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Originally posted by lurkette
Hey, j8ear! Glad we didn't scare you off. Welcome back to the fray!
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Agreed!
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[B]
Originally posted by j8ear
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3. Business owners who have put blood, sweat, tears and a great deal of financial risk into engendering an enterprise, do not possess the right to manage their employees creatively, as per their best interest; but distant bureaucrats do. [b]
Originally posted by lurkette
I'm not sure what this guy's referring to here, but to some extent the same reply above applies here: just because someone has put blood, sweat etc into a business doesn't mean they are going to act in the best interests of their employees. Yeah, yeah, if they don't treat their employees well then they'll leave, which would be bad for the business. That's fine in a healthy economy, or where the work force has transferrable skills. I'd say many business owners, particularly large business owners, CEOs, etc., cannot be trusted to put the interests of the worker (in terms of labor relations) or of society in general (in terms of environmental policies) ahead of the profits of an elite few.
[b]
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The problem here is that many industries have done away with specialized labour (i.e. a position in a factory, retail shop, fast food restaurant can be filled by any unskilled person). Without the need to spend a lot of time and money training new employees employers are free to exploit their labour with little worry about replacing them...
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[B]
Originally posted by j8ear
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6. The children of industrious and intelligent parents who have labored a lifetime to provide property, finances, employment and education for their family members do not have the right to be eligible upon their parent’s death to inherit what is rightfully theirs; but unrelated children of indolent and ignorant parents do. (1)
Originally posted by lurkette
First, "poor" does not equal "indolent and ignorant". Second, the children of the wealthy didn't earn that money any more than I did, so why are they entitled to it? Third, shouldn't at least some of that money go back to support the society that enabled the person to get rich in the first place? And lastly, at least in many situations the person got rich through exploitation and dishonest practice (read the biographies of Rockefeller and Carnegie) and why shouldn't it go to help some of the people on the bottom rungs? Which of poor Ken Lay's 10 houses are his kids going to inherit?
[b]
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I am torn over this... many independant farms are being screwed with this. When the parents die the children are frequently in a position where they must sell of chunks of their land in order to pay the inheritance taxes. Ultimately this reduction of their land makes their farms less profitable. This has allowed two major things to happen: 1) Corporate farms have expanded allowing them to put a further squeeze to the profit magins 2) Further expansion of urban/suburban sprawl - something I see as bad but really should be debated elsewhere.
As for Lurkettes other comments... I agree BUT it is a matter of degrees. When my father died I was left what amounted to $80,000. After taxes that was $40,000. A bit of a pisser. As I saw it, he already paid taxes on that income. I can see how it is easy to get upset over those who have billions but it is essentially the same thing...