When do you consider someone "wealthy" or "rich"?

Discussion in 'Business & Economics' started by Seattle, Aug 8, 2019.

  1. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    8,849
    I think we more or less agree where. I said the U.S. system is messed up because of the way the U.S. tried to have a market/managed system. That is what doesn't work. Done right, yes of course it works as other countries have shown.

    Our military doesn't have to be a mess either, but it is.
     
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  3. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    I agree. I wasn't talking about those 12 percent when I hear others talking about how 2/3rd of the people can't save, have overwhelming debt due to no fault of their own. That's what I don't buy. Most of the people in here aren't Larry.
     
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  5. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Have been doing so for six pages.
    Many never earn enough to have money left over for saving, however hard they work.
    Many have saved and been wiped out by an illness, their employer moving offshore, automating, hiring even cheaper illegals or 'restructuring', a bank going bust, a president shutting down government because he's in a snit, or an 'economic downturn'.
    Most people who save and still have savings won't be able to live on those savings by the time they retire.
     
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  7. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    So why do anything when the world is on fire and everything is beyond your control. You can have exactly enough to live on but no more. OK, I get it.
     
  8. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Any American who saved by accumulating money in a savings account after 1982 or so and by luck did not have to tap it for unexpected demands, lost a significant amount of that money by attrition - fees, inflation, etc.

    The majority of the savings of the majority of Americans who did actually "save" - meaning invest - between 1980 and 2008 - the middle class - was wiped out in 2008. It was "invested" in housing equity, and net housing equity in the American middle and lower classes was driven into the red by the crash. That loss turned out to be essentially permanent - covering it and its various side effects has been a significant drain on the US economy ( as I view it, meaning the economic life of most US citizens ) ever since.

    Most Americans now cannot - except by luck - save a significant amount of money. (The amount does matter, because small amounts persist (are "saved") only by luck in America). Those who do not inherit or otherwise receive significant wealth from the prosperity and accumulation opportunities available before the restructuring øf Reaganomics are likely - odds are - to live out their lives as they have been living them so far: in debt or on a subsistence level.

    Unless the Republican Party is removed from power and largely destroyed.
    Political matters are not beyond the American citizenry's control.
     
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  9. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/2007-09-bear-market-now-totally-erased-2012-04-04
     
  10. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    sounds like a trump statement

    your soaking in it
     
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  11. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    5,089
    I see you've shifted the subject. On track, the appropriate question would be: Why try to save money? The answer varies with the individual: people try to save for their children's education, a down-payment on a house, a wedding, a hearing aid, an emergency, or even the vacation you think only high earners deserve.
    'Doing something' isn't restricted to putting aside a few dollars a week; it includes throwing these bums out of power, and that answer would obviate the next part:
    Quite a lot of Americans have nowhere near enough to live on.
    I see no evidence.
     
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  12. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    So?
    That's the stock market - the stock market is irrelevant to the post you quoted, and to the subject of this thread.

    Why are you posting irrelevant stock market indices on this thread? That's a serious question. You are obviously in a state of confusion, and that post is a clue to why.

    But you have introduced one possible relevancy: maybe we could partly define the "rich" as those whose personal wealth or income has "recovered" from the Republican Crash of 2008 because the stock market has recovered.

    (Note: even now the intervening loss has not been recovered - the years of lost earnings and lost opportunities and so forth have had their effects. Consider what you would have paid in 2009 for a bond that paid 0% interest and returned its face value only after ten years).
     
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  13. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    let them eat savings...
    how much does a degree cost in the usa ? $25,000.00 ?
    how does an unemployed 17 year old get $25,000.00 ?

    simply by saving from a part time job ?
    when were they allowed to start working ?
    15 years old as a waitress getting groped for tips ?
    thats only 2 years to save $25,000.00
    $12,500.00 per year as a part time job while studying full time... only working on ? which nights ?

    suddenly all the shark investment wall st banker penises run into the closet and play hide the sausage because they suddenly forgot how to do math

    how convenient
     
  14. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    8,849
    The poverty rate in the U.S. and Australia is roughly the same. It's higher in the UK. As I recall it's about 13 percent in the first two countries and closer to 20 percent in the UK.
     
