Obama Vs. Limbaugh Vs. GOP

[Jax]

I'm a grad student on spring break (no classes for the rest of the week, yay!).

[Mark F. Barnes]

Do you people not have jobs during the day? This thread is moving too fast for casual posters to keep up!

I own the Company, I can screw off when I feel like it.

[flipper]

I own the Company, I can screw off when I feel like it.

ditto.

flipper

[CoolBuddy06]

When I first saw this thread, I thought you guys had moved to another planet; how can you be concerned about Rush Limbaugh with the way the economy is? But seeing the way this thread got around to economy so quickly, I'm reassured hat y'all are people I run to in the malls and coffee shops everyday.

[Marksmu]

Enough with the constant overstatement of middle-class specialness. Perhaps we could get past all the rancor by putting things in historical context, or by adopting a broader worldview. There are very few middle class, college educated, young white Americans, making good salaries as corporate cubicle jockeys, who can legitimately claim hard work. The truth is, they got the luck of the draw being born to white middle class parents at the end of the 20th century in America, and have spent their entire lives (as have many of their parents) enjoying the fruits of an economic bubble without much toil. They have acquired much, but earned little, and risked even less. They put on a nice shirt and some wrinkle resistant pants and 'solve problems' or mess about in various software programs for 5 or 6 hours a day. They've been been doing this not terribly hard work for 5 or 6 or 7 years since getting an unremarkable college degree. They are now angry and fearful, because they are vastly outnumbered by non-white people who work in a less important capacity and make far less money, yet multiply much more rapidly and consume more resources.

It sucks to come face-to-face with the notion that the lifestyle one inherited was never fully sustainable, but one doesn't have to act like a petulant, hateful douche about it. American middle class life may be very different in the 21st century. We shall have to adjust.

Crunch your racism against white people is astounding. If a white person EVER said what you just said every group from Lulac - to the NAACP, including, Jesse, the joke quannel X, etc would be protesting in front of that persons house, job, and everywhere else they think they can get media attention to extort money from someone and ruin that persons life.

Your attempt to make it out as if every white person who has anything was given it by his parents is pathetic, and makes you look pathetic, in fact pathetic is not a strong enough word, but I am pretty sure that I would get symbols if I wrote what I really thought of you, lets just suffice it to say, if it was cold, when I was done it would be a big steaming pile. In fact its people like you who think the world owes them something I hate the most, you actually make me physically sick. I worked my butt off for 8 years of college and grad school to get where I am, and Im not about to let you try to tell me that because I am white I was given it. This mentality does nothing at all for the world in general. People like you, who preach that they were not given enough, or didnt have all the same advantages, or opportunities are excuse makers who just try to self justify your own pathetic failures, instead of realizing you actually are stupid, and you actually have not worked at all in your life. Manual labor is tough hard work, I know, because I do it on the side for fun running a ranch that my brain was able to buy becasue I worked behind a desk all week. But to think that those who do have things and jobs and also who happen to be white were given it is pathetic. Im sure there is not a single minority at all who got something because of the color of their skin, or their nationality....OH WAIT- there is - millions of them. Affirmative action, hiring quotas, college entrance requirements etc - diversity requirements. All of these things, are supposed to equal the playing field, when in reality all they actually do is discriminate against white people - who just happen to be becoming a minority. I CANT WAIT for the day I check minority and circle white caucasion, and am just given free things.

Every college in America lets in grossly underqualified "minority" (which is a joke of a word too) applicants in an attempt to have "diversity" so that everyone is given "equal opportunity." If you were SO pathetic to not even be able to go to school under one of these programs, I have news for you. You are a DUMB. There is no other way to say it. Poor folks, and Minorities, who may have started out having it harder, have it MUCH easier when it comes to admissions in college, and it doesnt stop there - though it should. White people dont even qualify for 50% of the financial aid solely because they are white. Regardless of their parents financial status or history. There are freaking doctors who are idiots b/c med schools cant kick out the underperforming minorities for fear of losing funding. There are law schools who let in freaking idiots under the vail of diversity. I have seen it first hand.

