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RJjr
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Location: Turning on a Lamp
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 Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 7:02 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
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I don't see anything wrong with someone inheriting wealth from their parents. There's nothing wrong with that.
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Is this how you defend the claim of Prince Charles to moral and financial superiority? Are the graduates of Choate and 'Inner City Slum School' REALLY on a flat playing field?
Really? |
When did I defend Prince Charles? You're confusing me with someone else. I often see Prince Charles on the covers of supermarket tabloids. Yet I never read them, so I don't know enough about him to form an informed opinion, good or bad, about the guy.
When I was in college, the rich boys in Sigma Chi fraternity were probably partying and banging hot sorority chicks while I was toiling in the hot sun in the tobacco field to earn the money to pay my tuition. Did I envy them? Of course I did. But should there be laws to prevent parents from giving money to their kids or paying for their education?
I'm sure there are some people in a shitty country like Botswana are envious that my sorry ass was born in a wealthy country like America. That's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes.
If I found out today that I have only two weeks to live, I'd give everything I own to my nephews. I'd be really pissed if some government bureaucrat stepped in to tell me I can't do that.
Have you ever worked in a hagwon?
Last edited by RJjr on Thu Mar 19, 2009 7:04 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 7:02 am Post subject: |
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I don't think it is an unreasonable claim. Maybe you would like to demonstrate to me with statistics and academic studies why all people with wealth are bad and should be punished for trying to lve a fruitful life.
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It is an unreasonable claim. The wealth came from 2 sources:
a) an unexplioted continent chock full of natural resources. That does not allow the present occupants a claim to moral superiority.
b) I did not make the claim that wealthy people got their wealth 'only' through cheating. You are exaggerating the accusation. I say 'some' of the wealthy made their pile through manipulating the sociopolitical system so they came out smelling like a rose. My claim is that 'some' of the wealthy and powerful used the system to enrich themselves and then claimed that they worked harder at their cool shady desks than the people who were working at the molten steel pits. I claim that the government GAVE away huge swaths of public lands to the railroads--'bought' at the cost of poor people's lives-- and then the railroad owners turned around and said, "We are hard working Christians who should be worshiped because we handed out dimes to the poor. Thanks for your blood."
ALL human societies are created and designed by someone. They ALWAYS favor someone. I don't object to that. I do object to the 'winners' in the system claiming moral superiority for it. The very least the winners could do is to take care of those they left behind. |
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blade
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 7:07 am Post subject: |
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| Rusty Shackleford wrote: |
| blade wrote: |
| Rusty Shackleford wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
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| The majority of wealthy people didn't earn their wealth through nefarious means the way a small percentage of the guys on Wall St did. |
Would you care to demonstrate that claim through academic studies and statistics? Or is this just a claim based on bias? Would you care to explain how being poor is just the result of moral poverty while you are at it?
I will wait for your reply. |
You don't need academic studies to understand the logic behind the claim I made. Our long ago ancestors didn't build what we have today by shuffling sticks and stones around and trading the derivitives of boulders. They created wealth and the wealth we have today had to come from some where. Basically the sweat of our ancestors brows. |
The wealth came from somewhere alright but not from you think it came from. It's a simple fact of life wealth generally attracts more wealth. Why, because wealthy people get to right the tax laws and believe me they don't line to tax themselves. If you're rich you can send your university without forcing them to take on lots of student debt which in turn allows your kids a head start in life while everyone else is still struggling. You also probably know other wealthy people who will employ or marry your offspring and hence another leg up that children of poorer families don't have. |
So, what's your solution to the "problem"? Confiscate wealth from people? How much? Who should decide? Who does the wealth get redistributed to?
