me having better skills and getting paid more has nothing to do with luck. people either make, take or miss oppertunities.
yes sometimes stupid things happen, but that cannot be blamed on the rest of society nor does the rest of society just owe someone because bad things happen.
That's not what I mean by luck.
I didn't earn my IQ.
I didn't earn being born of wealth.
I didn't earn attending a school in which the vast majority of students are children of rich parents, with 100% college acceptance for most graduating classes and with direct ins with the admissions departments of many of the top universities in the country.
All of that is 'luck' from my standpoint. My parents gave me these things. I would be crazy not to take advantage of them, and I have worked my butt off to parlay them into a measure of success as an adult, but I started out from a position of 'you won the lottery' before I ever put that kind of work in.
they can choose to help on their own accord and most due with donations to charity etc...
that is noble and right, but to try and guilt someone because they happen to have made a better life for themselves and someone else didn't is morally wrong.
I don't think anyone should ever feel guilty about reaping the rewards of hard work. I don't think anyone should feel guilty about having parents who gave them a great start in life. I don't think anyone should feel guilty about being naturally very intelligent.
That's the thing. I don't say that anyone should feel guilty. I just say that we should take cognizance of the fact that these circumstances do matter.
I really want to stress this point because of how crazy parts of our national conversation have gotten - this is not an either/or. It's not, "I built every little bit of my business from scratch out of my own sweat and blood" or "I am a parasite who should feel guilty for every scrap that I have."
It can be, "I am proud to say that I live in a society where lots of people have laid a foundation that makes it much easier for me to achieve great things. I am proud to say that I have worked my butt off to actually achieve those great things. And I am proud to say that some little part of my toils will lay an even better foundation for the next generation to achieve great things, when they put the effort in to achieve."
Our current system is not a meritocracy unless 'being born wealthy' is considered meritorious - and if it is, meritocracy isn't far removed from aristocracy.
80% of millionaires are first generation rich. IE they earned it themselves.[/QUOTE]
If it were a pure meritocracy, the percentage of millionaires who were first generation rich would be equal to the percentage of the total population who were not millionaires, i.e. much, much higher than 80%. Thank you for backing my point up with statistics, though I admit I haven't checked your stat.
I didn't earn attending a school in which the vast majority of students are children of rich parents, with 100% college acceptance for most graduating classes and with direct ins with the admissions departments of many of the top universities in the country.
That is something you did earn. You did the work for the degree, so you should not let that slide. Sure you may have gotten in for being a rich boy or whatever, but you still had to attend the classes and do the coursework that got you through it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy Decks
~~~~~~~~~
Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
And it's not a meritocracy because someone who worked harder and did better school work who was born into a worse situation and thus a worse school would have fewer opportunities presented to them because of the absence of a direct line into an ivy league school. We did not earn those BETTER opportunities. Not by a LONG shot. We lucked into them.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
There are lots of metrics, the one I used to say that my high school was one of the top in America was based on AP test scores. Then again, a lot of inner city schools don't even have AP courses.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
And if 80% of millionaires are self made then that means 1 in 5 aren't. Thank you for demonstrating that wealth begets more wealth.
Um, that does not demonstrate that wealth begets wealth. Wealth can be passed on, but it can also be consumed. The only thing that statistic demonstrates is that wealth is not a prerequisite for wealth.
To demonstrate that wealth begets wealth, you'd need to run an analysis on how often wealth is retained. Is every millionaire's son/daughter also a millionaire?
The problem I have with the 80% of millionaires figure is that a million dollars in property which is what the figure references really isn't that damn much.
I was on track to retire a "millionaire" (on my own income - already one from inheritance) with a piddly 60k/year a job simply because I was saving/investing $20k per year of those earnings - which with only moderate gains would've turned the $800k in my 40 working years (assuming I retired at 65) into a million with only 25% gains in 40 years, not a drastically difficult target.
[And that's all assuming I wouldn't have later increased my contribution as I aged - I didn't get my house paid off (or technically inherited since it's my parents they gifted me to get me out of renting apartments since I hate maintaining land... but alas) until after I had to stop working - very well was going to hit $1m just on savings at 0% interest]
When anyone slightly above average income can hit it saving 1/3 of their income (which in my family is preached as the norm that should be targeted) in their working years it's really not a great metric.
People with net worth into high 7 digits and low 8's is where a proper "hard to attain" metric should actually start.
A "self-made millionaire" is really nothing anymore. Bad luck on health and requiring ONE transplant can run close to a million dollars already. Some decent retirement communities run $250k for a buy-in.
And what, exactly, is meritorious about being born into a better situation than someone who is willing to do more work than you, but is rewarded less for their better work?
