Forum Post: Greed is Good...unless it's greedy workers wanting a raise.
Posted 12 years ago on Feb. 24, 2012, 1:14 p.m. EST by HitGirl
(2263)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
That is the hypocrisy and backward logic of the Republicans
Greed motivates most people, nothing wrong with it in moderation. Wanting a better life for your family or yourself. Occasionally though you have to take no for an answer, CEO, union, or simple employee.
I've got nothing against hard work, competition, or innovation... cornerstones of capitalism, it is survival of the fittest like in nature. But we are not animals, we grasp what lies beyond the immediate, we create music and art, realize virtue and sin. Even do things like use credit, or cast votes? though I sometimes wonder about those 2? We are the only animals made in his image don't take that for granted... A morsel of leadership by example from one of the few and the proud.
Sex motivates most men and drug addiction motivates many people. So, if something motivates you does that make it good. And, for the record, wanting a better life for your family or yourself, not the same thing as greed...not even close.
The key with greed or any other habit is in moderation. Having a drink occasionally is fine, a woman having two drinks a day meets the medical criteria for being a problem drinker. The alcoholics will strongly disagree with that definition, it's all in your personal point of view.
As for greed, all life works for reward, it's not only humans, everything tries to get the maximum reward for the least amount of effort. When does it become excessive is the real question. I do agree wanting a better life for your family is not necessarily greed. It just depends on the perspective of the observer. A professional couple making an excellent wage want to save for an Ivy League school for their kids. They see it as ensuring a better life. Someone earning minimum wage sees the same thing as an excessive desire.
Good one, HitGirl. Too true.
And remember it is not the greedy that drive our economy, but the consumers who are willing to spend.
Agreed. I keep saying that raising wages would be good for everyone.
Every time you get a raise the retailer raises his prices .. you are no further ahead ..
Actually that isn't true. The market might not allow such an increase and if there are already enough profits to absorb the cost of a wage increase, prices might change little or not at all.
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your looking at that from the wrong side .. it is the consumer that when he gets a raise the retailer will hear about it and raise his prices .. you are thinking the retailers employees get a raise ... hitgirl
I do see your point. How about a combination of the two. A living wage, to ensure that no one gets left out, and a smaller cap on profits. You have to be realistic about what is ever going to actually happen in this country.
I would settle for profit markup transparency at this point ...
Okay.
here's an idea !
We can design a free market unfettered profit system .. where anyone buying and selling can make profit .. and when the economy is booming they will make extreme profits and expand ..big time .. building retail outlets across the country .. in every town , in every city .. soon they will practically dominate the retail business .. hey sounds great right .. and imagine it couldd be possible for three people to own .. say as much as 100 million people .. now thats a lot of wealth .. and all from buying and selling ..unfettered / unregulated .. let's see .. we can call it .. capitalism ? or has that already been used .. the american dream .. almost a wet dream really .. there will be a list of the top 500 most wealthy " entrpreneurs .. yes the freedom the glory .. and anybody can do it .. nothing will stop them .. oh so sweet .. sweet sweet sweet .. would you like a system like that bw ? unfettered wealth and accumulation .. until you have all the wealth in the world .. and everyone is begging you to spend some of it to create some jobs for the m.. you can laugh and sneer .. and say .." you were once poor just like them " a success story you will be ... so great you will be .. with all the wealth .. and everybody at your beckon call... wealthy wealthy wealthy ... and as you watch countries collapse under econic stress and governments scramble to find ways to prop up the economy , you will have nothing to worry about .. you will have enough money to survive a million depressions .. and maybe even find a little profit in it along the way .. hey .. profit ! love that sound .. profit profit profit how sweet the sound .. saved a wretch like me .. I once was lost but now I'm found .. was blind but now I see "
What's with you? You know that's not what I want.
yes it is ..
No. It isn't and you know it. Don't look for me to respond anymore unless you change your tune and stop the ad hominem attacks.
your right , it's not what you want.. you want everyone at the bottom to have enough at least ..and the sky is the limit for everyone else .. well it would be nice if everyone on the planet at least had a clean glass of drinking water each day .. and perhaps one meal .. but I don't think mankind has reached that level of civilization yet .
Sorry bw ..
Right. Okay. Thanks.
Contrary to the user name, he/she/it is anything "but" friendly.
Tell me about it. Thanks, DKA for the support.
