paradox3
Peanuts Fan
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Oh, I know. I was just using it for comparison purposes with the salaries of teachers.
A bias against wealth?
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Ritafee
Is Being Human
Perhaps you could be more specific on which topics came up in Coveting and Where do we go from here that could not be addressed in those original threads - to your satisfaction. And perhaps you could advise us as to whether the conversation is open to everyone or just those that are willing to confirm that your bias is the right bias.
Ritafee
Is Being Human
Warren Buffet’s counsel to investors “be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy”
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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If you actually parse that out with some knowledge of markets, it's just a dramatic version of "buy low, sell high". If others are fearful, they are selling and that drives prices down and creates buying opportunities. I did it in 2008. Markets dropped as fearful people started selling, mutual fund values dropped in tune, we started buying. If other are greedy, buying up stuff and driving up prices, that likely means things are going to be overvalued and risk increases so you take a cautious position, holding or even selling (since the stocks/funds in question are likely high).
Graeme Decarie
Well-Known Member
very, very few with great wealth are paying ANY income tax. Zip. Nada.
It's hard to blame people for what they are. I was a little wretch. It wasn't my fault. I had to wear used clothes, oversized or undersized clothes, Clothes with rips. It's not really a rich kid's fault if he or she is raised in a world that has contempt for the poor, and seems them as an inferior species.
We need a political and economic system based on social needs - not on a farcical capitalism that bases itself on greed.
We all have to change.
It's hard to blame people for what they are. I was a little wretch. It wasn't my fault. I had to wear used clothes, oversized or undersized clothes, Clothes with rips. It's not really a rich kid's fault if he or she is raised in a world that has contempt for the poor, and seems them as an inferior species.
We need a political and economic system based on social needs - not on a farcical capitalism that bases itself on greed.
We all have to change.
Ritafee
Is Being Human
What I do not understand ... being that I have no knowledge of markets - is what are people actually buying and selling?
Ritafee
Is Being Human
The idea behind a Ponzi Scheme is that investors are offered high return and low risk and are therefore encouraged to invest. However, there is no actual investment going on with the funds, the return is simply provided by more investors joining the scheme. This can continue indefinitely and investors can receive their high returns, but as soon as the Ponzi scheme fails to attract enough new investors, the original investors will lose money.
For example, if a fund running a Ponzi Scheme offers investors a 10% return for an investment of $10,000 and there are 5 initial investors, the total invested is $50,000 and the fund needs to return $5,000 to those investors. In order to do this, the fund requires an additional investor and uses their money to pay off the original 5. However, it now needs to provide that 10% return to the newest investor and must therefore find another and this goes on and on until eventually no new investors can be found.
For example, if a fund running a Ponzi Scheme offers investors a 10% return for an investment of $10,000 and there are 5 initial investors, the total invested is $50,000 and the fund needs to return $5,000 to those investors. In order to do this, the fund requires an additional investor and uses their money to pay off the original 5. However, it now needs to provide that 10% return to the newest investor and must therefore find another and this goes on and on until eventually no new investors can be found.
Lastpointe
Well-Known Member
There is a huge difference between the mega wealthy andeveryday wealthy to me
Mega wealthy is a condition we really dont undstand. Peole who have billions or at least multiples of millions. They live a way different life and are very few
Wealthy people i would say bring home > $500,000 annually. Middle class bring home between $150,00 and $300,000. At least in toronto. And actually that is all i can really speak about
And what nevergetsfactored in is how. Doctor, also creating jobsfor1 1/2 nurses and a receptionist. And payingfor office space? $500,000 doesnt go far if it covers your rent, $5000 monthly, salaries of staff perhaps $200,000 annually for all
If we in canada institutaed , as kimmio suggestes a 90% tax , people would leave. I would. Businesses would leave. Doctors would leave. Why on earth would anyone work to not actually get any of the money
Mega wealthy is a condition we really dont undstand. Peole who have billions or at least multiples of millions. They live a way different life and are very few
Wealthy people i would say bring home > $500,000 annually. Middle class bring home between $150,00 and $300,000. At least in toronto. And actually that is all i can really speak about
And what nevergetsfactored in is how. Doctor, also creating jobsfor1 1/2 nurses and a receptionist. And payingfor office space? $500,000 doesnt go far if it covers your rent, $5000 monthly, salaries of staff perhaps $200,000 annually for all
If we in canada institutaed , as kimmio suggestes a 90% tax , people would leave. I would. Businesses would leave. Doctors would leave. Why on earth would anyone work to not actually get any of the money
Lastpointe
Well-Known Member
And really i meant to say
I know alot of very wealthy people because of hubby working 35 years in the finance industry. And they are all generous corporate citizens. Board members , big donors to charities, armed forces groups, youth groups, hospitals........ They get a bad rap o. Not sure why. Guess they dont tweet
I know alot of very wealthy people because of hubby working 35 years in the finance industry. And they are all generous corporate citizens. Board members , big donors to charities, armed forces groups, youth groups, hospitals........ They get a bad rap o. Not sure why. Guess they dont tweet
Graeme Decarie
Well-Known Member
Please. Most of the wealthy who give to charities do not give nearly so much as they would be if they were paying their taxes. They also just love the PR they get. Here in New Brunswick they even have philanthropist halls of fame.
