Is it time to take on the super-rich?

Denerick

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

I think you need to do a bit more work than that, though. I'm not convinced that merely taxing the super-rich and giving it to people in lower-income brackets is, under any system, a good thing. The main risk is that instead of empowering people (which I think is what desiring a minimum standard of living should be about) you create dependence and a system whereby a lot of people have no immediate incentive to create their own source of income. And it's definitely not the case that our current use of tax money is an efficient and successful means of fighting low-income based dis-empowerment. I'd like to hear more about sensible and honest solutions to the problem of children from lower-income families generally ending up a lot worse than their middle-income peers. The habit of selling the "tax the rich" mantra as a solution to social problems is to me naive and counter-productive.

By the way, this is not to say I'm against taxing the super-rich. In fact, a system whereby the marginal rate of tax is at least non-decreasing as a function of income is probably most "fair". But that argument isn't being used much here, which adds to my suspicions that people primarily want "taxes for taxes' sake".

EDIT: on the subject of money creating power (undoubtedly true) - other than influencing the political system, what other "abuses" do you think are accessible through money? Because the political one can be solved by giving the political system less money; in particular, it is not necessarily to cap peoples' income to stop that problem. So I wonder what other problems would also admit a non-capping solution.

I'm really not convinced of this argument. Most of the criticism of welfarism has emerged in the aftermath of the 1980s economic revolution, which saw widespread deregulation of financial industries and the mushrooming of enormous wealth into fewer hands. Welfare thus subsequently became a cheap trick that governments could use to paper over systemic inequalities in the system they devised. In reality welfare solves nothing. What people lack are the necessities of life, which are created by work. However, work is often low paid, demoralising, and plays a disproportionate role in our lives, leading to higher incidences of mental illness, anguish, and worry for an increasingly strapped lower and middle class.

The high levels of unemployment seen in most western countries would indicate that there are too few jobs for so many people. The solution, it would seem, would be for more people to work fewer hours, so that more people could avail of the necessities of life, and thus spend greater amounts of personal time indulging in the non material leisure activities that come with reduced emphasis on work as the central purpose of our modern day 'economic units' - i.e, autonomous persons. There comes a point when greater productivity becomes pointless. Spreading employment - i.e., job-sharing, in a technologically advanced society, would lessen many of the mental and economic strains currently holding us back.

In summation, extracting more wealth from the super-rich, who seem to enjoy hoarding vast amounts in havens and enclaves and delight in allowing such wealth to wallow unproductively, would enable governments to spend more resources on cultural and social programmes designed to alleviate poverty of both the economic and cultural variety.

Icepick

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

You are continuing to invent straw men. I am representing my class interests, if I pay 33% on my income everybody above me should pay that - in theory - which might mean I and they have to pay 25%. This is unrelated to any other thing about the poor, or social welfare . otherwise the tax system is 33% from me, 0.3% from a billionaire. it is the legitimacy of that system which is in question..

And they still pay much more € than you. So how is it immoral?

A Primal Nut wrote: »

Multinationals employ people, rich individuals don't.

O RLY?

Denerick

Icepick wrote: »

I love how they make those poor deluded fookers smile for the camera. There is no dignity in that photo.

Jonny7

Denerick wrote: »

I love how they make those poor deluded fookers smile for the camera. There is no dignity in that photo.

How can they look themselves in the mirror every morning.. spending their hard-earned paychecks.. in Monaco.. jesus capitalism makes me sick!

Duggys Housemate

Icepick wrote: »

And they still pay much more € than you. So how is it immoral?

The immorality should be obvious to all observers. Imagine it is the middle ages. There are three classes, rich, middling and poor. The poor are the vast majority.

The rich aristocrats pay no taxes, or 1 percent at most. They earn 1,000 to 100,000 pounds per year.
The middling gentry earn 100s of pounds per year and pay 5-10% a year.
The poor earn between 1 pound and 20 pounds per year, the median is 3 pounds, and most are well below 10 pounds per year. It is in the poor class that most of the taxes are collected. The poor earning above 4 pounds or so pay 55% of their income after that.

