Ah- see, I can’t agree if the answer is “the most conservative methods of investing possible, indefinitely.” That would make the interest too low…
That means that not even low multiple millions, like 1 or two, would be considered to be rich, by you. I cannot agree. If I have the ability to easily create a million bucks, in cash, in hand, then I am rich. I can make a million dollars pay me for the rest of my life, in comfort, and retain nearly 100 % of the capital. And I have bad money management skills…
But that means that a tiny, tiny number of people are rich. That restricts the word too much. Would you consider a 6’7" man not tall because there are people who are taller?
Not at all. Just add the words ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ to the words rich and poor, and add ‘comfortable’ or ‘doing OK.’ Someone who earns 100k isn’t rich, but they certainly are doing OK. And you can also use ‘average.’ There’s your middle; it doesn’t have to be excluded at all.
This. It is not a matter of paying bills, which you can schedule, but a matter of dealing with unexpected expenses. If your engine falls out, do you get out the duck tape or do you take it down to the mechanic? If an expense comes up, do you have to decide what to do without or do pay without worrying. My daughter is in graduate school, and definitely not rich, so I can see that she has to worry about paying to go to a restaurant and I don’t.
“Rich” is being able to pay for both our kids colleges (not cheap) and let them get started in life without a pile of debt. Rich is paying off the loan of the younger one (not much, but gotten to reduce the annual cost) because we thought the interest rate was too high and because it was annoying to have to deal with every month, and not even thinking twice about it. “Rich” is getting a bit bonus (kind of like in the what do you do with extra money threads) and sticking it in our investment account because there is absolutely nothing in our queue of things to buy if we ever get enough money.
Really rich is flying first class and getting suites at top hotels. We’re not there, but I’m not sure we would anyhow, since both of us were raised by parents who grew up during the Depression. We’re cheap out of choice, not necessity.
He’s the one who brought up the dichotomy and excluded the middle (class). Then he excluded himself from the rich, so yes, really. If his definition of rich is only billionaires, then that’s excluding a hell of a lot more than the middle.
I’m not denying that the line is subjective between rich and middle class, I’d be perfectly happy with a range of income or assets that most people have suggested in this thread, including you. You aren’t going to find many people who think $50k/year is rich or $1M/year is poor so obviously the line is somewhere between there. This thread is ostensibly about taxes right? The highest tax bracket in the US at the moment is >$380k, so when people talk about expiring the tax cut on the rich that’s the level they are referring to. The futile attempts of the rich or the right wing to try and convince people that folks earning above that are poor are ridiculous.
In our culture, the upper class made up of “the rich” is a small proportion of the population. This is a revelation?
Objecting that it is too small, without further reasons as to why you think it is too small, isn’t helpful for the reasons I suggest upthread (namely, no two people are going to agree on how small is subjectively “reasonable” any more than they are going to agree as to whether the cut-off ought to be 3% or 5% or what).
Perhaps the better way to think of rich is that the rich have what could be called “fuck-you money” (the reference is to Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson … “Multiply those two things together and you get the kind of exponential growth that should get us all into fuck-you money before we turn forty”). The point of 'fuck-you money" is that it is a sum sufficient to cater to a reasonable lifestyle without dependency on working for others, i.e., you could say “fuck you” to your boss, clients, etc. and do your own thing without a care. By definition, someone who must earn a salary doesn’t have “fuck-you money”.
Now, I suppose that for those willing to dumpster-dive and live over a grate, “fuck-you money” isn’t much. However, in my opinion it is reasonable that one stipulate a lifestyle of reaonable comfort and ease for yourself and your family.
Actually, this thread makes perfect sense if you understand one thing: many if not most of the wealthy have absolutely no shame about doing and saying whatever they have to do to remain wealthy, and once you get past a certain level of income, taxes become oppressive because, even if a $40,000 tax bite is not a felt by someone who makes $200,000 (20%) the way $10,000 is felt by someone who makes $50,000, it’s still forty fucking thousand dollars, and that is a lot of money. A little thing like making arguments athat are patently ridiculous, using rhetorical tricks and dodges, or outright lying is NOTHING if it means they get to keep a larger portion of their income for themselves.
Most of the wealthy people on this thread are arguing that they simply are not rich, but the idea is, of course, get people thinking they are not rich therefore they should be treated like the middle class are, and it’s laughable to define $200,000 a year as middle class.
