So let me get this straight, you are upset that you couldn't maintain the lifestyle you wanted, in the career you chose, so you expect rich people to supliment your income?
...the fuck? where did that come from. I cant see anything on this page of comments that could reasonably be taken to mean anything even vaguely like that.
Okay, I've been trying not to rise to the bait, but there are just far too many fucking morons like Frebis here for me to just let it be. I can't do it today, but I'll come back tomorrow and try to figure out a way to better express what I'm saying, or at least in more concrete terms.
Just a fun fact for everyone here to ponder: The global GDP divided by the global population is about $8,000 a year. That means that if you live in the first world, even if you're living at the poverty line, you're pulling in more than your "equitable share" of humanity's production. We're all rich assholes, and let's not forget it.
Ok that's a bullshit statistic for making your point and you know it. Let's not ignore the obvious fact that while $8000 per year makes you a rich motherfucker in sub-Saharan Africa it's only because the basic cost of living is next to nothing compared to a first-world country. When I was in Turkey I was able to by six loaves of delicious, freshly baked bread for a dollar. I live in St. Paul, Minnesota, know any bakeries around here where I can get that kind of deal? I interact with people at or below the poverty line every day, and belive me, they ain't living the fucking high life.
I think the point is that while they live horribly compared to us, it's not like they're living in a mud hut with no electricity and running water. Many of the things we call 'necessities' are very high end luxuries for a lot of the world and our view of what constitutes poor is very skewed, I mean for christ's sake I know welfare recipients with iphones.
Sure, but this isn't a pissing match to determine who's the worst off. I don't know what point Aetius was trying to make other than some finger waving about how good even the most unfortunate among us have it compared to people living in poverty in third-world countries. So what? What am I supposed to do in the light of this reality? Tell the people who come to my clinic because they can't afford healthcare anywhere else to fuck off because someone, somewhere, is suffering worse? I can't save every starving child in Africa, but I what I can do is something for the people in my community who aren't as well-off as me and can use a leg-up.
Hey, watch who you are calling a moron. It sounds like someone is jealous because I figured out how to support myself at a much younger age. But I understand, we all can't live the high life.
I'm not advocating not helping people, I think that if you have the extra income you should. But suapyg is coming off extremely self righteous, and unless he is sacrificing everything he owns except true necessities and giving it to those who need it then he (nor anyone else) is in a place to tell someone else what to do with their money. This is not to say that you can't try to persuade people to give, just that saying that people owe it to someone or are required to is, in my opinion, wrong. honestly, it sounds like no matter how much mr. Rich person gives or does, it will not e enough to satisfy you. Also, thiis assertion that all or the majority or a higher percentage of rich people are assholes is ignorant and has been stated as fact by many posters with no support.
Are we really sitting here denying the ethical basis of noblesse oblige? If you have a great amount of wealth in this world, you have a great amount of power. If you are a moral person, you will use that wealth and power to the betterment of mankind. If not, don't be surprised if you get judged as immoral. That's fucking what morality is. It's obvious what the right thing to do is. I don't know if I'm taking this philosophy for granted because of the way I was raised or what, but I've got no fucking idea how some of you guys came to your positions on this.
Perhaps this is because my family never had any money, but I don't understand how spending the money you have earned the way you see fit (as long as the way you are spending it doesn't hurt anyone) is immoral.
As I think Scootah and Suapyg are suggesting, is that the money earned by the super rich was most likely immorally earned off the backs of someone else.
Just kidding. You're clearly not being merely stupid. I wouldn't mind you finding the place where suapyg suggested that any money should be directed towards him. You couldn't be arguing in bad faith any more if you consciously tried. "With great power comes great responsibility" is so simple that even children reading comic books take it as patently obvious.
When my dad got diarrhea as a kid, he got taken twenty miles to the hospital via ox-cart. This isn't about if you grew up with money or not. It's a cultural point - understanding that charity is damn well a moral imperative, and it scales in proportion to the difference you can make. If you really want to put the lie to this principle you're espousing, imagine yourself with millions and millions of dollars, in a situation where you can do some direct good (say, donating to cancer research), and just... not doing it. Looking at the broken-down cancer ward and deciding to yourself, "Nah, not today, I gotta jerk off with these hundreds to my collection of Van Gogh originals." I'm exaggerating here, but I'm dead serious when I say that that can't be anything but immoral. I don't know if this is the kind of thing that you can convince someone of, so I'm going to stop here. Say what you will of rich people in general, at least some of them understood that wealth implies morality.
This is an interesting passage of the piece you linked and kind of shoots a hole in your cancer charity example as the best use of the money might not be applied. I respect people that set up trust for their fortunes so that they can maintain the business and help expand through economic activity, which seems to be some of Carnegie's point (I don't know how he'd think bureaucrats could spend the money any wiser or at better direction than the earners wishes after carving up a deceased's estate).
This will be my final post in this thread. First of all, I would like to apologize to Suapyg for what I took from his post. I re-read it and you all(morecowbell) were correct. He never mentioned needing or asking for a handout. Second- I give a shit ton of my time to childrens hospital, doing volunteer workd for their various fund raising activities. I am not the devil. I do not however give money to anything or anyone. I save a large portion of it and invest others. This is all so i can live my dream of retiring when I am young enough to enjoy my money. Third- RCGT, do you feel abliged to give homeless people money every time you walk by one just because they are poor? It's the same damn thing. If wealthy people don't want to spend money, then so be it. It is their money. "With great power comes great responsibility" - I feel that responsibility is to not hurt fellow man. Plain and simple. I guess I interpret it differently.
So how much is an appropriate amount of "charity"? Let's say 2 people with similar backgrounds and economic upbringings graduate college and take 2 totally different paths. By the time they are 50, one is a tenured high school English teacher and the other is a founder/CEO of a $100 million revenue generating company. The teacher makes a decent salary of $85k and is paid by taxpayer $$, but arguably fulfills his civic duty by teaching kids. He also pays $30k of annual income taxes back into the system. The CEO takes home an annual salary/bonuses of $1,000,000, of which he pays $400k in income taxes. His company makes $10 million of pre-tax earnings per year and pays $4 million of corporate income taxes (the remainder goes to the shareholders). His company employs thousands of people and pays out $20,000,000 of total salaries, which result in another $7,000,000 of income taxes. You could argue that in total, the CEO generates $11.4 million of total income taxes to help fund the system. Have each of these 2 individuals contributed their fair share to society? From a pure $ standpoint, the CEO has been the bigger contributor by a long shot. On the flip side, $600k of after tax income is a lot of money, some of which could be given to charity and wouldn't impact his standard of living. Well, how much is appropriate? I think that's what we're getting down to here. It's not an issue of whether or not the rich should be responsible for funding a disproportionate share of the system (they already do, by a longshot). It's an issue of how much.