General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Wealthy Have 'Worked Hard' And Deserve To Keep Their Money
I just finished having a fight with a teabagger relative who is on disability Social Security and is barely making ends meet. She goes to the Church food pantry and collects a little over $90.00 in food stamps.
Life has dealt her a lousy hand. She was a very well-paid nurse practitioner and was pinned under some heavy engine equipment that fell on her from a high shelf at her son's house. The blood vessels in her eyes ruptured after all the hours she was trapped under the equipment and she lost a great deal of her sight. I'm also sure she's suffering from depression and I'm sorry for the fight I had with her, but I'm at my wit's end. I'll call her up later and love up on her. But, for now, as a favorite comic book character of mine used to say,
It's clobberin' time!
I am so freaking sick of this long endless mantra the right has pounded over and over about how the rich deserve their wealth because they HAVE WORKED SO DAMN HARD TO EARN IT.
Oh, like the rest of us don't work hard? Like the rest of us don't deserve to keep our wealth, if we have any? Like our labors aren't comparable to theirs? Like somehow, our work is inferior because it can't buy us country club membership and overseas tax shelters?
Those assholes cheer and applaud a rich guy as a hero that they claim gave up his citizenship to avoid paying his damn taxes. My neighbor's building a pool house and I'm watching right now as the poor guys working on it's new roof sweat in Texas' 90 degree weather. But, nah, doesn't look like they're working that hard. Hey, Mitt, they might even be illegals, y'know, like the ones that worked their butts off landscaping your yard. I saw a lot of men sawing tree branches around the power lines in the hot sun earlier today too. Probably a bunch of slackers. They've probably never worked as hard as Mitt Romney either. I know for a FACT that those firefighters putting out that wildfire down the street by Camp Stanley last year don't know the meaning of a good hard sweat like Mitt Romney does. After Rick Perry cut their funding by 75% just before wildfire season and Mitt wants to do the same, it's only right. They don't know the meaning of hard work anyway.
How does my relative do this? How have they brainwashed her into believing that the government is evil when she is totally dependent on it? When she'd be on the street, well, living on the largess of family, if it wasn't for the government? I pointed out that she's always complaining of how hard her own son is working, sweating in a mechanic's shop ten hours a day. Isn't he working hard? Evidently not as hard as the wealthy. He has no ambition to "better" himself and really do some hard work. The kind that involves air conditioning.
It wasn't always this way. When I was growing up, my elders and betters actually taught many of us that all labor was good as long as it was honest labor. Somehow, along the way, the labors of many of us are now denigrated. "The 47%." If you're not a doctor or a professional, you need to "better yourself." No one used to look down on people because they were a plumber, a taxi driver, or for crying out loud, a firefighter or a teacher. Things have changed a whole, whole lot.
So, next time you see Romney talking to the dittoheads at rallies, that deep pockets then fly him from one chartered or private jet to another; from one sumptuous campaign dinner to a luxury hotel to a different billionaire's fundraiser, just stop for a moment and think. No really, really let it sink in.
This poor sumbitch is one of the hardest workers in the world.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
FarLeftFist
(6,161 posts)
patrice
(47,992 posts)position to the max, all kinds of perks and freebies, air-conditioning, life-long get-out-of-hell free card, private precious-moments with whomever (including Presidents planning to go to war for OIL), national career paths for the ambitious . . .
Hey, I just discovered that I have a calling "from GOD"!!!
handmade34
(22,756 posts)"Protestant work ethic" was drilled into many of us... took me a long time to recover
nanabugg
(2,198 posts)
chaska
(6,794 posts)All wealth derives ultimately from the earth with help from the sun. It's a closed loop. It's a zero-sum game. To enrich one is to impoverish another - a person, or a "resource"* that belongs to us all, and not who ever claims it first.
The rich are thieves and gluttons.
*I don't like referring to the planets gifts as resources. It implies that they were put there for us to use, first come-first serve and as rapidly as possible.
YellowRubberDuckie
(19,736 posts)Health care, water, shelter, clothes and food. Period, end of story. And it should be a felony to do so.
Walk away
(9,494 posts)architects should not profit from their products? I guess that leaves bankers and investors as the only people collecting rewards for their efforts!
handmade34
(22,756 posts)any of the earth's natural resources (and money)... everyone should make a living by their own labor and/or creativity (I make no apologies for hating capitalism)
exploitation of people and the land (natural resources) is simply rape
FrodosPet
(5,169 posts)To believe ourselves so important as to uproot and prematurely kill plants, much less animals, in order to continue to stay alive is an act of selfishness. Even though we offer justifications, and offload guilt by using fewer resources than others, the fact is that everyone alive is guilty of exploiting the earth's resources.
The question is not "How do we stop exploiting the earth?" It is "How do we minimize the impact of exploitation?"
handmade34
(22,756 posts)and profit... yes, living on this earth should be a preciously humbling experience... it is the profit making from natural resources that is so detrimental
we (humans) can be part of the healthy cycle but we have chosen not to be; we have claimed earth for our own and are quickly destroying our place in and on it...
dkf
(37,305 posts)Won't they pick jobs that do make money?
thelordofhell
(4,569 posts)
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)and replace it with a Government-operated clothing supply system that would work similarly to the DMV or the Post Office. This service would supply basic but functional clothing on an as-needed basis.
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)I'd like to stockpile all of those things (maybe not shelter).
Not to sell of course, since that would be a felony. But because I need those things and your law would make them all but disappear.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)seem to think otherwise. Private corporations shouldnt be allowed to profit from providing basic health care. Of course people that work in the field should earn money. Duh! This applies to a number of things like fire departments, police departments, the military, etc. People should be allowed a certain level of existence without people preying on them. I think it's called "the pursuit of happiness". Some of course will call it socialism.
YellowRubberDuckie
(19,736 posts)People always just jump to conclusions. I wasn't being ridiculous or anything. I was just saying necessities shouldn't be something we have to work our asses off to get.
Thank you!
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)kinda like in grade school.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)arguments become so clear that even they have to notice it.
MightyOkie
(68 posts)A physician operating an office should not make a living or provide for his/her family? What about those years of college, medical school, residency, continuing education, and so on???
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)strawman argument. What I say is that no one should make a profit (has nothing to do with earning a living) off of providing basic health care. Absolutely doctors and nurses should make wages. No fat-f'in-cats making profits.
In most caring countries it is AGAINST THE LAW to make a profit off of providing basic health. No one in those countries, that is NO ONE, not one single person goes bankrupt from debts related to health care. In this so-called Christian country, people make billions off of health care, while children die from lack of health care.
YellowRubberDuckie
(19,736 posts)Health care companies kill people for profit.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)drokhole
(1,230 posts)There is an insane amount of over-prescription in this country, and the pharmaceutical companies are profiting monstrously off it. It's one of the reasons why proper nutrition is glossed over and regarded so derisively in the medical community, wouldn't want to lose lifelong customers.
Drugging America: The drug industry exposed
Sirveri
(4,517 posts)Sun => (solar power, agriculture, oil, gas, coal, wind, hydroelectric)
Star Stuff => (nuclear, geothermal)
That's it, those are the energy inputs. Earth is just a recycling reservoir or minerals which the energy inputs help move along.