Believe me the white people are fully aware that the face of America is changing...We are working harder and harder every day to achieve the same things that our parents had and because of all that work, we are ubable to have as many children. The smart are not multiplying nearly as fast because they are actually PAYING THEIR BILLS instead of just sitting on our butt with our hand out asking someone else to freaking do it for us. Meanwhile those on wellfare, and those not even in this country legally are busy spitting out babies as fast as they can, and training them to vote for idiots like Obama who promises them everything for nothing - when in reality all this pathetic loser is doing is running this country into the ground.

[KatieDidIt]

Crunch your racism against white people is astounding. If a white person EVER said what you just said every group from Lulac - to the NAACP, including, Jesse, the joke quannel X, etc would be protesting in front of that persons house, job, and everywhere else they think they can get media attention to extort money from someone and ruin that persons life.

Your attempt to make it out as if every white person who has anything was given it by his parents is pathetic, and makes you look pathetic, in fact pathetic is not a strong enough word, but I am pretty sure that I would get symbols if I wrote what I really thought of you, lets just suffice it to say, if it was cold, when I was done it would be a big steaming pile. In fact its people like you who think the world owes them something I hate the most, you actually make me physically sick. I worked my butt off for 8 years of college and grad school to get where I am, and Im not about to let you try to tell me that because I am white I was given it. This mentality does nothing at all for the world in general. People like you, who preach that they were not given enough, or didnt have all the same advantages, or opportunities are excuse makers who just try to self justify your own pathetic failures, instead of realizing you actually are stupid, and you actually have not worked at all in your life. Manual labor is tough hard work, I know, because I do it on the side for fun running a ranch that my brain was able to buy becasue I worked behind a desk all week. But to think that those who do have things and jobs and also who happen to be white were given it is pathetic. Im sure there is not a single minority at all who got something because of the color of their skin, or their nationality....OH WAIT- there is - millions of them. Affirmative action, hiring quotas, college entrance requirements etc - diversity requirements. All of these things, are supposed to equal the playing field, when in reality all they actually do is discriminate against white people - who just happen to be becoming a minority. I CANT WAIT for the day I check minority and circle white caucasion, and am just given free things.

Every college in America lets in grossly underqualified "minority" (which is a joke of a word too) applicants in an attempt to have "diversity" so that everyone is given "equal opportunity." If you were SO pathetic to not even be able to go to school under one of these programs, I have news for you. You are a DUMB. There is no other way to say it. Poor folks, and Minorities, who may have started out having it harder, have it MUCH easier when it comes to admissions in college, and it doesnt stop there - though it should. White people dont even qualify for 50% of the financial aid solely because they are white. Regardless of their parents financial status or history. There are freaking doctors who are idiots b/c med schools cant kick out the underperforming minorities for fear of losing funding. There are law schools who let in freaking idiots under the vail of diversity. I have seen it first hand.

Believe me the white people are fully aware that the face of America is changing...We are working harder and harder every day to achieve the same things that our parents had and because of all that work, we are ubable to have as many children. The smart are not multiplying nearly as fast because they are actually PAYING THEIR BILLS instead of just sitting on our butt with our hand out asking someone else to freaking do it for us. Meanwhile those on wellfare, and those not even in this country legally are busy spitting out babies as fast as they can, and training them to vote for idiots like Obama who promises them everything for nothing - when in reality all this pathetic loser is doing is running this country into the ground.

[crunchtastic]

Crunch your racism against white people is astounding. If a white person EVER said what you just said every group from Lulac - to the NAACP, including, Jesse, the joke quannel X, etc would be protesting in front of that persons house, job, and everywhere else they think they can get media attention to extort money from someone and ruin that persons life.

News flash, Mark, I am white, as white as they come. I am also part of the educated middle class I refer to. My point was not about race per se, it was about class. And white people make up most of the middle class. My reference is to the (global) growing divide between the very rich and every one else, and how a college degree or two and hard work will no longer be an invitation to the upper class, or insulation from the lower classes.

Moreover, I wholeheartedly stand by my assertion that educated middle class people work far less hard than their predecessors. There nothing wrong with that. I think I work hard. But we vastly overestimate the extent to which we can attribute our middle class lifestyles to our own mettle. What's distasteful is acting, as I said, like a petulant, hateful douche. Thanks for illustrating my point.

