Who are the top 1% income earners in the US

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Will 'bad people' do as a generalisation? I mean, it wouldn't be entirely fair (a minority presumably are not bad people), but it avoids some of the other issues and seems to be basically accurate.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The idea that top income earners are necessarily bad people is pretty prejudiced in my opinion.

Not necessarily, but mostly; the distinction is important. And I don't necessarily mean in their personal lives (I'm sure that many people who do things that are borderline evil at work are very nice people in a domestic setting), I'm just judging them based on what they do. Sacking thousands of people to boost profit margins is pretty bad as far as I'm concerned, as is, say, selling tobacco products to children in the third world. And so on.

Related to this, amusingly enough, are the very points you raised upthread...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's not as if most of the top income earners are sacking people or selling tobacco though.

No, they just profit from it. Yes, obviously this is a systemic issue. But in order to get to that point a degree of - as you rightly called it - talent is needed. That's the issue to me, actually.

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I don't know. The main part of the Llanwern steelworks was shut down nearly a decade ago mostly in order to boost the share price of the company that owned it (Corus). I'm using this example because it was clear-cut and because I know the area well (my Nan grew up nearby). Now that wasn't done out of spite, but was it not an evil - or at least morally dubious - thing to do? To an extent I suppose it depends on how you view the world, but from my point of view it's clear enough.

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Yes, that's true. But I've never suggested otherwise.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

They're not necessarily benefiting from sacking people or selling tobacco either.

No, but how many would feel as much as a twinge of guilt if they were? Because if there's one thing that is obviously true about the top 1% or so is that they are - for the most part - completely out of touch with the world that exists outside the circles in which they live in. Of course this can easily be applied to other settings; I don't think that many people in the West (regardless of income, class or anything else) know much about the people that make most of our clothes, fancy electronics and so on, to say nothing of the people who extract the raw materials that... etc.

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Most? Nonsense. Some? Of course. Though I suppose 'good idea' is subjective.

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Legally it is their right, of course. Morally? Over a thousand good jobs lost in an area not exactly noted for its vibrant economy, so that the directors could buy themselves second yachts? I can understand that you approach this from a different position to me (and that's fine), but wouldn't you at least accept that to do that is, at the very least, perhaps a little morally dubious?

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No, of course not. But who cares about their intentions? Especially as we all know from a very early age that if you want to 'get on'  f***ing people over makes things so much easier. The intention to become very rich is not really a pure one in the first place.

'Bad' is a weaker word than 'evil', btw. It's one thing to argue that 'the system' (such as it is) is evil or to point to specific actions as being so, quite another to argue that individuals are (though, as I'm sure everyone would acknowledge, some certainly are), which is why I've done no such thing.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But then I'm a puritanical lefty with a stronger belief in sin than I care to admit, so I would think that, wouldn't I?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But then I'm a puritanical lefty with a stronger belief in sin than I care to admit, so I would think that, wouldn't I?

There's really no need to bring 'sin' into it, given opposing interests.

Well, no. But it's there

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I have to say that I find the argument odd to say that since you assume those people would not feel bad about doing certain things they are bad. That strikes me as a weak way of reasoning.

I probably didn't explain it well, or maybe I'm not properly explaining where I'm coming from. It's a background issue; I was raised to believe that passively assenting to something wrong is about as bad as actively joining in. Difficult to become rich without... and there you are.

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But this has nothing to do with whether or not it is unfair to describe them as being mostly bad people, is it?
Besides, by that standard almost everyone comes up with something. My dad probably does certain aspects of wiring in a different - and presumably better - way than someone who hasn't been an electrician for nearly forty years. To do things differently is not a defining feature of people who end up rich. Though there's no doubt that it helps.

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Are the people in charge of large companies separate from society? Is it wrong to expect them to at least bear in mind that they are part of it? They used to, for a couple of decades anyway, so it isn't alien to the way the world works or such bullsh*t.

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I don't know; the logic of patronage is often used in the context of industry and employment. Usually by major employers and their patsies in the media.

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I don't think I wrote 'psychopaths' either

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Most people on this forum do.

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Even if it were a prejudice it could hardly be a dangerous one; the reality is that the most you can do is shake your fist.