It's just that so many of these super-rich persons are such low-lifes. Rapine behavior throughout life sometimes leads to wealth. But then you die, probably from old age. And then...
Game over.
Wow, stepping on perfectly decent people over a lifetime gets you... what?
Because in the past, it was Media tycoons, publishers, industrialists, bankers who got rich. It often took them their entire lives, their childrens lives. It was 'old money'. Now, it seems many on this list managed to go from zero to super rich in a matter of a few years. Look at Bill Gates. He hasn't always been rich, now he has more money than anybody. It seems the seperation between rich and poor is getting far wider. Most people scrape by, day by day, week at a time. The super rich have more money than
Look at Bill Gates. He hasn't always been rich, now he has more money than anybody.
Well, actually yes, he was always rich. His parents were lawyers. Do you think he just got an academic scholarship to Harvard and decided to flunk out? Now, he probably wasn't super-rich like he is now, but most of us would kill someone for $1 million. With the right investing you could live nicely on that for the rest of your life without working.
It never ceases to amaze me that people somehow assume that Bill Gates started life in squalor someplace and pulled himself up by his bootstraps. It is simply not true. His daddy gave him millions to start his little software company. Dell is the same way. Yes he started in a dorm room and his parents garage, but how many college students get enough of an allowance from daddy that they can buy chips from Intel directly, by the semi-load. Most people starting a small business do not get to do so with millions of dollars in gifts sitting in the checking account. I am not saying they did nothing, but it was not rocket science... these kind of gifts makes it a lot easier to get started.
I'll grant you Mr. Gates was born well off and really improved his lot with a sweet deal from IBM, but Mr. Dell has a business acumen that flat embarasses most of us. He didn't start by buying Intel Chips by the semiload, his dorm room business was to buy the RAM upgrades that IBM forced their distributers to take (and were unable to sell) for pennies on the dollar and reselling them to the people who wanted them for a discount compared to IBM's list prices. He'd been doing things like this for the better
No, both he and his wife are from very, very wealthy families. They just happen to live in Austin, which is the UT conection. It's no accident the Dell Jewish Center [utexas.edu] is in Austin.
Not only that, but Bill Gates was literally born a millionaire. His grandparents set up a trust fund that made all their grandkids such as they were born....
With the right investing you could live nicely on [$1 million] for the rest of your life without working.
I disagree. While one might be able to get by on $1 million, they certainly wouldn't be "living nicely." Let's do the math.
You invest that $1 million. You've quit your job, and the million is all you've got, so you're not going to invest it in anything risky. You tuck it into a nice little balanced mutual fund that consistenly yields about 7%. So every year, you get $70,000. Now, you want your n
If you can't live nicely on $2G/month you've got bigger problems.
Also, one final optimistic note: In 20 to 30 years, advanced technology will have completely changed the socio/political/economic climate - beyond recognition [kurzweilai.net].
I would NOT kill someone for $1 million. Back in the 90's, I had $1 million (in the market). It's not really all that much money. Certainly not enough to "retire" on.
Now, $10 million, one could live comfortably on the interest. By comfortably, I'm talking about around $50k-$100k/year.
I'm not even talking about the risk of getting caught. I'm talking about "going there" - being a murderer, the telltale heart, and all that. Not worth a measley million to me.
"Is there more poor people in USA today than there were in the 60's and 70's?"
What is "poor"? Half the world's population lives on less than $2/day. Such poverty is extremely rare in this country. If you are better off than half the world's population, you are NOT poor.
What is "poor"? Half the world's population lives on less than $2/day. Such poverty is extremely rare in this country. If you are better off than half the world's population, you are NOT poor.
Yes you are. If you live in a place where $2/day is common, then you probably pay about $10/mo in rent and can eat very well for $3, or at least live on $1.50. Just because some people in another country are worse off doesn't make our poor any more affluent. You may as well trot out the starving kids in China.
Relying on anecdotal evidence to bolster your argument... does nothing to bolster your argument.
Perhaps you could cite some hard numbers -- unemployment rates in 1973 vs. 2003; inflation rates for each year; etc.
Anecdotally, I'd say that the "poor" are less "poor" than they were precisely because of technological advances that allow us all to purchase better TVs, cars, etc. -- that the productivity gains of the past 15 years have benefited all strata of society.
Does America really have an inequality problem? Statistically, the answer is "Yes, but".
By whatever measure you use, the richest Americans have done very well over the past few decades. According to the Census Bureau, the share of national income going to those in the top fifth of earners rose from 44% in 1973 to 50% in 2000. The share going to the top 1% rose to 15% in 1998, higher than it has ever been since the second world war, according to a recent study of tax returns by two
Excellent post. I have a hard time remembering facts sometimes, but this would seem to support both of our anecdotal evidence.
Part of the reason the poor can afford more now is due to technological and manufacturing advances. Better cars for cheaper. TV sets for rock bottom prices. Yes, even the poor can buy what would have been luxuries 40 years ago. But, as this article states, they are still doing worse off than years ago.
