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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."
And all i have is baked beans and spam.
I remember when the IPO went off and I was a millionaire for about 3 hours.
Then the stock price made a nice slow decent to 50 cents.
It's a little better now, but I still have to be careful how many lattes I drink.
I just hope when i finish my degree i'll be one of the richer!!
.
You can tell this is true simply by going to www.rollsgreypoupon.com and checking their sales numbers of Rolls that actually have Grey Poupon dispensers installed... scary.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
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.
A tax cut for the rich! That's a swell plan for redressing society's woes!
55,000,000,000
50 Years 1,100,000,000
12 months 91,666,667
4 weeks 22,916,667
7 days 3,273,810
24 hours 136,409
He could spend 136 Grand an hour for the next 50 years & still have money over, even without interest.
That's a HellOfALotOf Gin & Tonics.
D
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.
C'mon, Jerry! Go mow a few lawns or something. Break that tie!
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
What do people do with all this money? This isn't a rhetorical question; I'd really like to know what these people intend to do with such fortunes. I assume part of it is really stocks, and so it's company worth rather than personal worth, but still, I can't see ever needing more than, say, $2-3 million over the course of my entire life.
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!
---rhad
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
I've sent out 1001 resumes and received but one job offer...in Indiana (UGH!)! Most positions were pulled or filled in house-mostly by people (still) expected to do their old job too. Some simply haven't hired anyone yet. The rich are getting richer by laying off employees in droves and expecting the ones left to pick up the slack. THEY call it: "improved productivity". What it really should be called is exploitation. What's that Bruce Cockburn song: "If I had a Rocket Launcher".........
Two chicks at the same time.
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
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..."
That's the saying... I took a lot of history classes. It dazzles me how Paul Allen's net worth went up 1 billion dollars. Does anyone know what he does, besides own Microsoft stock, that would increase his value that much?
stuff |
It can be quite sobering to find out that you are in the top 0.9% richest people in the world. Thats a hell of a lot of people poorer than you.
I'm sure people will rip this apart because it's based on global data, doesn't take into account cost variations in countries and 101 other things - but give it a go anyway.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
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, corporate CEOs and super rich are much more productive than the average person....but their brains still tick at a mere 1000hz. They can still only speak at a slowish 150wpm and listen at the same rate. Their memories still have limited durations like all other mortal humans. It just isn't physically possible for them to have done the work of 10,000 other people.
The money was not earned, it was stolen. In most cases, the money was stolen from the shareholders of the corporation in question, who by rights should have either had the money in dividends or seen the money re-invested in the corporate machine.
In some cases, the money was stolen from fortunes made by the ideas and productive results of employees of the company. Does anyone truly believe Jobs invented the imac and made it's phenomenal success possible? If you believe that, ask Wozniac what Jobs did with Wozniac's work at Atari.
Before someone accuses me of the obvious : no, I am personally involved in any of this. I'm simply noting the truth.
here
From the CIA World Factbook entry for the United States:-
Anyway is'nt it funny that US Tech industry is going downhill for the workers whil the Industry is making money for the "bosses" (and the investors)?
I know it might trump your little party for the poor, helpless little people that make it all happen, but my salary has been steadily going up for the past 5 years, despite the tech bust. In 1999, the median salary for a US Systems Administrator was $64,271. As of 2002, the average salary was $67,675 ($67,920 for males, and $64,946 for females).
So even through a massive recession, and firings and layoffs, the average salary is 5.296% higher than it was 3 years earlier. So, which industry is going downhill again?
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
You can see how much tax they paid here. It's not quite all of the same people though, since the latest data that the IRS published is from 2000 .
Tom Golisano (Founder of payroll company PayChex, worth over 10 Billion) borrowed 1,500$ of a relative's money to found his company. He had a good plan, worked hard, did the right thing and look what happened.
Bill Gates got lucky, he invested 80,000 in buying a hastily put together OS to resell for a higher price. Little did he know how much that initial 80,000 would grow. Right place, right time, and alittle bit of business smarts got him where he is.
Larry Ellison created Oracle because he believed in the relational database. He founded a company around it, ran it right, and now his biggest worry is why won't customs let his fighter jets in. Woe to be him, eh?
Even the venerable Sam Walton (Who if alive would be worth over 100 billion) started out with one retail store. Difference was his stores were ran better than anyone elses. Look at how K-Mart fell from grace so quickly. Do the mega-store better than Wal-Mart and you'll be rich too.
The bottom line is some of this people came from money, others started with nothing.
But the fact is that they got where they are today. THAT is what the "American dream" is, and we are fortunate to live in a country where our names could be on that list one day.
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.
Yes Virginia, you can be a billionaire too.
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)
Show me some real statistics, anyone can say "Well the rich pay 92% of taxes" but without saying which taxes that number means nothing. The poor pay a greater percentage of the social security tax, and a greater percentage of their income in general goes to taxes. The poor pay the majority of all taxes, the rich only pay the majority of sales taxes.
So lets hike the sales taxes through the roof and get rid of the social security and income taxes so the rich can actually pay 92% of all taxes.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
All this story reflects is that the stock market has rebounded somewhat. Most(all?) of the wealth that these people have is tied into various company stocks and when the crash happened they lost. Now that it has rebounded some they are winning again. I doubt any of them are looking in their bank accounts and seeing 1b more dollars than they saw the year before. I would be curious to see how their increase compares % wise with the average american who is invested in the stock market.
In George Bush's most recent speech, a new solution was put forward to help create jobs and spur growth, SALARY CAPS! Thats right, just like what we have in sports, a cap on your salary will allow companies to hire more workers with the same money. Add to the fact that we can get rid of overtime pay and make them work harder and longer for free, maybe we can even cut their salary and reduce to exactly $1 above their cost of living and set the cap right there.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
This phrase is really starting to annoy me. If you define "the rich" as "everybody who pays taxes", then yes, the recent tax cuts were "tax cuts for the rich". But that definition is obviously ridiculous, so the phrase "tax cuts for the rich" really doesn't apply to the Bush tax cuts. Please learn the definitions of the words you use before you speak again.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are not necessarily my own, as I've not yet had my medication today.
Let me give you a little illustration about your so-called tax cuts for the rich. The Democrats proposed a new solution to taxes to solve the "problem" of tax-cuts for the rich. This illustration is borrowed from someone on the radio (can't remember who). Also please keep in mind that these numbers are fictional and just for illustration purposes.
Ok, so 50,000 people buy tickets to a baseball game.
1,000 of those people bought box seats for $300.
9,000 of those people bought really good seats right near the dugout for $150.
15,000 people bought average tickets for $75.
25,000 people bought nosebleed tickets for $25.
Well, wouldn't ya know it, the game gets cancelled. The owners of the stadium are Democrats and pass out refunds the same way Democrats want to hand out tax cuts:
The 25,000 people get a refund of $50. $25 more than they actually payed for a ticket. Awesome eh?
The 15,000 people get a refund of $100. Hey, they get $25 more too...
The 9,000 people get a refund of only $125. What? They don't get all of their money back?
The 1,000 people? Well, they don't get a refund. Instead, they pay $475 apiece.
That folks, is the math of democrats.
Yes, its overexaggerating and silly, but its also a bit serious. Of course the rich are going to get more money back out of a tax cut. They paid more in the first place.
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
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 think the point of giving the middle and lower-class a larger portion of the tax cuts is the fact that the money they get back could make the difference in sending their children to college, or improving their standard of living.
The money will most likely make no immediate difference in the lifestyle of the upper-class.
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.)
$995 billion amongst 400 people in the US alone! To think what could be done with that money and the number of people in the world who are in DESPERATE need of perhaps as little as a dollar of it. Yes that's right, there are people who die in this world because they can't afford just one dollar! For a true example they might need to buy only five 20c pills to make them well.
I don't care how much money these people give to charity, no one needs that much money, but just the smallest amount would make a life changing difference to some.
Reading this sort of thing makes me disgusted at the pits of humanity and our greed and selfishness.
And no, this is not a troll!
---
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. -- AE
You and a few thousand other investors come in, then. He tricks you and the other investors into agreeing to invest 10 million dollars into the stand, with Mr. G retaining a 30% stake in the company. You have been stolen from
I'm sure the investors who bought during Microsoft's IPO feel really shafted. I mean, they only saw a 500-fold return on their investments (assuming they bought at IPO and sold at the 1999 peak).
You still don't understand how this works: When the investors put in their $10 million, the lemonade stand had already grown to be worth $5 million, so it was entirely right and proper for Mr. G to retain 30%. Then, as the company became more and more successful, it's value increased. Massively.
Later, when the company is worth, say $100 million, all of the stockholders vote to raise some more cash by issuing some more stock. Issuing more stock dilutes the ownership of the current shareholders but also brings in more cash; in an ideal world, the inflowing cash would be precisely enough so that the value of the original stock remains unchanged, even though it represents a smaller piece of the (more valuable) company. In one jump, the company goes from a $100 million company to a $500 million company, with Mr. G's ownership declining to 6% (but staying at $30 million).
With the influx of cash, the company then hires more employees produces more products and sells them more effectively. Stock market speculation plus more retained earnings eventually drives the stock price up to the point that Mr. G's stake is worth $55 billion.
Now, at what point, exactly, did someone get screwed? And who? The *only* candidates, really, are the employees. With respect to Microsoft in particular that's a bad angle to attack, because hundreds if not thousands of Microsoft employees became multi-millionaires off of their own stock options and stock purchases. The same is true of most high-tech firms.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
The other side of the coin.
Those of us that are just middle class 'IT people' lost more ground, in general.
Perhaps we need a union, to start taking back some of our share of the loot those over paid useless bastards in that list are getting from OUR hard work.
Bitter? Yes..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Wow! Who is on a roll here? Obviously you haven't done your research because the VAST majority of Tax payers and revenue is from the Middle class and NOT the tiny minority of rich folks. (Do you really think Bill Gates pays $387 Million in taxes, which is the tax on income he should pay assuming that he earns 3% on 43 Billion net worth) The reason for this is that investments provide tax shelters and its easier to focus your time and money to look for tax loop holes or keep your money in a foreign bank account when your rich then when your not.
There's a few odd things those "rich" folks do with money that "poor" folks generally don't. Those silly rich tend to invest in a variety of things. They'll start new businesses, or help fund others. Quite often this invested capital actually creates JOBS.
See, here is the problem with investing by the poor, they can't invest as easily because they ARE poor. This does not mean that they should be punished by high taxes, or that rich folks are better then they are. Of course one of the problems with being poor is the fact that you become less willing to accept risk for the obvious reason that you don't want to end up on the street, but it is that willingness and ability to take risk that can make you rich. If you don't take the risk there is very little chance that you will become rich, much in the same way that you can't win the lottery unless you play the game.
Taking your sarcasm into account, let's just go and raise them taxes on all those evil "rich" folks and hand it out to who all them really smart politicians feel are more worthy to have that cash. Business and corporations are evil anyway, so if you close down a few or just bring them to their knees all the better.
I'm a firm believer in capitalism, but not without checks and balances. There is a reason why the spread between the rich and the poor is much smaller in Europe then in the US. It is because when you get too rich in Europe you get taxed up your ass, which might not be such a bad thing after all. We should remember that alot of conflict in our history has resulted because either a rich nation wanted to exploit its underdeveloped neighbor or because the poor got sick and tired of being exploited and revolted against their rich exploiters.
Of course in the US the situation will never change for the simple reason that almost all top politicians are also rich and they would be really dumb to undermine their own positions by taxing themselves and those who pay for their campaigns.
Funny little factoid: Bill Gates' wealth equals the combined wealth of the poorest 120 million Americans, or 45 percent of our population.But those tax cuts come out of the pockets of those who are better off. Since when is that fair? This is America. We aren't (or shouldn't be at least) a communistic society. That's the whole point of capitalism.
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
> > "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.
Shit, from January 1st to today, my measly stock portfolio of 8 companies is up 11%, and my 401k is up 19%... compared to the absolute rock bottom it was last year!!
Everyone's money is growing, its just that the CEOs have a LOT more money invested than I do. That's what makes the USA's model the best in the world, we have the most opportunities to better ourselves. Nothing is stopping me from investing my money any differently than the rich can, and with hard work, I'll have the money to live the lifestyle I want.
Besides, have you looked at the tax laws lately? A man and wife, combined income of $100k, which is two standard engineer salaries of 50k. Guess what, you're "rich". Not exactly "fair" is it, but hey, lets keep calling to tax the rich, and someday we'll realize we're taxing ourselves.
Yeah, I'm real outraged about the injustice of the people who control 40% of the wealth, and 50% of the of the financial wealth paying nearly 25% of the taxes.
I'm not at all outraged that 38.9 million Americans, including 7.2 million children, have no healthcare. I'm too busy worrying about the rich.
SONY. Because caucasians are just too damn tall.
Why don't we have a "-1, blithering idiot"?
We do. It's a "+5 Insightfull" from other blithering idiots.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
The issue with these tax cuts is rather simple. No one is arguing that these tax cuts are an attempt to remedy the unjust taxing of people. The purpose behind these tax cuts as advocated by Republicans is that they will spur economic growth.
The problem is that by definition, rich people are rich because they can buy whatever they want. Reducing their taxes is thus NOT going to have any impact on the economy because these people have no real incentive to spend more, the extra little bit of money is not going to have any impact.
Also, the earned income tax credit was originally a Republican proposal if my memory serves me correctly. The idea behind it is also based on the above logic. Poor people are deemed poor because they DON'T have the money to purchase what they want. By giving them back money (or just giving them money) you are pretty much guaranteed they are going to spend it. If you give $1000 to a person who makes $20,000 a year, they will spend it. GIve $1000 to a person who makes $200,000 a year and has $1.5 million in assets, they might not even cash the check mailed to them by the government.
Now, I will be the first to admit that none of this solves the problem of a consumer driven economy. But, I am struggling as much as the next man. I would much rather improve our currently corrupt economy so I can pay the rent than plan for the future. Once we get things under control, then we can talk about changing the way our society works.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
The poorest of the poor, the ones who are still paying taxes but just barely, but who are responsible enough not to have children that they can't afford, got exactly no tax cut at all. So did the ones who aren't paying taxes, of course. (And yes, they could have: there have been ideas on the books for giving credits to people who don't earn a living wage.) But you wouldn't count those, because they're not 'important', right?
And, of course, you're still being disingenuous. The recent tax cuts were enormously disproportionately aimed at the wealthiest 5% of the population, and designed really not to benefit anyone else, like those who would actually spend the money and stimulate the economy. (Large increases in spending/purchasing are a much better economic stimulus than large increases in investment with no increases in spending, which is what these tax cuts give us. Ask any rational economist.)
And given that this tax cut is likely to be made permanent, and that we're likely to be hit with a full-on capital gains tax moratorium if Bush is reelected, you will have the amusing experience of seeing large numbers of the richest five percent in the country (the 'idle rich') paying literally no federal income taxes at all, whle the middle class works to support the infrastructure of the country that they enjoy. Reagan tried to do that several times, and I believe Bush Sr. did as well.
Bush's economic team is on record as saying, and I believe this is an exact quote, that they needed to 'shift the tax burden down the income spectrum'. I.e., the rich should pay less in taxes and the middle class pay more. You may agree with this, and that's your perogative, but if you claim it's not happening you're either being blind or you're deliberately trying to make it easier for the administration.
Either way, pretty sad.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
This is an important point that has been stated in several posts. Being rich means having a high net worth, usually in equity, savings and real estate. Although there is an overlap with high income earners, the two categories are not identical. For example "taxing high income earners" is not the same as "taxing the rich".
I think the point of giving the middle and lower-class a larger portion of the tax cuts is the fact that the money they get back could make the difference in sending their children to college, or improving their standard of living.
But doing the hand-outs so arbitrarily does nothing to guarantee their success. Do people in government really think they have mastered economics so well that they can change the face of society with a poiticially-motivated tax system? The current tax system is insane and is so politically-trashed that it cannot possibly reflect ecnomic reality. Its almost as bad as subsidizing housing for people who would be much better off moving to a different city with a lower cost of living.
Why prop up something that is simply unsustainable? Why should I pay for someone's $900 two-bedroom apartment in LA when they get $6.75/hour at a grocery store? Propping up the status quo with legislation will only cause our nation to collapse with money flowing nowhere it should leaving millions of people stranded in places they have no hope of surviving. What then?!?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
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
This is just a flamebait isn't it?
According to estimates by the Tax Policy Center -- the 2001 tax cut, once fully phased in, will deliver 42 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent of the income distribution. (Roughly speaking, that means families earning more than $330,000 per year.) The 2003 tax cut delivers a somewhat smaller share to the top 1 percent, 29.1 percent, but within that concentrates its benefits on the really, really rich. Families with incomes over $1 million a year -- a mere 0.13 percent of the population -- will receive 17.3 percent of this year's tax cut, more than the total received by the bottom 70 percent of American families. Indeed, the 2003 tax cut has already proved a major boon to some of America's wealthiest people: corporations in which executives or a single family hold a large fraction of stocks are suddenly paying much bigger dividends, which are now taxed at only 15 percent no matter how high the income of their recipient.
Sounds like TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH to me!!!
Anyhow, your statment betrays a certain ethnocentrism. Pragmatically, you describe your wealth as evidence that "capitalism" has improved your standard of living incredibly from the level experienced by your grandparents. Indeed it has -- my own grandparents lived in unheated row housing in England when they were children. This seems more like a product of scientific progress, however -- capitalism is the mechanism whereby the capitalist uses his or her personal power (i.e access to capital) as leverage to gain even more access to capital. In other words, capitalism is about capital, not about progress.
There are still (billions of) people living like our grandparents in the world. There are still people who think of a block of ice as a fridge, and where many children and mothers die at birth. Their extreme powerlessness in the face of the capitalists makes it nearly impossible to demand their fair share of the "wealth" they generate, and that excess wealth is shipped over here to us.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding your motives, and you make no pretensions to an egalitarian belief that capitalism can raise people up without sending others down. Frankly, though, even if you are sincerely interested in the welfare of other people, you should try to expand your consideration of who benefits to the "invisible" people who make your shirts, assemble your electronics, and still live like your grandparents did. I don't believe that capitalism is evil, or that it's a zero-sum game, but I do believe that there is a limit to which individuals can fairly accumulate the wealth generated by others. As you pointed out, a person can only eat so much caviar -- even so, it seems like there are people who will continue to buy new warehouses to store the caviar in for themselves, rather than recognizing this fact.
Never at a loss for words... because of the voices.
So I'm guessing hes given around 0.1% of his wealth away.
Try about 60%. There was a Businessweek article in December 2002 that ranked the biggest philanthropists in the world (not sure if non-subscribers can read this article from the archives) -- he's ranked #1 in terms of amounts given. My eyeball estimate is that he's #6 in terms of percentage of wealth given (which is somewhat misleading, since Gordon Moore and James Stowers apparently committed more money than they were worth, and so would be ranked #1 and #2 in terms of percentage).
I'd be impressed if the man gave away a few billion dollars at a time and not in stupid ways. When he spends money on schools I'm impressed when he actually builds a school, but usually he does not build a school, usually he just donates Microsoft products (big deal) to schools.
Gates's main focus is eradicating diseases in developing countries. Yeah, that's really stupid. He has also given the largest single private grant in history -- for a global vaccine program. Again, very stupid. Whatever.
BTW, Larry Ellison (Oracle) is ranked #1 for biggest cheapskate -- he has given away 0.4% of his worth. Steve Ballmer is the 5th biggest cheapskate. And, to me, worst of all, given who he is and what he stands for for so many people, Warren Buffett is the 6th biggest cheapskate -- he's given away only $230 million of his $36 billion.
If you want to know who "the rich" are, try surfing through here:
/. do, congratulations, you are one of "the rich" at least as far as the IRS, the vast majority of social scientists and most of the general public see it.
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/index.html
You will find that the oft-touted "top one percent" begins at $292,913. You will also find that the "top ten percent" begins at $92,754.
If you make more than $92,754, and many people on
Yes, of the 130 Million personal returns received by the IRS in 2001 119,400,717 made under $100,000.
As for the tax cut, it does not take much math to see how any broad tax cut will benefit the rich. The bottom 62% of tax filers paid 14% of the income tax collected. The top 38% paid 86% of the tax, with the top 3% paid 41% of the tax. If we cut every penny of tax out for everyone making under $50,000, it would reduce tax revenue by only 14%. Since those people are still paying taxes, it doesn't take too much effort to see how the tax cuts certainly were much more to the benefit of other than the $50,000 or less 62% of the population, now does it?
"The Rich" is NOT a hard to define group. It is patently obvious. This is not liberal-pinko conspiracy theory. That definition is not an absurdity, it is a fact.
Don't insult our collective intelligence by assuming we can't define our terms when you scarcely begin to define your own.
Please listen to the comments made on the tax cut by WIlliam Buffet, the second richest man in the world:
Published on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 by the Washington Post
Dividend Voodoo
by Warren Buffett
The annual Forbes 400 lists prove that -- with occasional blips -- the rich do indeed get richer. Nonetheless, the Senate voted last week to supply major aid to the rich in their pursuit of even greater wealth.
The Senate decided that the dividends an individual receives should be 50 percent free of tax in 2003, 100 percent tax-free in 2004 through 2006 and then again fully taxable in 2007. The mental flexibility the Senate demonstrated in crafting these zigzags is breathtaking. What it has put in motion, though, is clear: If enacted, these changes would further tilt the tax scales toward the rich.
Let me, as a member of that non-endangered species, give you an example of how the scales are currently balanced. The taxes I pay to the federal government, including the payroll tax that is paid for me by my employer, Berkshire Hathaway, are roughly the same proportion of my income -- about 30 percent -- as that paid by the receptionist in our office. My case is not atypical -- my earnings, like those of many rich people, are a mix of capital gains and ordinary income -- nor is it affected by tax shelters (I've never used any). As it works out, I pay a somewhat higher rate for my combination of salary, investment and capital gain income than our receptionist does. But she pays a far higher portion of her income in payroll taxes than I do.
She's not complaining: Both of us know we were lucky to be born in America. But I was luckier in that I came wired at birth with a talent for capital allocation -- a valuable ability to have had in this country during the past half-century. Credit America for most of this value, not me. If the receptionist and I had both been born in, say, Bangladesh, the story would have been far different. There, the market value of our respective talents would not have varied greatly.
Now the Senate says that dividends should be tax-free to recipients. Suppose this measure goes through and the directors of Berkshire Hathaway (which does not now pay a dividend) therefore decide to pay $1 billion in dividends next year. Owning 31 percent of Berkshire, I would receive $310 million in additional income, owe not another dime in federal tax, and see my tax rate plunge to 3 percent.
And our receptionist? She'd still be paying about 30 percent, which means she would be contributing about 10 times the proportion of her income that I would to such government pursuits as fighting terrorism, waging wars and supporting the elderly. Let me repeat the point: Her overall federal tax rate would be 10 times what my rate would be.
When I was young, President Kennedy asked Americans to "pay any price, bear any burden" for our country. Against that challenge, the 3 percent overall federal tax rate I would pay -- if a Berkshire dividend were to be tax-free -- seems a bit light.
Administration officials say that the $310 million suddenly added to my wallet would stimulate the economy because I would invest it and thereby create jobs. But they conveniently forget that if Berkshire kept the money, it would invest that same amount, creating jobs as well.
The Senate's plan invites corporations -- indeed, virtually commands them -- to contort their behavior in a major way. Were the plan to be enacted, shareholders would logically respond by asking the corporations they own to pay no more dividends in 2003, when they would be partially taxed, but instead to pay the skipped amounts in 2004, when they'd be tax-free. Similarly, in 2006, the last year of the plan, companies should pay double their normal dividend and then avoid dividends altogether in 2007.
Overall, it's hard to conceive of anything sillier than the schedule the Senate has laid out. Indeed, the first President Bush had a name for such activities: "voodoo economics." The manipulation o