"There's nothing wrong with making money in America..."

[kentuck]

Unless of course...

You become wealthy by making other people poor. You become wealthy by cutting jobs and moving them overseas. Or you become wealthy by hiding your money in foreign accounts so that you do not have to pay the same taxes as other Americans.

If that is the case, then there is something wrong with making money in America. Does anyone wonder why Mitt Romney gets so defensive on this subject matter?

For those that say there is nothing wrong with becoming wealthy, it depends on how you become wealthy.

.

[krispos42]

1. you mean make money in...

A moral and ethical manner? Do you have any idea how much morals and ethics cut into profits???

[kentuck]

3. Yes, I do have an idea...

Someone once said that behind every great fortune is a great crime. I don't know if that is true or not?

[rustydog]

14. 10 billion profits in the first quarter...10 billion

and it so offends these oil tycoons to spend a pittance of that on safety...so it is unthinkable to have safety equipment as an acceptable business practice...but killing 11 in the gulf was just a part of doing business?

Behind many fortunes there are crimes....Prescott traded with the enemy and was put on trial...Halliburton's showers in Afghanistan and Iraq electrocuted american soldiers...they are still taking in hundreds of millions of dollars...It is money. money.money pure and simple.

Mitt Rawmoney has an unhealthy love of money and places money above American Citizens...so do most Republicans.

[krispos42]

16. If I was hording $10 million worth of rifle ammunition...

I'd have the feds crawling through my history like worms through topsoil.

If I was hording $10 million worth of old magazines, I'd have my children taken from me and be institutionalized.


But $10 million in cash? I'm a job creator who should be worshiped and idolized.

[Egalitarian Thug]

17. Honoré de Balzac, and I've yet to find an exception. n/t

[coalition_unwilling]

29. I believe that was the French novelist Honore de Balzac in "Le Pere Goriot". Those

Frenchies Next thing you know one of them will say "All private property is theft" (the French anarchist Proudhon).

[hifiguy]

2. That's just what the Mafia says.

There's nothing wrong with making money honestly and ethically - say by providing a good product or service at a fair price (which includes a reasonable profit) and treating your employees as assets who deserve to share in the success to which they have contributed to rather than cost centers to be treated as beasts of burden.

It can be done. I have a couple of personal friends who have done so very successfully.

[JDPriestly]

9. True.

[Gold Metal Flake]

4. So, Rmoney, the church elder, believes there is no morality to wealth or it's acquisition.

We have some religious folk in the party, right? They might like a story like that.

[quaker bill]

20. I am not sure how the prosperity gospel and Mormonism fit together

From the scale of their Cathedrals, I suspect they do not have problems with displays of wealth. But I do not know this, as I have never studied their faith.

There is a strain of Christianity that holds wealth to be a sign of God's favor, in a "justification" sense. Puritans were afflicted with this. Others remain so today.

[cynatnite]

5. Well said. n/t

[Surya Gayatri]

6. There's a wing-nut meme going around

(saw it in a viral e-mail from my RW brother).

The argument is that if FDR was rich, if JFK was rich, etc.etc., how dare "libruls" attack poor lil' rich guy Mitt for his wealth.

I don't bother to "engage" with my brother anymore, but if I had, I would've said:
"Yeah, they were rich; but it didn't stop them having empathy for their less fortunate compatriots. They displayed no sense of tone-deaf entitlement."

Willard "I don't worry about the poor" RMONEY is the 180% antithesis,

[JDPriestly]

10. FDR and JFK inherited their wealth.

With their humanistic, liberal policies, they were atoning for the wrongs and mistakes of their ancestors.

Neither FDR nor JFK personally made their money the stamp-on-your-neighbor-and-the-environment way.

[Selatius]

7. You become a billionaire by being ruthless to competitors and your own workforce.

Ask the Walton family about that score. Several members of their family are billionaires. When you read the papers, you're more likely to hear about the profits of Walmart stores vs. a company like Costco, which is actually union-friendly. They may not be run by billionaires and may not be as cutthroat, but they at least afford their own workers some level of human dignity.

The other way to become a billionaire is to become a real good speculator.

[JDPriestly]

8. I would add that there is something wrong with becoming wealthy

at the expense of the health of other people or our environment.

If you poison the water in order to become wealthy, you should pay the cost of cleaning up that water out of your wealth. That's just an example of the kind of thing I am talking about.

That is the way we are supposed to be doing it, but unfortunately, wealthy people sometimes think that cleaning up after themselves is not part of the cost of doing business. Some clean up; some do not. Everyone should take responsibility in that way.

For example, companies that produce plastic bags or balloons or plastic toys should take responsibility for recycling them and cleaning up the environmental damage that occurs due to their manufacture and use. There are lots of other examples such as plastic toys and other things.