These depressing statistics, though, come with two caveats. First, poorer Americans are better off than they once were. The proportion of Americans in poverty now stands at 12%; in Mr Krugman's supposedly golden 1950s, it reached 22%.
And those caveats come with caveats...
First, the "proportion in poverty" number has some issues.
It is based on income and not wealth, and the poorest fifth, whether they live in poverty or not, are further in debt now than they were 20 years ago. It would be more int
Because in the past, it was Media tycoons, publishers, industrialists, bankers who got rich. It often took them their entire lives, their childrens lives. It was 'old money'. Now, it seems many on this list managed to go from zero to super rich in a matter of a few years. Look at Bill Gates. He hasn't always been rich, now he has more money than anybody.
Its the efficiency of the stock market my friend! Most of the billionaires listed were minted in a few hours on the day of their IPO's.
How else to you e
Bezos was a successful investment banker before founding Amazon. He wasn't a billionaire, but he wasn't poor either. And the money you use to buy shares in Amazon.com do not go to Bezos (or even Amazon) they go to OTHER SHAREHOLDERS.
Like most of these people Bezos set aside a large block of stock for himself and his cronies when Amazon went public. The public's irrational demand for the stock inflates his shares values. The wealth transfer is real.
He owned the company. 100% It was his. He was letting us investors buy into a part of his company. Why shouldnt' he keep a part of it himself? I'm happy he offered at least some of it to the rest of us peons. He could have been like UPS and just kept it in the family.
As to irrational demand. For every BUYER of a share of stock there was another shareholder that was a SELLER, and it wasn't Bezos. People wanted the Amazon vision, so they paid the price they felt was justified. If they didn't think it
. Look at Bill Gates. He hasn't always been rich, now he has more money than anybody. It seems the seperation between rich and poor is getting far wider. Most people scrape by, day by day, week at a time. The super rich have more money than they could spend in a lifetime, 10 lifetimes. This isn't the bad part, the world has always been like this. The bad part, it seems the middle class seems to be getting smaller.
Mod the parent up. Very perceptive. Rich people get richer because they buy income produci
Perhaps a good system would be to reward those who find ways of creating wealth, but ultimately returning the excess wealth to society once it is no longer needed.
Ie - estate taxes.
Let rich folks make 50 billion a year. They can live the most excessive lifestyle imaginable. However, any transfer of wealth to anyone else should be highly taxed, and when they die 99% of their wealth above, say, $1 million is taxed. In this way, people are encouraged to be entrepeneurial, but the wealth only persists a ge
Rich people wouldn't stay in the U.S. if this is how it went down. Why spend all of that time & money to make sure your kids & thier kids don't have to work, only to have it taken away?
This is not a good way to create wealth or decrease poverty.
Be careful how you define your estate tax, I agree that wealth should be taxed more than income, to reward those who create it, rather than those who sit on it, but there are two caveats I'd urge you to consider, first that that much wealth is usually tied up in a business and other illiquid assets, so a tax basically means selling the business or other assets very quickly which can greatly reduce their sales price. I think the number should be higher, more like $10 to $50 million to avoid most of the smal
Say goodbye to family businesses. The reason why some folks should be entitled to a better start in life because of who their parents are is because some parents are morons and others aren't. The moronic parents who don't plan or know how to manage money, debt and investments doom their offspring to pretty much the same fate. Those who do know how to handle such matters flourish and pass on those skills AND THE WEALTH THEY'VE BUILT to their kids. There's nothing unfair about it. If the rich kids are morons
I would hope that in a modern society one could make one's own fate.
Trust me - I'm about as non-socialist as it gets - I'm generally pretty libertarian. I still think that everyone would benefit from draining the wealth passed on to new generations.
Keep in mind that having a wealthy segment of the population drives up the cost of capital - it is hard to buy a home in a wealthy area since others are able to spend more on it - the actual cost of buliding t
If you take away people's ability to pass on what they've earned to their children then you kill most people's dreams. Thus you also kill their motivation to work beyond what will keep them alive. You'll have a lot of apathetic depressed folks who are unwilling to put that extra effort forward because its result will be fleeting.
Why do poor people need to be able to buy a home in a wealthy area anyways? They aren't wealthy! Let them buy a home in a middle class or poor area, just because we're all human do
Nobody whose motivation can be killed by refusing to let them inherit a million dollars... will EVER earn a million dollars.
Where's your reverence for competition now?
If they are going to be apathetic and depressed, let them rot! To hell with their trust-fund dreams, and to hell with them. Everybody has the same opportunity to pull up your socks and get to work, and they're no different.
You're really, really not making your case here. Is it that you want to encourage people to be lazy and shiftless by le
I never understood the concept of inheritance. Why should somebody be entitled to a better start in life simply because of who their parents are?
