Do the rich DESERVE their money?

Originally posted by apacheman
The Navaho say that no man can become rich who takes proper care of his family.

I firmly believe that no one "earns" 200X or more per year than anyone else. They may have the capacity to take it, but that doesn't mean they've earned it, that whatever they done is 200X more valuable than anyone else's much less 900X.

What others see as "hardworking business executives" I see as workaholic emotionl cripples. To continue pursuing wealth when you have more than you, your wife, your children and cousins can spend in a lifetime is not a mark of success or superior intelligence or talent: it is a mark of deep sociopathic illness.

I advocate a wealth cap and mandatory economic retirement when you reach cap. Go play in some other sandbox then and leave some of the shared resource that the economy is to others to work and benefit from, too.

I agree.

I think many of the contentions of people who disagree come from a gung-ho anti-regulation ideology. They don't want the government getting in the way of business, taxing too much, blah blah blah. And as an Anarchist I too am ultimately against government. However, there is a certain level of wealth/power that should be attainable to NOBODY and NO ORGANIZATION. Wealth and power inherently corrupt, and even if they don't they are inherently difficult to manage effectively without causing the suffering of people and/or ecosystems.

I think the best route would ultimately be a sort of Democratic bottom-up revolution rather than top-down regulation of business. I do believe, so long as government exists, it should regulate other large, wealthy, powerful, and therefore dangerous entities. However, grassroots revolutions, whether peaceful, violent, cultural, or militant, are the most genuine, long-lasting, substantial, and effective forms of positive change. I believe a workers' revolution (not to sound all communist about it ) in the form of a strong, no-nonsense push for Democratic control of economic entities and resources is the best solution to this problem, at least within the system. For instance, pushes for cooperatives and collective company decision-making and real profit-sharing. Essentially tribally-styled businesses. Tribalism ain't dead, it's still the best system humanity ever adopted for itself...

[edit on 22-6-2010 by NoHierarchy]

Originally posted by chase the sun
Remember, wealth is the part of your money you didn't spend. One major problem is that so many people just don't have the emotional intelligence to be rich. Throw money at them and it glances off. They spend it for a pile of shiny toys and are still broke at the end of the month. Statistics show that over 80% of the million dollar lottery winners are poor again after only two years. Hmm...how can that be?

Actually I feel it's the opposite way around, that to be super rich means you've definately got to have a lower emotional intelligence. You should see this psychological report I have seen I don't know who wrote it it's been so long, but it's stated about 9/10ths of the top earners are borderline narcissists. I just wish I knew who the paper was written by and what the title was. Oh well.
Anyway it isn't different than the people who are on that show hoarders. Do you think those people truly have a high emotional intelligence? PLEASE!!!!! Hoarding money and riches is no different than hoarding anything else. The only difference is they have a place to keep it all nicely tucked away and not lying around their houses cramming it up, that place is called a bank. Just in case.

[

Yeah that looks like an emotionally intelligent person/\.

[edit on 22-6-2010 by ldyserenity]

[edit on 22-6-2010 by ldyserenity]

I wonder if Paris Hilton deserves her wealth?

Or how about CEOs who inherited their positions due to their family's influence?

[edit on 22-6-2010 by DJM8507]

Do the rich deserves their money?

Yes they do. Absolutely. But should they hoard their money? Nope.

It takes creative effort to think up ways to make money legally. Once bingo happens, that guy deserves the profits, but at the same time, he SHOULD NEVER forget who helped him make that pile, as in the case of manufacturing. It's the workers.

While economics dictate that it may foolhardy to give a worker higher salary than market rate to compensate his toil, productivity and team effort, for it may lead to dissatisfaction when profits dive or shoots up, the worker can be and should be compensated by bonus issues at year end.

More often than not, employers hoards up profits, and claim to save it for 'rainy days', etc, etc. If it is profiting, than he and his management team with such good biz acumen would have projected what it would be like for the next few years by reading and using evey data avaliable for such projections, and then distribute wealth to every worker that helped him achieved his goals at year end.

