And here, I think you’re overcomplicating it. The joke is that reality is biased toward the left and therefore can be dismissed. You’re trying to make it mean that reality has more liberal things in it than conservative things, but what it really means is that the right ignores facts. Bias doesn’t mean weight, it means unfair falsehood.
The joke is the contradiction between the words “reality,” which means things that actually exist, and “bias,” which implies inaccuracy or falsehoods. That’s what makes it funny.
To suggest Colbert is saying “The world is more liberal than conservative” is to rob the joke of its whole conceit.
WTF are you talking about? Being good at evaluating risks doesn’t mean that one isn’t taking any risks, it just means that they’re good at evaluating which ones are and aren’t a good idea. Each risk really has three components- what you stand to gain, what you stand to lose, and how likely you are to win/lose. How someone is able to evaluate those things means that they may be better than usual at determining if something’s a good risk. Take poker, for example. Someone with better skill at reading people may be able to better determine whether or not to fold or when to call, etc… That’s a form of being able to evaluate risk, in the context of a poker hand.
And some people ARE good at that kind of thing- look at Warren Buffett. He’s clearly got some kind of intuitive mojo going on that lets him evaluate investment risk better than the average investor.
And I have to disagree with you about the value of work. How hard you work is immaterial- it’s what you produce that counts. If we have two bakers, and one consistently produces dried out bread, or bread that doesn’t rise well, or is too salty, it doesn’t matter one whit how hard they try- their bread sucks, and if anyone wants it, they won’t want it for the same price as good bread. Meanwhile, we have another guy who for whatever reason, is a natural baker. He makes perfect bread every time, and can do it easily and without excess effort. He’ll be able to make more of the better bread AND sell it for more than your average bread, much less the first baker’s crap. He’ll come out far ahead of the first guy monetarily.
So why should he owe that first guy anything? He’s literally better at his job than the first guy, and takes advantage of that.
Or in a more extreme example, I can go out and spend an immense amount of effort at batting practice, and still suck at baseball. Why should Aaron Judge owe me anything because he’s better at baseball than I am?
You seem to be implying that being better at something is always the result of outside influence or ill-begotten advantages or something like that. That’s the sour-grapes attitude I was talking about upthread. You’ve done nothing but alienate Omar Little by implying that everything he has earned is undeserved, and that he’s a bastard for not willingly paying out an even more significant percentage of his income when there are others who don’t make as much.
You know, as a Gen-Xer, I get kind of sick of listening to both Millennials and Baby Boomers. I feel like my generation had the misfortune of being born at the intersections of two very different economic realities.
When I attend college alumni events, they always have some guest speaker, usually the CEO of some company or other successful person. Their speech usually follows a theme of "I partied too hard in college and had to take basic Econ 3 times so my father punished me by working for [some other famous alumni]'s…yada yada yada…now I’m CEO of Megaglobal Investment Bank. That seems to be the theme for people 5-10 years older than me. Graduate college (often with some bullshit major), fall into some job through some fraternity brother, football teammate, family member, just because companies hired people out of college, 30+ years later cruising along in their SVP / C-level jobs waiting to retire.
Everyone 5-10 years younger studied to be full-stack devops agile cloud engineers so they can bop around different tech startups every 6 to 18 months, playing fooseball, eating free snacks and working in open plan offices.
So for me, I missed out on the opportunity to land some dumb corporate job to grind out for 40 years while I have a normal life and raise a family while simultaneously being one of the oldest guy in a room full of socially awkward dorks who spent their childhood learning 15 different coding platforms.
If we have a wealth gap that seems to be ratcheting in one direction, and if we have the moral hazard of tax breaks for billionaires, and this leading to new deficits, leading to arguments that the crisis of this deficit requires more ratcheting back, what do you think? It’s not my call. It’s societies, and the voters.
We are anonymous here and I just can’t take seriously someone who reports that their accumulation of wealth was devoid of favors, loopholes, and accidents. YMMV.
You must have never heard one, as that is nothing like a victim mentality. To acknowledge reality, and not even to complain about one’s own circumstances in that reality, but only to acknowledge that those circumstances exist is nothing like a victim mentality.
And I’ve seen some really good poker players get wiped out. Being able to evaluate risk does not mean being immune to them. However, Omar Little responded to the question of what about people who took the same risks and did not get as good a result, he replied with claiming ath he is better at evaluating the risk. That either means nothing at all, or it means that he was immune to the risk.
