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An interesting double-entendre :)</p>
<p>bigeast,
what compassion you display. I think your wife, family, and community are fortunate to have you.</p>
<p>F. Scott Fitzgerald to Ernest Hemingway: “The rich are different from you and me.”</p>
<p>Ernest Hemingway to F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Yeah. They’re richer.”</p>
<p>I don’t think hard work always pays off. I think outcomes are often crap shoots and being at the right place at the right time. I think it can be soul numbing to work hard and not achieve a good outcome. It’s not always ennobling.</p>
<p>James Simons (CEO Renaissance Corp. – top hedge fund in the country) is a self-made billionaire. Was a chair of math dept. at SUNY Stony Brook. He is quoted as saying, “A hedge fund can’t make people happy. It can only make them rich.” He lost his two wonderful sons in tragic accidents. I have no doubt that he would change places with all who haven’t, no matter what their economic status.</p>
<p>We admire him in our neck of the woods. He built a beautiful park to memorialize one of his sons and donated half his net wealth to charity when approached by Melinda Gates.</p>
<p>the minimum to join the top 1% is about $169,000 which is feasible for most professionals with more than 10 years of experience </p>
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<p>I know a lot of professionals with 30 years of experience, very few of whom earn that much. </p>
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<p>I think the biggest part was paying unrealistic wages/benefits to unskilled workers. We got and continue to get blown out of the water by other countries. Witness Detroit. Now much of our skilled work force is being displaced in the global economy.</p>
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<p>I think “Detroit” is a huge part of what made our country grow as it did for many years. Decent pay for a large number of people allowed them to purchase all of the things that contributed to our country’s economic growth. This in turn led to more jobs. The new “Detroit” pay is half of what it was. The “job growth” is in industries that pay minimum wage or little more. Employers are cutting benefits. This is causing the real income of the middle class to shrink … and shrink. The effect of this new reality is not yet fully realized. I believe the hardest times are still ahead, as our country makes a shift from what it was to what it will be.</p>
<p>I am from the Detroit area. The jobs here do not pay $169,000+ for experienced professionals, for the most part. The jobs advertised recently have lower pay scales than they did before the downsizing (so while automakers are hiring white collar, educated workers, they are paying them less & providing fewer benefits). This is happening nation wide. Many, many people are going to have to learn to make do with less. This is simply the reality we are facing. I think we will see those at the top continue to get richer, and we will see those not-at-the-very-top continue to lose ground.</p>
<p>I do not advocate taking from the rich as a government mantra. I do believe that ethical, moral people should run their businesses so that they can benefit not only themselves, but those who work for them (in other words, it’s not just about the executives … share the wealth a bit with the folks who make it happen). But this should be what people do because it’s the right thing to do, and boards & shareholders will need to buy into it, as well. History shows us that “sharing the wealth” as a requirement doesn’t work too well.</p>
<p>While I am on my soapbox … I have yet to meet anyone who thinks they are rich. The folks I know who have a lot of money by my standards do not view themselves as rich. Almost everyone knows someone with more. Most seem to spend what they have, so they don’t think they have a lot. Just mosey over to the financial aid threads & you will see that at work daily (my parents make $250,000 and own lots of property but we are middle class and can’t afford college).</p>
<p>I am upper middle class, with a family income of less than most people on CC think is middle class. I don’t have everything I want, but I have most of what I need. I make paying for my kids’ education a priority, but they didn’t get to go to school wherever they wanted (they had to consider our finances). I wish I made more, but I don’t begrudge anyone else their salary … if I had the chance to earn it, I would take it.</p>
<p>Have always had difficulty with the concept of “rating” other people as “above” or “below” anyone else. It has always puzzled me. 1st heard about it from a law student decades back–then and now it struck me as a huge waste of time & energy. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses–things to contribute.</p>
<p>Wages do NOT necessarily reflect performance or hard work. I know folks who work extremely hard and over long periods of time but receive minimal compensation (read “Nickel & Dimed: Not Making it in America” & similar stories about folks trying to make it with low wage jobs across the US). There are many folks in our state government & industry with education, training and skills that have worked very hard for decades and are still getting their maximum of say $50K. That’s not POOR, nor for many RICH. </p>
