Hard work = $250,000 ?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-11-2006
Hard work = $250,000 ?
376
Fri, 10-24-2008 - 9:07am

I’ve read repeatedly that the $250,000 is hard earned money that the government has no right to tax. Personally, I don’t believe that hard work consistently results in high salaries and I’m not convinced that people who make more money work harder or deserve more than most people. Most people, I believe, do work hard and most people are rewarded with 25,000 – 45,000 salary. Not all some hard workers make more and some make less. What do you think? Is the Just World view valid?

http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/beliefs7csend.pdf

most people have a strong need to believe that they live in a world that is just, in the sense that people generally get what they deserve, and deserve what they get. When confronted with data that contradicts this view they try hard to ignore, reinterpret, distort, or forget it —for instance by finding imaginary merits to the recipients of fortuitous rewards, or assigning blame to innocent victims.

Because of their imperfect willpower, individuals constantly strive to motivate themselves (or their children) towards effort, educational investment, perseverance in the face of adversity, and away from the slippery slope of idleness, welfare dependency, crime, drugs, etc. This is another recurrent finding from the sociological evidence. In such circumstances, maintaining somewhat rosy beliefs about the fact that everyone will ultimately get their “just deserts” can be very valuable. Furthermore, if enough individuals end up with the view that economic success is highly dependent on effort, they will ultimately represent a pivotal voting block, and set a low tax rate. Conversely, when individuals anticipate that society will carry out little redistribution, the costs of a deficient motivation to effort or savings are much higher than with high taxes and
a generous safety net. Each individual thus has greater incentives to maintain his belief that effort ultimately pays, and consequently more voters end up with such a world view.

For instance, data from the World Values Survey shows that only 29% of Americans believe that the poor are trapped in poverty, and only 30% that luck, rather than effort or education, determines income. The figures for Europeans are nearly double: 60% and 54% respectively. Similarly, Americans are more than twice as likely as Europeans to think that the poor are lazy (60% versus 26%).

Indeed, 59% of Americans agree or strongly agree that “in the long run, hard work usually brings a better life”; this view commands much less support in Europe, ranging from 34% in Sweden to 43% in Germany.

Is the “American dream,” according to our theory, just a self-sustaining collective illusion?

http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/beliefs7csend.pdf

uCruiser.com Ticker

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-11-2006
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 9:44am

>>those families that are in their earlier generations might feel differently when they get to that same point.<<

Sorry, I'm not seeing the difference between what you said you said and what I said you said.

Later generations in a family are entitled to advantages that previous generations established. Right? So not all Americans should or do have equal opportunities for income. Right?

Be back later.

uCruiser.com Ticker
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-26-2007
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 9:47am

"Later generations in a family are entitled to advantages that previous generations established. Right? So not all Americans should or do have equal opportunities for income. Right?"


No....they will eventually.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-09-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 9:58am
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-25-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 10:23am
I never said they work "harder" - one of my DD's is a waitress, so I know.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-25-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 10:27am

anecdotes don't equal data.


Statistically, smarter people earn more than stupid ones.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-25-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 10:31am
So, are you advocating that everyone should be paid the same, regardless of what they do?
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 11:11am

>>Yes, but probably not in the way you mean. I'm talking about the poor planning (or perhaps downright criminal conniving) of our elected leaders that stacks the deck against the ordinary wage earner: the outsourcing of technical jobs, the granting of tax breaks to big box stores to enable the destruction of small town economies, to begin. I did plan ahead: instead of become a professional musician, I studied physics and computer sciences so that I'd always have a "day job". So I have, but not always in my "fields", and not always at the salaries that my skills were worth before the pyramid schemers told our government that there was a "shortage" of such people, something needed to be done about it quick before "American innovation" suffered, we'd better import people with those skills from India, and outsource technical jobs immediately. Have you ever heard the hysteria about the dire shortage of scientists and engineers? It's been going on since the early eighties at least.<<

So let me get this straight? You despise the government because you feel it's inept and against the common man either deliberately or through inefficiency (failure to understand long term affects) but yet you want to vote to give them more tax dollars to spend? So long as they're not your earnings?

>>And no, I'm not particularly uneducated or a poor planner. (I do homeschool two of my children, partly because the education system has become the scapegoat for our failed economic policies, and frankly the schools are being ordered to "teach" in a way that deadens the intellect and kills initiative.)<<

Ah yes. I homeschooled both my children as well. I agree with you there. Mine are both living in foreign countries for their entire HS senior year (also their sophmore year in college because they're HS seniors and College sophmores at the same time) because we understand the future is brighter for those willing to make such sacrifices by stepping outside the box and who understand the times we live in require a worldwide focus. Those will be followed by further schooling and military service--as much for personal development as a sense of obligation.

I'm sorry your skills aren't what you feel they're worth. Reinvent them. Make them worth more. Learn Chinese or Arabic.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 11:16am

Kind of like the correlation between smoking and education/income level and yet you have Barack Obama.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2006
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 12:15pm

beautiful story.. i loved it, and

Photobucket

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2006
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 12:55pm

<>


I thought Obama was hated because he was different than politicians on the right and what they prioritized?

 

Pages