The other day I went to a busy restaurant with my friends. The food was good, but I was most impressed with the service. The waitress was very friendly and attentive, but not in an annoying way. She had an uncanny ability to know exactly when we needed something like a refill on my soda and checked often if we needed anything else.

From time to time I watched her work as I waited for my food to arrive and when I was eating. She treated all her other tables the same way. She was always on the move hustling from one table to the next and back and forth from the kitchen. I couldn't imagine working like that myself. My legs get tired just walking around my neighborhood block.

Our food arrived within a reasonable amount of time considering how busy it was. The table next to us, however, waited quite a bit longer. They were annoyed and were sure to let the waitress know about it. She smiled back and assured them that it would arrive shortly. Later she offered them free dessert. I wondered if I could have handled it the same way.

Clearly this woman deserved a good tip. Our bill came to $55.25. A normal tip would have been around $8.25. That didn't seem like much. We thought $15.00 was more appropriate, and we didn't mind rewarding her for doing such a great job.

"Why thank you." she said when I gave her the tip.

"You’re welcome." I replied. As she turned away I said, "Um, excuse me. Would you mind giving back $6.75?"

"What?"

“Would mind giving back $6.75? That would be the difference between what you’d normally get and the extra we thought you were worth.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” she replied with a perplexed expression.

“Well, its not that you didn’t earn it because clearly you did. It’s just that there is more deserving people like that homeless man across the street.”

“Oh! You mean Bernie? We already help him. He gets a lot of our left over food from the kitchen. Sometimes I buy him donuts & coffee when I can.” She said with a smile and turned away.

“Wait. I‘d still like the $6.75.”

“Are you serious? What for?”

“We want to give it to that homeless man, Bernie.”

“But I already told you that we help him.”

“Yes, but we’d like to help him too.”

“But with my money.”

“Well, yes. Surely you wouldn’t object to that. He does need it.”

“But you said I earned your tip. What about me? How do you know I don’t need it too?”

“I’m sure you do need it or at least some of it. But obviously he needs it more.”

“Do you know what Bernie will do with your money, I mean my money? He'll buy booze with it. He’s an alcoholic.”

“Hm, that probably isn’t the best way to help him, but we are not really concerned with that. We don’t think it’s fair that he’s homeless and you have so much. You probably have a car and a place to live. He has nothing. It would also make us feel better knowing we did something.”

“It would make you ‘feel better’? You know, I do have a car and an apartment. I also have car payments, rent to pay and two kids. I need all the tips I can get just to get by. Does that make you feel better? Now I must get back to work!”

“We only want what’s fair. There’s no need to get upset. You want that too, don’t you?”

“Fair? Life ain’t fair. What about you? Why don’t you give Bernie ten bucks out of your own wallet and watch him go the liquor store with it?”

“Our money isn’t any concern of yours. But we know you just earned a little bit above what you’d normally get from customers. Surely you wouldn’t mind sharing it with a homeless person. Compared to him, you’re very wealthy you know.”

“Is this a joke? This is a joke, isn’t it?”

“No. It’s not a joke. How could you call helping the needy a joke? You must be a greedy and cruel person not to want to share what you can.”

“I already told you that I do share! We help Bernie out with food- something he really needs and can use.”

“Lady, just give us the $6.75 and stop complaining or we’ll have call the police and have them make you give it back to us.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Yes we can, and we will.”

“This is crazy! I really don’t have time for this. You know what? Fine, I’ll give him the money myself. At least then he’ll know where the money came from.”

“That’s very kind of you, but we’d still like to do it ourselves.”

“Why?”

“There maybe other needy people out there or other things we’d like to support with your, uh, our money. That way we also get to feel like we are helping. It makes us feel better.”

“So you feel better spending other people’s money? And what other things? Like what? I’d like to know where my money is going.”

“Just give us the money and we’ll be on our way.”

“I wish I would have known about this before hand. Maybe I wouldn’t have spent so much time on your table. Better yet, I would have tried to skip your table altogether!”

come on, I know YOU wouldn't do that!

