Post: #26

"The book the 1% don't want you to read"

I thought the book was going to be about entrepreneurship and innovation.

But no, of course it's about wealth redistribution and higher taxes. Take what isn't yours and give it to people who didn't earn it, and then label it a moral act. Blah blah blah. Sounds like communism to me. I don't think the wealthy are going to be too scared about this book.

Post: #27

Here, and in other interviews, he explains that he welcomes people to disagree with Part 4 of the book, and hopes that they will still find Part 1-3 interesting/useful. He also invites people come up with their own ideas for Part 4.
He points out that his expertise is at analyzing the past, not predicting the future.

Post: #28

(04-24-2014 04:19 AM)capitalmadness Wrote:  The fact that mainstream Chicago/Austrian economists are losing their shit about this book means it should be read. Calling it populist is a pathetic refutation of his argument that capital accumulation and rent seeking (as seen since WWII)are bad for everyone who isn't already rich.

It is definitely on my reading list at some stage.

University of Chicago economists, and Austrians usually have disdain for each other.

Post: #29

Revolutions are traditionally led by middle class people. When they feel their ambitions are thwarted and thta the elites take too much. Happened in Russia, Peru and most recently Tunisia and N Africa

Post: #30

BlurredSevens,

Indeed. There's something to be said against winner-take-all models where a slight amount of people, who through inherited talents & connections, are by birth much (much!) better off than anyone else. OTOH, the majority should just accept that they're not part of 1% and need to step up their game through hard work, risks, sacrifices and learning. There's just no other way around this. Redistribution wouldn't even work IF we wanted to.

Gregory Clark's book "The Son Also Rises" looked into social mobility in varying societies and found that, whether he was in communist China, capitalist US, classist UK, social democratic Sweden social mobility was low and has always been low. The descendants of Anglo-Normans who conquered England around 1100s are still over-represented among Oxford-university students today! Samurai-descendants dominate Japanese politics, business, media,...

Redistribution doesn't work. It doesn't matter what economic/political model people have tried, the outcomes have been the same everywhere. You need one of these: hard work, luck or good genes.

Post: #31

There is something perverse about a book like this being a best seller rather than the biography of an entrepreneur, or a book like The Richest Man in Babylon or The Intelligent Investor.

This has been stated before, but the middle class don't want education. They want entertainment. To that, I'd also add that they want validation. Rather than read about what it takes to become wealthy (and implement it), they'd rather read about how The Man is keeping them down. That's if they even bother to read. The average American watches five hours of television per day. The average Briton, Australian, etc. probably isn't any better.

We live in an age of unprecedented access to information, and people are stupider and lazier than ever. I used to have a copy of Seth Klarman's Margin of Safety. This is a book that is supposedly out of print and goes for $2,000 on Ebay. Yet you can find copies all over the Internet. How to get rich is not something you need to join the Illuminati to find out. I didn't study economics or finance at university. My parents didn't teach me this. Instead, I used these two crazy ideas called the Internet and libraries and educated myself.

In conjunction with wasting boatloads of time, the average person also wastes boatloads of money. Sure, if we're talking about a kid in Bangladesh not being able to accumulate capital, I'll buy that. Yet in the West, money can't burn a hole in people's pockets fast enough.

That's all it is: people are absolutely atrocious at managing resources -- be they time or money -- and they want validation for why that's someone else's fault, not theirs. Fuck them. They deserve to be poor because not only are they willingly ignorant, but they often revel in it. If this is what the West has become, then fuck the West too.

The 1% (or 0.1%) have nothing to fear from slothful, entitled morons.

Post: #32

(04-24-2014 01:54 PM)ElBorrachoInfamoso Wrote:  While I am not yet in the top 1% by wealth, I am in the top 1% by income. I grew up in the projects, in a family that was probably in the bottom 1%. While I may not be a typical example of the top 1%, I am far more typical than the stereotype many people have of Mr. Moneybags living it up on Grand Cayman. My parents were poor immigrants, not evil oligarchs.

You are a perfect example of why this book is based on a false presumption. The important issue is not any perceived wealth gap, but the ability of almost anyone who is willing to work hard to have significant upward mobility in society.

Liberal fixation on a so-called wealth gap ignores the fact that anyone who focuses on building wealth and chooses to work hard can do so. Whiners, complainers, and professional victims need not apply. Economist Thomas Sowell, an African-American, wrote this editorial a few months back, differentiating wealth versus economic mobility.

Quote:While the rhetoric is about people, the statistics are almost invariably about abstract income brackets.

