Is the redistribution of wealth and resources just to alleviate poverty?

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

I can only make judgments based on the evidence that I have seen. And all you have done is give what clearly is your opinion that government workers do not deserve what they make.

No, you never said you thought they deserved what they earn. My specific question was: Do government workers deserve what they earn? And your answer was no.

ahhh. There’s the confusion. My mistake. Allow me to rephrase my answer.

YES, government workers, like everyone, deserve what they earn…in spite of being overpaid.

No it is not necessarily blatent theft. If the boss knows that the worker slacks off and refuses to discipline or fire the worker, then it is not theft. I remember one person who hijacked his boss because the boss was over a barrel. The boss needed someone to come in for one hour, the worker refused unless he paid a full days pay for an hours work. The boss was stuck and he had to pay, but there was no theft involved.

That is blatant extortion.

If you take out the ability for someone to go elsewhere that is unjust.

Unjust? Ha. That is kidnapping or false imprisonment, unless you are talking about slaves.

 

[stinkcat_14]

ahhh. There’s the confusion. My mistake. Allow me to rephrase my answer.

YES, government workers, like everyone, deserve what they earn…in spite of being overpaid.

There is nothing wrong with being overpaid, it certainly beats being underpaid. Of course, one time my state thought we were all overpaid and decided to freeze our salaries. So what did I do? I took a leave of absence and worked at a private school that paid me more money.

That is blatant extortion.

No, that is supply and demand, you should study some economics some time, you might learn something.

Unjust? Ha. That is kidnapping or false imprisonment, unless you are talking about slaves.

Slaves.

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

What in this miserable and corrupt world is fair? Was the industrial revolution fair to the Third-World? Did the top 2% of the richest people obtain their money fairly? Surly it’s not from the perspective of those living in extreme poverty. We steal resources from the impoverished countries, such as those in Africa. It’s time justice is served and severe poverty gets eliminated, even if it costs the well-to-do some of their riches. In considering what is fair and just, remember that there are 9,500 children who die of starvation every day. Please, I ask you, is it fair?

LOVE!

There is enough in this world for everyone’s needs. There is not enough on this world for everyone’s greed.

-Mahatma Gandhi

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Even if it meant that your own family would starve?

Good Evening Zoltan Cobalt:

I’m offering the idea that the first and primary problem of our civilization and our conditioning is the lack of a true and in-depth understanding of the fact that we are in fact all one family. This is not simply a metaphorical thing, and if this were properly understood, there would be no need to put anyone, regardless of their relation, above another. The sick and the poor, the holy and the unholy, the perpetrator and the victim, the person who flipped us off in traffic - these are all our family. As long as we simply act in kind with one another, we are each the least among us, or so I believe. The vine and the branch are one thing, not separate things, and we are all very much a part of one another.

Thank you,
Gary

 

[Sochi]

Wow! Soch, old sport…Great rant!

So your dad was named Zoltan also. Wonderful! And he fought hardasses. My Dad did the same. He was tortured and killed by Russian hardasses during the Hungarian Revolution.
We have so much in common.

But, you still have not answered my question: How much of what I earn belongs to you …and why?

And please do not confuse a person’s benevolence with what is forced by a government.

Thanks! Always enjoy a good rant.

Sorry to hear about your Dad. Mine was lucky, and my Mom, or I wouldn’t be here. I was born in the DP camp where they met after trekking across the country to get out. It wasn’t torture or death, but the saw plenty of it. My Mom actually organized people into theft squads to steal food for the people in the camp.
They almost starved keeping me alive, so I have some gratitude for them as you might imagine. Your story must be full of such and more. Glad you made it.

How much of your money “belongs” to me? $0. And likewise mine to you. For my part, I live on $610 a month, a bit of savings, and work when I can get it. I do about 16 hrs volunteer work a month, more when my Mom was alive. The $610 is SS and isn’t more because I did a lot of years out of the Country doing what might be called humanitarian, work so while it isn’t as much as most, it is more than some get. I still donate to some charities. I figure out my tax, but I’m in the same category as GE and some other large profitable corporations: $0 income tax.

