Do rich ppl deserve their money?

[GostHacked]

I find it funny that leftists are all about spreading the wealth, yet when business owners want to share the wealth by investing in overseas countries, you guys are up in arms. Personally I call it hypocrisy.

You are getting it wrong. Leftitst want to spread the wealth around, but spread it around in Canada. Not overseas. Leftists want the money to stay and curculate around in Canada. How does spreading the money overseas help us out here at home in Canada? It doesn't.

So it is not hypocrisy.

[benny]

You are getting it wrong. Leftitst want to spread the wealth around, but spread it around in Canada. Not overseas. Leftists want the money to stay and curculate around in Canada. How does spreading the money overseas help us out here at home in Canada? It doesn't.

So it is not hypocrisy.

But still, do Canadians deserve their money?

[Oleg Bach]

But still, do Canadians deserve their money?

Someone sitting clicking a computer deserves nothing - It is not work and it produces nothing that you can eat or use..Those that work physically deserve to eat ...and those parasites with their smiling faces sitting in a resturant munching on fine food at 100$ per lunch deserve a cold uncooked trunip..like they used to toss my mother in the prison camp.... I do resent those that are overly entitled and privledged having all the comforts that money can provide and yet they are oblivious to human suffering - and some of the smartest and brightest..and most ethical - go hungry while the piglettes eat their fill.

[Riverwind]

Someone sitting clicking a computer deserves nothing - It is not work and it produces nothing that you can eat or use.

What if the person sitting at the computer is writing software that runs the factories which produces goods that you eat and use?

What if the person sitting a clicking a computer is creating a building that gives people shelter?

What if the person sitting clicking a computer is writing a book that will be read by millions?

What if the millions reading the book do so by clicking at a computer instead of killing a tree?

Edited March 30, 2009 by Riverwind

[Renegade]

The winners deserve their prizes only if they were risking their own money and were risk averse at the time when they purchased their tickets. If not, of course they are lucky (brute luck) to get the money.

What does being risk adverse mean? Do you mean not wanting to lose their money?

It would seem that you agree that business owners who become rich by risking their money in a venture, deserve their wealth.

[Oleg Bach]

The winners deserve their prizes only if they were risking their own money and were risk averse at the time when they purchased their tickets. If not, of course they are lucky (brute luck) to get the money.

Lottery winners are usually the most stupid and base people ever created - to send 30 million dollars to an idiot is only done to incite more greed in the population - like the stupid butcher that won..gave his employees five thousand bucks a piece and free chicken legs (cheapest cut) to everyone in the neigbourhood...You would think that maybe he could change the world by assisting those that the system hates - by imporving culture and elevating the human spirit - but no..he hands out frinking chicken chunks...If there is going to be a lottery and the prise is 30 million - give it to sixty people instead of one - and out of that sixty a person that can properly utlized the cash may actually make a difference - lottery's are evil - like the 90 year old man who is not capable of even hiring a high class prostitute - wins 14 million - that's a lot of dentures and a lot of vultures - what good can come from this?

[GostHacked]

But still, do Canadians deserve their money?

That is a loaded question. Rephrase it please.

For people who earn it within the legal laws, of course they do.

Oleg Bach.

Someone sitting clicking a computer deserves nothing - It is not work and it produces nothing that you can eat or use..Those that work physically deserve to eat ...

If it was not for us mouse clickers, you would not have this thing called the Internet. And if it was not for us mouse clickers, you would not have the ability to bitch about said mouse clickers on an Internet forum that was made by key strokes and mouse clicks. So, if you don't mind.. please get off the Internet because it has no value to you. You can't even use the Internet because us mouse clickers don't do anything productive.

Come and spend a day with out inventory control supervisor, she can show you how important mouse clicks are. Her clicks have more importance than my mouse clicks .

My mouse clicking does important things as a computer/systems administrator. It is work and what I do makes the physical labourers have an easier time with the job. My job is more of a support role. I am the guy who makes sure our front line guys have the proper and most up to date equipment we can afford. My role is important to the overall operations of this warehouse. My guys (and a couple gals) on the floor are the ones who make it all happen. However, someone is always needed to click a mouse now and then to help them out. We need people to do the work, we also need someone at the helm to help coordinate all the work. We all have a specific role in this warehouse to get the job done.

We are payed different, but they are all vital to the operations of the warehouse. And there is a reason to why I am payed more than the physical labourer here. I am on call 24/7. I am responsible for all the tech that is in this warehouse. My respsonsibility does not end when I clock out for the day. The warehousemen do not have any responsibility, other than showing up for the shift the next day. They are simply not accountable for as much as I am. Do I deserve my money less than those who are moving the boxes around? I went to school, got an education, did my time in the IT trenches (call centers) got into a good job that pays well and all my talents are put to good use. I work smart (not hard) for my money. Some may call me lazy, but others know that I am just that freakin efficient that I never have to work hard.

