David Cameron You are a a fucking sack of shit

[Atheist-Lite]

There's too many people for wealth acumulation. What we have is a bankrupt system running on empty before it stutters and stops, then collapses. No amount of jiggering with things like pay deffferentials built on the slops before hyper-inflation will stop the coming collapse. A lot will die. The survivors will be uneducated savages. Within a few generations the numbers of humans will have reduced to their long term average or lower. Most apes have gone extinct and given climate change I'd say there's a darned good chance humans'll go extinct within a few dozen generations.

[Coito ergo sum]

Why not let everybody do what they want to do but give everyone a set wage of (eg UK average) £26,000?

O.k. - then I'll sleep until 9am every morning and when I want to, I'll spend the rest of my time working on the next great novel. Sounds like an awesome plan! Something tells me every maid and janitor is going to start working on a novel, too....don't ya think?

No, because we can now begin to tweak our system from its basic premise and find solutions. If you want to go on the dole and write books that no one wants then fair enough - here's £8,000 per year to live on. But if you want the £26,000 you have to work.

So - no writers get the $26,000? Quite the anti-intellectual system you have there...lol... or, only those writers of popular novels? How many must they sell? What if they are writers of science items that nobody reads but are arguably very important?

The education sector will be immensely strong because of heavy funding - you can take as little or as much advantage of it as you want. If you want to be a lawyer, doctor or dentist and you have the natural aptitude and interest you will go in that direction and end up having a fulfilled professional life. Lucky you -

No thanks. I'll not be working 60+ hours a week (which lawyers and doctors routinely do), for 26,000 a year. Makes no sense.

but should you get all the readies as well because you were born smart?

No. You should get what you can earn, and if you perform physician services and are willing to be some of the few who are both capable and willing to do that very difficult profession, you ought to be able charge the hourly rate for your services that you feel your time is worth. If people aren't willing to pay what you feel your time is worth, then you can either lower your price or find another field.

Perhaps like most cleaners today you don't have the natural aptitude to be what you want, even though you work just as hard - you're not good at school so you end up being a cleaner. You do a forty hour week but you still earn £26,000, enough to lead a comfortable life and enjoy your pastimes -

And, perhaps you could do a lot more than that, but you realize that you would be dedicating a lot of time and effort to do something that ultimately will land you back at the same point - 26,000 a year. You might as well take the stress free life of a cleaner and get the comfortable life and enjoyable pastimes. Why work harder and longer to do something else?

People who get advanced degrees like law degrees and doctorates tend to work far more than 40 hours a week - they work 50, 60, 70 and even 80 hours a week at times, toiling and dedicating their lives to what they do. Ought they not earn more than someone who wants to work only 40 hours a week cleaning up?

And, who would ever be the cleaner? How are the novelists that are talented separated from the ones who will only make 8,000 a year? Do we have a "Ministry of Careers" now that will be, basically, school Guidance Counselors deciding for you what you are "capable" of doing? If not, then how will it be decided? I'll not clean sewerage tanks, and I daresay we won't have many volunteers for that job when they can make 26,000 doing much nicer duties. Who is the poor fuck that will be "assigned" the sewerage duty, while his buddy, who he thinks is no more capable than him, gets to do the nicer job without fecal matter involved?

perhaps you have suddenly found a talent for writing at the age of 30. In your spare time you can write a book. It becomes a great success - you don't have to work as a cleaner any more. If the book makes £400,000 in a year you keep £26,000 and the rest goes back to central funding.

Writing books is not just about talent alone. It's about work. If you know any writers, they'll tell you. It's about toiling every day, struggling, spending hours into the wee hours of the morning. You think that the fact that nobody can earn more than 26,000 a year, no matter how hard they work, is going to encourage people to engage in that toil?

Why would anyone publish a book that they wrote if they don't get to keep any of the money from it? They get the 26,000 whether they publish it or not, right? So, just write it and let your friends read it. No biggie. Same difference. Further, what publishing house is going to exist in your system? They can only make 26,000 a year, right? Why would they take any risk at all if they can't make back their money at all? How would we even know whether the book is successful? Someone must put out the money to edit it, print it, transport it, shelve it and sell it. Who the hell does that when they can do some risk-free task for the exact same money?

And, how long does a person get to live off one success - Harper Lee published one book in like 1962, and it was a best seller. Not a damn thing done since. Does she just get to live off that forever, and sit home getting 26,000 a year?

If it makes £200,000 profit in year two, you take £26,000 and the rest goes back to central funding and so on.... Of course there is detail to be worked out, and nothing is perfect (not even the current system), but it's worth looking at.

You're not kidding about this? You REALLY think this is something that can seriously work?

So say B'stard's bank generates £5 billion of profit in 2011 - their 12,000 staff get paid £26,000 each so that's about £300 million. The other £4.7 billion is surrendered to a central collective to be used to supplement the wages of workers in other essential companies who happen to generate less turnover but also put in a hard 40 hour week, as well as helping provide for the public infrastructure. If the GDP rises, so does the average wage.

But, after the workers start their own screenwriting companies and work on their scripts for the movie they've dreamed about - or when some of them decide they want to be crossing guards for children before and after school - who is actually going to put up with "bastard bank" and their pesky 40 hour work weeks?

Why would anyone serve as a treasurer of a corporation, for example, and entail significant fiduciary responsibilities and risk of liability? For 26,000 pounds? You fucking kidding? Why would a lawyer agree to work for 26,000 pounds a year, when he has professional liability for everything he puts his name to? Why would a doctor be a doctor for that? Sure, he wants to help people, but you think you'd want to stay up late at nights, work 20 hour days, and lose sleep worrying about your hospital patients for 26,000 pounds a year?

Plenty of people work for less than £26,000 per year with the threat of legal liability hanging over their heads.

Yeah? Who? What liability? Doctors? Maybe for a stint, and maybe a few. But, how many doctors do you think would still be doctors if they would be limited to 26,000 a year?

Change laws to ease the fear. As for your doctor example, I could talk about a part time company executive earning £300,000 per year for doing two days work per month. Is his labour really worth three times what a doctor earns for working 28 days a month? Is it "more important"?

Part time company executive earning 300,000 a year? Name one. I've never heard of "part time company executive." Must be a British thing.

Doctors in the US can earn, after a while, 300,000 a year. And, well they should. They do a very difficult, much needed job, and they bear the risk of people dying at their hands. I want someone rewarded for that.

Sir Baldy A'sole worked his way up from being a counter clerk within the bank to chairman of the company - his sole motivation is personal advancement, to see how good he can be within the company. Nothing can stop him, but he must accept that his wage will never rise.

Why would he take any job except "Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master," or "Nintendo Video Game Tester?" If people can do whatever they want for the set wage - damn - I'd go with "novelist" and write my book on the beach. Might take me years to get one together, but I'll be guaranteed free health care and 26,000 pounds a year, so it sounds good to me.

But, once the new system is put in place, you'll definitely have tons of people wanting to be CEOs, because, it would still be worth the long hours, pressure, and personal risk associated with being in that position. There would definitely be acccountants, who could be arrested or sued for their defalcations when preparing financial reports. There would definitely be ditchdiggers, and sewerage workers, and and all that. They could choose to do whatever they want, but they'll do all the unpleasant jobs.... ya think?

Why can't the cream still rise to the top without the need for a carrott and stick system?

For precisely the reason that you would not choose to be a sewerage tank cleaner if you could just as well be a person who cleans offices or washes cars. Only someone with a fecal fetish would actually choose to work with shit unless they're getting paid for it.

Why do such smart people have to see their own personal possessions as the yardstick for their success?

Smart people just generally have common sense, meaning that they can judge the amount of work and the amount of risk associated with task A, and they can see that task B involves much less risk and work, and that it is unlawful for them to make any more money either way, they will choose task B, generally speaking.

Nobody is going to start any business that entails any capital start-up cost and risk in your system. Maybe I want to market a new type of widget, or I have an idea for reducing costs and undercutting the competition. If I can only make the 26,000 a year I'm already making at my current job, why would I take a risk and spend the money necessary to start up the business? Where will I even get the financing? From a company with commissioned loan officers that can't make more than 26,000 a year? Why would they make a loan ever?

