Looters vs. Producers....

Prove that government is required in order to invest capital.

Labor is a commodity like anything other. You might as well argue that hammers are producers because some workers use them in their labors.

 

Because some other worker made that capital.

I'm answering all of your questions. I'm just not answering them within the narrow paradigm that capitalist brainwashing has left you with.

Capitalism is ultimately just a way to keep rich people from having to work. Everybody else invests work, and capitalists take profit from it. That's the literal, physical truth.

 

Why do you feel the the pay of a CEO influences in any way YOUR pay? It does not. When your CEO gets a pay cut, do you believe the next week you will see an increase in your salary?

I would also strongly caution you about what the definition of "work" means. Not all work is physical.... there are many types of jobs that are mental... or you are paid for the level of responsibility that you have.

For example... I am an engineer, I design aircraft for a living. So just for a hypothetical situation, lets say I do not show up to work, or do a single productive thing for 11 months out of the year. And on the 12th month of the year, I come up with a brand new type of engine design that can make a plane fly 20% faster, using 30% less fuel than a more conventional engine. The design is so revolutionary, that orders pour in for this new type of engine from around the world. And in less than a year... the company makes a billion dollars in profit off of my idea. Was I unproductive that year? In terms of physical labour I certainly was.... I was not there 90% of the time! By far, I put in less hours than anyone at the company. But in terms of "how did I help the companies profit" I was hugely productive! And by some peoples estimation I would be grosely underpaid that year, as my salary is not even 1% of the profit that I created for them.

So.... if your CEO was able to make your company more profit that year than last year... he is certainly doing a good job, no matter how many hours he puts in... or not. Not everyone has a job that is measured in terms of widgets/hour.

Now if you can tell me that you were able to do something for your company that made them millions of dollars this year... then I might be inclined to agree with you. Did you personally come up with a product, introduce a cost saving measure, or come up with some new way of doing something within your company to either generate, or save millions of dollars this year? Your CEO did..... and that is why he gets the salary that he does....

 

Only if hammers can swing themselves. Which I'm sure someone has invented, costing someone else a job.

As for proving that government is required to invest capital -- you can't have capital without the government to protect the property rights of capitalists. If there's a dispute over who owns what, it becomes impossible to invest capital.

 

There's the siren call of the looter who claims to be an anarchist and yet will require a state to direct the workers in his utopia and a central planning committee willing to do great violence to prop up the command economy.

The assumption that capitalists, and entrepreneurs, never produce anything is not only sometimes not true, it's always untrue. They defer consumption to investment. Without that feature, your central planning committee is going to have to put a lot of workers in gulags to keep them from consuming too much.

They also predict what people want in the future, and risk the property they own and their reputation on those predictions. How, in your anti-money command economy will you risk labor in order to produce something new that you think you might want? Will you force workers to produce those things on a hunch, especially if they don't vote your way?

Your philosophy is one of death. It's anti-human because humans are calculating beings as well as social beings. You wish to prevent a fundamental facet of human nature from being exercised, but you refuse to explain how you would do it without the police powers of the state.

 

For what you are saying here to be true, would mean that all rich people in life started out rich. If everyone invests work, and the capitalist takes profit from it, it makes the implied assumption that they are already wealthy to start.

I have looked many times at the Forbes 400. Over 70% of the people listed in there are first generation rich. Meaning that when they were born... they did NOT have the money. So..... where did the money come from.... for them to become capitalists in the first place? Were they just walking down the street one day and a bag of money fell out of the sky? Did they all win the lottery? Certainly not.... they started out in life just like you.... a worker. And they worked for someone else for a time.... saved up money of their own.... and then started their businesses.

It is really not a secret how these people did it. If you ask them they will tell you how. Many have written books on how they got there. Now if you do not want to do the things that they had to do to get there... that would be your own business. But no one is stopping you from becomming wealthy yourself, and it is not a secret how to do it. But it will take a long time.... a lot of effort... and quite a bit of hard work and sleepless nights.

Please remember that when you see "that evil rich guy" you are looking at the afterparty. What you do not see is the years and sometimes decades of hard work that went into achieving their wealth. You do not see the 60 hours week they worked when they first started. You do not see the fact that they might have risked everything they had financially to make a go of their company. You do not see the raw effort that at one point went in to what they have today.

Have you....

1. Invested your life saving into a company that may or may not be profitable in a year?
2. Worked 80 hours a week to get your company off the ground?
3. Been willing not to take a vacation, have a nice place to live, and drive a crappy car for 10 years because it all is going for the business?

That is what starting up a business is all about.

 

You keep answering the questions I am not asking you. You are afraid to actually come to a realization. This is pretty much why I can only count the number of Marxist economist on both hands. Most Marxist intentionally keep themselves ignorant. If they actually learned basic economies, they most likely wouldn't be Marxist. This is what I'm feeling from you. For whatever reason, you just want to keep your view of Employers out of hatred. Even if it means staying in the dark.

