I don't think that being on welfare means you should be restricted on what kinds of foods you choose to eat. There's bigger problems with welfare than people buying too much soda with. I'd rather the government focus on making sure people who
truly need welfare are getting it, and the people who don't need it, aren't.
Driftwood wrote:
There is nothing wrong with making money. The entire point of the capitalist system is to make money and maximize profit. However, no one, for any reason whatsoever, needs to be making millions of dollars per year. No one should be making that much money. That's the problem with modern capitalism. It's stopped being a matter of making money and living better, and more a matter of making as much money as possible, even if it's a completely ridiculous amount that no one could possibly ever need. Even within the boundaries of capitalism, there's a such thing as "good enough". I call myself a capitalist, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't be fine making even as little as 50k per year. 50k is more than enough to live quite comfortably unless one thinks living comfortably requires expensive everything. If a company makes tens of billions of dollars per year, they do not need to make cutbacks, they do not need to outsource. If a person makes, say, 200k per year, they do not need to start whining about paying taxes, or acting like they're poor. They're doing magnificently well as is. Why is there this huge problem with giving a little back to the consumer, and the worker, without whom, the company, and it's higher-ups, would be bust?
This is just wrong. Who gets to decide how much money is enough to make per year? Who decides what's "good enough" or "comfortably"?
Your argument falls apart when you look at it from a different scale. A starving person in Africa could tell you that 50k/year is way too much money for one person to have and you can live quite "comfortably" with far less. You don't "need" that much money. The rich don't need yachts? You don't need cable TV. The rich don't need a $200 haircut? You don't need coffee from Starbucks.
You're right about someone making 200k/year being silly for acting like they're poor, but they have every damn right to whine about having to pay higher taxes. It's still more money out of their pocket. Again, you seem to lack the proper perspective on this. If they put in a toll booth at the end of your driveway and charge you 25 cents a day, do you rescind the right to whine about it because you can afford to live without it?
And what does the company have to "give back", exactly? They're already giving back. To the consumer, they give back the product or service the consumer wanted. To the worker, they give back wages in exchange for their labor. Wages the worker freely agreed to before starting any work. If they aren't satisfied with the wages they receive for their labor, they can work at another company. If their life circumstances make it so that their options are limited, why is the company to blame?
If you go to a hot dog stand and the guy is willing to sell you a hot dog for $2, do you say "No, no good sir! Even though you're willing to exchange me a hot dog for $2 as opposed to $3 or $4 due to the status of the market, I'm going to voluntarily give you more money than you can get from anyone else just because I should give back and not exploit the circumstances that have led to a $2 hot dog price"
It's the same with workers. Due to whatever circumstances in the job market, they're able to get X wages. Much like the circumstances of the local hot dog market determine what price the vendor is able to sell you a hot dog for, the circumstances of the local job market determine what price a worker is able to "sell" their labor.
Are you honestly saying you're a bad guy for not giving him more than fair market value for his hot dog? If not, then why is a company bad for not giving a worker more than fair market value for their labor?
Edited, Feb 11th 2013 9:40pm by SansDeity