[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;45241923]I think people really underestimate what starving people will do when things get really bad. Starving people with starving kids? They go to war in other countries, I don't really believe modern first nation citizens are docile enough to not do the same when they're dying of starvation as well.
I remember reading a book about police management of riots and situations that eventually became riots and ones that didn't. Several officers and some of the figures showed that heat, and hot weather increases the likelyhood of riots. I think it's more than possible if things do get desperate.[/QUOTE]
Yes bread and circuses, why i myself am unemployed disgruntled youth with very slim prospect of employment in the near future and only remain content for my good parents who let me remain at home. Because the rents and food prices and the price of utilities are all too excessive to even start to consider getting a place of my own, that is without a somewhat stable source of income. If i was living in proper squalor without all the niceties provided by modern entertainment and electronics i would have no other way to spend my time but to go out and do something, then there would political rallies and protests, which our rights to are being eroded with posthaste for some reason or another.
Oh well let's see what happens first complete dystopia or a massive environmental collapse thanks to greed, gross neglect and incompetence of apparently a lot of people that actually have some influence in the big scale of things.
[QUOTE=Cabbage;45238878]Didn't that already happen with Occupy Wall Street, which did pretty much nothing?[/QUOTE]
The lack of any cohesive goal was what did it in, the sabotage of the movement from within and the media collusion in painting the movement as smelly entitled hipsters only helped it along.
The only problem I can see is that there are no more blank areas on the economic map to discover, everyone like this guy has already filled out the areas and the feats they've achieved can no longer be imitated so the chance to be like them is cosmically low.
[QUOTE=TheDestroyerOfall;45242333]If you look at it from a societal background, it had a large, profound effect on the way Americans view the economy, and had become a staple of a lot of american culture in recent years. It happens just as it is that ows simply brought these issues to light. Even now I hear people complain about the inequality while on campus, and even walking the streets every day. People are starting to get fed up with the inequality issues America faces, on a day to day basis. This might not be the best example, but on Facebook there was a photo shared over 10m times within a week about the inequality America faces. It's a powder keg waiting to burn, if the indicators are believable. We have these people who are constantly fed up, and want change, but aren't getting it. It'll only serve to push each side deeper in their ideology, and eventually there will arise conflict between the two groups.[/QUOTE]
These people are idiots in my opinion in that they could, instead of bitching now doing something later, do something [i]now[/I].
[editline]29th June 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;45241361]yeah, we're all passive cows until three things happen.
1) we lose our source of money
2) we lose our source of food
3) we lose our housing
then guess what? no one's a docile cow then. They're ready to kill people over such things.[/QUOTE]
In the end, we all have that inner savage that roamed the planet desperate for food against predators 10,000 years ago.
He's commiting several logical fallacies.
e.g. just because something happened in the past doesnt mean it will also happen now.
or because high min wages in seattle&SF haven't led to lay-offs it means that will happen in every city in the us, or the world for that matter.
Also forgetting the fact that the min and avg wage in usa are amongs the best in the world. If thousands of millions of people working on 100$/month haven't rebelled, i doubt people earning 1000k$+ in the usa will.
This is like social studies 101. High inequality can endanger the stability of society. Economic reasons are and have been behind many internal and international conflicts.
Things don't have to be perfect but they have to be "good enough" to maintain safety. Ironically uprisings sometimes come as a surprise to the better off part of the populace who are disconnected from those worse off.
[QUOTE=Falchion;45246710]This is like social studies 101. High inequality can endanger the stability of society. Economic reasons are and have been behind many internal and international conflicts.
Things don't have to be perfect but they have to be "good enough" to maintain safety. Ironically uprisings sometimes come as a surprise to the better off part of the populace who are disconnected from those worse off.[/QUOTE]
I'm pretty sure even Machiavelli said in his [I]Discourses[/I] says something along the lines of, the longer there is inequality, the closer to instability will happen.