At least the asking $$ back part. I know you'd give the extra tip for extra good service.

pbmax wrote:

Post.

You shouldve taped the whole thing and put it on the internet.

EDIT by iceheart: I don't think there is any particular need to quote the entire thing here

.

Wow, she wasn't really under stress if she kept talking to you like that.

I would just give it back to you and say "make up your mind next time before you tip. You ain't gonna get it back so easy again."

Much talk about nothing really - the person who owns the money decides what to do with it.

True, i dont know why you gave someone money and then demanded them to give some of it back. Just give out exactly what youre gonna give. That sounded rude and awkward.

i'm 99.995% sure he's using that as an example of oboma's economic policy's.

Burrito wrote:

I would just give it back to you and say "make up your mind next time before you tip. You ain't gonna get it back so easy again."

Much talk about nothing really - the person who owns the money decides what to do with it.

I've worked at a restaurant for two years and this never happened to me. Regardless of service, some people never left a tip, other people always left a tip. The two things I learned were: a) always smile even if your personal life is doing down the drain and b) you never, EVER, engage in a conversation with customers about money and especially not about the tip. If they tell you the bill is too expensive, you call the manager. If they find the bill too expensive and say something like "it's too expensive so I'm not going to tip you", you just smile and wish them a good day.

I'm not exactly sure how two people carried on a conversation after a customer said: "Would you mind giving back $6.75?". :?:

pbmax may have deserved hearing something like what you posted but the best response would be "Of course, here's the change; have a good day and come back soon".

Quote:

i'm 99.995% sure he's using that as an example of oboma's economic policy's.

Its just the problem with this analogy is its taking extra from the hard working poor/middle class to give to the poor. Unless the waitress makes $250,000 a year.......I admit he didn't mention if she did or not.

Is this a joke?

EDIT: apparently I missed the very convoluted and misdirected point.

That could easily be turned into a Seinfeld episode

Deadite4 wrote:

Its just the problem with this analogy is its taking extra from the hard working poor/middle class to give to the poor. Unless the waitress makes $250,000 a year.......I admit he didn't mention if she did or not.

it's all relative. I makes ~$16k. A teacher @ the school I work at starts ~$30k. As far as I'm concerned, they're RICH!!! That's ~as much as me & my wife brings in together. Hence they shouldn't have any $$ problems at all and should easily afford giving me.

Deadite4 wrote:

Quote:

i'm 99.995% sure he's using that as an example of oboma's economic policy's.

Its just the problem with this analogy is its taking extra from the hard working poor/middle class to give to the poor. Unless the waitress makes $250,000 a year.......I admit he didn't mention if she did or not.

actually, its nobody's business how much the waitress makes besides her and her employer. ideally, not even the government's.

pbmax wrote:

actually, its nobody's business how much the waitress makes besides her and her employer. ideally, not even the government's.

Anarcho-capitalism ftw?

Anarchism is socialism. Pbmax just turned into his own worst enemy.

Eh, for the record, anarchism isn't analogous to socialism.

Wikipedia it.

Interesting post, pbmax. Although someone's already pointed out that if your analogy is about Obama-style taxes, it doesn't hold up because the waitress is probably lower- to middle-class in terms of income and will be getting a tax cut. And I'm guessing your homeless guy doesn't work and doesn't pay taxes and therefore wouldn't be affected directly by any tax changes. He may have a bit easier time securing a warm place to sleep at night assuming Obama finds a way to fund shelters and services that were slashed or reduced on Bush's watch. We'll see.

goliathvt wrote:

Eh, for the record, anarchism isn't analogous to socialism.

It's a branch on the socialist ideology tree. Just like Communism, Syndicalism etc.

Kristus wrote:

goliathvt wrote:

Eh, for the record, anarchism isn't analogous to socialism.

It's a branch on the socialist ideology tree. Just like Communism, Syndicalism etc.

