|
On October 11 2011 11:48 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2011 11:45 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 11:20 xDaunt wrote:On October 11 2011 11:01 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 10:58 DrainX wrote:On October 11 2011 10:49 DeepElemBlues wrote:Hmm.. I guess I'll just work harder next time I'm reincarnated to be born to rich parents, because apparently you think that's the best way to succeed. Better than legalized stealing. Are you implying that fair taxation is stealing? Sounds more like he's under the impression that unnecessary write-offs are not stealing. Last I checked, it's pretty hard to steal money that's already yours. And last I checked, 35% of your money is not supposed to be yours. Spoken like a man who's probably never earned a buck in his life. Your entire notion of property rights is ass backwards.
Actually I work 6 days a week for not a lot of money and pay for classes out of pocket. You can think whatever you want, it doesn't make you right. Your notion of property rights is dated, unrealistic, and most of all, wrong.
|
On October 11 2011 11:52 AmishNukes wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2011 11:13 seaofsaturn wrote:On October 11 2011 09:55 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 09:42 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 09:28 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 09:24 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 07:24 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 04:51 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 04:31 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 04:20 XerrolAvengerII wrote:
[quote]Dude, wtf does that even mean?
he wants to fund the development of mobile dolls, seen in gundam wing, so that war between countries relies wholly on economic costs rather than human costs. Well the cost of war for super powers anyways. I found a photo of aksfjh off of google. ![[image loading]](http://cdn.myanimelist.net/images/characters/4/40379.jpg) Wait, I thought he (or I in this case?) was against the increased use of mobile dolls... Anyways, I was merely providing commentary on the subject. When somebody employed at Haliburton loses 3 limbs or dies, the public doesn't hear about it or care. When somebody who is in service of their country dies, it's a much bigger deal and American citizens begin to turn against the war much quicker. I can't comment either way on this, since there are benefits to both approaches and it's already said and done anyways. =/ yeah you're right, sorry it didn't hold up i guess. he's a bit of a hypocrite then because he ends up using mobile dolls in the battle before he dies. But you're wrong in terms of the Haliburton example. Everytime someone in the private sector dies, you can be damned sure that it's very public to stakeholders, just not every single person in the economy. Saftey is so highly valued in most (the ones I've been exposed to) if not all oil extraction/enrichment companies that some investors question its worth in the long term. Someone getting injured on the job is really, really bad for the PR of any company, and they tend to be very forthright about it because if they're not and the media discoveres that they aren't forthcoming about saftey issues then a fierce bloodbath will ensue. If the US military was looked at as closely as the oil industry has been since the BP spill (redundant because the blame should have been spread across half a dozen companies involved in the rigs development, construction, testing, and operations) in the gulf (and that they cared to improve as much as BP did), you would see an immediate increase in combat efficieny and overall reduction of wasteful deaths. BP could never sanely withhold corporate assets to not increase safety, or investors and employees would note it and jump ship to a competator. Where are US soldiers going to go if they don't like the military's practices? No where, they'll get court martialed if they say anything against the upper echelons. I don't mean to target you personally or your example, but I don't think people see just how much effort corporate America puts into being sustainable and being heavily tied to them I find it frightening. It's not just Haliburton and combat contractors though. It's construction, lodging, food, etc. Anything that the military can't find the people for is being filled by private contractors. Paying somebody to cook meals and answer phones in Afghanistan costs a lot simply because of risk of being there, but not because of the skill required to do it. We pay soldiers so little (sadly) that it's really cost ineffective to turn it over to profit centered entities (including people). Certainly, there is a lot of waste in the military compared to the private sector in some regards, but they tend to get more done in the way of combat operations and occupations dollar by dollar. RND is possibly the biggest culprit on the opposite, inefficiency side, investing in technologies for wars we no longer fight, then selling 5-10 year old technology to enemies to help fund said research. I also think the corporate analogy doesn't work for the military now that i think about it because corporations cut costs to maintain retained earnings while governments cut corners because they're lazy and have indefinite retained earnings from tax payers. Government controls their income and expenses, and their only risk of taxing the fuck out of the US taxpayers to make up for tax inefficiency is the risk of revolution, which won't happen. They're not even mostly lazy. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely cases of, "I get paid by the hour, not by the box!" but they're not what drive the labor force in the government. In many ways, the quality of a government job is continually stressed because there are always looming budget cuts. Teachers and police officers especially face a great deal of scrutiny every day/month/year in order to make sure nobody is being dealt the short end of the stick (compared to other people). Also, this is the first serious talk in tax increases in the past 20 years. If you think for a second that increasing taxes is an easy task, I suggest you take a look at the political atmosphere 2+ years ago. I know it's not an easy task, but more importantly I know that changing the political climate of the united states is an even more difficult tax. I think it's a problem of democracy more so than the US in general. Power is decided by the majority, but the majority has less claim to the power than the minority (100x the case atm with this whole occupy wallstreet movement. people thinking they have the right to the money they haven't earned or inherited.) On October 11 2011 09:34 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 09:24 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 08:25 Kickboxer wrote:
I can never understand why people equate riches with hard work. It's a retardedly false platitude and yet everyone and their monkey throws it around like feces and no one even objects.
Out of the ten or so people whom I personally know to be rich two are true workaholics who built businesses from the ground up and another two work about as much as the average Joe. The other six are either inbred descendents of old money who, apart from copious amounts of cocaine and their cars, don't even have hobbies let alone jobs (some of the dumbest, vilest, hopelessly empty people I've ever met) or are well known mobsters.
On the other hand a great majority of poor people I know work very hard just to make ends meet. Even my friends with amazing jobs (like district attorney or hotel manager) who are from middle class families are still middle class, with loans to pay off for run-of-the-mill housing.
I guess these schmucks who apparently "earned" their 50 million work 572 hours a day or? Society should go back to where money is earned by actually doing something productive. People who shove money from left to right and leech it out of the system aren't hard working, they are a cancer and should be treated as such. Boo fucking who then, keep your 'honor' and i'll keep my 'wrongly/unfairly obtained inheritance,' the day the government tells the private sector to seriously even consider giving money away because it was 'unfairly gained' from a poor person's perspective is the day that the US falls from grace as a corporate superpower. And then China will 'have your money,' not you. tl;dr for you illiterates out there, be that 1/10 guy who makes millions, not that 99% who qqs in a corner begging for money. E hh, you'd be pretty hard pressed to make the case that somebody making money through trading is working harder at a higher skill job than quite a few Americans with college degrees. Not saying that some don't work JUST as hard, but part of the payout of being in the financial sector is accepting a great deal of risk. The only problem was that a lot of the overall risk was mitigated when the market screwed up bad and the government felt required to come to the rescue lest there be a HUGE run on the banks and another recession. We saw people who were in charge when all this went down see little punishment for taking the wrong risks, while the punishment "trickled down" to many of the working class. Honestly, if you can't see why people are angry (or think it's stupid) at those who are still sitting on money then I question your ability to use empathy as part of a rational conclusion about anything. I will hand it to you that many people protesting are doing so while looking like hippies and irresponsible idiots, but they're suffering for their mistakes right now, while there are a lot of "investors" who aren't. I think that the bolded statement is wrong, and it's what this whole problem is originating from. People think that the financial sector is some joke, and that the people who work there don't stress every minute of every day about it. No matter how rich you are, it isn't easy to swallow losing 20% of your assets over the course of the day. I think it's easier not working in the financial sector, there's so much less stress.. T he people that are sitting on money have the right to do whatever they want with their money. Who are you, or the government, to tell them to spend it, invest it, or shit on it? That's the beauty of the American corporate culture, we could all go down tomorrow if we wanted to. I see people crying because they want the money that people are sitting on, and I'm not empathetic with them in the same sense that I'm not empathetic with a kid crying about his neighbor in school getting a 100% on a test while he failed because he was drinking instead of studying. You are either just trolling now or you are missing the point of money. Currency came about as a form of exchanging services. Services and products have different values, so its hard to just trade some cheese for a sword, so gold became the standard of measurement which eventually became paper which eventually just gets ridiculous. That is incredibly simplified of course, but the point is that people with money who just take money to make more money contribute absolutely nothing to society and the progress of mankind. That is why people are upset. That is why people should not have the right to do whatever they want with their money. They have to spend or invest that money somewhere to "make more money." No one that is rich has their money just sitting and rotting. If they build a big house, that sends money to the contractors and material suppliers that all employ members of the "99%." If they invest, those companies they buy into likely employ members of the "99%." Corporations and the wealthy are the reason we have so many cheap amazing things in our living rooms. The government is the reason the peaks and valleys are so large.
