dreamdancer 0 #26 November 9, 2011 QuoteShocking figures revealed today that one in 15 people in America is now living in poverty. The number - a record high - is spread widely across metropolitan areas as the country's economic troubles continue to bite. And almost 15 per cent of the population are also now on food stamps, it emerged yesterday. The ranks of the poor applying for food stamps increased by a worrying 8.1 per cent over the past year to make a total of 45.8 million. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056864/Handout-nation-Food-stamp-map-America-reveals-hotspots-15-population-government-help.htmlstay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shah269 0 #27 November 10, 2011 50 mill is that the number of people who are now poor? WOW! That's not right, no matter how you cut it or talk about it that is just not right! I recall speaking to a friend who works for the world bank and asked what would happen in the next 10 years. He said and I quote "The rich will get even richer, the poor will die and the middle class...don't ask." And he works for the world bank and he could see what was happening. You have a system where the upper management rightfully so get's incentivized to improve over all organizational efficiency. As such these folks are doing what makes them the most money, pushing the working resources to produce the same level of output or more at an ever reduced numbers. So you are now locked in a downward spiral of death. Upper management fires people, and gets the remainder to do the same work and gets a nice bonus.....demand drops. To meet expectations of growth, more people are let go and the remainder are asked to do even more, manager gets bonus....demand drops. To meet increased expectations of growth, the remainder are not given a pay increase, prices are held or increased, manager gets a bonus. And the process continues until you have one person making a solid 50% less than they should doing the job of 5 people......and the manager wondering how they can make more money.....because demand is at an all time high. But in the end, the manager is holding all the money and well the employees are....out of a job or worked to death and under paid! Sounds like the early 1900's to me! He said and I quote "The rich will get even richer, the poor will die and the middle class...don't ask." And he works for the world bank and he could see what was happening. You have a system where tehLife through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay. The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #28 November 10, 2011 it's a good thing you were too young to be around in the 70s...you'd have killed yourself in despair. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dreamdancer 0 #29 November 10, 2011 this is worse than the seventies...stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #30 November 10, 2011 Quotethis is worse than the seventies... right...because being unemployed with a home loan for 6 or 7 % is SO MUCH worse than one with 20%, and the specter of nuclear holocaust. Or being drafted and killed in Vietnam. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shah269 0 #31 November 10, 2011 Quoteit's a good thing you were too young to be around in the 70s...you'd have killed yourself in despair. I study history, you guys in the 70's wow! Really WOW! You guys really worked your buts off! But back then things were different. And please allow me to explain why. Back in the 70's you had a finite minimum number of employees every company needed to stay functional. Case in point most engineering offices had say 1 secretary per 10 engineers for time keeping and what not. And for those 10 engineers you probably had a good number of drafts people as well. Let's say for the case of argument every engineer had 2 drafts people for a total of 20. Thus the base work was 1+10+20=32 people minimum for a functional office. Anything above that was wasted resources and as such a good manager would lean out the work force to 32 people in lean times. Doing so would garner him a very nice thank you check from his employer. Eventually the economy heated back up again when energy prices stabilized and those 32 people felt more comfortable and began buying products and services and the economy came back. Now the very same office you have 10 engineers, you don't need a secretary per 10 engineers for now it's 30 engineers to secretary and you really don't need drafts people. So your new minimum work force is 10+0+0=10 people minimum for a functional office. Well let's be honest each engineer can really do more work so your manager then cuts the staff further to 5 engineers and cuts their pay by 10% and picks up another bonus do to their amazing ability to get the same level of work out of a much smaller leaner lower paid work force. As such you have a smaller base of people to rely on to fuel the economic recovery. If and when the economy does recover...which at the moment it's not going to do since well...what is going to get it to come back? Energy prices are stable. Inflation is stable. The world is at peace...what more do you want? And the reason being? Other than the continued culture of bonuses paid to those who downsize faster and quicker than expected? Technology! So yes in a way the 70's were bad! But at least your bottom wasn't mass starvation with little to no hope for recovery. Expect this dead economy to last another 10 years minimum. No joke! 10 years. And expect pays to decrease by 10% per person per year from now till then. So by the time this is done, and all the blood has been sucked from the middle of society....average income in the US per person will be just north of $30k, right now it's $45k. And expect those with the means of production to have amazing power over what and how this country is run. Much as the good old days were back in the early 1900's.Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay. The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dreamdancer 0 #32 November 10, 2011 QuoteQuotethis is worse than the seventies... right...because being unemployed with a home loan for 6 or 7 % is SO MUCH worse than one with 20%, and the specter of nuclear holocaust. Or being drafted and killed in Vietnam. there was no nuclear holocaust, very few people got drafted to vietnam. on the other hand at the tail end of a massive, global money bubble the us is about to lose its empire - definitely worse than the seventies...stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #33 November 10, 2011 QuoteQuoteit's a good thing you were too young to be around in the 70s...you'd have killed yourself in despair. I study history, you guys in the 70's wow! Really WOW! You guys really worked your buts off! But back then things were different. And please allow me to explain why. Shah studied something? LOL. Dude, you're talking out your ass. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #34 November 10, 2011 Quote very few people got drafted to vietnam. 25% (648,500) of total forces in country were draftees. (66% of US armed forces members were drafted during ww11). * Draftees accounted for 30.4% (17,725) of combat deaths in Vietnam. very few = 18 thousand men in your world? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dreamdancer 0 #35 November 10, 2011 QuoteQuote very few people got drafted to vietnam. 25% (648,500) of total forces in country were draftees. (66% of US armed forces members were drafted during ww11). * Draftees accounted for 30.4% (17,725) of combat deaths in Vietnam. very few = 18 thousand men in your world? 18,000 compared to a population of 300 million. more people probably had heart attacks... (the economic effect was much greater than the number of casualties - a huge chunk of productive capacity was thrown at vietnam and its neighbours)stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #36 November 10, 2011 QuoteQuoteQuote very few people got drafted to vietnam. 25% (648,500) of total forces in country were draftees. (66% of US armed forces members were drafted during ww11). * Draftees accounted for 30.4% (17,725) of combat deaths in Vietnam. very few = 18 thousand men in your world? 18,000 compared to a population of 300 million. more people probably had heart attacks... (the economic effect was much greater than the number of casualties - a huge chunk of productive capacity was thrown at vietnam and its neighbours) Actually, as you wrote it was drafted, the number is 650,000 out of a much smaller population of young men (and the us population in 1970 was 203M.) And I can assure you 18000 young men didn't die of heart attacks. Still dreaming for intelligent conversation from you, dancer. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dreamdancer 0 #37 November 10, 2011 sounds like the seventies scared you - it's going to get much worse... have you not noticed 2 million in prison as part of the war on the poor...stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dreamdancer 0 #38 November 10, 2011 QuoteHeart Attack Facts 1.5 million heart attacks occur in the United States each year with 500,000 deaths. More than 233,000 women die annually from cardiovascular disease. A heart attack occurs about every 20 seconds with a heart attack death about every minute. http://www.womensheart.org/content/heartattack/heart_attack_facts.aspstay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #39 November 10, 2011 Now you just need to alter the statistics to match the 70s population, and figure out how many of them were draft eligible. HINT: it's a small number. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SpeedRacer 1 #40 November 10, 2011 There is a disturbing trend in the US which makes its demographics becoming more like a 3rd world country: High unemployment, the concentration of wealth and power in the few at the top, the decline of the middle class, and the rise of religious power in politics to distract the people from their economic repression. Speed Racer -------------------------------------------------- Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dreamdancer 0 #41 November 10, 2011 QuoteThe United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners. Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations. Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html?pagewanted=allstay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Elite_Marksman 0 #42 November 10, 2011 Quotesounds like the seventies scared you - it's going to get much worse... have you not noticed 2 million in prison as part of the war on the poor... Please, provide me a single case in the US where someone is currently serving a prison sentence for being "poor." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dreamdancer 0 #43 November 10, 2011 well, prison certainly isn't full of rich people is it?stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #44 November 10, 2011 QuoteChina, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison. (That number excludes hundreds of thousands of people held in administrative detention, most of them in China's extrajudicial system of re-education through labor, which often singles out political activists who have not committed crimes.) And just as importantly, you can't imprison someone if you don't even arrest from for the crime. Lawless nations have unpunished crime. (Same seems to be true of England, where a catch and release approach is put to use with the people suffering). But the question this begs is why are you redirecting the conversation? (Answer- because it wasn't working out too well for you) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CanuckInUSA 0 #45 November 10, 2011 Quote this is worse than the seventies... Yeah it's so much harder these days playing XBox console games all day long in your parent's basement and when not showing the online world what a great gamer that you are, you can be texting your friends from your local "Occupy" protests using your iPhone and for the truly oppressed it is so much harder these days surfing the net at your local Starbucks while you wait for your tall mocha non-fat latte to be served up to you on a silver platter and still hold out hope that the battery on you iPad will not die on you. Yes we are living in the worst depression humanity has ever known. Owning the complete suit of Apple products from the Mac, to the iPods, iPads and iPhones is a basic human right in these depressed times. BTW what is the low down on the new MW3? Is it worth getting? Try not to worry about the things you have no control over Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #46 November 10, 2011 QuoteThere is a disturbing trend in the US which makes its demographics becoming more like a 3rd world country: High unemployment, the concentration of wealth and power in the few at the top, the decline of the middle class, and the rise of religious power in politics to distract the people from their economic repression. Yes and no. The current trendlines are not good ones, but it's also inaccurate to compare our poor and our middle class with that of 3rd world nations, where even a mediocre inner school education is not an option for many. When illegal aliens start jumping the border to head south (see the recent South Park), then we have become more like a 3rd world nation. But we're pretty damn far away. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
weekender 0 #47 November 10, 2011 >To meet expectations of growth, more people are let go and the remainder are asked to do even more, manager gets bonus....demand drops. >To meet increased expectations of growth, the remainder are not given a pay increase, prices are held or increased, manager gets a bonus. that makes no sense to anyone who has every worked in banking. the world bank is not a for profit organization. you and your friend have no clue what you are talking about banking managers are paid based on the rev's on the group they manage. every manager in the history of banking tries to grow their group and thus revenues. the bigger group you manage the more important you are and the bigger your paycheck. no one gets bonus's for laying off. that is a complete fabrication of someones imagination. its quite simple. banks hire when they are profitable and lay off when they lose money. the firm tells groups to cut say, 10% of personnel. the managers make the decision and let people go. they dont get to keep anything. actually their bonus is less since usually less producing people mean less rev's. you cannot just make stuff up and assume no one posting here actual understands how the financial industry works. and for the record, the world bank is a bureaucracy similiar to the DMV. your local bank teller has more knowledge of the banking industry than those guys."The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dreamdancer 0 #48 November 10, 2011 i'm happy for you to keep bumping the thread with silly comparisons...stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Elite_Marksman 0 #49 November 10, 2011 Quotewell, prison certainly isn't full of rich people is it? It's full of people who commit crimes, regardless of financial status. Now, before they were put in jail were they poor? For the most part, yes, the people in prison were poor before they went in prison. Regardless, they are not in prison for being poor, they are in prison for committing some crime. If you do any research into criminal justice, you will find that poor people are far more likely to commit violent crimes than those who are not poor. And seeing as how the majority of people in prisons are there because of violent crimes... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #50 November 11, 2011 Quote you cannot just make stuff up and assume no one posting here actual understands how the financial industry works. and for the record, the world bank is a bureaucracy similiar to the DMV. your local bank teller has more knowledge of the banking industry than those guys. ouch. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
