Wealth makes people better ?

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What astounds me is the belief Margaret Thatcher had that as China becomes more wealthy, it will become a democracy. China has probably been authoritarian for 6,000 years. It took two atom bombs and General McArthur to help Japan become a democracy. Bill Gates is a well-intended wealthy person, but what he does was probably never about money. Altruistic people rarely ever seem to become wealthy.
 
Didn’t Gates and Clinton ( the 2 Bills) promise to rid the world of malaria , some time ago , how is that going anyway , been a while since an update ....
 
I do not begrudge the wealth of anyone.

They may live in 10,000, 20,000 sq.ft. or more homes, drive expensive cars, have expensive toys, etc. All this put people to work, and they continue to put people to work as housekeepers, gardeners, maintenance staff, etc.

If they pay their fair share of property taxes, it helps keep mine down.

There is a story about Commodore Vanderbilt which I like. He had a yacht built, all steel of course, that required a 100 man crew. More like a small ship, than a yacht. Before taking it on its maiden cruise, Vanderbilt had a deck party for 2 or 3 hundred of his closest friends. The press was invited, and a cub reporter got close to Vanderbilt to ask him "Sir, how much did this vessel cost?

Vanderbilt answered "Young man, if I had to worry about that, I could not afford it!"
The reporter countered "Well, I was more concerned that the money might not have been better spent on the poor". To which Vanderbilt said " If you were to divide the cost of this vessel evenly amongst the world's poor, they would still be poor. If you were to divide it equally among 10,000 of the world's poor, they would be wealthy, for a year or two, then they would be poor again!"

Moreover, the men who built that vessel in the shipyards might be poor had they not had the work, the 100 men of the crew might be poor without their jobs, and all the purveyors who provided the vessel with food, liquor, cigars, fuel, etc are better off.

Money is called currency ..... because it is meant to flow.

Slick
 
What astounds me is the belief Margaret Thatcher had that as China becomes more wealthy, it will become a democracy. China has probably been authoritarian for 6,000 years. It took two atom bombs and General McArthur to help Japan become a democracy. Bill Gates is a well-intended wealthy person, but what he does was probably never about money. Altruistic people rarely ever seem to become wealthy.

China will never become a democracy and as they become richer they plan to rule the world, they don't need to invade they will and have done so far by throwing money and build infurature to the poor nations that need help, they are already doing it in the South Pacific Islands and they were going to help our nearest neighbor Papua New Guinea, but Australia decided to throw more money to them to try and stop China getting a foot hold and this was only a day or so ago, they are also building islands in major sea routs for defence reasons, no country would even think about nuclear war with them as they have the biggest defence force in the world and have the arsenal to go with it.
They can out price any manufacturing country in the world with their cheap labour, Chinese people have populated all over the world and starting to get their foot in other countries Goverments, in Australia they are buying large farm lands to feed their own country, a Chinese company has a 99 year leese on Darwin harbour and the worst thing our Government are letting them all for money and this is only the beginning.

Ashley
 
The same things have been said about Japan buying Hawaii, but they can't take it with them.
The Chinese government's main task is to keep their population calm and upwardly mobile so they keep dancing the same dance they've been hoofing (small bump at Tiannanmen Square 1989) since 1949. Origins are a good place to understand where the current China system came from. A good book is "The Soong Dynasty" We (Americans) through our mistakes, ushered in the Communist government by backing the corrupt Nationalists. We poured money into their coffers ostensibly to fight the Japanese, but most of it went into the hands of Nationalist leaders and anything left was used to fight the Chinese civil war with the communists, who sought to end the opium trade and associated ills, all of which the Nationalists used to swell their bank accounts.

Charlie Soong was a cabin boy who landed in America and was taken under the wings of the Duke family and trained as a printer. He was tasked with returning to China to print Bibles and convert Chinese folks to Christianity. When that failed, he began printing literature for the different factions at war with each other over control of the country. Charlie Soong had 4 daughters; One married Sun-Yat-Sen, one married Chiang-Kai-Shek and another one married H. H. Kung, a banker and financier whose name still appears on banks in Texas. Before WWII, Henry Luce brought Madame Chiang to America to parade her around to rally support and money for her husband, who was in the process of eliminating his rivals and collaborating with the Japanese he was supposed to be fighting. He had Sun-Yat-Sen thrown in jail and had lesser leaders assassinated. Kung was his money-launderer.

When the Communists won the civil conflict in 1949, they were seen as heroes for ousting the obviously corrupt Nationalists. Their system has been moving forward ever since and the largest
Communist country in the world is now also the largest Capitalist country. As long as billions of Chinese have hope, nothing will change. Their authoritarian advantage is that hey can change anything they want at he drop of a hat. Hopefully they'll see the folly of their coal-fired powerplant-building push that's currently up and running.

