A Walmart employee earning the company’s median salary of $19,177 would have to work for more than a thousand years to earn the $22.2 million that Doug McMillon, the company’s chief executive, was awarded in 2017.
If it's not outright slavery, then it is the moral equivalent.... no. Not by a mile.
If it's not outright slavery, then it is the moral equivalent.... no. Not by a mile.
Sadly, that's not the most egregious example of how American CEO's earn vs. the rank and file employees. If it's not outright slavery, then it is the moral equivalent.
As flawed as capitalism is, it has proven better than other systems. The market rewards those workers with more skills. If you want improve your pay ratio to a CEO? Get more skills.
Someone is in slavery if they are:
- forced to work – through coercion, or mental or physical threat;
- owned or controlled by an ’employer’, through mental or physical abuse or the threat of abuse;
- dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as ‘property’;
- physically constrained or have restrictions placed on their freedom of movement.
If it's not outright slavery, then it is the moral equivalent.... no. Not by a mile.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
In addition, if Wal-Mart treats their employees so terrible, why do they work there? With slavery, they would be forced to work there. They aren't, they can go seek different employment anytime they want. They are likely there because they don't have any marketable skills to get a job anywhere that pays more.
As noted, not slavery.
.....big snip........
Some math and perspective: WalMart CEO = 22.2 million. Average employee= $19,177. WalMart has 2.3 million employees. If the CEO was paid $0 each employee would get a $9.65 per YEAR raise. Yes, he is paid a lot, but also responsible for millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars. If Doug(CEO) makes smart decisions and WalMart grows, then those 2.3 million employees likely have more job security. If he makes bad decisions and Walmart goes under, then those 2.3 million employees likely would be happy to pay $10/yr to still have their jobs. I personally, would be happy to pay $10/year to have an awesome CEO over a mediocre CEO.
Whining you are 1000x poorer than rich man across the street is just sickening when you are still richer than most of the rest of humanity.
If it's not outright slavery, then it is the moral equivalent.... no. Not by a mile.
I think a better example would be people in Texas getting 10 years in prison for simple possession of cannabis (no intent to distribute). Then, they get their sentence cut in half if they literally pick cotton for four or five years.
But yes, America has always had a slave class. Right now we are struggling to figure out who will occupy it next. On the left we have the school to prison pipeline which is predominantly occupied by people of color. On the right we have the disappearance of good blue collar jobs and debts that can never be discharged in bankruptcy.
EDITed to add, we wrote it right into the 13th Amendment:QuoteNeither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
This seems like a good place to put this link:
http://slaveryfootprint.org/
How many slaves work for you? (Hint: A LOT more than you think.)
About this: and debts that can never be discharged in bankruptcy.
What debts cannot be discharged in bankruptcy? Are these student loans?
I had always thought the US was good at dissolving debt obligations in bankruptcy.
Not enough hyperbole in this thread.
Where is the OUTRAGE about the ECONOMIC TRAITORS of the SELFISH BOOMER GENERATION? They saddled their KIDS with INDENTURED DEBT SERVITUDE and the SHACKLES OF INEQUALITY will only be taken off with a VIOLENT UPRISING.
I know we Americans tend to equate smarts with goodness, but what about the people who can't get good grades? i.e. the half of the population who are below average at the skills that pay a lot of money today?
As flawed as capitalism is, it has proven better than other systems. The market rewards those workers with more skills. If you want improve your pay ratio to a CEO? Get more skills.
Exactly.
The key is to draw the line at a point that insures those that work hard enjoy the fruits of their labor. Those who do not work suffer the consequences. Nature is harsh on this point. Be productive and survive or be ineffective and perish.
The point of the article is that automation has eliminated many of the economic opportunities for people who lack academic ability or educational credentials. They might be good at 1,000 other things (i.e. possess multiple intelligences), but if they can't compete for a handful of high-paying 21st century professions, there are fewer and fewer other jobs that pay a middle-class wage. Factories are run by engineers and robots now, farm automation has eliminated almost all agricultural jobs, autonomous cars and semi trucks might eliminate millions of driving jobs, and Amazon.com might soon make the Walmart greeter as obsolete as the full-service gas station attendant.It's interesting to think that there were people that theorized that automation/mechanization of tasks would allow people to earn the same wage while working less hours. What a wild world that would be.
The concern is, how do we expect such people to vote when they see a caste system emerging in which they will be at the bottom? Well, of course they want to tear down democracy and capitalism.
The key is to draw the line at a point that insures those that work hard enjoy the fruits of their labor. Those who do not work suffer the consequences. Nature is harsh on this point. Be productive and survive or be ineffective and perish.
Nature is barbaric. It's a terrible model to use as a moral standard. We should aim to structure society to still reward productivity without being winner-take-all, and we shouldn't be celebrating the thought of anyone perishing. Nobody consents to being born and nobody is born self-sufficient. Everybody needs help sometimes.
Nature is not winner take all. Nature is work to survive. This is a harsh reality.
Nature is not winner take all. Nature is work to survive. This is a harsh reality.
Call it what you will. Nature is still barbaric, and we shouldn't be celebrating a harsh system. And we don't have to model our society around that system. We don't live on Gilligan's Island and our civilization is very far removed from nature. The whole point of this website is to help people achieve early retirement - life without work. And that's a good thing! If people don't like work and are capable of living comfortably without it, then that should be celebrated!
More and more jobs are being automated every day. That's also a good thing. But it's only a good thing to the subset of people who receive the fruits of that automation. In the coming decades AI is going to massively expand the set of jobs capable of being automated until eventually there's not going to be anything left that humans are better at than machines. Are you going to tell people "you must work to survive" when there's literally no work left to do?
No work to do? I disagree. There is much work to do. The tasks have changed but still exist. We no longer need a ferrier to shoe our horses or a wheel right to provide the wheels for our wagon. However we need controls engineers to program production lines to make the goods we purchase and store clerks to complete the transactions. Adapt- those that can move forward in this economy.
When government becomes overly involved in the market place, unintended consequences result.
Government is necessary to insure fairness. However, more government generally results in a redistribution of wealth from those who work hard to those who take advantage of the system.
The key is to draw the line at a point that insures those that work hard enjoy the fruits of their labor. Those who do not work suffer the consequences. Nature is harsh on this point. Be productive and survive or be ineffective and perish.
This is the way of our world. We would all understand this if the electricity was shut off for one year. No internet, no refrigerator, no medication. Farm life circa 1888. Be productive to survive.
Sadly that is the way of the world.
Capitalism is a good system at creating wealth, innovation and raising the standard of living for populations, but it is not a good system at creating equal outcomes. Every society that has tried (various forms of socialism) has failed. Equal outcomes are not possible. Equal opportunities are more achievable, although various systemic issues prevent this as well.
In addition, if Wal-Mart treats their employees so terrible, why do they work there? With slavery, they would be forced to work there. They aren't, they can go seek different employment anytime they want. They are likely there because they don't have any marketable skills to get a job anywhere that pays more.
This is a somewhat facile argument. There are plenty of areas in the US where 1 or 2 employers like Wal-Mart have the population under their thumb, since there is nowhere else to work within a long commute distance. It's awfully easy for those of us with cushy middle-class or upper-middle-class jobs to say, "Just get another job". It's frequently not that easy. Similarly, "Develop better skills" is flippant and mean to people who just can't. Some people simply aren't able to, due to innate intelligence, mental health issues, etc.
In addition, if Wal-Mart treats their employees so terrible, why do they work there? With slavery, they would be forced to work there. They aren't, they can go seek different employment anytime they want. They are likely there because they don't have any marketable skills to get a job anywhere that pays more.
This is a somewhat facile argument. There are plenty of areas in the US where 1 or 2 employers like Wal-Mart have the population under their thumb, since there is nowhere else to work within a long commute distance. It's awfully easy for those of us with cushy middle-class or upper-middle-class jobs to say, "Just get another job". It's frequently not that easy. Similarly, "Develop better skills" is flippant and mean to people who just can't. Some people simply aren't able to, due to innate intelligence, mental health issues, etc.
While a lot has been said in this thread, we must recognize that in Capitalism vs Socialism, capitalism is the clear winner and it would be extraordinarily evil to advocate for a socialist economic system in any non-trivial sense.
While a lot has been said in this thread, we must recognize that in Capitalism vs Socialism, capitalism is the clear winner and it would be extraordinarily evil to advocate for a socialist economic system in any non-trivial sense.
I do think that a higher minimum wage would be beneficial though, especially if it encourages more automation. Allowing gentrification to occur would also help, since relative inequality is what's really driving the social problems here. The amount of absolute material wealth a minimum wage job can provide in a low cost of living part of the US in 2018 would have been unfathomable by kings a few centuries ago. A negative income tax could potentially be a way to distribute this cost while encouraging people at the bottom to work and pull themselves into a better position over time. I think more direct government wealth transfers like UBI and many social programs are very crude, inefficient, and ineffective solutions to important problems. I would however be in favor of taking all the various government programs like food stamps and section 8 housing and replacing them with a single monthly check.
One thing that could really help society would be to push back against professions erecting barriers to entry with unnecessarily arduous credentialing. The general push for everybody on earth to go to college, even though only a minority of people actually learn anything there is also quite harmful. Imagine if medicine and law became undergraduate degrees. Members of those professions would have a lot less debt and start making money sooner. In turn, they can accept a lower wage and it becomes easier for people to join those professions. It also improves society's ability to utilize the services of these professions. Imagine if employers stopped demanding a BA or BS for a generic office job that has nothing to do with the degree. People don't need the crippling student debt, can enter the workforce sooner, won't waste time in college if they don't belong there, and people who can do the job but aren't academically inclined can more easily enter the middle class.
While a lot has been said in this thread, we must recognize that in Capitalism vs Socialism, capitalism is the clear winner and it would be extraordinarily evil to advocate for a socialist economic system in any non-trivial sense. I think a useful change of perspective would be to instead think of Capitalism vs competitive markets. In this sense, Socialism is the opposite of competition and going past Capitalism in the direction of waste, inefficiency, and unmeritocratic structures.
While a lot has been said in this thread, we must recognize that in Capitalism vs Socialism, capitalism is the clear winner and it would be extraordinarily evil to advocate for a socialist economic system in any non-trivial sense. I think a useful change of perspective would be to instead think of Capitalism vs competitive markets. In this sense, Socialism is the opposite of competition and going past Capitalism in the direction of waste, inefficiency, and unmeritocratic structures.
Yes, this is why I want to do away with social security, medicare, medicaid, workers compensation insurance, overtime laws, minimum wage, OHSA, child labor laws, food stamps, WIC, CHIP, insurance regulation, and everything to do with tenants rights. Hell, every road, library, school, and park should be privatized. Let the market sort it out you %*^&)@# communists!
waste, inefficiency, and unmeritocratic structures should be avoided.
OK, obviously 'slavery' is not the right term for what I'm railing against (and I apologize to anyone experiencing slavery, but I doubt many of them are reading the MMM Forums). I'll admit that, but 'inequality' seems inadequate for a situation where the head of the organization makes several working lifetimes more per year than the rank and file. That the situation continues to get worse year in and year out is cause to wonder how far it will ultimately go. In a way, Mustachianism / FIRE is a response to people (who can afford to) bucking this system, which I'm very supportive of.
And yes, Capitalism is a better system than Socialism and Communism, but that doesn't mean we blindly follow it to the bitter end and give a free pass to aspects which ultimately do more harm than good.
And yes, incomes are not a zero sum game, but the focus is meant to be on continually rising income disparity.
Thanks for the discussion, sorry I have not participated much yet.
This aspect of Capitalism has always bothered me: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/business/highest-paid-ceos-2017.htmlQuoteA Walmart employee earning the company’s median salary of $19,177 would have to work for more than a thousand years to earn the $22.2 million that Doug McMillon, the company’s chief executive, was awarded in 2017.
Sadly, that's not the most egregious example of how American CEO's earn vs. the rank and file employees. If it's not outright slavery, then it is the moral equivalent.
So then the only question left is, how much longer do we wait? How many more multiples of lifetimes do you and your progeny sign up to endure, before we say 'enough'? We are not only not playing a game that an average person can no longer 'win', we are playing a game that no longer benefits from everyone's participation. Now we are being told that our superiors are winning for us and we are no longer encouraged to participate.
The crazy thing is that this attitude becomes outrage when these menial unskilled jobs are replaced by automation.
yeah, I find that to be a combination of sad and puzzling. I feel badly for the people who get whacked by automation. It's like they can't quite grasp what's happening to them, when it's pretty obvious companies will be trying to replace their unskilled labour force with machines.
I'm pretty sure these people would like to have something meaningful they can do to support themselves. Otherwise the automation just causes social problems.
Overall, roughly three-quarters of Americans (77%) think it’s realistic that robots and computers might one day be able to do many of the jobs currently done by humans, ... At the same time, few of today’s workers expect that their own jobs or professions are at risk of being automated. In total, just 30% of workers think it’s at least somewhat likely that their jobs will be mostly done by robots or computers ...
Interesting article on this subject:In addition, if Wal-Mart treats their employees so terrible, why do they work there? With slavery, they would be forced to work there. They aren't, they can go seek different employment anytime they want. They are likely there because they don't have any marketable skills to get a job anywhere that pays more.
This is a somewhat facile argument. There are plenty of areas in the US where 1 or 2 employers like Wal-Mart have the population under their thumb, since there is nowhere else to work within a long commute distance. It's awfully easy for those of us with cushy middle-class or upper-middle-class jobs to say, "Just get another job". It's frequently not that easy. Similarly, "Develop better skills" is flippant and mean to people who just can't. Some people simply aren't able to, due to innate intelligence, mental health issues, etc.
I don't disagree at all with your last sentence, but I that the second one (bolded) was particularly interesting.
For most of its history the United States was faster at recovering from economic recessions and depressions than other countries (which mostly means european ones, since those are the ones where we have data from comparable time scales). One of the causes this is attributed to by some economists is that the United States is a big country, and, at least until recently, our population has been willing to (and able to) move to where the jobs are. So if unemployment is high in Virginia but economic growth is high in Oregon, a bunch of Virginian's move to Oregon, they find work (good for the people who move), unemployment rates in Virginia drop (good for the people who don't move), and the influx of workers helps the Oregon economy grow even faster (good for the people in Oregon).
No one has a definitive answer for why americans are so much less willing or able to move across state lines than they used to be.* But this historical pattern no longer holds true in the USA today, which may be part of why it took us so long to pull out of the great recession, and why a lot of parts of the country are still trapped in it.
Anyway, this is a long winded discussion, but I bring it up because my reaction if I, or anyone else I knew and cared about lived somewhere with only two employment options and one of them was walmart, my first response would be: move the heck out of there as fast as you can!
*Assorted possible explanations: Are people are still underwater on their mortgages? Are people substantially more likely to be supporting a disabled or nonworking parent or family member than in the past (meaning relocation would involved moving multiple households)? Is it as simple as the rise in two income households meaning moving requires finding two better jobs in the same place elsewhere in the country instead of one? Or the rise in divorces where the former spouse who moves out of states has to get judicial approval or risk losing a large proportion of their custody rights? Are the places with the most jobs places like san francisco and new york where housing policies might as well have been intentionally designed to keep out outsiders by driving up prices? (Not an exhaustive list.)
Well, you acknowledge that income isn't a zero sumngaem, so perhaps you could explain why you still think wide varieties of income is "wrong". If one person making 100000 times more than someone else has no bearing on the ability of that second person to have a safe, healthy, productive, and profitable life... Then I can't see a problem personally.
This aspect of Capitalism has always bothered me: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/business/highest-paid-ceos-2017.htmlQuoteA Walmart employee earning the company’s median salary of $19,177 would have to work for more than a thousand years to earn the $22.2 million that Doug McMillon, the company’s chief executive, was awarded in 2017.
Sadly, that's not the most egregious example of how American CEO's earn vs. the rank and file employees. If it's not outright slavery, then it is the moral equivalent.
So then the only question left is, how much longer do we wait? How many more multiples of lifetimes do you and your progeny sign up to endure, before we say 'enough'? We are not only not playing a game that an average person can no longer 'win', we are playing a game that no longer benefits from everyone's participation. Now we are being told that our superiors are winning for us and we are no longer encouraged to participate.
