The justification for wealth-redistribution.[W:2037]

[PMZ]

There seems to be no easy way to keep governmental power out of the hands of the extremely wealthy, to be placed in the hands of the average American who is, according to Aristotle, more apt to govern the people with true justice.

Many have been seduced into wealth worship. We've become a nation of control freaks instead of contributors, and wealth is seen as path to unnatural control.

I think all extremism is about wealth redistribution, the right towards up, the left towards down.

Our biggest problem today is that the right has been too successful and dragged us into unstable dysfunctional wealth inequity.

That's driving solution oriented folks to more extreme leftist positions.

We have to decide if we are going to keep running away from the pendulum or wait for it in the middle that it is certain to cross.

 

[Oozlefinch]

Unnatural hatred of your fellow man. Where does that come from?

Class warfare.

 

[PMZ]

Class warfare.

Why do you wage it?

 

[grip]

Many have been seduced into wealth worship. We've become a nation of control freaks instead of contributors, and wealth is seen as path to unnatural control.

I think all extremism is about wealth redistribution, the right towards up, the left towards down.

Our biggest problem today is that the right has been too successful and dragged us into unstable dysfunctional wealth inequity.

That's driving solution oriented folks to more extreme leftist positions.

We have to decide if we are going to keep running away from the pendulum or wait for it in the middle that it is certain to cross.

It's an unsustainable direction towards materialism and growth. Though many advancements and positive aspects have came out of technological improvements and a credit driven, retail economy it's simply a flawed plan towards an indefinite future.

Like you say something has to give and even the wealthy will eventually lose their assets, cash and control as the population becomes larger, poorer and more unstable. The elite play an important role in society as leaders but can't unbalance the system out of blind, ignorant greed to favor their position temporarily.

 

[Mach]

If you read all of the words you would know that I was reinforcing the notion that business leaders can add value to the economy by achieving growth as did Jobs and Gates.

I read your words and the reasoning is nonsensical. Again, there are a great many business leaders whose names you don't know, who have not grown a new market but made one more efficient, or even helped one decline gracefully, and yet you're claiming they don't add value, only the giant growth ones do. It's not reasonable. Nor is claiming that a laborer who creates a widget that is poorly designed, is really adding value. They aren't. It may take a combination of good design AND labor to create the value...but anyone with any shred of experience knows this sort of thing.

What on earth about celebrity do you find motivating?

It's disturbing that you don't know these very basic concepts.
Using a celebrity to market a product magically (I mean obviously) can result I higher sales as a result of popularity. Sports stars sell more tickets to their events, A list celebs with regards to movie ticket sales, hell, some people even want to be employed under a company just because of the celeb of the CEO or founder. You believe that a popular artist with huge fan followings are not acting as a powerful motivator? You've got some strange denial of reality issues.

 

[PMZ]

It's an unsustainable direction towards materialism and growth. Though many advancements and positive aspects have came out of technological improvements and a credit driven, retail economy it's simply a flawed plan towards an indefinite future.

Like you say something has to give and even the wealthy will eventually lose their assets, cash and control as the population becomes larger, poorer and more unstable. The elite play an important role in society as leaders but can't unbalance the system out of blind, ignorant greed to favor their position temporarily.

Sometimes you have to let go of some cookies to get your hand out of the cookie jar. There have been times in history when we've had to do that. Like for WWII. I think that the greed bug has so affected today's wealthy though that they can't and every one of us will pay the price. Obama pulled us back from the precipice but not far enough. Our future rests on who replaces him and the present quite useless Congress.

It's hard to be optimistic.

 

[PMZ]

I read your words and the reasoning is nonsensical. Again, there are a great many business leaders whose names you don't know, who have not grown a new market but made one more efficient, or even helped one decline gracefully, and yet you're claiming they don't add value, only the giant growth ones do. It's not reasonable. Nor is claiming that a laborer who creates a widget that is poorly designed, is really adding value. They aren't. It may take a combination of good design AND labor to create the value...but anyone with any shred of experience knows this sort of thing.