Can you ask him WTF he is talking about, then get back to me?
[Even he admits that much of his fortune was built on some lucky breaks.
then you are disagreeing with Omar Little then, not me, as he is the one that said that he got where he was due to hard work, and I was the one who said that hard work is not enough.
This example is pretty random, and doesn’t seem to relate to anything that i’ve said at all. Can you explain how this is relevant? It is also a very unrealistic and ad hoc attempt at using fantasy to argue against reality.
Can you give me a reason why the one baker is terrible and the other is great? Is it a lack of knowledge and training? Is it improper or malfunctioning equipment? What advantages does the second baker have over the first, that prevents the first from being able to make an acceptable product?
who said that he owes the first guy anything? Now, does he owe back to society for giving him the opportunity to engage in a lucrative gluten based trade? Yes. Does society owe something to the citizens that it has not properly equipped to be properly productive and engaged members? IMHO, yes, but I take it from your statements, you feel differently.
No reason at all, but there is a farmer out there that is going to be sending you a bill, and saying that you owe him for an entire shipment of straw.
Can you actually quote where I said that, or can you only claim that, from your perspective, that I am lying when I disagree that that is the implication that I am making.
That is not what I said, or related to anything that I’ve said.
Quote me where I said that, or retract that statement. Don’t just say “It seems to me that you implied this”, actually quote where I said it. That is not what I said, that’s not where I’m coming from, and your accusations are without any merit or validity whatsoever.
Once again, quote or retract.
All you have proven here is that you can say “you seem to be implying”, then level accusations that have no basis in reality, but only in your own motivated reasoning.
If you have a question as to what you think I am implying, then go ahead and ask. Accusing me of such, when I have specifically said that that is not where I am coming from, is looking for a fight to win, not a discussion to engage in.
If you do not retract your weasley “implying” nonsense, then this is the last engagement I have with you, as it will then be obvious that you are not here for a discussion, but just desire to pick a fight I have no desire to have.
So what? You also make more money than 99% of taxpayers in this country.
Really there is nothing more insufferable than wealthy people rambling on about how hard they had it growing up, how they worked so hard and made all the right choices. What’s the moral of this story? You worked so hard and did everything yourself so you don’t want your tax dollars going to pay for things like roads and schools and police?
The Right elected Donald J. Trump as the President of the United States. How can there be a question that reality leans Left? It sure doesn’t lean Right.
If the belief that improvements can be made that will enable better outcomes for everyone is a “victim mentality,” then someone would have to believe everything is perfect to not be a victim.
You clearly no very little about business and how they operate.
No, I said that I worked hard to get the opportunities that have been presented to me. I never said I was paid or am paid solely for hard work. I know it’s difficult to parse other people’s statements when you are already biased, but please try.
Hard to break it to you, but the system normally works like I described. If you don’t create value, you either get fired or you get demoted. Otherwise the companies eventually go out of business, then everyone loses. Are there exceptions, yes. Does the media focus on the exception, yes. Are the exceptions the norm, no.
I know, it’s a better story, to believe that there are lots of people that got favors, ill gotten gains, and that the system is rigged where only the silver spoons find their way to the top, but that narrative doesn’t ring true across most of corporate America. I know too many people like myself, that come from humble beginnings and made their way up the ladder. Mainly because they are smarter than most other people.
Deservedly so. We are not a communist society, or a socialist society.
Why do you think that I am not doing my part currently? As noted, I pay a significant amount more in absolute $ and % than most Americans.
Instead of parroting what you hear AOC spout, you should do a bit of your own research. The period of 1991 to 2001 was the period of greatest economic expansion.
Luck is part of taking risks- even if you’re good at evaluating whether something is a “good” risk or not, there’s still that element of chance.
Ultimately though, people have an obligation to pay their taxes. And it’s not unreasonable for anyone to not want to pay more, regardless of how wealthy they are.
How they got that wealth is immaterial- a person who wins the 400 million lottery this week has no *more *obligation than someone who does it via hard work and/or natural talent. Warren Buffett and Mark Cuban are both billionaires, but one of them mostly did it the hard way, while the other had one colossal windfall and has built from there. But Cuban’s no more obligated (and no less) than Buffett just because he managed to sell his company at the absolute most perfect moment. And Buffett is no more deserving than Cuban either.
Yet the constant refrain around here has to do with the origin of wealth as some sort of indicator that they are obligated to basically give up their wealth for others.