And, if you tell me that business ideas can be cleared and funded by the "Ministry of Entrepreneurs" I will choke on my coffee. You couldn't possibly be serious.

Why can't Bill Gates live next door to his pizza delivery man?

I know it sounds ridiculous, but so does the fact that currently 80%+ of the world's GDP is owned by 20% of the world's population.

Yes, it does sound ridiculous.

When productivity is gone, because everyone wants to be an artist, sportsman, girl watcher, reader, writer, or professional masturbator, then where will the money come from to pay everyone?

Everything is still the same, but the motivation is different. Personal accumulation of wealth and possessions is gone. Personal accomplishment and achievement becomes a means to an end in its own right with the added bonus of incredible social provision. If such a thing could be achieved on a world wide scale poverty would end.

No - your system changes everything. Everything is NOT the same. And, you haven't provided a different motivation - you've eliminated a motivation only. People already can AND DO work for "personal accomplishment."

Examples:

1. Commissioned sales people: nobody will work hard anymore to sell product. They can only make 26,000 a year whether they sell 1 unit or 100 or a 1000. So, why break one's balls? For the love of commissioned sales? For the satisfaction of having sold more units than your buddy? Fuck that - nobody is concerned about how many widgets they sell unless they get paid for it. That is precisely WHY salespeople very often make commissions - if you want people to sell more, you pay them based on how much they sell.

2. Unpalatable jobs -- sewerage workers, as I noted - nobody will agree to do that job if they can just as well take something nicer. The people that clean sewerage tanks see an opportunity to make a fair bit of money at it and open up a sewerage tank cleaning business, or they take the job with an existing copany because they need the money and nothing else better is available. Nobody dreams of working and excelling with shit.

And, your system would, far from "ending" poverty, would actually destroy the world economy and plunge it into a famine the likes of which the world has never seen.

[devogue]

Why not let everybody do what they want to do but give everyone a set wage of (eg UK average) £26,000?

O.k. - then I'll sleep until 9am every morning and when I want to, I'll spend the rest of my time working on the next great novel. Sounds like an awesome plan! Something tells me every maid and janitor is going to start working on a novel, too....don't ya think?

No, because we can now begin to tweak our system from its basic premise and find solutions. If you want to go on the dole and write books that no one wants then fair enough - here's £8,000 per year to live on. But if you want the £26,000 you have to work.

So - no writers get the $26,000? Quite the anti-intellectual system you have there...lol... or, only those writers of popular novels? How many must they sell? What if they are writers of science items that nobody reads but are arguably very important?

Well look at one of the most popular writers of all, Stephen King. Before Carrie he was a teacher without a pot to piss in. Of course in any system it's stupid for someone to say "I'm a writer. Reward me even though I've done nothing". As for how many they must sell - say they wrote a book it was placed of their own accord within a "literature hub", a vurtual library like we see on line today, and it was then marketed virally by the writer at his own expense: he sells 100 copies, 500 copies, 5,000 copies and so on - the Literature Hub gets paid a certain amount to cover their costs and staff wages as people download the books. After, say, 10,000 downloads the writer starts to make a profit (say £1 per download). He then earns from anything up to a maximum of 36,000 downloads - he takes £26,000 and then is able to leave his job as a teacher.

As for writers of science items, their work can be published "in house" and peer reviewed by their colleagues - their writing can be seen as an extension of their passion, of their work. Of course, if one of them writes something that goes viral and sells a million then he will have the same status, if he likes, as a successful fiction writer.

The education sector will be immensely strong because of heavy funding - you can take as little or as much advantage of it as you want. If you want to be a lawyer, doctor or dentist and you have the natural aptitude and interest you will go in that direction and end up having a fulfilled professional life. Lucky you -

No thanks. I'll not be working 60+ hours a week (which lawyers and doctors routinely do), for 26,000 a year. Makes no sense.

Some people work today for £12,000 a year working 60+ hours per week. Christ, in other countries people work 100 hours a week for £1,000 a year or less. It makes sense to them.

but should you get all the readies as well because you were born smart?

No. You should get what you can earn, and if you perform physician services and are willing to be some of the few who are both capable and willing to do that very difficult profession, you ought to be able charge the hourly rate for your services that you feel your time is worth. If people aren't willing to pay what you feel your time is worth, then you can either lower your price or find another field.

There's the crux of it - what you feel your time is worth. Time is time and man is man. Ethically speaking, is one man's time worth more than another's? If the doctor or sewerage worker both down tools, we're all in the shit either way.

Perhaps like most cleaners today you don't have the natural aptitude to be what you want, even though you work just as hard - you're not good at school so you end up being a cleaner. You do a forty hour week but you still earn £26,000, enough to lead a comfortable life and enjoy your pastimes -

And, perhaps you could do a lot more than that, but you realize that you would be dedicating a lot of time and effort to do something that ultimately will land you back at the same point - 26,000 a year. You might as well take the stress free life of a cleaner and get the comfortable life and enjoyable pastimes. Why work harder and longer to do something else?

People who get advanced degrees like law degrees and doctorates tend to work far more than 40 hours a week - they work 50, 60, 70 and even 80 hours a week at times, toiling and dedicating their lives to what they do. Ought they not earn more than someone who wants to work only 40 hours a week cleaning up?

All of that is subjective. Who says cleaning is stress free and easier? My sister cleaned hotel rooms - fucking horrible job done under intense pressure because the rooms had to be ready by now o'clock. Knackering as well. Donald Trump might work 100 hours a week but he has a level of control and he gets a kick from it, he enjoys the pressure. The woman with a doctorate in biology striving and working for 70 hours a week while searching for a cure for cancer - is she under stress or thriving and loving her work? So the actual "hardness" or "worthwhileness" of work is subjective and so is the distribution of salaries. Why should Innocent in Ethiopia get $350 per year for back breaking work in sweltering conditions while Sir Phillip Green gets $2,000,000,000 for relatively easy work and a load of fun? Make money objective.

And, who would ever be the cleaner? How are the novelists that are talented separated from the ones who will only make 8,000 a year? Do we have a "Ministry of Careers" now that will be, basically, school Guidance Counselors deciding for you what you are "capable" of doing? If not, then how will it be decided? I'll not clean sewerage tanks, and I daresay we won't have many volunteers for that job when they can make 26,000 doing much nicer duties. Who is the poor fuck that will be "assigned" the sewerage duty, while his buddy, who he thinks is no more capable than him, gets to do the nicer job without fecal matter involved?

Who is the cleaner now? Who is the novelist now? Even today we all have a natural level of aptitude that determines our professional position in life. To turn your argument around slightly - you are right... Who wants to work with shit all day? perhaps we should value such a person as worth £1 billion a year because their job is so smelly and disgusting. But we don't - they get paid fuck all in the scheme of things. Strange that. Who decides they get paid so little for such an important yet disgusting job? Can't we be just as arbitrary in another way?

perhaps you have suddenly found a talent for writing at the age of 30. In your spare time you can write a book. It becomes a great success - you don't have to work as a cleaner any more. If the book makes £400,000 in a year you keep £26,000 and the rest goes back to central funding.

Writing books is not just about talent alone. It's about work. If you know any writers, they'll tell you. It's about toiling every day, struggling, spending hours into the wee hours of the morning. You think that the fact that nobody can earn more than 26,000 a year, no matter how hard they work, is going to encourage people to engage in that toil?

Indeed, but practically every successful writer in the world didn't start life as a writer. Same in my system.

Why would anyone publish a book that they wrote if they don't get to keep any of the money from it? They get the 26,000 whether they publish it or not, right? So, just write it and let your friends read it. No biggie. Same difference. Further, what publishing house is going to exist in your system? They can only make 26,000 a year, right? Why would they take any risk at all if they can't make back their money at all? How would we even know whether the book is successful? Someone must put out the money to edit it, print it, transport it, shelve it and sell it. Who the hell does that when they can do some risk-free task for the exact same money?

I refer you to my first point above.

And, how long does a person get to live off one success - Harper Lee published one book in like 1962, and it was a best seller. Not a damn thing done since. Does she just get to live off that forever, and sit home getting 26,000 a year?

Why not? If their effort has created a certain amount of wealth each year, the writer keeps their £26,000 every year and the rest of the royalties are given to central funding. The writer might have twenty successful books, but they still get the £26,000 - they are writing for the love of writing and the kudos rather than material possessions.

