(Washing machine story)

The proper solution is to put HIM in the Miele next time you see him.

That kind of person is the kind I would wink out of existence if I were an omnipotent diety.

Do you know the story...

I do not.

Alpheus, it would take me longer to retype it than for you to read it. Do me a favor...

As to your 'ultimatum' question:

... print trillion-dollar platinum coin (or) print trillion-dollar platinum coin...

What's the difference?

If you are asking whether it is better to raise or lower the debt, then I refer to that (the chess inventor & the king) story to illustrate that sometimes people, without realizing, accept a debt they can never actual repay or is far more than what was reasonably thought to be agreed upon (in good faith).

Miele

Ah, the infamous Miele washing machine story, I know it well... just joking.

It seems that every new anecdote or bit of data suggests we need a new credit system.

Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin

I'm going to entertain your question anyway...

If platinum was trading at 1,000 US an ounce, a trillion dollars worth would weigh ~28,350 metric tons (about less than half of the world's estimated supply).

The U.S. mines approximately 3 and 1/2 metric tons of platinum per year. At that rate, it would take the country ~8,000 years to provide that much platinum to the Federal Reserve. This can be reduced to ~150 years if the U.S. trades with the rest of the world. South Africa would have a lot of bargaining power over the U.S.

You object that some people grow up with parents that have more money, and you make the allegation that the poor kids don't have a chance because they are poor and will always be poor because they're poor, and it's all the fault of the kids who have parents with more money.

What? No, I mean, really...what?

There are so many incorrect assumptions in that one paragraph about what I think, that I sincerely wonder if you even *read* what I wrote. Especially the part about "it's all the fault of the kids who have parents with more money". WTF?

That being said, no, it wasn't a bad time, and in hindsight I believe my father made a wise decision back then.

Oh, trust me, I know, it's never a bad time to get "your hands dirty" when you know you have your family as fallback in case things go bad. Shit, my family isn't wealthy, not even close, but they own their own home, and if I lose my job here, or I get sick/injured, I know I have a room waiting for me back home until I can get back on my feet, they won't leave me in the streets in a strange country. Takes a lot of the anxiety off and permits me to work on my personal projects and continue my job hunting for better jobs inside EU.

I know ship tycoons(my father was a ship engineer) that sent their sons to work as mechanic apprentices to get their "hands dirty" and "learn the job" before they resume their rightful place as heirs of the empire, of course. It's a good practice, indeed.

...

Samoth, all those isolated anecdotes, and you're ignoring the millions of children in poverty who had huge potential that got wasted and never even got a chance to realize itself because their family couldn't *afford* to invest care, time and money in their education/housing/healthcare, and society didn't invest either.

Again, I'll just leave this here:

“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/99345-i-am-somehow-less-interested-in-the-weight-and-convolutions

But okay, "you do you", as they say, if you think the biggest problem in the world today is slackers cheating off welfare, keep it up. Right up.

How come people here don't see the problem in that someone can makes tens of millions of dollars, or billions, and yet someone can bust their ass and make barely enough to survive.

The main argument I have seen from the majority of people saying capitalism fails isn't that it has no place at all, but rather a 'pure' capitalist system isn't the best for the needs of all people. The idea if the government helping people with basic needs of people such as healthcare or a roof over the head of the homeless isn't a ridiculous notion.

How come people here don't see the problem in that someone can makes tens of millions of dollars, or billions, and yet someone can bust their ass and make barely enough to survive.

I see the problem. It's the way people are phrasing the problem that I have a problem with. A lazy bum inherits his hard working parents' wealth. Not unfair. Not wrong. Not immoral. However, when someone, as you put it 'busts their ass', and still cannot gain proportional wealth or reward for his work, knowledge, expertise, and/or skill, because of arbitrary BS roadblocks, then yes that is unfair, wrong, and immoral, and should certainly be illegal (IMO).

But there will always be rich and always be poor. The question is what kind of effort and how much effort do you put into solving the 0% poor problem?

But there will always be rich and always be poor.

Says who? How is this some self-evident truth one has to accept?

This is like someone saying 1000 years ago "there will always be monarchs, nobles and peasants. We just have to convice the nobles not to rape our wives on our wedding night, that'd be good enough. It's not like the aristocracy system will ever cease to exist and we will actually elect out own leaders".