I think I’m disagreeing with both of you- the amount of work you put in doesn’t really matter one way or the other- it doesn’t obligate anyone or prove any worthiness or anything like that.
What I’m trying to get at is that you, and others keep essentially saying that Omar’s high income is due to things outside his control, and downplaying the aspects that are within his control. And the implication that I’m reading from that is that he’s somehow undeserving and especially obligated to pay back.
But we can’t say that every wealthy person built their fortune unethically or illegally or through aspects out of their control. Some did do it through hard work, and probably a little luck. But everyone has good breaks and bad breaks- nobody’s a total sad sack where literally everything goes wrong. Taking advantage of those good breaks is a good thing, not something that they should be castigated for, or resented for.
It’s like people think this is a system with a particularly limited amount of money and that one person making any amount of money above the average incontrovertibly means that it came out of other people’s pockets, especially the poor. Or that the fact that people can take risks, and some win and others lose is somehow unfair or inequitable.
Wow, talk about insufferable people jumping to conclusions. What a waste of my time even interacting with you. You don’t know me, you don’t know my view on where tax money should be spent but you are oh so quick to label me and dump me in your predisposed view of what conservatives must think. You need to get out more and meet real people, instead of sitting behind your computer.
You claim that the system penalizes people. That assumes that these people are victims of the system. And that they have no control over the circumstances around them.
If that’s not a statement on victimhood, please clarify.
This is not true, what conservatives want to conserve is not the way things currently are or were a couple years ago, but the principles of free market capitalism and limited government. The principles which in just a few hundred years has transformed the world for the better and made people living now, the richest in the entire history of the world.
We understand that the current prosperity is more precarious than people think. Countries can change and go backwards. Russia accounted for one third of the global wheat trade before WW1 and then lost 20 million people in a famine in the 20s. Venezuela was the richest country in South America and now the population is leaving or starving. Argentina went from the 10 richest country in the world to now the 90th. The American economy could stagnate too if we do the wrong things.
Hey Omar, like you, I made my life. I do quite well. I worked my ass off for it.
If you don’t see that the wealthy and connected don’t get a pass because of their privileged position, there is probably no way to cure your blindness.
Actually I do. I know some business owners that did everything right, and still failed, and I know some business owners who did everything wrong, and still managed to turn a profit.
Most are somewhere in between.
You obviously, have no idea what the word “risk” means.
and that is what I said, that you said that you worked hard to get where you are.
I know that it is hard to parse other’s statements when you are already biased, but I don’t really give a shit if you try.
It tend in that direction, but to call it an absolute, as you did previously, is what your error is.
The exceptions are the exceptions to the average, true, but they are not really all that rare.
And it is a better story for you to rail against someone you can pretend made the claims that you are making here, but that narrative doesn’t ring true to the actual words that have been used in this thread.
But good that you got to get a humble brag about how much smarter you are than other people.
I didn’t say it was not deserved. But, sure, we are not a socialist society, but we certainly do have some social programs.
Which of those were you talking about cutting again? I must have missed it when you answered.
Why do you think that I think that you are not doing your part currently? It is not something that I said. As long as you are paying the taxes that society asks you to legally pay, you are doing the part society asks of you. Now, I did say that there could be a debate as to whether society may ask more of you in the future, to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to participate in it and have the chance to make their fortunate as you have, but that is not the same as what you have accused me of in your reactionary defensiveness of any criticism.
Now, if you complain about society taking so much from you, how is that not the same victim mentality that you were whining about earlier?
Not parroting anything at all, but I suppose it gives you satisfaction to spit that accusation out, now doesn’t it?
Depends on how you measure. By measuring the increase in yearly GDP, there are more years, on average for any given 10 years span between 1950 and 1975 that are higher than the years on average from 1991 to 2001.
How are you measuring?
Nice weasel word change up. From “You seem to be implying” to “you are essentially saying”, and then just making stuff up from there.
Let me give it a try: What you are essentially implying is if someone was not able to make it into the 1%, it is because they are stupid and lazy, and deserve to die of starvation and exposure.
No, I don’t know specifically how you want your tax dollars allocated, but I know what I read from your posts and (to varying degrees) I know plenty of the type (both “real people” and “behind the computer”).
The entire tone of all your posts is “I built my fortune all by myself with no ones help and no one should ask me to give back.” And whenever I hear people saying stuff that sounds like that, I feel like the implication is that anyone else could do the same, provided they just get off their ass and put enough effort into it.
Or am I misinterpreting?