It is easier and cheaper to collect statistics about income brackets than it is to follow actual flesh and blood people as they move massively from one income bracket to another over the years.

More important, statistical studies that follow particular individuals over the years often reach diametrically opposite conclusions from the conclusions reached by statistical studies that follow income brackets over the years.

Currently we are hearing a lot in the media and in politics about the "top 1 percent" of income earners who are supposedly getting an ever-increasing share of the nation's income.

That is absolutely true if you are talking about income brackets. It is totally untrue if you are talking about actual flesh and blood people.

The Internal Revenue Service can follow individual people over the years because they can identify individuals from their Social Security numbers. During recent years, when "the top 1 percent" as an income category has been getting a growing share of the nation's income, IRS data show that actual flesh and blood people who were in the top 1 percent in 1996 had their incomes go down — repeat, DOWN — by a whopping 26 percent by 2005.

How can both sets of statistics be true at the same time? Because most people who are in the top 1 percent in a given year do not stay in that bracket over the years.

If we are being serious — as distinguished from being political — then our concern should be with what is happening to actual flesh and blood human beings, not what is happening to abstract income brackets.

There is the same statistical problem when talking about "the poor" as there is when talking about "the rich."

A University of Michigan study showed that most of the working people who were in the bottom 20 percent of income earners in 1975 were also in the top 40 percent at some point by 1991. Only 5 percent of those in the bottom quintile in 1975 were still there in 1991, while 29 percent of them were now in the top quintile.

People in the media and in politics choose statistics that seem to prove what they want to prove. But the rest of us should become aware of what games are being played with numbers.

http://www.redding.com/news/2011/nov/09/...artner=RSS

Post: #33

This theory sounds stupid considering in order to take advantage of capital gains / dividends you have to make money in the first place.

The reason these people are able to make so much more than others is they took the initiative and risk to start their own businesses which often allow for unique taxation structures just as they should. These people provide employments for the masses. Should they not receive benefits for doing so and beyond that benefits to ensure the company success so that many people aren't out of work one day. The other part is largely going to be CEOs of major companies. So a guy climbs a corporate pyramid and is the #1 guy standing over 10's of thousands of employees...should he/she not be paid accordingly?

Post: #34

Frankly in a way I agree with Rollo Tomassi from Rational Male that the manosphere should best stay out of politics and religion since those topics easily divide people.

What we likely ALL CAN AGREE upon as rational Red Pill males, who are willing to change when faced with facts to the contrary is that we could easily field-test ALL current economic policies. It is not even that difficult to implement libertarian economic policies in one State and field-test interest-free economics & usury free economics in another State. Very soon it would become obvious what is best for most of humanity.

Either way - we all agree that we are willing to test viable systems and find the best one in a rational way. It is actually quite easy to do, but will not happen of course because a few profit from the system too well at the expense of most.

Post: #35

(04-25-2014 05:01 AM)Feisbook Control Wrote:  This has been stated before, but the middle class don't want education. They want entertainment. To that, I'd also add that they want validation. Rather than read about what it takes to become wealthy (and implement it), they'd rather read about how The Man is keeping them down.

My thoughts exactly.

Even if a step-by-step book existed which told you precisely how to have a shot at being the 1% (! The Lean Startup) the middle class wouldn't put in the time or effort. Rationalising is so much more convenient.

The books which have changed my life have often been the driest. I find most 'Best-Selling' books to be hyped up or have little-to-no practical application. They appeal to the lowest common denominator and we all know where that mindset will get us.

Post: #36

(04-26-2014 05:04 AM)Prophylaxis Wrote:  

(04-25-2014 05:01 AM)Feisbook Control Wrote:  This has been stated before, but the middle class don't want education. They want entertainment. To that, I'd also add that they want validation. Rather than read about what it takes to become wealthy (and implement it), they'd rather read about how The Man is keeping them down.

My thoughts exactly.

Even if a step-by-step book existed which told you precisely how to have a shot at being the 1% (! The Lean Startup) the middle class wouldn't put in the time or effort. Rationalising is so much more convenient.

The books which have changed my life have often been the driest. I find most 'Best-Selling' books to be hyped up or have little-to-no practical application. They appeal to the lowest common denominator and we all know where that mindset will get us.

While I agree with your point, I am not sure why you guys are harping on the middle-class. I have no problem with people who wish to glide through life in the easiest manner possible, as long as they do not become financially dependent on society. It is the middle-class which has suffered the most this past decade, not the poor, as Fed policy has shifted wealth from the middle-class to Wall Street by frittering away savings accounts through artificially low interest rates.

