It's great to be part of the 1%

[GreenGuy]

Here's just an amazing clip. This guy thinks it's "great," "fantastic," "celebratory," that only 85 people have more money that the 3.5 billion poorest put together. (http://www.upworthy.com/this-guy-needs-a-clue-a-member-of-the-1-declares-it-great-that-35-billion-are-in-poverty?c=upw1)

I wonder how he'll feel when the masses tear his house down and hang him out to dry.

[sandy]

Embarrassed to admit that this guy is a Canadian...............IMHO he has lost his way with his wealth and sense of importance and ego!! He is also lost in the mindset of "the survival of the fittest" meme believing this gives him permission to scorn those who believe in equality.............................:(

[Sidney]

What a scumbag.

[araucaria]

If this is one of the 85 (unlikely?), then he is part of the one ten millionth of a percent. The 1% represent 70 million fortunes, which means there are a lot of 'scumbags' out there, which is part of the problem, the other part being that many many people with much less are sharing the mindset expressed so frankly in this interview. These are the people who need to be shaken into some kind of awareness. I hope their next news item was a story from one of the poorest countries of Africa.

[truth4me]

Remember it's TV your watching. An NWO shill,plant.....

[Becky]

So he is advocating that everyone should WANT to be like him and FIGHT their way to the top ....what a total w*nker. I feel so sorry for him as he is bluffing and living in terrible fear. Poor lost soul.

[sheme]

The Jesus spirit tells us that the poor will always be with us. Without darkness we cannot know what light is, until society undergoes radical change far into the future his type will exist, I wish him no harm he knows no better. Would you kill a cat for being a cat?

[778 neighbour of some guy]

The 1% represent 70 million fortunes

Good call, I doubt they are all bastards too;)

[Agape]

I liked what Anchor said on another thread ( that time it was about the British Queen ) : no one really owns anything .

Because it's the core truth . How can you 'own' land , it does not belong to you, it was here billions of years before any tiny piece of human history and will be here long after ,
the same way no one owns knowledge, what is the use of ;ownership' of either materials or instruments, or objects you've not crafted and created by your own hands ,
commodities and values that you as an individual can never use in one human life .

The rich man and the poor man both have but one stomach, and can eat and drink similar amount of food and coffee during their life . If they eat in excess or starve in excess , they die earlier . The ratio between individual consumption and global 'ownership' of values that are thus blocked from access
for most people is incredibly disproportional , the attempt to own and control the planet and people themselves , in the end ..
it will always hit them back . No matter what kind of objection they rise because no one can control the Universe,
its forces, one earthquake is enough to destroy all of your 'precious' commodities and who you are then ?

Another individual dependent on good will or not , of millions of other individuals . So be to others as you wish them to be unto you.


Till human beings won't realise the utter 'idiocy' ( pardon me the term ) of ownership , society will always stay unequal , controlled because controllable and asking for controls .


:wave:

[sheme]

I own on paper a miniscuel proportion of my home country this allows me to be it's caretaker for as long as I live - nothing more.

I plant trees for environmental and creatures needs, I know if I don't take care of it the mob could cut down my trees and use them for firewood before they have a chance to mature.

Some people destroy to survive, some people invest their care into tomorrows Earth.

So who is the better human being?

Those that have or those that just don't hang around long enough to see the consequences of their actions?

Neither one is better or worse than the other it is all about balance in the environment we have been given something we all have our roll to play to build a new future.

Once more it is about vibration and connection and fine balance. Would I be stoned because I have something to protect ? That is what ignorance is -mob action before reason.

If you are cold come by my fire- don't cut down the trees I plant for your children.

[Agape]

No one is better or worse , human being .. the tree will feed you, saint and the sinner . Who does not have right to live under the sky ?

You say I plant the tree .. but the trees planted themselves mostly before you've destroyed the forests and used all the wood , they did not ask you to own or plant them . Now you do, before it's too late ..

You plant them but they need sunshine and water to grow and minerals from soil. You don't provide the sunshine.

The trees provide you , not you the trees . They feed you, animals you eat , yet .. you say you own them ..

