I would wager a bet that it is more ecologically friendly than how your local power company is generating power for your grid (usually by burning coal, unless you live in one of those areas smart enough to be using nuclear energy).
Sadly, it was a complete waste of time to read. Something I should have expected.
That's ok, man. You could be this loser who is out of work and sits on his ass playing 6 hours of MMORPGs every day, made netfamous for yelling a quintessential redneck name while "drinking forties."
No one that is truly a genius ever thinks they are a genius.
Tell me how applying myself will make me rich.
When did I say simply applying yourself will make you rich?
However, you can't get a job in something you're self-taught in
I have a great job as a programmer/sysadmin/consultant and am self-taught in all those fields.
Programming has no future, of course
This is bullshit, of course.
Darwin (actually the "invisible hand") will eliminate me without a backward glance if I can't compete
No, that is how the left would like to paint capitalism in general. But the reality is if you need help from others you will really find it... with or without government intervention.
I can't tell you how to be successful. There are plenty of books out there you may want to read if you are looking for inspiration.
I can tell you if you are smart and you have some skills, you will find ways to make money as long as you're doing something you really like.
Not everyone is cut out to be rich. It takes a certain type of person (or luck) to achieve that goal.
No, it doesn't have anything to do with whether you are looking straight across or up. The reason I know this is because I just looked at a photograph of the large moon effect. If this were just some bug in our brain, then the moon would look normally sized in the photo. Yet it does look large in the photo. Thus it is either (1) because the moon is being magnified by some effect of the atmosphere, or (2) due to an optical illusion of it being so close to things on the ground.
I don't buy the balogna about the pilots seeing the same "large moon" with no frame of reference from the ground. Sorry, I just don't.
I still have a hard time figuring out how buying IBM stock (and therefore increasing IBM's stock price) benefits IBM (the company, not its individual execs) or creates jobs, though.
First, let me ask what is so wrong with the stock price increase benefiting the shareholders? You like to negate the good here by implying only "IBM execs" benefit from stock price escalation, but are you really so caught up in class warfare that you don't understand how many regular people own IBM stock, both directly, and indirectly through pensions and mutual funds? Everyone can be a shareholder and profit from stock, not just your hated "execs."
Second, to answer your question, the stock price going up increases the company's market capitalization, which can give the company the power to buy other companies, pay high-end employees with stock instead of liquid assets (re: Steve Jobs earning $1 but making money off the stock instead), getting approval for more direct financing (loans) based on their stock strength.
But the stock market is not specifically designed to indefinitely help a company. Those benefits are largely indirect after the actual sale of stock is complete. The reason companies sell stock is to raise capital and share the risk of operating the company. The reason people buy and sell stock varies, from wanting to earn dividend profit, to wanting to re-sell the stock later at a profit if the company's value increases (i.e. by selling more widgets this year than last year and making more money).
My point is that most stock is owned by rich people
Even if that were actually true, so what?
our economic system is pretty much set up to keep stock prices driving up at the expense of all else
I have yet to hear what you are using to try and prove this point? Our economy is not setup to drive stock prices up OR down. It is what it is, they operate on their own. And I especially don't take you meaning of "at the expense of all else."
This means transfer of wealth from the working class (in the form of offshored industries, consumer-unfriendly terms and conditions (like banks, cell phones and credit cards)), to shareholders (mostly rich).
Transfer of wealth? You mean like when the government raises my taxes so that they can create a new spending program to give money to pork barrel spending, or programs designed to help "working poor" but is instead mismanaged and wasteful?
No, you meant the kind of transfer of wealth that happens in a free market, where "working poor" invest their money into a proven system (the stock market) in exchange for the chance to earn a profit at a later date.
You're right, this is a terribly unfair system.
Even though the economy isn't a zero-sum game, neither is it infinite-sum.
Actually, it is. Up until such time as the population starts to decline, anyway.
I also don't see what prevents massive concentration of wealth, if anything.
Why are you so preoccupied with who has more money than you do? If you instead applied yourself, maybe you'd be making more money. But I guess it's easier to blame the evil rich for you not being so rich. Why not create a reason to explain this trend, let's call it "concentration of wealth."
