Do rich ppl deserve their money?

[segnosaur]

Major investors are taking huge risks... kind of obtuse don't you think when you also say this:

"....deserve returns on their investment."

It is all usury and no one "deserves" a return. They are lucky if they realize one, just like a gambler is lucky if he wins a poker pot.

I'm not the original poster (blueblood), but I think you may be misinterpreting his statement.

When he said people 'deserve a return on their investment', he didn't mean that people should be guaranteed a certain profit for each dollar invested. I think he meant that of people DO receive a return, they deserve to keep those returns.

Investment is a huge risk and taxpayers should not be bailing out companies that took those risks and lost. That is what capitalism is all about.

The issue of whether rich people should be forced to 'give up' their wealth is a different issue than the corporate bailouts.

I doubt anyone here really thinks 'rich people' should be given more money if their investments fail, just that they shouldn't necessarily be 'punished' when they do happen to become successful through their own efforts.

However, no matter what happens when you involve yourself in the kind of usury that has been prevalent over the last 20 years, you are bound to suffer...if only financially. No one "deserves" their wealth. They either earn it legally and morally, or they are not entitled to it.

Umm.. if they do earn it 'legally and morally', then they do deserve it.

Keep in mind that the initial poster was specifically suggesting all rich people (even those who earned their money through their own hard work) should be forced to give up some of that wealth (possibly even over and above what they've already been taxed.)

They do have to pay their share of the social burden however and that would include having to pay extra for the burden they have created by screwing up the economy with their "risks", as well as paying forward for the destruction they have caused by funding environmental disasters like the tar sands, or oil spills, or deforestation.

Umm... many 'rich people' may have been greedy trying to earn a profit in the mortgage market, but keep in mind that many poor people also were greedy in in trying to obtain homes that they could not afford. And while the rich may run the companies that involve oil exploration or deforestration, the poor are also responsible because they use those products. (And the wealthy, through our progressive tax system with multiple tax brackets) have already payed a higher portion of their overall income into society.

[Pliny]

Umm... many 'rich people' may have been greedy trying to earn a profit in the mortgage market, but keep in mind that many poor people also were greedy in in trying to obtain homes that they could not afford. And while the rich may run the companies that involve oil exploration or deforestration, the poor are also responsible because they use those products. (And the wealthy, through our progressive tax system with multiple tax brackets) have already payed a higher portion of their overall income into society.

Keep in mind the "rich people' in the mortgage market were encouraged by government (at least true in the US) to take the risk, Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, both government enterprises, would buy up the bad mortgages anyway. And government encouraged the many poor people to take out the mortgages they could ill afford. The main players being Democrats Barney Frank, head of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and Chris Dodd, head of the finance committee and architect of the Wall Street bailout. I suspect Dodd had major investments on Wall Street and was saving his own bacon in the bail out.

My whole take on the economic meltdown is that the bubbles had to pop sometime but as long as they were expanding there was no complaint from government. In fact, the exact opposite, that of a rosy economy was publicly presented by the likes of government representatives such as Barney Frank.

The government, contrary to popular opinion cannot just print money and it doesn't, wealth is produced by the production of the people and the government extracts it for it's purposes from the economy. If it overspends, it creates debt. Obama spending trillions of dollars is not just spending, he is creating debt, which must be paid for out of the future economy. If it prints more currency to pay the debt the currency is devalued and loses purchasing power. Simply put the government is dependent upon the economy for it's subsistence. They take credit for a rosy economy and are content to spend and expand their bureaucracies from their revenues. If the economy then falters they get into a panic because it means less available for them in the economy. So they attempt to stimulate the economy by borrowing and spending. NEVER does it enter their minds that they should economize, cut their spending and let loose the economy, they so inconsequentially raided, to produce the share of wealth they now feel entitled to.

In other words the mindset is that government cannot ever contract and when the economy founders they panic and that panic spreads to the people and what is more fearful is the uncertainty of what government is going to do now. Do they become like Chavez and start to nationalize things - creating more uncertainty of the safety of investment thus discouraging growth in the economy.

I could go on..............

[lictor616]

We live in a bad economic time. If someone has $2,000,000 or more they should have to share like 10% with unemployed people of the same race.

reasons why:

1.) economy is bad and unemployment is at a record high yet greedy fat cats get to have a savings with 7 figures? wow.....

2.) people don't mind helping their own race

thoughts or opinions?

i heard 4 fat guys were stealing billions of dollars and buying jets with our taxes

2) the elite class are actually in the process of liquidating their own race in the genocide called "intergration and multiculturalism" in this accursed country of ours.

