With your mad people skills, we should be grateful you didn’t take up a career with the diplomatic corps.
“Mr. President! Upper Volta has declared war on us!”
“(sigh) Let me guess, that’s where we sent Rand Rover?”
“Yes sir…”
Wrong. I may be under-pricing my widget. If I set the price lower than what people are willing to pay, they’re not going to pay me the difference out of the goodness of their hearts. They’ll pay the lowball price and congratulate themselves on getting a bargain.
Unless your widget comes with hidden costs, like causing cancer or deforming babies or destroying the atmosphere, or something.
Wrong again. What do you think happens to middle class people who have exhausted their savings after losing a job or incurring a catastrophic medical expense? Believe it or not, selling the house and moving someplace cheaper may not be a realistic option - it may put them too far from prospective employers, decent schools, or useful public transportation. They look middle class to you because you’re seeing the stuff they had before things went to shit.
This isn’t about you, personally. It’s about imagining how these things impact people who can’t afford insurance. But I understand that you are unable or unwilling to do that.
The IRS doesn’t care if your job is “real” or not. They only care about how much money you make. I assure you that if some teenager somewhere manages to make $10,000 picking berries one summer, the IRS expects that kid to file a return and pay income tax. Likewise, if my doctor chooses to spend a year using her skills to provide services pro bono, the IRS doesn’t expect her to pay tax on zero dollars just because she rendered professional services.
Shrug. Too busy trying to stay alive? Unless you were living in a cardboard box under a bridge, I don’t believe that. People put themselves through school even if it means living in lousy circumstances for a while, if school is important to them. College was no longer necessary after you got the job at Aetna? That just tells me you lack foresight and ambition.
Your answer didn’t address the question.
Looks like another seven or eight pages stacked up over my three-day weekend. Poke me if I missed anything interesting.
Did you want a sleep aid? 
In Roverland a parish priest in a small town would have very little value. A teacher making 100 K is providing double the value of one working for 50 K.
Just think how much value Madoff was providing. He had to be one of Americas most valuable citizens. What a stupid measure of value money is. Rover is just trying to justify his worth and again fails miserably.
In oither news, gonzomax once again misunderstands what someone posts and then takes that poster to task for it, which only serves to show his own idiocy.
His point is not without merit, however; salary is rarely a good measure of a person’s value to society.
Consider the following- in terms of salary, America has a structure which looks like this:
NFL quarterback > American Idol winner > physician > attorney > insurance adjuster > teacher
Yet even you would be hard pressed to defend the notion that their relative values to society aren’t something more like this:
physician > teacher > attorney > insurance adjuster > NFL quarterback > American Idol winner
Everyone who disagrees with you is stupid and is misunderstanding your point, including Maeglin, who has a great deal of expertise in this area. Huh. Isn’t it Bricker that says if enough people tell you you’re drunk, regardless of how you feel, you should probably go lay down? Time to lay down, Mr. Rover. We’re not all too stupid to get your point, honest.
You talking to me RNATB? I have no idea what a person’s “value to society” means, so I can’t comment on your post.
Please, Maeglin, with all his “expertise in this area,” is being the most ridiculous of you all. He is just insisting that I mean something that I have repeatedly denied meaning. That’s odd. I’m not sure why he would do that. Also, if he’d scroll up he’d see how this whole conversation started.
You say you have no idea what a person’s “value to society” is yet you keep using the term. Over and over.
I don’t read your mind. I read the words on the page. You are quacking like a duck, no matter how much you endlessly protest to the contrary.
That’s not a duck, that’s a mallard! That’s not wine, its burgundy! Not talking about my value to society, talking about the value I provide to society!
When, oh, when, will you cease to misrepresent and mischaracterize my posts!
You’d call it “the value you provide”.
Let’s refresh his memory, shall we?
To which you said, “This is correct.”
Now, let’s see if, with all your words in front of him, Maeglin can figure out what the hell you’re talking about, where apparently the rest of us failed so miserably. Except me, I got a “this is correct” along with reams of really nasty abuse from you across 3 threads for my trouble.
In just a few short years, I will be paid to grade awful college student papers. Until then, I think I’ll give deciphering this one a pass. I tried, honest.
You’re just refusing to do it because you’re fat, aren’t you?
Hey, don’t assume the worst, Maeglin could be lazy!
Christ you guys are thick. Return to the widget example. I say that the person that sells a widget for $100 has provided $100 of value to society (assuming buyer and seller are rational actors). Assume this is the only value this person ever provides to society.
Now, what is this person’s value to society? I don’t fucking know, the concept of “value to society” is something you guys keep saying, not me, I have no idea what it means.