I wasn't really talking about countries. I was talking about individual human psychology. When people choose to engage in behavior that harms themselves, they love to ignore the fact that they are responsible for that choice, and their lives could be better if they made different choices.
And? So? Responsible people who want good policy take human stupidity in to account. It's not their fault that they are stupid, it's human nature. It's the bankers who knowingly take advantage of that stupidity who are at fault. They know enough to know better.
She is more productive because her boss invested in better CRM software.
Notice how the boss didn't write the software. He didn't do anything of value besides provide the funds. The people actually responsible for the increase in productivity are the workers who created the tools that cause the increase in productivity. Deciding to use the tools that are availble is not such a difficult task that it should win you the lions share of what is produced with those tools. It's the design and production of those tools that is valuable, and that's done by ordinary workers.
Stupid? Or just misinformed by the financial professionals they trusted? People aren't born understanding mortgages, bankers are the ones who have the training to make responsible choices. When the FBI sent warning letters to banks that 90% of stated income loans were fraudulent, do you know how the banks responded? The *increased* the number of stated income loans they issued. Are you really going to blame the average person for that?
Taxing wealth amounts to punishment for not spending
In an economy that depends on the velocity of money, you should be punished for not spending. Especially if you have already saved enough to live on for thousands of years.
Money is a resource. Do something with it, or let someone else use that resource. Hoarding isn't good for anyone.
I can't believe that I have to explain to people here on./ that putting more energy into a non-linear dynamic system will cause more extreme behavior of all types. We are experiencing more record highs AND record lows, more record droughts and more record rainfalls, which is exactly what you'd expect from a warming Earth.
Meanwhile the average CEO wage has not just kept up with inflation, but doubled.
Doubled?
From 1978 to 2011, CEO compensation increased more than 725 percent, a rise substantially greater than stock market growth and the painfully slow 5.7 percent growth in worker compensation over the same period.
Because if people actually wanted to die out, they could just stop reproducing and save themselves a scorched wasteland were the billions who didn't die in the water wars will envy those who did.
I'm not a breeder myself. I'm OK with my genes dying out. I just think it should be done the smart way.
I hate replying twice, but i have to point out that: "neither has the inflation adjusted price." is simply not true. House prices have consistently outpaced inflation for decades, until the 2008 financial crisis. But prices still haven't returned to historical norms. And if it did, it wouldn't matter because the only people experiencing a "recovery" are the super rich.
So inflation adjusted wages haven't changed. Inflation adjusted prices are higher than they were in the past. And inflation adjusted executive compensation has increased over 100x in the same period. How is this defensible?
NEVER saying "OK, it's happening and it's going to be really troublesome but since it is caused by us we luckily can try to limit it by what we do!" is really strange.
Strange, but absolutely typical of human psychology.
I'm not worried about nature, the planet, or other species. If humans keep releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, humans are going to suffer. It's not that humans are evil, it's that they're stupidly walking into their own near-extinction.
In reality, inflation matters. If you try to compare wages between historical periods without adjusting for inflation you are a liar. The inflation adjusted median wage hasn't appreciably changed in 40 years. This is indefensible.
Yes it was inflation adjusted. So what? The actual wages the average person takes home hasn't increased in 40 years, despite dramatic increases in both worker productivity and executive pay. How is that defensible?
At the end of the day no matter how the handful of people like Bill Gates became so rich, neither their wealth nor their income holds a candle to what governments throw around on a daily basis.
And yet those super rich manage to control everything, including our government. That's reason enough to prohibit extreme wealth. It's nothing but corrupting.
The 2008 financial crisis caused the destruction of far, far more wealth than *ALL PROPERTY CRIME PUT TOGETHER*. If we chose to do "only one thing and suspend everything else", that is prosecute the criminals behind the 2008 financial crisis, and ignore all other property crimes, we'd still be ahead of where we are now.
Prison is for long term stays. They have a library, exercise facilities, chapel (if you're into that sort of thing). County is for holding people. They provide only the absolute minimum necessary to keep the person alive, if you're lucky.
Check out this thread from people with experience on both sides. I'll quote:
I did 370 days in the county before getting my time and going to prison. My jail time was 10 times worse than my prison time. We were locked down 23 hours a day, only got out to shower, etc. There were no plug-ins in the cells, so no TV. No mirrors, not even the metal ones. Terrible food. No barber service ( I gotone haircut in a year ). 10 minute phone calls once a week. 15 minute visits once a week (through glass). The jailer went home about 5PM every day, shut & locked a big steel door between the cells & front end of jail, only the dispatcher was there & he wasn't supposed to leave his radio. Cells were about 7ft X 8ft for 2 men. There were also 6 man cells. Lights were so dim you could barely see. They kept it so cold you had to stay under blankets most of the time. We never got outside, no exercise yard. After about 10 months of this, I got a change of venue & went to another county. It wasn't quite as bad there, but no way it was up to standards. Give me prison any day. (If you gotta go !):eek:
Does it matter? If it takes less time to hammer out "a series of batch scripts" that work, then Linux is the right choice. What would he get out of buying an arduino and learning wiring when he has a working solution today? And how are you going to provide a web interface and GUI with an arduino?
