Now I see that, at least in my case, you didn't realize the point I was trying to make at all. Perhaps the language barrier makes it a bit difficult to properly understand each other's viewpoints. In your own words "Who on Earth only uses his money to get by?" That's a good point -- there's nothing wrong to treating yourself to a bear every now and then, even if you are poor. But to compare that to a person who drops 45k a night on a bar tab, and then say that the person who bought one beer is just as wasteful as the person who spent 45k on alcohol because somewhere in the world a person could live from the price of that one beer - that is a massive leap of logic that simply doesn't follow. If that person who bought one beer is wasteful, than how wasteful is ti to buy 45k worth of beer? They are not equal.

At sporting events in Europe does beer cost 10 times more than anywhere else? It sure does here. It's a crime.

True, but America isn't exactly a democracy, it's a constitutional republic. The people themselves don't actually vote for our own laws and what not, our representatives do. So anytime you talk about imposing new government regulations, it becomes a very important question of who actually gets to make that decision -- especially since America's faith in its government is extremely low, and there is often a conflict of interest in these types of issues since so many politicians are very wealthy (surprise surprise).

"The beer never changes" no, i think it was something else?

Anyways beer is serious issue, it unites people all around world "Drink beer, not war" and such :D

But about about that giant bar tab - I think its better to compare that 45 000e to what it is worth in the same country or atleast same continent, instead of comparing it to some faraway development country.

For example, in Finland lawyers have pretty good salary - 2009 statistics say around 6700e/month before taxes (I believe this is around twice+ the whole finlands average). So if we think just monthly salary that is 12 x 6700e = 80400e a year, before taxes. The actual tax % depends on many things, but the statistics says that for 80400e/year it was +-40,8%

So after taxes your average finnish lawyer would have earned roughly 55k euros.

>>>Lawyer's 55k/net income in one year compared to single evenings 45k bar bill.

.....

I bet they had lots of fun.

I live a few yards from the worlds largest producer of salmon, how much do you want?

I could live 10 years on my current level with that amount of money. So what?

As I've said, poverty is relative. I could live on your single salary for two years. And I'm not even poor, I'm living in oridinary conditions for a Polish student. Only have less money for booze than usual student.

But if we can't compare countries why should we compare them to normal people. Those people live in different world than most of us here. The same way we live in different world compared to people in Iraq or even Poland,


And if she is wasteful she is also beneficial to the world. I have no facts about that but those kind of people like to throw money on noble causes. So I would guess she did donate 45k to help blind children.
If you consider her wasteful then you have to consider her a better person than any of us. I've donated 2k tops to charity in my life. Sans by your guys reasoning she is better than me.

So what ? So, some people don't manage to live (litterally or figuratively, which counts too) with their amount of money. They can't because life costs too much. Life costs too much because many necessary services (health, education, water, electricity, etc) are left to be paid by them, and impoverish them as much. These services are left to be paid by them because the redistribution of wealth production has become as much of a heresy as the notion of social solidarity. The notion of social solidarity has been discared in order to allow a select few to enjoy $45000 worth of fun for one night in a bar.

Reducing the strain on paupers or on working poors would imply redistribution of the collectivity's produced wealth in order to provide basic services to all, which requires to puncture money from the obscene amount that is currently used on individual caprices instead of collective basic needs, and which would be a huge drama because some people would feel deprived by the pharaonic entertainment caprices that they feel entitled to (because their insane wealth is seen as a direct fair reward of their moral superiority). Any moderation is that direction is seen as an outrageous dictatorial intrusion.

So this.

What do you do to redistribute wealth? I will never have 45k dollars to spend on anything, but I'm not sad because of that. I don't know if I will be able to start a family with current jobs market in Poland. But I'm not mad on people who have more money than me. I'm thinking about how I'm gonna live next year, not how to take away money from rich that I would have more.

Going back to the whole beer tab, considering that a single bottle of whiskey can go up to $2000 it can certainly add up to a huge sum without even drinking that much.

I never told about my own salary did I? :)

Anyways, my intention was not as much to "bitch" about the money spent as such - but to compare it to something that is understandable.

You know, people dont understand big numbers.

Try to imagine difference of one million and one billion.

Our brains are simply not meant to understand that kind of thing very easily. Its always fun to watch for example politicans talk about big numbers: More ofthen than not they do not understand what they are talking about - numberwise.

There was one local politician who complained that in the city council or whatever you call it in english, anything that had big numbers in it was handled very fast, but often much more smaller expenses took hours up hours of time. The first one people couldnt really compare to anything in their minds - the latter ones they could compare to their own salary forexample:

>> 10 000e "so much for so and so work" vs 10 millions for some roadwork "no complaints, because simply dont understand the scope of money nor work".

Also in this sense, maybe those 45k bar bills arent so incredible, because these people have millions and millions of money - so what of some 45k? Drop in the sea.

One thing I've heard people talk about is salary caps. Having a maximum amount of money that a CEO of a company can make for example. Either a fixed salary, or a salary based on a percentage over what the lowest paid employee of that company makes.

I don't think it's a terrible idea, but it may not actually help anything. And I'm not really for it either, because I'm not sure I want to start going down that road towards socialism. And I really don't think regulation is the answer. Ultimately, people have to change, and I really don't think anything will ever change until we as a species find a new driving force in life other than the accumulation of wealth or material possessions. No idea how to go about changing that, though.

Generally voting against the privatisation of basic social services, against tax cuts for the richest fringe of the population and increased costs for the poorer, this is generally enough. No need for spectacular heroism, just steering society as a whole towards a certain idea of what fairness would be, or away from a certain idea of unfairness. It's pretty basic, and nothing else is required. We have the institutions that should do it, it's a matter of playing along (not parasiting them, either by maximising tax evasion or by leeching unrequired social help).

Then, general everyday attitude, encouragement of certain mindsets, and support of people whose activities are more directly related to these matters.

It's not even stuff that require thinking about it, really.

Oh, this is fairly simple :D Because countries nowadays never give back money they borrowed :D UK can spend 80 billion pounds a year more than they have, because they know they will not give that back ;P At least not entirely :P And it's always easy to spend the money that isn't even yours :D

But it's not only politicians, companies and oridinary people too. My friends worked for a big corporation, and although they were spending gazillions of dollars a month, he always had to argue about a few dollars more for his extra hours.

And oridinary people also bitch about politicians earning too much, even though their salaries is a fraction of amount this country spends on other bullshit...

Good for you :P If I have any amount of wealth to share with others, I will :P Now, I need to think how I'm gonna survive after university :-(