This isn't really the middle ages - although the distribution of income was similar to that, the taxation wasn't. It is now. I just divided by 10,000. Putting it in those terms makes it a bit starker. Of course the Rich in those days, born to wealth, would also employ people. So you could use that as an excuse for their non-taxpaying. Apparently.

The middle ages in fact didn't tax the lower orders, more the middling orders , merchants, inn owners, large farmers etc. Todays business man.

However, no doubt were the arrangement as above there would have been peasants earning slightly more than the average - say 4, or 5 pounds rather than 1 or 2 - not only accepting the aristocrats can do this, but supporting that they should. After all the top aristocrats who pay 1% are paying more than the better off poor.

There are precious few billionaires on this thread, and some billionaires are opposed to tax dodging. It is very difficult to explain this, except that where there are wolves, there are sheep.

Duggys Housemate

Icepick wrote: »

And they still pay much more € than you. So how is it immoral?

O RLY?

Ok, multinationals employ vastly more people than the rich, employees who produce mass market goods and services for the rest of us, rather than being a servant class for the rich.

Chucky the tree

How to do you think multinationals started up? Here's an article about the 10 richest people in the world. The numbers these 10 employ through their companies would be huge.

Icepick

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

The immorality should be obvious to all observers. Imagine it is the middle ages. There are three classes, rich, middling and poor. The poor are the vast majority.

The rich aristocrats pay no taxes, or 1 percent at most. They earn 1,000 to 100,000 pounds per year.
The middling gentry earn 100s of pounds per year and pay 5-10% a year.
The poor earn between 1 pound and 20 pounds per year, the median is 3 pounds, and most are well below 10 pounds per year. It is in the poor class that most of the taxes are collected. The poor earning above 4 pounds or so pay 55% of their income after that.

This isn't really the middle ages - although the distribution of income was similar to that, the taxation wasn't. It is now. I just divided by 10,000. Putting it in those terms makes it a bit starker. Of course the Rich in those days, born to wealth, would also employ people. So you could use that as an excuse for their non-taxpaying. Apparently.

The middle ages in fact didn't tax the lower orders, more the middling orders , merchants, inn owners, large farmers etc. Todays business man.

However, no doubt were the arrangement as above there would have been peasants earning slightly more than the average - say 4, or 5 pounds rather than 1 or 2 - not only accepting the aristocrats can do this, but supporting that they should. After all the top aristocrats who pay 1% are paying more than the better off poor.

There are precious few billionaires on this thread, and some billionaires are opposed to tax dodging. It is very difficult to explain this, except that where there are wolves, there are sheep.

So back to my question, how is paying much more in taxes than you and almost everybody else immoral?

To give you an example, calling ordinary people with honest jobs 'a servant class' is immoral.

Duggys Housemate

If you work for someone on his private yacht you are his servant.

I've already answered your question - the immorality is in the percentage. In the middle ages example I gave a tax of 1% on an aristocrat woulg generate more income than a tax of 55% on any one of his peasants. That's what I am saying is immoral - the difference in the percentage take. Not least because it increases the take from the middle.

Chuck Stone

There's a difference between a super rich person creating work in their gardens and boats and a business like Intel or large infrastructure projects creating jobs, careers, expertise, technological advancement etc.

Trying to compare the two is laughable.

Jonny7

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

If you work for someone on his private yacht you are his servant.

Have you just built a time travel machine and come from another era or something?

Duggys Housemate

Jonny7 wrote: »

Have you just built a time travel machine and come from another era or something?

What in God's name is the difference from working on a guys yacht with other employees tending to the need's of one person or family, and working in a 19th century Big House?

I dont think the differences between now and the Victorian ages are all that great in terms of relative wealth, partly due to the ideologies of the libertarians on this thread.

Icepick

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

What in God's name is the difference from working on a guys yacht with other employees tending to the need's of one person or family, and working in a 19th century Big House?

