translate.google.com is ur friend

Ow that's a horrible translation... schoonmaker = cleaner.

"I don't speak foreign."
Are you serious? You seem proud of your inability to speak a foreign language...
Why not say I don't speak German? Seriously dude...

Horrible translation, sounds like a drunk Yoda.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2144043/Columbia-University-janitor-Gac-Filipaj-swaps-jumpsuit-cap-gown-graduate-honors.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

The truth, I think he was referring to that terrible English translation, not about another language (which that almost qualified as)

So Stressedlines, what do you think? Is this the American dream? Are you American, by any chance?

Is it? It was HIS dream. The 'dream' is different for everyone.

Even though America is a former shadow of its better day, the dream is still possible, but it requires work..hard work (for most).


Now, we live in an 'entitlement' society though, where hands are out for free money, and the government, eager to keep its voters in place, hands out the free loot. This is not what we are or should be.

My father, also an immigratn washed dishes 14 hours a day, while he went to school also to get his degree, so this story has a familar sound to it, but is hardly unique.

i got my degree from going to the Army, as i could not afford univeristy any other way, and taking out HUGe student loans was not really an option, and scholarships are not usually awarded to people such as me.

however, to maake dreams come true, requires work, just not dreaming. This has been lost on the last 2 generations.

I was saving this link because I actually liked the guy's story and didn't want to disparage it with being critical about the AD. I'm glad less privileged people still have opportunity in this country, even if I think a lot of people in that category don't.

But now that we're talking about the idea itself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=acLW1vFO-2Q#t=186s

I'm interested in the concept of "American Dream" or someone's dream in general. In my own profession, I'm having a hard time defining it, although I do keep trying.

When I was younger (not even so much younger, say, my early 20s) I always thought this whole dream thing was nonsense and you should just "do your best" to get somewhere.

Now I believe that I need some perspective, some kind of dream, to be able to get somewhere. Whatever that somewhere may be, and whatever the alternative "nowhere" may be.

Well, to be clear, I think you've got to have some vision for where you want your life to go, too - or, at least, I think I need that kind of vision. I just can't buy into the classic "Go to college and you're guaranteed a job, a wife, a dog, 3 kids, a car and a nice place in Suburbia with a white picket fence" line that's the foundational basis for the American Dream, because... uh... it ain't true. It hasn't been true for decades; for some people it was never true; and it was probably never a sustainable goal in the first place.

I agree Eden that that's a terrible interpretation of the American dream. Very narrow and not a real "perspective." After all, everybody else already has a white picket fence these days whereas polished wood is much more elegant and fashionable.

The best way to define the dream is to define a set of aggresive goals. If you are an apartment dweller, and have been all your life (maybe your parents were as well or whatever) it may be as simple as to own your own home. If you grew up in the city where owning cars was a luxury do to the indecent cost of parking, maybe to have a place where you can own and park a car is your dream. If you have both those, your dream may be to retire to some specific place or to travel. And your "American Dream" may change once you fulfill part of it. The American Dream is unique to each individual in that regard.

exactly. That is not my dream either Eden. I was born in the mountains of East kentucky. I went to college in boston, maryland and Ohio, and have lived in Philadelphia and Boston for a combined 20 years.

It took me a while to understand that I was happier with a more simple rural life, so I moved to East Tennessee, to get back to my roots.

I work in Chattanooga (medium sized American city) but live in a very rural setting, and for ME, that is my dream. I own rental property, and I build my own rental houses with my own hands, so that I can live out the other part of my dream. Retire before I am 50 (which I am sure I will do now).

Ask 100 different people what their idea of the 'dream' is, and you will get 100 answers. The key here, is that you have to earn the dreams you have, they wont be given to you.

Humans sufger from something called confirmation bias... And i'm not sure i know what that means roght now, but let me illustrate. People see one person winning the lottery and think 'thay could be me' they don't see the other million people who didn't win that week and work out the odds.

It's more like a 50/50 shot based on our inability to intuit stats...

There are examples of Americans who work hard and are poor. Howard Zinn's parents par example. We don't see them as proof that the American dream is false, just as much as we don't see us not winning the lottery as proof that we can't ever win...

not winning the lottery isn't proof you can't ever win because you *can* win it, it's just an extreme long shot. I agree most people don't see that they are more lilel;y to get struck by lightening on a beautiful sunny day than win the lottery, but considering someone will win it eventually, than anyone who plays *could* technically be that someone. Some of us are just smart enough to see the odds as ot worth playign and don't.

