Is it a crime to amass a lot of riches?

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by haribol, Apr 24, 2012.

  1. hiimjered

    hiimjered Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So, in the end you respect choice as long as people choose to do what you approve of.
     
  2. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    This is a random reply. I don't approve of stupidity, but I respect the person's decision to indulge in it. In contrast, the right wingers on here have been demanding restricted choice. Authoritarianism for you!
     
  3. constructionguy

    constructionguy New Member

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    Well now, I for one would like an example of this so called right wing mantra to limit choice.
     
  4. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    We've already seen an example, where the negative effects of inequality of opportunity for choice are ignored.
     
  5. constructionguy

    constructionguy New Member

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    Maybe I should have explained myself better, but seeing as your an educated man, I assumed the need wasn't there.

    Ok then, a specific example is needed instead of theoretic B.S.
     
  6. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Inequality of opportunity is theoretic BS? (Note, for example, the lack of social mobility and the well documented underclass). Sorry, you're wasting my time.
     
  7. KSigMason

    KSigMason Banned at Members Request Past Donor

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    People should read up on Nozick and Libertarianism. Interesting pieces on wealth and estate which would also keep untainted individual liberty not some fake notion of "social justice".
     
  8. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You should read up on the empirical evidence that links social justice with entrepreneurship. Some practical knowledge over egalitarianism would be handy!
     
  9. SiliconMagician

    SiliconMagician Banned

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    "Greed..Greed..greed"

    All this whining and crying and belly aching and heart bleeding. As if society has ever been any different. As if at one time man somehow was in a state of perfection and all we have to do is force some mythical "elite" to give up what they have to the commune and everyone can be happy. What BS.

    I'm probabl one of the poorest mfers on this forum and I'm happier than most of the people here becuase I'm not wrapped up in this game. I'm an individual who provides for his own individual needs and lives within his means and I don't need anything from anyone. I don't expect a rich man to give up a dime other than the bare minimum necessary to sustain a basic infrastructure and the means to defend that infrastructure from hostile forces.

    Why shouldn't those who come up with the big ideas, the new technologies that improve our basic lives not be rewarded with huge sums of money for their ideas? Are those sums of money not given voluntarily? Why do fools expect to pay X amount of dollars for a product and then expect the Government to forcefully take a percentage of that amount and redistribute it back to the population?

    If you don't want the rich to have anymore money don't (*)(*)(*)(*)ing buy their (*)(*)(*)(*). Live a spartan life of minimalism.

    If you give your money to rich man in exchange for a product, you've received your reward. The product in your hand is the reward. You have no right to expect anything else. If don't want the rich man to get richer, don't buy a (*)(*)(*)(*)ing product you never really needed.

    The frigging poor ass naked native in Africa is probably happier than most of America's middle class.

    When I see the Chinese, the Africans, hell even the Muslims in the middle east I see societies to admire. Tough societies. Societies inured to hardship. Who expect to see it and welcome it as a normal part of the cycle of life. Dog eat dog.

    Whiners all. Make me sick. Weak and pathetic. All of Western Civilization deserves to fall into apocalyptics waste, because the people who live in that society are decadent, fat and weakened to the point they no longer deserve the high quality of life that they have.
     
  10. JohnConstantine

    JohnConstantine Active Member

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    What a gross assumption. :)

    Technologies are completely different to the games people play with "financial products." How many money men have been rewarded for absolute failures? That's what people are pissed off about... and rightly so. Apple deserves its rewards... these guys do not - "The CEOs of 10 Wall Street firms that either failed or received taxpayer bailouts were paid an average of $28.9 million per year in the years leading up to the Wall Street meltdown, according to a Public Citizen report. Their average pay this decade, calculated through 2007, equaled 575 times the median American family’s 2007 income."
     
  11. constructionguy

    constructionguy New Member

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    Wasting time it appears is what you constantly do.
    Lack of social mobility for example is not a right wing conspiracy given the left seems to think the more on food stamps, the better. Everyone has a choice in life that will dictate their social mobility. Equality....yeah, never happened in history and never will in the future. Your idea of equality is to keep everyone equally miserable while limiting the wealth to a select few. That thought process may work overseas or in the halls of higher learning, but not on the ground in this country anyway.

    Still waiting for a specific example instead of generalizations btw.
     
  12. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    This is just vacuous humph. The US has low social mobility compared to countries with greater safety nets. It apes the class ridden Brits. One could wonder why they bothered with the revolution!
     
  13. SiliconMagician

    SiliconMagician Banned

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    And we've explained time and time and time again but liberals and others don't seem to get it.

    The US Government does not have a legal right to come in and force a break in a legally binding private contract.

    One of the first thing Geithner did when Obama took office was fly to NYC with the best lawyers Government money could buy and TRIED to prevent the bonuses and salaries from being paid. But the Government lawyers after pouring through every single clause soon realized that there was no way in in hell the Government could legally deny these CEO's their pay! Do you understand now? Contract Law is not at the whims of the Government!!!

    If the Government had tried to force these contracts to be broken, the CEO's could've sued and hands down would've won because the US Government has no legal right to interfere in a legally binding private contract!

    This would be like Government deciding one day that the NY Yankees has too much money that gives them an unfair advantage over the rest of the league and therefore tries to step in to force the Yankees to cap the salaries of their star players in violation of that player's contract.

    The US Government is not allowed to do (*)(*)(*)(*) like that under our Constitution. DUH!!!
     
  14. JohnConstantine

    JohnConstantine Active Member

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    Don't go "Duh" at me please... you're being very silly. And from now on I'm not a "liberal" or anything for that matter I won't be boxed in like that. Look, the financial crash brought into the light the criminal activity perpetrated, and permeated throughout the world of financial firms to which the government was complicit. I have said time and time again... to people (I won't define you as a person by your political views) that it is no coincidence that America went from strength to strength since the depression and began a long walk down financial suicide lane when Reagan - influenced by our prime-minister at the time Thatcher - entered an age of deregulation, to which Greenspan and co defended for decades... and to which Greenspan and co have admitted was a massive mistake.

    You cannot defend these people, unless you are a fool, it is not like they were not warned.
     

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