Why is Darwoth so mad today?

[Thor]

I don't discriminate people by their race, I'm just racially realistic

[MagicManICT]

The US has almost lost it's middle class. You have the upper class and rich who make enough money to live off of, and then below them you have almost a vacuum until you reach the current 'middle class' who DO often struggle to make ends meet. You're not called poor anymore until you are missing essentials like food or shelter.

I'm not really going to disagree with your statements about there not being much of a middle class left, but you have to look at the reason why there isn't. Is it because the rich are preying on the lesser folk's money, or is it because, much like a herd of gazelles, the lions can easily pick out the slow and stupid ones to feast on? When does one become responsible for making their own decisions? Nobody has to live in a million dollar home, nobody has to have two $30k cars that get 15 mpg for back and forth to work, nobody has to spend $500-1000 on school clothes for their kid.... Do I need to keep going? I say if you can't make ends meet and don't have enough to save, look at home first and see where you can make changes. Nobody should be living paycheck to paycheck unless you literally are at the poverty level and don't make enough money to afford food for the next week.

This could go into a huge discussion on psychology, consumerism, advertising, etc, but we've been down that road. murica is its own worst enemy (starring Christian Slater).

[neored9]

The US has almost lost it's middle class. You have the upper class and rich who make enough money to live off of, and then below them you have almost a vacuum until you reach the current 'middle class' who DO often struggle to make ends meet. You're not called poor anymore until you are missing essentials like food or shelter.

I'm not really going to disagree with your statements about there not being much of a middle class left, but you have to look at the reason why there isn't. Is it because the rich are preying on the lesser folk's money, or is it because, much like a herd of gazelles, the lions can easily pick out the slow and stupid ones to feast on? When does one become responsible for making their own decisions? Nobody has to live in a million dollar home, nobody has to have two $30k cars that get 15 mpg for back and forth to work, nobody has to spend $500-1000 on school clothes for their kid.... Do I need to keep going? I say if you can't make ends meet and don't have enough to save, look at home first and see where you can make changes. Nobody should be living paycheck to paycheck unless you literally are at the poverty level and don't make enough money to afford food for the next week.

This could go into a huge discussion on psychology, consumerism, advertising, etc, but we've been down that road. murica is its own worst enemy (starring Christian Slater).

This is an ivory tower post I'd expect from Loftar.

[Trenial]

I disagree. As an American, our American way of life has faulted simply do to "fear" and "security". Everything you listed afterwards are the after effects of a society which has forked over every one of its rights in exchange for security.

Alexander Fraser Tytler, a European historian published The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic. In his publication, Tytler reported that from his research he had determined the following:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loss of fiscal responsibility, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world's great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith,
From spiritual faith to great courage,
From courage to liberty,
From liberty to abundance,
From abundance to selfishness,
From selfishness to complacency,
From complacency to apathy,
From apathy to dependency,
From dependency back again to bondage.

If you don't think America is in the latter two stages, then you frankly know nothing of the American way of life as it is today beyond your own silly conclusions based on gossip, jokes, and whatever else. But I don't think you would disagree with me that my culture has grown beyond fat, lazy, dependent, violent, arrogant, and are every day becoming economically, spiritually and morally bankrupt.

[mentalyll]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-pxuE8kcPM&t=2m30s

[Mereni]

The US has almost lost it's middle class. You have the upper class and rich who make enough money to live off of, and then below them you have almost a vacuum until you reach the current 'middle class' who DO often struggle to make ends meet. You're not called poor anymore until you are missing essentials like food or shelter.

I'm not really going to disagree with your statements about there not being much of a middle class left, but you have to look at the reason why there isn't. Is it because the rich are preying on the lesser folk's money, or is it because, much like a herd of gazelles, the lions can easily pick out the slow and stupid ones to feast on? When does one become responsible for making their own decisions? Nobody has to live in a million dollar home, nobody has to have two $30k cars that get 15 mpg for back and forth to work, nobody has to spend $500-1000 on school clothes for their kid.... Do I need to keep going? I say if you can't make ends meet and don't have enough to save, look at home first and see where you can make changes. Nobody should be living paycheck to paycheck unless you literally are at the poverty level and don't make enough money to afford food for the next week.

This could go into a huge discussion on psychology, consumerism, advertising, etc, but we've been down that road. murica is its own worst enemy (starring Christian Slater).

I'm not quite sure what you're talking about here. Are you saying that there is no middle class because said middle class tries to live in million dollar homes? What kind of life do you live, I wonder?

Me, I worked very very hard to get scholarships as my parents couldn't afford to contribute so much as a cent to my college education (we never had more than bare essentials growing up and were considered to be middle class). I worked hard to graduate college with a degree that was in high demand when I entered college. I have worked hard at every job I've ever had and have spent long hours looking for a job when unemployed. I've never spent more than about 28k a year on living, and yet despite all this effort and frugality, I find myself unemployed in desperate straights far too often, living of what I saved at the last job before 'downsizing' and 'budget tightening' got me and most of my colleagues laid off yet again. Just before I graduated, the field I had studied in crashed. Almost all the jobs went to China. Companies HERE sent those jobs to China because they thought it would make them a quick buck. It did, though I have heard stories of some of them regretting it now as the long term costs tend to be high, but when have American companies ever thought long term? They keep sending those jobs overseas and so I have to compete with people who have much more experience than me but are willing to take the same low pay because they too are desperate for a job. I try to get a lower job, I'm 'overqualified'. I try to get a job in a different field, my experience is all wrong and they don't want to hire me as they know if I get an offer in my field I'll be gone instantly. And as far as I can see, much of this is because rich heads of corporations want to make as much money as possible and care nothing for who is hurt by their actions. And I'm considered middle class...

