The Democrats now propose to pay us $2,000 a month ...

I get you. And you touched on a soft spot for me. I did grow up in the age of smoking and loved it but have been cigarette free for more than ten years now. That was a tough one..... Now on the other hand I am an overweight man. I exercised like a fool up until six years ago when I had physical problems that robbed me of running. So, yes I enjoy rich food. Gravy is a food group for me and yes it is my choice. I am fully aware of the health consequences........ But several times you hit on the big one for me.... Enriching corporations is how you put it. The way I put it is creating jobs. I happen to live near the big tobacco producers in North Carolina. The facilities are enormous. And those facilities unquestionably provide hundreds to thousands of honest employment to just as many families. See, we used to celebrate success in this country. Now we revile it. Oh, we want the jobs and demand the paychecks. This is a common theme among the left and I just don't get it. It is the same with environmental concerns.... Cars are terrible to the environment, yet I will be driving mine. Corporations provide jobs and pay the taxes that are supplying these stimulus checks that are keeping people alive right now. Why are they so reviled?

 

I hear you. Let us not forget all the healthcare, mortician, and black market cigarette jobs that are also created along the way. You can't overlook such a lucrative source of income for so many.

I have never smoke....cigarettes. However, both my mother and my sister died of lung cancer from smoking. I might be just a bit biased towards the industry but happy to own that bias just the same.

I just don't believe we need to create jobs that are so detrimental to society when we could just as easily create jobs that benefit society. Jobs can't be the myopic focus we use as the standard of whether an industry is worth having or not. What level of depravity couldn't you justify using that standard?

 

That is truly a grand thought. The reality is that jobs aren’t created unless a profit is being realized. You are fully aware that smoking was highly glamorized for the biggest part of the last century. There were boatloads of money to be made. And subsequently boatloads of honest jobs were created....... I do get what you are saying. But in the real world you can’t just drop nice jobs into Kentucky to get men out of the coal mines nor can you do that for any industry that current thinking has deemed as “bad”. The jobs grow where money is being made. And those jobs feed families and clothe babies just as yours and my jobs do.

 

At least not under capitalism run rampant.


What would you suggest we do for the coal miners in Kentucky given coal isn't going to last forever? Why can't we replace their jobs with jobs in solar, wind, or nuclear energy?

 

That day will come. However it has to be a natural progression. And natural progression does occur. But it has to be a natural progression. Trying to force it is like trying to force the prom queen to like you.

 

Create the world you want to see. Everything else is just a distraction.

 

Perhaps there are more elegant and gradual solutions, but unfortunately with the acceleration of climate change we are out of time to wait.

 

You know that capitalism has been the engine that made all the marvelous conveniences that makes your life so comfortable. More comfortable than your parents or grandparents because capitalism at its core continues to create opportunities for forward thinking people to have the motivation to create those things. Yep, I would say the capitalist system has worked pretty well for everyone that has a dollar in their pocket and four TV’s in their home...... Did you ever sell anything and turn a profit? Well then you too are a capitalist!..... Don’t buy into the pablum that is popularly offered up these days. Look around at some of the other systems employed by governments around the world. Those folks don’t live quite as comfortably as you do. The capitalist system works and it works for all. Shunning it is quite literally biting the hand that feeds you.

 

I may be doing alright, I may not be, you can't know that. What I do know is that the nearly 1/3 of Americans (and growing!) trying to make it on ~30K/year might disagree with you on the comforts of capitalism.

 

When I was in my thirties I grumbled about the same thing. Everything is unfair. How can I raise a family on meager wages... etc. etc.... I chose to do something about it and worked my kazoo off to make something of myself. A person can piss and moan. Or he can pull up his big boy britches and take control of his own destiny. And that’s just the way it works in any system. The only difference is that in a capitalist system a person is encouraged to do exactly that.