<p>College and other education is one of the things that allows them these relatively better jobs (most have masters degrees), but many have hit their salary plateau. Don’t have answers, just know what is happening at least in our state.</p>
<p>Those I know who make more than that often work 60-80 hour weeks in sales, medical and legal fields and other areas; some wear multiple hats & have several jobs–one or more which is full-time. I don’t consider either group “better” than the other.</p>
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<p>If this is a serious question … I’ll write the straight line for Kluge’s entry into the thread … for the last 30 years we have changed the rules of the game consistantly in a way that favors wealth accumulating at the top of the food chain.</p>
<p>Tax changes, deregulation, and creation of programs such as 401ks and 529s, to name a few are all changes whose benefits have disproportionately favored the rich. Brilliant politics on programs like 401ks … available for everyone … but the only possible outcome is that the program ends up favoring the richest the most.</p>
<p>Deregulation of what? And honestly, no one is getting rich from their 401K.</p>
<p>In Detroit, the car makers didn’t just decide one day that they were tired of paying generous wages and benefits. In fact they waited way too long to comprehend the ramifications of other countries building better cars cheaper. </p>
<p>We can’t just shut the gates and act in a vacuum. We have no choice but to participate in a global economy. While we were sleeping, other countries were preparing to do many jobs held by Americans faster and cheaper and we weren’t figuring out what Americans were going to do instead. We still haven’t geared our education focus to address this which is why the pain of the middle class will increase.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, much wealth has been built by entrepreneurs and those that serve them. Most of these folks are honest and extremely hard working. They create jobs, pay high taxes and support charities at a level old money never did.</p>
<p>We need more of these entrepreneurs to create the next big thing to bring the middle class back to health. Resenting these people makes no sense. And we need to stop being protectionist. We keep educating brilliant internationals and then make them go back home. Imagine sending most of the foreign engineers from Caltech, MIT, Berkelwy and Stanford home each year when they’d love to stay to invent things? What are we thinking??</p>
<p>We can’t just pay big wages in a vacuum as we once did and be globally competitive. We have to create a skilled work force that can perform better than others to warrant high pay. And people need to be mobile. Sure it’s hard to make $160k in Detroit. But it isn’t in NY, SF, Boston or Chicago.</p>
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<p>But isn’t the cost of living far lower in Detroit than those cities? Seems like I saw a real estate show recently which compared what you can buy in various cities for X dollars, and I was amazed at the size of the homes that could be bought in Detroit which only would buy a tiny apartment in Manhattan or Chicago.</p>
<p>I don’t see how we can compete when we don’t make things anymore.</p>
<p>We have no manufacturing, and that was the true life-blood of our economy. Being from PA, I can rattle off city fater city, town after town that has had their economy destroyed by manufacturers and other large industry close their doors and ship jobs overseas.</p>
<p>The American cost of business is to high. Look around at our current environment, would you want to open a major business here? I sure wouldn’t…not if I had that sort of capital to invest. </p>
<p>The middle class (we need to define middle class for argument sake, people have a varying opinion of what it is) won’t thrive until job creators decide to use their capital here in the US, which won’t happen, not with these unfriendly business conditions.</p>
<p>We bit the hand that fed us, then blame them for our problems. </p>
<p>I guess I echo the previous poster who said, “Degregulation of what?” Industry is more regulated now more than ever. You can argue whether or not it serves the greater good, but you can’t deny that is also hurts expansion and creation.</p>
<p>I don’t know how many people in Detroit are making $160,000, but you don’t need to make $160,000 in Detriot to be middle class or even wealthy.</p>
<p>In rust belt cities, $50,000 will give you a pretty good life, especially if you have a dual income…I know I’m from the rust belt.</p>
<p>There are alot of workers in Detroit pulling in 75K to pull a lever or push a button all day. They might deserve it, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know you could find someone to do the same job, just as well for $30,000.</p>
<p>Suprisingly, small business income tax in America is much higher than BC, Canada. In BC the federal tax rate is 11% and the provincial tax rate is 2.5% (0% by 2012). This applies for all income up to $500,000.</p>
<p>[TaxTips.ca</a> - Business - 2010 Corporate income tax rates](<a href=“http://www.taxtips.ca/smallbusiness/corporatetax/corptaxrates2010.htm]TaxTips.ca”>TaxTips.ca - Business - 2010 Corporate Income Tax Rates)</p>
<p>Apparently, the average tax rate for US small business is 19.8%. The lowest is about 13.3% for sole proprietors (which is still higher than BC’s 2012 rate). </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs343tot.pdf[/url]”>http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs343tot.pdf</a></p>
