The fundamental problem with capitalism (as described by Bo Burnham

Author: secularmerlin

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@Greyparrot
I don't know about prophets but profits have been shown to incentivize mistreatment humans and should definitely not be allowed to make these decisions. 
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@secularmerlin
No point in responding to greyparrot hes worse at making arguments than me.
when he does its copied from an article.
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@BigPimpDaddy
No point in responding to greyparrot hes worse at making arguments than me.
when he does its copied from an article.
Ad hominem attacks are a poor substitutes for logical arguments. 
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@secularmerlin
I don't know about prophets.

I don't trust doomsayers and prophets either. I do trust the collective consumer though to consider all the hidden variables and unforeseen consequences.
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@BigPimpDaddy
No point in responding to greyparrot hes worse at making arguments than me.
when he does its copied from an article.

Do you have a problem with 2 people arguing in good faith? Do you think people have to resort to ad-homs to signal veracity?

cmon lebronsky

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@Greyparrot
There is no collective consumer without solidarity and so long as the individual consumer is blamed as though they were the collective consumer we do not have solidarity. You are referencing an almost mythic figure when you invoke the collective consumer as a force which makes conscious determinations about policy. 
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@secularmerlin
This illustrates that corporations do not care about human welfare 
Depends on the corp. There are greedy, jealous corps, and charitable, confident corps. The latter will always, in the end, make a difference.

but profits have been shown to incentivize mistreatment
Again, you're painting with a brush wider than reality would allow. Concentrate on the negative, so you become. Happens to everyone who cannot allow themselves to find happiness, which is contageous.
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@949havoc
Whenever two parties make a mutually beneficial deal it is generally at the expense of some third party and all corperations must exploit their workers in order to turn a profit. It inbuilt into the system. 

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@secularmerlin
all corperations must exploit their workers.

It's mutual exploitation though. Workers exploit corporations so that they don't have to suffer the risks of bankruptcy when the product of their labor doesn't sell on the open market. That's why workers agree to take jobs in the first place instead of taking the risk of a personal small business loan.

A salaried worker gets a guaranteed income regardless of market conditions.

2 people can agree to trade and both people can benefit. that is what trade means.

The whole idea of free trade is for both parties to exploit each other so both parties can benefit. If there's no exploitation on either side, there can be no agreement possible.

Think about all the contestants that walk away from the investors in the show "Shark Tank." The only reason they walk away is because they were not able to exploit the companies of the panelists. None of the panels of investors were offering the contestants anything they could exploit.

If you watch the show, they explicitly use the words "taking on risk"
It's all on the table. No games. They give out a number and the contestant decides if the reduction of risk is worth the money he would have to pay in the future.
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workers agree to take jobs in the first place instead of taking the risk of a personal small business loan.
It amuses me how conservatives think that people want to work or agree to work at these places while making a terrible wage.
No one wants to work at McDonalds or work as a janitor; they HAVE to. Thats the big problem with capitalism.
They are coerced into working for for the greedy rich.
If someone goes to jail once for say, drugs your life is ruined.

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@BigPimpDaddy
No one wants to work at McDonalds or work as a janitor; they HAVE to.

lol, no.

There's 40 million people on welfare and about 200,000 people that work for McDonalds. And most of the people that choose to work at McDonalds use it as a training job to get a better one.

It's a free choice.

Clearly, if people HAD to work at McDonalds there wouldn't be help wanted signs up for the past year with the millions of people being paid to sit at home.
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@BigPimpDaddy
They are coerced into working for for the greedy rich.

Dude, McDonalds can't pay people enough to get them to come work for them right now. People just don't choose to wanna work.
There's no forcing going on at all.

That's why Biden's employment numbers are absolute shit right now.

Believe me, if Biden could get away with forcing people to work, he would do it.
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@Greyparrot
Workers generate ALLthe wealth and then are paid back a FRACTION  of this generated wealth. The difference between the wealth generated and the pay is called profit and it is exploitation by its very nature to pay someone less than they have made.

As for risk investors rarely risk more than money and are generally shielded from any losses by diversification. It is the workers who suffer the most of a company goes out of buisness so I would say they are risking more.
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@BigPimpDaddy
No one wants to work at McDonalds or work as a janitor; they HAVE to. Thats the big problem with capitalism.
They are coerced into working for for the greedy rich.
If someone goes to jail once for say, drugs your life is ruined.
Well stated. 

Indeed IF being coerced into consenting to sex is rape THEN being coerced into consenting to work is slavery.
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@Greyparrot
Dude, McDonalds can't pay people enough to get them to come work for them right now. 
Profits can only exist if a buisness first pays all its expenses and paying workers is the most important expense since no buisness can run without workers. McDonald's cannot afford to pay a living wage then they should close their doors.
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@Greyparrot
There's no forcing going on at all.
Would you consider the threat of homelessness, destitution and starvation force? In general would. A threat is a threat whether it is implicit or explicit. 
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@Greyparrot
did you just tell me mcdonalds cant afford to pay their workers a living wage?
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@secularmerlin
all corperations must exploit their workers in order to turn a profit
You sound identical to Marx. His theory was exactly that, that corporate profits robbed from the workers. But Marx never ran a lemonade stand, let alone a corporation. Never ran one yourself, have you?

