No, I work with and employee many of the so-called poor, and I can assure you that the vast majority of them have no one to blame but themselves. I see them self destruct on a weekly basis. It's a shame, but many are just lost causes and will likely stay that way forever. The ones that don't fit that mold, pull themselves out of a crappy situation eventually.
Good point! And to the extent that Walmart, etc., does this they are providing a service that is useful to them, to the employee, and to the rest of us. Anyone not fitting into the "least employable" category would do well to work for these companies in other than a management position only as a last resort. I would never accept a low level job at one of these companies thinking you will work your way up to a management position without knowing what their track record is for promoting from within. My impression is that they are more likely to hire directly into a management position than they are to promote a high performing employee. I hope I am wrong about that.
yes, but then you would hope that humans would have evolved their social structures further than tunas or gorillas for that matter.
This is clearly wrong. There are far more people in the middle class today than there were twenty or thirty years ago - hundreds of millions more. It's just that they're in China and Brazil rather than the United States. You can't expect to integrate two billion illiterate peasants into the global economy overnight, with no effect whatsoever on unskilled wages. To boost wages you can either reduce the supply of labor, or wait until the market 'works off' the excess supply.
Property is mis priced. As a business owner... who wants to open more offices... the rent situation is ridiculous. Empty buildings and high rents in So Cal. I wonder who the investors in these building are. Is it mostly banks with access to Free fed money?
Nah, you can't beat mother nature... Humans can't escape the Darwinian reality that we have genetic variety in our human population. Genetic variety functions to preserve the species and to pass forward the genes most "fit" for our environment. There will always he winners and losers whether we are talking about tuna, gorillas, or humans. In the case we are discussing, this woman had a windfall of $8000 left to her by her mother. This woman has children. She asked for advice from a broker, and she got sound advice to invest it. She felt a return of $600 per annum was too low, so she spent it on a Chevy Blazer (a very quickly depreciating asset both in value and personal utility). Could we all make better decisions for this dolt? Sure, but the price of freedom is that we let idiots live their lives and make their own mistakes... the world needs ditch diggers and middle-aged moms who fluff up the salad bar at Ruby Tuesdays too.