Quote from: John Morrow;222227...with a sense of entitlement.  Yes.  It happens.

Of course, under a social welfare system, there's no sense of entitlement, there's entitlement.

QuoteNo, the better off should help them get out of poverty.  People support children, dependents, pets, and slaves and that's exactly what the poor become when they are simply supported.  People should not be encouraged to exist like potted plants.

Read my last paragraph again, John.

QuoteIn my experience, conservatives are not opposed to giving help to the disadvantaged, they are opposed to the government doing it and making it mandatory.  And they also realize that the rich do help those with less when they start businesses, make purchases of big-ticket items that require a lot of craftsmanship to manufacture, and hire staff to take care of their property and family.  If nobody was wealthy enough to buy a yacht, then nobody would have skilled work as a yacht builder.

They stay wealthy by paying shit money. You know it and i know it.

How is it in the current fuel crisis that petrol companies are making record profits?

Quote from: Jackalope;222236All welfare does is help secure the position of all those assholes who already have the money and the power.

That's the irony of Morrow's viewpoint. Implement his ideas and we'd have a revolution.

Quote from: One Horse Town;222241Of course, under a social welfare system, there's no sense of entitlement, there's entitlement.

Are we talking about legal entitlement or moral entitlement?

Quote from: One Horse Town;222241Read my last paragraph again, John.

Yes, and there is a disconnect between the idea of supporting the poor and erring on the side of being too generous and the goals of your last paragraph.

Quote from: One Horse Town;222241They stay wealthy by paying shit money. You know it and i know it.

So you feel it has nothing to do with hard work because the rich don't actually work hard or do anything that anyone else couldn't do, right?

I highly recommend reading Thomas Sowell's writing on Middleman Minorities.  A pretty comprehensive example from one of his books can be found here.  People resent those who make profits distributing materials and goods because people predictably don't think of effort involved in making a business operate properly as "work" even though they'd be unable to run a business properly themselves if placed in that role.  Given your point about companies paying crap money in order to make money and stay wealthy, why is it that management positions, including middle-management positions that the "little guy" can work into, pay well?  If it's so easy to manage a business, couldn't they just hire random schmucks off the streets at minimum wage to do it for a lot less?  Or maybe if managing business is a useless parasitic activity, they could do without?

Quote from: One Horse Town;222241How is it in the current fuel crisis that petrol companies are making record profits?

I'm going to oversimplify but let's see if this makes any sense.  10% of $1.00 is $0.10.  10% of $4.00 is $0.40.  Thus if they sell 1000 gallons of $1.00 gas at a 10% profit, they'll earn $100.  If they sell 1000 gallons of $4.00 gas at a 10% profit, they'll earn $400 or 400% what they'd earn at $1.00 a gallon.  On a more basic level, it's more profitable to trade in something that is rare and is insufficient to meet demand that something that's a common commodity that you can get anywhere.  It's easier to sell gold at a high profit than gravel.

Quote from: droog;222244That's the irony of Morrow's viewpoint. Implement his ideas and we'd have a revolution.

Then we should implement his ideas!  Sometimes I think the only way to fix the system is to break it so badly that it explodes under its own weight.  Sure, it's messier that way, and you waste a lot of time rebuilding, but I don't think the liberal establishment has it in them to make any sort of real systematic change that might improve things.

Quote from: John MorrowWhy do you find it more preferable (and realistic) to overcome poverty by requiring employers to pay their employees more involuntarily, which will blah blah blah...

I don't recall saying I was in favor of the minimum wage or minimum wage increases.

QuoteYou do realize that requiring businesses to spend more money inevitably gets passed on to consumers, making it a sort of sales tax, one of the most regressive forms of taxation there is, right?

Sure John, I have a pretty firm grasp of basic economics.

QuoteBut my main point is that if you really believe that checkout clerks, food service workers, stocking clerks, waiters, landscapers, and so on are worth more than they are being paid, then why don't you just give them some extra money yourself? Tip them 50% of your bill. Slip them a $5. Give them some of your money.