[jtuck004]

11. Oh, sorry, thought this was an Al Capone thread... n/t

[Recursion]

12. My more conservative friends sometimes ask "how rich would you let someone be if you were king?"

And I say "as rich as they can get, as long as they aren't externalizing the costs of their getting rich".

[AtomicKitten]

13. But there's all kinds of wrong with the way Mittens made his money.

link: http://digg.com/newsbar/Politics/mitt_romney_american_parasite_1

[fascisthunter]

15. but, how does one make money?

if one has a conscience, they will factor that in. The sociopaths will say you are a wimp for falling for such liberal mushy ideas. Funny thing... most religions call those folks evil.

[dkf]

18. How does this work in practice?

Do you charge based on ability to pay? Or do you tell the poor person that they ought not to buy your product?

Or are you only prohibiting acquiring wealth in certain industries, but luxuries can be priced at any level?

And then look at Walmart...one would say they do their utmost to keep prices low which benefits poor people but then they get attacked for low wages and for buying items from China.

Who/what is your model for wealth acquired in a manner that you find acceptable?

[onethatcares]

19. I think you may have missed the OPs point

it wasn't about selling widgets.

It was about tossing aside employees and moving jobs out of country in order to

fulfill a dream of having a bedroom full of cash, enough to buy the presidency if that

was possible.

I've been reading about how wm does their utmost to keep prices low, specially in Mexico.

One question: Would you be able to live on a Chinese laborers salary here in the good old U.S. of A.?

[dkf]

22. Their salaries will be decent enough in time.

And I'm happy for them.

China did amazing things to feed their people. I can't begrudge them their hard won success.

[HughBeaumont]

24. No they won't . . . and that's kind of the point. You also didn't answer the question.

China is a polluted hole which has mice slaves, not workers, that are subject to public beration and physical abuse. They live in squalor. THAT'S an economic ideal?? All so tchotchkes can be cheap for poor people while the necessities are what's MAKING and KEEPING them poor?

[onethatcares]

27. will that be when

they form Unions and revolt against slave labor?

the people of China have been feeding themselves for ages, the current mock communist/capitalist government

has only beat them down.

[quaker bill]

21. When I was running a business

I rearranged it so that all the employees had a stake in its profitability beyond simply retaining their jobs, as there was fairly transparent profit sharing. Everyone did not have the same stake in profitaility and the terms were set after a probationary period. Principals who took a role in business development (both marketing and project management) had a larger stake. Support staff had a smaller stake. Each staff member was held basically as an investor, as they invested their trust, time, and sweat equity into making the business a success.

Folks not interested in participation were encouraged to find other employment.

Profit sharing was distributed quarterly in actual proportion to the profits the business actually made. It could easily and occasionally did add 25% to a person's pay. Since this portion of compensation was dependent on real bsiness results, the company always stayed profitable regardless of the size of the award, because it came from profits only. A total of +/- 50% of profits were distributed to staff. The remainder was reserved to cover occasional operating shortfalls so that layoffs were not required due to a slow quarter.

I implemented the model in an existing business. In two years, gross revenues doubled as each person took a personal and tangible interest in the success of the enterprise. I made more money, and everyone else also made more money. Life was good.

I used my own model sort of derived out of Kettering and "Thriving on Chaos".

[dkf]

23. I on the other hand heard of a business owner who took the employees retirement money

To buy himself out of the business.

Personally I think that was kind of crooked.

Also, they always warn you not to become so overweighted in your own firm. Too much exposure to one business will be a huge problem if it fails.

[quaker bill]

30. I left the business

At my own discretion due to an intractible disagreement with partners over another issue. They still use the model successfully, are in the land development consulting business, and managed to survive the bubble bursting when most local firms didn't. Curiously, after I left what remained of our disagreement was resolved by my former partners adopting my idea.

Currently I have a day job that pays better and run a small sole proprietorship on the side. The small art business is steadily growing and should supplement retirement income nicely. There is little stress or argument about a low overhead and high markup cash business with only me on the payroll... You make the product, you sell the product, simple.

[libtodeath]

25. There is nothing wrong with making money but a lot wrong

when someone is allowed to have millions and billions while others starve or die without health care.
That is immoral and should be considered criminal.

[Remmah2]

26. Drug dealers, pimps and bootleggers, all potential 1%ers.

Which one is Mitt?

[onethatcares]

28. mitt is a wannabe don

you can bet he's as ruthless as anything you'd see in the godfather or in real life.

Only thing is, he's got a "legit" business. Which means he and his accountants know all the facets of

keeping a certain type of enterprise going.