Supreme Court ruling on money and free speech

POSTED BY: HKCavalier
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 25, 2026 22:50
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SIGNYM

Monday, January 25, 2010 5:41 PM

OK.

SIGNYM

Monday, January 25, 2010 5:45 PM

Quote:
Depends on the law. I'd see Signym's laws prohibiting Capitalism, requiring everyone to be in a co-op/commune or whatever, and setting wages for all members of a co-op the same, as social engineering on a par with (actually far beyond) alcohol and drug prohibition, Blue Laws, laws against consensual sex between adults, gun control, etc. SignyM is trying to legislate changes to personal ethics and morality.

Geezer, I've been answering you straightforwardly despite your blitzkrieg of misrepresentation, disinformation, and out-and-out lies. From now on, I'm going to do the same to you, you shit-dipped prick.

So, let's discuss YOUR preferred society, Geezer.

The one in which lazy schlubs reward themselves with billions of dollars for doing nothing other than having money, and letting the weak starve on the streets... to be rescued by "personal charity"- which, you say doesn't exist.

So, in your world, people are inherently greedy, selfless cooperation doesn't exist, greedy people will find a way... and yet, corporations are nice, and personal charity is a sufficient safety net??? How does that work, Geezer? Do you have an explanation?

GEEZER

Monday, January 25, 2010 8:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Geezer, we already live in YOUR utopia, of "lazy schlubs" who reward themselves billions of dollars in bonuses, dividends and stock options at the end of the year for... what, exactly? If you're so dead set against rewarding do-nothings, how do you justify THAT?

Generally they get dividends, etc. for meeting production or profitability goals set in their contracts, and apparently the folks who write the contracts feel justified in doing so. Also, I'd bet most of these 'lazy schlubs' spend way more hours working, and work harder during them, than you do.

Quote:
So, since there are SO MANY out there, how about coming up with a couple dozen examples of these selfless corporations...

Well, aside from the thousands of Non-Profit Corporations, from the Sierra Club to the NAACP...

For-Profit Corporations can still make a profit and yet act ethically.

Here's one ranking of the top ethical coprorations in 2009
http://ethisphere.com/wme2009/

Here's another that shows the top ethicl companys by business sector, but you need Java to use it.
http://www.covalence.ch/index.php/ethicalquote/

You can even find socially conscious investment funds (per Wiki, 1 in 9 investment dollars in in such a fund). For example:
http://www.parnassus.com/?gclid=CL7e5dmpwJ8CFRYeDQodVnjUIA

BTW, you still, after...I think it's four requests now, haven't answered my question.

What's the motivation for the dedicated, innovative worker (who believes he should benefit more from his work than the average or below-average worker) if, no matter how he excels, he can't get any more compensation than they do?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

GEEZER

Monday, January 25, 2010 8:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
So, in your world, people are inherently greedy, selfless cooperation doesn't exist, greedy people will find a way... and yet, corporations are nice, and personal charity is a sufficient safety net??? How does that work, Geezer? Do you have an explanation?

And you complain about me putting words in your mouth?

BTW, Up to five requests now. Still haven't answered my question.

What's the motivation for the dedicated, innovative worker (who believes he should benefit more from his work than the average or below-average worker) if, no matter how he excels, he can't get any more compensation than they do?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Monday, January 25, 2010 8:42 PM

Quote:
And you complain about me putting words in your mouth?

Yes, I have. Constantly, because it's something you've done repeatedly to me over the past... years, by now. And I said I would do the same to you from now on, since you haven't had the decency to argue honestly. This is just the beginning. Not so nice when the shoe's on the other foot, is it, you shit-dipped prick?

BYTEMITE

Monday, January 25, 2010 9:48 PM

Quote:
What's the motivation for the dedicated, innovative worker (who believes he should benefit more from his work than the average or below-average worker) if, no matter how he excels, he can't get any more compensation than they do?

Okay, so here's where the part of the discussion I was having before about profits and rewards enters in.

The idea I believe being presented here is that people require a reward to work, and that your preferred system is to have this reward be money.

Basically, people who aren't subsistence farmers work because work gets them money, which they can then use to pay to feed and shelter themselves. As a baseline. And of course, as I conceded already, that baseline really is not very comfortable. Or even possibly very secure. So by working harder, people will then earn more money, which they can use to buy luxuries and make themselves secure. Do I have this right?

The obvious argument against this is that people need to eat, eating is an incentive all by itself outside of money. Many of the poor who try to be honest but have bad paying jobs are going to run into the problem that paying for food and paying for shelter will leave pretty much no money left over for them as a reward for their work. The reason this is a problem, within the frame of this argument, is that I think you agreed with me that ideally, food and shelter would be some kind of humane baseline for existence. In this case, money is no reward, therefore, I can't call it an incentive. I propose, for this reason, that these people are wasting their time, and that their work is busywork.

