If so many people hate the rich-why don't we get rid of the

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And I agree, just a tool, an object.

Why do so many people place so much emotion behind money?

I guess we are told we are worth what we earn. We are told that money signifies how good we are or how happy we are?

It signifies whether we stay alive or not,
the former exemplified by private jet owning, $5,000 suit wearing tycoons,
the latter by the millions who are currently starving and dying from preventable or treatable illnesses.

Hence the bit of "emotion" about riches.

I've noticed none of the people who spew about money (that is, wealth, currently) being unimportant have never faced starvation, and would likely blanch if they so much as had to meet a truly emaciated person.

Agreed. We have opportunities that many don't have. We have education and can get better jobs too. We have business studies if we want it-easy.

Maybe it is a selfishness thing. And a fear of losing money. Maybe that's why the rich aren't helping the poor?

(And I'm not talking about the people who 'can't get a job,' and how many jobs have you applied for? "none"
Because if they actually tried. who knows-they might actually get a job.) Enthuses on 'trying.'

I mean the poor.

Because the lack of money decreases the options available to people and people like having lots of options to choose from.



Nope, I don't hear anyone saying that. Perhaps yuppies say stuff like that, but I don't generally hang out with yuppies. Money doesn't determine what a person is worth, as the value of a human is intrinsic, but as for people that you want to buy junk from, often they will value you on the basis of your ability to be a wallet-transporter. If you go into a store and seek to complain about not being able to afford stuff, they will value your ability to walk out the door because most corporate employees with no authority can't do anything about that aside from wait until you're finished ranting. If you are like the ever annoying customers at fast food restaurants who try to scam free food away, then you will get the kitchen staff gossiping about you and the cashiers adding you to their proscription lists.

So in essence an inanimate object, holds in your eyes more power then the idiocy of people using said object? It's a long and drawn discussion we might be entering in here.

However, I find that the responsibility of using money lies with the people holding it.
Not the tool itself, the tool does not choose who wields it.
If you want to send food to some underdeveloped nations more money would go to bribing officials, then transport. Due to greed, of people. Blame yourself, your species, not a piece of paper.

Don't remember saying that. That it is people who use said "object" doesn't negate that it IS possession of said object which determines whether a person lives and dies in agony, or lives and dies in luxury. Currently.

See above. You're strawmanning.

Yeah you're right. I should read better next time, I'm sorry.
It's even worse as I claimed idiocy on a group of people, while I was being an idiot.
If I fail at something I might as well do it face first!

EDIT : Fixed quote.

Last edited by Episteme on 06 May 2011, 7:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Please correct the attribution of quotes.

I butcher quotes all the time. Can be amusing to find the thread participants suddenly espousing each OTHER'S views.

I am not a fan of the rich, but I actually have a decent amount of respect for entrepreneurs. At least, if the entrepreneur is delivering some useful service to society. What I don't like about the really rich is that they do little or no more for society than the average person (some of them seem to be a net drain on society) but get paid fare more money than anyone actually needs.

Also, there is an alternative to the traditional business model (although it might not work for everything): cooperatives. In Canada we have a lot of cooperative banks (credit unions) and they seem to work decently. We also have cooperative grocery stores and a few other such things. There's no particular reason a factory or a farm couldn't be operated that way (although forced collectivization does not seem to work--just look at how it worked out for Stalin).

Some wealthy people are very nice. They don't have the burden of many problems we face daily. They see the world differently (partly why they are rich) and are always happy to help those less fortunate than themselves. They don't look down on people (unless people are mean to them). They are generous and spend more time helping others (in real need) than most people.

They also pay more in tax=schools, police, roads ect. So contribute in many ways.

Of course, too many of them are self centered, status chasing, materialistic pigs. But that doesn't mean it's because they are rich. They are rich because they are pigs.

What percent of "the rich" are productive by your reckoning. And what factual basis do you have for making the judgement. To be sure, we have about inflated pay-checks received by corporate types (and that can be galling) but overall what percent of the economically advantaged are doing useful things and what percentage are not. And what is your definition of a "useful service"? Is a lawyer doing something useful when he defends a business man in a law suite or tax related action?

