One thing the wealthy realize and understand ....

This is literally true.

 

Very true. Like any complex system, our government and economy is subject to corruption.

 

So what are you going to do to get rid of that corruption once and for all? Do it to it, diplomat. lol. I'm fine with a simple life, but I enjoy talking to fierce people about their motives.

 

We must identify the benefits and the burdens of our complex systems, and simplify them where necessary as much as possible while innovating them for the benefit of all as much as possible. Using archaic means of scientific, logical, or economic analysis will not cut it, and archaic policies will not cut it.

 

You always have a reasonable response, but we're right at the precipice and the crowds are growing restless. Everyone knows that the western nations can't repay their debt. Why is it only the western nations?

How much does Russia owe? How about South Africa?

 

po forum 2 fail

 

Russia's oil revenues allow them to maintain a lower debt level. Their public debt is currently 8.7 percent of GDP. However, their external debt is about 100 percent of GDP.

South Africa has a public debt of about 36 percent of GDP. Their external debt is anywhere between 10 percent and 50 percent of GDP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:External_debt_to_gdp.png
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html

I cannot say that these nations are completely solvent, but they are not even close to the insolvency of the United States or Western Europe.

 

In your closed "economy", when another teacher at your school, for whatever reason, receives a pay raise, does your paycheck shrink?

 

Straw man; you clearly said "competition leads to winners and losers." Defend your statement on its merit.

 

I'm thinking someone wins and someone else comes up with a new idea.

Failure is actually a good thing. It spurs much innovation.

 

Grown-ups realize that life is not fair and do what they need to do to make is suck less. Children whine and complain that 'life isn't fair' and want the grown-ups to take care of them. Unless you are a slug you have a backbone....use it.

 

Finite/limited physical resources are like a pie that one person can hog up, however, labor/innovation is not. Thus, geoism.

 

...and of course, the very rich can NOT be defined unless there are people who are only rich.

What we can define is everyone who has the ame thing, which is called Communism.

Communism is an economic system of distribution which seeks to see that everyone has what is necessary to survive.

The Jews used that system when they fled into Israel after WWII.
They called the farms where they lived Kubbutz.

During the 1000 years of the singular Kingdom of Jesus called Universal Christianity, the people of that Monastic Age all lived communally, too.
They worked according to whatthey were best at doing but eat and lodged the same way as everyone else.





Communism is a System of Distribution which works very well when times are so difficult for mere survival that there is no complaint when people get whatthey need as a member of a group fighting to survive.
The Chinese did this right after WWII.

The Russians tried to impose this system of distribution onto an existing system which had been producing more than was needed for survival.
That will never work.
The reason Communism fails when there is excess supply is that people begin to lay back and gold brick, (as it is called in the armies where communism is usually the way they are run economically).

When Communism is imposed on a group, whether it is an Army or a Nation, the incentive system must be based on the mutual need to survive.
The people will work to survive, and they will share willingly, as comraes in arms do in the Army-at-war.

But if survival is not what the people or an Army are facing, the incentive immediately becomes to do less than the other guys, yet get the same benefits.

In America, Welfare is a system that imposes Communism on the people who are in that System.
Everyone gets the same Welfare check and Food Stamps, plus extra money every month if their kids can be tested as Special Education.
They all get Medicare.
They all are living togather in similar units of Public Housing.

The incentive is to do nothing, and keep in the system.
But there is also an incentive to be employed in some Off the Books enterprise and even prostitution, albeit a very subtle association with "boy friends."

 

South Africa, Russia to an extent "enjoy" Mercantilism is one facet of their Economic System of Distribution.
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, in particular, are dominantly Mercantilism in that the Government has commandeered all the Natural resources and then distributes the "profits" to the citizens.
In Kuwait, each citizen gets @ $50,000 annually just because he is a citizen.
In Saudi Arabia, the distribution is not uniformly divided, but the government, royalty and its aristocrats take enormous generous cuts and divide only the crumbs.

These economies also utilize a number of the 12 possible ways societies can decide to Distribute goods and services that the Supply End of the Economy (producers) make available.

 

that would be the competition.

 

OK then stop 'hogging' your jewelry and accrue it's intrinsic value to 'the community.' We already have property taxes which are mostly taken by government and then mostly wasted on political antics. No....Georgism is not the answer. Socialists always make the mistake of thinking that distribution of wealth will be equitable.

 

NetworkCitizen posted:
"And they do indeed own the government."

Taxcutter posted:
Is that not sufficient reason to reduce government to a minimum?

 

That's an idiotic conclusion about geoism; geoism doesn't say that no one can own physical property. That's a retarded interpretation of it. There is a difference between working to earn ownership over physical property, however, and simply being in a legally enforced privileged position to own it.

 

There's nothing wrong with being wealthy. Just make sure that others have the same opportunity. Don't try to concentrate all of the wealth to your tax bracket. (like voting for a Republican would do)

 

If you took all the wealth in the world... and divided it up equally among all the people in the world ...in a short time you would still end up with a few very rich people... and many very poor people.

That is just the way it works...and wealth can be created...read "The Richest Man in Babylon"...very simple economics.

 

Phoebe phoebe phoebe...this is just not true.

 

Rich people can be rich completely independent of poor people..with automation.

 

The poor define the rich, and the rich define the poor. But that doesn't mean being rich is a bad thing.

 

Good point. People generally end up poor, because they consume more than they provide. People cannot stay rich if they don't provide more than they consume. Provide more, consume less... if you don't the result is entirely predictable and inevitable.​

 

There used to be job markets for people with below average intelligence. Is it your suggestion that these people be marginalized and then be deprived?

On any given day, the economic pie has one size. Whether the pie is bigger tomorrow or not depends on how much pie filling you put into it today. Republicans appear to want to shrink the pie down to the size of a Hostess cupcake. In fact, Grover Norquist has said as much.