Warren Buffet nails it on inequality

[arkirk]

That was a real question. Everything is attributable to labor. We would still be a pre-stone age society without the application of human labor.

So? I didn't say any part wasn't labor or that anything wasn't attributable to labor. It's all attributable to labor and it's also all attributable to a variety of other factors. Production is synergistic, not additive. There is no "the part from labor" and "the part from X" and "the part from Y". It all comes from all the inputs. If any of them were missing the goods and services wouldn't exist. What justifies attributing everything only to labor?

Capital is just stored up human labor.

Why do you believe that? Because you hear people say it all the time?

Actually, Bomb, it isn't stored up human labor. What passes for capital today is actually just an idea, subject to inflation, deflation, arbitrage, casino trading, off shoring, and Wall Street crookedness.

 

[ksen]

That was a real question. Everything is attributable to labor. We would still be a pre-stone age society without the application of human labor.

So? I didn't say any part wasn't labor or that anything wasn't attributable to labor.

I agree, you didn't say that and I didn't imply that you said it either.

It's all attributable to labor and it's also all attributable to a variety of other factors. Production is synergistic, not additive. There is no "the part from labor" and "the part from X" and "the part from Y". It all comes from all the inputs. If any of them were missing the goods and services wouldn't exist.

Well, this started with me asking you to name some of these other inputs. You didn't feel like it and here we are.

What justifies attributing everything only to labor?

What should not be attributed only to labor? This should be a pretty easy question to answer if there are lots of inputs not attributable to human labor.

Capital is just stored up human labor.

Why do you believe that? Because you hear people say it all the time?

No, I believe it because it's true.

I'm open to changing my mind if you have a convincing argument that I'm wrong.

 

[RavenSky]

The government subsidizing lower wages, resulting in more lower wage jobs and in higher profits. At the cost of whoever is taxed to provide the government aid. Is he proposing to tax corporate taxes to pay for the increased government aid... Government aid to individuals is always going to be subjected to demonization, unlike government subsidies to corporations. People are going to attack any government aid to individuals as welfare. Look at the barrage of abuse leveled recently at food stamps, the SNAP program.

I generally like Warren Buffet, but this was the glaring omission in his op-ed piece

 

[arkirk]

Ksen: Money can only be said to represent some sort of promise and does not necessarily originate as the result of labor...excepting the printing or perhaps other positing of its value. It is a promise of reward only and exists prior to labor's involvement unless you count gambling on a trading floor or website "labor." If your idea is true, then those who labor will have all the money as they are the only ones putting labor into storage. That clearly is NOT what is happening.

 

[Axulus]

The government subsidizing lower wages, resulting in more lower wage jobs and in higher profits. At the cost of whoever is taxed to provide the government aid. Is he proposing to tax corporate taxes to pay for the increased government aid... Government aid to individuals is always going to be subjected to demonization, unlike government subsidies to corporations. People are going to attack any government aid to individuals as welfare. Look at the barrage of abuse leveled recently at food stamps, the SNAP program.

I generally like Warren Buffet, but this was the glaring omission in his op-ed piece

Reality check - the EITC has been strengthened/enhanced under every single Republican administration since Reagan. Republicans in general support strengthening EITC instead of other alternatives.

It is also not a "wage subsidy", which would be a reimbursement to companies for a percent of the wages that they pay.

 

[untermensche]

I generally like Warren Buffet, but this was the glaring omission in his op-ed piece

Reality check - the EITC has been strengthened/enhanced under every single Republican administration since Reagan. Republicans in general support strengthening EITC instead of other alternatives.

It is also not a "wage subsidy", which would be a reimbursement to companies for a percent of the wages that they pay.

A wage subsidy is a government payment that allows companies to pay workers less.

 

[Axulus]

Reality check - the EITC has been strengthened/enhanced under every single Republican administration since Reagan. Republicans in general support strengthening EITC instead of other alternatives.

It is also not a "wage subsidy", which would be a reimbursement to companies for a percent of the wages that they pay.

A wage subsidy is a government payment that allows companies to pay workers less.

Less than what?

 

[untermensche]

A wage subsidy is a government payment that allows companies to pay workers less.

Less than what?

Than at levels they begin to take to the streets.

 

[Harry Bosch]

...Of course, Warren Buffet wants the government to subsidize wages. Higher wages means lower profits....

Yes.

What is somebody like Buffet anyway?

Just somebody who got rich by taking a lot of money that really belongs to workers.

You've never explained why the "money belongs to the workers". Question: if you own a house, does the value of the increase in equity belong to the owner, or to the workers who repair the house (such as a plumber, roofer, and etc.).

 

[untermensche]

Yes.

What is somebody like Buffet anyway?

Just somebody who got rich by taking a lot of money that really belongs to workers.

You've never explained why the "money belongs to the workers". Question: if you own a house, does the value of the increase in equity belong to the owner, or to the workers who repair the house (such as a plumber, roofer, and etc.).

Your house is not human's laboring.

