on murdering and take the money and run. Case in point asbestos, etc etc etc. I am not sure what the balance is between amount of law and amount of freedom. In the case of the decentralized market economy, if on a level playing field , it provides individuals with many freedoms to act and be. However, some institution will have to decide on the rules of the game, especially where public interest is involved, and for me, I trust a much much more devolved government ... akin to what Gandhi had in mind.
A, the HDI was created by the UN, so it's somewhere between suspect and complete hooey and B, according to that index the US is the 8th happiest country in the world. I notice that it's behind Germany again, where 60 years ago they were shoving human beings into ovens and baking them like pop tarts. Nowadays half the German population thinks Auschwitz was a myth, which perhaps explains their self-satisfaction. .
HDI is not a measure of happiness but a broader measure of well-being. It is based on a concept that Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen developed (for whom the idea of maximum freedom is key), and the index was also developed another south asian economist Dr. Mahbub ul Haq (both inspirational to me). The 8th position is telling that an economy of 16trillion when we factor in health and education falls to number 8. Whereas Norway with an economy of .5 trillion is number 1. Germany is higher because they do better in health and education as well and invest in their people.
I'm not going to argue about Zambia with someone living in Zambia. However, 76 percent of the Zambian population lives below the poverty level, the HDI ranks them 5th from the bottom on the happiness scale, and whatever economic successes they've had recently seem to be the result of (a) jettisoning their socialist economy and (b) aid from the world monetary fund. If that's true they seem to be embracing the free market rather than rejecting it.
Zambia is becoming more market oriented. What one has to keep in mind however is the baseline following the rape and pillage. Zambia only gained independence in 1964 and current poverty rate has come down to 60 percent in a short time but it is the figure of 42% in extreme poverty that is also heartening. Anyhow I am not Zambian nor live in Zambia. I am conducting economic research here on elephant poaching to determine the most effective way to address this crime :)
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Building my capacity ...
Yeah well you're not doing a very good job. See how easy this is to read with just a slight bit of editing?
I mentioned Israel because it was in 2014 the highest subsidized country by the US, and so in a similar boat as Germany and France in terms of their economic development and prospects. Obviously there is no relation to antisemitism.
Okay, but Israel is irrelevant to a discussion of countries that have a lower poverty rate because it has a higher poverty rate. Antisemitism is a popular past time among progressives, who mask their distaste for The JEWS in terms of sympathy for the Palestinians and condemnations of Zionism. Whereas a lot of them just don't like Jews. I'm happy to believe that you're not a bigot but it was a strange thing to pull out of the air.
I believe in a way you are arguing for me when you are say capitalism is based on natural rapaciousness and venality - only the primitive human emotions. An economic system in which private property rights, individual profit and self-interest motive, concentration of capital and to what end and so on. Territorial expansion was not just because someone one day got up and said hey lets go f**k with people ... oh i see some Native Americans around who have lots of land and other natural resources so lets take it from them for the fun of it.
I'm certainly not arguing for you: I take you for a naif. You seem to think that man is perfectible, whereas human beings are the most pernicious species of vermin nature has ever suffered to crawl across the face of the earth.
I don't take your point about conquest. Territorial expansion happened for the same reason lions hunt gazelles. And yes I do believe that someone just woke up one day and said let's go kill them and take their stuff. Let's kill those people because they're a different color and let's kill those people because they have a different god and let's kill those people because their women are hotter than ours. The common theme is let's kill, not the free market. The Normans didn't invade England because they were capitalists, they did it because they were pirates.
You yourself say that Capitalism has been the biggest engine of social change; i want to acknowledge the negative aspects as well. I will however concede that the market mechanism is agnostic and is not to blame for the vagaries of human greed. I complete understand the logic of the markets. But an economic system that incentivizes individual short-term gain over larger social benefits may at times lead to social problems such as crime in which people poach elephants or traffic humans for self gain.
Yes, capitalism isn't perfect. But capitalism doesn't make people kill elephants. Until recently most poached ivory ended up in China. Are the Chinese capitalists? The western slave trade in the main involved the Portuguese and Spanish crowns buying African captives from African monarchs to farm sugar cane for Iberian noblemen in Brazil. That had nothing to do with the free market.
On the flip side Capitalism does not cause altruism, however there is a budding literature on the economics of altruism, to understand what causes altruism. Rather our species is not just primitive emotions ... we developed empathy, love and compassion.
Shurg. Chimpanzees are empathetic when it suits them and my dogs love me and my dogs are pretty primitive.
It might take a while for people to understand the link to poison ... it might take some time for people to figure it out while the baker goes on murdering and take the money and run. Case in point asbestos, etc etc etc.
Poisoning people is both a crime and a tort. Only a sociopath poisons someone intentionally and doesn't think he's doing wrong. No one knew asbestos was poison. When they found out they stopped using it because the cost of continuing to use it outweighed the cost of finding a substitute. Certainly there are cases where cost benefit analysis contributed to human misery - exploding Ford Pintos for example or Bhopal. But those behaviors were already illegal and evil. Of course there are cases where the public good requires collective action. But in the US today everything is couched in terms of the public good and everything requires collective action. We are no longer citizens of a representative government, we are subjects of a repressive one.
I am not sure what the balance is between amount of law and amount of freedom. In the case of the decentralized market economy, if on a level playing field , it provides individuals with many freedoms to act and be. However, some institution will have to decide on the rules of the game, especially where public interest is involved, and for me, I trust a much much more devolved government ... akin to what Gandhi had in mind.
The balance between law and freedom is simple: there should be the fewest number of laws and the most amount of personal liberty that does not infringe on your neighbor's. If by devolved you mean smallest, we're in agreement.
HDI is not a measure of happiness but a broader measure of well-being. It is based on a concept that Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen developed (for whom the idea of maximum freedom is key), and the index was also developed another south asian economist Dr. Mahbub ul Haq (both inspirational to me). The 8th position is telling that an economy of 16trillion when we factor in health and education falls to number 8. Whereas Norway with an economy of .5 trillion is number 1. Germany is higher because they do better in health and education as well and invest in their people.
In the first place, the difference between Germany and the US in 2014 was .01, 916 vs 915. So evidently they're not doing a whole hell of a lot of investing. In the second place Germans have an inflated GDP because there are 200,000 US soldier and dependents there who pump billions of capitalist dollars into the economy. By all means bring them home and let the Germans protect themselves from Putin and let's see how their economy fares. And in the third place US life expectancy suffers because of a high accident rate and crime, notably homicide and drug use, which are endemic to pathologies that result at least in part from flawed and faulty centrally planned government policies.
Zambia is becoming more market oriented. What one has to keep in mind however is the baseline following the rape and pillage. Zambia only gained independence in 1964 and current poverty rate has come down to 60 percent in a short time but it is the figure of 42% in extreme poverty that is also heartening. Anyhow I am not Zambian nor live in Zambia. I am conducting economic research here on elephant poaching to determine the most effective way to address this crime
I'd give the elephants guns. A well armed population is a safe one.
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Yeah well you're not doing a very good job. See how easy this is to read with just a slight bit of editing?
rapidly catching up with my 4th post
Okay, but Israel is irrelevant to a discussion of countries that have a lower poverty rate because it has a higher poverty rate. Antisemitism is a popular past time among progressives, who mask their distaste for The JEWS in terms of sympathy for the Palestinians and condemnations of Zionism. Whereas a lot of them just don't like Jews. I'm happy to believe that you're not a bigot but it was a strange thing to pull out of the air.
No feelings of antisemitism here. But for me it is possible to separate criticisms of Israeli policies from any hatred for the religion. It is an economy propped up by heavy subsidies and it does not do a good job of poverty reduction unlike Germany in particular on which i shall explain below later.
I'm certainly not arguing for you: I take you for a naif. You seem to think that man is perfectible, whereas human beings are the most pernicious species of vermin nature has ever suffered to crawl across the face of the earth.
I don't take your point about conquest. Territorial expansion happened for the same reason lions hunt gazelles. And yes I do believe that someone just woke up one day and said let's go kill them and take their stuff. Let's kill those people because they're a different color and let's kill those people because they have a different god and let's kill those people because their women are hotter than ours. The common theme is let's kill, not the free market. The Normans didn't invade England because they were capitalists, they did it because they were pirates.
