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Name:	lotowner -	Reply
Subject:	Share The Wealth
Date:	10/13/2011 6:42:34 AM (updated 10/13/2011 6:45:24 AM)

Another opinion by the Decatur Daily.

This reminds me of the TV program a few years ago where this family was given a house valued in excess of $500,000. During a follow up story, it was revealed that the family had lost the house. Apparently they had home equity loans that they had taken out and could not pay back. Giving individual capital or expensive home breeds failure. Failure do occur from entrepreneurs but they start again.

"GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain needs to do his homework on the underlying facts that triggered the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself," Cain said.

The gripe of the protesters is not that they have failed, but that they have been deprived of any chance to succeed.

In 2009, the top 1 percent of U.S. households owned 35.6 percent of the nation's private wealth. That's more than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent. Our capitalist system provides fabulous benefits to society and individuals, and the accumulation of wealth is central to those benefits. For several decades, however, the percentage of the population able to accumulate capital has dwindled. The rich have become richer and the poor have become poorer.

Because the acquisition of capital is essential to financial success in our economic system, this trend is preventing an ever larger percentage of the population from having an opportunity to pursue the rewards of capitalism.

Rather than dismissing protesters who recognize a serious problem that is getting worse, Cain and our elected officials should be studying the problem and seeking solutions.

Name:	lotowner -	Reply
Subject:	Share The Wealth
Date:	10/13/2011 7:05:37 AM

Johnny Crawford / The Atlanta Journal Constitution

This Feb. 2005 picture shows the Lake City, Ga. home which was the subject of the "extreme Makeover: Home edition" television show. More than 1,800 people helped demolish the Harper family's decrepit home and replace it with this sparkling four-bedroom mini-mansion that towered over ranch and split-level homes in their Clayton County neighborhood. But three years later, the home has become the latest victim of the foreclosure crisis after the family used it as collateral for a $450,000 loan. The two-level home is set to go to auction on Aug. 5.

updated 7/28/2008 2:52:53 PM eT

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LAKe CITY, Ga. — More than 1,800 people showed up to help ABC’s “extreme Makeover” team demolish a family’s decrepit home and replace it with a sparkling, four-bedroom mini-mansion in 2005.

Three years later, the reality TV show’s most ambitious project at the time has become the latest victim of the foreclosure crisis.

After the Harper family used the two-story home as collateral for a $450,000 loan, it’s set to go to auction on the steps of the Clayton County Courthouse Aug. 5. The couple did not return phone calls Monday, but told WSB-TV they received the loan for a construction business that failed.

The house was built in January 2005, after Atlanta-based Beazer Homes USA and ABC’s “extreme Makeover” demolished their old home and its faulty septic system. Within six days, construction crews and hoards of volunteers had completed work on the largest home that the television program had yet built.

The finished product was a four-bedroom house with decorative rock walls and a three-car garage that towered over ranch and split-level homes in their Clayton County neighborhood. The home’s door opened into a lobby that featured four fireplaces, a solarium, a music room and a plush new office.

Materials and labor were donated for the home, which would have cost about $450,000 to build. Beazer Homes’ employees and company partners also raised $250,000 in contributions for the family, including scholarships for the couple’s three children and a home maintenance fund.

Slideshow: Celebrity Sightings ABC said in a statement that it advises each family to consult a financial planner after they get their new home. “Ultimately, financial matters are personal, and we work to respect the privacy of the families,” the network said.

Some of the volunteers who helped build the home were less than thrilled about the family’s financial decisions.

“It’s aggravating. It just makes you mad. You do that much work, and they just squander it,” Lake City Mayor Willie Oswalt, who helped vault a massive beam into place in the Harper’s living room, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Name:	water_watcher -	Reply
Subject:	Share The Wealth
Date:	10/13/2011 7:35:26 AM

I just can't believe someone would write this? How do they think they aquired their wealth? They worked for it? The one thing about capitalism is everyone has an equal opportunity at wealth. Look at how many people come from other countries, give up everything for the opportunity here and start a business and become successful.

I am so tired of the envy of other peoples success and the feeling they should be penalized because others were not as successful. It is choices people make in life.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Economic illiteracy on parade
Date:	10/13/2011 7:54:43 AM

The fundamental problem with this piece is that it demonstrates that the author(s) is/are an economic dimwit. They make the same mistake that so many libtards make in assuming that wealth is a zero sum game. By that I mean they believe that if person A has $x, person B is deprived of those dollars. Of course if that were true, then they will have to be able to explain how GDP grows, how inflation exists, etc. The fact is that the existence of other wealthy people and their wealth does absolutely nothing to prevent others from doing likewise. Happens every day. In fact our overall standard of living today is much higher than in the past and the so-called poor have more goods and services than the lower middle class of a generation ago. Herman Cain is exactly right, these are a bunch of parasitic losers who rather than working hard and taking risks would rather live like pigs while demanding that society give them someone else's hard earned treasure. From what I have seen, most of them are there to score drugs and hook up because they have nothing else of value to do or to offer society. They are pathetic and if Dems think this is their tea party it will go a long way to further alienating independents. They have the right to protest peacefully and say what they want and I am glad to give them the chance to prove once again it is better to be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt as the authors of this op-ed did.

Name:	wix -	Reply
Subject:	Share The Wealth
Date:	10/13/2011 11:07:45 AM

While I'm not familiar with this particular family, there have been several reports of similar failures of families receiving homes from this program. Problem is, you can't take the dumb out of the dummy. The program should require the recipient to allow financial oversight and counciling as a condition for the receipt of the gifts of those mean old rich people. Truth is, most people are poor as a result of their own doing, not as a result of lack of opportunity.

Name:	roswellric -	Reply
Subject:	Share The Wealth
Date:	10/13/2011 11:49:31 AM (updated 10/13/2011 11:50:48 AM)

I agree but I want to make one more than minor point.... The federal government has become so active in selecting winners and losers that the political class can actually destroy the wealth and all the hard work of any individual. Just ask the legions of long established successful homebuilders who were crushed. Also ask the bondholders or prefeerred stockholders of GM too. The list is long from the current financial disaster. Failure has more causes than bad individual choices.

Name:	Summer Lover -	Reply
Subject:	It is a question of "value"
Date:	10/13/2011 11:58:05 AM

If you have to work and earn money to purchase something, it will have infinitly more value to you than something that is handed to you. Drive around and notice the bikes and toys left in the yards by kids these days... Handouts do NOT help.

Name:	4691 -	Reply
Subject:	Share The Wealth
Date:	10/15/2011 9:46:49 AM

Roswellric - I think you are on the right track in relating this to the government and the dangers that has to everyone who has anything. Any government has the power to determine what you have and what you do not have. We are fortunate that at this time the government uses that power to protect our right to accumulate wealth. But as a voting democracy the vote could elect a ruling majority that changes the government of this country to true socialism or further. I am fearful that the widening gap of wealth will be the primary catalyst for this change. What will happen when the top 1% own 75% of all wealth but the bottom 90% control all the elections? Too many of the talking heads on Fox dismiss these left-leaning protests. I consider it a sign to be taken very seriously. The day may come when you longingly wish for the time when class warfare only consisted of a debating whether or not to raise the tax rate a few percent.

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