It's disturbing that you don't know these very basic concepts.
Using a celebrity to market a product magically (I mean obviously) can result I higher sales as a result of popularity. Sports stars sell more tickets to their events, A list celebs with regards to movie ticket sales, hell, some people even want to be employed under a company just because of the celeb of the CEO or founder. You believe that a popular artist with huge fan followings are not acting as a powerful motivator? You've got some strange denial of reality issues.

"Again, there are a great many business leaders whose names you don't know, who have not grown a new market but made one more efficient, or even helped one decline gracefully, and yet you're claiming they don't add value, only the giant growth ones do. It's not reasonable."

Growth is the only path out of here. Why do you let business leaders off of the hook? Out of accountability? What are you afraid of?

Capable ones create growth. Mediocre ones slow decline. Bad ones cause decline.

I'll never understand conservatives who feel entitled to perfect government but accept poor businesses.

"Nor is claiming that a laborer who creates a widget that is poorly designed, is really adding value. They aren't. It may take a combination of good design AND labor to create the value...but anyone with any shred of experience knows this sort of thing."

Again, you feel entitled to perfect government, and here, perfect labor, but cheer for inept business leaders.

Why?

 

[grip]

Sometimes you have to let go of some cookies to get your hand out of the cookie jar. There have been times in history when we've had to do that. Like for WWII. I think that the greed bug has so affected today's wealthy though that they can't and every one of us will pay the price. Obama pulled us back from the precipice but not far enough. Our future rests on who replaces him and the present quite useless Congress.

It's hard to be optimistic.

I've brought up this point before that we don't have the resources to sustain a pattern of endless growth. But it's the only model that capitalism seems to understand. We need to worry less about growth and focus more on efficiency, populace reduction, ecological conservation and harmony. Because I guarantee nature itself will slap us back down hard if we don't take the initiative and keep trying to grow out of our pants.

This naive "tough love" and "personal responsibility" that conservatives preach don't want the blowback that such an unrealistic approach will cause. Sure people should take care of themselves but you've got to give them the means. And the right will never elect anything more conservative than a Christie for President as long as they don't support the under employed. In the short to medium term we're going to go thru some big global corrections, financially and structurally before the dust settles and we can rebuild a prosperous civilization.

 

[Mach]

Capable ones create growth. Mediocre ones slow decline. Bad ones cause decline.

That's not reasonable. Nor is it really relevant. FYI, a bad one may cause decline yet the market may value their contribution such that they become wealthy. You simply cannot attempt to judge it yourself as though you're some all knowing authority.

Marketing strategy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nearly every business goes through phases. You want to worship growth, just as shark investors do (who you presumably think add no value!), yet most of our industries and jobs fall on some spectrum of any number of phases of startup, growth, maturity, decline, reinvention, etc. And all have varying degrees of value, and it's likely on the whole Non-growth companies make up a substantial portion of our entire economy and jobs. They are the "middle" in business, yet you gripe about them, but you applaud the middle of labor? Nonsense.

Growth when unnecessary is often disruptive, inefficient, and can be downright destructive. Surely you know this.

I'll never understand conservatives who feel entitled to perfect government but accept poor businesses.
Again, you feel entitled to perfect government, and here, perfect labor, but cheer for inept business leaders.

No idea where you got this conservative/perfect government claim from. Please let me know if it was a strawman, or quote me or even paraphrase me and I'lll find the quote.

Keep in mind that a poor business I do not have to accept, I can simply stop paying them, working for them, or otherwise interacting with them. Often immediately. And if they are really poor, they often quickly go under and are disbanded and reabsorbed. Neither of which are attributes of our government. I can't believe you don't understand the danger of a government that you cannot be rid of easily, vs a business you can be rid of in the blink of an eye based on your personal whim. Wow!

 

[Papa bull]

Re: Supreme Court Responsibilities

Business people don't create wealth. They try to capture tokens of it by paying the creators of it as little as possible and charging their customers as much as possible.