Just because we find it hard to imagine a radically different society than our own doesn't mean it's outside the realm of possible.

A lazy bum inherits his hard working parents' wealth. Not unfair. Not wrong. Not immoral.

Depends on your value system. If his parent's wealth could be put to much better use than the rich kid's partying, but is used for rich kid's partying nevetheless, then I do consider it unfair, wrong, and immoral. Exactly like you said. Unfair, wrong, and immoral to the highest degree.

Exhibit A: Champagne Gun.

http://www.champagnegun.com/index.html

Yes, it is exactly what you think it is. A water gun equivalent, except with champagne. It serves no reason other to allow kids with rich parents to demonstrate how much wealth they can waste for no reason, and how much shit they do not give about said waste. But it's okay. Why would we want to take away their god-given right to piss away money that could feed whole families just to show how cool they are?

Exhibit B: Flint Water Crisis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis

Yes, right in the heart of US and A, not even some "thirld-world" country. Some kids have fun with champange guns. Some other kids can't even have a glass of clean water right in the most advanced capitalist country.

So, yes. Criminally unfair. Criminally wrong. Criminally immoral. We should be raging red with anger when we see pictures of rich kids partying in Mykonos and Ibiza by throwing lobsters at each other and playing..."champagne war" while other kids can't even have clean water. And we should maybe think about whether those 2 images are *really* irrelevant to each other, or maybe they're connected somehow. But, obviously, we prefer to rage about poor people sometimes cheating on welfare. Because, you know, those kids just have rich "hard working" parents, and they inherited their mass fortunes, and what's wrong with that, right? Because some people having *too much* couldn't possibly have any sort of connection to why some other people have *so little*. Because resources are infinite, apparently.

...

Btw, about the "hard working parents"...well, I won't delve into it too much, but in my own country, trace any of the economic elite families history and query when exactly they actually started amassing wealth and made their small workshops and grocery stores into huge industries that dominate the economy to this day - most of them were after WW2. Lots of..."opportunities" then, let's put it that way, with the main of them being the Marshall Plan, which you could get a tasty, juice piece of, providing of course you aligned yourself with the..."right" people - and obviously not being a dirty communist, you know, one of those that actually organized the Resistance against the Nazis in the mountains, while others, "mysteriously", "someway", "somehow", established businesses right in the middle of the nazi occupation, when most of the population couldn't even get a piece of bread and a spoonful of oil. After all, any capitalist will tell you, crises are opportunities for the smart and industruous, and what bigger crisis than a war?

However, when someone, as you put it 'busts their ass', and still cannot gain proportional wealth or reward for his work, knowledge, expertise, and/or skill, because of arbitrary BS roadblocks, then yes that is unfair, wrong, and immoral, and should certainly be illegal (IMO).

The problem is that so many people bust their ass in jobs that don't create much value, so they don't get paid much. Or people who did nothing for 30~ years of their life trying to suddenly enter the job market, complaining that no one will hire them.

Says who? How is this some self-evident truth one has to accept? This is like someone saying 1000 years ago "there will always be monarchs, nobles and peasants. We just have to convice the nobles not to rape our wives on our wedding night, that'd be good enough. It's not like the aristocracy system will ever cease to exist and we will actually elect out own leaders". Just because we find it hard to imagine a radically different society than our own doesn't mean it's outside the realm of possible.

Wealth is relative. Unless everyone is dead even there will always be "poor".

Exhibit A: Champagne Gun. http://www.champagnegun.com/index.html Yes, it is exactly what you think it is. A water gun equivalent, except with champagne. It serves no reason other to allow kids with rich parents to demonstrate how much wealth they can waste for no reason, and how much shit they do not give about said waste. But it's okay. Why would we want to take away their god-given right to piss away money that could feed whole families just to show how cool they are?

It's just a toy... Do you want to ban toys now or something? And it's not just for rich kids, it's a party toy. According to this, all entertainment is waste... But if anything products like this are the proof that capitalism can fill any market niche.

Let's say you take the whole $450 you would have used to buy a family meals for a month. What about next month? They'll need another $450, so what will you take away next?

Exhibit B: Flint Water Crisis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis Yes, right in the heart of US and A, not even some "thirld-world" country. Some kids have fun with champange guns. Some other kids can't even have a glass of clean water right in the most advanced capitalist country.

