Re:Berkshire Hathaway Code of Business Conduct and Ethics [pdf]
by PostOnce on Tuesday May 09, 2017 @10:00AM
(#14300034)
It seems patently obvious that I'm being trolled or you're delusional about the viability of a libertarian society, but I'll make two final points:
Fortunately, most people don't agree with you, so we don't live in a hellhole.
You don't seem to understand that society is a whole unit, if you don't have a car, it doesn't mean you shouldn't pay for roads and that roads provide you no utility, the food you buy when you walk to the shop comes on a truck.
It seems that you believe only money, products, and services have value, and that people have no inherent value. Again, it's extremely fortunate that most people disagree with you.
Yes, because otherwise it will go away from "us". "We" don't put in laws and taxes for the whole world, "we" are countries that are competing one against another for that capital.
> I have no problem with increasing the minimum wage to the point where people can actually pay rent and buy medicine
More like "increasing the minimum wage to the point where people are replaced with automation or people from working at other places".
> What if, one day, it does?
Oh, but it just recently did. I lived a couple of months with friends, got into credit and used tax returns. I didn't even used any unemployment help, as I consider the whole concept unethical, although I could. Believe me, for me, it's not a hypothetical situation.
> where homeless people even exist
Then donate your own money to them. But what you're advocating instead is forcibly taking _other_ people's money so that they can pay for _your_ view on what society should look like.
> where working 40 hours a week doesn't mean you'll be able to get a house or food
Working hours don't contribute any value to the society - services and products are. I don't care how much did you work when I'm paying my money. Can you rephrase this in terms of actual services and products provided?
For example, if you told me that "working 2 shifts as a pediatrician" doesn't get you house or food, then I would agree that the country where it happens has a problem.
> or where two parents must both work full time to break even to the detriment of the nation's children
Children should be a luxury. I am right now in a pretty good financial situation, on a software engineer's salary, and I still don't feel like I can afford a child. If somebody is making a very poor financial decision to buy a luxury yacht that he can't afford, you don't feel sorry for them - why a different treatment for someone who gets a child?
> I'd rather pay a little more tax. I'd rather my capital be a little less mobile.
Go donate to a charity then. Invest your pension savings in a company that you consider "ethical". But although you're talking about "your" tax and "your" capital, you use these arguments to advocate what should be done to _other_ people's taxes and _other_ people's capital.
> Why have a minimum wage at all? Why have medicaid or guaranteed hospital access?
Beats me.
> we could leave taxes as they are if we reallocated 50% of the military budget... we'd still have the biggest and best military in all of world history
You would also have a lot of very angry veterans though. It is my understanding that about ~50% of american "military" budget actually goes to all kinds of pensions and compensation - cutting this doesn't exactly fit your ethical model, does it?
> In the end, life's better if you're a little less greedy, who wants to be the richest man in a slum? Is it better to have a million dollars in Somalia or 100k in Boston?
That's a question that every man should answer for himself. All your arguments are about enforcing your ethical system on other people, who may or may not agree with it.