It seems like merit is quality of labor, rather than just amount of labor, since obviously there is more merit in the scientist putting in 60 hours a week relative to the gardener in Beverly Hills putting in 80. But when we're talking WELL before that on things such as school work, my 2.8 GPA got me into a great state school because my high school was very well connected. I know of a kid who went to a school, in my same district, who had a 3.3 that got rejected from this very school.
Both of us applied as white, both of us were debaters (and no other extra curriculars), both males, and were pretty much all things equal except the prestige of our schools and our GPAs.
I definitely did not merit this better educational opportunity, yet I received it. (PS, this is what recognizing privilege is.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
There are lots of metrics, the one I used to say that my high school was one of the top in America was based on AP test scores. Then again, a lot of inner city schools don't even have AP courses.
So what you are actually saying is that by any known metric to you the measure would be biased?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy Decks
~~~~~~~~~
Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
AP test scores are a known metric. But like all metrics there are different ways to come to different conclusions about the same subject.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
AP test scores are a known metric. But like all metrics there are different ways to come to different conclusions about the same subject.
Amazing, you know this metric is known by you, but does not apply to inner city schools. Simply amazing... Additionally metrics are standardized, they can not vary, because if they do they would be useless and not called metrics.
In all of the subjects that matter, all of the conclusions should be exactly the same, no matter the methodology. History doesn't change how it happened because you feel passionately about one guy over the other few trillion. Likewise there are several ways to solve an algebra formula, and they should all have the same outcome no matter what.:thumbsup:
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy Decks
~~~~~~~~~
Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
Just to clarify, merit is the ability of pulling off something, not the effort evolved in pulling off something.
A runner's merit is his ability to run faster, not the effort he does while running. In a universe were effort is perceived as merit (and merit as it is in our universe not perceived at all), the winner of a marathon should be the runner who endured greater physical stress, not the one who managed to cross the line first. Maybe getting out of shape in order to have a harder time in running contest should be a viable strategy then...?
I hope people understand the consequences of considering merit and effort the same thing. It means we should look at the word based on the suffering of others and not on our own contentment. While it my look nice at first glance, it's is deeply against our nature and how we obtain satisfaction. There's little importance of someone who pass 100 hours week smashing boulders against a wall, no matter the effort taken in doing that.
This kind work both ways.
Capitalism is meritocratic by it own free-trade nature. One earn money by providing something to someone, so he has the merit of providing it in a way people are willing to pay him.
However merit doesn't mean effort, so there's no reason to give higher social classes any kind of special admiration as the origin of wealth is not tied to effort, it is tied to merit.
something that deserves or justifies a reward or commendation; a commendable quality, act, etc.: The book's only merit is its sincerity.
Merit absolutely implies that something special is done - not that someone is just "coasting by and happens to do awesome" because of the right setup.
In your runner example - should a runner be handicapped and allowed to use a moped to run do you think he'd be running on HIS OWN MERIT? Of course not. (As we saw with the South African guy and the hubbub over his prosthesis)
Just to clarify, merit is the ability of pulling off something, not the effort evolved in pulling off something.
A runner's merit is his ability to run faster, not the effort he does while running. In a universe were effort is perceived as merit (and merit as it is in our universe not perceived at all), the winner of a marathon should be the runner who endured greater physical stress, not the one who managed to cross the line first. Maybe getting out of shape in order to have a harder time in running contest should be a viable strategy then...?
I hope people understand the consequences of considering merit and effort the same thing. It means we should look at the word based on the suffering of others and not on our own contentment. While it my look nice at first glance, it's is deeply against our nature and how we obtain satisfaction. There's little importance of someone who pass 100 hours week smashing boulders against a wall, no matter the effort taken in doing that.
This kind work both ways.
Capitalism is meritocratic by it own free-trade nature. One earn money by providing something to someone, so he has the merit of providing it in a way people are willing to pay him.
However merit doesn't mean effort, so there's no reason to give higher social classes any kind of special admiration as the origin of wealth is not tied to effort, it is tied to merit.
I think that definition is deeply flawed, though.
If having money is 'merit', then you can be born with 'merit'. Now, it seems more obvious than it really is why this is problematic, since you can be born with a genetic predisposition towards being smart, but being smart is clearly within bounds for 'merit' - but it still seems like being born with 'merit' (meaning money) just violates the definition of merit as most people (virtually everyone, really) uses the term.
So, I'll propose a thought experiment test for merit that distinguishes between the two, helping us to draw the line between them: if you drop two people with no debt but no major assets (clothing, enough money to get by for a few months) into a given situation, the one who is more meritorious is the one who will, on average, come out ahead.
