posted
My #1 social point in America is for the economy to work properly we must TAX the richest people in our society the greatest, I'm talking about thos 284 BILLIONAIREs in America.
If I was PResident, I would tax every billionaire %50, on the dollar for every dollar they made over their 1 billion dollar net worth.
I have the hardest time convincing people WHY this is so important, they call me communist, socialist, idiot, or what ever, BUT COME ONE PEOPLE, oh you Christians, how on Earth can we continue to support a system that again and again and again gives breaks to those with MULTIPLE BILLIONS of Dollars.
Conservatives love to get worked up over Homosexuality, a topic Jesus talks about ONCE, but how about GREED?
Does the word greed still exist in the conservative American lexicon???????
[ July 01, 2005, 01:43 AM: Message edited by: The Silverblue Sun ]
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posted
yeah, I'd much rather encourage savings and tax buying on credit heaviest, like with a national sales tax... but that might not sit well with our sales and advertising oriented economy.
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posted
I think there's a big distinction between millionaires and billionaires.
1,000,000,000 dollars. One thousand million. You can spend a million bucks. Heck, in 50 years you may not be able to retire on that.
But a billion is a whole different issue. 4 generations could live on a billion dollars (assuming they are smart enough to invest it, not just liquidate it and bury it in the yard).
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quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: yeah, I'd much rather encourage savings and tax buying on credit heaviest, like with a national sales tax... but that might not sit well with our sales and advertising oriented economy.
I buy virtually everything with my credit card and then pay it in full at the end of the month. I certainly wouldn't appreciate a sales tax on credit. Plus, how do you distinguish between credit and debit? Many stores don't.
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posted
Not to mention that all people would do is change how they purchase stuff, without actually changing how their use of credit was structured -- cash advances from the credit card instead of using it directly, for instance.
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posted
I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure everywhere distinguishes between debit and credit.
The credit card companies charge a certain percentage to the stores for their use. I don't think debit does. So they would separate them for that, if for no other reason.
I know what you mean, though, that you can use your debit card as a credit card, i.e. you sign the receipt, you don't use your pin. That's still a debit, though.
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posted
At the backend, yes, but I know I was told as a retail clerk that if used like a credit card the credit card processing fees were used for debit cards.
Hence why banks have all those promotions for people to use their debit cards by signing instead of with PINs, since they get a percentage of the processing fees.
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quote:Originally posted by The Silverblue Sun: My #1 social point in America is for the economy to work properly we must TAX the richest people in our society the greatest, I'm talking about thos 284 BILLIONAIREs in America.
If I was PResident, I would tax every billionaire %50, on the dollar for every dollar they made over their 1 billion dollar net worth.
I have the hardest time convincing people WHY this is so important, they call me communist, socialist, idiot, or what ever, BUT COME ONE PEOPLE, oh you Christians, how on Earth can we continue to support a system that again and again and again gives breaks to those with MULTIPLE BILLIONS of Dollars.
Conservatives love to get worked up over Homosexuality, a topic Jesus talks about ONCE, but how about GREED?
Does the word greed still exist in the conservative American lexicon???????
what you said reminds me on a song by barry mcguire, called "the eve of destruction", it has one line that goes something like: "you can hate your neighbor, but don't forget to say grace" .. i love that song.. so poignant
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However, there's no rule that millionaires make a million dollars annually. Millionaire, to me, means someone with a million dollars net worth.
You can achieve that by 50 if your salary is anywhere in 5 figure territory by savvy investment and living modestly. Those people don't need to be heavily taxed.
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posted
Depends on where you live, but more importantly, how you live. I mean mid to low 5 figures, and a serious commitment to your retirement.
I mean off brand toilet paper, 10 pound bags of rice, turning off lights when you leave the room, using public transportation, and taking care of your stuff.
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posted
Yeah. Five figures is a pretty big range, all the way from abject poverty to upper middle class.
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posted
I read an article, a couple of years ago, about a woman who was a schoolteacher her whole life, single, lived in the same house for 50 years, but was a millionaire when she died in her eighties.
Her secret?
She owned stocks, but that wasn't the secret. She had a bunch of slow and steady stocks, built a dollar at a time, but the key was she always reinvested her dividends.
She didn't take fliers, didn't go after start ups, just stuck with Anheiser Busch and GE for 50 years (just a guess, I don't actually remember what she had).
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quote:Heck, in 50 years you may not be able to retire on that.
If you retire at 65 with 1,000,000, spend 50,000 per year adjusted at annual inflation of 2.5% and earn 4% on the remainder, you will run out of money at age 88.
Enough people live past 88 that this isn't a safe retirement plan.
Of course, I ignore social security in that. The point is, though, 1,000,000 isn't that far from being "unable to retire on that" now. If you cut the original annual amount to 30,000, then the pot will last until 111.
This also assumes constant 4%. One bad year could knock 10 years off the length of time it lasts.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Yeah, I realize that it would be hard to save on 10 grand a year. I just kinda figured anyone with a high school diploma could earn at least 20 a year. No offense.
I have a buddy who works part time at CVS (20-30 hours a week) who made 24,000 last year while going to school.
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Your two incomes put you right on my level (well, above actually, but whatever). I don't know what your bills are, but you can always save something. And you can always live cheaper than you're living.
Don't take what I said above literally. I'm not hawking JT's Ways to be a millionaire on 20 grand a year. I'm just trying to say if you are careful, and a little lucky, you can make a middling salary and retire with a nice nest egg.
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posted
I think a better thread title would be use "covetousness". But still, I'm on you with this one Thor. Just goes to show if you hang around hatrack long enough, you will align with everyone at one point or other.
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Let's assume someone works full-time for minimum wage. $5.15/hour x 40 hours = $206/week.
Let's say they take no vacations and work 52 weeks of the year. $206/week x 52 weeks = $10,712.
That doesn't even take into account taxes, insurance (if they're lucky enough to have it), and vacation time. Plus, whoever is paying them minimum wage probably only gives them about 38 hours a week anyway to avoid paying benefits.
So they make five figures... how exactly do they make it?
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
To save 1,000,000 starting from age 21 by age 50, assuming 8% returns each year, one needs to save 7,000 the first year and inflate that contribution 2.5% each year, for a 14,683 contribution in year 50.
Of that, 322,002 will be direct contributions, the rest earnings. Also, if one started 10 years later, one would only have 382,808 at age 50.
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posted
My husband is dealing with several illnesses, while trying to be a full-time student. So no, he doesn't work. If, however, he were, of course it would be better. WE are making it with student loans... but I'm skeptical that anyone with a 5-figure income could make it.
Sometimes, for whatever reason, both spouses can't work.
posted
I think you might want to recheck with your friend. Based on working 30 hr/week and assuming he does that year round, your friend would have to make over $15/hr to make $24k in a year.
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posted
BTW, if one keeps saving on that plan until one is 65, the final figure is 3,746,594 with only 584,878 of that from contributions.
Time is crucial to financial planning. I wish demonstrations of this could be given in high schools.
It's true not everyone can afford to save that much. But the results are directly proportional to the initial contribution amount. Small changes at a young age have far greater effect than big changes at an older age. There's a lot of just out of college people who are over-consuming and throwing away hundreds of thousands of dollars from their retirement in doing so.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: If you retire at 65 with 1,000,000, spend 50,000 per year adjusted at annual inflation of 2.5% and earn 4% on the remainder, you will run out of money at age 88.
Do you really need $50,000 a year when you're retired?
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Boon
unregistered
posted
My husband works full time, and I stay at home with the children. He makes less than $25,000 a year, and we're doing fine.
We drive used cars, we live in a modest home, and we eat in most of the time. We actively look for ways to save money on things. We put money in savings every payday, before anything else gets paid, and that's periodically dumped into a higher-yield account.
We're making it, on the lower 5-figure spectrum. It's about the choices we make. We choose to live where we do, etc. So yes, it's possible.
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posted
you can forget taxes, you're below the poverty line. Luckily for you, at 10 a year you're entitled to government cheese and cheap housing. I'm assuming that someone at this level is working at minimum wage for a reason, and will never get promoted.
Of the 900 a month, you can figure:
150 rent 100 electric 100 disposable income
That leaves 450 a month to invest, assuming several things:
1) Someone who is gonna be a minimum wage worker for their whole life couldn't possibly handle the responsibility or the expense of a car, so that's out. Plus, you work at the closest convenience store to your home, so you walk to work.