It's not that I don't understand your relative law and point of view . Just explaining how everything in the modern version of human society is based on artificial values ,

if you can't understand the difference between real and artificial value ,

as it is with value of any good, it's real cost and it's market price ,

you can't understand how the economic systems stands as card castle , virtually on nothing because it is virtual.


:angel:

[sheme]

Sorry, did you actually read my post?

No where did I say I owned anything other than a piece of paper.

Vegetarian here.

Too much has been lost in the translation.

I go to ask another tree to plant it's self.

But it is good to meet you. Peace.

[Agape]

Sorry too here , just talking to myself I guess ..

If things do not improve ..the children of your children will ( theoretically, of course ..according to the 'best' scientific plans ) eat lots of seaweed and meat from Japanese poop and it all will cost few millions of yuan/s . It's the people at the top who think they own and run the show for us that need to change views .

Sorry Sheme , and thanks for planting the trees :angel:

[sheme]

We should be friends Agape:rapture:

Now What do we think of this idea for a future world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfhpExLVTGM

[Agape]

Thanks Sheme , I'm sure we are friends already :hug:

Thanks for posting the video .. yes it's obvious and will be more so in future that completely new approach to organising global structures is required ..

we all know it but it's equally hard to implement in todays world as I'd say maybe 80% of the running socio-economical systems are obsolete , stuck in debts , in history uncleared for generations where the only means how to 'clear history' for those people was to create wars , 'delete' people, blast weapons, exploit resources and destroy the previous system .
See what is happening now .. they're creating 'intelligent machines' , endowed with huge memory capacity and computing super-powers to run the show for them but forget that they've coded their 2D-3D logic and ethical values or lack of to their creation and what will happen again is that the Past will rule the Future .

They've so called 'learned from history' and the whole lesson was turned to educational computer games about wars .

They tell us 'not to be smart too fast' .

Offer these people any good solution and they'll get stuck on it and cut their teeth off because we're dealing with thousand years old barbarianism , maybe millions years old fears of each other . But I think that Life will give birth to a Change, like a wave of events that will unfold naturally .. perhaps.

It's one part of what many are fearing .. we're not on the brink of destruction, not quite yet .. and things won't change unless we get there ,
so half of people wait patiently for that to happen and others , how to make it soon ..


Why , you see .. we each could be living in our little paradise and build gardens allowed to us and say 'the whole is beyond my capacity to solve' ,
but we are here because we know it's not true ..

[Milneman]

Kevin O'Leary....gotta love him or hate him. He's the Don Cherry of the financial world up here.

This is so much more complicated than 1% of 100%.

Two things:

Thing Number One: If you are so disgusted by this guy's beliefs, set an example. Sell everything you own, give it to the poor, and help the poor in your own poverty. I believe that's biblical. ;) OR keep pointing fingers at people like him and blaming them so we can avoid having to do anything. It's the 1%. We're the 99%. We're with those people in Africa because we're pointing fingers at the 1%. Or better yet. The people sitting on the sidewalk in the same dirty clothes they've been wearing all year because they're poor. I have, in my wanderings, only met one socially conscious individual who in their beliefs has actually worked soup kitchens, homeless shelters, actually touched, talked to, and been among the poor. That's the 1% we should be thinking about expanding. The 1% of people who actually do instead of type or talk.

Thing Number Two: Marx never realized how right he was, and if he had, he never would've written what he did. There is a form of capital that isolates people from themselves, what they could produce, and the people around them. It is a universal form of capital that is world wide in its scope, and to remove it from the global system would truly create a global financial crisis of the likes the world has never seen before. That is this: victimhood. Victimhood is the new capital.

There are two types of victimhood that I can see that are currently used as capital. These must be differentiated between actual individuals who have legitimately suffered from an unkind action of man or "God". (Murder, a natural disaster, etc)

The first type of victimhood is personal individual victimhood. This type of victimhood creates a false sense of deserving in an individual as a means of avoiding the uncomfortable reality of obligation to society, family, or self. The second type of victimhood is in some senses more diabolical in that it is impersonal and really treats other people's suffering as capital: namely, the harvesting of mass victimhood for the creation of capital.

