OT: Goodbye to the American Dream

[DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUn]

On Tue, 25 Aug 2015 07:31:05 -0500, amdx <nojunk@knology.net> Gave us:

How about building the Keystone pipeline, that would provide jobs and
put money in lower and middle income pockets.

A few hundred or a few thousand folks, when millions are out of work.

But yes... we do need the pipeline.

 

[DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUn]

On Tue, 25 Aug 2015 07:31:05 -0500, amdx <nojunk@knology.net> Gave us:

How about building a boarder fence, that would would provide jobs and
put money in lower and middle income pockets.
There, I gave the president some power.

Horseshit. It needs to be a wall. I have been saying this for well
over a decade, so it is the only thing The DonaldTard got right so far.

But no, NOT putting folks to work. Put PRISONERS to work.

Make Donald Trump one of them. The criminal bastard he is.

 

[amdx]

On 8/25/2015 3:12 PM, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno wrote:

On Tue, 25 Aug 2015 07:31:05 -0500, amdx <nojunk@knology.net> Gave us:

How about building a boarder fence, that would would provide jobs and
put money in lower and middle income pockets.
There, I gave the president some power.

Horseshit. It needs to be a wall. I have been saying this for well
over a decade, so it is the only thing The DonaldTard got right so far.

But no, NOT putting folks to work. Put PRISONERS to work.

Make Donald Trump one of them. The criminal bastard he is.

Ok, I want to do it cheap, two 12 ft chain link fences 50ft apart,with
Concertina wire in the middle. Then spend more money on surveillance and
what ever kind of technology is required to monitor for tunnels.
Prisoners would be fine. (but it's kinda hot down there)
I've been pushing the wall for a long time as well.
Here in Panama City fl. we had a great building boom on the beach,
2000 to 2007. 20 and 25 floor condos went up with many, many, illegals
doing the building.
Take a look,
> https://www.google.com/maps/@30.2146135,-85.8746544,3a,75y,158.65h,85.33t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s6gRUOVRGm-KhTY04FqhEFg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
I have a small business and they came and bought from me, usually 4
males and they all paid with $100 bills. In 2007 the boom busted, hard,
partially started projects were abandoned. The citizens complained for a
few years to get them cleaned up.
But the important point when the illegals didn't have work, they
disappeared. My Mexican customers were gone.


Here's a funny story that happened when we had lots of illegals here.

> http://www.alipac.us/f12/fl-illegal-aliens-stop-cops-57001/

Here's the 'just of it' if you don't want to click.

"Seven cars full of illegal aliens abandoned their vehicles on the
Thomas Drive flyover Thursday evening and ran from sheriff’s deputies.

The confusion started when Mathew McRaney, of 720 Beachwood Lane,
Panama City Beach, jumped out of a deputy’s car about 4:45 p.m. on the
flyover and started to run. McRaney, 32, had been arrested earlier in
the day on felony warrants, including aggravated battery, and was being
taken to Bay County Jail.

On the way to the jail, he complained his handcuffs were cutting off his
circulation, Sasser said. When a deputy stopped on the flyover to check
the cuffs, McRaney fought with him and escaped. The deputy, whose name
was not released, called for backup.

Several patrol cars headed for the flyover in the eastbound lanes of
U.S. 98 with lights and sirens blazing. When they got to the flyover,
SEVEN cars abruptly pulled over, and everyone inside poured out and ran.
Most of the people ran for the wooded area east of the Naval Support
Activity – Panama City, but authorities do not believe anyone is on the
base.

Others ran across the westbound lanes of U.S. 98 into a construction area."

Mikek



---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

 

[amdx]

On 8/25/2015 8:18 AM, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 1:34:41 AM UTC-4, rickman wrote:
On 8/24/2015 1:04 PM, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:
On Monday, August 24, 2015 at 12:52:12 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

Colleges didn't used to be run like businesses. Now they are. Even the
state schools are ravenous for money.

Funny how when we spent a fraction and Republicans ran California, students
could pay their own way. Now that we have federal loans and subsidies to
make it affordable, it isn't.

Yes, clearly this is a political issue. We see the same results in
Maryland and... wait, we had *all* Democratic in the years when college
was inexpensive and *more* Republican in more recent years when college
is very expensive.