It is the liberal intelligentsia, supposedly working on behalf of the poor and the disadvantaged, who promote most of these mindless policies to advance their political agenda. That these policies are counter-productive and historically harm the poor is of no consequence to them. It is all about building a permanent base of support to keep them in political power.

Post: #37

The Economist magazine gives a chapter by chapter breakdown/critique of the book:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexcha...ok-clubs-0

Post: #38

Some posters have brought back the old canard that the upper-class has been getting richer at the expense of the middle-class. That is kind of true, but the new upper-class was the old middle-class. This picture summarizes the changes nicely.



Clearly the poor segment of society is not growing. That's another myth we can discard right now.

The middle-class has been shrinking, but it's only been shrinking because the middle-class has been moving up the socioeconomic ladder. The wealth distribution has spread out more, but none of the segments shown here are worse off.

Post: #39

Tail Gunner: I can't speak for others, but my problem with the middle class is that they're not willing to engage in any kind of introspection, they think there is not a game being played, they take everything completely at face value, they allow themselves to get shorn, and then they go back to be skinned. Then they complain about it.

At best, they play it safe all their lives (many do not even do that and instead have spent the past few decades with negative savings rates because they just had to have a big house, they just had to have a big car, etc.), completely unwilling to open their eyes and see the world for what it is. They act as though life is perfectly ordered, that there's some overarching cosmic justice. They're so naive. They're like children. They think everyone deserves a medal just for showing up.

Even when they profess to know that they're being skinned, they still go along to get along. I guarantee that the average person reading that book will still vote Republican or Democrat, just as they always have and always will. You could come and put the secrets of the universe right in front of them and they still wouldn't know what to do because all they want is to be sheep. Yet it is axiomatic that sheep get shorn. They want to be sheep, but they don't want to be shorn. That's a circle that cannot be squared. The middle class are a bunch of betas who believe that if they're really nice, they'll get the girl because they deserve the girl.

This whole thing, but especially 7:37 until the end.





A loser is a loser.

Post: #40

(04-24-2014 02:30 PM)BlurredSevens Wrote:  "The book the 1% don't want you to read"

I thought the book was going to be about entrepreneurship and innovation.

But no, of course it's about wealth redistribution and higher taxes. Take what isn't yours and give it to people who didn't earn it, and then label it a moral act. Blah blah blah. Sounds like communism to me. I don't think the wealthy are going to be too scared about this book.

Exactly. Here is the thing I feel when I read stuff from leftists. It almost always feel like one big intellectual rationalization for "I am jealous that I don't earn as much money in my low-risk public job and therefore those in high-risk jobs should have their money taken".

It's like every smart argument these people make and their research falls to pieces once that inevitable last 'gimme their money' conclusion eventually shows up.

Wealth redistribution have been tried and failed almost anywhere. Even if it does lead to less risk for a lot of people, the tradeoff is much less personal freedom. Read 'Don't Bang Denmark' by Roosh, it has plenty of good examples of what life is like in a country with high wealth redistribution.

Solutions to the perceived massive wealth inequality, which is true, must come from something else than the tired old, left-right, paradigm. History shows us that technology is the main driving force in increasing living standards and personal freedom.

Post: #41

(04-24-2014 02:30 PM)BlurredSevens Wrote:  "The book the 1% don't want you to read"

I thought the book was going to be about entrepreneurship and innovation.

But no, of course it's about wealth redistribution and higher taxes. Take what isn't yours and give it to people who didn't earn it, and then label it a moral act. Blah blah blah. Sounds like communism to me. I don't think the wealthy are going to be too scared about this book.

The shrillest critics of Piketty, like BlurredSevens above, focus on just one piece of his work, without recognizing his overall goal of preserving democracy, where the state is not a plaything of rich elites. Hell, he would probably argue that the inequality he seeks to moderate, if left unchecked, would imperil the entrepreneurship and free market you so esteem. Titans of industry hate the free market. They hate competition. Competition in a free market where barries to entry are low means profits are low too, not quite an endearing state to businessmen of any stripe. It's only when a businessman is an upstart that he lauds competition. When a firm becomes dominant, it has every reason to starve and eliminate competition. So unless you're already at the top of your industry and would like the government's aid to stay there, you may find that you have some points of agreement with him if you overlook his prescription for global taxes.