It's not. Anarchy is absence of rules. In that respect it's closer to unregulated capitalism than socialism. And especially further away from communism which is heavily rules-based. There are many strains of anarchy-based thought, some advocating non-governamental capitalism to non-governamental communism. In fact I agree with iceheart, going by pbmax's previously posted views he could present himself as an anarcho-capitalist. At its core however, anarchists propose a government-free society while communism, and in a lesser respect socialism, proposes exactly the opposite: a fully state-controlled society.

Btw, syndicalism isn't so much as a branch of socialism as it is a vessel for the introduction of socialism into a capitalistic society.

I must admit, Wikipedia's article on Anarchism is a lot more extensive than any I've read before. Where they all have said the same thing. Anarchism is all about small societies where "villages" make their own rules that the see fit. Thus making everyone able to directly influence their own rules and restrictions. But obviously, there's a lot more to find as I now see.

The "problem" with anarchism is that is in fact a very highly structured society, the lack of government and "official" rules simply means that the strong will always dominate the weak, or in anarcho-capitalsm, the rich will always own the poor.

So, the question with anarchy is always how you are going to enforce the freedom to do anything, it's a paradox

.

Quote:

actually, its nobody's business how much the waitress makes besides her and her employer. ideally, not even the government's.

Then by following the rules of the story its also impossible to determine if the man outside the restaurant is in a better or worse situation than the waitress or even the person giving the tip. Since you can't give the financial income of the waitress then you also can't give the financial income of the man outside unless you assume. In that case if you can assume the man outside is homeless by appearance then you can also assume the waitress is not in the upper 10% based on occupation. Everyone in the analogy has to abide by the same rules. Keep it fair, keep it fair.

I think I saw almost exactly this in an e-mail recently. I didn't read it since I already knew the point, but I think it's basically the same. It's very staged and doesn't translate the point well.

pbmax wrote:

stuff

I haven't read the other replies yet but I fear I don't believe a single word of what you wrote. It reads more like some typical story to push people into a predetermined direction leading to an Heureka effect as if someone had a chance to draw his own conclusions.

I wonder why someone who has contributed so much to this board turns more and more into a manipulator at all cost. Don't put your good reputation at risk, it's not worth it.

shaviro wrote:

That could easily be turned into a Seinfeld episode

Tip Nazi

No tip for you! hah!

iceheart wrote:

pbmax wrote:

actually, its nobody's business how much the waitress makes besides her and her employer. ideally, not even the government's.

Anarcho-capitalism ftw?

I'm dead serious.

The government has no business knowing what your financial wealth is. We have become so used to an intrusive government that we just assume its the natural order of things. They even take our money before we can deposit it into our bank account. Imagine getting your full pay check and then having to write a check to the IRS each week...

What the government does with income tax is unconscionable. Make X amount? You need to pay this because we say so. Drive a hybrid? Good for you, here's a tax break. You have how many kids? Here's some more money back. Its social engineering at its worst.

Actually, worst yet is the fact that most people are oblivious to it.

There are other taxation methods besides the income tax. A national sales tax or a flat tax for example...

pbmax wrote:

The government has no business knowing what your financial wealth is. We have become so used to an intrusive government that we just assume its the natural order of things. They even take our money before we can deposit it into our bank account. Imagine getting your full pay check and then having to write a check to the IRS each week...
<snip>

Since you consider the US Constitution such "an important and historical document" it's only fair for someone to point it out to you that the US Constitution explicitely says that the Government is entitled to taxing its citizens based on income:

US Constitution 16th Amendment wrote:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

i'll get into the historical details of the 16th amendment later...

but that doesn't change the fact that its not the government's business how much money you earn, make or have- especially when that information is used for social engineering.

there are other ways to derive "income taxes" such as property tax, sales tax and flat taxes.

pbmax wrote:

but that doesn't change the fact that its not the government's business how much money you earn, make or have- especially when that information is used for social engineering.

That's not a fact, that's your opinion. Unless, of course, you're arguing that your opinion weighs more than the constitution of the country you live in.

