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DoctorJ
Registered: 06/30/03
Posts: 8,846
Loc: space
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: Autonomous]
#1910026 - 09/12/03 02:52 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
So, if we didn't allow people to build and own apartment complexes those who could not afford their own homes would be better off?
Building and owning is fine. Excessively profiting from people who can't afford to buy a home and are thus forced to rent is immoral and should be illegal. In my area, an apartment large enough to house a working family runs about $1000mo. My parent's morgage payment runs about $900mo. The clear difference is that the morgage aquire's equity and the renters dont have shit to show for their payments. I'm not arguing against rent per se, but I think non equity rents tend to be way too high.
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Home loans are hardly limited to the priveledged, select few. What is wrong with someone wanting you to show evidence that you can be trusted to pay off a loan?
again, I am not arguing against standards, just saying that the current ones are unneccesarily prohibitively high.
neway, I have to go to work now, so I'll respond to the rest of this later.
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shakta
Infidel
Registered: 06/03/03
Posts: 2,633
Last seen: 19 years, 9 months
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: DoctorJ]
#1910149 - 09/12/03 03:19 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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I am in the business and it is not that simple at all. Apartments can make money, but they can also loose money very easily.
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Autonomous
MysteriousStranger
Registered: 05/10/02
Posts: 901
Loc: U.S.S.A.
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: DoctorJ]
#1910166 - 09/12/03 03:22 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
DoctorJ said: In my area, an apartment large enough to house a working family runs about $1000mo. My parent's morgage payment runs about $900mo. The clear difference is that the morgage aquire's equity and the renters dont have shit to show for their payments.
There is more than rent receipts to consider. Usual underwriting requirements only consider 70% of rent receipts as income. This is because of expenses for upkeep as well as the inevitable times when properties are vacant between renters.
Now something which I consider EXTREMELY unfair is that interest on mortgage is totally tax deductible for a homeowner (actually a home buyer) yet deductions for rent are minimal at best and totally non-existent for most people. This has the effect of helping to keep renters as renters, making it harder to accumulate enough capital to become a home buyer.
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again, I am not arguing against standards, just saying that the current ones are unneccesarily prohibitively high.
High? By who's standards? Do you have any idea of the default rates? Do you think that default rates should be higher? Lenders would prefer that more people would be able to buy homes, however they must balance this with the reality that if standards are too low there will be more defaults and they will go bankrupt. Again, bankrupt lenders translates to less available credit to be extended to potential home buyers. The net effect will then be LESS homeownership. Is this what you seek?
-------------------- "In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination." -- Mark Twain
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z@z.com
Libertarian
Registered: 10/13/02
Posts: 2,876
Loc: ATL
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: clam_dude]
#1910724 - 09/12/03 06:51 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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I'm really getting sick of all this anti-business crap. In business it only makes sense to try and keep employees because it is expensive to try and train more (true there are some jobs where this is not the case, but not that many) and cheaper to pay longtime employees a little more simply because they know what they are doing. Businessmen are also not hearless bastards only after money. I know many businessmen and they do in fact care about their employees as well as the customers and the community around them. If they treat employees like shit the employees quit and more must be trained at great expense to the business. Along the same lines if they treat the customers and community like shit then they will lose customers and therefore revenue. People are not all mindless sheep guys. They can make decisions to better themselves and they do it all the time. Any business that treats everyone poorly will end up going out of business and that is the bottom line (a possible exception to this is government agencies and monopolies who exist by the will of the government). Some people need to pull their heads out of their asses and think.
-------------------- "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas Jefferson
Edited by z@z.com (09/12/03 06:53 PM)
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DoctorJ
Registered: 06/30/03
Posts: 8,846
Loc: space
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: z@z.com]
#1910921 - 09/12/03 08:25 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
There is more than rent receipts to consider...
I'm sorry, my crude attempts at writing left you no choice but to misinterpret what I meant. The only thing I was saying was that people who live in apartments pay the same amount of rent each month as people who have to make mortgage payments on a home they are inhabiting. The difference is that the apartment dwellers have nothing to show for their payments, whereas homeowners are slowly paying off a loan and thus building monetary worth via assets. I would think that apartments would be a little cheaper to account for this discrepancy.
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High? By who's standards?
The average worker's. We live in a country where working 40 or even 50 hours a week at minimum wage is not enough for a person to live on, let alone support a family. These people are doomed to live the rest of their lives in shitty apartments, never seeing anything back from their rent payments, while people down the street slowly get richer from payin the same amount of money on their mortgage!
It seems fucked up to me, but obviously you know a lot more about real estate than I do. Perhaps you and shakta can enlighten me to these matters (deadly serious on this). I would be interested to know more.
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clam_dude
stranger in astrange land
Registered: 09/10/03
Posts: 1,717
Loc: twilight zone
Last seen: 6 years, 4 months
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: z@z.com]
#1911313 - 09/12/03 10:45 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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z@z, I never said that I am anti-business. We need a certain amount of material wealth to be happy. If you look at comparative advantage and the basics of trade, it is more efficient for one person to specialize in one thing and for someone else to specialize in another, as supposed to everyone surviving on their own. This is what has lead to business and is why business is essential.