[QUOTE=godfatherk;45246359]He's commiting several logical fallacies.
e.g. just because something happened in the past doesnt mean it will also happen now.
or because high min wages in seattle&SF haven't led to lay-offs it means that will happen in every city in the us, or the world for that matter.
Also forgetting the fact that the min and avg wage in usa are amongs the best in the world. If thousands of millions of people working on 100$/month haven't rebelled, i doubt people earning 1000k$+ in the usa will.[/QUOTE]
I like how you call him out on using logical fallacies and then do the same exact ones. "Because people earning 100$/m won't rebel, then people earning 1k$/m must not either."
He's not exactly saying that it will happen, he's just fitting in historical evidence for his argument. Calling that out would be the same as if someone called you out for saying "my gas bill might rise in the winter, because my gas bill has risen in the past winters."
In turn you're committing a reverse slippery slope. You're also using the fallacy fallacy, and the Texas sharpshooter.
[QUOTE]Also forgetting the fact that the min and avg wage in usa are amongs the best in the world. If thousands of millions of people working on 100$/month haven't rebelled, i doubt people earning 1000k$+ in the usa will.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, but that doesn't mean anything. You are forgetting the fact that living costs in other parts of the world might be cheaper or more expensive
[QUOTE=Falchion;45246710]This is like social studies 101. High inequality can endanger the stability of society. Economic reasons are and have been behind many internal and international conflicts.
Things don't have to be perfect but they have to be "good enough" to maintain safety. Ironically uprisings sometimes come as a surprise to the better off part of the populace who are disconnected from those worse off.[/QUOTE]
Things dont have to and will never be perfect.
That's a starting point anybody who studies economy or politics will tell you (Hirschmann). Conflicts always arise, no matter the situation because unlike what our marxist friends say, not everything is linked to economy.
Ideas are not exclusively dependent on your economic situation. When there are no longer economic issues around the corner, religious, ethnic and or ideological conflicts may arise.
That's supposedly why democracies and capitalism go very well with each other, because the quantity of conflicts generated are ALWAYS temporally fixed in favour of further stability and continuation of the system (Madison)
And that's why supposedly dictatorships can't last for too long and will never last. Because accepting divisible conflicts totally undermines the purpose of the dictatorship. The USSR partially imploded due to this. All their economists and social scientists were like "Oh look we don't have the people protesting and look all those capitalist democracies with their students rioting, their workers going to strike and etc" and suddenly, boom, auf fucking wiedersehen because instead of protesting for an economic issue, they protested for an ideological reason (Solidarnosc is the perfect example)
[QUOTE]the longer there is inequality, the closer to instability will happen.[/QUOTE]
Note: PERCEIVED inequality.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;45246016]These people are idiots in my opinion in that they could, instead of bitching now doing something later, do something [i]now[/I].
[editline]29th June 2014[/editline]
In the end, we all have that inner savage that roamed the planet desperate for food against predators 10,000 years ago.[/QUOTE]
Well of course they could do something, but they likely won't because it's not to the tipping point. Most things like this in the past, (I.e the French revolution, communist revolution) had a lot of inequality, but nobody did anything about it until a major event culled their outrage. It's going to be even worse with the compounded effects of mass media, however. It'll make the outrage be put on a long burner with a large pressure cooker, with the media "patching" the problem, (much like they did during ows) we'll see the people gain more and more radical beliefs, making it worse later.
Overall, I agree with you, though.
[QUOTE=TheDestroyerOfall;45247589]Well of course they could do something, but they likely won't because it's not to the tipping point. Most things like this in the past, (I.e the French revolution, communist revolution) had a lot of inequality, but nobody did anything about it until a major event culled their outrage. It's going to be even worse with the compounded effects of mass media, however. It'll make the outrage be put on a long burner with a large pressure cooker, with the media "patching" the problem, (much like they did during ows) we'll see the people gain more and more radical beliefs, making it worse later.
