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[Flying Dice]

Pretty sure no one thinks, or has every seriously thought, that those making above average should be giving everything to the poor. I'm not sure to call that line of thought strawmanning, but it's pretty close. More back to the society that allows them to succeed more than most, yes, but that still leaves them better off than pretty much anyone less successful.

I wouldn't hesitate at all to call it strawmanning; that's half of what I've seen from the "fuck everyone who isn't rich" side of things. I don't want the wealthy to give up (all) their wealth, I want them to be prevented from using it in ways that completely screw over the rest of society.

I'm also interested in how nobody else picked up on this:

It is what it is. If you're too lazy, or too stupid to make good choices, you will suffer the consequences.

That's been one of the main "justifications" for discrimination, enslavement, genocide, and war throughout human history. "[Group X] is obviously not at the top of the social food chain because they're [a], , and [c], therefore it is perfectly okay for them to be ground up under the heels of our jackboots."

[Gantolandon]

Actually many people here seem to have strange definition of being rich. It's not about the raw amount of money you have. You are very, very unlikely to become rich by winning a lottery, unless you actually do something else with it. Inflation and spending will slowly eat your reserves away.

You become rich when your wealth actually becomes sustainable. You don't really have to do anything, because you have multiple businesses, shares, land or connections which bring you money - and an army of people who manage all this for you. This thread is not about hard-working people. This is about the ones who may have worked hard (or not) and the society collectively deemed them worthy enough to just take all the costs of their living for itself. Because at this point the person at the top doesn't even contribute anything, he just acts as a one big superconsumer who swallows a disproportionate amount of resources and hogs even more.

Edit: Also, "whining". Societies organize thanks to the flow of information between its members. What people believe will affect how will it look like. Criticism and spreading of dissatisfaction to other people is anything but unproductive.

[MaximumZero]

Actually many people here seem to have strange definition of being rich. It's not about the raw amount of money you have. You are very, very unlikely to become rich by winning a lottery, unless you actually do something else with it. Inflation and spending will slowly eat your reserves away.

You become rich when your wealth actually becomes sustainable. You don't really have to do anything, because you have multiple businesses, shares, land or connections which bring you money - and an army of people who manage all this for you. This thread is not about hard-working people. This is about the ones who may have worked hard (or not) and the society collectively deemed them worthy enough to just take all the costs of their living for itself. Because at this point the person at the top doesn't even contribute anything, he just acts as a one big superconsumer who swallows a disproportionate amount of resources and hogs even more.

You're aware that some people on this board are well below the poverty level, right? I, for one, would consider myself rich if I could A) pay all of my own bills, B) afford my own place, and C) consistently provide two "wants" a month for myself and my daughter.

$50,000 is more than double what my immediate family has ever made in a year, this includes when both of my parents were working, when I was a kid, and it includes when my ex-wife and I both held full time jobs. At $25,000, I could easily sustain a happy lifestyle for myself and my daughter. I wouldn't have to worry about the lights, gas, or water being shut off because I can't afford to pay them. I wouldn't have to walk around on an essentially broken spine, or carrying four shattered molars. I wouldn't have to go four or more years between vision checkups. I wouldn't have to save up for a couple of weeks to take my kid out to eat, or make a nice dinner.

I don't want my daughter to suffer the same way that I did, and you folks seem to be saying that I need to learn about the economy for that to happen. There's a fatal flaw in your plan, however: Startup capital. I have literally nothing to invest, no savings, and no backup plan. As a member of the "working poor" class, every single dime that I earn, goes to necessities. I replace clothes and shoes when they fall apart, and I have to go without to make that happen. If I need to replace a stove, it may take a month's worth of cooking in the microwave to save up for a used one. I don't own a dishwasher. The gas, electric and water bills are always on shutoff, because I can't afford to pay more than the minimum balance required to keep them on. Poor people are poor because the wages that we make are not enough to live on. The minimum wage for workers in my state, which is the highest in the country, is $7.40/hour. Most jobs that pay that kind of wage refuse to give full time hours, stopping at 32 or 35 hours a week to deny workers benefits. However, even at 40 hours, that only amounts to about $950/month. We work ourselves into an early grave to make you rich, and you spit on us.

Fuck you.