(One feature of this test, which I'm not sure if it's a problem or not but I'm inclined to say not, is that the test will give different results depending on what situation you use... i.e. I might be more meritorious than you in a situation involving computers but much less in a situation involving wilderness survival)
At any rate, our language is being warped beyond recognition by the insistence that the system we use today is a meritocracy. America's social structure isn't a pure anything. It's a partial meritocracy, partial oligarchy, with a spattering of socialism and a bunch of other things thrown in. If you try to describe it as a pure meritocracy, you're going to run afoul of the language and it's going to end up forcing you into absurd positions like "Being born with money makes you meritorious."
Merit absolutely implies that something special is done - not that someone is just "coasting by and happens to do awesome" because of the right setup.
I'm not sure how you are reading that into the definition you cited. It implies nothing about how you did the act or came about the quality that is meritorious.
If you are e.g. born with intelligence in the top 1%, then yes, by definition you must have had quite a lot of luck -- but it's a thing that is meritorious in itself, regardless of how you got it.
In your runner example - should a runner be handicapped and allowed to use a moped to run do you think he'd be running on HIS OWN MERIT?
Well if he's on a moped then he isn't running at all, so it follows a fortiori that he isn't running on his own merit.
Quote from Drawmeomg »
So, I'll propose a thought experiment test for merit that distinguishes between the two, helping us to draw the line between them: if you drop two people with no debt but no major assets (clothing, enough money to get by for a few months) into a given situation, the one who is more meritorious is the one who will, on average, come out ahead.
Of course this will do a great job of separating merit from money, but it seems like you've created this scenario specifically to do just that. Is that not special pleading? Why is money the only quality that gets this treatment? Why is it a special case in the first place?
At any rate, our language is being warped beyond recognition by the insistence that the system we use today is a meritocracy.
Quite so. Indeed I don't think it's very clear that the United States (or Western democracies in general) were meant to be meritocracies in the first place, and I'm not sure when they started being thought of as such. Philosophically speaking, it's supposed to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for every citizen, not just the elite.
Just to clarify, merit is the ability of pulling off something, not the effort evolved in pulling off something.
A runner's merit is his ability to run faster, not the effort he does while running. In a universe were effort is perceived as merit (and merit as it is in our universe not perceived at all), the winner of a marathon should be the runner who endured greater physical stress, not the one who managed to cross the line first. Maybe getting out of shape in order to have a harder time in running contest should be a viable strategy then...?
I hope people understand the consequences of considering merit and effort the same thing. It means we should look at the word based on the suffering of others and not on our own contentment. While it my look nice at first glance, it's is deeply against our nature and how we obtain satisfaction. There's little importance of someone who pass 100 hours week smashing boulders against a wall, no matter the effort taken in doing that.
This kind work both ways.
Capitalism is meritocratic by it own free-trade nature. One earn money by providing something to someone, so he has the merit of providing it in a way people are willing to pay him.
However merit doesn't mean effort, so there's no reason to give higher social classes any kind of special admiration as the origin of wealth is not tied to effort, it is tied to merit.
I think that definition is deeply flawed, though.
If having money is 'merit', then you can be born with 'merit'. Now, it seems more obvious than it really is why this is problematic, since you can be born with a genetic predisposition towards being smart, but being smart is clearly within bounds for 'merit' - but it still seems like being born with 'merit' (meaning money) just violates the definition of merit as most people (virtually everyone, really) uses the term.
So, I'll propose a thought experiment test for merit that distinguishes between the two, helping us to draw the line between them: if you drop two people with no debt but no major assets (clothing, enough money to get by for a few months) into a given situation, the one who is more meritorious is the one who will, on average, come out ahead.
(One feature of this test, which I'm not sure if it's a problem or not but I'm inclined to say not, is that the test will give different results depending on what situation you use... i.e. I might be more meritorious than you in a situation involving computers but much less in a situation involving wilderness survival)
At any rate, our language is being warped beyond recognition by the insistence that the system we use today is a meritocracy. America's social structure isn't a pure anything. It's a partial meritocracy, partial oligarchy, with a spattering of socialism and a bunch of other things thrown in. If you try to describe it as a pure meritocracy, you're going to run afoul of the language and it's going to end up forcing you into absurd positions like "Being born with money makes you meritorious."
Notice i said "Capitalism is meritocratic by it own free-trade nature. One earn money by providing something to someone, so he has the merit of providing it in a way people are willing to pay him". Winning on the lottery or using your parents fortune to live without work is not earning money, is just being luck. Using your parents fortune to make your own count as merit as it means you're earning money.
