The real division is between money made with sweat and money made with money.
That’s not what Bernie said. He simply referred to “the wealthy” / “the wealthiest Americans” and “millionaires and billionaires” without regard to how they acquired their wealth.
Let me ask you because perhaps this is the source of the disconnect: do you believe any rich person “earned” their wealth? If so, which one(s)?
The question wasn’t directed at me but my answer would be yes. There are many wealthy people who earned their wealth. Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates are examples who have been mentioned in this thread. These men developing new businesses.
But most corporate executives don’t belong in this group. They’re not creating new businesses; they’re just managing businesses that other people created and moving large sums of money around.
Can you tell me what Stephen Schwarzman did to earn seventy million dollars last year?
Let’s just start with the obvious: nobody at fox news cares about understanding the liberal position unless they can use that understanding to better attack it. It continues to be a right-wing propaganda network. They will not give democrats a fair shake on anything, because their job is to support the right wing. Any analysis they have on left-wing positions is going to necessarily be in bad faith, because everything they write is in bad faith. I mean, look at this fucking bullshit:
Anyone who could read this line without having their bullshit detector go off is the kind of person who loses their savings to 419 scams and fucking deserves it.
Anyone still reading after this fucking whopper should hit up a neurologist, as they may qualify as legally braindead and therefore no longer need to pay taxes.
So yeah, blatant, obvious bad-faith bullshit; this is a question we should never have to ask about Fox News. Obama is, fundamentally, a capitalist. A capitalist who made some pushes towards progressive ideology, but fundamentally someone who believes in capitalism, believes in wealth, believes in the ethics of people becoming unreasonably wealthy - just look at him becoming unreasonably wealthy. Any claim that he’s somehow a “socialist” or that, as the article states, spent time “demonizing everyone else’s success”, is akin to claims that he went on an apology tour - whoever you’re talking to is at best dumber than a sack of pig shit and at worst a lying sack of pig shit (no points for guessing which this Fox News opinion writer is), and neither is worth engaging with on any level unless you’re somehow sentimentally attached to them, and even then only to give yourself a damn good reason to no longer be sentimentally attached to them.
That said… I don’t agree with “the liberal position” on wealth. I don’t think there is a coherent position at play here, and I don’t think the position laid out in the OP is particularly convincing.
You can buy a really nice home for a million dollars. Like, a really nice home. Nicer than most millenials will probably ever manage to afford. For 15 times that, you could buy a really nice home and draw countless people out of poverty. It’s the same fundamental problem was with Bezos’s billions - it’s basically just immoral to be rich. Every dollar Obama spent on a McMansion in a posh neighborhood is a dollar that wasn’t spent saving someone’s life. It’s very nearly the same problem as with Bernie Sanders being a millionaire, except Obama was never (and never pretended to be) a socialist, despite the insane ravings of the bad-faith right-wing crowd.
IMO, yes.
IMO, no.
If that were true, there would not be anything like a venture capitalist. If the average person can earn a million dollars in five years if he starts with ten million, there is no need to give the ten million to anyone - invest it yourself and get the million without any middleman. But most of the things that venture capitalists invest in, fail. Most small businesses, fail. And not just because they don’t have enough capital. Because investment is managing risk, and some people are better at managing risk than others. A lot of investment is luck. A lot of it isn’t.
He managed a business that he founded, moving large sums of money around.
It is a little surprising to me to see people who lived thru the subprime mortgage crisis of a few years ago or the popping of the dot-com bubble some years before that saying that investment is easy, or has some guaranteed rate of return.
Also surprising to see Obama or Bill Clinton earning tens of millions from giving speeches because they used to be President being spoken of as having earned their money from the sweat of their brows, while Sam Walton got there from exploiting the labor of others, because Wal-mart is better at supply chain management than anyone else in the country.
Also, probably, because Republicans point out that the wealthy and upper-middle and middle-class already fund almost all of government right now. And, as pointed out, there aren’t enough “wealthy” to tax enough. And therefore, you have to do what we are doing right now - tax the top 53%, or raise capital gains taxes to discourage investment.
It was many years ago, but some French woman said she voted for the Communists because they were going to stick it to the rich. Then they took office, and she found out that she was “the rich”.
Regards,
Shodan
Wouldn’t putting $10 million in CDs, bonds, or even just a savings account be likely to result in an additional $1 million or so in 5 years? By my math, anyway, that easily works out – even at 2-3% per year, 5 years is more than enough to get from $10 to $11 million. That sounds like the kind of thing that an average person can do.
I see taxes as insurance that the government (at all levels) protects them from external and internal harm. Look at cars: own a Lamborghini? Expect to pay $8K or more in car insurance. Own a Kia? Maybe $1K. And rightly so, the Lamborghini is more valuable. So corporations and the wealthy have a lot more to lose than the average wage-earning working person if society/rule of law goes to shit, and so they should pony up much more in taxes.