I do not deny my naivetes. Lets be clear first. No where did i mention that crime originated because of capitalism. My narrative has been about how Capitalism can cause crime. I do not argue for perfectibility. I argue for diversity and expansion of human emotions beyond primitive emotions. Hey why not use them if we developed them. You say we do show charity and empathy ... can we broaden to those ideals? Or primitive emotions always win out? I do not believe so ... and neither do you.
Yes, capitalism isn't perfect. But capitalism doesn't make people kill elephants. Until recently most poached ivory ended up in China. Are the Chinese capitalists? The western slave trade in the main involved the Portuguese and Spanish crowns buying African captives from African monarchs to farm sugar cane for Iberian noblemen in Brazil. That had nothing to do with the free market.
For a system that is not perfect who seem to hold quite ideal views about it. I prefer the Grocho Marx argument ... another Marx that has important stuff to say. Again we are not debating whether crime is only attributable to capitalism. We are debating whether the structure and system of capitalism can cause crime. I have presented my analyses of the factors that can cause capitalism to generate crime. The structure and system of capitalism is unfortunately clogged by a species called homo sapiens sapiens. The system operates on a mechanism of incentives. And even in a system of devolved decision making, incentives can create crime, and if they do we should not be surprised if that happens. Marx wrote extensively on the tendencies of capital accumulation. Lenin later wrote about the imperative for imperialism.
Shurg. Chimpanzees are empathetic when it suits them and my dogs love me and my dogs are pretty primitive.
Actually Chimpanzees, elephants, wolves and a number of other species not only display empathy but also display collective action. This also lends to your argument that we should not think of humans on top of an evolutionary model.
Poisoning people is both a crime and a tort. Only a sociopath poisons someone intentionally and doesn't think he's doing wrong. No one knew asbestos was poison. When they found out they stopped using it because the cost of continuing to use it outweighed the cost of finding a substitute. Certainly there are cases where cost benefit analysis contributed to human misery - exploding Ford Pintos for example or Bhopal. But those behaviors were already illegal and evil. Of course there are cases where the public good requires collective action. But in the US today everything is couched in terms of the public good and everything requires collective action. We are no longer citizens of a representative government, we are subjects of a repressive one.
For one thing you are making US sound almost as approaching fascism ... i wont write about the factors that constitute fascism but it might be dictator away. Small pox infected blankets have been deliberately used in the age of merchant capitalism.
[Quote} The balance between law and freedom is simple: there should be the fewest number of laws and the most amount of personal liberty that does not infringe on your neighbor's. If by devolved you mean smallest, we're in agreement. [/Quote]
You may wish to read A History of Anarchism. Gandhi thought that the best form of governance was a confederation of villages with no central power.
In the first place, the difference between Germany and the US in 2014 was .01, 916 vs 915. So evidently they're not doing a whole hell of a lot of investing. In the second place Germans have an inflated GDP because there are 200,000 US soldier and dependents there who pump billions of capitalist dollars into the economy. By all means bring them home and let the Germans protect themselves from Putin and let's see how their economy fares. And in the third place US life expectancy suffers because of a high accident rate and crime, notably homicide and drug use, which are endemic to pathologies that result at least in part from flawed and faulty centrally planned government policies.
You well know how to look at dat and you know well that my argument was about trends. So move on to table 2 -4 of the Human Development Report 2015. Who is stagnating so that even Ireland moves ahead of US. But specifically when you look at the trends you will see how investing in people for a country that was destroyed not only by Nazism and WWII has made such amazing strides. Of course the Marshall Plan had a lot to do with it but Germany want on its own way after some time. In particular look at the inequality adjusted HDI ...
I'd give the elephants guns. A well armed population is a safe one.
Hilarious ... they said they were pacifists.
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Will you two guys get a room already. ::)
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No feelings of antisemitism here. But for me it is possible to separate criticisms of Israeli policies from any hatred for the religion. It is an economy propped up by heavy subsidies and it does not do a good job of poverty reduction unlike Germany in particular on which i shall explain below later.
To the extent that the Israeli economy is less robust than the German one it's because Israel spends an obscene amount of money and time defending itself from anti semites who believe that it should not exist as a country and that its inhabitants should be murdered. To the extent that you compare Israel and Germany I assume you are being ironic, because without Auschwitz there would have been no need for Israel.
I argue for diversity and expansion of human emotions beyond primitive emotions. Hey why not use them if we developed them. You say we do show charity and empathy ... can we broaden to those ideals? Or primitive emotions always win out? I do not believe so ... and neither do you.
Please don't tell me what I believe. I live with an inner monologue that makes Pink Flamingos look like It's a Wonderful Life. I know exactly what I think about human beings and it's not that with a little aromatherapy and fewer transfats they'll all become charitable and empathetic. It's that the ones who shouldn't be hung should be flogged.
For a system that is not perfect who seem to hold quite ideal views about it.
I am not under any illusions about the market. All I believe is that it's demonstrably less worse than everything else.
I have presented my analyses of the factors that can cause capitalism to generate crime. The structure and system of capitalism is unfortunately clogged by a species called homo sapiens sapiens. The system operates on a mechanism of incentives. And even in a system of devolved decision making, incentives can create crime, and if they do we should not be surprised if that happens. Marx wrote extensively on the tendencies of capital accumulation. Lenin later wrote about the imperative for imperialism.
Look, say I agree capitalism causes crime. I do not believe that, I believe criminal behavior is endemic to the human condition and predates economics. But let's for shit and giggles say I agree that capitalism causes crime. Now, what else causes crime? Love, faith, truth, beauty, freedom, all those things. So what point exactly are you making? How about we start a campaign to disincentivize love and beauty, it'll lower the crime rate, whata you say, no more of that if I can't have her no one can stuff, whata you say.
For one thing you are making US sound almost as approaching fascism ... i wont write about the factors that constitute fascism but it might be dictator away.
It is approaching fascism. We are on a slippery slope and Dachau is at the bottom of the hill. Barrack Obama would like nothing more than to have 49 percent of the population out in the rice field picking enough grain to feed 49 percent of the permanent underclass while he and two percent of his friends ate Kobe beef in Martha's Vineyard. Except when it happens and it will it's all going to be okay, because it's for our own good, because the government knows what's best. Just like Mao's China but with less rigorous reeducation.
Small pox infected blankets have been deliberately used in the age of merchant capitalism.
You throw out these facts like they are meaningful. Whereas this is just a non sequitur. It has as much impact as saying that non small pox infected blankets have been deliberately used to keep people warm. So what. Some frontier sociopath killed some injuns by giving them a fatal disease. So what. If there was nothing in it for him he wouldn't have done it? So what. No one does anything unless there's something in it for him, it just depends on which something the particular human being thinks is important. Jeffrey Dahmer didn't eat people because of Adam Smith, he ate people because he liked the way they tasted.
You well know how to look at dat and you know well that my argument was about trends. So move on to table 2 -4 of the Human Development Report 2015.
As I said earlier, I don't give a shit about the Human Development Index. It's merely some dodgy UN report designed to show that the rest of the world doesn't think the US is as wonderful as some Americans thinks it is, with the hopeful result that the US will feel guilty enough to deliver to the rest of the world reparations. I don't give a shit about the UN or their reports. In my utopia there would not be a UN and as parting gifts all the delegates would be given small pox infected blankets as they were sent packing and turtle bay imploded in the background.
Who is stagnating so that even Ireland moves ahead of US.
Even Ireland? What's wrong with the Irish?
But specifically when you look at the trends you will see how investing in people for a country that was destroyed not only by Nazism and WWII has made such amazing strides. Of course the Marshall Plan had a lot to do with it but Germany want on its own way after some time. In particular look at the inequality adjusted HDI ...
In the first place, Nazism did not destroy Germany. That's like saying alcoholism destroyed an alcoholic's liver. Whereas it was the booze. The Germans were all Nazis until they weren't and then they were all shocked shocked I tell you by what that zany Hitler guy was doing. In the second place had the US simply went home after Berlin fell everyone in Germany would now be speaking Russian. There would be no United Nations, there would be no adjusted HDI, there would be no Germany as it exists today and there would probably be no Europe. That there is has nothing to do with German investment and everything to do with US investment.
they said they were pacifists.
You sure they didn't say pachyderms?
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Will you two guys get a room already. ::)
Is this one of those off season posts designed to make me think you're a dope and to tell you so? If so you tricked me again.
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To the extent that the Israeli economy is less robust than the German one it's because Israel spends an obscene amount of money and time defending itself from anti semites who believe that it should not exist as a country and that its inhabitants should be murdered. To the extent that you compare Israel and Germany I assume you are being ironic, because without Auschwitz there would have been no need for Israel.
