A Quote from Anandtech member Corn on executive compensation got me wondering if..

[Moonbeam]

Ornery, you crack me up. You find people who think the world owes them something revolting. Oh man, the colonists thought they were owed representation, so yea, the English found them revolting too. Then they turned right around and enumerated a bunch of inalienable rights, among which were life liberty and the persuit of happiness. If you don't believe in God, or that man has a true nature that is universally the same and from which he cannot deviate without causing insanity, you must conclude that the founding farters pulled those inalienable rights right out of their asses just like Big Mama and her 12 welfare babies expectation of that government check.

 

[tm37]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Ornery, you crack me up. You find people who think the world owes them something revolting. Oh man, the colonists thought they were owed representation, so yea, the English found them revolting too. Then they turned right around and enumerated a bunch of inalienable rights, among which were life liberty and the persuit of happiness. If you don't believe in God, or that man has a true nature that is universally the same and from which he cannot deviate without causing insanity, you must conclude that the founding farters pulled those inalienable rights right out of their asses just like Big Mama and her 12 welfare babies expectation of that government check.

WOW I never though someone could actually make an analogy that asinine. Of course I underestimated you.

Let me try to explain the difference here I will try to keep this as simple as possible so you may be able to understand.

The founding fathers and our revolutionary brothers thought they deserved the fruit of their labor. They believed that it was unjust for England to take those fruits without them having a say in it and getting very little in return for it.

NOW the people who Ornery is complaining about feel they are entitled to someone else?s fruit. Many believe that they are entitled to be provided for regardless of how poor there choices might be. These of course are two totally different sets of circumstances.

Now regarding you original post- People are worth whatever someone is willing to pay, in fact any product or service is worth whatever someone is willing to pay.

I just read a fascinating book called "basic Economics, the citizens guide to the economy" by Dr. Thomas Sowell. It basically breaks down the way a free enterprise economy. And the thing that he harps on throughout the book is the economy is the machine that allocates scarce resources. Everything is a resource, even labor. Now there are quite a few more people that can sweep floors or wash dishes than those that possess the necessary training and experience to run a large company. They are grabbing nobody?s off the street and paying them these huge salaries they are seeking out qualified people and offering them enough to get them to come run XYZ.

People always talk about what something is worth when complaining about what they perceive to be high prices and discuss greed, because they claim greed is bad. Well to use your analogy the revolutionists were bad because they wanted to kick England out because of taxation, they wanted to keep more of their money for themselves and give less to the king. They were GREEDY!:Q Any person is worth whatever they can get and while you may see that CEO's are overpaid because they make some bad choices by looking at Enron and WorldCom you fail to see the millions of other Executives that do make their employer far more money than they are paid. People who possess rare talents get rare pay if there is a high demand for the talents they possess. See -AROD 25 Million a year.

 

[Ornery]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as though your idea of "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is pursuing CEOs and liberating them of their money for your happiness.

You've yet to explain your outline for this new governmental utopia, but I can't imagine any CEOs in that world laying down and taking it there either. For that matter, I really can't imagine anyone even starting a business where better than half the profit is absconded because you don't "deserve" it. Ah yes, I can see it now...

 

[Moonbeam]

Well my analogies probably sound asanine to you tm37, for the reason you suggest, you never thought. And of course the rest of your post goes off in he same vein. You make these huge and baseless unexamined assumptions. The founding fathers thought they deserved the fruit of their labors, indeed. Did they now. On what basis did they claim that right that is any different than the right of a woman to have as many kids as she wants? And once they're in the world, we don't want her aborting, I hope, why isn't it everybodies responsibility to take care of them. We operated that way for millions of years. The silly notion that we deserve the fruits of our labor is a very recent abaration of the human norm. We are a social ape.

