greg1647545532

Fair enough; you're right, I shouldn't have brought it up.

Congrats on your business, I hope you beat the odds. Was it hard to start your studio? Do you think that it should have been harder?

Yum Foods might also make a good product, but sell it for cheaper, keep their restaurants open longer, and have more locations with which to build brand loyalty. Yes, all of those things mean that their product, when taking all factors into account, is better, but that's not to say that Bob's chicken is not delicious or appropriately priced. The idea that big companies can use their size alone to drive small companies out of business should not be controversial. That it sometimes is a bad thing should also not be controversial. Most of the time we allow it, like 99.9% of the time. But when it rises to the level of a monopoly, we accept that it's bad for capitalism and social mobility and we put a stop to it. Or are people against trust-busting now?

Spin that however you want, the text is pretty clear to me. Rich = having money, not loving money.

Yes, of course you're correct, and I should have worded that paragraph better. My point isn't to say that Yum Foods shouldn't be allowed to dominate the Peruvian chicken market, but rather that capitalism, provider of social mobility, can also take it away. Our plucky entrepreneur worked hard and did what he was supposed to do, but doesn't have a chance in the face of massive corporate pockets. This isn't necessarily good or bad; like I said, that's capitalism. When Bob's chicken sucks and he goes out of business for failing to provide a good product, we call that good. When Bob's chicken is great but he's out-competed by monopolistic practices, we call that bad, because we've recognized that monopolies hurt social mobility and are bad for consumers.

Thanks. As far as I'm concerned, the counterpoint is simply the null hypothesis. It's up to people who claim that the wealth gap is bad to prove it. Frankly, it's a tough sell; we can show that the wealth gap exists, that it's increasing, and we can extrapolate to an extreme that is clearly bad (my feudal monarchy example). What we can't say is whether or not that extreme is the inevitable outcome of our increasing wealth gap. The gap may get worse, it may level off, or it may get better on its own. We can't point to any other modern, western society that let it's wealth gap grow unchecked, because we're in uncharted territory. We can't say for sure that using taxation or regulation to curb the growth of the wealth gap will make things better, or at least I've seen no studies showing that doing X will likely result in Y. In short, I think the wealth gap is something to be concerned about for reasons I tried to outline. I don't think we should shut down the debate by saying things like "People screaming wage inequality ... piss me the fuck off." Rather, I think we need to have an open debate, probably over the next 10 years or so, while keeping an eye on social mobility and be ready to step in with a plan if we think we need to. The problem with accepting only the null hypothesis that everything's fine and not being open to a debate about this is that if we realize 20 years down the road that our decreasing social mobility is hurting our competitiveness with China, and we haven't talked about ways to fix it, we're either going to be fucked, or we're going to rush through some shitty regulation and then still be fucked.

You edited your post to add this stuff after I replied. Look, if you're going to respond, don't jump to massive, incorrect conclusions about all of my political views and whether or not I've drunk any kool-aid. If you're going to do that, you're going to be wasting your time. Read through my post again with an open mind, if you still think I'm some Rachel Maddow watching, Nader voting liberal who's unable to think for myself, then turn off your computer and go play outside.

OK, just remember that you asked for a wall of text. I've made no such request.