One can say capitalism is strict meritocracy if by meritocracy you mean "one with more money is the one with more merit" which is a pretty insane way to see meritocracy. Merit implies action, one can't be "meritorious". Merit cannot be bound to what you are or what you have, only to what you DO. Having money is not doing anything so it can't be used as criteria for merit. Earning money is different and can be questioned as source of merit.
So a meritocratic economy would be one were "one who earns more money is the one with more merit, merit being the capacity of someone to provide a desirable product (tangible or intangible)". So pure capitalism is the totally meritocratic economy, although that's not necessarily a good thing.
Just to clarify, merit is the ability of pulling off something, not the effort evolved in pulling off something.
A runner's merit is his ability to run faster, not the effort he does while running. In a universe were effort is perceived as merit (and merit as it is in our universe not perceived at all), the winner of a marathon should be the runner who endured greater physical stress, not the one who managed to cross the line first. Maybe getting out of shape in order to have a harder time in running contest should be a viable strategy then...?
I hope people understand the consequences of considering merit and effort the same thing. It means we should look at the word based on the suffering of others and not on our own contentment. While it my look nice at first glance, it's is deeply against our nature and how we obtain satisfaction. There's little importance of someone who pass 100 hours week smashing boulders against a wall, no matter the effort taken in doing that.
In the USSA definitions are whatever we say they are at that point in time.
This kind work both ways.
Capitalism is meritocratic by it own free-trade nature. One earn money by providing something to someone, so he has the merit of providing it in a way people are willing to pay him.
However merit doesn't mean effort, so there's no reason to give higher social classes any kind of special admiration as the origin of wealth is not tied to effort, it is tied to merit.
There has never really been a true free-market anywhere though. So it's hard to truly say what exactly will happen, but we can theorize.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy Decks
~~~~~~~~~
Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
And their life does impact your life. Wealth isn't infinite. Print too much money and it deflates in value. Layer too many derivatives and you undermine confidence in the currency. You can massage the money supply a heck of a lot but you can't make it infinite. There are people who have less every time someone else has more. You have less because someone else has more.
This zero-sum view of economics is about two and a half centuries out of date. Wealth may not be infinite, but it can grow and shrink. If it grows faster for you than for me, you'll have more wealth, but it doesn't follow that you're depriving me of anything; I have exactly the same amount that I would if you and your wealth had never even existed.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
And their life does impact your life. Wealth isn't infinite. Print too much money and it deflates in value. Layer too many derivatives and you undermine confidence in the currency. You can massage the money supply a heck of a lot but you can't make it infinite. There are people who have less every time someone else has more. You have less because someone else has more.
This zero-sum view of economics is about two and a half centuries out of date. Wealth may not be infinite, but it can grow and shrink. If it grows faster for you than for me, you'll have more wealth, but it doesn't follow that you're depriving me of anything; I have exactly the same amount that I would if you and your wealth had never even existed.
This is economically untrue for such a wide variety of reasons I don't know where to begin. Suffice it to say that the wealth, prosperity, and consumption of others in an economy has a massive impact upon the wealth of any individual in that economy. Irrelevant of where you draw your personal funds from, they are dependent upon the success or failure of others in some way.
You're right to point out that our economy is not "zero-sum" in the strictest sense of the term but it is most certainly finite-sum. There is a total amount of wealth, that wealth moves from place to place but is not generated in any amount large enough to be meaningful. While money can come from nowhere and be printed or destroyed the wealth it represents is not affected by this process. In a VERY real sense, whenever you make a dollar someone else lost a dollar, most likely several thousand someones lost about .003% of dollar but they lost it nevertheless.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm a proud member of the Online Campaign for Real English. If you believe in capital letters, correct spelling, and good sentence structure, then copy this into your signature.
"People with needs have trivial purchasing power while people with purchasing power have trivial needs." -Steve Randy Waldman, Interfludity
This is economically untrue for such a wide variety of reasons I don't know where to begin. Suffice it to say that the wealth, prosperity, and consumption of others in an economy has a massive impact upon the wealth of any individual in that economy. Irrelevant of where you draw your personal funds from, they are dependent upon the success or failure of others in some way.
Yes, of course. I may have phrased that poorly. Let me try again.
Imagine Warren Buffett never existed. Now, of course there are going to be huge ripple effects on the economy from that, because Berkshire Hathaway isn't there and isn't buying and selling all that stuff it does. But what you cannot say is that because Warren Buffett is not there to hold his $50 billion in personal wealth, the rest of humanity is going to be better off by the value of $50 billion. That's way too simple an analysis.
