...not sure if this has already been posted.
it is from a sociology professor's blog, but it is written by his friend, who manages assets for wealthy clients.. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html.
i sit in an interesting chair in the financial services industry.
And when I say a zero sum game when it comes to % I mean that the bottom 99% can't control 70% of the nations wealth, and the top 1% control 70% of the nations wealth. It doesn't matter how much is generated, there can only be 100% at any given time. If the top gain a %, then the bottom lose that %.
So no, I am not Wrong.
...not sure if this has already been posted.
it is from a sociology professor's blog, but it is written by his friend, who manages assets for wealthy clients.. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html.
i sit in an interesting chair in the financial services industry.
You continue to dodge my question. Could the top 1% control 99% of the nation's wealth, and would that be considered economically healthy? Is there anything that would stop the flow of money upwards?
...not sure if this has already been posted.
it is from a sociology professor's blog, but it is written by his friend, who manages assets for wealthy clients.. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html.
i sit in an interesting chair in the financial services industry.
And technically your statement "the top would have more, everybody would have more" cannot be true if talking about %s, because that is zero sum. Remember, we are talking about % of existing wealth, not generation of new wealth.
Edit: I'll be back in a bit, I've got to go to class. I'l just leave with the question "Is it possible for an unhealthy distribution of wealth to exist? And could that distribution happen through pure capitalism?"
...not sure if this has already been posted.
it is from a sociology professor's blog, but it is written by his friend, who manages assets for wealthy clients.. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html.
i sit in an interesting chair in the financial services industry.
Do you think this upward flow of % of wealth would ever stop, or if it would ever be unhealthy? If for example the top 1% controlled 99% of the nation's wealth? Could that theoretically happen, and would it be economically healthy if it did happen?
...not sure if this has already been posted.
it is from a sociology professor's blog, but it is written by his friend, who manages assets for wealthy clients.. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html.
i sit in an interesting chair in the financial services industry.
Again, that's not what I asked, james woods. It's not whether or not new wealth would be generated, it's whether or not a greater or lesser % of the wealth would pool up at the top. Which would naturally happen, and is this a good or bad thing, and why?
i suppose both theists and atheists can answer this question, although if theists do, maybe they could explain why it is they believe god made creation and they are free to quote scripture if they choose.
for my own answer i believe he made it because he loved it and therefore made it exist, because it was therefore good (genesis 1:31 and god saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
i'm especially interested though in the answer from the perspective without faith.
Why wouldn't there be something rather than nothing? Why would whatever essense of reality have a preffered state of nothingness, rather than somethingness? The problem with the idea that there should be nothing rather than something comes from a flawed inductive reasoning, assuming that because in our macro view of a universe where there is already something, something "new" (that is to say transformed from a previous state, not really something "new") only exists if there was a contingent event prior to it. But this only applies to a mechanistic things on a macro scale in a universe where alot of something already exists. Trying to take that reasoning and induce that because that is true, "something" rather than "nothing" is a state counter to what would be expected unless there was a prior something, is faulty and nonsensical. All things being neutral, "nothing" is neither more or less preferable than "something."
...not sure if this has already been posted.
it is from a sociology professor's blog, but it is written by his friend, who manages assets for wealthy clients.. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html.
i sit in an interesting chair in the financial services industry.
That's not what I meant james, I mean in a purely ideally capitalistic system, not in a "well the government will interfere will capitalism, with this and this policy." I mean, if left to their own devices will the top 1% accrue more or less of the nation's wealth?
...not sure if this has already been posted.
it is from a sociology professor's blog, but it is written by his friend, who manages assets for wealthy clients.. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html.
i sit in an interesting chair in the financial services industry.
I have a question for the economically conservative. Left to purely capitalistic means, will the top 1% (or .5%, whatever), procure a greater or lesser % of the nations wealth over the next decade? The top percentile already controls a considerable amount of the money in the country, do you think that this % will naturally decrease, or increase over time, and why? Is this change (either up or down) healthy or unhealthy? That is all.
addressing the argument, made by many christians, that with no god there can be no morality.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnu-qbgxmn0.
