Trade Hate: Which one takes more skill?

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SlixSC wrote:

Income inequality is at an all time high, poverty is a serious issue (ironically more so in the US, due to it's increased support of a free market, compared to more socialist european countries).

Where the hell are you getting your information from?
If you make claims, cite your sources. Here I'll even help you:

[Forbes] America's Poor Still Live Better Than Most Of The Rest Of Humanity

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Capitalism produces goods for profit. Socialism produces goods for use.

You're over-simplifying those terms by a metric-fuck-ton. Capitalism encourages people (via profit) to produce goods for use. People can produce "goods for profit" all they want, but if the product is garbage, nobody's going to buy it. That's the beauty of capitalism. It lets the cream of the crop rise to the top, and weeds out everything else. Not everybody's idea (product) is equally useful. What's important is the end result; not the motivation behind it. In this way, the free market acts as an instigator for people to fill niches in the most efficient way possible.

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SlixSC wrote:

I hear this argument alot that "without capitalism there is no innovation", this might be true, but on the other hand how can you categorically say that? Are you absolutely sure that capitalism is the only economical system that could allow people to make "succesful F2P ARPGs"?

It is within reason to assume so, because it is in the history books. The most groundbreaking technological/industrial revolutions, creations, and inventions of the last couple centuries were done so by entrepreneurial inventors. These people were motivated to satisfy a market demand. When they finally met this demand, they were rewarded for their ingenuity. In your ideological world, are you suggesting inventors be stripped of their ideas to "benefit the greater good" of society?

One phrase worth remembering is: Capitalism redistributes wealth based on merit. Socialism redistributes wealth by force, taking it from the productive (taxes) and giving it to the unproductive; it does not reward through profit incentive.

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SlixSC wrote:

Are we really required to live in a system where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer because it's the only system that can encourage innovation and hard work?

Capitalism fairly rewards the rich. Believe it or not, many of the "newly" rich have done so through hard work and their own creativeness. Are you suggesting that all rich people somehow scammed their way to the top? Do you not agree that it would be unfair to paint all of the rich people with a broad brush? Also, if you have a better economic system in mind, please become an economist and show us.

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SlixSC wrote:

And there is of course this naive notion that "the rich deserve to be rich" and "the poor deserve to be poor", which is complete nonsense. Does Paris Hilton deserve to be rich? Granted that's a rather extreme example of what I'm talking about, but you get the point.

Paris Hilton does in fact deserve to be rich, which is completely separate from the fact that I absolutely hate her guts. First, she has rightful claims to her family's inheritance. Secondly, she is a successful businesswoman on her own terms (Paris Hilton Stores). Believe it or not, being a businessperson isn't easy. It requires a heavy amount of social IQ, ability to micromanage, balance of risk/reward, and ingenuity to spot opportunities when they arise.

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SlixSC wrote:

But even so, are the contributions of a a business owner worth 1000x more than the contributions of a doctor who saves lives on a daily basis? Why? Because the business owner acts in a way that purely benefits himself, whereas the doctor deserve to earn less because they naively chose to help others? Is it really that silly to think that economics, at least in part, should reflect some moral standards?

You're making the assumption that business owners do not also contribute their time/money in philanthropic ways. Bill Gates, of all people, has donated more money (via his own foundation) than multiple other top charities combined. Not only has Gates' company, Microsoft, benefited the technological world in more than a thousand ways, but by rising to the top as a businessman, Bill now has extra time in the latter part of his life to do good things with his earned money.

Another example: Angelina Jolie. She is one of the world's highest-earning actresses (and yes, acting in itself is a "business", as the actor is the product). Angelina has done extensive humanitarian work, regularly contributes a large chunk of her time overseas to humanitarian efforts, has a total combined involvement in 50+ charities/causes, and has adopted 3 children so far.

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SlixSC wrote:

To you this will probably seem naive and absurd, but guess what, Europe is slowly drifting more and more into socialism and european countries are doing just fine... in fact some socialist european countries are doing significantly BETTER than the "free-market embracing" US (germany, scandinavia, etc..) in terms of living standards, social inequalities and so on.

It is naive and absurd, and you should feel ashamed for having such head-in-the-cloud beliefs. Socialism, on a grand scale, has never been proven to work. The "nanny state", in which everything is provided to the populace, has shown time and time again to not work. It makes people lazy, unmotivated, and unable to stand on their own 2 feet. In the past year alone, the European Union has seen a number of countries nearly go belly-up. But since you keep on failing to cite sources on your claims, I'll help you again:

[National Post] Despite welfare state and wine, unhappiness reigns in France

"France has good wine, a great culture, a 35-hour work week and a miserable population. A study by the Paris School of Economics shows that despite having all the things needed for a good life, the French are among the unhappiest people on the planet."

[NY Times] Worried Greeks Fear Collapse of Middle Class Welfare State

"Critics say the country has failed to carry out more focused cuts because it is reluctant to take on some public-sector unions that protect a small, powerful cadre of workers who have deep ties to the governing Socialist Party"

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SlixSC wrote:

I view the market as a means to and end, not an end in and of itself. The purpose of the market should be to provide ALL people with the things they need. The market need not necessarily be profit-driven. Saying that would not only be myopic, but also narrow-minded.

Of course the market is a means to an end. When did anyone here state otherwise? The distinction you're forgetting is that a free market allows everything to happen quicker and more efficiently. Entrepeneurs compete against each other to bring their products to market, and the consumers are then able to "vote" with their wallet by selecting the best contender, just like how we are able to choose to play Path of Exile over Diablow 3.

It's amazing how capitalism will reward Rihana with millions,while a phenomenal musician that can improvise a voice fugue will starve.Capitalism will reward you only if your "product" serves the needs of the market,and the needs of the market are being brute forced through advertising.That link you posted from forves(the ost rediculous of all sites),is redicuous.If you wanna support your case try find something from serious analysts and economologists.Jefry Sachs himself(who was a suypporter of capitalism) and was a teacher at Harvard claimed that US was actually the only western country that 1 out 7(or 8 i dont remember) people had to eat from charity organisations.
And forget that,you can move on to health care system,be it physical or mental.How can you explain that Cuba,which is one of the poorest countries in the world,has the best public medicare system there is,their inhabitants hace higher life expectancy than in US,and of course there really are not any mental illnesses,while US,on psycological and mental disorders are the first nation in the world.I do not think that stress do you all that much good.
Moving on,on technological achievments,Soviet Union actually had done many advances before the US.

And now finally,the most important fact,would you beleive that US would stand economicaly where it stands now,if it was not for the brutal intervations,and taking advantages(through force mostly),of third world's countries resources,both physical,and in the form of cheap labour work force.

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rrtson wrote:

cut

your post is idealistic and downright ignorant

Capitalism as you describe it only works in a new economy or a new market.
In an established capitalist economy, all the effort of the higher end of the pyramid is in mantaining its status, definitely not on innovation lol=

That inevitably leads to oligarchy/monopoly and corruption

Infact poe is a prime example of this in the differences between standard league as an established economy and fresh leagues

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Poutsos wrote:

It's amazing how capitalism will reward Rihana with millions,while a phenomenal musician that can improvise a voice fugue will starve.

In case you were unaware, Rihanna creates pop music. "Pop" stands for "popular", as in music that a large number of people like listening to -- commonly using musical hooks and major chord progressions to create catchy melodies. People pay $$$ to buy her songs, not because she's popular, but because they find her music appealing. That is called capitalism.

I understand that you may not find this type of music appealing, but your taste in what qualifies as "good" music is completely your opinion. Lesser-known artists might be more musically "talented", but that has little to do with how appealing their music is. So they can either find another full-time job or do music part-time until they eventually become popular.

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Poutsos wrote:

Capitalism will reward you only if your "product" serves the needs of the market,and the needs of the market are being brute forced through advertising.That link you posted from forves(the ost rediculous of all sites),is redicuous.If you wanna support your case try find something from serious analysts and economologists.Jefry Sachs himself(who was a suypporter of capitalism) and was a teacher at Harvard claimed that US was actually the only western country that 1 out 7(or 8 i dont remember) people had to eat from charity organisations.
And forget that,you can move on to health care system,be it physical or mental.How can you explain that Cuba,which is one of the poorest countries in the world,has the best public medicare system there is,their inhabitants hace higher life expectancy than in US,and of course there really are not any mental illnesses,while US,on psycological and mental disorders are the first nation in the world.I do not think that stress do you all that much good.
Moving on,on technological achievments,Soviet Union actually had done many advances before the US.

And now finally,the most important fact,would you beleive that US would stand economicaly where it stands now,if it was not for the brutal intervations,and taking advantages(through force mostly),of third world's countries resources,both physical,and in the form of cheap labour work force.

Absolute gibberish. Cite your sources.

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Amiag wrote:

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rrtson wrote:

cut

cut

Thanks for taking the time to address each one of my points with well-thought-out responses of your own. Your response showed such economic insight! And you provided us with so many citations to support your argument.