You just answered your own question. I was raised by a single mom who didn't even get a high school diploma until just before I got mine. I understand fully what it's like to not have much financially. But my mom gave me " a better start" than others by drilling into my head the need for education in order to get ahead. I still remember her testing me on my mult
I'm all for being responsible for one's children - and I think that having designated parents is definitely the best way to accomplish this, but I'm not convinced that parents should be concerned about the welfare of their children at the expense of others. After all, is one's own child really more valuable as a human being than someone else's?
The whole point of a society is that people working together can accomplish more than those working on their own. Even libertarians realize that you need basic law
but I'm not convinced that parents should be concerned about the welfare of their children at the expense of others
Neither am I, and I fail to see what I said implies this. Helping my child get ahead does not equate to pushing other children down.
When wealth is just a means of sitting back and taking from society it is a bad thing.
Again, I fail to see your point. If I die a billionaire and leave all my money to my children who then decide not to work a day of their lives but just live off the inher
I never understood the concept of inheritance. Why should somebody be entitled to a better start in life simply because of who their parents are?
Umm, because life in general isn't fair? Why shouldn't somebody be entitled to a better start in life? If I scrape and fight my way to the top, you can damn sure believe I will want my family and my friends to be better off because of it. Why? Because I care about them, and because life isn't fair I want to arm them as much as possible to stack the deck in t
"This prevents the middle class from being able to buy income producing assets."
Can you tell me why people in middle class can by nice home entertainment systems and computers but not be able to buy income producing assets? One wealthy person I know of drives a rusty old Toyota truck. He can easily buy a nice new mega sized truck, but instead, he invests his free money.
Take a look at the gaming articles on slashdot. There are plenty of slashdotters who spend $$$$ on high end gaming machines, yet bitch
Can you tell me why people in middle class can by nice home entertainment systems and computers but not be able to buy income producing assets? One wealthy person I know of drives a rusty old Toyota truck. He can easily buy a nice new mega sized truck, but instead, he invests his free money.
You kind of answered your own question. The middle class can afford to buy all of that crap because of easily-obtainable high-interest credit. Simple as that. Your wealthy friend is probably wealthy precisely because he
You are right about my wealthy friend and im not squandering his money. One of my friend is a loan officer and he tells me that there are guys who make $100,000+ a year that come in for emergency loan because they quander all their money and live paycheck to paycheck.
Your statement about the easy credit is true but they have no one but themselves to blame, otherwise it will be same as saying that it's McDonalds fault that some people are fat.
Just a nitpick, but a house IS an asset. It may not be a money-making asset for you, because of the loan (a liability) you have against it, but its still an asset, otherwise you wouldn't be able to borrow money using nothing but it as collateral.
Just because an asset loses money does not mean it ceases to be an asset. Just changes the value equate of owning said asset.
in the past, it was Media tycoons, publishers, industrialists, bankers who got rich
Not so. America has always been the place people come to make a fresh start and earn a living doing just about anything they want. In the past, it was a good thing when somebody went from rags to riches. But nowadays success stories like this are demonized.
"it is always on the backs of the poor that they tread."
Again, a false generalization. We may not like much of MS's business practices, but how many people have u
we deserve something for nothing from these mean rich people
Something for nothing? Who do you think makes the rich more money? Its the poor sucker working for $5 a hour in a factory.. the owner expliots the worker by paying him/her not enough so they have to struggle through life (so that the worker doesn't have enough to invest it and make more), while the owner has used his power and money to become ridiculously wealthy.. oh.. but he doesn't owe the poor anything does he?
In America, the "poor sucker working for 5$ hour in a factory" has the freedom to get a better education, start his own business, or secretly look for a better job.
As I mentioned in the previous post, your idea of "taxing the rich to the high heavens" is essentially communism, and though it sounds "fair", will inevitably end up with a) nobody having anything or b) a few government officials having everything and everybody else having nothing. Read Animal Farm for a better explanation. It is much, much m
I make no judgements. I wasn't presenting an opinion, I was making an observation of the present. I fully agree with you that. The only sad part is for those whom a good education isn't available. I don't support communism - That encourages everyone to work as little as possible leading to an overall loss of productivity. I fully support capitalism. I just think the government should do more to provide an adequate education giving people the *opportunity* to do something with themselves. I'll take myself as
I realize that "from the inside" it may seem impossible, but I've seen so many people who were dirt-poor, orphans, ex-cons, druggies, mentally ill, etc. and simply worked extra hard to earn a place for themselves. To say that they were "just really lucky" kind of detracts from their accomplishment, doesn't it?
I agree in principal that government has a responsibility to create equal opportunity, but again- I've seen so many people take the opportunities that are there and succeed, and so many rich, smart
One other point I thought I'd throw in the hat: alot of the more vocal complaints on this thread are also opposed to Bill Gates giving millions to public education... Kinda illogical IMHO.
In the past, it was a good thing when somebody went from rags to riches. But nowadays success stories like this are demonized.
Maybe because the modern stories aren't really rags-to-riches. More like riches-to-absurdly-super-riches. Bill Gates wasn't born a pauper, for example.
>> Even the poorest Americans today are living far >> better than years before.
