Thread: The Super-Rich Get Richer - DISCUSS

You can do one of two (realistic) things:

1. Bitch about others having more than you.
2. Make more.

I'll take option number two, thank you.

Originally Posted by DOMS

You can do one of two (realistic) things:

1. Bitch about others having more than you.
2. Make more.

I'll take option number two, thank you.

3. Marry a Rich person
4. Get in the NBA/NFL/ECT
5. Make friends with the top Politicians and then sit back and get some fat Gov. contracts.

Originally Posted by ForemanRules

3. Marry a Rich person
4. Get in the NBA/NFL/ECT
5. Make friends with the top Politicians and then sit back and get some fat Gov. contracts.

that won't make you wealthy. they guy who writes Shaq's check is wealthy....not shaq.

If you want to make that tax bracket you need to be either born with these contacts or be an innovative entrepreneur....You have a better chance of making the NBA or NFL that joining this group.

let it go.

I wonder what these people do with all this money. I'd give half it away. True Story.

Originally Posted by DOMS

You can do one of two (realistic) things:

1. Bitch about others having more than you.
2. Make more.

I'll take option number two, thank you.

3. Be a slave.

Originally Posted by BigDyl

3. Be a slave.

So, all those black slaves back-in-the-day were making a lot of money? Then what are they bitching about?

If you think about it we are headed for a Stone-Age, silicon is just a hightech stone, we use it in all of the electronics and even in our emerging solar electric power, we are headed for the stone ages!!!!1

True Story, I knew you would relate Solar Power to this somehow.

lol

I think the super rich should have to pay a 10% flat tax. They can then use their finance staff to hide everything they have that hasn't been taxed already.

If I had Bill Gate's money I would buy out Hawaiian Electric Company, slowly buy solar thermal/electric systems for every building in Oahu and taper off the Utility as I went until every home was producing it's own energy, I would place large Mega-watt wind generators in the Wahiawa Plains to produce energy at night and current turbines in the ocean to power the hotels. I would have the oil burning plants on standby able to crank up and meet demands on windless nights or cloudy days, otherwise they would barely run........ then the next step would to offer to go halfsies on auto purchases of hybrid or electric cars and pay full for people who live 1-5 miles from home for a Segway HT......I'd do awesome things like that cause if I could prove one state could go completely renewable then others would follow....



Of course I would have stock in all of the companies and make even more obscene amounts of money after that caught on....I'm such an evil genius! Muah hahahahaha.

Originally Posted by Robert DiMaggio

It's not news that Bill Gates is the richest person in America, according to Forbes magazine's annual list of the nation's 400 richest people, released Thursday. He has been for 13 years. Barring a second Stone Age in which computers are good only for hurling at other cavemen, Gates will always be rich.


The news is: On this list, $999 million is chump change.


For the first time, all 400 Gotbucks on the Forbes tally are billionaires, from Gates (worth $53 billion) down to the bottom, Los Angeles semiconductor magnate Sehat Sutardja ($1 billion).

It's not just the accumulated wealth that draws attention to the list; it's the eye-popping numbers that show the speed with which wealth is gained - and lost - at the dawn of this millennium. For instance, according to Forbes:


-- Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson (No. 3, $20.5 billion) has made $1 million per hour over the past two years.


-- Google Inc. founders Sergey Brin (No. 12, $14.1 billion) and Larry Page (No. 13, $14 billion) have each made $13 million per day over the past two years.


-- Martha Stewart dropped off the list after losing nearly $400 million over the past year.
Forbes has been publishing the much-ballyhooed list - which relies on research and estimates and rounds net worth to the nearest $100 million - since 1982. The inaugural list contained only 13 billionaires. Even after the technology crash at the beginning of the century, a three-year war and a jumpy economy, the wealth accumulation among the richest Americans continues unabated and has risen to historic proportions, even if measured by an arbitrarily arrived-at number (400, the number of swells who could fit into the Victorian New York ballroom of Caroline Astor).


"It is a really big deal that it's all billionaires," said Forbes associate editor Matthew Miller, who edited the list and led the team that spent a year compiling it. "It shows economic growth and, as this magazine is a fan of capitalism, it shows progress."