I want to be clear: I do not believe this is a result of capitalism, or as a result of socialism. This is the result of chiefly capitalistic interventionist societies and countries reacting to the politically correct movement of socialism as well as other socialist factors to end up with this synthesis of victim capital. And the clear looser in this system is the human spirit, regardless of wealth, regardless of position, regardless of nationality because...

...because the chief trade in personal victimhood is personal responsibility and self-ownership/autonomy. When I become a victim, I give up certain rights under the assumption that my victimhood or lack of self empowerment/self determination will produce a pay-off, usually financial. The Welfare-State is an industry people. I want you to imagine how many jobs would disappear if nobody collected a welfare cheque, what would happen to mental health if nobody was on welfare and instead was working to create income. It's argued that there'd be a surplus of people without work, and I agree for the first generation of this type of transition would have the most difficulty. But ask yourself, what does having a job give a person besides a source of income? If you remove the victim mentality that we are all to a degree polluted with, even working fast food for minimum wage as a starting point to something better, which is what that type of job used to be, gives a sense of purpose and accomplishment. You develope a sense of pride that simply does not exist on welfare. How many people do we know on welfare that are proud of collecting it? You have something to do, and when you do it long enough, you develope a sense of wanting more, a sense of purpose. And children of these kinds of people pick up and learn from this. In one step, the victim mentality dies. It truly is that simple.

But because the welfare beast is so strong, the victim machine so profitable, why destroy it?

How many multi-billion dollar corporations are created for the sole purpose of distributing food/clothing/shelter/building wells to third world countries? Why are there still third world countries? Because the 99% need them.

There does have to be a revolution, but not in the sense Marx of Lenin ever imagined. It has to be a revolution of responsibility, ownership of self, and forgiveness that supersedes financial gain and the idea of rights without responsibilities.

Those of us who know O'Leary truly over the years know this man is a lot of puff for the cameras. He's a family man. And he's worked very, very hard for what he has.

Had you worked very, very hard for what you had, would you sell it all, give it to the poor, and left your life to help them?

I know what you want to say, and we both know it's a lie.

Turn the finger around people. The longer we point at the 1%, the so called "illuminati" of the world, the longer we deny that we've contractually agreed to this situation. You run the show, we'll be the victims. You toss us a cookie, we'll let you run the bakery.

You don't have to fire a gun to create a revolution! You just have to get out of bed and stop being a victim. Empower yourself by changing yourself. Do you really think there'd be this kind of poverty in the world if we lived in a world that valued and encouraged self-determination and self-sufficiency?

Your cell phone is your ball and chain. Your computer is the feed stall. If, and only if, you choose to play that game.

I hate cell phones. I write on my computer, stay in touch with friends from here and family all over North America and Europe. But to be honest guys? I can't wait for the day I start felling logs for my tiny cabin in Northern Saskatchewan...no power, no running water, just candles, great books, and the crackle of a wood burning stove and a fireplace.

Atlas will shrug. Atlas is the 99%. The 1% is looking at us and saying, why are you upset? You wanted it this way.

Just. Shrug.

[sheme]

This is why to evolve in a 10 thousand year leap and to create the beginning of a beautiful world consciousness shift has to happen, we tried the way of the few, it is time for the beginning of the way forward for the peace makers.

The magnanimous committee will decide our future, after the new beginning- love of the precious human incarnate will prevail -Love will rule.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7PZVYG57UQ

I would have this guy on our committee any day.

[Milneman]

hehe Sheme it's so easy and I think that's why people, for one reason, avoid it. It's too simple.

Do what you don't want to do if it's the right thing to do in that particular situation. It's really that easy.

That might mean eating oatmeal as part of increasing heart health.

Or it might mean volunteering in a thrift store, or going to church, or delivering meals on wheels to the elderly....or this one is close to me right now....keeping veterans affairs offices open for veterans and cutting finances elsewhere to save money.

Veterans don't have the offices we need anymore, but....the welfare state is still getting fatter.

Is it just me or is there a fundamental disconnect with a society when it values those who can provide for themselves but choose not to over those who sacrificed so much to protect them?

There are legitimate cases and situations for a society to provide aid to those who need it. My own family came from a welfare situation. But at the time, it was a part time measure you worked really hard to remove yourself from because it was a strain on your neighbours. You take the help, but you help in return when you can.