I also love your notion of the economy as a way of allocating scarce resources. Take the Gucci hand bag. Now there's a rare and valuable item. So somebody comes along and makes more of them and gets thrown in jail. I think what you refer to as scarcity is feelings of inferiority that if you can only get your hands on some of those rare and exclusive items being dangled in fromt of your greedy little eyes you will finally and at last really be somebody. Not likely. And furthermore, paying CEO's outrageous salaries just compounds the problem. The more money out there chasing rare goods the more of those goods will be produced. That means they become common place and worthless. Also, if there were any truth to the notion then all we have to do to eliminate poverty is to make enough of everything so that it's dirt cheep. But it goes deeper than that. What does the billionaire have that you don't. He has a different series of zeros and ones on the computer that keeps bank records than you do. All you need to do is just change the zeros and ones of poor people and you don't have to worry about them getting your tax dollars. They can spend their own and they'll spend a lot of them so there'll be plenty of demand for all the excess stuff we're making to be sure it's not rare and expensive.

And since you seem to like the nut factory world you find yourself in, how about providing those who don't with an alternative world, one where they don't have to use money. In that way all the freaks who find meaning in living and loving will have a place to go where they will be valued by others of similar mind.

What is this scarce resources stuff. Have you not heard that the universe is contained in a grain of sand. Surely the source of scarcity is want. He who wants nothing is rich beyond imagination, is he not? And since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, he who sees beauty, is he not the holder of it? Does not your precious economy run of artificially induced want. See an ad want a car. Desire, want, they run the economy. We really need so very little that a tribe living in the harshest environment needs only 20 or so hours a week to get all it needs to live. Scarcity is a state of mind, the feeling of worthlessness into which can be poured the entire world and still it will not be enough.

 

[tcsenter]

We are lead by empty shells, admire their achievements, and wonder why we're depressed.

Plenty of housewives who have chosen to stay home have no opinion on the salary of a CEO. Why on earth would you mention 'stay home mom' and 'CEO' in the same sentence, anyway? What is a stay home mother doing that she should be compensated a nickel for and more importantly who would be paying her 'salary'?

A major problem most have is that we equate a persons worth to their income. A professional athlete gets zillons for a hitting a stupid ball. Why? Because he can hit that stupid ball better than most everyone.

Well, not quite. A good baseball player earns $$ because baseball fans are willing to spend $$ to watch other people whack a ball better than most everyone. The true value of one's labor is not implicit in the labor itself but in the VALUE that labor holds to the ones ultimately paying for it and it shouldn't be ANY other way.

What a baseball player makes is IRRELEVANT to what a teacher makes because they are not contributing to the same end product nor are they on the same payroll.

If I need my house painted and my lawn landscaped, there is no relevance whatsoever between what I'm paying the house painter and what I'm paying the landscaper. If the housepainter asks "How come I'm getting paid less than the landscaper?" my answer is "because you're the housepainter, not the landscaper. If you were the landscaper, you'd be making as much as the landscaper, but you're the house painter. They are two different jobs."

IOW, there is NO BASIS of comparison, and further its really none of the house painter's business what the landscaper makes nor why. The house painter only needs to concern himself with one thing: is what I'm paying him to his liking based on what he feels HIS labor is worth?

The house painter may have been perfectly content with what I was paying him until he learned what the landscaper was making, and so the sole source of his new-found dissatisfaction is that someone somewhere is making more than him, not that he is being paid less than his labor is worth. This is classic envy.

If he felt the compensation was a fair exchange for his labor before learning what the landscaper was making, it is still a fair exchange for his labor after learning what the landscaper is making. Nothing has changed! He is not doing any more nor am I paying him any less than before.

Everyone's time and energies have a worth to them. For example, there are many jobs I'm qualified to do, but each one has its own associated pro's and con's that influence how much money I would need to be compensated before it becomes worthwhile for me to do that job. I may not like house painting nor landscaping, but I will do either if there's enough money in it to make it worth-while.

Because I think house painting is a real pain in the ass, I'm not going to do it unless I'm getting paid an amount that makes it worth-while to me, an amount that certainly makes me overlook how much of a pain in the ass painting a house is. How much is that? Only I can know because it is 100% dependent upon my personally unique circumstances. Everyone has their price, that price which makes undertaking a certain task worth all the trouble of its undertaking, and its different for everyone.

On the other hand, I may settle for less money to do a job I prefer or like doing, because I find value in things other than money, such as piece of mind. That is MY CHOICE! I've placed less emphasis in getting paid an amount I would "like" to be paid, in exchange for doing something that is to my liking.

