i will rephrase your question: why do 50% of americans have
'fortunes' smaller than $2000? - why are things getting worse?
because the richgetricherandthepoorgetpoorer - that is, money
moves ceaselessly, automatically and legally, from earners to
nonearners - everyone grasps that the rich do not get richer
by working proportionately harder - bill gates does not get
paid $10,ooo,ooo an hour [peak income] because he works a
million times harder than the average worker [who gets $10 an
hour - 1999 figures - it doubles every 12 years or so with
global inflation of around 6% a year - so in 2006 it is around
$15 an hour - if you pay all housewives and tertiary students
as well - who work, of course, and therefore should be paid]
because the people, who are the rulers in a democracy, have
done nothing to prevent this egregious superoverpay - the
people have not been vigilant - although the first thing the
founding fathers did after signing the decl of ind was take
steps to prevent unlimited fortunes - obviously money is
power, superoverpay is tyranny
the people have not known that the survival of a democracy
depends wholly on limitation of fortunes, the prevention of
overfortunes, the prevention of people [fewer and fewer]
getting richer and richer endlessly, getting more and more
powerful endlessly, getting more and more tyrannical and
corrupt -
because people have missed seeing the most obvious thing, that
if money ceaselessly, automatically, legally drifts from
earners to nonearners, violence is going to rise and rise and
rise - you cant have legal theft on a grand scale in a society
without trouble - the purpose of govt is justice [james
madison] - otherwise you have vendetta-style endless back and
forth between robbers and robbed -
because people have abdicated rule - they do not monitor what
the national reality is, they do not study what is good, what
is bad, they have not monitored what their 'representatives'
are representing, they do not devote any time to deciding what
they want and what they need for a happy life - not even the
most important obvious truth, that you must prevent the
endless increase of over/underpay, which of course generates
millions of problems, getting everworse
the endless increase of overunderpay is theft - theft of money
[which satisfies all needs and millions of desires], theft of
power [freedom], and theft of peace [higher and higher
policing/legal/courts costs, lower and lower street safety],
theft of uncorruption
everyone knows power corrupts - everyone knows money is power
- what have you done about it - nothing - you have reaped what
you have sown - chaos
because the people have said: i dont need to think about
national issues, let someone else do that - you have given
your leaders carte blanche, and they have run away with the
money, laughing all the way to the bank, because you do
nothing when your money, power, peace and safety is stolen
because no one has taught you the many many legal ways that
money moves from earners to nonearners - eg, inflation - the
govt writes money into existence, which reduces the value of
every dollar in the country, and then lends this new money to
the people and, over the time of mortgages, gets back maybe
three times what they lent - and the money they lend they had
stolen from the people in the first place - eg, a person buys
land for peanuts, others build a city around that land and
make that land very valuable, and the people let the owner of
the land walk away with their labour
because no one asks themselves the obvious question: how is it
that someone else works no harder than me, and yet is paid a
million times as much? - no one has suggested that there is
something wrong here - no one has decided that this is wrong,
must not be, is anti-democracy, anti-liberty, anti-equality,
anti-fraternity, anti-community, anti-national, anti-social,
traitorous theft that destroys the state
because people instead admire and respect the superoverpaid -
the people have preened themselves on the size of their
superrich - have never made the connection between increasing
overpay and increasing underpay - when bill gates gives one
hour to society, and takes out as legal reward for that hour's
work $10,ooo,ooo, he legally gets ownership of a million hours
work - he puts in one hour, he gets out the wealth, good and
services of a million person-hours - in the form of a house or
factory worth $10,ooo,ooo - a thing bill could not design the
doorhandles of, in one hour - he can do one hour's work and
get paid a million hours work - this is not clear to people -
this is not something that is clear to economists - or it is
clear to them, but it is also clear that they will not get
their bit of overpay if they buck the system by informing the
people they are being robbed - ie, they are bribed, and betray
the state
everyone know that the richgetricher, everyone knows that this
is not just, ie, that this is theft - that it is not because
the rich put in as much as they take out - that the rich
taking out more than they put in means everyone else taking
out less than they put in - and nobody does anything about it
and the violence is proportional to the injustice - and pay
for a fortnight's work now ranges from $1,ooo,ooo,ooo [one
billion] to $1 - an
injustice/violence/inequality/unliberty/corruption/unfraternity/problems/crises/unhope/unbeauty
factor of one billion - and no great soul, no great writer, no
nobel prize winner, no dalai lama, no mother theresa, no
nelson mandela, is talking about it - [and how many are
listening to it?]
