Time for a mass redistribution of wealth

Hijinx
reply to post by spiritualzombie

 

I was following you 100 % right until you mentioned this line. " Bring a demon possessed baby to a church." Nope, you lost all credibility and I'm now finished reading this thread.

That's complete bull#, you have some right ideas, but religion is just as bad as the whole system the 1% exists in. Religion is the pacifier in this system, something for the lesser man to have hope and faith in. That's it, it's a set of rules for the lesser man.

I guess I don't understand. Was it that you thought I was taking a religious stance? I'm not at all religious.

Just to be clear, I was comparing the reaction of the super wealthy to any legislation that hits their pocket books, to the reaction we see in movies when a little demon-possessed child is taken to church. They scream, they hiss, they snarl, and they use all their resources to change the course of the discussion.

I'm not saying they need to actually go to church. I'm saying... watch for their screams of anguish. Any idea they suggest is one that makes no change. When a real idea of change comes along that could be truly beneficial to the little guy, they spit and scream and cry like children.

ketsuko
reply to post by AlwaysIdeaMan

 

My husband is reasonably successful, but he worked hard to get there and took quite a few risks along the way. I suppose you can call the risks paying off LUCK, but he still had to have the gumption to take the risks in the first place.

He started with $50 and bicycle when his own father abruptly moved after the death of his mother leaving him to either move too or fend for himself. He chose the latter. Huge risk.

When he graduated, he didn't have a job opportunity. He flipped burgers and worked odd jobs in various labs until he managed to get a contract job at a nearby military base that become a GS position. Then, he got offered a temp to hire shot at a big corporation _if_ he could pull up stakes be there in a week and a half with no guarantee of permanent employment. We did it. Huge risk.

Since then, he's worked his way up the ladder by taking on positions that need fixing and taking projects that no one else wants and making them work. All huge risks.

Now, you can argue that it was all just luck, but he was never a passive actor in any of it. All of it involved seeing the opportunities and assessing his chances and going for it. It has paid off and he's more than doubled his initial salary in his time at his career. But it was an active process. No one saw his worth, he promoted it and made it stand out.

He was lucky. He had a body that let him stand all day, was selected for the job near the base (what of the guys who applied and were NOT hired?), was offered the OPPORTUNITY to pull up stakes and fill a position, had the OPPORTUNITY to take fix-up positions and jobs nobody wanted, and though he DID do things with the LUCK he had, he would not be where he is today if his body was incapable, was not the selected candidate, had no opportunity to prove himself.

Just saying.

AlwaysIdeaMan

Antigod

AlwaysIdeaMan

zeroBelief


I've been reading about "all those awful people with MONEY" and about how we should all be warned of the "evils of greed"...

Funny, I was raised in a Capitalist society.

Everyone has the same chance (with the exceptions which we as a culture are working on, such as Obama using equal pay for women as a stomping point) to make a living here in the US as everyone else.

I am a HS dropout. I have a GED. I have 45 college credits under my belt. I earn a good living for my family. Why?

BECAUSE I WASN'T SATISFIED WITH THE OPTIONS I HAD PREVIOUSLY MADE FOR MYSELF.

So what did I do? I CHANGED my options.

I'm hearing alot of young folks today chanting about how evil greed is. How we should redistribute wealth.

What utter BS.


Of course, greed, in as much as going so far as not doing your part socially, is bad. But, wanting more for you, yourself, and your family? MAKING something out of yourself?

No, this is an altruistic pipe dream that leads right into the hands of socialists and communism.

Redistribution of wealth? Are F$%ing kidding me?


EQUAL share of the pain. We all pay the same tax percentage. We all get the same legal opportunities.

Read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers to grasp the fact that "success" is mostly a matter of LUCK. Right place, right time. If you think we all have equal opportunity, you are kidding yourself.

Rather than "redistributing" wealth, redefine it. Remove the barriers to survival (exchanging products of human energy to survive) and eliminate money, defining wealth as good character, friendships, accomplishments, and other social currencies. (See my post, page 8, bottom post.)

