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March 25, 2009 6:00am by David Farrar

General Debate 25 March 2009

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General Debate

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dad4justice

Give it a break toad. It gets rather tiresome after awhile. No wonder the greens are viewed as utterly disgraceful. Stop drinking the vinegar.
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March 25, 2009 10:15pm
toad

Patrick Starr said: Jacob Van Hartog – 108 negative karma @ 10.pm
that even beats your record as the most unpopular kiwiblogger grenefly

Shit, what am I doing wrong? Can’t ever remember getting below -20.

Yesterday I got a -13, but compensated for by a +12.

Tends to be only when I stray into industrial relations issues I get seriously bad karma. What is it about you guys that makes you so want to deny hardworking New Zealand workers getting a fair suck on the sav?
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March 25, 2009 10:20pm
big bruv

Toad

Trolling is not your style mate.
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March 25, 2009 10:22pm
toad

bruv said: Trolling is not your style mate.

Hey bruv, this is a General Debate thread. You can’t troll (or threadjack, for that matter) in General Debate. Anything goes.

Anyway, I thought your opinion of d4j’s contributions here was somewhat similar to mine. At least you will debate rationally with me (well, most of the time) even though we disagree on most political issues. But d4j’s just a dickhead who hurls abuse at anyone who doesn’t adhere to his narrow and bigoted view of how the world should be.
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March 25, 2009 10:30pm
reid

Tends to be only when I stray into industrial relations issues I get seriously bad karma. What is it about you guys that makes you so want to deny hardworking New Zealand workers getting a fair suck on the sav?

Why do you think we don’t, toad?

Fact is, if someone doesn’t grow up in a family that values education, self-discipline and have all the other life experiences that eventually in adulthood differentiate middle-aged $30,000 factory/process workers from the money you and I earn when we’re middle-aged, then why is it solely the employer’s responsibility to redress that balance?

I’m not saying you necessarily say that or even believe it, but in general terms, that appears to be the lefty position.

I often wonder why lefties don’t spend more time and energy advocating for those values in their constituents instead of what they do do, which is advocate the politics of envy and selfishness. We’ve just had nine long years of a perfect lefty environment where that should have been eminently possible and yet not once did we ever hear of any program that advocated that the key to success in life is self-discipline and loving your family as you love yourself and valuing education.

If we ever heard something along those lines from the lefties then I’d start to think that maybe they’re starting to get it. Unfortunately that hasn’t happened yet.
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March 25, 2009 10:35pm
greenfly

slijmbal – it’s like putting out a fire with gasoline, innit?

Patrick – that’s knocked the wind out of my sails! Better pull my horns in, now that I’ve been bested by the best.

Jacob, I’m gutted.

Toady, you’re Mr Farrar’s favourite – stay close, then when the time is right, strike ! 🙂
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March 25, 2009 10:49pm
toad

Now, reid, this is an interesting discussion.

Tell me, why does the guy who cleans the shithouse get paid so much less than the guy who audits the accounts.

You would say it is qualifications. But if everyone were qualified to audit the accounts, someone still needs to clean the shithouse. And it is a nasty job that no-one really wants to do, so perhaps it deserves higher pay on that basis. But it doesn’t get it.

So what if everyone gets the qualifications necessary to audit the accounts, and no-one will demean themselves to clean the shithouse.

Well, then we’re all up to our ankles in the brown smelly stuff, aren’t we?
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March 25, 2009 10:52pm
greenfly

slijmbal could clean the shithouse? Why not!
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March 25, 2009 10:54pm
slijmbal

toad the difference is everyone can clean the shithouse – only some people know how to audit accounts – economics 101 – supply and demand – but you knew that because not everyone is capable of getting the qualifications required. Poor argument. So not an interesting discussion.

Ratbiter – are you asking the flying phleghm to prove my point or am I just lucky that way?
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March 25, 2009 11:05pm
reid

Toad, I vaguely recall from my economics something called the diamond-water paradox.

Water is so much more valuable to life yet diamonds are considered more valuable monetarily. It’s an illustration of supply and demand. That’s why manual labour, while vital, is valued less. Taking it away from capitalism into say the military, you see the same thing in the military with the Officer Corp vs the Enlisted Ranks. The Officers are presumed to have skills not possessed by other ranks and those are the skills that are presumed will win the day. Naturally, people are people and it doesn’t always work but generally when things come together, it happens that way. This is why the shithouse cleaner is paid less, we can always find another. But can you find another CEO, or General?

The point you raise however is well taken. I abhor the way the ratio of lowest paid to highest paid in any organisation has gotten out of whack since the 80’s. It used to be that the CEO was paid about 16 times the amount of the lowest paid and that ratio was preserved for many years.

Outstanding capitalists like Warren Buffet have preserved this and as you may know he takes only $100,000 per year from Berkshire Hathaway. I wish that more people would follow his lead.

Avarice is extremely unhealthy, it leads to personal deprivation and ill will toward others. It’s entirely unnecessary in that the capitalist system could function effectively without it. Unfortunately its prevalence today is a marker in the state of our society.

However, avarice exists both in wealthy and in poor people. It’s a state of mind based on fear of wont and envy with the ultimate cause being either a surfeit or a lack of ego. The real question is, how do we eliminate this state of mind in people from all walks of life?

Toad I’m sorry I need to retire now, big day tomorrow. However would love to continue discussing, tomorrow evening.
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March 25, 2009 11:25pm
Patrick Starr

too much detail reid. the easy answer would be the greens would have clean shithouses anyway – so why would it affect toad?
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March 26, 2009 7:49am

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