That's just silliness. If the workers were the ones creating the wealth they wouldn't need to sell their labor. They'd be selling whatever it was they were producing that was so valuable. People work for an hourly wage because they don't have the inspiration, hustle, motivation, talent, skills, education, resources or desire to produce something and market it themselves. Instead, they sell labor to the people that do, who are the real creators of wealth.

 

[Mach]

I've brought up this point before that we don't have the resources to sustain a pattern of endless growth. But it's the only model that capitalism seems to understand. We need to worry less about growth and focus more on efficiency, populace reduction, ecological conservation and harmony

That's fallacy.

But wow, populace reduction? Man, just crank up the birth limits and gas the elderly I suppose?? Nuts!

Just so you know, efficiency when unnecessary is at the higher level categorized as inefficient. It's a little loopy, but there it is. Programmers get familiar with this on a visceral level. If you spend time making code really efficient (optimization) before you identify that what you are doing is a bottle-neck, that's inefficient on the higher level. We are better off burning fossil fuels now as we advance technologically, and when we have the very real problem of limited energy, we will have been shaping our market in response to that, but with much better technology at our disposal to more efficiently solve those problems. Do it now with older technology and you may be seriously hurting the economy and the environment, by attempting this arrogant attitude that you know best.

 

[grip]

That's fallacy.

But wow, populace reduction? Man, just crank up the birth limits and gas the elderly I suppose?? Nuts!

Just so you know, efficiency when unnecessary is at the higher level categorized as inefficient. It's a little loopy, but there it is. Programmers get familiar with this on a visceral level. If you optimize before you identify that what you are doing is a bottle-neck, that's inefficient. We are better off burning fossil fuels now as we advance technologically, and when we have the very real problem of limited energy, we will have been shaping our market in response to that, but with much better technology at our disposal to more efficiently solve those problems. Do it now with older technology and you may be seriously hurting the economy and the environment, by attempting this arrogant attitude that you know best.

That's your imaginary editorial, not my words.

Population reduction occurs many ways and what's wrong with birth limits? You think it's fair for a single mom or family to have so many kids that the social system has to provide for them? That's nuts!

Just so you know, none of that information is new to me.

Maybe if the gov and corporate idiots spent a little more of their profits and income towards the future of the general populace they wouldn't be facing so many of today's problems. I'll take my arrogant attitude over your complacent limpness all day long...lol

 

[Oozlefinch]

I read your words and the reasoning is nonsensical. Again, there are a great many business leaders whose names you don't know, who have not grown a new market but made one more efficient, or even helped one decline gracefully, and yet you're claiming they don't add value, only the giant growth ones do.

One of my favorite examples of this is Anthony Maglica. Almost nobody knows who he is, but almost everybody knows his product, and probably owns one.

Born in New York of Croatian parents, his family moved back when he was an infant, and he returned to the US after WWII at the age of 20, knowing almost no English.

A machinist by trade, he saved up and bought a metal lathe and started his own side business from his garage. After almost 25 years Mag Instruments was a local leader in manufacturing parts in the Southern California market out of aircraft aluminum. Then in 1979 from personal need, he decided to manufacture a common every day item out of aircraft aluminum, since all the similar products on the market were either plastic, or thin steel.

And from this, the MagLight was born.

Now the industry leader in quality flashlights, it is still a privately owned LLC, shares entirely owned by Anthony and his family. He did not invent the flashlight, but he made such a better flashlight that it created an entirely new demand then was ever seen before. And so much more durable then previous flashlights that many are still working 20+ years later.

 

[Oozlefinch]

Re: Supreme Court Responsibilities

That's just silliness. If the workers were the ones creating the wealth they wouldn't need to sell their labor. They'd be selling whatever it was they were producing that was so valuable. People work for an hourly wage because they don't have the inspiration, hustle, motivation, talent, skills, education, resources or desire to produce something and market it themselves. Instead, they sell labor to the people that do, who are the real creators of wealth.

For many (like me), it is for stability.