because everyone is chirping happily about this and that -
making a terrific din, like cicadas - and being totally
uninterested in any real answers - immediately switching off
to something lighter, less real - consulting their immediate
comfort, their familiar comfortzone, not their longrange,
largeview happiness - which is serious business - the greatest
optimist is the one who faces the biggest problem -
if people showed the least sign of interest in their own
happiness, of facing reality, of willingness to try to see and
to study the problems, there is a solution - an easy solution
- total cost: learning it and teaching it to two people - a
few month's sparetime work - benefits: nonextinction, world
peace, more pay for 99% of people, freedom forever from
tyranny, corruption, far fewer problems - like, 100th the
problems, and no terrible problems - and people's ears are
stuffed - look at all the chatter in this forum, happy chatter
about juicy mites on the leaves of the tree of problems - the
total certainty that it is fine and right to fill your mental
spaces with chitchat - as if there are no real problems, no
unhappiness - as though there is nothing to do but chatter and
enjoy - and if they do work on a problem with sincerity and
seriousness, it is just any problem they found lying around
and which they like - no effort has gone in to finding out
what problem being worked on will solve millions of problems,
no effort has gone into determining which problem will be most
efficient at increasing happiness, decreasing problems and
social uglinesses like corruption and tyranny
'there are a 1000 striking at the branches of the tree of
problems for every one who is striking at the root' - henry
thoreau - this thought is worth zillions - it can remind us to
search for the source of the trouble -
birds in a tree, that is a great food tree, but is being taken
over by a vine - the birds attack the vine where it is closest
to them, but the vine is too vigorous and defeats them - if
the birds had done something not natural for them, and studied
the tree all over, they would have found that the vine was
much more vulnerable and defeatable at the trunk end - a
couple of woodpeckers could bring it down in an hour, a
friendly beaver in two minutes - if the birds had spent less
time talking about the terrible things happening today at the
million tendril ends, how this leaf of the tree had succumbed
to the vine, the difficulties they had pecking through the
tendril today, they might have seen the solution and saved
themselves
'a friend is one who warns you'
the truth will piss you off, but it is the only way to
happiness, out of problems - happiness lives in realityville,
it doesnt even have a holiday home in unreality - you can see
clearly and be stoneblind at the same time: see a steel track
with crystal clarity and be run over by a train - be an expert
on the mona lisa through a microscope and not even know, or
completely forget, it is a picture of a woman! - only those
who see the big picture are awake - you can be awake to
today's details about bush, iraq, american politics, and be
stoneblind to reality, which is perfectly heartless about
running you over! -
just a law that counterbalances the ceaseless effect of the
drift of money from earners to nonearners is all it takes to
cut the trunk of this vine whose tendrils are bush and iraq
and a million other intractable problems - eg, overfortunes on
decease to go direct into the bank accounts of the most
underpaid - from where it will trickle up, refreshing every
level of the economy, expanding markets, reducing violence,
reducing tyranny, increasing capital formation [savings,
investment capital], increasing real [=inflation-adjusted]
income growth - a return to the american dream of a land of
the free - a breakaway from racing to extinction via
ever-increasing violence, war and weaponry caused by ever
increasing theft of earnings
if you graph the lowest hourly payrate at one millimetre, you
have to graph the highest hourly payrate at 1000 KILOMETRES =
a million metres = a billion millmetres - over 90% of world
wealth goes daily to 1% - and yet no one can work more than
twice as many hours a week [100] as the average [50] - does
this state of affairs indicate that we are just too stupid by
far to save ourselves? - thinkers should have been talking
about inequity when it had reached a factor of 10 - highest
hourly pay 10 times lowest hourly pay is too much for
equality, fraternity, uncorruption and democracy! -
just so that 1% can be overpaid, we have 99% underpaid, 90%
paid less than 10% of what they earn, of the wealth they
create by their work, 90% paid between 10th and 1000th of what
they create by their work - i dont say: compassion - i say:
pragmatics, good sense, survival, your happiness, your
selfinterest - see your anger at being reduced to 100th of
your income [for the same amount of work] and multiply by 5
billion - that is the anger, war, crime, mafiaism and
terrorism that will disappear with justice
if no one was paid more than US$15 an hour, every family IN
THE WORLD working average hard, would have an income of
$75,000 a year - and 90% are on between $7500 and $75 a year!
