I have seen a few of these with similar story lines and realized we are living it right now. They have the best healthcare, the best food, the best everything and most of us are a few dollars from disaster. That scares some of us to death literally from all the stress it causes.
And the rich have the rest of us bickering amongst ourselves about Team Red vs. Team Blue, and social media exacerbated this. News flash, if any of them actually cared, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Team Red has their side blaming immigrants and liberals for everything, while Team Blue has their side convinced that everybody on Team Blue is infallible just because Team Red exists.
while Team Blue has their side convinced that everybody on Team Blue is infallible just because Team Red exists.
I’ve found it to be quite the opposite. Team Blue opposes Team Red and half of the people on Team Blue too. It’s split into all these different agenda and identity groups and they’re all so very eager to tear each other apart with labels and accusations if you don’t toe the exact line that’s currently being drawn. It’s a given that any time you have a large group of thoughtful individuals you’re going to have some inter-group bickering. But Team Blue is more divided and combative against themselves than I’ve ever seen before in my lifetime.
Team blue is calling out Melendez for corruption. So maybe the infallible thing is false?
Every single time anyone brings up Biden’s problems, the response is downvotes and “Doesn’t matter because Trump exists.” And I’m sure you’ve heard the mantra of “Vote blue no matter who!”
Yeah it’s not about Dems thinking anyone is infallible. Largely they’re pretty clear about denouncing their own when it’s deserved. It’s about being presented a ballot where your options are a polished turd or a fresh smelly chili shart plopped into a bowl and poured on your head. There are no good choices to vote republican, and when presented with this dichotomy I’ll vote blue every time until a better option is presented to me. Get better candidates and then we’ll talk.
That said I don’t disagree with the core of your statement here. The whole institution is rotten to the core. I’m just tired of people projecting hero-worship onto democratic voters. That’s a republican thing. We don’t really do that. You have to earn the respect of democrats. I voted for Biden because I couldn’t stomach another round of Trump and was presented no other option, and I’ll do it again if I have to. Doesn’t mean I love him. Doesn’t mean I even particularly like him, because I don’t really, I think he sticks too close to the status quo. But he’s by far the lesser of two evils.
The downvotes are probably from people conditioned from experience to be dealing with rabid trumptards that either won’t or can’t listen to any viewpoint. A majority of arguments that begin with “But Biden-” fall into that category. Dems will listen to and readily agree with legitimate criticism, it just has to be couched within an intelligent argument.
Are you sure the down votes are not because of what you said instead of who you said it about?
When it comes to “Vote blue no matter who” it is because team red has no plan other than get their guy in office. That guy fomented an insurrection, we all saw it happen live. That guy has already promised retribution if elected. There are groups readying plans to fire “non-loyal” federal workers the day that guy takes office and replace them with sycophants. That is literally an existential crisis for our country.
In addition, team red has tried to stop aid to Ukraine, repeatedly. Nobody outside of team red thinks it should be cut. Doing so would only benefit Russia.
Team red believes so much misinformation that they do not know how far out of touch with reality they are.
There are legitimate reasons to discuss politics when they have us so close to a precipice. I think we should be fighting about politics and wealth hoarders at the same time!
Isn’t this the plot to elysium?
In all seriousness, its not impossible to go from the bottom to the top, but its definitely improbable. Anyone can do middle class. Just do middle class.
If you really want to go wild, sacrifice your pleasantries in order to save a bit and give it to your child a chance. Ill give you an example.
Jeff Bezos mother Jackie and father Tim when were 16 and 18 respectively when she was pregnant with Jeff. Jeffs first dad was a drunk asshole and they got divored. She met a Cuban Refugee named Miguel Bezos, who adopted Jeff. Jeff went and got himself into Princeton, where he graduated and started working for a financial tech company.
Now Miguel got his degree and was working for exxon. Thats how he was able to save up the $254k that he and Jackie loaned to Jeff. With that, he made an online bookstore called amazon.com. From there Jeff became the multi billionaire he is now. Oh, Jackie and Miguel got 6% each so they’re billionaires too.
Now that’s the American Dream. Even so, I think the question is, how rich is too rich?
You’re right, with careful planning and hard work it’s possible to better your situation or those of your children. (Though it doesn’t always work) Even in our current system, statistically, some people will become billionaires. Do we think those billionaires lives are significantly better than if they were millionaires? If anything, judging by their behavior becoming ultra rich seems psychologically damaging.
On the other hand, we have millions of people who struggle to have enough food, to have a place to live, to get healthcare, to gain an education. Without a healthy environmental we face disaster that will cost many lives. I’d like to build a system where everyone has those modern rights. We need a systemic solution, personal effort is important but not sufficient.
If you are young, they would trade a lot for the years you have left to live. Also, time value of money and all that. It’s hard to fathom how powerful compounding is. Start investing small, start investing early.
Folks aren’t even able to get out of debt. Considering debt generally has a higher interest rate than savings, folks are even held back from saving. OP even mentioned that straight out. If you’re a disaster away from destitution, you aren’t investing money. Money years from now isn’t worth more than money today when your bills are due today.
Increasing consumer debt was a policy decision in the 1930 and ever since, to control powerful Labour organisations. An indebted worker is less likely to strike.
Same today for students. Bright optimistic minds out of college are less likely to say ‘hey, there s a better way’ if they are weighed down with debt. .
Every capitalist society trends towards this, as too do all other forms of society as well. Also remember that in the Western world, even someone who is next to outright homeless can have a better life than something like 90% of people around the globe - the water from most streams is safe to drink (unlike many places in Africa and South America), there are currently no missiles raining down from the sky (unlike Ukraine), if you have friends or family that you can stay with there is a good chance that someone can make room for you (unlike super crowded places where there are already ~20 families in a small household - and at the risk of repeating myself, yes I meant families there, not just people), plus with a mere handful of dollars we can get treatments for diseases that even Kings and Pharos of the past who were considered to be literal gods could not.
So it is a spectrum where we are not as well off as we used to be a few decades ago, but are still doing well globally speaking. The problem is that we are changing, so not yet used to there being such rigid divisions between “classes” of people as now exist, so people still talk as if mere hard work is all that is required to deal with it. And they aren’t even fully wrong, bc that really is a part of it, though there is a significantly higher uphill battle than there used to be.
Just do your best - what else could you possibly do even? - and also remember that kinder people are happier people, and that is literally something that no amount of money can buy:-D.
They’re gonna fall, we just have to stop saying yes. No more subscriptions, no more taxes, no more work. And we’re getting so many, 30s and 20s, we’re not buying anything anymore and most of all, we’ve been doing nothing. Soon billionaires will become millionaires and millionaires ordinary people.
We could bring everything to a screeching halt and change everything in months if enough of us did that… But only if enough of us were willing to stop paying rent and not being able to afford food. It would take at least a couple weeks, at most until the end of the quarter, before a renegotiation of the structure of society is on the table
Doing anything short of a full drop out in critical numbers will just lead to what we have now - modern capitalism cannibalizing itself trying to keep the exponential growth party going just a little bit longer… except everyone who committed to it end up further behind, sacrificing what they have now to speed up the process a bit
