Liberals, why do you believe people are entitled to the work of others?

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NotreDame

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Yes - it's the premise I also have fault with. Some people don't see that the reason they are able to produce fruits is in a large part due the fact that we have a functioning society. They see their own work and efforts, sure, but they don't see the larger role our society has in making that happen. Right now we live in a society that has roads, bridges, electricity, clean water, and other such things that allow for commerce to flourish. We also live in a society where the rule of law is strong, and we don't have to build walls around all of our houses and hire small armies to protect our lands and businesses from bands of roving thugs (as they have to do in some third world countries). All the "ground work" to make businesses flourish comes from operating a society that keeps law and order, and also keeps the poor at a level financially by which they are still participants in the economy. And that requires taxes.

It is questionable whether your statement above addresses a premise in the opening post. I do not understand the reasoning or conclusion of the opening post to preclude a society with roads, bridges, electricity, clean water, or infrastructure for commerce to move between people, towns, cities, counties, states, and nations. You are addressing a Strawman premise.
 
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Armoured

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No. Work-for-the-dole schemes have been tried.

They end up making people resentful, make it harder to get back into real employment, and undermine real jobs.

But that's what it's really about? You being jealous that somebody gets something?
Lower-middle class conservatism: the mind clenching terror that someone, somewhere might be benefiting from a program you're not directly entitled to
 
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Larniavc

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Luck is the excuse of the incompetent.

No it isn't. If a baby is unlucky enough to be born disabled is that incompetence?

Perhaps think a little about the far reaching implications of your pithy sound bites.
 
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DaisyDay

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Why do you think the less successful are entitled to things from the more successful?

Compassion is great, I am all for rich giving to the poor, but there is no morality in taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor.

No one is entitled to the fruits and labor of another. If that were the case, society would cease to progress forward.

What am I missing?
I think you're missing that we live in a society which can choose how we treat our own members. Not everyone judges a person's worth solely by how many dollars he possesses. As a society, we provide the structure that allows the rich to prosper; in return, we expect the prosperous to provide resources for the poor (and middle class).

Our economy is predicated on there being a certain level of unemployment - unfortunately, it is unevenly distributed. As long as I benefit from other people's unemployment (low inflation, stable prices), I owe the unemployed a decent level of comfort, imho.
 
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whatbogsends

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Why do you think the less successful are entitled to things from the more successful?

Compassion is great, I am all for rich giving to the poor, but there is no morality in taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor.

No one is entitled to the fruits and labor of another. If that were the case, society would cease to progress forward.

What am I missing?

I think you're confused as to who is taking from who.

Corporate profits are at an all time high. Owners and executives are reaping the rewards, while continuing to push the wages for the average worker downward.

When the wealthy confiscate the value produced by the worker, leaving them with only a pittance for their effort, it is the corporate owners and CEOs that are taking the value created by the worker.
 
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Avid

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... [effort in]+[luck]equals[economic status].

Luck is a huge force multiplier in this case.

Such progressive methods such as taxing the rich reduce the effects of luck.
None of this works. Taxing the rich more, and not taxing the poor at all, is one of the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto (#2.)


Please define LUCK as you use it here. Thank you.

Read about Davey Crockett here:

I was able to go to uni only because my government put up the money in the form of grant.

Now I pay a slightly higher tax rate because of my income and the size of my house.

What is so wrong with giving something back to a society that has supported me to get where I am, today?
Someone paying a slightly higher rate of tax is NOT the same as so many people expecting to get something for nothing. This is NOT what is being discussed.

If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, and give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; And the sixteen being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they do now, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; But be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains around the necks of our fellow sufferers; And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on 'til the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering... and the forehorse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.

Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the US

The whole concept of "giving back" is wasted in these circumstances. If you intend to give back to society, start by giving back that amount they gave you. If they are not ready to receive it, find the people who paid the highest taxes in the time you got so much, and give each of them a portion of that!!! Otherwise, you should abandon the whole premise of "giving back."

We must ALL do what we can to help society as a whole. That's kind of the whole point of being in a society.

I can't do much directly because I am not skilled for it, but I am working and totally willing to pay extra taxes to fund socialized healthcare, food programs, water treatment to provide people with clean drinking water, housing, schooling, public transportation, access to public information, etc.
What do you consider a fair amount of ones income that may be taken in taxes for these purposes? I am speaking of percentages. What is the maximum percent of ANYONE'S income that should be taken in taxes?