That said, one can harness energy without harming another. Does it harm another to put solar panels on top of your house? Does it harm another to farm land that would otherwise be left fallow (maybe). It's simply better harnessing energy inputs.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)YellowRubberDuckie
(19,736 posts)...I deserve to keep my money just as much as anyone else does. I probably worked harder than a lot of rich folks because they inherit most of their money. They didn't actually work for it.
dkf
(37,305 posts)YellowRubberDuckie
(19,736 posts)I'm just saying idiot republicans saying that the wealthy work hard for their money is not a reason for them to keep more of it than the rest of us just because they were born into a certain class or ripped someone off enough to get to where they are. 
patrice
(47,992 posts)the arbitrary nature of money as a PRIVATE commodity by which all other things, including the PUBLIC commonweal, are measured.
patrice
(47,992 posts)
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)Illth, a term coined by John Ruskin, can be conceived as all the changes in the environment that are detrimental to humanity and/or to life itself. Weaponry, then should be classified as illth, not wealth, think of ten other examples.
Money is neither wealth nor illth but merely tickets for the transfer of wealth or illth."
From the writings in one of Bob Wilson's books, I can't recall which one, but did not wish to plagiarize or fail to give him credit
You are absolutely correct, things should not be judged by value of cash tickets so much as by what are the effects of the energy transferred, is it wealth? Or is it Ilth?
drokhole
(1,230 posts)I've read a good deal of his work, had never come across that gem. Many thanks!
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)As I would have liked to give proper accreditation. I lost 300 books to a flood in a basement, including all the works of RAW and Terence Mckenna, my entire counter-culture collection, as well as almost all of my taoist text translations and some damn fine science fiction as well.
I have thus far only replaced perhaps a dozen of those books.
My own damn fault for trying to store hardcopy books in a basement, a mistake I have not since made.
patrice
(47,992 posts)drokhole
(1,230 posts)patrice
(47,992 posts)all of his life. Raised cradle Catholic, schooled by Jesuits at an all boys Catholic high school, but didn't go to church, veteran who just missed Viet Nam, read Alan Watts and used to say that he belonged to the church of the open-sky.
I loved that things AW said about the goal of any true church is to obsolete itself.
I know his point about money from more recent internet stuff about the history of banking and money, but I first understood the concept from the perspective of language, because of undergraduate studies in Absurdist literature that happened to coincide with course work in Chomsky's transformational grammar, which lead me to recognize that, like money, people habitually act as though words are not arbitrary. I am known to remind people that the word(s) they are using and the phenomena that the words ONLY refer to are NOT the same thing, not identical though everyone beats everyone else up all of the time as though they are. To me this often demonstrates a will to power that outranks the phenomenology that goes under the general label of "experience".
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)a fractal art piece featuring him on youtube.
He enabled me to see beyond what my European language structure would have limited severely.
He was the best "translator" of eastern thought to westerners that I have ever been made aware of.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)I know wealthy people who really did work hard, and ones who have never lifted a finger.
I also know people who busted their asses and remain sub-rich, people who had wealth and pissed it away, and poor people who are lazy.
I know people who have failed because of addictions or mental illness.
It takes The Village People to raise a child.
Mairead
(9,557 posts)Something that most people seem not to understand is that it doesn't matter whether some wealthy person "worked hard". What matters is whether their wealth comes from their personal creativity and labor, or from the creativity and labor of others. If it's from others, the fact that they "worked hard" is no justification for their wealth.
So, while your statement isn't an overgeneralisation, it too inaccurately describes reality.
ThomThom
(1,486 posts)thanks
Initech
(100,038 posts)In America our CEO pay is literally like 475:1. How do they get that? It's flat out thievery. And yet people still think it's OK to let them get away with it. The GOP has done a great job of trying to convince people that they'll be rich - but really they only work to serve the people who are already rich. And to prove it they're running a psychopathic vulture capitalist who has zero regard for human life - or any life for that matter.
Marr
(20,317 posts)The corollary of "the rich deserve to be rich because they worked hard" is that the working person themselves has not worked hard.
Hard work and wealth are two completely different things. I doubt that a man like Mitt Romney, for instance, was ever even exposed to the concept of selling his time and sweat. I grew up very poor, but in my professional life have mixed with some very wealthy people from time to time.
Their view of money is completely different from that of a working person. For wealthy people, it has nothing to do with "work". It's about assets and choosing where to place the wealth you already have (whether it's from your family or whatever). They don't "work" at all. And I have to say, to someone like myself, who was raised with that whole concept of money=sweat, the way wealthy people operate seems much more like a giant con-game than anything else.
dkf
(37,305 posts)Lack of money = spending.
Marr
(20,317 posts)What do you mean?
SunSeeker
(51,513 posts)Volaris
(10,266 posts)Example: Pay cash for everything you bye. (as in NEVER pay interest on it). That rich fucker who puts all of his monthly expenses on a no-limit A.Exp. card pays off the totality of the bill every month, and therefore, pays NO INTEREST on all the money he borrowed for the last 30 days. For the rest of us, this may not be as easy as it sounds, but I think we the little people have to at least TRY. INTEREST DUE is bad, bad, bad, bad.
Working JUST to pay bills is also bad, bad, bad. When R-Money goes out and makes a paid speech, you think he is doing that because he has a utility bill that needs catching up on? NO. We have to understand as they do, that if you have enough in the bank to live on for a month, that those 4 weeks you spend working anyway is a PROFIT MAKING endeavor for you. I know its damn hard for us little people to "get ahead" that way, but it CAN be done.
Don't let other people "rip you off". These rich fuckers think taxes and living wages are a form of theft being perpetrated upon them, we have to start thinking along those same lines. If your new barbecue is offered with a lifetime warranty for a little extra cash up front, get it, (Mittens will) 'cause for damn sure, that thing wont last through the second summer. Take whatever you can EVERY TIME you can, THEY know it saves money in the long run, that's why THEY do it
These are things that are NOT learned by people who got rich and then forgot how they got that way. These are ideas that are part and parcel to the financial inheritance that they will pass down to their KIDS.
Our elected politicians are not going to help us get our middle-class wealth back. If anything, THEY are the ones who sold it off to the rich without our consent in the first place. WE must do this on our own. If that means living like a poor person so my kid can go to college without having to pay that expense out of her own pocket, so be it. If I have to work and live like a pauper and save half a years salary so I can WORK for a year with NO expenses to make that happen, I WILL. If we want our middle class wealth handed back to our kids, we have to do it OURSELVES.
I'm sure the aggregate of creative minds around here can come up with other examples of how to think like "they" do, (but without sacrificing our souls in the process) and I would love to hear them.
And remember, THEY don't get rich (or STAY that way) unless the rest of us have disposable cash to keep putting in their pockets.
liberalnationalist
(170 posts)thats what working folk need to learn...people just like me...pay cash, don't do credit, by in bulk, save here and there and it adds up....and for christ's sake don't give anything to anyone rich unless you absolutely have to.