Coffee was strong today! :D

[GreenGuy]

Would you kill a cat for being a cat?

Let me rephrase that by substituting "pit bull" for "cat." The answer is no. I like pit bulls and cats. But if my pit bull was killing every pet in the neighborhood, I'd have to do something.

"Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do" is nearly a mantra with me. But that doesn't mean that someone isn't gonna have to do something. If we're headed for another revolution, it is going to be more like the French Revolution than the one we had just a few years previously. The rich are not all evil, and there is nothing wrong with wealth per se. What happened as a result of the French Revolution was justly called the Reign Of Terror, and it wasn't just the rich who suffered.

[SPIRIT WOLF]

In the UK like US and many other places the gap between the haves and have nots is increasing out of control. Even those in regular full time work find themselves in the poverty trap, those out of work or too sick or disabled are even worse. The UK government and mass media demonises all those that receive benefits of one sort or another. They embed the very idea into joe publics mind that anyone receiving such benefits is a scrounger, a thief, a worthless human being. The clever way the government and then enhanced by certain media stories, TV and radio pushes into the minds of the general public that benefit receivers are a lower class of animal and should be despised!

[Shezbeth]

IMO and observations, one of the greatest contributor to wealth inequality is inheritance. I understand that what I am about to say flies in the face of almost the entirety of historical precedent, but I'm going to say it anyway.

Personal/familial inheritance has to go. This idea that our children or other beneficiary is deserving and entitled to the fruits of the labor of someone else is preposterous IMO. No, an individual can't "take it with them", so instead it can be ensured that it goes right back into the same dynamic and ultimately perpetuates the social conditions into which it came about?

There would BE no Rothschild empire, no Royal family, no Bush/Clinton back-and-forth, as the political class would be populated by those who made it on their own volition and intestinal fortitude. What's the phrase? Something about you never spend other people's money as wisely as you do the money you earned?

[Milneman]

In the UK like US and many other places the gap between the haves and have nots is increasing out of control. Even those in regular full time work find themselves in the poverty trap, those out of work or too sick or disabled are even worse. The UK government and mass media demonises all those that receive benefits of one sort or another. They embed the very idea into joe publics mind that anyone receiving such benefits is a scrounger, a thief, a worthless human being. The clever way the government and then enhanced by certain media stories, TV and radio pushes into the minds of the general public that benefit receivers are a lower class of animal and should be despised in the same way the government and then enhanced by certain media stories, TV and radio pushes into the minds of the general public that the "1%" are a lower class of animal and should be despised.

See how clever it is? The 1% isn't doing this. We are! To ourselves! They count on this!

The key to acting with integrity is to simply stop playing the game.

[Milneman]

IMO and observations, one of the greatest contributor to wealth inequality is inheritance. I understand that what I am about to say flies in the face of almost the entirety of historical precedent, but I'm going to say it anyway.

Personal/familial inheritance has to go. This idea that our children or other beneficiary is deserving and entitled to the fruits of the labor of someone else is preposterous IMO. No, an individual can't "take it with them", so instead it can be ensured that it goes right back into the same dynamic and ultimately perpetuates the social conditions into which it came about?

There would BE no Rothschild empire, no Royal family, no Bush/Clinton back-and-forth, as the political class would be populated by those who made it on their own volition and intestinal fortitude. What's the phrase? Something about you never spend other people's money as wisely as you do the money you earned?

So by that logic, if by the work of my blood, sweat, and tears, I accumulate wealth, I should by the nature of my death not have a say in how that wealth should be distributed?

There's a word for that.

Theft

Here in enters the capital of victimhood. It's not fair someone should have something for nothing. Let's take what they have and spread it around without any effort of our own. Shezbeth, do you see how this is as much a violation of right as what you claim to be in not having wealth?

How does giving wealth to an heir differ from it being taken by a government, or other individuals, who have no inherited right to what I have produced in part for the benefit of my heirs?

Utopias do not exist for one reason. Theft.