I can spend 1000 hours building some whacky piece of 'art' out of scrap steel, welding the components with artistic inspiration, and how much is my contraption worth? What I think its worth is irrelevant. Its worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. If that's $50 then $50 is what its worth, not a penny more.

If nobody values my ugly contraption enough to pay me what I think its worth, that is NOT "unfair". What it means is, I've badly overestimated what my contraption might be worth to others, I have a fantastic view of what my junk is worth.

If I want to make a certain amount of money, I have to produce something for which other people will give me that amount of money, not what I "think" they should pay me for it and not what I would pay for it (since the money isn't coming out of my wallet this time). Labor is no different!

Decide how much you want to make, then pursue the type of labor for which people will pay the level of income you want! If your criteria places more emphasis on a certain personally unique satisfaction or preference than it does on income, then your priorities are such that you have given up a certain amount of income in exchange for doing a job that you like. That is your choice and you should live with it.

If it isn't to your liking, then change your priorities so they place more emphasis on income than other factors.

 

[Moonbeam]

Yes yes tscenter, you and tm37 have got your brainwashing down pat. That is, of course the absure logic you have learned to recite to keep you grinding away, all this crap about value and worth all built on a philosophy of sand. In a world in which everybody is drowning, life jackets are at a premium. The point, I believe, is that the definition of value is conditional upon structure, the form society takes. What is it worty to you that your neighbor's kids learn some values so they don't kill you comming home from the store just for fun. As I said before, your notion of value that you present is one that is linear and shallow.

The value of a baseball player is determined by the fact that people are empty of content and need subjects like sports to hoot and holler about, in work and social settings, so as to divert attention away from that emptyness. People who know Ted Williams batting average are heros. Same story with movie stars, the news, etc, all valuable, invaluable in keeping us asleep. Pretty much the more useless a thing is, the more valuable it is.

 

[tm37]

Moionbeam seems to feel that we all people are inherently the same when in fact people are different in many ways and we all possess different talents and desires. If we were to start taking away the insentive to take risks why would anyone take a risk? We wouldn't because there aren't many people buying lotterytickets if that jackpot ain't there. That Jackpot is what sells the ticket.

tcsenter sums up labor pretty damn well, yet you claim it's unfair. Risk and inovation are both driven by reward and that reward is cash. We all treasure different thing and place a value on what we do and the trade off that come with the choives we make. Why do people go to school? TO learn to become better producers so we can afford more, while this may seem greedy this is the only system that works. I don't really like my current but it pays well and I just got offered another that I might enjoy but at a 10K a year pay cut. I can take the new job or stay where I am my choice. I am more than likely going to stay because I am seeing some improvement at my current employer and the risk I take in the new job doesn't provide enough reward. If the money wan't an issue I might make the switch but then again I may not have had that choice because with no reward there is only one company doing everything with no incentive to do it well. WHy would anyone risk everything if the have nothing to gain. Why put in the extra work (or any work for that matter) if the reward stays the same regardless. Very few of these CEO's got to the level that they are at due to dumb luck. They put in many hard hours and many continue to. They suceeded because they made better choices or they have more talent. If you take away incentive people will follow the path of least resistance every time. Why do people start bussinesses? to get the FULL reward of there labors. I used to do computer repairs on the side and it took quite a bit of my time, I would have never done it for free because while I enjoyed the work I do enjoy fishing more.

The value of a baseball player is determined by the fact that people are empty of content and need subjects like sports to hoot and holler about, in work and social settings, so as to divert attention away from that emptyness. People who know Ted Williams batting average are heros. Same story with movie stars, the news, etc, all valuable, invaluable in keeping us asleep. Pretty much the more useless a thing is, the more valuable it is.

People make choices and they can do as they want, as long as there is a honest assessment before the transaction is made regardless of now unfair you make think it is Tom Hicks felt that AROD's abilty to hit a ball 400 feet made him worth 25 million a year because he has people who are willing to pay 20 bucks a pop to watch him. And people enjoy watching others do things they cannot. TO say that all soprts fans are "empty" just shows how sad you really are. If you don't understand the draw then everyone else must be stupid. I pay 150 bucks a year so I can watch football on sunday, any game I want . I have made a choice because I enjoy watching football. I also have on been known to attend a baseball game or two, and I don't attend to fill my emptyness I assure you. People enjoy watching other atain great feats me included.

Under your plan of FAIRNESS however our entertainment would really sink because many of those indiviuals that are truely masters of there trade either wouldn't do it or wouldn't be masters because there is no reward. once you reached a personal level of satifaction you would no longer have anything to push you.

 

[Red Dawn]

tcsenter sums up labor pretty damn well

An understatement. That was a great post on tscenter's part!

 

[tm37]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

tcsenter sums up labor pretty damn well

An understatement. That was a great post on tscenter's part!

How's this Red-

tcsenter's summation on labor is one of the most insightful pieces of literature I have ever read here on Anandtech, His insight on the subject is beautifully communicated to a level not normally seen or heard anywhere. I hope one day I can communicate as well as tcsenter but know with my limited vocabulary and knowledge I can only stand in awe of this individuals vast ability to put thoughts into words.




EDIT : for DAVE!

 

[UltraQuiet]

Originally posted by: tm37

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

tcsenter sums up labor pretty damn well

An understatement. That was a great post on tscenter's part!

How's this Red-

tcsenter's summation on labor is one the most insight pieces of literature I have ever read here an Anandtech, His insight on the subject is beautifully communicated to level not normally seen or heard anywhere. I hope one day I can communicate as well as tcsenter but know with my limited vocabulary and knowledge I can only stand in awe of this individuals vast ability to put thoughts into words.

1. should read "here on Anandtech"
2. should read " one of the most insightful pieces"
3. should read " communicated to a level "

Now drop and give me 50.

pimply faced 14 year old posting from Wisconsin

 

[tm37]

Originally posted by: DaveSohmer

1. should read "here on Anandtech"
2. should read " one of the most insightful pieces"
3. should read " communicated to a level "

Now drop and give me 50.

pimply faced 14 year old posting from Wisconsin

accually I am 27 and posting from MN:Q

I only have one pimple (ingrown hair) currently, so that may make me piply face but I am unsure.

I thought I had escaped the rath of the chief when I was discharged but evidently not

I will make the changes chief, and I hope that you will forgive me.


<- still surprised by bubbleheads

 

[UltraQuiet]

pimply faced 14 year old posting from Wisconsin

That was a reference to self, not you. The smartest man in the world has said that that's who I am until I can prove otherwise.

Chief- i before e except after c...




<--- pimply faced 14 year old posting from Wisconsin.

 

[Red Dawn]

tm37

I hope one day I can communicate as well as tcsenter but know with my limited vocabulary and knowledge I can only stand in awe of this individuals vast ability to put thoughts into words.

Well hang in there bunky, maybe one day you will.

 

[Zebo]

I have nothing interesting to add since MOONBEAM has said everything perfectly. Thanks MOONBEAM

Very good read for me and it put into words what I have been thinking for a few years.

 

[Moonbeam]

Yup tm37, don't get too self conscious about your posts. I only said you didn't think because of, really, about the only thing you did say that was wrong, i.e. calling my analogy asinine. Not that that might be the particular source of your angst in this case, but it sort of bothered me doing it. I really can't morally support making comments like I did, but once in a while I like to pop an insult back just to remind people that it's a two way street. And naturally, I'm an old hand at getting called asinine. When you take into consideration how weird people act when confronted with new ideas, and how attached they are to what they think they know, you anticipate put downs as part of people's natural defense mechanisms. I think what I'm trying to get across is that the reasons your way of thinking about things has such apparent internal cohesion is that you view it within the context in which it is defined. The notion, for example, that people won't do anything without a reward only makes sense in the insane asylum you call the capitalist world. Your whole view is coloured by the fact that you have found a satisfactory compromise, to you, to a sick condition. Drop a hungry rat in a maze and he will run it. Drop a self satisfied man in the world and he will explore it to the maximum of his potential. There is nothing but the inner journey, the perfection of the self. Our world has only made us tools.

You talk, for example about people making economic choices. How do you call what people do choice when in fact they are asleep to what motivates them. Without self knowledge, consciousness, you can't choose anything. You are simply an automaton, a product of your environment, a slave of conditioning.

