Record High Gas Prices?

[cleanspeed1]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

My aunt told me once that we should do more for the poor so they could improve their lives.

I told her to go to downtown Norfolk and pick out a "poor" person and give them 20k dollars. She was worth about 2 mil at the time. She looked at me like I was crazy. I told her if she gave the 20k to the govt, that same poor person would never see a dime of that money. (She died two years later and the property the family had bought 60 years earlier had been sold and she paid $500,000 in taxes on the inflation driven value of the property 6 months before she died).

Bottom line is even when you have a significant amount of money few people feel like they are the wealthy elite that we all love to hate. After all they are the ultimate minority, very few with a lot of capital.

Does anyone here actually know any of these wealthy egomaniacs? You know the ones who are pulling all of our strings, being as we all are such puppets to be so manipulated.

While I am sure there are some out there, most of the people I have known in my lifetime, in the category I would call fairly well off (others might call wealthy) the overwhelming majority are people who worked their arses off to get where they are and consider their success as not as significant as many would.

In fact I once calculated the value of the retirement commitments and medical benefit commitments my father earned with combat military service and civil service retirement and found it to be around 2 million dollars, depending on how long he lives, which is currently approaching 90 this May.

He sure does not fit the "elite" categorization.

You know when we go there, hating those who have succeeded (in our perspective) those same wealthy "elites" might just do the same thing the "elites" in Germany did in the 1930s, which is to get the heck out of this country and go somewhere where their success is appreciated. We all know how that scapegoat oriented society ended up, right?

A lot of wealthy people are old and in bad health, so lets hate them for success and ignore their medical condition. We wouldn't want to have to sympathise with someone who had money, now would we?

regards
Mech

Let's look at it another way. The promise of being in the United States is

1. It's the land of opportunity.

2. Upward mobility in the socioeconomic system.

Now, I never had a problem with people making money or being successful, quite on the contrary, you come up with something that works for you and you can be rich here.

The problem is when you use your money and influence to subjugate other people and damage the society.

Not every rich person out there is a self centered, sociopathic jerk; but our culture promotes that type of behavior. We have the freedom to do what we want to do and leave me the hell alone.

Sorry, doesn't work that way. We are affected directly or indirectly by the choices of other people whether we like it or not. And when those choices hurt people, you want to find out who the troublemakers are.

Look at why we are here on ecomodder.com; a lot of us prior to the conditions getting this bad never cared about efficiency until some people who happen to control a resource that we currently need decided that they were going to go in for the kill profit wise. Then "we" start talking about how to improve this situation working with the technology we currently have and inspiring each other to develop things and try driving techniques that will allow us to use less of a resource that is controlled by a group of malicious individuals. The more we share, the better it is for all of us.

Look at all the inventors that either got bought off or killed because they found an energy solution. Why? Because "they" have to continue to make money.

2 million dollars in today's money, while it being a lot, is not a lot.

I'm talking about the class of people that operate in the 9 figure and beyond catagory, legacy money.

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by cleanspeed1

This has been all out class warfare on the middle class and poor. Wars are started by rich people and fought by poor and working class people.

Actually, wars are started by governments. But it is no coincidence that virtually all the people in power in any government are wealthy and nearly always are they also lawyers.

Class warfare is based upon politics. The Conservatives think everyone is lazy and the Liberals think everyone is stupid.

Most, if not all, economic policies benefit the top while crushing everyone below it. (etc.)

Actually most economic policies are designed by political parties. A political party is essentially a gang of people that aspire to wield power over others. Politicians (who basically represent those parties) owe favors and influence to those who contributed to their election campaigns.

I'm mostly not disagreeing with you, except to say that the existence of the wealthy is not the problem. Societies that promoted class warfare against the wealthy usually ended up as bloody revolutions. And once those revolutions occurred the poor were often worse off than they were before them. Again, you cannot dismiss or ignore the role of government. If things are going badly for a country, who else is to blame but the government? The government has all the cards, so to speak. So why blame it on the rich?

