Debunking Narratives on "Wealth Inequality"

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Sanskrit, Dec 11, 2019.

  1. FlamingLib

    FlamingLib Well-Known Member

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    Hmmmm. I think I see a couple differences: Bill Gates will never want for money. He will never feel economic anxiety (or if he does, he should see his therapist right away). His family will never suffer from him being laid off, or downsized, or losing his job after getting hurt. Bill Gates will never have to miss a mortgage payment to cover a car payment. Bill Gates CAN pay for all his kids to go to college. Bill Gates does not also live, as I highly suspect you do (as most of us do): from paycheck to paycheck. Bill Gates cannot be bankrupted by medical expenses. Bill Gates never has to work a day in his life again. Bill Gates does not have to choose between the family vacation and a two-year old Hyundai after the engine in his Malibu melts. And on and on.

    Having money helps. It always does. It doesn't make you happy, but it prevents catastrophes from happening that would make you VERY unhappy.
     
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  2. roorooroo

    roorooroo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And there you have it....

    Simply by being born, a person "deserves" cigarettes, booze, and dope.

    WOW!
     
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  3. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    Are stock owning ten percenters worse, better, or equals of ten percenters who own no stock?
     
  4. roorooroo

    roorooroo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Why do you suspect that I live from paycheck to paycheck?

    Perhaps in the first two years of adulthood I did, but as I gained skills and proved my value, it didn't take long to pay off the real estate, the vehicles, make investments, and become very comfortable.

    Do you really live paycheck to paycheck? Can I ask how old you are? Do you need any advice on how to promote yourself, make yourself valuable, and move beyond "paycheck to paycheck"? What career path are you on? Seriously, if a dumbazz like me can get there, a smart guy like you can too.
     
  5. FlamingLib

    FlamingLib Well-Known Member

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    At 4:23, they use a source from 1993, because of course. It's the Heartland Institute. But lets pretend their numbers are relevant.
    Narrator: Only 2.6% of poor children under five are malnoursied! We should be dancing in the streets!
    Me: In a country with the richest people and the biggest military in the world, WHY ARE THERE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF MALNOURISHED CHILDREN? WHY ISN'T THAT NUMBER A LOT LOWER? LIKE ZERO?

    Anyway, that's just me.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2019
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  6. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    $60,000? Geez. If a family was serious about financial security, they could pretty easily put $20,000 a year in the market on a $60,000 income. Delayed gratification is a thing, but a very rarely employed thing.
     
  7. FlamingLib

    FlamingLib Well-Known Member

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    Yes, I have no problem with my tax dollars going to SNAP even KNOWING they're going to blow some of it on cigarettes, booze, and dope, because their lives are such godawful depressing messes.

    I'm OK with this because I have empathy, and a realistic view of the world, having taught poor kids for twenty years now. I know, for example, that people aren't robots who will deprive themselves of all pleasures. And I also know that expecting them to act like passionless robots with their SNAP money creates resentment, because you're expecting them to do the impossible, and they fail at this impossible task, and you resent them for it. It's better to have a realistic view of people, instead of the caricature you've invented: the ultra-rational poor person who goes around in sackcloth, eats nothing but ramen, and happily stares at the blank wall where his TV used to be.
     
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  8. Thehumankind

    Thehumankind Well-Known Member

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    How these relates to my quality of living?
     
  9. Sanskrit

    Sanskrit Well-Known Member

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    I'm going to do what you and yours always do, it's a bit fallacious, but eh, live by the sword and all...

    Bill Gates created 10,000 millionaires (MSFT employees) out of -no-thing-. That's very old data, it's probably >20,000 now. Bill Gates "bravadoed" DOS into existence that I used in the 80s to allow the company I worked for at the time to employ 3 more people. That was PRE Windows. Bill Gates is giving his wealth away in well-documented ways, LW approved ways, as fast as he possibly can, most people who achieve that level of wealth do that. Bill Gates' Windows, Excel, Word and all the other apps have made my working life SO MUCH BETTER. I would be DEAD today if I'd not had Word to get me through the horrific experience of 100 hour weeks in a Wall Street law firm in the early century.

