Why do we equate money with success?

[camero]

I have been reading the post regarding wages and most of the people opposed justify thier arguments by equating money with success. The idea that saying thier should be a limit to money is not necessarily a limit on success. It really shows how materialistic our society has become.

Really now, People like Gandhi and Mother Theresa took vows of poverty. Philosophers like Plato and Socrates were poor a good portion of thier lives, along with Picasso and Bach. But we remember all these people as accomplishing great things.

Now we don't consider someone a success unless they have multi-million dollar contracts and endorsments or live in huge fancy houses. Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and other greats played for a pittance of what we have now.

IMO, money is not a measure of success, just a means of exchange depending on what the society values. Alot of times it isn't intelligence or effort or maybe good looks but social connections, which is very dangerous for a democracy.

Limiting the amount of money a person can earn in one form or another is not punishing success but curtailing influence so that no one person can have too much of it.

Let the debate begin.

[AP]

1. I equate money with not being hungry, with having a dignified life, and

with having a little political power, autonomy, and capacity for exercsing my rights in a democracy.

Have you ever tried to eat or barter with the satisfaction of a job well done? I'd rather have the money.

You leave out MLK from your list of great humanitarians. He was fighting for the rights of blacks to participate in the economy and get a fair wage, and get a slice of the American pie.

Remember Gandhi's homespun cloth and salt march. That was all about Indians controlling their economy and about having wealth flow inwards, rather than to London and Edinburgh. It was about jobs, and dignity and money.

So, Happy Labour Day!!!!!!!!

[camero]

3. After a certain amount of money

You are not necessarily taking food out of your mouth because we pretty much all eat the same.

Having a choice of satifaction and being rich, I'll take satifaction.
It feels alot better than gorging on my own ego to see if I can earn more than the next guy. And I have been hungry for days at times, thank you.

[AP]

6. Ok, but once you're rich and stop working, don't expect

to get a free ride.

Work should be rewarded. If you want to keep working and keep making money, that should be rewarded. Nobody should be deterred from creating value for society.

I believe in the safety net, definitely (because removing the fear of starvation, death and debtor's prison allows people to take bigger, more socially rewarding risks). But I don't believe in a social safety net for the rich.

[camero]

9. Money does not create value for society

Ideas do. Goodness does. And much of the time in my cab, I deliberatly cap my income so others can make money.

[Aqua]

22. Money does create value

Sure you have an idea for a grand product which will benefit all of society, but without money that idea will remain just that. Without the goodness of people donating their time and MONEY, charity will not exist and the goodness of people will not shine through.

[Pepperbelly]

25. well ... the milk of human kindness with the rich has grown quite thin...

I know a lot about this. I work with it.

[camero]

26. But most of the time

I don't need this "value" to survive. I can live without my cell and computer or a large house. But I can't live without things like, food, water, medicine, or standard housing. And when we make too much money, we deny others those very same things.

[Aqua]

33. Deny?

Do you have a cell, a computer and a large house? I know you at least have a computer so if you can survive without it why don't you? Give the $1,000 you would spend on your next computer to a charity since you don't need it to survive. Of course you probably won't because a computer is a luxury you enjoy after working many hours to earn the money which pays for said computer.

You say that once too much money is made we start denying others of food, water and housing, so you are an example of that then. You bought a computer and because of you some poor woman died of starvation. How do you feel?

I think that's a load of crap. You didn't kill that woman and nor did I when I bought my computer. Working forty hours a week at minimum wage gets you above the poverty line. The difference between "successful" people and those making minimum wage are the choices the individuals have made.

I did not deny anybody anything when I bought my computer, my car, and my condo. I made it possible for others to feed, clothe, and house their families because I called on people to help with the loans, the inspections, and the building of said products. All this took businesses willing to pay people to provide me a service or product.

After that it takes people willing to work so they don't deny themselves food, water, and housing.

[Pepperbelly]

34. you have twisted the original post so ...

blatently that what you are now arguing isn't even relevent to the thread.

Gee, get a grip. Is Ken Lay of more value than Mother Theresa?

[Aqua]

35. Grip achieved

I don't believe I have. I don't believe money equals success, but to deny the fact it takes money to to achieve the success you may desire is ignorant.

Ken Lay vs. Mother Theresa? Well it depends on which form of success you speak of. Mother Theresa was a great woman who was able to bring hope to the hopeless. She cared for those poorest amoung us and did something to fix their situation. In that sense she was one of the most successful women in history.

Key Lay? While Enron was running full swing he was of great value. Jobs to many thousands where offered and thus many families where fed. Now we know what happened and thus you can't praise any of what he did because now all those families are out on the street.

But I sense you use Ken Lay as a model of all CEOs (all CEOs are not crooks) and to this I say businesses providing the millions of jobs is of much more value than one person doing great work.

[Pepperbelly]

36. well ... now

I know where your values lie.

I would disagree. First, although your paint a cheery picture of the CEOs (sorta like Robin Hoods just interested in taking care of people), your picture of these slimy bastards is not accurate. While companies hire people, it is not to do any of them any good at all. It is to allow them to make even more money for the company. As we have seen time and time again, these companies ... ALL of them, have absolutely no loyalty to those from whom they demand loyalty.

Major company after major company after major company has betrayed the people you say they are helping. Look at the case of GM as Michael Moore detailed in Roger and Me. After obtaining contract concessions from the union so GM could modernize its Flint plant, GM instead built a new plant in Mexico (using the money saved from the concessions) and closed their Flint facility altogether.

No, these companies provide jobs in a very tenuous fashion indeed and have no problem cheating their employees at every turn. For example, we have experienced a tremendous surge in productivity in the American workforce yet wages are stagnant and in some cases falling. Yep, these guys are of far more value than Mother Theresa.

Then we have conglomerates like Walmart LOCKING their employees in to make them work off the clock so they would not be compensated for their labor. And other companies ... fuck the list goes on and on.

You can believe what you want but for me, I think most of those worthless, greedy, cheating, lying, polluting sons of bitches should end up in prison.

But that is just my opinion and apparently, it differs from yours.

:D

1st edit for speeeling
2nd edit ... do you know how these bastards view employees? As an expense and nothing more. The employees are the factor that creates the wealth but these worthless, soft-handed, shit-souled scatavors view them as fucking expense. :grr:

[TaxAway]

106. Ken Lay v Mother Theresa

It seems to me that neither is much help for the poor. Ending poverty requires: (1) honest government; (2) access to capital (either equity or debt) (e.g., a solid banking system); (3) education and strong educational institutions; and (4) the values of a Scotsman.

Read: Herman How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It

Or for a slightly more academic bent: The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else

[AP]

107. Joe Stiglitz says that if he could do ONE thing to end poverty

it would be to reform land ownership in the third world. If more people own land, Stiglitz thinks everything else will fall in place.

[SharonAnn]

52. You can make money with labor alone but you can't make it

with capital alone. All value is created by labor. Capital can help the labor create more value faster, but by itself it does nothing.

The only reason you "invest" capital is so that someone can use it to help their labor along.

[newyawker99]

61. Hi Aqua!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[AP]

37. So you recognize that money is important to other cab drivers

It's one thing to let someone else win every once in a while (that makes everyone better off, usually). But it's quite another to argue that people should expect to not be compensated for their labor, or that there is some worthwile compensation besides money.

This is kind of a tangent, but I have some familiarity with the social work program at a major US university. The program is filled with women, and they're all encouraged to go work for 25K per year as Teach for America teachers, or they're encouraged to take social worker jobs doing the most depressing things imaginable. I'm not saying that these are valuable careers, but I can't help but think that many of these women should be populating law firms and hospitals, and getting PhDs and teaching, and writing books, and doing some of these other jobs where you can have some economic power and some free time even to make different kinds of contributions to the liberal, progressive cause.

(I especially think this when I see them after a year of working these crap jobs and they have awful skin (from beings stressed out and bad hygeine and bad diets) and they're miserable.)

Sometimes I feel that this notion that these women should relegate themselves to lives that are sad and miserable and not very rewarding financially, might have some relationship to the notion that these women SHOULDN'T be populating careers where the real power in society is at.

I think of the same thing when I read these "lets have a maximum wage" posts, and "why do we value money" posts. You know, there a rich people who don't want you to have political power, and they're the ones who would be happiest if you accepted less and accepted poverty.

[camero]

44. I realize that others have to eat

and there are only so many customers out on the street. If those women are happy with what they are doing, then more power to them.

Actually, they should be in power because they don't go through life trying to live up to your expectations of them. They live with thier own.

And yes, the rich that we have now would be very happy if we accepted less, which we are because we glorify them so much.

The executives of the 40s and 50s were at least socially aware after the calls for revolution during the depression when the nation almost went communist that you had to at least guarantee your workers the ability to feed and house themselves because that was the best way to maintain social order.

That social compact collapsed in the 80s.

[AP]

45. Those women are worn-out, disillusioned, and economically

powerless after a couple years. They aren't happy at all.

They are being coralled (sp??) into a crappy life because their department doesn't want to let go of a 30 year old way of looking at the world.

[camero]

48. How do you know?

There is a place for altruism and they certainly at the very least have less fear of life than you. One man's junk is another's treasure.

[AP]

55. If that's what you need to believe to support your version of how ...

...the world works, who am I to tell you something that shatters your illusions.

However, consider this: who do you believe? My first-hand impression and observations, or your illusions?

[camero]

62. Altruism is an illusion?

Try telling thousands of volunteers every day that they are living an illusion. The food you eat is because of the labor put forth to grow it.

Do you know how to garden? Well, you better learn because when your money is no good because of Bush's policies, then you're going to have a hard time eating.

[AP]

64. OK. You accept poverty. You accept less. I'm going to fight

for a world that spreads wealth fairly to everyone and which doesn't infuse a people a sense that they should be accepting less so that Republican insiders can have way way more money and political power.

[camero]

66. I don't accept poverty

I just have what I need and what I don't really need, I give to others. I bought the computer for my mom, which I get to use every once in a while when I'm not putting in a 16 hour day.

Amaximum wage would spread wealth more fairly because it says that a person can't take any more than this out of society. Which leaves more for the rest.

How could you possibly be against that? And if you are a Christian, you should know that greed is one of the seven deadly sins.

People that live a life of service to others, like teachers, firefighters, police, and others, don't make much but do more for society than any wealthy person could ever do.