Volaris
(10,266 posts)is that if we really are trying to think like them, then why should we be afraid to fail at something and file bancruptcy? THEY most certianaly are not, why should it be different for any of us? They fuck up, they EREASE that debt, we fuck up, and are expected to pay it back? Hardly seems fair, does it?
The other thing I'm thinking is that attorneys are worth 10 times what they are paid, (in terms of possibility of living standard). If Mittens gets pulled over for something, you think he's actually going to pay that ticket at full price? NO. His LAWYER that he put on retainer is going to clear that little life problem FOR HIM.
I say these things because I've heard that being rich isn't so much about HOW much money you have, it's about how you THINK about the money you DO have access to.
handmade34
(22,756 posts)
I have a sister much like your friend... life has been extremely harsh with her and she still will argue that the wealthy deserve their money because they work harder 
I understand your rant and think about all those times I hear wealthy people tell me about the house "they just built" or some other thing "they" did when in reality it was the hard work of many people, architect, contractor, laborers, landscapers, etc. that did the work. I do know some wealthy people work hard, some don't. Some poor people work hard, some don't. ...and really, how do we judge what is hard work? I worked 10 times harder 20 years ago for a tenth of what I make monetarily right now! Seems to me we have created a society where much of what a person is (or worth) is luck, chance, knowing the right person and being in the right place at the right time. We have not really created a system where we can judge fairly and I think that is reflected in the irrational jealousy, hatred and stigmatizing of certain groups... e.g. people receiving SSI or some forms of Government assistance (but not all - some are celebrated)
saw a quote yesterday "A person's real wealth is what they are worth when they have lost all their money"
Wealth is made off the backs of less well off people and precious natural resources (that SHOULD be common goods) that should be regulated. Money has become very artificial and there is no basis in reality for what people "earn" or how it is used in this society
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)is able to amass a tremendous amount of wealth.
I do have an issue with those who inherit it and try to pass it off as earned.
handmade34
(22,756 posts)of course we have not agreed on what "a tremendous amount of wealth" is but I don't believe anyone can work hard enough or be creative enough to amass the kind of wealth that a number of people have (including Mitt Romney)... it is all very artificial and not based on any kind of rational thinking that makes a civil society work.
if the least worker makes $7.25/hour; what really does the wealthy person do that contributes to society to such an extent that that person is worth hundreds and thousands of times more?
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)handmade34
(22,756 posts)but... Bill Gates has not contributed anything that couldn't have been done by us collectively
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)a thousand people with an average IQ would not have been able to come up with the theories that one Eisenstein churned out.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)the argument you responded to.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)He practically stole DOS (written by others).
Was given his GUI by xerox park (or stole it from Jobs, who had it given him by xerox park, I don't remember which).
Mostly his skill set was to make sure code had an owner, that it was him, and that most of the market would have to pay dearly for what he "liberated".
Did the guys that wrote DOS contribute anything of value to society? I guess not, it was not they that profited from their contribution.
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)unless you believe no famous person is ever responsible for what they are credited with.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)Because that is Mittens plan. And her medicare as well. She can just live on what she can find and "work harder"
The level of mind control the RW have achieved is scary.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)Give an idiot someone to be better than and they'll rationalize anything.
Her disability check is "their money" too.
If her kid is supporting himself doing what he likes, he's good enough.
One other thing: if your primary source of income is "unearned" then you're not a hard worker.
Phhhtttt
(70 posts)police forces and judiciary.Why is it difficult to understand that they bludgeon us with their messaging 24/7,year in and year out.
The rubes are naturally going to believe the lie.If the citizens of this country don't seek the truth from places like this fine website
then they deserve everything coming to them.
"Tell me lies tell me sweet little lies."
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)It's money they steal, either legally or illegally, that I wont agree they deserve.
Also, I think the rich should be paying their share of the costs of running this country. They get to live here and use our roads, bridges and the stadiums we build, they should pay their fair share. They have a much bigger stake in having a good police dept, fire department, infrastructure than the poor.
Herlong
(649 posts)Do you have control her every thought? She's just a good honest person who has fallen on bad times. Love her for who she is; a relative who has fallen on bad times. Why do you want to dog her?
SunSeeker
(51,513 posts)It sure would be in her and our interest if we could figure out a way to make people like her see the light.
Herlong
(649 posts)Compare that to potential voters. I'll tell you one thing my daddy learned me.
I only understood like every three words, but he's family!
Comrade_McKenzie
(2,526 posts)
hack89
(39,171 posts)I know a guy who spent his life savings to open a dry cleaners. He worked his ass off for.20 years and now.has three stores. He employs 20 people and pays them well. He is wealthy and I think he deserves it.
liberalnationalist
(170 posts)he is really not wealthy, he has his money tied up in stores and paying people good..the difference between him and someone like Raw Money, is that Raw Money has been handed everything his whole life, like the other overclass bastards just like him
of course the dry cleaning guy deserves it, but if it was up to the republican party, the Wal Mart of dry cleaners would come to town, out price him and dry clean his clock.....just like the Mitt Raw Overclass Money's of the world.
n/t
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)Taitertots
(7,745 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)they are very good paying jobs.
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)Taitertots
(7,745 posts)$12 to $18 and hour is not "very good paying". $12/hour is near poverty for anyone who is supporting a family. It is well below the living wage for anyone who has a family to support.
hack89
(39,171 posts)is pretty good for a high school graduate in a low cost state.
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)That is not a "pretty good" wage and it certainly isn't "very good paying".
Sounds like your friend is only wealthy because other people have to accept near poverty wages to survive.
hack89
(39,171 posts)how else can you describe a man who spends $10k per employee to provide free health care. There is no place in America for such people.
Mairead
(9,557 posts)No matter how hard he has worked, it's the people who must work for him for less than their labor is worth that keeps him rich.
handmade34
(22,756 posts)
hack89
(39,171 posts)just how is that determined?
Mairead
(9,557 posts)The value of their labor is what they're being paid plus the increase in profit due to their work.
hack89
(39,171 posts)How wealthy would you permit him or her to become?
Mairead
(9,557 posts)If he wants it all, then it's only fair that he do all the work, too.
hack89
(39,171 posts)and he had the skill and talent to start, organize and grow his business. He created something out of nothing.
Mairead
(9,557 posts)and did risk everything to start and build the business. (Very few people do, but let's say he did)
How does that give him the right to skim value from other people's labor?
hack89
(39,171 posts)there are people with skills and talents that are valuable to other people. Why can't I, for example, sell my talents where I want? If I am paid what I consider a fair wage I don't care if my boss profits.
Mairead
(9,557 posts)Currently people have no choice. If they want to live they must sell their labor for less than it's worth.
But if we change the rules such that they need not sell their labor except when it's advantageous, that's a different story. I doubt many people would accept less than the value of their labor if they had such a choice.
hack89
(39,171 posts)Through 30 years of life.experiences and formal education I have skills that are in high demand. I get contacted at least once a.month by headhunters looking to lure me.away from my present job. And mine is not an unique situation in my industry.
Mairead
(9,557 posts)"Choice" includes the right to reject all offers. "NOTA". You didn't have that choice because none but the wealthy have that choice in the US. What you had was a "choice of evils", which is not quite the same thing.
hack89
(39,171 posts)what laws would you pass to prevent this?
