Where is the US economy headed?

maporsche wrote:

Miller wrote:

And common sense can keep you from poverty.

I think we all can agree on this Miller, with a small caveat;

Common sense can likely keep you from poverty

I'm sure we can also all agree that common sense is not very common at all.

How about the "School of hard knocks"?

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parados wrote:

I didn't realize "common sense" could prevent cancer...

It's been known for at least 75 years that chaste Catholic nuns never, ever develop cervical cancer.
What does common sense tell you about cervical cancer?

If you,your mother, grandmother, sister, aunts, and daughter all develop breast cancer, what does common sense tell you about breast cancer?

More later...

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Of coarse, the middle-class and the rich ... never have cancer or get divorced.

Cancer? Yes, they do get cancer, but having "commonsense" they also have health insurance and they also visit their physician at least once a year for a PE.

Divorced?...Yes they do divorce, but they have smart lawyers who make sure that there is a prenup agreement, that the children are well provided for
and that there is a good attempt at achieving fairness for all parties.

Common sense pays off in the long haul. Of course if you lack common sense, than words of wisdom will go unheeded.

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Miller wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:
Of coarse, the middle-class and the rich ... never have cancer or get divorced.

Cancer? Yes, they do get cancer, but having "commonsense" they also have health insurance and they also visit their physician at least once a year for a PE.

Divorced?...Yes they do divorce, but they have smart lawyers who make sure that there is a prenup agreement, that the children are well provided for
and that there is a good attempt at achieving fairness for all parties.

Common sense pays off in the long haul. Of course if you lack common sense, than words of wisdom will go unheeded.

Exactly what makes you think that poor folk have good health insurance and smart lawyers? Do you realize how much those things cost?

Jeez

Cycloptichorn

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Miller must be living in another country or world. She thinks all the middle-class families have health insurance - including those thousands of factory workers who lost their jobs during the past six years. I guess only the poor are included in the seven million more without health insurance since Bush took over the white house; no middle class families whatsoever.

Just amazing! Milller must live a very sheltered life!

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cicerone imposter wrote:

okie: Do you even know what you are talking about? Helping your fellow man is admirable, but even God helps those who help themselves. It starts with the individual, and if the individual does not care about themselves, I dare say there isn't much you can do for him or her.

You assume everyone on this planet has your "excellent brain power" to work and earn a good living, eat all the right foods, don't waste money on vacations, cigarettes or gambling, and are responsible christians. Your myopic view of humans leaves much to be desired. First of all, learn a little humility.

There is no ironclad guarantee for anyone, but common sense can increase your chances of escaping poverty. A significant percentage of people trapped by poverty make terrible choices in terms of what they do or do not do, buy, and so forth. I have never asserted that all poverty is due to bad decisions and nobody is stupid enough to believe that common sense can avoid all health problems. However, common sense can help your chances of avoiding some health problems, obvious example being lung cancer from smoking. Even if you do not smoke, you can still get the disease, but is anyone stupid enough to believe that I might drown accidentally anyway so I might as well jump off the bridge into the river and see if it happens?

I find it absolutely incredible that some of you actually disagree with basic common sense. Many examples abound. If you show up to work on time, without a drug or alcohol hangover, and you do your best to do what the boss wants, I think your chances of work success are better, regardless of what kind of work it is.

Democrats perpetuate the belief that some people are just too stupid and too lazy to succeed. One big reason I hardly ever vote for a Democrat.

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okie wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:
okie: Do you even know what you are talking about? Helping your fellow man is admirable, but even God helps those who help themselves. It starts with the individual, and if the individual does not care about themselves, I dare say there isn't much you can do for him or her.

You assume everyone on this planet has your "excellent brain power" to work and earn a good living, eat all the right foods, don't waste money on vacations, cigarettes or gambling, and are responsible christians. Your myopic view of humans leaves much to be desired. First of all, learn a little humility.

There is no ironclad guarantee for anyone, but common sense can increase your chances of escaping poverty. A significant percentage of people trapped by poverty make terrible choices in terms of what they do or do not do, buy, and so forth. I have never asserted that all poverty is due to bad decisions and nobody is stupid enough to believe that common sense can avoid all health problems. However, common sense can help your chances of avoiding some health problems, obvious example being lung cancer from smoking. Even if you do not smoke, you can still get the disease, but is anyone stupid enough to believe that I might drown accidentally anyway so I might as well jump off the bridge into the river and see if it happens?

I find it absolutely incredible that some of you actually disagree with basic common sense. Many examples abound. If you show up to work on time, without a drug or alcohol hangover, and you do your best to do what the boss wants, I think your chances of work success are better, regardless of what kind of work it is.

No one has argued that commone sense will not help someone avoid poverty.