[crunchtastic]

If you sit back and actually think about it it's pretty depressing. We have left a bunch of self serving, power hungry, egotistical politicians (regardless of party) in charge of our economic future. What the poop does a politician know about fixing the economy?

Politician: 2 a: a person engaged in party politics as a profession b: a person primarily interested in political office for selfish or other narrow usually short-sighted reasons.

It's obvious that the legislature has no clue what to do other than spend money on a long awaited pet project list. Unfortunately, it doesn't get any more promising when listening to Geithner.

Maybe we can all just agree that we are going to have to sit back and let this thing play out. Ya know, the same way it would have if the new spending law wasn't passed.

flipper

I'm with flipper.

I think we're stuck, frankly, and while I have no confidence in tax cuts, I have no confidence in many parts of the spending bill. And I have even less confidence in Timmy Geithner. He's not much more than Paulson JR, and IMO Paulson is concerned mostly with one thing--keeping GS and their ilk afloat. It's beyond conflict of interest.

[memebag]

I'm white, middle class and male. I have one of the easiest, most enjoyable jobs on the planet. I lucked into this kind of job because I was fortunate enough to get a sweet job in high school (working for my white, middle class father) that let me buy a computer, and I had the free time to play with it and learn to program. Today I get to do what I love, surrounded by a bunch of other mostly white men who get to do what they love, and make a lot of money doing it. I would most likely be working harder if I was born in a third world country, if I wasn't white, if I was female or if I was born to a less affluent family.

Are there white, middle class men who work hard? Sure. But on average, they have more privilege than any other group in the US.

[TJones]

I know you weren't being mean, TJ. Incidentally, I work for a great company. It's highly regulated, highly rated, is solvent, treats it people and customers well, and makes a profit. It just happens to be owned by AIG. They ran the fincancial units as a giant hedge fund and lost, and now unfortunately everyone else is on the hook, including the taxpayers. While I'm grateful to have a job still, I am philosophically opposed to the federal bailout of AIG, just as I was with GM and Chrysler. It's a very awkward and hypocritical position to be in, as I am not a big enough person to go renouncing my livelihood because of my principles.

I completely understand. Much for the same reason I got COMPLETELY out of the car business. I am now back in the construction business. Here is my new company. If ANYONE needs some work done, let me know. I am based in Austin and Dallas, and San Antonio, I am sure I could get something worked out in Houston area though.

I put the website in my signature.

[Marksmu]

News flash, Mark, I am white, as white as they come. I am also part of the educated middle class I refer to. My point was not about race per se, it was about class. And white people make up most of the middle class. My reference is to the (global) growing divide between the very rich and every one else, and how a college degree or two and hard work will no longer be an invitation to the upper class, or insulation from the lower classes.

Moreover, I wholeheartedly stand by my assertion that educated middle class people work far less hard than their predecessors. There nothing wrong with that. I think I work hard. But we vastly overestimate the extent to which we can attribute our middle class lifestyles to our own mettle. What's distasteful is acting, as I said, like a petulant, hateful douche. Thanks for illustrating my point.

If your statements were not about race - you need to make your point more astutely - because they came off as sounding extremely racist. I for one am tired of being attacked on every single front for being white, and having money. Nobody seems to care that yes I have a high income, but I also have large obligations. Because my wife and I are white we did not qualify for certain low interest student loans. My wife's parents happened to make just enough money to disqualify her for the good loans in both undergrad and grad school, but not enough to pay her way through school....where does that leave us? $150,000 in debt in just student loans.

I dont feel one bit about what I have - and you for one seem to have some sort of guilty conscious about being white. I dont have that. I feel no desire to give away what I have, unless I want to give it away. There is a freight train coming, and your so worried about being progressive and politically correct, your building your house on the tracks. White people are being discriminated against in every single thing they do now not the least of which is government contracts - which if Obama has his way will be all that is left to do in any industry. If a minority feels they were discriminated against, its a hate crime....regardless of what you did. If you disagree with a minoirty, your a racist....they are positioning this country in the name of political correctness to take everything you work for and redistribute it. You cant even disagree with the freaking president of the US without being a racist. Wake up and see it. They are destroying this country. Removing incentives to work and trying to take away so much from those who have earned it.

