Do rich ppl deserve their money?

benny · March 31, 2009

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.

A rational consumer tries not to hire anyone first. If he has to hire someone, he then tries to hire a substitute to an expensive worker. This is what economic mechanisms are all about.

Riverwind · March 31, 2009

In fact, governments at all level in Canada tax about 50% of our incomes - or close to $700 billion.

38% of GDP is the government take. It may add up to higher proportion of personal incomes.

benny · March 31, 2009

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.

Nobody deserves to receive a gift.

August1991 · March 31, 2009

Nobody deserves to receive a gift.

Are you against Christmas? Do you object to a parent helping a child?

----

Some of us have good parents, and some of us don't. I don't think the State should hurt the good parents so that the children of bad parents have an "equal" chance in life. On the contrary, I think the State should encourage good parents and one way to do that is to let them leave everything to their children.

Benny, seen from the long view, life is not about fairness. It is about incentives. Just like this thread.

A rational consumer tries not to hire anyone first. If he has to hire someone, he then tries to hire a substitute to an expensive worker. This is what economic mechanisms are all about.

Correct. People try to find the easiest, cheapest way to solve a problem.

Why do things the costly way when there's an easier alternative? That's common sense. No society became rich by doing something the costly way when a cheaper alternative existed. How poor would Canada be if we insisted that our fire engines and ambulances still be drawn by horses? Benny, I suspect that you use ATMs rather than bank tellers, no?

Edited March 31, 2009 by August1991

benny · March 31, 2009

Are you against Christmas? Do you object to a parent helping a child?
----

Some of us have good parents, and some of us don't. I don't think the State should hurt the good parents so that the children of bad parents have an "equal" chance in life. On the contrary, I think the State should encourage good parents and one way to do that is to let them leave everything to their children.

Benny, seen from the long view, life is not about fairness. It is about incentives. Just like this thread.

All threads are about generosity, just like what a gift is all about.

Edited March 31, 2009 by benny

Riverwind · March 31, 2009

Nobody deserves to receive a gift.

Gifts are not always money. There are plenty of cushy union jobs that are handed out to people known by the current workers (often relatives). Access to a subsidized apartment is gift from the government since not everyone who needs one can get access to one. Do the recipients deserve those gifts? Does a baby deserve the gift of milk from its mother?

I get the impression that you have huge resentment towards rich people because you aren't rich and you have come up with these bizarre ideas designed to justify your resentments. Sorry for the psychoanalysis but that is the only way I can make sense of your philosophical positions that are completely detached from reality.

Edited March 31, 2009 by Riverwind

benny · March 31, 2009

Gifts are not always money. There are plenty of cushy union jobs that are handed out to people known by the current workers (often relatives). Access to a subsidized apartment is gift from the government since not everyone who needs one can get access to one. Do the recipients deserve those gifts? Does a baby deserve the gift of milk from its mother?
I get the impression that you have huge resentment towards rich people because you aren't rich and you have come up with these bizarre ideas designed to justify your resentments. Sorry for the psychoanalysis but that is the only way I can make sense of your philosophical positions that are completely detached from reality.

One is breaking the spirit of generosity by being an advocate of deservingness.

DarkAngel_ · March 31, 2009

look at the current GM situation, jobs will be paid out and replaced by a pay cut for laborer's (of less pay) from $28 PH to $14 PH. due to not modernizing.

hydrogen cell technology is advanced but still sketchy to consumers.

affordability to poor lower-mid.class families... who dominate the world population of car owners, is just not there.

if the issues of economy are focused and the people who are suffering acting on these issues... even then there's more red tape and road blocks to get through to keep our livelihood and quality of life running smoothly, but without ease everyone in the market is panicking even in the S&P. so my question is how can those who make ridiculously large amounts of money, deserve it? that is company money over used and abused.

the fast lane is saturated in money, but its useless without the resource to back it.

A Brittney Spears video adding up to a $1M price tag is unjustified. :angry:

Riverwind · March 31, 2009

One is breaking the spirit of generosity by being an advocate of deservingness.

