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Old 02-10-2019, 09:01 PM
 
6,326 posts, read 6,566,374 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EDS_ View Post
You are locked into a hard left mindset that has clearly blinded you to reality. "Wage slavery" what a joke.

If your wages are lower than you'd like learn a new skill or earn more knowledge through schooling or take a risk.

You are free to live an incomplete life denying personal responsibility for your failings by selling the notion you are being ripped off or you can change your lot.
Sure, a Roman slave could get freedom and slaves of his own if he lived it up and played his cards right with some luck but Rome remained just as nasty place to be whether a slave capitalized on all those opportunities Rome provided or not. Why do you think that moving up a parasitic ladder that discounts lives of "lesser" beings is some sort of existential reward that automatically would blind me to the surrounding coercion and parasitism? Whether I move up or down the ladder Econ 101 world would remain a pathetic miserable repressed place to be. Only lobotomy.
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Old 02-10-2019, 09:15 PM
 
10,500 posts, read 6,983,845 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RememberMee View Post
Sure, a Roman slave could get freedom and slaves of his own if he lived it up and played his cards right with some luck but Rome remained just as nasty place to be whether a slave capitalized on all those opportunities Rome provided or not. Why do you think that moving up a parasitic ladder that discounts lives of "lesser" beings is some sort of existential reward that automatically would blind me to the surrounding coercion and parasitism? Whether I move up or down the ladder Econ 101 world would remain a pathetic miserable repressed place to be. Only lobotomy.

What in God's name are you even babbling about? In a sense, you've managed to capture the entire incoherence of people who want this. It's not about whether it makes sense or not. It's not even about whether or not it's fair. Jeff Bezos? Earned it. Bill Gates? Earned it. Warren Buffett? Earned it. Larry Ellison? Earned it. The list goes on and on and on. But you think people who have made this kind of money have somehow not earned it--and likely resent that you haven't made it because your genius has either gone unrecognized or hasn't been compensated fairly. And so, by gum, you want to revenge yourself by taking it away from them.

Heck, even the bete noire of people who think like you, hedge fund owners, have to perform with returns on investment or they don't last very long. But none of that really affects the worldview of those who want to essentially confiscate the wealth of others. It's all about taking money from people who they deem undeserving.
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Old 02-10-2019, 09:35 PM
 
6,326 posts, read 6,566,374 times
Reputation: 7457
Quote:
Originally Posted by MinivanDriver View Post
What in God's name are you even babbling about? In a sense, you've managed to capture the entire incoherence of people who want this. It's not about whether it makes sense or not. It's not even about whether or not it's fair. Jeff Bezos? Earned it. Bill Gates? Earned it. Warren Buffett? Earned it. Larry Ellison? Earned it. The list goes on and on and on. But you think people who have made this kind of money have somehow not earned it--and likely resent that you haven't made it because your genius has either gone unrecognized or hasn't been compensated fairly. And so, by gum, you want to revenge yourself by taking it away from them.

Heck, even the bete noire of people who think like you, hedge fund owners, have to perform with returns on investment or they don't last very long. But none of that really affects the worldview of those who want to essentially confiscate the wealth of others. It's all about taking money from people who they deem undeserving.
Earned, hmm, so you think Roman slave owners did not earn it in the same way? You were born a slave who takes this crap to be as the only possible, the only natural and the only fair. Take institutionalized coercion and denial of survival means away and those riches would be decimated. Ok, you are many many generations removed from the origins of those "earnings". But some places go through that crap right now. Brazil, for example, where Brazilian earners must remove or exterminate the Indians who do not see the light of slaving in the slums. Do you think your ancestors saw the light of Econ 101 without something very similar? You take it all as the only possible and the only natural state of things. You don't even think why it is possible to "earn" 100000 more than the other guy within the system you take for granted while it is absolutely impossible to achieve the same fit of success in the wild or within something remotely free and uncoercive. So it is not collective Gates and Bezos who do mega earnings, it is something else that makes those earnings possible. It is just too bad Econ 101 does not elaborate on that.

Last edited by RememberMee; 02-10-2019 at 09:59 PM..
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Old 02-10-2019, 10:06 PM
 
24,353 posts, read 26,826,712 times
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I feel like Democrats these days want to elect losers as their leaders.



"Growing up my parents were homeless, divorced, couldn't read" -CHEERS CLAPS


"I was the first person in my family to attend community college" -CHEERS CLAPS


"I spent most of my life as a janitor" -OMG HE MUST RUN THE MOST POWERFUL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD
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Old 02-10-2019, 10:15 PM
 
6,326 posts, read 6,566,374 times
Reputation: 7457
Quote:
Originally Posted by MinivanDriver View Post

Heck, even the bete noire of people who think like you, hedge fund owners, have to perform with returns on investment or they don't last very long. But none of that really affects the worldview of those who want to essentially confiscate the wealth of others. It's all about taking money from people who they deem undeserving.
The owning class wants to confiscate my time, my health, frequently my dignity and my sanity to facilitate their earnings. Don't you think those things are more valuable to me than their money? If I have nothing to offer to owning class I have no right to occupy space, I have no right to exist simple as that. That's what they call freedom nowadays - employing various strategies to make your wage slaving self attractive to the owners of means. Opting out is not an option. But none of that affects views of the guys who want to essentially confiscate the lives, health etc. of others using insane Econ 101 reasoning.
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Old 02-11-2019, 08:03 AM
 
10,500 posts, read 6,983,845 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RememberMee View Post
The owning class wants to confiscate my time, my health, frequently my dignity and my sanity to facilitate their earnings. Don't you think those things are more valuable to me than their money? If I have nothing to offer to owning class I have no right to occupy space, I have no right to exist simple as that. That's what they call freedom nowadays - employing various strategies to make your wage slaving self attractive to the owners of means. Opting out is not an option. But none of that affects views of the guys who want to essentially confiscate the lives, health etc. of others using insane Econ 101 reasoning.