You can't eliminate money, the token system is the only thing that makes a large complex trading culture possible.

Wealth is housing, food, shelter and a bunch of necessary stuff as well as toys like ferraris. And what do you do if you have problems making friends?

I say you're wrong. I say adding free energy - since all money accounts for is human energy - means that we can get rid of the accounting for energy. If products are available on the web, and can be ordered for free by anybody anywhere, what do we need TRADE for? Trade too is an accounting of human energy.

Yes, we presently define wealth in these terms, all representations of what we used our human energy to acquire.

If you have difficulty making friends in a world of abundance, go do what you love to do as long as it does no harm. Or alter your behavior if you want friends. You don't have to be socially rich to live richly in abundance.

Well that made absolutely no sense

AlwaysIdeaMan
I say you're wrong. I say adding free energy - since all money accounts for is human energy - means that we can get rid of the accounting for energy. If products are available on the web, and can be ordered for free by anybody anywhere, what do we need TRADE for? Trade too is an accounting of human energy.

Adding free energy will not do what you think it will.
2nd.

reply to post by AlwaysIdeaMan


It's a really good point, that any humble person should accept.

I work my ass off like everyone else, but luck plays an undeniable roll.

Too many people subscribe to this theory that the super wealthy worked their asses off, the poor do not, and anyone who works as hard as the super wealthy can get there too. It's great to have a strong work ethic but also be humble and understand luck plays a role.

zeroBelief

AlwaysIdeaMan

zeroBelief


I've been reading about "all those awful people with MONEY" and about how we should all be warned of the "evils of greed"...

Funny, I was raised in a Capitalist society.

Everyone has the same chance (with the exceptions which we as a culture are working on, such as Obama using equal pay for women as a stomping point) to make a living here in the US as everyone else.

I am a HS dropout. I have a GED. I have 45 college credits under my belt. I earn a good living for my family. Why?

BECAUSE I WASN'T SATISFIED WITH THE OPTIONS I HAD PREVIOUSLY MADE FOR MYSELF.

So what did I do? I CHANGED my options.

I'm hearing alot of young folks today chanting about how evil greed is. How we should redistribute wealth.

What utter BS.


Of course, greed, in as much as going so far as not doing your part socially, is bad. But, wanting more for you, yourself, and your family? MAKING something out of yourself?

No, this is an altruistic pipe dream that leads right into the hands of socialists and communism.

Redistribution of wealth? Are F$%ing kidding me?


EQUAL share of the pain. We all pay the same tax percentage. We all get the same legal opportunities.

Read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers to grasp the fact that "success" is mostly a matter of LUCK. Right place, right time. If you think we all have equal opportunity, you are kidding yourself.

Rather than "redistributing" wealth, redefine it. Remove the barriers to survival (exchanging products of human energy to survive) and eliminate money, defining wealth as good character, friendships, accomplishments, and other social currencies. (See my post, page 8, bottom post.)

Luck. Sure.

Luck that I *MADE*.

Had I not cracked a book. Had I not accessed everything I could on the early stages of the internet. Had I not spent hours working on a program and shown a friend the problem I was having...he NEVER would have been impressed enough in my abilities to go talk to the President of the company he worked for and get me an interview.

Luck, is BS. We MAKE our own luck.

Luck is walking down the street, and stumbling into someone who says "Hey, would you like to interview to be the next Justin Beiber?"

And guess what, that doesn't happen.


So, you go ahead. Believe that luck is "just going to happen, or not happen to you". We'll see how far you and others get in life.

I have a family and we're comfortable.

Because I *MADE* my own luck.



Oh, and good luck with your commune ideals on "personal wealth" and trade based off of strength of character. It's worked out SO well in the past, SO many times whenever it's been tried.