If it makes £200,000 profit in year two, you take £26,000 and the rest goes back to central funding and so on.... Of course there is detail to be worked out, and nothing is perfect (not even the current system), but it's worth looking at.

You're not kidding about this? You REALLY think this is something that can seriously work?

It already does work. Take someone like Michelle Gildernew, my local MP and MLA who represents Sinn Fein and is a minister in the Northern Ireland government. If she was to claim her full wage entitlement for those two positions she would earn in the region of £120,000 per year, but she has signed up for Sinn Fein's policy of its representatives earning no more than the average industrial wage, which in 2009 was £18,500 per year - the rest of her pay was channelled in to Sinn Fein party coffers for development of the party. And she is one of many. Where there's a will, there's a way.

So say B'stard's bank generates £5 billion of profit in 2011 - their 12,000 staff get paid £26,000 each so that's about £300 million. The other £4.7 billion is surrendered to a central collective to be used to supplement the wages of workers in other essential companies who happen to generate less turnover but also put in a hard 40 hour week, as well as helping provide for the public infrastructure. If the GDP rises, so does the average wage.

But, after the workers start their own screenwriting companies and work on their scripts for the movie they've dreamed about - or when some of them decide they want to be crossing guards for children before and after school - who is actually going to put up with "bastard bank" and their pesky 40 hour work weeks?

As I've said before, the vast, vast majority of people (as is the case today) will not be in a position to start their own screenwriting companies or work on their scripts. Those that do will do so in their own time. If they are successful they will enjoy all of the fun, excitement, glamour and kudos of such a professional life - no different to today except that their personal pay will be £26,000 per year.

{quote]Why would anyone serve as a treasurer of a corporation, for example, and entail significant fiduciary responsibilities and risk of liability? For 26,000 pounds? You fucking kidding? Why would a lawyer agree to work for 26,000 pounds a year, when he has professional liability for everything he puts his name to? Why would a doctor be a doctor for that? Sure, he wants to help people, but you think you'd want to stay up late at nights, work 20 hour days, and lose sleep worrying about your hospital patients for 26,000 pounds a year?

Plenty of people work for less than £26,000 per year with the threat of legal liability hanging over their heads.

Yeah? Who? What liability? Doctors? Maybe for a stint, and maybe a few. But, how many doctors do you think would still be doctors if they would be limited to 26,000 a year?

What about nurses? What about builders? What about the shop owners earning £20,000 a year for a 100 hour week who worry about someone tripping over a floor display? What about the woman who owns a fast food cafe and earns £18,000 per year for a 70 hour week and is constantly worried about inadvertently poisoning a customer?

Change laws to ease the fear. As for your doctor example, I could talk about a part time company executive earning £300,000 per year for doing two days work per month. Is his labour really worth three times what a doctor earns for working 28 days a month? Is it "more important"?

Part time company executive earning 300,000 a year? Name one. I've never heard of "part time company executive." Must be a British thing.

Doctors in the US can earn, after a while, 300,000 a year. And, well they should. They do a very difficult, much needed job, and they bear the risk of people dying at their hands. I want someone rewarded for that.

It's well known in Britain for part time execs to earn top money - fair enough, £300k is pushing it, even on a pro-rata basis, but the rewards are still relatively huge. "Reward" is an interesting concept - does it have to be money? Is there a way to reward people in this brave new world by some other means?

Sir Baldy A'sole worked his way up from being a counter clerk within the bank to chairman of the company - his sole motivation is personal advancement, to see how good he can be within the company. Nothing can stop him, but he must accept that his wage will never rise.

Why would he take any job except "Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master," or "Nintendo Video Game Tester?" If people can do whatever they want for the set wage - damn - I'd go with "novelist" and write my book on the beach. Might take me years to get one together, but I'll be guaranteed free health care and 26,000 pounds a year, so it sounds good to me.

But, once the new system is put in place, you'll definitely have tons of people wanting to be CEOs, because, it would still be worth the long hours, pressure, and personal risk associated with being in that position. There would definitely be acccountants, who could be arrested or sued for their defalcations when preparing financial reports. There would definitely be ditchdiggers, and sewerage workers, and and all that. They could choose to do whatever they want, but they'll do all the unpleasant jobs.... ya think?

Why can't the cream still rise to the top without the need for a carrott and stick system?

For precisely the reason that you would not choose to be a sewerage tank cleaner if you could just as well be a person who cleans offices or washes cars. Only someone with a fecal fetish would actually choose to work with shit unless they're getting paid for it.

But they are. Here's the choice - work at school. If you're good enough you get to choose your career choice, a reward in its own right. If you're not good enough you drop down a peg. Perhaps you are good enough to clean offices or wash cars. Perahps not - then you drop down another peg and you end up cleaning shit. Don't want to do that - then languish on £8,000 per year.

Why do such smart people have to see their own personal possessions as the yardstick for their success?

Smart people just generally have common sense, meaning that they can judge the amount of work and the amount of risk associated with task A, and they can see that task B involves much less risk and work, and that it is unlawful for them to make any more money either way, they will choose task B, generally speaking.

Nobody is going to start any business that entails any capital start-up cost and risk in your system. Maybe I want to market a new type of widget, or I have an idea for reducing costs and undercutting the competition. If I can only make the 26,000 a year I'm already making at my current job, why would I take a risk and spend the money necessary to start up the business? Where will I even get the financing? From a company with commissioned loan officers that can't make more than 26,000 a year? Why would they make a loan ever?

And, if you tell me that business ideas can be cleared and funded by the "Ministry of Entrepreneurs" I will choke on my coffee. You couldn't possibly be serious.

Okay, what if you come up with an idea and, once again, the marketing is viral. Demand is created centrally for a commercial idea - ideas are put to the populace and they pick up on what they want. "Ministries of Entrepeneurship" actually do exist today so you get choking on that thar coffee . In Northern Ireland grants are available from the likes of InvestNI and other government agencies and European funding. Your business goes tits up it doesn't matter - it was just a grant. Of course, that can't happen on a widespread basis in the new model, but there are ways and means, some of which exist today. Also, I think it's very clear that the mindset of everyone has to change. Acquisitional aspiration is a state of mind - why should one individual take a "risk" for the betterment of humanity? Why can't humanity share the risk?

I know it sounds ridiculous, but so does the fact that currently 80%+ of the world's GDP is owned by 20% of the world's population.

Yes, it does sound ridiculous.

When productivity is gone, because everyone wants to be an artist, sportsman, girl watcher, reader, writer, or professional masturbator, then where will the money come from to pay everyone?

Everything is still the same, but the motivation is different. Personal accumulation of wealth and possessions is gone. Personal accomplishment and achievement becomes a means to an end in its own right with the added bonus of incredible social provision. If such a thing could be achieved on a world wide scale poverty would end.

No - your system changes everything. Everything is NOT the same. And, you haven't provided a different motivation - you've eliminated a motivation only. People already can AND DO work for "personal accomplishment."

Examples:

1. Commissioned sales people: nobody will work hard anymore to sell product. They can only make 26,000 a year whether they sell 1 unit or 100 or a 1000. So, why break one's balls? For the love of commissioned sales? For the satisfaction of having sold more units than your buddy? Fuck that - nobody is concerned about how many widgets they sell unless they get paid for it. That is precisely WHY salespeople very often make commissions - if you want people to sell more, you pay them based on how much they sell.

2. Unpalatable jobs -- sewerage workers, as I noted - nobody will agree to do that job if they can just as well take something nicer. The people that clean sewerage tanks see an opportunity to make a fair bit of money at it and open up a sewerage tank cleaning business, or they take the job with an existing copany because they need the money and nothing else better is available. Nobody dreams of working and excelling with shit.

And, your system would, far from "ending" poverty, would actually destroy the world economy and plunge it into a famine the likes of which the world has never seen.

The only thing I agree with you about is the idea of commissioned sales disappearing - at least commissioned sales for money.