Charity is good, espacially for the young, the physically challenged and the aged, for an egalitarian society leaves no human behind. However, majority of those capable of working do not seek for charity, need it or want it. They want to earn an honest living, to work to live, and paid reasonably.

Unfortunately, the rich in these current times continued to hoard up their riches, throw out some loose change they call charity, instead of creating value and jobs to help the working capable. It is not loose change the world needs, but a redistribution of wealth.

No man needs more than $30 million in his lifetime or the next, with accrued interests from banks and trust funds. Anything more is excessive and is obscene, and is hoarded up serving no purpose as it does not circulate, robbing many other humans of the opportunity of supporting themselves.

The rich best do some self seeking within their conscience, or they will be the ones responsible for the extinction of mankind.

Here's an interesting article I just read on the charitable giving of rich versus poor. A surprising study shows that, overall, the poor actually give a larger percentage of their money to charity than the rich:

www.nytimes.com...

In 2001, Independent Sector, a nonprofit organization focused on charitable giving, found that households earning less than $25,000 a year gave away an average of 4.2 percent of their incomes; those with earnings of more than $75,000 gave away 2.7 percent.

To take away someones money is just another form of social control. Don't believe statistics they are unreliable and easily modified due to the agenda controlling it.

[edit on 8/24/2010 by mnmcandiez]

reply to post by NoHierarchy


Starred your thread.

I would like to say that the way you are going about this is amazing. Bravo. As a fellow anarcho-primitivist I applaud you.

On to your OP:

While I do not believe the rich deserve their wealth, any action from the state to control said wealth would only lead to it being redistributed into federal coffers opening a can of worms we are all too historically familiar with.

Understandably we have never seen the true socialist ideology manifested. I believe that what is needed to get there is something Trotsky talked about, the perpetual revolution. Moving from individualistic cultural identity to a collective one is no small undertaking either. Even more so in a guilt based culture like America. Not to mention dualist thinking and other western philosophies that stand in the way of tribalism... In short, the list of obstacles goes on and on.

If you wouldn't mind discussing it I am curious to know if you have any ideas on how to over come, specifically, the individualist cultural issue. If this is not what your thread was intended for I apologize for the jack but would still gladly U2U on the subject.

Go out and make some money, stupid.

Stop whinning about everyone else's wealth and create some of your own.

I started over3 times from almost nothing and now have a pretty good life. I have a 50 acre farm, land holdings, some investments and a place at the beach...

BUT, I am still working about 50 hours a week, have a farm on the side, and trying to figure out how to improve it and make it a money maker as a business.

I went to college...worked my way through...as a mover, and house painter, and ood job journeyman. Been working since I graduated, went to night school and learned about real estate and investing.

So what's the problem? YOU DO IT.

But it's too hard...I don't want to put that much effort into it.

You know why I am up at4:45am drinking coffee and playing here...because at 6am, I will feed my farm animals... that I will sell for money....and at 7am when it is good and light...I will begin sawing and busting firewood.... again, that I will sell this fall... for money... this afternoon, I might sow some more lettuce seed and kale...that I will sell for money. This is my day off....tommorow...I go back to work... for money.

See how this works?

Sure the rich deserve your money...
Take the bonuses paid to the bank(er)s that had to be bailed out ...

Or how about Benizir Bhutto who held the most money personally bilked out of a country while ruler - over a Billion dollars.

Then there are people like Bill Gates who think that by use of Vaccines the population of poor people (you) can be reduced by 15 %.

Then there is the Ford foundation which is supporting Mecha and La Raza and their sub groups, which are advocating carving a quarter of the US off and giving it to Mexicans, who never owned in the first place..( a few missions in comparison to the say 20 million NDNs that actually were there in the first place....jeeez)

Hey take the Vatican ( please!)...heavily invested in arms manufacturing and porn...the biggest real estate portfolio in the world...all from tythes and donations.

Yes the Rich deserve your money, your sweat, your land, your children, and your life.

Oh, the death tax in the US will be taking up to 55 % of the wealth of the dead not quite rich starting what, next year(?), but like bankruptcy rules the rich can avoid it, but you can't.