Oh wait

Also, I find it funny how you accuse me of being "idealistic" when the socialist-loving post I was responding to was 1000x more idealistic than anything I mentioned about capitalism.

dude you said Paris Hilton is a business woman

you dont get more idealistic than that

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rrtson wrote:

Where the hell are you getting your information from?
If you make claims, cite your sources. Here I'll even help you:

[Forbes] America's Poor Still Live Better Than Most Of The Rest Of Humanity

I just checked out the OECD website and couldn't find the above linked graph anywhere.

The graph linked by the economist for example would have us believe that the average living standard of US americans is higher than the average living standard of swiss people.

However, when we look at the OECD website (the site linked) we can clearly see that, even according to the source, the swiss (on average) have a higher quality of life than US americans.

http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/#/21111111111

How is this possible? According to "your" graph, the top 10% of americans have a higher living standard than the top 10% of swiss, same is true for the bottom 10%.

The only way this can possibly be true is if the 80% in the middle enjoy a significantly higher living standard in Switzerland than they do in the US.

This type of number-crunching is therefore meaningless, since you are ignoring the majority of the population in order to be able to support your claim.

And in any case, I find it hard to believe that the top 10% of italians enjoy a lower living standard than the bottom 10% of US americans.

More than 15% of americans live off foodstamps (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/23/why-are-47-million-americans-on-food-stamps-its-the-recession-mostly/).

So if you could actually cite your exact source and methodology, I would really appreciate that.

As for the second graph, I have absolutely no idea what I'm looking at and there is no link to any source.

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You're over-simplifying those terms by a metric-fuck-ton. Capitalism encourages people (via profit) to produce goods for use. People can produce "goods for profit" all they want, but if the product is garbage, nobody's going to buy it. That's the beauty of capitalism. It lets the cream of the crop rise to the top, and weeds out everything else. Not everybody's idea (product) is equally useful. What's important is the end result; not the motivation behind it. In this way, the free market acts as an instigator for people to fill niches in the most efficient way possible.

It is very easy to paint an economic system in a way to make it sound "nice" for everybody. But you are being dishonest here. Nobody is saying that free-market capitalism doesn't have it's "pros", however the pros need to be weighed against the cons.

Free market capitalism works just great as long as there is actual competition. However, this concept is almost always underminded by monopolization.

Let's go back to the 1990s. Netscape was the dominant web browser, because they produced the best product for a reasonable price. Microsoft however wanted everyone to use Internet Explorer (an inferior product - their product), instead.

With Windows already being the predominant OS at the time (9 out of 10) and Microsoft having significantly more capital than Netscape, they decided to undermine the market and make their web browser free.

Netscape knew that they were now forced to make their product free aswell in order to stay competitive. They had the superior product after all, but people always prefer "free stuff" even if that means "somewhat lower quality".

And this is an example of when the free market failed and Microsoft's monopoly showed it's true colors. They still weren't happy with their free browser competing with another free browser (since their product was simply worse). So what Microsoft effectively said was: "If you, PC companies, want to install windows, you are not allowed to install netscape."

This proved succesful, Windows was already the predominant OS at the time so PC companies naturally followed Microsoft's request. Even though it meant that the quality of the product they were selling was worse.

Netscape was effectively bullied out of the market, first MS underminded the price and when that shady business tactic didn't yield the desired results, they made it virtually impossible for netscape to provide their product at all.

Again, netscape was the superior product and it never had a chance.

And this isn't an isolated case, the free market actively encourages monopolization and shady business tactics. This is what a free unregulated market gets you.

It's not the best product that ultimately "wins", it's the company with the most capital bullying all competitors (for better or worse) out of the market.

Needless to say that the U.S. government took Bill Gates to court and Microsoft was fined $200,000,000. So regulations were at least somewhat enforced, but this example demonstrate perfectly why a free market with little to no regulations can never possibly work.

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It is within reason to assume so, because it is in the history books. The most groundbreaking technological/industrial revolutions, creations, and inventions of the last couple centuries were done so by entrepreneurial inventors. These people were motivated to satisfy a market demand. When they finally met this demand, they were rewarded for their ingenuity. In your ideological world, are you suggesting inventors be stripped of their ideas to "benefit the greater good" of society?

No I'm not. I'm actually suggesting the exact opposite. I'm suggesting that inventions that benefit the greater good of society be more economically rewarded than inventions that only benefit a small target audience or the "rich".

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One phrase worth remembering is: Capitalism redistributes wealth based on merit. Socialism redistributes wealth by force, taking it from the productive (taxes) and giving it to the unproductive; it does not reward through profit incentive.

It's great when people throw out platitudes like that, except that they are nonsense.

Again, does a rich business owner have more merit than a doctor that saves lives on a daily basis? Free market capitalism will never be able to reflect moral values. You are encouraged to make profit and effectively discouraged to help others.