However, it's interesting that the majority of the world's very best sports people strive for excellence, to be their best, not for money - but for a small round disc of gold that they would never, ever contemplate exchanging for cash. Most of them actually lose money in their pursuit because they can't find sponsorship, but in some cases government grants help them to compete. So why do they do it? What is pushing them to be the best if it's not money? It is prestige, kudos, self-worth, pride - money fucks everything up. The World Cup in soccer was once the greatest competition in the world, played with a Corinthian attitude - nothing meant more to a footballer than winning the world cup. Not any more - it's now seen as a pain in the arse getting in the way of their huge contracts at club level, or at best as something that will increase their worth.

As for the unpalatable jobs, I'll say it once again - nobody dreams of scrubbing shit in a filthy sewer, and nobody dreams of picking through garbage in a filthy Bombay fly tip, but they do it today anyway, even while cunts hold parties in £630 million houses a few blocks up the road:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11854177

[devogue]

I'm waiting here full of fucking dread.

[PsychoSerenity]

Damn dev, you really are a commie aren't you?

Where there's a will, there's a way.

I think that's the crux of it. There are very few real limitations to how a human society could be set up, if the people in it want to be part of it. It's silly to expect anyone to have all the answers, and design an entire civilization from scratch (though you're doing a pretty good job ), but there's no reason why a group of people working together, couldn't come up with something that works. Solutions to problems have to be sorted out as you go along (that's the only time you can ever do it), but what's important is a direction - and a direction I don't want to go in, is one where massive corporations have the power to give themselves tax cuts.

[Svartalf]

That may be so still before the panic and nightmare years set in do you have a lifeboat? pm me if it is credible?

Plan A is France.
Plan B is to use my Axe......

Better hone that axe.

The French way is being gutted from top to bottom since '95... if the Szarkoszyt gets a second term, we may expect to feel that the US are a socialist country and that the level of living in Soviet Russia under Stalin or Brezhnev was a lot higher than ours. And even if the shyt gets the boot in '12, I don't trust the ssocialists further than I can throw them, after all, when jospin was prime from '97 to '02, what he did was apply the Chirac program, which was the reasons there had been riots and massive strikes that prompted him to set early elections that put jospin in power in the first place... I know why I voted Le Pen at both stages of the elections in 2002... and that was not because I liked or trusted that guy any.

[sandinista]

Good post devogue. The jist I got from coito is the same as with most "free market capitalists" that "artists" are not "real" contributors to society. Coito is obviously very anti-artist and anti-intellectual.

[Coito ergo sum]

Well look at one of the most popular writers of all, Stephen King. Before Carrie he was a teacher without a pot to piss in. Of course in any system it's stupid for someone to say "I'm a writer. Reward me even though I've done nothing". As for how many they must sell - say they wrote a book it was placed of their own accord within a "literature hub", a vurtual library like we see on line today, and it was then marketed virally by the writer at his own expense: he sells 100 copies, 500 copies, 5,000 copies and so on - the Literature Hub gets paid a certain amount to cover their costs and staff wages as people download the books. After, say, 10,000 downloads the writer starts to make a profit (say £1 per download). He then earns from anything up to a maximum of 36,000 downloads - he takes £26,000 and then is able to leave his job as a teacher.

As for writers of science items, their work can be published "in house" and peer reviewed by their colleagues - their writing can be seen as an extension of their passion, of their work. Of course, if one of them writes something that goes viral and sells a million then he will have the same status, if he likes, as a successful fiction writer.

LOL - if you say so. Not sure who you have publishing these books, anyway. Maybe a government publisher. Nobody is allowed to make over 26,000, so not sure why they'd bother setting up this hub system you talked about, let alone printing and binding books.

Don't you actually run a business? Like a store or something?

Some people work today for £12,000 a year working 60+ hours per week. Christ, in other countries people work 100 hours a week for £1,000 a year or less. It makes sense to them.

They do? 60+ for 12,000 a year - I make that $4 an hour or less. Sounds illegal to me since the minimum wage in GB is something like 5.80 or 6 an hour.

People in other countries don't live in the same economy. It's like a $50,000 salary today vs. a $5,000 salary 50 years ago in the US. And, people working 100 hours in a week over in those other countries likely don't have much choice.

but should you get all the readies as well because you were born smart?

No. You should get what you can earn, and if you perform physician services and are willing to be some of the few who are both capable and willing to do that very difficult profession, you ought to be able charge the hourly rate for your services that you feel your time is worth. If people aren't willing to pay what you feel your time is worth, then you can either lower your price or find another field.

There's the crux of it - what you feel your time is worth. Time is time and man is man. Ethically speaking, is one man's time worth more than another's? If the doctor or sewerage worker both down tools, we're all in the shit either way.[/quote]

Ethically speaking, it isn't. I may not have the same goals and aspirations as you. You may value your job more than me, I may value my hobbies more than you.

The value of time is purely subjective. To me, my home time is worth much more to me than it was 20 years ago. I'm not willing to work as many hours in 2011 as I was in 1991. Not even close. In 1991 I would work a 20 hour day, if I felt I needed to.

And, yes - people who are more competent than other people - their time is worth more than less competent folks. That's why, say, a lawyer's time when he is fresh out of law school is not billed to a client at as high a rate as a seasoned veteran. A seasoned veteran may also have people beating down the door to get at his services. He ought to be able to charge a premium for that expertise. It would be unethical to NOT allow him to do that. He worked for it. He gained the education and the experience. He had the successes. To say the seasoned, respected 20 year veteran can't charge more than a wet behind the ears novice would be miserable and would deny folks the right to be rewarded for their efforts.

And some plumbers' time is worth more than others'. I don't see how that's not self evidence. If someone is a good plumber who brings a guarantee and a long list of references, and a stable business that's been around for decades - and another is a new arrival startup, no references, and no work record. Yes - the veteran's time is worth more.

And, then there are the risk takers - if someone - say a lawyer - takes cases on a contingency fee basis - that means he's representing clients without any money up front and will only be paid if the case is successful. That's a huge risk. He usually fronts out of pocket fees and expenses and spends many hours working on a case that he may never get paid on - or may actually lose money on. You want to make that lawyer bear all the risk, and all for the same 26,000. Gone would be the opportunity for poor people to hire lawyers without any money paid out of pocket. No lawyer would ever take all that risk without the possibility of earning more on the back end.

Yes - absolutely - some folks time is worth more than others. And, it even has to do with a person's lifestyle and goals. Maybe a person is semi-retired at age 60 and still wants to do some work on the side. He takes some work on, and charges a premium hourly rate. Only those folks who really want this guy's services in particular will hire him, and he knows it. Some other guy in the same industry might be more of a go-getter, and want more cases, so he drops his rate and says that he is open for business and will take on customers at a cut rate. In your proposed world - that's illegal.

And, what do people even pay for personal services contracts? All government set? If a lawyer is going to work 40 hours a week, does it matter how many clients he hires and for how much? If I was a lawyer in your system, I would take on as few clients as possible and work as slowly as possible. I can only make 26,000, so no sense breaking a sweat.

Perhaps like most cleaners today you don't have the natural aptitude to be what you want, even though you work just as hard - you're not good at school so you end up being a cleaner. You do a forty hour week but you still earn £26,000, enough to lead a comfortable life and enjoy your pastimes -

And, that would probably be less than a lot of cleaners make a year, at least in the US. Those that really bust their ass can make a good living. Trust me. I know some.

All of that is subjective. Who says cleaning is stress free and easier? My sister cleaned hotel rooms - fucking horrible job done under intense pressure because the rooms had to be ready by now o'clock.

Sure - although I think that most folks would say it's less pressure to be a housecleaner than a doctor or a lawyer, it is certainly up to the individual what he or she actually considers more stressful. But, that's really the issue, then, isn't it? Since it's subjective, you can't make it objective - which is what you're trying to do. You're trying to say that their all objectively the same in terms of risk, stress, workload, and all other factors. All jobs, however, are not equal. We all know that. Some are harder than others. Some require more skill. Some require different skills. Some bear more risk and liability. I'm in favor of allowing compensation to reflect those differences INCLUDING the subjective preferences of the person actually doing the work. If it's not worth it to me to do X for $Y, then I don't see why I ought to be forced to take that amount, and if I am skilled enough to get $Z for a project or my time, then it would seem to be unethical to deny me that.

