The greedy rich owe their ill gotten gains to three factors

[Velociryx]

Don't discourage him guys...his worldview is utterly fascinating. I'm curious to see what other gems he'll come up with.

-=Vel=-

[Barnabas]

Most people who are rich were born that way.

This

[VetLegion]

#1) Staying in school.
#2) Working longer hours.
#3) Living in two income households (wife and husband both work)

Those greedy bastards! How dare they use these methods to get rich!

Those three can get you into the upper middle class, if some other things also fall right, ie you're intelligent and you don't happen to have a degree in extraterrestrial gender studies.

But they won't make you rich.

[snoopy369]

Have you seen how she works with her mouth?

Still, 97k/year doesn't sound that much. Is it before taxes? If it is, then how much is left, approximately?

You lose in the ballpark of 30k to 40k to taxes, depending on how your deductions work out. So, perhaps 65k in net income. Then, your mortgage; average person in that range has a house of maybe $300k, 15 year mortgage at 6% works out to maybe 25k a year in house payments, so you have 40k left over, then (family of 4, say) $12k in food, $28k left over; health insurance takes a couple grand, utilities take a couple grand, cable a couple grand, clothes a couple grand, and you're down to around $20k. Car costs you maybe $5k a year, so $15k ... $5k goes to retirement account, so $10k ... yeah, not particularly rich here. Having around $10k in 'extra' income is nothing.

[Velociryx]

Rightwinger, have you ever stopped to ask yourself or wonder where the notion of the "greedy rich, counting their ill-gotten gains" came from?

Have you ever considered that perhaps there is a kernel of truth to the idea the TRULY RICH might have gotten their vast wealth by some means other than schooling, putting the spouse to work, and working long hours? Is there room in your worldview to accept the possibility that this is not the case?

Do you understand that un, or under-regulated Capitalism is (among other things) a system of externalization of costs? The more costs you can externalize and abdicate responsibility for, the greater your advantage in the marketplace--note: this is not to say that there aren't more legitimate methods of gaining tactical advantage, but at the end of the day, a company will get away with whatever it can.

This same principle of externalization is applied by the Captains of Industry to create and maintain their vast wealth. It's not about working longer hours. That creates a linear income stream (x hours * y rate = z income). Real wealth is created by externalizing work itself...that is to say, getting other people to do work for you, and reaping small rewards from each of them (in exchange for the capital/expertise/whatever it is that said Captain of Industry provided).

This is not a bad thing, provided a proper regulatory environment, but the very LACK OF such an environment for significant portions of capitalism's history is one of the keys to understanding where the notion of the "greedy rich" came from.

$0.02

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Maybe the firt thing he should ask himself is why so many of that upper quintile are the very same liberals that supposedly hate the rich. After all, the label is "Liberal elite" no?

[Tuberski]

Rightwinger, have you ever stopped to ask yourself or wonder where the notion of the "greedy rich, counting their ill-gotten gains" came from?

Have you ever considered that perhaps there is a kernel of truth to the idea the TRULY RICH might have gotten their vast wealth by some means other than schooling, putting the spouse to work, and working long hours? Is there room in your worldview to accept the possibility that this is not the case?

Do you understand that un, or under-regulated Capitalism is (among other things) a system of externalization of costs? The more costs you can externalize and abdicate responsibility for, the greater your advantage in the marketplace--note: this is not to say that there aren't more legitimate methods of gaining tactical advantage, but at the end of the day, a company will get away with whatever it can.

This same principle of externalization is applied by the Captains of Industry to create and maintain their vast wealth. It's not about working longer hours. That creates a linear income stream (x hours * y rate = z income). Real wealth is created by externalizing work itself...that is to say, getting other people to do work for you, and reaping small rewards from each of them (in exchange for the capital/expertise/whatever it is that said Captain of Industry provided).

This is not a bad thing, provided a proper regulatory environment, but the very LACK OF such an environment for significant portions of capitalism's history is one of the keys to understanding where the notion of the "greedy rich" came from.

$0.02

-=Vel=-

I'll never make it rich if you are only giving me $0.02.

ACK!

[Velociryx]

Sorry Tubes...the check is in the mail!

@ GePap: An excellent point, but I fear that pointing out such things might create an unresolvable paradox for our new member and cause his head to explode...

-=Vel=-

[DinoDoc]

But they won't make you rich.

Being smart with your money takes care of the rest.

[chequita guevara]

Rightwinger, have you ever stopped to ask yourself or wonder where the notion of the "greedy rich, counting their ill-gotten gains" came from?
[snipped for brevity]

Vel, why do you talk like a socialist, but are not a socialist yourself?

[Velociryx]

Oh, I'm firmly in the Capitalist camp, Che...we've had that debate many times, as I'm sure you'll remember.

But just as Communism can't escape the inevitable clash with human nature (which, in that case has led invariably led to a dictatorship of one flavor or another in every instance your favored system has been tried), neither can Capitalism escape those bonds, which is why I'm not in favor of unfettered, "pure" capitalism. There must be good, smart regulations in place to control these companies (not for their good, but for ours!), just as there must be good, smart laws on the books regulating what individuals can, and cannot do.

To pretend that corporations will "do the right thing" out of some sense of their own morality is just plain silly, IMO, and history tends to support the notion that if a company CAN get away with something...they will (Thus the existence of the SuperFund, the EPA, and a whole alphabet soup of other regulatory agencies).

-=Vel=-

[rtwinger]

Corporations only engage in rent-seeking behavior because of the government regulation in place. Just as you can argue that corporations will engage in evil acts, I can argue that the reason that they do is because their natural ability to grow legally is stifled by government regulations, so they will seek other ways to compete.

Look at the illicit drug market as an example.

[ZEE]

Bernie Madoff is MY hero too

[Velociryx]

Corporations only engage in rent-seeking behavior because of the government regulation in place. Just as you can argue that corporations will engage in evil acts, I can argue that the reason that they do is because their natural ability to grow legally is stifled by government regulations, so they will seek other ways to compete.

Look at the illicit drug market as an example.

So your argument is essentially "chicken or egg?" And that would be fine, until you bring history into the equation, because see...we KNOW in this instance which came first (chicken or egg), and the moment you start using history as a guide, you realize how weak that position truly is.

One need only look at the litany of abuses committed in the not-so-distant past (when there were far, far fewer laws keeping the corporations in check) to realize that about the last thing on earth we want to do is to head back down that road.

The laws currently on the books to rein in the corporations didn't just spring forth from the ether...they exist precisely BECAUSE corporate abuses put them there, so it's patently false to assume that if we take them away, the corporations will magically play nice.

That's like arguing that people only murder and rape because we have laws against it on the books, and if we simply abolished those laws, everything would be just fine.

Are you Drake's DL? If not, you two should date or something.

-=Vel=-

BTW - the corporations lobbied to be treated legally as "fictional persons" and they got their wish. Just as people are bounded by a body of law, so too should the corporation. To argue it any other way is the worst kind of folly.

[GePap]

Corporations only engage in rent-seeking behavior because of the government regulation in place. Just as you can argue that corporations will engage in evil acts, I can argue that the reason that they do is because their natural ability to grow legally is stifled by government regulations, so they will seek other ways to compete.

Look at the illicit drug market as an example.

Bull. Corporations are 400 years old, heavy regulations of them only about 100 years old. All you have to do is look at the behavior of corporations from say 1870 to 1900 to see how weak your argument would be.

yeah, but history can be such a bother......

Oh, and would you also claim that crime only exists because of penal laws, and that if we decriminalized certain acts they wouldn't happen?