RoR: Forum

@4:24 Helen Glover says (on "Buffet rule"): What do you think about going after the evil rich millionaires and billionaires and making them pay more, does that do anything to help pay down the deficit?

Ron Paul: Some people are rich because they live off the system you know, if you are a banker or a company that gets bailed out and you live off of government contracts. That being rich under those circumstances, I don't have much sympathy for that. But if you are rich and you have done well because you have provided a great service, you shouldn't be punished for this, so I would like to distinguish the two. And right now, the people who are upset, rightfully so, for the people who got bailed out, they should not put everyone in the same category. We should sort this out, and you don't punish them by taxing the people who made money off the government, you should quit bailing them out, and change the system where the entitlements flow to the very wealthy.

Post 1

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 1:01am

I think those who are upset about the bailouts think that the rich are not deserving of their wealth and that banks are inherently bad/evil. I hardly think they desire freedom

Post 2

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 1:33am

Michael,

I think most people who are rich today do not deserve their wealth, and that the banks today are bad/evil. It is a good generalization.

But by this rich I do not mean the guys on the top of the richest man chart. I mean the guys who are even more rich than those guys, the ones who either print their own money or are directly friends with the printers.

I'm sure there are plenty of bankers and even banking corporations that are honest and do not promote the Federal Reserve. Yet by proportion of customers and reserves, the vast majority of banks are terribly corrupt. Of course banks need not be evil if they practice 100% backing of gold or are honest about what fraction they will keep a deposit at... and have independent audits.

==== yet ====

I'd agree, a significant portion of the occupy movement is pro wealth redistribution from the productive. My hope is that by pointing out this video, the minority portion that desires freedom will find this message and join us. :)

Cheers,
Dean

Post 3

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 2:57am

I don't consider banks to be inherently evil or bad neither do i think that most of the rich people out there today don't deserve their wealth. i think its a nice scapegoat for a lot of people to blame government intervention on banks and business people in general. I think most don't like freedom for themselves or others.
(Edited by Michael Philip on 4/22, 2:58am)

Post 4

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 9:27am

Michael,

i think its a nice scapegoat for a lot of people to blame government intervention on banks and business people in general. I think most don't like freedom for themselves or others.

I agree that the abuses of our government which have brought us to our current financial crisis are -- and "needed to be" -- scapegoated onto banks and business people. That is how statism thrives. Indeed, it is how all human evil thrives -- by scapegoating its inherent destructiveness onto others. But when you say "most" then whom do you mean? Most of the people on earth? Most Westerners? Most US citizens? Most 'Occupy Wall Street utopian zealot revolutionaries' (OWSUZR's)?

In a global sense, "most" people have never been exposed to -- or been made aware of -- a proper notion of freedom for themselves. It's a relatively new thing. I'm reading a book by Hernando de Soto: The Mystery of Capital. It proves that most people have never been exposed to a proper notion of freedom for themselves. An argument can be made that if there ever came a day where almost everyone was exposed to -- or was made aware of -- a proper notion of freedom for themselves, if that day ever came, then we could take a follow-up poll of everyone to see whether most people wouldn't like freedom for themselves or others. In the meantime, all that's left is either justified or unjustified speculation.

In this meantime, the speculation we make either has to be reasoned out, or it has to be explained in other ways (such as by 'psychologizing' the speculators). For instance, I once had a friend who said that everyone is greedy in the negative sense of greed -- in the sense of grabbing unearned wealth (a "criminal" sense of greed). There are at least 2 ways to explain his doing that:

1) everyone really is greedy in the negative sense of greed (and would kill their own neighbors and random passersby -- and even their very own family! -- in order to grab their wealth)
2) my former friend is greedy in the negative sense (and merely projects his internal desires onto all others, not being able to see beyond his own limited, existentialist sphere of uncontemplated sentiment)

Caveat: There may be a 3rd (or even a 4th!) explanation for his speculation about everyone being greedy in the negative sense, one I might have missed. But that doesn't leave anyone off the hook. We either produce reasons, or look elsewhere to explain our interpretations/evaluations/generalizations. So whom do you mean by "most" -- and what are your reasons?