I don’t have a problem with the Obamas enjoying the trappings of great wealth unless they’re simultaneously lobbying for lower taxes, which I haven’t heard them do.
The “liberal position on wealth” seems to be that 1) the rich need to pay more in taxes to fund needed government programs (no argument there), and 2) that hugely expensive expanded or new programs can be financed entirely with taxes on the rich without requiring tax hikes on the middle class (which is bullshit).
You might have the makings of a best-seller there. 
I think the problem is the distinction between those who are rich by their own efforts and those who are perceived as parasites getting rich off others’ labor.
It’s a matter of timing and scale. Does anyone really think that when Lebron James retires, that he’s somehow going to be poor or even middle class, even if he gets no more endorsement, coaching, acting or commentator deals? Of course not, he’s invested his money, and stands to make a pretty penny off those investments- probably mostly stocks- i.e. ownership shares. So his seed money came from basketball, but his income will be from the sweat of others’ brows, so to speak. Does he instantly go from “noble guy who became rich through his own sweat” to “parasite of the working class” the instant he retires? Of course not. Beyond that, most of us are all that sort of parasite to some extent, if we have investments, retirement accounts, etc… It’s just a matter of scale at that point.
As for the conservative/liberal views on wealth, I think it’s that one side looks at equality, while the other looks at fairness. One side is saying effectively that if we have a million dollars in stuff that needs paying for, and we have 50,000 people, then everyone needs to pony up $20, and if you can’t, then you’re not paying your equal share which is your own problem. The other is saying basically that $20 to one person has a different impact to them than $20 to another, so some people should pay $5, while others should pay $60 because they can support it, and it’s more fair to everyone involved.
The idea that everyone should pay an equal share is sort of a fundamental conservative one- there’s a strong concept that you should pay your own share, and not expect others to pay more because it’s a hardship for you. There’s also a strong notion that not being able to pay one’s own full share is shameful and shouldn’t be societally acceptable. Meanwhile, liberals are more concerned with the idea that one’s equal share is not necessarily fair, even if it’s strictly equal, and advocate more of a share payment that’s indexed by ability to pay.
So where the liberal may see a rich/wealthy person not paying as much as they are able while others pay amounts that are a hardship, the conservatives see someone paying their equal share and then some, while others attempt to shirk their responsibilities.
Many conservative voters genuinely misunderstand the liberal position on wealth, because their leaders and Fox News intentionally misrepresent it.
Insofar as there even is a “liberal position on wealth,” I think **bump **explains it pretty well above. But it’s been advantageous for conservative leadership the last few decades to paint the picture more like this:
[ol]
[li]Everyone wants to be wealthy, right? That’s the whole point of the free enterprise system![/li][li]See those liberals over there? They hate the wealthy![/li][li]Those liberals want to fix things so you can never be wealthy![/li][li]See? Liberals hate America and everything it stands for.[/li][/ol]
So of course from this POV, the Obamas being worth millions makes them hypocritical (and possibly corrupt).
But why? What ethical position allows the difference?
A different but similar position might be that they are not corrupt, but merely gamed a corrupt practice (politics) to gain tremendously.
The real question is why does this NOT get looked down upon with the same disdain as any other reason for people making money?
I mean, the answer is simply partisanship.
Who is looking down with disdain on people who make money? That’s the exact misrepresentation I’m talking about.
Outside of strict Marxism, there is no liberal school of thought that casts disdain on anyone who is wealthy just because they are wealthy. Just because a liberal politician may want to tax wealthier people an extra percentage point or two does not mean liberals despise them for being wealthy.
And, they do pony up much more in taxes. But we have a lot of freeloaders who are poor and don’t contribute anything. I’m not against mandatory government service to “pay” for our nation; there should be an option to buy out for the rich, since they’re better off paying taxes than wasting their time working for free.
I think you’re supporting my argument but from the opposite side. I was saying there are probably a lot of middle class and poor people who would have the capability to manage large amounts of money successfully if they had the opportunity. And your post is pointing out that lots of rich people who have large amounts of money don’t have the capability to manage it well.
Both sides point to the same thing; that having wealth is not proof that you have the capability of making wealth.
This is particularly funny because Obama isn’t earning massive wads of cash by offering access to the white house, or by hosting official functions at his failing resorts. He’s being given money to tell his story. A book deal for a memoir. A Netflix show. Obama is gaining not because he’s a politician (in fact, he’s pretty much been completely inactive in politics) but because he’s famous and people care what he has to say.
Because, by and large, liberals don’t look down on people for “making money”. Hell, even leftists generally don’t look down on people for “making money”, with the exception of the obscenely rich, which are a whole different kettle of fish from your bog-standard millionaire (hint: a million seconds is 12 days; a billion seconds is 31 years). I’d ask where you get this shit, but I think we already know given the topic of the thread.
:rolleyes:
Kearsen, do you care about your family?
By what metric?
By an absolute metric, Warren Buffet pays more in taxes than his secretary.
By a proportional metric, Warren Buffet pays less of a percentage of his income than his secretary.
By a metric that considers the marginal utility of each consecutive dollar, it’s an absolute farce - they pay a pittance that has virtually no effect on their quality of life.
While I don’t disagree with this description, I think it fails when taxes are honestly analyzed, because everybody does pay equally, percentage-wise.
Part of this, in my opinion, comes from the fact that people typically don’t understand marginal tax rates. Take AOC’s proposal to create a 70% marginal tax rate. Most people hear that and think she wants to take 70% of the wealthiest American’s income - not true! What she has proposed is taxing 70% of that taxable income over $10 million.
Not fair, conservatives say. Why not? Because, they say, that person is being unfairly singled out for their wealth.
I’d argue that this is not the case; in fact, it’s very equal. Why? Because everybody in America would pay a 70% tax rate on their taxable income over $10 million - it’s just that for most of us, that number is 0, so the tax owed is 0.
Sounds ridiculous, you say? Why? It works the other way, too. The person who made $11 million last year paid the same percentage in taxes on the first $50,000 as somebody who only earned a total of $60,000. They paid the same percentage on the first $150,000 as somebody who only earned $150,000.00, too. (And so on). It’s, in fact, completely even across the board.
The only difference is when you are paying a percentage of a number above zero that makes people think that they are paying so much more. But, hey, you live in a society where your taxable income exceeds somebody else’s, why wouldn’t you expect your amount owed to be more than somebody who scored a big fat zero? After all, you gained more by what the taxes provided, and stand to lose more if those provisions are gone.
If the average person was just as good as managing money as the CEO of a financial services firm, lottery winners would never go bankrupt. As I said, some of investing is luck. Some of it isn’t.
It’s not proof - it’s evidence.
Plus, I think you are kind of missing the point. If you go into your bank and say, “loan me ten million and I will pay you back eleven million in five years”, they are not automatically going to hand over the ten mil because the deal is a no-brainer. Because [list=A][li]The deal is not a no-brainer - there is an actual risk that it ain’t as easy as you think, and they will lose some or all of the ten million, and []you are competing for the ten million with people who promise to pay back twelve million, or twenty, and have a specific business plan for how to do it that is more plausible than yours, and []As I said, if it is easy to make eleven million on a ten-million investment, then they don’t have to loan you the money. Just do whatever you were going to do, and collect the profit themselves.[/list]Sure, some people borrowed money from their rich parents, and now are extremely wealthy. And some investors lose money. But that’s the point of investments - sometimes they lose money - in fact, a lot of the time they lose money - but sometimes they turn out to be Staples or Calumet Coach and you turn enough of a profit to make up for the losses. [/li]
The notion that “the rich” is just an average schmuck who got lucky is not always a good rule of thumb. “There’s a difference between the rich, and you and me”, and it’s not just that they have more money.
Regards,
Shodan
Obama is clearly hypocritical, he recently said in a speech "There’s only so much you can eat. There’s only so big a house you can have. There’s only so many nice trips you can take. I mean, it’s enough.”
He also said "I mean, it shows a poverty of ambition to just want to take more and more and more, instead of saying, ‘Wow, I’ve got so much. Who can I help? How can I give more and more and more?’ "
There is no meaningful distinction between those who earn their money by working and creating and those who earn their money by organizing others. Both take large amounts of hard work and skill. People like Obama and Sanders who make money selling books, still need armies of low paid people who make paper, bind books, transport books, and sell books.
There is the argument that Obama made about “You didn’t build that” which implies that since public infrastructure helps people make money those who make more should have a higher burden of paying for that since they got more out of it. What this misses is that the public infrastructure is the same for everyone. I grew up with a basketball hoop in my backyard, just like Micheal Jordan did. He was able to put that infrastructure to better use than I did. Bezos uses the same public roads to deliver packages that the rest of us use. He used those roads to build a internet delivery empire and I have used them to go back and forth to the supermarket.
Michael Jordan made millions of dollars from the hoop in his backyard?
He made millions playing in a huge arena, served by a multitude of roads and public transit (built by the city of Chicago) to get spectators to and from the game. He made millions by having his games broadcast over public airwaves, to televisions powered by the wires installed by the electric company, under a monopoly negotiated by the local government. He made millions selling shoes made in another country, and imported through publicly funded ports, railroads and roadways.
Jordan didn’t make jack fucking shit from that hoop in his backyard, just like everybody else.