The Rich and Powerful Who Abuse the System: the contempt topic

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

17 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I'll be honest, I thought I was showing restraint by not titling the topic 'eat the rich', but whatever: the title isn't that important. 

 

 

On the hard work question - I feel like how hard a CEO or whoever works is basically entirely unrelated to how evil they are. Some insanely hard workers will be proper bastards, some moochers will be moochers and not much else. Rather have a moocher whose company is as close to 'basically alright' as this system allows a big corporation to be than a hard worker heading up Union Carbide. 

I’d still like to have a actual definition of “wealthy”…

[Gorn]

He simply said in plain words what various central bank leaders have been hinting at over the past two years. Workers have been blamed for the inflation, wage growth has been referred to as a "problem" and "crisis" which needs to be " urgently solved". All this, in spite of the fact that wage growth has been a negligible cause of inflation.

Inequality is not an accidental byproduct of the free market, it is an intentional goal of economic and political elites. And when free market starts actually working in favor of the "lower" classes, the monetary policy is used to suppress the free market in favor of maintaining status quo.

[polishgenius]

29 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’d still like to have a actual definition of “wealthy”…

 

 This isn't a science. 'Wealthy' means 'people who have a lot of money'. There isn't a cutoff point. I'm not really sure what else you want. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

28 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

 This isn't a science. 'Wealthy' means 'people who have a lot of money'. There isn't a cutoff point. I'm not really sure what else you want. 

That’s incredibly vague.  Are you going to go with the “I know it when I see it” half assed answer?

[Apologies in advance if I’m pissy. I’m in a really poor mood through no one’s fault]

Edited September 13, 2023 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[Altherion]

There is certainly some amount of contempt in the original statement, but it is mostly derived from a delusional view of the world. The CEO calling for significantly higher unemployment almost certainly believes that right now, most people have plenty of money which causes them to not work quite as hard as they otherwise would. It's possible that this was true at some point in the aftermath of the pandemic, but it's definitely not the case today -- the pandemic benefits are long gone and while inflation has slowed, the prices for most things are permanently higher and still growing. Furthermore, if he were to get his wish of a 40-50% increase in unemployment, it's completely impossible to predict what the results would be; it would surely come as part of a recession and the central banks would have to choose between risking unrest by sticking to the higher rates or risking runaway inflation by lowering the rates.

Fortunately, the people currently in charge are not quite that delusional and they're trying to strike a balance between tamping down inflation and increasing unemployment.

[Zorral]

42 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’d still like to have a actual definition of “wealthy”…

People who don't pay their share of taxes -- or even any share of taxes -- who don't get indicted, arrested, convicted of crimes, who can always make bail, and if they do get a slap on the wrist, go to a nice comfy, white color prison where their job is tennis pro, who have lots of hidden assets, have their own accountants and law firms and banks and medical teams on the pay roll -- perhaps even own chains of hospitals!  have an assistant pick up the fone and get anyone they want to talk to -- in person.  People who have never done or experienced any of what most of us deal with constantly day in and day out.  People for whom everything from their private jet fleet to their 18 homes are business write-offs. Just for starters.  Use that brain that usually is in evidence, fer pete's sake.

[maarsen]

15 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

That’s incredibly vague.  Are you going to go with the “I know it when I see it” half assed answer?

I would suggest that those who never need think about paying a bill or expense  but just do whatever are wealthy.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

10 minutes ago, maarsen said:

I would suggest that those who never need think about paying a bill or expense  but just do whatever are wealthy.

Perhaps people who have so much cash they don’t actually know how much cash they have?

[Mlle. Zabzie]

6 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

The bold is the rub. I've been in some of these spaces and often times a two hour meeting is scheduled for what could be done in 15-30 minutes. Meetings also include golfing and going out to lunch. The actual hands on work they do is minimal in most instances. And even when it's a real meeting that is focused they still contribute very little to it. The entire point of climbing to the top of any large organization is to get paid as much as possible while doing as little work as you can.

Not exactly. What you're describing are people grinding as they're on the come up. Individuals trying to create something work their asses off otherwise they'll probably fail. Likewise with people seeking that big promotion. But once you reach the top that behavior changes more often than not. Some people never lose that dog in them, but my guess is most just relax, look like they're working hard and enjoy the benefits of it while complaining about how those much lower down on the ladder aren't working hard enough while being too greedy just like the fuck head at the top of the thread. 

Nah, you are undervaluing the difficulty of their skillset and the importance of meetings and actually underestimating the amount of time spent thinking and doing.  I deal in my job with a LOT of CEOs.  They are a mixed bag.  But a good CEO works incredibly hard and is the end decisionmaker point for an entire organization.  That is a very particular skillset, if done right.  It involves incredibly hard work, really good listening skills (which, hint, can't be done well over email), the ability to understand and synthesize vast amounts of information from lots of different (can't believe I'm using this word) stakeholders, attention to detail but also, and simultaneously, the ability to tune out detail and derive signal from noise, and a certain sociopathic ability to take a decision even though it will not please everyone.  I actually think the job is very, very stressful, is often done poorly, but, and I will agree, is often WAY overcompensated.  

The job does attract some pretty unfortunate types too.  There are the visionaries and dreamers (can't get them to look in the mirror honestly), the cult of personality types (OMFG), and the jackasses (enough said).  But a lot of the very most contemptuous people I have ever dealt with are the next rung down, and not the CEOs.

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

I'll be honest, I thought I was showing restraint by not titling the topic 'eat the rich', but whatever: the title isn't that important. 

