Is the Have/Have Not Gap Going Beyond Just Income?

[blue2blue]

Question: How were you dressed? The reason I ask is because I have two fascinating stories to share about treatment.... Several years ago, a friend of mine was getting married in Europe and he wanted me to play for his wedding. Basically, all expenses were paid for, I just had to show up at the airport so I did... off to JFK I go and before I know it, I`m sitting in business class on British Airways. Fast forward.... the wedding comes and goes and three days later I`m at Heathrow getting ready to board with my business class ticket. Instead, I ended up waiting a little longer with forum moderators... On the way back home I sat in coach. Several days later, my friend calls me up and tells me the reason I was put in coach was because I was wearing jeans. I had a button down shirt on but no go with the British! Bastards.... sorry Salty. Fast forward... several years ago I went on this kick where I decided to dress in suits with ties. Normally I can wear whatever I want when I work but I just wanted to try this... so I go into this shop where I usually shop and the owner walks over to me, asks me if I need assistance, I tell him yes and before you know it I`m sitting in his office drinking a fresh cup of coffee! and he is personally assisting me. Now, I had been to this shop several times before and I never received this treatment. I went in there one time after this dressed in jeans with a sweatshirt, guess what? The owner ignored me. Moral of story: wear suit and tie more often. Polish those shoes too. I think people view us according to the way we`re dressed more than anything else. Obviously when we open our mouths, thats another indication as to how we are treated but for the most part, it the visual that leads to first impressions and therefore how we are treated. I understand your experience at the airport and its true, certain places have lines for the "beautiful people" but if you want to be treated better in general, dress better.

A lot has to do with how you carry yourself, as well (I don't mean posture, per se) -- at least here in Southern California. Maybe it's because a lot of rich people dress down, but forthright self-confidence seems to carry a lot of weight at times. Of course, that's if you're dressed down. If you walk in to someplace in your Men's Warehouse rack suit, the jig is up.

[Jeff Leites]

The phrase, "It's not the instrument, it's the musician: comes to mind.

 

You could give me the best custom made Fender gear, and put me in the best commercial recording studio, and I'd still be a "bedroom" player. Hendrix would still be a legend if he used a Starcaster setup from CostCo.

[UstadKhanAli]

I was in the airport the other day, and when boarding a flight, there was the special fast boarding lane for beautiful people, and the commoner lane for forum moderators. Now, I understand loyalty programs and such, but it seems this is becoming a more and more common theme - a division of people based into the haves and have nots in all aspects of society.

 

[Anderton]

 

Question: How were you dressed?

 

 

It had nothing to do with how I was dressed, it depended on mileage. As I said, I understand rewards for loyal customers. Fine. But there was a time when if you bought a plane ticket, there was first class and economy. The first class people got to board first, then economy. Fine. Those in first or economy sat in the same seats, had the same legroom, and received the same treatment accorded to others in their respective classes.

 

But now, there are divisions in the economy class. You have to pay more if you want a couple more inches of legroom. You can pay to get to put your stuff in the overhead compartment before others...that sort of thing.

 

The idea of egalitarianism is going down the tubes. Of course, I'm smart enough to realize that there are inequalities, and there are people who work harder and get richer, etc. But at least the fiction in this country was that all men are created equal, and that if you worked hard and were a decent person, you didn't have to be consigned to a "class." This country is now creating classes, which don't just pit haves against have-nots but also have-nots against other have-nots, and I don't like it.

[Anderton]

 

How's that cold? Hope it's better, cause if it's cleared up, you might want to revisit this since it's never been easier or cheaper for any clod like myself to buy a computer and produce music!

 

 

That is true. But re-visit this when you find you have a buy a new computer and operating system next year because what you have is "obsolete" and you can't run the programs that are coming out. There are virtual instrument programs that are basically worthless unless you have a 64-bit system and 6-8GB of RAM. Of course, it's great there are professional tools for professional people to whom this is their lives, not their hobbies. But, contrast this with VIs that include "eco" versions of their instruments (e.g., maybe ones that don't use as many velocity layers) that can run on lesser systems, so everyone's accommdated.

[Anderton]

 

Men have a choice to be moral and fair or evil and greedy. Those who are moral and fair will be revered by others. Those who are evil and greedy will go out like a Gadaffi.

 

 

I wish that was true. Instead, those who are evil and greedy can afford to buy Congress ("lobby" is the politically correct term for "bribe"), get special dispensations and laws weighted in their favor...Timothy Geitner didn't pay his taxes. What would happen to you if you didn't pay your taxes? What would happen to you if you blatantly and knowingly defrauded people?