If you are in charge of a taco shop do you believe it is reasonable for you to make a couple of cents for each and every taco you sell? Doesn't that motivate you to sell more tacos and therefor make more money for yourself and the business? Do you think that the CEO of Starbucks deserves to make a fraction of a cent for each cup of coffee they sell? It definitely would motivate him to open more stores, hire more people, and sell more coffee. Is it then fair for the CEO of Walmart to make a tiny tiny tiny fraction of a cent for each item Walmart sells?
There is a difference between a minimum safety net and no safety net. Basic regulation, over regulation and no regulation. Big government, smaller government and no government ( see anarchy, warlords, failed states).
waste, inefficiency, and unmeritocratic structures should be avoided.
I don't compare myself, or basey worth, on how much I make relative to someone else. As such, I am perfectly happy to make any multiple (whether much greater than or much worse than) of what some other person doing a different job is making.
Personally, I don't hear an explanation of why you think it's bad, just that it's different than other experiences you've had. I want a good explanation why government should get involved to prevent people from bring free to make their own decisions (whether it's a parent deciding how tiny a sliver of their income they'll give their children for chores or a board of directors deciding a CEOs salary). I have yet to hear one, or really any explanation of why high relative executive compensation is bad that doesn't sound like "well, a bunch of people will be jealous or feel bad if they compare themselves to some ok be in a completely different situation"
...
In highschool, I worked for a restaurant. A couple people quit that job so they could go work at Walmart instead. It was a $0.50 per hour pay difference($8.00 VS $7.50/hr), which they thought was awesome at the time. The restaurant gig was a fun job. However, working with people twice my age was a huge reminder that I had to finish HS and get a college degree, because I didn't want to still be there 20 years later.
I’d place a safe bet that we have the most obese “poor” people in the world. I’d say Americans definition of poor is a gross overstatement. It’s amazing what some people here classify as poor.
Ah yes, the obligatory entitlement thread.
You could find millions and millions of people around the world who would feel they hit the jackpot if they were allowed to come to America and work at Wal Mart.
To call it slavery is pathetic and degrading to so many people around the world who 1. Are actual slaves and 2. Would kill to have a job at Wal-Mart.
I’d be skeptical if the OP, or anyone who agrees with him/her, has ever actually traveled to poor countries outside the US and see what it’s like to “actually” be poor.
I’d place a safe bet that we have the most obese “poor” people in the world. I’d say Americans definition of poor is a gross overstatement. It’s amazing what some people here classify as poor.
When I was 16 I made $11/hr working in the kitchen at a nursing home. When I was 19 I was making $13.80 as a CNA (a decade ago). In addition, if someone is struggling to get by, why are they limiting themselves to 40 hr weeks like that’s some maximum threshold? I haven’t had a 40 hr/wk job in my career. Sure, it’s great for some people, but if you’re struggling, a person can work 60 hrs regularly no problem, just takes work ethic, and work ethic requires no intelligence or special schooling.
I don't compare myself, or basey worth, on how much I make relative to someone else. As such, I am perfectly happy to make any multiple (whether much greater than or much worse than) of what some other person doing a different job is making.
Personally, I don't hear an explanation of why you think it's bad, just that it's different than other experiences you've had. I want a good explanation why government should get involved to prevent people from bring free to make their own decisions (whether it's a parent deciding how tiny a sliver of their income they'll give their children for chores or a board of directors deciding a CEOs salary). I have yet to hear one...
Ah yes, the obligatory entitlement thread.
You could find millions and millions of people around the world who would feel they hit the jackpot if they were allowed to come to America and work at Wal Mart.
To call it slavery is pathetic and degrading to so many people around the world who 1. Are actual slaves and 2. Would kill to have a job at Wal-Mart.
I’d be skeptical if the OP, or anyone who agrees with him/her, has ever actually traveled to poor countries outside the US and see what it’s like to “actually” be poor.
I’d place a safe bet that we have the most obese “poor” people in the world. I’d say Americans definition of poor is a gross overstatement. It’s amazing what some people here classify as poor.
When I was 16 I made $11/hr working in the kitchen at a nursing home. When I was 19 I was making $13.80 as a CNA (a decade ago). In addition, if someone is struggling to get by, why are they limiting themselves to 40 hr weeks like that’s some maximum threshold? I haven’t had a 40 hr/wk job in my career. Sure, it’s great for some people, but if you’re struggling, a person can work 60 hrs regularly no problem, just takes work ethic, and work ethic requires no intelligence or special schooling.
And also: obesity is highly correlated with wealth. Because the more money you have:
- less stressed = thinner
- more time for exercise
- more time to prepare food
- more money to buy food that is better for you, but costs more per calorie
Go most places outside the USA and the very poor aren't eating less-healthy food, they don't have enough to eat period.
Go most places outside the USA and the very poor aren't eating less-healthy food, they don't have enough to eat period.
I’d place a safe bet that we have the most obese “poor” people in the world. I’d say Americans definition of poor is a gross overstatement. It’s amazing what some people here classify as poor.
Did you really just insinuate that obesity should be an indicator of wealth?
In most of the developed world it's extremely cheap to get calorie dense foods (This is true in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, etc.). It's much cheaper in fact than to get nutritious low calorie foods. This food doesn't make you healthy or stronger. It just makes you fat.
Your insinuation really does a disservice to a lot of people. Yes, I'd argue that the poorest in the developed world are better off than the poorest in developing nations, sure. That doesn't mean that the poor in developed countries have got it easy, or that they don't have extremely difficult problems to overcome to succeed though.
Ah yes, the obligatory entitlement thread.
You could find millions and millions of people around the world who would feel they hit the jackpot if they were allowed to come to America and work at Wal Mart.
To call it slavery is pathetic and degrading to so many people around the world who 1. Are actual slaves and 2. Would kill to have a job at Wal-Mart.
I’d be skeptical if the OP, or anyone who agrees with him/her, has ever actually traveled to poor countries outside the US and see what it’s like to “actually” be poor.
I’d place a safe bet that we have the most obese “poor” people in the world. I’d say Americans definition of poor is a gross overstatement. It’s amazing what some people here classify as poor.
When I was 16 I made $11/hr working in the kitchen at a nursing home. When I was 19 I was making $13.80 as a CNA (a decade ago). In addition, if someone is struggling to get by, why are they limiting themselves to 40 hr weeks like that’s some maximum threshold? I haven’t had a 40 hr/wk job in my career. Sure, it’s great for some people, but if you’re struggling, a person can work 60 hrs regularly no problem, just takes work ethic, and work ethic requires no intelligence or special schooling.
Is it a race to the bottom? A competition to see who is poorer?
I recently read "$2 a day. Living on almost nothing in America" and yes, there are people in the US who are really poor.
When I was in high school, I had a job too...making $3.35 an hour, whee! It was $4.35 on Sundays. Heck, during the summer one year I had two jobs, working 60 hours...one at $4 an hour at the gas company (digging ditches, washing trucks, loading pipe) and then 20 hours at night/ weekends bagging groceries. But I was 19. And not paying rent. Gosh, there are people living like this today who are adults with families and for many of them, there's no way out. They aren't lazy. I don't understand why people have this binary thought about poverty.
Does it make you feel better? (Obviously they did something wrong. They are stupid. Or lazy.) It's a sliding scale of intelligence, grit, hard work, mental health, age, physical health, and availability of jobs. I am astonished at the number of people completely incapable of stepping into someone else's shoes.
And also: obesity is highly correlated with wealth. Because the more money you have:
- less stressed = thinner
- more time for exercise
- more time to prepare food
- more money to buy food that is better for you, but costs more per calorie
I see the food that people get for free at school - luckily, our school system is very healthy and provides a lot of fruits and vegetables. Imagine you are on a budget, and the food you can afford is carbs, carbs, and more carbs. Gee...
Ah yes, the obligatory entitlement thread.
You could find millions and millions of people around the world who would feel they hit the jackpot if they were allowed to come to America and work at Wal Mart.
To call it slavery is pathetic and degrading to so many people around the world who 1. Are actual slaves and 2. Would kill to have a job at Wal-Mart.
I’d be skeptical if the OP, or anyone who agrees with him/her, has ever actually traveled to poor countries outside the US and see what it’s like to “actually” be poor.
I’d place a safe bet that we have the most obese “poor” people in the world. I’d say Americans definition of poor is a gross overstatement. It’s amazing what some people here classify as poor.
When I was 16 I made $11/hr working in the kitchen at a nursing home. When I was 19 I was making $13.80 as a CNA (a decade ago). In addition, if someone is struggling to get by, why are they limiting themselves to 40 hr weeks like that’s some maximum threshold? I haven’t had a 40 hr/wk job in my career. Sure, it’s great for some people, but if you’re struggling, a person can work 60 hrs regularly no problem, just takes work ethic, and work ethic requires no intelligence or special schooling.
Yes, I am discussing 'economic slavery' and not actual slavery. Having to work more than 40 hours per week just to get by while, at the same company the individual at the top makes 1,000x your income is a terrible first world injustice, in my opinion. Saying that the folks at the bottom are entitled, unless compared to actual slaves (which is like comparing apples and oranges), is a surprise to me.
So are you saying that people making $20,000/yr working full time in America are entitled?
I’d place a safe bet that we have the most obese “poor” people in the world. I’d say Americans definition of poor is a gross overstatement. It’s amazing what some people here classify as poor.
Did you really just insinuate that obesity should be an indicator of wealth?
In most of the developed world it's extremely cheap to get calorie dense foods (This is true in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, etc.). It's much cheaper in fact than to get nutritious low calorie foods. This food doesn't make you healthy or stronger. It just makes you fat.
Your insinuation really does a disservice to a lot of people. Yes, I'd argue that the poorest in the developed world are better off than the poorest in developing nations, sure. That doesn't mean that the poor in developed countries have got it easy, or that they don't have extremely difficult problems to overcome to succeed though.
I’m not sure this even warrants a response.
Obesity is based on calories. If someone is obese, they are eating MORE calories than they NEED. The excess calories are purely converted to fat.
If they were poor, they couldn’t afford basic food and thus would be thin.
If someone is eating MORE than they NEED they become fat. Period.
It really is that basic. Poor people are not getting fat because they aren’t eating the right nutrients, it’s from eating too many calories.
Hmm - I’m 100x more stressed making 200k than I ever was making 20k. More money = more responsibility which often = more stress.
When I get stressed I eat less due to... being stressed.
By the last week of April my SHORTEST work week of the year was 68 hrs. Yes - shortest week in 4 months was 68 hrs. I certainly don’t “need” the money, yet it’s too much to expect someone who “needs” the money to work over 40? Got it.
Not to mention, in those 4 months, I worked out several days a week EVERY week. I didn’t miss a single planned workout day despite 12 hr days. Between that and my CHEAP healthy diet, I’d argue I’m probably one of the most muscular/low body fat persons on this forum.
I’m basically a complete contradiction of all your statements. The difference? I’m not a lazy fuck who makes excuses for eating right and exercising regardless of my income or working hours. Your entire post is excuses, which is again, the problem with our country.
That cost of food analogy is a constant argument that has been proven wrong time and time again but used by people with no knowledge of nutrition.
Chicken is $2-$3/lb. Rice is dirt cheap. Oatmeal, dirt cheap. Frozen pizzas are like $8/ea nowadays. Cereal coats more than oatmeal.
I’m always baffled when people try and talk about nutrition with obviously having no knowledge of it. I’m sure that lack of knowledge is what also leads to our obesity problem.
“Let’s get this $8 frozen pizza for dinner because we can’t afford to eat healthy,” because, you know, 2 lbs of chicken and a ton of rice is the same price and will feed far more people.
Between that, and somehow calories not leading to obesity... but it’s food/nutrient density... this place kills me sometimes lol.
I’d place a safe bet that we have the most obese “poor” people in the world. I’d say Americans definition of poor is a gross overstatement. It’s amazing what some people here classify as poor.
Did you really just insinuate that obesity should be an indicator of wealth?
In most of the developed world it's extremely cheap to get calorie dense foods (This is true in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, etc.). It's much cheaper in fact than to get nutritious low calorie foods. This food doesn't make you healthy or stronger. It just makes you fat.
Your insinuation really does a disservice to a lot of people. Yes, I'd argue that the poorest in the developed world are better off than the poorest in developing nations, sure. That doesn't mean that the poor in developed countries have got it easy, or that they don't have extremely difficult problems to overcome to succeed though.
I’m not sure this even warrants a response.
Obesity is based on calories. If someone is obese, they are eating MORE calories than they NEED. The excess calories are purely converted to fat.
If they were poor, they couldn’t afford basic food and thus would be thin.
If someone is eating MORE than they NEED they become fat. Period.
It really is that basic. Poor people are not getting fat because they aren’t eating the right nutrients, it’s from eating too many calories.
Ah yes, the obligatory entitlement thread.
You could find millions and millions of people around the world who would feel they hit the jackpot if they were allowed to come to America and work at Wal Mart.
To call it slavery is pathetic and degrading to so many people around the world who 1. Are actual slaves and 2. Would kill to have a job at Wal-Mart.
I’d be skeptical if the OP, or anyone who agrees with him/her, has ever actually traveled to poor countries outside the US and see what it’s like to “actually” be poor.
I’d place a safe bet that we have the most obese “poor” people in the world. I’d say Americans definition of poor is a gross overstatement. It’s amazing what some people here classify as poor.
When I was 16 I made $11/hr working in the kitchen at a nursing home. When I was 19 I was making $13.80 as a CNA (a decade ago). In addition, if someone is struggling to get by, why are they limiting themselves to 40 hr weeks like that’s some maximum threshold? I haven’t had a 40 hr/wk job in my career. Sure, it’s great for some people, but if you’re struggling, a person can work 60 hrs regularly no problem, just takes work ethic, and work ethic requires no intelligence or special schooling.
Yes, I am discussing 'economic slavery' and not actual slavery. Having to work more than 40 hours per week just to get by while, at the same company the individual at the top makes 1,000x your income is a terrible first world injustice, in my opinion. Saying that the folks at the bottom are entitled, unless compared to actual slaves (which is like comparing apples and oranges), is a surprise to me.
So are you saying that people making $20,000/yr working full time in America are entitled?QuoteMaking $20,000 USD/year puts a person in the top 4% worldwide based on income. With all the moaning and complaining about rich people, it seems we sometimes forget that "poor" in America is still "the elite" class in the world.
Ah yes, the obligatory entitlement thread.
You could find millions and millions of people around the world who would feel they hit the jackpot if they were allowed to come to America and work at Wal Mart.
To call it slavery is pathetic and degrading to so many people around the world who 1. Are actual slaves and 2. Would kill to have a job at Wal-Mart.
I’d be skeptical if the OP, or anyone who agrees with him/her, has ever actually traveled to poor countries outside the US and see what it’s like to “actually” be poor.
I’d place a safe bet that we have the most obese “poor” people in the world. I’d say Americans definition of poor is a gross overstatement. It’s amazing what some people here classify as poor.
When I was 16 I made $11/hr working in the kitchen at a nursing home. When I was 19 I was making $13.80 as a CNA (a decade ago). In addition, if someone is struggling to get by, why are they limiting themselves to 40 hr weeks like that’s some maximum threshold? I haven’t had a 40 hr/wk job in my career. Sure, it’s great for some people, but if you’re struggling, a person can work 60 hrs regularly no problem, just takes work ethic, and work ethic requires no intelligence or special schooling.
Yes, I am discussing 'economic slavery' and not actual slavery. Having to work more than 40 hours per week just to get by while, at the same company the individual at the top makes 1,000x your income is a terrible first world injustice, in my opinion. Saying that the folks at the bottom are entitled, unless compared to actual slaves (which is like comparing apples and oranges), is a surprise to me.
So are you saying that people making $20,000/yr working full time in America are entitled?
Making $20,000 USD/year puts a person in the top 4% worldwide based on income. With all the moaning and complaining about rich people, it seems we sometimes forget that "poor" in America is still "the elite" class in the world.
This seems like a good place to put this link:
http://slaveryfootprint.org/
How many slaves work for you? (Hint: A LOT more than you think.)
This seems like a good place to put this link:
http://slaveryfootprint.org/
How many slaves work for you? (Hint: A LOT more than you think.)
I got 30, I was expecting it to be more to be honest (though would prefer if it was zero)
QuoteHmm - I’m 100x more stressed making 200k than I ever was making 20k. More money = more responsibility which often = more stress.
When I get stressed I eat less due to... being stressed.