Since I'll never be rich
With that attitude, and your lack of education in the world of capitalism, I fear this may indeed be true. But for those reasons only.
I'd rather not live in a society where the only options are filthy rich or dirt poor
And why do you think these are the only options. I am neither. Oh, I forgot, you're still convinced that when a rich person makes more money, it is actually being taken out of the pocket of a poor person. I'm sorry you believe that, it is wrong.
Most people can't afford that
This is flat out wrong. Most people can afford it. However, you may be right in saying more people are too stupid to invest in their o
At this point, Marx's point about capitalism collapsing under its own weight will come to fruition.
Although this won't happen, I would like to point out if it did, this would be the first time anything Marx said came to fruition.
If only the strong survive in the marketplace, sooner or later there will only be one.
Why would this be true? Can you see the difference between "strong" and "strongest"? In other words, that two strong competitors can thrive in the same marketplace? Do I really have to go to the store and buy you a Coke and a Pepsi to drive this point home, or are you capable of thinking for yourself instead of relying on Marx's delusions?
As a *group* programmers are overpaid. The market is in the midst of correcting this, but shifting many lower skilled programming jobs overseas. Would this outsourcing have been so trendy if the average developer salary was only $50,000 instead of $100,000?
Show me where the average developer salary is $100,000? Define "average developer" while you're at it. You can't just make up facts to fit your views.
Those with the right skillsets will continue to make a good wage right here in the US. The problem was not people getting paid too much, but (a) government + unions making employees more expensive than they should be and (b) a talented pool of cheaper labor becoming more feasible elsewhere.
I don't actually mean that the individual developers are to blame for this. It's damned hard to ask for only $50,000 when everyone else is getting $100,000. But at the same time, domestic developers should be upset when tens of thousands of foreign developers offer to do the same job for only $20,000.
I think you are over-thinking the problem. When you are in the market for a job, you try to negotiate the best contract you can. Some people want to make the most they can up front, some people want job security and will work for less. This isn't a problem, just a different philosophy among workers. If worker A gets stung enough, he'll change his philosophy, and vice versa.
Another oversight is that this "competition" is only valid for very large established companies that have the capital to start such a venture. Ma and Pop shops just trying to make a decent living have no chance vs the conglomerate using the equivalent of legal slave labor overseas. I miss the days when we bashed Iomega for using overseas sweat shops.
What on Earth are you talking about?
How did Google come to rule the Internet? Did they start out as a huge corporation? How did Yahoo do the same before Google? How did eBay become huge? How did Microsoft? How did Apple? How did the company I work for?
Most successful companies started very small and grew.
Any tiny company can compete against any large company by introducing a better product, service, or price point. It has happened millions of times in history.
Citizens lucky enough to still have a job
The fact that you think having a job is linked to "luck" really explains a lot about your mentality towards capitalism.
The rest of your post I will ignore as it is based on complete ignorance of how capitalism and the economy works.
Ah, so what's good for the proles ain't so good for the masters, is this what youy're saying?
I'm saying the statement makes no fucking sense whatsoever. In most companies, the CEO is the owner of the company. Why exactly would they outsource their own job? They own the fucking company.
Shareholders, pay attention! Instead of the CEO who makes 100 million a year in the US, you can have a CEO based in India, who will do the same job for only 10 million. It's your call.
Sure, if it's a public company, and the shareholders have the voting power to fire the CEO, and want to give an Indian CEO that much power over their company. However, most CEOs don't make 100 million a year in salaries, so your example is ridiculous, and the difference in salaries between an Indian CEO and an American CEO would probably not cover the amount lost due to the Indian CEO running the company, for a variety of reasons. Just as an Indian company would probably lose money with an American CEO running it. It's about the right person for the job, not always how much they cost.
If you're so pissed off about how much CEOs make, why don't you become one?
Only at the IPO. After that, shareholders play among themselves and generate no investment, no value whatsoever.
