[Vort]

Originally Posted by Traveler

I thought I would start this thread because most people do not understand how entitlement oriented we all have become, what their entitlement mentality does for them or what it costs them.

I expect you are right on all these points.

Originally Posted by Traveler

Long story short I doubled my pay and started a consulting company of one employee.

I transitioned very quickly from an entitlement mentality to a non-entitlement mentality. As a consulting engineer I am paid only for work I do. I do not get a dime paid vacation or sick leave. I do not get any insurance benefits, I pay all my social security (no company contributions) and I have no guarantees of anything. At anytime I can be told my contract is over and no one has to give any reason and I have no hope of any kind of discrimination claim – ever – even if there is obvious and blatant discrimination. I have only one entitlement – my pay for what I do.

Makes sense. I have experienced similar things.

Originally Posted by Traveler

At first it was really hard to think things through. My wife would want me to take a week off for vacation. Taking a week off would cost us $5,000 before we spent a dime on the vacation. That was a hard pill to swallow.

Uh...you lost me, emotionally speaking.

If you are making a quarter of a million dollars per year (!!!) and yet you're still worrying about "losing" five thousand dollars for taking a week's vacation, I think your viewpoint is sufficiently different from my own that we might not have much of a common basis. Many of us have never voluntarily taken a week's vacation in our lives, or have only done so only once or twice in twenty years. If I were making money at the rate of five grand a week, I would be set for life within five years and in any case would not think twice about taking a week off to vacation with my family.

Feeling like you're "entitled" to full health care through your job is not a good or admirable attitude, I completely agree, but it's a whole lot different than feeling like you're "entitled" to take a week-long vacation without "losing" pay that you wouldn't be working for, anyway. They may perhaps be two ends of the same stick, but that's a pretty long stick.

Originally Posted by Traveler

But I did learn that I could do all the things I have ever done but I now realized what the price tag was and I could decide if it was worth it.

Do you see the disconnect of making this statement when your expectation is to take a weeklong vacation, and others' expectation may be to make the rent in their rent-controlled apartment?

I don't disagree with anything you say, except maybe for this:

Originally Posted by Traveler

Entitlements are out of control and it is not the Democrats fault or the Republicans.

I think it's most definitely the Democrats' fault, and for that matter the Republicans' fault, too.

In any case, I think you speak the truth. More than that, you speak wisdom. But I find a lot of listener interference hearing such platitudes coming from someone making such a vast sum of money and then lecturing others, many of whom might be living near (or at, or even below) the poverty line, and might not make as much money in a year as you make in a month. It sounds like when a first-world missionary wrinkles his nose at his third-world charges and lectures them on the virtues of good hygiene, or when a privileged capitalist explains to impoverished communists how a healthy work ethic can really help you get ahead in the world.