It sounds like your saying a small minority does not matter. Under that logic we should not be concerned about the super rich and be concerned with the masses of less privliged people. Consequently, suggesting they deserve more taxes and the wealth should be distributed more equally to the masses.

Its easy to say this on paper, but when youre working a manufacturing job with 20+ years of service, at the age of 40, a family at home, bills to pay, health insurance to hold onto acting like you can just google trending jobs, put all of that on hold and change who you are to join a different industry is pretty ludicrous in reality.

There are more factors than just "recognizing a decline in a specific industry" Lives, bills, education, mortgages not mention the countless supervisors and executives who all the while are negotiating deals to export jobs are calling meetings to assure their employees they are fine. Sure, its "possible" a lot of things are "possible" the same way i could meet Scarlet Johanson and she falls in love with me, that doesnt mean i should hold out until i die because theres that possibility in my life. The same way i could play teh lotto every week to become rich, theres a possibility of winning but is it worth spending that money when i could use it for gas or groceries? Theres plausible based on variables and then theres possibility.....life is about plausability based on variables rather than the word "possible" without quantitative substantiation.

Who is to say by the time you go back to school graduate the markets have not changed, the economic landscape is completely different.

Granted, i know my dad could have held onto his job at Sauders Woodworking....all he would have had to do after devoting 23 years to them was pick up his family move to some tiny foreign country and accept 1/8th of his current wage. Shame on him for not having the foresight. 

I am by no means saying it makes no difference, a persons actions, but I hate how people like Herman Cain point to themselves, or the single token ghetto millionaire, rags to riches story and use it to keep a big huge hand holding down everyone else and point to the exception and say "see nothing wrong with this picture because THAT GUY made it!"

This would only be true if there was a huge hand holding everyone else down.

There isn't...

Though if you think there is, that's sure going to hurt your chances for success.

The more successful people there are, the better the economy is, and the better things are for other rich people.  So no particular group is going to try and "hold you down" unless your directly infringing on their marketshare... and even then, chances are your already going to be pretty successful by the time they get to you.  Wealth isn't a zero sum game.

It's tough to be successful, but those are obstacles... not a hand holding you down from anyone particularly trying to make you fail.  There isn't a giant consious conspiracy.

I wouldn't say "no one" people have predicted everything, even the most ridiculious stuff....

even so, I don't see how that's not someones fault.

You thought something was a sure bet, you bet on it... it wasn't.

Maybe the problem just comes from a disconnect on how people are raised.  

Me, I was always taught that when something bad happens as a choice of your actions, you were wrong.  Any justification as to why you weren't wrong, is just an excuse, and the only thing to do is admit your fault and not make the same mistake twice.

Shit though, even among the "sure thing" goes wrong, there are people who succeed and who don't.  For example, when GM suddenly took a huge hit to their benefits and pensions... there were suddenly a lot of people who were scerwed... beause they planned on their pension. 

Then there were other people who weren't scrwed, and while they planned on their pensions, they saved a little on the side as well... and they're doing fine.

Really, seems more like people focusing too much on consumption and not enough on practicality in cases like Allentown.  30 Years working at the same job and they didn't have a "rainy day" fund?  I mean if there is one thing you should take with you in life, it's that there is no thing as a 100% sure thing.

I mean... is it my fault I'm not rich?

Hell yeah it is.

I can name about 8 big things at least I did that made sure I wasn't rich or in a position to be rich right now. Why, because I don't really care about being rich, and the stuff I got in return was worth way more to me.

Given the choice between being say.... me or Michael Jordan. I'd rather be me any day of the week, Michael Jordan has some nasty demons in that head of his. (Not that i was going to be a pro ball player or anything.)

I don't think it's hard most anyone who's honest to themselves to say "I could of been far more successful but instead I did this."

I don't think anyone who has lived through globalization could fail to notice how often things seem to shift "without warning" (although there usually is plenty of warning), and I'm not saying that it's not sad if someone is counting on a pension program or whatever only to end up getting hosed (it is sad, and in more ways than one), but if you're so credulous as to believe everything you're told in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary or you're so complacent that you don't bother to plan ahead just in case that "sure thing" doesn't pan out, then you're not exactly without fault.

You can cover most of the fetish and specialist porn categories I can think of. Get yourself pregnant, buy a horse and you could be a billionairre with those gifts.

I like your Herman Cain. He'd make a good VP with your Ron Paul against Obama. Although "President Cain" has a badass ring to it.

I started trafficking cocaine but the court took me to jail.

he is right.