Man I do not like the American Elect people one bit. No fucking third parties unless they are guaranteed to sap more votes from the GOP candidate.
You don't like a shadowy group of really rich people who would like to destroy the social safety net in the name of bipartisanship and making Tom Friedman feel all warm and fuzzy? Whyever not?
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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SerukoFerocious Kittenof The Farthest NorthRegistered Userregular
"im currently paying about 50% of my income to student loans... now its gonna be 10% and the remainder after 20 years will be forgiven."
That's a pretty big change for a lot of people. Go obama!
I've been kind of curious about the student loan thing. I maintained a full-time job to keep up with debt while in school, so I have a severe lack of knowledge of how student loans and financial aid actually works, but is the amount paid per month always based on a certain percentage of income, and does the reduction apply to everyone carrying student loan debt?
This is another fuck you to the middle class.
Are you able to pay of your student loans in less than 10 years?
Then Fuck You pay bitch.
Are you not able to pay off your student loans in 10 years?
Well pay what you can then we'll forgive the rest.
Since when can people in the middle class pay off student loans in less than 10 years? Either you're making a lot of money, in which case hell upper class, or you didn't have that much debt to begin with, so stop complaining.
That's nonsensical. Someone making 60K a year is both staunchly middle class and also able to pay off stundent debt in less than 10 years. Someone who spent 7 figures on an english lit degree not so much.
Edit we do not yet live in a world where people make either 30k or 6 figures.
60k is roughly twice the median single-earner income. An individual making 60k is in the 82nd percentile of wage earners in the United States. Source.
And yet still middle class. Starting pay for engineers varies but 60K salary is not out of line, depending on concentration.
Seruko on
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
"im currently paying about 50% of my income to student loans... now its gonna be 10% and the remainder after 20 years will be forgiven."
That's a pretty big change for a lot of people. Go obama!
I've been kind of curious about the student loan thing. I maintained a full-time job to keep up with debt while in school, so I have a severe lack of knowledge of how student loans and financial aid actually works, but is the amount paid per month always based on a certain percentage of income, and does the reduction apply to everyone carrying student loan debt?
This is another fuck you to the middle class.
Are you able to pay of your student loans in less than 10 years?
Then Fuck You pay bitch.
Are you not able to pay off your student loans in 10 years?
Well pay what you can then we'll forgive the rest.
Since when can people in the middle class pay off student loans in less than 10 years? Either you're making a lot of money, in which case hell upper class, or you didn't have that much debt to begin with, so stop complaining.
That's non-nonsensical. Someone making 60K a year is both staunchly middle class and also able to pay off stundent debt in less than 10 years. Someone who spent 7 figures on an english lit degree not so much.
Seven figures? Seven figures... that's a million dollars. What is wrong with your brain?
Also, degree names don't matter. Someone with an English degree is just as employable as some moron with a Business Management degree.
It's almost like employment is a much more complicated issue than what you're making it out to be.
You're right I meant 6 figures, and they're not. More specifically what you get your degree in matters, and so does how much you spent on it.
Get your degree in accounting, drafting, biology, geology, cartography, engineer or even buisness and there's some assurance that you know how to do something (even if it's just write an email in memo form). Get an additional certificate of some specialty and more the better. Get a degree in English, History or Psychology? Well you can always work on a masters... but what those degrees used to garuntee you a future in was teaching, teachers haven't been doing so well with the emphasis on "cutting public spending and the deficit"
It does matter what you spent on it, and it sort of matters what your degree was in.
However, it's unfair to just go "Lol, English lit is why you're poor" when increasingly business are hiring English majors because people don't know how to write and speak the language.
To put it another way it's not what you majored in, it's what you got out of it that matters.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
"im currently paying about 50% of my income to student loans... now its gonna be 10% and the remainder after 20 years will be forgiven."
That's a pretty big change for a lot of people. Go obama!
I've been kind of curious about the student loan thing. I maintained a full-time job to keep up with debt while in school, so I have a severe lack of knowledge of how student loans and financial aid actually works, but is the amount paid per month always based on a certain percentage of income, and does the reduction apply to everyone carrying student loan debt?
This is another fuck you to the middle class.
Are you able to pay of your student loans in less than 10 years?
Then Fuck You pay bitch.
Are you not able to pay off your student loans in 10 years?
Well pay what you can then we'll forgive the rest.
Since when can people in the middle class pay off student loans in less than 10 years? Either you're making a lot of money, in which case hell upper class, or you didn't have that much debt to begin with, so stop complaining.
That's non-nonsensical. Someone making 60K a year is both staunchly middle class and also able to pay off stundent debt in less than 10 years. Someone who spent 7 figures on an english lit degree not so much.
Seven figures? Seven figures... that's a million dollars. What is wrong with your brain?
Also, degree names don't matter. Someone with an English degree is just as employable as some moron with a Business Management degree.
It's almost like employment is a much more complicated issue than what you're making it out to be.
You're right I meant 6 figures, and they're not. More specifically what you get your degree in matters, and so does how much you spent on it.
Get your degree in accounting, drafting, biology, geology, cartography, engineer or even buisness and there's some assurance that you know how to do something (even if it's just write an email in memo form). Get an additional certificate of some specialty and more the better. Get a degree in English, History or Psychology? Well you can always work on a masters... but what those degrees used to garuntee you a future in was teaching, teachers haven't been doing so well with the emphasis on "cutting public spending and the deficit"
It does matter what you spent on it, and it sort of matters what your degree was in.
However, it's unfair to just go "Lol, English lit is why you're poor" when increasingly business are hiring English majors because people don't know how to write and speak the language.
To put it another way it's not what you majored in, it's what you got out of it that matters.
I heartily disagree. This matches neither my anecdotal experience or my research.
The point which you criticized earlier is that more and more a very small segment of the population -- those making less than the top 1% but more than the bottom 60% -- are bearing more and more of the burden of paying for everything.
You can choose to be nearly unemployed in Portland have a masters degree and be struggling to eat, or you can go work on an oil rig in the gulf of mexico and pull low 6 figures out of highschool. These are not great choices, but they're necessitate by the disastrous labor market which is a product of the current circumstance. A circumstance most people on this board seem to favor because "at least we got the ACA out of it." All directly relatedable to the stimulus and due to a presidential focus on cutting the deficit (which is patently pants on head the can man level goosery).