The other day I went to a busy restaurant with my friends. The food was good, but I was most impressed with the service. The waitress was very friendly and attentive, but not in an annoying way. She had an uncanny ability to know exactly when we needed something like a refill on my soda and checked often if we needed anything else.

From time to time I watched her work as I waited for my food to arrive and when I was eating. She treated all her other tables the same way. She was always on the move hustling from one table to the next and back and forth from the kitchen. I couldn't imagine working like that myself. My legs get tired just walking around my neighborhood block.

Our food arrived within a reasonable amount of time considering how busy it was. The table next to us, however, waited quite a bit longer. They were annoyed and were sure to let the waitress know about it. She smiled back and assured them that it would arrive shortly. Later she offered them free dessert. I wondered if I could have handled it the same way.

Clearly this woman deserved a good tip. Our bill came to $55.25. A normal tip would have been around $8.25. That didn't seem like much. We thought $15.00 was more appropriate, and we didn't mind rewarding her for doing such a great job.

"Why thank you." she said when I gave her the tip.

"You’re welcome." I replied. As she turned away I said, "Um, excuse me. Would you mind giving back $6.75?"

"What?"

“Would mind giving back $6.75? That would be the difference between what you’d normally get and the extra we thought you were worth.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” she replied with a perplexed expression.

“Well, its not that you didn’t earn it because clearly you did. It’s just that there is more deserving people like that homeless man across the street.”

“Oh! You mean Bernie? We already help him. He gets a lot of our left over food from the kitchen. Sometimes I buy him donuts & coffee when I can.” She said with a smile and turned away.

“Wait. I‘d still like the $6.75.”

“Are you serious? What for?”

“We want to give it to that homeless man, Bernie.”

“But I already told you that we help him.”

“Yes, but we’d like to help him too.”

“But with my money.”

“Well, yes. Surely you wouldn’t object to that. He does need it.”

“But you said I earned your tip. What about me? How do you know I don’t need it too?”

“I’m sure you do need it or at least some of it. But obviously he needs it more.”

“Do you know what Bernie will do with your money, I mean my money? He'll buy booze with it. He’s an alcoholic.”

“Hm, that probably isn’t the best way to help him, but we are not really concerned with that. We don’t think it’s fair that he’s homeless and you have so much. You probably have a car and a place to live. He has nothing. It would also make us feel better knowing we did something.”

“It would make you ‘feel better’? You know, I do have a car and an apartment. I also have car payments, rent to pay and two kids. I need all the tips I can get just to get by. Does that make you feel better? Now I must get back to work!”

“We only want what’s fair. There’s no need to get upset. You want that too, don’t you?”

“Fair? Life ain’t fair. What about you? Why don’t you give Bernie ten bucks out of your own wallet and watch him go the liquor store with it?”

“Our money isn’t any concern of yours. But we know you just earned a little bit above what you’d normally get from customers. Surely you wouldn’t mind sharing it with a homeless person. Compared to him, you’re very wealthy you know.”

“Is this a joke? This is a joke, isn’t it?”

“No. It’s not a joke. How could you call helping the needy a joke? You must be a greedy and cruel person not to want to share what you can.”

“I already told you that I do share! We help Bernie out with food- something he really needs and can use.”

“Lady, just give us the $6.75 and stop complaining or we’ll have call the police and have them make you give it back to us.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Yes we can, and we will.”

“This is crazy! I really don’t have time for this. You know what? Fine, I’ll give him the money myself. At least then he’ll know where the money came from.”

“That’s very kind of you, but we’d still like to do it ourselves.”

“Why?”

“There maybe other needy people out there or other things we’d like to support with your, uh, our money. That way we also get to feel like we are helping. It makes us feel better.”

“So you feel better spending other people’s money? And what other things? Like what? I’d like to know where my money is going.”

“Just give us the money and we’ll be on our way.”

“I wish I would have known about this before hand. Maybe I wouldn’t have spent so much time on your table. Better yet, I would have tried to skip your table altogether!”

come on, I know YOU wouldn't do that!

