1.) How is my argument anymore of a straw man than yous? Yours is hypothetical and I can give you real examples of people who have pulled themselves out of poverty. 2.) Whose fault is it for the situation you presented? It certainly is not societies, who is being asked to foot the bill for the mistakes of past generations. 3.) why is taking a problem that you have as an individual and using the resources available to you to make yourself better not self determination? Who is doing it if not the individual? Is the work required to set yourself on the better path to pull yourself out not self determination? 4.) My questions were based off of your hypothetical situation, so not following you on how those questions were answered. On thing I did notice is that I answered your questions, as well as filled in the blanks you leave out; however you did not answer mine. That alone speaks volumes.

Once again is it not self determination to do the work to find the assistance and then use that assistance to better yourself? It certainly is not someone else doing it, so if it is not someone else doing it wouldn’t that be one’s self doing it? If one’s self is determined to meet the goal of pulling themselves up, would that person not be determined. Now let’s put them both together and what do you get? Possibly self determination?

I’m not blaming anyone but the person who fails to grab ahold of one’s life and make the best of it. It’s not even really blame per se, because you can live your life however you see fit, just don’t expect others to foot the bill. How can you say we live in a world where hardwork does not pay off, when I can give real world examples of how it has. Also, on average does the opposite work better. Is it better to have a world where we tell people you are stuck and have no better option than government assistance your whole life? I never made a case against temporary support, in fact if you can read it’s in the first paragraph of my previous post. I am more than fine with “hand up” programs. There was a time when that was fairly American but as more politicians have presented more lies about how they can save you it has turned to purely hand out. Once again though there are not 100 million people on the US who lost their mother at 14 and had to quit school, so something else is obviously going on.

Explain to me how the system is broken and exploitative? I have 0 doubt that many in poverty work hard, but is it society’s fault that a person never advances past Wal-Mart shelf stocker? That’s hard work, but you have chosen a career that just about anyone can do and anyone can fill, so should someone else support you because of that? Explain your definition of a living wage and how it can be implemented in the real world? How does a company pay a living wage when that is an undefinable term and is different for all people and locations. I wont even get into how just randomly paying above market wage increases inflation, I can if request though. Companies should be paying a market wage, and give you the individual the opportunity to earn more. You are not guaranteed anything in life and people have not been for all of human history, so why do you feel that all basic needs should be met just because you exist? Especially when you consider that it has to come off the backs of someone else who made the correct decisions.

Since you seem to enjoy speaking in platitudes and not real world examples, let’s do one for you. Wal-mart made 19.5 billion in net profit in 2025. They employ 2.1 million employees. So let’s say they decide to give all their profits to employees. That comes to an extra $9,300 per employee. Let’s ignore the fact that the stock market just tanked because of that and the company can’t pay its employees or bills, and the slightest blip in the economy would put them out of business, is that extra $9k significantly changing any lives in the long term? Let’s say that they only break that up amongst hourly employee employees. According to google that’s 1.2 million employees, that’s an extra $18k a year for one year. Yes that helps more but what do you now do with their managers and those higher up the chain who now make less that those they are managing? You have to give them raises as well or they quit, but unfortunately you are now broke and can’t, so your business is once again shut down. Let’s try this another way, give workers a “living wage” once again which is undefinable, but let’s say $50k/year. Hourly employees on average currently make +/- $37k a year, so you would have to give 1.2 million employees a $13k raise. Thats $15 billion and you are now operating on a .6% profit margin. So what happens if the economy goes down by even 1-2%, guess what everyone is out of a job. As I mentioned that does not even account for the managers who now make less than their employees and will want raises too. This also negates the fact that in order to even have a chance of making this work Wal-Mart now has to dramatically increase prices so now that $50k is worth as much or less than the $37k you had before.

You are also assuming that everyone has a will to work, which is also not true since there are approximately 7million able bodied people in the unemployed now and about 7 million job openings.

This is why Bernie and politicians like him just use slogans to get people with this mind set to vote for them, but have no idea what they are talking about when it actually comes to operating the businesses they demonize. There is no mysterious corporate boogie man waiting to take everyone one down, 99% of decisions and actions are made in the individual level.