I invite you to compare and contrast the practical attributes of a $300 tax cut, a $300 tax rebate, and a book of $300 worth of food stamps.
More “newspeak”
“4x average national income can’t be defined as ‘rich’ as long as there are people making 6x national income.”
From Merriam Webster:
Definition of QUALITATIVE
: of, relating to, or involving quality or kind
Am I right in saying that by quadrupling your income, your life is incrementally better, but in a broad sense, you still have all the same problems you had before?
In the first, the government takes less of your money. In the second, the government takes more of your money, but gives some of it back. In the third, the government gives you money, period, without any relation to the money it takes from you.
As for “practical attributes” - not sure what you mean. Can you compare and contrast the “practical attributes” of someone robbing you of $1000 in the street, and you gifting $1000 to that someone?
I guess the best way to describe what some of us are talking about would be to compare household items.
25k: House brand bacon.
50k: Name brand bacon (Oscar mayer, Blue Ribbon, Smithfield, etc…)
200k: Nueske’s organic bacon, or other mass-market premium bacon that you buy at whole foods.
Rich: Your private chef cures his own pork bellies to your specific taste.
**
The first 3 are mass market versions of the same thing, but the 4th is an entirely different level.**
You could do the same with cars:
25k: Beater 2000 Oldsmobile
50k: 2005 era minivan
200k: 2009 Prius
Rich: Someone else drives you in your 2011 Mercedes.
To answer ** Cheesesteak’s ** question out of turn:
Yes, that’s pretty accurate. Most of the problems are the same. In general, they can afford more of the same, or nicer versions of the same, but there’s not this quantum leap in capabilities or spending power that some seem to think they have. You have to be truly rich to have that happen.
Doesn’t make any sense. “Better” is a qualitative term.
But anyway, if all the money between 20K and 200K doesn’t make much difference and living on 200K is “pretty much the same” then you may as well give up the other 180K.
Why are you so concerned about a possible tax increase?
It kinda make you wonder, if $150K makes no qualitative difference, why all the pissing and moaning about the couplefew grand you’ll have to pay in taxes?
I’m going to quibble with a different part of this: The $400 per month entertainment budget. And my quibble isn’t at all that I manage to pay much less than that for perfectly enjoyable entertainment. My quibble is that the basic value for an entertainment budget is zero dollars. Once you’ve paid off your basic expenses, anything that goes above that is entertainment. If I’m choosing to spend the extra money beyond ramen, canned tuna, and baked beans for gourmet food, it’s because I get more enjoyment from the gourmet food: In other words, the difference in price between the gourmet food and the ramen is entertainment. If I choose to live in a house bigger than the shack I actually need, it’s because I get more enjoyment from the bigger house: That’s entertainment, too. Anything above the basics is entertainment, and entertainment itself is never a basic.
Oh, and this is just absurd:
If you’re living the same lifestyle now as when you were making 50k a year, then where’s all this extra spending coming from? If your current lifestyle isn’t any different from the 50k lifestyle, then why don’t you have the same set of basics as someone making 50k? Now, sure, you can afford to spend more beyond the basics than you used to be able to do-- That’s fine. But a change in what the basics are is a qualitative change, not just a quantitative one.
Sociologists, like any specialty, can use whatever technical terms and terms of art that they want to. That doesn’t mean that their use of a term becomes the “correct” one. A lawyer, a psychiatrist, and an average person may all use the word “insane”. But unless we’re in a courtroom or laying on a couch talking about our mothers, the common usage is the appropriate one.
That said, there are serious problems with the definition you propose. Were Roman aristocrats “rich”? If so, what were their investments? Did they hire hedge-fund managers? How about all kings and nobles throughout history in a wide variety of cultures and geographical areas?
If one’s lands and agricultural or natural bounty counts as an “investment”, then nearly every farmer who has ever lived is rich by your definition - they earn much or all of their daily bread from their investments. By this definition, someone living like Thoreau at Walden is rich. By this definition, hunter / gatherer natives of Papua New Guinea are, to a one, rich.
The definition you propose is just as arbitrary. You use the exact words: “all or much of their pay”. Well, how much is “much”? Where do you draw the line? 51% of total income? 75%? This is exactly as arbitrary as any other suggestion made in this thread.
Apparently it’s because taxes are theft and theft is criminal.
So, blahblahblahpointofagunandotherstupidshitfishcakes?
The only one claiming that you need to have a Ferrari and a Tennis Court to be rich are the people in this thread trying to convince us that the top 3% income earners of one of the richest countries in human history isn’t “rich”. That takes such definitional jiujitsu that almost no one is rich.
If you don’t wonder how you will have to pay a bill, you do not live at all like many many millions of Americans. Which is not a bad thing, congratulations on your good fortune. Just don’t try to talk to me like I’m a chump and say that we are even in the same neighborhood financially. And that you can’t afford tax increases.
I suspect you aren’t being entirely honest but I am not calling you a liar, I just think the picture you paint is unrealistic. Let’s try again: Are you really claiming that someone who makes $200,000 a year, has to decide between taking a vacation that year, or flying some guests in at a cost of (let’s be GENEROUS and say their tickets are $1500 for a couple, which is absurd since I pay around 1000 to fly from the west coast U.S. to the PHILIPPINES every year)?
Do you think it sounds convincing that someone who makes 200k a year can’t take a vacation if they spend an unplanned $1500? Why can I do it when I make around 8x less?
Old is always at least 10 years older than your current age and rich is always at least twice your current net worth. My father in law has his own custom built plane, a giant house, hires out helicopters to take him to ski slopes and had art worth tens of thousands of dollars on his wall. He doesn’t consider himself rich. Rich people, he says, have their own Lear jets.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
Once again, I am forcefully reminded about how much real estate costs vary. In Toronto and within a day’s drive of Toronto, you couldn’t buy a free-standing house for $130K, probably not even a dog-house, much less a “nice house”.
[/QUOTE]
I’m sure it’s not “nice” but it’s a detached houseless than an hour from Toronto.
Sorry, double post
I’m confused by how you don’t see that saving is not an expense.
In a broad sense, someone earning $200K/year is living the same kind of life as someone earning $50K/year.
In a broad sense, someone “rich” is living a VASTLY different kind of life than someone who is earning $50K/year or $200K/year.
“Rich” is qualitatively different from “not rich”. You don’t even see the “rich” people. They don’t have many points of contact with you. You don’t shop in same stores. You don’t fly in the same plane. You don’t go to the same movie theater. You don’t eat in the same restaurants, and if you do, not in the same room.
See the “bacon” post above. Maybe that will explain it to you.
So what you’re saying is that they have access to nicer, better, more expensive stuff than you do.
Huh.