Why do we have Poverty in America

SpaceNut · 2019-10-15 16:51:05

The articles talks about:

work fighting poverty that has helped millions of children by favoring practical steps over theory. their work had shown how poverty could be addressed by breaking it down into smaller and more precise questions in areas such as education and healthcare, and then testing solutions in the field.

1. well care,.is a physical exam, some shots for vacines and viruses at least once a year to asure the you have a doctors office that will keep you on file. The cost of the insurance to have that is not worth the billings for the premium as you will have paid way more for than the cost of the visit. It also does not cover dental, hearing or yes as these are not part of the care.

2. education, this one takes on much of the beurcratic garbage to operate the extra aids rather than focusing on how to help the child learn. This goes back to whom is paying the schools budgets which cause the non action or the less than desired helping efforts.

poor tax based communities struggle with both as earning are just not there to afford to shell out money thats needed for meals from the families income. Further compounding the situation is jobs for local are are few and means you further spend money to only make a marginally better wage but after deducting the cost for transportation you are still at the same economic level as if you had the local job. Raising the tax base from service to factory work is a step that many towns still struggle with even as they group in population.

tahanson43206 · 2019-10-28 06:38:28

This is for SpaceNut primarily, but I'm hoping other forum members will be interest...

I watch a lot of CSPAN, and try to always catch Q&A on Sunday evenings.

This week the interview subject was a gent who wrote a book with the title "Dignity"

From my perspective, this gent has impressive credentials and qualifications for his work.

However, the bottom line take-away for me was his conviction that everyone wants to be able to have a family and provide a good start for the children.

He spent years interviewing people who are at the bottom level of American society, and traveled throughout the United States over a period of five years to visit every place he could find where things have gone badly for the people living there.

I came away from the presentation with a better understanding of the importance of shared culture in a family, a community and a Nation, to give those children a good start. The bottom line is that if a family cannot provide education and a network of contacts for their children, then the cycle of poverty is perpetuated.

And, as is painfully evident, many millions of Americans (and by extension billions of humans) are not trained in the arts of success in a capitalist system, and therefore never participate in the benefits that come with that success.

The prospect of a situation like this occurring on Mars is non-Zero! The idea of a community caring about each and every child born into the society is NOT a default for human beings, in my opinion.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?464849-1/qa-chris-arnade

(th)

SpaceNut · 2019-10-28 18:55:02

Not all states graduate students from high school with the same level of grade capability and that special education have other requirements.

https://www.ecs.org/high-school-graduat … uirements/

The level of education that you graduate with is any but a 12 grade level and in some states its graduating you with levels as low as a 6th grader.

Some states allow you to drop out in the 8th grade with or without a parent permision...

kbd512 · 2019-10-29 02:03:49

tahanson43206,

I thought a lot about this, but I'm not sure that I'm telling anyone anything that they don't already intuitively know. Life is about organization, prioritization, and allocation of effort. That's the procedural part, not what gives meaning to life. For anyone who is an adult, I sincerely hope that doesn't require much in the way of further explanation or study. If that wasn't indoctrinated into someone in an entirely unambiguous way at a very early age, then life's going to seem like an uphill-all-the-way battle. Sometimes it is, but it's that way for everyone. We all go through it. It's rougher for some than others and in different ways. We seldom get to walk a mile in someone else's shoes to find out what it's like. If life doesn't seem that way when you observe what someone else's life is like, then you don't know that person as well as you think you do. However, the resolve to persevere through life's problems and maintain a positive attitude will take you much further in life than what you were born with or all the baggage you acquire along the way.

If none of that resonated, then think about it this way. It's better to look back on your life and say "Man... What a ride.", than it is to ask yourself, "What might I have been?". If you make decisions and devote effort to your personal goals with that thought in mind, then I think you're likely to accomplish whatever you choose to do. If something in life was simple and easy to do, then it likely carried little meaning with it. If it was incredibly challenging or possibly even painful and you barely made it through, then it was probably done with a deep sense of purpose. There's also meaningless self-inflicted pain, which isn't useful to anyone- and there's far, far too much of that.

While failures teach, success does not. Apart from how to be successful, I've never learned anything else from being successful. Failure is every bit as important as success. If you're not allowed to fail, then you can't succeed, either, by definition. Any attempt to prevent one also prevents the other. Success or failure is the binary outcome of executing a specific procedure with a specific intended result. It's not the same thing as accomplishment, which is entirely subjective in nature and purpose. A simple Post-It note is an accomplishment that made exchange of tidbits of information more convenient, but it was the result of a complete failure to create an incredibly strong adhesive that turned out to be incredibly weak but still useful for an entirely different purpose. The extreme failure of the scientists working on that project to succeed in making a strong adhesive had no bearing on the extreme practical utility of the invention stemming from their failure, which has made the work of tens of millions of other people successful at a scale that an extremely strong adhesive was highly unlikely to ever match.

