Do the rich earn their income?

[asterism]

If by "investment capital," you mean money, rich people don't produce money, they accumulate it. Money would exist whether rich people existed or not.

Suppose a rich person dies. Does his money die with him?

You don't need rich people to have money, any more than you need one person to have all the apples in order to have apples.

The wealthy are people who have accumulated enough money to feel secure with the possibility of losing a portion by investing it in new business or a business expansion.


Risk capital, venture capital, investment capital, whatever you want to call it...I can't risk it, and neither can you...but the wealthy can...because they have a secure cushion to fall back on.

Without that capitol, the economy grinds to a halt.

Is that so hard to comprehend?

Oh really?

When was the last time any rich guy took the type of risk you are describing?

Because for the most part..they never do.

What they do is risk other people's money.

Mainly yours and mine.

Mark Cuban

http://blogmaverick.com/2009/02/09/the-mark-cuban-stimulus-plan-open-source-funding/
Mark Cuban | CrunchBase Profile

Over 200,000 others as of 2007

http://www.unh.edu/news/docs/2007AngelMarketAnalysis.pdf

 

[Neotrotsky]

IRS: Not enough rich to cover the deficit

Soak the rich, eh?

They do not have the money.
A report from the Internal Revenue Service found that the rich — 8,274 people with incomes of $10 million per year or more — earned a total of $240 billion in 2009.

Even of you confiscated every dime they earned, you would barely have enough money to cover government spending for 24 days.

Of course, about a quarter of that money already goes to the federal government for federal income. So make that 18 days.

Another 227,000 people earned $1 million or more in 2009.

Millionaires averaged taxes of 24.4% of their income — up from 23.1% in 2008.

They, too, did not earn enough money to come anywhere close to covering the annual deficits that are $1.5 trillion a year.​

Individual tax collections totaled $1,175,422,000,000 in 2009 — or 15.4% of all income.

Doubling federal income taxes for everyone would still leave us $400 billion or so shy of balancing the budget.​

 

[Sundial]

According to the Tax Foundation the top 5% took home 21.7% of all income in 2009.

According to Google, GDP was $14.1 trillion that year.

[email protected] = $3.06 trillion. US deficit = ~ $1.4 trillion. More than enough.

 

[bripat9643]

According to the Tax Foundation the top 5% took home 21.7% of all income in 2009.

According to Google, GDP was $14.1 trillion that year.

[email protected] = $3.06 trillion. US deficit = ~ $1.4 trillion. More than enough.

You're proposing to confiscate 100% of the income of the top 5%? Seriously?

BTW, If you make $100k you are very near to being in the top 5%.

 

[Neotrotsky]

According to the Tax Foundation the top 5% took home 21.7% of all income in 2009.

According to Google, GDP was $14.1 trillion that year.

[email protected] = $3.06 trillion. US deficit = ~ $1.4 trillion. More than enough.

You're proposing to confiscate 100% of the income of the top 5%? Seriously?

BTW, If you make $100k you are very near to being in the top 5%.

The Left should call themselves
the "Looting Class"

 

[bripat9643]

The Left should call themselves
the "Looting Class"

I'll bet Sundial posted that in all seriousness. These people don't have the slightest clue as to the consequences of their breathtakingly disastrous schemes. They are like children at the controls of a 747.

 

[Neotrotsky]

According to the Tax Foundation the top 5% took home 21.7% of all income in 2009.

According to Google, GDP was $14.1 trillion that year.

[email protected] = $3.06 trillion. US deficit = ~ $1.4 trillion. More than enough.

We are talking about income and the taxes on them
GDP refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced in a country
which includes gov't expenditures as well

It would really help if you understood the terms being used


The money is not there, unless you want to destroy the whole economy
Perhaps if the Left looked at the productive forces as less of something to loot
and more of something to promote more of in society. We would be better off


Three Little Pigs: How Entitlements Will Destroy Us

Politicians like to pretend that you can deal with the debt crisis by eliminating "fraud, waste and abuse." And certainly there is plenty of that. This is, after all, a federal government that is spending $34 million to help Americans learn to be better shoppers, and $4.2 million to conduct "A National Conversation on Pluralism and Identity."

But the sad fact is that such outrages account for only a tiny fraction of federal spending. For example, there has been enormous anger over "earmarks," yet all earmarks together amount to less than 1% of the federal budget. In fact, if you completely eliminated all non-defense discretionary spending — everything from the Department of Education to the FBI, from NASA to the Food and Drug Administration — we would still face a budget deficit this year in excess of $500 billion. Throw in the entire defense budget and we barely break even.

Now add Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, and Obama's 2011 budget has a $1.27 trillion deficit. It's the entitlements, stupid.

