This 6 minute video sums up the shocking facts of American wealth and inequality

[Billy000]

"In 1996, Congress enacted welfare reform legislation that included three main elements, the most important being the work requirement. As a result of this reform, welfare caseloads dropped by half and employment rates among welfare recipients soared. Nonetheless, this sparked significant liberal opposition, which has increased over the years even though the vast majority of Americans favor work requirements. Unable to roll back workfare legislatively, liberals are employing an illegal bureaucratic tactic to gut the work requirements in the original legislation. The Obama Administration has declared the work provisions null and void and has granted itself unlimited authority to re-craft the work standards in any manner it chooses. "

"However, in July 2012, the Obama Administration issued a bureaucratic edict proposing to overturn the work requirements that formed the core of the 1996 law. This action by the Obama Administration clearly violated the intent and letter of the legislation."

Work and Welfare Reform: Impact of Workfare Programs

The Heritage Foundation? Really? Pure distortion. You might as well pulled that bullshit from Fox News. Factcheck.org on the other hand, is a non partisan, balanced source.

 

[Vox]

"In 1996, Congress enacted welfare reform legislation that included three main elements, the most important being the work requirement. As a result of this reform, welfare caseloads dropped by half and employment rates among welfare recipients soared. Nonetheless, this sparked significant liberal opposition, which has increased over the years even though the vast majority of Americans favor work requirements. Unable to roll back workfare legislatively, liberals are employing an illegal bureaucratic tactic to gut the work requirements in the original legislation. The Obama Administration has declared the work provisions null and void and has granted itself unlimited authority to re-craft the work standards in any manner it chooses. "

"However, in July 2012, the Obama Administration issued a bureaucratic edict proposing to overturn the work requirements that formed the core of the 1996 law. This action by the Obama Administration clearly violated the intent and letter of the legislation."

Work and Welfare Reform: Impact of Workfare Programs

The Heritage Foundation? Really? Pure distortion. You might as well pulled that bullshit from Fox News. Factcheck.org on the other hand, is a non partisan, balanced source.

bwahaha
as credible as mother jones

 

[Billy000]

"In 1996, Congress enacted welfare reform legislation that included three main elements, the most important being the work requirement. As a result of this reform, welfare caseloads dropped by half and employment rates among welfare recipients soared. Nonetheless, this sparked significant liberal opposition, which has increased over the years even though the vast majority of Americans favor work requirements. Unable to roll back workfare legislatively, liberals are employing an illegal bureaucratic tactic to gut the work requirements in the original legislation. The Obama Administration has declared the work provisions null and void and has granted itself unlimited authority to re-craft the work standards in any manner it chooses. "

"However, in July 2012, the Obama Administration issued a bureaucratic edict proposing to overturn the work requirements that formed the core of the 1996 law. This action by the Obama Administration clearly violated the intent and letter of the legislation."

Work and Welfare Reform: Impact of Workfare Programs

The Heritage Foundation? Really? Pure distortion. You might as well pulled that bullshit from Fox News. Factcheck.org on the other hand, is a non partisan, balanced source.

bwahaha
as credible as mother jones

Can you back that up? No of course you can't.

 

[Vox]

The Heritage Foundation? Really? Pure distortion. You might as well pulled that bullshit from Fox News. Factcheck.org on the other hand, is a non partisan, balanced source.

bwahaha
as credible as mother jones

Can you back that up? No of course you can't.

can you back you claims?

of course, you do not

 

[Vox]

an organisation which has is directly connected to Bill Ayers and Barack Obama ( while he was in Chicago) is as "non-partisan" and "unbiased" as media matters
LOL

What you will find on factcheck.org is a statement in the header: A Project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Who is the Annenberg Public Policy Center? Funding for APPC comes through an endowment established by the Annenberg Foundation.

The director is Kathleen Hall Jamison. Not much is said about her personal views on the APPC website, but she did coauthor a book called The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Messages Shaped the 2008 Election and a previous book written to criticize Rush Limbaugh.

Interestingly, another project of the Annenberg Foundation was the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The first Chairman of the Board for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was none other than our President, Barack Obama. When I googled "Obama Annenberg," I found this article: Obama's connections to factcheck.org exposed by Texas Darlin.

Back during the campaign days when questions were asked about the Obama-Ayers connection (Ayers was part of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge) Obama defenders would cite that the Annenberg for whom the foundation was named was conservative and a friend of Reagan. Be that as it may, it appears his foundation has gone the way of supporting some views that are decidedly not in line with Reagan.

It is beginning to look like Factcheck.org is about as non-partisan as MediaMatters.

To start, Ayers was the key founder of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which was a Chicago public school reform project from 1995 to 2001. Upon its start in 1995, Obama was appointed Board Chairman and President of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Geesh, that alone connects all three. Well, it branches out even more from there.