A little to help you to understand about doing something to help society...
I worked in a technical capacity for a small municipality for many years. Early on, and then again later on, there was a direct comparison made of what I was paid and what it would cost to pay an outside engineering firm to do the jobs I had done. It was shown that the city would need to pay an outside firm what they pay me each year for the work I accomplished in a week. That city later decided it did not need my help, simply because they did not like answering why the budget for salaries was the largest part of the cost of running the city. They decided it was better to pay over 50 times as much as they paid me, than to try to pass a budget with decent wages in it. They are NOT doing what is claimed in these answers.
 
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Oafman

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None of this works. Taxing the rich more, and not taxing the poor at all, is one of the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto (#2.)

Every developed country in the world taxes the rich more than the poor. Are they all wrong to do so, simply because Marx & Engels advocated it?

Do you know what the 10th 'plank' is?
Marx said:
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form.
Is free education for all children wrong, just because Marx advocated it?

Were we wrong to abolish children's factory labour because Marx advocated it? Would you like to see child labour reintroduced?!
 
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Tallguy88

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I guess it depends what we mean by giving people stuff they're not entitled to. The following chart will be helpful:

total-spending-pie-2015.png


Social Security and unemployment benefits are included in the largest chunk at 33% of the President's proposed budget. However, one must have worked to qualify for unemployment. Same with Social Security being dependent upon how many quarters you worked throughout your life.

If you're referring to food stamps, that is included under Food and Agriculture, which is 3% of the overall total. Housing and Communit, which I assume refers to HUD and Section 8 housing, is also at 3%.

So of you're worried about your tax dollars going to people who don't work, don't worry about it. Only roughly 6% of the federal budget potentially supports those who don't work. I say "potentially" because many who receive benefits from those programs DO work, they just don't make enough income to support themselves.
 
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morningstar2651

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Here is how tax-breaks for the wealthy causes more harm than good - it's a systemic archetype referred to as "success to the successful". It creates two reinforcing structures that act as a single reinforcing structure. In a nutshell, a system that rewards success with additional success ensures that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

There are two effective strategies to deal with this archetype:
  1. Identify the resources being unequally distributed and balance the distribution. (e.g., Implement a steep progressive tax, combat tax avoidance, shut down tax havens, lower/remove sales tax, implement/raise capital gains tax, implement/raise estate or inheritance tax, implement/raise dividend tax, implement/raise wealth tax on the richest 20%, spend more on schools in poor neighborhoods than in rich neighborhoods, improve quality and access to higher education for the poor, increase consumer confidence to raise the propensity to consume and lower the propensity to save)
  2. Disconnect the two reinforcing structures so they are not dependent on the allocation of shared resources.

ss1.gif

ss2.gif
 
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NotreDame

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When the wealthy confiscate the value produced by the worker, leaving them with only a pittance for their effort, it is the corporate owners and CEOs that are taking the value created by the worker.

When the wealthy confiscate the value produced by the worker, leaving them with only a pittance for their effort, it is the corporate owners and CEOs that are taking the value created by the worker

Ah, the labor theory of value. Just a few potential problems with your statements above. First, does labor to create an object thereby give the object value? In other words, is an object valuable because someone labored to make the object? You can labor all day to make something, anything, but this does not make what you have made "valuable" and neither does the labor you expended to make the object render the object as having "value" or "valuable."

Now, by mentioning CEOs and corporate owners, you seemingly suggest that you are at least referencing something made, a product/object for sale, toys, cars, tables, chairs, clothing, etcetera. Those objects are then sold in the market place and the worker is paid a wage for their labor. Your statements possibly hint to this notion the CEOs and corporate owners are "taking" the value of an object when and where the worker does not receive the entirety or close to the entirety of what the object sold for in the market place. The value of their labor is not necessarily equivalent to what the object is sold for in the market place. There is a difference between exchange value and the labor theory of value. Hence, the CEOs and corporate owners are not "taking the value created by the worker."

Of course, it is rather difficult to discern, with any reliability or confidence, the nuance of your position as you essentially provided no rationale, philosophy, or theory to support your conclusion. So maybe you are not suggesting the workers are entitled to more or all money made by the sale of an object, an object they created, in the market place.