[AP]

67. If charity is your priority, are you aware that JK Rowlings gives

a huge percentage of her income to a charity which is trying to find a cure to the disease which killed her mother. Why in the world would you want to have a maximum wage which would reduce the power of this woman who was was on welfare, who writes books which are creating a new liberal tradition, who gives to charity (in a way which reflects her own unique life experiences)? It's hard to keep doing what she does, and if it weren't financially rewarding, she might just settle on being a doctor's wife.

You make your choices, and you've bought your mom a computer. Why do you want to interfere with JK Rowling's choices, which might just buy a cure for a disease which cost her her mother's life and causes a huge amount of human suffering?

[camero]

68. Because JK Rowling is talking away from the rest of society

She gave for a fairly selfish reason( her mom's disease). You mean she couldn't mentor in her spare time? Or give to the fight against AIDS? Or diabetes? Or cancer?

Money is a just a more complicated form of bartering and just as it would be wrong for someone to hog all the food, it is also wrong for someone to hog all the money. It leaves that much less for everyone else.

[AP]

69. Now you're making no sense. You're charity to your mom is OK

but JK Rowlings in the memory of her mom is selfish? Tell that to all the other people and their families who are suffering from the same disease (MS? I can't remember). And then you're saying that she shouldn't help in the best way she can? I'm sure the people benifitting imensely from her charity would rather have her write the books. And that doesn't even address the fact that her books are creating a new tradition in Britain that is anti-fascist, and which is probably going to do more long-term good than the money she gives to charity.

[camero]

73. I'm not exactly taking away from someone else

She has alot more to work with than me that's for sure. Giving my mom a computer is not charity. It's a gift.

The greatest charity is when you give when it hurts to give. It's beside the point anyway. The tone of the discussion is using money as a barometer of success when it is only a means of barter.

The blind man who climbed Mt. Everest was more successful in my eyes.

[AP]

75. JK Rowlings is giving people jobs and joy, and she's donating

a lot of her money to charity.

How in the world is this taking away from someone. She's creating wealth. Two hundred years ago, how much wealth was there in the world? Much less. Inventiveness, and hard work has created more wealth, which is being spread among more and more people (actually, the tension among liberals and conservatives is over how much wealth will be created -- republicans want less -- and how far it will be spread -- republicans want it in the hands of fewer people). People like Rowlings do two things. Their inventiveness and hard work creates more wealth, not just for her, but for many many people in the chain of commerce, and she creats value, by giving people joy, and then the work she has created is one which, itself, creates a tradition for democratizing power and wealth too. It makes people want to continue to create and spread wealth among more and more people.

I just can't believe that, on a liberal board, we're talking about reducing wealth among people who labor and invent.

You have a very unusual world view and I think you need to stop for a second and reevaluate the way you think the world works.

[camero]

82. She's also taking food from other people's mouths

By accepting an exorbitant amount of money. You don't get it do you?

Money is not an infinite resource. And she does not make one job, her publisher does, without which she would still be on welfare.

[jafap]

94. the power of creation

What is wealth?

See, you are measuring it with $$$$.

Was there really much less wealth 200 years ago? It depends upon how you define it. The environment contained fewer manufactured carcinogens. There was abundand wildlife. There was more open space and fewer homicides. Families and communities were more vital.

Inventiveness and hard work are not necessarily going to creat wealth. Just think of the inventiveness and hard work that are involved in creating and running a place like Dachau or in strip mining or in creating and using weapons.

As for JK Rowling's wealth creation. She has written five books, but I wish my niece would read the Bruce Coville book I gave her instead of re-reading Harry Potter book #4 (which I think is called Harry Potter and the villain who never dies. Voldemort - the energizer bunny of vilains - he keeps on killing and killing and killing.)

I think you have it a little bit backwards, or at least ignore the synergy. Rowling's wealth comes from the labor of publishers, printers, and booksellers. Ultimately, it comes from the people who buy her book - it is a transfer of wealth from customers to Rowling at least as much as it is "creation". If Rowling's books had never been written (a consumation devoutly to be wished for the last two) the customers would have spent their $6 on another book - maybe one of Jackie French Koller's or maybe they would have rented a couple of DVD's or bought six powerball tickets.

You seem to be missing two points - 1) her (or anyone's) "success" is measured by how much they help humanity not by how much money they make and 2) if she was limited to a mere $300,000 a year instead of having more money than the queen of England, she would a) hardly be in Hurtsville and b) probably still keep on spewing out books periodically like #6 Voldemort and the sinister plan which is barely stopped at the cost of another few incidental lives. In time they will be as numerous as the Babysitter Club books, so think of the trees that could be saved if she stopped. She oughta be donating to an evergreen planting society.

[AP]

99. It's one thing to complain about bad politics

which concentrates political power in the hands of few, and it's another to pretend that a monetary system creates that. People lived in misery 100s of years ago. We've had progress, and lives have been improved, and they could be even better, with better politics. Limiting the ability of people to realize the fruits of their labour isn't the solution.

[AP]

104. And another thing.

I try to make this point below, and I'll try it again.

Measuring wealth in dollars isn't some accident that we can undo to create a better world. Wealth is a concrete thing. In a simpler time, it was measured by what you had. When life became more complicated, and people could do more things, and specialize, and be more productive, and travel farther, money evolved to free up people to do more of those things, we had to invent a system to measure it. You can't get rid of money. You'd either have to go back to a less productive, slower, poorer barter economy (ie, you'd just be turning the clock backwards) or you'd have to create some other system of measuring wealth.

It's like saying the problem with distance is the ruler. If only we didn't have rulers, everything would be closer together. If we didn't have rulers, we'd have to invent them.

So, when you say "what is wealth? See you're measuring it in dollars." I think, man, that's like saying "What is distance? See you're measuring it in inches."

[camero]

108. You can make a ruler longer or shorter if you want.

In essence the size is capped, since a mile long ruler would be a pain to carry around. To use your example, the same with money. We have minimums to keep people from having to little money and we should have maximums to keep people from having too much.

Money is not like distance because distance can be infinite and money is not infinite. What more the one has is taken from another.

If you say one should have all they want, you say another should sink or swim. Do you teach your kids to share thier toys? I don't think so.

[AP]

109. Are you high?

?

[camero]

110. No, are you?

Or are you just materialistic. Money is a form of bartering, not a system of measurement. You want to compare it to some thing totally unrelated to what it is, then we'll just play both ends against the middle, huh?

[AP]

111. Whatever.

You've gotten way more mileage over your half-baked theories about how the world works than you deserve.

I feel that my arguments lose none of their strength by not encouraging you any longer.

Really, you make no sense.

Throw me a bone -- anything -- that's sensible, and I'll engage. But you're really describing a fantasy world. Debate competing versions of fantasy worlds with someone else. When you're ready to acknowledge reality, let me know and we'll tangle assholes again.

[camero]

113. LImiting money will not starve achievement

It didn't before we created money and it won't long after money is gone. The founding fathers were still revolutionaries throwing off the king's yoke even as the continental dollar was worthless.

You've been living in your reality for so long that your version of success is skewed.

When you come to terms with that(more than likely in the next depression), we'll tangle again.

[AP]

120. Tell me why we have money.

Why was not having money, and having a barter economy good one day and not good enough the next day?

Before there was money, did everyone eat and wear altruism and love? No.

[jafap]

129. don't make me quote country music

"We've got a roof over our heads, and the kids have all been fed, and the woman I love most is here beside me in our bed. Lord give me the eyes to see exactly what it's worth and I will be the richest man on earth."

You think money is the only way to measure wealth??? WTF???
What about health, friends, happiness, love, peace?
Oh, that's right this is America, and those are all for sale here - at Wal-mart prices and quality too.

Watch the movie "it's a wonderful life". "Confound it, man, are you afraid of success?" Potter says that when he offers George a $20,000 a year job instead of the $45 a week he is making helping people get their own homes.

I forget where Harrington made this point. Some people were complaining that the new safety regulations were reducing the productivity of coal miners. He pointed out that deaths were down by about 200 people a year. Does human life count, or do we just look at the bottom line?

The problem is not the ruler. The problem is the philosophy, or orientation, which defines wealth in these materialistic terms. Wealth is not as clear cut as distance. You are measuring your drink with ounces, when other things, like the purity and ingredients of what you are drinking are more important. So a twelve ounce glass of ice water is no different from twelve ounces of butric acid?

[AP]

138. MLK and Gandhi we're fighting for people's ability to contribute

their labor to the economy, and be fairly compensated for it. They thought happiness would follow, but they weren't willing to skip the part about equality under the law guarateeing an opportunity to partake in the economy.

Since it's hard to fight a revolution for guaranteed happiness and love, most revolutionaries focus on things like laws that ensure that you can participate in the economy. What did Castro care about. The people were unhappy. Did he pass out pot to everyone? No, he nationalized all the private companies. What pissed off Che when he was growing up in Argentina? That people weren't getting enough love? No, he was pissed that all the profits from the Peruvian copper mines flowed to the US, rather than to the people of Peru.

Thats why we have things in the US like Employment Law and Labor Law and thinks like the Equal Employement Opportunities Commission, rather than the Equal Happinaess Opportunities Commission, and we have the Department of Labor instead of the Department of Love.

Maybe there's some board out there where people discuss what you can do to have more love in your life. But here we talk about what the government can do to guarantee peoples rights to participate in the economy.

[camero]

139. What is it with you?

I just said there are other measures of success besides money. Love doesn't get you food, but when you have that, you are also successful.

You can be rich and lonely also. And capping greed helps the rest of the populace. Tieing the cap to the lowest paid worker raises the bar.

Hey, they did say that a rising tide lifts all boats didn't they. What they didn't tell you was that the tide starts at the bottom of the ocean.

[AP]

144. Because in what you argue I see threads of very RW arguments

Read my post below about what I hear on NPR.

[jafap]

167. I believe the thread is about whether wealth equates with success

Thus the topic is less about whether poor people need an opportunity to participate in the economy and be fairly rewarded for doing so. It is more about whether we are defining people like Bush, Cheney, Lay, Bible, Weill, Gates, Walton, Rowling, etc. as "successful" because they made lots of money.
You claimed that society was wealthier now because our ancestors, eager for 'more money' (as de Toqueville said "There in two words you have the American character) worked really hard and created "progress".
I claim that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" and that there are better ways to define "success" and "wealth" than with $$$.
Just because I saved money back in 1989 when I was making $6100 a year, does not mean I am arguing that people should be happy with no benefits and minimum wage. We are really talking about the other end of the spectrum here - the people exceeding the maximum, and the others who are over 80% of the median income who hold Bill Gates up as some kind of idol, and think those at the bottom are just lazy losers. It is a question of values and perspective, and I think there would be more love in the world if people did not get so enthralled by money and power.
Either you are trying to muddy the waters, or this argument has gotten confused because I am not clear how justice and participation became an issue.

