Making it In Today's World: Is it justifiable?

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Originally posted by cinephile
Yes, I agree that quality healthcare is definately more vaulable than the ridiculous sums most pro sports players are paid. But to be honest, that is the public's fault. If they did'nt agree to pay the ridiculous amount to go to games, buy all that merchandising, and create a ridiculous amount of interest in sports and entertainment, then the money would'nt be ther to pay them. Hey, I love Jordan and so did 50 million others. Consequently, Nike though they might make a few bucks off of him.

As far as healthcare is concerned. Well, if people took better care of themselves, they probably would'nt need to go to the doctor as often. The US is the fattest nation in the world ya know.

A lot of our problems stem from ourselves, from our unhealthy food, our outrageous consumer debt, to our somewhat infintile obsession with celebrity and status. Change has got to come from within first.

BINGO! But as Luveno said, it's easier if someone else does it. Therein lies the huge problem we have in the states; as long as someone else is more capable for taking care of me, they should be obligated to do it.

 

[cinephile]

Originally posted by Luveno
..but its so much easier if someone else does it.

Sorry, No Pain, No Gain.

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Originally posted by cinephile
The idea of a meritocrasy (or however it spelled) is flawed in that it assumes that people have equal opportunity and capacity, We all know this is not true. It is just another populist ploy that sounds good, but really does'nt change anything.

The one thing that the US has over other countries is that it allows EVERYONE to become successful upon their own merits. The equalizer in all of this is knowledge.

You will probably say that not everyone can afford that knowledge in that education costs so much. Well there are guaranteed student loans but even besides that, there are libraries that contain wealths of information.

Some of our greatest capitalists created their companies without college degrees. There are people doing this daily with only a high school education, but only because they want it badly enough to do something about it themselves.

 

[cinephile]

Actaully, I agree with you. People still come to the US in droves from foreign countries mainly because the opportunites here are so much better. Think about all the Illegal aliens who cross the border every day to work at jobs that pay $50 a day. While they probably hate it, it is still better than what they used to have.

While America is'nt all that, it is still an ok place to be. I think people are just more afraid of the new challenges that are coming up. Not to sound too rah rah, but these chalenges represent oportunities for us to reveal our character. We can fail and live in shambles, or suceed and move on to the next one.

I would add to yur statement, the great equalizer is Knowledge with Action.

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Originally posted by cinephile
I would add to yur statement, the great equalizer is Knowledge with Action.

And now I have learned something new; knowledge alone is worth little without activly using it.

 

[Bonhomme]

(full-time at McDonald's is more than enough for the bare essentials) in a year, then you don't deserve anyone's gratitude.

That is so full of sh1t I won't bother to argue it.

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Originally posted by Bonhomme
That is so full of sh1t I won't bother to argue it.

I'm guessing that each McDonald's in the world has a staff of 10 to 15 people on average doing it as we speak. Multiply that by the countless number of restaurants in the world and you have a HUGE number of people choosing to work their under their own accord.

 

[Bonhomme]

like the frying pan or the fire

....you have a HUGE number of people choosing to work their under their own accord.

More like choosing to work there over a job that pays even less or having no job at all.

I don't think people in the 19th century wanted to work 70 hours a week to survive, either, but that's what it's coming to here now.

One might say anybody can rise above such a difficult existence. The fact is, not everybody can. In fact, most can't. There are just not enough better positions. More dogs get eaten than eat when it's dog-eat-dog.

I'm lucky to have been born with sufficient abilities to make somthing better of them. It's part my doing, part my parents' doing. But it rankles to see good people not being able to make ends meet, though they work their asses off. No excuse for that in a nation with the resources we have.

Try to feed and clothe a family, pay the rent (forget about buying a home), keep a vehicle running and insured, and afford medical care if you get in an accident on about $250 per week. That's 1 week's pay to keep a car running (not including major repairs or vehicle replacement when it dies), at least 2 weeks pay for housing and utilities ... and then you still have telephone, food, clothing, etc... you get the idea.

I manage rentals in a very cheap city to live in, and a lot of the tenants are 2 families to a house and still have trouble affording the rent. No wonder the kids want to turn to illegal activies they think are more lucrative.

I'm all for allowing people the opportunities to get ahead, but paying people poorly for their work is stealing in my book.

BTW, for the last several years I've paid my help no less than $12 US per hour, or a mutually agreed contract price per job.

