Shame on the Rich - psych tests show the 1%s tend to cheat more than the 99%s

[marcopolo]

Originally Posted by GregW

...................
The 1% work every day in every way to extort as much profit as possible by rigging their game for everyone else. That is not so difficult to see. Just look at the results.

The results of the efforts of the 1% in Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, and IBM helped make us all immensely more productive and wealthier. The results of the 1% in the oil companies let me drive anywhere in this great land and buy a gallon of gas when I need it--they help me get around. The 1% in the great farm machinery companies help the farmers grow the food for my family.

Some fraction of the 1% is as you describe. The history of American progress in wealth and income shows that the vast majority seeks to prosper by being of value to the rest of society, which votes with their dollars. The positive contributions of Bill Gates in helping to lift millions out of poverty around the globe, and improve the life of billions, made him more valuable to the rest of the world than a thousand Mother Teresas. And that's BEFORE he went into the philanthropy business.

I worked my way into the 3% (income, not wealth) by being of value to my customers. The only way for me to get into the 1% is to figure out how to be of even more value to more people. If I started taking advantage of people, a thousand competitors would be ready to receive my customers, who would flee.

[earthlyfather]

The original OP, not you. Don't be so sensitive.

We all have stories, trial, tribulations, successes and failures. In the end, we are all responsible for ourselves. Evertime I feel like blaming someone, I just look in the mirror. Personally, I'm fine with the results.

Originally Posted by GregW

Are you referring to me? I have been through one shooting war and forty years of work. I am not whining. I am pointing out how things work as opposed to how things are claimed to work.

The 1% work every day in every way to extort as much profit as possible by rigging their game for everyone else. That is not so difficult to see. Just look at the results.

[Woof]

Originally Posted by marcopolo

......The positive contributions of Bill Gates in helping to lift millions out of poverty around the globe, and improve the life of billions, made him more valuable to the rest of the world than a thousand Mother Teresas. .....

This is absolutely true in my opinion. Gates is a fantastic person, especially working through his Foundation. If more billionaires were like him instead of pouring their wealth into buying bigger and more luxurious yachts, this would be a much better world.

However the point of research is not about isolated anecdotal cases, it's about general statistical tendencies and probabilities.

[SourD]

Originally Posted by Woof

This is absolutely true in my opinion. Gates is a fantastic person, especially working through his Foundation. If more billionaires were like him instead of pouring their wealth into buying bigger and more luxurious yachts, this would be a much better world.

However the point of research is not about isolated anecdotal cases, it's about general tendencies and probabilities.

The entire thing was designed to get the results they wanted and it was is no way, shape or form a "scientific" study. It was pure bias and laden with opinion. Let me ask you something, have you ever seen a hoodlum from the ghetto or a welfare queen driving an Escalade, Mercedes or BMW? How about the same people dress in nice clothes? I have seen it over and over again. So judging someone's wealth by the type of clothes they wear or type of car they drive is disingenuous at best.

[Woof]

I don't believe the study was about judging a person's wealth by the type of clothes they wear, SourD.

The conclusions of the study:

Piff says the study may shed light on the hotly debated topic of income inequality. "Our findings suggest that if the pursuit of self-interest goes unchecked, it may result in a vicious cycle: self-interest leads people to behave unethically, which raises their status, which leads to more unethical behavior and inequality."

"It's a great study," says sociologist Adam Galinsky of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who has shown that those with power are more apt to condemn behavior that they themselves engage in. He says that the findings of Piff and colleagues may tap into something more fundamental than class—namely, power. "Unequal power can exist between social classes but also between an employee and boss, a wife and a husband, or two people in a negotiation."

[texdav]

Now this is funny thread. I guess its the same people who say that conservatives are less intelligent. Then that they are the smartest guys in the room and greedy not to share. I gues some just always have envy and a excuse why they aren't amoung the real elite. I am not but don't Con myslef which is one of the worse things a perosn can personally do to themselves;IMO.

[Mathguy]

Originally Posted by GregW

By rigging the mortgage market and maintaining a monopoly control of oil prices for starters. If you haven't notices the 99% of us subject to this fraud are not all poor. We are just not super rich enough to play by their rules.

Come on greg....pick up an economics book and tell us what currency devaluation does to the price of imports. Seriously, I know you are wayyyyy smarter than this and just ranting.

Oh, and what happened to all those powerful monopolies on oil in recent times? Oh yeah....they were going belly up and having to merger.

[BucsLose]

Lefties rail on and on and on and on about the rich.....

Let me know when the next over paid liberal in hollywood/media gives away even half their wealth. Heck, let me know when they stop becoming hypocrites.

[Woof]

Sigh ..... the study doesn't really pit liberals against conservatives (though indirectly and very generally it probably comes down to that, just in my opinion). In fact it was mentioned that Prius drivers (generally liberals concerned about the environment) behaved unethically also, plowing through crosswalks at a high rate.

........In an interesting twist, about one-third of Prius drivers broke crosswalk laws, putting the hybrid among the highest "unethical driving" car brands. "This is a good demonstration of the 'moral licensing' phenomenon, in which hybrid-car drivers who believe they're saving the Earth may feel entitled to behave unethically in other ways," Piff says.......