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New book about TaxesFollow

#1 Jun 21 2004 at 1:06 PM Rating: Decent
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Has anyone heard off this book?

"Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich -- and Cheat Everybody Else"


http://www.perfectlylegalthebook.com/




Here's a lengthy excerpt from an interview with the author taht I think sums it up well.
If you think it's too long, then you should see my ****.



President Bush says that the way to measure tax burdens is how much of your money do you get to keep. Now without quarreling with his interpretation, let's examine what he says. How much of your money do you get to keep? The more that you get to keep, the more you have the freedom to either spend it on your lifestyle today or save and invest for the future. Well, for people at the very top of the income pile, their tax burden has been falling, and they have more and more income to save and invest. Now if you are in the top group -- if you're making $10 million or more -- you can't spend your entire income unless you're a gambling addict or, actually, I don't know how you could spend it unless you're a gambling addict, because, if you're buying oil paintings, those don't lose value unless you're a complete idiot. You mostly are investing that income, okay? Well, investing works, as anybody who got in a 401k plan knows, over the long term. Forget about the downturn of the market right now. It's a snowball. You add new contributions to the snowball and the market returns part of it to you. And pretty soon the magic of compounding interest is bigger than your contribution, and that snowball gets bigger and bigger, and your income gets bigger and bigger. So that if you are relieved of a substantial burden of taxes, and you have the capacity to save substantial amounts, you will get wealthier and wealthier.

Meanwhile, people in the middle class and the upper middle class are confronted by two things. A growing share of their income is going to taxes, and we have seen falling wages for the bottom, about 40 percent, of Americans; stagnant wages for the next 40 percent of Americans; infinitesimal growth in income for the next 10 percent -- that brings us to the 90 percent percentile -- and this incredible concentration of incomes at the very top. When one-third of Americans belonged to unions, more than two-thirds of Americans benefited from that because there were employers who did not want to have unions, so they paid premium wages -- and by the way, tended to get the very best workers as a result, as classic economic theory says they should. Lots of low-level managers at companies, their wages were basically set by the unions. To the extent that we set up the rules to shrink unions, we drive down wages -- and America is the only nation in the modern world that is driving down wages.

They get a 15-cent-an-hour job in Malaysia making Nike tennis shoes -- that is a wage growth strategy for Malaysia. We are the only country in the world that is in the pursuit of lowering wages. And it's been a very successful program. So you combine all of those forces, and you can see why the data, the official government data, which were right there for anybody to report on, but nobody in Washington announced: Oh, the top 400 taxpayers -- it's actually about a thousand people when you count the spouses and children -- the top 1,000 people in America are earning more than 1 percent of the income, when 30 years earlier, it took more than 25,000 people to earn the top 1 percent of income in America. No one announced it, and, therefore, to most of the news media, it's not a story.
Who are the typical leaders in cities and towns across America? The minute you get away from Los Angeles and New York, and you go to Cincinnati, or Rochester, New York, or Anytown, America, what is the income level of the leaders of that community? $200,000 $300,000, $400,000, $500,000? There's a few people who make a million. There are one or two there who make $5 or $10 million. But for the core group, that's their income range, $200,000 to $500,000. They're being squeezed. And when your civic and local business leadership class is being squeezed it assumes the people above are being squeezed even more because that's what they see. But the people who make 10 or 100 times more are not being squeezed. And this false belief that the higher your income the bigger the share of it you pay in taxes is being exploited by people above them, so that the people at the very, very top who don't want to pay taxes can continue to benefit from tax relief. And the people down below haven't figured out that they don't have common cause with those people -- and are actually subsidizing those who make much more than they do.

People who make $200,000 are very well off. But they still go to work every day. They still have mortgages on their houses. They're not in the group of people who own a private jet, and have limousines, and own six houses. That's a totally different world. And innumeracy is a fundamental part of this problem. People don't grasp the difference between $200,000 and $200 million.


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#2 Jun 21 2004 at 1:15 PM Rating: Good
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the count is on for how long it takes smash or gbaji to get there hands on this post.
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#3 Jun 21 2004 at 1:40 PM Rating: Decent
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*laughs maniacally*


eh.. i imagine they're prolly ignoring it to **** me off.
'cause I'm that damn cool.


