No one said it was easy, nor it is it equally hard for everyone. A lot of it has to do with natural skill and luck. Look at celebrities. A singer may have amazing talent and never get into show business. An extremely lucky singer could have no talent at singing but a great talent for showmanship and make millions. Neither is a better person than the other, that's just how the world works. You say making money is easy when you have some, but I wonder if you (or very many other people) have the skill, drive, and confidence to turn $10,000 into $10,000,000,000. If I thought you had what it takes to make that look easy I would hire you as my accountant in a heartbeat.
Sometimes you actually have to do actual work to earn money, that is true....
They said about the UK housing market for years..... then POP.
Like controlling water as a commodity, or genetic use restriction technology in grains, or the deep sea fishing industry, or coffee plantations all over the third world, or oil firms all around the world, or sweatshops in the Far East, etc - the list of exploitation just goes on and on. I think you just accept too many things in a black/white fashion and rather naively.
... and of course a lot of those things is interlinkied with state-subsidies and state-monopolies.
Maybe I should immigrate to this Land of Opportunity?
And directly connected to the funds of specific corporations "expanding on an idea" and doing so in a corrupt political environment with no control. The end result, which was my point, is the same: people became rich by putting other people down and with the aim of becoming rich, not making people's lives better which is what that other kid said earlier.
But you won't have enough firepower to outbid the people from china, you ever heard of single story apartments flats that cost a over billion in HKD? We have it here.
last time we had a POP it took just 3 years to climb back to prior levels. I sure damn hope it POPs more often.
It's a matter of compounding earning, and the fact that you can earn money by just playing around with it.
Many people earn money that way - frontman of bonds, property agents, bank advisors. Sure there are skills involved, but it's soft skills, it's networking, while the hard maths are dealt by the back office. You don't need a finance degree to be an insurance agent, sometimes you don't even need a degree, because the system makes not investing so infavorable (our interest rate for saving account is at 0.03%) that you MUST invest. Because you must invest, the banks can set all sorts of unfair terms which garuntees they make a earning, while the people takes most of the risk.
It is one sided, the poor can do nothing to fight it, of course you can pay the dues and work your way up the hard way. But it is a long and slow process, while the oligopoly eats away your hard earnings pretty much by their own accord, food gets more expensive, medication gets more expensive, transport gets more expensive, the relative living standard has been going down consistently.
And that is the problem, there's only one way to be successful here unless you are really talented, really smart and really lucky. not everybody wants to be rich, most people just want to have a sufficient life, free time for their family and stability, this margin of comfort is getting smaller and we are forced to adopt a lifestyle of taking risk we can't afford. And things that doesn't make money straight away can't find the space to develop, like how can an art gallery compete with an international fashion brand for the same space? it eats away us culturally.
It's because the establishment is the first in line, has the most say in the society and they know they can suck money from poorer people as long as the status quo ain't disturbed.
If you wish to succeed and volunteer to take that risk, kudos to you, but people who just want to live a simple live should still have their choices, that's a healthy society.
I am not against capitalism....I am myself a small entrepreneur, a small business-man who wishes for financial success along with artistic achievement. I buy the idea of making a fortune with braveness and insight. But from what I see is that the big players, those who donate money on TV - neglects the most basic of stuff in social responsibility, while running their business - people are paid peanuts, forced to work overtime without compensation. Employers continuously trying to find loophole in the minimum pay law, while themselves go bidding for wines, arts, and other excesses.
The tax they are paying, and the money they are giving away..... ,a lot of them, are robbed from the poor. Just they robbed it very cleverly and silently.
I said before there are evil corporations. Maybe you skipped a few lines of my posts. Monsanto is one of them, who I'm pretty sure you're referring to. I would argue that there are more businesses which have a beneficial or neutral effect on the world and humanity than the evil ones. Someone with anti-establishment views would disagree, but by punishing the rich to cure the evil you wipe out everything good with it.
You may hate that a company uses sweatshop labor or exploits farmers or pollutes the earth. The great thing is you're free to make your own company if you think you have the talent and you can do it better. If you can't make a company because of things outside your control then you use democracy and make a government that protects your right to achieve life liberty and happiness. If you don't have democracy you fight for it. If you can't or won't fight for what you need you will die. Hundreds of people every day decide that they can do better for themselves and others and start their own businesses; small at first, then as large as their determination and luck can reach. You don't even need to start your own business, really. Just work for or support companies that do things the way you think they should. We can no better control the human nature that causes us to want the best lives for ourselves any more than we can control the bodily function of aging. Some age gracefully, some don't.
PS. no one controls the water supply. You're more than welcome to drink water directly from a pond or from a rain puddle for free. I suggest you pay someone to pipe it purified and mineral-enriched directly to your house or into a nicely packaged bottle but hey it's a free country.
@JJ
"I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't"
I can say that as well about your attitude towards multiculturalism.
If you have to discredit my effort to prove your point, well you can have it.