So yeah come hang out with me for a day. you will see how important and valuble mouse clicks actually are.

Edited March 30, 2009 by GostHacked

[bush_cheney2004]

Someone sitting clicking a computer deserves nothing - It is not work and it produces nothing that you can eat or use..

That's why we are paid so much to do it. Each mouse click is money in the bank.

Those that work physically deserve to eat ...and those parasites with their smiling faces sitting in a resturant munching on fine food at 100$ per lunch deserve a cold uncooked trunip..like they used to toss my mother in the prison camp....

Sounds personal...perhaps a different menu, Sir?

I do resent those that are overly entitled and privledged having all the comforts that money can provide and yet they are oblivious to human suffering - and some of the smartest and brightest..and most ethical - go hungry while the piglettes eat their fill.

No, you only resent that you are not one of them.

[benny]

What does being risk adverse mean? Do you mean not wanting to lose their money?

No, not wanting to lose money is simply being rational. Being risk averse means feeling something unpleasant (anxiety, etc.) before knowing the result of a gamble.

[sharkman]

Everyone is equal at the ballot box. If they choose not to vote that is their problem. We have a system now that is designed to minimize the power granted to people with the means to make large political donations. It is not perfect but nothing is perfect.

Very true. This thread title makes me laugh. Do poor people deserve their outcomes? Do South Americans deserve their sun tans? Do orientals deserve slanted eyes? And why is the sky blue?

[benny]

For people who earn it within the legal laws, of course they do.

The term "the law" signifies the principles upon which society is based, designating a mode of collective conduct based upon a set of prohibitions. However, the rule of the law conceals an inherent unruliness which is precisely the violence by which it established itself as law in the first place. "At the beginning" of the law, there is a certain "outlaw", a violence which coincides with the act itself of the establishment of the reign of the law... The illegitimate violence by which law sustains itself must be concealed at any price, because this concealment is the positive condition of the functioning of the law.

The authority of the law stems not from some concept of justice, but because it is the law. Which is to say that the origin of the law can be found in the tautology: "the law is the law". If the law is to function properly, however, we must experience it as just. It is only when the law breaks down, when it becomes a law unto itself, and it reaches the limits of itself, do we glimpse those limits and acknowledge its contingency by reference to the phrase "the law is the law". In other words: The Law (makers) cannot and should not question itself.

http://www.lacan.com/zizekchro1.htm

[sharkman]

Gee, thanks for the law lecture professor, but the law does stem from a concept of justice. Not that it's on topic or anything.

[benny]

Gee, thanks for the law lecture professor, but the law does stem from a concept of justice.

It does not.

[moderateamericain]

The term "the law" signifies the principles upon which society is based, designating a mode of collective conduct based upon a set of prohibitions. However, the rule of the law conceals an inherent unruliness which is precisely the violence by which it established itself as law in the first place. "At the beginning" of the law, there is a certain "outlaw", a violence which coincides with the act itself of the establishment of the reign of the law... The illegitimate violence by which law sustains itself must be concealed at any price, because this concealment is the positive condition of the functioning of the law.

The authority of the law stems not from some concept of justice, but because it is the law. Which is to say that the origin of the law can be found in the tautology: "the law is the law". If the law is to function properly, however, we must experience it as just. It is only when the law breaks down, when it becomes a law unto itself, and it reaches the limits of itself, do we glimpse those limits and acknowledge its contingency by reference to the phrase "the law is the law". In other words: The Law (makers) cannot and should not question itself.

http://www.lacan.com/zizekchro1.htm

Precisely the reason all laws should be questioned.

[Riverwind]

Precisely the reason all laws should be questioned.

Laws represent a social contract that allows large numbers of unrelated people to get along. The contract works like this: I may not personally believe in the value of of this law but I will obey it anyways because there are other laws which I do care about and I want others to follow.

IOW - the law is a package deal. One doesn't have to like all of them and one can certainly work with the political process to change any law. But, in principal, all have to be respected or none will be.

Of course, there a 'minor' laws that can be broken without undermining the social contract. And there are times when the social consensus moves faster than that political elites who set the laws. But the social contract generally works well and provides a basis for a stable and prosperous society.

[cybercoma]

MDancer beat me to it.

[cybercoma]

It does not.

Laws don't stem from justice? That's news to me.

[benny]

Laws don't stem from justice? That's news to me.

the authority of the law…

[moderateamericain]

the authority of the law…

Laws don't equate with justice. It was once the law in Germany to kill or

Capture all Jews. It was once a law that blacks and whites could not eat in the same place. It was once a

Law that women could not vote. You get the point.