Use common sense. The income gap between the very wealthy and the rest of us has been getting bigger for some thirty years. The wealthy are getting far wealthier. They are not breaking their necks to give to charities.
There are a few who pay taxes and who give. But, of the very wealthy, these are very, very few indeed. What you're going to see - and is already advanced in the U.S., is declining social services. Public education in the U.S., for example, has suffered terribly.
And the reason we need so many charities is because the wealthy use their political power to break social services, to pay the lowest salaries possible, to provide a few benefits as possible. The whole pattern of jobs has been changing with the lifetime job becoming a thing of the past. pensions going out the window.....
If you want to see what our wealthy are like, take a look at Canadian and American companies in South America and Africa where they pay salaries below a living wage, offer no benefits. destroy the environment, and murder ( yes, they do) anybody who criticizes them. You won't see this in our news media - but there are good news media in this world that do carry the story. I believe that it was in today's countercurrents (on the web) that there is a history of Canadian capitalists in this respect.
Our wealthy also have a long, long history of brutal treatment of employees. Check out a book by Terry Copp called The Anatomy of Poverty. In Toronto, a teen age worker operating a machine with no safety measures on it lost his arm. He was immediately fired, pay stopped, and he was sent home on his own. Even more in the U.S. is a history of killings, extremely dangerous working conditions. The latter are still found in American owned clothing factories in Asia (Joe Fresh springs to mind). in Canada and the U.S., women workers have burned to death in locked buildings.
Check out the Rockefeller family. When miners went on strike, the Rockefellers forced them out of their company homes to survive, somehow, through a winter. They sheltered in tents, under the eyes of troops and company guards. one day, the guards went on a rampage among the tents, killing men, women and children. The man who helped them cover it up (who would some day be PM of Canada) was Mackenzie King. Or get a Cape Breton miner to tell you about the 'good' ol' days in the mines.
The wealthy have been destructive, murderous and greedy all over the world. It still happens in most of the world - and it's a rising force in North America. And this goes way back. The Eaton's stores used the depression to reduce employee pay, increase hours, take away paid holiday, cancel pensions, employ women in the Schmata trade (clothing) to sew shirts by hand at 25 cents a shirt.
There is nothing exceptional in this. it's always been a standard practice of capitalism. The US killed a million and a half people in Iraq to protect profits for oil capitalists. It stirred up a rebellion in Syria for the same reason. the wealthy of the U.S. are furious that Trump wants to talk to Putin. Why? They want a war to destroy Russia as an economic competitor. Trump is a little bit saner. He wants a war with China to destroy it as an economic competitor.
Forget this drivel about "nice people who work hard and give to charity". There are some, but not many. in the 1930s, even multi-millionaire PM RB Bennett was appalled by the behaviour of the very wealthy. There's a book about it called, I think, The Wretched of Canada.
This has nothing to do with bias. It's all on the record. In 1900, when the wealthy British were rolling in money, the poor lived in some of the most wretched conditions in the world. Glasgow was notorious for the worst and most violent slum in Europe. It was called the Gorbals where the only water supply was on the street, and few people had toilets of any sort. (My grandmother grew up there.). For recent years, the British wealthy have been battering the public schools and the health services, and allowing homelessness to rise almost to Victorian levels.