 

[tcsenter]

The value of a baseball player is determined by the fact that people are empty of content and need subjects like sports to hoot and holler about, in work and social settings, so as to divert attention away from that emptyness. People who know Ted Williams batting average are heros. Same story with movie stars, the news, etc, all valuable, invaluable in keeping us asleep. Pretty much the more useless a thing is, the more valuable it is.

So your problem is with human flaws and nature? Well! All hail to Moonbeam, Thou Great Exhaulted One! What would you have for us if you were King, Moonbeam? The Ministry of Worthiness, to which you are appointed Czar over all that is worthy? Anything which you have deemed 'shallow' and 'linear' shall not command a value or worth greater than what you have deemed worthy?

PUHLEEZE!

Yes yes tscenter, you and tm37 have got your brainwashing down pat. That is, of course the absure logic you have learned to recite to keep you grinding away, all this crap about value and worth all built on a philosophy of sand.

Yadda yadda. Do you understand why we are the wealthiest nation on the planet? Do you understand that if our country were built upon anything remotely resembling your philosophy, our economy, and thus the tax revenues we derive from it to fund all those neato social programs you love, would be a fraction of what it is? Investment and innovation would be a fraction of what it is?

Yet, poverty would still be a problem, probably a larger problem, because we would only have a fraction of the public revenues we currently enjoy to fund all these anti-poverty efforts. You certainly couldn't eliminate poverty, nobody else has. All you would accomplish is to eliminate the upper classes so the disparity between the rich and poor is smaller. That is not doing a thing for poverty! That is merely making everyone equal in poverty.

How do you plan to inspire and motivate people after you have eliminated "the pursuit of happiness" and in its place instituted "the pursuit of all things worthy according to the Czar of Worthiness?"

What is it worty to you that your neighbor's kids learn some values so they don't kill you comming home from the store just for fun.

The price of the .357Mag slugs they'll get for their troubles? I don't see why it should cost more than that, since I can take care of the problem definitively with my .357mag, yet there is no such reasonable assurance that any of my neighbors would teach their children values whether you threw duffle bags of money at them or not.

Children will either be taught values, or not, whether their parents are poor or not. This is determined by how much of a priority it is to the individual parent, not their income. Lest we are to believe that one's character and integrity increases with their income and status of privilege? RIGHT! More money is stolen with pens than guns.

Nothing builds character quite like ADVERSITY. YES! Poverty and struggle. I am FAR more apt to trust a person who understands STRUGGLE than a person who was raised in the lap of luxury and privilege.

Poverty doesn't create criminals and miscreants, else only the wealthy could claim to be law abiding and honest. ATTITUDE creates them.

Ever notice nobody is knocking over convenience stores and banks to feed their children? Ever wonder why people who shop-lift are NEVER caught stealing milk, eggs, butter, and baby formula? Nooo, they're caught stealing the most expensive cuts of meat, liquor, cigarettes, jewelry, fashionable clothes, etc. Who do you think those things are for, their children? Hell no, its for themselves!

The difference between two people raised in poverty, one who becomes a frequent member of our justice system and the other becomes an honest member of society, is entirely attributable to ATTITUDE!

 

[Moonbeam]

Well actually it seems to me that it's you who is the Czar of worthiness, because it's your system that's putting a price on it. You contribute little to enlightening me as to the validity of the virtues of your way of thinking. What is the vlaue of a nation of wealthy empty shells. Even the Kung enjoy life more. All we do is work and work and work with some TV and beer to kill the pain. Even the Europeans we make such fun of live better in terms of quality. I'm saying your value system is goofy, but now you seem to have come a long way over to my point of view. Now you are saying that what is valuable is attitude.

But while you say attitude is valuable, you only value individuals with a particular kind of attitude, the kind dogs get running in a pack with scarce resources. What you call attitude is just a special case of neurosis.

 

[oblizue]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

The value of a baseball player is determined by the fact that people are empty of content and need subjects like sports to hoot and holler about, in work and social settings, so as to divert attention away from that emptyness. People who know Ted Williams batting average are heros. Same story with movie stars, the news, etc, all valuable, invaluable in keeping us asleep. Pretty much the more useless a thing is, the more valuable it is.