You're right to point out that our economy is not "zero-sum" in the strictest sense of the term but it is most certainly finite-sum. There is a total amount of wealth, that wealth moves from place to place but is not generated in any amount large enough to be meaningful. While money can come from nowhere and be printed or destroyed the wealth it represents is not affected by this process. In a VERY real sense, whenever you make a dollar someone else lost a dollar, most likely several thousand someones lost about .003% of dollar but they lost it nevertheless.
You're equivocating between real wealth and the money supply. Obviously, there's a certain specific number of dollars in the economy, and whenever someone earns a dollar by selling a good or service another person has given up a dollar - dollars don't just pop out of thin air in these kinds of transactions (but do see what happens when banks lend money). However, the real value represented by those dollars is flexible. The economy is growing as people generate value by making stuff, performing services, or even just moving resources around to where they're needed (i.e. banking and investing). So while the number of dollars might be the same whether Warren Buffett exists or not, and everyone else might be some fraction of $50 billion richer on paper, the value not generated by Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway means that every dollar of that $50 billion is worth somewhat less.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Tipping in the US is also ****ed up because waitstaff etc isn't paid a wage they can live on and are forced to rely on the whims of their customers. That's an awful way to organise a job.
I can understand why you feel this way because its so anti-socialism. People actually have to work to support themselves. But in theory its a good system, and it works for the majority. Most jobs that require the workers to survive off those tips can make a very decent wage. I would go as far to say better then average.
The sad part is the fact that tips are the first things to go when the economy starts to fail. People who eat out often will eat out they will just cut tips and do other small things to attempt to keep their same lifestyle. $7.25 should be the min wage no matter what. Tips should be a bonus for hard work, not the only way to survive.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
The sad part is the fact that tips are the first things to go when the economy starts to fail. People who eat out often will eat out they will just cut tips and do other small things to attempt to keep their same lifestyle. $7.25 should be the min wage no matter what. Tips should be a bonus for hard work, not the only way to survive.
From what I understand, there are laws that obligate that servers receive the minimum wage from their respective business when their tip does not cover or go beyond said wage.
I don't know how well enforced this is; how well known it is, etc. But it is supposed to be illegal for servers to be paid under minimum wage. There's no special server law that dictates they alone can be paid under minimum wage.
As it stands, servers are supposed to be making anywhere between 10-20/hr, provided that there is a steady stream of customers and people tip properly. That's ideal though, and I doubt it happens.
magick: In a nice restaurant with a healthy business (and appropriate hours) it's trivial to break $15/hr as a server in the areas I've lived. (Chain or floundering nice place - $10/hr isn't hard though)
This is economically untrue for such a wide variety of reasons I don't know where to begin. Suffice it to say that the wealth, prosperity, and consumption of others in an economy has a massive impact upon the wealth of any individual in that economy. Irrelevant of where you draw your personal funds from, they are dependent upon the success or failure of others in some way.
Yes, of course. I may have phrased that poorly. Let me try again.
Imagine Warren Buffett never existed. Now, of course there are going to be huge ripple effects on the economy from that, because Berkshire Hathaway isn't there and isn't buying and selling all that stuff it does. But what you cannot say is that because Warren Buffett is not there to hold his $50 billion in personal wealth, the rest of humanity is going to be better off by the value of $50 billion. That's way too simple an analysis.
You're right to point out that our economy is not "zero-sum" in the strictest sense of the term but it is most certainly finite-sum. There is a total amount of wealth, that wealth moves from place to place but is not generated in any amount large enough to be meaningful. While money can come from nowhere and be printed or destroyed the wealth it represents is not affected by this process. In a VERY real sense, whenever you make a dollar someone else lost a dollar, most likely several thousand someones lost about .003% of dollar but they lost it nevertheless.
You're equivocating between real wealth and the money supply. Obviously, there's a certain specific number of dollars in the economy, and whenever someone earns a dollar by selling a good or service another person has given up a dollar - dollars don't just pop out of thin air in these kinds of transactions (but do see what happens when banks lend money). However, the real value represented by those dollars is flexible. The economy is growing as people generate value by making stuff, performing services, or even just moving resources around to where they're needed (i.e. banking and investing). So while the number of dollars might be the same whether Warren Buffett exists or not, and everyone else might be some fraction of $50 billion richer on paper, the value not generated by Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway means that every dollar of that $50 billion is worth somewhat less.
We're not dealing with a nation in which one millionaire exists or doesn't exist. We're dealing with 9 million millionaire households. Link
You are making a few good points.
My gut tells me that you're probably right about Buffett's effect on the size of the pool, but you'd have to convince me that a bigger pool is worth it.