 

OK Boomer

 

Capitalism can only work if someone else is exploited. Ex: the worker. Those hypothetical aforementioned parents and grandparents were enslaved under this system. When a paycheck is the difference between you living in a quaint one bedroom apartment and being out on the street, YOU ARE A SLAVE. There is no other way around it. This very system needs to be reformed, but don’t count on this happening in your lifetime, or even mine. As long as crooks who are in the pockets of corporations occupy government positions, there will never be a change. Slavery was formally abolished, but I’m skeptical. Living in a small apartment, living paycheck to paycheck, and currently sitting under house arrest makes me skeptical. And what really makes me laugh uncontrollably is people making below 30K are defending this perverse system. Now I’m no Bernie Bro, but I’m also not an idiot.
“The only difference is that in a capitalist system a person is encouraged to do exactly that.” Hmmm. Have you gone from earning 60k to 300k overnight?” If not, please be quiet.
Is someone who has 5 billion dollars 100,000 times more skilled than you?
Is he 100,000 times more smart than you? Or did he receive 100,000 times more education than you? This is supposed to be widely understood, and it’s sad that I even have to explain it.

 

How the hell can you call yourself “Andrew Jackson?” You mouth the crap of Karl Marx. You are a fraud from the beginning.

You and @JoeNation can join together except for the fact that you are so far into the last century’s rhetoric that you can be nothing but an anachronism.

If you keep posting this stuff, you are nothing but a troll who is here to play games.

 

Oh, I like this guy.

Lump me in too!

 

You guys are political antiques. This is very tired rhetoric. I heard this in the Socialist Worker’s Party newspaper in 1969. You really need a reboot and formulate a lesson in the problems with the system you want to impose on the world.

 

Uh oh! People have opinions! God forbid! It's ironic that you attack people for the very thing that the Republican Party works to protect. And, by the way, Mr. Milton- I'm a MODERATE, registered for voting as AIP (American Independent).
You dusty Boomers get so triggered whenever someone disagrees with you, that it's honestly comedic. It's a known stigma that you guys benefited off of cheap tuition in university, while young folks today have amassed such a pile of student debt, it's questionable whether they will ever pay it off. So, you can sit there smug and happy, knowing that future generations will be paying for your euphoric enjoyment of the "American Dream" in the 60s and 70s.
Who are you to call someone a "fraud"?
"Yes, they [my parents] paid for my undergraduate education, which was not prohibitively expensive..." Your words- in a separate post.
No one paid for my education, so here I am, like millions of other folks with a pile of student debt. You, sir, are the fraud.

And another thing- attacking someone's username is a pretty damn low blow, typical of some
gray-haired old fart like you.

Don't worry about regular posts on the topic- I only get irritated when someone is such a staunch defender of it [Capitalism], when the statistics prove that it only benefits a select few people.

 

I’ll let that go as you are still wet behind your teddy bear ears. Way too windy around here.

 

Poor little “Andrew Jackson” angry at the world because you got a useless college degree with which you can’t get a decent job, which left you with a mountain of debt. You should be angry at the guidance counselors who gave you bad advice.

You are so angry and out step that you will never get anywhere with that attitude. If you bring that rhetoric to a job interview, I won’t hire you. Class envy and hate will get you nowhere.

By the way, the real Andrew Jackson threw the Cherokee Indians off their land in Georgia in the 1830s. They were forced to walk to Oklahoma which resulted in The Trail of Tears during which many woman and children died.

Why did he do it? Gold was discovered on the land, and the White people wanted it. If you want to tie yourself to that, go ahead.

 

I’ll say this in support of the younger posters here. I didn’t go the education route. I dropped out to join the Army. I had to have an income to raise a family. I looked at my social security records and the years of 1977-1980, I earned less than 10k a year. I still managed to eek out an existence for my young family somehow....... Here we are in the 21st century and I have to say. It would be mighty difficult to exist on 30k a year. I do believe there are financial barriers that make it next to impossible for a young person to get a leg up in this day and time. I do sympathize with that..... However attacking the very system that has sustained us and generations before us is foolhardy. Rather use that as motivation. The internet is a powerful tool. Rather than posting political grumblings at 1am, use that time to seek opportunity. I assure you, opportunities are there. Even in this climate. And you are savvy enough to recognize that the system will not change anytime soon. Use your youth and vigor to build your own future. I would trade every cent I have to feel young and vibrant again.

I am guilty of being an old tired boomer. Luck of the draw I suppose. And I will be out of the way soon enough. Appreciate and exploit what you have. You have youth. You have cognitive ability. It shows in your posts. Put that to work now while you have it. I assure you.... It is quite fleeting.

 

I'm a dusty boomer. I pretty much piss red dust.