Do the rich earn their income?

[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

Most of my income comes from how I have invested my money over the years. Currently, 80% of my income is unearned. If people like you get pissed off because you can't do the same, the solution is simple. Work your socks off, make the right investments and quit your fucking moaning! Nothing in life is free! The sooner you learn that lesson, the better off you'll become!

You don't get it. Suppose everyone lived off unearned income. Who would do the work?

There's no free lunch. If you're consuming without producing what does that make you?

YOU don't get it. So-called "unearned income" - which, again, only means income derived from something other than being employed by someone else - is not something that "everyone" can ever live off of. There will ALWAYS be people who either don't have any investments and etc., or who do not have enough of them at the moment to fully support themselves. And those people will always need more financially successful people to provide the investment capital to allow them to have jobs, so that hopefully they can then work their own way up to being the people who provide investment capital to others.

YOU are the only one accepting the whole "consuming without producing" canard, so I think we would all appreciate it if you stop chanting it as though we've agreed with you and accepted your false and arbitrary parameter on the discussion.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Most of my income comes from how I have invested my money over the years. Currently, 80% of my income is unearned. If people like you get pissed off because you can't do the same, the solution is simple. Work your socks off, make the right investments and quit your fucking moaning! Nothing in life is free! The sooner you learn that lesson, the better off you'll become!

You don't get it. Suppose everyone lived off unearned income. Who would do the work?

There's no free lunch. If you're consuming without producing what does that make you?

They ARE producing, non-thinker.

They produce investment capital.

Without investment capital, many businesses would not be able to open or expand and jobs wouldn't be created.

Think before you post.

Not to mention that the vast majority of millionaires in this country actually DO work. Once again, the false image that liberal dweebs have planted in their vacuous skulls of Paris Hilton jet-setting around and spending all day shopping and all night clubbing has nothing whatsoever to do with nearly all American millionaires.

Admittedly, they may not HAVE to work, in the sense of "If I don't go into the office, I won't be able to pay my mortgage", but that doesn't mean they don't still work.

 

[Cecilie1200]

You don't get it. Suppose everyone lived off unearned income. Who would do the work?

There's no free lunch. If you're consuming without producing what does that make you?

They ARE producing, non-thinker.

They produce investment capital.

Without investment capital, many businesses would not be able to open or expand and jobs wouldn't be created.

Think before you post.

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.

Rich people don't produce money? Go tell that to Sam Walton, who started a little mom-and-pop store in Oklahoma and turned it into the biggest retailer in the world, in the process generating billions of dollars in investments for his stockholders, AND billions of dollars every year in paychecks for his employees.

Go tell it to Warren Buffett, who bought up a failing textile and manufacturing company and turned it into an enormous conglomerate that generates . . . wait for it . . . billions of dollars for its shareholders AND for the many, many employees it has.

The mistake you make is thinking that economics is a zero-sum game, and "money" only means the actual greenbacks printed by the US Mint. It isn't, and it doesn't. In fact, in the age of computers, electronic transactions, and credit, "money" refers to those little green rectangles less and less with every passing day.

If you think a world with few or no rich people is so spiffy, why don't you go visit a few sub-Saharan African nations and tell me what you think then. Maybe you want to live in a primitive, third-world society where no one invents or creates or excels (except by leaving the country) because there's no financial incentive to do so, and where power is accumulated by a much smaller group (because human society will ALWAYS have some people who have more power than others, and that's all money really is) and wielded much more ruthlessly and devastatingly than could ever happen in modern-day America. I don't personally think I'd care for it.

 

[Cecilie1200]

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.

They ALL do, you moron. Where do you think rich people keep their money? In a mason jar buried in the backyard?

 

[Cecilie1200]

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?

You're wrong. Companies can obtain capital by borrowing from banks, from money markets, by issuing bonds, and by selling equity. Even venture capital firms have multiple investors.

Where do you think banks get the money that they loan out? Furthermore, how far do you actually think a company can get on bank loans - which have to be paid back with interest - alone?

What the hell do you think a money market is?

What do you think a bond is?

What do you think selling equity is?

You basically just said that companies don't need investors to provide capital, because they can go get investors to provide capital.

 

[Cecilie1200]

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.

You are fully brainwashed. Congrats to the Liberal Education system.

Every investment is a risk. What you people seem to want. Is for us to all gain if their investments pay off, but for only them to lose when they dont.

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.

I'm curious as to where you think their "personal cashola" is, precisely.

 

[Cecilie1200]

How exactly did Paris Hilton become rich? Or for that matter, Donald Trump?

