you are miserable I'll give you that.

This was pre-netflix. when they first started I couldn't afford a dvd player to bother getting dvds in the mail.

Didn't even have a tv for like four years till I found a working one someone was throwing out

It means a lot considering it’s the system that put you at top 1%. Would you rather be in the bottom 90% worldwide?

So you think UK is that much better than Murica? I mean lol, ok, if you’re going with that argument.

And those would be more policies (health and educational) rather than differences in capitalism.

What's the point of being 1% wealth worldwide if you can't afford anything in the U.S. though? Highschool kids working at McDonald's aren't looked at as these very successful people because they are 1% worldwide wealth.

Now if I lived outside of the U.S. in say Thailand or Mexico while earning American income, then you'd have a point.

Who the heck on middle class income can’t afford a home and car provided you’ve put the work in, built good credit, have deposit money aside?

Seriously, only very lazy or very dumb or people who made very short sighted decisions are in this position.

Weird as fk.

If greedy corporations keeping buying Middle Class homes for over $50k asking price, no one.

Who’s talking about highschool kids? Highschool kids aren’t s supposed to be buying cars and having families.

Now if you’re 30+ and still working McDonald’s then you have other issues to sort out.

You have a serious crybaby attitude. What is your job and how much do you earn and what makes you think that you deserve more than what you currently have?

For 99% of the cases, everyone gets what they deserve in capitalism. 1% are outliers, old money, bad/good luck.

“IF”?

I mean again I don’t know the US but I’d imagine UK is very similar.

Houses are £300k+. I need 10% deposit so £30k.

Provided I have a stable job earning £25k+ per year, I can get a mortgage on that. £30k isn’t hard to save either. And let’s face it, at 30+, you should be at £35k+ minimum.

As for car, jeez, you can get a decent second hand car for £2k, plenty enough to get you around and still look respectable. You act like the west middle class are living like slaves. We’re living very privilege lives.

You work 40hrs a week, spend another 20 a week hustling online, freelance, website etc. Earn and save a decent £10k per year.

And this is the bare minimum.

Only ones I see struggling are those who live way above their means. In which case the things your complaining about is your inability to partake in the excessive consumerism culture which ironically enough, is created and encouraged by capitalism.

I can't afford a $1000 phone, which is why I got a $200 Motorola instead of an Apple. I can't afford a brand new car, which is why mine is 6 years old. I can't afford an average house, which is why I rent a cheap ass apartment. I make all of these choices now so I can afford the chit I want later when my salary and savings does allow that. Most the retards who blame "the system" and have spent all their money on Nikes, iPhones, their baby momma's child support, smokes and booze could live easily if they ran their lives with some sort of plan. There is nothing about capitalism in the USA that denies anybody anything. The things people cry about are usually due to chit decisions in life and lack of priorities.

Can't afford transportation? Yes you can. Legs. Bike. Bus.
Can't afford a home? Yes you can. Rent a room.
Can't afford school? High school is free-thats bullchit.
Can't make money? Go work in a warehouse and easily make $50-100k a year.

This. The people whining are driven by what they don’t have, they want to partake in the over-consumerism culture driven by capitalism that they claim to hate. It’s a weird paradox.

Just quit spending so much.

You know the society is thriving when everyone is given equal opportunity to be able to hit all of Maslow hierarchy of needs. Capitalist system allows everyone to touch the top of the pyramid. In most countries, you’re barely trying to get past the first 2 bottom layers on that pyramid.

Well I must say your posts do make sense. Good sound advice when I really think about it, will keep it all in mind.

lol you’re either trolling or this is the first time in misc (or any forum) anyone was ever convinced by a capitalism vs other debate.

Go look up Mark Bell's podcast, I forget what it is called, but he recently had Travis Ortmayer on who went from being #5 at World's Strongest Man to being addicted to painkillers and then opioids, losing his family, losing his house, etc to building himself back up to being invited back to WSM last year after a ten year absence. He focuses on gratitude

This.

So people blame capitalism when it's really the one's corrupting the system and then switch to socialism and those who corrupted the capitalist system, guess what they do? In fact, it makes it even easier to corrupt because the government controls everything

^^^
This. All day long.

AFAIK the EU is less broken than the US at this point; e.g. they have cheaper cell phone plans, internet plans, airline flights, etc. because there is more competition there. Here our government allows monopolies and cartels to take over.One would think, yes. I was one of the people sending e-mails, faxes, etc. protesting the bailout.

Also a factor. Printing cash from nothing and loading up the big boys at the top with it who get more "juice" from said money by virtue of being the first movers. Google Cantillon Effect.A really big deal...saw an interview that might become a thread.Because then we would have to feel bad about people sleeping on the street? Or living in their cars? People with jobs.IMO you get what you can. And that's fine. All I argue for is that if you play by the rules and do your best you should be able to pay half rent on a 2 bedroom apartment, drive an okay used car, eat a balanced diet, get medical care...you know have an alright life vs. not being able to do those things because wages are too low relative to expenses.

Maybe you are making it fine. And maybe you always will. But you just can't know for certain that you or someone you know or are responsible for won't suffer a major setback or multiple minor ones.

So let's hear your excuse for not living the life you want.