Seruko on
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
"im currently paying about 50% of my income to student loans... now its gonna be 10% and the remainder after 20 years will be forgiven."
That's a pretty big change for a lot of people. Go obama!
I've been kind of curious about the student loan thing. I maintained a full-time job to keep up with debt while in school, so I have a severe lack of knowledge of how student loans and financial aid actually works, but is the amount paid per month always based on a certain percentage of income, and does the reduction apply to everyone carrying student loan debt?
This is another fuck you to the middle class.
Are you able to pay of your student loans in less than 10 years?
Then Fuck You pay bitch.
Are you not able to pay off your student loans in 10 years?
Well pay what you can then we'll forgive the rest.
Since when can people in the middle class pay off student loans in less than 10 years? Either you're making a lot of money, in which case hell upper class, or you didn't have that much debt to begin with, so stop complaining.
That's nonsensical. Someone making 60K a year is both staunchly middle class and also able to pay off stundent debt in less than 10 years. Someone who spent 7 figures on an english lit degree not so much.
Edit we do not yet live in a world where people make either 30k or 6 figures.
60k is roughly twice the median single-earner income. An individual making 60k is in the 82nd percentile of wage earners in the United States. Source.
And yet still middle class. Starting pay for engineers varies but 60K salary is not out of line, depending on concentration.
No. Presuming that their spouse works for median pay (and we'll assume the engineer is a guy, because most of them are), their household income would be $100,000. Which doubles the median household income of ~50k. The top of the middle-income quintile (that is, the 60th percentile household) brings in 60k/year. $100k brings you into the top 15% of households in the nation.
Salvation122 on
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SerukoFerocious Kittenof The Farthest NorthRegistered Userregular
"im currently paying about 50% of my income to student loans... now its gonna be 10% and the remainder after 20 years will be forgiven."
That's a pretty big change for a lot of people. Go obama!
I've been kind of curious about the student loan thing. I maintained a full-time job to keep up with debt while in school, so I have a severe lack of knowledge of how student loans and financial aid actually works, but is the amount paid per month always based on a certain percentage of income, and does the reduction apply to everyone carrying student loan debt?
This is another fuck you to the middle class.
Are you able to pay of your student loans in less than 10 years?
Then Fuck You pay bitch.
Are you not able to pay off your student loans in 10 years?
Well pay what you can then we'll forgive the rest.
Since when can people in the middle class pay off student loans in less than 10 years? Either you're making a lot of money, in which case hell upper class, or you didn't have that much debt to begin with, so stop complaining.
That's nonsensical. Someone making 60K a year is both staunchly middle class and also able to pay off stundent debt in less than 10 years. Someone who spent 7 figures on an english lit degree not so much.
Edit we do not yet live in a world where people make either 30k or 6 figures.
60k is roughly twice the median single-earner income. An individual making 60k is in the 82nd percentile of wage earners in the United States. Source.
And yet still middle class. Starting pay for engineers varies but 60K salary is not out of line, depending on concentration.
No. Presuming that their spouse works for median pay (and we'll assume the engineer is a guy, because most of them are), their household income would be $100,000. Which doubles the median household income of ~50k. The top of the middle-income quintile (that is, the 60th percentile household) brings in 60k/year. $100k brings you into the top 15% of households in the nation.
So by your argument getting a degree in engineering automatically make you rich? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Education_and_gender
Median house hold income for those with a 4 year degree is 68K.
Hell the median pay for a petroleum engineer is 108K
That's a four year degree and one test.
Which goes back to income inequality, choosing what you major in and how much you pay for it, the economy being in the crapper, 500 Billion dollars worth of stimulus and 250 Billion in tax cuts not filling a 3 trillion dollar output gap. 16% unemployment depressing wages. and thank god we got the ACA because...
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
There is no degree you can get that will automatically make you rich. \
Obama is 97% Bush? Are you counting facts like being carbon-based lifeforms? Just because you can cherry pick a few things that look similar doesn't mean on a broad level that they have the same policies.
Profile -> Signature Settings -> Hide signatures always. Then you don't have to read this worthless text anymore.
So by your argument getting a degree in engineering automatically make you rich? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Education_and_gender
Median house hold income for those with a 4 year degree is 68K.
Hell the median pay for a petroleum engineer is 108K
That's a four year degree and one test.
Which goes back to income inequality, choosing what you major in and how much you pay for it, the economy being in the crapper, 500 Billion dollars worth of stimulus and 250 Billion in tax cuts not filling a 3 trillion dollar output gap. 16% unemployment depressing wages. and thank god we got the ACA because...
You realize that counts both people? Right above it on the chart it shows how ridiculously low an income a Bachelors degree gets you. Averaged over both genders, it's worth about 43k a year in income. So yes, 108k would be pretty goddamned rich if you can pull it off in this day and age. What you aren't looking at, is how proportionally few of those jobs are open versus the general college population. Penn State puts out about 80 Architectural Engineers a year that can pull 6 figures after 5 years of school pretty easily. That doesn't mean the other 8k students walking out that year with a 4 year degree aren't looking at living near the poverty line as they pay off their school debt.
You're disdaining a fairly significant decline in the trend line. That makes me question your judgement here. And speaking as someone who has been denied insurance on the basis of pre-existing conditions, I'd say that it is much more significant than 'taking on extra weight on a sinking ship' to those individuals who are affected. Good policy is important in the abstract, but only because good policy has concrete impact on people's lives. Making progress, however incremental, towards improving that impact is a rather wonderful occurrence. It is also how everything happens in governance. As a somewhat related aside, have you ever read the original Social Security Act?
The trend line is colored by an enormously depressed economy.
Except if you can't afford healthcare you get a subsidy
For example if the ACA went into full effect right now I would spend precisely zero dollars and be insured. I think you're a bit overly cynical, as if you look at the history of both Social Security and Medicare you'll see similar things. Both programs struggled early on, but once people actually start benefiting from them they become unrepealable.
If the ACA is still around and starts up in 2014, it will be impossible to repeal. Any political party that decides to take away 15% of the nation's health insurance with legislation is asking to be taken out back and shot, it's why the worst the Republicans will do to Medicare is make ridiculous proposals that they themselves have no intention of passing.
There is no enforcement mechanism in the ACA. If you can afford to purchase health care and you choose not to nothing happens. The free rider problem is not solved.
