What are your thoughts on a basic income?

[twostrokenut]

Why you gotta bring up the dunes? Now I wanna ride.

 

[Pinworm]

Saw something saying the total in 2012 was around 2k....not sure how many total service men and women make up the military as a whole but I'm betting as a percentage logging is still more dangerous.....main point being who decides income based on danger or nobility for non-private sector jobs and why compare them to celebrity or average private sector athletes?

Flossing a dead horse.

Wealth is compensation for risk. People who are working on a factory line are taking on no risk--they just show up and get paid a market rate for their time. The person who built the plant by mortgaging his property who is also tasked with selling the product to cover all of the expenses takes on all the risk. If the product fails, the workers still have all of their pay, losing nothing; the owner loses everything he invested in the venture.
Anyone can be an owner but it's quite difficult and success is actually quite unlikely, so most people choose to work for pay instead. People who avoid risk don't deserve to be compensated for it.

My point was that soldiers deserve a better benefits program, and better pay for the risks that they are taking. The comment about pro-athletes and CEOs was directed at tokeprep - who mysteriously vanished after I asked him a simple question...

You don't think it's a little stupid to pay our professional athletes more than the soldiers who defend our country? They (soldiers) take all the risk, just to come home and be shit on.

 

[tokeprep]

Hey, professor - If I put it to you that, "We should spend those dollars to help get troops better pay, and rehab/work when they come back from duty."

What would your response be? --- Sorry, professional athletes and CEO's deserve more pay than the one's out there risking their lives?

You think the government should seize sports revenues to spend them on veterans? So be it. I believe in free markets. I don't even watch or like sports, and I'm puzzled at how so many people are interested and obsessed with them, but that doesn't mean I'm going to interfere with the freedom of hundreds of millions of Americans to spend their money as they please.

Voting with their dollars, the American people have decided that throwing a ball can be worth $100 million in pay. I think it's absurd, and I think it's absurd that people waste their lives watching balls get thrown around, but who am I to judge?

The market rate for risking your life for your country is whatever it is. It's not very much. Obviously we as a society don't consider it very valuable. Why are you complaining to me about that? I didn't make the decision.

They lay their lives on the line so you can have the freedom to sit in your mom's basement, enveloped in your little confused hateful world, and comfortably talk shit about how smart you are behind a computer screen.

You're an inspiration to us all.

I should be. I've been wholly independent since I turned 18. Everything I have and everything I've accomplished has been by my own hands.

 

[tokeprep]

You're totally missing the point. Why does Tim Tebow deserve more pay than someone who pulled 3 wounded soldiers from a firefight, while being shot at? Or, ANY soldier for that matter? Because he looks good in spandex on TV?

Because the market said so. There are millions of people willing and able to risk their lives for this country for relatively little money; there are relatively few people who are physically gifted and otherwise talented enough to play professional sports, which Americans spend tens of billions of dollars on every year.

 

[tokeprep]

Not if people start demanding Euros or Yuan or eggs or wealth.

But they aren't.

 

[tokeprep]

If wealth is compensation for risk, then yes, in 2012, loggers were fucked. But, in the last 15 years...soldiers have been fucked harder.

You keep distorting the point I made. Wealth is compensation for financial risk in the context of my post. If you risk $1 million in assets to build a product and then you sell it for $10 million, you are receiving $9 million as compensation for the risk you took. Your receipt of the extra $9 million is justified because you risked losing all of the original $1 million to get it. In the factory example, workers are deserving of only the pay they accepted and not any of the profit because they took none of the financial risk that enabled the product, choosing instead to accept fixed wages that were guaranteed.

Risking your life for money is typically very poorly compensated. Risky professions tend to be staffed by people who are unable to enter other less risky professions that offer better or more palatable financial returns. When I say "wealth is compensation for risk," I am not saying that risking your life justifies a huge pile of money. Risking your life is worth whatever amount of money you accept in exchange for risking your life, whether that's $30,000 a year in the military or $100,000 a year on a fishing boat in treacherous waters.