Ayers co-chaired the organization’s Collaborative, which set the education policies of the Challenge. Oddly enough, Obama was the one who was authorized to delegate to the Collaborative in regards to its programs and projects. In addition to that, Obama often times had to seek advice and assistance from the Ayer’s led Collaborative in regards to the programmatic aspects of grant proposals. Ayers even sat on the same board as Obama as an “ex officio member”. They both also sat together on the board of the CAC’s Governance Committee. Obama and Ayers were two parts of a group of four who were instructed to draft the bylaws that would govern the CAC. Keep in mind that the “A” in CAC is for Annenberg, the owners of FactCheck.org. The funding for Ayer’s projects and those of his cronies was approved by Board Chair, Barack Obama.

 

[Staidhup]

So after you drove the manufacturing component from the economy with punitive regulations, excessive taxation, coupled with pro union anti corporate bull shit you wake up today and wonder why the middle class has been decimated? You can't be that naive and ignorant not to understand how this happened. Now the left says wow the curve has really changed, must be those evil greedy corporate junkies when in fact it is the result of the very actions and regulations crammed down the corporate throats by those on the left. You bet they moved manufacturing offshore, only a fool would attempt to run a business in a punitive anti business environment without the ability to make a profit. Then we have those that want the best products at the cheapest prices, those very same people that bitch about the shift in wealth and vote for every liberal politician that promises a free ride at the expense of others and you wonder what happened to the middle class?

 

[Billy000]

an organisation which has is directly connected to Bill Ayers and Barack Obama ( while he was in Chicago) is as "non-partisan" and "unbiased" as media matters
LOL

What you will find on factcheck.org is a statement in the header: A Project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Who is the Annenberg Public Policy Center? Funding for APPC comes through an endowment established by the Annenberg Foundation.

The director is Kathleen Hall Jamison. Not much is said about her personal views on the APPC website, but she did coauthor a book called The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Messages Shaped the 2008 Election and a previous book written to criticize Rush Limbaugh.

Interestingly, another project of the Annenberg Foundation was the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The first Chairman of the Board for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was none other than our President, Barack Obama. When I googled "Obama Annenberg," I found this article: Obama's connections to factcheck.org exposed by Texas Darlin.

Back during the campaign days when questions were asked about the Obama-Ayers connection (Ayers was part of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge) Obama defenders would cite that the Annenberg for whom the foundation was named was conservative and a friend of Reagan. Be that as it may, it appears his foundation has gone the way of supporting some views that are decidedly not in line with Reagan.

It is beginning to look like Factcheck.org is about as non-partisan as MediaMatters.

To start, Ayers was the key founder of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which was a Chicago public school reform project from 1995 to 2001. Upon its start in 1995, Obama was appointed Board Chairman and President of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Geesh, that alone connects all three. Well, it branches out even more from there.

Ayers co-chaired the organization’s Collaborative, which set the education policies of the Challenge. Oddly enough, Obama was the one who was authorized to delegate to the Collaborative in regards to its programs and projects. In addition to that, Obama often times had to seek advice and assistance from the Ayer’s led Collaborative in regards to the programmatic aspects of grant proposals. Ayers even sat on the same board as Obama as an “ex officio member”. They both also sat together on the board of the CAC’s Governance Committee. Obama and Ayers were two parts of a group of four who were instructed to draft the bylaws that would govern the CAC. Keep in mind that the “A” in CAC is for Annenberg, the owners of FactCheck.org. The funding for Ayer’s projects and those of his cronies was approved by Board Chair, Barack Obama.

you've got to be kidding me. This is a complete joke. Not only does this do nothing to prove a bias for the website, it doesn't even address specific content on the website.

Come on. Is this really the best you have? This is Glenn Beck level childish reasoning.

 

[Staidhup]

The problem with the liberal mindset is they are unwilling to accept the consequences for their actions and accept culpability. Ever notice how they whine and whine and always point the finger at the other guy and yet keep repeating the same mistakes over and over? As a very learned person once observed, to be a liberal one must be very poor or very rich.

 

[RevenantBlues]

I encourage you to watch the 6 minute video completely and keep an open mind.

I do understand this topic has been discussed thoroughly already, but I think it is interesting how it samples the perception of the issue by the American people.

If I have correctly read between the lines of the intention of your topic OP intimated by the video you've posted, what I take away from that is your honest concern for the waning equal opportunity for every American to not only survive, but thrive as well and for the in retreat ability of the lower classes to affect some kind of change or have some voice of representation in the workings of their govenment comparable to those who vastly control the wealth which is inanimate proxy for an inconcievably unparalleled in its effectiveness vehicle of political influence.

After reading every response in this thread to the Op's video I have reached two conclusions. Hatred of the poor in America is evidently rampant, and the cry of logical fallacy drawn from party brainwashing has been levied by those at least as brainwashed as anyone else who suscribes to one party line or another.