The list of Washington, D.C., billionaires is topped by Danaher Corp. founder Mitchell P. Rales (No. 107, $2.6 billion), followed by his brother, Steven M. Rales (No. 117, $2.5 billion), new Washington Nationals owner and real estate mogul Theodore N. Lerner (No. 242, $1.5 billion), and Black Entertainment Television founder Robert L. Johnson (No. 374, $1 billion). McLean candy czar Forrest E. Mars Jr. is Virginia's top billionaire (No. 21, $10.5 billion), while Richard E. Marriott is Maryland's wealthiest man (No. 197, $1.8 billion).


The enormous sums spur the natural question: Is it good, bad or neither that wealth is accumulating so fast that numbers begin to lose their meaning? (Requisite illustration: A stack of 1 billion $1 bills would reach a height of 80 miles.)


On the one hand, the fortunes have spawned a new age of philanthropy, by which private individuals can try to effect change with the power and reach of a government but without the bureaucratic shackles that often thwart aid efforts.


Bill and Melinda Gates, for instance, created a foundation with assets of $30 billion that focuses much of its effort on improving health for the world's poor. Warren E. Buffett (No. 2, $46 billion), a director of the Washington Post Co. along with Melinda Gates, said in June that he would give away much of his fortune to charity, most of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The gestures recall the large-scale largesse of 19th-century capitalists named Vanderbilt and Rockefeller.


Yet not everyone finds the billionaire boom beneficial.


"I think it's very bad," said Dean Baker, a macroeconomist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "If the U.S. had experienced really extraordinary growth, then maybe that would be the reason" for all the billionaires. Baker pointed out that U.S. economic growth in the past 25 years - the period that hatched this crop of billionaires - is actually slower than in the preceding quarter-century, which produced only 13 billionaires.


"If these people pull away so much wealth," he said, "that means everyone else has less."
The growth in the number of billionaires has been significantly aided by cuts in U.S. tax rates that allow the wealthy to keep more of their money, said Harvard University economics professor Larry Katz. Today's marginal tax rate for the richest Americans is 35 percent, down from more than 60 percent 25 years ago.


"We could do a lot more with the tax system and with policies ... to help out those who are less fortunate," said Katz. On the other hand, "not every dollar that goes to a rich person is taken away from someone else."


Katz is of mixed mind about the billionaire boom.


"At one level, it leads to the possibility of great philanthropy," he said. "On the other level, it is a great concentration of wealth and power that can subvert other people's interests."
One-third of the Forbes 400 is concentrated in two places: California, which has 89 billionaires, and New York City, with 44.


The billionaire-free states are West Virginia, Vermont, Alaska, Maine, Delaware, Mississippi, Iowa, New Mexico, Kentucky and North Dakota. (South Dakota has one.) Even Wyoming, the least populous state, has a billionaire - Christy Walton (No. 7, $15.6 billion), one of eight Wal-Mart family members on the list, four of whom are in the top 10.

http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=8558

You Robert could also make it to the top of that list if you raise the infraction rule from 10 to 50....

Originally Posted by Robert DiMaggio

It's not news that Bill Gates is the richest person in America, according to Forbes magazine's annual list of the nation's 400 richest people, released Thursday. He has been for 13 years. Barring a second Stone Age in which computers are good only for hurling at other cavemen, Gates will always be rich.


The news is: On this list, $999 million is chump change.


For the first time, all 400 Gotbucks on the Forbes tally are billionaires, from Gates (worth $53 billion) down to the bottom, Los Angeles semiconductor magnate Sehat Sutardja ($1 billion).

It's not just the accumulated wealth that draws attention to the list; it's the eye-popping numbers that show the speed with which wealth is gained - and lost - at the dawn of this millennium. For instance, according to Forbes:


-- Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson (No. 3, $20.5 billion) has made $1 million per hour over the past two years.


-- Google Inc. founders Sergey Brin (No. 12, $14.1 billion) and Larry Page (No. 13, $14 billion) have each made $13 million per day over the past two years.