Ever hear of buying a company with stock? Think you can do that if your stock price is in the toilet? Ever hear of a secondary public offering, where the company sells more shares to bring in more capital?
I have only one thing to say about shareholders: fuck them.
So, let me get this straight. Either you are not investing in a retirement plan of any kind, or you just told yourself to fuck off.
If they want profits, they should try some real work - exactly what you're advocating for us lazy Europeans. This is what capitlaism is all about, no?
I'm afraid you have a lot to learn about capitalism. Apparantly it will be the hard way, too.
So the cost saving is *never* passed on to the consumer, it's passed on to the shareholder,
Really? Now what happens when company B is charging less money for the same product? Are you saying your mythical company will be happy keeping its prices high, making less money, giving less to their shareholders.
Oh, right, you simply overlooked the concept of "competition," which is what makes capitalism work.
When will the capitalists start outsourcing the CEOs job? When that happens I'll believe the free market cheerleaders.
This statement was rated +5 Insightful, but makes absolutely no sense. Are you saying that India, China, etc don't have their own share of CEOs?
If you were running a company in America (which, btw, you are free to do in a capitalist society, if you are fed up being a "lowly worker"), you would be the CEO. Would you outsource yourself? Does this make ANY sense?
Ah yes, the race to the bottom... in a few years we'll hear about jobs moving from India to Ethiopia, because the Indians are too picky about things like "wanting food feed their children" and "reducing the work week to 80 hours" to be competitive in the global marketplace.
Bullshit. In this dystopia you've described, who do you think these corporations are selling their products to? After all, everyone is out of work except for the Ethiopians, who don't make enough to buy the products.
When a starting software developer with a 2.0 grade average straight out of junior college can grab a job paying more than a teacher with thirty years experience, we're asking too much.
I don't follow where the teacher with 30 years experience comes into play. The question of why teachers make less is interesting, but unrelated.
Also, "we're" not asking too much if a company wants to overpay someone. Why in hell would I be considered overpaid just because someone else is overpaid? As far as I know, I didn't sign on the borg collective when I decided to get a job programming.
Not necessarily. Stock is bought "used" unless it's from an IPO.
Where did he say "stock"? He said "investment."
- It means investing money in banks: giving everyone else a better chance for a loan at a lower rate.
- It means investing in new companies: giving people jobs, new/better goods and services, and opening up potential for others to invest (shareholders).
- It means starting your own company, that's an investment, too.
- And yes, it means investing in the stock market. And while you may think they are buying the stock "used," if no one buys the stock, the price of the stock goes down because there are more sellers than buyers, and that affects the underlying company in many different ways.
When I buy IBM stock, IBM doesn't see a penny of that money; some goes to middlemen, and the rest goes to a former IBM stockholder.
Uh huh... right. And what happens when IBM pays you a dividend on your shares? And what happens when you sell those shares for a profit somewhere down the road? And what happens when IBM has more power to leverage it's higher share prices.
It's not like you're just paying someone for a piece of worthless paper.
Since 86% of stock is owned by the wealthiest 10%...
Source of this statistic?...money speny buying stock (or stock-price appreciation caused by businesses) goes pretty much to the rich, accelerating the concentration of wealth.
Wow. You are stunningly ignorant about the stock market. How does purchasing equity concentrate wealth elsewhere? You have purchased SOMETHING. You can earn profit on it (indicated above). You are investing in the economy.
I have trouble imagining what kind of economic efficiency, or society, we will have when a (relative) handful of people own everything, and the rest of us are serfs.
The reason you may have trouble imagining this is because it is ludicrous. The economy is a pie. The richer among us have a large share of the pie. When the economy grows, the pie gets bigger. Their piece of pie grows, yes -- but so does everyone else's.
It's not a zero sum game. That's just something those interest in class warfare like to put out there for scaremongering.
ok then bitch and moan about redevelopment projects all over the nation.
And just to clarify my earlier statement, I *AM* pissed off at redevelopment projects that abuse eminent domain. However, I have no problem whatsoever if the local government comes in and makes a good offer and the land owner accepts it. That is how most redevelopment takes place in this country. If, by ghettos, you are referring to the government subsidized housing, then you are right -- I could care less if the fed sells that land to to the local city for redevelopment.
ok then bitch and moan about redevelopment projects all over the nation.
