Question about what Obama just said.

[Final-Fan]

jv103 said:

mrstickball said:

jv103 said:

mrstickball said:
Try going to college for 8 years, then working 16hrs a day on double shifts, then watching someone that does no work get paid close to what you do. You'll start to see things differently.

For an entire year, I woke up at 4am every weekday, worked 60hrs a week, and made $8.00hr + overtime. No benefits. It's called unskilled labor. You see, in an economy, some people do things that are more valuable than others. They have the ability to do, say, and understand things better than others. Because of this, they may be entitled to earn compensation that exeedes those that work the same number of hours, but did not put any time into education, to do a good job.

Italicized part: Really? Stock Brokers do something more valuable than, dentists, doctors, farmers or even contractors/builders?

Bold: This type of rationalization typically comes when we try to explain inequity and chance. In reality differences are probably marginal, and most of what we deem success is not on individual ability but rather fortune/chance. Of course if you believe that their is some sort of supreme order or logic to the world, then of course that would entail chaos and would be very frightening.

Stock brokers help allocate investor funding in projects that can be critical for the development of a nation. Dentists, builders, doctors and farmers may rely on investments to start up their practices, as they've most likely spent their money on education, or equipment for their field. You may not agree that stock brokers need paid real well (and I can agree with you that they're overpaid), but their market dictates that they can earn a lot.

So you think that Brett Farve being a better QB than Ryan Leaf was entirely up to fortune? Chance allows Pele to be a better football player than Kyle Patterson? Yes, fortune and chance may be in the case of some, but it's certainly not in the majority. If chance and fortune dictated life, then every nation in the world would be equal in development.

On an individual level it's easy to say that x person has greater abilties than y person. My point was that on a larger scale, yes chance plays a larger role than ability. Brett Favre may be one of the greatest quarterbacks, out of people who tried out to play quarterback, who had the urge, or the encouragement to play quarterback, who happened to get accepted to a division one school which aided him in his transition into the nfl. Yes, he has the ability to play quarterback, but I think there are hundreds of people out their who could do the same, or even better.

Bold - How exactly? Wouldn't that be a case that shows chance really dictates life? Like the chance that some chauffer would do a three-point turn instead of driving straight ahead, giving a serbian nationalist the oppurtunity to shoot franz ferdinand.

I have to agree, I don't see how the bolded statement makes sense at all.  I happened to be born in the USA, Saudi Arabia happens to sit on a shitload of oil, etc. 

I think you, mrstickball, are really taking offense to the idea that a man may be buoyed up or denied opportunity due to the uncaring whimsy of pure happenstance/circumstance.  Sure, what I DO with what I have and what life throws at me is important too, but the opposite is also true.