I kind of meant my response as a joke and not to be taken too seriously, though it relied on an element of truth. Since you took it seriously, I guess I will respond in kind...
No, the rich gives the poor person income. The Consumer is the person that gives to the rich.
That's not how it works at all, unless you subscribe to some neofeudalistic-corporate model of economics.
When I open a business, lets say I have some cash or take out a loan, who do I go asking for my money, ergo my job, ergo my income? You think it's the rich?
Sure some people could try and cater solely to that class, but the majority cater to the mid to under classes. I need them to pay me back and then some so that I continue to have a job, ergo they are giving me my job.
Even as I add employees because the demands of the public are higher than I can service, it certainly isn't me (mr moneybags) who is paying for those people. After all I am in it for profit, and not running a charity service for people who "want jobs". They stay as long as the public is willing to pay for them.
The reason a company exists is to maximize owner wealth. Whether that owner is a single business owner or millions of investors. Come on holmes, this is business 101 stuff.
Okay, now from what I understand you are in the military, which operates as close to capitalism as communism. Now maybe you have some outside experience or "education", but I sure as hell do as I have been in management for one company, helped found another (to some extent), and then founded and operated another.
I like free markets. Yeah, the reason a company exists is to give the owner wealth. "Maximize" the wealth is simply part of some self-serving neofeudal corporate concept of how businesses do/should/must operate.
You can check back to past bits of Americana (back when Americans had family values) for counterexamples of how businesses can operate. For example Jimmy Stewart in
It's a Wonderful Life. The speeches in that film were fantastic. I guess if you want to spit on Jimmy Stewart and laud Greenstreet's character and thus spit on real hardworking American spirit, you can do that, but I wouldn't want to.
The fact is as long as the income provides STEADY wealth, with some small measure or profit, for onesself and one's employees, things are going just fine. Indeed one can Minimize profit in order to grow the stature of the company through reinvestment in the physical and social aspects of the company. A good real world example is SAS institute. The owner of that never even took it public, specifically to avoid the "maximize profit" expectations of today's stock investors. The level of care he gives his employees (on top of their healthy salaries) is near legendary, and has been gaining notice in the business world as a very successful counterexample to greed first.
But this is all to miss the point I was making. In order to get the income in the first place, they do not go to rich people, businesses and business owners go to the mid and lower classes.
What's your conclusion here? Poor people create jobs?
Yes, and unless the neofeudal corporate culture fully entrenches itself in the world, they always will. Its funny but I always remembered America as being touted as the only place where Rags to Riches stories could come true. Does that sound familiar to you? Rags to Riches? Its not Riches to Riches.
Yeah, I know, the poor are now being bamboozled into lottery tickets instead of saving to open their own stores, but what the hey.
In any case, most businesses always have and always MUST cater to the mid and low end of the economic scale. Thus they ask for their jobs from the mid and low end of the economic scale. You make up in volume what you lack in per unit price. That's also in basic business class.
A person still used or borrowed money to start that franchise and gave the "poor" people jobs. And your leaving out middle class.
I did not intend to leave out the middle class, but the poor or low middle are a larger class and need to be taken care of.
But let me educate you on the "use" and "borrow" of money to start a business. When you have a stash, or borrow a stash, of money you can do anything in the world with it. Buy a car, buy a home, get an education, get some healthcare, whatever.
One thing you could also do is create something, an elaborate sign, which says to the public "may I help you with something"? The hope is that you will convince a bunch of people to say "yes" and EMPLOY YOU. It does not matter if you hired employees at first, or ran it with yourself and some family members (btw many businesses start that way and not as giant corporations). The point is that you as owner were hoping to find employment from the public such that you recouped your losses and wouold be able to continue living and perhaps expanding the business.
You can learn this, and many rosycheeked Americans have, by opening up a lemonade stand. Just try it. By some lemonade and some cups, be industrious and find some cardboard and a marker, and open your own stand.
You will find that you are making money from ordinary people and if you hope to keep getting money you will be catering to those people. Not only was a "rich person" not responsible for your employment, they are unlikely to have dropped a dime to help you by buying your product.
Through this you can see exactly what rich people sitting on top of corporations are doing. They have a giant lemonade stand, and while they may employ lots of different people at that stand, they are not running a charity for those people, they are in fact asking the public for continued employment themselves, and keeping additional employees as long as the public demand stays up.
Well I should add that corporations have additional factors if they go public. Then they have some nagging relatives who helped by allowing use of the faucet, or supplied the lemonade pitcher, to demand that they be counted as employees and get a cut themselves. If demand falls then they will take their pitcher and stop usage of the faucet. The public will dictate this, not the suppliers.
Once you show me that the rich are not seeking employment from the public and in fact are starting and running businesses based on charity just to see able bodied people able to go to work, well you just let me know.
In the mean time, the good ol' USA will continue to produce Rags to Riches stories, as well as examples like SAS Institute, and watch with tear filled eyes as Jimmy Stewart leaves Sydney Greenstreet to squirm his wretched. twisted life of maximizing personal wealth over honest gain. That's right, honest gain, which helps real redblooded Americans get along.
Sniff sniff. Now there ya gone and done it, made me all weepy over the wonders of the market system.
This message has been edited by holmes, 05-11-2005 05:44 AM
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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