At least the asking $$ back part. I know you'd give the extra tip for extra good service.

pbmax wrote:

Post.

You shouldve taped the whole thing and put it on the internet.

EDIT by iceheart: I don't think there is any particular need to quote the entire thing here

.

Wow, she wasn't really under stress if she kept talking to you like that.

I would just give it back to you and say "make up your mind next time before you tip. You ain't gonna get it back so easy again."

Much talk about nothing really - the person who owns the money decides what to do with it.

True, i dont know why you gave someone money and then demanded them to give some of it back. Just give out exactly what youre gonna give. That sounded rude and awkward.

i'm 99.995% sure he's using that as an example of oboma's economic policy's.

Burrito wrote:

I would just give it back to you and say "make up your mind next time before you tip. You ain't gonna get it back so easy again."

Much talk about nothing really - the person who owns the money decides what to do with it.

I've worked at a restaurant for two years and this never happened to me. Regardless of service, some people never left a tip, other people always left a tip. The two things I learned were: a) always smile even if your personal life is doing down the drain and b) you never, EVER, engage in a conversation with customers about money and especially not about the tip. If they tell you the bill is too expensive, you call the manager. If they find the bill too expensive and say something like "it's too expensive so I'm not going to tip you", you just smile and wish them a good day.

I'm not exactly sure how two people carried on a conversation after a customer said: "Would you mind giving back $6.75?". :?:

pbmax may have deserved hearing something like what you posted but the best response would be "Of course, here's the change; have a good day and come back soon".

Quote:

i'm 99.995% sure he's using that as an example of oboma's economic policy's.

Its just the problem with this analogy is its taking extra from the hard working poor/middle class to give to the poor. Unless the waitress makes $250,000 a year.......I admit he didn't mention if she did or not.

Is this a joke?

EDIT: apparently I missed the very convoluted and misdirected point.

That could easily be turned into a Seinfeld episode

Deadite4 wrote:

Its just the problem with this analogy is its taking extra from the hard working poor/middle class to give to the poor. Unless the waitress makes $250,000 a year.......I admit he didn't mention if she did or not.

it's all relative. I makes ~$16k. A teacher @ the school I work at starts ~$30k. As far as I'm concerned, they're RICH!!! That's ~as much as me & my wife brings in together. Hence they shouldn't have any $$ problems at all and should easily afford giving me.

Deadite4 wrote:

Quote:

i'm 99.995% sure he's using that as an example of oboma's economic policy's.

Its just the problem with this analogy is its taking extra from the hard working poor/middle class to give to the poor. Unless the waitress makes $250,000 a year.......I admit he didn't mention if she did or not.

actually, its nobody's business how much the waitress makes besides her and her employer. ideally, not even the government's.

pbmax wrote:

actually, its nobody's business how much the waitress makes besides her and her employer. ideally, not even the government's.

Anarcho-capitalism ftw?

Anarchism is socialism. Pbmax just turned into his own worst enemy.

Eh, for the record, anarchism isn't analogous to socialism.

Wikipedia it.

Interesting post, pbmax. Although someone's already pointed out that if your analogy is about Obama-style taxes, it doesn't hold up because the waitress is probably lower- to middle-class in terms of income and will be getting a tax cut. And I'm guessing your homeless guy doesn't work and doesn't pay taxes and therefore wouldn't be affected directly by any tax changes. He may have a bit easier time securing a warm place to sleep at night assuming Obama finds a way to fund shelters and services that were slashed or reduced on Bush's watch. We'll see.

goliathvt wrote:

Eh, for the record, anarchism isn't analogous to socialism.

It's a branch on the socialist ideology tree. Just like Communism, Syndicalism etc.

Kristus wrote:

goliathvt wrote:

Eh, for the record, anarchism isn't analogous to socialism.

It's a branch on the socialist ideology tree. Just like Communism, Syndicalism etc.

