8 ms·

Mark Cuban: The most patriotic thing you can do is "get rich"

28 points by aichcon 17y ago

nazgulnarsil 17y ago
demonizing the productive rich along with the hereditary wealth parasites is a fatal mistake for a civilization IMO.
- dschobel 17y ago
  if they pay taxes and buy goods and services, why should it matter if the wealth is self-made or inherited?
  - jsackmann 17y ago
    Most self-made rich people get there by (I'll bet you've heard this before...) making something people want. It's a rare buyer who buys something for $20 and values it at exactly $20 -- most buyers think it's worth a little more, or a lot more. That difference means that most purchases are not only beneficial to the maker/inventor (who is making money on the transaction), but also to the buyer (who believes their life will be better because of the transaction). So, if you set everything else equal (purchase of goods and services, payment of taxes, etc.) the self-made rich are doing a lot more for others than the rich-by-inheritance.
    - dschobel 17y ago
      You're telling me that the guy who founded girls gone wild (and became fabulously wealthy thereby) did more good than someone like Eunice Shriver who never held a paid job in her life? The bottom line is that it's infinitely more important what you do with your wealth than whether it was handed to you or you earned it.
      - jonallanharper 17y ago
        It's only "infinitely more important" in your false, theoretical reality. Give me a Henry Ford or a porn producer any day over Mother Teresa. It speaks volumes that you hold a person that "never held a paid job in her life" in higher esteem than an individual that actually created wealth. The guy who founded girls gone wild produced far more of what people want than your useless social engineers.
        jibiki 17y ago
        > The guy who founded girls gone wild produced far more of what people want than your useless social engineers. Pablo Escobar produced far more of what people want than our hypothetical porn producer. Feynmann produced far, far less. What exactly is your point?
        Locke1689 17y ago
        Of course, this logic could also be applied to war profiteering. The problem is that economics does not exist in an ideal world with no socio-moral ramifications.
        nazgulnarsil 17y ago
        a dollar made at the end of a gun and a dollar made because the purchase was a pareto improvement aren't the same thing. that you could equate the two means that you equate logos and pathos.
        Locke1689 17y ago
        Actually, he was making the comparison. Consider, someone who sells weapons is doing exactly what he is talking about: selling people what they want. Economically, this can generally be considered a decent position. Unfortunately, its morally a bad one. My point was that is essential to consider both. Just because someone produces a product that serves a client base and produces a profit doesn't excuse moral issues. Similarly, just because Mother Theresa was not making a profit does not mean that she did not produce a net good. The two are apples and oranges but must be used in conjunction, not exclusion.
    - jstevens85 17y ago
      That may be true, but the inherited rich are contributing to society by investing capital. The self-made rich wouldn't have made it if a venture capital firm wasn't willing to fund them in the initial stages, or the bank wasn't willing to provide a loan, or institutional investors weren't willing to buy IPO shares.
- ckinnan 17y ago
  There's a huge difference between the rich and high income earners. The rich/wealthy often favor higher taxes because their income is from tax-free bonds or from control of assets, where income is deferred and usually part of a one-time transaction, like sale of a company, where taxes can be avoided. High-income earners, on the other hand, often have negative net worth (school and housing debt). The rich want high taxes on the high-income earners because they don't want the upstarts competing with them for control of assets...they want to make it harder for the next wave of entrepreneurs to build disruptive or competitive businesses. It is ironic, but taxes on new capital formation directly benefit those who already have capital.
  - mcslee 17y ago
    This is an astute and important point. I have always found it flawed that a middle-class American family making around $100K in income will pay more taxes than someone with $10M+ portfolio of municipal bonds. With that said, I agree with Mark Cuban's philosophy here, and do not get personally upset with paying taxes. I don't think the solution is to complain about taxes on high income earners. Rather, there just needs to be more pressure on instituting equivalent taxes for other forms of wealth generation (i.e. get rid of tax-free bonds).
nuweborder 17y ago
Cuban is well known for speaking his mind, and he lived up to his reputation in this interview. Thats what we are all out here to do. And thats what this country is built on. Entrepreneurship. Creating something from nothing, and making the process better, more efficient, and productive each time. Mark Cuban said that we need to make a boatload of money, but does not say how exactly to do that. At this point, you cant go by the Mark Cuban book. Dont try to duplicate what he did. Aside from the rare occassion of the German based ebay copycats whom later became reviered VCs, The European Founders (http://www.europeanfounders.com/index.html http://www.europeanfounders.com/index.html), you have to create your own path. What do you enjoy? Where is there a void in the market? Etc. But, hopefully, you are not trying to "Get Rich Quick". Create your entrepreneurial venture off of passion and a genuine interest in what you are creating. Dont need it to blow up and produce millions over night, because you have to pay your electric bill. Thats not the way.