Anytime. I hate watching button pushers go unchallenged. I just want you to not get too invested in trying to bring a good result out of an empty conversation. But on the other hand it also lets others see the truth of a matter.
It's a matter of setting the record straight.
I support that. That is the only justifiable reason to prolong the frustration of trying to discuss with a blatant asshole like that.
right that dude, doesn't get it
If consumers suddenly had more money like in the form of government checks with money taken from the 1% (ya), and spent the money, how would this raise the wages of those wanting a raise?
Did I make that claim? It may cause more people to be employed and even create overtime (ya), but not necessarily increase wages unless hiring became substantial enough that it actually created competition for labor in the market (ya). The ever expanding human population is not helping wages. Until we evolve enough to deal with this we're going to suffer the consequences.
So true HitGirl.
They don't realize that if we all became excessively greedy they'd probably end up the big losers.
Of course, you just don't see their logic. The workers don't need reasonable wages, health care, retirement, or other benefits. They are like worker ants; their god-given duty is to increase the profits of the corporations.
Well, if you're the one sucking the money out of the whole deal it probably seems pretty sweet, but America changed that. We were a progressive country until the predators got into power. This really is a fight against tyranny and many Americans don't even see it.
You simply don't understand the capitalist concept of increased profits. The workers, or hoi polloi, should be kept on a tight leash. Ask Mitt Romney.
He'd probably pack his workers onto the roof of his car if he had to move a business he owned. Scratch that. He'd just hire people in China.
LOL, like poor Seamus.
Well, Titus did say "leash"...It was just too tempting.
Probably ship them to China as slave labor, so the wealthy of this country would not be burdened with them.
Is it OK if I call them (R)epelican'ts in this thread?
I do find most of their ideology repellent, as most of it is based on backwards logic.
I think it's all about justifying their greed with maybe a dollop of racism.
I think most of the people who vote Republican do so not so much because they are greedy as that they tend to be social conservatives who are frightened by the paranoid delusions of Republican pundits whereas most people who vote Democratic do so either because they suffer under the illusion that the Democratic Party really is a democratic party representing the interests of the vast majority or they are cynics who believe we can do no better.
Well, I was referring more to the party elite. Although I know some pretty greedy Republican voters who don't like Obama because of his tax policies. Got themselves an S-Corp and want to keep milking that loophole. "Down with the Socialist, Obama!" Pretty sad...
Anybody who thinks Obama is a socialist is basically clueless regarding what socialism is all about.
The sad thing is they know he's not a socialist, it's just their way of attacking the man. Many are clueless too.
Lets start a third party! I want a real party! everybody lets party like its 1999! Green Workers Party!
ideology repellent, as most of it is based on backwards logic//////////////////////////////////////////All this time I just thought libtards were that way
You were wrong.
Surprise, surprise.
it's probably not the first time either.
can't we leave the republicans out of it
I just don't find them interesting
I wish we could :( I don't like to think about cockroaches either, but I understand the need to get rid of them.
I've heard plenty of times about the market being driven by greed but never used in this manner. An interesting perspective for me using the phrase "greed".
Then you're not familiar with Gordon Gekko's "Greed is Good" speech?
This entire page is really depressing. A bunch of people who claim to be working toward unity and consensus, giving each other high fives for teasing people who don't agree with them.
There is a certain sad irony in seeing a bunch of liberals, people who take pride in celebrating diversity, expressing intolerance by ridiculing people who think differently than they do.
...and that one was voted down. Why is that not a surprise.
TechJunkie, I appreciate your POV, but I've seen what the right-wing trolls do to liberals when they are turned loose on a page. When I think of their bigotry and deliberate cruelty...I wonder what you're complaining about.
When you stereotype an entire group based on the most horrific example that you can think of, you're no different than a racist who thinks that every black person is a criminal. Or a right-winger who thinks that every liberal is a smelly hippie who goes around throwing red paint on people in fur. Occupy is about rising above that mentality in the interest of unity for the 99%. Isn't it?
I don't know if that is the major theme of occupy. I would say it is the awakening to the fact that the resources of our society have been, through political jiggery-pokery, co-opted by a few wealthy insiders who have decided to force their ideology and tyranny on a progressive, democratic society. Occupy is the symbol and the flag, the spirit of the 99% standing against such tyranny. However, there is no winning without unity.
Yes, exactly. We have to learn to work with people who don't necessarily agree with us on every ideological issue, to address the larger problem of our broken system.
