# Do the rich really take risks. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 4, 2011, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508 "2011-08-04T21:39:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/41 "2011-08-07T19:20:38Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > There is no question the rich do things to mitigate their risk, which begs the question “why doesn’t everyone else?” > > The poor guy in the OP could haven’t avoided a bunch of risk by getting a car with a warranty. Costs a bit more, but protects from the potential downsides. He could also make sure he’s got enough insurance so that an accident doesn’t ruin him. Well ya the poor guy might be able to hold on to his transportation with warranty and insurance but he also needs to house and clothe himself and his family as well as cover medical expenses etc. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/42 "2011-08-07T20:22:37Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > Well ya the poor guy might be able to hold on to his transportation with warranty and insurance but he also needs to house and clothe himself and his family as well as cover medical expenses etc. The guy in the OP had $6000 left in cash and no mention of any of those other issues. The super rich guy might just as well have crippling medical conditions for him, his wife, his 20 kids, and his entire extended family (who he’s also supporting). We can make up any after the fact assessments, point is they’re all moot. We don’t know what losing $40million will mean for the rich guy, and we don’t know if it will “hurt” more than $4000 for the poor guy. If the rich guy is smart enough to mitigate his losses good for him, that’s what it usually takes to get and stay rich. But even after all that, the rich guy has to pay a lot for insurance (and risk mitigating actions) that will cut into his returns. ---
**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 8, 2011, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/43 "2011-08-08T00:09:04Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > But that’s not the analysis that matters. > > Let’s say John Dewey is rich because he owns a company (worth $60million) that makes diesel engines. The company has done really well allowing him to amass $40million in cash. He’s thinking about putting that $40million back into the company to expand production, research, and advertising in order to gain more market share leading to more profit. > > Problem is, a huge chunk of his sales are to the yacht industry. He’s looking at his books and notices that when the top marginal tax rate went up, yacht sales went down. When Bush cut taxes yacht sales went up. > > He also knows that yacht sales are heavily tied to the health of the overall economy, if it looks like the markets are going to tank, rich people might not be as likely to need a new engine. > > Again I want to make the point that it has very little to do with the actual taxation, but with the general direction of the economy and the level of incompetence of those in charge. > > If “taxing the rich” was able to eliminate the deficit there wouldn’t be this issue. Many of those opposed (and not investing) are looking past the tax increase at entitlement plans (including the military) that will continue to cost more, and hence require more taxes. It’s this reason why Clinton’s tax policies improved the economy and Bush’s tax policies destroyed it. We can’t “go back to the Clinton era” because the deficit is that much worse. 😕 You’ve totally failed to address anything interesting. The yacht makers did pretty well under Clinton, as the impact of the tax increase was far outweighed by the boom. Yes, if you screw up the economy you hurt everyone, and I say that not doing everything to help the economy - including raising taxes on the rich - is screwing it up. IIRC, a lot of the increase in investment after the Clinton tax increase was Wall Street saying that the government had finally gotten its act together - something certainly not true today. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/44 "2011-08-08T03:29:44Z")
If the rich get that way by taking risks, isn’t that rather an argument in _favor_ of taxing them heavily? If it all comes down to risk, then the one guy who took a risk and got lucky is ultimately just as deserving as the nine others who took an equivalent risk and failed. A fair distribution of wealth would take the success of the one and spread it out evenly among all ten, since they all took equal risks. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/45 "2011-08-08T03:45:26Z")
If you were rich, would you take the risk then, knowing that if you ‘got lucky’ you’d just end up getting taxed more? I know I wouldn’t be as willing to take risks if I knew I’d be taxed more heavily than is already the case if I happened to be successful. Of course, it’s all in what you mean exactly by ‘taxing them heavily’…presumably that means you will tax them more than what they are currently being taxed. Depending on what you mean by that in practical terms it might mean you will make people more risk averse than the are even under normal situations. Take what’s happening right now. Though it’s not due to taxes, many ‘rich’ aren’t taking large risks right now because the risks to rewards don’t seem favorable to them. Result…the ‘rich’ aren’t investing as much, or expanding their businesses as much…and banks aren’t loaning as much. What that means in practical terms is that businesses are in a recession mind set…they aren’t hiring a bunch of people back, they aren’t expanding their business, new business opportunities aren’t being explored as much, loans for new businesses or expansions of businesses are tighter and less frequent…and so we have a high unemployment and sagging tax revenues. A vicious cycle. Tax people more heavily for succeeding and, depending on where you set the bar you will get exactly the same result. It’s basic human psychology. ISTM that people on this board seem to forget that ‘the rich’ are still, you know, human…just like the rest of us. I might be willing to take great risks for great rewards…but not if, having ‘got lucky’ I’m going to have those rewards lessened substantially because I managed to succeed. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/46 "2011-08-08T03:55:21Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > Let’s say John Dewey is rich because he owns a company (worth $60million) that makes diesel engines. The company has done really well allowing him to amass $40million in cash. He’s thinking about putting that $40million back into the company to expand production, research, and advertising in order to gain more market share leading to more profit. > > Problem is, a huge chunk of his sales are to the yacht industry… I only needed to read this far to know you were trying to dream up a highly artificial scenario. The yacht industry is notoriously flakey because it is prone to crash based on mere inchoate fears. Face it, no amount of cooked up flakey anecdotal scenario construction is going to get over the fact that marginal rates on higher incomes have historically been higher without the cooling effect your theory predicts. Long term empirical historical data is going to trump your pet thought experiment any time. Get over it. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/47 "2011-08-08T04:08:28Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Tax people more heavily for succeeding and, depending on where you set the bar you will get exactly the same result. Yes but the great unspoken feature that characterises all scaremongering on this topic by the right is that the proposed setting of the bar is nowhere near what would be required to have the theoretical effect you mention. Only a complete idiot would fail to understand that if you increase taxes to 100% on incomes over a certain level, essentially no one is going to bother to earn more than that level and a cooling effect will occur. Only a complete idiot would fail to understand that if you increase taxes by 0.00000001% on incomes over a certain level, essentially no one is going to bother taking that into account when considering whether to invest in a risky enterprise and there is going to be no cooling effect. The only relevant question therefore is whether the percentage tax increase _actually proposed_ is going to cause a signficant cooling effect. Given that actual proposed increases are at levels that historical empirical evidence shows will have little to no effect, anyone who talks about cooling effects without qualifying that none will occur at the levels proposed is spreading irrational fear, uncertainty and doubt probably because they have an ulterior motive, rather than participating in useful discussion. ---
**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 8, 2011, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/48 "2011-08-08T05:01:20Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > If you were rich, would you take the risk then, knowing that if you ‘got lucky’ you’d just end up getting taxed more? I know I wouldn’t be as willing to take risks if I knew I’d be taxed more heavily than is already the case if I happened to be successful. When I got lucky during the bubble, and sold enough stock so that I went up to a higher bracket, and I was damn happy about it. You really think someone is going to be happy about getting an extra $90K but not getting an extra $88K? > [@](#): > > Of course, it’s all in what you mean exactly by ‘taxing them heavily’…presumably that means you will tax them more than what they are currently being taxed. Depending on what you mean by that in practical terms it might mean you will make people more risk averse than the are even under normal situations. Take what’s happening right now. Though it’s not due to taxes, many ‘rich’ aren’t taking large risks right now because the risks to rewards don’t seem favorable to them. Result…the ‘rich’ aren’t investing as much, or expanding their businesses as much…and banks aren’t loaning as much. What that means in practical terms is that businesses are in a recession mind set…they aren’t hiring a bunch of people back, they aren’t expanding their business, new business opportunities aren’t being explored as much, loans for new businesses or expansions of businesses are tighter and less frequent…and so we have a high unemployment and sagging tax revenues. A vicious cycle. And if we did tax them some more and used the money to jump start consumption, then they might take the next step of expanding to meet that consumption. How is letting them keep money that they are neither saving or investing helping again? I bet lots of people lost more money in the market last week than then they would pay in taxes - was that a good thing? And, as you admit, this keep the taxes low policy hasn’t helped > [@](#): > > Tax people more heavily for succeeding and, depending on where you set the bar you will get exactly the same result. It’s basic human psychology. ISTM that people on this board seem to forget that ‘the rich’ are still, you know, human…just like the rest of us. I might be willing to take great risks for great rewards…but not if, having ‘got lucky’ I’m going to have those rewards lessened substantially because I managed to succeed. > > -XT Well, aren’t we all glad that no one is proposing to tax people heavily. I’m sorry you never had to suffer the high Clinton tax rate. I did, and I’d gladly suffer it again. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2011, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/49 "2011-08-11T01:15:37Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > 😕 You’ve totally failed to address anything interesting. The yacht makers did pretty well under Clinton, as the impact of the tax increase was far outweighed by the boom. Yes, if you screw up the economy you hurt everyone, and I say that not doing everything to help the economy - including raising taxes on the rich - is screwing it up. IIRC, a lot of the increase in investment after the Clinton tax increase was Wall Street saying that the government had finally gotten its act together - something certainly not true today. This isn’t 1993. You’ll notice that even without a tax increase the current level of risk outweighs the potential upside. This is known as a multivariable problem. The Clinton tax increases were a sign that the government had things under control. It was a very strong message and when combined with a balanced budget it gave the economy a huge boost. Right now the tax increases on the rich won’t put a dent in the deficit, so all they are is a promise that taxes will go up again next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. And for the record, an equivalent amount of spending decreases will send the same message. Neither is good for the economy right now. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2011, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/50 "2011-08-11T02:59:34Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] Well, aren’t we all glad that no one is proposing to tax people heavily. I’m sorry you never had to suffer the high Clinton tax rate. I did, and I’d gladly suffer it again. [/QUOTE] You are kidding, right? 😛 [QUOTE=Princhester] Yes but the great unspoken feature that characterises all scaremongering on this topic by the right is that the proposed setting of the bar is nowhere near what would be required to have the theoretical effect you mention. [/QUOTE] I agree, but it’s a sliding scale, not a cliff that you can drive up to and then fall over. Again, I have no issue with setting taxes back to Clinton rates, or even closing many loopholes…or even making major corporations pay the same taxes that small businesses face. I DO think that this will have a negative effect on the economy, but it won’t be the end of the world, and if we couple it with major spending cuts I think we’d be ok. But all our problems aren’t going to be solved by simply soaking the rich…and that’s what the other side doesn’t seem to grasp. We are caught between dueling rhetoric here. -XT ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2011, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/51 "2011-08-11T04:36:11Z")
Cutting is stupid. it sounds good, but it has the burden of taking demand down with it. Demand is the factor that will save the economy. That is what will increase employment. We need to spend on infrastructure to increase employment. Just cutting is a death spiral down to disaster. If we do that we are doomed. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/52 "2011-08-12T02:37:26Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Now imagine that John Dewey has recently retired from his [profitable career at the firm of Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=473031&highlight=taxing) He has a net worth of one hundred million dollars, which makes him rich. He invests forty million dollars in a start-up company. The worst that can happen is the company going belly-up and his investment disappearing. In that case, he’ll have a net worth of sixty million dollars. With that sixty million dollars, he can still buy anything that a reasonable person could want to buy and have plenty left over. Hence he’s not really taking any risks with that investment. It’s possible to lose more than you invested if you leverage your investment (of course it multiplies the gains, but here we’re talking about the downside). It’s also possible to lose more than you invested if you get sued. Think about the liability the average operator of a chemical plant is exposing himself to: you can be sued by an employee, people who live in the neighborhood, the EPA, a customer… Unless you take the position that all such lawsuits are justly decided and that a chemical plant can be operated profitably with zero risk of losing a lawsuit, the possibility of getting sued is yet another dimension of risk. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/53 "2011-08-12T03:20:57Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > It’s possible to lose more than you invested if you leverage your investment (of course it multiplies the gains, but here we’re talking about the downside). It’s also possible to lose more than you invested if you get sued. Think about the liability the average operator of a chemical plant is exposing himself to: you can be sued by an employee, people who live in the neighborhood, the EPA, a customer… Unless you take the position that all such lawsuits are justly decided and that a chemical plant can be operated profitably with zero risk of losing a lawsuit, the possibility of getting sued is yet another dimension of risk. Let’s see, don’t we have some kind of financial product that handles that kind of risk? In-something … in-something… ah, yes, insurance! Liability insurance! So … still not a hell of a lot of risk, Hyperelastic. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/54 "2011-08-12T21:26:24Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Let’s see, don’t we have some kind of financial product that handles that kind of risk? In-something … in-something… ah, yes, insurance! Liability insurance! So … still not a hell of a lot of risk, Hyperelastic. Even if you can get it, insurance just shifts the risk onto the insurance company (another rich guy taking his chances). And often you can’t get it, particularly when it’s hard to predict the chance of a mishap or the damage that might be caused. Insurance for industrial mishaps is not like getting car insurance. For a truly novel activity there just aren’t enough data to know what the chances of an accident are. To give you an example, you cannot buy enough commercial insurance to cover the potential losses from a worst-case nuclear power plant accident. You also cannot buy enough insurance to cover the loss of a major piece of space hardware like an ISS module. (This is one reason space missions for anything but comsats will not be truly commercial for the foreseeable future). There’s just a limit to the funds available to pay out a huge claim. In the nuclear case, the government made the interesting decision that even though private insurers wouldn’t/couldn’t cover a big accident, the industry had to go forward and a fund was set up where utilities have to agree to pay up to $111 million in the event of an accident anywhere no matter whose fault it is. An arrangement like that would never be initiated today. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/55 "2011-08-15T20:18:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > As an aside to the topic, the quote in the OP also notes the common conservative claim that raising taxes won’t “work” because the rich don’t have enough money to fix the deficit. So these conservatives propose solving the national debt by cutting government spending instead. > > The national debt is currently $14,578,000,000,000. > > The wealthiest ten percent of America’s population has an annual gross income of $3,856,000,000,000. Now obviously you cannot get fourteen trillion dollars out of a total of three trillion dollars. Only an idiot would claim that. > > Here’s another figure. The entire annual federal budget is $3,456,000,000,000. The conservatives claim that we can eliminate the national debt of fourteen trillion dollars from the three trillion dollar budget. > > Okay. Obviously nobody is going to pay off the entire national debt in a single year. We’re going to have to work on it for several years. But keep in mind that the people who are telling you we can’t find the money in a 3,856 billion sum are also claiming that we can find it in a 3,456 billion dollar sum. > > I say we should compromise. For every billion dollars that is cut from the federal budget for debt reduction, we should match it with an additional billion dollars from the top ten percent of incomes. Yeah, that was the original Obama proposal before he pulled down his pants and spread his buttcheeks. I’m starting to think he likes it. There is also evidence that tax increases that go directly into reducing teh deficit has little to no negative impact on the economy. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/56 "2011-08-15T20:20:07Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Did you miss the part where he put 40,000,000 dollars at risk? The fact that he will still be able to maintain an excellent standard of living isn’t relevant. There is a difference between risking your rent money and risking “capital” Sure capitalists take risks, they risk their capital, others risk their retirement or livelihood. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/57 "2011-08-15T21:22:03Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The problem investors are facing right now is that investment risk is hard to price. Some of that is the fault of government regulatory uncertainty and uncertainty about the actions of the fed. Some of it is uncertainty about the resolution of the various debt crises around the world. These are chaotic events impossible to predict, and therefore price. That’s what really chills investment. A lot of it is lack of demand. > [@](#): > > Take the health care bill. This may have some effect on teh armgins but lack of demand and the resulting non-viability of any business model is proabbly a much much bigger factor. > [@](#): > > By the way, the historical creator of private sector jobs is small business, and all those small businesses out there just under 50 employees are probably sitting on their hands right now, waiting to see how this shakes out. First of all I think its its not small busniesses, its NEW businesses, GROWING businesses that hire not necessarily small businesses. There aer a lot of stagnant small businesses that will never hire another employee. Second of all, youa re taking an awful small population of businesses, applying a relatively small uncertainty ($3000/year) and extrapolating an awfully big effect. > [@](#): > > This is just the effect from one aspect of one bill. Then there’s the 2,000 page financial reform bill, the manufacturing bill that changes the way inventory depreciation can be calculated, new EPA regulations, the threat of new taxes or an economic downturn because of high deficits, yada yada. Much of this is unquantifiable risk. First of all, you don’t depreciate inventory (they are thinking of changing LIFO accounting), second of all, there is ALWAYS legislative risk. There is ALWAYS regulatory risk and none of this stuff is stifling its mountain out of molehill hyperventilation while you ignore the lack of demand. > [@](#): > > How do you make investment decisions in that atmosphere? How do you know how much return you need on your capital to make the investment a better deal than just putting the money in a T-Bill or a Municipal Bond? You seem to be saying that teh risks are unquantifiable right now because of something other than the recession itself? That simply bullshit. > [@](#): > > Speaking of employment costs… The new minimum wage went into effect in 2009, right in the middle of the recession. It raised the rate from $5.85 to $7.25. How much effect do you think that might have on employment when productivity is down? Now add in $3,000 in fines per employee from the health care bill, and compare: > > Cost of a minimum wage employee in 2008: $12,168 > Cost of a minimum wage employee in 2014: $18,080 > > How many industries in an economic downturn can afford a 50% increase in labor costs? Might that not explain why the unemployment rate among young people, who typically fill the low paying jobs, might be so high? How many industries had an average compensation of $5.85/hour? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/58 "2011-08-15T21:30:01Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > Even if you can get it, insurance just shifts the risk onto the insurance company (another rich guy taking his chances). And often you can’t get it, particularly when it’s hard to predict the chance of a mishap or the damage that might be caused. Insurance for industrial mishaps is not like getting car insurance. For a truly novel activity there just aren’t enough data to know what the chances of an accident are. As long as there are limits on liability, you can price out the risks. We do in fact have satellite insurance despite the lack of data. We do in fact have product liability risk despite knowing if there is another asbestos type liability out there. As long as you cap the risk, someone out there is willing to price it. Anything larger than that cap is likely to have driven you out of business anways. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508/59 "2011-08-15T21:55:34Z")
“Poverty … is a most necessary and indispensable ingredient in society, without which nations and communities could not exist in a state of civilisation. It is the lot of man – it is the source of wealth, since without poverty there would be no labour, and without labour there could be no riches, no refinement, no comfort, and no benefit to those who may be possessed of wealth” —[Patrick Colquhoun - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Colquhoun) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-really-take-risks/591508.md?page=2)