Anthony Weiner Goes Ballistic At GOP

I must admit I really respect and admire all those billionaires who got that way entirely on their own through hard honest work. The ones who never exploited or took advantage of others in any way. The ones who never used the government and political power to help them to get rich. They got that way entirely on their own by fairly competing with others and by providing everybody who ever worked for them a fair and equitable wage based on their actual productivity and value to the company. They weren't hypocritical in the least and treated everybody like fellow Christians, instead of being ruthless businessmen who think virtually any tactic is proper merely because it is "business" where anything goes.

There has to be at least one. Right?

Bill Gates?

Wages aren't selected only based on what someone "Deserves" but by how badly they want that worker. And the wealthy WILL PAY those who are deserving or someone else will and they still get a job.
 
Could Bill Gates have gotten rich without his workers?
 
I suppose that a national minimum wage is not fair because it's Communist, right? Was that a Republican measure or did they whine about big government and the rights of capitalism?
 
Wages aren't selected only based on what someone "Deserves" but by how badly they want that worker. And the wealthy WILL PAY those who are deserving or someone else will and they still get a job.

BS. Why are all our jobs going to China while there are willing workers here? To save none, not pay taxes on it and invest that money in off shore bank accounts.
 
China loves America's CEOs for giving them jobs. It is a win-win scenario on both sides.
 
BS. Why are all our jobs going to China while there are willing workers here?

Low skill manufacturing jobs have been moved to China because China has a large number of low skill workers, who will work for pennies an hour.
 
There are lots of "Deserving" people currently unemployed because of "outsourcing". That's unfettered capitalism at its nicest.
 
Bill Gates?
Bill Gates is quite likely the worst scumball example ever.

He literally stole public-domain Dartmouth BASIC as his first "commercial" program and ported it to micros, but he charged people as though he wrote the entire thing instead of a tiny fraction of it.

He then paid the creators of MD-DOS a few million dollars for the program which eventually made him one of the wealthiest people in the entire world after he found out from his mom that it was exactly what IBM was looking for.

For decades, he chronically underpaid all his employees by giving them stock options instead of reasonable salaries. This turned them into virtual indentured servants until the stock became worth the exploitation, which typically took 8 years. Then, when the stock finally levelled off and the options became essentially worthless, he still underpaid people for years on the premise that the stock would eventually be worth more than the option price as it once was, which still hasn't happened over 15 years later.

He also ruthlessly fired people all the time. One of his favorite tricks was to start up two groups doing exactly the same thing. One of them kept their jobs. The other didn't.

But probably the worst thing is that he has never ever created anything on his own. He steals the ideas of other software companies, creates his own version of their product, and then drives them out business by gaining market share any way he can. He's not a capitalist. He is an exploiter in the worst sense of the word.

Wages aren't selected only based on what someone "Deserves" but by how badly they want that worker. And the wealthy WILL PAY those who are deserving or someone else will and they still get a job.
Don't you think that is basically dishonest? To pay someone far less than they are actually worth and keep the difference?

Warren Buffett.
Warren Buffet made his billions from the great reinsurance scam. While it is technically not legal, it is incredibly smarmy. He was also involved in the AIG debacle which was in the same business. But he may very well be the best example since much of his money was self-made. But I bet if you look closely that his path is littered with the bodies of those whom he used to gain his wealth. People he conned out of their savings so he could become successful with Other People's Money.
 
The New Deal pushed open the door to end the Great Depression. Without it, America simply couldn't enter WWII in the state that it did IRL.
This is not actually true. Massively condensed version by Integral here. This is, fwiw, Christina Romer, who's on Obama's economic team, talking, not some libertarian wingnut.
 
Warren Buffet made his billions from the great reinsurance scam. While it is technically not legal, it is incredibly smarmy. He was also involved in the AIG debacle which was in the same business. But he may very well be the best example since much of his money was self-made. But I bet if you look closely that his path is littered with the bodies of those whom he used to gain his wealth. People he conned out of their savings so he could become successful with Other People's Money.

He's still much better than most.
 
Probably so, because making astute arbitrage decisions isn't exploiting anybody besides the idiots which allowed the market imbalance to occur in the first place. Of course, those idiots typically manage the money of people who are now poorer as a direct result.

And, of course, like virtually all businessmen he quite likely grossly underpaid most of his employees.
 
Probably so, because making astute arbitrage decisions isn't exploiting anybody besides the idiots which allowed the market imbalance to occur in the first place. Of course, those idiots typically manage the money of people who are now poorer as a direct result.

And, of course, like virtually all businessmen he quite likely grossly underpaid most of his employees.

And Elizabeth I was a relatively benevolent monarch for her time. Still a tyrant.

:dunno:

He's giving 99% of his money to charity, and that's good enough for me.
 
Tactical move that is supposed to draw support from his home district in an election year.
 
The New Deal pushed open the door to end the Great Depression. Without it, America simply couldn't enter WWII in the state that it did IRL.

The Great Society gave Medicare, and I'm sure many other things as well.

Is this the crap they teach these days?
 
Well, this man's professionalism is impressive...not.

Is this the crap they teach these days?
If so, then they must have changed a lot since I graduated.
 
Tank_Guy#3 said:
If so, then they must have changed a lot since I graduated.

This isn't solely aimed at you; but teaching objective historical facts is quite emphatically not the premise of high school history education.
 
This isn't solely aimed at you; but teaching objective historical facts is quite emphatically not the premise of high school history education.

This, times a bajillion.

And no one becomes wealthy without stepping on a few (or in most cases) quite a large number of people to get there. Capitalism is not a nice system. I mean, the whole bloody thing is built on the premise of selfishness and anything-goes competition.
 
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