acronos

No, that's B.S. Anyone in America who wants a career and is willing to work for it can achieve one. If you really were a straight 'A' student like you claim, you would have had no trouble getting scholarships to pay for everything. The vast majority of worthwhile careers have no need of large funding, they need hard work. The origional poster was right. Even adults who have already made mistakes can change their career path with hard work. What makes people poor is not a lack of choices but rather choosing the wrong thing which is more a matter of culture than wealth. It is this very culture of victimhood that creates victims. Those who take responsibility for their own lives, rather than blaming someone else, almost always succeed.

August Spies

Hmm by my count the B-man has slaughtered a total of 15 straw men in this thread so far. Impressive.

acronos

The sell off began early 2000 - well before Bush was elected, much less took office.

It's silly to blame the economy on either president Clinton or Bush, but if your naive enough to do so then any honest person would put it in Clintons lap as the above link shows. Too bad so few people are honest.

brighid

What? What I see is a decline in 99 and then a significant climb and then a continued and significant trend of downturn from the day GWB2 was inaugerated in January of 00!

All I know is that 2.7 million jobs have been lost since that man took office. That I have lost significant amounts of money in my stock portfolios. That the national debt is higher then it has ever been and that the surplass is gone. I know that the tax cuts haven't helped me a bit and the rich are getting $90,000 + tax returns and the poor aren't eligible for the increase in the EIC. I know that fiscal responsibility (the alleged mantra of the Republican Party) is a foregone relic and that every where I look important social programs (like Head Start, Reading Recovery, after school programs, etc.) are being cut. The Republicans blame everything on the liberals and Clinton, but every single time one of them gets hold of the helm in the White House we have shitty economic times. It was that way under Regan, Bush I and now it with Bush II. How much you want to bet IF the economy turns around they will be ALL too willing to take the credit for it, but they aren't willing to take responsibility for the poor economic choices they have made.

My great grandchildren will ge footing the tax bill for the national debt long after I have gone. Sorry, but the majority of Americans, including the poor were better off under Clinton. Paying down the national debt is fiscally responsible and the ramifications of poor economic policy are being felt by more then just the 2.7 million people who lost their jobs, pensions and the security they spent years building.

Brighid

queue

Bush was not inaugerated until January of 01.

If you want to see how the Dow has performed under the different administrations, you can go here , scroll down to the Dow data, and select which decade you want to see.

Ab_Normal

I just ran across this reprint of a Paul Krugman column from 10/02, detailing the actual shrinkage in the middle class since the 1970s. I wasn't hallucinating it.

Here's a taste:

brighid

I am sorry I meant 01 and thank you for point out that error.

When I look back at the data the Dow was slipping from 4 and 5000 to about 3000 and after his inaugeration it took a serious hit (actually I believe it took a serious hit the DAY he was inaugerated.) and hasn't even come to recover half its volume.

We are also at the highest unemployment rate in 9 years ... it doesn't appear to be getting better.

Brighid

John Hancock

Just nine years?

Martin

brighid

WOW!!! Martin that is a great slide ... does anyone see a trend here?? DANG ... Voting for a Bush is like voting to lose your job, your house, your pension .....

Brighid

HaysooChreesto!

Optional, what you said about trends vs. specific cases is important.
Each of us is a specific case, no? The point is that a trend doesn't have to affect you or me or any other individual. There's nothing productive about seeing one's own self as a victim of a trend or being at the mercy of the political party in power at the moment. I don't see the sense in throwing up ones hands and saying "I just have to wait for better politicians to make my life better".

I'm not saying that you believe this because I don't know you well enough to state that. But it does seem to be a pervasive attitude here.

We don't live in on a one dimensional road where there is only one path to take. If I had a degree of any sort I could find a way to make that degree work for me. If I came up short on money for education I could find a way to pay for it. The way I got the money might not be the most expedient and it might cause me to graduate a few years later than I would have liked, but I would get it done if I wanted to.

Maybe it's because I deal with people on a daily basis who've made their way from far worse than ordinary circumstances to build extraordinary lives.
I can think of 4 people I know right off the top of my head who would classify as people who fulfilled the "American Dream". Three of whom are minorities. All of them have one thing in common and that's simple and very hard work.