The Rise of the Bottom Fifth

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why would anyone chose a system in which some can have much and others almost nothing when if you distribute things equally everybody who has almost nothing gets a tiny bit more?

Why reward those who are personally ambitious when you could reward the whole human race by creating a society in which the real rewards go to those who give to others.

We could turn our government and educational system into a machine that has as its aim and goal the promotion of the wealth of all people, no?

You greedy folk know how you are self motivated to perform. Just imagine how a person who feels God within him or her will perform. Imagine if love of others instead of self infatuation to mask self hate were the real reward. Oh it is but not many know it.

Consider the sparrow. It toils not, neither does it want. One has within ones self riches beyond belief, but for attachment and worship of the self.

Capitalism and competition are nothing but the manifestations of self hate directed outward at others.

I don't understand your logic, Moonie. Who is the more greedy? The person who accepts others and the world around him as they are/as it is, or the one who wants to force the world into his personal ideal?

We're not "choosing" a system.

This is just the way it is.

Wow, your hate for America is really coming out now.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Craig234
Of course it's nonsense, misrepesented statistics. Ask how the top 1% have done during that period... (hint, think hundreds of percent increase). So much for those poor "wealthiest familes".

A relevant statistic - the top 5% have gone from a 50-50 split of the nation's wealth to a 75-25 split from the late 70's to the late 90's. That's huge increasing of the concentration of wealth.

Who cares how the top 1% or the top 5% have done if the bottom 20% have seen their purchasing power increase as well? Economics is not static. We are not divvying up pieces of pie. Your flaws in thinking begin with the fact that your initial premises are based off of relatives -- percentages, "splits," and "concentrations" -- to describe things that are not in fact relative.
You see... that's where your ideology causes you to deviate from reality. Look around you. Or are you really going to try and argue that the bottom 50% in the late 70s was better off than they are today? Based purely on the disparity of wealth between the top and the bottom as opposed to actual conditions and standard of living? Would you also be happier if we were all economically equal, but lived in mud huts? :roll:

If we are not dividing pie then why not pay the poor the same amount of money as the rich make? Give everybody a million a year. Tax revenues will go up as well as most people's standard of living. It will be great.

😕

Like I said, Moonie, it's not static. If you gave everybody a million a year, then a million would stop being a lot of money.

Then every year you increase it to where it is a lot of money. Problem solved.

And that would never happen. Quite the opposite, it would become smaller and smaller in terms of actual purchasing power. They'd print million dollar bills to use as pennies.
Consider if you played a game of monopoly, but added an extra zero to every amount and figure used in the game, from the money to the rents to the hotels. What has changed? Nothing.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why would anyone chose a system in which some can have much and others almost nothing when if you distribute things equally everybody who has almost nothing gets a tiny bit more?

Why reward those who are personally ambitious when you could reward the whole human race by creating a society in which the real rewards go to those who give to others.

We could turn our government and educational system into a machine that has as its aim and goal the promotion of the wealth of all people, no?

You greedy folk know how you are self motivated to perform. Just imagine how a person who feels God within him or her will perform. Imagine if love of others instead of self infatuation to mask self hate were the real reward. Oh it is but not many know it.

Consider the sparrow. It toils not, neither does it want. One has within ones self riches beyond belief, but for attachment and worship of the self.

Capitalism and competition are nothing but the manifestations of self hate directed outward at others.

I don't understand your logic, Moonie. Who is the more greedy? The person who accepts others and the world around him as they are/as it is, or the one who wants to force the world into his personal ideal?

We're not "choosing" a system.

This is just the way it is.

Wow, your hate for America is really coming out now.

Oh STFU troll. I love the America and the spirit that created it more than you can possibly understand. In the midst of a world dominated by hate and fear, some brave men came up with the enlightened idea of just letting people live their own lives. And look what happened...

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why would anyone chose a system in which some can have much and others almost nothing when if you distribute things equally everybody who has almost nothing gets a tiny bit more?

Why reward those who are personally ambitious when you could reward the whole human race by creating a society in which the real rewards go to those who give to others.

We could turn our government and educational system into a machine that has as its aim and goal the promotion of the wealth of all people, no?

You greedy folk know how you are self motivated to perform. Just imagine how a person who feels God within him or her will perform. Imagine if love of others instead of self infatuation to mask self hate were the real reward. Oh it is but not many know it.

Consider the sparrow. It toils not, neither does it want. One has within ones self riches beyond belief, but for attachment and worship of the self.

Capitalism and competition are nothing but the manifestations of self hate directed outward at others.

If those that have done nothing get more; then what is the incentive for anyone to do anything.

If I can get a $1 for doing nothing; why should I work for $2 and only get $1.

I will do nothing and get the amount amount for no effort at all.


Your method sounds create for an utopia only if everything is provided equally from another source outside the social sphere.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Craig234
NM.

