Do believe all people should have approximately the same annual income?

[Shortass]

Originally posted by: AreaCode707

Originally posted by: datalink7

Originally posted by: AreaCode707
If you believe or don't believe that, why? I'll post my thoughts a few posts down, so I don't contaminate people's answers right off the bat.

So you'd rather the first poster who gives an answer to "contaminate" people's answers?

Eh, it's just basic survey rules. You don't hint in your question what you think the "right" answer is.

I think people should be able to earn whatever they can, through a combination of skill, education, effort and luck. Very few wind up making bank that way, but kudos to them if they do. Other people may not have a combination of those traits such that they ever make much in life, or may choose to invest their time and efforts in other ways; I see nothing wrong with either of those.

There are so many people outraged at the execs making tons of cash; I was just wondering how many of those same people truly think that all work really deserves about the same compensation, with limited variation.

To be clear, my own answer to my OP is: No, what a dumbass question.

I'm tired and prone to sweet bait so here goes; I answer no, but only after we've met specific conditions.


Skills are learned and education is grotesquely unequal across the nation and even from community to community - many people have no opportunity, considering the demographics of poverty, to gain adequate skills or education. For these people there needs to be a floor that they can land on that allows them to live an adequate life - decent housing and food, access to adequate health care and transportation services. Extreme levels of poverty because someone grew up in a bad neighborhood is hardly conscionable for the 'greatest country in the world'. I'm not saying welfare, but programs like the earned income tax credit that lift them up to survivable levels. If/once they gain proper skills they wouldn't need the program - set limits to the duration to disallow lifetime welfare cases.

Effort should absolutely be rewarded, as should thriftiness and the ability to utilize talent. The market allows for such traits already for those competing in it... sweet, man.

Luck, as with my first point, is distributed unfairly and inequally. There should be systems in place (workers comp, disability pay, sick/maternal and other types of time off work) that allow those who fall on hard times, physically or otherwise, to get adequate time to recover.


We are not cogs for a capitalistic system. Just because labor is qualified and quantified by productivity doesn't mean compensation has to follow the same rules to the T. There needs to be a basic level of dignity to the quality of life for all Americans, and once established an efficient, regulated market system would be well supported from the bottom of the pyramid and we can stop hating on the rich bro's on top.

 

[StageLeft]

Nope

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
No.

People should get paid what they are worth.

That would be a very very bad idea, because if I applied your standards to you, you would never earn anything, and, if we applied mine, there would not be enough money in the world to pay you.

 

[PokerGuy]

Let the free market decide what the work is worth.

 

[ArbysOvenMitt]

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Let the free market decide what the work is worth.

Nay! The monarchy! Let the King decide, for he was ordained by Heaven above!

The market is as irresponsible as any politician as long as those running them have much to gain from manipulating wages. Why put faith in the same markets that cost us 3.6 million jobs in slightly over a year and a half so effortlessly?

 

[nobodyknows]

I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure personages is the only thing that can lead us to find ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always irresistibly tempts its owner to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Gandhi with the moneybags of Carnegie? Albert Einstein

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure personages is the only thing that can lead us to find ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always irresistibly tempts its owner to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Gandhi with the moneybags of Carnegie? Albert Einstein

--------------------

Business money is limitless.


But we have created a society that does not allow opportunities for those people to take care of themselves because we have denied them those opportunities.


Here we were talking about economic development, about investing billions of dollars in various programs, and I could see it wasn't billions of dollars people needed right away.


I had no idea that I would ever get involved with something like lending money to poor people, given the circumstances in which I was working in Bangladesh.


I made a list of people who needed just a little bit of money. And when the list was complete, there were 42 names. The total amount of money they needed was $27. I was shocked.


I wanted to give money to people like this woman so that they would be free from the moneylenders to sell their product at the price which the markets gave them - which was much higher than what the trader was giving them.


I was teaching in one of the universities while the country was suffering from a severe famine. People were dying of hunger, and I felt very helpless. As an economist, I had no tool in my tool box to fix that kind of situation.


