Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Katelew who wrote (140610)	7/11/2010 5:18:01 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541740

Yes Kate, some people work very hard at low paying jobs on an interim basis and then step "up" to better jobs after a short interval. Others don't. And yes, many people on welfare, many unemployed and some of those who are temporarily disabled will move on. That's another feel good thought for those who want to resist being shamed by bleating liberals. You might want to stop reading now because you're missing the bigger point. Here's the way it works: Being out of work is a very painful experience, especially when you have a family. Because of globalization with the rise of multinational corporations shipping American jobs overseas and because many labor jobs have become mechanized, an economic tremor has shaken the economy and many jobs have fallen into the fissures. The tremor has shaken many workers through the screens so that workers who had previously been employed at higher levels are suddenly seeking employment and swelling the ranks of the job applicants at lower levels so that "decent living" jobs have an overwhelming number of applicants. Those on the left side of the employability bell curve, maybe the lowest 10-15%, are what professionals refer to as "shit out of luck" when it comes to landing a decent job. So you may be right in saying that "leating about them as though they are a fixed group, trapped forever in the grind of poverty flies in the face of the facts" but you should understand that as a group they're the ones that are most likely to be there, least likely to get out, more likely to be thrust back in again and that they will suffer a lot of pain. Some will just give up. And, as I've said many times, it will get worse. Blithely lumping them together and characterizing them as a "group of people in transition" glosses over that ugly reality. What's really odd is your statement that: "Sadly, most of the time there are specific reasons for [people past 40 or so who are still struggling to hold down jobs, whose family life is dysfunctional, and who can't budget even when they have a job['s] plight....drugs, alcohol, lack of ambition, chip on the shoulder, and way too much ignorance to function in our more complex society. There's not much really constructive help that can be given. IMO, they have to hit some kind of bottom." Have you ever considered that they already hit a bottom? Might that and their "ignorance" be one reason for a chip on the shoulder, drugs, alcohol, lack of ambition? I've always wondered how those who would agree with you and Q on this question could so easily project their own talents and abilities onto those who fail. We're not all born with the same brains, looks, social skills and health and we're not all raised in circumstances that let us blossom. To lay the same expectations on all us is just silly. It's a little like taking the kid who can't walk and chew gum at the same time and then telling him that the reason he can't win the state title in the hundred yard dash is because he's lazy. So you may be right in much of what you say, but you're wrong if you can't understand that people are what they are and many of them can't change that.