http://media.giphy.com/media/12SBwtRR9BnWg/giphy.gif

[i consider myself a left-leaning libertarian, but I tend to vote mostly for Democrats. I'm in the top quintile for household income in America; my wife does not work.] OK. First off, being successful is not a bad thing in and of itself. Money lacks any sort of moral baggage, and simply possessing it does not make a person good or bad.* *Note that I say this as an atheist. The Christian bible does attach moral baggage to wealth, so if you have a problem with that, take it up with zombie Jesus. We can, of course, make moral judgments about what someone does with their money, but I don't want to debate the mythos of the "evil capitalist." Instead, I'm just going to focus on people in the top .1% who want to maintain the current wealth gap, and are politically active in doing so. Let's start in a feudal monarchy, the incubating chamber from which social revolutions in the 19th and 20th centuries were born. Baron von Whatshisdick had land, which didn't necessarily make him a bad person; he was just born into it. Serfs worked his land, and lets ignore the humanitarian plight of the serfs for now because that could call into question the morality of the Baron. There was no social mobility under this system; children of serfs would be serfs, and children of barons would be barons. Lack of social mobility is a problem for 2 reasons. One, the serfs have little incentive to innovate or produce; no matter how hard they work they can't make a better life for their kids. Furthermore, most of their profits go to the land owner, which means that as a society, the feudal monarchy is probably going to be less competitive than the capitalist republic next door. Two, lack of social mobility leads to civil unrest, and eventually rich people get guillotined. I'm not sure, but I think being guillotined was bad for the rich people . Society therefore has a vested interest in maintaining a certain level of economic and social mobility in order not to be out-competed (and possibly conquered) by a neighboring country, and Barons have a vested interest in maintaining a certain level of economic and social mobility because it allows them to keep their heads attached. This novel idea is so fundamental to the American experiment that it is literally called The American Dream; the idea that anyone can come to America and become rich. What does this have to do with the wealth gap? After all, we have a big wealth gap and the American Dream is still possible. Which is true, and this is where the debate gets more nuanced. Is the American Dream more attainable now than it was 30 years ago? 50 years ago? That's what people have been studying, and the results suggest that social mobility has been on a steady decline since at least 1980. In short, the American Dream is dying. We don't know how fast, or when it will be dead, but we know that it's dying. As an American, this makes me sad. Not really angry, because I've got mine, but sad. I still haven't said what this has to do with the wealth gap. OK, so consider regulations that make it hard for people to start new businesses. These regulations are bad for society, bad for the American Dream. An oft-discussed example in libertarian circles is ridiculous rules for opening up nail and hair salons. Libertarians will blame the government, but in almost all cases the government regulations are the result of lobbying by trade groups that have a vested interest in keeping competitors out of the market place. The money to fund these trade groups and lobbyists comes from corporate profits, which have been on the rise. Meanwhile, the would-be competitors, probably nail salon employees who have long dreamed of starting their own business, are getting paid stagnant wages. In short, any possibility of the nail salon employees being able to fight these regulations is vanishing as the wealth gap increases. (If you say that the politicians shouldn't be swayed by that lobby money and/or that the employees should just vote for politicians that refuse the lobby money and demolish stupid regulations, then my response is HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, you're so cute.) The one tool the nail salon employees have to combat these corporate trade groups is unions, and guess what the .1% has spent the last 50 years systematically trying to dismantle. Or let's consider that you bust your hump to save up enough money to open a peruvian chicken restaurant, and then Yum Foods decides to open a peruvian chicken restaurant right next door, leveraging their massive wealth to purchase chicken farms, competing restaurants, suppliers, etc, and undercut your prices substantially. On the one hand, that's capitalism, right? On the other hand, we've long realized that unfettered capitalism isn't any better than communism, which is why we've historically broken up monopolies and have regulations about collusion, price fixing, and other bad things. Shrinking the wealth gap through high taxes on the rich is just one more tool that a government has to level the playing field and foster competition. If used right, it can be very pro-capitalism. As far as I'm concerned, the jury's still out about whether our current wage/wealth gaps are a problem that the government needs to step in and solve. What's clear is that the gaps are going in the wrong direction, and that if we go too far in that direction, society will suffer. Some people are funding a massive information campaign to convince voters that the weath gap is fine, that everything's fine, and that they, too, can become a billionaire if they study hard enough and put in long hours. Meanwhile, those same people are doing everything in their power to make sure that doesn't actually happen.

Do you want an honest answer, or are you just ranting? eta: Asking because my answer is going to be a wall of text, and I'm not going to waste my time if you're just going to dismiss it. If you're actually curious, I'll write it out.

Historically, with social revolution. See France, China, Russia, etc. Generally not a good time to be one of the "haves." We can imagine a more peaceful transfer of money from the haves to the have-nots using the force of a democratically elected government. Money raised from high taxes on the rich, including wage income, investment income, and (especially) inheritance, can be redistributed to the lower classes directly (welfare, tax breaks) or indirectly (government investment in infrastructure, science, art). Like so many problems, the question of "how do you fix it" actually has a simple and straightforward answer. The tough part is deciding if that's the right thing to do. IMO, the debate we should all be having is, "Is a massive wealth gap bad for society, and would we all be better of if it were adjusted to be smaller." But the wealthy have successfully managed to convince most Americans that the obvious solution I outlined above is unfair and/or immoral, thus preempting the entire debate.

You're just telling yourself that to talk yourself into an A8. /certified AWD haters club

http://www.nmbvi.com/photos/m45/silver_bullet.jpg http://www.nmbvi.com/photos/m45/back_m45.jpg http://www.nmbvi.com/photos/m45/side_shot.jpg http://www.auto-couture.com/nissan/y34_cp/img1.jpg

You know what I've always liked were the 02-04 Infiniti M45 Sports. http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f195/cakedaddy05/Side.jpg They didn't sell a lot of them here, they were a stop-gap product for Infiniti during one of their many product transitions, some hastily rebadged JDM Nissan with the V8 tossed in. The proportions are quite stunning for a big car, you never see them, and you get Nissan reliability instead of, you know... It ticks all of your boxes (except AWD) and you won't feel like punching yourself in the dick when some $1800 electronics module fries out.

