Sorry I wasn't clear. I was referring to "responsibility" in dollar terms. People who are responsible for a large pot of money (such as a large market cap) are given every incentive to protect and grow that pot by the pot's owners.
Police and doctors have nothing to do with this discussion, because we are talking about two different definitions of the word "responsibility."
And again, in the corporate world, pay doesn't have anything to do with how "demanding" a job is. It has nothing to do with what is "deserved." It doesn't even pretend to be "fair." You have no concept of how markets work. As a shareholder I KNOW that some of the hardest-working employees are the least paid. I KNOW that the CEO goes golfing on company time. I KNOW this isn't fair in the moral sense. But I also want my CEO to have a huge incentive to preserve and grow the value of my shares. That is the reason executives get the big bucks. It has nothing to do with justice and equality, but even the lowliest workers under the capitalist system tend to have better lives than the workers under any other system humanity has tried.
China is making insane amounts of money from its new capital markets. The government has 51% ownership in many of these corporations. Investors will pull their money out of China if they perceive corruption to be on the rise. An "Enron" in China could cause many billions in the government's money to evaporate overnight. It is in the government's interest minimize corruption in its publicly-traded companies.
I don't share your cynicism. Feel free to criticize China for being authoritarian and for opposing what the Western world considers to be fundamental human rights, but don't assume that everything about China is bad. Corruption will cause the top of China's "Communist" party to lose power and money; they will fight it out of self-interest, not altruism. Government leaders acting out of any other motivation is a rarity in human history.
Are you kidding? Have you ever seen wall street analyst commentary about CEOs? Financial analysts making $65k can be freaking merciless in insulting CEOs... especially if they are being secretive or misleading. The cover of Fortune, recently, was "What were they smoking?" with pics of some CEOs who bet on mortgages. Your theory is full of fail.
You don't understand. Your pay is not proportional to how demanding your job is. Your pay is proportional to what is best for the shareholders. Jobs with great responsibility, whether they are demanding or not, tend to have high pay in order to deter recklessness. It isn't fair, but it isn't supposed to be. Whining about somebody else's pay being unfair makes you sound like an ignorant child.
Yeah, that makes great sense, except that a talented, low-paid exec is going to want to switch to a company that pays him more, good times or bad. Losing an exec is not good for the business, because they are supposed to have the long term vision.
The alternative is to reward executives more when the company is profitable, and less when the company is not, while paying the employees wages determined by the market. Honestly, any other model is going to fail in some way or other.
Personally, I would like to see a company where stock gifts to execs can only be cashed two years after they leave the company. That way, execs can't inflate numbers and drain the company, cash out, then quit... they have to look toward the long term health of the business.
If it costs them one dollar per watt to produce, eventually, through the magic of capitalism, market forces will scale up production and shrink margins until they sell for about one dollar per watt. It's an inevitability.
Are you serious? Did you seriously just say that? If any political group could violently overthrow the government, we will have bloody revolutions every few years, like some of the countries in South America. I can't believe that is an appealing prospect to you. You're insane.
Paul wants to create a permanent upperclass by eliminating all progressive taxes. That would be far more damaging to America, in the long run, than playing with DoD budgets, because it destroys the hope of upward mobility.
So if my religion declares that the atomic makeup of water is H4O, and in science class they teach that it is H2O, then they are violating the constitution?
Bullshit. And the basics of chemistry are no less questionable than the basics of biology.
The law is not a computer algorithm! We have judges and opposing arguments for a reason. Subjective phrases, such as "good faith" and "fair and reasonable" are used in laws for a reason.
Penetration testing is a big industry. Lawyers on both sides of the contract OK these things before they get signed.
15% savings sounds like at least $20k invested. If you get aggressive with the money, you would still have a chance of financial independence in 20 years or so. You haven't totally dashed my dreams of being able to have both a family and a personal trust fund before my hair turns gray. If I had healthy kids--even better.
