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Forums - Politics - 7 Reasons the World Looks Worse Than It Really Is

mrstickball said:
Good stuff.

People do forget that all of these "Sending jobs to China/ect" slogans have lifted billions out of squalor into a solid middle class lifestyle. Even now, jobs in China are being exported to Bangledesh, Vietnam, and other South East Asian countries... Lifting them also out of poverty.

Yes, it sucks that we all don't get a McMansion, but it also means that there our "Sacrifices" are giving people a life they had never had.

not to mention "sending jobs to china" gives us products and services that americans want and demand at cheap costs, thereby freeing up capital for us to spend on other things we want or to save. And the freed up capital can be used to create other jobs in america that cant be done in other places.



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Mr Khan said:
Kasz216 said:
Mr Khan said:
I can see what the author was going for, but it still sounds disturbingly similar to the latest Koch Bros campaign telling all the American poor how lucky they are.


Aren't the American Poor lucky though?

I mean shit.  I'd rather be poor and American then Middle class or even Rich in most other countries.

Yes, but i feel that the way the message is framed is one to tell the poor "shut up and be grateful for what you have, quit trying to better yourselves through legislation."

as oppossed to bettering yourself through a good work ethic and staying in school and getting an education. 

Just have the government provide a living for you.



justinian said:
Some of this article reminds me of my mother telling me about poor kids in Africa when I didn't want to eat or when I wanted something she wouldn't give me.

Reason 7 and 6 are a bit silly but 4 - 1 is good.

Reason five is basically saying that as life in some western developed countries get shittier and people in Greece are on the breadline they must be happy because China and India are doing well - which leads me to think Wong is obviously of Chinese origin.


Well first off... this is David Wong.

 

He's just some White dude.  It's a Pen Name.

 

 

Outside that...  it's not so much about being happy, so much as realizing how priveledged you are.  

Have you ever heard of the Meme first world problems?

Essentially, it's just a matter of realizing how privedged a lot of people are, and how annoying it is to see those people complain without even realizing how lucky they are/actually willing to change what they want changed.

 

In general, people blame others for being greedy without realizing how greedy they are themselves. 



killerzX said:
Mr Khan said:
Kasz216 said:
Mr Khan said:
I can see what the author was going for, but it still sounds disturbingly similar to the latest Koch Bros campaign telling all the American poor how lucky they are.


Aren't the American Poor lucky though?

I mean shit.  I'd rather be poor and American then Middle class or even Rich in most other countries.

Yes, but i feel that the way the message is framed is one to tell the poor "shut up and be grateful for what you have, quit trying to better yourselves through legislation."

as oppossed to bettering yourself through a good work ethic and staying in school and getting an education. 

Just have the government provide a living for you.

Where did i suggest that? Poverty is sticky, and the cycle needs to be broken first. How do we motivate them to stay in school and get an education, how do we provide adequate opportunities therein?

Hard work does not automatically provide opportunity for advancement.



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Mr Khan said:
killerzX said:
Mr Khan said:
Kasz216 said:
Mr Khan said:
I can see what the author was going for, but it still sounds disturbingly similar to the latest Koch Bros campaign telling all the American poor how lucky they are.


Aren't the American Poor lucky though?

I mean shit.  I'd rather be poor and American then Middle class or even Rich in most other countries.

Yes, but i feel that the way the message is framed is one to tell the poor "shut up and be grateful for what you have, quit trying to better yourselves through legislation."

as oppossed to bettering yourself through a good work ethic and staying in school and getting an education. 

Just have the government provide a living for you.

Where did i suggest that? Poverty is sticky, and the cycle needs to be broken first. How do we motivate them to stay in school and get an education, how do we provide adequate opportunities therein?

Hard work does not automatically provide opportunity for advancement.


by stopping policies that say there are no consquenses for your actions mother/spouse government will take care of all your needs



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killerzX said:
Mr Khan said:

Where did i suggest that? Poverty is sticky, and the cycle needs to be broken first. How do we motivate them to stay in school and get an education, how do we provide adequate opportunities therein?

Hard work does not automatically provide opportunity for advancement.


by stopping policies that say there are no consquenses for your actions mother/spouse government will take care of all your needs

Desperate people simply do desperate things. Punishing people more for being poor will only lead to more crime, much like the problems of the war on drugs (pushing the drugs underground make them highly expensive, and people with no legal recourse seeking a highly expensive product will turn to crime, so it is, in part, with poverty).