Damn straight NM from you. I think those of us with actual intelligence here are sick of reading the delusional and hypocritical windbag posts from someone who calls himself a democrat and a liberal while he reveres (and defends the actions of) undemocratic and anti-liberal cult of personality leaders like Castro and Chavez (respectively).

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: smack Down
So the poor's income went from $12,400 to $16,800 that is a difference of 35%. You said the rich's income up 50. So even your own paper disproves your point. The poor are getting poor and the rich are getting richer. But it gets worse for the poor, their income only increased due to working more hours more hours worked means more expenses related for child care, food, transportation, clothing, etc. Add in inflation and I'm sure the poor are not better off, but hey the rich are so who cares.

The amount of money earned, as in not given to them by govt, went up by 80%. The numbers are presented in a way to mislead. However the bottom line is the same, these people are working more for themselves, earning more then being given than they were 15 years ago. This is a good thing no matter how you look at it.

 

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: Stunt
A very interesting article and the numbers actually surprised me. With all the talk from American liberals about the horrible situation the poor are in these day, I wasn't expecting this significant earnings growth over the last 14 years. I don't really like how the author has used the data to polticize the issue and dragged in the 2008 Presidential election, but the points made are relevant.

Enjoy.

'Progressive' politics not so progressive

Neil Reynolds
Wednesday, June 06, 2007

OTTAWA ? Which American families with children increased their earnings most in the past 15 years - the poorest or the richest? For most people, the answer comes as a surprise. For "progressive" people, it comes as a shock. The answer? The poorest.

Divided into five groups with the same number of families in each, the highest-income group reported 50-per-cent higher earnings in 2005 than in 1991. Moving down, the next three groups reported 20-per-cent higher earnings.

At the bottom, the poorest group recorded 80-per-cent higher earnings. Adjusted for inflation, these families - the poorest 20 per cent of families with children in the United States - achieved by far the highest percentage earnings gains.

And these poor families mostly increased their incomes the old-fashioned way - by working more.

In 1991, these families had income of $12,400 (U.S.) a year. They collected $6,100 from "earned income" - wages; $4,000 in cash payments from various welfare programs; and $2,000 from such sources as gifts, inheritances and interest income. They collected another $300 in "earned-income" tax credits, a federal rewards program that compensates people who lose welfare payments when they work longer hours, earn more wages and no longer qualify for welfare.

By 2005, these families had income of $16,800, an increase of 35 per cent. They collected $11,000 from wages, an increase of 80 per cent, and received $700 in cash welfare payments, a decline of 82.5 per cent. They collected $2,700 from other sources - and, reflecting the movement from welfare to wages, $2,400 as earned-income tax credits. Now they earned almost twice as much in wages and got only half as much income from the government.

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the federal research agency that produces independent economic analysis for the Senate and the House of Representatives, published these conclusions last month in a report that dispels some of the popular mythology of worsening economic inequality in the U.S. - mythology now emerging as demagogic fodder for the 2008 presidential election campaign.

Writing last week in The Washington Post - "The Rise of the Bottom Fifth" - Brookings Institution economist Ron Haskins called this return to work by poor families with children "the biggest success in American social policy in decades." The CBO numbers, he said, should make Republicans proud: "Low-income families with children increased their work effort, many of them in response to the 1996 welfare reform law that was designed to have exactly this effect."

"These families not only increased their earnings but also slashed their dependency on cash welfare," he said. "In 1991, more than 30 per cent of their income came from cash welfare payments. By 2005, it was 4 per cent. Earnings up, welfare down - that's the definition of reducing welfare dependency."

In the 1990s, to reverse a prolonged descent into dependency by the American underclass, the Republicans needed the support of Democratic President Bill Clinton - who had campaigned for Republican votes in 1992, and won them, by promising "to end welfare as we know it." The historic bipartisan legislation - extravagantly called "the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act" - ended cash welfare as a federal entitlement for poor families with children.

The fashionable American left, identifying itself as "progressive," is now ascendant in the Democratic Party as the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards demonstrate. In a major campaign speech last week, entitled "A Progressive Vision for America," Mrs. Clinton asserted that she considered herself "a thoroughly optimistic and modern progressive."

Can "progressive" politics, however, be either optimistic or modern - in any degree other than rhetorically? The "progressive" philosophy now concedes that free markets can work - but only when governments do the thinking for them. It requires a pessimistic doomsday sensibility. Checking over this baggage, Washington labour economist Stephen Rose warns liberal Democrats that they must stop exaggerating the extent of poverty. "It is an occupational hazard of people with big hearts," he says, "to overestimate the share of the population living in economic distress." Not to mention demagogues. Class-warfare politics survives on the preservation of the underclass.

In a report written for the Progressive Policy Institute, Mr. Rose argues that progressives keep trying to win national elections in the U.S. with fewer and fewer core supporters. "How else are we to explain the Reagan Democrats," he asks, "who have flummoxed the Democratic Party for two-and-a-half decades?"

From his own statistical analysis of economic classes in the U.S., Mr. Rose calculates that progressive politics can appeal to 23 per cent of the population. Now, with the rise of the bottom fifth, the core constituency of "progressive" politics looks to be shrinking yet again.