-- Martha Stewart dropped off the list after losing nearly $400 million over the past year.
Forbes has been publishing the much-ballyhooed list - which relies on research and estimates and rounds net worth to the nearest $100 million - since 1982. The inaugural list contained only 13 billionaires. Even after the technology crash at the beginning of the century, a three-year war and a jumpy economy, the wealth accumulation among the richest Americans continues unabated and has risen to historic proportions, even if measured by an arbitrarily arrived-at number (400, the number of swells who could fit into the Victorian New York ballroom of Caroline Astor).


"It is a really big deal that it's all billionaires," said Forbes associate editor Matthew Miller, who edited the list and led the team that spent a year compiling it. "It shows economic growth and, as this magazine is a fan of capitalism, it shows progress."


The list of Washington, D.C., billionaires is topped by Danaher Corp. founder Mitchell P. Rales (No. 107, $2.6 billion), followed by his brother, Steven M. Rales (No. 117, $2.5 billion), new Washington Nationals owner and real estate mogul Theodore N. Lerner (No. 242, $1.5 billion), and Black Entertainment Television founder Robert L. Johnson (No. 374, $1 billion). McLean candy czar Forrest E. Mars Jr. is Virginia's top billionaire (No. 21, $10.5 billion), while Richard E. Marriott is Maryland's wealthiest man (No. 197, $1.8 billion).


The enormous sums spur the natural question: Is it good, bad or neither that wealth is accumulating so fast that numbers begin to lose their meaning? (Requisite illustration: A stack of 1 billion $1 bills would reach a height of 80 miles.)


On the one hand, the fortunes have spawned a new age of philanthropy, by which private individuals can try to effect change with the power and reach of a government but without the bureaucratic shackles that often thwart aid efforts.


Bill and Melinda Gates, for instance, created a foundation with assets of $30 billion that focuses much of its effort on improving health for the world's poor. Warren E. Buffett (No. 2, $46 billion), a director of the Washington Post Co. along with Melinda Gates, said in June that he would give away much of his fortune to charity, most of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The gestures recall the large-scale largesse of 19th-century capitalists named Vanderbilt and Rockefeller.


Yet not everyone finds the billionaire boom beneficial.


"I think it's very bad," said Dean Baker, a macroeconomist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "If the U.S. had experienced really extraordinary growth, then maybe that would be the reason" for all the billionaires. Baker pointed out that U.S. economic growth in the past 25 years - the period that hatched this crop of billionaires - is actually slower than in the preceding quarter-century, which produced only 13 billionaires.


"If these people pull away so much wealth," he said, "that means everyone else has less."
The growth in the number of billionaires has been significantly aided by cuts in U.S. tax rates that allow the wealthy to keep more of their money, said Harvard University economics professor Larry Katz. Today's marginal tax rate for the richest Americans is 35 percent, down from more than 60 percent 25 years ago.


"We could do a lot more with the tax system and with policies ... to help out those who are less fortunate," said Katz. On the other hand, "not every dollar that goes to a rich person is taken away from someone else."


Katz is of mixed mind about the billionaire boom.


"At one level, it leads to the possibility of great philanthropy," he said. "On the other level, it is a great concentration of wealth and power that can subvert other people's interests."
One-third of the Forbes 400 is concentrated in two places: California, which has 89 billionaires, and New York City, with 44.


The billionaire-free states are West Virginia, Vermont, Alaska, Maine, Delaware, Mississippi, Iowa, New Mexico, Kentucky and North Dakota. (South Dakota has one.) Even Wyoming, the least populous state, has a billionaire - Christy Walton (No. 7, $15.6 billion), one of eight Wal-Mart family members on the list, four of whom are in the top 10.

http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=8558

Hi Robert,

The longer I live the more I see that 10-20% of the total population is living off the backs of the rest of us and certainly at our expense....

Take Care, John H.

Originally Posted by John H.

Hi Robert,

The longer I live the more I see that 10-20% of the total population is living off the backs of the rest of us and certainly at our expense....

Take Care, John H.

So, because these people were smart enough to develop something that everyone else has no problem with spending their own money on, they should be penalized by having to give back more to the gov't?

If you have a problem with Warren Buffett, stop buying his albums...J/K, but seriously, if you don't want him to have a shitload, don't buy Coke, if you don't want Bill Gates to have money, don't use Windows. You hate Paris Hilton, don't stay at a Hilton. I love how people blog about how it is wrong that Bill Gates has so much money, chances are, they purchased his product and are using it to bitch about his wealth.