The dispute is that common sense is all that is needed to avoid poverty.

OR

Poverty is only caused by a lack of common sense.

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To my knowledge, nobody ever said it did. All that was argued here is that alot of poverty is caused by bad choices and lifestyle, and it obviously is. Not all poverty, no, and nobody ever said that.

Another mis-conception, the poverty level people are not the same people through time. People move in and out of poverty. It is not a life sentence, although Democrats think it is.

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okie wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:
okie: Do you even know what you are talking about? Helping your fellow man is admirable, but even God helps those who help themselves. It starts with the individual, and if the individual does not care about themselves, I dare say there isn't much you can do for him or her.

You assume everyone on this planet has your "excellent brain power" to work and earn a good living, eat all the right foods, don't waste money on vacations, cigarettes or gambling, and are responsible christians. Your myopic view of humans leaves much to be desired. First of all, learn a little humility.

There is no ironclad guarantee for anyone, but common sense can increase your chances of escaping poverty. A significant percentage of people trapped by poverty make terrible choices in terms of what they do or do not do, buy, and so forth. I have never asserted that all poverty is due to bad decisions and nobody is stupid enough to believe that common sense can avoid all health problems. However, common sense can help your chances of avoiding some health problems, obvious example being lung cancer from smoking. Even if you do not smoke, you can still get the disease, but is anyone stupid enough to believe that I might drown accidentally anyway so I might as well jump off the bridge into the river and see if it happens?

I find it absolutely incredible that some of you actually disagree with basic common sense. Many examples abound. If you show up to work on time, without a drug or alcohol hangover, and you do your best to do what the boss wants, I think your chances of work success are better, regardless of what kind of work it is.

I don't disagree with basic common sense - I just think that it's common sense that for a lot of folks, there's not much upward movement potential in their job, and they haven't got the skills or intelligence or physical ability to get a better one. And they are stuck with crappy health insurance and low money, which makes it tough to survive the hard times intact.

I'm not looking for 'equality of outcome.' There are going to be poor and rich, and some people who are poor made very stupid choices or continue to do so, and this either contributes to their poverty or caused it. What I would like to see is some additional security for folks who are on the lowest end, b/c when they bottom out, it creates major problems for society, their kids, and everyone really. By mitigating some of these problems a little, we might be able to help lift more and more people out of poverty.

Cycloptichorn

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cicerone imposter wrote:

First of all, learn a little humility.[/color]

I want to address that point, imposter. I believe people are capable of helping themselves, that I am no better than anyone else. I have proven that a few common sense things work in life, from my own experience, and it is disheartening to see some people be their own worst enemies, in terms of choices, and then they blame it on other people and expect the government to bail them out. What is not humble about this? Believing as you do that people are somehow less capable than you are to do well is the the real non-humble postion. This is not a matter of smarts or book learning, but common sense things. I think people can do just as well as the next person by using a few common sense things. And if misfortune happens to people that are doing their level best, people are much more inclined to help them, and they deserve it.

I am not talking about economic prosperity. I am talking about self respect, regardless of the job. I know people that work very humble jobs, janitorial jobs, but they excell, they do a good job, and they have respect, and they live comfortably within their means.

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okie wrote:

To my knowledge, nobody ever said it did. All that was argued here is that alot of poverty is caused by bad choices and lifestyle, and it obviously is. Not all poverty, no, and nobody ever said that.

Another mis-conception, the poverty level people are not the same people through time. People move in and out of poverty. It is not a life sentence, although Democrats think it is.

I forgot to add that it appears that you and Miller feel that bad choices are the main cause of poverty.....wheras others feel the main causes are not bad choices but other external factors. This is not to say that you don't think those other factors exist, you just don't think they are the main cause. And it's not to say that others don't think that some of these people make bad choices either.

I didn't mean for my initial post to be so black/white.

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I do not know the percentage. We would need to argue graphs of data I suppose. From my own observation and circle of acquaintances, I do not know anyone that is really bad off, such as homeless or does not have enough to eat, or really poverty stricken without much that did not make some very bad life style choices. I know plenty of people with very mundane and low level jobs, but they still live fairly well, albeit without motorhomes and cruises twice a year.

I would suspect that much poverty is cultural. The children are not taught that they can succeed, so they drop out and maybe take up drugs or something like that. Most of the people I see that look destitute with banged up cars, I see at convenience stores buying cigarettes, beer, and lottery tickets on a daily basis. I can draw conclusions from that, but perhaps you, imposter, cyclops, etc. cannot?

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okie wrote:

I do not know the percentage. We would need to argue graphs of data I suppose. From my own observation and circle of acquaintances, I do not know anyone that is really bad off, such as homeless or does not have enough to eat, or really poverty stricken without much that did not make some very bad life style choices. I know plenty of people with very mundane and low level jobs, but they still live fairly well, albeit without motorhomes and cruises twice a year.