 

You had investment companies misrepresenting financial assets as pure gold when the companies themselves knew they were crap. People trusted these companies, and now their pensions are gone. Their 401K's are gone.

 

Okay, luck of the draw, sometimes you get scammed. But the scammers aren't in jail. Measures have not been put into place to limit their abilities to do the same thing in the future. If you defrauded as many people as they did in the process of doing interstate commerce, you'd be in the slammer.

 

We all know life isn't fair. But there are different kinds of fairness. Maybe you were born with cerebral palsy, or got hit by a truck. Sh*t happens. But when the sh*t is premeditated and fraudulent, there is [supposedly] a justice system to take care of those kinds of fairness issues.

 

Remember the banks said they were going to use the bailouts to help out with mortgages and loosen credit. That was a lie. They used it to buy up assets, continue giving big bonuses to the incompetent, and hoard piles of cash. That's not about fairness. That's about fraud.

 

The government put in several regulations designed to remedy the problems that were exposed during the depression etc. Over the years, those have been systematically dismantled by Democrats and Republicans alike, at the behest of giant multinational corporations.

 

The question isn't so much "is that fair?," but "is our justice system working?" When justice doesn't work, it's the lower classes that become lower...in what, in theory, was intended to be a classless society. You will always have rich and poor, but they don't need to be part of separate social classes, merely financial classes. Of course that's an ideal that is difficult, and probably impossible, to attain, but I always thought the point of the US was to strive for the ideal.

[gubu]

Now yer talkin'!

[A. Einstein]

I wish that was true. Instead, those who are evil and greedy can afford to buy Congress ("lobby" is the politically correct term for "bribe"), get special dispensations and laws weighted in their favor...

 

 

Craig, if you don't shut up, I buy your forum and close it.

 

 

 

[Raymar]

 

Lemmy's Motorhead "Eat The Rich"?

 

 

I was thinking Krokus

 

[video=youtube;fVSsVPqvWJE]

[UstadKhanAli]

Craig, if you don't shut up, I buy your forum and close it.

 

Only if your mother lets you out of the basement and give you a truckload of money, Rudangeleinstein.

[Anderton]

I have a better analogy for the "life isn't fair, stop complaining" position.

 

Suppose Team A is playing Team B for the Superbowl. Team A is ahead, and it looks like they're going to win. Then their star quarterback is injured, can't return to the game, and Team A loses. Okay, life isn't fair, and sh*t happens.

 

Now suppose the same scenario, but this time, a gambler who bet a million dollars on Team B pays Team A's quarterback to throw the game. The quarterback dutifully fumbles the ball, and Team B wins.

 

That's not a case of "life isn't fair." That's a case of rigging the game.

 

Over the past 30 years or so, the income of the top 1% has increased by 275% according to the Congressional Budget Office and IRS, and their share of the overall wealth has gone from 8% to 17%. This isn't because they became 275% smarter or worked 275% harder, but because they were able to get their "public servants" to manipulate the tax code in their favor to gain far greater wealth. The same changes did NOT benefit people in lower income brackets.

 

Essentially, the game has been rigged to benefit those who control Congress. Speaking of which - as Herman Cain would say, "I don't have the facts to back me up," but I recall reading an analysis that the best possible investment anyone can make is in a Congressman, as you get a 22,000% rate of return on campaign contributions due to the financial benefits you accrue from changes in the law that work in your favor.

 

I obviously believe in hard work. And I don't have a problem with that. But I do have a problem where there's one set of rules for those who can afford to manipulate Congress, and another set of rules for everyone else. Sure, it's an old cliche that defines the "Golden Rule" as "those that have the gold make the rules." But for a while in our history, there was a concerted attempt to create a society with liberty and justice for all. There was never a guarantee you would succeed, but there was an attempt to at least create a level playing field. That no longer exists.

 

But to return to the point of this thread, my original premise was that the "unlevel playing field" mentality is popping up in more and more places. When that happens, when a trend becomes planted in society at large as "that's just the way it is," it's seldom reversible.

[UstadKhanAli]

That's a good analogy, I think.

[Anderton]

That's a good analogy, I think.

 

Me too

 

What's amazing to me is that so few people realize we're going through life playing a game where the dice are loaded. Do people not realize the dice are loaded, are they too dumb to realize they're loaded, or do they just accept they're playing with cheaters because "life isn't fair"? I dunno.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

What's amazing to me is that so few people realize we're going through life playing a game where the dice are loaded. Do people not realize the dice are loaded, are they too dumb to realize they're loaded, or do they just accept they're playing with cheaters because "life isn't fair"? I dunno.