When an athlete does well in sports, the NFL or NBA doesn't punish him by taking money out of his pocket.

Originally Posted by Dale Mabry

So, because these people were smart enough to develop something that everyone else has no problem with spending their own money on, they should be penalized by having to give back more to the gov't?

If you have a problem with Warren Buffett, stop buying his albums...J/K, but seriously, if you don't want him to have a shitload, don't buy Coke, if you don't want Bill Gates to have money, don't use Windows. You hate Paris Hilton, don't stay at a Hilton. I love how people blog about how it is wrong that Bill Gates has so much money, chances are, they purchased his product and are using it to bitch about his wealth.

When an athlete does well in sports, the NFL or NBA doesn't punish him by taking money out of his pocket.

Now will come the tirade about how every rich person is evil in some way.

I wonder how many people would advoce an increased tax on the middle class so that the government can give more to the poor?

As always, it really just comes down to the "haves", the "have nots", and the "so long as it's someone else."

Originally Posted by John H.

Hi Robert,

The longer I live the more I see that 10-20% of the total population is living off the backs of the rest of us and certainly at our expense....

Take Care, John H.

I would say the top 5% and bottom 5% are living off the rest of us.

Originally Posted by Dale Mabry

So, because these people were smart enough to develop something that everyone else has no problem with spending their own money on, they should be penalized by having to give back more to the gov't?

If you have a problem with Warren Buffett, stop buying his albums...J/K, but seriously, if you don't want him to have a shitload, don't buy Coke, if you don't want Bill Gates to have money, don't use Windows. You hate Paris Hilton, don't stay at a Hilton. I love how people blog about how it is wrong that Bill Gates has so much money, chances are, they purchased his product and are using it to bitch about his wealth.

When an athlete does well in sports, the NFL or NBA doesn't punish him by taking money out of his pocket.

Wow, you just don't get it at all.

It is cool but I am sure they dont use it properly. Most of them are already old and married. They spend it on charity, curing those diseases and other social problems to feel better about themselves. No!
But I would have more interesting ideas to feel better about myself if I was that wealthy.

Originally Posted by Robert DiMaggio

It's not news that Bill Gates is the richest person in America, according to Forbes magazine's annual list of the nation's 400 richest people, released Thursday. He has been for 13 years. Barring a second Stone Age in which computers are good only for hurling at other cavemen, Gates will always be rich.


The news is: On this list, $999 million is chump change.


For the first time, all 400 Gotbucks on the Forbes tally are billionaires, from Gates (worth $53 billion) down to the bottom, Los Angeles semiconductor magnate Sehat Sutardja ($1 billion).

It's not just the accumulated wealth that draws attention to the list; it's the eye-popping numbers that show the speed with which wealth is gained - and lost - at the dawn of this millennium. For instance, according to Forbes:


-- Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson (No. 3, $20.5 billion) has made $1 million per hour over the past two years.


-- Google Inc. founders Sergey Brin (No. 12, $14.1 billion) and Larry Page (No. 13, $14 billion) have each made $13 million per day over the past two years.


-- Martha Stewart dropped off the list after losing nearly $400 million over the past year.
Forbes has been publishing the much-ballyhooed list - which relies on research and estimates and rounds net worth to the nearest $100 million - since 1982. The inaugural list contained only 13 billionaires. Even after the technology crash at the beginning of the century, a three-year war and a jumpy economy, the wealth accumulation among the richest Americans continues unabated and has risen to historic proportions, even if measured by an arbitrarily arrived-at number (400, the number of swells who could fit into the Victorian New York ballroom of Caroline Astor).


"It is a really big deal that it's all billionaires," said Forbes associate editor Matthew Miller, who edited the list and led the team that spent a year compiling it. "It shows economic growth and, as this magazine is a fan of capitalism, it shows progress."


