Something that I had a hard time learning in my life was that just because I am gifted and can probably take advantage of almost any situation I find myself in, doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do. Not everyone is smart enough or good enough to take care of themselves. I like money. I’m probably able to dupe people out of theirs because they are not smart enough and then I would have the money, and they would just have to go someplace and deal with it.
But that’s not ethical. That’s not being a good person. What I should do, is use my ability to organize and speculate and adapt to increase utility for everyone by causing efficiency through my actions and ensuring that there is more for everyone. Then I can have money, and my friends can have money, and I won’t be sitting in a castle alone surrounded by enemies and desperate people. What an ugly world that would be. How would I even enjoy it?
When you are dead, it’s not a problem for you: you just don’t know you are dead. It’s others that suffer your lack of existence.
The same is true when you are stupid: you go on but others suffer for your lack of intelligence.
For American and Americans it’s much the same. They think they are the centre of the Universe, but can’t see how bad they are. It’s the rest of the world that suffers.
Sure, but you’re arguing for social security in principle, and i’m arguing against it in practice, so we’re kind of talking past each other at this point. If social security worked in such a way that it was paid for sustainably without harming anyone and provided all the same benefits it currently provides, then i would have no problem with it. i’m not opposed to redistribution of wealth in order to feed the hungry, house the homeless, help the unemployed and care for the elderly and those unable to work, but i am opposed to it when it threatens to bankrupt the government and screws over hundreds of millions of working taxpayers in the process.
James, I know all about ethics. I don’t know why you’d think I don’t.
upf, who does social security hurt?
Like does it hurt a billionaire to take half his money? Is he hurting once that happens?
If you don’t want workers and all those middle class people screwed over, then you’re going to have to tax the uber rich. That’s just all there is to it man. Food’s gotta come from somewhere, and the right wing wants to poor to feed the poor. Wont work that way. It’ll bankrupt the country and hurt the taxpayers who work hard. But if you were to say hey, let’s look at the biggest hoarders of wealth who have used leverage rather than innovation and efficiency in the process of causing this great disparity in wealth and maybe just take back some of that to help the hapless bastards that were left in the wake of all the shit. Now that could work, but it goes against some philosophical principles and some abstract arguments about morals and who earned what and how and all that. Some people aren’t willing to sacrifice a few principles to take care of a practical problem. It’s my opinion that those people are just dumb.
My car uses 93 octane and it’s around 3 bucks a gallon.
18 gallon tank once a week or so.
Average spending power I don’t know. But my apartment is 1225 a month, 300 bucks in utilities and stuff, 100 bucks or so for car insurance, 400 a month for health and dental, 120 for a cell phone, 280 bucks a month car payment, (which is low because I gave them a 14000 dollar car and 9000 in cash when I got it as down payment), fast food meal is around 8 bucks, real food meal is around 50. Milk 4 or 5 bucks a gallon, bread about 4 bucks a loaf.
A buck is a dollar. Minimum wage is 7.25 an hour I think. Waiters make 2.13 plus tips. Its hard to calculate exactly how much I earn in a month, but I do pretty well by most standards.
Well, given the rates of various means of livings, 7 dollars per hour is quite high seems to me. It sums up at 58 $ per day. It means that an unskilled person can buy more than 19 gallons of gas from his one day earning.
If you compare it with India, an unskilled labourer gets 250 ₹ here but that is enough to buy just one gallon of petrol. It is important to mention here that the rates of gas are almost the same in both countries, give and take 5%, if you take exchange rate difference into account.
That comparison confirms my guess that dollar is very highly priced currency in comparison to others because most of such countries, which have weak currencies, tend to keep huge stock of dollars.
Like English language, US $ also enjoys the status of almost a universal currency. Secondly, trade surplus countries like China, use to invest their savings In US bonds as it is considered safe. All this keeps the price of US $ artificially high.
This benefits a common US consumer, especially lower class, as it gives them some extra purchasing capacity. They should thank their government for that.
Don’t forget that it costs 30% taxes and other deductions of that 7.25 to earn it, and another 8-10 percent to spend it. Also, in most places in the US, transportation is a necessity, so you’ve gotta spend some money on a car if you want to be able to get back and fourth to work. So the worker actually nets after taxes and all that about 4 or 5 bucks an hour. It’s also the law here that if you have an automobile that it must be insured, and it’s a law now that you must also have health insurance. My car and health insurance come to nearly 400 bucks a month give or take a bit. Imagine a person netting 5 an hour having to give up 400 a month just to be compliant with those insurance laws. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have to be responsible if they cause an accident, but that it’s a real hardship on people who make very little money to have to pay so much. Oh yeah, if you do cause an accident or have to go to a doctor…even if you’re completely insured…you still have to empty out your pocket that day in the form of deductibles and copayments etc.
Yes, Sanjay, Mr. Reasonable is correct. The general cost of living in the US is astronomical compared to that of India. My girlfriend lived in India for a time and has often tried to get me to move back there with her simply because it is SO much less expensive to survive there.
MR, you people have have wrong picture of lower class. Vehicle insurance is compulsory everywhere, including India.
But, I do not think that a person surviving on minimum wages should have facilities like car. In India, a person surviving on minimum wages cannot think of two wheeler, even in the dreams, forget about car. This is precisely the difference between two countries.
Secondly, car is not a necessity by any stretch of imagination, no matter in which part of the world are you living. One has to use public transport under such circumstances, even if it takes some more time.
MR, when you are surviving on minimum wages or job guarantees, you have to live a life of survival, not luxury. It is as simple as that. Government is responsible only for the survival of the poor, not their luxuries. If one wants all, he has to come in the open ground and fight the competition.
Asking for job guarantees and minimum wages is some sort of help/donation. And, such people cannot be choosers. They are not supposed to have luxuries or live at par with those who are fighting competition. This is where liberals tend to cross the line of rationality.
Sanjay, public transportation is not an widespread option in the US. If you’re outside of the dozen or so major cities which have robust public transit, then having a car is necessary. The issue here is that even if you fight competitively, in a great number of cases this amounts to nothing. There’s no good will between business and labor in the US whatsoever.
Zinnat (Sanjay), humans are luxury beings; so if you want them to not have luxury, then you do nothing else than the rulers do: make the 1% of all humans (the rulers) richer and richer and the 99% of all humans poorer and poorer.
The “Brazilianisation” of the world is a process of “3rd-world-isation” which will lead to a tiny, crowded, and very ugly “island” of the 99% of all humans with a tiny luxury and to a huge, sparsely populated, and very beautiful “island” of the 1% of all humans with a huge luxury.
The humans as the luxury beings are not able to stop the luxury itself - what they get, if they try to stop it, is an unfairer and unfairer distribution (allocation) of the luxury. So, for example, you can eschew luxury, of course, but that merely makes the distribution (allocation) of the luxury unfairer and unfairer, so that you consequently must eschew luxury, whereas the 1% of all humans can get more and more luxury, because your eschewal of luxury does not mean all humans’ eschewal of luxury but the increase of other humans’ luxury. At last 99% of all humans will have to eschew 99% of all luxury (wealth), whereas 1% of all humans will have that 99% of all luxury (wealth).
What people “need” is relative to what everyone else has. A computer with internet access may seem like a luxury, and indeed it was 20 years ago, but now, in the US at least, it is a necessity if one is to find a job and manage their life. The same is true of automobiles in most parts of the US. The vast majority of people do not live within walking distance of their place of employment. Also true of cell phones, soon to be true of smart phones. Only a few things start out as necessities - food, clothing, shelter - most other things necessary for survival become that way as a society evolves.