I think he is implying that investment bankers are doing nothing but buying and trading outstanding shares already, which he assumes means nothing, because he probably doesn't understand that shares = ownership. They aren't trading paper, they're trading trillions of dollars worth of capital to make sure that everything runs profitably.
On October 11 2011 11:55 Hamski wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2011 11:48 xDaunt wrote:On October 11 2011 11:45 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 11:20 xDaunt wrote:On October 11 2011 11:01 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 10:58 DrainX wrote:On October 11 2011 10:49 DeepElemBlues wrote:Hmm.. I guess I'll just work harder next time I'm reincarnated to be born to rich parents, because apparently you think that's the best way to succeed. Better than legalized stealing. Are you implying that fair taxation is stealing? Sounds more like he's under the impression that unnecessary write-offs are not stealing. Last I checked, it's pretty hard to steal money that's already yours. And last I checked, 35% of your money is not supposed to be yours. Spoken like a man who's probably never earned a buck in his life. Your entire notion of property rights is ass backwards. Actually I work 6 days a week for not a lot of money and pay for classes out of pocket. You can think whatever you want, it doesn't make you right. Your notion of property rights is dated, unrealistic, and most of all, wrong.
hey man, I know you work 6 days a week for a few bucks a day but.... that money is actually mine. I deserve it, I'm a human being just like you!!! Hand it over peacefully, please? no? I'm going to protest in front of your house then.
|
On October 11 2011 11:52 AmishNukes wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2011 11:13 seaofsaturn wrote:On October 11 2011 09:55 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 09:42 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 09:28 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 09:24 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 07:24 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 04:51 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 04:31 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 04:20 XerrolAvengerII wrote:
[quote]Dude, wtf does that even mean?
he wants to fund the development of mobile dolls, seen in gundam wing, so that war between countries relies wholly on economic costs rather than human costs. Well the cost of war for super powers anyways. I found a photo of aksfjh off of google. Wait, I thought he (or I in this case?) was against the increased use of mobile dolls... Anyways, I was merely providing commentary on the subject. When somebody employed at Haliburton loses 3 limbs or dies, the public doesn't hear about it or care. When somebody who is in service of their country dies, it's a much bigger deal and American citizens begin to turn against the war much quicker. I can't comment either way on this, since there are benefits to both approaches and it's already said and done anyways. =/ yeah you're right, sorry it didn't hold up i guess. he's a bit of a hypocrite then because he ends up using mobile dolls in the battle before he dies. But you're wrong in terms of the Haliburton example. Everytime someone in the private sector dies, you can be damned sure that it's very public to stakeholders, just not every single person in the economy. Saftey is so highly valued in most (the ones I've been exposed to) if not all oil extraction/enrichment companies that some investors question its worth in the long term. Someone getting injured on the job is really, really bad for the PR of any company, and they tend to be very forthright about it because if they're not and the media discoveres that they aren't forthcoming about saftey issues then a fierce bloodbath will ensue. If the US military was looked at as closely as the oil industry has been since the BP spill (redundant because the blame should have been spread across half a dozen companies involved in the rigs development, construction, testing, and operations) in the gulf (and that they cared to improve as much as BP did), you would see an immediate increase in combat efficieny and overall reduction of wasteful deaths. BP could never sanely withhold corporate assets to not increase safety, or investors and employees would note it and jump ship to a competator. Where are US soldiers going to go if they don't like the military's practices? No where, they'll get court martialed if they say anything against the upper echelons. I don't mean to target you personally or your example, but I don't think people see just how much effort corporate America puts into being sustainable and being heavily tied to them I find it frightening. It's not just Haliburton and combat contractors though. It's construction, lodging, food, etc. Anything that the military can't find the people for is being filled by private contractors. Paying somebody to cook meals and answer phones in Afghanistan costs a lot simply because of risk of being there, but not because of the skill required to do it. We pay soldiers so little (sadly) that it's really cost ineffective to turn it over to profit centered entities (including people). Certainly, there is a lot of waste in the military compared to the private sector in some regards, but they tend to get more done in the way of combat operations and occupations dollar by dollar. RND is possibly the biggest culprit on the opposite, inefficiency side, investing in technologies for wars we no longer fight, then selling 5-10 year old technology to enemies to help fund said research. I also think the corporate analogy doesn't work for the military now that i think about it because corporations cut costs to maintain retained earnings while governments cut corners because they're lazy and have indefinite retained earnings from tax payers. Government controls their income and expenses, and their only risk of taxing the fuck out of the US taxpayers to make up for tax inefficiency is the risk of revolution, which won't happen. They're not even mostly lazy. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely cases of, "I get paid by the hour, not by the box!" but they're not what drive the labor force in the government. In many ways, the quality of a government job is continually stressed because there are always looming budget cuts. Teachers and police officers especially face a great deal of scrutiny every day/month/year in order to make sure nobody is being dealt the short end of the stick (compared to other people). Also, this is the first serious talk in tax increases in the past 20 years. If you think for a second that increasing taxes is an easy task, I suggest you take a look at the political atmosphere 2+ years ago. I know it's not an easy task, but more importantly I know that changing the political climate of the united states is an even more difficult tax. I think it's a problem of democracy more so than the US in general. Power is decided by the majority, but the majority has less claim to the power than the minority (100x the case atm with this whole occupy wallstreet movement. people thinking they have the right to the money they haven't earned or inherited.) On October 11 2011 09:34 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 09:24 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 08:25 Kickboxer wrote:
I can never understand why people equate riches with hard work. It's a retardedly false platitude and yet everyone and their monkey throws it around like feces and no one even objects.
Out of the ten or so people whom I personally know to be rich two are true workaholics who built businesses from the ground up and another two work about as much as the average Joe. The other six are either inbred descendents of old money who, apart from copious amounts of cocaine and their cars, don't even have hobbies let alone jobs (some of the dumbest, vilest, hopelessly empty people I've ever met) or are well known mobsters.
On the other hand a great majority of poor people I know work very hard just to make ends meet. Even my friends with amazing jobs (like district attorney or hotel manager) who are from middle class families are still middle class, with loans to pay off for run-of-the-mill housing.
I guess these schmucks who apparently "earned" their 50 million work 572 hours a day or? Society should go back to where money is earned by actually doing something productive. People who shove money from left to right and leech it out of the system aren't hard working, they are a cancer and should be treated as such. Boo fucking who then, keep your 'honor' and i'll keep my 'wrongly/unfairly obtained inheritance,' the day the government tells the private sector to seriously even consider giving money away because it was 'unfairly gained' from a poor person's perspective is the day that the US falls from grace as a corporate superpower. And then China will 'have your money,' not you. tl;dr for you illiterates out there, be that 1/10 guy who makes millions, not that 99% who qqs in a corner begging for money. E hh, you'd be pretty hard pressed to make the case that somebody making money through trading is working harder at a higher skill job than quite a few Americans with college degrees. Not saying that some don't work JUST as hard, but part of the payout of being in the financial sector is accepting a great deal of risk. The only problem was that a lot of the overall risk was mitigated when the market screwed up bad and the government felt required to come to the rescue lest there be a HUGE run on the banks and another recession. We saw people who were in charge when all this went down see little punishment for taking the wrong risks, while the punishment "trickled down" to many of the working class. Honestly, if you can't see why people are angry (or think it's stupid) at those who are still sitting on money then I question your ability to use empathy as part of a rational conclusion about anything. I will hand it to you that many people protesting are doing so while looking like hippies and irresponsible idiots, but they're suffering for their mistakes right now, while there are a lot of "investors" who aren't. I think that the bolded statement is wrong, and it's what this whole problem is originating from. People think that the financial sector is some joke, and that the people who work there don't stress every minute of every day about it. No matter how rich you are, it isn't easy to swallow losing 20% of your assets over the course of the day. I think it's easier not working in the financial sector, there's so much less stress.. T he people that are sitting on money have the right to do whatever they want with their money. Who are you, or the government, to tell them to spend it, invest it, or shit on it? That's the beauty of the American corporate culture, we could all go down tomorrow if we wanted to. I see people crying because they want the money that people are sitting on, and I'm not empathetic with them in the same sense that I'm not empathetic with a kid crying about his neighbor in school getting a 100% on a test while he failed because he was drinking instead of studying. You are either just trolling now or you are missing the point of money. Currency came about as a form of exchanging services. Services and products have different values, so its hard to just trade some cheese for a sword, so gold became the standard of measurement which eventually became paper which eventually just gets ridiculous. That is incredibly simplified of course, but the point is that people with money who just take money to make more money contribute absolutely nothing to society and the progress of mankind. That is why people are upset. That is why people should not have the right to do whatever they want with their money. They have to spend or invest that money somewhere to "make more money." No one that is rich has their money just sitting and rotting. If they build a big house, that sends money to the contractors and material suppliers that all employ members of the "99%." If they invest, those companies they buy into likely employ members of the "99%." Corporations and the wealthy are the reason we have so many cheap amazing things in our living rooms. The government is the reason the peaks and valleys are so large.