Mairead
(9,557 posts)In other words, I'd make sure that both risk and profit were either concentrated or distributed.
The current corporate system concentrates the profit while distributing the risk, which is great for those getting the profit, but not so hot for anyone else. During good years the owners put more in their pockets, during bad years employees lose their jobs.
Socialist companies where everyone is an owner, such as those under the Mondragón umbrella, distribute both, so that in good years everyone gets more and in bad years, less. That kind of sharing is much healthier.
hack89
(39,171 posts)what is someone did not wish to be limited in such a manner?
Mairead
(9,557 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)the top jobs today did not exist 10 years ago. Today's kids will work jobs we have never thought of. How does your system allow that person with a new idea to start and grow a company to provide the jobs of the future?
There does not seem to be room for small business in your model. What if I start a small family run company that was so successful that it had to expand - what would happen? Does the state take away my company to run? Who determines the value of my company - will the state pay fair future value?
Mairead
(9,557 posts)There is no "had to expand". A balloon has to expand or burst, if you keep pumping air into it, but a business doesn't behave the same way. If a business expands, it's because the owner chose to try to get more money.
If we humans have a future, our socioeconomic world won't be like it is today. Huge industries are an artifact of "cheap" energy and a political system that lets the wealthy keep the profits while pushing the risks and costs onto the rest of us. They're like the dinosaurs - a product of their time, a time that is now running out.
Our current crazy way of life must end, too. We will no longer be able to afford bringing Clementine oranges from Spain, olive oil from Italy, and tomatoes from Bolivia to our tables in Boston or Minneapolis. That's madness. Nor will we be able to afford moving a 200 lb payload by first wrapping it in a ton of steel (or worse: 2 tons) and then moving the steel. Nor throwing out an otherwise good floor fan because the motor wore out. Nor paying a fortune to heat/cool our houses because they have inadequate insulation. Nor doing any of the other wasteful things we do because it's more profitable for the owner class.
That way of life got started during FDR's time. The wealthy looked at Nazi Germany and wanted to install fascism here. The poor looked at the USSR and wanted to install Communism. FDR wanted to save Capitalism, so his "brain trust" came up with the idea (this is documented) that the US would have a third way: the poor would get all sorts of "stuff" and feel rich while the wealthy would stay wealthy by providing it. The fact that it would wreck the world wasn't something they thought about. Or if they did, they didn't record what they thought about it.
Nearly all businesses all around the world since time out of mind have been cottage-sized craft businesses. Today's business theorists call them "lifestyle" businesses: they're a way to make a living pleasantly, with social rewards. That's what will be left when the industries go away. Instead of Triangle Shirtwaist firetrap-sweatshops, there'll be people who know how to sew clothing. There'll be people who know how to repair electric motors. There'll be people who know how to make computer chips. And so on. When something big, like a bridge, needs to be built or mended, everyone who knows how to do part of it will get together for the project.
Detroit is thought of as the icon of US industrialisation. Giant punch presses, huge assembly lines, showers of sparks from welding. Thousands of cars being turned out every day. Industry! Nobody thinks about the waste, just the glamour.
But Detroit is not the only way to build cars. A farming couple in Britain were going to go on holiday to Ireland some years ago. The woman happened to notice in the brochure for the ferryboat that vehicles with fewer than 4 wheels travel free. So, knowing that her spouse is a trained engineer who builds race-winning motorbikes, she suggested that he build them a 3-wheel car.
Four weeks later, they putt-putted off to the ferry in their brand-new cyclecar that he'd built from the ground up with his own two hands. He cannibalised a clapped-out Citroën 2CV for its engine, transmission, and running gear, but he built everything else. In FOUR WEEKS. You can see the car here: http://www.pembleton.co.uk/PMC.html. (The left and center photos. Like many people including me, he loves the '34 Morgan SS)
He has a nice little cottage industry selling the kits: you send him the bits from a 2CV and £995.- and you'll get by return of post the date on which you can come collect your welded space-frame, templates for cutting the aluminum skin, the modified parts to make your cyclecar, and full instructions for the build. If you don't want a 3-wheeler, you can get a 4-wheeler (rightmost picture) instead for £1150.-
We'll either have a non-industrial, non-Capitalist future, or we'll have no future at all.
hack89
(39,171 posts)you will not be able to restrain human nature.
Mairead
(9,557 posts)Contrary to the propaganda put about by the psychopathic elites, human nature is neither more nor less than personal adaptability.
We humans, unlike any other species we know about, are able to change our personal behavioral repertoires completely within our personal lifespans. We are extremely adaptable, serial processors of limited capacity. We have larger, more capable brains than those of our ape relatives, but they're still ape brains.
Research on identical twins raised apart (you can read about some of it here: http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/genetic/twin1.htm) has shown that about 40% of "who we are" is due to genetics, 60% to environment.
Humans routinely adapt to the most disparate types of lives, whether privileged penthouse in NYC, nomadic yurt in Mongolia, or a palm-thatched house on a beach in Polynesia.
Whatever the situation in which we find ourselves, we adapt. If it's a healthy, pro-social situation, we become healthier and more pro-social. If it's pathological and anti-social, we become more pathologised and anti-social. The people who ran the camps and ovens in Nazi Germany were not of a different species to those whose stomachs turned inside out in horror at the sight.
Right now, psychopaths are in charge. If we leave them in charge, they will be the death of us all. That's because they're impaired. They lack feelings of fear, empathy, and remorse. So it's not important to them whether we live or die. What's important is that they stay in power no matter what the cost (see Diamond's Collapse for a discussion of some civilisations that went belly-up because their ruling classes "were willing to kill everyone as long as they were the last to die"
.
So either we get rid of them and build a future without them -a future that would surely look very like the one I described- or they will get rid of us. It's our choice.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)When an employer provides healthcare, they do so by reducing your salary. And they get a better tax break for doing so.
Do you think we've all earned our social security? Should we get to keep it?
And then consider this ... we went to 2 wars ... wars we were told we needed to maintain our security ... well, who has more to lose ... a poor person or a rich person?
Clearly the rich person has more to lose, and so, they should pay more in taxes to protect it. But that's not what happened under Bush and the GOP. We spent a fortune on war, and the rich didn't have to pay for it ... in fact, that got HUGE tax breaks.
And now, the GOP wants to pay for the wars, by TAKING our social security, and giving it to the most wealthy ... and that won't be your friend, unless your dry cleaner friend makes over about 5 million in income each year (which if true, means he pays his employees way too little).
hack89
(39,171 posts)but he is not required to give it to them.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Many companies use that phrase to describe how an employ gets a salary, and other benefits, like healthcare, or job training.
Basically, the employee gives up some salary for those benefits, and those things combined are your "total compensation".
Generally, companies compete for employees using a total compensation model.
The GOP however, doesn't like the "competing for employees" part of this. Which is why for all their complaining about high unemployment, they actually prefer it.
High unemployment allows a company to lower wages and total compensation because you have more people competing for fewer jobs. This is also why the GOP likes outsourcing, and inaction on immigration reform.
More people competing for jobs means lower wages and fewer benefits for the working class.
