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TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

Nanos wrote:> rich don't steal from the poor.

I'm not aware of any country this doesn't happen on a very large scale, certainly all the wealthy people I know came to be that way because they spent their lives finding ever new ways of stealing from the poor..

(Interestingly, most are Landlords, though one did start off as a drug dealer and invested in property later on..)
Oh hogwash. Sam Walton got rich forcing companies to sell their products to poor people at reduced prices.

The forcible transfer of wealth is almost entirely in the opposite direction. The top 5% pay half of all taxes, and the bottom 50% pay none.
I would be interested to hear yours/others thoughts on the issue of how rising property prices eventually push the majority of the poor out of being able to ever afford to buy a home on minimum wage.
Not true, you can buy a small $50,000 home in a rural area, and pay for it at minimum wage.

What people tend not to realize is that homes are on average much larger and much more lavish than they were 50 years ago, and also less occupied. The net result is people look around and say "Why can't I afford a $250,000 home on minimum wage?" when they should be asking "Why the hell am I making minimum wage in an era when so many people make many multiples of minimum wage and are thus able to afford $250,000 homes?"
Last edited by TallDave on Mon Aug 11, 2008 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

My thoughts to provide a town where everyone rents cheaply (Enough to pay maintence say.) from the state would leave the majority of the poor with a large disposible income to invest/spend as they like, rather than it all ending up with the money men.
It's called "rent control" and "public housing" and it results in crappy neighborhoods where nothing is maintained and crime is sky-high. You cannot remove the profit incentive without dire consequences.

Regarding wages/rents, you have the same issue as with prices: if a company offers low wages, the best workers will go to another employer; if a landlord charges exorbitant rents, renters will rent elsewhere and the landlord will lose money. Those that best price wages, rents, and consumer products at their most efficient level will profit the most. That overall tendency towards maximum efficiency why living standards keep getting better and better, and the freer economies are nearly always the more prosperous.

Again, I would urge you to pick up "Free To Choose" by the economist Milton Friedman and "The Road to Serfdom" by Friedrich Hayek. The free market has done more good for mankind than anything in history.

ravingdave
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Post by ravingdave »

Nanos wrote:> rich don't steal from the poor.

I'm not aware of any country this doesn't happen on a very large scale, certainly all the wealthy people I know came to be that way because they spent their lives finding ever new ways of stealing from the poor..

(Interestingly, most are Landlords, though one did start off as a drug dealer and invested in property later on
..)

Depends on what you mean by the term "Stealing", and what you mean by "Rich", and "Poor."

You would think that a language as old as english would have clearly defined meanings for words, but you discover upon talking with various people that in many cases the words mean different things to different people.

So hokay, who's stealing from whom ? You mention land lords, so who owns the land ? Well the land lords do of course, but why do they own it ? Well, historically (in England and elsewhere) it was because they were the ruling class. Why were they the ruling class ? Well, somewhere back in history their ancestors killed anyone who said they weren't.

Ergo, they became the ruling class !

This is the bare nature of humanity at work. After you kill enough people to defeat all potential threats and make enough examples, the remaining people that don't want to be killed become your servants.

Do they want to be your servants? No! Of course not ! Were they tables turned they would be very happy to make YOU their servants.

Well, that was back in the old days. Humanity is a lot more evolved and civilized. (snicker) We believe in equality. ( or at least we say we do. Our actions tell a completely different account. ) We publicly proclaim the concept of equality, but we privately think we're better than everyone else because we're US ! :)

The concept that everyone has rights, and we should all be treated equally under the law, and that people shouldn't fight or hurt each other is a beautiful utopian idea, but it is not what real humans are made of.

We have managed to achieve an aproximation of the concept only by pitting various powerful factions one against the other. Peace is achieved by the threat of war. In the meantime life goes on.

As far as landlords go, I don't care for them. I had a landlord for a very brief time in my life, but I chose to act prudently, save my money, buy land, and become my own landlord. Anyone else could do the same. The fact that they choose not to means that no one is stealing their money, it means that they voluntarily place themselves in the position of doling out a portion of their income every month to someone else in exchange for living on that other persons legally recognized property.