Do the poor benefit as much as the rich do when you increase the size of the pool? I'm thinking no. It's admittedly not something that I've ever researched. It seems to me that the people who are most heavily invested in the wealth of the country are the ones who would stand to gain the most if the pool gets bigger.
Back on topic, I want you to think about this: If there are 9 million households that have assets in excess of a million dollars then how many of those include young adults of about the same age as me? If I - for example - daydream about going to an ivy league college, is the price inflated by the existence of tens of thousands of individuals from these wealthy households? They can all afford to pay prices that are out of my reach.
Are these premium colleges competing to see who can land the poor kid? Nah - they're competing for the kids who can afford to pay 40,000/yr tuitions.
So when you think about your chances of getting into one of these ivy league schools you need to keep in mind that their prices are as high as they are because there are tens of thousands of kids from wealthy families who can afford to pay that much. If you cut the number of millionaires in half then the market for high priced colleges would also be cut in half and tuition costs would fall across the board.
That's not what I mean by luck.
I didn't earn my IQ.
I didn't earn being born of wealth.
I didn't earn attending a school in which the vast majority of students are children of rich parents, with 100% college acceptance for most graduating classes and with direct ins with the admissions departments of many of the top universities in the country.
All of that is 'luck' from my standpoint. My parents gave me these things. I would be crazy not to take advantage of them, and I have worked my butt off to parlay them into a measure of success as an adult, but I started out from a position of 'you won the lottery' before I ever put that kind of work in.
I don't think anyone should ever feel guilty about reaping the rewards of hard work. I don't think anyone should feel guilty about having parents who gave them a great start in life. I don't think anyone should feel guilty about being naturally very intelligent.
That's the thing. I don't say that anyone should feel guilty. I just say that we should take cognizance of the fact that these circumstances do matter.
I really want to stress this point because of how crazy parts of our national conversation have gotten - this is not an either/or. It's not, "I built every little bit of my business from scratch out of my own sweat and blood" or "I am a parasite who should feel guilty for every scrap that I have."
It can be, "I am proud to say that I live in a society where lots of people have laid a foundation that makes it much easier for me to achieve great things. I am proud to say that I have worked my butt off to actually achieve those great things. And I am proud to say that some little part of my toils will lay an even better foundation for the next generation to achieve great things, when they put the effort in to achieve."
80% of millionaires are first generation rich. IE they earned it themselves.[/QUOTE]
If it were a pure meritocracy, the percentage of millionaires who were first generation rich would be equal to the percentage of the total population who were not millionaires, i.e. much, much higher than 80%. Thank you for backing my point up with statistics, though I admit I haven't checked your stat.
That is something you did earn. You did the work for the degree, so you should not let that slide. Sure you may have gotten in for being a rich boy or whatever, but you still had to attend the classes and do the coursework that got you through it.
~~~~~~~~~
Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
~~~~~~~~~
Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
The problem I have with the 80% of millionaires figure is that a million dollars in property which is what the figure references really isn't that damn much.
I was on track to retire a "millionaire" (on my own income - already one from inheritance) with a piddly 60k/year a job simply because I was saving/investing $20k per year of those earnings - which with only moderate gains would've turned the $800k in my 40 working years (assuming I retired at 65) into a million with only 25% gains in 40 years, not a drastically difficult target.
[And that's all assuming I wouldn't have later increased my contribution as I aged - I didn't get my house paid off (or technically inherited since it's my parents they gifted me to get me out of renting apartments since I hate maintaining land... but alas) until after I had to stop working - very well was going to hit $1m just on savings at 0% interest]
When anyone slightly above average income can hit it saving 1/3 of their income (which in my family is preached as the norm that should be targeted) in their working years it's really not a great metric.
People with net worth into high 7 digits and low 8's is where a proper "hard to attain" metric should actually start.
A "self-made millionaire" is really nothing anymore. Bad luck on health and requiring ONE transplant can run close to a million dollars already. Some decent retirement communities run $250k for a buy-in.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
I think we need we need to learn again the difference between the two.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
It seems like merit is quality of labor, rather than just amount of labor, since obviously there is more merit in the scientist putting in 60 hours a week relative to the gardener in Beverly Hills putting in 80. But when we're talking WELL before that on things such as school work, my 2.8 GPA got me into a great state school because my high school was very well connected. I know of a kid who went to a school, in my same district, who had a 3.3 that got rejected from this very school.
Both of us applied as white, both of us were debaters (and no other extra curriculars), both males, and were pretty much all things equal except the prestige of our schools and our GPAs.
I definitely did not merit this better educational opportunity, yet I received it. (PS, this is what recognizing privilege is.)