I have been in the IT industry for a great many years. For the first 5 years when I re-entered the field, it was running a small computer store, and it was a good thing I had a full-time job, because most of the time the business could not even pay the rent for the store.

I moved from that to doing contracts, a very feast-or-famine sector of the industry. In the mid 1990's I was easily pulling down $25+ an hour, and a fair amount of overtime at 1.5 times scale. But these contracts were often erratic, being employed for 3-9 months, then scrambling for 2-4 months eating ramen noodles when one contract ended and I was looking for the next one. It was quite literally eating Lobster one week, and mac and cheese the next.

Working for another helps resolve a lot of that stress for me, because as long as I prove my value, I keep a job. Even if the company goes through a rough spot, I keep my job unless the company goes out of business (which thankfully never happened to any place I worked for while I was working for them). I thought about doing that when I first moved to the Bay area, but decided against it because while the money while I was working was awesome, I detested the periods between work when I could barely keep a roof over my head (and sometimes lost that roof).

 

[Mach]

That's your imaginary editorial, not my words.
Population reduction occurs many ways and what's wrong with birth limits? You think it's fair for a single mom or family to have so many kids that the social system has to provide for them? That's nuts!

Fair enough, I do agree some of that. It's a real issue to provide carrots for unsustainable families or behavior (like welfare, etc.), but not also provide the stick (the negatives that ensure someone is responsible, etc.). It's like squeezing a water filled balloon and wonder why it keeps jumping around.

Maybe if the gov and corporate idiots spent a little more of their profits and income towards the future of the general populace they wouldn't be facing so many of today's problems. I'll take my arrogant attitude over your complacent limpness all day long...lol

lol. Complacent limpness, I wish!

Back to your original point, you were bashing capitalism for inefficiency, I'm just informing you it's efficient. We do have the resources to behave the way we currently behave, today. Tomorrow we will adapt, and the day after, and the day after. And markets do this better than any tyrant or labor group.

There are some short term externalities that hurt us, but we often run to government to "fix" them, and end up kicking the can. For any such short-term issues, we should immediately attempt to create a market to solve it first, and if it fails, government helps regulate it/get it back on track, and if that fails, government may be voted to get more directly involved.

 

[imagep]

That's fallacy.

But wow, populace reduction? Man, just crank up the birth limits and gas the elderly I suppose?? Nuts!

Just so you know, efficiency when unnecessary is at the higher level categorized as inefficient. It's a little loopy, but there it is. Programmers get familiar with this on a visceral level. If you spend time making code really efficient (optimization) before you identify that what you are doing is a bottle-neck, that's inefficient on the higher level. We are better off burning fossil fuels now as we advance technologically, and when we have the very real problem of limited energy, we will have been shaping our market in response to that, but with much better technology at our disposal to more efficiently solve those problems. Do it now with older technology and you may be seriously hurting the economy and the environment, by attempting this arrogant attitude that you know best.

Mach, you must have hit on something huge on that post, I think it's the first time that I ever gave a "like" on the same post that Papa bull did. Strange, very strange.

 

[imagep]

That's your imaginary editorial, not my words.

Population reduction occurs many ways and what's wrong with birth limits? You think it's fair for a single mom or family to have so many kids that the social system has to provide for them? That's nuts!

Just so you know, none of that information is new to me.

Maybe if the gov and corporate idiots spent a little more of their profits and income towards the future of the general populace they wouldn't be facing so many of today's problems. I'll take my arrogant attitude over your complacent limpness all day long...lol

Fortunately, one of the many things that saves us from overpopulation is that as nations become more wealth their birthrate tends to decline. And as families become more wealthy, they tend to have fewer kids. So while I don't think we should establish birth limits by law, if we took action to reduce poverty, our birthrate would decline, and modern age human life as we know it on earth would be able to sustain itself indefinitely.

 

[PMZ]

That's not reasonable. Nor is it really relevant. FYI, a bad one may cause decline yet the market may value their contribution such that they become wealthy. You simply cannot attempt to judge it yourself as though you're some all knowing authority.

