The Wealth Gap Widens...

You keep that dream alive. Actually the only one who gets rich off an invention is the corporation who buys or steals the rights or buys off the market. Care to name 10 inventors who have become wealthy from their inventions in the past 20 years? The last such product I remember was Clean Shower (I believe it was called). They got pushed off the supermarket shelves before they made a profit. The cost of bringing a new product to market is huge, and that's before the lawsuits start. If you are financed well enough to succeed it's the venture capitalists who make the money. As for the internet riches talk with these ladies from today's news: Best of the Web: Flour in da house, 102,000 Groupon Cupcakes, Feliz Navi-Don't - Local News - San Antonio, TX - msnbc.com.
Of course it's not impossible to start something and become filthy rich today, but good luck. If you have a good idea, work real hard and you're lucky you stand a 50/50 chance of making a living.

Again, more BS. That is what a patent is for, to protect your idea. It is a few hundred dollars to secure a patent on your idea. Start-up costs are ridiculously cheap now that the internet is here. You could set up a website and be in business for a lot less money than back in the day. That guy that created facebook, he didn't become a multi-millionaire in the last 20 years? There are countless inventions where the inventor has become wealthy in the last 20 years. Ebay, Groupon, the pet rock, etc. etc. The nex-tel push to talk feature, the guy who invented that did sell the patent and technology to nex-tell and became a multi-millionaire, he has a 135' yacht actually.

Hair-cuts...

I have to admit to being somewhat confused:

Most recently, lots of European banks and other financial institutions here have declared lower profits / or even losses as a consequence of the EU requirement from private holders of Greece's debt to take a 50% haircut so as to alleviate Greece's debt-burden in the short to medium term.

Imagine, therefore, my utter surprise when I read this BBC report about how even the Amish are today conducting their own hair-cutting efforts...?!

I doubt "their efforts" will amount to much in the eventual restoration of the Euro currency or a more just (re)distribution of wealth anywhere etc. All I can say for certain, is that if the Amish "had been in charge" of the Eurozone, countries such as Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain and more recently France, would not be enduring their current difficulties. We would all be driving horses and carts today...?

Hope even our cousins across the pond appreciate the humour...?!

With all due respect, you are completely disillusioned with this idea that the only people that get 'rich' are the attorneys and copycats. Name 10 other people? I can name 8. Myself and 7 guys that started a technology firm in the Bay Area that developed technology you use in your daily life and don't even know it which was later sold and rolled up to a larger infrastructure. Shall I go through my contact file from the bay area? From Seattle? Austin? New York?

Forget naming 10 people. Let's name countries where capitalism and the freedom of markets are part of the very fabric and building blocks of what makes commerce work in this country. Freedom, choice, and working as it does in the US. Care to name any? Freedom and ease of building upon an idea in the real world and taking it to market. Freedom of working your ass off and providing for yourself. Regardless of the odds or the naysayers.

Like it or hate it, and ***** all you want about politics, but there is no other place. It is in fact what built this country. And believe it or not, it still exists today.

:crickets:

You convinced me. There is no corporate greed or profiteering. The playing field is level. There are no unscrupulous business practices employed. Everybody who has been fired from their jobs and thrown out of their homes deserved it. The CEOs that make millions while their companies lay off employees and their stockholders lose their shirts are justified because the system allows it. There is no need for a minimum wage or unions because employers will naturally do right by their employees. Happy Thanksgiving.
Airship, I'm glad you found the plight of these Amish amusing. That was a vicious hate crime. Local law enforcement was powerless because the Amish beliefs won't allow them to prosecute. They make the perfect victim. It's as if your elderly grandmother was continually beaten, raped and terrorized by a thug living next door and was too afraid to report it. Would you also find that amusing? Thankfully the feds stepped in and can prosecute with no complaining witness.

This is exactly why I'm always so hesitant to attempt a reasonable conversation with you, or post in a thread where you'll pop in with your scintillating and grossly opinionated philosophy.

Make a sign. OWS needs you.

Take away the diversions like equating "stealing pencils, paper, envelopes" to things like "selling trade secrets" which is prosecuted, and what I stated is the brass tacks without the niceties. It just doesn't smell so good and defensible when when the flowers are taken away. And don't be too quick to dismiss the people's movement (currently OWS). Some people did that recently in North Africa and found the results less than enjoyable.

Thought Pres B O would have airmailed some bombs to Egypt, like he did with Libya.