By the last week of April my SHORTEST work week of the year was 68 hrs. Yes - shortest week in 4 months was 68 hrs. I certainly don’t “need” the money, yet it’s too much to expect someone who “needs” the money to work over 40? Got it.
Not to mention, in those 4 months, I worked out several days a week EVERY week. I didn’t miss a single planned workout day despite 12 hr days. Between that and my CHEAP healthy diet, I’d argue I’m probably one of the most muscular/low body fat persons on this forum.
I’m basically a complete contradiction of all your statements. The difference? I’m not a lazy fuck who makes excuses for eating right and exercising regardless of my income or working hours. Your entire post is excuses, which is again, the problem with our country.
That cost of food analogy is a constant argument that has been proven wrong time and time again but used by people with no knowledge of nutrition.
Chicken is $2-$3/lb. Rice is dirt cheap. Oatmeal, dirt cheap. Frozen pizzas are like $8/ea nowadays. Cereal coats more than oatmeal.
I’m always baffled when people try and talk about nutrition with obviously having no knowledge of it. I’m sure that lack of knowledge is what also leads to our obesity problem.
“Let’s get this $8 frozen pizza for dinner because we can’t afford to eat healthy,” because, you know, 2 lbs of chicken and a ton of rice is the same price and will feed far more people.
Between that, and somehow calories not leading to obesity... but it’s food/nutrient density... this place kills me sometimes lol.
You seriously aren't telling me that making $200k is so much more stressful than not knowing where your next meal is coming from? Or whether you will have a roof over your head?
Yay, you an anecdote. The plural of anecdote =/= data, and "I'm different so therefore you are wrong", or "I did it so everyone can" is utter bullshit.
The people that I see who are overweight aren't buying $8 pizzas, they are buying 25-50 lb bags of beans and rice.
Some reading material, if you'd like to read data. By people who study such things. Not just sit at their desk collecting a paycheck wondering why all those poor, lazy fuckers are so damned fat.
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/79/1/6/4690070
https://scholars.org/brief/why-poverty-leads-obesity-and-life-long-problems
Government interference on this matter is rooted in socialism - specifically a need to control (prevent for moral reasons) the slave market. The US system (like every functioning economic system in the world) is a mix of both capitalist and socialist ideas, holding each other in check. Capitalism tends to provide drive to create/innovate, socialism tends to provide protection for the people. Go to far into either direction, and your economic system will eventually run into trouble.While I agree with this...
In a purely capitalist system, you would be allowed to buy slaves.Capitalism seems to have been the force that allowed eradication of slavery, or at least countries abandoned it in approximately the same order they became capitalist. I suppose it could be an indirect effect, and actually capitalism allowed industrialization, which made machine labor economically preferable to human labor, which ended slavery.
This seems like a good place to put this link:
http://slaveryfootprint.org/
How many slaves work for you? (Hint: A LOT more than you think.)
I got 30, I was expecting it to be more to be honest (though would prefer if it was zero)
I can't even find low pay low skilled workers around here to help me with things like lawn work or digging trenches. I certainly don't have any slaves.
QuoteHmm - I’m 100x more stressed making 200k than I ever was making 20k. More money = more responsibility which often = more stress.
When I get stressed I eat less due to... being stressed.
By the last week of April my SHORTEST work week of the year was 68 hrs. Yes - shortest week in 4 months was 68 hrs. I certainly don’t “need” the money, yet it’s too much to expect someone who “needs” the money to work over 40? Got it.
Not to mention, in those 4 months, I worked out several days a week EVERY week. I didn’t miss a single planned workout day despite 12 hr days. Between that and my CHEAP healthy diet, I’d argue I’m probably one of the most muscular/low body fat persons on this forum.
I’m basically a complete contradiction of all your statements. The difference? I’m not a lazy fuck who makes excuses for eating right and exercising regardless of my income or working hours. Your entire post is excuses, which is again, the problem with our country.
That cost of food analogy is a constant argument that has been proven wrong time and time again but used by people with no knowledge of nutrition.
Chicken is $2-$3/lb. Rice is dirt cheap. Oatmeal, dirt cheap. Frozen pizzas are like $8/ea nowadays. Cereal coats more than oatmeal.
I’m always baffled when people try and talk about nutrition with obviously having no knowledge of it. I’m sure that lack of knowledge is what also leads to our obesity problem.
“Let’s get this $8 frozen pizza for dinner because we can’t afford to eat healthy,” because, you know, 2 lbs of chicken and a ton of rice is the same price and will feed far more people.
Between that, and somehow calories not leading to obesity... but it’s food/nutrient density... this place kills me sometimes lol.
You seriously aren't telling me that making $200k is so much more stressful than not knowing where your next meal is coming from? Or whether you will have a roof over your head?
Yay, you an anecdote. The plural of anecdote =/= data, and "I'm different so therefore you are wrong", or "I did it so everyone can" is utter bullshit.
The people that I see who are overweight aren't buying $8 pizzas, they are buying 25-50 lb bags of beans and rice.
Some reading material, if you'd like to read data. By people who study such things. Not just sit at their desk collecting a paycheck wondering why all those poor, lazy fuckers are so damned fat.
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/79/1/6/4690070
https://scholars.org/brief/why-poverty-leads-obesity-and-life-long-problems
I’d place a safe bet that we have the most obese “poor” people in the world. I’d say Americans definition of poor is a gross overstatement. It’s amazing what some people here classify as poor.
Did you really just insinuate that obesity should be an indicator of wealth?
In most of the developed world it's extremely cheap to get calorie dense foods (This is true in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, etc.). It's much cheaper in fact than to get nutritious low calorie foods. This food doesn't make you healthy or stronger. It just makes you fat.
Your insinuation really does a disservice to a lot of people. Yes, I'd argue that the poorest in the developed world are better off than the poorest in developing nations, sure. That doesn't mean that the poor in developed countries have got it easy, or that they don't have extremely difficult problems to overcome to succeed though.
I’m not sure this even warrants a response.
Obesity is based on calories. If someone is obese, they are eating MORE calories than they NEED. The excess calories are purely converted to fat.
If they were poor, they couldn’t afford basic food and thus would be thin.
If someone is eating MORE than they NEED they become fat. Period.
It really is that basic. Poor people are not getting fat because they aren’t eating the right nutrients, it’s from eating too many calories.
I didn't argue that people are getting fat because they aren't eating the right nutrients. I argued that it's cheaper to eat high calorie food (particularly low nutrient, high calorie food that doesn't leave you feeling full for long - compounding the problem).
poor: lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society.
While not being able to meet your dietary needs certainly qualifies as poor, so does not being able to afford decent quality, nutritious food.
No work to do? I disagree. There is much work to do. The tasks have changed but still exist. We no longer need a ferrier to shoe our horses or a wheel right to provide the wheels for our wagon. However we need controls engineers to program production lines to make the goods we purchase and store clerks to complete the transactions. Adapt- those that can move forward in this economy.
Control engineers fall into the category ChpBstrd was discussing where there is plenty of demand, but not all the people who are losing jobs in factories or mid-level white collar office work are going to have the right combination of abilities and intelligences to become control engineers.
In contrast, a larger proportion of the population can learn to run a cash register, yet the need for store clerks is facing downward pressure from two directions:
On the one hand lots of big box retailers are moving to self-checkout lanes where one person might supervise and troubleshoot enough self checkout registers to do the work of 4-6 clerks in the old days.
Yet at the same time online retail is dramatically reducing the amount of spending that happens at brick and mortar stores. In 2017, 105M square feet of retail space closed in the USA. In 2018, we've already lost another 75M square feet of retail space from January to April, which puts us on pace to lose 225M square feet of retail space over the entire calendar year. To translate that into job losses a good rule of thumb is about 2.5 employees per 1,000 square ft of retail space.
Capitalism seems to have been the force that allowed eradication of slavery, or at least countries abandoned it in approximately the same order they became capitalist. I suppose it could be an indirect effect, and actually capitalism allowed industrialization, which made machine labor economically preferable to human labor, which ended slavery.
QuoteGovernment interference on this matter is rooted in socialism - specifically a need to control (prevent for moral reasons) the slave market. The US system (like every functioning economic system in the world) is a mix of both capitalist and socialist ideas, holding each other in check. Capitalism tends to provide drive to create/innovate, socialism tends to provide protection for the people. Go to far into either direction, and your economic system will eventually run into trouble.While I agree with this...In a purely capitalist system, you would be allowed to buy slaves.Capitalism seems to have been the force that allowed eradication of slavery, or at least countries abandoned it in approximately the same order they became capitalist. I suppose it could be an indirect effect, and actually capitalism allowed industrialization, which made machine labor economically preferable to human labor, which ended slavery.
The main problem that arises from income and wealth inequality is those with more using their financial power to subvert the will of the people through government lobbying/bribing. Some people think that the best way to prevent this is to limit how much wealth one person can have in relation to others. Other people (myself included) think that the best way to prevent this is to limit how much control the government has over the people.
I’d place a safe bet that we have the most obese “poor” people in the world. I’d say Americans definition of poor is a gross overstatement. It’s amazing what some people here classify as poor.
Did you really just insinuate that obesity should be an indicator of wealth?
In most of the developed world it's extremely cheap to get calorie dense foods (This is true in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, etc.). It's much cheaper in fact than to get nutritious low calorie foods. This food doesn't make you healthy or stronger. It just makes you fat.
Your insinuation really does a disservice to a lot of people. Yes, I'd argue that the poorest in the developed world are better off than the poorest in developing nations, sure. That doesn't mean that the poor in developed countries have got it easy, or that they don't have extremely difficult problems to overcome to succeed though.
I’m not sure this even warrants a response.
Obesity is based on calories. If someone is obese, they are eating MORE calories than they NEED. The excess calories are purely converted to fat.
If they were poor, they couldn’t afford basic food and thus would be thin.
If someone is eating MORE than they NEED they become fat. Period.
It really is that basic. Poor people are not getting fat because they aren’t eating the right nutrients, it’s from eating too many calories.
I didn't argue that people are getting fat because they aren't eating the right nutrients. I argued that it's cheaper to eat high calorie food (particularly low nutrient, high calorie food that doesn't leave you feeling full for long - compounding the problem).
poor: lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society.
While not being able to meet your dietary needs certainly qualifies as poor, so does not being able to afford decent quality, nutritious food.
@use2betrix
Food isn't valued per calorie
Eating too much and consuming too many calories IS NOT THE SAME THING. When I started eating healthier I consumed way more food, while taking in less calories.
It is no secret that in the US, unhealthy/prepackaged/prepared foods which are higher in calorie-density, tend to be cheaper. Processed fats are cheap because they can last longer since most processed fats come from far away 3rd world countries which are not paid well (farmers).
Someone can get fat eating 3 Big Macs and fries everyday. Meanwhile someone else can go through half a chicken, cup of whole grains/quinoa seed, half an avocado ($$$) mixed-greens salad ($$$), a large omelette filled with vegetables, 1/2 cup of yogurt/cottage cheese, handful of nuts ($$$) and several pieces of fruit. Which is "more" food? And which diet do you think is going to cost more on average? Compare one diet of cheap processed fats (fast food), to the other which also contains fat, but from more expensive sources, and supplemented with plenty of other sources of calories (fruits, veggies, seeds/grains, dairy, fresh meat).
Yes eating healthy can be cheaper, but it involves time (learning how to cook from scratch, with items pre-planned and bought on sale, then stored properly until future use). Since most of us are pressed for time (whether you are wealthy or not), those who don't make time to eat healthy but are earning a good income, can at least afford to buy healthy prepared foods (more $$$).
Again - our topic is overweight/obesity. That IS determined by calories. You can get just as fat eating all the “healthy” foods you mentioned, if you eat enough of it. Someone can also lose weight by “just” eating McDonald’s, if they eat the right amount of it.
People who complain about CEO salaries have generally never done the job. It's a 24/7 job that requires immense amounts of IQ and EQ and decisions that will have ripple effects through countless families and communities. A CEO typically has 10-20 bosses (i.e., the board of directors), board committees, numerous angry stakeholders, lawsuits to deal with, big suppliers, government regulators, and enough stress to kill a horse. It's absolutely nothing like the life of a front line 9-5 worker, and a good CEO adds value far, far beyond his or her compensation.
Again - our topic is overweight/obesity. That IS determined by calories. You can get just as fat eating all the “healthy” foods you mentioned, if you eat enough of it. Someone can also lose weight by “just” eating McDonald’s, if they eat the right amount of it.
Honestly, your post is just filled with petty excuses. I can’t really argue that yes, it takes time to bake a chicken breast or put some rice in the microwave.
I’m baffled at some of the arguments here. Like cooking basic food takes so much skill and knowledge and time. How somehow I can do all of it working 60-70 hrs a week yet no “poor” person who “shouldn’t have to” work more than 40 hrs, can possibly find the time to do? Some people are apparently just so fucking lazy that it’s too much to ask them to cook something. Get real.
Amazing that on a forum that places so much value on biking everywhere and doing “work” yourself, that people can justify that it’s too much to expect poor people to cook their own food. That logic is facepunch worthy.
People who complain about CEO salaries have generally never done the job. It's a 24/7 job that requires immense amounts of IQ and EQ and decisions that will have ripple effects through countless families and communities. A CEO typically has 10-20 bosses (i.e., the board of directors), board committees, numerous angry stakeholders, lawsuits to deal with, big suppliers, government regulators, and enough stress to kill a horse. It's absolutely nothing like the life of a front line 9-5 worker, and a good CEO adds value far, far beyond his or her compensation.
This is very true. I'm a mid-level executive at my company, and there isn't enough money in the world to get me to aspire to being a CEO of a public company.
Again - our topic is overweight/obesity. That IS determined by calories. You can get just as fat eating all the “healthy” foods you mentioned, if you eat enough of it. Someone can also lose weight by “just” eating McDonald’s, if they eat the right amount of it.
Honestly, your post is just filled with petty excuses. I can’t really argue that yes, it takes time to bake a chicken breast or put some rice in the microwave.
I’m baffled at some of the arguments here. Like cooking basic food takes so much skill and knowledge and time. How somehow I can do all of it working 60-70 hrs a week yet no “poor” person who “shouldn’t have to” work more than 40 hrs, can possibly find the time to do? Some people are apparently just so fucking lazy that it’s too much to ask them to cook something. Get real.
Amazing that on a forum that places so much value on biking everywhere and doing “work” yourself, that people can justify that it’s too much to expect poor people to cook their own food. That logic is facepunch worthy.
You keep making assumptions about people and basing your arguments on them.
One assumption is that people know how to cook food. It sounds stupid. My parents always cooked food at home, so I saw them making meals every night. Eventually my mom and dad showed me the basics of chopping things up, reading a recipe, and creating a meal.
I also know people who eat out nearly every night. They can't cook, so their kids have never learned to cook properly. They have trouble with slicing an onion, don't know the difference between browning and burning something in a pan, don't know how to add seasonings to a dish to taste. They've never followed a simple recipe before. They can't even name all the common vegetables you find at a store. Can they learn? Absolutely. But they will waste a lot of food, take forever to cook most things, and make a lot of terrible meals in the meantime. If you're pretty well off, this is something that you can deal with. If you're very poor, the risk of wasting your weekly food money on something that takes forever and may well be inedible once complete is a pretty strong deterrent.
Not everyone is lucky enough to know how to eat healthy foods, or know much about diet at all. Again, because my parents cooked at home every night, and we generally ate healthy food I ended up having an intuitive sense of what is good for me. Potato chips are basically the same as a baked potato, right? This is a question I was asked by a guy in university . . . and he wasn't joking. Some schools and parents don't teach much about food and nutrition . . . and this is another hurdle that many poor people must overcome.
Another assumption is that people have easy access to healthy food. If you don't own a car, getting around on public transit can be a difficult and time consuming experience. You're likely to find yourself limited to the stores within walking distance of where you live . . . and there are many places where there aren't any decent grocery stores nearby. This means that you end up not having access to the same selection of fresh vegetables and unprocessed meats that are healthier to eat.
Now, obviously none of these issues are insurmountable, but they do exist. They make it more difficult for people who are very poor to eat healthy food than it is for you or me. I'm not saying that poor people should give up, or should stop striving to better their situation at all. I'm arguing that we need a little compassion when considering their situation . . . as it is materially different from ours.
Again - our topic is overweight/obesity. That IS determined by calories. You can get just as fat eating all the “healthy” foods you mentioned, if you eat enough of it. Someone can also lose weight by “just” eating McDonald’s, if they eat the right amount of it.