If I had a guaranteed living wage, which in my case might amount to about $2K/mo total, I’d be doing a heck of a lot more volunteer work. That would mean that, at my usual rates, the community would be getting a very nice bargain for services rendered. I’m invested in the well being of my community, attending County and City meetings on various issues, even being an activist on occasion, and work in both the mental health ans arts fields.

It in in that service capacity that I have come to certain conclusions. Basically they are summed up in this: It is far cheaper and overall of much greater benefit to the community to take care of those under the poverty line according to their minimal needs, including leisure, than to do rescue work and mop-ups during and after crises, most of which might be very well avoided had the individual a basic living wage and necessary care, whether they “earned” it or not. The community would be less stressed, and the exigencies of poverty would less contribute to the financial and security burden of the community.

Now there are people in this area who militate, quite literally, for no taxes and for guns, more guns and freer use of them, and the cutting of every imaginable social support program. Perhaps they would be happier in Somalia, as that is the logical conclusion of their aims. So the prevalence of greed in humanity has long ago convinced me that a free market means devolution into barbarism. That might be good for the robber barons, whom we already contend with in the form of banks.

Jefferson, as I said, wasn’t a fortune teller. Our pubic financial state is an inherent outcome of using fiat money operating with a fractional reserve system. Under that system, perhaps including some other factors, I understand why you are in fear for your finances. Most people are, and rightfully so. Everyone feels that they own the return of their labors. Yet those labors do not happen in isolation or without inherent dependency, except for banks, which can literally and legally produce money out of thin air by fractional reserve.

So to the end of a healthy civilization, which clearly we are not on the verge of yet, I kind of go with with what Jesus said about rendering unto Caesar. Seems He understood that civilization, or what passes for it, runs on taxes. Ideally, and I stress ideally, no citizen would go without basics in such a Nation as ours, which has a climbing GDP and soaring CEO and corporate bottom line, some way proportionally above the world average.And the buying power of the average laborer, by design, is also declining: it now takes $100 to buy what $10 would have in my birth year. Of course, here that is all legal. Financial predation is in fact a way of life here. But we also have to ask if legal and usual is necessarily good, and is our way really in our best common interest, or only in the excellent to superb interest of a very few.

(continued)

 

[Sochi]

(part 2)

So while I may contend that I don’t personally want your money, I do feel, in a world where it has been demonstrated that not everyone needs to work anyway, that there be some differently based economic structure that at least keeps the bottom of society from economic woes, as greatly beneficial as that situation now is to some. And there are many ways that might happen. But short of re-structuring everything, it is easy enough and useful enough to re-structure both the use of money as votes, and taxes as privilege.

By money as votes, I mean that those who primarily live in the paper economy of financial instruments which operate 24/7/365, be taxed as has now been instituted in Europe with the Robin Hood tax, as here those are taxed at a significantly lower rate than labor. Also, the lobbying influence of those who can afford to hire someone to press on assemblies of law making at whatever level should be cut off, as it skews the actual interests and needs of the public again toward those who already have way more than what the basics require, leaving the rest of us essentially voiceless in our own Nation. And some equity needs to happen in the area of these same folks having resources to hide money offshore, or use it to relocate jobs once plentiful here, or to suppress segments of the population from rightfully adding their votes to elections.

As for other taxes, while it is easy for some to say “I built this,” etc etc, what is actually meant is that someone organized and utilized the ideas, talents, skills, and labors of a lot of other people. Dale Carnegie was very specific about how that should happen. So while there is no doubt that such organizational abilities ought to be rewarded, it also needs to be recognized that every girder and rivet, each growing plant, all the factory and transportation processes, etc, weren’t by any means conducted by a single individual. In fact quite the opposite. But the legal methods of compounding accrual at the expense of the least able to voice or have leisure to do such overview activities leave them in the lurch as far as reward fro often more than due diligence. These people could well afford a higher tax rate that accounts for some of this dynamic. Yet as we know, many are taxed at a significantly lower rate than their secretaries or the people who teach their children.