[AP]

169. Actually, the thread is about whether capping incomes is a good idea.

And part of this argument happens to match a theme that I hear repeated from NPR and other sources lately, and that is the idea that underemployment is fun because it gives you more time to spend with your children (which will really turn into alot of time, when you realize that you can't afford to send them to college, and that they'll be living with you until they're 35 because they'll never save up enough money working at Wal-Mart to afford to buy a home of their own.)

[camero]

190. Well, i would much rather

Just work 40 hrs per week instead of 80 hrs and have a little vacation. wouldn't you?

[AP]

170. Here's the crucial paragraph you missed.

"Limiting the amount of money a person can earn in one form or another is not punishing success
but curtailing influence so that no one person can have too much of it.

"Let the debate begin."

-camero

[AP]

171. Also,

I never said that anyone should be lauded because they have money. I said that people like Rowlings earn the money they make by creating incredibly worthwile, ingenious products of their labour (whether physical or intellectual). And I'v suggested that if you want to have valuable contributions to society and culture, like Rowlings's or like, say, my mailman's valuable contributions, they should be paid fair wages in proportion to the value of that work.

I've also suggested that people like Bush and Cheney should be in jail for amassing wealth through techniques that are totally alien to what Rowlings and people who honestly labor down at the docks or in the factory, do to earn their money. As for Gates, US anti-monopoly law should have dealt with his BS, and the markets should have dealt with Microsoft's lack of invetiveness, except that a business friendly Republican administration got into power and is fucking up the markets by protecting Microsoft from having to compete. It'll mean short term profits for Gates, maybe. But it'll mean long term failure for Microsoft, and it might just give some European or Japanese company a chance to move in a steal Microsoft's market (which wouldn't have happened if the company had been forced to split and compete).

[camero]

172. That is exactly what this thread is about

AP keeps trying to turn the tables on that so I am constantly having to defend that.

To use an example, I think Bill Gates is a smart guy, a genius you would say. But do I think he is worth billions? No, noone is.

But if he cured cancer and kept himself a middle class salary, I would think he made a great achievement.

And I think every poor person that volunteers his or her time to teach someone to read or mentor a child is also a success.

[AP]

175. Then you should edit your original post to remove the part I quoted.

Who is going to cure cancer for 350,000 if it costs you at least that much for your education, ten times that just to have a lab in which you can work, and another 20 or 30 times that to hire all the people you need to help you???

If you limit salaries below the market value of the labour it requires to do high value work, you will never find anyone to do that work. That's just a fact. It's like math. Why is anyone going to go into debt to cure cancer, when they can be debt free being a lawyer or an accountant, and have more time to spend with your kids. More importantly, HOW is anyone going to cure cancer if you set up a system which denies people the financese to even embark on some of these high-cost projects.

It costs a lawyer sometimes 1 million dollars just to put up a good case against a large corporation which has done 100 million dollars in damage to the health of a community. Nobody will ever sue those cases if you say that a lawyer can't even earn a salary which covers his cossts.

Face it, we live in a big world with high stakes for large groups of people. There is no number you can place as a limit on the earnings of individuals which will allow all the work to be done in this world that needs too be done and can be done to make life more fair, healthy and satisfying for people.

[camero]

178. It's about balance.

And cost would adjust to meet those things. Nothing is forever.
It's about accepting the fact that money, like our natural resources, is finite. It's another circuit breaker to deal with the booms and busts of the economic cycle.

The pie in the sky mentality has caused the earth to be depleted and starvation when we have plenty of food. Tell me, how does the richest nation on the face of the earth have hungry people in it? And uneducated people? And 40 million uninsured?

Greed, that's what. I don't really believe that curtailing greed will necessarily oppress society but will bring it into balance.

Other countries have these laws, are they exactly third world? Hell, Japan still has 3% unemployment after 10 years of no growth. You know why? Because they have a social compact, which we don't have here.

And how you could defend a CEO making 212 times the average worker's pay is beyond me because that is an abomination.

[AP]

180. What causes those bad things? Republicans, mostly.

It's the abuse of power. How many times have you heard that the problem in Africa with famine has nothing to do with growing crops, and has to do with politics. It has to do with using food to achieve political ends, and to do with fucked-up governments which aren't looking after the best interests of their citizens.

And, yes, resources get drained. But what is your solution? Kill people so that we don't use up the environment? I'd rather see people get the political will together to focus their genius and efforst and to things like wind and solar power and recycling, and whatever. That's all part of the progress that makes people happier and healthier, and you don't need to kill 5 billion people to get there.

As for that CEO, see below.

[camero]

182. Now where inthe hell did I post

That we needed to kill 5 billion people to get balance? Stop putting words in my mouth. If you're just here to defame me then leave the thread.

And Democrats are just as much in this game as repubs are with thier free trade mantra.

There is plenty of room on this earth but there is also just so much to go around, which I am arguing that money is one and if we don't learn how to share it, then we'll destroy ourselves.

Keeping The Rolling Stones or Barry Bonds from taking too much from society is not going to kill 5 billion people.

We are all human and we all deserve the right to live. And Barry Bonds isn't any more or less human than you or I just because he can hit a basesball better than you or I.

God or whichever deity you have isn't going to care one wit about whether you can hit 500ft or make gobs of money.

The love of money being the root of all evil rings true.

[AP]

184. It's implied. You want to get back to basics

and basics was a system that worked well (if you can even characterize it as working) when there were way fewer people on the planet.

I just don't know how you're going to turn the clock so far backwards with so many people on the planet.

You know, I'm going to have to stop engaging you like this. You don't care to even make a pretense of engaging me on any of the points I'm making.

I'm sure you hear this all the time, but you're stuborn to the point of being completely disengaged from the debate.

I am not going to try to discuss the economics of baseball with you AGAIN. You didn't pay attention the first time.

Adios.

[camero]

185. And you think money is limitless

Which you will not acknowledge. As far as turning the clock back, the economy will do that on it's own when deflation hits us like a ton of bricks, then you will be arguing for balance.

It started out as whether money was the only measure of success and tearing down the repub argument that taxing earnings is punishing success. It's not because there are other measures of success and inequality needs to be solved. It is you that does not see.

Adios.

[AP]

187. I can't keep explaining to you the fine points you don't understand

At some point, you will have to take responsibility for learning these things for yourself. You have a very general understanding of these issues, and your lack of understanding is resulting in borderline worthless threads with 100s of posts directed to you which you seem to be ignoring.

The tax issue which you don't understand is that the Republicans do tax one form of income a great deal -- earned income, because that's not how most republicans get rich. The issue here is, do we burden income earners or do we ask unearned income recipients to bear a bigger burden. To burden earned income earners more than unearned income recipients is to discourage labor and to reward wealth.

Your entire argument reveals that you don't understand this distinction. You want to punish earned and unearned income. Would that you had a better understanding of this, this thread would be much shorter.

So, tell me. Are you going to pick up a book on economics and taxation and are you going to try to understand this, or are you just going to reveal your stubborn refusal to understand these more complicated issue by embarking on 200 post threads?

[camero]

188. You make the burden the same

And tax according to how much they earn. The fact that you have hung around for 200 posts tells me I'm a danger to your world view.

Things that happened when the top tax rate was 91%...

We won WWII
The Interstate highway system was built.
Polio was cured.
Elvis Presley
Jack Benny
Home ownership rates skyrocketed
No real dynasties in Baseball
The Golden Age of television
The first supercomputers
Einstein discovered Nuclear fusion.
Mechanized farming greatly increased the food supply.
Life expectancy rose sharply.

That tax rate was essentially a cap. Did it stifle innovation? I don't think so. You're having cognitive dissonance.

[AP]

191. Yeah, it's been real hard stating things that have been discussed

100s times before here and accepted by people much less stubborn than you (or at least by people much more willing to try to comprehend).

Believe me, you're no danger to my world view. It's just that everytime I give you the knock-out blow (which is so easy, since you show me your jaw everey time) you come back like one of those bags filled with air from the 70s. Of course, now you're repeating back stuff to me I said to you, and you're claiming that your threads are no longer about what you state they're about in your top post, so I guess I'm making some progress with you.

And, by the way, those things you listed -- they all created wealth, and increased social wealth. And another thing, the tax rate was so high BECAUSE IT WAS SO EASY TO MAKE MONEY. And the tax revenue was plowed back into infrastructure and education and public works programs which created more wealth. And you know what, some Americans amassed huge fortunes during those years, BECAUSE SO MUCH WEALTH WAS BEING CREATED, and this was despite the high marginal rates. In fact, people weren't getting poorer in the 40s. THEY WERE GETTING RICHER. Which disproves your theory that great things happend when people get poorer and accept less. And you've just proved my point that GREAT THINGS HAPPEN TO SOCIETY WHEN SOCIETY GETS WEALTHIER AND THE WEALTH IS SPREAD DEMOCRATICALLY AMONG, ESPECIALLY, THE MIDDLE CLASS, THROUGH THINGS LIKE PROGRESSIVE TAXATION, AND WHEN LABOUR IS REWARDED THROUGH THINGS LIKE PROGRESSIVE TAXATION, AND WHEN NEW DEAL PROGRAMS HELP GUARANTEE THAT PEOPLE ARE GETTING FOR THE FULL VALUE OF THEIR LABOR.

Thanks for helping me prove my point.

I told you about progressive taxation a long time ago.

You still don't get it do you?

This is actually quite sad if you don't.

[AP]

193. Camero, I'm giving you a warning. For my own sanity,

I'm going to put you on ignore depending on your next post. If it makes me want to hit my head against the wall, you won't be getting a reply from me. If you want to engage me on these issues I'm trying to discuss with you, I'll engage you. I think you have a real good idea of what's going to make me hit my head against the wall.

[camero]

195. Go ahead

Don't let me stop you.

[camero]

194. Because the arguments you make aren't even relevent to the thread

Money has never been easy to make, unless you were wealthy. Tell that to the people who worked in factories at that time.

And labor is not the only measure of human worth. And the tax rates were so high that a person could essentially stop working after a certain point.