 

[Pinworm]

You keep distorting the point I made. Wealth is compensation for risk.

I think you're doing an awesome job distorting your point on your own. Changing, and adding words to your quotes. Slightly re-arranging your "original point" every time it doesn't serve the new version of your argument.

There are millions of people willing and able to risk their lives for this country for relatively little money;

They take the risk, so they deserve compensation. Right? Or did you want to "slightly alter" your original post again?

You think the government should seize sports revenues to spend them on veterans?

No.

 

[tokeprep]

I think you're doing an awesome job distorting your point on your own. Changing, and adding words to your quotes. Slightly re-arranging your "original point" every time it doesn't serve the new version of your argument.

The context makes clear that I'm speaking about financial risk. I started calling it "financial risk" for your benefit, because you were equating financial risk to all risk, which made no sense given the context of the post.

They take the risk, so they deserve compensation. Right? Or did you want to "slightly alter" your original post again?

They are compensated. Their compensation is the amount of pay they accept in exchange for taking the risk. I already said this.

I understand your comment to be this: "Risking your life is a huge fucking risk, so they deserve a shit ton of money for taking that risk." (Based on this: "You don't think it's a little stupid to pay our professional athletes more than the soldiers who defend our country? They (soldiers) take all the risk, just to come home and be shit on."). That opinion has nothing to do with my point about compensation for financial risk, which was in response to this statement: "Next time someone says that they got rich through hard work, ask them whose." The owners of capital are entitled to the profit derived from that capital because they accepted financial risk.

 

[Pinworm]

The context makes clear that I'm speaking about financial risk. I started calling it "financial risk" for your benefit, because you were equating financial risk to all risk, which made no sense given the context of the post.



They are compensated. Their compensation is the amount of pay they accept in exchange for taking the risk. I already said this.

I understand your comment to be this: "Risking your life is a huge fucking risk, so they deserve a shit ton of money for taking that risk." (Based on this: "You don't think it's a little stupid to pay our professional athletes more than the soldiers who defend our country? They (soldiers) take all the risk, just to come home and be shit on."). That opinion has nothing to do with my point about compensation for financial risk, which was in response to this statement:"Next time someone says that they got rich through hard work, ask them whose."

"Next time someone says that they got rich through hard work, ask them whose."
^ I didn't say that.

"Risking your life is a huge fucking risk, so they deserve a shit ton of money for taking that risk."
^ I didn't say this either


"You don't think it's a little stupid to pay our professional athletes more than the soldiers who defend our country? They (soldiers) take all the risk, just to come home and be shit on."

^ I DID ask you this.


And, you still have yet to answer this very simple question.

Or did you feel like re-wording some more of "my" quotes?

Maybe you want to project some more of your inadequacies on me?

Or maybe you just want to brag some more about how smart you are....I really don't care.



You pick and choose what part of the issue you want to address, and either ignore the rest, or re-word quotes until you feel better about yourself.

I almost feel bad for you. Almost.

 

[tokeprep]

"Next time someone says that they got rich through hard work, ask them whose."
^ I didn't say that.

"Risking your life is a huge fucking risk, so they deserve a shit ton of money for taking that risk."
^ I didn't say this either


"You don't think it's a little stupid to pay our professional athletes more than the soldiers who defend our country? They (soldiers) take all the risk, just to come home and be shit on."

^ I DID ask you this.


And, you still have yet to answer this very simple question.

Or did you feel like re-wording some more of "my" quotes?

Maybe you want to project some more of your inadequacies on me?

Or maybe you just want to brag some more about how smart you are....I really don't care.



You pick and choose what part of the issue you want to address, and either ignore the rest, or re-word quotes until you feel better about yourself.

I almost feel bad for you. Almost.

