Why the disdain for “rich” people ?

[biku324]

Great time to keep spending and cut taxes.

 

[Denverd0n]

You just have to look up avg incomes vs avg house prices...

Why do you expect young people to be able to buy an "average" house? My first house was definitely what you would call a "starter house." That's what folks in their 20s and early 30s should be looking at.

Never mind the fact that the "average" house has gotten MUCH larger over the last few decades, and is now equipped with a plethora of features that NO houses had just a couple of decades ago.

My daughter got a job, paid off her student loans, saved her money, and bought herself a very nice townhouse at the age of 28. All with no help needed from my wife and I. Young people today CAN afford to buy a house. But only if they are willing to set their priorities and put in the work.

THAT is the problem! A lot of young people nowadays do not want to make the hard choices, or do the hard work. They just want to whine about how unfair life is, and how other people have more than them. The results of the "participation trophy" era.

Thank God there are a good number of exceptions!

 

[Jimbo41]

Many people resent the rich because of false information they here. I've been told my whole life by CPAs and other well informed people that the wealthiest 20% pay about 80% of the income taxes brought in by the IRS. If you Google, it will tell you that wealthy people only pay about 7 or 8 percent of the their income in taxes. I know that's not true, if you make the money you gotta pay taxes!

Some of this is about language.

In gross dollars the top earners pay most of the taxes. If the IRS collects $100,000 then 80% of that, or $80,000 comes from top earners.

Income is defined in different ways depending upon the point the speaker wants to make, in your example of wealth people paying 7 or 8 percent of income, income is probably calculated including unrealized gains, the increase in value of their home and investments. The folks with lots of wealth (different from top earners) tend to have a lot of such “income” for which the tax is not paid until the gain is realized (the asset sold). For wealthy families, where assets may not be sold for generations, the estate tax gets them.

A lot of hard work goes into keeping us misinformed and dissatisfied.

 

[S-W4EVER]

All about Priorities. Just about anyone can become rich compared to others.

Most people “give ‘em eight and hit the gate” (if they even give eight productive hours). Anyone ever notice what kind of hours most wealthy people work? Watch an entrepreneur sometime, they’re always working the phones. And cars are just transportation to them, not status symbols. They’re too busy making money to care about impressing others.

 

[ladder13]

My first real job was building up the plant and restoring service as a telco employee. I worked 10-12 hr days during the week and many times on weekends. I often worked months straight without a day off. I paid my 401k before my check was issued.
My second real job as a firefighter, I worked with other guys doing construction work. Ever strip a Spanish tile roof and replace one on 4,000+ square foot houses? After killing myself doing that for a few years I started my own small business doing low voltage wiring on my days off.
I owe nothing to todays youth and don’t care what they think about this boomer.

 

[gym cat]

As a side note: After being on a bank BOD for twenty years. What you see or maybe think about certain people living high off the hog and having all the latest of everything is not always the case. I would bet you all know people but maybe don't realize it who are living from paycheck to paycheck and many credit cards maxed out. It's a sad case but a true reality.

 

[Jäger1]

The ones who irk me are the people who were born on third base but act like they hit a triple. You know, inherited Daddy's money and have a string of failed businesses behind them, don't pay their bills and act like they're business geniuses anyway.

The ones that irk me are the ones who made their bones claiming millionaires in politics are evil - but changed their tune on that subject after doing no recognizable business/employment activity to arrive at rich status.

Then there's the ones who inherited all of Daddy's money, not just a stake to start with, never failed in business because they never attempted to build a business, and instead spent their spare wealth telling others who is evil and who is not.

Failed businesses followed by going on to success would include a president - Lincoln for example - along with numerous other people like Henry Ford. And not a few who have inherited Daddy's money in the way of a farm or business have then failed, never pay their bills, and never rebuild the old farm or business, but manage to grift their way through life anyways.

Hating the rich is often a masquerade used by some hoping to build a specific justification for their hatred of a specific individual - not the rich in general.

 

[Bald1]

And we boomers managed to borrow and spend most of the $37 trillion of national debt that the younger generations will have to pay back. They will not look back fondly at our profligacy.