[Gantolandon]

You're aware that some people on this board are well below the poverty level, right? I, for one, would consider myself rich if I could A) pay all of my own bills, B) afford my own place, and C) consistently provide two "wants" a month for myself and my daughter.

The point is, that's not "rich". This is a base minimum that society should provide to consider itself civilized. "Rich" people, in context of this thread, are the ones who get to do absolutely nothing and still have a shitload of money.

I'm not sure why you have chosen my post as an example, because I actually agree with you.

[mainiac]

You are very, very unlikely to become rich by winning a lottery, unless you actually do something else with it. Inflation and spending will slowly eat your reserves away.

Hardly.  Invest most of your money in an S+P 500 market index fund.  Resist the urge to withdraw your money from the SP during the slumps knowing full well that the boom will come in time.  This is the most inactive investment strategy possible, it's similar to what most people do with their retirement funds when they just check a box on the company form.  (If you have your 401k in Vanguard for example, you are already doing this).

Using this strategy will in the long term returns of over 5% annually after inflation.  So if you "merely" won a million dollars in the lottery you could live comfortably on 40k a year and still have growing capital.

We are a society where once a person is rich it is trivially easy for them to remain rich.

[Leafsnail]

Ok. Clarify that thought. What exactly are you proposing?

Do you mean that:

A) Those who don't shall be jailed or generally have their stuff taken by force
B) Well, we're not actually going to engage in punitive measures, but society would probably be healthier on the whole if they chose to.
C) Something else?

B would be great in a magical world where we're all prepared to work together and not for our own narrow self interests.  We do not live in that world, so A.  Or "taxes" as they're more commonly known.

If A...I can't agree with that, and I humbly offer you the suggestion that that kind of thinking is extremely dangerous. As discussed earlier...you in your own life probably "have" a lot more than an awful lot of other people. Are you volunteering to be jailed for not selling your things to donate to charity? Or do you just expect that you personally are perfectly ok, and it's just people who have more than you who should be jailed if they don't give away their stuff? Where do draw the line? And do you understand that there are plenty of people who have more than you do who feel the same? People making 30k/yr generally don't think they're rich. People making 50k/yr generally don't think they're rich. People who make 100k/yr generally don't think they're rich. I know millionaires who don't think they're rich. It's an entirely subjective perspective.

1. Yes, I suppose by being a citizen of my country I am volunteering to be jailed if I don't pay my taxes.
2. Everyone with the means to do so, including me, has to give back to society, and yeah I guess we'd face legal consequences otherwise.  Those who earn more should be expected to pay more as they can afford it and have benefitted most from the society they live in.
3. "Where do we draw the line" is a question we can constantly address via politics.  I guess "the line" is currently set at people who cannot work at all and some people with very low incomes, but that could always be changed.
4. Yeah, and it's great that those people who have more than me also feel that they should contribute to society.

It is subjective, but you can very easily define people as wealthy relative to others.  In any case you don't need a clear "rich/not rich" line - you just need tax bands.

If B...ok, that's nice. But your empty platitude has no effect on anything.

I agree.  That's why I did not pick B.

How much do they need to give? What kind of giving qualifies?

We need to give however much we deem necessary for society to function well and for the problems we face to be addressed.  This is another question we can help answer by voting and campaigning and judging what services we need.

Mark Zuckerberg gave us Facebook. Is that sufficient "giving back" to society? Steve Jobs gave us the iPhone.

No.

Would you have jailed him for not giving enough back?

If he didn't pay his taxes, yes.

What about a billionaire who employs several thousand people and gives a million or two every year to his favorite charities? Does he get a pass or fail?

Does he pay his taxes?
If yes, pass.
If no, fail.

Where do you draw the lines? What are you expectations? And what happens if people don't meet them?

See tax systems for general ideas of where the lines might lie, but I cannot explain an entire government budget to you in this response.  My expectation is for people to pay their taxes.  Noncompliance should be met with fines, and jail only if they repeatedly refuse to pay or intentionally avoid paying.

And most importantly...who decides where those lines are drawn?

The government as elected by the people.

These are weasel words. What do you mean by them?

Are morally obliged to.  If they are not prepared to meet that moral obligation then we can legally enforce it (in the same way that you should not kill someone, but if you do we will take legal action against you).