© The Globe and Mail

Source

Well, your article is a little misleading because it talks about the rise of the bottom fifth in percentage term. Because the bottom fifth earns so little to start with, their percentage increase can look impressive, but in absolute dollar, it is actually not that much.

If you just want to show how much better the bottom fifth is doing since 1991, yeah they have come a long way, earning more and depending on welfare less. But is American income gap better as a result? No.

Based on census bureau data, the bottom fifth accounted for 3.8% of total income and top fifth accounted for 46.5 in 1991. But in 2005, bottom fifth actually accounted LESS as total income at 3.4% and top fifth accounted MORE at 50.4%. So the rise of bottom fifth is pretty much as result of the raise of US economy. Everyone is doing better, but bottom fifth is actually getting less of the pie as we improve the economy.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Craig, I am sure your wealth stats are correct.
But you have to admit that wealth is very difficult for people to accumulate, especially those at the bottom.

And Fox5 You don?t have to adjust the numbers for inflation. The figures show what each group gained in income and those at the bottom had the largest gain.
Even after adjusting for inflation those at the bottom will still have the largest gain.

Or least loss. For instance, the purchasing power per dollar I believe is what the 45% value is attributed to (with the 70% being percent of the total US GDP compared to 1991 dollars). Money is worth less than half of what it was in 1991, while the minimum wage has only increased by a bit over 50%. When you factor in what many areas actually pay as the minimum (around $7, I can't remember the last time I saw a job that actually paid minimum wage and the minimum wage is even set to surpass $7 within a year or two), there's still a net loss of wealth. And any loss hurts those with the least the most, even if percentage wise they've taken the least hit out of all americans.

That also doesn't take into account hidden costs, that while more and more businesses are paying over minimum wage, at the same time they're refusing to let their employees work full time and avoiding insurance costs.

The purchasing power of the bottom 20% has decreased, just not as much as the middle class has been hit. Relative to the rest of the country, I guess the poor are doing well, but America's economy as a whole is still on a downswing which effects almost everyone. (foreign countries are staying pretty stable, while america's economy is slightly weakening still, but I could see it turning around)

Just keep in mind, more dollars to go around and a change in that distribution of dollars doesn't mean that the economy is doing better. So what if the balance is changing to focus less on the middle class and more on the rich and poor (like feudalistic europe!), the economy is doing worse overall.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: smack Down
So the poor's income went from $12,400 to $16,800 that is a difference of 35%. You said the rich's income up 50. So even your own paper disproves your point. The poor are getting poor and the rich are getting richer. But it gets worse for the poor, their income only increased due to working more hours more hours worked means more expenses related for child care, food, transportation, clothing, etc. Add in inflation and I'm sure the poor are not better off, but hey the rich are so who cares.

The amount of money earned, as in not given to them by govt, went up by 80%. The numbers are presented in a way to mislead. However the bottom line is the same, these people are working more for themselves, earning more then being given than they were 15 years ago. This is a good thing no matter how you look at it.

Think how much people will make when they work 25 hours a day. It's just going to be great. And are we going to insist on child labor laws if working is the only way to eat? The beauty of freedom is that it leads to mass extinction.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: smack Down
So the poor's income went from $12,400 to $16,800 that is a difference of 35%. You said the rich's income up 50. So even your own paper disproves your point. The poor are getting poor and the rich are getting richer. But it gets worse for the poor, their income only increased due to working more hours more hours worked means more expenses related for child care, food, transportation, clothing, etc. Add in inflation and I'm sure the poor are not better off, but hey the rich are so who cares.

The amount of money earned, as in not given to them by govt, went up by 80%. The numbers are presented in a way to mislead. However the bottom line is the same, these people are working more for themselves, earning more then being given than they were 15 years ago. This is a good thing no matter how you look at it.

Think how much people will make when they work 25 hours a day. It's just going to be great. And are we going to insist on child labor laws if working is the only way to eat? The beauty of freedom is that it leads to mass extinction.

When your argument falls flat on its face, rely on hyperbole!

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why would anyone chose a system in which some can have much and others almost nothing when if you distribute things equally everybody who has almost nothing gets a tiny bit more?

Why reward those who are personally ambitious when you could reward the whole human race by creating a society in which the real rewards go to those who give to others.

We could turn our government and educational system into a machine that has as its aim and goal the promotion of the wealth of all people, no?

You greedy folk know how you are self motivated to perform. Just imagine how a person who feels God within him or her will perform. Imagine if love of others instead of self infatuation to mask self hate were the real reward. Oh it is but not many know it.

Consider the sparrow. It toils not, neither does it want. One has within ones self riches beyond belief, but for attachment and worship of the self.

Capitalism and competition are nothing but the manifestations of self hate directed outward at others.

If those that have done nothing get more; then what is the incentive for anyone to do anything.

If I can get a $1 for doing nothing; why should I work for $2 and only get $1.