Now, with Obamacare's student loan takeover you have the best of both worlds!

http://freebeacon.com/issues/federal-student-loans-increase-tuition-not-enrollment/
"We find that each additional Pell Grant dollar to an institution leads to a roughly 55 cent increase in sticker price tuition," the report says. "For subsidized loans, we find a somewhat larger passthrough effect of about 70 percent."

Giving people loans to buy things they can't afford and don't expect a
return from drives up the price of just about anything. We've just
tried health care, houses, and yes, college too. Over, and over, and
over. See a pattern? No, of course not!

Cheers,
James Arthur

My house dropped in value by 1/2, I'm still waiting for my bailout.
Oh wait, I saved my money and bought the house, I guess since I didn't
use other peoples money I don't get bailed out.
I paid my *kids college costs without loans, I guess I won't get a
reduction my cost.

Mikek

* They both had grades that earned them a state scholarship paying some
of the costs, so my share was reduced.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

 

On Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 8:57:42 PM UTC-4, amdx wrote:

On 8/25/2015 8:18 AM, dagmargoo...@yahoo.com wrote:
On Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 1:34:41 AM UTC-4, rickman wrote:
On 8/24/2015 1:04 PM, dagmargoo...@yahoo.com wrote:
On Monday, August 24, 2015 at 12:52:12 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

Colleges didn't used to be run like businesses. Now they are. Even the
state schools are ravenous for money.

Funny how when we spent a fraction and Republicans ran California, students
could pay their own way. Now that we have federal loans and subsidies to
make it affordable, it isn't.

Yes, clearly this is a political issue. We see the same results in
Maryland and... wait, we had *all* Democratic in the years when college
was inexpensive and *more* Republican in more recent years when college
is very expensive.

Now, with Obamacare's student loan takeover you have the best of both worlds!

http://freebeacon.com/issues/federal-student-loans-increase-tuition-not-enrollment/
"We find that each additional Pell Grant dollar to an institution leads to a roughly 55 cent increase in sticker price tuition," the report says. "For subsidized loans, we find a somewhat larger passthrough effect of about 70 percent."

Giving people loans to buy things they can't afford and don't expect a
return from drives up the price of just about anything. We've just
tried health care, houses, and yes, college too. Over, and over, and
over. See a pattern? No, of course not!


My house dropped in value by 1/2, I'm still waiting for my bailout.
Oh wait, I saved my money and bought the house, I guess since I didn't
use other peoples money I don't get bailed out.
I paid my *kids college costs without loans, I guess I won't get a
reduction my cost.

Mikek

* They both had grades that earned them a state scholarship paying some
of the costs, so my share was reduced.

Yes, but you've got two(?) great kids you can be proud of. Probably
junior Moustachians too, I'd guess

I read an essay last week to the effect that welfare didn't sink us ages ago
because ages ago, people never dreamed of living off their neighbors.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, 26 August 2015 15:31:16 UTC+10, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 8:57:42 PM UTC-4, amdx wrote:
On 8/25/2015 8:18 AM, dagmargoo...@yahoo.com wrote:
On Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 1:34:41 AM UTC-4, rickman wrote:
On 8/24/2015 1:04 PM, dagmargoo...@yahoo.com wrote:
On Monday, August 24, 2015 at 12:52:12 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

Colleges didn't used to be run like businesses. Now they are. Even the
state schools are ravenous for money.

Funny how when we spent a fraction and Republicans ran California,
students could pay their own way. Now that we have federal loans and
subsidies to make it affordable, it isn't.

Yes, clearly this is a political issue. We see the same results in
Maryland and... wait, we had *all* Democratic in the years when college
was inexpensive and *more* Republican in more recent years when college
is very expensive.

Now, with Obamacare's student loan takeover you have the best of both
worlds!

http://freebeacon.com/issues/federal-student-loans-increase-tuition-not-enrollment/
"We find that each additional Pell Grant dollar to an institution leads to a roughly 55 cent increase in sticker price tuition," the report says. "For subsidized loans, we find a somewhat larger passthrough effect of about 70 percent."

Giving people loans to buy things they can't afford and don't expect a
return from drives up the price of just about anything. We've just
tried health care, houses, and yes, college too. Over, and over, and
over. See a pattern? No, of course not!