 

 

On the hard work question - I feel like how hard a CEO or whoever works is basically entirely unrelated to how evil they are. Some insanely hard workers will be proper bastards, some moochers will be moochers and not much else. Rather have a moocher whose company is as close to 'basically alright' as this system allows a big corporation to be than a hard worker heading up Union Carbide. 

This exactly.  

[polishgenius]

 

13 minutes ago, maarsen said:

I would suggest that those who never need think about paying a bill or expense  but just do whatever are wealthy.

 

 

This isn't an unreasonable definition, but tbh I do think that there are people who live completely comfortably and don't have to worry about bills as such but still have to think about what they're doing who'd still be considered 'wealthy' by any reasonable standards. And who definitely have the potential to fall under the umbrella of people I'm complaining about here.

Top-level professional athletes are a pretty good example of what I mean financially - they earn money that should set them up for the rest of their lives but it's a fairly common phenomenon for them to go bankrupt very shortly after active income ceases, because they should have been thinking about how to manage that wealth and they didn't. They aren't really in the class of person I'm talking about though, because generally speaking sports earnings aren't exploitative. They're just the examples that come up easily because they're high-profile individuals. 

 

Which kind of summarises why I'm finding Scot's demand for a concrete definition kind of irritating. I thought it was clear I meant exploiters even without spelling it out, but since there was some confusion about it, I clarified (and Ran fixed the title). In that context, making it about 'but how much do you need to qualify' is unhelpful, because for example a landlord with a small-ish stash of housing is probably earning rather less than a mid-level top-league sportsman and a lot less than Stephen Curry, but they're far more directly beneficiaries of the attitude and system I'm actually complaining about here, and far more likely to be actively promoting it. Drawing a line which puts the sportsman above the exploitative landlord clarifies nothing. 

[Liffguard]

10 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’d still like to have a actual definition of “wealthy”…

It's obviously a bit reductive, so don't take it as absolutely cast-iron literally true, but I think Chris Rock's comedy bit about the difference between "rich" and "wealthy" is actually a decent jumping off point.

Or to put it another way, and it's a point I've talked about before, I'm not personally all that fussed about people who have nice stuff, or even people who don't need to work. My concern is with the people who actually control the systems and institutions that other people rely on to live their lives ("the means of production" if you want to be a bit Marxist about it, but that is also a bit reductive IMO).

It's also why I think the new thread title doesn't really capture the problem. Because the problem isn't with with the ultra-rich who abuse the system. Indeed, the CEO posted in the very first post isn't abusing the system, he's using it exactly as intended.

[SeanF]

There’s a lot of bed-wetting about labour shortages pushing up wages in the UK, right now.  Which misses the point that capitalism depends, for its survival, on enough people having a stake in the system.

There are some people for whom the world is never enough, like the CEO in the O/P.

An equal problem, in both public and private sectors, is that once you attain a certain level, there is no penalty for failure.

[Poobah]

13 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’d still like to have a actual definition of “wealthy”…

I know it when I eat it.

[mormont]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

There’s a lot of bed-wetting about labour shortages pushing up wages in the UK, right now.  Which misses the point that capitalism depends, for its survival, on enough people having a stake in the system.

Yeah, been saying this for a long time. The issue is that capitalism rewards success, but that becomes cyclical, because the best way to win is to have a head start, so being successful leads to more success. Unregulated capitalism will therefore inevitably become unsustainable. What people like the guy in the clip forget is that capitalism not an unmutable law of how the universe works, it's only a social construct, a set of rules we all agree to use. If those rules aren't benefiting enough people, they will refuse to play by those rules. Changing the rules has enormous costs and is very difficult by design - but it's not impossible. History has shown us that economic and political systems can and do change. 

[Heartofice]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

There’s a lot of bed-wetting about labour shortages pushing up wages in the UK, right now.  Which misses the point that capitalism depends, for its survival, on enough people having a stake in the system.

There are some people for whom the world is never enough, like the CEO in the O/P.

An equal problem, in both public and private sectors, is that once you attain a certain level, there is no penalty for failure.

If your whole business model is based around an endless supply of cheap and subservient labour then you maybe should re-examine just how well run your company is. If a sudden labour shortage pushes wages up to more acceptable levels then maybe that is something we should have considered a long time ago. 

[SeanF]

34 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

If your whole business model is based around an endless supply of cheap and subservient labour then you maybe should re-examine just how well run your company is. If a sudden labour shortage pushes wages up to more acceptable levels then maybe that is something we should have considered a long time ago. 

 Cheap labour to keep wages down, and cheap imports to keep prices down, is the wet dream of some business leaders and central bankers, but it's incredibly short-termist.

[BigFatCoward]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66803279

 

Grovelling shitbag. 

[Heartofice]

52 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66803279

 

Grovelling shitbag. 

Why even bother apologising? Nobody is actually going believe he has changed his mind. If he didn't deeply believe what he said he wouldn't be up on stage saying it.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, Poobah said:

I know it when I eat it.

Ewwwwwwwww…

[Ormond]

15 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

 

But a lot of the very most contemptuous people I have ever dealt with are the next rung down, and not the CEOs.

 

I'd like to add that in my experience I've seen the same thing in higher education. People who are vice-presidents at universities are usually more sociopathic and dismissive of faculty and other lower down employees than university presidents are. The fault I often see with university presidents is that they are way too easily fooled by the sociopaths below them in the administration. Of course the presidents as well as the vice-presidents are often overcompensated now as universities are way too run on a corporate business model.