The Age of Corporate Treason

[JoeNormal]

None of those definitions are objective.

Still with the objectivist fetish. I've told you how the effects of subjective concept can be quantitatively measured. Did it go in one ear and out the other?

Yes, because it's nonsense. If it's a "subjective concept" then it's entirely possible that the so-called quantitative measures have nothing to do with what you're claiming they're measuring.

Ok, pick another name for the force that increases wealth disparity and we'll use that.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Still with the objectivist fetish. I've told you how the effects of subjective concept can be quantitatively measured. Did it go in one ear and out the other?

Yes, because it's nonsense. If it's a "subjective concept" then it's entirely possible that the so-called quantitative measures have nothing to do with what you're claiming they're measuring.

Ok, pick another name for the force that increases wealth disparity and we'll use that.

Pig grunts.

 

[Katzndogz]

Well your analogy is correct as well, but only because, once again, since nobody owns the public beach nobody has a legitimate claim against the person who poisoned the air. A shopping district may be another story, depending on who owns the property.

The public owns a public beach -- and the public is represented by its governments, local and federal.

The "public" doesn't own anything. If everybody owns something then nobody has a claim against somebody poisoning the air, because they also own it. In other words, if everybody owns something, then nobody owns it.

A quick lesson in the Public Trust.

Public trust doctrine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Erand7899]

While you're quite right about the universal ambition of Man, presenting the concept in those terms poses an open philosophical question. One place to look for an answer is in Abraham Maslow's, Hierarchy of Human Needs, in which the difference between rational aspiration (ambition) and irrational craving (greed) is examined.

Rather than embark on a redundantly academic exchange I'll simply say anything we manage to acquire beyond that which is necessary to adequately sustain and protect our physical organism is categorical luxury. So in keeping with your correct observation that money is merely a means to an end, the open question is where is the rational end? How much, within the boundaries of reason, is enough?

How much joy is enough? How much happiness is enough? How much charity is enough?

Who can be the judge of how much money is enough?[...]

You can be the judge of how much money is enough to satisfy you -- and in doing so to determine whether or not you are gluttonous. So think it over and give us a number. And to make it even more interesting, tell us how you arrived at that number.

Yes, I can be the judge of my own actions or thoughts. I can be the judge of how much money is enough for me. I cannot be the judge of your actions or thoughts, unless those actions or thoughts affect me in some meaningful way. I cannot be the judge of how much money is enough for you, because what you have does not affect me in any way.

 

[boedicca]

Some of you on this forum might have to choose between your two passions - patriotism and capitalism - after reading this excellent article by Ralph Nader.

Why are big, global U.S. corporations so unpatriotic? After all, they were created in the U.S.A., rose to immense profit because of the toil of American workers, are bailed out by American taxpayers whenever they’re in trouble, and are safeguarded abroad by the U.S. military.

Yet these corporate goliaths work their tax lawyers overtime to escape U.S. taxes. Many pay less than you do in federal income taxes. Imagine corporations, like General Electric, have not paid federal income taxes on U.S. profits for years.

The Age of Corporate Treason » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

What a dose of clap.

Politicians designed our overly complicated, globally uncompetitive tax system. Corporations which apply the tax code as it is written are not Unpatriotic. Not is the tax code anything remotely like Capitalism.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

The public owns a public beach -- and the public is represented by its governments, local and federal.

The "public" doesn't own anything. If everybody owns something then nobody has a claim against somebody poisoning the air, because they also own it. In other words, if everybody owns something, then nobody owns it.

A quick lesson in the Public Trust.

Public trust doctrine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And?

 

[JoeNormal]

Yes, because it's nonsense. If it's a "subjective concept" then it's entirely possible that the so-called quantitative measures have nothing to do with what you're claiming they're measuring.

Ok, pick another name for the force that increases wealth disparity and we'll use that.

Pig grunts.

You'd suck at marketing.