Just to be clear about the need for Israel, we both know the facts of history of the need for Israel goes back to 1891 with the advent of the term called Zionism by Theodore Herzl and the identification of Palestine of the Jewish homeland. Fast forward to 1917 and to the Balfour Declaration (a key declaration to the establishment of a jewish homeland) and the intense debate surrounding it in the UK on whether Jews can be English .. strangely antisemites and zionists agreed ... the joint answer was that they could not and that a Jewish homeland had to be created in what was then the British-administered Palestine. Strangely also the people who most opposed the Balfour Declaration were not the Arabs (who gives a damn about them) but the elite British Jewry. These elite British Jews actually published open letters to newspapers saying no way jose and we aint going along with this British backing for a Jewish home in Palestine. Because if we do and the declaration goes ahead we are not going to be British elite anymore.
Some further facts were that Hitler initially wanted to banish the Jews from Germany so wasn’t completely hostile to the Zionist homeland idea. That’s why so many German Jews managed to survive after Hitler came to power by emigrating to Palestine. There was already an Israel firmly being established before Auschwitz's construction in 1940. I am only stating this to separate the substance from the polemics. If it means anything to you, I fully recognize the right of Israel to exist and self-determination just i am for palestinians' right to exist and self-determination. However often the term anti-semite, peppered with a vague mention of the Nazi holocaust, is used to distract debate.
Finally your initial comments were how france and germany's listing ahead of US on poverty is best explained by heavy US investment. To which i mentioned a counterfactual - Israel. If i knew you were so sensitive about Israel i would've mentioned Jordan. Your response is precisely the point i am getting to - Israel spends too many on military and not enough on investing in its people despite the heavy US aid. I hope we can leave Israel propaganda about murder out of this.
Please don't tell me what I believe. I live with an inner monologue that makes Pink Flamingos look like It's a Wonderful Life. I know exactly what I think about human beings and it's not that with a little aromatherapy and fewer transfats they'll all become charitable and empathetic. It's that the ones who shouldn't be hung should be flogged.
You are entitled to your opinion. I believe that we are capable of great evil and great good, and what we do is based with the context of the structure and system we exist in and our own personal agency on whether we succumb only to our instinctual or rational side.
I am not under any illusions about the market. All I believe is that it's demonstrably less worse than everything else.
Please present your facts.
Look, say I agree capitalism causes crime. I do not believe that, I believe criminal behavior is endemic to the human condition and predates economics. But let's for shit and giggles say I agree that capitalism causes crime. Now, what else causes crime? Love, faith, truth, beauty, freedom, all those things. So what point exactly are you making? How about we start a campaign to disincentivize love and beauty, it'll lower the crime rate, whata you say, no more of that if I can't have her no one can stuff, whata you say.
I do not disagree on the human condition you paint; i agree it is part of who we are. To answer the question, one of the biggest causes of crime is power, which works to disenfranchise people, violate human rights, debilitates them, keeps them in a vicious cycle of poverty (say to African Americans in US continually perpetuated under modern capitalism). A second major cause is conviction and group mentality, I am here referring to the crimes against humanity that the Germans perpetrated against the Jews. Arendt gave a beautiful account of this in Eichmann in Jerusalem of how Eichmann - even though may be aware of the monstrous acts he was implementing - felt the conviction to the fuhrer outweighed any atrocity. The same findings by Arendt, to me, also explain the ISIS phenomena better. To conclude, whilst you are pointing to biological factors, i am pointing to social, economic, psychological, political, cultural factors within the realm of particular structures and systems. Other examples of criminal convictions are "The white man's burden" ...
You throw out these facts like they are meaningful. Whereas this is just a non sequitur. It has as much impact as saying that non small pox infected blankets have been deliberately used to keep people warm. So what. Some frontier sociopath killed some injuns by giving them a fatal disease. So what. If there was nothing in it for him he wouldn't have done it? So what. No one does anything unless there's something in it for him, it just depends on which something the particular human being thinks is important. Jeffrey Dahmer didn't eat people because of Adam Smith, he ate people because he liked the way they tasted.
Sure I agree. But it is in my interest also to cooperate to make sure that instead of undermining people, we all gain if we do not steal from the poor. :)
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In the first place, Nazism did not destroy Germany. That's like saying alcoholism destroyed an alcoholic's liver. Whereas it was the booze. The Germans were all Nazis until they weren't and then they were all shocked shocked I tell you by what that zany Hitler guy was doing. In the second place had the US simply went home after Berlin fell everyone in Germany would now be speaking Russian. There would be no United Nations, there would be no adjusted HDI, there would be no Germany as it exists today and there would probably be no Europe. That there is has nothing to do with German investment and everything to do with US investment.
Not quite and in some cases incorrect. I dont have time for detailed answer on this. Hitler was already undermining its economy through massive price controls and rationing of food since 1936 to feed the war investments but it meant that by 1947 food production feel by 51% and industrial output by 33%. On the issue of US investments, that is also a red herring, Marshall Plan aid to Germany was not that large. We are talking about only $2 billion through 1954. Even during its peak, this aid was less than 5% of thei rnational income. In other words, it was peanuts. Ironically the countries that received heavy/heavier aid grew slower than Germany. At the same time, Germany was already making repayments well in excess of $1 billion. And the most important one i think was paying off the Allies (thank you US) to the tune of $2.4 billion annually to pay for occupying Germany. The positive bit was that the lack of need for investments in defense and heavy investments in the country coupled with what Alan Greenspan writes about policy changes that were really the trigger behind the German revival.
You sure they didn't say pachyderms?.
Actually i think i have come up with the answer on poaching and management of this National Park. Kick the state out or rather contract the state to leave on the condition that the communities own the national park; maintain biodiversity and management. Privatized it, continue to make tourism money and capture it through a community cooperative, and then see what the poacher get anything.
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Just to be clear about the need for Israel, we both know the facts of history of the need for Israel goes back to 1891 with the advent of the term called Zionism
The need for Israel stems from the fact that every country in Europe went about systematically ghettoizing and murdering Jews over about a 1000 year period - all except Ireland, because as Joyce put it, they never let them in in the first place.
Auschwitz was meant as a euphemism for that: pogroms, ghettos, and deportation. Auschwitz wasn't even a murder camp, it was a work camp. The extermination camp in Oswiecim Poland was called Birkenau. And the concentration camp system started at Dachau, in the early 30s. Other than that you make some salient points.
<hose>
Some further facts were that Hitler initially wanted to banish the Jews from Germany so wasn’t completely hostile to the Zionist homeland idea. That’s why so many German Jews managed to survive after Hitler came to power by emigrating to Palestine.
Yeah, "so many" Juden made out great during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, excellent point. If only Hitler had been more efficient the poor Palestinians would be home by now.
If it means anything to you, I fully recognize the right of Israel to exist
Congratulations. Who else do you think shouldn't be murdered besides THE JEWS. Make a list. Be specific.
However often the term anti-semite, peppered with a vague mention of the Nazi holocaust, is used to distract debate.
It's also used to describe someone who has a problem with THE JEWS, which I'm starting to think I was right about you three posts ago.
Finally your initial comments were how france and germany's listing ahead of US on poverty is best explained by heavy US investment.
Yeah, that's not what I said at all. What I said was "Countries like Norway and France ... would be no where as prosperous as they are if the US had not spent trillions protecting them from Slavic depredation." Meaning bankrolling NATO. Have we moved on to the part of the discussion where you paraphrase what I said incorrectly and then refute it? Because they have a word for that.
You are entitled to your opinion.
So THE JEWS are entitled to not be murdered and I am entitled to have an opinion about why they were. That is very magnanimous of you, thanks.
I am not under any illusions about the market. All I believe is that it's demonstrably less worse than everything else.
Please present your facts.
Yes, my facts. Let's see. You're worried about capitalism killing elephants and you ask for facts about socialism being worse. Okey dokey, here are some facts: Mao, Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot killed 100 million people in the name of socialism. I'm not sure how many elephants they murdered, so that might not impress you, but I find it somewhat compelling.
Not quite and in some cases incorrect. I dont have time for detailed answer on this.
Okay, well I don't have time to read your supposition and half formed thoughts. Hence I have <hosed> them.
Hitler was already undermining its economy through massive price controls and rationing of food since 1936 to feed the war investments but it meant that by 1947 food production feel by 51% and industrial output by 33%.
Wait you mean after Allied bombing completely destroyed Germany's infrastructure and the Allies seized their country and all their assets and put them under military rule food production and industrial output fell? Gosh, who would have thunk it and who would have thunk to blame it on Nazi price controls.
On the issue of US investments, that is also a red herring, Marshall Plan aid to Germany was not that large. We are talking about only $2 billion through 1954. Even during its peak, this aid was less than 5% of thei rnational income. In other words, it was peanuts.
In the first place two billion in 1954 is 20 billion today, which is 7 times the amount of US aid that goes to THE JEWS you keep mentioning. In the second place, US aid to Europe between 1945 and the fall of the Berlin Wall comprised trillions of dollars spent on defense, to which trillions Norway and Switzerland and Germany and the majority of eurotrash countries contributed a piddling amount. Which had they spent a commensurate amount on defending themselves they wouldn't have had it for "investing in their people," whatever the hell that pollyanism means.
Ironically the countries that received heavy/heavier aid grew slower than Germany.
Yes well Germany was at somewhere near zero wasn't it after WWII. All there young men were dead and all their buildings and factories and rail lines were rubble. It's easier to grow from nothing to ten than it is from 85 to 95.
At the same time, Germany was already making repayments well in excess of $1 billion.
If 2 billion is "peanuts," what kind of nuts is one billion.
Actually i think i have come up with the answer on poaching and management of this National Park. Kick the state out [and ] Privatized it.
So your final solution to the murder of elephants is capitalism and small government? Why didn't I think of that.
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Please don't tell me what I believe. I live with an inner monologue that makes Pink Flamingos look like It's a Wonderful Life.
Just wanted to take a break from catching up to say this may be the best snippet from a long line of great snippets.
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Foad, if you aren't careful I might write you in instead of Johnson come November.
That being said, I actually hope you created this other handle 5 years ago and patiently waited for the opportunity to debate yourself. Either way.
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Foad, if you aren't careful I might write you in instead of Johnson come November.
If nominated I will not run. If elected I will not serve. If assassinated I will not die.
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The need for Israel stems from the fact that every country in Europe went about systematically ghettoizing and murdering Jews over about a 1000 year period - all except Ireland, because as Joyce put it, they never let them in in the first place.
Oh jeez. Must i go over this again. It's becoming tedious. As the accusations of antisemitism deepen (particularly against a Semite) so the does the level of blackmail. Mr. Foad, I thought you had enough intellect not to pull the moral equivalence card. But since you do, here is my response. No, crime against humanity is a crime against humanity and there is no moral hierarchy when it comes to this. 20 million (estimated) killed by Stalin does not mean it was less a moral crime than the 6 million in Germany or the 3 million in the Viet Nam war.
Auschwitz was meant as a euphemism for that: pogroms, ghettos, and deportation. Auschwitz wasn't even a murder camp, it was a work camp. The extermination camp in Oswiecim Poland was called Birkenau. And the concentration camp system started at Dachau, in the early 30s. Other than that you make some salient points.
No, but lets be clear ... this was the previous card you played. And no it is not quite the euphemism you describe but the euphemism called pulling the holocaust card. It is a pretty crass way of distracting from the debate. Hey i am losing the debate to so ill say you are a antisemite or pound you with emotional blackmail about the holocaust. Hose me? no Hose you LOLZ.
And the first card you played when you misunderstood the intention in bringing up Israel was launching an antisemetic diatribe. My intention of bringing it up was largely to test your conviction about three things: capitalism, Israel and maximum liberty for all through minimum government. Clearly where Capitalism and Israel is concerned you win high marks. But where maximum liberty is concerned it is hypocritical. Typical of people who hold idealist views.
Your debating style reminds me a lot of Dershowitz ... you know the lawyers' tactic to distract from the issue at hand. But I am afraid Mr. Foad this is not the OJ trial. ... put the slim gloves down.
Yeah, "so many" Juden made out great during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, excellent point. If only Hitler had been more efficient the poor Palestinians would be home by now.
It is an excellent point, and here is the evidence. From an initial population of 523,000 Jews in Germany in January 1933 to 202,000 by end 1939 to 163,000 by October 1941. To me that qualifies as so many from GERMANY leaving. I wish every last one of them could have left ... https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005468
Congratulations. Who else do you think shouldn't be murdered besides THE JEWS. Make a list. Be specific.
Oh my sweet sunshine ... so hot and bothered. To repeat ad nauseum, a crime against humanity is a crime against humanity.
It's also used to describe someone who has a problem with THE JEWS, which I'm starting to think I was right about you three posts ago.
Sure Mr. Dershowitz. Feel like you are losing the debate?
Yeah, that's not what I said at all. What I said was "Countries like Norway and France ... would be no where as prosperous as they are if the US had not spent trillions protecting them from Slavic depredation." Meaning bankrolling NATO. Have we moved on to the part of the discussion where you paraphrase what I said incorrectly and then refute it? Because they have a word for that.
I can hear the chant of USA, USA, USA ... you are basing this on pure speculation ... there is no counterfactual available. So hose you :)
So THE JEWS are entitled to not be murdered and I am entitled to have an opinion about why they were. That is very magnanimous of you, thanks.
No but what is your name, Jew? Brian. Bwian, eh? No, *Brian*. The little wascal has thpiwit.
Yes, my facts. Let's see. You're worried about capitalism killing elephants and you ask for facts about socialism being worse. Okey dokey, here are some facts: Mao, Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot killed 100 million people in the name of socialism. I'm not sure how many elephants they murdered, so that might not impress you, but I find it somewhat compelling.
Boring. Even if 3 million Viet Namese died in Viet Nam war, and hundred of thousands in the illegal invasion of Iraq does not make Capitalism better. It is a silly and crass argument.
Okay, well I don't have time to read your supposition and half formed thoughts. Hence I have <hosed> them.
Yes I see your well formed ideas at par with the average JJ poster, but clearly you are a better person. LOLZ.
Wait you mean after Allied bombing completely destroyed Germany's infrastructure and the Allies seized their country and all their assets and put them under military rule food production and industrial output fell? Gosh, who would have thunk it and who would have thunk to blame it on Nazi price controls.
Clearly your understanding of natural science and the social sciences is wanting. I hope you are better whatever it is you do. I suggest you read some more economic history and argue using evidence.
In the first place two billion in 1954 is 20 billion today, which is 7 times the amount of US aid that goes to THE JEWS you keep mentioning. In the second place, US aid to Europe between 1945 and the fall of the Berlin Wall comprised trillions of dollars spent on defense, to which trillions Norway and Switzerland and Germany and the majority of eurotrash countries contributed a piddling amount. Which had they spent a commensurate amount on defending themselves they wouldn't have had it for "investing in their people," whatever the hell that pollyanism means.
Oh jeez are you going to dabble in accounting now. Are you really kidding me? You are speaking to a Semite Cambridge educated economist not some JJ poster. So compare apples with apples. From 1949 to 2014 military aid to Israel has been a quantum of $153 billion in 2014 prices (in case you want to derive this I am using a simple PPP derived through CPI). Total aid to Israel during the same period is $238 billion in 2014 prices. So while Israel sucks at poverty reduction despite the obscene levels of subsidy, it is better at demolishing homes, torture and brutalization of the palestinians. Pollyanism is the least of my problem ... i think borderline personality disorder is more so.
If 2 billion is "peanuts," what kind of nuts is one billion.
Macadamia nuts.
So your final solution to the murder of elephants is capitalism and small government? Why didn't I think of that.
Jeez another holocaust reference ... wonder where that came from and what it was meant to convey. Incorrect, the solution is anarcho-syndicalist .. not the capitalism model in the US.
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I hope you are better whatever it is you do
Three days ago you were sucking my dick, today you're complaining about the taste and bragging about your college degree. What happened in the interim, oh that's right, you spent it with my boot in your ass. Bye now stupid, say hi to the elephants.
<remainder hosed>
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Judge won't lower bail for aspiring basketball star charged in shooting, attempted robbery. http://bit.ly/1XseKXB
I met Fr. Rock on a Butler road trip this winter, he's terrific. It speaks volumes to see him by Sheed's side during this process. I find it very interesting that the trail is being forwarded to a private indicting grand jury. Ploy? The new wrinkle explaining that Sheed ran into the rec center to hide the smoking gun in a 13 year old's backpack absolutely ruins his plea that he's a role model for the younger generation in the community. The evidence is overwhelming and the court isn't budging on the bail, sad stuff.