The problem is the corrupting influence of money on our political system. We don't have to convince every conservative to become a liberal, or convince every liberal to become a conservative, to agree about that and to work toward a solution.
"All of this energy is for naught if we don’t learn how to slay the dragon. And if you—Tea Partier, Occupier, citizen—aren’t in it to slay the dragon, then you—Tea Partier, Occupier, citizen—are the problem."
Please Capitalism is based on the ability of "Capital" to create more "Capital" --> Workers are just the Oil we use to grease the wheels --> they should just be happy to eat the scraps the 1% leaves for them and shut their mouths or we can always just build EVEN MORE prisons :-)
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Greed or avarice is one of the 7 deadly sins.
Funny how all the Christians on the right seem to just block that out. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the pastors and leaders are on the dole and just manage to preach around all the uncomfortable moral issues.
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That is the hypocrisy and backward logic of the - Corrupt.
The Corrupt.
All of the Corrupt.
Red, Yellow, Black or White - All of the Corrupt.
Democrat, Independent, Republican, Green, etc. - All of the Corrupt
Left, Right, Middle - All of the Corrupt.
Liberal, Conservative, Moderate - All of the Corrupt.
Catholic, Christian, Mormon, Muslim, Buddhist, Scientology etc. etc. - All of the Corrupt.
Lets get this straight - The Corrupt/Greedy come from everywhere.
If you understood that the "Greed is Good" slogan was actually adopted by Republicans and originated in a Republican think tank, you'd understand my post better. Sure there are lots of greedy people out there but not many claim it as some kind of moral high ground.
"Lets get this straight - The Corrupt/Greedy come from everywhere."
True, but they concentrate in some places more than others. And HitGirl has accurately identified one of those concentrations.
I look to include not exclude. No one owns the market on corruption, yes some are more visible than others. But one frequent complaint that is heard and should not be ignored is that one group is not the only problem.
To hide in plain sight it is often easiest to point at something or someone else and by doing so hope to remain unnoticed.
So set-up an obvious stalking horse and continue being corrupt behind the scenes.
All I am really trying to say is that the corrupt and greed issue are complex and wide spread.
We should be looking to include all good people from all backgrounds to fight the greed and corruption that is also in all things.
Your attempts at inclusion are laudable. But I think, ultimately misguided. To be sure, there is no innocence in any one group. But some groups are simply more corrupt on the whole than others. THese groups, based on their ideologies, tend to attract like-minded people. So if one group stands for: "I got mine and I don't have to share," it will find its membership filling with selfish people. Good people may also belong to such a group, but are only there because they misapprehend that group's fundamental philosophy, or don't understand the consequences that groups's actions have had.
Not all political groups, not all ideas, not all philosophies are equal. Some should be doomed to extinction. That is not a statement about individuals, but the ideas and actions those individuals support.
Did you see this (link below)? Is it a Democratic or liberal plan, or a Republican/Libertarian one? Who, in recent history, has tried more of these kinds of shameless acts? If the answer is more one group than another, that group deserves being called the scum that it is, regardless of its possible inclusion of some good folks.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/wis-republicans-and-alec-push-vouchers-on-disabled/
Right on. Good people will eventually leave a group that is shameful to belong to. Hence the need to expose them and call them out. And hence the decline in registered Republicans.
I left it when George Bush Junior beat McCain, I'm an independent now. There's corruption on both sides don't kid yourselves. All of those politicians are wealthy, and most have more in common with the 1% than with the poor or middle class. How much is the minimum amount of money one needs in one's war chest to get elected? advertising, television, paid canvasing etc.?
A lot more since the think-tank Bush appointed Judges forced Citizens United down our throats.
the judges serve for life and (in theory)
would not be swayed by the elite pressure
as their position is secured
Right, that's why some attend the Koch sponsored strategy sessions to defeat American democracy. You can't assume that a judge doesn't come to the court with an agenda.
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My bad sorry typo
ALEC is an abomination, it is the modern day example of the Good Ol Boy's Club. Making deals in some backroom and deciding how to divvy up territory.
ALEC is indeed an abomination, and it has the support of the overwhelming majority of the Republican Party leadership across the country. Hundreds of laws on the state level have been passed enthusiastically by that leadership. And that leadership keeps getting re-elected. It is precisely what i was referring to before about the concentration of evil in one place versus another. It's time to stop trying to include and be kind to the Republican Party faithful.