Populism

>>3193202
obviously you've never been screwed out of your money

>If a person worked hard to make a lot of money, don't they deserve what they earned?
Most richfags are counter productive and make nothing of value, they are just lucky to be born into socio economic conditions allowing them to be rich.

Racism, homophobia etc is also the product of rich people trying to create unrest in the population so they can exploit them.

>>3193217
Define screwed out of your money

>>3193221
I don't deny there is luck involved, but that wasn't the choice of the lucky one.
And that last sentence is a generalization, wouldn't you say?

>>3193226
Marriage.

>>3193221
winrar

>>3193244
I'm not stupid enough to believe in marriage.

File: 1337352152636.jpg-(65 KB, 500x500, 1336956740054.jpg)

OP, try reading a fucking book on socio-economics rather than come on /pol/ with your childishly naive assumptions.

SUMMERS HEREEREEEEEEEE

>>3193275
But why are these two things, exploitation and luck, bad?
If it was the bourgeois who was a worker, he'd be angry, if it were the proletariat who ran the business, he wouldn't change anything.
You do what you have to do, rich people aren't a race of alien over lords.
As for luck, as I said, no one has power over this.

>>3193275
>you think half the equation to being rich is luck, no wonder your generation are whiny worthless shits

>>3193275
That is honestly the most retarded political comic I've ever seen.

>rich people
>hard work

Nope, productive people get paid shit. That's how rich people get rich: provide a "working space" for the people with actual skills and pocket 99% of the wealth they produce.

Once you get common ownership, this stops being an issue. Of course it also stops ultra rich people from appearing if it's properly setup, which is bad for ultra rich people, so ultra rich people spend some of their money to make sure there is no common ownership that will stop them from being ultra rich people.

The upper classes are responsible for almost every schism that turns people against eachother. Identity politics funded on both ends by the extremely wealthy to distract people from the REAL difference maker in this miserable human existence: those who have capital, and those who do not.

The wealthier they become and the more exploitative they are, the more outnumbered they are. They have to divide and conquer.

File: 1337352625365.jpg-(43 KB, 600x385, v.jpg)

the problem op, is that people working hard and becoming upper class is a myth. for every self made computer programming multi millionaire there are thousands of just as intelligent, just as hard working people who just weren't lucky. take zuckerberg for instance, the initial facebook was a standard php project any web programmer could make today. but he was in the right place at the right time and had the right connections (because he was at Harvard lol).

Even bill gates was more of a business man than a programmer. He bought DOS from some random guy for like 50k and sold it to IBM for millions. Then they go about pushing out competition and expanding their capital to exploit more workers. So yea, fuck the upper class. If you're a hard working construction guy who built up his own business and makes a million dollars a year, good for you. But even if that guy is technically in the "one percent" there is a huge difference between him and the uber rich elites with 30million+ in the bank.

What you're doing is believing the false equivalence bullshit spit out by the republican propaganda machine. Believe or not its possible to want to limit the power of the guy with 100 million while not wanting to tax the shit out of your local small business owners.

>>3193346
Honestly, it is like you are using words that seem relevant and mashing them together into a sentence. Your marxist brain washing makes me sad.
Setting up a business, organizing the business and keeping it running isn't exactly easy. What do you think a CEO does? Sits on there ass and twiddle their thumbs, and then every 30 minutes they use an intercom to tell someone to tell other people to work harder?
Get a job and tell me what your boss does all day.

Explain to me how a person makes $1 billion dollars solely through their own work.

>>3193365
I don't dispute that there are people who are worth far too much, but there are plenty of people who are considered upper class who could lose all their money if the economy turned against them.

Looks like the dailyKOS whyweprotest faggots are on the loose. The reason they demonize the wealthy is to create a climate for revolution so they can further their particular cause, mostly socialism as a transitory phase to communism under the guise of anarchism. They don't actually believe what they say, they're just envious.

>>3193406
Explain to me how anyone makes money without relying on someone else in any way at all.
I won't wait, because I'll be long dead by the time you come up with an answer.

>>3193416
really? plenty of people? we just had a huge recession, the worst one we've had since the great depression. where are all the rich people who lost all their money?

>>3193449
I'd like to hear your definition of rich.
I'm not talking about billionaires here.

>>3193390
I'm not interested in middle management middle class people who scurry around like headless chickens trying to suck enough dicks and yell at enough people keep the slave drivers off their back. My gripe is with the owners who set things up and then sit back and let everyone else handle it. Anyone who has seen corporate bureaucracy knows how it works. They see how much they can get and screw as many people as possible and completely ignore the pleas of everyone below them. As long as they get big enough numbers, they don't care what happens or what the lives are like for anyone below them.