A doctor providing public services and healthcare (to everyone) will never have the same economic power as a business owner with an expensive product that has some demand.

Again, I understand that you don't think this is bullshit, but I do.

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Capitalism fairly rewards the rich. Believe it or not, many of the "newly" rich have done so through hard work and their own creativeness. Are you suggesting that all rich people somehow scammed their way to the top? Do you not agree that it would be unfair to paint all of the rich people with a broad brush? Also, if you have a better economic system in mind, please become an economist and show us.

I'm not saying most rich people do not deserve to be rich, but a significant portion of them don't.

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Paris Hilton does in fact deserve to be rich, which is completely separate from the fact that I absolutely hate her guts. First, she has rightful claims to her family's inheritance. Secondly, she is a successful businesswoman on her own terms (Paris Hilton Stores). Believe it or not, being a businessperson isn't easy. It requires a heavy amount of social IQ, ability to micromanage, balance of risk/reward, and ingenuity to spot opportunities when they arise.

But this proves my point. Paris Hilton is rich, because she was born into a rich family. She had more money than ever needed to start her own business, so her risk was extremely low. This level of opportunity is never available to poor people.

This system doesn't really reward work ethics or good ideas, since having money is (in most cases) a pre-requirement for your ideas to have a chance in the first place. The free market, in it's current form, is not a level-playing field. Rich people have the money to make more money, poor people (no matter their work ethics or ideas, with very few exceptions) simply do not.

If we could get to a system where the government publicly funds good ideas, no matter your social background, purely based on their own merits and how beneficial they are to society, I think we would be in a much better place, socio-economically speaking.

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You're making the assumption that business owners do not also contribute their time/money in philanthropic ways. Bill Gates, of all people, has donated more money (via his own foundation) than multiple other top charities combined. Not only has Gates' company, Microsoft, benefited the technological world in more than a thousand ways, but by rising to the top as a businessman, Bill now has extra time in the latter part of his life to do good things with his earned money.

Another example: Angelina Jolie. She is one of the world's highest-earning actresses (and yes, acting in itself is a "business", as the actor is the product). Angelina has done extensive humanitarian work, regularly contributes a large chunk of her time overseas to humanitarian efforts, has a total combined involvement in 50+ charities/causes, and has adopted 3 children so far.

And for any rich person that donates some portion of their wealth to charity, I'm sure there are 20 or more rich people that do not donate some significant portion of their wealth or nothing at all to charity.

So what is your point? You are an ideologue, you paint things in such an extremely biased way... it's unbelievable.

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"France has good wine, a great culture, a 35-hour work week and a miserable population. A study by the Paris School of Economics shows that despite having all the things needed for a good life, the French are among the unhappiest people on the planet."

"Critics say the country has failed to carry out more focused cuts because it is reluctant to take on some public-sector unions that protect a small, powerful cadre of workers who have deep ties to the governing Socialist Party"

So in response to the fact that some socialist countries are doing extremely well (norway, rest of scandinavia, germany, etc..) you respond by pointing out that France (a country plagued by immigration and de-homogenization) and Greece, a country that lived well over it's own standards for a long time (the exact opposite of real socialism or communism, by the way), are not.

Brilliant.

edit: Again, I'm not advocating for real socialism or communism, but a more heavily regulated economy with more emphasis on ethics and moral contributions.. ethical socialism.

@rrtson: You do cite a lot of sources, but none of them seem to be worth much when it comes to supporting your agenda:

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rrtson wrote:

[Forbes] America's Poor Still Live Better Than Most Of The Rest Of Humanity

Are you sure you can trust a statistic that indicates that America's poorest 10% live a life about on par with Italy's richest 10%?

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[National Post] Despite welfare state and wine, unhappiness reigns in France

"France has good wine, a great culture, a 35-hour work week and a miserable population. A study by the Paris School of Economics shows that despite having all the things needed for a good life, the French are among the unhappiest people on the planet."

In the article there is is no hint or indication whatsoever that the presumed unhappiness of the French has anything to do with "welfare state" or a social democracy. It seems that's just you making assumptions.

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[NY Times] Worried Greeks Fear Collapse of Middle Class Welfare State

"Critics say the country has failed to carry out more focused cuts because it is reluctant to take on some public-sector unions that protect a small, powerful cadre of workers who have deep ties to the governing Socialist Party"

The "collapse of the middle class welfare state" suggests something different than what it says in the text, where there is no mentioning of welfare of any kind. In fact, the only thing even remotely connected to welfare is this: "Since 2010, the government has raised taxes and slashed pensions and state salaries across the board [...]"

Derailed topic is derailed... again.

lulz