$200K/year isn't rich. Why aren't we taxing corporations?

[Terr]

@rogerbox

You’re conflating two of my arguments: 1) People who make 200k/yr, being in the top 3% of one of the richest nations in human history, are inarguable rich by any reasonable definition.

Give a reasonable definition of “rich”.

[DianaG]

“People whose income falls into the top 3% in the nation” is a much more reasonable definition of “rich” than “people who have to work” is of “poor”.

[Kobal2]

@Terr

What’s “basic” for upper middle class is not the same as what’s “basic” for you. Or what’s “basic” for you is not the same as what’s “basic” for a trailer park family somewhere in Podunk. And what’s “basic” for them is not the same as what’s basic for a subsistence farmer somewhere in Ethiopia.

Whatever helps you sleep at night, son. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

[Malthus]

@BlackKnight

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.

We are talking about class definitions. This sort of thing is the realm of sociologists.

“Common usage” is meaningless, because there is none. Everyone and no-one is “rich” to somebody, if you are using it in a comparative sense. No wonder this debate isn’t going anywhere.

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?

Surely this isn’t a problem. Throughout most of history, “rich” was pretty easy to figure out in societies somewhat similar to our own. In radically dissimilar societies, the term would be meaningless, because such societies either lacked “classes” or had radically different “classes”.

Take Romans - a very class-concious people, in some ways similar to our own - by the late Republic, it couldn’t be easier to determine who was or who was not “rich” – in that case, it was a simple measurement of wealth:

Senatorial class (senatores): The basis for this class was political. It included all men who served in the Senate, and by extension their families. This class was dominated by the nobles (nobiles), families whose ancestors included at least one consul (earlier the qualification had been a curule magistracy, i.e. curule aedile and up). The first man in his family to be elected consul, thus qualifying his family for noble status, was called a “new man” (novus homo), although this term was used in varying senses—it could refer to an equesterian who was the first in his family to be elected to political office and thus join the senatorial class, or to a man from the senatorial class who was the first in his family to be elected consul and thus join the nobles, or most dramatically to an equestrian like Cicero who was elected consul. Senators had to prove that they had property worth at least 1,000,000 sesterces; there was no salary attached to service in the Senate, and senators were prohibited from engaging personally in nonagricultural business, trade or public contracts. Men of the senatorial class wore the tunic with broad stripes (laticlavi).

Equestrian class (equites): The basis for this class was economic. A man could be formally enrolled in the equestrian order if he could prove that he possessed a stable minimum amount of wealth (property worth at least 400,000 sesterces); by extension his family members were also considered equestrians. However, if an equestrian was elected to a magistracy and entered the Senate, he moved up to the senatorial class; this was not particularly easy or frequent. Equestrians were primarily involved in the types of business prohibited to senators. Equestrians wore the tunic with narrow stripes (angusti clavi).

[Emphasis added]

http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/socialclass.html

Together, they formed the “upper classes”.

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.

No, for the very obvious reason that peoples such as hunter/gatherers lack “classes” altogether – such things are a product of a different form of social organization.

Look at it anthropologically.

Hunter-gatherer: “communalist”. No classes.

Tribe: “big men” and the rest. Authority is personal (a “big man” can’t pass it on to his kids). No classes.

Chiefdom: division of society begins. “Chiefly families” have heriditary mana. Then come (in some cases) warriors and commoners and sometimes slaves.

Early state: division of society becomes more elaborate. Beginning of “class system”. The vast majority remain commoners, with aristocrats, priests, kings above and sometimes an unfree class below.

Later state: full-blown class system, like that of the Romans under the later Republic/Empire or ourselves.

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.

No, it isn’t, because it is based on a functional difference. Your suggested definition - which appears eather the diffuse “common usage” (whatever that is) or the more specific top 3% - is simply a line in the sand. It could just as easily be the top 5% or top 15%. Or top 0.1%.