I suspect that they like the fact that floodgate style third world immigration increases the distance between them and their subjects... and provides them with a great tool (a huge fetid mass of unskilled third world vocal anthropoids from whatever failed cesspit of the world) to attack wage labor to increase their profit margin..

[guyser]

(a huge fetid mass of unskilled third world vocal anthropoids from whatever failed cesspit of the world) to attack wage labor to increase their profit margin..

Lost your job to one huh? The new guy had a better education ?

[Renegade]

Even if they never really worked for it but gained it through usury?

What is wrong with usury?

[WIP]

Keep in mind the "rich people' in the mortgage market were encouraged by government (at least true in the US) to take the risk, Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, both government enterprises, would buy up the bad mortgages anyway. And government encouraged the many poor people to take out the mortgages they could ill afford. The main players being Democrats Barney Frank, head of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and Chris Dodd, head of the finance committee and architect of the Wall Street bailout. I suspect Dodd had major investments on Wall Street and was saving his own bacon in the bail out.

Yeah right! Naturally, coming from you, nothing is said about the greedy Republican bastards that created trickle-down economics and the notion of turning everyone into investors. Sifting through the wreckage of the subprime mortgage meltdown, the first lie that jumps out is the picture painted by rightwing radio that the mortgage buyers were blacks with zero credit scores -- no jobs, no saving or other assets which would used to qualify for a conventional mortgage. The shocking truth is that by 2006, the majority of customers that got railroaded into subprime loans by Countrywide and other fraudsters could have qualified for a regular mortgage! Considering the crazy add-ons in the subprime contracts like escalator payments and interest-only payments, the question should be why aren't the people who wrote up these contracts being rounded up and sent to jail? Instead, just like the executives at failed banks, they have been allowed to take the money and run.

The proportion of subprime ARM loans made to people with credit scores high enough to qualify for conventional mortgages with better terms increased from 41% in 2000 to 61% by 2006. However, there are many factors other than credit score that affect lending. In addition, mortgage brokers in some cases received incentives from lenders to offer subprime ARM's even to those with credit ratings that merited a conforming (i.e., non-subprime) loan. For example, brokers for one lender could earn a "yield spread premium" equal to 2% of the loan amount -- or $8,000 on a $400,000 loan -- if a borrower's interest rate was an extra 1.25 percentage points higher than the lender's prime rates. On average, U.S. mortgage brokers collected 1.88% of the loan amount for originating a subprime loan, compared with 1.48% for conforming loans. Payouts for subprime loans have traditionally been higher, in part because these loans sometimes took more work and the approval rate could be lower.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis

A couple of years ago, CanadianBusiness ran this hilarious little puff piece about the wonderful derivatives market that included a kindergarten-level explanation of credit default swap contracts:

Today one of the largest derivative markets is the market for credit default contracts, where you can buy a contract giving you the right to sell a certain corporate bond at such and such a price. That ensures the value of your portfolio in the case of default by the company issuing those bonds. But the concept has been extended to any number of products. You say your company makes fertilizer and you want to hedge your risk against a natural gas price spike (fertilizer production uses tons of natural gas)? Derivatives. You say you're organizing a massive outdoor festival and want to hedge against the possibility of being rained out? Look into weather derivatives, which are contracts that pay out according to temperature and rainfall patterns. In that sense, derivatives are a simple tool to help businesses manage the natural ups and downs of the business environment.

And then, boys and girls, when subprime mortgage holders all over the world knocked on AIG's door to cash in their credit default contracts, the sky fell and we realized once again that real prosperity comes from making real goods and providing real services -- not pushing around worthless paper IOU's!

During the last 8 to 10 years of the phony economic prosperity, the financial services sector in the U.S. grew to almost 30% of the U.S. economy. Now that the bubble has burst, new university graduates will go to work in real industries instead of creating new money scam derivatives.

[Oleg Bach]

This guy had a huge fire place in each room. The ceilings were thirty feet in height...the windows were that of an ancient catherdral. His house was worth at least 20 million dollars..My brother was doing some wood work for the fellow..dear brother was impressed..The owner was all of 43 years old...It did not take a lot of thinking to understand that behind every great fortune is a great crime of some sort...Do the rich deserve their money? Depends on what they did to get it.

[moderateamericain]

I can sum up this whole OP. "We need people to help us justify taking something that does not belong to us." Any time things go bad and people get desperate they will look for any excuse to rationalize taking something that has never belonged to them.

[benny]

To me, deserving money is having done a real sacrifice in order to obtain it.

[Renegade]

To me, deserving money is having done a real sacrifice in order to obtain it.

Why? Do lottery winnners not "deserve" their money?