The very wealthy are commonly driven by a sense of entitlement that amounts to a form of racism, by greed, and by contempt for those who aren't as wealthy as they are. And they are bringing us close to a crisis. The reason we have government budget overruns is because the very wealthy usually don't pay taxes. They have over half of the wealth in the whole country. But they don't pay taxes. Of course government run over budget.
When I was a child, I watched people die at home because they could not afford medical care. The wealthy are now putting on pressure to privatize medicare - and go back to those good old days.
The reality is that billionaires are your enemies. They know it. And if you don't, you are setting yourself up.
Use common sense. The income gap between the very wealthy and the rest of us has been getting bigger for some thirty years. The wealthy are getting far wealthier. They are not breaking their necks to give to charities.
There are a few who pay taxes and who give. But, of the very wealthy, these are very, very few indeed. What you're going to see - and is already advanced in the U.S., is declining social services. Public education in the U.S., for example, has suffered terribly.
And the reason we need so many charities is because the wealthy use their political power to break social services, to pay the lowest salaries possible, to provide a few benefits as possible. The whole pattern of jobs has been changing with the lifetime job becoming a thing of the past. pensions going out the window.....
If you want to see what our wealthy are like, take a look at Canadian and American companies in South America and Africa where they pay salaries below a living wage, offer no benefits. destroy the environment, and murder ( yes, they do) anybody who criticizes them. You won't see this in our news media - but there are good news media in this world that do carry the story. I believe that it was in today's countercurrents (on the web) that there is a history of Canadian capitalists in this respect.
Our wealthy also have a long, long history of brutal treatment of employees. Check out a book by Terry Copp called The Anatomy of Poverty. In Toronto, a teen age worker operating a machine with no safety measures on it lost his arm. He was immediately fired, pay stopped, and he was sent home on his own. Even more in the U.S. is a history of killings, extremely dangerous working conditions. The latter are still found in American owned clothing factories in Asia (Joe Fresh springs to mind). in Canada and the U.S., women workers have burned to death in locked buildings.
Check out the Rockefeller family. When miners went on strike, the Rockefellers forced them out of their company homes to survive, somehow, through a winter. They sheltered in tents, under the eyes of troops and company guards. one day, the guards went on a rampage among the tents, killing men, women and children. The man who helped them cover it up (who would some day be PM of Canada) was Mackenzie King. Or get a Cape Breton miner to tell you about the 'good' ol' days in the mines.
The wealthy have been destructive, murderous and greedy all over the world. It still happens in most of the world - and it's a rising force in North America. And this goes way back. The Eaton's stores used the depression to reduce employee pay, increase hours, take away paid holiday, cancel pensions, employ women in the Schmata trade (clothing) to sew shirts by hand at 25 cents a shirt.
There is nothing exceptional in this. it's always been a standard practice of capitalism. The US killed a million and a half people in Iraq to protect profits for oil capitalists. It stirred up a rebellion in Syria for the same reason. the wealthy of the U.S. are furious that Trump wants to talk to Putin. Why? They want a war to destroy Russia as an economic competitor. Trump is a little bit saner. He wants a war with China to destroy it as an economic competitor.
Forget this drivel about "nice people who work hard and give to charity". There are some, but not many. in the 1930s, even multi-millionaire PM RB Bennett was appalled by the behaviour of the very wealthy. There's a book about it called, I think, The Wretched of Canada.
This has nothing to do with bias. It's all on the record. In 1900, when the wealthy British were rolling in money, the poor lived in some of the most wretched conditions in the world. Glasgow was notorious for the worst and most violent slum in Europe. It was called the Gorbals where the only water supply was on the street, and few people had toilets of any sort. (My grandmother grew up there.). For recent years, the British wealthy have been battering the public schools and the health services, and allowing homelessness to rise almost to Victorian levels.
The very wealthy are commonly driven by a sense of entitlement that amounts to a form of racism, by greed, and by contempt for those who aren't as wealthy as they are. And they are bringing us close to a crisis. The reason we have government budget overruns is because the very wealthy usually don't pay taxes. They have over half of the wealth in the whole country. But they don't pay taxes. Of course government run over budget.