Additional changes have been made to the ACA since it's inception. It's getting nickeled and dimed out of funding to deal with the imaginary problem of deficits.
quite possibly I am being cynical. I know from personal experience it doesn't solve the health care crisis today. I think there's evidence to say it wont solve it tomorrow or in 2014. Nothing I see anywhere seems to solve the problem of stratification of society in the US. In the real middle class getting hemed in on every front. There appears to be slightly more there there in the bones the middle class gets thrown from the democrats than the republicans. While Reagen era policies are seen as ridiculously left wing. There's no meaningful reform or oversight of hugely risky financial markets, there's absolutely well document different systems of treatment between the very rich and the middle class, and shallow CBO scored nearly meaningless reform is seen as sage steps in the right direction by the vast majority of the members of this board. Meanwhile it's now okay to assassinate US citizens abroad, possibly at home too, and unemployment is functionally 16%. But the ACA somehow makes it all worth it.
What do you mean nothing happens? You have to pay a fine if you do not purchase healthcare. The fine is less than the cost of healthcare, but that is not nonenforcement. . .
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SerukoFerocious Kittenof The Farthest NorthRegistered Userregular
There is no degree you can get that will automatically make you rich. \
It's about work, luck, and who you know.
I absolutely agree with you. Additionally even being in the top 90% of income earners doesn't make you rich. You've still got a mortgage and a car payment and are worried about losing your job.
Obama is 97% Bush? Are you counting facts like being carbon-based lifeforms? Just because you can cherry pick a few things that look similar doesn't mean on a broad level that they have the same policies.
Over and over again the same battle. Their positions on the economy, their foreign policy virtually identical. Obama is called a socialist appeaser but his foreign policy is following the bush time table, his economic policy is a continuation of the bush stimulus and tax cuts, with a side of extra tax cuts. Their social policy is different BFD.
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
No. Presuming that their spouse works for median pay (and we'll assume the engineer is a guy, because most of them are), their household income would be $100,000. Which doubles the median household income of ~50k. The top of the middle-income quintile (that is, the 60th percentile household) brings in 60k/year. $100k brings you into the top 15% of households in the nation.
So by your argument getting a degree in engineering automatically make you rich? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Education_and_gender
Median house hold income for those with a 4 year degree is 68K.
Hell the median pay for a petroleum engineer is 108K
That's a four year degree and one test.
Which goes back to income inequality, choosing what you major in and how much you pay for it, the economy being in the crapper, 500 Billion dollars worth of stimulus and 250 Billion in tax cuts not filling a 3 trillion dollar output gap. 16% unemployment depressing wages. and thank god we got the ACA because...
The median income for a CEO is $708,000. I guess that means that $708,000 isn't rich, either, right?
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
Defining "middle class" by median income is pretty silly.
You're disdaining a fairly significant decline in the trend line. That makes me question your judgement here. And speaking as someone who has been denied insurance on the basis of pre-existing conditions, I'd say that it is much more significant than 'taking on extra weight on a sinking ship' to those individuals who are affected. Good policy is important in the abstract, but only because good policy has concrete impact on people's lives. Making progress, however incremental, towards improving that impact is a rather wonderful occurrence. It is also how everything happens in governance. As a somewhat related aside, have you ever read the original Social Security Act?
The trend line is colored by an enormously depressed economy.
Except if you can't afford healthcare you get a subsidy
For example if the ACA went into full effect right now I would spend precisely zero dollars and be insured. I think you're a bit overly cynical, as if you look at the history of both Social Security and Medicare you'll see similar things. Both programs struggled early on, but once people actually start benefiting from them they become unrepealable.
If the ACA is still around and starts up in 2014, it will be impossible to repeal. Any political party that decides to take away 15% of the nation's health insurance with legislation is asking to be taken out back and shot, it's why the worst the Republicans will do to Medicare is make ridiculous proposals that they themselves have no intention of passing.
There is no enforcement mechanism in the ACA. If you can afford to purchase health care and you choose not to nothing happens. The free rider problem is not solved.
Additional changes have been made to the ACA since it's inception. It's getting nickeled and dimed out of funding to deal with the imaginary problem of deficits.
quite possibly I am being cynical. I know from personal experience it doesn't solve the health care crisis today. I think there's evidence to say it wont solve it tomorrow or in 2014. Nothing I see anywhere seems to solve the problem of stratification of society in the US. In the real middle class getting hemed in on every front. There appears to be slightly more there there in the bones the middle class gets thrown from the democrats than the republicans. While Reagen era policies are seen as ridiculously left wing. There's no meaningful reform or oversight of hugely risky financial markets, there's absolutely well document different systems of treatment between the very rich and the middle class, and shallow CBO scored nearly meaningless reform is seen as sage steps in the right direction by the vast majority of the members of this board. Meanwhile it's now okay to assassinate US citizens abroad, possibly at home too, and unemployment is functionally 16%. But the ACA somehow makes it all worth it.
What do you mean nothing happens? You have to pay a fine if you do not purchase healthcare. The fine is less than the cost of healthcare, but that is not nonenforcement. . .
The republics like to yell and screem the IRS is going to be the ones enforcing the fine. Quietly the democrat proponents of ACA point out there's no mandate to do so. It is similar to the "have you ever been convicted of a drug relate crime check box on the FASA." It's right there. You dont have to check it. No one is going to do a back ground check. Regardless. The fine is less than the cost of health care, even if it was going to be enforced, where's the incentive to buy healthcare? How does that solve the free rider problem again?
So by your argument getting a degree in engineering automatically make you rich? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Education_and_gender
Median house hold income for those with a 4 year degree is 68K.
Hell the median pay for a petroleum engineer is 108K
That's a four year degree and one test.
Which goes back to income inequality, choosing what you major in and how much you pay for it, the economy being in the crapper, 500 Billion dollars worth of stimulus and 250 Billion in tax cuts not filling a 3 trillion dollar output gap. 16% unemployment depressing wages. and thank god we got the ACA because...
You realize that counts both people? Right above it on the chart it shows how ridiculously low an income a Bachelors degree gets you. Averaged over both genders, it's worth about 43k a year in income. So yes, 108k would be pretty goddamned rich if you can pull it off in this day and age. What you aren't looking at, is how proportionally few of those jobs are open versus the general college population. Penn State puts out about 80 Architectural Engineers a year that can pull 6 figures after 5 years of school pretty easily. That doesn't mean the other 8k students walking out that year with a 4 year degree aren't looking at living near the poverty line as they pay off their school debt.