Knackering as well. Donald Trump might work 100 hours a week but he has a level of control and he gets a kick from it, he enjoys the pressure. The woman with a doctorate in biology striving and working for 70 hours a week while searching for a cure for cancer - is she under stress or thriving and loving her work? So the actual "hardness" or "worthwhileness" of work is subjective and so is the distribution of salaries. Why should Innocent in Ethiopia get $350 per year for back breaking work in sweltering conditions while Sir Phillip Green gets $2,000,000,000 for relatively easy work and a load of fun? Make money objective.

I love how you discount any of my opinions regarding who works harder and what jobs are worth what money - you tell me "foul! subjective!" Then you proceed right on full speed ahead and make your own subjective determination and declare it truth. Maybe Sir Phillip Green does something to earn the money he makes? I don't know. Not really my business, though, is it? If someone comes to me and says - "hey, buddy, you're charging your clients $X -- I think that's too much," I think my response is "Oh, yeah? Well, it's not your business, is it?" I might use more colorful language.

It would seem to me to be ridiculous to pay an Ethiopian the same money as a westerner when they're in different geographical locations, because the Ethiopian's cost of living is much lower. People in Ethiopia making a low US wage would be the equivalent of millionaires there.

And, who would ever be the cleaner? How are the novelists that are talented separated from the ones who will only make 8,000 a year? Do we have a "Ministry of Careers" now that will be, basically, school Guidance Counselors deciding for you what you are "capable" of doing? If not, then how will it be decided? I'll not clean sewerage tanks, and I daresay we won't have many volunteers for that job when they can make 26,000 doing much nicer duties. Who is the poor fuck that will be "assigned" the sewerage duty, while his buddy, who he thinks is no more capable than him, gets to do the nicer job without fecal matter involved?

Who is the cleaner now?

People who need jobs and don't have the choice - as you put it - to "do what they want." I believe that was in the post wherein you set up your system. Let people do what they want, but give them a set salary of 26,000. Are you saying they DON'T get to do what they want, now? How then are the jobs they are allowed to do determined? Government board approves jobs?

The cleaner now does so because the job is available, pays money and they can't get anything better. Nobody does it for the love of cleaning. Well, hardly anyone, at least.

Who is the novelist now?

People who can write, and want to write, and I bet dollars to donuts that fewer people would strive to be novelists if they couldn't get paid any more money than pouring beer at the pub.

Even today we all have a natural level of aptitude that determines our professional position in life.

Yes - but what keeps inept people from becoming novelists and movie directors is the fact that nobody will hire them or pay them to do it. You set up the system where the government pays people the same money across the board, and all people get to do what they want. If you're now saying that people are NOT going to be able to work for certain jobs because they aren't good at it, then someone has to make the determination of who is good enough and who is not. So, the next Stephen King will not be allowed to be a writer, because some douchebag government bureaucrat is going to tell him that he isn't good enough, and they need ditchdiggers in town - here's your 26,000.

To turn your argument around slightly - you are right... Who wants to work with shit all day? perhaps we should value such a person as worth £1 billion a year because their job is so smelly and disgusting. But we don't - they get paid fuck all in the scheme of things.

Not really - not in the US. They make pretty good money. More than the amount you're suggesting - especially a guy who gets his own van and runs the business himself.

Strange that. Who decides they get paid so little for such an important yet disgusting job? Can't we be just as arbitrary in another way?

You're suggesting, at least here in the US, a pay cut. I doubt there's a sewerage tank cleaner or septic service guy that would take your deal.

perhaps you have suddenly found a talent for writing at the age of 30. In your spare time you can write a book. It becomes a great success - you don't have to work as a cleaner any more. If the book makes £400,000 in a year you keep £26,000 and the rest goes back to central funding.

Writing books is not just about talent alone. It's about work. If you know any writers, they'll tell you. It's about toiling every day, struggling, spending hours into the wee hours of the morning. You think that the fact that nobody can earn more than 26,000 a year, no matter how hard they work, is going to encourage people to engage in that toil?

Indeed, but practically every successful writer in the world didn't start life as a writer. Same in my system.

Your system would destroy the financial incentive to be a writer. Why bother getting published? You can write as a hobby at home. If you're not going to get any money for it, mere recognition or making money for other people is not sufficient. Think about it - you write a book and it is ragingly popular - everyone wants to read it - Stephen King popular, and you get 26,000. Joe Bulwer-Lytton who wouldn't even be a writer but for the fact that he passed the "government writing exam" and was approved as a writer in all bureaucratic glory, writes turgid prose that is purchased by a few people as a joke, gets the same 26,000. It's pretty normal for the guy who is actually good at what he does to be pissed at the douche who writes "It was a dark and stormy night..." -- and it's just plain not fair. The guy who sells like Stephen King - his work - his success - is stolen from him - and the guy who can't write for shit is essentially rewarded. What's the result of a system like that? The Stephen Kings drop down to their Z game, because it doesn't matter, and they take their 26,000 and the Bulwer-Littons continue doing the minimum and collecting their 26,000.

Why would anyone publish a book that they wrote if they don't get to keep any of the money from it? They get the 26,000 whether they publish it or not, right? So, just write it and let your friends read it. No biggie. Same difference. Further, what publishing house is going to exist in your system? They can only make 26,000 a year, right? Why would they take any risk at all if they can't make back their money at all? How would we even know whether the book is successful? Someone must put out the money to edit it, print it, transport it, shelve it and sell it. Who the hell does that when they can do some risk-free task for the exact same money?

I refer you to my first point above.

I don't agree with your rationale. You run a store, right? If so, I bet you work extreme numbers of hours and also spend time on accounting, bookkeeping, taxes, corporate compliance, purchasing, inventory and all the rest. If all you could make was 26,000, would you still do all the work you do now?

And, how long does a person get to live off one success - Harper Lee published one book in like 1962, and it was a best seller. Not a damn thing done since. Does she just get to live off that forever, and sit home getting 26,000 a year?

Why not? If their effort has created a certain amount of wealth each year,

Why not indeed. Why not let them keep the money they earned, since their effort has created a certain amount of wealth in the first year? LOL.

So, some folks get pensions to live on after one successful book - awesome. Then Harper Lee gets the good fortune of a lifetime of 26,000 even though she doesn't do another jot of writing -- even though other writers who maybe are even better than her but don't sell as many books because maybe they're in a less popular genre. That's somehow fair - but allowing another writer who just winds up being a fad, but sells 10 times as many books, keep more money - that's unfair.

the writer keeps their £26,000 every year and the rest of the royalties are given to central funding. The writer might have twenty successful books, but they still get the £26,000 - they are writing for the love of writing and the kudos rather than material possessions.

I've never known a single person who doesn't like kudos. But, I've also never known a single person who also doesn't say, after a certain amount of kudos, that they'd rather just get a raise than have another fucking pat on the back.

If it makes £200,000 profit in year two, you take £26,000 and the rest goes back to central funding and so on.... Of course there is detail to be worked out, and nothing is perfect (not even the current system), but it's worth looking at.

You're not kidding about this? You REALLY think this is something that can seriously work?[/quote]

It already does work. Take someone like Michelle Gildernew, my local MP and MLA who represents Sinn Fein and is a minister in the Northern Ireland government. If she was to claim her full wage entitlement for those two positions she would earn in the region of £120,000 per year, but she has signed up for Sinn Fein's policy of its representatives earning no more than the average industrial wage, which in 2009 was £18,500 per year - the rest of her pay was channelled in to Sinn Fein party coffers for development of the party. And she is one of many. Where there's a will, there's a way.[/quote]

There's an obvious difference there. She's doing it over her own accord. She's "signed on" to it. Yours is not on a volunteer basis.

So say B'stard's bank generates £5 billion of profit in 2011 - their 12,000 staff get paid £26,000 each so that's about £300 million. The other £4.7 billion is surrendered to a central collective to be used to supplement the wages of workers in other essential companies who happen to generate less turnover but also put in a hard 40 hour week, as well as helping provide for the public infrastructure. If the GDP rises, so does the average wage.