- timr 17y ago
  "And thats what this country is built on. Entrepreneurship. Creating something from nothing, and making the process better, more efficient, and productive each time." I'm pretty sure that if this country was "built on" a concept, it was intellectual freedom. Entrepreneurship is perhaps a nice consequence of that legacy, but let's not confuse which end wags the dog.
  - nuweborder 17y ago
    Without entrepreneurship, there would be no Ford, no Microsoft, nor many other "must haves" that we enjoy today. Entrepreneurship created the automobile, the computer as we know it today, the website that we are discussing on right now, and all the startups that Y-Combinator supports. Allow me to rephrase. Entrepreneurship is what our economy is built upon. Not intellectual freedom. Granted, intellectual freedom created peanut butter, the lightbulb and more. But no one was attempting to create these items for sales purposes initially. Peanut butter was invented by George Washington Carver, not Jiff. And I wouldnt say that intellectual freedom is what built this county. As so many whom actually put in the man hours, hard work and physical suffering to build this country, did not have any intellectual freedom, and died in the process.
jhancock 17y ago
"Make a boatload of money. Pay your taxes. Lots of taxes. Hire people. Train people. Pay people. Spend money on rent, equipment, services. Pay more taxes." Don't most wealthy people hire lawyers and lobbyists to help them not pay taxes? Don't they also move jobs overseas to reduce how much they pay to their own economy? Cuban seems to be living in a dreamworld.
- pchristensen 17y ago
  They pay much more in taxes despite the fact that they do this. By "pay more taxes" he means that the more money you make, the more taxes you have to pay. I'm sure that if you asked him, he'd say it's also your duty to pay as little tax as required.
  - jhancock 17y ago
    Have you been keeping up with UBS private banking trial? Many wealthy have access to loopholes or simply hide behind legal and banking confidentiality to illegally hide wealth. Sure, most wealthy pay more on an absolute scale. Not always so on a relative scale. Cuban's core rational is that rich people make things move, shape change. I agree somewhat. So it follows that if they make less efficient things more efficient, then removing all tax loopholes and aggressively going after illegal tax behavior would force these wonderful, really smart rich people to make the tax system and government spending of it more efficient. As long as they have a way around paying, they have no incentive to make the tax usage more efficient.
  - run4yourlives 17y ago
    They pay much more in taxes despite the fact that they do this. I'm pretty sure Warren Buffet proved otherwise: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ece http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ec...
    - fallentimes 17y ago
      You're talking percent, he's talking gross.
dschobel 17y ago
and your 3rd [thought] should be a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you. So just to clarify-- if you become successful, it was a combination of hard work and good fortune but if don't become successful, it was just poor fortune?
- zackattack 17y ago
  I think so. Consciousness is a gift through fortune. Through consciousness, you eventually come to a realization that you should work hard and endeavor to become successful. The less fortunate never reach such a level of consciousness.
  - dschobel 17y ago
    I agree that both are necessary but insufficient conditions independently but I've always been irked by the fact that the hard work/motivation part is always immediately dropped when you talk about average working stiffs. It's like some bizarre fear that by admitting that some people are simply feckless and/or unmotivated you risk marginalizing everyone hasn't "made it" whereas in reality incentives are a huge part of the productivity equation (as anyone with a knowledge of basic economics can attest).
    - mcslee 17y ago
      Your point is well taken that it's easy to treat fortune differently in different situations. Hard workers that don't make it are "just unfortunate." Lazy people that win the lottery are "just fortunate." Hard workers that make it "earned it." However, I think randomness (i.e. "fortune") generally plays a much larger role in all of our lives than we care to admit. The American obsession with hard work and merit fuels this misconception. Our brains are also somewhat intrinsically hardwired to intuit simple causes and effects, even when none truly exist. If you're interested in the topic, I highly recommend reading "The Drunkard's Walk" by Leonard Mlodinow. http://www.amazon.com/Drunkards-Walk-Randomness-Rules-Vintage/dp/0307275175/ http://www.amazon.com/Drunkards-Walk-Randomness-Rules-Vintag...
  - 17y ago
noelchurchill 17y ago
I'm almost certain there there may be flaws in this though but: Isn't there a limited monetary supply at any given time? So the richer I get, the less rich other people become. Even after I pay rents and salaries and everything else, if I'm richer than I was before, then there is less wealth available for everyone else.
- iterationx 17y ago