I will do nothing and get the amount amount for no effort at all.


Your method sounds create for an utopia only if everything is provided equally from another source outside the social sphere.

Why are you alive? It's much cheaper to be dead. You seem to work to live and so everything is a job. What if you lived to work? Think of it. You work so you can go on vacation. You want money so you can buy time. Time for what? For pleasure? Would not a man with fleas and scratching an endless itch be the happiest man in the world? Aren't you a worm that lives in garbage and endlessly eats and poops and eats his own poop? Do you not live in an endless state of stimulated desire and dreams of satisfactions of every imaginable type. And wasn't the best time you really ever had as a child laying on the grass and watching the clouds?

You and your world are full of robot eating machines, asleep to realty churning over the earth and ripping up every living thing. You are as free as a cancer but when your host dies so will you. Happy is he who has the bliss of ignorance.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The beauty of freedom is that it leads to mass extinction.

Fear.

How come we're not all extinct yet then?

The ugly truth is that the power to limit freedom is an illusion. It doesn't exist. People will still do what they want, you will just punish them for doing it. That's the only actual power you can or will have.
The US Army (arguably the least free of any organization I can think of) has a saying that at least demonstrates that they are not deluded in what they do. It is, "The Army can't actually make you do anything, but it can make you wish that you had."
One could wish, Moonie, that as you seek to limit the freedoms of others based on your own opinions and perceptions of the way you feel the world should be, that you could attain -- at the very least -- that level of enlightenment.

 

[Mxylplyx]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why would anyone chose a system in which some can have much and others almost nothing when if you distribute things equally everybody who has almost nothing gets a tiny bit more?

Why reward those who are personally ambitious when you could reward the whole human race by creating a society in which the real rewards go to those who give to others.

We could turn our government and educational system into a machine that has as its aim and goal the promotion of the wealth of all people, no?

You greedy folk know how you are self motivated to perform. Just imagine how a person who feels God within him or her will perform. Imagine if love of others instead of self infatuation to mask self hate were the real reward. Oh it is but not many know it.

Consider the sparrow. It toils not, neither does it want. One has within ones self riches beyond belief, but for attachment and worship of the self.

Capitalism and competition are nothing but the manifestations of self hate directed outward at others.

I don't understand your logic, Moonie. Who is the more greedy? The person who accepts others and the world around him as they are/as it is, or the one who wants to force the world into his personal ideal?

We're not "choosing" a system.

This is just the way it is.

Wow, your hate for America is really coming out now.

Another scripted response by our resident intellectual.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why would anyone chose a system in which some can have much and others almost nothing when if you distribute things equally everybody who has almost nothing gets a tiny bit more?

Why reward those who are personally ambitious when you could reward the whole human race by creating a society in which the real rewards go to those who give to others.

We could turn our government and educational system into a machine that has as its aim and goal the promotion of the wealth of all people, no?

You greedy folk know how you are self motivated to perform. Just imagine how a person who feels God within him or her will perform. Imagine if love of others instead of self infatuation to mask self hate were the real reward. Oh it is but not many know it.

Consider the sparrow. It toils not, neither does it want. One has within ones self riches beyond belief, but for attachment and worship of the self.

Capitalism and competition are nothing but the manifestations of self hate directed outward at others.

I don't understand your logic, Moonie. Who is the more greedy? The person who accepts others and the world around him as they are/as it is, or the one who wants to force the world into his personal ideal?

We're not "choosing" a system. This is just the way it is. And if you're gonna quote Matthew 6 to me, I suggest you turn the page to Matthew 7. Pull that plank from your own eye -- fix yourself as an individual first -- then come to the rest of and talk about the specks in our eyes.
You see, that's the evil you're decrying, and the self-hate that you personally are manifesting. When you can stop blaming your faults on society, and learn to accept and love the rest of us AS WE ARE, then you might have something to stand on. Until then, you're just telling the rest of us that we're evil, we suck, and we're greedy because we won't conform to your own selfish image of how you think we should be.
Have you ever stopped to consider that? You speak of love, but what is love but to set people free? You speak of self-hate, but how does self-hate ever manifest itself except in the desire to control and have power over others?

I don't want to live in a world where certain people are allowed to abuse our democracy for their own self-interested goals, no matter how altruistic they claim those goals to be. I want to live in a world where every single individual is given the chance to be what he wants to be. Because it's his life -- not yours, not mine -- and like yours and mine, it's the only one he's ever going to have. And it's profoundly wrong of you to seek to control that life just because you don't like the image in your own mirror.

Would I necessarily want to live in a world where what you see as abuse is defined as such or what you claim is self-interest is thus defined? Your vision of these things may, for all I know, be the very things that prevent what is your aim. I gave you a picture of how I see things and you respond with a picture of how you do. I get the feeling you want me to see things as you do. Hehe. That wouldn't be, would it, some kind of attempt at control?

I remember a story of some ambassador from Lebanon, when they were having their civil war, telling the Americans to go home so they could kill each other in peace.