    Bill Gates' politics are childish and ignorant to me. But OTOH, Bill Gates is objectively a better person than I am because of all the real, concrete wealth he has created and bestowed on... literally the whole of humanity. I freely acknowledge that. My meager contributions to the well-being of humanity? Miniscule in comparison to Bill Gates. As much as I disdain the man's politics, I'd rather have -him- control the wealth -he- created than...

    ... any number of Joe/Hunter Bidens, Pelosis, Waters, Clintons, Feinsteins, and any number of GOP thieves and liars you can postulate. Whereas I am inferior to Bill Gates, I am vastly superior to the sum total of all those creeps.

    I would rather someone who has proven themselves to be more competent and generally better than myself control vast amounts of wealth... merely on the -chance- that they may further innovate and improve things for us all, and DESPITE that I abhor their politics... than to give $1 to politicians, book dealers, speaking fee fraudsters, foundation hucksters, grant grifters, gov contract hoaxsters, public union bent-noses, MSM talking heads.

    Is that wrong?
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2019
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  10. BigSteve

    BigSteve Banned

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    Maybe if they're living in Casper, Wyoming or Dunnellon, Florida.

    If they're living in San Diego, New York or San Francisco they're likely just scraping by on $60K a year.

    I do very well, and I'm probably what most people here would consider "wealthy" or "rich".

    The only people who are entitled to my money are the people I decide are entitled to it...
     
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  11. Blaster3

    Blaster3 Well-Known Member

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    welp, here in the great blue state of ny, one need earn less than $23,000/year per household to be considered poverty level to get medicaid...
     
  12. FlamingLib

    FlamingLib Well-Known Member

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    I suspected you do because you're an "average sap" and 80% of the country lives paycheck-to-paycheck. Odds are that included you. I wasn't including me in that "us". Just most of the other members here. I was lucky. I had parents who gave me a car and paid for college. I wandered into a good career (teaching) just as the pay was starting to take off, and inherited a tidy sum (and an extensive gun collection from an uncle I was close to). My paycheck-to-paycheck days ended awhile back, but I certainly remember the feeling of economic anxiety. And I know how privileged my position is.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2019
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  13. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    Good for you. I’m happy for you and I agree what’s yours is yours.

    If someone is serious about financial security and has the ability to make $60K and no more, and is living in San Diego or NYC, they aren’t serious about financial security. They have other priorities. Which is fine. But they forfeit their right to moan about their financial or socio/economic situation.
     
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  14. roorooroo

    roorooroo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Actually, THEY resent ME for not wanting to give more of my hard-earned money to them. If they get money from the taxpayer, they damn well need to be responsible with it and do whatever they can to get off the dole. Once they are earning their own way, they can buy all the dope they want.

    I know you won't believe it, but I have never spent a dime on, or used, booze, cigarettes, or dope. I've always had better things to do. And imagine the money I saved in 40 years of adulthood. You can consider that I invested that money in the market - and those investments have paid off nicely. It isn't hard to do. Again, if a dumbazz like me can do it, you can too. And so can they.
     
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  15. FlamingLib

    FlamingLib Well-Known Member

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    You are not inferior to ANYONE. Why would you think that? Because Gates made more money he's better than you? No, he's not. He's better than you at making money. That doesn't make him a better person. You both have the same intrinsic value by virtue of being persons. You start sorting peoples' value by wealth or power or influence, and you are going down a very dark path.

    God, I hate this society. I really do.
     
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  16. roorooroo

    roorooroo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I am an average sap who years ago decided that wasting money on wasteful things that depreciate is idiocy. And that is how average saps very quickly get out of the paycheck to paycheck trap.

    Since you are doing well, and you have all this "empathy," I suggest that you give, say, 75% of your earnings to the poor. Just don't include me in that. If you have this "empathy," but yet you won't give more unless we are all forced to do it by government, well, that is not empathy at all. "I won't do it unless you do it too" is NOT compassion.
     
  17. FlamingLib

    FlamingLib Well-Known Member

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    Oh, there are people who can do what you're describing. That's not my point. A few people have iron wills. That's my point. The vast majority do not. The vast majority are going to spend some of the money you give them in food aid on stupid things that make them feel better. That's just how people are, and expecting them to be other than that creates the resentment. And I've never met a person in this world who didn't have some addiction: food, sex, tv, shopping, gambling, Facebook, drugs, Twitter, work, gaming, etc. When you realize everyone's got mental hang-ups (esp. the people who deny having any) it's a lot easier to forgive people for spending a little of their SNAP money on frivolities.
     