It's a good idea, but the practical application would only work if the individuals in the system agreed to its application. I know those who have not and want more with less effort would love the idea. But let's say it's your children. Your family, who has come to enjoy the fruits of your labours, and have in turn learned an ethic that involves responsible spending, judgement, and tradition?

Say it with me: Marxism can never work because it relies on individuals obtaining a standard of ethic that simply goes against human nature. The problem isn't with money. The problem is with people wanting without understanding the ethic of participation in productivity. It was mentioned a few posts back about the horrid conditions of welfare families. How did they get this way? Why do they generationally continue? People don't "want" to be on welfare. But as I pointed out, what happens when you eliminate the people who are on welfare, what happens if they don't need it any more? You have tens of thousands of jobs, many more tens of thousands of jobs that rely on the initial tens of thousands, out of work because there is no longer an industry that requires the service. The service being....you guessed it....non-service.

If only 2 people put beans into a jar, but 8 take it out....

Greenguy, you're right. I think it will be a "french type" revolution. And when the smoke clears, as it always does, there will be new people in the same positions doing the same things and in 100 years we'll realize...well fvck we did the same thing again.

See my original post in this thread. I stand by my thesis.

[Camilo]

It's great to be part of the 1% : That statement only reflects their state of ignorance and lack of conscious awareness of that alleged 1%.

[Milneman]

That statement only reflects their state of ignorance and lack of conscious awareness.

Which statement? (Unfortunately your statement asserts what you're saying in a different context...and I'm narking out on caffeine! ;))

Thank you for clarifying. But I still wonder...are you referring to the 99%, the 1%, or the 100%? ;)

[Shezbeth]

I'm not advocating for the entirety of an estate to be redistributed, I am advocating that - beyond a "sufficient" amount - it can be re-allocated toward a greater communal self-sufficiency. If one's heirs wish to experience the same benefits that come of hard work, diligence, etc. then they ought have to put forth the same hard work, diligence, etc. This entitlement of a 'lottery winner' (i.e. for no better reason than one's parents decided to procreate) is one of the main driving forces behind the corruption of the various industries, institutions, etc.

Taking from one person (who is deceased) and preventing it from going into the hands of those who haven't done anything to earn it is not theft. If anything, it is theft to allow gains to become ill gotten, simply because that's what the dead and dying would prefer. Why do the dead have a say in anything?

What you describe as human nature is natural, but only in a reactionary sense. The reaction is to the shape of things which (at one point) amounted to one person taking from another and then legitimizing it however they could (force, law, tradition, etc.).

[foreverfan]

Would you kill a cat for being a cat?

This guy personifies the parasite that lives in the host while destroying it. Some of you are saying that we should love the parasite that threatens our existence for being a part of the whole. I can't agree. Never! People with his attitude need to change or worse. Screw him.

So where is the outrage? His comments were way worse than Paula Dean's comments. He should be made to step down from his show at a minimum.

Still, I know it will never happen. :bs:



http://i.qkme.me/3uzhlq.jpg

[Fairy Friend]

It is great to be a 1% or 2%. It is an accomplishment. Indeed, it seems to be the new american dream. (the old one is a house with a white picket fence).

We are not all alike. Bethany (any housewife fans?) made $300,000,000 the year before last, and yes, paid well over $100,000,000 in taxes. She should be proud, her skinny girl cocktail, no secret idea, others jump on the band wagon, made her a fortune.

I don't understand. There are many 1% that think all the tax money goes to welfare and that there are many people who could work and simply don't and use the system. Programs that promote freeloaders. Indeed, I was told “teach them to fish, don't give them fish”. I get it that there are deceivers, cons and corruption on many levels.

A previous thread in this forum shows 52% of taxes go to the military. What about the other 48%?

Many of us are very charitable. A very long time ago, rulers were ones that were capable of taken care of many others. Cleopatra would never have the poor and weak in poor rags and underfed. They were a part of egypt and she was egypt. It would be uncivilized.

I know that raising the minimum wage is a good step, long overdue. In Obama's speech I hear.

I do not understand that we tax the poor at all. Why? I feel why are you asking 10% of those who barely make enough to own a bed to lie on? That's really odd to me. They should keep that, it really is better left because it isn't much. You make 10 beds and taking 1 for those who have none, sounds OK.

