Here's part of a letter from a reader: "A hard-working, conscientious person can earn $10,000 a year in a fast-food restaurant. At the same time, movie stars and athletes, who make very little contribution to society, can earn in excess of $10,000,000 a year. A baseball player earns more with every swing of the bat than many people do in a year."

The reader's inference is that there's something unfair about income differences of such magnitude. It also reflects ignorance about the sources of income in a free society; that's music to the ears of political demagogues with an insatiable taste for command and control.

I think some of the ignorance and much of the demagoguery stems from the usage of the phrase "income distribution." It might make some people think income is distributed; in other words, there's a dealer of dollars. The reason that some people have few dollars while others have millions upon millions is that the dollar dealer is unjust.

An alternative vision might be that there's a pile of money intended for all of us. The reason why some are rich and some are poor is that the greedy rich got to the pile first and took their unfair share. Clearly, in either case, justice would require a re-dealing, or redistribution, of the dollars, where the government takes ill-gotten gains of the few and returns them to their rightful owners.

Most people, except a few congressmen, would view those explanations of the sources of income as nonsense. In a free society, for the most part, income is earned. It's earned by serving and pleasing one's fellow man.

Why is it that Michael Jordan earns $33 million a year and I don't even earn one-half of one percent of that? I can play basketball, but my problem is with my fellow man, who'd plunk down $200 to see Jordan play and wouldn't pay a dollar to see me play. I'm also willing to sell my name as endorsements for sneakers and sport clothing, but no one has approached me.

The bottom line explanation of Michael Jordan's income relative to mine lies in his capacity to please his fellow man. The person who takes exception to Jordan's salary or sees him, as my letter-writer does, as making "little contribution to society" is really disagreeing with decisions made by millions upon millions of independent decision-makers who decided to fork over their money to see Jordan play. The suggestion that Congress ought to take part of Jordan's earnings and give it to someone else is the same as arrogantly saying, "I know better who ought to receive those dollars."

Another part of the explanation for Jordan's high salary is simply a matter of supply and demand. If there were tens and tens of millions of people with Jordan's talents, you can rest assured he wouldn't be earning $33 million a year. And similarly you can bet that if people really valued hamburgers and there were only a few people with those skills, they'd be earning much more than they currently earn.

We might think of dollars as being "certificates of performance." The better I serve my fellow man, and the higher the value he places on that service, the more certificates of performance he gives me. The more certificates I earn, the greater my claim on the goods my fellow man produces. That's the morality of the market. In order for one to have a claim on what his fellow man produces, he must first serve him. Contrast that moral standard to Congress' standing offer, "Vote for me and I'll take what your fellow man produces and give it to you."

Here are a few more crumbs for you...now Get Back To Work!

Thanks, massa! Mo biscuits?

Blow me, you pissant.

The truth is that the reason we have poor people is rich people. . .Anyone who thinks it is "moral" for a single human being to have "33 million dollars" ( or whatever other ridiculous amount could be inserted here) while others live in poverty or have no health care or literally bunches of other reasons, is purely and simply, a moral midget.

Point

To blame the plight of the poor exclusively on the wealthy is hallmark of a mental midget.

Many people in America are poor simply because they chose to be. They chose to not study in public school and they chose to not attend institutions of higher learning. And they've chosen not to apply themselves in a rewarding career. In America, there is no excuse.

Go ahead and live your life pissing, whining and moaning. In the end you'll be right where you are, no further along with nothing to show for it.

You socialists think everything should be handed to you on a silver platter. You think you're owed. You think that just because your mothers had unprotected sex with your father, that you're owed. And furthermore, you expect those of us who strive continuously in the name of self-improvement, and who actually achieve some degree of financial security, should have to foot the bill for your ridiculous dementia.

Not going to happen. Please get real.

Gee I wish I was a white suburban male so I could have things easy too.

If you put all the weight on one side of the scale, you have an imbalance. . .And an artificial one at that. As I have heard, presumably Nature existed prior to the "free market." So when Monsanto claims the right to patent seed, saying others must pay to use it, they are simply robbing people. . .I don't see Monsanto paying all the farmers or farmers families who did millenia of breeding. I could have three houses and ten cars. . .But I could only live in one house and drive one car at a time: what are the others but surplus value appropriated to no moral end? I realize this type of thinking will no doubt be way over your heads, but perhaps I have planted a seed. . . ;~)

One is not able to patent a naturally-occuring seed. Monsanto's patents are for plants that do not exist naturally -- plants that they created by engineering a foreign gene(s) into a plant. Nobody is forced to purchase these seeds if they want to use a natural strain. What is the problem here??