2) Welfare covers all food (that's what it's meant for, anyway).
3) Medicare covers insurance (here's where the luck comes in, let's be reasonably healthy)
4) If you make minimum wage, you can't afford to go to the movies, or to Olive Garden, or have a cell phone. If you decide you want these things, find a better job.
450*12 = 5400 a year invested in a Roth IRA at 8% (nice median, I think).
If you never get promoted, but never get seriously ill, congratulations, you're a millionaire in 2038.
*Someone may wanna double check those calcs (talking to you, Dag), I modified my own retirement spreadsheet.
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quote:I think you might want to recheck with your friend. Based on working 30 hr/week and assuming he does that year round, your friend would have to make over $15/hr to make $24k in a year.
I did his taxes. He makes 17/hr, but he started at minimum wage, 8 years ago. An example of how you can make decent money with no college degree.
You really have to try hard not to make more than minimum wage (out in the world - I'm discounting on campus jobs, which typically always pay min. wage).
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posted
Pulled it out of my @ss. I figure this person has section 8 housing, or lives in a friends basement. Why not, since I have to make him a millionaire on $5.15 an hour?
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posted
We keep getting around to "need" but what about "earns"?
I have a good friend who worked his tail off for a long time. TI got his first patent while he was still an intern. He graduated from MIT in four years, aged 21, with a MS in Computer Science. He went to work in a few places, including for Steve Jobs at NEXT, and then some people called him and said "we're making a company... we need someone to do the programming and you are awfully good... want in?"
And he became the sixth employee of Excite. He got married and took a year off to tour the world. When he came back, excite was happy to pay him a LOT of money to, essentially, sit on the beach and answer his pager once in a while... because he was that good/competent/knowledgeable.
He finally couldn't take it anymore... it was boring him to death... so he signed on with another small upstart company to be their director of operations. They offered him a handsome stock package along with his compensation. They went public not too long ago... that company was Google. He bought his stock options at a ridiculously low price and had a LOT of liquid assests to sink into it. As it's up over $300 a share now, I don't even want to calculate his net worth... suffice it to say, he will never spend it all, and his daughter might have a tough time with what she inherits.
He is well aware of the financial difficulties I have had and has never once offered me a dime or a job or anything... to hear some of you speak, I should be offended, miffed...he's being unfair, isn't he? having all that money while I suffer along? He could clear out my debt with his pocket change. I could retire on the money he made from selling his first house. He is lucky, incredibly smart, focused, hard working, and dedicated. He is most definitely NOT greedy.
What does he owe anyone else? what reason do we have to go in and start confiscating his money? Why shouldn't he be allowed to sit back and enjoy his good fortune?
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posted
Oh, I forgot... re: the Credit thing... I just meant a sales tax hit people buying on credit the hardest because it taxes you on money you don't even necessarily have... I didn't mean a separate rate for credit card use.
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If you husband has medical problems, and you're both in school, that's a whole separate ballgame. If you two can save anything before you're both out in the real world, that's lagniappe. My statement applies more to full time workers than students, for reasons I'm sure you know.
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posted
El JT de Spang, We're in the real world. I work full-time and am a full-time graduate student. We're very much in the real world.
Boon, I applaud your ability to support a family on less than 25 grand a year. We do not live richly here, but we're also renting. We own his car, and I make a lease payment on mine. Leasing was a bad idea, but there were circumstances influencing that decision--and once done, not easily undone. I think, perhaps, that your ability to live on so little must have a lot to do with where you live. I have no idea where that is, so it's pure assumption on my part. I was under and unemployed for a year last year, so my credit stinks. Perhaps if we're able to buy a house, we could pay a mortgage that's more within our means than our rent is.
We're trying to spend less on food, but considering the bills BEFORE food and household expenses eat up my entire income, I hardly think this is a livable wage.
quote:Jim-Me: So you're talking about loans and mortgages? Or maybe just loans and not mortgages?
I think he means: There should be a sales tax. Sales taxes discourage people from using credit.
The credit reference was an effect of the sales tax, not part of a description of how it is applied.
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Edit to address your specifics: Mortgages wouldn't be affected because there is a property tax already... no need to add a sales tax on top of it... Loans might or might not be, depending on what you spend it on.