Go right on ahead.

edit on 31-1-2014 by zeroBelief because: (no reason given)

Ahhhh. So those with bodies that can't do work can MAKE jobs for themselves? What if you had no access books? Weren't you lucky that you did? What if you had no access to the web? Weren't you lucky that you did? What if you had no friends who understood what you had or had a boss that might be interested? Weren't you lucky that you did? What if the boss wasn't interested in hiring anybody? Weren't you lucky he was? I guess you MADE all this luck yourself.

Yes, we can use the luck we get, but to say that luck is not present in success is absurd.

It's a really good point, that any humble person should accept.

I work my ass off like everyone else, but luck plays an undeniable roll.

Too many people subscribe to this theory that the super wealthy worked their asses off, the poor do not, and anyone who works as hard as the super wealthy can get there too. It's great to have a strong work ethic but also be humble and understand luck plays a role.

The time you work is not representative of the value you bring...Many of the very wealthy are very wealthy precisely because they worked smarter, not harder.

As for luck, well, I guess that would depend on how you define luck to begin with. I prescribe to the theory that 'you make your own luck'.

I know people in Hollywood who gave up trying to make movies in favor of finding stable work to take care of their family. I also know people in Hollywood who abandoned their family to continue their personal pursuit and had good success.

According to some, based on bank account balance... the guy who focused on his family did not work as hard as the guy who gave up on his family to pursue himself.

nenothtu

AlwaysIdeaMan

Read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers to grasp the fact that "success" is mostly a matter of LUCK. Right place, right time. If you think we all have equal opportunity, you are kidding yourself.

Rather than "redistributing" wealth, redefine it. Remove the barriers to survival (exchanging products of human energy to survive) and eliminate money, defining wealth as good character, friendships, accomplishments, and other social currencies. (See my post, page 8, bottom post.)

NO!

Let's NOT do that!

I say that because some sonofabitch will come along and try to "redistribute" my wealth, which I have scads of under that definition.

I wanna keep it. I'm the one that worked for it.

LOL! Nobody will take any material thing from you if we move away from money and accounting for human energy. All that will happen is that you will have a CHOICE of what you want to spend your time doing, and meanwhile the abundance will begin flowing to all the people not lucky enough to have opportunity in this money-driven world. The kids dying of starvation will have food and the CHOICE of what they want to spend their time doing. The only LOSS anybody will take is power over others. Period.

AlwaysIdeaMan

ketsuko
reply to post by AlwaysIdeaMan

 

My husband is reasonably successful, but he worked hard to get there and took quite a few risks along the way. I suppose you can call the risks paying off LUCK, but he still had to have the gumption to take the risks in the first place.

He started with $50 and bicycle when his own father abruptly moved after the death of his mother leaving him to either move too or fend for himself. He chose the latter. Huge risk.

When he graduated, he didn't have a job opportunity. He flipped burgers and worked odd jobs in various labs until he managed to get a contract job at a nearby military base that become a GS position. Then, he got offered a temp to hire shot at a big corporation _if_ he could pull up stakes be there in a week and a half with no guarantee of permanent employment. We did it. Huge risk.

Since then, he's worked his way up the ladder by taking on positions that need fixing and taking projects that no one else wants and making them work. All huge risks.

Now, you can argue that it was all just luck, but he was never a passive actor in any of it. All of it involved seeing the opportunities and assessing his chances and going for it. It has paid off and he's more than doubled his initial salary in his time at his career. But it was an active process. No one saw his worth, he promoted it and made it stand out.

He was lucky. He had a body that let him stand all day, was selected for the job near the base (what of the guys who applied and were NOT hired?), was offered the OPPORTUNITY to pull up stakes and fill a position, had the OPPORTUNITY to take fix-up positions and jobs nobody wanted, and though he DID do things with the LUCK he had, he would not be where he is today if his body was incapable, was not the selected candidate, had no opportunity to prove himself.

Just saying.

Lucky to be healthy. Everything else seems to be acheived through constant pressure and willingness to jump at events.

