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posted by
martyb
on Saturday January 27 2018, @12:43PM
from the I-got-mine!-And-Yours.-And-Yours.-Annnnnd-yours,-too. dept.
from the I-got-mine!-And-Yours.-And-Yours.-Annnnnd-yours,-too. dept.
The 1% grabbed 82% of all wealth created in 2017
More than $8 of every $10 of wealth created last year went to the richest 1%.
That's according to a new report from Oxfam International, which estimates that the bottom 50% of the world's population saw no increase in wealth.
Oxfam says the trend shows that the global economy is skewed in favor of the rich, rewarding wealth instead of work.
"The billionaire boom is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a failing economic system," said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International.
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Only 1% of World's Population Grabbed 82% of all 2017 Wealth
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Grelb's Reminder:
Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above
average drivers.
(Score: 3, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @01:02PM (224 children)
Give us thy wisdom upon how Capitalism is evil and Communism shall save humanity! Never mind that the exact opposite has been shown to be the case every single time throughout history! Preach unto us how we deserve the fruits of someone else's labor that we may beat and kick them righteously before taking said fruits for ourselves!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @01:40PM (78 children)
It's good to troll on your own web site, much more unlikely you'll get banned. :)
Show me a country that is communist. Perhaps the Scandinavian countries get closest today. The 1% does no labor so it's kinda hard to take the fruits of their labor. Why do you think capitalism is called capitalism and not say workerism? It's the simple principle of accumulation of capital that everybody paying rent understands. Rich get richer, poor get poorer, certainly at least relatively speaking. And in absolute terms we have people starving to death in the capitalist machine, despite having 3 jobs and working literally all their long awake hours.
I'm glad to hear you're wealthy. What saddens and baffles me to hear is you like seeing your brothers and sisters in abject poverty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @01:55PM (4 children)
No true
ScotsmanCommunism argument strikes again.Q: What do you call a Venezuelan walking a dog? A: A vegetarian.
Anybody working 3 jobs and "starving to death" must be paying serious alimony and child support. What we need is open borders to undercut the value of their labor and reduce them to starving to death on welfare eh?
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:07PM (2 children)
You left out the fact that governments are busy building up military arsenal and building border walls. There is no time and funding for distributing wealth from the 1% with personal jet planes to the desperate 50% with no food on their tables. Comies are on the loose and it is time to defend those rightfully earned riches you know!
(Score: 2) by tizan on Saturday January 27 2018, @11:46PM (1 child)
This is what is bothersome...most countries build large militaries to protect what ?
For many people who are poor it won't make a difference in their lifetime if Putin or Trump is ruling. ..so why not invest in better society than the military to protect the existing one, so be it if Putin takes over.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @04:17AM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @10:51PM
Venezuela's problem is the Capitalism that remains there (and the resulting Oligarchy that remains).
The usual boom-and-bust thing associated with the Capitalist economic system applies with those, as well as the corruption of The Rich trying to manipulate the system (see Thomas Piketty's 696-page book analyzing Capitalism).
OTOH, there are "communes" in that country.
(I have seen the figure of 1400 communes since Chavez got that going; Maduro is NOT doing an impressive job of increasing that number.)
A century ago, a really smart guy suggested that only -idle- capital should be taxed.
Henry George Had An Answer To Economic Inequality Years Before Karl Marx Published His Theories [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [dissidentvoice.org]
Venezuela's communes have taken that 1 better.
They are commandeering idle farmland and factories and putting them back into production.
Venezuela’s Communes: a Great Social Achievement [counterpunch.org]
...and USA.gov's money and subterfuge in Venezuela is the biggest disrupter there.
Venezuela in Crisis: Too Much US intervention; Too Little Socialism [counterpunch.org]
If you wanted to pick an example of the failure of the collective ownership of the means of production by The Workers, Venezuela is far from the ideal place to support your argument.
Venezuela has lots and lots of instances of Socialism working well.
Now, if you want to put the bad mouth on welfare states (and Capitalist paradigms) where people get money while performing no labor, have at it.
That is NOT what Socialism is.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:18PM (11 children)
North Korea and Burma.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:28PM (3 children)
By that reasoning (which is to say none at all), so is China.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:13PM (1 child)
Funny how I don't see any reasoning on your side. Show us how it's done.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:03PM
I'm just following your lead.
If you don't care to explain your answers, I'm not going to care either.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:00PM
and Singapore.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Saturday January 27 2018, @09:20PM (6 children)
"Show me a classless society" - "North Korea"
Brilliant. North Korea is as much communist as Augustus's empire is a republic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @11:02PM (5 children)
Yup. Both of the examples that the nitwit gave are military dictatorships.
He not only didn't hit the bullseye, he missed the entire target.
Yet another example of repeating Cold War bullshit and attempting to use "Communist" as a pejorative where it has zero overlap.
Big hint:
Communist != Not under the thumb of USA.gov
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:18AM (4 children)
Which happen to be Communist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:39AM
Jeeeeessssusss. How do you have discussions with people who can't look beyond the surface details and believe all the propaganda shoved at them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:43AM (2 children)
Some apt words to add to your vocabulary:
antithetical [google.com] antonym [google.com]
Hint: Top-down is not Communism; that's Authoritarianism.
Stalinism wasn't Communism. (Authoritarianism again.)
Even Lenin, who started out suspicious of the masses, came around before very long.
All Power to the Soviets! [google.com]
(Soviet==council; worker council; town council; et al.)
If a thing is Communism, it has Democracy ("majority rules") at its core.
Anything else that is calling itself "communism" is using the wrong term and trying to deceive you.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @04:05AM (1 child)
But it doesn't exclude Communism either. And contrary to assertions made by various parties in this thread, I mentioned a couple of countries where this happened that way.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:15PM
What happened, which way? All you did was name two countries which are currently considered "teh evil" in the USA. Please enlighten us as to how these two countries classify as "communist". Is it because they claim to be so, and you take their word for it?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:30PM (55 children)
That you don't understand their efforts or the value thereof does not make them nonexistent. It does, however, explain why you'll never be anything but a wage slave.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:02PM (54 children)
Sure takes of lot of effort to inherit wealth and then accrue interest.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:13PM (53 children)
You think there's a lot of that going around, do you? Inherited money almost never lasts more than a few generations. It takes someone who's really on the ball to get any other outcome.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:15PM (28 children)
> It takes someone who's really on the ball to get any other outcome.
It takes someone who's really good at exploiting people to get any other outcome.
ftfy
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:28PM (27 children)
You call it exploiting because you don't have the vision to do it yourself and are filled with envy. All it actually is is making good use of your available resources. Usually to everyone involved's benefit.
Creating thirty fair-paying jobs because you alone cannot do the work of the thirty men necessary to fulfill your vision benefits all concerned according to their worth.
Yes, according to their worth. Vision is scarce, thus extremely valuable. Manual labor can be done by almost anyone, thus it is not remotely worth as much. Skilled labor is worth more and is paid more. Management? Highly dependent on the situation. It could require very little or quite a lot of management skill. Either way it should be paid according to the value received. If you want to accurately evaluate someone's value in their position, imagine being without them for a year. How much would you pay to have them back? That is precisely how much they're worth.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:34PM (10 children)
Hey, that's the same lie they always use! Are you you still falling for it? Let me trickle down *this* on you.
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:22PM (9 children)
Start a successful business, then we'll talk. Those who lack the vision to create are always envious of those who don't. You can't have a rational discussion with them because their every thought stems from their own avarice.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:33PM (3 children)
Keep selling yourself that lie. Raising taxes primarily on the super wealthy and a little on everyone else to pay for universal healthcare is really quite different from your reactionary screeching about kicking you to the curb and stealing your hard earned numerical counters. The simple fact is you refuse to acknowledge what is wrong with the world because you have been able to make it work for you, and no not everyone is simply lacking your work ethic. It is just that not everyone is able to start a successful business for themselves. Not only does a business usually require massive capital to start (from a poor person's POV) but it also needs to worry about a small concept called "market saturation."
Meh, I just realized I'm wasting my words, you've seen all this info before and still fall back to your child like screeching of MINE MINE MINE!
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:53PM (2 children)
You're projecting an awful lot for someone who claims to see the truth. And words like "info" have meaning. Info != opinion.
Nobody said starting a business would be trivial. Not even TMB. It's this sort of clueless, fallacy-ridden argument that annoys me. Moving on, sure, not everyone lacks work ethic. There's also recreational drugs, financial incompetence, anti-wealth beliefs, or deliberate action to qualify for government benefits. Assuming everyone who is poor got that way due to bad luck is deluding themselves. My view is that people with actual bad luck do make up a portion of the poor, but not enough to throw the statistics a great deal.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:38PM (1 child)
Reality strongly disagrees with you and it just so happens that the majority of people are on the shit-end of the stick. You are blowing a bunch of hot air into a blizzard of cold hard facts you evil little thing.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:56AM
Funny how no one ever comes up with a bit of this reality. I've been corrected a large number of times just this month and not a one mentions any sort of real world evidence, much less a "blizzard" of cold hard facts. Here's an example [cleveland.com] of a cold, hard fact people tend to ignore:
So people who should have the advantages now that they have large amounts of money, still flame out at a far higher rate than normal for those ranges of wealth. The story goes on to discuss why:
In other words, the culture of the lottery winners turns toxic and they aren't prepared to deal with it. There is this constant vapid assuring that the rich have all kinds of advantages that normal people don't have. That blame mostly falls on other parties for the poverty of the poor. Yet we see here the other side of the coin. Lottery winners (and similar large windfall people) are rich and lucky. But that doesn't help them stay rich and lucky. Perhaps we should think of why that happens rather than lecturing me on what some imaginary "reality" thinks.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:20PM (2 children)
I own my own business so now lets talk. I can tell you that past a certain point, the %1 should be taxed much, much more than they are. The economy would be in much better shape if the wealth was more evenly spread around. It would create more opportunities for more people. How does "Fuck you. I got mine." help anybody? It doesn't. Eat the rich.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:07PM (1 child)
Uzzard is, IIRC, an SMB owner himself. I detect much "temporarily-embarrassed billionaire" envy coming from him, which leads to 1) his constant parroting of the 1%'s propaganda and 2) his perverse willingness to throw everyone else, even himself, under the bus the elites are driving.
I can only guess he thinks he'll be one of them someday. It's some kind of perverse anti-virtue signalling, and he holds everyone else in such contempt that he doesn't think we can see it for what it is. This is...really had. I can't imagine what it must be like to live life this way.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:29AM
It's a very interesting concept. In my country the economy is the shit and yet the most popular party is the rich people's party. I bet that same effect is to blame. Kinda like how apparently many young working class idiots just voted into office the oldest richest US president ever.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday January 28 2018, @06:33AM
Most of the people who have "the vision to create" simply got lucky enough that their first "vision" panned out. They, like most people, also have a lot of crap "visions". Had one of those happened to come first they'd have been too flat broke to try again.
