rafterman Loc: South Florida

Here's a young lady that should be running against the likes of Ilhan Omar, or AOC.

She says profoundly and IMHO, with an insight very rarely seen or heard even from people twice her age, "Destroying the free market will undo what millions of people have died to achieve."

https://fee.org/articles/college-student-my-generation-is-blind-to-the-prosperity-around-us/

eden

Sooo.....according to this political neophyte we should never criticize capitalism’s excesses
and flaws? She is correct in some of her analysis of her fellow millennials overwrought sense of entitlement but the piece seems like a thinly veiled hit job on AOC and others who point out the income disparity in this country
bought on by lopsided tax laws that serially favor the people who already have money.
History teaches that massive income disparity leads eventually to social discontent and rebellion. If it goes much farther we will need more than a bomb disposal team to avert a civil catastrophe.

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

I've always said that if I am going to be poor, I would rather be poor in the USA than any other country.
Even the poor, by government standards, have cell phones, color TV, access to health care, clean water, food banks, community centers and social services in abundance, etc. etc. A lot depends on their desire to avail themselves to the services provided. Of course, there are always some who are homeless through no fault of their own or are suffering from mental problems and going without medications. That is a small percentage of the poor. Most are working poor, and many of them don't know how to budget their finances and manage their money. The instant gratification culture we have prevents them from doing what our grandparents did; save for a rainy day.

eden

“Abundance” ?
Clearly you are not poor and have never lived in another western democracy. I agree with your final paragraph.

maryjane

I agree completely. Mostly, our lives are the direct result of our choices/decisions. A kid drops out of high school; another gets a college degree in something useless today. Both are unlikely to ever see their lives as resulting from that choice they made. AOC comes to mind; a person who obtained a degree on economics from an elite university (questionable but true), yet her only jobs have been waitress and bartender, and her words and actions as a neophyte congress woman make her university degree in economics lack credibility. A college degree is not required to be a successful, or accomplished, adult but critical thinking and problem solving are. If the so-called poor made better decisions in every aspect of their lives, their lives would improve. But it is so much easier to blame one's failures on someone or something else, isn't it?

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

There is nothing clear about it. You have no idea what I make or where I have lived. I am writing from experience. It's not necessarily how much money you have, it's what you do with it. But our government keeps taking more and more in taxes. I'm not just referring to the Federal Government. California is a high-speed train on socialism and it keeps accelerating. I don't want to be on it when it hits the big left turn curve toward San Fiasco.

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

We buy them books and send them to school, for free, and they still turn out to be idiots. You are absolutely right, life IS all about choices. Too bad many children have parents who have never grown up enough to teach them valuable lessons in life and sometimes remain as children themselves. Of course, this is the way the left and teacher's unions want it. Leave the learning and training of leftist indoctrination to them so that the next generation becomes dependent on the government for everything.