Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (320558)	1/15/2007 7:56:52 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574375

A problem with the selected text not being in my copy and paste buffer. Democracy is much more than just voting. A 'democracy' where you have no control over your life but you get to vote is not a democracy.....again, its what existed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Democracy is more than just the act of voting its real elections that actually mean something and can change the government. When you have elections but there is only one candidate, or when there is only one candidate that is allowed to win you don't have democracy. Iraq may have run elections under Saddam, but that doesn't make it a democracy. But when you have free and fair elections, and those free and fair elections produce a government that controls almost everything, that doesn't mean you don't have a democracy. True such a government probably would cancel or subvert future elections, but assuming they don't and that they face the possibility of being thrown out of office through elections, then you would have a totalitarian democracy. Imagine a perfectly free and fair election, but where the electorate is a bunch of stalinists or radical jihadists. Such an electorate could in theory have a democracy, but the democracy wouldn't be very likely to result in a free nation. If competing franchises were encouraged, it would cause players' salaries to drop as well. Independent minor league teams exist. New major leagues could happen in theory, there isnt' a law against them, and from time to time (esp. in football) attempts have been made to start competing leagues. And while we are on the subject, supply/demand is one of the absolute negative features of capitalism. Supply/demand is a depiction of reality. Even in a "social democrat / mixed economy" it has an effect. Even in fully socialist states it has an effect even if it is a heavily distorted one. It isn't an invention by Adam Smith, or some other economist or philosopher, it just how human nature deals with the fact that supply for goods and services is finite. There is absolutely no justifiable reason why Beckham should get a quarter of a billion dollars for signing with LA Galaxy His actual contract is more like $50mil. The rest is sponsorship deals. There is a very good reason for the $50mil, the hope to increase the visibility of the sport in the US and make his owner, and indirectly other owners, a lot more than $50mil. As for the sponsorship deals they also have a decent possibility of having a positive real return (and if they don't they would be like building a new factory just before demand for your product dries up, in other words it would be a stupid investment, not an injustice). nor Tom Cruise $20 million for a film nor some upper mgmt smuck in Goldman Sachs a $30 million annual bonus.......not when the president of the US makes less than $200K. You think the president is doing a lousy job. Why do you want to give him a raise? <g> More seriously the president 1 - Gets his money from taxpayers directly. 2 - Gets a lot more than $200k. He gets $400k salary, plus the use of the White House, Air force one, servants/staff, health care, security, and all sorts of perks, as well as a generous retirement package (pension, security, benefits, and other payments and services to Clinton are over a million a year) en.wikipedia.org 3 - Gets compensated with power. Any serious presidential candidate could likely make more money (at least if your just considering the salary, and perhaps even if you consider the total value mentioned above) elsewhere but the other positions would have the same power and prestige. Tom Cruise can probably still make a lot of money for a film studio, as can a top man at a trading firm. That's why they get a lot of money. If you could bring $100mil worth of business to a film studio or a billion to a wall street firm, would you not accept a multi-million salary? The ability to bring that much money to a company is an asset to the company which they should expect to pay a lot for. Sure sometimes the company guesses wrong and pays for poor performance (or gives a star a lot of money and then gets a flop) but bad investments are hardly limited to investments in top personnel.