How has the Lie of Greed been sold to some in the US as the law of success ?
Greed if you are a Religious person (I’m not) is number 3 of the 7 deadly sins… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins#Greed_.28Latin.2C_avaritia.29
and yet it is the basis and the role model by which the modern American professional lives their lives…
The Average CEO originally earned 7 times what his lowest paid worker earned (back when the word "corporation" was young 1866) now He/She earns 400-500 times what they earn.. in fact the CEO of Exxon earns about 11,000.00 an hour…
we constantly hear about how our economy Grew over the last 7 years, but only for about 20% of the population, the other 80% stagnated in that same time, and the bottom 40% went from sharing 2% of the wealth to .02% …
So please, don’t throw flowery epithets at me…
Justify for me in real terms why it is acceptable, ..even defensible … that we should have 13 million children that go to bed hungry every night in the quote unquote richest country in the world..
The morals of our society have absolutely nothing to do with a shriveled Job market ?
Once again, you infuse morality and profit ?
Create real Jobs where people earn real wages and watch them flourish, force them into a hole that they can’t see sunlight out of and watch them turn into criminals.. the ‘"starving child Myth" ????? wow… that’s as low as it gets..
it is in fact unacceptable. many people who argue "zomg taxes are theft!" don’t understand basic economics which dictate that the wealth of some come at the expense of others – namely that the huge increase in the wealth of corporate leaders has come at the expense of layoffs and pay cuts at the lower ends of the corporate hierarchy. the theft of the rightful wages of workers to benefit ceo’s has already occurred and proper taxation of those who have benefited from this lopsided scheme just corrects that imbalance. the significantly smaller gap between earnings of workers and company leaders in the 60s is one of the main reasons why the middle class prospered and expanded at that time. obviously we are in an opposite situation these days…
April 7th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Huh?
http://bp3.blogger.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/R86zxAv3L3I/AAAAAAAAD00/FuJ-V-x3N0o/s1600-h/ibd.gif
http://bp3.blogger.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/R9W90btDtNI/AAAAAAAAD6k/mooaBKuw3n4/s1600-h/household.bmp
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120511125873823431.html
http://libertycorner.blogspot.com/2008/04/income-inequality-myths-vs-facts.html
And apparently montcalm likes to write about things she knows nothing about. Econ 101 babe – it’s NOT a zero sum game, one person’s wealth does NOT come at the expense of others.
Bill Clinton understood this:
The more complex societies get and the more complex the networks of interdependence within and beyond community and national borders get, the more people are forced in their own interests to find non-zero-sum solutions. That is, win–win solutions instead of win–lose solutions…. Because we find as our interdependence increases that, on the whole, we do better when other people do better as well — so we have to find ways that we can all win, we have to accommodate each other…. Bill Clinton, Wired interview, December 2000 .
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April 7th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
The myth of children starving in America is just that. A Myth.
The obesity rates among the lower class is skyrocketing, including childhood obesity. They are getting plenty to eat, it’s just all horribly bad food.
How would you propose to limit a person’s income? Why should a person not make as much money as they can? I prefer freedom to allowing the Government to decide how much money is "enough."
Thanks, but no thanks.
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8+ years Law Enforcement
April 7th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Is the war of the SS more like this the time to pay.
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April 7th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
All true.
"The love of money is the root of all eveil" – [I Timothy vi. 10]
Clinton Household incomes
(adjusted for inflation from Census Bureau, 1993-2001)
lowest 20% – $17,817 -$20,465 (+14.9%)
2nd 20% _ $33,909 – $37,940 – $37,774 (+11.8%)
3rd 20% _ $53,302 – $60,359 (+13.2)
4th 20% _ $82,853 – $95,094 (+14.8%)
Top 20% _ $143,775 – $171,395 (+19.2)
Bush Household incomes
(adjusted for inflation from Census Bureau, 2001-2006)
lowest 20% – $20,465 – $20,035 (-2.1%)
2nd 20% _ $37,940 – $37,774 (-0.5%)
3rd 20% _ $60,359 – $60,000 (-0.6%)
4th 20% _ $95,094 – $97,032 (+2.0%)
Top 20% _ $171,395 – $174032 (+1.5)
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/h01ar.html
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April 7th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Every person is entitled to their private property that they fairly earned. If one person earns more than you, they are no less deserving to keep it.
It is immoral to have $1 million in the bank while your fellow man goes hungry. However, it is just as immoral to steal that $1 million, no matter your intentions.
You don’t solve greed with laws and theft. You solve greed by fixing the morality of our society. This is something that the government is incapable of doing. That is up to you and God. If you want to live in a world with less greed, then get your children to church and teach the next generation to be better than the last.