Honestly, your post is just filled with petty excuses. I can’t really argue that yes, it takes time to bake a chicken breast or put some rice in the microwave.
I’m baffled at some of the arguments here. Like cooking basic food takes so much skill and knowledge and time. How somehow I can do all of it working 60-70 hrs a week yet no “poor” person who “shouldn’t have to” work more than 40 hrs, can possibly find the time to do? Some people are apparently just so fucking lazy that it’s too much to ask them to cook something. Get real.
Amazing that on a forum that places so much value on biking everywhere and doing “work” yourself, that people can justify that it’s too much to expect poor people to cook their own food. That logic is facepunch worthy.
You keep making assumptions about people and basing your arguments on them.
One assumption is that people know how to cook food. It sounds stupid. My parents always cooked food at home, so I saw them making meals every night. Eventually my mom and dad showed me the basics of chopping things up, reading a recipe, and creating a meal.
I also know people who eat out nearly every night. They can't cook, so their kids have never learned to cook properly. They have trouble with slicing an onion, don't know the difference between browning and burning something in a pan, don't know how to add seasonings to a dish to taste. They've never followed a simple recipe before. They can't even name all the common vegetables you find at a store. Can they learn? Absolutely. But they will waste a lot of food, take forever to cook most things, and make a lot of terrible meals in the meantime. If you're pretty well off, this is something that you can deal with. If you're very poor, the risk of wasting your weekly food money on something that takes forever and may well be inedible once complete is a pretty strong deterrent.
Not everyone is lucky enough to know how to eat healthy foods, or know much about diet at all. Again, because my parents cooked at home every night, and we generally ate healthy food I ended up having an intuitive sense of what is good for me. Potato chips are basically the same as a baked potato, right? This is a question I was asked by a guy in university . . . and he wasn't joking. Some schools and parents don't teach much about food and nutrition . . . and this is another hurdle that many poor people must overcome.
Another assumption is that people have easy access to healthy food. If you don't own a car, getting around on public transit can be a difficult and time consuming experience. You're likely to find yourself limited to the stores within walking distance of where you live . . . and there are many places where there aren't any decent grocery stores nearby. This means that you end up not having access to the same selection of fresh vegetables and unprocessed meats that are healthier to eat.
Now, obviously none of these issues are insurmountable, but they do exist. They make it more difficult for people who are very poor to eat healthy food than it is for you or me. I'm not saying that poor people should give up, or should stop striving to better their situation at all. I'm arguing that we need a little compassion when considering their situation . . . as it is materially different from ours.
QuoteGovernment interference on this matter is rooted in socialism - specifically a need to control (prevent for moral reasons) the slave market. The US system (like every functioning economic system in the world) is a mix of both capitalist and socialist ideas, holding each other in check. Capitalism tends to provide drive to create/innovate, socialism tends to provide protection for the people. Go to far into either direction, and your economic system will eventually run into trouble.While I agree with this...In a purely capitalist system, you would be allowed to buy slaves.Capitalism seems to have been the force that allowed eradication of slavery, or at least countries abandoned it in approximately the same order they became capitalist. I suppose it could be an indirect effect, and actually capitalism allowed industrialization, which made machine labor economically preferable to human labor, which ended slavery.
When government artificially creates rules and limits freedom of a market for the betterment of the people, it is acting in a socialist manner. Ending slavery by law artificially limits the ability to buy slaves by government decree - not free market choice. It is a regulation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of slaves. Therefore by definition it is a socialist rather than capitalist action. You could try to make the argument that it would not be economically feasible to own slaves after industrialization and thus capitalism would have solved the problem . . . but the 40.3 million people currently in slavery around the world (including 150 billion dollars worth of slavery related commerce that goes on today in the US alone) demonstrate how incorrect that theory is. https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern-slavery/ (https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern-slavery/)
And I wouldn't mind being a NFL starting quarterback, all you gotta do is throw a ball at targets while other people protect you.People who complain about CEO salaries have generally never done the job. It's a 24/7 job that requires immense amounts of IQ and EQ and decisions that will have ripple effects through countless families and communities. A CEO typically has 10-20 bosses (i.e., the board of directors), board committees, numerous angry stakeholders, lawsuits to deal with, big suppliers, government regulators, and enough stress to kill a horse. It's absolutely nothing like the life of a front line 9-5 worker, and a good CEO adds value far, far beyond his or her compensation.
This is very true. I'm a mid-level executive at my company, and there isn't enough money in the world to get me to aspire to being a CEO of a public company.
I don't think I'd mind being CEO of an established company. You basically get to fly around the country for free and make sure things are going well. From time to time, you have to be the public face telling investors what they want to hear. You get to solicit input and decide what to do next. People below you then do all the dirty work like firing and reorganizing to carry out your wishes. I really don't see how CEO's have it so poorly. Certainly very few of them are voluntarily hitting the ER button, although they are well beyond FI.
QuoteGovernment interference on this matter is rooted in socialism - specifically a need to control (prevent for moral reasons) the slave market. The US system (like every functioning economic system in the world) is a mix of both capitalist and socialist ideas, holding each other in check. Capitalism tends to provide drive to create/innovate, socialism tends to provide protection for the people. Go to far into either direction, and your economic system will eventually run into trouble.While I agree with this...In a purely capitalist system, you would be allowed to buy slaves.Capitalism seems to have been the force that allowed eradication of slavery, or at least countries abandoned it in approximately the same order they became capitalist. I suppose it could be an indirect effect, and actually capitalism allowed industrialization, which made machine labor economically preferable to human labor, which ended slavery.
When government artificially creates rules and limits freedom of a market for the betterment of the people, it is acting in a socialist manner. Ending slavery by law artificially limits the ability to buy slaves by government decree - not free market choice. It is a regulation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of slaves. Therefore by definition it is a socialist rather than capitalist action. You could try to make the argument that it would not be economically feasible to own slaves after industrialization and thus capitalism would have solved the problem . . . but the 40.3 million people currently in slavery around the world (including 150 billion dollars worth of slavery related commerce that goes on today in the US alone) demonstrate how incorrect that theory is. https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern-slavery/ (https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern-slavery/)
I'm not sure I agree with the premise that in a purely capitalistic system you would be allowed to buy slaves. If capitalism is an economic system built on free market choice then that free market choice has to apply to everybody, even the would be slaves. So removing their free market choice would be anti-capitalistic. Paying them the lowest possible wage you could get them to freely choose to work for would be capitalistic.
I'd further argue that in pure socialism everyone is a slave . . . your owner is the state. All work that you do will be for the state, food and lodgings will come from the state, and the state will have ultimate decision making power over everything you do.
I'd further argue that in pure socialism everyone is a slave . . . your owner is the state. All work that you do will be for the state, food and lodgings will come from the state, and the state will have ultimate decision making power over everything you do.
Except that if you are in a democratic socialist state, the people are the state, and all authority flows from the people. So maybe the state owns everyone, but the people are sovereign, and the will of the people is preserved.
QuoteGovernment interference on this matter is rooted in socialism - specifically a need to control (prevent for moral reasons) the slave market. The US system (like every functioning economic system in the world) is a mix of both capitalist and socialist ideas, holding each other in check. Capitalism tends to provide drive to create/innovate, socialism tends to provide protection for the people. Go to far into either direction, and your economic system will eventually run into trouble.While I agree with this...In a purely capitalist system, you would be allowed to buy slaves.Capitalism seems to have been the force that allowed eradication of slavery, or at least countries abandoned it in approximately the same order they became capitalist. I suppose it could be an indirect effect, and actually capitalism allowed industrialization, which made machine labor economically preferable to human labor, which ended slavery.
When government artificially creates rules and limits freedom of a market for the betterment of the people, it is acting in a socialist manner. Ending slavery by law artificially limits the ability to buy slaves by government decree - not free market choice. It is a regulation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of slaves. Therefore by definition it is a socialist rather than capitalist action. You could try to make the argument that it would not be economically feasible to own slaves after industrialization and thus capitalism would have solved the problem . . . but the 40.3 million people currently in slavery around the world (including 150 billion dollars worth of slavery related commerce that goes on today in the US alone) demonstrate how incorrect that theory is. https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern-slavery/ (https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern-slavery/)
I'm not sure I agree with the premise that in a purely capitalistic system you would be allowed to buy slaves. If capitalism is an economic system built on free market choice then that free market choice has to apply to everybody, even the would be slaves. So removing their free market choice would be anti-capitalistic. Paying them the lowest possible wage you could get them to freely choose to work for would be capitalistic.
I'm not arguing pure capitalism is the ideal system, as a purely capitalistic system could easily have negative outcomes for a lot of people. I just don't think pure capitalism creates chattel slavery. Even socialism could have slavery if a socialistic society determined one group of people don't qualify for basic human rights. You would argue that wouldn't be pure socialism and I would agree.
I'd further argue that in pure socialism everyone is a slave . . . your owner is the state. All work that you do will be for the state, food and lodgings will come from the state, and the state will have ultimate decision making power over everything you do.
Except that if you are in a democratic socialist state, the people are the state, and all authority flows from the people. So maybe the state owns everyone, but the people are sovereign, and the will of the people is preserved.
I don't draw a big distinction between being a slave to the will of the state and a slave to the will of the people. :P
I'd further argue that in pure socialism everyone is a slave . . . your owner is the state. All work that you do will be for the state, food and lodgings will come from the state, and the state will have ultimate decision making power over everything you do.
Except that if you are in a democratic socialist state, the people are the state, and all authority flows from the people. So maybe the state owns everyone, but the people are sovereign, and the will of the people is preserved.
I don't draw a big distinction between being a slave to the will of the state and a slave to the will of the people. :P
Spoken like someone that didn't spend the 1950s in China.
I'd further argue that in pure socialism everyone is a slave . . . your owner is the state. All work that you do will be for the state, food and lodgings will come from the state, and the state will have ultimate decision making power over everything you do.
Except that if you are in a democratic socialist state, the people are the state, and all authority flows from the people. So maybe the state owns everyone, but the people are sovereign, and the will of the people is preserved.
I don't draw a big distinction between being a slave to the will of the state and a slave to the will of the people. :P
Can you give me an example of a successful democratic socialist state? One that eschews capitalism.
Can you give me an example of a successful democratic socialist state? One that eschews capitalism.
I never said that there were any. But at least if the state reflects the will of the people, the people can change the nature of the economic model when they decide that it doesn't work. If a very small number of people control the whole country (which sounds pretty un-socialist to me) then they can continue down the wrong path for decades.
Can you give me an example of a successful democratic socialist state? One that eschews capitalism.
I never said that there were any. But at least if the state reflects the will of the people, the people can change the nature of the economic model when they decide that it doesn't work. If a very small number of people control the whole country (which sounds pretty un-socialist to me) then they can continue down the wrong path for decades.
My problem with the concepts of pure capitalism and pure socialism is primarily with their implementation. In theory, they're awesome. Reality never seems to measure up though.
I work for a Fortune 500 company. Years ago, someone explained to me that to be in contention for the CEO position, you needed to understand it is like the 1960’s version of Batman on TV. Batman and Robin scale the outside of the biggest building on campus. From time to time a window opens and someone sticks their head out to talk. One difference is that person popping out of the window also tries to step on your fingers and knock you off the side of the building to take you out of The Game.And I wouldn't mind being a NFL starting quarterback, all you gotta do is throw a ball at targets while other people protect you.People who complain about CEO salaries have generally never done the job. It's a 24/7 job that requires immense amounts of IQ and EQ and decisions that will have ripple effects through countless families and communities. A CEO typically has 10-20 bosses (i.e., the board of directors), board committees, numerous angry stakeholders, lawsuits to deal with, big suppliers, government regulators, and enough stress to kill a horse. It's absolutely nothing like the life of a front line 9-5 worker, and a good CEO adds value far, far beyond his or her compensation.
This is very true. I'm a mid-level executive at my company, and there isn't enough money in the world to get me to aspire to being a CEO of a public company.
I don't think I'd mind being CEO of an established company. You basically get to fly around the country for free and make sure things are going well. From time to time, you have to be the public face telling investors what they want to hear. You get to solicit input and decide what to do next. People below you then do all the dirty work like firing and reorganizing to carry out your wishes. I really don't see how CEO's have it so poorly. Certainly very few of them are voluntarily hitting the ER button, although they are well beyond FI.
Pay 'disparity' is easy to talk about, but 'work disparity' is the underlying reason for the pay differential. If you ask the front line worker if he or she is willing to put 60 hour weeks for 20 years to get ahead and have a shot at the c-suite, my bet is that most would want nothing to do with it. But they still think the CEO should be paid less so they get more.
Again - our topic is overweight/obesity. That IS determined by calories. You can get just as fat eating all the “healthy” foods you mentioned, if you eat enough of it. Someone can also lose weight by “just” eating McDonald’s, if they eat the right amount of it.
I suggest doing a little scientific experiment and giving this a try.
For the first two weeks, eat nothing but chicken and vegetables, but you're allowed to eat as much of them as you like.
For the next two weeks, go to McDonalds every day and have one Big Mac, large fries, large sugary drink, and you're not allowed to eat anything else for the rest of the day.
I'd guess that in the first two weeks, you won't actually want to eat too much, you'll end up losing some weight, and you'd really have to force-feed yourself if you wanted to put on weight. And in the second two weeks you'll be stupidly hungry and still end up not losing weight.
I do take your point about basic cooking not being too hard or expensive, though. Chicken and vegetables is a very cheap, easy, tasty, and healthy meal (which I tend to cook for myself pretty much every other day).
People who complain about CEO salaries have generally never done the job. It's a 24/7 job that requires immense amounts of IQ and EQ and decisions that will have ripple effects through countless families and communities. A CEO typically has 10-20 bosses (i.e., the board of directors), board committees, numerous angry stakeholders, lawsuits to deal with, big suppliers, government regulators, and enough stress to kill a horse. It's absolutely nothing like the life of a front line 9-5 worker, and a good CEO adds value far, far beyond his or her compensation.
This is very true. I'm a mid-level executive at my company, and there isn't enough money in the world to get me to aspire to being a CEO of a public company.
I don't think I'd mind being CEO of an established company. You basically get to fly around the country for free and make sure things are going well. From time to time, you have to be the public face telling investors what they want to hear. You get to solicit input and decide what to do next. People below you then do all the dirty work like firing and reorganizing to carry out your wishes. I really don't see how CEO's have it so poorly. Certainly very few of them are voluntarily hitting the ER button, although they are well beyond FI.
The market rewards those workers with more skills.
The market rewards those workers with more skills.
Oh bullshit. Capitalism does NOTHING of the sort. By definition, it rewards people with capital. You don't get paid what you're worth, you get paid the minimum you will accept, just like everyone else in the capitalist underclass.
There are guys in my office who work twice as hard as I do, and make half as much. Yay capitalism?
There are guys in my office who make twice as much as I do, who do basically nothing except hold down a title. Yay capitalism?
How are either of these comparisons supposed to be reflective of anyone's skill set?
You're all going on about "skills" as if capitalism gives a flying fuck about your skill set. Nobody gets paid for their skills in a free market economy. The world's most skilled watercolor artist is paid less than the least skilled CEO at a major multinational. A highly skilled landscaper makes less than a poorly skilled engineer. Skill has nothing to do with it. Wages are set by supply and demand for your labor, not by your skill set. If you want to make more money as an employee, you don't need to improve your skills, you need to find a new job. One that pays better.
But even that solution is a farce. It's just another of the many layers of defense put in place by the people who genuinely run the world, who exercise power. They want you to get a good education in coloring between the lines, and then stay there for your entire life, because anything else upsets the established power structure that benefits them the most. Calling it capitalism as if that appeals to your patriotic heartstrings is just gross misdirection, like politicians touting "family values" and "fiscal conservativism" while doing the exact opposite. Nobody joins the elite class by coloring between the lines and being an obedient employee lapdog. Whether the lapdog makes $19k/year or $300k/year is basically irrelevant to the world's truly rich people. They view both of those employees as expendable labor, like a gardener or house painter that you pay with pocket change because you can't be bothered with menial tasks while you sunbathe at Ibiza.
