The world punishes the honest and hard working

I was talking to my friend earlier, who is in marketing in a large corporation. We were talking about budgets in the context of saving money. He said being under the budget was actually not a good thing. I was like "what? Isn't it good to show your company that you were able to save x amount?" He said if you were under budget, then the next year your budget would be reduced, because it was deemed that you didn't need that much money. He said what they did if they were under budget was to spend the rest of the money on something (anything) to reach/exceed the budget.

So in essence, there really is no incentive to help the company save money. I'm sure that's basic ABC for the corporate go-ers around here.

I also remember talking to other friends about taxation in this country. Someone who devotes their life to work hard as an employee, will inevitably get taxed more than someone who spends their time creating tax-avoidance devices/structures/schemes.

Then there is my experience with Cityrail. I was so used to purchasing a weekly ticket from point A to point B, that one day when my boss asked me to go beyond point B for work, that I forgot to buy a separate ticket. As my luck would have it, a ticket inspector got on that day, and when approached, I just admitted that I had forgotten to buy the right ticket. I copped a fine (although he seemed pretty reluctant to write it up).

Then a few days later, I read in the paper about how Cityrail officers actually have no right to demand that you provide your name and address, so you could just not answer then or give them incorrect details, and thereby avoiding a fine. Additionally, I remember once putting my ticket through the barriers, only to watch a teenager jump the gates and walk out the station, all the while the other Cityrail employees just pretended they didn't see it. Yet when I try to walk through the wheelchair access for my luggage, some refuse to open the gates until they've scrutinised my ticket. So IT'S BETTER OFF TO JUMP THE GATES!!!

So, what's your take on how the world treats the honest and hard working?

I have heard of people driving around all day in a company car just to get the K's up, most of this gets back to the Law and commonsense. Maybe a better system would to have a few house wives on a panel looking at each case and using commonsense decide on a resolution and save tying up the courts.
Also with taxation the more money you have the more you can get away with tax avoidance.
But the good thing is the big leveling stick comes along and the $5M house they purchased at Bondi is suddenly worth $2,5M

I use legal methods to reduce my tax, and I am not reluctant to do so.

I pay much more tax than the average worker, so I am quite disheartened when people expect me to pay more.


I do so within the law, that should be good enough (especially for the people without motivation to better their own situation). Most successful/wealthy people get there by sacrifice and as soon as the average person realises this the better.

medicowallet said:

I use legal methods to reduce my tax, and I am not reluctant to do so.

I pay much more tax than the average worker, so I am quite disheartened when people expect me to pay more.


I do so within the law, that should be good enough (especially for the people without motivation to better their own situation). Most successful/wealthy people get there by sacrifice and as soon as the average person realises this the better.

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Sorry doc,

I would have replied sooner but I had a coughing fit on a good Flor De Cano Coronas, I was having after a good breakfast, when I read your post.

Name me one person, bar your good self, who has attained riches in Australia, honestly.

On another theme, why should not the world punish the honest and hardworking, what benefit do they bring to the world?

Sir Walter Raleigh, who brought the first tobacco to the Old World, was a scoundrel and blackguard, but without him I would not have been able to enjoy my cigar this morning, that is until you posted.

The world does punish the honest and hardworking, and so it should.

gg

Garpal Gumnut said:

Name me one person, bar your good self, who has attained riches in Australia, honestly.

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As I remarked on another thread, no organisation nor individual can become rich except through the gullibility of others, who may or may not be be honest and hard-working.

The gullible will be punished and rightly so. They are easily sucked into schemes which offer to make the rich.

Garpal Gumnut said:

Sorry doc,

I would have replied sooner but I had a coughing fit on a good Flor De Cano Coronas, I was having after a good breakfast, when I read your post.

Name me one person, bar your good self, who has attained riches in Australia, honestly.

On another theme, why should not the world punish the honest and hardworking, what benefit do they bring to the world?

Sir Walter Raleigh, who brought the first tobacco to the Old World, was a scoundrel and blackguard, but without him I would not have been able to enjoy my cigar this morning, that is until you posted.

The world does punish the honest and hardworking, and so it should.

gg

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Oh I agree, it is difficult to become rich without scamming the system. It is possible, just much harder. I think the only good thing about being ethical is bringing others up with you and getting a good reputation, apart from that the corrupt way is much better.