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April 7th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
it is in fact unacceptable. many people who argue "zomg taxes are theft!" don’t understand basic economics which dictate that the wealth of some come at the expense of others – namely that the huge increase in the wealth of corporate leaders has come at the expense of layoffs and pay cuts at the lower ends of the corporate hierarchy. the theft of the rightful wages of workers to benefit ceo’s has already occurred and proper taxation of those who have benefited from this lopsided scheme just corrects that imbalance. the significantly smaller gap between earnings of workers and company leaders in the 60s is one of the main reasons why the middle class prospered and expanded at that time. obviously we are in an opposite situation these days…
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re: citicop: 35 million people in the US experienced food insecurity as of 2006 – http://www.frac.org/html/hunger_in_the_us/hunger_index.html
April 7th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
You know what, you’re right?? lets shut shut down every corporation and big business in America! Let’s say nobody can make over $30,000 per year so we’re all "equal" and we all eat the same thing, have the same living space, etc..If we did that you know what we would have?? Mexico or some other 3rd world toilet bowl! What you people don’t consider is the employment corporations provide, the payroll taxes they pay, etc., etc., etc. If you want to do more, donate more of your money to the government; you go right ahead……You need to move to a socialist country…….I may even pay for your plane fare!
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April 7th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
It’s terrible that , as you say, 13 million children go hungry, but it’s not my or the government’s political responsibility to feed them, nor to take care of the problems that so many face each day. That’s a moral responsibility, best handled by people & organizations that believe in doing something for them. Don’t force me to.
That said, it’s not acceptable or defensible. There’s a great PBS (One of the few. Dont like my tax $ on these things) that (to be short) shows how production has so many hidden costs, poisonings, disease, exploitation. And the biggest revelation I got from it was that in the Eisenhower admin, there was a paper & it became doctrine, that consumerism should be the driving force in America. Hence, GW2 saying we should "Shop for our country after 9/11. Sad, but it’s gov’t policy to focus on a growing economy.
It should be changed. Getting the latest electronic gadget should not be your sole purpose in the world.
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April 7th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Because the wealthy control the media, because weak-minded people are easily influenced, because greed spreads like a cancer.
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Can you BELIEVE that somebody just posted that "starving children in America is a myth?" That’s not only sad, that’s denying reality. HOW DO THEY DO IT? How do these cons deny reality every single moment of every single day of their lives? I really cannot get over it.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5023829
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04112008/profile4.html
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April 7th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Greed is-or-vs. success? Good question, SitizenX.
A couple of points:
(1.) I just heard that the top 1% (or was it 0.1%?) earns more income than the lower 90% of American workers, yet are taxed no more than the same maximum of 30% federal income tax that middle class workers have to pay. In fact the Very Wealthy are able to get away with only paying15% federal income tax rather than the 30% (Reagan had to pay 90% taxes on his income in his successful acting days, something that Reagan resented. Although 90% sounds high to me too, I believe the Very Wealthy should pay at least 40 to 50% income tax so that the poorer among us can make ends meet).
But we’re talking here about HALF the nation’s income going to only 1% of the the people, the multi-millionaire people, while lower income people struggle to make ends meet.
(2.) The CEO’s know how to work the system to their advantage, unlike us little people. Take Polaroid, for instance, that "went bankrupt," leaving its 20-year-long–ALL of its employees–with FORTY-NINE DOLLARS APIECE out of the $10,000s or $100,000s that these employees had invested in Polaroid stock, while the CEO’s walked away with $millions [Polaroid, by the way, was up and running 2 years later after going bankrupt. Going bankrupt was Polaroid's way of dumping its responsibility to its employees, whom it had encouraged to invest heavily in Polaroid stock in the first place. Now, that's what I call GREED. How could these corporate executives do this to little people and live with their consciences? Beats me].
(3.) Americans–us ordinary people–have to learn the truth about how uneven and unfair our tax-paying system is so that we can speak out against it. Especially NOW, because somebody’s going to have to pay off our national debt. Let’s not leave it to our children.
(4.) This is a ‘by the way’ to the person who said obesity is an indicator that our children are being fed well. Granted, few in America are starving to death the way they are in Africa. But obesity is often a symptom of high carbohydrate, low quality, ‘cheap’ diets. Think about Katrina, what you saw on TV, the people in the poor neighborhoods who were being evacuated. Many of these people were obese. Culture had to do with it in part, but so did poverty and lack of good education regarding nutrition. High carbohydrate diets are cheaper, but they make you hunger for more high carbohydrate food. And these people are highly likely to become diabetic, and become a medicare cost expense for us Americans to pay.
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