The reason economies fail and businesses go bankrupt is because capitalists are largely unconcerned with anything other than garnering as much capital as possible without regards to the long term consequences.

>>3193465

If it's so easy, then why aren't you rich?

>>3193465
Again, we appear to be having some communication issues here.
Why do you assume the only upper class people are the ones you describe? To me it is about income, and the so called "middle class management people" can indeed be upper class based on their income.

>>3193428
that's exactly the point. there aren't too many people who begrudge rich people being rich, but it's ridiculous for them to act as if they are somehow working harder than others who played a part in the success of their companies. success is normally a collaborative process and asking for a somewhat more even distribution of wealth isn't the same thing as demonizing the rich.

>>3193473
Because I have no interest in being rich. Unlike capitalist pigs, my life doesn't revolve entirely around having more than my friends and neighbors like some kind of degenerate vampire.

>>3193365

>Believe or not its possible to want to limit the power of the guy with 100 million while not wanting to tax the shit out of your local small business owners.

How do you propose we do that? The way tax brackets work currently there isn't much distinction between those who live lavishly off of interest on their money and nepotism and the model Americans who build buisnesses out of nothing.

>>3193457
I didn't have any particular definition of rich in mind. I simply wanted some evidence that there was some significant change where people who are considered rich were turned into people not considered rich. Instead of providing evidence or even alleging it, you just try to avoid answering the question

>>3193517
>meanwhile I'll just leach their money through social benefits

>>3193517

So they pay you now and you're pissed about it? They give up consuming their money, buy all of the non-labor factors of production, all of your wage and benefits, and you are mad at them? They could just cash out and not invest in the company and snort coke off a hookers ass, but, instead they don't and provide you with the cash to bitch about them on the internet.

>>3193486
Wrong, class has nothing to do with income and everything to do with ownership. Upper class = CEOs and other business owners. They almost always answer to nobody and get to set how profits are distributed

Middle management will always be middle class. They don't own the means of production.

>If a person worked hard to make a lot of money, don't they deserve what they earned?

This isn't always true. Sometimes it's luck, sometimes it's the work of others they just manage. You cannot tell me people at the top work harder than those below them, yet they feel like they deserve more money.

And many, many of these rich people were born rich, and their parents born into wealth too. These people did not earn anything. They got lucky.

File: 1337353664645.jpg-(156 KB, 500x844, rich.jpg)

>>3193275
Gtfo commie, shouldn't you be leeching welfare or something?

>>3193489
guess what fucktard
people are worth more and less to a company
I make 6 figures and have a company car
I over see the sales department that brought in 7 million dollars to the company last year
why should the retard who put shit in a box make anything close to what I make?
would I and my team bring more or less into the company if they "redistributed" our money to the warehouse retards?

>buy all of the non-labor factors of production, all of your wage and benefits, and you are mad at them? They could just cash out and not invest in the company and snort coke off a hookers ass, but, instead they don't and provide you with the cash to bitch about them on the internet.

And how do they afford all this? Where is this wealth coming from? The ether? Who made these "non-labor factors of production" possible? Did they wish it into being with a magic wnad

No, they collect the wealth of their employees, keep 99% of it for themselves, and distribute the crumbs to the rest. Then claim they are the indispensable engines of industry, and without them it all falls apart.

>>3193549
Okay then, if that is what you want, this is no longer about class but income.
Why do you hate RICH people?

Sometimes they worked hard to earn their money. Sometimes they didn't. That doesn't even matter. The point is, if they've obtained their money through legal means, whether they really worked hard or not, nobody has the right to just take their shit in the name of "income equality".

[spoiler]Stealing from the rich to keep for yourself actually makes you a lot more greedy/selfish than selling a lot of a product or investing a bunch of money for profit.[/spoiler]

>You cannot tell me people at the top work harder than those below them, yet they feel like they deserve more money.

yes I can
the executives usually work 60-70 hours a week and bear the burden of keeping the company health and productive and the pay roll flowing

A fucking retarded line ape does nothing but turn screws or pack boxes and leave the EXACT minute his shift is over and thinks about no one but himself and his paycheck

so yeah fuck off and die

ITT: people who are mad about how they weren't "lucky" enough to be sperm in well-off family, but were instead born by their shitty parents

>genetics is unfair U so luckyyy
>time to complain

>>3193583
I don't hate rich people. Who said anything about hating them? I believe they are entitled to receive what they need, just like any other human being.

