# $250,000/year income? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 6, 2011, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739 "2011-08-06T15:49:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2011, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/161 "2011-08-11T15:05:12Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > Then, knowing this (remember what **Starving Artist** said - “It should be none of your concern.”) they justifiably feel that they, too, should have a $50,000 income. So what’s stopping them from earning one? People just seem to act as if someone just randomly hands out six figure jobs. I never hear anyone say what they think they can do to earn such a salary. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/162 "2011-08-11T15:18:38Z")
Dude, don’t go and bring FACTS into this theoretical Internet Debate. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/163 "2011-08-11T15:46:47Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > So what’s stopping them from earning one? > > People just seem to act as if someone just randomly hands out six figure jobs. I never hear anyone say what they think they can do to earn such a salary. Didn’t you know that salaries are determined by roulette wheel and jobs are designated by the job fairy? ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2011, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/164 "2011-08-11T18:00:39Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > People just seem to act as if someone just randomly hands out six figure jobs. I never hear anyone say what they think they can do to earn such a salary. 50K is five figures. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/165 "2011-08-11T18:22:17Z")
Sorry, got this ‘smartass’ thing going this week… ---
**Author:** ![Moonlitherial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/166 "2011-08-11T22:34:47Z")
> [@McDeath\_the\_Mad](#): > > Can’t the American fat cats making over $250,000 understand this? Your economy is in shambles, your infrastructure is falling apart around you, you have no federal health care. > > I was watching “Real Time” with Bill Maher and he said that last year General Electric (I think it was GE) didn’t pay ANY taxes! > > Can’t you all see if the top 2% paid even an extra 10-15% in income tax I’m sure your countries financial situation would turn around? > > Is there some kind of a Constitutional ammendment stating freedom from taxes? > > MtM What do corporate tax loopholes have to do with higher taxes on well paid individuals? You’re arguing two different points as though they were the same one. The first problem is not a simple one. If the US stops corporate tax loopholes they will have companies “moving” their corporate registrations offshore, so the overhaul needs to cover that situation, the providing of goods and services to the US from outside the country - many many changes which need to be negotiated with, not only US interests but to ensure they don’t make changes that impact trading relationships too. It’s a house of cards. As for “wealthy” individuals paying 10-15% more tax? Do you really think that any income level could absorb a change that dramatic without impact? Not likely. If it doesn’t impact your life now it’s certainly going to impact your spending(and therefore layoffs in jobs producing the things you buy) or your savings. Anyone who believes that there is a simple solution just hasn’t looked hard enough. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/167 "2011-08-12T06:06:00Z")
> [@Unintentionally\_Blank](#): > > Paying more money to the same broken government doesn’t seem like the answer to the problem. In what way(s) exactly is our government broken? What is it meant to be doing that it isn’t doing? What is it doing wrongly? See this charge is leveled frequently but usually by people who don’t believe government has the right to do the majority of what it does to begin with. They’d gladly slash government to the bone, and their philosophy has been implemented piecemeal, hampering it, but that still somehow the fault of government’s arrangement and not broken funding and administrative schemes. But seriously, “broken” is a broad accusation that needs more definition and a helluva more nuance. > [@Moonlitherial](#): > > The first problem is not a simple one. If the US stops corporate tax loopholes they will have companies “moving” their corporate registrations offshore, so the overhaul needs to cover that situation, the providing of goods and services to the US from outside the country - many many changes which need to be negotiated with, not only US interests but to ensure they don’t make changes that impact trading relationships too. It’s a house of cards. Right now companies aren’t bothering to take their registrations offshore, they’re just taking their money offshore. That’s how Verizon got away with not only earning $6 billion in 2009, but somehow becoming eligible for $1.6 billion in _refunds_. (That’s _our_ money, subsiding a multibillion dollar international corporation’s income. I’d far rather subsidize 10 million single parents than 1 single corporation, but that’s just crazy socialist me.) That’s how Google is getting away with paying very little tax, the money they’re making in the US is being largely funneled to Google Ireland and Google Netherlands. So much for “don’t be evil.” There are issues already in play that could be addressed by simple changes in the tax code, but we will not do it. It’s better to keep giving away billions of unearned tax dollars to private industry than to tackle a tough but necessary job to level the playing field, close the loopholes and increase much-needed revenue. > [@](#): > > As for “wealthy” individuals paying 10-15% more tax? Do you really think that any income level could absorb a change that dramatic without impact? 