You say limiting a CEO's pay would stifle innovation and I just showed you that it didn't. As a matter of fact, what have we cured since the lifestyles of the rich and famous society took hold? Anything? We've made everything a chronic condition so that the CEO's can have even more money because a person has to take these drugs for essentially the rest of thier lives.

I didn't say the object was to make ordinary people poorer. It is to distribute wealth more fairly. And you have failed to show me how it would oppress the poor. We cover unearned income by taxing it highly and leaving loopholes for R&D, Plant and Equipment, and Job Creation.

Essentially what Clinton did his first year in office. You've stayed here to muddy the waters, basically.

[AP]

197. OK. I'm cutting you off after this post. Nothing you've said here is true

Wealth & Democracy: the period of the greatest growth in the US economy was the period after the new deal ending in 1959, which was the year of the greatest annual growth of the US econmomy ever. If you had money, you could make more money. Many huge fortunes were made then. But the middle class expanded very rapidly, and their wages went up. If it was ever easy to make money in America, it was during this period. Thanks to unions, even people in factories did well.

In the 60s the University of Michigan was populated with the children of autoworkers who were doing really well, and those children went on to have great, productive, rewarding, happy lives. So, yes, ask the people in the factories after WWII if they had good jobs, with good benefits, which allowed them to help their children get ahead.

Despite the high tax rates, nobody would have stopped working. It was too easy to make that next buck. New business opportunities were popping up everywhere. It wasn't until the early 60s when things cooled off and that higher rate turned out to be a tax on more and more middle income people who did have to work harder for that extra buck, and those were the people who were discouraged from working by the lack of return. Ike didn't have the political will to rectify the system (he didn't want Republicans to be the party that cut taxes on the upper income brackets). Kennedy wasn't so worried. He just wanted to do what was right for the economy, which, by that time, had become, because of rising incomes, a undue tax burden on middle income and upper middle income people.

I NEVER said limiting CEO pay would limit invention. In fact, to paraphrase your accusation against me, get off this thread right now if you're going to defame me. I said that something quite different, which you apparently can't grasp.

I don't see how telling you how taxation works and giving you a lot of history "muddies the waters". Having to think about a lot of different things might confuse you, but it more information isn't muddying the waters.

And you're telling a very different story now, compared to when you started. In the thread out of which this one grew, you wanted to cap incomes at 350,000 dollars. Now you're refining your plans and accusing me, the person who is forcing you to refine your message, of straying off topic. Man, I'm the one getting you to focus. You should be thanking me. And if you want to blame anyone for all this, you should blame yourself for being so stubborn, for not reading all the posts (which has made a lot of this repetitive) and for being dishonest with yourself about what you have been arguing.

[camero]

198. I didn't want to cap at 350K it was 10 times the lowest paid worker

You did it again. That was another person's thread. Read the thread. At no time did I make any arbitrary number except that it be tied to the lowest paid worker. That way the rich's fortunes are tied to the lowest. Now what is wrong with that. If the poor do better, then the rich do better. Tell me what is wrong with that?

[AP]

199. And by the way, those CEO abuses you describe, those are more of

a product of the bust times like now (rather than the boom times like during the new deal). When there's no other way to make money because the middle class is overburdened and undercompensated, that's when you see the stock tricks and finance tricks (although the tools for doing this were created by the Republicans beginning in about 98 -- but they had their bust-time exit planned from the beginning). I just felt that was worth mentioning.

I'm also inclined to note that your earlier posts suggested that you felt America would be a better place if people accpeted lower wages accross the board. Well, despite the CEO BS, everyone's earning less now is that time, and it kinda sucks doesn't it.

But I also note that in your last post you're saying that you think America's better off when more wealth is spread among the middle class, and when CEOs are prevented from using financial tricks to amass their wealths. And, well, since that's what I told you from just about the beginning, I guess I just have to say I'm glad you finally came around to my side of the argument.

[camero]

200. I didn't say that either

I said there were other measures of success besides money. These gimmicks that you describe were done in the boom times. A consequence of the greed that was in vogue and still is.

[Pepperbelly]

13. I think the point is ...

not whether one works but the relative value assigned to various labors. In addition, monetary renumeration is not necessarily a function of work. For example, even very bad CEOs receive pay that is far in excess of their meager value while a highly effective janitor in the same business may well get a pay cut to pay for the failure's golden parachute.

[AP]

38. CEOs get high pay becaue we have a lot of crazy laws that enable

them to extract a lot of low-taxed value out of the companies for which they work without giving shareholders adequate say in what they're doing.

It has little to do with how society values CEOs, unless, if you mean by "society" you mean the Republican senators, congressment, and president who legislates this bizarro world in which these CEOs operate.

[SharonAnn]

53. Thank you, great explanation!

The CEO's know how to "game" the system to divert lots of money and benefits to their pockets. It has no real relationship to the value of what they do for the company. It has to do with how much they can get away with.

[camero]

16. I did because

I assumed that MLK was upper middle class. But you are right, he was more than a success. He was another of our Founding Fathers.

My apologies.

[Terwilliger]

72. but thats the point, AP

you have to have money to participate in the things you listed? that's perpetually disgusting, yet "liberals" seem to desire the continuation of capitalism against all sense

We SHOULD be paid in love...but no one wants to do that, and few enough will even say it

"Oh, that's just silly idealism!" Uh huh.

[AP]

76. I can't eat and clothe myself and my family in love.

If we didn't have money, we'd invent it to make it easier to feed, clothe and warm ourselves.

And whether or not money exists, you will have people who will try to horde it and will not be bothered by others suffering from not having what they have.

We have a government to make sure that everyone has an equal chance at health and happiness (monetary system or no monetary system) to make sure that were constantly creating as much of those things as possible.

The battle here is over how we spread those things and create those things (monetary system or no monetary system).

Again, it's not the monetary system that creates greedy hoarders and oppression. And it's sort of back-door conservativism to pretend that money creates those problems. I'm constantly hearing stories from the right about how it's good not to have a job becuase you can spend more time whith your family. This is BS. The right is glad that you don't have a job because it creats downward pressure on wages, which means more profits and power for corporations. The "EXPECT LESS MONEY" line is deeply conservative, because it isn't the corporate insiders who are expecting less. They're expecting more power and money.

[jafap]

95. hey big spender, spend a little time with me

If I could hook up with my vetrinarian and quit my stupid job to be a house-husband, that certainly would not create a downward pressure on wages. My goofball supervisor is doing that because instead of living on his retirement income and his wife's GS-12 pay he would rather take a job away from someone who really needs it so he can buy new cars and DVD burners.

The previous poster was talking less about the monetary system and more about the social system, and there are many groups which distribute housing, food, and clothing without resorting to money. They are called families. Most children are not expected to buy these things from their parents. Daniel Quinn says that our culture is characterized by the fact that the food is kept under lock and key. We have been so immersed in this system that we wonder: "doesn't it have to be this way?"

As Thoreau, Ruskin and others have said - none of our enterprises are about creating health and happiness. We have turned them on their head and placed profit ahead of such intangibles. "Health and Happiness? - error, does not compute, error"

[AP]

101. Things were probably worse before Social Security

when old people had no choice but to work. If they didn't they'd be poor and die hungry.

The internal workings of the family may look like charity today. But it wasn't a long time ago in America when parents looked at their children as wage earners and sent them out to earn money for the family. Ever hear of Jane Addams? The free food thing...that's a product of a society which is relatively wealthy. Start capping compensation for labour, start insisting that people should expect to work for love or the sense of satisfaction of a job well done, you'll see that charitable relationship between parents and children disappear almost as quickly as it appeared for the working class during the New Deal.

[Terwilliger]

124. dude...you're just floating over the fact that this atmosphere is bred...

by the capitalist model, where wealth is your measure of value, as stated earlier. You can't get compensated for your value because the values we have are all fucked up. A car should be $13,000. Who determined that? Maybe we could take over the auto industry and make the same cars over and over again, and save the economy BILLIONS of dollars. Nationalize all of the utilitarian concerns, and leave profit to art and culture, instead of whether or not you're going to feed your family next week.

I hope you understand where your globalistic ideas will end up destroying everything we've ever believed as humans.

[AP]

145. Terwilliger, there are some things that are best delivered

by socialism -- easy to monopolize industries (eg energy), industries which create value by reducing consumption rather than increasing it (eg health care), and industries which create benefits which are spread to broadly and over too long a time period (eg education through highschool).

However, you can't deny that there are many things people do which are best delivered by capitalism. Entertainment is a good example. So are most technological fields. We wouldn't be typing on computers and communicating over the internet without the capitalism that started the ball rolling with the printing press and led to the internet. We'd be living in cages if governments decided to stifly commerce which led to specialized labor, cities, roads, railroads, airplanes, etc. And if you really think live was better when there was less wealth, more disease, less free time, fewer books, no movies, less knowledge, you're welcome to have it back. Move to a desert island and live in a cave.

Do you really not enjoy progress and inventiveness? A system with too much capitalism or too much socialism is bad. But a good balance is the best way to deliver the maximum happiness to the most people.

[Terwilliger]

150. you're not interested in balance

you want capitalism with no socialism and you hope it all works out

Frankly, capitalism will go away when people realize that the value is in your works, your being, and yourself. If the world doesn't come to this basic realization, we will destroy ourselves.

Best delivered by capitalism...the printing press? Are you joking? The printing press was developed to make it easier to mass distribute Bibles. Give me a break.

[AP]

153. Terwilliger, you're lying to yourself. You imagine that I don't

want balance, because you're afraid that I'm right about everything else, which you don't want to accept. Where I have I said anything that suggests I don't want balance. Where do you think I came up with the three examples of things that should be socialized? Search the archives. I believe I've written about each one of those things extensively (in discussion about health care, Enron and vouchers).

I do believe in balance.

And you clearly don't know the history of the printing press, which I've also written about more than once here. Do you think the bible would have been printed without commercial motivation. Do you think the church wasn't interested in amassing wealth and power? And actually, it was porn that really got printing presses going.

[AP]

160. By the way, I don't want anyone to miss this MLK quote.

Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a synthesis that combines the truth of both.

It means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interralated.

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

[jiacinto]

2. I disagree

People should be able to earn as much as they can. But I will say that money doesn't always equal success. Money isn't everything.

[camero]

7. But

Would you say that people should be able to eat as much as we can?
If someone can eat alot or being able to eat so much food that everyone else starves, could we morally justify this? Of course not.

