[QUOTE=Racerbvd;11427743] They just have to work double what you would have to succeed. Nothing wrong with that, right? I mean, that is apples to apples, your experience and someone now that is getting 50% less buying power with the dollar they earn with the same hour of effort.

[QUOTE=gordner;11427879] No one ever said that life was easy or fair. But I fail to understand why it is a bad thing to be self motivated, willing to work to better yourself. Years ago, a good friend of mine, a VP at a trucking company, made good cake. Right after he built his new home, on the water, that ended up needing a lot of fill to build on. Well, the company was sold and all the old guard was let go, now this was the worst timing since the house went over budget. This guy, who had been in a office for years had a nice new mortgage payment. While looking for a new job, knowing that he still needs income. He went to work for another friend who owned a swimming pool business and was literally digging and doing hard labor while looking for a job. He didn't whine or *****, he just worked at what job was available to him at the time. Now, he did get another job, and has since retired, plus they sold the house on the water for a very nice profit. No, he wasn't down for long and he didn't let that stop him.
Like others here, my parents told me that if I wanted nice things that I had to work for it, and like others, I mowed a lot of yards, did a lot yard work and had a paper route, but mine were apartments.

Who has ever said it was a bad thing to be self motivated, or work to better yourself? No one here I am pretty sure.

It is easy to speak of your route to success, but the reality is that significant societal changes have occurred that makes this route much more tortuous than it has been in the past. Failing to acknowledge that doesn't help anyone.

Well, it still boils down to personal choices and work ethic. I always looked up to the successful people around me and wanted to learn what their secrets to success were. In many ways, people today have it easier than we did, when we screw up, we paid for it, we had to earn wages instead of demanding more money while providing barely enough work to be worth what minimum wage was when I was a kid. As long as people keep making excuses for bad work ethics and rewarding poor work ethic, it will only get worse. We didn't have smart phones ( hell, we had one phone line in the home and you were limited to how long you had to talk because you couldn't tie up the line and long distance cost extra) which makes a lot of jobs easier, we didn't have computers at home, and our parents didn't fund our lives pass the basic necessities, we had to work to buy a car and then we pad to work to pay insurance and gas. Embracing failure and low performance instead of encouraging competition and self betterment, the everyone's a winner and trophies for all has put us where we are now, instead of looking up at the successful person, now they are looked down on and punished for being high achievers while losers, be it lazy or just stupid are rewarded.
I remember being told when I was a kid that to be poor in America you have to be stupid, because anyone, willing to work and make good choices in life can make a good life for themselves, be it a trade like a plumber or electrician, invent and market a better widget or even if you start as a burger flipper in McDonald's and work your way to owning your own franchise. All of these I have seen. Two different friends, started by sweeping the floors in different shops, now they not only own the businesses but the real estate too.

Sure seems a lot easier to me that when I was young. Lots of jobs available. Handouts everywhere. Employers will put up with almost anything to keep a reasonably skilled employee.

Final expense life insurance is a commodity. Each company is state regulated and will pay if you die within terms of the policy. The variables are price and underwriting. As long as you're healthy and qualify for the best rate in the state and want it, why not take it? It's not like one company's $25k payout is any better than another's.

Ran into a really painful one today. The woman was hard to pin down - either mentally ill or stupid beyond belief. I was starting out from behind when I had to call her to come unlock her front gate. She said she didn't know who I was and might not want to meet. I reminded her who I was and that we had set an appt. less than 24 hrs. ago. She came out, was the nicest lady in the world, invited me in, told me to make myself at home, turned the lights up, offered me water, etc.

She said she had a policy that was 11 or so yrs old, she was paying $109/mo, but didn't know anything else. I called the company and got all the info. She'd had it for seven yrs. and it had a cash value of $2400. I was able to get her the exact same coverage for $42/mo LESS than she was paying and all that $2400 back. COULD NOT CLOSE HER. She said I might be trying to scam her. I told her she was already scammed seven yrs ago and I was trying to fix it and save her a ton of money. And she has a b-day coming up. Her daughter was home, so I asked her to call her daughter into the room. I was sure she was going to kick me out, but she called her daughter in. Daughter was super nice. I explained the situation to her and she looked at her mom and said, "Why aren't you doing this? He's giving you such a better deal. C'mon, Mom." Could not close her. She has to think about it. This is why she's poor.

An insurance salesman is a special kind of person. To have the ability to gain enough trust to sell someone a sheaf of paper they can’t even read and get them to keep paying month after month is a gift. I have insurance on 7 vehicles and I think I understand the declarations, but I’m not confident of it. Fire and umbrella- forget about it. I either have to hire a lawyer to decipher the policies or trust the salesman. I’ve been with the same insurance company for 40 years because I trust them. I could probably get a policy cheaper elsewhere, but I trust my agent even though I’ve never had the need to test her.

Again, it's a commodity. Nothing unique about it. You die, they pay. And again, 90% of my business is fixing the mess people have gotten into with other, worse policies. When I call someone's current insurer to find out what they have, I have my phone on speaker and ask them questions they can only hang themselves by answering truthfully. "Oh, there's a $5000 loan on that cash value? How many payments has he made on that? None? How long until that policy implodes on itself?" Easy peasy. Read your paperwork. Ask your agent to come over and explain it in person if you don't understand it.

Are you talking about life insurance? Nothing unique? About 20 years ago I got wrapped up in some whole life or modified universal term bend over bull crap policy situation.

“You can put as much into this as you want and it grows tax deferred!”