I'm a nice guy. I believe everyone deserve their fair share of their labor. It's just too bad that so many rich people claim to be entitled to their hundreds of millions/billions, but don't do enough work to be entitled to significantly more than their workers.

you don't get rich by working hard. You only get rich by having others work hard for you.

There are people who own property, who's primary income is collecting profit, interest, or rent. Then there are people who labor for these people, who are paid for the time they work, instead of how productive they are.

So if you are paid $8.50 an hour, and along with the three others on your shift also make that much, while you make and sell commodities for your company many times that amount ($36) per hour, where do you think the value comes from? It isn't created in exchange in some subjective form of value where "you really want it, and the company really wants to sell it" because this subjective form of value cannot be measured, where value based in production can be measured.

>CEO get's over 10 million a year
>Worker gets 30,000 a year at best

Capitalists believe that CEOs work 333 times harder than the average worker, so they deserve 333 times the wealth.

Those 5000 hour work weeks must be brutal for the working classes.

There isn't anything better than attacking capitalism to draw out the rabid faithful. You don't have to directly attack capitalism, either. If you just mention in some subtle way that class antagonisms exist, you will be set upon by true believers.

>>3193649
>working classes

I think you meant ruling classes.

Because a lot of that money is gained through exploitation of the middle and working classes. What's worse is that the cunts try to screw us over even more by trying to get rid of minimum wage laws or cutting government programs which we depend on to make up for our insufficient income.

>>3193665
It's always funny when countries slash social programs and see long-term losses in every sector that isn't a life-need.

>If a person worked hard to make a lot of money, don't they deserve what they earned?

Thats what your NOT FUCKING GETTING

They sign papers and play with imaginary bank/finance games. They have the capital to turn a little bit of money into a pile of money by just playing number games. No one in the 1% got there by actually working.
And by working I mean by the end of the day you need a shower kind of working. Not "I got a cubicle job and I got promotions, gee these progress reports sure are hard". While factory workers are straining their backs and getting injured by the physical labor of their jobs.

>Capitalists believe that CEOs work 333 times

oh look the labor = value fallacy

Capitalist believe a CEO is 333 time more valuable than a box filling retard

you can go in your yard and start digging a hole the work is hard
but the value is zero

>>3193649

Nobody gives a fuck how hard you work, it's how much value your work has.

The work of some retarded Walmart cashier is worthless compared to the work of a genius CEO who makes the companies function and charts it's course into the future.

>>3193582

Anyone can be a capitalist. All it takes is not consuming your income and investing in the capital market.

Also, time exists. The employees only get paid because the capitalist paid them before a product was even sold. There was a point that there wasn't any positive revenue, right? Plus at any given time, the workers are getting advanced their marginal value product before what they are working on is even sold.

Workers exchange future goods for present goods.
Capitalists exchange present goods for future goods.
It's just a trade through time.

>>3193686
>And by working I mean by the end of the day you need a shower kind of working. Not "I got a cubicle job and I got promotions, gee these progress reports sure are hard". While factory workers are straining their backs and getting injured by the physical labor of their jobs.

people in the cubicles generate income for the company the people who are "workers" cost the company money
you faggots believe that being a manual laborer is some noble thing
it is called grunt work for a reason

>>3193694
So you essentially agree with the Marx's value theory that things can only be commodities if they have use-values and exchange-values.

>>3193711
Where is a capitalist without his labor?

Nothing, that's what.

Any wealth producing venture is a collaboration. If a CEO is asshurt that people are upset with him taking so much of the profits, he can try working without them. Since they are so valuable, he should still be making billions even when he employs nobody, right?

>>3193202

>Why do people blame the rich for shit?

Luck and lording it.

Well, there's rich people that actually contribute to society with philanthropy, creating jobs, paying decent wages and encouraging employees to save for retirement, got rich by creating a product/service that people need, and put the long term stability of the country and its employees over short term greed

Then there's wall street, who get special privilages from the government, including bailouts, even though they make millions of dollars a year, they don't actually produce anything valuable, they just speculate on ownership, so in reality, they literally produce nothing, they claim they create jobs, but they just spent the last 20 years downsizing, cutting pensions, and lowering wages across the board so they can make more money in the short term, and did I mention bailouts? Yeah I did, but lets put a number on that, trillions of dollars. The money has gotten so comically big that it doesn't even have a feasible emotional impact anymore. And that's taxpayers money. So the money you spent to go towards infrastructure, schools, hospitals, police and fire, national defense instead got given away to faggots who fucked up. And if you complain about that you are "communist" or a "lazy hippie"

>>3193739
that wasn't Marx's idea you fucking retard
it was an economic reality since..oh the invention of economies

>>3193711
Yes, those cashiers are worthless. Less than human. Just equipment for board and investors. Until those worthless people all decide to stop working at once and show how worthless they really are.