So your problem is with human flaws and nature? Well! All hail to Moonbeam, Thou Great Exhaulted One! What would you have for us if you were King, Moonbeam? The Ministry of Worthiness, to which you are appointed Czar over all that is worthy? Anything which you have deemed 'shallow' and 'linear' shall not command a value or worth greater than what you have deemed worthy?

PUHLEEZE!

Yes yes tscenter, you and tm37 have got your brainwashing down pat. That is, of course the absure logic you have learned to recite to keep you grinding away, all this crap about value and worth all built on a philosophy of sand.

Yadda yadda. Do you understand why we are the wealthiest nation on the planet? Do you understand that if our country were built upon anything remotely resembling your philosophy, our economy, and thus the tax revenues we derive from it to fund all those neato social programs you love, would be a fraction of what it is? Investment and innovation would be a fraction of what it is?

Yet, poverty would still be a problem, probably a larger problem, because we would only have a fraction of the public revenues we currently enjoy to fund all these anti-poverty efforts. You certainly couldn't eliminate poverty, nobody else has. All you would accomplish is to eliminate the upper classes so the disparity between the rich and poor is smaller. That is not doing a thing for poverty! That is merely making everyone equal in poverty.

How do you plan to inspire and motivate people after you have eliminated "the pursuit of happiness" and in its place instituted "the pursuit of all things worthy according to the Czar of Worthiness?"

What is it worty to you that your neighbor's kids learn some values so they don't kill you comming home from the store just for fun.

The price of the .357Mag slugs they'll get for their troubles? I don't see why it should cost more than that, since I can take care of the problem definitively with my .357mag, yet there is no such reasonable assurance that any of my neighbors would teach their children values whether you threw duffle bags of money at them or not.

Children will either be taught values, or not, whether their parents are poor or not. This is determined by how much of a priority it is to the individual parent, not their income. Lest we are to believe that one's character and integrity increases with their income and status of privilege? RIGHT! More money is stolen with pens than guns.

Nothing builds character quite like ADVERSITY. YES! Poverty and struggle. I am FAR more apt to trust a person who understands STRUGGLE than a person who was raised in the lap of luxury and privilege.

Poverty doesn't create criminals and miscreants, else only the wealthy could claim to be law abiding and honest. ATTITUDE creates them.

Ever notice nobody is knocking over convenience stores and banks to feed their children? Ever wonder why people who shop-lift are NEVER caught stealing milk, eggs, butter, and baby formula? Nooo, they're caught stealing the most expensive cuts of meat, liquor, cigarettes, jewelry, fashionable clothes, etc. Who do you think those things are for, their children? Hell no, its for themselves!

The difference between two people raised in poverty, one who becomes a frequent member of our justice system and the other becomes an honest member of society, is entirely attributable to ATTITUDE!

What was that quote again, oh yes "The destruction of the poor is their poverty."

When you're dirt poor living in the slums of some god awful neighborhood with a crack addict mom and no one really to look out for you, what kind of hope do you really have? Yes, scrounge up that attitude my boy, pick yourself up by the bootstraps and make something of yourself.

It's not just a matter of attitude, and to look at it in that fashion is ignorance of a real problem in society. We have people living in dire poverty where success isn't really something to look forward to because it just doesn't exist. If poverty wasn't connected to the many problems existing in the ghettos of major cities, then why is it that the socio-economic status of areas with high crime rates are so low? The connection between poverty and crime certainly does exist and it is something that needs to be fixed.

 

[Ornery]

" If poverty wasn't connected to the many problems existing in the ghettos of major cities, then why is it that the socio-economic status of areas with high crime rates are so low?"


DO THE RIGHT THING by Spike Lee

• ML points across the street to the Korean fruit and vegetable
  stand.
  
  ML
  It's a f*cking shame.
  
  SWEET DICK WILLIE
  What is?
  
  ML
  Sweet Dick Willie.
  
  SWEET DICK WILLIE
  That's my name.
  
  ML
  Do I have to spell it out?
  
  COCONUT SID
  Make it plain.
  
  ML
  OK, but listen up. I'm gonna break
  it down.
  
  SWEET DICK WILLIE
  Let it be broke.
  
  ML
  Can ya dig it?
  
  SWEET DICK WILLIE
  It's dug.
  