Let me paraphrase that so people with little time can still get the gist of your statement without having to read much.
testicles... exposed... protein... ooze a delicious health drink from a special orifice so I can catch dinner on the way home. (Don't spit up your milk laughing, it's quite possible.)
Even with a full-time nanny, evenings are with mom+dad. And like I said, a part-time mom would have plenty of exposure and oversight, but still keep the family rocketing toward early financial independence.
What makes you think giving your kids minimal exposure to people outside the immediate family is decent parenting? I suspect society tends to vastly underestimate the value early and frequent social interaction with non-relatives. That kid that shot up the church had the full attention of his mother. He was even home-schooled. He complained about wanting to end his life because he couldn't interact with society.
Pre-school and daycare may just be necessary for kids to grow up to be something better than the introverted nerds we slashdotters have become.
If I had kids, I would encourage my wife to take on part-time or from-home work. I also would have no trouble letting a nanny or trusted daycare tend my children for some percentage of time. In fact, I suspect it would be good for them.
You could have kids if you marry another professional, especially if she has a career that allows part time from home. Don't forget: You get huge tax deductions for having children. If you really do make something in the $100k range, there's enough money from your deductions to hire a daytime nanny.
I'm an engineer in a cube farm, just like 99% of the people on this website.
So you really think writing qaunt-fund algorithms in between seemingly endless meetings, for forty straight years, is significantly more fun than switching to a more lucrative career and still attending endless meetings, but for just 15 or so years?
If your job is that much fun, is your company hiring?
You can earn all the money in the world with your sort of attitude, but you'll still have approximately the same number of days on this earth as I do.
Actually, if you earn "all the money in the world" and you live modestly and invest big, then you only have to work 15 years or so before you can live ENTIRELY off of your investments.
Once you reach that point, your days on this earth really are your own, and they count for a lot more than the days of a cube-dweller trying to convincing himself that he has a good job.
Very very VERY few people can legitimately say they would still do what they do for a living if they were independently wealthy. Most who make that claim are trying to fool themselves by comparing one crap job to some other slightly crappier jobs. I don't know many billionaire trust fund babies working in cube farms because they really "love what they do."
My advice: Chase the high paying job, stuff as much as you can into the stock market (use leveraged funds like those from ProShares if you're brave), and start picking out "retirement" destinations in your mid thirties.
function NE(){try{if(typeof ActiveXObject!="undefined"){return new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")}else if(window.XMLHttpRequest){return new XMLHttpRequest}}catch(a){}return null}
I have no question that you experienced something amazing. I also have no doubt that human senses, and the interpretation of our senses, are not always reliable. This is why the scientific method has peer review.
I myself hallucinate every night when I sleep:-)
Also, the "christian message" is undefinable (as evidenced by the fact that there are as many "core" christian messages as there are believers), but as long as it is tied to the Old Testemant, it can not fully distance itself from diety-justified acts of terrible evil.
And I do see any joining of church and state as similar to any other theocracy, such as the Taliban, but often to a lesser degree. I will fight any move toward theocratic government with all my power. Free Religion is one of the triumphs of Western philosophy.
I was very religious as a kid, too. The more I learned about the world the harder I had to try to twist my interpretation of the Bible to fit the verifiable evidence. I eventually tired of this game and decided to embrace intellectual honesty, despite the social consequences of a hateful christian community.
Thanks for sharing your views... they are all very similar to views I once held.
Of course it is possible some sort of extraterrestrial or extrauniversal entity directed either evolution or the physical laws which enable evolution. It's also possible that we are all living in the Matrix, or being psychologically manipulated by a giant wooden badger. There is no evidence for any of those speculations. The only people who believe in such things do it because of "faith" (aka the lack of evidence). Therefore, the political groups who wish to use the government to force the teaching of their faith have a similar goal as the taliban.
For the record: Any creature that has the ability to direct life on earth but refuses to stop life's horrendous injustices and miseries has logically got to be a total dick. I'm paraphrasing Epicurus there.
