look, even a commie pinko fag atheist like me still thinks you can make it here in USA with hard work and some smarts and sacrifice and right attitude .
Deck may not be in shuffled in your favor and my political opposites are trying their hardest to make it more difficult.
If you can’t look around and see people who started with nothing building a good life for themselves and family your circle is too small.
All a question of definitions, and of what period to which compare. Social mobility is still very possible but likely to come by different means. Harder to just join one giant company at the bottom rung and spend one’s entire working life there any more. It also feels like social mobility works both ways more now – easier to start off middle class and end up poor. Not sure if that’s anything that requires a big change in social policy though.
The cost of education here is a big hurdle.
(From what I recall re brownstoner posters there is not a big difference between the educational background of the allegedly wealthy and the allegedly poorer. Most went to pretty good colleges).
The American Dream is definitely there but two things: it is extremely easy to get sidetracked. I could more or less sleepwalk through life and end up ok, I had many advantages. And second, the aspirational aspect of the american Dream is not very strong for native-born americans I don’t think.
quote:
Rob’s grammar-and-punctuation-don’t-matter mantra will shut off some opportunities right away!
don’t be silly. as if i’d type a resume not using capital letters or something!? don’t you know anyone under the age of 20!? proper grammar and punctuation are so LAST millenium!
I agree the American dream is alive and well. I have managed to survive here for over a decade, having come to this land with $20 in my pocket.
(Of course, the rest was tied up in stocks, bonds and bank accounts, but still…)
look, even a commie pinko fag atheist like me still thinks you can make it here in USA with hard work and some smarts and sacrifice and right attitude .
Deck may not be in shuffled in your favor and my political opposites are trying their hardest to make it more difficult.
If you can’t look around and see people who started with nothing building a good life for themselves and family your circle is too small.
– The American Dream is definitely there but two things: it is extremely easy to get sidetracked.
Like on Brownstoner.
All a question of definitions, and of what period to which compare. Social mobility is still very possible but likely to come by different means. Harder to just join one giant company at the bottom rung and spend one’s entire working life there any more. It also feels like social mobility works both ways more now – easier to start off middle class and end up poor. Not sure if that’s anything that requires a big change in social policy though.
The cost of education here is a big hurdle.
(From what I recall re brownstoner posters there is not a big difference between the educational background of the allegedly wealthy and the allegedly poorer. Most went to pretty good colleges).
I don’t think I’ve had luck, but I’ve had an absence of bad luck to screw up things, so that amounts to the same I suppose.
The American Dream is definitely there but two things: it is extremely easy to get sidetracked. I could more or less sleepwalk through life and end up ok, I had many advantages. And second, the aspirational aspect of the american Dream is not very strong for native-born americans I don’t think.
quote:
Rob’s grammar-and-punctuation-don’t-matter mantra will shut off some opportunities right away!
don’t be silly. as if i’d type a resume not using capital letters or something!? don’t you know anyone under the age of 20!? proper grammar and punctuation are so LAST millenium!
*rob*
“Luck plays a large part – fortune in the sense of serendipity. I’ve had a lot of that.”
I used to often eat dessert at Serendipidy. It played an unfortunate part in making me large.
Rob is not “disadvantaged” or lacking opportunity. He’s BROKE.