What I see is sanitized stereotyping of adherents to either side. Republicans hate the poor whose very lives cost them chunks of their income, while Democrats only want to redistribute wealth and remove from the table the birthright opportunites of every man - namely those who through zen like hard work earned their billions. Republicans know how to cook, poor people are too dumb to do anything other than play Xbox and woof down Big Macs. Fingers have been pointed, scapegoat and stereotype bombs dropped and the OP's original intent volleyed back and forth for self satisfaction of loading up on points with other forum members of the same ideology.

OP I think you've made us aware of a very poignant to the well being of our citizenry issue deserving at least the unbiased discussion you originally sought in opening this thread. In effect, some Americans live without need - without understanding even of the concept of worrying about from where their next meal will arise, while many live paycheck to paycheck often paying bills to maintain mediocre credit, to have electricity, a place to live, instead of purchasing sufficient food to satisfy their nutritional needs.

The comparisons between the "have everythings" and the "have next to nothings" are finite yet exhaustively extensive. No need to list them as they are made obvious by the people who live these disparities daily.

What I most wanted to address was the sheer ignorance of those who claim every American from his or her first breath begins life with equal opportunity; opportunity which can lead anyone to the billionaire promised land, or to a starring role in some future summer blockbuster.

Life is what you make of it - but you cannot always or even consistently protect yourself from forces that can derail the fruits of the hardest labor or best designed plan. Each of us is a variation of the other, we cannot as a people consistently progress from one social class to a much higher one; that is impossible. We are three hundred million unique universes. Some of us work our way into an acceptable quality of life, others get a headstart or opportunity knocks at the right time, while still others - many, many others try just as hard but falter or are without similar opportunity to begin with. Not everyone can simply "make it happen" as has been suggested by many in this thread.

Opportunity abounds although not equally and not for everyone. That is one of the greatest and cruelest myths of American society, the belief that everyone can be wealthy, successful, bathe in excess, etc. Wealth is finite, and those who control most of it want to continue to do so, not at any cost in general, but at the cost of controling who rises and who falls both economically and politically.

As for all the digs against the poor; you who made them have insulted your own intelligence. Either that, or the words you've written are intentional fallacies crafted to make you look cool in the eyes of your fellow party members.

Unfortunately Americans do vote universally with the dollars they earn. The reigning philosophy seems to be "If I have earned mine, everyone else can too." which really is some demonstration of ignorance.

The greatest problem of our time in America is that corporations large and small have more rights than the individual citizen. If a small business owner cannot pay an employee a living wage, then that business owner should not be able to afford to stay in business. For centuries the landed lord translated to modernity as the business owner has had the power to dictate how much the private citizen's labor should be worth. That's the way it works, the way it is, and that is also the application of value to a given worker's being - much like bidding for slaves on the block.

 

[koshergrl]

Ah, relativism. Everybody is equally bad...and corporations are da debil.

 

[Vox]

an organisation which has is directly connected to Bill Ayers and Barack Obama ( while he was in Chicago) is as "non-partisan" and "unbiased" as media matters
LOL

What you will find on factcheck.org is a statement in the header: A Project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Who is the Annenberg Public Policy Center? Funding for APPC comes through an endowment established by the Annenberg Foundation.

The director is Kathleen Hall Jamison. Not much is said about her personal views on the APPC website, but she did coauthor a book called The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Messages Shaped the 2008 Election and a previous book written to criticize Rush Limbaugh.

Interestingly, another project of the Annenberg Foundation was the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The first Chairman of the Board for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was none other than our President, Barack Obama. When I googled "Obama Annenberg," I found this article: Obama's connections to factcheck.org exposed by Texas Darlin.

Back during the campaign days when questions were asked about the Obama-Ayers connection (Ayers was part of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge) Obama defenders would cite that the Annenberg for whom the foundation was named was conservative and a friend of Reagan. Be that as it may, it appears his foundation has gone the way of supporting some views that are decidedly not in line with Reagan.

It is beginning to look like Factcheck.org is about as non-partisan as MediaMatters.

To start, Ayers was the key founder of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which was a Chicago public school reform project from 1995 to 2001. Upon its start in 1995, Obama was appointed Board Chairman and President of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Geesh, that alone connects all three. Well, it branches out even more from there.

Ayers co-chaired the organization’s Collaborative, which set the education policies of the Challenge. Oddly enough, Obama was the one who was authorized to delegate to the Collaborative in regards to its programs and projects. In addition to that, Obama often times had to seek advice and assistance from the Ayer’s led Collaborative in regards to the programmatic aspects of grant proposals. Ayers even sat on the same board as Obama as an “ex officio member”. They both also sat together on the board of the CAC’s Governance Committee. Obama and Ayers were two parts of a group of four who were instructed to draft the bylaws that would govern the CAC. Keep in mind that the “A” in CAC is for Annenberg, the owners of FactCheck.org. The funding for Ayer’s projects and those of his cronies was approved by Board Chair, Barack Obama.

you've got to be kidding me. This is a complete joke. Not only does this do nothing to prove a bias for the website, it doesn't even address specific content on the website.