[benny]

Why? Do lottery winnners not "deserve" their money?

The winners deserve their prizes only if they were risking their own money and were risk averse at the time when they purchased their tickets. If not, of course they are lucky (brute luck) to get the money.

[WIP]

I can sum up this whole OP. "We need people to help us justify taking something that does not belong to us." Any time things go bad and people get desperate they will look for any excuse to rationalize taking something that has never belonged to them.

It would help if you would explain who is taking from whom!

[benny]

It would help if you would explain who is taking from whom!

Owning something and deserving something are far from equivalent. To see why think about how problematic the "first come, first served" principle is.

[Oleg Bach]

I can sum up this whole OP. "We need people to help us justify taking something that does not belong to us." Any time things go bad and people get desperate they will look for any excuse to rationalize taking something that has never belonged to them.

If you have a government that is supposed to be respectable - devide up the spoils during a recession and send off our money to maintain their rich friends...that is rationalizing via false respectablity..and taking something that does not belong to them and handing it over to their own class which is them..once that government is out of office - they to can dip into the bail out money ---- THEY KNOW WHO HAS IT AND THE FAVOUR WILL BE RETURNED IN TIME.

[Yorkness]

Do rich people deserve their money? Better yet, do people, in general, deserve THEIR money? This is the most ridiculous question I have ever heard to date. I think this question deserves another which is: Do people have the right to property? Property being money, either speculated or physical. To set a case in point I'd like to ask a personal question. Do I deserve my $4 Starbuck's Cappucino? Or should I have bought a Tim Horton's coffee and donated the extra $2.50 I had saved to UNICEF or whatever charity organization. Do I have the right to a higher economic quality of life? Or should I limit my personal and economic worth so it better coincides with that of the general population? Do I have the right to aspire? To dream? To chase those dreams? And, to, ultimately succeed? What if I cause some misfortune to someone or other along my path? Did that person not have the right to pursue his own dreams? Did he not have the right, if not the ability; To defend himself, and his interests, dreams, family, what have you? Everybody deserves where they are. True, sometimes inheritance can present an advantage to certain people, but does this, by default, make them more successful? There is still a road to be tread, by the richest, and by the poorest. I believe that a man should act before he asks. If I am poor, and I wish to become rich; I should act on it. I should not ask that wealth come to me. I must come towards that wealth first. May I ask that wealth be passed to me, from the other side of the room? Yes, but does that mean it will come? No, I must first take a step towards it.

I see this topic within a vision of a field. On one side there is a rich man, with his wealth in front of him, let's say his wealth is in the shape of a ball. On the other side of the field is a poor man. The poor man requests that the ball, as in the rich man's wealth, be passed to him. The rich man passes him the ball, then the poor man retreats farther down the field in hatred and disrespect of the rich man's fortune, even as he holds it. The rich man then chases the poor man, disgusted with the poor man's lack of appreciation. The two men remain at a distance, each pursuing something he feels is rightly his.

Another scenario sees the same men in the same ends if the field. The poor man realizes he is at a disadvantage and steps towards the rich man, who has abundant and extra wealth. He steps towards him intending a compromise of the two men's wealth. The rich man, realizing the poor man's needs, steps forwards. His step forward comes in terms of a service he provides. This service helps the poor man close the gap between them until finally they unite, in the middle of the field.

I think people must first ask what they deserve from themselves, instead of relaying their needs immediately to an outside party. Does one deserve to live their life first? Or that of someone else? I beg many people on this board do some soul searching, but from within themselves, not the CEO of AIG.

[jbg]

We live in a bad economic time. If someone has $2,000,000 or more they should have to share like 10% with unemployed people of the same race.

reasons why:

2.) people don't mind helping their own race

thoughts or opinions?

I am hardly into political correctness but I detest blatant racism too.

[benny]

To be deserving of exclusive ownership of a property, you have to compensate all those who are losing access to this property.

[Muddy]

Whats mine is mine and I deserve the fruits of my labour. Now what I wish to share of my own free will is my business. Force is wrong. That goes for those who we suspect of getting their money through less than honest endeavor. When one is envious of the rich ,study them and their life and if you find them honest ,emulate them. But don`t let your envy make you dishonest enough to covet what is not rightly yours.

[moderateamericain]

It would help if you would explain who is taking from whom!

Anyone who because of lack of ability to Create wealth thinks that it is there right to take what they have not earned. Or anyone who feels that because somebody has wealth, inherited or earned, they do not deserve it. Because the root question is, If they do not deserve the wealth they earned or inherited, why do you? Theres a word for that, its called Stealing.

Now I have a question for you. why when we steal from somebody of a lower class its bad we get arrested for it, but if we steal from the rich its righteous? The worst Idea ever to be bought into was the idea of Robin hood.

Edited March 25, 2009 by moderateamericain

[moderateamericain]

To be deserving of exclusive ownership of a property, you have to compensate all those who are losing access to this property.

We do through taxes. And because I buy a piece of property what makes you assume that they had access to the piece of property prior to my purchase?

[moderateamericain]

To me, deserving money is having done a real sacrifice in order to obtain it.

You sacrifice your time and engergy to make money.

[benny]

You sacrifice your time and engergy to make money.

If you were bored by having too much time on hands prior to your remunerative undertaking, you are not sacrificing your time.

Edited March 25, 2009 by benny

[moderateamericain]

If you were bored by having too much time on hands prior to your remunerative undertaking, you are not sacrificing your time.

So because you might be bored and you decide to go earn wealth you are undeserving of it?

[Oleg Bach]

One of the rich families that I knew - got off to a fine start - Private schools - father was super connected politically and in buisness - all of the kids inherited about 20 million a piece - and off they went..to be "successful" - does one of them deserve to toy with 4 billion dollar merger or have some money put away because he worked everyday for 35 years solid? I would say yes - this particular man was dutiful to society and maintained the system in good working order. He never flaunted wealth and maintained his honour..that I don't have a problem with.. on the other hand.

A very wealthy Italian family that developed almost all of the land north of the city of Toronto destroyed my old stomping grounds - the Oak Ridge Moraine - destroyed the water supply - the exotic plant life - the animals and the beauty - their whole purpose was simply the accumulation of weath with no purpose and no socio or ecomomic responsibility what so ever _ If he had one Van Gogh painting - he wanted three... This person does not sit on the board of a hospital - does not involve him self in the rewarding of good studentship...he's just plain filthy rich - and his suits are at least 3 thousand dollars - and he has dozens - does he diserve his money? ----Nope - he's just an Italian brick layer and sewer pipe guy who got big..and could not stop himself from the habitual accumulation of plunder.

[WIP]

Anyone who because of lack of ability to Create wealth thinks that it is there right to take what they have not earned. Or anyone who feels that because somebody has wealth, inherited or earned, they do not deserve it. Because the root question is, If they do not deserve the wealth they earned or inherited, why do you? Theres a word for that, its called Stealing.

Now I have a question for you. why when we steal from somebody of a lower class its bad we get arrested for it, but if we steal from the rich its righteous? The worst Idea ever to be bought into was the idea of Robin hood.

Unless your name is Robinson Crusoe, you have no real claim to being a self-made man! If, like Robinson, you are living on a deserted island, and have made your own place to live, procured your own food, and made all of your own tools and everything else you need, you have no real claim that you owe nothing.

Otherwise, you received a basic education from a school that everyone chips in to support, whether they still have children in school, or even whether they have had kids of their own. You drive on roads that are payed for out of the taxes of people who may not own cars to begin with, and if you take public transit, you are using a service that is primarily supported through taxes. Nobody thinks of the little things, but all of these self-made men who owe nothing to others, don't seem to notice their own dependence on services provided for the benefit of everyone.

Now, even though there are people who because of mental illness or drug abuse, are not able to pay their way, most of us would rather provide at least for the survival of people on the margins rather than live in Calcutta, and watch people starving to death on the streets! As for the rich -- I'll get into this further at another time, but attention needs to be focused on those who have created a system where those at the top of the pyramid are allowed to leverage other people's money on their own risky real estate investments (Donald Trump for example), and then declare bankruptcy when they've over reached and ran out of cash -- or the Wall Street crew that are finally getting attention for placing over-leveredged bets on stock and commodity markets, and then have their firms go bankrupt or seek government bailout money, all with no loss of their own personal wealth. Do these people deserve their money? ONe thing is for sure, if middle class people keep seeing their wealth decline as they watch the superrich get fatter, some form of action will be taken against them.

Many third world nations that have this huge gap between rich and poor either go through revolutions, or the few at the top have to use the army on their own people to maintain order and keep themselves safe.......so much for democracy! Is that the direction greedy conservatives and libertarians want to go? Because, aside from all of the carping about income redistribution, part of the benefit is a peace dividend. If we end up turning into Mexico, it is not the super rich who will suffer. They are protected in their gated compounds with private armies. The less wealthy Latin Americans actually have to send their children to private schools in the U.S. and Canada, primarily because of the threat posed by gangs who kidnap their children and hold them for ransom. Sometimes greed and selfishness comes at a high personal cost.