And who would be more likely to be free from the ravages of self hate, he who sees his own or he who cannot? I sort of specialized long ago in motes and think about them all the time. Just sharing what I know. I have no army or plans to take over the world.

I watched the Terminator last night, the part where John's Mom goes to kill the inventor of Sky Net. She tried but she couldn't do it. The questions you raise are perhaps archetypal, no?

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: smack Down
So the poor's income went from $12,400 to $16,800 that is a difference of 35%. You said the rich's income up 50. So even your own paper disproves your point. The poor are getting poor and the rich are getting richer. But it gets worse for the poor, their income only increased due to working more hours more hours worked means more expenses related for child care, food, transportation, clothing, etc. Add in inflation and I'm sure the poor are not better off, but hey the rich are so who cares.

The amount of money earned, as in not given to them by govt, went up by 80%. The numbers are presented in a way to mislead. However the bottom line is the same, these people are working more for themselves, earning more then being given than they were 15 years ago. This is a good thing no matter how you look at it.

Think how much people will make when they work 25 hours a day. It's just going to be great. And are we going to insist on child labor laws if working is the only way to eat? The beauty of freedom is that it leads to mass extinction.

When your argument falls flat on its face, rely on hyperbole!

A person can go from 8 hrs to 16 hrs a day labor and vastly improve his lot, but he can't go from 16 to 24. People will not be able to continue to work longer hours to keep running in place. There are limits just like in a hyperbolic curve.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The beauty of freedom is that it leads to mass extinction.

Fear.

How come we're not all extinct yet then?

The ugly truth is that the power to limit freedom is an illusion. It doesn't exist. People will still do what they want, you will just punish them for doing it. That's the only actual power you can or will have.
The US Army (arguably the least free of any organization I can think of) has a saying that at least demonstrates that they are not deluded in what they do. It is, "The Army can't actually make you do anything, but it can make you wish that you had."
One could wish, Moonie, that as you seek to limit the freedoms of others based on your own opinions and perceptions of the way you feel the world should be, that you could attain -- at the very least -- that level of enlightenment.

We aren't extinct yet because the next Unibomber hasn't completed work on his nano molecular disassembler and turned the planet into powder.

And it seems to me the only power I have or seek is talking to you on the internet. All yours, it seems to me, is the power to get your undies in a knot seeing me as Fidel Castro. Of course I don't blame you for exercising your free speech warning us of folk like that bastard. He's as bad or worse than the God damned capitalists. 🙂

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: smack Down
So the poor's income went from $12,400 to $16,800 that is a difference of 35%. You said the rich's income up 50. So even your own paper disproves your point. The poor are getting poor and the rich are getting richer. But it gets worse for the poor, their income only increased due to working more hours more hours worked means more expenses related for child care, food, transportation, clothing, etc. Add in inflation and I'm sure the poor are not better off, but hey the rich are so who cares.

The amount of money earned, as in not given to them by govt, went up by 80%. The numbers are presented in a way to mislead. However the bottom line is the same, these people are working more for themselves, earning more then being given than they were 15 years ago. This is a good thing no matter how you look at it.

Think how much people will make when they work 25 hours a day. It's just going to be great. And are we going to insist on child labor laws if working is the only way to eat? The beauty of freedom is that it leads to mass extinction.

When your argument falls flat on its face, rely on hyperbole!

A person can go from 8 hrs to 16 hrs a day labor and vastly improve his lot, but he can't go from 16 to 24.

People will not be able to continue to work longer hours to keep running in place.

There are limits just like in a hyperbolic curve.

What is the resident Republicans view on working 24 hrs?

Can you run 24/7?

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Would I necessarily want to live in a world where what you see as abuse is defined as such or what you claim is self-interest is thus defined? Your vision of these things may, for all I know, be the very things that prevent what is your aim. I gave you a picture of how I see things and you respond with a picture of how you do. I get the feeling you want me to see things as you do. Hehe. That wouldn't be, would it, some kind of attempt at control?

I remember a story of some ambassador from Lebanon, when they were having their civil war, telling the Americans to go home so they could kill each other in peace.

And who would be more likely to be free from the ravages of self hate, he who sees his own or he who cannot? I sort of specialized long ago in motes and think about them all the time. Just sharing what I know. I have no army or plans to take over the world.

I watched the Terminator last night, the part where John's Mom goes to kill the inventor of Sky Net. She tried but she couldn't do it. The questions you raise are perhaps archetypal, no?

I'm not trying to have you see the world my way or any other way. What I am trying to do is explain to you that your desire to change the world through collectivization is in fact not collective at all, but merely a personal desire on your part. It might be a somewhat noble or admirable desire, were it not for the fact that we all have a different opinion as to how it should be implemented. It is in that fact that your cries of "selfishness" and "greed" etc etc become more than a bit naive and ironic.
Does this make sense?
Let's look at the sig of that double-thinking windbag Craig: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." I'm sure it sounds lovely to him, and a nice spiteful jab at the opposing team, but I bet it never once occurred to him that he is doing EXACTLY the same. As you are doing. You stop being selfish when you stop telling other people how to live their own lives.
And all of this comes from the misconception that your perception is actually reality. So you sit in judgement of everyone else for what is actually YOUR OWN FLAWS. To quote The Teacher, "Thou hypocrite!"