Again that's a black/white and very naive point of view. Corporations aren't evil or good. Corporations are just entities doing what they have to do to survive in the given ruleset: make profit. There are no ethics involved and every move made is judged by one question in the end: will it make profit? That's just how they operate - if they don't profit they die.
Again a naive point of view: it is not matter of punishment.
Therefore, on the basis that everyone can do it if they can no one should criticize the existing attempts? I think not.
Examples of countries where the privatization of water was done with profit in mind following a neoliberal economic model include Bolivia and Argentina - it didn't go that well. For example in Bolivia even the collection of rain water was considered illegal - so citizens couldn't even drink the water puddling on their roofs.
(flymike91)
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by flymike91
There is such thing as business ethics. I know this because I took that class last year.
Unfair income tax is punishment.
You can criticize all you want, if you think it will help. If you're good enough at criticizing or if you support alternative businesses then that leaves the ones you don't like powerless. Companies cannot exist without you. Your government cannot exist without you. You have the ultimate power of being alive! There is a worldwide push for greater power for the people but not greater personal responsibility. That is the fatal flaw.
You're in the past tense when you're talking about these SA water policies. Sounds like they succeeded in doing exactly what I'm talking about: using their inherent power to secure life liberty and happiness for themselves.
Unfair income tax is punishment.
You can criticize all you want, if you think it will help. If you're good enough at criticizing or if you support alternative businesses then that leaves the ones you don't like powerless. Companies cannot exist without you. Your government cannot exist without you. You have the ultimate power of being alive! There is a worldwide push for greater power for the people but not greater personal responsibility. That is the fatal flaw.
You're in the past tense when you're talking about these SA water policies. Sounds like they succeeded in doing exactly what I'm talking about: using their inherent power to secure life liberty and happiness for themselves.
I kind of like how Chomsky talks about free markets in this clip. Kind of eye opener for someone with blind faith in corporations. Might be interesting read or listening for someone like flymike who seems to have some religious belief in something called free market:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCJpDnLzBTE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCJpDnLzBTE
Focus. You are losing focus on your arguments and dwindling into some sort of self-help audio tape material.
My injunction to this thread was directed at this generalization:
Which simply does not hold true. The aforementioned example of South American water privatization is a good example of the extreme of this "expand on an idea". Not being an oracle, I can only use examples of things happened in the past. If you would like a current situation that's very similar and leading people into desperation read up on the problems west african coast nations are facing with the exploitation of their fishing grounds by fishing fleets of the developed world.
I can't say enough that I don't have blind faith in corporations. Some corporations do horrible things. There is no alternative to businesses, no one will ever do anything for free for very long, but we can shape their actions by either supporting them or not. If you don't like Wal-Mart, buy from an organic market.
Chomsky starts right out criticizing the nanny state hegemony, bailouts, and subsidies which I have always felt are barriers to free thinking, free markets, and personal responsibility. Chomky's problem has always lied in transforming free market theory into reality. While I support the rich in that they are as human as you or me and have equally complex emotions and aspirations, I don't believe in "too big to fail." This current economy has only strengthened that view. Everyone from the poorest to the richest should be equally able to fail, but there is a feeling from the Left that the rich should fail and the poor must succeed.
@xaotic
I have to go broader because your ideology of powerlessness is what has created a global attitude of dependence and made it possible for the governments to become the nanny state. The corruption lies in the government, which exists in part to protect the people from the evils of corporation you have described. If it cannot or will not we pride ourselves in employing democracy to elect those who can. It is possible to become rich without being corrupt. I know this because the top philanthropists in the world are the richest people in the world. They are what we should strive to be if we strive to become wealthy, which not all of us do. We can all strive to be incorruptible.
Specifically to your statement, though. The same human nature that drives companies to poach fish in undeveloped nations also drove companies to make it possible to fly to the moon and back. That human nature can be guided towards goodness with the power of good people, but not towards fairness because there is no fairness to guide it towards.
Chomsky starts right out criticizing the nanny state hegemony, bailouts, and subsidies which I have always felt are barriers to free thinking, free markets, and personal responsibility. Chomky's problem has always lied in transforming free market theory into reality. While I support the rich in that they are as human as you or me and have equally complex emotions and aspirations, I don't believe in "too big to fail." This current economy has only strengthened that view. Everyone from the poorest to the richest should be equally able to fail, but there is a feeling from the Left that the rich should fail and the poor must succeed.
@xaotic
I have to go broader because your ideology of powerlessness is what has created a global attitude of dependence and made it possible for the governments to become the nanny state. The corruption lies in the government, which exists in part to protect the people from the evils of corporation you have described. If it cannot or will not we pride ourselves in employing democracy to elect those who can. It is possible to become rich without being corrupt. I know this because the top philanthropists in the world are the richest people in the world. They are what we should strive to be if we strive to become wealthy, which not all of us do. We can all strive to be incorruptible.
Specifically to your statement, though. The same human nature that drives companies to poach fish in undeveloped nations also drove companies to make it possible to fly to the moon and back. That human nature can be guided towards goodness with the power of good people, but not towards fairness because there is no fairness to guide it towards.