If workers build a house they should own it and get the money when it is sold.

A least it is easy to envision a system where deadwood middlemen are eliminated and workers that are capable of building houses can get the funding to build them.

 

[RavenSky]

You've never explained why the "money belongs to the workers". Question: if you own a house, does the value of the increase in equity belong to the owner, or to the workers who repair the house (such as a plumber, roofer, and etc.).

Your house is not human's laboring.

If workers build a house they should own it and get the money when it is sold.

A least it is easy to envision a system where deadwood middlemen are eliminated and workers that are capable of building houses can get the funding to build them.

Just curious: Who is the "deadwood middlemen" and who are the workers when a house is built.

 

[Harry Bosch]

You've never explained why the "money belongs to the workers". Question: if you own a house, does the value of the increase in equity belong to the owner, or to the workers who repair the house (such as a plumber, roofer, and etc.).

Your house is not human's laboring.

If workers build a house they should own it and get the money when it is sold.

A least it is easy to envision a system where deadwood middlemen are eliminated and workers that are capable of building houses can get the funding to build them.

So in your world, a worker in the beginning gets the value from a home being built. But a worker who repairs an existing house gets no equity?

 

[untermensche]

Your house is not human's laboring.

If workers build a house they should own it and get the money when it is sold.

A least it is easy to envision a system where deadwood middlemen are eliminated and workers that are capable of building houses can get the funding to build them.

Just curious: Who is the "deadwood middlemen" and who are the workers when a house is built.

How are homes presently built?

Do banks lend money to builders, workers capable of building a house, or do they lend it to somebody like Donald Trump?

What is Donald Trump capable of building?

- - - Updated - - -

Your house is not human's laboring.

If workers build a house they should own it and get the money when it is sold.

A least it is easy to envision a system where deadwood middlemen are eliminated and workers that are capable of building houses can get the funding to build them.

So in your world, a worker in the beginning gets the value from a home being built. But a worker who repairs an existing house gets no equity?

Yes, I separate providing a service from providing a product.

 

[fast]

If workers build a house they should own it and get the money when it is sold.

If I want to be the first and sole owner of a new house, I have to do all the work myself?

 

[Kharakov]

If workers build a house they should own it and get the money when it is sold.

If I want to be the first and sole owner of a new house, I have to do all the work myself?

Chop down the trees, create the technology, write the books, solve the problems of humanity, farm, and everything else as well. Come on man, don't you remember?

 

[fast]

If I want to be the first and sole owner of a new house, I have to do all the work myself?

Chop down the trees, create the technology, write the books, solve the problems of humanity, farm, and everything else as well. Come on man, don't you remember?

I invented fire. What else do you want from me?

 

[NobleSavage]

So far you have agreed with me on about everything. The poor do not get poorer without the rich enforcing poverty on them with their choices...choices to not hire, choices to pay as absolutely little as they can and always own everything...choices to let the bottom 98% pay their way and also bail them out when they get into trouble at their casino...cementing themselves in a special cloister of wealth protection not available to anybody else.

Well, now we do disagree.

Paraphrased:

bitch, bitch, bitch

The best we can hope for is a genuine and sustained effort to make things better.

Great, now what do you think about expanding EITC?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You've never explained why the "money belongs to the workers". Question: if you own a house, does the value of the increase in equity belong to the owner, or to the workers who repair the house (such as a plumber, roofer, and etc.).

Your house is not human's laboring.

If workers build a house they should own it and get the money when it is sold.

A least it is easy to envision a system where deadwood middlemen are eliminated and workers that are capable of building houses can get the funding to build them.

And who paid for the land? The materials? The tools?

Also, lets look more carefully at your scenario. Get financing to build the house? Who is going to get that financing? You seem to have some illusion that there's a fairly small group of workers who builds a house. That's not reality at all in most cases--the real situation is a small amount of work done by many workers. (Off the top of my head: Diggers, concrete pourers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, roofers, drywall installers, cabinet installers, countertop installers, painters, carpet installers, tile installers, HVAC installers, sometimes masons. I very much doubt I got everyone.) Getting together a group to build a house is simply not a viable business model--you would spend too much time on business, too little time on building. (A general problem with worker-run businesses that aren't pretty monolithic in nature.) You also need someone who can resolve the finger-pointing that generally happens when one worker damages something that another worker already did.

 

[bilby]

Chop down the trees, create the technology, write the books, solve the problems of humanity, farm, and everything else as well. Come on man, don't you remember?

I invented fire. What else do you want from me?

Hey! I've got Patent Pending on that! You will be hearing from my lawyers (When they get back from serving that writ on Prometheus).

 

[arkirk]

I invented fire. What else do you want from me?

Hey! I've got Patent Pending on that! You will be hearing from my lawyers (When they get back from serving that writ on Prometheus).

Before you guys get too heavilly involved in your legal battles, I OWN THE RIGHTS TO FIRE AND THE WHEEL. You just go away and perhaps see if you can get a job at Walmart.