On D Day of all days for you to write this drivel. Get the fuck out of here. Read a book about growing up poor in the 1920’s, or Frontier Life, Civil War era, or any odd year under any of the numerous monarchies throughout history.
You live in a country with a 99% literacy rate, the High School diploma is so water down it is meaningless, and a place where your toilet water is cleaner after you shit in it, than billions of people’s drinking water, and you’re bitching about “screwed America”.
You likely don’t know, certainly don’t understand, fractional banking, doubt you get the implications of fiat money, and yet cling to this fixed pie fallacy.
Good lord, you’re spoiled by technology the world couldn’t have ever imagined, in every facet of your life, the “wealth gap” may be wider in terms of dollars in the bank, but this same technology means the real wealth gap is much smaller than it was 100 years ago, 200 and much much wider the further you go back.
Could things be better? Sure, without question. Are things this “sky is falling bad”? Not even remotely fucking close.
This is it man. Why would I POSSIBLY care what they make except out of jealousy?
It has no effect on me except to paralyze my ability to make progress in my own life towards my own goals because I am consumed with jealousy.
Why would I want that? That does nothing but waste my time.
Besides the above which is the most important by far, there is a huge, monumental, cataclysmically large gap between what most people understand as the “job” of a CEO or CFO, or COO, and their actual real requirements and skills needed for the job of piloting huge companies. Most people see the “job” of a CEO as a yacht, 3 houses, and a country club membership with days spent golfing instead of “working”. That’s not even remotely correct anyway.
It’s just like most people thinking they could play shortstop for the yankees or quarterback the Super Bowl champs just as well as the real athletes. Because, you know, they “blew out their knee in high school” or “the coach didn’t like them” or some such. It’s no different. They don’t have a fucking clue what the required skills really are.
I don’t want to misrepresent Aero’s position as I have really just skimmed his posts and basically picked up he is a Bernie Sanders supporter.
Here’s what I think generally what Sanders supporters miss:
Corporate corruption is a function of the state. It is much easier for corporations to pay off politicians to introduce legislation/regulation that solely benefits X corporation than to drum up new business. If the state weren’t so big and powerful, the ability for corporations to “rig the system” wouldn’t be there. You scale back the government and boom! Corporate driven corruption falls to the wayside.
I don’t seem to be getting that vibe from him, but in the wider context of Bernie supporters I agree with you–that’s what they want and that’s what they miss. I think your post overly simplifies things though–there is a bell curve: too little government and you have unrestrained corporate control, too much and you have corporate corruption as you mentioned.
Ultimately you will have some corruption regardless. There is no perfect solution but there are better solutions. I do agree with your statement that corporate corruption is in large part a function of the government size and power.
It is sad and hilarious:
Corporations control the government by buying politicians! Therefore we need more government to control the corporations!
Bernie’s “solutions” are the problem. The sooner you and those who support his ideology realize that, the sooner we can undo all the damage they have already done. Or we can all just bite the Democratic Socialism worm dancing toward our faces and be dragged in and gutted.
Bingo. Sanders, as well as his supporters (including Aero), falls prey to several of the biggest decision-making pitfalls…and also policy pitfalls… there are.
unduly narrowing the options. Not looking for other solutions, not even recognizing that there are other possibilities at all.
They don’t reality test their underlying assumptions. They just assume they will work, because, “its simple”. Closely related, confirmation bias city
They let short term emotions run free and unconstrained. No distance or perspective is attained or even attempted.
They are COMPLETELY overconfident. They have entirely too much faith in their predictions about the future and they are not prepared, at all, to be wrong.
This appears to be the single biggest problem with all the people bitching about salaries of executives. Yet John Travolta can make 100 million a year producing SHIT, and Bernie’s people just go…meh.
99.99% of people bitching about executive salaries would lay a turd in their trousers at their first shareholder meeting as a CEO.
Truth. Shit, even as a local businessman my understanding and respect for what multinational CEOs and COOs have to contend with has grown dramatically. I already had a healthy respect for the responsibilities contained therein, but starting my own business on the side of my research endeavors heightened it. My “to do” list looks like enough for a team of 12 instead of just me…but it pales in comparison to the nuts and bolts understanding as well as psychological leadership that CEOs have to offer.
Im sorry but maybe I shouldn’t continue debating. Really, if you don’t think how much money a CEO makes correlates directly with how much you make, you should get out of business. It is simple math: A finite amount of profits some in, the upper level people take their slice, money is allocated to run the business, and the rest is distributed to the workers. If you are OK with the fact that wages have been stagnate for about 30 years, yet profits have increased over that time, then maybe you deserve what you get: more of the same.
Anyone willing to work had and smart in America always has hope. Many, many have risen from the poor, working class and middle class to become very well off. But it’s not easy…Bernie Promises “easy” and empty headed young idiots drink the Kool-Aid.
I think healthcare should be a human right, and food too. I watched my mom go from a brilliant healthy woman to someone who is bed ridden that needs nurses to do everything from feed her to take her to the bathroom. It decimated my family financially and emotionally. The only reason it had to be that way is because of corrupt policies and our inadequate healthcare in our nation. I, quite frankly, would pay more taxes so another family doesn’t have to go through what I did. Maybe you wouldn’t because you’ve never had any real problems, I suspect.
I also believe with our nations level of wealth that there is no reason for people, including those veterans who are homeless, the mentally ill, or people with just shit luck, who cant afford food, to starve. We don’t live in the 1500s where technology was shit and we had no medicine. Yeah, there will always be bad people that abuse the system. That is life.
There is nothing simple about it. And there is nothing “fixed” about the amount of profits available. That shit belongs to Mercantilism, an outdated economic philosophy that died over 100 years ago. Or should have. Holy shit man, you don’t even attempt to question your own biases or your own assumptions. Are you serious with this shit??
Read some damned books that don’t pander to what you THINK you know.
What do you mean, “evidence” the fucking 20 page paper with 40 references. Jesus Christ.
It doesn’t matter, I know you wont read it even though I mentioned the damn thing plenty of times. Because unlike you, I actually have numbers to back up my position. For all your complaining about my “bias” you have not provided one counterexample.
The problem is most of the people abuse the system. We already have something like 119 state and government programs to help people with everything from living quarters, to food stamps to welfare. ENOUGH.
Side story, I drive past a bum everyday at a certain traffic light. He has a sign that says “disabled unable to work”. I watch suckers put their window’s down and hand him 5’s and 10’s. Yet he stands there for 8-10 hours per day. Does that mean anything to you? One day I pulled off to the side of the road and talked to him. He was sound of mind and the only problem he talked about was a scar on his leg which he was happy to show me.
So, now I’m really curious anyone who can stand in one place for 8-10 hours must be in decent physical condition. If you don’t think so try it sometime. Anyway, I parked in a mall parking lot and watched him leave for the day. He walked about one mile to his vehicle a two year old Siverado, not bad right? I didn’t follow him from there but I bet he drove back to a reasonablly nice residence.
I’m not saying everyone is like that but there are many who are milking the system and the suckers at the same time.