quote:

ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

Then it is decided.  We all will pay the electric company an extra $100 each month, because the CEO is "worth it".

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ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

While your facts may be credible, most bring it upon themselves. Unless youare in the medical or legal field, why are you dragging so much debt before finishing college? Eventually loans have to be repaid. These are educated people. Banking upon a salary you dont have is insane. Its almost like the housing bubble. People were assured they could afford the house they were buying when they couldnt. Now we are assuring people they can afford the education they are getting. They cant.

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

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ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

Then it is decided.  We all will pay the electric company an extra $100 each month, because the CEO is "worth it".

pahunk,

I don't know if a $100 a month rate increase is reasonable. 

And I don't know if it is accurate.

According to your links, PPL has 1.4 million clients.  At $100 a month, that is $140 million a month, or almost $1.7 billion more a year in income. 

That's a lot more than the cost of the CEO's salary.

So, again, attempting to scream that his salary caused the hike in rates is simply a non-starter.

Find the real reasons, and address them, not this boogieman and distraction.

Firm

quote:

medical field - Many nurses are being laid off because of the uninsured not being able to afford their medical bills.
Actually in the Detroit area, medical jobs are growing. After DMC finishes its new projects there will be even more jobs.

Coding is one of the hardest occupations to get into without experience. Mistakes lead to lawsits.
According to my teacher they want coders that are certified. Experience always helps, but is not the top concern.

quote:

ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY


Getting wealthy, or even just making more than a survival wage is a matter of attitude, opportunity, and luck.

Of the three, attitude is the most important factor. 

If one has the right attitude, and uses their time and energy to seek ways to improve themselves (and a college education isn't necessary, although it sometimes can be helpful), then they will be prepared, and understand when "opportunity knocks", and they will pretty much make their own luck.

Guaranteed?  Nope.  But it is a guarantee that if someone doesn't have a willing attitude, then they will ignore opportunity, and will almost always have "bad luck".

The attitude that will ensure failure is the one that brings out the hatred for people who do better, and succeed.

The attitude that will ensure failure is the one where someone cries about how unfair everything is, and can't see the opportunities that they can take advantage of, because they are too busy complaining.

I'll just give you some examples that I'm familiar with:

I work in a pretty technical field, that involves engineering, politics, and federal regulations.  I've trained probably 15 people over the years in how to do the same thing.  Or, to be more correct, I've hired at least that many to learn it.

I'm willing to pay them for at least 6 months to learn the skills and information to succeed, without expecting that they will contribute to my bottomline.

Some didn't even have computer skills, which is absolutely required to succeed.  I am willing to teach them that, and even provide the computer equipment for them. 

What is required to succeed is the attitude and desire to pay close attention, and to learn how to look up, read, and understand the rules, and apply them.  It requires the ability to pay attention to details, the ability to think things through, and then apply what they know to a particular situation.

Many of the people I've hired simply decide that its "too hard", or they give up after a week or two, because it's "overwhelming".  Some just don't want to learn all the stuff.  Some are simply unwilling to learn how to think.

One young woman who did not have a high school diploma, and not a day of college, and no computer experience took on the challenge about 10 years ago.  She had a crackhead for a husband, and two children who she ended up raising on her own.

To start, I paid her about $300 a week.  Today, still without a high school diploma, or any college, she is working for a Fortune 500 company, doing exactly the same things as I taught her for $45 an hour.

Another example is Treasure.

Treasure has a GED, and a few hours of college, but worked her way up in the Human Resources field by learning on the job, after hours, getting certifications in the field, and in generally applying herself.  She supported her entire family over the last two decades doing so, without assistance from her ex.

When we got married, she started learning what I do, in a completely unrelated field.  But she had already displayed the right "attitude": failure is simply another lesson on the way to success.  Today, even if I were to die, she could continue our business and make at least a 6 figure income.

What these two women didn't do was cry about all the opportunity and education that they were missing to "be successful".  They didn't waste their energy feeling resentful for the success of others.  What they did do was take stock of their own positions, their own abilities, got their attitude straight, and applied themselves.  And made their own luck.

Final example:  Me.

I have two college degrees, both in the "soft sciences", in areas that do not apply at all in the field that I've been working on for the last 20 years. (and, btw, I completely paid for my undergraduate degree by working: not a penny from my parents, who were "poor" and unable to help) I further spent over 10 years in the military, also outside of my current field.  I became a respected (and well paid) expert in this field, above many people who have dedicated degrees, by learning on my own, by being more committed to understanding it, and in learning how to apply it.  Was it easy?  Never.

How did I get into it?  Simple.  I had problems that needed solved, and there wasn't anyone that I could turn to, anyone I could pay that would provide the answers to the questions.  I saw an opportunity, and became "that person" for others to turn to, and, as a result, am currently in that "top 5%" income category.

But ... I don't work "on the clock".  I work on vacation, I work during the day, I work at night, I work to resolve my clients problems whenever, and where ever they have them.  I've saved some companies millions of dollars, and nowadays they rarely ask "How much?", they simply say "Send us your bill".  Hell, I mistakenly overcharged one company $10,000, and when I told them, they said they didn't care (an indication that maybe I'm not charging enough for my services).

"Being poor" is simply a temporary condition for people who have the right attitude. 

Firm

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ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

Successfully? It is a monopoly. Tell me just how they are going to fuck up.

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ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

How are you going to gauge whether or not he is better than another? Or can pretty much anyone with intelligence do the job if given a chance.

Then you have to ask why isn't the job opened up to any average joe that wants to have a shot at doing it? Oh yeah, qualifications, who you know, past experience, schooling..blah blah blah....The game is rigged.

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ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

Example, the new republican candidate in California. Ms. Fiorina. The classic fuckup Executive from Americn business. Foresaw the spinoff of Lucent from ATT...First laid egg..... Took over HP and got kicked off by the very board that hired her cause she was such a screw up....Second laid egg.....and then..Low and behold she is going to try and get to try and become a Senator....Talent there. For sure. I think she earned all her Millions. LOL...

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ORIGINAL: Brain

Dog is God spelled backwards, and even Glenn Beck could figure this out. Lets go to the blackboard.

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ORIGINAL: defiantbadgirl

I agree that financial success is a matter of attitude, opportunity, and luck. Of those three, attitude is probably the most important. But there's a fourth factor that's even more important - the absence of corporate greed.

To see this, one only has to look at the IT and factory workers who lost their jobs to outsourcing. Then there are the employees who have worked at a company for years only to lose their jobs to H1 Visa workers close to retirement age. (Could it be that the company wanted to get out of paying their retirement pensions?) Obviously, those former employees had a good attitude. No company is going to hire someone or keep them for years if they have a bad attitude.

Most of these workers not affected by age discrimination are employed. They say they're working twice as hard for much lower wages. Those who are working in a similar field report that they are expected to do the work of three people for a fraction of their former salaries.

A good attitude is extremely important to be successful. But in a great attitude vs corporate greed situation, corporate greed wins. So what other than fighting for change will win against corporate greed? 

Small businesses create a vastly disproportionate share of the net new jobs in the United States. The precise share is difficult to construct for a variety of reasons, some of which are noted below. However, it is reasonable to estimate that over the past twenty-five years two-thirds of the net new jobs in the private sector originated among small firms that account for about half of total private employment.

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ORIGINAL: AnimusRex

Firm-
I get it- I understand the concept of everyone being self-reliant, and not sitting around waiting for security.

But there is such a thing as too much emphasis on self reliance- there is a point at which that concept starts to corrode the connecting fiber of community that we all rely on.

For example- the federal budget could be balance very simply- we could enact a program of spending cuts and modest tax increases to cover it.

But when we have had several decades of "Me first" mentality, when we have sung the praises of self interest, and pounded the drums of "every man for himself" for so long, where do we develop the ability to make communal self sacrifice?

How do you convince people to cut their beloved programs, or pay a higher fee, in the name of the greater good?

We have managed to convince an entire generation of people that paying taxes is for chumps, that government programs are worthwhile only if they benefit me, personally, and preferably no one else.

There was a time, an earlier generation of Americans, who believed that patriotism and being a good citizen meant more than waving a flag and cursing the government.

They were the generation that believed that public roads, public libraries, public health clinics and regulation of the private sector was a the proper role of government, that government was the expression of our common beliefs- and they believed that it was the duty of all citizens to contribute to that government.

I would like to see a day when Americans are proud to stand up and say, "I am willing to pay taxes, so that everyone can benefit. I am willing to suffer wounds in war, so my country can benefit."

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ORIGINAL: defiantbadgirl

Also, part of being self reliant is having a job that pays a living wage. It's kinda hard for Americans to do that when so many jobs have either stopped paying a living wage or have been eliminated due to outsourcing. One would think those with strong beliefs in self reliance would be the ones fighting the hardest to get the government to bring those jobs back to the US and stop the H1 Visas.