[clue-talk] Wow, Card's a little political...

[Nate Duehr]

On Oct 31, 2008, at 10:41 PM, Angelo Bertolli wrote:

> And one point I'd like to make is that even though the measurement  
> of GDP for a country is important it's not the only thing that's  
> important.  To bring it to a personal level, I'd rather make less  
> money and have an enjoyable life than have tons of money and be  
> miserable.


Two thoughts on this one:

1. That's possible at any income level above subsistence.  Lowering  
one's personal expectations of how much money one feels they're  
"entitled" to, and not "competing with the Joneses" is often the best  
way to live a very happy, fulfilled life.  To put it in personal,  
right-now, terms... could you sock away 40% of your income and still  
enjoy your life?  If you can, you will never rely on the government or  
anyone else for "assistance", ever.  But if you need $100 tennis shoes  
while you live in the Projects... well... you're life's going to suck  
forever and you'll always vote for the guy who says he'll fix it by  
making life "fairer" for you.

2. There are always going to be people who don't think like this, for  
whatever reasons, and they'll always want more.  Be it from peer  
competition -- CEO's salaries went UP after the government made them  
publish what they make, because they could now see that "Bob makes  
more than I do" and compete with each other -- or whatever messed up  
reasons from their upbringing and childhood... people with an  
entitlement bent will always have it.  "I'm supposed to be rich,  
because my family is."

So... #2 goes back to the "limit their profits" debate.  How much for  
them is "too much" money, versus how much for you and me is "too much"  
money?   You want to keep them in check, I tend to think they drive  
themselves so hard that their companies dole out a LOT of money to the  
employees and everything around the company, and that money can be  
used by an intelligent person to make their own personal station in  
life, pretty decent.  I say the people they have to answer to, their  
Board of Directors, needs to be wiser and smarter than the CEO.   
That's so often not the case, it's a huge problem right now.  I've  
said it before, "Any idiot from Harvard Business School can run a  
company into the ground by listening to their peers."

--
Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com