By your logic, everyone with a boss is a servant, which makes the word meaningless.

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

I dont think the differences between now and the Victorian ages are all that great in terms of relative wealth

Duggys Housemate

Icepick wrote: »

By your logic, everyone with a boss is a servant, which makes the word meaningless.

This is offtopic, but I will bother one last time. Its simple. When I work for a boss who is a manager we are both serving the company neither of us own. Even if it is his company, we are both working for the company. Thats the employer in law.

When you work for one man, on his own yacht, fixing his food, or making his bed etc. then you are his servant. It is NO DIFFERENT working for a super rich billionaire on his yacht than a 19th century Big House, and I an sorry to break it to you mate, these billionaires have servants on the yachts and in their big houses. Do you think that Ambronovich doesn't have a cook?

A smiley is hardly an argument.

KyussBishop

Okey lets just get this one other fallacy out of the way for good:
High earners (the super wealthy) do not create more jobs than they take away.

Money (we are talking millions, billions and up to tens of billions depending on the person) that stays in the economy, or that stays in a business, gets spent employing people and on assets that create indirect employment.

Money (the millions/billions/tens-of-billions) that gets siphoned out of the economy into a rich persons bank account (in the Cayman islands or wherever), sits there and does not get spent employing people; that rich person may spend a tiny portion of his money to employ his luxury yacht grew, but it is nowhere near the amount of employment that is provided by that money staying in the economy.

It has been well demonstrated by others, with the relevant stats, that wealthy people hoard their money and do not spend nearly as high a percentage of their income as middle/lower class earners.

thecommietommy

Contrary to the barrage of propaganda cutbacks are not an inevitability arising from the fact that Ireland is broke. The richest 300 people in Ireland alone have a combined wealth of €57 billion, an increase of €6.7 billion in the last year. A simple act of introducing an emergency wealth tax of 10% would raise €5.7 billion, more than one and a half times the amount of austerity that which is to be introduced in next month’s budget.

Denerick

thecommietommy wrote: »

Contrary to the barrage of propaganda cutbacks are not an inevitability arising from the fact that Ireland is broke. The richest 300 people in Ireland alone have a combined wealth of €57 billion, an increase of €6.7 billion in the last year. A simple act of introducing an emergency wealth tax of 10% would raise €5.7 billion, more than one and a half times the amount of austerity that which is to be introduced in next month’s budget.

The problem with this policy being that the wealthy will simply leave and/or move their wealth elsewhere, thus exacerbating the problem of tax havens and enclaves.

A global solution is needed to apply pressure to international tax havens and close them down, and dealt with accordingly. Whether this could possibly happen in the present global economic and political order is doubtful, thus strengthening my pessimism.

Duggys Housemate

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

A communist system has a centre of power, capitalism doesn't.

I don't think that's true. Capitalism relies on the state to prop it up.

Duggys Housemate

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't think that's true. Capitalism relies on the state to prop it up.

So you are going to get rid of the State to endanger Capitalism? Thats worth joining the libertatian party for....

The State can help capitalism - in fact I am a supporter of State Capitalism - but you cant get rid of the market by getting rid of the state. Or even using the state to ban markets. Think drugs.

Jonny7

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

What in God's name is the difference from working on a guys yacht with other employees tending to the need's of one person or family, and working in a 19th century Big House?

They are employee's.. just like everyone else.

Why would you single them out as servants? in that case most of us are "servants".

Whether a pilot works for an airline or a private individual, they are still an employee regardless. I wouldn't be so quick to scoff at them

Anyway, back to the super-rich. Due to the nature of capitalism in its many forms, its pretty unavoidable that we have a very wealthy class, it's part and parcel really - it's just up to government, economists, society how much we want to tax the super-wealthy. Too much and they bugger off somewhere else which will very gladly take them.. too little and the public coffers suffer.

As others have mentioned.. the simple way of looking at it is the corporate tax model in Ireland - low corporation tax - we attract more business.. which provides more benefits than the lower relative net tax income.

