What a joke. I wonder how many of those risk taking rich people you are talking about were born into poverty. And I wonder how many of them were born with a silver spoon up their a$$. By risk taking do you mean gambling in the stock market? Or maybe you mean taking risks like Henry Paulson and causing the recent financial meltdown (then taking a gov't bailout)?
Probably because we've been having a pretty reasonable discussion.
Civilization is a collective. "Wealth" is nothing more than allocation of resources shared by that collective. How much someone deserves is determined by collective will. We have a lot of ideas about individuality, but the bottom line is what I said.
There is a vast difference between a CEO making 10 times what an entry-level full-time worker makes at a firm and making 1000 times that wage. One of the problems is that people like Paulson are compensated far beyond what their actual job performance merits. From the same point of view in which people look at lower-level workers as being undeserving of such and such wage one can look from the top down.
"How much someone deserves is determined by the collective will." What?
Wrong. It's determined by market forces. The term "collective" doesn't fit anywhere in Capitalism. Bro, step away from the Michael Moore movies....
BRUSSELS BELGIAN said:Better yet, send some money to Rick Perry; if he gets elected, you can have a nocturnal emission when he bans unions...
Who determines what someone deserves? You? President? Congress? The Borg Collective conscience?... Look at teachers, firemen, etc. We all get what we negotiate and what someone is willing to pay for our products, services and skills.... Some naive idea of "Fairness" has never played any role in this.
The "market" is populated by what, exactly? It wouldn't be human beings working together distributing resources, would it?
Sorry, but a civilization does not refer to a political system which this discussion is all about... you can easily have one without the other.. Civilization normally refers to societies that have complex arts, science and division of labor. A small tribe can have a political system without having anything that would be classified as a civilization...The "market" is populated by what, exactly? It wouldn't be human beings working together distributing resources, would it?
Capitalism is a manifestation of society. Society is a collective. What do you think a civilization is? Is it random individuals in separate bubbles floating about randomly?
People are so wrapped up in narrow (often misunderstood) aspects of civilization that they can't see the forest. The bottom line is that civilization is civilization. It's not anarchy. Civilization is a collective system, no matter how little some people involved realize it, or want to.
We have moved from tribal (national) boundaries to a global collective (or "market"). Some still think in terms of nations, but that thinking is becoming increasingly obsolete. Like it or not, we are being faced with the realities of global forces and they are eroding the "American Dream".
And, really, what people like to call capitalism generally is nothing more than a form of socialism with the financial rewards of pseudo-capitalism for the right people and the risk placed on the taxpayers. The bailouts of the finance "industry" are a prime example of that.
Is America a small tribe? Is our global market the manifestation of a small tribe? Political systems are part of civilizations. Civilizations are collectives. Political systems are collective processes, even if they come from small tribes.
This is exactly what I hear from everyone coming from socialist/communist countries, yet a lot of people want to jump in head first. Socialism is perfect in theory, but when the human element gets involved it all goes to ****. How is the wealth distribution thing working in Europe?
.This way you will know how the money is spentunemployment per Wikipedia:
You missed a few...
pwnage! :d
For assembly line work, in this country, in this economy, $12/hr is probably about right. Maybe more manufacturing will return here if the wages are more in line with what they should be.
This is known as "unskilled labor", and the compensation should reflect that. No reason why a guy putting one small piece of a giant puzzle together should expect more pay than someone like me, who not only is expected to take the ENTIRE puzzle completely apart AND put it back together again, but also have the gray matter to understand WHY.
might I take the time to applaud TN for actually having people that are desirous of working, despite the left wing lune socialist agenda of the current generation of twenty nothings (and our goberment) that go out of their way to discourage work --- despite their rhetoric otherwise. You can talk about relative unfairness of wages all you want, but in the end if you chose to sit on your fat arse (despite the availability of a "free" tax payer funded primary public education) then blame yourself for your foolish exercise of your own free will. ?
Can you explain how decades of impossibly reckless legislation can be blamed on 20-something year olds that don't work hard enough?
I don't know which one administration was the worst, I just know that every time we get new leadership they try and change as much as possible before their 4-8 years are up.
You JUST quoted me saying "We will be broke in the next 4-12 years because of these leaders". Uh, umm.. I'm referring to the same ones as you, aren't I?I guess doubling the national debt doesn't count
And we're not broke now. Wait 4-12 years and see what broke looks like, when we're no longer able to mint/print/'stimulate' ourselves out of debt/trouble. THEN you can blame this administration. Similarly, if financial conditions improve 2-4 years later, the Obama administration can take some credit for it. (I'm not holding my breath)