Nor can you tax your way out of debt. Eliminate all of the Bush tax cuts, including the tax cuts for low- and middle-income Americans, and you would reduce the debt by perhaps 10% — assuming you didn't cripple the economy in the process. Tax the rich? That won't get you there either. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, in order to pay for all currently scheduled federal spending would require raising both the corporate tax rate and top income tax rate from their current 35% to 88%, the current 25% tax rate for middle-income workers to 63%, and the 10% tax bracket for low-income workers to 25%.​

 

[Sundial]

According to the Tax Foundation the top 5% took home 21.7% of all income in 2009.

According to Google, GDP was $14.1 trillion that year.

[email protected] = $3.06 trillion. US deficit = ~ $1.4 trillion. More than enough.

We are talking about income and the taxes on them
GDP refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced in a country
which includes gov't expenditures as well

It would really help if you understood the terms being used

The market value of goods and services produced in a country is the same as the income produced by selling those same goods and services.

Gross National Product = Gross National Income.

Government expenditures are expenditures to the government, but they're income to somebody else.

Anyway, I'm not advocating an additional 50% tax on the top 5%.

I was just pointing out that the "even if we took all their money it wouldn't be enough" argument is wrong.

 

[Neotrotsky]

Again, it is including expenditures of gov't and business
we are talking about income of people and taxes
Now

Since we were talking about and your link was to GDP not GNP...
if you mean the Income approach for GDP that is really something else
and the link you provided was using the Expenditure approach, was it not

Furthermore GDP does not equal GNI
For example, the profits of a US-owned company operating in the a foreign country will only count towards US GNI and the foreign GDP.

If a country becomes heavily indebted, and pays large amounts of interest to service this debt, this will be reflected in a decreased GNI but not a decreased GDP. Therefore, the GDP appears more larger for countries with increasing national debts.
Which means, there is even less income that the county with the large debt could effectively tax- sounds like the US

For a county to have GDP=GNI, it would have to be practicing some form of autarky or equal amounts of foreign exchanges


so the I was just pointing out that the "even if we took all their money it wouldn't be enough" argument is wrong.
has not been proven wrong by you. The money is just not there, unless you want to strangle the economy

Again we are talking about individual's income and taxes

Now if you are advocating taxing everything all different levels of production and exchange
I would argue that most taxes get pushed down ultimately to the consumer and
the people would still get hurt

 

[Meister]

According to the Tax Foundation the top 5% took home 21.7% of all income in 2009.

According to Google, GDP was $14.1 trillion that year.

[email protected] = $3.06 trillion. US deficit = ~ $1.4 trillion. More than enough.

You're proposing to confiscate 100% of the income of the top 5%? Seriously?

BTW, If you make $100k you are very near to being in the top 5%.

AS long as it's the "other peoples" money....it's okay.

 

[Trajan]

How many people earned a paycheck because of Donald Trump?
Just think of how many people benefited from just one Trump building/casino/hotel/condominium....

Why don't you think about that and all the other rich people who you lefties condemn and try to destroy...These people go away like you want and who will you then demonize and look to to keep people employed,who government get tax revenue from...

I'm sure quite a few people make a "paycheck" from what Trump sorta does. Not the point really.

These people have no skin in the game..they have other people's skin. And they don't make things to last..they hit and run..and do so to make as much profit in the short term as possible.

Is that ethical? Of course not. Is it legal? Right now it is..

soooo you feel a certain service provided, like, oh- gambling, doesn't make anything, then no one should provide that service? there for no one can work in that industry?

and the real estate he develops and sells?

 

[Trajan]

Then you should be able to name them.

Big ones.

Go on.

Dick Fuld. When did he make any investments?

How about..Lloyd Blankfein? Which one was his?

And James P. Gorman? When did he belly up to the bar?

What about Duncan L. Niederauer? That's a guy I actually met. When was the last time he opened his wallet?

How about Trump? That's a fave. You think he uses his own cashola?

Most of these guys don't ever touch their personal wealth to make investments.

Your questions are stupid. For one thing, the invesments people make are personnel information unless they are buying and selling stock in the companies they work for. In the case of Dick Fuld, a good chunk of the money he has acquired was "EARNED" income according to the definition you and rdean are using. He recieved an enormous salary for being a CEO. The same goes for James P. Gorman, Lloyd Blankfein and Duncan L. Niederauer.

Which do you object to, "earned income" or "unearned income?"

Like all real estate developers, Trump builds his projects by borrowing money using the resulting development as collateral for the loan. Do you object to that arrangement? If you do, then how do you propose to get houses built for turds like you to live in?

My questions aren't stupid.

You haven't put up one reason any of these people should earn millions more then the normal employee at their respective companies.

why should they have to justify this to you?? or anyone?

