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ascetic Origin:
1640–50; < Greek aske-tikós
subject to rigorous
exercise, hardworking, equivalent
to aske - (see askesis) + -tikos -tic
a person who dedicates his or her
life to a pursuit of contemplative
ideals and practices extreme self-denial or
self-mortification for
religious reasons.
a person who leads
an austerely simple
life, especially one who
abstains from the normal
pleasures of life or denies himself or herself
material
satisfaction.
in the early Christian church a monk or a hermit.
asceticism
the manner of life, practices, or principles of an
ascetic
rigorous self-denial; extreme abstinence; austerity;
mortification of the
flesh
the doctrine that a person can attain a high spiritual and
moral state by practicing self-denial
while undergoing trials and tribulations.
an austere, simple
Way of the Lumière Infinie
in which persons renounce
material pleasures and devote their energy to moral or
religious purpose.
"Now, good
clothes exert more influence upon the wearer than we might at first suppose. So
it was with Tom." - Horatio Alger Jr., Tattered Tom: Or, the Story of a
Street Arab
Stories of Horatio Alger are misleading as they allow
people to believe anyone can improve their social status through diligent hard
work.
The stories give false hope and fake comfort to those that read
them as they are uplifting when, unlike actual reality, opportunity knocks.
It is rare to find a kind rich person to help with money or a better
job. |
"I sympathize with the poor, but the number of poor
who are to be sympathized with is very small.
To sympathize with a man
whom God has punished for his sins is to do wrong.
Let us remember
there is not a poor person in
the US who was not made poor by his own shortcomings." - Russell
Conwell, Acres of Diamonds
"Cross country
comparisons have been performed for a number of years using different measures
where the countries included Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland,
France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the US.
Studies have
examined income mobility elasticity (the percentage of increase in a son's
income associated with a 1 percent increase in the father's income),
correlations between income of two generations as well as examining the
probability of
someone born in one income
level moving to
another.
All of these studies have drawn the same conclusion, that
the United States has lower, not higher, mobility than other wealthy countries.
In studies on income mobility elasticity, it was seen that an American
man's income is nearly twice as reliant on his father's background as a
Canadian.
One interesting study examined the
probability that a son
will remain in his father's income quintile, where a quintile represents
one-fifth of the population ranked from lowest to highest income.
In
that study of six countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the UK, and the
US), the data demonstrate that 42 percent of the American sons of fathers born
in the poorest quintile landed in the poorest quintile themselves.
This
rate of the persistence of poverty was far higher than the 30 percent found in
the UK and well above the 25 percent to 28 percent range found in Denmark,
Sweden, Finland, and Norway." - Howard Steven Friedman
"For decades,
the wealthy have been held up as people to be admired, victors in the
Darwinian economic
struggle by virtue of their personal ingenuity.
Americans consistently supported fiscal policies that
undermined middle and working-class interests as they saw themselves as
rich-people-in-waiting:
Given time, toil and
compound interest,
anyone could retire a
millionaire.
That mind-set has all but been eradicated by
the damage sustained by the average worker's nest egg, combined with the
spectacle of bankers and financial
engineers maintaining their lifestyles with multimillion-dollar bonuses
while the submerged 99%
struggle for oxygen.
By my count, roughly one-quarter of the names on
the Forbes list of the 400 richest
Americans got there by inheritance (and by no means have all of them
enhanced the family fortune with their own toil or brainpower).
A few
years ago, it was common to think of the rich as a special breed.
We
may soon come around to George Orwell's view that the
only difference between rich and poor is income." - Michael Hiltzik, March
19, 2009
"Wait a minute - you're going to help
firefighters and
police to attain the
American Dream while some of us can only
dream!
Let's see, we help school teachers, we help welfare mothers
(Section 8) and now we want to help firefighters and police who already make a
good salary.
There's a group of
us who are just under the "middle class" who get no
help.
Am I jealous? You're damn
right I am." - Charles
Martin
"A survey for the
New York Times in 2005 found that
80% of those polled believed that it was possible to start out poor, work hard
and become rich, compared with less than 60% back in 1983.
By
international standards, America
has an unusually low
level of intergenerational mobility.
Intergenerational mobility in
America is lower than in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and
Denmark.
Among high-income countries for which comparable estimates are
available, only the United Kingdom had a lower rate of mobility than America.
The intergenerational findings suggest
family background matters.
Income volatility has led to an increase in the
frequency of large negative
income shocks, which translates to an increase in financial
distress.
Household short-term income mobility at the median in 2003-04
was no more favorable than in the recession years of 1990-91.
The recent
economic expansion generated tepid growth in median household income, and a
considerable increase in the risk of major income losses.
Record levels of debt mean
income losses have lasting effects on finances.
Both large upward and
large downward movements have become frequent.
This is evidence of a
fundamental shift in the relation between economic growth and economic
security, as even those who work overtime on a consistent basis no longer
appear to be able to generate much upward mobility for their families." - Tom
Hertz, American University
2001
Married couples are twice as likely to file for
bankruptcy and more
likely to lose homes to foreclosure than childless couples or single
adults.
To families in America
today a second income is not a luxury but a necessity.
As
it takes two incomes to survive,
financial shocks such as the involuntary loss of a job or a health crisis, are
much more likely to devastate the family.
2004
In America over 30% of marriages end within the first 10 years.
41% of first marriages end in divorce
after an average of 8 years.
Living together prior to getting married can increase the chance of
getting divorced by as much as 40%.
43% of children growing up in
America today are raised without fathers.
Americans are being forced to
chose between economic security or family.
"This debunks the myth of
America as the land of golden
opportunity." - Bhashkar Mazumder, senior economist Federal Reserve Bank of
Cleveland
"Our people are good people; our people are kind
people.
Pray God some day kind people won't all be poor."
John
Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath |
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Lumière Infinie - a rational
gnostic mystery
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