Trump versus Clinton?

[The Grand Nudger]

Who's blaming shareholders Brian?  Meh, in any case, all business is "legalized gambling".  I grow turnips and beets and shit, but if you wanted to accurately describe how I make my -money- from those turnips and beets... it would be a series of short term high risk capital investments in perishable products on the commodities market.

[paulpablo]

For example I can't just say "Ok, I'm starting a company called Pauls computers, we aren't as good as Microsoft, we don't have a trusted company brand, I've invested no time at all in computer programming but I want people to be forced to buy Paul computers resulting in me earning as much as Bill Gates."

No question about Gates knowing his stuff, but he already started out loaded. And if his mother hadn't arranged for the IBM contract through personal relations with the CEO, Bill would have had a much harder time.

Not everything is entirely down to personal merit.

That's probably all true but I wasn't posting what I said to point out the positive merits of Bill Gates, I was pointing out how a free market results in different people bringing different value to a company, brand, or whatever is being sold.

Lot's of people are just born with advantages when it comes to value, the majority of actors and actresses who just happen to be born with good looks for example, people are free to choose who they want to see on television and it seems that most people like to see good looking people on TV and film which gives good looking people more value in that marketplace in general.

[abaris]

Lot's of people are just born with advantages when it comes to value, the majority of actors and actresses who just happen to be born with good looks for example, people are free to choose who they want to see on television and it seems that most people like to see good looking people on TV and film which gives good looking people more value in that marketplace in general.

The times when only good looking people could hope for being a successful actor/actress are over for a few decades by now. It has more to do with chance and coincidence. If only good looking people made it, Steve Buschemi wouldn't be a star and half the cast of Game of Thrones wouldn't keep their contracts.

[Alex K]

---

Since we keep on talking about what people deserve, with relation to their pay, and by reference to specific professions..let's take a look at the reason that some of those professions make less (or more) than the others..in reality, as opposed to any particular person's smug appraisal of their own self worth and the reduced value of others by reference to their jobs.

Teachers and farmers, for example....are softly forced into lesser pay for a good reason.  We want those services to be as broadly available as possible.  If farmers charged more for their product, as a consequence, their products would be out of reach for some segment of the public.  In other words, an even greater number of people would starve for lack of money.  If teachers were as well paid as they might wish to be, their services, too, would be beyond the reach of some segment of the populace.  An even greater number of people would be under-educated for lack of money.  

For some odd reason, we don't subject doctors (and a great many other professions) to such controls.  Now, a person might say.."the other stuff is a luxury, people should be able to charge whatever they want and pay whatever they want for luxury services and products"...to which I'd agree.  That, however, completely pulls the rug out from under any mention of what the producer or provider of said services -deserves-. It;s just an issue, as I mentioned before...of what people ask for and what people are willing to pay. The business plans we write, they help us seek out those willing customers that can meet our demands...they don't make us deserving of that money in any sense of the word. They don't actually ensure that we get it, either, ofc....and why -should- they?

The money doesn't come from our business plans, or even from our ability to write them. Beyond the silliness of the notion that they might (and by extension that skill might) make us deserving...the plan itself isn't even the operative portion in creating the money. You can write the best business plan the world has ever seen and fail to make a dime, the market rejects it. The market is not a logical actor making logical decisions, nor are they paying anyone for the -plan-. We've vastly overestimated the value of our own skill in either coming up with a plan or attempting to carry it out. All other things beings equal, it's good to have a plan, it;s good to be skilled..but all other things are not equal...and just because having the plan is -one- thing we can do to better our chances, that doesn't make it the most important factor in our success in any way other than it being the most important factor we can directly effect. We all rely, all of us, on a series of decisions made by others, not always logical, not always good decisions, to profit. Not on what we deserve, not on what we plan for, not on our greater intrinsic value than another. Just money changing hands. That's it, that's all, there's nothing else to it. You can make the shittier product and simultaneously the greater profits. You can make the superior product and inferior profit. You can be more skilled than your competition and still get out competed, and you can be less skilled and drive them out of business nevertheless.

This is -why- it's objectively more risky to be an employer than an employee. That risk, however, is self assumed, and if we worry that we won't be sufficiently compensated for the risk, then maybe we shouldn't risk it. When we decide, like must of us do, to work for someone else, we're leaning on the fact that that guy rolled the dice and won. We're hitching our wagon to a winner, rather than risking loss ourselves. His being the lucky holder of a winning ticket, no matter how hard he worked to find one, does not justify -anything- at all....and looking at the rate of failure for business owners, even successful ones, it's actually difficult to say that the employees are the fools, as opposed to the employers, even if the employers do manage to come up aces at some point, with one of their (likely) many ideas.

---

The idea that Teachers should be paid badly in order to be available to the general populace is ludicrous. I knew more physics than my AP high school physics instructor, and that was at a damn good school - because they still could only afford a failed oil prospecting engineer. Teachers, of all things, simply aren't something that should have to be bought by the general populace. This little bit of socialism would do America some good, believe me.