Overall, I agree with you, though.[/QUOTE]
I disagree. There were actions before those revolutions, many actions. Let's not forget the russians had a previous revolt that was put down. We pay more attention and remembrance to those because they actually succeeded and put their mark on history.
The difference with the French Revolution and the November revolutions is that the politics of the era didn't allow or gave a space for those who felt oppressed which ironically, then would cause their own downfall. As you can see, democracies progressively gave space to the working class as conflicts happened. The British industrial history is the perfect example of this.
In fact, socialists and working class parties took notice of this and started forming the social-democrat parties (Przeworski) which would go on to become little catch-all parties.
Nowadays is totally different. Unemployment benefits, min wages, max working hours, regulations and further improvements are due to the access of the working class and lower middle class to the political arena which allows them to somehow have more leverage when it comes to negotiating with the capital.
Things only change here when life becomes very uncomfortable, I have little doubt that we'll see living wages adopted in the next 5-10 years.
[QUOTE=Cabbage;45238878]Didn't that already happen with Occupy Wall Street, which did pretty much nothing?[/QUOTE]
OWS was a shambles of a movement.
It was dragged down by people trying to use to co-opt their interpersonal politics bullshit. Just look at the interviews, half of them couldn't even form a coherent sentence as to WHAT they were trying to achieve. It was almost purely a movement of emotion, not rational thought.
Screaming theres a problem, do something doesn't help if you can't identify exactly what the problem is and what can be done to address it.
[QUOTE=Cutthecrap;45247568]
Note: PERCEIVED inequality.[/QUOTE]
No, there's a serious and actual inequality. It's real. Even saying this shows you just don't understand the opposing view point, nor do you give a damn to try to.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;45248946]No, there's a serious and actual inequality. It's real. Even saying this shows you just don't understand the opposing view point, nor do you give a damn to try to.[/QUOTE]
You didn't get what I said...
First, there is no point in discussing inequality if no side perceives it.
Second, inequality is not always objective, because we can be talking about something more than economics.
[QUOTE=Cutthecrap;45248972]You didn't get what I said...
First, there is no point in discussing inequality if no side perceives it.
Second, inequality is not always objective, because we can be talking about something more than economics.[/QUOTE]
But people do perceive it?
Nothing is objective, but you can still say by almost every metric there are hugely impoverished groups of people
I read it all and it made me want to have a chat with this guy in a bar.
[quote]
So forget all that rhetoric about how America is great because of people like you and me and Steve Jobs. You know the truth even if you won’t admit it: If any of us had been born in Somalia or the Congo, all we’d be is some guy standing barefoot next to a dirt road selling fruit. It’s not that Somalia and Congo don’t have good entrepreneurs. It’s just that the best ones are selling their wares off crates by the side of the road because that’s all their customers can afford.
Read more: [url]http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014_Page3.html#ixzz364OByy8X[/url]
[/quote]
That's golden.
[editline]30th June 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Cabbage;45238878]Didn't that already happen with Occupy Wall Street, which did pretty much nothing?[/QUOTE]
Read the article
[quote]
I know what you think: You think that Occupy Wall Street and all the other capitalism-is-the-problem protesters disappeared without a trace. But that’s not true. Of course, it’s hard to get people to sleep in a park in the cause of social justice. But the protests we had in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis really did help to change the debate in this country from death panels and debt ceilings to inequality.
It’s just that so many of you plutocrats didn’t get the message.
Read more: [url]http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014_Page4.html#ixzz364PPOy00[/url]
[/quote]
[QUOTE=BrownTown;45247818]Things only change here when life becomes very uncomfortable, I have little doubt that we'll see living wages adopted in the next 5-10 years.[/QUOTE]
More like things only change when life becomes very desperate.
this is all wishful thinking. sounds good on paper yeah, but few will actually raise their low-paid, basic skills workers more because of moral reasons.
this is rather more down-to-earth:
[QUOTE][B]This Is Why I Don't Give You A Job[/B]
I could hire 12 people with €760 net salary, but I don't. I tell you why. You could work for my service provider company in a nice office. It's not telemarketing, it's not a scam. You would do serious work that requires high skills, 8 hours daily, only weekdays. I would employ you legally, I would pay your taxes and social security. I could give such a job to a dozen people, but I will not, and here I explain why.
