For a non-real person, corporations gots their rights established earlier than Black people.
The Thirteenth to the fifthteenth amendments of the Constitution were meant to protect Blacks. Bu thanks to some Supreme Court rulings, corporations, designated as people, got their rights established back in the 1880’s. Black people could not have their rights uniformly enforced until the civil rights era.
The roots of corporate rights go back to the original framing of the Constitution which secured the rights of property owners.
Considering the mindset of people that had evolved from British subjects to land owners and national leaders, it’s completely understandable.
Mr.Zambezi
What makes you think your reported $100,000 does NOT make you rich!?!?! Yikes, I’m amazed you’d even ask the question!
Plus you didn’t mention there being a Mrs. Zambezi nor any little Zambezies. Being a single guy, you should live really well with HALF of what you’re making now! Allow me to put things into perspective for you…
My dad was making $60,000 per year before he passed away four years ago. That was the most money he ever made in his life. With that income (and with a much smaller ones, prior to his working for a great company) he and my mom raised four kids, bought a house, purchased cars (all of them used, save for the very last one), put all three daughters through college, put his only son through his sophomore year at OSU before passing away AND paying for the wedding of the two eldest daughters (he died before I met the man who is now my husband). And you actually have to ask if $100,000 a year for a single man is wealthy?!?!?! On what planet WOULDN’T you be wealthy?!?!?
How can you have the nerve to complain about paying oh SO much for taxes when your post-tax paycheck is bigger than mine AND my husband’s put together and BEFORE taxes?!?!
Please do me a favor - push yourself away from the computer, go outside, and get a clue. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Patty Marvel
RE: Who is rudest in the grocery store…it ain’t the people on food stamps! I worked at a grocery store while an undergrad and can assure you that the snottiest people were the ones who drove away in a BMW or some other expensive car.
Patty
Marvel, your failur to earn money, nor the frugality of your parents gives you a greater right to my money. IT is all pretty relative.
In addition to Mrs.Zambezi, there are some pretty substantial student loans and some debt run up while she was getting her ND degree. The average house in my area runs $241,000.
I admit, we are comfortable, But by no means are we “rich”. Regardless of whether I am, it doesn’t make me a bastard just because my wife and I have been working our asses off on our careers.In fact, it is people like me who are footing the bill, so you better be nice to me.
In fact, that is kind of the point of the OP; we are part of the group paying most of the taxes, but to hear some folks, we are basically taking food directly out of the mouths of poor people.
I am not accusing you of “taking food out of the mouths of poor people” nor did I call you a “bastard.” I was just stating you’re WAY better off than you seem to realize or admit. Seems you’re even better off than I thought - you have a wife who works.
I wouldn’t have the audacity to complain about my paycheck or my taxes to someone who was on welfare or Social Security because I’m financially better off than they are. You should try reading posts much more closely.
P.S. Regarding your house - then MOVE! You could find a decent house for half that money in another area.
And you wonder why people are unsympathic to you?
Not everyone is unsympathetic.
Mr. Z has a greater income than do I. I suspect that his wife also earns more than does my wife.
But why in hell should I resent him for it? Instead I see him, and others like him, as a model for success. There are people out there making more money that I make. Whether it’s one dollar more, or 10 times more doesn’t matter one little bit. The key is that it fosters hope that I, too, will be able to duplicate his success.
His lifestyle isn’t that different from most of us, just more expensive. He pays a mortgage like I do – he just writes a bigger check. He drives cars like I do – they’re just newer. He wears clothes to work like I do – but he wears nicer suits.
What you SHOULD be asking is “What line of work are you in? How do you get into this line of work? Are there opportunities for someone like me?”
Getting mad because someone makes more money than you do won’t do a thing for you or your family unless you find a way to imitate their success.
I am not mad because he makes lots of money - I’ve no idea where you two get that silly idea. I never said such a thing - more power to the late Andrew Carnegie, Fiorello H. La Guardia and the like. What pisses me off is seeing someone so well off who doesn’t appreciate it, and even has the nerve to complain!
Good example - a few weeks ago I’m watching “Politically Incorrect” and David Duke was on. He was going on about how the white man is just SO oppressed in this country and yadda, yadda, yadda. Finally, Bill Mahr (SP?) broke in and said if Duke can’t see that white men are at the top of the social food chain in this country, there is something VERY wrong with him. Same concept here. No, I’m not saying either of you are racist (let’s make that clear before another silly misconception pops into your heads), but for someone who has it so good, Mr. Man does an awful lot of complaining.
Sure, he pays a chunk in taxes and has student loans to pay - a lot of people do. But NOT a lot of people make $100,000 a year and can live in a neighborhood where, says he, the houses cost about $241,000 (WHY did you move into such an expensive neighborhood if you’re going on this list crying “Poor me. I’M not rich at ALL”?). Plus his wife works. Even if she is making only half of what he does, that’s still a good chunk of change. And yet he complains. Christ, if I made half of what he does, I’d be thanking every deity I could think of, NOT complaining. That is what pisses me off. Like seeing a neighbor’s kid with tons of toys complaining to all the other kids that he doesn’t have enough to play with. I’ve never read of Carnegie or La Guardia bitching on their way to the top, nor once they got there.