[Sterben]

Teachers do deserve better pay as does every American citizen needs a living wage. I agree with Alex we need more socialism in this country, it's a major problem that capitalism runs everything. A bit of capitalism does do good things, not everything has a price tag or a value. Were sitting at 1.3 trillion in student loan debt, and what do we have to show for it? A 18 year old who went to school for _______(Fill in your own blank) is now 25. This person can not find a job in the field they studied and winds up working for Target. There is something wrong there, it may be the fault of the student or it maybe a mix of the student and companies not willing to hire a person without experience. How is that fair, there is a lot of good talent wasted out there.

[Brian37]

Teachers do deserve better pay as does every American citizen needs a living wage. I agree with Alex we need more socialism in this country, it's a major problem that capitalism runs everything. A bit of capitalism does do good things, not everything has a price tag or a value. Were sitting at 1.3 trillion in student loan debt, and what do we have to show for it? A 18 year old who went to school for _______(Fill in your own blank) is now 25. This person can not find a job in the field they studied and winds up working for Target. There is something wrong there, it may be the fault of the student or it maybe a mix of the student and companies not willing to hire a person without experience. How is that fair, there is a lot of good talent wasted out there.

Yes and no, it still matters that no matter where someone ends up as far as job, they still should get the best education they can and they do deserve livable wages regardless. The stupid argument of "starter job" is garbage, who do they think works at those places while the teen or college student is in class?

There are always going to be enough people wanting to move up, and no, that is not saying a pay gap should not exist. But it still remains most people end up workers. The education IS STILL worth it because a better educated society bottom to top makes a more stable society.

[paulpablo]

Lot's of people are just born with advantages when it comes to value, the majority of actors and actresses who just happen to be born with good looks for example, people are free to choose who they want to see on television and it seems that most people like to see good looking people on TV and film which gives good looking people more value in that marketplace in general.

The times when only good looking people could hope for being a successful actor/actress are over for a few decades by now. It has more to do with chance and coincidence. If only good looking people made it, Steve Buschemi wouldn't be a star and half the cast of Game of Thrones wouldn't keep their contracts.

There was never a time when only good looking people could hope to be a successful in acting.  Again that wasn't the point I'm making anyway. I was saying that people are born with attributes that subtract or add to their value all the time, Bill Gates isn't exceptional in that way.  The reason why these people have value is because of the freedom of choice other people have, being good looking is often an advantage when it comes to getting on TV, yes that's not the only way to get on TV, people can invest time in learning acting or be naturally gifted in acting or in being funny, whatever it is, it boils down to, it's people choosing what they want to see on TV what they want is what adds or subtracts value in the acting market place.  Putting everyone on an even level of value, as Kitan was suggesting, is taking away the freedom of people to choose what they think is more or less valuble.     It's either that or your going to allow people choose and distribute the money to what they put value in and then you steal off the people who have more and give it to those who have less.

[paulpablo]

Teachers do deserve better pay as does every American citizen needs a living wage. I agree with Alex we need more socialism in this country, it's a major problem that capitalism runs everything. A bit of capitalism does do good things, not everything has a price tag or a value. Were sitting at 1.3 trillion in student loan debt, and what do we have to show for it? A 18 year old who went to school for _______(Fill in your own blank) is now 25. This person can not find a job in the field they studied and winds up working for Target. There is something wrong there, it may be the fault of the student or it maybe a mix of the student and companies not willing to hire a person without experience. How is that fair, there is a lot of good talent wasted out there.

How would it be the fault of capitalism that a company isn't willing to hire an experienced person and how would you solve that problem with a different system in the same situation of a company not hiring a person who they don't want to hire because of a lack of experience?

[Manowar]

Don't count Bernie out just yet.

Manowar

[The Grand Nudger]

The idea that Teachers should be paid badly in order to be available to the general populace is ludicrous. I knew more physics than my AP high school physics instructor, and that was at a damn good school - because they still could only afford a  failed oil prospecting engineer. Teachers, of all things, simply aren't something that should have to be bought by the general populace. This little bit of socialism would do America some good, believe me.

Should?  Should?  They are.  We want public education, we have it.  We only want to spend x on public education, that's what we do.  X can only go so far......hence teachers don't get the big bucks, or the raises.  There's no -should- about any of this.  -Should- doesn't change why we do it, or the consequences of how we do it. If teachers priced themselves beyond our means to pay, then education suffers. As healthcare suffered, for example, from being priced far above and away from our means to pay.

Whether we agree with the manner in which it's done (I hate the "you're supposed to do it for love of the children" song and dance for obvious reasons) it;s something we do, not for no reason, and not even for a bad reason. Some professions are under this sort of manipulation, others are not. I think we can do a better job, but it has nothing to do with teachers deserving anything for being teachers, specifically, or what we -should- pay teachers.