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Tech Rich Get Richer
theodp writes "The economy is improving, at least for the super rich. After two years of declines, the aggregate net worth of the U.S.'s wealthiest 400 citizens leapt 10% in the past year to $995 billion, according to Forbes' annual ranking. The gains are part of a continuing shift in wealth from the East coast to the tech-centric West. Bill Gates capped off a decade in the top spot after his fortune increased by $3B to $46B. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen held onto 3rd place, his net worth rising $1B to $22B. Amazon's Jeff Bezos, who saw his fortune expand by more than $3B to $5.1B, was the top gainer on the list. And with a measly $1.4B, Jerry Yang of Yahoo! found himself in a 16-way tie for 162nd place."
I just hope when i finish my degree i'll be one of the richer!!
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I'd be willing to bet, though, that the slow decline in IT salaries (developers in particular, where I have experience) won't be affected at all by this news.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Newsflash: the rich have been getting richer, but so has everybody else. Even the poorest Americans today are living far better than years before.
Why is this news that the top dogs are getting even richer?
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
Those EVIL rich people! How dare they be rich! It's not like they worked for their money or anything. No! They had it handed to them on a silver platter!
It disgusts me! We're all poor because they're a bunch of greedy, good-for-nothing bastards who horde all the money for themselves! They stuff it in their mattresses and roll naked in it! No, no, they don't spend it, they horde it just keep us poor!
Evil I tell you, EEEEEEVVVVVIIIIIIILLL!
My journal has hot
I don't think that the article really supports the headline (yeah, I know, this is /., I shouldn't be surprised about that).
First, choosing an unrepresentative sample of 400 people out of about 300 million can't possibly tell you anything useful about the broad trends of a society ("...Rich Get Richer").
Second, of the 400 richest people in the US, only a small fraction of them have their wealth based on a technical source (even broadly defined). So the "Tech" part of the headline is suspect as well.
But hey, I'm all for the mob, let's eat the rich!
Let's see. 10% is the "average" return that most people work with when dealing with things like mutual funds and most basic medium-risk investments. Yeah, I know you can't count on it, and the economy's been sucking lately. But you can still find decent investments. This doesn't really count real estate or anything like that. Additionally, people with a bit of money have access to investments that the rest of us who aren't millionaires don't. Such as hedge funds.
So you're telling me that in the last year, these billionaires only managed to get a 10% return? I mean, even if we're talking about someone owning a lot of real estate, that still appreciates in value over time (generally). Let's say that only half their value is actually invested in things that would appreciate (stock/fund/real estate/other investments, for example), which is really conservative. That's still only a 20% return. Sounds pretty poor to me.
-Todd
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
now tell me, how come that in the last years: "average" workers (at least in IT) either
a) lost their jobs because of the "recession"
b) have to work for free or similar because there are too many people that are willing to do the same
or
c) have to work for 70 hours a week to have a life?
am I the only one who thinks that there's something rotten in the "american way of life"
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
What bothers me is there is no conceivable way these individuals could have performed over a billion dollars worth of labor, ever. I'm not advocating communism or socialism, I'm just pointing out a basic truth. None of these people could have conceivably done more useful work than the entire lifetimes work of thousands of people.
Sure they can. They've provided work for a lifetime for thousands of people.
-- $G
What remains is the question of whether or not it is right that these people do so well out of founding a company and making it successful. You can look at it two ways. some would say the success of these companies was due not just to the founder, but also due to the hard work of the other employees. Others will point out that the risk and effort taken by the company founder is what enables all these employees to earn a living in the first place. Whatever the case; these company founders are not particularly productive, not to the tune of billions of dollars anyway. But they founded their respective companies and own them... that's where their fortune derives from. Should that ownership be taken away from them when the company takes off? I think not.
Just remember that one of the best ways to become rich yourself is to start your own business and make it successful. Even a moderately successful small-scale company can be worth a nice deal of money; not billions, but enough to keep you comfortable.
You don't even have to start the company yourself. I've been invited to help with a startup... and if I am going to pour my sweat and tears into the company (and with a startup, I can expect to have to), my efforts will be a large contribution to the success of the company. That means I want to have a stake in the potential success as well: not in the form of a large salary, but in a part ownership of the company.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
This, of course is operating under the "your salary is your worth" model of richness, which I would argue isn't incredibly accurate. Wealth is typically recognized through one's net worth. Once you reach a high enough net worth to be of note, your annual income becomes somewhat trivial to your total net worth.