They seriously don't add any value..most of them keep "bankers" hours and many of them haven't even put in the time most normal employees of their respective companies have.

And in a couple of cases..they screwed up so bad..their companies folded. And these are companies they didn't start. Or the families didn't start..or they really weren't a part of.

You really need to do a little research before you come up with these insipid answers..

Or you can just keep on being a stupid fucking moron.

 

[Trajan]

If by "investment capital," you mean money, rich people don't produce money, they accumulate it. Money would exist whether rich people existed or not.

Suppose a rich person dies. Does his money die with him?

You don't need rich people to have money, any more than you need one person to have all the apples in order to have apples.

The wealthy are people who have accumulated enough money to feel secure with the possibility of losing a portion by investing it in new business or a business expansion.


Risk capital, venture capital, investment capital, whatever you want to call it...I can't risk it, and neither can you...but the wealthy can...because they have a secure cushion to fall back on.

Without that capitol, the economy grinds to a halt.

Is that so hard to comprehend?

Oh really?

When was the last time any rich guy took the type of risk you are describing?

Because for the most part..they never do.

What they do is risk other people's money.

Mainly yours and mine.

hes risking your money? mark cuban? why did you lend it to him?

 

[Meister]

The wealthy are people who have accumulated enough money to feel secure with the possibility of losing a portion by investing it in new business or a business expansion.


Risk capital, venture capital, investment capital, whatever you want to call it...I can't risk it, and neither can you...but the wealthy can...because they have a secure cushion to fall back on.

Without that capitol, the economy grinds to a halt.

Is that so hard to comprehend?

Oh really?

When was the last time any rich guy took the type of risk you are describing?

Because for the most part..they never do.

What they do is risk other people's money.

Mainly yours and mine.

hes risking your money? mark cuban? why did you lend it to him?

I would hate to see or be part of Sallow's America.

 

[JohnA]

How many people earned a paycheck because of Donald Trump?
Just think of how many people benefited from just one Trump building/casino/hotel/condominium....

Why don't you think about that and all the other rich people who you lefties condemn and try to destroy...These people go away like you want and who will you then demonize and look to to keep people employed,who government get tax revenue from...

I'm sure quite a few people make a "paycheck" from what Trump sorta does. Not the point really.

These people have no skin in the game..they have other people's skin. And they don't make things to last..they hit and run..and do so to make as much profit in the short term as possible.

Is that ethical? Of course not. Is it legal? Right now it is..

now your getting confused
WHAT THINGS DONT THEY MAKE TO LAST ?
hotels, homes , casinos , i think not
and when they finally do have to *replace * those things they *employ* people to rebuilt them .
SHORT TERM PROFIT
Isnt that was liberals do make/build something and make as much money as you can doing it as per union mantra, if you say you dont your a fucking liar

your nick should be shallow not sallow suits you better

 

[Sundial]

Neo - In your link the author said

in order to pay for all currently scheduled federal spending would require raising both the corporate tax rate and top income tax rate from their current 35% to 88%,

Adding another 50% on top of the tax the rich already pay would result in ~ 80% tax. So we're not that far off. Or at least, I'm not that far off from what the Three Pigs author said.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I'm not asking how the rich got their money. In fact, I already answers it: interest, dividends, etc.

This is my question:



Do you want to try again?

I love how you just leap to the assumption that they're "consuming without working", and that income that doesn't come from a paycheck is acquired "without getting up in the morning".

You really have no fucking clue who "the rich" are, or what they actually do all day, do you? Why don't you go tell Warren Buffett or Bill Gates that they're just lounging around the pool all day, sipping Mai Tais and being unproductive consumers? That is, if you can catch them with a free moment to listen to your bullshit.

This is called a "straw man argument.". You're attacking an argument I didn't make.

An argument you didn't make? I'm sorry, was this not YOUR post, you ignorant twat:

Do the rich earn their income?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

According to the IRS, the answer is mostly not.

Of the richest of the rich only 6.5% of income was from working, as of 2007. The rest came from things like interest, dividends, and capital gains.

In other words, the kind of income you get without having to wake up in the morning.

Which raises the question: if the rich are consuming without working, who is doing their work for them?

That was your OP, right? I don't normally hallucinate stupidity that profound, so I'm pretty sure it was real.

And then you spewed this out:

The definition of "unearned income" is income you get without work.

For some people the point of being on the dole is so they don't have to work.

Either way, they're consuming without producing.

At least you're willing to concede the rich don't work. That's something.

So please tell me how I'm "attacking an argument you didn't make", when you not only DID make it, but in the same exact words that I used.

I admire both Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, by the way. Both are giving almost all their money to charity, and Buffet is a strong advocate for higher taxes on the rich.

