What do you expect from a man who picked up his values in the Hitler Jugend?

What is up with people having something against the insanely wealthy? I would not consider myself insanely wealthy yet (only 21) but I am rich and I plan to be a billionaire by 31. I just don't get it, the insanely wealthy have worked their asses off to get where they are. Personally I had a 1.5 year period were I gave up on my social life entirely. I worked 7 days per week for months on end trying to get my businesses up and running. While my friend were out getting drunk, high and laid I sat at home in front of my computer working.

It is the insanely rich that are doing the most good. Bill Gates donates hundreds of millions per year to charities and he is funding the research for a new malaria vaccine. You have Richard Branson who gives millions to charity annually.  

I just don't get what people have against the rich.

 

 

http://www.gogirlfriend.com/travel-news/new-7-deadly-sins-are-you-guilty-8410

Here is the site man, it was hard to find. Google news had countless articles about it but every article I saw talked about the sins but did not list them. Stupid reporters.....

Apparently more than 660 million.

NickB: I respect your work and I don't think there is any reason to stop you from becoming rich.  But you've got people who build the most insanely expensive houses, spend their money on crap you could get for 1/50th of the price, and the whole time its just taking wealth from one rich man to another rich man.  There has to be more balance.

And for their charitable deeds, it's nice and all, but again the billionaire is often living in a 100 room mansion that gets little to no use in many areas while I've seen an old lady eat from a garbage can.  You're absolutely right about their philanthropy but at the same time I always think about this man who built the most lavish house in such a poor country, I wish I could find the article, and he doesn't live there all the time and its surrounded by ghettos... Etc.  Why spend money on gold and such because it looks good when there's so many better things you could do with the money.   I know if I win the lottery I'm gonna give the majority of it to charity because it's just heartless not to do so in my opinion.  I've lived in Los Angeles and seen Bel Aire, and its somewhat disgusting to think that someone can live in such a nice place when they're totally surrounded by such terror and terrorism.  (That's right, I consider gang violence etc to be terrorism.)

I can't totally disagree with you but I think you get my point, and I should have said something like lavishly wealthy.  Billionaires employ quite a few people (hopefully they're paid well) and I'm sure there are other arguments to be made.

 

Oh and I would have talked a lot about the original topic but your link isn't working!  You're right I can't find it on google and I'm useless without google lol.  Good luck with your business.

http://www.gogirlfriend.com/fuzzysearch/results/7+deadly thats a shorter link it should work. If it doesn't go to http://www.gogirlfriend.com and type '7 deadly' in the search field.

I agree with you in that respect, a person who builds a mansion in a ghetto is a fucking asshole.  However if somebody wants a 50 room mansion and they earned the right to buy it I do not believe anybody should deny them that right. Personally if I make it to a billion I will have a few houses and apartments around the world. That is what I want and if I earn them I see nothing wrong with owning several houses.

What I do not get is why some people expect rich people to share their wealth. I mean I believe in giving to charity and the more I make the more I give. However any money I have I earn, I earn it through the use of my mind to come up with a plan. I earn it through the months of hard work I put into the execution of the plan. I earn it through the dedication I have in seeing the plan through.

If I come up with a business idea and I give it everything I have to turn that idea into reality do I not earn the money? When I earn the money do I not have the right to do with it what I please? More importantly why should anybody feel any animosity towards me for having money I earned?

I did not want this post to become a debate about money. I just get offended when people suggest the rich should not be rich. It really pisses me off because everything I have I earned and in earning it I sacrificed a lot.

I just do not understand why rich peopel should be held to a different standard.

Well yeh they are saying if a person makes 500 million (or some other nominal figure) they have to stop making money otherwise they will go to hell. It is ridiculous that somebody works for money and is expected to just give it away. If a person works for their money they should be allowed to do whatever they want with it. If they want to buy $100 million worth of bubble wrap and roll around in it naked they earned that right. It is ridiculous for the church to say that just because some guy had an idea that made him rich he now has an obligation to give away his money. I believe in charity I just do not believe it should be an obligation for the rich to give to charity.

I guess it works out fine for the Vatican. They tell the world that it is a sin to be too rich so the rich catholics feel guilty and they give more money away to the church. I would love to see if the introduction of this new sin increases money flow to the Vatican.

