It's a rich man's world, err... congress.Follow

And by "everything else being the same" you mean race, gender, age, geography, orientation and such, I'm sure.

Or is this month "details don't matter!" month?

And by work harder you mean lower your exploitation standards and shmooze up to the right people?

Certainly an extra couple hours in the coal mine isn't going to make a noticeable difference in ones financial or social status.

Santa is too real! And white Christian! Those are facts, as true as blonde haired blue eyed baby Jesus with the rippling abs.

You've been out of the game for a bit, so it's expected that you'll be kind of slow on the uptake, but the discussion, thus far anyways, has been about 'non-choices'.
That's just an exaggeration. Rarely do I suck more than a life a week.

I'm getting a bit aggravated with the frequency in which "just work harder" is used in this sort of conversation. It has become a vague, one-size fits all answer to all of our economic problems.

Like say you want to further yourself economically, no matter who or how well off you are. Ask Joe Sixpack and that's all he'll be able to tell you. "Hurp. Just work really hard!" Ok. Try to apply that to any real life scenario for one minute. It doesn't ******* mean anything.

Last I checked, if you're someone who has a job, and you aren't already doing everything you could be doing, you get replaced with someone who will. You don't move up the social ladder or get recognized for doing the things you should have been doing already.

Social mobility is exactly what it sounds like. Say you work in an assembly plant that manufactures aircraft parts at an entry level position. That guy who sits in the office and makes five times more than you doing a fraction of the work may or may not have started out in the same place as you, but guess what? There are fifty people working the same role as you, and only one or two guys sitting in that office. The only way any of you can "move up" to that kind of position is if one of the two of them mysteriously drops off the face of the planet.

Now let's say one of the two of those office workers dies in a tragic car accident, and you have been "working hard" at that ****** entry level position for a dozen years or so. Well, the boss's son just graduated highschool, so **** you. But wait! The boss's son has decided to go to law school instead! Oh... damn, the boss's brother/cousin/buddy from college wants in. You're SOL. Years later, another position above you opens, and before you can blink that new girl who's only work experience is being a waitress at the Waffle House gets it. Sorry bro, she's got a really nice pair of ******* and the boss really wants to get with that.

No luck involved there. Nope. Sure, you worked really hard just like everyone else. You even took on extra tasks and stayed after hours (with the boss's permission, otherwise you would be penalized), but that did not make you a successful person. All that made you was a sucker, and a *****. Meanwhile, all of those years you've been working the bottom rung the price of food, gas, and rent has gone up tremendously, while your pay has not.

Just remember not to do any drugs, and please for the love of sports don't try and breed. It'll make the rich folks' poor as you if they have to pay any taxes. Then everyone will be poor, then no one will have any jobs. Damn Demo-crats.

Trouble is, "entry level" is a relative term used to confuse @#%^wits like you into believing your fairy-tale version of reality where everyone has a chance if they just will it to be that way.

Edited, Jan 15th 2014 10:02pm by Kuwoobie

In this case, "entry level" is the blanket term for dead end jobs/long-term underemployment where the alternative is... nothing. It is used by talk radio, spam emails, opinion blog "news" websites and other reliable sources of information to arm tomorrow's varussock with rhetoric he can sugar-coat the rancid, regurgitated skunk carcass that is the American job market. More often, they will agree that things are bad and blame the president or some incredibly broad spectrum of people (Democrats, Liberals, Lizard Men) with no rhyme or reason other than "it's all their fault!"

More or less annoyed than the counter case where apparently no one has any chance of ever advancing in any way no matter what they do? I mean, your counter case is kinda absurd given that clearly most people *do* advance in relative salary over their lifetimes. Most people in their 40s earn far more relatively speaking than they did when they were in their 20s. Ergo, most people do advance over time. Ergo, most job environments allow for advancement over time.

If you're truly in a job situation with zero chance of advancement, then perhaps "effort" in this case, means switching jobs? Just a thought.




Again though, that's a ridiculously contrived case though. Can we argue the norms rather than the exceptions?

Obviously there's a point of diminishing returns for anything, including effort. But you're responding with an edge case that isn't what I (or anyone) is arguing. We're arguing a point well ahead of the point of diminishing returns. We're arguing the point of the guy who sits around drinking all day instead of going out and trying to find a job. Can we agree that this difference in effort is going to have a direct and significant effect on that person's outcomes?

Yes. Sometimes your father will buy you a baseball team and you'll later become president.

Hey-O!

If you mean can we agree on a narrative where "the guy who sits around drinking all day" exists in any sort of significant percentage among the long term unemployed, no we can't, because reality isn't some bizarre Danielle Steel novel where broadly drawn archetypes serve only as props to support idiotic arguments.

Oh sorry, I meant Ayn Rand. That was mean.

To Ms Steel.

Again with the edge case though. For the vast majority of people who's fathers are not going to buy them a baseball team, sitting around on the couch drinking all day will hurt their chances at success. Your whole line of reasoning is meaningless to all the people who's parents aren't rich who are asking themselves "how hard should I work to get a job"?

Isn't that the question here? Do those people benefit from hard work? The answer is: Yes.


Oh. And I'll also point out that even the guy with the rich father who buys him a baseball team will be "more successful" if he gets off the couch and stops drinking than if he doesn't.



And again you're spinning this into irrelevant directions. What percentage of the unemployed population sits around drinking all day is irrelevant to the question of whether or not an unemployed person who sits around drinking all day is hurting his chance of becoming employed. We're examining the effects of making a choice. So if you are unemployed and have a choice between sitting around drunk on your couch or getting off your couch and looking for a job, you're going to be better off with the second choice, right? Assuming that "employed" is a more successful outcome than "unemployed", this must be true.

What if you sit around for years in a minimum wage job whining about how new employees make as much as you each time the minimum wage is increased?