Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

To reiterate the fact that I've been only playing Commander with physical cards as of late, I am uncertain as to how worthwhile a venture MTGO would be.

Of course I might just bandwagon if several people here joined, but only because that would imply that digital cards were worth my time after all.

[Taskmage]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

@Mal - While I accept it to a degree as a necessary evil, I don't believe in taking away the wealth of someone who has rightfully earned it. That's their own property, and while I'd obviously rather they spent it making more Gates Foundations rather than building bigass golf courses, making joke runs at the presidency and generally being a giant prick, if that's how they want to live, it's their right to choose. Obviously I would prefer to live in a society that places a higher value on charity and leaving a positive legacy then avarice and personal glorification, that's not a situation that I believe can or should be brought about through government. Humanity will make that decision of its own free will over time, and the best way I can support that is being the change I want to see.

On a tangent, you can live comfortably from the interest of 1M dollars invested properly, and in relative affluence from as little as 3M. My grandparents had some friends who made a small fortune in entrepreneurial business and then rode out the interest like that for the rest of their lives. Multiple homes, yachts and luxury cruises, the works. Nobody in the world needs 10x or 100x that.

@YM - I always blew off digital cards vs real ones I could hold, but ultimately they're worth what you can do with them, so if some can be used to play with you guys and some can't, it's the latter that are a raw deal.

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

I've been rolling the M:tG:O idea around, but if nobody I know is playing I might as well play strangers at the local card shop. If a few DiV people were playing, I'd be in too.

If you wana play, I'll consider signing up. Lemme make a thread about it and see what other interest we can spark (and rerail this thread away from M:TG in the process)

[Taskmage]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

The Shred of Truth in Romney’s “47 Percent” Gaffe | Praxis | Big Think

This article makes a fair point in Romney's defense at the beginning (though a small one given the scope of his fuckup) and then made me LOL with Venn diagrams illustrating his twisted logic.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

Let's put it this way: Everyone wants people to do well, but not everyone recognizes everyone else as a person.

Which is why the two-party system blows ass because all it really ever succeeds in doing is getting two polarities to dehumanize each other.

I mean, you can even look at a group like the Log Cabin Republicans who are still republican despite being gay, a group that would like to change this part of the GOP and then you have someone like Rachel Maddow who should be sympathetic to that in concept, that's progress for everyone after all. But since she believes "gay" and "republican" can't mingle, they're a bunch of self destructive nimrods who will remain such until they repent and become liberal like her.

Politics really is a spectrum or beliefs. We can't boil it down to two options and continue to believe this will pave the way to a brighter future. Its no longer so much two sides of the same coin as one wrecking ball.

Hell this is why i hate video games that subscribe to a moral binary. Its cute for Star Wars, but even that world has more to it than good or bad. If it didn't Han Solo and Boba Fett wouldn't be all that interesting. DX, Fallout and SMT at least make me feel like I have a real choice in how I not only play the game but affect its world and story. Maybe I don't want to side with the NCR or the Legion, so its good FNV gave me a couple more choices to go on there.

[Taskmage]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”

I wanted to propagate this awesome-sounding quote on facebook, but for some reason I decided to check it's authenticity first. Turns out it's almost certainly apocryphal.
The Volokh Conspiracy � “Government Is Not Reason, It Is Not Eloquence — It Is Force”
There's no record of him ever saying this in speech or writing, and the earliest attribution of it isn't until 1902. I agree with whoever said it and it was well said, but probably not by Washington.

The thing about quotes on the internet is that you cannot confirm their validity.

[Malacite]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

@Mal - While I accept it to a degree as a necessary evil, I don't believe in taking away the wealth of someone who has rightfully earned it. That's their own property, and while I'd obviously rather they spent it making more Gates Foundations rather than building bigass golf courses, making joke runs at the presidency and generally being a giant prick, if that's how they want to live, it's their right to choose. Obviously I would prefer to live in a society that places a higher value on charity and leaving a positive legacy then avarice and personal glorification, that's not a situation that I believe can or should be brought about through government. Humanity will make that decision of its own free will over time, and the best way I can support that is being the change I want to see.

On a tangent, you can live comfortably from the interest of 1M dollars invested properly, and in relative affluence from as little as 3M. My grandparents had some friends who made a small fortune in entrepreneurial business and then rode out the interest like that for the rest of their lives. Multiple homes, yachts and luxury cruises, the works. Nobody in the world needs 10x or 100x that.

