[quote]rainjack wrote:
vroom wrote:
Does Canada lock up its mentally ill that are not dangerous to society?
We ship them all to Texas… 
But then we ship them back to Canada when their visas expire. [/quote]
Sadly, the damage is already done…
[quote]paul bunyan wrote:
rainjack wrote:
paul bunyan wrote:
I said 100 million. The rest should go to research which would in turn bring more profits. Thats not punishment. 100 million is way more than anyone needs.
If you take money away from those that earn it and have too much that is wrong. People would make sure that they don’t have more than 100 million. You make the assumption that everyone would still be making the exact same money after you instituted the enough is enough doctrine. They wouldn’t. If you take away the incentive to get rich - or even richer - you are killing jobs. You are killing the very thing that make entrepeneurs tick - the opportunity of being rewarded for their risks. Taking from them just because they make too much is absurd.
Who are you to say how much is “more than anyone needs”?
you are right 100 million is an absudly small amount. yeah right
I just can’t understand why it seems to rediculous to you Rainjack.
Because I am a small business owner. I created whatever sliver of wealth I may have by hard work and a desire to do better than I did yesterday. I don’t need some punk-assed kid who has never worked a day in his life telling me that if I do really, really well then I have too much and the gov’t should take it and redistribute it.
Good for you. The government wouldn’t redistribute it, you would to research that is relative to your business. The government would regulate and make sure the money is spent.
You go make a shitload of money and see how much of it you think the government should keep.
You keep saying that it was just an idea - yet you keep defending it as if it is a great idea. It’s not. You would know that if you actually participated in the economy other than using daddy’s credit card to go shopping.
Forever the majority of people have been poor while a tiny percentage of rich people hold most of the capital. The only thing that caused the middle class to boom was innovations. Once the innovations disspear so shall the middle class. Such a boon of research funding would ensure many years of prosperity for the rich and others.
I am just a punk kid. But my family isn’t rich or poor. My dad has no credit cards. When I need cash I go and bail hay for 12 hour days in the hot summer heat. Back when I was 13 I did the same. When I was fifteen I worked 10 hour days in a small local sawmill. If I was a billionaire I would keep 100 million and invest the rest in research. What could you possibly need that 100 million couldn’t get. By the way you quoted your stats earlier. Im 17 yrs old 215 pnds around 15% bf, I bench 290, deadlift 305 and squat 250(pretty sad) I doubt you even care but I thought I would respond anyway.
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P.B. ,You may be young and everybodies been givin you kind of hard time about your ideas.You are at least trying to think of ways to help your fellow man.Most people now days are very fortunate if their wealthy and dont really appreciate it and dont realize they should consider themselves lucky.Most people I know that are well off some way or another had help from somebody even if they dont admit it.I only know 2 succesful business men that really did it on their own.And I know several hard core individuals that would rather have you as a friend than these other geniuses.They just dont like them kind of critters.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
But then we ship them back to Canada when their visas expire.
Sadly, the damage is already done…[/quote]
I think the damage was done before they were shipped south.
[quote]ron33 wrote:
P.B. ,You may be young and everybodies been givin you kind of hard time about your ideas.You are at least trying to think of ways to help your fellow man.Most people now days are very fortunate if their wealthy and dont really appreciate it and dont realize they should consider themselves lucky.Most people I know that are well off some way or another had help from somebody even if they dont admit it.I only know 2 succesful business men that really did it on their own.And I know several hard core individuals that would rather have you as a friend than these other geniuses.They just dont like them kind of critters.
[/quote]
I live in a town of 600 people. I personally know over 200 self-employed farmers.
You will never meet a small business man if you spend your life punching a damn clock. They move in different circles than the mindless drones that work for them.
I swear - the lazy greed of the left is sickening. How is confiscating wealth helping anyone? I don’t think I would be friends with anyone that thought that wealth redistribution was helping anyone - regardless of how fucking hard core they are.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
ron33 wrote:
P.B. ,You may be young and everybodies been givin you kind of hard time about your ideas.You are at least trying to think of ways to help your fellow man.Most people now days are very fortunate if their wealthy and dont really appreciate it and dont realize they should consider themselves lucky.Most people I know that are well off some way or another had help from somebody even if they dont admit it.I only know 2 succesful business men that really did it on their own.And I know several hard core individuals that would rather have you as a friend than these other geniuses.They just dont like them kind of critters.
