spurgistan wrote:Burrito wrote:thegreekdog wrote:
Alternatively, the reason the government runs deficits is because they spend more money than they take in. I know... that's a novel concept. Maybe I'll get published in a reputable economics journal of some kind. I can see the headline now, "Thegreekdog comes up with new theory - if you spend more than you earn, you run a deficit. More on page 112."
-How about because they are dumbasses?
-Anyways, I just thought I should clear this up. Everyone on this thread seems to think anything done for personal gain (e.g. working) is greedy. However, greed is the
excessive desire for something. making a reasonable profit is not greedy. Destroying the competition so that you can raise prices to extremely high levels is greed.
Ermm... the reason we (I) work in our system is to get more stuff. There aren't too many externalities beyond that. It's greed. Anyways, the people who massive profits aren't the only representation of greed. It's just that they're better at accumulating stuff. Greedy people who aren't as talented at getting more stuff aren't necessarily less greedy than the "successful," they're just greedy people with less stuff.
Greed means taking a profit without paying for your expenses. The problem is that in our country that is still way to easy to do.
When you decide its OK to pay someone a wage that is not enough to buy decent food, a safe house (in some areas a lot, elsewhere.. not much), reasonable clothing (used is fine) and decent health care (the check-ups, insurance for all but the aboslute worst stuff), then you are GREEDY.
When you decide its OK to throw stuff into the river/the groundwater table, etc and let someone else worry about cleaning it up... that's GREED.
When you decide that this species or that species is not important enough to protect for our children, even though we don't know enough about species to make such a decision ... that is GREED.
When you decide that your wants are superior to the needs of other people in any form, that is GREED.
Making a profit, wanting to be wealthy, expecting a higher return for harder work/more education/even a bigger investment is NOT greed. Expecting those things at the expense of either future business or other people's basic welfare IS greed. Pretending that costs don't exist because you don't see them directly IS greed
spurgistan wrote:Woodruff wrote:KomradeKloininov wrote:The quest for profits - oooooohhhh! Makes it sound like an evil crusade full of monsters. I guess we need more businesses to go under so our glorious leader can assume command of them and lead us into everlasting utopia. One thing's for sure, we can't ever accuse the government of being greedy since they constantly run deficits through the roof. Maybe it's all part of the plan so they can avoid criticism.
The reason they run deficits is because people are too greedy (word used a lot here, eh?) to pay enough taxes. It's liberalism gone haywire.
Uh...what? That doesn't even make basic sense.
I would assume our Komrade is speaking of California, Prop 13 style. It's also possible he's speaking about the Bush legacy of tax cuts.
California's biggest problem was putting too much faith in continued unlimited growth without saving for future downturns.
The biggest problem with prop 13 was twofold. First, property values rose so high, so quickly that many hard-working people with homes paid for simply could not afford to pay taxes. Second, Calfornia decided to make itself friendly for business, but refused to make those businesses really and truly pay for all the benefits that made California such a wonderful place to live. So, we saw a drop in education, poorer roads, loss of many social services, etc.
It all comes down to the same thing.. play, dance, but in the end "the piper must be paid".
Complain all you like about "socialism", but the real truth is that either you pay in taxes or you pay in crime, illness, pollution and a long-term depressed economy that results when too many people just are not able to go out and buy things because they cannot get work (and there is no work because people are not going out and buying goods and services ... etc.).