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I hope you are better whatever it is you do
Three days ago you were sucking my dick, today you're complaining about the taste and bragging about your college degree. What happened in the interim, oh that's right, you spent it with my boot in your ass. Bye now stupid, say hi to the elephants.
<remainder hosed>
As expected Mr. Dershowitz ... Crucify him well LOLZ ..
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As expected Mr. Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz the famous Jew shyster lawyer you mean? Quite. So to recap: you mention Israel out of the blue, you claim some of your best friends are "self-hating jews," you believe "so many" Jews escaped the Holocaust because of Hitler's benign policies, you recognize bravely the right of Israel to not be destroyed by Muslim anti semites, and now a couple of references to Shylock for good measure. All of which comes tumbling out of you unbidden in the space of four posts.
The persecution rests.
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Sunshine it's not my fault that the level of analyses you were taught was at the level of synthesis. You could potentially be a good person if you tried ... First by letting go of your limited knowledge of human nature... Obviously everyone knows its a social construct.
Secondly Arendt had it right. Conviction sucks. And i find nothing more despicable than those peoplr who use the suffering and martyrdom of particularly the people who suffered the Nazi holocaust to prove some defense of their personal insecurity.
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it's not my fault I'm an antisemite.
Of course not, it's the Jews fault. Everything is.
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Of course not, it's the Jews fault. Everything is.[\quote]
<shmata>
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Can this thread get back to Rysheed Jordan and perhaps lay off the only civilized people in the Middle East?
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Can always rely on Poison to be the voice of reason :P
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Can always rely on Poison to be the voice of reason :P
As per usual.
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Building my capacity ...
Yeah well you're not doing a very good job. See how easy this is to read with just a slight bit of editing?
I mentioned Israel because it was in 2014 the highest subsidized country by the US, and so in a similar boat as Germany and France in terms of their economic development and prospects. Obviously there is no relation to antisemitism.
Okay, but Israel is irrelevant to a discussion of countries that have a lower poverty rate because it has a higher poverty rate. Antisemitism is a popular past time among progressives, who mask their distaste for The JEWS in terms of sympathy for the Palestinians and condemnations of Zionism. Whereas a lot of them just don't like Jews. I'm happy to believe that you're not a bigot but it was a strange thing to pull out of the air.
I believe in a way you are arguing for me when you are say capitalism is based on natural rapaciousness and venality - only the primitive human emotions. An economic system in which private property rights, individual profit and self-interest motive, concentration of capital and to what end and so on. Territorial expansion was not just because someone one day got up and said hey lets go f**k with people ... oh i see some Native Americans around who have lots of land and other natural resources so lets take it from them for the fun of it.
I'm certainly not arguing for you: I take you for a naif. You seem to think that man is perfectible, whereas human beings are the most pernicious species of vermin nature has ever suffered to crawl across the face of the earth.
I don't take your point about conquest. Territorial expansion happened for the same reason lions hunt gazelles. And yes I do believe that someone just woke up one day and said let's go kill them and take their stuff. Let's kill those people because they're a different color and let's kill those people because they have a different god and let's kill those people because their women are hotter than ours. The common theme is let's kill, not the free market. The Normans didn't invade England because they were capitalists, they did it because they were pirates.
You yourself say that Capitalism has been the biggest engine of social change; i want to acknowledge the negative aspects as well. I will however concede that the market mechanism is agnostic and is not to blame for the vagaries of human greed. I complete understand the logic of the markets. But an economic system that incentivizes individual short-term gain over larger social benefits may at times lead to social problems such as crime in which people poach elephants or traffic humans for self gain.
Yes, capitalism isn't perfect. But capitalism doesn't make people kill elephants. Until recently most poached ivory ended up in China. Are the Chinese capitalists? The western slave trade in the main involved the Portuguese and Spanish crowns buying African captives from African monarchs to farm sugar cane for Iberian noblemen in Brazil. That had nothing to do with the free market.
On the flip side Capitalism does not cause altruism, however there is a budding literature on the economics of altruism, to understand what causes altruism. Rather our species is not just primitive emotions ... we developed empathy, love and compassion.
Shurg. Chimpanzees are empathetic when it suits them and my dogs love me and my dogs are pretty primitive.
It might take a while for people to understand the link to poison ... it might take some time for people to figure it out while the baker goes on murdering and take the money and run. Case in point asbestos, etc etc etc.
Poisoning people is both a crime and a tort. Only a sociopath poisons someone intentionally and doesn't think he's doing wrong. No one knew asbestos was poison. When they found out they stopped using it because the cost of continuing to use it outweighed the cost of finding a substitute. Certainly there are cases where cost benefit analysis contributed to human misery - exploding Ford Pintos for example or Bhopal. But those behaviors were already illegal and evil. Of course there are cases where the public good requires collective action. But in the US today everything is couched in terms of the public good and everything requires collective action. We are no longer citizens of a representative government, we are subjects of a repressive one.
I am not sure what the balance is between amount of law and amount of freedom. In the case of the decentralized market economy, if on a level playing field , it provides individuals with many freedoms to act and be. However, some institution will have to decide on the rules of the game, especially where public interest is involved, and for me, I trust a much much more devolved government ... akin to what Gandhi had in mind.
The balance between law and freedom is simple: there should be the fewest number of laws and the most amount of personal liberty that does not infringe on your neighbor's. If by devolved you mean smallest, we're in agreement.
HDI is not a measure of happiness but a broader measure of well-being. It is based on a concept that Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen developed (for whom the idea of maximum freedom is key), and the index was also developed another south asian economist Dr. Mahbub ul Haq (both inspirational to me). The 8th position is telling that an economy of 16trillion when we factor in health and education falls to number 8. Whereas Norway with an economy of .5 trillion is number 1. Germany is higher because they do better in health and education as well and invest in their people.
In the first place, the difference between Germany and the US in 2014 was .01, 916 vs 915. So evidently they're not doing a whole hell of a lot of investing. In the second place Germans have an inflated GDP because there are 200,000 US soldier and dependents there who pump billions of capitalist dollars into the economy. By all means bring them home and let the Germans protect themselves from Putin and let's see how their economy fares. And in the third place US life expectancy suffers because of a high accident rate and crime, notably homicide and drug use, which are endemic to pathologies that result at least in part from flawed and faulty centrally planned government policies.
Zambia is becoming more market oriented. What one has to keep in mind however is the baseline following the rape and pillage. Zambia only gained independence in 1964 and current poverty rate has come down to 60 percent in a short time but it is the figure of 42% in extreme poverty that is also heartening. Anyhow I am not Zambian nor live in Zambia. I am conducting economic research here on elephant poaching to determine the most effective way to address this crime
I'd give the elephants guns. A well armed population is a safe one.
are you guys using the OECD report on israel and poverty rate from a few years ago ? 2 biggest groups that comprise poverty there are the arabs and the ultra orthodox. The ultra orthodox having something like 6 or 7 kids per family and they barely work and are over 10% of the population and gaining rapidly. They used to live off govt child subsidies and Ben N cut back subsidies for children a few years ago I think and that drove their numbers up. They shouldn't be sending their kids to just study the torah anyway. I have clients there an they hat that big time because their own kids serve in the military automatically and their kids don't and don't even study anything to enter the work force. Their poverty numbers were something like over 50% recently. Arabs there the numbers were real high also. Something like 50%poverty. Funny thing is we had less of a problem walking in arab communities than ultra orthodox communities when we were there. Female wears shorts over there and they are freaking rude to you and tell you to get off their street meanwhile it was public street
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Building my capacity ...
Yeah well you're not doing a very good job. See how easy this is to read with just a slight bit of editing?
I mentioned Israel because it was in 2014 the highest subsidized country by the US, and so in a similar boat as Germany and France in terms of their economic development and prospects. Obviously there is no relation to antisemitism.
Okay, but Israel is irrelevant to a discussion of countries that have a lower poverty rate because it has a higher poverty rate. Antisemitism is a popular past time among progressives, who mask their distaste for The JEWS in terms of sympathy for the Palestinians and condemnations of Zionism. Whereas a lot of them just don't like Jews. I'm happy to believe that you're not a bigot but it was a strange thing to pull out of the air.
