Uncle Karl
Firstly, I would like to retract my anger toward you, and talk to you like a sensible human being, like I should have the whole time. I don't think you understand the implications of having a world of people all making the same amount of money, to do the same thing. Society will always have classes with or without communism. Consider Lenin, don't you think he was the most powerful/richest man in his country in his era? Hello? Is this mike on? Well WTF is up with that? Don't you think Fidel Castro is the most powerful/richest man in his country? (well not right now he is practically a vegetable, but you get my point). My point is it cannot work, it simply goes against human nature. If you could tell me, how it would work, I would listen, but I still don't think you get the bigger picture. Say if we were a communist society, and I worked as a peasant on a farm: I am worker A, to my right is worker B. If I harvest grain from 30 acres, and worker B harvests grain from 5 acres, and there is no incentive for me to work harder, than I am going to learn the first day not to work harder. I am going to now harvest grain from 5 acres, because why the hell should I work harder than worker B?

Bakatare gets it. He understands that having a chance at being rich is better than no chance at all. Skeptos do you know how much you are taxed in Norway? It is about 60% of your income. HAHAHAHHAHAHAH.

Uncle Karl
No actually please answer my question, why should I harvest 30 acres when worker B is harvesting 5 acres? You cannot answer that question because you know that is where I got you. There is no incentive to work harder in a communist country Therefore any farking human with an IQ about 80 would only harvest 5 acres. To tell me the opposite would be to go against human nature. So please, explain instead of pussing out. Also explain why Lenin, Stalin, and Castro are the wealthiest most powerful people in their countries. I'll give you a hint (they took advantage of stupid communists like yourself).

sorry when they were alive and in power.....

maddogjew
I call bullshiat. I should make 6 times as much. That is how it is. Communism looks great on paper, I'll give you that. But you communists just don't admit it doesn't work out in real life.

GuyMontag
Again, as I have pointed out before, why don't you move to Norway/Canada/Cuba, etc?
Exactly, you are a poser communist...you just say you are to be cool!

Money doesn't buy happieness. Obvioisly a quote from a poor person. Research shows that it certainly can.

The rich can sicken and die just like anyone else. Certainly, but they'll do it in a lot more comfort with physicians who have no problem upping their pain medications to ease whatever pain they have.

After reading many of the posts here and actually thinking about some of them, I figured I'm ready to post.

The very wealthy don't think like you or I. Most are not real concerned with global or local poverty and many just give to charities in order to get the tax deductions. The majority do not create businesses in an effort to help the average worker but to get as much profit as possible out of whatever enterprise they undertake.

Folks like Bill Gates have an almost unimaginable amount of wealth. With a worth of 40 billion +, he could almost pull the staggering Social Security fund out of debt by donating 1 billion -- but doesn't. The interest alone on 1 billion for a year could help out some of those hospitals which are staggering under tons of debt and having to cut services.

Historically, when any country starts getting top heavy with the mega-rich, the rift between rich and poor gets vast and eventually, problems start.

In the past, this rift was responsible for creating monopoly laws, Unions, Labor Laws, OSHA, a whole bunch of business and banking regulations and a dramatic increase on income tax for those earning over a million a year. The 'poor' managed to get Congress or their local governing bodies to pay attention by reacting as a violent mob.

Pretty much because of their extravagant ways and their lack of empathy for anyone not of their station, the rich of the past managed to hamstring themselves.

In the distant past, they tended to get slaughtered during revolutions.

People who are struggling to keep food on the table while working a couple of krappy jobs and living in over priced, shiat homes in ratty neighborhoods tend to view the mega-rich with hostility. Especially when their bosses cut them to 39 hours a week to deny them benefits because the company wants greater profits and the owners are fussing about which gold fixtures to fit their private ocean liners with.

I worked for a couple of very rich folks and one used to get a Social Security check, which he didn't need -- but was required by law to take. That check was used to tip his club waiters.

Several posters have mentioned that if you give the average person several grand that, basically, within a year they'd be broke again with nothing to show for it. The various lottery stories shore up that argument. However, the chronically poor tend to get locked into a narrow mind set and some will spend such a windfall fast before 'it's taken away from them'.

Then, society crams the poor in specific sections to live and they basically feed off each other and develop the culture we see today. That's hard to break out of.

Unfortunately, we need the rich. Their efforts to get rich have created pretty much every luxury we have. Edison was a good example of that. A great inventor, he was also a pretty ruthless businessman, willing to slander rivals and take folks to court. The railroads, which built the country, were initiated by the wealthy seeking ways to get even wealthier.

Personally, I'd like to see a greater division of the wealth. Maybe higher taxes and less loopholes for the very rich. The cessation of Social Security for those who are so rich that they'll never possibly need it. The clamping down on lobbyists who influence Congress in favor of things for the very rich. Bigger tax breaks for the wealthy who donate major funds to various hospitals which are staggering because they treat so many poor people.

It's a bit hard to have nice thoughts about the very rich when they're looking for new ways to spend their millions while the workers in their businesses are working 39 hour weeks, loosing benefits, facing smaller pay raises and often get to 'work off the clock' to curry favor and keep their jobs. Resentment builds when some people can't get medical care that they need to live reasonably well and some rich guy blows the cost of the treatment getting his dog house wallpapered.

It doesn't help to watch TV cooking shows where chefs prepare a magnificent and tasty dish, probably worth a weeks salary for a minimum wager worker, for those who can afford it and you're making just enough money to keep hamburger in your fridge. You're living in a two room dump, with burglar bars and 27 locks on the door, with noisy neighbors and that urine smell in the halls while TV shows you this couple agonizing about which faux finish to apply to the walls of their 4th crapper in their 10 room house with a few acres of law.

Then they show you the decorator, carefully applying by hand, the several sponged on layers. (You're lucky if you can buy a gallon of flat white latex paint to slap on the peeling walls of your tiny bathroom.)

However, at this time, I don't have a solution.

Uncle Karl
I love how you dance around the question I continue to ask, because you cannot admit it, it doesn't work. It goes against human nature. Please tell me why I should harvest 30 acres of grain while worker B harvests 5, for no incentive and don't give me a bullshiat answer like "to improve your life and everyone else's. ". I have news for you: that is not how the real world works