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#4 Jun 21 2004 at 4:21 PM Rating: Good
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Eh. It's mostly psuedo-economic babble, but I suppose I'll comment. The odd thing is that from the excerpt, I wasn't sure if he was bashing the Republicans or the Democrats. After reading further, it looks like he's slaming both equally (which I can respect).

Of course, it's a "rich not paying enough taxes" issue, so I suppose the Dems will claim it's somehow in their favor, even though presumably the state he talks about in that excerpt occured at least somewhat during Clinton's administration. Certainly, at least the Reps talk about taxes in relation to income where the Dems try to ignore talking about how much you are paying and focus on what you are getting instead. Which you prefer is really about which thing you prefer to ***** about...


I obviously haven't read the book, so I can't comment completely on it. I think the biggest issue is that while Johnson presumably has lots of stats about how the wealth is being focused, he may or may not adequately deal with *why* this is a problem. One of the excerpts implies that somehow that's not part of capitalism, but my understanding of the system doesn't preclude a concentration of wealth at all. Heck. The accumulation of wealth is the whole point of the system. Maybe not to the extreme that Johnson is talking about, but I think it's false to imply that it's *counter* to capitalism.


Again. He may cover this in the book, but here's another issue (just from reading the exerpts):

He mentions himself that someone making 10M a year *can't* spend it all (unless he's a gambling addict or something similar). What he doesn't mention (but hopefully does in the book), that he's really making a distinction between consumption spending and investment spending. He can't spend 10M on consumption because there's just so much you can actually consume in a year. As income's get higher, the percentage of that income that comes from investment and is put back into investment increases. I've mentioned this many times when talking economics on this board. Someone making 30k a year, probably spends almost all of his takehome pay on consumption. He buys stuff with his money. Someone who makes 300k, probably doesn't spend more then 50 or 60k on consumption for the year. The rest goes to investment (buying property, or mutual funds, or "investment goods").


What he's presumably talking about is that we tax profits from investment lower then income. So the guy making 10M a year, may only make 300k from his salary, and the rest is return on investments. His salary will be taxed quite high, but the bulk of his "income" is taxed very very low.


The real question though is whether that's a bad thing. You've got to remember that investment spending, while profitable for the investor, generally profits the investee even more. If you need 100k to start up a business, and you have *zero* money, taking out a loan is the only way to start that business. That loan ultimately comes from the funds of all those folks with 10M salaries who dump the bulk of it into the investment market (banks use the money they get when peole buy IRAs and such though them for loans after all). Assuming your business succeeds, you have gained something from *nothing*. Your return is huge. The guy who invested might make a few percent back on his investment. It's only huge in comparison because he may have several hundred Million dollars in investment money floating out in the economy at any one time.


It's really relative. For that guy to make his 10M income each year, he may have 200M in money that he's not spending for himself. That's money you and I have available for loans. That's money that's building next years new gizmos and gadgets. That's money that goes to build new homes even though there aren't yet buyers for them. Again. We (that's us mere mortals who don't have billions of dollars to toss around) benefit from that stuff by a huge amount. Our standard of living continually increases, even if our salries do not (relatively speaking). While raw costs on staples always go up (that's inflation after all), in many cases costs for luxuries go down. In the mid 80s, you could expect to pay 5k+ for a PC. Today you can buy one that's 10,000 times more powerful for 20% of the cost. That happened even though your salary in relation to the cost for a loaf of bread may not have increased at all.

How many features does a new car have today? Crumple zones, airbags, DVD players? Did your mom's car have all that? Yet a new car today costs *less* in relation to a loaf of bread then it did 30 years ago. And what about DVD? CDs? Cell phones? The internet? Medical advances? Pagers? All "new" things that came about via investment monies. Would we have them if we didn't have a tax structure that rewarded investment to that extent?


Look at it this way. Investment spending helps everyone. Not just the investor. But if we take our hypothetical guy making 10M a year, and we increase taxes on his investments so that he only makes 9M, will he decrease the amount he personall consumes? Nope. Not one penny. He'll just invest 1M dollars less next year. All we're really doing is reducing the pool of money that's being used to make all our lives better.


But hey! If you think that the government can come up with a better way to spend that 1M today, that makes it more valuable then what the investment future of that money would bring, then by all means, argue for increasing taxes on investments! But IMHU, all we are doing is eating a bigger piece of the pie today, while reducing the amount of ingredients we'll have available to make next years pie. Over time we hurt ourselves hugely doing this.