Practicing to ensure successful execution of life-and-death procedures is a very good idea, but attempting to outright prevent failure is a profoundly ignorant idea that precludes the possibility of success and accomplishment and learning from failures all at the same time, which is pretty difficult to otherwise accomplish until we start trying to prevent failure. Our military is actually quite fond of placing their people in situations where there is no possibility of successfully completing a procedure, just to understand how they'll respond. That's the only way they can know how things fail when they fail, in order to learn and adapt.

It should be noted that there are also a very limited number of outcomes that are minimally useful (we could call these accomplishments) or merely survivable (failures that aren't fatal). As such, we operate in a constrained environment. The baseless assertion that there's no correct way to interpret life / events / meaning has zero practical utility from the simple aspect of survivability in response to some set of existing conditions (where you found yourself at some point in life). As such, the saying "you can do anything you want in life" isn't a pearl of wisdom. It's ill-conceived indoctrination to believe that any idea, no matter how foolhardy or nihilistic in nature, is acceptable, so long as it represents "what you really wanted to do". That doesn't sound like much of a plan for success or accomplishment to me, presuming you still wish to be counted amongst the living.

There are no simple and easy solutions to profound problems, of which poverty is but a single example. As highly educated as everyone here is, I'd have thought that'd be pretty obvious. If it's not, then I don't like what that says about our educational system. When people truly feel that their lives are without meaning and treat themselves or others that way, that's a problem that only they can resolve... or not. Try as we might, no amount of money or other support will change personal beliefs or the behaviors associated with those beliefs. That kind of change has to come from within. No matter what other type of pit you happen to find yourself in, the only pit you can never escape from is your own mind. This really is the heart of the matter, isn't it?

Nature did provide a natural cutoff for laziness, but then some of us formed wildly successful technologically advanced capitalist societies with so much surplus wealth that we could afford, at least for awhile, to grant indulgences to the less industrious amongst us- to the point that we now have 30 year olds living in their mom's basement smoking dope with their friends from high school (after graduating from college, mind you) while complaining that they're worried about climate change, nuclear war, and other humanity-level problems that they have zero possibility of ever solving from their mother's basement while stoned out of their minds, without a penny to their name nor the personal discipline to simply get out of bed in the morning and go to work on time. They're too busy behaving like tools to notice that they're not solving any of the problem they say we need to solve. I can only surmise that that would take real effort on their part and carry with it the distinct possibility of failure. Laziness? Inability to constructively deal with failure? Nah! Not even possible.

Mr. Wang's ilk must not believe very strongly in the investment decision making capabilities of average Americans, else there'd be no need for our government to collect retirement money at gunpoint. The most pedestrian examination of what the socialists and communists within our society have done under the guise of "we know what's best for you better than you do" is in direct opposition to any such line of argumentation. Social Security, Universal Basic Income, and all other schemes that use the power of government to rob Peter to pay Paul are all done under the banner of "we know what's best for you better than you do". Given the growing number of 30-somethings who still haven't grown up yet, they may even have a point... Except for the fact that the same people making such proposals are the same sort of people who did the "educating". Does that ever make you wonder what they educated our children to become? Anyway, we must be suckers for this nonsense because we keep voting people into office who promise everything under the Sun, take more and more of what little we have, and if we receive anything at all for our obedience to these state-sponsored private wealth theft schemes, it's more of a token of appreciation for not tarring and feathering them, as GW suggested we do, than something actually worth having.

The ranks of the "free stuff army" grows by the day. There are fewer and fewer of us to provide all that "free stuff" that, wouldn't you know it, actually costs real money that all the "rich people" in the world couldn't hope to pay for. I've never seen a canonical definition for "rich people", either, so you should expect that if you have a penny more than the next person that the supporters of such schemes will be after whatever you have shortly after they've exhausted the wealth of those "rich people". I can't bring myself to waste what little time I have being envious of people with more than I have. Life's far too short for such ridiculously petty nonsense. When it's time to leave, you can't take any of it with you. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet came into this world exactly as you and I did and they're leaving it in exactly the same way. If you want what they have, then you're going to prioritize making money over just about everything else. That's not worth the trade-off in my estimation, but anyone who feels differently is free to choose differently. Alternatively, you can live like a vagabond. That's the beauty of a capitalist system. You actually get to make that choice and, to a point, without dire consequences. If you stop eating, it makes no difference how much money you have in your pocket. There's only one possible result. However, even amongst the homeless we seem to have the opposite problem, so I think we're doing alright for ourselves, despite our numerous personal problems.

Incidentally, what gives meaning to life is very easy to explain. Spend your time doing something that's useful for yourself and your family, minimally, or for your country and all of humanity, if and when you can manage to do so. You may not be able to do all of that at the same time and everyone's definition of what's useful will surely vary, but there it is. Does something that simple require a Doctor of Philosophy to explain? I sure hope not.

tahanson43206 · 2019-10-29 07:58:42

For kbd512 re #279

This is another of your memorable essays, which (I at least) think is worth indexing.