 

 

All of the above?

 

Also, much of it is that people don't know the extent of the deceit.* And I also feel that many have a sense of futility, that they know that rich people, government people, and many others don't play by the same rules but they feel powerless to do anything about it. This is why in part so many people don't participate in governmental decisions, voting, or anything else.

 

 

* I would include myself in on this group to a large extent. I don't feel I'm privvy to what goes on in my government. Sure, I read newspapers and am aware of what's going on and am intelligent, but I don't have any "inside" information with respect to how Wall Street bankers or government officials conduct their business. But what little I know about the process does lead me to conclude that the dice are loaded.

[blue2blue]

 

Back in 1978, that phrase popped into my head when I was considering names for a book of 'punk' poetry I was planning on putting out. I created various promo tools for it -- including a series of hand-stamped badges that I handed out and occasionally wore in that very brief window when badges (lapel buttons) were passably hip but the collection was never finalized and the book never published, unfortunately.

 

I'd never come across the phrase before -- and I can't find that it predates that time, although, of course, the sentiment must surely have popped up before. Wikipedia includes a number of references on its disambiguation page for the phrase, but the earliest is the song on the 1983 Krokus album.

[blue2blue]

 

I have a better analogy for the "life isn't fair, stop complaining" position. Suppose Team A is playing Team B for the Superbowl. Team A is ahead, and it looks like they're going to win. Then their star quarterback is injured, can't return to the game, and Team A loses. Okay, life isn't fair, and sh*t happens. Now suppose the same scenario, but this time, a gambler who bet a million dollars on Team B pays Team A's quarterback to throw the game. The quarterback dutifully fumbles the ball, and Team B wins. That's not a case of "life isn't fair." That's a case of rigging the game. Over the past 30 years or so, the income of the top 1% has increased by 275% according to the Congressional Budget Office and IRS, and their share of the overall wealth has gone from 8% to 17%. This isn't because they became 275% smarter or worked 275% harder, but because they were able to get their "public servants" to manipulate the tax code in their favor to gain far greater wealth. The same changes did NOT benefit people in lower income brackets. Essentially, the game has been rigged to benefit those who control Congress. Speaking of which - as Herman Cain would say, "I don't have the facts to back me up," but I recall reading an analysis that the best possible investment anyone can make is in a Congressman, as you get a 22,000% rate of return on campaign contributions due to the financial benefits you accrue from changes in the law that work in your favor. I obviously believe in hard work. And I don't have a problem with that. But I do have a problem where there's one set of rules for those who can afford to manipulate Congress, and another set of rules for everyone else. Sure, it's an old cliche that defines the "Golden Rule" as "those that have the gold make the rules." But for a while in our history, there was a concerted attempt to create a society with liberty and justice for all. There was never a guarantee you would succeed, but there was an attempt to at least create a level playing field. That no longer exists. But to return to the point of this thread, my original premise was that the "unlevel playing field" mentality is popping up in more and more places. When that happens, when a trend becomes planted in society at large as "that's just the way it is," it's seldom reversible.

My sentiment, precisely.

 

All most Americans want, I think -- today, just like 100 years ago when Teddy Roosevelt adopted the phrase for his quixotic 1912 presidential campaign* -- is a square deal.

 

 

*He beat GOP incumbent William Howard Taft, his former Secretary of War who had become president with TR's endorsement but whom TR eventually felt had completely betrayed the Republican progressive movement, provoking Teddy to create the (Bull Moose) Progressive Party, but lost to Woodrow Wilson.

[yump]

 

My view is, whats the sence in busting your ass for cash if you cant enjoy spending it in any way you choose. If paying to stand in an express line trips your trigger, go for it. If spending money on the latest gear trips your trigger, go for it All this class warfare crap is wasted energy. Focus it on getting what you want instead crying to momma about how unfair the world is. Jeez, What a bunch of woosies people have become. Guess you really do have to hit bottom before you appreciate what you got. There have been have and have nots since man first walked the earth. Its always been and will always be Survival of the fittest. The strongest man in a tribe got the best women and food. Along with that he has to constantly watch he back so others wouldnt steal from him. That makes his life bright to others but they dont see how that paranoia eats away at him. Men have a choice to be moral and fair or evil and greedy. Those who are moral and fair will be revered by others. Those who are evil and greedy will go out like a Gadaffi. It may not be an entire country going after him, He may only wind up dieing like a scrooge, friendless and miserable. The difference here is how much we as an individual are willing to let the moral decay get into our souls and spread to others like a cancer. So my thing is, Let those who got it spend it. Let them have a blast man. I have no problem being a heelock and snagging some of that cash when it comes my way. You cant pry it out of their wallets, you have to coax it out like any good salesman does.