My house dropped in value by 1/2, I'm still waiting for my bailout.
Oh wait, I saved my money and bought the house, I guess since I didn't
use other peoples money I don't get bailed out.
I paid my *kids college costs without loans, I guess I won't get a
reduction my cost.

* They both had grades that earned them a state scholarship paying some
of the costs, so my share was reduced.

Yes, but you've got two(?) great kids you can be proud of. Probably
junior Moustachians too, I'd guess

James Arthur is happy to guess stuff that suits his point of view, and to ignore stuff that doesn't.

I read an essay last week to the effect that welfare didn't sink us ages ago
because ages ago, people never dreamed of living off their neighbors.

You do read those kinds of essays. Welfare didn't sink us ages ago - and isn't sinking us now - because it isn't about people living off their neighbours, but rather about people being helped by their neighbours.

Modern socialism formalises the process to some extent, and some of the more deranged people who need the help claim that they are exploiting their neighbours, but it takes equally deranged people like James Arthur to take them seriously.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[dcaster@krl.org]

On Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 8:09:58 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

There's also the point that "executive incomes" in the US are unreasonably high, and there's probably room for legislative intervention to dismantle the interlocking rings of "executive remuneration committees" who all award one another unreasonably high salaries.

Regulating salaries is not a legitiment government concern.




ockets.

Both of which would put more CO2 into the atmosphere, screwing up the climate even faster than it is being screwed up now, and wrecking the economy with progressively more "unpredictable" extreme weather events.

False. The Canadians are going to produce the oil regardless. If the keystone pipeline is not built, the oil will go to west coast of Canada and be shipped from there.

The legislation is there. How come nobody enforces it effectively? Note that the companies that hire illegals do seem to have quite a bit of money available for lobbying and bribing politicians.

It is not because of lobbying and bribing politicians. It is because the border is very long and hard to control effectively.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, 26 August 2015 21:46:21 UTC+10, dca...@krl.org wrote:

On Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 8:09:58 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

There's also the point that "executive incomes" in the US are unreasonably high, and there's probably room for legislative intervention to dismantle the interlocking rings of "executive remuneration committees" who all award one another unreasonably high salaries.

Regulating salaries is not a legitimate government concern.

Minimum wage legislation is pretty much universal. We aren't talking about maximum wage legislation here, but rather regulating a situation where boardrooms are colluding to pay themselves a lot more than they are worth, and messing up the country in the process.

As far legitimate government concerns go, it's a lot more legitimate than the war on drugs, which prohibits American from using anything except ethanol and caffiene and nicotine to adjust their state of mind.

Both of which would put more CO2 into the atmosphere, screwing up the climate even faster than it is being screwed up now, and wrecking the economy with progressively more "unpredictable" extreme weather events.

False. The Canadians are going to produce the oil regardless. If the keystone pipeline is not built, the oil will go to west coast of Canada and be shipped from there.

Really? That's along way, and it's a very expensive pipeline.

The legislation is there. How come nobody enforces it effectively? Note that the companies that hire illegals do seem to have quite a bit of money available for lobbying and bribing politicians.

It is not because of lobbying and bribing politicians. It is because the border is very long and hard to control effectively.

How convenient. The Communist East German government did a pretty good job on a pretty long border, but your crew can't - or find it inconvenient - to manage anything half as effective.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[dcaster@krl.org]

On Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at 7:59:26 AM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

On Wednesday, 26 August 2015 21:46:21 UTC+10, dca...@krl.org wrote:
On Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 8:09:58 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

There's also the point that "executive incomes" in the US are unreasonably high, and there's probably room for legislative intervention to dismantle the interlocking rings of "executive remuneration committees" who all award one another unreasonably high salaries.

Regulating salaries is not a legitimate government concern.

Minimum wage legislation is pretty much universal. We aren't talking about maximum wage legislation here, but rather regulating a situation where boardrooms are colluding to pay themselves a lot more than they are worth, and messing up the country in the process.

Still not a legit gov function. So who would determine what board members ought to be allowed to receive? And you spout a lot about messing up the country, but that is just your opinion. Not a fact.

As far legitimate government concerns go, it's a lot more legitimate than the war on drugs, which prohibits American from using anything except ethanol and caffiene and nicotine to adjust their state of mind.