I think this is where there seems to be a huge disjoint in actual logic in these talks. The rich and the wealthy(assuming you're talking about Wall Street investors in particular) don't spend anything at all. Any investments are made in business sense, whatever will yield the most profit or security. There is no preference or good will in their choices. They could be all-in on a medical group one week and in big tobacco the next.
What we're really talking about is an extreme portion of the country's wealth belonging to the one portion who has nothing left to buy in a consumer-driven market. It's bound for failure.
|
The "1%" is nothing more than a contrived scapegoat. The people want someone to blame, and the super rich are a convenient target. While the corporations are corrupt to an extent, they aren't what's causing this recession. Ending the corruption wouldn't even put a dent in our problems. We need to be focused on combating reckless spending policies and crooked politicians. Occupy the poles, not Wall Street.
|
On October 11 2011 11:55 Hamski wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2011 11:48 xDaunt wrote:On October 11 2011 11:45 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 11:20 xDaunt wrote:On October 11 2011 11:01 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 10:58 DrainX wrote:On October 11 2011 10:49 DeepElemBlues wrote:Hmm.. I guess I'll just work harder next time I'm reincarnated to be born to rich parents, because apparently you think that's the best way to succeed. Better than legalized stealing. Are you implying that fair taxation is stealing? Sounds more like he's under the impression that unnecessary write-offs are not stealing. Last I checked, it's pretty hard to steal money that's already yours. And last I checked, 35% of your money is not supposed to be yours. Spoken like a man who's probably never earned a buck in his life. Your entire notion of property rights is ass backwards. Actually I work 6 days a week for not a lot of money and pay for classes out of pocket. You can think whatever you want, it doesn't make you right. Your notion of property rights is dated, unrealistic, and most of all, wrong.
Perhaps we should move back to the articles of confederation where federal government is unable to levy taxes and is as ineffectual as he probably wants it to be.
On October 11 2011 12:03 falconfan02 wrote:
The "1%" is nothing more than a contrived scapegoat. The people want someone to blame, and the super rich are a convenient target. While the corporations are corrupt to an extent, they aren't what's causing this recession. Ending the corruption wouldn't even put a dent in our problems. We need to be focused on combating reckless spending policies and crooked politicians. Occupy the poles, not Wall Street.
funny who is the one buying off crooked politicians?
|
On October 11 2011 11:55 Hamski wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2011 11:48 xDaunt wrote:On October 11 2011 11:45 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 11:20 xDaunt wrote:On October 11 2011 11:01 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 10:58 DrainX wrote:On October 11 2011 10:49 DeepElemBlues wrote:Hmm.. I guess I'll just work harder next time I'm reincarnated to be born to rich parents, because apparently you think that's the best way to succeed. Better than legalized stealing. Are you implying that fair taxation is stealing? Sounds more like he's under the impression that unnecessary write-offs are not stealing. Last I checked, it's pretty hard to steal money that's already yours. And last I checked, 35% of your money is not supposed to be yours. Spoken like a man who's probably never earned a buck in his life. Your entire notion of property rights is ass backwards. hey man, I know you work 6 days a week for a few bucks a day but.... that money is actually mine. I deserve it, I'm a human being just like you!!! Hand it over peacefully, please? no? I'm going to protest in front of your house then.
There's a bit of a difference, I pay all of my taxes. The full 25% and the 6% payroll taxes every check. No write-offs, no credits, no subsidies, no untaxed bonuses from government bailout money. When you show me one person from the 1% who can claim that I'll be happy to applaud them as a hardworking American.
|
On October 11 2011 12:03 falconfan02 wrote:
The "1%" is nothing more than a contrived scapegoat. The people want someone to blame, and the super rich are a convenient target. While the corporations are corrupt to an extent, they aren't what's causing this recession. Ending the corruption wouldn't even put a dent in our problems. We need to be focused on combating reckless spending policies and crooked politicians. Occupy the poles, not Wall Street.
On October 11 2011 12:03 semantics wrote:
funny who is the one buying off crooked politicians?
True, to an extent. I agree that the corporations need to be fixed, but I just think it's silly to make that our top priority. Also, I think that implementing a flat tax would help with some of the corporate-politician corruption.
|
Are you implying that fair taxation is stealing?
No.
I'm implying that vindictive taxation is.
Sounds more like he's under the impression that unnecessary write-offs are not stealing.
I'm under the impression that punishing a man for what he is is not right.
That is incredibly simplified of course, but the point is that people with money who just take money to make more money contribute absolutely nothing to society and the progress of mankind. That is why people are upset. That is why people should not have the right to do whatever they want with their money.
*sigh*
You don't even understand what you hate.
Take away the ability of people to make money off money and see how long it takes for the entire world's economy to crash for want of capital.
marx was pretty good you should actually read him.
Marx failed to foresee the rise of technological productivity that allowed goods to be made and transported cheaply enough to make a good material life for the working class possible.
You should actually read him, he totally missed out on the long-term consequences of industrialization, making the mistake of assuming that the conditions he saw were unchangeable aspects of the capitalist system.
lol I love how invoking Marxism is somehow a rebuttal...
You won't find a serious economist in the world - other than Paul Krugman, who stopped being a serious economist circa 2000 - who believes that wealth confiscation on a large scale works at anything other than destroying the lives of both of the rich and the poor.
I love how some people act like you when someone disagrees with an openly Marxist statement, as if Marxism wasn't the most epic fail in human history
It isn't even that Marxism is inseparable from mass murder and no Marxist government has ever existed that didn't brutalize the people it ruled. It's that Marxism fucking failed on its own terms! It didn't provide peace, or prosperity, or freedom, or a society with no classes, and most of all, it didn't beat capitalism.
Marxism is a fucking joke of a failure and yet still you'll find people saying 'y u no liek marx y u think sayin 'thats marxist' means its wrong huehuehue"
Because Marxism is for noobs, that's why. Diamond leaguers with 1200 games played in a season (analogee!)
funny who is the one buying off crooked politicians?
Currently, who are the ones buying off crooked politicians?
Labor unions, "green energy" frauds like Solyndra, Warren Buffett, and General Electric, mostly.
|
The movement seems to think that they should have a claim to the wealth of the people above them as they didn't get a fair chance at getting that wealth.
Then by that logic shouldn't the white trash out in the trailer parks and the black communities in the projects be out protesting claiming that white middle America should be giving their money to them? These people are living below the poverty line, have had poor access to education at the like and in the scheme of things have had a far more "unfair" experience than the occupy wallstreet people. People in the wallstreet movement still have more than these people so what stops them having a claim to the money and resources of the occupy wallstreet movement's people?
|
On October 11 2011 11:52 AmishNukes wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2011 11:13 seaofsaturn wrote:On October 11 2011 09:55 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 09:42 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 09:28 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 09:24 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 07:24 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 04:51 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 04:31 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 04:20 XerrolAvengerII wrote:
[quote]Dude, wtf does that even mean?