Answer the question: does a baby deserve the gift of milk from its mother? Edited March 31, 2009 by Riverwind

eyeball · March 31, 2009

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?

Fish for one, as for trees its true they'll grow again but the best runs/stands of both have been creamed and climate change is stressing or threatening much of what remains. I have also heard of evidence that 3rd generation forests are less productive than 2nd growth stands and 4th generation stands are likewise more deficient than the 3rd and so on. Many of the best easily accessible mineral deposits are depleted and aquifers and other sources of clean potable water are overdrawn. Sink resources, the ability of an ecosystem to absorb and recycle our wastes are also becoming saturated.

Oil of course is probably in decline.

Thomas Malthus died in 1834. His spirit lives on.

Well, his idea certainly does, but perhaps the Cornucopians are right. Why stop at 9 billion people, why not, 19 or 90?

WTF?
I admire your idealism but I find it impractical.

I should have said lobbyists instead of anyone I guess. I still fail to see why some form of discrete monitoring shouldn't be in place. Something that can be audited for discrepancies by independant third, fourth or however distant the parties need to be, to make them impartial. The bottom line is, monitoring them will keep them honest.

Simply put, ordinary people need some practical means of protecting themselves from the excesses of power and wealth or just like an overloaded sink resource, our society will only take so much shit and corruption before it finally breaks down. There are certainly enough examples of this occuring in the past to know it does happen. I think we are on some very thin civil ice these days. If this economic situation keeps going south at the rate its going I think we'll be seeing riots and rising crime rates within a few months and more than a few countries declaring states of emergency within a year.

But yes the sun will still shine and birds, wherever they manage to persist, will sing.

benny · March 31, 2009

Answer the question: does a baby deserve the gift of milk from its mother?

"Deserving a gift" is an expression that is meaning-destroying. Women don't give birth because the next generation deserves to live.

Riverwind · March 31, 2009

"Deserving a gift" is an expression that is meaning-destroying. Women don't give birth because the next generation deserves to live.

The problem with your logic is you are trying to come up for some rational for taking something from one group of people and giving it to another. You used the argument that the rich don't deserve their wealth which implies that confiscating it is justified. But then you contradicted yourself by saying that no one deserves a gift. Which implies the poor don't deserve to receive the wealth of the rich.

It it impossible to answer the question of 'desert' (or justice for that matter) without first agreeing on a moral framework which provides the reference point. If we can't agree on the moral framework then it is a waste of time to discuss who deserves what.

Edited March 31, 2009 by Riverwind

benny · March 31, 2009

The problem with your logic is you are trying to come up for some rational for taking something from one group of people and giving it to another. You used the argument that the rich don't deserve their wealth which implies that confiscating it is justified. But then you contradicted yourself by saying that no one deserves a gift. Which implies the poor don't deserve to receive the wealth of the rich.
It it impossible to answer the question of 'desert' (or justice for that matter) without first agreeing on a moral framework which provides the reference point. If we can't agree on the moral framework then it is a waste of time to discuss who deserves what.

When no one deserves their wealth, all wealth becomes up for grab. What to do then is to be answered by moral philosophy. The Social Contract theory of justice claims that implementing a maximin or difference principle is the way to go.

Riverwind · March 31, 2009

The Social Contract theory of justice claims that implementing a maximin or difference principle is the way to go.

A theory of justice which has been abject failure in all societies which adopted it as the common moral framework. It failed because humans have an intrinsic moral framework which probably is genetic. Moral frameworks that seek to leverage this intrinsic framework are more effective than those which try to instill values that directly contradict this intrinsic moral framework. The belief that one has a right to one's personal possessions/territory is part of the human intrinsic moral framework. Edited March 31, 2009 by Riverwind

jbg · March 31, 2009

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.

OK, so you agree with me that Canada (and the U.S.) should elminate their contributions to the U.N. and other NGO's and keep the money at home to benefit Canadians and Americans rather than going for foreign aid?

jbg · March 31, 2009

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.

And what violence established the Ten Commandments, upon which most law in the civilized world is based?