It's not rich. It's just more. It's still needing a job, worry about losing your job. Seeing your bargining power degraded by the huge demand for emplyment and the reduced supply of jobs.
The point of the original argument, which you're jumping over is that you get to choose what you get your degree in, but the outcomes are shitty based on the labor market. You do have the power to decided how much debt you go into to finance your degree and what you can reasonably hope to pay for. The system of education is ridiculously expensive, the job market is shit, the current president had the power to propose a meaningful change to one of those, and didn't. The people here say over and over again, but that couldn't have past, he needed the political capital to get the ACA passed. Which itself is deeply flawed, already being sacrificed to deal with the deficit. Which is ridiculous. Either Obama knows that worry about the deficit is political sideshow, or he is an idiot. If Obama didn't know that 500 billion dollars in stimulus and 250 billion dollars in tax cuts wasn't going to fix a 3 trillion dollar output gap, same boat.
Employment is awful.
You've got to tease the data out of table a-6 here http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsatabs.htm
in Jun of 2008 total employment of non-disabled and disabled is 194 Million. After years of the crappy Bush economy and people dropping of the unemployment rolls.
In Jan of 2012 we're at 182 Million Employed. That's 12 Million people out of the labor force.
Seruko on
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
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SerukoFerocious Kittenof The Farthest NorthRegistered Userregular
No. Presuming that their spouse works for median pay (and we'll assume the engineer is a guy, because most of them are), their household income would be $100,000. Which doubles the median household income of ~50k. The top of the middle-income quintile (that is, the 60th percentile household) brings in 60k/year. $100k brings you into the top 15% of households in the nation.
So by your argument getting a degree in engineering automatically make you rich? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Education_and_gender
Median house hold income for those with a 4 year degree is 68K.
Hell the median pay for a petroleum engineer is 108K
That's a four year degree and one test.
Which goes back to income inequality, choosing what you major in and how much you pay for it, the economy being in the crapper, 500 Billion dollars worth of stimulus and 250 Billion in tax cuts not filling a 3 trillion dollar output gap. 16% unemployment depressing wages. and thank god we got the ACA because...
The median income for a CEO is $708,000. I guess that means that $708,000 isn't rich, either, right?
No that's plenty rich you silly goose. Edit: Honestly I dont even know who you're talking to here. Perhaps I am dabbling in goosery myself.
if you make 708K a year and you lose your job maybe you go cry yourself to sleep on a pillow made out of gold and have to fire one of the maids, idk.
Seruko on
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
That law says you have to conspire - which requires intent, right? I don't think that law applies to people who are just talking about how awesome it would be to overthrow the government. Someone would have to prove that they had a plan and were going to go through with it. And if the FBI got wind of an actual plan to overthrow the US, I'm pretty sure they'd crack down on any of those groups.
Yeah, there's the whole "actionable threat" thing. Remember how Bush sent fighters to shoot down civilian planes full of American because the planes represented both an intent and capability to take a large number of lives? That's how this shit has always worked because anything else is stupid.
What? I'm not following here. To what are you referring? What is the point you're trying to make?
There is no degree you can get that will automatically make you rich. \
It's about work, luck, and who you know.
I absolutely agree with you. Additionally even being in the top 90% of income earners doesn't make you rich. You've still got a mortgage and a car payment and are worried about losing your job.
Obama is 97% Bush? Are you counting facts like being carbon-based lifeforms? Just because you can cherry pick a few things that look similar doesn't mean on a broad level that they have the same policies.
Over and over again the same battle. Their positions on the economy, their foreign policy virtually identical. Obama is called a socialist appeaser but his foreign policy is following the bush time table, his economic policy is a continuation of the bush stimulus and tax cuts, with a side of extra tax cuts. Their social policy is different BFD.
I get really tired of people (especially liberals) with the attitude here that's bolded. Social issues to me, are in fact a *very* BFD. I will continue voting for whatever candidate has the more progressive policy, however marginal that may be. So economic issues are your first priority when evaluating politics? Good for you. But just because you don't care as much proportionally about social issues doesn't mean people are fooling themselves when they see a difference between democrats and republicans.
You're disdaining a fairly significant decline in the trend line. That makes me question your judgement here. And speaking as someone who has been denied insurance on the basis of pre-existing conditions, I'd say that it is much more significant than 'taking on extra weight on a sinking ship' to those individuals who are affected. Good policy is important in the abstract, but only because good policy has concrete impact on people's lives. Making progress, however incremental, towards improving that impact is a rather wonderful occurrence. It is also how everything happens in governance. As a somewhat related aside, have you ever read the original Social Security Act?
The trend line is colored by an enormously depressed economy.
Except if you can't afford healthcare you get a subsidy
For example if the ACA went into full effect right now I would spend precisely zero dollars and be insured. I think you're a bit overly cynical, as if you look at the history of both Social Security and Medicare you'll see similar things. Both programs struggled early on, but once people actually start benefiting from them they become unrepealable.
If the ACA is still around and starts up in 2014, it will be impossible to repeal. Any political party that decides to take away 15% of the nation's health insurance with legislation is asking to be taken out back and shot, it's why the worst the Republicans will do to Medicare is make ridiculous proposals that they themselves have no intention of passing.
There is no enforcement mechanism in the ACA. If you can afford to purchase health care and you choose not to nothing happens. The free rider problem is not solved.
Additional changes have been made to the ACA since it's inception. It's getting nickeled and dimed out of funding to deal with the imaginary problem of deficits.
quite possibly I am being cynical. I know from personal experience it doesn't solve the health care crisis today. I think there's evidence to say it wont solve it tomorrow or in 2014. Nothing I see anywhere seems to solve the problem of stratification of society in the US. In the real middle class getting hemed in on every front. There appears to be slightly more there there in the bones the middle class gets thrown from the democrats than the republicans. While Reagen era policies are seen as ridiculously left wing. There's no meaningful reform or oversight of hugely risky financial markets, there's absolutely well document different systems of treatment between the very rich and the middle class, and shallow CBO scored nearly meaningless reform is seen as sage steps in the right direction by the vast majority of the members of this board. Meanwhile it's now okay to assassinate US citizens abroad, possibly at home too, and unemployment is functionally 16%. But the ACA somehow makes it all worth it.