  Imagine you're on an island with $100 split among five people and five goats, each goat is worth $20. But one guy has 2 of the goats and he breeds them until there's 50 goats. So now each goat is worth ~$2. So if the others had done nothing, they could still buy a couple more goats. So if you measure wealth by purchasing power it can increase for everyone.
- phamilton 17y ago
  http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html he presents a great example of a couple of friends with beat up cars.... If 4 guys all have old beaters worth 1000 each. in total they have $4000 split evenly. Each has 25% of the wealth. If one guy goes, and decides to fix up his car, and his car is suddenly worth $3000, then suddenly he has 50% of the wealth, and the other three guys only have 16%. But the face value of the other three cars did not change. That's what screws up the old 80-20 rule... you think it's unfair until you realize that the 20% created most of the wealth they control.
- pragmatic 17y ago
  If that were the case, we wouldn't have any more wealth that we did when the country was founded. Don't confuse wealth with money.
- thwarted 17y ago
  See http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
- jonallanharper 17y ago
  You've highlighted one of the most important fallacies in the modern liberal's mindset, in my opinion... PG touches on this: "The Pie Fallacy" in http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html My 2 cents on it: Wealth is created. Currency is a limited resource that represents that wealth. The value of a single unit of currency is increased every time more real wealth is created. Wealth is created when goods or services that people actually want are produced.
jonallanharper 17y ago
"[when that tax bill comes your thought should be]... a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you." Right, so I bust my ass in school, non-paid internships, contracting as much as possible, and 50 hour work weeks on my startup... and the reason I'm making money is b/c I'm more "fortunate" than the slob who is still playing video games in college after 6 years and the idiot who chooses to have kids he can't afford? OK, got it... making wise choices makes you "fortunate"... and it's "unfortunate" when idiots who make poor decisions just don't make quite enough money to afford cigarettes, bling for his car, and health insurance. Another serious flaw in this article, besides his inept philosophy: money stolen from us by the government is not "helping to support millions of americans"... it's being completely wasted by GovCo, for the most part, or at minimum used very inefficiently.
- forinti 17y ago
  It always amazes me how americans have the smallest social safety net of the developed world and are always blaming the unfortunate for eating up their taxes. You also work more hours than workers in other developed nations and yet still can't stop going on and on about lazy people.
  - 321abc 17y ago
    Not to mention the daily stories of Wall St hustlers stealing billions, trillions of taxpayer dollars being given away as welfare to corporations (which promptly pay out billions in bonuses) and trillions pissed away on murdering tens of thousands of people in other countries, but people are all up in arms when some single mother gets a $100 in food stamps, or a Mexican risks death in the desert to come mow your lawn. Or god forbid that health care suddenly becomes affordable. That would be a true outrage! There's really very little sense of proportion in this country.
    - solutionyogi 17y ago
      The problem here is of the government. Government decided to intervene and give those billions to the corporations. If government and bureaucrats didn't have the power to give away taxpayer's money, we won't have this problem. And that's why we libertarians talk about 'limited government.' Remember, 'Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.'
321abc 17y ago
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." -- Samuel Johnson "The most patriotic thing you can do is get rich." -- Mark Cuban Sounds about right.
- anamax 17y ago
  You're mis-reading Johnson. He's not saying that patriotisim is bad - the word "last" is important. Asimov's "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent." has a similar trap for those who don't read critically.
decode 17y ago
He makes an argument for making money, but not for getting (or being) rich. What societal advantage is there to one person amassing wealth? It seems like Cuban is saying that if you create wealth, you can pass it on to others. So wouldn't that mean that it would be better for society if you were just a conduit for wealth, paying your employees, contractors, and suppliers as much as possible? It seems like the most beneficial thing would be to "Hire people. Train people. Pay people. Spend money on rent, equipment, services." but not skim a bunch off the top for yourself.
iterationx 17y ago
Getting rich by creating American jobs that manufacture goods that we sell to Asia and re-balancing the trade imbalance would improve the dollar strength and create American jobs, that'd be ok. If I get rich by putting Applebees out of business because I made a slightly better boneless buffalo wing, nothing would be gained.
zackattack 17y ago
I would also like to point out that Cuban has incentives to have his fan base think of him as patriotic: he wants patriotic people to consume his NBA entertainment and think well of him. Just because someone posts something on their blog, does not mean it is what they truly believe. It is only what they want to appear on their blog.