> The socioeconomic seperation that existed in the > 60's and 70's wasn't nearly as pronounced as > it is today.
Granting for the sake of argument that that's an accurate statement, try the following thought experiment. Imagine for a moment that you make $50,000 and the richest man in the country makes $5,000,000. Now imagine both of your incomes doubling in real value. You now make $100,000, he now makes $1
Millions of people out of work today still only amounts to 6.1% of the economy compared to 7-10% in the 70's and increasing amounts the further back in the past you go so why does it seem so bad to you this time around?
Really? Are you sure? The socioeconomic seperation that existed in the 60's and 70's wasn't nearly as pronounced as it is today. Have you seen the unemployment rate recently? Millions of jobless people. Declining benefits, declining salaries, shaky job security, citizen's apathy for the declining political system.
You say "It seems the seperation between rich and poor is getting far wider. ", but then you also say "Now, it seems many on this list managed to go from zero to super rich in a matter of a few years. Look at Bill Gates. He hasn't always been rich, now he has more money than anybody."
It seems to me that if it's getting more common to go from poor to rich (or perhaps more typically poor to middle class and middle class to rich), the separation between poor and rich is getting smaller, not wider.
"Socialist" = showing any concern for people of your own or lower socioeconomic level. "Class warfare" = suggesting that the growing disparity between rich and poor and the shrinking of the middle class is not necessarily a good thing.
Unless personally are presently rich, then being down on "socialism" is just a sad testament to how well their propaganda has worked. You're bashing your own in the remote hope of joining those in the high financial stratosphere. Not gonna happen, dude.
Why becuase this shows success for which the majority are pulling their State's Unemployment/Employment Insurance due to the investment in Off Shore Development.
US Citizen/Resident may have a better Living Standard but their Credit Raiting is near the bottom. So I am born with 0 Credit Raiting and give my kids the raiting of Z or -infiinty. Issues is these rich people should retire so others can live and retire.
If this does not stop we will be back into slavery due to the above credit issues. This is
Yes, the lowest dredges of society have increased in wealth as well, but the "rich are getting richer" generally means that there is a greater and greater gap between them... Like for example if the rich were to get 5% richer per year and the poor 1% richer per year.
Those are just fake numbers though, I don't know if there is indeed evidence that this is happening. The US does have an incredibly large gap between the rich and the poor though.
And you don't see it as a problem that we're becoming more like Mexico, in this respect? Since, hey, there are other countries out there where this problem is much worse, we can just ignore it, here?
Take wealth rather than income, and America's disparity is even more startling. The wealthiest 1% of all households controls 38% of national wealth, while the bottom 80% of households holds only 17%, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Around 85% of stockmarket wealth is held by a lucky 20%.
That's capitalism at work. World wide statistics are show the top 1% holding even higher % of wealth. Not that there is anything wrong with it. US is the most unequal of the OECD, followed by Switzerland a
Last I heard there was a free market there (as free as the US at least) and the government didn't own all the means of production.
If you were you trying to say, "They have national healthcare and a few other big social programs thus that makes them a socialist government!!!!" I suggest you read up on what socialism is. [reference.com]
It was ment tongue in cheek. I live there/here - my American friends often refer to it as "socialist" - I think primarily due to the higher personal tax rate, better public schools, and healthcare.
There are many, many Americans who would disagree with you. Granted, the lot of us aren't losing fingers to meat grinders, which are subsequently fed back to us in hotdogs anymore, but there *was* a recent article on Slashdot (I believe? maybe I read it somewhere else) that this generation is the first in a long, long time to have less than their forebears.
dood come on...this is slashdot...hundreds of thousands of nerds all over the globe read this at all times of the day...I was eating a hot dog when I read this...thanks.
Why is the parent moderated insightful without any citation or reference? Try this newsflash:
The onrush of technology largely explains the gradual development of a "two-tier labor market" in which those at the bottom lack the education and the professional/technical skills of those at the top and, more and more, fail to get comparable pay raises, health insurance coverage, and other benefits. Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households. -- CIA World Factbook [cia.gov]
So, the old saw remains: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. I will argue alongside many others that 'poor' in North America is rich to, say, someone from Chad or Afghanistan, but the issue in this discussion is disparity. Disparity, including disparity in power, is a key issue in the social determinants of health [amazon.com].
Yes, the USA as a whole is richer in capital, and poorer for it (Canada too). That's news.
Ok, quick lesson in economics (exceptions are acknowledged, but this is the general rule): the rich always get richer. Why? Because they have more money to invest in starting up companies, to put in banks, et cetera. They also have more time to think about what they can do with their money. Kinda hard to think about what to do when you have to feed yourself, your spouse and three children, and make sure they are all taken care of - while you work 9 to 5 (or 9 to 9)...
Because this story is -1 Flamebait for the slashdot crowd, gives them yet another opportunity to vent their spleen about those evil rich people. Odd though that none of these stories mention that all this wealth is tied to their co's stock value and that the dow is up %10 and nasdaq is up %36 for the year so far.