SearchTerm:LifeIsAbout Author:kbd512

Life is about organization, prioritization, and allocation of effort.

FYI ... I think there is a typo in this line:

They're too busy behaving like tools

In this and many of your previous essays, you've operated from a framework which is welded into the person you are, for better or for worse.

Anyone studying your work must keep this in mind, in order to find little nuggets of wisdom where they are sprinkled, amidst the support structure.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2019-10-29 08:25:40

For SpaceNut re topic in general ...

This morning, as I went about morning chores, I noticed someone going through the 300 gallon waste container that sits just outside the gate to the alley.

This is not at all unusual, in the large metropolitan American city where I live. There may well be hundreds of individuals plying their trade in all the many allies that wend their way through the neighborhoods here. Most are men, but there are a few enterprising woman who diligently search trash bins for potentially salable items.

A few are unbelievably messy. A few take meticulous care to avoid creating a mess. Most are somewhere in between. I often find the lid of the waste container left open, or unwanted items scattered on the ground.

This morning's visitor was somewhat unusual, because he was equipped with a decent bicycle, and a small portable radio playing upbeat sound tracks. This particular visitor lowered the lid, which I appreciated, but he left some debris on the ground, which I restored to the container as the price of business for living close to downtown.

Not for the first time, it occurred to me that this industrious young person is someone who is operating at the level of vision he absorbed from his culture.

He is hard working, willing to get his hands dirty, willing to take risks but also willing to operate more-or-less within the expectations of the larger society of which he is a part. In short, had he conceived of a more fulfilling life, I think from first impressions he would have been successful.

With all due respect to kbd512, who ably represents a point of view he has built up over many years, I think this young man precisely fits the pattern that the CSPAN author was trying to bring to our attention.

Broadly speaking, the United States is NOT a loving or caring society.

There are certainly little pockets of kindness here and there, but the predominant pattern is selfishness, as nearly as I can tell.

In the city where I live, the local paper recently published a series of stories about a street where prostitution, low level crime of all kinds, and an abundance of drug taking has become the pattern for a significant number of people. The related aspect of the situation is that most residents of this once proud neighborhood have moved away, and buildings and the infrastructure are decrepit.

This is precisely the kind of neighborhood the CSPAN author would have included in his travels, if he had known about it.

In response to the series, there are now reports that civic institutions of a generous and kind nature are starting to think about how to address the problem.

A couple of posts back in this topic, SpaceNut reminded us that in the United States, there are states who have decided to allow children to grow up without an education sufficient to succeed in our capitalist society.

The American mind set of rugged individualism would appear to require that a baby born into this society figure out on its own how to acquire the vocabulary of success, the helpful human contacts that are crucial for success, and the various mental and physical skills that provide a foundation for any career.

This trait in Americans obviously leads to generation after generation that has no idea how to succeed in any society, let alone this one.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2019-10-29 08:27:16)

SpaceNut · 2019-10-29 16:04:23

The stacked game of income...

If we were only to look at the wage minimum and then assigned weighted values to each we would come up with what is known as locality pay factor. Such that the low value is used to see what other states are multiplying there wage by to say that it costs more to live in there state but the fact is the cost of items are the issue for the locality factor in the first place. So again use the low value of the items cost to see if its a factor of 1 or is it greater. Now look at the wage locality number as compared to an item for the same factor and see if its the same. If it is then you are at the correct level of wage to costs. When you look at housing and foods, transportation these should all be with the same factor and when they are plus or minus these make the cost of living on a fixed income which is what a minimum wage is not possible without giving up something that either makes life bareable or being overwelmed with debt.

Kbd512 post, what is called changing ones stars it has to do with where you start in life and not where you stay at but how you improve your status in life. Some it is just shear luck while some is effort to do so. With a bit of educational chance that you have been given the correct tools to make life chances which improve your status in life. Living at the minimum in survival mode is just all you can do if thats all there are around you for work. Then that is all that there is...If all you earning goes into all the expenses then there is no way to change your financial stars.

kbd512 · 2019-10-30 22:46:05

tahanson43206,

When you're endangering the lives of your "meal ticket" (seems to be the way many youngsters treat their parents and society in general these days) from over-zealous Police actions "saving the world from the scourge of drugs", you're behaving so poorly that you need to be called out on it. Let's not kid ourselves here, either. It's definitely a scourge, just not one we need to kill any more people over. If you were expecting a subtle and gentle suggestion to the adult children of our society that they need to grow up and get a job, then you've come to the wrong place. I would be willing to forsake "rugged individualism" at this point for plain old "generally responsible adult behavioral".

I started my first full time job at 17 without a penny to my name, nor any sort of advanced education. I worked at it and never gave up. That's all there is to it. You don't need to be the world's foremost expert in anything. You just need to show up, do the best job you can, be willing to learn from and correct any mistakes, and do a better job next time. That is exactly what our ancestors did. Plenty of mistakes were made along the way, but society kept advancing as a result of their efforts. So far as I can tell, precious few of our youngsters today show any sign of comprehending that. Apart from personal belief, and a very strange one at that, nothing is preventing them from deciding to do the same thing today.

