Cedar Point Cutting Legacy Pay?

no, jeff, bernie bros fixation on the very rich is correct.

elon musk isn't to be trusted. jeff bezos isn't to be trusted. the plutocrats and oligarchs are the problem. it is not remotely comparable to the far right scapegoating brown people.

Two. things can be true at once:

1. People who are extremely-well compensated could (and arguably should) do more in support of society in general.
2. That by itself will not solve everyone's economic problems.

Jeff:

That's a total strawman. They "could" do anything, but that isn't the argument being made. The argument is that front line worker wages come at the expense of executive pay, and the two are not related.

You flippantly attempted to argue a company couldn't control costs by taking money from front line workers while increasing executive pay, "because math." I provided an incredibly simple mathematical example showing that, in fact, this can take place. My argument wasn't a total straw man; you're just wrong.

TheMillenniumRider:

then the orange dumbass himself has basically said that Musk has altered the outcome of voting machines. Has anyone checked on this I don’t know. But if said this occurred than the population is powerless.

Here is a link to the video of him saying that.

So he says if he loses, it's because Dems cheated. He won, and then says Musky knows a lot about vote counting computers. It looks fishy. I'll say it over and over... When it comes to reputation and integrity, appearances are just as important as intention. This is true in all aspects of life.

TheMillenniumRider:

We suck at RCA as a country.

No disagreement there. It's insulting to hear things like "they hate freedom" and that's why terrorists exist.

It takes legitimate work... Can I put the blame solely on the population for that?

Yes, you can. What you're describing is critical thinking, and people used to do more of it. Blaming "the media" or whatever alleged cabal controlling it is scapegoating. And it's hilarious because both "sides" assign that blame. I mean, does anyone really think that Steve Bannon is part of a conspiracy to call out other conspirators? If it smells like crap, it's probably crap.

There were rumblings some time ago about the orange dumbass rigging the election results...

Wanna circle back to the critical thinking part? If liberals are going to go down the path of election conspiracies, then we are completely f'd, and the Turmpies win.

Vincent Greene:
it is not remotely comparable to the far right scapegoating brown people.

It totally is. It's not morally equivalent, but both are using the classic political tactic of stoking fear to win votes.

TylerWS:
You flippantly attempted to argue a company couldn't control costs...

I did no such thing. I recentered the context of the original argument, which was that front-line pay suffers because of executive pay. I even said, "They 'could' do anything," which is the opposite of arguing a company could or couldn't do anything. So what exactly am I wrong about?

I'd be all over Bernie if he were to stick to a story about proper regulation and the outcomes that it would achieve. But as soon as he gets into personifying corporations and declaring anyone who made a legitimate dollar as evil, I'm out. Of course "those" people exist, but it's not even close to all of them. I know a lot of millionaires, as one does in tech. None of them are hanging out on yachts and being dicks to poor people, I can assure you.

LostKause:

Here is a link to the video of him saying that.

Thank you because I was honestly too lazy to dig it back up.

Jeff:
Yes, you can. What you're describing is critical thinking

So, probably in a perfect world, isn't the goal of the media to seek out truth and present it objectively, without any bias? If so, then I should be able to take what the media says at face value, and I shouldn't really need to do critical thinking about what is being presented. Why do we as a population accept being swayed, and advertised to, and living in a world that requires us to wade waist deep through bull**** to find the actual truth and driving forces behind stuff? That seems like a failing all around, and not just one of the population. The expectation being places 100% on the people seems an awful lot like saying the corporations and the media can do whatever they want, and it's perfectly fine, we should understand how to adapt and work around it. I don't agree with that and think they should be held accountable to what they say and do. We operate a large part of our country on the assumption that people are behaving in good faith, when that simply is not the case.

Jeff:
If liberals are going to go down the path of election conspiracies, then we are completely f'd, and the Turmpies win.

It is a conspiracy when there is just speculation and no proof or grain of truth behind it. But when dems say hey things might be rigged in the election, then the reps say hey we basically rigged the election. Well, I think we may have graduated to the next level past conspiracy.

Jeff:
gets into personifying corporations

Corporate personhood or juridical personality is the legal notion that a juridical person such as a corporation, separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons. Sooooo, we treat corporations as people in the eyes on many facets of the law. What's wrong with personifying them?

Jeff:
Of course "those" people exist, but it's not even close to all of them. I know a lot of millionaires, as one does in tech.

I'm not attacking your little millionaire buddies. A millionaire is a middle class whatever. I'm attacking primarily Bezos, Musk, Zuck, Trump, and the rest of the top 1% who have helped create or are exacerbating the issues in this country.

For the record, I know more than a few people who work in election security. While they all have significant concerns about how our elections work, none of them believe an election has been compromised.

Jeff sez: It totally is. It's not morally equivalent, but both are using the classic political tactic of stoking fear to win votes.

The important difference is brown people aren't to be feared and distrusted on the basis of being brown alone, but history suggests billionaires have never been to be trusted.

