Youre All Morons

[bigdavediode]

Quote from loik:

How much does Buffett cost the government?

Hard to say, but here are some of the services he uses and must pay for:

Roads, which give the companies he owns a method of conveyance

Homeland Security, which gives him a stable country to trade and do business

SEC, which helps regulate the businesses he owns, and helps regulate the ones he does business with, thereby giving him a more stable business climate

The Justice Department, which helps remove dishonest business transactions from the system that he uses

The Court System, which allows him a place to pursue contractual matters

And on, and on, and on...

He uses more services than most people because he has more transactions and more equity.

 

[nutmeg]

Checking these numbers over, we do have a situation here.

WEB's 46 million to sec 60k should be about $460 a week in wages and giving your kid 6 cents a week for allowance.

Now 6 cents does seem kinda paltry but the fact remains, should I give the kid a bigger allowance just because he knows me? I mean wtf? He is jobless and homeless with out me as it is.

ps, Bigdavid I like your post. Excellent perspective.

 

[bigdavediode]

Quote from nutmeg:

Checking these numbers over, we do have a situation here.

WEB's 46 million to sec 60k should be about $460 a week in wages and giving your kid 6 cents a week for allowance.

Now 6 cents does seem kinda paltry but the fact remains, should I give the kid a bigger allowance just because he knows me? I mean wtf? He is jobless and homeless with out me as it is.

“Look here, for three years now I have been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and finding none. Cut it down: why should it be taking up the ground?”

“Sir,” the man replied, “leave it one more year and give me time to dig round it and manure it: it may bear fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.”

ps, Bigdavid I like your post. Excellent perspective.

Thanks! My secret is a subura sized giant 8-ball -- it has all the answers.

 

[Mav88]

Hard to say, but here are some of the services he uses and must pay for:

Roads, which give the companies he owns a method of conveyance

Homeland Security, which gives him a stable country to trade and do business

SEC, which helps regulate the businesses he owns, and helps regulate the ones he does business with, thereby giving him a more stable business climate

The Justice Department, which helps remove dishonest business transactions from the system that he uses

The Court System, which allows him a place to pursue contractual matters

And on, and on, and on...

He uses more services than most people because he has more transactions and more equity.



But without the producers there would not be a decent country to live in.

Thought experiment: divide the people into the top half and bottom half of earners, now take everyone's money away and put the halves on different planets. Would you rather live the top half or bottom half?

 

[bigdavediode]

Quote from Mav88:

But without the producers there would not be a decent country to live in.

Thought experiment: divide the people into the top half and bottom half of earners, now take everyone's money away and put the halves on different planets. Would you rather live the top half or bottom half?

The bottom half, and let me explain why:

The planet of the top half will have a currency which has no value as everyone is "rich" which devalues the currency. In other words, the "rich" planet will all be poor.

They will have no income, because they've lost their workers.

They will have no plumbing, because they will have no plumbers, nor electricity, because they will have no electricians.

And it will take them years to recreate the trades.

The bottom half will also be poorer for the loss of the capital.

The bottom half will still have the trades, and you can make managers out of tradespeople. I speak from experience as a business owner that making trades out of managers is a much more difficult task.

The two are intertwined -- the rich can't be successful without workers and vice versa. Maintaining both groups is the key to prosperity for all.

"There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1796.

 

[Yannis]

Quote from Mav88:Thought experiment: divide the people into the top half and bottom half of earners, now take everyone's money away and put the halves on different planets. Would you rather live the top half or bottom half?

Quote from bigdavediode: The bottom half, and let me explain why...

Not that I want to add lots of arguments here...

But, if we are talking about the USA today as the initial population, where most people have been free to reach, more or less, their potential for a while, your top half would contain most, if not all, of the smartest, high achievers of the country, the ones who work the hardest and keep their eyes on the prize all the time, right?

That group would then refocus in a hurry and solve their newfound problems in some (brilliant) way or another. Perhaps by sending the Enterprise with Captain Kirk or Pickard to bring some of the other guys to their planet, who knows?

 

[nutmeg]

We are assuming the top half have cornered the market on intelligence and knowledge, culture, etc and the bottom half is poor by bad choices.

I just don't find the above to be true.

I believe the correct answer would be an individual choice.

Personally, I would choose the bottom half, I could get more accomplished directing the poor rather than making something out of has beens.

 

[Yannis]

Quote from nutmeg:

...Personally, I would choose the bottom half, I could get more accomplished directing the poor rather than making something out of has beens.

If you say you can do that well, don't you then belong in the top half? Or, don't you agree that most of the people who are skilled leaders sooner or later make it in this society?

Of course, this is an unrealistic situation that makes little sense and allows for a lot of misunderstanding and thinking bias, hard to really argue one way or another.

It reminds me of one of the best axioms I saw hanging on a wall when I was just entering graduate school to study Theoretical Physics: "Imaginary forces are heavily model-dependent."

 

[bigdavediode]

Quote from Yannis:

If you say you can do that well, don't you then belong in the top half? Or, don't you agree that most of the people who are skilled leaders sooner or later make it in this society?

Why on earth would you think that?

 

[trendlover]

Quote from nutmeg:



Personally, I would choose the bottom half, I could get more accomplished directing the poor rather than making something out of has beens. [/B]

Then you would be at the top of the bottom planet, and compared to all on your planet, you would be the top..by choosing the bottom.