Or are you just annoyed that party A can afford something that party B cannot? Is it the inequality of incomes and wealth you find bothersome? Keep on mind in ANY society there will be some class of people that have an advantage over other classes. In communist society the party apparachiks get a much better deal than did working stiffs even though communism is supposed to exist to benefit the workers. It was still the "suits" that prospered in communist societies, not the poor schmucks with callouses on their hands.

ruveyn

You don't need to tell me how bad communism was for the lower classes--I already know (just finished a unit on it in my history class). The inequality is why some people (communists themselves) criticize the USSR for not developing "true communism" (whatever they view that to be), but state capitalism.

I honestly couldn't say what portion of rich people perform useful services. Rich doctors are useful (provided they aren't doing cosmetic surgery), authors are sort of useful (they provide entertainment and, if they are good, some sort of commentary on society or humanity or something like that) although very few of them are rich. But people high up in a corporation seem somewhat unnecessary to me--I suppose they are necessary to the corporation, but they are not necessary to society because they do not facilitate the production or delivery of useful things.

Also, I'm not particularly jealous myself of the ultra-rich (well, maybe I'm jealous of them being able to fly in Business Class). I'm from an upper-middle class family and I like that. We live very comfortably, but not extravagantly. However, I do feel a bit guilty that we get to live so well when others don't. But what irritates me is when people can buy these really frivolous things like private jets. No one needs a private jet, especially not when they can afford to fly Executive Class. But there are other people who could really use that money for more important things like food, university, or (in the USA) medical care.

A business man who makes frequent trips and cannot put up with the stupidities and inefficiencies of commercial airline companies complete with lost baggage and take-off delays could very well use a private airplane. Just as you use a private car instead of putting up with public buses and subways.

ruveyn

The real problem here is a society designed to be a certain way, with a huge percentage of the necessary jobs paying poverty wages or not much more than poverty wages, and a large reserve army of unemployed designed in the system to keep the wages down. Then there are people who are in control who get almost everything. No matter how much people are told it's their own fault that they're poor, that changes not one whit the fact that the system is designed to have huge numbers of people do necessary work for very little pay. Someone has to do these jobs. Someone has to do hard work for little pay. There's no escaping that. That the system is designed to have a reserve army of labour is a fact, then there will always be people unemployed. Always. If jobs are created, if somehow people escape, other people will be forced to take their place. That's the way the system is designed by the very wealthy who are in command. We who criticise inequality are questioning this system and that it exists in this way, and the heart of the matter is the fact that the very wealthy are in complete control and they shape the system for their own selfish ends. Their stranglehold has tightened over the years as the inequality they've engineered has deepened. This is no accident. This is the disenfranchisement of the vast majority of the population. The very legitimacy of the political system starts to become in question.

I dunno. I think that depends on the individual, really.

Say I like to make up bits of furniture, and it's something that I enjoy doing to occupy my free time, which I seem to have a lot of. Now, sometimes I will go to town and make up a whole lot of porch chairs, and I will realize suddenly that the silly things are crowding up my living quarters.

Now, since I'm too cheap to buy a larger house to put them in and too lazy to build another storehouse, I go to you, an acquaintance of mine who runs a furniture store. I go up to you, and I talk about my problem for a while, and then we go off on discussing the weather and some dull details about local economic trends. As we're about to part ways, you ask me, "How much again did you pay for the materials you put into making those things anyway?"

"Oh," I say, and I do some mental calculations. "About ten dollars each, I suppose."

"Ten dollars each?" you ask incredulously. "Where on Earth did you get good maple at that rate?"

"Jim had a surplus," I explain.

"Jim Knotts!" you exclaim. "That guy never did know how much to stock. I can take them off your hands for twenty each, I suppose."

"And see you sell them to the tune of fifty dollars a pop?" I say with a knowing leer.

"Are you really going to do this to me?" you complain. Now, you know you could keep the bid at twenty because you know I make my real money doing roof work and cleaning out gutters, but you've decided that you'd like to have me beholden to you rather than vice versa. "Fine," you say, "I'll give you thirty each, but don't tell the boys about it."

I scratch the nape of my neck and think for a while, and I seem to consider it. Finally, I agree to bring the whole gaggle of them over in my pick-up.

And here is where I get to the point. If you were to turn around and sell each of the silly things for a hundred and six dollars each, you will be very glad that you cut that deal. However, if one of the customers were to sit on one and it were to break, putting you at risk of a liability suit, that would considerably damage our friendship and my reputation.

Therefore, an entrepreneur is only worth the extent to which he is willing to do honest business and provide a worthwhile product or service. An entrepreneur who screws you over in the end is useless and a jerk to boot.

Last edited by WilliamWDelaney on 07 May 2011, 12:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.