Wealth Redistribution is Hostile Jealousy

I think there will be a major divide in the coming years that will play out worldwide, and it will be about wealth redistribution. Gallop, the organization incapable of hiding its (neo)liberal bias, examines US opinions on wealth redistribution regularly. They wrote information about it at:
www.gallup.com...

One survey question compares opinions of people with more money to those with less money . The poll finds that a strong majority of people earning less money ($75,000 per year) are opposed to wealth redistribution.

At this point I should point out that wealthy Democrats are slightly more selfish than wealthy Republicans with their money:
blog.geoiq.com...
Disclaimer: Both the Republican Party and Democrat Party are a complete scam and you'd be a fool (and worse) to vote for either one in a national election.

As usual, the poll reveals that Gallop is run by a bunch of socialists trying to get into other people's pockets. That last question is:

Do you feel that the distribution of money and wealth in this country today is fair, or do you feel that the money and wealth in this country should be more evenly distributed?

The question *assumes* that fairness means wealth redistribution! Fairness actually means that people with jobs should earn more money, people with high paying jobs should earn even more money, and people without jobs should earn no money. Its true that wealth in the US should be more evenly distributed, but mostly by raising the amount of money poor people are earning by working (and also maximizing our voluntary charity to them).... not by criminally stealing it from others.

With a long-term depression, the poor may become very hostile towards rich people, and I think that violence will result. There are a lot of rich people who have obtained their wealth wrongfully, and if someone can think of a way to redistribute their wealth (feel free to comment with a suggestion) then I'd support that. But I would not support the general concept applied to all wealthy people.

Oh for the day that a social utopia exists, where money dosnt make the world go round, where people are given the jobs thety want to do rather then the one they are forced to take just to feed the kids, because food prices went up again because the war on oil forced the price of petrol up making transport costs higher which made our food more expensive...
Bring on the technology that lets us create anything from a pile of sand and carbon make it cheap give it to everyone and let the new ideas flow rather then get gobbled up bu patent trolls yet again.. only to be suppressed because it cuts int someone else's bottom line..
Thanks star trek for making me like this, i just hope we can reach a better state of mind before theres nothing left to save except a ball of polluted water and rock with nothing left for our kids..
rant over.

We live in a capitalistic society, this is what we have to deal with.

Is it wrong that I could make millions selling 5-Hour Energy for $2.50 a bottle when it costs $.25 to make?
Or the Temporpedic beds that cost little to make but are sold 4 times as much as a normal mattress?
Unfortunately, like many bankers and lawyers have learned, there are ways to legally steal from the general public.
But to me it is just as bad as paying $1.50 for a bottle of water that is just tap water from somewhere else.

If we are going to redistribute the wealth it would probably be easier to just get rid of it all together.
Plus if it does get redistributed who will dictate who and how much each of us will receive and why?
Endless circle. . .

The best solution is a flat rate percentage. 1%, 3%, 5% of their income, whatever the rate. The percentage rate is open for discussion, but it will be an equal rate and it is fair for all. For the rich that complain that they pay more than others, so what, it is relative, get over it, the more money you make the more responsibility you should have. A middle class person making 50K a year would also be paying more than what a person making 25k.

reply to post by AnteBellum

Yes we live in the capitalistic circle at the moment but it dosnt have to be that way forever.. there is a solution but too many people want more money, and dont see what we are going to lose in the mean time.. we all know it ,just some dont want to see it. its not their problem...
If we had really cheap energy technology instead of our dependence on oil and nanotechnology for all then it could change..
its just whether we can do it before the elite take it all to the grave with them...
every circle can be broken.

When 90% of the world's wealth belongs to 1% of the world's population something in the system is very broken.

We need a redistribution of wealth because of the criminal activities of the 1% who have exploited and extorted the rightful wealth of the other 99%.

reply to post by civilchallenger


You state that many rich people have earned their money wrongfully. Where is your proof of that? When providing the answer, don't point to the couple of hundred bankers.