At any rate, they are paid a wage for their labor and you have assumed, without demonstrating, the wage paid is not commensurate with the labor performed and also assume the wage does not satisfactorily meet the "value" the labor created.

I think you're confused as to who is taking from who.
Corporate profits are at an all time high. Owners and executives are reaping the rewards, while continuing to push the wages for the average worker downward.

Unfortunately, you have allowed your bias and own ideological beliefs permeate your reading of the opening post, and thereby leading to an incorrect understanding of the comments in the opening post. You do realize the opening posts comments are not exclusively applicable to owners and executives? The opening posts comments are equally applicable to those who do not own a business and who are not executives, everyday ordinary people who are by no means rich but make a decent living, such many people in the middle class.

The opening posts comments are applicable to the accountant who works for a business and makes $60,000/year with a wife and child but has a portion of their income taken and redistributed to the less fortunate to pay for Food Stamps, public housing, welfare, etcetera. The opening posts remarks are applicable to the manager at some factory or store, say Toyota, Home Depot, who makes $65,000/year, with a wife, and has a portion of his income taken and redistributed to pay for a plethora of social welfare programs. There are educators at public schools, private schools, professors, and so forth making a decent living, who do not own any business, who are not corporate owners, but having their income taken and redistributed.

What your retort ignores is the opening posts' commentary is applicable to the many millions of American who are relatively financially successful but are not corporate owners, who do not own businesses, who work for someone else, and make a decent living. Of course, you read the opening post through the lens of class warfare and through the optics of the rich corporate and business owners and the workers they exploit.

I suggest you re-read the opening post again, perhaps with the lens of being more objective and less of reading your ideological bias into the prose.
 
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NotreDame

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I guess it depends what we mean by giving people stuff they're not entitled to. The following chart will be helpful:

total-spending-pie-2015.png


Social Security and unemployment benefits are included in the largest chunk at 33% of the President's proposed budget. However, one must have worked to qualify for unemployment. Same with Social Security being dependent upon how many quarters you worked throughout your life.

If you're referring to food stamps, that is included under Food and Agriculture, which is 3% of the overall total. Housing and Communit, which I assume refers to HUD and Section 8 housing, is also at 3%.

So of you're worried about your tax dollars going to people who don't work, don't worry about it. Only roughly 6% of the federal budget potentially supports those who don't work. I say "potentially" because many who receive benefits from those programs DO work, they just don't make enough income to support themselves.

Well, if the suggested position in the opening post was predicated upon percentages you reference above, especially objection to some specific percentage, then maybe you'd have an excellent point.
 
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Jan Volkes

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We have heard the analogy of Robin Hood. However, that historic character did not take from people who produced, to give to people who would not or could not. Robin of Locksley, the historic character, was righting wrongs done by theft and graft, which is NOT what is being discussed here. We are discussing the modern version of this, where people referencing Robin Hood are more the Sheriff of Nottingham, and his henchmen, than a band of merry men utilizing the cover of the forest for protection from government tyranny.
Robin Hood was not an historic character he was a figment of someones imagination,
there is no record in British history of such a person ever existing.
 
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Jan Volkes

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Please do not use the Scriptures to justify taking from those who earned to give to those who do not in exchange for votes and political power. Caring for those who cannot care for themselves is charity. Caring for those who can take care of themselves but choose not to is indulging laziness. Taking from those who produce to give to those who have not earned it is called theft.
I agree, if you are brain damaged, sick, blind or a cripple and can not work there should be special places where you could go and sit with your hands out and beg the passers by for charity, we could take a few tips from a lot of third world countries where they have been doing it for thousands of years, there's even a book about it called 'The Bible'.
Anyone who falls on hard times or become unable to work would then know were to go and sit and beg for charity.
Imagine, the US could then become a truly biblical country.
 
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Belk

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Why do you think the less successful are entitled to things from the more successful?

Compassion is great, I am all for rich giving to the poor, but there is no morality in taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor.

No one is entitled to the fruits and labor of another. If that were the case, society would cease to progress forward.

What am I missing?

