Originally Posted by grampi
Originally Posted by StevieC
Originally Posted by billt460
In "decades gone by", people EARNED their "piece of the pie". They didn't expect the government to steal it for them from someone else. You didn't have people leeching off the government with every social program known to mankind. People pulled their own weight. The only people back then who received benefits from Social Security were the people who actually contributed and paid into those programs.
And there was no Medicare, Obama Care, Welfare, Food Stamps, and all the rest of the government dependent nonsense that started in 1965 with the, "Great Society". All of which have improved nothing, except to make people less dependent on themselves, and more on the government that is going bankrupt trying to pay for it all.
Kids worked their way through college, instead of taking out loans, only to default on them. All the while screaming how the government, "owes them" a free education, job, house, health care, along with everything else they think they deserve. That they base only on the fact they consume oxygen. Back then people paid their own way, and those who came here from south of the border did so legally. And they obeyed our laws when they got here.
Today it has all changed into a free for all, that is bankrupting this nation. And none of it is going to be paid for by, "taxing the rich". Who as of last year, the top 1 percent of accounted for more income taxes paid than the bottom 90 percent combined. Yeah, the "decades gone by" were pretty good years alright, because people provided for themselves. Then came liberalism. And look what happened.
No one is asking for the pie to be stolen... What is being asked for is a fair wage in comparison to living costs today for the same effort expended as it was back then like those of yester-year had it. Wages have been flat for the last 40 years and that is the problem all while the upper classes have accumulated so much wealth it's disgusting. AGAIN, they can have more than the rest but the bottom classes should be fairly compensated in comparison to living costs and that isn't happening today like it used to decades ago. PERIOD.
I do agree with your point to an extent. The wage gap between blue collar and white collar workers has grown over the last several decades...I don't remember the ratio, but it has grown A LOT! I believe the upper levels should make more than the worker bees, but not at the gap we have now...I am not advocating income redistribution though...if someone can figure out a way to do this and still operate within a capitalistic society he/she would become our next president...
I do feel bad for some of the blue collar workers who are my tenants. When people go on and on about how hard the rich work, well I don't consider myself rich, but I basically sit on my butt and do nothing and the money comes in from rentals and investments. And it's way more than anyone making minimum wage. But I didn't work hard for it. What does it mean when reality doesn't jibe with dogma/philosophy?