Duggys Housemate

Jonny7 wrote: »

They are employee's.. just like everyone else.

Why would you single them out as servants? in that case most of us are "servants".

Whether a pilot works for an airline or a private individual, they are still an employee regardless. I wouldn't be so quick to scoff at them

Who said I scoffed. I used a term most people would use. As usual you are not anwering the question. What is the difference between a nineteenth century cook, a cook on a yacht, or a cook in a billionaire's house in 2012?

Anyway, back to the super-rich. Due to the nature of capitalism in its many forms, its pretty unavoidable that we have a very wealthy class, it's part and parcel really - it's just up to government, economists, society how much we want to tax the super-wealthy. Too much and they bugger off somewhere else which will very gladly take them.. too little and the public coffers suffer.

Actually, the rich used to be poorer. The term super-rich is new. And the economies of the west were growing faster when the rich got less. It means a sea change across the West, in policy, so the rich cant flee.

As others have mentioned.. the simple way of looking at it is the corporate tax model in Ireland - low corporation tax - we attract more business.. which provides more benefits than the lower relative net tax income.

As even others have pointed out - that is irrelevant to the super-rich. The super rich don't employ that many people, it was your attempt to prove they employ lots of people which drove us to the whole servant class side topic.

Canvasser

The peasants of Cavan certainly don't think it's time to take on the super rich. They are out marching in support of them!

Jonny7

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

Who said I scoffed. I used a term most people would use. As usual you are not anwering the question. What is the difference between a nineteenth century cook, a cook on a yacht, or a cook in a billionaire's house in 2012?

So if someone showed a picture of McDonalds employees your comment would have been any diff?

Actually, the rich used to be poorer. The term super-rich is new. And the economies of the west were growing faster when the rich got less. It means a sea change across the West, in policy, so the rich cant flee.

And "we" used to be a lot poorer. Its all relative. I am grotesquely "super-rich" compared to the median sub-Saharan African, something should be done about me?

As even others have pointed out - that is irrelevant to the super-rich. The super rich don't employ that many people, it was your attempt to prove they employ lots of people which drove us to the whole servant class side topic.

The "super-rich" tag is completely subjective. I was tackling the issue on what the **** is a servant class? which was your label not mine.

Many of those in the Forbes top 400 list have built companies from scratch which employ millions across the globe.

What's your solution? let's take Ireland, how would you change the current system?

Icepick

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

Who said I scoffed. I used a term most people would use. As usual you are not anwering the question. What is the difference between a nineteenth century cook, a cook on a yacht, or a cook in a billionaire's house in 2012?

salary
work conditions
recognition
...so everything

Valmont

So the rallying call is for people to parasitise the parasites?!

With all this blood sucking going on, I'm left wondering who produces real wealth in the first place?

Canvasser

Valmont wrote: »

So the rallying call is for people to parasitise the parasites?!

With all this blood sucking going on, I'm left wondering who produces real wealth in the first place?

Chinese workers in sweat shops

Valmont

Canvasser wrote: »

Chinese workers in sweat shops

So said Karl Marx over one hundred years ago -- surely we're not sticking to the labour theory of value now in 2012?!

I would argue those who invested the capital and created the jobs are producing the real value. For without this initial investment these workers wouldn't have jobs in the first place, no?

Canvasser

Valmont wrote: »

So said Karl Marx over one hundred years ago -- surely we're not sticking to the labour theory of value now in 2012?!

I would argue those who invested the capital and created the jobs are producing the real value. For without this initial investment these workers wouldn't have jobs in the first place, no?

Why can't the workers control the capital? What makes you think only Sean Quinn and Sean Fitzpatrick are allowed control the capital?

Jonny7

Canvasser wrote: »

Why can't the workers control the capital? What makes you think only Sean Quinn and Sean Fitzpatrick are allowed control the capital?

What?

Are you aware of the catastrophic attempts at this?

Canvasser

Jonny7 wrote: »

What?

Are you aware of the catastrophic attempts at this?