Second, the "surplus" money that rich people have does not sit under the mattress. It is most likely invested -- it is this investment that allows capitalism to work so well. They don't call it capitalism for nothing -- it requires capital. Why are poor countries poor? Because they don't have enough capital. Just ask North Korea or Sudan. Why do poor countries like China get richer? Because of a vast foreign inflow of capital.

There is nothing immoral about having "surplus" money and investing it in ventures of your choice.

...the problem with Monsanto's Seed can be summarized in one word: Pollen. When Monsanto markets a Genetically Manipulated Organism (GMO for short) it puts into the environment the pollen produced by the mature plants. To the degree that Pollen contaminates non-GMO fields it is creating a public nuisance. This is not a neo-Luddite imaginary problem as Corn Farmers in the Midwest have found out. Some have suffered real financial damage because GMO Corn is not approved for Human Consumption because of Allergic Reactions. Crops cross contaminated even with trace amounts must be sold at the lower "Feed Corn" Price.

The concept of Genetic manipulation is not neccessarily a bad thing in theory but in practice... "Ah, there's the rub."

Diogenes,

You know how people criticize the Monsanto product because farmers must come back to them each season and buy more seed? You know why? Because they have made them asexual so that they can't spread their genetic material to neighboring fields.

You speak of that corn contamination case. That wasn't because of sexual reproduction issues, it was because a careless farmer added GMO corn to a silo of natural corn. Human error.

Finally, that GMO corn does not produce allergic reactions in humans. The company simply decided to not go through the expense of FDA trials to prove it suitable for human consumption.

Biology lesson: If somebody is not allergic to the protein that the inserted gene produces in its native organism, then they won't be allergic to the protein that the gene produces in its transgenic host.

“Consequently, the judge said that a "farmer whose

field contains seed or plants originating from seed

spilled into them

or blown as seed from swaths from a neighbour's

land or even from germination by pollen carried into

his fields from

elsewhere by insects, birds or by the wind, may own

the seeds or plants on his land even if he did not set

about planting

them. He does not, however, own the right to the use

of the patented gene, or the seed or plant containing

the patented gene or cell.”

http://www.foeeurope.org/press/17.01.02_American_farmers.htm

Does Ted work for these guys?

http://www.euvepro.org/position_papers/010712-Modern_Biotechnology.doc

Hmmmm?

Try this search, if you will ( soya GMO+contamination)

Have fun people.

That is an interesting ruling -- but those are hypotheticals. Nowhere does it set to prove that genetic material from a GMO plant has mixed with a native plant.

This has NEVER been proven. Because it doesn't happen.

search query (GMO plant has mixed )

“But that all changed in November when University of California at Berkeley microbiologists

Ignacio Chapela and David Quist issued a peer-reviewed (five rounds of review) study, which the

journal Nature published”

(--Link too long to post--)

(Try going through link at end.)

“The research found that the DNA from transgenic corn

had mixed with that of indigenous corn in

remote portions of the Qaxaca state of Mexico.

The Mexican government confirmed those

findings.”

http://ngin.tripod.com/080102b.htm

April 4, 2002

The influential science journal Nature has declared that a report on genetically improved corn growing in Mexico "was not well researched enough and should not have been published," The Washington Post reports today. This week's Nature carries a note from the editors, reading: "Nature has concluded that the evidence available is not sufficient to justify the publication of the original paper."

The paper, by the University of California at Berkeley's Ignacio Chapela (a board member of the anti-biotech Pesticide Action Network) and David Quist, claimed genetically improved crops were spreading across the continent. That won the praise of anti-biotech activists -- who are now embarrassed by what the Post calls "Nature's near-retraction of the article."

Says University of Washington researcher Matthew Metz: "The Quist and Chapela study is a testament to technical incompetence." And geneticist Michael Freeling, also of Berkeley, demands: "Since Quist and Chapela published bad science in Nature, both scientists and Nature must come absolutely clean, retract and apologize."

Not likely. Despite the criticisms of peers, and the fact that hundreds of scientists and 19 Nobel Prize laureates have signed a declaration that biotech is safe and "can contribute substantially in enhancing quality of life by improving agriculture, health care, and the environment," Quist and Chapela stand by their report. And activists all over North America are proceeding with plans to hold "actions" April 10-17 to smear genetic improvement technology.

“...In a flap that raises new questions about corporate ties to universities,

some academics are wondering whether the junior UC Berkeley professor who

has become a leading biotech industry critic can get a fair hearing in a

tenure review that has already gone twice as long as usual...The squabble, which offers a rare peek at the secretive tenure process,

revolves around Ignacio Chapela, who in 1998 led a fight against a

controversial research partnership between the biotech firm Novartis and

Berkeley's Department of Plant and Microbial Biology.”

