Entitlement

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You really don't know jack sh*t about what's involved in starting your own business do you, deltafunction......First of all, you need to have capital. How are you going to get that if you're a wage slave and don't have a high enough salary nor have any stock options? If you savvy enough and have the social connections you might be able to talk someone into providing you with venture capital, but if it becomes profitable then they're likely to fight you over who gets to keep those profits.

It's extremely difficult to succeed in business if you don't have good social skills or you have no property/access to capital UNLESS you are lucky enough to be in the right place and the right time. If you think it's so easy, try it for yourself and get back to me on how it's going.

Well prior to Dodd/Frank, local banks would often listen to an individual concerning their idea, if they thought it was a good one and a good business plan could be developed, local banks would often give said individual a loan to get their business started.

There are quite a few people that had a low-end job that have started their own business (not so many now, but that's because you need a lawyer to figure out all the regulations).

Huh?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

My dad owned his own small business. I'm well aware of the risks -_-

My points is though that people who start up businesses do so with debt to pay off, or with shareholders who are intrusting the business to make a profit, or have their personal assets on the line if the business tanks, so why should the owners give away all of the profit to these workers who have not made that risk? If you changed hats and did all the hard work to start up your own business, would you want to give away the profits to someone who does not have a financial investment in your company? Didn't think so. So why expect the owners of bigger corporations to do the same?

If the poor feel entitled to anything its just crumbs and basic necessities, which I think everyone arguably does have a basic right to. Everyone has a right not to starve to death, so that's why we hand out food stamps and charity. The rich, on the other hand, when they feel entitled, they want the whole planet, which is overbearing and unreasonable.

What if the apple tree is privatized by a corporation, and those who physically have the means to pick it can't, because the police and mercenaries guarding what was once common property will shoot and arrest anyone who picks the apples without permission from the corporation? If a corporation can buy off the legal system to hoard all the property and resources, I don't think this is fair, and anyone who tolerates it and doesn't overthrow such tyranny is stupid. That's why Bolivians overthrew the government 10 years ago, because corporations claimed water rights, so much to the extent they were prosecuting people for putting rain collectors up on their houses.

Plus, if a grandmother, a mentally challenged individual, a sick person, etc is too weak to pick apples from the tree, I think its a sick society that doesn't help them get basic necessities for living. No, you don't have to ask permission from every living person to pick an apple from the tree for them, but it should be part of the general, social contract to take care of those who are old, weak, and infirmed and to not just let them die in the gutter. I think the poor's right to life (basic food and shelter) trumps the right of the rich to own huge yachts and an army of butlers and servants. If it comes down between the former and latter, I think the former should be the priority.

+1

I said a -wild- apple tree. An apple tree in nature not owned or planted by any other human.

ruveyn

Whatever is in nature goes to the one with the will and the means to get it.

ruveyn

How did Jobs and Wozniac stare Apple Inc.? They did not get a government grant and their parents were not wealthy. They saved their money, got enough stuff to make their prototype and were able to -borrow- enough capital to start their company. That is why credit is so important to growth in a private market economy.

ruveyn

They were in the right place at the right time and just so happened to have the right idea. It's called *drumroll*...............Opportunity.

And it isn't equally available to everyone everywhere all the time. I really wonder what kind of dope deltafunction is smoking, can you share some with me princess?

There are several factors at work. Part of it is luck. Part of it is talent and part of it is the willingness to seize the day. Not everyone is equally smart, talented, brave or lucky.

ruveyn

Yah, I understood that, but wild things are unnaturally privatized all the time. In nature, plots of dirt aren't privatized by a few ants in a way that prevents all the other ants from freely building their colonies. Their societal structure bares very little resemblance to human colonies, even though they share the same name.

Last edited by JNathanK on 19 Sep 2012, 11:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ergo, those who are fortunate enough to have the intelligence, opportunity, and "bravery" to succeed are not any more entitled of what they have and what they acquired than the less fortunate. American society is NOT a meritocracy and it never was! This nonsense about entitlement is used as a guilt tripping tactic against those who are down at or near the bottom and determined to move up by those who are already at the top. Entitlement is really nothing more than a social construct and has no cosmic/natural meaning.

Most wild apple trees are growing on someone's private property.

So I don't particularly like you ganging up on deltafunction - so I'll step in.

I own my own business. I didn't start out with capital - I started out with a 20k line-of-credit that my business partner was a personal guarantor for. And I used that money to start my business.

deltafunction is 100% correct with everything he's said - and you're berating him for it like a school child.

Well if EVERYONE started their own biz in order to reap the profits you portray as guaranteed then how would their companies find people willing to work for them? Not everyone can be a CEO or an executive! Corporations that produce and manufacture things need employees who do the work and CEOs to manage them and run the enterprise. Your idea for socioeconomic equity is a pipe dream. If it were so easy to do, than I daresay that at least 80% of Americans would do it. Not everyone has the abilities to run a business; and especially a business that has employees which must be managed and clients that must be catered to.