I believe in a way you are arguing for me when you are say capitalism is based on natural rapaciousness and venality - only the primitive human emotions. An economic system in which private property rights, individual profit and self-interest motive, concentration of capital and to what end and so on. Territorial expansion was not just because someone one day got up and said hey lets go f**k with people ... oh i see some Native Americans around who have lots of land and other natural resources so lets take it from them for the fun of it.
I'm certainly not arguing for you: I take you for a naif. You seem to think that man is perfectible, whereas human beings are the most pernicious species of vermin nature has ever suffered to crawl across the face of the earth.
I don't take your point about conquest. Territorial expansion happened for the same reason lions hunt gazelles. And yes I do believe that someone just woke up one day and said let's go kill them and take their stuff. Let's kill those people because they're a different color and let's kill those people because they have a different god and let's kill those people because their women are hotter than ours. The common theme is let's kill, not the free market. The Normans didn't invade England because they were capitalists, they did it because they were pirates.
You yourself say that Capitalism has been the biggest engine of social change; i want to acknowledge the negative aspects as well. I will however concede that the market mechanism is agnostic and is not to blame for the vagaries of human greed. I complete understand the logic of the markets. But an economic system that incentivizes individual short-term gain over larger social benefits may at times lead to social problems such as crime in which people poach elephants or traffic humans for self gain.
Yes, capitalism isn't perfect. But capitalism doesn't make people kill elephants. Until recently most poached ivory ended up in China. Are the Chinese capitalists? The western slave trade in the main involved the Portuguese and Spanish crowns buying African captives from African monarchs to farm sugar cane for Iberian noblemen in Brazil. That had nothing to do with the free market.
On the flip side Capitalism does not cause altruism, however there is a budding literature on the economics of altruism, to understand what causes altruism. Rather our species is not just primitive emotions ... we developed empathy, love and compassion.
Shurg. Chimpanzees are empathetic when it suits them and my dogs love me and my dogs are pretty primitive.
It might take a while for people to understand the link to poison ... it might take some time for people to figure it out while the baker goes on murdering and take the money and run. Case in point asbestos, etc etc etc.
Poisoning people is both a crime and a tort. Only a sociopath poisons someone intentionally and doesn't think he's doing wrong. No one knew asbestos was poison. When they found out they stopped using it because the cost of continuing to use it outweighed the cost of finding a substitute. Certainly there are cases where cost benefit analysis contributed to human misery - exploding Ford Pintos for example or Bhopal. But those behaviors were already illegal and evil. Of course there are cases where the public good requires collective action. But in the US today everything is couched in terms of the public good and everything requires collective action. We are no longer citizens of a representative government, we are subjects of a repressive one.
I am not sure what the balance is between amount of law and amount of freedom. In the case of the decentralized market economy, if on a level playing field , it provides individuals with many freedoms to act and be. However, some institution will have to decide on the rules of the game, especially where public interest is involved, and for me, I trust a much much more devolved government ... akin to what Gandhi had in mind.
The balance between law and freedom is simple: there should be the fewest number of laws and the most amount of personal liberty that does not infringe on your neighbor's. If by devolved you mean smallest, we're in agreement.
HDI is not a measure of happiness but a broader measure of well-being. It is based on a concept that Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen developed (for whom the idea of maximum freedom is key), and the index was also developed another south asian economist Dr. Mahbub ul Haq (both inspirational to me). The 8th position is telling that an economy of 16trillion when we factor in health and education falls to number 8. Whereas Norway with an economy of .5 trillion is number 1. Germany is higher because they do better in health and education as well and invest in their people.
In the first place, the difference between Germany and the US in 2014 was .01, 916 vs 915. So evidently they're not doing a whole hell of a lot of investing. In the second place Germans have an inflated GDP because there are 200,000 US soldier and dependents there who pump billions of capitalist dollars into the economy. By all means bring them home and let the Germans protect themselves from Putin and let's see how their economy fares. And in the third place US life expectancy suffers because of a high accident rate and crime, notably homicide and drug use, which are endemic to pathologies that result at least in part from flawed and faulty centrally planned government policies.
Zambia is becoming more market oriented. What one has to keep in mind however is the baseline following the rape and pillage. Zambia only gained independence in 1964 and current poverty rate has come down to 60 percent in a short time but it is the figure of 42% in extreme poverty that is also heartening. Anyhow I am not Zambian nor live in Zambia. I am conducting economic research here on elephant poaching to determine the most effective way to address this crime
I'd give the elephants guns. A well armed population is a safe one.
are you guys using the OECD report on israel and poverty rate from a few years ago ? 2 biggest groups that comprise poverty there are the arabs and the ultra orthodox. The ultra orthodox having something like 6 or 7 kids per family and they barely work and are over 10% of the population as of over 7 years ago and gaining rapidly. They used to live off govt child subsidies and Ben N cut back subsidies for children a few years ago I think and that drove their numbers up. They shouldn't be sending their kids to just study the torah anyway. I have clients there an they hat that big time because their own kids serve in the military automatically and their kids don't and don't even study anything to enter the work force. Their poverty numbers were something like 67 %. Arabs there the numbers were real high also. Something like 50%poverty. Funny thing is we had less of a problem walking in arab communities than ultra orthodox communities when we were there. Female wears shorts over there and they are freaking rude to you and tell you to get off their street meanwhile it was public street
Thr Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel (approximately 30k residents) in Monroe, NY has the highest poverty rate, highest rate of food stamps, and most children per family in the nation and a median household income of $15k.
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Building my capacity ...
Yeah well you're not doing a very good job. See how easy this is to read with just a slight bit of editing?
I mentioned Israel because it was in 2014 the highest subsidized country by the US, and so in a similar boat as Germany and France in terms of their economic development and prospects. Obviously there is no relation to antisemitism.
Okay, but Israel is irrelevant to a discussion of countries that have a lower poverty rate because it has a higher poverty rate. Antisemitism is a popular past time among progressives, who mask their distaste for The JEWS in terms of sympathy for the Palestinians and condemnations of Zionism. Whereas a lot of them just don't like Jews. I'm happy to believe that you're not a bigot but it was a strange thing to pull out of the air.
I believe in a way you are arguing for me when you are say capitalism is based on natural rapaciousness and venality - only the primitive human emotions. An economic system in which private property rights, individual profit and self-interest motive, concentration of capital and to what end and so on. Territorial expansion was not just because someone one day got up and said hey lets go f**k with people ... oh i see some Native Americans around who have lots of land and other natural resources so lets take it from them for the fun of it.
I'm certainly not arguing for you: I take you for a naif. You seem to think that man is perfectible, whereas human beings are the most pernicious species of vermin nature has ever suffered to crawl across the face of the earth.
I don't take your point about conquest. Territorial expansion happened for the same reason lions hunt gazelles. And yes I do believe that someone just woke up one day and said let's go kill them and take their stuff. Let's kill those people because they're a different color and let's kill those people because they have a different god and let's kill those people because their women are hotter than ours. The common theme is let's kill, not the free market. The Normans didn't invade England because they were capitalists, they did it because they were pirates.
You yourself say that Capitalism has been the biggest engine of social change; i want to acknowledge the negative aspects as well. I will however concede that the market mechanism is agnostic and is not to blame for the vagaries of human greed. I complete understand the logic of the markets. But an economic system that incentivizes individual short-term gain over larger social benefits may at times lead to social problems such as crime in which people poach elephants or traffic humans for self gain.
Yes, capitalism isn't perfect. But capitalism doesn't make people kill elephants. Until recently most poached ivory ended up in China. Are the Chinese capitalists? The western slave trade in the main involved the Portuguese and Spanish crowns buying African captives from African monarchs to farm sugar cane for Iberian noblemen in Brazil. That had nothing to do with the free market.
On the flip side Capitalism does not cause altruism, however there is a budding literature on the economics of altruism, to understand what causes altruism. Rather our species is not just primitive emotions ... we developed empathy, love and compassion.
Shurg. Chimpanzees are empathetic when it suits them and my dogs love me and my dogs are pretty primitive.
It might take a while for people to understand the link to poison ... it might take some time for people to figure it out while the baker goes on murdering and take the money and run. Case in point asbestos, etc etc etc.
Poisoning people is both a crime and a tort. Only a sociopath poisons someone intentionally and doesn't think he's doing wrong. No one knew asbestos was poison. When they found out they stopped using it because the cost of continuing to use it outweighed the cost of finding a substitute. Certainly there are cases where cost benefit analysis contributed to human misery - exploding Ford Pintos for example or Bhopal. But those behaviors were already illegal and evil. Of course there are cases where the public good requires collective action. But in the US today everything is couched in terms of the public good and everything requires collective action. We are no longer citizens of a representative government, we are subjects of a repressive one.
