(02-28-2020 09:36 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(02-28-2020 07:02 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-28-2020 01:33 AM)mrbig Wrote:  

(02-27-2020 11:33 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Why should you have had to live in a trailer park instead of a 4-2-2 just because you had a poor single mom? You should have equal housing. All kids should live in nice houses in nice neighborhoods, and Big and I will pay for it, him voluntarily, me under duress and the threat of prison.
I think your statement about teacher pay says you think current teachers are not so competent. I agree. But paying incompetent teachers more will just make them determined to stay, and the unions will support that.
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I get tired of your constant refrain of living in a trailer park. Lots of us, including me, were not raised in any better circumstances.

Sorry, I didn't remember mentioning my trailer park upbringing before. Just trying to provide a frame of reference. Didn't mean to offend you.
Also, I don't know what a 4-2-2 is.

(02-27-2020 11:33 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  If you have a job, do you need a safety net? Do you need one?

I hope to never need one. More worried about others who are less fortunate than me.

I would be that a good safety net would provide an opportunity for more people to try their hand at entrepreneurship. I’ve got to imagine there are a lot of enterprising people out there who won’t do that because they’re in a job that offers health insurance, and quitting to start their own business could literally put their lives at risk. That’s one aspect of providing a better social safety net that I think gets overlooked - it provides a greater sense of stability for the populous that actually increases ones freedoms.
On a similar note, I’m impressed that OO grew up in a household that lived completely off grid, didn’t use the federal highway system, didn’t use public education, and didn’t rely on any progress made by federally funded research. Crazy resourceful upbringing!

My father was entrepreneurial all his life. This led to a series of boom and bust. From age 6 thru HS, it was bust. But he kept after it. Didn’t go whine to the government, life is tough. BTW, Big, a 2-1, as most of the rentals were, is two bedrooms, one bath, no garage. From age 6, I never had a bedroom.
Lived in one of the poorest towns on the Mexican border. No paved street. No AC. Gang activity. But Dad was determined to own his own business, and he did so, without any help from the government, if fact in spite of roadblocks from the government. He never called anybody boss after age 23. Great example of what grit, ambition, and hard work can achieve. Minority kid, but in a minority-majority town. No safety net.
He is my role model.

Your father is exactly the kind of person that today's welfare system stabs in the back. For a family of four, every dollar you make between $15,000 and $55,000, you lose roughly a dollar to taxes and lost benefits. It's a trap, and few people are ever able to work out of it.