Divide between rich and poor

Nice post Athon,

I agree that there are times it bothers me that some incompetant doofus gets fired and gets 13 million dollars for the privilege. And it bothers me that there are plenty of people who get to the top on much less than thier own merit. But it doesn't really bother me that the rich are rich.

What bothers me is more of an issue when someone has to work two part time jobs to make ends meet because the firms that are hiring do so only on a part time basis.

But for the rich being wealthy, well more power to them, I just disapprove of all the inside deals and influence peddling that goes on. It would be nice if the standard of living continues to rise for ewvry one.
 
Perhaps slightly off-topic, but just yesterday I saw a "60 minutes" broadcast which had a report on the demise of Montana Power.

Montana Power on "60 Minutes"

An excerpt:
“Montana Power, once worth $2.7 billion, now sits on the verge of bankruptcy. The lawyer for the shareholders says the New York brokerage firm Goldman Sachs is as much to blame as the company’s CEO for the debacle,” according to “60 Minutes” preview material posted on its Web site.

Attorney Frank Morrison, one of several trial lawyers in Montana suing the company on behalf of shareholders, told the program that Touch America CEO Bob Gannon and company executives orchestrated the deal but they needed the New York-based Goldman Sachs to pull it off.

“Gannon could never have sold this plan to the board. He didn’t have enough credibility,” Morrison is quoted as saying.

The program also states that only Goldman Sachs and a few higher ups in Montana Power seems to have profited by the transformation.

The report claims that the investment firm received $20 million for its assistance while four company executives collected $5.4 million in a change of control agreement.

....

The company’s stock, which once traded above $60 a share, closed Thursday at 37 cents a share.
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While I'm a fan of the Free Market, I seriously despise "golden parachutes", especially for executives who have bankrupted a company.
 
DanishDynamite said:
While I'm a fan of the Free Market, I seriously despise "golden parachutes", especially for executives who have bankrupted a company.
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So do I.
 
Things are becoming more affordable, so even if I'm not better off I can still have more stuff
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Why are things more affordable? Because more and more stuff is made in China, where labor is cheap. Those Americans, Aussies, Brits, and others whose jobs disappeared may be able to have more stuff, but less opportunity to earn much more than minimum wage.

Anyway - are you better off working at McDonalds and owning a DVD player or working at a DVD player manufacturing company? This is the position that many of the lower income earners are in.
 
Unless the disparity is such that it affects national security, I don't see how it could be an issue. In theory its none of the goverment's business how much money you make.
 
RE: money=power

shanek said:

Why? How can someone make you do something you don't want to do, or stop you from doing something you do want to do, solely with money?
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I opted for succinctness rather than accuracy. Of course having money doesn't neccesarily give someone more power.

Tell me you don't know what I mean when I say "money=power", and I'll be less succinct.
 
DanishDynamite said:
:eek: ;)
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Hey, what's so surprising about me saying that people should be responsible for their actions? Allowing people to get away with such things is antithetical to a free market, IMO, since the market has every reason to make sure they don't go around bankrupting companies.
 
fishbob said:
Why are things more affordable?
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Because wealth is created in the economy and improves the standard of living for everybody. "Cheap labor" has little if anything to do with it. Despite inflation, the poor have more and more buying power as time goes on.
 
Re: RE: money=power

specious_reasons said:
I opted for succinctness rather than accuracy. Of course having money doesn't neccesarily give someone more power.

Tell me you don't know what I mean when I say "money=power", and I'll be less succinct.
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Please do.
 
Thanks for the post, Malachi. While some points are purely speculative, for the most it offered me a different way of seeing the situation. Cool.

I guess I never really cared how rich some people got. And while money is indeed power, that's always been the case. As long as there was a basic level of affordibility, I couldn't care less if Mr. Trailerpark couldn't afford a high definition television, or the latest computer. As long as he had health, food and education, that was all he needed to be able to afford.

Anyway, I can happily say I've got some new perspectives on this concept now.

Cheers all,

Athon
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: money=power

shanek said:

Say what? Please explain what you mean by money=power.
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Personally, I think you're being intentionally obtuse by "not understanding" what I wrote. If so, then I can be intentionally obtuse by requiring you to tell me you don't understand what I'm talking about. Petty, I know....

Money doesn't equal power, but money can influence. It can especially influence those who are in power.

Influence comes in obvious ways, like donating money to politicians, or lobbying. Or, more vulgar, with bribes and kick-backs.