And he shouldn’t have posted the question, Does anyone here consider $100,000 rich (TWICE!), if he didn’t want a straight answer. I used the example of my dad’s $$$ to put things into perspective. In retrospect, I believe that question was posted (repeatedly) just to start an argument - I find it that hard to believe anyone would NOT concider $100,000 rich. So after this post, I won’t be feeding the troll.
I guess the idea of rich is very subjective, but $100,000 a year certainly isn’t my idea of rich. I live in New York, and if you got a decent house with an hour of the city for $240,000 that would be a pretty good deal. If it’s just you and your wife and your not planning on having kids, you can get away with a little less, but if you are going to have kids and want them to be in a decent neighborhood, $240,000 probably wouldn’t cut it.
Sure, with that kind of money, you don’t have to worry too much about basic necessities. But it’s not as if you can go and buy a Mercedes S Class or a Ferrari. You cannot spend extravagantly and you need to watch your cash flow. Your credit is good, so if you don’t watch it you can end up with very large debt.
To me, being rich means not having to worry about money. That is - when you go buy a car, you buy the one you like the most regardless of price - same with a house. I guess if you’ve accumulated maybe $10 million I would consider you rich.
Like I said, the word is very subjective. Also, I don’t think Mr. Zambezi was complaining about his monetary situation, he was complaining that there are people out there who think it is unfair that rich people are rich, even though they pay the bulk of the taxes. These people want the rich to pay as much taxes as it takes to make them no longer rich.
PeeQueue
PQ said
Marvel, you get me wrong. My point is what PQ said. My wife and I give thanks to God every single day of our lives for the comforts that we have. I do not live in a $240,000 house. In fact, I live in a neighborhood that is mostly Mexican immigrants. I bought my house for $118,000. It took me 2 years to find such a deal and I personally remodeled the house with my own hands, including plumbing and electric, to save money because I couldn’t afford a contractor to do it for $45K.
I drive a car thta is 7 years old and my wife drives one that is 5 years old.
Even so, I do not have a ton of extra cash laying around. Sure, I do not worry about paying the bills each month, but I cant go out and buy a mercedes, nor can I fill my closet with $1500 dollar suits. I still have to watch my money carefully.
I am not calling for the abolition of taxes on people in my bracket. I just think that when you make a household income of $50K it is easy to leeok at me and say "he has it made! He has no financial worries. He should pay a lot more taxes. well I do, and I am not rich. I am upper middle class. The prospect of having a child and incurring those costs is certainly something that causes us financial concern.
I still remember well having a household income of $35,000/year. I thought it would be pie in the sky when I got here. But come April, you realize that the government exacts a certain price for fiscal success.
BTW, Marvel, if you had read my quote carefully, you would have noticed that I said the average house here costs $240,000. That is a 3 bedroom box, slapped together with vinyl siding on a postage stamp of land in a massive housing tract. A decent house on a tree lined street runs around $300 per square foot, meaning that a 1500 sf bungalow runs about $300,000 – and that is if it needes remodeling work.
I am in a boom economy here which means that there is a scarcity of land. High housing prices erode disposable income. I don’t think it is fair to set tax brackets based solely on income. A person living in Manhattan and making $100k/year is really taking home a lot less than a person with the same income in Tuscaloosa, AL. But It is my choice to live in a nice or crappy neighborhood and it is my choice to live in Denver.
Mr. Z,
In what part of the country do you reside?
Though there is a significant difference in our incomes, our “stories” are not that far different.
I’m in my mid forties. My wife and I make considerably more than does the average family. We have no kids. We are in the process of moving into a 35 year old house that we’ve just remodelled. (The house was a bank foreclosure from an estate. We got a good deal on it.) We’ve had to watch each and every dollar that went into it as the cash we’d intended to use sits in the form of a vacation lot where we’ve decided to build our retirement home in a few years.
I don’t begrudge anyone anything. You make more money than I do - so what. There are literally millions of child enriched families out there that my wife and I can never become - so what.
What does bother me is this “for the children” mentality that has taken over the country. The mindset isn’t focused around better education, better nutrition, better health, better home environments, or really better anything. It’s simply about money.
Tax breaks for familes with children - make those people that don’t or can’t have children bear more of the expenses of families with children.
Universal health care - No one in this country is denied emergency health care. Life threatening conditions as well as major and serious conditions are treated according to need and the bills paid by others.
Lotteries - To support education? Puh-leez.
I have no problem with my tax dollars going to pay for the infrastructure that we must all use. I do object that my taxes have to go up to support the voluntary lifestyles of others.
Southern, I think you need to start about 4 new threads there buddy.
I am in Denver, CO. Growing by leaps and bounds.