stupid first world problems you're dealing with

You seem pretty productive modey.

Not productive enough! I've got a ton of music stuff to do this month but not enough time, gah!

Other's slavery to debt and its compounding interests, which means people not in debt are paying for all the slaves. The interest rate is how rich people make money.

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/debt-slavery-30-facts-about-debt-in-america-that-will-blow-your-mind

People who compare wage inequality to slavery. Really?

you call inability to manage your own spending and earning wage inequality? I'm fucking done. This world is fucked. Apocalypse for all.

  On 2/5/2014 at 5:30 PM, chenGOD said:

People who compare wage inequality to slavery. Really?

Seriously, which communist country are you from?

  On 2/5/2014 at 5:30 PM, chenGOD said:

People who compare wage inequality to slavery. Really?

It has become a form of slavery. You know slaves in roman times had varying degrees of independence, some could even own businesses. In other words when someone talks about debt slavery and wage slavery, the analogy is not incorrect. In fact these are a modern but not overt forms of slavery. The independence of a vast swathe of the masses has been subtly taken away from them, replaced by the chains of debt and inability to progress beyond their class, or earn money from their savings, or buy property due to the little income that they receive, etc.

Perhaps you'd prefer the term serfdom to the rentier class though. Given that the term slavery probably sits in your mind as being something that only happened during the time the europeans exploited the west africans for their labour. I'm quite happy to not have my language co-opted though, so i'll keep using slavery, with nary a moment of PC doubt over the matter.

It has now been 24 hours since I last saw my wedding ring. I feel naked without it. It must be in the house somewhere.

I've even ripped apart the hoover bag, such is the extent of my searching. Rather gutted.

Slavery in a modern context relates to the plight of slaves taken from their home lands against their will, their culture systematically destroyed, people beaten and raped, locked up at night so they couldn't run away, and not getting paid for doing backbreaking labour from which they saw no benefit.

Regarding Roman slaves - lifted straight from wikipedia (as a basic source):

Slaves were considered property under Roman law and had no legal personhood. Unlike Roman citizens, they could be subjected to corporal punishment, sexual exploitation (prostitutes were often slaves), torture, and summary execution.

Now you of course are referring to this part:

A Roman slave could hold property which, despite the fact that it belonged to their master, they were allowed to use as if it were their own.^[2] Skilled or educated slaves were allowed to earn their own money, and might hope to save enough to buy their freedom.

[so note that the property belonged to their master, who could presumably legally seize it at any time, with no legal recourse for the slave]

Compare that to flipping burgers in a McDonalds if you will (as that is the common depiction of a "wage slave"). Such a person gets the ability to go home at the end of the day, vote in elections, own property (without it being seized by a master), has legal protection regarding working hours and conditions, etc. etc.

I find it ironic that you would refer to the co-opting of language and not realize the hypocrisy of your position.

Now if you want to discuss income inequality, by all means - I'm all about it. It is the defining issue of our time, moreso than anything else, in my opinion. But using hyperbole is a childish, attention-seeking ploy that serves no good in terms of rational discussion. Furthermore, the comparison provides a great disservice to those who suffered under actual slavery. Finally, I'd thank you to kindly not make assumptions about what I think regarding a topic, because you generally end up looking like an ass.

PAFR: "inability to manage your own spending and earning". Only one of those do you have an actual ability to manage on a mostly individual level - spending. The other, wages, is a complex series of negotiations that involves many actors.

well fucktards tend to fall into lower income class anyways. If you don't know how to manage your money, then social mobility is out of the window for you. If you are retarded, then maybe your children are too, and you probably don't know much about investing in your children's education to give them more chance to be socially mobile. The widening of the social class gap is a natural phenomenon in rather anarchistic financial environments, and more so with less regulations. The ones suffering are the mostly the middle class citizens, people without debt but not much income either. The people benefiting most from our current system are people who have a lot and people who owe a lot. Wage can't really solve the problem. You can raise the minimum wage, but it doesn't really make much difference. Oh sure, you earn $2 more/hr, might be a great deal if you live in 3rd world countries. Companies are always trying to pay minimum for maximum gain. It's human nature to be greedy. Educating fucktards to not getting into debt (stop fucking spending more than you earn) can help lessening the social gap.