We might also mention that our Nation’s military budget is greater than the next 14 combined, many of them our allies. And yet we build a 20B helicopter for the President, and built hundreds of multi miilion dollar tanks the Army doesn’t want, and do many similar fabulously wasteful things. And we are still OK with having the highest child poverty rate among developed Nations, a greater portion of our population in prison because here that is a business with a huge lobby in Congress, and we have tens of homes empty for each homeless person on the street. And we treat our war fighters like **** when they come back maimed in heart, mind, and body, some having given all so we can do these things.

So, Zoltan (what a neat name! Always cared for it.) I personally don’t want your money, and I don’t even think your money in particular should go to help others through your charity or through government extraction. But in a land where money is precipitated out of nothing and has value added by labor, that value to be vacuumed to the pockets of people richer than God, by gollee, I do believe there is enough cash to take care of those in need, and even, yes even, give a ride to some who don’t deserve it. It is far cheaper to let a few slide than divert pickyness on to them. Let’s deal with actual cooperate welfare queens: the thievery of those queens so overwhelms what even a great number of food stamp defrauders might do to an astonishing degree. And by the way, the stats show way lower fraud in welfare and voting than the diversionary tactics of the psychometrists of the very rich would have you believe. It is actually negligible.

So I hope that goes to answering your question. I don’t want your money. But since money is an invention and produced on demand, it could be more equitably used to relive suffering and hardship, even if a few rats live because of that. I assure you it is the mega rats that are printing the money to begin with. Also, it is a myth that people in this country get paid what they are worth. Does the person who gets my annual income per hour for being on the phone and shuffling papers deserve it? I dont think so. and in your example, $10/hour is absurd in this Nation. You can’t afford a place and food for that little. Maybe the one who wasn’t doing well was in that condition at that rate because she had three kids and another job. It is just not that simple, Zoltan.

 

[Kamaduck]

I am not OK with people not having what they need.

That’s good!

As long as they can’t provide for themselves or buy what they need and don’t consider their need to be a “right” to my benevolence.

But you know what…a little thank you would be nice, rather than…" Hey gimmie more, you can afford it."

Oh, I would thank you if I were actually in need of your food. But if I decided not to thank you, you would still be obliged not to let me die. We’re not allowed to withhold food from a starving man when we ourselves have enough food to spare. This just seems basic to me. The Bible is full of commands to provide for the poor, especially if they can’t provide for themselves. We have to make sure people’s needs are met.

The basic questions, when we apply this idea to real life, are:

1. What constitutes a need? Food and water are absolutes. Most would include clothing, some might include shelter, and maybe basic health care. But after that, we’ve given people everything they need to survive (I mean, assuming they’re not infants, elderly, or disabled persons, who require somewhat more care). The question then is whether we’re obliged to help them with anything else. You could argue that we should help them get out of poverty, which would probably require helping them get a job or an education. There are lots of things that you can argue are needs- it just depends what state you think is the minimum that all people ought to have.
2. Under what circumstances are we allowed to force (or perhaps highly suggest with positive or negative incentives) the wealthy to provide for the poor? What means can we use to do so? This is, I expect, closely tied to the title of this thread. Are we allowed to “redistribute” wealth, either by way of the government or some other way? And if so, what is a legitimate method of redistribution, and which methods are off the table?

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Good Evening Zoltan Cobalt:

I’m offering the idea that the first and primary problem of our civilization and our conditioning is the lack of a true and in-depth understanding of the fact that we are in fact all one family. This is not simply a metaphorical thing, and if this were properly understood, there would be no need to put anyone, regardless of their relation, above another. The sick and the poor, the holy and the unholy, the perpetrator and the victim, the person who flipped us off in traffic - these are all our family. As long as we simply act in kind with one another, we are each the least among us, or so I believe. The vine and the branch are one thing, not separate things, and we are all very much a part of one another.

Thank you,
Gary

Good Evening Gary:

Very interesting concept. A little on the Utopian side, but definitely worth a ponder.

Your pal
Zoltan

 

[Sochi]

Good Evening Zoltan Cobalt:

I’m offering the idea that the first and primary problem of our civilization and our conditioning is the lack of a true and in-depth understanding of the fact that we are in fact all one family. This is not simply a metaphorical thing, and if this were properly understood, there would be no need to put anyone, regardless of their relation, above another. The sick and the poor, the holy and the unholy, the perpetrator and the victim, the person who flipped us off in traffic - these are all our family. As long as we simply act in kind with one another, we are each the least among us, or so I believe. The vine and the branch are one thing, not separate things, and we are all very much a part of one another.

