the top 1%

[Xarkan]

Should the top 1% of wealthy people and also CEOs of companies be forced to live homeless for a year to see what it's like? Maybe if they knew what it's like to be homeless they would change the way they take care of their employees

No

Instead more resources should be spend in an attempt to help people out of homelessness

[Adam Jensen]

No.

But we should stop worshiping the 1%, and stop letting them dictate our country's legislation.

[petej0]

So you're saying all wealthy people are hard working and got there on their own merit?

If my wife and I died today my 16 year old would be worth 2 1/2 million dollars with a house in upscale Chicago. Are you saying a HS teenager works more than a majority of Americans?

Please stop with the myth that everyone who has money got there by doing hard work.

How did you and your wife get wealthy?

How did Jeff Bezos get wealthy?

How did Bill Gates get wealthy?

[Theodarzna]

No.

But we should stop worshiping the 1%, and stop letting them dictate our country's legislation.

While we could stop idolizing them, that will be difficult to achieve in practice. By necessity, they are the elite and own both most of the media, thus are free to craft whatever narratives they want about themselves, and are typically advisors and the people that run for high office or are their friends.

I am unsure how you create a society in which one can be fabulously rich but not powerful since the whole point of wealth is that it translates into power and status. If wealth didn't mean power and status, nobody would seek wealth. As wonderful as that society is to imagine, how one actually implements that is hard to really picture while still keeping society largely as it is.

[NED funded]

When you employ laborers, they provide you with productivity that has a certain market value based on what they produce, and you pay them for some portion of that value, use another portion to cover the cost of equipping them with tools to be productive and managing business costs, and the remaining portion you take for yourself. When you do not negotiate the wages of your employees in good faith, through practices such as punishing them (or threatening to punish them) for sharing their level of compensation with their fellow employees, when you take portions of their productivity to lobby the government to undermine their rights as workers, when you partake in predatory HR practices such as replacing experienced employees with less qualified ones to rollback accrued pay rises for a position, or when you simply don't fight those practices and base your salary offers on a market value that was obtained through these exploitative methods, you are complicit in the modern day equivalent to slavery.

Every business owner in America has either participated in the stagnation of wages, the busting of unions, and the ravaging of labor protections directly, or quietly reaped the benefits of that exploitation. They are all deserving of contempt for that.

Modern day equivalent of slavery

Spare me the exageration. Compensation for workers in the US has been increasing, the only problem is that other things that are heavily regulated (such as healthcare) have been increaing faster in price during the same time periods.

Fact. Labor absorbs most of the income


Bezos is actually helping most workers in the US by taking s risk most of the wouldnt and they reaping the rewards for it.

[Draco-Onis]

Its happening because guidance counselors, teachers and parents drill it into our brains that if we are to be successful we need to go to college. So kids and parents will go into massive debt based on this false notion. Make college free and the flood gates will open. There would be no reason why someone wouldnt go to college.

If you are an employer looking for a quality candidate one of the factors will be looking for is college degree. Why, because of the demands a degree would have on a student says something about that graduate.

If everyone has a college degree you would no longer use that as a filter in your candidate search. So a college degree has just lost its value.

Again you are wrong as pointed out by you not every degree has the same value nor every college institution. The trend is going in one direction higher education is becoming the norm, making it free will help regular people have a chance. You also have zero evidence of this happening in countries where colleges are free at a rate any faster than the US.

You can make the case that high school should be teaching more so college degrees have less value but that ship has sailed but cost is not the issue here. You should just be honest and say you are against it because you paid for your education so you feel everyone else has to, the facts don't support your argument.

[VTerpsichore]

Should the top 1% of wealthy people and also CEOs of companies be forced to live homeless for a year to see what it's like? Maybe if they knew what it's like to be homeless they would change the way they take care of their employees

I assume you know what its like to be homeless then?
Most dont know the first thing about being homeless, you should think before you speak.

As for the question you asked, no. If its so bad, stop working their. There are plenty of other jobs out there. You may not like them, but they are there. Pick your poison. Also most worked hard for their money, some even had nothing, other got lucky, and few were born into it.

Money changes everyone, even you. Thats why your here begging for something for nothing.

[unbound]

No. most of them were poor in their early years and they worked very hard to get their money.