he wants to fund the development of mobile dolls, seen in gundam wing, so that war between countries relies wholly on economic costs rather than human costs. Well the cost of war for super powers anyways. I found a photo of aksfjh off of google. Wait, I thought he (or I in this case?) was against the increased use of mobile dolls... Anyways, I was merely providing commentary on the subject. When somebody employed at Haliburton loses 3 limbs or dies, the public doesn't hear about it or care. When somebody who is in service of their country dies, it's a much bigger deal and American citizens begin to turn against the war much quicker. I can't comment either way on this, since there are benefits to both approaches and it's already said and done anyways. =/ yeah you're right, sorry it didn't hold up i guess. he's a bit of a hypocrite then because he ends up using mobile dolls in the battle before he dies. But you're wrong in terms of the Haliburton example. Everytime someone in the private sector dies, you can be damned sure that it's very public to stakeholders, just not every single person in the economy. Saftey is so highly valued in most (the ones I've been exposed to) if not all oil extraction/enrichment companies that some investors question its worth in the long term. Someone getting injured on the job is really, really bad for the PR of any company, and they tend to be very forthright about it because if they're not and the media discoveres that they aren't forthcoming about saftey issues then a fierce bloodbath will ensue. If the US military was looked at as closely as the oil industry has been since the BP spill (redundant because the blame should have been spread across half a dozen companies involved in the rigs development, construction, testing, and operations) in the gulf (and that they cared to improve as much as BP did), you would see an immediate increase in combat efficieny and overall reduction of wasteful deaths. BP could never sanely withhold corporate assets to not increase safety, or investors and employees would note it and jump ship to a competator. Where are US soldiers going to go if they don't like the military's practices? No where, they'll get court martialed if they say anything against the upper echelons. I don't mean to target you personally or your example, but I don't think people see just how much effort corporate America puts into being sustainable and being heavily tied to them I find it frightening. It's not just Haliburton and combat contractors though. It's construction, lodging, food, etc. Anything that the military can't find the people for is being filled by private contractors. Paying somebody to cook meals and answer phones in Afghanistan costs a lot simply because of risk of being there, but not because of the skill required to do it. We pay soldiers so little (sadly) that it's really cost ineffective to turn it over to profit centered entities (including people). Certainly, there is a lot of waste in the military compared to the private sector in some regards, but they tend to get more done in the way of combat operations and occupations dollar by dollar. RND is possibly the biggest culprit on the opposite, inefficiency side, investing in technologies for wars we no longer fight, then selling 5-10 year old technology to enemies to help fund said research. I also think the corporate analogy doesn't work for the military now that i think about it because corporations cut costs to maintain retained earnings while governments cut corners because they're lazy and have indefinite retained earnings from tax payers. Government controls their income and expenses, and their only risk of taxing the fuck out of the US taxpayers to make up for tax inefficiency is the risk of revolution, which won't happen. They're not even mostly lazy. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely cases of, "I get paid by the hour, not by the box!" but they're not what drive the labor force in the government. In many ways, the quality of a government job is continually stressed because there are always looming budget cuts. Teachers and police officers especially face a great deal of scrutiny every day/month/year in order to make sure nobody is being dealt the short end of the stick (compared to other people). Also, this is the first serious talk in tax increases in the past 20 years. If you think for a second that increasing taxes is an easy task, I suggest you take a look at the political atmosphere 2+ years ago. I know it's not an easy task, but more importantly I know that changing the political climate of the united states is an even more difficult tax. I think it's a problem of democracy more so than the US in general. Power is decided by the majority, but the majority has less claim to the power than the minority (100x the case atm with this whole occupy wallstreet movement. people thinking they have the right to the money they haven't earned or inherited.) On October 11 2011 09:34 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 09:24 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 08:25 Kickboxer wrote:
I can never understand why people equate riches with hard work. It's a retardedly false platitude and yet everyone and their monkey throws it around like feces and no one even objects.
Out of the ten or so people whom I personally know to be rich two are true workaholics who built businesses from the ground up and another two work about as much as the average Joe. The other six are either inbred descendents of old money who, apart from copious amounts of cocaine and their cars, don't even have hobbies let alone jobs (some of the dumbest, vilest, hopelessly empty people I've ever met) or are well known mobsters.
On the other hand a great majority of poor people I know work very hard just to make ends meet. Even my friends with amazing jobs (like district attorney or hotel manager) who are from middle class families are still middle class, with loans to pay off for run-of-the-mill housing.
I guess these schmucks who apparently "earned" their 50 million work 572 hours a day or? Society should go back to where money is earned by actually doing something productive. People who shove money from left to right and leech it out of the system aren't hard working, they are a cancer and should be treated as such. Boo fucking who then, keep your 'honor' and i'll keep my 'wrongly/unfairly obtained inheritance,' the day the government tells the private sector to seriously even consider giving money away because it was 'unfairly gained' from a poor person's perspective is the day that the US falls from grace as a corporate superpower. And then China will 'have your money,' not you. tl;dr for you illiterates out there, be that 1/10 guy who makes millions, not that 99% who qqs in a corner begging for money. E hh, you'd be pretty hard pressed to make the case that somebody making money through trading is working harder at a higher skill job than quite a few Americans with college degrees. Not saying that some don't work JUST as hard, but part of the payout of being in the financial sector is accepting a great deal of risk. The only problem was that a lot of the overall risk was mitigated when the market screwed up bad and the government felt required to come to the rescue lest there be a HUGE run on the banks and another recession. We saw people who were in charge when all this went down see little punishment for taking the wrong risks, while the punishment "trickled down" to many of the working class. Honestly, if you can't see why people are angry (or think it's stupid) at those who are still sitting on money then I question your ability to use empathy as part of a rational conclusion about anything. I will hand it to you that many people protesting are doing so while looking like hippies and irresponsible idiots, but they're suffering for their mistakes right now, while there are a lot of "investors" who aren't. I think that the bolded statement is wrong, and it's what this whole problem is originating from. People think that the financial sector is some joke, and that the people who work there don't stress every minute of every day about it. No matter how rich you are, it isn't easy to swallow losing 20% of your assets over the course of the day. I think it's easier not working in the financial sector, there's so much less stress.. T he people that are sitting on money have the right to do whatever they want with their money. Who are you, or the government, to tell them to spend it, invest it, or shit on it? That's the beauty of the American corporate culture, we could all go down tomorrow if we wanted to. I see people crying because they want the money that people are sitting on, and I'm not empathetic with them in the same sense that I'm not empathetic with a kid crying about his neighbor in school getting a 100% on a test while he failed because he was drinking instead of studying. You are either just trolling now or you are missing the point of money. Currency came about as a form of exchanging services. Services and products have different values, so its hard to just trade some cheese for a sword, so gold became the standard of measurement which eventually became paper which eventually just gets ridiculous. That is incredibly simplified of course, but the point is that people with money who just take money to make more money contribute absolutely nothing to society and the progress of mankind. That is why people are upset. That is why people should not have the right to do whatever they want with their money. They have to spend or invest that money somewhere to "make more money." No one that is rich has their money just sitting and rotting. If they build a big house, that sends money to the contractors and material suppliers that all employ members of the "99%." If they invest, those companies they buy into likely employ members of the "99%." Corporations and the wealthy are the reason we have so many cheap amazing things in our living rooms. The government is the reason the peaks and valleys are so large.
I don't think anyone who can think things through is really against investing money completely. There's a difference though between investing money in another company/person (stocks and loans) and essentially trading around money so you can take a cut yourself. With CDO's consumers are investing in a consumer's loan essentially, but there are a bunch of middle men all taking a cut while passing most of the risk off.
Also we need the corporations to invest so we can have employees like you say, but a big part of the problem is the increases in money corporations are getting are going to the CEO's/Executives and companies, but not the workers. Consider how much more productive our society is now than it was 10-15 years ago. Compare that to how much a worker's wage has increased (adjusted for inflation) and how much the price have goods have changed (hint many things cost the same/more).
On October 11 2011 12:11 wonderwall wrote:
The movement seems to think that they should have a claim to the wealth of the people above them as they didn't get a fair chance at getting that wealth.
Then by that logic shouldn't the white trash out in the trailer parks and the black communities in the projects be out protesting claiming that white middle America should be giving their money to them? These people are living below the poverty line, have had poor access to education at the like and in the scheme of things have had a far more "unfair" experience than the occupy wallstreet people. People in the wallstreet movement still have more than these people so what stops them having a claim to the money and resources of the occupy wallstreet movement's people?
Um yes, yes they should (though the idea is everyone can get it from the '1%'). There's a reason it's a protest talking about the 99%, not the "Middle 30%" or whatever. Except many of the people you claim have money are in debt so uh they don't really have money. Likewise they are making increases in their wages comparable to the poor/people blow the poverty line unlike the wealthiest people who are seeing dramatic increases in wages on average.
Besides I'm pretty sure many homeless/poor people have joined the rally.
