NeedToUseYou -> RE: Failure of the world-wide capitalist system ... kinda. (12/25/2006 8:04:53 PM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: NorthernGent You're missing my point. What on earth is going on in a place where one person can amass riches equivalent to 110 million people? This is a wealth gap out of hand. Don't get overly touchy. It's a discussion with people offering points of view. I don't see where I was touchy, just using your own "Unbelievable" statement at the end. The rest was pointing out that using a guy that is giving all his wealth he accumulated in one generation is probably not the best example to use when one is proposing forced wealth redistribution. Because honestly, that is all this is about. And the real difference between Capitalism(which is generally present in democracies or a version thereof) to socialism to Communism to a Full out dictatorship. They are all just varying degrees of acceptance of wealth distribution or caps on personal wealth with increasing reliance on the government the further along the chain you go. It does disturb me quite a bit that people think they should be able to tell other people the maximum they can make. Why? Using Bill Bates, he created a little tiny company that any of us could of if chose to persue the same path. He didn't come from old money, and ended up building that little company to be worth 10's of billions of dollars. What's wrong with that? The essential problem is the capping of someones worth at some arbitrary amount. There are people that never risk anything on any business venture, there are those that risk everything and lose everything, and some risk everything and make a fortune. So what? If there wasn't the potential for a huge payoff people wouldn't take as much risk in opening new untested businesses. But to answer your question why the growing gap. Taxes, mandatory insurance, license fees, optional health insurance military spending, etc.... Along with globalization which shifts the effective wage downward. Gaps in international tax distribution. Plus materialism of the country, that so readily buys things it doesn't need on debt. It's impossible to build wealth if indebted. Companies and the wealthy are doing the exact same thing they've always done as far as I see it,though. The government has gotten more into everyones pocket, and globalization has put hard downward pressure on wages. So, since you have external and internal pressure on the wage, and the amount of money one gets to keep from that wage. They have less money to save, and also this country is very materialistic, and most people live in a constant state of spending that leaves little excess left for investing or savings, more actually spend more than they earn mostly on crap. How to correct it, lower overall tax rates(or really totally change the tax scheme), eliminate the corporate loopholes, reduce the military. Besides that the fault is with the people, as honestly people are very materialistic to there detriment. I see some people working at dead end jobs wearing NIKE, or FUBU, or TOMMY clothes. I'm sure if England is like here, people putting thousand dollar stereos in crappy old ford escorts. Well, those people are always going to be broke in terms of "market wealth". Of course those are just examples but having lived in three states and seeing the same types well it's pretty much obvious that it's not a local anomaly. Mass media in the form of easily digestable MTV cliches doesn't help to alleviate the situation. So, it's people, government, military and corporations that have been enabled by government to defer taxes. To redistribute wealth without addressing materialism won't do anything in my opinion except encourage more materialism. And of course shit happens to some poor people and I agree some net needs to be there but anything more than supplying the basics would seem to encourage abuse. ***Didn't spellcheck got up at 3:30 last night so am tired Good Night*****
|
|
|
|