Will the rich be nicer to the poor?
September 21, 2001 12:34 PM Subscribe
posted by dagny at 12:52 PM on September 21, 2001
Sheesh...
posted by hincandenza at 12:54 PM on September 21, 2001
posted by dagny at 12:57 PM on September 21, 2001
posted by jbou at 1:03 PM on September 21, 2001
posted by xiffix at 1:07 PM on September 21, 2001
If his point is that we all deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, that's a good idea, but The Golden Rule and The Gold That Rules don't have much in common.
posted by briank at 1:20 PM on September 21, 2001
Not entirely. Declining earnings lead to declining stock prices and vice versa. Having a declining stock price makes it difficult to get futher investment, leading to lay offs.
My biggest gripe about the distribution of wages is that anyone who does the work of attracting business - sales people, company directors etc - earn a huge amount more than those working on the actual product or providing the service.
Yes, this is a personal gripe. I'm a journalist and resent the fact I earn substantially less than the people who sell the advertising that goes round the pages. But the only solution to wage inequality is socialism and that's been rejected pretty much everywhere.
posted by Summer at 1:22 PM on September 21, 2001
posted by dopamine at 1:29 PM on September 21, 2001
posted by luser at 1:35 PM on September 21, 2001
I remember a similar, though smaller scale, situation back in 1999 in Atlanta. Firefighter Matt Moseley was a local hero for a while after rescuing crane operator Ivers Sims from a mill fire engulfing his crane in a fairly spectacular manner. Atlanta Magazine (I think) ran a city salary survey a couple of months later - Moseley was featured with a salary that seemed ridiculously small compared to the corpies and entertainment types also featured. There was talk about a raise for firefighters - something may even have come of it, I don't recall. But then the issue blinked off the media radar.
posted by Vetinari at 1:49 PM on September 21, 2001
Maybe local governments (which pay the salaries of firefighters and police officers and teachers) should raise taxes on the rich?
posted by mattpfeff at 2:45 PM on September 21, 2001
Which will drive more of those rich people to the suburbs, leaving a far smaller tax base with which to pay the salaries of firefighters and police officers and teachers. Sounds great!
posted by aaron at 3:24 PM on September 21, 2001
It seems your anti-tax-the-rich argument is founded on divide and rule... reminds me of how MLB teams finagle themselves a new tax-payer funded stadium. Bill Maher put it well last night when he said we're greedy- we want the security, the quality of core services like firefighters and teachers, but we don't want to pay for it in better wages. Me, I want a pony...
posted by hincandenza at 4:03 PM on September 21, 2001
posted by davidmsc at 4:44 PM on September 21, 2001
posted by hincandenza at 5:40 PM on September 21, 2001
For example, summer (above) is not happy that the sales crew makes more than he, a writer, does. My point is that if he feels strongly enough about it, he is free to try his hand at the sales job, or pick up the requisite skills and then try it.
(ps - summer, not attacking you - no offense intended)
posted by davidmsc at 5:55 PM on September 21, 2001
posted by hincandenza at 8:28 PM on September 21, 2001
We don't see that many free-marketeers these days demanding that the fire service be run on such a basis; but they expect it to be there. A good job, too, since if it were still the remit of the insurance companies, I suspect that recent events would have brought some pretty heated renegotiations.
posted by holgate at 9:38 PM on September 21, 2001
That last blurb you wrote went straight into my great quotes file.
posted by ducktape at 10:49 PM on September 21, 2001
posted by davidmsc at 3:46 PM on September 24, 2001
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posted by themikeb at 12:47 PM on September 21, 2001