I have heard it said that the lack of the ability to postpone or defer is an important etiology
of becoming or staying poor. I have heard people say consider the oft-repeated woe of
modern society, the massive credit card debt, filled up, virtually entirely, with frivolous
purchases.

Now, this is a topic for discussion!  It gets into the question of whether capitalist America
is making Americans better off, or worse off. It gets into whether more ownership can
co-exist with more debt. Think, for example, about the subject of home ownership.  Home
ownership statistics do not seem to take into consideration the question of what ownership
means when so many Americans owe a home mortgage debt. Owning and owing are
confused facts.  American capitalism is successful because of American consumerism.
People spend and spend, and get into debt, perhaps because we all know that our
wage-jobs depend on our spending the money we earn. During the Christmas season,
the news reports all talk constantly about the huge importance of Christmas spending,
about how many businesses depend upon Christmas holiday sales figures being high.
What are Americans supposed to do when they hear such as this? Spend less?  Save
more?





A higher education is no sure guarantee of a higher income.




Those who are born into more-than-average wealth can afford a much better higher
education, and are also better positioned by their wealth to be placed in a far-better-
paying career.





Those who have access to more-than-average wealth, inherited wealth, also have a
more-than-everage access to a better higher education, and also have a more-than-
average opportunity and access to a better-paying professional career.





In capitalism, if the people elect to spend less, unemployment will increase. People
would rather have debt, if that means they will also have a job that pays them. We cannot
have the successes of capitalism without the excesses of consumerism.





"Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves; when that right is
pre-empted, it is called brainwashing."
-- Germaine Greer




"In proportion as you give the state power to do things for you, you give it power to do
things to you."
-- Albert Jay Nock





"Success is that old ABC -- ability, breaks, and courage."
-- Charles Luckman





"Never stop fighting until the fight is won."
-- Elliot Ness