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)I'd describe him as someone who has become wealthy by creating low paying jobs. The type of job that makes it difficult to raise a family and/or have any dream of comfortable retirement.
hack89
(39,171 posts)what laws would you pass to prevent this?
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)Universal single payer health care, progressive wealth taxation. A tax on businesses based on the ratio of highest paid to lowest paid. Tax capital gains as regular income.
hack89
(39,171 posts)a higher inheritance tax perhaps.
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)Taitertots
(7,745 posts)4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)sounds like he's making a decent living, providing both jobs to his community (at quite reasonable wages and benefits) and a service that is clearly wanted.
Net result: more wealth in the community and more leisure time for people who use his services.
Truly history greatest monster!
I'm guessing this person has less personal wealth than our current POTUS. Would you say Obama is a horrible exploitative slave owner because he has accumulated wealth?
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)"Net result: more wealth in the community and more leisure time for people who use his services. "
Only if you live in RW fantasy land where without exploitation there would be no jobs.
Your whole position depends on the RW lie that jobs wouldn't exist if we didn't allow ourselves to be exploited. Gobble up that RW bullshit all you want.
Net Result: One person gets rich, 20 people remain poor. Morons praise him because GDP went up.
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)chilling stuff.
Many laundromat workers in the US run off to work in the comparable freedom and luxury of a Chinese sweat shop or Chilean copper mine.
"Your whole position depends on the RW lie that jobs wouldn't exist if we didn't allow ourselves to be exploited. Gobble up that RW bullshit all you want. "
What is stopping you from organizing a co-op laundromat to compete? Please, bust your ass for 80 hours a week for years to set it up so that you can enjoy the exact same share of the profits as some guy who just showed up after the fact and applied for a job.
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)No one has any money because a tiny minority thinks they are entitled to it for allegedly working at some point in the past.
As if all the workers are not busting their asses that whole time. You are living in a RW fantasy where only the owners work hard and deserve compensation. So please, bust YOUR ass for 80 hours a week only to be told that you still get a below living wage.
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)Taitertots
(7,745 posts)How can anyone dream of using their life savings to start a business when wages are depressed to near poverty?
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)By that logic no one, ever has been in a position to start a company unless they were billionaires.
This is staunchly contradicted by things known as "facts".
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)"By that logic no one, ever has been in a position to start a company unless they were billionaires. "
Your position is only logical to someone who has already bought the non-sense RW binary way of thinking about inequality. You don't get to pretend that the only two choices are extreme inequality and total equality. The degree of inequality is something that is significant and can't be ignored.
Yes, people who are not billionaires have started companies. They did this when inequality was NOT excessively high. Now that inequality is excessively high we are seeing economic mobility has stopped.
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)Which past? A brief period in the 60s and 70s? For most our our history inequality has been far greater. Typically enshrined in law.
Don't think so? Go back in time and try to start a business as a black guy. Or a woman.
They did this when inequality was NOT excessively high. Now that inequality is excessively high we are seeing economic mobility has stopped.
That is untrue.
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)During that same time the groups that were not being systemically discriminated against had a high degree of economic mobility.
"Don't think so? Go back in time and try to start a business as a black guy. Or a woman. "
You have literally just proved everything I'm trying to tell you. When economic inequality is high, people can't start businesses. You agree with me, you just can't see it through your economic indoctrination.
It is a fact that economic inequality is very high. It is a fact that economic mobility has practically stopped. These are objectively determined figures based on quantitative analysis. That is the objective reality. You are being intellectually dishonest when you claim the objective facts are untrue because they don't meet your unsupported economic ideology.
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)preventing any sort of economic mobility and lament the loss of greater equality in the past.
Then the next post you claim it was worse in the past which proves your initial point.
You do realize you can't hold both ideas to be true at the same time right?
Also your claim that all economic mobility has stopped cannot be supported by the facts.
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)You are trying to combine two very different measures of economic activity.
One concept is general inequality.
The second is inequality between various groups in society.
You don't get to combine separate concepts just because you need it to support your economic ideology.
Economic inequality had undeniably negative effects for minorities and women. Why are you arguing that it doesn't have negative effects when it happens to everyone?
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)It boggles my mind how some peoples understanding of simple economics can be so completely wrong. If he paid them too much the business would not be profitable, if it wasn't profitable, say good bye to expansion, more jobs, more benefits and lastly, your job.
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)"If he paid them too much the business would not be profitable, if it wasn't profitable, say good bye to expansion, more jobs, more benefits and lastly, your job. "
Your whole narrative falls apart with the assertion that more profits=expansion. That is utter non-sense. If the money goes to the workers it doesn't disappear. That money creates other jobs when workers spend it. If anything having the workers spending money acts as a dramatically better economic stimulus, creating more jobs than the dry cleaner would have ever created.
The real economic interpretation is:
If he doesn't pay them enough they can't spend money on YOUR goods or services and YOU lose your job.
Marr
(20,317 posts)I'm sure he did work his ass off for it, and I hope he enjoys what he's built. But he's not wealthy. I don't care much dry cleaning his stores are doing.
Wealthy people don't work. They make money while laying by the pool. The system itself makes their money for them.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Last edited Sat Jun 9, 2012, 07:51 PM - Edit history (1)
One of the series of tests that my soon to be large corporate employer asked. I felt there were a definite statements made about what we call class warfare.
I missed two questions. I passed the test and all the other days of testing required. But I never forgot how wrong I thought the 'correct' answers for two were.
The first one I missed was a question very close to your OP. It was entitled, 'Who is dressed for work?'
There were images of five men dressed differently. One was a man in carpenter overalls with a hammer to one side, one dressed as a cook with an apron, another like a farmer with a shovel, another one looked like a sailor. The last was a man dressed in a business suit and tie.
My answer was the man in the overalls. As I was applying for blue collar job and was thinking of that. The 'correct' answer according to the corporate psychologist, was the man in the business suit.
I saw bias there. My father had in his life dressed for all those things, but as he got older he wore a suit as he owned his own business. It could be argued that the first three could have been at home and that the fourth was in the service. Only the suit had no other purpose to be worn, except at the office or maybe a pulpit.
So the carpenter and all the others were not considered be to going to work in the real world of serious people. Perhaps it is the attitude of the managers that those beneath them, doing that kind of work that we do with our bodies and sweat, is like a child playing in the dirt, that we are childish and we allow them to treat us that way, and we think they are being the adults.
That type of thinking was reflected in one manager who referred to us when doing our jobs as nothing but 'assholes and elbows.' In other words, the fact that we were not only doing physical work but technical work, that many of us had college, our work wasn't that valuable to him. We had a union and we told him where to put that attitude.
Later, the company used psychology to break our sense of camaraderie in the physical sense. We originally all met early in the morning in a common room before getting our work assignments from the different crew bosses in their shared room with the clerks. We discussed our lives together and felt ourselves to be a separate group from management, arranged for our next union meeting, discussed greviances and bidding on jobs.
The company then remodeled the place to separate us into teams, where we were with just our crew and our boss, to change our focus in the physical sense. This kind of change in physical environment has a bigger impact than many of us want to admit. You go from being free range to being confined...