[benny]

For Richard Arneson, being deserving is to have a will that is decisively oriented toward a blank check, i.e. aiming to do whatever it is that is morally right.

[Riverwind]

Laws don't equate with justice. It was once the law in Germany to kill or

Capture all Jews.

In Canada, the laws grant numerous undeserved rights on people based on their ancestry. No justice in that....

[August1991]

..............Canada Median income

...............All families (2005 $)

.......................1984......1999......2005

Third 10%..........7770.....6820......6000

Second 10%.......780.......120.........10

Bottom 10%.....-2100.....-6570.....-9600

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-001-x/11206/4096770-eng.htm

Benny, these stats refer to wealth - not income.

That chart shows all income levels rising, except the absolute lowest, which remains the same.

This is my understanding too.

I think immigration may explain this aspect of the stats. Increasingly, immigrants to Canada have been poor on arrival.

August, Two points of contention with what your saying, I was not arguing against taxation, I'm arguing against wholesale redistribution of wealth, which is what the original topic was about. The only way to take money from people besides trade or taxes is by force. If your going to tell me. Rich people should give X amount of dollars to alleviate poverty and were going to make (Force) them to do it, then I will call anyone who proposes that a thief. If I work 40 hours a week, Earn 2000 dollars, pay 500 in taxes (for argument sake), then I have Earned 1500 dollars. No man should be able to then turn around and take that from me. That is the reward for my work or the creations of my mind.

As Riverwind would say, taxes are the cost of living in a civilized society. I am simply arguing that we pick the pocket in an efficient fashion - a fashion that induces the least change in behaviour.

To answer the OP: Do rich people deserve their money? Yes, to the extent that the money encourages them to make society better off.

Why are market mechanisms driving down all production factors prices?

Driving down all factor prices? Have you tried to hire a car mechanic or a plumber recently? And I won't talk about how much you have to pay a decent derivative trader nowadays.

Until fairly recently, I would have described myself as a libertarian, and I have to say now that after observing the steady erosion of government services and regulation in the U.S. over the last 25 years (and more recent attempts to import this management philosophy to Canada), that the most prominent self-proclaimed mouthpieces for libertarianism are almost certainly employed by the super-wealthy and the religious right to weaken the political structures for two goals...

Libertarianism (or anarcho-capitalism) or whatever it's called has never appealed to me. I think pragmatism is a better guide in such matters. Does it work?

And by "work", I mean: does it help people to co-operate honestly and help each other. Voluntary trade through markets with prices does this but there are other ways. For example, there are many happy marriages.

[benny]

In Canada, the laws grant numerous undeserved rights on people based on their ancestry. No justice in that....

Yes. The rich who have inherited their money don't deserve it.

[August1991]

$200 billion is all taxes from all sources and that represents 20% of GDP or so.

In fact, governments at all level in Canada tax about 50% of our incomes - or close to $700 billion. They buy about $300 billion of stuff (goods/services - police, tanks, teachers, nurses, bureaucrats) on our behalf and then transfer to us the other $400 billion or so. (By transfer, I mean that government bureaucrats take the money from Person A and often just give it back to Person A. Such is modern government... )

Our grandchildren are virtually guaranteed to be poorer because the world they inherit will be depleted of most of the natural capital we're taking for granted is just there for us to take. You'd think this generation thought the universe owed it a living or something.

That's a fair criticsm, and it's the only legitimate argument in favour of environmentalism.

Quebec's hydro resources will run for ever, and Alberta will have tar sands far into the future. Our trees will grow again and again, generation after generation.

So eyeball, what depletion were you referring to?

You really do believe the human race can just grow without limit and things will only get better don't you? What sort of Cornucopian cult do you subscribe to anyway?

Thomas Malthus died in 1834. His spirit lives on.

No, its simply saying MP's should be prohibited from talking to anyone in private when they're discussing anything in the public's domain.

WTF?

I admire your idealism but I find it impractical.

Yes. The rich who have inherited their money don't deserve it.

IOW, the government will tax everything you own at death.

If such a tax existed, what would you do? Spend it all and die impoverished? Evade the tax and give it to your children before you die? Heck, why bother to have children if the government is going to tax what you can leave them.

----

Benny, what did you inherit from your parents? What will you leave to your children? If the State were to tax these things, would it be good for humanity? To make the world a more equal place, to ensure equality of opportunity, should the State impose a tax on good parenting?

Edited March 31, 2009 by August1991

[Riverwind]

Yes. The rich who have inherited their money don't deserve it.

So you are saying people should not be allowed to give away their money now? That is what a will does. It has nothing to do with ancestry. Perhaps you are complaining about the the laws that try to override the will by mandating certain payments to people based on their relationship with the deceased. If you are I could agree. But the same rules apply to everyone from a minimum wage worker with a 10,000 RRSP to billionaires.