<p>Canada seems to be a better place to set up a business. Interesting.</p>
<p>Keeping to the topic posted by the OP. The income inequality is horrible. A few decades ago the gap between CEO’s and their workers was not the enormous one it is today. THAT is the income inequality, not being rich or not. Corporations are more interested in the shareholders and getting rich themselves than sustaining the middle class that yields the demand for products and services.</p>
<p>How hard one works has nothing to do with income. Nor does the value to society. One could argue that a person who puts in 60+ hours diligently doing their job, whether it be as a maintenance man, office worker, nurse or physician deserves more money. But what about the business CEO who gets stock options and other perks because the company is making profits (and sometimes not)? But unfortunately that money is coming from the money that would otherwise go to the other employees. A million (and more) dollars given to one person would make a lot more people just a bit more able to make ends meet and be able to purchase products.</p>
<p>Regarding the issues of happiness- I have seen the figure of $75,000 per year as enough to be well enough off to take money out of the happiness equation. It IS easier to be happy when you know the rent/mortgage can be paid, the kids are fed et al plus there is money for some luxuries. A 3,000 ring can be as nice as a $30,000 one- and I personally can’t tell the big difference between an ordinary and a megathousands of $ watch.</p>
<p>A disturbing trend in college today has been the huge increase in business majors and students going to college to be able to get rich. Can anyone justify the HUGE salaries/bonuses given to CEO’s? Can’t a business be run just as well without giving the worker’s income to one (or a few) employees? That is the income gap crises. It can be hard to really tell if wages are keeping up with the cost of living as so many demand a much higher standard of living than in my childhood (electronics, dishwashers, air conditioning, cars…). It is the difference in boss and employee incomes that is disturbing. Over the years the CEO’s have not added any more relative value to companies but are taking a far greater share of the money.</p>
<p>Could go on forever, but… btw- I worked hard, did my time to be a physician. Don’t see where the mega business world incomes are deserved for work done in comparison. Another field- pro sports. Decades ago the star players got far less for doing the same job. There’s something wrong with our society when it is so money driven. Lack of business ethics. Note- I am not referring to all of the small, local business owners or most of you in business (I doubt the mega CEO’s bother with CC).</p>
<p>Addenda. I have always found it hard to have to earn my money twice- first from doing my job, then from needing to invest it.</p>
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<p>Sigh, this is so discouraging to read. I hope this is just your age talking and you will mature out of it with more experience. The reason I say this is because it is an impossible standard that is sure to make you miserable for most of your life. Why? Because for all of us, there is always someone better than us. So even if you were truly ‘top’ of some attribute, invariable, you won’t be on some other attribute. Moreover, you really can not know someone’s life path. The person you envy to be like may have secrets you would not wish upon your worst enemy; moreover the person ‘beating’ you today could be the same person struggling with cancer 10 years from now, dying young, or a host of other tragedies. Sure, watch, learn and get motivated by others you admire, but please don’t judge your self worth by others’ yardsticks! There is little to be gained from going down the rabbit hole of comparing yourself to others and feeling bad about it. </p>
<p>If this mindset is still plaguing you a few years from now, one of the greatest gifts you will give yourself is therapy. I don’t mean that in an insulting way, but I mean it as a way to ‘undo’ the messaging you’ve gotten programmed with so you can be truly happy without having to constantly compare yourself to others.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4, now there’s the rub. People think those making $160K are wealthy and should be taxed more. Yet they are concentrated in high cost of living places where they are not wealthy at all.</p>
<p>BIGeast, we’re likely to never have basic manufacturing in this country again. It makes zero sense and no one in their right mind will expend capital that way. Now where manufacturing might and should return is in the manufacture of highly sophisticated technology that takes unique expertise. But we have to have highly educated workers and our schools are not prepared to deliver them. When 4th graders in third world countries are way ahead of our kids in math, we know we’re not winning that race.</p>
<p>I don’t think you can argue anything serves the greater good if it hurts creation and expansion. The collective good will just wither away. We were once dominant in economic terms, other countries caught up. Roles have changed. We need to be the inventors to stay on top. Developing countries will be the implementers.</p>
<p>@Starbright