Let's take your statement and break it down to two parts:
A: the rich are getting richer
B: the poor are getting richer too.
Like many statistical assertions, these can be made to be true or false by selecting appropriate start and end periods. The question is what is the relevant period?
If we take the period starting from the start of the US to present day, clearly both A and B are correct. However, what happens if we take the median period of when people in the workforce entered to present? Say somet
I was explicitly talking since 1980, not since 1950.
This is another example of how choosing your time period can make a statement true or false. It's not honest to play around with dates to get the conclusion you want. You can't use progress over the last hundred years to answer the question of whether we've been headed in the right directions over the last twenty; you need to look at the last ten years instead.
Just because the poorest Americans are living "better" than before doesn't mean they are living as they should. Some bright young lad offered your point at a Chomsky lecture, to which he replied "Well the quality of live for slaves leading up to the civil war improved, is that supposed to mean slavery is ok?" (paraphrased)
The point is the (very) rich are living, say, 300% richer than 10 years ago while the improvement in median income probably hasn't improved more than 40%. Wild guessing, feel free to qu
Some bright young lad offered your point at a Chomsky lecture, to which he replied "Well the quality of live for slaves leading up to the civil war improved, is that supposed to mean slavery is ok?"
I heard that one, and man, is Chomsky a tough debater. He was ruthless with that kid (whose opinions didn't sound very well thought-out to begin with), comparing his argument that rising standards of living justified capitalist inequality with actual arguments that were made for slavery and Stalinism.
actually 'everyone gets richer' has not been the overall trend.
the 'real' value of the minimum wage (a figure relevant to more than just direct minimum wage earners. many union contracts are based on a multiple of the minimum wage) has been stagnant over the past decade, and economic class stratification more and more clearly defined as management compensation has been skyrocketing.
in the 1960s the wealthiest 20% of people held 40% of the countries wealth. (40/60) the remaining 80% made up the remaining 6
PLease get out of your precious SUV and go look at some real poor people....
no not the homies in dair BMW's tumpin down da street... "Yo Man Sup?" they spend 90% of their money on their car and 5% on their home and family. (the other 5% is car washes)
go to the inner city and see the single woman with 3 kids in rags and a loser father that isn't man enough to be there. see the houses that should be condemned but 2 families live there.
In 1950, residents of Rome, NY could purchase (not morgage, purchase) a house for one to two months wages as a factory worker. Show me where, in this country or any other, where this is still possible.
Show me the savings and investments of the lower classes. Oh, show me their debt as well, and then tell me how rich we all are.
In 1950, residents of Rome, NY could purchase (not morgage, purchase) a house for one to two months wages as a factory worker. Show me where, in this country or any other, where this is still possible.
I don't know the average wage of a factory worker, and like everything else, it would depend on your definition of "factory worker." But I can offer you that a friend of mine in Bemidji, MN lived until recently in a 2-bedroom house that she and her husband paid $15,000 for about 8-10 years ago.
You can see it for yourself by taking a look at this:
http://www.globalrichlist.com/
Type in your annual salary and this site will tell you in what percentage of the world population's rich you are. You WILL be surprised. ________________________________
I'm not getting richer. I've been jobless since May, 2003 (and didn't have that much of an income even then) Basically, I am desperately trying to keep from dropping another rung from "poor" to "hopeless." Reading articles about the rich have gotten richer only makes me want to start hunting them down. Get it?
The rich are getting richer and the poor may be getting better off but it is the middle class that is suffering from this. I belive that the rich are neccisary, and the poor are always going to be there. but the middle class work force is what needs to be better taken care of.
Newsflash: the rich have been getting richer, but so has everybody else. Even the poorest Americans today are living far better than years before.
Really? Care to cite some figures? You could at least have the decency to pull some out of your ass, besides quoting the same crap everyone can hear on Fox or AM radio.
Let's see, rising unemployment, less benefits, lower salaries, longer work weeks, no job security... yeah, everyone's getting richer.
Another "republican in denial." What is amazing is t
Actually they haven't. According to the federal government's Bureau of Labor Standards, over the past 35 years, the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage has actually fallen. In other words, people make less money (inflation-adjusted) than they did 35 years ago.
1) Go to the BLS web site [bls.gov] 2) Click constant dollars to adjust for inflation
3) Click retrieve data 4) Change from tab to 1968 5) Click go 6) Remember to have adjusted for inflation (step 2)
I think the people selling Horatio Algers stories or makin
"Be there. Aloha."
-- Steve McGarret, _Hawaii Five-Oh_
News for Nerds? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is this news that the top dogs are getting even richer?
Source? (Score:0)
Maybe you should be a bit more sceptical about what you read in your newspapers -- that is if you read the news at all...
Envy. (Score:0)
Game over.
Wow, stepping on perfectly decent people over a lifetime gets you... what?
Re:Envy. (Score:0)
Re:Envy. (Score:2)
An eternity of burning in the Lake of Fire under Satan's rule!!!
Just kidding, give $100 million to the Vatican and you're all set in the afterlife.