I could elaborate all day on what the “upper class” means, and by the end of the lecture, pretty well everyone would have a reasonable idea - even if it cannot pin down every case with 100% accuracy. In contrast, picking a percentage is purely a matter of individual choice, whether one thinks it is the top 0.1% or top 15%. A decision that can be different by whole orders of magnitude depending on choice strikes me as more “arbitrary”.

[Terr]

@DianaG

“People whose income falls into the top 3% in the nation” is a much more reasonable definition of “rich” than “people who have to work” is of “poor”.

Why is 3% reasonable and not 4%? Or 3.5%? Is there an income threshold past which you’re “rich” and before it you aren’t? I think it’s pretty obvious that doing that is not “reasonable”.

[DianaG]

As opposed to saying that if you can’t live comfortably without working you’re “poor”, which is completely reasonable.

[Terr]

@DianaG

As opposed to saying that if you can’t live comfortably on your returns and your interest, you’re “poor”, which is completely reasonable.

At least mine is not an arbitrary one.

Give a reasonable definition of “rich”. Don’t even look at my definition. Give your own.

[gurujulp]

@mozchron

I’m one of those $200K households. I don’t consider myself Rich (like Warren Buffet rich) but do I have it a hell of a lot better than most people? Damn straight I do. Can I afford to pay more in taxes so that the less fortunate can get a break? Damn straight I can. Willing and able.

Terr is being incredibly disingenuous. Entertainment, a mortgage, gourmet food etc… isn’t the “basics”. Basics are: 1) a roof over your head - maybe 5 people squeezed into a dingy 1 bedroom apt, 2) enough food so that you don’t starve and get your minimum daily nutritional requirements, 3) some minimal standard of health care (in the USA, this might not even qualify as basic).

We used to live as a family on about $20K a year. To say that my life now is qualitatively the same as then is flat out stupid. Being poor sucked. Having to beg family for money so that we could cover my spouses medical bills sucked (we had student insurance but it only covered 80% of the bill - a 4 day hospital stay came to about $40K, leaving us many thousands on the hook).

I’ve been poor and now I’m well to do. I have it easy now. Don’t believe anyone who tries to sell you something different. If they make that much and have problems paying their bills, they can’t handle money and their problems are of their own making.

This is true. It could also be restated by Terr, with a different conclusion, and also be true, if looked at it from his viewpoint. I think.

@RTFirefly

Having been in both situations in a fairly short period of time, I can assure you that it’s only true in a VERY broad sense.

Yeah, I still have a house, a job, and a commute, but it’s amazing how much easier having four times as much income makes everything. At 50K a year, the eight or nine thousand we currently spend on day care would have knocked an impossible hole in our budget. At 200K a year, we barely notice it. At 50K/year, the 40K we spent to adopt the Firebug from Russia would have been completely out of our reach; instead, we paid it out of pocket. Having a cleaning lady come in every other week is no big deal instead of a barely affordable luxury. And so on.

True, our life has the same superficial appearance as it did 13 years ago when we were in our 50K bracket, kind of like the way someone wearing a backpack full of lead weights would look superficially the same as someone wearing a backpack full of balloons. And that’s about how different it is.

Yeah, the difference between my life now, and that of a rich person, is even bigger. But the difference between 50K and 200K is still pretty damn big.

I like the backpack analogy, and I think that this is EXACTLY what Terr is about. He is just wearing a very light or possibly helium-filled backpack.

@Terr

“Having it a lot better than most people” is your definition of “rich”? That’s pretty pathetic.

It’s like that discussion of “trust fund babies” that I saw on this forum. People giving examples of someone they called a “trust fund baby” and relating how he had to go find work after he burned through the money. That’s hilarious. A true “trust fund baby” cannot possibly burn through the money and wind up in a situation where he has to work. It would be physically impossible, both because of the size of the trust fund and of the way the trust fund would be set up.

