Water is so much more valuable to life yet diamonds are considered more valuable monetarily. It’s an illustration of supply and demand. That’s why manual labour, while vital, is valued less. Taking it away from capitalism into say the military, you see the same thing in the military with the Officer Corp vs the Enlisted Ranks. The Officers are presumed to have skills not possessed by other ranks and those are the skills that are presumed will win the day. Naturally, people are people and it doesn’t always work but generally when things come together, it happens that way. This is why the shithouse cleaner is paid less, we can always find another. But can you find another CEO, or General?

The point you raise however is well taken. I abhor the way the ratio of lowest paid to highest paid in any organisation has gotten out of whack since the 80′s. It used to be that the CEO was paid about 16 times the amount of the lowest paid and that ratio was preserved for many years.

Outstanding capitalists like Warren Buffet have preserved this and as you may know he takes only $100,000 per year from Berkshire Hathaway. I wish that more people would follow his lead.

Avarice is extremely unhealthy, it leads to personal deprivation and ill will toward others. It’s entirely unnecessary in that the capitalist system could function effectively without it. Unfortunately its prevalence today is a marker in the state of our society.

However, avarice exists both in wealthy and in poor people. It’s a state of mind based on fear of wont and envy with the ultimate cause being either a surfeit or a lack of ego. The real question is, how do we eliminate this state of mind in people from all walks of life?

Toad I’m sorry I need to retire now, big day tomorrow. However would love to continue discussing, tomorrow evening.

Ratbiter – are you asking the flying phleghm to prove my point or am I just lucky that way?

Tell me, why does the guy who cleans the shithouse get paid so much less than the guy who audits the accounts.

You would say it is qualifications. But if everyone were qualified to audit the accounts, someone still needs to clean the shithouse. And it is a nasty job that no-one really wants to do, so perhaps it deserves higher pay on that basis. But it doesn’t get it.

So what if everyone gets the qualifications necessary to audit the accounts, and no-one will demean themselves to clean the shithouse.

Well, then we’re all up to our ankles in the brown smelly stuff, aren’t we?

Patrick – that’s knocked the wind out of my sails! Better pull my horns in, now that I’ve been bested by the best.

Jacob, I’m gutted.

Toady, you’re Mr Farrar’s favourite – stay close, then when the time is right, strike !

Tends to be only when I stray into industrial relations issues I get seriously bad karma. What is it about you guys that makes you so want to deny hardworking New Zealand workers getting a fair suck on the sav?

Why do you think we don’t, toad?

Fact is, if someone doesn’t grow up in a family that values education, self-discipline and have all the other life experiences that eventually in adulthood differentiate middle-aged $30,000 factory/process workers from the money you and I earn when we’re middle-aged, then why is it solely the employer’s responsibility to redress that balance?

I’m not saying you necessarily say that or even believe it, but in general terms, that appears to be the lefty position.

I often wonder why lefties don’t spend more time and energy advocating for those values in their constituents instead of what they do do, which is advocate the politics of envy and selfishness. We’ve just had nine long years of a perfect lefty environment where that should have been eminently possible and yet not once did we ever hear of any program that advocated that the key to success in life is self-discipline and loving your family as you love yourself and valuing education.

If we ever heard something along those lines from the lefties then I’d start to think that maybe they’re starting to get it. Unfortunately that hasn’t happened yet.

Hey bruv, this is a General Debate thread. You can’t troll (or threadjack, for that matter) in General Debate. Anything goes.

Anyway, I thought your opinion of d4j’s contributions here was somewhat similar to mine. At least you will debate rationally with me (well, most of the time) even though we disagree on most political issues. But d4j’s just a dickhead who hurls abuse at anyone who doesn’t adhere to his narrow and bigoted view of how the world should be.

Trolling is not your style mate.

Shit, what am I doing wrong? Can’t ever remember getting below -20.

Yesterday I got a -13, but compensated for by a +12.

Tends to be only when I stray into industrial relations issues I get seriously bad karma. What is it about you guys that makes you so want to deny hardworking New Zealand workers getting a fair suck on the sav?

I don’t condone the threats d4j, but I do understand them, because you are a very very sick puppy!

that even beats your record as the most unpopular kiwiblogger grenefly

The pavlovian response remains – see the flying phlegm in the previous post – hard to script such a perfect response to prove my point.

Reid, while you’re here, did you see my postings on yesterday’s General Debate thread, starting here? It’s a topic that you and I have discussed before:

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2009/03/general_debate_24_march_2009.html#comment-546003

Please scroll down and follow the other comments, especially the link to the “Rolling Stone” article on the crash.

Phil, thanks for drawing that to my attention. A fantastic article from Rolling Stone. I did note your posts yesterday but wasn’t pursuing the GFC topic too closely last night and missed it first time round. Thanks again for your persistence.

That article is one more piece in the jigsaw and as you suggested, it is exactly in line with what I was suggesting the other day.

This whole episode we’re currently in the middle of, stinks like hell, doesn’t it.

Look, at the risk of seeming like I give a shit (which I can assure you I do not) I am going to say this on the matter and that is it as far as I am concerned.

Between the hours of 9.30am and approximately 4.30pm I was either in meetings or driving, so I can assure you that I did not send any emails.

Now if that is not good enough for you then tough fucking luck.

D4J is practically a single theme poster, for instance – many of his posts relate back to his personal experiences. However, I notice he often receives high -ve karma as do several other posters who would be seen as right wing for similar types of selfish behaviour – so this isn’t the single theme, all row in the same direction blog I believe you imply by your post.

Several posters start with personal abuse and insults for JvH and greenfly as a matter of course but from personal experience I can also state that I’ve been trolled by both – I did not provoke it – it happened. I decided to be aggressive in my response and was on the front foot in my dealings with these guys once it happened a couple of times – I now have no time for either of those two particular posters – they rarely answer your questions or enter in to discussion on the issues. So now, I just don’t bother with these guys – I’m surprised so many rise to their bait as they so infrequently make a point – they spend the majority of their time insulting and taunting.

I also agree that there are posters here who also barely discuss the issues – but it is interesting that most of the high volume left winger posters here are trolls – that is a message.

There are lot of posts in the form that clark is a devil from hell and pass the holy water (remarkably accurate ) – but left wing blogs are pretty much the same – this is not trolling.

So no, your implication that JvH and greenfly are no worse than equivalents here on Kiwiblog is flawed. They are professional trolls.