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BillBrasky Memorial Political Chat Thread


Few things irrationally irritate me more than those dickheads sliding into my LinkedIn inbox. It’s always such ambiguous messaging because they know MLMs are a disaster. It’s too late to get me started on that shit. If there wasn’t already enough of it out there, I’d write an ebook or something in the dangers of those companies.
 
Being fry cook would absolutely suck. I wouldn’t want that job for $35 per hour.
 
MLM'S seem to hook more women than men in my experience, I wonder why that is. When I was growing up, my church was full of women selling Mary Kay and Rainbow vacuum cleaners, then it turned into girls I knew from high school selling essential oils and LuLaRoe yoga pants on facebook
 
MLM'S seem to hook more women than men in my experience, I wonder why that is. When I was growing up, my church was full of women selling Mary Kay and Rainbow vacuum cleaners, then it turned into girls I knew from high school selling essential oils and LuLaRoe yoga pants on facebook

Fucking Rodan & Fields.
 
The only MLM I'm aware of thats targeted at men is MAC tools
 
There are lots of bad takes here on this thread, but some of that is, like, my opinion
The one thing that isn't opinion however, is the notion that wealth is a zero-sum game, it's not. Not that this will likely lead to any of you who think it is to change your mind, but it's just not
I usually try not to post on this board because it's fairly pointless, but this concept is so egregiously wrong (and I'm having a slow morning) that I couldn't help myself.
 
The creation and expansion of wealth is a macroeconomic concept, and as I said before, it's often just lazily used to defend extractive capitalism and monopoly. The whole "rising tide lifts all boats" quality of life cliche doesn't address the people without boats. You know why? Because a rising tide drowns the people without boats. Wealth is created by labor. When you neglect that labor force as expendable and replaceable, then for that labor force, wealth is zero sum - like crabs in a bucket.

Espousing Econ 101 lectures doesn't carry much weight when you're telling people with kids and rent and a 7 year car loan that they should take some initiative and just start selling feet pics on instagram.
 
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So many feelings, so little fact. Wrapping bullshit in pretty packaging is still bullshit.

I’m sorry if your upbringing/life isn’t/wasn’t great. I really am. But where you are at 30+ years old is 100% on you and decisions you’ve made in life. It’s not the rich guy in Buena Vista bringing you down. If things are great for you, I’m happy! Again, those would be consequences of your decisions. And, as I recall, you’re married with a kid, so sounds like the latter. (I really meant this as a general “you” just was easy to use you for the sake of this point. Don’t mean to offend.)

There is a reason that every successful(subjective term, for sure) person I’ve ever met doesn’t subscribe to most of your points. They stopped being victims and took control of their lives. You’re really gonna love this... a bunch of them aren’t white or men.

This shit isn’t hard, boys. If I can do it, a redneck from a shithole, impoverished town in Eastern NC, I know most of you fuckin’ guys can. And likely a hell of a lot better than me. Frankly, nothing would make me happier than to see all of you guys kick ass in life. Hell, I’d love to connect with some of you about it. Maybe I’m old school, but I still think we can all learn a lot from each other.

I know I’m a douche. It’s who I am. But I really do love you guys, even that crusty old curmudgeon Milhouse. There’s no group of assholes I’d rather wage internet war with. I guess staring at 100+ spreadsheets since 8 PM has caused delirium to set in so you get docile DG3 tonight. Until tomorrow, gents.

Just focus on the last part of his post. Many folks will agree that opportunities are there. Maybe not to the extent you believe but Im not taking away from folks’ ability to make it out of their circumstances in this post.

The larger and what I’d consider to be less controversial point is that society always needs ditch diggers. That’s where the opportunity/bootstraps posts don’t answer the whole question.

