Do most of you not realize how out of touch and privileged you are?

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you are on the wrong message board. You are always free to go elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The world has changed.

Tom Friedman's great book The World is Flat makes the point that the world got smaller and that now as opposed to say the 1950s through the 1980s you compete with jobs not with the best people in your city or region or the country but the entire world.

The way the world has been shaped changed economies and it changes the winners, losers, and how you navigate the world.

The way we are set up now, a person, even UMC, has to make the right decision almost all the time from the time they are 10 until they are substantially older. Our system used to make allowances for people who bloomed later in life. That window has narrowed substantially.

So what does that mean -- as a kid you need to take the right classes, get the right grades, do the right activities, go to the right college, take the right major, do that with no debt, get a good first job and have it go quite well.

If you fail at any point on the road you are part of a different economy and a different world. And to be clear, the failure may not even be on your part -- you may not know you are making the wrong choice --- if you are not MC or UMC you may not know, also bad luck can kill here as well and you certainly have no control over that. You may not have the resources to do it.

Rather than keep arguing we should address some of these issues. It will take money; which could mean more taxes. But for example, we need to improve education in this country but especially in areas where we have poverty and stubborn poverty. People say that but we really need to take action on a Federal level. I would argue this is a national security issue.

We need to help people have the right information to try to make the right choices. We need to do something about student debt both going forward and in the past. This has hampered too many people.

We need to have programs to help people who learn later in life that they need education or a trade -- help the people that have fallen behind.

We owe this to society.

I think you overstate the impact of right relative to good enough. Obviously, getting into a coveted G&T program might get you further, but getting all As in whatever zoned school you are attending is infinitely better than getting all Ds in the same school. Ditto for activities. ECs are great, but no ECs plus good grades or a part time job plus good grades will get you to an in-state school. Maybe not a flagship, but you’ll get your degree. Etc, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The world has changed.

Tom Friedman's great book The World is Flat makes the point that the world got smaller and that now as opposed to say the 1950s through the 1980s you compete with jobs not with the best people in your city or region or the country but the entire world.

The way the world has been shaped changed economies and it changes the winners, losers, and how you navigate the world.

The way we are set up now, a person, even UMC, has to make the right decision almost all the time from the time they are 10 until they are substantially older. Our system used to make allowances for people who bloomed later in life. That window has narrowed substantially.

So what does that mean -- as a kid you need to take the right classes, get the right grades, do the right activities, go to the right college, take the right major, do that with no debt, get a good first job and have it go quite well.

If you fail at any point on the road you are part of a different economy and a different world. And to be clear, the failure may not even be on your part -- you may not know you are making the wrong choice --- if you are not MC or UMC you may not know, also bad luck can kill here as well and you certainly have no control over that. You may not have the resources to do it.

Rather than keep arguing we should address some of these issues. It will take money; which could mean more taxes. But for example, we need to improve education in this country but especially in areas where we have poverty and stubborn poverty. People say that but we really need to take action on a Federal level. I would argue this is a national security issue.

We need to help people have the right information to try to make the right choices. We need to do something about student debt both going forward and in the past. This has hampered too many people.

We need to have programs to help people who learn later in life that they need education or a trade -- help the people that have fallen behind.

We owe this to society.

But what about people who aren’t interested in changing? There are many communities (poor rural, poor urban) in the US that simply refuse to listen and then claim themselves victims. The blame can’t all be on societal structures, those communities need to have inward reflection as well and leaders from within those communities who will give the cold hard truth. I’m the US the opportunities abound, but you have to take them, they aren’t just handed to you.

PP here. I agree. Only so much can be done but we need to get to that point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The world has changed.

Tom Friedman's great book The World is Flat makes the point that the world got smaller and that now as opposed to say the 1950s through the 1980s you compete with jobs not with the best people in your city or region or the country but the entire world.

The way the world has been shaped changed economies and it changes the winners, losers, and how you navigate the world.

The way we are set up now, a person, even UMC, has to make the right decision almost all the time from the time they are 10 until they are substantially older. Our system used to make allowances for people who bloomed later in life. That window has narrowed substantially.

So what does that mean -- as a kid you need to take the right classes, get the right grades, do the right activities, go to the right college, take the right major, do that with no debt, get a good first job and have it go quite well.

If you fail at any point on the road you are part of a different economy and a different world. And to be clear, the failure may not even be on your part -- you may not know you are making the wrong choice --- if you are not MC or UMC you may not know, also bad luck can kill here as well and you certainly have no control over that. You may not have the resources to do it.

Rather than keep arguing we should address some of these issues. It will take money; which could mean more taxes. But for example, we need to improve education in this country but especially in areas where we have poverty and stubborn poverty. People say that but we really need to take action on a Federal level. I would argue this is a national security issue.