In general, homelessness is not a simple money problem. If it was, then the trillions of dollars we've thrown at various welfare programs would've solved it by now. Since that never happened, there must be some other root cause. Apart from profound mental illness, this is about people deciding that they're going to do self-destructive things to the point that they self-destruct. I certainly can't stop them from doing those things and neither can anyone else. Those who are mentally ill need to be wards of the state until such time as they choose to release themselves from their mental prisons (yes, it's a little strange when the warden and inmate are the very same person, but such is life).

If you haven't learned to appreciate the entire messy affair we call "life", then you're not long for this world because you'll never be happy in it. Misery doesn't need your company. It needs to be told to go find someone else to keep company with. Give misery the single digit salute and move on with the rest of life. You won't miss it when it's gone. That's the best and only advice I can give to anyone trapped in their own mental prison.

tahanson43206 · 2019-10-31 08:00:35

For kbd512 re #283

This is to acknowledge your post. I'll think about it before attempting a reply.

However, the gist of my reply would be that it is increasingly clear that you and I and perhaps others here are focused upon different sets of people.

This is a good time to repeat that I appreciate all the thought you have put into your technical posts, and I wish I had time to catalog and index them.

If I find someone who has lots of time on their hands and wants a worthy project, that would be one. Other authors here deserve the same service. This archive of conversation contains nuggets of knowledge and good advice amidst the totality of text and images.

SpaceNut does a remarkable job of trying to pull content out of the database as occasion demands, but that effort could be greatly enhanced by appropriate tagging in the first place.

However, to try to set an example, I'll set a marker for your post:

SearchTerm:Job
Author:kbd512
Direct Link: http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 08#p161708

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2019-10-31 08:01:32)

Oldfart1939 · 2019-10-31 09:15:26

kbd521 and tahanson43206-
I'm late to this party, but just want to add my $0.02 to this discussion.
One of the underlying issues that most politicos deign to discuss is pervasive mental illness in our society (societies). Many of the homeless are military veterans suffering from PTSD, and are not receiving adequate treatment. This group is layered atop the other mentally ill members of society, in addition to youths who have had unfortunate experiences with illegal (and some legal) drugs. There is no single group we can target, but the mere fact that state run mental hospitals are now seen only in the rear view mirror of our increasingly permissive and progressive culture, leaves those needing but not receiving treatment as "street people," or "homeless." kbd512 correctly identified one group, the indolent, basement dwellers with college degrees (in "gender studies?" or some other societally worthless degrees). Well--at least they aren't homeless until mom finally does them something criminally unfair to them--such as dying.

I know I'm going to catch a lot of flak over my suggestion that we reinstitute the military draft, but in a different manner. Call it a "social service to the country" conscription. In the 1930s we had the CCC, the results of which are still evident in our National Parks. The handle of a shovel fits all hands. Make it voluntary or mandatory, but provide "3 squares and a flop," which is what the military used to provide for draftees until they became useful. Detoxify those on drugs; provide some kick-ass leadership to jolt the basement dwellers into reality; maybe even provide some "opportunity for socially upward mobility." Also, consider reopening these state-run hospitals with a somewhat more humane manner of treatment for said inmates, or "residents."

I can only state from my personal experience with our military, that it CAN have a very positive alteration of attitudes and lifestyles.

SpaceNut · 2019-10-31 17:08:15

2 cents or not oldfart1939, you are spot on with regards to not lumping all that ails into a single category for the problem that is seen.
That no signle solution to fix all that ails is possible. That it does create dependancy if conditions for the individual can not be correct with support, medical care as some are just caused by where you live and what you can do for work.

Kbd512 is also right that those that would find there way out will do so as they want to improve there condition so as to not stay on the support system that they make use of. It takes an individually designed plan that not only solves the condition but makes the change sustainable.

Its not as simple as giving the person a new job that makes more money if they have no vehicle to travel to it. Of course moving to the new location to not need one would also mean that one can not afford the new location as the job in its self may still not pay enough even thou it pays more than the previous one.

If education was the means to a better level of job assumes that the individual is a book learnable type rather than a hands on or show me how its done. We all learn differently and the individual must see that there is value in knowledge that leads to more pay rather than debt which can not be repaid. That jobs are available for the level of education..

SpaceNut · 2019-11-05 08:24:51

Seems that we are working pay check to pay check for living expenses and that there is little left over toset aside for savings even for those with jobs that are paying quite well.
Coworkers surprise woman who walked 12 miles to work for 3 months with car

Coworkers chip in to get new car for Fedex package handler and 60, had her car break down and couldn't afford to fix it, .. Darlene Quinn was all tears and smiles as she went outside to see her 2014 Chevy Captiva; she had previously been walking a total of 24 miles to and from work.

I have been there with a vehicle that was broken in the past and did still get to work everyday. Thumbing and hitching rides for months as well but never got a car from coworkers but I am sure that if had been here age it would have been different.