Thank you,
Gary

Yes, I agree, and it only seems Utopian, I think, is because, as GK Chesterton said about Christianity–“It hasn’t been tried yet.” And to that point, having scanned some of the people banned from here, (my morbid hobby,) I must say that some of those were actually going in the direction of a practical and experiential way of achieving just that.

Only it seems that they ran in to the fact that alternate understandings are not welcome here as they are in some manner disturbing. I personally don’t think that whatever the word “god” refers to in so many imaginations is in any way effected by such interest or even experimentation, nor do I think that reading alternative explanations lead to spiritual harm. It might lead, however, to spiritual reawakening in those who are in some faith or another, political or otherwise. purely through accident of birth or habituation.

You can’t, as they say, make omelettes without breaking eggs. The Mennonites have a bit of wisdom in their practice of Rumspringa, yes? The ones who come back are solid and convinced.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

1. Under what circumstances are we allowed** to force (or perhaps highly suggest with positive or negative incentives) the wealthy** to provide for the poor? What means can we use to do so? This is, I expect, closely tied to the title of this thread. Are we allowed to “redistribute” wealth, either by way of the government or some other way? And if so, what is a legitimate method of redistribution, and which methods are off the table?

Ahhh…there’s the slippery slope.

Our government was not formed as a charity.

A government that takes from one by force and gives to another is guilty of THEFT.

A wealthy person who contributes to the needs of others as he sees fit is practicing the virtue of charity. A wealthy person was allowed to deduct a portion of his charitable giving from his taxes. Positive incentive Now our government, in its ignorance, has eliminated those deductions. Don’t blame the rich if charitable contributions are down.

 

[stinkcat_14]

A government that takes from one by force and gives to another is guilty of THEFT.

Not according to the Church. Otherwise, Social Security would have been condemned a long time ago.

A wealthy person who contributes to the needs of others as he sees fit is practicing the virtue of charity. A wealthy person was allowed to deduct a portion of his charitable giving from his taxes. Positive incentive Now our government, in its ignorance, has eliminated those deductions. Don’t blame the rich if charitable contributions are down.

The charitable deduction is still allowed.

 

[Kamaduck]

Ahhh…there’s the slippery slope.

Our government was not formed as a charity.

A government that takes from one by force and gives to another is guilty of THEFT.

A wealthy person who contributes to the needs of others as he sees fit is practicing the virtue of charity. A wealthy person was allowed to deduct a portion of his charitable giving from his taxes. Positive incentive Now our government, in its ignorance, has eliminated those deductions. Don’t blame the rich if charitable contributions are down.

Well, it’s a question. I won’t pretend that I have the answer. We’ve got to provide for people somehow, and I think the OP was asking what lengths we are allowed to go to in order to provide for people’s needs.

If you agree that all people should have the basic necessities of life (lets say food and water, clothing, and shelter, for the moment), then how do we get those things to them?

I don’t think I agree that taking something from someone and giving it to another is always theft. That would make, say, taxes that we use to pay military personnel a form of theft.

 

[TEPO]

(part 2)

So while I may contend that I don’t personally want your money, I do feel, in a world where it has been demonstrated that not everyone needs to work anyway, that there be some differently based economic structure that at least keeps the bottom of society from economic woes, as greatly beneficial as that situation now is to some. And there are many ways that might happen. But short of re-structuring everything, it is easy enough and useful enough to re-structure both the use of money as votes, and taxes as privilege.

By money as votes, I mean that those who primarily live in the paper economy of financial instruments which operate 24/7/365, be taxed as has now been instituted in Europe with the Robin Hood tax, as here those are taxed at a significantly lower rate than labor. Also, the lobbying influence of those who can afford to hire someone to press on assemblies of law making at whatever level should be cut off, as it skews the actual interests and needs of the public again toward those who already have way more than what the basics require, leaving the rest of us essentially voiceless in our own Nation. And some equity needs to happen in the area of these same folks having resources to hide money offshore, or use it to relocate jobs once plentiful here, or to suppress segments of the population from rightfully adding their votes to elections.