 

 

yeah! i got no problem with that.

 

the other way it will go is that we all end up stupid and broke except the ones that dole it all out, for our own good and fairness, of course!

 

yes, really want that BS. NOT!

 

i don't think robert johnson had what the least of us today had.

 

time will tell, i suppose if whatever you do lasts.

[rasputin1963]

As a society pianist, I infiltrated the homes of the very rich on three continents. What I often noticed is how tired and predictable and square and obvious are the record collections of the very rich. (i could name the artists that re-cur in the record collections of the rich, but it would sound like a "diss" if I did.) With the rich, it's rarely "about" the music, as such; rather, there is usually some visual "stance" or "look" or "pose" that has turned them on about the artist. The rich constantly need to be flattered by their artists. You can BET, with the rich, that they did not buy a CD exclusively of their own volition--- no, it was almost certainly recommended to them by some "other" party or entity, someone who imagines herself hip to the tastes of their particular "crowd" or "circle".

 

It has been my perception that popular music is a "trickle up" phenomenon, rather than a "trickle down". In other words, new trends in pop music (and art and fashion and sex and drugs) get their start at society's grassroots levels: in slums, ghettos, barrios, streets, jailhouses, schoolyards.... then percolate upwards (eventually) to the very rich.

 

It might seem like a truism that the world's rich are the tastemakers, the taste arbiters of society... but when it comes to pop music, they are definitely the followers.

 

Take from that whatever message you wish.

[WRGKMC]

 

a justice system to take care of those kinds of fairness issues. Remember the banks said they were going to use the bailouts to help out with mortgages and loosen credit. That was a lie. They used it to buy up assets, continue giving big bonuses to the incompetent, and hoard piles of cash. That's not about fairness. That's about fraud. The government put in several regulations designed to remedy the problems that were exposed during the depression etc. Over the years, those have been systematically dismantled by Democrats and Republicans alike, at the behest of giant multinational corporations. The question isn't so much "is that fair?," but "is our justice system working?" When justice doesn't work, it's the lower classes that become lower...in what, in theory, was intended to be a classless society. You will always have rich and poor, but they don't need to be part of separate social classes, merely financial classes. Of course that's an ideal that is difficult, and probably impossible, to attain, but I always thought the point of the US was to strive for the ideal.

 

 

There are more regulations and laws on the books than there have ever been in history to curb immoral behavior.

Its not that we need more laws and regulations, we need the ones that are there arent being inforced.

The more complex they get, the more loopholes there are, so if anything, simplifying things down so you dont

need corporate lawyers to prosicute someone on minute details would be my answer. Make the laws black and

white and they would have more convictions instead of minor infractions based on small technical details.

We have lawyers who are the foxes in charge of the chicken coops who arent doing their jobs policeing the various industries

because the laws regulating those industries are so complex. I'm for making them simple. You steal, you pay the price and go to jail

and have what you stole given back to those you stole from. Get rid of all the gray and a jury will have a clear choice between wrong and right.

 

As far as tax cheats, theres probibly more people working in cash only under the table than there ever has been.

They do it because the government takes more than they can survive on and are forced (according to them) to go underground to survive.

Because of the legal costs involved in comparison to the crime, and the complete moral apothy of those they know because of this class

warfare attitude, they arent exposed for what they are and get away with not paying their fair share. The same kind of people will likely

stay on unemployment, welfare, or food stamps because they can get away with ripping off the tax payers year after year with no

repercussions except their own concious.

 

Men are born equal, but thay are also given free will.

Those that use that free will in a positive way are a benifit to society and should be able to sleep well at night knowing they have

given back to society through their good works.

 

Those who use that free will and take more from society then they give back are the ones who suffer from a guilty concious.

And they are usually the ones who do the most complaining they want more because, what they do get wont cure that concious

nor hide their imoral concious from those who do give more back to society.

 

This is unlike those who cannot survive without charity due to physical or mental problems.

Those individuals (usually) know they receive charity and are grateful for it. The givers are satisfied with

the act of charity and know they are helping those individuals.

 

The takers try to hide their imorality by playing a victum.

Its like playing dead because they are cowards.

Its hard for a fat man to hide behind a skinny tree though

and it pisses them off even more when their lies arent believed by those

who have a good moral sight. They stand out like a sore thumb amidst those

who truely need help and they know it and feel guilty.

 

Problem is their shame doesnt set them on a good moral path again, instead they

turn to hate, and want to destroy those who have good moral sight to see them for what they are.