I've noticed a tendency for losers to blame everything but themselves. I've got a friend who moans constantly about his bad luck, but he's never been seriously ill and walked into a well paying job at 20, after and spent decades living rent free at home after an idyllic childhood. Skived relentlessly (govt job) and kept on spending until he got so far into debt he was declared bankrupt and got fired for skiving. Cheated on his wife and she divorced him. But according to him all his ills are down to bad luck.

Whereas I've had crappy health since twenty, owe nothing and have a paid off mortgage and happy marriage. Nothing to do with luck. Most of the people I know who moan about their poverty are there as a result of their own stupidity and laziness (do you really need four kids when you've been unemployed your whole adult life). A couple are genuinely sick and have my sympathy

Not being a douche and relentlessly pushing your way forward and working when you can will have a positive outcome for the vast majority of people.

spiritualzombie
reply to post by AlwaysIdeaMan

 

It's a really good point, that any humble person should accept.

I work my ass off like everyone else, but luck plays an undeniable roll.

Too many people subscribe to this theory that the super wealthy worked their asses off, the poor do not, and anyone who works as hard as the super wealthy can get there too. It's great to have a strong work ethic but also be humble and understand luck plays a role.

You need to work smart and hard to get rich. Scrubbing floors 12 hrs a day won't make anyone rich. Duh

Luck doesn't really pay a role, it's the ability to recognize opportunities and jump at them that's the critical thing. You also need to be willing to take risks and able to bounce back when you fail.

Only a moron thinks that anyone working hard can get rich.

Antigod

AlwaysIdeaMan

Antigod

AlwaysIdeaMan

zeroBelief


I've been reading about "all those awful people with MONEY" and about how we should all be warned of the "evils of greed"...

Funny, I was raised in a Capitalist society.

Everyone has the same chance (with the exceptions which we as a culture are working on, such as Obama using equal pay for women as a stomping point) to make a living here in the US as everyone else.

I am a HS dropout. I have a GED. I have 45 college credits under my belt. I earn a good living for my family. Why?

BECAUSE I WASN'T SATISFIED WITH THE OPTIONS I HAD PREVIOUSLY MADE FOR MYSELF.

So what did I do? I CHANGED my options.

I'm hearing alot of young folks today chanting about how evil greed is. How we should redistribute wealth.

What utter BS.


Of course, greed, in as much as going so far as not doing your part socially, is bad. But, wanting more for you, yourself, and your family? MAKING something out of yourself?

No, this is an altruistic pipe dream that leads right into the hands of socialists and communism.

Redistribution of wealth? Are F$%ing kidding me?


EQUAL share of the pain. We all pay the same tax percentage. We all get the same legal opportunities.

Read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers to grasp the fact that "success" is mostly a matter of LUCK. Right place, right time. If you think we all have equal opportunity, you are kidding yourself.

Rather than "redistributing" wealth, redefine it. Remove the barriers to survival (exchanging products of human energy to survive) and eliminate money, defining wealth as good character, friendships, accomplishments, and other social currencies. (See my post, page 8, bottom post.)

You can't eliminate money, the token system is the only thing that makes a large complex trading culture possible.

Wealth is housing, food, shelter and a bunch of necessary stuff as well as toys like ferraris. And what do you do if you have problems making friends?

I say you're wrong. I say adding free energy - since all money accounts for is human energy - means that we can get rid of the accounting for energy. If products are available on the web, and can be ordered for free by anybody anywhere, what do we need TRADE for? Trade too is an accounting of human energy.

Yes, we presently define wealth in these terms, all representations of what we used our human energy to acquire.

If you have difficulty making friends in a world of abundance, go do what you love to do as long as it does no harm. Or alter your behavior if you want friends. You don't have to be socially rich to live richly in abundance.

Well that made absolutely no sense

[shrug] If that is a struggle for you to follow, I guess further communication would prove fruitless.

Do have a good life.

What I see here is a total lack of respect for low income earners... A total lack of empathy for the poverty-stricken. Broad strokes to label them all lazy. And broad strokes to label rich as smart and hard working.