Oh and an interesting fact just in case some of you do not know Richard Branson and Bill Gates are both atheists.

 

The Jesus thing is in my signature not sure why you bring it up. Anyway doesn't it depend on the country he would be born in? Some countries have different rules when it comes to institutionalizing people. Anyway I see your point and I will change my sig.

I agree with your interpretation of what the church expects.

Anyway back to the main point, all this is extremely hypocritical when you consider their extreme wealth. They have hundreds of billions they could be sharing with the poor of the world.

As for genetics that it is just ridiculous for them to make it a sin. Genetic engineering is the only reason we are all here today. If there was no genetic engineering we would have starved to death long ago. The genetic engineering of fruits and vegetables has saved billions of lives and I am sure the Popes eats something that came about through genetic engineering every day.

 

You're right.  It is ridiculous.  The Catholic Church, again, proves itself to be the most hypocritical organization on the planet.  Bravo!

But, I cannot fault them for, at least, attempting to address the widening gap between the classes.  And, in the long run, the separation of the classes will interfere with the wealthy's ability to continue earning more money.  Therefore, it is in the best interest of the wealthiest among us to strategically redistribute their wealth in order to enable the furthered growth of their own enterprises.  In other words, the redistribution would be an investment in the future of their own endeavors, and those of everyone else.

Philanthropy isn't just nice, it's smart - or, at least, it can be.  Investing in educational systems in order to improve the earning capacity of your future customers is a good investment, as just one example.  And, if you're ridiculously wealthy, you can have a big impact in that regard.

While I support your right to acquire as much wealth as you desire, I think it is unreasonable to have no limits on the acquisition of personal wealth.  It creates harmful imbalances with no way to reverse the process.  In the long run, it's a losing proposition for everyone.  When all of the wealth has been taken from the middle class and the poor and given to the rich, the rich will no longer have customers.

What I would propose as an alternative to the idiotic cartoon character approach of the Catholic Church would be something, like this:

Personal income would be capped at some multiple of the mean income of the society.  For example, if the mean income were 100,000.00 per year, then the maximum personal income might be in the order of 1000 times that much, or 100,000,000.00 per year.

This would allow those who wish to truly excell beyond their peers a 1000:1 ratio in personal income, as compared to the mean income in the society.  Not bad.

Now, I know, you're wondering why you would want to bother making more money than that, if you couldn't keep it, anyway?  And, you're wondering about what would be done with the money you earned that exceeded the limits imposed, right?

Well, you could continue earning as much money as you like; but, the overage would be yours to philanthropically reinvest in the community, as you see fit, with you getting full credit for your contributions.  Everyone  would know how much of your money went to fund the various projects you might fund.  No one would even care if the projects were ultimately going to profit you.  Why should they?  You're already making over the limit; so, the extra profits would only go to benefit the community as a whole - but, in YOUR name.

And, in exchange for being so magnanimous as to give all of your overages back to society, you might should be afforded some extra benefits, not available to the rest of the citizenry.  Perhaps, a million votes, instead of one? Perhaps, allowing you to choose a public office, based on the level of overages you have donated?  Yes, there should be some compensation for the giving up of your excess income.  And, who better to run our public offices than those who are the most successful and generous among us?

And, what a model citizen and hero you would be, if your overages were the greatest of them all?  How else might money make you a real hero?  For, everyone would know that, even though you knew you could not keep the extra money, you worked extra hard so that they could have it to make their lives better.  Everyone would love you and not begrudge you much of anything.  And, let's not forget the personal benefits you would get from giving of yourself to others.  For, when you give to others, you give to yourself.

And, there would then be a system of checks and balances to keep things from becoming too skewed, as they are, now.  There must be a point where the interests of us all collectively outweigh our individual interests.  How much should one person be allowed to profit at the expense of us all?  Because, the money comes from somewhere.

Of course, this was merely a hypothetical example of an alternative to the way things are, now.  And, it would have to apply all over the planet, not in just one or a few places.  So, it's not likely to ever happen.  You don't have to worry about limits being imposed on your wealth.

I just think that we should have them, for the reasons I specified.

