"Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments

Simon Brooke a écrit :
in message .com,
') wrote:


entire field of income and mobility focuses on "what keeps the poor
down" and there are many, many books and journals available at your
nearest university library.

I live in the sticks! No "lie-berries" here!


I live in the sticks (population density 0.25 persons/hectare = 65
persons per square mile). I have two libraries within eight miles, three
within twelve miles, five within twenty-one miles. All free. But then,
of course, I'm in Europe.


And nearest dentist overseas ?

Simon Brooke wrote:
in message , Montesquiou ('')
wrote:


"Bob Martin" a ?crit dans le message de news:
...
in 523429 20060816 222509 "Tom Kunich" cyclintom@yahoo. com wrote:

This is the class system that people in the United States are
decrying. Moreover, EVERY person in the USA can move up to the limits
of their ability
if they wish. In Europe that simply isn't the case as you can discover
simply by talking to any factory worker.

********, Tom (as usual).

Both Margaret Thatcher and John Major came from humble beginnings.

The majority of Britain's wealthy people are "self-made".

It is possible Sarkozy to became the next French President.

That is significant (and is exactly what Kunich et al were denying).

Just for the fun, this is a short list of immigrant's sons in France
(in the Show Business for example) :

That's irrelevant. Poor people with energy, ruthlessness and luck can get
rich anywhere in the world. Getting rich isn't the same as social
mobility. Social mobility is about who your son gets to marry.


I agree that poor people anywhere can get rich with the right
combination of luck etc anywhere in the world. I also agree that social
class has very little to do with wealth. But I believe both are more
easily accomplished in the US (and perhaps other largely immigrant
nations like Canada and Australia).

Joseph

Robert Chung wrote:
wrote:

Not at all. The only people I know of who emigrated were either dirt
poor, starving, or living in a dangerous police-state.

If they were living in a dangerous police-state I agree their
opportunities would be better in the US but then their experience wouldn't
be generalizable to your global statement that compared Europe with the
US. Those who didn't come from police-states probably weren't truly dirt
poor since they had to get across the Atlantic -- they're not like Central
Americans who can walk or hop a freight train. My great-grandparents may
have been peasants but they still needed enough capital to cross the
Pacific and that capital certainly put them above the bottom quarter in
wealth distribution at the time.

Indeed people who get it together to get transport across the Pacific
or Atlantic are in a differnt situation than those who walk. The poor
starving folks I was thinking of immigrated in the 20's. The
police-state folks in the 70's. The African refugees in the 90's.
Peasant immigrants like your great-grandparents may have been in the
top 3/4 to get the capital to move, but immigrants from Ireland and
Italy for example could raise the capital even if they came from the
bottom of the barrel. My father visited some of his Irish relatives in
the 60's and they had a dirt floor in their house.

I live in the sticks! No "lie-berries" here!

Google should work even in the sticks. One of the things that should be
quickly apparent is that Americans and Europeans differ more in their view
of the causes of poverty and the degree of income mobility than in the
reality. Most Americans think they live in a meritocratic land of
opportunity with high income mobility. Roughly two-thirds of Americans
think that the poor are poor because they are lazy; roughly one-third of
Europeans think that way. Roughly two-thirds of Europeans think the poor
are trapped in poverty; roughly one-third of American think that way. The
reality is that, depending on the measure you're looking at, the
differences in income mobility aren't that great: the US is either smack
dab in the middle or slightly below the average compared to European
countries (in no measure is it quantumly better). European society isn't
ossified, and American society isn't de novo.

I agree that whatever diffrerences there are, they are minor.

Joseph

Simon Brooke wrote:
in message . com,
') wrote:

Race is a factor in the "New World" in a way that it isn't in Europe
because Europe is still so homogeneous. You want to start seeing some
uncomfortable race issues, look at South American soap operas then look
at the people on the streets there. Europeans have the luxury of having
a different attitude about race because it is someting they just don't
have to deal with.

Which planet was it that you said you lived on?


;-)

There is no doubt that European countries have much more homgeneous
populations than the US. Most European people in their daily lives have
much less oppurtunity to interact with people of different races that
people in the US. Less interaction, less conflict, less thought about
the issue.

I'm not saying everyone in Europe is a bigot or that the US has
"figured out" race relations. I'm just saying that race relations is
more of an abstract issue for most Europeans than it is for Americans.

Joseph

Simon Brooke wrote:
in message . net, Tom
Kunich ('cyclintom@yahoo. com') wrote:

"Scott Johnson" wrote in message
...
wrote
And you don't have to win lotto to become rich. Running a good pizza
restaurant or plumbing company can do the trick.