This is not to suggest that the safety net should be a hammock. My thoughts have been that unless you are somehow unable to work or be trained for work, you should always be either in employment or in training for better employment while on the dole.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

Kasz216 said:

A) That's my point.  Complaining that the guy you didn't vote and wouldn't of voted for isn't doing what you want is kind of dumb.

B)  Stuff like failing to increase minium wage isn't really making people poorer, again you are mostly complaining about stuff they haven't done.  Not specific measures that specifically make the poor pooer, except whatever a bedroom tax is.  We don't have that in the US.

C)  Your representation of the US Medical system isn't accurate.   You can get medical treatment in the US if you don't have insurance, it just costs  a lot of money.  Nobody is actually barred from treatment... some people to forgo it because they don't want to pay the costs.  By the time you can't afford medical treatment anymore, you qualify for government assitance.

Now I'm not sure about the UK, but in the US pretty much anybody who is very smart will get into a college pretty easy.  State colleges are pretty reasonable and loans are really easy to get.   In the US if anything we have too many people going to college.

Additionally the problem is, you really aren't thinking about the negative effects of college.   If EVERYONE went to college, suddenly everyone has degrees.

Which actually has some problems...

1) Due to supply and demand, average wages drop dramatically.  Suddenly there are 5-6 times the people applying for jobs in these fields.  Companies can and will pay much less... and since there will still be the same number of people to work at McDonalds and they don't care about your degree, low level jobs won't pay more.   Afterall a lot of these jobs are less work and more emoitonally rewarding then a job like McDonalds so put enough people up for those jobs who seem qualfied and they'll be willing to take huge pay cuts.

2) Due to the vast increase in degrees, nepotism, legacies and in general hiring people you know will vastly increase.  There are way more people in the work force now, and the percentage of people who will be awful will increase.   People hire others they know, not so much to help there friends and family, but more so because they already know these people.  Often times they know these people won't be the best, but they also know these people won't be the worst.  They know they can leave them with the keys to the shop and not get robbed.  Employers are hiring people to help with what is their source of income so a feeling a saftey is important.


When increasing the number of applicants, and lets be honest here, the majority of them will be horrible, you increase the risk that those you do deeply interview and/or hire will be terrible.  Hence a stronger look "within.".   Or looking at a workers background, what do their parents do etc.  In an attempt to lower class barriers, you actually increase them.   Even within the same class, as people will be more pressured to join the family buisness because of how much harder it is to get a job as an "outsider".

 

3)  Additionally because of the above companies will be far more conservative about hiriing, hiring slower and expanding slower, slowing the job market for nice middle class jobs.  Or what were nice middle class jobs anyway.  

 

4) People will be less happy with their work.

http://businessjournal.gallup.com/content/163469/educated-less-engaged.aspx

 

And that's just now... think how unhappy all those excess college graduates will be when they're all working at Wal-Mart unable to get jobs because their is a new rise in nepotism.  Or hpw unhappy those lucky enough to get jobs will be... after they realize they are making far less at their jobs then their predecessors did.

 

Or at least that's one way for it to go.  The other way is that certain colleges become the "elite" colleges, find a way to monetize it, and then hiring only comes from those colleges, making the whole idea moot, except now even more people go to school for 4 year degrees that mean nothing.

 

Of course that said... the new Obama plan meant to cut down on college aid also seems perilious and set up for disaster.

http://www.npr.org/2013/08/22/214520122/does-the-data-exist-to-make-college-rating-system-work

A) Isn't politics a giant debate anyways? I mean so what if i couldn't vote back then, i still have the right to disagree with him and protest against him. This isn't China

B) Bedroom tax is a tax on public housing, for those who have a spare bedroom. The main problem is that people who use public housing are the poorest in society. But yeah it's something specific to the UK.

C) I just don't like how there is a financial barrier to healthcare in America, i would rather have everyone pay higher tax to have equal access. 

1) I know it's not good for everyone to get a degree as it wouldn't be so valuable but people need to not be so ignorant of things in general. They need to be aware of stuff like politics, economy, history etc. Ignorance breeds stupidity and hatred and is why groups like KKK still exist (even though it is very small now). We need a balance between those who do specialised jobs and just ordinary jobs. And people need to be aware of what happens out there in the world too. 

2) I tend to agree with alot of what you say here

3) If the world is generally like this, why do people still believe in the American dream? Knowing they likely won't make it.

4) It's bit like in Cuba then where the doctors don't get paid very well so end up taking secondary jobs like taxi drivers. A bit of waste studying all those years isn't it? 