The point I like about a sales tax is that any savings account becomes a tax shelter... and all those fancy attempts to come up with expenditures go away-- you consume, you support the country, directly.
Hopefully the flat tax benefits to the upper classes would offset the detriment of being unable to hide income enough so that they'd keep purchasing and not send our economy in the toilet...
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Rent $330 This months electric bill $240 (my share $120) Phone bill $80 (my share $40) Teeth Bill ($65 min) Credit Card bill ($30 min) Water bill $25 Gym $40
so I make $900 after taxes and my bills are about $630.
My truck is paid off and mom pays for my car insurance.
$270 dollars a month = $65 a week for food and fun.
Wow.
Wow.
Oww.
I'm not sure how any people can really support MORE tax cuts for Billionaires. 40% of the American work force makes less than $10.00 an hour. This is BS.
And for the People pushing the Tax cuts for Billionaires to be Christians is down right absurd.
What's my solution? get a better job or a second job.
Umm, somebody has to work those $10.00 or less an hour jobs.
So you can't expect EVERYONE to get a "better job".
Why don't we look at who RIPS ME OFF time and time again, The Phone company, they've screwed me so many times in so many ways it's not funny, or look at the FREEAAAAKING EVIL electric company.
I leave my apartment on 80 all day long, my roomate neeeds the apartment at about 75 at night to sleep.
What was my bill this month in Houston this month??????
$240. Almost HALF of our RENT.
Freaking Socialize ENERGY.
To charge me that much for sooooooo little is evil, totally wrong.
I do not pick on "millionaires" that much because let's face it having 2 million at 40 isn't exactly living High off the hog, or gaurantee an easy retirement for a family.
But when we talk of the 284 BILLIONAIRES in america, ENOUGH is ENOUGH.
These people deserve ZERO breaks from our government.
quote: "Making a lot of money is easy if all you want to do is make a lot of money" - pennyworth from Citizen Kane
posted
I don't understand your ending quote. If it's easy to make a lot of money, then the only reason for not making a lot of money is because you don't value money enough to put forth the required effort. And if it's not worth the effort for you, why should you get to take money from the billionaires who do put for the effort?
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posted
I think he used that quote to try to say that the people who have made so much money have done so by being unconcerned with such things as family, community, or anything else other than aquiring personal wealth.
Posts: 151 | Registered: Apr 2005
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The way the game works. GOD put enough resources on Earth for all of mankind to share and live from.
We've all paid trillions of dollars for what?
Oil. Capitalism's water.
What else floats at the very top of the money power heap?
We must figure out a system that allows 10 billion human beings to live, eat, mobilize, house and be healthy.
Allowing a singluar capitalism King to have $100 Billion dollars while 2 billion people live on less than two American dollars a day is not the best way.
In this country MONEY writes the Law.
Soon people will not be able to afford to live.
I work 40 hours a week, does that not deserve simple living of the basics?
quote: If it's easy to make a lot of money, then the only reason for not making a lot of money is because you don't value money enough to put forth the required effort.
I'm a good man and a good writer and a good artist. Why am I poor? I work a full time job, and havbe worked since I was 15.
quote: I think he used that quote to try to say that the people who have made so much money have done so by being unconcerned with such things as family, community, or anything else other than aquiring personal wealth.
We must look at each case individually.
J. K. Rowling made a billion dollars from a book that I love, and i own a few copies of.
The saudi arabian princes have billions and billions of dollars because they were born into a family that controlled the land under which the oil rests.
Jenna Jameson has millions of dollars because she was born beautiful, and then chose to use that beauty to make video of her having sex with hundreds of men.
Or, how about the brave business men who decided to tack on commercials ahead of movies in the theatre.
You pay $8.00 to see the movie. You pay $10.00 for the popcorn and coke.
So shouldn't the theatre be paying us somehow to watch the stupid commercials???
Or how about the gentlemen who make billions off of Viagra, a pill that costs less than a penny to manufacture, is sold at $5.00 to $10.00 and its function is to give erections to 70 year old men.
Money has become larger than man, man must become larger than money.
There is enough resources on Earth to house, feed, care for, clothe and even car everybody.
We must build a system that gives everyone their basic needs, and then individuals can bust their asses if they want to own 50 cars, 10 homes, 2 jets and 5 wives and 23 mistresses.
<T>
<<<edited for html surgery>>>
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