Why does "entitlement" only go one way? Why are the rich entitled to more and more of our money?
Why does "entitlement" only go one way? Why are the rich entitled to more and more of our money?
Who exactly the "our" in "our money"?
Truth Once, Always The Truth
Why do you think anything changed in 100 years, USA?
This was published in USA in 1911 BTW.
All money is society's money. It comes from the government and represents a debt by society to the individual possessing it. People with a lot of money = people who claim society owes them a lot.
Rich people are a part of the society. So how is there an "our" money and an "their" money?
Rich people are a part of the society. So how is there an "our" money and a "their" money?
There isn't. It's all our money. But rich people have our money just as poor people have our money. The question is not whose money is it, but what is a fair distribution of it. Is society really as indebted to some individuals as much as they claim it is?
You make dinner with 10 of your friends and family. A lot of potatos are made. You sit down to eat and Uncle Oscar scoops up half the potatos. Sure, he did a lot to make the meal, but why he get all dem potatos? Is the amount of potatoes he earned proportional to the amount of work he put in? It's all of your potatoes, including Uncle Oscar, but he's taking more than his share.
But back to your question, if I am interpreting it correctly, seems to be is money the best indicator of the value produced by an individual to society? I guess it depends on what other viable options are out there to replace money in that role. What other options are there and what is your suggested remedy?
People talking about diversifying. You try diversifying while making 30k a year. The reality is, when your family is barely making any money, the only investment you can make is a house.
Money is a good indicator of value produced for society. The question is: is a person who's net income is $30 million a year 1,000 times more valuable than someone who makes $30,000? Its impossible that they do 1,000 times as much work, so the valuation must be based on something else. Intelligence? Also almost certainly impossible. Responsibility? This one comes the closest to being a good justification: a CEO of a major corporation should have more on their heads then a factory worker. This particular issue is why I personally have a massive problem with the lack of accountability at the top of the free market at the moment: it removes the last possible explanation for why they're getting paid as much as they are.It's an interesting question. It wasn't really the topic I was looking to enter into a discussion on. I was more trying to get a clarification from the poster about how the rich are entitled to "our money". That just seemed like a very ambiguous term, and it made it hard for me to tell what exactly his point was.
But back to your question, if I am interpreting it correctly, seems to be is money the best indicator of the value produced by an individual to society? I guess it depends on what other viable options are out there to replace money in that role. What other options are there and what is your suggested remedy?
It's not about other viable options, it's that the weighting is wrong. I am not saying that the wealthy, in general, does not deserve success or money. I'm just saying that they are being disproportionately rewarded. To use a example in the media, Mit Romney was payed $100,000 a year for 3 years for just being a figurehead CEO. Sure, he did a lot of work to make that company what it was, but he was already handsomley compensated for that by the order of hundereds of millions of dollars. Are things working right when a multi-millionaire can do no work (for company that paid him) and earn $300,000, three hundered thousand dollars, when many people are working 40-50-60 hours weeks and are barely making ends meet?
Consumption makes up the bulk of our economy, yes. But we can transition spending on non-essential items in a nominal fashion towards investment and businesses/society could benefit just as much, if not more.We are a consumer-based economy. Businesses won't perform as well if you people stopped buying non-essential items.
Consumption makes up the bulk of our economy, yes. But we can transition spending on non-essential items in a nominal fashion towards investment and businesses/society could benefit just as much, if not more.
Money is a good indicator of value produced for society. The question is: is a person who's net income is $30 million a year 1,000 times more valuable than someone who makes $30,000? Its impossible that they do 1,000 times as much work, so the valuation must be based on something else. Intelligence? Also almost certainly impossible. Responsibility? This one comes the closest to being a good justification: a CEO of a major corporation should have more on their heads then a factory worker. This particular issue is why I personally have a massive problem with the lack of accountability at the top of the free market at the moment: it removes the last possible explanation for why they're getting paid as much as they are.
Who is supposed to decide what the proper weighting is though? Who is smart enough to look at the economy as a whole and each person's function in it and say 'this is what that person's input is worth'?
It's a completely incalculable problem, which is why things are better left between the person writing the check and the person cashing them. Not a perfect system, but if some company wants to overpay someone it is ultimately their money to lose.
Most companies however are not in the business of losing money, so they must be getting some value in return for what you deem to be extravagant salaries.
It's strictly supply and demand for marketable skills and resources, that includes your network and who you know and who you can influence. Much like a politician, a business leader can hold a company together by negociating and compromising with different interested parties. Whatever business leaders make in wealth I'd say they most likely lose in time. Their careers are their lives and the sacrifice they make outweighs the paper they earn in my personal opinion. People who devote their lifetime to earning money pay the greater cost in this life. Taxes be damned.
America is going to become like India. The super rich and the super poor.