  15. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    3,266
    Ha! For a four year degree, cheapest in-state (public unis, non-residents of the state will pay considerably more) is around 25 thousand dollars--that's four years' tuition and fees. For a private university, it can be as much as 300 thousand.
     
  16. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    I wouldn't call it losing all my savings. By your definition the wealthy are no longer wealthy because they would have lost everything during those years as well.
     
  17. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    meanwhile American self advertised patriots outsource all the american jobs to Asia undermining the countrys economy and destroying the countrys future
     
  18. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    All American jobs aren't in Asia. We basically have full employment.
     
  19. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    huh ?
    when you say "full" what do you mean by that ?
    usa unemployment figures are changing daily because a large proportion of USA society allow short term work with no job security.
    this means that instead of posting the yearly unemployment rate they change the name to become "job creation" on a daily basis to fool people into thinking that someone who has to start many different jobs in 1 year has job security.

    the false narrative is used to fudge the reality of national economic security

    for example, if there was "full employment" why would there need to be farm subsidies(as one single subsidy example)
     
  20. andy1033 Truth Seeker Valued Senior Member

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    1,060
    I do not care how much money or anything others have.

    All i know, is i will be poor till i die.

    Unlike people like trump, i do not consider life success to be based on how much money one has. People like trump would of been born into money.

    Yep, i agree if your interested in money, and you see that as your goal, and you make it, good for you. But i for one, never would of been interested in money, and do not care how much others have.

    If your in this world, and have somewhere to sleep and regular meals, you should be happy. There is plenty who have neither.

    Everyone on earth has different challenges in life, and just because someone is poor, does not mean they have not handled loads of horrible challenges in there life, just as well as someone whom is rich.

    People like trump, who sees anyones worth is down to there money, is an idiot.

    Lots of very poor people have learnt far more about life, then people like bill gates and trump.

    So i do not care where the threshold of being poor, to being rich is, as i have never and never will be interested in it.

    If money is your life focus, thats your business. I would much rather have lived my life as a monk in a monastery then being some douch chasing money and material wealth, that means nothing.
     
  21. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    8,849
    I didn't say anything about job security or how good a job is. Farm subsidies is a political thing. It's not just for times of high unemployment.
     
  22. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    {Nobody else would either. }
    No idea where that came from. Seriously - wtf?

    Why not address the posts you quote, instead of what appear to be voices in your head? Nothing in that quoted post involves "losing everything", or defines all the wealthy, or anything like it.

    btw: The US superrich grew wealthier from the Crash of '08 - accumulated a greater share of the wealth of the US. (upper 1% or so).
     
  23. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    7,447
    connecting the dots

    business confidence ...
    asset security
    income security
    job security
    market security

    economic security

    unemployment security ...

    politics is securing the asset security via policy to maintain market security through regulation & law

    Taxation exists to facilitate that.

    cajoled narrative...
    what a "good job" is to the bank account is rarely a good job for long term health
    the opposite of that is probably Chinese coal miners and now with the usa health care privatized costs also usa coal miners

    "Farm subsidies" can be used to stimulate growth via lending working class tax money to farm owners as charity or what modern people cal corporate welfare on an industrial scale.

    its quite complex over all and the meaning of things can be easily confused when you lack perspective of the different topics.

    a simple comment can cross several topics and have very specific meaning while seeming to be confusing.

    as a thing ... the public real & perceived job security is critical to the national economy as it stabalises and dictates social behaviour and interactive process with business.

    when job security goes down staff theft illness work accidents and training all take serious hits.

    unfortunately the alt-right leaning ultra privatised usa market does not wish to discuss this aspect as it directly connects taxation with social spending and social authority modelling by authority figures.
    on the other hand you have semi socialist muslim cultures where there is plenty of money but not plenty of freedom

    capitalist westerners looking at such societys with greed looking only at the money, have no desire to discuss dynamics of social & cultural evolution as it interferes with their ability to make money from those who do not share their ideologies.
    that is one of the usa(and other hyper capitalist countrys) private sector hypocrisy's

    the rubber doesn't meet the road when it comes to social freedoms and social support

    one is seen to be traded for the other
    (both sides argument theory)
    this is what typical USA politics bi-partisanship trades on.

    iceaura has posted on this topic many times in great detail and with very intelligent literacy.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2019

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