As for one person, I am yet to meet them.

As an honest, and law abiding citizen, I can offer you the service of helping keep you alive so that you can enjoy that cigar.

MW

Calliope said:

As I remarked on another thread, no organisation nor individual can become rich except through the gullibility of others, who may or may not be be honest and hard-working.

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I disagree.

I would say it would be difficult to become super rich in a single generation without preying on the gullible.

eg look at all the property developers who are on the rich list now. All because stupid people are prepared to pay obscene margins for land and property.

A bunch of self-funded retirees out there who'll agree with you Tyler. All the same, it's hard to get ahead without some measure of honest graft.

Garpal Gumnut said:

Name me one person, bar your good self, who has attained riches in Australia, honestly.

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Lang Hancock for one. There are plenty more. Think "Victa", "Hills hoist", "Triton", J.H.Williams, etc.

nioka said:

Lang Hancock for one. .

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you might want to scrub that one m8

he got more skeletons than karrakata.

all comes out in the wash given time and money tho.

blessim and his shadows

Its even worse than that, Tyler. That teenager who jumped the gates will probably be in centerlink in a few years - which you will be paying for.

The reality is there is a massive amount of injustice in the world. There are no morals, no legal consistency, no healthy views of what is right or wrong. What people think, do, say, or believe is entirely random - there is no standard of 'good' or 'bad'.

Just focus on the good parts of the world, the parts of your life that you are comfortable with and the things you enjoy. Hating the world for the way it is yields nothing but pain because no individual has the power to correct it.

And sure, some people will say 'but if you don't get angry, if you don't protest, things will never get better'. To them I say: 'people have been getting angry and protesting for hundreds of years, none of it changed anything, indeed often it made things much worse'.

tothemax6 said:

And sure, some people will say 'but if you don't get angry, if you don't protest, things will never get better'. To them I say: 'people have been getting angry and protesting for hundreds of years, none of it changed anything, indeed often it made things much worse'.

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Bollocks.

Take Egypt for a recent example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Egyptian_revolution

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

Garpal Gumnut said:

Sorry doc,

I would have replied sooner but I had a coughing fit on a good Flor De Cano Coronas, I was having after a good breakfast, when I read your post.

Name me one person, bar your good self, who has attained riches in Australia, honestly.

On another theme, why should not the world punish the honest and hardworking, what benefit do they bring to the world?

Sir Walter Raleigh, who brought the first tobacco to the Old World, was a scoundrel and blackguard, but without him I would not have been able to enjoy my cigar this morning, that is until you posted.

The world does punish the honest and hardworking, and so it should.

gg

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Fair enough, let's encourage the further demise and corruption of Australia to keep the cigars rolling and hope for an African or middle eastern style sh*thole state. I'm sure many here are looking forward to this wondrous vision!

In the meantime keep the little bleeders honest by feeding them McDonalds and arming them with centrelink to quell possbile uprisings and put off the inevitable. At present only law enforcement supposedly has the right to bear arms and control of the wacky tobacky trade so you've got a head start to pass on the legacy before you go.

It does punish the honest. Recently i was pulled over by the traffic police, asked why i had an SA drivers license, told them i had moved from there, they asked when, answered honestly (12 months ago) so they wrote me up a $400 fine because you are supposed to change it within 3 months, which i honestly did not know.

I have now instructed all the guys at work who have interstate licenses to say they are travelling whenever they get pulled over.

Same as if you get pulled over after a few drinks always say about 10 minutes since your last drink the cops have to let you sit on the side for awhile to make sure they can get a good reading, you hope thewy are in a hurry and will let you go, most are tempted to say 30. mins - 1 hr which means the reading the cops get is correct and you have had time to digest any remaining grog in your mouth.
I think if you did every thing honestly you would go under as the money you need to make would not go far.

Black money is all that drives an economy.

Of the extremely wealthy people I've met, (about 5), most of them had very unusual personalities. Control is a huge factor - they feel a compulsion to control and manipulate everything and everyone so as to help them turn the greatest profit possible.

