Quote Originally Posted by COOL AND MANLY View Post
Middle class? Working class? No offense but that says nothing to me because I don't believe in the idea of a class struggle. Furthermore people are going to be paid differently according to the services/products they offer. If you don't want to live paycheck to paycheck then get a better job. Save and invest in yourself, and don't blow your money on useless shit. There is plenty that you could do to improve your economical situation.
78% of American full-time workers live pay check to pay check. There simply doesn't exist enough high paying jobs to get everyone out of living pay check to pay check. Many of those who do end up successful often do so through ways that aren't exactly virtuous.


The reality is most people want to be rich but don't want to sacrifice anything. They want an easy job, with no experience or certificates required and they want to be paid well. That is not going to happen when you made yourself replaceable by anyone in the market. Corporations would rather take your job for less money because they can afford to, and then hire someone else and pay them less. It's that simple. And if people keep acting dumb and do useless jobs like being an elevator operator when technology has already replaced them then they will continue to struggle.
There would be a lot more people willing to work more if the work that did was something personal like running a small business doing something that has personal value, instead of working for the benefit of a distant CEO. Corporations have been actively undermining small businesses and independent crafts for the last couple centuries and forcing more people into monitored, regimented work where you are pressured to work your hardest every minute. College is expensive and doesn't guarantee it will pay off or make the work available anymore fulfilling. People don't want easy jobs, they want fulfilling jobs, and those are rare to come by in today's profit-above-all capitalist system.

People can't claim to be disadvantaged for so long when opportunities are presented to them and they can't actually act on them rationally. I have seen people that earn way less than me get married so early, take enormous amount of loans to finance their lifestyle and have kids, because they couldn't stomach the idea that if you are not well off you shouldn't be doing any of these things in the first place until you can afford to. No one want to put their life on hold until they get their shit together. People don't even think of retirement because they expect everything to be handed to them now.
Well yes, these is always going to exist of small amount of people who make too poor of choices and fail no matter what. Nothing can be done about those people. The problem though is that there doesn't exist enough collective effort to a lot help guide people away for making poor. People are thrown into wind today, expected to somehow succeed in an incredibly competitive environment, with no room left for cultivating a sense of nationality and brotherhood which encourage people to help one another.

You can blame the rich all you want. But I have seen people make stupid choices despite all the warning signs. Despite what you have been told in school, not all paths are equal. A doctor and a nurse are not going to be paid similarly. That is not going to happen. The risks both take are different. Their responsibilities are different. The amount of study and work they do to get where they are is different. Unless you want to pay nobodies to be doctors and have a high turnover rate due to malpractice and then get sued to oblivion.
Again, I'm not advocating for communism here. Some people do deserve to get paid more then others. But richest 100 people in America today earn far far beyond what is reasonable for the amount of effort and overall good they do. There should exist caps or extremely high progressive tax on how much a person can get paid.