..." Novartis -- whose

agricultural division is now called Syngenta -- agreed to provide up to

$25 million in funding in return for a role in handing out the money and

certain rights to the findings arising from the work it sponsored."

http://www.gene.ch/genet/2003/Mar/msg00082.html

...ouch!

...Reply from the shills?

I have a feeling that this thread will either die now or be spammed by morons....

Get down!

Ha

GE is like electricity sure it is "theoretically possible" that GE could hurt someone but banning it or protesting it is just stupid.

... bring good things to light.

Take the warthog, A 10.

The gun, a 30mm gat (3000 rpm) and the engines.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!

More!

It is YOU that is "just stupid."

Why not ban electricity?

think of all the electrocuted children!

since were at it shall we ban the use of automation in farming? who knows what things might happen if you dont plant every seed by hand. The seeds might land somwhere else!! and suddenly the jungles of the world might become replaced by Maise!!!

ahh Luddites

You wanna use GE's, go ahead, just put on the label that the product contains GE foods, and nobody will buy it.

Sorry, I'm just too stupid to figure this out. I am but a conservative.

ok somewhere along the road

it got determined that rich people should be paid $1,000,000 a year

and unskilled should be paid $7 an hour

who decided that the minimum wage should be $5.25 an hour?

wouldnt it be fair and capitalistic if the lower classes were to rise up and go on strike in order to force those in charge to increase minimum wage to say $15?

sure company profits and CEO salaries would be tiny compared to what they are now but wouldnt it still be all well and good?

The people who are hurt the most from minimum wage hikes are the poor: fewer jobs for them and more expensive products for all -- disproportionately felt by the poor.

No serious economist argues against these facts. Minimum wage hikes are 'feel-good politics'.

Open wide, you cum dumpster.

Scottie,

Thank you for your thought-provoking and valuable posts. The discussion is advanced by your erudition.

Ted

ok but what would happen

if CEO salaries were reduced

and the money saved went in to increasing worker wages?

Ted - that was the fake scottie.. the real scottie actually agrees with you (generally speaking)

Money is not somthing that there is a fixed amount of - if you had read economics for dummies you might have been told that most money is not currency but in a sort of "imaginary form" for example in terms of a bank owing you money. Even the money itself is subject to inflation.

Therefore if you take money from the rich it wont just appear in the hands of other people in the economy It may even remove money from their hands. For example what happens if you take alot of money from the banks - sure they are owned by rich people (sometimes) but if you take all their money and give it to everyone else you will soon see that everyone looses money.

Unless you are some how making the system more efficient with your redistribution of money - you will loose money. And some simplistic method like "jsut take it from the rich and give it to the poor - is unlikely to improve effciiency.

For your specific example

If you raised the minimum wage to $15 the obvious initial reaction would be that those workers who were not worth $15 would be fired. these out of work employers would have to find jobs where they were worth $15 or would be unemployed.

The money from the rich would jsut dissapear (depending on how you did it)

ok so there are people who do work 2 jobs or work and go to night school while takin care of their kids etc. they work hard yet they earn so little that they cannot make ends meet. what can be done for them?

lets not talk about the people who sit around and do jack shit.

what bout the people who are actually makin the effort?

Most of the wealth in the U.S.A. is inherited by

grateful sons, daughters and trusts.

Not by creation of goods or services.

Privilege and wealth are the stakes into the heart of

america's freedom and equality.

Always taking, only giving at the point of a sword.

Sorry, I was too stupid to know that the American flag in that picture is actually handmade. My third grade buddy told me that the flag probably didn't cost over 1$ to make. I'm an idiot, therefore, I'm a conservative.

(Sorry real scottie)

New X,

You have to remember that 99% of CEOs in this country run small and medium size companies and make nowhere near $1 million per year. In fact, you (or your parents) probably know some of them. They are regular people, with a lot of responsibility.

Those that lead a Fortune 500 company often do make incredible salaries. Some are deserved, others are not. Remember that it is the legal duty of these CEOs to maximize shareholder wealth. In public companies, the owners aren't on-site, so the CEO is trusted to act in their interests. A good CEO is a very rare specimen. And the best deserve to be paid for their rarity -- like the great athletes are -- supply and demand. The CEOs that lose value for the shareholders and make stupid decisions and break the laws of corporate governence do not deserve grand salaries. The should be fired, sometimes prosecuted.

A great CEO attracts other great senior management, who in turn attract great middle management, who in turn create an environment where the average worker can excel. The few hundred in America who are great are players in a bidding war for their talent.

Finally, don't forget that many of these great CEOs are not created out of Harvard Business School. Many have humble beginnings and their merit has carried them to the top.

Bend over, assclown.

We're watching you KOBEHQ. We're watching you very closely.