The list of Washington, D.C., billionaires is topped by Danaher Corp. founder Mitchell P. Rales (No. 107, $2.6 billion), followed by his brother, Steven M. Rales (No. 117, $2.5 billion), new Washington Nationals owner and real estate mogul Theodore N. Lerner (No. 242, $1.5 billion), and Black Entertainment Television founder Robert L. Johnson (No. 374, $1 billion). McLean candy czar Forrest E. Mars Jr. is Virginia's top billionaire (No. 21, $10.5 billion), while Richard E. Marriott is Maryland's wealthiest man (No. 197, $1.8 billion).


The enormous sums spur the natural question: Is it good, bad or neither that wealth is accumulating so fast that numbers begin to lose their meaning? (Requisite illustration: A stack of 1 billion $1 bills would reach a height of 80 miles.)


On the one hand, the fortunes have spawned a new age of philanthropy, by which private individuals can try to effect change with the power and reach of a government but without the bureaucratic shackles that often thwart aid efforts.


Bill and Melinda Gates, for instance, created a foundation with assets of $30 billion that focuses much of its effort on improving health for the world's poor. Warren E. Buffett (No. 2, $46 billion), a director of the Washington Post Co. along with Melinda Gates, said in June that he would give away much of his fortune to charity, most of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The gestures recall the large-scale largesse of 19th-century capitalists named Vanderbilt and Rockefeller.


Yet not everyone finds the billionaire boom beneficial.


"I think it's very bad," said Dean Baker, a macroeconomist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "If the U.S. had experienced really extraordinary growth, then maybe that would be the reason" for all the billionaires. Baker pointed out that U.S. economic growth in the past 25 years - the period that hatched this crop of billionaires - is actually slower than in the preceding quarter-century, which produced only 13 billionaires.


"If these people pull away so much wealth," he said, "that means everyone else has less."
The growth in the number of billionaires has been significantly aided by cuts in U.S. tax rates that allow the wealthy to keep more of their money, said Harvard University economics professor Larry Katz. Today's marginal tax rate for the richest Americans is 35 percent, down from more than 60 percent 25 years ago.


"We could do a lot more with the tax system and with policies ... to help out those who are less fortunate," said Katz. On the other hand, "not every dollar that goes to a rich person is taken away from someone else."


Katz is of mixed mind about the billionaire boom.


"At one level, it leads to the possibility of great philanthropy," he said. "On the other level, it is a great concentration of wealth and power that can subvert other people's interests."
One-third of the Forbes 400 is concentrated in two places: California, which has 89 billionaires, and New York City, with 44.


The billionaire-free states are West Virginia, Vermont, Alaska, Maine, Delaware, Mississippi, Iowa, New Mexico, Kentucky and North Dakota. (South Dakota has one.) Even Wyoming, the least populous state, has a billionaire - Christy Walton (No. 7, $15.6 billion), one of eight Wal-Mart family members on the list, four of whom are in the top 10.

http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=8558

Good for them... Must be nice. Is anybody hiring?

Originally Posted by ForemanRules

I would say the top 5% and bottom 5% are living off the rest of us.

Can I borrow a million? I'll repay you $1.1 million in a year... If I don't you can send tough to break my legs.

Originally Posted by SuperFlex

Can I borrow a million? I'll repay you $1.1 million in a year... If I don't you can send tough to break my legs.

I don't have that much liquid cash.

Originally Posted by ForemanRules

I don't have that much liquid cash.

Good for you man if you have that much period... I know I can appreciate how much better the quality of life can be with financial comfort.

Originally Posted by SuperFlex

Good for you man if you have that much period... I know I can appreciate how much better the quality of life can be with financial comfort.

I don't

"So don't tease me,
and try to say that I should care,
might as well go out for mine
when everybody else is going out for theirs.
Their ain't no life no where!
So don't tell me about a fake drug war,
cut education programs more,
the people will one day learn and rise
'cuz not everyone is out to score, to score to score!"

Originally Posted by ForemanRules

I don't have that much liquid cash.

I got some liquid gold for your mouth say ahhhhh!

Originally Posted by maniclion

"So don't tease me,
and try to say that I should care,
might as well go out for mine
when everybody else is going out for theirs.
Their ain't no life no where!

Sometimes when I look inside myself I feel disappointed because that is true. It's hard to stay honest and keep others benefit in mind in this fucked up world. Still, I must try...but wisely.

Originally Posted by maniclion

I got some liquid gold for your mouth say ahhhhh!