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CreativeDominant -> RE: White House advisers say Fox News is not news (10/27/2009 7:33:08 AM)
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ORIGINAL: SpinnerofTales
Quotes from CreativeDominant
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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.
Putting aside your snide comment about the "chosen one", you again use the exceptions and call them the rules. Not every black person is a Condaleeza Rice, Colin Powell or Thomas Sowell. Just as not every white person is Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. There are always people who can overcome any optical. This doesn't mean the obstacles are not enough to block the average person of any race, creed or gender. It is a pleasant fiction to pretend that such obsticals do not exist but reality is far different. I do not expect you to see that. It is not in your interest to do so. That's your spin, Spinner...but there seems to be more and more "average" black, brown, yellow people making it alongside average white people. Of course, these people also seem to be the ones intelligent enough to make use of the opportunities available to them and hungry enough to want something better. They don't allow themselves to become embroiled in a "victim" mentality. I see them almost every day in my practice and some of them have been friends of mine.
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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.
It was not the top 5% who were destroyed by overextending themselves. It was the middle class who was decimated by the preditory lending practices and stagnating wages of the past decades. Of course wisdom should have been exercised. But a good part of the gap widening was the top 5% making money by keeping wages stagnent while providing credit in the stead of living wages. The company store mentality hit the modern age and the result is unchanged from the nineteenth century. Is there ever a time when those on your side look at personal responsibility? Predatory lending practices? Yes, I am quite sure the lenders were out there with guns forcing people to take loans out on homes. Given that it was Harry Reid and Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi who were the main "pushers" for the opening of more credit to the middle class and the poor, this can't all be blamed on corporations nor on that top 5%.
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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.
I agree with the idea of closing loopholes. I also respect those who gained wealth through their hard work and their initiative. I do not, however, see the idea of raising the taxes the 5% pay by a few percentage points as beggaring them. As is a common tactic in your post, you posit an all or nothing scenario where reasonable change is impossible. What you overlook is that historically the death of the middle class is the death of a society. We are growing closer and closer to that occurance while those in the middle class shout stridently for the privilidges of the upper 5% who's rank they are unlikely to ever join. Actually, I don't posit an all or nothing scenario. I posit ANY scenario in which taxes are raised on a specific class simply because they earn more. They earn more because they've worked and in some cases their ancestors worked to set things up so they could earn more. To bring it down to a simple level...if I spend 60 hrs a week in my practice and earn 25, 000 take home (after the payments to the bank, salary to my assistant, payment for my own taxes and social security, etc., etc.) and my friend in Denver earns 75,000 for the same hours and only 10 more patients a week than I see, should he have to pay more taxes so that they can be given to me to bring me up to his level? How about this? I charge more? Or I sell more supplements? Or I take more X-Rays? or I work harder to see those additional 10 patients? Or do you think those 10 patients should be steered towards me? Perhaps that is something that will come with the government paying for health care for all...someone in the administration will be charged with seeing that doctors see an equal number of patients so they can just pay us all the same across the board. Of course, they'd better set up an administration czar to make sure the billings they receive are from legitimate doctors and healthcare/health supply providers...or this system will end up like Medicare. And thanks to 60 Minutes this past Sunday, we now know how easy it is to bilk that system...unless of course you are a legitimate provider---than they oversee you like crazy.
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