<p>No one makes it to the 1% on hard work alone without striving. Working hard at cutting stone or at a dead-end job won’t make you wealthy. You must make sacrifices, take risks, make hard choices and improve your skills and knowledge along the way.</p>
<p>If you spend your entire career working hard at a government job, I thank you. But please don’t be surprised or complain that you won’t ever have what the 1% do, because you knew that would be your future when you decided to stay on for 20 years.</p>
<p>"Here’s their business model: “We place highly leveraged bets, sometimes as much as 35 or 40 to 1. In return, the government implicitly agrees to bail out our banks, and if we’re fired, we’ve negotiated sweetheart deals with golden parachutes. If we bet right, then our banks keep the windfall profits and we get big bonuses. If we bet wrong, not to worry — the taxpayers will bail out our banks and the government will pay for the cost of the bailouts by cutting Social Security and Medicare. Suckers!”</p>
<p>“What is rigged can be derigged; that is the lesson of the derigging of the institutions that raised the incomes of the American middle and working classes, between the Great Depression and the 1980s. Too Big Too Fail can be eliminated, either by allowing giant, interconnected financial institutions to fail, or, more realistically, by turning them into tightly regulated public utilities that don’t make risky bets. CEO compensation practices can be reformed by law. Corporations are creations of the governments that charter them, and charters can contain any rules that lawmakers choose to put into them.”</p>
<p>Everyone makes choices. Personally, I would have an extremely tough time living with some of my nearest and dearest while others I can see peacefully co-existing and better quite nicely. I am grateful that even though we earn MUCH less than $300K/year, we don’t have to make choices about living in a hut alone vs. living in a larger, nicer places packed with people.</p>
<p>I am grateful that I have many attractive options. Early in our marriage, we did offer to remodel our in-law’s home to make it a two family dwelling and live with them. Fortunately, we all decided against it and have no regrets.</p>
<p>If people had to have $300K to live well, most of our society do not live well. We live very well with a fraction of the $300K.</p>
<p>Inside job is a really good film, though it could go more in depth, imho.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the OWS group, who coined the term “we are the 99%” would like more jobs and would like to have their exhorbitant student loan debt forgiven, much of the debt which has been run up as states stop funding public universities as more and more of their revenue is paid out in pensions and federally mandated expenditures.</p>
<p>It is an interesting thing to note the fact that the protestors do not mention medicare or social security in their list of wants. FWIW.</p>
<p>So, what do you guys think about the younger generation? what they need in order to be able to build wealth of their own and have families and property and send their kids to school?</p>
<p>^^^We have raised our children to be savers. At 19 and 23 they have worked hard at jobs while going to school. Both worked hard at school to earn scholarships so there would be no student loans. The 23 yr old got a job right after graduation and just bought her first house with no help from us. Hard work, persistence and determination pays off.</p>
<p>It helps when folks live in a lower cost area. Houses in our island range from about $500,000 and up, for 50+ year old homes, single wall construction, 3 bedroom 1-2 bath, 1-2 car carport in areas far from town. Even if you have a great job with a good salary, it’s hard to afford such a place – at 23 or even older. My niece & her H bought a house–both are attorneys and one has a 6 figure ed loan & now a car loan. Most of their peers haven’t been able to afford a house.</p>
<p>My kids are savers too, but I don’t see them easily able to handle a huge mortgage so they can buy a place in HI. One of my friends rented in HI & was able to buy a great, brand new home in gated community Las Vegas for only $800/month, including maintenance fees (in HI, many places have maintenance fees alone that exceeds that).</p>
<p>Don’t think the OWS folks can think far enough ahead to consider Medicare or SS or the programs that their folks will need so that they don’t have to ask the OWS people to help them have enough to live on & get medical care.</p>
<p>Salary has less to do with getting to the 1% than lifestyle. Government employees have no looming threat of a self-funded pension, freeing up $ for investment. Also, health insurance, life insurance-all subsidized. And the government rate at hotels!</p>
<p>I’m in the cafe because my teenager is asking lots of questions about the economy and I feel it’s important to offer all sides of the arguments. CCer’s have not disappointed, really some great posts and I will need to work to keep up with the links and articles. I wish we had more “solutions” proposed, but I guess identifying the problems is an important first step.</p>