>>3193649

What's the CEO and workers scope of responsibility?

>CEO
>as if CEOs can't just be hired employees

>>3193752
Then you need to talk to your Austrian and Chicago buddies who think the mudpie fallacy is some sort of silver bullet against Marxism

>>3193757
>Yes, those cashiers are worthless. Less than human

strawman detected

fuck off and die attention whore tripfag

>>3193747

His value is in managing other laborers. Other laborers have very little value because they can easily be replaced.

Workers, without the capitalist, are nothing and will create nothing. They need to be organized into productive activity. Those who can make this happen are enormously valuable.

>>3193776
marxism and marxists are the silver bullet against marxism you faggot

>>3193781
What else does suggesting people are without worth mean?

If you tell me someone is completely worthless, then what's wrong with enslaving them or killing them? It doesn't matter, right? Because according to you, they have no worth.

We need to kill all the poor. We would be trillionaires if not for all these grunt laborers and workers leeching off our tits. We, the ownership classes, are the ones that do all the work! We are the deciders!

>>3193733
>people in the cubicles generate income for the company the people who are "workers" cost the company money

No the people in the cubicles manage the workers who actually produce the goods/services that make the company money. No workers=no product/service= no income.
What would starbucks, walmart, mcdonalds, any car manufacturer be without laborers working the shit jobs? Answer: Not a damn thing.

>>3193800
>Workers, without the capitalist, are nothing and will create nothing. They need to be organized into productive activity. Those who can make this happen are enormously valuable.

Pay no attention to the studies showing the superior efficiency of workers' cooperatives and horizontal workplaces behind the curtain!

Without bosses workers would just mill about farting in bags and nothing would ever get done! They are helpless without the boss!

>>3193800
>Workers, without the capitalist, are nothing and will create nothing

Then explain human existence. Work has to be done to exist. Are you saying that capitalists predate human existence?

>>3193807

You are taking the statement out of context.

A mindless highschool drop out cashier is worthless in terms of creating wealth for the company. This person can be replaced at the drop of a hat.

I'm not in a place to asses their value as a human being.

>>3193800
>Workers, without the capitalist, are nothing and will create nothing.

The problem here is in assuming the capitalist or those who he hires to manage his capital have some sort of mystical ability or superiority (rich are smart, poor are stupid myth) beyond that of laboring people - other than they own the capital. That's what gives them power, they have it and deprive the overwhelming majority of people from it, depriving them of their means to produce their own subsistence, and so they must enter the market to sell their ability to labor for a wage, so that they can turn around and buy their subsistence from the same class that exploits them.

>>3193862

Why don't workers just loan their money out like capitalists do then?

>>3193853
replaceable != worth

The body can easily replace oxygen. Are you saying that oxygen is worthless and that we could live without it?

>>3193853
Cashiers ARE human beings. You are assessing their value as a human being by saying cashiers are worthless. You're spewing their own shit that working people are nothing more than equipment and you don't even realize it.

>>3193886

>can't in2 marginalism

>>3193853
>This person can be replaced at the drop of a hat.

This is why common people hate rich people.
This mentality right there. Cause everything is "Just Business". The rich are at the top because they are cut throat and completely utilitarian. Yeah I know that sentimentality is useless in the business world but thats not what this thread is about.
Why do people hate the rich?
Because the rich are greedy assholes that dont care about fuck else except for that bottom line.

>>3193835

Where are these coops?

I don't give a shit about your studies, they would be everywhere if they were more efficient.

And yes, like in china, the country didn't produce shit until they allowed the rich American investors to come over and organize their workers into producing things. Without the capitalist most workers produce nothing of value.

>Workers, without the capitalist, are nothing and will create nothing.

Yeah, dude. Prior to the sixteenth century people just sat around playing with their dicks and shit.

>>3193877
Most of us are paid enough to subsist. The overwhelming majority of us don't have the means to buy or qualify for a loan to start a company, especially some kind of financial enterprise like you're suggesting. That's why upward mobility is so rare.

>>3193888

>worth of cashiers as a role
>same as worth as a human being

You mixing concepts of "worth". I wouldn't pay you to mow my lawn, that doesn't mean I think you're worthless as a human being though.

