Income Inequality in America

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Robdemanc
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12 Mar 2013, 1:14 pm

Fnord wrote:

Morality is a religious concept that is irrelevant when it comes to feeding your family.

Morality is not a religious concept. It is rooted in primitive social development.

ruveyn
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12 Mar 2013, 1:16 pm

Robdemanc wrote:

Fnord wrote:

Morality is a religious concept that is irrelevant when it comes to feeding your family.

Morality is not a religious concept. It is rooted in primitive social development.

Correct. Morality is the science and discipline of learning to get along with one's cohorts.

ruveyn

ScrewyWabbit
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12 Mar 2013, 1:17 pm

ruveyn wrote:

ScrewyWabbit wrote:

There's something wrong when we've decided that people don't deserve a decent standard of living simply because there's no demand for their labor / talents - especially when the person has worked hard to maximize their potential and their talents. If the people responsible for creating demand are not doing that job well, then those people need to be replaced, or the responsibility shifted elsewhere. And, no, I'm not talking about the government. I'm taking about the people who proclaim and appoint themselves as being the ones responsible for job creation, in the name of their own tax breaks. The tax breaks have continued for years, basically unabated. So where are the jobs they're supposed to be creating? Where? Where?

You want freebies to go to the needy. Now who is going to pay for the freebies?

ruveyn

Actually, what's been going on is freebies going to the not-so-needy. Who's paying for it is every other tax payer.

And, no, I don't want freebies going to the needy. If we look at it as a supply/demand problem, as has been suggested, then the wealthy tax break recipients who are supposed to be creating jobs for us either a) cannot create said jobs because they themselves have no way to create the necessary demand, in which case they've been defrauding us for years with their claims of "lower our taxes and we'll create jobs" or b) are suggesting that they'll create jobs for which there is no demand, which is not a model that can be sustained, and thus they've been indirectly defrauding us in that the jobs they are creating are unneeded and thus will quickly vanish of their own accord. The only way that the wealthy as recipients of tax breaks can create jobs is to create the demand for the jobs, in which case the jobs will then materialize, but it seems to me the most they can do towards that end is to spend the tax breaks- and if they aren't, and instead are saving them, then again, they are defrauding us. So again I say give people tax breaks when they can prove they've done something to actually create and sustain jobs - even if we have to give them the tax break ahead of time, require them to return the money within a certain time period if they cannot provide proof that the tax breaks were used to promote job creation.

ruveyn
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12 Mar 2013, 1:19 pm

ScrewyWabbit wrote:

Actually, what's been going on is freebies going to the not-so-needy. Who's paying for it is every other tax payer.

Good point. It is reverse redistribution with freebies going to the greedy, not the needy.

There must be some way of stopping that without resorting to government. Government is run by fools and knaves.

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Kraichgauer
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12 Mar 2013, 2:25 pm

ruveyn wrote:

ScrewyWabbit wrote:

Actually, what's been going on is freebies going to the not-so-needy. Who's paying for it is every other tax payer.

I think there are also plenty of fools and knaves in the private sector.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Kraichgauer
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12 Mar 2013, 2:26 pm

androbot2084 wrote:

Taxation is legalized theft.

If so, it's theft defended in the U.S. constitution.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

ruveyn
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12 Mar 2013, 2:48 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:

I think there are also plenty of fools and knaves in the private sector.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

But one can refuse to do business with them. The corporations do not have an army or police to enforce collection. The way corporations get that is by bribing the government which gets us back to the fools and knaves.

ruveyn

Fnord
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12 Mar 2013, 2:52 pm

Robdemanc wrote:

Fnord wrote:

Morality is a religious concept that is irrelevant when it comes to feeding your family.

Morality is not a religious concept. It is rooted in primitive social development.

No, that's Ethics. Religion is rooted in primitive social development.

Morality is concerned with spiritual concepts of "right" and "wrong". Ethics are more of a social convention than a religious concept.

Ethics involves a mostly pragmatic approach to social behavior - if you treat others well, they will be less likely to let you starve.

Morality involves a dogmatic approach to social behavior - you treat others well because GOD SAID SO, and doing what He says is good.

Kraichgauer
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12 Mar 2013, 3:03 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

I think there are also plenty of fools and knaves in the private sector.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Not if said fools and knaves control the majority of big businesses.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

visagrunt
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12 Mar 2013, 3:15 pm

androbot2084 wrote:

Taxation is legalized theft.

The phrase "legalized theft" is an oxymoron.

Theft has a particular, legal meaning. There are many instances in which property can be taken without the consent of the possessor which are not theft.

Now, if you want to say that taxation is taking money without consent, that is fine--I have no argument with that description. But you cannot characterize that which is expressly made lawful by the legislature and pretend that it falls within a class of behaviour that is unlawful. That is mendacity, pure and simple.

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Robdemanc
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12 Mar 2013, 4:29 pm

Fnord wrote:

Robdemanc wrote:

Fnord wrote:

Morality is a religious concept that is irrelevant when it comes to feeding your family.

Morality is not a religious concept. It is rooted in primitive social development.

Morality is personal and social, and has deeper evolutionary roots than beliefs relating to religion (which is a collective belief system about the entire universe). Everyone has morals with or without out religion. An atheist does not need a god to tell them how to treat others. Animal groups can be said to have a moral code.

Morality is one of the many things religions have tried to hijack over the years.

Who_Am_I
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12 Mar 2013, 7:28 pm

Fnord wrote:

There is inequality in ability and willingness to work; notice it?

I am able and willing to work but impaired in my ability to convince people of this fact.
Hence, I am underemployed.
I'm working on getting more work, but it's a long, painfully slow process.
I wish I knew what normal people did to make it so that the most idiotic of them could just wake up one day and go "I'm gonna get me a job!" and get hired a couple of weeks later.

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Kraichgauer
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12 Mar 2013, 7:36 pm

Who_Am_I wrote:

Fnord wrote:

There is inequality in ability and willingness to work; notice it?

I don't know of a single Aspie who hasn't asked himself or herself that very question. Lord knows I've pondered that mystery countless times.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

ruveyn
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12 Mar 2013, 7:44 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

I think there are also plenty of fools and knaves in the private sector.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Not if said fools and knaves control the majority of big businesses.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

The Senate and the House are filled to capacity with fools, knaves, scoundrels and whores who do not produce a God Damned Thing. At least the business produce goods you can buy and services you can use. Start with your local supermarket and drugstore. The people who run our government could not operate a lemonade stand at a profit.

ruveyn

Kraichgauer
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12 Mar 2013, 8:11 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

I think there are also plenty of fools and knaves in the private sector.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Not if said fools and knaves control the majority of big businesses.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Sure, but the only thing that keeps many of these businesses from producing crap that's at best flawed or inefficient, at worst harmful, is that the government makes those knaves and fools in business make halfway decent products. It happened before government regulation, and would most certainly happen again without those protections. In the meantime, they're still knaves, crooks, and fools.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

androbot2084
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12 Mar 2013, 8:14 pm

A capitalist will sell non-detergent motor oil.

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