But anyway, as much as a problem in having too many graduates out there. I still don't think higher education should be a thing that's run for profit, knowledge is a wonderful thing that frees people from the tyranny of ignorance regardless of what they use it for. All education should be free for those who want to get a better job or just know more about a specific field.

And yeah, i think that proposals to rate schools is just wrong. What if you are smart but you had no choice but to go to a crap school? Then you are discriminated against despite your inteligience. The cost of higher education as it stands stop some of the brightest minds who may happen to be poorer are stopped from doing well in life. 



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the2real4mafol said:
Kasz216 said:

 

 

A) Isn't politics a giant debate anyways? I mean so what if i couldn't vote back then, i still have the right to disagree with him and protest against him. This isn't China

B) Bedroom tax is a tax on public housing, for those who have a spare bedroom. The main problem is that people who use public housing are the poorest in society. But yeah it's something specific to the UK.

C) I just don't like how there is a financial barrier to healthcare in America, i would rather have everyone pay higher tax to have equal access. 

1) I know it's not good for everyone to get a degree as it wouldn't be so valuable but people need to not be so ignorant of things in general./ They need to be aware of stuff like politics, economy, history etc. Ignorance breeds stupidity and hatred and is why groups like KKK still exist (even though it is very small now). We need a balance between those who do specialised jobs and just ordinary jobs. And people need to be aware of what happens out there in the world too. 

2) I tend to agree with alot of what you say here

3) If the world is generally like this, why do people still believe in the American dream? Knowing they likely won't make it.

4) It's bit like in Cuba then where the doctors don't get paid very well so end up taking secondary jobs like taxi drivers. A bit of waste studying all those years isn't it? 

But anyway, as much as a problem in having too many graduates out there. I still don't think higher education should be a thing that's run for profit, knowledge is a wonderful thing that frees people from the tyranny of ignorance regardless of what they use it for. All education should be free for those who want to get a better job or just know more about a specific field.

And yeah, i think that proposals to rate schools is just wrong. What if you are smart but you had no choice but to go to a crap school? Then you are discriminated against despite your inteligience. The cost of higher education as it stands stop some of the brightest minds who may happen to be poorer are stopped from doing well in life. 


A) No.  Politics isn't a big debate.  Poltics is attempting to put in the policies that will best help a country and their people... and again, if you didn't vote for the guy you can't claim he's betraying you... because you didn't vote for him.  How is he doing with his actual campaign promises he made for the people who voted for him?

B)  That seems perfectly reasonable to me.  If you are getting free housing from the government, and have a spare bedroom... you really should fill that with some other poor person you know or pay the government some reimbursment.

C)  and I prefer a system like the US where everybody can get the treatment they need, though it costs a bit more for some then others, instead of a situation like the NHS where you have to have local concil approval and people who are older or have other conditions are denied treatment because they don't fit into the preaproved areas... and if you try and pay for it yourself... you are booted from the NHS and can't even get stuff paid that you woud otherwise.

 

The truth is NO healthcare system can actually give everybody every medical treatment they need.  It's too expensive.

When dealing with soemones actually life... it doesn't seems even less fair then the american system to force people to die for being too old or having the wrong condition or needing the wrong ind of srugery. when they've been paying their entire life to get healthcare, and then when there time in line comes up... they get turned down.  

At least in the US system if you don't want to go into debt, you usually didn't spend a ton of money in the first place to not get treated like in the UK.

 

1) That's actually not true.  Research shows that smart and educated people are just as predjudiced as stupid people.  They're just better at hiding it, because they're smart.

http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2013/08/new-study-smart-people-just-as-racist-as-others-they-just-hide-it-better/

3)  You don't need college to fufill the American Dream.  That's just a decent paycheck and a house.  Most people actally do achieve that.  Though our overfocus on college has caused us to lose a lot of the good "non college" jobs.   Which is extremly troubling.

However the only real way to get those jobs back is to change the culture.   Get people more united to buy more local products.

 

4) The vast majority of colleges in the United States aren't for profit... and like was outlined... free educaiton is fine... if your willing to realize that the cost of that free education is that "good jobs" will end up paying much less and be much less available.

 

To me it's not worth the price.  Espiecally when you've got Libraries and the Internet when it comes to just wanting to learn about something.



This article makes absolutely no sense to me, probably because none of those points apply to me.



Kasz216 said:

Well first off... this is David Wong.

He's just some White dude.  It's a Pen Name.

Did you really call someone "just some white dude"? That's just plain wong.