Really, Moonie... I'm always nice to you because you tend to present a clear, concise, and intellectual conservation, and one not bound by conventional and/or partisan thinking (but which shows an ability to formulate one's own thoughts). As such, you have my respect. But you're missing the big picture here. If you really felt love, you'd let your fellow humans be free. If you really didn't feel hate, then you wouldn't condemn them for what they do with that freedom. If you really didn't feel self-hate, then you wouldn't be so angry at your perception of the world around you.
I don't think you're Fidel Castro or anything like that. I just don't like being lectured about self-hate and freedom by someone with such an obviously negative perception of his fellow beings.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Then every year you increase it to where it is a lot of money. Problem solved.

yup, that'll work





about the article, didn't the EIC get increased a few times? so increases in the nominal value of the EIC might not necessarily mean that people are working more.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Would I necessarily want to live in a world where what you see as abuse is defined as such or what you claim is self-interest is thus defined? Your vision of these things may, for all I know, be the very things that prevent what is your aim. I gave you a picture of how I see things and you respond with a picture of how you do. I get the feeling you want me to see things as you do. Hehe. That wouldn't be, would it, some kind of attempt at control?

I remember a story of some ambassador from Lebanon, when they were having their civil war, telling the Americans to go home so they could kill each other in peace.

And who would be more likely to be free from the ravages of self hate, he who sees his own or he who cannot? I sort of specialized long ago in motes and think about them all the time. Just sharing what I know. I have no army or plans to take over the world.

I watched the Terminator last night, the part where John's Mom goes to kill the inventor of Sky Net. She tried but she couldn't do it. The questions you raise are perhaps archetypal, no?

I'm not trying to have you see the world my way or any other way. What I am trying to do is explain to you that your desire to change the world through collectivization is in fact not collective at all, but merely a personal desire on your part. It might be a somewhat noble or admirable desire, were it not for the fact that we all have a different opinion as to how it should be implemented. It is in that fact that your cries of "selfishness" and "greed" etc etc become more than a bit naive and ironic.
Does this make sense?
Let's look at the sig of that double-thinking windbag Craig: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." I'm sure it sounds lovely to him, and a nice spiteful jab at the opposing team, but I bet it never once occurred to him that he is doing EXACTLY the same. As you are doing. You stop being selfish when you stop telling other people how to live their own lives.
And all of this comes from the misconception that your perception is actually reality. So you sit in judgement of everyone else for what is actually YOUR OWN FLAWS. To quote The Teacher, "Thou hypocrite!"

Really, Moonie... I'm always nice to you because you tend to present a clear, concise, and intellectual conservation, and one not bound by conventional and/or partisan thinking (but which shows an ability to formulate one's own thoughts). As such, you have my respect. But you're missing the big picture here. If you really felt love, you'd let your fellow humans be free. If you really didn't feel hate, then you wouldn't condemn them for what they do with that freedom. If you really didn't feel self-hate, then you wouldn't be so angry at your perception of the world around you.
I don't think you're Fidel Castro or anything like that. I just don't like being lectured about self-hate and freedom by someone with such an obviously negative perception of his fellow beings.

Well I think things are alot more complicated than you paint them here. You see free autonomous men and I see robots. So the real question is not if I am negative but am I right. I say that humanity is asleep living in a wrong world because folk do not know what they feel. Humanity is filled with bigotry and hate because it is asleep. Because we will not remember our pain and now we were conditioned by pain and the withdrawal of love we do not know the source and origins of our desires and so called emotional needs. We are asleep to what drives us. You say free people exercising their freedom and I say automaton. You say free will and I say it does not exist for those who don't know what they feel.

The facts, I think, are that I am right and you are wrong.

So if you are drunk by your own choice and about to walk off a bridge, shall I stand by and let you. Shall I let a child drink Drano? Perhaps we have a different concept of what it means to love.

I say that man asleep is filled with ego and hubris and that it is killing our world. I tell you and you say I'm negative. Your denial is far more negative in my opinion.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Would I necessarily want to live in a world where what you see as abuse is defined as such or what you claim is self-interest is thus defined? Your vision of these things may, for all I know, be the very things that prevent what is your aim. I gave you a picture of how I see things and you respond with a picture of how you do. I get the feeling you want me to see things as you do. Hehe. That wouldn't be, would it, some kind of attempt at control?

I remember a story of some ambassador from Lebanon, when they were having their civil war, telling the Americans to go home so they could kill each other in peace.

And who would be more likely to be free from the ravages of self hate, he who sees his own or he who cannot? I sort of specialized long ago in motes and think about them all the time. Just sharing what I know. I have no army or plans to take over the world.