What do you mean nothing happens? You have to pay a fine if you do not purchase healthcare. The fine is less than the cost of healthcare, but that is not nonenforcement. . .
And you're still liable for the charges. There is no free rider problem for people who can afford to simply buy healthcare retail. The problem is when people incur medical costs and can not (not will not) pay for them. For many of these people, the fine is actually higher than what they'd need to pay for health insurance. The number of people who could have health insurance but simply choose not that large. In Massachusetts, where we already have a mandate, 98+% of the population has insurance. Of those who are uninsured in Massachusetts, only ~5% say they don't have it because they don't feel they need it.
I'll start feeling sorry for the upper class the moment their income is less than the middle class, and sorry for the middle class the moment their income is less than the lower class.
100k+ Upper Class
50-100k Middle Class
30-50k Poor <30k Poverty
Now, depending on your personal debt level and how much you spend, where you live, etc. your mileage may vary.
According to HHS, Sub 30 k is only Poverty if you've got 6 or more people in the household.
A circumstance most people on this board seem to favor because "at least we got the ACA out of it." All directly relatedable to the stimulus and due to a presidential focus on cutting the deficit (which is patently pants on head the can man level goosery).
There is no degree you can get that will automatically make you rich. \
It's about work, luck, and who you know.
I absolutely agree with you. Additionally even being in the top 90% of income earners doesn't make you rich. You've still got a mortgage and a car payment and are worried about losing your job.
Obama is 97% Bush? Are you counting facts like being carbon-based lifeforms? Just because you can cherry pick a few things that look similar doesn't mean on a broad level that they have the same policies.
Over and over again the same battle. Their positions on the economy, their foreign policy virtually identical. Obama is called a socialist appeaser but his foreign policy is following the bush time table, his economic policy is a continuation of the bush stimulus and tax cuts, with a side of extra tax cuts. Their social policy is different BFD.
I get really tired of people (especially liberals) with the attitude here that's bolded. Social issues to me, are in fact a *very* BFD. I will continue voting for whatever candidate has the more progressive policy, however marginal that may be. So economic issues are your first priority when evaluating politics? Good for you. But just because you don't care as much proportionally about social issues doesn't mean people are fooling themselves when they see a difference between democrats and republicans.
Which is pretty ridiculous. Because the social issues are tiny. 12 Million additional Americans out of work and the population has gotten any smaller. But DOMA isnt being challenged in the courts. Better hope the GLBT community has jobs. DADT redacted, but the wars over seas continue to be prosecuted according to the Bush doctrine and expanded to include Libya, Yemen, Somalia and no option is off the table for Iran. No change in the War on Drugs (in fact federal prosecutions of medical marijuana have increased), 1/3 African American men are still going to go to prison, but opps I ran out of social issue issues. The reasons the social issues are BFD is because the ones the administration is focusing on are tiny.
100k+ Upper Class
50-100k Middle Class
30-50k Poor
<30k Poverty
Now, depending on your personal debt level and how much you spend, where you live, etc. your mileage may vary.
I generally agree with you and find you to be quite reasonable. I'd like to add a caveat to what you wrote above, I would say you may make slightly more than 100K and still be middle class if 1. Your pay is income (and not capital gains) and, you've reasonable debts (child care/eduction/mortgage) that if you lost your job you could not pay.
You're disdaining a fairly significant decline in the trend line. That makes me question your judgement here. And speaking as someone who has been denied insurance on the basis of pre-existing conditions, I'd say that it is much more significant than 'taking on extra weight on a sinking ship' to those individuals who are affected. Good policy is important in the abstract, but only because good policy has concrete impact on people's lives. Making progress, however incremental, towards improving that impact is a rather wonderful occurrence. It is also how everything happens in governance. As a somewhat related aside, have you ever read the original Social Security Act?
The trend line is colored by an enormously depressed economy.
Except if you can't afford healthcare you get a subsidy
For example if the ACA went into full effect right now I would spend precisely zero dollars and be insured. I think you're a bit overly cynical, as if you look at the history of both Social Security and Medicare you'll see similar things. Both programs struggled early on, but once people actually start benefiting from them they become unrepealable.
If the ACA is still around and starts up in 2014, it will be impossible to repeal. Any political party that decides to take away 15% of the nation's health insurance with legislation is asking to be taken out back and shot, it's why the worst the Republicans will do to Medicare is make ridiculous proposals that they themselves have no intention of passing.
There is no enforcement mechanism in the ACA. If you can afford to purchase health care and you choose not to nothing happens. The free rider problem is not solved.
Additional changes have been made to the ACA since it's inception. It's getting nickeled and dimed out of funding to deal with the imaginary problem of deficits.
quite possibly I am being cynical. I know from personal experience it doesn't solve the health care crisis today. I think there's evidence to say it wont solve it tomorrow or in 2014. Nothing I see anywhere seems to solve the problem of stratification of society in the US. In the real middle class getting hemed in on every front. There appears to be slightly more there there in the bones the middle class gets thrown from the democrats than the republicans. While Reagen era policies are seen as ridiculously left wing. There's no meaningful reform or oversight of hugely risky financial markets, there's absolutely well document different systems of treatment between the very rich and the middle class, and shallow CBO scored nearly meaningless reform is seen as sage steps in the right direction by the vast majority of the members of this board. Meanwhile it's now okay to assassinate US citizens abroad, possibly at home too, and unemployment is functionally 16%. But the ACA somehow makes it all worth it.
What do you mean nothing happens? You have to pay a fine if you do not purchase healthcare. The fine is less than the cost of healthcare, but that is not nonenforcement. . .
And you're still liable for the charges. There is no free rider problem for people who can afford to simply buy healthcare retail. The problem is when people incur medical costs and can not (not will not) pay for them. For many of these people, the fine is actually higher than what they'd need to pay for health insurance. The number of people who could have health insurance but simply choose not that large. In Massachusetts, where we already have a mandate, 98+% of the population has insurance. Of those who are uninsured in Massachusetts, only ~5% say they don't have it because they don't feel they need it.
I agree with you that "The problem is when people incur medical costs and can not (not will not) pay for them." The problem with the current system is only the very wealthy can afford to honestly pay for medical costs.
Seruko on
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
100k+ Upper Class
50-100k Middle Class
30-50k Poor
<30k Poverty
Now, depending on your personal debt level and how much you spend, where you live, etc. your mileage may vary.