When I was a child, I watched people die at home because they could not afford medical care. The wealthy are now putting on pressure to privatize medicare - and go back to those good old days.
The reality is that billionaires are your enemies. They know it. And if you don't, you are setting yourself up.
I was not suggesting a 90% hike happen today. I was pointing out that at one time, it did. And the wealthy accepted that as their social responsibility. And times were more prosperous for everyone. And that is why baby boomers had good opportunities to be as wealthy as they are, on the whole, now. Maybe a substantially higher rate on the top 1% and if it were the agreed upon trend across countries so that those people couldn't wiggle out of it by moving elsewhere. But that will not happen anytime soon.
I apologize if I offend anyone...but what I wonder is.., do those who are living quite comfortably in the middle and upper middle class think they are really suffering from this perceived bias? Because considering how the very poorest live, I'd say the bias they have to suffer, and the real daily hardship, is much greater...so the bias against the wealthy claim is irksome because it is disingenuous. It sounds to me more like "in this really difficult period we've entered, how can we justify our lifestyle and not change anything and not feel bad about it?"... That's what it sounds more like. And I guess that bothers me.
I apologize if I offend anyone...but what I wonder is.., do those who are living quite comfortably in the middle and upper middle class think they are really suffering from this perceived bias? Because considering how the very poorest live, I'd say the bias they have to suffer, and the real daily hardship, is much greater...so the bias against the wealthy claim is irksome because it is disingenuous. It sounds to me more like "in this really difficult period we've entered, how can we justify our lifestyle and not change anything and not feel bad about it?"... That's what it sounds more like. And I guess that bothers me.
Graeme Decarie
Well-Known Member
The very wealthy can't win? Well, I wish I could lose the way do.
Almost all the posts on this topic are written, it would seem, with very little knowledge of the conditions of life in this country over the years. There are books on the subject. I've mentioned only a couple.
Almost all the posts on this topic are written, it would seem, with very little knowledge of the conditions of life in this country over the years. There are books on the subject. I've mentioned only a couple.
Neo
Well-Known Member
Real wealth is formless. It's "what" we do with our wealth that matters.
Money is like manure, it rots when stagnate in a pile, but can make crops grow when it's spread out.
Graeme Decarie
Well-Known Member
Actually, it doesn't because, typically, it is not spread out. If it were, we'd all by much better off. But, in fact, an increasing percentage of it, and dangerously so, is staying the pockets of the very wealthy. It does not trickle down to us. in general, great wealth creates great poverty. And it has almost always been that way. That's why the Britain of A Christmas Carol was such an awful place for most people to live. that's why the clothing industry is such a vile one to work in. That's why much of south America lives in poverty and insecurity - and the fear of company thugs. That's why the U.S. army invaded Haiti in order to depose an elected government that wanted to improve conditions. That's why the U.S. organized the slaughter of some 300,000 Guatemalans (1920s and 80s) in the mass murder that never made our news media.
Pinga
Room for All
@Graeme Decarie -- you keep bringing up the "very wealthy".
I, and @Lastpointe have been referring to the middle to upper class, which is what i was asking about.
Now, the reason I say they can't win, even the very wealthy, is if they give away all or most of their wealth anonymously, truly anonymously, then you have no knowledge of what they have given. If they say "ok, I will tell people what I give" , then there are those on this thread who will say they are bragging.
Here is one example of a family that has given away a lot of money. Tell me your thoughts regarding the Juravinski's. http://www.jcc.hhsc.ca/body.cfm?id=257
Are they good or bad people? Have they had an impact on society in a good way? What are your thoughts (bias) regarding the remaining wealth and how they will use it.
I, and @Lastpointe have been referring to the middle to upper class, which is what i was asking about.
Now, the reason I say they can't win, even the very wealthy, is if they give away all or most of their wealth anonymously, truly anonymously, then you have no knowledge of what they have given. If they say "ok, I will tell people what I give" , then there are those on this thread who will say they are bragging.
Here is one example of a family that has given away a lot of money. Tell me your thoughts regarding the Juravinski's. http://www.jcc.hhsc.ca/body.cfm?id=257
Are they good or bad people? Have they had an impact on society in a good way? What are your thoughts (bias) regarding the remaining wealth and how they will use it.