We need to help people have the right information to try to make the right choices. We need to do something about student debt both going forward and in the past. This has hampered too many people.

We need to have programs to help people who learn later in life that they need education or a trade -- help the people that have fallen behind.

We owe this to society.

I think you overstate the impact of right relative to good enough. Obviously, getting into a coveted G&T program might get you further, but getting all As in whatever zoned school you are attending is infinitely better than getting all Ds in the same school. Ditto for activities. ECs are great, but no ECs plus good grades or a part time job plus good grades will get you to an in-state school. Maybe not a flagship, but you’ll get your degree. Etc, etc.

PP here. I agree with what you said. Good enough works.

[Anonymous]

I absolutely realize how privileged I am and grateful for all that I have every day.

[Anonymous]

Life’s not fair. The internet just made it easier to complain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like you are on the wrong message board. You are always free to go elsewhere.

Because only the 10% belongs to a forum for DC area parents? Do you even hear yourself?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone getting focussed on the taxing the rich to death bit...which I disagree with, but no one addressing the out of touch piece. DCUM folks are willfully out of touch about how the rest of society lives. And they fail to recognize that hard work in and of itself does not translate into making loads of money. Nor does it mean that you are smarter than people making less money than you do. Lots of brilliant physicians, scientists, professors making a whole lot less than Big Law and overpaid government contractors. Just acknowledge **that**. You picked a profitable career but it does not make you more hard working/smarter than others. I think some people just need to justify the obscene amount of money they make.

Agreed. DCUM is purposefully missing the point, which is on trend.

I also think that the OP is narrowly focused on the DCUM folks which appear to have inherited wealth. It's those folks that are grossly out of touch and privileged. Think the Ivanka Trumps of the world who've never had to work, struggle or really understand what it means to make a buck. If you haven't ever struggled financially, empathy is usually wanting. Self awareness, too.

+1 ITA..

for those of us who came from nothing, like immigrants with no education and not able to speak English, we know we are lucky and privileged, but most of us also did earn it. We worked hard, sacrified a lot, and lived really frugally. That's not to say that everyone who does this will make it, but the majority of those who grew up poorer but made it did so by living this way. Of course there is some luck involved like timing or not falling seriously ill, but there is also a lot of hard work and sacrifices that went into getting to where we are.

Don't be dissmissive of that, either.

this has been the story of the US from its founding. People escape the poverty and oppression of their origin, come here, and in 1 or 2 or 3 generations become successful beyond whatever they might achieve in their homelands. That might mean being a cop or a firefighter, or starting a company and becoming incredibly wealthy. Either way, to live in the US is have a level of freedom, wealth, and security unavailable to most of the rest of world. This what makes America exceptional.

But, they didn't! That is a myth! Sure, they were not rich, but they had enough to buy a passage and get here. Most in Europe and around the world didn't have that much. Stop teaching a myth!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First generation American here- grew up with a single mom because dad abandoned us and took all the money with him. Tons of student loans. Worked 4 jobs in college and could barely afford shampoo. I’m an obvious minority and a woman and experienced it all. 20 years of hard work later I’m well off.

My absolute biggest privilege was being born in the USA. If you don’t get that, you’re ignorant of the world.

Multiple people have gone off about this but it doesn't change the fact that the truly wealthy are usually a-hats who convince themselves that they deserve to be rich, no one else worked as hard as they do or their immigrant parents did (who came here with $1 and walked to and from their four jobs with no shoes uphill every day). Yes, it is a nice thing to be born in the US compared to *some* other places, but it doesn't mean there aren't many, many people here who are living through great hardship.

Fact is, if you are wealthy, you got lucky in some way. Tons of people work as hard or (likely) harder than you do every day and will never make six figures. Tons of people have immigrant parents who worked four jobs and they are their kids never became wealthy. Tons of people live good, honest lives and will never be wealthy. If you are wealthy, you should be thankful for your good fortune, give back as much as you can, and stop believing you "deserve" this more than others. You don't. These myths about your life you tell yourself are just the way you soothe your (in some of your cases, vanishingly small) conscience.

PP here- of course I got lucky. My existence in America a huge stroke of luck. Access to USG funded grants and student loans is a huge stroke of luck. Having been taught decent family values and the need to contribute to your community a huge stroke of luck. Nothing in my post said I deserved this more than anyone else. OP wants to burn the system down because she is unhappy with it, and eliminate the path to prosperity America has offered millions of people over the course of history. Its a super messed up proposal, and if you don't recognize it, YOUR intelligence and conscience has been addled by envy and hatred.