It is all just an illusion of freedom, all rights are just illusions really in the end, an idea, that can be revoked at any time for any reason should those in power decide to revoke any rights that you may have, give for example the USA and it's patriot act, pretty much all they need is to think that you are with a terrorist organization and trust me you don't have rights at all. I can tell you that even the most liberal countries in the world, should it suite their needs/desires they will revoke any and all rights (has happened in Sweden and Holland in regards to those believed but not necessarily proven to be somehow associated with a terrorist organization).

 

It depends of what you define as true freedom. I define freedom as having just laws enforced by the government and other than that the government stays out of your life. Countries like that do exist.

 

It is far more important because you say it is? Personally I think public health is very important.  If everybody was healthy governments would have much more money to spend on other things. Things like oh let's see, education, spending on education would eventually raise the overall standard of living. We could do a lot with that extra money; we might even see some tax cuts so people can keep more of what they work for. In short it would also lead to a much more prosperous society.

We can stop spending money on researching obesity related diseases.  We could concentrate on other diseases like hmmm maybe cancer, well actually cancer rates would drop significantly too. So would cases of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, heart attacks, stroke and much, much more. You know what else would decrease significantly? Psychological disorders! That of course leads to less suicide which is another good thing.

I am sure if you asked a person if they would rather $1k per week and a heart attack at 40 or $500 per week and a healthy life they would pick health.    

So is the poor making more money more important than having a healthy society in which people live longer, happier, and healthier lives? Oh silly, you can’t be happy if you do not have a big screen television. Personally I think I would rather no cancer and $500 per week than cancer and $1,000 per week, but that's just me.

Anyway, why not put limitations on calories consumed daily? We can have calories police that arrest you if you eat more than two strips of bacon in the morning.

Why is money more important than having a healthy society?

Don't you think a healthy society will lead to a more prosperous society?



Oh I see, so if you are ‘clever’ enough to make money you should be punished. Well that makes sense! Talk about killing potential; imagine we got a new copy on windows every 10 years because Bill Gates did not want to work for free.

What if development of something cost more than the maximum you are allowed to make in a year? You would never make profit....

Well it’s only fair that those ‘clever’, rich bastards who work their asses off to make money should have to give it all away right?  Wait a second what if simply being ‘clever’ is not really what makes people rich. What if the rich are rich because they are so dedicated that they sacrifice everything to be rich?



It is nonsense? Well maybe you missed it but that was the point. It was just as nonsensical as your argument.




Ok here goes:

1. Improve public health

2. Improve public education

3. Stop fighting useless wars

4. Abolish religion

5. Improve government spending on technological advancements.

6. Improve the tax system so the rich get taxed more than the poor.

7. World peace

Ok some of those are improbable but some aren’t. Before anybody asks, technological advancements will probably fill the divide between the rich and the poor. Things like personal atom building machines. Think of it as a microwave type device that builds whatever you want at atom level. So if you need a keyboard you just set it to keyboard and in an hour you have one. Ok I am not sure exactly what limitations a machine like this would have; maybe it cannot build complex electronic devices. T technology is being researched and it is probable that in the next 50 years.

Would it stop? I think giving the government that much more power would turn the country into a police state. No social ailments would basically mean the abolishment of all freedom.

$100 million is a lot of money, I do not know it would be enough for me though. I am sure it is enough for a lot of people but if somebody wants more and they are willing to work for it they should not be limited.

Only concerned about myself? I give away over 20% of what I earn. I gave away $20k last year to two people just starting out in business. I gave thousands to charity and I give hours of my time daily to help others make money through a free site that helps people learn how to trade the currency markets. I even gave $1k to this site.

What I am saying is I do not want anybody to limit how much I can make just because I can make it. I sacrificed a lot to reach my goal and nobody has the right to take my goal away from me.

I think it is extremely short sighted to suggest that income caps would cure social ailments. Microsoft has 57,000 employees, cap how much Bill Gates can make and watch tens of thousands of those employees lose their jobs. Richard Branson’s Virgin Airlines has 20k employees, set a limit to how much he can make and watch that list dwindle.

The divide between the rich and poor is a product of other societal problems.

Do you mean because they are so ridiculous nobody would ever dream of implanting them or because it is statistically unlikely I will ever earn that much? If it's the latter....... that is exactly why you will never be rich.