Yep, this is Slashdot. (Score:0)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
'cause this news can double as a hit-list ladder.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, actually yes, he was always rich. His parents were lawyers. Do you think he just got an academic scholarship to Harvard and decided to flunk out? Now, he probably wasn't super-rich like he is now, but most of us would kill someone for $1 million. With the right investing you could live nicely on that for the rest of your life without working.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Bill G's IBM Connection (Score:1)
I Believe it, but can someone substantiate this?
Re:Bill G's IBM Connection (Score:0)
Idiot.
Re:Bill G's IBM Connection (Score:0)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
And both companies now employ 100,000 people while turning the technology industry upside-down.
Boy them rich bastards really need a whippin!
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
the post is explaining that gates wasn't some poor schmoe who made it big; as so many beleive. He was a rich schmoe who made it really big.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
I did and understood it clearly. My post was making a different point.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
I disagree. While one might be able to get by on $1 million, they certainly wouldn't be "living nicely." Let's do the math.
You invest that $1 million. You've quit your job, and the million is all you've got, so you're not going to invest it in anything risky. You tuck it into a nice little balanced mutual fund that consistenly yields about 7%. So every year, you get $70,000. Now, you want your n
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
I could live within the means of 25000 dollars a year.
Finicial independance is a lot easier if your life style doesnt take 60K a year to support
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
Also, one final optimistic note: In 20 to 30 years, advanced technology will have completely changed the socio/political/economic climate - beyond recognition [kurzweilai.net].
--
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Now, $10 million, one could live comfortably on the interest. By comfortably, I'm talking about around $50k-$100k/year.
I'm not even talking about the risk of getting caught. I'm talking about "going there" - being a murderer, the telltale heart, and all that. Not worth a measley million to me.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
So? Socioeconomic separation is NOT a bad thing, poverty is. Is there more poor people in USA today than there were in the 60's and 70's?
What is "poor"? (Score:0)
What is "poor"? Half the world's population lives on less than $2/day. Such poverty is extremely rare in this country. If you are better off than half the world's population, you are NOT poor.
Re:What is "poor"? (Score:2)
What is "poor"? Half the world's population lives on less than $2/day. Such poverty is extremely rare in this country. If you are better off than half the world's population, you are NOT poor.
Yes you are. If you live in a place where $2/day is common, then you probably pay about $10/mo in rent and can eat very well for $3, or at least live on $1.50. Just because some people in another country are worse off doesn't make our poor any more affluent. You may as well trot out the starving kids in China.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
Perhaps you could cite some hard numbers -- unemployment rates in 1973 vs. 2003; inflation rates for each year; etc.
Anecdotally, I'd say that the "poor" are less "poor" than they were precisely because of technological advances that allow us all to purchase better TVs, cars, etc. -- that the productivity gains of the past 15 years have benefited all strata of society.
Again, though, my argument, as yours does,
The Evidence I Was Looking For ... (Score:1)
Does America really have an inequality problem? Statistically, the answer is "Yes, but".
By whatever measure you use, the richest Americans have done very well over the past few decades. According to the Census Bureau, the share of national income going to those in the top fifth of earners rose from 44% in 1973 to 50% in 2000. The share going to the top 1% rose to 15% in 1998, higher than it has ever been since the second world war, according to a recent study of tax returns by two
Re:The Evidence I Was Looking For ... (Score:2)
Part of the reason the poor can afford more now is due to technological and manufacturing advances. Better cars for cheaper. TV sets for rock bottom prices. Yes, even the poor can buy what would have been luxuries 40 years ago. But, as this article states, they are still doing worse off than years ago.
Re:The Evidence I Was Looking For ... (Score:2)
And those caveats come with caveats...
First, the "proportion in poverty" number has some issues.
It is based on income and not wealth, and the poorest fifth, whether they live in poverty or not, are further in debt now than they were 20 years ago. It would be more int
Billionaires, your dollars at work! (Score:1)
Its the efficiency of the stock market my friend! Most of the billionaires listed were minted in a few hours on the day of their IPO's. How else to you e
Re:Billionaires, your dollars at work! (Score:1)
Re:Billionaires, your dollars at work! (Score:1)
Re:Billionaires, your dollars at work! (Score:1)
As to irrational demand. For every BUYER of a share of stock there was another shareholder that was a SELLER, and it wasn't Bezos. People wanted the Amazon vision, so they paid the price they felt was justified. If they didn't think it
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:3, Insightful)
Mod the parent up. Very perceptive. Rich people get richer because they buy income produci
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Ie - estate taxes.
Let rich folks make 50 billion a year. They can live the most excessive lifestyle imaginable. However, any transfer of wealth to anyone else should be highly taxed, and when they die 99% of their wealth above, say, $1 million is taxed. In this way, people are encouraged to be entrepeneurial, but the wealth only persists a ge
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
Rich people wouldn't stay in the U.S. if this is how it went down. Why spend all of that time & money to make sure your kids & thier kids don't have to work, only to have it taken away?