Most people don't get "a small loan of a million dollars" from the Bank of Dad. Most also don't hit the lottery with the first ticket, or ever. The constant parade of winners on TV does not negate the reality that for every one of those there's a million people who will never win more than they spend.
Scratch the ever popular rags to riches stories of the fabulously wealthy and you'll find the "rags" were made by Gucci.
Naturally, the big winners attribute it all to some sort of superior ability in spite of objective evidence. It's just that a big win is enough to coast through the rest of life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @02:43AM
He was talking about inheritance and interest/dividends. You completely changed the subject to the few one percenters who do some work and talked about their "difficulties" (like valuing an employee), to his reply you challenged him to something that might be impossible from his position and personally attacked him making absolute generalizations. That is not a rational discussion coming from you, it is not even rational personal attacks. It is just plain dumb.
Give me one million in seed capital and I'm sure I can multiply it. Alternatively, feed me and finance my living for years in good institutions with well connected people (those who know how to outsource to China).
Go tell the Chinese who works in manufacture (and actually produced the wealth) to start a business... Most of the privileged are blind of their own privileges (like being in a country where seed capital comes easy from daddy or friends) and that seems to be your case. You claim it's not possible to have a rational discussion with the previous AC, but you seem completely ignorant of the reality of the bottom 70% (tip: they are not in America).
(Score: 4, Informative) by fyngyrz on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:35PM (10 children)
Sure. If you have available resources. Otherwise, not so much.
Not usually to people without money, it isn't. You have, I presume, heard the saying "ideas a a dime a dozen." The difference a rich person applies is that they can choose the idea they like, fund it, and see if it flies. As long as they don't bet the bank on it, they can rinse and repeat. One success can account for many failures (I can attest to that personally.) But if you don't have money, you might get one shot at the brass ring. If you do, but it fails (which is pretty usual) then you're either broke or in debt. Done. Fini.
There's a reason almost everyone nods when people read or hear "it takes money to make money", and it's not because it's a canard.
Another critical issue here is who you know, and how well you know them, and what level of faith they have in you for whatever reason. Because without an angel investor or investors, or your own money, your ideas, and the marketing thereof for whatever monetary value they might have can only be built and promoted according to your means. Which is very often insufficient to bring about appropriate results, because, and this is the critical thing to understand: the world is simply not an assembly of fair circumstances.
(Score: 2, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:24PM (9 children)
Earn them then. I did.
And, yes, ideas are a dime a dozen. Good ideas, however, are not. And I did indeed leave "the will to see your vision made reality" out . Mea culpa.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:37PM
Head in the sand shitbird. Ignore reality harder uzzy, maybe loan out some bootstraps and charge 20% interest. It is difficult reading the bullshit that slides out of a walking turd. You are a living, breathing meme.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:09PM (7 children)
Your reply does not address the points I made.
You're still ignoring how the world actually works. You're still ignoring what the follow-on consequences bring to the not-wealthy for that one try they (might) get by scrimping and saving when it doesn't work out, as is most likely, statistically speaking.
You can earn, save (if you earn enough to be able to put some of it aside), and get lucky, sure. I did. I gather you did as well. Fine. Perhaps you can even lay claim to great vision (I'm not going to... lots of my later ideas did not pan out, so I know it was luck.) But lots of people don't get lucky, or have vision, and that's the reality most people face. One serious fail upfront is enough to knock you right out the game.
As for "good" ideas, this is also a facile argument. A "good" idea in the earnings sense is only a successful idea, and likely this has a great deal to do with marketing, rather than utility (pet rocks, for example.) A "good" idea in the actual "this has significant end-user value" is not an equal set with "successful ideas", nor with "well marketed ideas." "Health food" stores, for instance, make an entire business out of foisting off well-marketed, largely valueless merchandise upon the ignorant. Money in, chiefly (or wholly) imaginary benefits out.
Just look at that twit Gwyneth Paltrow; she make a nice killing selling stickers which she asserts "rebalance the energy frequency in our bodies." [forbes.com]
Her website states:
This of course is pure and utter bullshit, but it's a "good" idea economically, because a very large number of people are stupid, ignorant, or deluded, or some unlovely combination of all three. It's not a good idea in any other way, though.
There's very little fairness in the world. Idiots and cheats like Paltrow who produce nothing of value succeed, while people with very good products and ideas fail. That's the actual reality in which your "earn, save and create" model has to operate. The truth is, many times it fails, and catastrophically so.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @12:34PM (6 children)
to
First, we had an AC downplaying the role of capitalist - they just need to be really good at "exploiting" people. Now, you're saying that the wealthy person merely needs to be lucky (even though there is plenty [soylentnews.org] of evidence that getting lucky is far from enough). Bottom line is that actually employing people and building wealth via a business in a useful way is hard work which involves a skill set and experience that most people don't ever acquire. So why disrespect those people?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:30PM (3 children)
Yes, as the link suggests, being lucky (different from "getting lucky") is far from enough - it seems you need the mind-set from already having wealth, to be able to handle such a sudden influx of additional wealth.
So yes, someone who is already wealthy merely needs to be lucky.
Telling other people what to do is not hard work.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:01PM (1 child)
Hmmm, "mind-set" [oxforddictionaries.com]:
So being wealthy is a matter of attitude. And luck. So how much of the world has the necessary attitude? I mean there's not much point to complaining about wealth inequality if most poor are that way because of attitude. They can always get a better, wealthier attitude. That's a pretty easy fix.
So employing people and building wealth via a business in a useful way is merely a matter of telling people what to do?
Go make me a supersonic passenger jet that's more economical than the 787 in fuel usage per passenger. Yes, you're right that was pretty easy. So where's my jet parked?
I'm getting this vague idea that you might not have a clue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @03:03AM
Yes, you have the money and hire a manager and tell him like you said. Then he tells the engineers to do some work and a lot of people to do most of the work. You have the money and you tell people what to do, it is not hard work. 80 hours of office job from your manager is not hard work either when compared with getting the iron to build your jet.
I'll give you a clue: Telling a stranger in the Internet to make something and point out that magic didn't happen is not an actual point.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:24PM
Can we stop a moment, right here?
The wealthy doesn't much value the contributions of the less wealthy. The poor don't value the contributions of the wealthy. We get all of that. But - actually getting a job DONE? It isn't the wealthy, or the poor who get things done. Nor is it the CEO, or the top university graduates who get things done. Those of us with a military background were taught that officers don't do shit. Officers tell us what to do, then we get it done. "We" being the various levels of enlisted and warranted officers. (Warrant officers are almost always former NCO's who excel, and stand out from their fellow NCO's.)
Telling other people what to do, and how to do it IS INDEED HARD WORK! Good communication skills are essential to the job, as is a good understanding of the job to be done. Add in an understanding of human nature. A bit of psychology might be helpful, but we don't want to get crazy with it.
Civilian life is little different, in that respect.
Those of us who "get things done" have to manipulate money, resources, and people to achieve goals. It's an all consuming job. The level of management that gets things done never rests. On duty or off, the mind is always on the job. We're the ones who get the phone calls at 2:00 AM, "The cops stopped me, and locked me up, can you come post bail for me?" And worse. The investors don't take those calls, nor do the average laborers, unless they are close kin.
Every job looks easy, to the uninitiated. Management - I mean real management - is hard work. Those people born with silver spoons in their posterior orifices may get to sit in boardrooms, and play gods and goddesses, and be rewarded for success and failure alike. Not so, the rest of us.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday January 28 2018, @08:58PM (1 child)
Read the thread, think about the points I made, and then you'll know. Presumably. You'd have looked less silly if you had done that first, but hey, it's your party. :)
I am one of "those people." I'm not disrespecting them, or myself. I'm talking about the reality of starting a commercial enterprise without any financial assistance, a circumstance I am intimately familiar with.
The point I was making, counterpoint to my respondent above, was precisely that it's not as simple as earn, save, implement.
That is not in any way a coherent summary of the points I made. Welcome to the "I built a better strawman" contest.
So as to what I was actually saying: Yes, luck plays a part in how well each attempt at success turns out, no matter how well funded you might be. For the wealthy, so does managing your undertakings so that one attempt doesn't preclude a further one in the case of your attempt not working out. So does marketing, which is often very expensive. So do the caprices of the intended audience / user base. Sometimes the quality of the idea, by which I mean, its actual (or relative, when there is competition) utility, plays a part, but sometimes it does not.
Given these facts — and they are facts — the wealthy are far more enabled to pursue such a path than those that aren't, because if they do manage these attempts so the current one doesn't blow them out, they can try again, whereas a person with just enough resources to make one attempt cannot do that. Now, if you'd like to try to argue these interrelated points, which, again, serve to delineate what I was actually saying, by all means — have at it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 29 2018, @02:42AM
I disagree that the follow-on consequences are that serious. They're in a better position to start a second business than they were the first.
It's not luck that casinos don't lose money on gambling in the long run. At a certain level of certainty, it goes from getting lucky to not getting really bad luck (and even that can be tolerated).
Actually, it is that simple. "Implement" covers all the concerns you mentioned. No one was claiming business creation was easy (else why bother defending business creation?), but high level business planning is not that hard to describe.
So what? Even Paltrow's shifty business is subject to these difficulties.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:22PM (4 children)
Well, when Carly left HP, they partied in the isles of the cube farm. They never missed her. Still don't. She still got a golden parachute and a job before the seat of her chair was even cold.
Trump had the "vision" to open the only casino in Atlantic city that couldn't turn a profit during the boom. Let's talk about the CEO of Sears... or Tandy... Both got paid more in a year than a sales person will make in a lifetime.
Then there's the bankers who had the vision to line their pockets and crash the world economy. Or the ones who had th "vision" to launder drug money.
Plenty of people have "vision" most lack only opportunity.
At least the artist who had the "vision" to poop in a can and sell it actually tangibly contributes to the product.
(Score: 2, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:32PM (3 children)
You think I'm going to support failures being paid as if they weren't? Not a chance. That's the business of the ones doing the hiring though. Me, I'd peg a CEO's salary to say the company's median salary x4 and make the rest of their compensation contingent on decade-long growth in net profits. That's me though. I've no business telling someone how to run their company, though I have no problem opining upon mismanagement.
Not remotely true. Ideas are not even close to all created equal and they lack the everlovin fuck out of the will to see their vision made reality.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:43PM
Problem is, it's a big circle jerk. A sits on B's board, B sits on A's board. They grant each other stupidly large amounts of money. They talk about "vision".