You are taking a societal problem, blowing it out of proportion, and then treating it with absolutely no understanding of why the problem exists in the first place. Also you have no given any real thought to the societal problems caused by capping incomes. 

 

You are welcome to your private definition of what constitutes "true freedom."  The rest of the rational world knows better.

Do you live in the US?  If so, do you think it fair and just that homosexuals are denied equal civil rights to those of heterosexual persuasion?  What about the bankrupting of the Social Security and Medicare programs through the outright theft of the funds for other pet projects?  Is that fair?  What about paying all those taxes AND medical insurance premiums, with NO guarantees that your healthcare will be covered?  Is that fair?  What about being bankrupted, just because a jury thought someone who fell in your establishment and got hurt should be ridiculously wealthy for the rest of their lives?  What about being able to have your life savings wiped out by the failure of financial institutions, with no ability to recover your losses?  What about having your life savings wiped out; because, you got heartburn and went to the emergency room because you thought it was a heart attack?  How fair is it when the insurance company denies your claim; because, you didn't get prior authorization to go to the emergency room and it ended up being not medically necessary, anyway; so, you get to pick up the $15,000.00 tab?  Is that fair?  What about allowing financial institutions to arbitrarily jack your interest rates from whatever they are to whatever they want them to be, without giving your ability to pay any consideration?  ALL of these things can happen right here, in the "land of the free."

 

No, because, it IS.

Apart from Medicare ASSISTING the elderly and disabled in this country, our government pays NOTHING towards our medical care.  I meet people every day who have been wiped out by their healthcare costs.  The rest of us pay higher interest rates for credit; because, the elderly and disabled are having to bankrupt out from under their healthcare debts AFTER they've been completely drained of everything they ever earned. 

All of their money gets funneled into the pockets of insurance companies (through their sandbagging of claims and outright denials of coverage), pharmaceutical companies (by being allowed to charge whatever they want for their products), doctors (by being allowed to charge whatever they want for their services), hospitals (by being allowed to charge whatever they want for their services), and lawyers (on both sides, when there's disagreement - most of the time).

THIS is the United States!  The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!

With what money?  Educational spending by the federal government is pathetic.  The money that could be spent on healthcare and education has been diverted to fight wars we cannot win, in order to enrich defense contractors (through the purchase of their products), oil companies (through the fear inflated value of their products), and all those who stand to profit from the rebuilding and cleaning up of the messes that we're paying enormous sums of money to make.

Meanwhile, other countries who are smart enough to avoid wars they cannot win, are providing their citizenry with education and healthcare - at the same or lower tax rates than we're paying.

The pharmaceutical companies are the ones doing most all of the research.  And, they recover their costs by charging us whatever they want to charge us for their "cures."  Those who cannot afford those cures, DIE from their ailments.  In the wealthiest country on earth, people can die simply because they cannot afford to pay what the healthcare system wants to charge them.

The best measure of a society is how it treats the sick, the disabled, and the poor.  We suck at that - badly.

What ARE you going on about?  I'm not following your reasoning at all.  Sorry.

Why are you being so ridiculous?

I never said it is.  Is that what you're claiming?  Because, I'm not.  I am saying that the poor having more money to spend  out of what they make and making  more money is a PART of a healthy society.

There will always be people who are satisfied with little.  Those will be the poor people in our society.  But, that does not mean that they are not entitled to a roof over their heads, food in their stomachs, and healthcare when they are sick.   We in the US live in a country that guarantees none of those things for anyone.

 

Of course.  How do you propose we make our society a more healthy society?

That you see redistributing wealth that exceeds a multiple of 1000 times the mean income as being "punished" does not speak well of you, as a person.  There's a word for that.  It's called, "greed."  

And, you ignore the philanthropy of the likes of Bill Gates, who without being required to do so is redistributing his own wealth.  You might inquire of him as to his reasons for doing so.  We need more like him and we need him to do more.  But, at the same time, we need our government to do more.  And, if necessary, we need to FORCE the selfish greedy bastards who have acquired the vast majority of the world's weatlh to give it back up!