Bill gates, apple jesus, and mark robotberg all were poor in their early days.

rofl

Bill Gates' father was one of the most successful attorneys in Seattle. He was born and raised in the upper class going to a rather posh private school when he was a kid.

Steve Jobs was indeed raised poor.

Mark Zuckerberg was born and raised in an upper middle class family (father a dentist, and mother a psychologist).

Now that only 2 of your 3 cherry-picked examples are wrong, let's look at the reality. The vast majority of the 1% were born and raised into it, especially in the US. There is more economic mobility in Canada or Western Europe than the US. Less than 8% in the US make it from the bottom 1/5th to the top 1/5th, much less the top 1%. Even in the other countries, that percentage is 12% to 14%.

Stop fooling yourself with the exceptions, and start accepting the common reality.

[PC2]

Where I live 1% of people are homeless lol. But your Google search is very objective and accounts for countries that do not keep statistics on homelessness

Obviously it varies but I don't see any reason to take a small problem and then artificially double it.

[Captain N]

How did you and your wife get wealthy?

How did Jeff Bezos get wealthy?

How did Bill Gates get wealthy?

We both possess jobs that pay six figures. Hers required a college education and being fortunate enough to work in a metropolitan area. Even a move to the suburbs would be a 30-35% salary loss. I got lucky after the 2008 Recession and ended up in a field I had zero prior experience in, and no college degree. Both of us belong to unions that keep our wages up. Both of us came from poor parents.

Bezos and Gates came from upper middle class parents who had an idea and were fortunate enough to have those ideas at the right time. While Gates currently goes about explaining why people in his status are dangerous to economic stability and contributes to the poor, Bezos and Amazon continue to squash uprising businesses and with their own delivery system the US Postal Service, UPS, and FedEX.

Well I guess you'll be donating all your money to charity then? Or do you want your son to be a rich piece of shit who get 2.5 million dollars for doing nothing?

MOST rich people deserve to be rich, and MOST poor people deserve to be poor.

That's a goal post shift. You clearly said that its a myth that people who work hard can't be poor. You're implying that hard work = success Now you're saying that my kid is a piece of shit if I leave her 2 1/2 million dollars?

Also are those 800,000 people currently working without a paycheck due to a situation outside of their control. Do they deserve to be in such a spot?

[ojblade]

Should the top 1% of wealthy people and also CEOs of companies be forced to live homeless for a year to see what it's like? Maybe if they knew what it's like to be homeless they would change the way they take care of their employees

so stupid, what was facebook mark doing before he hit it big? what was the google guys doing before they hit it big? what was bill gates doing? steve jobs?
out of garages. its this drive that got them the money to be the top 1%. just because you dont have the ability to not do it doesnt mean you should hamper others from doing it

if you go after someone maybe go after the bankers, even then, I dont know

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How did you and your wife get wealthy?

How did Jeff Bezos get wealthy?

How did Bill Gates get wealthy?

by creating something someone(s) can use, wanted and paid for.

[petej0]

Again you are wrong as pointed out by you not every degree has the same value nor every college institution. The trend is going in one direction higher education is becoming the norm, making it free is only hurting regular people. You also have zero evidence of this happening in countries where colleges are free at a rate any faster than the US.

We cant be compared to other countries because our culture is vastly different. In the US we drive home the need to go to college very hard. We hold College grads high and businesses hold them very high.

You can make the case that high school should be teaching more so college degrees have less value but that ship has sailed but cost is not the issue here. You should just be honest and say you are against it because you paid for your education so you feel everyone else has to, the facts don't support your argument.

See...we were having a nice conversation until you throw around assumptions. I could care less, what they pay, I only have an Associates so my cost was low. It was only $13k. I have a baby that I started a 529 plan for. Do you think I want to spend or see her spend $80-$100k for an education society says she must get? Certainly not! I would rather have free education as well, but am also worried about the value of that education. If companies are going to start requiring college degrees for simple positions like Receptionists, Administrative Assistants (or like jobs that dont require and gain little to no value from a degree) then what are we saying to highschool grads?