I wouldn't hire a woman.
The reason is very simple: women give birth to children. I don't have the right to ask if she still wanted to. If I had the right, and she would answer, she could deceive me deliberately or she could change her mind.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have any problem with women giving birth to children. That's how I was born and that's how my child was born. I wouldn't hire a woman because when she gets pregnant, she goes for a 3 years maternity leave, during which I can't fire her. If she wants two children, the vacation is 6 years long.
Of course, work has to be done, so I would have to hire somebody who works instead of her while she is spending her long holiday years. But not only I couldn't fire her while she's away, I couldn't fire her when she comes back either. So I would have to fire the one who's been working instead of her for the whole time. When a woman would come back from the maternity leave I would be legally forced to increase her salary to the present level in her position, and also, give out her normal vacation days, that she has collected during the maternity leave. When she would come back to work, she would start with 2-4 months of fully paid vacation.
I wouldn't hire people over 50 either.
Not that I have any problem with the most experienced professionals. I wouldn't hire them, because they are soon in the protected age. And then I would be trapped with them, similar to the trap with employing women. You can't fire people in the protected age, so I would have to pay the salary and its total cost even if he or she doesn't work well or at least up to acceptable standards. I couldn't fire the protected employee, but someone would have to do the job right, so I would have to hire another person. It's all right with me if they're protected, but then I won't hire them.
I would only hire 25-50 years old men.
They're also risky to hire, because I don't have the right to fire them either, if for any reason (I don't have enough income, or I don't like how they work) I want to. There's a high risk that they will go to court, and there's a high chance they will win. But this risk I would be prepared to handle.
You would cost me €1572.
Your Net Salary: Your Gross Salary: My Total Cost: State markup:
€ 185 € 238 € 306 165%
€ 227 € 306 € 393 173%
€ 322 € 458 € 589 183%
€ 408 € 612 € 786 193%
€ 479 € 765 € 982 205%
€ 570 € 917 € 1178 207%
€ 760
€ 1223 € 1572 207%
€ 950 € 1529 € 1965 207%
As you can see, your €760 salary would cost my company €1572. This 2x state multiplier could only be lower, if I would pay less salary. But I wouldn't hire you for less money, because I think if you made less then €760, you couldn't make a decent living. You would become depressed, destroy your own life, my company and even me. So, I am not willing to hire anybody for less than this.
I would also have to take into consideration, that a 35 years old person is entitled 25 days of vacation per year. That means 1 extra month of working days. If I needed 12 persons' work, I would have to employ 13 to account for the one who's on vacation.
But I would still give you a job despite all of the above.
I am a braveheart entrepreneur. I would sell my apartment, and I would move to a rented flat. I would hope, that the €90,000 that I would make this way will be enough. I would launch my business bravely, and if I didn't succeed (that is quite likely with startups) I wouldn't be a crybaby.
My company would provide an excellent service, and it's impossible to provide without decent working conditions. I would employ 13 people. I would constantly need 12 persons' work, plus the one who works instead of the one on vacation. 14 people including me would work in the 158 sqm nicely furbished, comfortable office. This would cost 10 €/sqm/month rent, and 3,5 €/sqm/month utility fees, a total of 2133 €/month.
These would be my monthly expenses:
Office: € 2,133
Wages: 13 x €1572 = € 20,436
Other expenses (accounting, marketing, etc.): € 3,058
Total: € 25,627
retty scary for monthly bills isn't it? This is how much I would have to pay out every month, regardless of my income. In the good months, and the bad months too. In the summer low season, and before Christmas when we do much less work.
