Thread: The Real Causes of Income Inequality

Originally Posted by USCitizen

There's your answer staring you right in the face - Labor.
Ayn Rand had nothing but contempt for those who actually did work.
Perhaps she didn't even have contempt; in her world view, labor didn't even deserve contempt.

Now consider the mindset of the man stating this opinion and the position he held for 2 decades. Banking and government were his shoulder buddies.

Originally Posted by michael h

I remember being given a test of which a part was statistical process controls to run a process. The test was wrong and after I wasted my time taking it, I emailed the office in Europe to the deficiencies of the test. Being as I had 20 Years of experience using it on processes, with hundreds of controls ... it looked like it was written by someone with little or no experience.

I was put in a room with a British kid at Bear-Stearns.
He pushed a 3 page test across the table at me.
I had had enough bullsh!t under my belt already.
I pushed my 13 page test across the desk and told him if he could pass my test I would consider working with him.
I got the job and they offered me 10K more than the initial requisition.

BTW, the requisition had already been closed because they already interviewed over 800 people and weren't satisfied.
They hired 35 software developers over 7 years and I was the last.

Yep, I must REALLY suck at what I do.

Originally Posted by USCitizen

In 2005 I was referred to a career counselor who had 5 PhDs and made a few million bucks a year.
He gave me EXACTLY the same speech and took me on a tour of the internet to prove to me that I should stick with IT.
He said that the H1-B situation, which added at least 80K visas a year + various other visas would soon become a fad.
He was being used by Wall Street firms where managers were concerned over the communication skills and overall mediocrity of the talent making it's way to our shores.
Well, I stuck with IT.
Many of my friends stuck with IT.

It been 12 years since 2001.
Multiply that by at least 80K.
Around a million off the cuff.
Few have returned because Merkins simply suck at IT.

Yep, that worked out real well.
But that's water under the bridge.
Hell, I can take a 1-week network course for 3,000 bucks and get a certificate.

But what about engineers, chemists, biologists, physicists?
Years of training, discipline, people lives in their hands?
Well, they're Merkants now; all lacking the skillset for the 21st century.

Nope. I don't buy it.

I don't buy any of your whine here.

Originally Posted by USCitizen

My manager at CitiGroup told me in April to my face that last thing CitiGroup needed was a white programmer.
He told me my career was over while the press and the the BLS was telling me otherwise.
I had a mortgage and a big "Fvk you and thanks for nothing" sign pinned on my back.
And he is a personal friend.

But you're ignoring the point.
EVERYONE is being screwed now.

And yet I look out there at my friends, my children, my grandchildren and what you are saying simply does not show up on the horizon. What I do see are 4 relatively new auto factories in Alabama, none of which are union shops and all of which pay great wages. Maybe it is just a NE US phenomenon that we are doing well here in the south.

Originally Posted by USCitizen

It's called personal experience.
Ever hear of it?
I'm hoping this nonsense does not spread to the rest of the country.

The more I read your stories the more I believe it is you. I don't see how you can let all the bitterness out when you go to a job interview. I'll bet one of the 1st questions you ask is, "what is the salary level," or "what are hours?"

Originally Posted by USCitizen

You don't have to read my posts.
They're not meant for ideologues.
They're meant for the casual reader who is getting screwed by the Free Market and thinks it's their own damned fault.

But it is your own fault.

I am waiting for the day a major law suit hits the media.
As I've posted before, my wife's bosses had to release a bunch of these fast-tracks because they're not big enough to settle out of court,

Originally Posted by USCitizen

There's your answer staring you right in the face - Labor.
Ayn Rand had nothing but contempt for those who actually did work.
Perhaps she didn't even have contempt; in her world view, labor didn't even deserve contempt.

Actually Ayn had nothing but contempt for those who didn't produce. Working does not equal production.

Someone such as you, she wouldn't like. You whine about how much you deserve, yet you don't pursue ways to earn what you desire. You whine about what others make, or do, when what they make, or do has no effect on you, unless you allow it to.

Which you do.

She praised men and women of ability. You are not one of them.

Originally Posted by michael h

Keeping your money is a good idea. Strange that two parties running government want to separate you from it? Do you understand that concept?

Well since I've been arguing against both parties, and the idea that government can solve much of anything, much less everything, I'd say so.

Originally Posted by 9aces

Actually Ayn had nothing but contempt for those who didn't produce. Working does not equal production.

Someone such as you, she wouldn't like. You whine about how much you deserve, yet you don't pursue ways to earn what you desire. You whine about what others make, or do, when what they make, or do has no effect on you, unless you allow it to.

Which you do.

She praised men and women of ability. You are not one of them.

What is it with the Ayn Rand worship? She wrote books. She was a hypocrite. I don't buy into the bible and if their was a book worthy of worship ... it would be the bible. Ayn Rand? Ayn Rand? What the hell did she do that was so worshipful?

Originally Posted by dnsmith

The more I read your stories the more I believe it is you. I don't see how you can let all the bitterness out when you go to a job interview. I'll bet one of the 1st questions you ask is, "what is the salary level," or "what are hours?"

I never mention salary.
I ask where our project fits into the organization, what already exists in terms of source and destination, the tools to be used, how far along they are, what part I will play from both a leadership, inter-departmental communicator, developer, help-desk.
Interactive, real-time and reporting requirements.
I won't take a loser project even today when I'm a beggar.

My response to salary is that they will pay me what I'm worth to the organization as I'm more interested in the integrity and strength of the company, medical benefits and opportunity.

I have worked for firms where my interviews lasted at least 10 hours, usually 5 hours one day followed by 5 hours the very next day.
I usually started off against at least 300 other candidates and almost always wound up being one of the two or three remaining after the first hour.
In late 1998, Chase on the East Side (9th Avenue?) near Penn Station was a VERY late night experience but they couldn't match the benefits of Pershing, which was a much longer commute for me, being in Jersey City.
Chase dumped all the Americans a scant few years later as I posted sometime yesterday.
I can't imagine going to Florida and then being laid off 6 months later.

I haven't had an interview since late 2004.

It's my fault and I will never trust the BLS or Wall Street again.
Each individual must be truly be dependent upon themselves and know that anyone will tell them anything to make a buck.

Originally Posted by 9aces

Well since I've been arguing against both parties, and the idea that government can solve much of anything, much less everything, I'd say so.

My concept is government can't get shit right, we go from one extreme to the other. Now the only extreme is poverty and spending money they don't have.

Government earns nothing ... people do ... and government has no debt ... Americans do. We call it government debt ... if its a state or feds debt ... we know whose credit card its on.

Originally Posted by HonorsDaddy

You don't have a clue what you're talking about and honestly, at this point, even reading your posts is hurting my brain.

You should make that your sig. I might steal it some time.

tashi deleks,

M

Originally Posted by michael h

What is it with the Ayn Rand worship? She wrote books. She was a hypocrite. I don't buy into the bible and if their was a book worthy of worship ... it would be the bible. Ayn Rand? Ayn Rand? What the hell did she do that was so worshipful?

She was a selfish fuck (I rarely spell the word out, but for her I will); I know plenty of selfish fvks who made it through the holocaust and gulags.
I also know a lot of non-selfish folks who made through the holocaust and gulags.
That's the benefit of being a Jew in your 50s; you actually know these people.
Being stripped of one's humanity can do strange things to you.
Many people had overt nervous breakdowns and some had Ayn Rand breakdowns.

Maybe she never accomplished anything real in her life because she didn't want to be seen as a laborer.