One person should only be so rich.

Originally posted by daskakik
reply to post by maestromason

 

What bearing does that have on the topic of capping of wealth?.

edit on 25-12-2011 by daskakik because: (no reason given)

The bearing is simple ex-patriot. Since you are no longer an American leave my economic system alone and dwell on counting your Ju-Ju beans. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with my wealth and economic status. Would you like to know what I made this tax year of 2011? Then again if I told you it would not inspire you much to leave your "country"(wink, wink). ATS is not the same ATS it was back in 1999....enter the rainbow babies and their "equality for all" mentality.

The world is not fair for a reason. Why don't you just accept things for the way they are since it is apparent that you are incapable of changing anything but your "location".

STAUNCH FREE-MARKET CAPITALIST HERE!

I LOVE MY CASH, MY BUSINESS and MY THINGS IN LIFE!

I now refer you to my sig...

Originally posted by maestromason
I LOVE MY CASH, MY BUSINESS and MY THINGS IN LIFE!

Well I love you for speaking the truth.

I am so sorry you love dying idols though. You will mourn their loss greatly.

Are you a Master Mason?

With Love,

Your Brother

reply to post by maestromason

You may be a staunch free market capitalist but your country is not. Saying it is because you would like it to be is incorrect.

Why do you think it is apperant that location is all I was able to change when you know nothing about me? I really don't care how much you made this year but I know that I made more than enough for my needs and then some while only working a couple hours a day. But, as I have already pointed out, there are those in the US who would like things to change and they have a constitutional right to seek these changes. They don't have to just accept it because your happy with the way things are.

ETA: To keep things honest I am not an ex-pat because I was not a US citizen although I lived in the US from the age of 2 so if I had wanted I could have become one but I decided to leave instead. While technically not an official denouncment (filing the forms) tha action was the same.

Anyone can be called a systems analyst but basically the title is so misleading since TPTB have nothing new to offer that isn't already out there . So knocking it back it where it may be better for all concerned Recycling Engineer . Salary cut on the horizon ?

An ancient paradox, this.

Living on a rock in the middle of nothing leaves us with the first realization; there are finite resources (ie wealth).

But we cannot simultaneously regulate power and extol industriousness, can we?

We get the most value from being useful, not from some arbitrary number in our bank account.

The extremes of this argument are both equally unsustainable.

We must think harder.

I dunno, but it seems to me like when 1 person has more than 1/10th the wealth of their entire nation, that that MIGHT be a bit much....

reply to post by ripcontrol

And I respectfully say you're full of it.

There are only so many hours in a day, and so much energy in a body.

You might be able to start one or two of those things and do them justice, but that's were it ends. If you claim the need for billions to do all of them you are deluding yourself about your capacity. Starting up a half a dozen companies to do disparate things, especially those things for which you have no training nor have studied the years necessary to comprehend what the best approaches are is a recipe for waste and disaster.

You say you will hire experts?

How will you differentiate the con artists from the real deals? You are ignorant of the specialties, so you are vulnerable to making huge mistakes and being conned by slick sociopaths who can read you like a book.

And who says you have a right to hog the space? Any economy can support only so many enterprises. If you are trying to build six different companies in six different fields to justify your immense wealth, you are depriving those who actually do know something about those fields, but have less wealth to realize a company of their chance of genuinely contributing.

And sooner or later you won't be concerned at all about making real progress and contributions, but about competing to be #1, stifling your competition. Being #1 doesn't mean being the best, but the biggest. And how do you achieve that? Usually by overpaying a few, underpaying the many, and using your wealth to buy political favor and protection.

What the hell is wrong with doing a couple of things very well, and then allowing as many others as possible to do the same?

Problem is, most of the wealthy are addicts who can't control their behavior.

I made no statement about leaving the us. I think of it as a worldwide problem but cannot talk of the us specifically as I could the uk as I live in the uk.

reply to post by UfoFaker


I really hope you were single during all that time, for I fail to see where you had the time or energy to share your life with a woman, or to raise children properly.

The life you describe is one of obsessive/compulsive behavior, coldly devoted to the singular purpose of attaining wealth.

Your attitudes are reflective of your lack of true connections to other human beings.

Sure you a a multimillionaire now, but what was the social cost you left in your wake?

Most of the people I've known who worked for success as hard as you described lost their families somewhere along the way: their kids don't know them, just the back of their heads and the checkbook they flaunt. Their wives are sleeping with others to find the warmth and connections they need unless they had the courage to just walk out and take their chances elsewhere.

Life shouldn't be about working endlessly for mere acquisition of money and power.

Question: do you pay your lowest-paid employees enough that they don't need to have a second job to make it?

Enough that they can actually save a little to be able to start their own businesses someday?