I live in a town of 600 people. I personally know over 200 self-employed farmers.
You will never meet a small business man if you spend your life punching a damn clock. They move in different circles than the mindless drones that work for them.
I swear - the lazy greed of the left is sickening. How is confiscating wealth helping anyone? I don’t think I would be friends with anyone that thought that wealth redistribution was helping anyone - regardless of how fucking hard core they are.
[/quote]
I lived several places in my life and have known poor people to multi -millionaires,And i have only met a couple Multi Mills that were worth a shit ,Most were assholes,Most of the Hard cores Im talking about do distribute wealth they take from the rich and give to themselves.I know all kinds of small business men and the majority of them are trying to screw somebody one way or another and big brother to.
Most wealthy people which you should know because of your line of work are the crookedest fucks to come down the road,even though they all try to portray themselves to be honest upstanding people.
I was just saddened to hear that we might be getting Rainjack back. I’m writing to my parliamentary representive now!
How is having a tiny percent of people holding the majority of the worlds wealth a good thing. Rainjack people like you wouldn’t be affected, unless you are a billionaire. Too much money is tied up in these guys bank accounts when it could be used to feed and help billions of people.
Until people are no longer dying of hunger and aids at the same time there is ABSOLUTELY no reason anyone should have more than 100 million dollers. I mean fucking seriously, you got people living under bridges, dying of cancer, aids, starvation and these billionaires just keep adding more zeros to their bank balances.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Sadly, the damage is already done…
I was just saddened to hear that we might be getting Rainjack back. I’m writing to my parliamentary representive now![/quote]
HAHAHA zing
[quote]ron33 wrote:
Most wealthy people which you should know because of your line of work are the crookedest fucks to come down the road,even though they all try to portray themselves to be honest upstanding people.
[/quote]
Shows how much you know. And they accuse the religous right of being bigoted racists. You are living proof that the right has nothing on the left.
[quote]paul bunyan wrote:
How is having a tiny percent of people holding the majority of the worlds wealth a good thing. Rainjack people like you wouldn’t be affected, unless you are a billionaire. Too much money is tied up in these guys bank accounts when it could be used to feed and help billions of people.
Until people are no longer dying of hunger and aids at the same time there is ABSOLUTELY no reason anyone should have more than 100 million dollers. I mean fucking seriously, you got people living under bridges, dying of cancer, aids, starvation and these billionaires just keep adding more zeros to their bank balances. [/quote]
Why are you so pre-occupied with how much other people have? Capping wealth will kill economies around the world.
You are too young to see what kind of idiocy you are espousing. As such, this is a pointless exercise, and I am finished with you.
Paul, you obviously have no idea about what is really important in this world! Nobody gives a shit about any of the issues you mention, haven’t you noticed?
I don’t agree with your “proposal”, but I do think your heart is in the right place. The majority of the world will never do anything because it is the right thing to do, they will do it because it is directly in their own personal interest to do so.
So, if you want to change the world, or the people in it, then you’ll have to figure out how to motivate people to take the actions necessary to effect the changes you want. Good luck.
[quote]paul bunyan wrote:
… Too much money is tied up in these guys bank accounts when it could be used to feed and help billions of people.
… [/quote]
I think RJ is likely right and it is not really worth it debating with you, but I cannot let this go.
Rich people do not leave their money tied up in banks. They own things with their money like companies, land, boats, stocks etc.
Even banks don’t leave money laying in piles like Scrooge McDuck.
What your posts indicates is that rich people should liquidate their assets and give the money away to take care of the poor.
Say I owned a company worth $ 2 million.
You want to take $ 1 million and give it to the poor. How would you do that?
Would I have to come up with $ 1 million dollars cash? I would have to take out a massive loan to do that and would likely go bankrupt.
I suppose I could just sell half of building, half of my desks, half of my manufacturing equipment, etc. Of course this wouldn’t work either and there is no way my physical assets are worth enough.
Perhaps you could just raise my taxes and make me pay it a little at a time. Of course in order to pay my suppliers and employees I have to raise my prices to cover the costs of my increased taxes.
I am sure my customers will joyfully pay the price increase right up until they find that they can buy the same thing cheaper from China.
