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What's wrong with "Democratic Socialism"?

Droid_Genius said:
And lastly F--- HP CEO, they pay him 12mil to leave....just like AIG, all those dicks got paid millions as the door hit them on the way out.... pathetic
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You do realize that these people make their money because they sell things that people buy? If people didn't buy their products, they wouldn't have been given millions. Don't get pissed at people that earn their money, regardless of how much. If they made it legitimately, who cares how much they made! Jealousy is not a good trait to have. Now, as far as AIG, that's not such a legit way to make money. But not every millionaire in that company is a crook.

It's ridiculous when people get mad at someone for making money.
 
TheBeardedMann said:
You do realize that these people make their money because they sell things that people buy? If people didn't buy their products, they wouldn't have been given millions. Don't get pissed at people that earn their money, regardless of how much. If they made it legitimately, who cares how much they made! Jealousy is not a good trait to have. Now, as far as AIG, that's not such a legit way to make money. But not every millionaire in that company is a crook.

It's ridiculous when people get mad at someone for making money.
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The issue here is not that someone is being rewarded for his effort.

The CEO of Dell hasn't made and sold every computer his company sold. He essentially constructed a pyramid with him at the top, and many people working for him to make it happen. Many see that as an unholy scheme, not an honest man's work.
 
hakr100 said:
Former President Bush made 77 trips to Crawford TX on Air Force One.

At a bare minimum, for the flights alone, Bush's 77 vacation trips to Crawford cost us $226,072 per trip. That's $17,407,544 so he could ride his bicycle in the woods and clear brush for the cameras.

The minimum cost per trip to Crawford TX is $226,072. That's just the estimated cost of flying Air Force One round trip - about two hours of flight time each way at $56,518 per hour.

From the House committee on government

THE COST OF PRESIDENTIAL AND VICE
PRESIDENTIAL POLITICAL TRAVEL
PREPARED FOR
REP. HENRY A.WAXMAN

This report assumes that flight operating costs are $56,518 per hour for Air Force One and $14,552 per hour for Air Force Two. These figures are based on the per hour cost figures cited by GAO for fiscal year 2000, adjusted for inflation.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the President’s domestic travel also involves the use of accompanying cargo planes.This report assumes one cargo plane accompanies the President on each trip at an operating cost per hour of $6,960. This figure is based on the per-hour cost cited by GAO for fiscal year 2000 for the C-17 cargo plane, adjusted for inflation.

And those are only some of Bush's taxpayer-paid vacations.

From CBS News:

George W. Bush is today making his final visit to Camp David as president.

He will likely miss the place: According to CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller, today's trip marks Mr. Bush's 149th visit to the presidential retreat. The planned three-day stay, during which the president is being joined by family and former and current aides, will bring his total time spent at Camp David to all or part of 487 days.

Yes, that's 487 days. And Camp David is not even where the president has spent the most time when not at the White House: Knoller reports that Mr. Bush has made 77 visits to his ranch in Crawford during his presidency, and spent all or part of 490 days there.
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That is disturbing. What's more disturbing is Obama not-even-first-term more than quintupling Bush's 8-year spending records. err.. borrowing.. or whatever the new 'in' word is now. These little vacation statistics mean nothing. The only point of posting them is for trolling purposes to take people off topic. I swear, you have to be some sort of auto-bot government funded troll. Every thread there is that remotely relates to politics, you just come along and post the most cliche' opposite spectrum predictable rhetoric. Keep trying to revive the right versus left paradigm.. it's almost working. Most of us have now seen past it and now see the political spectrum as liberty versus tyranny.
 
ZDroid1 said:
The issue here is not that someone is being rewarded for his effort.

The CEO of Dell hasn't made and sold every computer his company sold. He essentially constructed a pyramid with him at the top, and many people working for him to make it happen. Many see that as an unholy scheme, not an honest man's work.
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An unholy scheme!? His employees can leave whenever. So if I start an architect firm called Art Vandelay Industries and hire architects to design and I just place bids and take clients out to lunch and never design, that would make me unholy? Even though my employees can leave at any time and start their own firm?
 
TheBeardedMann said:
An unholy scheme!? His employees can leave whenever. So if I start an architect firm called Art Vandelay Industries and hire architects to design and I just place bids and take clients out to lunch and never design, that would make me unholy? Even though my employees can leave at any time and start their own firm?
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First it doesn't help that we can leave at any time since in a capitalistic system, everyone is doing it. There's nowhere else to go.