My own recent experience with my vehicle was a blown alternator which cost 1400 and left the family high and dry for the week with no money for food but we made it and I am hoping that another large cost will be a long ways off to be able to afford it...

She recieved a 7,000 gift in the vehicle of which I hope it lasts for a while so as to get her feet back under her family financially.

So what does a Fedex employee get paid?

FedEx Ground Hourly Pay | PayScale
https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Em … dEx_Ground

Sep 24, 2019 · FedEx Ground pays its employees an average of $14.43 an hour. Hourly pay at FedEx Ground ranges from an average of $11.27 to $21.31 an hour.

The average FedEx salary ranges from approximately $20,000 per year for Mail Sorter to $94,694 per year for Senior Advisor. Average FedEx hourly pay ranges from approximately $10.50 per hour for Manager to $23.54 per hour for Transport Driver. FedEx employees earn $35,000 annually on average, or $17 per hour, which is 54% lower than the national salary average of $61,000 per year. According to our data, the highest paying job at FedEx is a Managing Director at $125,000 annually while the lowest paying job at FedEx is a Customer Service Clerk at $20,000 annually.

Hourly wages like those were part of the middle class and now only the top of it is....

SpaceNut · 2019-11-11 22:17:46

15 states where poverty is worse than you might think

This is the what some are calling entitlements:

October 2019 report analyzing the effect of various anti-poverty subsidies, the Census Bureau determined that
Social Security,
refundable tax credits,
the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),
Supplemental Security Income,
housing subsidies,
child support payments,
school lunch programs,
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and
unemployment insurance have the largest impact on the number of individuals considered to be living in poverty under the supplemental poverty measure.

Take a look at the slides as its enlightening...
#15 texas
#12 Massachusetts
#10 New Hampshire
#7 New York
#5 Florida
#4 Hawaii
#1 California

tahanson43206 · 2019-11-13 08:50:32

For SpaceNut re topic in general

I like to try to counter the gloom and doom that pervades this topic when I can.

From time to time something shows up in my IN box that looks useful for countering poverty, whether in America or anywhere.

The attitude of people toward education seems (to me at least) to have a bearing on whether people live in poverty or not.

Steve Jones is the long time editor of SQL Server Central, and every now and then one of his editorials catches my eye.

This one is about certification as a way of judging suitability of a candidate for promotion (or hiring in the first place) but the point he makes midway is what I thought members of THIS forum might find interesting. Apparently there is an experiment underway to offer and promote "micro credentials".

Here is this morning's editorial. I am hoping forum members will comment.

Begin quotation:

SQLServerCentral <subscriptions@sqlservercentral.com>
The Voice of the DBA
Micro Credentials

For all of my career, there has been a constant debate about the value of certifications. Early on I saw one boss move ahead because of his CNE (Certified Netware Engineer) credential. That got me moving in that direction, though I switched to an MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) track once Windows gained prominence and I found myself working in that arena.

These days there seem to be less certifications around in one sense. Certainly Microsoft and other vendors are spending less effort building and maintaining a program. At the same time, there is a variety of different products that you can get certified in using. A friend recently showed me the Redis University where you can complete courses and get a certificate. We even have Redgate University, designed to help you improve your ability to use our products.
Like many credentials, completing a course doesn't mean you are an expert, or competent, or even qualified with a product. There are numerous stories of people holding credentials and being unable to perform simple tasks in the real world. I'd counter with the fact that there are plenty of people with lots of experience on paper that equally cannot perform fairly rudimentary tasks.

Microsoft Philanthropies is experimenting with micro credentials, an idea of helping people to learn skills and tasks that aren't equivalent to formal education, but perhaps can take the place of other educational opportunities, such as a college degree. It's an interesting idea, and it fits nicely with my thoughts that your career requires continual learning and improvement, or as they put it, up-skilling.

There is a great quote in the article: "Careers are no longer ladders. They are more like vines in a rainforest. You can swing on one and then grab another." I think that's true in technology, and likely true in many other fields as well. I've seen plenty of issues with workers trying to undertake year+ long programs to retrain in some other field, only to find out there aren't enough jobs or the skills are becoming obsolete quickly.

The future, in my mind, is that we need to be adaptable and flexible. We should have some basic skills, like logical problem solving and communication, but the specific syntax and muscle memory to work on any particular implementation are something we need to pick up quickly and gain competence in without a long learning period. This doesn't mean that expertise isn't valued, but flexibility and the willingness to continue to improve skills over time is more valuable.

Will this replace traditional universities in our business? I don't know, but I do think it could. There are still places where a formal education is valuable and useful, but I'm not sure if it matters in the field of technology. At the same time, unless organizations that hire individual stop requiring four year degrees, I'm not sure this matters. I hope they do, because a degree says something about you, but not necessarily more than other experiences and efforts that you can undertake.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor
End Quotation.