I have no desire to bring my quality of life down, so that everyone can have equally as much.

[pineda]

Enough with the constant overstatement of middle-class specialness. Perhaps we could get past all the rancor by putting things in historical context, or by adopting a broader worldview. There are very few middle class, college educated, young white Americans, making good salaries as corporate cubicle jockeys, who can legitimately claim hard work. The truth is, they got the luck of the draw being born to white middle class parents at the end of the 20th century in America, and have spent their entire lives (as have many of their parents) enjoying the fruits of an economic bubble without much toil. They have acquired much, but earned little, and risked even less. They put on a nice shirt and some wrinkle resistant pants and 'solve problems' or mess about in various software programs for 5 or 6 hours a day. They've been been doing this not terribly hard work for 5 or 6 or 7 years since getting an unremarkable college degree. They are now angry and fearful, because they are vastly outnumbered by non-white people who work in a less important capacity and make far less money, yet multiply much more rapidly and consume more resources.

It sucks to come face-to-face with the notion that the lifestyle one inherited was never fully sustainable, but one doesn't have to act like a petulant, hateful douche about it. American middle class life may be very different in the 21st century. We shall have to adjust.

Yes, I totally understand where you're coming from here, Crunch. "Middle-class white person guilt", a real problem right now, that's been drummed into so many liberal Dems heads that they actually believe this crap.

However, until I see Obama and his Democratic Congress start pulling their kids out of $30K/yr. private schools and enrolling them into the local P.S. 100, dumping the private car & driver and hopping on Metro, and selling their gated community homes and signing up for public housing, quit giving themselves raises and join the rest of America in the new RIF and loss of bonuses, 401K's, health benefits and jobs, I really can't join you in this "we shall have to adjust" garbage." Let our leaders be real leaders in this matter and walk the walk they're asking us to walk.

And, as the liberal Dems love to mindlessly screech, "Don't be a hater, just cuz I'm a middle-class white person!"

[Gooch]

I'm a honkey and understand what Crunch is saying. I put myself through school w/o benefit of student loans or help from my parents. Yes, it was hard. But not near as hard as my parents and grandparents had it trying to lift themselves from poverty. Heck, my they didn't have electricity until my father was a teenager. I think most Americans have forgotten how to be "poor".

I think we're stuck, frankly, and while I have no confidence in tax cuts, I have no confidence in many parts of the spending bill. And I have even less confidence in Timmy Geithner. He's not much more than Paulson JR, and IMO Paulson is concerned mostly with one thing--keeping GS and their ilk afloat. It's beyond conflict of interest.

I assume you've seen Geithner's resume?

[KatieDidIt]

I'm a honkey and understand what Crunch is saying. I put myself through school w/o benefit of student loans or help from my parents. Yes, it was hard. But not near as hard as my parents and grandparents had it trying to lift themselves from poverty. Heck, my they didn't have electricity until my father was a teenager. I think most Americans have forgotten how to be "poor".

I assume you've seen Geithner's resume?

So, we should throw all the struggles of our granparents out the window? All the hard work they put in to build a better country so their future generations could have an education and better life was a bad thing? I'm sure my Grandfather would have been thrilled to learn this.

I don't think America has forgotten how to be poor, I do think a certain percentage of the poor never learned how to do hard work and now expect to be elevated by a magical wand. To be coddled and bailed out, while the working class continues to struggle to do the right thing and never recieving anything for free. In an sense this puts them on the same level with the hated "generationally wealthy" white man.

A hand out is a hand out. Whether its from your birth right or from Government freebies. It makes no sense to bash one and glorify another.

Oh and all these tortured socialist democrat souls that are conflicted between elevating the poor but wanting to maintain their own lifestyle.... yet they are more than willing to let the top 10% take the hit for their cause. It's just another version of NIMBY isn't it?

JMHO

[Gooch]

So, we should throw all the struggles of our granparents out the window? All the hard work they put in to build a better country so their future generations could have an education and better life was a bad thing? I'm sure my Grandfather would have been thrilled to learn this.