What's the definition of poverty these days? I know several families (Read, 3+ people) that live off less than 30k in cities and I'd call them poor, not in poverty.
There is no degree you can get that will automatically make you rich. \
It's about work, luck, and who you know.
Some degree's are much more marketable and in higher demand than others though.
I have to disagree with your correction. It absolutely is all three, but the percentage of each varies for everyone's individual equation.
Geography matters a great deal as well. Moving to Portland is not such a great idea if you have a degree in say English lit.
Moving to Louisville is probably a great choice if you have a degree in logistics.
Edit: Where market competition is fierce it is absolutely true to say getting a job is about hard work, luck and connections.
But if you're a physical therapist for instance you can live anywhere you want and walk into a job.
Seruko on
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
There is no degree you can get that will automatically make you rich. \
It's about work, luck, and who you know.
I absolutely agree with you. Additionally even being in the top 90% of income earners doesn't make you rich. You've still got a mortgage and a car payment and are worried about losing your job.
Obama is 97% Bush? Are you counting facts like being carbon-based lifeforms? Just because you can cherry pick a few things that look similar doesn't mean on a broad level that they have the same policies.
Over and over again the same battle. Their positions on the economy, their foreign policy virtually identical. Obama is called a socialist appeaser but his foreign policy is following the bush time table, his economic policy is a continuation of the bush stimulus and tax cuts, with a side of extra tax cuts. Their social policy is different BFD.
I get really tired of people (especially liberals) with the attitude here that's bolded. Social issues to me, are in fact a *very* BFD. I will continue voting for whatever candidate has the more progressive policy, however marginal that may be. So economic issues are your first priority when evaluating politics? Good for you. But just because you don't care as much proportionally about social issues doesn't mean people are fooling themselves when they see a difference between democrats and republicans.
Which is pretty ridiculous. Because the social issues are tiny. 12 Million additional Americans out of work and the population has gotten any smaller. But DOMA isnt being challenged in the courts. Better hope the GLBT community has jobs. DADT redacted, but the wars over seas continue to be prosecuted according to the Bush doctrine and expanded to include Libya, Yemen, Somalia and no option is off the table for Iran. No change in the War on Drugs (in fact federal prosecutions of medical marijuana have increased), 1/3 African American men are still going to go to prison, but opps I ran out of social issue issues. The reasons the social issues are BFD is because the ones the administration is focusing on are tiny.
All of which would not only still exist and would possibly become worse if conservatives got their way, simply because their worldview actively opposes efforts to fix them. Liberals tend to be ineffectual, and it's infuriating. There's a BFD for you. I'll take someone who talks the talk but can't figure out how to walk the walk over someone who would destroy what little progress has been made and actively block further progress given the chance.
You think my focus on the differences between the parties social policies is "ridiculous"? I think you're ridiculous for blowing them off. A significant portion of the conservative population *literally* thinks being Gay should be criminalized and that birth control is evil. To write that off as "BFD" is seriously fucking ridiculous. Yes, the administration hasn't done close to what I would consider enough with social issues, but the alternative is actively working to push us back to the middle ages. When faced with that other option, I simply will never feel bad about voting for whoever the more progressive option is, like I said earlier, however marginal that may be.
Shando on
your troll just berserked on us.
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SerukoFerocious Kittenof The Farthest NorthRegistered Userregular
There is no degree you can get that will automatically make you rich. \
It's about work, luck, and who you know.
I absolutely agree with you. Additionally even being in the top 90% of income earners doesn't make you rich. You've still got a mortgage and a car payment and are worried about losing your job.
Obama is 97% Bush? Are you counting facts like being carbon-based lifeforms? Just because you can cherry pick a few things that look similar doesn't mean on a broad level that they have the same policies.
Over and over again the same battle. Their positions on the economy, their foreign policy virtually identical. Obama is called a socialist appeaser but his foreign policy is following the bush time table, his economic policy is a continuation of the bush stimulus and tax cuts, with a side of extra tax cuts. Their social policy is different BFD.
I get really tired of people (especially liberals) with the attitude here that's bolded. Social issues to me, are in fact a *very* BFD. I will continue voting for whatever candidate has the more progressive policy, however marginal that may be. So economic issues are your first priority when evaluating politics? Good for you. But just because you don't care as much proportionally about social issues doesn't mean people are fooling themselves when they see a difference between democrats and republicans.
Which is pretty ridiculous. Because the social issues are tiny. 12 Million additional Americans out of work and the population has gotten any smaller. But DOMA isnt being challenged in the courts. Better hope the GLBT community has jobs. DADT redacted, but the wars over seas continue to be prosecuted according to the Bush doctrine and expanded to include Libya, Yemen, Somalia and no option is off the table for Iran. No change in the War on Drugs (in fact federal prosecutions of medical marijuana have increased), 1/3 African American men are still going to go to prison, but opps I ran out of social issue issues. The reasons the social issues are BFD is because the ones the administration is focusing on are tiny.
All of which would not only still exist and would possibly become worse if conservatives got their way, simply because their worldview actively opposes efforts to fix them. Liberals tend to be ineffectual, and it's infuriating. There's a BFD for you. I'll take someone who talks the talk but can't figure out how to walk the walk over someone who would destroy what little progress has been made and actively block further progress given the chance.
You think my focus on the differences between the parties social policies is "ridiculous"? I think you're ridiculous for blowing them off. A significant portion of the conservative population *literally* thinks being Gay should be criminalized and that birth control is evil. To write that off as "BFD" is seriously fucking ridiculous. Yes, the administration hasn't done close to what I would consider enough with social issues, but the alternative is actively working to push us back to the middle ages. When faced with that other option, I simply will never feel bad about voting for whoever the more progressive option is, like I said earlier, however marginal that may be.
It's not Obama against the world. Or Obama as depicted on fox news vs Obama the man. Or Obama as he orates vs what he does.
It is the Policies as enacted by one president vs the Policies as enacted by another President.
Edit: The Difference in Social Policies Between Obama and Bush if you really look at them are not huge, and they are the biggest differences.
It makes no sense to compare Obama to Rush or Bill'O or Pat Robinson or whoever.
At the very least I am very clearly not doing so. IDK maybe some else is, that would be stupid.
Seruko on
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
No, seriously, that's a new story. Plus, I love love love the title "MEDIA FINALLY PAYING ATTENTION TO ELIGIBILITY?". Because no one has ever heard of this issue before. The media never paid it any attention previously. No siree. We are all aware of it only because of the prayers of good Christians who willed it into the consciousness of all "real" Americans.
