Quote:
Originally Posted by Baby Lee
From a purely personal POV, people's salaries don't 'bother me.'
But what does irk me, from a philosophical standpoint, though I don't have a remedy except to point it out when asked [as here], is that society seems to have a schizophrenia about beauty of free market capitalism, where if you are entertaining us, or offering us frivolities, the sky is the limit. Dude makes a catchy song, and makes millions off it into perpetuity. That's the awesome free market rewarding value. But if people work hard to provide something that actually improves our lives [medicine, energy, surgical technology and procedures, etc], we bitch and moan every step of the way about the greed of businessmen and corporations making money off our need for their ingenuity and innovation.
Basically, if you take the comprehensive long view, we are collectively sending a message that the only people who deserve unfettered wealth are the people who entertain and distract us, and the people who actually improve our lives need limitations on their earning potential because, ironically, we actually need the things they create.
Which I guess is fine, so long as you don't bitch when the only thing motivated people do going forward is find new ways to entertain you in a way that enriches them.
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I'll agree with your point but there is more to it. For instance, a pharmaceutical company gets to lobby our politicians and money gets fed to them to allow us to be screwed over. Those are the kinds of things with which I don't agree.
A couple of examples:
My understanding was that a new drug's patent is only supposed to last a few years, by law, before other companies can start making generic versions. It seems to me that Nexium (Astra Zeneca?) went way longer than that before generics started being allowed about 2-3 years ago.
Another example is the life-saving epi-pen treatment that was acquired and then the cost raised by several hundred percent several years ago. I don't know that there was anything legally wrong by that but, it was morally corrupt, in my view.
Same thing with the idiots at the beginning of this pandemic who bought up all the hand sanitizer, masks, and other potentially life-saving products just to cause a shortage and be able to sell for a markup. Those people can rot in Hell for all I care.