I've realized I just don't understand greed

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

The number of people who make more than $10mm in their lifetime is exceedingly small and is dominated by lawyers and executives. The salaries of these people are directly tied to exploitation of those working for them, or the the exploitation of people working for the people paying them.

 

How is this hard to understand? 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

3 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

Late stage capitalism is just another buzzword that gets thrown around haphazardly by pretentious beanie wearing twenty somethings who decided to major in art or literature. 

Late stage capitalism is dumb as hell phrase, capitalism is the problem there is no defining stage of it that was good.

 

Signed, a chemical engineering graduate

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

8 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

Late stage capitalism is just another buzzword that gets thrown around haphazardly by pretentious beanie wearing twenty somethings who decided to major in art or literature. 

 

I'm a CPA with an MBA from a Top 20 business school and I have no issues using the phrase.

[Zaku3]

4 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

I'm a CPA with an MBA from a Top 20 business school and I have no issues using the phrase.

 

I look at it as a term for the point where capitalism runs out of ways to "keep bullshitting" along. Exploitation increases, the excess of capitalists increases, and there is no real way to reign it in. 

 

Hopefully leading to a socialist revolution. 

[Ghost_MH]

31 minutes ago, Chairslinger said:

And America in particular has supercharged this whole process by making greed and the accumulation of things into a literal moral virtue.

 

I remember when I heard the term "late stage capitalism" for the first time it seemed so perfect. I don't study economics at all, so I guess it is a term that goes back a ways and probably isn't a reference to it, but the reason my mind found it so apt is what we have in America is like the financial version of stage 4 cancer. We have late stage, terminal capitalism.

 

Greed and the accumulation of wealth isn't just a moral virtue, but a righteous one as well. All those multimillionaire televangelists with millions of viewers/congregants helped shape the modern day evangelical religion. They're the crazies going around proclaiming that God will steal back the election for Trump. They preach that if you aren't flush with cash, it's because God hasn't blessed you and he can totally bless you if bless them with a small donation that will be used to put a down payment on a private jet. That's how you get crazy laughing peacher man being worth like $300m, tax free.

[CayceG]

Oh, are we dunking on mclumber?

 

Registered Professional Engineer in the state of Tennessee here. Me and my work colleagues routinely use the phrase "late-stage capitalism."

[Jason]

7 minutes ago, CayceG said:

Oh, are we dunking on mclumber?

 

Registered Professional Engineer in the state of Tennessee here. Me and my work colleagues routinely use the phrase "late-stage capitalism."

 

You're a coastal elite who won't eat the food of the people doe.

[mclumber1]

23 minutes ago, Zaku3 said:

 

I look at it as a term for the point where capitalism runs out of ways to "keep bullshitting" along. Exploitation increases, the excess of capitalists increases, and there is no real way to reign it in. 

 

Hopefully leading to a socialist revolution. 

 

[Kal-El814]

 

53 minutes ago, Joe said:

Not really though.

 

Eh. Talking about professional athletes, actors, etc., when it comes to wages is like talking about Phineas Gage when it comes to outcomes for an iron rod ripping through your skull. I’m not saying it’s completely irrelevant nor that it’s uninteresting... it’s just focusing on the exception, like looking at the salaries of the highest paid state employees and determining that state employees make too much in general while ignoring that the high earners are all coaches.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

 

 

Important to note that there's more people doing this kind of shit than any number of sports stars or actors or whatever. He's a partner at a white shoe law firm in the prime of his career. He's easily going to make well over $10mm in his lifetime doing this work. And this guy, the lawyer for Nestle, was obama's first solicitor general! And a resistance lib law hero who is on msnbc all the damn time!

 

A complete fall from grace for the guy who argued, successfully, against the government in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld which probably cost him a federal judicial appointment

[legend]

Here's some wild speculation.

 

It's not the money per se. You frame globe trotting and sipping wine for the rest of your days as a great life. That's fine for bursts of time, but quite honestly I'd go mad if that were the rest of my life. Myself, and I suspect many people, enjoy various forms of work and feeling like they're accomplishing something.

 

So now lets run with that mentality. For "rich" people perhaps it's not that they value the money--and really they shouldn't, your life won't get better after a point that is far less than some of these people have--but rather that the money they acquire signifies that they are accomplishing something and are doing well. So they don't stop because they're chasing the feeling of their accomplishment, not the money itself.

 

If this is true, the goal for us as a society is to shift what metrics people use as an indicator of accomplishment. It seems possible at least, because money is not how I measure my own sense of accomplishment. But it's seems clear why it's an easy and obvious route for people to latch onto it.

[Bloodporne]

Late-stage capitalism sounds great, I don't give a shit if it makes perfect sense or not. It nails the feeling of 'this is getting more degenerate by the year'. 

 

My favorite late-stage capitalism thing lately is to spot all the ways marketing psychology is introducing the word 'love' into every tiny thing possible more than ever. LOVE your checking account, LOVE your heated seats, LOVE your Target discount. I feel boundless utter hatred for small things like this and if I ever get to go full dictator, marketing psychologists will be piled in heaps in front of my palace made of PS5s I couldn't buy as a bitter peasant.

 

-Construction dude in late 30's

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

I can't think of a more appropriate place to put this. This shit broke me.

 

 

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

And artists, and musicians, and performers, and youtubers, and writers etc...

 

and fuck

 

 

 

 

 

directors!

 

[GeneticBlueprint]

4 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

I'll let Gordon Gekko explain:

 

 

 

The 'You're missing the point by idolizing them' starter pack. Featuring Gordon Gecko, Rick Sanchez, and Tyler Durden.

[skillzdadirecta]

6 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

and fuck

 

 

 

 

 

directors!

 

I've made FAR more money as writer, editor and producer than I have as a director. 