Are we really so self absorbed that we care that a small percentage of people have so much more then us? Who cares? If it benefits the whole over time, does it really matter?
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#5 Jun 21 2004 at 4:34 PM Rating: Decent
Quote:
Are we really so self absorbed that we care that a small percentage of people have so much more then us? Who cares? If it benefits the whole over time, does it really matter?


:o I'm seriously speechless.

Eb



Edited, Mon Jun 21 17:35:21 2004 by pickleprince
#6 Jun 21 2004 at 4:37 PM Rating: Good
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pickleprince wrote:
Quote:
Are we really so self absorbed that we care that a small percentage of people have so much more then us? Who cares? If it benefits the whole over time, does it really matter?


:o I'm seriously speechless.

Eb


Yeah. That'll be the day...
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#7 Jun 21 2004 at 4:44 PM Rating: Decent
Johnston says:

Quote:
And the people down below haven't figured out that they don't have common cause with those people -- and are actually subsidizing those who make much more than they do.


Gbaji says:

Quote:
Are we really so self absorbed that we care that a small percentage of people have so much more then us? Who cares? If it benefits the whole over time, does it really matter?



Are you really that deluded? Jesus, man. Look at yourself. You are bending over backwards to support the people who are keeping you down. It's ridiculous!

Eb

#8 Jun 21 2004 at 5:53 PM Rating: Decent
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Here's the Gbaji personality profile in a nutshell. Grew up lower middle class, got lucky and found a good job, and progressed to middle class.

Because of his upbringing, he's massively insecure with his current position in life, his education, etc. Because of this he will never admit to being wrong and will allways argue what he percives would be argued by the most sucessful people in the US.

It's not that it benefits him in any way, it's that in his mind he wants to equate himself with those people. So he'll argue for cutting taxes on the super rich, free markets, whatever it is he thinks they'd argue for.

He doesn't really understand how to be middle class, he percives himself as "better" than his perception of what middle class is, but he doesn't fit into upper class circles. So he poses. Like the thirteen year old punk kids talking about great the Sex Pistols are, but who can't name a song they played.

He's like a cartoon character of how a lower middle class kid thinks upper calss men behave.

His beliefs are slapped on like a fake tatoo. He doesn't really understand them, he just knows that he wants to believe them.
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#9 Jun 21 2004 at 6:26 PM Rating: Good
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Or it could be that I'm not so insecure as to be constantly worried that somewhere, someone is making more money then I am.

I earn what I earn. I had the same attitudes about wealth when I worked for slightly more then minimum wage back in my teens and early 20s as I do today. Silly me. I believe that we make our own lives and should get to reap the rewards of that work.

You seem to be of the opinion that *you* earn every penny that you make, but anyone earning more then you clearly doesn't deserve it. Bizzare psychosis IMO...
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#10 Jun 21 2004 at 11:18 PM Rating: Decent
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Ah, yes Trickle down economics. It worked for Reagan, it's working now so what's the point of all the hating?. Let's see another Economic solution that has been time tested and proven succesful. Socialism sure as hell didn't work.

BTW, it would be intersting to see actual responses to Gbaji's points rather then:

Quote:
:o I'm seriously speechless.


Quote:
Yeah. That'll be the day...


Quote:
Are you really that deluded? Jesus, man. Look at yourself. You are bending over backwards to support the people who are keeping you down. It's ridiculous!


Quote:
Here's the Gbaji personality profile in a nutshell.


I signed up and post on this forum for legitimate discussion of issues. Gbaji has made his argument, let's see a legitimate rebutal.

The only person I've ever seen make a cohesive argument against Gbaji has been smash. Let's see some other people throw in there two cents plz (and this DOES NOT include flames about stupid/warmongering republicans, let's see some legitimate discourse about the issue not the arguer)

Edited, Tue Jun 22 00:21:13 2004 by Lordimsorry
#11 Jun 22 2004 at 1:13 AM Rating: Decent
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Quote:
Eh. It's mostly psuedo-economic babble,

WHat Excactly is this term?.. the term itself seems to be waht you imply it to be.

Quote:
The odd thing is that from the excerpt, I wasn't sure if he was bashing the Republicans or the Democrats

Obviously, you only see things in black and white.

Quote:
he may or may not adequately deal with *why* this is a problem.