Workers don't do shit. They just sit around lazy as fuck and produce nothing of value. CEOs do all the hard work and produce all the wealth. You can easily figure this out just by looking at pay: CEOs get paid WAY more than workers. This is because workers are lazy and produce nothing.

You marxists need to get educated and grow up.

>>3193275
See, this is what I don't understand about leftists. Is there any conclusive evidence that proves that the majority of the rich got rich this way? It just seems to be this accepted truth that they spout without backing it up. I guess if they actually questioned it, their whole world view could come crashing down.

>>3193911

All workers have to do is invest in the company you work for or other existing companies with stocks and earn the income just like the capitalists do.

The very fact workers don't do this demonstrates they value the discounted wage more than having to wait any longer for an increase in income.

>>3193888

Labor is a commodity. It's price is set by supply and demand. If you don't have any skills besides your labor then you have very little economic value.

>>3193877
cause workers live pay check to pay check from being in debt. they are constantly in the red.
It was set up that way so no matter what you do you'll be in debt.
High school graduate? -> Debt from not making enough money to buy shit straight cash
College graduate? -> Aw sweet I make a lot of money...oh but I owe $100,000+ in tuition.

Have rich parents to send you to school? -> I don't see what all these bums are complaining about! Why don't they just go to college for 8 years, fuck off and party, get a degree, and make over 6 digits income a year? Its not like its hard!

>>3193202
Do we even have middle class in these days?I see only rich people,poor people,and the people with large debts who are convinced that they are not poor.

>STEAL FROM THE RICH AND GIVE TO ME
>STEAL FROM THE RICH AND GIVE TO ME
>STEAL FROM THE RICH AND GIVE TO ME
>STEAL FROM THE RICH AND GIVE TO ME
>STEAL FROM THE RICH AND GIVE TO ME
>STEAL FROM THE RICH AND GIVE TO ME
>STEAL FROM THE RICH AND GIVE TO ME

>>3193928
Look at social mobility in the western world. The most capitalist nations (such as the United States) have very low social mobility. As wealth accrues in the hands of fewer and fewer people, the majority of that money is retained by the family of said ownership classes.

Rich people almost never become poor. Poor people almost never become rich. If you are born rich, you are almost assured to die rich. If you are born poor, you are almost assured to die poor. The lie is "if you work hard enough, you will become rich." Becoming rich if 98% birth, 2% actual effort.

>>3193961

All workers live pay check to pay check? Serious citation needed. Even for the workers who do, they can pool their incomes together, buy in bulk, live together, quit smoking, & etc to save enough to invest int he capital markets.

I guess libtards do think any success is white privilege.

>>3193971
if people were paid 1/4th of what they bring into the company, there would be no rich and no stealing.
welcome to factsville.
i can only imagine yfw you realize there is no defense for slavery if it's not allowed to go both ways.

>>3193901
>I don't give a shit about your studies, they would be everywhere if they were more efficient.
Conflationist fallacy. That would be true on a free market.

As it stands, cooperative enterprises do not offer control to investors or saleable stock, making them unattractive to large investment firms. And because of barriers to entry in the credit field, small investors are prohibited from entering the market and competing with large lenders.

Also, transport subsidy makes hierarchies artificially competitive by offsetting their main diseconomy, which is inflexibility and asset specificity (large firms must run at near-full capacity to maintain their economies of scale, which creates enormous surplus storage problems offset by the "warehouses on wheels" known as 18-wheelers).

>>3193901
>I don't give a shit about your studies, they would be everywhere if they were more efficient.
This is pretty naive. For obvious reasons, union power has been curtailed significantly in the last 50 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law

>>3193951
This ignores what I've already told you, that most working people are paid enough to subsist. As far as investment is concerned, do you know how much capital it takes to start earning the majority of your income from investments? It represents an incredible amount of disposable income, which most working people don't have.

Suggesting that workers don't invest because they think a wage is better than investment is like suggesting a tiger prefers eating rats because it doesn't eat Filet Mignon.

>>3193990
What the fuck are you even trying to say here? Just curious.

> Implying most rich people worked hard for their money.

Tsk, tsk.

>>3193971
>steal from the rich
They wrote the rules on what merits "stealing" and what merits a "fair transaction"
So fuck off with all that.

>>3193951
>All workers have to do is invest in the company you work for or other existing companies with stocks and earn the income just like the capitalists do.
Poverty is a pit that is difficult to get out of. If you barely have enough money to eat because of large bill payments, your mind becomes focused in the immediate needs only. Fear of destitution prohibits thinking about your future.

