Quote of the day

I suppose you could argue that labor has to be preceded by ideas. Moving a pile of rocks to another pile is labor but creates no capital. There must be superior ideas to direct the labor.

-- "The way to make a small fortune in woodworking- start with a large one"

Sounds suspiciously anti-capitalist and quite socialist.

:P

”Capital is only the fruit of labor”

I think that labor is merely one way of generating capital.
There is no a fortiori way to make the case that money can arise solely from the preexisting condition of labor.

While it is fair to insist that labor be accorded a higher level of respect than it usually gets, it is the market place where any value is established.
So no matter how hard or how diligently one labors , the value one can get from that labor is dependent entirely on the choice one made about what kind of labor to undertake. Which, I should think, brings one round again to self reliance, responsibility, and personal accountability for the choices one makes.
Choose to be a ditch digger and you can expect to be paid accordingly.

Ya see the market place is ultimately entirely fair bercause it places more value on things that are harder to come by or produce. That’s why the guy who can pull your heated costly dispute out of the toilet and win a law suit or the guy who can open up your skull and remove a tumor or the guy who can captain an industry substantially more than it pays the guy who can screw a bolt on an axle or crank a handle. It’s easy to find boatloads of people who can crank handles and turn bolts, not so for other things.

-- When the moderator chooses sides, his site sucks.

There are many out there who could captain industry but their conscience gets in the way in competition with those without one ;-(( I have lost many opportunities because I will not work illegally. I have no regrets. That is the magic hand of the market in action. As Greenspan said, fraud is a market risk, regulation is unnecessary because the market will take care of it, or something to that effect. I don’t remember the exact quote.

Lincoln was probably smarter than any of us ;-))

-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence Wake Up America!! Please read; http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

digging a hole: Labor is the sweat applied and capital is the shovel. Both are important and dependent on the other. Ever try to dig a hole using just your fingernails?

-- In God We Trust

When I started business, no one wanted to lend a dime for it. I was told that banks did not want to know contractors, fishermen or restaurants existed until they had been in business for at least 5 years. I told them I wouldn’t need them in 5 years and have never used a penny of anyone’s eles’s money beyond 30 accounts. I am living prof of labor being superior to capital, but I have never had more than 5 employees paid out of my own pocket. I had them at the 1.5 year mark, but my wife and I decided our family was more important than more capital ;-))

-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence Wake Up America!! Please read; http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

”There are many out there who could captain industry but their conscience gets in the way in competition with those without one [...] illegally”

That’s an awfully broad brush to be tarring every single captain of industry with, don’t ya think?
I’ve known plenty and known ‘em personally and only one pair among the lot was what I’d call unscrupulous. It was a father and son and they were incorrigible.

Topa, sometimes your generalizations give the impression of a deeply jaded and cynical guy who believes that anybody in any kind of business enterprise is wholly evil and to be loathed and despised. That can’t be the case though. I rather suspect that you have a way of expressing yourself using absolutes & generalizations that end up sweeping whole industries and demographics of people in to the ambit of those extreme tarry brushes.

-- When the moderator chooses sides, his site sucks.

If you like that quote, then you should read Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, or even Michael Gerber’s “E Myth Revisited.” They may change your mind.

-- Willie, Washington "If You Choose Not To Decide, You Still Have Made a Choice" - Rush

CR, When ever Warren Buffet voices an opinion, I pretty much agree with him. I would not have saved Goldman Sachs, however. I suppose it is a matter of values. As the late great Paul Harvey reported about 20 yrs ago, for a Christian Nation, we are not doing very well. Only 13% live by what they claim to believe in on Sunday mornings. Most people I mention that to opine the % to be a little high and wonder where and how he got the information. He did not reveal any source.

-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence Wake Up America!! Please read; http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

pintodeluxe, Is Michael Gerber the guy that appears on PBS saying some people’s personalities do not allow them to grow a business very large because their performance standards are too high and they do not trust any employee to do the work?

-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence Wake Up America!! Please read; http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

I wish the likes of Abe Lincoln were still here to believe in labor in this country being superior to capital. If that were so, we would not have farmed out all of our manufacturing jobs for cheaper labor overseas ( capital before labor).
With the labor gone, so goes the source of our taxes and the ability to buy the extras in life that the last century middle class have enjoyed. The middle class were the backbone of this country buying the new cars, swimming pools and vacations etc. that supported the way of life we had. You will always have the very poor and the very rich, but they don’t keep the country going like the middle class DID.
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure that out!

Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration”

A. Lincoln, 1861….................Amen!

-- Jim Jakosh.....Practical Wood Products...........Learn something new every day!!

”CR, When ever Warren Buffet voices an opinion, I pretty much agree with him. ”
Then you are making a big mistake.
People like Buffet are all about making more money and having a more stable environment for them to make it in. This translates into them only caring that you and I and every other punter be paying oodles of taxes to make sure that their boats don’t rock.

They don’t give a rat’s ass about us. We are useful idiots to them.
Every single word those people utter should be examined for self serving motives.

The greatest faker is all is Soros who pretends to leftist causes but in fact has only one goal: To trash the economy by destabilizing it and then to scamper in scoop up all the value and flee with the goods leaving the poor sodding bastards he deceived holding the shit end of the stick.
He has done is so many times that he’s got it down to a recipe. Yet there are countless people who think he cares about the things they care about. He doesn’t. He cares about himself.

-- When the moderator chooses sides, his site sucks.

Warren Buffet is in the process of giving away nearly all of his fortune to five foundations, The largest beneficiary being the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the tune of $30 billion (in 2006). Obviously, profit is central to Warren Buffet’s motivation, but to equate him with the Soros’ is completely inaccurate. Is he flawed? Certainly, as we all are. But he is less flawed, by miles, than so many others who have amassed fortunes.

-- "I have found that hand tools are the best choice when I want to make mistakes at a slower rate of speed." Unknown

Idea. Investment. Facilities, Production.Marketing. Sales. Revenues, salaries, wages commissions, taxes, dividends. It’s a cycle wherein each step supports the efforts of the others. Without any of them, the cycle breaks, businesses fail, jobs are lost, tax revenues decline, social cost increase and we are all the poorer for it.

Without the idea, there will be no investors.
Without investors, there will be no manufacturing facility
Without facilities, there will be no need for a work force
Without a work force, there will be no production.
Without production, there will be no need to market
Without marketing, there will be no sales,
Without sales, there will be no revenues
Without revenues, there will be no salaries, wages,commissions, dividends or taxes.

We need all segments to thrive and to keep the cycle going.

Just my opinion.

What we need to do is to foster ideas and capital investments to bring our jobs home, and return our great nation to one that PRODUCES vs one that just provides service. Honor the working men and women as well as those who risk what they have to provide the jobs.

-- I love the smell of sawdust in the morning....

Topamax survivor- Sounds like you are the Michael Gerber of business. We called that a “Micro Manager”. No one was good enough to “do it right” except the owner. That’s why businesses never grow. They are stifled by the the owner themselves. Those people never admit it and, as a result the business suffers and never gets traction. The owner loses interest and the company ceases to exist.

-- Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.