(April 16, 2015 at 11:38 am)Chuck Wrote: That depends on whether you are paid for the quality, timeliness and value of your service, or the time you put into work.   If your are paid by the hours worked, it would be immoral of you to cheat your employer by sleeping when drawing pay for nominally working.    But if you are paid for the work and not the hour, then you should have the authority to judge how best to provide the agreed upon service, including whether you should take a nap to clear your mind.

If you're paid for the work and not the hour, you're not an employee, you're an independent contractor, and you can nap as you please. Course, you're not being paid while you nap.

(April 16, 2015 at 9:10 am)Brian37 Wrote:

(April 16, 2015 at 5:50 am)Heywood Wrote: The difference in life styles between rich and poor has been steadily closing.  Liberaltards like Brian would like you to believe that the middle class and poor are being abused by the rich.  However the fact of the matter is everyones quality of life is rising and its rising fast.  Poor people today have it better than middle class people of the 1970s.  We have a situation where there is a capitalistic tide lifting all boats.

 

Hey you selfish jaded idiot, "lifestyle" is a bullshit term. Everyone needs food and shelter dipshit. Living is what all humans do.

The poor aren't out to be trendy asshole. How does it feel to have an atheist who doesn't believe in Jesus value the kind motifs of the NT  better than a fucking idiot like  you?

Yeah dummy, your right everyone needs food and shelter.  But your too blind to see because you've been brainwashed by MSNBC.  Poor people have better access to food and shelter than they ever had.  Even the homeless.  You see tents today were as 30-40 years ago you'd see cardboard boxes.  You live in a trailer.  Suppose you lived 50 years ago, do you think you would be living in a trailer of your own?  You'd probably be living in a boarding house sharing a bathroom down the hall with 6 other guys.

(April 16, 2015 at 12:00 pm)alpha male Wrote:

(April 16, 2015 at 11:38 am)Chuck Wrote: That depends on whether you are paid for the quality, timeliness and value of your service, or the time you put into work.   If your are paid by the hours worked, it would be immoral of you to cheat your employer by sleeping when drawing pay for nominally working.    But if you are paid for the work and not the hour, then you should have the authority to judge how best to provide the agreed upon service, including whether you should take a nap to clear your mind.

If you're paid for the work and not the hour, you're not an employee, you're an independent contractor, and you can nap as you please. Course, you're not being paid while you nap.

No, I've been employee of companies where I needn't ever show up in the office if I don't care to, so long as I deliver.

(April 16, 2015 at 2:06 pm)Heywood Wrote:

(April 16, 2015 at 9:10 am)Brian37 Wrote: Hey you selfish jaded idiot, "lifestyle" is a bullshit term. Everyone needs food and shelter dipshit. Living is what all humans do.

The poor aren't out to be trendy asshole. How does it feel to have an atheist who doesn't believe in Jesus value the kind motifs of the NT  better than a fucking idiot like  you?

Yeah dummy, your right everyone needs food and shelter.  But your too blind to see because you've been brainwashed by MSNBC.  Poor people have better access to food and shelter than they ever had.  Even the homeless.  You see tents today were as 30-40 years ago you'd see cardboard boxes.  You live in a trailer.  Suppose you lived 50 years ago, do you think you would be living in a trailer of your own?  You'd probably be living in a boarding house sharing a bathroom down the hall with 6 other guys.

No moron, Maddow isn't exactly poor herself. Neither is Nick Hanauer a billionaire who would agree with me not you.

Sorry it bothers you that I am taking away your jaded monopoly claim as to what constitutes healthy business and constructive business. You don't own a monopoly on shit.

Now don't masturbate over Jesus when he knocked over the change carts, or when he says give to the poor then get pissed when liberal theists and even atheists actually do that.

The only thing you are justifying is your own selfishness.

(April 16, 2015 at 5:50 am)Heywood Wrote: The difference in life styles between rich and poor has been steadily closing....quality of life is rising and its rising fast.  Poor people today have it better than middle class people of the 1970s.  We have a situation where there is a capitalistic tide lifting all boats.

(April 16, 2015 at 7:07 am)alpha male Wrote: ...rather than looking at gaps, it seems that trickle down is working quite well.
...work hard and work smart. THat's the recipe for success, and it isn't a secret.

The truth is debatable. It's difficult to compare past with present and assess relative size of gaps. In many ways quality of life – particularly life expectancy and availability of sophisticated but affordable consumer goods – is rising, though I won't go as far as to say the residents of a Salvation Army homeless shelter have it better than the middle classes of 1975. How much should we credit trickle-down for this happy state of affairs?

Not much, I'm afraid. The fact that we have a massive educational system capped by research universities underpins the rise of technology itself. That consumer goods are now so cheap in the United States has a lot to do with the offshoring of production plants to the cheap labor countries, with its government deciding to subsidize the energy needed to ship products around the globe.

If capitalism has a beneficial feature, it's not trickling of resources down from rich to poor. Instead, it is capitalism's ability to allocate investment efficiently with respect to consumer needs and wants. There's no question the state-owned behemoths we saw in the Soviet Union were flops.

Hard work little assures success because having or acquiring personal connections who can assist your rise is also needed. But it's true that laziness will kill your chances. Those powerful people won't help someone they perceive as undeserving. So we can also credit budding capitalism with ending the medieval system of birth entitlement, where you lived better than others just because you were the Duke of York. Initiative must be rewarded in some way if collective results are to follow.