Overtaxing the rich makes people not strive for more. Incentive. Necessity is the mother of invention. Most people wouldn't mind paying taxes if it went for better roads, libraries, police and firemen. I wish my taxes to go for these things when I send them in.

It is hard to make wealth, it is hard to give it away. The times we live in is harder yet. Cons mimicking charities and money shuffled to other places....

I think it is noble to want to make life easier for ones family and to set them up.

If you won $100,000,000 could you give half away? On what? Giving to the charities is one thing the government another.

Some of us, have our own agendas. Some agendas require great wealth. It costs $100,000,000 for a desalinization plant that produces 1,000,000 gallons of water a day. I have heard of cheaper plans. Could you do that? and spend $100,000,000 to give water to others? Especially when you give $30,000,000 in taxes already?

[Milneman]

Would you kill a cat for being a cat?

This guy personifies the parasite that lives in the host while destroying it. Some of you are saying that we should love the parasite that threatens our existence for being a part of the whole. I can't agree. Never! People with his attitude need to change or worse. Screw him.

So where is the outrage? His comments were way worse than Paula Dean's comments. He should be made to step down from his show at a minimum.

Still, I know it will never happen. :bs:



http://i.qkme.me/3uzhlq.jpg

Great pic! I was weeping!

I'm not saying support the parasites. I'm saying we need to recognize WE ARE the parasites!

I stand by what I said! If you truly feel the way you do, sell everything you own, give it to the poor, and help them in your poverty.

lol awesome pic. :D

¤=[Post Update]=¤

It is great to be a 1% or 2%. It is an accomplishment. Indeed, it seems to be the new american dream. (the old one is a house with a white picket fence).

Stop right there.

That's the problem.

1%.

2%.

The solution starts when you accept the 100%. We are a part of the 100%. The 1% / 2% on either end, the finger pointing, that's where the victimhood capital takes hold. That's how it wins.

[Milneman]

I'm not advocating for the entirety of an estate to be redistributed, I am advocating that - beyond a "sufficient" amount - it can be re-allocated toward a greater communal self-sufficiency. If one's heirs wish to experience the same benefits that come of hard work, diligence, etc. then they ought have to put forth the same hard work, diligence, etc. This entitlement of a 'lottery winner' (i.e. for no better reason than one's parents decided to procreate) is one of the main driving forces behind the corruption of the various industries, institutions, etc.

Taking from one person (who is deceased) and preventing it from going into the hands of those who haven't done anything to earn it is not theft. If anything, it is theft to allow gains to become ill gotten, simply because that's what the dead and dying would prefer. Why do the dead have a say in anything?

What you describe as human nature is natural, but only in a reactionary sense. The reaction is to the shape of things which (at one point) amounted to one person taking from another and then legitimizing it however they could (force, law, tradition, etc.).

Ok. Let's work this a little differently, from a different angle.

If I suppose that if I provide a service at a reasonable cost over the course of my life and am able to amass a certain amount of wealth that I know at my departure will simply be re-distributed, what is going to motivate me to want to make money Shez? Why would I want to make money if it's just going to be given to other people outside of my direction or control? How is that any different than robbing a house after the people have left as opposed to robbing a house while they're still in it?

There is fundamentally (and legally I might add) a difference between what an heir receives and what you're suggesting as reasonable distribution. If it's not earned, it's not justified. Inheritable wealth doesn't categorize with earned wealth.

That's the way it is. That's life...suck it up princess, some people get it, some people don't. Is it reasonable to punish the people who get it because the people who don't think it's not fair?

Ok! By that logic, we should say everyone should earn a living equal to everyone else's and then adjust it according to their ability and need. How do we determine ability and need? How do we guarantee that those who set the standards for ability and need will be acting fairly and justly?

I go back to my original post, yet again. What you're describing is typical of the mentality that uses victimhood as capital.

[Shezbeth]

Ok. Let's work this a little differently, from a different angle.

If I suppose that if I provide a service at a reasonable cost over the course of my life and am able to amass a certain amount of wealth that I know at my departure will simply be re-distributed, what is going to motivate me to want to make money Shez? Why would I want to make money if it's just going to be given to other people outside of my direction or control? How is that any different than robbing a house after the people have left as opposed to robbing a house while they're still in it?

