There was a heated discussion on Facebook about the protest. It continued as a letter to me, here it is.
Acquaintance wrote: this was too long to put on my post....
the gap between the rich and the poor is getting bigger I think because of lack of education. I think if ours and the American school system taught proper financial principles there'd be more intelligent choices. Problem with a few people getting poorer is not due to lack of attainable wealth, let's face it....we live in a capitalistic society, there's wealth to be made and enough for everybody. I just think the thing is this....the banks and other corporations have been in control for years and years....but when was the last time your bank sat you down and taught you, not just told you to go to the machine and do the same transaction there, but actually taught you how to get out of your debts, save, create an emergency fund, etc??? They probably haven't. That's not what they are there for....but because of lack of education all they push is rate, rate, rate. Rate is only one factor in considering an entire solution. The bank is like an abusive spouse....takes advantage of you but you keep going back. It all goes to the education system the government provides. A friend was telling me that if the US were to put all the money into education instead of the war, there'd be 220,000 jobs for teachers. And while that's great, it doesn't fix the issue with the educational system.....just more teachers teaching the same crap. Anyways....I think that's where the real problem lies....not at Wall Street.
Greenpsychopomp wrote: If you took one hundred people and you educated them in finance, these are hard working people, you dropped them into the world and gave them into the real world what would happen? One extra stipulation, education is not free, so with their four year undergraduate degree and their two year MBA, saddle each of them with an appropriate level of debt, let's be generous and only make it fifty thousand dollar debt. Let us say one more thing one of them, chosen at random we pay off their debt, because the parents paid off his debt and gave him a job right out of school and a million dollars. After a years time, who do you think will be a head of the others? How far will they be ahead of the others? Assuming the privileged one is not the hardest working person, would they still be ahead of the curve? Assuming that the other 99 are working two jobs to pay off their debts it would still take them about two years to pay off their debts and you know that that is a generous number, how far ahead is that one from them? In those two years, the one, has been working at +100k per year, gets 20% at bonus time and he marries his father's business partner's daughter, wedding paid for, house given to him outright and after the two years a nice promotion to boot.
The others marry, the weddings are less extravagant and are on a budget lets say city hall JP small reception, potluck. They are renting, remember they are paying off a debt and you need 10% to make a down payment these days and houses are expensive, even out here in Ontario more where you are. They are renting, money goes to a subsidiary of the family of the one as they have wisely invested their money in land and apartment buildings, to the tune of 12k per year (aren't I nice, that is cheap rent for a married couple even in TO, must be a one bedroom, I bet they use condoms because obviously they can't afford children yet). Luckily that also means a third income, two jobs plus one is three. That pays for the rent and the lease for the car. Car company owned by the other family too.
Got a bet on who's in the lead now? Let's skip ten years into the future. The 99 have bought houses, they are out of town so they are cheaper which means that the second job is gone; the commute squashed that. The house was purchased from, you guessed it, the family of the One. If this was America, I would now reveal that that company that the one got a cushy job at was a private bank and it invests in property management and house building projects. 99 houses @ 300k per house, amortization over twenty years for a total of 400k (I am so being nice) cost to build 150k, labour the biggest share of that. They are now earning top dollar, that is about $100k per year they have 2.5 children and a dog. The children are just getting ready to go to school. Daycare is a bitch, $1500 a month, maternity leave meant that two years the wife stayed home, so no daycare, but only 60% of her paycheck. Snip snip, no more children, no more condoms. Good news 10% bonus once a year, because kids are expensive. Kids are 3 and 4.
Back to the privileged class. Ten years he is now a junior partner, 500k per year, that much again at bonus time. He has three children 9, 7 and 5. They are taken care of by the live in foreign domestic, $1500 per month. The tutors and the private school all cost $100k per year, but it is the very best money can buy. His wife only lost 18 months over the three children and works in the company for a similar wage, she worked from home after giving birth. They are thinking about having another child.
Twenty years later . . .
With one child at Harvard doing premed the three older children now out with a Ivy School education in business and all with MBAs. The eldest now being groomed for Dad's job at the head of the bank, the next, at the head of the Land Management department of investments and the next youngest portfolio manager and investment banker for the company.
In Canada, the 99's children got a free ride in university. In the States, after much scrapings and saving, their two children each have a $50,000 debt load, but have an average education and an MBA. Repeat for them, the Canadians get McJobs, because that is the way of things but they work hard and get good jobs eventually. The 99 are earning 250k per year, enough to leave the grand kids a million apiece when the time comes
Okay the twenty year is speculation and fiction, but I am not that old yet. I do know people with post grads though, one with a doctorate, two MBAs. Only one of them got a free ride, he also got a house, a free house. No two jobs mind you, but their children have two grandparents and one mother coaching them and tutoring them. Most of the rest are childless, the one that does is struggling and succeeding mind you, but still.
When it comes down to it, the one percent of the population that controls most of the wealth and most of the influence in society keeps on acquiring more wealth and more influence and the acquire it from everyone else.
American children grow up all wanting to be President. To become President of the United States one really only needs one thing. You can be black, you can be white, a man or a woman, as long as you are a natural born citizen you can be President, as long as you are fabulously wealthy with wealthy friends. Few people can hope to be President without lots of money, gobs of it.