So what you are actually saying is that by any known metric to you the measure would be biased?
~~~~~~~~~
Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
And like almost all metrics have minor flaws like Nid pointed out - AKA both sides shouldn't try to use single metrics as an indicator of anything.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
Amazing, you know this metric is known by you, but does not apply to inner city schools. Simply amazing... Additionally metrics are standardized, they can not vary, because if they do they would be useless and not called metrics.
In all of the subjects that matter, all of the conclusions should be exactly the same, no matter the methodology. History doesn't change how it happened because you feel passionately about one guy over the other few trillion. Likewise there are several ways to solve an algebra formula, and they should all have the same outcome no matter what.:thumbsup:
~~~~~~~~~
Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
A runner's merit is his ability to run faster, not the effort he does while running. In a universe were effort is perceived as merit (and merit as it is in our universe not perceived at all), the winner of a marathon should be the runner who endured greater physical stress, not the one who managed to cross the line first. Maybe getting out of shape in order to have a harder time in running contest should be a viable strategy then...?
I hope people understand the consequences of considering merit and effort the same thing. It means we should look at the word based on the suffering of others and not on our own contentment. While it my look nice at first glance, it's is deeply against our nature and how we obtain satisfaction. There's little importance of someone who pass 100 hours week smashing boulders against a wall, no matter the effort taken in doing that.
This kind work both ways.
Capitalism is meritocratic by it own free-trade nature. One earn money by providing something to someone, so he has the merit of providing it in a way people are willing to pay him.
However merit doesn't mean effort, so there's no reason to give higher social classes any kind of special admiration as the origin of wealth is not tied to effort, it is tied to merit.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Merit absolutely implies that something special is done - not that someone is just "coasting by and happens to do awesome" because of the right setup.
In your runner example - should a runner be handicapped and allowed to use a moped to run do you think he'd be running on HIS OWN MERIT? Of course not. (As we saw with the South African guy and the hubbub over his prosthesis)
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
I think that definition is deeply flawed, though.
If having money is 'merit', then you can be born with 'merit'. Now, it seems more obvious than it really is why this is problematic, since you can be born with a genetic predisposition towards being smart, but being smart is clearly within bounds for 'merit' - but it still seems like being born with 'merit' (meaning money) just violates the definition of merit as most people (virtually everyone, really) uses the term.
So, I'll propose a thought experiment test for merit that distinguishes between the two, helping us to draw the line between them: if you drop two people with no debt but no major assets (clothing, enough money to get by for a few months) into a given situation, the one who is more meritorious is the one who will, on average, come out ahead.
(One feature of this test, which I'm not sure if it's a problem or not but I'm inclined to say not, is that the test will give different results depending on what situation you use... i.e. I might be more meritorious than you in a situation involving computers but much less in a situation involving wilderness survival)
At any rate, our language is being warped beyond recognition by the insistence that the system we use today is a meritocracy. America's social structure isn't a pure anything. It's a partial meritocracy, partial oligarchy, with a spattering of socialism and a bunch of other things thrown in. If you try to describe it as a pure meritocracy, you're going to run afoul of the language and it's going to end up forcing you into absurd positions like "Being born with money makes you meritorious."
I'm not sure how you are reading that into the definition you cited. It implies nothing about how you did the act or came about the quality that is meritorious.
If you are e.g. born with intelligence in the top 1%, then yes, by definition you must have had quite a lot of luck -- but it's a thing that is meritorious in itself, regardless of how you got it.
Well if he's on a moped then he isn't running at all, so it follows a fortiori that he isn't running on his own merit.
Of course this will do a great job of separating merit from money, but it seems like you've created this scenario specifically to do just that. Is that not special pleading? Why is money the only quality that gets this treatment? Why is it a special case in the first place?
Quite so. Indeed I don't think it's very clear that the United States (or Western democracies in general) were meant to be meritocracies in the first place, and I'm not sure when they started being thought of as such. Philosophically speaking, it's supposed to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for every citizen, not just the elite.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Notice i said "Capitalism is meritocratic by it own free-trade nature. One earn money by providing something to someone, so he has the merit of providing it in a way people are willing to pay him". Winning on the lottery or using your parents fortune to live without work is not earning money, is just being luck. Using your parents fortune to make your own count as merit as it means you're earning money.
One can say capitalism is strict meritocracy if by meritocracy you mean "one with more money is the one with more merit" which is a pretty insane way to see meritocracy. Merit implies action, one can't be "meritorious". Merit cannot be bound to what you are or what you have, only to what you DO. Having money is not doing anything so it can't be used as criteria for merit. Earning money is different and can be questioned as source of merit.