Is it a bad deal ? Absolutely. I will have none of it for myself, but if other people choose to spend their money foolishly, isn't that part of their freedom ?

The only time it would be stealing in my mind is when it is compulsory, you know, like when the government takes your money whether you like it or not. Or course when the government does it, None dare call it stealing.

(sorry about the length. I could go on for hours.)


David

dnavas
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Post by dnavas »

ravingdave wrote:(sorry about the length. I could go on for hours.)
Folks, is this really a News thread?

-Dave

Nanos
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Post by Nanos »

> The forcible transfer of wealth is almost entirely
> in the opposite direction.

How amusing the idea that the rich are having their wealth stolen when they exploited virtually everyone below them to steal their wealth from the labour of their workers!


> The top 5% pay half of all taxes, and the bottom 50% pay none.

I'm guessing that is the way in the US, in the UK even the bottom people shell out a good 33% in income tax, then you can add VAT of 17.5% on top of that when they come to spend their money..


> you can buy a small $50,000 home in a rural area, and
> pay for it at minimum wage.

I'm guessing again this is the US, if so your very much more fortunate than us in the UK, where your need $200,000 to buy a single room flat if your lucky.

3 miles from me where I grew up as a kid, you can buy a nice 5 bedroom home for some $5 million, which in my day 30 years ago cost only $4,000 to buy.


> Why the hell am I making minimum wage

A good question, but sadly at least in the UK, the majority of jobs are very low paid.

(A good example comes from someone I know who works in a department with a private company that has a staff of 14, the manager is on a salary of $900,000 whilst those under him who do the actual grunt work are being paid $30,000, seems a little inbalanced to me..)

Locally where I am, people are being paid as little as $2,000 a year. (Granted they are illegal immigrants, but still, you can see how far away they are from the property ladder.)


> results in crappy neighborhoods where nothing is
> maintained and crime is sky-high

I know what you mean, having lived on those myself, they are truely awful, and a result I believe of a lack of enough police/cops on the street and a williness to put/keep people in prison for crimes.

But... nowdays, even the private housing places are becoming as bad..

But I don't think the level of crime is related to the fact that the rents are just lower, its more that the housing estates are full of the unemployed and criminals.

If you gave everyone jobs and stuck the criminals in prison, the place would be just like the high price private rental places :-)

Next we'll be blaming the architecture.. ;-)


> if a company offers low wages, the
> best workers will go to another employer;

Trouble is, that doesn't work well in practice, everyone offers low wages!

And with high unemployement, there is always someone else to fill your place should you decide your not paid enough..

(Hence my thought that high unemployment is actually welcomed by businesses as it gives them leverage in keeping wages low..)


> if a landlord charges exorbitant rents, renters will
> rent elsewhere and the landlord will lose money

Not if you maintain a monopoly of keeping rents high, and available rented stock low.

I reckon I could rent out places to people at $200 a month and not lose money, yet the cheapest your find anywhere around here is $900 a month.

Even charities aren't renting places cheaper than market prices!

I'd really love to know why landlords aren't..


> Depends on what you mean by the term "Stealing"

Unfairly exploiting, not giving a fair wage for a fair days work, eg. if the manager gets $900k, and the workers get $30k, and the shareholders get a fat slice, it seems the workers are having their wealth stolen..


>, and what you mean by "Rich"

Worth $1 million+ (Most of the rich people I know are worth $20 million+ and have their money invested in property which they rent out for an income, without needing to do any real work themselves.)

>, and "Poor."

Have no savings and live hand to mouth in rented property, though you might also include the lower and middleclass poor who slave all their lives to pay off the mortgage..


> but you discover upon talking with various people that in
> many cases the words mean different things to different people.

Agreed, it can take many too and fro to figure out what someone means by what they are saying. (And I notice the most common reason people argue, not because they disagree, but because they don't understand each other, they can even disagree even though they are saying the same thing!)


> The fact that they choose not

Perhaps that is one of the key differences between the US and UK, in that in the US you can choose (Though whats up with all those defaulted mortgages causing the credit crunch..), in the UK there is a lack of choice.