I don’t think it’s a matter of “fairness”. I think it’s more a matter of figuring out how to create the right balance between rewarding things like hard work, creativity, entrepreneurship and general excellence, providing adequate infrastructure and services so those opportunities are available for those who want them and providing adequate safety nets so that people who suffer temporary or even permanent misfortune have some recourse besides starving in the street.
The reality is that very few of us are eking out a fortune by venturing off into the wilderness with nothing but an ax and the sweat of our brow. We live in a complex system where our ability to be successful is dependent on building the necessary skills, experiences and contacts. And even then, what drives “success” is often not based on what is good for “society” or the “community”, but on what is good for enabling those who control large supplies of capital to earn more capital.
To use an extreme example, Jeff Bezos is the wealthiest man alive. Why was he getting $3 billion in subsidies to build a headquarters in New York?
Omar Little, I dont think anyone doubts that you didn’t work hard for what you’ve got, but many of us believe that hard work and determination are not all that is needed to succeed. Let me tell you the story of two accountants. Both were experts in their field, hard workers and valued by their employers equally. They even had the same employer; Arthur Andersen. Larry joined the company in the 60’s was soon considered a top performer and worked his way up to senior partner and retired with an investment portfolio that made others swoon. Chris joined the firm in the 90’s and was on his way to becoming a partner at a speed that amazed his fellow workers. And I’m sure you can see where this is going. Andersen went belly up. Chris’s 401k was gone, and the stigma of the company made it hard for him to get work right away and so he went through his savings. He was able to get back on his feet, but by then he was almost 40. Two people with the same skills, the same value, and even the same employer ended up with two very different stories. Luck and circumstance often play a bigger role than hard work and perceived value.
Let me throw some stats at ya:
-less than 6% of Americans are considered wealthy (have assets of more than $2.4 mil) that number drops to less than 1% world wide. That means that only 1 in 13 had the wherewithal to “make it.” I find it hard to believe that those other 12 standing next to you worked less hard than you. Luck and circumstance had alot to do with it. For some, it doesn’t matter how hard they work (or how well, or whatever metric you use) they will never be wealthy.
-In the US, that same 6% own over 2/3 of the wealth (worldwide: .7% own over 40%)
-In US 13% live at or below the poverty line and another 13% live just above. And in some countries that number is close to 80%. Maybe you feel different but those numbers, to me, indicate an obligation of the wealthy to pay more than their fair share of taxes since they have more than their fair share of the wealth.
In pure numbers, as you indicate, you (and those like you) pay more taxes than the average taxpayer; but you pay the same percentage of your wealth even tho you have a larger percentage of the wealth available. And you (and those like you) also pay the lion’s share of the total pot of taxes, but just a 1% increase in your taxes would equal a 10% increase in the total collected which would be significant.
It’s not about winners and losers, or even victors and victims. It’s about luck and obligation.
I see where you’re coming from. I wrote “the system as it currently exists does not offer enough potential for more people like you to succeed, and penalizes people whose ambitions are set back by circumstances beyond their control.”
“System” and “penalize” make it sound like there’s evil intent involved, and that’s not what I intended. I should probably have said “environment” and “hinders” instead:
The socioeconomic environment, as currently constituted in the U.S., does not offer enough potential for more people like you to succeed, and hinders people whose ambitions are set back by circumstances beyond their control.
This does **not **mean that people have no control over their circumstances, but it acknowledges that there are circumstances people can’t control, and that those circumstances may not apply equally to all people.
If you still see victimhood in that statement, than anyone who gets wet in the rain is a victim of precipitation.
Trump donated (improperly from his foundation) $25,000 to Pam Bondi’s (Florida DA) re-election campaign. Not surprisingly, Bondi drops idea of investigating Trump ‘University’ fraud.
Was it legal to donate? Sure. Is it fishy as hell, you bet. Just an example of how those who ‘have’ get away with crime.
Do you have a cite for how many people in the US actually starve to death in the street? Or is this just hyperbole. I guess that’s all I can expect from the guy that thinks China is a **just a bit **closer to communism than western democracy. :rolleyes:
And wrt Jeff Bezos, he personally wasn’t getting a $3 billion subsidy, it was Amazon. And to answer your question, it was so that NYC could entice Amazon to put its headquarters there. Amazon has many choices where it employs its people. Having a large employer in your city is good for your city’s economy. The benefits that would have accrued to NYC for having HQ2 there would have exceeded the $3 billion. Now NYC is going to miss out.