What a spurious, fatuous analogy. (Can we please get Lee Anderson back?) A student in school is measured against a fixed scale of achievement: letter grades or a 4.0 or 100 point scale. Teachers are there to evaluate, but also to help students achieve, to prepare them for success, and to prevent them from failing, by encouraging them to do their best and improve. One student getting a 100 does not deprive another student in any way, shape, or form, and the editorial's premise is ludicrous and sentimental. No resemblance to a capitalist economic model.
Workers in a capitalist system are pitted against each other today in a zero-sum struggle, growing ever more bitter and lopsided in our present circumstances. If I have a dollar, it's a dollar you don't and can't have. The harshness we experience today wasn't present in our parents' and grandparents' time, when factory owners held 100 or 1,000 times the wealth of their employees; now that factor is many times higher and geometrically increasing. The extreme, Roman-emperor-style wealth accumulated by Wall Street brokers, investment bankers, rappers, pro athletes, and even the poster-child entrepreneurs--often for occupations that enrich the society at large in no meaningful way--directly detracts from the ability of the average middle-class worker to survive and thrive in America.
Billionaires who think they're so rich because they worked harder than everyone else or are smarter than everyone else are significantly deluded. No one who's made a billion dollars in the American economy can claim to have done it without huge benefits from the American economic and governmental systems. And yes, there are plenty of people out there who work just as hard and are just as smart as these billionaires, and often have an eye toward the benefit of others less fortunate. There's a huge element of luck in becoming insanely wealth, either through accident of birth or being in the right place at a certain time.
Progressive taxation is just common sense for all Americans and for the very ideal of American opportunity and fairness for each individual in each generation. The existence and prospering of our middle-class enables American democracy to survive; the promise and potential and reality of ultra-wealthy billionaires provide no motivation or stimulus. Please, no tired arguments about providing capital or "creating" jobs--most of these ultra-wealthy are sitting on their money like it's a velvet cushion, except for the sums they're secretly donating to their lapdog politicians. When the middle class disappears because of preferential treatment for the uber-privileged ultra-wealthy, America's hard-headed obsession with capitalist Darwinism will be seen for the suicidal dogma that it is.
OMG, how can you say that, it's FUHBAL we're talking about here! It is life - it's winning is everything, and the only thing - it's hurt your opponent, never compromise, show me da money, never surrender, whatever... blah blah blah.
Have a nice life, Mr. Manning. You're one of the good guys, and you deserve better than to spend your whole life engaged in that racket.
I have a long memory. Think back to the 60 Minutes expose on Food Lion that showed on video the meat workers regrinding the rotten hamburger meat and putting it out for sale. Food Lion, indeed! Only a hyena would eat that!
It's a good thing nobody in the sports page comments engages in vitriolic personal attacks and stereotyping! Otherwise these comments would be/should be shut down like the news comments were.
By the way, what's a Vols Nation? I thought we were all (or mostly) just Americans. Did the University in Knoxville actually secede from the rest of us? Oh, I wish they would, and take the rest of college football with them...
Twisted tunes: The weird and wacky ways we mishear song lyrics
"Londonderry Air" is often heard as "London Derriere," especially by Frenchies...
Finding your 'fair share'
What a spurious, fatuous analogy. (Can we please get Lee Anderson back?) A student in school is measured against a fixed scale of achievement: letter grades or a 4.0 or 100 point scale. Teachers are there to evaluate, but also to help students achieve, to prepare them for success, and to prevent them from failing, by encouraging them to do their best and improve. One student getting a 100 does not deprive another student in any way, shape, or form, and the editorial's premise is ludicrous and sentimental. No resemblance to a capitalist economic model.
Workers in a capitalist system are pitted against each other today in a zero-sum struggle, growing ever more bitter and lopsided in our present circumstances. If I have a dollar, it's a dollar you don't and can't have. The harshness we experience today wasn't present in our parents' and grandparents' time, when factory owners held 100 or 1,000 times the wealth of their employees; now that factor is many times higher and geometrically increasing. The extreme, Roman-emperor-style wealth accumulated by Wall Street brokers, investment bankers, rappers, pro athletes, and even the poster-child entrepreneurs--often for occupations that enrich the society at large in no meaningful way--directly detracts from the ability of the average middle-class worker to survive and thrive in America.
Billionaires who think they're so rich because they worked harder than everyone else or are smarter than everyone else are significantly deluded. No one who's made a billion dollars in the American economy can claim to have done it without huge benefits from the American economic and governmental systems. And yes, there are plenty of people out there who work just as hard and are just as smart as these billionaires, and often have an eye toward the benefit of others less fortunate. There's a huge element of luck in becoming insanely wealth, either through accident of birth or being in the right place at a certain time.
Progressive taxation is just common sense for all Americans and for the very ideal of American opportunity and fairness for each individual in each generation. The existence and prospering of our middle-class enables American democracy to survive; the promise and potential and reality of ultra-wealthy billionaires provide no motivation or stimulus. Please, no tired arguments about providing capital or "creating" jobs--most of these ultra-wealthy are sitting on their money like it's a velvet cushion, except for the sums they're secretly donating to their lapdog politicians. When the middle class disappears because of preferential treatment for the uber-privileged ultra-wealthy, America's hard-headed obsession with capitalist Darwinism will be seen for the suicidal dogma that it is.
Wiedmer: Ex-Baylor player Luke Apfeld is Vermont leader
Great family, really nice young man. Glad to hear he's doing well. We remember you, too, Luke.
5 at 10: Tiger Woods, NFL quarterback shuffle and March Madness finally arrives
Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Blah blah blah.
Was he the best man at your wedding or something? He's washed up, a has-been, and a sorry human being. Can we move on to real competitors now?
Wiedmer: Colts buck Manning? Whoa!
"Just A Game"!?
OMG, how can you say that, it's FUHBAL we're talking about here! It is life - it's winning is everything, and the only thing - it's hurt your opponent, never compromise, show me da money, never surrender, whatever... blah blah blah.
Have a nice life, Mr. Manning. You're one of the good guys, and you deserve better than to spend your whole life engaged in that racket.
U.S. 27 streetlights going black from Signal Mtn. Road to Olgiati Bridge
It must be those Wikipedia people turning off the lights!
U.S. 27 streetlights going black from Signal Mtn. Road to Olgiati Bridge
First
Do you shop at Food Lion?
I have a long memory. Think back to the 60 Minutes expose on Food Lion that showed on video the meat workers regrinding the rotten hamburger meat and putting it out for sale. Food Lion, indeed! Only a hyena would eat that!
Greeson: Uncertainty troubling for Vols nation
It's a good thing nobody in the sports page comments engages in vitriolic personal attacks and stereotyping! Otherwise these comments would be/should be shut down like the news comments were.
By the way, what's a Vols Nation? I thought we were all (or mostly) just Americans. Did the University in Knoxville actually secede from the rest of us? Oh, I wish they would, and take the rest of college football with them...
Did you stay up late to watch the football championship game?
No thanks, I have a life.
Football - boh.