This company couldn't possibly sell more than 1000 hours / month of billable service in the average month. This means, that to break even, in order to make enough income to cover my costs, I would need to set my pricing €25,627 / 1000 = €25 / hour. But breaking even isn't enough, I would also need some profit.
I am not greedy, the market is tough too, I would markup my prices with 20% profit. This would increase my hourly rate to €30, that is pronounced as thirty Euros plus VAT, €37,5. I would round this sum (down), so our customers would pay €37 / hour for our service.
Out of this €37, 7 would go directly to the state, 30 would be company income. I am an optimist person. Our marketing would kick ass, my plans would work perfectly, indeed we would succeed selling an average of 1000 hours of service monthly. Business would fly, I would be lucky with all my employees, everybody would work like a charm.
This would generate 1000 x €30 = €30,000 company income.
€4,373 would be profit. I could pay €2,446 gross salary to myself, that would cost my company €3,144. Out of that, €1,521 would be my net salary, almost the double of what my employees make, and the company would make €948 profit before taxation. Out of this, I would pay €95 corporate tax, and the local business tax, that is 2% of company income, that is €587. At the end, the company would have €266 left, this is how much my company's capital could grow per month.
So I would make €1,521 per month, but don't forget, that I sold my €90,000 apartment, and I invested it in the company. So I would have to rent a flat for at least €300, otherwise I would become homeless. I would live a modest life, wouldn't spend a lot, my wife would also make money, I wouldn't even have the time to spend a lot, because unlike my employees, I would work 12 hours even on the weekends.
This way I could save €900 per month, so my €90,000 investment would return in 100 months. It would take 9 years to recover the money that I invested in the company, so I could buy myself an apartment again. From them on I wouldn't have to live on a tight budget, I wouldn't have to pay rents, and wouldn't have to save either. I would live like a European.
Under these circumstances - I hope it's understandable - I don't feel strongly urged to sell my apartment and invest the money into a new company. But for 4 reasons I will definitely not do it.
[B]1.[/B]The competition sells the same service, but illegally, under really crappy circumstances, charging €9 per hour. They simply pocket the money, without even issuing an invoice, it doesn't even include the VAT. They don't have to take any responsibility, there are no warranties, they officially don't even do anything, there's not even an official, legal trace of their existence. They don't have to rent an office, hire an accountant. By doing this 5 hours a day, they can easily make €1,000. They would point their middle fingers to my €760 job offer, where they wouldn't be allowed to do crappy work, but show up in time every day and meet very high professional standards in their work, they wouldn't be allowed to defraud the customers, and if they did, they would be fired.
[B]2.[/B]The competition would do smear campaigns against my company. I would have to face anti-capitalist propaganda, I would be seen as a greedy asshole who charges €37 for what they charge €9, I would be an enemy of the nice Hungarian people, while others work honestly for the fraction of that money.
[B]3.[/B]Many of my employees would only come to work for me to learn my business secrets and to steal my clients. They would lure them by lying that they will get the same value and quality of service, but at the fraction of the price. After they stole enough clients, they would deliberately cause a lot of harm to my company to get themselves fired. They would then go to court, stating that I fired them illegally, and they would win the case. In the meantime, they would of course work happily for the stolen clientele, that has cost me a fortune to build up. And of course they would be offended. They would trumpet on all kind of forums, that they have worked for my company, they know what they're talking about. Not only it is very expensive, but the service is a piece of crap too.
[B]4.[/B]Complaining about all this wouldn't help, no one would give a flying fuck.
So this is why I don't give a job. And I think a lot of other entrepreneurs who have experienced it, will also not give a job because of this. And this is why more and more people are jobless, who buy less and less things, so they pay less and less VAT. And this is why there are less and less decent companies, who hire less and less employees, who pay less and less taxes, so there's less and less state money for social aids, and this is why social aid is about to come in the form of concentration camps.