And in response to someone above who said that “rich is always at least twice your current net worth” - no. Someone who has twice my net worth is still not rich. You would have to have about ten times to twenty times more than I do to even scrape the lower bound of “rich”.

I am finding it harder and harder to agree with you, Terr, even though I was surprised at first that I did find myself in agreement with you. Can you really truly not see what everyone is attempting to explain to you, and do you really really, disagree totally?

I agree about the bacon analogy, but mozchron, in his post quoted here, is also correct. You are also correct for certain values of correct, but the fact that you refuse to stop moving the goalposts is indeed rather suspicious…

Ten to 20 times your >$200K income is rich, sure- but that doesn’t mean that 5x, or even 2x, or even your income isn’t rich.

I have at no point in this conversation attempted to state that $200K isn’t rich, although I think some people think differently. I am just trying to say that $200K isn’t ***very ***rich, and people like me might not notice when they got rich…

I am certainly very very rich compared to the 18yo me who thought that $25K was more than I would ever need or want to earn in a year, and I only earn $60K.

[justrob]

@Malthus

Pretty well says it all. When a real estate listing simply states “As Is”, you know it is, indeed, a doghouse (or rather, is being sold for the lot - a tear down).

Possibly but the listing says it is currently tenanted which means it is livable in someone’s eyes. Mind you I’ve seen some pretty crummy places that people were living in so I am not arguing too hard that it is or is not a dump.

@Malthus

Also, by car Oshawa is 60 km from Toronto. While in a perfect world this ought to take an hour or less, in real life it is going to take longer if you are a poor slob who is commuting to work in Toronto’s notorious rush hour gridlock that appears to last much of the day.

In short, even the hyperbole is pretty well true - you can only find a detached home within commuting distance of Toronto in that price range if it is (a) at the limits of “commuting distance” and (b) is a shithole.

That’s not what you claimed though…

@Malthus

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”.

Converting KM to Miles that makes it just over 37 miles. Even with horrible rush hour traffic that is going to be less than a days drive. I know several people who commute from Milwaukee to Chicago (~90 miles each way) and I have a hard time imagining the 37 mile commute is going to take much longer.

[Terr]

@gurujulp

Ten to 20 times your >$200K income is rich, sure- but that doesn’t mean that 5x, or even 2x, or even your income isn’t rich.

Income doesn’t matter in determining whether you’re “rich” or not. I didn’t say ten to twenty times my income. I said ten to twenty times my net worth. Granted, there usually is a correlation between income and net worth.

I have at no point in this conversation attempted to state that $200K isn’t rich, although I think some people think differently. I am just trying to say that $200K isn’t ***very ***rich, and people like me might not notice when they got rich…

I am certainly very very rich compared to the 18yo me who thought that $25K was more than I would ever need or want to earn in a year, and I only earn $60K.

In order to say if someone is “rich” or not, you have to first have a definition of “rich” that is not relative or subjective.

[amarone]

@gurujulp

Ten to 20 times your >$200K income is rich, sure- but that doesn’t mean that 5x, or even 2x, or even your income isn’t rich.

I think he said 10 - 20 times his net worth was rich, not 10 - 20 times his income. Edit: I type too slowly.

[Malthus]

To continue a train of thought in my previous post - it is interesting to compare the Roman case with our own, as the Romans had a 'bright-line" measure of wealth which made you “rich” - namely, a stable minimum of wealth equal to 400,000 sesterces.

While the value of this coin is very difficult to accurately compute, the PPP value worked out on this site from a variety of commodity prices:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/spqr-money-1.htm

Suggests a “reasonable” exchange rate of $10.

That would mean, in Roman times, to grab onto the lowest rung of what would be considered “rich” would require property worth $4 million, to join the “equites”. To join the more elite “senatores” would require property worth $10 million.

[Note that at this rate, Crassus, famously the most wealthy man in Rome at thge end of the Republic, would rank as #488 in our world with a fortune of 200,000,000 sesterce!]