What? Bailouts and subsidies are the primary tools of the free market. That's where the money and profits come from.
free market the way it exists today, not how it is supposed to.
I think you me and Chomsky have differing views on what freedom means.
I think you me and Chomsky have differing views on what freedom means.
Again generalized assumptions: you assume I am of some specific ideology you might or might not have in mind and then bait it with a term like "powerlessness" implying that you represent an alternate powerful ideology. Again the black & white/"you are either with us or against us" mentality.
See, in my opinion it's the above mentality that has empowered the State so much to be as the idiotic cliche/catchphrase has it a "nanny state". People, like your online persona (judging solely from the stuff you have written), who are too blinkered to see beyond divisions and artificial social and ideological ruts, who play into the game of maintaining a rigid belief that their system is different from the other "oppressive" system or the other "corrupt" system.
In all probability it is possible and good on the people who've managed to do so in their knowledge if that's what they wanted. But "most people become rich not by keeping others down" still doesn't hold true as most people, historically, have become rich precisely by that practice. When the ultimate goal is profit then someone gets screwed.
Again with the same generalized self-help tape material. Despite what you might currently think you are not constructing logical arguments; you are just resorting to embellished rhetorics.
You criticize me for my views but you haven't stated any of your true beliefs so far, maybe that explains why I have to guess what they are. I'm not trying to speak in rhetoric; I truly believe that the limits of human nature could be scientifically proven to make global "fairness" impossible.
If you don't like the phrase nanny state I'll replace it with hegemony from now on. Oh and please enlighten me as to the diversions and artificial social and ideological ruts. Sounds like it won't have any embellishments.
You say I have a rigid ideology, so whats yours? It sounds like you're against my idea that people are inherently more powerful than they know, yet you believe that I, a person who espouses personal responsibility, is part of an ideology that has caused people to become less responsible for their own lives and more dependent on the government (which also doesn't make sense because I am for the reduction of federal power). You need to explain that, too.
If you don't like the phrase nanny state I'll replace it with hegemony from now on. Oh and please enlighten me as to the diversions and artificial social and ideological ruts. Sounds like it won't have any embellishments.
You say I have a rigid ideology, so whats yours? It sounds like you're against my idea that people are inherently more powerful than they know, yet you believe that I, a person who espouses personal responsibility, is part of an ideology that has caused people to become less responsible for their own lives and more dependent on the government (which also doesn't make sense because I am for the reduction of federal power). You need to explain that, too.
Solution is "not to have to big to fall", instead of "not letting them fall" because at least banking sector is very vulnerable to loosing of confidence - people have their money in banks only on base of confidence they will get them out with interest rate.
Balancing cost with quality.
And the same human nature that creates nanny state drives people to get the biggest chunk from nanny, ie. making everything as expensive as possible.
Incorrect. I criticize your views as they are and I criticize you for your lack of arguments. I didn't criticize you for your views. You're once more doing the "if you aren't in agreement with me, you are against me" trick.
I didn't have to, nor do I have to. I only came in the thread to point out why a romantic statement you made was not so true. Why must everything and everyone be quantified and labelled?
The cover-all excuse of blaming "the limits of human nature" can be used for such a wide variety of things and in most cases it directly contradicts the personal responsibility credo. So, make your mind up - what's it going to be: 100% personal responsibility or some unknown limit of human nature?
Divisions - not diversions. Right vs left, liberal vs conservative. Those are divisions. All of them artificial and ultimately inconsequential.
I did not say your ideology is rigid - it might very well be, but I am not examining that. I said that you maintain a rigid belief in the fact that it is good while all other else is not.
See - again you go for the "if you aren't with me, you are against me" card.
I did not say you "is part of an ideology that has caused people" - I said that your mentality (!= ideology) is such that empowers the State. Polarization of a society simply makes it weaker and easier to manipulate. The fact that you immediately try to quantify what I write into a given ideology (see "your ideology of powerlessness") which you inadvertently created in your mind as an opposing one to your own proves that you have such a mentality.
@AndRand
Only because we have made it easier to take from the government than to provide for ourselves. Society as a whole has forgotten what it means to depend on no one but yourself or others who have the means to be charitable by choice.
@xaotic
"I only came in this tread to tell you you're an idiot"
^^ If you just came into this discussion to tell me I'm wrong without backing it up with why you think you're right then you don't really want a discussion after all. All I can say is I read your posts and they were duly noted.
Only because we have made it easier to take from the government than to provide for ourselves. Society as a whole has forgotten what it means to depend on no one but yourself or others who have the means to be charitable by choice.
@xaotic
"I only came in this tread to tell you you're an idiot"
^^ If you just came into this discussion to tell me I'm wrong without backing it up with why you think you're right then you don't really want a discussion after all. All I can say is I read your posts and they were duly noted.
I find lfs fourm alot more informative when it comes to news and i hate to go googling "London Riots" just to get information and scrolling through a million different news sources.
So if we could kindly go back on topic...
So if we could kindly go back on topic...
London/UK Riots
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