I will only give a job if:
I can fire you, if I want to.
If VAT goes down to at least 20%, better yet 15%.
If the state takes away "only" 30% of your money.
If higher income is not exponentially punished.
If the state punishes corruption instead of decent companies.
Until these things don't change, hell I don't give a job. Until the state promotes corruption in every possible aspect, I don't start a business, and I don't give a job.
[/QUOTE]
It's biased towards the market conditions in Hungary though.
[editline]30th June 2014[/editline]
continuation:
[QUOTE]nothing has changed for the better. On the contrary. It's a whole lot worse now. To all of you international readers, here €760 net sounds like a dream salary for most people. Even medical doctors make less than half of this, at the beginning of their career. Prices on the other hand are the same as everywhere else.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]I wrote this post half a year ago, and things have changed a lot since then. For the worse. VAT has been increased to 27%. But this is not among the important issues. Not any more. It wasn't the important message in this post either. I am not against social security, hell I'm not against women, I am soon an elderly. High taxes are not the problem. High taxes and the lack of soundness, effectiveness in goverments promote corruption.
Decent entrepreneurs simply don't have a choice, but playing the tricks. Otherwise it's impossible to compete with the trickster competition. Corruption becomes so deeply embedded in the society, that there's hardly any decent work ethics left. The state - more often than not - destroys the life of whoever it's stating to protect.
Our present goverment has declared a war. A war on EU, a war on IMF, a war on multinational companies, a war against banks. People are leaving Hungary. People are changing their Forints to Euros and save it in Austrian banks. And you don't even have to read between the lines any more. They run an openly nationalist, racist, undemocractic propaganda. Our money is becoming toilet paper.
I hear voices from all over Europe, and the whole world really, that corporations control the goverment, globalisation is bad, capitalism is dead, etc. Come here, and study the alternative. What anti-capitalism is like, when nobody controls the goverment. When totally incompetent, inefficient, unintelligent people control your life, and laugh at your face. When your goverment nationalizes pension funds, and punishes your banks with extra taxes that are impossible to pay, so they have no choice, but to close shop.
About the new laws. Our constitution is unconstitutional as it's perfectly summarized in the title of a late New York Times article. They have hard-coded their present taxation system in the constitution. They have changed the name of the constitution to "base law" (alaptörvény). They are fighting a war against EU, someting we are part of. We live in fear. In fear, that we are going to be thrown out of the EU if our goverment continues on this path. We fear, we will loose our European citizenship, and live behind an iron curtain again, with our toy national money, with our national socialist "goverment".
If I told you one or two details, it wouldn't sound very scary. So what if the tax system is hardcoded in the constitution? So what if they have changed the constitution? So what if a goverment directly controls the media? As for the tax issue for example, I'm personaly in favour of a flat tax system, that is now hardcoded. But I'm a democrat. I think such thing has no place in a constitution. I think future goverments must also have the right to define a tax system that reflects the will of people who elect them.
So if you see - or better yet, experience - the big picture, you must realise, that this situation is very similar to that of 1930. Intelligent people must act, before it's too late.
After the tipping point - there will be no way back.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Cabbage;45238878]Didn't that already happen with Occupy Wall Street, which did pretty much nothing?[/QUOTE]
The US is nowhere ner true inequality like you see in a lot of countries. Sure the inequality in the US is considered often the worst from all western nations (and the gap is growing in all of them) but they're still quite a distance away from the situation in latin america and India for example.
But if you take a look at the current situation in latin america for instance and just by how much aggressiveness has been rising there...
Essentially as far as Inquality goes, the US is still borderline green. European nations tend to be a bit better.
For inequality to be a social issue, the middle class has to essentially be eroded close to non existence so that you start seeing only two social strata as opposed to 3.
The occupy movement also had issues in that it was often spearheaded by people from the middle class, sometimes even the upper segment of it.
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