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It's Time for the 99% to Give Back to the 1%

forbes.com

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Re: It's Time for the 99% to Give Back to the 1%

#6
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed some of Atlas Shrugged.

>It's not the Henry Fords and Steve Jobs who exploit people. Problem is not all of the 1% is Steve Jobs, Henry Ford or Warren Buffett. It also includes, for example, royal families whose contribution is not intellectual.

>When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible:

And something which Ms. Rand forgot to include in her statement, which is the desire of customers to buy the product the factory produces.

>In proportion to the mental energy he spent, the man who creates a new invention receives but a small percentage of his value in terms of material payment, no matter what fortune he makes, no matter what millions he earns.

Paying someone less than the value they provide is what makes capitalism work. Not even CEOs or founders are exempt from this law, though I'm sure more than one skates awfully close.

>Instead, we live in a culture where Goldman Sachs is smeared as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity."

Not sure how deep GS was involved but here goes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80...

>There is indeed a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity: the Internal Revenue Service. And, at a deeper level, it is the monstrous perversion of justice that makes the IRS possible: an envy-ridden moral code that damns success, profit, and earning money in voluntary exchange.

Plus the need to finance the bodyguards for the New World Order (aka The War Machine.)

Re: It's Time for the 99% to Give Back to the 1%

#8
post #6

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed some of Atlas Shrugged. >It's not the Henry Fords and Steve Jobs who exploit people. Problem is not all of the 1% is Steve Jobs, Henry Ford or Warren Buffett. It also includes, for example, royal families whose contribution is not intellectual. >When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible…

> Paying someone less than the value they provide is what makes capitalism work. Not even CEOs or founders are exempt from this law, though I'm sure more than one skates awfully close.

But who says what the value you provide as a worker is, if not the job market? The original complaint from Marx and pals as I understand it, is that the profit generated by the company represents the stolen labour value. So does that mean that as long as a company takes no profit (or presumably just doesn't pay dividends, given that carrying over profit is just a way to maintain cash reserves) that there is no exploitation?

The whole labour value criticism just doesn't add up.

Re: It's Time for the 99% to Give Back to the 1%

#10

Most of the 1% is built on my penny is shinier than yours but I'll go ahead let you have it for 2 of your ugly pennies. Not sure I'd call that a win-win.

your metaphor was lost on me. Do you mind clarifying?

The metaphor there is trying to gouge/scam someone by pretending like the shininess of a penny is tied to its value. I can't read the article because of the paywall, but I'm a
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