What catastrophic attempts are these?

Jonny7

Canvasser wrote: »

What catastrophic attempts are these?

I presume you are referring to various forms of communism.. ? if not, what system..

Suryavarman

Canvasser wrote: »

Why can't the workers control the capital? What makes you think only Sean Quinn and Sean Fitzpatrick are allowed control the capital?

There's nothing stopping workers from saving their money and buying company shares or setting up their own companies.

Canvasser

Suryavarman wrote: »

There's nothing stopping workers from saving their money and buying company shares or setting up their own companies.

Yes there is. Workers barely get paid enough to pay their bills and raise their kids let alone buy their places of work. If you seriously think there's nothing stopping a worker in sweatshop buying their factory then you're off your head.

Jonny7 wrote: »

I presume you are referring to various forms of communism.. ? if not, what system..

If you mean the USSR and China then it's debatable whether the workers ever controlled the capital. The state certainly controlled investment. However the Russian and Chinese revolutions did turn those respective countries into global superpowers. When there was private ownership of capital Russia and China were 3rd world and undeveloped countries.

Jonny7

Canvasser wrote: »

Yes there is. Workers barely get paid enough to pay their bills and raise their kids let alone buy their places of work. If you seriously think there's nothing stopping a worker in sweatshop buying their factory then you're off your head.

What's the solution?

If you mean the USSR and China then it's debatable whether the workers ever controlled the capital. The state certainly controlled investment. However the Russian and Chinese revolutions did turn those respective countries into global superpowers where as when the capital was in private ownership there was all most no development and those countries remained in the 3rd world.

USSR and China are better off than in the past. This is because they've adopted respective models that fundamentally work.

What is the alternative to state controlling investment in those situations? I'm a bit lost as to your point exactly.

Canvasser

Jonny7 wrote: »

What's the solution?



USSR and China are better off than in the past. This is because they've adopted respective models that fundamentally work.

What is the alternative to state controlling investment in those situations? I'm a bit lost as to your point exactly.

I've already said that I believe in public ownership of the factors of production.

The USSR doesn't exist anymore but when Russia went back to capitalism it's economy shrunk by 50%. The Yeltsin years were a time of great poverty and hardship for the average Russian. The only way China became a world power was by abandoning the anarchy of the market and using strong state investment and intervention.

The countries of Africa have all been using free market economics for 4 decades and none of them have developed. The countries of Latin America have realised the mistakes of free market capitalism and are slowly begining to abandon in in favour of more public ownership.

Jonny7

Canvasser wrote: »

I've already said that I believe in public ownership of the factors of production.

Marxism basically. How does your version work in the real world?

The only way China became a world power was by abandoning the anarchy of the market and using strong state investment and intervention.

It's been called "state capitalism", it's light years apart from the old collectivisation and command systems.

Suryavarman

Canvasser wrote: »

Yes there is. Workers barely get paid enough to pay their bills and raise their kids let alone buy their places of work. If you seriously think there's nothing stopping a worker in sweatshop buying their factory then you're off your head.

There's nothing stopping people cutting back on their bills (Using less electricity, getting rid of digital TV or many other things) and saving up some money to buy stock. If people choose not to do that then that is their problem.

ejmaztec

Canvasser wrote: »

I've already said that I believe in public ownership of the factors of production.

The USSR doesn't exist anymore but when Russia went back to capitalism it's economy shrunk by 50%. The Yeltsin years were a time of great poverty and hardship for the average Russian. The only way China became a world power was by abandoning the anarchy of the market and using strong state investment and intervention.

The countries of Africa have all been using free market economics for 4 decades and none of them have developed. The countries of Latin America have realised the mistakes of free market capitalism and are slowly begining to abandon in in favour of more public ownership.

That was probably mostly due to prospective oligarchs taking advantage of the situation, and getting super-rich quick while the rest of the people were celebrating democracy. The world now seems to be riddled with the likes of Abramovich, who went from nothing to a multi-billionaire in a very short space of time.