I could not attend the Wall Street protest, I had to work. Not wanted, but had to. Wall Street is a symbol of the wealth of America, that is why it was targeted. A better choice would have been the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart, the wealthiest company in the history of the world and greatest concentrated of wealth ever seen, but they would have no qualms about calling the police to evict them.
Understand?
I am sure there will be more to come, I will admen this article later.
Acquaintance:
ReplyDelete56 minutes agoDey Rivera
Valid point. I understand your perspective. I think I should have worded my argument better. What I should have said is the education starts in our public schools at let's say even as late as high school.
Here's the issue I see right now, the days of going to school, getting a "good" education, getting a "good" job, with a "good" company that will take care of you and you can retire there.....those days are over. Today, it's all about being more self-sufficient and working to better your own life.
The governments will never take care of you. Look at CPP and OAS. I mean, the max that you can get from both is about $800. I speak from personal experience as I see my grandparents getting $500 each from OAS/CPP. Their rent is $1200. They are 76 and 78 years old. Obviously not enough.....we're lucky my uncle helps them out.
I feel too many people, perhaps many of the protesters....though I don't know any of them personally, are dependent on a company to provide for their family. See, the biggest expense people have is taxes. Most people's income is lost to taxes. One way to offset taxes is to start a small business.....who cares what it is.....like I said before, teach people how to do something, provide a service, a product, etc. People need to take advantage of the tax breaks that business owners receive by becoming one themselves. By doing that, people can also have a Plan B in case they lose their "secure" jobs, which don't exist by the way. Same person who gives you a paycheck can give you a pink slip. You "had to" work because you don't CREATE your paycheck....someone else does and they decide what they pay you.
In your example, you use what the situation many Canadians/Americans find themselves in. Up to their necks in debt, etc. I don't disagree with the examples given. I agree. What I don't agree with is that yes, these 1% get wealthier and wealthier...but they also are the ones that give the most to charity. Most people are too broke to give, they do just enough to fulfill their own needs. These rich people give money to hospitals, research, etc......not all, but some....however, many are selfish and do just enough not to get fired, and just enough to meet their own needs.
If money was a subject that was easily discussed at the dinner table then a lot of these issues may not be issues. But people are always too "private" about money and the thought of knowing what someone makes in income is "rude" or "you don't ask someone how much money they make" because it's "not right". That is what is killing America....this silence when it comes to what we all use every day....MONEY. You have an industry (banks, insurance companies and other corporations) that thrives on commissions and profits and you have an uneducated population when it comes to money. That's a recipe for disaster. I learned how to dissect a frog in high school, but have never done that since. I didn't know how a mortgage worked until I was looking to buy a house and by then it could be too late.
THAT'S what I mean.....does that make sense???
Greenpsychopomp:
Education. Yes there are some shortfalls in education. I agree more things should be taught, but as a teacher I can tell you that the opportunity is there. Teachers in primary school teach the fundamentals, adding, subtracting, multiplying, geography, history, science and physEd plus all the rest. Money I'd taught in math. You got money lessons in math class, everyone did. The words were not their, like interest and amortization, but the operations were taught. The fact that you can't recall this is the next point, most kids do not absorb but a fraction of what they are taught. After summer break, they have to be retaught everything again. A teacher has to teach e smart kids and the not so smart kids. They teach the ones with full stomachs and the ones with empty ones. The teach the gifted, the ADHDs, the normals and the blind; often all examples in the same classroom.
ReplyDeleteYou dissected frogs because the school wanted to expose you to biology, because they did not know how might want to become a doctor or a biologist, ecologist, they taught you physics for the same reason. They taught you history so you knew where you came from and where you are going, geography so you could see where you were in relation to everything else and so you would know some of the processes happening around you in the natural world. But that is a half truth. History is about learning to express yourself, English about improving your reading writing skills, math and the sciences are about problem solving, physEd and health were about keeping healthy, music is about . . . Okay I am shitty with music I don't get it, art is about patterns and expression see history and math, accounting is math and vice versa, second language is about thinking a different way different approaches.
High school is about trying new things out, most of the courses are electives. You could have taken accounting, no one stopped you. Sure add another mandatory course, but all they would be learning is a few concepts and reinforcing a few basic math operations, but it can be done. Added to the four English, two maths, two sciences, one art or music, one geography, one history one physEd and the other mandatory course I am missing, oh yeah computers.
The wealthy contribute more money than the rest. Google it, I did. http://www.portfolio.com/graphics/2008/02/Alms-From-the-Working-Class
Guess what? The poor give more than the rich. Individually wealthy people give more, but a smaller percentage of their incomes, whereas the very wealthy are a small portion of the people, the poor are so many more. I think of it this way, the poor can empathize better with the misfortunate, I have often said in my head as I drop a toonie into the homeless person's cup, "there but for the grace of god go I." I know how close I was, when I worked with you to poverty, to living on the street. I remember times where I had one meal a day and I was tryingto get welfare. I know how close I am to that situation again. Someone who gives money at Christmas time to get a tax benefit, is not going to understand.
Education gives no advantage in this world economy except the ability to see where things are headed. A generation, the gold standard was high school, my generation, a university education, this generation post graduate degree. I know six people with a total of eleven postgraduate degrees, and only one of them is getting close to rolling in the cash, and he was born with it, the cash I mean.