Something the people with a masters in 14th Century Eastern European
Library Systems who work at THAT person's pizza place will never
grasp.

My great grandmother starved to death in Europe and today I live in a
nice house that I own in a nice neighborhood and have everything I
want. I own my own car, have no bills outside of the utilities and such
and a good deal of money in the bank.

My grandfather nearly starved to death in Texas, and today I live in a
comfortable 250 year old house that I own in a nice village in Scotland,
with my yacht moored a mile away. I own my own car, have no bills
outside the utilities, and have some money in the bank.

So what, exactly?


Do you want to do a house exchange some time?

Joseph

Simon Brooke wrote:
in message .com,
') wrote:

entire field of income and mobility focuses on "what keeps the poor
down" and there are many, many books and journals available at your
nearest university library.

I live in the sticks! No "lie-berries" here!

I live in the sticks (population density 0.25 persons/hectare = 65
persons per square mile). I have two libraries within eight miles, three
within twelve miles, five within twenty-one miles. All free. But then,
of course, I'm in Europe.


I live in Norway. Norway is supposed to be the poster child for how a
welfare state should work right?

Joseph

Sandy wrote:
Simon Brooke a écrit :
in message . com,
') wrote:


Race is a factor in the "New World" in a way that it isn't in Europe
because Europe is still so homogeneous. You want to start seeing some
uncomfortable race issues, look at South American soap operas then look
at the people on the streets there. Europeans have the luxury of having
a different attitude about race because it is someting they just don't
have to deal with.


Which planet was it that you said you lived on?


He said it with the monochromatic bliss that comes from not living in
France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Portugal or Holland. Maybe even
the outer reaches of your island kingdom.

I've lived in Paris and Switzerland and spent a fair amount of time in
Italy, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Poland. I live in Norway. I also
grew up in NYC, went to school in Chicago, and lived in Los Angeles.
However my observations may be colored, it is not from lack of
observation.

Joseph

in message , Sandy
') wrote:

Simon Brooke a écrit :
in message .com,
') wrote:

entire field of income and mobility focuses on "what keeps the poor
down" and there are many, many books and journals available at your
nearest university library.

I live in the sticks! No "lie-berries" here!

I live in the sticks (population density 0.25 persons/hectare = 65
persons per square mile). I have two libraries within eight miles,
three within twelve miles, five within twenty-one miles. All free. But
then, of course, I'm in Europe.

And nearest dentist overseas ?

Errrmmmm... well, six weeks ago you'd have been right, but we've robbed
Poland of most of theirs so now we have a few :-0 - no teeth

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; All in all you're just another nick in the ball
-- Think Droid

John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
On 17 Aug 2006 22:17:49 -0700, "Ernst Blofeld"
wrote:

Howard Kveck wrote:
Macaca! Allen is either an ignorant bigot (was a neo-confederate in high school,
you know) or a clever one - using the clever code words so the rest of the bigots
can tell he's down with them.

It was so coded no one knew what the **** he was talking about until
it was explained to them.

Allen probably knew what the implictions of the word were, but it's
highly unlikely that it was calculated to appeal to the audience. It
went straight over their heads.

Nah, even if he'd called the guy "Jimmy" it'd have been insulting in
terms of Allen's tone of voice. Which is OK in a political campaign.
But the "welcome to America" part was anti-immmigrant or perhaps
racist.

But perhaps the funniest thing is that Sridarth was born in Virginia
whereas Allen was not.

I think both Allen and the audience understood what he
was doing, which was boosting group solidarity by calling
the guy who looks different a funny name. It's a way of saying,
I am like you, I understand you, and they do not. (You can see
how he was doing that from his comments about how his
opponent wouldn't ever visit that part of Virginia, although
Webb is hardly a carpetbagger.) In that sense, I don't think it
was acceptable, but it wouldn't have generated such a
****storm if he hadn't ****ed up and used a racial insult
to do it.

I agree that the "Welcome to America" part is not only ironic,
but possibly even more offensive. Though Sidarth is from
Fairfax, and running against the colorisation of the DC burbs
won't hurt Allen with at least some of his target audience.
People say that the dividing line between North and South
runs between northern and southern Virginia. I think it's
probably somewhere between Manassas and Charlottesville
right now, though maybe a Virginian can correct me.

It won't play well for Allen's national ambitions, because
of the racism but also because it reinforces the pre-existing
idea that George Allen is a dumb**** (with a mean streak).

Ben

Michael Press wrote:

Those who decry the class system whether it be
overt or de facto are those who most want to join the
ruling class.

dumbass, no ****.

everyone would rather be in the ruling class.