Money Doesn't Make a Better Person.....

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Originally Posted By: Alfred_B
Originally Posted By: cashmoney

Yes people are born into poor uneducated families (like I was) but in the USA being born poor is a minor handicap for those who don't mind hard work and seriously want to better themselves.


Are you kidding?

The class you were born, the people you know and luck are the determinants how well you do wealth wise. Hard work is the myth fed to us. Who do you think works harder -- a person with three part time jobs paying minimum wage or the Donald?


That's utter nonsense. If a person is working 3 part time jobs it's because they are either unwilling to better themselves, or working to better themselves. Trying to compare them to someone like Donald Trump is the pinnacle of ignorance.

There are countless stories of people who have started from very humble beginnings, and through diligence, hard work, and some common sense have risen to achieve great things. For example, there's the story of the Korean immigrant that, after moving to the United States, worked 3 jobs to make ends meet. Do Won Chang and his wife now have an international empire that makes about $3 billion in annual sales. Or the guy that grew up in a shack with no plumbing or electricity, who wound up with a net worth of around $40 billion dollars (Harold Simmons). Leonardo Del Vecchio was sent to an orphanage because his mother couldn't care for him-today he is worth around $15 billion dollars.

Not everyone is destined to be a billionaire. However, anyone can be successful if they want, and anyone who lives in poverty can choose to rise above it. It's a choice that requires a significant amount of self discipline, and that's what far too many people lack.
 
There are >300 million people in this country. You'll find "countless stories" of just about anything.

The question isn't what is or is not possible. The question is, what's the trend? And the trend is, if you're born poor, you're pretty much guaranteed to stay poor for the rest of your life.
 
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
Money won't change poor people, they are in that situation for a reason.

I agree, though I think the reasons are not the ones you're implying.



IDK I was referring to lifestyle decisions and choices.

I'm a firm believer that the US is a wonderful country and with the right choices and a small amount of intelligence its not to hard to live a comfortable life.

The books the Millionaire Mind and the Millionaire Next Door illustrate these concepts wonderfully.

When you give since we are talking about lotto winners a lot of money, the person is the same it just exacerbates already existing problems. Did they gamble before? Now they gamble more. Did they have poor finances before? IE lots of debt, lots of stuff bought on debt, lots of junk cars? With $50M they will do the same thing just on a bigger scale. Did they have a number of poor relationships before? Money will increase that. Friends and family come out of the woodwork simply because that's the caliber of people they have associated with. You can't chose your family to a point at least but you can certainly chose your friends.

Lotto winners behavior is very easy to explain. Now if one of the individuals in Dr Stanley's books won say $5m nothing much would change. They would simply invest it along with the rest of their investments. The most wild ones might buy one new car or go one trip.

Why because they already have a stable lifestyle; the addition or subtraction of money once their living expenses are covered has little meaning.
 
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Originally Posted By: philipp10

As far as helping out the poor, I would consider it if I knew they would be responsible. However, I would guess if you gave a million dollars to 100 people, in 10 years, one guy would end up with most of it just due to how he handles his money compared to the rest. Sometimes you just cannot fix people.


This is 100% true, your "poor" friends would continue to be the same people just on a larger scale.

The major difference at least for them of getting a big chunk say $1m is they would adjust their lifestyles up with the same income they currently have. Which is why most lotto winners go bankrupt.

I strongly suspect the football player in the example above would have a lot of money when he retired if he never became a football player and just got a normal job. He is not doing anything he already wouldn't be doing, just with the NFL paycheck the numbers are bigger.
 
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And comparing government to foolhardy captains is not fair to foolhardy captains.

Originally Posted By: cjcride
If you give a great ship to a foolhardy captain he will probably sink it.
 
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
There are >300 million people in this country. You'll find "countless stories" of just about anything.

The question isn't what is or is not possible. The question is, what's the trend? And the trend is, if you're born poor, you're pretty much guaranteed to stay poor for the rest of your life.


And frankly there is nothing wrong with that.
 
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
The question is, what's the trend? And the trend is, if you're born poor, you're pretty much guaranteed to stay poor for the rest of your life.


That is the saddest most miserable statement I have seen anyone make in a long time. If you sincerely believe that horse poop I feel sorry for you and for those that have to listen to you.
 
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Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
There are >300 million people in this country. You'll find "countless stories" of just about anything.

The question isn't what is or is not possible. The question is, what's the trend? And the trend is, if you're born poor, you're pretty much guaranteed to stay poor for the rest of your life.


And frankly there is nothing wrong with that.

Wow. I couldn't possibly disagree more. I think it's very clearly one of the most urgent moral problems of our time, and I can't imagine how anyone with a sensible moral compass could disagree.
 
Originally Posted By: cashmoney
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
The question is, what's the trend? And the trend is, if you're born poor, you're pretty much guaranteed to stay poor for the rest of your life.


That is the saddest most miserable statement I have seen anyone make in a long time. If you sincerely believe that horse poop I feel sorry for you and for those that have to listen to you.

I'm a fan of two things: Knowing something about the topic before opening your mouth, and being open to correction. With that in mind, I'd recommend two things.

First, if you ever swing through Philly, let me know. I'll buy you a drink, and you can get to know me a bit before deciding whether to pity me.

Second, look up some stats about socioeconomic mobility and the factors determining wealth and poverty in this country before deciding what's actually true about those things.
 
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Originally Posted By: cashmoney
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
The question is, what's the trend? And the trend is, if you're born poor, you're pretty much guaranteed to stay poor for the rest of your life.


That is the saddest most miserable statement I have seen anyone make in a long time. If you sincerely believe that horse poop I feel sorry for you and for those that have to listen to you.

I'm a fan of two things: Knowing something about the topic before opening your mouth, and being open to correction. With that in mind, I'd recommend two things.