I know a guy who is filthy fucking rich. He got rich for several reasons. First, his parents paid for his tuition. Second, he had a job from which he stole cash from in addition to his pay. Third, his parents died, leaving behind a shit ton of insurance money. Fourth, he bought the business he was stealing from because it was (surprise) doing really shitty.

Then he started investing with the money coming in from his business.

Not exactly the kind of inspiring anecdote you expect to see in the media.

How about people who work on commission?

>>3194029
Let me guess, you think that when you buy something from someone, they're stealing your money?

I have about $100 dollars I can invest.
How can I turn this into a shit ton of cash /pol/?
I know, I'll buy some Apple stock!
>$500+ for 1 share

Gee, becoming rich is too blue for my blood. Best just pay for gas to get to work so I can make my employer more money and so I can just get by to next week.

File: 1337356126933.jpg-(63 KB, 625x525, babylon.jpg)

>2012
>still believes in capitalism

>Why do people blame the rich for shit?

Because they buy off the politicians to enact laws that fuck over the rest of us.

>If a person worked hard to make a lot of money, don't they deserve what they earned?

Two myths here.

Hard work as a means to success only works if you're already rich. If you don't have the right connections and starting capital, no matter how hard you work, you're not getting very far. On the other hand, you could only be marginally competent, but if you happen to be born to the right parents, you'll coast through life on inherited wealth.

Secondly, "I worked hard for it, therefore I deserve to own it." is nothing more than the result of capitalist propaganda meant to justify the current power relations. This is not some iron law of nature. Ownership should be distributed throughout society in such a way that everybody prospers.

>If a person was lazy and didn't work hard in school to get a good job and now struggle financially, aren't they to blame?

If a woman didn't take the self-defense classes and all the proper precautions to avoid being raped and is now raped, isn't she to blame?

Your statement is nothing more than a case of blaming the victim. There are many reasons why students under-perform in school. Just because you have a good education doesn't mean you'll get a good job. Just because you have a good job doesn't mean you won't struggle financially.

>>3194064
Bonnie and Clyde robbed banks and got filthy rich. Clearly the problem is with capitalism, and everyone who ever got rich STOLE ALL THEIR MONEY. Jesus christ.

>>3194074
if they are the only one that can do it and it is a service that is widely needed, they looking at some major gold.

If they are in a market where its an easily learned trade and the service is optional....might not be so good.

>>3194064
That was meant to be a story about upward mobility. I know plenty of other people who are rich. They're mostly rich because their parents were. I know a guy, his dad retired and made him CEO of his company. I know a guy who's dad died and left him behind millions of dollars, with which he started a company and invests -->> this guys also spends a good portion of his day on facebook complaining about Obama and welfare recipients which I find deliciously ironic. I know a guy who DJs all day every day because his dad has basically decided to fund his entire life.

These people don't know what it's like to not have an enormous pile of cash underneath them to break their fall, if they fall. Most of us are just hurdling toward the cement and crying

>>3194116
>Ownership should be distributed throughout society in such a way that everybody prospers.
Thank you. A small super wealthy 1% and a poor 99% doesn't make for a strong economy.
Middle class people buying shit they don't really need is key to a strong economy. Buy things like jetskis, 4 wheelers, ridiculously powerful stereo systems, automatic margarita makers.
If you have a large population spending moderate amount of money it is better than the current status of 1% buying yachts and 99% buying paper plates and $1 cheeseburgers

You people are delusional as all hell.

It's because they are economically illiterate and simple minded, OP.

If everyone were really smart and worked really hard, would everyone be multi-millionaires?

File: 1337356499344.jpg-(191 KB, 800x600, 1323244927530.jpg)

>>3194000

>most working people are paid enough to subsist

So most people don't own TVs nor smoke? Again, [citation needed].

All you have to do is buy some stocks and earn money just like capitalists do. Hell, open a savings account.

Workers get paid the discount of there full marginal product. If that discount doesn't amount to much, it isn't the fault of the capitalists. The capitalist pays the workers in exchange for the future marginal product. If workers wanted their full marginal product, they can do what the capitalist and earn the interest by giving up present possession.

>Keynesian influenced policy inflates the money supply purposefully to "discourage hoarders"
>blame capitalism for the woes of poor people who can't afford to save
>government welfare destroys poor communities
>blame capitalism
>government interventions raise the barriers to entry
>blame capitalism

>>3194186
>late to the thread without reading it

>>3194116
>blaming the victim
Ok, fuck off, right now

>>3194194
>All you have to do is buy some stocks and earn money just like capitalists do. Hell, open a savings account.
This is just ignorant. There is no way a person living on minimum wage is going to have the time to think about investing in anything. They are too busy worrying about car repairs and hospital bills.