Canvasser

ejmaztec wrote: »

That was probably mostly due to prospective oligarchs taking advantage of the situation, and getting super-rich quick while the rest of the people were celebrating democracy. The world now seems to be riddled with the likes of Abramovich, who went from nothing to a multi-billionaire in a very short space of time.

Celebrating democracy? I don't think there was any democracy in the Yeltsin years. He even had the parliament shut down and the opposition killed or arrested when they disagreed with him. Look up the 1993 Russian Constitutional Crisis. Yeltsin was a brutal dictator who destroyed his country by handing over all the states assets to private individuals.

Denerick

Valmont wrote: »

So the rallying call is for people to parasitise the parasites?!

With all this blood sucking going on, I'm left wondering who produces real wealth in the first place?

The people who produce 'real' wealth (By which you largely mean manipulating financial, commodity and currency markets, a form of modern witchcraft that will only be tolerated by conscious groups of citizens for so long) will be fine, just like they always have. The welfare of the average billionaire doesn't make it anywhere near the list of my priorities, nor should it for any compassionate or sentient person, not when children have to forego trips to the dentist because their parents can't afford it 'this month'.

Icepick

Denerick wrote: »

The people who produce 'real' wealth (By which you largely mean manipulating financial, commodity and currency markets, a form of modern witchcraft that will only be tolerated by conscious groups of citizens for so long) will be fine, just like they always have. The welfare of the average billionaire doesn't make it anywhere near the list of my priorities, nor should it for any compassionate or sentient person, not when children have to forego trips to the dentist because their parents can't afford it 'this month'.

Are rich people supposed to pay the visits because they are rich?

Jonny7

Denerick wrote: »

The people who produce 'real' wealth (By which you largely mean manipulating financial, commodity and currency markets, a form of modern witchcraft that will only be tolerated by conscious groups of citizens for so long) will be fine, just like they always have.

You mean the financial markets which have been around since the 13th century and currently employ millions around the globe?

The welfare of the average billionaire doesn't make it anywhere near the list of my priorities, nor should it for any compassionate or sentient person, not when children have to forego trips to the dentist because their parents can't afford it 'this month'.

Have a workable solution that doesn't involve adopting a failed system?

Denerick

Jonny7 wrote: »

You mean the financial markets which have been around since the 13th century and currently employ millions around the globe?

The financial markets slowly developed into the behemoth they are today from its relatively humble beginnings in its modern manifestation (Big bucks provided credit to nations in order to fight the Napoleonic wars) to the stage where they can decide the fate of a nation of people in one fell swoop, almost instantly. Billions are made in seconds, speculation has gone completely out of control. To compare the modern system with the medieval one which lent relatively and proportionally tiny amounts to monarchs so they could fight wars is so absurd it doesn't require a response.

Have a workable solution that doesn't involve adopting a failed system?

And that failed system would be? I would consider the present system to have 'failed', at least in terms of providing a decent standard of living to the poorest (It does do a good job in providing healthy living standards to the wealthy, I'll grant you that)

Denerick

Icepick wrote: »

Are rich people supposed to pay the visits because they are rich?

Yes, they are. They're wealthy as a direct result of their relationship with the poor. They are wealthy because someone else is poor and willing to work for relatively smaller wages (If the poor person worked for proportionally higher wages the wealthy person would by definition become proportionally poorer)

Tell me, is it revolution you people are after? People will only take so much. The gap between the wealthy and the average is the largest it has been since the industrial age. Common sense, social democratic solutions will stave off the revolution that I believe is inevitable if the west maintains its present economic orthodoxy and allow the wealthy to keep (some) of their wealth.

Jonny7

Denerick wrote: »

The financial markets slowly developed into the behemoth they are today from its relatively humble beginnings in its modern manifestation (Big bucks provided credit to nations in order to fight the Napoleonic wars) to the stage where they can decide the fate of a nation of people in one fell swoop, almost instantly. Billions are made in seconds, speculation has gone completely out of control.