My problem is not with business in general but with the level of extremes that some people have taken it to. It is okay to want more money, like many small business owners who are relatively well off, but it is another thing to own billions of dollars while others are payed pennies.
You say: "Along the same lines if businessmen treat the customers and community like shit then they will lose customers and therefore revenue." This only goes to show that businessmen are just in it for the money. They are nice to employers and customers only because it is good for business. If businessmen can make money by treating others like dirt, which I have clearly demonstrated above, they will do so.
-------------------- "I would like to thank god for making me an atheist" - Ricky Gervais
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z@z.com
Libertarian
Registered: 10/13/02
Posts: 2,876
Loc: ATL
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: clam_dude]
#1911518 - 09/13/03 12:28 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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I wasn't necessarily just talking to you, but rather to almost everyone here.
-------------------- "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas Jefferson
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unlikelyhero
Ramblin' Man
Registered: 12/31/02
Posts: 106
Loc: Lancaster (Uni), Darlingt...
Last seen: 20 years, 4 months
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: clam_dude]
#1912127 - 09/13/03 08:25 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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If materialism makes people happy why do people constantly want to buy more products? And why have the countries which practice materialism most (such as America, and increasingly, the UK) got high rates of depression amongst their populations that span across the class systems? That can't all be down to chemicals... can it?
UH
-------------------- They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference - Bill Hicks
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lysergic
Mycophile!
Registered: 06/09/03
Posts: 691
Last seen: 20 years, 3 months
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: DoctorJ]
#1912221 - 09/13/03 09:31 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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DoctorJ said: Anyone ever see fight club? If the cost of a recall for a defective car part is greater than the amount expected to be paid in settlements from accidents directly related to that defective part, they don't do a recall! Makes sense in terms of the bottom line doesn't it? As long as profits are maximized, who cares how many people die! Plenty more consumers where they came from! (BTW, this formula actually was used in the 70's before a leak in GM's corporate office created a big PR stink...)
Uh, thats not how it works at all. Car manufactures work closely with gov't agencies to determine if recals need to be made. I can't believe I'm arguing a point from a source such as "Fight Club". Newsflash:That wasn't a documentary. My old car had a recall on it because some little hose could freeze sometiems in the winter and make it hard to start, not impossible to start, harder to start. They fixed it for free, took a bit over an hour. you can't tell me that hey decided that they would recieve so many lawsuits over this that they decided it would be easier just to pay the untold sum of fixing every single car? It'sn ot like my car was going to explode, it wasn't even a safety issue at all. Again, why am I arguing with Tyler Durden?
-------------------- In response to an attack killing 15 American Servicemen PsiloKitten said: Just give em a little more time, the iraqis are making great progress. And this is unorganized. Wait till they get organized.
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clam_dude
stranger in astrange land
Registered: 09/10/03
Posts: 1,717
Loc: twilight zone
Last seen: 6 years, 4 months
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: unlikelyhero]
#1912228 - 09/13/03 09:40 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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your first point is an oxymoron however thats spelt. I think you may be mistaking materialism with minimalism. Your second point about depression rates is interesting though. Something I have thought about myself. It only goes to show that having more stuff does not nessecarily make us happier.
I'll tell you why I think that depression rates are high in first world countries. Its because, as I have said before, buying more stuff makes us subconsciously believe we will be happier when in reality it does not. The question is, how much stuff do we need before we're happy? Really, when you think about how much stuff you have, it is a comparrison between you material assets and those of your friends, or other people you hear about in the news, etc.. The reason that consumption never really brings happiness is that there is always someone else out there who is richer.
-------------------- "I would like to thank god for making me an atheist" - Ricky Gervais
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unlikelyhero
Ramblin' Man
Registered: 12/31/02
Posts: 106
Loc: Lancaster (Uni), Darlingt...
Last seen: 20 years, 4 months
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: lysergic]
#1912232 - 09/13/03 09:42 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
lysergic said: Uh, thats not how it works at all. Car manufactures work closely with gov't agencies to determine if recals need to be made. I can't believe I'm arguing a point from a source such as "Fight Club". Newsflash:That wasn't a documentary. My old car had a recall on it because some little hose could freeze sometiems in the winter and make it hard to start, not impossible to start, harder to start. They fixed it for free, took a bit over an hour. you can't tell me that hey decided that they would recieve so many lawsuits over this that they decided it would be easier just to pay the untold sum of fixing every single car? It'sn ot like my car was going to explode, it wasn't even a safety issue at all. Again, why am I arguing with Tyler Durden?
So, just because it didn't happen with your car that means it doesn't happen. Do you know what always goes on behind the scenes with every recall? I'm not saying that it does happen, but what you said isn't an argument against it at all. Chuck Palahniuk does exhaustive research for his books, I know that much.