You used my statement to say soldiers should be paid more. That had nothing to do with what I said about financial risk. You don't seem to understand this, so I keep trying to explain it to you.

What am I ignoring? I keep responding to what you say and I'm not ignoring any of it.

 

[Pinworm]

Wealth is compensation for risk. People who are working on a factory line are taking on no risk--they just show up and get paid a market rate for their time. The person who built the plant by mortgaging his property who is also tasked with selling the product to cover all of the expenses takes on all the risk. If the product fails, the workers still have all of their pay, losing nothing; the owner loses everything he invested in the venture.

Anyone can be an owner but it's quite difficult and success is actually quite unlikely, so most people choose to work for pay instead. People who avoid risk don't deserve to be compensated for it.

Show me where you said financial risk anywhere in there.

 

[tokeprep]

Show me where you said financial risk anywhere in there.

Are you incapable of understanding context? When I reply to a post indicting rich people for "Getting rich off the backs of other people" with the justification that they risked their capital for an uncertain return while labor accepted a guaranteed return, do you not understand that I am speaking about financial risk? When the discussion has absolutely nothing to do with people risking life and limb but is about the division of financial rewards from an enterprise between labor and management, why would you think you could take it out of context and apply it to something totally unrelated?

 

[Pinworm]

Are you incapable of understanding context?

Are you incapable of honesty?

Answer my question.

 

[tokeprep]

Are you incapable of honesty?

Answer my question.

It's implicit, that's the point. We weren't discussing the value of life, we were discussing the division of money.

 

[Pinworm]

It's implicit, that's the point. We weren't discussing the value of life, we were discussing the division of money.

Answer my question.

 

[Pinworm]

Wealth is compensation for risk. People who avoid risk don't deserve to be compensated for it.

I'd like to know what kind of risks you take at work Tokeprep (with all those credentials of yours). Does it involve being shot, or blown up?

I wouldn't risk my life like that. I have far too much to offer the world.

You're not smarter than me.

..................

 

[tokeprep]

Answer my question.

I didn't write financial risk until I clarified for you, in response to the comment that demonstrated your lack of understanding. That I'm referring to financial risk is implicit from the context of the conversation, which has nothing to do with the value of life. You're not scoring points by trying to declare that I'm moving the ball; the problem is that you didn't know where it was in the first place. That's why I explained it to you, and that's the beauty and value of a conversation.

 

[tokeprep]

..................

Certainly demonstrating the latter point, given that you seem to have none here.

 

[Doer]

In the military you are under a rather strict supervised situation. And you are in a long term contract and cannot even sneeze at certain times. You are expected to put the safety of the team above your own personal life. The cost of material, weapons and especially ammo is moot, as the effort MUST succeed. It is all logistics.

So, battle risk is not the same at all as business risk. There it is all cost control. And the best reward in battle can be to lay down your life. Very different, and the risk / rewards cannot be stated more clearly.

That is very un-liike business where no shots are fired, but you can be knocked out and plowed under before you know what's happening.

And there are no Paratrooper or SpecOps Brigades to drop in to save you. Everyone laughs at the other guys' business failures. No one is laughing in War.

 

[Canna Sylvan]

In the military you are under a rather strict supervised situation. And you are in a long term contract and cannot even sneeze at certain times. You are expected to put the safety of the team above your own personal life. The cost of material, weapons and especially ammo is moot, as the effort MUST succeed. It is all logistics.

So, battle risk is not the same at all as business risk. There it is all cost control. And the best reward in battle can be to lay down your life. Very different, and the risk / rewards cannot be stated more clearly.

That is very un-liike business where no shots are fired, but you can be knocked out and plowed under before you know what's happening.

And there are no Paratrooper or SpecOps Brigades to drop in to save you. Everyone laughs at the other guys' business failures. No one is laughing in War.

Wars are business failures for the ones who didn't pick the right time to invest. They certainly do therefore laugh at the war they created.