I watched the Terminator last night, the part where John's Mom goes to kill the inventor of Sky Net. She tried but she couldn't do it. The questions you raise are perhaps archetypal, no?

I'm not trying to have you see the world my way or any other way. What I am trying to do is explain to you that your desire to change the world through collectivization is in fact not collective at all, but merely a personal desire on your part. It might be a somewhat noble or admirable desire, were it not for the fact that we all have a different opinion as to how it should be implemented. It is in that fact that your cries of "selfishness" and "greed" etc etc become more than a bit naive and ironic.
Does this make sense?
Let's look at the sig of that double-thinking windbag Craig: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." I'm sure it sounds lovely to him, and a nice spiteful jab at the opposing team, but I bet it never once occurred to him that he is doing EXACTLY the same. As you are doing. You stop being selfish when you stop telling other people how to live their own lives.
And all of this comes from the misconception that your perception is actually reality. So you sit in judgement of everyone else for what is actually YOUR OWN FLAWS. To quote The Teacher, "Thou hypocrite!"

Really, Moonie... I'm always nice to you because you tend to present a clear, concise, and intellectual conservation, and one not bound by conventional and/or partisan thinking (but which shows an ability to formulate one's own thoughts). As such, you have my respect. But you're missing the big picture here. If you really felt love, you'd let your fellow humans be free. If you really didn't feel hate, then you wouldn't condemn them for what they do with that freedom. If you really didn't feel self-hate, then you wouldn't be so angry at your perception of the world around you.
I don't think you're Fidel Castro or anything like that. I just don't like being lectured about self-hate and freedom by someone with such an obviously negative perception of his fellow beings.

Well I think things are alot more complicated than you paint them here. You see free autonomous men and I see robots. So the real question is not if I am negative but am I right. I say that humanity is asleep living in a wrong world because folk do not know what they feel. Humanity is filled with bigotry and hate because it is asleep. Because we will not remember our pain and now we were conditioned by pain and the withdrawal of love we do not know the source and origins of our desires and so called emotional needs. We are asleep to what drives us. You say free people exercising their freedom and I say automaton. You say free will and I say it does not exist for those who don't know what they feel.

The facts, I think, are that I am right and you are wrong.

So if you are drunk by your own choice and about to walk off a bridge, shall I stand by and let you. Shall I let a child drink Drano? Perhaps we have a different concept of what it means to love.

I say that man asleep is filled with ego and hubris and that it is killing our world. I tell you and you say I'm negative. Your denial is far more negative in my opinion.

We're robots and children to you? And you don't think that isn't condescending? Hell, this is borderline megalomaniacal.

Sorry, Moonie, we're human beings. We're all just like you. Just because you dropped large quantities of acid didn't wake you up, and it certainly didn't make you a god.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Would I necessarily want to live in a world where what you see as abuse is defined as such or what you claim is self-interest is thus defined? Your vision of these things may, for all I know, be the very things that prevent what is your aim. I gave you a picture of how I see things and you respond with a picture of how you do. I get the feeling you want me to see things as you do. Hehe. That wouldn't be, would it, some kind of attempt at control?

I remember a story of some ambassador from Lebanon, when they were having their civil war, telling the Americans to go home so they could kill each other in peace.

And who would be more likely to be free from the ravages of self hate, he who sees his own or he who cannot? I sort of specialized long ago in motes and think about them all the time. Just sharing what I know. I have no army or plans to take over the world.

I watched the Terminator last night, the part where John's Mom goes to kill the inventor of Sky Net. She tried but she couldn't do it. The questions you raise are perhaps archetypal, no?

I'm not trying to have you see the world my way or any other way. What I am trying to do is explain to you that your desire to change the world through collectivization is in fact not collective at all, but merely a personal desire on your part. It might be a somewhat noble or admirable desire, were it not for the fact that we all have a different opinion as to how it should be implemented. It is in that fact that your cries of "selfishness" and "greed" etc etc become more than a bit naive and ironic.
Does this make sense?
Let's look at the sig of that double-thinking windbag Craig: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." I'm sure it sounds lovely to him, and a nice spiteful jab at the opposing team, but I bet it never once occurred to him that he is doing EXACTLY the same. As you are doing. You stop being selfish when you stop telling other people how to live their own lives.
And all of this comes from the misconception that your perception is actually reality. So you sit in judgement of everyone else for what is actually YOUR OWN FLAWS. To quote The Teacher, "Thou hypocrite!"

Really, Moonie... I'm always nice to you because you tend to present a clear, concise, and intellectual conservation, and one not bound by conventional and/or partisan thinking (but which shows an ability to formulate one's own thoughts). As such, you have my respect. But you're missing the big picture here. If you really felt love, you'd let your fellow humans be free. If you really didn't feel hate, then you wouldn't condemn them for what they do with that freedom. If you really didn't feel self-hate, then you wouldn't be so angry at your perception of the world around you.
I don't think you're Fidel Castro or anything like that. I just don't like being lectured about self-hate and freedom by someone with such an obviously negative perception of his fellow beings.