It takes money to make a vision reality (for better or worse). If you don't have it, you won't likely get it. If you have enough of it, you can spout %99 crap ind that 1% will make sure you continue to have money. Or you can commit serial fraud and get excused for it because you have money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @11:38PM
If The Workers were the ones deciding how the company's money should be used, I'm quite certain that that wouldn't happen.
OTOH, as sjames notes, Capitalist boards of directors are circle-jerks of other CEOs.
Germany gets this closer to right WRT their corporations over a certain size:
Half of the board is selected by The Workers.
If USA is going to remain Capitalist, it could do a lot worse[1] than taking cues from Germany.
Even smarter is Italy's Marcora Law. [google.com]
That empowers workers who have been idled by boom-and-bust Capitalists to form worker-owned cooperatives.
At last count, the region of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy had 8300 of those co-ops, accounting for about a third of the economy there.
[1] With stock buy-backs and an ever-increasing gulf between exec compensation and worker compensation, with no/little actual investment in production capability, it's hard to imagine how USAian corporations could be doing worse.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:29PM
I've read that historically, top management and/or owners made median wages x 40. That may seem excessive to some of us, but at least salaries were tied to wages. Today, there is no tie.
(Score: 4, Informative) by therainingmonkey on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:27PM (22 children)
We'd all like this to be true, but it really isn't.
The richest families in the UK 800 years ago are still the elite today[1]. The richest families in Florence 600 years ago are still the elite today[2].
The world's youngest billionaire inherited his wealth (and avoided paying tax on it), which originally came from the Norman conquest of England 951 years ago[3].
Trump got started with a "small" million dollar loan from his father.
I'd like to see an analysis of what proportion of the world's wealth is inherited, but these examples aren't exactly uncommon.
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-014-9219-y/fulltext.html [springer.com]
[2] https://voxeu.org/article/what-s-your-surname-intergenerational-mobility-over-six-centuries [voxeu.org]
[3] http://fortune.com/2016/08/11/hugh-grosvenor-worlds-youngest-billionaire/ [fortune.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:49PM (20 children)
A valiant attempt. Those rich people are indeed still rich. That in no way implies that all or even most rich families remain rich beyond two or three generations. That they are at the top of the list only proves that they are extremely good at making money. I'd try to pass that ability down to my children, wouldn't you? If their children want to remain rich though, they have to be as well; or at least hire someone who is.
Given a billion-dollar fortune, inflation alone assures that living a billionaire's lifestyle off of the interest will be insufficient for even a single descendant. For four equally compensated descendants at zero estate tax, they have to increase their inheritance by three hundred percent to even start living a billionaire's lifestyle. Well, unless they want to rapidly discover that they are not in fact a billionaire.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:00PM (17 children)
On average, the stock market (for the last century) doubles your investments every 6 years.
So if you want to quadruple that $1Billion dollars, just put it in an S&P index fund for 12 years.
Doesn't take much effort.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:19PM (14 children)
Hasn't doubled in the last ten years, let us note. And you aren't taking inflation into account.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mmcmonster on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:15PM (13 children)
I'm not sure what source you are using.
VFIAX (S&P 500 Mutual Fund) shows an increase of 2.6 fold over the past 10 years when you have dividends re-invested.
Source: http://quotes.morningstar.com/chart/fund/chart?t=VFIAX®ion=usa&culture=en_US [morningstar.com]
A $10,000 investment 10 years ago would now be worth $26,781.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:03AM (12 children)
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday January 28 2018, @06:36AM (10 children)
You just countered your own claim. 2.1 is greater than 2.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @12:00PM (9 children)
My point, such as it is, is that US stocks have yielded significantly lower returns since 2000, than they have before that time. Even your quoted index has only improved by less than a factor of three since its peak in early 2000. But if we went a similar amount of time back to say, 1983, it's a jump of more than an order of magnitude from then to 2000.
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:50PM
WFIVX is a Wilshire 5000 index fund. From 10 years ago it has increased 2.5 fold.
Reference: http://quotes.morningstar.com/chart/fund/chart?t=WFIVX®ion=usa&culture=en_US [morningstar.com]
I personally keep most of money in a total stock market index fund, VTSAX, which increased 2.7 fold over the past 10 years.
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Sunday January 28 2018, @02:04PM
Using DIA (Dow Jones Index ETF), with dividends re-invested...
Since 2000, DIA has increased 3.2 fold.
Since 1985, DIA has increased 4.1 fold. (Sorry, the backtest portfolio visualizer tool doesn't go back to 1983.)
Reference 1: https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&timePeriod=4&startYear=2000&firstMonth=1&endYear=2017&lastMonth=12&endDate=01%2F27%2F2018&initialAmount=10000&annualOperation=0&annualAdjustment=0&inflationAdjusted=true&annualPercentage=0.0&frequency=4&rebalanceType=1&showYield=false&reinvestDividends=true&symbol1=DIA&allocation1_1=100 [portfoliovisualizer.com]
Reference 2: https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&timePeriod=4&startYear=1985&firstMonth=1&endYear=2017&lastMonth=12&endDate=01%2F27%2F2018&initialAmount=10000&annualOperation=0&annualAdjustment=0&inflationAdjusted=true&annualPercentage=0.0&frequency=4&rebalanceType=1&showYield=false&reinvestDividends=true&symbol1=DIA&allocation1_1=100 [portfoliovisualizer.com]
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Sunday January 28 2018, @02:12PM (4 children)
A couple notes:
The price quoted on the exchanges is the current price available for trading.
Comparing it to the price from the past is almost never accurate because most funds give out dividends on a regular basis, either monthly or quarterly.
If you have the dividends re-invested (which every single investment house would offer/recommend), the increased value of these funds goes up dramatically. This is the "miracle" of compounding.
This is also why you show a quote price for Wilshire 5000 which looks almost flat but the value has gone up dramatically. They give out all the value in dividends.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @07:13PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Monday January 29 2018, @12:27AM
Thanks for at least keeping an open mind. My hope is to educate some people on using index funds to invest.
The fact of the matter is, while any particular year can be fantastically good or horrible, over the long term the market gets over 6% return per year.
The key to making that yourself is to use low cost index funds and to keep your money in the funds and not take it out when the going gets rough, because the market WILL go bad for years at a time. But time in the market is more important than money in the market.
Read a good forum, such as https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php [bogleheads.org] or read a short primer such as If You can by Bernstein: https://www.etf.com/docs/IfYouCan.pdf [etf.com]
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Monday January 29 2018, @12:36AM (1 child)
The other thing to remember:
If you are using a fund manager, remember that (by definition) the average fund manager does as well as the total market, prior to taking out his fees (also known as the Expense Ratio).
Which means that the average fund manager does worse than the market when you consider his fees.
You may think that you have an above average fund manager. It may be true ... but... would you bet that he will be above average for the life of you investing with him? And if he retires, would you bet that the person replacing him would be above average as well? Better to use an index fund with a very low Expense Ratio.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 29 2018, @02:20AM
First time I invested in a fund, I found that out. They had a great year and then several subpar ones right after I joined. I've since learned that even for relatively competent funds a great predictor for a bad year is having an extremely high year or two before due both to investments tending to rise in bursts and the "me too!" effect from new people piling on the train.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday January 28 2018, @07:06PM (1 child)
I haven't quoted any index, that was you! I just noted that you claimed:
And then for some reason followed up with documentation that is HAS.
Please quit muddying up discussions with falsehoods. Just admit you were talking out your ass and move on.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @07:11PM
Indeed. I see now how I was in error. Indices don't include reinvestment of dividends. As I should have realized, the Dow components (and apparently most of the stocks that make up the Wilshire 5000) have significant dividends.
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:58PM
DJIA is not a normal index fund. It's based on the market price of the included stocks and is not market cap weighted. Most other index funds are market cap weighted.
I can't even find a mutual fund that tracks it. Only thing I can find are a couple ETFs.
DIA increased 2.6 fold over the past 10 years with dividends re-invested.
Reference: https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&timePeriod=4&startYear=2007&firstMonth=1&endYear=2017&lastMonth=12&endDate=01%2F27%2F2018&initialAmount=10000&annualOperation=0&annualAdjustment=0&inflationAdjusted=true&annualPercentage=0.0&frequency=4&rebalanceType=1&showYield=false&reinvestDividends=true&symbol1=DIA&allocation1_1=100 [portfoliovisualizer.com]
(Sorry for using a different website. Morningstar doesn't give good chart data for ETFs)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:34PM (1 child)
Eighteen but yes. If it were reliable and accounted for inflation, an index fund would be a good way to do so.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:22PM
Index year = $10k
Index year + 6 = $20k
Index year + 12 = $40k
Index year + 18 = $80k
There's a doubling every 6 years (when you invest dividends and put the money in a low cost index fund such as VFIAX or VTSAX).
That's the magic of compounding interest.
This will dramatically overcome any inflation rates visible in the U.S.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:40PM (1 child)
Clueless person applies anecdotal evidence across entire spectrum, ignores evidence that undermines his anecdotal experience, thinks everyone else is stupid. Next up: Dementia, how to tell if your loved one is at risk or just a narcissistic idiot.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:08PM
Objection: no one loves Uzzard. Even Jesus thinks he's a prick :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:29PM
That's a fairly tenuous connection which ignores both peoples' ability to game that system (say by adopting better surnames or marrying into a surname), the differences in social mobility in past and present (social mobility two centuries ago is not social mobility today, the two countries you mentioned were significantly less socially mobile three generations ago, for example), and perhaps a bit of p-hacking too (this would not be the first time some researchers swore there was statistical significance at such low levels when there was not).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by unauthorized on Saturday January 27 2018, @10:18PM
> Few Generations
Yeah, that's kind of the problem buz. Why the fuck should I support an economic system which ensures very high likelyhood that my social status was predetermined upon birth? I don't give a fuck if the free market fixes itself in 5 generations because I'd be DEAD by then.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by iru on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:00PM (1 child)
> Perhaps the Scandinavian countries get closest today
You mean the same countries that got filthy rich with laissez-faire capitalism?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:40AM
No I mean the United States of America that has been communist for the last 5000 years.
i.e. what the fuck on this green earth are you talking about?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:46PM (1 child)
Everyone I've met who is or approaches the 1% works way too many 12 to 16 hour days, and a lot of weekends besides, and pays a horde of staff and employees.