Apparently the fundamentals of how a society works. However, if you feel so strongly about your position you are free to stop using everything that is paid for by taxes. I would suggest a cabin out in the woods somewhere. :wave:
 
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ChristJudgeOfAll

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Here is how tax-breaks for the wealthy causes more harm than good - it's a systemic archetype referred to as "success to the successful". It creates two reinforcing structures that act as a single reinforcing structure. In a nutshell, a system that rewards success with additional success ensures that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

There are two effective strategies to deal with this archetype:
  1. Identify the resources being unequally distributed and balance the distribution. (e.g., Implement a steep progressive tax, combat tax avoidance, shut down tax havens, lower/remove sales tax, implement/raise capital gains tax, implement/raise estate or inheritance tax, implement/raise dividend tax, implement/raise wealth tax on the richest 20%, spend more on schools in poor neighborhoods than in rich neighborhoods, improve quality and access to higher education for the poor, increase consumer confidence to raise the propensity to consume and lower the propensity to save)
  2. Disconnect the two reinforcing structures so they are not dependent on the allocation of shared resources.

ss1.gif

ss2.gif

And why is income equality a good thing? Income equality is only a good thing if everyone is putting in equal work. It's called fairness. I am in favor of rich people paying a little more, not a lot more. Tax is already based on a percentage. Even without a so called "progressive tax system" the rich would still be paying more.

Saying someone earning a million dollars taxed at 30%, is the same as someone taxed at 30% earning 100,000 is just a liberal media lie. One of them is paying 300,000 and the other is paying 30,000. That difference is enough. Anymore and it's punishing the successful.
 
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Robin Hood was not an historic character he was a figment of someones imagination,
there is no record in British history of such a person ever existing.
I stand corrected. The use of Robin Hood by liberals to make the point of taking from the rich, and giving to the poor, should be corrected accordingly!!!
 
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ChristsSoldier115

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I guess it depends what we mean by giving people stuff they're not entitled to. The following chart will be helpful:

total-spending-pie-2015.png


Social Security and unemployment benefits are included in the largest chunk at 33% of the President's proposed budget. However, one must have worked to qualify for unemployment. Same with Social Security being dependent upon how many quarters you worked throughout your life.

If you're referring to food stamps, that is included under Food and Agriculture, which is 3% of the overall total. Housing and Communit, which I assume refers to HUD and Section 8 housing, is also at 3%.

So of you're worried about your tax dollars going to people who don't work, don't worry about it. Only roughly 6% of the federal budget potentially supports those who don't work. I say "potentially" because many who receive benefits from those programs DO work, they just don't make enough income to support themselves.

Wow that is a lot for social security and unemployment. I wonder how much takes up social security and how much is for the rest. We could cut down the unemployment spending if the companies here would keep jobs here.
 
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Jan Volkes

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I stand corrected. The use of Robin Hood by liberals to make the point of taking from the rich, and giving to the poor should be corrected accordingly!!!
The story of Robin Hood was devised to explain the just over the unjust, taking from the thief to return to the victim is not taking from the rich to give to the poor, Robin Hood is a story about injustice and is the exact opposite of a well run society.
 
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whatbogsends

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Ah, the labor theory of value. Just a few potential problems with your statements above. First, does labor to create an object thereby give the object value? In other words, is an object valuable because someone labored to make the object? You can labor all day to make something, anything, but this does not make what you have made "valuable" and neither does the labor you expended to make the object render the object as having "value" or "valuable."

Now, by mentioning CEOs and corporate owners, you seemingly suggest that you are at least referencing something made, a product/object for sale, toys, cars, tables, chairs, clothing, etcetera. Those objects are then sold in the market place and the worker is paid a wage for their labor. Your statements possibly hint to this notion the CEOs and corporate owners are "taking" the value of an object when and where the worker does not receive the entirety or close to the entirety of what the object sold for in the market place. The value of their labor is not necessarily equivalent to what the object is sold for in the market place. There is a difference between exchange value and the labor theory of value. Hence, the CEOs and corporate owners are not "taking the value created by the worker."

Of course, it is rather difficult to discern, with any reliability or confidence, the nuance of your position as you essentially provided no rationale, philosophy, or theory to support your conclusion. So maybe you are not suggesting the workers are entitled to more or all money made by the sale of an object, an object they created, in the market place.

This isn't a new topic of discussion, simply brought up again as a new thread. I've provided data on this position in the past. Labor productivity is up, corporate earnings are up, CEO and executive pay is up disproportionately high to earnings, and labor pay has been relatively stagnant.