The common area was totally eliminated, which is what the corporatists are doing to us right now by destroying public education, taking away all those places where people of many levels and social grouping can find a bond. They will funnel us into ever smaller groups to control, if we let them.
A sense of competition was encouraged as each work group had specialties. Individuals were then reflected by the personality of the different bosses, taking on those identities and attitudes. It was easy to get people to divide into teams, like sports franchises.
When the company came around and wanted to give the heavier and dirtier part of our work to unskilled contractors, mostly to immigrants, the guys saw that as a move up the social ladder. I was the steward and argued in our meeting that we would lose work, that eventually the higher skill jobs would go with it. But the guys went along with a few of those ego boosts and I was stuck arguing the other side.
The third line manager and I exchanged knowing looks at each other. He knew I recognized the technique, but the guys were thrilled getting that little pat on the head. We used to have a joke about the pat on the head for being a good boy, but when the big boss did it, they didn't see it.
Eventually, all their jobs were contracted out as I predicted. It was so very easy, to stroke those egos and get people to go with what was against their principles or even their best interests in the long run.
The egos of those who we see who are voting for the GOP are being stroked by the politics of division, better than gays, blacks, liberals, single mothers, sick, less educated, sinners, immigrants, etc.
It works so well because we accept that.
Okay, back to the test. The next question I had trouble with was more troubling when I realized what it assumed would be the reaction of a free people with self respect. It was pretty direct and I thought a shocking question with some situations described. It asked How do people react to having their rights denied?, and what it said as background reminded me of the struggles in Latin America and other places.
I thought the answer was obvious, being schooled in the American Revolution, the civil rights and labor rights movements. So I picked the answer that after being abused, They will resist and fight back.
The 'correct' answer was, They will be discouraged, give in and accept it.
Images and symbols are more powerful than words and reasoning in this world. Just as word document, a picture and a moving picture with sound take up differing amounts of space on our computer hard drive, so they do the same in the brain. The right has used all the Hollywood techniques to persuade, but laws and governance are not so easily explained, requiring examination of boring details and philosophical points. This is one of the problems progressives face with our piles of facts and charts that are not as tantalizing and easily absorbed as a meme.
Most who have seen and heard the doctrines of the right, keep these memes a level that has great staying power. You cannot reason with the subconscious, it is reactive. What is programmed there, is the master filter for the conscious mind. People are much like dogs, they run with the pack and accept the pecking order to survive when they don't have the luxury of time to think these things out.
As far as the religion angle, it was once taught in churches that the laborer must be paid quickly and fairly for the man employing them to be found right with God as it was said He hears the cries and prayers of the poor and will punish their oppressors. The right does not regard those verses seriously.
Also that a man's work is all that he has in life, to work and eat and rest is his lot in life, and it is a good life to live. It is good to have done with one's work for the day and then wake up to a new day refreshed and feeling healthy after using one's body well. And to care for each other is commanded, as well as paying one's taxes. Not with in the right's Bible.
We have decades of prosperity doctrine, a form of Calvinism closer to Ayn Rand than anything else. I recently stumbled onto some words by Derrick Jensen I saved some time back, about how hard the world will be, for good or ill, that I've been thinking on:
When we realize the degree of agency we actually do have, we no longer have to "hope" at all. We simply do the work...
Casey Maddox wrote that 'when philosophy dies, action begins.'
I would say in addition that when we stop hoping for external assistance, when we stop hoping that the awful situation we're in will somehow resolve itself, when we stop hoping the situation will somehow not get worse, then we are finally free — truly free — to honestly start working to thoroughly resolve it.
I would say when hope dies, action begins.
~Derrick Jensen, in Endgame Volume I: The Problem of Civilization, p.330.
Don't mean to be depressing, as he is, but we need to explore both the best and the worst and keep at it, is what I'm trying to say here, as we learn the problem.
Sorry to have been so long in my reply Rozlee, but that was what your post made me think. I understand your deep frustration, and tried to offer reasons and a solution. I'm not sure how to do it.
calimary
(81,110 posts)Sheesh. It did indeed telegraph a very obvious bias.
I find that true in every poll or survey I've taken - when the question "do you think America is on the right track or veering off in the wrong direction?" What I take from that is - the survey-takers are going to link the answer to that directly to the leadership in the White House. There is never a follow-up question asking why one would answer the way one does.
For example, my first instinct would indeed be to answer that question with "veering off on the wrong track." HOWEVER, I recognize that as being sorted into "country's off on the wrong track because Obama's fucking it up somehow." AND I DO NOT AGREE! That's NOT why I think the country's lurched off in the wrong direction. It's the CONS and the other extremists, foremost of which are the fucking teabaggers. I guarantee you - the poll-takers and interpreters will see that "wrong direction" answer and automatically assume, AND score it as "it's because of Obama."
EVERY TIME you find yourself invited to take a public opinion poll, keep in mind that you are thus being offered a chance to weigh in and let your voice influence the metric they're building. I got called by a Gallup phone poll one time. I jumped at the chance! Each single survey respondent in that one is viewed as representative of the thinking of 50-thousand others.
ALWAYS - CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!! As Mad-Eye Moody always warned Harry Potter. VERY wise words-to-the-wise.
You ALWAYS have to think, or TRY to think, like the enemy does. You ALWAYS have to think, or try to think, how those interpreting all the data (or the details or the inputs or whatevers) do.
ALWAYS try to out-think them, or think one or two or three steps ahead of them. Try to guess what they're really aiming for, what their motivation is, what they're looking for, what will ring their chimes. Like - if I'm not sure a poll or a survey is objective, then I'll try to make sure to avoid giving them input that they can interpret to benefit their bias. Sometimes they're looking for support or acclamation to buttress the conclusions they're already expecting to put forward in the end.
There's always some underlying reason or motivation. There's always some agenda. There's always some axe to grind.
I hate it, but that's what things have become.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)I find myself doing that the few times I've ever taken a phone poll, even if I didn't recognize it as such then. I just didn't like they way they seemed to be trying to pigeonhole answers and I have deliberately answered the opposite way I may have if I didn't think it through first because I was wary of how my answer might be "used".
Once at the DMV I was approached outside by a pollster asking If I was "concerned about my taxes going up". I asked him to clarify. Turns out he was a tool for a group that was ferociously opposed to building a planned light rail system. You know the type: The "we don't need no trains, that's the things big bad cities up north have, we'll can just cover the entire county in asphalt and get around in our SUVs" goons. Anyway, I said that I was more than happy to pay a tax for the building of a light rail system. In actuality it turned out to be a 1 percent increase in the sales tax. It was subsequently built, and it's great. But their asses are still chapped over it.
jaysunb
(11,856 posts)Absolutely spot on. I've heard many plausible explanations for people voting against their interest..and many seemed valid, but a "pat on the head," ties the the whole thing together.
Thank you. I'll never forget it.
Marr
(20,317 posts)The question you described, with the different outfits-- it doesn't even make sense unless it's just an incredibly ham fisted attempt at propaganda, as you took it. But that sort of thing is usually a lot more slick.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Lot of science, social and historical questions. There were a lot of things on the tests, including non-verbal tests and that was how they determined what jobs in the company we would be placed in. They preferred people with some college no matter what they were going to be doing later. Those were on a page of 50 questions. Also, this was 38 years ago, so by today's standards which you may be more familiar with, the questions would be considered crude.