I would suspect that much poverty is cultural. The children are not taught that they can succeed, so they drop out and maybe take up drugs or something like that. Most of the people I see that look destitute with banged up cars, I see at convenience stores buying cigarettes, beer, and lottery tickets on a daily basis. I can draw conclusions from that, but perhaps you, imposter, cyclops, etc. cannot?

The conclusions are different - I see a group of people who need to focus on educating the kids and making their lives better. And if they won't do it, we have to figure out some way to help those kids.

If I could find some way to spend more on breaking the cycle of violence and ignorance that lead to poverty, without straight-up handing people money who have done nothing to earn it... I think there's plenty of room for creative solutions to our societal problems, without resorting to welfare. But, many of these solutions will call for increased governemental programs, which is where we run into a wall; our ideologies start to create arguments about how things should be done, instead of whether they should be done.

Cycloptichorn

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okie wrote:

I would suspect that much poverty is cultural. The children are not taught that they can succeed, so they drop out and maybe take up drugs or something like that. Most of the people I see that look destitute with banged up cars, I see at convenience stores buying cigarettes, beer, and lottery tickets on a daily basis. I can draw conclusions from that, but perhaps you, imposter, cyclops, etc. cannot?

Look, I belive strongly that there are 10's of millions of stupid people in the USA who probably do exactly what you're saying. I won't draw any firm conclusions but there is some correlation (as we know though, correlation is not causeation).

I also firmly believe that any sort of welfare for adults should come with stipulations, which it does, maybe they need to be more strict, maybe not.

The kids though cannot be punished for the stupid decisions of their parents.

Healthcare though, to me, is a right of all people, like police/fire protection, clean drinking water, sewer systems, etc.

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okie: I believe people are capable of helping themselves, that I am no better than anyone else. I have proven that a few common sense things work in life, from my own experience, and it is disheartening to see some people be their own worst enemies, in terms of choices, and then they blame it on other people and expect the government to bail them out.

I'm sure there are people in all income levels who make bad choices in life. But your conclusion that "other people expect the government to bail them out" is a strawman argument. Do you remember Katrina? Not all - or even the majority - made "bad choices." Can you provide us with some stats on who those people are that "expects our government to bail them out" for their bad choices?

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i see the words "common sense" being thrown around here a lot .
about 15 years ago , the conservative ontario opposition leader (my fingers do not allow me to spell his name !) promised a "common sense revolution" if elected : lower taxes ... and lots of milk and honey !
of course he got elected - who could possibly refuse to elect him !

taxpayers got a "tax dividend" , money to universities was cut - resulting in fewer enrollments incl fewer medical students .
taxes were offloaded from the provinces resulting in higher municipal taxes etc .

luckily , the cons were thrown out after several years .

here we are about 15 years later :
shortage of new physicians because fewer graduated (of course now everyone says : "i never voted for them" or "i didn't realize they would do THAT !) .
there isn't much that can be done to bring physicians on stream quickly - and the new government (liberal) is being blamed by the conservative leader who tries to hoodwink the voters that he's so much more in tune with the voters and they should vote for him (oh yea ?) .

and that's only a small slice of the problems that the conservatives left behind for the ontario citizens !

"common sense" = give me a break ! (or better : "gag me with a spoon Shocked

)
hbg

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maporsche wrote:

Healthcare though, to me, is a right of all people, like police/fire protection, clean drinking water, sewer systems, etc.

You of course, know that police/fire, water, sewer are paid for by property taxes, don't you? The property owner pays through his property taxes and the renter indrectly through his rent to the property owner.

I pay for my health insurance, and because I pay for this benefit, it is my right to be covered by the insurance policy. Those who don't buy insurance don't have this right.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Do you remember Katrina? Not all - or even the majority - made "bad choices."

Their "bad choice" was choosing to live in that area. It was their choice, and it wouldn't be mine. Their choice was the wrong one and those who've moved back have more bad choices.

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For okie's benefit (re: the reason why I sold 35 to 40 percent of our annual gain when the DOW hit 14,000).

Stocks fall sharply amid credit fears I'm only guessing, but I predict that the DOW will go even lower within the next several months. When I think it's hit close to bottom, I'll buy back some share of what I sold. You know; sell high, buy low.

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This is what's called the "knee-jerk+ approach to investing by nonprofessionals. One jerk sells, other panic, more sell. But the smart guy sees the price fall as the sell-off continues and buys up the sold shares.

The DOW doesn't really reflect the true value of one's portfolio, if one has invested in high quality stocks and companies.

For the nervous, buy US Savings Bonds...

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Where is the US economy headed?

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