"57% pay no Federal income tax.
You can't fix stupid. Stupid people will be poor for the most part."
Interestingly enough, there is a clear link between IQ and income, but NOT IQ and wealth.
Wealth is as much or more about luck, risk taking, being an asshole and a host of factors other than IQ.
google: wealth-of-smarts-does-not-guarantee-actual-wealth
"AZ..... I loved the lottery analogy. It is complete bullshit but it did make me laugh. So thanks for the laugh."
How is it bullshit exactly?
The lotto prize is paid out of ticket sale revenue, minus expenses.
The rich get rich from revenues, minus expenses.
Same, same.
For everyone with $1 billion cash, there is $1 billion debt somewhere in the economy.
"57% pay no Federal income tax.
You can't fix stupid. Stupid people will be poor for the most part."
Except Trump...
AZ..... I loved the lottery analogy. It is complete bullshit but it did make me laugh. So thanks for the laugh.
57% pay no Federal income tax.
You can't fix stupid. Stupid people will be poor for the most part.
61% U.S. households will break into the top 20% of incomes (roughly $111,000*) for at least 2 consecutive years. Over half!!!
Proof that one can do it, or that some can do it, is not proof that all (or even most) can do it.
Some win Lotto... but for every $1 million winner, there are 2 million $1 losers.
Since so many of the richest Americans got that way from tech, let's look at that, shall we?
In the 1960s, massive government spending on the space program (really veiled defense spending since everything we learned from the space program was actually about building ICBMs and spy satellites) had the government paying $5 per transistor when the going rate was $0.50, but those transistors had to be tiny and light weight. This lead to the invention of integrated circuits, microchips, and eventually silicon chips. Which lead to a bunch of components, which ended up being personal computers.
And the people doing all that inventing earned their EE degrees going to college tuition free. Silicon valley is where it is, because California gave free tuition to EE students at Berkeley and Davis.
Sure, Gates got dumb lucky when IBM walked in the door asking to license Basic, and then as an aside asked if they knew where they could get an operating system... but I'm not sure that is a case to prove upward mobility. More like proof that getting rich is being in the right place at the right time to take advantage of an opportunity that was CLEARLY the result of massive government spending.
Perfect
I think every country should run a trade surplus. Do you think that is a good idea?
I think everyone should spend less than they earn, accumulating savings. Good idea, right?
70% of the richest 400 Americans got rich from starting their own business in their 20s. So, if everyone started their own business in their 20s, then everyone would be one of the top 400 richest Americans. Right?
Free K-12 education to help poor kids move up is reasonable.... Adding free college tuition is an insane and doomed attempt to ensure equal outcome.
"I thought you were against equal outcomes?"
My policy proposals are about opportunity, not outcome.
"Name the 30 richest people in the country and see if their grandparents or great grandparents were wealthy. My guess is less than half"
That proves that being in the right place at the right time, can result in you winning big.
There are lots of studies out there about inergenerational upward mobility. Not surprisingly to me, prior to 1980... when the middle class was growing and wages for working were growing faster than capital gains, there was significant mobility. Post 1980s, when wages from labor went flat to down while income from capital gains skyrocketed, upward mobility nearly completely disappeared.
I don't want an economy where anyone can succeed, but most will fail. I want an economy where everyone can succeed, though some will still fail.
Reading is FUNdamental...
So news organizations don't publish?? Hmmmm…...I'd say I learned something new today, but I already knew how idiotic you were
LOL.
NPR does not do or publish original research.
NPR reports in what other people, like AEI, publish.
It was published by NPR. You are an idiot
"From NPR"
No, actually from AEI.
Bad sourcing. Check that, dishonest sourcing.
But you knew that.
Many got rich on Wall Street I'm the 80's and insider trading was rampant.
Regan tax laws and "unregulated" Wall Street.... Tax evasion and offshore accounts
Bankers and real estate made serious money in 80's.