I am not sure what the balance is between amount of law and amount of freedom. In the case of the decentralized market economy, if on a level playing field , it provides individuals with many freedoms to act and be. However, some institution will have to decide on the rules of the game, especially where public interest is involved, and for me, I trust a much much more devolved government ... akin to what Gandhi had in mind.
The balance between law and freedom is simple: there should be the fewest number of laws and the most amount of personal liberty that does not infringe on your neighbor's. If by devolved you mean smallest, we're in agreement.
HDI is not a measure of happiness but a broader measure of well-being. It is based on a concept that Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen developed (for whom the idea of maximum freedom is key), and the index was also developed another south asian economist Dr. Mahbub ul Haq (both inspirational to me). The 8th position is telling that an economy of 16trillion when we factor in health and education falls to number 8. Whereas Norway with an economy of .5 trillion is number 1. Germany is higher because they do better in health and education as well and invest in their people.
In the first place, the difference between Germany and the US in 2014 was .01, 916 vs 915. So evidently they're not doing a whole hell of a lot of investing. In the second place Germans have an inflated GDP because there are 200,000 US soldier and dependents there who pump billions of capitalist dollars into the economy. By all means bring them home and let the Germans protect themselves from Putin and let's see how their economy fares. And in the third place US life expectancy suffers because of a high accident rate and crime, notably homicide and drug use, which are endemic to pathologies that result at least in part from flawed and faulty centrally planned government policies.
Zambia is becoming more market oriented. What one has to keep in mind however is the baseline following the rape and pillage. Zambia only gained independence in 1964 and current poverty rate has come down to 60 percent in a short time but it is the figure of 42% in extreme poverty that is also heartening. Anyhow I am not Zambian nor live in Zambia. I am conducting economic research here on elephant poaching to determine the most effective way to address this crime
I'd give the elephants guns. A well armed population is a safe one.
are you guys using the OECD report on israel and poverty rate from a few years ago ? 2 biggest groups that comprise poverty there are the arabs and the ultra orthodox. The ultra orthodox having something like 6 or 7 kids per family and they barely work and are over 10% of the population as of over 7 years ago and gaining rapidly. They used to live off govt child subsidies and Ben N cut back subsidies for children a few years ago I think and that drove their numbers up. They shouldn't be sending their kids to just study the torah anyway. I have clients there an they hat that big time because their own kids serve in the military automatically and their kids don't and don't even study anything to enter the work force. Their poverty numbers were something like 67 %. Arabs there the numbers were real high also. Something like 50%poverty. Funny thing is we had less of a problem walking in arab communities than ultra orthodox communities when we were there. Female wears shorts over there and they are freaking rude to you and tell you to get off their street meanwhile it was public street
Thr Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel (approximately 30k residents) in Monroe, NY has the highest poverty rate, highest rate of food stamps, and most children per family in the nation and a median household income of $15k.
Wow. Didn't know that. I have some hasidic clients in williamsburgh but they own companies but they have a ton of kids some who don't work but my clients are self sufficient for the entire family. The funny thing is they generally only do business with other hasidic people in their businesses but for some reason they like me the Irish guy and have known them now for over 20 yrs. Real estate booming in their communities in bklyn. They basically buy buildings and lots and make them bigger and sell or rent to other mostly other hassidic families and some of their blocks are largely hassidic now. But these clients of mine are pretty generous and have a foundation that they donate a lot to for their community but oh man their kids have tons of kids too. One client has a whole building now filled with his own family be he is now great grandfather even though he is only my dads age so you can imagine how big his family is
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To the extent that the Israeli economy is less robust than the German one it's because Israel spends an obscene amount of money and time defending itself from anti semites who believe that it should not exist as a country and that its inhabitants should be murdered. To the extent that you compare Israel and Germany I assume you are being ironic, because without Auschwitz there would have been no need for Israel.
Just to be clear about the need for Israel, we both know the facts of history of the need for Israel goes back to 1891 with the advent of the term called Zionism by Theodore Herzl and the identification of Palestine of the Jewish homeland. Fast forward to 1917 and to the Balfour Declaration (a key declaration to the establishment of a jewish homeland) and the intense debate surrounding it in the UK on whether Jews can be English .. strangely antisemites and zionists agreed ... the joint answer was that they could not and that a Jewish homeland had to be created in what was then the British-administered Palestine. Strangely also the people who most opposed the Balfour Declaration were not the Arabs (who gives a damn about them) but the elite British Jewry. These elite British Jews actually published open letters to newspapers saying no way jose and we aint going along with this British backing for a Jewish home in Palestine. Because if we do and the declaration goes ahead we are not going to be British elite anymore.
Some further facts were that Hitler initially wanted to banish the Jews from Germany so wasn’t completely hostile to the Zionist homeland idea. That’s why so many German Jews managed to survive after Hitler came to power by emigrating to Palestine. There was already an Israel firmly being established before Auschwitz's construction in 1940. I am only stating this to separate the substance from the polemics. If it means anything to you, I fully recognize the right of Israel to exist and self-determination just i am for palestinians' right to exist and self-determination. However often the term anti-semite, peppered with a vague mention of the Nazi holocaust, is used to distract debate.
Finally your initial comments were how france and germany's listing ahead of US on poverty is best explained by heavy US investment. To which i mentioned a counterfactual - Israel. If i knew you were so sensitive about Israel i would've mentioned Jordan. Your response is precisely the point i am getting to - Israel spends too many on military and not enough on investing in its people despite the heavy US aid. I hope we can leave Israel propaganda about murder out of this.
Please don't tell me what I believe. I live with an inner monologue that makes Pink Flamingos look like It's a Wonderful Life. I know exactly what I think about human beings and it's not that with a little aromatherapy and fewer transfats they'll all become charitable and empathetic. It's that the ones who shouldn't be hung should be flogged.
You are entitled to your opinion. I believe that we are capable of great evil and great good, and what we do is based with the context of the structure and system we exist in and our own personal agency on whether we succumb only to our instinctual or rational side.
I am not under any illusions about the market. All I believe is that it's demonstrably less worse than everything else.
Please present your facts.
Look, say I agree capitalism causes crime. I do not believe that, I believe criminal behavior is endemic to the human condition and predates economics. But let's for shit and giggles say I agree that capitalism causes crime. Now, what else causes crime? Love, faith, truth, beauty, freedom, all those things. So what point exactly are you making? How about we start a campaign to disincentivize love and beauty, it'll lower the crime rate, whata you say, no more of that if I can't have her no one can stuff, whata you say.
I do not disagree on the human condition you paint; i agree it is part of who we are. To answer the question, one of the biggest causes of crime is power, which works to disenfranchise people, violate human rights, debilitates them, keeps them in a vicious cycle of poverty (say to African Americans in US continually perpetuated under modern capitalism). A second major cause is conviction and group mentality, I am here referring to the crimes against humanity that the Germans perpetrated against the Jews. Arendt gave a beautiful account of this in Eichmann in Jerusalem of how Eichmann - even though may be aware of the monstrous acts he was implementing - felt the conviction to the fuhrer outweighed any atrocity. The same findings by Arendt, to me, also explain the ISIS phenomena better. To conclude, whilst you are pointing to biological factors, i am pointing to social, economic, psychological, political, cultural factors within the realm of particular structures and systems. Other examples of criminal convictions are "The white man's burden" ...
You throw out these facts like they are meaningful. Whereas this is just a non sequitur. It has as much impact as saying that non small pox infected blankets have been deliberately used to keep people warm. So what. Some frontier sociopath killed some injuns by giving them a fatal disease. So what. If there was nothing in it for him he wouldn't have done it? So what. No one does anything unless there's something in it for him, it just depends on which something the particular human being thinks is important. Jeffrey Dahmer didn't eat people because of Adam Smith, he ate people because he liked the way they tasted.
Sure I agree. But it is in my interest also to cooperate to make sure that instead of undermining people, we all gain if we do not steal from the poor. :)
[...]
In the first place, Nazism did not destroy Germany. That's like saying alcoholism destroyed an alcoholic's liver. Whereas it was the booze. The Germans were all Nazis until they weren't and then they were all shocked shocked I tell you by what that zany Hitler guy was doing. In the second place had the US simply went home after Berlin fell everyone in Germany would now be speaking Russian. There would be no United Nations, there would be no adjusted HDI, there would be no Germany as it exists today and there would probably be no Europe. That there is has nothing to do with German investment and everything to do with US investment.