Have you even met a person over 30 living on minimum wage? Where do you live where you've gotten this absurd idea that anyone can become a multimillionaire living on minimum wage? For christ's sake, how old are you?

>>3194186

Let me guess. You took Econ 101 and now you think you understand economics to any extent that could actually be useful?

I laugh at you.

>>3194205
I did read it, hence my conclusion that you are mostly all delusional.

>>3194253
Keep guessing. I'll laugh some more.

>>3194194
Don't you hear yourself? You're arguing that being rich, or being a member of the capitalist class is a choice. You're telling me that because they don't make this obvious choice of being rich, that they're presumably stupid. That being a poor worker is the conscious choice of the stupid.

Workers get paid a discount of the full marginal product because exploitation is the source of surplus. Don't throw around marginal utility like it's going to shut anybody up. Saying that value comes from exchange is a fucking fantasy where we all are supposed to ignore how the commodity came into existence to be exchanged in the first place.

File: 1337356897725.jpg-(21 KB, 391x289, 395669239.jpg)

>>3194226

Why?

>Racism/Homiphobia/ect IS A RICH PERSON CONSPIRACY TO GET US TO TURN AGAINST EACH OTHER!

I'd like to see the proof for this. Not everone is a materialist Marxfags.

>>3194116
>If a person was lazy and didn't work hard in school to get a good job and now struggle financially, aren't they to blame?

poor people have kids when they arent prepared. poor parents have to work more than rich parents. Kids that have poor uneducated parents are not going to do well in school because their parental figures (the people who you love and look up to from birth) didn't value education. They are children, they don't realize how important school is. All they know is that is its a pain in the ass, they get up really early, and its super crowded with other poor stupid kids. So they all fuck off together.
Rich neighborhoods =/= Rural or Inner City neighborhoods.

Not everyone starts off with the same situation.

>>3194194
>Workers get paid the discount of there full marginal product
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Yes, because workers and employers are fungible goods and the labor market has a meaningful clearing price.

Sure.

Except, no. Ralph Borsodi verified this; he began a homestead that enabled him to feed himself, clothe himself, etc without any income.

Once word got out Borsodi's pay offers went higher. Not because he was a more valuable laborer, clearly; in fact, likely less so because of prior commitments and labor exertion at home.

But because his potential employers knew he did not NEED them, and could no longer use uneven bargaining positions to gain leverage in pay negotiations.

Labor is a buyer's market for the vast majority of people, not a seller's market. Extreme information asymmetry/bargaining power makes establishing a labor clearing price impossible.

Case in point: not getting a job because you are "overqualified". That real-life phenomenon completely obliterates the marginal product theory.

>>3194282
It reveals a total lack of empathy?

>>3194194
Investing is beyond the means of the overwhelming majority. Don't you think that if given a literal choice between laboring and investing, a rational person would choose investing?

There's also the problem that there isn't enough room at the top. Our society is a pyramidal social structure in this sense, and has been since the neolithic revolution. You can't turn the pyramid upside down, and pretending we live in a utopia where the surplus isn't collecting by the ruling class is just fucking religious fervency.

>>3194279

Actually, it doesn't matter which underlying economic theory is true, because it isn't a matter of economics at all.

If it is the case that there exist alternative methods of socio-economic organization that are superior to the current one, then the fact that the implementation of those alternatives is resisted means that those who are losing under the current system are being exploited.

>>3194330
>isn't collected

Whoops

>>3194250

Oh wait, so you're saying that capitalists actually do something? That it does take time and effort?

You're also not address the point. If the worker was capable of earning more than minimum wage for his labor, then a capitalist will pay slightly more than another capitalists to hire that worker. So if the worker can only earn a marginal product, that is the value his work adds to the finished good, of minimum wage, then that isn't the fault of the capitalist.

>Where do you live where you've gotten this absurd idea that anyone can become a multimillionaire living on minimum wage?

Never said that. Just sayin' if you're earning a piss-poor wage, it isn't the capitalists fault.

For most rich people, like 95% of their money is in their investments. That's the bedrock of the economy, this unspoken agreement to make shitloads of money and never spend more than a fraction of it. Read Keynes' "The Economic Consequences of the Peace."

>>3193390
>What do you think a CEO does? Sits on there ass and twiddle their thumbs, and then every 30 minutes they use an intercom to tell someone to tell other people to work harder?

yes

or golf.