10-15% is a pipe dream, no one on either side of the aisle would propose that steep a tax increase on any level of earnings, unless _perhaps_ we were in complete financial collapse. But returning tax brackets to the pre-Bush cut levels isn’t a pipe dream, and the easiest, fastest way to make a substantial and important improvement in our financial situation. And that wouldn’t be a 10-15% increase on anyone, it wouldn’t be a mass hardship, it wouldn’t be “new” taxes and it would represent an addition $3.9 _trillion_ in revenue over the next decade. It’s a first step, but we can’t even get there. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/168 "2011-08-12T06:32:51Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Yes, but it needn’t be so. You can draw the tax brackets anywhere in any which way you please. If you want to make it step up in even increments, you can do that. If you don’t, you don’t have to. > > The point is, you should look at people’s “stacks” of money, determine how much more of it you need, and then set the tax rates accordingly from the bottom up. It’s not like we can only adjust so many brackets and then you can’t touch it. If you decide that you need to take an extra penny from each of a thousand dollars, then it doesn’t matter how many brackets that is…bump up 12 brackets if you have to! > > You’re calling _me_ innumerate, but what’s really happening is you’re looking at the brackets, dusting off your hands and saying “Nothing can be done” when you haven’t even thought about it. Go back and do my exercise again, but this time, with the knowledge that you can set the rates and brackets to anything you need them to be. I’m looking at the real tax system. Now, if your plan is to increase the rate in all brackets, I’m mostly fine with that when the economy recovers and people have more money. I still think the top rate should be increased more, though. But increasing the bottom bracket, whatever that is, makes no sense, since lots of people in it are on food stamps and such, and it makes no sense to take their money only to send it right back. Increasing a higher bracket a bit more would get equal revenue from those in it, and not hurt the least well off. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/169 "2011-08-12T11:19:00Z")
> [@tumbleddown](#): > > In what way(s) exactly is our government broken? What is it meant to be doing that it isn’t doing? What is it doing wrongly? You answer that yourself in your post. How bout starting with a fuckedup tax code? How bout unfair favoritism given lobbyists? How bout being in the most financially unhealthy position in years and continuing to war on multiple fronts throwing a disproportionate amount on money against an ‘army’ of hundreds? How about the biggest financial series of meltdowns in history and Not One Person will pay for it. It’s shooting fish in a barrel, really. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/170 "2011-08-12T14:23:00Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > People just seem to act as if someone just randomly hands out six figure jobs. After witnessing events like the 2008 financial meltdown, it’s perfectly understandable if people conclude that the decision-makers at the top of the economic food chain got their jobs for reasons other than hard work and competence. ---
**Author:** ![Animastryfe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Animastryfe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Animastryfe)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/171 "2011-08-12T16:03:06Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > This type of demagoguery is one of the things I most despise about the tactics of the left. There’s a vast difference between being stupid and lazy on the one hand, and choosing to work at a 9-to-5 job on the other. I said that many people (most, in fact) simply do not want to take on the challenges involved in trying to become business owners or high-income earners, thus they choose instead to become employees who work regular hours and leave the job behind when they leave work at the end of their work day. It is both dishonest and deceitful for you to portray what I said in this way. > > As far as CEO’s or business owners or whoever making many times more than some of their imployees, the reason for this is the value they bring to bear as the result of hard work they’ve done in the past which has brought them to the point where their efforts are many times more valuable than the lower echelon workers in their field. I will admit that oftentimes it happens that people in high level positions do not work that hard physically. But they have huge pressures and countless complex problems to contend with, and the decisions they make can result in their companies failing, succeeding or simply remaining static. And the decisions they make can affect whether or not their companies’ employees even have jobs. Further, they don’t just fall into those jobs for no reason. The vast majority of time, people become CEO’s and/or highly successful businessmen because of the hard work and discipline they’ve exercised all their lives. They worked hard and studied in school, they worked hard and applied themselves