[MaximumZero]

I'm not sure why you have chosen my post as an example, because I actually agree with you.

Sorry, misaimed the nerdrage cannon.

Anyway, we seem to have wildly differing views on "wealthy". From where I stand, people who are lucky enough to be self-sufficient are "wealthy". From where you stand, your baseline for wealth is much higher than that, and that baseline to me is labelled "unattainable".

This country needs two things: A) A sustainable living wage for the lowest income workers. Perhaps not teenagers, as most of them are still living with parents, but everyone that is expected to pay bills and rent and buy their own food should be able to provide for themselves, even working a shitty retail or fast food job. McDonald's made a $5 Billion net profit last year, and it should be up to them to ensure that their employees can pay the bills that they have to pay to be self sufficient and still work there. B) Net profits on items need to be capped at a percentage point (100%? 150%? 200%? I'm not really sure what would be feasable, but doubling your money or better on any investment is a success, and selling items should be no exception,) of total cost to produce or procure.

[LordBucket]

You're completely missing my point.

No, I don't think I am. I disagreed with your mental model and offered you a different one.

are you really saying that all the americans or the europeans who can afford
to feed and house themselves are rich, even if they can't afford anything else ?

No, I'm saying that there's no arbitrary point at which one becomes "rich." And yes, I said that while speaking of power generally, but it applies just as much to money specifically.

If richness is relative to what you can own, the amount of wealth you have compared to what you need, then you're not rich if you only have the money you need to survive. You're rich if you have the money to buy a lot of superfluous stuff. That's the definition of the word.

By that definition, pretty much everyone in the 30k/yr bracket and up qualifies as rich. They don't really need to own computers or televisions, or iphones, but they do. They don't really need to drink $5 starbucks coffee, but they do. They don't really need watches or jewelry, but they have it. Look around your house right now and look at all the things you have that you don't need to survive. If you live with your parents, look at all the stuff they have.

Are you and your family rich?

If richness is relative to what others have, you may be richer than others,
but it's much harder to pinpoint a time where you're "rich"

Yes, exactly.

And...to specifically address your point regarding "survivival," I suggest to you that our perspective of what's necessary for survival is biased by our position in life. For example, someone in this thread said earlier that owning a car was not a sign of being rich because you "need a car" to function in this society. That perspective nicely highlights what I'm describing here. It's obviously not true. There are people who use public transportation. Even in Orange County, which is one of the wealthiest places in the world, we have a public bus system, and there are people who use it. There are people who ride bicycles, skate, and walk. And there are people who do both. Buses have bicycle mounts on them so you can bus most of the way to where you're going, the bike the rest of the way if the bus route doesn't take you exactly where you need to go.

From the perspective of some people even here in Orange County, owning a car at all is a luxury. It's not a survival issue. It's something that only people with money can do.

you're never going to be rich either if you can only afford to survive.

Which returns us to the original point which you objected to. From the perspective of much of the world, simply by virtue of being here in this country, your entire worldview of what is necessary to survive is bloated and unrealistic. There are people in the world who don't live in houses and don't own cars and don't buy food from grocery stores.

Your worldview is that living in a house or apartment and having a car to drive and maybe a cellphone and computer...your worldview is that these are "reasonable necessesities" to function in society. That worldview is not held by everyone. Go to your local bustop and you'll find people who perceive those things as luxuries.

If you live in a house and own a car and buy food at a grocery store...there are people in the world who perceive your lifestyle as fantastically rich. Maybe you don't perceive it that way because you don't own the house, you're only renting a room...and you don't own the car you're making payments, and hey...food is just something you buy you don't actually have to grow it yourself, right?

You are a creature of your worldview. That worldview is not shared by everyone. And just like you live a life of sufficient luxury that driving a car and buying food produced by others is something you feel is reasonable to expect, there are people both above you and below you with different expectations.