Marketing strategy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nearly every business goes through phases. You want to worship growth, just as shark investors do (who you presumably think add no value!), yet most of our industries and jobs fall on some spectrum of any number of phases of startup, growth, maturity, decline, reinvention, etc. And all have varying degrees of value, and it's likely on the whole Non-growth companies make up a substantial portion of our entire economy and jobs. They are the "middle" in business, yet you gripe about them, but you applaud the middle of labor? Nonsense.

Growth when unnecessary is often disruptive, inefficient, and can be downright destructive. Surely you know this.

No idea where you got this conservative/perfect government claim from. Please let me know if it was a strawman, or quote me or even paraphrase me and I'lll find the quote.

Keep in mind that a poor business I do not have to accept, I can simply stop paying them, working for them, or otherwise interacting with them. Often immediately. And if they are really poor, they often quickly go under and are disbanded and reabsorbed. Neither of which are attributes of our government. I can't believe you don't understand the danger of a government that you cannot be rid of easily, vs a business you can be rid of in the blink of an eye based on your personal whim. Wow!

You're right. We need to redefine growth into improvement in our opportunities for pursuit of happiness.

Conservatives will argue that this is only accomplished by them, individually, having more money to spend. That's what got us here and they can't even imagine anything different.

I am personally hopeful of the following scenario.

Mankind is faced with the largest project ever done. Our weaning from fossil fuels.

Energy is the most pervasive ingredient in materialism. It will go from free to expensive. Inevitable.

If we are to continue our present life style the only variable that could offset that are massive increases in productivity. I'm not sure that is possible to the degree necessary.

So, the most probable scenario is a reduction in lifestyle. America is in double jeopardy due to having to share more wealth with the rest of the world on top of that reduction.

The big question is if the world can navigate this transition gracefully. I personally have my doubts.

The worst case scenario are energy wars at least. If AGW has it's way with us before we stop making it worse, it could be much worse.

 

[danielpalos]

The justification for wealth-redistribution.

To promote the general welfare. I believe supply side economics should be supplying us with better governance at lower cost.

 

[grip]

Fair enough, I do agree some of that. It's a real issue to provide carrots for unsustainable families or behavior (like welfare, etc.), but not also provide the stick (the negatives that ensure someone is responsible, etc.). It's like squeezing a water filled balloon and wonder why it keeps jumping around.


lol. Complacent limpness, I wish!

Back to your original point, you were bashing capitalism for inefficiency, I'm just informing you it's efficient. We do have the resources to behave the way we currently behave, today. Tomorrow we will adapt, and the day after, and the day after. And markets do this better than any tyrant or labor group.

There are some short term externalities that hurt us, but we often run to government to "fix" them, and end up kicking the can. For any such short-term issues, we should immediately attempt to create a market to solve it first, and if it fails, government helps regulate it/get it back on track, and if that fails, government may be voted to get more directly involved.

I disagree with the notion that markets and free enterprise will always be benevolent towards their buyers and workforce. They have a track record of being abusive, which is why gov regulations and unions were formed in the first place. The market has already failed to fix short term issues by increasing asset values, investments and dividends thru wage, medical coverage, benefits and employee reduction. Their quarterly bottom line and market share is ALL important (flawed concept) and the two most easy areas of reducing overhead are stock and staff.

The problem is really not any particular entities fault as much as an evolution of the corporate growth formula. Grow the economy thru debt eventually caught up with everybody and has never been fixed properly. We lost production to cheap overseas labor and became a service oriented workforce, which is damaging to the health of the middle class. On top of that they've cut middle management, reduced positions because of technological advancements and imported cheap labor thru immigration. It's a freaking mess and there won't be a one size fits all fix coming soon.

Fortunately, one of the many things that saves us from overpopulation is that as nations become more wealth their birthrate tends to decline. And as families become more wealthy, they tend to have fewer kids. So while I don't think we should establish birth limits by law, if we took action to reduce poverty, our birthrate would decline, and modern age human life as we know it on earth would be able to sustain itself indefinitely.