Regarding inventors and inventions, Ryan Patterson (Braille Glove); Francisco Guerra (cardboard drink coaster that can identify two of the most popular date-rape drugs); and Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim (YouTube) are easily found on the Internet.

Are you sure your mind only needs ten from the past twenty years to put it at ease?

Tranquility is only a few clicks away.

There are rich people. Is that the news? Or is it this from the NY Times back in September before the latest wave of forclosures and layoffs began: "WASHINGTON — Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United States last year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, and the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it. " Never mind even who is to blame for this happening in America. Let's assume that all 46.2 million people did it to themselves through their own stupidity. What are we going to do about it? Are there really those who can look at that number and say 'Not my problem'?

Do you really believe all of this false information that you preach? Well, when the Government takes away the INCENTIVE to work, then people will not get jobs. When you offer people 2 YEARS of free un-employment, most people won't bother getting a job. An Employer has to pay over $13 per hour in order to equal the un-employment benefits someone recieves, unfortunately your working crowd at places like Mcdonalds aren't capable or interested in doing anything better. The ones that do want to work will find cash jobs and still collect un-employment. Obama's stimulus money had no intention of fixing the economy. They knew it would not work, and it was not intended to work. That money went to buying off all of the Unions so that they would vote for him again.

Greed is everywhere, whether it's your neighbor, a corporation, or an employee, or Unions. Union greed seems to be the worse, they are like the Mafia. They keep squeezing and squeezing a company for more and more money, even if they know that their greed will put the company out of business. If corporations are making less right now, then it would only make sense that they have to pay employees less. If an employee is good in their field, they can get another job in any economy if their current employer is not paying enough. Just like a good Captain that go seemlessly from a boat that has sold, to a new boat because he's got a good reputation and good at what he/she does.

Do you realize that in Florida, if you work for the school board doing anything (sweeping floors, teacher, maintanence guy, etc) for 7 YEARS, you get a pension. Who pays, all of the taxpayers. Teachers start out at $39,000 a year, fresh out of college. This is when the mean Florida income is $28,000 a year, and the average income of college graduates their first year out of school is $30,000 a year. But they claim it's not enough. So you have all of these retirees paying a boatload of property taxes with their social security income for everyone else's greed. 50% of my property taxes go to the Broward County School Board, and I don't even have kids!!!!!!!!! Multiply that by every homeowner who has no kids in school.

Yet, if I went to a state like North Carolina, my property taxes would be 1/3 of what they are now on the same amount of property. There are no Unions in North Carolina, yet the teachers still get paid about the same, they have a much better school system and the kids learn more. The police are more effective, and they still get paid well. Everyone that works for the county or state recieves just as good level of pay, and the quality of services are much better because the county or state can actually fire an employee who is a bad employee. And, the Unions are not soaking the employees with dues, who are then soaking the counties and states for money, who are then not soaking their residents with taxes to pay for it all.

kids

CaptJ,

Many thanks for paying for my kids to go to school.

You may want to drive up around and north of the Lake and see how appreciative the young folk feel working at MacDonalds, when there is nothing else around that job certainly helps.

$80,000 to a Captain to wash a boat & catch a few fish or $39,000 to a teacher to teach my kids is kind of a no brainer

as for NC, you paint a very rosy picture but when was the last time you drove around up there from the beach to the mountains and saw so many business's shut down, I noticed many 7/11's shut and that is not a good sign

The top 2% or even 5% don't buy houses with a mortgage, they pay cash for them. All the owners I work for own their homes outright.

Have you ever considered or thought that it's the 99% that created this problem with their greed and ir-responsibility? They are the ones that bought twice as much house than they could afford, they're the ones that want a big house that they couldn't afford. Then when values went up, they re-financed again and took more of a loan out to buy Escalades, big screen tv's, $50,000 kitchens, boats, etc. The 99% also refinanced their existing houses and took money out to buy all of these un-necessary things also. They ir-responsibly borrowed money they couldn't afford to pay back. They created a false demand for items, which created a false demand for jobs, and now it created a lull because of it. People bought their Escalades, sub zero appliances, big screen tv's, threw away perfectly good tv's and appliances, and now they don't need appliances, cars, tvs etc, and didn't care about how they were going to pay that mortgage. Now they defaulted on their mortgages, and want the 1% to pay for their own greed and ir-responsibility. What did they do with the excess money they made when they were making overtime, incredible bonuses and incomes that were higher than the job should've paid. But, now they want innocent people to pay for their mistakes and lack of responsibility. Why should I as a taxpayer, pay for bailing out some jerk that's driving a nicer car than I am and defaulted on their mortgage.

