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Yes its all just pure jealousy with me. God forbid its that someone takes a step back and looks at our system and realizes how unfair it really is.

Corporations are so beneficial that-

Around 45 million people in the U.S. are without health care http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_car ... ted_States. This is a corporate problem, since in our country, employers provide insurance.

In the U.S. 30% of African American children live in poverty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in ... ted_States

40% of homeless people are families with children http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessne ... ted_States

Is this entirely the fault of corporations? No. It's the combo of our government, who caters to corporations, and the corporations themselves. It is the byproduct of a system which glorifies inequality and disparity in wealth.

Your one example of 50 cent is just to laughable to comment on. He represents one of out oh I dunno, 50 million people. Would the lottery be your solution as well? And using 50 Cent as an example can be downright dangerous, as many poor believe their only out of a terrible situation is to became famous by rapping or playing ball, which leads to a view of the pursuit of knowledge as pointless.

Wrong about us needing CEOs. We don't need CEOs. We need jobs. A fair government who provides jobs and doesn't have one person sitting up top collecting all the money would be much more beneficial for all.

Ok I can't say for sure the TOP 50 companies's CEOs started off flipping burgers or not because I am not even bothering to look it up. I guess there is an off shot that you might be right (which I highly highly highly doubt), but even if that were the case, how does that change anything? Perhaps they still came from which families and their parents just put them to work for 3 weeks so it would look good on their application to Harvard.

There are CEO's who put in long hours into study and schooling and come out on top because of it...but to do what you did, I can already cite one example who just rode off the coattails of his father, didn't do jack when his dad bought his way through school, and wound up being the president. Yes, I speak of George W. Bush, the biggest CEO there was a couple of years ago.

Look at the numbers. List out everyone you consider a bad apple, and then divide that by the total number of corporations in the world. Your answer will be less than .0001.



Because you would purposely pay more tax than the law provides you should? Because you would plan for more of your estate to go to the government, who pisses away your money, then to your kids? (Who would probably also piss away your money. I see it all the time.)

Since when is making money a bad thing?




False. It is actually paying unskilled labor a wage that is often times, more than they should be getting in a free market situation.

I worked for Min Wage in high school. It was awful and I left after a year for a job that I could actually advance past $6.25 an hour. If someone cannot do that, they may need to reassess their choices in life, and make the changes accordingly. I know that laborers can start between 10-14 an hour digging ditches. If working at McDonald's for min wage isn't enough, go dig ditches.

OR

Learn to be a plumber, electrician. $h1t be a garbage man, because without garbage men, or civilization would crash, hardcore & fast.

Before you start going on about less fortunate people born with significantly less opportunity, it is Darwin.




Yes, no & no.



Yes. Honestly it is laughable if you think for one second unskilled, uneducated labor should be paid anywhere near that of skilled, educated and experienced upper level management.

That is like saying we should pay the guy sweeping the floor the same as Labron James because well, it's just not fair.




I didn't know that working 80+ hours a week and having the stress of billion dollar headaches was now a negative thing? And that these people shouldn't get paid for that. Nor should they spend the money on an extra home & vacationing, which stimulates the economy, which allows companies to hire more minimum wage labor. No, they should certainly NOT spend the money they are paid.

I don't make as much as a CEO and try and shield as much of my income as I can from taxes too. You should also. Outside of fraud, there isn't "loopholes" available to him that aren't available to you.




I hear where you are coming from, but am no where near as empathic as you are.




Dude, they do have it harder than you or I. You honestly have zero idea what it is like to run a company with 4 employees and $400,000 of revenue a year, let alone run a company of 400,000 employees and 4 billion in revenue a year.

They do deserve to get paid more than "us".

You can close you eyes and put your fingers in your ears and wish for it to be different all you want, but until you run a business you will never understand.

I agree with you that what happened at AIG was a joke, but again, it is one bad apple. You are making it out that everyone is off dancing on graves. AIG isn't a very good example to use to get your point across.




Our veterans deserve more than just money, and including them in this conversation is baloney...

You are obviously confused with how much work a CEO does. It is not a vacation in a nice office here. You watch too many movies. And yes CEO's deserve more money then your other examples.



Can someone explain to me these awesome wealthy tax cuts everyone likes talking about. I mean all the schooling I have taken, and 4 years of experience hasn't shown me any. I'm sure my clients would love to hear about this. Everyone likes to throw this around, and well, it doesn't even exist. It annoys me to no end.

Honestly, the less money you make the more tax deductions and credits you can take advantage of.

The IRC is currently slanted to promote long term investment, if that is what you mean by tax cuts...


I'm going to stop here.