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2019-11-13 09:13:56)

SpaceNut · 2019-11-13 17:27:22

There is a positive in having more education but if where you live does not care about it in any job form then its not worth its cost.

Case in point my Step Brother went to a tech college and got his associates degree in the same program that I went to at another tech college and failed to complete. The difference with respect to hiring was 10 cents starting within 4 months of each other at the same company for the same type of work but in another area. His knowledge was stronger in digital while mine was in analog part operation.

I did complete with credit for courses taken with many more an associates degree in science of trades that while it was good to do has not paid off in opening any doors to higher earnings. But thats enough about me.

Things that effect people more is being self driven to take proactive approaches, ability to organize, to lead by example and not needing direction to go do work. To know what your role and duties are plus to take a stance that if you are not busy that you go find work that assists what you normally do. To give a positive investment and return on what you do in that its value adding not busy work.

Those that do what I do currently when they work with me learn how to do way more than the simple expectation. They are taught how to ask the question that leads them to the answer from the point of information that they have. They learn how one piece can be used in multiple ways to get the total picture through the number of programs and data bases to which can be accessed. Plus you always can google for the information as well.

tahanson43206 · 2019-11-13 22:02:20

For SpaceNut re #290

I liked your description of the kind of co-worker it would be great to have, or to be, for that matter.

Your description of a how to solve problems was a hit with me as well.

(th)

Terraformer · 2019-11-14 06:07:53

Careers are no longer ladders. They are more like vines in a rainforest.

So, a lot harder and with more risk?

tahanson43206 · 2019-11-14 07:57:35

For Terraformer re #292

Not necessarily harder, I'm guessing .... I think what the editorial was describing was a state of constant watch for learning opportunities.

The risk of falling is always present, in all human endeavor. The practice of forming and joining groups (teams, squads, platoons, etc) is a proven way to increase chances of success. I'm not sure how the unfolding digital economy changes that.

Yesterday, while raking leaves ahead of the weekly pickup, I met a delivery person. The car had a bright LED Uber display, so I thought that perhaps Uber had gotten into the package delivery service, but learned that the driver was working for Amazon as a Prime delivery agent, between Uber gigs.

In that one interaction we can see multiple levels of group and individual activity at work:

1) I was raking leaves, which is an individual activity
2) The leaf pickup crew arrives in a truck with a team of a driver and a loader
3) The leaf pickup crew is part of a "team" of city employees numbering in the hundreds
4) The Uber driver is working as an individual
5) Uber itself is a "team" of employees who manage the computer and communications systems for the enterprise
6) Amazon is a "team" of employees who number in the thousands

What I picked up in that brief interaction is the insight that an alert individual can find multiple income streams in the digital economy.

This insight ties nicely back to SpaceNut's description of ideal co-workers .... this young gent was on the lookout for opportunities to serve others in various ways, and to earn income for doing so. In an ideal team, members are working their own assignments but are constantly on the alert for opportunities to help co-workers when an extra hand would help.

Having joined an active volunteer group in the past year, I get to see the dynamics of these interactions close up.

Some workers concentrate on their assigned tasks and do nothing beyond them. That pattern does help the team meet its objective overall.

Other workers do their assigned tasks but are constantly in motion adding a helping hand here or there, or moving supplies without being asked because the need for them by a co-worker is imminent, or taking on additional tasks that arise from unforeseen circumstances without being asked.

By now I've been cycled through a number of teams, and have seen considerable variation in how the individuals participate in the activity.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2019-11-16 17:43:22

I just love how the financial type say "If you are making $45,000 a year, save 10% to 15% of your annual salary, with a conservative 6% return on your investments and that you will retire at age 65 you too could be saving $1 million for retirement."

First the income is not reality for many.
The set asside is taxable income as its not going into a protected account
The conservative earning is taxed
Then again how long of if you will leve to 65 is speculation but thats roughy 45 years of what is assumed constant income.

working 40x 52 = 2080 hrs a year
https://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm
Jan 1, 1980 $3.10 for all covered, nonexempt workers (6448)
Jan 1, 1981 $3.35 for all covered, nonexempt workers (6968)
Apr 1, 1990 $3.80 for all covered, nonexempt workers (7904)
Apr 1, 1991 $4.25 for all covered, nonexempt workers (8840)
Oct 1, 1996 $4.75 for all covered, nonexempt workers (9880)
Sep 1, 1997 $5.15 for all covered, nonexempt workers (10712)
Jul 24, 2007 $5.85 for all covered, nonexempt workers (12168)
Jul 24, 2008 $6.55 for all covered, nonexempt workers (13624)
Jul 24, 2009 $7.25 for all covered, nonexempt workers (15080)

Not good as none are near the wage of 45000

The minimum wage: its relation to incomes and poverty
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1987/06/art4full.pdf

kbd512 · 2019-11-16 22:20:21

SpaceNut,

You're not going to become independently wealthy by flipping hamburgers at Mickey D's or digging ditches for a living. Fast food is a commodity product sold at the lowest cost possible. It's a job you get in High School or College to prove employability and to pay for some of your living expenses. It's an honest living and I don't think any less of anyone for doing it, but you're not going to save any money for retirement by doing it. You need to accept that fact and move on to a different job if retirement is one of your financial goals. Simple truth.