[edit on 24-8-2010 by Danbones]

Ok, two thoughts I would like to add for consideration. The first is twofold, the first part being that in our society the wealthy elite use their money to manipulate the market in their favor, to push legislation through lobbyists making their product mandatory ( vaccines, chemotherapy, etc.) And to limit their competition, or to price fix. Also, our society has provided them with the environment and assets to allow them their fortune, through a system that has allowed them to destroy our production and manufacturing base through outsourcing, as well as giving them subsidies, and now bailout. These policies we have allowed at great detriment to our working and middle class have allowed them massive profit and privilege. All the while our wages have stagnated since the 70s, the gdp has doubled. Is it unreasonable to demand that they pay beck into the people and system that provided them with their prosperity?

Second is a consideration I would like you to make. Is it reasonable to allow a neighbor to amass an arsenal? A gun or two is reasonable perhaps. how about a tank? A MIG? A nuclear missile? when does it become unreasonable? and why? Because after a certain level it is dangerous and disruptive to have that much power. in our society money is power, and people can and do use it to manipulate people and laws. Too much money concentrated into the hands of the few destabilizes democracy and freedom, just as much as if that group of people had a small peronal army. as long as our system exists in this form there will be no true representation for the working and the poor, and the government will only exist as the executor of the will of the wealthy and powerful.

Originally posted by signal2noise
WTF is it with people and the rich?

So they're rich? BFD. Get out there, get working, do something that is valuable and you, too, and be rich.

"The Rich didn't earn that money!" If I had a nickel for every time I heard that comment here.

And you honestly think that taking it from them and GIVING it do some deadbeat waste of skin is "earning it"?

Seems that most people would rather sit on their ever-expanding fat ass and whine to the government, "Those people shouldn't be rich. Give ME their money!!"

Your making the massive assumption that we all start from a level playing field, As though those who have been sent to the best schools and onto the best universities dont get a huge advantage over someone who can not afford the University fee's or who does'nt have 2 parents to support them. People who go to the best university's will have all the advantages to help them become more wealthy, from the best teachers to making the best contacts that will serve them in the future.

To believe we all start off on the same level field and are judged only on our merits is a massive delusion but a great ruse played by the wealthy, to justify their positions.

The false class consciousness that exists on this board can be quite staggering.

Originally posted by AlreadyGone
How about the guy, like me, that works 50+ hours a week, has a small farm/business on the side, eats pasta and rice and whats in the garden so he can make a life for his family?

Some people here apparently think you should give them what you worked for, so they do not have to work as hard as you did!

People talk about a level playing field and some being born into privilege. How life isn't fair for them...

Both of my parents grew up during the depression.... my mom remembers when snow would blow through the cracks of the wall and a slight glazing would be on the floor. She had 11 other brothers and sisters...everybody worked on the farm and they were dirt poor.

My dad remembers that they went to school only after all the crops were in...about October, and they didn't go back after April cause it was planting time again

They ate oppossums, racoons, squirrels, hogs they raised and only killed a chicken to eat when company was coming.

They both drew up water out of a well, brought in firewood, worked the fields after school when they went, used out houses, got whippings and beatings when they misbehaved.

Both of my grand daddy's made moonshine to make ends meet...farmed in summer, worked the saw mill in winter...and both families were dirt...and I mean DIRT poor.

So, how did they turn out? By some arguments, they should have been failures...

They are retired living a comfortable life, both are well respected in the community, they travel when they want...just went to the mountains last week...and will go to the coast next with one of my uncles and his wife...they have a place at the beach too.

My dad didn't make it past the 6th grade....my mom did graduate...they both worked, scrimped, saved, invested...and have done well for themselves.

We always had a garden...at 81, my dad still has a garden, and my mom is making homemade fig preserves this week...she is 76.

My brother..has a family, and a home...and a big ass truck...and a camper...and a boat...and rental property...and he and his wife work their buts off too.

Like my parents say,...

" Hardwork has never killed anyone, and it won't hurt you neither."

" If you want something, you have to work for it."

"Don't spend all of your money, son, there's gonna be a rainy day."

"Put up everything you can, hardtimes might come again."

"Don't waste that, you'll wish you had it one day."