So I did. And got a letter from the IRS detailing my transgression and the amount I owed, plus, penalties and interest.

“what happened? You said I could etc etc”

“Oh, you put in too much, that made it a MEC. Not tax deferred.”

“You said it was tax deferred, as much as I want. “

“Not if it’s a MEC”

“YOU SAID…”

“Hey, I got a call on another line. “


I’m never touching life insurance again - of any type.

Universal policies should be illegal. You need a Series 6 license to sell them, and, IMHO, you should need a Series 6 license to buy them. ULs are super complicated and I've never met anyone who had one and understood it at all. Think of them like an interest-only, adjustable rate mortgage during the subprime boom. You can make the minimum or maximum payment.

Which do you think the agent tells you you have to make in order for him to make the sale?

And what do you think happens when you only make the minimum payment?

Worst one of those I ever saw was an 84 yr old woman with a b-day coming up, swore she had $50k in coverage and her disabled son absolutely had to get that payout in order to keep the house. Called the company and she had $20k left in coverage (she had only ever made the min. payment) and the face amount was declining fast. She cashed out for $4k, then had nothing and was too old to get anything else. I've rescued a few of these, but most folks are too in denial to believe what I tell them they have. So they (or their beneficiaries) find out the very hard way.

I haven't been doing this long enough for this phone call to come, but I know it's coming. "Hey, I found your card in my mom's pile of insurance papers. She passed away on Saturday. I called the other company and they said her policy had lapsed. Did she get a policy from you?"

Hourly employee with the WDW company.
Went back to night classes at the local community college. A lot of friends at WDW said you make ok money why try for more? They were partying a lot. I was studying.
Some had kids and no future plans.
They are still there. Crying about a living wage should be given to them.

I agree it is hard. I know I did it. If you want to better yourself, you can.
Don’t take a entry food service or hospitality job and then complain about needing a living wage. I compare that to signing up to play football, then complain they hit too hard. Please change the rules to flag football.

Don’t like the game? Better yourself and change what you do.

This seems to be somewhat relevant to the discussion. Announced 2 days ago...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-15/biden-to-increase-food-stamp-benefits-by-most-in-program-history?utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialfl ow-organic&utm_medium=social&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_source=twitter&sref=6uww027M


"The Biden administration will give the biggest long-term increase in food stamp benefits in the program’s history, giving Americans more money to buy groceries and adding billions of dollars in costs to the government, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a call Monday."

[QUOTE Part of the problem is right in this story. $3.35 in the early 80's works out to over 11 bucks an hour now, just tracking inflation. Yet that job today is probably well below that.[/QUOTE]

McDonald's - North Carolina - July 2021

"The company said pay will range from $11-$15 an hour for entry-level employees and $15-$20 for managers."

Hmm... why would he have to do that? It's almost as if food stamps aren't buying enough food today vs last year or the year before. What is that called??

It's almost as if adjusting it for inflation wasn't enough because the inflation is higher than the adjustment allowed. What is that called??

A small percentage of food stamps, aka EBT, actually goes toward groceries. They are spent in fast food places and convenience stores. And in AZ any gas station or 7-11 sells booze. So they can use their EBT for that too by offering to pay for someone else's snacks and the other person paying for the booze and smokes.

I just remember so many morning dragging my ass out of bed and going to work. Day after day. I would see a lot of the people I worked with have the Monday Morning one day flu. Lots of them smoked a pack or two of cigarettes, and went out drinking often and certainly on Friday nights. I was busy working a second job. I missed a lot of parties, but no paydays.

I vividly remember trying to figure out what utility to pay and which to put off for a week until payday and that sucked. It is nice to have all my utilities and bills set up on automatic pay. I never write checks, or have to do a dang thing but make sure my account has plenty of money in it for my needs. It is a much more comfortable way to live. All those missed parties are paying off.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1629295508.png
Franklin Roosevelt 1935

That is always the view of people who were raised in better circumstances. A LOT of people are born into poverty with no real chance of success, starting with basic nutrition and ending at access to a proper education.

Can it be overcome? Sure, on occasion, but the odds are not equal and a good work ethic doesn't level the playing field.

McDonald's - North Carolina - July 2021

"The company said pay will range from $11-$15 an hour for entry-level employees and $15-$20 for managers."[/QUOTE]

What were they offering right up until no one would work for it? Low income wages are going through a watershed moment post covid.

I'm not saying that this is what's going on, but this is one of those cases that reminds me of something that I realized years ago.

If you see 2 people you may think something like, "clearly the one on the left is more physically fit and able" because one is muscular and the other very thin. You see people every day whose physical appearance varies radically whether it's attractiveness, fitness, weight, whatever, and that's a very normal thing. The guy that looks like a 90# weakling is not going to be picked first for football, etc....

The variation due to genetics and environment in the functionality of the brain is not any different than those other physical characteristics. The differences are, we don't see your brain, and presumably (since I haven't seen any/many brains) they are look basically the same. So a lot of times, most folks will think "why isn't that person using their head and thinking that through?!?"

The thing is, they probably are, but their brain just doesn't function as well as some of the rest of us.

Brain function is, in my mind, not really any different than hair color, eye color, height, attractiveness, natural athletic ability, etc.... Some folks have it and other folks don't. If you're not tall and you want to be, if you are tall and wish you were shorter, you're pretty screwed (yes, there are some options out there). I suspect that if you're not that smart due to your brain not working as well as the rest of us, you're probably pretty much equally screwed.

< edit >
THere are also folks that have brains that function at an average or better level, but due to whatevery circumstances, they don't use their brain.