Piketty's diagnosis is that increasing inequality leads to regulatory capture and crony capitalism that eventually impoverishes everyone but the oligarchs. The novelty of his work I suppose is that when investment rates exceed economic growth rates, inequality increases, together with the historical empirical backing for this assertion. But this link is then lumped in with his prescribed treatment of global taxes, which is what gets the haters cranked up.

Unfortunately, it seems like most people who are unfriendly to his idea of substantial global taxes, instead of exploring alternative, non-leftist alternatives, are just arguing to do nothing, and let inequality and crony capitalism keep growing apace. You don't have to be a socialist to share his concern about the effects of growing inequality, nor do you have to sign on to his policy prescriptions if you are so concerned.

Rent-seeking activity is everywhere in our economy, and it's growing. The funny thing is that leftists and liberals are always trying to fight inequality by imposing more regulations and more taxes, instead of removing those regulations and taxes that promote them. If the left truly seeks to moderate inequality, and the right to enhance economic freedom, they should agree on minimizing rent-seeking. Things like expensive licensing requirements to practice an occupation, or requiring medallions to drive taxis, are one such example. Byzantine regulations are invariably costlier for smaller firms to comply with than for larger firms. Yet the left is in no hurry to whittle away such programs. I suppose the reason why is that these rent-seekers effectively lobby politicians and fund their campaigns precisely for these special hand-outs, so the left (and the right, mostly) keeps mum about it, and drones on instead about the need for new taxes.

Would eliminating rent-seeking opportunities achieve what Piketty seeks to accomplish with his global taxes? I don't know. I don't know that either one would work - but I can't see how rent-seeking would hurt anyone except the rent-seekers themselves. Global taxes on the other hand could have unforeseen severe, negative consequences. Where would I start? Reduce or eliminate occupational licensing programs; allow occupational testing so that people can prove their proficiency without acquiring an expensive college degree. Reduce or eliminate regulations that have an unduly high compliance cost on smaller firms (eg arduous food safety rules for cottage businesses and farms); constant vigilance about regulatory capture aka the revolving door (eg Goldman Sachs dangling a fat paycheck in the future for current SEC honchos). Making the state smaller and simpler in general reduces opportunities for hustlers to get their cut. The smaller the pie, the smaller the slice.

A personal example: housing in liberal cities like San Francisco, New York City and Los Angeles is very expensive, thanks to regulations that limit supply. What does the left do? It demands a few set-asides for poor people for every new luxury condo complex that goes up. And that does nothing to help the people in the middle that aren't poor enough to benefit from that, and aren't rich enough to afford the new swanky condo. It sure does benefit the pre-existing homeowners and landlords - who also benefit massively from artificially low property taxes that would skyrocket if say, I were to acquire their property. No, the left mostly doesn't address issues like that. It clamors for greater equality but refuses the market-friendly policies that would promote it. I see Tyler Cowen makes much the same charge in his review of Piketty's work - http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalre...ntion.html (last paragraph).

Look at the list of highest paying occupations ( http://www.bls.gov/ooh/highest-paying.htm), and you'll see that some 60-70%+ of the highest paying occupations have substantial barriers to entry. Same for practicing law, which is not in that list but has many wealthy practitioners.

I haven't read the book, just read some summaries of it.

Post: #42

he's the typical French Marxist -

Post: #43

Basil,

Good post. Piketty's critique of inequality is 'old'; we've been here before. Leftist intellectuals arguing the rich are getting richer. There's been so much research, hard thinking & ideas that have come up since the Great Depression & the 70s New Left that it's pretty hard to accept Piketty's line of reasoning. The idea of the "1%" or "the rich" or "the bankers" in itself is a form of framing that as an completely wrong in analysis method of our societies.

I completely agree that rich people try to make people believe w/ libertarian theories & Republicanist free marketeering that their wealth is justifiable. There's more to this story. Did the two guys from Whatsapp really deserve to be handed 19 Billion $ for inventing a webchat app (w/o many cool innovative features) that would have been invented down-the-line anyway? This winner-take-all stuff might work economically, it is something the non-winners will feel unfair. OTOH, there simply is no way to prevent elites from wealth accumulation because talents are unequally divided between groups of people. Social democratic Sweden has the same kind of social mobility as the US! US elites are simply much richer than anyone else, because success in the US often means global success.

The only sensible tax that I could think of to make society more equal is to financially knee-cap the children of elites by raising the inheritance tax to 100%: only that would give both everyone an equal start, while not punishing their talents. But this kind of tax would bring lots of moral dilemmas in itself and it presupposes equality is by definition necessary (which isn't true, see Dubai) or moral (which isn't true either, see communism).

