You're making my point of displaced value: the millions generated could be better directed toward more useful needs in a social system. You're simply accepting things as they are, rather than setting up a system that does the most good. Entertainment and sports are hogging too much of the pie, regardless of the consumer's indifference to things that matter most.

Your statement above speaks for socialism.... Is that your intent?

You know, it just struck me. Steve is just taking the horror-show concept of imminent domain, and making it apply to our money. If the "society" can somehow better profit from the money we earn, then the state has a right to seize it and do what it wants to with it.

How ugly. How can you possibly rail against wire taps and government excess on one blog, and then pretend that this wouldn't be the last nail in the coffin. You'd just have a system wherein the Trumps of the world would become bureaucrats instead of businessmen, and social "justice" would be handing out poverty at the barrel of a gun.

You know, it just struck me. Steve is just taking the horror-show concept of imminent domain, and making it apply to our money. If the "society" can somehow better profit from the money we earn, then the state has a right to seize it and do what it wants to with it.

That is what socialism and communism is.  The government owns everything, and you are just a user of their resources.

That is what socialism and communism is. The government owns everything, and you are just a user of their resources.

But in pure communism and socialism the government is the people. So the people just use what they already, collectively own.

The premise of this article is flawed because it assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game.  How much the wealthy make has little to nothing to do with how poor the poor are.

 

How much the wealthy make has little to nothing to do with how poor the poor are.

It's not supposed to, but when it is more important for an executive to throw lavish parties at stockholder expense and shortchanging their workers, that is zero for the company and its effectiveness. As a business man you wouldn't do it, so why defend those who carelessly target investment expenditure on nonsense?

I didn't say they don't care. And where did you get "rich"--too vague--from L'il Whip? I refer to "most affluent" "top executives" "very wealthy" to solidify my point that we had better do something about real values.

Spelling means a lot to you doesn't it. What's the difference between spelling it R-I-C-H or V-E-R-Y W-E-A-L-T-H-Y? ROFL!

" An unwarranted hyperbole! You know better than that. It is not my intent to pick your pocket. You know perfectly well that my intent was to have readers respond to "displaced values"--nothing more. It's odd that it is politically correct to excoriate governmental reckless expenditures but the laissez faire boys can do whatever the hell they want in frivolity as long it is not geared to reinvesting in infrastructure and better jobs."

Whose values are those, again? I thought our anti-conservative taskmasters taught us to always start questioning folks who considered their values to be mandatable...

You know I agree with a lot of how you think. Of course we should spend more time feeding the poor than buying jewelery for cretinous sports stars. The question is, should we be MADE to do so? If people want to keep donating money to the wealthy, how do you construct a system that fixes that without putting the power of abusing wealth directly in the hands of the government?

It's not supposed to, but when it is more important for an executive to throw lavish parties at stockholder expense and shortchanging their workers, that is zero for the company and its effectiveness. As a business man you wouldn't do it, so why defend those who carelessly target investment expenditure on nonsense?

I spend lots of money on nonsense.  I've spent a couple grand on parties before. People who are wealthy do much the same kinds of things that people who aren't wealthy. They just do it on a larger scale.

Wealth also buys  convenience.  My cell phone died. It's under warranty so I could get a new one for free in a couple weeks. I spent $500 on it.  But I need a cell phone tomorrow for CES (trade show I'm leaving for in about 12 hours).  So I bought another one.  I realize most people wouldn't have the luxury of blowing another couple hundred bucks (I bought a cheaper one) rather than being inconvenienced (I could have borrowed my wife's or someone else's for instance while I waited for a replacement).

Some guy spending a million on a party doesn't harm the poor at all.   At least it feeds the economy.  Would it have been better if the person had spent those millions on a wildlife preserve that doesn't help the poor at all?

Wealth is not zero-sum.  It's created.  Those who create it do so for many reasons.  But in the process of creating that wealth, they spend some of it and that wealth then moves around to other people. 

A person who spends $10 million on a yaught is no different than the government spending $10 million on something. It's just a matter of who decides where that money is going to go. 

I'd rather the person who earned the $10 million spend the money on a gold plated bath tub than see that same money taken by the government and spent building a bridge out in the middle of nowhere by some unscrupulous politician. 

Ahem...let me rephrase that. "Private companies are suffering because the government isn't (financially) providing medical benefits for their workers. Other countries have better heath care so the buisnesses are not crippled by upholding contract. America is stupid." That's the dumbest line of bullshit. If the government paid for universal heath care, taxes would go up....then it woudl be the government's fault for high taxation. you don't get something for nothing, someone somewhere has to pay for it. Quit blaming the government, even without the handouts that you DON'T deserve, everyone in America still has the potential to live 100s of times better than before.

WOW!  That gets you a cookie!

I'd rather the person who earned the $10 million spend the money on a gold plated bath tub than see that same money taken by the government and spent building a bridge out in the middle of nowhere by some unscrupulous politician.

I'm with you there, except for the gold tub--far better for plumbers to install hundreds of regular tubs in spreading the wealth around. Fatty pork is obscene; lean pork has value when designed to create jobs or other useful purpose. 

Would it have been better if the person had spent those millions on a wildlife preserve that doesn't help the poor at all?

It helps everybody to breathe clean air; there is such a thing as benedfits into the future and its  posterity, rather than relishing the present.

Wealth also buys convenience.

 No one is denying what everyone aims for.

 

That's the dumbest line of bullshit.

Thanks, but I still think that with foreign governments subsidizing its corporations with health care, they place our corporate realm at a competitive disadvantage. As for small businesses, why should the good guy that furnishes health care for his employees be at a disadvantage in conjuntion with the business across the street who doesn't? That gets you a cookie?[/quote] Not for me, it doesn't.

I thought that given the comments regarding healthcare and infrastructure, it would be interesting to read some comments relating to those from the chief economist responsible for the Global Competitiveness Report 2005-2006, which provides strong support for Steven's comments (the following is an excerpt of the interview):

The Nordic countries have traditionally done very well in the GCR rankings. What accounts for their consistently strong performance?

I think it is a combination of many factors that, taken together, create extremely healthy business environments. First, unlike some of the larger industrial countries, macroeconomic management has been quite admirable; the authorities in all of these countries are strongly committed to sound public finances. They are running budget surpluses to be able to meet pension and other obligations associated with rapidly ageing populations. Successive governments have managed to create a climate of transparency and honesty in public management that greatly contributes to business confidence. Integrity and efficiency in the use of public resources means there is money for investing in education, in public health, in state-of-the-art infrastructure, all of which contributes to boost productivity. Highly trained labor forces, in turn, adopt new technologies with enthusiasm or, as happens often in the Nordics, are themselves in the forefront of technological innovations.

In many ways the Nordics have entered virtuous circles where various factors reinforce each other to make them among the most competitive economies in the world, with world class institutions and some of the highest levels of per capita income in the world.

How do the Nordic countries ensure that their competitiveness is not undermined by high taxes and large safety nets?

While the business communities in the Nordic countries, when asked, point to high tax rates as a potential problem area, there is no evidence that these are adversely affecting the ability of these countries to compete effectively in world markets, or to deliver to their respective populations extremely high living standards.

High tax rates are problematic when the money collected is not directed to efficiency-enhancing activities or is otherwise misused in some way in what the IMF calls, perhaps euphemistically, “unproductive expenditures.” If, however, the high tax rates generate resources that are then used to deliver world-class educational establishments, an effective social safety net, and a highly motivated and skilled labor force, then competitiveness is boosted, not undermined.