Conservatives at their finest.

peck420

AlwaysIdeaMan
I say you're wrong. I say adding free energy - since all money accounts for is human energy - means that we can get rid of the accounting for energy. If products are available on the web, and can be ordered for free by anybody anywhere, what do we need TRADE for? Trade too is an accounting of human energy.

Adding free energy will not do what you think it will.
2nd.

Why? Just making that statement is...kinda pointless without something to back it up with.

Please, elaborate.

spiritualzombie
reply to post by AlwaysIdeaMan

 

It's a really good point, that any humble person should accept.

I work my ass off like everyone else, but luck plays an undeniable roll.

Too many people subscribe to this theory that the super wealthy worked their asses off, the poor do not, and anyone who works as hard as the super wealthy can get there too. It's great to have a strong work ethic but also be humble and understand luck plays a role.

Frankly, I don't like the work ethic. It was injected into society to promote willing wage/debt slavery. I prefer the betterment ethic. It is truly an ethic. But yes, luck is a big part of success.

AlwaysIdeaMan

zeroBelief

AlwaysIdeaMan

zeroBelief


I've been reading about "all those awful people with MONEY" and about how we should all be warned of the "evils of greed"...

Funny, I was raised in a Capitalist society.

Everyone has the same chance (with the exceptions which we as a culture are working on, such as Obama using equal pay for women as a stomping point) to make a living here in the US as everyone else.

I am a HS dropout. I have a GED. I have 45 college credits under my belt. I earn a good living for my family. Why?

BECAUSE I WASN'T SATISFIED WITH THE OPTIONS I HAD PREVIOUSLY MADE FOR MYSELF.

So what did I do? I CHANGED my options.

I'm hearing alot of young folks today chanting about how evil greed is. How we should redistribute wealth.

What utter BS.


Of course, greed, in as much as going so far as not doing your part socially, is bad. But, wanting more for you, yourself, and your family? MAKING something out of yourself?

No, this is an altruistic pipe dream that leads right into the hands of socialists and communism.

Redistribution of wealth? Are F$%ing kidding me?


EQUAL share of the pain. We all pay the same tax percentage. We all get the same legal opportunities.

Read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers to grasp the fact that "success" is mostly a matter of LUCK. Right place, right time. If you think we all have equal opportunity, you are kidding yourself.

Rather than "redistributing" wealth, redefine it. Remove the barriers to survival (exchanging products of human energy to survive) and eliminate money, defining wealth as good character, friendships, accomplishments, and other social currencies. (See my post, page 8, bottom post.)

Luck. Sure.

Luck that I *MADE*.

Had I not cracked a book. Had I not accessed everything I could on the early stages of the internet. Had I not spent hours working on a program and shown a friend the problem I was having...he NEVER would have been impressed enough in my abilities to go talk to the President of the company he worked for and get me an interview.

Luck, is BS. We MAKE our own luck.

Luck is walking down the street, and stumbling into someone who says "Hey, would you like to interview to be the next Justin Beiber?"

And guess what, that doesn't happen.


So, you go ahead. Believe that luck is "just going to happen, or not happen to you". We'll see how far you and others get in life.

I have a family and we're comfortable.

Because I *MADE* my own luck.



Oh, and good luck with your commune ideals on "personal wealth" and trade based off of strength of character. It's worked out SO well in the past, SO many times whenever it's been tried.

Go right on ahead.

edit on 31-1-2014 by zeroBelief because: (no reason given)

Ahhhh. So those with bodies that can't do work can MAKE jobs for themselves? What if you had no access books? Weren't you lucky that you did? What if you had no access to the web? Weren't you lucky that you did? What if you had no friends who understood what you had or had a boss that might be interested? Weren't you lucky that you did? What if the boss wasn't interested in hiring anybody? Weren't you lucky he was? I guess you MADE all this luck yourself.

Yes, we can use the luck we get, but to say that luck is not present in success is absurd.

What if, a meteor hit me on the way to the interview? What if, I was born without fingers and couldn't type? What if, I was actually a simpleton and couldn't program? What if, I didn't have the drive to make something better of myself?