I'm sure there are plenty of wealthy people who do not lust for power. There is a certain bias in thinking that all rich people must look down upon or are inciting a war against those who are not wealthy. Usually the desire for power and the desire to make or to have money coincide, but they are not the same thing. In other words, just because there are rich people does not automatically make them the enemy of the middle class or the poor, nor the source of all their problems.

[cleanspeed1]

Your last paragraph pretty much sums up my view. If you use your powers for good and have respect for those not as fortunate that's one thing; use it in an evil, destructive way, that's another.

If government were not unduly influenced by big business and those who have money, then government can perform the business of governing properly for the good of all, instead of what we have now, where the power and influence benefits the few at the top.

Last time I checked, when corporations and government merge, it's called fascism.

[roflwaffle]

You should check again...

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

When all else fails, and you have nothing left worth saying, resort to pure, outright insults, relevant to nothing in the discussion.

Thank you for laying out so clearly the discussion strategy you've been following all along :-)

"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion" - Robert Burns, 'To A Louse' (Which seems rather apropos, don't you think?)

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by cleanspeed1

Look at why we are here on ecomodder.com; a lot of us prior to the conditions getting this bad never cared about efficiency...

I really don't think that's an accurate description of most of us here. Certainly not of me: although I grew up poor (and still prefer not to waste money) I'm not any more. If it was just a matter of money, I could easily afford to buy a Hummer or two, and keep the tank filled. But not only do I like small cars, and efficiency for its own sake, I'm far more driven by the externalities, from balance of trade to financing jihad to global warming. I'm quite willing to spend extra money to avoid these.

Look at all the inventors that either got bought off or killed because they found an energy solution.

Name one. You can't, because they're just a figment of paranoid fantasies, out of the same pocket as those 200 mpg carburetors.

I'm talking about the class of people that operate in the 9 figure and beyond catagory, legacy money.

Look up the Forbes list of the richest Americans, and you'll find that most of it is in fact new money. Many of the leaders are the founders of companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Google, and such. You have to go down to around #150 to find a name like Rockefeller that's obvious old-money wealth. Even people like Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey rank higher than that.

[cleanspeed1]

Ok james, again, when I made that statement in terms of proportion of people who think a certain way or have a concern about efficiency, you are an exception to what most people do therefore being an exception means that others didn't at one time think like you. Most people have not, and still don't think like you in these United States when it comes to efficiency and money. The vast majority of people never care until the externalities get so bad that they are forced to care. You had to care based on your own personal history and life experience.
I do know someone who helped me and my wife get our home get seriously marginalized because of what he invented. The fact that you require proof is irrelevant and will not be dignified with a response.
I tell you what, since you have the resources to buy a couple of Hummers and keep them filled up, put together something that can drastically improve the mileage and emission situation for the people of this country, make it public, and see what you'll encounter.

Until then, I can only consider your statements as ramblings and spoutings of the insecure and selfish.

[pprince]

wow!

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by cleanspeed1

Most people have not, and still don't think like you in these United States when it comes to efficiency and money.

But we were not discussing most people in the United States, but the people who participate in this forum. They (we) are a self-selected community of people who do think like that: why else would so many of us be willing to spend more to achieve efficiency than we'll ever save on gas? And also, quite a few of us aren't in the US.

I do know someone who helped me and my wife get our home get seriously marginalized because of what he invented.

Accepting that at face value, being marginalized is a long, long way from being killed in order to suppress an invention.

The fact that you require proof is irrelevant and will not be dignified with a response.

You mean I'm supposed to believe your bare statement that there are all these dead inventors out there somewhere? Sure I am: even your average crooked prosecutor (if that's not an oxymoron) usually wants to know where the body's buried before bringing a case :-)

...put together something that can drastically improve the mileage and emission situation for the people of this country, make it public, and see what you'll encounter.

Honda did it for me, and I've been driving it for the last eight years. And biking longer than that, telecommuting, etc.

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Thank you for laying out so clearly the discussion strategy you've been following all along :-)

"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion" - Robert Burns, 'To A Louse' (Which seems rather apropos, don't you think?)

Again it tells us nothing of importance, except that it''s another opportunity for you to engage in petty name-calling ("louse").