Prepare to defend yourself, your family, your property, your food, your dog...

They also break down into state deficits as well. Someone's sig was (paraphrasing) "Everyone thinks the government is some magic box that you do not have to put any money or effort into while getting everything you want. Eventually that is proved wrong by going broke." Probably my favorite sig.

My second favorite sig is

which contradics alot of what MARIS61 preaches.

 

214,213 now...that thing is actually keeping count!

 

214,217 now. Who would think there were that many people closing on Subarus this late at night?

 

How so?

 

That link says each citizen's share of the national debt is only $44,000, while each citizen has assets worth $223,000.

Seems about the proper ratio for a healthy economy.

Unless a small group of citizens is hogging all the wealth but refusing to carry their fair share of the debt.

 

Or, a large group of citizens that control the vote are too lazy to know what they are voting for. As said, they think government is a big magic box that requires no effort or financial imput yet pays for everything imaginable.

 

All of these people that are supposedly going to become savages had parents too. You are saying that it is the government and ubber rich that are to blame. Your sig suggests that the situation could be avoided with better parenting.

Did not recieve as much as others growing up, but will always be thankful for the stories from my grandparents about how they survived during the depression. None of those stories involved going savage.

 

Nope. They will be replaced by outsourced Indians, not robots. Its a generation X/Y thing, again with the whole entitlement problem. However, a college degree or specialty certification remains a barrier to most higher earning jobs out there.

 

I agree, it's a barrier.

The really higher earning jobs are filled by dropouts.

Vulcan and Microsoft created and owned by college dropouts.

Here are some higher earning high school dropouts:


Bill Bartman........self-made billionaire American businessman, Joe Lewis........self-made billionaire British businessman, Carl Lindner.......self-made billionaire American businessman, Kemmons Wilson.......self-made multimillionaire American businessman; founder of the "Holiday Inn" hotel chain, Richard Desmond.....self-made billionaire British publisher, Sydney Poitier.....Oscar-winning actor (elementary school dropout), Richard Branson.....self-made billionaire British businessman; founder of "Virgin Atlantic Airways," "Virgin Records," etc.; knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Richard Branson), Anton van Leeuwenhoek....Dutch microscope maker; world's first microbiologist; discoverer of bacteria, blood cells, and sperm cells), Isaac Merrit Singer....American sewing machine inventor; self-made multimillionaire founder of "Singer Industries," "I.M. Singer and Company," etc. (elementary school dropout, Horace Greeley.... American newspaper publisher-editor; U.S. Congressman; 1872 U.S. Presidential candidate; co-founder of the Republican party in the United States, Philip Emeagwali....supercomputer scientist; one of the pioneers of the Internet, Peter Jennings, Julie Andrews, Lucille Ball, Andrew Jackson, Patrick Henry, Jack London, Ray Charles, Jimmy Dean, HG Wells, Robert De Niro, ...

It's a big list: http://www.education-reform.net/dropouts2.htm

 

http://www.forbes.com/2003/07/28/cx_dd_0728mondaymatch.html

So on this list 2/3 of the wealtiest have degrees. The starting pay for a college graduate compared to a high school graduate is almost double. There is also a bigger disparity in wealth between the rich and poor in each degree designation. Since the withhout college degree members have on average more wealth than the college degree Forbes 400 members, the poor must be even poorer than the rich.

Of the four examples Forbes gives, it is not a surprise that 4 were dropouts? Do you think any of the time spent at each university had something to do with their success?

 

It is also a big list crowded with professions that have nothing to do with college. No amount of school is going to help me sing like Ray Charles, play like Dizzy, or have a face like De Niro. For most, it is still going to take learning from a university and having documentation to prove training.

I know it makes me breathe alittle easier knowing my doctor has formal training and is not just basing his/her recommendations on tribal knowledge.

 

...I am moving here, after reconsidering my options, rather than skipping to Canada first!

Unabomber's Montana land for sale; 'very secluded'

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_unabomber_property

 

You're deciphering this backwards.

Most people on the Forbes list inherited their wealth. They did nothing to create it, or even to deserve it. They have degrees because their parents were filthy rich and could afford to throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars just to get the useless, spoiled brats out of the house and to try to teach them some responsibility. Also, simply because it's a "keeping up with the Jones" thing. "My son is attending HAWVAWD!" The richer they are, the more college they can afford and the less likely they need to actually work. Look to the top of the list. Most of the WalMart family has performed less actual work in their lives than the average retail manager of 1 of their stores.