What an awfully empathic view you have of people in lower income brackets.

"fucktards" indeed.

Yes pafr, you win a prize! Damn, I feel like watmm is angry today.

Not agreeing with anyone on the subject... But I think that VERY, VERY often people who have made many mistakes in life or made many bad choices immediately blame "the system" when they were fully capable of achieving much more and it's simply their own fault for having a shit life.

Oh, why are you living in low income housing with 9 children? Because you didn't wear rubbers? etc etc.

I also don't treat those people like they are any less human though. I don't know.

Also whether or not the wage gap is getting any worse (and it obviously is), quality of life/HDI etc are trending upwards as they have been for hundreds of years. So average people don't have it as rough as they think. Even relatively "poor" people smartphones so wtf? People have this sense of entitlement that I don't quite understand.

Stephen: yes of course we have choices, and many of us make choices that are detrimental to our immediate well-being. We fail to maximize our utility. I actually agree with pafr (I just tend not to assume they are all "fucktards"(is that the technical term?) and there are many factors at play), education about debt and how credit works is very important.

The income inequality issue is something that is completely different from HDI (which has obviously not been trending upwards for hundreds of years, as the HDI was only created in 1990). And for developed (first world, global north, whatever term you want to use for the economically well off countries) nations, those sorts of indicators have actually plateaued in most cases, and in the US has gone down. The reason of course that it's gone down is because inequality is now factored into the HDI.

Income inequality is a huge problem, like I stated earlier, it is my opinion that in developed nations it is the most important issue we face (although it has become an issue in China, which is still a developing nation). Raising the minimum wage would have a huge impact, and it should be raised by some amount right now (variable per country) and then tied to inflation thereafter.

  On 2/6/2014 at 2:07 AM, chenGOD said:

Stephen: yes of course we have choices, and many of us make choices that are detrimental to our immediate well-being. We fail to maximize our utility. I actually agree with pafr (I just tend not to assume they are all "fucktards"(is that the technical term?) and there are many factors at play), education about debt and how credit works is very important.

 

The income inequality issue is something that is completely different from HDI (which has obviously not been trending upwards for hundreds of years, as the HDI was only created in 1990). And for developed (first world, global north, whatever term you want to use for the economically well off countries) nations, those sorts of indicators have actually plateaued in most cases, and in the US has gone down. The reason of course that it's gone down is because inequality is now factored into the HDI.

 

Income inequality is a huge problem, like I stated earlier, it is my opinion that in developed nations it is the most important issue we face (although it has become an issue in China, which is still a developing nation). Raising the minimum wage would have a huge impact, and it should be raised by some amount right now (variable per country) and then tied to inflation thereafter.

As you've pointed out yeah HDI as a composite measurement has only been around since the 90s. What I meant is all the indices/data points used for the composite have been on the rise such as life expectancy etc regardless of the aggregate measure not existing. And the US is indeed on its way down now that it's IHDI not just HDI, you got me there.

I agree with you on all points, never disagreed at all and hope I didn't come across that way (even included a disclaimer in my original post, no?). I just find it frustrating when I run in to people or even have employees/co-workers say things like "man, you're so lucky" just because I have a decent job and nice things. I worked fucking hard, and part of that was the incentive of not making minimum wage.

I think minimum wage should be raised, but it's a highly complex issue as you know. There would be many negative consequences economically (think productivity wise, rational people thinking at the margin etc) if the minimum wage was TOO high.