Like any system, its not perfect, and it's one of the main factors why we are in a double-dip recession at the moment. We learnt from 1929, from the early 80's and, judging from the controls and regulations constantly coming in we'll learn from this.

To compare the modern system with the medieval one which lent relatively and proportionally tiny amounts to monarchs so they could fight wars is so absurd it doesn't require a response.

I didn't compare it to any modern system I merely pointed out the length of time it has been in place - you are the one who compared it with "witchcraft"

And that failed system would be? I would consider the present system to have 'failed', at least in terms of providing a decent standard of living to the poorest (It does do a good job in providing healthy living standards to the wealthy, I'll grant you that)

The "present system", where? in Ireland? in Sweden? in Spain? if, as I suspect you are using a sweeping generalisation of capitalism across the globe (!!!), then what is your working solution?

Blowfish

Denerick wrote: »

And that failed system would be? I would consider the present system to have 'failed', at least in terms of providing a decent standard of living to the poorest (It does do a good job in providing healthy living standards to the wealthy, I'll grant you that)

Rather obvious question for you, would you rather live as a poor person now, or a poor person 100 years ago? If you choose now, how exactly has the 'modern' system failed?

No matter what way you look at it, the poorest in Ireland have never been better off than now.

Canvasser

Icepick wrote: »

Are rich people supposed to pay the visits because they are rich?

They should give back what they stole from the people.

Valmont

Denerick wrote: »

The people who produce 'real' wealth (By which you largely mean manipulating financial, commodity and currency markets,

Before this gets crazy -- I don't know where you pulled that idea from but it definitely wasn't from anything I've said.

I asked that considering you're proposing to parasitise the parasites, who produces the wealth in the first place? I don't think it just 'exists' in a pot somewhere for all to take and distribute as they please.

Denerick wrote:

They're wealthy as a direct result of their relationship with the poor. They are wealthy because someone else is poor and willing to work for relatively smaller wages (If the poor person worked for proportionally higher wages the wealthy person would by definition become proportionally poorer)

So we just need to spread the word to 'poor' people to be willing to work for a higher wage? And somehow the supposedly fixed pie of wealth will be magically realigned in a fair and equitable manner?

Jonny7

Canvasser wrote: »

They should give back what they stole from the people.

Who stole what from you now?

Drumpot

Blowfish wrote: »

Rather obvious question for you, would you rather live as a poor person now, or a poor person 100 years ago? If you choose now, how exactly has the 'modern' system failed?

No matter what way you look at it, the poorest in Ireland have never been better off than now.

Ive had this debate with a friend of mine who in the end throws out the same sentance highlighted. Thats a very poor excuse for the way things are setup today. To me, its basically saying "be thankful for what you have" as if that excuses the tragic actions of the few at the cost of the majority of us. The only way society progress's is by looking forward, not back. You should only look back to see how you got to where you are and find your barings. Being thankful for something usually means you dont look for better and who does that benefit other then the current status quo?

You could say to a rape victim "be thankful you were raped today instead of 100 years ago because at least you have a better chance of getting support and of the criminal getting caught". My extreme point being that if somethings wrong, its not right because its better then it was 100 years ago! We grow up in an environment that is our world. It doesnt matter what happened in the past, only how we live today and how society improves during our lives.

The middle income earners of the world are being raped for financial mistakes they didnt make and while they can still afford to feed themselves, the mental anguish that this has caused is difficult to gauge or compare with things 100 years ago. This is all to feed and appease a financial system that takes risks and threatens to punish an entire country if a private institution collapses. I mean its completely ridiculous . .

People might not be dieing as much as they were in other era's of depression, but families are being torn apart, people are suffering serious mental illness's (depression) and entire countries are being psychologically bullied into forcing harsh austerity not simply because of the actions of their people, but also the actions of private investors (specifically in our case) and the pressure of our EU friends who felt we couldnt let a bank fail for the greater good.

When you benchmark anything against something thats obviously worse, it doesnt mean its a success, it just means its not as bad as it used to be . .