This is why I think Piketty is fighting windmills. To achieve his goals he should go much further than he does. I'm also sick of intellectuals who tell us society is bad because A, B, C and then come up with some bogus/dummy hobbyhorse that's exactly warmed-up shit that has been refuted n-th times, like the gender pay gap. If an intellectual can't couple a sound critique to a sound solution, he/she should be ignored.

Post: #44

I found a free ebook by progressive economist Dean Baker that tackles the points I mentioned - The End of Loser Liberalism. I haven't read it yet, but from a glimpse it looks like he wants to achieve progressive ends by harnessing the free market, and not repressing it.

"knee-cap the children of elites by raising the inheritance tax to 100%: only that would give both everyone an equal start, while not punishing their talents. "

It is impossible to create even the shadow of a level playing field; there's more than just material wealth that varies from one man to another. Harrison Bergeron is a good antidote to that fantasist notion. Not that an inheritance tax is off the table, but setting up an impossible goal is a recipe for dramatic failure.

"The idea of the "1%" or "the rich" or "the bankers" in itself is a form of framing that as an completely wrong in analysis method of our societies. "

Many of the rich are in fact leeches, in the sense that they are rent seekers whose incomes and fortunes would decline if there were more competition. Bolstering the free market is anathema to progressives, so they never quite go down that route. Local politics is full of these sorts of hustlers. You don't need to be a 'hater' to object to these types, you just need to be cognizant of the fact that they are impoverishing everyone else - as with, for instance, Carlos Slim did to common Mexicans with his telecoms monopolies.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" - Upton Sinclair

Post: #45

Maciano: Inheritance taxes would have one of two effects. Either people would move their money offshore (and migrate with it if need be) or they would severely curtail their economic and entrepreneurial efforts within their lifetimes. Why would people work hard to build anything if it would be taken away and they would not be able to leave a legacy? I wouldn't. I'd make just enough to live quite well within my life and that would be it. We're already seeing a similar effect with men dropping out of the labour force in droves. Likewise, we're seeing men drop out of marriage in droves for similar reasons. If you're going to get taken for a ride, better not to play the game at all.

Basil: I'll come right out and say that I don't believe in democracy, at least not universal suffrage. At the most, I think there should be a very limited franchise to prevent the shiftless of society helping themselves to others' money. The trouble is that a limited franchise inevitably tends towards universal suffrage, so we get right back to where we began.

I think that the deeper issue is not even economic, but that economic problems are symptoms of cultural problems. I don't believe that there is any coincidence that many developed nations now face major problems of growing inequality. At the same time that that has happened, we have seen everything from the destruction of the family unit to mass immigration. In the former case, everything from the autonomy of individuals to a well-educated and informed populace has broken down. Coupled with highly diverse societies now, is it any wonder that people are disconnected from one another, their local communities and their national political systems? There is no sense of common wealth, and thus, there is no commonwealth. Of course this has led to a huge opening for rent seeking activity and regulatory capture. I don't believe that has been opportunistic. I believe it has been by design. Democracies work best when the next voter and you both see each other as compatible, as brothers or neighbours with a lot in common and a shared bond. When the next voter and you see each other as competitors, if not outright enemies, democracy ends up in a shambles. The reality of the situation is that we're only going to see a lot of trust and shared values if we return to fairly homogeneous communities that are fairly patriarchal also. Yet that's not exactly on the cards. I think things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, and as such, I am making preparations for me and mine, screw everyone else. Of course, that exacerbates the problem, but -- as certain groups are finding out -- being the only one playing by the rules or caring about others doesn't make you noble, it just makes you a sucker. I don't want to be a sucker.

Also, I am not sure how we would get global taxes without global government, and that would only be like the present system magnified. Imagine if the world got to vote either as one person, one vote, or even just one country, one vote. The developed world, either in terms of population or number of nations, would soon be completely overwhelmed. Screw that.

Post: #46

(04-27-2014 07:35 PM)Feisbook Control Wrote:  I think that the deeper issue is not even economic, but that economic problems are symptoms of cultural problems.

Quote:Basil: I'll come right out and say that I don't believe in democracy, at least not universal suffrage. At the most, I think there should be a very limited franchise to prevent the shiftless of society helping themselves to others' money. The trouble is that a limited franchise inevitably tends towards universal suffrage, so we get right back to where we began.

