I joined a health club the other day with a friend. We both filled out our applications. We both signed up for the full service. The thing is, he makes more money than me and they ended up charging him $25 more a month than me.
We both have access to the exact same machines, pool, racquetball courts and gym. He might not every use the pool...doesn't matter...he still pays for the pool. I might live there...doesn't matter, I don't pay any more. We both just pay once a month, no matter how much we use or don't use the club.
They just charge him more because he makes more.
Does that seem fair?
He pay 3% of his monthly salary, and I pay 1%.
You could argue that we should both pay 2%, but that's not really fair either. We'd still both have access to the same things. His 2% would be more than my 2%...and why should he pay more for the same thing?
You could argue that he can pay more, so why shouldn't he? But that just seems like the club is sticking it to him because they can.
Maybe they're jealous that some people have more money....and why shouldn't they pay more if they have the money? That just seems a little off to me. Maybe they see it as the right thing to do...but then they'd be making a moral decision for him, and I'm not sure they can regulate morality.
The whole situation just seems a little strange....although it's not that hard to figure out the motivation.
Are you sure you weren't in a brothel?
ReplyDeleteAm I crazy, or doesn't the government do this with our taxes? Everyone wants the rich to pay more, but have we forgotten that the rich are rich for a reason. The world won't be happy until hard work and education no longer matter. Let's just all be communists.
ReplyDeleteIf people want to make 9 billion dollars like the oil companies, then become a CEO. If they're not willing to do what it takes to make more than $15 an hour, then accept your position in this world.
The rich should just keep paying for all our laziness and poor choices.
Today's rant has now concluded.
I help abused kids for a living and I feel like I do a good job. I work very hard and my job isn't easy or often rewarded in any way. I have a college degree from a good university, 10 years of experience in the field and sometimes I make a difference. I care. Lawyers and angry parents scream at me.
ReplyDeleteNow tell me, who decided that I am only worth $12 per hour (I'm paid by your taxes and my taxes too). If I don't do my job well, kids will die. Who will do the work if, all at once, all the people in my position decided that we want to be CEOs because we aren't valued enough for what we do. Or should we all go on strike? That's OK, the people who want to lower your taxes for you will just fire me and hire someone with less experience, less education and who probably doesn't know or care very much.
Who decided that a CEO is worth a million? Who actually works hard enough to be worth that much money? Where does the money to pay for those CEOs salaries come from? It comes from you, my friend. It comes from companies who employ thoses CEOs raising prices. It comes from inflation.
I'm just a more visible target because I'm paid by your taxes.
Yes, I agree that we are the ones who decide how much those CEO's make by purchasing or using their products. I also agree that we set the standard that decides that you are only paid $12/hour. I personally am fine with both of those. You have made the decision that caring for abused kids is more important to you than money. I applaud you for that decision, but do not complain when you make that decision that you are not getting paid enough to do it. If you were in it for the money you would be in another profession. Life is about choices.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong - I'm a teacher and don't make all that much money, so I have the utmost respect for people like you (anonymous #1). As the other anonymous person said, you should be applauded for your work. But it's not about that. It's about money. And frankly, you don't generate all that much money in your line of work.
ReplyDeleteI get tired of hearing people complain about the money professional athletes make. The talent of Chad Johnson generates a heck of a lot of money, so he deserves to make a heck of a lot of money. I generate very little money, so I deserve to make very little money.
Let's not get economics and significance confused. We all know CEO's make a lot of money; it doesn't matter how or why, they just do. We know the groundrules and we make choices based on those rules. Some people want money, so they do what it takes to get it. Others want to wake up in the morning with a feeling of purpose, so we make choices to get us there.
I don't derserve one extra dime from Chad Johnson because he's done what it takes to make his money. I know what I need to do if I want a piece of that pie. The problem is that most people want a hand-out because we're too lazy to go make it happen for ourselves.
One last thought - people aren't paid (nor should they be paid) on how important their work is. They are paid (and should be paid) based on how much money their job generates. Teachers and social workers don't generate money. CEO's, professional athletes, and movie stars do.
ReplyDeleteMy job generates zero so I should make zero?! Children and Family Services should recieve no money to function because it generates no money? Are you kidding?
ReplyDeleteShould people with mental retardation live on the street because most of them generate no money?
How about the elderly? By all means lets toss them out on the street too because, well, they're just useless!
Societies that value materialism are soon consumed by materialism and destroy themselves. Ancient philosophers observed that.
I really hope armageddon happens soon because God knows we deserve it!
People aren't paid based on how much their job generates... their paid based on two things:
ReplyDelete1) How much the free market determines their services to be worth
2) How many people are willing and able to do that job compared to how many positions are available.
You make $12.00 per hour? Apparently you decided that you were okay trading your services for $12.00 per hour and the government decided that they were willing to trade $12.00 per hour for your services. Hence, you are getting paid EXACTLY the right amount of money.
As for taxes, one could argue that the rich use more of the government's services. For example, I own a business. So, that means that I use the highways quite a bit more than poor people, because I need to have trucks move my product. I also use police service more than poor people, because I need to have both my house and my business protected.
however, rich people pay a disproportionate amount of the tax burden relative to how much they make. I'm generally okay with that... I just think that the TOTAL tax burden is too high. I also think that, when tax cuts come around, the rich should get the lion's share, because they've paid in the most.
Speaking of ridiculous price/wage-setting, google the story on Chicago's City Council fixing minimum wages at $13.00 per hour for big-box retailers like Wal-Mart. There are about a billion things that are wrong with that decision morally... but the bottom line is that the result will be poor people paying more for their consumer goods because Wal-Mart stayed away and poor people earning less because Wal-Mart decided not to put a store in Chicago and pay them $13.00 an hour. So, the Chicago City Council decided that poor people should work for small retailers for $6.50 per hour (instead of $7.25 for Wal-Mart) and pay $25.00 for a stick of deoderant (instead of $0.07 at WalMart).
Socialism is stupid.
Crap. I used the wrong spelling of "They're."
ReplyDeleteI have become that which I hate.
All the ancient philosophers are now dead. So much for them being so smart.
ReplyDeleteYou're not generating zero money with your job.
Your job is part of the service that the government provides. Your job generates a certain portion of the total tax revenue of the government, because we are all paying for your service. So, your job DOES generate money.
Fundamentally, the government works a lot like any business (well, mostly like the mafia, to be precise, but I digress). It provides a service, we pay for the service. Like the mafia, though, if you don't want the service, they force you to accept the service and pay for it.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteYou said "their" instead of "they're." Haha.
Anonymous person,
You seem to be the one overly concerned with money. I'm saying that money doesn't matter. If I want money, then I'll quit my teaching job and become a CEO. But the rewards of helping people outweigh the rewards of lettuce in my pocket.
What seems silly is to choose a career (like teaching), and then complain for the rest of your life that the salary is unfair (like many teachers do). That seems like an obsession with materialism.
I want to ask a serious question though. What is your solution? So many people complain about the system, but I don't hear many solutions. I'd love to hear the alternative.
Socialism.
ReplyDelete"Even though Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Baltic States, European Former USSR, Former Yugoslavia, Asia Minor former USSR, Central Asia former USSR, Mongolia, Laos, Vietnam & Cambodia are transitioning OUT of socialism?"
ReplyDelete"it works in China"
"really? Aren't they putting in more and more "special economic zones" like Hong Kong - which are completely capitalist? Isn't it somewhat telling if they're moving to these "special economic zones" and calling them "economic zones" that they're starting to figure out what works best?
"well....crap....but what about the discrepancy between the poor and the rich?"
"Yeah, that's a much bigger problem in socialist countries...as it turns out"
"oh....um....but what about Cuba?"
"isn't that where they're piling in to plastic bags held together by car tires and attempting to float on over to here?"
"I guess so....but....crap"
I get that it sounds nice and happy on a first grade level...but beyond that? Should we keep trying for it even though it doesn't work just because it sounds good?
this is why anyone can be a millionaire selling a all you can eat candy bars and ice cream diet. As long as people want to believe it...they will.
If the gap between the poor and the rich is $10 to $1 in a "fair" country like the Europeans, wouldn't the poor still be better off in a country where the gap was twice as large, but it was $20 to $2? The rich make substantially more, but so do the poor.
ReplyDeleteThat's what people don't seem to get. Free markets create more wealth for everyone... not just the rich. It's just that the rich are the ones generating the wealth, so they get most of the benefit.
I agree with everything Murph and Mike just said in response to the Socialism idea.
ReplyDeleteSocialism is a great idea, and I think we'll get there, but I don't think it will be until individual suffering is reconciled with group suffering, and I don't think that will be until we all understand that suffering of the one is suffering of the many, and I don't think that will happen until individuality is wiped out, and I don't think that will happen until we're all more of a conscious part of the collective, and I don't think that will happen until we plug ourselves into the hive-mind with spikes in our heads, Matrix-style. I know, I know, call me an optomist. . .
ReplyDeleteblack17 brings up an interesting point:
ReplyDeleteIn an un-fallen world, socialism and capitalism are equally effective.
capitalism is the best way that we, as humans, have developed to deal with the economic consequences of the fall of man.
How can socialism work if there are people who are greedy and selfish? It just won't work. We can't count on everyone being nice and generous and caring for everyone else.
ReplyDeleteMost socialists would say that the only people who are greedy and selfish are capitalists.
ReplyDeleteThe socialists' solution? Either kill or imprison all the capitalists. See: The entire 20th century.
I found this on a website posted by a communist, interesante. So how is this a solution anonymous?
ReplyDelete"Socialism is the stage between Capitalism and Communism. It builds upon the previous system (Capitalism) by nationalizing the "means of production" (i.e. corporations, resources, banks, etc.), but not by making everyone equal. In other words, people will be paid wages based on several factors (social need, difficulty, amount of schooling required, etc.), so not everyone will make the same wage -- as is often a misinterpretation of Socialism. As Communists we advocate Socialism because it is the next necessary step to get to Communism."
It sounds to me like Y'all are the ones who have misinterpreted socialism. It sounds like common sense to me.
ReplyDeleteHow is it being misinterpretted? Where has it worked? Why do you think it will work? How is it common sense?
ReplyDeleteWhy do you care so much what I think?
ReplyDeleteYou seem to have some strong opinions and I wonder why. Maybe there is something the rest of us are missing. It isn't a bad thing that I/we are interested in what you think.
ReplyDeleteOk. A far better mind than mine expressed it much better than I ever could hope to. Google "Albert Einstein, Why Socialism?". It's wonderful. If you want to try to argue with him...well, I'll just laugh at you.
ReplyDeletePeace
physics =/ economics
ReplyDeleteAlbert Einstein was good at physics. It doesn't make him an expert in everything else. He says that right off the bat.
For example, his comments on unused labor representing an inherent inefficiency of capitalism that socialism can overcome is clearly incorrect. If there was production to be had from the unemployed, someone would do it - that's the nature of the free hand.
If Einstein would just apply his method of thought experiments to the economic question at hand, this would be easily demonstrated.
Put simply, he's just wrong and he's not particularly good at making his case.
Interestingly, capitalist principles are the key to preventing annihilation due to the atomic menace that Einstein released. Mutually Assured Destruction basically saved the world in the 20th century. Ironic, huh?
I'm laughing now.
ReplyDeleteAh, the arrogance of youth.
Well, I'm don't have a Ph.D in economics, but I do have a Masters Degree, and I have a lot more perspective on the history of socialism than Albert Einstein had. So I don't hesitate to say that I'm right here and he's wrong. That's just not a stretch.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that it's a coincidence that Socialist Europe is an economic mess, the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics went broke and fell apart, and China is abandoning socialism, while the US has become unfathomably wealthy?