Well, John, the real issue isn't the checkout clerks, food service workers, stocking clerks, waiters, landscapers, and so on.  Since yesterday was the 4th of July, let's say that -- today -- the real issue is the children who are forced to pack fireworks in dangerous conditions.

Maybe tomorrow the issue will be something different.

QuoteYeah, that's worked out well every time it's been tried (and it has been tried many times).

Yeah, you'd think rich people would learn something from the fact that it keeps happening.  It's no surprise that desperately poor people don't, since, you know, they tend to lack a strong educational background.

That's changing though, as guerrilla education becomes more common.

Quote from: John Morrow;222250People resent those who make profits distributing materials and goods because...

Should I go on?  I could go on for a really long time.

People resent people with a lot of money and power because people with a lot of money and power use their money and power to cheat, rob, steal, and fuck over everyone else.  People with money and power fail upwards.  People with money and power have fucking obnoxious stupid children that are a carbuncle on the soul of humanity.

People resent the rich and powerful because they have obnoxious cocksuckers around like you to defend their virtuous natures, when we all know that they are in fact a bunch of fucking assholes.

I don't care how fucking hard it is to run a multinational corporation.  If you're living like a pig while the people who work for you are fucking dying, then you're an asshole, you deserve a bullet in the face, end of story.   We'll sort it out later.

Quote from: John Morrow;222250I highly recommend reading Thomas Sowell's writing on Middleman Minorities.  A pretty comprehensive example from one of his books can be found here.  People resent those who make profits distributing materials and goods because people predictably don't think of effort involved in making a business operate properly as "work" even though they'd be unable to run a business properly themselves if placed in that role.

That article is primarily about 'minorities'. As Sowell seems to recognise, indigenous middlemen do not suffer the same sort of disapprobation. It's a very old story: Edward I expelled the Jews from England.

This has a lot to do with the way in which those same minorities are exploited by ruling classes, as well as the fact that the middle classes are always squeezed between capital and labour. Never mind 'resentment'. How about the way in which small business is choked off by larger and more efficient business?

Quote from: Jackalope;222251Then we should implement his ideas!  Sometimes I think the only way to fix the system is to break it so badly that it explodes under its own weight.  Sure, it's messier that way, and you waste a lot of time rebuilding, but I don't think the liberal establishment has it in them to make any sort of real systematic change that might improve things.

Of course they don't. They call for more policemen instead.

Anyway, ideologues like Morrow doesn't realise their position. They are the modern equivalent of the toady.

Quote from: Jackalope;222251Well, John, the real issue isn't the checkout clerks, food service workers, stocking clerks, waiters, landscapers, and so on.  Since yesterday was the 4th of July, let's say that -- today -- the real issue is the children who are forced to pack fireworks in dangerous conditions.

And according to that article, those fireworks are consumed domestically.  In my state, private use of even sparklers without a license is illegal.  So why is America responsible for the abuse of Indian children to pack fireworks used in India?  Isn't that the Indian government's problem to solve?  I could also ask where the parents are but I'm also aware that there is far worse in India (intergenerational indentured servitude).

Quote from: Jackalope;222251Maybe tomorrow the issue will be something different.

Of course.  It conveniently never ends.

Quote from: Jackalope;222251Yeah, you'd think rich people would learn something from the fact that it keeps happening.  It's no surprise that desperately poor people don't, since, you know, they tend to lack a strong educational background.

The poor don't rise up because they generally aren't as desperate as you make them out to be.  Desperate is what my father saw in China between the end of WW2 and the communist takeover when the people were people on boats collected the garbage from his ship and auctioned it off to hungry people on shore who were otherwise eating dirt and grass.  There is a reason why most communist revolutions have been supported by poor unhappy farmers rather than poor unhappy factory workers.

Quote from: Jackalope;222251That's changing though, as guerrilla education becomes more common.

It's called "propaganda" and, yes, the uneducated are particularly vulnerable to it.  That doesn't mean that they'll be better off.  History suggests that they odds are good that they'll wind up worse off, if not dead.

