Do rich ppl deserve their money?

[benny]

You mind telling that to the Jews??

Per se means in-itself, that is without consideration of what the suffering of your ancestor has done to you.

[benny]

Banking is a service being provided. Voting is a social right and duty. Huge difference. If you can't see the difference then that explains your misplaced sense of entitlement.

Eyeball has a point if you consider predatory lending.

[eyeball]

Banking is a service being provided. Voting is a social right and duty. Huge difference. If you can't see the difference then that explains your misplaced sense of entitlement.

I regard my participation as a volunteer in the democratic process's I'm involved with as being a service. Being thrifty was once considered a social duty, back when traditional banking hours existed. Are you saying that breaking with traditions that have served us well for generations can be a good thing?

And what about too much access to power? Does anyone deserve more of this than anyone else?

[benny]

In our society, the message we now receive 24/7 is: you deserve to enjoy life to the max!

[Riverwind]

Are you saying that breaking with traditions that have served us well for generations can be a good thing?

There is no connection between banking hours and 'thrifiness'. Banking is a service provided to make a profit for private companies. Voting is a social responsibility. If you don't want to participate then that is fine and no one will force you. Those of us who do vote will decide who gets to run the government anyways.

And what about too much access to power? Does anyone deserve more of this than anyone else?

Some people will always have preferential access to power. If it was possible to eliminate money from the equation it would be replaced with 'party loyalty' or 'social contacts'. Saying you want to get rid of differential access to power is like saying you want world peace. Nice sentiment but pratically impossible

[eyeball]

There is no connection between banking hours and 'thrifiness'. Banking is a service provided to make a profit for private companies.

Not when its practiced by a nationalized/socialized bank. If thriftiness is a desirable social value that the public profits from its appropriate that bank practices should provide services in a manner that puts this public value ahead of private profit don't you think?

Some people will always have preferential access to power. If it was possible to eliminate money from the equation it would be replaced with 'party loyalty' or 'social contacts'.

Saying you want to get rid of differential access to power is like saying you want world peace. Nice sentiment but pratically impossible

I guess that explains why its always been more practical for society to just kill off all the rich and powerful people now and then.

Edited April 1, 2009 by eyeball

[benny]

Voting is a social responsibility. If you don't want to participate then that is fine and no one will force you.

To be rational and respectful of incentives, you have to say something like: voting is a social responsibility, if you don't want to participate then you deserve to pay a fine or those who participate deserve to receive a reward.

Edited April 1, 2009 by benny

[jbg]

At that rate, you're never going to get rich. Perhaps you should shop around for a different bank or at least a different ATM.

Or join the NDP whose big issue a few years back was ATM fees.

[jbg]

Bottom line: the new world of 24/7 access to banking services is infinitely preferable having to do all banking at branch between 10-3 week days only. A lot of people under 30 probably never had to deal with 'banker's hours' and don't realize how better the system is today: even with the fees.

In my neck of the woods banks are open 8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 A.M. - 2 P.M. Saturday. TD Banks (yes we have them in NY now that they acquired CommerceBank) has Sunday hours too.

[jbg]

You mind telling that to the Jews??

We are not victim-players on anything like the scale of the Muslims. Plus we pay our own way and contribute to society.

[benny]

"Increasing people's desert as conscientiousness is morally valuable, and the moral value of bringing it about that a person becomes more deserving by a unit is greater, the lower the person's lifetime desert would be absent that increase." (Richard Arneson)

http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/...alitychap11.pdf

[moderateamericain]

Benny,

The Belief you follow is that of a virus. You believe people should live off eachother in a symbiotic relationship based on need regardless of ability. The problem is, certain people excel while others fall short. Why should the needs of those who have no ability be more important than those who strive for the best? The answer is Jealousy in its most sinister form. People, the only way this philosophy can hold sway is if you let yourself be duped into feeling guilty and letting the virus feed off you. Don't let this looter mentality effect you.

[benny]

Benny,

The Belief you follow is that of a virus. You believe people should live off eachother in a symbiotic relationship based on need regardless of ability. The problem is, certain people excel while others fall short. Why should the needs of those who have no ability be more important than those who strive for the best? The answer is Jealousy in its most sinister form. People, the only way this philosophy can hold sway is if you let yourself be duped into feeling guilty and letting the virus feed off you. Don't let this looter mentality effect you.