So I hope that goes to answering your question.

Does this mean you were one of the 44.44% of voters here who believe American tax money should be diverted to 3rd world countries because of our Industrial Revolution?

 

[TEPO]

Well, it’s a question. I won’t pretend that I have the answer. We’ve got to provide for people somehow, and I think the OP was asking what lengths we are allowed to go to in order to provide for people’s needs.

If you agree that all people should have the basic necessities of life (lets say food and water, clothing, and shelter, for the moment), then how do we get those things to them?

I don’t think I agree that taking something from someone and giving it to another is always theft. That would make, say, taxes that we use to pay military personnel a form of theft.

You too…? You voted to add taxes for the hungry in Africa?

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Sochi; Only it seems that they ran in to the fact that alternate understandings are not welcome here as they are in some manner disturbing.

Good evening Sochi: I believe that these are alternate understandings only to those who have no understanding. Many people will read the same map over and over while driving past what they sought the map for. Such is often the case with scripture. The true meanings are in there, and they are often much simpler than we make them out to be. Or so I think.

I personally don’t think that whatever the word “god” refers to in so many imaginations is in any way effected by such interest or even experimentation, nor do I think that reading alternative explanations lead to spiritual harm. It might lead, however, to spiritual reawakening in those who are in some faith or another, political or otherwise. purely through accident of birth or habituation.

Yes, what we believe is largely a matter of the culture and circumstances we are raised in.

Thanks,
Gary

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

You too…? You voted to add taxes for the hungry in Africa?

Good Evening Tepo: Is that a bad thing?

Thanks,
Gary

 

[TEPO]

Good Evening Tepo: Is that a bad thing?

Thanks,
Gary

I don’t know. The USCCB hasn’t petitioned for it, so I guess it’s not a top priority then.

 

[Brendan]

So, hell. We have all earned eternity in hell.

Lucky for us that somebody came by and took care of that deserved punishment for us. After that, we both agreed to follow this person and strive to be like Him. That’s part of what it means to be Catholic. His take on giving people stuff was something like this:

That is true, which is why that the example of Christ is one of unmeritied giving. Can we compel God to grant us salvation? No.

Likewise the concept of compelled giving is equally contrary to the Gospel. Charity, being a virtue cannot be compelled. And if it is not Charity (Charos-Love) it is contrary to Love.

And like Love, it cannot be compelled.

That is why we see the Golden-Mouthed Doctor of the Church, St. John Chrysostom state

Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich person’s gold and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg the emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the level of the poor and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone? Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm.

Those who combined both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making themselves rich again. Worse still, the rich whose gold was taken away would feel bitter and resentful; while the poor who received the gold form the hands of soldiers would feel no gratitude, because no generosity would have prompted the gift. Far from bringing moral benefit to society, it would actually do moral harm.

Material justice cannot be accomplished by compulsion, a change of heart will not follow. The only way to achieve true justice is to change people’s hearts first - and then they will joyfully share their wealth.

So if we are to seek any redistribution of wealth done in a way that is pleasing to God, the goal is to change hearts. From there, and only there, with any legitimate distribution of wealth occur.

 

[Sochi]

Good evening Sochi: I believe that these are alternate understandings only to those who have no understanding. Many people will read the same map over and over while driving past what they sought the map for. Such is often the case with scripture. The true meanings are in there, and they are often much simpler than we make them out to be. Or so I think.

Oh, I completely agree!

Yes, what we believe is largely a matter of the culture and circumstances we are raised in.

With this, too.

Thanks,
Gary

Likewise.

 

[Sochi]

Does this mean you were one of the 44.44% of voters here who believe American tax money should be diverted to 3rd world countries because of our Industrial Revolution?

Huh? No. I just think that the third world countries ours has ravaged should be treated ethically by companies that are extracting huge wealth at the expense of those countries citizens. The tax money going there is a payoff to let those companies take advantage of what isn’t rightfully theirs and to subsidize protection. And I didn’t vote. As usual, the choices are incomplete, even semantically misleading. If that tax money wasn’t going there, you might not have some of the comforts you cherish so ridiculously cheaply.