Trust-fund babies are a different species entirely. Funny thing, most of them seem to be in the redistributionist camp, but never want to redistribute their own money.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:37PM
If they already pay a horde of staff and employees, then they probably enjoy working those 12-16 hours and weekends. Otherwise, they'd just hire a couple of other people to do that work as well.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:54PM
The 1% does lots of labor: management, manipulation, strategy, schemes, collusion, obfuscation/misdirection - these things take effort and skill, and when the rich themselves don't have those skills they do the work of hiring and directing those who do. These are the skills you learn as you climb the ladder of wealth - if you don't learn them and land at the top by lottery or cybercurrency investment or similar, you won't be staying there for long... that's another thing the wealthy have learned to do: stick together.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:01PM (24 children)
Crony Capitalism. Monopolies. Regulatory capture. Propaganda. No honest referees, no fair enforcement, and even no constancy in the rules, so that the strong can steal from the weak and get away with it, is the wrong kind of "free" for a market.
Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, and Citi should all be out of business, broken up, and their lying, thieving management still in prison. And those are hardly the only ones. Goldman Sachs. Exxon. BP. Comcast, most of the companies of Big Pharma, and more. The corruption corrodes our society. Why should anyone respect the law when the big fish are excused, over and over?
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:34PM (23 children)
Abso-fucking-lutely. We've strayed way the hell off the path. That's not a good reason to go advocating in favor of a system that has proven its unfitness every single time it's been attempted though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:15PM (12 children)
What then?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:37PM (6 children)
How about just attempting to get back on the path? It's got one hell of a proven track record as opposed to anything else.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:11PM (5 children)
Can you give us a time when we were "on path"? And it might not hurt if you defined "path".
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:52PM (4 children)
PATH="lacking the things I agreed put us off of the path"
We've never been perfectly on-path. No nation ever will. We've been a whole hell of a lot closer than we currently are though. Perfection is not the goal; improvement is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:20PM (2 children)
PATH="lacking the things I agreed put us off of the path"
:-) Cool
We've been a whole hell of a lot closer than we currently are though.
Ok. Give me a time. please... The suspense is killing me
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:40PM (1 child)
Depends on which bit you're talking about.
For lack of corruption and anti-trust issues? You only have to look back as far as the 20th century.
For fewer/weaker government granted monopolies you have to go back farther. Patents and copyright alone went insane in the 20th.
It goes in ebbs and swells but achieving something better than we have now is not a herculean task.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @10:32PM
Ok, so now you again bumped into my old contention, better for whom? Sure it's easy to say some people were better off in the *old days*. But your implication is that the whole country was better off. What time period would you want to live?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:50PM
I bet taxes and social benefits were a bit higher than they are now when we were a bit more "on the path".
Hint: the above conditions absolutely do not equate to "a system that has proven its unfitness every single time it's been attempted".
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:48PM (3 children)
The system will crash under its own weight because these big fish will always reach for something just a bit too far out of their grasp. That is not the worst of it though, like previous instances in history, the excesses of the tsars for example. will help breed totalitarianism like the leninist interpretation of the marxist myth of communism. To be fair though marx 'did' have some valid criticism of the crony capitalism of his day. a type of capitalism that these wealthy people LOVE and that we are on the path of remaking. his solutions were pretty bad though.
These people will come in and claim to have a one size fits all cure, the people tired, frustrated and angry will seize upon it.
A properly running capitalist based, because the version that was laid down in the wealth of nations is similar to the fairy tail marx lays out in his solution, just at the opposite spectrum. Is one where it's easy to be poor, but very hard to be wealthy and stay that way. If the blood of a capitalist system is money. Then the way it is now is similar to a person about to have a heart attack due to a clogging artery, an aneurysm due to the pooling of blood in a blood vessel in the brain, and deep vein thrombosis due to the pooling of even more blood in the legs.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:52PM (2 children)
Outstanding first paragraph. The second one is hard to read though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:19PM (1 child)
He's saying blood money should be more evenly distributed throughout the system to avoid gangrene. The analogy works.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:53PM
Quite witty. Cheers.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:22PM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:52PM (3 children)
OK, so if someone points out that the communist countries didn't implement pure communism, then it's a "no true Scotsman" argument, while if someone points out that the capitalist countries didn't implement pure capitalism, that's merely "we strayed from the way."
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:14PM (1 child)
Western nations have had hybrid, liberal governance since the end of WW2.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:45AM
So have the Eastern too. Yet both these facts are irrelevant here.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:54PM
Nope. I don't ask for perfection, only its earnest pursuit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:44PM (2 children)
I keep looking for this mythical person advocating the US go full communist. I have yet to see a single instance of it.
More likely you are using that as a red herring so you can advance your own ideology. When asked for more specifics down the thread you fall to pieces. Go fuck yourself you intellectually bankrupt asshole. Oh, you could also just be an idiot conflating a variety of concepts together with no regard for the actual facts.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:49PM
First bunch I came to:
http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/Should_the_United_States_become_a_communist_country [createdebate.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @12:45AM
Among the folks here, I'm closest to the mark.
I don't think that USAians will be ready for full-on revolution until a significant number of them get a taste of collective ownership via Democracy in the workplace.[1] [democracyatwork.info]
I advocate for Socialist worker-owned cooperatives, consumer co-ops, and credit unions to get that awareness going.
[1] Smaller downloads here; descriptions are typically better at the link above [kpfa.org]
.
advocating the US go full communist
That would be the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. [google.com]
Pacifica Radio presenter Michael Slate is a member.
He gets 1 hour a week on air. Webcasts archived [kpfk.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:58PM (2 children)
There is no pure capitalist system on earth, just as there is no pure communist system on earth - these are only labels, both ideals are implemented somewhere in the middle.
One major factor that addresses corruption for any system is transparency - and that's something that Scandinavia seems to be leading the world in, we should strive to beat them in that area. Transparency exposes illegality, injustice, corruption and waste, until these thing are exposed they will not be addressed or corrected.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:03AM (1 child)
The big thing they have there is effective labor unions, going back over a century.
When recovering from The Roaring Twenties and The Great Depression which followed that, IWW and other unions as well as The Communist Party of the United States were instrumental in getting system reforms in USA.
In northern Europe, The Working Class didn't allow their gains to be neutered by Reactionaries as happened with the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and subsequent state and federal legislation in USA.
The lesson is to stay informed and keep your guard up.
Reactionaries never give up; when you defeat them, they always regroup and try again.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @12:38PM
The US did quite well by the Taft-Hartley act. The US government shouldn't be interfering in that way in labor-employer disputes.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:17PM (73 children)
i grew up in a "communist" country.
here's what happened in practice: salaries were reasonably close to each other for most people.
however, if you worked in the clothes factory, it was understood that you could steal clothes.
similarly car parts for car factory, chairs for furniture factory, etc.
and people would get by by bartering products and/or influence in certain things.
because there were not enough products to be bought, because the official economy was centrally planned and didn't really function properly, so everyone was effectively poor.
that is not communism.
ideal communism will never work for human society, obviously.
ideal communism says "if the country produces N dollars, the income for each person should be N/population".
and real people would, in such a country, stop working because there would be no motivation.
however, in reasonable societies taxes should be relatively bigger for bigger incomes.
i.e. something like this: if I am paid 50 thousand dollars a year, i should pay 10 thousand taxes; if i am paid 300 thousand a year, i should pay 150 thousand taxes.
because productivity is intimately linked to living in a certain society.
you may call this "almost communism", and you may argue whether or not it's the right system to use.
however, please be aware that countries calling themselves "communist countries" are very different from the almost communist countries that i describe.
like the other poster says, look to northern europe for countries that are actually close to ideal communism.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:51PM (70 children)
Why?
No, really. Why?
Keep in mind that I will not accept "because they can afford it" as a valid reason. The same could be used to justify legalizing first party robbery of them (as opposed to the third party robbery that higher taxes are).
Neither will I accept "they have benefited more from society" as a valid reason. It's patently false. Having your survival-related needs met by government programs is a far greater benefit than having your desires met.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:10PM (21 children)
Taxes put a much greater financial burden on those that make little money. Paying 40 percent of your income is much more difficult than paying 4 percent. Government has a role, despite what some people claim. I don't want corporations making decisions on what defines clean air/food/water when it impacts their profits. Businesses would decide how many deaths are financially acceptable. Those are the true "death panels".
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:15PM (20 children)
See above re: Because They Can Afford It. This is not a valid reason.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:29PM (5 children)
So then why would someone need 3 houses and 4 cars? Because they can aford it?
Disclaimer: I am an engineer and I completely agree to pay 5 times more taxes than someone who earns 4 times less then me. This to simplify the progressive tax concept which you seem so passionately against.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:57PM (4 children)
Irrelevant. They earned their money. They can use it for toilet paper and be utterly morally sound.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:56PM (3 children)
You can not say irrelevant. The wealth disparity is a serious problem and history abounds with examples of what happens when humans finally get fed up with a crooked system. Stop waving off valid arguments, you are not a king and you have no autonomy. Pay your taxes, support a better tax bracket, make society better.
"They can use it for toilet paper and be utterly morally sound"
The more I see your discussions the more it seems likely that you are a true sociopath. Morality is some set of rules you follow because society says so, you lack a functional conscience. It could also be a result of the libertarian mindset you work so hard at, working hard to separate "logic" from "feelings". Hell, libertarianism is practically THE sociopath ideology anyway. As long as you don't harm others you can do whatever you want. Much simpler rules to follow.
Example: as long as you get someone to voluntarily sign a document allowing you to kill them as long as you pay off their family that is OK. Who is the gov to say a voluntary contract is morally wrong?
A bit excessive, but that is how such arguments go. You highlight the extreme end to show where an ideology can lead to. In this case some dystopian hunger games type shit where rich folks are legally able to do whatever they want to poor suckers needing a small break.
It is all irrelevant anyway, everyone knows TMB is a marooon so anything he says is definitely stupid.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @12:39PM (2 children)
Shouldn't there be evidence to support this assertion?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:45PM (1 child)
Every violent revolution in the history of humanity?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @06:51PM
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:34PM (10 children)
Well, the system did work better before Reagan shifted the tax burden from capital to labor. How common is the single income family now?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:07PM (9 children)
The reason there are so few single income families now is because women decided to essentially double the available workforce over the past four or five decades. Double supply means half demand and pay scales to account for that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:41PM (1 child)
Oh the irony.. What happened to all your talk about wealth being generated? If more people are employed then there should be more overall wealth. Yet again you are a hypocrite and moron. I should start up a SN bingo game, the responses here are predictable enough to make it work.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:22PM
He's saying that if you have 100 jobs for 100 people, then suddenly there are 200 people for those 100 jobs, the wage offering will go down due to there being more people applying for the job,
NOT,
more people are working so the family income should go up.