I thought I was?
look at what has happened in baltimore, nyc, dc, miami just about every major city in america, ghetto downtowns condemed that force out minorities to build luxury condos. now 20 or so wealthy white conneticut/my shit dont stink/ people get millions for their homes and you rush to their sides because the city government wants to pave way for revenue generating uses to help pay for affordable housing for the city's working class. has anyone been to New London? it is just about the most snotty area in the world. nobody cares about minorities unless they are mowing the lawns and trimming the hedges.
Your problem is you are trying to turn this into a race or class issue. The actual problem is just with government stealing land from private owners so that it can bring in more money. That is wrong. I don't care if it's doing it for white rich guys or a group of illegal aliens from Mexico. It's wrong.
So I think we're on the same side on this issue, but you're getting caught up in race and class warfare, the hobgoblin of little minds, in my view.
The city didn't force them to sell it to a private company... They forced them to sell it to the city, who in turn intends to sell it to private companies. Still reprehensable, but I fell it's an important distinction.
I am typically a semantics nazi myself, but in this case it makes no difference. The point being the supreme court just raped all private owners in the ass with the statue of liberty.
I'm not sure whether I agree with the court's ruling, but you don't think a healthy local economy can be in the public's good? What if it provides local jobs, or gives the neighborhood a nice downtown?
You know how you solve that problem AND stay within the Constitution?
Offer the private land owner enough money to purchase the land.
Screw this stupid flag-burning ammendment, we need an ammendment to clarify emminent domain rules.
Slashdot Mirror
Thirdly, the US is part of the international community, as much as Bush II would like to deny that fact.
You have it a bit backwards.
The US is part of the international community whenever the international community wants something from us.
That sure does sound ecologicaly friendly too! :)
I would wager a bet that it is more ecologically friendly than how your local power company is generating power for your grid (usually by burning coal, unless you live in one of those areas smart enough to be using nuclear energy).
Really?
S P TT H B M
I O I E T U A
H S R N I B R
T T W W BLE
I don't want to talk to a bunch of 12 year old Taurens with retainer-lisps and girl-pitched voices.
But you don't mind playing games with them? Whaaaaaaa?
Thank you for posting that.
Sadly, it was a complete waste of time to read. Something I should have expected.
That's ok, man. You could be this loser who is out of work and sits on his ass playing 6 hours of MMORPGs every day, made netfamous for yelling a quintessential redneck name while "drinking forties."
I'm a genius
No one that is truly a genius ever thinks they are a genius.
Tell me how applying myself will make me rich.
When did I say simply applying yourself will make you rich?
However, you can't get a job in something you're self-taught in
I have a great job as a programmer/sysadmin/consultant and am self-taught in all those fields.
Programming has no future, of course
This is bullshit, of course.
Darwin (actually the "invisible hand") will eliminate me without a backward glance if I can't compete
No, that is how the left would like to paint capitalism in general. But the reality is if you need help from others you will really find it... with or without government intervention.
I can't tell you how to be successful. There are plenty of books out there you may want to read if you are looking for inspiration.
I can tell you if you are smart and you have some skills, you will find ways to make money as long as you're doing something you really like.
Not everyone is cut out to be rich. It takes a certain type of person (or luck) to achieve that goal.
The way I heard it, both your idea and the one you're responding to are covered in TFA!
No, it doesn't have anything to do with whether you are looking straight across or up. The reason I know this is because I just looked at a photograph of the large moon effect. If this were just some bug in our brain, then the moon would look normally sized in the photo. Yet it does look large in the photo. Thus it is either (1) because the moon is being magnified by some effect of the atmosphere, or (2) due to an optical illusion of it being so close to things on the ground.
I don't buy the balogna about the pilots seeing the same "large moon" with no frame of reference from the ground. Sorry, I just don't.
I still have a hard time figuring out how buying IBM stock (and therefore increasing IBM's stock price) benefits IBM (the company, not its individual execs) or creates jobs, though.
