Why do some folks whine about the bankers whilst lavishing their sports heroes?

A quick reminder to everyone on this thread - socialism is about public ownership of the means of production, not salary caps or wealth redistribution. If you're going to use the term, make sure you know what it means first.

 

Yeah (well almost)... except the dirty little secret is that monetary funds are a fundamental part of the "means of production".

Therefore if the state or the community needs money for it's "production" or for the "good of the community" socialism allows for the appropriation of that money. If the socialist elite deem that too much of that money (which again is a necessity of production) is concentrated in too few or the wrong hands, redistribution of wealth will occur.

 

Yeah, those are called taxes. I think you'll find them a feature common among most human societies, be they capitalist, socialist, or otherwise.

 

Not in a true capitalist society. That is a socialist construct. Capitalism does not need government in any form to exist.

 

Ah, so you're an anarchist.

 

You're right, it was Tony Romo and his lavish salary who brought the country to near depression, several years ago.

Got any other stupid comparisons you feel like sharing with us?

 

Not necessarily. Just pointing out that in a true capitalist society taxes would not need to be levied because there would be no need for government... at least as far as business is concerned.

Unfortunately, there can never be anything such as true capitalism... just like there can never be anything such as true communism. There will always be some in a capitalist society who says that we should give to those who are less fortunate and take care of the needy. There will always be those who want what they haven't earned and that somebody else has and jealousy will be unavoidable. And there will always be some in a communist society who wants more than what they have been allotted. People are greedy and as such one person is willing to work harder than the next person so that he can have more.

So it's really like a line and on one end you have communism and the other end you have capitalism.... and anything in the middle is socialism. The problem is that the further you go away from capitalism on that line, the more dysfunctional, irresponsible and entitled your society becomes. And once you go too far down that line your country will collapse in upon itself because the productive portion of your population cannot make up for those who are not productive. Your society will then devolve into a fascist dictatorship because the people will stop buying into the willful appropriation of their money. When that happens, the socialist elite become the fascist elite because they will take your money whether you want them to or not.

It is the inevitable destiny of socialism.

 

I am afraid the lack of understanding is yours. We are talking averages here not isolated incidents. Tell me how you think executive compensation works and how you think executive compensation is arrived at.

 

Sport players will end up paying taxes like everyone else.

Bankers make their living finding ways to make money with money, which people from just a couple of generations ago really deplored. At least sports players sacrifice their bodies and provide mass entertainment. Bakers make their money finding ways to add charges, raise interest rates, and create complicated schemes to turn the investment market into even more of a rigged casino. Mostly at the detriment of the lower to middle class.

I say put them on a field and make them run head first into each other repeatedly the next time they want a bailout.

 

Do a quick Google search for executive compensation versus corporate profits chart ans let us all know what you find.

 

I leave the Googling for people who are incapable from doing any real research and have zero knowledge of what they are talking about.

Why don't you explain, in the most coherent manner you can, what conclusion I am supposed to arrive at with these types of charts?

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I am talking averages. You've obviously never read a DEF 14A form from any corporation, ever... If you did, you would understand that only 20% of executive compensation is salary based. The rest is completely based on their performance, which is determined by each individual company. You would know this at all if you base your knowledge on what you find from Google.

 

Never thought I'd see a time where people valued others who make money based on having a particular talent more than highly educated individuals who posses a marketable skill...

Only in America.

Just exactly how do you think the US banking system works?

 

The banking system works well enough if you have gobs of money but not too well otherwise. I have not heard of a bank in the US (that has an actual building where you can make deposits or withdrawals) that pays anything at all for deposits into basic checking accounts. Pretty much the same for basic savings. Even CD's are paying fractions of a percent these days.

Mind you, I am talking about accounts held by middle class and lower earners. The vast majority of all accounts in other words.

These accounts often have membership fee's, minimum balances (which incur penalty charges if not maintained), and overdraft insurance. Which is great stuff until the account holder is charged $40 a pop for using it with no alert from the bank. Imagine unknowingly overdrawing four times at less than ten dollars a transaction, only to find out your account is $200 in the hole.

I am sure the banks play this down as being no appreciable profit for them, so why not stop? If someone writes a bad check just don't pay it. Let the defrauded person who got the bad check worry about pursuing charges against the check writer. How does it cost a bank money to say "oops sorry, this account has insufficient funds."? Why not stop charging membership fees? And as long as they don't bounce checks all over the place, what's the big deal about falling under some arbitrary minimum?

Besides this at the big leagues level the banks play with derivatives, bundles, and lots of other financial explosives. They ignore obvious bubbles as long as they are making money at the moment. They compete to pay for the highest speed trading computers that essentially take the small time investor out of the competition.

The marketable skill you talk about is as often a false image as it is a fact. As we have seen from repeated market abuses from financial "masterminds".

It used to be that Jesse James was a folk hero, and hating banks was as american as apple pie. The good ole days...

 

I think the word 'bankstas' would imply wrongdoing on the part of bankers.
Could that perceived wrongdoing be why people complain about bankers, and the lack thereof by sport stars be why people don't complain about sport stars?

 

Then there hasn't been a "true capitalist society" in like 10,000 years! What you guys pine for is a fantasy land that hasn't existed forever and is highly unworkable, it would be a disaster!

 

It's HILARIOUS that you mention that! Who would have? Obviously, probably as part of your work, you have seen a "DEF 14A" form, while 99% of anybody else never has. If you want, I can list you hundreds of highly technical forms, softwares or programs that I am familiar with in my IT job and then call you stupid for never having become familiar with them.

 

well for one pro-athletes aren't affiliated with causing recessions

two, their job isn't political, pro-athletes don't have lobbyists at every congressman's office door, thus they are not accredited for political corruption

 

Have any of those sports players brought down a countries economy while they benefitted?
Don't think so.

 

Liberals Democrats pretend to want equality, but these stars who earn millions a year are promoting the exact opposite.

Why pay an immigrant 5 mill a yr for exposing herself, but a nurse or dentist only a fraction of that?

Liberal idiocy is what it it

 

Really? Since when? Equality of opportunity maybe (at least more so than we currently have), and a safety net for those who need it, but I would think that most liberal democrats have no problem whatsoever with people who contribute more having a greater share of the wealth. The disagreement in this thread is whether bankers contribute in proportion to their share of the wealth, or if they just manipulate the system to their own ends.

 

So why does a 14hr/day manual worker get paid 100times less than a 4hr/day fashion model.

That's equal, yeah right - and the libs will defend it all day long because it suits their interests.

total hypocrites

 

After reading your posts each time I violently bang my head against a brick wall. I want you to know that.

 

What you learn from the charts is that CEO pay goes up even when corporate profits go down. if you think personal insults from a self described "shrewish ill tempered woman" is a legitimate form of discussion it probably explains why you have the time to read all of the DEF 14A forms filed by all the corporations in America.

And by the way you failed to define performance.

 

A Study conducted by the Stanford Business School Center for Leadership Development and Business of the top 4000 corporations in the United States shows the following basis for executive compensation
Salary-17.5%
Bonus-16.6
Stock Options-27.9
Restricted Shares-21.1
Performance Plans-12.1
Other-4.7

 

Anyone who reads Proxy Statements can understand how volatile CEO compensation is, and how the pay of an executive of said Corporation is determined.

Also, no one looks at profits when determining the performance of the company or when looking at an earnings report. The two main components are Revenue and Earnings Per Share.

That that because performance isn't defined by me, or anyone else for that matter. It is determined by each individual corporation, by each corporate board. I just finished explaining that to you.