 

1 minute ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

 

The 'You're missing the point by idolizing them' starter pack. Featuring Gordon Gecko, Rick Sanchez, and Tyler Durden.

 

[GeneticBlueprint]

Just now, skillzdadirecta said:

I've made FAR more money as writer, editor and producer than I have as a director. 

 

 

 

I'm not sure what you're confused about. The fact that he's on the list or who he even is?

[skillzdadirecta]

Just now, GeneticBlueprint said:

 

I'm not sure what you're confused about. The fact that he's on the list or who he even is?

Who he is... you're clearly not talking about THIS guy

 

 

[CayceG]

20 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

I can't think of a more appropriate place to put this. This shit broke me.

 

 

 

 

 

Fuck.

[GeneticBlueprint]

Just now, skillzdadirecta said:

Who he is... you're clearly not talking about THIS guy

 

 

 

[skillzdadirecta]

Just now, GeneticBlueprint said:

 

OHHHHH That's his name? I never watched Rick and Morty 

[GeneticBlueprint]

3 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

OHHHHH That's his name? I never watched Rick and Morty 

 Haha. Yeah. You should watch it. It's pretty great.

[Brick]

4 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

I'll let Gordon Gekko explain:

 

 

 

And it's because of this movie that a bunch of young Wall Street yuppies decided they wanted to be like Gordon Gekko, so they all emulated him, and now a whole generation has been ruined by a bunch of greedy assholes that will fuck over everyone else, including the economy itself, as long as they get rich. 

 

Fuck that movie, and fuck Oliver Stone for making it. 

[Zaku3]

28 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

I can't think of a more appropriate place to put this. This shit broke me.

 

 

 

[skillzdadirecta]

2 minutes ago, Brick said:

 

And it's because of this movie that a bunch of young Wall Street yuppies decided they wanted to be like Gordon Gekko, so they all emulated him, and now a whole generation has been ruined by a bunch of greedy assholes that will fuck over everyone else, including the economy itself, as long as they get rich. 

 

Fuck that movie, and fuck Oliver Stone for making it. 

You know that movie CLEARLY paints Gordon Gekko as the bad guy who gets his commeuppance at the end of it, right?

[Brick]

Just now, skillzdadirecta said:

You know that movie CLEARLY paints Gordon Gekko as the bad guy who gets his commeuppance at the end of it, right?

 

Tell that to the people who worship it. 

[skillzdadirecta]

Just now, Brick said:

 

Tell that to the people who worship it. 

That's on them... it's the same as the guys I grew up with who worshiped SCARFACE. I'm like"Did you assholes NOT see how that movie ended for him?" From your perspective, the people who blame societal violence on movies and videogames are spot on. You don't think that do you?

[Brick]

1 minute ago, skillzdadirecta said:

That's on them... it's the same as the guys I grew up with who worshiped SCARFACE. I'm like"Did you assholes NOT see how that movie ended for him?" From your perspective, the people who blame societal violence on movies and videogames are spot on. You don't think that do you?

 

Fuck no! That's one hell of a false equivalence. Yes the movie may have painted him as a villain, but clearly not well enough if you have guys idolizing him, missing the point entirely. Oliver Stone is also just a shit person regardless of this movie anyway. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

The punisher kills cops and yet those blue lives mouth breathers love the imagery anyway

 

People are dumb when it comes to media and asthetics!

[Jason]

2 minutes ago, Brick said:

Yes the movie may have painted him as a villain, but clearly not well enough if you have guys idolizing him, missing the point entirely.

Some people are shocked to learn Rage Against The Machine is political. Some people are just really dumb.

[skillzdadirecta]

6 minutes ago, Brick said:

 

Fuck no! That's one hell of a false equivalence. Yes the movie may have painted him as a villain, but clearly not well enough if you have guys idolizing him, missing the point entirely. Oliver Stone is also just a shit person regardless of this movie anyway. 

I won't dispute that... I'm just saying what the movie is actually about and what it says. I brought up Scarface as well because while Oliver Stone didn't direct it, he wrote it, and it TOO had a bunch of people missing the point entirely. I think it says more about the person, any person, that would allow a movie to shape their worldview to such an extent especially when they seem to have missed the entire point of the movie in the first place than it does the movie. People are idiots and see what they want to see.

 

[GeneticBlueprint]

Most good art doesn't beat you over the head with the message and is more subtle. So if people can't catch subtext and are too dense for subtlety I don't think that's on the artist. Wall Street is a great movie even if one of the main characters is a horrible person that assholes idolize.

[Joe]

15 minutes ago, Jason said:

Some people are shocked to learn Rage Against The Machine is political. Some people are just really dumb.

 

Fuck you, I won't do what you told me.

[Uaarkson]

1 hour ago, Bloodporne said:

Late-stage capitalism sounds great, I don't give a shit if it makes perfect sense or not. It nails the feeling of 'this is getting more degenerate by the year'. 

 

My favorite late-stage capitalism thing lately is to spot all the ways marketing psychology is introducing the word 'love' into every tiny thing possible more than ever. LOVE your checking account, LOVE your heated seats, LOVE your Target discount. I feel boundless utter hatred for small things like this and if I ever get to go full dictator, marketing psychologists will be piled in heaps in front of my palace made of PS5s I couldn't buy as a bitter peasant.

 

-Construction dude in late 30's

Advertising is society’s greatest plague.

[Bloodporne]

23 minutes ago, Jason said:

Some people are shocked to learn Rage Against The Machine is political. Some people are just really dumb.

According to some music mag article, there was a meltdown on the Black Sabbath Facebook page recently because they...reposted a section of their own War Pigs lyrics to encourage people to vote. Apparently Sabbath is trying to be woke by doing so.