<p>I think the article linked by the OP at the start of this thread is really fascinating. Have read it a couple times now. My takeaway is that that 1 percent encompasses a tremendous range of wealth levels. The lower half of the top 1 percent are mostly wage slaves and their presence in that percentage is tenuous. The upper 1 percent is a different animal all together.</p>
<p>That’s why, I think, it annoys me when Warren Buffet presumes to talk for me. I have nothing in common with Warren Buffet, really. He can speak for the top 1/2 percenters!</p>
<p>I think the real 1 percent is higher than the author states…</p>
<p>I think it is closer to 5 Million…</p>
<p>I didn’t want to mention this in case it is important to people that they are members of the 1% club… ;)</p>
<p>By the way…households have a net worth of 55 trillion or so…so shhh…this is a secret…we can afford SS…We can afford the federal govt debt… ;)</p>
<p>We hear a lot of bs because those that are most able to pay…I am talking the very wealthy…like things the way they are. (That is their right). It is a choice to be made to cut SS. Or to not fund education. Or to fight wars.</p>
<p>“Spectrum also notes the number of ultra-high-net-
worth households, defined as those with $5 million
or more in investable assets excluding the primary residence, showed a strong increase to 1.1 million
according to the survey. Again, stock market gains fuelled most of the increase. Households in the U.S. are
estimated to number around 115 million.”</p>
<p>“Wealthy Households Increase. As wealth increases the number of U.S. households classified as
millionaires, those households with assets in excess of $1 million excluding the primary residence,
increased by 600,000 in 2010 according to the Spectrem Group. About 8.4 million American households
had assets of $1 million or more at year end, a gain
of 8 percent (see chart courtesy Wall Street Journal)
The number of millionaire households is still below
the 2007 high but is making a nice recovery
primarily as a result of the surge in stock market
valuations. JP Morgan notes that each 100 point
gain in the S&P 500 index increases household
wealth by $1 trillion and the wealth effect
increases consumption by 1.5%.”</p>
<p>But you will notice that “taxing that 1 percent that doesn’t pay their fair share” always turns into taxing individuals earning > 200k and couples > 250K. Interesting, isn’t it? How the basic tax code stays the same, the complexity and loopholes remain, the investment income incentives remain and the “rich” come to mean the two married professionals living in high cost areas with a big mortgage, college ahead for kids with no FA, retirement with unlikely participation in SS or Medicare due to means testing.</p>
<p>Yes, it is an ugly situation that benefits very much some uber-wealthy people who are very big pontificators about raising taxes on the “rich”. </p>
<p>My pet theory is that this whole model is really about punishing the Bourgeoise. There is a very palpable disdain at the core of the tax system for the striver class, ie, those who pursued education and/or small businesses and achieved a “high” income but not accumulated real wealth.</p>
<p>-But you will notice that “taxing that 1 percent that doesn’t pay their fair share” always turns into taxing individuals earning > 200k and couples > 250K. Interesting, isn’t it? How the basic tax code stays the same, the complexity and loopholes remain, the investment income incentives remain and the “rich” come to mean the two married professionals living in high cost areas with a big mortgage, college ahead for kids with no FA, retirement with unlikely participation in SS or Medicare due to means testing.–</p>
<p>Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner…</p>
<p>Meanwhile the politicians keep on spending…</p>
<p>if you want everything in the first part of #195 (plus gay marriage), move to the Netherlands or Sweden. Granted you will pay 50-60% taxes, but that’s what you get. However, homes within a 45 minute drive of downtown Amsterdam will cost Eu1+ million and average household incomes are lower than in large US metro areas. The grass is not always greener…</p>
<p>I am okay with 50-60% taxes if basic necessities are covered. I am okay with extended family living to save on housing costs. I am okay with not owning a home if I don’t have to worry about health care or paying for my childrens’ education.</p>
<p>Commuting in Europe is so much easier than here. You really don’t have to drive to work. I actually made a very considered decision to raise our children here rather than Europe. Because I feel like this country is my home. My people have been here a really long time, though not as long as the people who were here before my people arrived. I don’t think I should have to leave for my children to have a decent quality of life. I hope I made the right decision a few decades back.</p>