Is this a serious post? Or are you being wise to make a point?


EDITED: be to being

Dude...I read your last post and the one before this and I will perhaps later tonight or tomorrow have the motivation to comment on it, but for now just say that I am socialist and you are capitalist . I am getting a little tired of typing at the current moment!

That leaves around 255 million With healthcare. If you don't like it why don't you start your own insurance company? Do you really think you are going to insure someone who eates french fries and sodas all day long? Because i'm sure that is the majority of the un-insured population.

Lets do some math...45 million, thats 15% not covered. Allot of people but considering how unhealthy america is I say thats pretty good.

I understand that, I should be writing a paper right now...

ha ha

Yes. I agree mostly with nygmen.

I am capitalist and I am probably elitist as well. the best people deserve to make the most money because they take the most risks as a fraction of their value. Maybe they got lucky, but most of the time it is because they are smarter, more educated, more hard working.

I have come to accept that near the bottom there will be people who choose not to educate themselves/don't have the means because of poor choices of their ancestors/past circumstances. This is necessary for the best people to do the best work.

I am a firm believer that although a lot of the "in the trenches" and necessary labor is performed by 80% of the people, the important decisions/ideas/discoveries are made be less than 1% of the people. I care a lot more about keeping that 1% happy and producing the ideas that continually push society forward than making sure that 80% is satisfied.

People are different. Some people have more innate value than others (economically speaking) and nothing you can ever do socially speaking, can change that.

Now, I am not saying that the upper 1% should pay no attention to the "poor" people; they should always be working toward a better floor as well as a higher ceiling. I am just saying ultimately, it is the ceiling that matters most.

Since you made the point about the poor people having children, why I should care if some fool with no money decides he wants to have children he can not support?

wow. You're all very sensitve aren't you

This will probably open a can of worms but, here's the thing with me - I actually don't understand socialism at all. Sure, I know the deffinition. But, I just don't get it. Probably the way I was brought up. We had a family dinner on Sat and my Aunt was there, and she's a strict outspoken socialist, who works for a Union. Her partener was there, too, who is probably even more outspoken on the subject, which I thought was impossible. My dad is an outright capatilist, too. I work for a Sister company of my dads, btw.

Anyway, someone mentioned that we have staff in India. My god, i thought they were going to start crying. It started quite an interesting discussion. I thought i understood socialism until I had this conversation. Now I get the impression that the ideal life for a socialist is for everyone to have their own little plot of land, a few cows and chickens, and grow their own veg. No need for money. Although, obviously, human nature would come along and ruin it but, that's my understanding of socialism now.

I hope it doesn't offend anyone. I consider myself open minded, i'm willing to be educated. I tried to get educated at the weekend but they just kept banging on about the same points that didn't appear to have any relevance. When I asked what their ideal life would be, I couldn't get a straight answer. I also don't really know why anyone would start a business and NOT want to make as much profit as possoble.

I'm hesitant to call myself anything although clearly i'm a capatilist. I think first and foremost, I believe in a free world. If someone wants to start their own business and make as much money as they can, then they should have the freedom to do so.

I also see here the same thing I seen on Saturday with our interesting discussion. We have Indian workers so all we here about is how they're mistreated and all this crap. Our indian workers have a better office than ours, and I have no doubt they're happy in their role and don't feel 'exploited'. But, you know, we have Indian workers so, we're as bad as the people that treat them like crap.

Just like bringing up investment brings up embezzlement, fraud, exploitation etc. Things like the contributions to charity made by the wealthy are never considered, which are quite considerable. I wonder if that would happen if capitalism didn't exist? In the UK, the 'wealthy' (particularly business owners) pay more than double the tax rate as 'normal people'. This is also going even higher now.

I'm not saying this makes it all better I just find it interesting that the socialists aways jump on bandwagons and pick and choose what points they want to use. In my view they don't consider the whole picture but, as I just said, I don't think I actually understand socialism any more.


KPj

I agree it is very confusing sometimes. Then again I am not really sure what the capitalists want either since it seems everyone cries foul about monopolies, which as far as I can tell arise naturally in free markets.

As far as workers with poor working conditions, I don't think this will ever be fixed. I also believe that if the conditions were really that bad they would not do it. For those of you saying they have no other choice, they could always not work. If it is better for them to work and endure the conditions than have no money at all, then they are doing the rational thing. For many of these people, corporations are really great because they give them decent places to work. Without the corporations, they would be without food.

I suppose it is legit to say we can give them food and water and whatever and I agree we should do that. The problem is, people want more than that. So, to achieve that, they kill themselves working.