Likewise, hard work can (and does for many) pay off. And, in fact, the odds of it paying off are much better than the odds of winning the lottery such that it *is* a worthwhile endeavor. If you have no goals and do not strive to achieve them, then you become complacent and have *no* chance of improving your condition. It's a crap shoot, but it;s better than becoming a socially dependent couch potato with nothing to take pride in.

I think the problem right now, is that the government increasingly makes it harder for the 'dream' to come true, by being more intrusive and requiring more taxes.

How is the US government becoming more intrusive and in what way does that affect the American dream? I've heard a lot about how it'll soon be mandatory to get a health insurance, but that should inhibit no one to follow his dreams. And the higher taxes make realization of the dream slightly less rewarding, but I'm not sure if it'll be qualitatively different.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3151

That is a misgnomer. Federal taxes are much lower now than they have been historically - even with Obamination's increases.

Have no fear on the Obamination's abomination of health care. IT won't withstand constitutional scrutiny as we will soon see when the SCOTUS returns with its decision.

Draugh, i am 100% paying MORe taxes now. I got pay stubs to vouch for it. Federal taxes are lower on which income bracket is a better question. I am not a 1%,....lol

and yes, obamas abomination wont make it thru. They cant force us to buy it, and it is a very unpopular law.

If you want services, public health, education, modest military etc etc, people & businesses have to pay taxes.

is govt debt is the result of excessive spending or inadequate taxation ?


May I suggest that low paid workers might just get a better public health service in Cuba than the USA, and I also think the state of California is reaching a point where the state will spend more on prisons than it will on Tertiary Education.

The USA is a great nation, but it has some problems, and I don't think the "self first,
everyone else second' ideology has the answers, but it's your nation and you get to choose how to proceed

"...but it's your nation and you get to choose how to proceed."

Hardly. Americans don't choose anything.

US$17 trillion in debt, is that the dream or the nightmare?
I tell you what could help though, getting little kids to swear allegiance to the Stars & Stripes at school every day and to be god fearing and to believe carrying guns around is a good thing, that Native Indians were the bad guys and that the USA won the 2nd World War, that people who support higher standards of health care are communists, that the European Union is run by Socialists, that giving Israelis weapons to kill Arabs is a basic human right, that black people have smaller brains than white people, Islam want to destroy America because they are jealous of capitalism and Mexicans are flooding into the States because they truly believe it is the best country in the World, that's why you have a World Series when no-one else plays; believe that the most important people are middle-class in a country that completely lacks class.
After 10 years of that brainwashing combined with sub-standard education you will be an American my son.
You know what they say, "you can take the kid out of the trailer park but you can't take the trailer park out of the kid"
My question is, when do these things start to change and do they need to before the USA can grow up as a Nation? Are you waiting for the Chinese govt to stop picking up the cheque for your continued over-spending before you'll wake up and smell the proverbial coffee? Eventually the ever increasing bills have to be paid, the bills that the Capitalism system and free market economics couldn't pay.
All IMHO as always.

@SD - How old are you? I was paying taxes in the Clinton years and paid more on less income than I do today. Oh, and while I make a good living, 85K base salary is *not* in the 1%

Also, SD, did you bother to read the web page I sent. Its analysis was based on a middle class income, not the 1%.

Individual tax rates have not been raised more then 3% for individual incomes for ANY tax bracket and all tax rate increases only impact those over 200,000 for an individual and 250,000 for married couples. Proposed increases only impact individual capital gains rates by 5%. There are further increases for the health care plan but they haven't kicked in yet. That is federal law and only congress can change that....so unless your income has increased significantly how can you be paying 100% more taxes?

I am 43. I make roughly the same (albeit from different sources, and probably in a much lower income area than you) nwo that I did 5 years ago (maybe more form my business, but my salary is roughly the same).

Also, the average salary in America is dropping, not raising, so I am not sure that is a reason either.

i will actually go research it a bit more, but tax revnues are up, so either there is more people paying taxes, or taxes are higher.

howver, that being said there is more than 1 revenue stream for the feds.

Nigee, 95% of what you wrote is an OPINION, and YOUR opinion. I love people like you, who believe in free speech, until themomen they disagree with you.

Also, we do NOT borrow money from China, in reality we borrow from the Fed (what a corrupt thing that is).

I love the implication that free-market capitalism is to blame for $17 trillion in debt accrued by GOVERNMENT spending. Keep 'em coming, Nigee.