on the job, they looked for and sought to take advantage of opportunities whenever opportunities presented themselves, and they constantly worked to learn as much about not only their own jobs but the jobs of the people they worked for so that when the time came, they’d be ready to take over the reins. > > Now contrast this with the employees at the lumberyard, or the produce manager at the grocery store, or the employees at your local tag agency, and there is a world of difference between the work they do and the work that your typical CEO or high-level businessman does. But that does not in any way mean that any of these people are lazy or stupid. They’ve simply chosen a less stressful, less demanding, and, frankly, less mentally challenging way of life than have the high income earners. And there’s nothing whatever wrong with that. > > And I’ll tell you something else: It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference from your own earning standpoint how much money CEO’s or anyone else makes. You get paid according to your value in the marketplace. Wealth is created, not parcelled out from a sum that would otherwise belong to everyone equally. I will not earn one dollar more in my life because Bill Gates is worth fifty billion dollars, and I wouldn’t earn one dollar more if he lost every cent. The money that he makes, or the money that the CEO of GM makes, or the money that Donald Trump makes has no bearing whatsoever on what anyone else will be able to make. Think about that, and remember it! You and everyone else earn what you and your skills and knowledge are worth in the marketplace. Stop being jealous and feeling cheated because somebody else has more than you do. You won’t make any more even if they lose every penny. So what it all boils down to is either you recognize this and stop feeling cheated because somebody has more than you do, or admit that your resentment is based upon nothing more than a childish resentment of the fact that somebody has more goodies than you do, and this despite the fact that he did more than you were willing to do in order to get them in the first place. As someone whose father built a company, I agree with this post. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/172 "2011-08-13T18:45:05Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > After witnessing events like the 2008 financial meltdown, it’s perfectly understandable if people conclude that the decision-makers at the top of the economic food chain got their jobs for reasons other than hard work and competence. I’m curious though. How do you think people get jobs working at Goldman Sachs or J P Morgan? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/173 "2011-08-13T20:28:34Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > The average income in the US is around $50,000. So what makes someone think they are justified to earn 5x that unless they are doing something that requires a particularly rare and valuable skill? Perhaps they have heard a $250,000 per year salary described as merely “upper middle class”, barely enough to keep one out of the slums in some parts of the country, and thus believe it should be within reach of those with only modestly above average skills. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/174 "2011-08-13T20:55:20Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > After witnessing events like the 2008 financial meltdown, it’s perfectly understandable if people conclude that the decision-makers at the top of the economic food chain got their jobs for reasons other than hard work and competence. An ability to overlook their morals in exchange for wads of up-front cash? ETA: I was smart enough to realize where my ARM was going and got out of that for a fixed rate 30 year. I realize there was greed and stupidity on all sides of the mortgage crisis, but it was the professional responsibility for the lenders to NOT place their clientele in a position where they KNEW they couldn’t survive. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/175 "2011-08-13T21:02:31Z")
> [@Unintentionally\_Blank](#): > > An ability to overlook their morals in exchange for wads of up-front cash? > > ETA: I was smart enough to realize where my ARM was going and got out of that for a fixed rate 30 year. I realize there was greed and stupidity on all sides of the mortgage crisis, but it was the professional responsibility for the lenders to NOT place their clientele in a position where they KNEW they couldn’t survive. This ARM thing confused me. I’m assuming it refers to some American financial tool, but my first thought was[Gil the ARM](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_the_ARMhttp://). ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/176 "2011-08-13T21:06:45Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > This ARM thing confused me. I’m assuming it refers to some American financial tool, but my first thought was[Gil the ARM](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_the_ARMhttp://). ARM = Adjustable Rate Mortgage. I had the option of going for one when I bought my house in 2003. I thought, ‘Interest rates are at 5.325% for a 30-year loan now. They can’t possibly go lower! So if I save a half-percent or so by opting for the ARM, I’ll be screwing myself later.’ So I went for the 30-year fixed. Now I have a 15-year fixed at 4.75%. I’m very glad I did not opt for the ARM. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/177 "2011-08-13T21:06:47Z")