Katie, with all due respect, you're putting a lot of words in my mouth. I never said there was anything wrong with building one's own success from wherever they started from. Nor am I belittling anyone's (modern) accomplishments. But I do recognize that I never feared a shortage of food. I never had to stitch my own cuts up with a needle-and-thread. Most of the things I fear in this economic crisis aren't life endangering.

I don't think America has forgotten how to be poor, I do think a certain percentage of the poor never learned how to do hard work and now expect to be elevated by a magical wand. To be coddled and bailed out

That's exactly what I mean about forgotten about how to be poor. There is no shame (or honor) in poverty. The shame is in not working hard; the honor in doing whatever it takes to succeed. People seem to have forgotten that poverty isn't a life sentance. It CAN be temporary.

So, we should throw all the struggles of our granparents out the window? ... A hand out is a hand out. Whether its from your birth right or ...

I'm not sure I resolve these two (I'm probably missing something)

[memebag]

I don't see any tortured souls here, except maybe Marksmu. I'm don't feel guilt about being white, male or middle class, but I do recognize my good fortune. It would be delusional to think that my prosperity is a result of my hard work. I'm indoors all day, I have health insurance, my job is fun and mentally challenging, there's no heavy lifting, etc. To think that poor people don't have what I have because they're lazy would be insane.

[KatieDidIt]

Katie, with all due respect, you're putting a lot of words in my mouth. I never said there was anything wrong with building one's own success from wherever they started from. Nor am I belittling anyone's (modern) accomplishments. But I do recognize that I never feared a shortage of food. I never had to stitch my own cuts up with a needle-and-thread. Most of the things I fear in this economic crisis aren't life endangering.

Not really trying to put words in you mouth but

I guess what I'm trying to say, it's a GOOD thing that it gets better for each generation. It's a Good thing that we don't have to fear or face the same things our grandparents did. You shouldn't even have to look back to use them as an example of struggle. It's not the same world they lived in, and they helped make they way it is now. Yea, you may have cushier inside job, and don't do manual labor because you grew up middle class, but you could have easily become a crack addict too. Don't kid yourself, you do or did work hard at something. I'm probably talking to myself in circles anyway.

Motivation moves a country forward. Trying to level the playing field with increasing taxes on the "worker bees" and elevating the less than productive through special programs and hand-outs is a huge step backwards. They won't learn anything from it and we'll end up right back to what started this mess all over again. And strangley this theory is highly supported these days, perhaps not by you, but it is.

[sevfiv]

I'm still ruminating over the discrimination toward white middle class males issue, but meanwhile, can somewhere throw out some numbers on welfare amounts/types/recipients (and a reference please)?

[Marksmu]

I don't see any tortured souls here, except maybe Marksmu. I'm don't feel guilt about being white, male or middle class, but I do recognize my good fortune. It would be delusional to think that my prosperity is a result of my hard work. I'm indoors all day, I have health insurance, my job is fun and mentally challenging, there's no heavy lifting, etc. To think that poor people don't have what I have because they're lazy would be insane.

Im not tortured, Im just not going to sit back and allow society to walk all over me simply because it may not be considered polite to stand up against it. I strongly support anyone who is willing to work hard, and everyone who I know who does has been rewarded with success.

[crunchtastic]

Motivation moves a country forward.

That's a good phrase and makes me realize what I didn't do a good job of articulating, which is that the past 40 years, it really was GDP and the velocity of capital moving this country forward. The more creative the accounting is, the less motivation and work you need to keep moving forward. You're essentially along for the ride, until the bubble bursts.

[memebag]

Im not tortured, Im just not going to sit back and allow society to walk all over me simply because it may not be considered polite to stand up against it.

You sound a little tortured on here.

I strongly support anyone who is willing to work hard, and everyone who I know who does has been rewarded with success.

Not me. I know a lot of hard workers who don't have squat. And all of the really wealthy people I know have had a combination of intelligence and luck, but hard work wasn't a major factor in their success.

[Mark F. Barnes]

I'm still ruminating over the discrimination toward white middle class males issue, but meanwhile, can somewhere throw out some numbers on welfare amounts/types/recipients (and a reference please)?