Quote from: Jackalope;222252People resent the rich and powerful because they have obnoxious cocksuckers around like you to defend their virtuous natures, when we all know that they are in fact a bunch of fucking assholes.

I don't care how fucking hard it is to run a multinational corporation.  If you're living like a pig while the people who work for you are fucking dying, then you're an asshole, you deserve a bullet in the face, end of story.   We'll sort it out later.

Just to be sure, there are business owners who do not "live like pigs while the people who work for them are fucking dying" then? I mean, is this a case that if you have any wealth you are evil? It sure sounds like it but I almost think it is a joke, seriously, no snark intended. I am having trouble believing either you or droog are interested in honest discussion since if you were truly this angry at any form of wealth, you would not have a computer, you would not have power to run the computer, you would be living on the street and begging for food. I know, that is an extreme but you are raging the machine something fierce here and painting a pretty simple picture. I am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt but you really sound like you are trolling.

Let me point out that I think the folks you pointed to are pretty heinous and shallow as well but I also don't think money makes you evil. Being poor does not make you virtuous. Evil knows no class distinction.

Bill

Quote from: Jackalope;222252Should I go on?  I could go on for a really long time.

Please do.  And what percentage of rich people are you going to post pictures of?  Of the pictures you did post, Paris Hilton's grandfather pledged 97 percent of his estate to charity upon his death and much lot of the money she makes is because people seem to want to watch her.  Kenneth Lay was born poor and delivered newspapers and mowed lawns as a child.  He figured out how to get rich and then got greedy and got caught.  He seems like a case study in both the American dream (a poor kid rising to wealth) and the system working (he was indicted for his role in Enron's collapse).  Jack Abramoff was indicted and convicted during the Bush Presidency.  I'm sorry if I don't have the knee-jerk left-wing boogeyman reaction to these people that you seem to expect.

Quote from: Jackalope;222252People resent people with a lot of money and power because people with a lot of money and power use their money and power to cheat, rob, steal, and fuck over everyone else.  People with money and power fail upwards.

Really?  Is that why Kenneth Lay was indicted?  Is that way Jack Abramoff is in jail?  

Quote from: Jackalope;222252People with money and power have fucking obnoxious stupid children that are a carbuncle on the soul of humanity.

And most of those children wind up squandering their inheritance.  Rich families are the business equivalent of royal lines and just as you inevitably get a bad king that throws it all away, you inevitably get a bad heir that throws it all away.

Quote from: Jackalope;222252People resent the rich and powerful because they have obnoxious cocksuckers around like you to defend their virtuous natures, when we all know that they are in fact a bunch of fucking assholes.

It's not a matter of virtuous natures.  It's a matter of appreciating the role that they serve and that the alternative is worse for everyone, including the poor.

Quote from: Jackalope;222252I don't care how fucking hard it is to run a multinational corporation.  If you're living like a pig while the people who work for you are fucking dying, then you're an asshole, you deserve a bullet in the face, end of story.   We'll sort it out later.

Of course we will.  You care so very much that the people working for the multinational corporation but are totally indifferent to the thousands and millions who have died "sorting it out later".  What that tells me is that your concern about the poor is really a side-show and your top priority is getting the rich because they personally offend you, even if you have to let plenty of poor people suffer or die in the process of getting them.  And people wonder how things like the Khmer Rouge happen...

Quote from: John Morrow;222259Of course.  It conveniently never ends.

:thanx:

That made my day.

Quote from: droog;222255That article is primarily about 'minorities'.

The article is about the resentment of a specific type of minority -- those involved in running businesses that are often accused of exploiting the poor.

Quote from: droog;222255As Sowell seems to recognise, indigenous middlemen do not suffer the same sort of disapprobation. It's a very old story: Edward I expelled the Jews from England.

Sowell writes, "However, in a worldwide perspective, the most hated kinds of minorities are often not defined by race, color, religion, or national origin. Often they are generically "middleman minorities," who can be of any racial or ethnic background, and in fact are of many."  If you read the critiques leveled at middleman minorities, they are almost identical to the critiques being leveled at "the rich" because the origin of the resentment is the same.  