Krugman makes a pretty convincing argument for raising the minimum wage, and puts to rest the productivity issue as well (I'll give you a clue - Germany :) )

Sorry if I came off as snarky, just tying in HDI with the income inequality seems a little a disingenuous - there's little relationship there. HDI relates obviously to overall health of an economy, and I definitely agree that poor people in developed countries are very well off relative to people who live on under a dollar a day.

fucking lol, you guys are worried about agreeing and disagreeing. I was just trying to have a discussion/argument.

fucktard is probably my most signature word and is also short for fucking retard. I use it to give my poems more of my character, like on Vonnegut's 'so it goes.'

Yeah in general I have to say we have better quality of life than people in Middle Ages. The thing is people like to compare with each other, the competitive nature. Comparing wealth is one of the most common things people do. When poor people get rich, I don't think most of them are willing to donate their money back to the poor. That's fine. It's human nature to be greedy and not give a fuck about others. To help people get rich, you have to tell them to not get into debt. I'm just trying to educate fucktards.

  On 2/6/2014 at 2:21 AM, chenGOD said:

Krugman makes a pretty convincing argument for raising the minimum wage, and puts to rest the productivity issue as well (I'll give you a clue - Germany :) )

 

Sorry if I came off as snarky, just tying in HDI with the income inequality seems a little a disingenuous - there's little relationship there. HDI relates obviously to overall health of an economy, and I definitely agree that poor people in developed countries are very well off relative to people who live on under a dollar a day.

The reason I was tying in HDI was because our basic needs are well met in North America (and elsewhere) compared to hundreds of years ago. However, It seems that people have a sense of entitlement about them, like they should have as many nice things as a forensic accountant, a lawyer, or a CEO who has put a ton of hours into their profession, and have been highly responsive and adaptive to the opportunities that arise, but they want that stuff while working a gen-labour job or pumping gas. All this while they aren't even working nearly as hard as a farmer 120 years ago that had to work damn hard just to survive. They aren't thankful that they're able to survive off of flipping burgers or whatever, they want iphones and nice cars etc, when our forefathers weren't even sure if they'd survive the next winter.

Not sure I'm communicating effectively here, I'm going on about 20hrs with no sleep lol. I'm just ranting I guess. lol

I think i understand your point, however, there are many cases where people are not really actually surviving on minimum wage. And if you're someone who is at the top, you should be concerned with that.

Relative poverty is a bitch to deal with psychologically. I don't really think it's a sense of entitlement to want to be able to save money and not live paycheck to paycheck, or to ask for benefits, especially when corporate management is making huge profit off the labour of others (note to delet: this is not slavery ;) ).

It's also imperative to realize that while you certainly did work hard to get where you are, others who are working these menial jobs are working hard as well (seriously, flip burgers in a busy McDonalds and tell me its not hard work). Going a step beyond that, whose job provides more intrinsic value, that of the plumber or that of the accountant?

While it's certainly possible to make a shit-ton of money doing manual labour (my brother made close to $400,000 as an electrician in 2013 - yes working in the oil-fields north of Fort Mac), it's not the norm.

Now the idealist in me says that all members of our society should be accorded the same rights and privileges. While the realist in me says that will obviously never happen, it doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to lift everyone to live in relative comfort. After all, we are all humans, and should all be afforded dignity.

edit: this article about relative wealth is a fantastic read:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2014/02/03/how-sam-polk-former-wall-street-trader-and-wealth-addict-broke-free-of-his-golden-handcuffs/

my fwp is just, linux in general.

i'm compiling linux from scratch on my RPi and it compiled for 28 or so hours and then errored out. and I have no idea why. siiiiigh.

and i'm trying to install debian on my mbp but am having a nightmarish time getting wireless to work - which is a problem because there's no ethernet to fall back on :|

also some asshole in my last class got called on and said he didn't read any of the shit we were supposed to read and the prof decided, based on that, to quiz us based on the readings from time to time.

i have to go to a work leaving do today, how excruciating.

Well, I guess I'm done with WATMM.

Take my thoughts elsewhere.

Hope you come back dude [:

don't go Limpy. You're the best thing that happened to WATMM since Aphex Twin.

  On 2/7/2014 at 1:40 AM, A/D said:

Hope you come back dude [:

I posted that this morning before I had any coffee.