Typical labor costs, depending on industry, is about 30% of gross [sales]. Service industry labor can reach 40% https://smallbusiness.chron.com/calculate-employee-labor-percentage-15980.html

So, let's not get to hyped about the poor laborer. Not so poor if that expense is the biggest piece of the pie. Your problem is that in many cases, workers abdicate their right to negotiate their income to unions, who are in the game primarily... for themselves and not the worker. Union advantage is a myth because workers can learn how to negotiate their own income if they know how to do it, and it's pretty simple. I taught it to my employees when I was in management. I work for me, now, but my money works for me better than I do. I don't have employees, anymore. Whatmarx ignored, completely, because he never ran a lemonade stand, is that there are other costs; it is just the labor slice and the owner slice. R&D, materials purchasing and logistics and handling, process development and implementation, equipment, marketing, customer service, facilities... Marx never spoke to any of this. Neither have you. And I have not mentioned all of it, yet. You cannot ignoree this stuff. All these considerations have presence even in a lemonade stand, nd must be accounted for. An owner, if he's lucky, manages to keep about 25 cents of a $3 glass of lemonade.
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@949havoc
that corporate profits robbed from the workers
Where else could profits possibly come from?

there are other costs
Yes but if the workers received the net of their generated wealth (wealth after expenses) then there still would he no profit left for the bourgeoisie. I don't care how you slice the pie the workers cannot get their fair share and also leave income for executives who do not produce anything (and if your money is generating more money you are not personally producing anything period)
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@BigPimpDaddy
There's no way Mc Donald's can compete with the 40 million people on welfare for the measly 200,000 job openings.
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@Greyparrot
If McDonald's cannot pay a living wage then they deserve to go out of buisness. If people are homeless and hungry then we should feed and shelter them.

Unless you have a reasonable counterpoint to BOTH the above statements then you have not done much for McDonald's case with your argument about their inability to compete with welfare. 

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@secularmerlin
JeFf BeZoS WaS PoOr
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@secularmerlin
Unless you have a reasonable counterpoint to BOTH the above statements then you have not done much for McDonald's case with your argument about their inability to compete with welfare. 

That's not my point at all.

My point is that they wouldn't be going out of business if people were forced to work for them.
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@Greyparrot
People are not forced to work for McDonald's specifically but they are obligated by the system to find SOME work or risk social stigma, homelessness and starvation. A threat is a threat is a threat. It doesn't matter if it is an implicit unstated threat.
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@BigPimpDaddy
JeFf BeZoS WaS PoOr
When and by whose measure?
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@secularmerlin
Amazon was founded in his garage.

(ignore the fact that his parents gave amazon a small investment of 245,000$)
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@secularmerlin
workers cannot get their fair share
Considering how the gross pie [sales] is divided into more than just two slices [proletariate, and bourgeois, per Marx], how is 30% unfair? I gave you 12 slices, only [remember I said there are more] two of which are recognized by Marx, and one gets 30%. If fair [I read equitable] is what you want, then lets give you 8.3%. Now are you satisfied? Twelve now have their fair share, and that's only if there is only one person per share. What about that don't you get? What you want is a still bigger slice, but then, you are not at all considering that some work is of greater worth than than others. You may think labor is the most important, but what is your labor is doing if you have no raw material to work with? What is your labor going to do if there is no salesman to sell the product you made? What will your labor do if no one designed the product you made? You see what I mean? Marx, the guy who didn't even know if you have lemons, you can make lemonade, never considered these factors. He has a laborer, and thinks the laborer is getting shafted because he gets only 30%, when, in fact, his 30 is the biggest slice, already. But, you demand more. Prove you are worth it! Don't give me your union rep, I know he's a clown because I've already had to deal with that idiot. YOU prove your worth.
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@BigPimpDaddy
And that kind of thinking is how you decide you're better off working for money [min wage is your apparent goal] than putting your money to work for you.
Consider: Donald Trump was given $150M, and he turned that into $1B in ten years.
That's the equivalent of getting $15,000 from your dad and turning it into $1M in ten years. Have you? It actually took me 20 years, but I did it, and I'm nobody. Until you have, stop complaining, because you don't get it how to do it, and bitching about is worthless. Who will pay you for that?

Sorry to be so harsh, but, none of this is entitled. My dad told me: be ambitious, plan, and execute. That's it. No magic. Most can't get past ambition.
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@949havoc
1% of people own more than 50% of all wealth whole nearly ten percent live in extreme poverty. Please explain how this is or could ever be fair. 

If this is to be expected under our current system then our system itself is unfair.

YOU prove your worth.
Nurses ARE worth more than billionaires and they prove it every day and yet they make far less money. Proving oneself is not nearly as big a deciding factor in who is and is not wealthy as intergenerational wealth (the single biggest indicator)
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@949havoc
Milton Friedman had a famous speech about how there is no worker on the planet that knows how to make a pencil.

That there is no one worker on the planet that can be paid for the labor to make a pencil because there isn't anyone person on the planet that knows how to make all the composite components that comprise a pencil.

So nobody can make a pencil. That's why we have capitalism. So we can have pencils.