This is not "slavery" in the sense that most Americans learned about in high school history class, but it's conceptually very related. There is an economically elite minority that wields all of the power, and then there is the vast majority of the population that toils away their lives in support of that elite minority without much chance of improving their lot. The relative wages have changed a bit, but in both cases the workers get just enough to keep them from revolting, and the rich owners get everything else left over after deciding just how much the workers will get. The only thing that has changed (and I admit this a big one) is that American slaves were kept in line by force, and modern American workers are kept in line by ignorance. We have chosen our servitude, because we see no alternative, but that doesn't really make it any less constrictive.
Oh bullshit. Capitalism does NOTHING of the sort. By definition, it rewards people with capital. You don't get paid what you're worth, you get paid the minimum you will accept, just like everyone else in the capitalist underclass.
While a lot has been said in this thread, we must recognize that in Capitalism vs Socialism, capitalism is the clear winner and it would be extraordinarily evil to advocate for a socialist economic system in any non-trivial sense.
The amount of absolute material wealth a minimum wage job can provide in a low cost of living part of the US in 2018 would have been unfathomable by kings a few centuries ago.
Oh bullshit. Capitalism does NOTHING of the sort. By definition, it rewards people with capital. You don't get paid what you're worth, you get paid the minimum you will accept, just like everyone else in the capitalist underclass.
It's the worker's job to know their market value. If they will accept less than their value, that's called poor strategizing. A company has to pay market value or they will lose workers to the competition. Capitalism rewards value, not skills. If a company decides to overpay a worker, the company will lose an edge to the competition. Successful businesses know how to optimize what they pay and how to get valuable workers. Except when it's government doing the hiring, in that case inefficiences abound.
There are a few thousand people like Jeff in the world. Collectively, they mold and shape human society, and drive all human progress. Naturally, they drive it in directions that maintain their own grip on the wheel. All of the rest of us might as well be slaves, in the sense that our lives will not really matter by comparison, no matter what we do. Nobody who works for an hourly wage is going to make that kind of difference.
Oh bullshit. Capitalism does NOTHING of the sort. By definition, it rewards people with capital. You don't get paid what you're worth, you get paid the minimum you will accept, just like everyone else in the capitalist underclass.
It's the worker's job to know their market value. If they will accept less than their value, that's called poor strategizing. A company has to pay market value or they will lose workers to the competition. Capitalism rewards value, not skills. If a company decides to overpay a worker, the company will lose an edge to the competition. Successful businesses know how to optimize what they pay and how to get valuable workers. Except when it's government doing the hiring, in that case inefficiences abound.
That's idealism. It doesn't work that way in practice. Markets are not magically efficient.
That's idealism. It doesn't work that way in practice. Markets are not magically efficient.
BTW, why do you attribute "mattering by comparison" with the ability to alter politics or make lots of money.
Who else is on the list of fabulously wealthy people who steer the ship? Arguably the wealthiest and most powerful man in the entire world today, eclipsing even Jeff Bezos by a large margin, is Vladimir Putin (https://www.voanews.com/a/terrible-crimes-made-putin-world-richest-person-financier-tells-senators/3961955.html). Like all fabulously wealthy people, he uses his wealth and his power to preserve his wealth and his power.Arguably, Putin has little choice in his current behavior. If he lets his guard down for a second, he is a dead man, and not the quick and painless type. Maybe he still enjoys it, though.
Oh bullshit. Capitalism does NOTHING of the sort. By definition, it rewards people with capital. You don't get paid what you're worth, you get paid the minimum you will accept, just like everyone else in the capitalist underclass.
Capitalism rewards value, not skills.
All of the rest of us might as well be slaves, in the sense that our lives will not really matter by comparison, no matter what we do
Oh bullshit. Capitalism does NOTHING of the sort. By definition, it rewards people with capital. You don't get paid what you're worth, you get paid the minimum you will accept, just like everyone else in the capitalist underclass.
Capitalism rewards value, not skills.
As sol said, capitalism rewards capital. That's why its called capitalism and not laborism.
EDITed to add - isn't that why we are all maxing our Vanguard funds? Because we figured out that life is better when you have a bunch of capital working for you?
As sol said, capitalism rewards capital.
Well yes, as capital is value. But value in general is rewarded, which is very broad - it doesn't have to be money/assets. This is where having valuable skills comes in.
As sol said, capitalism rewards capital.
Well yes, as capital is value. But value in general is rewarded, which is very broad - it doesn't have to be money/assets. This is where having valuable skills comes in.
The value of a skillset is somewhat of a random factor though, isn't it?
The value of a skillset is somewhat of a random factor though, isn't it?
I wouldn't characterize it as random. It does evolve depending on how the needs of the market change.
I'd further argue that in pure socialism everyone is a slave . . . your owner is the state. All work that you do will be for the state, food and lodgings will come from the state, and the state will have ultimate decision making power over everything you do.
Except that if you are in a democratic socialist state, the people are the state, and all authority flows from the people. So maybe the state owns everyone, but the people are sovereign, and the will of the people is preserved.
Seems like random luck much more than an evolution of market needs to me.
This seems like a good place to put this link:
http://slaveryfootprint.org/
How many slaves work for you? (Hint: A LOT more than you think.)
Apparently if I'm like the average American then there are 11 billion slaves supporting the United States alone... Somehow I am skeptical of the results of that survey.
Seems like random luck much more than an evolution of market needs to me.
I guess we have different definitions of random. There are usually reasons and logic for the changes in the market place.
While there may be reasons and logic for the changes in the market place, to a labor market participant, it may seem just as random as the stock market, for the same reasons.
A labor market participant is making a market-sector bet at best, and a single company bet at worst.
This seems like a good place to put this link:
http://slaveryfootprint.org/
How many slaves work for you? (Hint: A LOT more than you think.)
Apparently if I'm like the average American then there are 11 billion slaves supporting the United States alone... Somehow I am skeptical of the results of that survey.
The quote I saw for that site on estimated worldwide slave populations was 11 million. Very different from 11 billion.
This seems like a good place to put this link:
http://slaveryfootprint.org/
How many slaves work for you? (Hint: A LOT more than you think.)
Apparently if I'm like the average American then there are 11 billion slaves supporting the United States alone... Somehow I am skeptical of the results of that survey.
The quote I saw for that site on estimated worldwide slave populations was 11 million. Very different from 11 billion.
This seems like a good place to put this link:
http://slaveryfootprint.org/
How many slaves work for you? (Hint: A LOT more than you think.)
Apparently if I'm like the average American then there are 11 billion slaves supporting the United States alone... Somehow I am skeptical of the results of that survey.
The quote I saw for that site on estimated worldwide slave populations was 11 million. Very different from 11 billion.
My point exactly. The number their site spits out for "my" slaves doesn't pass a mathematical sniff test and is grossly exaggerated. Maybe there really are ~30 slaves involved in creating products I use, but then they are also working for a thousand other people too. If I was never born there wouldn't be 30 less slaves. More likely what it means is that I am [allegedly] directly responsible for 0.03 slaves. But that wouldn't be a very sensationalist number.
This seems like a good place to put this link:
http://slaveryfootprint.org/
How many slaves work for you? (Hint: A LOT more than you think.)
Apparently if I'm like the average American then there are 11 billion slaves supporting the United States alone... Somehow I am skeptical of the results of that survey.
The quote I saw for that site on estimated worldwide slave populations was 11 million. Very different from 11 billion.
My point exactly. The number their site spits out for "my" slaves doesn't pass a mathematical sniff test and is grossly exaggerated. Maybe there really are ~30 slaves involved in creating products I use, but then they are also working for a thousand other people too. If I was never born there wouldn't be 30 less slaves. More likely what it means is that I am [allegedly] directly responsible for 0.03 slaves. But that wouldn't be a very sensationalist number.
Ahhhhh that makes more sense.
I don't find it particularly misleading, but my take on it was "it took 23 slaves to produce the things I own" -- not that I am directly responsible for 23 slaves being held in slavery in perpetuity. I completely believe that 23 slaves were involved in the labor that it takes to mine materials for and then physically produce objects that I own -- like a smartphone, a laptop, and a car. I certainly do not believe that 23 slaves are slaves solely because I own a smartphone, a laptop, and a car.
I think my interpretation is reasonable, but looking at the info actually on the page at the end of that test, I think your interpretation is reasonable too (especially if someone had never seen the total estimated number of slaves worldwide on the front page, like if they'd just been linked straight to the test). It should be made way, way clearer on that page what they mean by "working for you," whether or not the clarified meaning has the same effect on someone's mind/heart.
It should be made way, way clearer on that page what they mean by "working for you," whether or not the clarified meaning has the same effect on someone's mind/heart.
I don't really have a good proposed solution to this problem.
I don't really have a good proposed solution to this problem.
The solution is automation. AI robot slaves. The tricky part is avoiding a dystopian future where only 0.01% of the population gets to enjoy the fruits of the labor of those robot slaves, and avoiding the even more terrifying prospect of what that 0.01% might choose to do to the rest of us when they realize they no longer need us for anything.
BTW, why do you attribute "mattering by comparison" with the ability to alter politics or make lots of money.
I thin Elon Musk has "mattered" because he has chosen to use his wealth and power to change the way society works, in several different ways (all of which benefit him, of course). No politics required. He's not using his money to lobby Congress the way the Koch brother's do, he's just changing things.
Zuckerberg and Gates are also good examples. They changed the world, and got rich, and used their riches and their power to change the world some more.
Who else is on the list of fabulously wealthy people who steer the ship? Arguably the wealthiest and most powerful man in the entire world today, eclipsing even Jeff Bezos by a large margin, is Vladimir Putin (https://www.voanews.com/a/terrible-crimes-made-putin-world-richest-person-financier-tells-senators/3961955.html). Like all fabulously wealthy people, he uses his wealth and his power to preserve his wealth and his power.
It should be made way, way clearer on that page what they mean by "working for you," whether or not the clarified meaning has the same effect on someone's mind/heart.
The world has always been pyramid shaped. We enjoy an upper middle class American lifestyle that is absolutely dependent on the poverty of billions. There just aren't enough resources on earth for everyone to live an American lifestyle. We need poor people to sew our walmart clothes and mine our REE and pick our fruit.
But we are equally part of the pyramid, and above us is a much smaller population of people living lives of fabulous wealth, who are just as dependent on us (scientists, lawyers, dentists, etc) as we are dependent on the people below us. They can't be bothered to file their own taxes just like we can't be bothered to pick our own fruit. Our society generates abundance by specializing labor forces into tranches of shittiness. Our global economy thrives on inequality. The rising tide may float "all" boats, but it floats some of them much higher than others on purpose.
I don't really have a good proposed solution to this problem. Some people in this thread are lamenting that the base of the pyramid suffers in poverty, and other people are lamenting that they themselves suffer compared to the folks at the top, but in truth we all suffer to varying degrees, even the people at the top. We all have a role to play, and your freedom to change rolls is more limited than we like to believe.
I think of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, commanding vast armies of laborers and slaves to build massive monuments. They may have wanted fancy tombs, but what they really wanted was a stable and productive economic system that supported their lavish lifestyle, and pyramid building was just the easiest way to keep everyone busy making beer and pickles and bread to feed the laborers who worked for the quarry engineers who worked for the masons who worked for the architects who worked for the priests who worked for the pharaoh's monarchy. Everyone had a role to play, and limited freedom to change it. But everyone worked, and their civilization prospered because it was self-stabilizing as long as everyone colored between the lines. Monuments got built and everyone had enough to eat, because of the inequality they imposed. Without a pharaoh, they would have been just another desert tribe lost to history.
Is our modern economy really so different? I'm all for eradicating slavery, but just like with American abolition it won't do away with poverty or violence or abuse, and it certainly won't change the shape of the world. You have to look at it as a human rights issue for the individuals involved, not a game changing reconstruction of global markets. Just like we did in America, we'll certainly find some other way to keep everyone busy making beer and pickles and bread, while the guys at the top build their fancy monuments.
And that's why I think the OP in this thread has a point. You can quibble over whether or not it's PC to call it "slavery", but it's not really that different. The means of control have changed, but the shape of the world has not.
Again - our topic is overweight/obesity. That IS determined by calories. You can get just as fat eating all the “healthy” foods you mentioned, if you eat enough of it. Someone can also lose weight by “just” eating McDonald’s, if they eat the right amount of it.
I suggest doing a little scientific experiment and giving this a try.
For the first two weeks, eat nothing but chicken and vegetables, but you're allowed to eat as much of them as you like.
For the next two weeks, go to McDonalds every day and have one Big Mac, large fries, large sugary drink, and you're not allowed to eat anything else for the rest of the day.
I'd guess that in the first two weeks, you won't actually want to eat too much, you'll end up losing some weight, and you'd really have to force-feed yourself if you wanted to put on weight. And in the second two weeks you'll be stupidly hungry and still end up not losing weight.
I do take your point about basic cooking not being too hard or expensive, though. Chicken and vegetables is a very cheap, easy, tasty, and healthy meal (which I tend to cook for myself pretty much every other day).
So then the only question left is, how much longer do we wait? How many more multiples of lifetimes do you and your progeny sign up to endure, before we say 'enough'?
So then the only question left is, how much longer do we wait? How many more multiples of lifetimes do you and your progeny sign up to endure, before we say 'enough'?
Disregarding the other nonsense, I'm curious; do what exactly? Take the CEO's money? (and do what with it?). Cap CEO pay? As someone else said; pay him $0 and give the rest a $10 raise? Dissolve Walmart? What is your plan here?
So then the only question left is, how much longer do we wait? How many more multiples of lifetimes do you and your progeny sign up to endure, before we say 'enough'?
Disregarding the other nonsense, I'm curious; do what exactly? Take the CEO's money? (and do what with it?). Cap CEO pay? As someone else said; pay him $0 and give the rest a $10 raise? Dissolve Walmart? What is your plan here?
I don't have an answer for you, but the alternative of allowing Walmart to distribute dividends to shareholders (like me) with a preferred tax rate while their employees collect state benefits is both fiscally irresponsible and immoral.*
I mean, historically someone would eventually just murder the King/Tzar/Baron/(CEO?) and their family. If the new aristocracy doesn't want that to happen, maybe they should find a solution?
* - It is also not capitalism, because Walmart is getting away with externalizing some of their costs.
So then the only question left is, how much longer do we wait? How many more multiples of lifetimes do you and your progeny sign up to endure, before we say 'enough'?
Disregarding the other nonsense, I'm curious; do what exactly? Take the CEO's money? (and do what with it?). Cap CEO pay? As someone else said; pay him $0 and give the rest a $10 raise? Dissolve Walmart? What is your plan here?
I don't have an answer for you, but the alternative of allowing Walmart to distribute dividends to shareholders (like me) with a preferred tax rate while their employees collect state benefits is both fiscally irresponsible and immoral.*
I mean, historically someone would eventually just murder the King/Tzar/Baron/(CEO?) and their family. If the new aristocracy doesn't want that to happen, maybe they should find a solution?
* - It is also not capitalism, because Walmart is getting away with externalizing some of their costs.
I find it neither fiscally irresponsible nor immoral. As such, I'm perfectly content leaving the system as it is. It hurts no one for the CEO to be paid X multiple of the janitor's salary, so I can't find a moral argument against it. The investors allow the company to be financially successful and thus are rewarded with dividends and capital gains for their investments, which doesn't seem financially irresponsible at all to me. Losing shareholders because you decided to "give away" the profits to workers by paying above market wages for their labor would seem financially irresponsible to me however.
Again - our topic is overweight/obesity. That IS determined by calories. You can get just as fat eating all the “healthy” foods you mentioned, if you eat enough of it. Someone can also lose weight by “just” eating McDonald’s, if they eat the right amount of it.
I suggest doing a little scientific experiment and giving this a try.
For the first two weeks, eat nothing but chicken and vegetables, but you're allowed to eat as much of them as you like.
For the next two weeks, go to McDonalds every day and have one Big Mac, large fries, large sugary drink, and you're not allowed to eat anything else for the rest of the day.
I'd guess that in the first two weeks, you won't actually want to eat too much, you'll end up losing some weight, and you'd really have to force-feed yourself if you wanted to put on weight. And in the second two weeks you'll be stupidly hungry and still end up not losing weight.
I do take your point about basic cooking not being too hard or expensive, though. Chicken and vegetables is a very cheap, easy, tasty, and healthy meal (which I tend to cook for myself pretty much every other day).