If an executive makes $1M a year the job he has has a market value of $1M. If the barista has a market value of $20K, that is that market value of that job. Both people are of equal worth, but each have choosen or achieved positions in life that have a different market value. Was luck involved? Sure.

Redistribution of wealth is, by definion, theft. Now folks may want to make an argument that theft is honorable, moral, necessary, OK, what ever argument they choose to make, but if you take something from someone who does not want to give it to you, it is theft, plain and simple.

There is no such thing as fair in life.

I live in and area that's very poor and they are saying they are going to burn the town down this summer if they don't get what they want. What they want they haven't bothered to say but if they burn the place down at least they will be gone

reply to post by sprocket2cog


Your preachin' to the choir but I just don't think we have evolved to this point yet.

If it isn't gold, it's currency. If it isn't currency it's skills. If it isn't skills we barter.
I don't know where this will end but there will always be something we do something for!
Until we evolve that is.

reply to post by AnteBellum



I would actually like to see a commodity based economy. If I were low on money and needed food, I would not mind trading labor or ammo or something else to put food on the table.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
reply to post by civilchallenger

 

You state that many rich people have earned their money wrongfully. Where is your proof of that? When providing the answer, don't point to the couple of hundred bankers.

All profits derived from a government-mandated monopoly are gaining money wrongfully, and that money should be given back in whatever way possible. So when I identify the who of who should have to give money back it is going to not just be the bank executives but also Fed Ex executives, UPS executives, any military industry executives who's primary customer is the government. I also wouldn't object to money being forcibly taken away from any high-paid US federal worker.

If REAL class warfare starts (guns & bombs), then I will certainly be doing nothing to protect a wealthy banker's property. On the other hand if someone is going after most local business owners I will wish to defend them at gun point if necessary. So there are some rich people whom I will help protect the property of, and there are others who I would be willing to actually join in taking away. I hate to have to guess a number, but imagine that about 1 in 5 of wealthy people in the US probably shouldn't have most of what they do have. Supporting a limited one-time redistribution like that is nothing like supporting wealth redistribution in general... in fact I wouldn't even call it redistribution but giving back blood money.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
reply to post by civilchallenger

 

You state that many rich people have earned their money wrongfully. Where is your proof of that? When providing the answer, don't point to the couple of hundred bankers.

If an executive makes $1M a year the job he has has a market value of $1M. If the barista has a market value of $20K, that is that market value of that job. Both people are of equal worth, but each have choosen or achieved positions in life that have a different market value. Was luck involved? Sure.

Redistribution of wealth is, by definion, theft. Now folks may want to make an argument that theft is honorable, moral, necessary, OK, what ever argument they choose to make, but if you take something from someone who does not want to give it to you, it is theft, plain and simple.

There is no such thing as fair in life.

And what about all those Wall Street companies that got bailouts and turned around and gave their executives (the same executives who crashed the economy) massive bonuses. How about corporations who buy up patents, and then sit on them (without developing them) in order to stifle competition. How about corporations that change the law in order to mandate that citizens have to buy their product (health insurance). How about anyone who profits off the deaths and misery of other human beings (any war profiteers and the entire military / prison industrial complex, things like blood diamonds, etc.). How about any company who bribes lawmakers and then writes legislation that benefits them at the cost of the rest of the American population. How about companies that employ child/slave labor overseas? There's plenty of examples of ill gotten wealth. I personally think a majority of the wealth at the top is probably illgotten. Just look at who is running things, basically everyone on this list is a rich bastard and we all know what they have in store for the rest of us!

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by AnteBellum
We live in a capitalistic society, this is what we have to deal with.

No, we live in a fascist society. The US lost its status as a capitalist country a couple years back. Which of course explains the decline of the USA perfectly.

Originally posted by civilchallenger

Originally posted by AnteBellum
We live in a capitalistic society, this is what we have to deal with.

