Do you have 1 million saved for retirement? May not be enough.

[sendero]

297. So everyone...

.. that has a good job is "fortunate"? Really. What about folks like me who did not go to college because he was basically taught that poor people don't get to go. Who went to a vocational school and slowly increased his skills by working his ass off to eventually get to a well paying job. Fortunate my ass. Sure there was some luck, I "lucked" into a field that was growing. Until 2000 when half of us were put out of work. I eventually recovered from that also because I don't give up.

Most people make their own luck as well as their own beds but if things don't turn out well for them it was always "bad luck".

This attitude has never served anyone well. Everyone has an element of luck in their lives and everyone has to deal with it. But at the end of the day your circumstances, your job, your love life, your friendships - they are all up to you. And if they are not what you want and need, then it's up to you to fix it. Even if it was actually bad luck that put you there.

As for advice I would not bother. The answers are simple. For example, a person close to me has a heart condition. He had a triple bypass and then new stents the next couple of years. It was looking pretty grim. He got online and did some study. He found that a vegan diet was very much indicated for his condition. He went on it and hasn't had to have a new stent since.

The punchline? He asked his cardiologist "does a vegan diet work"? The answer "yes, the scientific evidence is that it does". Why don't you prescribe it to your patients? "Because 99% of people will not stay on it".

And there is your answer.

I am a Democrat because I believe government should operate in the interest of the common man and not the monied. I want the playing field tilted toward the poor instead of toward the rich as we have now. But no matter what utopian government we have, it will always be up to individuals to manage their affairs. Perhaps growing up poor was a real advantage to me, I knew I did not want to live that way when I grew up. And I didn't.