$5k a year isn't bad for doing no work, though. Back to my example, the widget maker might have a better work-life balance. Maybe it's a government regulated industry and he can only work 6 hours a day. Maybe he has a special needs child and needs to be home as much as possible. Maybe he just likes fishing on the weekends without stressing about what's going on with corporate. Maybe he just really likes making widgets. I think it goes without saying that there's more to life than salary. However, if other widget makers have that exact same work life balance and whatever other intangible benefits yet are making twice as much, then our plucky hero really needs to reassess his life choices. I get what he's saying; if anyone ever gets capped out in their career, they shouldn't whine about it because there's always something you can do to earn more money, even if it's CHOOSING to pick a different career. But I'm not sure what that has to do with the income/age formula.

I'm... are you have a different discussion? You seem to be saying that there's always upward mobility if people are willing to work hard enough and keep a flexible career path. I'm not arguing against that. I'm not sure who you're talking at. What I'm saying, a 40-year-old widget-maker who makes $60k when all of his peers are making $30k is doing pretty damn well for himself. For his career and his age, he's, by definition, doing much better than average, and yet your age formula suggests that he's not. Likewise, a 25-year-old senior manager at the same widget company pulling in $100k a year when all of his other senior manager buddies are making $500k a year is probably an extreme fuckup douchebag, even though your age formula suggests that he's killing it. This is a failing of your formula. It needs to consider ones actual peers. As it is, the peer group is "everyone your age." That's far too broad.

I guess. Just taking emotion out of it then, let's look at 3 people, all aged 50 or so. 2 guys are developers, one is making $35k and the other is making $110k. The 3rd guy is a finance major who worked his way up through an insurance company and is now bringing in $400k. The lowest paid developer might look at his finance buddy and think, "Holy shit, that guy's making exponentially more money than me, I picked the wrong career path!" And the higher paid developer is going to look at his other developer buddy and say, "Holy shit that guy is a terrible developer." I'm not sure if that makes sense. What I'm saying is that in order to determine if you're doing all right for yourself, you should figure out what most people your age and experience make (in your zip code). Full stop. Age and gross income are too generic, it's like a BMI calculation for your career. You need to figure out experience and gross income in your career field, and that will tell you if you're good at what you do. And yeah, there's another discussion about whether or not you picked the right career field to meet your financial goals, but hopefully people are putting more thought into what they do for a living than just raw earning potential.

It's different for a network ops guy to "go outside his comfort zone" and leverage his experience to work his way up to Technical Director of Sales and Marketing at a network operations company, which is a finance/marketing job, than say, a marketing guy working his way up to Director of Sales and Marketing for any company. The networks ops guy had to change careers to make more money, the marketing guy never did. Which is really my only point. My wife started her career as an accountant making peanuts, but she can make 7 figures as an accountant. Doctors start out as doctors making peanuts, but they can make 7 figures as doctors. Developers need to stop being developers if they want to make that sort of money. Anyway, I'm not complaining about it, I'm just commenting on this age multiplier's usefulness as a tool to compare two people in different career fields.

No, he's saying that the age x income thing doesn't work very well for all industries. "Skilled trade" is shorthand for plumbers, mechanics, electricians, etc, not a judgement of someone's abilities. And he's right. I'll go ahead and throw my own field of IT in there as well. It's relatively easy to jump out of college and find a good job as a junior software dev or network tech making $55-$65. Woohoo! You say, I'm making nearly 3x my age, I'm doing great! But salaries flatten out in these industries. When you're 50, you've climbed your way up to a senior architect/project manager position and making, say, $110. Barely double your age. Does that mean you've failed at life? No, that's just how this career field works. Your rule of thumb works great for financial and non-technical professions, like accountants, lawyers, doctors, marketers, salesmen, brokers, etc. Those jobs tend to start out at lower salaries but have much better room for growth.

There's the Vermont trick...

Pretty much everything counts as a motorcycle in Ohio and needs to be titled and registered as such.

Figured I'd pass this along, I don't think I can rationalize a 3 hour drive to help stack some tires but honestly I think it'd be a fun day. http://www.motoseries.com/old/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2427&start=10

Asking $2250, all information is in the CL ad here: http://columbus.craigslist.org/cto/4965096469.html