The "proof" that inheritable extremely antisocial behavior is not fit among social animals is in the definition of the term "social animal." That doesn't mean it never happens or that no genes ever cause it. It just means that an inheritable trait that consistently causes anti-social behavior would be selected against by the rest of the society.
Also, don't confuse evolution with any sort of moral code.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry I wasn't clear. I was referring to "responsibility" in dollar terms. People who are responsible for a large pot of money (such as a large market cap) are given every incentive to protect and grow that pot by the pot's owners.
Police and doctors have nothing to do with this discussion, because we are talking about two different definitions of the word "responsibility."
And again, in the corporate world, pay doesn't have anything to do with how "demanding" a job is. It has nothing to do with what is "deserved." It doesn't even pretend to be "fair." You have no concept of how markets work. As a shareholder I KNOW that some of the hardest-working employees are the least paid. I KNOW that the CEO goes golfing on company time. I KNOW this isn't fair in the moral sense. But I also want my CEO to have a huge incentive to preserve and grow the value of my shares. That is the reason executives get the big bucks. It has nothing to do with justice and equality, but even the lowliest workers under the capitalist system tend to have better lives than the workers under any other system humanity has tried.
China is making insane amounts of money from its new capital markets. The government has 51% ownership in many of these corporations. Investors will pull their money out of China if they perceive corruption to be on the rise. An "Enron" in China could cause many billions in the government's money to evaporate overnight. It is in the government's interest minimize corruption in its publicly-traded companies.
I don't share your cynicism. Feel free to criticize China for being authoritarian and for opposing what the Western world considers to be fundamental human rights, but don't assume that everything about China is bad. Corruption will cause the top of China's "Communist" party to lose power and money; they will fight it out of self-interest, not altruism. Government leaders acting out of any other motivation is a rarity in human history.
Are you kidding? Have you ever seen wall street analyst commentary about CEOs? Financial analysts making $65k can be freaking merciless in insulting CEOs... especially if they are being secretive or misleading. The cover of Fortune, recently, was "What were they smoking?" with pics of some CEOs who bet on mortgages. Your theory is full of fail.
You don't understand. Your pay is not proportional to how demanding your job is. Your pay is proportional to what is best for the shareholders. Jobs with great responsibility, whether they are demanding or not, tend to have high pay in order to deter recklessness. It isn't fair, but it isn't supposed to be. Whining about somebody else's pay being unfair makes you sound like an ignorant child.
Yeah, that makes great sense, except that a talented, low-paid exec is going to want to switch to a company that pays him more, good times or bad. Losing an exec is not good for the business, because they are supposed to have the long term vision.
The alternative is to reward executives more when the company is profitable, and less when the company is not, while paying the employees wages determined by the market. Honestly, any other model is going to fail in some way or other.
Personally, I would like to see a company where stock gifts to execs can only be cashed two years after they leave the company. That way, execs can't inflate numbers and drain the company, cash out, then quit... they have to look toward the long term health of the business.
If it costs them one dollar per watt to produce, eventually, through the magic of capitalism, market forces will scale up production and shrink margins until they sell for about one dollar per watt. It's an inevitability.
Are you serious? Did you seriously just say that? If any political group could violently overthrow the government, we will have bloody revolutions every few years, like some of the countries in South America. I can't believe that is an appealing prospect to you. You're insane.
Paul wants to create a permanent upperclass by eliminating all progressive taxes. That would be far more damaging to America, in the long run, than playing with DoD budgets, because it destroys the hope of upward mobility.
The slashdot groupthink is not trashing this. Read your post. If anything, there are diverse opinions presented here.
So if my religion declares that the atomic makeup of water is H4O, and in science class they teach that it is H2O, then they are violating the constitution?
Bullshit. And the basics of chemistry are no less questionable than the basics of biology.
The law is not a computer algorithm! We have judges and opposing arguments for a reason. Subjective phrases, such as "good faith" and "fair and reasonable" are used in laws for a reason.
Penetration testing is a big industry. Lawyers on both sides of the contract OK these things before they get signed.