Jeff:

It's not morally equivalent, but both are using the classic political tactic of stoking fear to win votes.

I missed this one until Vincent tagged it.

"There are many things that motivate us. But the most powerful motivator of all is fear. Fear is a primal instinct that served us as cave dwellers and still serves us today. It keeps us alive, because if we survive a bad experience, we never forget how to avoid it in the future. Our most vivid memories are born in fear. Adrenaline etches them into our brains. Nothing makes us more uncomfortable than fear."

So, no wonder everything in this country is based on fear. I traveled overseas, and all I heard from people in this country is that you will be pickpocketed, and you will be scammed, and the people are rude, and {insert any other story designed to scare you}. When I got overseas, surprise, none of this was true. But again, a use of fear, same reason why so many people buy guns, and people have home alarms, and carry sprays, and whatever. The people in this country love fear because it makes you buy things and it keeps you complacent.

Anyway, brief tangent aside. I don't remember every tagline from the election, but I do recall a few. I am just an anecdote, but I seem to recall the reps using flat out lies and stoking fear as much as possible, whereas the dems were also working off fears, but off of fears that were derived straight from things that the reps said they would do.

Reps claimed immigrants were murdering en masse, and eating peoples pets, and that hospitals were birthing babies and killing them, and that dems were on witch-hunt and were rigging the election, and were trying to twist the law to win the election. Which was any of this actually proven?

Dems stated that the reps had already attempt to take power by insurrection, that the courts were biased and compromised, that the reps would raise prices through tariffs, that they would institute mass deportations and potentially deportation camps, that they would serve the 1% and lower taxes for them and corps at the cost of the average citizen. Along with plenty more.

So, fear, but one side was flat out lies, while the other felt legitimate? Or have I just been brainwashed as well?

Don't get me wrong, I think at the heart of it they are probably all crooks, and here is my going off the rails part or my Bernie part, but I think we should replace all of congress and the house with people no older than 50, and that they should all be middle class folks, none of these wealthy out of touch types.

Vincent Greene:

history suggests billionaires have never been to be trusted.

TheMillenniumRider:

I think we should replace all of congress and the house with people no older than 50, and that they should all be middle class folks, none of these wealthy out of touch types.

The left preaches tolerance ad infinitum, but intolerance toward the old and wealthy is fine, I guess.

I did two searches, for whatever that is worth with SEO and search engine bias. One for "Congress bias rich", one for "congress bias poor". Both turn up basically the exact same set of results.

One result was interesting, it mentioned that teh reason we keep electing those who cater to the rich and wealthy is because the biggest voter turnouts are in the rich and wealthy categories. One reason given for that is because of voting policy and legislation in this country. We do not have measures in place to ensure that everyone can vote equitably and fairly. If we did this would allow all facets of the country to have equal voting access.

I found plenty of results about congress favoring the rich, congress being ineffective, congress not being an accurate representation of the popoulation. Is this reality or fiction, who knows, can't really trust much you see online these days.

However I did find this, and I feel like this was a good read. A couple quick excerpts:

"Republican senators are, on average, more responsive to the rich than the poor, but Democratic senators are largely more responsive to the poor than rich, particularly when there is class conflict. Thus, it is Republican senators, not Democrats, who are primarily responsible for the overall pattern of affluent influence. This does not, however, mean that Democrats are entirely “innocent.” In a small subset of votes in which well-to-do Democrats prefer a different policy than poor or middle-class Democrats, Democratic senators are somewhat more likely to side with the affluent. That said, in that type of situation, Republican senators side far more with the Republican rich over Republican poor."

"While the affluent dominance model is descriptively correct—in that the rich do get what they want more often than the median voter or the poor—this seems as coincidental as the oft-dismissed coincidental representation of the poor. Combining the relatively moderate pro-poor Democratic bias and the larger pro-rich bias of the Republicans, the result is a party system that over the last two decades favors the affluent, as a result of the outcomes of partisan conflict. Republican partisanship is the key to understanding modern affluent influence. The one exception is a quite limited set of conflicts within party: both Democrats and Republicans side with their rich copartisans over poor copartisans."

Also, another site that covered this report made a nice littel easy to read graphic.

Based on the economic makeup of the country, I do believe that the reps are a very poor fit for congress or the house since they dramatically side with the wealthy. The dems are more biased toward the poor, but are much more aligned with the majority of the country. But combining the two, because even the dems do push policy for the wealthy, you end up with a bias towards the wealthy.

What does all of this have to do with the price of tea in China? Well, the wealthy are well represented, and have been for a very long time, policy is built by the wealthy for the wealthy. It's time to hit the reset button and swing this back in favor of those who aren't rich, you know, the majority of the country. (By the people for the people, right?) Hence why I feel the old and wealthy need to be rejected in favor of the younger working class who don't have ties to money. I'm not intolerant of the old and rich, they have had their time and more than their fair share, it is time to govern this country for the majority instead of the minority.

To be fair, I will say I am intolerant of the billionaires, because they are not even rooted in reality anymore, you know who they are.