Your presumption seems to be that the wealthiest among us acquired their wealth in a fair and equitable manner.  Well, they didn't.  Often, their lot in life has as much to do with their own dishonest manipulation of the system as it had to do with their own hard work (witness our oil man in the White House, his family, and his friends in the defense industry and the middle east - why would we ever NOT be in a state of war, as long as these people are around?).  And, often it has to do as much with plain old luck, as anything else.  And, often it has as much to do with our fickle natures as consumers as anything else.  Witness the fact that we pay millions of dollars to people just to play a game or sing some songs.

I already explained the reasons I would impose income limits and what might be done with the overages.

This is a straw man distortion of what I presented.  I said that I would impose limits on PERSONAL income, not corporate income.  Corporations should simply be required to pay taxes in the form of a percentage of their corporate income.  But, they should not, as now, be allowed to dodge those taxes through lame loop holes that they paid politicians to put into the laws for them.

Straw man.  I never said they should have to give it all away - only that which exceeded the very reasonable limits I proposed.  And, I've got news for you:

The wealthiest people in the world do not work their asses off.  They pay others to do it for them.  Got it?  They spend their time and their money as they damned well please.  That is, after all, the point of having that wealth, right?

And, they pay others to make more money for THEM.  That is NOT, "working their ass off."  That is working OTHERS' asses off - for much less pay.

And, what if it's just a plain windfall?  What if it's because they were born beautiful?  What if it's because they were born talented in a particularly profitable way?  There are countless unfair reasons why some of us would be far wealthier than others of us.  So, I'm not overly concerned about the "fairness" of a redistribution of that wealth.

If someone's got a thousand times as much as the average person, they are the benefactors of a windfall - period.  There is no justification for that much of a disparity in the personal wealth of anyone on the planet.  No one can work one thousand times as hard as the average worker; so, no one is entitled to that much more wealth.

My, those are some fanciful suggestions!  But, unlike mine, you left out a key ingredient:  HOW are you going to accomplish those tasks?  I propose personal income limitations.  What do you propose?

Silly boy!  We're IN a police state!  We just think we're not; because, they haven't barged in through our front door lately.  The government already HAS the power.  The people have virtually NONE!  

Our vote is just a bad joke!  Why?  Because, our political system has been setup such that they prop up two equally terrible choices, both of which are just fine with the big corporations who are funding their elections, and pretend that we had some kind of say in the outcome.  Whoever has the most money to influence the populace with their rhetoric wins!  It's that simple.  The qualifications don't even matter.  Look at our own current utter failure of a president that drove every company he ever ran into bankruptcy!   Did we care?  Did it matter?  No, we still let him have the job.

Non-sequitur.  Your conclusion does not logically follow your premise.

I was proposing $100,000,000.00 per year, not total.  But, at least, now, I know that you are as greedy as I had feared.

And, what if they aren't willing to work for it, but can figure out a way to force others to make them wealthy?   You know, like big investment firms, banks, pharmaceutical companies, and others, being run by CEO's with nine figure incomes, who spend three days a week on the golf course, two days a week in the office, and the weekends on their yachts?

Good, for you!  If only others who made lots of money were as generous!  But, they AREN'T - at least, not generous enough to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor.

Who said anything about taking away your goals?  I suggested nothing of the kind - only that you reinvest, or redistribute, the overages in your personal income in ways that YOU see fit, but for the benefit of others.  Is that an unreasonable expectation to make of you, in exchange for your benefitting from a system that has allowed you to make enough money for the limits to become an issue?  You didn't make the system by which you earn your wealth.  You're just one of its biggest  benefactors, while others, through no fault of their own, are not.  Why should only you and others who learn how to exploit the system be allowed to benefit from it?  We're not talking about straight calories burned in exchange for "X" amount of money, here.  But, that seems to be your position - that the more you work, the more you should earn (but, that isn't how the super wealthy do it).

More nonsense.  It has nothing to do with my suggestion.  Bill Gates' personal wealth has NOTHING to do with the financial viability of Microsoft.  Microsoft is a publicly traded company - not a private company.  Every last dollar of Bill Gates' wealth could be redistributed without having an effect on Microsoft, as a company.

Such as?

You make an unfounded assertion, here.  I have already made more money than most people will see in a lifetime.  I've paid more taxes in a year than many people make in a year.  You're just plain wrong.