It can also come into playing on the fears and needs of politicians, like, "we'll build our fancy new headquarters and bring hundreds of good jobs to your area, but only if you give us a break in taxes." Or, more generally, "what's good for GM is good for the country."

These types of influences have real effect in government. And, quite frankly, I'm surprised that you seemed hostile to the idea. The effect to the government is not about levelling the playing field. It's laws that favor the powerful at it's most basic, and at it's worst, like Dancing David said, it's "inside deals and influence peddling."

...and of course, we the people have the ability to stop this corruption by the power of our votes. Which is why manufacturing consent is so important, and that, too, takes money.
 
Because wealth is created in the economy and improves the standard of living for everybody.
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Wealth is moved into the Chinese economy from the American economy. Wealth is created from productivity and the Chinese have the opportunity to be quite productive - in the short term anyway. American workers and Brits, Canadians, Aussies, Germans, etc are losing the opportnity to be productive as the jobs move to the cheap labor countries. Who knows - maybe the standard of living for American workers will rise again someday, owning more inexpensive electronics is not my idea of improved living standard.
 
fishbob said:
Wealth is moved into the Chinese economy from the American economy. Wealth is created from productivity and the Chinese have the opportunity to be quite productive - in the short term anyway. American workers and Brits, Canadians, Aussies, Germans, etc are losing the opportnity to be productive as the jobs move to the cheap labor countries. Who knows - maybe the standard of living for American workers will rise again someday, owning more inexpensive electronics is not my idea of improved living standard.
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Actually wealth is flowing from the Chinese economy to America. America is getting the greater benefits, the problem is that those benfits go largely to a very small number of people in terms of profits, and to the rest of us in terms fo cheap goods.

"America" as a whole is on the better end fo the trading bargan, we get a lot more then they get, otherwise we wouldn't be doing it, as I said, the prolem is that it goes to a very small percentage of people.

That's why corporations are now, and have been for a while, multi-national. Capitalism depends on buying low and selling high, which means buying labor where it is cheap and selling the fruits of labor where labor is high.

With no restrctions on labor or ways to keep labor cheap where it is being used this inevitably causes the price of labor to rise where it is employed and fall where it is not. The multi-national corporation then, being a global entity can simply change where ti sells to and where it produces. So these things flip flop back and fourth. They go about chasing the cheap labor all over the world, as they employ cheap labor in one place it will go up in price and the price of labor will fall in the other, then they simply change the flow of trade.

Labor becomes a commodity that is traded like on a stock market.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: money=power

specious_reasons said:
Money doesn't equal power, but money can influence.
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But influence is not the same as power. Influence is a form of voluntary persuasion.

It can especially influence those who are in power.

Influence comes in obvious ways, like donating money to politicians, or lobbying. Or, more vulgar, with bribes and kick-backs.
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I agree that all of these are undesirable, but if our politicians were forced to obey the Constitution and weren't ever given this power in the first place, it would hardly matter because they wouldn't be able to influence the politicians to do anything.

Your complaint is about government having too much power.

...and of course, we the people have the ability to stop this corruption by the power of our votes. Which is why manufacturing consent is so important, and that, too, takes money.
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But it isn't even supposed to come down to that! They're not supposed to be able to do those kind of things in the first place!
 
fishbob said:
Wealth is moved into the Chinese economy from the American economy.
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No, it isn't! It's exactly the opposite! The wealth is created in China (through the production of new goods) and moved to America when it is sold!

Do you pay for these goods in yuan or dollars? In dollars, of course! So the manufacturers have to exchange their dollars for yuan...which means that there must be people out there with an equal amount of yuan that they want to change for dollars. Why would they want those dollars? Either to buy goods or services from America or to invest in America.

I really, really wish people would learn some basic economics before they start making claims like this.
 
shanek said:


Hey, what's so surprising about me saying that people should be responsible for their actions? Allowing people to get away with such things is antithetical to a free market, IMO, since the market has every reason to make sure they don't go around bankrupting companies.
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Funny thing about that ShaneK, it couldn't be government regulation that would cause this to happen, we can hope that the media might publicise it, so how should that self corrrective action take place?
 
Dancing David said:
Funny thing about that ShaneK, it couldn't be government regulation that would cause this to happen,
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When did I say it was?

so how should that self corrrective action take place?
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You probably couldn't depend on complete self-correction. You'd likely have to do exactly what they're going now: Take the @$$holes to court. Hopefully the stockholders can retrieve the assets that were swindled away from them.
 
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