There is fundamentally (and legally I might add) a difference between what an heir receives and what you're suggesting as reasonable distribution. If it's not earned, it's not justified. Inheritable wealth doesn't categorize with earned wealth.

Ok! By that logic, we should say everyone should earn a living equal to everyone else's and then adjust it according to their ability and need. How do we determine ability and need? How do we guarantee that those who set the standards for ability and need will be acting fairly and justly?

I go back to my original post, yet again. What you're describing is typical of the mentality that uses victimhood as capital.

Why suggest a willingness to analyze from different angles when one is unwilling to do so?

For one, the volumes of money I am describing are those well outside of a living wage, and specifically well outside the lifetime earnings of most people. To wit, if one is dissatisfied with not keeping an amount that is well outside a lifetime wage after having deceased - or even just the idea of - it would seem that one has personal greed issues comparable to the bald fellow in the OP.

That an inheritance is subject to taxes above and beyond income is irrelevant, especially as the families and agencies which would be recipient to enormous fortunes would have sufficient lawyers so as to avoid lengthy taxation, especially through use of trusts, foundations, etc. These are groups who are (quite proud to) largely elusive of taxation.

I never suggested giving anyone anything. Ideally it could be used toward communal gardens or clean water systems, as indicated previously; Methods that help to provide for people's basic needs, or at least decrease the overall cost of a people's needs. I agree that there exists no authority currently that is capable of rightly overseeing such things,... that's why I am discussing hypotheticals on a message board rather than writing my congressperson or some such.


That's the way it is. That's life...suck it up princess, some people get it, some people don't. Is it reasonable to punish the people who get it because the people who don't think it's not fair?

Wow. Issues much? :loco:

[Milneman]

Great mirroring! I see we're descending into rhetoric. Last post for me.

Is there a difference between the motive of stealing one dollar and ten dollars?

What about one dollar and a hundred dollars?

Theft is theft. It's the providence of those who willingly justify theft for their own benefit to say "it for your own good".

I give you the last word. You don't take it from me. :P

[Yetti]

Ok , lets put it that way, If you work hard and succeed ,you must be damned?? or, if you manage to grow some wealth is MANDATORY that you give a good chunk of your hard earned money to people who never work for it ,just because a leftist politician say it ... and they just know how to spread babies everywhere without having minimum support for their education and maintenance??.
I work hard every day , because I want to succeed and don't want nothing for free, I like and really enjoy my day by day wins!! I agree with this guy. Also in this interview the guest and the host looks to be in very far away oposite positions ,living nothing in between.

[Fairy Friend]

I am confused. Did this guy inherit or earn his wealth?

Either way, do not let his ideas of how to be a model for the poor influence you.
He knows money and how to make it. That's it.

A local millionaire developer thought it was a good idea to get rid of the homeless by shipping them out of town. A billion dollar idea doesn't mean you can solve the world's problems. 3.5 billion people are a lot of people to save.

My father gave my sister great wealth because she was disabled and would never have the chance to do this for herself. She needed some one to care for her. All she wanted was a room of her own and a kitten. She did not understand money.

She deserved her right to happiness. He wanted her needs taken care of. He loved her (his daughter, my sister). She was to get $6-7,000,000 but died before she ever saw a dime of it. A sad tale. Best laid plans. :(

When we die, what we have to pass on is ours to do with as we decide. Small and large. Everyone's story is different.

[Shezbeth]

FWIW, I work my ass to the bone 40hrs/week. I would be most happy if everyone who could DID. I don't want a dime that I didn't earn, while my co-workers all qualify for government largesse. BOTH (inheritance and govt incentives) need to go IMO.

I can't say whether the individual in the video inherited his wealth, he probably 'earned' the relative majority, if not the overwhelming.

However, given his attitude toward wealth I can all but guarantee that he grew up amongst some form of privileged entitlement, but doesn't see it as such; That is the problem I am alluding to.