I went to the bank and proposed that they lend money to the poor people. The bankers almost fell over.


My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see.


Poverty is unnecessary.


Soon we saw that money going to women brought much more benefit to the family than money going to the men. So we changed our policy and gave a high priority to women. As a result, now 96% of our four million borrowers in Grameen Bank are women.


There are cultural issues everywhere - in Bangladesh, Latin America, Africa, wherever you go. But somehow when we talk about cultural differences, we magnify those differences.


They explained to me that the bank cannot lend money to poor people because these people are not creditworthy.


Today, if you look at financial systems around the globe, more than half the population of the world - out of six billion people, more than three billion - do not qualify to take out a loan from a bank. This is a shame.
========

Who said these words?

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Let the free market decide what the work is worth.

Ah, the 'free market' myth and the communsim myth, the two great myths of the naive for the last century.

Would that free market decision include the right for workers to organize? With a secret ballot or a signed-card system? Does it include 401(k)'s? How about the minimum wage? The 40 hour work week? Child labor? Voluntary slavery? Workplace safety regulations? Tax incentives - say, your hokme mortgage interest deduction? Charitable tax deductions? Anti-monopoly laws? Insider trading laws? Federal subsidies? Tax exemptions for the lowest incomes? Progressive tax rates? An Estate tax? The Federal Reserve? And more...

The so-called free market is constantly affected by government policy - and it should be, becuase the needs of society don't line up and fit exactly the market's needs. The government acting corruptly under the influence of the wealth gives that a bad name, but the results would be the same and worse if the government did not get involved.

Student aid, SBA loans, military college aid, welfare and aid for dependant children for people who are part of the structural unemployed, FDIC protection...

There are all kinds of things the government does that create the marketplace and make it work better. Its purpose is to efficiently provide for the needs of society, not to simply enrich the few and create a sort of feudalism that exists under the so-called free market where a few own nearly everything and most have very few rights and power to get out of poverty.

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure personages is the only thing that can lead us to find ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always irresistibly tempts its owner to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Gandhi with the moneybags of Carnegie? Albert Einstein

--------------------

Business money is limitless.


But we have created a society that does not allow opportunities for those people to take care of themselves because we have denied them those opportunities.


Here we were talking about economic development, about investing billions of dollars in various programs, and I could see it wasn't billions of dollars people needed right away.


I had no idea that I would ever get involved with something like lending money to poor people, given the circumstances in which I was working in Bangladesh.


I made a list of people who needed just a little bit of money. And when the list was complete, there were 42 names. The total amount of money they needed was $27. I was shocked.


I wanted to give money to people like this woman so that they would be free from the moneylenders to sell their product at the price which the markets gave them - which was much higher than what the trader was giving them.


I was teaching in one of the universities while the country was suffering from a severe famine. People were dying of hunger, and I felt very helpless. As an economist, I had no tool in my tool box to fix that kind of situation.


I went to the bank and proposed that they lend money to the poor people. The bankers almost fell over.


My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see.


Poverty is unnecessary.


Soon we saw that money going to women brought much more benefit to the family than money going to the men. So we changed our policy and gave a high priority to women. As a result, now 96% of our four million borrowers in Grameen Bank are women.


There are cultural issues everywhere - in Bangladesh, Latin America, Africa, wherever you go. But somehow when we talk about cultural differences, we magnify those differences.


They explained to me that the bank cannot lend money to poor people because these people are not creditworthy.


Today, if you look at financial systems around the globe, more than half the population of the world - out of six billion people, more than three billion - do not qualify to take out a loan from a bank. This is a shame.
========

Who said these words?

I don't know??


I don't 100% agree withe the first quote (Business money is limitless) though?

 

[Strk]

No thanks

There are already enough people who are lazy and don't want to work.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
No.

People should get paid what they are worth.

There's such ignorance and ideology in your comment. As if there weren't a huge variety of factors affecting income, that are determined by things such as 'corruption', but more specifically, by arbitary power structures that value our finance industry at being worth 30% of all the profit in the nation, and our teachers relative peanuts. It's a meaningless statement you made, based on a fantasy that there aren't those arbitary factors.

