[chinese_dan]

"A lot of people work their ass off just to pay the rent and feed their kids."

We should also be questioning why someone that can barely pay the rent decides to have another kid (or even a kid at all). Financial management should be a bigger part of our education system.

"Working your ass off does not imply wealth. That's the problem."

It has never and should never imply wealth. When I was in college, I worked my ass off and studied for an exam one time. I barely passed. Do you think this is fair? I probably worked harder than many of my classmates.

Obtaining wealth involves: timing, hard work, intelligence, and discipline...with a little bit of luck thrown into the mix. Most wealthy people in the US did not inherit it.

Before claiming that the system is rigged (which seems to be pretty common these days in our presidential campaign), we need to take a hard look at the responsibility of the individual.

[ethanbond]

Obtaining wealth is mostly timing/luck.

There are plenty of hard working, well disciplined, intelligent poor people. There are plenty of lazy, stupid rich people. There's virtually no correlation between any of the things you named and wealth.

The question then becomes how much should a lucky person be "rewarded," or how much should an unlucky person be "punished." A lot of people feel that being unlucky shouldn't mean living in perpetual debt, for example, or going bankrupt because you broke a leg.

A lot of people feel that our society could gain a lot by helping those unlucky people rise to their potential.

[vixen99]

Where's your source for all these assertions?

[ethanbond]

Well using IQ as a proxy for intelligence, you can find many sources that say there's no significant correlation between IQ and wealth (https://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/intlwlth.htm).

Many studies find that your parents' wealth is the single greatest influencer of your wealth (http://www.umass.edu/preferen/gintis/intergen.pdf).

I would say that who your parents are is about as "lucky" a thing could be, considering it's totally independent of who you are or decisions you make.

My only other assertions being that smart poor people and dumb rich people exist? I hope that's self-evident to anyone on this board...

[Mz]

We should also be questioning why someone that can barely pay the rent decides to have another kid (or even a kid at all).

This statement is rife with all kinds of shitty assumptions. Until Obamacare came along, it was common for health insurance in the US to not cover birth control -- yet it often covered Viagra. So, a guy who is too old to get it up anymore is entitled to sexual pleasure, but a young woman servicing a man is going to vindictively be made to pay, both literally and figuratively.

Second, a woman can be raped and end up pregnant. Rapists aren't exactly known for using protection and one rape case was determined to be not rape because the victim managed to convince her assailant to use a condom to protect her from disease. The courts determined this somehow proved consent on her part.

Third, it's quite difficult to get an abortion in the US. There are a lot of barriers to getting an abortion. So if you get raped and wind up pregnant, good luck ending it -- even though rape is supposed to be one the exceptions that allows you to get an abortion.

Fourth, there are religious faiths that tell women they are going to hell if a) they don't willingly oblige their husband for sex or b) they use any sort of birth control whatsoever.

I could probably go on, but I am a desperately poor woman who needs to try to get some work done so I can keep eating this month, in spite of having been one of the top three students of my graduating high school class and having had both my kids legitimately within the bonds of matrimony and generally having done every goddamn thing "right" that I can possibly do, but it is still FUCK YOU Michele, because, hey, women don't need no stinkin justice or respect. And before you ask: I have been celibate for more than 11 years at this point.

Wow, do assumptions of the sort you are making piss me off. It is a great way to guarantee that the world will continue to remain in the toilet, no matter how hard people work or how virtuous they are.

[mzw_mzw]

> Until Obamacare came along, it was common for health insurance in the US to not cover birth control -- yet it often covered Viagra.

Birth control costs literally $7 a month. You can get it from almost any pharmacy in the nation. Complaining about your health insurance not covering birth control is like complaining about your car insurance not covering gasoline.

[Mz]

Men tend to make more money than women. Seven dollars a month may not be a big deal to you, but it is for some people. And my criticism is more like saying that insurance companies would pay for your gas if you were male but not if you were female.

[mzw_mzw]

> Men tend to make more money than women. Seven dollars a month may not be a big deal to you, but it is for some people.

How is this also not an argument that health insurance should pay for food? People (including women!) pay way more per month for food than the $7 that we've agreed birth control costs, and it's far more vital to one's continued health than birth control is.

> And my criticism is more like saying that insurance companies would pay for your gas if you were male but not if you were female.

Only in a tortured and incorrect fashion. Insurance companies will pay for treating all kinds of maladies that only women can get. Is that an argument that they're discriminating against men?

[prmph]

Wow, I respect this post and the poster