Can it be proven? Given that the existence of God cannot be proven then it follows the statement cannot. It is widely held, not only by Christians but by followers of many religions using the same (or similar) concepts of "God". It is a widely held but unprovable statement. Where, then, does it fall short of the criteria of an axiom?
Plus, even if you could prove the existence of God, it's not provable that he helps those who help themselves. Well, we could ask him, but he's a lying little fucker.
Flew an interesting customer today and it got me to thinking. First of all, the guy was nice and down to earth in a way most folks aren't. During the flight, he told us how he started bartending, then working construction, then working for a utility company climbing telephone poles and shit. Then, he up and decides to start his own construction company. Turns it into some huge-ass coastal deal and sold it to another concern last year for enough tens of millions of dollars (at least) that he can afford to fly his golf buddies and himself up and down the coast in a 40 million dollar private jet. Riddle me this: In what other nation on Earth can you do something like that, and with the apparent frequency that it happens in America? Or at least, do it and not have better than three quarters of the fruits of your labor thieved off by the government for the 'benefit' of the masses? This guy was the kind you'd pass on the street and never imagine he was a millionaire. You'd enjoy sitting in a bar having a beer with him, and he'd want to yack about sports and shit with you, not Wall St. He remembered where he came from, was appreciative of what he had (built through his own steady effort, not any particular gift of intelligence or prodigy), and was gracious to us. America. The root of all evil on Earth. My dying ass.
Yes, you have done an excellent job of refuting all those critics of the demise of the United States who have been condemning Trump's America for its tolerance towards construction company start-ups. This cannot fail to persuade, except perhaps for any small minority that was more concerned about fascists marching down your streets, children imprisoned in concentration camps, and the destruction of Earth's biosphere. But the anti-construction company crowd should certainly sit down and shut up. Why? Because millionaires rent airplanes.That's why.
under the correct set of unique circumstances, sure... of course, it also helps if you started 45 years ago. I had an uncle who was a Bell telecom employee through the 60s and 70s. He retired at 55 on the pension and preferred employee stock options fairly comfortably. Obviously, those opportunities no longer exist.
You do realise that social mobility is lower in the US than in most of the developed world? That is, your rich people mostly haven't earned it, and your poor people have a greater chance of remaining poor. Do you care? Or is this rhetoric just to make you feel better?
Hmmm. I wonder if there are control groups anywhere in the world against which we could test this hypothesis...
Good question (you lying liar from liarsville; we all know it's a lie because it's something that *you* said). Please support this lie. Put another way - do you care? Or is are your lies rhetoric just to make you feel better? Fact (from economist T. Sowell, “Discrimination and Disparities;" it's a short book, but you can't read it because your head would explode within a few pages): about 3% of people in the US remain in the bottom 20% for as long as 8 years. You pull out an actual fact instead of making up lies, and I'll provide you another. Marso is of course talking about economic mobility - we're not UK or India with an ingrained class or caste system, and few have the same aspiration of social mobility. So please check that particular error of yours when you present the basis for your lies. [ps: US is also the most racially integrated country on the planet, not the hotbed of racism your brainwashers have taught you.]
from the economist: HOW likely is someone to move up the economic ladder? A new study by Alberto Alesina, Stefanie Stantcheva and Edoardo Teso of Harvard University compares perceptions of social mobility in five countries—America, Britain, France, Italy and Sweden—against actual levels. It finds that Americans tend to be optimistic, while Europeans tend to be too pessimistic. An American born to a household in the bottom 20% of earnings, for instance, only has a 7.8% chance of reaching the top 20% when they grow up. Americans surveyed thought the probability was 11.7% more examples
Thanks, if any of that turns out to be true it will be very interesting. I'll see if I can dig up the actual "study". The "Harvard" brand does not inspire confidence (its been far more concerned with agenda than science for several decades now), nor does my former favorite news mag from ages past, the Economist. It's been asswipe since the turn of century but can sometimes still report accurate, if you closely check the underlying material. In this case the magazine is just repeating something someone else said, and provides no added/subtracted credibility, except for the persistent anti American bias its shown, which might contaminate its reporter's read of an otherwise accurate study. As to the particular claim in that factual 'soundbite' - I wouldn't expect the same generation to rise from bottom 20 to top 20, but I'd predict over multiple generation the US has at least avg. such mobility compared to other western states. So thank you (for real) for providing a specific fact - that according to that study, someone in the bottom 20% of US rises to top 20% only x% of the time.
Could it be that Harvard and The Economist aren't wrong in their criticisms? I mena, if a bunch of people who specialize in (presumably) economics say that there are failings within the current model, I tend to accept that they aren't talking out of their asses.
Yes, of course. But I'm concerned about, e.g., the data cited only the specified metric: "children." We don't even know whether the three named people that conducted the study are economists (or virtually anything else about their "study"). Here's a 3 minute video that explains how susceptible the data can be to manipulation (by an economist who also got one of his early degree from Harvard). HIs example is how measurements expressed in terms of "households" can be used to grossly misrepresent results about top/bottom quintiles in a "study." I've come to generally trust Sowell, after decades of reading many of his books, and finding his information valid (or at least not prone to errors or distortions). But of course it's possible Sowell too manipulates results that reflect his own biases, so I'd be happy to hear anything you pick up about that.
if true, then why the fuck are so many of the lefties on wordforge such depressingly pessimistic bitter sorry ass pussies? Fuck if the rest of the world (other than wherever you are currently living which isn't perfect thus it's hell-on-earth) is full of opportunity then fucking move!