But, after the workers start their own screenwriting companies and work on their scripts for the movie they've dreamed about - or when some of them decide they want to be crossing guards for children before and after school - who is actually going to put up with "bastard bank" and their pesky 40 hour work weeks?[/quote]

As I've said before, the vast, vast majority of people (as is the case today) will not be in a position to start their own screenwriting companies or work on their scripts. Those that do will do so in their own time. If they are successful they will enjoy all of the fun, excitement, glamour and kudos of such a professional life - no different to today except that their personal pay will be £26,000 per year.[/quote]

Fuck - 24 hours a day is "our own time." What the fuck - you're requiring them to work now? They can't start screenwriting companies? They can't start baseball teams? Why the fuck not?

There won't BE any fun, excitement and glamour in a Hollywood where everyone makes 26,000 a year! WTF, dude? There won't be an Oscars - there won't even be any movie industry if the producer can only make 26,000 a year - don't you see that? Nobody will take the risk! Nobody will fund "The Lord of Rings" at 100,000,000 if they can only expect a 26,000 return! Nobody will start a factory. Nobody will build an automobile because someone has to fund the factory. If everyone is limited to 26,000 a year, they won't fucking do it, will they? Why take the financial risk?

{quote]Why would anyone serve as a treasurer of a corporation, for example, and entail significant fiduciary responsibilities and risk of liability? For 26,000 pounds? You fucking kidding? Why would a lawyer agree to work for 26,000 pounds a year, when he has professional liability for everything he puts his name to? Why would a doctor be a doctor for that? Sure, he wants to help people, but you think you'd want to stay up late at nights, work 20 hour days, and lose sleep worrying about your hospital patients for 26,000 pounds a year?

Plenty of people work for less than £26,000 per year with the threat of legal liability hanging over their heads.[/quote]

Yeah? Who? What liability? Doctors? Maybe for a stint, and maybe a few. But, how many doctors do you think would still be doctors if they would be limited to 26,000 a year?[/quote]

What about nurses? [/quote]

They make like $50,000+ here in the States. And, they don't really have a malpractice liability. It's doctors who have that.

What about builders?

I've met builders who are millionaires, but none making 26,000 a year! 26,000 on a house, maybe. In a year? Fuck no. Maybe a construction worker (a younger guy) might make that - a guy working as a carpenter or something. But that guy doesn't have the liability - his bosses' company does.

What about the shop owners earning £20,000 a year for a 100 hour week who worry about someone tripping over a floor display?

A shop OWNER where you live makes 20,000 a year? Fuck man, move. No wonder you're thinking of this idea. The ones I know make some decent money.

What about the woman who owns a fast food cafe and earns £18,000 per year for a 70 hour week and is constantly worried about inadvertently poisoning a customer?

Once again - things must suck major ass where you lived. It COSTS about $200,000, minimum, to open up a pizzeria in my town. People don't fucking do it for 18,000 a year. Nobody on the planet would spend their own money to open up a pizzeria if they were locked in to 26,000 a year.

Change laws to ease the fear. As for your doctor example, I could talk about a part time company executive earning £300,000 per year for doing two days work per month. Is his labour really worth three times what a doctor earns for working 28 days a month? Is it "more important"?

Part time company executive earning 300,000 a year? Name one. I've never heard of "part time company executive." Must be a British thing.

Doctors in the US can earn, after a while, 300,000 a year. And, well they should. They do a very difficult, much needed job, and they bear the risk of people dying at their hands. I want someone rewarded for that.[/quote]

It's well known in Britain for part time execs to earn top money - fair enough, £300k is pushing it, even on a pro-rata basis, but the rewards are still relatively huge. "Reward" is an interesting concept - does it have to be money? Is there a way to reward people in this brave new world by some other means?[/quote]

No - it doesn't "have to be money." But, it doesn't "have to be money" now, does it? Nobody is stopping anyone from working for love of work right now, and some do it. What you're talking about is making everyone do that. What if someone wants to get rich? They don't get to make their dream come true?

Why can't the cream still rise to the top without the need for a carrott and stick system?

[/quote]

For precisely the reason that you would not choose to be a sewerage tank cleaner if you could just as well be a person who cleans offices or washes cars. Only someone with a fecal fetish would actually choose to work with shit unless they're getting paid for it.[/quote]

But they are. [/quote]

Only because at some point they had to work, and it provided the highest income for the available options. There are under THE CURRENT system. There won't be under YOUR system, because you specifically said that you would let them do what they want. Good - "government - give me my 26,000, and I'll be a painter from now on - may painting doesn't suck - you just don't understand it." Or, they'll say - "thanks goverment for the 26,000 - I'm going to sell my septic business and be a lawn care guy from now on. I'll do my best to maximize customers too...trust me...I'll make sure I have so many yards to mow I can't even finish out my day..." Can't you see this? People will pick a job that they can do relatively easily and do the least amount of work possible that will still allow them to earn the 26,000 - and then they'll do what they think is FUN! And, that might be some artistic pursuit, or jerking off or surfing the web or fishing.

Here's the choice - work at school. If you're good enough you get to choose your career choice, a reward in its own right. If you're not good enough you drop down a peg. Perhaps you are good enough to clean offices or wash cars. Perahps not - then you drop down another peg and you end up cleaning shit. Don't want to do that - then languish on £8,000 per year.

That sounds like a shit society to live in. If I had a dime for every time I've heard people's guidance counselors tell them what their aptitudes were, which were either not really aptitudes and/or which discounted a person's dreams for the future, I'd be a rich person. You really want some fucking school teacher making that decision? Some counselor at a school? What the fuck, man? They don't know what's good for people - those assholes would have told Barbara Walters (speech impediment) not to become a news anchorwoman - they would have told Einstein to stay as a patent clerk! Walt Disney was told by a newspaper editor that he didn’t have any good ideas. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He was subsequently defeated in every election for public office until he became Prime Minister at the age of 62. He later wrote, "Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never, Never, Never, Never give up." Churchill would have been cleaning shit in your world.

Why do such smart people have to see their own personal possessions as the yardstick for their success?

Smart people just generally have common sense, meaning that they can judge the amount of work and the amount of risk associated with task A, and they can see that task B involves much less risk and work, and that it is unlawful for them to make any more money either way, they will choose task B, generally speaking.

Nobody is going to start any business that entails any capital start-up cost and risk in your system. Maybe I want to market a new type of widget, or I have an idea for reducing costs and undercutting the competition. If I can only make the 26,000 a year I'm already making at my current job, why would I take a risk and spend the money necessary to start up the business? Where will I even get the financing? From a company with commissioned loan officers that can't make more than 26,000 a year? Why would they make a loan ever?[/quote]

And, if you tell me that business ideas can be cleared and funded by the "Ministry of Entrepreneurs" I will choke on my coffee. You couldn't possibly be serious.[/quote]

Okay, what if you come up with an idea and, once again, the marketing is viral. Demand is created centrally for a commercial idea - ideas are put to the populace and they pick up on what they want. "Ministries of Entrepeneurship" actually do exist today so you get choking on that thar coffee . In Northern Ireland grants are available from the likes of InvestNI and other government agencies and European funding.[/quote]

That must be why Northern Ireland is at the forefront of technological innovation..... Cuz if there is one thing gubmint is good at, it's recognizing innovation and good ideas!

Look - you missed it - in your world, nobody would come up with that idea that could be marketed and go viral. People have to want to invest their own hard earned money to do that. Why would they?

Your business goes tits up it doesn't matter - it was just a grant. Of course, that can't happen on a widespread basis in the new model, but there are ways and means, some of which exist today. Also, I think it's very clear that the mindset of everyone has to change. Acquisitional aspiration is a state of mind - why should one individual take a "risk" for the betterment of humanity? Why can't humanity share the risk?

Because they won't share the risk unless someone thinks it's a good idea, and most really good ideas require a person to OVERCOME the conventional wisdom, and to persist in a dream or an idea until they make it real - until they show everyone it works. Leave it to a bureaucrat to determine what new idea is good and what is worthless and you will get worthless 9 out of 10 times - every once in a while they'll hit one, because even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again.

Everything is still the same, but the motivation is different. Personal accumulation of wealth and possessions is gone. Personal accomplishment and achievement becomes a means to an end in its own right with the added bonus of incredible social provision. If such a thing could be achieved on a world wide scale poverty would end.

[/quote]

No - your system changes everything. Everything is NOT the same. And, you haven't provided a different motivation - you've eliminated a motivation only. People already can AND DO work for "personal accomplishment."