Edit: well, Buffet more than Gates. Microsoft made most of its money through a de facto monopoly, and makes inferior products.

You are SUCH a tool, you might as well have "Black and Decker" stamped on your ass.

Do you know why Buffett is such a "strong advocate of higher taxes on the rich"? Because he MAKES MONEY OFF OF IT, and tweekos like you happily kneel and suck his cock for him while he uses your gullibility to do it. Are you really so brain-damaged that you think he and his company aren't making MUCH more off of the taxes he supports and convinces envy-jockeys like you to support than he personally will ever pay because of them?

And about his "giving almost all his money to charity". You do realize that among his "charitable contributions" would be $1 billion to HIS OWN KIDS for their personal "charitable foundations", and money to the "charitable foundation" named for his late wife (guess who that's run by)? Can you say "dodge to get around inheritance taxes"? While I don't doubt that the foundations DO give money to at least putative charitable causes, I also don't doubt that his kids are, and will continue to be, living quite fat and happy off of the money those foundations pay them to head them up. It's a brilliant dodge: He gives them scads of money before he dies, by setting them up as heads of charitable foundations and donating the money through them (not one of his kids, so far as I can tell, has or has had a job other than heading the foundations), and cuts all manner of taxes he's advocated for other people out of the loop.

 

[Cecilie1200]

It doesn't matter how they accumulated their wealth; it is theirs, plain and simple. The question is whether they should be taxed on that wealth or income and how much. The argument is whether or not they should pay more than lower income earners due to their good fortune, no matter how they came about that good fortune. For some, it is through hard work, others it is through good fortune, and some it is through inheritance. I am not interested in taking their wealth away from them. However, I do believe that they have a responsibility to contribute to the overall well being of the rest of society if they intend to continue earning and reaping the benefits that such a society has given them.

And no, being the job creators is not enough. They still should pay taxes and a reasonable amount. On another note, not all wealthy people are job creators. Many job creators become wealthy, but that does not mean that all wealthy people are job creators. Many just sock their money away in fairly safe investments and live off the earnings. I don't have a problem with that either, but they should pay a fair share of the tax burden, and their fair share is much greater than a minimum wage worker.

"Fairly safe investments". You mean, like large, stable companies that employ and provide job security for lots and lots of workers? THOSE sorts of fairly safe investments?

Bottom line: wealthy people are ALL job providers in one way or another, unless they've got their money stored in their mattresses.

And listening to people talk about "fair shares" gives me the willies, because it always seems to mean "We're going to punish you for not being a pitiful wage slave like we are".

The point you're not getting is that those "pitiful wage slaves" pave the roads, stock the shelves, make the food, tend the sick, and teach the children. In short, they make everything and do all the work.

If the rich aren't working, who is doing their work for them?

They "do all the work" only if you're so lacking in brain power that you're unaware of how much work goes on at higher levels so that those wage slaves can bust their blue-collar humps.

Keep talking, because I love how you're revealing to everyone that, as I said, you have no fucking clue what rich people actually do or how they live their lives, and that you also have no clue about any job more skilled than the drive-through window.

Want fries with that?

 

[Cecilie1200]

According to the IRS, the answer is mostly not.

Of the richest of the rich only 6.5% of income was from working, as of 2007. The rest came from things like interest, dividends, and capital gains.

In other words, the kind of income you get without having to wake up in the morning.

Which raises the question: if the rich are consuming without working, who is doing their work for them?

Link

Look, I don't consider myself "rich" in the monetary sense but I guess some people would. I'm certainly rich when it comes to health, a great family, faith, fun, stuff like that.

It is definitely my goal to eventually sell my business, live my retirement years off of well calculated investements and of course, leave something behind for my family.

So what is your problem with that?

No problem. I aspire to be parasite myself.

Not everyone can be a freeloader, though. Somebody has to do the work.

And working for a living doesn't make a person a "loser" or an "idiot."

People who think like that need to get their heads straight.

I don't notice him saying anyone is a "loser" or an "idiot", so why are you addressing a point he didn't make?

I will say that anyone who simply gets by, paycheck to paycheck, and makes no plans or provisions for himself and his family beyond those paychecks IS an idiot. What happens when you're not there to earn that paycheck any more? Or when you're too old to do your job any more? Then what?

 

[Cecilie1200]

Now that he's in a position to have employees, he's got a lot more to do every day than just one narrow, assigned job. He gets to oversee EVERYONE ELSE'S jobs, making sure that the books are kept honestly, the payroll is done correctly...

I thought the rich became rich so they don't have to work...

Why can't you keep your story straight?

Show me where I ever said that, and thus where it was ever "my story", shitforbrains.

Why can't YOU keep your POSTERS straight?