More people looking for the same jobs makes wage go down. (50 people looking for 100 jobs means wage will go up: supply and demand). Logical.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @11:04PM (6 children)
The women had to go work to compensate for higher taxes on their husband's stagnant wages. Wages weren't driven down for that. They were driven down by tax incentives to off shore the jobs. You know, for a "libertarian", you really do send mixed messages. You sound more like a regular neo-liberal.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:53PM (5 children)
Not so. Wages didn't stagnate until some years after women entered the labor market in force. Actually, it's hard to point to a time when women weren't in the labor market. They were always there, and they've just grown more and more numerous through out the years. But, wages increased right up until the 80's, then the stagnation began. The rust belt and coal country were the first victims, and it has spread from there. Even so, we saw growth through the 90's. Not a lot, but there was growth.
Women get some "blame", I guess, for doubling the available workforce. But, illegal aliens, outsourcing, and offshoring have all been greater contributors to wage stagnation than our women wanting jobs. Without those latter forces at work, how much would my wages have fallen, just because my sister, my wife, and my daughters in law want jobs? Not much. In fact, my wages would likely have continued to go up, because all of those women now have money to spend on the things that I produce.
America's wives aren't staying at home, cooking meals? Oh - where are they, then? A bunch of them are downtown, cooking meals for money? Ohhh-kay - I need to charge more for my products, so that I can afford the meals they are cooking downtown! WIN-WIN!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday January 29 2018, @02:30AM (4 children)
Wages didn't stagnate until some years after women entered the labor market in force.
Hmm, maybe you aren't aware of Nixon's wage/price controls, and he debased the the dollar. The stagnation started way before the 80s. More like 71-73.. Your storyline is entirely false.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 29 2018, @02:47AM (3 children)
I guess someone should define "stagnation" then. I made increasing amounts of money, year after year, right up until the middle of the '90's. Unions were successfully negotiating wage and benefits increases for their members, up until about '83 or '84, when the steel and iron industry very publicly moved some of it's operations out of the country. Bill Clinton took credit for "improving the economy" in the 90's. It wasn't until about '97 or so that the crap really started hitting the fan. I realize that various segments of the economy were hit sooner, and others later, but overall, I think that things stayed pretty good until the housing bubble burst. The combination of the housing bubble, and illegal alien immigration is what hit me, personally. Others may have very different perspectives. The dotcom bubble, for instance, had zero effect on me - that was just something that I read about. It put no one out of work, that I knew.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday January 29 2018, @08:08PM (2 children)
Sorry, didn't mean "false". More correctly it's personal. I was comfortable with lots of perks during that time too.
illegal alien immigration is what hit me, personally.
I'm interested in how specifically that happened.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 29 2018, @11:12PM (1 child)
I worked construction for much of my life. I'm a multicraft guy - a full fledged journeyman carpenter, who can do concrete, rodbusting, some limited welding, pipefitting, and field engineer work. Around '97 or '98, I was in need of a job, and did some semiserious job hunting. One of my leads took me to Dallas. I walked out on the jobsite, surrounded by mostly Mexicans. Found the super's trailer, went in, and introduced myself.
I was told bluntly, that they weren't hiring any white boys. The super told me flat out that he can hire two, or even three Mexicans for the wages that I expected to get. I suppose that I gave him a strange look, because he got defensive, and told me that was pretty much the same story all around Dallas. I wasn't going to find a journeyman's wages when there was so much cheap labor flooding the market.
That wasn't the end of my construction work, but, wages did stagnate. There were no more raises, I no longer got phone calls asking me if I was a available.
People in the north east US, and the east coast, can make claims forever that the Mexicans are just doing the work that Americans are to lazy to do. But, I know better, because it affected me directly. They don't just pick vegetables, and mow lawns. Mexicans aren't mules, after all - they are working men and women, like myself. They can learn any skill that I can learn. They can learn any skill that any member of this forum can learn. They would be serious competition on a level playing field. With the unfair pricing of labor - we can't compete.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 30 2018, @01:46AM
Illegal aliens, illegal drugs... the market demands it all. Capitalism doesn't respect the border any more than migrating animals do.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:55PM (2 children)
Because I like living in a civilized country and so prefer to keep paying to maintain civilization even when the poor can't afford to.
I'm perfectly fine with my taxes going to defend the poor from starvation, shelter and educate them. What I object to is my taxes going to "defence" where defence means killing people thousands of miles away just to make some filthy rich people even richer.
It's cheaper and more efficient to pay to deliver education, food, shelter and healthcare to poor people than pay to deliver healthcare, food or shelter in far more expensive ways (e.g. ER, crime, prison) or to suffer the results of their poor education (remember many of them can vote too).
So if I prefer not to live in a country where many are suffering or dying in the streets then I might as well pay for it in more efficient ways.
One potential issue is if the poor breed indiscriminately till the system can't feed all of them but there are ways to deal with that if it actually looks like becoming a significant problem. But it doesn't appear to be happening significantly in the Scandinavian countries.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:09PM (1 child)
I have no problem with you redistributing a portion of your wealth if you so choose. I do to some degree myself. What I have a problem with is you demanding others do the same under threat of imprisonment or death.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:29PM
Whereas, i look at it as, if they have the money to bribe politicians to make laws favour the rich, they have money to pay more in taxes.
Individuals bribing: they pay more (and go to jail, lol).
Corporations bribing: it pays more. Way more.
It's the money in politics that, IMHO, has begun the real spiral down (as well as CEO's getting salary/stock options/benefits WAAAY beyond their worth, but as you say, that is a hiring problem). Take the big money out, make the politicians speak to EVERY individual for money (not just big corp) and you will get a politician more interested in making the country a place for "We the people" instead of just "We the rich".
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:16PM (8 children)
I'll give it a try to answer that one.
Since it is easier to sell that than the actual "the poor will get the tax breaks" - which is the intent.
The reasoning basically is that the poor needs more support to even the playfield to make everything less stratified - but actually pointing out to the poor that they're poor never goes over well so it is easier to market it as "taxing the rich".
If this is a good thing or not depends on your personal beliefs, if the main object is "all for me" then it is insane, if the main object is "all for all" then it doesn't go far enough.
(btw, norway uses a model similar to the one proposed (all nordic countries uses different models - but has the same overall theme))
Depends on what you measure, quantity - yes, quality - no. Having enough to give a comfort above the basic need (without entering luxury) tends to provide a decent average.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:44PM (7 children)
And this goal has some innate quality that makes forcing one man to work for another's benefit okay? We used to call that slavery and slavery is immoral no matter how comfortable the slave.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:42PM (3 children)
> makes forcing one man to work for another's benefit okay?
No one is forced. The rich person could take all of their money out of investment and stop working.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:11PM (2 children)
Not buying it. This is only acceptable to you at the moment because most prefer not to. The minute that changed you'd be demanding taxes on cash holdings.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:25PM
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 30 2018, @12:45PM
> you'd be demanding taxes on cash holdings
Please don't accuse me of writing things I never wrote.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:31PM (2 children)
As I wrote in the next paragraph - if it is a good thing or not depends on your beliefs.
But sure - let's run with your ad absurdum, this would mean you also are against any and all taxes and conscription-style military service.
And how did you get to "/forcing/ one man to work" (and driving that to slavery?)? The man is allowed to accept less pay, give money away, do another job or even working less or not at all (neither of which was/is included in slavery).
The system has dimininishing returns simply enough - so past a certain point you'll mainly just do a job for the joy of it (relative to other activities).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:48PM (1 child)
Yes, I am. I'm also a realist though and realize the former is unlikely to happen, so I'm willing to accept progress towards perfection rather than demanding perfection.
Thought it needed no explaining but if it does I will. When you take the product of a man's labor you have effectively said to him "your labor during this period was not for yourself but for me". Call it retroactive slavery or theft or whatever you like but do not call it moral.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:33PM
Ahh, you being completly against taxes leaves us at an impasse and we can't never really understand each other's point of view on this subject (with that being said, it is nice arguing with you). Personally I consider taxes to be useful, guess that is a sideeffect of the benefits that gives you over here (sweden).
Out of curiousity - how would you fund stuff like roadconstructions, enviornmental agencies, powergrids, police, fire departments, food and water standards and such?
Slavery is something completly different then, and is a bad rethoric.
Theft - depends on how you see taxes, from your POV it is theft from my POV it is sane.
It is moral (really, look up what the word mean) - if it is good or bad however depends on which moral you apply.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tangaroa on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:24PM (2 children)
How about because the poor cannot afford it? To meet any given level of state spending, the money has to come from somewhere. Taking from people who need the money to put food on the table is going to cause more harm than taking from it someone who might buy a tenth Lexus.
The rich are more prone to hoarding, capital flight, and using financial tricks that cause damage to the economy. The middle class will at least buy Starbucks and Warriors tickets which puts the money back into the economy.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:48PM (1 child)
Rewording an invalid reason is also not a valid reason. Neither is assuming a level of spending must be met; especially spending that is nothing but wealth redistribution to begin with.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:04PM
Assuming you get to exploit a system that causes massive suffering and hide behind "muh properties!" is not a valid excuse for running a pseudo-ponzi scheme.
You treat the issue like people want to steal everything you have, where reality is people want you to pay your fair share of the costs of running society. You can quibble all day about what are valid expenditures, etc. but you start from the assumption that taxes are theft. There is no salvation for such self-inflicted ignorance.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:51PM (1 child)
Because those people benefit disproportionally from government spending.
And, yes, "because they can afford it" is a valid reason.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:07PM
False. Having your needs for survival met via society is a far greater benefit than having your non-survival desires met. That aside, once you have paid whatever is asked of you for let's say using the roads, you owe neither moral nor financial debt in using said roads. When you pay the price for something, all debt ceases to exist.
Saying it in caps does not make it so. It especially does not make it selectively so. Unless you believe your poorer neighbor would be justified in coming to your house, pointing a gun at your head, and saying "You're paying my rent this month because you can afford it better than I can".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:56PM (12 children)
Because people who already have more wealth have an unfair advantage when it comes to acquiring wealth. The higher taxes compensate for that unfair advantage.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:09PM (11 children)
Unfair how? Someone earned that wealth and is free to use the fruits of their labor however they choose. If you don't enjoy having less, earn more.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:37PM (8 children)
Unfair in that they need less effort to obtain the same additional wealth. Sometimes to the point that certain wealth is only available to them.
Even if you assume that the wealth was earned (which is not always the case), then that wealth is already fair compensation for that past work, and there's no reason there should be even more compensation in the form of easier obtained future wealth.
The joke of the century.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:19PM (7 children)
That isn't unfair. Any citizen with the ability is free to earn their way up exactly the same as those at the top did and make use of those "easier" avenues.
You think? Making money is not a difficult proposition. Most people just never put any serious thought into how to do it. Here is precisely how to do so:
Find a need/desire, fill it, charge money. If your current attempt is not succeeding, change your approach or attempt something different. Repeat as necessary.