This is why I pretty much encourage anyone to run a business. It seems almost anyone can do it. The point of an economy is to eliminate jobs. People don't want to have to work. Business owners can't do everything own their own. So what do they do? They hire someone else. Without that business owner, the workers wouldn't have a job. Labour is a commodity just like any other resource.

What do the workers work with? Capital. Who provides that capital? Employers. Why? They don't do it because they have to, nor do they do it because it's expected of them. They do it because they want to. It increases the worker's productivity. Without a cash register, cashiers are keeping the money in jars and not keeping track of sales. Without the computer, file clerks are filing with type writers. Without the assembly line, cars take 20 labour hours instead of 2 labour hours. Without digging machines, workers are digging with shovels, or spoons. The employer gives workers all of these because it increases productivity, which increases the well being of the company and the consumer.

When I started my business I actually had to start thinking like business owner. It helped me out. Lucky I had a degree in Finance or else I would have never been as successful as I could have been. After that, I started learning about the business aspects of history. Learned how businesses were able to be profitable and successful. But maybe some businesses weren't meant to exist. I don't know how you run your business but it doesn't sound like it's very profitable with your attitude. For whatever reason you are afraid to make money or a profit. If you are afraid to do that when by all means you should quit. Because I know a lot of people who have trouble getting a business started with the Governments behind their (*)(*)(*)(*) backs all that time and pretty much be in your position where they can make money and still have the gall to complain about other people making money. If that is how you feel about owning a business maybe you shouldn't own a business any longer. Companies are born, companies die, capitalism moves forward.

 

Apparently, in Dave's world, the sins of the father are visited upon the son.

I admire Dave for helping people get out of debt, however, he seems to have a strong political partisan agenda when it comes to anything above personal household economics. He's a true believer in the current system, just like that other radio financial advisor, Brinker from Money Talk.

 

Profit is what those capitalists and entrepreneurs earn by correctly allocating capital such that they satisfy consumers. Daybreaker seems to think that capital allocation should occur by central committee, which has worked so well for communist dictatorships around the world. Kilgram oddly thinks that capital will be magically allocated by workers who get to vote on it.

 

Dave Ramsey is such status quo. I don't mind that he has a huge zombie like following. It's that people treat him like a God.

 

A requirement for college graduation should be a basic fundamental understanding of the price system. At least the way Karl Marx understood it.

 

Would be better if it were a requirement for high school graduation. Even those who go on to a vocation deserve to have economic enlightenment. But government schools aren't designed to transfer that sort of knowledge. It might make the populace more wary of the machinations of their legislatures.

 

Good point. College is increasingly become overpriced and undervalued anyway.

 

I would love it if life were easier!!! Being an adult is WAY harder than I thought it was going to be. I can understand why some children do not want to grow up, and live at home into their late 30's. It is tought out there....really tough.

But honestly, I really do thing there are many more opportunities out there that have never existed in past generations. There was no craigslist or internet, or email, or all of the other technologies that so many people now rely upon for cheap communication. I can still remember when calling someone who was "long distance" was sort of a big deal. I can use E-bay today to sell things, and many people have turned that into a thriving business. A generation ago, your local area was pretty much your personal limit. I can now shop for products all over the world without leaving home.... that is pretty powerfull.

Honestly.... I think in a lot of ways our lives have become too easy!!! I think our measuring stick for things like poverty has become VERY skewed. A country where people below the poverty level have TV's microwaves, and a cell phone. Those sort of luxuries would never have happened generations ago.

I really do understand your burning desire to help "everyone". However the thing that I have learned, is that ususally when you attempt to be completely fair to everyone.... you wind up being fair to no one... You have to accept the fact that in the game of life... not everyone will win. And if you try to artificially MAKE everyone win, you will wind up with larger problems for everyone than you first suspected.

Maybe you can meet me this far? Can we agree that ending poverty entirely in the US is not possible? And then claim an acceptable level percentage? Maybe 10%?


I would like to end this one with an example a professor of mine gave in college when he was teaching us how the cell phone system works. Everyone in the class was a bit surprised when the prof told us that the cell phone network is actually designed to FAIL... around 15% of the time! Seems pretty crazy right? So if everyone with a cell phone in a paticular area tries to make a phone call at the same time... around 15% will NOT get through. Why on earth would you not design a cell phone system to work 100% of the time.... are the engineers just being lazy here? The answer turns out to be... that to create a cell phone network with 100% coverage for all of the users that want to make a call, there would literally need to be cell phone towers on every street corner. Litterally millions of them to make it work. And the cost of building all of these towers would quickly make cell phone plans so expensive that no one could afford to use them any more.

So the compromise was struck at around 15%. Not a perfect system.... but good enough, and inexpensive enough... that most of the people, got mostly good service.... most of the time. With the understanding and acceptance that yes.... now and then a few people are not going to have a good experience.

I sort of look at what you are wanting in the same light as that example. Accept that 0% poverty is not possible.... and move on from there....