The Maximum Wage.

[mykcob4]

When the law of unintended consequences strikes as a result of previous market interference, the solution is more market interference.

Ah the old market arguement. Since the SEC has been gutted under the "W" admin. and it has run amuck(sp) and all that has been accomplished is a world recession/depression, I think that finally regulating the markets responsibliy is in order.

I see you didn't understand what I wrote.  That's ok, I didn't expect you to - you actually think the US is a free market economy.

And you apparently also think that a bad regulation that helps the wrong people is an absent regulation, that mal-regulation is deregulation.

I fully understood what you meant. I have seen your argument so many times it isn't even funny. It's an old wornout arguemnet that doesn't really have any validity. It's the "regulation is bad" kind of stuff that eminates from socalled libertarian republican conservatives that use propaganda direct from propagandist like Limbaugh to push a deregulation agenda. You also don't think that the US is a free market economy which is yet an old wornout lie propagadted from the same sources. The Ayn Rand economist would have everyone believe that the US market is not a free market. Of course it has completely been debunked by none other than Paul Krugman and other respected world economist but of course they are the boogiemen/women that no libertarian would accept.
So yeah I understood what you wrote. I understand your spin. I considered it for what it was worth the dismissed it as it should be.

[mykcob4]

Its not that they are rich that is the problem at all. It's that their greed isn't in check.

If you think limiting salaries to $600k is going to keep greed in check, let me remind you that when he died, Steve Jobs had a net worth of $8b to $10b depending on who you believe, and he was receiving a salary of $1/yr. Now I'm not suggesting that Steve was greedy. But I think its worth mentioning that if Steve could do it, every single one of these other fucks you want to limit is going to be able to do it to. So limiting salary does nothing.

If you want to accomplish what you're talking about, you would need to limit total compensation and even then you'd have a tough time plugging all the loopholes. But for the life of me, I fail to see how doing that would have a positive impact on anyone. You're not going to make the poor less poor. You're not going to make more entry level jobs available. All you're going to do is make it more tricky for those with the highest level incomes to be compensated.

I have already addressed this earlier in the thread.

[mykcob4]

There are two concepts of wealthy in play, and those who want to engineer away the wealthy (because for some unknown reason they think it is fair an moral to be unfair and immoral) never quite get the proposals to do what they want.

First is net worth, the second is income.  There are people with great accumulated net worth who actually don't have outrageously exorbitant incomes, because they don't need them.  Just a few hundred thousand a year to maintain their position.  Then there are people who have very large incomes, but much smaller net worth.  There are doctors who have six figure incomes, and most of it goes to pay for their student loans and their mortgage leaving a disposable income that is quite middle class.

So which of the two do those who wish to eat the rich really want to eat?

Invalid question. Calls for a conclussion of YOUR making. Distorts and misrepresents the original idea of the thread.

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Ah the old market arguement. Since the SEC has been gutted under the "W" admin. and it has run amuck(sp) and all that has been accomplished is a world recession/depression, I think that finally regulating the markets responsibliy is in order.

I see you didn't understand what I wrote.  That's ok, I didn't expect you to - you actually think the US is a free market economy.

And you apparently also think that a bad regulation that helps the wrong people is an absent regulation, that mal-regulation is deregulation.

I fully understood what you meant. I have seen your argument so many times it isn't even funny. It's an old wornout arguemnet that doesn't really have any validity. It's the "regulation is bad" kind of stuff that eminates from socalled libertarian republican conservatives that use propaganda direct from propagandist like Limbaugh to push a deregulation agenda. You also don't think that the US is a free market economy which is yet an old wornout lie propagadted from the same sources. The Ayn Rand economist would have everyone believe that the US market is not a free market. Of course it has completely been debunked by none other than Paul Krugman and other respected world economist but of course they are the boogiemen/women that no libertarian would accept.
So yeah I understood what you wrote. I understand your spin. I considered it for what it was worth the dismissed it as it should be.