Do please share this around to those of your acquaintance who have not figured this out.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:35PM (6 children)
Buzzy 2020! #MAGA
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:52PM (5 children)
If nominated I will not accept. If elected I will not serve. Unless you make it Emperor rather than President. I don't have a temperament suitable to dealing with corrupt fuckwads every day without being able to order their executions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:07PM (1 child)
I guess you missed the sarcasm. Everyone here (except khallow and jmorris maybe) would rather jump off a bridge. You'd be like a shitty Trump 2.0 leading us straight into idiocracy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:41PM
For my part, it looks like we are well into idiocracy already. Just sayin'.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:55PM
Yeah, that's why I always phrase it... "When I become dictator..."
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:12PM
So you're saying you'd commit suicide?
Holy shit, that does it, I'm writing you in for 2020.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:38PM
Donald? Is that you? Shouldn't you be busy with running the country right now?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:36PM (1 child)
Unfair only if you have politicians who accept (are allowed to accept) money to make things favour them, or that they can (illegally/immorally? can't come up with the right word) make things favour them above others.
Let the rich make their money, yes hell yes: just don't let them change the system to favour them above another.
Make money? Fair
Corrupt the system to favour you? Unfair
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @12:58AM
You think scuzzy would hold to his promises any better than frumpy?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:01PM (7 children)
It's because the cost of living is not zero, therefore the tax function cannot be tax(income) = factor * income + 0.
The most basic form is a cutoff: if (income <= liveable income) { tax(income) = 0 } else { tax(income) = factor * (income - liveable income) }
But most civilized countries have a progressive tax with several piecewise linear functions, e.g.
tax(income) =
0 if (income <= liveable income)
factor1 * (income - liveable income) if ( liveable income <= income <= comfortable income )
factor1 * (comfortable income - liveable income) + factor2 * (income - comfortable income) if (income >= comfortable income)
factor1 is kept low: in that way, the government stimulates the people to advance their careers and that way grow the economy.
factor2 (factor3, ... ) is a progressively higher scale of income taxation because at one point you've gone beyond "i can live a comfortable lifestyle in my country even with heavy taxation" to
"i can become very rich with this job in this country even with extremely high taxation on the upper scales", when the extra income is used only as a yardstick to measure "I'm more rich/imortant than that other person because I earn more".
That doesn't benefit society, therefore it doesn't harm society or even those people themselves to be taxed heavily on the tax scales way above "comfortable income".
You can also interpret taxation in a different way in countries or supranational entities that have the "subsidiarity" principle [wikipedia.org]:
In the EU, the money earned at local level is meant to be spent at local level. If there is anything left over, it goes to fund higher-level organisations.
Sweden has the subsidiarity principle as well: A large part of my taxes go, first and foremost, to pay the unemployment benefits of the drunks and junkies in my own village/town ("Kommun") :-) .
If I earn enough, above a certain tax threshold, then what is left over gets spent by my provincial government, to pay for medical care, hospitals and road maintenance and region-wide economic development initiatives.
Healthcare is provincial (larger scale than Kommun level) because each hospital has a "catchment basin" that spans large areas and multiple Kommuns.
If there is still money left over in the scale above that, then that gets taxed and spent by Sweden's national government, on universities, defense, and other luxuries.
It is very important to observe, that only the "rich" pay for defense. So you could see it as a cause for pride, that you earn so much that you can pay for the defense of your fatherland.
Just like in feodal times, when a jarl/earl had to fight, and a hertog/duke (heer-tog) had to raise an army in times of trouble.
Whereas if you're just a basic wage slave, the government takes your money to support people in your neighbourhood that have temporarily or permanently dropped out of employment. It happens to the best of us.
The government that steals your hard-earned money, is therefore *your own* government. It is yours. That is a very important point to make. The US had a bloody revolution based on "no taxation without representation", so you probably know that much better than I.
If you don't like it, well don't immigrate to Sweden!
It also means that if it goes badly with the country's economy, like in 2008, the people come first. Defense spending comes last. They won't squander it on expensive F-35 JSF planes (I hope). Somehow, this has gone wrong in the US.
I think that the subsidiarity principle was used by Charlemagne, but I don't remember if I read that somewhere or made it up out of whole cloth.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:17PM (6 children)
That is irrelevant. Do you believe in slavery? Because that's precisely what forcing one man to work for another man's benefit is.
Again, irrelevant. It doesn't harm a woman if you use lube and a condom when raping her but it is still morally reprehensible.
You've done a pretty good job obfuscating the fundamental issue at hand but said nothing that makes theft or slavery morally sound.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:51PM (2 children)
I remember time when people would say, *America, love it or leave it.*
Like it or not, the majority decides the form of "slavery" (chattel, wage, etc) you will live under. And people will tell me, *don't let the door hit ya on the ass.* I wouldn't say that, because I believe all the fences must be torn down, and everybody has a right to live where they want and to *follow the food*, but I am interested to see how you would fund your collective, and is it a fenced/heavily guarded community with restricted membership.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:23PM (1 child)
We've actually had quite a lot of protections against that happening from the very beginning and some not small amount of blood shed to keep it from happening other times but you are largely correct.
A collective? Me? I'm not even interested in a collective of two or I would have married by now.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @11:11PM
A collective? Me? I'm not even interested in a collective of two or I would have married by now.
So, you live all alone in a cabin up in the mountains, sending *letters to the editor*, or a van down by the river, washing your clothes on a rock, and spearing whatever swims by?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:39PM (2 children)
Wow.. are you really saying, that it is immoral, to be forced to do work for another man's benefit?
That's quite a radical viewpoint. It must be difficult for you to live in a society with other people, some of them putting unreasonable demands on you (or trying).
However, I respect that you'd never take a job where an asshole boss bullies you around :-). Wish I had done that a bit more often.
What is your viewpoint on military conscription: should it be dodged, because it is immoral to force you to fight for the protection of your countrymen?
And what about work in the public sector: nurses, teachers, firefighters, police officers have no choice but to work for others' benefit, even if sometimes they must "serve" absolute assholes.
What I mean is: sure, they get paid to interact with "people", but they must occasionally some days get people that they think: "It isn't worth the wage to have to deal with *these* people".
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:56PM
It's the basis of a free society. In ancient Rome it was perfectly moral.
Even if he does, I'm not forced to work for him. I do it voluntarily or I leave.
In a war morality changes. Try to proudly say in a crowd: "I'm a deserter, I do not want to protect you." See what happens.
They said an oath to help everyone. Yes, sometimes it's too hard. Those leave the profession. Nobody forces them to stay or to go.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:07PM
Fuck yes I am. All week long and twice on Sunday. When I take a job it is for my benefit. You can tell by how I quit when value_returned is less than value_put_forth.
I'm against military conscription but not for moral reasons. I wouldn't, as a vet myself, want to share a foxhole with someone who did not want to be there. You couldn't trust them like you could a volunteer. For me that outweighs any moral argument one way or the other.
They're all paid except for volunteer firefighters. Almost none of them would be doing the job if they weren't. Actual volunteers, most of them will be doing the job because they enjoy the work, the company of their coworkers, the results of their effort, or a combination of the above. Actual altruists are mentally disturbed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:14PM (1 child)
here's one reason why: if they don't accept this, society will become unbalanced (such as it is right now). whenever this happened, throughout history, there has been a bloody revolt in the end, and some percentage of the ultra-rich were executed by mobs of poor people (although in the long term not a lot changed for them, hence successive revolts). there is a non-zero probability for any rich person to be the one killed by the mob (it's kind of random I think).
i would prefer this reason: fighting against an unbalanced society is the decent thing to do, because it reduces overall suffering, and it releases more resources for quality time. if you think that's fluffy pink feel-good hippy non-sense, you are free to think it and to argue against it, but I won't apologize for thinking this way.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:23PM
That's at least a rational argument. An easily dismissed one because "paying protection money to the mob" is never going to be on sound ethical ground, but it is rational which is more than can be said for every other argument so far.
And you lost it. Helping the poor is the decent thing to do. Robbing someone's house to do so is not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:50PM (3 children)
Protection from being robbed of wealth greater than that needed for survival falls into the category of "desires" rather than "survival-related needs".
Compared to a completely flat tax, a lower marginal tax rate on the first n thousand dollars of annual income is a "government program[]" that subsidizes "Having your survival-related needs met".
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:25PM (2 children)
Yes, glad to see we agree. The poor are receiving far greater benefit from society than the rich.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:35PM (1 child)
Special place in hell just for you uggy.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:15PM
He's going to reincarnate poor after he's done his time in the inferno, mark my words. Anyone his age who hasn't progressed beyond this level of development is going to die in it, and there are some things you can't atone for in Hell as they require the lesson to be taught in the same context it was failed to be learned in last time. He's probably going to pop up somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa or somewhere else that's being exploited ruthlessly around 2070 or so.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Informative) by fyngyrz on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:50PM (4 children)
Because 20% of Joe Floorwasher's income is a huge, life-altering hit to him and his family, while 20% of Joseph Mergatroid Moneybags the Fourth's income has no life-changing effect on him whatsoever.
The most important benefit of a tax rate that is higher for higher income entities is to put the load where it can be borne without harm. For a country to be economically healthy, you want everyone to be able to live at some reasonable level. A big part of getting that done is load distribution. When you have a horse and a dog, you don't put the big packs on the dog.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:14PM (3 children)
Irrelevant. Theft is no less of a crime if the person stolen from will hardly miss it.
As for the rest, society's welfare is not my primary concern. Our nation was not founded to provide comfort to all its citizens but individual liberties were absolutely the core of what we were promised. I would rather have life than material comforts and I would rather have liberty than life.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:47PM
You cannot adequately measure harm by its general class; theft of a tootsie roll is no less theft than theft of all your savings.
However, the harm done is vastly different, and yes, we do, and we should, treat these instances quite differently. Likewise, you take 20% of Joe Floorwasher's income, it's radically different than taking 20% of Joseph Mergatroid Moneybags the Fourth's income. Even if both are tax, or, if you must, "theft."
Even if I accept your implied assertion that taxes are inherently theft (I certainly don't), such action I deem necessary in order to build and maintain the underpinnings that make a society, a thing I value far more highly than your offended, if grievously simplistic, sensibilities on the matter.
Where I will stand with you, if you like, is that some use of tax money is absurd, some is evil, and some is far more wasteful than circumstances actually call for. In this, pushback seems appropriate and righteous to me.
But tiered income taxes in general... there are many things that we cannot do on our lonesome or in small groups because they are simply too large to approach at that level. Highways are one good example of this.
Others could be approached, but greed prevents success: healthcare and shelter and animal welfare are good examples of that sort of thing. They could be largely addressed by charity of the wealthy in a substrate of enabling legislation; but they are most certainly not. Consequently they become big jobs that should fall to government; it's either that, or they won't get done to the degree they need to be done.