The business owner and management definitely have the right to some of the worker's productivity. The business owner isn't offering people jobs solely out of the goodness of their heart, rather as a means to increase their profit. However, what we've seen in the last 30+ years, the workers are retaining a smaller percent of their labor value as earnings.

I would agree, that in a case by case basis, it is often hard to truly identify what the exact value add by the worker is, therefore it is hard to determine what percentage of their productivity the worker retains and what percentage the employee takes. What we do know that worker productivity by most standard measures is up relative to worker compensation, therefore, on the whole, workers are retaining less of their productivity in terms of wages.

"When you look at the relationship between worker wages and worker productivity, there's a significant and, many believe, problematic, gap that has arisen in the past several decades. Though productivity (defined as the output of goods and services per hours worked) grew by about 74 percent between 1973 and 2013, compensation for workers grew at a much slower rate of only 9 percent during the same time period, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute. "

http://www.theatlantic.com/business...ay-and-productivity-is-so-problematic/385931/


At any rate, they are paid a wage for their labor and you have assumed, without demonstrating, the wage paid is not commensurate with the labor performed and also assume the wage does not satisfactorily meet the "value" the labor created.

See above. I've cited other data in the past. Over the last 30 years, wages as a percentage of productivity has decreased for workers, and increased for executives/CEOs.

Unfortunately, you have allowed your bias and own ideological beliefs permeate your reading of the opening post, and thereby leading to an incorrect understanding of the comments in the opening post. You do realize the opening posts comments are not exclusively applicable to owners and executives? The opening posts comments are equally applicable to those who do not own a business and who are not executives, everyday ordinary people who are by no means rich but make a decent living, such many people in the middle class.

The OP was trying to assert that the poor are trying to confiscate the "earned" money of the wealthy through government redistribution. The OP was an ideologically driven statement, and has several assumptions which are false. It makes the claim that the poor are trying to steal the fruits of labor of the rich, but the reality is, they're trying to get back some of those fruits that the rich have already stolen from the poor.

Most who receive benefits from government redistribution are workers. Their productivity has already been "redistributed" from themselves to the owners/CEOs. Higher taxes on those with high incomes and more services for those with low incomes help to balance that out, but by and large, the redistribution that is happening the most is the owners are taking productivity from workers, despite the assertion of the OP.

The opening posts comments are applicable to the accountant who works for a business and makes $60,000/year with a wife and child but has a portion of their income taken and redistributed to the less fortunate to pay for Food Stamps, public housing, welfare, etcetera. The opening posts remarks are applicable to the manager at some factory or store, say Toyota, Home Depot, who makes $65,000/year, with a wife, and has a portion of his income taken and redistributed to pay for a plethora of social welfare programs. There are educators at public schools, private schools, professors, and so forth making a decent living, who do not own any business, who are not corporate owners, but having their income taken and redistributed.

What your retort ignores is the opening posts' commentary is applicable to the many millions of American who are relatively financially successful but are not corporate owners, who do not own businesses, who work for someone else, and make a decent living. Of course, you read the opening post through the lens of class warfare and through the optics of the rich corporate and business owners and the workers they exploit.

I suggest you re-read the opening post again, perhaps with the lens of being more objective and less of reading your ideological bias into the prose.

The opening post itself is a statement of class warfare, attempting to demonize the working poor. Class warfare is part of the American economic system, with capitalists/owners (who have the power) attempting to leverage their wealth to exploit the worker, and workers attempting to utilize means they have available (government and unions) to prevent exploitation from occurring. There's a reason unions were formed, and it wasn't because the already well compensated workers were trying to extort the business, rather it was to help prevent unfair labor practices. Like all man-made institutions, as unions grew in power, they, too became corrupt.

Power corrupts.

FYI, i am one of the many Americans who is doing well for myself as a worker. I have no qualms about my taxes being used to help out those less fortunate than i. Many of those who receive that help also work hard, but don't have leverage to secure an income that puts them above the threshold of qualifying for government assistance.

While i acknowledge that i have certain skills and a strong work ethic that help put me in a position to command a higher income in the market place, i also acknowledge that a portion of my success was due to coming from a family that valued education, and provided me with the opportunity to get an education which helped develop those skills. Additionally, i am well aware that the market exploits a large segment of the population. If those workers were compensated properly by their respective employers, there would be less need for my income to subsidize their labor.
 
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