The same argument goes with money because it is a finite resource. there is only so much to go around in any given time frame.

[Pepperbelly]

10. Does that imply as well that ....

SOME people should be left to sink or swim?

Does the rigging of the game affect your opinion on that?

[Solon]

15. To be honest jiacinto, that's a recipe for disaster.

It should be rephrased "People should be able to earn as much as they can within the limits of the economy." The main problem is that, while salaries have skyrocketed since the 80's, reinvestment in the market, is, on the whole, down. Unlike what some people think, we do not have unlimited resources, and if only 1 to 5% have over half of those resources, and an ever increasing amount, year by year, then the economy will no longer be stable, and collapse is inevitable.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

4. Bush has a lot of money, therefore he is successful

A regulation prohibiting a public corporation from paying Bush a billion dollars would interfere with Bush's right to earn.

[Sophree]

5. Desire for a living wage

Does not equal greed or materialism.

Try feeding a family on the current minimum wage. Go ahead.

[camero]

11. I wasn't talking about feeding a family.

You need $10 million plus to feed a family. Where is your head/
Or do you just have 30 kids or something?
Edit: the thread is in response to a maximum wage, not a minimum.

[Sophree]

32. Oh, OK

I totally misread your post. I thought you were arguing against a minimum wage. :dunce:

[Pepperbelly]

8. IF money = success, then Ken Lay is 'better' than Mother Thresa.

And that notion is seriously fucked up.

The enire system of the relative value of work is flawed to the point of being ridiculous. When people who play the games that boys play earn so much more than others who contribute far more to society's overall welfare, it is clearly time for a re-examination. That said, of course, it will not happen.

Apart from the modern Robber Barons such as Ken Lay, Jack Welch, Richard Scaife and others, the rest of the very rich are that way because of the perversion of value from mass media, whether it is money from tv rights, money from ticket sales, merchandising or whatever, it is still a perversion that adds economic value far beyond what is intrinsic in the work done.

A solution?

Who knows.

[camero]

12. Thank you

You have hit the nail on the head and that is what we need to address as a society or we will slowly go to serfdom.

[Robin Hood]

14. Why do we equate money to dignity, or having class?

There are plenty of rich trash, but because you have nice objects, people always assume that you may have class. The opposite has been my experience.

[camero]

17. Mine too, with one notable exception

My great uncle, who was so generous to everyone that I thought he would put himself in poverty. But he just got enough for himself and let everyone else have the rest. I should mention he was a child of the Great Depression.

[Pepperbelly]

23. when I collapsed economically a few years ago ...

I began working with what might be called the "working poor" and find them much more substantial people than the assholes I worked with before. Generous to a fault and non-judgemental, the group of folk with whom I work will not let someone in the group go hungy. We treat each other with respect and we have a common struggles.

I have been noticing the gap between rich and poor growing precipitously and not only that, the rich are engaging in such in-your-face conspicuous over consumption that it is causing much hard feelings. I do not know that the poor folk are yet ready to storm the Bastille but I do know that they are losing their committment to helping the system work when it benefits them so slimly.

[camero]

30. Yes

And all nations are judged by how the leaders, or elites, treat the ordinary citizens.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

18. Because it is easy to count money and compare figures

[camero]

20. I never understood the logic.

We may just as well have a p**** measuring contest.

[SharonAnn]

54. LOL! That's what I used to tell my husband about the meetings

I attended in corporate business. I was often the only woman present, the men were busy posturing and on-upping each other. Sometimes it would take quite a while before we could get down to business.

I told my husband once that if they started to waste my time with that stuff again I was just going to pull my little tape measure out of my purse, tell the guys to unzip their pants and lay their penis out on the table. I'd measure them, announce the "winner" and we could get down to business. He thought it was really funny but was afraid that I might actually do it.

[Sushi_lover]

19. keeping score

"If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?"

money is a measuring stick. people love to compare.

capitalism is a religion. the preachers of capitalism have convinced Americans that capitalism is flawless. as if goverment has no role. perfect markets would protect the environment and the poor, they say.

[camero]

21. True

and that is just as utopian as communism.

[Pepperbelly]

24. it's odd because ...

so many of the very rich are dumb as dirt.

:shrug:

[rucky]

27. I Assembled A Team...

...of marketing gurus who ran a number of focus groups on the subject. We paid each focus group member $100 for their participation, and I would say the project was a success.

We showed them a series of films, TV programs, and commercials featuring beautiful people doing interesting things - featuring products that are not necessarily unattainable to the Female and Male demographics of average income in the 24-45 age brackets - but just out of their reach without the prospect of some form of financing.

Then we showed them films of "average" people doing ordinary things - featuring products that are not necessarily unattainable to the Female and Male demographics of average income in the 24-45 age brackets - but just out of their reach without the prospect of some sort of financing.

We asked the focus group which set of films featured "successful" people? Overwhelmingly the focus group said "Group A"

Which set of films did they most relate to? Again Group A.

Which set of products would they most likely buy? this was a trick question because the same products were featured in both groups. Still, the response was overwhelmingly for "group A".

Conclusion: Our focus group saw themselves as having the potential for success (i.e. becoming a beautiful person doing interesting things, as symbolized via conspicuous consumption of our clients' products). But the symbol of conspicuous consumption was only significant if the product was accompanied by an idealized portrayl of the target consumer. Marketing is a effective tool to create confusion in the consumer between symbols and reality - thus equating it with success. Our clients must continue to reinforce this image in order to maintain success as a corporation. The measure of success in a corporation is purely financial, and the same values must be instilled in our consumer base to insure the ongoing success of the corporation.

We got paid. The focus group attained their products. Our corporation expanded their market share. All in all a win-win-win situation - especially considering our clients' products are PIECES OF SHIT, which will allow the corporation to create a new symbol of success by the 3rd Quarter, '04 - tapping into the same consumer base for as long as their personal debt does not prohibit their purchasing power.

[camero]

29. AH

Nice manipulation by media. It certainly gets to the heart of our consumer culture. But it can't last.

[baldguy]

28. The value of money is an illusion

It is a convenient illusion, certainly, one that we have all agreed upon. But it is an illusion, nevertheless. Banks tell fairytales, Stock Brokers are prestidigitators, The Federal Reserve Board are hypnotists.

On this LABOR Day, we must remember that it is one’s LABOR that has value. Whether it is used to serve the needs of others, or create a physical object, or a work of art, your LABOR has intrinsic value – not the little green slips of paper, or the small bits of metal, or the numbers a financial institution may keep next to your name. Your dirty hands create the wealth of "rich and powerful". But when was the last time you saw junior get his hands dirty doing real work?

We’ve all agreed that money is valuable - but only for the things it can be exchanged for – that is, either objects that the LABOR of others has created, or that others have done LABOR in service to you.

[toddzilla]

31. i'm lucky

My current job allows me tremendous freedom, and a pretty small work week. I work usually 9am to 3pm with an hour lunch and make about 35k or so. i wish i liked the actual job, it's going to be really tough to give it up in the future.

i think that has as much to do with "success"-having time to do the things you want to do.

think of all the money people spend on their cars. once you get in, does it matter what it looks like? :9

[AP]

39. The food it buys me is no illusion.

[baldguy]

43. That's my point.

If you're hungry, you need food - not money. Somebody had to plant it, grow & care for it, harvest it, and transport it to you so you can eat it. There are a lot of people doing a lot of hard work so you can fill your refridgerator.

Money is only good for something when you give it away for something else that is useful to you.

You can't eat a dollar bill.

[AP]

47. But if I don't have a 40 acre farm, I better have the

money to buy food from somebody who does.

[camero]

49. It all comes to this one simple fact.

You would rather let someone else die than for yourself to have one morsel less than the other.

The greatest evils that we do to each other are the ones we do to ensure our own prosperity.

[baldguy]

51. No, if you don't own a farm . . .

you better have something of value to offer the farmer. That's called labor, and that's a valuable commodity.

In a more primitive economic system, if the farmer doesn't need your labor then you're out of luck. If all you've got are shiny pebbles, and the farmer doesn't recognize them as diamonds, you go hungry. If all you are good at is building wagons and the farmer doesn't need a wagon, you're gonna be looking thinner.

However, if the local blacksmith needs a wagon, you might be able to get some food from him - provided he can get it from the farmer. Luckily, the farmer needs his horses shoed every so often, so the blacksmith rarely goes hungry.

Money is simply a means of exchanging the value of one's labor, or the goods one has made, or the services one can provide. Money has no value by itself.

[Ferretherder]

56. BINGO, bro'!

Give that man a kewpie doll!

...and yes, I agree with you 100%!

[leftofthedial]

40. because we are shallow capitalists

and well-trained consumers


A life spent in the comofortable low-expectation environment that is post-modern America leaves most of us unable to achieve "success" in any other way.

[AP]

142. How many times have I said that consumerism is a political problem

yeah, big business manufactures desire so they can sell worthless shit to people who don't need it. Consumerism is a shite state of affairs. But it's a political problem. The monetary system and the valuation of labor isn't the problem. It WORKS for people when the there's the political will to not let big business have whatever they ask for from compliant elected officials.

But what comerica and jagoff are advocating is that people should be happy to have their labor devalued, and to accept nothing more than the satisfaction of a job well done and the love and admiration of their fellow man. Not only is that right wing beyond belief, that's the problem that we have today.

How many more NPR stories will I have to listen to about how it's great to be underemployed because you can spend more quality time with your family? People should be angry that the government is trying to shift more profit to big companies by guaranteeing a plethora of underemployed people who need jobs desperately. (And being fairly-comensated and spending quality time with your family shouldn't be an either-or question, but don't get me started.) But NPR and a couple posters here think it's noble to accept less. Well, ExxonMobil and Haliburton and Alcoa aren't accepting less (and all their executives and insiders who aren't even wage-earners, and won't be subject to these fantastical salary limitations won't be accepting less). Accepting less is what they want the shrinking middle class to do, since they know that less wealth always means less political power, which is what they really want.

Terwilliger, I've seen you write some good stuff. I can't believe you're being fooled by this crap.

[w4rma]

41. Folks with money and power have the money and power to define success (n/t

[uptohere]

42. people who are successful in a non-comercial way don't advertise

Few people have ever heard of any Nobel lauriate apart from the Peace Prize ones.

Clearly they have hit the jackpot in their field and while that recognition does bring with it some monitary reward its not like being the top pick in the NBA draft.