First, let me ask what is so wrong with the stock price increase benefiting the shareholders? You like to negate the good here by implying only "IBM execs" benefit from stock price escalation, but are you really so caught up in class warfare that you don't understand how many regular people own IBM stock, both directly, and indirectly through pensions and mutual funds? Everyone can be a shareholder and profit from stock, not just your hated "execs."
Second, to answer your question, the stock price going up increases the company's market capitalization, which can give the company the power to buy other companies, pay high-end employees with stock instead of liquid assets (re: Steve Jobs earning $1 but making money off the stock instead), getting approval for more direct financing (loans) based on their stock strength.
But the stock market is not specifically designed to indefinitely help a company. Those benefits are largely indirect after the actual sale of stock is complete. The reason companies sell stock is to raise capital and share the risk of operating the company. The reason people buy and sell stock varies, from wanting to earn dividend profit, to wanting to re-sell the stock later at a profit if the company's value increases (i.e. by selling more widgets this year than last year and making more money).
My point is that most stock is owned by rich people
Even if that were actually true, so what?
our economic system is pretty much set up to keep stock prices driving up at the expense of all else
I have yet to hear what you are using to try and prove this point? Our economy is not setup to drive stock prices up OR down. It is what it is, they operate on their own. And I especially don't take you meaning of "at the expense of all else."
This means transfer of wealth from the working class (in the form of offshored industries, consumer-unfriendly terms and conditions (like banks, cell phones and credit cards)), to shareholders (mostly rich).
Transfer of wealth? You mean like when the government raises my taxes so that they can create a new spending program to give money to pork barrel spending, or programs designed to help "working poor" but is instead mismanaged and wasteful?
No, you meant the kind of transfer of wealth that happens in a free market, where "working poor" invest their money into a proven system (the stock market) in exchange for the chance to earn a profit at a later date.
You're right, this is a terribly unfair system.
Even though the economy isn't a zero-sum game, neither is it infinite-sum.
Actually, it is. Up until such time as the population starts to decline, anyway.
I also don't see what prevents massive concentration of wealth, if anything.
Why are you so preoccupied with who has more money than you do? If you instead applied yourself, maybe you'd be making more money. But I guess it's easier to blame the evil rich for you not being so rich. Why not create a reason to explain this trend, let's call it "concentration of wealth."
Since I'll never be rich
With that attitude, and your lack of education in the world of capitalism, I fear this may indeed be true. But for those reasons only.
I'd rather not live in a society where the only options are filthy rich or dirt poor
And why do you think these are the only options. I am neither. Oh, I forgot, you're still convinced that when a rich person makes more money, it is actually being taken out of the pocket of a poor person. I'm sorry you believe that, it is wrong.
Most people can't afford that
This is flat out wrong. Most people can afford it. However, you may be right in saying more people are too stupid to invest in their o
At this point, Marx's point about capitalism collapsing under its own weight will come to fruition.
Although this won't happen, I would like to point out if it did, this would be the first time anything Marx said came to fruition.
If only the strong survive in the marketplace, sooner or later there will only be one.
Why would this be true? Can you see the difference between "strong" and "strongest"? In other words, that two strong competitors can thrive in the same marketplace? Do I really have to go to the store and buy you a Coke and a Pepsi to drive this point home, or are you capable of thinking for yourself instead of relying on Marx's delusions?
sounds familiar
As a *group* programmers are overpaid. The market is in the midst of correcting this, but shifting many lower skilled programming jobs overseas. Would this outsourcing have been so trendy if the average developer salary was only $50,000 instead of $100,000?
Show me where the average developer salary is $100,000? Define "average developer" while you're at it. You can't just make up facts to fit your views.
Those with the right skillsets will continue to make a good wage right here in the US. The problem was not people getting paid too much, but (a) government + unions making employees more expensive than they should be and (b) a talented pool of cheaper labor becoming more feasible elsewhere.