How many of the 1% started out from a lower-class or middle-class home and worked their way up? THAT is what I am on about. And, I would further suggest that those who DID did so by enamoring themselves to one or more extant wealthy individuals/families/institutions. How many congressional leaders and senators and the like didn't come from established families in their home communities?

But I'm not talking about the 1%, I am talking about the 0.1 - 0.01%

The phenomenon is not limited to inheritance, though that plays a big role. I know of a number of private and public companies where the sons and daughters of the owners are ushered into the management office the moment they graduate high school, entirely convinced of their own sufficiency and qualifications (or lack of, don't think that nepotism isn't an elusive form of inheritance) in the face of individuals who have worked for decades establishing the experience and the professional authority that ought result in their own promotion, which would open up room at the bottom so the little tykes can work their way up too. In theory.

The bottom line is, money as it currently stands is a method of control. I'm not suggesting the solution, I am pointing out one of the elements of the problem; As long as control (money) is allowed to be designated, that control will stay in the same relative hands as it always has. I am not nor will advocate for giving money away, to anyone for any reason (inheritance or otherwise). I am all for establishing local programs that allow those who are willing to work for it to make their own situation better collectively and individually. Schools come to mind, but common core would need to go long before, and that's another issue entirely (but equally in need of addressing IMO).

And I am wholly advocating against preferential treatment to the circumstancial beneficiaries of the geneological lottery that no one wants to speak about (whether by envy, aspiration, fear, whatever).

[778 neighbour of some guy]

Is there a difference between the motive of stealing one dollar and ten dollars?

What about one dollar and a hundred dollars?

Theft is theft, a moral question one could ask is what will the stolen money buy, dope or dinner, unfortunately when you got the answer you can still break the answer down to infinity, is the dope for the fun seeker was he a dick by being inconsiderate through stealing from someone else, or is the 'perp' self medicating for reasons beyond the comprehension of most reasonably psychologically reasoning people, the theft is still a theft, reasons and circumstances could make it somewhat understandable, all reasons will by no means mean you cannot be pissed of when someone steals from you, one could also be pissed of for another reason, why did the thief not simply ask you for the money, lack of faith in the generosity of humanity? I on occasion work with the homeless, and when I know they get to eat three times a day, have an income ( you get that in Holland) don't have to pay any bills besides your share in rent( bed)/dinner/ a use of the washing machine and shower ( this sh!t isn't free for you either), so me knowing they have three meals a day, a roof, heat, shower and clean clothes for 219 euro's a month, I can actually be a bit jealous ( my life without luxury cost me at least three times as much, rent, gas, water, light, taxes, healthcare I never use, phone, Internet, yadayadayada), and I don't give them a dime on the streets, 95% of the time I know exactly where their money goes, and I wont participate ( and they get pissed off at me for it), so I would definitely feel pissed of if they would steal from me, you already have my time, heart and attention and good intention, so what the hell else do you want from me, love perhaps, forget it, there's hundreds more like you, I need some love for me, myself and I after a day like that, so if you steal from me, I understand your circumstances, and still be pissed of at you. I have not contributed to the misery, so cut me some slack for trying to help you please. I understand mistrust and also know the anger is just a projection directed at the closest one around, that still does not mean I am there for someone's energy vampire target practice and assist in confirming their self fulfilling prophesies.

In case of dinner, why did he/ she have no money for dinner, lid on the nose due to living above their means, sh!t out of luck, desperate unemployed undereducated single mom, three jobs and still not able to pay the bills and dinner, housefire due neighbors negligence, wtf ever again, its still theft in any of the cases, and also a desperate way of looking for means to eat. First ask me for what you want, in case of NO, walk away and don't steal from me, I always have a good reason for saying no, like, I cant spare the cash myself right now, maybe next month you get a different answer.

[Yetti]

To Shezbet: Thank you for your post , let me tell you I knew many people who start low and after work their asses the whole life now they are in the top, ( I mean wealthy and in a very conf. economic position all of them!)
So the point is: It can be done! no question about, the thing is: can we achieve the same? are we clever and committed enough to get there? ,do we try hard enough?.......Opportunityes are everywhere, all the time , so my thoughabout the REDISTRIBITION of wealth is just a smoke wall from a very mediocre politician ,unable to do the job he is suppose to do.