Adjustable Rate Mortgages…one of a HOST of **imaginative** ways of getting you into something without paying for it, whether you could afford it or not. Balloon Payments, Interest only loans, Second Mortgages, Equity Loans, Refinancing a LOT. ETA: Oddball appraisals on the house, looking the other way at your debt to income ratio, etc, etc, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/178 "2011-08-13T21:16:48Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > This type of demagoguery is one of the things I most despise about the tactics of the left. There’s a vast difference between being stupid and lazy on the one hand, and choosing to work at a 9-to-5 job on the other. I said that many people (most, in fact) simply do not want to take on the challenges involved in trying to become business owners or high-income earners, thus they choose instead to become employees who work regular hours and leave the job behind when they leave work at the end of their work day. It is both dishonest and deceitful for you to portray what I said in this way. > > As far as CEO’s or business owners or whoever making many times more than some of their imployees, the reason for this is the value they bring to bear as the result of hard work they’ve done in the past which has brought them to the point where their efforts are many times more valuable than the lower echelon workers in their field. I will admit that oftentimes it happens that people in high level positions do not work that hard physically. But they have huge pressures and countless complex problems to contend with, and the decisions they make can result in their companies failing, succeeding or simply remaining static. And the decisions they make can affect whether or not their companies’ employees even have jobs. Further, they don’t just fall into those jobs for no reason. The vast majority of time, people become CEO’s and/or highly successful businessmen because of the hard work and discipline they’ve exercised all their lives. They worked hard and studied in school, they worked hard and applied themselves on the job, they looked for and sought to take advantage of opportunities whenever opportunities presented themselves, and they constantly worked to learn as much about not only their own jobs but the jobs of the people they worked for so that when the time came, they’d be ready to take over the reins. > > Now contrast this with the employees at the lumberyard, or the produce manager at the grocery store, or the employees at your local tag agency, and there is a world of difference between the work they do and the work that your typical CEO or high-level businessman does. But that does not in any way mean that any of these people are lazy or stupid. They’ve simply chosen a less stressful, less demanding, and, frankly, less mentally challenging way of life than have the high income earners. And there’s nothing whatever wrong with that. > > And I’ll tell you something else: It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference from your own earning standpoint how much money CEO’s or anyone else makes. You get paid according to your value in the marketplace. Wealth is created, not parcelled out from a sum that would otherwise belong to everyone equally. I will not earn one dollar more in my life because Bill Gates is worth fifty billion dollars, and I wouldn’t earn one dollar more if he lost every cent. The money that he makes, or the money that the CEO of GM makes, or the money that Donald Trump makes has no bearing whatsoever on what anyone else will be able to make. Think about that, and remember it! You and everyone else earn what you and your skills and knowledge are worth in the marketplace. Stop being jealous and feeling cheated because somebody else has more than you do. You won’t make any more even if they lose every penny. So what it all boils down to is either you recognize this and stop feeling cheated because somebody has more than you do, or admit that your resentment is based upon nothing more than a childish resentment of the fact that somebody has more goodies than you do, and this despite the fact that he did more than you were willing to do in order to get them in the first place. Yeah, that’s a nice little picturesque portrait of the American Dream, and it would be great if it were true, but it’s not. Ever hear the quote “There are three ways to make money. You can inherit it. You can marry it. You can steal it.”? Most of the people I’ve met who are very wealthy also inherited it, or won a lawsuit and invested that, or just married the right person. Is it still as meritocratic as you paint it when Reginald Winchester-Chesterfield IV, who has never worked a day in his life, inherits hundreds of millions in assets on his 18th birthday? (and people want to repeal the estate tax!) The real wealth in this country is concentrated in family dynasties that earned their money long ago (and often the founders of the companies that created that wealth initially were extremely dishonest and unscrupulous in building their empires), and gets passed down from generation to generation with minimal taxation, since it’s all assets and the recurring income is generated from capital gains (currently taxed at what, 15% flat? Far less than most middle-class families pay in income tax). There are many more who may not be heirs to ginormous family fortunes like Johnson & Johnson or the Trump dynasty (and by the way speaking of Trump: sure, he worked hard to earn his money - with the several million dollars that he inherited from his father as seed money. Had he not had that, do you really think he’d be where he is today?), but they inherit a few rental properties that pull in $20-30,000/month for them with minimal effort required on their part and live a cushy life. I’ve met several such people. Hell, even Bill Gates, who many would consider to be the epitome of American capitalistic endeavor, was only able to follow the path that he did due to being born to wealthy and connected bankers who made sure he got into all the right schools, met all the right people, et cetera. Had Microsoft completely failed, he had a million-dollar+ trust fund to fall back on along with his Harvard education, that he could have easily gone back and finished. He wouldn’t have become the billionaire we all know, but he would have still led an extremely comfortable life. Do you really think Joe Schmoe, born into poverty, could afford to take the same risks with his life? Or would even be able to make the right connections in order to get his business off the ground in the first place? The American ideal of meritocracy is perhaps the greatest scam ever perpetrated in the history of man. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/179 "2011-08-13T23:12:02Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Perhaps they have heard a $250,000 per year salary described as merely “upper middle class”, barely enough to keep one out of the slums in some parts of the country, and thus believe it should be within reach of those with only modestly above average skills. Well..it’s not. You have to work for it. If you only have modestly above average skills and acomplishments, what makes you think you deserve more than a modestly above average salary? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739/180 "2011-08-14T01:43:18Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > Yeah, that’s a nice little picturesque portrait of the American Dream, and it would be great if it were true, but it’s not. > > Ever hear the quote “There are three ways to make money. You can inherit it. You can marry it. You can steal it.”? Most of the people I’ve met who are very wealthy also inherited it, or won a lawsuit and invested that, or just married the right person. Is it still as meritocratic as you paint it when Reginald Winchester-Chesterfield IV, who has never worked a day in his life, inherits hundreds of millions in assets on his 18th birthday? (and people want to repeal the estate tax!) The real wealth in this country is concentrated in family dynasties that earned their money long ago (and often the founders of the companies that created that wealth initially were extremely dishonest and unscrupulous in building their empires), and gets passed down from generation to generation with minimal taxation, since it’s all assets and the recurring income is generated from capital gains (currently taxed at what, 15% flat? Far less than most middle-class families pay in income tax). > > There are many more who may not be heirs to ginormous family fortunes like Johnson & Johnson or the Trump dynasty (and by the way speaking of Trump: sure, he worked hard to earn his money - with the several million dollars that he inherited from his father as seed money. Had he not had that, do you really think he’d be where he is today?), but they inherit a few rental properties that pull in $20-30,000/month for them with minimal effort required on their part and live a cushy life. I’ve met several such people. > > Hell, even Bill Gates, who many would consider to be the epitome of American capitalistic endeavor, was only able to follow the path that he did due to being born to wealthy and connected bankers who made sure he got into all the right schools, met all the right people, et cetera. Had Microsoft completely failed, he had a million-dollar+ trust fund to fall back on along with his Harvard education, that he could have easily gone back and finished. He wouldn’t have become the billionaire we all know, but he would have still led an extremely comfortable life. Do you really think Joe Schmoe, born into poverty, could afford to take the same risks with his life? Or would even be able to make the right connections in order to get his business off the ground in the first place? > > The American ideal of meritocracy is perhaps the greatest scam ever perpetrated in the history of man. Two words: Steve Jobs See? I can pluck people who don’t make up 1/1000 of the population and use them to make a point too. There are people today who don’t have two dimes to rub together who will be multi-millionaires ten years from now. But apart from that is the fact that most of the people who earn $250,000 a year or more have worked extremely hard to get there, going all the way back in most cases to elementary or junior high school and then all the way up from there. Coupon clippers and old money billionaires are exceedingly rare as a percentage of our population, and it’s ridiculous to point to how they got their money and conclude from that everyone who has money got it the easy way. This is just more class resentment designed to come up with an excuse for the govenment to take their money and spend it on you. As I said upthread, it’s none of your business how much money these people have, and it’s none of your business how they got it. You need to work on making yourself more valuable to the marketplace instead of looking for excuses to justify having the government take other people’s money so it can be spent on you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/250-000-year-income/591739.md?page=10)