 

[al77]

Re: like the frying pan or the fire

Originally posted by Bonhomme

Try to feed and clothe a family, pay the rent (forget about buying a home), keep a vehicle running and insured, and afford medical care

I manage rentals in a very cheap city to live in, and a lot of the tenants are 2 families to a house and still have trouble affording the rent. No wonder the kids want to turn to illegal activies they think are more lucrative.

If you refer to Detroit, then... you know precisely why they have trouble affording the rent and why their kids turn to illegal activities. And it is not that much due to being underpaid...

 

[Luveno]

but paying people poorly for their work is stealing in my book.

Its true, but its so much easier to profit when you know you can employ the dregs of society for minimum wage.
A Mercedes in the driveway makes it very easy to forget about how some welfare baboon can't afford to heat her house, or buy adequate food.
Of course this is ridiculously unethical, but who's going to stop them? McDonalds has billions more than any of us, and no matter what we say, it's not going to change the fact that they basically run slave labor. It's legal, and even if it wasn't it would take decades for anything to be done about it. In my opinoin, McDonalds is a good place to put your kids to work, so that they'll appreciate the value of a dollar. It is not a place that people can work to support their families.
So making it in today's world is justifiable if one does not exploit the weak in doing so. However, it seems like the most successful companies have horrendous ethical practices. So, maybe it isn't justifiable.

..of course, if you're richer than I, why should you care what I think?

 

[Gus]

More dogs get eaten than eat when it's dog-eat-dog.

So making it in today's world is justifiable if one does not exploit the weak in doing so.

Let's say it together...S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-M. That word is socialism, kids, and it means that nobody is awarded any rights because it would be unfair to someone else.

I'm lucky to have been born with sufficient abilities to make somthing better of them. It's part my doing, part my parents' doing. But it rankles to see good people not being able to make ends meet, though they work their asses off. No excuse for that in a nation with the resources we have.

Money doesn't just come from nowhere. If you inherited some money, that money was earned somewhere by somebody. And that somebody / somebodies earned enough of it to give it to you. We do NOT have the resources to give away...we are in a 7 trillion dollar debt. That would be $7 trillion in taxpayer dollars. I digress.

Just working your ass off isn't grounds for payment. The same as going to college isn't grounds for a good job. In a good capitalist society, you EARN what you're paid. That means that, since there is a limited money supply, the better you produce what is wanted, the more you earn--the worse you produce, the less you earn. Or, as you so eloquently put it, cannibalism (dog-eat-dog).

Now let's imagine your ideal society. Nobody wins over anybody else...that would be dog-eat-dog, since somebody has to lose based on their weakness. Anybody too good is held back, and the weaker you are, the more you will be given (since you want the weak to be the same as the strong so there's no "dog-eat-dog", you compensate for their weakness by giving them power and money). So now you have a society where the weak are in charge, LEECH off of the able, and...basically...consume anybody with ability for their own profit until there is nobody left to consume.

So, you tell me, which would you rather live in?

In short, if you work only for everybody else and not for yourself...then wouldn't it be hyprocritical to live?

 

[Gus]

Oh yeah, the point of all that was:

You're paid what you earn. Of course you're not going to get paid much at McDonald's...you're heating food in a microwave. Once you do something that is worth good pay, then you will get that good pay. I know that the county in which I live has a new policy in which a student can attend any school they wish inside of the county (and my county has the best and the worst of schools in the nation). Do you think the people in the bad schools transfer to the good ones? NO. So I feel no pity.

Who wants to live in a society where you're paid what you DON'T earn, and what you do earn is taken away to give to those who haven't earned it?

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

I'm a greedy b@stard and I want to make as much money as I want. There is no way that I would want to be held to the limits of the masses. In the name of fairness and equality, people are made to be no better than average. I want more so I prefer to do my own thing and not have the limits of being just like everyone else.

 

[diplomatic_lies]

A country where everyone is equal, where taxes are high, will never be as successful.

Competition is the lifeblood of progress. Do you know why Europe became the world's strongest continent? Competition.

Competition forces people to be better. Equality does not.

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Originally posted by diplomatic_lies

Competition forces people to be better. Equality does not.

Bravo!

 

[Bonhomme]

It need not be all black & white

Competition forces people to be better. Equality does not.

Absolutely.