Prolly sompthin to do with the Trillions of dollars in deficit over the past few decades doesn't add up to the taxes that should have been being paid by these people with millions of dollars. It's basically a tax loophole for the rich. The results of this are seen in our growing deficit.

I'm obviously no expert.. but it seems like eventually the world is going have no governments, or countries, just corporations.
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#12 Jun 22 2004 at 2:55 AM Rating: Good
Quote:
Are you really that deluded? Jesus, man. Look at yourself. You are bending over backwards to support the people who are keeping you down. It's ridiculous!


But those people obviously worked much harder than Gbaji, and so they deserve to be where they are.

#13 Jun 22 2004 at 6:07 AM Rating: Decent
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So basically what this guy is saying is "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer".

That ain't exactly a news flash.
#14 Jun 22 2004 at 8:18 AM Rating: Decent
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Smiley: lol


never under-estimate denial and ignorance.
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#15 Jun 22 2004 at 9:22 AM Rating: Decent
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Quote:
Prolly sompthin to do with the Trillions of dollars in deficit over the past few decades doesn't add up to the taxes that should have been being paid by these people with millions of dollars. It's basically a tax loophole for the rich. The results of this are seen in our growing deficit.


Do we really want our government pulling in more money then it could spend? If it did, that would mean that taxes were needlessly high and our economy was being suffocated. I think thoose rich people need that money more then our government does.

Yes, the richies will only get richer. BUT, the poor will be getting jobs via the richies need grow there bussiness or invest in the growth of other bussiness in order for them to become richer.

So yes the rich will get richer, but the poor will get jobs and maybe better wages depending on the demand for workers.

Just a thought, feel free to throw my karma in the sh**er :)
#16 Jun 22 2004 at 9:41 AM Rating: Good
Quote:
So yes the rich will get richer, but the poor will get jobs and maybe better wages depending on the demand for workers.


Gbaji, first a sense of humor, now a sock puppet, I think you may be going through some sort of transition.
#17 Jun 22 2004 at 11:41 AM Rating: Decent
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Quote:
I think thoose rich people need that money more then our government does.


http://bushwatch.org/economy.htm


Smiley: banghead
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#18 Jun 22 2004 at 11:47 AM Rating: Decent
Quote:
BTW, it would be intersting to see actual responses to Gbaji's points rather then:

Yeah. That'll be the day...


I think Gbaji said that.

Idjut.

Can you not even remember what you yourself said?

I rest my frigging case.

NEXT!

Eb
#19 Jun 22 2004 at 4:13 PM Rating: Good
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Friar Reinman wrote:
Quote:
Are you really that deluded? Jesus, man. Look at yourself. You are bending over backwards to support the people who are keeping you down. It's ridiculous!


But those people obviously worked much harder than Gbaji, and so they deserve to be where they are.


It's not about how hard you work. It's about how much value what you do is to other people.

If I work all day long in the hot sun digging holes around your house, but you don't want holes dug and have no need for holes, should I get paid just as much as the guy who walks up to your air-conditioner and spends 5 minutes fixing the problem that's been causing it to not work for the past week?


It's not about how hard you work, or how long you work for. It's about how much other people value what you do. My work has a certain value. I'm paid based on that value. I'm comfortable with that. As time goes by and I become better at what I do, and expand my abilities and responsiblities, I will make more money. Not because I work longer hours, or harder, or anything else. I'll make more money because the result of my work is more valuable to the people I work for.

Why is this such a hard concept to grasp?


Oh. And for the record. I never have and never will employ a sockpuppet on this board.
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#20 Jun 22 2004 at 4:37 PM Rating: Decent
Quote:
Why is this such a hard concept to grasp?


Because it is utter pucky of horse.

In a vacuum, maybe.

In the world that everyone else lives in, things do not work like that at all.

Eb
#21 Jun 22 2004 at 4:49 PM Rating: Good
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pickleprince wrote:
Quote:
Why is this such a hard concept to grasp?


Because it is utter pucky of horse.

In a vacuum, maybe.

In the world that everyone else lives in, things do not work like that at all.


Boy are you deluded!

No wonder you think the whole world is unfair. I really hate to burst your bubble there Pickle, but that is the way the world works. The real world does anyway.