How do you choose between a 36% (now), 39% (Reagan), 70% (LBJ), or 91% (Eisenhower) top tax rate, when you are trying to do what you said?

Which of those exactly pays people what they are worth, and how can you prove your answer is the right one?

If you're going to say it's an opinion, then look at how meaningless your comment is.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure personages is the only thing that can lead us to find ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always irresistibly tempts its owner to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Gandhi with the moneybags of Carnegie? Albert Einstein

I disagree. Money is power, so it corrupts as power corrupts. In my opinion, money is not the root of all evil. The lack of it is.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Let the free market decide what the work is worth.

Ah, the 'free market' myth and the communsim myth, the two great myths of the naive for the last century.

Would that free market decision include the right for workers to organize? With a secret ballot or a signed-card system? Does it include 401(k)'s? How about the minimum wage? The 40 hour work week? Child labor? Voluntary slavery? Workplace safety regulations? Tax incentives - say, your hokme mortgage interest deduction? Charitable tax deductions? Anti-monopoly laws? Insider trading laws? Federal subsidies? Tax exemptions for the lowest incomes? Progressive tax rates? An Estate tax? The Federal Reserve? And more...

The so-called free market is constantly affected by government policy - and it should be, becuase the needs of society don't line up and fit exactly the market's needs. The government acting corruptly under the influence of the wealth gives that a bad name, but the results would be the same and worse if the government did not get involved.

Student aid, SBA loans, military college aid, welfare and aid for dependant children for people who are part of the structural unemployed, FDIC protection...

There are all kinds of things the government does that create the marketplace and make it work better. Its purpose is to efficiently provide for the needs of society, not to simply enrich the few and create a sort of feudalism that exists under the so-called free market where a few own nearly everything and most have very few rights and power to get out of poverty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A

 

[SP33Demon]

No, all people should not have the same annual income. A good example is that people have different IQ's, and hence they should be paid differently. There will always be differences in intelligence (fluid, crystallized, social, business, etc) and in many instances salaries are a direct reflection of that.

However, using your example (well 20K instead of 30) if a rocket scientist at NASA is paid within 10 times more than a cashier (20K*9=270K), I could go with that. After taxes, I think many real life examples DO already adhere to your 30K to 200K rule already, minus a few select industries/areas (executive compensation, Wall Street, oil cartel monopolies, extremely impoverished). Only extreme examples won't adhere to your rule, so not sure what your point is? Are you saying that all extremes of the spectrum should be abolished and normalized?

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure personages is the only thing that can lead us to find ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always irresistibly tempts its owner to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Gandhi with the moneybags of Carnegie? Albert Einstein

I disagree. Money is power, so it corrupts as power corrupts. In my opinion, money is not the root of all evil. The lack of it is.

So the lack of power is the root of all evil?

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Who said these words?

Muhammad Yunus??

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure personages is the only thing that can lead us to find ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always irresistibly tempts its owner to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Gandhi with the moneybags of Carnegie? Albert Einstein

I disagree. Money is power, so it corrupts as power corrupts. In my opinion, money is not the root of all evil. The lack of it is.

So the lack of power is the root of all evil?

By the definition of power as "the ability to act," I would say that's a true statement, yes. I would say that people act in bad ways when they have no choices.

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: winnar111
Absolutely. Everyone should have a guaranteed income of $50,000. Max $100,000, after which it is confiscated

I think you're being a little harsh. It should be like $150k. Also, everyone has a right to a home and the absolute best healthcare.

$150k means you're stealing from 2 other common men. You should be shot in the back while your bones are ground to dust.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Atreus21
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A

Funny that just hours ago, I posted that greed is a onstant, not something we can 'fix', and we need to deal with it with the system, not try to get rid of it.

And you have Milton Friedman saying something very similar.

But Friedman was a disaster for the world, the counterpart to the harm done in the name of Marx.

He sounds good in the clip debating - but there's an answer to his question. He suggests the only alternatives are Nazism and Communism - what about liberal policies? Socialist?