August1991 · March 31, 2009

"Deserving a gift" is an expression that is meaning-destroying. Women don't give birth because the next generation deserves to live.

Benny, you entirely miss the point of life, and your own existence. It's not about what you or others get, or a gift.

In simple terms, people don't have children because of what they get. People thankfully view life as individuals. They may fall in love, marry, have kids and raise them in good families. Of such decisions is a larger society made.

benny · March 31, 2009

A theory of justice which has been abject failure in all societies which adopted it as the common moral framework. It failed because humans have an intrinsic moral framework which probably is genetic. Moral frameworks that seek to leverage this intrinsic framework are more effective than those which try to instill values that directly contradict this intrinsic moral framework. The belief that one has a right to one's personal possessions/territory is part of the human intrinsic moral framework.

To become the biggest empire on Earth, the Commonwealth has had to overcome natural rights.

Riverwind · March 31, 2009

To become the biggest empire on Earth, the Commonwealth has had to overcome natural rights.

Natural rights which eventually asserted themselves as the empire broke apart. Of course, that is strawman that does not address the fact that your original philosophical prescriptions for society are completely unworkable.

benny · March 31, 2009

Natural rights which eventually asserted themselves as the empire broke apart. Of course, that is strawman that does not address the fact that your original philosophical prescriptions for society are completely unworkable.

Unless it is link to conscientious striving, it is desert that is unworkable.

eyeball · March 31, 2009

Natural rights which eventually asserted themselves as the empire broke apart. Of course, that is strawman that does not address the fact that your original philosophical prescriptions for society are completely unworkable.

Looking at the state of the world now and the environmental and economic outlook for the future it's doubtful if any philosophical prescriptions are working. Individual societies here and there from time to time find something that works but nothing lasts forever. As for a prescription for a global society, we're just really being confronted with the need for one for the first time in the history of the planet. I think we may be too quarrlesome for our own good, we can't even agree on the mistakes that were made in the past never mind figuring out a solution for the future.

I doubt if I'll ever be able to shake the feeling that the biggest impediment to finding a solution is the corruption that flows down from the confluence of power and wealth. This is not about wealth resentment or jealousy it is simply about justice and fairness. I would encourage everyone to at least consider how much of a difference there might be if our governments could be made totally and utterly transparent and the classical realationship between those who govern and those who are govern were turned on its head. Its the only thing that hasn't been tried.

I'm convinced the real problem is the distribution of power in society not wealth. Wealthy people are able to take better advantage of that than ordinary people and the wealthier you are the more advantage you can take. Perhaps another way to choose governments would be to simply pick suitably talented people randomly from the population to govern us and rotate these quickly enough that nobody can get to them or predict who will be chosen next.

benny · March 31, 2009

I doubt if I'll ever be able to shake the feeling that the biggest impediment to finding a solution is the corruption that flows down from the confluence of power and wealth.

Because the Protestant world used to see Divine Election in the wealth people had, seeing deservingness in rich people can now be used to cover up their corruption.

eyeball · March 31, 2009

There used to be a time when powerful people feared being monitored by God.

Surveillance as means of curbing the abuse of power is not a new idea, its been with us for thousands of years. Its just that with the technology we have today we could actually do it.

benny · March 31, 2009

There used to be a time when powerful people feared being monitored by God.
Surveillance as means of curbing the abuse of power is not a new idea, its been with us for thousands of years. Its just that with the technology we have today we could actually do it.

Conrad Black captured removing boxes from Hollinger Inc. headquarters in downtown Toronto by a security camera is the best example.

Oleg Bach · March 31, 2009

Of course the rich deserve money! They are used to it and it's natural that they have it. If they mismanage or their is a global recession it is our duty to dig into our meger bank accounts and send them everything we have. It would be horrible and it could cause great trama to the rich if they were suddenly poor...heaven forbid that they and their families are not rich for generations - or eternity ...after all God must love them and they must be specially choosen to live like gods on earth..in fact I am going into my pantry and send them my last can of beans...God would approve.. :rolleyes: