Forum Post: Is it a crime to earn a lot? Should it be?
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 10, 2011, 5:11 p.m. EST by VladimirMayakovsky
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No, not necessarily. Nor should it be.
Predatory lending practices are an entirely different matter.
Lack of anti-trust protections for the public from large institutions is a huge problem, wealth generated as a result of this lack should be forfeit.
Futures speculation on necessary commodities like energy, or food, should be met with hangings in the public square.
I know some rich people. They don't treat their neighbors like this. And they don't vote repelican.
What's Repelican? Do they have a website?
**repelican shmelican. They're all full of
B.U.S.H.I.T.E.**
No. Crime is not the issue here. It's a matter of what is fair and what is best for society. If fewer and fewer people can make ends meet because more and more money is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people, then the laws (primarily the tax laws) that are causing that concentration of wealth need to be changed.
Read the latest report by the Congressional Budget Office and you'll see what I mean.
http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-5-ways-income-inequality-happened-continue-151207479.html
That isn't how it works. A rich person having more does not mean another person has less. The pie shrinks and grows its not static. Wealth is not a set number to be divided - its a figure that changes organically in response to inputs.
Fail.
you talk like it is a zero sum game. it is not
People can make ends meet just fine, they just can't buy McMansions and take two vacations a year. Show me a budget against the median family wage of $46k which is not sustainable.
No, people can't make ends meet. That is why they are on Food Stamps. People have worked all the hours they can and they are loosing their home. I'm glad you are doing well. People all over the world are not. They are out in the street where you can see some of them. Some are working two jobs and can't afford to do anymore than work and sleep. That is when they have work. You will choose to believe whatever makes you happy. If it makes you feel happy and successful to blame the poor for the worlds problems you'll do it. If you sleep better believing victims are only victims because they want to be, that is what you'll believe. Some people do not care about the truth, they just want to be happy. They look for people to lie to them so they can continue to lie to themselves. And there you have it!
OK, show me a budget against the median family wage of $46k which is not sustainable.
People could take 2 vacations per year if their tax rate was same as the rich tax rate (14%)...
Not really, and at any rate 2 vacations per year is a luxury compared to how the rest of the world lives. And then people talk about being in the 99%. For fuck's sake.
Most of us just live our life. It doesn't matter that someone else has homes scattered around the country or lives lavishly. The overpaid actor, athlete, CEO doesn't impact us directly. The CEO's actions may hurt us, if say he outsources the jobs under his control, but his pay doesn't effect us.
There aren't really enough rich people to make a difference. The federal government will be sending out over $45 billion dollars on December first to Social Security recipients, and the average check for 2011 is just under $1200 each. What is someone like Bill Gates worth or Warren Buffett? Together less then 6 or 7 months of social security payments?
We have to change the tax code and resign ourselves that it's not just the rich, but everyone, that has to pay more to have the social system we want. The average person in the US pays around a quarter of their income to government in one way, shape, or form. In Europe it's closer to 35%. We all will need to pay more. The few ultra rich are a distraction, don't make their earnings a crime, fix the tax code.
I don't care how much anybody earns, just please pay fair share of taxes, I give away 28% of my income to the government, why should the rich only give away 14% of their income? Why can't I keep an extra income, why should the government take away my hard earned money and at the same time let the rich have more money??
Can't disagree with that.
So, what will you DO about it.
Me? Well if I were king I would go for a more progressive tax, tax capital the same way as labor, eliminate all deductions (including those that go towards the poor and the middle class), tax corporations as if they are people, and then with the huge amount of tax money this will raise I would invest in only one thing - education, education, education. We can't compete with the Chinese on low skilled labor, we can't compete with them in moderately skilled labor either (or with the Indians, they are willing to work for far less). So we need to up our skills curve so fucking high that we become a nation of geniuses who truly earn their keep. Now, not everyone will be able to do that, and more so not everyone will want to study that hard. I have no sympathy for those.
That is fair. Tax uniformly every one. No bail out. But who will force the government to do this. We have to join OWS to change the system NOW. It is now or never.
I thought we were talking about fantasies. Reality is more Americans watch Super Bowl than vote.
You happen to be lucky to survive the SYSTEM, but your children and grandchildren may not be so lucky. We need to change the system NOW, so they get a better chance to survive.
No, it's not a crime and it shouldn't be. There is nothing ethically problematic about someone like Steve Jobs becoming wealthy for producing something that people want. The problem is not wealth itself; the problem is gross disparities between the wealthy few and everyone else. (Read Jacob Hacker's "Winner-Take-All Politics" for some astounding data on how disparate wealth has become in the past 30 years -- the deliberate result of policies implemented by both parties.) Beyond some point, gross disparities become impractical: You cannot have public health if significant numbers do not have healthcare. You cannot have a thriving economy if widening inequities hollow out the middle class, as is happening now. We already know the remedies: progressive taxation and spending on public goods. The Great Right-Wing Noise Machine has succeeded over the past 30 years in making everyone forget this simple fact.
Would it not be better if nobody had any money and there was no income inequality?
That would require a different form of market of some type... who knows. We humans can design all sorts of systems, so as long as the resulting framework is more egalitarian than the current system, sure why not.
I think we need to do away with many things. Everyone should be required to sleep with everyone else, for example. Otherwise some folks will have more sex than others. Everyone should eat the same, dress the same, live in the same shelter, work the same (this one is tricky as we need all kinds of work but some work is easier than others which is completely unequal), get the same education, and grades etc.
I am always up for more sex!
So are OWS folks given the amount of rape.
See I knew I could pull it out of you... the troll list sure is getting long.
It's the system that's wrong, not the people who use it.
But should it be a crime or not?
Having money is not a crime. However if you have lied, cheated, conned people and stole the money, it is a crime. When you commit crimes you are a criminal whether its $10 or 10 Billion dollars. The money isn't the crime and not all people with money are criminals. However, some people with money are criminals. They committed criminal acts to get money. Having money is not a problem, having a lot of money is not a problem. Committing crimes is.
If you are looking for someone to tell you its unethical to underpay and over charge your way to billions, I will tell you it is unethical, but it is not necessarily a crime. I will tell you workers have the right to form a Union and demand better pay. Consumers have the right to boycott over-priced products and services. These things should happen, it should be perfectly legal for them to happen.
I don't think criminalizing people is the answer. We have to work together to find solutions. Not point our fingers and blame on others. Losing the power their money gives them would prolly feel like punishment though.
You are a moron
He asked you a question. Moron.
Yes he did he is also Is trolin a insulted me with a remark about my kids ...
IGNORE
It should not be a crime to earn a high salary. Folks with advanced degrees, talent, ambition, great personalities (never underestimate that!) in the right lucrative fields succeed. If you hate and resent rich people then stop watching TV and going to the movies too, because your favorite stars are millionaires. And no more sporting events because so are your favorite athletes. If you insist on turning green with envy and disguising it as rightousness, then include ALL high earners, not just bankers!
Yes, it is. Everyone who earns more than it's necessary to live without problems compels other people to live in a state of poverty. As far as the society won't realize this elementary truth our rate of evolution won't be different by that of the monkeys.
Let's have a 100% tax then on any individual income about $26k (the median income int he USA). You with me? Easiest way to abolish poverty will be to make everyone poor. It's an oxymoron, but that's what the OWS folks specialize in.
I don't agree with drastic solutions. They are never resolutive. The society I dream isn't one that makes everyone poor, but one that respects the right of everyone to have a job and a house, to be cured and to be glad to live with the minimum of needs. This is the best way to have a modern, pacific and harmonious society. To get it, it's enough to reduce the greed of the corporations.
it's all relative.
NO and NO.
No, but let people show their worth without incorporation.
No.
Bubblesuar
The question I am more concern with is did you make you money honestly or were you one more corrupt greedy jackass who swindled people out of money. I have absolutely no beef with anyone who obtained wealth through fair and honest practices and pay their fair share of taxes.
I have an issue with those who con others for money, and do not pay their fair share of taxes. We have a whole bunch of Bernie Madeoffs on Wall Street who should be where the real Bernie Madeoff is. Why is he in jail and they are not after the crap they pulled on people? No one should be above the law.
What if I made my money sending jobs overseas?
I'd say, good for you.
That's what I say too. But what do the OWS folks say? It is completely legal to make money the way I do it.
We would like businesses to be better regulated so that American businesses can't build dirty factories abroad and pollute the world. If the factory would never be allowed to exist in United States, its products should be banned from here. We as a people should stop this behavior with regulations. Demanding safe working conditions and what is a reasonable amount pay for workers in foreign countries for their labor should also be done. No more sweatshops and workdeaths to produce toy's for Walmart and the like. Workers have literally fell over dead in factories. The cause of their death was determined to be that they were that overworked. This has to stop. It should be regulated. It should be made illegal. I am not the voice of OWS. But I would never support the type of deregulation we have, nor would I further an agenda designed to make these problems even worse for the people of the world.
You typed that using a Chinese made computer.
Oh, I agree. My new OWS mantra: Obnoxious Whining Selfish
No. The key word is earn. Most of the money raked in by the 1% is not earned. It is taxed as "unearned income." The rate used to similar to what we get taxed for our work, but then the rate dropped way down to where it is today. So if you earn your money, you get taxed more than if you don't.
So, a crime or not?
I woud say that the problem is not people earning a lot. But people that do not work earning more that people that work. And that people that work are taxed more than people that do not work.
Equal taxation to both earnings done by means of working and by means of speculation would be better than taxing less the one that speculate than the ones that actually work.
In both cases there is risk. It takes just 3 words for a person to lose all security they think they had on a job "you are fired". Just as an investor (read gambler) have a risk.
So no, earning a lot should not be a crime. But earning by exploiting others should be a crime.
" But people that do not work earning more that people that work." And, who or what would these people be?
I meant investors like hedge funds that earn millions but pay less taxes (percentage wise) than those who the actual work.
But you might have a point. There are those who do work and get paid a ridiculous amount of money (specially in stock options) they are called CEO and (on many companies) their only purpose is to rise the price of stock for a moment, so they can cash their stock options, usually at the cost of long term company grow. That is why we see companies doing worse, and CEO;s getting bigger bonuses.
What do you mean by earning by exploiting others? If you are a small business owner and you hire a staff to run your business, are you exploiting them? If you are a corporate manager who has a few people reporting to him/her, are you exploiting those people? And what's the trick to earning while not working (other than living off of interest of savings, or Social Security)?
Every time you contract someone, you are basically asking for their time in exchange for money. Time is life, so you basically are asking for a part of their lives.
A small business are usually not in a position to exploit others as, their revenues - expenses are not that great compared to the salaries they pay. (aka, at most they make 200% of their expenses, including salaries).
Large business, on the other hand, can pay pay better salaries that they can, yet decide no to. Not only that, but (in the case of multi-nationals) they have sweat shops on other countries. And slave labor either direct (jail prisoners) or indirect (wage slaves). That is exploitation.
If you spend 1/3rd of your life a day, and cannot afford a place to live of your own, health insurance, food and 10% for entertainment or savings. You either being exploited or the business you are is the verge of collapse. Plain and simple.
How can people in other countries do all that on far, far less? Sure, you can't afford a McMansion, but how about a studio apartment? Food stamps provide for food, UHC will soon provide for medical insurance. As for entertainment, why not make friends and spend time with friends instead of needing to spend money on entertainment? That's how most people live in the world.
Excuse me! You think workers should be paid so little the tax payers have to support them with food stamps while you go out and buy yourself a McMansion???? If your business does not generate enough money for you to pay your employes a wage that allows them to feed themselves, you are taking too much of the profits for yourself or it is not a viable business with you running it or both.
Workers should be paid market wages. The owner can make as much profit as they want as long as they pay the employees market wages.
Other countries that have social medicine and other programs that are given to all(no poverty based programs) have one thing in common. The rules on immigration are harsh and as no other country has enormous borders they are able to control. Many euro countries that are not eu don't allow a skilled wofk position to be filled by an American, until the american who wants to work goes through a process that forces the employer to show that they have used due diligence to hire a non citizen. I experienced this as I moved with spouse to the UK so that he could take a job as an import Ice hockey player for the then burgeoning professional Ice hockey league. This process was arduous and when our temporary special permit came i1 did not allow me to work. These differences and the 50%+ income taxes allowed any legal residents not just universal health care but a form of parent subsidy -when a baby is born they do not focus on the legality of the childs immigrant status when it came to the extras, but no child born in The UK by non British citizens(many exemptions) gets citizenship. After 7 years of living there a child does. The extras that all get include a child allowance. I had 2 babies While living there and was given about 40 pounds a week per child, I did not apply for this. The high taxes and low expenditure on poverty needs programs allows for a country without significant hunger, poor schooling, homelessness. The part that people don't realize is that they have a static high unemployment rate. This is due in large part by th closing of mines and other similar pre technology jobs. This is ofset by the high taxes that are paid by home owners and employed residents. It is far from perfect but I never saw people living in conditions that Americans have become immune to. Yes I traveled and lived in small to medium working class towns and cities 75% of the time. It takes lowering the expectations of grandeur as norm that many Americans expect.
Sorry, no earning money is not criminal. What is criminal is dependant on how you do so.
May be because the cost of housing is far, far less.
May be because they have being trained to be good slaves.
Who knows.
You think the life I detail above is the life of a slave? McMansions or bust? That's not greedy?
Americans buy a lot of useless junk that is not needed. Do you dispute that?
No. But do you dispute that we live in an age of propaganda (or disinformation) worse than any age on history?
We need transparency. When a company builds a predetermined malfunction time in their products (started with the light bulb, now is norm), we should know that. We should also know when products like Coca Cola are being made to be as adictive as possible. Etc, etc, etc.
Face it companies are not what they use to be. In the past they call people Customers. Now they call them consumers.
The consumer is guilty, but the mind eaters are more guilty. Just like we believe drug dealers are more guilty than users of drugs.
You totally changed the topic. Let's first settle the issue of whether Americans are really destitute or not. I posit that if they let go of their greed then they can live just a fine life, like people all over the world do. A small house, food, and healthcare is quite possible for Americans. Sure, they can't vacation in Bora Bora twice every year, while the 1% can. But that doesn't mean Americans are living like slaves.
I disagree, it its part of the topic. You where saying that people buy things they do not need. I just told you why they do it.
I have no quarrel with people being rich. But I do have quarrel with people exploiting other people. If you spend 1/3 of your life-force, you should at least get enough for living on your own house (small as it might be). health care and have no necessities (not luxuries, but not necessities). If the 1% gave that, then I'm sure that the 99% would not have a problem for they having their luxuries. Unfortunately that is not the case.
The same banks that got the bail out are holding thousands of properties out of the market (read not selling, not renting). They are waiting for real state to go higher. This creates an artificially high housing market that is not on pair with salaries. Thus people that work 8 hours cannot afford to buy, instead must rent. And rent is basically paying for a place to sleep while you have health and your employer does not decide to layoff you. Is ironic that if they where allowed to fail, the housing prices would be on pair with the current salaries (which btw have lowered 3% average, instead of rise).
Add ridiculously high premiums on health insurance to cover ridiculous price of hospital care. USA is like 10 times most costly than India and other countries.
Add ridiculous price of education that is expected before you get a job. Education cost rose about 3 times the inflation rate over the last 10 years.
So yes, the 99% are living like slaves. Some are happy slaves, and others are not.
Why not move to India?
Why not kick the 1% to India instead?
If this is my home, then I have two choices, to live it, or to fight for it. I choose to fight,
When are you moving?
Why should I move? I like it here. You don't. You move.
Hey child molester just cause you believe in exploiting children doesn't make it right ... Get out of here
You are clearly angry because you cannot provide for your kids. I feel for you, and more so I feel for your kids.
I can provide for my kids ... I m angry with you ... You sound like a asshole
If you can provide for your kids why were you whining that your banker's wife doesn't have to work and you have to work double hard to provide for your kids such that you don't see them? You should have thought of that before having kids. It is completely unfair to the kids to have them be raised by an absentee dad. I still think you should give them up for adoption to your banker's wife.
You are a idiot and asshole ... Do you have kids ?... Where where your parents ?
You are just getting angry now. That doesn't help. You should work harder to improve your state of life so that your kids do not have to grow up fatherless. Do they see you at all or has your wife set up other arrangements for father figures in their lives?
Fuckin trol I feel sorry for your family
What sort of work do you do? I may have some work for you. How re you with polishing shoes?
I think he has a promising future in the sewer cleaning business.
I would like a trol job like you 2 assholes ... How much does it pay
Depends completely on how you make it. If it's the result of some kind of outsourced, slave or semi slave labor, then it is a crime.
The hottest/coolest brands of computers or clothing, for example, are hardly that cool to anyone who has to work under the most terrible conditions/wages in hidden away places in order to make them. Anything that involves the predatory exploitation of others, same thing. Cruelty is cruelty is cruelty. If you're about that, re: ways of making $$, then your profits are contaminated by that cruelty.
Making $$ on your DIY own seems to be one of the most honorable ways to do things...I'm thinking of those who make any craft or art or music which brings people joy. That can be the best human effort (always has been) Also, healing professions: If people use these in ways that are also open to alternative methods, kudos 2 U.Those in healing professions who are empathetic, sure, they deserve good $$. It's when hierarchy & big orgs get into that picture that people can be corrupted by power. Someone who invents & designs a newer, better, completely safe & free, ubiquitous form of energy - & sets up no slave labor to manufacture it's systems - hey, I guess you'd deserve the bucks w that one.
I meet plenty of people who make moderate livings who are quite humane...it's the structures & hierarchies - power structures - they have to go thru that more often are the things that do the bad stuff. Or bring out the bad side of them.
The problems happen when people who make efforts that are undeniably good for all (art, music, craft, invention,healing, etc) are forced to run those things thru predatory hierarchies in order to get their goods around...or, forced to work for power tripping hierarchies that are the purveyors of harm....that is a question that is very relevant now: how does one do good (& make $$) without being forced to hook up w (or be dependent on) a hierarchy that does considerable bad in order to get one's work around. The System has cornered a monopoly on all the rewards needed to live a comfortable, safe, reasonably happy life.
If you are doing something that helps, & you treat your employees (before anyone throws any mud: I am not the head of any such enterprise) as you would like to be treated, and in all dep't s of benefit & working conditions - then I guess you'd get the OK (but how many - if any - really huge enterprises ever work like this?)....it's what you do & how you treat those who work for you.
For OWS, I'd say the problem isn't so much money, it's actually hierarchy itself. Power trips - "Who's the Alpha, who's the Beta, who can beat up who, who can eat up who?, yeah its fun to step on (whoever).." that Darwinian insanity.
Vertical hierarchy enforced by penalty, power, fear - that's what brings out the absolute worst in humans. There's the most dangerous drug in the world.
Back to the beginning , tho - it's how you make that $$ & of course, how you use it. We probably should get away from the idea that having $$ in itself is bad, or evil or villianous. The BIG question here is: what are you like as a person, an individual ?
So if I make money by outsourcing it is a crime. Thank you for setting me straight. I will report to the jailhouse now.
No but it is sleazy to go abroad looking what amounts to slave labor and buy products that would be illegal to be produced in such a way here and hide behind the term "Outsourcing" when you were really seeking a "Slave labor force" or you buying products from dirty factories abroad which couldn't exist here due to environmental laws. You are then a very unethical person and I as an ethical person would not choose to give you money for those products if I was made aware how they were made. You might have to pay more for a product made in a factory that conformed to basic safety regulations and you might have a lower profit margin.
Look at the computer that your used to type this message. Where do you think it is manufactured. As an ethical person you should stop using such computers immediately. But I have a suspicion that you won't. It is easy to talk ethics when it comes to others but not when it inconveniences you. Do you have a cell phone? Do you know where the parts of the cellphone is made?
The computer is an HP are you saying that they run sweatshops where people fall over dead making their computers? You wish you could shut me up. You wish I couldn't afford a computer. You wish you were they kind of person people liked and want to be around. You wish you were the 1%. You wish people all over the world would work themselves to death making you a billionaire. Merely because a product is made in China doesn't mean it was produced in a sweat shop. There are businesses all over the world that stand out as responsible and ethical and they deserve my money, you don't. What's wrong? High turnover despite high unemployment? Perhaps you have been told by employes they'd rather starve than work for you?
So the products you use are not made in sweatshops and all the other products are made in sweatshops? Have you researched the condition of workers in the contract manufacturers that make computers for HP? I have no wish to shut you up. I am just exposing you as a hypocrite. You BS'ed on and on about how all offshored employment is run in sweatshops that pollute the environment, and the moment it hit home you said that no, not all is produced in sweatshops. Figures.
I actually do research the products I buy. If I buy from China, I usually go threw a Chinese reseller directly. I am not enriching people who buy cheap from China and resell at a huge markup. I bought the HP because my sister has one that is 12 years old and still works. I wear recycled clothes. I research store brands. If the information is not available to me, perhaps I have bought something I wouldn't approve of knowing the facts. Perhaps companies should be required to state the facts more. You are right, more laws need to be passes to allow me more knowledge about the companies I do business with!
So you are still willing to pay slave labor wages and pollute the environment as long as you don't need to pay the middleman and get all the benefits yourself in the form of lower prices. Excellent. That's what a true capitalist would do and I applaud you for doing that.
A crime..to earn money?
it's great to know that Mentally ill thoughts always have a home in Zuccotti park