[Trenial]

Its the soring and out of control of the cost of living and the cost of food versus the equity you put in(by equity I mean pure sweat), its nearly impossible to gain inches at all at times. Where I live we have the international headquarters and main factories of John Deere. 600-800 layoffs this month, which will demolish the local economy. They blame the current demand being too low, but I don't buy that one bit. I think its more of the future demand being far too low(Lets save our asses and the corporate ship now, rather than later), thanks to all this economic sanctions Russia just slapped back at us. I can't even remember the ridiculous ratio of the Midwest's GDP, but something like 90% of all AG is animal feed, the rest is split down the middle into Human Consumption and Ethanol manufacturing. We sadly import the rest.

To make matters worse: The bread baskets of the world asise from the Midwest are:

The Ukraine (Civil War showdown between the Peasants and Willy Wonka)
Queensland, Austraila(Massive flooding in the winters past several years, severe droughts/famine in the summer past several years)

But I digress with the doom porn. Just mark my words, food prices will sore, dependancy will sore, bottom lines will shrink, and we will just keep on barrowing for tommorrow on the basis of tomorrow.

Remember the only heaven worth dying for, is the one we all already live in.

[MagicManICT]

I'm not quite sure what you're talking about here. Are you saying that there is no middle class because said middle class tries to live in million dollar homes? What kind of life do you live, I wonder?

I'm not saying there is no middle class, but that maybe the loss of the numbers making a middle class income is as much their own fault as any law. Spend too much, and when a recession hits (or worse, depression like what we're trying to recover from), the numbers of middle class slip down into the working class and working poor. Government can hinder economic recovery as much as help it.

I live the life of the poor and impoverished, but that's my choice, and due to the choices I've made in my life. I'd like to think of myself as a "starving artist," but long ago gave up on the art part. Now I just try to do a lot of reading and live a monastic life (without all the hokey religion part).

I grew up in a middle class town during what was supposed to be the strongest period for middle class America. I went to a school district that was considered 3rd richest (in per capita income) in the state (doesn't mean much when it's Kansas, but was comparable to other middle class areas of US). (Side note: the two "richer" districts were Manhattan, home of Kansas State University; and Blue Valley in Lawrence, home of University of Kansas and the "rich" suburb of Kansas City on the Kansas side and could compare to some of the wealthier areas in the US.) Yes, I know what the middle class is supposed to be compared to the "blue collar" working class. Since it's an aircraft area (Boeing--military contracts FTW?), the wages were as high as white collar jobs (on average, aircraft workers make one the highest wages of any manufacturing job if I recall the numbers right, but been some years, so don't quote me).

I disagree. As an American, our American way of life has faulted simply do to "fear" and "security". Everything you listed afterwards are the after effects of a society which has forked over every one of its rights in exchange for security.

Yes and no. Yeah, we're on a slippery slope that could well end us up like China (or the UK for that matter...). Just look at the recent news on the latest Snowden release. (Is Russia going to become the bastion of freedom and liberty that the US once was? ) No, because we do have the ability to change things if we can pull our heads out of our asses for just a few minutes and realize it's time for not only a change in government, but in the way we "inform" ourselves about what's going on, in other words, quit letting the damn news media put opinions into our heads.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.[...]

Funny, I don't know if anyone has read The Strain by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro, but it's being made into a series on FX. Quick synopsis: vampirism, or what we could call such, is really a parasitic takeover of the body, and is story of power, corruption, and the fall of mankind. spoiler alert for those watching but haven't seen--no major plot points here and evident from history, but still a good point that some forget or might miss about Nazi Germany. I just don't want anyone boohooing because I spoiled part of the episode for them.

One of the characters, Thomas Reichorst, is a former Nazi concentration camp commandant. He brings up the point that Hitler was a democratically elected leader. German as a whole chose to go this direction because of all the things that had gone on up to that point and the "failure" of democracy (at least as seen by Marx and others).

And this one does have plot points:

But I digress with the doom porn. Just mark my words, food prices will sore, dependancy will sore, bottom lines will shrink, and we will just keep on barrowing for tommorrow on the basis of tomorrow.

Funny that you say this... This is a part of one of the subplots in The Strain: the destruction of Earth's ecology is a feat of intentional engineering. Putting this in spoilers because it's not mentioned until the last book

But to just make the perfect example of what Trenial is talking about, just watch "man on the street" interviews with those angry at government expenses and you'll find all kinds of people that want tax cuts, but not to anything that they may benefit from.

I always find it funny that the same themes come up over and over again in philosophy and literature, yet so few are willing to heed the message.

[Kaios]

I always find it funny that the same themes come up over and over again in philosophy and literature, yet so few are willing to heed the message.

For what it's worth I'm only 22 years old and even I can agree with your points regarding spending. My generation is literally a cash cow for anything "shiny and new" and in my opinion the adult generation of our time have also become prone to living beyond their means. The reasons are various (social hierarchy, self indulgence, poor spending habits) but the point remains that there is a large portion of society that spends more money than they actually make.

[alloin]

Is this why Darwoth is so mad today?