Examples:

1. Commissioned sales people: nobody will work hard anymore to sell product. They can only make 26,000 a year whether they sell 1 unit or 100 or a 1000. So, why break one's balls? For the love of commissioned sales? For the satisfaction of having sold more units than your buddy? Fuck that - nobody is concerned about how many widgets they sell unless they get paid for it. That is precisely WHY salespeople very often make commissions - if you want people to sell more, you pay them based on how much they sell.

2. Unpalatable jobs -- sewerage workers, as I noted - nobody will agree to do that job if they can just as well take something nicer. The people that clean sewerage tanks see an opportunity to make a fair bit of money at it and open up a sewerage tank cleaning business, or they take the job with an existing copany because they need the money and nothing else better is available. Nobody dreams of working and excelling with shit.

And, your system would, far from "ending" poverty, would actually destroy the world economy and plunge it into a famine the likes of which the world has never seen.[/quote]

The only thing I agree with you about is the idea of commissioned sales disappearing - at least commissioned sales for money.[/quote]

There is no such thing as commissioned sales for something other than money. A commission is by definition a percentage of sales, and if it's not money then what is it? The salesman gets a percentage of the product itself?

However, it's interesting that the majority of the world's very best sports people strive for excellence, to be their best, not for money - but for a small round disc of gold that they would never, ever contemplate exchanging for cash.

Oh please....you are really unaware of how those folks make money?

Most of them actually lose money in their pursuit because they can't find sponsorship, but in some cases government grants help them to compete.

They wouldn't be allowed to do that in your world, because only rich people can afford to lose money on a pursuit like that.

By the way, wouldn't "professional luge rider" or "swimmer" be careers people could adopt? Why not? Just soccer, football and baseball? Professional chess player? Professional fly fisherman? Bowling? Darts? Curling?

So why do they do it? What is pushing them to be the best if it's not money?

I acknowledged that some people do go forward on the basis of desire to excel in a sport. However, don't you see that your system, which condemns everyone to 26,000 a year would mean that there wouldn't be people around that are wealthy enough to excel in a sport just for fun? They'd be limited to 26,000 a year at whatever they do, and they'd be sentenced to a career their school found suitable for them. Want to be skiier? Do so in your "own time" right?

It is prestige, kudos, self-worth, pride - money fucks everything up. The World Cup in soccer was once the greatest competition in the world, played with a Corinthian attitude - nothing meant more to a footballer than winning the world cup. Not any more - it's now seen as a pain in the arse getting in the way of their huge contracts at club level, or at best as something that will increase their worth.

If that's what they want, who are you to say they shouldn't have it? Maybe person X wants to pay person Y to dribble a basketball or a soccer ball around. So what?

As for the unpalatable jobs, I'll say it once again - nobody dreams of scrubbing shit in a filthy sewer, and nobody dreams of picking through garbage in a filthy Bombay fly tip, but they do it today anyway, even while cunts hold parties in £630 million houses a few blocks up the road:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11854177

Yes they do. But, if, as your initial post was, the could do whatever they wanted, they wouldn't. They'd take the 26,000 and switch to yard manicuring, or beach combing. I'd take "beach comber" actually - I'll hang out on the beach and if I see a gubmint official coming I'll pretend I'm doing my job. Hell, I'll get my 26,000 no matter what, right?

[devogue]

Holy Jesus Fucking Christ. You make Cali's posts look like a Tim Vine gag.

Thanks for the response. Will get back tomorrow!

[Coito ergo sum]

Good post devogue. The jist I got from coito is the same as with most "free market capitalists" that "artists" are not "real" contributors to society. Coito is obviously very anti-artist and anti-intellectual.

Well, let me dispose of this shit right away. Typical nonsense personal attack from sandinista. Pile of tripe.

I am not anti-artist or anti-intellectual. I'm not the one looking take away the proceeds earned by writers, movie stars and screenwriters, singers, songwriters, painters, sculptors and all other artistic folk. That's what devogue is doing. He is saying that if you make $100,000 on a movie or a book - you donate 75% to the government and only keep 26,000. If you make 1,000,000 - you keep 26,000.

When I asked him if people could then just choose to become an artist or singer or a writer - he said that - no, now we need to modify it so that your aptitude will be judged by a school bureaucrat and if you are judged good enough, then you can be a writer or an artist. Otherwise you have to go do what they say you're good at and work on your art "in your own time." The right of an artist to go make it on his or her own - and be like Walt Disney and ignore the critics and prove that one's ideas are good would be gone, in devogue's world.

The only thing "approved" writers and artists can do is prove that their art has worth - and if they sell enough of their stuff, then they keep 26,000 of it, then they give away the rest.

I mean - how you got out of this that I was anti-artist or anti-intellectual is simply unfathomable. You just fucking made it up because it suits your purpose, obviously.

Fuck me, man - I'm the one championing the artist's dream and stating he can do what he pleases in life, and devogue says that the school system is going to shove the guy into a cleaning service job. Yet I'm the one who hates artists? I'm the one who wants a popular writer to receive the fruits of his labor, and devogue wants to take it away. Yet I'm the one who hates writers? STFU - GTFO.

[sandinista]

[devogue]

That's what devogue is doing. He is saying that if you make $100,000 on a movie or a book - you donate 75% to the government and only keep 26,000. If you make 1,000,000 - you keep 26,000.

Yes - also, imagine how fucking amazing public services would be with that pot of money.

When I asked him if people could then just choose to become an artist or singer or a writer - he said that - no, now we need to modify it so that your aptitude will be judged by a school bureaucrat and if you are judged good enough, then you can be a writer or an artist. Otherwise you have to go do what they say you're good at and work on your art "in your own time." The right of an artist to go make it on his or her own - and be like Walt Disney and ignore the critics and prove that one's ideas are good would be gone, in devogue's world.

The only thing "approved" writers and artists can do is prove that their art has worth - and if they sell enough of their stuff, then they keep 26,000 of it, then they give away the rest.

Well done for getting my idea absolutely wrong even though I have taken ages and several posts to make it clear. Here it is again:

1) In the real world today if I want to become a professional musician, writer or artist I have a number of options open to me. At school I can study fine art, music theory or creative writing. If I display enough of an aptitude I may be able to take my studies to tertiary education. At the end of that time I should have all of the skills necessary to master the discipline in which I have shown aptitude. Notice how in the real world today "school bureaucrats" like JimC do judge the aptitude of certain students as a matter of course, and rightly so.

So after leaving university or whatever I am still owed nothing and I have to find gainful employment. In 1996 I graduated as a Bachelor of Music - at that point was I owed a living? Was I entitled to a healthy wage while I sat around all week writing music that nobody wanted to hear? Of course not. So I went and got a job commensurate with my skills and experience (in a shop) and hoped that down the line I would get a break and get back in to music. That never happened, as it hasn't happened for plenty of people before and since. Do I work less hard as a result? No.

Look at JK Rowling - she worked as a researcher for Amnesty International and was then unemployed while she wrote the Harry Potter books. In my universe, what would be different? - nothing! She wrote Harry Potter of her own accord, in her own time in the real world. Nobody paid her a cent while she wrote the first book - she received no grant, no aid, nothing. She was completely on her own, inhabiting the same world as the rest of us, but chosing to spend the free time available to her outside employment to write her book. "They" are not saying she can't be a writer in my universe. "They" are saying that Stephen King the teacher (and he chose to be a teacher as well) will only get remunerated for being a writer if his book is successful. Nobody is stopping him from writing books in his spare time until they fall out of his arse, but he won't get a single cent for them unless they are commercially successful.

I mean - how you got out of this that I was anti-artist or anti-intellectual is simply unfathomable. You just fucking made it up because it suits your purpose, obviously.

Fuck me, man - I'm the one championing the artist's dream and stating he can do what he pleases in life, and devogue says that the school system is going to shove the guy into a cleaning service job. Yet I'm the one who hates artists? I'm the one who wants a popular writer to receive the fruits of his labor, and devogue wants to take it away. Yet I'm the one who hates writers? STFU - GTFO.

Once again, I never once said that the school system is "going to shove" an artist in to a cleaning job. The school system is there to provide every kind of support, encouragement and professional training for the budding artist, just as it is today.

