I don't hate the world anymore

No where have you seen me blame anyone for anything in my life, in fact, you see me quite often claim full responsibility for it.

Just as I claim full responsibility for the choices I made getting here, including the ones where I made decisions one hundred percent based on profit. I never said that when I made a sale to a person who didn't need or really want what I was selling, that it was their fault for agreeing to buy it. That job was literally all about taking the decisions away from the customer and having them buy whatever I was selling.

For you to sit there on one hand and tell people to claim responsibility for their actions, and then to deny that you are responsible for maintaining the reality of the very system that creates poverty is totally hypocritical.

You say you pay better then anyone else does in your field. Do you share the profits of your company between you and all your employees?

Unless you are going to tell me that you have way more employees working for you then you actually need, each employee you have is equally responsible as you are for any profits the company makes. If one of them doesn't do the job, the whole company suffers and would collapse completely if the employee wasn't replaced.

If not, then you are taking advantage of other peoples efforts, and it is not possible for everyone in the world to do so, there must be a class of people that can be taken advantage of for it to work.

 

LMAO!

You are killing me here.

Actually I do have more employees than I need.

I if was smart I would lay off about 4 of them. But I do like them and frankly that is not smart as far as business.

The economy has really effected the seed business. The only reason I have not laid off people is I have enough money to sustain multiple years of fucked up economy until things get better.

My other businesses are what is sustaining everything. In my other business models the people who work for me are on a commission or individual contract basis. They are rewarded on results.

The world is the way it is my friend. I did not create the system.

I am not arguing what you are saying becase you are right.

 

Being as magnanimous as you are do you intend on hiring replacement workers when you lose the dead weight through attrition?


Hotwater

 

Probably not. But ...

If someone impresses me enough I will find a place for them.

 

I've found that humans often respond less than ideally to sustained generosity- that is they often take for granted a charitable gesture- such as keeping their position of employment through slow times. I obviously cannot speak for your employees and genuinely admire your gesture... perhaps your people are deserving and not conditioned to to becoming lazy when they are beneficiaries of such generosity... since I've only been able to observe results of the local culture as well as myself, I can't say with confidence that what I see isn't a by-product of the sense of privilege and entitlement that has to some extent afflicted the entire working age population here.

When there is no real need; nothing to motivate there is no real drive to accomplish and I would expect an artificial sense of job security to result in laziness. Our minds respond best to challenge.... the inner sense of urgency needs to be sustained through external means..

 

Well they do still provide a function. In other words I don't have to have my property looking exceptional, pruned and trimmed with mowed areas between rows.

That is not a function of profit.

But I like a sharp looking place that pleases the eye.

Plus it is better to be able to see the snakes on the ground.


They know full well I will fire them if they steal or are not doing their work.

 

There is the sense of urgency.

I may be just a bit jaded from what I've seen- and not being particularly well traveled I cannot speak for other cultures very credibly.

The typical pattern with an employee here:

Get hired and work hard for the 60-day (or however long) probationary period then slack off to doing as little as possible once permanent, non probationary status is achieved.

Of course people here are now brought up with the sense that they are entitled to have a job and income.... that secure permanent employment is more birthright than something that is continually earned. I try to work as though I have to sell myself anew each day because it's clear to me that if I'm seen as dead wood I become a candidate for a layoff when times are tough and while having to find a job is bad enough I don't want to be forced to when jobs are scarce.

 

That's a total cop out man... You just blamed everyone that came before you for your choices today...

What happened to personal responsibility?

 

That is true.

The opposite is usually true of people who are worked hard by their employer(s) and see no real pay off for it.

I used to work building and painting kitchen cabinets, vanities, etc. At Christmas the owner asked us all to work a lot harder, pick up the pace, and what not. The local competition had recently burned to the ground (literally) and we were now getting their business. He wanted to look good and get all the contracts for the entire city and surrounding area, and have them done fast. I liked this job as I like carpentry and it paid alright, though many complained about the salary. We picked up the pace and for the next 3 weeks worked like dogs. One guy lost part of his thumb on a planer, and got let go because he wasn't able to work properly for three weeks, no compensation. We saw no Christmas bonus that year, no overtime, nothing. When all the work was done after three weeks things got slow, so fifty of us were laid off. Meanwhile our boss collected a nice large bonus from the owner.

If I work hard for someone, there's usually no pay off for me, though my boss(es) may collect a large bonus. I've always worked hard at jobs and it has never meant much to my employers. So, I can't help but wonder, "why work hard for someone else when it won't be rewarded with money?" That's why I'm working for them in the first place.

 

All of your replies are total cop out. You are trying to get a rise, but it will not happen

My personal responsibility lies with myself, my family and friends.

I cannot change the world. But I can change myself and I can ask others to want more.

Can I be emotionally involved if they do? No, it is their choice.

If you are trying to make me feel guilty for being wealthy based on lame arguments, well you best try harder.

Everyone here knows exactly how you post. You are not fooling anyone.

 

You are right. There is a sense of entitlement.

In Central America it is really bad. I constantly have to fight it. Not just from employees, but from the people I know in Belize.

Some of the reasons I am in Belize is becase it is cheaper to hire employees that do not want to work than it is in the USA. Plus less government regulations.

But what I was saying is that having a neat place does not help the bottom line in any way.

 

So when presented with the opportunity to support your argument, you resort to attacking the person giving a different side of it.