People living in cardboard boxes and scavenging food from trashcans don't perceive themselves as rich. People renting bedrooms and biking to work and eating top ramen don't perceive themselves as rich. People who live in apartments and own one car and a cellphones and eat at restaurants occasionally don't perceive themselves as rich. People who own their homes and have two cars and can put their children through college don't perceive themselves as rich. People who have a few investment properties and spend a couple weeks per year in Europe don't perceive themselves as rich. People who own their own businesses and can show up to work or not because they're the boss and throw parties that millionaires show up to don't perceive themselves as rich. People who are themselves millionaires don't perceive themselves as rich. People who were born into money and never have to work a day in their lives don't perceive themselves as rich.

At whatever point along that spectrum you personally start perceiving people as rich, know that it's purely a function of your own worldview.

[Hanslanda]

This is how I perceive the wealthy.

[ECrownofFire]

If it's a choice between work and starvation, it's not a voluntary choice. It's extortion. Everyone's success is built on the lost potential of others. it's not a matter of whether they deserve that wealth or not, it's a matter of whether other people deserve it more. Even if you're lazy, obnoxious, a drug addict, and hated by everyone, you don't deserve to die. You need help, not punishment. There is no such thing as earning your income fairly, because noone is independent of the circumstances of their birth.

So somehow it's NOT extortion to steal from people who legitimately earn a bit more than average? Obviously some criminal that actually steals from people could be faulted, but not plain businessmen.

Do I have to link my post again that everybody mysteriously ignored? Read it. Trade is always voluntary, stealing from people because they happen to be better at it is not doing good, it's not helping anybody. If nobody is allowed to have above average, then why bother? The average will ALWAYS fall in a system like that.

[MaximumZero]

Trade is always voluntary.

Trade is absolutely not always voluntary. People need resources to survive, and they are essentially punished for needing them. We need food, and we have to pay for it. If we don't pay for our food, we have to pay for the raw materials, and land isn't exactly cheap. We need water. We pay for that, too. We have to have shelter, and that requires us to either own land and build our own (after buying the raw materials, which again is not cheap,) or rent/buy from someone else. If you own a house within city limits, you have to have water (incl. garbage collection and sewer), electricity, and gas, or face stiff penalties, including having your children taken from you. If you aren't independently wealthy, you have to have a job to pay for all this stuff. A large portion of valid employment places in the United States will not hire you if you don't have "reliable transportation", read: a car (of which even a beat up, used one can easily cost more than $1000), and most places won't hire you without a driver's license (which, surprise surprise, costs money.) This is, of course, due to the public transport infrastructure of most of the US being a sad, pitiful joke. Then, just to get back and forth to work, you have to pay for gasoline (electric cars are routinely above $30,000) and vehicle maintenance. At the very least, you'll be spending money on the parts to fix the damned thing yourself when it breaks down.

Let's say, hypothetically, you find a patch of dirt on the outskirts of a small town where you can bike everywhere. It's unlikely, but it could happen. You could gather materials from the wild outside town and build a house with your own two hands, right? Wrong. "The wilds" outside town is government property, and collecting resources from it is considered theft. So, you have to buy your own materials. Fine. You put up your house, brick by brick. You do the dangerous roofing yourself, and that's no big deal. However, when it comes to electricity, water, and gas, the connections coming into your house, as well as any shutoff valves and breaker boxes, have to be done by a certified Master Tradesman, or your house will fail the inspection that you have to pay for. So, that's going to cost money.

So, I suppose you could homestead, out in the middle of fucking nowhere, with no way to pay for the resources you need to survive, no hookups to water, gas and electricity, and party like it's the 17th century where you most likely won't survive the winter. Oh, and you have to have a viable (read: conforms to the city's zoning laws, with some minor modifications) free-standing structure built within a year. Good luck. You could take up with the Amish, but they won't let you stay in their villages, help you with your farm, or let you buy land if you aren't willing to attend their church and follow all of their rules (do you like medicine, powered hand tools, fiction books, alcohol, a clean shaven face, colored fabrics and premarital sex? Well, not anymore, you don't.)

Or, you could go homeless in a big city, and sleep in parks and alleys (when you're not being assaulted by other homeless people, being shot at randomly or mugged by gang members, or being harassed by the police,) panhandle and do odd jobs for a little spare cash to the people generous enough to actually pay you, and beg for food. You could shower in truck stops and face possible sexual assault (male or female, no difference) and disgusting diseases every time you take your clothes off. Be prepared for overloaded homeless shelters to turn you away if you're not a pregnant female, and religious soup kitchens to do the same if you're not prepared to join their congregation. Be prepared for the state to try to strip you of any familial ties you have, taking your children and forcing them into foster care, and refusing to let more than one homeless person be on a case for state aid at a time. Be prepared to be denied job after job when you put "N/A" under address on your application forms. Be prepared to fight for every scrap of food you come across, and every cent you beg for. Be prepared to dress your own wounds, or do countless hours of community service for daring to step foot (or be dragged) into an emergency room with no money.

Plain and simple, the deck is stacked against the poorest of the poor, because we have to pay for it with everything we've got.

[Ancre]

I am saying there is a difference between goods you need to live, and goods you don't need.

Do you need an iphone/a tv/etc ? No. If you don't have one, your life will not be put in danger.

Do you need food ? Yes. If you cannot eat, you will die.

Therefore, there is a difference between "being able to own an iphone" and "being able to feed yourself". You cannot group the two together as if they were one and the same thing. (1)

Now, ok, it seems for you that this difference is entirely meaningless when it comes to measure wealth or power or whatever. But you're basically saying that people who can feed themselves should consider themselves rich ... because they're richer than people who starve out of poverty.

But now, really, is "being able to live" a sign of wealth ? I cannot think of one single community on earth who do not think that food, water, or shelter are necessary to survive. Even nomadic tribes have tents or whatever else that provide shelter. Even people who don't buy food in grocery stores still eat.

And those who can't, die. They either die quite fast (because there's nothing left at all) or, more generally, slowly - their health decay because their needs are inadequately met, up to the point where their bodies can't take it anymore and cease to function.

So if you can't have food, shelter, and clean water, you will die. And this is quite different from not being able to have a tv or another type of consumer good, because you will not die if you don't have those. And the two should not be thought as being the same thing.

Edit : I kinda feel we're both going in circles on that point, so I'll stop after that post.



(1) Cars was included in your list of examples, and I have handled it badly. It is telling that 'cars' were included in the list of goods that made one rich in your example, along with 'food' 'clean water' and 'house' (which I took as the more general form of shelter - ie you will not die of cold in the winter). I have tried to include it because living without a car in the US is very difficult (to the point where you can effectively lose everything if you don't have one) - but yes, I concede the point, you will not die if you don't own a car.



And, for fun : My family is rich. Not in the "money" sense of the term, they win so little money, they don't even pay income taxes. But we have a large amount of people in our extended family, and our government makes health care accessible for everyone (along with a lot of other cool things), so, sure, they can't have whatever new fancy toy comes out, but they live well, knowing that they will always have food, and that their lives are not in danger in any way, like the vast majority of French citizens really. They know what they have and what they have not. If you asked them if they were rich, they would say no regarding money, and yes regarding a whole lot of other stuff.

As for me, for various reasons I can not rely on my extended family and all the usual assets and habits my family have, but my life is not in danger anymore. And pretty soon, I too will be able to eat and all, and even have a little extra like an internet connexion of my own, so, yeah, I'm rich, or at the very least I'll be rich pretty soon.

Which of course, always stem from the definition of the word. Being rich, being wealthy, means that you have a lot of wealth. You logically don't have any (and won't ever have any, let alone "a lot") if you consume everything you have in order to survive. Right now I do, but pretty soon I won't.

[Scoops Novel]

You seem to be mistaking "there should be a much less severe disparity between the rich and the poor", with "no one should be rewarded more then anyone else regardless of their contribution". We all know it didn't work in the ussr, it's not particularly fair, and we all know it would be screwed regardless thanks to human nature, so please look at the point we're trying to make. As for "whinging", discussing the topic, persuading others, spreading information and yes, pondering what to do are not empty words, or are not in this context. I wished to see the views of Bay12'ers on the subject, and I hope to see more.

[GreatJustice]

If it's a choice between work and starvation, it's not a voluntary choice. It's extortion. Everyone's success is built on the lost potential of others. it's not a matter of whether they deserve that wealth or not, it's a matter of whether other people deserve it more. Even if you're lazy, obnoxious, a drug addict, and hated by everyone, you don't deserve to die. You need help, not punishment. There is no such thing as earning your income fairly, because noone is independent of the circumstances of their birth.

So somehow it's NOT extortion to steal from people who legitimately earn a bit more than average? Obviously some criminal that actually steals from people could be faulted, but not plain businessmen.

Do I have to link my post again that everybody mysteriously ignored? Read it. Trade is always voluntary, stealing from people because they happen to be better at it is not doing good, it's not helping anybody. If nobody is allowed to have above average, then why bother? The average will ALWAYS fall in a system like that.

This. Either you're rich because you stole from someone/screwed someone else over/had someone else steal on your behalf (like the government) and you're a crook, or you're rich because you improved the lives of other people through voluntary exchanges, in which case you have already fulfilled your obligations to everyone else. Every rich person had to have gained that wealth from somewhere, legitimate or illegitimate, and that's what matters, not how much they have.

Trade is absolutely not always voluntary. People need resources to survive, and they are essentially punished for needing them. We need food, and we have to pay for it. If we don't pay for our food, we have to pay for the raw materials, and land isn't exactly cheap. We need water. We pay for that, too. We have to have shelter, and that requires us to either own land and build our own (after buying the raw materials, which again is not cheap,) or rent/buy from someone else. If you own a house within city limits, you have to have water (incl. garbage collection and sewer), electricity, and gas, or face stiff penalties, including having your children taken from you.

In a manner of speaking, yes. But then, resources aren't infinite and desires/needs are (and lets be honest here: half the things there are required to life a "decent" life in the 21st century, but aren't absolutely required for survival). Nature being a bitch doesn't constitute coercion.

Let's say, hypothetically, you find a patch of dirt on the outskirts of a small town where you can bike everywhere. It's unlikely, but it could happen. You could gather materials from the wild outside town and build a house with your own two hands, right? Wrong. "The wilds" outside town is government property, and collecting resources from it is considered theft. So, you have to buy your own materials. Fine. You put up your house, brick by brick. You do the dangerous roofing yourself, and that's no big deal. However, when it comes to electricity, water, and gas, the connections coming into your house, as well as any shutoff valves and breaker boxes, have to be done by a certified Master Tradesman, or your house will fail the inspection that you have to pay for. So, that's going to cost money.

A problem with safety regulations and so on, which hardly constitute voluntary trade (though that's a whole different topic). Really, the rest of your post could be summed up as "I could hypothetically be a caveman or homestead land that the government is basically just holding on to for the hell of it, but the government won't let me." Again, doesn't constitute a voluntary trade since the government, by definition, is a force of coercion.

[LordBucket]

Plain and simple, the deck is stacked against the poorest of the poor, because we have to pay for it with everything we've got.

I want to respond to this...but I'm not entirely sure how. So please, bear with me for a moment.

A few posts ago you explained your situation. It sounds difficult. And yes, surely some people have things easier than you do. I acknowledge that. However, I notice that in this previous post you seem to be spending a great deal of effort explaining why you can't win.

You say that the deck is stacked against the poor. And that's true. It is. But...and I apologize for saying so, I'm not trying to diminish your situation...poverty is not unique in being a disadvantage. There are people who are stupid. Is it fair that they're stupid? No. Nevertheless, they're stupid. And there are people are who ugly. Is it fair that they're ugly? No. Nevertheless, they are ugly. There are people with medical problems. There are people who were born into difficult situations. There are people who have accidents. There are many possible disadvantages, and they're not all handed out equally.

Being poor is merely one disadvantage. Yes, it may be terribly inconvenient, but so are others problems that a person might have. Disadvantages can be overcome. Being ugly does not mean being single and alone for a lifetime. Being stupid does not mean failure. There are plenty of succesful stupid people. Look at politics. Being poor, like these other circumstances, is not an insurmountable condition. But unlike these other circumstance, it's not permanent. A stupid, ugly person who nevertheless somehow gets a girlfriend and finds happiness will still be stupid and ugly. Poverty is completely correctable. If you can climb out of the hole...you'll be out.

So, let me ask you a question:

Do you want out? Do you want what you said here, to be able to pay your bills and give your daughter two consistent wants every month? Do you want the $25,000/yr that you say would allow you to easily have a happy lifestyle?

Do you want it?

Or...and I apologize, but it must be asked...or do you want to complain about why you can't have it?