Fat cats out of control: 1% owns 82% of wealth

[petej0]

I fall within the top 1% of earners in the US and:

1. I recognize that I'm overpaid, and so is pretty much everyone else in the tech industry
2. I'd be excited to pay more taxes if they paid for education and infrastructure instead of dumb fucking walls and unnecessary military toys
3. I think healthcare is not a human right, but it is a privilege any modern world power should be able to organize (efficiently) for its citizens
4. I think if your business can't thrive while valuing basic human labor at $20+/hr, you do not have a viable business model in 2018
5. I think anyone with money who doesn't agree with 1-4 is wrong and we should steal all of their money ASAP.

How is the tech industry overpaid?

[Regalia]

You can watch lectures online. MIT has full lectures for practically every course they teach online for free.

Again that's not a proper education.

[Jeezy911]

How about they pay the same taxes as everyone else without all the loopholes? or are you for welfare for the rich and corporations? There's no reason for a teacher to get charge a higher percentage in taxes than Goldman Sachs or Bill Gates. The concept is called fairness you may want to look it up sometime.

The top 10% pay something like 60% of the taxes in the U.S. Not sure where you are getting your information, but the rich pay a ton.

[videotape]

How is the tech industry overpaid?

I mean at places like Google and Facebook, total annual compensation for senior engineers is well over $500k.

You gonna tell me my skill set is actually worth that much? I don't think it is.

[Jeezy911]

There are solutions, people just like to circle jerk about how those people "earned" their money.

And the people who don't get boners thinking about business owners realize that that 1% just sits on investments and do nothing with their life.

So we should forcefully take it away?

[Deleted]

Oh I forgot to mention

Everyone being angry and depressed at all this is a dumb loser for this simple reason

The poor are just as greedy as the rich

And you can bet if the positions were reversed, the exact same people bemoaning current wealth inequality would do the very same things rich people are doing now

We blame the banks for the 2008 financial crisis, but in the end it was the greed of people that caused it, it was the greed of ordinary people thinking getting mortgages to flip houses for profit was a normal thing to be doing when working at Wal-Mart

You want proof?

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency speculation -- a bigger bubble than any other in history -- all done without the involvement of banks or governments or elites, by ordinary not-rich people driven by human greed and get-rich-quick-envy

The moral of the story?

In life, like in nature, there's just winners and losers - so don't be a feminist SJW loser

So you are not going to tell us what you actually do then?

Forgive me if I sound sceptical but generally speaking MMO champion users are not part of the super elite. If they were they wouldn't sound like text messaging teenagers. For example they don't generally call people dumb losers or use terms like SJW which are exclusive to millenials. I think you are trolling.

[Regalia]

You can watch lectures online. MIT has full lectures for practically every course they teach online for free.

Ahhh yes, again a lot of people have issues with self learning especially at certain levels when you know little to nothing about it.

[Deleted]

I mean at places like Google and Facebook, total annual compensation for senior engineers is well over $500k.

You gonna tell me my skill set is actually worth that much? I don't think it is.

It could be if you can replicate the work of 500 people through automation-then it does make sense. I'm not normally a fan of overpayment of executives but it doesn't sound like you necessarily are given what I know of the subject.

[petej0]

I mean at places like Google and Facebook, total annual compensation for senior engineers is well over $500k.

You gonna tell me my skill set is actually worth that much? I don't think it is.

You may not think it is worth that price. To them it is worth it. By offering a high salary they ensure that they get the best applying and can choose from a wider pool of candidates. Second, they must compete with other software companies in your talents. Third, arent we all about paying people good salaries? Would you feel better if they made billions while they paid their employees only living wage salaries? Fourth, software is automation.

[Deleted]

So you are not going to tell us what you actually do then?

Forgive me if I sound sceptical but generally speaking MMO champion users are not part of the super elite. If they were they wouldn't sound like text messaging teenagers. For example they don't generally call people dumb losers or use terms like SJW which are exclusive to millenials. I think you are trolling.

I work in finance, as I've pointed out before in old threads when I call people naive idiots (feel free to check, I get banned a lot)

I've spent more time no longer being a teenager than I suspect many people on this forum have been alive

You got one thing right though, I am definitely trolling

[Draco-Onis]

The top 10% pay something like 60% of the taxes in the U.S. Not sure where you are getting your information, but the rich pay a ton.

Taxes as percentage of what they earn, not sure why it is so hard for you to read.

[Deleted]

If anyone wants a free, practically complete understanding of graduate economics then here you go. Complete with homework and answer keys as well.

It is the connections and the qualifications from attendance at a prestigous university that have value, not the content.

Learning all the information on that course would be largely pointless, it isn't going to get you a job.