I don't actually mean that the individual developers are to blame for this. It's damned hard to ask for only $50,000 when everyone else is getting $100,000. But at the same time, domestic developers should be upset when tens of thousands of foreign developers offer to do the same job for only $20,000.
I think you are over-thinking the problem. When you are in the market for a job, you try to negotiate the best contract you can. Some people want to make the most they can up front, some people want job security and will work for less. This isn't a problem, just a different philosophy among workers. If worker A gets stung enough, he'll change his philosophy, and vice versa.
This is capitalism on the back end.
Another oversight is that this "competition" is only valid for very large established companies that have the capital to start such a venture. Ma and Pop shops just trying to make a decent living have no chance vs the conglomerate using the equivalent of legal slave labor overseas. I miss the days when we bashed Iomega for using overseas sweat shops.
What on Earth are you talking about?
How did Google come to rule the Internet? Did they start out as a huge corporation? How did Yahoo do the same before Google? How did eBay become huge? How did Microsoft? How did Apple? How did the company I work for?
Most successful companies started very small and grew.
Any tiny company can compete against any large company by introducing a better product, service, or price point. It has happened millions of times in history.
Citizens lucky enough to still have a job
The fact that you think having a job is linked to "luck" really explains a lot about your mentality towards capitalism.
The rest of your post I will ignore as it is based on complete ignorance of how capitalism and the economy works.
Ah, so what's good for the proles ain't so good for the masters, is this what youy're saying?
I'm saying the statement makes no fucking sense whatsoever. In most companies, the CEO is the owner of the company. Why exactly would they outsource their own job? They own the fucking company.
Shareholders, pay attention! Instead of the CEO who makes 100 million a year in the US, you can have a CEO based in India, who will do the same job for only 10 million. It's your call.
Sure, if it's a public company, and the shareholders have the voting power to fire the CEO, and want to give an Indian CEO that much power over their company. However, most CEOs don't make 100 million a year in salaries, so your example is ridiculous, and the difference in salaries between an Indian CEO and an American CEO would probably not cover the amount lost due to the Indian CEO running the company, for a variety of reasons. Just as an Indian company would probably lose money with an American CEO running it. It's about the right person for the job, not always how much they cost.
If you're so pissed off about how much CEOs make, why don't you become one?
Only at the IPO. After that, shareholders play among themselves and generate no investment, no value whatsoever.
Ever hear of buying a company with stock? Think you can do that if your stock price is in the toilet? Ever hear of a secondary public offering, where the company sells more shares to bring in more capital?
I have only one thing to say about shareholders: fuck them.
So, let me get this straight. Either you are not investing in a retirement plan of any kind, or you just told yourself to fuck off.
If they want profits, they should try some real work - exactly what you're advocating for us lazy Europeans. This is what capitlaism is all about, no?
I'm afraid you have a lot to learn about capitalism. Apparantly it will be the hard way, too.
So the cost saving is *never* passed on to the consumer, it's passed on to the shareholder,
Really? Now what happens when company B is charging less money for the same product? Are you saying your mythical company will be happy keeping its prices high, making less money, giving less to their shareholders.
Oh, right, you simply overlooked the concept of "competition," which is what makes capitalism work.
When will the capitalists start outsourcing the CEOs job? When that happens I'll believe the free market cheerleaders.
This statement was rated +5 Insightful, but makes absolutely no sense. Are you saying that India, China, etc don't have their own share of CEOs?
If you were running a company in America (which, btw, you are free to do in a capitalist society, if you are fed up being a "lowly worker"), you would be the CEO. Would you outsource yourself? Does this make ANY sense?
Ah yes, the race to the bottom... in a few years we'll hear about jobs moving from India to Ethiopia, because the Indians are too picky about things like "wanting food feed their children" and "reducing the work week to 80 hours" to be competitive in the global marketplace.
Bullshit. In this dystopia you've described, who do you think these corporations are selling their products to? After all, everyone is out of work except for the Ethiopians, who don't make enough to buy the products.
Hmmm, perhaps your argument is not logical?
When a starting software developer with a 2.0 grade average straight out of junior college can grab a job paying more than a teacher with thirty years experience, we're asking too much.