I don't agree with OPs draconian take on it, but I do see a lot of rich people trying to rationalize for themselves why they deserve to be rich (and the subtext that everyone else does not) on this thread and all over this board. If you are cognizant of your good fortune, then you are not one of the people that I, or even the OP for that matter, were talking to. It's the idea that so many rich people are oblivious to their own privilege and kinda jerks.

[Anonymous]

Dear OP, don't you get it? They do not care. Not the UMC or the rich on dcum, nor the rich in the U.S. In most of the world rich and privileged don't care and don't want to care. It is in their best preservation interests to propagate a myth that they deserved it, earned it, and are worthy of having a lot of money.
And that the poor are to blame for their own poverty.
This is a story as old as the time.

If the rich took the time to learn about the abject poverty many Americans live in today, next to them, they might feel some emotional pang to help them if they know their neighbor's kids were starving and cold at night. (never on the same street though!)
Suppose they found out that they have no money to fix the heat or even their range so they can cook.
But, that would mean they would have a tiny bit less money for their own kid's pony. So, they can't, because they convinced themselves that the poor person is just lazy, want welfare, only talks about taxing the rich, when they should be working, like they, the rich people did!
Right? Their kids are just as lazy as them, look at him in school, not even trying and where is his jacket? Can't even do his homework! Nothing but excuses, that they don't believe. The kid is lazy, it is not that he has no electricity or a laptop in his house!

But, if they learned that the poor person at the corner or a mom with a kid at the bus stop works 2, 3 jobs, works way more than the rich person does, and still can't pay for electricity, well, they would have to admit that something is wrong with the system that made them rich.
If they change the system, they might lose a few bucks, and that is not acceptable.
So, they close their eyes and pretend that they earned it and that the poor didn't earn it all of their own merits or the lack of it.
This is how dehumanizing works. Just like this thread showed you that you are treated as you are not all there, don't get it, do you want Mao to show up at your door, hey, aren't you still better off than in Stalin's gulag? They treat you like they treat other poor people, like they are dumb and to blame for your own "shortcomings."
IT IS YOUR FAULT! Not theirs. They will not get it even when "these" people are at their door and coming in with pitchfork for the 21st century, machines guns, no?
They will call them greedy and ungrateful and see nothing but flowers coming out of their own arses until their last breath. This is not new, this is not unique to the U.S, it has happened time and time again around the world.

Why do you even try here? If they were decent human beings that we're able to see that sharing some of their wealth, not all, not even a tiny portion of it, is a decent thing to do, we wouldn't be in this mess.
If conglomerates invested back in their workforce and their communities, gave a smidgeon bigger salaries, and improved the buying power in their own markets, they would have 1 less Billion out of 50B?
If we had the government that did not just bail out banks and did not stipulate that they had to keep paying their workforce to receive the stimulus, well, we would be a decent society filled with decent human beings. But, the rich are not decent, not do they have empathy for anyone but themselves.
We do not live in that society. We live among the ugly Pariahs of UMC that dcum represents so much.
So, stop trying those that will not change until the pitchforks come. No society changed all that easily without some major event happening. We are not Norway. We are the brutal Wild West, where the biggest gun, not the hardest work, wins it all.

[Anonymous]

Listen to Elvis' In the Ghetto, that is all you need to know about poverty in the U.S. Only his mama cries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Life’s not fair. The internet just made it easier to complain.

You mean the internet made it harder for you not to hear the wails of the hungry under your mansion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Enough with the rags-to-riches porn. That's what is wrong with this country. We are so deluded and fixated on every one person who started with nothing and made it, ignoring the 99 other people who don't make it.

+1
Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just disagree ..Having free time in the middle of a work day, a macbook and high speed interenet are not god given rights...

Basic lodging, running water, heat, etc are RIGHTS but this is not what pp was referencing

Actually, they are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So meany people are bragging about themselves, especially the people that came here as immigrants. You'd think the recent immigrants would be more understanding but they're actually some of the worst posts here. They're acting like they represent some immigrant norm. That isn't the case at all. We have a million immigrants come to the USA every year so obviously some are going to succeed but there isn't some magical immigrant mindset that made that happen. Most will not be rich.

I read a post where someone said that everyone should go overseas to see how lucky they are. That very comment shows how out of touch that poster is. As the OP said, most Americans cannot afford a $500 emergency. How do you think they can afford to go overseas? They cannot. That's why less than half of all Americans even have passports. I've personally never left the country and never owned a passport. I go on vacations in America. I haven't flown on a plane in 15 years, I drive everywhere. Plane tickets are expensive. It's much cheaper to drive 1500 miles with a family of four and stay a couple nights in a hotel on the way to visit family.

The bolded is so true. I’m the daughter of immigrants and my parents are not rich and wealthy and will never be rich and wealthy. As for Me? I’m working on it.