Herman Cain: It's Your Fault if You're Unemployed

[Jason]

[Coito ergo sum]

Well, with unfettered Capitalism there is in fact a form of feudalism - as the wealthy and their families stay wealthy and own everything and it is very difficult for others to gain wealth so they are effectively the "serfs."

Huh...

John D. Rockefeller - father was a traveling salesman. John D. went to school for bookkeeping and got his first job for $50 per week, or $2,500 per year. From those modest beginnings, he became the world's first billionaire.
Liz Murrary - born in the Bronx, mother died of AIDS - father abandoned her at the age of 16 - she went to Harvard and is now a wealthy and an inspirational speaker.
Chris Gardner - slept in subway station bathrooms and begged for money to take a licensing exam to become a stock broker - after getting his license he got a job at Bear Stearns, and became a millionaire.
Wayne Huizenga - from an abusive family, barely graduated high school, went to college for a year, but dropped out - moved back to Florida, and pumped gas at gas station - and bought a used truck which he used to haul garbage - he developed that into a little going concern called "Waste Management, Inc." a billion dollar company.
Andrew Carnegie - son of hand-loom weaver, and a poor immigrant from Scotland. He started out as a "bobbin boy" changes spools of thread in a textile mill. Became one of the richest men in the world.
Bill Gates - we all know his story - college drop out - richest man in the world.
Steve Jobs - started Apple in his garage. At the age 13, Jobs worked for HP on an assembly line.
Mark Zuckerberg - you know the story
Sergey Brin - worked in GE's information services department (a $30,000 a year job).
Ben Bernanke - waited tables at "South of the Border" in South Carolina in high school and to work his way through college; also worked construction.
Michael Bloomberg - started out as a parking lot attendant.
Evan Williams (Twitter) - dropped out of the university of Nebraska and drifted around the country working low paid tech jobs...
Carol Bentz of Yahoo - started out making 75 cents an hour as a bank teller.
Tim Armstrong of AOL - started out as a teacher
Michael Dell - started out as a dishwasher at a Chinese restaurant when he was 12, and worked hard and was promoted to water boy and then maitre'd - He started a company named PC Limited in his dorm room at college, and renamed it "Dell."
Warren Buffett - newspaper delivery boy.
Larry Ellison - dropped out of high school after his mother died - became a "technician." Developed "Oracle."
Sam Walton - started out as a milkman - later formed Wal-Mart.
Dave Thomas - worked as a fry-cook at a Kentucky Fried Chicken - learned the business and founded Wendy's.
Ben Cohen - started out poor, became a taxi driver, founded Ben & Jerry's on a wing and a prayer.
Ursula Berns - started out as an intern at Xerox.
Steven Spieldberg - worked for free as an unpaid intern
George Lucas - teaching assistant
Ray Kroc - paper cup salesman
Walt Disney - delivery boy
Mark Cuban - bartender and garbage bag salesman
Oprah Winfrey - check out girl at a grocery store.
Barack Obama - middle class upbringing in Hawaii. President of the United States
Bill Clinton - lower middle class upbringing in Hope and Hot Springs Arkansas - father died and mother left him with grandparents for years, until she finished nursing school - abusive stepfather who worked at a car dealership. President of the United States.
Ronald Reagan - middle class upbringing - became an actor - President of the United States
Jimmy Carter - the first US President to be born in a hospital - Jimmy was born in Wise Sanitarium in Plains Georgia - a tiny agricultural town in the middle of nowhwere - went to public high school - joined the Navy - later became president of the United States.
Gerald Ford - middle class upbringing in Grand Rapids, Michigan - went to the University of Michigan - President of the United States.
Richard Nixon - middle class upbringing in Yorba Linda, CA - President of the United States
Lyndon Johnson - born in a small farmhouse in Texas - went to public high school - became President of the United States
Harry S Truman - haberdasher - President of the United States


Your right though, Communism provides greater mobility....

[Jason]

OK, I don't side with MattShizzle, but that's your argument? Seriously?

It's not even wrong.

[Coito ergo sum]

OK, I don't side with MattShizzle, but that's your argument? Seriously?

It's not even wrong.

You obviously don't know the proper usage of "it's not even wrong."

I didn't make an argument. You'll want to look up what an "argument" is.

I gave a list of examples of people who moved up the socioeconomic ladder. It was very easy, and believe me, I can keep going. These are just prominent ones. There are many others, like my father, who aren't noteworthy, but also made significant jumps. if MattShizzle is right and that people are effectively serfs, why do we see economic advancement to far greater degrees in capitalism-based economies than in communism-based economies?

What is it that you find troubling about a list of concrete, real life, examples of socioeconomic advancement?

Is there more socioeconomic advancement under Communism? Where is the proof of that?

[Jason]

I gave a list of examples of people who moved up the socioeconomic ladder. It was very easy, and believe me, I can keep going.

Then keep going until your statistically insignificant little list of people who 'made it' becomes statistically significant and you'll have an argument.

Jesus jumping christ on a pogo stick.

Rebuttals of your posts should be made in the form of irrelevant youtube videos such as this:

[sandinista]

I gave a list of examples of people who moved up the socioeconomic ladder. It was very easy, and believe me, I can keep going.

Then keep going until your statistically insignificant little list of people who 'made it' becomes statistically significant and you'll have an argument.

Jesus jumping christ on a pogo stick.

Rebuttals of your posts should be made in the form of irrelevant youtube videos such as this:

btw, you have to remember who you're talking to. billions live under capitalism, "I can name 100 people who "made it" That's about the extent of it.