100k+ Upper Class
50-100k Middle Class
30-50k Poor
<30k Poverty
Now, depending on your personal debt level and how much you spend, where you live, etc. your mileage may vary.
What's the definition of poverty these days? I know several families (Read, 3+ people) that live off less than 30k in cities and I'd call them poor, not in poverty.
The technical term is working class, but since everybody is working these days its kinda moot.
I would however say that people claiming that CoL can knock you down a level tend to forget that how and where you live your life is a matter of choice. Having 4 kids or a big house in a good area cost a lot of money, but its your choice to live that way. Of course you are going to have less money left over, you spent it!
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
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SerukoFerocious Kittenof The Farthest NorthRegistered Userregular
100k+ Upper Class
50-100k Middle Class
30-50k Poor
<30k Poverty
Now, depending on your personal debt level and how much you spend, where you live, etc. your mileage may vary.
What's the definition of poverty these days? I know several families (Read, 3+ people) that live off less than 30k in cities and I'd call them poor, not in poverty.
The technical term is working class, but since everybody is working these days its kinda moot.
I would however say that people claiming that CoL can knock you down a level tend to forget that how and where you live your life is a matter of choice. Having 4 kids or a big house in a good area cost a lot of money, but its your choice to live that way. Of course you are going to have less money left over, you spent it!
I respectfully Disagree, if everyone were working that would be a much different problem. At the very least 12 Million Less Americans are working than were working in 2008. And I have no reason to believe there are less Americans now than there were in 2008.
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
A thought, on the continuation of the Bush Timelines for ending the War in Iraq....
if it's not broken, why break it?
Seriously, the timeline was agreed to by the Previous administration, the Iraqis wanted it that way, and it worked out fine, relatively. The Iraq war as we knew it for 8+ years is over. In the well-mannered, precise way that it was decided to end. By the parties involved. It wasn't broken, it wasn't necessarily 'bad'. So why break it on principle? that's just ridiculous.
Gee, what happened in 2008 that may have had some impact on that? Oh right, worldwide economic recession. Kind of a vital context.
In related news, fourth quarter GDP growth was revised upwards to 3%. We are now at remaining stable in a good economy levels! Which means things are improving in a bad economy like this one. Hopefully that number ticks up further this quarter and we can start recovering more rapidly.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Posts
You don't like a shadowy group of really rich people who would like to destroy the social safety net in the name of bipartisanship and making Tom Friedman feel all warm and fuzzy? Whyever not?
And yet still middle class. Starting pay for engineers varies but 60K salary is not out of line, depending on concentration.
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
It does matter what you spent on it, and it sort of matters what your degree was in.
However, it's unfair to just go "Lol, English lit is why you're poor" when increasingly business are hiring English majors because people don't know how to write and speak the language.
To put it another way it's not what you majored in, it's what you got out of it that matters.
Indeed.
I heartily disagree. This matches neither my anecdotal experience or my research.
The point which you criticized earlier is that more and more a very small segment of the population -- those making less than the top 1% but more than the bottom 60% -- are bearing more and more of the burden of paying for everything.
You can choose to be nearly unemployed in Portland have a masters degree and be struggling to eat, or you can go work on an oil rig in the gulf of mexico and pull low 6 figures out of highschool. These are not great choices, but they're necessitate by the disastrous labor market which is a product of the current circumstance. A circumstance most people on this board seem to favor because "at least we got the ACA out of it." All directly relatedable to the stimulus and due to a presidential focus on cutting the deficit (which is patently pants on head the can man level goosery).
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
No. Presuming that their spouse works for median pay (and we'll assume the engineer is a guy, because most of them are), their household income would be $100,000. Which doubles the median household income of ~50k. The top of the middle-income quintile (that is, the 60th percentile household) brings in 60k/year. $100k brings you into the top 15% of households in the nation.
So by your argument getting a degree in engineering automatically make you rich?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Education_and_gender
Median house hold income for those with a 4 year degree is 68K.
Hell the median pay for a petroleum engineer is 108K
That's a four year degree and one test.
Which goes back to income inequality, choosing what you major in and how much you pay for it, the economy being in the crapper, 500 Billion dollars worth of stimulus and 250 Billion in tax cuts not filling a 3 trillion dollar output gap. 16% unemployment depressing wages. and thank god we got the ACA because...
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
It's about work, luck, and who you know.
You realize that counts both people? Right above it on the chart it shows how ridiculously low an income a Bachelors degree gets you. Averaged over both genders, it's worth about 43k a year in income. So yes, 108k would be pretty goddamned rich if you can pull it off in this day and age. What you aren't looking at, is how proportionally few of those jobs are open versus the general college population. Penn State puts out about 80 Architectural Engineers a year that can pull 6 figures after 5 years of school pretty easily. That doesn't mean the other 8k students walking out that year with a 4 year degree aren't looking at living near the poverty line as they pay off their school debt.
What do you mean nothing happens? You have to pay a fine if you do not purchase healthcare. The fine is less than the cost of healthcare, but that is not nonenforcement. . .
I absolutely agree with you. Additionally even being in the top 90% of income earners doesn't make you rich. You've still got a mortgage and a car payment and are worried about losing your job.
Over and over again the same battle. Their positions on the economy, their foreign policy virtually identical. Obama is called a socialist appeaser but his foreign policy is following the bush time table, his economic policy is a continuation of the bush stimulus and tax cuts, with a side of extra tax cuts. Their social policy is different BFD.
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
Some degree's are much more marketable and in higher demand than others though.
$35 an hour is upper middle class?
The republics like to yell and screem the IRS is going to be the ones enforcing the fine. Quietly the democrat proponents of ACA point out there's no mandate to do so. It is similar to the "have you ever been convicted of a drug relate crime check box on the FASA." It's right there. You dont have to check it. No one is going to do a back ground check. Regardless. The fine is less than the cost of health care, even if it was going to be enforced, where's the incentive to buy healthcare? How does that solve the free rider problem again?
It's not rich. It's just more. It's still needing a job, worry about losing your job. Seeing your bargining power degraded by the huge demand for emplyment and the reduced supply of jobs.