First, if you ever swing through Philly, let me know. I'll buy you a drink, and you can get to know me a bit before deciding whether to pity me.

Second, look up some stats about socioeconomic mobility and the factors determining wealth and poverty in this country before deciding what's actually true about those things.



We definitely are being brought down with a huge permanent poverty class that extends across the entire country in the USA. What separates many people's viewpoints is that some see to the huge and growing permanent poverty class and see the primary cause of it as a broken culture that celebrates ignorance, misogyny, laziness, and glorifies crime and drug abuse. Others ignoring reality point to statistics and say the "system" is rigged/unfair. I say [censored] - and prove my point by pointing to the literally millions of people that have immigrated to the US very recently and have wildly succeeded by dint of hard work, disciplined thoughtful child rearing, and most importantly celebrating intellectual and professional achievement. A community of people gets the behaviors that they celebrate as a community. Celebrate and make sacrosanct intellectual and professional achievement in your culture and that is the behavior you get.
 
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Pretty sure I don't disagree with most of what you're saying.

Is this a discussion you're willing to have in good faith, or were you hoping to just fend off my arguments and be done with it?
 
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Pretty sure I don't disagree with most of what you're saying.

Is this a discussion you're willing to have in good faith, or were you hoping to just fend off my arguments and be done with it?


I appreciate your willingness to discuss. Not sure BITOG is the place for detailing the fine points of such a complex and difficult problem. I do understand your point but it is so hard for me to buy into the system is "rigged" statements. I am an immigrant whose parents came to the US about 50 years ago with their WW2 3rd grade educations, literally $125 to their name, no English language skills - nothing but hope and a willingness to do any job(s) to earn their way. They gave up everything to come to a place where their kids had a chance to get a great education. It was made very clear to me that I needed to fly straight and achieve. Any other behavior was not acceptable. That still happens in the US every single day. My son just got into a Honors engineering program at a major university with full tuition scholarship - that whole program is mostly full of immigrant's kids - I wonder what mobility system they have rigged?
 
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Can't blame you. It's always hard to believe that an important feature of your reality is not shared by others, let alone by a majority of people.

A lot has changed in this country since your parents emerged from the WWII era.

As an aside, I'd appreciate it if you could stop pinning the "rigged system" language on me. I don't think what you understand by that language matches what I actually think.
 
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
There are >300 million people in this country. You'll find "countless stories" of just about anything.

The question isn't what is or is not possible. The question is, what's the trend? And the trend is, if you're born poor, you're pretty much guaranteed to stay poor for the rest of your life.


Having a negative outlook in life will doom your success. My poor immigrant parents came to the USA in the early 1950's with NOTHING and eventually lived the American dream by working hard and getting an education.

How can a person born in the USA make up excuse after excuse for their failures. The so called..... 'I'm born poor and will remain poor' argument is sooooo STUPID.

Politicians pandering to low income folks brainwash these low income folks and they must remain 'poor' for their entire lives. Again your post was very silly and has a self fulfilling prophecy of failure.

I hope you are not a school teacher and reinforcing these negative ideologies planted into the minds of young children.
 
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
you're pretty much guaranteed to stay poor for the rest of your life.

Statistically you are probably right. The bulk of poor people are poor bc of generations of learned behavior. Depend on government to support yourself and the many kids that are born in order to get more welfare. Someone born into a family like this is going to find it hard to rise above this sewage. The learned behavior will continue.

Someone born to a poor family that has not been living the Government free lunch dream I think may be more likely to rise above this poverty. That is just a guess.
 
Originally Posted By: cashmoney
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
The question is, what's the trend? And the trend is, if you're born poor, you're pretty much guaranteed to stay poor for the rest of your life.


That is the saddest most miserable statement I have seen anyone make in a long time. If you sincerely believe that horse poop I feel sorry for you and for those that have to listen to you.


Yep, sad and pathetic way to view life. Its this ideology that poisons the minds of children and young adults. These 'poor' folks grow up very bitter and resentful, then blame other people for all their failures in life.

NOBODY WILL LOOK OUT FOR YOUR BEST INTERESTS THAN YOURSELF !!!!
Not the government, not the American tax payers, ...etc...
 
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Having a negative outlook in life will doom your success.

...


I hope you are not a school teacher and reinforcing these negative ideologies planted into the minds of young children.

I am an educator, actually. But don't let that give you a negative outlook, because that will doom your success!
 
Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
you're pretty much guaranteed to stay poor for the rest of your life.

Statistically you are probably right. The bulk of poor people are poor bc of generations of learned behavior. Depend on government to support yourself and the many kids that are born in order to get more welfare. Someone born into a family like this is going to find it hard to rise above this sewage. The learned behavior will continue.

Someone born to a poor family that has not been living the Government free lunch dream I think may be more likely to rise above this poverty. That is just a guess.

It's more like this:

Someone born to a poor family that is lucky enough to have a healthy pregnancy and somehow manages to scrape together nutritious food from birth, good values, some measure of existential safety, and a lucky break or two, may be more likely to rise above poverty.
 
Some research on poverty and its long term effects, including social, biological, physical and mental. This will be helpful for those who blame the poor for being poor.

In absence of social programs to assist, the children start off at a disadvantage. Social programs can reverse that...

http://www.nature.com/news/poverty-shrinks-brains-from-birth-1.17227?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150129104117.htm
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2009/04/poverty-changes-brain-reduces-childrens-learning

Availability of healthy foods causes health issues. Fauna destruction and passing it to children

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-guts-microbiome-changes-diet/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4074336/

Poverty causes early aging

http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/22944-b...poor-in-detroit

Being poor makes you more altruistic so you do not accumulate wealth.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/02...ry.html?camp=pm
 
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