UH
-------------------- They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference - Bill Hicks
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monoamine
umask 077(nonefor you)
Registered: 09/06/02
Posts: 3,095
Loc: Jacksonville,FL
Last seen: 18 years, 5 months
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: unlikelyhero]
#1912234 - 09/13/03 09:43 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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The lower and upper classes have about the same rate of suicide. I'm not going completely interpret that as a statement against materialism,but it should say something.
-------------------- People think that if you just say the word "hallucinations" it explains everything you want it to explain and eventually whatever it is you can't explain will just go away.It's just a word,it doesn't explain anything... Douglas Adams
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Anonymous
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: clam_dude]
#1912298 - 09/13/03 10:34 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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the problem with materialism is that it is a tragedy for the individual. there are environmental and natural resource concerns as well. you'd be hard pressed to show how it causes social injustices.
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RandalFlagg
Stranger
Registered: 06/15/02
Posts: 15,608
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: unlikelyhero]
#1912410 - 09/13/03 11:13 AM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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If materialism makes people happy why do people constantly want to buy more products? And why have the countries which practice materialism most (such as America, and increasingly, the UK) got high rates of depression amongst their populations that span across the class systems?
Good point. Materialism allows us to achieve physical comfort, which can lend a certain amount of happiness to our lives. But, excessive materialism has been shown to not contribute to happiness consistently(often it has the opposite effect). Unfortunately, it seems to be true that people like to acquire as much as they can.
This raises a serious moral question: Do you control people's behavior(including their consumption) because you feel it is in their best interests? Or do you allow them to do what they want, even if that means they will do things that are detrimental to themselves and the rest of the world?
We humans are doomed. We don't consistently possess enough self- control and logic. Human existence might be fucked up, but it has been one hell of a toboggan ride.
RandalFlagg
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clam_dude
stranger in astrange land
Registered: 09/10/03
Posts: 1,717
Loc: twilight zone
Last seen: 6 years, 4 months
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: RandalFlagg]
#1913172 - 09/13/03 03:44 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Well said. The reason that materialism is bad for the world, and may be a threat to our existence, is that acquiring more stuff is taking a toll on the environment. We humans think that we are more powerful than we really are. We claim to have enough atomic weaponry to destroy the planet. However, the strongest bacteria and whatnot will survive and could potentially evolve past where we are today. The only thing we can kill off is ourselves.
-------------------- "I would like to thank god for making me an atheist" - Ricky Gervais
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sirreal
devoid
Registered: 01/11/03
Posts: 1,775
Loc: In the borderlands
Last seen: 16 years, 10 months
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: RandalFlagg]
#1913428 - 09/13/03 05:49 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
RandalFlagg said: Do you control people's behavior(including their consumption) because you feel it is in their best interests? Or do you allow them to do what they want, even if that means they will do things that are detrimental to themselves and the rest of the world?
You speak as though we are a counsil of non-humans deciding what to do with humanity.
-------------------- I may not always tell the truth, but atleast I'm honest ----------- I see what everyone is saying. It is so hard to form an opinion when you see both sides so clearly!
Edited by sirreal (09/13/03 05:50 PM)
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RandalFlagg
Stranger
Registered: 06/15/02
Posts: 15,608
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: sirreal]
#1913674 - 09/13/03 07:21 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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You speak as though we are a counsil of non-humans deciding what to do with humanity.
Astute observation.
Uh oh....time for some Randal self-introspection....
Misanthropic malcontents such as myself are just as predictable as anybody else. We are socially isolated, and socially isolated people tend to dwell upon things. Because we tend to dwell upon things we often surmise that we are intellectually superior to the average man. We make a concious effort to not be snobby or elite, but we always end up being that way. We would never admit this because we at the same time have a disdain for social posturing and we are disgusted when a person attempts to act in a superior fashion to impress others. We pride ourselves on being insightful social critics, yet we are so socially isolated that we can't seriously claim to have an intimate knowledge of our fellow human beings.
Because we do not feel as if we are completely part of the human community, we are more likely to view people in a condescending manner. People like me are some of the most narcissistic and occassionally dangerous people in existence. We find it easy to pontificate on Man's problems with no regard for the actual human consequences.
hehe...On the other hand it could be argued that Shroomerites are inherently intellectually superior to most others and therefore we are entitled to engage in such discussion.
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Psilocybeingzz
Registered: 12/15/02
Posts: 14,463
Loc: International waters
Last seen: 11 years, 4 months
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: RandalFlagg]
#1913793 - 09/13/03 07:48 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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save the world.........................SHOP LESS
simple
now the question is , can people make a shift in their thinking before we have no planet left to rape?
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Anonymous
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shopping less will not prevent deforestation. it will not feed starving children. shopping less will not reduce CO2 emissions or save endangered species. shopping less will not cure malaria, nor will it bring world peace. shopping less will not eliminate nuclear weapons...
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silversoul7
Chill the FuckOut!
Registered: 10/10/02
Posts: 27,301
Loc: mndfreeze's puppet army
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Re: Problems with Materialism [Re: ]
#1913824 - 09/13/03 07:57 PM (20 years, 6 months ago) |
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It's not simply about shopping less. People should learn to live more modestly and consume fewer resources.
-------------------- "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire
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