The point of the original argument, which you're jumping over is that you get to choose what you get your degree in, but the outcomes are shitty based on the labor market. You do have the power to decided how much debt you go into to finance your degree and what you can reasonably hope to pay for. The system of education is ridiculously expensive, the job market is shit, the current president had the power to propose a meaningful change to one of those, and didn't. The people here say over and over again, but that couldn't have past, he needed the political capital to get the ACA passed. Which itself is deeply flawed, already being sacrificed to deal with the deficit. Which is ridiculous. Either Obama knows that worry about the deficit is political sideshow, or he is an idiot. If Obama didn't know that 500 billion dollars in stimulus and 250 billion dollars in tax cuts wasn't going to fix a 3 trillion dollar output gap, same boat.
Employment is awful.
You've got to tease the data out of table a-6 here http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsatabs.htm
in Jun of 2008 total employment of non-disabled and disabled is 194 Million. After years of the crappy Bush economy and people dropping of the unemployment rolls.
In Jan of 2012 we're at 182 Million Employed. That's 12 Million people out of the labor force.
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
No that's plenty rich you silly goose. Edit: Honestly I dont even know who you're talking to here. Perhaps I am dabbling in goosery myself.
if you make 708K a year and you lose your job maybe you go cry yourself to sleep on a pillow made out of gold and have to fire one of the maids, idk.
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
What? I'm not following here. To what are you referring? What is the point you're trying to make?
I get really tired of people (especially liberals) with the attitude here that's bolded. Social issues to me, are in fact a *very* BFD. I will continue voting for whatever candidate has the more progressive policy, however marginal that may be. So economic issues are your first priority when evaluating politics? Good for you. But just because you don't care as much proportionally about social issues doesn't mean people are fooling themselves when they see a difference between democrats and republicans.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
73k a year? Yeah, I'd say so.
100k+ Upper Class
50-100k Middle Class
30-50k Poor
<30k Poverty
Now, depending on your personal debt level and how much you spend, where you live, etc. your mileage may vary.
According to HHS, Sub 30 k is only Poverty if you've got 6 or more people in the household.
Well it depends on your household size too I'd think. 100k a year with 4 kids is way worse off of than 50-60k with none.
Which is pretty ridiculous. Because the social issues are tiny. 12 Million additional Americans out of work and the population has gotten any smaller. But DOMA isnt being challenged in the courts. Better hope the GLBT community has jobs. DADT redacted, but the wars over seas continue to be prosecuted according to the Bush doctrine and expanded to include Libya, Yemen, Somalia and no option is off the table for Iran. No change in the War on Drugs (in fact federal prosecutions of medical marijuana have increased), 1/3 African American men are still going to go to prison, but opps I ran out of social issue issues. The reasons the social issues are BFD is because the ones the administration is focusing on are tiny.
I generally agree with you and find you to be quite reasonable. I'd like to add a caveat to what you wrote above, I would say you may make slightly more than 100K and still be middle class if 1. Your pay is income (and not capital gains) and, you've reasonable debts (child care/eduction/mortgage) that if you lost your job you could not pay.
I agree with you that "The problem is when people incur medical costs and can not (not will not) pay for them." The problem with the current system is only the very wealthy can afford to honestly pay for medical costs.
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
What's the definition of poverty these days? I know several families (Read, 3+ people) that live off less than 30k in cities and I'd call them poor, not in poverty.
I have to disagree with your correction. It absolutely is all three, but the percentage of each varies for everyone's individual equation.
Geography matters a great deal as well. Moving to Portland is not such a great idea if you have a degree in say English lit.
Moving to Louisville is probably a great choice if you have a degree in logistics.
Edit: Where market competition is fierce it is absolutely true to say getting a job is about hard work, luck and connections.
But if you're a physical therapist for instance you can live anywhere you want and walk into a job.
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
All of which would not only still exist and would possibly become worse if conservatives got their way, simply because their worldview actively opposes efforts to fix them. Liberals tend to be ineffectual, and it's infuriating. There's a BFD for you. I'll take someone who talks the talk but can't figure out how to walk the walk over someone who would destroy what little progress has been made and actively block further progress given the chance.
You think my focus on the differences between the parties social policies is "ridiculous"? I think you're ridiculous for blowing them off. A significant portion of the conservative population *literally* thinks being Gay should be criminalized and that birth control is evil. To write that off as "BFD" is seriously fucking ridiculous. Yes, the administration hasn't done close to what I would consider enough with social issues, but the alternative is actively working to push us back to the middle ages. When faced with that other option, I simply will never feel bad about voting for whoever the more progressive option is, like I said earlier, however marginal that may be.
It's not Obama against the world. Or Obama as depicted on fox news vs Obama the man. Or Obama as he orates vs what he does.
It is the Policies as enacted by one president vs the Policies as enacted by another President.
Edit: The Difference in Social Policies Between Obama and Bush if you really look at them are not huge, and they are the biggest differences.
It makes no sense to compare Obama to Rush or Bill'O or Pat Robinson or whoever.
At the very least I am very clearly not doing so. IDK maybe some else is, that would be stupid.
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/media-finally-paying-attention-to-eligibility/
No, seriously, that's a new story. Plus, I love love love the title "MEDIA FINALLY PAYING ATTENTION TO ELIGIBILITY?". Because no one has ever heard of this issue before. The media never paid it any attention previously. No siree. We are all aware of it only because of the prayers of good Christians who willed it into the consciousness of all "real" Americans.
The technical term is working class, but since everybody is working these days its kinda moot.
I would however say that people claiming that CoL can knock you down a level tend to forget that how and where you live your life is a matter of choice. Having 4 kids or a big house in a good area cost a lot of money, but its your choice to live that way. Of course you are going to have less money left over, you spent it!
I respectfully Disagree, if everyone were working that would be a much different problem. At the very least 12 Million Less Americans are working than were working in 2008. And I have no reason to believe there are less Americans now than there were in 2008.
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
if it's not broken, why break it?
Seriously, the timeline was agreed to by the Previous administration, the Iraqis wanted it that way, and it worked out fine, relatively. The Iraq war as we knew it for 8+ years is over. In the well-mannered, precise way that it was decided to end. By the parties involved. It wasn't broken, it wasn't necessarily 'bad'. So why break it on principle? that's just ridiculous.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
In related news, fourth quarter GDP growth was revised upwards to 3%. We are now at remaining stable in a good economy levels! Which means things are improving in a bad economy like this one. Hopefully that number ticks up further this quarter and we can start recovering more rapidly.