No, we live in a fascist society. The US lost its status as a capitalist country a couple years back. Which of course explains the decline of the USA perfectly.

It is only fascist for those who don't fit the plan.

Unfortunately, there are more and more of us coming out every day.

reply to post by civilchallenger


Wealth Redistribution is just a big word used by really rich assholes who dont like to pay their taxes... Dont buy into the hype

reply to post by meeneecat


When someone makes money within the constructs of the law it is not wrongfully earned.

The bail outs were poor government policy, but prior to the bailouts bankers were making tons of money legally.

Buying up a patent is smart and legal and lets not forget about the patents that are bought by firms that actually have the resources to bring the product to market. There are a ton of things we enjoy today because the patents were bought.

Influencing legislation to benefit your company is perfectly legal

Being hired by the government as a military contractor is legal.

Bribes, slave and child labor is illegal.

For those items that are legal, there is no "wrongfully" earned. Now you might feel that laws should change to make those things illegal, and that is fine, but to suggest that folks who are engaging in legal business practices are wrongfully earning their money is nonsense.

We have a system of laws and to the extent that you operate within that system, your money is legally obtained and the governments confiscation of it theft.

reply to post by ShogunAssassins


Thats intelligent. How about you provide an adult explanation as to why you feel it is OK to take something from someone and give it to someone else? By what right does the government steal the wealth of those who have legally earned it?

reply to post by civilchallenger



There are many reasons as to why an individual might agree or disagree with wealth distribution.

The motive is unclear, however it is clear that those who benefit from society tend to disagree with wealth distribution while those that do not benefit tend to agree with wealth distribution.

How could you or anyone possibly know that wealthy democrats are more selfish than wealthy republicans?
Like you, I think both parties are a sham however I can not make an assumption of that caliber.

I have no idea how to solve this wealth gap, however what I can see is that the current capitalist mode allows incredibly small portions of humans to control production which inevitably leads to monopoly and the wealth gap we are experiencing.

The problem is that capitalism seems to rely on scarcity (among other things). Meaning people are always going to have to need something.

So if wages were increased for the poor, scarcity would be slowly be eliminated and the current capatlist mode would have to adjust. It probabaly would not even be Capitalism anymore.

So if you do not mind eliminating capitalism as you know it, which does not bother me, then raising wages would probably be beneficial. Although I am certainly not qualified to be an authority on modern economics.

At least it would be an interesting spectacle and a fresh change of pace.

reply to post by dolphinfan


Just because it is a law does not make it alright. The current capitalist modes of production are inherently unfair.

The glory days of capitalism are over. If you are an entrepreneur that is lucky enough that his/her favored industry is not a monopoly,then he/she probably is going to require substantial capital that is well beyond reach of 1/3rd of the american population.



While most Americans have good enough credit to qualify for car financing, the vast majority to do not qualify for higher-risk loans. Which has become essential, at least for the poor and middle class, to create a business.

Give unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar.

In other words, give all the money back to the government. Give them back their worthless paper. Give them back the paper that says the banks own your homes. Give them back the paper that says you can drive. Give them back the paper that says you can hunt, fish, or do business. Give them back their authority and control over your lives.

We can do better as a free people working together to build a better future. So, you have too much wealth and prestige to simply let it all go? It will be a millstone around your neck in the coming years. Such mentality will be your own undoing. The meek WILL inherit this earth. The poor WILL inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Those who suffer in the name of Righteousness WILL be free in the Kingdom of Heaven.

I know many do not believe it is possible. I know many will chalk it up to a fantasy Utopia. All I can say is watch.

The more who suffer under the weight of this empire of iniquity, the more who will be ready to rise from their graves and live again as free men. Once free, never again will they allow a man to rule over them with their illusions of superiority.

Have you seen the Plan at the bottom of my posts?

With Love,

Your Brother