How do YOU think Donald Trump became rich, Shallow?

His old man left him a pantload.

While Donald Trump's father was wealthy, and did leave him a successful business, he was nothing like as rich as Donald is reputed to be from having continued to build on his father's success.

 

[bripat9643]

I'm curious as to where you think their "personal cashola" is, precisely.

He thinks they hide it under their mattresses in stacks of $100 bills, or they have it hidden in a can buried in the back yard.

It's amazing what these libturds believe about the rich, isn't it?

And these people are allowed to vote!

Democracy is being ruled by the bottom 51% of the electorate.

 

[Cecilie1200]

His old man left him a pantload.

Nope.

Donald made more in 3 years of working for his father than his father and grandfather made since the founding of the company.

The Trump group was worth about $5 million when Donald started working there. Try getting your ideas and information somewhere OTHER than ThinkProgress and other hate sites...

You'd have a point if Trump, upon completing college, said to his old man, "Pop, I think your a swell guy..and you've done well for yourself..but I wanna make it on my own". Then got a loan from a bank..started his OWN real estate company from the ground up..and grew it into something substantial.

That never happened.

So you don't have a point.

Yes, if an adult child works in and takes over his parent's business and continues to build on its success, then he's accomplished NOTHING himself. All successful businesses should be immediately dissolved upon their founders' deaths - or given to the government so they can distribute the wealth amongst people with no connection to the business at all - and all children of successful businessmen should be forced to go out and start from scratch. THAT'LL be good for the economy, by God!

Fucktard.

 

[Cecilie1200]

It's not "according to liberals.". It's the definition of the words..

It's purely a legalism coined by the IRS. It has no moral connotations.

That's the problem with libturds: they can't support their idiocies using English correctly, so they abuse it and mangle it. Before long we won't understand what we're saying to each other.

I think you're being optimistic in assuming we can understand each other NOW. Liberals have deconstructed the English language so thoroughly in making words mean whatever the individual speaker chooses for them to mean that it's little better for communication now than pointing and grunting would be.

 

[Cecilie1200]

.

My ex works for a guy who was given a small two man operation insurance company as a wedding present by his father-in-law back in the early 60's. Given to him as a gift. He could have run a sleepy little insurance company for the rest of his life. Instead he worked his ass off building the company up and then used his capital to create a mortgage lending and servicing company and later a statewide bank along with other holdings along the way and is a multi-millionaire. He's semi-retired now and his son is running the joint. Of course, to hear some talk here, neither man works or produces anything.

I don't know if you noticed, but the discussion here is about people who don't work for a living. Do you see how the businessmen in your example don't fit that category?

On a side note, if I got an insurance company as a wedding gift, I'd appreciate how that gave me a leg up in life. Wouldn't you?

No, fool, the discussion here is about YOUR idiotic assumption that rich people don't work. Do you see how the businessmen in his example get most of their income from the "unearned income" you so despise, rather than from paychecks?

 

[MikeK]

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.​

Your source of this erroneous information is an obscure right-winger with an opinion and a website but absolutely no credentials. His name is Don Surber. I've never heard of him. Who has?

On the other hand, the following is excerpted from a Wall Street Journal interview with Alan Greenspan and is therefore authoritative:

(Excerpt)

[...]

"Mr. Greenspan was talking about re-imposing the taxes for all Americans. The Treasury has estimated that a permanent extension of all the Bush tax cuts would cost $3.6 trillion over the next decade. Allowing taxes to increase on those in the top income brackets would take the cost to the government down to $2.9 trillion, according to White House estimates."

[...]

(Close)

Greenspan Steps Up Call to End Bush-Era Tax Cuts - Washington Wire - WSJ


Allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire will indeed solve the debt problem. In other words, if Bush had not promoted those tax cuts for his uber-rich "base" there would not be a debt problem. That is the simple fact of the matter. But if the truth makes you uncomfortable and you'd prefer to believe the propaganda spewed by the likes of Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc., that's your problem.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Warren Buffett is lying to you to make himself rich,
:

You don't really believe that do you?

You know Buffet is like 90 years old, right? That he's lived in the same house for like 60 years? That he's got more money than God?

How does this plan work, anyway?

1. I'll lie and say that some people make too much money.

2. People will believe me.

3. ...........

4. PROFIT!

Yes, shitstain. I believe it, because it's true. I fail to see what his age or his house or how much money he already has has to do with anything. Unlike you, I know how Buffett got rich, and I know what his company does and how it makes money. Also unlike you, I understand what motivates people who are already wealthy to continue working and doing business - which Buffett still does, of course - rather than becoming the Mai Tai-sipping parasites you mistakenly believe all rich people to be. Just because they don't need more money, in the sense of "I have to have it to pay my mortgage", doesn't mean they don't WANT more.