He doesn't distinguish between the policies of the 1890's, and the New Deal, which are so striking in their difference, because they don't suit his ideology.

Instead, he selected his opponents - like China, and just claims to be better than them.

Friedman had what perhaps no other economist has had, in his theories being impliemented in entire nations, over a period of decades, and they crashed and burned.

You should read Naomis Klein's "The Shock Doctrine", where she discusses his policies at length. Again and again, his policies turned fairer societies into oligarchies.

Again and again, his policies greatly decreased the well-being of most citizens, calling for less and less for them.

She showed how his policies were closely correlated with dictatorships, because only a dictatorship could force people to not revolt against the bad economic policies.

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure personages is the only thing that can lead us to find ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always irresistibly tempts its owner to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Gandhi with the moneybags of Carnegie? Albert Einstein

I disagree. Money is power, so it corrupts as power corrupts. In my opinion, money is not the root of all evil. The lack of it is.

So the lack of power is the root of all evil?

By the definition of power as "the ability to act," I would say that's a true statement, yes. I would say that people act in bad ways when they have no choices.

You're going to have to explain that concept further for it to have any creedence.

We all have "the ability to act", but it is the ones with the power who get to "act" on the critical areas.

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: winnar111
Absolutely. Everyone should have a guaranteed income of $50,000. Max $100,000, after which it is confiscated

I think you're being a little harsh. It should be like $150k. Also, everyone has a right to a home and the absolute best healthcare.

$150k means you're stealing from 2 other common men. You should be shot in the back while your bones are ground to dust.

You two enjoying your little circle jerk?

 

[brandonb]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

I disagree. Money is power, so it corrupts as power corrupts. In my opinion, money is not the root of all evil. The lack of it is.

The root of all evil is selfishness. People with or without money can be selfish. People who steal from the rich is just as selfish as a rich person using a slave to make them rich. Neither are better or worse than one another.

I just think its funny that all this talk is coming up these days about wealth redistribution like its a politcally correct or even morally correct to steal money. If you don't like rich people stop giving them money then!

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Atreus21
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A

Funny that just hours ago, I posted that greed is a onstant, not something we can 'fix', and we need to deal with it with the system, not try to get rid of it.

And you have Milton Friedman saying something very similar.

But Friedman was a disaster for the world, the counterpart to the harm done in the name of Marx.

He sounds good in the clip debating - but there's an answer to his question. He suggests the only alternatives are Nazism and Communism - what about liberal policies? Socialist?

He doesn't distinguish between the policies of the 1890's, and the New Deal, which are so striking in their difference, because they don't suit his ideology.

Instead, he selected his opponents - like China, and just claims to be better than them.

Friedman had what perhaps no other economist has had, in his theories being impliemented in entire nations, over a period of decades, and they crashed and burned.

You should read Naomis Klein's "The Shock Doctrine", where she discusses his policies at length. Again and again, his policies turned fairer societies into oligarchies.

Again and again, his policies greatly decreased the well-being of most citizens, calling for less and less for them.

She showed how his policies were closely correlated with dictatorships, because only a dictatorship could force people to not revolt against the bad economic policies.

Tell you what. You read "Free to Choose," and I'll read "Shock Doctrine."

I didn't find that he simply one-upped China. He just said that they run on "greed," just like we do.

I don't think a "disaster for the world" would've been recognized to the extent this man has been recognized. Calling him a counterpart to Marx is like calling FDR a counterpart to Hitler. I don't agree with the analogy that the opposite side of the spectrum inflicts just as much damage as the original side. Capitalism and free trade has contributed more than anything to the general well-being of all nations. Any economist would agree with that.

No one says capitalism is perfect. But we do say it's the best available way so far discovered for long term benefit.

Do you see a real difference between socialism and communism? Do you contend that capitalism has done more harm than good (which certainly can be said of communism and socialism)?

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Atreus21
Tell you what. You read "Free to Choose," and I'll read "Shock Doctrine."

That's like offering to listen to my recommendation of The Beatles Collection if I'll listen to
the rap albums made in the last year.