[Coito ergo sum]

I gave a list of examples of people who moved up the socioeconomic ladder. It was very easy, and believe me, I can keep going.

Then keep going until your statistically insignificant little list of people who 'made it' becomes statistically significant and you'll have an argument.

List of examples of socioeconomic advancement in Communist countries stands at 0. Feel free to provide some evidence. We can go to the statistics next, if you like.

The allegation was that advancement is not possible, because we're all serfs. Do you agree with that?

[MattShizzle]

[
List of examples of socioeconomic advancement in Communist countries stands at 0.

Since there are no and have never been any countries who were communist....

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[
List of examples of socioeconomic advancement in Communist countries stands at 0.

Since there are no and have never been any countries who were communist....

Ohio.

[Coito ergo sum]

[
List of examples of socioeconomic advancement in Communist countries stands at 0.

Since there are no and have never been any countries who were communist....

By that standard, there never have been any countries who were capitalist either... so, on what basis do you make your negative claims about capitalism? You have no examples.

By the way - would you even know a communist country if you saw one? If so, what would be an example of what one would look like? (just a brief description or you can cite to an authority that gives a description thereof...)

I'll wait....anyone have that thermometer in hell -- check and see when it gets to 32 degrees fahrenheit....

[Ian]

Coito's saying that better avenues for advancement exist in a free market than in a planned one. Of course Sandi chides him for only listing a handful out of the billions living in the capitalist world, as if Coito could possibly list everyone who's advanced through hard work and self reliance. But the "land of opportunity" is not a theoretical talking point, it's real.

How about one more anecdote? My father moved to this country from Jamaica when he was 12. He made it through high school and then spent his adult life installing carpet. My mom's from a similarly working-class background as well, and I grew up in a blue collar household. But they had the sense to make sure that my brother and I had access do a decent (public) education, and stressed that education and hard work were important in life. I got the message, but my brother never really did. I did well in college, finished my graduate degree, and served in the military for ten years; today I own a home and two cars and have a good career. My brother quit junior college after a semester, then became a feckless musician for a while and wound up working for my dad, installing carpet.

In the final analysis, we're all responsible for ourselves.

[MattShizzle]

Pretty much every country that exists it Capitalist. There has never been a country where the government owned the means of production and the workers shared the profits.

[redunderthebed]

I mean the words "personal responsibility" are the mantra of the right wing. They not only use it to blame the victim when it comes to poverty but the suppository-faces who are anti-abortion use it to..

Agreed their mantra would work IF everyone had the same opportunities in life of which the system we live in is designed that not everyone does. It is no different from the bullshit that has gone on since time in memorial except they have tweaked it so the french or the october revolution doesn't happen again.

It basically means, "You're on your own, don't even think of looking for help, that might cost me money."

Yup and that philosophy infects almost all right-wing ideas these days not just social welfare etc.

And an anti-abortion fucktard. I wouldn't just die. If I didn't get disability and couldn't get on any other way I'd buy a gun and rob rich people. I'd kill them if I knew they were ones who exploited people. That's what people will do. Or they'll revolt and overthrow capitalism, which would make things much better.

+1 Social welfare and pedalling the capitalist horseshit "if you work hard you too can be rich" is the reason why things haven't gone that way unfortunately. Ironically i think the whole mantra seth and others espouse would hasten that process you describe matt.

[Ian]

There will always be some levels of social/class structure in any society. Achieving equality sounds good, but only as long as it is not enforced at the expense of equity; people are born equal, but they don't end up that way. I'd say that government's role in term of class mobility is to ensure that a good meritocracy exists for the young.

My country doesn't ensure the meritocracy well enough, to be sure. The differences in quality of education between poor areas and middle/upper income ones is awful. But culturally, individualism is bred through and through here, and because there are plenty of rags-to-riches stories, we're often slow to blame someone's background and childhood education for his meager lot in life. A bit of pedantry: it was John Steinbeck who said “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

[Seth]

I don't know what it's like where you are, Coito, but I suspect it's not that different to Australia, wherein personally negotiating pay rates is not possible for most employment positions. The types of jobs where it is possible to do so are fewer than those where it isn't possible. Okay, you can say that if people want the privilege of negoting pay rates then they can just go and seek those jobs ... That's fine and dandy ... but the point is there only so many of those jobs ... and it still leaves a large number of people vieing for all those positions where such negotiations are not possible, and having to settle for what is on offer.

Indeed. So what? If the work available is common labor requiring only basic common skills, why should an employer pay more for such labor than what the average qualified applicant will accept for the work? When you're in competition for a job, you have to either ask for less or prove you're worth more in order to be offered more. So what? That's how business works. You seem to think that the employer owes you something. He doesn't.

Here, at least, we have workers unions to negotiate rates and working conditions on behalf of a bloc of employees.

I have no particular quibble with private-sector unions, so long as they don't misuse government power to give them an advantage in the negotiations (as they do under the National Labor Relations Board regulations here in the US). Banding together to negotiate with an employer is perfectly appropriate, so long as the employer is free to say "no thanks" and boot all union members out and hire non-union workers. That way, it's a free and equal negotiation in which the employer seeks to obtain skilled employees who will all work for a negotiated wage/work structure without his having to negotiate with each employee, and the employees will have a representative negotiator to look after their interests, but with the understanding that if they ask for too much, they may ALL be fired and replaced.

This balance of power works pretty well when government doesn't put its thumb on the scale one way or the other.

Public-sector unions...that's another thing entirely and ought to be utterly illegal.