If you are interested: The Party or the Purse? Unequal Representation in the US Senate | American Political Science Review | Cambridge Core

I get everything you just posted, and I've seen it all before, and don't dispute it. I just don't understand what it has to do with what we're debating here. If it's that money buys favor, of course it does. And just as I suggest that capitalism should be properly regulated, so should elections. The problem with the latter is that regulation is mostly making it harder to vote and easier to accept money for campaigning. Maybe I'm not being clear enough, but I'm trying to make the distinction here that the existence of wealthy people is not itself the problem, it's the way a subset of them are able to operate in the system. Going after the wealthy is treating the symptoms, and frankly not going to work because you're directly attacking people. Changing the system is treating the underlying disease itself, and it's way less personal.

TheMillenniumRider:

So, probably in a perfect world, isn't the goal of the media to seek out truth and present it objectively, without any bias?

Let's break that down a bit. "The media" is not the same as journalism and news. TikTok is "the media," and so is The New York Times. One reports news, the other does not. And even the one that reports news has an editorial division that publishes opinions. People refer to "the media" as a monolithic thing because it's easier to scapegoat big monolithic things.

Second, if you want truth, that's philosophy. If you want facts, that's journalism. But even journalism doesn't need to be free from bias, paradoxically because truth can seep back into it. If you're reporting on Rwanda back in 1994, for example, you don't need to be "unbiased" and get the position of the government officials carrying out genocide. They're the bad guys, I would say objectively. Call it evidence-based truth and fact.

Regardless, the responsibility of getting to the facts does not lie solely with the people communicating outward. It never did. Sure, it was easier when three groups of people with integrity did their best to earn your trust with the 30 minutes they had each night on TV, as opposed to an infinite stream of questionable data, but even then it was important to consider:

• Start with skepticism.
• Consider the sources presented.
• Related, what evidence of the facts are provided? (Hint: There's no evidence of election rigging, now or in 2020.)
• Do the sources have a track record of getting it right?
• Have the facts as presented been validated by multiple sources independent of each other?
• If you find comfort in the information, are you exercising confirmation bias?
• If you find discomfort in the information, do you run elsewhere and exercise confirmation bias?

I don't think these are unreasonable things to expect of people.

We operate a large part of our country on the assumption that people are behaving in good faith

Do we? Because this entire thread suggests that isn't the case at all.

Vincent Greene:
The important difference is brown people aren't to be feared and distrusted on the basis of being brown alone, but history suggests billionaires have never been to be trusted.

The folks from the Gates and Buffet Foundations would like a word. Heck, the Gates Foundation as arguably done more for global public health than any individual government. Vater's point is so right on. You can't jump on people who generalize that immigrants are the biggest perpetrators of crime (evidence says they're not) and then generalize that wealthy people are the biggest perpetrators of ruining everything (evidence says they're not). It's very hypocritical.

Another thought about the symptom versus disease, and it comes back to the bits about people not voting in their own self-interest. The people that I've met personally who keep buying into the Trumpie nonsense are not wealthy people. They stand nothing to gain from the folks they vote for, even though they believe that they do. Why? I theorize it's because "liberals" want to take away their money and tax them more or whatever. And liberals do want to tax more, but not tax the non-wealthy people who believe it. They stand on some kind of moral or principle that doesn't extend to them in the first place. It's pretty weird, but I think that has a lot to do with it. Again, there's a lot of hypocrisy there too, because we objectively have fewer rights now than we did pre-2016. Less access to health care, censorship in libraries, more difficulty in voting, bans on art, etc.

Famous eugenicist Bill Gates? While he's certainly done his fair share of good for the world, it doesn't even offset his carbon footprint. Their outsized voice in everything about politics has created a world where the best and brightest billionaire of all is seig heiling with a White House office.

All I ever meant is that I thought it was a dick move to take away the legacy pay bump for those that keep returning.

I can't imagine anyone being told that ever coming back to work there.

Oh yeah, Cedar Point pay, coasterbuzz drift has taken full hold of this thread.

TheMillenniumRider:

coasterbuzz drift

Did you just now coin that term? Brilliant!

All I've learned from reading this discussion is that I wouldn't want to be a brown billionaire right about now.

As long as there are brown non billionaires you should be fine.

New Oligarch Heirarchy brought to you by Mango Mussolini McFatass:

1. White 1%
2. White Millionaires
3. Whites
4. Brown Millionaires
5. Browns

99. Mexicans, for some reason, even though his life is probably built on them.

Serious reply now.

If money didn't have power and influence, something else would.

There would be people that would accumulate enough of whatever we value to wield it in the same way wealth (money) can be now.

And there would be people who felt wronged by that and demand "equality" while calling our new valuable thing the root of all evil.

Let me just say in advance that I, for one, simply hate those fatcat squirrels with more acorns than any creature could ever need causing all of the world's problems. Those bastards have so many damn acorns that they hide them in random spots and never find a lot of them again. Must be nice!