You advocate for bringing tens of millions of additional poor people here from other countries in South America, as if we didn't already have enough of our own poor people, who are directly competing with all the rest of our low-wage employees in manual labor jobs. Since they're willing to do it at a lower cost, how do you imagine that will work out for our own poor people? If you think manual labor is the thing to do, then you're not going to improve your economic outlook at all by drastically increasing the labor pool. Bringing millions of additional poor people here runs directly counter to what you say you want. Wages won't go up, they'll go down.

To me, poor Americans are more important than poor people from other countries. My first duty and my loyalty is to my fellow Americans. As such, my first priority is to stop bringing poor people here from other countries so our own poor people have a stable job market with less competition and at least a chance at upward mobility, assuming they're willing to work. As a result, we don't need to somehow generate piles of additional cash to support foreign-born poor people and their offspring as they muddle their way through life.

tahanson43206 · 2019-11-17 07:32:36

For SpaceNut re topic ...

With a nod to kbd512 for post #295 ...

I'd like to try to encourage global thinking by everyone alive today. We humans are in a serious pickle of our own making, and billions of us are lacking in education that would be needed to address the issues at hand.

We are (collectively) going to need a LOT of good will to deal with the issues we face, and while tribal thinking has certainly proven productive for some groups over the millennia, we need to think of ourselves as one big tribe, if we are going to survive the next 100 years.

Because we (Americans and British in particular) enjoy the benefits of a capitalist society (with all its faults to be sure) we have the potential to think of ways to bring the entire global population along in a campaign to insure that everyone has the opportunity to live healthy, productive lives. That phrase at the end there is taken from a large foundation in the US.

In another topic, kbd512 has recently posted a suggestion for manufacture of useful items such as furniture in places where natural materials to make such items are scarce and becoming more scarce as people desperately try to survive. There ** should ** be a way to earn income for the entrepreneur who tackles that problem, primarily by increasing the productivity of the customers.

As Calliban's countryman Adam Smith said repeatedly, the wealth of a Nation consists of the productivity of its citizens.

On a global scale, it seems reasonable (to me at least) to propose that it will help everyone if ** everyone ** is able to be productive in the context of their society, because the miracle of (normal) trade will insure the distribution of products and services among the global population.

(th)

kbd512 · 2019-11-17 11:02:04

tahanson43206,

The entire problem with group-think is that not everyone has the same ideas regarding what constitutes healthy and productive lives. We also have this tendency to believe that our own ideas are what's best for everyone, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Our communists think enslavement to their favored religious ideology is leading a healthy and productive life, for example. Their "good will" is directly responsible for more mass starvation and death than the last world war managed to achieve. That's quite an accomplishment, just not one that makes it a very appealing "solution" to capitalism- presuming that mass murder and starvation are not worthwhile goals for western capitalist societies to achieve. I happen to believe that those "effects of communism" are not worthwhile goals for any society. For whatever reasons, communism fails each and every time it's tried, precisely because humans are involved. We're constantly told that that's just because nobody is "doing it right". Since we lack a single example of "doing it right", it's impossible to know what right looks like. It's a bit like "warp drive". We don't have any warp drives right now, not because it wouldn't be desirable to have or because capitalists hate new technology, but because nobody has a clue about how to actually build one of those. So... Issues related to poverty won't be solved by stealing from other people who have more than someone else does, imposing our will on other people, in the name of "fairness" or "good will", nor will it be solved through any amount of "group think".

If it's not already completely obvious, I am a capitalist and individual thinker. Perhaps less obvious is that the majority of my professional career has been in supply chain management, working for companies that mass manufacture and distribute goods at a global scale. As such, my "solution" to "we can't make enough stuff at a low enough price to give at least 1 of each to everyone" is that we identify lower cost materials and fabrication methods that can still produce quality "stuff" at a massive scale. 3D printers and composite manufacturing are new-ish tools available to do that, becoming more practical and more widely implemented by the day. These printers are not quite up to "Star Trek replicator" standards, but compared to traditional manufacturing methods, they may as well be.

We can teach nearly everyone just about anything they need to know using an iPad with an internet link (StarLink). We don't need to transplant the people with the knowledge half way around the world to accomplish that. This is a major "win" for humanity, should we decide to start using it on a global scale. It's much easier to ship a 1 pound electronic device that only needs a few Watts of electricity in operation than a 150 pound teacher who needs to eat / drink clean water / live indoors / etc. Though we can still teach lots of subjects using our time-tested pencil and paper method, that tiny iPad allows us to convey abstract concepts ranging from food cultivation to manufacturing to orbital mechanics just as fast as we can cram that knowledge into our pupil's head. They don't even have to remember all of it if we teach them how to search for things. The true magic of the internet, at least in non-communist countries, is that it's a nearly unlimited learning tool. Apart from various dictatorships trying to "control" what their people are allowed to learn about, the person doing the learning has become the greatest limiting factor. That's the exact opposite of the problem we had conveying knowledge in the last century.