Which is fine with me, by the way. So long as their activities are legal and ethical, I don't care if they see money as primarily a way to keep score or not. I'm just saying that it's stupid to think anyone as wealthy as Warren Buffett is making speeches about holding onto death taxes and etc. purely out of a sense of altruism and "being fair to the little guy". He does it because his company makes a fortune off of those taxes. Look it up if you don't believe me.

 

[Sundial]

Sorry, cecilie, I'm pretty much done with you. You're going to have to manage a higher level of civility if you want me to talk to you.

 

[Colin]

Sorry, cecilie, I'm pretty much done with you. You're going to have to manage a higher level of civility if you want me to talk to you.

Lol! You're pretty much done because you've run out of credibility!

 

[editec]

I've known people who never had to work thanks to their family wealth.

Usually those happy scions work very hard at what they WANT to work at, anyway.

Of course the argument can be made that doing what you want to do isn't work.

But I think that argument is flawed thinking.

Most of the scions I've known (and that's actually quite a few) work pretty hard at something.

The primary difference is they get to choose and do that work they choose to even if it doesn't really support them.

They can take a job, for example, that doesn't pay well but that will lead to a more interesting and better paying job.

Jobs that people who do not have a lot of money behind them cannot afford to take.

Or they can study an art or craft and become highly skilled artists or artisans over time.

Again, they can afford to go though that long period where they're journeyman artists in a way that a working stiff cannot.

But most of the wealthy folks I have known keep pretty busy doing something productive that most of us would recognize as work.

The advantage that money really gives one is the ability to play the LONG GAME.

If you are being supported you can take more risks, get more education, try things and fail and STILL keep going even in the face of financial adversity.

The working poor do not have that luxury.

They fall off the high wire and they never again can get back on that wire because they need to EAT and live indoors. Monery give you the ability to fail and fail and fail and still keep working until you get it right.

That is an enormous advantage in life.

When the working class fails, or when they are confronted with a careeer path that will not support them while they're learning that trade or art or business, they must eschew that career path because they cannot support themselves during that long period of training.

THAT is one of the reasons that money begats MORE money in many cases.

The poor and working class usually cannot be risk takers because they cannot afford to fail.

 

[dblack]

So really this issue comes down to the question: Are the investment decisions currently made by capitalists a valuable function of an economy? and How should we determine 'how valuable'?

i'm not sure I see any grounds for dismissing the investor's role out of hand. Clearly the decisions capitalists make (essentially, doing resource allocation for the economy) would need to be accounted for in any restructuring of the current system. Someone would need to make the call for what large projects went forward, or which were passed over.

The question to me is, who would do this job better? A network of self interested investors or state officers? Or is there some better solution?

I'd also add: Would such a solution - regardless of how it effected the economy - make for better government? Or open the door for worse government?

 

[Uncensored2008]

Babbling again?

(Uttering a meaningless confusion of words or sounds)

Slink off and lick your wounds, Shallow.

 

[Uncensored2008]

If you're a sole proprietorship, it'd be earned income, regardless of what account you put it in. If you're some sort of corporation, what you're talking about is illegal. It would be a form of tax evasion.

Really Comrade? How are LLC's and LLP's taxed?

 

[Wiseacre]

So really this issue comes down to the question: Are the investment decisions currently made by capitalists a valuable function of an economy? and How should we determine 'how valuable'?

i'm not sure I see any grounds for dismissing the investor's role out of hand. Clearly the decisions capitalists make (essentially, doing resource allocation for the economy) would need to be accounted for in any restructuring of the current system. Someone would need to make the call for what large projects went forward, or which were passed over.

The question to me is, who would do this job better? A network of self interested investors or state officers? Or is there some better solution?

I'd also add: Would such a solution - regardless of how it effected the economy - make for better government? Or open the door for worse government?

Picking up on this point, one of the primary ingredients in economic growth is increased capital investment. Would we feel better if they failed more often and therefore weren't as rich? Would the rest of us be better off? Great, more startups going bust and people losing their jobs.

I seems to me the liberals want the cake and eat it too. More economic growth, more jobs, but less return on investment to the rich guys who put up the money by taxing them more. It is beyond me why they cannot understand that if you raise their tax rates for business and investments that you are therefore disincentivizing economic growth. These guys will put their money in places that preserve their wealth from increased US taxation rates, either in tax deferred vehicles or offshore.