Darren New wrote:
> Sherry Shaw wrote:
>> "Wealth" (2) is also called "privilege" because that's what it is--a 
>> privilege.
> 
> I know a fair number of wealthy people. If you took away all their money 
> today, they'd all be wealthy again in a few years or less.
> 

Right.  That's what they're good at.  Kinda my point.

>>  If Bill Gates had been born in Kenya, he'd be outstanding in his 
>> field--actually out standing in his field, leaning on a spear, and 
>> counting his cows.  
> 
> And that's why Kenya is a poor country.
> 

Precisely.  It's circular.

>> _privilege_ of being born in a place where they could amass wealth and 
>> power and _privilege_ and I'm damned if I can see why they shouldn't 
>> pay for that privilege. (4)  There ain't no such thing as a free lunch 
>> for rich folks, either.
> 
> No, there isn't. They pay huge amounts of taxes. The top 1% of the 
> taxpayers in the USA pay something like 50% of the taxes.
> 

Whoa...hard to know where to start.  Source of figures?  And 
relationship of top 1% of the taxpayers to top 1% of incomes...?

>> (4)  Yep, poor example; both Bill and Oprah give a lot of their money 
>> away. 
> 
> Actually, I read an interesting article that basically argued that 
> without people who are so rich they couldn't possibly spend all their 
> money, you wouldn't have anyone who would be forced to invest, so you'd 
> get very little improvements in the lives of those with only enough to 
> live on. Basically, everyone's hand-to-mouth, until you get people rich 
> enough they can't use it all, at which point that has to flow back into 
> the economy as investment.
> 

IRAs.  Pension plans.  Savings bonds.  Why do you think people have to 
be "forced" to invest?  People invest to make money or to secure their 
futures, not because they can't think of anything else to do with their 
money.  And, if everyone's either too rich to spend their money, or else 
living hand-to-mouth, where's the middle class?

>> (5)  By the way, the part most people miss is that it's n% of Adjusted 
>> Gross Income, not just income.  You have to look at the exemptions, 
>> deductions, credits, etc. 
> 
> And you have to look at AMT.
> 

Which, oddly enough, tends to hit the middle class way worse than the 
upper class.

> Why do you think there are all those deductions? Because congress can't 
> resist taking bribes to make up deductions for their friends.
> 

Well, yeah.  (But then there's the EIC...not too many Congressman and 
their friends getting that...)

--Sherry Shaw


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