Oldfart1939 · 2019-11-17 15:59:48

Kbd512:

Kudos to you for your marvelous exposition on free market capitalism.

The Communist thinkers always want everyone to believe that what they espouse is "for the their own good."

I recall hearing a speech by Revilo P. Oliver, late professor of Philology at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, in which he described the actions of "Do-Gooders." He stated the problem with do-gooders, is AGAINST WHOM they will do-good next.

I have travelled extensively in Europe the past several years, and have met some fine ladies who described to me the "Joys of Socialism (Communism by a more polite name)." Being an inquisitive fellow, I asked them about life under the Communists. Regardless of country involved (Hungary, Romania, and Ukraine), they all stated that (1) Stalin was FAR worse than Hitler for the average person; (2) their elderly family members are dying early as a result of poor diets through the 1950s through 1980s; and described the classrooms in schools where the teachers would furtively look around before closing doors in order to tell kids about the Hungarian and Prague Spring uprisings, along with the brutality which they were put down. In particular, my Hungarian lawyer friend describes going to supermarkets to find only bare shelves where food should have been.
So..my friends...Venezuela is just the latest iteration of the same Socialist "paradise" for the common man. The societies and economies of Ukraine, Romania, and Hungary are far behind the balance of western Europe as a result. These are also well-educated people, industrious and hard working; even after 25 years of freedom, they lag behind the rest of the world as a result of the Worker's Paradise paradigm.

SpaceNut · 2019-11-17 17:50:37

Read the table and tell me if you want to work a service job for such lowly wages which is what we are doing to a whole class of working slaves we call the poor. Its just one reason that Unions were born to fight for the under paid worker. Sure some states follow the feds wage hr rates and other are paying a higher locality wage but for the most part they are the working poor.

We have lots of service type jobs and while some pay more the majority do not.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 … n-workers/
https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employme … sector.htm

So if these jobs of service were gone tomorrow then you would have no problem not being able to go to a restaraunt of any type, shop in any store or mini mart or gas station, all food as we know it would be gone as farmers are providing a service to grow food for others, our factories would close as there would be no payroll, no accountants as there is not one business that does not have some sort of service being created to allow for others to operate.

Most Americans work one of these 10 jobs but there are many more jobs that are service type which are paid very lowly with a few a bit better with many more class under service

10 occupations, the number of workers, and their median wage:
Retail salespersons, 4.48 million workers earning $25,370
Cashiers 3.34 million workers earning $20,420
Food prep and serving staff, 3.02 million workers earning $18,880
General office clerk, 2.83 million working earning $29,990
Registered nurses, 2.66 million workers earning $68,910
Waiters and waitresses, 2.40 million workers earning $20,880
Customer service representatives, 2.39 million workers earning $33,370
Laborers, and freight and material movers, 2.28 million workers earning $26,690
Secretaries and admins (not legal or medical), 2.16 million workers earning $34,000
Janitors and cleaners (not maids), 2.10 million workers earning, $25,140

I love how numbers are inflated when it comes to pay...

Oldfart1939 · 2019-11-17 18:31:33

Service jobs is all we were left after the previous administration allowed factories and entire industries to move to China. Burdensome regulations were the cause of most of it; since I was involved in manufacturing, I was particularly aware of what happened in the chemical industry, specifically. Regulations and enforcement became very burdensome--often requiring a special new job, that of "regulatory affairs" specialist, or officer, be created. The cost and regulations pertaining to waste management, and rising costs associated, combined with Chinese "sweatshop labor," caused a lot of previously profitable businesses to flee the country. Most simply closed up shop.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#276 2019-10-15 16:51:05

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#277 2019-10-28 06:38:28

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#278 2019-10-28 18:55:02

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#279 2019-10-29 02:03:49

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#280 2019-10-29 07:58:42

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#281 2019-10-29 08:25:40

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#282 2019-10-29 16:04:23

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#283 2019-10-30 22:46:05

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#284 2019-10-31 08:00:35

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#285 2019-10-31 09:15:26

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#286 2019-10-31 17:08:15

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#287 2019-11-05 08:24:51

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#288 2019-11-11 22:17:46

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#289 2019-11-13 08:50:32

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#290 2019-11-13 17:27:22

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#291 2019-11-13 22:02:20

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#292 2019-11-14 06:07:53

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#293 2019-11-14 07:57:35

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#294 2019-11-16 17:43:22

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#295 2019-11-16 22:20:21

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#296 2019-11-17 07:32:36

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#297 2019-11-17 11:02:04

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#298 2019-11-17 15:59:48

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#299 2019-11-17 17:50:37

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

#300 2019-11-17 18:31:33

Re: Why do we have Poverty in America

Board footer