I am not a boomer. But I’m not going to blame them for incompetence in government

 

[Jäger1]

Envy is part of the human condition.
When we have politicians that prey on this weakness for personal gain and their parties power it divides the country.

As do union bosses (but like Mark Twain, I repeat myself), doing precisely the same thing.

Those complaining that corporate boards of directors pay CEOs obscene salaries compared to the worker bees seldom make the same complaint about union leaders making $500,000+ per year while excoriating the salaries of the person ultimately responsible for signing the paychecks of the workers' they represent.

Average salary for union leaders is nearly $60,000 higher than that of chief executives

Ditto various "non-profits" - often headed by people already well off before what they got in their current position. As just one example, Planned Parenthood CEOs and advisors have been paid more than $1 million a year - while regularly releasing statements saying the government doesn't give them enough taxpayer money.

Drs. Milton Freidman (and his wife) as well, Thomas Sowell, and Walter Williams all regularly wrote about and explored how envy often plays in this and is accordingly exploited.

One of the great failures of our public education system is that we don't allot time in high school to teach students about to become adults who pay taxes and vote (along with possessing credit cards) basic economics and basic personal finances management.

I wasn't taught one minute during my high school years in the late 60's, early 70's anything about economics nor about personal finances. Straight from high school into getting my first blue-and-baby-poo colored credit card... and voting in a federal election where the two parties were running their campaigns based on two competing and different fiscal and budget policies.

That hasn't changed in the slightest in the 50+ years since then.

 

[Autonomous]

I was a member of two different unions for 30 years.
The rank & file are a looong way down the union bosses' noses.
E.g. In all that time only once did I see a recommendation to vote for a (R) candidate. Every, repeat, every single other endorsement was (D).
I could write a novel, but I'll stop now.

 

[Grimjaws]

After thinking about this a bit more it really comes down to choices

Wife and I have been working ever since we were 16. Neighbors had all the toys and boats and jet skis and massive campers while we made do with a pop up camper for 12 years. Later on we splurged for a camper with a bathroom for the missus and managed to get 8 years out of that one. Storm damaged it and insurance almost gave us full price. We drive cars for at least 10 years
have a jeep with 125k on it now and a RAM Classic with 80k
both paid for and we will drive these into the ground
wife retires in one year and I have three to go for a pension. All choices knowing we could afford them.

Raised two boys both now successful in their own right and both hard workers. Where they live a house is many years away. Both are out of state.

We started with a dinky apartment
moved to a starter house
and just paid off our forever house.

I guess the morale of the story is pay what you can afford not what you have to go underwater in debt for. Choices. I never believed in keeping up with the neighbors.

I have a brand new grandchild
wife and I have been married some 32 years and some nice trips coming up
and one son is working on moving back home

My wife and I are blessed
we made the right choices in life to get us to some golden years and see the world together and spoil our grandson

So I guess you could say we are rich where it counts
family

 

[Jäger1]

As a result, these rich people and corporations have corrupted and bought our government until its so badly broken it no longer works. Everybody knows that bribes are how government really works. That's just SOP for Washington.

Just rich people and corporations on your list of those villains apparently responsible for this state of affairs?

You forgot to include "these unions" in naming those who have bought our government? Even just the unions who pay their CEO's well over $500,000 a year while corrupting DC with union lobby money and political contributions?

And I would suggest you forgot one more to your list of villains: the "non-profits" and NGOs corrupting and buying our government with bribes.

Money is fungible, of course: how much of the hundreds of millions of dollars some of these non-profits get each year do they respond to by then funneling kickbacks to the party that helped them get that as lobbying and election funding?

One of those NPs received about $800 million in taxpayer funding in 2024, and publicly announced they were spending about $40 million, all to support one party and it's candidate in last year's election. That same NP has five corporate officers who are paid over $500,000 a year. And their medical advisor, a former political figure, is paid well north of that.

The envy and vitriol towards "the rich" is often remarkably limited and specific who they want to blame.

 

[Jäger1]

Ditto Ronald Reagan.

