Agree or disagee: As wealth and political connections go up, personal responsibility goes down

[ck4829]

They get bailouts and corporate welfare.

We get to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.

It sounds like this should be a new law of American economics:

The law of accountability when compared to wealth and power

[tabbycat31]

1. produ to be your first K&R

[Deja Q]

3. First response, I techinically did the recommending then posted the K&R

:)

[Deja Q]

2. K&R

Microsoft being the ultimate "corporate personhood" example, given the quality of their products and shifting responsibility to everyone else (then demanding people wait for a new product version for bugs to be fixed and I don't mean just the Windows OS)...

[Solly Mack]

4. Not really new is it?

Wealth and power have always purchased protection and favor.

[Uben]

5. Yeah, they have wealth and power, but......

.....all I get is this lousy poll? I'd rather have wealth and power. Anyone wanna trade?

[fasttense]

6. Greed gone wild is a sickness,

I've seen this kind of behavior in my own family. First the goal is to get the business up and going, provide for necessities, a little enjoyment in life, save some money for the kid's college. Then it becomes a mania. You need to make more and more money. Your life revolves around ways of getting more. So you con your partner out of few thousand. Then you buy up your local competition and put a handful of people out of work, so what. Then you buy up the national competition and put hundreds of thousands of people out of work, they call you a business genius. You hide your wealth in an off shore account, all the best people are doing it. So, the poor are carrying the tax burden, they could have been rich, just like you. Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouse?

Your needs and wants become more outlandish and expensive. You don't notice when the $1000, staying with friends vacation turned into a $30,000 annual pilgrimage. You start losing your old friends and pick up snooty, pampered people who never worked a day in their life. You see less and less of your family. You only visit or expose yourself to the chic and comfortable places. You hire other people (at the lowest wages possible because you just can't give your millions away) to cook your food (you use to be a very talented cook), clean your messes and raise your children (you use to like reading to your kids and putting them to bed).

So when you finally get around to visiting Biltmore (of course staying at their most expensive Inn), you understand how Vanderbilt felt when he built his little world. You pine for the days when the lower classes knew their place. You pine for the 1880s.

[Nikia]

7. To some extent at the high end, but closer to the middle not always

In some companies, managers, even at the highest levels are fired much more readily than general employees. This makes sense because their position requires more responsibility and his/her mistakes can cost the company more money.
On a more personal level, poorer people must take more responsibility for their lives. As people get richer, they have the ability to hire people to take care of their problems for them. It is also easier for richer people to get jobs because they already know the people who can get them a good job.

[stray cat]

8. No group has a monopoly on personal responsibility-

most people appear to go out of their way not to take responsibility. The more power you have the more likely you are to have a broader effect is all.

[FarCenter]

9. It depends

If the wealth and power are inherited, there tends to be less personal responsibility than if they have been earned.

The means by which wealth and power are earned also have a great influence. For example, sports or media stars that get wealth early are often irresponsible.