After those I gave more conventional answers but on those two, I was struck by the biased underlying assumptions of those questions. Or maybe just because I was then, and still am, very liberal, the second question aggravated me a lot. I was having trouble getting work because I'd had to drop out of college 6 months before I got my B. S. for family reasons and people kept assuming I would quit and go back to college but I knew it wasn't going to happen.
So I got the job and they sent me for 6 weeks to the first school for the job. It was a chance to join a company union, receive training including further college, more than minimum wage, benefits, get other jobs, travel, move, etc. I got a real lesson in corporate politics, too. It was quite an adventure over all.
kentuck
(111,052 posts)Corporations have learned how to divide and control (conquer) with the concept of teams. If they have 500 people doing the same type of job, they will divide them into "teams" or departments of 25 or 30 and pit them against each other in a competitive environment by testing their productivity.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)I saw what was lost, the others did not, but then I was not much for team sports in school before that. Not that I didn't do okay there, but if I could do a sport that tested my own performance, I preferred always going for that 'personal best.' The competition being within oneself, that is.
Soon the company did more to divide people from the blue collar, clerical, inside and outside technical, paper shufflers, engineers, marketers, etc. People forgot they were employees of a corporation at all. Many began to think of themselves in terms of managers.
So advancement was less in terms of more measurable criteria than who curried favor with the bosses. By the time we went on strike as they cranked down on benefits, started a two-tier system of wages and benefits for existing versus new hires, instead of welcoming them into the fold, they were seen as less valuable workers. They weren't.
Those who scabbed in the strike I was in, got special treatment for dropping out of the union to come in, but we still had to represent them in their future troubles with the company. In a way, if we want to look at the team method being used, the union was team, too.
But we also had union leaders who were beginning to get special treatment as management began paying them for all kinds of meetings and giving them perks that regular workers did not get. They became lukewarm in their work and eventually a lot of people didn't want to be in the union anymore.
Now the trusts holding the retirement benefits are giving out notices that those pensions may not come to pass for the older tier of workers. Not that 401ks served those I know who worked in salaried or non-union jobs any better. They were all robbed years ago. It's been a 'every man for himself' mentality which doesn't fit Democratic politics.
kentuck
(111,052 posts)...the environment they work in and how they are manipulated?
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)I've experienced and witnessed much of the cliche high-handedness of corporate culture; but none laid so bare and with such arrogance as that. If you don't mind my asking; what sort of business is that company?
freshwest
(53,661 posts)lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)begin_within
(21,551 posts)kentuck
(111,052 posts)Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much higher consideration.
Abraham Lincoln, 1861
freethought
(2,457 posts)It seems as much a function of who you know and how well and with whom you have networked.
One should tell this relative that CEOs make 500 times the pay of an average worker. Does she truly believe that CEO work 500 times harder? Would it even be possible to work 500 times harder? Besides what's wrong with being a mechanic? A surprising number of people don't have a clue as to how to change their motor oil never mind do a complicated engine repair. My father was, at various times in his adult life, a welder(working in a shipyard during WWII), auto worker, carpenter, and construction worker.
If Mitt Romney worked THAT HARD to earn his money he would be a cripple, mentally ill, or both.
Also point out this: How would our economy function if everyone was a lawyer, doctor, accountant, or other professional? Who would drive the trucks that deliver goods to damned near everywhere? Who would build the roads, bridges, buildings, homes and other infastructure? Who would fix things when they break down. If everyone was a professional, our world would collapse.
Tell her to do herself and the world a favor and turn off Faux News!
CBHagman
(16,981 posts)You don't have a product to sell without the people who create it. You don't have a building to work in without the people who maintain and clean it.
Outside the office or the plant or the school or whatever, we all depend the bus and train driver, and the mechanic, and the EMT people, and the letter carrier.
12AngryBorneoWildmen
(536 posts)
the wealthy in this country have done a great job of convincing everyone that being rich is great. Encouraging individualism, then driving wedges between those categories is the way they keep everyone busy fighting while they rob us blind.
Until we can put aside the labels and realize that so-called "middle" income and "working class" have the same interests we are doomed. This is where the importance of unions came in - they forced folks to focus on class. So, the rich attacked unions and have been very successful at driving them out and demonizing them with multi-million dollar ad campaigns.
It is not that individual rich folks are necessarily "bad" or even that they haven't "worked hard" - it's that this economic system called capitalism only rewards greed and the very few at the top. It's not humane and it needs to go.
Karmadillo
(9,253 posts)free-market system."
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aKGZkktzkAlA
Obama Doesn’t ‘Begrudge’ Bonuses for Blankfein, Dimon (Update1)
Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay.
The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is “an extraordinary amount of money” for Main Street, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.”
“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.”
more...
secondwind
(16,903 posts)nowadays, the government is an evil entity out to take your last dollar and give it to someone else. What a crock!
We spend approx. 70 billion on welfare, that gets the Baggers all tied up in knots, and yet we spend about ONE TRILLION on corporate welfare, oil subsidies, etc.
And they are okay with this!
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)rather, inheritance, i.e., wealth passed along from prior generations to the current one. To wit, 6 heirs to the WalMart fortune between them control as much wealth as, that's right, the bottom 30 MILLION AMERICANS. They did not 'work' for that money. They are 'heirs.'
In fact, probably more wealth is generated as a return to capital than from labor. But I'm just guessing on that.
GoCubsGo
(32,074 posts)I don't know how they find the energy to get up and do that day after day. No doubt they keep the Gatorade makers and deodorant companies in business, too, with all that sweat they generate.
Meiko
(1,076 posts)The meaning seems to change every time there is a discussion about it. I think we need some ground rules on how much is too much before we start taking peoples money away from them.
Mairead
(9,557 posts)Someone like a popular author, whose wealth results from people freely buying her books, is much more deserving of her wealth, no matter how much it is, than the CEO of a computer manufacturer.
And the computer CEO is more deserving than the CEO of an insurance company
And the insurance CEO is more deserving than, say, a armaments manufacturer or a currency speculator
I think I'd be hard-pressed to say which is worse between a bomb-maker and a currency speculator.
crunch60
(1,412 posts)bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)The teabaggers have a personality disorder. They only see the importance of themselves.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Yeah, I believe that.
Kablooie
(18,610 posts)
barbtries
(28,769 posts)it's something i think about quite a bit, and i share your frustration. there are only 24 hours in a day after all, and all kinds of work have to be done. it's obscene what has gone on and is going on in this country with regard to the collection of wealth. it's being siphoned from the great masses of people into the hands of a few greedmeisters and the media cheers this along.
ctaylors6
(693 posts)I find that when I have discussions like that with right-wing relatives/friends, that we can often be talking about very different levels of "wealthy."
The income cutoff for the top 1% has been roughly $350,000-$375,000 the past several years. That's very "wealthy" to most people I know, but it's usually the self-employed, doctor, attorney, etc. people. I could see how someone like your relative would think they "earned" whatever they made.