28 points by aichcon 17y ago

nazgulnarsil 17y ago

demonizing the productive rich along with the hereditary wealth parasites is a fatal mistake for a civilization IMO.

dschobel 17y ago
if they pay taxes and buy goods and services, why should it matter if the wealth is self-made or inherited?
- jsackmann 17y ago
  Most self-made rich people get there by (I'll bet you've heard this before...) making something people want. It's a rare buyer who buys something for $20 and values it at exactly $20 -- most buyers think it's worth a little more, or a lot more. That difference means that most purchases are not only beneficial to the maker/inventor (who is making money on the transaction), but also to the buyer (who believes their life will be better because of the transaction). So, if you set everything else equal (purchase of goods and services, payment of taxes, etc.) the self-made rich are doing a lot more for others than the rich-by-inheritance.
  - dschobel 17y ago
    You're telling me that the guy who founded girls gone wild (and became fabulously wealthy thereby) did more good than someone like Eunice Shriver who never held a paid job in her life? The bottom line is that it's infinitely more important what you do with your wealth than whether it was handed to you or you earned it.
    - jonallanharper 17y ago
      It's only "infinitely more important" in your false, theoretical reality. Give me a Henry Ford or a porn producer any day over Mother Teresa. It speaks volumes that you hold a person that "never held a paid job in her life" in higher esteem than an individual that actually created wealth. The guy who founded girls gone wild produced far more of what people want than your useless social engineers.
      - jibiki 17y ago
        > The guy who founded girls gone wild produced far more of what people want than your useless social engineers. Pablo Escobar produced far more of what people want than our hypothetical porn producer. Feynmann produced far, far less. What exactly is your point?
      - Locke1689 17y ago
        Of course, this logic could also be applied to war profiteering. The problem is that economics does not exist in an ideal world with no socio-moral ramifications.
        nazgulnarsil 17y ago
        a dollar made at the end of a gun and a dollar made because the purchase was a pareto improvement aren't the same thing. that you could equate the two means that you equate logos and pathos.
        Locke1689 17y ago
        Actually, he was making the comparison. Consider, someone who sells weapons is doing exactly what he is talking about: selling people what they want. Economically, this can generally be considered a decent position. Unfortunately, its morally a bad one. My point was that is essential to consider both. Just because someone produces a product that serves a client base and produces a profit doesn't excuse moral issues. Similarly, just because Mother Theresa was not making a profit does not mean that she did not produce a net good. The two are apples and oranges but must be used in conjunction, not exclusion.
  - jstevens85 17y ago
    That may be true, but the inherited rich are contributing to society by investing capital. The self-made rich wouldn't have made it if a venture capital firm wasn't willing to fund them in the initial stages, or the bank wasn't willing to provide a loan, or institutional investors weren't willing to buy IPO shares.
ckinnan 17y ago
There's a huge difference between the rich and high income earners. The rich/wealthy often favor higher taxes because their income is from tax-free bonds or from control of assets, where income is deferred and usually part of a one-time transaction, like sale of a company, where taxes can be avoided. High-income earners, on the other hand, often have negative net worth (school and housing debt). The rich want high taxes on the high-income earners because they don't want the upstarts competing with them for control of assets...they want to make it harder for the next wave of entrepreneurs to build disruptive or competitive businesses. It is ironic, but taxes on new capital formation directly benefit those who already have capital.
- mcslee 17y ago
  This is an astute and important point. I have always found it flawed that a middle-class American family making around $100K in income will pay more taxes than someone with $10M+ portfolio of municipal bonds. With that said, I agree with Mark Cuban's philosophy here, and do not get personally upset with paying taxes. I don't think the solution is to complain about taxes on high income earners. Rather, there just needs to be more pressure on instituting equivalent taxes for other forms of wealth generation (i.e. get rid of tax-free bonds).

nuweborder 17y ago

Cuban is well known for speaking his mind, and he lived up to his reputation in this interview. Thats what we are all out here to do. And thats what this country is built on. Entrepreneurship. Creating something from nothing, and making the process better, more efficient, and productive each time. Mark Cuban said that we need to make a boatload of money, but does not say how exactly to do that. At this point, you cant go by the Mark Cuban book. Dont try to duplicate what he did. Aside from the rare occassion of the German based ebay copycats whom later became reviered VCs, The European Founders (http://www.europeanfounders.com/index.html http://www.europeanfounders.com/index.html), you have to create your own path. What do you enjoy? Where is there a void in the market? Etc. But, hopefully, you are not trying to "Get Rich Quick". Create your entrepreneurial venture off of passion and a genuine interest in what you are creating. Dont need it to blow up and produce millions over night, because you have to pay your electric bill. Thats not the way.

