6 horrifying facts about the rich

Post Reply New Topic

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/28/6_horri ... h_partner/

The takers (banks, Wall Street etc) take almost everything using bribes of government officials. The makers (those that create value, the workers, both creative and manual ) created our standard of living. Unfortunately, the takers keep lowering our standard of living.
The takers lack sophistication (they think faberge eggs and conspicuous consumption show class and that learning and creativity is for peasants).
I think that Romney and his fellow elitists should visit a slum where most people have 2 or more jobs so they can learn the value of work and stop being parasites.
We should go back to the work ethic and abandon the elite's gambling ethic. Basically, they create nothing and make money betting on our productivity and creativity.
If it wasn't for the poor,the 2% would have to eat their money!

I wish that people were rewarded based on what they contribute to society, and by that I mean real contributions. Most of the super rich have not done anything to warrant thousands of times the reward of an average person, especially when you look at all the poverty in the world, if you look at it in terms of how they do or don't make other people's lives better or even help other people's survival.

Food production has value, we'd all die unless food were produced. Building cars has value. Providing medical treatment and drugs has value. Producing clothing has value.

Stock traders produce no meaningful value - they shuffle paper around, that's all. Real Estate speculation has no real value either. Doing nothing more than being lucky enough to have been born into a rich family is not a contribution to society that should be rewarded with fabulous wealth. Nor should 'being famous for being famous' garner someone incredible riches.

Of course, these sorts of people have value in the system we have today, but if we started from scratch and simply focused on what's needed to survive and make our lives better, most of the currently best paid occupations / activities would be seen for what they are, which is contributing very little to society's bottom line. Unfortunately what we have today is a system that rewards people for being better than other people not for contributing to society, but for being able to game and manipulate the system. It is obscene for the opportunity to accumulate wealth to be based on how wealthy you already are, and very little else. When "it takes money to make money" is true (and it is) something is very wrong because the only skill involved is knowing where to invest and that in and of itself doesn't actually do anything for anyone.

My economics professor liked to say, " if you have $100,000 any idiot can turn that into $200,000. Any idiot can turn $200,000 into $500,000 and that into a million. The problem is getting that first $100,000."

Deregulation, Monopolization, Privatizing, and Outsourcing are the four things rich people are trying to do. They want a grip on everything in the world. What's left for us non-rich folk afterwards is a life of bowing down and kissing their feet while they kick us in the teeth.

Rich people are great.

"The U.S. government has been issuing a growing number of so-called EB-5 visas, which grant residency to immigrants who invest at least half a million dollars in the U.S. and create or save no less than 10 jobs".
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/busin ... are-500000

"Citizenship for sale"
"To qualify for the visa, they must invest at least $1 million in a new or recently created business, or $500,000 for businesses in rural or high-unemployment areas."
http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/11/news/ec ... nvestment/

I don't like Elon Musk. He just talks and talks about his crazy plans. His cars suck too. He should be expropriated for the common good.

Cars only have value if people want to buy them. If only 10 million cars need to be replaced every year, and you're producing 20 million, then half the workers aren't doing anything of value.

Well, they'd be better off not attempting the first then, since deregulation increases competition. Far better for them to seek greater regulation, with fees that only they can afford. WalMart, Tesco... they don't need local butchers undercutting them. It's much easier to get the government to mandate that all slaughtering and butchering of animals occurs in specially designated abbatoirs, bring in expensive inspections that have to be performed every six months, require that all meat be sold in plastic wrapping...

Can you imagine what would happen to Starbucks, or McDonalds, if there were no barriers at all to entering the market? Just designate the front room of your house, use your kitchen, and start selling.

This cannot go on. I demand that the state stop doing something about this.

Actually deregulation decreases competition! The huge corporations can squeeze out their competition.*
So you are against meat inspection? So you think that slaughterhouses butchering before dead is moral? I am not a vegetarian but it is obvious to any sane person that what is allowed at slaughterhouses because of deregulation is outrageous!
* with setting below cost pricing etc.

This is big generalization. There is also a quite a bit of legislation, and protectionism that supports large corporations. I think some talk of "deregulation", selectively only in their favour.

Note these statistics are talking about individuals, rather than companies. But regardless.

Of the countries mentioned I can't talk about Lebanon but Ukraine and Russia the reason why there is such wealth disparity is there a high level of collusion with these individual and those in political power. This is the reason why they haven't done anything to tackle corruption, in fact it has been used against the political opponents.

I'm a competitionist, so I am for anything that would promote competition: Reduced liability protection, a limited patent system, etc.

The problem is both sides of the political sectrum when in power have looked to the same solution as a quick fix to find jobs. This is why you have these industries with no competition.

Regulations alone will not solve the problem you have to be smarter. Anti-trust is and abject failure, it is retrospective, arbitrary, and hasn't done anything to increase competition.

Reduced liability is a good thing? So, my kid dies because the cow he ate was not inspected responsibly, I should not be allowed to sue ?! So deregulation (no inspections) is a good thing?
So an international corporation that disects conscious cows because killing them with a stun gun will impede profits by slowing down the process are doing nothing wrong?!

Last edited by wittgenstein on 20 Oct 2014, 7:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Anti-trust is a failure? It has not been tried (seriously, Ma Bell ATT break up was a joke) since Theodore Roosevelt.

Our disagreement is basically, you believe that corporations are people and I do not.

I'm just waiting for some conservative to accuse the lot of us of class envy.

I'm just waiting for some conservative to accuse the lot of us of class envy.

I am confused zero =true,
Are you saying that regulations are a bad thing? That there should be no liabilty laws. You seem to be saying that. However, you also seem to be saying that such regulations are good.