We must admit that capitalism has a predatory aspect which needs regulation. Is post-Communist Russia really better off than the Soviet Union was? Life expectancy for males dropped from 72 to 59 within six years of Gorby's last goodbye. Russia continues amid corruption long after its recovery from "shock therapy." Capitalism allows accountability only to shareholders and, since executives can often conceal their intentions and moves behind opaque accounting screens, the shareholders can't curb the excesses of a Jeffrey Skilling when it arises.

Which is why a mixed economy is probably the best way to travel.  

(April 16, 2015 at 4:47 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote: .....That consumer goods are now so cheap in the United States has a lot to do with the offshoring of much of its production plant to the cheap labor countries, with its government deciding to subsidize the energy needed to ship products around the globe.....

All that production is going to come back to the United States(it is starting too already).  However it won't be people doing the manufacturing.  It will be machines.

The government has priced human labor out of the market by imposing a minimum wage.

Holy fucking crap you moron.

Technology especially over the past 100 years has constantly replace humans. How fucking selfish of you to think lower wages for anyone is going to help humans survive. You fucking selfish asshole.

Once again, I am a better NT Christian without believing in the God of the bible or Jesus than you are as a Christian. You sick fuck. You are not justifying any type of healthy business models at all, you are justifying the very greed your own bible and Jesus told you not to be a fucking dick about.

Now the only credit I will give you is that even atheists can be dicks like you, Ayn Rand would make a great right wing Christian.

Labor is what makes the rich rich you moron. Labor is the bulk of all society, when they cant survive everyone hurts, including the rich.

(April 16, 2015 at 4:59 pm)Heywood Wrote: The government has priced human labor out of the market by imposing a minimum wage.

Are we sure of this? Minimum wage workers comprise less than 5% of the hourly-paid workforce, and only about 2.5% of the total workforce when salary people are included. If we abolished minimum wage as some conservative economists propose, how many workers would flock to new jobs paying less than the $7.25 current rate, or if employed now, would stay on after their boss cut their pay to take advantage of the abolition? We know of course a few would, especially those who have no option but to take whatever deal they are offered. Yet we consider the loss of a small number of potential subminimum jobs an acceptable price for having "fair labor standards." Not that the subminimum jobs disappear anyhow: There's always paying cash under the table.

*See BLS Minimum Wage at
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2013/ted_20130325.htm

(April 17, 2015 at 7:11 am)Brian37 Wrote: Technology especially over the past 100 years has constantly replace humans...

The Luddites of Nottingham thought along this line back in 1811 but I don't buy it. I'm glad automation has done away with breathing cotton dust all day at looms until you choke to death. There's nothing wrong with using tech to do jobs formerly done by hands, provided that alternative employment is found for the displaced workers.

Our arrangements for displaced workers are in fact less than ideal. However it is equally true that attempts to find work for them are made, both formally through government programs and by workers themselves. Generally what we're sad about is the decline of high-paid unions such as the United Auto Workers whose members had to take lower-paid jobs after their plants closed. The classic Rust Belt story. Balanced against that is the fact that everyone else, including the poor, had to pay higher prices for crappy cars before foreign competition and robots got strong.

(April 16, 2015 at 4:47 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote:

(April 16, 2015 at 5:50 am)Heywood Wrote: The difference in life styles between rich and poor has been steadily closing....quality of life is rising and its rising fast.  Poor people today have it better than middle class people of the 1970s.  We have a situation where there is a capitalistic tide lifting all boats.

(April 16, 2015 at 7:07 am)alpha male Wrote: ...rather than looking at gaps, it seems that trickle down is working quite well.
...work hard and work smart. THat's the recipe for success, and it isn't a secret.

. There's no question the state-owned behemoths we saw in the Soviet Union were flops.

Hard work little assures success because having or acquiring personal connections who can assist your rise is also needed. But it's true that laziness will kill your chances. 

Which is why a mixed economy is probably the best way to travel.  

But Dubai isn't poor. The Saudi Royal Family is not poor, and China's communist party makes tons of money allowing western businesses to exist. You cannot treat the word "capitalism" as a form of government. There is not one country in the world who does not have people in power that don't invest in the global market. I have no doubt Un's family has bank accounts and global investments.

I agree hard work has nothing to do with success. Neither does laziness. Literally even outside our species both work and luck work. 

And I agree a mixed economy is good, which is why you cannot have a huge pay gap or allow monopolies of wealth. 

(April 17, 2015 at 2:06 pm)Brian37 Wrote:

(April 16, 2015 at 4:47 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote: . There's no question the state-owned behemoths we saw in the Soviet Union were flops.

Hard work little assures success because having or acquiring personal connections who can assist your rise is also needed. But it's true that laziness will kill your chances. 

Which is why a mixed economy is probably the best way to travel.  

But Dubai isn't poor. The Saudi Royal Family is not poor, and China's communist party makes tons of money allowing western businesses to exist. You cannot treat the word "capitalism" as a form of government. There is not one country in the world who does not have people in power that don't invest in the global market. I have no doubt Un's family has bank accounts and global investments.

I agree hard work has nothing to do with success. Neither does laziness. Literally even outside our species both work and luck work. 

And I agree a mixed economy is good, which is why you cannot have a huge pay gap or allow monopolies of wealth. 

Why can't you have a huge pay gap?  If everyone's life is pretty good(and this is generally the case in the united states) what does it matter if their are a few Bill Gates or Donald Trumps around?  Your life is pretty close to theirs in all the meaningful ways.  Your home is probably comfortably heated and protects you from the elements as well as theirs.  You probably consume as many or more calories than they do.  You have access to high quality clothing.  What do they have that you need?  What are they keeping from you by having a much higher pay rate?