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 4/22, 9:52am)

Post 5

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 10:12am

I'd like to make some possibly-unjustified speculation myself. In the video, the price of gasoline is brought up (that was a double-entendre, in case you missed it). Get it? Brought up? The price of ... . Okay, I can tell I'm already losing my audience. Anyway, before you make it out the exit doors, let me say this much:

The recently-inflated price of gas might be explained thusly:

45% due to the government restriction on US oil production
45% due to the government inflation of US currency
10% due to circumstantial "upside" speculation -- the opposite of the "shorting" kind of speculation (which also occurs ongoingly) -- because of the government-related uprisings/chaos in major oil-producing countries in the Middle East

Does anyone see a pattern here (artificially-inflated prices due predominantly to statism)? Our president, with his focus solely on speculators, is spending millions of our dollars in order to focus on what might be only 10% of the problem -- whereas up to 90% of the problem might be his own fault (or the fault of statist government, in general). He is scapegoating.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 4/22, 10:16am)

Post 6

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 12:34pm

Interesting Ed. I was asked by one of my friends to explain the lower wages for the average employee as opposed to the increasing corporate profits. people do really like to scapegoat everything on corporate profits and CEOs

Post 7

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 5:02pm

Michael,

What really gets my goat is we get this socialist president and a heck of a whole lotta' government interventionism (government punishing success, picking winners and losers) and lo' and behold we end up with a bigger gap between the rich and the poor. Holy hell, who would have guessed that that would have happened? I mean, statist intervention into an otherwise-free market is supposed to be a good thing, right? A well-intentioned thing or whatever. It just cannot be possible that all of this intervention, this picking of the winners and losers, could have resulted in the recently-increased wage disparity.

No, it had to be the result of free people, freely choosing associations and trade???

What the ^&#$!!! C'mon, people. Think! C'mon, break it down. What inherently happens to the gap between rich and poor when you pick winners and losers (e.g., when you give executives at Goldman Sachs or at GM billions of dollars in unearned handouts). What happens? Aaaaaaaaaagh! There is one and only one right answer to this question! That's it. We need good communicators. We need to be able to encourage critical thinking about this stuff.

I mean, you can even freaking analyze this based on just first principles and get to the right answer. You don't even need to wait to see the results of bailouts and handouts and whatnot. I could have told you what would have happened from this statist intervention before it actually happened. Many people could have, but we need to be better at being communicators, I guess. Share not just our insights, but how it is that regular, everyday people can also arrive at those very same insights. That's it, dammit. Now, I'm pissed off. And you don't want to get me pissed off, because when I get pissed off, there is one main thing that I do about it:

Create a YouTube video about it

:-)

[coming soon]

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 4/22, 7:10pm)

Post 8

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 5:21pm

Cue malevolent music *DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUN*

You worry me sometimes, Ed. I hope you don't have a heart condition.

Post 9

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 5:49pm

Thanks Ed! You're the best! :)

Post 10

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 6:48pm

mind you income inequality is not necessarily a bad thing. different individuals in different professions with different abilities and work ethics create vastly different amounts of wealth. I think people are averse to great wealth because they think it leads to social instability somehow which is of course incorrect. the cause of the unrest is the leading philosophy within the particular culture.

one guy even suggested that high unemployment can lead to the french revolution so let the rich pay their fair share/more in terms of taxes.

Post 11

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 7:06pm

i don't think critical thinking is going to penetrate their minds Ed. these people's entire world view is full of dangerous nonsense. And not just any nonsense: self-reinforcing nonsense

Post 12

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 7:31pm

Thanks, Kyle, but the condition of which I am currently afflicted is more properly located not in the heart, but in the head.

:-)

Dean, I hope I don't let you down.

Michael, if self-reinforcing nonsense is the ammunition supplying the enemy, then the least that can be done is to offset it with the right kind of validating reasoning -- something which can fire-up or re-invigorate (read: "reinforce") our very own ranks. I just watched Oliver Stone's Alexander and Aristotle has a part in it. Er, scratch that. What I mean is that Aristotle is portrayed in it (by Christopher Plummer). Stone has Aristotle saying this to young Alexander and his peers:

... for in you resides the future of Greek civilization. To strive for honor is the highest purpose of all. To rule over our baser emotions. To follow reason, the divine part in each of you. ... to love excellence ...

Reason, the divine part in each of us? Now that's a seriously "reinforcing" pep-talk, right there!

:-)

Ed

Post 13

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 8:23pm

Excellence! What a wonderful thing to love! :) Thanks again Ed!

Post 14

Monday, April 23, 2012 - 5:38pm

Reason, the part that people choose to use on occasion or not use at all. they prefer insults and smears instead. nothing much reason can do when you're an epistemological savage
(Edited by Michael Philip on 4/23, 5:38pm)

Post 15

Saturday, April 28, 2012 - 11:06am