 

[AmazonTania]

So I can buy a section of ocean at the mouth of the Mississippi river and charge tolls to every ship that goes through? really a dumb idea, Kev

Maybe. But take a second to ponder about all the Marine and Lake disasters which could have been avoided simply by establishing ownership of said environment.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Ok, pick another name for the force that increases wealth disparity and we'll use that.

Pig grunts.

You'd suck at marketing.

I think I'd be alright, I've seen a few episodes of Mad Men.

 

[Snookie]

That is a plainly un-American position.

Inasmuch as American corporations achieved their success by exploiting this Nation's natural, material, administrative, and human resources, it is fitting that a substantial exit (expatriation) tax is imposed on them if they wish to abandon the Country that enabled them.

Again, they can't "exploit" their own property, and their property does not belong to the "nation."

In accordance with International Law all nations have purview over twelve miles of ocean off their coasts (territorial waters).

I thought it waS 200 MILES.

 

[MikeK]

Again, they can't "exploit" their own property, and their property does not belong to the "nation."

In accordance with International Law all nations have purview over twelve miles of ocean off their coasts (territorial waters).

I thought it waS 200 MILES.

"Territorial waters, or a territorial sea, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most 12 nautical miles (22 km; 14 mi) from the baseline (usually the mean low-water mark) of a coastal state. The territorial sea is regarded as the sovereign territory of the state, although foreign ships (both military and civilian) are allowed innocent passage through it; this sovereignty also extends to the airspace over and seabed below."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters

 

[MikeK]

This thread has been productive for me in that it's provided an interesting insight into a certain political posture.

The appeal of the Libertarian political philosophy rests mainly in its determined intention to reduce the power of government and liberate the individual citizen from the influence and the confines of federal authority. The Libertarian ideology holds that government is essentilaly redundant and should be reduced to the barest minimum, especially where the imposition of taxes and issues of private behavior are concerned.

At first glance this perception of political liberation occurs as an appealing social attitude, the feasibility of which tends to weaken the more closely one examines and considers its real potential. The reason why the Libertarians never seem to move beyond a certain level of political success, but yet they never give up, is rooted in the imaginative appeal of their ideology -- which essentially is a pipe dream.

Anyone who has raised children is acquainted with the intense sense of resentment for parental authority that attends the earlier stages of adolescence. In extreme examples of this developing maturity the adolescent will denounce parental authority, demanding to be regarded as independent and free, and citing all sorts of spurious ideas in support of their presumptive liberty.

Having raised three daughters it's not hard to understand why I am thoroughly familiar with the, "You have no right to tell me what to do" routine during the thirteen to seventeen stage of development.

In the same way as the puppies and kittens get together, conspire, conjure all sorts of ideas about why partental authority is extraneous and reinforce each others' longing for liberation, the political Libertarians are convinced that government is an oppressive redundancy and there is no need for nation, or social order, and that "taxation is theft," etc.

Adult Libertarians are bad enough. But when adolescents hook this political ideology to their anti-parental authority wagon -- it's a circus.

 

[bripat9643]

Still with the objectivist fetish. I've told you how the effects of subjective concept can be quantitatively measured. Did it go in one ear and out the other?

Yes, because it's nonsense. If it's a "subjective concept" then it's entirely possible that the so-called quantitative measures have nothing to do with what you're claiming they're measuring.

Ok, pick another name for the force that increases wealth disparity and we'll use that.

Hard work.

 

[bripat9643]

Just throwing some proposed definitions of GREED, here




GREED, contrary to what Randians will try to tell you, is NOT a virtue.

GREED is a mental condition.

GREED is NOT a healthy appetite, it is a neurotic behavior stemming (probably) from fear or a sense of inadaquacy.

GREED is self interest on STERIODS.

None of those definitions are objective.

Still with the objectivist fetish. I've told you how the effects of subjective concept can be quantitatively measured. Did it go in one ear and out the other?

Where? If its subjective, it can't be measured. That's what "subjective" means.

 

[georgephillip]

None of those definitions are objective.