Mao Zedong was once told China would lose 20 million lives in a nuclear war. His response; "20 million? That's not so bad."
 
I do not begrudge the wealth of anyone. They may live in 10,000, 20,000 sq.ft. or more homes, drive expensive cars, have expensive toys, etc. All this put people to work, and they continue to put people to work as housekeepers, gardeners, maintenance staff, etc.
Forget the handful of gardeners and housekeepers, how about the THOUSANDS they employ directly in their businesses?
 
I read years ago that China could defend the border from Russian tank invasion with bodies , so many that the tanks would mire and become motionless .... quite a defense plan

As far as rich folks spending helping poor folks , isn’t that the “trickle down theory” not so sure that has proven true , from what I see at least
 
Trickle down is a joke.

that's not an argument....

"a rising tide lifts all boats" Guess which president adopted that slogan first... (clue: it wasn't a republican)

Wealth doesn't challenge a person's values and ethics. Poverty and hopeless situations challenge a person's character the most.

Take away a person's hopes to succeed in their life and you more frequently get acts of desperation from them. That's why people who are indoctrinated to believe that the system is rigged against them succeeding, will more frequently be violent, commit crime, deal drugs, and end up incarcerated... Hope to succeed and the belief in fairness is the worst thing you can take from a young person.

Wealth is insulation from acts of desperation. Granted, some people are narcissists and they never have enough "winning". After they've screwed you twice, they are dreaming of screwing you more. I think that's a personality disorder myself having a family member who is that kind of guy. No doubt to be successful you have to have an ego, but whether or not you're a narcissist is probably where healthy belief in yourself goes from good to bad.
 
I WAS WAITING FOR YOU!!!!

Haha

I'm not for Democrat or Republican, I'm for people doing shit that works. If $$ is trickling down how come 1% of the population has more wealth now than ever... In that sense, my above comment doesn't have to be an argument, it is FACT! TAKE THAT FRANK.
 
I WAS WAITING FOR YOU!!!!

Haha

I'm not for Democrat or Republican, I'm for people doing shit that works. If $$ is trickling down how come 1% of the population has more wealth now than ever...


Because if your employer makes 10 million per year and pays you $25,000. per year, and your efforts made his business make 20 million, he would gladly pay you $75,000. per year. At that point, you've trippled your salary, and proved your value as an asset (and future partner probably) who cares how much he made... It makes no difference, unless you believe in the myth of "Income inequality", where everyone gets the same regardless of the difference in effort...
 
Because if your employer makes 10 million per year and pays you $25,000. per year, and your efforts made his business make 20 million, he would gladly pay you $75,000. per year. At that point, you've trippled your salary, and proved your value as an asset (and future partner probably) who cares how much he made... It makes no difference, unless you believe in the myth of "Income inequality", where everyone gets the same regardless of the difference in effort...

Your hypothetical sure sounds nice.

I have never come across a boss who would gladly triple my salary for going "above and beyond".

Future partner in a multi-million dollar company starting at 25k??? You kiddin me?

This is FAR cry for the reality of the average american.

As for the general sentiment of this thread I do agree, wealth doesn't make you a bad person. Like anything, some bad people find their way into wealth.

Still, trickle down ain't trickling down. It's a fact.
 
If you had the situation in a company which had self-managed work groups, employee share ownership programmes and productivity gain-sharing - you could reward outstanding effort with bonus shares. But to have self-managed work groups, you would need to have the management system documented to a level where it could be used for training purposes as well as operational risk management
Our whole system is based upon adversarialism, rather than simply team-work, competition and common goals.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...e-changer-for-tony-abbott-20140205-321st.html
 
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If you had the situation in a company which had self-managed work groups, employee share ownership programmes and productivity gain-sharing - you could reward outstanding effort with bonus shares. But to have self-managed work groups, you would need to have the management system documented to a level where it could be used for training purposes as well as operational risk management
Our whole system is based upon adversarialism, rather than simply team-work, competition and common goals.

You sound like a teamwork loving snowflake libtard with all that "sharing" and "rewarding" and "productivity" garbage speak. Simply un-American! (sarcasm)
 
fact
/fakt/

noun: fact; plural noun: facts

a thing that is known or proved to be true.


To use a word correctly, you have to know what it means...



Oh calm down it's the internet. Seems im getting your goat ;)
 
How do you define poor, or unequal? What should the standard of living be? What does a person get from their life? What do you do about the fact that the IQ of people is all over the map? Should we not allow wealth or should we not allow smart people or beautiful people or strong people?
People arent born equal. Poor in the west isnt poor in the third world. It is tough to be too sure of what the rules should be!
 
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