So basically you want to drag everyone down to your level? I would reccomend focussing on your own backyard and don't worry so much about what your neighbor is doing. |
Why is it that everything with you seems to be in black and white? I'm not talking about stripping rich people of all their wealth nor was the author of the article that I posted above. What I am just saying is that letting a very tinyl percentage of people accumulate vast fortunes while everyone else has to struggle for survival is not a great idea. Why should the Paris Hiltons of the world get to own everything just because their ancestors happened to have worked hard at some stage or other. |
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Rusty Shackleford
Joined: 08 May 2008
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| Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 7:09 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
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I don't think it is an unreasonable claim. Maybe you would like to demonstrate to me with statistics and academic studies why all people with wealth are bad and should be punished for trying to lve a fruitful life.
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It is an unreasonable claim. The wealth came from 2 sources:
a) an unexplioted continent chock full of natural resources. That does not allow the present occupants a claim to moral superiority.
b) I did not make the claim that wealthy people got their wealth 'only' through cheating. You are exaggerating the accusation. I say 'some' of the wealthy made their pile through manipulating the sociopolitical system so they came out smelling like a rose. My claim is that 'some' of the wealthy and powerful used the system to enrich themselves and then claimed that they worked harder at their cool shady desks than the people who were working at the molten steel pits. I claim that the government GAVE away huge swaths of public lands to the railroads--'bought' at the cost of poor people's lives-- and then the railroad owners turned around and said, "We are hard working Christians who should be worshiped because we handed out dimes to the poor. Thanks for your blood."
ALL human societies are created and designed by someone. They ALWAYS favor someone. I don't object to that. I do object to the 'winners' in the system claiming moral superiority for it. The very least the winners could do is to take care of those they left behind. |
My response to this is as follows. Gates and Buffett, the two richest men in history are currently in the process of giving away their fortunes. Both men contributed a great deal to society and now they are giving away what they earned. They can have all the moral superiority they can eat in my opinion. |
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Rusty Shackleford
Joined: 08 May 2008
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| Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 7:17 am Post subject: |
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| blade wrote: |
| Rusty Shackleford wrote: |
| blade wrote: |
| Rusty Shackleford wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| The majority of wealthy people didn't earn their wealth through nefarious means the way a small percentage of the guys on Wall St did. |
Would you care to demonstrate that claim through academic studies and statistics? Or is this just a claim based on bias? Would you care to explain how being poor is just the result of moral poverty while you are at it?
I will wait for your reply. |
You don't need academic studies to understand the logic behind the claim I made. Our long ago ancestors didn't build what we have today by shuffling sticks and stones around and trading the derivitives of boulders. They created wealth and the wealth we have today had to come from some where. Basically the sweat of our ancestors brows. |
The wealth came from somewhere alright but not from you think it came from. It's a simple fact of life wealth generally attracts more wealth. Why, because wealthy people get to right the tax laws and believe me they don't line to tax themselves. If you're rich you can send your university without forcing them to take on lots of student debt which in turn allows your kids a head start in life while everyone else is still struggling. You also probably know other wealthy people who will employ or marry your offspring and hence another leg up that children of poorer families don't have. |
So, what's your solution to the "problem"? Confiscate wealth from people? How much? Who should decide? Who does the wealth get redistributed to?
So basically you want to drag everyone down to your level? I would reccomend focussing on your own backyard and don't worry so much about what your neighbor is doing. |
Why is it that everything with you seems to be in black and white? I'm not talking about stripping rich people of all their wealth nor was the author of the article that I posted above. What I am just saying is that letting a very tinyl percentage of people accumulate vast fortunes while everyone else has to struggle for survival is not a great idea. Why should the Paris Hiltons of the world get to own everything just because their ancestors happened to have worked hard at some stage or other. |
I object to wealth redistibution because Paris (a poor example) isn't rich at the expense of others. Her family contributed something in return for the wealth they accumulated. Life is not a zero sum game.