Look how many aspiring actors and actresses who have killed themselves studying drama at places like RADA are now barmen and waitresses - they hope and dream they will one day tread the boards full time. The question is, will people stop aspiring to be actors, actresses, singers and writers if the upper limit on earnings is £26,000? The answer is no, because we are imaginative and creative creatures, and many of us like to show off and/or aspire to acclaim and adulation from our fellow creatures.

Do you get it yet?

The world I have envisaged is exactly the same as the world we live in now, except the upper limit on earnings is £26,000 per year.

[Coito ergo sum]

That's what devogue is doing. He is saying that if you make $100,000 on a movie or a book - you donate 75% to the government and only keep 26,000. If you make 1,000,000 - you keep 26,000.

Yes - also, imagine how fucking amazing public services would be with that pot of money.

I can only imagine the waste. But, you see, you forget that the pot of money would not be the same size as it is today. Stephen King would have long ago stopped writing his novels for publication. Once you have one, like Harper Lee that keeps selling enough to get you your maximum 26,000, then if your love and craft is writing you might as well write at home and not bother taking the risk of a failing or maligned book. Oh, he'd still write, but he would publish much less. Surely you see that?

And, other industries would be the same. People would not start businesses - hardly ever. There's no point, except to work just hard enough to keep the 26,000 flowing. There is no opportunity to make more. Right? So, whatever minimal work you have to do to be said to earn the 26,000's what will be done.

When I asked him if people could then just choose to become an artist or singer or a writer - he said that - no, now we need to modify it so that your aptitude will be judged by a school bureaucrat and if you are judged good enough, then you can be a writer or an artist. Otherwise you have to go do what they say you're good at and work on your art "in your own time." The right of an artist to go make it on his or her own - and be like Walt Disney and ignore the critics and prove that one's ideas are good would be gone, in devogue's world.

The only thing "approved" writers and artists can do is prove that their art has worth - and if they sell enough of their stuff, then they keep 26,000 of it, then they give away the rest.

Well done for getting my idea absolutely wrong even though I have taken ages and several posts to make it clear. Here it is again:

1) In the real world today if I want to become a professional musician, writer or artist I have a number of options open to me. At school I can study fine art, music theory or creative writing. If I display enough of an aptitude I may be able to take my studies to tertiary education. At the end of that time I should have all of the skills necessary to master the discipline in which I have shown aptitude. Notice how in the real world today "school bureaucrats" like JimC do judge the aptitude of certain students as a matter of course, and rightly so.

Most really successful artists don't go to or finish such schools.

So after leaving university or whatever I am still owed nothing and I have to find gainful employment. In 1996 I graduated as a Bachelor of Music - at that point was I owed a living? Was I entitled to a healthy wage while I sat around all week writing music that nobody wanted to hear? Of course not. So I went and got a job commensurate with my skills and experience (in a shop) and hoped that down the line I would get a break and get back in to music. That never happened, as it hasn't happened for plenty of people before and since. Do I work less hard as a result? No.

Nobody says you didn't work "just as hard" or even "harder." Nobody but you knows exactly how "hard" you worked.

Look at JK Rowling - she worked as a researcher for Amnesty International and was then unemployed while she wrote the Harry Potter books. In my universe, what would be different? - nothing!

Then if nothing is different - what are you changing?

Dude - EVERYTHING is different. When the writer can't keep the fruits of her work - that's a big fucking difference, and reverberates throughout the entire economy.

She wrote Harry Potter of her own accord, in her own time in the real world. Nobody paid her a cent while she wrote the first book - she received no grant, no aid, nothing.

And, she then sold a lot of books and kept the money she earned. Had she not written books people wanted, she wouldn't have made money.

She was completely on her own, inhabiting the same world as the rest of us, but chosing to spend the free time available to her outside employment to write her book. "They" are not saying she can't be a writer in my universe. "They" are saying that Stephen King the teacher (and he chose to be a teacher as well) will only get remunerated for being a writer if his book is successful. Nobody is stopping him from writing books in his spare time until they fall out of his arse, but he won't get a single cent for them unless they are commercially successful.

He won't get a single cent from them AT FUCKING ALL - in your world. Why? Because he's ALREADY making 26,000 as a teacher! The best he can do is precisely the same as a writer! You said it yourself - the most he fucking gets is 26,000! Or, are you saying that he can have two careers EACH making 26,000?

I mean - how you got out of this that I was anti-artist or anti-intellectual is simply unfathomable. You just fucking made it up because it suits your purpose, obviously.

Fuck me, man - I'm the one championing the artist's dream and stating he can do what he pleases in life, and devogue says that the school system is going to shove the guy into a cleaning service job. Yet I'm the one who hates artists? I'm the one who wants a popular writer to receive the fruits of his labor, and devogue wants to take it away. Yet I'm the one who hates writers? STFU - GTFO.

Once again, I never once said that the school system is "going to shove" an artist in to a cleaning job. The school system is there to provide every kind of support, encouragement and professional training for the budding artist, just as it is today.

Dude - then how does one pick a career in your world? You said that people can do what they want. Then when I pointed out that people would naturally gravitate towards the more appealing, less labor intensive, more cushy jobs, and jobs related to what people "dream" about like art, writing, painting, music, etc. And, also the more subjective jobs, so it's hard to put an objective number on success.

You then said that people would have to go to school to show aptitude to do what they want to do. They couldn't just go and do it.

Are you now saying that they CAN just go and do it? What jobs can I freely choose what I would like to do and what jobs can't I? Lawn service? Garbage man? Middle manager? Salesman? Race car driver? Actor? Writer? Which ones do I have to go to school for in your world? None of them require schooling now. None of them require approval.

1..If I am an 18 year old in your world, can I or can I not make 26,000 for being a lawn service guy if I want to? How many lawns must I cut for that? Who pays me? The government, right? Your notion was that EVERYONE who works gets 26,000 and those that don't can subsist on 8,000. What of the lawn service guy who cuts very slowly, or cuts only one lawn a week?

2. If I am an 18 year old in your world, can I or can I not make 26,000 for being an actor? Do I need approval for this job but not others? Why and why not?

Look how many aspiring actors and actresses who have killed themselves studying drama at places like RADA are now barmen and waitresses - they hope and dream they will one day tread the boards full time. The question is, will people stop aspiring to be actors, actresses, singers and writers if the upper limit on earnings is £26,000? The answer is no, because we are imaginative and creative creatures, and many of us like to show off and/or aspire to acclaim and adulation from our fellow creatures.

Do you get it yet?

Oh, yes - many people will stop aspiring to many things if the upper limit on earnings is 26,000. Oh, they might still act. But, only as a hobby, or only enough to earn 26,000. Actors all the time turn down roles if the money is not enough - it is not just common - it's normal, typical, etc. An actor may work for low wages early on to get opportunities and make a name, but as soon as the power shifts to them, they then want to be paid. Many, many people wold not sacrifice and sweat and starve to be an actor if there is no pot of gold possibility. Yes - most of them don't make it - but, it's risk vs. reward - part of the reward is the understanding that if they "make it" they will have the rewards.

The world I have envisaged is exactly the same as the world we live in now, except the upper limit on earnings is £26,000 per year.

That's a tremendous exception which reverberates through the whole economy. Production would decrease tremendously - monumentally. People would lose the incentive to take risks with their own capital and invest their own money in things. The economy is based on people putting money at risk. If the most anyone could earn is 26,000, then the investment banking industry, stock brokerage industry, stock markets, mortgage industry - all of it - gone. You can't possibly not see that, can you? Don't you run a business? Christ...

And, I think your visage changed a bit - you now say "upper limit on earnings." My understanding was that the government was paying out this 26,000 a year - people did what they want - all moneys paid in to the government - and then 26,000 paid out to all those who work in some job, and 8,000 paid out to those who don't.

Was I wrong about that? Do you mean that people are paid by private enterprise, and then anything over 26,000 is paid in to the government?

I didn't think you intended that, but I'll explain why it's bollocks too, if it was your intent. Look - no employer would offer a salary above 26,000 then. Why would they? The employee only keeps 26,000 so anything above that is meaningless in terms of incentive to the employee. The employee sure doesn't care if 26,000 goes to him and 10,000 or 100,000 goes to the government.