The Rich are Rich because their work is more valuable than the work of others.

Yet another stupid comment by you. Many of the richest of the rich are self made, but I said THE MAJORITY OF THE RICH, dumbass!

 

I have been thinking about this too. What I see happening is America using foreign countries as their manufacturing base. This (IMO) is the natural progression of government support of able-bodied non contributors along with intrusive government tax mandates, escalating tax rates, over-zealous EPA regulations and, with this regime in Washington, a distinct adverse, confrontational attitude toward business...(That is unless you are panderer).

At the same time, our technology has exploded fundamentally changing our society and the way we do business.

 

If only truly believes in God, I find it impossible to believe they could dismiss greed, as you seem to like to do. You're right though...I do indeed "hate the rich". The CORPORATE rich. I'd explain the degree of difference in that group versus the other, and how I separate the two (or if I even do) but, you'd have to present reason enough for me to do so, beyond the logic of an eleven year old.

 

Maybe you could define "self-made" for us??

 

I would argue -though the argument is largely one of semantics - that it is the rarity of their skill set that makes their labor more valuable.

Jeff since when is 19% a majority of anything?

 

You're still talking about middle class working people, not the rich.

I explained why it is a lot more than 19%, and in fact probably a majority. I read somewhere that the DuPont heirs now number some 1700, with average net worth of over $100M.

 

Like many assertions, there is some truth to this, but it is not the whole truth.

 

College students pursuing STEM degrees are not the only people attaining employment. Individuals from majors feeding off the STEM disciplines, such as economics and finance, are also doing well. More broadly speaking, IDEA college graduates in fields such as education, international relations, and other public service related professions are faring much better than others. The real key in this new economy is what David Brooks illustrates so succinctly in a NY Times op-ed. One must either be able to join the latest and greatest markets, or create their own. The industries experiencing the most growth and least unemployment are not only those that are ripe with intellectual innovation, but tangible and practical innovation. Take for example the environmental engineering industry, with an unemployment rate of 2.2 percent, or the pharmacology sector, with a near zero percent unemployment rate. In other words, to get ahead, one needs a creative monopoly.

 

Ah yes, good point. You realize 2/3 is a majority, right?

Again, as I said, it's a personal thing. I truly believe in God, and believe that there are businessmen without scruples, but my belief in God is no ground upon which to condemn them for it in the secular world, anymore than my belief in God is grounds for the United States declaring Holy War.

And if you had anything worth contributing, you'd just contribute it.

It's defined differently, depending on whether you're asking Forbes or another group. A left-wing group has broken it down and says that there are fewer 'self-made' than Forbes, but I'll show you how they do it.

*21% were born on 'home plate,' inheriting enough money to make the list.
*7% were born on 'third plate,' inheriting 50million or more, but not enough to make the list.
*11.5% were born on 'second base,' inheriting more than 1 million, but less than 50 million
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/many-forbes-400-really-self-204426982.html
*22% came from 'first base,' coming from a comfortable but not rich background (middle class), inheriting some money, but not much in terms of the Forbes list.
*According to this group, 40% inherited their wealth (the first three groups who inherited a million or more, actually 39.5%, but we'll round)
*After including those who came from middle class backgrounds, the total that inherited any wealth is 61.5%. It's probably just inconvenient for you to think that 38.5% of the Forbes list were born poor, not even middle class.

Now, 60.5% inherited nothing or less than a million. I would even go so far as to say that those born on 'second plate' (inheriting 1-50million) are 'self-made', because the minimum worth to enter to the Forbes 400 list is 1300million. If you inherited $50,000, and invested it and it was worth 1.3mil in ten or so years, I wouldn't say you get your millions from your parents, that's a result of your own savvy investments.

I agree. On both accounts.

