Jeff Matthews Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 (edited) You do realize your are trying to make a point you think is obvious but is not all that obvious? Nah I gave that up a while back remember? Now I'm just clowning around with jokes from Airplane. Truly, you are The Irreverent. Edit: Well, at least Travis is enlightened. That's gotta count for something. Edited November 13, 2015 by Jeff Matthews 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Just returned from vacation in the Philippines... poor people everywhere. I don't mean our kind of poor, but living in small houses with no aircon, no wayer heaters, using a two burner tabletop stove poor. Yet all the one i met seemed a lot happier and content than we do here. Went to one of the malls in Manila... three stories tall, hundreds of stores. Went to an Ace Hardware store. There were at least 50 clerks/staff there to help. They all wore uniforms so you could tell who to to ask for help. They were ALL polite and more than willing to help. All the stores were like that... it would be like going to Lowe's or HD and having 150 more people on the floor to help you. And outside the malls are hundreds of mom and pop store, the size of a one car garage, all doing business. Plenty of very wealthy folks there, some are even honest and not corrupt. A truly weird economy. They are working hard to live the American Dream... it's pushed at them all the time. You can ride halfway across the city for $.50. People ride for 2 hours through brutal traffic to get to work (that sounds like L.A. to me). Just like here, a lot of people do the minimum to get by, but again, they seem happier. No real meaning to this, but our country is in a worse condition... we demand more and say it is our right that everyone else pays for it. Was that a soapbox rant? Sorry... Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Naseum Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Ayn Rand Of all the people on postage stamps, Ayn Rand is probably the only one to have thought that the United States government has no business delivering mail. In her central pronouncement of political belief—the character John Galt’s radio address, which begins on page 1,000 of Rand’s 1957 novel, “Atlas Shrugged”—allowance is made for the state to run an army, a police force, and courts, but that’s it. Most readers make their first and last trip to Galt’s Gulch—the hidden-valley paradise of born-again capitalists featured in “Atlas Shrugged,” its solid-gold dollar sign standing like a Maypole—sometime between leaving Middle-earth and packing for college. Only a handful become lifetime followers of Objectivism, Rand’s codified philosophy, which holds that reality exists as something concrete and external, not created by God or by a person’s consciousness; that emotions derive from ideas; and that self-interest rather than altruism is man’s ethical ideal. seventy-seven. This month, the first two full-length biographies of her that were not written by disciples or apostates of her movement (some would say cult) are making their appearance. These objective looks at the first Objectivist, Anne C. Heller’s “Ayn Rand and the World She Made” (Doubleday; $35) and Jennifer Burns’s “Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right” (Oxford; $27.95), have different strengths and a shared weakness. Heller, a journalist and magazine editor, does the better job of dealing with Rand’s early life in Russia and her later personal dramas. Burns, a professor of history, more ably situates Rand within and against the world of American conservatism. Both biographers overestimate, Heller more seriously, the literary achievement of their subject, whose intellectual genre fiction puts her in the crackpot pantheon of L. Frank Baum and L. Ron Hubbard; it is no closer to the canon of serious American novels than Galt’s Gulch is to Brook Farm. And so on.... Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk A copy and paste with no credit to the writer? Why do you hate capitalism? Most of the people who are rich are no criminals. Why do you feel it should be a right of the government to steal? What's to like about it? I can't see a single reason to be enthusiastic about an amoral economic theory, that encourages greed, exploitation and global misery. I'm not even convinced it is better than feudalism. It is a passing fad that I don't think will last out the century. It is currently entering a mature phase in which all the absurdities embedded in the theory will begin to emerge as it self destructs. There are plenty of morally acceptable ways to become rich without resorting to capitalism. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Naseum Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 The normal condition in life is just to accept without question whatever institutions are at work when you emerge from the womb, as though they always existed, always will, and without reason to question. People live an entire life that way. Unlikely dying words: "I turned a profit!" Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheltie dave Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 There is a reason the National Labor Relations Board, OSHA. MSHA, the EPA, and other federal agencies were created. There was a burning need for governmental agencies because many companies thought there was no moral. legal, nor business justification to provide for worker, environmental, and general public health and safety. There is a tremendous societal economic cost involved when businesses exist. Unfettered regulatory environments generally mean virtually all of the social, health, and economic costs are rolled over from businesses to consumers/society. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Naseum Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 In board rooms it is called "externalizing cost." Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muel Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Ayn Rand Of all the people on postage stamps, Ayn Rand is probably the only one to have thought that the United States government has no business delivering mail. In her central pronouncement of political belief—the character John Galt’s radio address, which begins on page 1,000 of Rand’s 1957 novel, “Atlas Shrugged”—allowance is made for the state to run an army, a police force, and courts, but that’s it. Most readers make their first and last trip to Galt’s Gulch—the hidden-valley paradise of born-again capitalists featured in “Atlas Shrugged,” its solid-gold dollar sign standing like a Maypole—sometime between leaving Middle-earth and packing for college. Only a handful become lifetime followers of Objectivism, Rand’s codified philosophy, which holds that reality exists as something concrete and external, not created by God or by a person’s consciousness; that emotions derive from ideas; and that self-interest rather than altruism is man’s ethical ideal. seventy-seven. This month, the first two full-length biographies of her that were not written by disciples or apostates of her movement (some would say cult) are making their appearance. These objective looks at the first Objectivist, Anne C. Heller’s “Ayn Rand and the World She Made” (Doubleday; $35) and Jennifer Burns’s “Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right” (Oxford; $27.95), have different strengths and a shared weakness. Heller, a journalist and magazine editor, does the better job of dealing with Rand’s early life in Russia and her later personal dramas. Burns, a professor of history, more ably situates Rand within and against the world of American conservatism. Both biographers overestimate, Heller more seriously, the literary achievement of their subject, whose intellectual genre fiction puts her in the crackpot pantheon of L. Frank Baum and L. Ron Hubbard; it is no closer to the canon of serious American novels than Galt’s Gulch is to Brook Farm. And so on.... Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk A copy and paste with no credit to the writer?Why do you hate capitalism? Most of the people who are rich are no criminals. Why do you feel it should be a right of the government to steal? What's to like about it? I can't see a single reason to be enthusiastic about an amoral economic theory, that encourages greed, exploitation and global misery.I'm not even convinced it is better than feudalism. It is a passing fad that I don't think will last out the century. It is currently entering a mature phase in which all the absurdities embedded in the theory will begin to emerge as it self destructs. There are plenty of morally acceptable ways to become rich without resorting to capitalism. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk wow... just wow! Freedom requires capitalism. It is freedom's only hope. Feudalism??!! Feudalism = NO freedom I guess when we die they should just hand out participation trophies. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Naseum Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Ayn Rand Of all the people on postage stamps, Ayn Rand is probably the only one to have thought that the United States government has no business delivering mail. In her central pronouncement of political belief—the character John Galt’s radio address, which begins on page 1,000 of Rand’s 1957 novel, “Atlas Shrugged”—allowance is made for the state to run an army, a police force, and courts, but that’s it. Most readers make their first and last trip to Galt’s Gulch—the hidden-valley paradise of born-again capitalists featured in “Atlas Shrugged,” its solid-gold dollar sign standing like a Maypole—sometime between leaving Middle-earth and packing for college. Only a handful become lifetime followers of Objectivism, Rand’s codified philosophy, which holds that reality exists as something concrete and external, not created by God or by a person’s consciousness; that emotions derive from ideas; and that self-interest rather than altruism is man’s ethical ideal. seventy-seven. This month, the first two full-length biographies of her that were not written by disciples or apostates of her movement (some would say cult) are making their appearance. These objective looks at the first Objectivist, Anne C. Heller’s “Ayn Rand and the World She Made” (Doubleday; $35) and Jennifer Burns’s “Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right” (Oxford; $27.95), have different strengths and a shared weakness. Heller, a journalist and magazine editor, does the better job of dealing with Rand’s early life in Russia and her later personal dramas. Burns, a professor of history, more ably situates Rand within and against the world of American conservatism. Both biographers overestimate, Heller more seriously, the literary achievement of their subject, whose intellectual genre fiction puts her in the crackpot pantheon of L. Frank Baum and L. Ron Hubbard; it is no closer to the canon of serious American novels than Galt’s Gulch is to Brook Farm. And so on.... Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk A copy and paste with no credit to the writer?Why do you hate capitalism? Most of the people who are rich are no criminals. Why do you feel it should be a right of the government to steal? What's to like about it? I can't see a single reason to be enthusiastic about an amoral economic theory, that encourages greed, exploitation and global misery.I'm not even convinced it is better than feudalism. It is a passing fad that I don't think will last out the century. It is currently entering a mature phase in which all the absurdities embedded in the theory will begin to emerge as it self destructs. There are plenty of morally acceptable ways to become rich without resorting to capitalism. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk wow... just wow! Freedom requires capitalism. It is freedom's only hope. Feudalism??!! Feudalism = NO freedom I guess when we die they should just hand out participation trophies. So, your goal is freedom? Freedom means action without restraint of any kind. Unfettered action with no restrictions.That is what you want? No law, no regulation, no morality? No right and wrong, just unfettered action at your own will. I don't favor that at all. Which is in part why I find capitalism revolting. I am a moralist. I think cultures that have sound moral structure are the best for advancing the human condition. The "free capitalists" are too me like history's marauders and pirates and pillagers of civilization. I'm unaware of any great civilization that was a moral free zone. No wonder we disagree! Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T2K Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 I had a job years ago that I enjoyed, every so often I was moved around to various departments in the company with each move accompanied by more responsibility. Loving a challenge I jumped headlong into each new task. After 7 years I realized that the added burden was not accompanied by a significant increase in pay. I requested a meeting with one of the co-owners one day and expressed my feelings of getting nowhere and that if I was not worth an increase in pay to the company then I would move on. I got a small raise. As I opened the door to leave the bosses office he told me not to ever ask him for a raise again. I said OK. As I walked down the long hallway I knew that it was over. His words ate at me like battery acid. This job was history. The following Monday I phoned in my verbal immediate notice and requested my pay later that day from timekeeping. When I got to the office I was notified that the co-owner wanted to see me in his office. Apparently he had decided that I needed a large raise in pay along with vacation pay for that year. The largest raise that I had ever received from this outfit. I thanked him and declined his offer to stay. We shook hands, exchanged courtesies and I left never to return. My point is this: If your employer does not appreciate your labor then you have every right to withhold your labor. Keith 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Naseum Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Freedom had never been viable as a structure of society. 4000 years ago already the advanced cultures had extensive moral and legal codes. Babylon in 2000BC had the Code of Hammurabi, which even defined the pay for ox drivers! Structure vs. Chaos, is the main idea. It's doubtful that any society can become a civilization without a moral code. Feudalism was very highly structured legally and morally. There are many ways it was superior to capitalism, and of course many ways not. My point about feudalism is that it featured honor, loyalty and protection. In that era, it may have been one of the best choices possible for the masses. Let's not forget that while it is true serfs couldn't become Lords, it's also mostly true that there is very little upward mobility in capitalism. It's not designed to promote such mobility, but rather to defeat it. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T2K Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 The next job I had was working for a large corporation. There were Union and non-Union positions. I worked a Union job. Every 4 years we gave notice of our demands for the new working agreement and the company did likewise. Because of government interference we could not simply walk off the job. There was a long process that had to exhausted before we could strike. There were a couple of times during my career there that we did strike. A settlement always came quickly. I remember over my years of working there when I came here and mentioned Union workers there were many comments about organized labor. Organized labor ruined the country it seems and Union workers were overpaid lazy a$$es. You still hear that today if you read anything. Those guys are paid too much. Those guys are what is wrong with this country. And on and on. A race to the bottom. Those same scholars are now crying because they feel the free fall, albeit a little too late. So those organized labor haters now organize and carry around signs demanding $15 an hour. Later they go to work and earn their $7.25 an hour. Useless exercise. My suggestion to all the organized labor haters that want an increase in pay would be to organize by the tens of thousands and, by using your little signs, announce that all will withhold there labor on a certain date and time. And then do that. The week of Christmas this year would get lots of attention. Keith 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muel Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Ayn Rand Of all the people on postage stamps, Ayn Rand is probably the only one to have thought that the United States government has no business delivering mail. In her central pronouncement of political belief—the character John Galt’s radio address, which begins on page 1,000 of Rand’s 1957 novel, “Atlas Shrugged”—allowance is made for the state to run an army, a police force, and courts, but that’s it. Most readers make their first and last trip to Galt’s Gulch—the hidden-valley paradise of born-again capitalists featured in “Atlas Shrugged,” its solid-gold dollar sign standing like a Maypole—sometime between leaving Middle-earth and packing for college. Only a handful become lifetime followers of Objectivism, Rand’s codified philosophy, which holds that reality exists as something concrete and external, not created by God or by a person’s consciousness; that emotions derive from ideas; and that self-interest rather than altruism is man’s ethical ideal. seventy-seven. This month, the first two full-length biographies of her that were not written by disciples or apostates of her movement (some would say cult) are making their appearance. These objective looks at the first Objectivist, Anne C. Heller’s “Ayn Rand and the World She Made” (Doubleday; $35) and Jennifer Burns’s “Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right” (Oxford; $27.95), have different strengths and a shared weakness. Heller, a journalist and magazine editor, does the better job of dealing with Rand’s early life in Russia and her later personal dramas. Burns, a professor of history, more ably situates Rand within and against the world of American conservatism. Both biographers overestimate, Heller more seriously, the literary achievement of their subject, whose intellectual genre fiction puts her in the crackpot pantheon of L. Frank Baum and L. Ron Hubbard; it is no closer to the canon of serious American novels than Galt’s Gulch is to Brook Farm. And so on.... Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk A copy and paste with no credit to the writer?Why do you hate capitalism? Most of the people who are rich are no criminals. Why do you feel it should be a right of the government to steal? What's to like about it? I can't see a single reason to be enthusiastic about an amoral economic theory, that encourages greed, exploitation and global misery.I'm not even convinced it is better than feudalism. It is a passing fad that I don't think will last out the century. It is currently entering a mature phase in which all the absurdities embedded in the theory will begin to emerge as it self destructs. There are plenty of morally acceptable ways to become rich without resorting to capitalism. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk wow... just wow! Freedom requires capitalism. It is freedom's only hope. Feudalism??!! Feudalism = NO freedom I guess when we die they should just hand out participation trophies. So, your goal is freedom? Freedom means action without restraint of any kind. Unfettered action with no restrictions.That is what you want? No law, no regulation, no morality? No right and wrong, just unfettered action at your own will. I don't favor that at all. Which is in part why I find capitalism revolting. I am a moralist. I think cultures that have sound moral structure are the best for advancing the human condition. The "free capitalists" are too me like history's marauders and pirates and pillagers of civilization. I'm unaware of any great civilization that was a moral free zone. No wonder we disagree! Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk Yes, freedom for everyone requires morality and responsibility of individuals. Your questions are extreme. argumentum ad absurdum Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woofers and Tweeters Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Ayn Rand <snip> And so on.... Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk A copy and paste with no credit to the writer?Why do you hate capitalism? Most of the people who are rich are no criminals. Why do you feel it should be a right of the government to steal? What's to like about it? I can't see a single reason to be enthusiastic about an amoral economic theory, that encourages greed, exploitation and global misery.I'm not even convinced it is better than feudalism. It is a passing fad that I don't think will last out the century. It is currently entering a mature phase in which all the absurdities embedded in the theory will begin to emerge as it self destructs. There are plenty of morally acceptable ways to become rich without resorting to capitalism. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk Would you agree that there should be a flat tax so everyone pays an equal %. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Naseum Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Yes, freedom for everyone requires morality and responsibility of individuals. Your questions are extreme. argumentum ad absurdum Nothing absurd about it at all. The truth of modern life is that you live in a "highly regulated continuum of restrictions and punishments." I can't find a smattering of logic in calling that "freedom." But, like so many other philosophical discussions, people want to use whatever words they enjoy, or learned in their youth, for whatever meaning they prefer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Naseum Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Ayn Rand <snip> And so on.... Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk A copy and paste with no credit to the writer?Why do you hate capitalism? Most of the people who are rich are no criminals. Why do you feel it should be a right of the government to steal? What's to like about it? I can't see a single reason to be enthusiastic about an amoral economic theory, that encourages greed, exploitation and global misery.I'm not even convinced it is better than feudalism. It is a passing fad that I don't think will last out the century. It is currently entering a mature phase in which all the absurdities embedded in the theory will begin to emerge as it self destructs. There are plenty of morally acceptable ways to become rich without resorting to capitalism. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk Would you agree that there should be a flat tax so everyone pays an equal %. Taxes? You want to talk about taxes? Ok, I'm up for that. I don't think much of income taxes. They place the burden in the wrong spot. I am in favor of consumption taxes and transaction (sales) taxes. If you buy a pound of steel or a hundred tons of steel, there would be a tax on the amount, no matter who is buying it. It pretty much implies that conservative consumption is rewarded and excessive consumption is penalized. Small house - small tax, big mansion - big tax. Small stock purchase - small tax. Big derivative purchase - big tax. It favors the stingy people who want to live simply, and penalizes the big spenders who create most of the natural resource use. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woofers and Tweeters Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Ayn Rand <snip> And so on.... Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk A copy and paste with no credit to the writer?Why do you hate capitalism? Most of the people who are rich are no criminals. Why do you feel it should be a right of the government to steal? What's to like about it? I can't see a single reason to be enthusiastic about an amoral economic theory, that encourages greed, exploitation and global misery.I'm not even convinced it is better than feudalism. It is a passing fad that I don't think will last out the century. It is currently entering a mature phase in which all the absurdities embedded in the theory will begin to emerge as it self destructs. There are plenty of morally acceptable ways to become rich without resorting to capitalism. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk Would you agree that there should be a flat tax so everyone pays an equal %. Taxes? You want to talk about taxes? Ok, I'm up for that. I don't think much of income taxes. They place the burden in the wrong spot. I am in favor of consumption taxes and transaction (sales) taxes. If you buy a pound of steel or a hundred tons of steel, there would be a tax on the amount, no matter who is buying it. It pretty much implies that conservative consumption is rewarded and excessive consumption is penalized. Small house - small tax, big mansion - big tax. Small stock purchase - small tax. Big derivative purchase - big tax. It favors the stingy people who want to live simply, and penalizes the big spenders who create most of the natural resource use. Okay. Now can you answer the question that I asked? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paducah Home Theater Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Oh my. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Naseum Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Ayn Rand <snip> And so on.... Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk A copy and paste with no credit to the writer?Why do you hate capitalism? Most of the people who are rich are no criminals. Why do you feel it should be a right of the government to steal? What's to like about it? I can't see a single reason to be enthusiastic about an amoral economic theory, that encourages greed, exploitation and global misery.I'm not even convinced it is better than feudalism. It is a passing fad that I don't think will last out the century. It is currently entering a mature phase in which all the absurdities embedded in the theory will begin to emerge as it self destructs. There are plenty of morally acceptable ways to become rich without resorting to capitalism. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk Would you agree that there should be a flat tax so everyone pays an equal %. Taxes? You want to talk about taxes? Ok, I'm up for that. I don't think much of income taxes. They place the burden in the wrong spot. I am in favor of consumption taxes and transaction (sales) taxes. If you buy a pound of steel or a hundred tons of steel, there would be a tax on the amount, no matter who is buying it. It pretty much implies that conservative consumption is rewarded and excessive consumption is penalized. Small house - small tax, big mansion - big tax. Small stock purchase - small tax. Big derivative purchase - big tax. It favors the stingy people who want to live simply, and penalizes the big spenders who create most of the natural resource use. Okay. Now can you answer the question that I asked? I would have thought it was obvious from me saying, "I don't think much of income taxes." But if you want a literal answer it is, "no." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prerich Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Ayn Rand <snip> And so on.... Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk A copy and paste with no credit to the writer?Why do you hate capitalism? Most of the people who are rich are no criminals. Why do you feel it should be a right of the government to steal? What's to like about it? I can't see a single reason to be enthusiastic about an amoral economic theory, that encourages greed, exploitation and global misery.I'm not even convinced it is better than feudalism. It is a passing fad that I don't think will last out the century. It is currently entering a mature phase in which all the absurdities embedded in the theory will begin to emerge as it self destructs. There are plenty of morally acceptable ways to become rich without resorting to capitalism. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk Would you agree that there should be a flat tax so everyone pays an equal %. That's the point my friend - its not equal. Say person that makes $25k a year and millionaire both pay 15% flat tax. The millionare has $850k left to live off of - while the $25k guy now only has roughly $21k to live off of. They are in the same state so they pay the same rate of energy tax, they pay the same prices for food if they by the same brands. However Mr. $21K &250 bits has less income when considering necessities of life. Carson wants to base his 15% off of religious views - however he doesn't realize - even in those times, the only people that paid a 10% tax were farmers, and herdsmen. No one else paid that tax....not carpenters, or metal smiths, or clothes washers. Hmmmm? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garyrc Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 QUESTION FOR ALL: Who has turned down a raise telling the boss, "No thanks, boss! It's bad for the economy!" Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk I don't think anyone on here has, but I believe I remember reading somewhere that JFK turned down his presidential salary. Yes, JFK took no salary as President. Neither did Arnold as gov. of California. I believe that several years ago (at the beginning of the Great Recession?) the CEO of Cisco Systems decided to take $1 per year for the duration. Speaking of duration, several movie studios decided to take no profit on training films for the duration of WWII, providing they would retain ownership of the films (some of which are still being shown). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.