Put as many smileys in your post as you wish, it doesn't change the fact that you just keep trying to shift the blame off you onto anyone else but you.

As for the way I post, I agree, I think everyone here does know how I post.

I don't understand how you think that helps your argument though.

 

Yes- this compounds the problem when there is zero degree of loyalty toward people who have applied themselves to their work but are disposed of the moment business slacks to a degree that there's no pressing immediate need for their services and that seems to be the American way. I see both ends of the equation richly deserving the economic apocalypse that may well be unfolding.

The great depression was a collective character builder from my perspective... look at what that generation did when the middle class was restored, post war.

 

State your opinion as fact and the debate degenerates. You may well think that what he says is a cop-out and there's a possibility that you're correct BUT calling him on "facts" and it becomes difficult not to take it as an attack. I saw the smileys as diplomatic in nature.

 

I am responsible for my wealth and so is everyone else.

No where have I shifted the blame on anyone. Unlike you who blames society and others.

The world was the way it is before I came around.

Since I cannot change the world, I will change myself and try to help others. That is my responsibility.

Responsibility lies within the individual.

It is you who are shifting blame. Not me.

 

I couldn't agree more. After the great depression was another war, and people were rather greatful for its after effects, as the country prospered afterwards. The key term there being 'that generation'. They didn't expect everything for nothing the way many people do today. Today's motto is more, "Well, it's already here so why do I have to earn it?"

As we've seen today war (and the terrible economic system of the US) has led to economic collapse. I find it hard to believe that if there was an economic apocalypse, those who run things in Washington would go, "Okay, we screwed up, we best change so the people can really prosper."

I might be a pessimist here, but I have a very hard time believing those who run things have the people's best interest at hand. We don't really have the opportunity to build character as the government is too busy pacifying and coddling us.

 

Yep--

Of course the fact that much of the rest of the developed world had been bombed into oblivion didn't hurt our prosperity either.

The economic collapse was not a direct result of the system as much as it was a result of greed motivated bending of rules on the part of the banking and investment sectors- encouraged by governments profiting from increased taxes assessed from inflated real estate values.... as well as the deregulatory push to allow banks to declare speculative values of "housing bubble" stocks as part of their solvency. It has the makings of a new great depression if only the United States government would get the fuck out of the way and allow matters to bottom out on their own so a new, more solid economy can be build on a foundation more solid than the current one composed of unbacked TARP and Bailout cash handed over to the sector that created the mess in the first place.

of course anyone with critical thinking skills can tell that it's not about the middle class... as government actions are limited to empty promises as far as the little guy goes. Apart from the artificial solvency afforded by TARP funds, recipient banks benefited by no longer having to renegotiate with toxic mortgages whose assessed value had been a major part of their holdings... they can with financial impunity put people out of their homes and dump the vacated properties on the housing market without being hurt by plummeting values and all the fallout resulting from that- including not only other homeowners losing equity, but in lagging tax revenues creating political time bombs where the choice becomes either raising mil rates, enacting new taxes, or eliminating services.

I can't think of a more deserving population in general.

 

That's priceless...

 

Tom, I am not sure what to say.

I have agreed the world is not fair. I have also admitted I cannot change the world.

As wrong as it is.

The last time I tried to change the evils of the world in Guatemala I ended up with a gun if my face with some guy saying that if I ever wanted to see my family again, I best leave. I did.

The governments of the world have more guns. They win.

Wish it was different, but it is not.

Everyone is responsible for their own life. I am responsible for mine.

You can twist words all that you want.

If that is a cop out. Fine, I am a cop out. You win. Are you happy?

 

I state fact as fact.

This argument always amuses me... partly from that anyone would expect anyone else to believe it, and partly from the fact that a lot actually do believe it.

The majority of the world is living in poverty, precisely because of people exploiting them. That means profiting off of their labor without returning value for what they get.

Offering someone a choice of dying of starvation and watching their children die of starvation or working for a pittance in regards to the value of what they produce and then blaming them for accepting the pittance, is shifting the blame. Offer those same employees a choice in between working for a pittance, and working in a co-operative where they get an equal share of what they produce (note that is not an equal share of what everyone everywhere produces, it is a share of what they actually help produce).

That shouldn't be a hard concept for anyone to grasp. If you have 4 people who all do the exact same job, it may be easier to see that all should recieve and equal share then when those same four are doing different tasks, but the simple fact is that if the four of them are choosing to work together, and each of them is required for the final product, then they are equally responsible for that product and the value others place on it.

We all equally have 24 hours a day. As we all have equal amounts of time, the value of each is the same. It is only when you get people who take advantage of others by giving them less then an equal share of what they produce that this goes out the window.

This is him saying that it isn't his fault that the world is the way it is, because he didn't create it.... That is shifting blame from him, who is keeping the system the way it is by using the labor of others and personally profiting off of it beyond his input at the cost of the others...

Yes, I am shifting blame. I am shifting it back onto everyone's shoulders who takes part in making these things happen, just as I am shifting the value of their participation in what they produce to an equal share.

It isn't 'just' your responsibility that the world is like this, but you have as much of a part in it as the ones you blame for making the choice you offer them.

Taking part in that system and not feeling ashamed of it is a personal choice, trying to say that being a part of it doesn't make you partly responsible for it, IS something to feel ashamed of...

At least, that's my opinion.