  CLOSE--ML
  
  ML
  Look at those Korean motherf*ckers
  across the street. I betcha they
  haven't been a year off da
  motherf*cking boat before they
  opened up their own place.
  
  CLOSE--COCONUT SID
  
  COCONUT SID
  It's been about a year.
  
  CLOSE--ML
  
  ML
  A motherf*cking year off the
  motherf*cking boat and got a good
  business in our neighborhood
  occupying a building that had been
  boarded up for longer than I care
  to remember and I've been here a
  long time.
  
  CLOSE--SWEET DICK WILLIE
  
  SWEET DICK WILLIE
  It has been a long time.
  
  CLOSE--COCONUT SID
  
  COCONUT SID
  How long?
  
  CLOSE--ML
  
  ML
  Too long! Too long. Now for the
  life of me, I haven't been able to
  figger this out. Either dem
  Koreans are geniuses or we Blacks
  are dumb.
  
  This is truly a stupefying question and all three are silent.
  What is the answer?
  
  COCONUT SID
  It's gotta be cuz we're Black. No
  other explanation, nobody don't
  want the Black man to be about sh*t.
  
  SWEET DICK WILLIE
  Old excuse.
  
  ML
  I'll be one happy fool to see us
  have our own business right here.
  Yes, sir. I'd be the first in line
  to spend the little money I got.
  
  Sweet Dick Willie gets up from his folding chair.
  
  SWEET DICK WILLIE
  It's Miller time. Let me go give
  these Koreans s'more business.
  
  ML
  It's a motherf*cking shame.
  
  COCONUT SID
  Ain't that a bitch...

"The difference between two people raised in poverty, one who becomes a frequent member of our justice system and the other becomes an honest member of society, is entirely attributable to ATTITUDE!"

 

[PistachioByAzul]

The difference between two people raised in poverty, one who becomes a frequent member of our justice system and the other becomes an honest member of society, is entirely attributable to ATTITUDE!

Where does attitude come from.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: Ornery
The fact that some said "enough"..." Just prior to that, what did people do for a living? Farmers? Blacksmiths? What? Pretty much what people do in Afghanistan today. It's all yours, bub! Why did people work for nothing during the industrial revolution? Why did they send their kids to work in sweat shops and coal mines? Was somebody holding a gun to their head? Suppose those railroads, mines and sweatshops didn't exist at all? Actually, they didn't only a few years earlier. Like I said, you can go back to that if you like it so much. Whose fault is it that people became dependent on that type of work? You gonna blame "the man"? Sounds like folks today who are dependent on welfare. Whose fault is it for their plight? The same persons who were at fault for being dependent on sweat shop jobs and mining! Unions got their way through extortion and violence. Hasn't changed much, has it?

I havent time to read further, as I am going out and have some fun!

Ornery,

I am no huge fan of unions, at least as to what they became. Next, it seems I am offered the choice of sacrificing children to the alter of progress, or living in olden agrarian times. I would have chosen the third option, and the one Dickens and others of the day would have. Have your technology, and mines, and sweatshops, but do not put people in harms way unnecessarily. Why did people work in these conditions? The machine put people out of work. No work, no food. Did someone put a gun to their head and make them take these jobs? Nope. Starvation suffices. Since dying in misery is an option few choose, they took what scraps they could find regardless of the danger. I am no Luddite or Saboteur. I like my toys. I also like that my 8 year old daughter does not have to work in her excrement dodging life threatening machinery on 16 hour shifts until she dies in a few years at most. That was the reality of the industrial revolution, and it did not have to be. If you disagree so be it, however that leaves you on shaky ground justifing misery in the name of maximized profit margins.

 

[Moonbeam]

Engine, I don't think we are going to get an answer to the origin of attitude question or at least one as full of blanks as the comments we got so far. I think they will only find the coconut empty, like I said.

Pharaoh pointed to Egypt and said, show me an economic system better than this. Right Tut, you got the answer here. Proofs in the pudding.

 

[Squisher]

Originally posted by: Hayabusarider

I havent time to read further, as I am going out and have some fun!