- - - Updated - - -

We both possess jobs that pay six figures. Hers required a college education and being fortunate enough to work in a metropolitan area. Even a move to the suburbs would be a 30-35% salary loss. I got lucky after the 2008 Recession and ended up in a field I had zero prior experience in, and no college degree. Both of us belong to unions that keep our wages up. Both of us came from poor parents.

So you worked hard.

Bezos and Gates came from upper middle class parents who had an idea and were fortunate enough to have those ideas at the right time. While Gates currently goes about explaining why people in his status are dangerous to economic stability and contributes to the poor, Bezos and Amazon continue to squash uprising businesses and with their own delivery system the US Postal Service, UPS, and FedEX.

So did Bezos work hard to get his company running?
So did Bill Gates work hard to get his company running?

[haxartus]

I don't get why people get angry at the top 1% or whatever. The more money you have, the easier it is to get new money.

This is basic math - in a closed system, or in a system where "wealth" is generated slowly, eventually all of the money will be with a few people.

This is usually countered with higher taxes, so it's not so "easy" for ultra high earners to earn more, or with a large economy growth, which is not happening at the moment, and this is why you see these threads.

However, increasing the taxes is a dangerous game and it has always been. It's easier than ever for people and businesses to switch countries, and some very wealthy and stable countries are extremely rich due to having lower taxes, which makes them very lucrative for companies - Switzerland and Ireland for example.

[Captain N]

So you worked hard.



So did Bezos work hard to get his company running?
So did Bill Gates work hard to get his company running?

Not as hard as other people do. I worked harder as a plumber for a fraction of my current pay. My Conductor works harder than I do and he/she makes less although those Metra Conductors have it pretty sweet even as new hires.

Sure Bezos and Gates worked to get their companies off the ground because they struck at the right time. Using 2 extreme examples of becoming ultra wealthy and disregarding a majority of the population is a dishonest argument. You know there's a reason that a large portion of start ups fail in their first 5 years, right?

[petej0]

Not as hard as other people do. I worked harder as a plumber for a fraction of my current pay. My Conductor works harder than I do and he/she makes less although those Metra Conductors have it pretty sweet even as new hires.

We are not comparing current work value. Yes, there are some tough jobs out there. Nobody argues that.

Sure Bezos and Gates worked to get their companies off the ground because they struck at the right time.

Hard work and some luck. Sure.

Using 2 extreme examples of becoming ultra wealthy and disregarding a majority of the population is a dishonest argument. You know there's a reason that a large portion of start ups fail in their first 5 years, right?

Well its not like your typical next door millionaire is well known and can be used as an example. Mike Rowe said many of the people he worked "for" on his Dirty Jobs show were millionaires. You would never know it, but they were self made, doing jobs nobody wanted and were low profile.

Not everyone is going to be ultra wealthy and I have to think they know it. Do they hope to get lucky and hit it big like Gates and Bezos, sure, but I bet Gates and Bezos didnt think they would either. A small business person with 40 employees making a few hundred grand a year running a local business is a success. When people talk about the American Dream, they are talking about that very thing. Owning a successful company with a modest house. Not this picture of the ultra elite with huge 20k sqft manions. That shit is "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous" wealth. That shit is "MTV Cribs" wealth. That is wealth only the few lucky get.

[Captain N]

We are not comparing current work value. Yes, there are some tough jobs out there. Nobody argues that.



Hard work and some luck. Sure.



Well its not like your typical next door millionaire is well known and can be used as an example. Mike Rowe said many of the people he worked "for" on his Dirty Jobs show were millionaires. You would never know it, but they were self made, doing jobs nobody wanted and were low profile.

Not everyone is going to be ultra wealthy and I have to think they know it. Do they hope to get lucky and hit it big like Gates and Bezos, sure, but I bet Gates and Bezos didnt think they would either. A small business person with 40 employees making a few hundred grand a year running a local business is a success. When people talk about the American Dream, they are talking about that very thing. Owning a successful company with a modest house. Not this picture of the ultra elite with huge 20k sqft manions. That shit is "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous" wealth. That shit is "MTV Cribs" wealth. That is wealth only the few lucky get.