Trying to change the subject, eh? Whether it is legit ought to be determined on it's own merits. The war on Drugs crap is just an attempt to distract the readers.

Both of which would put more CO2 into the atmosphere, screwing up the climate even faster than it is being screwed up now, and wrecking the economy with progressively more "unpredictable" extreme weather events.

False. The Canadians are going to produce the oil regardless. If the keystone pipeline is not built, the oil will go to west coast of Canada and be shipped from there.

Really? That's along way, and it's a very expensive pipeline.

Yes Really!! It is a long way and expensive, which is why people prefer building pipelines to connect to existing pipelines. But the Canadians have invested billions into extracting oil from sands. They are not going to sit by and junk all that.

The legislation is there. How come nobody enforces it effectively? Note that the companies that hire illegals do seem to have quite a bit of money available for lobbying and bribing politicians.

It is not because of lobbying and bribing politicians. It is because the border is very long and hard to control effectively.

How convenient. The Communist East German government did a pretty good job on a pretty long border, but your crew can't - or find it inconvenient - to manage anything half as effective.

What a laugh. The U.S. border is much much longer. Just the section between New England and Canada is about as long as the border around Germany, much less the border between East and West Germany.

Dan

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Rob]

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, 26 August 2015 21:46:21 UTC+10, dca...@krl.org wrote:
On Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 8:09:58 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

There's also the point that "executive incomes" in the US are unreasonably high, and there's probably room for legislative intervention to dismantle the interlocking rings of "executive remuneration committees" who all award one another unreasonably high salaries.

Regulating salaries is not a legitimate government concern.

Minimum wage legislation is pretty much universal. We aren't talking about maximum wage legislation here, but rather regulating a situation where boardrooms are colluding to pay themselves a lot more than they are worth, and messing up the country in the process.

As far legitimate government concerns go, it's a lot more legitimate than the war on drugs, which prohibits American from using anything except ethanol and caffiene and nicotine to adjust their state of mind.

You seem to forget that government officials are entangled in that
same web as those executives. Politicians are always looking at their
career after they exit politics, which can happen on a week's notice.
They would like to get a top position in a commercial company in that
case, and of course this becomes less likely when they negatively affect
the position of people in that position.

Usually they have no intention to become active in a drugs cartel (although
there are exceptions), so it does not hurt to go after those.

When hearing executives about salaries, their claim is often that "this
salary is paid in other countries as well so when we don't pay high salaries
here all those people will go to other countries". This of course is a
circular reference, and there is also no proof that it would hurt a
country when greedy executives all leave to other countries.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Thursday, 27 August 2015 01:03:21 UTC+10, dca...@krl.org wrote:

On Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at 7:59:26 AM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, 26 August 2015 21:46:21 UTC+10, dca...@krl.org wrote:
On Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 8:09:58 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

There's also the point that "executive incomes" in the US are unreasonably high, and there's probably room for legislative intervention to dismantle the interlocking rings of "executive remuneration committees" who all award one another unreasonably high salaries.

Regulating salaries is not a legitimate government concern.

Minimum wage legislation is pretty much universal. We aren't talking about maximum wage legislation here, but rather regulating a situation where boardrooms are colluding to pay themselves a lot more than they are worth, and messing up the country in the process.

Still not a legit gov function.

That's a matter of opinion, and yours is worth no more than mine - probably less because you seem to buy your opinions from cheap retailers.

> So who would determine what board members ought to be allowed to receive? And you spout a lot about messing up the country, but that is just your opinion. Not a fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level:_Why_More_Equal_Societies_Almost_Always_Do_Better

There's enough statistics in that to make it as close to a fact as one can get. Not enough to persuade the archetypical right-wing nit-wit - James Arthur - who is happy to accept the opinion of a right-wing Scottish non-statistician that the evidence doesn't stack up, but for the purposes of rational discourse it's an open-and-shut case.

As far legitimate government concerns go, it's a lot more legitimate than the war on drugs, which prohibits American from using anything except ethanol and caffeine and nicotine to adjust their state of mind.

Trying to change the subject, eh? Whether it is legit ought to be determined on it's own merits. The war on Drugs crap is just an attempt to distract the readers.

The claim that regulating wages isn't a legitimate government function - when pretty much every government does it - is a rather more blatant attempt at distraction.

Both of which would put more CO2 into the atmosphere, screwing up the climate even faster than it is being screwed up now, and wrecking the economy with progressively more "unpredictable" extreme weather events.

False. The Canadians are going to produce the oil regardless. If the keystone pipeline is not built, the oil will go to west coast of Canada and be shipped from there.

Really? That's along way, and it's a very expensive pipeline.

Yes Really!! It is a long way and expensive, which is why people prefer building pipelines to connect to existing pipelines. But the Canadians have invested billions into extracting oil from sands. They are not going to sit by and junk all that.

They probably are, eventually. Getting oil by fracking is expensive, but not as expensive as getting it out of oil sands. The amount of CO2 we can afford to dump in the atmosphere is finite, and we'll almost certainly stop doing it before the Canadians can get their money back.

The legislation is there. How come nobody enforces it effectively? Note that the companies that hire illegals do seem to have quite a bit of money available for lobbying and bribing politicians.

It is not because of lobbying and bribing politicians. It is because the border is very long and hard to control effectively.

How convenient. The Communist East German government did a pretty good job on a pretty long border, but your crew can't - or find it inconvenient - to manage anything half as effective.

What a laugh. The U.S. border is much much longer. Just the section between New England and Canada is about as long as the border around Germany, much less the border between East and West Germany.

Numbers? The USA is a lot richer than East Germany ever was, and should be able to afford to fence off at least the troublesome segments of its borders.

The US governments now seem to spend more on prisons than they do on education. Diverting some of that money to stop the illegals getting into the country before they can commit crimes that will lead them to add even more pressure to the prison system should sound like a great investment to any right-wing nitwit.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[dcaster@krl.org]

On Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at 7:30:47 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

Still not a legit gov function.

That's a matter of opinion, and yours is worth no more than mine - probably less because you seem to buy your opinions from cheap retailers.

My opinons are worth much more than yours because mine are the result of thinking . Where as yours seem to be the result of your environment.

So who would determine what board members ought to be allowed to receive? And you spout a lot about messing up the country, but that is just your opinion. Not a fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level:_Why_More_Equal_Societies_Almost_Always_Do_Better

There's enough statistics in that to make it as close to a fact as one can get. Not enough to persuade the archetypical right-wing nit-wit - James Arthur - who is happy to accept the opinion of a right-wing Scottish non-statistician that the evidence doesn't stack up, but for the purposes of rational discourse it's an open-and-shut case.

If you look at that title you will see the word " Almost " Which means the author does not say it is an open and shut case.

As far legitimate government concerns go, it's a lot more legitimate than the war on drugs, which prohibits American from using anything except ethanol and caffeine and nicotine to adjust their state of mind.

Trying to change the subject, eh? Whether it is legit ought to be determined on it's own merits. The war on Drugs crap is just an attempt to distract the readers.

The claim that regulating wages isn't a legitimate government function - when pretty much every government does it - is a rather more blatant attempt at distraction.

If you read the U.S. Constitution you will find no reference to the Federal Government having anything to do with regulating wages. Maybe the Australian constitution is different, but I doubt it.

Both of which would put more CO2 into the atmosphere, screwing up the climate even faster than it is being screwed up now, and wrecking the economy with progressively more "unpredictable" extreme weather events.

False. The Canadians are going to produce the oil regardless. If the keystone pipeline is not built, the oil will go to west coast of Canada and be shipped from there.

Really? That's along way, and it's a very expensive pipeline.

Yes Really!! It is a long way and expensive, which is why people prefer building pipelines to connect to existing pipelines. But the Canadians have invested billions into extracting oil from sands. They are not going to sit by and junk all that.

They probably are, eventually. Getting oil by fracking is expensive, but not as expensive as getting it out of oil sands. The amount of CO2 we can afford to dump in the atmosphere is finite, and we'll almost certainly stop doing it before the Canadians can get their money back.

Nice thought , but most likely wrong. It may be a while before recovering oil from oil sands is profitable, but mean while there is all that debt that has to be serviced. Meaning they will produce oil at a loss in order to service the debt.

The legislation is there. How come nobody enforces it effectively? Note that the companies that hire illegals do seem to have quite a bit of money available for lobbying and bribing politicians.