It is all to the contrary. The only way our own "philosophy" can hold sway is if you dupe yourself into feeling deserving and then letting the good genetic makeup others have randomly (lucky you!) drawn for you to feed you.

Edited April 3, 2009 by benny

[moderateamericain]

It is all to the contrary. The only way our own "philosophy" can hold sway is if you dupe yourself into feeling deserving and then letting the good genetic makeup others have randomly (lucky you!) drawn for you to feed you.

My genetic makeup has nothing to do with my ability to be sucessful. Hardwork, Determination, training, and ambition are what drives me. But you are right on one point. We are the vessels that allow such Philosophy to survivie by proping up the kind of people who believe it is there right to something they did not earn. But your wrong about one thing. There are people out there who will not be duped into letting people of the philosophy you preach leech off them. I am one of them.

[benny]

My genetic makeup has nothing to do with my ability to be sucessful. Hardwork, Determination, training, and ambition are what drives me.

Someone genetic makeup has objectively a lot to do with this person ability to be successful. Beside, determination, training, and ambition have a lot to do also with a socialization that was beyond any individual's power to control.

[moderateamericain]

Someone genetic makeup has objectively a lot to do with this person ability to be successful. Beside, determination, training, and ambition have a lot to do also with a socialization that was beyond any individual's power to control.

I disagree, Self Determination is brought on by ones own will. While Enviroment will have an effect on a persons overall makeup people still have the ability to choose to live an effective life or not. As an example how many from rags to riches stories have we heard? Or people overcoming great personal difficulties in there lives and achieving greatness. You absolutely are in control of your own destiny. Choices define a person, not their enviroment.

[benny]

I disagree, Self Determination is brought on by ones own will. While Enviroment will have an effect on a persons overall makeup people still have the ability to choose to live an effective life or not. As an example how many from rags to riches stories have we heard? Or people overcoming great personal difficulties in there lives and achieving greatness. You absolutely are in control of your own destiny. Choices define a person, not their enviroment.

Nobody gets out of holes by pulling on his/her own hairs.

[bush_cheney2004]

"Nature vs. Nurture".....Randolph and Mortimer Duke.....a wager for the usual amount.

[benny]

When I try to imagine me speaking with a man who has lost everything, I imagine this man shouting desperately at me "I still have my will".

Edited April 3, 2009 by benny

[sharkman]

When I try to imagine me speaking with a man who has lost everything, I imagine this man shouting desperately at me "I still have my will".

Uhhuh. Tell me, what does this imaginary man say about your mother? Has he told you to decrease your meds yet?

[benny]

Christophe de Margerie, CEO of Total, was asked today if he was deserving his salary and his answer was that it was not for him to make a judgment about that.

[moderateamericain]

Christophe de Margerie, CEO of Total, was asked today if he was deserving his salary and his answer was that it was not for him to make a judgment about that.

He should not have to apologize for what he makes. He should be able to say that proudly. But in a world where your codemned for earning a high wage, he probably did the best thing he could and DODGED the question.

[benny]

He should not have to apologize for what he makes. He should be able to say that proudly. But in a world where your codemned for earning a high wage, he probably did the best thing he could and DODGED the question.

In a world dominated by America, the term "undeserving" is typically used to condemn the healthy ("able-body") poor. By the way, there are 32 million Americans (10% of the population) who received food stamps in January (2009).

[WIP]

I disagree, Self Determination is brought on by ones own will. While Enviroment will have an effect on a persons overall makeup people still have the ability to choose to live an effective life or not. As an example how many from rags to riches stories have we heard? Or people overcoming great personal difficulties in there lives and achieving greatness. You absolutely are in control of your own destiny. Choices define a person, not their enviroment.

Jean Paul Sartre claimed that even a prisoner locked in solitary confinement has free will because he still has control over his own mind and thoughts etc. But, here in the real world, there are encumbrances on how much freedom we have to change our standard of living.

