Michael, I was illustrating how how much a billion dollars is by showing how much of it would need to be spent every day for a lifetime to spend all of it. You purposely misinterpret my illustration to restate the agenda of the rich. Of course I realize that those folks invest their money, some of it.
I am highly suspicious of your top-down notion of wealth distribution. Money flows from the bottom to the top but too often it stays there. 'Trickle down' is a failed notion because it relies on good will. Unfettered capitalism does not favor good will. It would be nice if a billionaire invested in creating jobs that are meaningful but in most cases they create the jobs paying the Denny's standard where the wage is insulting and the buyer is expected to make up the 'decent wage' gap through tips or excessive middle-class taxation. That doesn't sound like honorable business to me. Full disclosure: My father was CEO of a big publishing company. My grandfather owned a large furniture factory. They never exploited employees and paid them properly. They were typical. They were capitalists in a more progressive episode in America . (Roughly the century from 1870 to 1970). Their views would likely crush them in today's economic market. In the fifties a CEO made roughly 40-50 times the wage of an employee and paid more than 70-80% in income taxes. Today the CEO is making 450+ times the worker wage and pays a top of 30% in taxes but loopholes reduce that to 15%. What happened? And this juggernaut of the rich against everyone else will lead to economic and social disaster....as it always, always, has. Always. The billionaires won't worry. They'll be sailing off in the 250 million dollar yachts, or 50 million dollar jets, to 100 million dollar condos in Dubai. Hyperbolic truth. WC ----- Original Message ---- From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, August 24, 2012 8:42:22 AM Subject: Re: Subjective - Objective On Aug 24, 2012, at 9:31 AM, William Conger <[email protected]> wrote: > No, I mean it Saul. I've said before that you'd need to spend about 37,000 > every day, 7 days a week, for 75 years to deplete a non-interest pile of one > billion dollars. Come on, now. These billionaires don't keep their billions in a back room with a big bad padlock on it, and nobody else can get to it. They aren't Old King Cole or Midas. Their money is invested somewhere, either directly in companies or in financial institutions or instruments that are used to fund companies, which hire people, buy supplies, build buildings, etc. The only difference between a billionaire and a middle-class or poor person is that the billionaire can do anything or buy anything he wants, whereas the middle-class person has to make decisions about what to buy, what quality, or where to go, and the poor person doesn't even have that choice. Your complaint about the vast difference in wealth come down, as I see it, to the differences in available options. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