Well, I see other people getting into the top schools, getting awards, and getting all the things that I want but couldn’t get. If they aren’t better than me then why do they deserve those things? </p>
<p>Saying that “I go to Harvard” is just different from saying that “I go to [decent public school]”. I can tell myself that I’m just as good as the Harvard kid, but that’s lying to myself. </p>
<p>Or, if I am just as good as the Harvard kid then society sucks.</p>
<p>Actually, you may be better than many Harvard kids- mine is. Look at the number of Harvard grads going on to grad school- not all of them do. Many of their professors went to many other, less prestigious schools and they’re using textbooks written by those at other schools (check the bookstore). But this is off topic. The original post was about income disparity, not income itself.</p>
<p>^
The same argument can be applied to income disparity. If I’m better than the person making $1M then why am I not making $1M?</p>
<p>Either I’m not better or society sucks.</p>
<p>You personally may not be- but there are plenty of students out there who ARE better than most of those at Harvard. Not every top student can go there- they don’t have room and the process doesn’t just take the best students, nor do all of the best students apply there.</p>
<p>Never discount the number of students who attend their public flagship school who have the academic credentials of Harvard admits. Geography plays a role as well as finances. It is where you go to grad school that counts. No one institution has the best in every field. And- plenty of Harvard grads have only a bachelors. Or, only a law/medicine degree without advancing in their field.</p>
<p>Also- Harvard and the Ivies mean a lot more to those geographically close- which happens to be a huge number of Americans.</p>
<p>Again- back to the issue at hand. This discussion was started about income disparity, not overall income. Look back at the first post. Nothing to do with your personal wealth, but about the huge differences in top management incomes and those of the rest of the employees. This is a change from just a few decades ago. There will always be rich and poor, but there has not been the gap between the bosses and their employees as currently exists. Address the issue posted.</p>
<p>What does better than even mean.</p>
<p>Well, according to this in the NYT, Americans have been capitalists from the start:</p>
<p><a href=“Thanksgiving and the Tea Party - The New York Times”>Thanksgiving and the Tea Party - The New York Times;
<p>So I’m curious what everyone thinks about how education and income should correlate.</p>
<p>One of the major reasons Detroit died such an overwhelming death is because a generation saw their unskilled parents make very good livings and decided not to seek education past high school to follow in their parents’ footsteps. So when the US car industry fell the area was filled with young people not prepared to do much. And they have little mobility as most with limited education do.</p>
<p>This is the shame of American society. This is where our education system is failing us. Is it up to corporations to make everyone whole? If yes, how?</p>
<p>I think the biggest part was paying unrealistic wages/benefits to unskilled workers. We got and continue to get blown out of the water by other countries. Witness Detroit. Now much of our skilled work force is being displaced in the global economy.</p>
<p>Very true…and those jobs can get replaced with machines. People get upset when jobs get shifted overseas, but a far greater number of jobs disappeared over the last several decades simply because they were replaced with machines that could do the job more quickly, with less errors, for less money. </p>
<p>However, some people do resist getting retrained in some other line of work. When my SIL’s husband’s steel worker job was disappearing (and he had 9 years warning that his job would end because of the way seniority and layoffs work), he did NOTHING to find/retrain in another line of work. </p>
<p>So, when he was about 46 years old, his job was gone. So, for the past 7 years, he’s acted like the biggest victim because he hasn’t been able to get any kind of real full-time employment. But in reality, he had many years to figure out something else to do - get retrained, go to night school, whatever. </p>
<p>When you add the 8 years of job-loss-warning to the 7 years that he’s been under-employed, that’s 15 years where he’s done NOTHING to get retrained for a real “bread-winner” type of job. </p>
<p>When he was working, he preferred to live in denial. Perhaps knowing that my SIL (a part-time RN at the time) could begin working full-time was part of the reason that he dragged his feet. So, no, they’re not living at the poverty line because with my SIL’s salary as a full time RN and his little bits of earnings working here and there, they still have a decent income. </p>
<p>Anyone who has the kind of job that could be replaced by a machine or an overseas worker needs to keep one eye on some other possible line of work. </p>
<p>My earlier post…</p>
<p>*I would say part of the reason for the shrinking middle class is the growth of unwed mothers. Two parent households are far less likely to be in poverty. Two parent households are far more likely to be middle-class or above. *</p>
<p>My SIL is case in point. If her H were a “single parent,” he’d be up a creek. The fact that the other spouse can keep their heads above water keeps them off welfare.</p>