This is not a good way to create wealth or decrease poverty.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
I would hope that in a modern society one could make one's own fate.
Trust me - I'm about as non-socialist as it gets - I'm generally pretty libertarian. I still think that everyone would benefit from draining the wealth passed on to new generations.
Keep in mind that having a wealthy segment of the population drives up the cost of capital - it is hard to buy a home in a wealthy area since others are able to spend more on it - the actual cost of buliding t
Motivation (Score:2)
Why do poor people need to be able to buy a home in a wealthy area anyways? They aren't wealthy! Let them buy a home in a middle class or poor area, just because we're all human do
Re:Motivation (Score:2)
Where's your reverence for competition now?
If they are going to be apathetic and depressed, let them rot! To hell with their trust-fund dreams, and to hell with them. Everybody has the same opportunity to pull up your socks and get to work, and they're no different.
You're really, really not making your case here. Is it that you want to encourage people to be lazy and shiftless by le
Re:Motivation (Score:2)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
You just answered your own question. I was raised by a single mom who didn't even get a high school diploma until just before I got mine. I understand fully what it's like to not have much financially. But my mom gave me " a better start" than others by drilling into my head the need for education in order to get ahead. I still remember her testing me on my mult
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
The whole point of a society is that people working together can accomplish more than those working on their own. Even libertarians realize that you need basic law
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Neither am I, and I fail to see what I said implies this. Helping my child get ahead does not equate to pushing other children down.
Again, I fail to see your point. If I die a billionaire and leave all my money to my children who then decide not to work a day of their lives but just live off the inher
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
Umm, because life in general isn't fair? Why shouldn't somebody be entitled to a better start in life? If I scrape and fight my way to the top, you can damn sure believe I will want my family and my friends to be better off because of it. Why? Because I care about them, and because life isn't fair I want to arm them as much as possible to stack the deck in t
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you tell me why people in middle class can by nice home entertainment systems and computers but not be able to buy income producing assets? One wealthy person I know of drives a rusty old Toyota truck. He can easily buy a nice new mega sized truck, but instead, he invests his free money.
Take a look at the gaming articles on slashdot. There are plenty of slashdotters who spend $$$$ on high end gaming machines, yet bitch
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
You kind of answered your own question. The middle class can afford to buy all of that crap because of easily-obtainable high-interest credit. Simple as that. Your wealthy friend is probably wealthy precisely because he
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Your statement about the easy credit is true but they have no one but themselves to blame, otherwise it will be same as saying that it's McDonalds fault that some people are fat.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
Just because an asset loses money does not mean it ceases to be an asset. Just changes the value equate of owning said asset.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Not so. America has always been the place people come to make a fresh start and earn a living doing just about anything they want. In the past, it was a good thing when somebody went from rags to riches. But nowadays success stories like this are demonized.
"it is always on the backs of the poor that they tread."
Again, a false generalization. We may not like much of MS's business practices, but how many people have u
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
Something for nothing? Who do you think makes the rich more money? Its the poor sucker working for $5 a hour in a factory.. the owner expliots the worker by paying him/her not enough so they have to struggle through life (so that the worker doesn't have enough to invest it and make more), while the owner has used his power and money to become ridiculously wealthy.. oh.. but he doesn't owe the poor anything does he?
I say tax the rich to the high
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
As I mentioned in the previous post, your idea of "taxing the rich to the high heavens" is essentially communism, and though it sounds "fair", will inevitably end up with a) nobody having anything or b) a few government officials having everything and everybody else having nothing. Read Animal Farm for a better explanation. It is much, much m
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
I agree in principal that government has a responsibility to create equal opportunity, but again- I've seen so many people take the opportunities that are there and succeed, and so many rich, smart
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
Maybe because the modern stories aren't really rags-to-riches. More like riches-to-absurdly-super-riches. Bill Gates wasn't born a pauper, for example.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
>> better than years before.
> The socioeconomic seperation that existed in the
> 60's and 70's wasn't nearly as pronounced as
> it is today.
Granting for the sake of argument that that's an accurate statement, try the following thought experiment. Imagine for a moment that you make $50,000 and the richest man in the country makes $5,000,000. Now imagine both of your incomes doubling in real value. You now make $100,000, he now makes $1
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:3, Informative)
You are full of crap.
US Unemployment Rate since 1948 [bls.gov]
US Inflation Rate History [eh.net]
US Per Capita Income History Since 1950 [infoplease.com]
Contradicting yourself? (Score:2)
It seems to me that if it's getting more common to go from poor to rich (or perhaps more typically poor to middle class and middle class to rich), the separation between poor and rich is getting smaller, not wider.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Disclaimer: This is not meant to be funny
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Why is this news that the top dogs are getting even richer?
Are you kidding? Has there ever been more fertile soil for the trademarked Slashdot socialist MS-bashing then this story?
It practically screams, "Hold Page One!"
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
"Socialist" = showing any concern for people of your own or lower socioeconomic level. "Class warfare" = suggesting that the growing disparity between rich and poor and the shrinking of the middle class is not necessarily a good thing.