Somewhat related is how amusing it is to hear people talking about "tax cuts for the (rich | poor | etc)," when they're actually talking about "tax cuts for the (high income | low income | etc)," which is more accurate. Just because someone has a high salary or a low salary does not mean they have a high net worth or low net worth.
Chris -- http://www.bitter.net/
Now hold on a minute here, accusing these people of stealing is taking things a BIT far.
What you're failing to recognize is the difference between net worth and salary. Salary is generally recognized as a compensation for labor.
Gates and Jobs, for example, were founders of their companies. They took risks, they had good ideas, and they had the leadership to drive their companies to financial success (you can argue amonst yourselves about the technical success of their products, but the financial accomplishments of their companies is pretty evident).
Most of their net worth came about through equity that they have as the founders of these companies, NOT through their salaries. Yes, their salaries are high, but not $40 billion high. Most of this net worth was accumulated through the appreciation of their equity.
Chris -- http://www.bitter.net/
Perhaps the CEOs are getting richer because nowadays they're paying offshore outsourcing companies such as Tata peanuts to do the work their fellow countrymen (and women) did only a year or two back? I'm sure it's not the sole reason but likely is a significant one.
--- Commission free trading & free stock up to $500 - use http://share.robinhood.com/kelvinp6
I really wonder that people still believe this stuff. It may have been true in the '50s but it certainly isn't true anymore.
I don't believe that an honest and hard working person can become a multimillionaire.
Yes, maybe people who found multinational companies deserve more than what they actually put in in labour, but a lot of people who are CEOs are not founders. How many people are CEOs because they went to business school and managed to bullshit and pass-the-buck, their way to the top? Do they deserve $1m bonuses because they work harder than everyone else? Because they have more responsibility than everyone else?
Neither is true. A CEO can run the company into the ground and still make sure their own pension is safe and they leave with a multimillion "golden parachute" of severence pay.
The US indoctrinates everyone with this attitude that anyone can make it. Nobody realises that it is only at the expense of someone else. Work hard, go to college, get a job, buy a house, a car. Your still just a wage slave like everyone else.
So Bill Gates manages to sell someone elses quick and dirty OS to IBM and eveyone else. Does that make him deserve to be the richest man in the world? Just coz he was in the right place at the right time with the right connections? It's not like he started from nothing anyway. Why does he have a much bigger share in MS than Paul Allen? Coz his parents were richer.
Don't we live in the best country in the world. The only place where people have the freedom to screw everyone over on their way to the top. Where only the rich can afford medical care or a decent education. Where the government solution is less funding and more "Compassion" and "Faith Based volutary groups". Sure I wouldn't have it any other way.
Honest, Hardworking, Rich, choose 2
"Taligent is still pure vapor. Maybe they'll be the last who jumps up on Openstep... "
The American Dream is about freedom to pursue your own life, it's not about getting rich. Any given newborn in America has probably a better chance of winning their state lottery (when they're of age to participate of course) than of getting rich and/or famous through any of the means you mentioned.
The "you could do it too" dream is a lie we sell ourselves so we don't get all upset about all the rich who actually control things, who take our money and don't have to run because we all love them. The master/servant relationship is alive today in America. The middle class are the servants.
Each day we get one step closer to returning to out-and-out feudalism as those in power work to concentrate more and more power.
We have to work against them to get back to the REAL American Dream - freedom, democracy, and equal opportunities for all. The Ayn Randian everyone-for-herself, you-too-could-be-a-billionaire world view is not equal opportunity for everyone. There is no equality when you start from an immensely unbalanced power structure. We can build a better world, we just have expend some effort to get there. Effort we can't be bothered to spend if we're all deluding ourselves about our chances of one day being a master over our own little band of slaves.
(I would start by imposing percentage-based salary caps on the richest citizens - there's no conceivable way that any human can be worth as much as the super-rich make. It's ridiculous. And no, just because they can dupe others into allowing them to have that much is not an excuse. Just because a thief can grab somebody's wallet does not give him the right to that person's wallet.)
I still don't get why rich people would invest their money in expanding businesses if no one can afford to buy anything. Which is better, giving the money to the rich for them to invest in products they think people will buy; or giving the money to people to spend, and thereby directly showing what products they are interested in buying? The dot com bubble was all about people investing in businesses that had no customers; did the Bush administration think this was a good thing?
So why would rich people stop hiring just because they have to pay taxes? So far, given the millions of jobs that have disappeared over the last few years, I'd say cutting taxes for the rich does not create jobs.
I find it very interesting that we're told we must all sacrifice and work extra hard in this tough economic environment. We don't need extra money, we're just happy to have a job. Yet this sort of thing doesn't work with the rich; they need cash for motivation.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
Sure, it is technically possible to start from nothing, work hard, make the "correct" decisions, and make it to "the top." However, it also takes a huge amount of LUCK.
Even you say that Gates got lucky. He not only was lucky enough to find a hastily put together OS that he could buy for $80,000, but he was also lucky enough that IBM was in such a rush that they screwed up their contract with MS. If not for that, MS would probably have been just another software company that made programming languages.
A lot of people start from nothing, work hard, make sound choices, and still fail because of the various random factors surrounding them that they have absolutely no control over.
I can assure you that if I took $1,500 and started a business with it, the likely outcome (no matter how hard I worked or how wise my decisions were) would be me going out of business in a very short amount of time.
Who knows, maybe tommorrow a lightbulb will go off in your head and you'll think of a way of doing something innovative or different.
People think of that all the time. However, the chance of taking that idea and turning it into a fortune 500 company is slim.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
> > "The last I heard, the median for income earners in America was $27,000 per year... doesn't sound so poor to me."
>
> True enough, until you account for the cost of living in America.
This all started when someone posted that Marxian meme that "The rich get richer, the poor get poorer".
BULLSHIT.
Then people started talking about median and/or average incomes in dollars. Nice, but you're missing the point. You're thinking about dollars, but dollars are useless without wealth.
If you want to know how "the poor" are doing, you've gotta be talking "wealth".
My grandparents were working class. Their idea of a "fridge" was a block of ice. Their idea of "luxury" was cranking ice cream by hand in a steel container surrounded by rock salt and ice chunks. And it took days to cross the Atlantic, a trip that was only for the Filthy Rich.
My parents were working class. Their idea of "comfort" was when they got air conditioning. Their idea of "luxury" was when they went from black and white to a color TV. And took hours to cross the Atlantic, and that was only for the Pretty Well Off.
I'm working class. When I was a kid, my idea of "cool" was the 3D graphics in "Tron", and my idea of "luxury" was a Cray Supercomputer I could call my own. And from my 2.0 GHz laptop with 3D card with T&L capabilities, I can alt-Tab out of Max Payne, and with a few mouse clicks, cross the Atlantic (alas, it still takes a few hours) for half the price of the laptop.
And I can show my grandparents that laptop.
I don't mind if Bill Gates has enough money to fly to the moon for his vacation. Because if someone builds commercial space tourism for the Bill Gateses of the world, I can rest easy knowing that by the time I'm in my hip-fracture years, I'll be living them in 1/6 gravity.
The rich are getting richer, but only linearly. One can eat only so much caviar per hour. Wherever capitalism has flourished, however, the poor, on the other hand, have done fantastic.
Technically you can live very comfortably on $25k/year. It all depends on how you want to live. Are you happy making dinner every night, renting a house (or buying a small house), and driving a Honda Civic. Or do you need to eat at fancy restaurants, have a couple of sports cars (and an SUV of course) and need a large house in an upscale neighborhood?
What we WANT drives what we consider comfortable, and some people will never be happy because there is always more stuff to buy. Unfortunatly many people find they are not happy in life and think if they could just buy a better car, or a bigger house, or a few more computer parts then they would be happy. Of course that never works. It really is no different with the middle class or the super rich.
Finkployd
First of all, I don't know how everybody involved in these kinds of debates manages to ignore *payroll* taxes, which are just as surely taxes as any other kind of tax, and which fall disproportionately (meaning, a larger fraction of income) on people with the lowest earned incomes. Those taxes have not gone down, although they are in many cases the *majority* of the taxes paid by people with lower incomes. And that's really just the federal taxes. State income taxes, in the states that have them, often have a top bracket at some pathetically low amount; those taxes have not been going down, either.
And then there are sales taxes and gasoline taxes, which end up being a higher marginal rate on lower incomes for reasons that I'm sure should be pretty obvious.
You can agree or disagree with the reasoning behind the Bush tax cuts, but because they were cuts in income taxes primarily for the very highest brackets, there is very little way in which they could not have been tax cuts for the wealthiest.
In a similar vein, the plan to eliminate the estate tax by definition only affects states that are quite a bit larger than the vast majority of estates. By your reasoning, it would be unfair to say that this is a tax cut for the rich because it's a tax cut for the only people paying any estate tax. But those are the rich people. Hence, the point stands.
Babar