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Thread: Economic Disparity and Associated Social Issues

  1. #21
    Four String Fumbler Joe in PNG's Avatar
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    The problem is with most calls to "DO SOMETHING!!!" is that the solution is usually poorly thought out, and usually makes things much, much worse.
    Yeah, your guy is advocating something that the past century has proven over and over to not actually help with income inequality.
    "You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
    "I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI

  2. #22
    Four String Fumbler Joe in PNG's Avatar
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    In fact, may I ask why income equality is something to be aspired to?
    It's against all human nature. Which is why the governments who officially tried to get income equality have to kill a good part of the population, because they won't stop being normal humans.

    Edit to add: Ponder this- would you support income equality if it meant you got paid exactly the same as the slacker who does nothing but screw stuff up for everyone else?
    Last edited by Joe in PNG; 08-14-2018 at 03:56 PM.
    "You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
    "I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI

  3. #23
    banana republican blues's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Joe in PNG View Post

    Edit to add: Ponder this- would you support income equality if it meant you got paid exactly the same as the slacker who does nothing but screw stuff up for everyone else?

    If the slacker was Trump...
    There's nothing civil about this war.

    Read: Harrison Bergeron

  4. #24
    Member BCG's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Joe in PNG View Post
    In fact, may I ask why income equality is something to be aspired to?
    Who is advocating for absolute income equality?

    Quote Originally Posted by Joe in PNG View Post
    It's against all human nature.
    So is (effectively) unlimited income equality.
    Last edited by BCG; 08-14-2018 at 04:23 PM.
    Yippee ki-yay

  5. #25
    Four String Fumbler Joe in PNG's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BCG View Post
    So is (effectively) unlimited income equality.
    Again, would you want to be paid the exactly the same as your co-worker who's not working?

    Income inequality is just a natural result of the fact that all people are different. We want to be rewarded for doing more.
    "You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
    "I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI

  6. #26
    banana republican blues's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Joe in PNG View Post
    Again, would you want to be paid the exactly the same as your co-worker who's not working?

    Income inequality is just a natural result of the fact that all people are different. We want to be rewarded for doing more.
    History teaches that:

    People tend to adapt to socialism when the shared labor of the group is necessary to the survival of the group, and all that is produced is consumed.

    Once a surplus is created by one or more among them...they tend to want their own swimming hole.

    And so it goes...
    There's nothing civil about this war.

    Read: Harrison Bergeron

  7. #27
    Four String Fumbler Joe in PNG's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by blues View Post
    History teaches that:

    People tend to adapt to socialism when the shared labor of the group is necessary to the survival of the group, and all that is produced is consumed.

    Once a surplus is created by one or more among them...they tend to want their own swimming hole.

    And so it goes...
    Even in the primitive and tribal groups, you tend to have the big man/ chief who gets the lion's share, and then the rest of the people who get a bit less.
    And there you see that culture hold people back- why should one get too far ahead when it's just going to get passed on to the group anyway?
    "You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
    "I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI

  8. #28
    Modding this sack of shit BehindBlueI's's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Joe in PNG View Post
    Basically, the average American lives far better and has more than any people around the world ever. Complaining about income inequality here is just plain, good old fashioned whining.
    And most poor people today live better then actual royalty 700 years ago. That's incredibly beside the point. Democracy requires a certain level of economic mobility and opportunity. Social stability does not. Feudalism was pretty stable with huge wealth gaps and essentially no economic mobility.

    It's not whining when you recognize the political and social outcome of wealth concentrated in the hands of the few. If you think it's solely about who gets to drive a shinier car or a bigger house, you're missing the forest for one particular tree.

    I don't feel like reinventing the wheel, I've posted this sort of thing repeatedly. In an oversimplified nutshell:

    Money = influence, political and social. When power concentrates in the hands of a very few, that's bad for democracy.

    Economic mobility in any significant number requires money. The days of joining the middle class by going to work with a skill you learned in weeks or months is rapidly coming to an end. You need money to get training and to live on while you train.

    "The rich get richer", the more money a hand full of people control, the more outsized their ability to effect markets and the economy as a whole. It's why we have laws that prevent monopolies, etc. When a small group of people control most of the wealth, that's a de facto monopoly.
    Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.

  9. #29
    Four String Fumbler Joe in PNG's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BehindBlueI's View Post
    Money = influence, political and social. When power concentrates in the hands of a very few, that's bad for democracy.

    "The rich get richer", the more money a hand full of people control, the more outsized their ability to effect markets and the economy as a whole. It's why we have laws that prevent monopolies, etc. When a small group of people control most of the wealth, that's a de facto monopoly.
    Problem number one is that most of the solutions proposed won't fix the problem of income inequality or disparity of power. You just get a new tiny group of people at the top, and more often than not they will just take what you have and give you nothing in return. If taking stuff from one group and giving it to another was the key to empowering people, then Communist China and Soviet Russia (or any of the dozens of failed people's republics) would have been the place of freedom & opportunity. They weren't, and it doesn't work.

    Second, the grassroots people in America still have more political power and influence than pretty much any of the more "egalitarian" nations. EU style bureaucrats are far less responsive to the people than our elected officials.
    "You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
    "I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI

  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Duelist View Post
    You know that without those “poorly run” public schools, an awful lot of people wouldn’t have access to any but the bottom most rings of that economic ladder because they wouldn’t have any access to education, right?
    Didn't mean to kick your shins.. Hopefully you know I didn't mean that public schools are worthless? I am the a product of a bottom-of-the-barrel, inner-city public school. An unsafe place where there was no promise that I'd make it home unscathed on any given day. I managed to improve my lot. Many didn't, with equal opportunity.

    The difference? I didn't look for any excuses. I realized early on that the only way out was through.

    My version of "tough love" public schooling would not be well received. Guaranteed.
    "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776

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