DG3 your life right now (and all of ours) cannot happen the way it does without lots of people working in jobs you’d consider low skilled, etc. Now maybe some of the individuals in those jobs can use opportunity to move up or whatever but those jobs will always need to be there for life to happen. There is a permanent need for folks to do those jobs. If you pay them subsistence level or worse there will be a permanent under class with individuals who “make it out” or whatever on occasion. Why should it be that way? The ditch diggers need to make a living too and it seems backwards to force them to suffer through life for working a job functioning society requires
 
MLM'S seem to hook more women than men in my experience, I wonder why that is. When I was growing up, my church was full of women selling Mary Kay and Rainbow vacuum cleaners, then it turned into girls I knew from high school selling essential oils and LuLaRoe yoga pants on facebook


Legit ones that reward actual sales can be OK...not usually great.


It’s the illegitimate ones that primarily reward the purchases of your downline “sales” reps that really suck and suck people in. Just a pyramid scheme.
 
The creation and expansion of wealth is a macroeconomic concept, and as I said before, it's often just lazily used to defend extractive capitalism and monopoly. The whole "rising tide lifts all boats" quality of life cliche doesn't address the people without boats. You know why? Because a rising tide drowns the people without boats. Wealth is created by labor. When you neglect that labor force as expendable and replaceable, then for that labor force, wealth is zero sum - like crabs in a bucket.

Espousing Econ 101 lectures doesn't carry much weight when you're telling people with kids and rent and a 7 year car loan that they should take some initiative and just start selling feet pics on instagram.

It doesn’t sound like you’re disputing his point that wealth is not a zero sum game. You’re talking about who is getting it when it’s created which I don’t believe bacon was doing in that post.
 
Just focus on the last part of his post. Many folks will agree that opportunities are there. Maybe not to the extent you believe but Im not taking away from folks’ ability to make it out of their circumstances in this post.

The larger and what I’d consider to be less controversial point is that society always needs ditch diggers. That’s where the opportunity/bootstraps posts don’t answer the whole question.

DG3 your life right now (and all of ours) cannot happen the way it does without lots of people working in jobs you’d consider low skilled, etc. Now maybe some of the individuals in those jobs can use opportunity to move up or whatever but those jobs will always need to be there for life to happen. There is a permanent need for folks to do those jobs. If you pay them subsistence level or worse there will be a permanent under class with individuals who “make it out” or whatever on occasion. Why should it be that way? The ditch diggers need to make a living too and it seems backwards to force them to suffer through life for working a job functioning society requires


Yep

No good reason to not to pay workers a real, living wage. Pretty sure it’s better for everyone in the end.
 
The creation and expansion of wealth is a macroeconomic concept, and as I said before, it's often just lazily used to defend extractive capitalism and monopoly. The whole "rising tide lifts all boats" quality of life cliche doesn't address the people without boats. You know why? Because a rising tide drowns the people without boats. Wealth is created by labor. When you neglect that labor force as expendable and replaceable, then for that labor force, wealth is zero sum - like crabs in a bucket.

Espousing Econ 101 lectures doesn't carry much weight when you're telling people with kids and rent and a 7 year car loan that they should take some initiative and just start selling feet pics on instagram.

I'm not espousing Econ 101 to people with kids who are struggling and I didn't even talk about boot straps. That would be insensitive and tone deaf and unproductive (probably as unproductive as this post)
I'm espousing Econ 101 lectures to people who state that wealth accumulation is a zero sum game because those who think that don't have enough understanding of economics to engage in a deeper conversation.
We're not all good at everything, so i'm not trying to put you (or anyone else who believes this) down I'm sure yall are all smart guys/girls, but in this case you don't know what you're talking about.