It is not because of lobbying and bribing politicians. It is because the border is very long and hard to control effectively.

How convenient. The Communist East German government did a pretty good job on a pretty long border, but your crew can't - or find it inconvenient - to manage anything half as effective.

What a laugh. The U.S. border is much much longer. Just the section between New England and Canada is about as long as the border around Germany, much less the border between East and West Germany.

Numbers? The USA is a lot richer than East Germany ever was, and should be able to afford to fence off at least the troublesome segments of its borders.

But East Germany did not pay very high wages. So menial jobs as guarding a border did not cost them much.

> The US governments now seem to spend more on prisons than they do on education. Diverting some of that money to stop the illegals getting into the country before they can commit crimes that will lead them to add even more pressure to the prison system should sound like a great investment to any right-wing nitwit.

But that requires doing rational thinking. Politicians work on solving the problem of the day, not solving something which can be put off. So that will not happen.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sunday, 30 August 2015 08:29:39 UTC+10, John Fields wrote:

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 17:12:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@gmail.com> wrote:


James Arthur's fond conviction that the rich should be allowed to get even richer at everybody else's expense is roughly what you'd expect from somebody who managed to get rich enough to retire at 34, but it doesn't seem to be a good way to generate persistent economic growth.

---
The rich don't get rich by being "allowed" to get rich, they formulate
a plan, take the reins, and drive relentlessly toward their goal, a
la: "Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead."

You resent the rich because you didn't have the balls to go for the
prize when you could, and now it's too late for you to do anything but
kvetch about how - if you'd only been given permission - you could be
as important as your alliance allowed.

I don't resent the rich, and while I might have made more money by taking greater risks, my environment was full of people who had taken that kind of risk and lost everything they had. There are a couple of exceptions - the guy who invented a better way of building a confocal microscope eventually made millions out of it, though his brother the dentist's pension fund and his father's house were at risk at one stage.

Sadly, there's good observational evidence that having too many rich people around does bad things to the social fabric.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level:_Why_More_Equal_Societies_Almost_Always_Do_Better

This isn't a tract about cutting everybody down to the same level. The US in 1970 had lots of rich people, but they weren't s rich as they are now, and weren't creating the social problems that the extra money they've accumulated since then have exaggerated.

Neither Scandinavia nor Germany is short of rich people - it's just that they aren't as rich as their US equivalents, and don't put the same strain on the social fabric, nor feel the need to rip off the middle class to make themselves even richer.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sunday, 30 August 2015 10:33:06 UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:29:30 -0500, John Fields
jfields@austininstruments.com> wrote:

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 17:12:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@gmail.com> wrote:


James Arthur's fond conviction that the rich should be allowed to get even richer at everybody else's expense is roughly what you'd expect from somebody who managed to get rich enough to retire at 34, but it doesn't seem to be a good way to generate persistent economic growth.

---
The rich don't get rich by being "allowed" to get rich, they formulate
a plan, take the reins, and drive relentlessly toward their goal, a
la: "Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead."

Some people get rich as a by-product of building things that they have
a passion for. Of course, some other people get rich because all they
care about is wealth and power. Public policy seems to favor the
latter.


You resent the rich because you didn't have the balls to go for the
prize when you could, and now it's too late for you to do anything but
kvetch about how - if you'd only been given permission - you could be
as important as your alliance allowed.

John Fields


Rich people organize ordinary people to get stuff done. Humans are
tribal and need leaders.

And rich people are the only people who can defer significant
consumption in favor of investment.

I don't know why so many people resent the rich. Rich people's wealth
is mostly stock shares, which are just pieces of paper. A billionaire
doesn't eat a hundred times as much as the average person, and doesn't
live in a million square foot house.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level:_Why_More_Equal_Societies_Almost_Always_Do_Better

makes the point that the rich do go around emphasising the fact that they are richer than the rest of us, and this makes all the social gradients steeper, which doesn't seem to do anything good for the rest of us.

Some social gradient is fine, and Scandinavia and Germany have social classes and gradients just like everywhere else, but there the gradients are shallower, and turn out to be shallow enough not to worry people much.