They are so used to lyeing, they cant tell when someone is trying to help them get to solid moral

ground. And if they do get there they still need to learn tolerance for all the others thay see as

being imoral when they do get their eyes on right. Its like someone who used to smoke, they tend to

go too far the other way.

 

 

My father used to quite,

Right is Right, and Wrong is No Mans Right.

 

I'd add those who think Gray is acceptable will be viewed as immoral to the moral

and moral to the immoral so, those who cant decide on where thay stand, will get it from both sides due to their

inability to listen to their own concious and get right with themselves whatever that may be.

 

I'm not trying to be a Holey joe here either.

 

I think as people mature, they either learn to navigate through life with some kind of moral compass or they dont.

Those who dont drift around are a danger to others who have to navigate the same moral waters to their destinations.

Then when they wind up ship wrecked they have to be evaluated by those who use the waters.

 

If they wreak due to inexperience and youth thats one thing, If they were reckless and could care less about others, thats another.

My beef is, If they want to steal someone elses ship so they can drift around and party some more, Fluck um.

Its better to keep stupid people grounded where they wont hurt the inocent.

If they then learn to appreciate the value of using their moral compass to get to better places in life

instead of being a danger to navigation, they need to earn back the trust of others they endangerd.

 

They must realize morals are something passed down through generations because they work well for all.

If individuals have a will to improve things, let them put those ideas out where they can be judged by society and

adopted if they are "doable".

[philbo]

 

I was in the airport the other day, and when boarding a flight, there was the special fast boarding lane for beautiful people, and the commoner lane for forum moderators. Now, I understand loyalty programs and such, but it seems this is becoming a more and more common theme - a division of people based into the haves and have nots in all aspects of society. Which of course got me thinking about our world of music. A lot of newer programs demand that you use a particular OS, have a particularly fast CPU, and have more and more RAM. Of course I understand the advantages of having a rockin' system, but I'm concerned this will start creating a have/have not division among musicians that goes beyond simply "well, I'm not feeling flush right now, so I'll pass on an update to my current DAW" to where an increasingly limited number of people will be able to take advantage of the latest tools. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but it seems the societal dichotomy between the upper and lower classes is extending far beyond what house or car you own, or your income level, to more and more aspects of life itself - including doing computer-based music. Or maybe I'm just going crazy because I have this really, really bad cold right now...

 

 

This is not a new development. It is just a tendril of the royalty culture we inherited from Europe. There will always be people who need to feel they are special due to their narcissistic neuroses of various sorts.

 

I don't see it really extending into DAWs - - If somebody can't make awesome music using the DAW technology even 10 years old, they simply don't have it in them to make awesome music.

[blue2blue]

Speaking of regulations...

 

A lot of people are making a lot of noise about the "flood" of regulations put in place during the current administration's 33 months in office.

 

Well, here's a fact: the Obama administration has put in place 4.7% less regulations that George W. Bush did in his first 33 months in office. And the regulations put in place by Obama will cost businesses less than the number of regulations put in place by business-friendly George H.W. Bush; that amount is estimated by Business Week to be less than .03% (3/100ths of one percent) of the total economy.

 

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-26/obama-wrote-5-fewer-rules-than-bush-while-costing-business.html

 

 

And speaking of the so-called mainstream media...

 

There is a concerted effort in certain elements of the media to distort the record and policy impact of the current administration. But even beyond that, across the media, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has found that while Obama got more favorable press treatment during the 2008 election than other candidates, that negative coverage of Obama runs about 4-to-1 compared to the Republicans running against him.

 

Except for Newt Gingrich, whose negative coverage edged Obama's by 1 percent, the other major GOP candidates got at least twice as much positive coverage as Obama.

 

And Michelle Bachmann? She got three times as much favorable press across the media as Obama.

 

 

Every Republican candidate still in the race except Newt Gingrich had favorable coverage at least double that of President Obama. In the cases of Michele Bachman and Herman Cain, it was triple the positive coverage of Obama and nearly triple for Republican front-runner Mitt Romney

http://www.stlamerican.com/news/columnists/article_3f6a8a4e-ff4b-11e0-904e-001cc4c002e0.html

[A. Einstein]

 

Is the Have/Have Not Gap Going Beyond Just Income?.

 

 

 

in the USA it has certainly nothing to do with education, or lack of education

[BushmasterM4]

You guys have too much time on your hands Go forth and make some music !!!!

[Huh?]

I just don't get how you guys tolerate Von Trollstein, I really don't.

[Huh?]

Hey Bushmaster M4, you have a Bushy?