How can I get $260 dollars in one day? As in today.

(also for future reference, don't wait until rent's due to start trying to figure out where to get the money)

(Dan just saved from an img xpost that would've probably been misintrepreted.)

I know it's fucking dumb. I overdrafted because I paid a medical bill. My boss at my new job told me I got paid today; it is in fact next Friday. I am normally not so desperate.

I expected about 11 joke answers to every real one.

Wait for landlord to call. Stall alittle longer. Pay next week.

I actually do live in apt. 3G too, you soothsayer!

I'm not being sexist; the offer stands for any guy who's in need of cash as well.

Same here, mines 1120 a month and my partner isnt working so im paying it all right now argh :(

Hmm, if I could do it without showing my face, that doesn't sound bad. Do you think people would visit www.averagesizedpenis.com?

Then again, my commute time is twelve minutes, my bank gives away candy and dog biscuits, and bluebirds frequently land on my shoulders for butterfly kisses.

"Rent for Apt.3G"

Oh man how did I not catch this the first go-round! What a flipping insane little comic Apt. 3-G is.

hi dere, rent due in 3 days, amplifier may cover half of it? lps & books mostly sold, mabye i could sell lamps and stereo speakers?

Kev, do you think you could talk to your landlord and pay it late? bc you should have a paycheck coming soon, yes?

first paycheck isn't until after thanksgiving ;_;

plus, landlady is psychotic. the only thing saving me from doing the unthinkable and calling my dad for money is the fact that my phone has been turned off.

kevin:

buy a webcam
and open a paypal acct
if u dont mind the humilaition of nerds watchin u play w yurself

-- dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Friday, February 3, 2006 3:50 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

i think i'll just sell my turntables and mid '70s belgian punk records.

i am so glad this is the last month i have to go through this.

One thing's for certain. You've definitely come to the right place.

-- adamrl (nordicskilla), Friday, February 3, 2006 8:12 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

hahahaha

Abbott, we are too much the same.

I'm glad someone knows what it feels like.

Is it worth checking out in advance what medical experiments you can sign up for?

lol I just calculated this morning that I have $5.20/day to live on until my next check (NOVEMBER NINTH). Lord help me.

I once lived a week on 10 euros or something. I mostly ate porridge.

Though to be honest, it's not the food part that's the worst about being piss-poor (I'm a vegetarian and can eat quite cheaply), it's when you can even afford to drink a pint on a Saturday evening with your mates. Of course most of my friends were happy to buy me one, but at some point it gets sorta embarrassing. Thankfully I've had a steady paying part-time job for three years now, so I haven't come to this anymore.

around here eating for $5.20 a day would be very easy. Not much fun, especially for two weeks, but very easy.

At least, for one person. For two people that would be a nasty stretch.

Where's this, Oilyrags? What sort of food? Me, I'm planning a trip out to Dollar Tree where they sell 13 oz boxes of knock-off Frosted Mini Wheats for a buck a box. I am going to get a case of ramen and lots of beans, with onions to put in em. I love to drink but booze is just out of the question. I can't even afford cigarettes. This is gonna SUCK.

mid '70s belgian punk records.

Which ones?

God, taht was pretty NON-empathic. Sorry, just curious. Wish I could lend you some cash though. Or buy those punk records. :-(

I'm in Austin TX

I'd buy a bunch of brown rice and cans of black beans (about $0.50/can.) Store brand mac and cheese and tuna. Splurge on fresh veggies to augment all of the above (carrots, peppers and tomatoes are my preference.) Generic grape nuts (nutty nuggets at HEB) and milk with a banana or apple for breakfast. Peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.

You might lose some weight, but you'll actually be eating pretty healthily, and VERY cheaply.

eating can be v cheap if you're short of cash

sainsburys
basic instant noodle = 8p
liver pate = 32p

combined into a bowl.
40p lunch that fills you up.

beer is my main expense, yes.

good ideas, OR, thx. Broccoli will be my main nutrition b/c I love it. I like Miniwheats b/c they have lotsa fiber, as do beans of course. BANANAS = key, oh so cheap and filling and good for you. I also love apples but they go for like $.50 each here which is nuts.

I love broccoli, too, but it gives me the stinkyfarts.

DAMN YOU CRUCIFERS, WHY ARE YOU SO HEALTHY YET SO ODOROUS?

Carrots are very cheap too.

Kevin, instead of selling your records for a ridiculous loss when you could get BIG money for them in an online auction, why don't you sell them to Bi11 for a reasonably minimal total and buy them back in two months? You're being a total idiot if you don't, you know the stores aren't going to give you ANYTHIGN worthwhile for those rekkids and some stupid kid at the counter is going to totally profit. If you had set up an auction a month ago and notified a handful of people you'd AT LEAST be getting market value.

Kevin, just call your Dad.

Seriously. Being proud isnt worth the 24/7 stress out fear of having zero $$$.

a year ago tomorrow, i lost my apartment and lived out of the back seat of my corolla for a month.

i'll buy your records if you want

I'm in Austin TX

I'd buy a bunch of brown rice and cans of black beans (about $0.50/can.) Store brand mac and cheese and tuna. Splurge on fresh veggies to augment all of the above (carrots, peppers and tomatoes are my preference.) Generic grape nuts (nutty nuggets at HEB) and milk with a banana or apple for breakfast. Peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.

You might lose some weight, but you'll actually be eating pretty healthily, and VERY cheaply.

― Oilyrags, Monday, October 29, 2007 3:21 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

this is real good advice ty oily

I can't believe nobody has suggested shoplifting yet.

Shoplifting's a good way to get things but a shit way to get money, as evidenced by my endearingly idiotic upstairs neighbors who got evicted even after shoplifting tons of luxury sneakers in an attempt to get rent money.

Part of why they failed tho, I think, is they just gave sneaks to everyone they liked, which is how the Viceroy ended up with a pair of Air Jordans.

We used to shoplift small, pricey item from the grocery store (like bottles of olive oil) and return them for credit and cash.

I don't think you can return anything for folding money without a receipt these days.

Ahh, the 90s!

Way to ruin it for the naughts, k8.

I'm not here to give lessons on shoplifting, but where I work is targeted by shoplifters who make enough money doing it to buy houses and sports cars, so $260 shouldn't be too difficult.

where do you work? tiffany's?

I'm not here to give lessons on shoplifting

But as long as you're here...

I've never been caught. But I've never lifted anything bigger than a boom box or a waffle iron.

shoplifters who make enough money doing it to buy houses and sports cars

chase manhattan?

i used to shoplift cartons of tareytons

fuck if i was gonna return em though

Assholes. I have a shop and hate shoplifters: you're STEALING. Sorry, I can't condone it (if you do it in my shop)

Heh, I'm not endorsing the practice, just surprised it didn't come up as a suggestion quicker.

I would never, ever steal from a shop. Just supermarket chains and circuit city and starbucks.

A guy I knew (through ILX actually) would steal books from, I think, Borders. He had worked at a chain of B so he knew the cheap ones didn't have an alarm on it. Wish I could do it as well, but the feeling of guilt would be too overwhelming.

where do you work? tiffany's?
My guess is a store that sells dvds.

that was supposed to be italics, not a link. Good mornign, ilx.

Waterstones are way more evil than Borders and a lot easier to steal from.

Stealing is bad for you, even when you steal from evil corporations. Two wrongs not making right and all that.

A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.

Should Heinz have broken into the store to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?

yes

However, Heinz should still face prosecution for B&E and theft.

yes but he also gets to punch Heinz in the nose once

(nutty nuggets at HEB)

Got to.

Heinz should punch Lawrence Kohlberg for putting him in this scenario.

I picture poor Heinz, shaking his fist at the sky: "Kohlberrrrrrrg!!:

The appropriate result from a societal standpoint would be Heinz getting convicted of the crimes, being put on probation, and a regulation being spooled up to keep the chemist from gouging poor dying people.

Ideally Heinz just could have pocketed expensive cheeses and vinegars, and returned them for cash.

Hopefully you live in the 1990s or earlier, Heinz!

I wish I could find an image of my favorite Far Side, in which a guy is sneaking out of the store "Plenty O' Pianos," with a conspicuously baby-grand-shaped bulge under his trenchcoat, and the clerk is holding up a stool and yelling, "You dropped this!"

I don't do it myself anymore, but if you're poor I think it's perfectly okay to steal from big and rich store chains & companies. Even if capitalism is sanctioned by the law, it still a form of institutionalized inequality, so I don't think it's wrong to make it a bit more equal via illegal activity. Stealing from small business owners is not good though, nor stealing luxury items you don't really need at all. Unless you can cash them in.

I was falsely accused of shoplifting at 10 and I don't steal from shops, ever.

Even if capitalism is sanctioned by the law, it still a form of institutionalized inequality, so I don't think it's wrong to make it a bit more equal via illegal activity.

Yeah, except once the loss prevention department finds out stuff has gone missing, the poor schmuck who mans the cash register gets fired while the company absorbs the loss. But otherwise, tally-ho, Robin Hood!

If that was the case every cashier in the world would be fried.

That's hyperbolic. I mean, I certainly would have been fired from every retail job I ever had. You can't stop every single one every single time.

I don't do it myself anymore, but if you're poor I think it's perfectly okay to steal from big and rich store chains & companies. Even if capitalism is sanctioned by the law, it still a form of institutionalized inequality, so I don't think it's wrong to make it a bit more equal via illegal activity. Stealing from small business owners is not good though, nor stealing luxury items you don't really need at all. Unless you can cash them in.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 3:14 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

how poor?

True enough, Abbott. I just wonder at the naivete that leads one to believe he's sticking it to the big, bad capitalists by shoplifting.

I don't think people shoplift to say "fuck the capitalist system!" Rather, they use it as a mild justification to cover their shoplifting guilt.

Even if capitalism is sanctioned by the law, it still a form of institutionalized inequality, so I don't think it's wrong to make it a bit more equal via illegal activity. Stealing from small business owners is not good though, nor stealing luxury items you don't really need at all. Unless you can cash them in.

Sorry Tuomas but this is a pretty lame rationalization.

I used to shoplift like crazy and I'm one lucky SOB my dumb ass was never canned for it. My lame rationalization was the cost of "shrinkage" (what they call it in retail – lol) is built into the store's prices. I've bought stuff before, right? Then I've paid for my own stuff via that markup! This was a logical fail, I know.

I'm not saying you're sticking it to the Man or anything, just saying that if you're truly poor, it's perfectly okay to steal. At the moment I make enough money to have a decent living, so I don't steal. But I wouldn't condemn those who do out of necessity.

"who do so"

I've stolen groceries to eat when poor and I've stolen jackets bcz they were cool and I couldn't afford them – both felt the same to me.

"La loi, dans un grand souci d'égalité, interdit aux riches comme aux pauvres de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain." Anatole France

I think everyone's entitled to have food and shelter and clothes and to get their minimum social needs satisfied. If you live in a system where you can get that only by stealing, then it's not the thieves' fault that they have to revert to that.

Really, Abbott? I can't imagine eating a jacket.

It was for a Kaopectate ad.

If you live in a system where you can get that only by stealing, then it's not the thieves' fault that they have to revert to that.

JFTR sometimes it actually is.

I think everyone's entitled to have food and shelter and clothes and to get their minimum social needs satisfied. If you live in a system where you can get that only by stealing, then it's not the thieves' fault that they have to revert to that.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:37 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

get one job. or in the US we have food stamps, welfare etc.

Why? The poor didn't invent the system, nor are they the ones who really benefit from it.

(x-post)

At the risk of sounding seriously retrograde, I rather doubt our hunter-gatherer ancestors went around 'entitled to food and shelter and clothes'. I think it's a perfect sign of the level of social development of a country whether they tend well to the needy, but entitlement and too wide a latitude in the justification of thievery do not sit well with me. Rights are made and maintained not inherited pace Jefferson and his ilk, and they certainly need to be debated and agreed upon as opposed to simply posited by the interested.

Tuomas -- define "necessity," define "decent living," define "truly poor," define "minimum social needs," etc etc. Oh, wait, everybody gets to define it to to suit them? That's different then.

Scratch those last two sentences, I jumped the gun a little.

I'm not saying you're sticking it to the Man or anything, just saying that if you're truly poor, it's perfectly okay to steal. At the moment I make enough money to have a decent living, so I don't steal. But I wouldn't condemn those who do out of necessity.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 2:33 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is fucked up tuomas. what about poor ppl who are honest & dont steal -- arent the dishonest thieves taking advantage of their honesty?

do they have soup kitchens in finland? or hare krishnas?

the majority of places where large amounts of people are actually incapable of basic survival without resorting to stealing are also the sorts of places that major chain stores avoid like the plague tho, so i dont think your model works in practice tuomas

never mind that encouraging the poor to steal is pretty stupid because of the chance they get caught, plunging them further into poverty

shoplifting is wack ppl who rationalize it are on some high school "original thinking" tip imo

If you're dumb enough top shoplift there's a 95% chance you're dumb enough not to make those kind of moral distinctions, ie only stealing Maslow's bottom-of-the-pyramid necessities from the fattest of fatcats.

i would never steal. also i think stealing from big chains is bad news because those are just the kinds of bastards who would make sure to prosecute.

added bonus: the reason they usually cite when they decide to pull their stores out of those areas? rampant shoplifting. so carried to the logical extent, your model creates more poor people (ie all the peeps who worked there that dont have a job anymore)

xxpostssswsss

I'm not saying stealing is the best option, of course welfare, more equal distribution of wealth, etc, are better solutions to poverty. All I'm saying is that in some cases, when the welfare system isn't enough, or is non-existent, stealing is justified.

(x-post to Deej)

in some if not most cases i think panhandling will give folks in truly horrible dire straits enough cash to get by foodwise

what about stealing music

My friend's an advisor for the university here – grew up in Compton & works trying to get kids from his old high school into college. One of them just got arrested for stealing a packet of Kool-Aid from Wal-Mart. My friend is fucking pissed, of course, but it has become a hilarious meme between the two of us. Anyway, don't steal from Wal-Mart because they might kill you.

looking forward to st anthony going through my pc at the pearly gates "waiiiiit a minute."

Thanks Abbot. Reason #4,395 never to shop at Wal-Mart.

fuck a wal-mart, that story is really grim.

I'm not saying stealing is the best option, of course welfare, more equal distribution of wealth, etc, are better solutions to poverty. All I'm saying is that in some cases, when the welfare system isn't enough, or is non-existent, stealing is justified.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 3:48 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

just like in SOME CASES when there's a ticking nuclear bomb about to go off in manhattan it's okay to torture

Yes, clearly those two are comparable.

im just sick of "some situations" arguments where you construct a hypothetical situation it's impossible to argue with

IN SOME CASES should be the title of a movie that is like a les miserables ripoff but with more procedural law n order shit thrown in

i mean you can make up a situation to justify fuckin' anything, it proves nothing

but that's what life is

nothing

I'm not making this up, it's reality for millions of people.

yeah that's it we thought you were making up poor people

tuomas, stealing is wrong

deej it's a reality that millions of people are dying because they didnt steal.

http://cache4.asset-cache.net/xc/3542-000026.jpg?v=1&c=NewsMaker&k=2&d=CDE28EA59C3F91EE240EA5D4719260DC4CF74B4B80A6CE5A

top: ilx
bottom: reality

yeah that's it we thought you were making up poor people

I was only answering Slocki's comment about "making up a situation".

it's sad because he's so close to the atm....but so far away

tuomas if all of the poor people of the world stole things, all of us people who had money wouldn't be able to buy things in the stores, because the stores would be empty

Wow, so many squares on this thread. Keep playing by the rules guys! You'll make it to heaven eventually.

(maybe he's just camping out to see widespread panic though)

^^ beatnik wisdom xp

http://images.buycostumes.com/mgen/merchandiser/33754.jpg

"Wow, so many squares on this thread. Keep playing by the rules guys! You'll make it to heaven eventually."

rather than steal from stores let's all go raid tuomas's fridge.

tuomas if all of the poor people of the world stole things, all of us people who had money wouldn't be able to buy things in the stores, because the stores would be empty

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 4:02 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

then the people with money would starve and there'd be nothing for them to even steal! <- the flaw in tuomas' argument

I kind of feel like Tuomas' stance here should be uncontroversial. Hungry people should be able to eat, news at 11.

Yeah, but it's easy for people who're not poor and hungry to make it into a joke.

I mean, of course it would be better if all poor people were able to get jobs, or at least enough welfare money to get by. But sometimes that it isn't happening, so what should they do?

poor squares are the unluckiest of all :(

Tuomas i don't think anyone here is arguing that poor people shouldn't eat

i am

Am I as censorious of someone who steals a loaf of bread as of a white-collar criminal? Of course, not but these fuzzy-headed notions of 'the system' are antiquated at best and at worst lead to the socio-economic glories of the DDR at their very optimal. Examining the causes of poverty and petty criminality is a serious study and shouldn't be reduced to some 'natural law' vs bleeding-heart Marxist polemic from 40 or 50 even more years ago.

you leave dance dance revolution out of this

yeah no shit tuomas's stance is uncontroversial it's just that discussing when something is or isn't "justified" is boring and pointless as you can just construct scenarios that satisfy what you are saying.

also michael white otm

this is ilx, it has nothing to do with "serious study". xp.

you leave dance dance revolution out of this

:)

ilx is where we show off our theory chops from when we were 17?

there are plenty of ways for poor people to eat without stealing. i don't know what it's like in finland, but i could probably go for a week here in NY eating nothing but day-old pastries, krishna mush, soup kitchen stuff & food from art openings. i might not get three square and it might not be the best i've ever eaten, but i wouldn't have to fuck anyone over.

Of course, not but these fuzzy-headed notions of 'the system' are antiquated at best and at worst lead to the socio-economic glories of the DDR at their very optimal. Examining the causes of poverty and petty criminality is a serious study and shouldn't be reduced to some 'natural law' vs bleeding-heart Marxist polemic from 40 or 50 even more years ago.

I agree, but while you're doing your "serious study", there are still loads of people who have to face this situation every day. I'm talking about their practical needs; everyone agrees that we should get rid of poverty, but looks like in the system we have it isn't gonna happen soon, so what should the poor do in the meantime?

steal from you

kill and eat each other. xp

what is your address i will send them over

Ian: it's not just about eating, it's also about shelter and other basic needs.

you can't steal shelter.

unless there's something i'm unaware of.

like stealing a tent.

doesn't finland have homeless shelters? churches? the ymca?

as for clothing, at least in the USA, there are coat drives and clothing give-aways by charitable organizations pretty much year round but especially in the winter.

there are homeless ppl who work & eat & dont steal

The poor and homeless in my city stem by and large from substance abuse and mental illness and neither category make for very adept thieves.

these kinds of condescending middle class "be dishonest!!" encouragement to poor ppl is totally stupid -- imo when you're poor being honest is just as important of a value as when you're rich ... dishonesty is independent of wealth or lack thereof

whether you make 2 dollars an hour as a migrant worker or 100,000/year, seeing dishonest colleagues cheat the system to get more than you is a shitty feeling

fucking OTM^^^

You can squat in foreclosed or otherwise empty homes, which is exactly what a lot of people do here in Cleveland. Or they go into them, strip them of all their metal fixtures, then take the metal to a scrapyard for cash.

does finland have poor people?

Yeah, but it's easy for people who're not poor and hungry to make it into a joke.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 4:07 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's just as easy for you as a privileged non-hungry person to tell poor people what they should do as it is for anyone to say what they shouldn't

yeah dishonest colleagues are also prone in my experience to kinda bragging about it, like they've put one over on the system. and you feel like they're trying to make you feel like an asshole for taking the less easy route.

However, in the interest of comity, in most US jurisdictions, make sure you steal less than $500 worth of food, as that keeps it a misdemeanor rather than a felony. And no matter how much you take, don't even so much as lay a hand on an employee; use of force or threatened use of force makes it robbery, which is always a felony.

http://www.foodnotbombs.net/FINLAND.html

fyi.

Comity central

whether you make 2 dollars an hour as a migrant worker or 100,000/year, seeing dishonest colleagues cheat the system to get more than you is a shitty feeling

No one has said poor people don't have a sense of justice. But a system where someone's hourly work can be a thousand times more worthy than another person's work could be seen as a form of injustice in itself.

it's just as easy for you as a privileged non-hungry person to tell poor people what they should do as it is for anyone to say what they shouldn't

I haven't said that anyone should do this. All I'm saying is that I don't judge people who have to do it, and there are plenty of such people.

well you appear to judge them if they steal from the wrong kinds of stores

But a system where someone's hourly work can be a thousand times more worthy than another person's work could be seen as a form of injustice in itself. Not if people think it's worth it, i.e. a sucessful performer or someone who makes a useful company very successful and their products available cheaply.

All I'm saying is that I don't judge people who have to do it, and there are plenty of such people.

Even if they steal from you?

Not if people think it's worth it, i.e. a sucessful performer or someone who makes a useful company very successful and their products available cheaply.

Do you think most rich people actually fall into these categories?

yes

Boy, you must live in a fantasyland.

What are the other categories of rich people?

I had no idea ilx was so capitalistic, I thought you were all a bunch of lefties

lol tuomas tellin another dude he lives in a fantasyland

i think i am going to have to take a long hard look at my life tbh

the less deserving categories xp

capitalism is compatible with left wingers, isnt it?

holy shit this thread exploded with funny

it is a winner! i expect 150 new posts by the time i get home folks.

can the food nazis weigh in on the kool-aid? I can't imagine kool-aid being good for poor people unless there's some weird freakonomics thing where it turns out it's actually good for you, but only if you're poor.

Most of the people who make such earnings do provide some service that's either so rare or specific as to be worth paying such money to, yes. Of course there are people w/inherited wealth and there are plenty of capitalists who sneer at misuses of capital by such people, but generally the people who actually make or provide something get paid more money when they're worth it. One could easily argue that the reason people w/inherited wealth make so much money off of their money is because large masses of liquid or easily mobile capital are comparatively rare enough to be worth more.

This whole leftist vs rightist shit is straight-up funny. Classical laissez-faire economics and classical Marxist command economics have both fallen by the way-side.

And arguing over who is truer to Grandpa's failed legacy is a fool's errand.

What are the other categories of rich people?

People who just make a lot of money because the capitalist system allows for an highly inequal distribution of wealth. They're not rich because they help the general populace or because people love them enough to give them loads of money. You'd have to be delusional to think majority of rich people are rich just because they're popular entertainers or have made products available cheaply. For example, here's a list of the 100 richest people on Earth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_billionaires_(2009)#Top_billionaires

How many of these do you think fall into the two categories mentioned by M. White?

but generally the people who actually make or provide something get paid more money when they're worth it.

But why is their work worth a 1000 or 10000 times more than some other person's? What gives it such intrinsic value?

"Most of the people who make such earnings do provide some service that's either so rare or specific as to be worth paying such money to, yes."

Have you seen that "worst top-earning comedians" thread?

It doesn't have intrinsic value. Nobodys work does. It has a market value.

The top ten on that list are all in his first category; it's kind of the definition of "successful businessman".

It doesn't have intrinsic value. Nobodys work does. It has a market value.

So basically it's exactly what I said: people get rich because they can exploit the inequality inherent in capitalism. Why shouldn't work have intrinsic value (everyone gets paid for the amount of work they do) rather than market value?

Why should it?

Because it would be more equal.

At this level of wealth, we'll have to leave entertainers out of it. They come and go.

Equal how?

Equal in the sense than when one guy does 8 hours of work, and another one does 8 hours too, their work is considered worth the same, instead of a market system in which the other one's 8 hours can for some reason be worth 8000 hours.

"in the sense that"

Why? The poor didn't invent the system, nor are they the ones who really benefit from it.

They do benefit from it: you can perfectly survive without stealing. Also, they are living in the system so should respect the rules. If you do not like teh system, leave.
*shrug* This is such a silly discussion really.

Do you think all musicians should be paid the same as, say, Prince? Why?

Do you understand why 8 hours of being an NFL quarterback is not the same as 8 hours of me doing marketing work at a desk?

Because it would be more equal.

Are we really having this conversation about basic economics? How would you like it if basic equality w/mankind was established so that all the wealth of the Finnish economy, all the Errikson profits and all the rest was "equitably" split among all the more than 6 billion people on earth regardless of whether they were talented, enterprising, clever, etc?

If you do not like teh system, leave.

But capitalism is a global system. Do you think the poor should fly into space?

I think that would be cool.

I was going to respond to this nonsense but you are not interested in having a real conversation, you just want a forum in which you can say hilarious shit like "Do you think the poor should fly into space?"

While we're at it in our equality-obsessed society, be prepared to pay the same for every meal, reagrdless of whether it's a bowl of gruel (soon to be the only thing left since people soon won't be bothered to make much else), the same for every album, which will all have the same number of copies released, regardless of the quality of their work or its interest.

would they steal a BALLOON?

BTW how much is "8 hours of work" worth, Tuomas? Who gets to determine that number? How is he a better arbiter than the group of people purchasing a person's talents, skills or output?

Note, Tuomas, that I'm not making some case for untrammeled 'red in tooth and claw' capitalism, but, seriously, egalitarianism of that sort leads to collectivism whish, taken to that level, leads to Khmer Rouge type shit.

Re the poor in space, I have just woken up all my colleagues in a 3-desk radius.

How would you like it if basic equality w/mankind was established so that all the wealth of the Finnish economy, all the Errikson profits and all the rest was "equitably" split among all the more than 6 billion people on earth regardless of whether they were talented, enterprising, clever, etc?

Why should talent or cleverness be a measure of worth? The person who cleans my office might not be talented in the sense you mean, but her work is pretty damn hard, and it needs to be done, so I don't get why she should be paid less than some businessman sitting by his desk.

In fact, at least talented and enterprising people often get to do work they actually enjoy. So it would make more sense if they get paid less than people who have to do harsh and nob-enjoyable work, which is nevertheless necessary.

I am a little concerned that aside from Star Trek, most depictions of spacemen are thuggish capitalists, military and/or terrorists.

If you hire a mover, Tuomas, and the company shows up with 15 75 kg, scrawny dudes who have never moved anything or 4 115kg dudes who have moved for years and know all the tricks of the trade, should they really all be paid the same thing?

Note, Tuomas, that I'm not making some case for untrammeled 'red in tooth and claw' capitalism, but, seriously, egalitarianism of that sort leads to collectivism whish, taken to that level, leads to Khmer Rouge type shit.

Yes, clearly all forms of socialism/egalitarianism inevitably lead to Khmer Rouge. There is no other way, it's the law of history.

not even pretending to read the thread but someone stole my recycling bin last week and i am still fuming. if someone broke into my house and just stole food i would not be that mad.

hey tuomas, stealing is wrong

just fyi

(I keep envisioning my kid being 16 year old and coming home with a Tuomas type boyfriend. )

http://www.esplatter.com/images/ns/scanners.jpg

i think stealing can be ok. bye!

this is worse than the pitchfork thread

hey tuomas, stealing is wrong

no no, it's totally awesome to steal if you're poor, there are no shades of the middle-class subliminally encouraging the underclass to sabotage themselves in order to consolidate their own position there

Why should talent or cleverness be a measure of worth? The person who cleans my office might not be talented in the sense you mean, but her work is pretty damn hard, and it needs to be done, so I don't get why she should be paid less than some businessman sitting by his desk.

Because out of every 100 people, probably all 100 can do what she does, whille perhaps a small fraction can do what he does. This is called scarcity, and it's why diamonds cost more than sand.

As a kid I once dreamt that the world stood still and I was the only one who could run around. I of course ended up raiding all the shops.

It's one of my favourite dreams. I still remember one of the items I stole was a pen with pink fluffy feathers on the top

Also I can't believe I'm still reading this thread. I feel like I've been robbed off an hour.

The business man in the case you describe conceivably needs more education than the cleaning woman, and certainly more expertise. he will likely be judged far more harshly if he's not up to snuff (or should) be and far more people's jobs rely on him doing well or at l;east not fucking up. The cleaning person's job (one I did in high school) doesn't require as much cleverness or experience and the person doing it can be replaced.

Note, I am not saying that I necessarily rate either of these people's lives the other but the value of their labor and if you can't accept that getting a nice meal for dinner is of more value to you than getting a bowl of porridge or a kick in the shins, there's very little use in talking to you about the very basics of economics. Remember utopia is nowhere and meanwhile we need to live and work here in the real world even to make it look as much as possible as the one on your dreams.

harbl otm. you all got trolled by tuombass's retarded imaginary strawman

brb, gonna shoot some poor ppl into space

ask not for whom the finn trolls, it trolls for thee

xp

Yes, clearly all forms of socialism/egalitarianism inevitably lead to Khmer Rouge.

I didn't say that. I said that egalitarianism taken to its logical extreme in human societies has done. I'm not against Scandanavian socialism at all. Good on y'all.

Because out of every 100 people, probably all 100 can do what she does, whille perhaps a small fraction can do what he does.

So? This still doesn't answer my question: they both do the same amount of work, why is the other one's work worth so much more than the other's? Valuing scarcity so high, when talking about work, is a product of capitalism, not an explanation for it.

i think tuomas has been just as trolled as us on this thread tbh

THAT's equality

BAM

"perhaps a small fraction can do what he does."
If you're talking about MBA types, I think this is false (no offense to any MBA'ers here -- some of you are cool!)

I was thinking of doctors/dentists when I was still taking this thread seriously.

I'm for paying doctors and dentists more than MBA grads! (again, sorry MBA dudes)

Yeah, but Philip, the correlation between business success and MBAs is way weaker than getting your doctor's license and practicing medicine.

Who says they do "the same amount if work?" What are you measuring? Time spent? Newton-meters exerted? Value added? Productivity?

they both do the same amount of work, why is the other one's work worth so much more than the other's?

Wait, are you using hours spent on the job as the only measure of "amount of work"? What about ditch digging vs. data entry? Calories expended -- the ditch digger needs to get paid more because he or she needs to eat more. Physical wear and tear -- the ditch digger's body is going to break down and he or she will need more medical care.

ha xpost

break down faster

i wish people were paid based on number of newton-meters exerted

If I switch places with the cleaning person, I can clean a lot of fucking offices in 8 hours, but I guarantee he can't do any of my job no matter how long he sits there.

Read an interesting article recently (think it was in Harpers) that argued that, judged from a supply/demand perspective, the only possible explanation of why CEO's are paid so much is that you have to be a psychopath to be a CEO and psychopaths are hard to find.

Wait, are you using hours spent on the job as the only measure of "amount of work"? What about ditch digging vs. data entry? Calories expended -- the ditch digger needs to get paid more because he or she needs to eat more. Physical wear and tear -- the ditch digger's body is going to break down and he or she will need more medical care.

This is true, actually. Good point.

LOL

I think Pancakes' last post is an even better point.

Just proves my point that hard physical labour should better paid than office work, not worse.

the only possible explanation of why CEO's are paid so much is that you have to be a psychopath to be a CEO and psychopaths are hard to find.

Half-true. The other half become psychpaths at the job.

(xx-post)

Proves.

i'll tell my mom she needs to start paying the neighbor's kid who mows her lawn a better wage.

guys stop talking to Tuomas and help me fire the homeless at Neptune

Just proves my point that hard physical labour should better paid than office work, not worse.

I think the point that it proves is that your Finnish Utopia is not part of the real world, and that you haven't really thought this all out.

guys stop responding to tuomas, please. you're insulting your own intelligence stooping down to this freshman bullshit

if only we paid the scientists as much as the welders who construct the craft it would be swifter imo. xp to dan

you have to be a psychopath to be a CEO and psychopaths are hard to find.

Functional psychopaths, anyway.

slow day at work, kev.

Sorry Dan, I got distracted. Are we sticking them inside rockets or just tying them to the outside?

at the moment I am putting the final touches on a giant spring-loaded spatula

Tuomas, while we're having fun in your dream of perfect equalityland, please be so good as to read this famous short story by Kurt Vonnegut:

Harrison Bergeron

you couldn't pay me enough to be a cleaning person. i'd rather sit in a chair and use a computer.

at the moment I am putting the final touches on a giant spring-loaded spatula

That's why Dan makes the big bucks same as everyone else. Wow, Tuomas, maybe you're right!

I think the point that it proves is that your Finnish Utopia is not part of the real world, and that you haven't really thought this all out.

Of course it's not part of the real world, that's why it's called Utopia. But we need Utopias, otherwise we'd just become cynical and settle for the bullshit we have now. The point is not that we would ever reach Utopia as such, the point is merely to work towards something better.

and that thing is shooting the poor into space

oh man I love that story

I am also going to shoot it into space with these homeless people

Actually selling me utopias instead of clear-eyed but unromantic ameliorative progress severely impaired my capacity to believe in positive change for years.

you have to be a psychopath to be a CEO and psychopaths are hard to find.

Functional psychopaths, anyway.

I'm betting my bottom $ there's a few to be found around these here parts.

So it would make more sense if they get paid less than people who have to do harsh and nob-enjoyable work, which is nevertheless necessary.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 9:14 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

just FTR

Just kdding guize.

Btw dan, what qualifies someone as poor, cuz I'd quite like to go into space?

you couldn't pay me enough to be a cleaning person. i'd rather sit in a chair and use a computer.

Exactly. Expertise and education leads to you having a lighter, more convenient, more meaningful job. This should be the reward you get for your degree, not a bigger salary than the woman who does the work you don't want to has.

I don't want to has it, that is true.

I'm worried about this spatula idea...that's a lot of G's for, basically, skin-bags full of tomato paste.

i know, tuomas.

I am offsetting the Gs with lots of bubble wrap

Note that Project Cosmic Flapjack is currently only open to people who have to steal in order to survive

I'm worried about this spatula idea...that's a lot of G's for, basically, skin-bags full of tomato paste.

― WmC, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 9:52 PM (1 minute ago)

obv you are missing the general goal of the poor launch project

Okay, it's nice to know that at least one person understands.

(x-post to Harbl)

this smells suspiciously like a plot to rid the earth of petty thieves...

Exactly. Expertise and education leads to you having a lighter, more convenient, more meaningful job. This should be the reward you get for your degree, not a bigger salary than the woman who does the work you don't want to has.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:51 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

do you really think as many people would become doctors as do now because it's "easier" if it paid the same as say ditch-digging?

it's not easier. it's funner.

tuomas if you want to talk about something other than shooting the impoverished into orbit you are welcome to start your own thread

things I never knew before this thread:

- poor people are filled with tomatoes

Read an interesting article recently (think it was in Harpers) that argued that, judged from a supply/demand perspective, the only possible explanation of why CEO's are paid so much is that you have to be a psychopath to be a CEO and psychopaths are hard to find.

― dr. johnson (askance johnson), Wednesday, October 28, 2009 2:36 PM (16 seconds ago) Bookmark
^^

same goes for really successful pro athletes and entertainers

It's a spaaaaceula. Be glad it isn't a spaaaaaceculum.

do you really think as many people would become doctors as do now because it's "easier" if it paid the same as say ditch-digging?

Not necessarily easier, but I'm sure it's more rewarding and meaningful. The people I know who've become doctors have done so because they feel they have a calling for it, not because of huge bucks.

do you really think as many people would become doctors as do now because it's "easier" if it paid the same as say ditch-digging?

It's okay, slocki we won't need doctors when we're all poor and hurtling through space en route to Neptune.

Can I, just for one quick second, say that total equality would suck ass?

How fucking BORING.

eeeek a spring-loaded speculum

just... no, especially if it can launch you into space

I mean, imagine the sprain!

look tuomas im not a huge fan of income inequality but thats not really even the point -- its a huge fallacy for you to say "so whats the big deal about stealing? the system is ALREADY injust." two wrongs dont make a right; pointing out that the khmer rouge was REALLY bad doesnt make american torture ok; income inequality w/in the american system doesnt = stealing is therefore ok

I don't know what the fuck would motivate me to do med school if I didn't have the $$$ at the end of the tunnel to do it for me.

Total equality would indeed suck ass, but maybe things being somewhat MORE equal would not be so bad? xp

& i think at its base you're simply implying that poor ppl who are honest are fools which i take personally tbqh

I think tuomas's egalitarianism is a trojan horse designed to make all of us give up our sexual predilections and take up bisexual polyamory w/ugly people.

IN SPACE

Nobody can hear you scream in space, right?

If I switch places with the cleaning person, I can clean a lot of fucking offices in 8 hours, but I guarantee he can't do any of my job no matter how long he sits there.

Just because I'm a glutton for punishment, I want Tuomas to go back to Pancakes' point. Certainly the value of a day's work has to take into account the amount of training it took to teach the worker to do it? The physicist's work is more valuable than the InDesign user's, which is more valuable than the ditch-digger's, because it took thousands of hours to train the scientist, dozens to hundreds of hours to train the pixel-jockey, and a few minutes to train the digger.

Total equality would indeed suck ass, but maybe things being somewhat MORE equal would not be so bad? xp

For sure. I would absolutely love it if I could bro down and play music with everyone, because we all had access to the same level of music education, or have a meaningful discussion of some art or literature or whathaveyou, because we all have the same knowledge and educational base with which to understand those things.

But without inequality, there's so little to aspire towards, and therefore so fewer chances to feel accomplished. Where the hell is the fun in that?

And Abbott - I could not agree more: I wouldn't have gone to law school if it would only mean a middling income for my whole life. Fuck that.

look tuomas im not a huge fan of income inequality but thats not really even the point -- its a huge fallacy for you to say "so whats the big deal about stealing? the system is ALREADY injust." two wrongs dont make a right; pointing out that the khmer rouge was REALLY bad doesnt make american torture ok; income inequality w/in the american system doesnt = stealing is therefore ok

Look, I've never said stealing is the most preferable option. I've mentioned it several times that I would prefer other methods of alleviating poverty and changing the system. Stealing is not really constructive. All I'm saying is that, in the cases where those other methods fail (which happens quite often), or there is no other way, I will not judge a person who steals. What else can he do?

he can get shot into space by my giant spatula

I don't know what the fuck would motivate me to do med school if I didn't have the $$$ at the end of the tunnel to do it for me.

― we are normal and we want our freedom (Abbott), Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:01 PM (2 minutes ago)

respectfully, abbott, many people go into these kinds of professions for altruistic reasons

in the cases where those other methods fail

First, you'll have to convince me to my satisfaction that those other methods actually failed.

AHA!!!!! He never will be able to, nor is he willing to.

So Tuomas has figured out that the ditch digger and the data entry clerk should get paid differently. Now if he can take the next step and figure out why the data entry clerk and the C++ coder also should get paid differently, he'll have learned something.

Although I'm lolling at the the ideas that a) there is something called "office work" that encompasses everything from the receptionist to the CEO and is all categorically easier and more rewarding than "hard physical labour," and b) execs who work 14+-hour days and have potentially millions of dollars and the jobs and wellbeing of hundreds or thousands of employees have "lighter" jobs.

respectfully, abbott, many people go into these kinds of professions for altruistic reasons

Probably more so with docs than other, highly paid professions. Docs really should have at least some interest in the lives they are saving.

respectfully, abbott, many people go into these kinds of professions for altruistic reasons

yes, I know...fwiw I'm not going to med school, and I got mad respect for those that do. I mean med school especially is one of those things where some part of you likes helping people, which is awesome. It's just the near-decade of school is all really, really hard (and expensive!) and I think you'd have a lot fewer people making that epic investment if you got paid the same as a teacher (the field where they pay you by patting you on the back for being noble).

don't forget that in the US, the initial 8 years are followed by 4 more years of on-the-job training

(so it's more than a decade really)

respectfully, abbott, many people go into these kinds of professions for altruistic reasons

Rgeardless of whether it's the US system or a more socialist system, training modern doctors requires many, many hours of teaching by people, who themselves have been taught for many hours, plus expensive equipement, lots and lots of technical books, etc... The process is painstaking and requires a lot more instruction than a ditch digger requires. Plus, a society with a scarcity of doctors because they ONLY relied on altruism and not on any kind of greed or desire for social mobility to induce people is worse off than a society w/no ditch diggers, 'cause that society doens't exist.

btw, can't wait to see the smaller spatula-rides coming to the midway at next year's state fair.

we should definitely pay teachers more. i'll vote for tuomas' system if teachers get paid more than carrot top regardless of physical exertion. (I'm sure lugging those crates of props around is no fun)

Also, impe, doctors I know are either rad and interested in their patients or they don't do it anymore. Even w/lots of cash, it's pretty hard work for many.

Imagining Carrot Top as Sisyphus with a giant poor-person-flinging wacky spatula prop.

And then all the poor people roll back down the hill on to him?

Certainly the value of a day's work has to take into account the amount of training it took to teach the worker to do it? The physicist's work is more valuable than the InDesign user's, which is more valuable than the ditch-digger's, because it took thousands of hours to train the scientist, dozens to hundreds of hours to train the pixel-jockey, and a few minutes to train the digger.

Why should this be so? In the ideal situation the company trains the pixel-jockey and society trains the scientist because they need trained experts. But it's not like that should automatically lead to a bigger salary for the trained person himself. Why should it? It's not he who has put up all the resources for his training.

and b) execs who work 14+-hour days and have potentially millions of dollars and the jobs and wellbeing of hundreds or thousands of employees have "lighter" jobs.

If an exec works for 14 hours a day, he should probably get more pay than a digger who works for 8 hours. I was comparing a situation where both work for 8 hours, and the other still gets a 1000 times more.

Can some winged creature tear out his liver every day?

you mean Paula Poundstone?

Why should it? It's not he who has put up all the resources for his training.

Hey, guess where college isn't always free? EVERYWHERE YOU'RE NOT!

What's hilarious (to me) is that I've been on this thread for hours and spent at least as long yesterday talking with some drunk Republican about the lady in the article in the NYer who wants to reduce the disparity in income between CEOs and ordinary workers.

WmC, actually it's not "free" in Finland, either. Somebody or some institution is putting money into their education system instead of putting it somewhere else.

Well, it should be. Because having to pay for college only keeps the poor in their place, as they can't afford education. I'm from a working-class family, so not needing to pay for school was pretty essential for me to even think of going to the university.

(xx-post)

I didnt even bother reading some of this shit but I find it a bit pathetic that a whole bunch of other people were all "hey you can always shoplift! I take stuff and then I sell it back" as a means to get by, and everyone was all "yeah, Ive done it" nodding sagely and you fuckers have money and a roof over your heads. But when Tuomas suggests he accepts extremely poor homeless people do this and it may be justifiable you all jump on him for being a utopian hippy.

WTF, you hypocrites.

yeah try again Trayce

If an exec works for 14 hours a day, he should probably get more pay than a digger who works for 8 hours. I was comparing a situation where both work for 8 hours, and the other still gets a 1000 times more.

And I refer you to my earlier question: How are you measuring "the same amount of work?" Just noting how much time has passed on a clock is a piss-poor way of measuring anything. If I sit there for 8 hours and press a button once every 108 minutes, have I done the same amount of work as someone taking meetings and phone calls all day? What has each of us produced?

And finally, and again, who decides how much "8 hours of work," using whatever nebulous measurement system you decide on, is worth?

And AGAIN, if my band shows up at Quicken Loans Arena and wants to play a show, should we get paid the same amount as if Miley Cyrus was playing? Why or why not?

I'm from a working-class family, so not needing to pay for school was pretty essential for me to even think of going to the university.

You should ask for your money back.

"you mean Paula Poundstone?"

I can't get her head right...
http://canvaspaint.org/05be.png

What money?

too easy

You guys are all v good at arguing about completely imaginary shit.

yeah try again Trayce

No, seriously: at the start of the revive quite a few people were honest enough to say theyve used techniques to nick and resell stuff to get by.

The only person who objected was Nath. Why did they all get off scot free?

"If I sit there for 8 hours and press a button once every 108 minutes, have I done the same amount of work as someone taking meetings and phone calls all day?"

This button wouldn't happen to save the world or keep the island from exploding would it?

It launches poor people into space tbh.

What a joke on poor Locke, then!

http://www.sos.ne.gov/security-faq/image-17.jpg

click here once every 108 seconds

trayce do u not see the difference between some ilx folks fessin' up and tuomas going all TUOMAS with some poorly thought out hypothetical bullshit

Well, it should be.

I agree that it should be free or cheaper than it is in the U.S for the students, but it's not free in the sense that it still needs to be paid for. People don't just show up to their jobs at the university for nothing. Failure to understand this essential point can lead to the experience of really awesome inflation and if they do it right, they get really, really super hyperinflation.

in case its unclear *rolling my damn eyes* i dont advocate stealing for money AND i think tuomas is being an idiot

trayce do u not see the difference between some ilx folks fessin' up and tuomas going all TUOMAS with some poorly thought out hypothetical bullshit

I see people making an example out of him and forcing him into this bullshit because yr all picking him to pieces as usual, sure.

Why did they all get off scot free?

They quietly used the crosswalks of the conversation, whereas Tuomas chose to prance through the intersection and wonder loudly "Why can't I just sit here and draw attention to myself, and expect to not raise the ire of everyone else? Wherefore art thou, ILX?"

Seriously. Dude was prancing. In a conversational sense.

Trayce, are you seriously asking "why are people responding to the guy who keeps posting over and over and over and over and over and not the people who posted a couple of times and then vanished"?

i must have not been on ilx when you could say dumb shit and no one called you on it

besides uh tuomas obviously enjoys this

Dumbshit Amnesty Day was back in April.

trayce also nobody other than tuomas attempted to make the leap from "steal to get by" to "it is virtuous as long as you steal from the right people".

Dan I'm not defending him! I was just bemused it didnt blow up til he asked - and then everyone went at him, its just tiresome. Anwyay nuff.

xpost jj I didnt think that was his argument, not initially anyway. But whatevs.

Trayce, as I've told Tuomas, I am not nearly as harsh on someone genuinely starving stealing bread as on other thieves. I even posted a famous Anatole France quote on the matter. I'm just killing time trying to bat down pseudo-economic stuff that Tuomas is positing; stuff even Marx does 1000 x better. (Hope he got paid more. I'm pretty sure Engels did.)

Yeah tbh I wasnt counting that twaddle, just the original argument.

but trayce his first post on the revive was:

I don't do it myself anymore, but if you're poor I think it's perfectly okay to steal from big and rich store chains & companies. Even if capitalism is sanctioned by the law, it still a form of institutionalized inequality, so I don't think it's wrong to make it a bit more equal via illegal activity. Stealing from small business owners is not good though, nor stealing luxury items you don't really need at all. Unless you can cash them in.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:14 PM (3 hours ago)

Yes but other people said it was ok to steal from corporations too.

I'm done, ILX arguments hurt my pancreas.

so why wade into them? you only have one pancreas ;_;

xp it was dumb when they said it to fwiw

lol too

Did I get the liver part wrong? Was it actually pancreas in the Sissyphus myth?

so why wade into them? you only have one pancreas ;_;

huge lols

to get back to the bigger question

http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/20/10520-004-AE40C042.jpg

+

http://www.jonco48.com/blog/slingshot.jpg

=

http://www.lakekatherine.org/UserFiles/Image/capitol-fireworks02.jpg

I pray to St. Pancreas that we can all be equal someday.

is it okay if you only steal expensive cheeses ?

what does girlfriend steal?

I bet NASA bombed the moon with HOBOS last month!

Did I get the liver part wrong? Was it actually pancreas in the Sissyphus myth?

Are you thinking of Prometheus?

Zackly. and it was his liver.

Damn! I also just realized it was Jesus who said "o god o god why hast thou forsaken me" not Sissyphus.

no that was the part where he pushed away the rock from the mouth of the cave for all eternity

read your bible folks jeez

Yes, but can we really be angry at the eagle for stealing Prometheus' liver for all those years? I mean, he was TOLD to do it by GOD(S).

Philip you are making me bust a gut here.

Do eagles not have free will? I know herons don't but don't know enough about eagles.

really the important thing here is how much he got paid for it tho

prob nothing which means that the poor really ought to be robbing churches imo

"Look, I don't see why my work is only worth 1/1000th of someone else's."

http://z.about.com/d/huntsville/1/5/U/d/1/birdEagle.jpg

i admire tuomas' ability to ignore all trolling posts and pick out the ones that respond to him thus continuing the thread on until infinity - aka the exact reason why there has been one snaking SB thread since last sept - he's like hunter who is filleting meat - he knows exactly what he wants & what he doesn't and he discards the latter with impunity - hats off my friend

should we be paying artists to art btw or is the capitalist system of "create and sell" okay for them?

"Just because I didn't have to go to college to learn to tear out livers doesn't mean my work isn't worthwhile."

http://www.treehugger.com/bald-eagle-beheaded-repository.jpg

But he got paid in liver! Revenge for the ducks?!

tuomas do you think it would be okay if homeless ppl started breaking into mansions & started squatting in the guest bedrooms bcuz no one is using them anyway

i have NO doubt the tuomas thinks that's ok

http://i.imgur.com/wfXPO.jpg

who decides how much "8 hours of work," using whatever nebulous measurement system you decide on, is worth?

well that's a purty good question

i don't know how many people here have cleaned hospital rooms all day long (there is at least ONE regular ilx0r who has) but i can't imagine that fucking around on the internet 4 hours a day and then doing some coding and data entry even approaches how tiring it is, or how much mental fortitude it takes

there was a movement awhile back that tried to come up with a weighted system for objectively measuring what different kinds of work should be worth but i've forgotten what it was called

there are loads of jobs that require years of training and accumulated expertise - it makes sense that one would get paid more for these - however that would be offset somewhat by the ease and comfort of one's work environment, i.e. getting to SIT all day instead of stand or walk or shove

fwiw "paying artists to art" cracked me up.

Indeed. I've worked both as a cleaner and as an office worker, and the cleaning work was much harder and consuming than any other work I've done since. So I'd be perfectly happy if the cleaner got paid more than I do now, because I know what doing that is like. There are no doubt many ways to measure what work is worth, but I don't see why this wouldn't be an equally good system than any other.

"as any other"

I've done some shitty physical labor, let me tell you. I worked for a while in a bookbinding factory whose primary work was binding magazines and academic journals for libraries. Among other things, I had to stand on a concrete floor and pull staples from publications using this pneumatic machine that was like a drill press, only it ripped out staples. I also had to haul, cut and sort huge rolls of buckram (the stuff they cover the books with).

It was backbreaking, tiring work. It also didn't pay well, because they could have fired me and trained a replacement in about a day. My mother in law worked there for 25 years.

stfuomas

Great argument.

im not gonna get trolled into actually engaging with you, dork

Yes, god forbid you might contribute to the discussion.

k3v, youre kinda trolling yrself by popping on this thread to tell us that it's dumb every 50 posts

lol like we don't know this is dumb, i mean cmon dude

http://www.singingfool.com/photos/468/01967517_.jpg

Anyway, one more thing about cleaning: when I'd done 8 hours of that, after work I was often too tired to do anything or see anyone. Whereas after 8 hours of office work I still have plenty of energy to go out with friends or to do some other activities. So a job like that can also reduce your non-work social life. How do you measure that?

tuomas have you really never even read about the capitalist system?

Yes, I have. What's your point?

To be honest, I wouldn't care what system is used so long as both parties are happy with the wages/benefits regardless of what the job is "worth"

Maybe some kind of double-blind auction where every job you apply for requires a competitor to bid for you as well?

well it helps if you have a basic understanding of what you are railing against is the thing

xpost

I live in a capitalist country. Finland may have a more extensive welfare system than the US, but it's not a socialist state.

yeah but im not talking about your country, im talking about you

Anyway, I'm not trying to make a nuanced, comprehensive critique of capitalism here. I'm merely calling out some very basic things that have always bothered me about it.

LOL at the idea that my boss and I should be paid the same, even though, for example, I have 0 people reporting to me and he has, like 10. And he administers a 7-figure department budget and I don't. Why on earth would anyone take on additional responsibilities if they weren't going to be compensated?

I mean, I'll stan for paying all full-time workers a living wage, but this "everyone should be paid the same" nonsense is the argument of a 4-year-old.

(x-post)

What do you mean, that only people who've studied economics and political science can criticize capitalism? If you feel its effects in your own personal life, maybe even in your physical health, isn't that enough?

tuomas stealing is rong bro sorry \o_O/

1. yes 2. no xpost

Okay. I go to sleep now.

ALso, I know plenty of people who work behind desks who are too stressed exhausted to do things after work, whereas the cliche of blue-collar workers getting together for a couple of brews at the bar when the whistle blows isn't a cliche for no reason.

they're exhausted because they sit on their ass all day sucking down mountain dews and stressing about facebook

'"everyone should be paid the same" nonsense is the argument of a 4-year-old'

Not to put words in his mouth, but it seems like he was just tossing around ideas that would follow from egalitarianism, trying to figure out how you could implement them in an equitable way, rather than some fully formed mandate for Utuomasopia.

Tuomyopia

"tuomas stealing is rong bro sorry \o_O/"

I'd say that is just as valid a statement as the anarchist punk who told me that "property is theft".

Absolutes are bullshit man.

haha real life must be just a series of shocks to you

ALso, I know plenty of people who work behind desks who are too stressed exhausted to do things after work, whereas the cliche of blue-collar workers getting together for a couple of brews at the bar when the whistle blows isn't a cliche for no reason.

^^^^^ doesn't actually know any "blue-collar workers"

Sitting behind a desk is way more exhausting and stressful than roofing!

shouldnt office dwellers be compensated for the enormous guilt they must all have?

no duh we should all be stealing their stuff obv

I work at home so I have to steal my own office supplies. ;_;

I scanned through this thread since I last posted here a few hours back and can only ask: what hath ILX wrought?

I never know where the irony starts or stops on this kind of thread.

k3v, youre kinda trolling yrself by popping on this thread to tell us that it's dumb every 50 posts

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:23 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

this

thanks for bringing that to my attention *rme*

WmC you might as well just put those office supplies out on the stoop to be stolen by the poor. maybe put a sign on them that says "HEY POOR PLEASE LEAVE THESE HERE" to keep their morale high tho.

^^^^^ doesn't actually know any "blue-collar workers"

My mom's boyfriend is a handyman and my brother-in-law does auto body work, but thanks for the attempted zing. I'll remember you at Chanukah.

ooh I should set 'em out on a carefully disguised giant spatula

xp

And my grandmother works at Wal-Mart, for pete's sake.

ive done both manual labor & office work & they both pretty much suck in different ways but im not convinced one is so much more obviously 'hard'

the thread should've been locked after pancakes' diamonds/sand analogy

xpost - in my (rather limited!) experience office work doesn't often have the level of moment-to-moment supervision and pressure that manual labor does...the reason for that can be that you're responsible for a higher level project in (some) office work, so nobody's watching you minute to minute and if you check your email or surf ilx once in a while it's not a huge deal, but the need to constantly be "on" in lower-level jobs is exhausting in a different way than abstract long-term responsibility.

tbf my shitty office job involved moment-to-moment supervision from a total asshole so

i might not be the best representative

weren't you sorta busted for surfin' ilx at work or was that someone else?

oh yeah some office jobs are like that, i was just referring to the "you have so much more responsibility" kind people were talking about earlier, which i think tend to be less so, and give you more time to dick around.

not me xp

work sucks ... i know

-blink 182bro

These arguments also miss the point that a lot of sparkys/carpenters/bricklayers/miners etc make SHITLOADS MORE than office workers do. Cash under the table, danger money...

^^at the company I work for this is often the case.

Also many of the managers come from blue collar backgrounds.

As far as the US goes, masons and carpenters do not make more, much less shitloads more, than your average office worker.

xxxp, you should really ask the handyman how much he's enjoying his easy job/rolling in the dough. Hopefully he won't hit you. I find the romanticism of 'working-class life' by middle class people and office workers to be genuinely revolting. Yeah, the just bounce off to the bar after work - I mean, even though they have families just as large, engage in physically strenuous labor for eight hours and make less money, they have it so good!

In my experience (previously working in public practice/tax accounting and currently working for a large facilities/asset maintenance coy) electricians and plumbers in particular can do well. like $120k plus pa

you should really ask the handyman how much he's enjoying his easy job/rolling in the dough. Hopefully he won't hit you.

Well, first of all, don't take it out on me just because your zing flopped. Try harder next time.

Second of all, I don't have to ask him, because he's lived with my mother for 22 years now so I've kinda sussed it out. He loves it -- he makes his own hours, gets paid very well for his work, has lots of free time, and never wants for money to do the things he wants. But your concern for both his and my well being is touching.

And major lolz at you bitching romanticism while simultaneously buying into the idea of working-class people as downtrodden fucking "Brave New World" Epsilons with no joy in their lives and nothing but drudgery. They're people, dude. Some of them actually, you know, enjoy their work, for all its difficulty, and actually manage to have fun both at and after work.

Certainly he and my mom -- as well as my sister and brother-in-law and their three kids -- find time and money to take a couple of decent vacations every year, while my wife and I haven't been able to take one in more than three years, so there you go.

i'm too late to ask tuomas to explain why anyone works as a cleaner ;_;

while simultaneously buying into the idea of working-class people as downtrodden fucking "Brave New World" Epsilons with no joy in their lives and nothing but drudgery

Yes, that's exactly what I said.

i assume that tuomas gives has worked out how the cleaner of his office gets paid, compared it to how much he gets paid for the same amount of hours, and split the difference with her? if you're gonna bring down capitalism, you gotta start small.

gives

how *much* the cleaner

It's easy for you to mention individual examples of manual workers who get a load of money, but they're just exceptions that prove the rule. The kind of plumbers and electricians who get well paid are often succesful enterpreneurs, but they do not represent the majority of manual workers. Certainly not cleaners, who are one of the worst paid workers. (At least in Finland, but I can't imagine it's different in other countries.)

As for the scarcity system as applied to work: it only applies in a capitalist marketplace where things (like workforce) can be sold for whatever ridiculous price without any necessary connection to it's real value (which is often quite hard to estimate). A scarcity system as applied to work is not a law of nature, it is a value system that's a part of capitalism. There's no reason why it couldn't be replaced by another value system, such as one where pay is determined by the amount of work done. Of course such a change would have to entail a thorough change in the way our societies work, I'm not saying this is likely to happen in the near future. But on a theoretical level there's no reason to assume that the way work is valued now is the only possible system, or the fairest system.

that's a bit glib

Yeah sorry T, generally skilled elec/plumber guys here make a pretty good living, tbh

I mean we're not talking CEO level or anything dumb but thats an aside.

Do you guys even know what you're arguing about any more?

LOL I'm not arguing anything! Just inserting comments.

everyone should be paid in advanced chord changes

If I could go back in time and give Abbott $260 in order that this thread need not exist, I'm pretty sure I would.

it's real value (which is often quite hard to estimate)

you've acknowledged that 'real value' can be hard to estimate. you've in no way offered an alternative. please don't just say 'work done' again, that's infantile without further detail.

i'm too late to ask tuomas to explain why anyone works as a cleaner ;_;

― you can have this tapdance here for free (darraghmac), 29 October 2009 01:45 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not any more. ur up, big t.

you've acknowledged that 'real value' can be hard to estimate. you've in no way offered an alternative. please don't just say 'work done' again, that's infantile without further detail.

It's exactly because any real value of work is often hard to estimate that I suggest work should paid according to the amount of work done, instead of a speculative and arbitrary sum that has no connection to anything tangible, and which can make one person "worth" the same as 1000 other people. Why is this infantile?

Tuomas you fule if all work was equally valuable we would never attract the high calibre wealth-makers who brilliantly run the world's banking system which creates such tremendous benefits for oh shit hang on

please don't just say 'work done' again

sorry tuomas, i did specify this to be fair.

Yeah, but your argument was that if I say it, I'm infantile. That's not much of an argument. You need to specify why do you think I'm A) wrong, and B) infantile?

Of course I know what I'm saying is not something that can or will be done overnight. It's an utopia, something towards which things should gradually change. But there are intermediary steps, such as progressive taxation.

No, Tuomas, what you're saying can't be done overnight, because you're not actually proposing anything- that's the infantile part.

I've already asked you to clarify what you mean by 'work done'. 'Work done' is the infantile concept, because it doesn't mean a single thing to anyone on this thread but you.

If you're talking one uniform hourly wage regardless of ability, training, output, effort, value added, whatever, then I can argue that with you, and I'm certain most other people on the thread could also.

If that's not what you mean, then I have literally no idea what you could be advocating, and I don't think anybody else has either. Your unwillingness to elaborate on it is why people think you're trolling.

I've already said many times that people who work the same amount of hours a day should get the same pay. That's what I mean by "work done".

That's pretty slippery cuz same hours of work /= same amount of work.

I know, I'm not saying this should be an iron rule rather than a basic principle. But I can't see any other how to measure work fairly and equally.

"I can't see any other way"

I've already said many times that people who work the same amount of hours a day should get the same pay. That's what I mean by "work done".

― Tuomas, 29 October 2009 12:15 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

Ah, fair enough.

That would be considered a willfully stupid statement from any 15 year old educated to western european standards. I have no illusions that you're either 15 or stupid, Tuomas, so I can only guess that you're trolling. I usually give you the benefit of the doubt on that.

So, again your argument is that I'm childish or stupid. That's not really an argument.

An ad tuominem argument, also known as argumentum sb tuominem (Latin: "argument to the person" or "argument against the person") is an argument which links the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of a person advocating the premise.

tuomas, try not being disingenuous for once in your life

My contention is that you're acting stupid, which is childish. I'm not making an argument, I don't think.

Okay, if you don't want to discuss it, fine by me. But it's a bit insulting to assume I'm "acting stupid" if my principles are different than yours.

lol you never want to discuss anything, you just want everyone else to agree with you.

why do so many people want to work as cleaners?

a: to avoid having to argue with finns on the internet

my long ago boyfriend got caught and fined for stealing a bottle of vodka from a bottle shop and the next week they put up a triumphant cardboard sign that said, 'if you want to pinch something pinch your own bottom, it's cheaper.'

i don't totally get what this thread turned into, but on the compare/contrast between manual labor and office work i think it's worth bearing in mind the physical toll of manual work. it's true that office work can produce debilitating repetitive-stress injuries, but still, it's not that uncommon for people to be able to do office work well into their 60s or 70s. even if you have bad knees, a bad back, etc. whereas manual labor, like my uncle the carpenter/contractor, it gets harder and harder as you get older. he's still crawling under people's porches and that kind of thing, and it's really getting to be a bitch. but he doesn't really have other options at this point in his career, so he'll keep doing it until he's literally no longer able to.

As for the scarcity system as applied to work: it only applies in a capitalist marketplace where things (like workforce) can be sold for whatever ridiculous price without any necessary connection to it's real value (which is often quite hard to estimate).

The very idea of the market as arbitor of value stems from the fact that value IS hard to determine. If a lot of people want something it's relative scarcity increases, therefore the seller is in a better position to demand more for it. If you have figured out a fairer and more accurate way to determine value, please share it. People have been trying to figure out what their labor and goods are really worth since time immemorial and this is, essentially, the best they've come up with.

they never asked one finnish dude, the fools

wtg "they"

But I can't see any other how to measure work fairly and equally

I can. It's called "productivity." If you and I both work at identical jobs -- let's say light assembly work -- for 8 hours, but I accomplish twice as much as you do, why should I not get paid more?

xxxp also still lolling at the concept that work has a mysterious, nebulous "real value" that can somehow be identified. NOTHING ON EARTH has a "real value."

This argument about office vs manual work is hilarious. It feels 30 years old to me. I took a job as an office cleaner in high school precisely because it was the best paying thing around, though, admitedly I worked at the county courthouse. Skilled labor, especially skilled union labor makes more money than most office workers (if they're working, which ain't often the case now, what with the construction business in the US being down except for the stimulus jobs in public construction) and should, since thir jobs require physicality and brains. To be frank, though, in the US, at least, the real annual wages of unskilled labor have to also be calculated wrt to the actual amount of work they get. Lots of builders, carpenters, plumbers, etc., that I know often have extended fallow periods yet the worst (and worst paying) office job known to humankind is the temp data entry person making barely enough to pay bus fare and eat a shitty sandwich for lunch every day.

the temp data entry person making barely enough to pay bus fare and eat a shitty sandwich for lunch every day.

jeez m white you had to make it personal

can we link this to the thread about office cleaners? it's lacking the raw passion i prefer in my clusterfucks

Dude, I can't tell you how low that shit was for me. At least in a good manual labor job you feel like you've accomplished something.

YOU CAN'T PUT A VALUE ON THAT /tetley advert

You have clearly never picked fruit, which I did one glorious summer in Perry, OH. I got paid by the bushel. Do you know how long it takes to pick a bushel of blueberries? (Answer: FOREVER.)

Oh yeah, I picked blueberries. Once. Then I moved up in the world to cleaning bathtubs and making beds as a chambermaid.

I watched my brothers detassel corn and went "oh, FUCK THAT" and got a job making pizza.

If I were not going to sleep in a matter of seconds I would talk to you all about the hell and sulfur wet mobius strip of washing dishes at Old Country Buffet. Consider yrselves spared!

I still can't get out of bed on Mothers Day

which I did one glorious summer in Perry, OH.

sounds like the lead in to a singalong

I think singing is illegal in Perry.

xxp Oh man, in college I washed dishes at a very popular local steakhouse. Worst job ever by a country mile.

washed dishes from 13-16 summer job. not the worst job ever, mainly due to the 5 sisters waitressing for the family restaurant at the time.

making pizza was really, really fun btw, mostly because as a high school student I could only work 3 hour shifts

making the cole slaw SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKED though; nothing quite like immersing yr hands in ice-cold mayo to make yr joints SING

eww

bad hand jobs are the worst

you know what sucked, is when i was a dishwasher one summer for a pasta restaurant and we were also in charge of the salads. so i'd be washing dishes, arms full of grease and muck, and orders for salads would comes in, I'd "wash" my hands, then dip them into this huge bin of cold lettuce without using gloves or anything. the end.

you should really ask the handyman how much he's enjoying his easy job/rolling in the dough. Hopefully he won't hit you. I find the romanticism of 'working-class life' by middle class people and office workers to be genuinely revolting. Yeah, the just bounce off to the bar after work - I mean, even though they have families just as large, engage in physically strenuous labor for eight hours and make less money, they have it so good!

Oh yes, let's all generalize, won't we? I mean, really, it's not clearcut. I know happy and unhappy people in all jobs. For some their job is enjoyable, for some not. It's of course wrong (and actually middleclass) to consider manual labour as inferior. (See all parents praying their kids go to college. God forbid they will get a job as a well paid manual laborer.) But to say that all manual labor is low paid is wrong as well. GPs often earn less than (self-employed) manual workers (like electricians,...). (Well, according to research here.)

Expertise and education leads to you having a lighter, more convenient, more meaningful job.

A lighter job? I know plenty of people with a university degree who work +10 hours per day and seven days a week.
And how is it more meaningful?

I think one of the more important points made on this thread (qualified praise indeed) is M White pointing out the feeling of achievement in working with your hands.

Admittedly, I'm not going to ask the cleaner about that this evening- maybe the 'skilled' element is the big thing here.

It just hit me: maybe by holding a car wash!

The very idea of the market as arbitor of value stems from the fact that value IS hard to determine. If a lot of people want something it's relative scarcity increases, therefore the seller is in a better position to demand more for it. If you have figured out a fairer and more accurate way to determine value, please share it. People have been trying to figure out what their labor and goods are really worth since time immemorial and this is, essentially, the best they've come up with.

― l'homme moderne: il forniquait et lisait des journaux (Michael White), Thursday, October 29, 2009 10:14 AM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

as much as i, trolling aside, am sympathetic to tuomas's ideals and the idea of equality, it's really hard to get around this. nothing is every going to stop people for paying more for something they want or need, and to base what they think it's worth on its scarcity. this isn't the "system," it's psychology.

Cleaners shouldn't get paid a lot for two reasons:

1) They supplement their wages with thievery.
2) The only ones who do a good job are Eastern European migrants and the pittance they earn here converts into a mountain of cabbage and smoked sausage back in the old country.

hurrah!

btw has anyone read this recent nyer article (abstract: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/02/091102fa_fact_demick ) about the famine in north korea in the '90s. absolutely fucking chilling. a must-read.

So, again your argument is that I'm childish or stupid. That's not really an argument.

― Tuomas, Thursday, October 29, 2009 12:30 PM (2 hours ago)

most OTM thing on this thread

my argument was that he was doing so on purpose, but fair enough.

no you are misunderstanding my point

http://rgr-static1.tangentlabs.co.uk/media/9780553573619/my-point-and-i-do-have-one.jpg

I think what jjusten is saying is, "That's not really an argument."

I'm coming over all tuomas here, am i just the latest in a long line of european outlying state inhabitants to be taunted by ILX?

no, you are being used as a springboard to taunt Tuomas

no, you are being used as a springboard to taunt launch Tuomas into space

i'm not worthy, but i'm honoured to serve

I'm coming over all tuomas here

Good God, I misread this.

I'm glad to see Jjjusten agree with my criticism of ad hominem arguments.

is he a finnish rapper?

guys, the poor can't afford to go into space

apologies for that line of comment, tuomas, btw. i was merely frustrated by your refusal to address any of the points repeatedly made.

I'm kind of convinced this is a Scandinavian rhetorical thing tbh

I'm coming over all tuomas here

Just curious as to whether there's a baby in the room.

this is why we can't have nice things

One thing I can think of that would at least fix the problem of ridiculously high wages: if there is a set minimum wage, there should also be a legally set maximum wage. I'm pretty sure even the most high-maintenance CEOs could live with, say, 7000 Euros a month instead of 70000 Euros.

They'd just move to whatever country promised more, Tuomas.

i agree with the sentiment, but 7000 a month?

i ahve aspirtions to earn that myself before i get out of the game, being perfectly serious.

baesd on ym tpying sklills

Don't be silly, 7000 a month wouldn't even cover the mortgage on the beach house. And forget about paying the help.

wait, you want to cap earnings at 84k per annum? that's madness. utter madness.

That's about 6 times more than what I make yearly, and I get by okay.

Hey guys timely news:

Wanna go to space? You can, but it’ll cost you over 300 grand.

At least, it will if you do it through the Austrian Penny Markt, which just opened a travel business.

And travel it is: for $314,000 you’ll train in Oklahoma for five days, then board a Rocketplane XP flown by Rocketplane Global. Once aloft, you’ll be taken to 105 kilometers high — just above the official 100 km limit into space — where you’ll get a precious few minutes of microgravity. Then it’s back to Earth.

Personally, I have no desire to do this. I want to be in space, but I don’t want to have to go to space to get there. Strapping myself in a rocket seems like a bad idea to me, since I get sick on playground swings. But if you are made of sterner stuff, start saving your pfennigs (OK, Euros). The trips are promised to start at the end of 2011, though more likely it’ll be sometime in 2012.

I’ll wave to you from here.

Just like the Austrian capitalists to price the poor out of the space market. I hope Dan finishes that spatula soon. :(

The lady in the NY article I metioned yesterday felt that wrt to astronomical CEO pay in the US, ammending corporate law so that relatively minor shareholders (I think she said 10%, minimum) could force corporate votes would weaken they crony system that takes over corporate boards. I don't care how much they call themselves stewards of wealth and dutiful capitalists beholden to their shareholders, the top echelons of most major corporations watch out for each other every bit as much as for the shareholders and reward each other far, far too lavishly for incompetence and lack of result which would get most of us straight out fired. If the benefits of capitalism result from competition, there must be more accountability for those who fuck up massively yet expect massive, guaranteed remuneration. Talk about moral hazard.

That's about 6 times more than what I make yearly, and I get by okay.

not everybody is a single finnish dude on the internet, even though i'm with you in terms of sentiment.

Re: CEO remuneration- it's a whole other discussion, but what was said above re: psychopaths isn't far wrong I think.

The other crucial skill is that you have to be able to quote that kind of figure when asked at interview. there is then a 15 second pause- if you don't blink, you're in with a bullet.

One thing I can think of that would at least fix the problem of ridiculously high wages: if there is a set minimum wage, there should also be a legally set maximum wage. I'm pretty sure even the most high-maintenance CEOs could live with, say, 7000 Euros a month instead of 70000 Euros.

Although I do not agree with the amount, I fully agree with the idea of a plateau. But of course what should be the maximum?

200k pa?

and that reserved for doctors, professors, irish public sector entry level staff

The other crucial skill is that you have to be able to quote that kind of figure when asked at interview. there is then a 15 second pause- if you don't blink, you're in with a bullet.

Wait, so all I have to do to earn a ridic salary is practice my (near perfect) alpha male staredown?

it's the ability to seriously state to a board of people- "i'm worth 2 million a year."

tuomas is also misunderstanding my point

new ilx description

My history prof made us all state and justify our monetary value in class one day...I said I'd be worth $160 million but only in an international hostage situation.

i'm on sale for $3.99 today

How much in a purely national hostage situation, Abbott?

biggest dissonance for me in terms of wages and value-of-labor was when i first moved to nyc and picked up two part-time service-sector jobs while i was job-hunting, and then after a few months also picked up a professional job on a freelance basis (which led to my eventual full-time employment in my current job). for a while i was juggling all three, and the two service jobs involved being on my feet for the full shift and dealing with difficult customers and snippy bosses and completely wore me out, while the professional job involved sitting comfortably at a desk and being surrounded by smart, competent people who treated me respectfully. and of course the professional job paid about five times per hour what the service jobs did.

i can justify the disparity up to a point -- the professional job is something that's actually hard to find people with the experience and skill set to do well, while the service jobs were things that just about anyone of moderate intelligence and diligence could be trained for pretty quickly. still, it seemed weird to me that my labor that felt like hard work was worth so much less than my labor that didn't.

BTW all these stories about low-paid, low-skill, easily-replaceable manual labor jobs are a great argument for why we need strong unions.

M. White I think in a domestic terrorist situation I'm down to six digits ;_;

This exercise was freaking insane by the way. Some girl was saying she was worth $5 million because she was unique and the prof said "You just gonna get replaced with another unique, you're worth nothing." It was some firing squad action.

Was your professor Tyler Durden?

Damn, Abbot, I guess it's not worth taking you hostage, then, unless I take you out of the country. I recall Morocco being nice this time of year, though. ;)

if you combine the pawning of TV and the giving of plasma the resulting TV will be worth much more money.

I think it's telling that we've looked at this from the point of wages and not from the point of consumption. The psychology behind the market assumes that most of the time we want to be paid as much as we can get and to pay out as little as we can and the tension between those two poles as we all interact with each other is resolved by the nebulous market.

market economics have always ignored the forces of embarrassment

That's about 6 times more than what I make yearly, and I get by okay.

not everybody is a single finnish dude on the internet, even though i'm with you in terms of sentiment.

I think the average montly wage in Finland is a bit over 2000 Euros, so 7000 Euros is still over 3 times. Of course it's kinda hard to determine how much a maximum wage should be, but I think something like 4 times the average wage should be enough. Nobody can justify needing more money than that.

tuomas is also misunderstanding my point

C'mon, I merely countered your deliberate misreading with one of my own.

keep trying

I think you really haven't really thought this through. There are a lot of things in the world that wouldn't exist but for rich people giving away money. Or being taxed.

But if rich people made less money then average people would make more money, so the amount of tax money would only increase.

maybe we could just print more money and give it to everybody

I wish if a thread had to blow up into this, I wish it wouldn't have been the thread from the day I was really fucking poor and people told me to be a stripper but whatevs.

Uh, no, not assuming a progressive tax system, unless you had the top marginal rates kicking in at a MUCH lower threshhold, which would just serve to impoverish middle-class people. So seriously, you have not thought this through.

"Nobody can justify needing more money than that."

Whatever talents rich people lack, justifying their own wealth isn't one of them. They are really, really good at convincing people they need that much money. I'm for salary caps but you'd probably be better off justifying it as a cost-saving measure for industries.

I wish if a thread had to blow up into this, I wish it wouldn't have been the thread from the day I was really fucking poor and people told me to be a stripper but whatevs.

yeah wtf at thread derail

simultaneously cringing and lolling at Abbott's post

yeah now anyone seriously wondering about how to make $260 will probably just rob a strip club after reading this thread

Man, y'all are glossing over my car wash suggestion.

the DJ mournfully playing Who Stopped the Rain in the aftermath

Betcha cars get pretty dusty out in ol' NM.

I mean, seriously, Tuomas, right now in the US there are six tax brackets. For single people, they are:

$0 - $8,350 10%
$8,351 - $33,950 15%
$33,951 - $82,250 25%
$82,251 - $171,550 28%
$171,551 – $372,950 33%
$372,951+ 35%

The median US personal income is around $32,000, right in the 15% bracket. You want to cap income at $128,000, in the 28% bracket, thereby dropping the effective tax rate for half of US taxpayers by 7%. Here is a table of US income distribution. I'll let you do the math.

ok now I want to listen to who stopped the rain

But if rich people made less money then average people would make more money

i can't quite get my head around this statement.

Yeah, there is absolutely nothing that makes that statement a fact.

If we were cells and finances were water then money would work by osmosis.

I think the idea is with the income cap:
1) companies can operate more cheaply, raising wages and/or generating jobs
2) more companies can compete, generating jobs

so overall tax revenue would go up (by creation of more jobs, rising wages)

But if generating more tax revenue is the idea, why not compensate people for generating greater tax revenue directly?
(If a CEO cuts jobs, he has to pay higher taxes, or something like that, while a CEO that creates new jobs pays less taxes)

The median US personal income is around $32,000, right in the 15% bracket. You want to cap income at $128,000, in the 28% bracket, thereby dropping the effective tax rate for half of US taxpayers by 7%. Here is a table of US income distribution. I'll let you do the math.

But with a more equal distribution of wealth the numbers of earners in the middle brackets would rise. Having a bigger middle class would compensate for having a smaller upper class.

The assumption that the amount of money made will be constant and that that money will go into people's salaries as opposed to, say, buying more stuff for the business is what is getting you into trouble here. It is just as likely that this will generate a larger number of low-paying jobs as it is to increase the salaries of people already working.

But with a more equal distribution of wealth the numbers of earners in the middle brackets would rise. Having a bigger middle class would compensate for having a smaller upper class.

It really, really wouldn't. I think you don't understand the magnitude of difference we're talking about here. To give you an idea, the top 1% of taxpayers in the US currently earn about 22% of all income, and pay about 40% of all federal income taxes. The top 25% of taxpayers earn about 68% of income and pay about 86% of all federal income taxes. 75% of taxpayers are responsible for only 14% of all federal income tax. There's just no way to redistribute wealth to balance out those tax receipts.

Frankly, the first thing we need to do is to raise the top marginal rates back to their pre-Reagan levels (at least!) and have a lot more brackets.

having a significantly larger middle class would also lead to price increases on the most basic goods, so your poor people would have to keep on stealing from the robber barons btw

If you can't raise the CEO salary, it makes sense to raise Abbott's salary because you will get much more productivity gains from someone who no longer worries about rent then buying an extra stapler or whatever.

Wait, so all I have to do to earn a ridic salary is practice my (near perfect) alpha male staredown?

I was taught the staredown from my mom. Can do it like no other. I never have to spank my kid, my eyes are nough. Then again, I think it's hereditary cause, my god, can Ophelia stare back. hah.

Holy shit the US top tax bracket's only 35% and doesnt kick in til $370k?

haha, welcome to our nightmare

That's if you're single. If you're married or have a family, it's higher!

BTW, assuming that's a standard chart, they're not even taxed at 35%. Only income over $372k is taxed at 35%.

I wish if a thread had to blow up into this, I wish it wouldn't have been the thread from the day I was really fucking poor and people told me to be a stripper but whatevs.

― we are normal and we want our freedom (Abbott), Thursday, October 29, 2009 12:20 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

lol

And conservs want LOWER taxes, wtf. How the fuck y'all pay for your roads and cops and schools and... wait, dont answer that.

Those are Federal income taxes, Trayce. Each state and its counties, cities, school districts, etc., while perhaps aided by the Federal government, also has recourse to sales taxes or income taxes or property taxes.

the main thing ive taken from this discussion is that more hippies should take econ 101

the main thing ive taken is that the only way to make $260 in a day is to liquidate your possessions or sell your body in some way

only 35%

Yes, obviously when you make only 372 000+ dollars a year, you're gonna need every cent.

So, Tuomas, if an artist sells millions of CDs, what happnes to to all the money above 128K or whatever you allow him or her that the CDs bring in.

??

The rest of the money could be used to support up-and-coming musicians, and less popular forms of music.

I wouldn't mind if some of that platinum revenue goes towards forced vaccinations for Jenny McCarthy or other social programs.

all remaining proceeds from "blackout" by britney spears have been diverted to support throat singing across northern asia

They already do that with tax money (in Finland at least), for example with a state grant system, monetary support for the opera, etc.

(xx-post)