Why you should live for yourself. (Think about this)

[iamaboringperson]

Here is something that I found in a womens magazine once. It was sent in by a reader, and was apparently found on the net. (Not sure where it originated from, however)


Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days? But the family we left behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives.  We pour ourselves more into work than into our own family - an unwise investment don't you think?

Very true. :-)

[FluffyMcDeath]

iamaboringperson wrote:
Here is something that I found in a womens magazine once. It was sent in by a reader, and was apparently found on the net. (Not sure where it originated from, however)


Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days? But the family we left behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives.  We pour ourselves more into work than into our own family - an unwise investment don't you think?

Very true. :-)

Depends on whether the family will starve if you don't work.

[iamaboringperson]

Depends on whether the family will starve if you don't work.

Nobody's wanting them to starve.

[T_Bone]

FluffyMcDeath wrote:

iamaboringperson wrote:
Here is something that I found in a womens magazine once. It was sent in by a reader, and was apparently found on the net. (Not sure where it originated from, however)


Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days? But the family we left behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives.  We pour ourselves more into work than into our own family - an unwise investment don't you think?

Very true. :-)

Depends on whether the family will starve if you don't work.

This is the year 2004, people are eating themselves to death! :lol:

"Poverty" nowdays is synonymous with depression.

 "I have a roof over my head, food on my table, kids are in school and doing well, TV in livingroom and bedroom, VCR, DVD, HBO, AOL, but we don't have anything everyone else doesn't have, nothing special. Being poor stinks." - ??

Poor people from times gone by would roll in their grave if they saw the royalty people who fall through the cracks nowdays are accostomed to.

I doubt they'd be impressed by how much time we spend together on average as a family though.

[odin]

Unfortunately there are enough people in the western world so poor they that they don't have enough money to buy proper food.

[FluffyMcDeath]

T_Bone wrote:

This is the year 2004, people are eating themselves to death! :lol:

"Poverty" nowdays is synonymous with depression.

What about all the depressed veterans who don't have a place to live?

300,000 vets homeless on any given night

And how about all the people who use the Oregan food bank.
people780,000 (unduplicated figure) where an estimated 42 percent of households needing help have at least one working member.

And that's just Oregon.

And if it wasn't for charity like the food bank, people would be starving just as in "The Depression". Just because there is a lot of food in the US doesn't mean everybody gets some. This will happen more as the government moves away from wealth redistribution because left to its own devices wealth concentrates.

[KennyR]

T_Bone wrote:
"Poverty" nowdays is synonymous with depression.

A very conservative - and very wrong - assumption.

All the old bedfellows of poverty are still there. Poor housing, poor health, high crime, high addiction or alcholic rates, high infant mortality, no career prospects, hopelessness, despair, the lot. Just because poor people don't die of hunger or thirst doesn't mean that they're not deprived. Poverty is like air pressure - you only feel it when there's a difference between high and low.

[iamaboringperson]

You know what ... this wasn't ment to be about poverty. It was ment to be about putting more time into your family etc.

I'm POOR BTW! :-P

[The_Editor]

Thats not an exclusive club ima.

But re: your original post...

Your right !!

[T_Bone]

KennyR wrote:

T_Bone wrote:
"Poverty" nowdays is synonymous with depression.

A very conservative - and very wrong - assumption.

All the old bedfellows of poverty are still there. Poor housing, poor health, high crime, high addiction or alcholic rates, high infant mortality, no career prospects, hopelessness, despair,

Sounds like depression to me.

[KennyR]

T_Bone wrote:
Sounds like depression to me.

You've never actually been poor, have you?

(Silly question, of course not, you vote Republican!)

[T_Bone]

KennyR wrote:

T_Bone wrote:
Sounds like depression to me.

You've never actually been poor, have you?

(Silly question, of course not, you vote Republican!)

I was poor from the day I was born to the time I reached middle age. What you're describing is just depression. Drug use, alcoholism, etc etc has squat to do with being poor, but any med will tell you has quite a bit to do with depression.

Hell, my family has long histories of being poor, while raising their children not to notice.

There's only one member in my family who stayed poor though, my grandfather. Ran away to join the circus when he was 8, became an animal trainer by the time he was 17 for Barnum and Bailey, started farming in Florida, then moved to NY and worked as both a luberjack and farmed his land there, eventually selling his farm and taking a job with Genesee Brewery driving the Clydesdale 12 horse team for Genesee. (Most paintings you see of the Genny 12 horse team have him in the picture). When he was too old to work, he became a security guard for the Genesee County Museum which was built on his land.