If you tried to equalize everyone, I think a couple things would happen at least. There would be exorbitant costs to get any labor done at all. All of the skilled workers would give up and not work.

I don't have a lot of "real" world experience with this but I have myself and the students I have seen in the past 6 years. I can certainly tell you that if you handed out the same grade to everyone even though some students worked harder and some were just smarter, that all the hard working and smart students would just coast even more. Replace grades with salaries and you have the same situation.

I am interested to hear how you socialists out there plan to motivate the skilled workers to work up to their skill, when they can do the work of an unskilled worker much faster. I feel the need to remind you that, as progress goes, the number of "skilled" jobs is always increasing as a fraction of total jobs so don't say stuff like "the skilled workers would dig ditches just as fast as the unskilled workers" which is what I commonly hear from my family.

I would venture a guess that part of the problem with the current economy is the shift (recently) toward more skilled jobs and toward more computer automation. When times got tough, and business had to trim expenses they dispensed with the paper pushers and now all those people are without work because they never got any training. Just a thought.

I agree with the position at the core of this. However, you have let anger blow it into something ridiculous. You need to put more thought and less emotion into your ideas.

There we go, that's more like it.

Awe come on now. I can't believe some of you. Do you get hard reading Ayn Rand or something?

The crux of the problem is the consumer base is being squeezed too hard. Everyone wants to charge as much as possible. We sort of halfway stop monopolies because of that. They also want to pay people as little as possible. Low wages and high prices are not sustainable. We've kept it going through deficit spending. When consumers don't have enough money to buy stuff, they don't buy stuff. especially now that people don't have infinite credit. When people don't buy stuff, businesses don't need to buy stuff and they don't need as many people. Less people working means less money in the economy. It can spiral out of control. That's what that half assed stimulus was trying to do, kind of jump start with some capitol.

The problem is corporations have bought out politicians. Especially those on the right. For example, due to various loopholes, not 1 single large corporation paid any taxes last year. Look it up, there was a big uproar in congress that lasted about 2 days before it got swept under the rug. Then through the power of religion the right stirs up dumb gullible rural folk into voting against themselves.

The problem is, borrowing from China, making money out of thin air in the federal reserve, rampant deregulation that let banks do things like give out credit like candy, and roll up their putrid tainted loans into minty fresh derivitives. That stuff can no longer facilitate squeezing the consumer base like lemon. They've just about milked that damn cow dry. They have to lay off those teets a while and let the milk build back up.

Then of course there is also health care costs. But the right would like to support insurance companies with scare tactics rather than let anything actually get done about it.

I'm still not sure what Rucifers point is. I just see him bashing corporations.... What is the point? Do we want rid of corporations? It all just sounds bitter to me.

Personally I think blaming the shortcomings of a goverment on corporations is a joke.

Maybe i'm just a bit stupid, but I fail to see the link between african american kids living in poverty and corporations.

Also, I personally know several business owners who are very succesful and came from nothing. My dad literally started off 'flipping burgers' and many of his friends he's made over the years took a similar path. Lot's of my clients have a similar story. One of the biggest Travel companies in the UK was started by a guy who 'came from nothing'. Tom Hunter started selling shoes out of his car boot before being worth hundreds of millions ( I believe he was the first scots billionare). Duncan Bannatyne (Dragons Den, if you've seen it) came from nothing. All of these guys make pretty significant contributions to charity, too. One of the biggest employers in my region came from nothing, who is now one of the biggest hoteliers in the country.

What you need to realise is that you don't hear much about the guys that don't exploit people and just get on with it.

Don't really see what the point is though.

Where do jobs come from with no corporations?

Are you just generally moaning, or, do you have a point? What would you like to see happening? (this is what i don't understand)

KPj

Also, if you're referring to taxes you need to differentiate between the states and the UK here. Corporations not paying one bit of tax seems disgraceful to me - the GOVERMENT should be ashamed. Over here that's a crime actually, and when caught, they'll take everything off you.

My dad pays near enough 60% tax - that's what it is when you add up all the different taxes that they create for you when you're a business owner. That's $6 for every $10 that you make. Income tax alone is 40% and I believe this is going up soon. Could someone on minumum wage or even a decent salary pay that much tax? No chance.

It sounds to me like they're already 'taking from the rich, and giving to the poor'. It seems it's just a case of how much you feel this should happen. The corporations don't make these rules.

Still, though, I don't see the point - what do the socialists want to happen?