I spent years bartending, waiting tables, and managing retail stores. I got SICK and TIRED of feeling my brain dripping out my ear. I bought a used computer. I bought books. I paid for my AOL access to the internet at the time.

I *TAUGHT* myself Visual Basic.

A friend, who I didn't know was a programmer, saw what I was doing, started asking questions...and was thoroughly impressed with my understanding and comprehension of logic.


Sorry bub, but if I have to, I'll say it again....

I MADE MY OWN DAMNED LUCK.

So, you keep on spreading out good will to the cosmos...I'm sure "The Secret" will save your butt when you least expect it. Or, spend your child's milk money on lotto tickets. Hey, you've got luck on your side. And it's like a slot machine, they all eventually pay out, don't they?

Yeah, you enjoy it when "luck" comes your way.

peck420

It's a really good point, that any humble person should accept.

I work my ass off like everyone else, but luck plays an undeniable roll.

Too many people subscribe to this theory that the super wealthy worked their asses off, the poor do not, and anyone who works as hard as the super wealthy can get there too. It's great to have a strong work ethic but also be humble and understand luck plays a role.

The time you work is not representative of the value you bring...Many of the very wealthy are very wealthy precisely because they worked smarter, not harder.

As for luck, well, I guess that would depend on how you define luck to begin with. I prescribe to the theory that 'you make your own luck'.

And I would say if you are not lucky to be in the right place at the right time, you cannot MAKE that luck. And really... If you MADE the "luck," it is not luck at all.

Conservative view:

Rich are smart and hard working.
Poor are lazy.
Women are whores who need the government to control their libido.

What else?

Rich deserve tax cuts.
Poor deserve... nothing.

I guess you gotta call it Conservative because any other name wouldn't make it past the profanity filter.

You have to admit, it is weird that douche-like positions like the ones described above are considered valid political views.

Like "Hey, dude, what are you voting for? Women are whores? Gays are abomination? Or healthcare for all?"

Antigod

spiritualzombie
reply to post by AlwaysIdeaMan

 

It's a really good point, that any humble person should accept.

I work my ass off like everyone else, but luck plays an undeniable roll.

Too many people subscribe to this theory that the super wealthy worked their asses off, the poor do not, and anyone who works as hard as the super wealthy can get there too. It's great to have a strong work ethic but also be humble and understand luck plays a role.

You need to work smart and hard to get rich. Scrubbing floors 12 hrs a day won't make anyone rich. Duh

Luck doesn't really pay a role, it's the ability to recognize opportunities and jump at them that's the critical thing. You also need to be willing to take risks and able to bounce back when you fail.

Only a moron thinks that anyone working hard can get rich.

And aren't you LUCKY to have opportunity come your way? Bill Gates was lucky to have a mom who worked at a place that had a computer lab they let him work in. Yes this lucky opportunity allowed him to develop his understanding of computers, but he was DAMNED lucky to have the opportunity.

AlwaysIdeaMan

Antigod

spiritualzombie
reply to post by AlwaysIdeaMan

 

It's a really good point, that any humble person should accept.

I work my ass off like everyone else, but luck plays an undeniable roll.

Too many people subscribe to this theory that the super wealthy worked their asses off, the poor do not, and anyone who works as hard as the super wealthy can get there too. It's great to have a strong work ethic but also be humble and understand luck plays a role.

You need to work smart and hard to get rich. Scrubbing floors 12 hrs a day won't make anyone rich. Duh

Luck doesn't really pay a role, it's the ability to recognize opportunities and jump at them that's the critical thing. You also need to be willing to take risks and able to bounce back when you fail.

Only a moron thinks that anyone working hard can get rich.

And aren't you LUCKY to have opportunity come your way? Bill Gates was lucky to have a mom who worked at a place that had a computer lab they let him work in. Yes this lucky opportunity allowed him to develop his understanding of computers, but he was DAMNED lucky to have the opportunity.

You are really kind of desperately clutching at the same straw, over and over...realize that?