So a meritocratic economy would be one were "one who earns more money is the one with more merit, merit being the capacity of someone to provide a desirable product (tangible or intangible)". So pure capitalism is the totally meritocratic economy, although that's not necessarily a good thing.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
In the USSA definitions are whatever we say they are at that point in time.
There has never really been a true free-market anywhere though. So it's hard to truly say what exactly will happen, but we can theorize.
~~~~~~~~~
Too many to list efficiently. Find me online with the same SN if you want to play, or message me here to set up a time to play.
Modern
~~~~~~~~~
Whatever pile of 75 I throw together the night before without testing. Usually: :symb::symu::symg:
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
This is economically untrue for such a wide variety of reasons I don't know where to begin. Suffice it to say that the wealth, prosperity, and consumption of others in an economy has a massive impact upon the wealth of any individual in that economy. Irrelevant of where you draw your personal funds from, they are dependent upon the success or failure of others in some way.
You're right to point out that our economy is not "zero-sum" in the strictest sense of the term but it is most certainly finite-sum. There is a total amount of wealth, that wealth moves from place to place but is not generated in any amount large enough to be meaningful. While money can come from nowhere and be printed or destroyed the wealth it represents is not affected by this process. In a VERY real sense, whenever you make a dollar someone else lost a dollar, most likely several thousand someones lost about .003% of dollar but they lost it nevertheless.
I'm a proud member of the Online Campaign for Real English. If you believe in capital letters, correct spelling, and good sentence structure, then copy this into your signature.
"People with needs have trivial purchasing power while people with purchasing power have trivial needs."
-Steve Randy Waldman, Interfludity
Imagine Warren Buffett never existed. Now, of course there are going to be huge ripple effects on the economy from that, because Berkshire Hathaway isn't there and isn't buying and selling all that stuff it does. But what you cannot say is that because Warren Buffett is not there to hold his $50 billion in personal wealth, the rest of humanity is going to be better off by the value of $50 billion. That's way too simple an analysis.
You're equivocating between real wealth and the money supply. Obviously, there's a certain specific number of dollars in the economy, and whenever someone earns a dollar by selling a good or service another person has given up a dollar - dollars don't just pop out of thin air in these kinds of transactions (but do see what happens when banks lend money). However, the real value represented by those dollars is flexible. The economy is growing as people generate value by making stuff, performing services, or even just moving resources around to where they're needed (i.e. banking and investing). So while the number of dollars might be the same whether Warren Buffett exists or not, and everyone else might be some fraction of $50 billion richer on paper, the value not generated by Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway means that every dollar of that $50 billion is worth somewhat less.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
The sad part is the fact that tips are the first things to go when the economy starts to fail. People who eat out often will eat out they will just cut tips and do other small things to attempt to keep their same lifestyle. $7.25 should be the min wage no matter what. Tips should be a bonus for hard work, not the only way to survive.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
From what I understand, there are laws that obligate that servers receive the minimum wage from their respective business when their tip does not cover or go beyond said wage.
I don't know how well enforced this is; how well known it is, etc. But it is supposed to be illegal for servers to be paid under minimum wage. There's no special server law that dictates they alone can be paid under minimum wage.
As it stands, servers are supposed to be making anywhere between 10-20/hr, provided that there is a steady stream of customers and people tip properly. That's ideal though, and I doubt it happens.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
We're not dealing with a nation in which one millionaire exists or doesn't exist. We're dealing with 9 million millionaire households. Link
You are making a few good points.
My gut tells me that you're probably right about Buffett's effect on the size of the pool, but you'd have to convince me that a bigger pool is worth it.
Do the poor benefit as much as the rich do when you increase the size of the pool? I'm thinking no. It's admittedly not something that I've ever researched. It seems to me that the people who are most heavily invested in the wealth of the country are the ones who would stand to gain the most if the pool gets bigger.
Back on topic, I want you to think about this: If there are 9 million households that have assets in excess of a million dollars then how many of those include young adults of about the same age as me? If I - for example - daydream about going to an ivy league college, is the price inflated by the existence of tens of thousands of individuals from these wealthy households? They can all afford to pay prices that are out of my reach.
Are these premium colleges competing to see who can land the poor kid? Nah - they're competing for the kids who can afford to pay 40,000/yr tuitions.
So when you think about your chances of getting into one of these ivy league schools you need to keep in mind that their prices are as high as they are because there are tens of thousands of kids from wealthy families who can afford to pay that much. If you cut the number of millionaires in half then the market for high priced colleges would also be cut in half and tuition costs would fall across the board.