- can the world support such superchaos? - can the human mind
survive the horrors and terrors that that gives birth to? -
can any empire afford the amount of defense that that degree
of theft requires? - britain plundered the world, and used up
all its plunder trying to hold on to its plunder - british
empire is no more - america is going the same way - the torch
is passing to japan, as most overpaid nation, and japan will
go the same way - [eg, 7 of the top 10 banks have moved to
japan]
is there wisdom here? - are there good points here? - is there
important information here? - is there solution here? - is
there great hope here? - i am incapable of thinking that
people will detect no wisdom or good sense here - i may be
wrong - plenty more insight and good sense - FREE - at
www.globalhappiness.org [not an org] - survival is too
important, extinction is too close, to have to buy it -
everyone in the world can hear about this plan in just 32
times the time it takes one person to fully communicate all
the important points to 2 people [a few months] - in a crowd
of people with candles and only one candle lit, how long does
it take to light everyone's candles? - 4 billion candles can
be lit in just 32 times the time it takes to light one candle!
- if everyone lights only 2 candles!
god, dont say: he is trying to get us to go his way, i never
go someone else's way - i say: go your own way [you can do no
other] but use whatever opinions you can that seem good to you
- be open to suggestions - others can have knowledge you don't
- it is no disgrace to your individuality to borrow good bits
from others -
you can say: i prefer the democrats - but that is not much, is
it? - what does your prefered party have to know to make you
maximally happy? - what do you have to know, to tell your
party what to do, to make yourself maximally happy?
is information, insight, that is vital, essential to your
survival and maximal happiness, at www.globalhappiness.org
[not an org]? - or not? - it either is or isnt - is there so
clearly so much good sound advice here, in this post, that it
is likely that there is more good sense at globalhappiness?
gates didnt get, on average, over his worklife, 50,000 times
the average pay because he worked at the computer, read
documents, chaired meetings 50,000 times faster than the
average - he got so much because new technology has inbuilt
scarcity - huge demand, small supply - so he can get a price
many times costs - same with electricity - cheaper and better
than gas - so the sellers of electricity got rich because they
could ask price well above costs - not because they earned the
money they got - the customer gave more of his labour to buy
electricity than the company put labour into providing the
electricity - so money passed from earners to nonearners
if a person works 100 hours a week for 50 years, they do only
250,000 hours - and they certainly dont work harder than the
average hardness of working per unit of time if they are
working 100 hours a week! - and the average pay is [2006]
US$15 an hour - so no one earnes more than 250,000 x $15 =
$3.75 million - I doubt if anyone can work 100 hours a week
for 50 years - so 250,000 hours is certainly a generous
allowance for the maximum work done - so the largest
selfearned fortune is US$2.75 million - allowing $1 million
[$20,000 a year] as minimum lifetime spending
and none of the 'reasons' for paying higher than average,
higher than equal, pay per hour stands up to good sense -
business risk, merit, brains, talent, skill, experience,
responsibility, etc - [i can expand on this] - anyway, 99%
will get more per hour with equal hourly pay, so it is not in
their interests to be against equal hourly pay
$75,000 a year per family working average hard would be
paradise for us all - 99% of violence, war and crime gone,
certainty of extinction in the nearish future gone - markets
10 times bigger - 10 times as many scientists, capitalists,
inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, geniuses, etc - tyranny
gone, corruption 99% gone - hope and faith high - mental
health high -
every move in the direction of justice in history has been
good - eg, henry ford high-wages economics [the worker is the
consumer], marshall plan [prevented worldwide depression,
prevented another hitler], macarthur's land reform in japan
[from defeated, firebombed nation to top nation in 50 years!],
china is very strong, growing fast because of the injection of
much fairer pay [they will start to lose their strength, their
internal peace, if they don't set a limit to overfortunes],
sparta strong after lycurgus's reforms, america strong as long
as limitation-of-fortunes law was effective, roman empire
growing fast, though small, when there was low overunderpay
[roman empire falling fast, though large, when there was large
overunderpay]
the writing is all over the wall: control overpay or enjoy
the perpetual global snowstorm [of nuclear winter] - can
inequity, violence, corruption continue to grow endlessly
without REACHING world war 3?