The basic theme of the conservative and libertarian right is that everyone has the same opportunities to succeed and fail, and their outcomes are the result of their own personal failure or success. This way of thinking makes it easy for the Rush Limbaugh's of the world to feel nothing more than indifference or outright contempt for those who are mired in grinding poverty. But do people born into impoverished neighbourhoods with high crime, substandard schools, little or no access to health care (in the U.S.), high unemployment, really have equal access to success as someone born into relative wealth? I doubt it!

As for the rags to riches stories, the consolidation of wealth has led to a virtual oligarchy, with corporations that are "too big to fail," and this puts limits on those rags to riches stories. As it stands now, there are very few cases like Sam Walton, who pushes in and takes over the already crowded retail market by using more efficient inventory and market data collection methods than his competitors; most rags to riches stories only happen when someone invents a new technology, and recognizes its potential, that has been overlooked by the majors. Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, have commented that they would not have had the chance to join the billionaires club if it wasn't for the fact that IBM and Xerox did not recognize the potential of computer operating system software, or personal computers.

The rags to riches stories are like lottery winners; they are exceptions to the rule. For the majority of people in the middle class, up until the latest stock market bubble burst, we had been watching several years of economic growth, rising real estate prices, growth in stocks and bonds, told that commodity prices were declining and our wealth was increasing -- and yet, feeling like it was getting harder and harder to make ends meet, having to work more overtime just to stay where we are.

Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows

Article Tools Sponsored By

By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

Published: March 29, 2007

Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top 1 percent of Americans — those with incomes that year of more than $348,000 — receiving their largest share of national income since 1928, analysis of newly released tax data shows.

The top 10 percent, roughly those earning more than $100,000, also reached a level of income share not seen since before the Depression.

While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent.

The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000, or about 14 percent.

The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.html

From McClatchy Newspapers Oct. 21, 2006

When he was asked recently why Americans aren't delighted by their strong economy, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson called it the $64,000 question.

In fact, there's a $65,093-a-year answer. That's the median income of a family of four in fiscal 2006, according to the Census Bureau, and middle-class families are being squeezed between stagnant wages and skyrocketing energy and health-care bills.

The U.S. economy is indeed strong. Although growth is slowing, it has essentially been steady since mid-2001. September's unemployment rate was a low 4.6 percent and the Dow Jones industrial average reached record highs this week.

But through September, the growth in hourly wages was flat or negative for 27 of the previous 29 months, according to Labor Department data. Wages for blue-collar and nonmanagerial workers -- 80 percent of workers -- are growing at a 3.9 percent annual rate, the Labor Department said in September. Consumer-price inflation, however, is rising at the same rate. That means prices are rising as quickly as wages.

Workers are barely keeping up. Health care, wages and energy prices are consumers' top three economic concerns, according to a Gallup poll in September.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/growth/ce...ory/501203.html

Now that the bubble has burst and the dust is settling, the reality is setting in that the boom of the last 20 years has only benefited those in the top one to three percent. The already rich, have been getting richer, but everybody else has been stuck in place! If there is one good thing about the coming Depression (I don't believe this latest market runup will last, Obama and the rest of the G-20 are just trying to reinflate the market), we may see a leveling of the playing field. This occurred during the Great Depression of the 30's, when after the same growing gap in income, the wage gap actually declined when high stakes gamblers, like the present hedge fund managers, took a bath and lost fortunes, and the government had to allow people to organize unions and take other steps to prevent civil unrest. So, maybe a depression or a severe recession has a silver lining, and this bubble should be allowed to burst, so that the game-players who make fortunes pushing paper, have to give way to people who add real value to the economy.

[RB]

Do rich ppl deserve their money?

Look if you and your neighbor struggled and save all the monies you can muster. While your neighbor could not contained a habit of Tim Horton each morning and forgo a wait for riches to appear, you went ahead and bought plot of land, then you bought some seeds, plant it and nurture the outcome. For years you toil this land and one day there is massive returns on your hard work. In the future the returns are handed to young brats.

I would think that hard work suffice people deserving their money, even the brats deserve the money because all the generations ever work for is a good or better life for their offsprings.

Edited April 3, 2009 by RB