1. That's not what you said. You like the previous person I engaged with used the term hard work. You're implying that people who work hard are those who make it. People work much harder than I do in much more skilled crafts and I out earn them easily. Also my wife's wages are set by her location and have nothing to do with hard work or skills. If she were to take a job outside the city her pay would drop considerably. If she took a job in Indiana it would drop by nearly 50% doing the exact same thing.

2. Sure hard work and not having mass competition at that time helps. You should really look into what Amazon does now to people who try to start a business. It's downright ugly.

3. Your typical next door millionaire is one of two things. Someone like me and my wife who had all the stars align and the right point in our lives and used it to their advantage. This includes those who actually beat the odds and survived the 5 year mark with their own business. Or they're someone like my kid who is going to have advantages that many of her peers are not. She'll never face student debt, or deciding whether to eat dinner or pay the electric bill.

[ellieg]

1. That's not what you said. You like the previous person I engaged with used the term hard work. You're implying that people who work hard are those who make it. People work much harder than I do in much more skilled crafts and I out earn them easily. Also my wife's wages are set by her location and have nothing to do with hard work or skills. If she were to take a job outside the city her pay would drop considerably. If she took a job in Indiana it would drop by nearly 50% doing the exact same thing.

2. Sure hard work and not having mass competition at that time helps. You should really look into what Amazon does now to people who try to start a business. It's downright ugly.

3. Your typical next door millionaire is one of two things. Someone like me and my wife who had all the stars align and the right point in our lives and used it to their advantage. This includes those who actually beat the odds and survived the 5 year mark with their own business. Or they're someone like my kid who is going to have advantages that many of her peers are not. She'll never face student debt, or deciding whether to eat dinner or pay the electric bill.

Only gonna talk abt your first point. Of course you make less if you move away from the city. Your cost of living goes down as well. Usually your economic status stays relative.

And no one is paid based on how hard their work is. People are paid based on how hard it is to replace you. You can bust your ass everyday like I did as garden associate at home depot. But they can find 10 pol to replace me before I could even type up a resignation letter.

[Captain N]

Only gonna talk abt your first point. Of course you make less if you move away from the city. Your cost of living goes down as well. Usually your economic status stays relative.

And no one is paid based on how hard their work is. People are paid based on how hard it is to replace you. You can bust your ass everyday like I did as garden associate at home depot. But they can find 10 pol to replace me before I could even type up a resignation letter.

Incorrect. Your economic status stays the same for the location you're in. Once you travel to a location that has a higher cost of living than where you live your economic status changes. Its easier for my wife to pack up and take a vacation to Hawaii due to the cost of living in Hawaii than it would be for someone in Indiana to do the same.

It's not difficult to replace any employee. People have to eat, need a roof over their head, and need some way to travel to and from their job. All it takes, and what does happen in many jobs, is an employer finding someone who will do the same job for less money then eliminating the current employees position and rehiring someone else at the lower wage. Even I could be replaced by someone willing to take a six month course in Locomotive Operations.

[Polly3685]

I don't get why people get angry at the top 1% or whatever. The more money you have, the easier it is to get new money.

This is basic math - in a closed system, or in a system where "wealth" is generated slowly, eventually all of the money will be with a few people.

This is usually countered with higher taxes, so it's not so "easy" for ultra high earners to earn more, or with a large economy growth, which is not happening at the moment, and this is why you see these threads.

However, increasing the taxes is a dangerous game and it has always been. It's easier than ever for people and businesses to switch countries, and some very wealthy and stable countries are extremely rich due to having lower taxes, which makes them very lucrative for companies - Switzerland and Ireland for example.

You're talking about tax loopholes which need to be closed.

American citizens are taxed because they are American citizens. Even if they move over seas they still pay federal income tax. Then they would also pay taxes to whatever country they moved to. The only way to avoid federal income tax is to relinquish your citizenship.

There is little to no risk in raising the top marginal tax rate. That's why FDR was able to raise it to 90%, he threatened to take it all.

[Molis]

Cherry-picking a few examples does not equal 'most'. Most have substantial inherited wealth. It is easier for a wealthy family to stay wealthy than someone on a small income to climb into wealth, at least with the metrics we're discussing here.

Bezos
Gates
Zuckerberg
Ohpra
Cook
Dorsey
Hastings

All poor. Should I list more?

Really a silly argument to take more from a person due to having a novel idea or working their ass off.