Dixie - In Memoriam
New member
OK people. Think about it. Who do the earth's resources belong to? They belong to everyone.
Here's your first critical error, and all others to follow, are built upon this one. The resources belong to whoever has ownership of the land. That could be the government or dictator, or in a country like the US, it could be private enterprise or individuals. The idea and notion that earth's resources belong to everyone, means no one owns anything, we have no borders, and property rights can not exist. Now, pinheads have pondered this idea that everyone owns everything, they structured an entire governmental, cultural and social system around it. It is called Communism. It means, we are all part of a commune, sharing equally in all land, property and resources. The stubborn little problem with the idea is, it NEVER works! At the very BEST, you get to the persons responsible for determining that everyone is equally sharing everything, and they take the whole pie, because they have the authority. So, you are wrong on your initial assessment, and it's a political ideology which has failed every time it has been tried, and will continue to fail, because of human greed. It usually results in millions of people dying needlessly, either through political executions and genocide, or rebellion and war, or just plain starving to death as they wait for things to be "equally distributed" which never happens.
I was talking to an Atheist and he was saying that GOD created suffering, but why is there suffering? We have everything we need to all live good stress free lives.
An Atheist is not exactly the best person to tell you what God created or why. They don't believe in God. And I am sorry, but we really don't have all we need to live good stress free lives. If that were the case, there would be no 'problem' for you to be yammering about, would there? Some people definitely have more than others, some people have an abundance of what they need to live stress free, and some people don't. This can be determined by numerous factors. In a Communist government, for instance, the ruling political class has everything they need to live stress free, and the poor people starve to death. In a dictatorship, the dictator, his family and his cronies have everything they need to live stress free, everyone else is starving to death. And in a free market capitalist system like the US, individuals are equally afforded the constitutional right to pursue happiness by participating in capitalism. Some people take advantage of that freedom, and some people are less motivated to do so. Those who do take advantage, are generally more successful economically, than those who don't. But the opportunity exists for everyone, in a free enterprise system.
The Answer? Evil men hoard the world's resources and set their price.
Not true. Again, the fallacy of your initial error provide the basis for this bit of idiocy. The resources belong to whoever owns the land. If I own land and I poke a hole in the ground, and oil shoots out, it belongs to me because I own the land. If I dig a hole and find gold, it belongs to ME, not "everybody!" And if I use the water, air and sunlight (resources available to all of us), and I produce a crop of wheat or corn, it belongs to ME, not "everybody!" Now, very few cases exist where one "evil man" owns all of any one type of resource, because resources are plentiful around the planet, lots of people own lots of things. Prices are determined by supply and demand. Some people may indeed own a lot of some particular resource of value, and they may increase the price of that resource, if it has sufficient demand, because it has more value.
Now in the old days Tribes established territories and defended them, some territories were conquered and who ever ruled had the right to the resources of the land conquered.
Well, I hate to break it to ya, but that's pretty much still how it goes. That's why you don't see Saudi's over here drilling for oil in Alaska.
Now that Monarchs have fallen? Who has the right to the resources? Is it the government? Only under a dictatorship. What about in a democracy? It should be owned by we the people.
Again, in the US, we buy and sell land to individual property owners, corporations, and governments. People who own the land, determine a value for the land, and find someone willing to pay the price they ask, and this is how land is transferred. Each individual American doesn't universally own all the land in America, and I am sorry if you have been led to believe that is the case, or should be the case. It is with the ownership of the land, the resource rights go. It's also possible to own land and lease resource (mineral) rights, to which people determine a fair market value and negotiate a contract with capitalists.
The government should own the resources for the benefit of the people, but we have witnessed governments systematically selling the land to middle men(capitalists). And they sell to more Capitalist(middle men) and so forth.
I'm convinced you should have been born in Communist Russia around 1954... The Government doesn't own the resources... this even defies your own idiocy that we ALL own the resources! ANY RESOURCE is owned by the person that owns the land, with the exception of natural elements like rain, water, sunlight, air... which we all share equally and have the same access to in most cases. People do sell and buy things in a capitalist society, and usually... people selling are making a profit... not always though, sometimes they take a loss.
I believe this is an illegitimate sale. No government has the right to sell the countries resources to foreign entities and this is exactly what is happening today. And they use the control of the resources to limit supply and thus control the market.
If the government owns the property it owns the resources, and does have the right to sell them. You have the right to elect people who oppose that if you like. You also have the right to elect people who will limit and regulate trade in the markets, to prevent whatever injustice you think is happening. You don't have the right to lay claim to the property of others, or determine how it is used. Sorry!
Look at the water bottle companies? They pay for a permit from the government, less then $10,000 and they sell the water back to the people for multi-billions of dollars. The gov is having a hard time paying bills yet its giving away its resources to capitalist for next to nothing? I say the Government should be extracting that water, and putting the profits(sans middlemen) into their coffers to be spent on the people, not for capitalists to spend it on yachts and golf club memberships.
They pay for much more than a permit. Most of them have multi-million dollar investments in infrastructure, and it costs an enormous amount of money complying with governmental mandates on quality and safety to the public. They have multi-million dollar advertising budgets to compete with other businesses who do the same thing they do. They pay lawyers to be retained in case of lawsuits, accountants to ensure all bookkeeping is straight, consumer affairs officers, to make sure customers are satisfied and no legal problems arise. Staffers who schedule appointments and meetings, people who sell the product, artists who conceptualize the best way to present the product to the consumer, advertising directors who market the product, all the actual people who produce the product in the factory, all the people who have to order the supplies and make sure they have all they need to produce the product, drivers to take the product to points of distribution, people to unload trucks and stock stores... this all costs more than $10k. And they sell a product to a willing and paying consumer, who can go right outside nearly any home or dwelling in America, and get the product for free from the spigot.
When they make enough money to purchase a yacht, they go to a place where people are paid to sell yachts, they may even talk to people who are paid to design custom yachts. Other people may be paid to provide materials or services in the project,and then someone is paid to build it. Once it is built, someone will be paid for space on property they own, to park the yacht when not in use. Someone will likely be paid to maintain it, clean it when it needs to be cleaned, service it when it needs servicing, and someone will sell gas or diesel it needs to operate. Another 'capitalist' will be paid to sail the yacht sometimes, because if you are rich and sucking down champagne on the deck with supermodels, you can't be at the helm too. In fact, a crew of 3-4 is probably not unusual. And if you have a yacht, you have to have a limo and limo driver, insurance, maintenance, etc... And if you have a yacht and limo, maybe you need a jet... are you getting the point here, pinhead? Even when "rich people" are spending their money, other people are benefiting from that transaction!