Originally, many individual states (of the United States) allowed only landowners to vote, because they had a vested interest in how tax money was spent and most tax money was raised through property taxes. Then all free males. Then all males. Then all females. Now dead men and hamsters vote.

I believe quite strongly that there should be a voting test akin to a citizenship test, where a prospective voter should prove a very basic level of knowledge before being allowed to vote.

Post: #47

@Feisbook Control - Glengarry Glen Ross is my all-time favourite movie and I can lip sync the whole film!

Post: #48

cardguy: It's definitely a gem. Great writing and great acting. There was not a single passenger in the whole film. I looked up how old Baldwin was in that. If I'd had to guess, based upon his demeanour, I'd have thought he was at least 40, and I was thinking, "Damn, he looks good for 40". He was 34. I know it was acting, but still, look at everything about him. This happens to me all the time when I look up certain actors in classic roles. I think it's because so many people in my generation are really pathetic. The average Gen Xer or Millennial dresses like crap and carries himself like crap.

Tail Gunner: I agree that there should be a barrier to voting. The trouble is that I think that incrementally, we'd end up right back where we are today. I think this is a fundamental problem with democracy. I think the issue is that we might easily say that B (limited franchise) is preferable to A (some form of authoritarianism) and C (mob rule). Yet it seems to me that B probably can't ever become an end point in itself, but rather, is transitory. Yet we take a snapshot of B at a particular point and wrongly conclude that it wasn't transitory and that C didn't inevitably/necessarily follow. I have a somewhat cyclical view of history.

I admit that I don't have a political solution to this because I think that either A or C have major problems. Likewise, technocracy also has major problems, namely that it works brilliantly until it doesn't (at some point, China is going to implode, and then we will really see the limits of that, as we are now with the E.U.). People might propose the free market, but I think that would be transitory also as power and wealth would accumulate to a breaking point too. In theory, there is someone who prevents concentration of power or wealth, but who regulates the regulators? In theory, the American political system was designed with checks and balances, yet they're evidently not working, so there's a problem there. I don't think anything remains static indefinitely. The world is always in flux.

I think that it eventually comes down to culture, and levels of trust between individuals or groups, and how willing or able they are to interact in good faith, even putting aside immediate selfish concerns sometimes to avoid a tragedy of the commons. Firstly though, I don't think good culture can be manufactured. There have been all sorts of Utopian attempts at that and they have failed miserably. Good culture has to appear organically, usually after/in response to periods of great turmoil. Yet great periods of turmoil don't necessarily produce good cultures. There's a problem here with thinking about what would have to occur for our culture to get back on track simply because it's that old metaphysical problem of not being able to step into the same river twice, and even if you could, would you not end up at the same place downstream again?

Secondly, getting beyond all of that, even if you live in a place that has its act together, you still have to interact with neighbours who don't, and so you can (will?) get dragged into their nonsense or have it spill over into your own domain.

I think that to some extent, all one can do is play as best he can with the hand he's been dealt, or at least be willing to go down fighting. If our culture, our political system, etc. had been worth fighting for, we would have fought for them, would we not? Either they weren't really worth fighting for, and we acted correctly, or we were/are full of crap. People aren't willing to look at their own role and come to the conclusion that maybe we do actually get the governments or cultures we deserve.

It reminds me of this:





It does trouble me that we live in a "me and mine" age and that a lot of people are focused on their size of the slice of the pie rather than growing the pie. In some ways, I've tried to mitigate this by expatriating, etc. Yet largely, if that's the game being played, then I need to be good at playing that game, not how I imagine the game was, or should have been, played in the past. That is why I criticised the middle class above with their obsession with some sort of overarching cosmic justice and how that makes them suckers.

Post: #49

Quote:The men who can manage men, manage the men who manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all.

Will Durant.

Post: #50

(04-28-2014 01:11 AM)Feisbook Control Wrote:  Tail Gunner: I agree that there should be a barrier to voting. The trouble is that I think that incrementally, we'd end up right back where we are today. I think this is a fundamental problem with democracy.

You are right, which is exactly why the Founding Fathers created a constitutional Republic instead of a democracy where everyone could vote.

It is not as if the Founding Fathers ignored the dangers of a democracy. By creating a constitutional Republic, they did their best to ensure that future generations did not fritter away the liberty that they had won.

The fundamental flaw in the system was that a constitutional Republic must rely upon an educated and moral voting class, which is why I highlighted your comment "that economic problems are symptoms of cultural problems." That is certainly the crux of the problem.