For government to be able to actually try and/or approach solutions these tasks, government must be able to transfer material and labor to the task. So far, that means applying the common medium of exchange: money. So we have taxes. Or, as you seem to want to call it, "theft." No matter the name, it seems very clear that we should have it. At least until automation creates an economy of plenty, which is still probably a ways off in the future, and which I am convinced is going to be very painful to transition to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:48PM
Just claiming something is irrelevant does not make it so. Take your shitty worldview to the bathroom and flush it where it belongs. Society's welfare is not your primary concern? All you've done is highlight that you're a naive selfish fool.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:59AM
Stolen?! They own it to the community, it's nothing but paying their debt.
Did you get no education? Do you not drive on the roads? Do you get no service from the police and the fire department? Do you use no internet?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:28PM
For one, it's a shortcut for translating income into disposable income. What's the point of taking money people actually can't do without to buy food and pay rent just to then give it back to pay rent and buy food?
For another, even though the better off hate to believe it, they DO benefit more. Why does a guy who can't afford a car give a crap if the police do or do not spend time and money on auto theft? Why does someone who has neither the money for a lawyer or time off work for court give a crap if the civil courts remain open? Why does he give a crap if Vietnam goes communist?
If you believe that living beyond comfortably is a lesser value than getting welfare, give it all up and go on welfare. When can we sign you up? Anyone?
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:11PM
Because without taxes wealth is distributed exponentially. Any system with exponentially distributed parameters is inherently unstable (Think Holocaust).
A stable system should have normally distributed parameters. Hence the proposal is simple - tax till the income is normally distributed. Average is set by economic conditions. Dispersion is set during the budget hearings. Then people are taxed (and/or taxes distributed) until the target is achieved.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 27 2018, @09:01PM
That was my perception of East Germany in 1990 - clearly things were better than they appeared from the stores, not good, but not nearly so bleak - it had to be the black market that made things actually work there, then.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:27AM
Seems to be a universal thing.
One Piece at a Time - Johnny Cash [songtexte.com] Psychobilly Cadillac [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:29PM (12 children)
First, the history of capitalism is only a few centuries, and the history of communism is less, so I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn.
Second, and more importantly, you're making a false dichotomy here. There are lots of ways of organizing economies and government other than "pure" capitalism (whatever that is) vs. "pure" communism.
Okay, I'll bite. I'm NOT arguing for communism at all. But there is are plenty of arguments for why your overly simplistic model is unfair.
One common argument is that we're all dependent on each other in society. The rich don't get rich by themselves -- they depend on the rest of society to finance them. So the "fruits of someone else's labor" can only exist as long as the overall society exists. Society therefore has the right to place at least some limits on how those "fruits" may be earned.
It's widely recognized (except perhaps by hard-core communists) that concentration of wealth has positive benefits, and I'm not at all going to argue against that. The ability to earn more through hard work or innovation or whatever drives people to excel, often in ways that benefit society as a whole. But that's not an argument for unfettered wealth concentration in a small elite. Eventually, if you go down that road, you go beyond capitalism and are preaching the gospel of feudalism, which tends toward a belief that a certain elite just "deserve" to be richer. And feudalism, historically, tended to limit social and technological progress.
Instead, we should realize that the rich don't just "deserve" those "fruits of their labor" (especially when said "labor" may be spending out of a trust fund that earns interest) -- but rather we should keep in mind that the wealth inequality should be justified to better society. Like, as I said, to provide incentives for innovations: innovations that often benefit society as a whole (often including the poor).
So how do we strike the balance to provide such incentives without driving toward a feudalism of the rich "deserving" a priori to be richer for no better reason than that they can be?
One answer (not the only one) is provided by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice [wikipedia.org]. Rawls points out that you are often born into a society with certain talents and abilities, and if you were born into a different society with different values, you might become significantly richer or poorer.
So imagine you were entering into a new society, and you didn't know if your talents and abilities would actually be valued? Maybe in this society you'd end up being the poorest member because they value something you're just not very good at. How would you design the economic system to ensure that wealth distribution benefits all? What would be fair to you as the poorest member of that society?
Rawls's answer is sort of what I implied above: we allow the rich to get richer as long as the inequality continues to benefit society as a whole. But at some point, the scales are tipped and the rich merely continue to just get richer, while the quality of the life of the poor remains static or even degrades.
We can look at the recent history of business to see this. Keynes predicted almost a century ago that by now we'd all be working only 15 hour work weeks, because our productivity would have gone up so much. Except this didn't happen. Well, the productivity did increase as Keynes predicted, but the benefits of that increased productivity and all the profits only went to the richest. Executive salaries have ballooned compared to the average worker salary. The inequality is no longer benefitting everyone, rather only a tiny elite. And we have actual studies that show that increased CEO pay doesn't correlate well with increased company performance -- or even if it does, the effect is so, so much smaller than would justify having a salary hundreds of times higher than the average worker.
So, by Rawls's standard, the system is breaking down. The richer are getting richer, but their gains are not increasing overall quality of life for society as a whole. Rather, they're just allowing the rich to buy a slightly bigger private jet or whatever.
On a global scale (as TFA is addressing), there's not much to be done. We don't have a world government or a world economic policy strong enough to address this on a global scale. But the same patterns of wealth concentration without overall societal benefit apply in a lot of countries.
Again, imagine you were to move to a country like the U.S., for example, but you had no idea if your talents or intellectual abilities would be as valued as they are now. Maybe you'd be the dumbest person in this country, struggling to survive. (And, since most people are just born into a country, they don't have control over whether their innate aptitudes are high or low within that society -- sure, they can shape them to some extent, but some people are just dumber than others or have different abilities... or do you deny that?) How would you design the economic system or the tax system or whatever? In the name of fairness, wouldn't you choose some metric kind of like what Rawls suggests? I.e., Reward the rich and allow them to get richer, but only as long as the concentration of wealth doesn't begin to degrade the quality of life of the average or poor worker??
It's not just capitalism vs. communism. Or unfettered wealth accumulation vs. complete wealth redistribution. There are issues of general fairness of society to consider, as well as what economic system promotes the strongest progress (technologically, quality of life, etc.) for ALL members of said society.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:17PM (11 children)
Why haven't you done so then? Oh, right, because you're full of shit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:02PM (3 children)
Oh wow. Your powers of reasoning leave us all shocked and awed.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:24PM (2 children)
Your utter lack of a rebuttal speaks volumes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:50PM
When someone makes a terrible point full of bad logic it is rarely fruitful to argue the point. Especially with someone like you who ignores everything they don't like with simple denials. Your rebuttals never have any evidence or even decent reasoning beyond "taxes are theft" and other greed based axioms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:50PM
The Obvious Rebuttal®. Oh Buzzard of Might, is that there is no way to rebutt the lack of rebuttal. Your lack reasoning makes you irrefutable! No one can refudiate you! Go, Sarah!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mmcmonster on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:17PM (4 children)
I am, by most scales, well to do, if not considered rich.
I have a high-six-figure salary in the health care field, with respect from my colleagues who acknowledge behind my back that I'm a hard worker and good at what I do. I have $2.5 million in liquid assets, have a million dollar house (custom build, not a McMansion), and my entire debt is $30k on my car (at 1.2%, I'm taking as long as possible to pay it off). I have never taken a loan from family or even accepted cash from them (other than $100 at times as birthday gifts).
That being said, I would never say that I am a self-made man. My parents gave me a stable home growing up, driving me to and from extracurricular activities on nights and weekends as needed.. They supported me throughout school, such that I never had to pay tuition or work during high school or college.
I am a member of society and quite happy to pay whatever taxes requested to keep society going for the next generation. I volunteer on off weekends and make sure my kids do as well (when we are not taking them to their extracurricular activities).
By the time my kids are old enough to be earning a living they are going to be better off than most and have a leg up on society. They won't have loans and will understand index fund investing and living below their means.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:36PM (2 children)
And I applaud you for all that. I would however call you a self-made man. You owe your parents nothing financially or morally for your raising. The choice to bring you into this world was theirs thus so was the responsibility to raise you. There are usually going to be plenty of mutual debts of love and loyalty for them and you exchanging plenty of both but those don't really factor in here.
Any contributions you care to make to create a better world for your children or even simply posterity I applaud you for as well. Demanding others do so as well under threat of imprisonment or death I cannot back you on though. I know of no way to make that a morally sound position.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:54PM (1 child)
By now we all get that, Uzzard. But you do understand, do you not, that what you do not know is not exactly relevant to anything at all. Community College, bro! The only cure for ignorance is learning. Money is not an acceptable substitute.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:37PM
You obviously have quite the journey ahead of you then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:59PM
Great. There are two schools of thought here, first that your parents funding your education is unfair, second that it is fair because opportunity is cross generational and every parent has the opportunity and responsibility to provide for their children. I believe the second to be true, my parents were not wealthy but provided for my education although I insisted on taking a bar job. We lived in a lower middle class area where I grew up exposed to vicious reverse snobbery, supporting myself became a matter of personal pride and self respect. On reflection it's only important that you make the most of available opportunities.
I've known many supposedly "self-made" people who would never admit their finances are a result of inheritance and many supposed inheritance beneficiaries who are, in reality, self-made. Success in most fields requires the work be put in.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday January 27 2018, @10:20PM (1 child)
Wow. Okay, then. I've often disagreed with you, and sometimes you've been less than articulate in replies to me. And sometimes a bit of a jerk. But you've never downright been an an inarticulate ass AND jerk to me when I've offered a substantive reply to you.
You have just proven yourself to be a true troll, not deserving of my time anymore. I've occasionally enjoyed debating with you, but if you're going to act like this, I won't bother talking to you anymore.
It's been weird, Mr. Buzzard. Farewell and cheers!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:00AM
Another user finally sees the truth!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:40PM (20 children)
I have no problem with capitalism in itself: my problem is with the wealthy buying laws for the sole purpose of making them wealthy at the expense of those who cannot afford to buy those laws.
Just like religion and state should be separate, just like civilian police should be separate from military forces, capitalism should be separate from politics: politicians should NOT be able to be bought by those with money, and laws should NOT be able to be made or bent in moneys favour.
Big money should be kept out of politics, big donations should not be allowed to be made. Politicians should be only allowed to take small donations ($100ish) from individuals.
AND, i'd like to see those with money make some REAL contributions to the betterment of mankind, not like the fake philanthropy most of them are engaged in. If i had that kind of money, i'd like to be seen as someone who helped mankind be better than it is, not just as a money grubber who bought politicians for their own gain.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:06PM (19 children)
I agree, right up until here:
Up until the advent of the Internet, speech was not remotely free-as-in-beer if you wanted anyone outside shouting distance to hear it. Thus the absolute necessity to involve money in the process. Whether a billion dollars of political speech comes from one person or a hundred million is irrelevant. Every citizen should be free to speak as widely and often as their means allow them to.