|
On October 11 2011 12:01 Hamski wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2011 11:52 AmishNukes wrote:On October 11 2011 11:13 seaofsaturn wrote:On October 11 2011 09:55 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 09:42 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 09:28 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 09:24 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 07:24 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 04:51 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 04:31 Endymion wrote:[quote] he wants to fund the development of mobile dolls, seen in gundam wing, so that war between countries relies wholly on economic costs rather than human costs. Well the cost of war for super powers anyways. I found a photo of aksfjh off of google. Wait, I thought he (or I in this case?) was against the increased use of mobile dolls... Anyways, I was merely providing commentary on the subject. When somebody employed at Haliburton loses 3 limbs or dies, the public doesn't hear about it or care. When somebody who is in service of their country dies, it's a much bigger deal and American citizens begin to turn against the war much quicker. I can't comment either way on this, since there are benefits to both approaches and it's already said and done anyways. =/ yeah you're right, sorry it didn't hold up i guess. he's a bit of a hypocrite then because he ends up using mobile dolls in the battle before he dies. But you're wrong in terms of the Haliburton example. Everytime someone in the private sector dies, you can be damned sure that it's very public to stakeholders, just not every single person in the economy. Saftey is so highly valued in most (the ones I've been exposed to) if not all oil extraction/enrichment companies that some investors question its worth in the long term. Someone getting injured on the job is really, really bad for the PR of any company, and they tend to be very forthright about it because if they're not and the media discoveres that they aren't forthcoming about saftey issues then a fierce bloodbath will ensue. If the US military was looked at as closely as the oil industry has been since the BP spill (redundant because the blame should have been spread across half a dozen companies involved in the rigs development, construction, testing, and operations) in the gulf (and that they cared to improve as much as BP did), you would see an immediate increase in combat efficieny and overall reduction of wasteful deaths. BP could never sanely withhold corporate assets to not increase safety, or investors and employees would note it and jump ship to a competator. Where are US soldiers going to go if they don't like the military's practices? No where, they'll get court martialed if they say anything against the upper echelons. I don't mean to target you personally or your example, but I don't think people see just how much effort corporate America puts into being sustainable and being heavily tied to them I find it frightening. It's not just Haliburton and combat contractors though. It's construction, lodging, food, etc. Anything that the military can't find the people for is being filled by private contractors. Paying somebody to cook meals and answer phones in Afghanistan costs a lot simply because of risk of being there, but not because of the skill required to do it. We pay soldiers so little (sadly) that it's really cost ineffective to turn it over to profit centered entities (including people). Certainly, there is a lot of waste in the military compared to the private sector in some regards, but they tend to get more done in the way of combat operations and occupations dollar by dollar. RND is possibly the biggest culprit on the opposite, inefficiency side, investing in technologies for wars we no longer fight, then selling 5-10 year old technology to enemies to help fund said research. I also think the corporate analogy doesn't work for the military now that i think about it because corporations cut costs to maintain retained earnings while governments cut corners because they're lazy and have indefinite retained earnings from tax payers. Government controls their income and expenses, and their only risk of taxing the fuck out of the US taxpayers to make up for tax inefficiency is the risk of revolution, which won't happen. They're not even mostly lazy. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely cases of, "I get paid by the hour, not by the box!" but they're not what drive the labor force in the government. In many ways, the quality of a government job is continually stressed because there are always looming budget cuts. Teachers and police officers especially face a great deal of scrutiny every day/month/year in order to make sure nobody is being dealt the short end of the stick (compared to other people). Also, this is the first serious talk in tax increases in the past 20 years. If you think for a second that increasing taxes is an easy task, I suggest you take a look at the political atmosphere 2+ years ago. I know it's not an easy task, but more importantly I know that changing the political climate of the united states is an even more difficult tax. I think it's a problem of democracy more so than the US in general. Power is decided by the majority, but the majority has less claim to the power than the minority (100x the case atm with this whole occupy wallstreet movement. people thinking they have the right to the money they haven't earned or inherited.) On October 11 2011 09:34 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 09:24 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 08:25 Kickboxer wrote:
I can never understand why people equate riches with hard work. It's a retardedly false platitude and yet everyone and their monkey throws it around like feces and no one even objects.
Out of the ten or so people whom I personally know to be rich two are true workaholics who built businesses from the ground up and another two work about as much as the average Joe. The other six are either inbred descendents of old money who, apart from copious amounts of cocaine and their cars, don't even have hobbies let alone jobs (some of the dumbest, vilest, hopelessly empty people I've ever met) or are well known mobsters.
On the other hand a great majority of poor people I know work very hard just to make ends meet. Even my friends with amazing jobs (like district attorney or hotel manager) who are from middle class families are still middle class, with loans to pay off for run-of-the-mill housing.
I guess these schmucks who apparently "earned" their 50 million work 572 hours a day or? Society should go back to where money is earned by actually doing something productive. People who shove money from left to right and leech it out of the system aren't hard working, they are a cancer and should be treated as such. Boo fucking who then, keep your 'honor' and i'll keep my 'wrongly/unfairly obtained inheritance,' the day the government tells the private sector to seriously even consider giving money away because it was 'unfairly gained' from a poor person's perspective is the day that the US falls from grace as a corporate superpower. And then China will 'have your money,' not you. tl;dr for you illiterates out there, be that 1/10 guy who makes millions, not that 99% who qqs in a corner begging for money. E hh, you'd be pretty hard pressed to make the case that somebody making money through trading is working harder at a higher skill job than quite a few Americans with college degrees. Not saying that some don't work JUST as hard, but part of the payout of being in the financial sector is accepting a great deal of risk. The only problem was that a lot of the overall risk was mitigated when the market screwed up bad and the government felt required to come to the rescue lest there be a HUGE run on the banks and another recession. We saw people who were in charge when all this went down see little punishment for taking the wrong risks, while the punishment "trickled down" to many of the working class. Honestly, if you can't see why people are angry (or think it's stupid) at those who are still sitting on money then I question your ability to use empathy as part of a rational conclusion about anything. I will hand it to you that many people protesting are doing so while looking like hippies and irresponsible idiots, but they're suffering for their mistakes right now, while there are a lot of "investors" who aren't. I think that the bolded statement is wrong, and it's what this whole problem is originating from. People think that the financial sector is some joke, and that the people who work there don't stress every minute of every day about it. No matter how rich you are, it isn't easy to swallow losing 20% of your assets over the course of the day. I think it's easier not working in the financial sector, there's so much less stress.. T he people that are sitting on money have the right to do whatever they want with their money. Who are you, or the government, to tell them to spend it, invest it, or shit on it? That's the beauty of the American corporate culture, we could all go down tomorrow if we wanted to. I see people crying because they want the money that people are sitting on, and I'm not empathetic with them in the same sense that I'm not empathetic with a kid crying about his neighbor in school getting a 100% on a test while he failed because he was drinking instead of studying. You are either just trolling now or you are missing the point of money. Currency came about as a form of exchanging services. Services and products have different values, so its hard to just trade some cheese for a sword, so gold became the standard of measurement which eventually became paper which eventually just gets ridiculous. That is incredibly simplified of course, but the point is that people with money who just take money to make more money contribute absolutely nothing to society and the progress of mankind. That is why people are upset. That is why people should not have the right to do whatever they want with their money. They have to spend or invest that money somewhere to "make more money." No one that is rich has their money just sitting and rotting. If they build a big house, that sends money to the contractors and material suppliers that all employ members of the "99%." If they invest, those companies they buy into likely employ members of the "99%." Corporations and the wealthy are the reason we have so many cheap amazing things in our living rooms. The government is the reason the peaks and valleys are so large. I think this is where there seems to be a huge disjoint in actual logic in these talks. The rich and the wealthy(assuming you're talking about Wall Street investors in particular) don't spend anything at all. Any investments are made in business sense, whatever will yield the most profit or security. There is no preference or good will in their choices. They could be all-in on a medical group one week and in big tobacco the next. What we're really talking about is an extreme portion of the country's wealth belonging to the one portion who has nothing left to buy in a consumer-driven market. It's bound for failure.
When they buy and sell those stocks it effects the companies themselves on some level. Some of the system just involves rich people pushing money around. Some of it involves them buying and selling from others that have less money. And of course the rich have more things to buy, they spend astronomical amounts of money even if it's a smaller portion of their net worth. Their immense wealth gives them the comfort of buying ridiculously excessive objects that depreciate more than you personally can probably imagine.
The wealthy are very good for the economy. The government protecting them such that those individuals stay rich instead of being replaced by others when their decisions fail is a problem.