If you include people like Zuckerberg, who were born to middle class parents and then became billionaires based on their own merit, then yeah. But that's dumb a f***.

bad sample. As I've already laid out, a majority inherited what in the 'rich' world is practically nothing. And if you have 1G and in 20 years it's worth 2.1G, then you would have been better off putting it in a Certificate of Deposit. These guys didn't do that. The majority - 2/3 of these guys - turned in 20 years 50million or less of an inheritance into more than 1300million.

1. "Obscene" is a relative and subjective term. They aren't overpaid, anymore than a baseball player is overpaid.
2. Our CEOs get paid more than CEOs of foreign companies. Our CEOs, as a rule of thumb, are also more qualified, more educated, more experienced,
3. Groups similar in rhetoric to yourself have created 'top ten overpaid CEO' lists, with 40million+ salaries, but every guy on that list wasn't there the year before, because every guy on that list is cashing in stock options, like the example I gave with a teacher.
4. No, it's more than 20%, but regardless, the CEO's pay is far less than 1%, even with the most 'obscenely' paid CEOs. And it's a private company.
5. Good company leadership is integral, and men aren't going to lead companies 'for the good of the colony' or w/e. Think about any obscenely successful businessman in history, Rockerfeller, Carnegie, Gates, Jobs - all were (*)(*)(*)(*)ed good at what they do. Had you put another Joe Schmoe in their position, any one of their companies would have failed. They were (and are) uniquely qualified for their jobs.

 

Don't know how it is in the States but in Egypt 90% of the rich are rich because they were either born into it or kissed ass and bought their way into it.

 

Oh, and
6. Unless you're a stockholder in every corporation, the only business you have in complaining about CEO pay is pitiful jealousy.

 

I think the difference is actually the degree to which a person's job can be sent away. Look at the factory, the reason that the factory left is not that "products don't matter" they very much do. The idea of an iPad is useless unless it's turned into a product that people give you money for. The problem is that essentially, it's so much cheaper to make the stuff in China and ship it here, that only a literal retard would think of building his great idea in the US. The costs are too high. Our wages, even for the guy who makes minimum wage, are literally upper middle class. It's hard to demand a wage of 30K to make iPads in the US, when that's 10K more than the average world wage (50% of the planet lives on less then 20K a year). Add all of the rest, 401Ks, health insurance, safety and health codes, environmental codes, and you have the explanation. You could build the plant in the US, and pay the equivelent of 50K per employee, or you could build in China and get a half-off rate. wonder why they choose China.

 

That's not what the numbers say. "No significant inheritance" doesn't mean, "poor."

True: it's the group that Forbes specifically chose as being "self-made."

And...? You are still "self-made" according to right-wing $#!+-for brains.

Uh-huh... $50M and the connections that go along with a family that leaves you that kind of dough.

But an accurate one.

LOL! Baseball players are also obscenely overpaid.

No, they are only more greedy and unscrupulous, and more pampered by laws that enable them to rob their shareholders.

Your example was bull$#!+ with no resemblance to how CEOS get paid zillions for warming their seats. These overpaid CEOS are not putting aside money over 20 years. They are being given massive tranches of back-dated options so they can cash in on the Fed kiting the stock market just before their companies crash (<cough> Richard Fuld <cough>). If you read the business pages and have a longer memory than a chicken, you can see the pattern of massive CEO grabbing followed by corporate crash.

Nope. You are just makin' $#!+ up again. 75% of stock price variance is due to the market trend, 5% to the sector trend, leaving just 20% to be explained by anything that is going on at the company.

False. Many of them are taking substantial fractions of their firms' book value.

Irrelevant. The CEO rips $1G out of the firm for being so brilliantly successful at sitting in his chair while the Fed kites the stock market for him, and then the company gets a $10G taxpayer bailout because of how brilliantly successful the CEO was at ruining the company.

Oh, garbage. Are they really going to work so much harder for $500M than they would have for $50M? Assuming they aren't just flaming incompetents who are going to sink their companies anyway, like John Akers, Richard Fuld, and a thousand other obscenely overpaid crooks, schmoozers and scammers?