I'm peachy keen with not allowing corporate coffers to be used in politics though. Corporations are not human beings and should not have human rights or political representation. No taxation without representation is kind of a big thing in the US though, so they need to not be taxed at all if that's the road we go down.
Sounds good to me if that's their choice. If you don't demand it of one person, you shouldn't demand it of another though. Check the percentage of poor people that actually attempt to make the world a better place for anyone but themselves and their family, even if only within their available means. I guarantee it's not going to be as high as those of greater means.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:07PM (2 children)
What exactly are your sources for that claim? What is your guarantee worth?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:25PM (1 child)
My magic eight-ball and $19.95 respectively.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:28PM
'cause "computer says no"
http://popkey.co/m/EGWlQ-little-britain-carol-beer-computer-says [popkey.co]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:30PM (7 children)
But now, is not so necessary. Your speech can be gotten out much more cheaply today.
But i don't think they should be allowed to 'speak' with big money in the political frame (zone? arena?)
There, it should be 'by the people, for the people', not just some people. Each person should be able and allowed to 'speak' equally, or you get, by nature, inequality
I guess, to me, freedom of speech does not include bribery of politicians. Political bribery causes inequality and takes away from the whole U.S. Constitution thing:
"establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity"
You can't have Justice if there is inequality of representation, and laws are made to favour one group over another.
I understand where you're coming from, i think we differ in that (maybe because of my son) i favour the needs of the many over the needs of the one, whereas you see it as more of a "I earned this, let me keep it" thing.
I'm not communist, i just see that laws should be for everyone and that they should not be able to be bought.
Meh, two different sides to each sphere: outside and inside, lol.
But i do demand it of everyone! :)
When growing up, watching Star Trek (TOS), the thing that struck me was "Maybe someday, we'll be like this. Better than we are today". Hasn't happened yet, sadly, and won't probably before i die. Kind of sad. I wanted to be on the Enterprise and be surrounded by 'better', lol.
"Live long, and prosper".
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:03PM (3 children)
Agreed. I'm as yet unsure how things should be approached in the current era. It's necessary to keep in mind though that corporate censorship of speech would be a significant factor as well though.
Why? They've not necessarily done anything immoral to warrant slapping a muzzle on them. Individual cases will of course vary.
I agree with the whole "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one" as a personal philosophy. I disagree strongly with it as a matter of civic policy though. Down that road are things like killing those indians over there because they're on some land we want to for the good of the US. Ask around a prison, it's not that far a stretch from theft to murder. Or just read up on any communist regime, paying particular attention to the death tolls that were necessary "for the greater good".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:25PM (1 child)
Agreed.
That's one reason to keep big money out of politics: better chance for individuals and groups who are a minority/poor/whatHaveYou to have a voice..... why we need better governance than 'we' currently have.
Damn.... James T. Kirk for President! :)
--Paid for by the James T. Kirk for President and getting lots of green female action Committee
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:24PM
+1 Insightful for gratuitous Kirk inclusion.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:20PM
That's why a good ethical system should place a very high weighting on avoiding the intentional creation of significant harm. Harm is being inflicted on a small group of people to increase the wellbeing and comfort of another.
Perhaps someone might argue that people were otherwise dying in the US, so we probably need a clause that people should just never be murdered or, more realistically, people should only be killed if they are already the aggressor in a kill-or-be-killed situation.
A separate point is that its an example of meddling with someone else's already established society when they had previously had zero involvement in yours.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:07PM (2 children)
Hey it's funny that we both posted [soylentnews.org] about exactly this (and referenced Trek) within 14 minutes of each other! Mine is 3rd paragraph from the bottom. : )
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday January 27 2018, @09:35PM (1 child)
One of the things that attracts me to TOS is the idea that 'we could be better'.
Corruption makes that not possible, which to me is the real problem with the 1%: making things go THEIR way which is the exact opposite of TOS.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday January 27 2018, @10:36PM
Yes, Kirk, McCoy and Spock all seem to be men with strong moral values and they're all inquisitive, deep thinkers. Picard too. It's worth noting that Captain Kirk's two best friends are both scientists.
Some of the other Starfleet higher-ups Kirk has to deal with aren't always so great. They tend to be more preoccupied with rules for their own sake. Kirk sometimes lies to them as a shortcut I suppose because he believes it's in the greater good. Spock does the same too of course, eventually. Kirk also cheated on his Kobyashi Maru but I don't think he's inherently a selfish person. He rarely screws other people over.
I struggle to think of any examples of corruption high up in Starfleet. Maybe Matt Decker, but then he had just lost his entire crew? Any corrupt humans I can think of seem destined to become renegades like Harry Mudd.
So it seems that they created a society where moral fiber, intelligence and inquisitiveness are what gets you to the top, rather than greed, corruption and thirst for power.
Most of my examples were of Starfleet personnel. We don't see much of Earth politics outside of Starfleet, which is unfortunate.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Informative) by therainingmonkey on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:42PM (4 children)
> Check the percentage of poor people that actually attempt to make the world a better place for anyone but themselves and their family, even if only within their available means. I guarantee it's not going to be as high as those of greater means.
We'd all like this to be true, but it isn't. As a proportion of their income, the poor give far more to charity than the rich, in the US and in the UK. If anyone has more data, I'd love to see it.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2001/dec/21/voluntarysector.fundraising [theguardian.com]
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/04/why-the-rich-dont-give/309254/ [theatlantic.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:08PM (3 children)
A) Your sources are off-the-charts far from unbiased towards your position.
B) I think Gates alone kind of blew that claim for you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:04PM
And Soros recently blew the living shit out of it for everyone, but I wouldn't exactly call his monetary contributions 'toward making the world a better place'.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Saturday January 27 2018, @09:54PM
But Billy's philanthropy isn't really philanthropy, to me, it is business and profit.
With Microsoft giving software, B&M Gates give computers to poor schools (Detroit), but it's not charity: there are strings attached. The school can't put Linux on them (not MS approved software), can't use libre office, etc. To me, that's not charity.
They invest in companies in, say, India that give them amazing ROI, but pollutes the air, ground and water: so they give 'free' immunization shots to the people they are killing.... that's not philanthropy....
....not a Gates fan.
But they get honoured as Great Philanthropists. Fuck off. Gates can lick my nuts. He's in everything for personal profit and "what a great guy!"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:06AM
You have a unique ability to dismiss any and all evidence you don't like. It is hilarious that you can't see this and pretend to be purely rational.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:53PM (2 children)
Whether a billion dollars of political speech comes from one corporation or ten million shareholders is irrelevant.
Corporations have political representation through those shareholders who are eligible voters.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:09PM (1 child)
Every citizen with a 401k is a shareholder of something or other. Or do you only want to muzzle those who have reason to disagree with you?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:42AM
An investor with a 401(k) pension account exercises his free speech by investing in a corporation with whose ethics he agrees.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:04PM (8 children)
Capitalism is a collective, just like communism. And like in communism, the individual has no voice. Collectives must be formed to make a product worth producing. Other collectives must be formed to ensure they are safe. Big pharma won't produce vital drugs without a sufficient profit margin. Sorry kid! You're gonna die!
Capitalism is simple law of the jungle. And everybody does it. Even the commies have to conduct trade.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:29PM (7 children)
Sorry, you're entirely wrong. Capitalism is based on the individual. There need be only two participants for it to exist and they are almost never going to be working towards the same goal, so they are not a collective except in the sense that they're two human beings in general proximity to each other.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:16PM (6 children)
Capitalism is based on the individual. There need be only two participants...
Yes, that's the way it works when you're living in the sticks exchanging chickens for some firewood. It doesn't work that way when you buy a can of beans, or need a special drug to stay alive. The collective determines what you can have and how you can get it. It determines the programs you have available on your TV, the kind of car you drive, what you see on the shelf and in the theater. The collective sets the price and makes the rules. It takes a big collective to make and run all that shit. Where do you find custom made as the rule and not the horribly expensive exception? The individual is an ant, to be squished under foot. Nobody misses the individual, except maybe their mother.
Capitalism can't be judged by character, it's only the degree of openness that separates it from communism, which is really government managed capitalism. And let's not forget, capitalism depends on great military might to protect exclusive claims over natural resources. Without that, we would approach your stereotypical capitalism you describe above, between two individuals
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:40PM (5 children)
No monopoly provider of beans means you're way off. And what kind of bean are you obligated to buy? Is it red, kidney, lima, black, white, green, chile, etc? That's just the beans I've eaten over the past couple of months. And each time I buy a can, my voice is heard.
As to the drug that keeps you alive, it's worth noting that a system doesn't have to work perfectly to work well. And these are invariably government-enforced monopolies either via the patent system or barrier to entry for competitors. In other words, they tend to stem from the least capitalist parts of society.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:11PM (1 child)
Well said.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:09AM
(Score: 3, Touché) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @10:56PM (2 children)
Trying buying a can of beans with just beans inside. And yes, if I am the only person in my neighborhood/town looking for kidney beans, I won't find any. Why would anyone bring any in just for me?
it's worth noting that a system doesn't have to work perfectly to work well.
Again, you're using statistics, like the communists. TMB is under the impression that the individual makes the rules. Yes, thy do, through collective action (heh, bargaining) of the market. Now, when 1% has all the chips, who do you think shapes the market?
government-enforced monopolies either via the patent system or barrier to entry for competitors.
Yes, capitalists need those barriers to makes those billions, along with a huge military to protect their exclusive property claims. So, how well will capitalism function without those protections?
The consumers have every right to use that same government to protect their interests. It's the only way for that other 99% to be heard.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @04:00AM (1 child)
I count six successful cases in my post alone.
They don't. They don't have my labor for starters.
Quite well, of course.
Or they can just not buy products they don't like.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday January 28 2018, @05:57AM
Or they can just not buy products they don't like.
You got it backwards. It's about being able to acquire the product a person needs at a reasonable price when there is insufficient market demand. Capitalism does not serve the individual, especially one with little capital. It is driven by a collective called the "market". There is no other word for it. Such as it is, more consumer activism is needed to create a balance or power. The best an individual can hope for is that everybody else goes along. And if they use it, the power of their vote can easily make up for their lack of capital.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @08:51AM (2 children)
At top of the page this thread says 213 comments but the Threshold/Breakthrough dropdowns only list 183 comments at -1.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:30PM (1 child)
I don't think it's a bug. It's because there are so many comments that it's split across two pages. If you add together the Threshold/Breakthrough totals for both pages you'll get your grand total. You switch pages by clicking the page number at the bottom.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @11:42AM
Looks like that's right. So not a bug but a feature [ixquick.com].