I've read enough about and from Friedman and there's no reason to read more. I encourage you to read my recommendation, but this trade makes no sense.

If the circumstances were different, it might.

I didn't find that he simply one-upped China. He just said that they run on "greed," just like we do.

He referenced China more than once IIRC - the reference I referred to was his 'who is going to run things so great?' And then he listed some 'bad' nations.

The referene you mention about China running on greed, was the point I actually agree with. I'v posted here repeatedly decrying the constant complaints about 'greed'.

I think they're misguided in trying to address the issues.

I don't think a "disaster for the world" would've been recognized to the extent this man has been recognized. Calling him a counterpart to Marx is like calling FDR a counterpart to Hitler.

Actually, to be fair to Marx, who had *some* insightful points, I compared him to the harmful effects of those who used Marx's name - e.g., the USSR and China.

And I don't use your deductive approach - that recognition proves merit - rather I look directly at his theories and their results for my opinion. The recognition can be explained.

It's nothing like the analogy between FDR and Hitler, because I compared to terrible things - like the USSR economy and Friedman's economies - but FDR was not terrible.

I don't agree with the analogy that the opposite side of the spectrum inflicts just as much damage as the original side. Capitalism and free trade has contributed more than anything to the general well-being of all nations. Any economist would agree with that.

Yes, I did not attack the overall system you call capitalism (we can easily get bogged down in labels), which includes both 1890's American and the New Deal, which are so different.

I attacked Friedman's economics, as implemented in Indonesia, Chile, the USSR and elsewhere, and you did not respond to what I said, but rather defended 'capitalism'.

Do you see a real difference between socialism and communism?

Yes, and I see socialism as something that can be - and in fact is - implementable in degrees. We obviously have many things in the US that can be called socialist that work great, from our military to our public libraries and schools to the post office to the Tennessee Valley Authority among many. (And yes, I know we could bicker over 'work great').

Do you contend that capitalism has done more harm than good (which certainly can be said of communism and socialism)?

I find it hard to answer in those terms. I'd say I recognize both the enormous benefits it provides - and that I also understand better than most the often invisilbe harms.

I'm for as I said the 'progressive' version, which really isn't all that scary - or different - it's largely just their paying some more taxes, higher wages, with *some* more regulation in some areas (and less in others) - in short, basically just letting Democracy work more effectively at ensuring that the economy serve the needs of the people, while fully preserving the outstanding productivity of the capialist system, in which entrepeneurs thrive and people become rich with a very strong private sector.

You might have seen some of my posts explain concepts such as how the excess concentration of wealth isn't the height of capialism, it's harmful to it, as it removes the grease of money that the capitalist system needs for the wheels to turn by incenting and rewarding productivity for many people, instead locking up that wealth for the benefit of a few, stifling productivity similarly to how communism does.

Sorry to add to your list, but read or watch "The Corporation", and note some of its points such as how the corporatocracy loves to 'privatize gains and externalize costs, for example by having the taxpayer pay for their pollution costs - that's a distortion that's profitable for them but bad for society, and I think it's pro-capitalism and good for the nation to say so and fix it. I think 'the good of socisty' has a place in the marketplace driven by the elected govermnet when it's actually representing the people.

It includes things like public healthcare - 'socialism!' - that offload businesses from an expense having nothing to do with their business. Good for capitalism.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: brandonb

Originally posted by: Atreus21

I disagree. Money is power, so it corrupts as power corrupts. In my opinion, money is not the root of all evil. The lack of it is.

The root of all evil is selfishness. People with or without money can be selfish. People who steal from the rich is just as selfish as a rich person using a slave to make them rich. Neither are better or worse than one another.

I just think its funny that all this talk is coming up these days about wealth redistribution like its a politcally correct or even morally correct to steal money. If you don't like rich people stop giving them money then!

Your post illustrates one of the major false ideologies that has pervaded our nation, the idea that saying policies which leave most people better off are wrong to pursue.

Saying 'the system is broken because the levels of concentration of wealth are skyrocketing, with all kinds of harmful effects, and we should balance that', is not wrong.