[DianaG]

@Terr

At least mine is not an arbitrary one.

No, but it’s insane.

Give a reasonable definition of “rich”. Don’t even look at my definition. Give your own.

I happen to think that “makes more money than 97% of the population” is quite a reasonable definition.

In order to say if someone is “rich” or not, you have to first have a definition of “rich” that is not relative or subjective.

No, you don’t. The concept is only meaningful in a relative context. Quick, define “smart” in a way that’s not relative or subjective.

[gurujulp]

@Terr

Income doesn’t matter in determining whether you’re “rich” or not. I didn’t say ten to twenty times my income. I said ten to twenty times my net worth.

In order to say if someone is “rich” or not, you have to first have a definition of “rich” that is not relative or subjective.

I am still waiting for a non-relative definition of rich that I can agree with. The roman senator thing was nice, and awesome, but not applicable here.

What is the non-relative definition? The last I saw was something about stocks or non-working income, I think.

What is your definition? Post number is fine. There have been several, and I haven’t particularly been satisfied with any of them. I think it IS relative. But my mind can be changed.

[Terr]

@Malthus

That would mean, in Roman times, to grab onto the lowest rung of what would be considered “rich” would require property worth $4 million, to join the “equites”. To join the more elite “senatores” would require property worth $10 million.

That’s interesting. In my discussions with people, we usually agreed that today $3-4M minimum is required in order to “live off the interest” ok indefinitely, and $10M is the usual theoretical cut off point for being able to “live off the interest” reasonably well (if not extravagantly well). From your data, it seems that that point is a fairly constant one through the ages.

[Terr]

@DianaG

I happen to think that “makes more money than 97% of the population” is quite a reasonable definition.

Not if you cannot answer the “why not 96%?” question.

[Malthus]

@justrob

Possibly but the listing says it is currently tenanted which means it is livable in someone’s eyes. Mind you I’ve seen some pretty crummy places that people were living in so I am not arguing too hard that it is or is not a dump.
That’s not what you claimed though…
Converting KM to Miles that makes it just over 37 miles. Even with horrible rush hour traffic that is going to be less than a days drive. I know several people who commute from Milwaukee to Chicago (~90 miles each way) and I have a hard time imagining the 37 mile commute is going to take much longer.

When I was saying “not even a doghouse” I was using a bit of obvious hyperbole. I would have thought it obvious anyway.

I readiily admit one could, in point of fact, buy a “doghouse” (or for the less literal-mined, “a really crappy house - As-Is”) 60k out from Toronto. If it was sufficiently shitty.

Point here is that this hardly resembles the “nice” house complete with in-ground swimming pool etc. in Texas I was commenting on. It rather proves my point, rather than disproves it.

[DianaG]

@Terr

Not if you cannot answer the “why not 96%?” question.

Ignoring the rest then, are we?

[justrob]

@Terr

When the saving goes somewhere I cannot touch for 20-30 years, it is an expense. When you pay for car insurance, you’re buying transportation. When you pay into your 401K, you’re buying eventual retirement.

I can understand what you’re saying here but your break down earlier implied, at least that’s how I read it, that after taxes and all the “basic” expenses you had there was only around $9K left from your original $200K. When in actuality there was that $9K plus the unspecified thousands of dollars (probably around $20-30K) you put away for retirement.

[Terr]

@gurujulp

I am still waiting for a non-relative definition of rich that I can agree with. The roman senator thing was nice, and awesome, but not applicable here.

What is the non-relative definition? The last I saw was something about stocks or non-working income, I think.

What is your definition? Post number is fine. There have been several, and I haven’t particularly been satisfied with any of them. I think it IS relative. But my mind can be changed.

Here is a non-relative, objective definition: the lower bound of being “rich” is when you can live very well off your investments, using the most conservative methods of investing possible, indefinitely. I know that this requires to define what “very well” means, but that’s a lot easier to agree upon.