Still with the objectivist fetish. I've told you how the effects of subjective concept can be quantitatively measured. Did it go in one ear and out the other?

Where? If its subjective, it can't be measured. That's what "subjective" means.

"subjective..."

"Pertaining to subjects as opposed to objects (A subject is one who perceives or is aware; an object is the thing perceived or the thing that the subject is aware of.)

"Formed, as in opinions, based upon a person's feelings or intuition, not upon observation or reasoning; coming more from within the observer than from observations of the external environment.

"Resulting from or pertaining to personal mindsets or experience, arising from perceptive mental conditions within the brain and not necessarily from external stimuli.

Lacking in reality or substance...

"(philosophy, psychology) Experienced by a person mentally and not directly verifiable by others"

"Greed is the inordinate desire to possess wealth, goods, or objects of abstract value with the intention to keep it for one's self, far beyond the dictates of basic survival and comfort. It is applied to a markedly high desire for and pursuit of wealth, status, and power.

In case you hadn't noticed, the effects of corporate greed are experienced materially and mentally by those who get rich from war and debt, and they are also are directly verifiable by others like children in Appalachia, for example:

"And the Appalachian Mountains, which provide the headwaters for much of the Eastern Seaboard, are dotted with enormous impoundment ponds filled with heavy metals and toxic sludge. In order to breathe, children go to school in southern West Virginia clutching inhalers."

 

[Snookie]

None of those definitions are objective.

Still with the objectivist fetish. I've told you how the effects of subjective concept can be quantitatively measured. Did it go in one ear and out the other?

Where? If its subjective, it can't be measured. That's what "subjective" means.

It can be measured by bias.

 

[editec]

OF course the CONCEPT of GREED is "subjective".

You dismiss using the word subjective as though subjective means irrelevant.

Subjective observations DEMAND an observer to qualify them, dearie

QUALITATIVE observations are qualitative precisely because they are referring to that which is not QUANTATIVE.

GREED is a QUALITY OF BEING not a QUANTITY that can be tallied.

Seriously, rhetorical logic isn't exactly your thing, is it?

Words have meanings.

Learn them.

 

[Snookie]

I love playing sophist semantics. Next?

 

[editec]

It's only sophistry if one knows that what one is advancing is a lie, Snookie.

Sophistry is the art of making specious arguments convincingly.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

This thread has been productive for me in that it's provided an interesting insight into a certain political posture.

The appeal of the Libertarian political philosophy rests mainly in its determined intention to reduce the power of government and liberate the individual citizen from the influence and the confines of federal authority. The Libertarian ideology holds that government is essentilaly redundant and should be reduced to the barest minimum, especially where the imposition of taxes and issues of private behavior are concerned.

At first glance this perception of political liberation occurs as an appealing social attitude, the feasibility of which tends to weaken the more closely one examines and considers its real potential. The reason why the Libertarians never seem to move beyond a certain level of political success, but yet they never give up, is rooted in the imaginative appeal of their ideology -- which essentially is a pipe dream.

Anyone who has raised children is acquainted with the intense sense of resentment for parental authority that attends the earlier stages of adolescence. In extreme examples of this developing maturity the adolescent will denounce parental authority, demanding to be regarded as independent and free, and citing all sorts of spurious ideas in support of their presumptive liberty.

Having raised three daughters it's not hard to understand why I am thoroughly familiar with the, "You have no right to tell me what to do" routine during the thirteen to seventeen stage of development.

In the same way as the puppies and kittens get together, conspire, conjure all sorts of ideas about why partental authority is extraneous and reinforce each others' longing for liberation, the political Libertarians are convinced that government is an oppressive redundancy and there is no need for nation, or social order, and that "taxation is theft," etc.

Adult Libertarians are bad enough. But when adolescents hook this political ideology to their anti-parental authority wagon -- it's a circus.

It's always nice when, rather than come up with anything substantive, somebody just resorts to calling us immature and childish.