timr 17y ago
"And thats what this country is built on. Entrepreneurship. Creating something from nothing, and making the process better, more efficient, and productive each time." I'm pretty sure that if this country was "built on" a concept, it was intellectual freedom. Entrepreneurship is perhaps a nice consequence of that legacy, but let's not confuse which end wags the dog.
- nuweborder 17y ago
  Without entrepreneurship, there would be no Ford, no Microsoft, nor many other "must haves" that we enjoy today. Entrepreneurship created the automobile, the computer as we know it today, the website that we are discussing on right now, and all the startups that Y-Combinator supports. Allow me to rephrase. Entrepreneurship is what our economy is built upon. Not intellectual freedom. Granted, intellectual freedom created peanut butter, the lightbulb and more. But no one was attempting to create these items for sales purposes initially. Peanut butter was invented by George Washington Carver, not Jiff. And I wouldnt say that intellectual freedom is what built this county. As so many whom actually put in the man hours, hard work and physical suffering to build this country, did not have any intellectual freedom, and died in the process.

jhancock 17y ago

"Make a boatload of money. Pay your taxes. Lots of taxes. Hire people. Train people. Pay people. Spend money on rent, equipment, services. Pay more taxes." Don't most wealthy people hire lawyers and lobbyists to help them not pay taxes? Don't they also move jobs overseas to reduce how much they pay to their own economy? Cuban seems to be living in a dreamworld.

pchristensen 17y ago
They pay much more in taxes despite the fact that they do this. By "pay more taxes" he means that the more money you make, the more taxes you have to pay. I'm sure that if you asked him, he'd say it's also your duty to pay as little tax as required.
- jhancock 17y ago
  Have you been keeping up with UBS private banking trial? Many wealthy have access to loopholes or simply hide behind legal and banking confidentiality to illegally hide wealth. Sure, most wealthy pay more on an absolute scale. Not always so on a relative scale. Cuban's core rational is that rich people make things move, shape change. I agree somewhat. So it follows that if they make less efficient things more efficient, then removing all tax loopholes and aggressively going after illegal tax behavior would force these wonderful, really smart rich people to make the tax system and government spending of it more efficient. As long as they have a way around paying, they have no incentive to make the tax usage more efficient.
- run4yourlives 17y ago
  They pay much more in taxes despite the fact that they do this. I'm pretty sure Warren Buffet proved otherwise: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ece http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ec...
  - fallentimes 17y ago
    You're talking percent, he's talking gross.

dschobel 17y ago

and your 3rd [thought] should be a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you. So just to clarify-- if you become successful, it was a combination of hard work and good fortune but if don't become successful, it was just poor fortune?

zackattack 17y ago
I think so. Consciousness is a gift through fortune. Through consciousness, you eventually come to a realization that you should work hard and endeavor to become successful. The less fortunate never reach such a level of consciousness.
- dschobel 17y ago
  I agree that both are necessary but insufficient conditions independently but I've always been irked by the fact that the hard work/motivation part is always immediately dropped when you talk about average working stiffs. It's like some bizarre fear that by admitting that some people are simply feckless and/or unmotivated you risk marginalizing everyone hasn't "made it" whereas in reality incentives are a huge part of the productivity equation (as anyone with a knowledge of basic economics can attest).
  - mcslee 17y ago
    Your point is well taken that it's easy to treat fortune differently in different situations. Hard workers that don't make it are "just unfortunate." Lazy people that win the lottery are "just fortunate." Hard workers that make it "earned it." However, I think randomness (i.e. "fortune") generally plays a much larger role in all of our lives than we care to admit. The American obsession with hard work and merit fuels this misconception. Our brains are also somewhat intrinsically hardwired to intuit simple causes and effects, even when none truly exist. If you're interested in the topic, I highly recommend reading "The Drunkard's Walk" by Leonard Mlodinow. http://www.amazon.com/Drunkards-Walk-Randomness-Rules-Vintage/dp/0307275175/ http://www.amazon.com/Drunkards-Walk-Randomness-Rules-Vintag...
- 17y ago

noelchurchill 17y ago

I'm almost certain there there may be flaws in this though but: Isn't there a limited monetary supply at any given time? So the richer I get, the less rich other people become. Even after I pay rents and salaries and everything else, if I'm richer than I was before, then there is less wealth available for everyone else.