Come on. Is this really the best you have? This is Glenn Beck level childish reasoning.

this site is a joke.

like mother jones. or media matters

and as a result - you do not have an argument.

 

[koshergrl]

Did he ever actually make an argument???

 

[Vox]

Did he ever actually make an argument???

no

he said that Heritage Foundation can not be trusted, but factcheck.org is the "ultimate truth".

turns out it is a biased libtard source.
Even if they mask their leftist bias .

there have been numerous occasions during the 2008 and 2012 campaigns when they were caught lying.
And an organization which often quotes AP as if the latter is a fact-proven truth, not another MSM, is one of the more subtle biases.

 

[Missouri_Mike]

I think RKMBrown comes closest to answering this question honestly. Minimum wage is essentially government mandated unionism.

Thats a slight stretch. It may be an aspect unions mimic but its not government mandated unionism.

How is it not? The whole point of unions is for workers to unite and demand more money and better working conditions. For that to happen, they have to 'bring the pain' to anyone who doesn't play along. Isn't that what minimum wage laws mandate - that people aren't allowed to undercut their fellow workers by accepting less than the majority deems 'minimal'?

You "bring the pain" when your skills are worth more than the rest of the heard, and you demand as well as get more than those under you. It's called success. There is no reason to tether yourself to failures in thinking you need to bring them up with you.

Union negotiations mean you have to settle on not only your best performance but the other peoples worst and come up with a wage that you both share equally somewhere in the middle.

This muddling of the worst deserving pay for what the best can produce is the failure of the unions. Of course by that I mean the failures need and rely on the union.

What do you have once the good people leave the union and take your leverage with them?

 

[Gadawg73]

Wake up Americans
Ignore the growing uneducated, poor, young, child bearing single mother and you will get more of that as the system offers incentives for that model.
And you wonder why shareholders of corporations, THE MIDDLE CLASS, demand higher dividends along with consumers demanding competitive prices and a corporation is forced to build manufacturing overseas to keep the parent company that is still based in the US with 40% of the non manufacturing staff trying to avoid bankruptcy.

 

[Gadawg73]

Unions are for people, individuals, too stupid, uneducated and unskilled to negotiate a fair wage for the individual skills they have on their own.

 

[Billy000]

Did he ever actually make an argument???

no

he said that Heritage Foundation can not be trusted, but factcheck.org is the "ultimate truth".

turns out it is a biased libtard source.
Even if they mask their leftist bias .

there have been numerous occasions during the 2008 and 2012 campaigns when they were caught lying.
And an organization which often quotes AP as if the latter is a fact-proven truth, not another MSM, is one of the more subtle biases.

I never said anything about "ultimate truth"

If you actually kept up with factcheck.org, you would know that they had plenty of criticism for Obama during the 2012 campaign.

 

[Brain357]

Wake up Americans
Ignore the growing uneducated, poor, young, child bearing single mother and you will get more of that as the system offers incentives for that model.
And you wonder why shareholders of corporations, THE MIDDLE CLASS, demand higher dividends along with consumers demanding competitive prices and a corporation is forced to build manufacturing overseas to keep the parent company that is still based in the US with 40% of the non manufacturing staff trying to avoid bankruptcy.

Forced to move manufacturing so that the executives can make even more money.

 

[Gadawg73]

Wake up Americans
Ignore the growing uneducated, poor, young, child bearing single mother and you will get more of that as the system offers incentives for that model.
And you wonder why shareholders of corporations, THE MIDDLE CLASS, demand higher dividends along with consumers demanding competitive prices and a corporation is forced to build manufacturing overseas to keep the parent company that is still based in the US with 40% of the non manufacturing staff trying to avoid bankruptcy.

Forced to move manufacturing so that the executives can make even more money.

Are you really that ignorant?
What % of a company is manufacturing that makes things?
If you don't know that most of the companies that have moved their manufacturing overseas THE REST OF THE COMPANY STAYS HERE.
What is an "executive"? I doubt you understand anything about business.
So how many "executives" work for a manufacturing company?
How many people are in sales, accounts receivables, marketing, accounts payable, collections and the dozens of other jobs OTHER THAN MANUFACTURING in a company?
Please go learn something about the manufacturing industry and their organizational chart.
You are making a damn fool out of yourself with your knee jerk parroting of left wing platitudes that have no basis or foundation in fact.

 

[Gadawg73]

It amazes me the complete ignorance of the left with anything to do with business.