People Getting Dumber? Human Intelligence Has Declined Since Victorian Era, Research Suggests

You mostly have no argument from me, excepting the diference of opinion in whether business exists to provide social "goods." I more thn agree with the lack of transparency and manipulation of the system to allow actual and quasi-monopolies, "rigging" of preferences, incentives, even actual grants and giveaways to business (and recently to nonprofits that are in reality businesses). I too, hate the loophlole that allows business to get credit for profits earned and taxes paid in overseas operations, but which allows unlimited deferral and accumulation of those profits in other countries, rather than some kind of minimum return of profits to U.S. parent companies. I understand the theory, that those profits may be needed for expansion, acquisitions, and other corporate expense, but the reality and experiental history indicates a gaming of the system. Much of today's tax code has been developed to provide government (or business) designed incentives to support or protect business. Just take THE CASE OF DICTATED ETHANOL USAGE IN MOTOR FUELS IN WHICH UP TO 40% OF THE U.S. CORN CROP GOES TO ETHANOL PRODUCTION, WHILE ETHANOL IMPORTS ARE RESTRICTED TO "PROTECT" ARCHER-DANIELS-MIDLAND, PRIMARILY (WHO WAS THE INSTIGATOR OF THE ETHANOL IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE)! You might ask yourself this: Who benefits from the increasing numbers of poor and minority populations-just follow the money. Right! Government and mostly nonprofits benefit from inducing and supporting these populations.
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U.S. Workers Trail Rest Of Developed Countries In Vacation Time: Report

I won't apologize for being a capitalist supporter of free markets and enterprise. In fact, using your (specious) logic, we should-the professional and achieving classes- by paying higher taxes (already the highest in developed world, except Sweden) and giving away profits to charity. Your obvious choice is Communism, and mine is not. We see how Communism and Progressive Socialism have workeed around the world, and somehow capitalistic free markets work better, provide more employment, and higher standards of living. We can agree that elements of Socialism have dragged down the American and other economies so that class distinctions-caused by these very elements-present a less than desireable societal situation. WE ALREAY HAVE A SOCIETY WHEREIN 50% OF THE MEMBERS PAY NO TAXES. WHAT PERCENTAGE WOULD SUIT YOU SO THAT SOCIETY PROVIDES WEALTH TO EVERYONE REGARDLESS OF ABILITY OR NEED? 80%, 90% 100%? iF YOU KILL A FREE ENTERPRISE SOCIETY WITH CLASS EQUALITY, ALL WORKING CLASSES EVENTUALLY SUFFER-SEE USSR 1920'S-1990'S

i WOULD ALSO STIPULATE THAT WE CURRENTLY DOING A LOUSY JOB OF ECONOMIC TRANSPARENCY, AND THAT TOO MANY QUASI-MONOPOLY BUSINESS ENTERPRISES EXIST, TO THE DETRIMENT OF COMPETITIVE PRICES AND MORE CONSUMER CHOICE, BOTH INDIVIDUALLY AND AS SMALL BUSINESSES (SOME 25 MILLION IN U.S.).
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U.S. Workers Trail Rest Of Developed Countries In Vacation Time: Report

Let's redefine greed to "seeking highest return on invested capital to better my company and society."

Seeking profit through good management practice is not venal, not greed. There ARE greedy people; I have no love for them or their practices (like the quasi-monopoly enjoyed by cable and telco over infrastructure used for entertainment, the Internet and communications), but I repect and appreciate the need for business to return profit to investors, otherwise what's the point of investing?
About vacation
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U.S. Workers Trail Rest Of Developed Countries In Vacation Time: Report

There will always be a labor class, an underclzass if you will. We can't or won't all be business owners or professionals. To somehow postulate that it the "duty" of a free enterprise society-the basis on which our country was founded-to become socialistic is to offer the ridiculous as a solution. Better torecognize the reality of a free marketplace and work to build more, not less, entrepreneurial spirit through education and workplace-education partnerships that develops higher-paid skillsets for a modern marketplace, rewarding those who make the effort. In the Met Life commercial Lucy insists that "it should be five cents" when that flies in the face of the reality of providing an insurance benefit at a competitive price.

"Personal decisions, personal consequences; individual opportunity, individual achievement."
About vacation
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U.S. Workers Trail Rest Of Developed Countries In Vacation Time: Report

Benefits like paid vacation, health insurance and other benefits are derived from business needs for an effective workforce, obtained by providing a competitive pay and benefits package. Therer has always been a "tradeoff betweem government and nonprofits and their benefits programs being part of their package, and private employers, who measure such things by their ability to make enterprise more effective, competitive, and profitable. Given the fact that charitable, religious and other nonprofit "industries" now equal 16%+ of GNP (over 20% with imputed wages paid to volunteer staff), and with the constant upwards pressure on entitlement programs from progressive solicalist governments, we are continuing the slide towards a much more solialistic form of society. Not good. Social benefits, like morality, may indeed be "legislated" but the practice only hurts our ability to provide overall. Robbing Peter to pay Paul may be a time-worn tradition, but it somehow keeps resurfacing.
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'Jesus Discovery': Jerusalem Archaeology Reveals Birth Of Christianity

Since I am not a religious person, itmes like this mean little to me, EXCEPT as a person interested in history, including the history of religions. This discovery and others, like the Dead scrolls, offer insight into the development and evolution of religious history. Religion with all it's cultures, myths, traditions and exhortations, has killed more people than all the wars since the beginning of recorded history. Not much to place your "faith" in, is it?
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People Getting Dumber? Human Intelligence Has Declined Since Victorian Era, Research Suggests

Agree with both your premises.

It is the constant increase in those whose existence depends on entitlement programs, and whole social systems designed to get people into them, from unwarranted disability program certification, to CHIP, to SNAP, and literally nhundreds of ther programs. Solutions in a well-ordered society for those who fall on inadvertent circumstance. But, not for those who are inculcated by pastors, priests, political and community leaders and aberrant cultural brainwashing to accept that reliance on others and taking resources from "the man" without any or little effort to contribute or become self-sufficient, are OK. As long as we provide sub rosa approval through subterfuge and fail to incent better/changed behavior, we will continue to face ever-growing demands on decreasing resources. A one generation maintenance of status quo, including a "hold" on new births to poor and/or unmarried poor, would provide more resources to effect change and improve standards for those who require assistance, and lead to rapid realization of a better future.
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People Getting Dumber? Human Intelligence Has Declined Since Victorian Era, Research Suggests

The pressures of advancing species survival knowledge accumulation through "experimentation' on evolution are the primary force in advancing intellect/I.Q. By making it easier for weaker individuals to survive, government provides the path for intellectual dumbing down, since species competition for food, shelter and propagation are minimized by the government supplying needs that would have to be "earned" otherwise. At the same time, the total population of those with higher-level I.Q.'s is growing. In a knowledge-based society, the CQ (Curiosity Quotient) drives the I.Q., and survival instincts are transmuted into a form of knowledge acquisition, with those most successful in this arena making the most progress in succeeding.

Education, with all it's travails, may be, must be, the answer, but will not achieve success for most without recognition that "class distinction" will always be a part of the societal ecology, and refusing to plan for differences in ability, and workplace needs, while depending on government to constantly add increasing resources to support and even encourage population "production" is the wrong answer.
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