too rich?

[Dee Dee Ramone]

.Man, I wish I was rich just so I could piss off the leftwingers on this forum!!!! HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!! I LOVE MONEY!!!!!!

You are not rich. So go work harder for your money you lazy asshole.

[jonb]

By the way, one would have been having to pay close attention to understand the relevance of this post.

Tibs, Fish scales-

While a student at Cambridge, Paul Dirac attended a mathematical congress that posed the following problem:

After a big day’s catch, three fisherman go to sleep next to their pile of fish. During the night, one fisherman decides to go home. He divides the fish in three and finds that this leaves one extra fish. He throws this into the water, takes one third of the remaining fish, and departs.

The second fisherman awakes. Not knowing that the first has left, he too divides the fish into three piles, finds one fish left over, discards it, and takes a third of the remainder. The third fisherman does the same. What is the least number of fish that the fishermen could have started with?

Dirac proposed that they had begun with -2 fish. The first fisherman threw one into the water, leaving -3, and took a third of this, leaving -2. The second and third fisherman followed suit.

This story was recalled by “a well-meaning experimenter” in the Russian miscellany Physicists Continue to Laugh (1968). “I could tell many other stories about theoreticians and their work,” he wrote, “but they have told me that one theoretician is writing a story under the title ‘How Experimental Physicists Work.’ That, of course, will be presented upside down.”
from
http://www.futilitycloset.com/category/s...th/page/4/

[frankiej]

As I pointed out earlier I can use the phrase 'Walking up the stairs taxed me'.
As an old Englishman I use the term tax not just in governmental contexts. I do not see why I should alter my usage. My language is representative of my culture, the culture I was brought up in, and that is the way I am going to carry on expressing myself.

It is taxing to have to say the same thing over and over again. I am taxed by it. It is a taxation on my time and even on my money as I am paying 50% towards an interweb connection to carry on this argument. OK

So there there is this massive inequality, that OXFAM reported.

Yeah, I use the word tax all the time... and very rarely in a connection with the government. The only time I usually talk about tax in that context is when thinking of ways to evade it.

[DeistPaladin]

Ahh...just another leftwinger b*tching about rich people again...not me though, I love rich people! I wanna be rich too! First thing I'd buy would be a brand new Mustang Shelby Cobra GT 500! It's better to have too much money than to have too little money.

Disclaimer that I haven't yet read the whole thread so sorry if I repeat anyone's points.

What is most alarming about the increasing wealth gap is not the lifestyles of the rich and famous but the destruction of the overall economic health of America and other developed capitalist economies.

What distinguishes a developed economy vs. a 3rd world economy is not the existence of a wealthy class of "haves". Those obviously exist everywhere. It's the existence of a strong middle class between the haves and have-nots. 3rd world economies feature a mass of poor living in squalor with a small number of wealthy living in gated communities. If America isn't careful, we may one day... oh, wait, we're already there. Our economic distribution already rivals 3rd world economies.

We've busted up our unions and shipped our manufacturing jobs overseas. We were told not to worry, that we'd have a strong service economy but we shipped all those jobs overseas too.

What's left? We have corporate raiders who invade long standing American businesses like Brachs or Hostess, chop them up, embezzle their employee pensions and run the company out of business. How's that good for the American economy again?

I'm glad you're going to be rich one day but what is America's future wealth going to be based on? If you destroy the middle class, you take out the backbone of our economy.

I'll edit to add information links later. My search engine is running painfully slow this morning.

[Tiberius]

Tibs, I am sorry I can assure you it was not and never would be on current evidence my intention to accuse you of reading too much into a post.

Still not responding to multiple requests to define your use of the word "tax" I see.

You are unbelievable.

[jonb]

Tibs, I am sorry I can assure you it was not and never would be on current evidence my intention to accuse you of reading too much into a post.

Still not responding to multiple requests to define your use of the word "tax" I see.

You are unbelievable.

I am sure you meant it as a compliment to put me in that same category as god.

Now, shall we get back to the Oxfam report?

[Cato]

We've busted up our unions and shipped our manufacturing jobs overseas.

I hear this bit of bullshit all the time. I concede that there are about 8 million fewer manufacturing jobs since about 1980, but our manufacturing output has doubled in the same time. In 1800, over 90% of the U.S. population lived on farms and was engaged in agriculture. Today this figure is less than 2%. Your superficial 'manufacturing job outsourcing' logic would conclude that nobody in the U.S. has anything to eat. I'm counting on the absurdity of this conclusion catching your attention.

What's left? We have corporate raiders who invade long standing American businesses like Brachs or Hostess, chop them up, embezzle their employee pensions and run the company out of business. How's that good for the American economy again?

Brach's and Hostess are simply very poor examples for your corporate raider theory.

Here's the history on Brach's:
http://americanurbex.com/wordpress/?p=779

From the article:

Artificially inflated domestic sugar costs and strict import quotas put in place by the US Department of Agriculture made operating costs in Chicago difficult for Brach’s. (These policies have essentially crippled candy production throughout the United States.) High labor costs also exacerbated the situation to the point where the owners decided to shutter the aging plant.