Or do you pay them the minimum you can get away with?

reply to post by IAMIAM


I only know how to speak the truth, everything else is falsehood and folly in pursuit of the wind.

I AM!

reply to post by Illustronic


Capping wealth will kill incentive?

What a load of sheer arrogance!

A $1 billion cap might kill your incentive (which I highly doubt), but it sure wouldn't for a few hundred million others: I can absolutely guarantee that.

That argument again alludes to the delusional self-image of "specialness" the wealthy have. It says that they, and they alone are capable of producing ideas and products that are worthwhile, and all others who aren't in their special class are merely lazy drudges mentally and morally incompetent to do better.

What a crock!

So a cap would disincentivize you?

Fine, go sulk in the corner, the rest of us will take advantage of the new opportunities to bring our products to market.

reply to post by s12345


The problem in the US is that the middle class is disappearing and the poor are growing poorer while the rich are growing richer.

Yet the rich refuse to pay as much of their income in taxes as the poor and middle class were previously forced to.

The very rich often pay nothing in tax - they can afford $1,000 an hour tax lawyers.The rich can defend themselves.

The poor on the other hand are an easy touch.

Even Warren Buffet observed that his secretary paid a greater proportion of her income in taxes than he did.

The problem is that wealth has shifted from the poor and middle class to the rich. Yet the rich refuse to pay as large a proportion of their income in tax as the poor and middle class were forced to.

Originally posted by watchdog8110
Anyone can be called a systems analyst but basically the title is so misleading since TPTB have nothing new to offer that isn't already out there . So knocking it back it where it may be better for all concerned Recycling Engineer . Salary cut on the horizon ?

watchdog8110 please get my degree and title right. Thank you sir. Here is a refined definition of my pedigree sir:

en.wikipedia.org...


I am a SYSTEMS ENGINEER by degree. I hold a MSEE from CWRU. I have contracts from NASA Glenn Research Center to Goodrich Aerospace Engineering. I hold high-level ITAR Secured Clearance by The U.S. Department of State. My firm has been in business since 1999 and I employ 3 firm associates who are fellow Systems Engineers.

Thank you watchdog8110, good boy!

reply to post by Plotus


Maybe not, but we sure can define and punish bad behavior, right?

And if we defined accumulating more than you can spend in several lifetimes as bad behavior and punished it, then there would be less of it, correct?

Funny thing is, humanity as a whole does universally define excessive wealth hoarding as bad behavior when it causes too many to go hungry and shelterless, and punishes that behavior.

Ultimately, the "natural" controls for such bad behavior, when you look at the historical data, is the beheading or otherwise violent and permanent removal of those exhibiting it.

I hope we've evolved out of that remedy, but apparently not; some still refuse to limit themselves to taking only several times more than what they need.

When your head is about to go on a pike, don't say you weren't warned, repeatedly.

It will be no one's fault but your own because you refused to listen.

I've no problem with people owning vast amounts of wealth, provided they pay the taxes due (income, capital gains - which should be much higher by the way, etc.) The problem is when many of the super-rich refuse to pay the taxes they owe.

Originally posted by maestromason
I only know how to speak the truth, everything else is falsehood and folly in pursuit of the wind.

I AM!

That is why we are not seeing from the same angle then.

I AM the stone the builders rejected.

With Love,

Your Brother

Originally posted by IAMIAM

Originally posted by maestromason
I only know how to speak the truth, everything else is falsehood and folly in pursuit of the wind.

I AM!

That is why we are not seeing from the same angle then.

I AM the stone the builders rejected.

With Love,

Your Brother

Then we can ALWAYS agree to disagree...I have no problems with it.

I am on ATS as a traveling man not for conflict. I have been a member since 1999.

reply to post by eLPresidente


Pious bullcrap.

Threaten a "free" man's family with overwhelming force and he will cave every time, since he has no real choice, but it is hardly voluntarily. He will swallow his pride while burning with resentment.

It happens a million times a day every day.

reply to post by maestromason


The same old probe with the new VANITY mirror was a nice touch , did you think of that one ?

The next time your in DC , and if you decide to go to Planet Hollywood , make sure you tip the kid in the mens washroom real well when he passes you the towel to wipe your hands after washing them . Unless that is beneath you since I recall giving him a $20 when I was there .

Originally posted by maestromason
I am on ATS as a traveling man not for conflict. I have been a member since 1999.

I have no conflict with any man my friend. We are ALL Brothers in this thing called life.

My issue is with false Idols.

I will judge them.

I will smash them.

And I will make all things new.

Money, Government, and Religion. These are the chains that bind Man to his prison and there sever his body into parts. The chains will be cut, and Man will be whole and free.

Keep watching my friend. It's been quite the show this past year, but that was just the warm up.

With Love,

Your Brother