In the western world today, with a lot less toil than that which our parents went through, you can live a life many thousand times more fulfilling than that which the richest people on Earth could have hoped to enjoy at the turn of the 20th century. I think it is not a lack of wealth we suffer from today but a lack of spirit and an attitude of entitlement. |
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RJjr
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Location: Turning on a Lamp
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| Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 7:27 am Post subject: |
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| blade wrote: |
| Why should the Paris Hiltons of the world get to own everything just because their ancestors happened to have worked hard at some stage or other. |
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20168283,00.html
| People wrote: |
Barron Hilton, the 80-year-old son of the founder of the worldwide hotel chain that carries the family name, has earmarked 97 percent of his vast fortune � nearly $2.3 billion � to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, to help the homeless with housing, find safe water in developing countries and assist other good causes around the world, it has been announced.
To Barron's heirs � who include Paris � will go the remaining three percent: some $69 million, which is said to be taxable.
According to calculations by New York's Daily News, Paris, who once foresaw a $100 million inheritance, is now likely looking at $5 million. |
If Barron Hilton wants to give five million of his multibillion dollar fortune to his granddaughter, why should he not be allowed to do that?
He's donating 97% of his fortune to help the homeless with housing, find safe water in developing countries and assist other good causes around the world. Meanwhile, you're doing what for the poor? |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 8:35 am Post subject: |
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| RJjr wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
I don't see anything wrong with someone inheriting wealth from their parents. There's nothing wrong with that.
|
Is this how you defend the claim of Prince Charles to moral and financial superiority? Are the graduates of Choate and 'Inner City Slum School' REALLY on a flat playing field?
Really? |
When did I defend Prince Charles? You're confusing me with someone else. I often see Prince Charles on the covers of supermarket tabloids. Yet I never read them, so I don't know enough about him to form an informed opinion, good or bad, about the guy.
When I was in college, the rich boys in Sigma Chi fraternity were probably partying and banging hot sorority chicks while I was toiling in the hot sun in the tobacco field to earn the money to pay my tuition. Did I envy them? Of course I did. But should there be laws to prevent parents from giving money to their kids or paying for their education?
I'm sure there are some people in a shitty country like Botswana are envious that my sorry ass was born in a wealthy country like America. That's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes.
If I found out today that I have only two weeks to live, I'd give everything I own to my nephews. I'd be really pissed if some government bureaucrat stepped in to tell me I can't do that.
Have you ever worked in a hagwon? |
Yes, I have worked in a hakwon. However, I don't get the point of your question.
I don't begrudge the rich their wealth, but I do object to the children of the wealthy getting their parents' wealth. They didn't do anything to earn it. They did get the benefit of their parents' wealth while they were growing up....good schools, no worries about where their next meal is coming from. That's enough.
Let's use their wealth to provide education for the next generation. If their kids have the smarts to rise to the top, fine. If not, well I see no reason to let them hire financial advisors to keep them on top for more than a month or two. They can get out there and work like the rest of us. |
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RJjr
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Location: Turning on a Lamp
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| Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:14 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Yes, I have worked in a hakwon. However, I don't get the point of your question. |
Hakwons are a perfect example of the offspring of wealthy parents having an advantage over the offspring of poor parents. But that's okay as long as it funnels money into your bank account, right? 
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| I don't begrudge the rich their wealth, but I do object to the children of the wealthy getting their parents' wealth. They didn't do anything to earn it. They did get the benefit of their parents' wealth while they were growing up....good schools, no worries about where their next meal is coming from. That's enough. |
There's already an inheritance tax and it's enormous. Where do the tax dollars go? To Americans who didn't earn the money.
I don't know if I've worked more hours from the age of 19-32 than I worked from the age of 5-18. I've already told my parents to will their farmland to my brother and sister (who also worked their asses off on the farm as children), since I don't want to pay property taxes on land in America if I'm living in Vietnam or Korea or who knows where. Our work as children paid off the loan on one of the farms and the property taxes on all of the farms, and the taxes have been enormous. If I outlive my parents, I don't even want the farmland, although I feel like I deserve it more than children who step off the bus and into their house to play Playstation instead of stepping straight off the bus into the field like a lot of kids in America do in agricultural regions. More Americans need to kick it old school and teach their children that nothing is free, that someone has to do the work, instead of promoting the couch potato lifestyle and counting on other people's tax dollars for every need and many wants.
If the land of farmers gets seized by the government upon their death, you would see the end of the small farmer and complete control by corporate America of the entire agricultural industry. If you think food is getting expensive now, how much do you think it would cost if your dream became reality?
The cost of food and gold would skyrocket. Food would skyrocket because there would no longer be price competition. Gold would skyrocket because people would convert their land and dollars into gold in order to pass their wealth to their children without the American people trying to get their hands on it. Inheritance taxes already give Americans (who didn't earn it) a huge slice of people's wealth when they die. If it gets to where Americans try to take the whole entire pie, then they'll end up not getting any since people will convert their visible wealth into hidden assets and pass it along to their children anyway.
Also, production will fall. A lot of people work hard so they can pass things on to their children. I know I would work harder if I had children. Since I don't have any, I feel like I can just do whatever whenever. My great-grandfather died in a coal mine collapse. I'm sure he was just trying to give a comfortable future to his children, otherwise, why take the risk? |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:25 am Post subject: |
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| I'm not really concerned with generational wealth. What I really dislike is when the wealthy use the state to become more wealthy. Keeping what is theirs is fine, but using the state to take from me to grow their loot is terrible. |
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riverboy
Joined: 03 Jun 2003
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 2:13 pm Post subject: |
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Agreed Mises. Being fortunate enough to have been born wealthy is not a concern of mine. I am working my ass off so I can send my children to a good schoool and not have to work like dogs like I did to get an education.
When I die, I hope to be able to leave to them whatever I have. I see nothing wrong in that. |
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Koveras
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:38 am Post subject: Re: The belief that the wealthy are worthy is waning |
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| blade wrote: |
| We may soon come around to George Orwell's view that the only difference between rich and poor is income -- "The average millionaire," as he put it, "is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit." |
I just read Down and Out last week. I like it more than 1984 and Animal Farm. The quoted observation is obviously true, though I'd make several qualifications too complicated to get into. |
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ManintheMiddle
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:51 am Post subject: |
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More very wishful thinking from a very liberal OP. Fat chance, buddy.
While there are a lot of bad eggs among the wealthy, a lot more aren't. I don't think anyone objects to the billions Gates has given to the schools in computer technology and to disease in Africa, or the millions given by Buffet to a plethora of causes, or the billions given by Turner to the U.N., or the millions given by Oprah to her school in South Africa and women's causes in the U.S., or the billions given by the Mellon and MacArthur and Spencer and Ford Foundation to educational scholarship, the arts, and the humanities.
No, only a Marxist or Marxist wannabe would relish the prospect of the most industrious among us being saddled more than they already are. In NYC alone, a fraction of its citizens pay 60% of its operating costs.
As Obama will find out the hard way, the fat cats generate wealth. So while I hold Wall Street speculators in disdain (only one branch of AIG was involved in the egregious recent behavior) and those who inherit wealth like Paris Hilton only to flaunt it, demonizing only serves to make one eligible for the Hugo Chavez Bellicose Rhetoric Award of the People. |
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Rusty Shackleford
Joined: 08 May 2008
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| Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 4:03 am Post subject: |
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| I love it how you can hear crickets in this thread all of a sudden. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 11:56 am Post subject: |
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| ManintheMiddle wrote: |
As Obama will find out the hard way, the fat cats generate wealth. |
That sure as shit hasn't been the case over the last 15 years or so. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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I dont have a problem with wealth, I take issue with irresponsibility.
You don't have to be rich to be irresponsible. And even after the crash Congress seems intent on rewarding irresponsibility. I'm talking about the $15k tax credit for homebuyers, I'm talking about continuing tax provisions that allow deductions for principal residence indebtedness, I'm talking about the erosion of the net capital rule for financial supercenters like Citigroup.
A lot of Americans are irresponsible, and if they're learning responsibility from this crisis, its in spite of everything Congress and Obama has done to placate them. |
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