Secondly it's incorrect to say that any employee can just start his own business. That's not true. It takes a certain set of skills, talent and luck.

So what's the solution? Nothing radical. Just guarantee the workers a minimum set of rights and protections. It is not too much to ask and it is their right. They shouldn't have to beg for it or just "go work somewhere else if they don't like it."
 
ZDroid1 said:
...Secondly it's incorrect to say that any employee can just start his own business. That's not true. It takes a certain set of skills, talent and luck...
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That's a ridiculous argument, of course it's true that anybody can start their own business. The skills, talent and luck are just things you work at, and they're the reasons those CEOs etc. get paid the big bucks.
 
mpw said:
That's a ridiculous argument, of course it's true that anybody can start their own business. The skills, talent and luck are just things you work at, and they're the reasons those CEOs etc. get paid the big bucks.
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Just like everybody can be a rocket scientist or a nuclear physicist. All they have to do is go to school. Everybody can become the next Bach. All they have to do is take piano lessons.

/end sarcasm
 
ZDroid1 said:
.../end sarcasm
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The point is that the opportunity to do those things IS there under a capitalist system, if you disagree with this please elaborate.

If somebody is not capable of/can't be bothered to learn the required skills/knowledge then they will be limited by that, but not the system.

You've made the point that many see a system with a hierarchy as dishonest and unholy(?), what do you suggest in it's place; everybody taking it in turns to do all the various jobs required? Hope I'm not on the table the day it's 'twitchy' Joe's turn to be surgeon!
 
it really cracks me up that you can recognize it takes special skills and talents to start and run a business......... but then you argue that the person with the skills and talents who runs the business doesnt deserve to be compensated at a higher rate than the unskilled untalented laborer at the bottom of the company

these guys didnt quit their job making hamburgers at McDonalds....... they are in charge of multi-billion dollar corporations

your boss makes more than you....... his boss makes more than him......... his boss makes more than him.... etc etc.......

you expect a guy who runs a company with XX thousand employees which does XX Billions of dolllars in business a year to be stuck making minimum wage with the bottom of the ladder guys?

what exactly do you see as the incentive to go to school or work hard in life if we are all paid the same?
 
copestag said:
...your boss makes more than you....... his boss makes more than him......... his boss makes more than him.... etc etc...
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You're mostly right of course, but there are also plenty of examples where a boss will not be paid as much as a subordinate, due to the specific skills being purchased.
 
copestag said:
it really cracks me up that you can recognize it takes special skills and talents to start and run a business......... but then you argue that the person with the skills and talents who runs the business doesnt deserve to be compensated at a higher rate than the unskilled untalented laborer at the bottom of the company

these guys didnt quit their job making hamburgers at McDonalds....... they are in charge of multi-billion dollar corporations

your boss makes more than you....... his boss makes more than him......... his boss makes more than him.... etc etc.......

you expect a guy who runs a company with XX thousand employees which does XX Billions of dolllars in business a year to be stuck making minimum wage with the bottom of the ladder guys?

what exactly do you see as the incentive to go to school or work hard in life if we are all paid the same?
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I expect the guys at the top to make a reasonable multiple more than the guys at the bottom, not 500 times or 1000 times or more, as is the case with large corporations these days.
 
hakr100 said:
I expect the guys at the top to make a reasonable multiple more than the guys at the bottom, not 500 times or 1000 times or more, as is the case with large corporations these days.
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Define reasonable.

To a business owner 500x more than minimum wage might seem reasonable to have the right candidate for the job.
 
mpw said:
You've made the point that many see a system with a hierarchy as dishonest and unholy(?), what do you suggest in it's place; everybody taking it in turns to do all the various jobs required?
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When someone makes more money in a day than what is necessary to feed a city for a lifetime, and he spends it on yachts and mansions, and you see absolutely nothing wrong with that picture, then I don't know how to approach this topic.
 
copestag said:
it really cracks me up that you can recognize it takes special skills and talents to start and run a business......... but then you argue that the person with the skills and talents who runs the business doesnt deserve to be compensated at a higher rate than the unskilled untalented laborer at the bottom of the company
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First of all, just because someone has the skills to do something, doesn't mean he deserves or earns the right to do it. That is just a worthless argument. Hackers, for example, don't have the right to steal my private information just because they have the talent to do it.