Generally not for bailouts but is the issue that simple?

Wasnt space X partially bailed out/subsidies?

Also if the gov is bailing out a bank, what happens if they don’t? Let’s say 4 major banks collapse, what happens to the peoples money tied into it and what does it do to the economy?

Maybe bailout is the answer but not just freely give everyone a pass. No bank bonuses, salary reductions, jail time for those complicit in the blatantly poor management that led to the bankruptcy. Amazing how avoiding some tax will land you in prison but banks committing fraud in the $B and no repercussions.

IMO it is still a “you get what you deserve”. Someone being born more talented than you and getting more than you doesn’t invalidate that. If I’m born 4’0 and a deformed face, do I really “deserve” a supermodel? Sure would be nice but hey, I’d like to be the world heavyweight champ but it’s not gonna happen.

People born with more talent use those talents to provide service and entertainment, the market is paying them, you who can’t entertain the public in the same way does not deserve to get paid as much as them. Life is not fair.

Even inherited money. I guess excluding old, old money, but let’s say money in the last 50 years. I see kids as a replication of yourself, so when you’re working and building your wealth, you’re not just working for yourself, you’re also working for your future self (kids). If you have druggy parents, we’ll your past self just made bad decisions, time to correct that and leave an easier time for your future self.

Income mobility and generational income mobility is better under capitalism than any other system.

I wasn't born with innate potential necessary to do the things I wanted in life. I guess that's somehow my fault for not being born the right way

Man its so awkward working with this Jewish guy that just sits around beside me while I do all the work

How is this even possible? They don't assign him anything he just sits there doing nothing all day for at least 6 years now

This, the only thing better is a benevolent dictatorship and that only lasts as long as the benevolent dictator in which case it can go badly very quickly.

So you were born without a strong work ethic, or a drive to succeed?

Cry me a river. My family immigrated here from Europe and I ended up at one of the top ranked business schools in the country.

Who you were when you were born isn’t the problem, it’s who you became.


Nothing in history has worked better than American capitalism. That’s why we have seen the majority of technological innovations come out of 1 country.

So you want to be an engineer or politician despite not having the ability to do so.
You need to be served a humble pie and understand how life works.

EDIT:"BLM crew, Nigerian crew".
Ah yes, this is the problem when you've been indoctrinated in victim mentality by your entire culture for decades, and believe things are owed to you.

Let me tell you the reality boyo.
You only deserve what you are genetically made for, and willing to put in the work for.
And you should be proud to do that activity, no matter what it is. That's the source of joy in life, not envy.

Finding your "niche" and place in society, no matter how high or low, is what gives purpose to life.

Things you can't control like what? I'll use wife as my next example. Raised by a single mother, raised in the ghetto, spent a good portion of her childhood living in shelters. As soon as she could, she got her first job, worked her ass off full time while going to school, got a degree, got a job, got a second degree while working that job, got a better job, continued to work her ass off, and eventually made it into a comfortable upper middle class life.

Now she has cousins who were not raised by single mothers, whose parents were middle class, who got everything they wanted from their parents, and one of them, a man is a felon and working at uHaul, while the other, a woman can't keep a steady job, both have no education, both have nothing to their names.

95% of time time, if you can't make it, it's your fault and yours only. Stop blaming everyone else, or expecting anyone to come save you.

Well you're wrong, jaydog is Indian.

ITT: people who still believe every child has the potential to grow up to be President



It isn't "whining" to acknowledge that we don't all get the same hand dealt. And I despise the current "victim Olympics".

The current corrupt system [crony capitalism if you will] is a problem. It is a problem for systemic collapse reasons, not for "lazy bums just don't wanna work hard" reasons. If you aren't in the top 1% you have been getting shafted to some degree.

https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion...ality-america/
I was specifically referring to the 07-08 crisis. Financial institutions did very stupid risky things and should have [IMO] been smashed to bits with the worst actors facing civil and criminal trials.

What *could* have happened is that the government could have taken ownership of the institutions in question or alternately could have done a bail out of the institutions + firing/prosecuting the worst of their leadership + broken them up in to smaller institutions.

What should never never have happened was to leave institutions intact which are "too big to fail", which is essentially saying that a for profit enterprise has a built in backstop from the American taxpayers. If a function is that essential it should be a government enterprise, a public utility, or there should be a large enough market of private providers that the failure of a single provider will not destroy the economy.

So what did our rotten to the core government do? We made those same banks even bigger than they were before.You are correct. Life is not fair.

I'm not anti-capitalist. I just don't believe that unregulated capitalism is a stable economic model because without regulation players will cheat and rig the game.

I prefer to say you get what you can because that is how it really works. One can be talented, hard working, socially connected, fortunate...or the opposite of all those things.

Success doesn't necessarily come from merit- talent and/or hard work.

Someone can be a lazy average person with good social connections and do very well.

Another person could be talented and hard working, but never get that "big break" and so live out their days as a starving artist.

Like it or no there are decent people who are trying their best and may have done the right thing their entire lives who are getting pushed out on to the streets. I saw a report recently that half of the homeless in CA are over 50. Saw a different piece on how the middle class is getting squeezed out by increasing prices and stagnant wages.