Those numbers come from the U.S Census Bureau. So yes I do believe them. As far as the schools are concerned, you're half right. School administrators have life by the short hairs, but teachers don't make a lot of money, especially considering what they face. It should be a crime the amount of money that we pay that never gets close to the kids. Unions, the same. Unions are sorely needed to protect workers, but there is huge corruption at the top. This is what the people's movements are all about, getting rid of the fat at top, the greedy pigs who take the cream and leave scraps of everybody else. It's not a movement against the small business owner who works 20 hours a day to build a business or against the wealthy for being wealthy. Something just happens at the top rungs that's best described in the old saying "Power corrupts. Absolute Power corrupts absolutely.". There is nothing wrong with achieving goals nor making a bunch of money. The problems are not that simple. It's the 'I'll do anything necessary and hurt anybody I have to in order to achieve wealth' attitude of some, and that some has become too many. It's the 'If the law permits it then it's OK'. It's the 'If I can get away with it then it's OK'. We all know in our gut what is and isn't OK. It's just real easy to rationalize when faced with a wad of cash.
As for the gift of unemployment, you're kidding yourself if you think people would rather receive a government check (often less than 1/2 what they earned working) for a short period of time than work, advance their careers and take care of their families. Are there lazy bums? Sure. But they are the exception rather than the rule. People today are just trying to survive. Unemployment is a safety net so that families who have worked hard don't starve to death when they lose their jobs through no fault of their own. You can't collect if you quit or get fired for cause. You're also required to actively look for work while collecting.
As for that horrible drain on society, Social Security, I've paid into that my entire life. For that I will receive less than $12,000 a year if I happen to live past 65. That wouldn't even pay my mortgage much less feed my family or keep the lights on. For many that will be their only income, because they've never been able to earn more than minimum wage during their lifetime. We're talking about life or death for the most vulnerable of our countrymen.
46.2 million people in this nation are living below the poverty line. That includes the physically and mentally disabled, those too old or infirmed to work, mothers whose husbands have walked out leaving them alone to support children with no assistance. A very large % of those living in poverty are children who are too young to care for themselves. Shame on them for allowing themselves to be born to poor parents.
Nothing is black and white. There are abuses to our system at all levels of the spectrum. But for this nation to have 46.2 million people living below the povert line is a national disgrace, and we should be ashamed. Every last one of us should be looking at ourselves and asking ourselves honestly "Are we stuffing our pockets at the expense of others and are we really doing all we can to help the less fortunate around us." Does one child deserve to starve while another wears silk simply because his parents were unable (even through their own stupidity) to earn a living? We are our brother's keeper. If not, why do our young people put their lives on the line in the military for us?

You're kidding right? You believe that people who worked hard all their lives to buy a home should have anticipated that they would be thrown out of work with no chance of finding another job at the same time the banks doubled and trippled their interset rates? Why should you or I have to bail them out (as we did the banks and large corporations)? Because as human beings we are supposed to have compassion for our fellow man. Because we are supposed to help and protect the weaker and more vulnerable around us. Should a child be executed because he has a mental deformity or isn't as smart as you? Should a soldier who is wounded in battle be killed rather than pay what it costs to make him somewhat whole? Should we make lack of intelligence a crime? There was a man who felt that way back in 1939 and we fought a world war to say it was wrong. However, if he had a little more backing the world you aspire to would be the world we'd have today.

On this thanksgiving day I am thankfull that the vast majority of americans aren't as greedy and selfish as capt j and dennismc. Thank you NYCAP123 for the logic that is present in all of your posts

You have just called every soldier, every volunteer EMT or firefighter, and the cops and firefighters who rushed into the Twin Towers in a doomed attempt to save the lives of strangers fools who 'failed to develop their full potential as individual humans'. I'll now go eat a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, thankful that my wife didn't take that attitude or there would be none and enjoy the company of a 90 year old woman who you would probably considered a drain on society since she can no longer hold a job other than the one I provide for her that I really don't need done. I'll also go to sleep tonight proud that I too failed to develop my full potential as an individual human, along with the other 99%, even though we must all be wrong.