I find it neither fiscally irresponsible nor immoral. As such, I'm perfectly content leaving the system as it is. It hurts no one for the CEO to be paid X multiple of the janitor's salary, so I can't find a moral argument against it. The investors allow the company to be financially successful and thus are rewarded with dividends and capital gains for their investments, which doesn't seem financially irresponsible at all to me. Losing shareholders because you decided to "give away" the profits to workers by paying above market wages for their labor would seem financially irresponsible to me however.
It is a direct transfer of taxpayer wealth to the shareholders. If you are okay with that, I don't really understand.
There is a number of big macs/fries and cokes you can eat where you lose weight. Maybe that's one every 7 days with ravishing hunger for 165 hours of 168. That could financially and weightloss wise correspond to 3 square of chicken and rice with less hunger.
I find it neither fiscally irresponsible nor immoral. As such, I'm perfectly content leaving the system as it is. It hurts no one for the CEO to be paid X multiple of the janitor's salary, so I can't find a moral argument against it. The investors allow the company to be financially successful and thus are rewarded with dividends and capital gains for their investments, which doesn't seem financially irresponsible at all to me. Losing shareholders because you decided to "give away" the profits to workers by paying above market wages for their labor would seem financially irresponsible to me however.
It is a direct transfer of taxpayer wealth to the shareholders. If you are okay with that, I don't really understand.
Is it fair to say that you are upset with current federal tax policy as opposed to Walmart's pay policy?
I find it neither fiscally irresponsible nor immoral. As such, I'm perfectly content leaving the system as it is. It hurts no one for the CEO to be paid X multiple of the janitor's salary, so I can't find a moral argument against it. The investors allow the company to be financially successful and thus are rewarded with dividends and capital gains for their investments, which doesn't seem financially irresponsible at all to me. Losing shareholders because you decided to "give away" the profits to workers by paying above market wages for their labor would seem financially irresponsible to me however.
It is a direct transfer of taxpayer wealth to the shareholders. If you are okay with that, I don't really understand.
Is it fair to say that you are upset with current federal tax policy as opposed to Walmart's pay policy?
I think the crux of my argument is that Walmart is allowed to turn a profit while their employees collect state assistance. We could quibble about CEO pay vs greeter pay, but I'm far more concerned about the transfer of wealth from taxpayers to shareholders (which would include the CEO too).
EDITed to add - but the CEO pay is tied up in there too, because no one at the executive level is collecting food stamps.
I find it neither fiscally irresponsible nor immoral. As such, I'm perfectly content leaving the system as it is. It hurts no one for the CEO to be paid X multiple of the janitor's salary, so I can't find a moral argument against it. The investors allow the company to be financially successful and thus are rewarded with dividends and capital gains for their investments, which doesn't seem financially irresponsible at all to me. Losing shareholders because you decided to "give away" the profits to workers by paying above market wages for their labor would seem financially irresponsible to me however.
It is a direct transfer of taxpayer wealth to the shareholders. If you are okay with that, I don't really understand.
Is it fair to say that you are upset with current federal tax policy as opposed to Walmart's pay policy?
I think the crux of my argument is that Walmart is allowed to turn a profit while their employees collect state assistance. We could quibble about CEO pay vs greeter pay, but I'm far more concerned about the transfer of wealth from taxpayers to shareholders (which would include the CEO too).
EDITed to add - but the CEO pay is tied up in there too, because no one at the executive level is collecting food stamps.
A big mac is 540 calories. Large fries at McDonald's is another 510 calories. A large Coke at McDonald's will toss in another 210 calories. If you eat only those 1,260 calories per day and are an average height, average weight, even sedentary, male in the US and are otherwise healthy, you'll lose weight on that "diet" because of the negative net calories each day.Yeah, that was intended to be an amount of calories less than the average person needs (maybe I went a little too far, and they could eat slightly more, but still less than "needed"). Rather than actually losing weight, I'd guess that the person would just get hungrier and hungrier over the days and be forced to give up the experiment after about day four.
A big mac is 540 calories. Large fries at McDonald's is another 510 calories. A large Coke at McDonald's will toss in another 210 calories. If you eat only those 1,260 calories per day and are an average height, average weight, even sedentary, male in the US and are otherwise healthy, you'll lose weight on that "diet" because of the negative net calories each day.Yeah, that was intended to be an amount of calories less than the average person needs (maybe I went a little too far, and they could eat slightly more, but still less than "needed"). Rather than actually losing weight, I'd guess that the person would just get hungrier and hungrier over the days and be forced to give up the experiment after about day four.
It would be interesting to see how this would work in practice, rather than just as a thought experiment. Not going to try it myself though, it sounds awful.
A big mac is 540 calories. Large fries at McDonald's is another 510 calories. A large Coke at McDonald's will toss in another 210 calories. If you eat only those 1,260 calories per day and are an average height, average weight, even sedentary, male in the US and are otherwise healthy, you'll lose weight on that "diet" because of the negative net calories each day.
I realize this is hyperbole, but to be clear--
The average man in the US is 5'10''. 5'10'' and 175 is just barely overweight. 210 is obese. A 30 year old 5'10'', 210 lb man who is in a literal coma needs over 2000 calories per day to maintain weight. If sedentary, nearly 2500, and if lightly active, over 2800. If they eat less than that, they'll lose weight. A 500 calorie deficit per day is a pound a week of weight loss.
A big mac and medium fry is 870. Absolutely no one needs to drink soda. Nobody. So a sedentary obese man who wants to lose weight can still eat two big macs and two medium fries per day and lose about a pound and a half a week. The calorie needs of a lightly active, normal weight man of that age and height are similar. If the obese man moved a bit more and bumped himself into the lightly active category, he would actually be losing weight too fast for some doctors to recommend.
Order off the dollar menu instead--a cheeseburger is 300 cals and a McChicken is 400. A small fry is a bit over a $1, but 230 calories. For 2000 calories a day, you can have two cheeseburgers, two McChickens, and three small orders of fries. Still losing weight.
The problem is over consumption. Whether it comes down to not understanding nutrition or not caring is up for debate.
You want a law stating that if a company is profitable, none of it's employees will be eligible for social programs?
You want a law stating that if a company is profitable, none of it's employees will be eligible for social programs?
Why would I possibly choose that as the solution?
Like I said, I'm not offering solutions, but I promise you that there will eventually be recompense for the elites. The sooner we get around to it, the less severe it will be. I would rather not have a Bolshevik Revolution, but when people get fed up that's the sort of thing that happens.
You want a law stating that if a company is profitable, none of it's employees will be eligible for social programs?
Why would I possibly choose that as the solution?
Like I said, I'm not offering solutions, but I promise you that there will eventually be recompense for the elites. The sooner we get around to it, the less severe it will be. I would rather not have Bolshevik Revolution, but when people get fed up that's the sort of thing that happens.
Yeah, that was intended to be an amount of calories less than the average person needs (maybe I went a little too far, and they could eat slightly more, but still less than "needed"). Rather than actually losing weight, I'd guess that the person would just get hungrier and hungrier over the days and be forced to give up the experiment after about day four.
It would be interesting to see how this would work in practice, rather than just as a thought experiment. Not going to try it myself though, it sounds awful.
Interesting promise. Does your Crystal ball show us anything useful?
Studies have been done where people eat the exact same number of calories of different composition carbs/fat/protein, and have wildly different weight changes and hunger responses.
I don't see a problem with Walmart making a profit while complying with all applicable laws. I'm just trying to gain a better understanding of your position.
Minimum federal wage: $7.25
Wal-Mart: $11 starting wage
That's 50% more.
This aspect of Capitalism has always bothered me: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/business/highest-paid-ceos-2017.htmlQuoteA Walmart employee earning the company’s median salary of $19,177 would have to work for more than a thousand years to earn the $22.2 million that Doug McMillon, the company’s chief executive, was awarded in 2017.
Sadly, that's not the most egregious example of how American CEO's earn vs. the rank and file employees. If it's not outright slavery, then it is the moral equivalent.
So then the only question left is, how much longer do we wait? How many more multiples of lifetimes do you and your progeny sign up to endure, before we say 'enough'? We are not only not playing a game that an average person can no longer 'win', we are playing a game that no longer benefits from everyone's participation. Now we are being told that our superiors are winning for us and we are no longer encouraged to participate.
Again - our topic is overweight/obesity. That IS determined by calories. You can get just as fat eating all the “healthy” foods you mentioned, if you eat enough of it. Someone can also lose weight by “just” eating McDonald’s, if they eat the right amount of it.
I suggest doing a little scientific experiment and giving this a try.
For the first two weeks, eat nothing but chicken and vegetables, but you're allowed to eat as much of them as you like.
For the next two weeks, go to McDonalds every day and have one Big Mac, large fries, large sugary drink, and you're not allowed to eat anything else for the rest of the day.
I'd guess that in the first two weeks, you won't actually want to eat too much, you'll end up losing some weight, and you'd really have to force-feed yourself if you wanted to put on weight. And in the second two weeks you'll be stupidly hungry and still end up not losing weight.
I do take your point about basic cooking not being too hard or expensive, though. Chicken and vegetables is a very cheap, easy, tasty, and healthy meal (which I tend to cook for myself pretty much every other day).
A big mac is 540 calories. Large fries at McDonald's is another 510 calories. A large Coke at McDonald's will toss in another 210 calories. If you eat only those 1,260 calories per day and are an average height, average weight, even sedentary, male in the US and are otherwise healthy, you'll lose weight on that "diet" because of the negative net calories each day.
Minimum federal wage: $7.25
Wal-Mart: $11 starting wage
That's 50% more.
It’s worth emphasizing that the $10 wage only affects workers who have completed a 6 month onboarding and training period: with the high turnover rate that prevails in the retail industry, many workers will leave the company before they ever get to $10 an hour. As a result, a number of Walmart workers will remain below the $10 an hour threshold. Walmart’s forthcoming $10 an hour wage is equivalent to $17,680 annually for an employee working Walmart’s full-time standard of 34 hours a week.Despite raise Walmart wages schedules still aren’t livable (http://www.demos.org/publication/despite-raise-walmart-wages-schedules-still-aren%E2%80%99t-livable)
Yet even in low-cost states such as Nebraska, Oklahoma, Ohio, South Dakota and Walmart’s home state of Arkansas, this wage provides only about 90 percent of what a single employee needs for a basic standard of living. In the median state nationwide, Walmart’s wage of $10 an hour for 34 hours a week provides just 81 percent of the income needed to support a single adult.
Even for workers able to pick up extra hours and average 40 hours a week for the year, a $10 an hour wage would only meet the needs of a single adult in 17 states. Yet many Walmart workers are not single adults and are not employed full-time. In a recent earnings call, Walmart disclosed that approximately half of its U.S. workforce is employed part time. On a sample part-time schedule of 20 hours a week, Walmart’s forthcoming $10 an hour wage is equivalent to only $10,400 a year – less than half of the income needed to afford a basic standard of living for a single adult in 33 states.
No matter how hard you work, they rather hire more part time employees then give you full time.Glassdoor (https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Walmart-part-time-Reviews-EI_IE715.0,7_KH8,17.htm)
...
Stop hiring people part time!!!! Most of your departments are very understaffed because of this causing a very stressful environment. Making it extremely hard to complete tasks. Stop forcing people to clock out earlier for fear of overtime
The United States is a land of stark contrasts. It is one of the world’s wealthiest societies, a global leader in many areas, and a land of unsurpassed technological and other forms of innovation. Its corporations are global trendsetters, its civil society is vibrant and sophisticated and its higher education system leads the world. But its immense wealth and expertise stand in shocking contrast with the conditions in which vast numbers of its citizens live. About 40 million live in poverty, 18.5 million in extreme poverty, and 5.3 million live in Third World conditions of absolute poverty. It has the highest youth poverty rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the highest infant mortality rates among comparable OECD States. Its citizens live shorter and sicker lives compared to those living in all other rich democracies, eradicable tropical diseases are increasingly prevalent, and it has the world’s highest incarceration rate, one of the lowest levels of voter registrations in among OECD countries and the highest obesity levels in the developed world.
The United States has the highest rate of income inequality among Western countries. The $1.5 trillion in tax cuts in December 2017 overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and worsened inequality. The consequences of neglecting poverty and promoting inequality are clear. The United States has one of the highest poverty and inequality levels among the OECD countries, and the Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranks it 18th out of 21 wealthy countries in terms of labour markets, poverty rates, safety nets, wealth inequality and economic mobility. But in 2018 the United States had over 25 per cent of the world’s 2,208 billionaires. There is thus a dramatic contrast between the immense wealth of the few and the squalor and deprivation in which vast numbers of Americans exist. For almost five decades the overall policy response has been neglectful at best, but the policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege to be earned rather than a right of citizenship.
Studies have been done where people eat the exact same number of calories of different composition carbs/fat/protein, and have wildly different weight changes and hunger responses.
Sounds interesting. Curious to read about this, can you cite the studies that were done?
Margaret Ohlson and Charlotte Young tested a low-calorie version
subjects lost weight and never reported hunger as they did on balanced low-calorie diets
compared low-fat vs low-carb
1200 cal low-fat didn’t bring about the expected weight loss (from calorie deficit): only 0.5 lb/week
subjects were always hungry and lacked ‘pep’
1400 cal Pennington-style diet: almost 3 lb/week — 6 times more effective and higher in calories
no hunger, felt well
Ohlson then tested different dietary compositions for this diet
subjects found low-fat versions bland, uninteresting and hard to eat
hunger levels were proportional to carbohydrate intake
high-protein diet increased muscle mass while burning fat
balanced calorie-restriction causes muscle and fat loss
Young had the same results: remarkable weight loss without hunger
subjects were remarkably healthy on the diet
in every case, the weight lost exceeded what would be expected from caloric deficit
his evidence overturns some fundamental assumptions
“a calorie is a calorie”; weight gain is the result of overeating
Bistrian and Blackburn: 650-800 cal meat-only diet; 50% of subjects lost 40 lbs each (no hunger)
had they added 400 cal of carbs to balance the diet, only 1% would be likely to lose 40 lbs
would cause hunger and semi-starvation
but if they added 400 cal of protein and fat, they would still get considerable weight loss
still no hunger
somehow, adding extra carbs to the meat-only diet made it less filling
how can people eat 10,000 cal (Sims) and still be hungry, but not feel hungry on very-low-calorie, zero-carb diets?
Conservation of Energy
conventional wisdom is founded on two misinterpretations of thermodynamic law (caloric balance equation)
first misconception: association implies cause and effect
law of energy conservation: Change in energy stores = Energy intake – Energy expenditure
the equation doesn’t indicate which is cause and which is effect
it’s possible that a change in energy stores could cause changes in intake and/or expenditure
evidence supports this interpretation (metabolic/hormonal changes that drive us to change adiposity by adjusting intake/expenditure)
in children, a positive caloric balance is associated with physical growth
evidently, they eat a lot because they’re growing (not growing because they eat a lot)
hormonal drive to grow causes increased appetite
positive caloric balance is a result, not a cause, of growth
pregnant women fatten due to hormonal changes
hormones induce hunger and lethargy to create the positive caloric balance necessary for fat accumulation
fattening is the cause, gluttony and sloth are the effects
to understand what causes obesity, we need to understand what causes the hormonal changes that induce fattening
studies on obese people’s behavior only find associations, not causes
don’t explain why they eat more, are less active, have slower metabolism
actually, the obese don’t eat more than the lean (both are in caloric balance)
prospective studies show that pre-obese people expend less energy
doesn’t imply causation; only an association
obesity is associated with metabolic syndrome (diseases of civilization)
conventional interpretation: obesity causes/contributes to the diseases
alternative logic: the underlying disorder causes both obesity and the other diseases
Yeah, that was intended to be an amount of calories less than the average person needs (maybe I went a little too far, and they could eat slightly more, but still less than "needed"). Rather than actually losing weight, I'd guess that the person would just get hungrier and hungrier over the days and be forced to give up the experiment after about day four.
It would be interesting to see how this would work in practice, rather than just as a thought experiment. Not going to try it myself though, it sounds awful.
I highly recommend the book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes, somewhat technical but gets very deep into a lot of dietary science, conflicting political motivations and some of the shaky science current ideas are based around along with heaps of interesting studies, including various starvation studies which would be considered immoral today.
Some of the studies are the above composition experiment, hunger experiments where people are on a sub BMR fat/protein diet and aren't that hungry, but then given additional calories in the form of carbs and comparing the hunger response. 1000 cals/day of protein = not hungry. 1500 cals of protein = not hungry. 1000 cals of protein + 1000 cals of carbs = famished.
