MikeQ
Member
Did you not notice that the Costa Rica had worse equality record than the U.S. (per your report)?
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Did you not notice that the Costa Rica had worse equality record than the U.S. (per your report)?
mspohr
Well-Known Member
No, I didn't notice that... I don't think it's true. I didn't see it in the report.
It seems to be corroborated here as well.
Inequality - Income inequality - OECD Data
We in the US are certainly no shining beacon in this regard, though.
MikeQ
Member
This is from your data. The only place Costa Rica appreciably beats the U.S. is in Ecological footprint. Also Costa Rica's inequality is getting worse (per the link I posted). The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It's true that the poor have longer lifespans that the U.S. but the rich have about the same. The major contributing factor to Costa Rica scoring higher is due to the lack of access to smoking and fast food.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
ROFL. So you get to "pick and chose" what you believe and want to push to others are "fact"?
Alternative Facts For the World!!!
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
mspohr
Well-Known Member
So, Costa Rica has better life expectancy, well being, and ecological footprint than the US and comes out first on the HPI compared to the US which is 108/140 and you're proud of the US?
The point of this is that you can have a good quality of life without the ecological damage, poor health of the US comsumptive lifestyle.
The fact that the US is a few places up in income inequality from Costa Rica is irrelevant compared to the ecological damage our corporate greed does to the world. I do understand that it increases your insecurity to realize that the US is not #1 in everything (and is far down the league tables in many things) but please do take comfort that our income inequality is a full 5 places better than Costa Rica.
Do you have a scientific source for that? Everything I've read points to that being nothing but a comforting myth.
MikeQ
Member
We're 108 PURELY because of the ecological factor. This is something we can improve upon WITHOUT socialism. You're original hypothesis was that Costa Rica was #1 because of their socialist leanings. They are #1 because they get 98% of their power from renewables. That has nothing to do with your original claims that their socialist economy made them #1. In fact their socialist economy produces some of the highest inequity in the world. We're only marginally better but Costa Rica certainly isn't a model to follow.
Also as Kort said, we have far more opportunity in this country. If we have inequity, it's because people are choosing not to take advantage of that opportunity.
MikeQ
Member
I think you're confusing financial inequality with opportunity.
I left home 8 days after I graduated high school with $0 dollars in my pocket. I'm now wealthy enough to own a Tesla. My wife was in the same situation. We've carved out a nice upper middle class existence with zero financial help and starting from poverty.
We had a black president recently that started off at the bottom as well.
I'm the child of immigrants, raised by a single mother, and I did the same and retired quite early. And while I busted my butt to get here, I am smart enough to realize that's not the only factor that contributed to my financial success. There were many barriers I didn't face that others do.
Also - did you see my link? It discusses the myth of the meritocracy.
MikeQ
Member
It discussed the myth. It didn't provide any data. It basically shows that the financial inequality is growing. That's not a surprise since people aren't going after the high paying jobs. We're importing people who will. Nothing in that report showed me that people who try hard can't get ahead. In fact it says the opposite to me. With the high inequality, working hard and climbing the ladder will have a inordinately high level of compensation.
Our biggest falling in this country is with our parents who have not prepared their children for the real world. My wife sees it every day as a teacher. Parents complain if their child is stressed about school. They ask for special favors because they don't like to see their child upset over school work. It's utterly depressing how bad parenting is today. My wife literally had a parent that went to the principal to try to reduce the amount of homework my wife gave because doing homework didn't fit in with their busy sports schedule.
So what factors contributed to your success that didn't come from you? I mean I can't think of anything that wasn't a result of my decision making that led to my success. I've never been handed anything...at least not anything that wasn't available to anyone else.
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Congratulations. Unlike you, I never had to overcome racial bias or profiling. I didn't grow up in a poor urban area where the schools underserved me. I was lucky enough to have peers who were not exposed to family members in and out of jail. My neighborhood, unlike yours, consisted of lower middle class but relatively stable families. I wasn't subjected to or exposed to domestic and neighborhood violence throughout my youth.
I could go on and on, but you already know the things you had to overcome. I was lucky enough to only have to work hard.
There is decades worth of data proving that hard work alone is not sufficient for everyone to succeed. This is an extensively studied subject, and government policy played(plays) a large role in who succeeds and who benefits from the economy. For just one example, government policies such as "redlining" determined who (based on race) was able to get home-loans, and in which areas, and at what rates. Those who got home loans were able to pass that wealth to their children, and borrow against their equity to start businesses, send their children to college, etc. Home loan policies also effected education, because education is funded by local property tax -- the ability to borrow money and build homes, or renovate them increased home value and therefore increased school funding, so children had better outcomes. No amount of hard work or credit-worthiness would let certain people benefit in that way. Success was based on factors outside of their control, and the effects of policies like redlining abandoned decades ago are still skewing results.
That’s delicious irony. Anecdotes work for your bias, then? Or did you have science to back it up?
How many rags to rags stories are interesting enough to make your news stream? Selection bias, anyone?
MikeQ
Member
Funny, both our children went to magnet schools in low income neighborhoods. They went there because those schools have the best funding, the best teachers and the best programs The kids in these low income neighborhoods are anything but underserved by the school system. They are provide a great education as well as 3 free meals a day. Emotionally they are often provided much more. It's the parents that are undeserving them. A certain aspect of our society has embraced violence and drugs as a culture. Until that changes from within. The inequality in this country will not change.
My wife is Native American/Mexican and grew up in abject poverty. She's never let that hold her back. In fact it's why she's the driven person she is today. Since leaving home, she's never been the recipient of any social program, grant, scholarship, etc... We both joined the Army out of High School as a means to employ and educate ourselves. We both attended classes while in the military and we both used our GI bill to attend college after the Army. With our educations have built a great life. Has it been hard? Yes. Do I wish it was easier? No. You don't appreciate what you have when it's easy.
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