Secondly, capitalism doesn't simply reward people's efforts or hard work with the equivalent value of said effort and hard work. It rather allows the construction of schemes where all you need to do is "seed" some money into a project or start a pyramid construct of workers, and then see your money grow with no effort and no hard work at all or at best far exceeding your actual effort and hard work.
 
ZDroid1 said:
When someone makes more money in a day than what is necessary to feed a city for a lifetime, and he spends it on yachts and mansions, and you see absolutely nothing wrong with that picture, then I don't know how to approach this topic.
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When I suggest I see nothing wrong with that picture I guess you'll have a problem. Until then you could approach it without saying that things which are possible are not; bringing falsehoods into your argument dilutes any reasonable message you might have.

Your argument about a talented hacker is flawed because what they're using their talent for is illegal; to compare that to somebody going about their lawful business is ridiculous.
 
ZDroid1 said:
...Secondly, capitalism doesn't simply reward people's efforts or hard work with the equivalent value of said effort and hard work...
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Yes it does; what you don't seem to understand is that valuation of the effort put in to the enterprise is by the owner of the capital in that enterprise, and agreed by each of the people putting effort (whether physical or mental, inc. IP and also capital) into the enterprise and seeking reward.
 
ZDroid1 said:
First of all, just because someone has the skills to do something, doesn't mean he deserves or earns the right to do it. That is just a worthless argument. Hackers, for example, don't have the right to steal my private information just because they have the talent to do it.

Secondly, capitalism doesn't simply reward people's efforts or hard work with the equivalent value of said effort and hard work. It rather allows the construction of schemes where all you need to do is "seed" some money into a project or start a pyramid construct of workers, and then see your money grow with no effort and no hard work at all or at best far exceeding your actual effort and hard work.
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wtf are you even talking about? hackers stealing your private information? you seem lost........ and btw there are a lot of hackers making big money working for the govt as well as private security firms....... and most of them are what you would consider rich

first you need to understand a very basic fact...... you have NO "right" to work at all...... there is nowhere in the Constitution that says you have a right to a job

as far as someone creating a pyramid scheme thats just plain ridiculous..... you obviously cannot grasp how a business functions........ the people at the top are going to make a HUGE amount more than the people at the bottom in any large business

its not for you to decide how a rich person spends their money...... if they want to buy yachts and mansions....... or simply wipe their butt with $100 bills...... its their money...... and they did something to get it....... something you obviously cannot do or are too lazy to do and appar to be quite jealous of
 
ZDroid1 said:
When someone makes more money in a day than what is necessary to feed a city for a lifetime, and he spends it on yachts and mansions, and you see absolutely nothing wrong with that picture, then I don't know how to approach this topic.
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As long as I took the money out of my pocket to place in his/ hers, I see nothing wrong.
 
Actually the COST is much greater than 50 cents per envelope.....hence the XX BILLION dollar loss the USPS reports every year!



hakr100 said:
The USPS delivers gazillions of pieces of first class mail everywhere in the United States for less than 50 cents an envelope.

Measuring the worthiness or qualities of a public service by financial success is an absurdity.
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Hightech said:
Actually the COST is much greater than 50 cents per envelope.....hence the XX BILLION dollar loss the USPS reports every year!
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The USPS hasn't had a taxpayer subsidy since 1982, I believe. It was almost profitable about three years ago, and then got slammed by the Bush recession.
 
TheBeardedMann said:
United Parcel Service, Inc.: NYSE:UPS quotes & news - Google Finance

FedEx Corporation: NYSE:FDX quotes & news - Google Finance

Ups and Fed Ex have both recovered but the usps hasn't in the past three years. Its a bad business model that the usps has... government run.
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The USPS has an entirely different mission than the cherrypickers at UPS and FEDEX. The Postal Service is charged with providing universal service at a universal price. UPS and FEDEX do not have such requirements.
 
mpw said:
Your argument about a talented hacker is flawed because what they're using their talent for is illegal; to compare that to somebody going about their lawful business is ridiculous.
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Oh so if hacking was legal, then it would be OK?

What we're discussing is not the legality of the issue. Do you have ANY idea what an analogy is?
 
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