Dot-com explosions of 90's and 2000's.
Athletes, entertainers and CEOs made $100 million plus contracts in past 20 yrs.
Their children were lucky...
Like the British Royal Family.
Life is mainly timing, luck, and a lil skills and hard work
If your one of the 40% that can't make it into the top 20% then you need to be looking in the mirror, and not at the US Gov't policy.
"In other words, America already has a pseudo caste system."
bullshit. It's not a caste system. It's a government dependency system. It's a broken family system.
From NPR
61% U.S. households will break into the top 20% of incomes (roughly $111,000*) for at least 2 consecutive years. Over half!!!
39% U.S. households will break into the top 10% of incomes (roughly $153,000*) for at least 2 consecutive years.
If 6 out of 10 can make it to the top 20% then I'd say there's little opportunity gap.
And if you want to NOW argue that the .001% is the baseline . . . well . . . think about how things have changed due to inheritance laws and the fact that country HATES the 'Rockefeller' family type dynasties. The laws are made to NOT have those dynasties. So yes, technically, that 70% is probably higher. But you are moving the bar on a subjective line.
I have used the 1% line. If I wanted to be even more accurate, I could have used the top 10% of income. If you look at sociological studies on wealth, you will find that if someone comes form the top 10% of income, the chances of them staying there is very high. The chances of them becoming poor is very low. If you look at someone from the bottom 10% of income, the chances of them staying there, it's there, but not as high as the top staying in the top. However, the chances of them becoming top 10%, well, that's high.
In other words, America already has a pseudo caste system.
Yeah . . . all about me.
1981 . . .
I earned $80 a week. I saved $75 of it. It took me 40 weeks to be able to get the 3k to buy a computer. Yeah . . . all about me. /sarcasm
No my mother didn't have $300 to give me. We were poor. We lived off her job plus SS widow benefits and kid benefits. Want to call us a leech? Here, have fun with this one. My father married my mother. My mother got pregnant. My father was drafted. My father went into the Marines. My father was sent to Vietnam. My father died there. I was then born.
So was I leech? Was she a leech? Hell, does that make me a gold star family? Have fun dissecting that you want to scream that SS is going bankrupt and it's being abused and should be shut down. Then, go ahead and rip into a gold star family. Hmm. Actually if you do, that' would make you a Trump fan through and through.
70 % of the top 0.001% of the wealthiest people in the country were self made and you think there's an opportunity gap. lol.
Your mother didn't have 300 to give you, and you went and spent 3k on a computer.
You were ahead of your time in the 'all about me'.
If you want to delve into the creation of this list, it is in different industries that they could not inherit it from. In other words, Zuckerberg more than likely came from a top 1% family. But he didn't inherit wealth from them. It was a spring to allow him to use his abilities to earn income in a different industry.
Today, the top 1% of income is ~400k. Yup, a decent doctors salary. When you start naming off people whose families were doctors, then . . . well . . . yeah, they had a silver spoon.
The problem with the Forbes list where they are ranking them like that is that it doesn't correlate with new industries and new tax laws regarding inheritance.
My point is that sure, Ellison, Zukerberg, Bezos all benefited from one thing: A new industry. Some of them were fortunate to be able to use their upbringing and then run with it. But start to think about this. When did they start with computers? Wanna bet that mommy/daddy bought them one when they were a little kid. While it may be common now to get a kid his own computer, go back to the mid 1980s. That wasn't happening. Fuck, my mother didn't buy me a computer, I earned income and went and bought one when I was 15. I earned the nearly 3k for it. My mother didn't have $300 to spend on me for that. Thus . . . the opportunity. Sure, I created my own opportunity, just like Adelson did by borrowing $200. But not everyone has that same opportunity. That is the point of this whole conversation. There will never be absolute equal opportunity. But the delta between opportunity and not should be lessened.
Well then present your data on opportunity or shut the fuck up.