@YM - I always blew off digital cards vs real ones I could hold, but ultimately they're worth what you can do with them, so if some can be used to play with you guys and some can't, it's the latter that are a raw deal.

Yeah by my own math I figure a family of 4 can live in comfort with 5 mil - and if you invest that your (immediate) family shouldn't ever have to work again.

[Armando]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

@Mal - While I accept it to a degree as a necessary evil, I don't believe in taking away the wealth of someone who has rightfully earned it. That's their own property, and while I'd obviously rather they spent it making more Gates Foundations rather than building bigass golf courses, making joke runs at the presidency and generally being a giant prick, if that's how they want to live, it's their right to choose.

I'm playing devil's advocate here, but isn't that kind of a big grey area? I mean, taking the wealth of someone who earned it is the entire basis of taxation. The person that made the money was operating within a society that's paid for by taxes. And using the term "earned" opens up an even bigger can of worms, given society generally doesn't follow an "effort in -> money out" function of reward. It'd be nice if you really could work harder to buy yourself a better life, but I think we all know that's often not true.

[Malacite]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

My point is, no matter how much a person thinks they "earned" that wealth, the fact is it didn't just magically get there solely because of them. CEO's don't get filthy rich because they're just that awesome, it's because of all the people working under them and the people who purchases their goods or services (and then go and pay themselves an exorbitant share of that income...)

It's the responsibility of those who do well to give back (proportionately), so that the rest of society may benefit as well.


I mean it's pretty fucked up that the income tax goes as high as 35% and applies to the majority of people, while guys like Romney make millions of dollars a year off investments and pay a max of 15% on money they didn't technically work for. I say technically because yeah he did work to get that investment going, but there's no work involved afterward - it's all passive income for him, and to me that's no excuse for such a low rate; just the opposite really especially since it's recurring unlike say winning on a gameshow or lottery ticket.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

I wanted to propagate this awesome-sounding quote on facebook, but for some reason I decided to check it's authenticity first. Turns out it's almost certainly apocryphal.
The Volokh Conspiracy � “Government Is Not Reason, It Is Not Eloquence — It Is Force”
There's no record of him ever saying this in speech or writing, and the earliest attribution of it isn't until 1902. I agree with whoever said it and it was well said, but probably not by Washington.

Well then, to really quote him:

Well, damn.

Because I'm sure he said that at some point about something.

[Taskmage]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

My point is, no matter how much a person thinks they "earned" that wealth, the fact is it didn't just magically get there solely because of them. CEO's don't get filthy rich because they're just that awesome, it's because of all the people working under them and the people who purchases their goods or services (and then go and pay themselves an exorbitant share of that income...)

These things are already handled. The workers are already compensated for their labor with paychecks, and the consumers were compensated for their revenue in the form of the products they bought. Moral arguments that workers should be paid better and products and services should be cheaper are meaningless. Things are worth what people will pay for them. If the product isn't worth the price tag or the wage not worth the work done, people wouldn't participate in those transactions.

I do think it's absurd and backward that people with the greatest capacity to contribute have the least responsibility as a percentage of their income. I don't at all understand the rationale behind taxing capital gains differently than payroll, differently than rents or whatever. Imo, if you sell something, whether it's a widget or a service or usage rights or stock options, and put that money in your pocket, that's income just the same as any other.

To Armando's point, it goes back to "you didn't build that." Yes, it's true that successful business depends on things like infrastructure that is often overseen by government, the maintenance of social order with respect to crime, and subtler things like national standards of currency and communication. But many if not all of these benefits apply to every citizen and should, as I see it, cancel out when it comes to measuring what one person earned vs another person in the same social circumstances.

Of course there's the time and tide effect. Sometimes someone is just in the right place at the right time, and reaps a bigger fortune than someone else who might have been more clever or diligent. If monetary gain was a measure of personal virtue then we'd want to fix that, but it isn't. Money is just a chit that says "You provided X amount of value to my life, use this to add that much value to yours." The person who was there to provide the value should reap the reward. That another person could have done it better had circumstances been different is irrelevant to the customer who needed someone at that specific place and time.

But yeah, nothing's ever as simple as black and white. I think earnings are a very very light grey, and taxes are a very very dark grey, so we should disrupt the former as little as possible and employ the latter as little as possible, but there's some degree to which practicality demands we do each.

