Poker is also game of luck and actually with pretty small edge (even AK against 72 is about 2:1) but somehow some people win consistently. Same with life. Good ones are lucky. I think if you look really closely you would see that a lot of those people failed a lot of times before getting lucky at the right place at the right time. This is traders board Im sure you could find a lot of stories about failing from people who are now very successful traders But this is just remark about luck part, I totally understand why you think its not fair that some are very rich and some are poor.
yes, I would have to agree with that. It's just like trading. Timing is everything. I was brought up in a hardcore right wing family. At one time I found myself newly married in the low rent Canal District of San Rafael, CA. We became friends with the couple downstairs who were democrats from PA. She said, (and it was the first time I ever heard somebody say something or think like this), "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer." But I noticed (and it use to drive me crazy), my wife would take her grocery money and buy the smallest cheapest item that only lasted us a week, while the rich guy would load his shopping cart up with the "Family Size" which was cheaper and would last him for a month.
??? where did I ever say "It's not fair"? You're the one with a complex just for your info I consider anyone in the top 50% earners as rich and anyone in the bottom 50% of earners as poor aint no "middle class" in my analysis. hard for many to embrace, if you make 50k you are rich if you make 49k you are poor I like to keep everything nice and clean at anyrate, I like to play the game, but I don't want to play it against any opponent that is hungry I'll get your money from you sooner or later but I want to start fair and square from a level playing field, where I have no advantage from past success
Yes you didn't say that it was answer to trade2live and I don't agree with him, but understand his position. As for same playing field I would put it again to morality discussion (and as I said in previous comment I don't want to argue about that as it is different for each person). I don't think it has any important impact on wealth creation and economical growth (basically more efficient production so we have more products and services, and innovation so we have new things that better out lives). I think biggest mistake of some people who propose wealth redistribution is that they view at it as zero sum game - i gain you loose. But economy is not like that. Everyone gains something. I might have some stones and bring it to the village then some guy buys it from me and make those stones into cubes and sell them to the third guy who builds a house and suddenly our primitive village lives not in caves but in stone houses - everyone wins as we improved our lives (i know its primitive example but hope its useful ). This chain goes on and on. Think about oil industry which was non existent not so far ago and how much it improved our lives - cars, planes, ships, roads even buble gum Redistribution would not had helped for that industry in any way only slowing its development substantially. Why wait lets build more and more stuff and even poor people live much better. Lets not cloud about numbers, money etc. For example 49K somewhere in Cambodia would mean very rich. Not because thats a lot of money, but because for that money they could buy stuff we take for granted and that would make them rich comparing to their fellows who have nothing. I think its not exact, but related to guy's 3rd question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQLBitV69Cc I really like Milton Friedman and his logic. He was unbeatable in economics argument imho
I hear ya, that's why sometimes I think this whole wealth redistribution is a futile idea. Good economy, everybody gets a bigger piece of a growing pie. Safety net is one thing. I want everybody to have food stamps. But how does it hurt me if at the end of the year you made more money than me? And how does it help us all if they take what you made and give it to me?
Well, at the time economics was still a part of the overal "social science" field and, Marx (plus Durkheim and Weber) was most certainly a founder of that field, in a sense of providing theories that can be tested using the scientific method. Well, as much as anything in social sciences could. Two major points (even if one agrees that a social concept can be "roundly debunked" at all): (a) the fact that a scientific theory has been proven wrong does not make it's creator less of scientist (b) LTV served as a foundation to a lot of economic theories that continue to thrive to this day Not that I am a Marxist, just saying...
Sorta see your points but there are scientists and there are better scientists. imho Of course someone needs to start the ball rolling however daft his theory and others build on that foundation.
I like the middle class concept. They are the backbone of every society. And have generally more qualities of principle, integrity, hard work and compassion than the other 2. Accept all the advantages one can muster imho. You'll need them.
very dangerous Humpy, I've seen it in action, both the husband and wife work at the same factory, and their combined income puts them above the 50% average, yet they still claim they are just "middle class." "Middle Class" gives the politicians and the government too much power. We just went through it over here when they debated whether they should raise taxes on 250K plus and then decided that was middle class and raised it to 450K. No, start thinking this way, if you are in the top 50 percentile you are rich, if you are in the bottom 50 percentile you are poor. You will need that more in the future than you will the "Middle Class."
I've always thought of the middle class as not being defined so much by income alone as values, way of life, role in community etc. In the same way that winning the powerball lottery or euro millions will not make a labourer a member of the upper class, relying on income alone to define middle class can be misleading. This is a nice article that also addresses the income issue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_middle_class Talking about class in the British sense opens a whole new can of worms that is not germane to this discussion, so let's not go there.