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)at 300k per year you have to work to maintain your lifestyle.
They may be lumped together but someone earning that amount has far more in common with a person earning 50,000 than they do with someone worth billions.
mainer
(12,018 posts)How you view it really depends on where you are in the wealth scale. Many people worth 1 - 5 million don't consider themselves wealthy. And compared to Mitt Romney, they certainly aren't.
ctaylors6
(693 posts)mean income for one particular year? over many years? accumulated savings?
I wonder what many people would consider my in-laws "wealthy." She's a now retired school teacher, and he was an office worker at a big fortune 50, blue chip company. He didn't have a college degree and was never close to being an executive. He worked at a time when the pensions and benefits were great. They are very thrifty and saved tons of money. When he retired, he received a lump sum payment for his pension. I know she received some kind of pension but don't remember specifics. At one point, they probably had $500,000 in investments and savings after they both retired, maybe more.
Half a mil seems like a ton of $ to me, but I wonder what others think. I'm sure their tax rate is quite low - it'd be SS and investment earnings.
I know a few people who've made lots of money when the small technology company they worked for went public. They were maybe making about $80,000 - $100,000 per year as IT specialists then in one year made over $500,000 from IPO. They socked it away that year then went back to making their normal salaries in other years.
haele
(12,640 posts)If they were making $500K a year income - revenue after costs if they were a small business owner, of course, that means that they can probably sock away money they don't spend to the tune of $100K. $500K in the bank is not "wealthy" - my Mom has $600K invested and the house is paid off, which gives her a net "worth" of near a million dollars if she were to liquidate. But at 72 years old, if she were to cash it in to live large on that money plus her pensions and social security - even if she planned on pegging her living to $100K a year - she'd only have at most 10 years before she would have had to drop back down to what might be left of her pension and social security.
So she keeps it in the bank for an emergency, like long term care.
Even a million dollars in a bank will only give you about $40K a year interest income if you invested it wisely. A nice bonus if you're working to keep you going, but most people will just plow through the principle buying what they think they need before the money disappears.
It's the "income" part that determines if you're wealthy or not. That's why the federal government doesn't start looking to add inheritance taxes until an individiual recieves a value well over a million dollars.
Haele
OnionPatch
(6,169 posts)"When I was growing up, my elders and betters actually taught many of us that all labor was good as long as it was honest labor."
We'll never have real change until our society believes this again. It blows my mind how many Americans have been talked into believing it's A-Okay that vast segments of our society work hard all day for next to nothing. Apparently they believe the wealthy are "entitled" to the extremely cheap labor that helps make them rich.
I don't know how so many conservatives square this with their Christian beliefs.
treestar
(82,383 posts)though even hard years could be due to weather and nothing to do with how hard people worked. It was to make work a virtue and get people to do it at a time when they could easily live off of the land if they chose.
Just doesn't apply now. The poorer people actually work harder.
kentuck
(111,052 posts)..then the wealthy person is probably a thief, a manipulator of currencies, or a dependent on some sort of bailout from the taxpayers, or all of the above...
Sirveri
(4,517 posts)That's the bottom line. If we didn't actually do any work, they wouldn't have any products to sell. Then they wonder why we get pissed when we only get paid 10-25% of the wealth we create, so they try to brainwash us to say that we don't need that wealth.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Working 3 jobs to make ends meet is "laziness".
Hugabear
(10,340 posts)I don't care what they've done, what they've invented, how many jobs they've "created". Nobody deserves to be paid millions upon millions of dollars per year. IMHO, the word "billionaire" should not even exist, because we shouldn't even need it.
When there are still so many people around the world who are going hungry, unable to afford basic necessities, unable to obtain a decent education, living in absolute squalor - you cannot tell me that some guy wearing a suit "deserves" to be rich.
Nikia
(11,411 posts)If you have enough money though, you don't have to work hard or at all, for that matter, to continue to make a lot of money. I think that is a problem, you do have some private business owners working 80 hours per week for their $500,000-$2 million or so that they are making. Yes, they could make less and give their workers raises. They might be able to work less if they hired someone to help them with their duties. If they only cared about the money though, they would be much better off, in many cases, selling the company to some multinational corporation and investing their money so they could make that without having to do any work at all.
I am not saying that such people who work hard anyway are necessarily virtious. In many cases, they increased their own salaries much more than their workers as their business has grown. In some cases, they are real tyrants who won't hire management type people to help them because they couldn't stand to give that level of control to anyone, and would never sell their business because they enjoy having so much control. The point is though that some people working hard could make as much money not working. I think that it is becoming a real problem when people can make more money than actually working. The right says that this is a problem of the poor but it is definitely an issue with the rich.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)money doesn't grow on trees. however, if you are a master money launderer like some (not mentioning any names) then you would love to keep your "hard-earned cash. It's called greed.
Hippo_Tron
(25,453 posts)Just as many non-wealthy people have worked hard and many non-wealthy have not.
I have no desire to "punish" anyone's success as the Mitt Romney's of the world would claim. I just believe that society's resources should be distributed in a manner that gives everyone what's outlined in FDR's second bill of rights. After that, if there's money leftover for mansions and private jets (and there will be), the wealthy are free to indulge in them with no complaints from me.
GCP
(8,166 posts)Who knew 
kentuck
(111,052 posts)Wealthy people's money works for them. They don't worry about 8 hours in a work day. They don't do labor like working people. Sometimes their greed knows no bounds. So they make more money so they can buy another man....
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Seems we give so much weight to the imaginary constructs which better validate our lives (religion, economics, philosophy, arts, etc.), argue endlessly over the imaginary, begin wars over the imaginary, and base our lives almost wholly on the imaginary, and yet rationalization yo ourselves why some others do or do not deserve the quite real concept of hunger and disease.
dionysus
(26,467 posts)people like Mitt, and The Donald... not so much...
bu even if they earned it fair and square; gotta pony up your fair share of taxes.
librechik
(30,673 posts)As far as they are concerned, anyone who punches a clock or lives hand to mouth should just get a better job. What is the matter with them? He did it, after all (oops, his job is no longer available, sorry!--oh, well of course it was a friend of his dad's that got him the job, but now he fills out forms and has meetings 6 hours a day! hard work!)
supraTruth
(496 posts)ANYmore!
NEVER forget it!
Herlong
(649 posts)As much as we deserve congress sending our children to war on lies when they feel like it!
Ghost of Huey Long
(322 posts)How many of you remember the first thing that the Declaration of Independence said? It said: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that there are certain inalienable rights for the people, and among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" and it said further, "We hold the view that all men are created equal."
Now, what did they mean by that? Did they mean, my friends, to say that all men are created equal and that that meant that any one man was born to inherit $10,000,000,000 and that another child was to be born to inherit nothing?
Did that mean, my friends, that someone would come into this world without having had an opportunity, of course, to have hit one lick of work, should be born with more than it and all of its children and children's children could ever dispose of, but that another one would have to be born into a life of starvation?
Herlong
(649 posts)In America, I get it, it's time. When a man needs a glass of water, don't walk away, because you never know who will be the one to bring to YOU the last drop of water to drink.