There are exceptions, of course. I think it was Michaelangelo (or DaVinci, I forget) that was actually quite wealthy dispite claims to the contrary. Babe Ruth was paid an enormous salary for the day. It may not be in line with the silly ones of today but it is considerable in time adjusted terms.

[camero]

46. True but the Babe was the exception

most of the players were basically slaves to the owners. How much did Satchel Paige make? Nowhere near what he was woth I'll bet.

[uptohere]

57. The Babe was the A-Rod for sure

...

[rucky]

58. Another Good Example of that...

...John Sayles (my favorite filmmaker who did "Lone Star", "Matewan", "8 Men Out" etc). His films are brilliant, but don't make any B.O. $$$ - some break even, some flop. So in between films he moonlights as an overpayed Hollywood script doctor/ghostwriter for gems such as "Pirhana", then uses that $$$ to finance his next flick.

If you can follow your passions, create something meaningful, and still fulfill your obligations to your family - that's success.

[AP]

59. He script doctors Disney movies.

And it makes his skin crawl. So he whores by day, and makes his own movies by night. More power to him, but he suffers for his art.

[AP]

65. And he does it for money. And he wouldn't do it if it didn't

pay really well.

[jafap]

96. anyone ever heard of Emily Greene Balch?

She is almost as obscure as Hans Lippershey. "I am Ozymandius, king of kings ..." (Mary Shelley's husband)

[JPace]

50. Money equals choices.....

if you have little money you have few
choices, a lot of money usually means
you have many choices in life. Money
of itself is meaningless, it is of
value because it can make life soooo
much nicer in almost every way.
I have no envy of those who have gobs
of the stuff, more power to them. What
I resent is the lack of compassion in
some of those with great wealth for
the far less fortunate.
I believe that there is a certain
percentage of society that is gifted
at making money, its a skill, perhaps
even an art. They simply do it almost
without effort and have the drive to
do it. The compassionate society will
redistribute wealth so that those
in need will not suffer destruction
but be held to a defined minimal standard
of living. The weak, the afflicted, the
elderly, the young, the sick, the unlucky,
all need support. In a compassionless
society the redistribution of wealth is meager
or non existent. We are moving in the
direction of a compassionless society since
AWOL took office. Its not that people need
to be limited in how much money they can
earn, it is that they need to be fairly
taxed and contribute their fair share to
the country.

[VOX]

60. Because we confuse the menu with food...

We are a people obsessed with counting and sorting. We attempt to quantify and rate most everything: How much? The biggest? The fastest? The top ten ______? On and on.

Money does not = success, or even wealth, for that matter. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. who emphasized the "content of one's character." But in our quest to measure success, $$$ is unfortunately the most convenient yardstick by which we count.

Using this warped standard, Adam Sandler and Cameron Diaz (the current highest-paid movie actors), are more "successful" than a dedicated, inspiring high-school teacher or a skilled and seasoned emergency-room nurse.

[camero]

63. Bingo

I agree it is the content of a person's character that determines his success.

[Terwilliger]

70. this is a capitalist society

your value is in the amount of money you possess

[AP]

71. No. The value of your labour is the amount of $ you get for it.

And there seems to be some confusion here. It's one thing to criticize this society for being skewed towards benefitting people with the most money. But it's another to argue that people shouldn't be compensated fully for their labour. That's just an argument for creating huge powerful, rich corporations which will exploit labor, and will pay out their profits not in salary, but in some other form which will benefit the people who control the corporations. People should alwasy be compensated for the full value of their labour.

[camero]

74. So, paying CEO's less would be oppressing the rest of society?

Now you're not making sense. You have twisted the argument to argue that the rich would be oppressed. AWW, poor babies, now they won't be able to afford thier 100k square foot mansion.

We definitely have a long way to go to mature as a society.

[AP]

80. CEO's aren't being rewarded for their labor. They're being rewarded

for their donations to the republican party, which are resulting in legislation which allows them to milk their corporations of the profits created by the huge difference in the price they pay for the labor they get from their employees and the value of that labor.

This is about the tenth time I've made this point.

Why don't you understand it???? What is wrong with you????????????

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[camero]

83. We all know that

My point is that what they take affects the rest of us. And putting a roof on thier greed is not immoral or unjust. As a matter of fact, it is morally correct.

Your pie in the sky mentality about money is the problem. Seems to be, "Well, I'll take what I think is mine and to hell with everyone else."

And that is the republican mentality. We live in a world of finite resources of which money is one. Accept it.

[AP]

100. Wait a minute. Money is just a system of measurement.

What you're saying is, basically, I don't like inches. I want the world to get rid of inches.

And where you're really not making sense is that you're saying, yes, CEO's are ripping off society (with which I agree) because they're taking money from people who need it (with which I agree). I say, this has to be fixed politically. You say it has to be fixed by getting rid of the system that measures how much they're ripping off society.

How can you say money isn't in important when you then say money is so important that we have to shift it from the people who don't deserve it to the people who deserve more of it.

Yes, it's important. And that's why you have to make sure people who labour hard get what they deserve, and people who use the political system to accumulte wealth and power without having to work hard and contribute to society aren't able to do that so easily.

I don't worship money. I worship the things it measures -- physical and intellectual labour.

[baldguy]

103. The problem is that

most people believe that money measures what it can buy, not what you did to get it. If Alan Greenspan sneezes, the stock market panics, stock prices fall, CEOs still need to buy the gold-plated Bugatti, so the price of bread goes up. Has my labor suddenly decreased in value? I still get the same small paycheck, but I can't buy as much.

[AP]

105. That's a political problem and not a problem with the fact

that we have a system which MEASURES wealth.

[camero]

112. Which means your ok with the fact

that we have a caste system. An example of what we are talking about.
In 1968, Denny McLain was the last pitcher to win 30 games in a season. Noone has done it since but we have Kevin Brown, who is having a horrible year, in the middle of a $105 million contract.

Now, was Denny McLain more successful than Kevin Brown(who takes 2 yrs to win 30 games), or vise versa? I argue that Denny McLain was more successful even though he made less.

[AP]

117. You are a very confused person. Why do baseball players make more money

today? It's because baseball makes more money, because there are more people with more desposable income. It's a big business.

You know what's wrong with baseball? It's that baseball players don't get a big enough piece of the pie they create, and that their income from baseball is taxed at higher rates than the owners of the companies which use their labor.

Bush was a part owner of a baseball team. He probably took his cut of the baseball profits through dividend income, and stock options, and by forcing local governments to buy him stadiums, and by expropriating land around the stadium at under fair value prices, and the average tax rate he probably paid on all that income that he derived from baseball was taxed at under 10%. Meanwhile, A-Rod, or whomever, who is out there busting his ass and creating real value, is having his income taxed at an average very close to 33%.

[baldguy]

125. No workers get a big enough piece of the pie.

Fans pay good hard EARNED money to see the players, not the owners.

Baseball players are unique, in the fact that if they play well they can earn more. Most workers don't have this ability. If you don't belong to a union, you can go to work for years, bust your ass & create real value for your employer - and he can still fire you on a whim.

That same employer can blackmail your local gov't to give tax breaks, low-interest or no-interest loans, and force taxpayers to give bribes in other words - so they won't close the business and move it elsewhere.

The corporation earns a great deal more money from your labors than you do, and pays lower tax rate to all levels of gov't, and get lower interest rates than you do, too.

Money should be a measurement of labor. In actuality it's a measure of power and influence, and there is no way individuals - even those united in a common cause - can match multi-national, multi-trillion dollar corporations. Even if those corporations produce nothing.

[AP]

126. Ticket reciepts pay a small part of a players salary. What they're

getting is a cut of the TV money. And the corporations that hire them are, through financing tricks, making themselves very wealthy, while robbing taxpayers, and their income is escaping real taxation, while the ball player's income isn't.

Again, money IS a measurement of labor. The problem is that the laborere isn't getting enough of it, and it's being accumulated by people with lots of political power because they have political power.

Don't confuse the problem. The problem is politics and not the fact that we measure the value of labor with a monetary system. If people got paid in salt or love or whatever, we'd have commercial paper representing salt and love.

[baldguy]

127. Wait. Do you know what money actually is?

"Money is the measurement of labor." No it isn't!

The value of money is an illusion, and it’s a measurement of the amount of power and influence the bearer has. The value of the dollar you worked for last week may be more or less today, depending on things which are entirely out of your control. If something cost more than it did yesterday, that means you have to work more to get it. Is the value of you labors worth less now? I don't think so.

Just look at the stock market. CEOs manipulate the price of their companies stock in order to impress the stockholders and increase their bonuses. Then they cash in the options they gave themselves and sell out before the company collapses.

CEOs have a lot of money, but they don’t do much real work.

What does this do for the people they employ? Does it help them earn more? NO! Does it make the job easier so they can be more productive? NO! Does it even allow the company to expand and hire more people? Don't kid yourself.

[AP]

146. Am going to insist that people read ALL my posts before they take me on.

I've addressed this a couple times. I can't keep explaining how CEOs have gamed the system.

[tinnypriv]

81. So, raising children isn't "labor"?

I disagree.

[Terwilliger]

88. excellent point

I think you should be paid $50,000 (pounds would be a better wage ;-) ) for raising a child. Pay a couple $100,000 per year to raise a child. Give that to everyone on the planet.

[shance]

89. Free market (capitalism) and Democracy - basically oxymorons

and ultimately come blow to blow like we are now, with the issue of corporations, deregulation and profit derailing what is in the best interest overall (democracy).

I believe there is a way to counter this where all can ultimately be satisfied, or at the least content. First off if a capitalistic and Democratic society are going to be able to cohabitate for an indefinite period of time the ultimate factor will always have to be what is in the HIGHEST good for all, and now since everything is globalizing, it will have to be what is in the highest interest of the environment and respecting our ecosystem first and foremost.
And, with that said there are thousands of creations and inventions every week that, IF ALLOWED TO BE PATENTED, could save this planet so to speak. However that is where capitalism, fear, and greed intersect with the overall good of the planet. Of course the example most used is fossil fuels, which many say will be close to gone in thirty years. Keep in mind that minerals and resources in the soil EFFECT THE QUALITY AND NUTRITION even in our food. So, when people ravage the land for resources, they also take with them an important factor which creates healthy humans and animals. Why so many dont get this I dont know. Maybe they honestly dont know.

There are ways to remedy our current addiction to natural resources that are now vital to address.