|
On October 11 2011 11:55 Endymion wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2011 11:52 AmishNukes wrote:On October 11 2011 11:13 seaofsaturn wrote:On October 11 2011 09:55 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 09:42 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 09:28 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 09:24 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 07:24 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 04:51 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 04:31 Endymion wrote:[quote] he wants to fund the development of mobile dolls, seen in gundam wing, so that war between countries relies wholly on economic costs rather than human costs. Well the cost of war for super powers anyways. I found a photo of aksfjh off of google. Wait, I thought he (or I in this case?) was against the increased use of mobile dolls... Anyways, I was merely providing commentary on the subject. When somebody employed at Haliburton loses 3 limbs or dies, the public doesn't hear about it or care. When somebody who is in service of their country dies, it's a much bigger deal and American citizens begin to turn against the war much quicker. I can't comment either way on this, since there are benefits to both approaches and it's already said and done anyways. =/ yeah you're right, sorry it didn't hold up i guess. he's a bit of a hypocrite then because he ends up using mobile dolls in the battle before he dies. But you're wrong in terms of the Haliburton example. Everytime someone in the private sector dies, you can be damned sure that it's very public to stakeholders, just not every single person in the economy. Saftey is so highly valued in most (the ones I've been exposed to) if not all oil extraction/enrichment companies that some investors question its worth in the long term. Someone getting injured on the job is really, really bad for the PR of any company, and they tend to be very forthright about it because if they're not and the media discoveres that they aren't forthcoming about saftey issues then a fierce bloodbath will ensue. If the US military was looked at as closely as the oil industry has been since the BP spill (redundant because the blame should have been spread across half a dozen companies involved in the rigs development, construction, testing, and operations) in the gulf (and that they cared to improve as much as BP did), you would see an immediate increase in combat efficieny and overall reduction of wasteful deaths. BP could never sanely withhold corporate assets to not increase safety, or investors and employees would note it and jump ship to a competator. Where are US soldiers going to go if they don't like the military's practices? No where, they'll get court martialed if they say anything against the upper echelons. I don't mean to target you personally or your example, but I don't think people see just how much effort corporate America puts into being sustainable and being heavily tied to them I find it frightening. It's not just Haliburton and combat contractors though. It's construction, lodging, food, etc. Anything that the military can't find the people for is being filled by private contractors. Paying somebody to cook meals and answer phones in Afghanistan costs a lot simply because of risk of being there, but not because of the skill required to do it. We pay soldiers so little (sadly) that it's really cost ineffective to turn it over to profit centered entities (including people). Certainly, there is a lot of waste in the military compared to the private sector in some regards, but they tend to get more done in the way of combat operations and occupations dollar by dollar. RND is possibly the biggest culprit on the opposite, inefficiency side, investing in technologies for wars we no longer fight, then selling 5-10 year old technology to enemies to help fund said research. I also think the corporate analogy doesn't work for the military now that i think about it because corporations cut costs to maintain retained earnings while governments cut corners because they're lazy and have indefinite retained earnings from tax payers. Government controls their income and expenses, and their only risk of taxing the fuck out of the US taxpayers to make up for tax inefficiency is the risk of revolution, which won't happen. They're not even mostly lazy. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely cases of, "I get paid by the hour, not by the box!" but they're not what drive the labor force in the government. In many ways, the quality of a government job is continually stressed because there are always looming budget cuts. Teachers and police officers especially face a great deal of scrutiny every day/month/year in order to make sure nobody is being dealt the short end of the stick (compared to other people). Also, this is the first serious talk in tax increases in the past 20 years. If you think for a second that increasing taxes is an easy task, I suggest you take a look at the political atmosphere 2+ years ago. I know it's not an easy task, but more importantly I know that changing the political climate of the united states is an even more difficult tax. I think it's a problem of democracy more so than the US in general. Power is decided by the majority, but the majority has less claim to the power than the minority (100x the case atm with this whole occupy wallstreet movement. people thinking they have the right to the money they haven't earned or inherited.) On October 11 2011 09:34 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 09:24 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 08:25 Kickboxer wrote:
I can never understand why people equate riches with hard work. It's a retardedly false platitude and yet everyone and their monkey throws it around like feces and no one even objects.
Out of the ten or so people whom I personally know to be rich two are true workaholics who built businesses from the ground up and another two work about as much as the average Joe. The other six are either inbred descendents of old money who, apart from copious amounts of cocaine and their cars, don't even have hobbies let alone jobs (some of the dumbest, vilest, hopelessly empty people I've ever met) or are well known mobsters.
On the other hand a great majority of poor people I know work very hard just to make ends meet. Even my friends with amazing jobs (like district attorney or hotel manager) who are from middle class families are still middle class, with loans to pay off for run-of-the-mill housing.
I guess these schmucks who apparently "earned" their 50 million work 572 hours a day or? Society should go back to where money is earned by actually doing something productive. People who shove money from left to right and leech it out of the system aren't hard working, they are a cancer and should be treated as such. Boo fucking who then, keep your 'honor' and i'll keep my 'wrongly/unfairly obtained inheritance,' the day the government tells the private sector to seriously even consider giving money away because it was 'unfairly gained' from a poor person's perspective is the day that the US falls from grace as a corporate superpower. And then China will 'have your money,' not you. tl;dr for you illiterates out there, be that 1/10 guy who makes millions, not that 99% who qqs in a corner begging for money. E hh, you'd be pretty hard pressed to make the case that somebody making money through trading is working harder at a higher skill job than quite a few Americans with college degrees. Not saying that some don't work JUST as hard, but part of the payout of being in the financial sector is accepting a great deal of risk. The only problem was that a lot of the overall risk was mitigated when the market screwed up bad and the government felt required to come to the rescue lest there be a HUGE run on the banks and another recession. We saw people who were in charge when all this went down see little punishment for taking the wrong risks, while the punishment "trickled down" to many of the working class. Honestly, if you can't see why people are angry (or think it's stupid) at those who are still sitting on money then I question your ability to use empathy as part of a rational conclusion about anything. I will hand it to you that many people protesting are doing so while looking like hippies and irresponsible idiots, but they're suffering for their mistakes right now, while there are a lot of "investors" who aren't. I think that the bolded statement is wrong, and it's what this whole problem is originating from. People think that the financial sector is some joke, and that the people who work there don't stress every minute of every day about it. No matter how rich you are, it isn't easy to swallow losing 20% of your assets over the course of the day. I think it's easier not working in the financial sector, there's so much less stress.. T he people that are sitting on money have the right to do whatever they want with their money. Who are you, or the government, to tell them to spend it, invest it, or shit on it? That's the beauty of the American corporate culture, we could all go down tomorrow if we wanted to. I see people crying because they want the money that people are sitting on, and I'm not empathetic with them in the same sense that I'm not empathetic with a kid crying about his neighbor in school getting a 100% on a test while he failed because he was drinking instead of studying. You are either just trolling now or you are missing the point of money. Currency came about as a form of exchanging services. Services and products have different values, so its hard to just trade some cheese for a sword, so gold became the standard of measurement which eventually became paper which eventually just gets ridiculous. That is incredibly simplified of course, but the point is that people with money who just take money to make more money contribute absolutely nothing to society and the progress of mankind. That is why people are upset. That is why people should not have the right to do whatever they want with their money. They have to spend or invest that money somewhere to "make more money." No one that is rich has their money just sitting and rotting. If they build a big house, that sends money to the contractors and material suppliers that all employ members of the "99%." If they invest, those companies they buy into likely employ members of the "99%." Corporations and the wealthy are the reason we have so many cheap amazing things in our living rooms. The government is the reason the peaks and valleys are so large. I think he is implying that investment bankers are doing nothing but buying and trading outstanding shares already, which he assumes means nothing, because he probably doesn't understand that shares = ownership. They aren't trading paper, they're trading trillions of dollars worth of capital to make sure that everything runs profitably. Show nested quote +On October 11 2011 11:55 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 11:48 xDaunt wrote:On October 11 2011 11:45 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 11:20 xDaunt wrote:On October 11 2011 11:01 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 10:58 DrainX wrote:On October 11 2011 10:49 DeepElemBlues wrote:Hmm.. I guess I'll just work harder next time I'm reincarnated to be born to rich parents, because apparently you think that's the best way to succeed. Better than legalized stealing. Are you implying that fair taxation is stealing? Sounds more like he's under the impression that unnecessary write-offs are not stealing. Last I checked, it's pretty hard to steal money that's already yours. And last I checked, 35% of your money is not supposed to be yours. Spoken like a man who's probably never earned a buck in his life. Your entire notion of property rights is ass backwards. Actually I work 6 days a week for not a lot of money and pay for classes out of pocket. You can think whatever you want, it doesn't make you right. Your notion of property rights is dated, unrealistic, and most of all, wrong. hey man, I know you work 6 days a week for a few bucks a day but.... that money is actually mine. I deserve it, I'm a human being just like you!!! Hand it over peacefully, please? no? I'm going to protest in front of your house then.