As Sowell writes in his book Race and Culture about the same general topic:

   Whatever the race or culture of the middlemen, they have aroused suspicions, resentments, and misunderstandings in the most disparate societies around the world.  Even where they were not a distinct minority at all, the very functions they performed have been misunderstood and the people performing them condemned.  Selling the same product for more than it cost the seller has been seen as morally objectionable, and requiring more money to be repaid than was lent originally has been condemned in both secular and religious laws.  Merchants were held in low esteem in Confucian China and usury was outlawed in both the Christian societies of medieval Europe and the Moslem societies of North Africa and the Middle East.  A common complaint among the colonial officials of West Africa during the imperialist era was that there was excessive petty trading going on among the Africans, who would be more productive if transferred into either industry or agriculture.  Yet a noted economist who studied the economy of the region found that these African petty traders performed essential and valuable services, which he analyzed in detail and concluded: "If the traders were superfluous, and their services unnecessary, the customers would bypass them and save the price of their services, that is, the profit margin of the intermediaries."  Many of these supposedly redundant African petty traders camped outside European-owned stores, so the alternative of eliminating the middleman was readily at hand, had the African consumers chosen to buy in the standard quantities sold by European merchants, rather than purchase in the smaller quantities offered by African traders who would sell "a single drop of perfume, half a cigarette or a small bundle of ten matches."

The problem is that people resent the idea of people getting rich doing "business", making money by moving goods and money around rather than actually making, mining, or growing something directly.  It doesn't seem fair and triggers a sense of moral outrage that make people hate the middleman minority or, more generally, businesspeople and the rich.

Quote from: droog;222255This has a lot to do with the way in which those same minorities are exploited by ruling classes, as well as the fact that the middle classes are always squeezed between capital and labour.

In my experience, when the people in the middle class chose to invest capital and take entrepreneurial risks, they can become rich.  Many middle class people, myself included, are simply averse to the risks involved in investments and entrepreneurial business.

Quote from: droog;222255Never mind 'resentment'. How about the way in which small business is choked off by larger and more efficient business?

I agree that's a problem but the small businesses are not simply choked off by the efficiencies of larger businesses.  In the United States, anyway, it is the large businesses that support increases in the minimum wage, increased worker protections, increased reporting, and so on because the large businesses are better able to use absorb the costs related to all of those mandates than small businesses.  So government can also be used as an instrument by big business to bludgeon small businesses under the guise of helping workers, the poor, and the disadvantaged.

ADDED: I should add that the whole "middleman minority" issue is great fodder for role-playing settings and adventures.

Quote from: Jackalope;222266That made my day.

And, predictably, you make a pointless comment about a minor comment rather than addressing the main points of my reply.  Yeah, that's a real testament to the soundness of your arguments.

Quote from: HinterWelt;222260Just to be sure, there are business owners who do not "live like pigs while the people who work for them are fucking dying" then? I mean, is this a case that if you have any wealth you are evil? It sure sounds like it but I almost think it is a joke, seriously, no snark intended. I am having trouble believing either you or droog are interested in honest discussion...

I can't have honest discussions about politics and economics with most people, because people REALLY get caught up in little boxes and can't even comprehend really radical ideas.  I won't even try to discuss what I really think when there are morons like John around.  He's the kind of guy that you can't say "worker ownership' around without him accusing you of being a goose-stepping communazi.  Probably has no idea who Ben Tucker is.

Anyways, no, I don't mean anyone who owns a business.  My ire is reserved primarily for the ultra-wealthy top 1% who own the majority of the world (and the governments) and let people starve and die, when there are so many ways that the free market could better serve people.

Quote from: John Morrow;222268The problem is that people resent the idea of people getting rich doing "business", making money by moving goods and money around rather than actually making, mining, or growing something directly.  It doesn't seem fair and triggers a sense of moral outrage that make people hate the middleman minority or, more generally, businesspeople and the rich.

This is so fucking laughable.  I feel sad for you that you really believe this nonsense.