Eg. Take my position for example, we are on double the minumn wage, live in the cheapest to rent place possible, our savings per year would be around $4,000 (As long as the rent doesn't go up again... its already $11,000 a year for a single room of 116 square feet, it went up 11% last month and due to go up again at the end of the year.) so it would take us more than a lifetime to save up to buy the cheapest property available in the UK!

If you could fit 8 people on minumn wage into a single roomed flat, then you could buy it on a mortage..


> but if other people choose to spend their money foolishly

Its not like they have much of a choice, high rents, mortgage maybe, else its living on the streets. As if the millions of people on low wages could just go out and get a better paid job tomorrow..


> stealing in my mind is when it is compulsory, you know, like
> when the government takes your money whether you like it or not

I think its just as bad, and the same thing under another name/method.


> (sorry about the length. I could go on for hours.)

Same :-)

But someone somewhere might learn something during the exchange. (I'm hopeful to at least learn what I can better in my desire to provide low cost housing for the poor and what problems might be expected in attempting/doing that.)

ravingdave
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Post by ravingdave »

Nanos wrote:
I'm interested to know more about how the lack of private property effects things, eg. if you had a town say where all the property was owned by the state and rented out very cheaply to people, how would that be a bad thing ?


> Your intellect and good sense and writing
> ability are sorely needed

Agreed, though I much prefer to the one2one of forum learning than just reading a one way book, books are so old fashioned :-)




This is the only part of your response that i'm going to address. Here in the states we did something similar in various urban environments in various cities. Government owned housing with inexpensive rents. They were called "Projects." (ha ha ha ha hee hee hee snicker chuckle.... sorry, everytime I think about it I can't help myself...)

The "Projects" (Part of Lyndon Baynes Johnson's "War on Poverty" ) were horrible failures. They became cesspools of violent crime, drug dealing, vandalism etc. The buildings deteriorated and became unlivable.
Many have been tottaly destroyed, but in any case, here in America the term "Project" is intimately associated with horrible slum government fiasco.

Interestingly enough, Not all of the "Projects" had unhappy endings. I haven't checked on it lately, but several of the "Projects" were made into happy homes by the removal of the one thing which was causing all the damage.

Lack of ownership.


As long as the tenements were owned by the Federal Government, who gave a darn if you tore them up ? But when the residents were told they could BUY their apartments, their attitudes changed completely ! They started taking care of their apartments, they started taking care of the buildings and the grounds, they formed tenant committies and they kicked out the troublemakers and no longer tolerated them.

The transformation was amazing. The Federal Housing Projects that converted to individual ownership became vibrant, clean, living communities, and the people became proud of their homes rather than ashamed.


The people now had a stake in the quality of their building and their homes, and since they now had something to defend, they defended it.


Human nature is not complicated. It's relatively simple, and if people would only stop to take it into consideration, they would realize that if something conflicts with human nature, it's never going to work for very long. (communism)


David

ravingdave
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Post by ravingdave »

dnavas wrote:
ravingdave wrote:(sorry about the length. I could go on for hours.)
Folks, is this really a News thread?

-Dave

This entire discussion is NOT really appropriate for this area, let alone for this website. At the very least it ought to be moved to the "General" area. Unfortunately, people sometimes get off topic, and then things get carried away. I am herby calling on one of the moderators to somehow get this discussion moved into the appropriate forum, if there is one, on this website.


David

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

How amusing the idea that the rich are having their wealth stolen when they exploited virtually everyone below them to steal their wealth from the labour of their workers!
Again, freely choosing to work, rent and buy in a free market economy is not "exploitation." Some of the capital risk-takers end up rich, but many do not.