But that aside, let's look at profits in the sense of someone who already has those baselines, and will have money left over for luxuries. At the same time, let's look at businesses and even human research.

If you make a profit off of something, a good or a service, then by definition, you are charging more for the item/service than you are for the effort or materials it took to produce what you are selling.

Say you have employees manufacturing something for you, or harvesting the raw materials for you. This has some pretty obvious economic results on the growth of the employer, compared to the growth of the employees. Money accumulates upwards.

And up to the point where that means simply that the employer is being rewarded for their idea, or in the sense that they are giving their employees a share of their profits, that could be okay. And if someone wants to take their reward, and have a 10 million dollar home, well, that's their prerogative.

But what happens if compared to the rest of the process or marketing the good, someone contributes little but is overpaid? What if some people within the company, who say that they're in charge, and likely have no original ownership of the idea/product/service beyond what is owned by the company as a collective, what if they form a board, and decide to cut into profits giving themselves larger and larger wages? Is there a point where you can consider that they are cutting into the wages of the workers, either pay cuts or lay-offs, and is there a point when that is no longer fair to the worker?

What about when profits drives everything, and cutting corners for a healthy bottom line is okay? What about when companies organize, like health insurance, to lobby for changes that force people to buy their product, and set whatever prices they want because demand becomes limitless? What about cooked books, or stock inflation on Wall Street, or bad lending practices?

Socially and individually, I see profits as more of a detriment than a reward.

So to answer your question. If there is no reward for one worker with what you see as a "harder job" to work his job compared to another worker with an easier job, what is that worker's incentive to work that job?

My answer is, maybe money and profits aren't that worthwhile a reward. BUT, creativity, integrity, and honesty, and liking your job, maybe those are infinitely more rewarding and infinitely less potentially detrim

GEEZER

Monday, January 25, 2010 10:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Yes, I have. Constantly, because it's something you've done repeatedly to me over the past... years, by now.

Okay. If you say so.

BTW, for the sixth time:

What's the motivation for the dedicated, innovative worker (who believes he should benefit more from his work than the average or below-average worker) if, no matter how he excels, he can't get any more compensation than they do?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

GEEZER

Monday, January 25, 2010 11:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
My answer is, maybe money and profits aren't that worthwhile a reward. BUT, creativity, integrity, and honesty, and liking your job, maybe those are infinitely more rewarding and infinitely less potentially detrimental than profit.

For some people, that may be true. They take pride in their work for work's sake. A lot of such people self-select to work in a cooperative or communal economic unit, because they can get the intangible rewards of approval and thanks from like-minded individuals.

Some people (most people, I'd guess) want to be rewarded tangibly for their hard work, creativity, and dedication. They want a better house, better schools for their kids, luxuries above basic survival. They want recreation and travel. They want a new bass boat, or a Klimt painting, or a big TV with a sound system, or a Tiffany double old-fashioned glass to drink their scotch and soda from, good scotch to drink, etc.

If you force these folks into co-ops, and then tell them that no matter how hard they work, and no matter how beneficial they are to the group, they'll never get any more than the least efficient, what's their motivation to work hard?

----

As noted above, this was tried, about 90 years ago, in the Soviet Union. The government forced everyone into the communist system, and reenforced their decrees with unremitting propaganda and draconian measures against anyone considered to be even thinking of not cooperating fully. Tens of millions were outright killed or shipped off to die in work camps for deviating from doctrine, or just being denounced as having non-revolutionary thoughts.

The result was factories that made such poor products that the only way to sell them was at gunpoint to the smaller Soviet republics. Collective farms that couldn't feed the people. The only things made even close to properly were military supplies, because the government directly ran those plants and design houses, and were much more diligent in eradicating poor designers or managers of defense plants than they were of those making civilian products.

If it didn't work in a country where the government could, and did, enforce complance from the barrel of a gun, what chance here?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

GINOBIFFARONI

Monday, January 25, 2010 11:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Yes, I have. Constantly, because it's something you've done repeatedly to me over the past... years, by now.

Okay. If you say so.

BTW, for the sixth time:

What's the motivation for the dedicated, innovative worker (who believes he should benefit more from his work than the average or below-average worker) if, no matter how he excels, he can't get any more compensation than they do?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

Things I like to get

extra paid time off, if I can get the same production in 32 hours compared to 40... why the hell not

promotion to a better job

access to more training

better hours, or the ability to set my own hours

trying to be general, some benefits can be job specific

Either you Are with the terrorists, or ... you Are with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"

WULFENSTAR

Monday, January 25, 2010 11:24 PM

Damn, Geezer...

Right on.

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