The big take away was that fat retention and food input was governed more by hormones than strictly quantity of calories. Sort of like when a bear goes to hibernate or a woman gets pregnant. The body *wants* to put on fat. Even if it just maintains it's eating level from before the fall season/pregnancy, then it will *still* put on some fat because that's the priority the hormones have dictate. The body will be hungry, and since some energy that was being used as energy is now being pushed to fat reserves, the metabolism will slow, they'll be more tired, body temp decreases etc.
If all calories are equal, there's no difference between the body of someone eating 2000 calories a day of lean protein, vegetables and whole grains, and someone eating 2000 calories a day of deep fried carbs and a few vitamin pills..... right? Right?
The whole equal calories argument is silly. It's never held true and it's never been real science.
The idea that one loses weight by expending more than you consume is silly also.
Minimum federal wage: $7.25
Wal-Mart: $11 starting wage
That's 50% more.
+ paying workers to go to college. Actually sounds like a good deal to me.
Anyway, this is a long winded way of saying that yes, if you eat substantially fewer calories than your body requires, you will lose weight.
A Walmart employee earning the company’s median salary of $19,177 would have to work for more than a thousand years to earn the $22.2 million that Doug McMillon, the company’s chief executive
Anyway, this is a long winded way of saying that yes, if you eat substantially fewer calories than your body requires, you will lose weight.
I've been trying to stay out of this because I have another iron in the fire. Yes, but what a couple people on this thread seem to be overlooking is that your body gets to control your resting metabolic rate. I know from personal experience that if my body thinks that I am starving to death I am going to feel lethargic and cold in a 72 degree room.
Will I lose weight if I cut enough calories? Yes. But if they are the wrong calories I will feel like shit and lose muscle mass, which will further reduce my resting metabolic rate and my ability to exercise.
Yes, this is why I want to do away with social security, medicare, medicaid, workers compensation insurance, overtime laws, minimum wage, OHSA, child labor laws, food stamps, WIC, CHIP, insurance regulation, and everything to do with tenants rights. Hell, every road, library, school, and park should be privatized. Let the market sort it out you %*^&)@# communists!
When things are privatized, the price is often higher than when it is socialized. Towns, for example, that supply their own electricity seem to often have better rates. the same applies to cable TV. Farmers sometimes form cooperatives which are socialized ventures to share equipment and marketing. This allows lower costs than hiring a private company. Low electricity rates have been provided by the TVA and BPA. The huge dams that provide inexpensive power for the many would be higher priced if profit were applied.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/06/01/how-can-they-walk-away-with-millions-and-leave-workers-with-zero-toys-r-us-workers-say-they-deserve-severance/?utm_term=.842011129364
I'd say ToysRUs is the example OP was actually looking for. The CEO of Walmart has probably been justifying his salary, but its a lot harder to see how the "we win and our employees and creditors lose" lose mentality of these clowns is worth millions.
PDXTabs:QuoteYes, this is why I want to do away with social security, medicare, medicaid, workers compensation insurance, overtime laws, minimum wage, OHSA, child labor laws, food stamps, WIC, CHIP, insurance regulation, and everything to do with tenants rights. Hell, every road, library, school, and park should be privatized. Let the market sort it out you %*^&)@# communists!
Sorry - I didn't read all of the entries.
Odd - It's been my experience that many of the good things in life have been the result of socialized activities. The schools, libraries, roads, parks and other items set up for the common good have been some of the best things in my life.
When things are privatized, the price is often higher than when it is socialized. Towns, for example, that supply their own electricity seem to often have better rates. the same applies to cable TV. Farmers sometimes form cooperatives which are socialized ventures to share equipment and marketing. This allows lower costs than hiring a private company. Low electricity rates have been provided by the TVA and BPA. The huge dams that provide inexpensive power for the many would be higher priced if profit were applied.
I could go on. However, the reader can no doubt think of more examples.
The market has allowed good jobs to go overseas and has not provided for the workers that lost their jobs. This has happened in my lifetime. Not only are the industrial resources of former production facilities idled creating a waste of resources but the infrastructures of entire towns are sometimes wasted as people need to relocate. This infrastructure may have had years of useful life.
I will finish up this blurb by informing you that you have been the victim of propaganda. This propaganda has taught you that the free market is the be all and end all. Think about it. Who owns the sources of information you have been exposed to?
Like everything else, it must be a balance. I wouldn't want the government to build cell phones, computers or most other things that benefit from rapid innovation. However, libraries, roads, bridges, sewers, etc. provide for society better if done by a common entity that is not motivated by the profit motive. I think history has shown this to be the case.
Anyone else find it ironic that so many people in this thread are defending the current labor structure? Seeing as this is a forum dedicated to getting out of it as early as possible?
It seems foolish to think that capitalism in it’s current form is the best economic system that humanity will ever come up with. But I suppose people were having the same arguments defending monarchy back then, never imagining what could come after it.
It also astonishes me how many people in this thread who make good money talk about people who do unskilled labor as being lazy. Has anyone ever thought that “someone” has to clean the toilets, run the machines, do the cleaning etc... and that there are many, many people who don’t have the capability to do the higher skilled labor that they happened to win the genetic lottery to be able to do?
Seeing as this is a forum dedicated to getting out of it as early as possible?This forum is NOT dedicated to getting out of retirement as soon as possible. It is dedicated to living a minimalistic life, stoicism, finding pleasure in simple things, and being more intentional with your time. Earlier retirement is an effect of these, not a cause.
an economy that values mental over physical labor.
Some people could work 150 hours a week, and never get ahead in an economy that values mental over physical labor.What do you mean by this? Are you saying that someone who scrubs toilets and cleans carpets should be paid the same amount as someone who designs jet engines. I don't mean to make a straw man, but could you clarify with examples?
What surprises me about your response is that it would seem to imply we're not rapidly approaching a point at which no one is going to have to clean the toilets or mop the floors.Also, this.
I’m assuming this discussion around Walmart is more of an analogy for this type of work. I would guess about 10% of the Jobs in our society are in basic retail and fast food/quick serve restaurants where low wages and inconsistent hours are the norm. I started working in retail in 1998 and my first gig was a union job as a cart pusher where the union managed to secure the amazing starting wage of minimum wage for me. So after my weekly union dues on my 10-15 hours a week I made a decent chunk less than minimum wage.
Word. Second pregnancy especially the first 3 months...BOOM
They are growing, and accordingly putting on a lot of weight (more in height than specifically fat though). Or do they only grow because they all just decided to eat too much? If they simply "put down the fork" and ate the same amount, would they remain at 10 yo height forever? No. They would still grow, albeit probably not as much (as you see when you look at poor countries), they'd probably be very hungry, and their body metabolism and energy outlays would decrease to compensate for calories being redirected to manufacturing height. But for whatever reason, the body decided to make getting taller a priority and is using all its tricks (increase hunger, decrease metabolism if not enough) to make it so.
Anyone else find it ironic that so many people in this thread are defending the current labor structure? Seeing as this is a forum dedicated to getting out of it as early as possible?
It seems foolish to think that capitalism in it’s current form is the best economic system that humanity will ever come up with. But I suppose people were having the same arguments defending monarchy back then, never imagining what could come after it.
It also astonishes me how many people in this thread who make good money talk about people who do unskilled labor as being lazy. Has anyone ever thought that “someone” has to clean the toilets, run the machines, do the cleaning etc... and that there are many, many people who don’t have the capability to do the higher skilled labor that they happened to win the genetic lottery to be able to do? I work in a manufacturing plant with many wonderful people, who just could never be engineers, or managers. A good work ethic helps, but it can only take you so far. Some people could work 150 hours a week, and never get ahead in an economy that values mental over physical labor.
Capitalism has been an absolutely fantastic economic system that has brought the standard of living for billions to the highest point in human history. However, it has flaws, obviously, and I have hope that we can find an economic system that works even better.
I grew up with people who were janitors, cooks, cashiers, and you could make a living like that. It was good, honest work. It was nothing to be ashamed of. Nowadays, I read so many people lecture "just get a better job, work harder, go to school" like working hard at a manual labor job is something to be embarrassed by. It's absolutely not. Has the world changed, or has my circle changed? Or both?
QuoteIt seems foolish to think that capitalism in it’s current form is the best economic system that humanity will ever come up with. But I suppose people were having the same arguments defending monarchy back then, never imagining what could come after it.
That's an interesting way of framing it. However, my guess is a lot of folks would argument that as economic systems go, in most but not all contexts capitalism comes out ahead of every other economic system humanity has come up with to date.
QuoteIt seems foolish to think that capitalism in it’s current form is the best economic system that humanity will ever come up with. But I suppose people were having the same arguments defending monarchy back then, never imagining what could come after it.
That's an interesting way of framing it. However, my guess is a lot of folks would argument that as economic systems go, in most but not all contexts capitalism comes out ahead of every other economic system humanity has come up with to date.
I strongly disagree with this.
Capitalism is an important component of a healthy economic system. Pure capitalism doesn't work though, it's always tempered with socialism. I don't think a real example of raw, unchecked capitalism has ever succeeded in history.
QuoteIt seems foolish to think that capitalism in it’s current form is the best economic system that humanity will ever come up with. But I suppose people were having the same arguments defending monarchy back then, never imagining what could come after it.
That's an interesting way of framing it. However, my guess is a lot of folks would argument that as economic systems go, in most but not all contexts capitalism comes out ahead of every other economic system humanity has come up with to date.
I strongly disagree with this.
Capitalism is an important component of a healthy economic system. Pure capitalism doesn't work though, it's always tempered with socialism. I don't think a real example of raw, unchecked capitalism has ever succeeded in history.
QuoteIt seems foolish to think that capitalism in it’s current form is the best economic system that humanity will ever come up with. But I suppose people were having the same arguments defending monarchy back then, never imagining what could come after it.
That's an interesting way of framing it. However, my guess is a lot of folks would argument that as economic systems go, in most but not all contexts capitalism comes out ahead of every other economic system humanity has come up with to date.
I strongly disagree with this.
Capitalism is an important component of a healthy economic system. Pure capitalism doesn't work though, it's always tempered with socialism. I don't think a real example of raw, unchecked capitalism has ever succeeded in history.
I think we are arguing about the meaning of words rather than concepts here.
The current combination of social, political, and economic systems, adopted by the vast majority of western liberal democracies, despite all of its warts, is not one I would exchange for any the other combinations of social/economic/political systems that societies have adopted or experimented with to date. It doesn't really matter to me what name you want to call it: capitalism, liberal democracy, moderate socialism with competitive private markers for the vast majority of goods and services, or Howard.
That doesn't mean that I'm ruling out the possibility that some even better combination of social, political, and economic system may not be discovered in the future, which seemed to be the interpretation golden1 was making.
Also, I want to point out you're ignoring the important qualifier "in most, but not all contexts" in my original statement. Just from my own comments in this same thread (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/modern-day-slavery/msg2025744/#msg2025744l)I've pointed out some of the specific contexts where capitalism is NOT the best approach (for example in cases where natural monopolies and highly inelastic demand mean you'd end up with a single company price gouging consumers).
Since there exists no purely capitalist economic system, pointing out where the capitalist part of a mixed system fails doesn't really seem to make much sense.
I grew up with people who were janitors, cooks, cashiers, and you could make a living like that. It was good, honest work. It was nothing to be ashamed of. Nowadays, I read so many people lecture "just get a better job, work harder, go to school" like working hard at a manual labor job is something to be embarrassed by. It's absolutely not. Has the world changed, or has my circle changed? Or both?
If being a cashier used to be a job you could make a good living doing, and now it's not, it makes sense to me that in the past you wouldn't hear people say that if you were a cashier you "just" needed to get a better job, and in the present you would hear people saying that.
I don't think it is (usually) a value judgement about whether working on a job site is better or worse than working at a desk (at least in my social circle, I cannot speak for other people's), but an observation of which jobs people can still make a comfortable living in and which ones they cannot.
I suspect politics is the motivator for those who still subscribe to this narrative, despite all evidence about declining economic mobility.
I've known people who actually quit jobs because working the jobs resulted in cuts to their taxpayer provided benefits. They say, "why should I work when I can do just as well on government benefits?"
Dreamfire:QuoteI've known people who actually quit jobs because working the jobs resulted in cuts to their taxpayer provided benefits. They say, "why should I work when I can do just as well on government benefits?"
I've known people like that too. My dad could have given my family food stamps when I was a kid. I asked him about it. He became quite angry with me. I guess I've come to respect people who have this sort of self respect to refuse welfare even when the freebies seem to be more pragmatic.
There are probably a lot less people with that sort of stubborn self respect than there used to be.
Dreamfire:QuoteI've known people who actually quit jobs because working the jobs resulted in cuts to their taxpayer provided benefits. They say, "why should I work when I can do just as well on government benefits?"
I've known people like that too. My dad could have given my family food stamps when I was a kid. I asked him about it. He became quite angry with me. I guess I've come to respect people who have this sort of self respect to refuse welfare even when the freebies seem to be more pragmatic.
There are probably a lot less people with that sort of stubborn self respect than there used to be.
So you're condemning the "these people are lazy" narrative and at the same time providing examples of people who are lazy?
I've heard that some people structure their retirement distributions such that they qualify for the maximum ACA subsidy. But hey, that's just pragmatism, right?
I grew up with people who were janitors, cooks, cashiers, and you could make a living like that. It was good, honest work. It was nothing to be ashamed of. Nowadays, I read so many people lecture "just get a better job, work harder, go to school" like working hard at a manual labor job is something to be embarrassed by. It's absolutely not. Has the world changed, or has my circle changed? Or both?
If being a cashier used to be a job you could make a good living doing, and now it's not, it makes sense to me that in the past you wouldn't hear people say that if you were a cashier you "just" needed to get a better job, and in the present you would hear people saying that.
I don't think it is (usually) a value judgement about whether working on a job site is better or worse than working at a desk (at least in my social circle, I cannot speak for other people's), but an observation of which jobs people can still make a comfortable living in and which ones they cannot.
Perhaps in the era when high-school-educated laborers could support their families with a lower middle class lifestyle, it made sense to assign the "lazy" narrative to those who did not do so. Maybe it also made sense to tell the 10 cashiers in a store with 1 manager that if they worked hard enough, each if them could be a manager too. The mathematical impossibility of that outcome was made up for by the just-world assumption that 90% of the cashiers would be too lazy to work as hard as the manager.
I suspect politics is the motivator for those who still subscribe to this narrative, despite all evidence about declining economic mobility. If the decline of blue-collar professions occurred because of a less-progressive tax code, anti-union policies, withdraw of state support for higher education, mass incarceration, subsidies for transportation that made imports cheaper, subsidies for homeownership that made housing more expensive, or subsidies for automation (looking at you double-depreciation rules), then a big chunk of the electorate would support an undo of these changes. But if pundits can teach us to attribute others' poverty to an outbreak of laziness, then perhaps the policies won't be blamed.
Let's look at some of these jobs that you "used to" be able to "make a good living" at.
In 1983, the average cashier made $8,376/year (https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1985/01/rpt1full.pdf). Adjusting that for inflation (http://www.calculator.net/inflation-calculator.html?cstartingamount1=8736&cinyear1=1983&coutyear1=2017&calctype=1&x=87&y=15), that's a bit under $22k/year as of 2017. It's never been a "you can live well on this and support a family" type of job. Median pay in 2017 for a cashier was still $21,xxx/year (https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes412011.htm).
Cooks? 1983 - $22k/year, 2017 ~$24k/year... moving up in the world.. still not "making a good living" by most standards.
How about something with more technical ability..
Auto Mechanic? 1983 - ~$43k/year, 2017 ~$39.5k/year... not quite as great as it was, but not far off either.
Electricians? ~$54k/year in both 2017 and 1983 (inflation adjusted of course).
So yeah, "low skill" jobs never paid worth a darn, and skilled trades still pay pretty good. It's not "fantasy" or "it used to be like that", so much as it's "that's how things are". You can make median household income or close to it with a decent trade and a high school education, just like "back in the day". I work with people making even better money in these types of skilled trades regularly (making more because they're willing to travel for work, but could just make "median" pay if they wanted to stay in their town only).
As for the perception of these types of jobs? Yes, society as a whole looks down on these types of jobs these days. Everyone's mommy and daddy (having come home sore and tired for years) decided they wanted better lives for their children and felt that a job sitting in an office getting paid the same or more would be better, and thus they pushed their kids towards white collar jobs. The unintended consequence of that desire to give their kids a "better" life was to instill in many of those children that "blue collar" was "worse" and "white collar" was "better" overall.