I will Speak My Truths in rebuttal of you speaking yours:

The leaders of Ronald Reagan's party continue to admire him, regularly reference him in debate, and many ways attempt to emulate his goals for the nation. Specific to this discussion, not assaulting "the rich", nor attempting to penalize them with increased taxes in response to false complaints that "the rich don't pay their fair share".

I also think that while the GOP has and will attempt to run with policies that are often similar to Reagan's, you won't see a DNC candidate anywhere on the horizon in the recent past or future who will run on Bill Clinton's policies as they were when he ran for reelection.

 

[ladder13]

Two unions I belonged to

CWA straight up communist

IAFF had no idea what the rank and file was thinking.

 

[Jäger1]

Wealth inequality will continue to be a problem until those that rails against it realise that it is the system that is the problem.

Nice post! The "wealth inequality" complaints that probably began 150 years ago with the writings of Engels and Marx were happy to inform the followers of their theology of who were the problem.

For what is probably most of us as well as myself, we left high school and entered our work lives in what Marx named the lowest classes; our first paychecks out of high school probably weren't even close to being middle or upper class.

My first job (not counting pulling hay bales for neighboring farmers at $.02/a bale, paid me $.25/hr working for the city as a lifeguard. That was a Steelworkers union job in that mining town, BTW. I lived on Sapporo Ichiban and stopped walking and then could drive where I went with an early 1960's Anglia car once I saved up the money to buy it and my grandfather helped me get it reliably running.

I was in a state of "wealth inequality" with just about every adult in that area ten years older than I was at that time, never mind how much my Steelworkers union president was paid back then or corporation presidents. I definitely met Marx's definition of "lower class" and today's "wealth inequity".

Fast forward and after retirement from careers in the infantry and policing, I added to my retirement and federal pension with consulting work adding about another $125,000 a year. Marx would probably have called me "upper middle class" with my total yearly income.

It's REALLY dynamic: after thinking I had done enough and going straight into retirement while my wife's career as an architect hummed along, Wuhan Flu arrived.

Projects for architects in this area crashed, but the monthly/yearly bills to maintain licensed architect status didn't stop. Nor did mortgage payments on the house. In two years we went from financially comfortable to being in financial trouble. Retirement got cancelled.

So suddenly, rather than just throwing in the towel and her business and career as an architect, she's attempting to come back. I've sold a large chunk of retirement funds and have a second mortgage in the form of line of credit. And at 70, after being out of my area of consulting for years, I'm finding it hard to find well paying jobs in this area, at my age.

I may be now considered to be "lower class" once again, and once again in a state of dire "wealth inequality".

I'm not a victim, we all know that stuff happens for the worse in many areas including personal finances - that's how life goes, and I've seen that happen many times going all the way back to my high school years. I will take our financial situation today over other bad outcomes like my wife or one of my brothers dying. All in all, we're still doing good, considering what some alternatives could be that you can't do anything about to rectify.

Whining and attempting to assign blame regarding wealth inequality (never heard that term until about 20 years ago) or "the rich" isn't going to help me in the slightest.

In general, financial stability and wealth are dynamic. You can go from lower class to well off - and you can also go from well off to lower class.

So I went from poor to upper middle class, and now back again in 50+ years of economic life. So whatever class we start in, economic class membership is not permanent; it can be dynamic.

 

[silicosys4]

I owe nothing to todays youth and don’t care what they think about this boomer.

You will if you live long enough to see them outnumber you as a voting block and vote to put a stop to Social Security.
That one is coming. Fortunately for many of the people on this thread, they won't live long enough to experience that.
I will.

 

[ladder13]

You will when they outnumber you as a voting block and vote to strip SS benefits.

I’m well prepared for that.

 

[silicosys4]

I’m well prepared for that.

And this is why many people will hold the boomer generation in low regard. Its demonstrably the most self serving, self centered generation that has ever walked the planet.

 

[ladder13]

And this is why many people will hold the boomer generation in low regard. Its demonstrably the most self serving, self centered generation that has ever walked the planet.

You know nothing about me, bye.

 

[silicosys4]

You know nothing about me, bye.

Just like many people on this thread knows nothing about being a working class American in 2025 yet have all sorts of opinions about people who are
The knife cuts both ways