NC also brings up a point that Jerry Coyne and some others have been debating with some theologians about (rather publically). If you throw pretty much all of the old testament under the bus as being a series of metaphors, and imperfect stories from humans, then where does that leave jesus? Why is THAT the true part of the book, but the rest is just metaphorical stories and human misunderstandings? What is the criteria for saying "well this part of the bible doesn't really represent what god really is, but just a human interpretation of experiences." and then "Well that is clearly a metaphor, there was no adam and eve LITERALLY, it's just a story about the human condition." and then from that go to "Well jesus was totally a 100% true event, he was born of a virgin, performed miracles, died as a ransom sacrifice for the original (metaphorical) sin, and rose from the dead! He's the important part." There is no methodology to determine which is the factual parts of the bible and which are the fables and metaphors to tell us about humanity, that is of course except for the method of consulting with historians, scientists, and the like and removing the parts they prove wrong. Which is really the whole mindset of religion, and the problem. It assumes it's right until proven wrong. A completely backwards notion. What will have to be demonstrated before Jesus also becomes just another man, and a metaphor just like Noah and his big boat?
As a footnote, if you want to see some of the back and forth of this theological debate look up some of Andrew Sullivan's articles at...I think it was the daily dish, a quick google search will bring it up. And also Jerry Coyne on his website whyevolutionistrue.com
Sullivan engages is some grade A sophistry, as he claims that the bible is "true" but it's not "real", and Jerry Coyne just doesn't understand the fine difference between the two. That is where the bible is heading though. As it's picked at more and more, the religious intelligensia will be forced to abandon it as anything more than a metaphor that contains nothing more useful than art. Which is what religion is. Art mistakenly elevated to the level of science and politic. Genesis works great as an ancient story about man fighting against his nature. Jesus works great as a pre-renessaince vision of kindness and sacrifice. But to say that the nature of the universe is revealed by these stories is a mistake. To assume it tells us anything about where humanity came from, or how the universe got here is naive and childish. It may be a great ancient set of stories and myths but it doesn't tell us anything factual about our universe, it tells us something subjective and artistic, and that is fantastic too. Just let it be that.
addressing the argument, made by many christians, that with no god there can be no morality.
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnu-qbgxmn0.
NC brings up a big point that got me out of the borg. God acts exactly like a tribal barbarian, violent and greedy. That is until the jews lost all of their military power, then he mysteriously went silent for a few hundred years and all of the sudden his new message isn't of conquest and destruction of his enemies so much as it is "Can't we just get along? Don't worry about right now, it gets better when you're dead. And besides, some day, I won't say when but some day, I'll fix it, don't worry about it. Just do what the romans say for now, and when you die, you'll get your reward." This is exactly what you would expect of a god that was strictly a human invention.
And why was his plan to glorify his people and make his way known such a primitive barbaric plan? Kill everybody that happens to be on your land, and offer slavery or death to everyone else? A god of infinite love and wisdom could have just made a civilization so enviable that Bablyon, egypt and every single neighboring country would be clamoring to join them. Why not show his people how to produce penicillen? Teach them advanced mathematics and architecture? Teach them about the golden ratios found in music, and other artistic theory? Why not teach democracy and civil rights rather than mysogeny? Teach them about contraception, and infectious diseases. Make a mighty nation of engineers, scientists, artists, architects, and doctors? Show the world the glory of god rather than the horrors of man? Instead of building a mighty, advanced and enlightened nation, he apparently decided to go the route of primitive barbarity and violence. The nation of god is completely indistinguishable from any other primitive nation.
And you can't blame the Israelites and simply say "well god would've if his people weren't so hard hearted!", that makes god an incredibly pathetic leader. The US went from slaughtering natives, enslaving blacks, and repressing women, using leeches, and dumping feces out of their windows to high technology, medicine, civil rights, incredible architecture, math, art and science in a few hundred years, all without a cheat sheet showing how to do it. And god apparently couldn't accomplish that in the entire history of his people. Pathetic.
Also, Biologos is a stupid stupid website, and it's only getting worse as time goes on. Please stop using that as a possible answer to people's objections to the bible.