Reasoning? Pshaw. There's no reasoning in that post of yours. You want freedom? It's awfully simple. Save up your money and start your own enterprise. But if you lack the initiative to do that, don't complain about the people who are paying you to show up to work and perform agreed-upon labor in exchange for that payment. That's what I did 30 years ago. Best move I ever made.
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Old 02-11-2019, 08:30 AM
 
6,326 posts, read 6,566,374 times
Reputation: 7457
Quote:
Originally Posted by MinivanDriver View Post
Reasoning? Pshaw. There's no reasoning in that post of yours. You want freedom? It's awfully simple. Save up your money and start your own enterprise. But if you lack the initiative to do that, don't complain about the people who are paying you to show up to work and perform agreed-upon labor in exchange for that payment. That's what I did 30 years ago. Best move I ever made.
It is awfully simple only if we are to accept that there are only two possibilities in the master-slave scheme of things and we are never to discuss how we got to the point where we have just those two amazing choices. Sorry. Some people can concentrate their attention on an individual trough of swill and some can't. I am glad you are satisfied with the size of your trough but you are still a cattle at the farm you do not run.

My reasoning is very straightforward. Just think what truly gives value to your income. Money is just an abstraction for something more fundamental.

Last edited by RememberMee; 02-11-2019 at 08:41 AM..
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Old 02-11-2019, 09:14 AM
 
10,500 posts, read 6,983,845 times
Reputation: 32334
Quote:
Originally Posted by RememberMee View Post
It is awfully simple only if we are to accept that there are only two possibilities in the master-slave scheme of things and we are never to discuss how we got to the point where we have just those two amazing choices. Sorry. Some people can concentrate their attention on an individual trough of swill and some can't. I am glad you are satisfied with the size of your trough but you are still a cattle at the farm you do not run.

My reasoning is very straightforward. Just think what truly gives value to your income. Money is just an abstraction for something more fundamental.

In other words, you cannot actually deign to work for anyone, or do so grudgingly. Instead, you need to rail against the notion that you have to actually do anything to earn money.
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Old 02-11-2019, 09:30 AM
 
6,326 posts, read 6,566,374 times
Reputation: 7457
Quote:
Originally Posted by MinivanDriver View Post
In other words, you cannot actually deign to work for anyone, or do so grudgingly. Instead, you need to rail against the notion that you have to actually do anything to earn money.
"Earning" is another term people do not spend much time thinking about. Why should you "earn" anything from anybody, how did they get the things you must "earn" from them, why, since when, why them and so on. Non coercive economy is all about voluntary exchange by free people. The concept of "earning" implies something else, especially if you must "earn" to live.
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Old 02-11-2019, 09:44 AM
 
10,500 posts, read 6,983,845 times
Reputation: 32334
Quote:
Originally Posted by RememberMee View Post
"Earning" is another term people do not spend much time thinking about. Why should you "earn" anything from anybody, how did they get the things you must "earn" from them, why, since when, why them and so on. Non coercive economy is all about voluntary exchange by free people. The concept of "earning" implies something else, especially if you must "earn" to live.

My, my, the first rule of holes is to stop digging when you're in one.

First thing's first. 'Earn' doesn't make you a supplicant. The term you're searching for in that situation is 'begging.' Instead, 'earn' is something you get through your merit and labor. Hell, even a busker with a saxophone on a busy street corner earns whatever cash is tossed his way. And your wage-slave notion is a laughable one, chiefly because you as an employee can leave any job at any time. Last time I checked, it's pretty much a seller's market when it comes to the world of employment.

There are no manacles in your office. You are not chained to your desk or your machine. Instead, you pretty much choose the nature and conditions of your employment by your skill level, your work habits, and your overall marketability. If you are working in a crappy job and getting a crappy paycheck, that only means that you are a crappy employee who lacks the initiative to better your lot in life. I mean, hey, if you are that indignant about getting a paycheck from The Man, then you are absolutely free to take your cash and head to the Alaskan wilderness with an axe, a shotgun, and various other sundries. Knock yourself out. But if you can't hack it on the job, don't blame the boss.

So let's hear your grandiose theory. How exactly does this glorified barter system work? What exactly do you have or produce that has value to, say, a car dealer? I can hear it now. "Yes, I'd like this nice Ford Focus. I will not pay you in filthy lucre, but rather in these wonderful short stories I banged out this week." Or maybe you can offer to mow the guy's lawn. Or pay him in chickens. Yeah. That'll work.

Last edited by MinivanDriver; 02-11-2019 at 10:10 AM..
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