Since my involvement in politics and activism, I have also realized the vitalness of Americans and all citizens staying involved and running for office. In order to maintain a healthy Democracy, it takes responsibility, building relationships with our legislators and becoming government officials as well. WE have to do it and we can never EVER rest on our laurels because there will always be individuals sadly enough that will want to abuse the system. So various forms of regulation will have to be there.

Also, we own the airwaves, so we need to have more involvement and say there as well. As we can see, we have to search long and hard to get real information on whats going on. And many Americans dont.

We have to build our neighborhoods and communities into involved communities.

[camero]

90. I agree

As to the environment, imagine that the earth is your house. Would you want to live in a house that is trashed like the earth is getting?

Hell, I just watched the news tonight for the first time in a long time and they were talking about Anniston, AL , which is contaminated with PCBs from a negligent corporation. The whole town for christ's sake.

And this is what the thought of money=success gets you. Exploited and much worse.

Oh gee, I forgot about Glacier National Park and how it almost doesn't have any glaciers left because of global warming. All because we chase the almighty dollar.

Good post.

[shance]

92. Thanks.

:)

[camero]

93. You're welcome

:)

[Terwilliger]

123. I think there can be a happy medium...called socialism

we can keep capitalism in place as long as its REGULATED and as long as the overall wealth generated by the capitalism is redirected into the whole of society

concentration of wealth ensures the class separation, and the ultimate dissolution of humanity

[bitchkitty]

77. Because we are a capitalist society. n/t

[Clete]

78. We also equate might with right.

If we overwhelm an opposing nation with superior military force, then we are right. The Nazi's operated on the same principle in WWII.

[camero]

85. Yes, we do

Unfortunately, we also go by economic might makes right. The Nazis did that too.

[Nikia]

79. Pay does not equal hard work or worth

In a relative short work history of several jobs, I have observed this. I worked very hard at some jobs that paid near minimum wage. My current job is easier for me than working fast food was. Of course at my current job, I often take home my work worries, which was not true of my more "meaningal" jobs. I do respect people who generate new ideas and take responsibility as managers, but sometimes such people are always stealing their subordinates ideas and blaming them when things go wrong and are paid the same or more as good managers and professionals. Then there are some professionals that I think are paid well just because people of more educated or upper middle clss to upper class backgrounds do them and it is a sort of tradtion that they are paid well. I think that is why some jobs are paid poorly as well. Companies will pay as little as they can and get "qualified" candidates. The market determines pay this way.

[camero]

86. I agree with most of your post

Except the last sentence. There is no "invisible" hand in the market.
The market is people and people in charge determine the pay.

The social mores of society determine which professions pay more than others. Which is why you see sports figures being paid more than the people who actually benefit society. Like teachers.

[billyskank]

84. We equate money with success because

we've been very deliberately conditioned to think thus. It's the basis of a capitalist society.

Money is useful and one cannot live without any wealth, but once one's basic needs are met and one can eat, have shelter, protect oneself and live hygenically, money does not avail one happiness. The fact that that seems a strange thing to say is an indication of how well-drilled the conditioning is.

[camero]

87. Very well-drilled

It is also the basis for fascism because people will blindly follow whatever the boss says for fear they will not be able to eat.

[Ein]

91. Because we live in and support a Capitalist system.

[baldguy]

102. That's not enough.

Because we DON'T live in a purly capitalist system - and you wouldn't want to either. Even the most ardent supporter of laissie-faire economics thinks gov't needs to reign in the worst aspects of the free market from time to time. Monopolies are generally bad. As are cartels or syndicates of a few companies, which colude to control the market. So, our gov't legislates against them.

Corruption is bad. Price gouging is bad. Selling unsafe or hazardeous products is bad. Lieing in advertising is bad. Our gov't legislates against these things.

Why do we have these laws? Because not having them would harm the market, and harm people and the society. Now, we don't allow a few huge cororations to control the market (at least theoreticly). Why do we let a few people control the money? The top 1% owns 80% of the wealth. That inequality can't continue.

[camero]

115. You're right

That pace of inequality can't continue because the economy will collapse from there not being enough consumers to buy products.

Which is what a maximum wage would help to eleviate.

[AP]

118. What in the world makes you think that the super powerful whose

incomes are capped will then give that money to the middle and working class? First of, all lot of their income probably comes in forms which aren't easily capped (are you talking about a 100% tax on income over 350,000?).

Here's exactly how powerful people are going to circumvent this: bigger families. Rich people will have 20 kids and adopt 20 more and create business families. They'll concentrate power that way.

[camero]

130. Now you are getting loopy

That means 20 more mouths to feed, so they still don't come out ahead. That money will have to go where it belongs, back into the business.

[AP]

147. You are calling me loopy. That's rich.

In your uh 'reality' where a guy is limited to 350k, Would rockefeller by happy with 350K or would he jack that up to 7 million by adopting 19 kids? Some people have families of 10 on incomes of 35K, so I'm guessing Rockefeller might not stop at 20. Of course, if you only have an income of 35K, you really would be pushing it if you had 10 kids, so the large family thing, that would be a trick reserved for the rich.

Increase the number of Mormons and Catholics. That's what your system would do.

[rasputin1952]

97. The infinite debate: What is the worth of a man...

(or woman)?

I can figure a few limits here, but I cannot answer the question in whole.

A man rakes in $64 mil, but the company goes broke; not a good investment.

A Baseball player can slug a few out of the park, so he gets $18 mil, then can't bat his way out of a sandwich bag; not a good investment.

A singer gets a contrct for $10 mil, has an accident loses her voice; not a good investment.

Investment is based on potential. If that potential is realized, the investment may pay off. A person who makes $11 bil for a company might well be worth $64 mil., but I don't think so.

The people that produce the goods, perform the services and generally make the country run, are the real potential we have as a nation. This is such a base idea, it is seen worldwide by those who care to see. It is the African woman digging for roots to feed her children, it is the children of the barrios that beg to buy a little food for their families, it is those that work long hard hours to figure out lifes problems to make a life a little easier. Very few CEO's produced anything of any great importance; they marketed others ideas, and there lies the fallacy of wealth.

I am far from wealthy, but I have few complaints. I eat, sleeep under a roof and take care of my son nad some extended family. I've had rouogh times, I've had good times. But the measure of a mans worth, is how he is looked at by other men. Is he seen as greedy parriah that feeds on the helpless; or is he seen as a benefactor that can help everyone rise to new heights?

Most people I know, do things of generosity out of a sense of kindness, and always without fanfare. They do not live to be adored, they adore the living, and random acts of kindness are their signatures.

[camero]

114. Now that is success.

What has a person done to better others situations. All nations are judged by how they treat thier people, not by thier GDP.

100 years from now, the US won't be known as the richest country on earth, but as the one that could spread wealth through the entire populace, such as was done during the New Deal. And with being the most humanitarian, regardless of Bush.

[AP]

119. The whole point of MLK, the New Deal and Gandhi was to give

the oppressed a bite at the economic apple. And each one's successes proved that the more people who have a fair chance at contributing to the economy, the bigger and wealthier the economy gets.

[camero]

131. and also

hindering the power of the upper class. Which is what a maximum wage does. Can't you see this?

[moondust]

98. I doubt that Gandhi

would have ever considered living in the U.S. due to the rampant pig-like behavior of crass materialism.

[AP]

121. Gandhi's problem wasn't with capitalism. It was with social justice.

And he wanted to give more people access to the economy. He wore those homespun cloths not because he was rejecting materialism, but because he rejected the economy which sent all the profits from the Indian textile industry to London and Edinburgh. He rejected profits flowing out of India. He didn't reject profit. He wanted Indians to profit from Indian industry.

[LoneStarLiberal]

116. Because We've Lost What It Means To Be Happy

Few people I know who carry tens of thousands of dollars of debt just to live in a cookie-cutter house in a fashionable zip code, have luxury automobiles, and generally live beyond their means are not very happy. I've got lots of friends (many of whom are now only acquaintances) who live in these uber-materialistic suburban models of living and I don't know too many of them who are really happy. Most of them are so worried about the next round of payments and financing on their stuff that they don't really ever get the chance to enjoy it.

When I've asked a few of these people why they are doing what they are doing, they simply say "well this is what you are supposed to do, right?" I'm the black sheep amongst my friends, most of whom are married with young children and who live in this "suburban rut." I'm single, went back to graduate school after working in telecom, have cheap rent, just enough stuff to be comfortable, love my job, and am happy with who and where I am. Many of my friends and acquaintances frequently ask me probing questions such as "when are you going to settle down?" or "when are you going to get married and have a family?" or my favorite "when are you going to grow up?" That last one always elicits a good gut-laugh from me and nervous and wounded expressions from the questioner.

I honestly believe that in the quest for "stuff" we as a country have really lost what it means to be happy. Happiness is the rabbit we're chasing around the corporate dogtrack...around and around and around and we're never going to catch it. Thus you go through life making your minimum payments, accumulating stuff, doing what everyone else around you is doing in the name of normality and supposed happiness.

The real question here is how do we get back to happiness? Do we?

[AP]

122. People are unhappy because they're working their asses off to make

somebody else rich.

If Americans got to keep more of what they make, they'd have more autonomy, more democracy, and more choices. Instead, most Americans are wage slaves.

[Terwilliger]

128. and here you are defending the system

so, what is your solution?

[AP]

143. Gandhi's solution. MLK's solution. Economic power to the people.

Reward work not wealth. Progressive taxation (ie, bear a burden that matches the rewards you reap from society). Basically, read John Edwards's Real Solutions for America, and you'll understand. Review your New Deal history. Yeah. FDR. That's the solution. MORE money for the middle class and to the people who labor and create and innovate. Great wealth for people who make great contributions. Nobody left behind. And no free ride for the rich.

[rasputin1952]

132. I am more happy than I am unhappy...

I am happy when my son comes home from school with decent grades, I am happy when I am finally done weeding the darn garden, I am happy when I warch children play in my heighborhood. There are a zillion reasons to be happy...heck, I'm happy when some bird misses my head with a nasty dump.

Far too often, we refuse to allow happiness enter our lives, it is disruptive; 'we must worry, we must be afraid'. This is what we've been taught. If it wasn't the Red Menace of Communism, it was the horror of a future depression, nuclear war, pick your menace; the monsters are under the bed, you just need to pick one.

What happened to strolls through the woods with a loved one? What happened to listening to the rain on a warm summer night? Where is the awe of catching lightning bugs on humid nights? We miss the joy, because we are set on horror.

