Lunch

[Aliantha]

16 people died during the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Apparently when the Brooklyn Bridge was built 139 died.

I hope their families are rich although I doubt it.

[glatt]

Oh yeah. Bridges. Can you imagine working in the cassions, underwater, digging the foundation for the bridge in the dark mud with the river out there, trying to kill you?

[Aliantha]

So many of these large constructions were built during years when jobs were hard to come by, and I guess the extra few dollars made the idea of working on them very tempting. These days people on these types of jobs get paid huge amounts of money, and they have safety gear...AND they have agreements as to how much their families get paid if they should die.

Although these constructions are marvels, I find it hard to get that excited about them due to the sacrifices made by people who didn't have much other choice.

[classicman]

Those days may be coming back.

[ZenGum]

When we talk about welfare vs taxing the rich, remember, a fair few rich people got rich at least in part by treating workers as disposable, or otherwise exploiting their desperation.
Rich person complaining about tax? How did you get so rich in the first place? Purely by innovating and improving the world, and skimming a fair share for yourself? (Bill Gates MAY be an example) Or squeezing more profit out of workers with a take-it-or-starve negotiation?
Look at the whole picture, is what I am trying to say.

[Aliantha]

Apparently BG donates 98% of his income to charity.

That's just a random fact.