To answer your question, I don't think my suggestions will ever be implemented voluntarily - it will take a full scale revolution to wrest that much wealth away from the greedy bastards now hoarding it.  And, no, I don't think you have a snowball's chance in Hell of achieving the lofty goals you've set for yourself.  You're just not that smart.  Sorry, but if you were, you would not have made many of the comments you made; and, you would have intrinsically understood the problems that face us much better than you do.  But, I do wish you luck - because, you're going to need it.

 

Wow nice speech, I was completely wrong America is not free. Wait a second! I never said America was free........ idiot.



Again, is it really? Or is it just because you say it is?



I hate to be the one to have to break this to you............ America is actually not the centre of the world. I know, I know, it is very hard to understand but it’s the truth. If I do not specify America you should not assume America.  Also when I use the plural of government (governments) it means I am referring to governments in general.

It is also probably better that you do not pull your facts out of thin air. The U.S. actually spends 14% of its gross domestic product on health care. In the U.S. there are plenty of non profit hospitals that are government funded. The U.S. also spends a whole lot on medical research and medical services.

 

See I was continuing from a brief point I made in the previous post. The clue was me quoting your reply to that point.

I will spell it out for you this time....

You say that limiting how much obese people eat is less important than limiting how much rich people make. So I made several point about how limiting how much obese people ate would lead to a much healthier society with a higher standard of living.

See obesity is cause for all kinds of diseases many forms of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, heart attacks, stroke and much, psychological disorders, sleep apnea and much, much more. I believe heart disease is actually the biggest killer of people in the developed world or it is close. In America, Australia and England it is the biggest killer. One of the main risk factors for heart disease is obesity.  

So putting restrictions on calorie intake would be a huge step forward. Taking America for example if they set restrictions on calorie intake obesity in America will plummet. All the diseases that are caused by obesity will begin to disappear too. America will be a much, much healthier society and the government can stop spending 14% of their GDP on health care. The average American will also save a lot more money as they will not need as much health care.

Beyond the health benefits the government will have much more funds to allocate to things like education which will in turn raise the standard of living. So it makes sense doesn’t it, forcing limitations on what people eat will fix the major problem of health care. It will also lead to a much more prosperous society.

You want to limit income why don’t we limit food too?

As far as I am concerned health is much more important than money. So it would be a better idea to limit calories as it will improve public health and as a bonus it will give the poor more money.

So the question is :

Is money more important than having a healthy society?

If yes, why?

If no, why not set calorie limitations as well as income caps?

If you are ok with limiting income you should be ok with limiting calories. It’s the same rational; you believe imposed limitations on income will fix a societal ill. Imposed limitations on calorie intake will fix a more pressing societal ill.

It is important to not I think the idea of calorie limitations is absurd. I am just making the point that if you think income caps are appropriate why calorie caps are too. Then we can think up some more absurd rules to fix other problems.

So I am greedy because I do not believe I should be forced to give away something I worked for? You propose that a person’s success is measured up against the average success of people and if they are too successful they have to pay for it? That is essentially being punished for being too successful.

See I don’t much appreciate being stolen from because somebody thinks I make too much.

You also avoided what I said about giving 20% of my income away so you could call me greedy. See I not saying that philanthropy is not a great thing. I am not saying that all rich people should not give to charity. I believe in giving to charity, I give a lot of charity.  By the way if you scroll up I did mention Bills' philanthropy...

What I am saying is that limitations should not be imposed on people just because they are rich. If a person wants to make a billion per year they should be allowed to without being forced to give up 90% of it.

You asked for ways to improve the disparity between the rich and poor, I gave you 7.  Your response makes no sense.

 

- Health care
- Tax
- Education

Most of the times I see one of these type of arguments online the guy on your side claims he is rich too, funny that.......

 

It will never happen

 

So I am not smart because I disagree with your idea of a utopian society? When I said I was going to be a millionaire by 21 people laughed but I proved them wrong. Now when I say I am going to be a billionaire by 31 people laugh......

 

You are in what you perceive to be a police state. I do not live in your country so I am not..... silly boy. Also I think you will find that by definition America is not really a police state yet.

 

By the way you said 1,000 x the mean income and you set the mean income at $100,000. In reality the mean income would be closer to $20,000 so it is more like a $20 mill limitation.