Wealth inequality-how it affects the economy

[hortysir]

Baloney. Most of the richest people in this nation inherited their wealthy, they sure as heck didn't "work" for it. And many of those who have worked, started out at the top, not the bottom. You show me one rich person today who started out in the fields picking berries. Who worked as a maid or janitor. Just one. Then tell me again how the wealthy are working and the rest of us are just lazy.

I ordinarily enjoy reading your posts, AS, but this one IS way off base.
Not hardly picking berries, but Bill Gates comes to mind....Oprah.....Michael Jordan.......any number of large restaurant chains, etc....


Sidebar:
Found this article....
The Richest People In America - Forbes.com

The Richest People In America

Edited by Matthew Miller and Duncan Greenberg, 09.30.09, 06:00 PM EDT
America's super rich are getting poorer. For only the fifth time since 1982, the collective net worth of The Forbes 400, our annual tally of the nation's richest people, has declined

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Trickle down economics was right on one thing. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Trickle down lifted all boats, as it spread the gap between wealthy and poor by almost eliminating the distinctions of a middle class.

 

[Againsheila]

Baloney. Most of the richest people in this nation inherited their wealthy, they sure as heck didn't "work" for it. And many of those who have worked, started out at the top, not the bottom. You show me one rich person today who started out in the fields picking berries. Who worked as a maid or janitor. Just one. Then tell me again how the wealthy are working and the rest of us are just lazy.

I ordinarily enjoy reading your posts, AS, but this one IS way off base.
Not hardly picking berries, but Bill Gates comes to mind....Oprah.....Michael Jordan.......any number of large restaurant chains, etc....


Sidebar:
Found this article....
The Richest People In America - Forbes.com

The Richest People In America

Edited by Matthew Miller and Duncan Greenberg, 09.30.09, 06:00 PM EDT
America's super rich are getting poorer. For only the fifth time since 1982, the collective net worth of The Forbes 400, our annual tally of the nation's richest people, has declined

Bill Gates came from an upper middle-class family living in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Seattle. Don't know about Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey but I seriously doubt either one of them worked in the fields. Bill Gates never worked in the fields, he never worked as a janitor and he stole his operating system from Apple. But hey, that's the American way, right?

As for your Forbes:

Faltering capital markets and real estate prices, along with divorce and fraud, pushed the fortunes of 314 members down and drove 32 plutocrats off the rankings

Gee how terrible, they are losing their money to divorce and fraud. Wonder how many of those bankers are on that list? Instead of living on $billions and $billions, they have to settle for just $billions, how will they survive?

 

[hortysir]

Baloney. Most of the richest people in this nation inherited their wealthy, they sure as heck didn't "work" for it. And many of those who have worked, started out at the top, not the bottom. You show me one rich person today who started out in the fields picking berries. Who worked as a maid or janitor. Just one. Then tell me again how the wealthy are working and the rest of us are just lazy.

I ordinarily enjoy reading your posts, AS, but this one IS way off base.
Not hardly picking berries, but Bill Gates comes to mind....Oprah.....Michael Jordan.......any number of large restaurant chains, etc....


Sidebar:
Found this article....
The Richest People In America - Forbes.com

The Richest People In America

Edited by Matthew Miller and Duncan Greenberg, 09.30.09, 06:00 PM EDT
America's super rich are getting poorer. For only the fifth time since 1982, the collective net worth of The Forbes 400, our annual tally of the nation's richest people, has declined

Bill Gates came from an upper middle-class family living in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Seattle. Don't know about Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey but I seriously doubt either one of them worked in the fields. Bill Gates never worked in the fields, he never worked as a janitor and he stole his operating system of Apple. But hey, that's the American way, right?

My main point was that their money wasn't inherited. They studied and plied their trade.
Too lazy to elaborate more.

 

[Againsheila]

I ordinarily enjoy reading your posts, AS, but this one IS way off base.
Not hardly picking berries, but Bill Gates comes to mind....Oprah.....Michael Jordan.......any number of large restaurant chains, etc....


Sidebar:
Found this article....
The Richest People In America - Forbes.com

Bill Gates came from an upper middle-class family living in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Seattle. Don't know about Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey but I seriously doubt either one of them worked in the fields. Bill Gates never worked in the fields, he never worked as a janitor and he stole his operating system of Apple. But hey, that's the American way, right?

My main point was that their money wasn't inherited. They studied and plied their trade.
Too lazy to elaborate more.

And my point was the hardest workers are on the lower end of the spectrum. I found it insulting that anyone thinks a billionaire works harder than a field worker.

And I did say "most", not "all" of the wealthiest people inherited their wealth. I asked for one example, just one of a wealthy person that started out picking in the fields, working as a maid or janitor, just ONE!!!!

 

[hortysir]

Well, I'm also too lazy to google for ya

I do know a plumber, in north FL, that raked in 3mil last year though.

 

[Againsheila]

Well, I'm also too lazy to google for ya

I do know a plumber, in north FL, that raked in 3mil last year though.

plumbers make good money, maid, janitors and field workers do not. My son's caregiver gets $10.00 per hour and only 121 hours per month. Do you think you could live on that? Do you think his job is easy? You try cleaning up urine and feces everyday at work and then tell me that the wealthy aren't over paid and the rest of us underpaid.

 

[hortysir]

I have lived on that, before.
Everybody has to start somewhere.
Everybody *does*.
"Most" are not given their fortune.

G'night, ma'am

 

[Againsheila]

I have lived on that, before.
Everybody has to start somewhere.
Everybody *does*.
"Most" are not given their fortune.