[Malacite]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

You can't seriously tell me with a straight face that it's totally justified for one person to make 500x the salary of their lowest paid employees, just because they can. To that end, there was a story on CNN quite a while back about the CEO of a successful bread company (I forget where in the U.S. it was exactly) who only makes 40k - the same as anyone else working under him, maybe slightly more than others. Why? Because he doesn't feel like he needs the extra pay, or that he works that much harder than everyone else. He even comes in to help out. That's a model CEO IMO.

I'm against people making more money than others, I'm against clearly unjustifiably large sums of executive pay being paid out just because they're at the top - when you could be raising everyone's standards of living instead by good deal and STILL be pretty well off compared to most people. Again I cite Ford, who took all kinds of hell for doing it but paid his people well enough that they could actually afford the cars they were making. It was good for the workers and​ for the business. People also paid into pensions via investing in the companies they worked for back then too, thank you Nixon for changing that to putting everyone's money in the stock exchange instead...


EDIT: As a side note, this is also why my Dad and I are actually glad to see that housing prices are staying relatively low, and we hope they stay down. It sucks for the people who've lost money, but it's a good thing in the long run - mortages have gone from around 10% of people's monthly income up to (or even over) 1/3. That is fucked up. And who's benefiting from all these high rates? The banks & real estate guys.

[Taskmage]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

I certainly do think that's fucked up, but any ideas you have about what a given person "should" make are merely an opinion. It's not your business to tell the owner of a company how much of his business's profits he can keep for himself, or tell a board of directors what they should be allowed to allot for their executives. Those numbers are determined by market forces, just the same as worker wages and product prices. If big companies thought they could get away with paying executives 5-digit salaries and still attract the quality of applicant they want, you can bet they would in a heartbeat. I'll be perfectly honest: I don't know what the value of a strong CEO is to a company vs a weak one. Neither do you. But given the cascading ramifications of their decisions, it could very well be millions of dollars, and I don't think I have the right to step in and say that not only do I know what they're worth but that they don't deserve to recieve that.

I think that guy who takes a $40k salary is a damn saint, and I think every CEO should be like him, but that decision should come from their own free will, not outside force.

[Malacite]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

That's why I didn't place any arbitrary numbers - that's not for me to decide.

Congress however can under commerce laws I'm pretty sure. I just find it morally & ethically objectionable for so few people to have such a large concentration of wealth - especially in a system that's rigged to only help them increase that gap. It's especially disgusting to see Romney out there talking about creating an economy that will be so amazing that everyone will strike it big... you couldn't possibly lie any harder than that.


I was amazed to find out with all the teacher strikes going on there, that Chicago actually pays them incredibly well - the average teacher's salary is 70k! Now, that seems just a tad high (50~60k sounds about right) and yes, that's tax money paying for that not corporate profits but the point is the same - paying people a decent, living wage. There are way too many families that have both parents working, but are still struggling just to hang on while the shitheads on wall street throw another yacht party.

To me at least, it's not about robbing others of the success they've earned, so much as it is ensuring everyone can live at least a decent, happy lifestyle - If you want more then yes, you should have to strive for that. But it's patently wrong for so many people who are trying to live right but only just barely getting by.

[Taskmage]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

Honestly, I see these all as cultural problems. My family's income level is below the officially defined poverty threshold for a household of our size by at least 25%. I consider my life to be relatively comfortable. We don't have cable, we don't allow ourselves to eat out more than once a month, I can only buy 1-3 AAA games per year, we buy our vehicles used, etc, but we can put away money for emergencies, afford to pay extra on our small home's mortgage, have no debt but said mortgage, eat well on healthy food, have broadband and 3 computers ... I don't think it's that people slaving away with 2-3 jobs per household can't afford to be happy and productive, it's just that they don't know how to be happy with what they have.

We have cultural biases toward ridiculous amounts of consumption, believe we're supposed to have a two-income household or both have careers even if most of that second income is spent paying someone else to spend time with your kids for you because you can't, etc, etc. There are plenty of countries where the average worker makes a tenth of what even the least skilled American makes, and I'm not saying that should be our standard, but I don't believe that none of those people are leading what they consider to be decent lives. I also understand there are people with much worse circumstances than me regarding medical costs, student debt, predatory loans and so forth, but I don't think those people represent the majority of people who are "struggling to get by."

Tbh, I think the poor and middle class in our country have the same problem with greed that the super-rich have, it just isn't as obvious to them because the scale isn't blown up to larger than life size.