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  18. Blaster3

    Blaster3 Well-Known Member

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    don't fret just yet...

    the minimum wage increases will prevent the poorer from having healthcare...

    employers don't need to provide it for employees with less than 20 hours/week ergo they don't allow them to work more hours , the state (gov) has maximum household earnings for the freebie aca/medicaid... household means everyone living within the house and their combined wages, even if just one wage earner with multiple jobs...

    take ny state, freebie healthcare is for households earning less than $23k/yr, minimum wage just increased (jan 2020) to a point that puts most households (with a wage earner) over the threshold, ergo no freebies...

    careful what you wish for... more dollars equal less benefits, lol
     
  19. Sanskrit

    Sanskrit Well-Known Member

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    1. If you recall from the video, it was malnourished as in "stunted." Just like 0 unemployment can't be reached, neither can 0 defectives. Take that up with Darwin. Even totalitarians like the Spartans and Hitler couldn't get that number to zero, and we allow people to buy soda and chips on food stamps, so...
    2. Dig up LBJ and the other architects of the Great Society, ask them that. If the welfare state hasn't worked by now?
    3. I'm glad that you agree with my claim in the OP that the definition of "wealth" either personal or societal, should include intangible factors such as well-being of oneself, family, friends and community. Social problems will always exist. More government won't fix them, and forwarding inflammatory propaganda narratives on "wealth inequality" that don't accurately define wealth certainly won't. I bet you think people like me -want- the unfortunate members of society to starve and become malnourished. We don't. What we want most is an end to central government graft under the guise of fixing social issues that somehow never get fixed.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2019
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  20. roorooroo

    roorooroo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Expecting me to pay for booze-dope-cigarettes for others is what creates resentment. Surely you can understand that if I don't do that stuff, I shouldn't be forced to pay for others to do those wasteful things? I'm all for giving them a sack of taters and some cheese, and a ham on occasion. Beggars should not be choosers.
     
  21. FlamingLib

    FlamingLib Well-Known Member

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    Which, ironically, would make me poor. So why don't I give it all away? I'm selfish, obviously. But here's where we differ: I vote for programs that help the poor. Always. I don't care if it makes my taxes go up a quarter of a percent. If we universalized your principles, the poor would get nothing (or be monitored like something out of 1984). If we universalized mine, the poor would get a chunk of the billionaire slice of pie and not be so poor, and the billionaires would not be so rich.
     
  22. Sanskrit

    Sanskrit Well-Known Member

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    Sorry, I'm not from the trophy for all feelz generation. There are indeed people who are objectively better than me at being human and contributing to humanity. Dollars are an abstract measure of service to one's fellow man. Michael Jordan is better than me in that regard, and his politics suck too. None of my betters are on instagram, so there are MANY I'm FAR better than :) My betters are innovators, I am a functionary who serves them, and am content in that role of service. Don't worry, anyone who has read my posts knows my ego and sense of self-worth are -plenty- healthy.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2019
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  23. FlamingLib

    FlamingLib Well-Known Member

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    Fair enough. You have revealed you have a mindset that ties the worth of a person to how much wealth/power/influence they have, so your attitudes about aid to the poor are what I would expect. But assigning people value like that, you're going down a moral black hole.
     
  24. roorooroo

    roorooroo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So voluntarily contribute your 1/4% extra and leave me alone.

    With your way, we would end up with an ever-escalating increase in the number of "poor" who are comfortable living on the dole while contributing nothing whatsoever to society except an ever-increasing burden. Subsidizing a behavior always creates an increase in that behavior.

    Living on the dole should be difficult and embarrassing - hopefully so difficult that they would make the decision to better their lives and become productive citizens.
     
  25. roorooroo

    roorooroo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    A moral black hole would be an authoritarian forcing someone to subsidize a drug user's terrible decisions.

    Honestly, you advocate that people should be FORCED to give their earnings to the poor. I advocate that people should HAVE THE CHOICE to give their earnings to the poor. Which is more moral, authoritarianism, or freedom?
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2019
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