I'd agree except we're actually becoming a poorer nation as far as medium household income. We're increasing millionaires at a faster pace but that's a significantly small amount of the population.

I do believe that thru natural selection we'll face an inevitable population decline but it won't happen all at once. Though some natural and man-made catastrophes will come suddenly most of it will happen over the next several generations, providing there's no huge events like a nuclear war, plague, asteroid/comet, super volcano or massive solar flare knocking out power, etc.

 

[PMZ]

I disagree with the notion that markets and free enterprise will always be benevolent towards their buyers and workforce. They have a track record of being abusive, which is why gov regulations and unions were formed in the first place. The market has already failed to fix short term issues by increasing asset values, investments and dividends thru wage, medical coverage, benefits and employee reduction. Their quarterly bottom line and market share is ALL important (flawed concept) and the two most easy areas of reducing overhead are stock and staff.

The problem is really not any particular entities fault as much as an evolution of the corporate growth formula. Grow the economy thru debt eventually caught up with everybody and has never been fixed properly. We lost production to cheap overseas labor and became a service oriented workforce, which is damaging to the health of the middle class. On top of that they've cut middle management, reduced positions because of technological advancements and imported cheap labor thru immigration. It's a freaking mess and there won't be a one size fits all fix coming soon.



I'd agree except we're actually becoming a poorer nation as far as medium household income. We're increasing millionaires at a faster pace but that's a significantly small amount of the population.

I do believe that thru natural selection we'll face an inevitable population decline but it won't happen all at once. Though some natural and man-made catastrophes will come suddenly most of it will happen over the next several generations, providing there's no huge events like a nuclear war, plague, asteroid/comet, super volcano or massive solar flare knocking out power, etc.

One of the roles of government is to incentivize markets for the long term collective good rather than short term personal good which is the only goal of free enterprise.

Of course governments can do that wrong, but we are protected here by democracy. We will hire folks who do it right and fire those who do it wrong.

In many cases wrong would be to rely either too much on social solutions or not enough. Tricky, but doable in a democracy, and, given the load that population and technology have put on limited resources, absolutely necessary.

A good example is the biggest project mankind has ever undertaken, the conversion of energy, from our limited fossil fuel supply, to unlimited sources.

Certainly private enterprise has, will continue to, and has to, play a major role. But leaving it solely up to cost optimized market forces will not result in the minimum impact solution.

One of the impacts that will have to be minimized to make the energy transition gracefully are the effects on civilization of AGW. If we turn all of the possible underground carbon into greenhouse gases the expense of adapting our civilization to a substantially different climate will be unaffordable. If we move too quickly towards sustainable energy we will not optimize the technology. Only a highly functional partnership between government, academia, corporations, and technologists will get us to where we have to go and minimize the cost. Which, BTW, will be staggering no mater what we do.

 

[grip]

One of the roles of government is to incentivize markets for the long term collective good rather than short term personal good which is the only goal of free enterprise.

Of course governments can do that wrong, but we are protected here by democracy. We will hire folks who do it right and fire those who do it wrong.

In many cases wrong would be to rely either too much on social solutions or not enough. Tricky, but doable in a democracy, and, given the load that population and technology have put on limited resources, absolutely necessary.

A good example is the biggest project mankind has ever undertaken, the conversion of energy, from our limited fossil fuel supply, to unlimited sources.

Certainly private enterprise has, will continue to, and has to, play a major role. But leaving it solely up to cost optimized market forces will not result in the minimum impact solution.

One of the impacts that will have to be minimized to make the energy transition gracefully are the effects on civilization of AGW. If we turn all of the possible underground carbon into greenhouse gases the expense of adapting our civilization to a substantially different climate will be unaffordable. If we move too quickly towards sustainable energy we will not optimize the technology. Only a highly functional partnership between government, academia, corporations, and technologists will get us to where we have to go and minimize the cost. Which, BTW, will be staggering no mater what we do.

