|
CreativeDominant -> RE: White House advisers say Fox News is not news (10/26/2009 7:44:23 AM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: SpinnerofTales
quote:
Surely...with all the laws against discrimination based on race/gender/religion in the fields of employment and education, with programs and organizations such as the Equal Opportunity Act, Title IX, the Negro Scholarship Fund, the NAACP, N.O.W. and on and on and on, you aren't going to tell me that the field still isn't level enough? Unless you advocate taking away companies, organizations, wealth from individuals who either built it themselves or whose families built it and redistributing it? Unless you advocate just kicking out the heads of companies and replacing them with women or minorities not based on their merits but simply on their gender or race?
ORIGINAL: CreativeDominant
Let's look at that "even playing field". Even a casual perusal of the census figures shows us that the average white family income is $48,000 per year. The average black family income is $30,000. Now it seems to me that there are only two possible explanations for this. Either there is a systemic imbalance that encourage that inequity or the average black family is actually worth $18,000 a year less than an average white family. I personally believe in the former. If you believe in the latter, please do explain what you feel that difference in value is. Actually...there is ANOTHER explanation, Spinner and that is this...there are more white families in which the man and the woman both work at higher level jobs than there are black people. Now then, I suppose you could state that even with all those programs in place, it is because blacks are still somehow held down in society but then, in comparison to someone like Thomas Sowell or Colin Powell or Condaleeza Rice and even the annointed one...Barack Obama...that would make a fairly hollow argument unless you choose to see it from the liberal perspective. The opportunities are there for people to achieve what they wish to achieve. Hell, in some cases, there are MORE opportunities...in this state, a minority construction firm must be considered before a white-owned construction firm for any sort of government contract through things such as a sliding scale applied to contract bids.
quote:
It also doesn't indicate a level playing field when the gap between the richest 5% and the average working person has widened to a point never seen in this country before. Again, it would seem to there are only two alternatives. First is that the upper 5% has become far smarter and harder working. The second is that societal policies have been skewed in their favor. Once again, I believe the former to be true. If you believe the latter to be the case, I more than welcome your perspective upon it.
Actually, I believe you would favor the second alternative. Of the two, you are right, I would favor the first...but there again, I don't happen to take your perspective as gospel. There are plenty of other reasons for the gap becoming wider...wildly increasing interest rates which have favored the investments of those in that top 5%, enabling them to invest even further while at the same time, more readily available credit to those below that top 5% and them choosing to access that, putting themselves in debt to live a lifestyle that few could afford. Just because credit is available does not mean you have to avail yourself of it and yet records show that many did just that and then when they could not afford what they KNEW they could not afford, they let it go to repossession, thus skewing statistics further.
There are always going to be the wealthy among us. And whether you like it or not, some of them got there by hard work and smarts...Sam Walton and Bill Gates being two good examples from two differing sides of the ideologic spectrum. Ironic though that both got there through a capitalistic manner.
If you want to clamp down on rules restricting how wealth is made, then start with rules that close loopholes that should not exist. But to beggar thy neighbor in the interest of making things more equal? That's not equal opportunity and it is not a level playing field, that's equal outcome without equal effort and while that sounds soooooooooooo good to so many who believe in a utopia, for those of us who believe our efforts should be rewarded while those who do not work as hard do not deserve the same results as we do, it sounds like socialism.
|
|
|
|