Funny thing is, nobody would have ever dreamed of describing him as "poor", although the man never made more than the average grocery clerk today.

I vote Republican because I know that success isn't something you can expect to achieve by "being lucky." (And anyone who thinks they are going to be successfull this way has rocks in their head.)

[KennyR]

Well trust me, it's not depression. Poverty causes depression, not vice versa. What does make one depressed is living in a rotting urban ex-industrial wilderness with high unemployment and crime and high juvenile delinquency, where your post code/zipcode on its own is enough to disqualify you from a lot of jobs, and your schooling suffered because the school you went to couldn't afford teachers and so you had crappy substitute teachers and so didn't pass any exams, where the hospitals are understaffed and car insurance because of the crime rate makes it too expensive...etc etc.

You conservatives always say that socialists hold people back in society to get everyone to be poor, when it's you letting people get held back by circumstances they can't prevent and then blaming it on them for being depressed.

[T_Bone]

KennyR wrote:
Well trust me, it's not depression.

Why not?

Poverty causes depression, not vice versa.

Why can't it happen vice versa?

What does make one depressed is living in a rotting urban ex-industrial wilderness with high unemployment and crime and high juvenile delinquency, where your post code/zipcode on its own is enough to disqualify you from a lot of jobs,

Move. Many have.

and your schooling suffered because the school you went to couldn't afford teachers and so you had crappy substitute teachers and so didn't pass any exams, where the hospitals are understaffed and car insurance because of the crime rate makes it too expensive...etc etc.

I call severe {bleep}.

The inner city schools are some of the highest funded schools in existance.

Let's add to that that the Republicans totally understand that these schools suck goat balls, and they fully support letting these inner city children take the money that has been alloted to these children and use it to pay for private education instead.

You conservatives always say that socialists hold people back in society to get everyone to be poor,

They do. Absolutely.

when it's you letting people get held back by circumstances they can't prevent and then blaming it on them for being depressed.

Please explain how the republicans are "letting people get held back" when so far the republicans have been the only ones to actively push for the only solution to their education problems. The Democrats just throw money at the problem, and keep the inner city schoolchildren segregated. in ineffective schools that have failed our children over and over, and will continue doing so.

[KennyR]

Why can't it happen vice versa?

Because you get rich depressed people too. They usually end up as drug addicts, but rich drug addicts.

Move. Many have.

Get real, T_Bone. How do you move out of slumsville into cleanly lit, well policed suburbia if the morgages there can't be afforded by people doing blue collar jobs? If it was really so easy to get away, don't you think people would move in droves? Why do you think people still live in places like that?

The inner city schools are some of the highest funded schools in existance.

And that's because they have to put up with people raised in a system they have no faith in, that will never really allow them to escape their situation even if they want to. If throwing money at the school didn't help, perhaps educational reforms are needed. Hell, you have one side wanting to take the school system apart and one thinking that Money Heals All.

Let's add to that that the Republicans totally understand that these schools suck goat balls, and they fully support letting these inner city children take the money that has been alloted to these children and use it to pay for private education instead.

Private education is an abomination that allows people with more money to get more education. That can only make the situation worse in the long run and create a huge division between the educated elite and the peasants.

You conservatives always say that socialists hold people back in society to get everyone to be poor,

They do. Absolutely.

They didn't hold me back. My father wasn't even allowed into a good school because he couldn't afford a uniform. Socialism changed all that by my generation. The state funded my education, something I never could do myself. If anything, socialism in Europe has created a large population of very educated people - something the USA still lacks. And no, that's NOT a "stupid Americans" statement. Just compare the number of graduates on AO alone. Most are European. That doesn't make them any smarter, but the social benefits are wide-ranging.

Please explain how the republicans are "letting people get held back" when so far the republicans have been the only ones to actively push for the only solution to their education problems.

You have this obvious attitude: if there's a problem, then the problem must be because people aren't really doing enough for themselves. I can see how that can be true in some cases, but it blinds you to occassions when people just can't escape social boundaries. These can be VERY strong. Sometimes the answer just isn't in shouting "Get off your ass or starve!" in a very loud voice.