Not quite and in some cases incorrect. I dont have time for detailed answer on this. Hitler was already undermining its economy through massive price controls and rationing of food since 1936 to feed the war investments but it meant that by 1947 food production feel by 51% and industrial output by 33%. On the issue of US investments, that is also a red herring, Marshall Plan aid to Germany was not that large. We are talking about only $2 billion through 1954. Even during its peak, this aid was less than 5% of thei rnational income. In other words, it was peanuts. Ironically the countries that received heavy/heavier aid grew slower than Germany. At the same time, Germany was already making repayments well in excess of $1 billion. And the most important one i think was paying off the Allies (thank you US) to the tune of $2.4 billion annually to pay for occupying Germany. The positive bit was that the lack of need for investments in defense and heavy investments in the country coupled with what Alan Greenspan writes about policy changes that were really the trigger behind the German revival.
You sure they didn't say pachyderms?.
Actually i think i have come up with the answer on poaching and management of this National Park. Kick the state out or rather contract the state to leave on the condition that the communities own the national park; maintain biodiversity and management. Privatized it, continue to make tourism money and capture it through a community cooperative, and then see what the poacher get anything.
You are a smart guy and surely I think you can understand that Israel's situation is unique and their need to spend a lot on the military and the need to carry a bigger stick than anyone else over there considering Iran wants to wipe them off the map amongst others
Get the heredi working and have them enter the draft like anyone else and make them get jobs, How much resources go to 10% of the population which aren't generating anything substantial in economic productivity but sucking money in handouts from the govt because they vote in blocks and end up carrying more weight than the other frayed groups and thus secure more perks and benefits for themselves. And do soon because I think 25% of 1st graders are heredi. The arab working problem is more complicated. Not sure how you fix that one
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MJ, who knew? Another Hashomernik on the board.
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Isn't there a problem in that the state is considered illegitimate by many of the ultra orthodox
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I have lived and paid taxes in Rockland County since 1991 so I am going to inject myself into this Hasidic issue. From social, political and economic points of view, strictly objective.
1. Social. The Hasidics have 0% interest in being part of the macro community. No interest in assimulating to the secular community, to the non-Jewish community, to the non-Hasidic community. They have no interest in educating their children beyond the Talmud and Old Testament. The social community is all about the rabbi and men. Women are treated like crap and children are treated like crap. The rabbis refuse to let their yeshivas be inspected for fire code violations, and of course play the "anti-Semite" card like you and I inhale and exhale. Google sexual abuse Hasidic community. Google sexual abuse rabbi. Google yeshiva fire inspections.
2. Political The Hillary Clinton run for Senate that saw her win 1200-3 vote in the Hasidic community is an example, and not a one-off, of the "Bloc Vote".The "Bloc Vote" buses in voters from Brooklyn, and they monitor their own voters. Which equals corruption among elected officials, non elected officials. Google East Ramapo School District, google Kyrius Joel [which Mario Cuomo handed to them on a silver platter] Medicaid and social spending. Google Christopher St Lawrence.
3. Economic Lastly, but not the least. Not enough time and room on the internet to properly cover the economic destruction being applied to the macro community by the Hasidic population. Routinely have litters of 6-8 pups, all on social services. Their marriages are not recognized by the State of New York. So after the big wedding, Esther gets knocked up, Moshe runs off to Israel, and Joe and Joan Taxpayer get stuck paying; Section 8 for housing; Medicaid for health insurance; WIC for babies and toddlers; Food Stamps, and they only shop in kosher stores; and of course regular ol' welfare.. Yet, no politician says stop! Preet Bharara and Rockland County Executive Ed Day are the only public officials to attempt to pull this community from under their rock and cast light on what has been going on.
The Hasidic will not hold a door open for females, and has no interest in being part of society, but they will take and keep taking tax dollars generated by the very each of us. If you think this sounds harsh, try living it for 25 years, especially when you get your tax bills.
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Isn't there a problem in that the state is considered illegitimate by many of the ultra orthodox
yeah I don't know the whole story on that one but my hassidic clients in williamsburgh won't go to israel and they won't talk about why. That's one subject that is taboo to talk about with them.
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MJ, who knew? Another Hashomernik on the board.
my clients there have complained about them for years but in 2009 when we went there it hit home. Aside from some small stuff from jerusalem with them when we were in Eilat in the south we were doing atv riding in the negev desert for a day with a retired older military officer. We stopped and are hanging out in the middle of nowhere having tea just talking so I was asking him about when he served. He points 1 way and he said over that hill is egypt and then next to our town is jordan then he says look in the distance and do you see the lights far away on the water ? we did and he said that's saudi arabia. So he said while we go to sleep at night and feel for the most part safe in israel they never feel completely safe
Then he goes on about getting called in for the last big war etc and all the fighting but then all the sudden he goes on a rant about the hassidic's who add nothing to their country and don't send their kids to war and that it makes hims sick that his own kids might have to go fight for them while they sit at home and do nothing but read the torah.
It was really interesting to hear his perspective since my clients are dual citizens I always figured they were biased since they lived here first but hearing him then a couple of other israelis's all say the same thing kind of cemented it for me
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I have lived and paid taxes in Rockland County since 1991 so I am going to inject myself into this Hasidic issue. From social, political and economic points of view, strictly objective.
1. Social. The Hasidics have 0% interest in being part of the macro community. No interest in assimulating to the secular community, to the non-Jewish community, to the non-Hasidic community. They have no interest in educating their children beyond the Talmud and Old Testament. The social community is all about the rabbi and men. Women are treated like crap and children are treated like crap. The rabbis refuse to let their yeshivas be inspected for fire code violations, and of course play the "anti-Semite" card like you and I inhale and exhale. Google sexual abuse Hasidic community. Google sexual abuse rabbi. Google yeshiva fire inspections.
2. Political The Hillary Clinton run for Senate that saw her win 1200-3 vote in the Hasidic community is an example, and not a one-off, of the "Bloc Vote".The "Bloc Vote" buses in voters from Brooklyn, and they monitor their own voters. Which equals corruption among elected officials, non elected officials. Google East Ramapo School District, google Kyrius Joel [which Mario Cuomo handed to them on a silver platter] Medicaid and social spending. Google Christopher St Lawrence.
3. Economic Lastly, but not the least. Not enough time and room on the internet to properly cover the economic destruction being applied to the macro community by the Hasidic population. Routinely have litters of 6-8 pups, all on social services. Their marriages are not recognized by the State of New York. So after the big wedding, Esther gets knocked up, Moshe runs off to Israel, and Joe and Joan Taxpayer get stuck paying; Section 8 for housing; Medicaid for health insurance; WIC for babies and toddlers; Food Stamps, and they only shop in kosher stores; and of course regular ol' welfare.. Yet, no politician says stop! Preet Bharara and Rockland County Executive Ed Day are the only public officials to attempt to pull this community from under their rock and cast light on what has been going on.
The Hasidic will not hold a door open for females, and has no interest in being part of society, but they will take and keep taking tax dollars generated by the very each of us. If you think this sounds harsh, try living it for 25 years, especially when you get your tax bills.
Friends of my family that live in Monsey said it has been horrible for as long as they remember. Add in tax evasion on top of everything else.
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Isn't there a problem in that the state is considered illegitimate by many of the ultra orthodox
yeah I don't know the whole story on that one but my hassidic clients in williamsburgh won't go to israel and they won't talk about why. That's one subject that is taboo to talk about with them.
God was to establish the state ( Israel ) not man, Hence the state of is not legitimate
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The first national article on him since he was incarcerated. He's waited 1.5 years for his trial that is about to start this month. A moving piece. Where does Sheed fall in terms of St. John's all time talent pool? Top50? Top 5-10 PG? Linked below:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2730989-the-fall-of-rysheed-jordan-how-the-streets-of-philly-swallowed-an-nba-prospect
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The first national article on him since he was incarcerated. He's waited 1.5 years for his trial that is about to start this month. A moving piece. Where does Sheed fall in terms of St. John's all time talent pool? Top50? Top 5-10 PG? Linked below:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2730989-the-fall-of-rysheed-jordan-how-the-streets-of-philly-swallowed-an-nba-prospect
The person I I feel bad for is Steve Lavin. He tried his hardest, because there are more important things than winning, and yet came up just short.