Because the majority of "power" is located in their hands. They have the ability to manipulate every level of human civilization to a degree. When things go to shit...it is because they fucked up. This is not a hard correlation to put together.

>All you have to do is buy some stocks and earn money just like capitalists do. Hell, open a savings account.
Really?
1.) Most people don't have savings anymore because wages have not kept pace with cost of living increases.
2.) Even if someone did scrape up enough cash to buy some stock they would lose their money unless they are privy to the insider trading information on wall street.
3.) Interest on a savings account doesn't even keep pace with inflation so they are better off just buying something with their money.

>>3194350
>Oh wait, so you're saying that capitalists actually do something? That it does take time and effort?
I don't think any honest person would say otherwise, but i disagree that they work a great deal harder than a person on minimum wage, and i disagree that the income gap is justified by capitalists working harder.

>You're also not address the point. If the worker was capable of earning more than minimum wage for his labor, then a capitalist will pay slightly more than another capitalists to hire that worker. So if the worker can only earn a marginal product, that is the value his work adds to the finished good, of minimum wage, then that isn't the fault of the capitalist.
Baker's post in >>3194315 is a better critique than i could give.

>Never said that. Just sayin' if you're earning a piss-poor wage, it isn't the capitalists fault.
You implied it. You said that they should just invest and open a savings account, but this is an unrealistic demand.

>>3194290
I think you should understand the difference between systemic process and conspiracy. No one set out to invent racism and impose it on the unwilling, pure masses. We're all competing with each other for scraps, and because we are, things like racism or xenophobia come about. You know, like people hating Mexicans or the Japanese because "they're stealin our jobs." After the South Korean stole the jobs from Japan, their historical hatred for each other increased, and now that other Southeast Asians are stealing jobs from one another, they hate each other, too. Except it's not stealing jobs, it's just moving from subcontractor to subcontractor for manufacturing to find the cheapest labor. Then again, this shit happens and people think the US isn't productive anymore, when the US is the largest manufacturer in the world.

Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. It's the drive for efficiency that makes history.

>>3194279

It's a choice to save. Success isn't guaranteed, there is uncertainty, after all.

The value of the ends a good can achieve is the only value a good can have. People act to achieve ends. Are pearls valuable because divers dive deep to get them or do divers dive to get pearls because the pearls are a means to a valued in?

>Saying that value comes from exchange

Now where did I say that?

capitalists: What will you do when technology obsoletes almost all labor? What exploitive, irrational, and insane methods will you come up with to keep the game going?

>>3194468
That's what marginal utility suggests. You're using marginal utility to say something, I assumed you agreed with it.

>>3194315

>can't in2 time-preference
>can't in2 the "equally serviceable units" part of marginalism

>>3194468
Are pearls sitting at the bottom of the ocean valuable? Or are they only potentially valuable, after the labor of extracting them and bringing them to market has occurred?

Diamonds sitting underneath a mountain have no use or exchange value to anyone. It's only after they are extracted and prepared that they are valuable.

>>3194116
>Ownership should be distributed throughout society in such a way that everybody prospers.


THIS IS WHAT LIBTARDS BELIEVE

>>3194511

No, marginal utility is intrarpersonal ranking of the ends the given units of goods can achieve. No exchange giving value implied.

>>3194547

The divers value for the pearls must pre-exist for the diver to even dive to get the pearls.

Once again, ends are valued and the means are valued relative to the ends they can be employed to achieve. The diamonds in the mountain are valued because they can reach an end.

>>3194457
Hey faggot, guess why your jobs are outsourced? Unions. Unions demand unrealistic shit from companies and companies do what any good capitalist does: they find cheaper labor. Also your bullshit about CEOs needs some citations, they actually work extremely hard and have a shitton of pressure on them. But I bet you don't even have a job so what would you know?

>>3194516
Discount for time preference is valid. But it's not enough to account for the vast disparity in wages between equally qualified workers on the same shift in the same position... Try breaking your employer's "no discussing your coworkers wages" rule sometime. When I worked as a dishwasher, I knew workers who worked faster and better than me and who had seniority, but got paid DOLLARS an hour less.

Of course, I'm a young white guy, and they were middle-aged possibly-illegal hispanics with kids to feed. But the inferior bargaining position that puts them in, I'm sure it had nothing to do with it. I'm sure it had something to do with the time preference of their equally serviceable units of labor.

>>3193275

Doesn't peter Schiff belong in the 1% of the 1% and started his company out of his apartment that now employs 150 people?

If the workers hate capitalists so much, who don't they pool their resources together to start their own companies?