Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I don't think greed is the only and certainly not the best incentive for innovation.
I am very lucky. I worked hard, but mostly I just happened to find a job that I am a good fit for and things went well for the company. I am no more deserving of good medical care than the homeless. Migrant farm workers should be able to offer the same educational opportunities to their children as I can offer mine. That's how I feel about it anyway.
You're assuming that "greed" drives innovation. Not necessarily. Innovation is driven by wanting to create, to start the next big thing, to revolutionize an industry, etc. It involves taking risks. With those risks, comes rewards. Think Steve Jobs. I'm not an Apple fan, but I recognize he drove the innovation for the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. He got rich from his efforts. Greed didn't inspire him but wealth was a natural outcome of his efforts.
The homeless can get medical care. There are free clinics that offer free medical care. The homeless can sign up for Medicaid.
Migrant farm workers can send their children to public school. Those children can go to college just like anyone else.
OP, do you personally know any poor or low income people?
You keep ignoring that my assertions are based on what is in place in the Nordic countries right now and has been for a while.
I know you were speaking to a different poster, but to try and compare a form of socialism those tiny "Nordic" countries have with a massive economy like our alone makes it absurd.
It of course does not take into account that those countries typically have a unified culture, work ethic, race, etc., etc.
What works on a micro scale elsewhere will not translate to a macro scale here.
OP, do you personally know any poor or low income people?
Yes. Mostly from volunteer work but also some extended family and a couple of old friends who had rough patches. The homeless people I have met I really can't claim to "know".
I know you were speaking to a different poster, but to try and compare a form of socialism those tiny "Nordic" countries have with a massive economy like our alone makes it absurd.
It of course does not take into account that those countries typically have a unified culture, work ethic, race, etc., etc.
What works on a micro scale elsewhere will not translate to a macro scale here.
Germany, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries have more than 125 million people. They seem to be doing just fine with universal health care, high taxes on the wealthiest and tuition free public higher education. And they have a much higher immigration rate from developing countries than the US, btw.
You need to go check your numbers. You "only" need to gross around 230k to be at the bottom of the top 3% of wage earners. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hous..._United_States
So how do you know this? You don't. You just post what you think and pretend it's fact. I only posted that because another clueless poster accused me of wanting socialism because I couldn't do well financially without it. It isn't sour grapes. I am not jealous of others and trying to take their money. That was the point of posting that.
I'm glad you only threw that out there as you are putting yourself in the league of these people and those above them. Millionaires
Do you truly believe a quarter of a million puts you in the global top 3% category? This thread can't stop at nationally as we live in a global economy. People from around the globe are answering in these threads every day.
The 1% are unknown, unseen and want it that way. Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys built a $1B football stadium with his own money. He is flashy and lives for it. Others in his league aren't.
Can you finance a million dollar structure from your own holdings? The top 3% can and do. The top 3% own penthouses in those towering luxury hotels in Dubai and elsewhere.
I live in the DC area...Do you realize how many in the 3 percentile work for the federal government?
OP, why do you really want socialism? A family is a socialist entity, parents produce for the good of the collective, while the children consume without producing anything. Parental love for their children, and each other, is what motivates them to produce for the family. Trying to get everyone in society to sacrifice their individual interest for the good of the everyone. Then there are some families that adult members don't want to contribute their share, example, dead beat dads. And you think it will work with a nation of people? Wake up.
Anyone who wants socialism doesn't understand human nature.
I think people who want socialism want to rise above human nature.
As I climbed the income ladder and aside from learning that government makes it harder to build wealth, I learned something else... when we are able to provide for ourselves in the now and build our wealth, human nature makes us want to help those who are struggling but not just anyone. I don't want to throw money at people who think they are entitled to it, will be in line month after month, people who won't do anything to help themselves move in the right direction. I enjoy helping people who are trying but just need that little helping hand to get them "moving in the right direction", just a little to help dig them out instead of treading water to survive. If after that, they take a dive back in the water and make wrong moves I've lost interest. I also believe in helping the elderly and the disabled, they can be such a joy and the fact that their bodies no longer function the way they wish is part of life. Help them keep dignity.
Forcing me to give to anyone just because they exist is not something I am in the least bit interested in doing. And for people to think they "deserve" what I've earned, that doesn't go over well with me at all.
Not that I disagree with everything here, but to play devil's advocate - who are you to judge those things? How do you know which people "think they're entitled" and which people are truly in need?
When we start trying to make those judgments is where the politics come into the picture.
A lot of people here have a very flawed and negative view of people and throw around words like "human nature." We have a discipline that studies humans and it's called anthropology. If you want to know something about "human nature" then you can study that.
Those people throwing around the term "human nature" actually mean "my view of people based on my accumulated prejudices." An economic system is a cultural system and a belief system. Capitalism is based on some fundamental cultural ideas - one of them is private property. Well, Native Americans lived for thousands of years without much of a notion of private property, at least not re: land, so there's one gaping hole in the 'human nature' myth.
Last edited by redguard57; 07-13-2015 at 02:29 AM..
You're assuming that "greed" drives innovation. Not necessarily. Innovation is driven by wanting to create, to start the next big thing, to revolutionize an industry, etc. It involves taking risks. With those risks, comes rewards. Think Steve Jobs. I'm not an Apple fan, but I recognize he drove the innovation for the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. He got rich from his efforts. Greed didn't inspire him but wealth was a natural outcome of his efforts.
The homeless can get medical care. There are free clinics that offer free medical care. The homeless can sign up for Medicaid.
Migrant farm workers can send their children to public school. Those children can go to college just like anyone else.
OP, do you personally know any poor or low income people?
The greed is not so much innovation. Many innovations occurred by accident as people were working on something else, ie: potato chips or penicillin.
I think where the ubridled greed comes in is from speculators and others who make money off of money and don't actually contibute anything. I don't know anyone that begrudges people making money off of something they invented or improved like Steve Jobs did by incorporating design elements into computing.
That's because all their people who were worth a dang moved to America to start businesses and build better lives. The stupid ones who don't know any better were left behind to pay 50% of their income to the tax man so that they can all be equally lame and "happy".
I'm glad you only threw that out there as you are putting yourself in the league of these people and those above them. Millionaires
Do you truly believe a quarter of a million puts you in the global top 3% category? This thread can't stop at nationally as we live in a global economy. People from around the globe are answering in these threads every day.
The 1% are unknown, unseen and want it that way. Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys built a $1B football stadium with his own money. He is flashy and lives for it. Others in his league aren't.
Can you finance a million dollar structure from your own holdings? The top 3% can and do. The top 3% own penthouses in those towering luxury hotels in Dubai and elsewhere.
I live in the DC area...Do you realize how many in the 3 percentile work for the federal government?
You are confusing wealth with income and dollars with people. I posted a link to figures that clearly show that the figures I am using are correct. I am barely in the top 3% of wage earners. Again, it was not to brag; it was because I was being accused of wanting social democracy out of greed. It would reduce my take home income. I support it out of common decency.
The link you posted speaks to the problem that results from a long history of having such a large income disparity. In the article, it says 41% of wealth is controlled by millionaires. If you subtract home equity (static wealth that doesn't really play much of a part in the economy), they control over half already. And if you scroll down to the percentages, in the US only 5.6% of the population are millionaires (and no, I am not one of them; this is wealth, not income) yet they have almost half the money. This is what people are justifying with unbridled capitalism.
What would really be interesting is a further breakdown to see how much is controlled by people with over 100 million and how few people that is.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