Ok. So if pay shouldn't be based on the value your work is to other people, then what should it be based on? I'm curious here. What "fair" system would you implement instead?
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#22 Jun 22 2004 at 5:08 PM Rating: Decent
Quote:
No wonder you think the whole world is unfair.


Never said that.

Quote:
Ok. So if pay shouldn't be based on the value your work is to other people, then what should it be based on?


Can you read? I didn't say it shouldn't. I said that people with money manipulate the "value" to make themselves more money.

Quote:
I'm curious here. What "fair" system would you implement instead?


There will be no good system until there is one that rewards self-interest AND promotes community. Human being as we stand are not ready (nor capable) for this.

The closest thing that I have seen to a good model is the one laid out by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract.

But as I said before, we as a species are not ready for this.

Eb
#23 Jun 22 2004 at 5:39 PM Rating: Good
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pickleprince wrote:

Quote:
Ok. So if pay shouldn't be based on the value your work is to other people, then what should it be based on?


Can you read? I didn't say it shouldn't. I said that people with money manipulate the "value" to make themselves more money.


Um... Actually, you said that in the other thread. In this thread, I said something like: "pay should be based on the value your work it to other people", and asked: "Why is that an hard concept to grasp?", and you responded with "Because it's horse pucky". Excuse me if I assumed that you were saying that the concept that people should get paid based on the value of their work to others was BS... (or HS as the case may be!). I can read. And that's what you said.

But whatever...



Quote:
Quote:
I'm curious here. What "fair" system would you implement instead?


There will be no good system until there is one that rewards self-interest AND promotes community. Human being as we stand are not ready (nor capable) for this.

The closest thing that I have seen to a good model is the one laid out by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract.

But as I said before, we as a species are not ready for this.

Eb


Ok. I actually agree with you 100% here. We as a species aren't ready for that kind of system, and don't look to be ready any time soon.

The closest we can come IMO, is a "moderated capitalism". That's where we allow the free market to control the values of things, and use the government only to address diret market failures and anti-trust issues. Um... That's what I'm arguing for. What you are saying? That we should use a system that you agree wont work?

Or are you saying we should use the power of the government to force the populace into doing something they would not do naturally? I understand your fear of "evil men" manipulating prices for their own ends. However, the market does have some natural forces that prevent that to some extent. The government has none. What possibly makes you think that the government isn't just as likely to manipulate the values of things to certain people's own benefit then the free market will?

heck. We formed a capitalistic system *because* of that sort of collaboration between government and wealth. Back when the laws were made by the nobility who also owned all the lands and controlled the industry people had zero power to do anything about it. And the whole system was built to maintain that power. You can argue that the free market does the same thing (the rich get richer), however that ignores the fact that people do have the ability to become wealthy. A few hundred years ago, unless you were born into the right family, you had *no* chance to advance. Why would you argue that we should go back to a government controlling industry? Did it work really well at some point in the past? If so, I'm not aware of it...
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#24 Jun 22 2004 at 6:18 PM Rating: Decent
Quote:
The closest we can come IMO, is a "moderated capitalism". That's where we allow the free market to control the values of things, and use the government only to address diret market failures and anti-trust issues. Um... That's what I'm arguing for. What you are saying? That we should use a system that you agree wont work?


This is why I don't usually argue this stuff. There is no solution. The moderated capitalism you propose and that we kind of have now isn't really working. I understand that you have faith that a free-market will regulate itself. But I feel it won't for several reasons that I've stated earlier. (The Corporate Power structure, corrupt government, the good-old-boy system)

What I am saying is that just because something is better than something else doesn't make it good nor acceptable. I just don't see things that black and white and it's obvious that you do.

Yeah, I don't like the way the present government and economy is going. Yes, I don't like people starving in one of the richest countries in the world. Yes, I know that corporate America is raping the middle (and Lower Upper) class. And this supposed free-market is part of it!

And, yes, I'm pissed about it. Do I have all the answers? Hell, no. Do I have a right to not like it. Hell, yes.

Eb
#25 Jun 22 2004 at 7:04 PM Rating: Good
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Ok. I can see most of what you say. I can even agree with it to a point. But who was it that said that Democracy wasn't the best system of government but it was better then every other system? Same applies here I think.


pickleprince wrote:

Yeah, I don't like the way the present government and economy is going. Yes, I don't like people starving in one of the richest countries in the world. Yes, I know that corporate America is raping the middle (and Lower Upper) class. And this supposed free-market is part of it!