Government has to exist else it is the rule of nature, might makes right. Without government laws are only enforced by those with the guns or sharp sticks, we have a representative government in which the people ask government to fill roles that are deemed necessary. This cannot be done without funding and thus taxing. Your over simplification of just break up the wealthy and spread it all over the poor is nothing more then inflammatory. Now sense the people cannot win workers rights in unions anymore due to the wealthy breaking it up with the creation of right to work. People get treated like shit and barely make a living? For what so corporations become ever more profitable and yet the worker see none of those profits, it's all shoveled off at the top and none of it is passed on? Yet when the company turns to hard times the people treated like shit get layed off and those left are pressed to work harder then ever to keep their jobs all while you still get a CEO who makes in 1 year more then you'll ever make in a life time. You make the perception that it's just a bunch of dead beats who want money, i make the assertion that it's people who work and work hard for a living and they are asking to make good money for their families and their lives. If they cannot get that where they work they ask the government to act on their behalf, if we cannot get payed a dime then will make the government take the time from those who can spare it and funnel that back into programs to help those who cannot get that dime. Or maybe you rather have a stark raving rich upper class and a large majority lower class, who will as history shows rise up and kill a few of the rich, usually resulting in debts being reset if not governments being toppled. 3 things grow an econ, education, science and infrastructure. The wealthy do not necessarily do any of that, while government does all of that, public education, nasa and college system and fucking roads, power/water.
|
On October 11 2011 12:09 DeepElemBlues wrote:No. I'm implying that vindictive taxation is. Show nested quote +Sounds more like he's under the impression that unnecessary write-offs are not stealing. I'm under the impression that punishing a man for what he is is not right. Show nested quote +That is incredibly simplified of course, but the point is that people with money who just take money to make more money contribute absolutely nothing to society and the progress of mankind. That is why people are upset. That is why people should not have the right to do whatever they want with their money. *sigh* You don't even understand what you hate. Take away the ability of people to make money off money and see how long it takes for the entire world's economy to crash for want of capital. Marx failed to foresee the rise of technological productivity that allowed goods to be made and transported cheaply enough to make a good material life for the working class possible. You should actually read him, he totally missed out on the long-term consequences of industrialization, making the mistake of assuming that the conditions he saw were unchangeable aspects of the capitalist system. You won't find a serious economist in the world - other than Paul Krugman, who stopped being a serious economist circa 2000 - who believes that wealth confiscation on a large scale works at anything other than destroying the lives of both of the rich and the poor. I love how people on TL act like you, as if Marxism wasn't the most epic fail in human history. It isn't even that Marxism is inseparable from mass murder and no Marxist government has ever existed that didn't brutalize the people it ruled, but it fucking failed on its own terms! It didn't provide peace, or prosperity, or freedom, or a society with no classes, and most of all, it didn't beat capitalism. Marxism is a fucking joke of a failure and yet still you'll find people saying 'y u no liek marx huehuehue" Currently, who are the ones buying off crooked politicians? Labor unions, "green energy" frauds like Solyndra, Warren Buffett, and General Electric, mostly.
Whoa, you really misunderstood and thought that I was advocating Marxism...
I don't think it works either, but pointing at someone and calling them Marxist is not an argument, that's what I was commenting on.
I like that both sides like to pretend that their party isn't totally bought and paid for. I won't even engage in that ridiculous conversation.
|
|
|
I always love to see people defending the ultra rich/corporate interests because, I assume, of some fantasy that one day it will be them. Fascinating.
The notion that everyone who is rich has money that is rightfully theirs- and if we redistribute it or change the system than it would be unfair. In that future, we would be in an unjust system. Right now the system is unjust. Every business is non-democratic. For all our talk about democracy in this country (western world).. almost nothing is democratic. Our jobs, our media, our financial system, its all top down bureaucracy. The person who "owns" production gets to keep the vast majority of profits. The amount of money these people "earn" is so far beyond what would be motivation to invest or start a business. The fact that some people own 13 houses, 10 boats and a plane, while someone starves to death every 7 seconds is a symptom of a flawed and skewed setup.
No lazy argument. Really, some people are lazy, and some are motivated. But no one is a billion times more productive than the average person. Maybe 2 or 3 fold, 5 or 6 if they are super industrious- but the gap is, absolutely, insane. Anyone who defends this setup is entirely delusional. Admit the gap is, far- far to large.
|
|
|
On October 11 2011 12:14 semantics wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2011 11:55 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 11:52 AmishNukes wrote:On October 11 2011 11:13 seaofsaturn wrote:On October 11 2011 09:55 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 09:42 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 09:28 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 09:24 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 07:24 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 04:51 aksfjh wrote:
[quote]
Wait, I thought he (or I in this case?) was against the increased use of mobile dolls...
Anyways, I was merely providing commentary on the subject. When somebody employed at Haliburton loses 3 limbs or dies, the public doesn't hear about it or care. When somebody who is in service of their country dies, it's a much bigger deal and American citizens begin to turn against the war much quicker.
I can't comment either way on this, since there are benefits to both approaches and it's already said and done anyways. =/ yeah you're right, sorry it didn't hold up i guess. he's a bit of a hypocrite then because he ends up using mobile dolls in the battle before he dies. But you're wrong in terms of the Haliburton example. Everytime someone in the private sector dies, you can be damned sure that it's very public to stakeholders, just not every single person in the economy. Saftey is so highly valued in most (the ones I've been exposed to) if not all oil extraction/enrichment companies that some investors question its worth in the long term. Someone getting injured on the job is really, really bad for the PR of any company, and they tend to be very forthright about it because if they're not and the media discoveres that they aren't forthcoming about saftey issues then a fierce bloodbath will ensue. If the US military was looked at as closely as the oil industry has been since the BP spill (redundant because the blame should have been spread across half a dozen companies involved in the rigs development, construction, testing, and operations) in the gulf (and that they cared to improve as much as BP did), you would see an immediate increase in combat efficieny and overall reduction of wasteful deaths. BP could never sanely withhold corporate assets to not increase safety, or investors and employees would note it and jump ship to a competator. Where are US soldiers going to go if they don't like the military's practices? No where, they'll get court martialed if they say anything against the upper echelons. I don't mean to target you personally or your example, but I don't think people see just how much effort corporate America puts into being sustainable and being heavily tied to them I find it frightening. It's not just Haliburton and combat contractors though. It's construction, lodging, food, etc. Anything that the military can't find the people for is being filled by private contractors. Paying somebody to cook meals and answer phones in Afghanistan costs a lot simply because of risk of being there, but not because of the skill required to do it. We pay soldiers so little (sadly) that it's really cost ineffective to turn it over to profit centered entities (including people). Certainly, there is a lot of waste in the military compared to the private sector in some regards, but they tend to get more done in the way of combat operations and occupations dollar by dollar. RND is possibly the biggest culprit on the opposite, inefficiency side, investing in technologies for wars we no longer fight, then selling 5-10 year old technology to enemies to help fund said research. I also think the corporate analogy doesn't work for the military now that i think about it because corporations cut costs to maintain retained earnings while governments cut corners because they're lazy and have indefinite retained earnings from tax payers. Government controls their income and expenses, and their only risk of taxing the fuck out of the US taxpayers to make up for tax inefficiency is the risk of revolution, which won't happen. They're not even mostly lazy. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely cases of, "I get paid by the hour, not by the box!" but they're not what drive the labor force in the government. In many ways, the quality of a government job is continually stressed because there are always looming budget cuts. Teachers and police officers especially face a great deal of scrutiny every day/month/year in order to make sure nobody is being dealt the short end of the stick (compared to other people). Also, this is the first serious talk in tax increases in the past 20 years. If you think for a second that increasing taxes is an easy task, I suggest you take a look at the political atmosphere 2+ years ago. I know it's not an easy task, but more importantly I know that changing the political climate of the united states is an even more difficult tax. I think it's a problem of democracy more so than the US in general. Power is decided by the majority, but the majority has less claim to the power than the minority (100x the case atm with this whole occupy wallstreet movement. people thinking they have the right to the money they haven't earned or inherited.) On October 11 2011 09:34 aksfjh wrote:On October 11 2011 09:24 Endymion wrote:On October 11 2011 08:25 Kickboxer wrote:
I can never understand why people equate riches with hard work. It's a retardedly false platitude and yet everyone and their monkey throws it around like feces and no one even objects.
Out of the ten or so people whom I personally know to be rich two are true workaholics who built businesses from the ground up and another two work about as much as the average Joe. The other six are either inbred descendents of old money who, apart from copious amounts of cocaine and their cars, don't even have hobbies let alone jobs (some of the dumbest, vilest, hopelessly empty people I've ever met) or are well known mobsters.
On the other hand a great majority of poor people I know work very hard just to make ends meet. Even my friends with amazing jobs (like district attorney or hotel manager) who are from middle class families are still middle class, with loans to pay off for run-of-the-mill housing.
I guess these schmucks who apparently "earned" their 50 million work 572 hours a day or? Society should go back to where money is earned by actually doing something productive. People who shove money from left to right and leech it out of the system aren't hard working, they are a cancer and should be treated as such. Boo fucking who then, keep your 'honor' and i'll keep my 'wrongly/unfairly obtained inheritance,' the day the government tells the private sector to seriously even consider giving money away because it was 'unfairly gained' from a poor person's perspective is the day that the US falls from grace as a corporate superpower. And then China will 'have your money,' not you. tl;dr for you illiterates out there, be that 1/10 guy who makes millions, not that 99% who qqs in a corner begging for money. E hh, you'd be pretty hard pressed to make the case that somebody making money through trading is working harder at a higher skill job than quite a few Americans with college degrees. Not saying that some don't work JUST as hard, but part of the payout of being in the financial sector is accepting a great deal of risk. The only problem was that a lot of the overall risk was mitigated when the market screwed up bad and the government felt required to come to the rescue lest there be a HUGE run on the banks and another recession. We saw people who were in charge when all this went down see little punishment for taking the wrong risks, while the punishment "trickled down" to many of the working class. Honestly, if you can't see why people are angry (or think it's stupid) at those who are still sitting on money then I question your ability to use empathy as part of a rational conclusion about anything. I will hand it to you that many people protesting are doing so while looking like hippies and irresponsible idiots, but they're suffering for their mistakes right now, while there are a lot of "investors" who aren't. I think that the bolded statement is wrong, and it's what this whole problem is originating from. People think that the financial sector is some joke, and that the people who work there don't stress every minute of every day about it. No matter how rich you are, it isn't easy to swallow losing 20% of your assets over the course of the day. I think it's easier not working in the financial sector, there's so much less stress.. T he people that are sitting on money have the right to do whatever they want with their money. Who are you, or the government, to tell them to spend it, invest it, or shit on it? That's the beauty of the American corporate culture, we could all go down tomorrow if we wanted to. I see people crying because they want the money that people are sitting on, and I'm not empathetic with them in the same sense that I'm not empathetic with a kid crying about his neighbor in school getting a 100% on a test while he failed because he was drinking instead of studying. You are either just trolling now or you are missing the point of money. Currency came about as a form of exchanging services. Services and products have different values, so its hard to just trade some cheese for a sword, so gold became the standard of measurement which eventually became paper which eventually just gets ridiculous. That is incredibly simplified of course, but the point is that people with money who just take money to make more money contribute absolutely nothing to society and the progress of mankind. That is why people are upset. That is why people should not have the right to do whatever they want with their money. They have to spend or invest that money somewhere to "make more money." No one that is rich has their money just sitting and rotting. If they build a big house, that sends money to the contractors and material suppliers that all employ members of the "99%." If they invest, those companies they buy into likely employ members of the "99%." Corporations and the wealthy are the reason we have so many cheap amazing things in our living rooms. The government is the reason the peaks and valleys are so large. I think he is implying that investment bankers are doing nothing but buying and trading outstanding shares already, which he assumes means nothing, because he probably doesn't understand that shares = ownership. They aren't trading paper, they're trading trillions of dollars worth of capital to make sure that everything runs profitably. On October 11 2011 11:55 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 11:48 xDaunt wrote:On October 11 2011 11:45 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 11:20 xDaunt wrote:On October 11 2011 11:01 Hamski wrote:On October 11 2011 10:58 DrainX wrote:On October 11 2011 10:49 DeepElemBlues wrote:Hmm.. I guess I'll just work harder next time I'm reincarnated to be born to rich parents, because apparently you think that's the best way to succeed. Better than legalized stealing. Are you implying that fair taxation is stealing? Sounds more like he's under the impression that unnecessary write-offs are not stealing. Last I checked, it's pretty hard to steal money that's already yours. And last I checked, 35% of your money is not supposed to be yours. Spoken like a man who's probably never earned a buck in his life. Your entire notion of property rights is ass backwards. Actually I work 6 days a week for not a lot of money and pay for classes out of pocket. You can think whatever you want, it doesn't make you right. Your notion of property rights is dated, unrealistic, and most of all, wrong. hey man, I know you work 6 days a week for a few bucks a day but.... that money is actually mine. I deserve it, I'm a human being just like you!!! Hand it over peacefully, please? no? I'm going to protest in front of your house then. Government has to exist else it is the rule of nature, might makes right. Without government laws are only enforced by those with the guns or sharp sticks, we have a representative government in which the people ask government to fill roles that are deemed necessary. This cannot be done without funding and thus taxing. Your over simplification of just break up the wealthy and spread it all over the poor is nothing more then inflammatory. Now sense the people cannot win workers rights in unions anymore due to the wealthy breaking it up with the creation of right to work. People get treated like shit and barely make a living? For what so corporations become ever more profitable and yet the worker see none of those profits, it's all shoveled off at the top and none of it is passed on? Yet when the company turns to hard times the people treated like shit get layed off and those left are pressed to work harder then ever to keep their jobs all while you still get a CEO who makes in 1 year more then you'll ever make in a life time. You make the perception that it's just a bunch of dead beats who want money, i make the assertion that it's people who work and work hard for a living and they are asking to make good money for their families and their lives. If they cannot get that where they work they ask the government to act on their behalf, if we cannot get payed a dime then will make the government take the time from those who can spare it and funnel that back into programs to help those who cannot get that dime. Or maybe you rather have a stark raving rich upper class and a large majority lower class, who will as history shows rise up and kill a few of the rich, usually resulting in debts being reset if not governments being toppled. 3 things grow an econ, education, science and infrastructure. The wealthy do not necessarily do any of that, while government does all of that, public education, nasa and college system and fucking roads, power/water.
The only reason government still exists in this world is to provide services that would otherwise go unlooked, as well as to provide a fair market for all to compete in. It's stupid that the US over taxes it's workers to wage unneeded wars for questionable reasons. If the oil corporations really needed the extraction contracts in iraq/afghanistan as some people have said, then they can fight their own war if they decree that it'll be profitable in the long run.You act like every dollar earned by someone on wallstreet is a dollar out of your pocket, when really it's every dollar "earned and spent" by the US government is a dollar out of your pocket through income and property taxes.
The reason that the US "aristocracy" of wall street and corporations hasn't fallen yet is because it's completely permeable, unlike the french aristocracy which wasn't, causing the working class to rise up.
Might makes right is bullshit, $$$$ makes right now.On October 11 2011 12:18 cursor wrote:
I always love to see people defending the ultra rich/corporate interests because, I assume, of some fantasy that one day it will be them. Fascinating.
The notion that everyone who is rich has money that is rightfully theirs- and if we redistribute it or change the system than it would be unfair. In that future, we would be in an unjust system. Right now the system is unjust. Every business is non-democratic. For all our talk about democracy in this country (western world).. almost nothing is democratic. Our jobs, our media, our financial system, its all top down bureaucracy. The person who "owns" production gets to keep the vast majority of profits. The amount of money these people "earn" is so far beyond what would be motivation to invest or start a business. The fact that some people own 13 houses, 10 boats and a plane, while someone starves to death every 7 seconds is a symptom of a flawed and skewed setup.
No lazy argument. Really, some people are lazy, and some are motivated. But no one is a billion times more productive than the average person. Maybe 2 or 3 fold, 5 or 6 if they are super industrious- but the gap is, absolutely, insane. Anyone who defends this setup is entirely delusional. Admit the gap is, far- far to large.
Why should we have a democratic system in corporate america? Unlike the delusional public, as shown by occupy wallstreet, corporate America recognizes that merit = power, not popularity = power... My family owns multiple houses across multiple continents, and we came from wealth. Wealth that my ancestors worked hard for so that we could live well. Is conservative saving for future generations bad or something? if the gap is too large, then make it smaller. Get a job and make billions. How? Dunno, I already have mine, now it's your turn. Life isn't fair, and thanks to human greed it never will be.
|
On October 11 2011 12:18 cursor wrote:
I always love to see people defending the ultra rich/corporate interests because, I assume, of some fantasy that one day it will be them. Fascinating.
The notion that everyone who is rich has money that is rightfully theirs- and if we redistribute it or change the system than it would be unfair. In that future, we would be in an unjust system. Right now the system is unjust. Every business is non-democratic. For all our talk about democracy in this country (western world).. almost nothing is democratic. Our jobs, our media, our financial system, its all top down bureaucracy. The person who "owns" production gets to keep the vast majority of profits. The amount of money these people "earn" is so far beyond what would be motivation to invest or start a business. The fact that some people own 13 houses, 10 boats and a plane, while someone starves to death every 7 seconds is a symptom of a flawed and skewed setup.
No lazy argument. Really, some people are lazy, and some are motivated. But no one is a billion times more productive than the average person. Maybe 2 or 3 fold, 5 or 6 if they are super industrious- but the gap is, absolutely, insane. Anyone who defends this setup is entirely delusional. Admit the gap is, far- far to large.
I agree with this thought to an extent. Yes, productivity does matter in a business-sense, but some markets are inherently more profitable than others. That has to be taken into account before making claims that could lead to how much a person should be paid in relation to another person of another motivation. Without that stipulation, those thoughts really scream socialism to me.
|
|
|
Oh this is totally right. Why buy one side when you can just buy both? It's why the whole parade is just a sham. It's like the WWE where the wrestlers yell at each other on TV but go hang out later and have a beer. It's all just a play.
They debate stupid hotbutton topics like Gay Marriage, Abortion, and Gun Control, while they make sure they do exactly what is asked of them by their "Sponsors". Both major parties 100%.
Reminds me of this picture:
+ Show Spoiler +
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Michael-Ramirez-040511-pie.png)