Here's what's wrong with that approach - they make other people suffer in the process. You might say "well so what?". ok that's fine, until everyone develops that same attitude, wherein all hell breaks loose. Not everyone can win at the same time. Watch the football - every week there's 9 winning teams and 9 losing teams. You could become clever and cheat the salary cap, bribe the AFL or whatever. Soon enough people will investigate your success because they want what you have. Once again, problems ensue.

In China for example, corruption and exploitation is so rife that the only way they can maintain an upper class is to maintain a huge underclass to feed off. They work the underclass to the bone because the rich have seen that they can't safely compete against each other - it would be too uncomfortable. But there's a day of reckoning coming in china when the underclass get sufficiently informed about how they are being worked by the rich. At the moment the underclass are kept away from any international websites where they might learn how exploited they are. The mother of all civil wars is waiting to happen. Meanwhile the "authorities" crack down harder and harder (read: control and manipulate) the lower classes. Part of this manipulation is about promising them a car and a house and a flushing toilet....if only they work hard enough! See?

Getting back to this notion of control. What is control? What is manipulation? It's fear in disguise. I won't go through the mechanics, but anyone who indulges such behaviours has a lot of fear in them. Normally it's a fear of exclusion, judgement or poverty that is at extreme levels in the very rich (or anyone who cheats for that matter).

So, each time someone indulges in dishonesty, manipulation, control tactics or coercion, they are doing themselves a massive disservice. They just don't understand that it creates even more and more fear in them. Fear of loss, fear of exclusion or death or whatever it is. It's absolutely not worth it. You get the money, then you struggle to sleep! For a religious person, it's even worse - you know, karma and all that nonsense?

I believe it's absolutely possible to be rich and a honest, fair and reasonable man. I haven't yet proven it to my own satisfaction, thats' why I trade.

tothemax6 said:

Its even worse than that, Tyler. That teenager who jumped the gates will probably be in centerlink in a few years - which you will be paying for.

The reality is there is a massive amount of injustice in the world. There are no morals, no legal consistency, no healthy views of what is right or wrong. What people think, do, say, or believe is entirely random - there is no standard of 'good' or 'bad'.

Just focus on the good parts of the world, the parts of your life that you are comfortable with and the things you enjoy. Hating the world for the way it is yields nothing but pain because no individual has the power to correct it.

And sure, some people will say 'but if you don't get angry, if you don't protest, things will never get better'. To them I say: 'people have been getting angry and protesting for hundreds of years, none of it changed anything, indeed often it made things much worse'.

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agreed to a point... though getting passionate and angry is ok so long as that passion and anger is informed and thus focussed on the forces most responsible for the corruption that causes the world to be so unfair... yes i'll answer again with another TJ quote (gotta love em!)

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and opressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
— Thomas Jefferson

Tyler Durden said:

So in essence, there really is no incentive to help the company save money. I'm sure that's basic ABC for the corporate go-ers around here.

...

Then there is my experience with Cityrail...

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Rule number 1 - don't save the company money unless you are gaining something out of it (recognition, status, promotion, pay etc). Sad but true at least in many (most?) large companies (same in the public service too).

As for Cityrail in Sydney, let's just say I've only ever used their services as a visitor (since I've never lived in Sydney) but they need a very firm kick you know where. If someone has purchased what was sold as the correct ticket and still can't get out of the station, and there is literally nobody around to ask for help, then that's just not good enough. I and several others ended up climbing over the gates just to get out of the train station late at night after a return trip we thought we had correctly paid for earlier in the day. It's not as though we didn't clearly state that we weren't from NSW, didn't know what ticket we needed, and just wanted to go from A to B and back to A at the end of the day. It ain't rocket science to sell someone the correct train ticket...

One other thing, and hopefully this is of interest:

Control freaks can't trade! Why? Because they try to impose the same tactics on the market that they use in life, relationships and business. What happens when you try to impose control on the uncontrollable beast that is the ASX? Problems, that's what! You lose.

And in that sense, trading can be a great teacher. I'd go so far as to say that if you're losing money trading, then you're full of tension and fear. Not a nice state.

nunthewiser said:

you might want to scrub that one m8

he got more skeletons than karrakata.

all comes out in the wash given time and money tho.

blessim and his shadows

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Wittenoom........................