If you care to say that I'm arrogant and incorrect, please demonstrate both facts, rather than calling on the name of someone who is an expert in an unrelated field.
There are people with Masters degrees and PhDs who are conservative and don't agree with the tenets of socialism and there are people with Masters and PhDs in these fields who can argue for socialism just as convincingly. I have had wonderful liberal professors.
ReplyDeleteI have a triple minor in economics, political science and history. So what? Should we have a stand off? Dualing degrees?
Whatever the US adopts, most of the rest of the world (at least the developed countries) tend to follow (if they know what's good for them, right?). You would be right to say that if the US is capitalist then the rest of the world's economy will not fare well in comparison because we are hoarding most of the world's wealth.
Rich isn't necessarily happy or fair. In the richest country in the world, don't you think most people would be happier if they knew they had access to decent, affordable healthcare (have your heard of concierge medicine, yet? The trend where only people who can afford to pay a retainer out of pocket get good doctors), decent jobs, decent childcare and didn't have to raise their kids worried that an injury, a lay off or the like would wipe them out?
Do you have kids yet, Mike? Have you ever had to decide not to take your child to the ER because you can't afford the copay this month? Had a friend who lived in a homeless shelter because she was a single Mom (was an abused wife) who was doing OK until she got laid off, lost her health insurance, and then her child had a heart problem and her life savings went into healthcare to keep him alive?
Einstein was a brilliant, abstract thinker, a philosopher and renaissance man. He could put two and two together and see the future. If you don't respect his opinion, that's fine. I do think most people would disagree, though.
"I know it hasn't ever worked...but let's keep trying it because it sounds nice"
ReplyDelete“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
-Albert Einstein
Sean, the only reason it hasn't worked is because the United States is hoarding all the wealth. Duh.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, the whole world would be a socialist utopia by now.
Nevermind HOW the United States got all the wealth in the first place.
For the record, the United States has an ENORMOUS trade deficit. What is a trade deficit? It's when the money going out of the country to buy foreign goods exceeds the money coming into the country from the sale of domestic goods. So, we are sending more wealth OUT INTO the world than we are accumulating. I'm curious as to what definition of "hoarding" that circumstance falls under?
this is what I love about socialists... they have an absolute aversion to dealing with reality and deal only in theory. They're wrong on both fronts, but it's easier to argue abstract theory, because abstract theory doesn't lead to the deaths of countless millions of people like socialism does.
Capitalism is good for now, but it is merely a step towards a greater good. It won't last. And, ironically, all you Christians know it, too! Know why? Because eventually the truth will come out that we are all part of the vibrant glory of God, all part of Him and his divine plan, indistinguishable from Him and each other in our perfection. Yes yes, I know the Bible says "created in His image" and blah blah blah. . .but, you know. . .before He created everything there was only Him, so all things created must be of Him. I don't know the Bible too good, but there's gotta be some verse in there that supports me. If nothing else, I revert to the preeminent (sp?) philosopher Yoda who says "luminous beings are we. . .not this crude matter." Since we are all created from the perfect nature of God, it turns out that we are all one, and when we figure it out, and all the rest of the corporeal basic needs of man are figured out (which, incidentally are a lie too, which is something that you Christians also already belive because I'm pretty sure there's a "die to things of the flesh" line in there somewhere) we'll be free to realize our true essence, which is divine, harmonious, free of need, which then makes Capitalism obsolete.
ReplyDeleteBefore you disagree and say "yes we are the true nature of God, but we also have freewill, which is essentially imperfect, and allows us to sin, thus we are not the same as God" I'd say #1 God set this whole crazy plan in motion, He doesn't screw up, so the bottom line is that our imperfection is part of His perfect plan, which means that our imperfection makes us perfect, and #2, if you don't buy that, isn't there some kinda Alpha and Omega stuff in Revelations that tells how everything returns to God in the very end of stuff? Man, I wish I knew what I was talking about before I start saying stuff.
Ha ha, no I don't! Take that, logic! Take that, valid points!