I'm guessing that is the way in the US, in the UK even the bottom people shell out a good 33% in income tax, then you can add VAT of 17.5% on top of that when they come to spend their money..
Yes, VAT is terribly regressive. I don't know why anyone thought it was a good idea.
A good question, but sadly at least in the UK, the majority of jobs are very low paid.
Then one must learn a higher-paying skill.
But I don't think the level of crime is related to the fact that the rents are just lower
You're missing the point. It's not that the rents are lower, it's that no one has any ownership in the area, so no one has any incentive to keep the place up. There are low-rent communities which are fairly nice places to live, but they are generally privately owned. The owners don't want to see their investment trashed.
If you gave everyone jobs and stuck the criminals in prison, the place would be just like the high price private rental places
No, they would still be crap-holes for the reason stated above. And you don't "give people jobs," people are paid for providing a useful service.
Trouble is, that doesn't work well in practice, everyone offers low wages!
It works perfectly in practice. Wages for high-skill positions like architects, lawyers, doctors, and CEOs keep going up and up, because there is competition for their services. Even trade-skill contractors can easily make $100K here in the U.S., because it's so easy to start a business.
Not if you maintain a monopoly of keeping rents high, and available rented stock low
That's why we have anti-trust laws. I doubt any entity controls more than 1% of rented property. They compete with each other. If one is keeping rents high, another can steal his customers by pricing them lower.
Most of the rich people I know are worth $20 million+ and have their money invested in property which they rent out for an income, without needing to do any real work themselves
Right now a lot of people in that business are going bankrupt because real estate prices are falling and they're over-leveraged. Owning capital entails risk.

gblaze42
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hate politics

Post by gblaze42 »

I don't usually like to discuss such volatile discussions, but there has to be some clarification , take a look at http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2 ... ation.html
It shows how much better off the poor are compared to the beginning of the 1900's, even compared to the rich at that time.

fltcoils
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Post by fltcoils »

I started a thread in general for this.

see Economic Facts and Fallacies.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

ravingdave wrote:
dnavas wrote:
ravingdave wrote:(sorry about the length. I could go on for hours.)
Folks, is this really a News thread?

-Dave

This entire discussion is NOT really appropriate for this area, let alone for this website. At the very least it ought to be moved to the "General" area. Unfortunately, people sometimes get off topic, and then things get carried away. I am herby calling on one of the moderators to somehow get this discussion moved into the appropriate forum, if there is one, on this website.

David
We are very tolerant of drift here. And economics is a CRITICAL part of engineering. It is less quantifiable than the mass of the proton and important none the less.

It is one of the reasons engineers tend to make more than scientists. If a science project fails the losses are minimal. If an engineering project fails the company is in a world of hurt.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Leaving only the rented sector, where landlords are able to charge top dollar and suck a a huge amount of wealth from the workers, way above the actual maintence costs of the property.
The usual thing to do when you can't make money off a property is to sell it. If demand is higher than supply then prices rise. This draws more suppliers into the market. Of course there are lags. You just have to be patient. Buy at the trough and sell at the peak.

The only way to keep supply lower than demand is government restriction.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Let me add here that it is the desire for market advantage that has kept the prices of goods going down (in terms of labor hours) for 200 years.

What is the Brit problem? Too many immigrants re: the size of the economy. It drives down wages.

How to solve the problem? Reduce the payout for the dole. i.e. make failure an option again.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

tonybarry
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Post by tonybarry »

ravingdave wrote:This entire discussion is NOT really appropriate for this area, let alone for this website. At the very least it ought to be moved to the "General" area. Unfortunately, people sometimes get off topic, and then things get carried away. I am herby calling on one of the moderators to somehow get this discussion moved into the appropriate forum, if there is one, on this website.

David
Hello David,
Unlike other forums, Talk-Polywell only uses moderation to extinguish spam and pr0n. We rely on the real contributors to self moderate in consultation with each other.

See this link.

Regards,
Tony Barry

JoeStrout
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Enough

Post by JoeStrout »

tonybarry wrote:Unlike other forums, Talk-Polywell only uses moderation to extinguish spam and pr0n. We rely on the real contributors to self moderate in consultation with each other.
True, and yet, this is the News forum — as several others have pointed out, this thread has degenerated far from anything resembling news. Economic rants and ramblings are welcome in the General forum; please continue it there if you feel you must.

Thanks,
- Joe
Joe Strout
Talk-Polywell.org site administrator

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