Now I can lose all my business to the Chinese and just go on welfare or I can fire all my manufacturing employees and start importing the Chinese product and selling it myself.
At least I found a way I can still make a living, but your attempts to take some of that money I don’t need because I am rich just cost half my employees their jobs.
Zap Ive repeated this so many friggen times. Im talking about billionaires. This is a million -1000 000 this is a billion -1000 000 000. You got that. They should keep 100 000 000 to do whatever they want with. Take the rest give it to scientists or poor people. The scientists would invent some cool shit, and their paychecks would go in the bank.
The banks still have money except they now have more customers. Poor people now have food. Aids sufferers now have drugs. The marketplace is overflown with new products to invest in. Jobs are better paying. Everybodys happy. Except for those few guys on this thread who would rather see billionaires instead of fed and healthy human beings.
[quote]vroom wrote:
So, if you want to change the world, or the people in it, then you’ll have to figure out how to motivate people to take the actions necessary to effect the changes you want. Good luck.[/quote]
Exactly.
Although it quickly fell off the deep end, this is an interesting thread because it shows how the two extremes touch – and how finding a good solution is just about impossible, unless somebody goes back to the drawing board and redesigns the species.
I believe everyone agrees that in fact the easiest motivator for the MAJORITY of human beings – and prime target for positive reinforcement – is the drive for more power and wealth. You can call that anything you want – you can call it capitalism if you want, I’ll call it greed for this argument’s sake. If you don’t like that world, mentally replace it with another one you like.
Rainjack is actually right when he said that most entrepreneurs will stop investing if they see a cap on their greed. And yes, $100M might seem a lot, but the psychological problem here is that greed is an insatiable animal. The more you have, the more you want. The carrot has be kept ahead of the donkey.
I don’t think anyone here – nor anyone left or right – disagrees with that. The strive for more money and power is like a powerful drug, and people will get addicted to it. And capitalism lives off that addiction.
The source of disagreement is if a) that’s a bad thing and b) if there’s a better option, i.e., a better way to motivate people. Clearly, most people in power – and I mean most people in government, private entrepreneurs, and even managers – think it is not and there isn’t.
Why even consider if there’s a better option? Well, because as we hope will all agree using greed as a motivator is not working very well for the overwhelming majority of the population – and I mean the capitalist countries’ population, yes. The money is being concentrated in the hands of a shrinking minority, and not only it’s getting worse, people are getting pretty pissed off about it.
In great part this is because more and more people are becoming more cynical and stopping believing they’ll ever be wealthy, so greed stops working as a motivator. Unfortunately in capitalist countries the backup strategy of most managers is to use punishment – usually in the form of fear – as a behavior conditioning tool, which any seasoned psychologist will tell you is the absolutely dumbest thing you can do, and ultimately results in very bad things happening.
Fear is a TERRIBLE conditioning tool, because it works poorly and only for a while. For example, a recent study showed that scaring the pants off teenagers with disturbing images of the results of only works for about 6 months; after that, not only they’ll go back to doing but they’ll adopt even riskier behaviors.
Why? Because of this little hormone called adrenaline: that adrenaline rush of adopting a behavior that you know is extremely risky is even more powerful than the fear of facing the consequences.
Hence very bad things are happening right now in all Western Capitalist societies, and it’s going to get much worse before it gets better.
Unfortunately all the other options that have been attempted have failed even more miserably, and apparently nobody is willing to hear that might have been a problem of implementation rather than of ideas – because it’s not like humanity changed and became smarter at implementing anything.
Yes, why everything else seems to fail? Because it’s inevitably more complicated. If you use motivators that are a lot less predictable and universal – like, for example, immaterial status and recognition, or perfectionism – they are much harder to manage. There aren’t enough people in the world that are predictably motivated by other things and, worse of all, there aren’t enough people in the world that know how to use other motivators effectively and efficiently.
We’re just to damn stupid. Conditioning a human being is EXACTLY the same as conditioning any other animal: what works is rewarding with material assets. The MAJORITY of people is no different from a seal or a rat in that respect.
Yes, because the beauty of Capitalism is that since it relies in one very simple, basic, motivator, even a complete dummy can manage it.
