Where'd he do that?

So in your opinion, the Roman patricians during the classic republican age did nothing for a living?

Sugarpop has finally tagged rich as a label to identify those earning between $5-10MM/year. Obama wants tax increases for those earning $250K+. That would seem to indicate he wants to increase taxes for those that Sugarpop does not feel are rich. Just curious how she feels about that.

Wow.

I'd say you're rich if your annual wage would buy a decent 4 bedroom house in the area you live in.

So in Tucson, you're rich if you make $175,000/yr. In New York, you're rich if you make $1,100,000, etc.

I'd say the average would be about $200,000.

Sounds like another way of saying, "you're rich if you have more than me".

Sounds like Lookout is back in "pointless asshole" mode, because he has nothing other than useless ad hominem attacks.

As usual.

Please step aside, Lookout, I'd prefer to speak to serious posters. Thanks.

I don't believe the bottom make no contribution and I do not believe they are not productive. I believe most people WANT to contribute, but they also want to be paid fairly and treated with respect. I don't believe CEOs make more contributions to society or are more important than teachers, or scientists, or cops, or soldiers, or artists. I do not believe bankers and executives do either. In fact, I would argue that many of those jobs are MORE important. I do not believe the executive class deserves to be paid SO MUCH MORE than everyone else. Why should they? What possible reason could you give that a CEO or an executive should make 400-500 X more than the average worker?

Having said that, I also realize that everyone is not capable of being a doctor or a lawyer or even a *cough*CEO*cough*, but from the same perspective, not everyone is cut out to be a teacher or a soldier or a janitor. So why should one have so much more value planced on them than the others? I'll tell you, without those janitors, we would be in a world of shit, literally. Soldiers and cops put their lives on the line every day. Isn't that more important, the possibilty of dying while doing your job, than being a banker? Teachers are molding our future generations. Isn't that at least as important as running a company? If we didn't have anyone to build the bridges and buildings or to make the cars or to do the plumbing, we wouldn't have any buildings or bridges or cars or plumbing. Maybe if we looked at ALL JOBS as having inherent value, we wouldn't place so much emphasis on some being so much more important than others.

Here's the thing, have you ever read any Aldous Huxley? I think he made a lot of really great points in his book Island. On the island, everyone shared in the responsibilties. Even the doctors had to sometimes go out and dig the earth to plant, or do some other, what we would call menial, job. That kept everything more in perspective, for everyone. We could learn something from that.

No. And he is not raising taxes, he is letting the Bush tax cuts expire to where they were before Bush was in office. You act like he is going to make people pay 50% or something. He isn't. It is only a 3% increase on the money made OVER $250,000/year.

ftr, I think the taxes should increase even more on people making over a million a year, and even more again on people making 5 million/year, and more again on people making 10 million/year.

Yeah, I think I'd be rich if I had more than you. :haha:

You misinterpret what I am saying. I am defining this based on your question, which is based on my posts when I talk about rich people. When I talk about rich people, the people at the top, I am talking about people who earn 5 million + a year. That has nothing to do with what Obama is doing.

But to be clear, making $250,000/year is definitely rich. At least it would be to me, especially where I live. To a New Yorker, not so much. I would say it is upper middle class for sure. Again though, he is not RAISING taxes, he is letting them expire to where they were before Bush was in office when he wrote the tax cuts to favor the wealthier classes among us. And, it is on the money that is made above and beyond $250,000. So no, I don't have a problem with that.

But the bar of "comfortably" keeps getting raised. 60 years ago, it was generally a given that your family had one car, and would manage to save up enough to buy their first three-bedroom house by the time the kids were 7-10 years old. That was middle-class; that was "comfortable." Now most people would call that poor, to only be able to afford one car.

The perception of need vs want keeps moving.

Yeah, CEOs, for example, WANT 480 times what the floor employees get.

It turns out, though, that in all cases, this is a self-correcting problem, from the jackass making $60K/year that just HAS to have a $400K house and a Hummer, to the silly bastards at Morgan Stanley that insist they need two more corporate jets and a terminal building with a rooftop garden.

There are infinitely more on the bottom end than the top. It isn't even close. There are many who feel entitled to live off the Gov't as well. welfare has become a way NOT to work and to just keep on receiving while giving ZERO.

All this is well and good, but means nothing as you again haven't answered the questions? Lemme try again.

Who defines needs? who defines abilities?

I don't know who defines them, but as it is now, the people defining them need to be fired, because our system, it ain't working for the vast majority of people out there. Any system that is designed to only work for the few at the top, that system is seriously flawed and needs to be changed.