Ya know, I was just having a bit of fun with my initial reply. But now that you’ve made this argument personal, fuck the light-hearted approach.
Look, you mush-brained simpleton, “The Market” isn’t some shadow conlgomerate of eldritch gnomes toiling away in their concrete bunker underneath the streets of Zürich to perfect just the right tincture of fluorine to add to the world’s drinking supply to complete their stranglehold on the wretched denizens of this dismal globe. You sound like Ted Knight from The Superfriends: “Meanwhile, back at the Legion of Doom…”
At its most basic, the market is about the (relatively) free interplay of supply and demand within conditions of scarcity. And the laws of supply and demand are just that - LAWS. They exist externally of any system, whether laissez-faire late 19th century capitalism, or doe-eyed Fabian utopianism, or the Cambodian Year Zero. If you can’t even understand basic concepts such as scarcity or demand, yet want to cast moral aspersions at those of us who do and reject your juvenile idiocy, then you really come off as one of the members of the “aggressively stupid”.
I feel like I’m the pilot on this flight and you’re one of the bad guys.
“No, we don’t have enough fuel to fly to Australia. Now go back in the cabin, sit down, have a gin & tonic, and shut the fuck up.”
I defend the right of the unbelievably wealthy to control every aspect of our lives.
After all, there’s a chance for any of us (however small) to become incredibly rich and influential, and if we screw with the system now we’ll be doomed to small insignificant lives forever.
Besides, the wealthy and powerful have formed an organization to pass on their secrets to us. For only a nominal investment you too, lurking guest can learn how to be a one-percenter.
Whether or not Melinda Gates’ vibrator is gold-plated or not makes no difference to me. That I’m able to connect to the Internet and do my work from home does mean a lot to me. How much? A few hundred for an operating system, and a few hundred for productivity software. End of transaction. I also keep Macs (oh no, Steve Jobs!) in the office, but the whole network is run off Linux servers (oh no, … erm … ?).
I’ve got my little slice of paradise here, do my best to return some good to the world and help others out, and don’t give a shit that I’ll never make it to billionaire. That I pay money to Gates to make this corner of happiness a reality doesn’t bother me.
Waitasecond … come to think of it, in a bizarre twist Gates has actually paid me more than I’ve paid him. Wow, holy shit! I do development work. Several projects have been funded by the Gates foundation. Bill Gates is my bitch!
No affront taken. I didn’t know there were rules about determining someone’s bitch status. As for the pencil dick thing, no problem there either. I like to hang out at modeling studios because women are forever signing contracts and whatnot. Loads of fun!
Is it just me, or is it easier to read Lurking Guest’s posts if you put on a beret and black turtleneck sweater, grab some bongos and read it in a Beatnik/free form Jazz cadence?
Wiki says it takes $250,000 to get you into the top 1.5%. Is that close enough to 1%? The top 5% is only $150,000. And that’s household income, not even personal income. Hell, I’m in the top 5%.
You do realize that 1% is only 1 in 100, right? I mean, that’s one person on every flight you go on. That’s 4 people in your high school class. That’s at least 10 people in the office building I’m currently in. 1% isn’t really that rare.
Just to insert some facts, to be in the top 1% of U.S. incomes, you have to have an income of slightly less than $200,000 (or at least you did in 2005; I used 2005 IRS numbers for this calculation). This group paid 16.36% of the 2005 personal income taxes. If you had an income of $200,000 in 2005, you were in the top 0.96% of U.S. incomes.
Top 1% of world incomes will be significantly less.
Perhaps not. We make much more money, true, but we have smaller households. If a country has an average household size twice that of the US, they only have to make half the money per wage earner. How does that pan out for our statistics? I dunno.
These sites purport to tell you where you rank in wealth pecentage wise compared to the rest of the world. The top link puts the top 1% at about $50,000 a year, the bottom is more conservative and puts it closer to $68,000.