only 1.6% of your genes differ from chimpanzees - can you get
smart/sober/serious/sincere/awake quick enough? -
or is it more important to resent me having the nerve to
presume to lovingly give you my best warning?
we are on the brink of extinction
we are on the brink of 1000-fold happiness - and everyone
already agrees!
why? - because everyone already knows that, if you had equal,
average hourly pay for all, and a world government implemented
changing this to hourly pay from a million times to 1000th of
the average [ie, taking most earnings off most people and
giving it to the very few], you would have 1000-fold increase
in trouble, pain, horror, terrorism, war, crime, danger,
mafiaism, social ugliness, corruption, tyranny, torture,
mental disease, physical disease, ignorance, destruction,
waste, 9/11s, bush's, nero's, vietnams, biafras, etc, etc, etc
even the sane and rational among the 1% overpaid will prefer
losing the satisfaction of a few very marginal desires [for
fairpay satisfies all needs and millions of desires, leaving
few - gold faucets don't add much to quality of life], and
losing the very great danger of having overpay among so many
underpaid, and gaining nonextinction, world peace, friendship
and trust of the human tribe, freedom, etc, etc - it's a great
bargain for them too! - how many, given a choice between theft
and survival, will not give up theft? - even if the whole 1%
prefer theft to survival, they are still outnumbered 99 to 1
edward filene ['why shouldn't i give half my money to the
american people? they gave it all to me'] shows that there are
some sane among the overpaid - [it isn't HIS money:
'philanthropist: a thief who is kind to beggars' [ambrose
bierce]; charity of the rich: stealing the pig and giving the
feet in charity]
how many of the present laws are against the interests of the
people, and for the interests of the 0.01% superoverpaid? -
'they [the rich] are not only breaking the laws, they are
making the laws' - of course - you gave them unlimited power,
let your fairshare of power leave you and go to them - why
would they care about you? - you have made them gi-ants and
made yourselves ants - how much do you care when you tread on
an ant? - you give them unlimited power in the form of money,
your money, and then spend your days going: oh, look, they
trod on millions of ants [katrina, iraq], that isnt very nice,
i hope they dont tread on me
what do I get out of it? - survival and 1000-fold happiness -
we are all in the one boat now, thanks to ships and planes and
phones and computers and global bombs
we are all being unjust, because we are all taking everything
we get - none of us are aiming to take out of the social pool
of wealth no more than we put in - it is just grabgrabgrab -
the highest price i can get - and everyone forced to fight
everyone else, endlessly, escalatingly, exhaustingly,
extinctionistically - whereas there is enough for all to
satisfy all needs, and millions of desires - overpay comes
with an angry person attached, and he never stops until he has
got back his own, or until you have nothing left
have i done everything i can do to make this as clear as
possible?
any good questions?
any sobriety, sincerity out there? - or are your mechanisms
for avoiding reality too efficient, your cocoon of the
familiar too cosy, for you to be free to save yourself?