15% savings sounds like at least $20k invested. If you get aggressive with the money, you would still have a chance of financial independence in 20 years or so. You haven't totally dashed my dreams of being able to have both a family and a personal trust fund before my hair turns gray. If I had healthy kids--even better.
flexibility.
OK, I stand corrected. Still, with two professionals, and after childcare costs, can you still afford to invest $30k or so per year?
"early financial independence."
Even with a full-time nanny, evenings are with mom+dad. And like I said, a part-time mom would have plenty of exposure and oversight, but still keep the family rocketing toward early financial independence.
What makes you think giving your kids minimal exposure to people outside the immediate family is decent parenting? I suspect society tends to vastly underestimate the value early and frequent social interaction with non-relatives. That kid that shot up the church had the full attention of his mother. He was even home-schooled. He complained about wanting to end his life because he couldn't interact with society.
Pre-school and daycare may just be necessary for kids to grow up to be something better than the introverted nerds we slashdotters have become.
If I had kids, I would encourage my wife to take on part-time or from-home work. I also would have no trouble letting a nanny or trusted daycare tend my children for some percentage of time. In fact, I suspect it would be good for them.
You could have kids if you marry another professional, especially if she has a career that allows part time from home. Don't forget: You get huge tax deductions for having children. If you really do make something in the $100k range, there's enough money from your deductions to hire a daytime nanny.
I'm an engineer in a cube farm, just like 99% of the people on this website.
So you really think writing qaunt-fund algorithms in between seemingly endless meetings, for forty straight years, is significantly more fun than switching to a more lucrative career and still attending endless meetings, but for just 15 or so years?
If your job is that much fun, is your company hiring?
Once you reach that point, your days on this earth really are your own, and they count for a lot more than the days of a cube-dweller trying to convincing himself that he has a good job.
Very very VERY few people can legitimately say they would still do what they do for a living if they were independently wealthy. Most who make that claim are trying to fool themselves by comparing one crap job to some other slightly crappier jobs. I don't know many billionaire trust fund babies working in cube farms because they really "love what they do."
My advice: Chase the high paying job, stuff as much as you can into the stock market (use leveraged funds like those from ProShares if you're brave), and start picking out "retirement" destinations in your mid thirties.
I have no question that you experienced something amazing. I also have no doubt that human senses, and the interpretation of our senses, are not always reliable. This is why the scientific method has peer review.
:-)
I myself hallucinate every night when I sleep
Also, the "christian message" is undefinable (as evidenced by the fact that there are as many "core" christian messages as there are believers), but as long as it is tied to the Old Testemant, it can not fully distance itself from diety-justified acts of terrible evil.
And I do see any joining of church and state as similar to any other theocracy, such as the Taliban, but often to a lesser degree. I will fight any move toward theocratic government with all my power. Free Religion is one of the triumphs of Western philosophy.
I was very religious as a kid, too. The more I learned about the world the harder I had to try to twist my interpretation of the Bible to fit the verifiable evidence. I eventually tired of this game and decided to embrace intellectual honesty, despite the social consequences of a hateful christian community.
Thanks for sharing your views... they are all very similar to views I once held.
Of course it is possible some sort of extraterrestrial or extrauniversal entity directed either evolution or the physical laws which enable evolution. It's also possible that we are all living in the Matrix, or being psychologically manipulated by a giant wooden badger. There is no evidence for any of those speculations. The only people who believe in such things do it because of "faith" (aka the lack of evidence). Therefore, the political groups who wish to use the government to force the teaching of their faith have a similar goal as the taliban.
For the record: Any creature that has the ability to direct life on earth but refuses to stop life's horrendous injustices and miseries has logically got to be a total dick. I'm paraphrasing Epicurus there.
The "proof" that inheritable extremely antisocial behavior is not fit among social animals is in the definition of the term "social animal." That doesn't mean it never happens or that no genes ever cause it. It just means that an inheritable trait that consistently causes anti-social behavior would be selected against by the rest of the society.
Also, don't confuse evolution with any sort of moral code.