Saddam wasn't slaughtering people? No!! Can't be!!Follow

Never once argued that, you ignorant moron.

Wealth is fine. It's the DISTROBUTION of weath that's COMPLETELY AND WHOLELY UNFAIR AND CRIPPLING in this country.

There's no level playing field and no opportunity for the most talented among us to succeed because of the massive weight of wealth and prvlidge that a tiny percentage of the population is born into.

/e dons super scary Smasharoo(tm) mask

Nope. I simply don't believe you Totem. You must be lying. There's no possible way that a middle class person gains any advantage under the evil(tm) Republican empire unless they are making over 200k a year. It's IMPOSSIBLE


You hear me!? Impossible! Can't be done. You are either lying, or did you taxes wrong. Go back and look. I'm betting you missed something somewhere. After all, I'm smarter then all of you.

Edit: /e pulls of mask

Ok. Got to add something. Smash. If we "leveled the playing field", and redistributed the wealth today, and gave every single adult in the US the exact same amount of it, I'd bet you anything that in 20 years, we'd be right back to 5% of the population holding 90+% of the wealth. In fact, I'd bet you that it would mostly be the exact same 5% that would have it.

And for the exact same reason that the same 5% of the runners in the world win 90% of the trophies. And 5% of the baseball players win 90% of the MVP awards. They are simply better at taking what they've got and making more out of it. Everyone else is good only at spending what they've got and having nothing to show for it.

Given that our jobs and economy are based on what the people with the most wealth do, it makes a hell of a lot of sense to leave it in the hands of the people who've shown they actually know how to be productive with wealth. The only way to permanently "redistribute" wealth would be to continually take away from those who make more every year (not those who inherit, but every year from every person who actually is successful), and give it to those who aren't. I'm sorry, but that's an absolutely insane idea, and will remove any motivation from anyone to work harder or smarter. Why bother if your not going to get more out of it then the guy who sits around doing nothing all day?


You're trying to "fix" a problem that isn't broken.

Edited, Fri Feb 13 15:53:53 2004 by gbaji

Lol! Nice misdirection there, implying that it's all about racism and "the man" keeping everyone else down.

Um... Why do you think the same 5% of runners win 90% of the medals? Why do 5% of the figure skaters do the same? I thought my analogy was very clear Smash. They don't win because they have some shadowy organization rigging everything to make them get the medals. They win because they are better at what they do then the other 95%. Not just "better once", but "better consistently".


Apply that to the business world and wealth. The people who are wealthy today are wealthy becuase they were better at making money in the past, and have been consistently better at making it since then. That's why they both earned the wealth and have been able to stay wealthy (same as a runner who wins medals, and keep winning them).

We start our runners off at the same starting point each race, yet we still see a small percentage win most of the races. Why would you assume skill at accumulating wealth would be any different then anything else? What bizaare justification do you have for making that claim?

Answer: None. But it makes your political position look better, so you keep making it.


The same people will regain the wealth, not because of their skin color, and not because of some secret organization (which btw wouldn't have any more wealth then any other group with the same number of people becuase you just redistributed it all, right?). They will build wealth while others will spend it simply because that's what they are good at doing.

I just find it amusing that you assume that no one's accomplishments are the result of their own skills and hard work. Way to denigrate the entire population there Smash.


God. I'm almost in favor of doing a one time total redistribution of wealth just to proove to you how wrong you are. Unfortunately, the economic impact of doing that would cripple our country for a number of years, so that's kinda out.

Too mean even for me.

I love you though.

Edited, Sat Feb 14 00:18:07 2004 by Smasharoo

That'd be cool. Any chance you're coming up to the Bay area? There's a bunch of us up here and I for one, would like to meet you.

Totem

Not nearly that far-- 4 hours comfortably, but if that's not in the cards I'll see what the better half says about making a trip down to Babylon and meeting for dinner somewhere. I know of a great micro brew/restaurant in Long Beach that has killer penne pasta and fantastic hefeweisen.

I'll let you know as soon as I can.

Totem