I don

[KatieDidIt]

Not me. I know a lot of hard workers who don't have squat. And all of the really wealthy people I know have had a combination of intelligence and luck, but hard work wasn't a major factor in their success.

oh good grief.

[memebag]

Speak for yourself, no one has given me a damn thing, and there are vast majorities of wealthy people that worked their butts off to get it. Luck is not a factor, unless you hit the lottery.

I think luck is always a factor. Both of us (I assume) were lucky to be born in the US. I was lucky to be born with genes for good health and intelligence. I was lucky to be born into a family that could afford to buy books for me to read when I was a child. I was lucky to have a gift for the sort of problem solving required for computer programming at the precise time that computer programming was a valued skill. You can't see any good fortune in your success?

As for hard work, most wealthy people in the world are born wealthy. Some of them may work "hard", but their hard work isn't responsible for their wealth, and they usually have the freedom to pick some sort of work they enjoy. And, in my experience, those not born to wealth who became wealthy happened to be in the right place at the right time. They had the intelligence to take advantage of opportunities, but that rarely required a great deal of effort on their part.

[sevfiv]

I don

[JLWM8609]

If you were SO pathetic to not even be able to go to school under one of these programs, I have news for you. You are a DUMB.

How can a person be"a DUMB"? When you refer to a person, you want to use a noun, not an adjective. Gee, did you go to school under one of "those programs"?

[Marksmu]

I think luck is always a factor. Both of us (I assume) were lucky to be born in the US. I was lucky to be born with genes for good health and intelligence. I was lucky to be born into a family that could afford to buy books for me to read when I was a child. I was lucky to have a gift for the sort of problem solving required for computer programming at the precise time that computer programming was a valued skill. You can't see any good fortune in your success?

As for hard work, most wealthy people in the world are born wealthy. Some of them may work "hard", but their hard work isn't responsible for their wealth, and they usually have the freedom to pick some sort of work they enjoy. And, in my experience, those not born to wealth who became wealthy happened to be in the right place at the right time. They had the intelligence to take advantage of opportunities, but that rarely required a great deal of effort on their part.

By your reasoning, its lucky you were born at all, that there was oxygen on earth to breath, that you have not died every single day up until now....

There is always the opportunity to make money - you just have to be smart enough to recognize that opportunity when you see it. There is some degree of luck in everything one does, but to say that a person is either born rich, or got lucky greatly detracts from the hard work of those who created something from nothing. There is a saying, and I cant quite remember it perfectly, but its something to the effect of "Success - is when hard work meets planning"

What do you have to back up that statement that most people are born wealthy? I don't believe that all....what is your definition of wealthy? I may not even fall into that category...There are some people, predominately on the east coast that are born wealthy - but I do not think most people who are wealthy were born that way at all.

I would venture to say that most wealthy people were not born wealthy, and that most people who are not wealthy, are not because they do not manage money correctly. I see tons of "poor" people driving escalades, or other nice cars with brand new custom wheels....I see them drive up in their fancy $40,000 car to get welfare checks, and food stamps. Something is wrong with that picture.

We have become a society of now now now...we cant wait at all for anything. If you cant pay cash - you charge it, and then slowly pay it off, or dont at all. Wealth is built by saving and spending wisely. If you cant pay cash for it, you cant afford it (home excluded) if that means you dont have what you want that very second, too bad - keep working. What is wealthy is drastically different now than it used to be.

[Mark F. Barnes]

I think luck is always a factor. Both of us (I assume) were lucky to be born in the US. I was lucky to be born with genes for good health and intelligence. I was lucky to be born into a family that could afford to buy books for me to read when I was a child. I was lucky to have a gift for the sort of problem solving required for computer programming at the precise time that computer programming was a valued skill. You can't see any good fortune in your success?

As for hard work, most wealthy people in the world are born wealthy. Some of them may work "hard", but their hard work isn't responsible for their wealth, and they usually have the freedom to pick some sort of work they enjoy. And, in my experience, those not born to wealth who became wealthy happened to be in the right place at the right time. They had the intelligence to take advantage of opportunities, but that rarely required a great deal of effort on their part.