There are always going to be people who live marginal existences relative to society, but that doesn't suggest that wealth is a 0 sum game
Boiling it down to a rising tide does or doesn't lift all boats, or drowns those without boats is grossly oversimplifying a complex issue, but unfortunately those types of analogies can be useful and if I begrudgingly had to endorse that analogy I would say, yes a rising tide raises all boats. The best evidence for this is that poverty is a relative term, not an absolute term (i.e poverty in the US is different than poverty in Mexico)

Even your comment about wealth being zero sum for "neglected and replaceable" labor forces isn't correct because even if the labor force gets none of the wealth (which objectively isn't true, although it's quite obvious that in most cases, capital gets the lions share of the wealth) then it's not a zero sum game. zero sum means that in order for me to accumulate wealth, I have to take it from you. If we both start out with $5 and I end up with $10 then that means you have none. If we both start out with $5 and I have $10 and you still have $5 then that's not zero sum....it's technically not even zero sum if I have $11 and you have $0
 
I apologize for making a general argument with you that included rebuttals to others arguments. I have a tendency to do that, and it sucks.
 
I apologize for making a general argument with you that included rebuttals to others arguments. I have a tendency to do that, and it sucks.

such things happen to the best of us, especially when I'm engaged in guerilla posting and you're engaged on several fronts
 
You alluded to the disproportional amount that capital gets and I think that is more of the argument that needs to be made. Its the we are cutting costs, cutting workers, not because its necessary but because it moves money into the pockets of a group that already had disproportional amount of money.
 
zero sum means that in order for me to accumulate wealth, I have to take it from you. If we both start out with $5 and I end up with $10 then that means you have none. If we both start out with $5 and I have $10 and you still have $5 then that's not zero sum....it's technically not even zero sum if I have $11 and you have $0

This isn't really my complete understanding of zero sum. More like if I take money (or if the relative few hoard money from the many), that's less for you to take. And I understand the idea that there isn't a finite pool of attainable money for everyone. Though landlords are uh, doing rent-seeking I believe was the original argument. Broadly speaking it's hard to view billionaires gaining 3/4 of a trillion during this quarantine while the rest of the country faced down 33% unemployment and not see something like a zero-sum environment, but the better term is probably just vulture capitalism or exploitation at work.

If the DG3 idea is that you can just use Instagram or create a crypto or get up at 5 AM and grind..............you're ignoring a great deal of the material levers people have access to actually pull.
 
1. I never said wealth was fully zero-sum. I said there is a zero-sum component to wealth.

2. The reason this is is that there is a scarcity of resources. At the end of the day, there is a finite amount of food, oil, water, clean air, iPhones, metal ore, etc. Innovation can expand the pool of resources, but there are no unlimited physical resources.

3. Thus, the zero-sum component of wealth is based on this scarcity: if my $10 means I can now pay more for item X then the price goes up and thus your $5 has less purchasing power. If inflation raises everybody's $5 to $10, not a dime of wealth has been created, because wealth is always about relative access to resources vis a vis others.


I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that free markets and capitalism have been the greatest engine of economic expansion in human history. Where the disagreement arises is around the distribution of the spoils. I happen to believe that inequality itself is an a priori bad, that its worst effects are social and cultural and not economic, though inequality is an inherent economic problem of capitalism.
 
You alluded to the disproportional amount that capital gets and I think that is more of the argument that needs to be made. Its the we are cutting costs, cutting workers, not because its necessary but because it moves money into the pockets of a group that already had disproportional amount of money.

You can make that argument until the cows come home and that's arguments that are fine to be made.
My point could be criticized as overly technical and semantic, but I felt like making it because the concept that wealth creation is zero sum is just wrong. If one said zero sum and just really meant, "not equitable" then that's an argument, but saying zero sum when you mean "not equitable" is something I felt needed to be corrected.
 
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No good reason to not to pay workers a real, living wage. Pretty sure it’s better for everyone in the end.

1. Who determines what $ amount constitutes a 'real, living wage'? And this living wage will fluctuate market to market, correct? Obviously the living wage in Manhattan will exceed the living wage in Topeka, KS.

2. Is it still better for everyone in the end when businesses are forced to close because revenues do not increase enough to offset additional labor expense and now the employee earns $0 as the job no longer exists?
 
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