It's not. Anarchy is absence of rules. In that respect it's closer to unregulated capitalism than socialism. And especially further away from communism which is heavily rules-based. There are many strains of anarchy-based thought, some advocating non-governamental capitalism to non-governamental communism. In fact I agree with iceheart, going by pbmax's previously posted views he could present himself as an anarcho-capitalist. At its core however, anarchists propose a government-free society while communism, and in a lesser respect socialism, proposes exactly the opposite: a fully state-controlled society.

Btw, syndicalism isn't so much as a branch of socialism as it is a vessel for the introduction of socialism into a capitalistic society.

I must admit, Wikipedia's article on Anarchism is a lot more extensive than any I've read before. Where they all have said the same thing. Anarchism is all about small societies where "villages" make their own rules that the see fit. Thus making everyone able to directly influence their own rules and restrictions. But obviously, there's a lot more to find as I now see.

The "problem" with anarchism is that is in fact a very highly structured society, the lack of government and "official" rules simply means that the strong will always dominate the weak, or in anarcho-capitalsm, the rich will always own the poor.

So, the question with anarchy is always how you are going to enforce the freedom to do anything, it's a paradox

.

Quote:

actually, its nobody's business how much the waitress makes besides her and her employer. ideally, not even the government's.

Then by following the rules of the story its also impossible to determine if the man outside the restaurant is in a better or worse situation than the waitress or even the person giving the tip. Since you can't give the financial income of the waitress then you also can't give the financial income of the man outside unless you assume. In that case if you can assume the man outside is homeless by appearance then you can also assume the waitress is not in the upper 10% based on occupation. Everyone in the analogy has to abide by the same rules. Keep it fair, keep it fair.

I think I saw almost exactly this in an e-mail recently. I didn't read it since I already knew the point, but I think it's basically the same. It's very staged and doesn't translate the point well.

pbmax wrote:

stuff

I haven't read the other replies yet but I fear I don't believe a single word of what you wrote. It reads more like some typical story to push people into a predetermined direction leading to an Heureka effect as if someone had a chance to draw his own conclusions.

I wonder why someone who has contributed so much to this board turns more and more into a manipulator at all cost. Don't put your good reputation at risk, it's not worth it.

shaviro wrote:

That could easily be turned into a Seinfeld episode

Tip Nazi

No tip for you! hah!

iceheart wrote:

pbmax wrote:

actually, its nobody's business how much the waitress makes besides her and her employer. ideally, not even the government's.

Anarcho-capitalism ftw?

I'm dead serious.

The government has no business knowing what your financial wealth is. We have become so used to an intrusive government that we just assume its the natural order of things. They even take our money before we can deposit it into our bank account. Imagine getting your full pay check and then having to write a check to the IRS each week...

What the government does with income tax is unconscionable. Make X amount? You need to pay this because we say so. Drive a hybrid? Good for you, here's a tax break. You have how many kids? Here's some more money back. Its social engineering at its worst.

Actually, worst yet is the fact that most people are oblivious to it.

There are other taxation methods besides the income tax. A national sales tax or a flat tax for example...

pbmax wrote:

The government has no business knowing what your financial wealth is. We have become so used to an intrusive government that we just assume its the natural order of things. They even take our money before we can deposit it into our bank account. Imagine getting your full pay check and then having to write a check to the IRS each week...
<snip>

Since you consider the US Constitution such "an important and historical document" it's only fair for someone to point it out to you that the US Constitution explicitely says that the Government is entitled to taxing its citizens based on income:

US Constitution 16th Amendment wrote:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

i'll get into the historical details of the 16th amendment later...

but that doesn't change the fact that its not the government's business how much money you earn, make or have- especially when that information is used for social engineering.

there are other ways to derive "income taxes" such as property tax, sales tax and flat taxes.

pbmax wrote:

but that doesn't change the fact that its not the government's business how much money you earn, make or have- especially when that information is used for social engineering.

That's not a fact, that's your opinion. Unless, of course, you're arguing that your opinion weighs more than the constitution of the country you live in.