G'night, ma'am

Yeah, so have I, but apartments weren't $700 a month, gas wasn't almost $4.00 a gal and heat wasn't $600 during the coldest month of the year.

 

[hortysir]

I think we were making a bit less than $10/hr, then, too

 

[MikeK]

There is no damage. the only damage is to the egos of those who can't or won't work as hard as those who do.

What kind of "hard work" are you talking about?

CNBC has been running a series called American Greed. Each episode is a documentary that follows the rise and demise of what seems to be an endless progression of fraudulent corporate operations, such as Enron, that ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands of honest, trusting people so the schemers can live like royalty in multi-million dollar mansions and own fleets of exotic cars and hold yacht parties. Is that kind of fraudulent thievery what you mean by "hard work?" If so your reasoning is warped.

Hard work is what produces the 401-K which is stolen by the conniving criminal who you will learn about on American Greed. I suggest you educate yourself on the means by which the wealth of America has been fraudulently transferred from those who worked hard to produce it to those who did nothing but lie, cheat and steal to acquire it -- mainly by bribing our legislators to eliminate the regulations that protected the middle class from them.

America's economy has just endured three decades of Bernie Madoff style "hard work" and what we are seeing now is the end result of it.


"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime." (Honore de Balzac)

 

[MikeK]

Well, somewhere between taxing and regulating the shit out of them and letting them run amok lies the truth.

very true....if we went total internal economy.....would you be in favour of interstate tarrifs to level the labour plaing field between say new york and the mid west.....

How much stuff do we export? Lots, if you didnt know. Does anyone think other countries will sit by and let us destroy their export markets through tariffs? No. Say bye bye to our export industries and all the people they employ.

I love it when people who know zero about trade and economics weigh in. They make it sound so easy. Of course if that were so, Smoot Hawley would have been a successful policy and E.Germany would be a world trade giant.

The notion that the U.S. will not retaliate against economic betrayal by American corporations who move their production facilities offshore because we fear tariffs being imposed on our exports is nonsense. It is the specious contrivance of the sonsabitches in the Congress who conspire with the corporations that choose to betray the nation that made their success possible.

We need not fear any kind of economic intimidation by any market in the world that we do business with for one simple reason -- we are the most powerful economic force in the world and we are capable of stepping on any market that wishes to play games with us. So don't be fooled by that cardboard propaganda. We have it within our means to aggressively undo all that has been done to us since the Reagan Revolution. All it will take is the willingness of our Congress to pass the necessary laws.

We need to tell those corporations that took our jobs to another country to turn around or we will crush them by any means necessary.

 

[HUGGY]

Ya lets seize everyone's money over say 2 million and let the Government redistribute it. You guys are such idiots. Envy is ugly.

Who suggested that you fuckwit hack?

 

[sparky]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN9eiicrm8M&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - Daniel Estulin exclusive: Bilderberg are terrified![/ame]

interesting.....

 

[sparky]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN9eiicrm8M&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - Daniel Estulin exclusive: Bilderberg are terrified![/ame]

interesting.....

 

[topspin]

Bill Gates came from an upper middle-class family living in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Seattle. Don't know about Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey but I seriously doubt either one of them worked in the fields. Bill Gates never worked in the fields, he never worked as a janitor and he stole his operating system of Apple. But hey, that's the American way, right?

My main point was that their money wasn't inherited. They studied and plied their trade.
Too lazy to elaborate more.

And my point was the hardest workers are on the lower end of the spectrum. I found it insulting that anyone thinks a billionaire works harder than a field worker.

And I did say "most", not "all" of the wealthiest people inherited their wealth. I asked for one example, just one of a wealthy person that started out picking in the fields, working as a maid or janitor, just ONE!!!!

that's totally wrong, 80% of millionaires are fist generation rich. FACT

 

[hipeter924]

If we only taxed for the military and infrastructure, and made taxation voluntary we wouldn't have unemployment or poverty, but a 0 to 1% tax rate is evil of course because people can't live on their own land for free, the government deserves to take all our money. Also a strong economy from low taxes would create more jobs, another no no. Never mind that we could all donate to non for profit organizations to help the poor instead of funding government welfare schemes. That would break all the rules. Will leave people to continue blaming the rich and successful for everything.

 

[topspin]

Obama will fix it all.
In his second term he will gut the military

 

[The Rabbi]

There is no damage. the only damage is to the egos of those who can't or won't work as hard as those who do.

What kind of "hard work" are you talking about?

CNBC has been running a series called American Greed. Each episode is a documentary that follows the rise and demise of what seems to be an endless progression of fraudulent corporate operations, such as Enron, that ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands of honest, trusting people so the schemers can live like royalty in multi-million dollar mansions and own fleets of exotic cars and hold yacht parties. Is that kind of fraudulent thievery what you mean by "hard work?" If so your reasoning is warped.

Hard work is what produces the 401-K which is stolen by the conniving criminal who you will learn about on American Greed. I suggest you educate yourself on the means by which the wealth of America has been fraudulently transferred from those who worked hard to produce it to those who did nothing but lie, cheat and steal to acquire it -- mainly by bribing our legislators to eliminate the regulations that protected the middle class from them.

America's economy has just endured three decades of Bernie Madoff style "hard work" and what we are seeing now is the end result of it.


"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime." (Honore de Balzac)

You need to let go of your class envy and anger.
How wealthy are the people from Enron? Skilling is in jail or broke. So are most of them. Ditto with Madoff, he is bankrupt and in jail. How wealthy are they again?
In any case those are hardly reflective of the broader American culture or the wealthy in this country.

 

[topspin]

Word
that was some great comedy about all wealthy are bad. LOFL