Since statistically 90% of humanity is composed of dummies, assholes, idiots and creeps, that are not really any smarter or more ethical or more moral than your household rodent, there’s no wonder capitalism is such a hit in spite of the fact that it is, in fact, fundamentally, and quite simply, the blind and greedy pursuit for immediate reward and self interest. Basically simplicity trumps ethics and morality every time.
Even if the first rule of economy is that total wealth is maximized by maximizing the distribution of wealth.
The thing is, capitalism, in one form or another, has been the prevailing economic system for humanity for thousands of years now. For the same thousands of years, the majority of wealth has been in the hands of a lucky few. The second half of the 20th century, where middle class grew and wealth was a little better distributed was a fluke in the system. That’s not supposed to happen, and it only happened because of a series of events that will never repeat themselves.
So, Paul, I have two words for you: Cynicism and Vasectomy.
If it could be demonstrated that a socialist or communist economic system worked, outside of a university coffee shop or classroom, it would likely be embraced by the more people.
The major problem is that capitalism depends on freedom of choice and freedom to benefit from your hard work and choices. Some of the greatest class distinctions occur in communist and socialist systems. Wealth and power are concentrated within a small group of people. Combined with the typical lack of freedom and abuse of powere they have self destructed.
Whenever the government, or those who claim to know better, tinker with capitalism something bad and/or unintended ususally happens. Capitalistic societies, due to thier propensity to expand and create opportunity and wealth benefit all to a much better degree then restictive economies. Take away the opportunity and your society begins to erode from within.
Good post Hspder. I do believe once the middle class erodes and there is only rich and poor, a revolution will take place. Then a new generation of rich shall slowly accumulate all the wealth until there is another revolution. As long as the suffering is happening somewhere else there is little people will do.
[quote]hspder wrote:
Since statistically 90% of humanity is composed of dummies, assholes, idiots and creeps, that are not really any smarter or more ethical or more moral than your household rodent, there’s no wonder capitalism is such a hit in spite of the fact that it is, in fact, fundamentally, and quite simply, the blind and greedy pursuit for immediate reward and self interest. Basically simplicity trumps ethics and morality every time.
[/quote]
I’d really like to see the study that made these determinations.
Seriously - nice post Hspder. But I think that this “greed” you speak of id far more powerful than any other carrot humanity can come up with.
You talk about how certain people grow disillusioned - I disagree. They may be to lazy to persevere, but they will still run to the corner convenience store and purchase their ‘powerball’ tickets twice a week. Why? For the opportunity to get rich. To have more. To quench the ‘greed’ that is as inherent to mankind as laughter.
Is our young teenaged friend telling us that lottery winnings should be capped? I’d really like to see someone try that. When are the most lottery tickets sold? When the pot is at it’s highest. I don’t think you have to find another motivator - just figure out a way to get more people in the game.
But stripping people of wealth because they have ‘too much’ is absurd.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
ron33 wrote:
Most wealthy people which you should know because of your line of work are the crookedest fucks to come down the road,even though they all try to portray themselves to be honest upstanding people.
Shows how much you know. And they accuse the religous right of being bigoted racists. You are living proof that the right has nothing on the left. [/quote]
You must have led a sheltered life ,like the curious little man on your posts.Maybe you should get out of your town of 600 for a while,then when you have a larger canvas to work from, you may paint a different picture.
[quote]ron33 wrote:
You must have led a sheltered life ,like the curious little man on your posts.Maybe you should get out of your town of 600 for a while,then when you have a larger canvas to work from, you may paint a different picture.
[/quote]
Your assumptions of who I am, what I have done, and where I have lived prove you to be much more ignorant than I originally gave you credit for.
How can you make such assumtions? That’s right - you are a fucking bigot. It all makes sense to me now.
I think it speaks volume about your character that you are so bigoted towards people that are successful that you don’t know any that are honest, while I live in a small corner of the world and I know a bunch of millionaires that would give you the shirt off their back.
Maybe it is you that should get out of the house and live a little before forming your ignoarntly bigoted opinions of people.
Regardless - I aspire to be richer than anyone I know. You, on the other hand seem content to try and “stick it to the man”. Whatever floats your boat.
And why is it always the little gutless pussies who use the term “little man”? Like I told junior - unless you can beat 233 @11% BF, you need to qualify what you mean by ‘little’.
Rainjack your posts are fucking priceless. I’m young I have an excuse for crazy posts but what is your excuse.