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If we need a government then they can sell bonds and stuff like that.
The problem with privatizing is accountability. As long as stuff is public, at least the people can hold politicians accountable. But once privatized, profits become a goal and the whole thing goes down the drain. The Brits are already regretting their privatization spree under Thatcher.
The problem with privatizing is accountability. As long as stuff is public, at least the people can hold politicians accountable. But once privatized, profits become a goal and the whole thing goes down the drain. The Brits are already regretting their privatization spree under Thatcher.
Making th profit IS accountability.
If a company can't sell their product then they can't stay in business. The consumer holds them directly accountable. Today.
Not 4 years from now.
If you think politicians are accountable to voters then there is no reason to talk with you. Our
thinking is so divorced from each other (thank God) that there is no hope.
Also, I can hold a company accountable by not doing business with them. That is personal accountabilty and is my choice.
I can't hold a politician accountable unless millions other agree with me. That's no personal accountability.
Have you ever read George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty - or any of his books which preceded it?
Gilder says there is a 'single male subculture' which undercuts values and which dominates the underclass. Yes, Gilder comes across to modern readers as incredibly sexist (he viewed single men as somewhat akin to Neanderthals, and who are in need of women and marriage to civilize them), but he called them like he saw them, and he is very much the opposite of a modern liberal.
Gilder wrote that men with less money than the mainstream women of his society are at severe social disadvantage - so much for our poor not really being poor - and vulnerable to the single male uncivilized subculture, which permeates the underclass.
They also don't donate to campaigns, write letters to the editor etc...
They are politcally insignificant.
but many conservatives will tell you that many other people have a vested interest in raising the minimum wage; e.g. many union contracts tie wages to some multiple of the minimum wage, hence a min wage increase means higher wages for many union workers.
Exactly! The amount of wealth other people have is not important to me. If I'm comfortable with what I have, I don't care if Gates and Soros have 100 trillion dollars.
The income or wealth gap is a useless number. The real challenge is creating an environment where people can achieve their best. Ending Crony Capitalism and Corporate Welfare would be a good start.
and we would have far less of both if we just accepted the fact that corporate taxation was a regressive tax that overburdens the poor.
get rid of taxation on corporations, and you get rid of a lot of the reasons why corporations spend so much time and money buying politicians.
get rid of those taxes and there is no reason to give corporations welfare.
we wont get that either.
what we WILL do is argue over how much is too much and if we as individuals get to decide what other people "deserve" from the profits of their labor and/or their ideas.
one thing that we have to understand is that wealth generation is matter of choices. the people that gain their wealth did so by making the choices and taking the chances that made them wealthy.
That is faulty assumption.
I have a doctor friend and a dentist friend, both quite wealthy. Each has two kids in their thirties who are unemployed despite having gone to pretigious colleges (actually one of those four kids may be grabbing a job at $8/hour this week).
Are these four offspring of wealth going to be making "their own wealth" at this rate, based on their own choices? I think not. They will grow older into trust funds and inheritances supplied by their parents and grandparents. As will so many young adults from well to do families. Wealth passes on wealth. They will not be left out in the cold like the millions of young adults who did not have the family wealth or educations they had - in other words, if those today from wealthy families and with great educations cannot make it, just how do you propose that the huge proportion of others are going to? This line of thinking is a line that is often used by those who have already made it. ("I earned my wealth so it follows that others can too, no excuses"). It has very little to do with socioeconomic reality.
but many conservatives will tell you that many other people have a vested interest in raising the minimum wage; e.g. many union contracts tie wages to some multiple of the minimum wage, hence a min wage increase means higher wages for many union workers.
Unions do have an interest in raising the minimum wage.
It elminates entry level jobs. That means less people (specifically black males) will acquire the skills necessary to compete in a union shop. By decreasing the labor pool they artificially raise wages for union members.
Minimum wage, poor or little education, uninvolved or economically poor parents, lack of role models, and few decent jobs keep the poor in poverty. Welfare is a symptom, not a cause.
I'll grant you there are bona fide innovators who become wealthy because they truly improved life for the larger public.
I believe say, the inventor of the philips head screw to have earned penny of his wealth.
But tons of wealth is inherited. Are you OK with a sky-high estate tax that functions as the Founding Fathers intended, which prevents wealth from passed from one generation to another? That practice is what led to serfdom in Europe, which is what led to Europeans coming here for a better way of life.
Then there's the wealth which is acquired due to unethical practices, such as the infamous Rockefeller method of lowering your prices below your cost to put your competitors out of business, then raising them when you had no competitors left- this is something the founder of capitalism, Adam Smith, precisely warned against in his oft-misquoted Wealth of Nations.
you are right, the rail barons, oil barons, and steel barons made a lot of money in the early days by swallowing up their competitors, i grant that. however laws were passed, and the courts were used to break up these monopolies. and the competition in the end was good for everyone. as for estate taxes, no i think they need to be abolished as they are taxing wealth that has already been taxed several times. it does no good to take a bunch of money that has already been taxed from the heirs, and end up forcing them to sell off much of the estates assets to pay the taxes the government wants.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chi-town Native
Bill Gates made a fortune largely off of reverse engineering other people's inventions. Windows OS? From Macintosh. Windows Explorer? Came from Netscape. Excel? From Lotus Notes. MS Word? From Wordperfect, etc.
try again. the windows os actually came from IBM, and it was IBM and gates that made a deal to develop IBMs OS2 warp. when IBM lost interest, gates took the IBM OS and ran with it, which where not only MS-DOS came from, but windows as well. and so what if gates reverse engineered the rest from others? windows explorer, as bad as it can be, is far superior to netscape, and yes i have used both. excel is actually better than lotus 123, again i have used both. so while gates reverse engineered these products, he improved them. but dont forget that just about EVERYTHING most companies use today has been reverse engineered.
take the electric starter for instance. cadillac developed it, but ford and dodge, and every other automaker at the time jumped on the band wagon and made it work for their cars as well. henry ford didnt create the first V8 engine, but he DID create the first one to use a one piece block casting, AND he made it affordable for the average person. the chevy small block that came out in 1955 was NOT created by chevrolet by the way, zora arkus duntov designed that engine, and offered it to ford, but the turned him down so he went to chevy.
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