- - - Updated - - -

I work in finance, as I've pointed out before in old threads when I call people naive idiots (feel free to check, I get banned a lot)

That's suspicously vague. Unless you are a credit analyst....that would make a lot of sense. Lower-tier financial salary, status anxiety and low feelings of self-worth compensated for by randomly trolling the general public to reinforce imagined superiority.

Gonna take a shot here and say credit analyst or other third-tier role with comparatively low salary.

[videotape]

You may not think it is worth that price. To them it is worth it. By offering a high salary they ensure that they get the best applying and can choose from a wider pool of candidates. Second, they must compete with other software companies in your talents. Third, arent we all about paying people good salaries? Would you feel better if they made billions while they paid their employees only living wage salaries? Fourth, software is automation.

I understand exactly why we're worth this much to them right now. It's because the supply of good engineers is limited, and they want to remain competitive in protecting and pursuing revenue sources across computing.

The value is however not only tied to supply and demand for engineers, but also to available resources. Tech companies have boatloads of money right now and their compensation packages are proportionate to that value. The companies themselves are overvalued though -- absolutely, without a doubt, this is a huge bubble -- and when the bubble pops it's gonna get real hard to justify shelling out $500k/yr for some aspy kid to dick around with UI code all day.

[Deleted]

Gonna take a shot here and say credit analyst or other third-tier role with comparatively low salary.

Heading up a trading desk

The status anxiety bit is true though, but hey who isn't

Don't give up your day job for a psych degree

[Deleted]

I understand exactly why we're worth this much to them right now. It's because the supply of good engineers is limited, and they want to remain competitive in protecting and pursuing revenue sources across computing.

The value is however not only tied to supply and demand for engineers, but also to available resources. Tech companies have boatloads of money right now and their compensation packages are proportionate to that value. The companies themselves are overvalued though -- absolutely, without a doubt, this is a huge bubble -- and when the bubble pops it's gonna get real hard to justify shelling out $500k/yr for some aspy kid to dick around with UI code all day.

I think you are underestimating your own abilities.

I literally can't code to a professional standard and I never could. It is not something everyone can do. That is true of very few things. The supply of engineers is always going to be limited.

I'm not sure what you mean about overvalued tech companies. It sounds like a 2000 tech bubble argument "amazon will never be big". I thought we got past that when tech started generating billions and disrupted old industries.

[schwarzkopf]

I fall within the top 1% of earners in the US and:

If you are being paid to do a job, then you aren't part of the problem.

It is people who have masses of wealth and earn masses of income without actually producing anything - that's the problem.

[Deleted]

Heading up a trading desk

The status anxiety bit is true though, but hey who isn't

Don't give up your day job for a psych degree

Bookie huh?

The fact you didn't mention the sector would suggest I hit the nail on the head, but whatever.

Enjoy it while you can....can't see it lasting much longer....

[Amerrol]

The funny thing that most people dont understand is that the 1% that owns 82% of the wealth actually supports most of the world with their money. Rich people make more money by investing that money, not holding it on bank account. That money is providing people jobs and industries more money to expand. And since the world keeps getting bigger there will be more people who need jobs and more people who will be working, indirectly, for that 1%.

Yeah, buying out companies then immediately shutting them down is such a good way to bring about more jobs. Meanwhile, the "investors" get a fat payday from some legal loophole bullshit their accountant comes up with.

Sure they do invest, but they also hoard a large part of their wealth in safe CDs and bank accounts, and just live off the interest. The amount of wealth that's tied up in things like this is insane. If you think these people tie up most of their wealth in high risk investments you are delusional. Not to mention a lot of this investment is overseas into areas where they can pay impoverished workers almost nothing.

It's insane people like you still believe in trickle-down when it's pretty clear it doen't work, and never will as long as people are irredeemably greedy.

[Direpenguin]

42 individual people have more wealth than 50% of the planet's population. That's more wealth in the hands of 42 individuals than a combined total of 3.8 billion people.

That's fine. Seems justified. They probably deserve all that money. And need. They definitely need all that money.

And if they were to give away all their money to that 50%, it would come out to less than 500$ per person. So explain how them having money makes everyone else poor?

[videotape]

If you are being paid to do a job, then you aren't part of the problem.

It is people who have masses of wealth and earn masses of income without actually producing anything - that's the problem.

Just to play devil's advocate here... At this point a large portion of my income actually does come from investments rather than from compensation for work. Eventually that % (assuming I change nothing and the market sees relatively stable growth) will eclipse my actual employment compensation. Is that morally wrong? What if I then retired and lived off the investment income? Is that morally wrong?

I do have a problem with people who are born into money and never contribute anything worthwhile. Moar estate tax plz.