This on the other hand is pure rhetoric and exaggeration. How many people starve in the US each year? How many of those would still starve even if you had free food being handed out on every street corner? Proably exactly the same. People don't starve because there isn't food to be had. People starve for a number of usually personal or psychological reasons.

Children starve because their parents mistreat/abuse them. Adults starve because they refuse to take a handout, even when they have nothing. I'm not sure how taxing our industries (which presumably would make "honest jobs" harder to get) in order to provide said handouts will help anything.
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#26 Jun 22 2004 at 7:11 PM Rating: Decent
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Quote:

Or it could be that I'm not so insecure as to be constantly worried that somewhere, someone is making more money then I am.


No it's that you're so insecure that you have to equate value with financial sucess. You've been more financially sucessfull than the median so it's important to you to attempt to demonstrate that this implies that you have above average skills. It doesn't.

Quote:

I earn what I earn. I had the same attitudes about wealth when I worked for slightly more then minimum wage back in my teens and early 20s as I do today. Silly me. I believe that we make our own lives and should get to reap the rewards of that work.


I understand why you make the argument. It's fundemental to your psyche. It's impossible for you to accept that you fell into a lucky situation and that that fact happens to be the largest contributing factor to your entire life. You wern't particually more talented than anyone else, you didn't work particularly harder than anyone else. You happened upon a once in a lifetime juxtaposition of circumstances.

Rather than accept that, of course, it's critical that you tie success to merit and work ethic.

Which is why you constantly do this bizarre "Denis Kozlowski dserves to have giant ice statues with vodka coming out of their penises at his wife's birthday party paid for with company money, he's earned it through hard work" ******** which everyone else sees as transparently false.

In point of fact, even the people you're fawning over as deserving of wealth mostly realize it's *********


Quote:

You seem to be of the opinion that *you* earn every penny that you make, but anyone earning more then you clearly doesn't deserve it. Bizzare psychosis IMO...


When did I ever say I was of the oppinion that the amount of money I make was proportinal to my value to society??

That's a completely ludicrous proposition, as is your theory that there's a free market working at the higer echelons of buisness.

I happen to come from a background that's closer to a meritocracy than most others. Anyone really can go far in the military if they have talent, but connections still help.

There was more than one occasion where a freind of my family got me out of trouble or put in a good word for me somewhere. The money I've made in the private sector still doesn't even seem real. It's simmilar for most government workers who can transition to the private sector. In the first year after I left, I made probably 5 times, maybe 6 times my DoD salary.

The largest chunk of my net worth comes from a short series of bizarrely lucky events that happened between 1993 and 1997. I bought my first house for about 90 grand in '93. It was a good price, I spent a lot of time looking for one, and I got a good deal. It came with about 17 acres of forest that couldn't be developed because of zoning laws. In '94 the town changed the zoning laws and suddenly I had $400,000 worth of property (not including the house). Random, arbitrary luck.

So I suddenly had $400,000 and change because I just happened to buy that particular house in that particular house in that particular part of town at that particular time.

I don't think that makes me smarter than the average bear. I think it makes me luckier.

So I took the $400,000 and put in a brokerage account and invested it. I had no idea what to do with it, aside from buying a bigger house, but it was before I had met my wife, and a single guy in the USAF really doesn't need a four bedroom house, particularly when he's going to be moving to Texas to work at Lackland AFB.

Anyway, back to the money. I had just read one of Peter Lynch's books "buy what you know" blah blah and some Buffet Books "find one stock you like and buy a ton of it" blah blah..anyway..short story long, I put $300,000 in Tbills (because it was safe) for the next house and bought $100,000 of Iomega stock because I thought Zip drives were pretty neat. I bought it at about $10 a share. I put in a stop loss at $8.50 figuring that worst case scenario I'd lose $25 grand or so, learn my lesson and diversify.
When the stock went to 20 I was estatic and put in a stop loss at 15, when it went to 50 I put int a stop loss at 45. It never dipped down enough to trigger any of them untill it went down from $100 + a share to $100 which triggered me selling all of it.

Again, dumbass **** lucky. Right place, right time.

What does that make me? Fortunate. I don't need to keep score with cash to measure my value to the world, I need college degrees to measure my value to the world :)
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