:lol I would have hoped that society would have been learning to wean itself off that shit with the recession.Like what? Infrasture and going green? I'm down for that, but I don't think we're trying hard enough to go down that route. Also, good look on trying to wane society off non-essential items. Never gonna happen.
Are you arguing that the rich CEO is worse off than the factory worker whose job is shipped overseas? If the CEO is suffering so much why doesn't he bail out sooner? That job tends to have pretty plush retirement packages.
If both the CEO and the Worker are miserable than that is even more incentive to change the system. No one is happy.
America is going to become like India. The super rich and the super poor.
Housing is a pretty shitty asset class. It is illiquid, It carries high upkeep cost, it has high transaction fees, its almost always purcahsed on leverage, and when it crashes it takes a long time to recover. Think of all the old boomers stuck with most of their networth in their house, they need that money to retire. At the same time, there are a lot of young couples who are unable to sell because they're underwater on their mortages. Also, you don't have a lot of control over when you need sell your home. Maybe you get married, divorced, get a new job, etc.
I don't know how you can say buying is always better than renting. I think people only think in terms of 'payments' without thinking of all the peripheral costs associated.
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And it seems we are going to let it because of stupidity and fantasy.
Stupidity, in that a large percentage of people think the rich are job creators, and increasing taxes will end the world.
Fantasy, in that people think they will one day be that rich, or if they try hard enough they can be too.
it's like any field, for every golden parachute given away to a CEO, there were dozens of people like him who may have worked just as hard but never left middle-management. I am speaking at the personal individual level to say that many people have the opportunity to be wealthier, many of us just find that the cost is too high.
I don't know if this is the most stupid attempt at thread derailment I've seen lately or just a bitter reactionary response. Completely pointless either way.
You fucking dipshit.
rich people OWN the media
said media brainwashes the idiots to vote for the interests of the rich
its been shown countless times that many middle class republicans in particular vote against their own interest
the US is bizarro land
About as pointless as the picture it was posted in response to. Talk about tired memes.
So do the other 50% of American households hold 99% or the country's wealth? With all of these percentages being thrown around it's hard to know who has too much.
You fucking dipshit.
Tax, penalty, fine, fee, they all mean the same damn thing.
You are comparing the use of synonyms to spouting a falsehood as your economic platform.
I am sick of you shitty republicans and your red herrings, your witch hunts, your racism, your false equivalences and indignation.
Fuck you, and your "NO U" tactics.
Interesting way of looking at it. I look at money as a value of things, whether it be ideas, assets, or labor. People who are rich either have lots of assets, have good ideas, or provide a labor that has a high value. Or inherited it.All money is society's money. It comes from the government and represents a debt by society to the individual possessing it. People with a lot of money = people who claim society owes them a lot.
Huh?What the hell are you talking about? They voted in a president who is decidedly anti-business, or certainly moreso than the alternative candidate. Or are you an illuminati conspiracy theorist that thinks no matter what happens the elections are always predetermined?
Wow, you're a classy fella. Was this invective really necessary? I've been banned for far, far less around here.
GaimeGuy
Intellectual Lightweight
(Today, 04:49 PM)
Considering both of my parents (mother and stepfather) worked their asses off to educate themselves in STEM majors, and my mother eventually getting her MBA which gave my family a nice cushion of high-end income until my mother later became a teacher, and then disabled, and then both of them lost their jobs, I'd say that I don't mind this. My family worked to get to the stratosphere of American income. My parents were previously wealthy because they went for it themselves, good for them. Screw anyone who would look down on that.
Before you bring up "wealthy born into wealthy/wealthy getting wealthier" lol no. My mother was born as a child of 5 in a dirt poor rural village in the mountains of Colombia, with no money, working since kindergarten at a farm, with everyone working so she could get the money to go to Catholic grade school and eventually pave the road for her to become a chemical engineer. She's a rags to riches story if I ever saw one. It usually takes 8 generations to break a poverty cycle in a family. My mother broke it in one, and because of that, I get to go to school to be an engineer as well.
well it's a complex situation so any analogy is going to be somewhat flawed. But here is how the system more accurately works. 10 of you are sitting around eating grass and berries. Uncle Oscar says "hey I have an idea that will feed us 5 times as well as we are. I need your labor to help me but I get half of our produce since its my idea. You agree and when he has you plant potatoes he then gets half. His idea was more valuable than your labor so he is compensated more for it. Like I said though this is a broad analogy of how wealth differences develop. Not every situation is like this.You make dinner with 10 of your friends and family. A lot of potatos are made. You sit down to eat and Uncle Oscar scoops up half the potatos. Sure, he did a lot to make the meal, but why he get all dem potatos? Is the amount of potatoes he earned proportional to the amount of work he put in? It's all of your potatoes, including Uncle Oscar, but he's taking more than his share.
They look down upon people who game the system. They want the system fixed. Everybody wants the system fixed.