| Submit your comments on this article |
| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Fun with income toys |
| 2003-09-06 |
Don Sensing has a link to the Global Rich List, which is a toy in which you can poke in your annual income and learn that you're the 34,687,491st richest person in the world or something. He then goes on to discuss Tommy Slush and his family:He lived with his wife and two daughters in a mobile home in a trailer park. Tommy has had a steady job for thirty years. His employer praised Tommy's work ethic as one of the strongest he has ever seen. Tommy often worked double shifts as an assistant pressman at Ambrose Printing and Office Supply. He makes four hundred and twenty-five dollars per week. His wife and oldest daughter work also.The U.S. proverty line for a family of four was a cash income less than $18,104 last year. I poked in that figure, of course, and found that it puts American po' folks with poverty line income among the 8.51% richest people in the world. 5,488,946,015 (just about 5.5 billion) people are worse off. 'Splain to me again why imposing our way of life is bad for the rest of the world? |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #8 Hmm wonder if they can afford medical insurance.For some reason I doubt it. |
| Posted by: raptor 2003-9-7 7:34:14 AM |
| #7 Yes, let's input Tommy's income into the site, but not his wife who is also working???? I didn't read the article, was she a SAHM? How much does she make? If their oldest is working, they can't save anything now??? Do they smoke or drink???? Ahhh, if we had to include his wife's income, they'd be even higher on the list. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-9-7 3:00:11 AM |
| #6 Super Hose your comments got me to thinking. During embassy duty I was playing tennis and hit the ball out of the compound. One of the local kids ran up, grabbed the ball and took off. I was all fired up to chase him and get it back when my buddy stopped me and said the kid would sell it and his family would eat for a week. I threw alot of gear over the wall after that. . . We are rich beyond measure here. |
| Posted by: doc8404 2003-9-6 10:19:44 PM |
| #5 In the Navy I saw many poor people the world over but especially in South America. Only the homeless and a few others in our country are really in poverty. Defining non-poor people as poor is a political strategy by those who would benefit from creating ficticious voter blocks like the supposed latino voter block. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-9-6 7:39:07 PM |
| #4 I read a science fiction novel by Lloyd Biggle, I believe, called "The World Menders". There was a statement in there that made me think, long and hard: "Democracy imposed from without is the sheerest form of Tyrany". People have the God-given right to choose the type of government they live under (read the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence - it's pretty specific). Any government imposed upon them, regardless of what it's called, is tyranny. Of course, people also have to accept the realities of the government they choose. This is where France, Germany, and all the other Socialist states fail: they try to protect the people from the consequences of their own behavior. That can't last forever - eventually, the house of cards will collapse, and the entire world - at least for those caught in it - turns upside down. What we're trying to do in Iraq is to walk the fine line in the middle - "encouraging" a specific outcome without actually imposing it with our own strength. That's a tricky business. It's also very easy to slip over the edge, either way. If we manage to achieve what we hope, it will be a good thing for both Iraq and the United States, and a bad thing for all the "We've got to do it for you, because you can't" idiots in the world. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-9-6 7:27:44 PM |
| #3 "Life is not a zero-sum game." "I have seen so far because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." If everyone were to get knee-capped, where would we be? |
| Posted by: Dishman 2003-9-6 5:54:18 PM |
| #2 "You are in the top 0.719% richest people in the world. There are 5,956,812,435 people poorer than you. " Fine, so is this put on by my ex-wife's attorney? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-9-6 5:01:52 PM |
#1 'Splain to me again why imposing our way of life is bad for the rest of the world? Because the socialists think it's a zero-sum game; if we're rich, somebody else must be poor because there's a finite amount of wealth, so if we export our way of life and some other country's people get richer, others would by definition have to get poorer. And it might be the socialists (horrors!). What those self-centered idiots never understand is that wealth is not finite, and can be created in any country that can fling off its socialist (or worse) ways and embrace capitalism. Of course, I'm sure it's also that our way of life is the result of much less government intrusion than any other country in the world (though we have way too much), and we can't have that, can we? The proles not accepting whatever their betters decide is good for them? Heaven forfend! |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-9-6 5:01:08 PM |