KPj

Ok like I said I'm not a mass quoter so I'll try to address all your topics but they won't have a quote before each one-


First off, I am sure you and I have a different definition of what it is for a corporation to be corrupt. If you are talking corrupt as in Dr. Evil sitting behind the desk plotting world domination, then perhaps you are right with your calculation of .0001% (I doubt if it be this low, but then again, I have no way of knowing). What I speak of is things they can get away with through manipulation of the system, a couple of examples being exporting of jobs overseas, the importing of foreign-made products with no way of knowing the working conditions of those who made the products or the labor type used (for instance, clothing companies get around that whole no child labor usage stigma by contracting out their work to foreign markets, who in turn contract out the contract and the line goes down until no one is accountable for anything), pretty much any cigarette or junk food company (you know how police tell you to not leave anything valuable in plain sight in your car to not tempt a thief? These companies have or still do market too young children for crying out loud in the hopes of hooking them while their young, all in hopes of profit), oil companies and insurance companies (don't tell me these aren't just corrupt, since they've been posting their biggest profits while everyone else is at their lowest), and so on and so forth. Sure...they don't technically break any laws, but that doesn't make what they do morally right or responsible.


Paying taxes is not pissing away money. It can be, depending on how you look at it, but I for one appreciate the fact we have an army to protect us, a police force, running water, roads to drive on, schools, protected nature reserves, etc. So I doubt you consider these things a waster of money (not just being a smartass- because I know you speak of when you say pissing away your money you are referring to things such as welfare and food stamps and low cost housing for the poverty stricken and the like). But think about this- let's say you take these things away. Let's say we get rid of all welfare and welfare-type programs that exist in America. What do you think would happen? There would be repercussions. I can think of a serious one off the top of my head. Crime rates would soar. That might not mean much too you until someone breaks into your house to try to make ends meet. This would mean pouring more money and time into our police forces to solve the problem. But if I can't appeal to your logical side perhaps the emotional side would be better, and saying that children who rely on government handouts would be the real victims...but anyhow, to address your original statement about paying more the law says- no, your right about that. Just make sure that they are doing it and the %age they are paying is just.

Ahh...I knew the good ole Darwin argument would be brought up eventually. Since Ryan A made a more social Darwinian post than you did, I'll address that on the post I reply to him.

And I didn't say that we all deserved to be paid exactly the same. I just was saying that unskilled workers bust their butts just as much as the CEOs you speak of, just in a different manner. And while I can agree that certain jobs should be making more money, I just don't believe its right that a decent hardworking person in one field deserves more money in one year than another decent person who works their entire life in another.

Yes...perhaps I am too empathetic at times. This is why I know I wouldn't be an ideal candidate for a judge or something, just because I wouldn't let words written down on a piece of paper choose what I believe is right or wrong.

Ok, so the harshness of reality obviously overwhelms my opinion, but that doesn't mean I have to like it or believe in it. AIG is a prime example. Not necessarily the criminal act of those corporate douches that took that retreat, but if all these CEOs were as brilliant as you think they are they wouldn't have needed bailing out by us common folk, nor would the economy be crap right now. I have worked for many small businesses and many large businesses as well. I have seen lazy incompetent bosses and managers of them succeed, and good ones fail. Your generalization that all successful leaders of business work 18 hour days 7 days a week is not accurate. I realize this is anecdotal, but working at a golf course and a hotel which have many wealthy customers has given me more insight than you might think. Sometimes a little luck goes a long way.

Including armed forces members is baloney? Why is this? I agree with you they do deserve more than just money...but I fail to see why an including them in this topic is wrong. But just for the sake of argument, let's exclude them. How about police officers? Firemen? Hell, teachers? Their jobs require as much dedication as the CEOs you speak of. Without them society would crumble.

Ok I just want to say a couple of things to you. I am not opposed to some people earning more money than others. I am not opposed to CEOs making more money than me. I realize your positions are the way things are, but I can't say I agree with it or like it. I don't see how anyone could think that so few deserve so much, while so many deserve so little. This is why I think the way I think- I am not against having certain jobs earn more because they are more skilled and are more challenging. I just think there should be some regulation by an authority to make sure it doesn't blow out of proportion the way it has. And well, the only one who could regulate it is the government. I don't believe greed is the primary reason that our society survives. I think its what keeps us held back. Even if you tempered some people's salaries to not be as much as they are, the positions would still be filled. They would still make more money and live comfortably. Not everyone does what they do strictly because they are only concerned with the salary. Not everything is motivated by greed. If that were the case, there would be no one doing volunteer work, nor would people donate to charity. Some jobs would never get filled, because they require more skillfulness than they earn in salary (teachers and social workers come to mind). But even if my views were applied it would still leave room for competitive and obviously intelligent dudes like yourself to prove your worth and earn your respect and notoriety