iterationx 17y ago
Imagine you're on an island with $100 split among five people and five goats, each goat is worth $20. But one guy has 2 of the goats and he breeds them until there's 50 goats. So now each goat is worth ~$2. So if the others had done nothing, they could still buy a couple more goats. So if you measure wealth by purchasing power it can increase for everyone.
phamilton 17y ago
http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html he presents a great example of a couple of friends with beat up cars.... If 4 guys all have old beaters worth 1000 each. in total they have $4000 split evenly. Each has 25% of the wealth. If one guy goes, and decides to fix up his car, and his car is suddenly worth $3000, then suddenly he has 50% of the wealth, and the other three guys only have 16%. But the face value of the other three cars did not change. That's what screws up the old 80-20 rule... you think it's unfair until you realize that the 20% created most of the wealth they control.
pragmatic 17y ago
If that were the case, we wouldn't have any more wealth that we did when the country was founded. Don't confuse wealth with money.
thwarted 17y ago
See http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
jonallanharper 17y ago
You've highlighted one of the most important fallacies in the modern liberal's mindset, in my opinion... PG touches on this: "The Pie Fallacy" in http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html My 2 cents on it: Wealth is created. Currency is a limited resource that represents that wealth. The value of a single unit of currency is increased every time more real wealth is created. Wealth is created when goods or services that people actually want are produced.

jonallanharper 17y ago

"[when that tax bill comes your thought should be]... a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you." Right, so I bust my ass in school, non-paid internships, contracting as much as possible, and 50 hour work weeks on my startup... and the reason I'm making money is b/c I'm more "fortunate" than the slob who is still playing video games in college after 6 years and the idiot who chooses to have kids he can't afford? OK, got it... making wise choices makes you "fortunate"... and it's "unfortunate" when idiots who make poor decisions just don't make quite enough money to afford cigarettes, bling for his car, and health insurance. Another serious flaw in this article, besides his inept philosophy: money stolen from us by the government is not "helping to support millions of americans"... it's being completely wasted by GovCo, for the most part, or at minimum used very inefficiently.

forinti 17y ago
It always amazes me how americans have the smallest social safety net of the developed world and are always blaming the unfortunate for eating up their taxes. You also work more hours than workers in other developed nations and yet still can't stop going on and on about lazy people.
- 321abc 17y ago
  Not to mention the daily stories of Wall St hustlers stealing billions, trillions of taxpayer dollars being given away as welfare to corporations (which promptly pay out billions in bonuses) and trillions pissed away on murdering tens of thousands of people in other countries, but people are all up in arms when some single mother gets a $100 in food stamps, or a Mexican risks death in the desert to come mow your lawn. Or god forbid that health care suddenly becomes affordable. That would be a true outrage! There's really very little sense of proportion in this country.
  - solutionyogi 17y ago
    The problem here is of the government. Government decided to intervene and give those billions to the corporations. If government and bureaucrats didn't have the power to give away taxpayer's money, we won't have this problem. And that's why we libertarians talk about 'limited government.' Remember, 'Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.'

321abc 17y ago

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." -- Samuel Johnson "The most patriotic thing you can do is get rich." -- Mark Cuban Sounds about right.

anamax 17y ago
You're mis-reading Johnson. He's not saying that patriotisim is bad - the word "last" is important. Asimov's "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent." has a similar trap for those who don't read critically.

decode 17y ago

He makes an argument for making money, but not for getting (or being) rich. What societal advantage is there to one person amassing wealth? It seems like Cuban is saying that if you create wealth, you can pass it on to others. So wouldn't that mean that it would be better for society if you were just a conduit for wealth, paying your employees, contractors, and suppliers as much as possible? It seems like the most beneficial thing would be to "Hire people. Train people. Pay people. Spend money on rent, equipment, services." but not skim a bunch off the top for yourself.

iterationx 17y ago

Getting rich by creating American jobs that manufacture goods that we sell to Asia and re-balancing the trade imbalance would improve the dollar strength and create American jobs, that'd be ok. If I get rich by putting Applebees out of business because I made a slightly better boneless buffalo wing, nothing would be gained.

zackattack 17y ago

I would also like to point out that Cuban has incentives to have his fan base think of him as patriotic: he wants patriotic people to consume his NBA entertainment and think well of him. Just because someone posts something on their blog, does not mean it is what they truly believe. It is only what they want to appear on their blog.