Quote from: CasinoBit on July 25, 2013, 11:41:03 AM

Quote from: crumbs on July 25, 2013, 11:15:55 AM

Quote from: NewLiberty on July 25, 2013, 05:10:22 AM

Quote from: crumbs on July 01, 2013, 08:13:13 PM

Quote from: Vandroiy on July 01, 2013, 06:13:35 PM

The problem of poor people is how well they can get out of poverty, not how the high-level part of society distributes wealth. Any redistribution in just Europe or the USA that decreases overall efficiency would just starve more people in poor countries. I don't remember seeing protest banners reading "We speak for the 1.29 billion", the people below the poverty line who are likely to die from lack of food and medicine. Is it not hypocrisy to call some exact distribution near the top "unfair" while neglecting over a BILLION people elsewhere?

Absolutely. "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." And "cast the first stone," and all that stuff. 99-percenters are just as rotten as 1-percenters. And some are whinier.

Many of the 99% are in the 1% globally. When we see our burden as tormenting those above rather than aiding those below...jealousy is greed.

Absolutely. Ideally, the 99% should not only take from the 1%, but distribute to those below them.

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Magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it. And, what is more, they find it everywhere.
-Van Wyck Brooks

Those are saints, very rare both in the 99% and the 1%. Being poor is no assurance of sainthood -- people are poor by birth, through circumstance & all sorts of personal shortcomings. Being wealthy, otoh, nearly precludes sainthood -- a (Christian) saint who happened onto wealth gives it away. This is in no way a sermon, i don't advocate sainthood or shoot for it myself -- simply an analysis: If you want to find a saint, looking among the 1% is impractical.

Rather look among the narcissistic wretched filth that takes upon themselves the role of God.
Scammers, addicts, liars, the streets are full with them, I think that what makes you either a good person or a bad one depends on your personality traits rather than your financial status.

Not sure what point you're trying to make. "The world is full of lousy people"?