You claim that since the wrong group of cronies was put in charge that the SEC was gutted.  You claim the US economy is free market.  You also claim that you understand my argument.  You claim that when I say regulation was re-written to benefit people you don't like instead of people you like that my argument is nothing more than "regulation is bad".  You also use the nonsensical phrase "libertarian republican conservatives" which means about the same thing as "all yellow and all red at the same time".

Your understanding is about as shallow as an empty washtub, but you know the right sound-bites from your chosen team to parrot when someone disagrees with you.  Blue Good Red Bad! the Coastal Crips Rule the South-West Bloods Drool!

[zarus tathra]

My question is, why are you more concerned with pissing off CEO's than, say, ending war? Or promoting clean energy? We have a billion problems that are bigger than this, and yet this seems to be the only thing you care about.

[mykcob4]

My question is, why are you more concerned with pissing off CEO's than, say, ending war? Or promoting clean energy? We have a billion problems that are bigger than this, and yet this seems to be the only thing you care about.

I didn't say that I didn't care about war. That is just you interjecting the thread that you started into this thread.

[mykcob4]

You claim that since the wrong group of cronies was put in charge that the SEC was gutted.  You claim the US economy is free market.  You also claim that you understand my argument.  You claim that when I say regulation was re-written to benefit people you don't like instead of people you like that my argument is nothing more than "regulation is bad".  You also use the nonsensical phrase "libertarian republican conservatives" which means about the same thing as "all yellow and all red at the same time".

Your understanding is about as shallow as an empty washtub, but you know the right sound-bites from your chosen team to parrot when someone disagrees with you.  Blue Good Red Bad! the Coastal Crips Rule the South-West Bloods Drool!

You know Jason, you're a broken record. The same old bullshit. You don't get to define me. Yeah you have your opinion and I clearly think that you are incorrect. You "parraot" the old Ayn Rand libertarian line that I have heard for decades, yet you call me a parrot. You keep saying that I endorse some gangland mentality which is completely false. I really don't care what you say or what you think. I am not playing your game.
My understanding is full and complete no matter how you want to describe it.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

[AllPurposeAtheist]

It's so nice to see the discussion deteriorate to mindless name calling. It's so gosh darn productive.
While I DO think income levels are so obscenely skewed to utterly ridiculous levels where the top money grubbers live like kings and queens of untold opulence while the majority of the actual producers of goods all to often live day to day barely able to get by then said royalty influence lawmakers to allow wholesale exploitation of workers all perfectly legal and laugh their way to banks.
The sadder part is these money hoarders often use their vast wealth to surround themselves in high security out of fear the workers are eventually drag them off to the gallows. Just read up a bit on revolutions of the past and they were seldom pretty so if you have designs on limiting their wealth you better be willing to quite literally drag them screaming and kicking to watch other heads roll and rivers of blood to flow. These people will never willingly give up on being filthy rich unless the only alternative is a slow, agonizing, public death. To even get to that point will require a long, bloody civil war and it'll have to be on a global scale. I just don't see it happening.  We're not in Gene Roddenberry's world.

[Sal1981]

I saw a video about "eating the rich", right off the bat the narrator thought that money disappeared after being "eaten". I was like "whut?" The whole argument was built around the premise that after "eating the rich" that the money acquired from the rich through some re-distribution method that he never mentioned mysteriously vanished.

Needless to say, I rolled my eyes at the whole calculation, since he couldn't even grasp the simple concept of gross national product.