Every day I awaken to a new world of wonder, something will happen that will make my life a little better. Some things may happen that make life worse, but who cares? It is easy to make one's life worse, it is a joy to make someone's life a little easier and stop to smell the roses. Seek the good...you'll learn to love life.

[camero]

134. They want us to fear

That is the only way they maintain thier power over us. When we lose our fear, change occurs.

I know what you are saying. I saw the Northern Lights, twice. A beautiful sight.

[rasputin1952]

136. Never forget...

Fear is born of ignorance.

[camero]

141. How true

That is why we need to educate ourselves about the world around us.

[devarsi]

133. Because We Are Capitalists

so capital is the measure of success...

[camero]

135. That's been used time and time again on this thread.

And capitalism has evolved over time to address social justice, mostly to save it from itself.

A purely capitalist society is utopian just as a purely communist system is utopian. A maximum wage would just be another regulation of capitalism. The rich would have a tough time argueing that it is "thier" property when the workers made the profit, which by himself the CEO could not do.

[Ein]

137. Look at the real functioning system we have right now...

I really think it is b/c of Capitalism, maybe not in general, but in the form we practice.

[camero]

140. Capitalism has been the framework

But there have been times when Capitalism was in danger of destroying itself through greed, just look at history.

And with Bush, we need to save capitalism from itself again.

[Terwilliger]

149. no, now we need to save ourselves from neoliberalism

and get back to basics

[camero]

173. True

I'm taking your post to mean neoliberalism meaning free trade policy?
And wars started to gain control of other countrie's natural resources. Correct?

[AP]

148. I think we as a society are in deep trouble if people don't begin to

realize that the problem with capitalism is not capitalism but the way Republicans have gamed it.

If Democrats start thinking the problem is with capitalism, capitalism will be dismantled (as it is being now) to benefit the rich and powerful.

Basically, now, we don't have capitalism. We have a socialism for the rich. And everything comerica advocates -- capping wages for wage-earners, limiting the amount of wealth the middle class can amass, and asking people to accept non-monetary rewards for their labor -- WE ALREADY HAVE, thanks to Republicans.

Keep your eyes focused on the prize, and that's fixing this crap political system which has created this crap economic situation. FDR, Gandhi and MLK figured this out. It's pretty simple.

[Terwilliger]

151. they figured it out?

what exactly did they figure? that capitalism was its own worst enemy? That socilaism was the only way to ensure the rights and priveleges of all of society?

[Ein]

152. I know...

FDR spoke extensively against 'the aristocracy', similarly, near the end of his life MLK spoke of the 'evils of capitalism'.

I think they basically had it figured it out.

[AP]

154. You are really stretching the truth.

...

[Ein]

155. Tell me why? n/t

[AP]

156. MLK spent his entire life breaking down the barriers to blacks

which were preventing full participation in the American economy. He was fighting for fair wages and unlimited economic opportunity. Where is there anything MLK said or did which suggested that capitalism was so fucked up that blacks would be better being shut out from it? And note, this is what some people here are suggesting -- that the way black Americans lived for most of the history of America is the ideal relationship to material culture -- forego an income which matches your your capacity for contributing to society, rely on a barter economy, and realize that family and love and non-material assets are way more valuable than money.

What was your other example? FDR. It's so absurb to think that FDR would agree with anything said on this board in support of comera's position, that I'm going ot have to leave it to you to provide more detail of your argument.

[Ein]

157. Seach for

"Martin Luther King, "evils of capitalism""

and

"FDR, "aristocracy""

There ya go, I'll try to avoid agreeing with your posts from now on, I suppose.

"The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism." - MLK Jr.

[AP]

158. Aristocracy isn't capitalism. It's socialism for the wealthy.

and I agree with MLK about capitalism having evils. Totally. But he was still fighting for the right of blacks to participate in the market economy.

You are going to have to give me a little more to work with than a quote. Give me a link to the entire speech from which that line came.

[Ein]

161. You take for granted...

that I was manipulating these peoples quotes to my own beliefs. I prefer socialism over capitalism, but never said these people spoke to my cause.

I only claimed, what they said. I don't assume they supported socialism or communism, but know they realized the bad in our current system, which, to me, makes then 'in the know'.

[AP]

162. So you disagree with MLK. Because, before I thought you were saying

MLK proved some point you were making.

It looks like MLK supports almost verbatim a point I made above.

Are you saying that you were only leading me to the MLK quote to help me make my argument? Why thank you.

Also, it's so funny that you phrase this, "I was manipulating these quotes". Should we say that I, AP, was QUOTING these people to PROVE my points.

No manipulation. No sleight of hand. Just the truth.

[Ein]

163. And I agreed with you...

As I stated. The people I quoted said what they said. You called me wrong on it, despite it proving your own point. Take exception to that if you want. I won't post further if you do.

[AP]

164. Then I...

...appologize for misreading your support. I thought you were supporting Terwilliger. This has been a totally fucked up, 160+ post thread and I've been on the defensive. I've reread your post and see now that the "they figured it out" part was in support. The 'evils of capitalism' was misleading. Thought you were saying they thought it was totally evil beyond repair...

Please don't stop posting. Thank for leading me to the MLK quote.

[Ein]

165. I agree with Terwilliger

but I also think the current system isn't lost, as long as we work. I support any economic model, as long as it provides Social Justice.

[AP]

159. Well, look at this. It seems MLK and I totally agree.

Here's your quote.

Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a synthesis that combines the truth of both.

It means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interralated.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.



This is almost exactly the same thing I said above. Capitalism has it's truths, as does communism, and a synthesis is best.

[jwcomer]

166. Madison Avenue

I really hate to over simplify but most of this can be directly tied to Madison Avenue and our societies quest to mold the perfect consumer. You are a lousy consumer if you don't value material success and wealth. So get with the program... what are ya' a commie.

[AP]

168. It's not so much that they want you to want to be wealthy. In fact it's

the opposite. They want you to be poor. They want you to spend all your disposable income. They want you to go into debt. They want you to buy. And they do it be convincing you that what you buy makes you who you are. If they think Americans want to be wealthy, they convince you that wealth is measured by what you purchase (and not what you have in the bank, or what you've invested wisely so you can have a dignified retirement, or by the value of your labor, which is the real indication of wealth, to which everyone should have an equal opportunity of obtaining).

Yes, the problem does have a lot to do with manufactured desire.

[camero]

176. I still fail to see

How capping a Ceo's pay at 10 or 20 times thier lowest paid worker is going to oppress the poor and middle class. I they want to raise thier wages, then they must also raise the lowest wages to keep within the framework.

This hardly oppresses the poor but empowers them because they wouldn't have to spend thier time worrying about feeding thier family.

I am merely arguing that there are other measures of success besides money. How about the paraplegic would was able to walk again? The firefighter that saved people from a burning building? The teacher that taught the persn who found the cure for smallpox or polio?

You don't think these people were successful in thier endeavors. Or do you just have to make "godlike" money and have golden chariots at your birthday party to be successful?

[AP]

177. You don't read what I've written, do you?

I made a list of things that I'd like to see which would result lowering CEO compensation. I'd LOVE to see shareholders have more power to introduce salary limitations without having to wage proxy battles, and I'd love to see the tax code written so to discourage this sort of thing (by, eg, making CEO salaries tax deductible as expenses only up to say 10 or 20 times some benchmark). I also have nothing against legislating a cap on CEO salaries where it's consitutional, which is not an easy trick.

What I have a problem with is when you want to cap the salaries of labour. JK Rowlings is labour. Bono is labour. Paul Kariya is labor. They deserve to realize the full value of their labor. Capping their earnings would be a gift to the people who produce and distribute or otherwise profit from their labor, and those people would find a way to benefit from their windfall profits which circumvents your fantasy cap on earnings.

The world is better place (not a worse place) when people realize the full value of their labour, even when in results in very large benefits. This is the carrot which makes people want to write better books, sing better songs, work harder for plaintiffs injured by the negligence of large corporations, and strive for a cure to cancer.

[camero]

179. Answer me this

What are you going to do when the dollar becomes worthless?

[AP]

181. Elect a democrat like FDR to save America from the fascits

who created that situation.

[camero]

183. It took 10 years

and WWII for him to work his magic. Now, how are you going to survive in the meantime? We didn't come out of the depression in one day.

And there was a top tax rate of 91% on the rich, essentially a cap on earnings. Did anybody stop working because of that? Did we have no technological advance in that time? Or culture? I think we did.

[AP]

186. Why am I doing this.

Instead of me debating you, just read Wealth and Democracy. Let me rephrase this. Any causual readers who think camero knows what he's talking about, just read Wealth and Democracy. WWII didn't save Roosevelt. The New Deal made sense despite WWII. It helped a bit that European factories were devestated. That left America as the factory for the world. Nonetheless, the New Deal was the right thing to do. FDR kicked back tha fascists and left America with a competitve, wealth-producing economy that benefitted the middle class first.

High marginal tax rates are a necessity when money is cheap and it's easier to get richer, as it was in America until the end of the 1950s. This is what progressive taxation is all about. I'm all for progressive taxation, and even more for the idea that earned income should be taxed at a lower rate than unearned income because we don't want to discourage labor in this country, now, do we? No. I didn't think so. Whe the economy slowed down, and more and more people were earning in that top bracket, and when money wasn't as easy to make as it was in the '50s a democrat had to lower those rates, so that the rates would match the state of the economy. That's what democrats do to make sure the dollar doesn't become worthless and to make sure the economy works for as many people as possible.

I know none of this is going to be acknowledged by comero, even just to acknowledge the alternative viewpoint, nor will this stop comero from repeating this same exact allegation somewhere else.

[camero]

189. I didn't say the New Deal didn't work

I said it took ten years to work. Now answer my question and cease with the personal attack. What are you going to do in the meantime?

[AP]

192. I told you. I will look for a political solution to a political problem,

and it will most likely involve voting for Democrats who understand how Keynesian economics work.

[camero]

196. You still haven't told me

How you are going to eat in the meantime with no money. Or with worthless money. Just voting won't feed you. You haven't been hungry a day in your life have you?

[VermontDem2004]

174. In most cases money comes with success

For example, you work hard at a job, limit your absenses, etc. You will likely get a promotion and a high salary. In football, if you put up the great stats you will likely get a signing bonus and a new contract worth millions. But you do have your George Bush's of the world who are born with a silver spoon in there mouth and never knew what being a middle class citizen is like.