Unless personally are presently rich, then being down on "socialism" is just a sad testament to how well their propaganda has worked. You're bashing your own in the remote hope of joining those in the high financial stratosphere. Not gonna happen, dude.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:-1, Troll)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0, Funny)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
US Citizen/Resident may have a better Living Standard but their Credit Raiting is near the bottom. So I am born with 0 Credit Raiting and give my kids the raiting of Z or -infiinty. Issues is these rich people should retire so others can live and retire.
If this does not stop we will be back into slavery due to the above credit issues. This is
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
Those are just fake numbers though, I don't know if there is indeed evidence that this is happening. The US does have an incredibly large gap between the rich and the poor though.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's capitalism at work. World wide statistics are show the top 1% holding even higher % of wealth. Not that there is anything wrong with it. US is the most unequal of the OECD, followed by Switzerland a
socialist Canada? (Score:2)
Last I heard there was a free market there (as free as the US at least) and the government didn't own all the means of production.
If you were you trying to say, "They have national healthcare and a few other big social programs thus that makes them a socialist government!!!!" I suggest you read up on what socialism is. [reference.com]
Re:socialist Canada? (Score:2)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are many, many Americans who would disagree with you. Granted, the lot of us aren't losing fingers to meat grinders, which are subsequently fed back to us in hotdogs anymore, but there *was* a recent article on Slashdot (I believe? maybe I read it somewhere else) that this generation is the first in a long, long time to have less than their forebears.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:-1, Offtopic)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the USA as a whole is richer in capital, and poorer for it (Canada too). That's news.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
Now, here is the part people don't u
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
Technological change (Score:2)
A: the rich are getting richer
B: the poor are getting richer too.
Like many statistical assertions, these can be made to be true or false by selecting appropriate start and end periods. The question is what is the relevant period?
If we take the period starting from the start of the US to present day, clearly both A and B are correct. However, what happens if we take the median period of when people in the workforce entered to present? Say somet
Re:Food security (Score:1)
Assuming you mean availability of affordable food, yes. It's called the green revolution.
Re:Food security (Score:2)
This is another example of how choosing your time period can make a statement true or false. It's not honest to play around with dates to get the conclusion you want. You can't use progress over the last hundred years to answer the question of whether we've been headed in the right directions over the last twenty; you need to look at the last ten years instead.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
The point is the (very) rich are living, say, 300% richer than 10 years ago while the improvement in median income probably hasn't improved more than 40%. Wild guessing, feel free to qu
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
I heard that one, and man, is Chomsky a tough debater. He was ruthless with that kid (whose opinions didn't sound very well thought-out to begin with), comparing his argument that rising standards of living justified capitalist inequality with actual arguments that were made for slavery and Stalinism.
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
the 'real' value of the minimum wage (a figure relevant to more than just direct minimum wage earners. many union contracts are based on a multiple of the minimum wage) has been stagnant over the past decade, and economic class stratification more and more clearly defined as management compensation has been skyrocketing.
in the 1960s the wealthiest 20% of people held 40% of the countries wealth. (40/60) the remaining 80% made up the remaining 6
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:0)
PLease get out of your precious SUV and go look at some real poor people....
no not the homies in dair BMW's tumpin down da street... "Yo Man Sup?" they spend 90% of their money on their car and 5% on their home and family. (the other 5% is car washes)
go to the inner city and see the single woman with 3 kids in rags and a loser father that isn't man enough to be there. see the houses that should be condemned but 2 families live there.
only a complete idiot and moron like
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
It's called personal responsibility. You and the rest of the junior socialist brigade should look into it.
You are -incredibly- wrong. (Score:2)
Show me the savings and investments of the lower classes. Oh, show me their debt as well, and then tell me how rich we all are.
=======
Re:You are -incredibly- wrong. (Score:2)
I don't know the average wage of a factory worker, and like everything else, it would depend on your definition of "factory worker." But I can offer you that a friend of mine in Bemidji, MN lived until recently in a 2-bedroom house that she and her husband paid $15,000 for about 8-10 years ago.
Anecdotes as
Its True! (Score:2)
Well before you went out and disconnected it for your WLAN antenna
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
http://www.globalrichlist.com/
Type in your annual salary and this site will tell you in what percentage of the world population's rich you are. You WILL be surprised.
________________________________
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:1)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Re:News for Nerds? (Score:2)
Really? Care to cite some figures? You could at least have the decency to pull some out of your ass, besides quoting the same crap everyone can hear on Fox or AM radio.
Let's see, rising unemployment, less benefits, lower salaries, longer work weeks, no job security ... yeah, everyone's getting richer.
Another "republican in denial." What is amazing is t
No they haven't (Score:2)
1) Go to the BLS web site [bls.gov]
2) Click constant dollars to adjust for inflation
3) Click retrieve data
4) Change from tab to 1968
5) Click go
6) Remember to have adjusted for inflation (step 2)
I think the people selling Horatio Algers stories or makin