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The 1% I'm talking about is immune to regional differences in cost of living and so forth. They might be more like "Upper 1/4%" according to actuarial tables or some other hard quantitive measure of wealth. In general terms, they are the people who will NEVER have to worry about paying bills for the rest of their lives. They live very comfortably off interest and dividends from the vast hoards of money and investments. Do you really think Mark Zuckerberg or Mark Cuban is going to worry about the cost of a posh NYC penthouse suite when they are shopping for one? Yes, even brain surgeons making $500K/year still have to worry about bills. I know doctors who make that kind of income and they still fret over kids' college tuitions and so forth.
Take a random poll of people on the street and ask them to define what "being rich" is and you'll prolly get answers from "anyone who makes more than $100K per year to "anyone who doesn't have debts". It's a very ambiguous term to be called "wealthy". The upper 1% I'm referring to don't even have to worry about whether they belong to that elite slice of the pie --- they simply know they are.
I get that you use the phrase "1%" to mean a class of lifestyle rather than an arithmetic calculation.
I think the lifestyle to which you refer is the .01% to .001% in terms of arithmetic calculation.
Here is another way to look at the class of lifestyle to which you refer: Those people are completely secure in their retirement. That is, they have defined benefit, public sector pensions.
The new 1% are public sector employees with gold-plated defined-benefit pensions & Cadillac health care.
I get that you use the phrase "1%" to mean a class of lifestyle rather than an arithmetic calculation.
I think the lifestyle to which you refer is the .01% to .001% in terms of arithmetic calculation.
Here is another way to look at the class of lifestyle to which you refer: Those people are completely secure in their retirement. That is, they have defined benefit, public sector pensions.
The new 1% are public sector employees with gold-plated defined-benefit pensions & Cadillac health care.
Oh, yeah, people drawin' those FAT 25k pensions (and a federal employee making High 3 @ 1% per year of service is probably getting that or less even after VERY long service) and getting Blue Cross Blue Shield's basic plan for a few hundred a month. THOSE people are the new 1%. Right?
Not those making 400k and/or those with at least $9 f&*$ing million in assets, right?
You are the most ludicrous and useless troll on C-D. Seriously.
What case is closed? I knew a long time before I ever started this thread that I was not anywhere close to being part of the 1%, as I am a retired high school teacher. I was presenting a statistic which I found surprising - that is all. What is your point?
My previous response was self-explanatory; those who are part of the 1% are acutely aware of their status.
Those who are very wealthy are not so because of their income, but because of their assets. Thus, it is intellectually dishonest to label someone as "rich," "the 1%," or some other term viewed as a perjorative by those on the left.
One's income is one's private business, provided that that income isn't funded by our tax dollars. Thus, anyone who is focused one someone else's (private) income needs to mind their own business.
this thread has provided the lulz, but let me try to simplify it with the traditional economic analysis bastardized from Karl Marx:
- if your annual income is still based on WAGES that can be lost due to some circumstance, you are not the 1% rich. You could be a hotshot stockbroker/investment banker pulling in $500k annual salary in some exceptionally good years. But you sleep with the bosses mistress, you'll be fired and blacklisted and never work in the industry again. Or a sports figure. You dont get $20M over 5 years if your knee doesn't cooperate. Because you are a wage worker.
- if your lifestyle is based on the full time management of some collection of assets - like you own [large number] of dollars of apartment buildings, franchise labels, and shopping centers (and you only know THREE CHORDS!) then you are INSULATED from cycles of depression and recession and inflation and changes in taxation in the economy. No matter what happens, as long as you continue to intake oxygen and expel carbon dioxide, you will have an exorbitant annual income. Is that threshold 373k? 500k? I think the net worth $8M+ thing is pretty close to 1%, meaning that 99% of the human race will never know what it's like to walk in your moccasins.
Last year there was a meeting in downtown LA, to discuss if / when / where a new NFL stadium would be built in Los Angeles (at the time it was adjunct to the Staples Center, but now they talking about Irwindale again). What I found interesting about the press coverage was that it was described as the single greatest concentration of billionares in one room.
And everything is open to discussion, analysis and inquiry these days, especially "where does that money come from and where does it go?" You can and should be put in prison if you fail to disclose and answer correctly.
My previous response was self-explanatory; those who are part of the 1% are acutely aware of their status.
Those who are very wealthy are not so because of their income, but because of their assets. Thus, it is intellectually dishonest to label someone as "rich," "the 1%," or some other term viewed as a perjorative (sic) by those on the left.
One's income is one's private business, provided that that income isn't funded by our tax dollars. Thus, anyone who is focused one someone else's (private) income needs to mind their own business.
Quite the contrary, your previous response was murky and mysterious.
It is not "intellectually dishonest" to label any income or asset class, from the destitute on up. The more precise the labeling the better, such as making the distinction between the top 1% in income (as expressed in AGI) and the top 1% in net worth.
In this thread we are not focused on any individual's income, which is unknowable to us anyway. So therefore your statement about minding our own business is a non-sequitur.
The phrase "the 1%" is bandied about quite a bit, so we are engaged in defining that. How is it relevant whether it is "viewed as a pejorative (note correct spelling) by the left"? Personally, I am right of center, and I am the original poster of this thread.
Of course there is geographic differences in income. 300k salary in New York City could be like you were making 900k in some more rural state and city. Like some others have mentioned as well, a lot of these geographic differences get evened out using the idea of net worth. If you are making 500k in San Francisco, you likewise have much higher expenses across the board, so someone making 200k in Kansas could be much richer than you in net worth.
But let me just leave it at this. Do you find it hard to believe that only 1 out of 100 people make a median of 343k per year? I would find it hard to believe there would be MORE than 1/100 people making this wage. (Once again keeping in mind net worth to even out salary differences in different places).
Here's how it looks to me. This is just my impressions, but it's based on my network of professional acquaintances and (and family, friends, other individuals, etc) and it seems to line up for me.
15/100 are in the unemployed group
~40/100 are minimum wage group
~25/100 are that 30-50k group
~15/100 are the 50-100k group
4/100 are above 100k group
1/100 making 343k or above
EDIT: I'm well traveled and have lived and worked in places where rent for 1 bedroom apartments were over $2500/month min, and in other places where you can find the same size apt. for $400. $343k would make me feel rich in either of those places, and definitely in a very rare spot (the 1%) to be.
Your numbers are off to me. No way is almost half the country making minimum wage.
Also, the unemployed is not that high except for certain segments of industry/education.
Your numbers are off to me. No way is almost half the country making minimum wage.
Also, the unemployed is not that high except for certain segments of industry/education.
Could be if the base is our total population, vs our working and potentially working population.
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