Luck is not a factor in me being born in the US. My Great Great Great Grandfather Samuel F. "Gransir" Barnes came to the North Carolina Colony in 1755, at 20 years old, from the caves in the Highlands of Scotland, after his family lost everything in the Battle of Inverkeithing, and was forced to the highlands and live in mud huts and caves, and die off slowly due to influenza, fever and plague. Gransir took a job on a sailing vessel in return for his passage to the colonies. Gransir toiled on a sailing ship for several months to get me here, I don't call that luck. He worked in the tobacco fields and learned the Dairy business as a sharecropper. He loaded up his family, (Nine Boys and their family in wagons and came to Texas in 1833 from Iredell County NC, by the lure tales by James F. Perry of the Spanish land grants of the Austin Colonies, where he was heading back to. He had come out to Iredell County to trade for dairy cows, of which Iredell County was plentiful with. Gransir traded James Perry 8 cows of the 16 he owned to take him in his family to Texas, in search of all this free land spoke of. Traded half his wealth to trudge 1200 miles to settle in Brazos County Texas at 98 years old, in a wagon pulled by mules. Not knowing what was waiting for him on the other end, and not even knowing if he'd actually live to see it. He lived to be 106 by chance and is buried in the Boonville Cemetary, next to his wife, that joined him 3 years later. All nine of his sons were granted land grants, (1 section of land) in return for their service in the Texas Army. Three sons joined a Ranger Company, the rest served in the regular Militia. My Great Great Grandfather may have been lucky no to have been killed in the Battle of the Sabine, when he was shot in the back, and since he carried a horseshoeing hammer in his ruck, the 50 caliber ball spared him, and only left him with the definite impression of a farrier's hammer on his lower left lumbar region. But I really don't think that had any involvement in gaining any wealth by luck. After the Independence of Texas, all the brothers returned to Brazos county, where they established the only business they knew, the dairy business. Two Brothers decided to continue Rangering, and the rest along with their kids established the Barnes Creamery, which to this day still operated on Dilly Shaw Tap Road. No luck, just hard work and determination. If you have read my blog, it will explain that I left that dairy at 16 to find my own way.....and as Paul Harvey would say....."that's the rest of the story." No luck involved, just a lot of hard work. Now I can sit around and discuss frivolous crap with some people who have no clue, and some that do.

[Gooch]

Motivation moves a country forward. Trying to level the playing field with increasing taxes on the "worker bees" and elevating the less than productive through special programs and hand-outs is a huge step backwards. They won't learn anything from it and we'll end up right back to what started this mess all over again. And strangley this theory is highly supported these days, perhaps not by you, but it is.

We are in violent agreement.

That's a good phrase and makes me realize what I didn't do a good job of articulating, which is that the past 40 years, it really was GDP and the velocity of capital moving this country forward. The more creative the accounting is, the less motivation and work you need to keep moving forward. You're essentially along for the ride, until the bubble bursts.

I think what we are getting at is it seems wealth hasn't been built upon tangible goods. For the past two generations wealth was created via labor, goods, manufacture. Producing things that were merchantable. Physical stuff of an enumerable value.

The growth of the 'finance' industry in last 30 years has been dramatic. It was based on making money off of other people, who were making money off of other people, who were earning money by creating the tangible labor and goods. I don't have a lot of grief about that sector collapsing. I wish we'd let it go away, rather than continue to prop it up via tax monies extrated (once again) from those creating the tangible value. The producers of this country are getting soaked by the looters.

[Marksmu]

We are in violent agreement.

I think what we are getting at is it seems wealth hasn't been built upon tangible goods. For the past two generations wealth was created via labor, goods, manufacture. Producing things that were merchantable. Physical stuff of an enumerable value.

The growth of the 'finance' industry in last 30 years has been dramatic. It was based on making money off of other people, who were making money off of other people, who were earning money by creating the tangible labor and goods. I don't have a lot of grief about that sector collapsing. I wish we'd let it go away, rather than continue to prop it up via tax monies extrated (once again) from those creating the tangible value. The producers of this country are getting soaked by the looters.

Extremely well spoken comment.