I hope your right about the first few paragraphs. We haven't been hiring the best leaders in Congress but it's the system that has been hijacked. Lying to us is easy it's the lying to themselves that's starting to get difficult.

I completely agree that the single most important resource our civilization operates on (energy) will be one of the biggest hurdles. Fresh water, food and arable land are even reliant on the energy situation. They're actually thru fracking, shale/sand tar and offshore shallow rigs extracting more oil and natural gas than we've seen in years from the continent. But it's ultimately only a short term (10-20 yr) solution.

I believe one of the most dire calamities on the horizon that can affect a lot of people is the financial imbalances occurring. They (gov/corps) need to really wrap their heads around some answers or watch as another impending "bubble" collapses with the markets.

 

[PMZ]

I hope your right about the first few paragraphs. We haven't been hiring the best leaders in Congress but it's the system that has been hijacked. Lying to us is easy it's the lying to themselves that's starting to get difficult.

I completely agree that the single most important resource our civilization operates on (energy) will be one of the biggest hurdles. Fresh water, food and arable land are even reliant on the energy situation. They're actually thru fracking, shale/sand tar and offshore shallow rigs extracting more oil and natural gas than we've seen in years from the continent. But it's ultimately only a short term (10-20 yr) solution.

I believe one of the most dire calamities on the horizon that can affect a lot of people is the financial imbalances occurring. They (gov/corps) need to really wrap their heads around some answers or watch as another impending "bubble" collapses with the markets.

These kind of problems don't lend themselves to private enterprise solutions but they certainly have a role to play. For one thing "business" is an abstraction. There is no such thing. What we have are millions of independent businesses all marching to the same single drummer. Make more money regardless of the cost to others. That is ok for some local problems but totally inadequate for global systemic problems.

Righties are all driven like lemmings to Reagan's totally irresponsible and unfounded opinion that government is the problem, not the solution. For that statement alone he ought to be relegated to the intellectual landfill of stupidity by folks like Limbaugh and Beck and Trump and Boehner and Norquist.

For problems like the largest project mankind has ever undertaken, really good government is absolutely essential to success. Success being defined as keeping energy adequately available at all times during the transition to sustainable rather than temporary sources despite it's inevitable gross increase in cost.

 

[Papa bull]

Re: Supreme Court Responsibilities

For many (like me), it is for stability.

I have been in the IT industry for a great many years. For the first 5 years when I re-entered the field, it was running a small computer store, and it was a good thing I had a full-time job, because most of the time the business could not even pay the rent for the store.

I moved from that to doing contracts, a very feast-or-famine sector of the industry. In the mid 1990's I was easily pulling down $25+ an hour, and a fair amount of overtime at 1.5 times scale. But these contracts were often erratic, being employed for 3-9 months, then scrambling for 2-4 months eating ramen noodles when one contract ended and I was looking for the next one. It was quite literally eating Lobster one week, and mac and cheese the next.

Working for another helps resolve a lot of that stress for me, because as long as I prove my value, I keep a job. Even if the company goes through a rough spot, I keep my job unless the company goes out of business (which thankfully never happened to any place I worked for while I was working for them). I thought about doing that when I first moved to the Bay area, but decided against it because while the money while I was working was awesome, I detested the periods between work when I could barely keep a roof over my head (and sometimes lost that roof).

That's pretty much the tale of it all. People who feel they can do better working for themselves are free to work for themselves. Those that feel they are better off with steady employment for any reasons they may have are free to do that, as well. People can pursue whatever endeavor they think will profit them the most.

 

[PMZ]

Re: Supreme Court Responsibilities

That's pretty much the tale of it all. People who feel they can do better working for themselves are free to work for themselves. Those that feel they are better off with steady employment for any reasons they may have are free to do that, as well. People can pursue whatever endeavor they think will profit them the most.

As long as you define "profit" in the sense of happiness instead of wealth.

Ask Justin Bieber when he was last happy.