The overwhelming majority of rich Americans did not inherit their wealth. Thus they had to have earned it.
I'll buy you pants if you can't afford them. Funny parameter from one of the top sources found at steve's link: "Rather than using the more traditional metric of income, this study uses educational attainment as the basis for defining upward mobility." Yeah, that's not a basis for study vulnerable to bias and error. You can't manufacture ambition, and I'll quickly agree with argument that more americans than ever before lack desire to produce, and have been conditioned to expect as much free stuff as possible. Who's actually the kid humming with his fingers in his ears? Btw, the free pants offer expires at midnight, so PM quickly if you're ready to grow up today.
so here's a thought - don't get wrapped around the axle about being in the top 20 percent! Just my opinion but FOR THE MOST PART here in the US many people with humble beginnings that work hard, stay out of trouble and have tenacity will at least make a decent living and have a good stable life. I know plenty of people (and by gosh they aren't all evil white men!) who do okay but will never be rich but they sure as hell are free and that's fine with them. Sorry but we're not a perfectly fair communist/socialist paradise (I'm sure a lot of you have your fingers crossed though) and there's not a 100 percent guarantee that you will achieve an easy life, let alone a very satisfying life. Yes, the very rich are often born into it - but as they say, money isn't everything! A lot of people hate the rich capitalists but they sure as hell wouldn't mind being one of them. But I can almost guarantee that if you don't have a good work ethic, you don't do your best to stay away from all illegal activities and you don't stay as focused as you can be you will fail at life. You will never live up to your potential, but never run out of excuses as to why you aren't. That said you can do everything right but never catch a lucky break - "that's life in the big city" as they say. But if you don't do everything right those lucky breaks will pass you by every time. Just my two cents. Off my soap box now - carry on.
This guy Sowell is a national treasure. An excerpt of an article he wrote on this subject. "Ironically, many of the very people who are promoting the idea that the "unfairness" of American society is the reason why some individuals and groups are not advancing are themselves a big part of the reason for the stagnation that occurs. The welfare state promoted by those who insist that it is society that is keeping some people down makes it unnecessary for many low-income people to exert themselves — and therefore makes it unnecessary for them to develop their own potential to the fullest. The multiculturalist dogma that says one culture is just as good as another paints people into the cultural corner where they happened to have been born, even if other cultures around them have features that offer better prospects of rising. Just speaking standard English in an English-speaking country can improve the odds of rising. But multiculturalists' celebration of foreign languages or ethnic dialects, and of counterproductive cultural patterns exemplified by such things as gangsta rap, canpromote the very social stagnation that they blame on "society." Meanwhile, Asian immigrants or refugees who arrive here are not handicapped or distracted by a counterproductive social vision full of envy, resentment and paranoia, and so can rise in the very same society where opportunity is said to be absent. Those "social scientists," journalists and others who are committed to the theory that social barriers keep people down often cite statistics showing that the top income brackets receive a disproportionate and growing share of the country's income. But the very opposite conclusion arises in studies that follow actual flesh-and-blood individuals over time, most of whom move up across the various income brackets with the passing years. Most working Americans who were initially in the bottom 20 percentof income-earners, rise out of that bottom 20 percent. More of them end up in the top 20 percent than remain in the bottom 20 percent. People who were initially in the bottom 20 percent in income have had the highest rate of increase in their incomes, while those who were initially in the top 20 percent have had the lowest. This is the direct opposite of the pattern found when following income brackets over time, rather than following individual people. Most of the media publicize what is happening to the statistical brackets — especially that "top one percent" — rather than what is happening to individual people. We should be concerned with the economic fate of flesh-and-blood human beings, not waxing indignant over the fate of abstract statistical brackets. Unless, of course, we are hustling for an expansion of the welfare state." -end quote Before you loose your TLDRs, note that a black man wrote the above (for the racists among you), he was born in 1930 and grew up in Harlem, and remained a Marxist into his 30s even after studying economics under Milton Friedman, before he later woke up to RL.
I knew you'd find some excuse to dismiss the findings. Anything not in accordance with the Goddess Ayn wouldn't satisfy you. So why don't you just go back to re-reading Atlas Shrugged for the 400th time.
Still women's knickers for you, eh? [I know, it's strictly a comfort thing.] ps-for the second time, never read a word of Rand. Have seen the movie with Gary Cooper.
I think that doing right by other people really is more important than talking points. Of course, your bolstering of your argument with personal insults is interesting since today's anarcho/libertarian/Trumpites love to accuse "liberals" (i.e. that is anyone who dares dispute them) of resorting to personal insults.
So you're suggesting that rightforge is more successful careerwise than leftforge? Or maybe leftforge are more inclined to anger at injustice?
I'm not sure why you think what you quoted refutes what I said. "About 3% of people in the US remain in the bottom 20% for as long as 8 years." Assuming that's true, so what? What has it got to do with the comparison to elsewhere? Here and here are some details regarding how the US compares in social and economic mobility (I'm using the terms interchangeably) to other countries. It's not a pretty picture and it's strongly linked to the degree of inequality that exists in your society. It is part of the national myth that America is the "land of opportunity" and claims such as the one @Marso made are routinely offered and accepted as articles of faith. There was in the past some element of truth to it but that has long since gone.