Ornery,

I am no huge fan of unions, at least as to what they became. Next, it seems I am offered the choice of sacrificing children to the alter of progress, or living in olden agrarian times. I would have chosen the third option, and the one Dickens and others of the day would have. Have your technology, and mines, and sweatshops, but do not put people in harms way unnecessarily. Why did people work in these conditions? The machine put people out of work. No work, no food. Did someone put a gun to their head and make them take these jobs? Nope. Starvation suffices. Since dying in misery is an option few choose, they took what scraps they could find regardless of the danger. I am no Luddite or Saboteur. I like my toys. I also like that my 8 year old daughter does not have to work in her excrement dodging life threatening machinery on 16 hour shifts until she dies in a few years at most. That was the reality of the industrial revolution, and it did not have to be. If you disagree so be it, however that leaves you on shaky ground justifing misery in the name of maximized profit margins.

Hayabusarider,

I think you have to ask yourself what was the life of a pre-industrial revolution child. If they are working as such to eat then without working they would most likely perish.
All of us should be aware of the bounty that we all are lucky to live in. Life has dealt a bad hand to a great many on this earth, but what would be there fate if others were not afforded the opportunity to prosper? Would they be better off if the world around them was mired in a similar fate?

Moony,

You seem to deny the intrinsic desire of all to seek to better themselves in this world. When we were all running around in our all togethers hunting for our next meal so we could survive, I am sure at some point in time one of us used their desire to better themselves and picked up a stick to use as a tool to kill their next meal and provide for themselves a more effient way of hunting. Were they hollowed by their advancement? In the short run there was less food for others locally. But, when all learned the use of sticks wasn't everyone's lot in life improved? We were competing to survive and prosper then and now. Competition is the way of life.

 

[Ornery]

Where does attitude come from? Better question is, who is to blame for "bad attitude"? That blame would lie with parents, peers and "the world owes me a living", Democrat/Socialist, welfare mindset. People who haven't been infected with that way of thinking, come to this country, roll up their sleeves and... drum roll... WORK! :Q

At the same time parents were selling their kids to work in sweatshops, workers in California were organizing and ultimately wrote a new constitution for the state in which the Chinese were forbidden to hold property and to engage in certain occupations Yeah, they were SO MUCH better than the business owners

I've yet to hear of another system to replace what we have. I didn't start the topic complaining about our current system in the first place! If there were hiccups in our history of progress, they were brought on by both labor AND business. IMO, the end justifies the means in the case of the United States. I'll wager quite a few countries in the world today would be more than happy to follow the same path today, low spots and all, if only they could. God knows they'd be no worse off!

 

[Red Dawn]

Where does attitude come from? Better question is, who is to blame for "bad attitude"? That blame would lie with parents, peers and "the world owes me a living", Democrat/Socialist, welfare mindset. People who haven't been infected with that way of thinking, come to this country, roll up their sleeves and... drum roll... WORK!

How about Corporate America and their advertising agents feeding our heads 7/24 that we need to have the an HDTV, a Cadillac SUV, Smirnoff's Ice, Some beautiful member of the opposite sex on our arm, The Pushup Bra or Viagra (well in your case)the body of a Greek God and a couple of Big Macs to go? Our decadents and the Brainwashing caused by our out of control Capitalistic Frenzy to cash in on the American Lemmings is the problem.


The Koreans off the boat haven't been feed the BS that native born Americans have all their life. I'm sure the Koreans off of the boat just scratched their heads in amazement the first time they witnessed the BS that we are brainwashed into believing. To them feeding their family, having a roof over their heads and a means to make sure that is a constant is their American dream. Not a BMW, a Dell Computer pimped by some unlikable smarmy punk and buckets of Kentucky Fried Artery hardening being schlepped by probably two of the most annoying characters in the Mass Media today, George Castanza and Barry Bonds.

People talk about the good old days. Well the good old days were before TV and now the Internet. Back then the average American Family wanted the same thing today?s fresh of the Boat Korean Family wants. A healthy family, a roof over their head ect. What does the average American family have now? Two working parents, kids like Jerboy, CC dept up the ass and unrealistic dreams of the good life according to Corporate America. I don't see how that is the Democrats fault anymore than the Republicans fault. That's just the way our society has evolved. If you think it's bad now what do you think it will be like in another generation or so when the children of those Korean Immigrants become totally Americanized
?