Of course here on the Dope we are pretty good at figuring out this kind of “reasoning” but if you follow Fox News or conservative radio you will hear many of the arguments made here and much more ridiculous ones presented as unassailable, unchallengeable except by crazed commie leftists TRUTH, over and over and over again.
You can be sure that the intellectual feeble-bunnies who buy into Fox News and conservative radio are buying it, big time, and probably some measurable portion of the idiot “independents” who spend all of five minutes deciding who they will vote for.
ROTFLMAO. Because, of course, what is said on this board is what determines how the tax policy is set in DC. Wow. I didn’t realize just how important this forum is.
This does not compute, as several of us arguing that 200K isn’t “rich” have stated that we agree with progressive taxation, repeatedly - including me - complete with reasons as to why we think that way.
If you think we are all lying, I dunno what to say.
I did give a reason - that the word ‘rich’ isn’t very useful when you restrict it to less than half a percent of the population, which is what you’re doing. The definition of rich we’re talking about here is the top 3% of the population, so yes, it is a small percentage, but the percentage you’re talking about is so low it barely registers.
When you’re talking about tax, wishing to tax a tiny proportion of an already small percentage of people, the kind of people who already avoid taxes by various legal tax dodges, is pointless.
Why do you want to define ‘rich’ so narrowly? Why not just accept that there’s rich and there’s very rich and extremely rich? There’s also average, comfortable, poor, very poor, extremely poor, etc etc.
First, I don’t think tax policy should be set by who is or is not “upper class/rich”. It ought to be set on a progressive curve, regardless of who is ultimately determined to be “rich”; that is, those earning $100K ought to pay more purportionately than those earning $50K, and those earning $200K ought to pay more than those earning $100K.
Second, the issue is not my motives, but rather what I think the word “rich” really means in our society when discussing social class and wealth. I may “want” it to mean something else, but it just … doesn’t.
Third, using the term as short-form for “fuck-you money” simply makes sense. It differentiates by type rather than by salary - a lawyer like myself earning over 200K is still basically a wage-slave who works at a computer in an office or travelling for business, worried about job performace - s/he can’t say “fuck you all, I’m outta here”. If I were to assign a “motive”, it would be as a target.
Disagree about what ‘rich’ really means in our society. It means what most people think it means (the same goes for all words), and most people don’t think it means only a few hundred people in the whole country.
‘Fuck-you money’ already has a word: extremely rich. There’s also the term ‘independently wealthy.’ There’s no need to expand the term rich to cover those people when there are already perfectly valid terms for them.
What is said on this board is part of the whole discourse about economics and tax policy, just like what was once said in barbershops and bars was a part of the discourse on politics. All of us debate the issues at whatever level we find convenient, comfortable, accessible, etc. To my mind, the level of discourse we have on the Dope is far higher than what we have on television and on the radio, if only because if someone comes out with a whopper they can be and almost always are immediately challenged on it.(And I speak as one who has been hammered when I’ve come up with a whopper or two.) Broadcast pundits are free to tell whoppers unchallenged, for the most part. Much of the stuff I hear on broadcast media would be laughed right off the Dope in short order. It is of course not nearly as influential as broadcast media, a bit of a tragedy IMHO.
There are a LOT more people with “fuck you money” in the US than a few hundred. There are a LOT more such people in the UK than a few hundred, as well.
I know we already discussed that $1M net worth is not enough to be the “fuck you” money - but still - what do you think is the % of people in the United States that have greater than $1M net worth?
I do not think that if you asked the average person to rank “rich” and “independantly wealthy”, you would get a consensus that “rich” ranked lower. So even using “most people think …” definitions, this sort of ranking doesn’t really work … they are reasonably synonymous terms.
As for “extremely rich” - that in no way describes someone capable of living in comfort off their investments alone. I, and most people, associate “extremely rich” with the having-mansions-and-staffs-of-servants set, the sort who can afford a Rolls and a Lear jet.
Agreed, several self-identified wealthy people have agreed with progressive taxation in this thread, and I should have made note of that. But that still does not change the fact that claiming that $200K a year is not rich is being used by conservative commentators as a rhetorical device to persuade the gullible that they should not be taxed at a higher rate, even if that is not your personal intention.
I do not know if any on this board are lying, for the purposes of maintaining a civil discourse I am happy to extend the benefit of the doubt to all who participate here, but I remain certain that many media and broadcast pundits are absolutely lying their asses off.
