This will be a good decade for bicycling!

Edward Dolan wrote:
"Tom Sherman °_°" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:
"Tom Sherman °_°" wrote in message
...
[...]
Here is more realistic scenario - go to a $50K/year prep school, get a
legacy admission to an Ivy League school, get the best internships from
friends of the family, go from graduation into a management career
track, do well because you know all the right people, get paid millions
for doing a mediocre job of upper management.
Mr. Sherman reminds me of the poor little boy (a la Charles Dickens)
looking from the cold outside into a warm room at the well off and dying
of envy.
Mr. Dolan confuses envy with moral disgust. I would not want to be rich at
the price of immorally exploiting others.

No one in this day and age has "moral disgust", but as far as I can see
almost everyone has lots and lots of envy. Is Wal-Mart exploiting anyone? I
say no since they employ unskilled labor. Most of those folks who work at
Wal-Mart are lucky to have a job at all.

The labor market has been deliberately distorted to create unemployment.
The rich generally think unemployment is good, as it helps to control
the proletariat.

But why? They are few in number and have their own crosses to bear. Does
anyone here envy the life of Jack Kennedy for instance?

He had the choice of changing his name to John Doe and living a private
life. Most people in the world have very limited opportunities.

But you would not want to have lived his life even so. Nor would I.

It is a full time job for the rich to hang onto their wealth since others
are always trying to take it away from them. They must invest their
wealth and put it to work in the society at large. If they don't do that,
they will not be wealthy for very long.[...]

No, the rich make the rules to exploit others - has been so in almost
every society.

The rich are constantly in danger of losing whatever wealth they have. I
would rather have the few rich making the rules than the great unwashed
proletariat making the rules.

The purpose of most governments is to protect the ill-gotten gains of
the rich. This is a form of socialism for the wealthiest 1%.

In the US in recent years, so much wealth has gone to the rich, they have
a glut of money - much more than is needed for capital investment. So they
play games on Wall Street [1], put the money in foreign tax shelters, etc.

The thing that matters is that the rest of us have at least enough to live
on and a small surplus too so that we can have some leisure.

Even that is too much for those who wish to reintroduce the feudal
system. Did the serfs have a small surplus and leisure?

If you want to stimulate the economy, increase the share of the working
classes, since they will spend most of it and create the demand for
capital improvement. Tax cuts for the rich in the current environment do
little to nothing to stimulate the economy, since lack of capital for
investment is not a problem.

Well, that is what liberal Dems are suppose to be doing, looking after the
working class, but as always they do a poor **** job of everything they lay
their hand to.

The Dimocrats (sic) are on the corporate payroll, just like the
Repugnicans (sic).

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007

"The last 35 years may have been a bad time to be an ordinary
American, but the elite has seen their wealth and income soar
to levels even greater than the gilded age. The rich, in
America, have never, ever, been as rich as they are now."
- Ian Welsh

Tom Sherman °_° wrote:

Even that is too much for those who wish to reintroduce the feudal
system. Did the serfs have a small surplus and leisure?

Interesting question. Here's a link to an interesting article which
tries to compare historical economies:

http://www.santafe.edu/research/publ...ract/200907022

"Tom Sherman °_°" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:
[...]
No one in this day and age has "moral disgust", but as far as I can see
almost everyone has lots and lots of envy. Is Wal-Mart exploiting anyone?
I say no since they employ unskilled labor. Most of those folks who work
at Wal-Mart are lucky to have a job at all.

The labor market has been deliberately distorted to create unemployment.
The rich generally think unemployment is good, as it helps to control the
proletariat.

Some unemployment is indeed good. We do not want unskilled laborers ever in
the driver's seat. I favor a bourgeois type of society, not a proletariat
type of society. Better that we be governed by small town lawyers than small
town thugs.
[...]

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota