Here's why the common man has not a chance against the truly wealthy: The "L" Curve..

[Fumesucker]

You think someone making $250,000 a year is wealthy?

Think again.

http://www.lcurve.org/

The US population is represented along the length of the football field, arranged in order of income.

Median US family income (the family at the 50 yard line) is ~$40,000 (a stack of $100 bills 1.6 inches high.)

--The family on the 95 yard line earns about $100,000 per year, a stack of $100 bills about 4 inches high.

--At the 99 yard line the income is about $300,000, a stack of $100 bills about a foot high.

--The curve reaches $1 million (a 40 inch high stack of $100 bills) one foot from the goal line.

--From there it keeps going up...it goes up 50 km (~30 miles) on this scale!

[Canuckistanian]

1. I'm sorry

If you can't make it in America on a personal salary of $1/4 million - you're doing something SERIOUSLY wrong.

I understand your point, but the level of ABSURD wealth still doesn't make 250k/yr "underpaid".

[Fumesucker]

6. That wasn't the point of my OP..

The truly wealthy are as far beyond the person making $250K per year as that man is beyond the most impoverished street person.

Sure, it's possible to "make it" on considerably less than a quarter million a year, I've never made more than about twenty percent of that in my entire working life.

But you will have no control over the vast and implacable forces in our society until you are one of the truly wealthy with a stack of hundred dollar bills in at least the tens of meters tall class.

[Cleita]

2. Also, many people don't understand that what you

make a year is irrelevant to what you own. Sure a big salary has the potential to give you the discretionary income to acquire wealth, but if you don't and you lose your job, you will no longer have the ability to buy the status symbols that proclaim that. However, if you have acquired or inherited wealth, losing your job and salary will have no effect on how many status symbols you can afford.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Excellent visual. It should be more widely distributed among tbaggers and their ilk

[alfredo]

4. The rich are hoarding all the money.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. They sure are. And they scream when they think we might try to "steal" some

via higher taxes. :eyes:

[alfredo]

10. Wide disparities of wealth destabilizes societies.

[Fumesucker]

15. The Magistrate made the point a few days ago..

That the very wealthy refusing to pay taxes was a clear sign of the coming collapse of a Chinese dynasty.

I think it's true of other societies also.

[alfredo]

20. The rich don't care if America collapses, they got theirs, so

the rest of us can go fuck ourselves.

[NRaleighLiberal]

5. There was a recent article explaining satisfaction/happiness vs income.

I don't recall all of the details or stats, but satisfaction/happiness is a pretty straight line increase up to about 70K/year for a typical family. (I suppose this is about the ability to pay the bills, and purchase just enough extra stuff for it to be special). Beyond that, it flattens out - and money beyond that does not have appreciable impact on how happy people are. So at that point (although it is a gross generalization) you get into greed, in a way - just needing to have more though it really didn't add much to how people felt about things.

[Fumesucker]

7. I read that, it was indeed interesting..

But the truly wealthy are not satiated with "enough", in fact I think many of them are never satiated at all.

[NRaleighLiberal]

9. No. My wife (a really fine person,and a bit delightfully naive) and I

were talking the other day about the whole tax thing - she thought that many people making greater than 250 would understand and be willing to pay more given the circumstances (see, delightfully naive). Then we went into the fact that for some it is greed; for some it is just a habit, for others fear - fear of losing what they have, that they will never have enough.

Ironic, I have two examples of where this fails in my family. Both my aunt and uncle on my mom's side were very wealthy, but extremely cheap - never shared anything, figured the tips to the cent (and low tips at that) - the aunt died with loads of money having lived a miserable life with few friends and a completely estranged family. the uncle is heading in the same direction.

At 54, I still don't understand people....and it doesn't get any easier for me to understand as I get older. But then again, I guess we can only account for ourselves...

[formercia]

11. Perhaps it's a Mental Health issue

and the drive for money is just a symptom of a larger problem.

[Fumesucker]

13. The desire for ever more wealth is a form of addiction..

However in America it seems to be a societally endorsed addiction..

[pampango]

21. Very true, but isn't it almost an "American" trait to not be satisfied with "enough"?

In the recent past many middle class families bought a new car every 2 or 3 years to have the coolest new car often accumulating 4 or 5 cars for 2 drivers. They would buy and sell houses to expand their living space from 1,500 square feet to 3,000 sf, 4,000 sf and so on. We have good friends who bought a huge McMansion after their kids were grown, because now they could afford a bigger house, even though they didn't "need" it.

The idea of being "satisfied" with what you have seems almost unAmerican. (Not that it should be, but that's the way it seems.) If you make $20,000, you think $30,000 would be great and you'd be satisfied. But if you get to making $30,000, suddenly $40,000 seems great and satisfying.

While it is easy for me to shake my head in wonder at our rich who are not satisfied with $250,000 or $2,000,000, and while I will never know for sure, I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't look around and see someone making $350,000 or $3,000,000 and imagine how much more cool stuff I could get with the extra income. (It's kind of like someone in Indonesia making $2,000 shaking their head at how much I make and believing they would certainly be satisfied with that.) Of course, the possibility that Americans are never "satisfied" is no reason not to progressively tax income.

[LARED]

12. I get the point but the graph is a little misleading

The $50 billion increase in net wealth used as an example at the far end of the curve is not the same as $50 billion in income. If I own $100,000 in various financial vehicles, and make $75K per year. Then my portfolio increased 100%,my net worth double and my income stayed the same. Comparing net worth to income is misleading. The curve is essentially correct in slowing that income is a grossly distorted curve, but lets be accurate.

Also if you decided to split Bill Gates net worth with the rest of America it would amount to about $150 in net worth increase for everyone. Again that does not necessarily put a nickel in your pocket.

I guess I must close with stating I am not defending Bill Gates nor the gross amount of his wealth lest I get bashed.

[Fumesucker]

14. The graph denotes income, not net worth..

But I may not fully understand the point you're making.

[LARED]

16. If you zoom out all the way out to the end point of

the curve it lists 50 billion dollars in increase of Bill Gates net worth.

An increase in net worth is not an increase in income. I'm sure Bill Gates' income is extraordinarily high, but it's not 50 billion dollars.

[Fumesucker]

17. How is an increase in net worth not income?

If you are worth 100,000 one year and 200,000 the next then your minimum income must have been 100,000 for that year.

[LARED]

19. If you own a home and in year 1 it is worth

$200,000, and in year 2 it is worth $220,000, did you make $20,000 in income? No, your net worth increased $20,000 and your income was not affected by this change.

[Drale]

18. We need a good ole

peasant uprising against the rich people in their castles (not the government, because if the right people are in charge good things can happen, but the rich bastards)

[Greyhound]

22. This needs to be re-posted every so often, thanks.

There main usefulness of it (and I've posted it here several times myself over the years) is to graphically demonstrate the scale of the inequality of wealth, since nobody has yet ever "earned" a $50B income.

It is a niggling distinction (net worth vs. income) of no real significance, but the ever present apologists typically jump on it to derail the intended point.

:kick: & R