But one need not eradicate competition and force everyone into "equality" by merely ensuring that people are paid a reasonable wage for the services they render, even if it be taking the fries out of a deep fryer.

Perhaps even the most hardcore Darwinian among you would consider slavery unethical, but paying less than a living wage for a standard work week is at least partial slavery as I see it. Slavery to the extent one's wage falls short of a living wage for full-time work.

The richest might not be able to get as rich as fast if they have to pay a living wage to all their workers, but they can still get bloody rich. Don't kid yourselves. Does anyone really think making 5 billion a year as opposed to 10 billion would really affect the quality of one's life? Get real. The key to the well-being of a society is to strike the right balance.

The societies with the best quality of life for their era, and lowest violent crime, from the Iroquois confederacy to modern day Canada, have always seen to it that the needs of their common people have been met, provided they contribute their fair share, which is generally considered a 40 hour work week here.

One can raise the floor, so to speak, without lowering the ceiling. Competition and social responsibility need not be mutually exclusive.

Neither extreme of communism nor pure capitalism has produced the best quality of life in modern societies. The worst examples of the most capitalist socities are some Central American dictatorships, which are hellholes for most citizens; and the best is probably the US, which still is pretty good, all in all, but is slipping.

S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-M. That word is socialism, kids, and it means that nobody is awarded any rights because it would be unfair to someone else.

Are you trying to say that nobody in Canada is awarded any rights? I'm a DJ (disc jockey) for a college radio station, and know for a fact that Canadians have more rights than we do, at least in some respects.

Levity aside, Canada is a good example of the sort of mixed goverment I advocate, though it's not without its flaws. The typical Canadian small town, rural area, or suburb may not be much different that their US counterparts, bu the major cities are a hell of a lot better, in terms of quality of life for a typical resident. Try to find a hardcore ghetto in Canada. Hell, taxi drivers in Toronto let you in the front passenger seat. It was a bit of a culture shock for me. Could you imagine that in Detroit or New York?

Yes, making it in today's world is perfectly justifiable. Not being able to make it in as rich an area as the US is what's not justifiable.

Anyhow, time to get back to work so I can make it in today's world.

 

[diplomatic_lies]

No, extreme anything is not good. A good society needs elements of capitalism, socialism, and even authoritarianism mixed in to keep it running.

Just don't continually compromise your values to an extremist position. Its like feminism; I'm ok with giving women equal treatment, but I'm not ok with giving them special treatment because they're women.


Don't forget Canada has a much smaller population than the US. Its much easier to have a high standard of living when the population is small - just look at Norway (few people, plenty of resources), and compare it to China (huge population, only moderate amounts of resources).

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

I understand the apparent need for a living wage but let's be realistic, not all jobs merit the same pay rate. Flipping burgers, telemarketing, service worker, CIO, and everything in between are positions that require specific skill sets. Pay should be based upon those skills and that alone. Gender nor race, age or tenure should be a factor thus pay would be based on what the individual contributes via his or her skills.

It's not the function of business to provide to its employees. The workers need to provide for themselves by trading their skills for pay. If they require more pay, they should acquire additional skills that merits a higher pay. unfortunately people don't seem to want to but forth the additional effort, at least not the ones that believe that they should be paid more just because things are more expensive.

 

[mandoremay]

great topic....

i believe its who ya know and who ya blow. i had the misfortunes of going to both college and university. my last venture was college, and the course was plumbing.

what a waste of good money, it went down the drain hahaha. anyways on to my problem. the plumbing course required math and science....what is up with that.
the cool thing about the course was the hands on experience, i never had a leaky pipe and all my projects were a's.

but the really problem was the actual academics. i bombed in math and science.
the plumbers that i talked to that worked in the field for years said they never even did anything remotely mathematical or scientific.

heres the real shocker though. the smart kids in the class who did good in the academics were lousy plumbers with leaks all the time.

and this one guy that i made better marks than most of the year ended on the deans list???? something just ain't right. (favoritism anyone) at least in university your just an id number. college is small enough for brownie nosers.

school is a rip-off. i could do the plumbing quite efficiantly but i lost out on the science. since when are trades reserved for rocket scientists.

geez i'm a musician...hopefully they don't start asking guitarists to do the mathematics for the notes in scales and chords.

 

[mandoremay]

wrong topic.

moderater can you put this in the topic- purpose of school.