I think this was the video, been a while since I last saw it.
[youtube:197x271m]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K-8WQ[/youtube:197x271m]

[josephpalazzo]

It's so nice to see the discussion deteriorate to mindless name calling. It's so gosh darn productive.
While I DO think income levels are so obscenely skewed to utterly ridiculous levels where the top money grubbers live like kings and queens of untold opulence while the majority of the actual producers of goods all to often live day to day barely able to get by then said royalty influence lawmakers to allow wholesale exploitation of workers all perfectly legal and laugh their way to banks.
The sadder part is these money hoarders often use their vast wealth to surround themselves in high security out of fear the workers are eventually drag them off to the gallows. Just read up a bit on revolutions of the past and they were seldom pretty so if you have designs on limiting their wealth you better be willing to quite literally drag them screaming and kicking to watch other heads roll and rivers of blood to flow. These people will never willingly give up on being filthy rich unless the only alternative is a slow, agonizing, public death. To even get to that point will require a long, bloody civil war and it'll have to be on a global scale. I just don't see it happening.  We're not in Gene Roddenberry's world.

Things haven't changed much. In the Medieval Age, the baron or the duke would leave his castle with three or four dozens of soldiers to protect himself from the poors. Today, the billionaires move around with their security agents, lawyers, publicist and a whole slew of people catering to his every wish and whim, making sure the public stays at bay. Of course, they have their shills, advocating this ideology of a free market to every idiot who is gullible to listen to that tripe. The thing is, if the market were to be left to be free, it would be quickly dominated by monopolies. History has shown this time and time again. The only entity that can stop this is strong government that would work for the people, which of course for these rich people is the last thing they want. So in every which way they can, they will sabotage, usurp, corrupt the government, aka "bleed the beast" so that they can do whatever they want.

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Blue Good Red Bad! the Coastal Crips Rule the South-West Bloods Drool!

Exactly, that is your whole argument.

You probably even believe that Republicans, who grow the government faster than the Democrats do, are "small government."  Woot Coastal Crips!

The thing is, if the market were to be left to be free, it would be quickly dominated by monopolies. History has shown this time and time again.

But the history of the Earth shows that monopolies only exist when protected by the government.

[Jason Harvestdancer]

It is true that there is an ideology that hearkens back to the days of Feudalism.  Feudalism, the first enemy of Classical Liberalism (Libertarianism) has never fully gone away but recasts itself over and over again each time it fails.

Currently it is called "Progressivism", the belief that some people are sufficiently superior that they should have the right to have political authority over others and that those others should know their place and not question their betters.  There once was the Feudal Baron, now there is the Department Bureaucrat.

Feudalists hate the free market.  They despise it.  What is the point of being a self-appointed elite when there exists a mechanism whereby people can turn themselves into elite?  Also, since progressive believe the elite should rule, they believe that these free market elites must (for unknown reasons) seek political power, and therefore are trying to take that political power away from the progressive feudalists.

Don't worry.  Free marketers aren't trying to seize political power and rule you.  We just don't agree that you are elite and have a right to rule us.  Of course that last bit is enough to infuriate progressive feudalists - that we deny that they are elite.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I saw a video about "eating the rich", right off the bat the narrator thought that money disappeared after being "eaten". I was like "whut?" The whole argument was built around the premise that after "eating the rich" that the money acquired from the rich through some re-distribution method that he never mentioned mysteriously vanished.

Needless to say, I rolled my eyes at the whole calculation, since he couldn't even grasp the simple concept of gross national product.

I think this was the video, been a while since I last saw it.
Writer posted a YouTube video

Eat The Rich is a cult classic man!  sooo.. we open upscale restaurants and feed the clientele back to themselves. They become self consuming.

[josephpalazzo]

I saw a video about "eating the rich", right off the bat the narrator thought that money disappeared after being "eaten". I was like "whut?" The whole argument was built around the premise that after "eating the rich" that the money acquired from the rich through some re-distribution method that he never mentioned mysteriously vanished.

Needless to say, I rolled my eyes at the whole calculation, since he couldn't even grasp the simple concept of gross national product.

I think this was the video, been a while since I last saw it.
Writer posted a YouTube video

Eat The Rich is a cult classic man!  sooo.. we open upscale restaurants and feed the clientele back to themselves. They become self consuming.

This reminds me of of Twilight Zone epi, to Serve Man

[youtube:3p1ppkb0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMZJ-mM2n9A[/youtube:3p1ppkb0]