The vast majority of self-made millionaires and billionaires have had no degrees and many dropped out of high school. Same with most inventers. The traits, skills and psyche needed to be a true overachiever are not, cannot be, taught. They come from your genes, your upbringing and your environment. By the time college rolls around, you've either got it or you don't. The fact you're remaining in school for another 4-8-12 years says you're not even ready to support yourself and make your mark, never mind out-perform your peers. It speaks of fear and uncertainty, and the valuable life experience you miss while incubating for those years can never be recaptured.

 

Here's what college does for you:

Kaczynski is serving a life sentence for killing three people and injuring 23 during a nationwide bombing spree between 1978 and 1995. The Harvard-trained mathematician railed against the effects of advanced technology and led authorities on the nation's longest and costliest manhunt before his brother tipped off law enforcement in 1996

 

You are correct that college cannot make you play like Dizzy...you have to make an effort. You have to have an aptitude for learning. You have to practice 10-14 hrs a day. Just as no college will make you a good doctor. All it can do is provide you with information that is all readily available and easily accessible in public libraries and on the internet.

If after 12 years of education you haven't developed the basic skills to teach yourself what you desire to learn, you're probably never going to be anything special in the career world.

 

It's worse today, but here's a look at the "achievers" on the Forbes list from 1997:

Forbes celebrates bootstrappers, but its 400 are better represented by Jim Hightower's remark about George Bush, "He was born on third base and thought he hit a triple." (Steve "Flat Tax" Forbes can relate. The Forbes family is conspiciously abstent from the 400, but Fortune pegged inheritor Steve's personal wealth at $439 million in 1996, enough to make that year's cut.) "Born on Third Base," a new study by the Boston-based United for a Fair Economy, shows that a majority of the Forbes 400 inherited their way onto the list, inherited already substantial and profitable companies, or received key start-up capital from a family member.


42 percent were born on home plate. These include older dynasties like the Rockefellers and du Ponts, and newer family fortunes from companies like Walmart and Gap. The Waltons of Wal-Mart are ranked nine through thirteen on the Forbes 400, with a combined $32 billion. Forbes thinks some of those born on home plate hit a home run. For example, it calls Philip Anschutz "self-made" even though he would have made the 400 cut just from the mineral wealth he inherited from his father.

At least 6 percent were born on third base. They inherited wealth in excess of $50 million or a large and prosperous company, and grew this initial fortune into Forbes 400 size. For example, Edward Johnson III inherited Fidelity from his father and led it the mutual fund world series.

At least 7 percent were born on second base. They inherited a medium-sized business or wealth of more than $1 million or received substantial start-up capital for a business from a family member. Examples include poultry tycoons Donald Tyson and Frank Perdue.

At least 14 percent were born on first base. For example, Bill Gates's parents were well-off professionals and he went to a private school where he and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen began their exploration of computers.

Nike founder Phil Knight was born in the batter's box and hustled his way to number 17 on the Forbes 400 with $5.4 billion. But the high-priced Air Jordans that bring such profits aren't self-made: The typical Nike worker is an Asian girl or woman working in a sweatshop for less than $10 a week. Forbes comments, "An unrepentant Phil Knoght blasts his sweatshop critics: 'This isn't an issue that should even be on the political agenda today. It's just a sound bite of globalization.'"

Rich Americans have been scoring off workers' sacrifice flies for decades. It's time to give workers their fair share at bat.

http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/course/rich.htm

 

If you want to have an aneurism removed from your brain from someone getting "really good self instruction" of the internet, you are more than welcome to.

 

So if I can give an example of someone with out a degree going on a murder spree, you should not get a degree or get a degree to avoid being a mass murderer?

 

Very biased article.

If those that had inherited their wealth were not on the list, you would be complaining on how they do not know the value of a dollar and blew all of their money. It also speaks less of Paul Allen and Bill Gates accomplishments. Heaven forbid that his parents were not silly enough to have kids without having a way to provide for them.

Yeah, it should be those that do the unskilled labor of the world and have kids that they cannot provide for that reap the benefits.

 

Fail.