I don't follow where the teacher with 30 years experience comes into play. The question of why teachers make less is interesting, but unrelated.
Also, "we're" not asking too much if a company wants to overpay someone. Why in hell would I be considered overpaid just because someone else is overpaid? As far as I know, I didn't sign on the borg collective when I decided to get a job programming.
Not necessarily. Stock is bought "used" unless it's from an IPO.
...money speny buying stock (or stock-price appreciation caused by businesses) goes pretty much to the rich, accelerating the concentration of wealth.
Where did he say "stock"? He said "investment."
- It means investing money in banks: giving everyone else a better chance for a loan at a lower rate.
- It means investing in new companies: giving people jobs, new/better goods and services, and opening up potential for others to invest (shareholders).
- It means starting your own company, that's an investment, too.
- And yes, it means investing in the stock market. And while you may think they are buying the stock "used," if no one buys the stock, the price of the stock goes down because there are more sellers than buyers, and that affects the underlying company in many different ways.
When I buy IBM stock, IBM doesn't see a penny of that money; some goes to middlemen, and the rest goes to a former IBM stockholder.
Uh huh... right. And what happens when IBM pays you a dividend on your shares? And what happens when you sell those shares for a profit somewhere down the road? And what happens when IBM has more power to leverage it's higher share prices.
It's not like you're just paying someone for a piece of worthless paper.
Since 86% of stock is owned by the wealthiest 10%...
Source of this statistic?
Wow. You are stunningly ignorant about the stock market. How does purchasing equity concentrate wealth elsewhere? You have purchased SOMETHING. You can earn profit on it (indicated above). You are investing in the economy.
I have trouble imagining what kind of economic efficiency, or society, we will have when a (relative) handful of people own everything, and the rest of us are serfs.
The reason you may have trouble imagining this is because it is ludicrous. The economy is a pie. The richer among us have a large share of the pie. When the economy grows, the pie gets bigger. Their piece of pie grows, yes -- but so does everyone else's.
It's not a zero sum game. That's just something those interest in class warfare like to put out there for scaremongering.
ok then bitch and moan about redevelopment projects all over the nation.
And just to clarify my earlier statement, I *AM* pissed off at redevelopment projects that abuse eminent domain. However, I have no problem whatsoever if the local government comes in and makes a good offer and the land owner accepts it. That is how most redevelopment takes place in this country. If, by ghettos, you are referring to the government subsidized housing, then you are right -- I could care less if the fed sells that land to to the local city for redevelopment.
ok then bitch and moan about redevelopment projects all over the nation.
/my shit dont stink/ people get millions for their homes and you rush to their sides because the city government wants to pave way for revenue generating uses to help pay for affordable housing for the city's working class. has anyone been to New London? it is just about the most snotty area in the world. nobody cares about minorities unless they are mowing the lawns and trimming the hedges.
I thought I was?
look at what has happened in baltimore, nyc, dc, miami just about every major city in america, ghetto downtowns condemed that force out minorities to build luxury condos. now 20 or so wealthy white conneticut
Your problem is you are trying to turn this into a race or class issue. The actual problem is just with government stealing land from private owners so that it can bring in more money. That is wrong. I don't care if it's doing it for white rich guys or a group of illegal aliens from Mexico. It's wrong.
So I think we're on the same side on this issue, but you're getting caught up in race and class warfare, the hobgoblin of little minds, in my view.
The city didn't force them to sell it to a private company... They forced them to sell it to the city, who in turn intends to sell it to private companies. Still reprehensable, but I fell it's an important distinction.
I am typically a semantics nazi myself, but in this case it makes no difference. The point being the supreme court just raped all private owners in the ass with the statue of liberty.
I'm not sure whether I agree with the court's ruling, but you don't think a healthy local economy can be in the public's good? What if it provides local jobs, or gives the neighborhood a nice downtown?
You know how you solve that problem AND stay within the Constitution?
Offer the private land owner enough money to purchase the land.
Screw this stupid flag-burning ammendment, we need an ammendment to clarify emminent domain rules.