Watched In Time, a film that might as well be a retelling of an expanded version of the story of Robin Hood.
Again, like all the comments I often see online (I've begun to grow numb to the stupidity and even come to expect it all the time), it brings me to the issue of the distribution of wealth versus the creation of it.
How do you make an organization grow and make sure everyone gets his or her fair share?
What I find exasperating here is really the definition of "fairness".
To those in the middle and upper classes, fairness means getting what you worked for or what you can get.
To those in the lower classes however, it could mean getting what you deserve or that everyone is paid the same no matter what they do for a living.
Is the last really stupidity talking or is it proof of the inherent greed that lies within our every soul?
We've been taught that rewarding everyone the same would be unfair because each person produces a different results in terms of both quality and quantity.
If so, why are most members of uniformed groups paid according to their ranks? Why aren't factory workers paid according to the number of pieces of products they helped to produce?
Why do we simply accept such a contradiction without even a thought?
So which is right? Should we be compensated according to what we produce or what we are?
Capitalism or socialism?
In reality, that's not even the right question.
That's the funny thing about it all. Neither what we produce nor what we are truly matters where our incomes are concerned!
The truth is that our income is whatever others believe it should be. Employees negotiate with their employers to get as high a salary as they can. Businesspeople convince others to give them as much as they are willing to give.
In the end, it all boils down to what you can make others believe is fair.
Look around in your workplace and think about whether everyone who gets paid the same as you also do exactly the same work as you do.
How much you're paid isn't how much your work is worth, but how much the other person thinks it's worth. Your salary isn't based on what you should be paid, but on what your employer thinks you should be paid.
My income is based on what my buyers and suppliers think my products (and their efforts, in the latter case) are worth.
That's what's keeping the lower class down in the lower class. Not their productivity, not their qualifications, not their ages.
It's their inability to either see this or do anything about it.
The better you can convince others to give you more, the more you get.
I'm not saying it's all about the talking because having actual substance really doesn't hurt, but to convince others that something is true, there are more ways than just having a glib tongue or being actually talented.
And that's why I find the definition of "fairness" exasperating.
There is just no objective definition of it that all humans can agree on because even if it exists, we can't grasp it.
Which makes sense because we didn't evolve to what we are by being fair.
If everyone can see this, then we can finally stop arguing about whether the poor is being exploited unfairly or whether the rich is being overpaid, and start thinking about more important matters.
Like coming up with a way to convince everyone they're faily compensated for their work while actually keeping the system running, because if everyone gets what they think they deserve, two Earths wouldn't be enough.
Reminds me of the last line in the script of the intro movie of Fallout: New Vegas.
From where you're kneeling it must seem like an 18-carat run of bad luck. But, truth is...the game was rigged from the start.
In most aspects of our lives, there are usually more factors than meets than eye. Our incomes are just one of the many things in this world that are not as simple as they appear to be. Of course most of them are also "rigged from the start" but the average guy like me will never need to know the details.
I don't even need to expand this image. What does everyone else see in this picture?
Because all I see is "I GOT PAID FOR SAYING THIS" repeated everywhere on this game's cover.
Also, where's the title?
Oh well, it's not important anyway.
WED
Went to the lawyer's office today. It was like the movie In Time all over again, the part where he crossed the zones from the ghetto to the zone where all the prices are in months and years.
Yea I haven't explored that part of the CBD in Singapore much, especially since there's no reason to visit that area of the country at all. There's only Lau Pa Sat, the notorious tourist trap and a few other similar places.
The last time I went there it was to buy my phone since it's got the closest Starhub shop to my home.
Today it was during office hours and I went there straight from my office in one of the industrial areas of Singapore. That was why it reminded me of that scene in the movie so much.
And apparently the $2 ERP charge I got was nothing compared to the morning peak hour ERP along the CTE - $4.
D:
That's like the price of a meal just to take that route, not to mention the peak hour surcharge.
Anyway I'm pretty sure I'm paying more than necessary just to get this Letter of Administration but I don't know any lawyers and nobody's recommended any to me.
It's funny because it's as if nobody but my insurance agent knows any lawyer in Singapore, and she only knows the really expensive ones.
$4000 for this letter and she will also help me inform all the parties who handle whatever assets my mother owned so that's pretty convenient, but excludes GST and whatever other costs.
Also asked her about a few other things.
According to her, making a will is going to cost another $2800. If I ask her for legal advice on my business it's going to be counted as a separate consultation that will cost me their normal rates of a few hundred bucks an hour.
I'm going to skip those for now or I might hit $10k on this.
Actually I only spoke to her legal secretary today. She was on MC and they couldn't contact me because my phone's been pretty busy all day and I didn't check my email in the afternoon.
Speaking of my phone, my transporter just hired this new guy whom I both like and dislike.
I dislike him because he had to keep asking me about the same thing more than once, but I like him because he dared to ask. Or maybe I should dislike him for that because he should have been asking his boss instead of me, or even my workers when he took those boxes from my office.
What made me mention him was mainly the fact that he had to call me four times within an hour just to bring 3 boxes of goods from my office to a relatively well-known store in Singapore.
Oh maaaaaaan this pre-termination thing is terribad if it ever happens! The landlord company's rep just replied to me to explain their premature termination policies.
Basically, I have to find a replacement tenant who will have to sign a 3-year contract at the prevailing rates of that time. The company can also help me do it but I will have to pay for the agent and whatever. In addition there's a $250 administration fee.
That's not even the worst part!
What I find to be the most B.S. condition in the whole paragraph is that if the new tenant's rate is lower than the one(s) in my contract, I MUST PAY THE DIFFERENCE IN ONE LUMP SUM!
Man, I want to be a fecking landlord now.
Sucks to be a tenant.
But I think I might just sign this. I've been thinking about what happens if I lose this job and this pre-termination policy would really be the least of my worries. I'm close to 30 now and I'm years away from my first degree. If I get a job, it's going to have shitty pay and long hours, meaning I will have little chance of climbing back to where I am now.
In short, it has become a fact that I'm now beyond the point where I can just turn back and walk away.
It's either sink or swim from now on.
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