Should a rich person help a poor person just because they're rich?

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: tman_ndsu08 Usefulness is in the eye of the beholder.

Yep. This one is going straight to "Volconvo's Most Idiotic Statements"...

Quote by: tman_ndsu08 The heat and light energy lost when the wood burned is now floating around in the system. It's unlikely that you'll be able to recover it unless you put a seal around your home.

Fine, let's pick nits. Suppose it wasn't a fire, but instead a landslide crushing my house.
I guess by your logic, I'm now "wealthier", because I have several tons of dirt instead of a house.

Quote by: tman_ndsu08 On the contrary, I believe my definition of wealth is independant of any economical theory just as the definitions for force, energy, time, etc. are independant of any physics theories.

A concept of wealth independent of economics is totally meaningless.

Quote by: tman_ndsu08 My definition is merely a tool that theorists can use to further define their theories.

Sure... a tool like a melted kitchen knife.

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: Morgan_Freeman Once again, you ignore my main question: How is your definition of wealth useful?

Why is the definition of the newton useful? Wouldn't it be better to simply say kg-m/s^2?

I don't know how to define "value" in any way other than "ability to cause pleasure".

I do.

Value is the equivalent worth an item takes on after a trade for it has occured.

You didn't answer my question: How is my willingness to pay "irrelevant" if it determines whether or not the trade takes place?

Your willingness to assign any value to an item before a trade has occured for it is irrelevent. The only true value of the item is assigned after the trade has occured.

Those "percieved values" are the driving mechanism behind the stock market.

Incorrect.

As with all trade, the driving force behind it is the persuit of pleasure. In the specific case of the stock market, people are hoping that they can get someone to agree to sell them a stock at a certain value and then that they can get someone else to agree to buy that stock from then at a value higher than the previous value.

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: Morgan_Freeman What you call "percieved value" is what everyone else in the world calls "wealth"...

Doubtful.

Most people feel that perceived value is irrelevent unless you have material items to show for it.

Gates does have a large house, lots of nice cars, etc. That would be weathy to most people, and indeed it is.

However, when you look at his percieved wealth, IE, his huge bank account, it's incomprehensible to people because they can't visualize that amount of value in material form.

If he were to cash out and purchase goods with that money, then people could truely comprehend his wealth.

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: Morgan_Freeman Fine, let's pick nits. Suppose it wasn't a fire, but instead a landslide crushing my house. I guess by your logic, I'm now "wealthier", because I have several tons of dirt instead of a house.

Completely incorrect.

All the time that went into constructing the house is now gone. A huge loss of time.

Not only that, but large amounts of materials, energy, and time will have to be spent to clear the spill site and construct a new house.

A concept of wealth independent of economics is totally meaningless.

Then, according to your logic, the definitions for atom, cell, calories, gram, second, meter, etc. etc. etc. are totally meaningless.

Obviously they're not and you're wrong.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Whatever. This is going nowhere.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: RVonse And if the gap widens any more thats exactly where we are headed. People who are poverty stricken can only take so much before violence becomes preferable to them.

So you think there's going to be a revolution based on envy? Not likely.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: RVonse Morgan, I agree that capitalism is a very efficient means for distributing supply and demand but your argument falls down with eduction. Simply because education is so very important in todays society. You can not have enough educated people, more is always better.

So go educate people. No one is stopping you.

Of course, that's a little flawed on its face, because education is primarily a matter of personal prerogative. There's not much an outside influence can do to "make" people educated.

Quote by: RVonse It is very hard to argue that taking money away from wealthy individuals to educate more of society would not benefit all of society.

Yet that's exactly what I'm arguing. We've taken your approach for the better part of a century, and what has it yielded? Generations of children's brains melted.

The government monopoly on education has effectively destroyed education.

[SteveA]

And if the gap widens any more thats exactly where we are headed. People who are poverty stricken can only take so much before violence becomes preferable to them.

Who knows, maybe it will take a few more riots for people to realize it doesn't improve anyones living standard or to wake enough people up on the supply side of the dependence equation to the damage their compliance with the system is doing.