Slashdot Mirror
10% more, while productivity has doubled and executive pay has increased by orders of magnitude.
I wasn't really talking about countries. I was talking about individual human psychology. When people choose to engage in behavior that harms themselves, they love to ignore the fact that they are responsible for that choice, and their lives could be better if they made different choices.
And? So? Responsible people who want good policy take human stupidity in to account. It's not their fault that they are stupid, it's human nature. It's the bankers who knowingly take advantage of that stupidity who are at fault. They know enough to know better.
She is more productive because her boss invested in better CRM software.
Notice how the boss didn't write the software. He didn't do anything of value besides provide the funds. The people actually responsible for the increase in productivity are the workers who created the tools that cause the increase in productivity. Deciding to use the tools that are availble is not such a difficult task that it should win you the lions share of what is produced with those tools. It's the design and production of those tools that is valuable, and that's done by ordinary workers.
because they were too stupid
Stupid? Or just misinformed by the financial professionals they trusted? People aren't born understanding mortgages, bankers are the ones who have the training to make responsible choices. When the FBI sent warning letters to banks that 90% of stated income loans were fraudulent, do you know how the banks responded? The *increased* the number of stated income loans they issued. Are you really going to blame the average person for that?
Taxing wealth amounts to punishment for not spending
In an economy that depends on the velocity of money, you should be punished for not spending. Especially if you have already saved enough to live on for thousands of years.
Money is a resource. Do something with it, or let someone else use that resource. Hoarding isn't good for anyone.
I can't believe that I have to explain to people here on ./ that putting more energy into a non-linear dynamic system will cause more extreme behavior of all types. We are experiencing more record highs AND record lows, more record droughts and more record rainfalls, which is exactly what you'd expect from a warming Earth.
if wages have stayed constant over the past 40 years, total compensation for the median worker has actually risen by about 9%.
Over the same period, worker productivity doubled and CEO compensation increased 700 times.
Meanwhile the average CEO wage has not just kept up with inflation, but doubled.
Doubled?
Source: Economic Policy Institute
But how can you know it's stupid?
Because if people actually wanted to die out, they could just stop reproducing and save themselves a scorched wasteland were the billions who didn't die in the water wars will envy those who did.
I'm not a breeder myself. I'm OK with my genes dying out. I just think it should be done the smart way.
I hate replying twice, but i have to point out that:
"neither has the inflation adjusted price."
is simply not true. House prices have consistently outpaced inflation for decades, until the 2008 financial crisis. But prices still haven't returned to historical norms. And if it did, it wouldn't matter because the only people experiencing a "recovery" are the super rich.
So inflation adjusted wages haven't changed. Inflation adjusted prices are higher than they were in the past. And inflation adjusted executive compensation has increased over 100x in the same period. How is this defensible?
What more are people doing today than they were in 1970 that would justify them being able to have more purchase power?
We're almost twice as productive, that's what. Notice how productivity tracked with income until the 1970s? Now the rich steal all of that.
NEVER saying "OK, it's happening and it's going to be really troublesome but since it is caused by us we luckily can try to limit it by what we do!" is really strange.
Strange, but absolutely typical of human psychology.
I'm not worried about nature, the planet, or other species. If humans keep releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, humans are going to suffer. It's not that humans are evil, it's that they're stupidly walking into their own near-extinction.
There is nothing wrong with any one person amassing that level of wealth
Yes, yes there is. You cannot earn that much with your own labor. You can only aquire that much by confiscating the labor of others.
In reality, inflation matters. If you try to compare wages between historical periods without adjusting for inflation you are a liar. The inflation adjusted median wage hasn't appreciably changed in 40 years. This is indefensible.
Yes it was inflation adjusted. So what? The actual wages the average person takes home hasn't increased in 40 years, despite dramatic increases in both worker productivity and executive pay. How is that defensible?
At the end of the day no matter how the handful of people like Bill Gates became so rich, neither their wealth nor their income holds a candle to what governments throw around on a daily basis.
And yet those super rich manage to control everything, including our government. That's reason enough to prohibit extreme wealth. It's nothing but corrupting.
This is exactly why it's a bad idea.
And good on you for that. All I ask is that you leave us drinking folk alone. Moralizing is a far worse vice than drinking.
The 2008 financial crisis caused the destruction of far, far more wealth than *ALL PROPERTY CRIME PUT TOGETHER*. If we chose to do "only one thing and suspend everything else", that is prosecute the criminals behind the 2008 financial crisis, and ignore all other property crimes, we'd still be ahead of where we are now.
Prison is for long term stays. They have a library, exercise facilities, chapel (if you're into that sort of thing). County is for holding people. They provide only the absolute minimum necessary to keep the person alive, if you're lucky.
Check out this thread from people with experience on both sides. I'll quote:
Does it matter? If it takes less time to hammer out "a series of batch scripts" that work, then Linux is the right choice. What would he get out of buying an arduino and learning wiring when he has a working solution today? And how are you going to provide a web interface and GUI with an arduino?
The funny thing about those who don't drink is that they're usually the kind of people you don't want to drink with anyway.
County jail is worse than prison. And these are federal crimes, so they'll probably spend it in a federal prison.