Let's look at some of these jobs that you "used to" be able to "make a good living" at.
In 1983, the average cashier made $8,376/year (https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1985/01/rpt1full.pdf). Adjusting that for inflation (http://www.calculator.net/inflation-calculator.html?cstartingamount1=8736&cinyear1=1983&coutyear1=2017&calctype=1&x=87&y=15), that's a bit under $22k/year as of 2017. It's never been a "you can live well on this and support a family" type of job. Median pay in 2017 for a cashier was still $21,xxx/year (https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes412011.htm).
Let's look at some of these jobs that you "used to" be able to "make a good living" at.
In 1983, the average cashier made $8,376/year (https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1985/01/rpt1full.pdf). Adjusting that for inflation (http://www.calculator.net/inflation-calculator.html?cstartingamount1=8736&cinyear1=1983&coutyear1=2017&calctype=1&x=87&y=15), that's a bit under $22k/year as of 2017. It's never been a "you can live well on this and support a family" type of job. Median pay in 2017 for a cashier was still $21,xxx/year (https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes412011.htm).
Unfortunately, the BLS data only goes back to 1979, and the 1979~83 data was after a decade of stagflation (and the 1981-2 recession). I would love to look at data from 1940~1970. Specifically, my grandfather worked in a steel mill with less than a high-school education and received a defined benefit pension plan, a draft deferral during WWII (we needed ships, ships needed steel), and enough money to buy two houses and put a child through college. I don't see a ton of those jobs left.
But yes, he saw how hard the work was and told me to get a white collar job. He literally watched people get killed at work.
I think that it wouldn't matter what the year was, we'd still find that "no-skill" jobs have never paid enough to "live a good life", while jobs that require skills and/or education have always paid better; with jobs requiring "more", (more skills, more education, more experience, more risk, more sacrifices, etc) tending to pay even better.
Over the same period, however, the nation’s aggregate
household income has substantially shifted from middle-income
to upper-income households, driven by the growing size of the
upper-income tier and more rapid gains in income at the top.
Fully 49% of U.S. aggregate income went to upper-income
households in 2014, up from 29% in 1970. The share accruing to
middle-income households was 43% in 2014, down substantially
from 62% in 1970.
...
These findings emerge from a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. Census
Bureau and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. In this study, which examines the changing
size, demographic composition and economic fortunes of the American middle class, “middle-
income” Americans are defined as adults whose annual household income is two-thirds to double
the national median, about $42,000 to $126,000 annually in 2014 dollars for a household of
three. Under this definition, the middle class made up 50% of the U.S. adult population in 2015,
down from 61% in 1971.
I think that it wouldn't matter what the year was, we'd still find that "no-skill" jobs have never paid enough to "live a good life", while jobs that require skills and/or education have always paid better; with jobs requiring "more", (more skills, more education, more experience, more risk, more sacrifices, etc) tending to pay even better.
I guess I'm not going to disagree with that too much. There is a bunch of data coming out about how we are increasingly living in an hour-glass shaped economy. So I guess the real question is, where did the middle income jobs go?QuoteOver the same period, however, the nation’s aggregate
household income has substantially shifted from middle-income
to upper-income households, driven by the growing size of the
upper-income tier and more rapid gains in income at the top.
Fully 49% of U.S. aggregate income went to upper-income
households in 2014, up from 29% in 1970. The share accruing to
middle-income households was 43% in 2014, down substantially
from 62% in 1970.
...
These findings emerge from a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. Census
Bureau and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. In this study, which examines the changing
size, demographic composition and economic fortunes of the American middle class, “middle-
income” Americans are defined as adults whose annual household income is two-thirds to double
the national median, about $42,000 to $126,000 annually in 2014 dollars for a household of
three. Under this definition, the middle class made up 50% of the U.S. adult population in 2015,
down from 61% in 1971.
The American Middle Class is Losing Ground (http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2015/12/2015-12-09_middle-class_FINAL-report.pdf)
The thing about such selected data sets is that it doesn't tell us much of anything. Are there a lot more people earning a great deal in HCOL areas, this meaning a bunch of $200k+ jobs replacing a bunch of _90k jobs in lower cost of living areas? Did sixteen people making the most having massive increases account for most of the shift?
The thing about such selected data sets is that it doesn't tell us much of anything. Are there a lot more people earning a great deal in HCOL areas, this meaning a bunch of $200k+ jobs replacing a bunch of _90k jobs in lower cost of living areas? Did sixteen people making the most having massive increases account for most of the shift?
Out of those 16 households (not people) 4 of them moved to the lower income camp and 12 of them moved to the upper income camp, as is clearly called out in the report. That's great if you are one of the 12 that made it, but if you are one of the 4 that didn't there has been a ~18% reduction in those middle income households that you would love to move into. That is, how many households are going to leapfrog the middle income camp and go straight from low income to high income? Almost zero.
Except things don't work like that... The statistics your looking at show "what is", not "what can exist or be". The "middle ground" may have less in it now, but that doesn't extrapolate into "there is no middle to move into anymore". That's what I mean by the data is useless in it's limited context.
Except things don't work like that... The statistics your looking at show "what is", not "what can exist or be". The "middle ground" may have less in it now, but that doesn't extrapolate into "there is no middle to move into anymore". That's what I mean by the data is useless in it's limited context.
I never said "there is no middle to move into anymore." I said that there is measurably less middle than their was 47 years ago and that the trend line is in the wrong direction.
That is, how many households are going to leapfrog the middle income camp and go straight from low income to high income? Almost zero.
Additionally, if we look closely, the percentage in the arbitrarily defined "middle" have changed, but so has what constitutes "middle". The 'low' for the middle today is more than 30% higher than it was before. If we kept the same "low" numbers (inflation adjusted as they use in the rest of their analysis), would the "low income" have grown at all?? Then adjust for the massive shift in the percentage of people with college educations and we see a quick and easy explanation for a lot of the growth in the upper income bands as well...
When you change the goalposts continually, comparison of who's scoring what kind of goals is kinda meaningless. As such, the analysis of the "shrinking" middle class looks pretty manufactured to me, and definitely not something to lose any sleep over.
Additionally, if we look closely, the percentage in the arbitrarily defined "middle" have changed, but so has what constitutes "middle". The 'low' for the middle today is more than 30% higher than it was before. If we kept the same "low" numbers (inflation adjusted as they use in the rest of their analysis), would the "low income" have grown at all?? Then adjust for the massive shift in the percentage of people with college educations and we see a quick and easy explanation for a lot of the growth in the upper income bands as well...
When you change the goalposts continually, comparison of who's scoring what kind of goals is kinda meaningless. As such, the analysis of the "shrinking" middle class looks pretty manufactured to me, and definitely not something to lose any sleep over.
Setting in the middle around the median is not changing the goal posts. It is extra not changing the goal posts when you live in a country where money is speech during elections.
There should not need to be a justification that we are not on a downward slide. The discussion should really be the slope of the upward climb. Unfortunately, it seems that no statistical evidence has been put forth by you guys showing such a truth.
Now I'd argue the top left isn't necessarily correlated with the world becoming a better place, but the other three certainly arge.
Not as dramatic as the world as a whole, but yes, there are still plenty of metrics by which life in the USA is continuing to get better. Lots of graphs so I'm putting this behind a spoiler tag so it doesn't mess up the thread.
Mr. Feldstein likes to illustrate his argument about G.D.P. by referring to the widespread use of statins, the cholesterol drugs that have reduced deaths from heart attacks. Between 2000 and 2007, he noted, the death rate from heart disease among those over 65 fell by one-third.
“This was a remarkable contribution to the public’s well-being over a relatively short number of years, and yet this part of the contribution of the new product is not reflected in real output or real growth of G.D.P.,”
Those are some good ones, dustinst22.
Here's the graphic on the decline of warfare over time you mentioned.
(http://prorev.com/warwane.jpg)
The quality of life one is trickier to quantify. But yes, it'd take an awful lot of money to convince me to trade places with a person living with 1980s levels of conveniences and technologies.
There was a good article in the new york times about a year about about the challenge of accounting for that fact that modern conveniences, services, and technologies are getting both much better and more useful, and much cheaper at the same time.QuoteMr. Feldstein likes to illustrate his argument about G.D.P. by referring to the widespread use of statins, the cholesterol drugs that have reduced deaths from heart attacks. Between 2000 and 2007, he noted, the death rate from heart disease among those over 65 fell by one-third.
“This was a remarkable contribution to the public’s well-being over a relatively short number of years, and yet this part of the contribution of the new product is not reflected in real output or real growth of G.D.P.,”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/business/economy/what-is-gdp-economy-alternative-measure.html
In 1980, the bottom 50% income earners used to be about 10% richer in the United States than France. But, what has happened is that in France, since 1980, bottom 50% incomes have continued to grow at roughly the same rate as macroeconomic growth in France, when the United States has completely stagnated. As a result, now, the bottom 50% in France is significantly richer--has more income--than in the United States. And that is before taxes and transfers. And that, what makes this research particularly spectacular--I'm not talking about the generous welfare--French welfare state. That's not what's driving our results. Before tax and transfers. So looking just at market income, the bottom half of the distribution, half of the population now does better in France than in the United States.
In terms of who are the top earners, a lot of them are indeed corporate executives in various industries. So, finance is an important component; it is far from all of it. In lots of industries--in finance, in the health care industry, manufacturing. So, across the board--in the pharmaceutical industry--you've seen the pay of the top executives grow automatically faster than average worker pay. That's part of what's happening. But, the data we have now, getting back to our distributional national accounts, shows that most of the--now, the majority of the income of top 1% earners is not labor income. Is not wages and salaries and stock options and bond indices. It's actually capital income. And that's a relatively new development. In the 1980s, 1990s, the rise of U.S. income inequality was essentially driven by an increase in labor income inequality--the upsurge of top corporate executive pay. Since 2000, it's been very different: labor income inequality actually has not increased, might even have declined internally. All of the rise of the top 1% income share since 2000 owes to an increase in capital income, in the dividend income, corporate profits, interest that high-income earners get. And as important, because, of course, the forces that shape the distribution of labor income and the distribution of wealth and capital income are quite different. And so if you want to understand rising inequality in recent years in the United States, you need to ask yourself, 'Okay. Is coming from capital. So, what's the reason for that?' So, one potential explanation is that these high-labor incomes of the 1980s, 1990s, have been saved at a pretty high rate, and so these high earners have been accumulating quite a lot of wealth. That wealth itself, it generates some return; and so capital income, which in turn is flow of capital income, is being saved at high rates. So, wealth further accumulates and capital income concentrations further increases. And, I think that this is what is happening in the United States at the moment. Not everything corresponds to that. But that was not very important in the 1980s and 1990s. Now it's becoming very important. Capital income at the top is more important than labor income.
Wow, a whole day without a reply? Is it complacency until shit hits fan (I mean, the stock market is doing OK and there are plenty of petty Republican vs. 'whatever they are upset about this morning' things going on).
This is seriously 'consider moving to another country or exercise your proxy vote ASAP' stuff to me, but I'm getting a very complacent vibe from fellow Mustachians.
This is seriously 'consider moving to another country or exercise your proxy vote ASAP' stuff to me, but I'm getting a very complacent vibe from fellow Mustachians.Which countries have you identified where CEOs don't make many, many times their workers' wages?
This is seriously 'consider moving to another country or exercise your proxy vote ASAP' stuff to me, but I'm getting a very complacent vibe from fellow Mustachians.
But I absolutely have a stack of up to date passports, a bunch of loaded magazines, and an autoloading rifle (real socialists own Kalashnikovs).
It absolutely amazes me how many people don't bother to keep their passports up to date (or to get one at all).
Although I have to admit I'm curious how many passports constitute a stack.
Wow, a whole day without a reply? Is it complacency until shit hits fan (I mean, the stock market is doing OK and there are plenty of petty Republican vs. 'whatever they are upset about this morning' things going on)...
This is seriously 'consider moving to another country or exercise your proxy vote ASAP' stuff to me, but I'm getting a very complacent vibe from fellow Mustachians.
If we genuinely appear headed for a French Revolution or Weimar Republic type situation, I'd like to plan to get out..
If we genuinely appear headed for a French Revolution or Weimar Republic type situation, I'd like to plan to get out, although I've been reading more and more about both events (also the economic collapse in Argentina) and it is striking how clearly hard it was for people who were living through it to ever come across a line in the sand that said "that's it, thing's aren't getting any better, they are only getting worse, get out while you still can."
Last week I spent the week working with guys from Venezuela and Columbia. It kind of amazed me that over 15 percent of the people in Venezuela have left that country. One of the guys said he got to the US and was digging ditches, cutting brush, whatever to get by. He left because he didn't want his 6 year old daughter growing up with the BS system.
QuoteIf we genuinely appear headed for a French Revolution or Weimar Republic type situation, I'd like to plan to get out, although I've been reading more and more about both events (also the economic collapse in Argentina) and it is striking how clearly hard it was for people who were living through it to ever come across a line in the sand that said "that's it, thing's aren't getting any better, they are only getting worse, get out while you still can."
Last week I spent the week working with guys from Venezuela and Columbia. It kind of amazed me that over 15 percent of the people in Venezuela have left that country. One of the guys said he got to the US and was digging ditches, cutting brush, whatever to get by. He left because he didn't want his 6 year old daughter growing up with the BS system.
It kind of made me think that to keep things good here, we've got to keep our politicians in check. People don't ever think the manure could hit the fan in the US, but I wouldn't bet that it couldn't. Lots of evidence was provided that as an aggregate, things are getting better. Past performance is no guarantee of the future also getting better returns. For a single country, things can get worse.
In a lot of countries, the guys on top are not necessarily on the side of the people. I think we may suffer from some of that condition at the present time.
Only 15% escaped because they had houses to sell or savings or businesses or families. Then the value of everything collapsed within a matter of weeks or months and there was no money even for plane tickets. If you wait too long to leave, it's too late.
In Nov. 2016, I wrote down several red lines and created a history-based scoring system that crosses a threshold to trigger fleeing. I hope I have the guts and the time to get my family out in time, if my scoring sheet says go. I don't know where to go, but a pragmatic population would count for a lot.
Right now - with all of those people leaving the country, it looks like a prime opportunity for some of these 1 per centers to move in give people jobs using the oil and thus increasing their vast stashes. Where are those Koch brothers when you need them?
Come to think of it, where are these international trade organizations when these countries get themselves in a financial hole? All you ever hear about is these organizations handing the countries a shovel to dig the hole deeper.
The charts and graphs in the posts above showed that things are getting better for the aggregate of the human population. However, I think today's leaders may not be as bright as the men you read about in the history books.
Venezuela has been offered aid from all sorts of groups: the US, the Catholic Church, neighboring latin american countries even the venezuelan refuges who have made it to other countries and pooled their money. They generally don't accept it, presumably because the government sees accepting foreign aid as an acknowledgement of the fact their approach to government isn't working.
QuoteVenezuela has been offered aid from all sorts of groups: the US, the Catholic Church, neighboring latin american countries even the venezuelan refuges who have made it to other countries and pooled their money. They generally don't accept it, presumably because the government sees accepting foreign aid as an acknowledgement of the fact their approach to government isn't working.
Yah, well, you'd think with the mass exodus they would have kinda sorta figured it out by now. Makes me wonder if they are in the running for the Darwin awards.
maybe the current Venezuelan regime is emulating the Vietnamese model: after the Vietnam War, many Vietnamese left Vietnam- especially those who might threaten the new unified Vietnam the most. The rulers of the new unified Vietnam consolidated power. Then slowly allowed back capitalism, foreign money amid a state-controlled currently booming economy.
It shouldn't be that hard to agree that inequality is eventually a peril to any society, generally because it tends to have a steady trajectory (there is no "rich enough").
Thomas Piketty (2014) finds that wealth-income ratios, today, seem to be returning to very high levels in low economic growth countries, similar to what he calls the "classic patrimonial" wealth-based societies of the 19th century wherein a minority lives off its wealth while the rest of the population works for subsistence living.[34]
The charts and graphs in the posts above showed that things are getting better for the aggregate of the human population. However, I think today's leaders may not be as bright as the men you read about in the history books.
Democracy is a lot more widespread than it was decades ago. Thus, the people have more opportunities to make mistakes.