Well I think things are alot more complicated than you paint them here. You see free autonomous men and I see robots. So the real question is not if I am negative but am I right. I say that humanity is asleep living in a wrong world because folk do not know what they feel. Humanity is filled with bigotry and hate because it is asleep. Because we will not remember our pain and now we were conditioned by pain and the withdrawal of love we do not know the source and origins of our desires and so called emotional needs. We are asleep to what drives us. You say free people exercising their freedom and I say automaton. You say free will and I say it does not exist for those who don't know what they feel.

The facts, I think, are that I am right and you are wrong.

So if you are drunk by your own choice and about to walk off a bridge, shall I stand by and let you. Shall I let a child drink Drano? Perhaps we have a different concept of what it means to love.

I say that man asleep is filled with ego and hubris and that it is killing our world. I tell you and you say I'm negative. Your denial is far more negative in my opinion.

We're robots and children to you? And you don't think that isn't condescending? Hell, this is borderline megalomaniacal.

Sorry, Moonie, we're human beings. We're all just like you. Just because you dropped large quantities of acid didn't wake you up, and it certainly didn't make you a god.

Hehehehehe, I don't see the question in the same light. Say we ARE all human beings> then it's not just that that I'm like YOU but that you're just like ME. In what way, then, is that condescending? Whatever states of being I man have experienced are open to all, no? If I were an adult in a land of children would it be condescending to recognize that or even to point it out, that this is what you kids will become? Surely you see that I could be a megalomaniac or you could in fact projecting your own inferiority on me, some fear that I point to some better thing you don't want to know about.

It doesn't take acid to know what you feel. Acid is probably sometimes a free ride that does take some folk straight to unity, to a state of god-like being, a mystical transcendent state. But the road into feeling is opened by the intense and difficult work of feeling, of experiencing what we try to suppress, by getting in touch with the self, not by a free trip that briefly transcends hell.

So for my money the thing that should matter to you is not facts about me. It doesn't matter if I am a megalomaniac. It doesn't matter if I have taken acid or not. It doesn't matter it I think I awakened or if I am God. What should matter to you is not who I am or am not, but is whether what I say fact of fiction. The question for you should be, I think, 'Is there a path, if taken, that leads to experience so profound and transforming as to amount to a state of realization that ends all doubt?' Is there a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and did man invent God because God is the true self?

I maintain that you have been conditioned from birth in the most powerful and negative ways to answer that question with a resounding NO.

In the Hero myths of all ages you will see that the hero is incessantly told to turn back.

 

[Moonbeam]

"I don't have faith in faith,
I don't believe in beliefs,
You can call me faithless,
But I still cling to hope,
And I believe in love,
And that's faith enough for me."

===============

I can go with that but it worked out different for me:
----------
I could not keep my faith, nor could I believe in belief,
I lost all hope and let go of it,
In the ashes of all I held sacred,
and of everything that could be taken
re-emerged what I had lost and sought,
my own small loving heart.
-----------

I defeated the Nothing as I sometimes put it, but I can't keep and hold that state. I do however think there are those who can. There is a Sufi exercise, for example, called Dhikr, or remembering, that leads to permanent awareness of God, or so it is claimed. 🙂

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
A person can go from 8 hrs to 16 hrs a day labor and vastly improve his lot, but he can't go from 16 to 24. People will not be able to continue to work longer hours to keep running in place. There are limits just like in a hyperbolic curve.

Originally posted by: Vic

Really, Moonie... I'm always nice to you because you tend to present a clear, concise, and intellectual conservation, and one not bound by conventional and/or partisan thinking (but which shows an ability to formulate one's own thoughts). As such, you have my respect. But you're missing the big picture here. If you really felt love, you'd let your fellow humans be free. If you really didn't feel hate, then you wouldn't condemn them for what they do with that freedom. If you really didn't feel self-hate, then you wouldn't be so angry at your perception of the world around you.
I don't think you're Fidel Castro or anything like that. I just don't like being lectured about self-hate and freedom by someone with such an obviously negative perception of his fellow beings.

Once again Moonie is way over the heads of the resident pundits that support the ever growing gap between the wealthiest and the poor in this once land of opportunity.

So sad.

I applaud your efforts Moonie in how you continue to try.

 

[Vic]

Dave, quit smoking crack. I'm non-partisan. If anyone is a "resident pundit," it's you. And if anyone's head is being talked over, it's yours.

I dropped this because, from my perspective, Moonie proved my point for me. His altruism is the product of his selfishness. He wants to help others only because he wants the world to conform to his personal view of how it should be.

So don't give me this "support the ever growing gap between the wealthiest and the poor in this once land of opportunity," you fsckin' small-minded moron. He called the rest of robots, children, asleep, equated himself to God and "The Hero" and claimed to be in possession of the only true knowledge by which the rest of us should follow him or else. If, by some miracle, you got out of that that he actually believes in equality and humanity, well... you're even stupider than I thought.