Brach's has seen several ownership changes, but was never the victim of corporate raiding.

Your use of Hostess is even more bizarre given how recent and well publicized its demise was. Again, no corporate raiding involved.

[DeistPaladin]

I hear this bit of bullshit all the time. I concede that there are about 8 million fewer manufacturing jobs since about 1980, but our manufacturing output has doubled in the same time.

The result of more manufacturing jobs or the result of more automation since 1980?

Your superficial 'manufacturing job outsourcing' logic would conclude that nobody in the U.S. has anything to eat. I'm counting on the absurdity of this conclusion catching your attention.

I believe the logical fallacy you've employed here is called "reducto ad absurdum". This is akin to arguing, "if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?"

Brach's and Hostess are simply very poor examples for your corporate raider theory.

Our highly conservative, corporate-controlled media spins such demolished companies as the result of labor unions run amok and greedy workers demanding too much compensation. You have to go to foreign media and blogs to get a full picture of what's really going on. Here's one blog entry that I remember vividly.

[jonb]

To return to my theme, 100 people could supply enough to end extreme poverty from a fraction of their yearly income, if Oxfam is correct.
Along the thread we see two seemingly traditional camps (left right) emerging, which I will paraphrase if you don't mind.

It is those hundred peoples money, a wrong would be done to them even to take part of it.

On the other hand we have voices implying the greater good would justify, a slight removal of wealth from a few individuals.

The extreme inequality does rankle my emotions, so I wondered how would the situation look from a different prospective. and I thought about crime and then the death penalty.

We need a justice system to keep order, and as there is no perfection we know innocent people will be imprisoned. Many people support a death penalty.

Now what is interesting is that I think a lot of people who would say taking money from a few individuals for a greater good is wrong, would also say that although the death penalty will take some innocent lives the greater good justifies it, and visa versa.

Thoughts anybody-

[Mister Agenda]

I hear this bit of bullshit all the time. I concede that there are about 8 million fewer manufacturing jobs since about 1980, but our manufacturing output has doubled in the same time.

The result of more manufacturing jobs or the result of more automation since 1980?

Your superficial 'manufacturing job outsourcing' logic would conclude that nobody in the U.S. has anything to eat. I'm counting on the absurdity of this conclusion catching your attention.

I believe the logical fallacy you've employed here is called "reducto ad absurdum". This is akin to arguing, "if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?"

Brach's and Hostess are simply very poor examples for your corporate raider theory.

Our highly conservative, corporate-controlled media spins such demolished companies as the result of labor unions run amok and greedy workers demanding too much compensation. You have to go to foreign media and blogs to get a full picture of what's really going on. Here's one blog entry that I remember vividly.

Why would you consider more manufacturing jobs to be an option when you're quoting someone who is stating there are fewer manufacturing jobs?

I assume charitably in the 2nd case you are grasping Cato's point that it is absurd to conclude a reduction in output from a reduction in jobs in that 'field'.

Cato's point in the third case was that the failure of those particular companies had nought to do with corporate raiding.

You two seem to be miscommunicating. I don't think your point was that output was lower, so Cato's response confirmed your claim about jobs being outsourced with a 'but domestic production still increased' added.

I'm probably going to regret getting in the middle of this, aren't I?

---

To return to my theme, 100 people could supply enough to end extreme poverty from a fraction of their yearly income, if Oxfam is correct.
Along the thread we see two seemingly traditional camps (left right) emerging, which I will paraphrase if you don't mind.

It is those hundred peoples money, a wrong would be done to them even to take part of it.

On the other hand we have voices implying the greater good would justify, a slight removal of wealth from a few individuals.

The extreme inequality does rankle my emotions, so I wondered how would the situation look from a different prospective. and I thought about crime and then the death penalty.

We need a justice system to keep order, and as there is no perfection we know innocent people will be imprisoned. Many people support a death penalty.

Now what is interesting is that I think a lot of people who would say taking money from a few individuals for a greater good is wrong, would also say that although the death penalty will take some innocent lives the greater good justifies it, and visa versa.

Thoughts anybody-

I would like to chime in, but I'm against the death penalty too.

25% isn't a 'slight' removal. I have no strong objection of the recent US tax hike against the wealthy, it's mild, there's a special need, and if it turns out to be useless or counterproductive, at least it wasn't a big bite. I'm not optimistic that any increased revenue will actually be used to pay the debt down more than we increase our borrowing, but I'm hoping to be surprised.

But, going with 25%, I wouldn't be outraged by a 25% charity tax that didn't apply to people already giving at least 25% of their money towards charity. It's a wrong, but as has been pointed out, the targeted class will not actually suffer material deprivation from it, and the lives of a family in extreme poverty are just as important as theirs.

That said, the lives of a family in extreme poverty are just as important as ours, too, and the same logic could be applied to justify taking 25% from all Americans making more than $40,000 per household member. Globally, they are in the top 1% of income, and we will still be living like kings compared to someone in extreme poverty if 25% of our income was seized to help the most deperately impoverished people. It would save millions of lives at the expense of America's middle class having less money for consumer electronics and cell phone plans.

Of course the consequences would be more far-reaching than that in the long run.