Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Economics
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 07-02-2018, 07:39 AM
 
3,105 posts, read 3,832,493 times
Reputation: 4066

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell View Post
Wealth goes to those who have it. You can make millions and create nothing. Let's hear it for the first generation entrepreneurs who get rich on their own efforts. Those who inherit wealth are just leeches.

No, those who want to steal a child's inheritance are thieving leaches.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 07-02-2018, 07:54 AM
 
779 posts, read 471,655 times
Reputation: 1462
Quote:
Originally Posted by BeerGeek40 View Post
Sorry - nobody needs 2 yachts, I don't care how hard your dad worked.

This article was pretty good and yes it raises some good points -- middle class is barely better off than the welfare collectors who are becoming an increasing percentage of society.
Does anyone need 2 cars? Two phones?

I’m as much of an american socialist as you’ll meet, but we still deserves the fruits of our labor. If he wants two yachts, he can have two yachts. Jealousy is as ugly as greed, my friend.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 07-02-2018, 07:56 AM
 
5,907 posts, read 4,428,919 times
Reputation: 13442
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colorado^ View Post
No, those who want to steal a child's inheritance are thieving leaches.
Exactly lol.

If I became wealthy, and I want my wealth to go to my children, who the hell is to tell me different? Are they lessor people because I wanted to take care of them?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 07-02-2018, 07:57 AM
 
5,907 posts, read 4,428,919 times
Reputation: 13442
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell View Post
You say that like it's a bad thing. The world would be a better place if you learn to nail the liars and thieves to the wall.
Did you come up with the list of business deductions you disagree with?

Did you decide why capital gains should be taxed the same as wages yet?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 07-02-2018, 07:58 AM
 
17,400 posts, read 11,969,909 times
Reputation: 16152
Quote:
Originally Posted by BeerGeek40 View Post
Sorry - nobody needs 2 yachts, I don't care how hard your dad worked.

This article was pretty good and yes it raises some good points -- middle class is barely better off than the welfare collectors who are becoming an increasing percentage of society.
You don't get to decide what people purchase for the money they've worked hard for.

Should that person have that yacht confiscated? Should they not be allowed to purchase 2 yachts in the first place? Do you even understand that the yacht they purchased is money that goes to someone's business?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 07-02-2018, 08:00 AM
 
17,400 posts, read 11,969,909 times
Reputation: 16152
Quote:
Originally Posted by Huckleberry3911948 View Post
Work builds character and makes you resilient and strong
It strengthens intuition, problem solving and tolerance to stress
This is babbling nonsense to the non work culture
For them only fools work
Work puts food on the table and a roof over your head.

People have had to work since the beginning of time. If they failed to do so, they starve or succumb to the elements.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 07-02-2018, 08:22 AM
 
Location: TN/NC
35,057 posts, read 31,271,982 times
Reputation: 47514
Quote:
Originally Posted by SportyandMisty View Post
Here's an interesting piece in the WSJ:

How Income Equality Helped Trump
Working Americans sense that taxes and transfers now leave them little better off than those who work less.


The article begins (just a teaser so I don't violate C-D copyright rules)

The above bolded item is not a typo. Rising income equality has been causing a backlash fueled by the explosion of social-welfare spending and the economic coupled with the wage stagnation during the Obama era.

Hardworking middle-income and lower-middle-income families apparently recognized that their efforts left them little better off than the growing number of recipients of government transfers. The perceived injustice of this equality helped drive the political shift among blue-collar workers.

It's a good piece & worth a read.
Back in 2013, I was at a very low point in my life.

I moved from Iowa, where I had a normal wage job with benefits, back to Tennessee, where I took a temp job with no benefits and less pay. The idea was to be here for very temporarily, three months or less, but I didn't find anything until about a year after I came back.

I had three temp jobs that year, each paying less than the last, and none of the employers provided benefits of any kind. I had pneumonia, and the urgent care visit and prescribed medicine was about equal to a month's net pay. Given the poor financial situation, I was honestly suicidal for a time.

Take a mentally ill friend of mine. 26/27 and in good physical health. He was on his parents' insurance until 27, followed up by TennCare. His medical expenses were covered. He lived with his parents, who are multimillionaires from an equity positions his father had as an engineer, and they also own millions more in farmland passed down through the family over the generations. Technically single, he qualified for SNAP benefits.

All told, his aggregate benefits were about the same worth as I was making at my $10/hr job.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 07-02-2018, 08:32 AM
 
Location: Vallejo
21,830 posts, read 25,114,712 times
Reputation: 19061
Probably depends if work would get you the same lifestyle as just going on welfare and what kind of example you want to set for your kids. If you don't care about your kids or think it's a healthy example, welfare is an option. It's no a glamorous lifestyle. Anyone lower-middle class has more money to live off of than just relying on welfare and choosing not to work. Not everyone has a usable skill though that they can use to make a lower-middle class income. It's exponentially harder to acquire the skills to earn a lower-middle class income once you have kids. It's not like it's impossible, just a whole lot harder.

Take pharm tech, which is my personal experience. The program at the local JC is free and has basically a 100% placement rate. Mostly that's because of the extensive externship hours versus the overpriced mills with lousy placement rates where you'll get a substandard education. If you've got young kids unless you have a lot of support, you're not going to be able to do that. Retail pharm tech sucks. It's not at all lower middle-class wages, more working poor. That's where you start. I worked for three years part-time in retail while I was in high school and college before landing a job in a hospital. Bay Area wages hospitals are all paying $25-30/hr plus shift differentials and overtime. It's solid working class or lower middle-class wages. It'll afford you a much better lifestyle than being on welfare will. You'll never buy a house here on that but you'll do okay. Two similar incomes and you'll be able to live a reasonably comfortable lower middle-class lifestyle here. The toughest thing is going to be the commute. It's easier to find jobs in the Peninsula, South Bay, or San Francisco but $50-70k goes nowhere in those areas if you're talking about supporting a family.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 07-02-2018, 08:38 AM
 
17,400 posts, read 11,969,909 times
Reputation: 16152
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell View Post
I'm not insane, you are oblivious. Your dad didn't pay a nickel of income tax on the money that built those office buildings, and at the worst he had to pay capital gains when he sold them, after writing off every penny he spent building them. Don't try to pretend the tax code doesn't favor business activity. It is written to give business a free ride at every turn. If he paid millions in taxes, it was over and above any operating expenses or investment in his company. From your description, it doesn't sound like he was too stupid to hire an accountant.

As for the labor, he had to hire someone. As soon as he was done, the workers were discarded like yesterday's garbage, and they paid big bucks in income tax for the privilege.

If he has employees who are millionaires, they didn't get that way by making wages. "Hey, instead of a raise, here's a stock option. I don't have to pay FICA, you don't have to pay income tax or FICA, and you can borrow the money to exercise the option, hold the stock for a year, pay long term capital gains and pocket the rest."

There's no virtue there, just people getting rich off of other people's money. It's a whole Disneyland full of free rides. It's how the system works.
The biggest difference between the successful and the pathologically envious is the willingness to take risks.

The person that made a lot of money most likely took a big risk.

The person that is slogging along with little success has most likely taken zero risk.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 07-02-2018, 08:41 AM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,861,555 times
Reputation: 15839
Quote:
Originally Posted by GeoffD View Post
What’s the difference?
Far too many psych majors frequently ask, "would you like fries with that?"

Last edited by SportyandMisty; 07-02-2018 at 08:53 AM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Economics

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top