You said one thing that strikes me as being **TRUE.**

You said that the mega rich psychotically hoard money.

I walked away from the pc and thought about this a while- and it just seems brilliant.

When people have more animals than they need, or can care for, we might say they are pyschotic and that they are animal hoarders. We recognize how sick it is.

When people fill their homes up with junk so that they can't get out the door, we see the mental illness in it.

How many thousands could one billion dollars provide for? How many chickens, goats, and wells could that sort of money provide?

I do know several multi-millionaires. 2 got their money legitimately as far as I know. 1 had help in the form of luck, if you can call it that, as his brother died young and left a huge insurance policy and fledgling business. The other 4 engaged in selling drugs or just providing drugs to other business owners, before turning to legitimate business.

It seems a slippery slope- wealth redistribution. But just because you go down a road doesn't mean that that road might NOT end before any particular final destination.

The attachment one would have to have to money, to ALLOW one to become a multi-billionaire- it would HAVE to border on being psychotic.
Who could sit on that much money and watch so many people die of starvation or be homeless? Someone with that much money would be deprived of NOTHING in this world to give away anything that continued to come.

That's probably what Christ meant when he talked about how hard it was for the rich man to enter heaven- he said something like -basically-a really wide load would have to fit in a narrow space.

The level or hoarding has to be so above and beyond the psychosis that your normal 800 pound man would have- and unless he is in a poor country, he's probably mainly hurting himself. How many people are being hurt by a man with 4 billion dollars who decides to hold onto every last cent of it?

I know a wealthy man, and he would not give his granddaugter 500.00 for her copay to have a surgery she desperately needed. His attitude was that he fended for himself, and his kids, and now it was up to them. Never mind that the child's mother was disabled,and single, or that the little girl had cancer when she was 8, and needed the surgery because the bone in her arm had died.

I have always thought that was so cruel, but I never really considered the psychotic level of attachment to money that one would have to have to do that. WOW.


Thanks.

Again, the assumption is there that all poor or lower income workers just don't want to work. Let's be clear here, the majority of Americans will struggle and work their a$$es off all their lives for anothers profit, never retire, and never achieve any financial security or freedom. Please also recall, the great majority of our poor accumulate in urban settings, and I bet they WISH they had the freedom to catch a coon, squirrel, or other game to eat, or to grow a garden.

The majority of people in America do want to work. There are too many that have had some tough breaks, bad decisions, bad luck, lost jobs, little access to resources, no resources with which to sustain themselves much less others or a family.

So, will they keep doing what they are doing hoping it will change?

Will they continue with the status quo, expecting a different result tommorrow, or next week, or next year?

Adaptability... social, cultural, educational evolution is the key. The ability to reinvent one's self.

I have had a number of jobs in my life, ... even though I went to college, I went to night school about 15 years later to learn new skills, to reinvent myself. Even now...at 47, I am trying to establish a small farm as a viable business...while still working a 50 hour a week job.

My question is...What will the poor and inopportuned person do to change their staus quo?

Have they accessed the public libraries? Have they tried a business themselves based on a need in their neighborhood?...even provide a service and paid under the table?

Have they accessed the free or low coast classes at a locasl community college? Have they accessed the internet at the library?

Have they thought to just move away....change of locality...?

I don't have all the answers....but to do the same thing again and again and expect a different result is the definition of insanity.

Whether or not the rich deserve their money is irrelevant

They have it

Not trying to be flip. It's simply the way it is

reply to post by AlreadyGone


You do know that you work to live and not live to work do you ?

My family barely scraped by when I was young and worked from 9 am to 11 PM. My mother is now the president of a company and I say yes she does deserve the money she made. She works 60+ hours a week as a single mom raising a kid. So yeah, yeah she does deserve every cent she's ever made.

Its the Rich trust fundies you want. They do nothing and get loads of money. My mother doesn't believe in trust funds but rather you make your children pay for everything so that when they do have money they know how to spend appropriately. You get a job you make money you die that's life. If you make millions and worked hard for it good work.

Okay I realize that I am no longer in the 'cool kid hip gang' but just exactly when did being successful become a bad thing.

Did I miss a memo or something