Re:MIT economist aims to move the inequality discussion beyo...
by hueving on Sunday June 01, 2014 @03:32AM
(#7828460)
>did not happen to the same extent in generations past
I have never seen supporting evidence of this. You can't compare perks of manufacturing jobs of the past to grocery baggers and greeters in Walmart today. An equivalent would be to compare it to a grocery store clerk in the past as well. I know they did not provide a living wage or health care back then either because my father was one in the 60s.
>The notion that the people making the money are "earning" it while people doing actual work are "greedy"
This is basic economics. If what you are doing has little demand, you won't be paid highly for it. To understand what I mean, go into a field and dig holes all day long and then demand that someone pay you for doing 'actual work'. Unless someone desperately needed those holes, you won't be paid anything regardless of the effort you put into it.
>from living the natural lives we could all be living
And what natural life would you be referring to? Tribes roaming around foraging and fighting each other for food? An even redistribution of wealth across the entire globe would drastically reduce the quality of life of >95% of US citizens.
Say we just rob and kill off the 1% since you seem to think they don't contribute. You have just eliminated many executives at large companies, most doctors, most good lawyers, many professors, and many highly-skilled senior specialists in various engineering fields. Now that you have wiped out all of these people that spent years mastering their fields, what exactly is it that you have accomplished? What lesson did we learn? They earned high salaries because they were in high demand. Is it to make sure that you never become so good at something that you will earn lots of money?
Perhaps you are confused and you didn't mean the top 1% but instead meant something like the top %0.01? 1 in every 100 people isn't a conspiring billionaire as you've concocted in your mind. Doctors and small business owners aren't getting together in a secret club each weekend to determine the political propaganda they will feed to the 99% that week.
P.S. Currently, your post is mostly nonsensical run-on sentences. Break them up if you want people to read it.
I have never seen supporting evidence of this. You can't compare perks of manufacturing jobs of the past to grocery baggers and greeters in Walmart today. An equivalent would be to compare it to a grocery store clerk in the past as well. I know they did not provide a living wage or health care back then either because my father was one in the 60s.
>The notion that the people making the money are "earning" it while people doing actual work are "greedy"
This is basic economics. If what you are doing has little demand, you won't be paid highly for it. To understand what I mean, go into a field and dig holes all day long and then demand that someone pay you for doing 'actual work'. Unless someone desperately needed those holes, you won't be paid anything regardless of the effort you put into it.
>from living the natural lives we could all be living
And what natural life would you be referring to? Tribes roaming around foraging and fighting each other for food? An even redistribution of wealth across the entire globe would drastically reduce the quality of life of >95% of US citizens.
Say we just rob and kill off the 1% since you seem to think they don't contribute. You have just eliminated many executives at large companies, most doctors, most good lawyers, many professors, and many highly-skilled senior specialists in various engineering fields. Now that you have wiped out all of these people that spent years mastering their fields, what exactly is it that you have accomplished? What lesson did we learn? They earned high salaries because they were in high demand. Is it to make sure that you never become so good at something that you will earn lots of money?
Perhaps you are confused and you didn't mean the top 1% but instead meant something like the top %0.01? 1 in every 100 people isn't a conspiring billionaire as you've concocted in your mind. Doctors and small business owners aren't getting together in a secret club each weekend to determine the political propaganda they will feed to the 99% that week.
P.S. Currently, your post is mostly nonsensical run-on sentences. Break them up if you want people to read it.