The US has remarkably steep social gradients, and they have a variety of unfortunate side-effects, which "The Spirit Level" spells out in lots of detail and considerable statistical rigor - not that James Arthur or John Larkin are going to risk their intellectual certainties by actually reading the book and exposing themselves to persuasive statistics.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[John Fields]

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 17:12:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@gmail.com> wrote:


>James Arthur's fond conviction that the rich should be allowed to get even richer at everybody else's expense is roughly what you'd expect from somebody who managed to get rich enough to retire at 34, but it doesn't seem to be a good way to generate persistent economic growth.

---
The rich don't get rich by being "allowed" to get rich, they formulate
a plan, take the reins, and drive relentlessly toward their goal, a
la: "Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead."

You resent the rich because you didn't have the balls to go for the
prize when you could, and now it's too late for you to do anything but
kvetch about how - if you'd only been given permission - you could be
as important as your alliance allowed.

John Fields

 

[dcaster@krl.org]

On Saturday, August 29, 2015 at 8:33:06 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

The rich don't get rich by being "allowed" to get rich, they formulate
a plan, take the reins, and drive relentlessly toward their goal, a
la: "Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead."

I got rich by buying stocks instead of buying new cars. Some of it was luck, but mostly just recognizing what companies seemed to have their act together and buying their stock. I bought Texas Instruments, John Fluke, IBM, Hexcel, and others. And bought S & P 500 index funds in my 401K . I also bought a little Nucor stock when it was Nuclear Corp of America. Should have lost my ass on that, but it turned out okay.

It is really easy to get rich, but you need to start early.

Dan

 

[John Larkin]

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:29:30 -0500, John Fields
<jfields@austininstruments.com> wrote:

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 17:12:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@gmail.com> wrote:


James Arthur's fond conviction that the rich should be allowed to get even richer at everybody else's expense is roughly what you'd expect from somebody who managed to get rich enough to retire at 34, but it doesn't seem to be a good way to generate persistent economic growth.

---
The rich don't get rich by being "allowed" to get rich, they formulate
a plan, take the reins, and drive relentlessly toward their goal, a
la: "Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead."

Some people get rich as a by-product of building things that they have
a passion for. Of course, some other people get rich because all they
care about is wealth and power. Public policy seems to favor the
latter.

You resent the rich because you didn't have the balls to go for the
prize when you could, and now it's too late for you to do anything but
kvetch about how - if you'd only been given permission - you could be
as important as your alliance allowed.

John Fields

Rich people organize ordinary people to get stuff done. Humans are
tribal and need leaders.

And rich people are the only people who can defer significant
consumption in favor of investment.

I don't know why so many people resent the rich. Rich people's wealth
is mostly stock shares, which are just pieces of paper. A billionaire
doesn't eat a hundred times as much as the average person, and doesn't
live in a million square foot house.

 

[DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUn]

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:32:55 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> Gave us:

Rich people organize ordinary people to get stuff done. Humans are
tribal and need leaders.

You ain't one.

 

[dcaster@krl.org]

On Sunday, August 30, 2015 at 9:36:47 AM UTC-4, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno wrote:

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 20:03:43 -0700 (PDT), "dcaster@krl.org"
dcaster@krl.org> Gave us:

I got rich by buying stocks instead of buying new cars.

It certainly wasn't from interpreting Usenet posts. Larkin did not
post that, ya dope.

What is your point?

Dan

 

[dcaster@krl.org]

On Sunday, August 30, 2015 at 11:16:26 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

I don't think that buying established stocks, getting rich that way,
does society much good. Except for new issues, the stock market is
mostly a gambling pool.

I disagree with you there. Investing in the stock market does involve a little risk, but it is not much of a gamble. If you buy say ten stocks, there is almost no gamble. One or two may go belly up, but it is extremely unlikely that all will. And you will be better off than if you put your money in a savings account.

You are buying shares of a company. So does the company do society much good?
Do you think Texas Instruments does society much good? Anyway investing in existing companies may not do society much good, but it certainly does not do society much harm.

And consider there would be no new issues unless there was a market for the shares of companies after the initial offering.

Sure inventing a new product, may be better for society, but realistically how many folks are going to do that. And just because you own stocks , does not mean you can not do something that helps society. I volunteer at a local museum and work at the friends of the library book sale.

Dan