This had to do with a public utility, and trying to provide services to the poor as cheaply as possible, not the best example to pick.

Btw, about the "hard working parents"...well, I won't delve into it too much, but in my own country, trace any of the economic elite families history and query when exactly they actually started amassing wealth and made their small workshops and grocery stores into huge industries that dominate the economy to this day - most of them were after WW2. Lots of..."opportunities" then, let's put it that way, with the main of them being the Marshall Plan, which you could get a tasty, juice piece of, providing of course you aligned yourself with the..."right" people - and obviously not being a dirty communist, you know, one of those that actually organized the Resistance against the Nazis in the mountains, while others, "mysteriously", "someway", "somehow", established businesses right in the middle of the nazi occupation, when most of the population couldn't even get a piece of bread and a spoonful of oil. After all, any capitalist will tell you, crises are opportunities for the smart and industruous, and what bigger crisis than a war?

Hard working isn't what earns money, people need to forget that concept. Productive/valuable work is what earns money.

The Marshall plan was actually very successful in what it set out to do, and obviously with all the communist spies at the end of WW2, selecting based on political affiliation was the right choice as well.

Fascism was going to be ended, but the world's been suffering even more from the effects of communism statebuilding since then. If money from the Marshall plan would have flowed into the USSR, we'd have even more world problems.

My point is, the fact that some people have *too much* (so much that they can afford toys that spray *champagne* - which also costs money each time it's "refueled" and sprayed for *no reason at all* other than to demonstrate how wealthy you are, conquestor3, right? It's not like it's only the gun's price that's at play here) and some people have *too little* is interconnected. I thought it was clear. The "champagne gun" was just a tiny example of the myriads I can think of, of the excess the "high society" indulges itself into, while millions others suffer.

You want me to mention private jets instead of "champagne gun"? I'll mention private jets("but there's nothing wrong with that! They earned it!").

I'll mention huge mansions that no family could possibly have a need for unless it's a 200-member family("but there's nothing wrong with that! They earned it!").

I'll mention private islands("But there's nothing wrong with that! They earned it!".).

I'll mention developed countries exploiting poorer countries for their resources, material and human ("But there's nothing wrong with that! At least the poor countries are getting something in return and the labouring children are making some money! United Fruit Company really does some good in South America!")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company#Aiding_and_Abetting_a_Terrorist_Organization.

In this latest federal trial Chiquita Brands admitted to paying AUC operatives to silence union organizers, to intimidate farmers into selling only to Chiquita Brands, and even providing weapons (3,000 AK 47's) to this terrorist organization in order to carry out their objectives. On the plea agreement, Chiquita Brands were allowed to keep secret the names of the U.S Citizens who brokered this agreement with the AUC, by the Colombian Government, in exchange for relief to 390 families.

(Fuck me, man, they actually *pleaded guilty* for all that and they still exist! No US Citizen even went to jail! They just gave some plea money! Hoooooly shit! I just *ate* a Chiquita banana at work today, with my morning coffee! Whose blood did I taste, I wonder? Talk about interconnected shit!)

Yeah...you know, at this point, I really don't know what some people *would* consider "immoral", "wrong" or "unfair" if they don't consider excessive wealth, decadence and exploitation co-existing with extreme poverty on the same planet as all three.

poor kids don't have a chance because they are poor and will always be poor because they're poor,

Yes, being poor or even simply growing up poor can contribute to keeping you poor by restricting your lifestyle choices. It's hard to overcome a disadvantaged upbringing or bad luck when your lifestyle is actively working against you to make your life terrible - and you can't afford to change your lifestyle. This applies to hard-working people, too!

See:
http://lifehacker.com/being-poor-is-too-expensive-1736233505
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/poverty-makes-you-sick/371241/
http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/05/poor-people-worries/
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about-being-poor/

How is a poor kid supposed to get ahead when their family can't afford to support them the way a wealthy kid's parents can - and in ways that are becoming increasingly necessary in our high-technology society? People don't choose who their parents are. Most of us had zero say in the choices of our ancestors. Those who cry "privilege" generally hold to the notion that who your parents are (and how they lived) should have zero effect on what opportunities are presented to you. Why should people suffer for the "sins of the father?" Or the "bad luck of the father?"