This is one of the problems that was created when the concept of equal rights and protection under the law was extended to imply a necessity for equal outcomes for everyone. Communism is based upon this line of thought and I'd prefer to not head that route.

I think this even applies to foreign involvements. Though I don't agree that a lot of our involvements abroad are truly charitable, assuming they were, it seems mostly these excursions lead to some later resentment and sometimes dependence. Since when was the U.S. appointed as being the world police anyway? (It doesn't seem clear that was ever a constitutionally granted power to the federal government either)

[amana1man]

Quote by: ibm i've said this before. again, if the gap is widened to a certain degree, a society will come to an unrest and a riot/revolution is bound to happen. often times it means a war of some sort, and war means destruction, waste and recession. thousands of years of human history prove this again and again, the u.s. (a country that is 200 some years young) is of no exception. our current society and its structure may be able to withstand the gap to a certain degree, just like the levees in new orleans can take a cat3 hurricane. but when katrina hits, the levees would ultimately break and the city will have to be rebuilt. i’m not suggesting that our country is gonna see a major riot any time soon, but the current trend truly is worrisome and troublesome. the logic problem in that statement of yours, where you asked why so many people (although i’m not sure about the “millions”) keep coming to the u.s., is that it just proves there were poorer people in other parts of the world. it doesn’t prove here at home the poorer ain’t getting poorer. and btw, richer and poorer, one has to put it into perspective. it is a relation, something relative mathematically that is.

Yes I do think the United States may see a civil war in the within 20 or 30 years. The number of poor people grow each day, each week and each year. Thousands per week flow into the Unides States who are even poorer. When the masses of poor grow very plentyful they will revolt. This was what started the war in Germany. From the 1920s and into the 1930s more and more people were homeless and had no food to eat and there backs were covered in rags as they tried to stay warm. They placed there hopes for the future behind a cracy man. "Perhaps we did know he was cracy," one old man said, "but he was a leader for those who had none." It was not the wealthy who put Hitler in power as some suggest. It was the poor, the homeless, the gutter trash which is what one person call the impoverished. Meanwhile our governments tax the ultra wealthy less and less and now are doing away with the inhertant tax. Soon more social programs must fall as our federal deficet grows to Herculean size.
The role of social programs must be controlled by our state government.
I believe this should be done by the states independently of the federal government, so that states must remain somewhat competitive in this regard. Programs were started in the 1980s such as work for a welfare check and on the job training where the government paid part of the pay check of someone working as ie a nurses aid or electricial. Those programs do not exist now me thinks since I find no reference to them anywhere. So the government pays a welfare person $10000.00 a year. They paid an farm in Iowa county Iowa over 3/4 million dollars in one year for such things as crop loss, Idle land and praire restoration. One farmer in north Missouri said he will rake in over one quarter million in the planting of trees. So the government can pay those wealthy farmers but cut programs for the needy. They cut money to Levees in New Orleans while sending billions of dollars to Iraq. What about what Mr Grassley will make in pay in benifits. A fellow in the army will make in one year less than Grassley makes in a month. If given Grassleys job he could most likely do it better, at least not give a nother pork barrel or do away with a tax on the wealthy. Whey Grassley retires he gets a huge check each month but as long as the solder boy makes $18000.00 a year he gets no check. I hear that if he saves all his life and has thousands in his checking account he will not get a check. My mother-in-law applied for the veterans benifits and was told "NO." The veterans adm said that benifits were for the truly needy and she was not. She is 72 years old and still working because of credit card misuse. She said if she quit working she could not pay her bills on what her VA check would be. Some sorry world we live in.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Oh brother.
What, exactly, will these people be rising up against?
The evil forces of capitalism?
:rolleyes:

[ibm]

Quote by: Morgan_Freeman Oh brother. What, exactly, will these people be rising up against? The evil forces of capitalism? :rolleyes:

if the poor arise, most likely they won't be rising against any "-isms", though a group of people may eventually lead them by using some sort of "-ism".

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: ibm if the poor arise, most likely they won't be rising against any "-isms", though a group of people may eventually lead them by using some sort of "-ism".

I'd love to see the poor try to rise with their shovels and push brooms.

I'm sure the state will have plenty of tear gas waiting.