All to often, the media (whom all are rich themselves, don’t be fooled) points out that the rich people are the problem with society. They ridicule and make fun of the rich, and blame everything under the sun on the rich. It’s kind of ironic considering those same folks complaining about the rich are much richer than the top 1%.
Let’s play a game called rich elimination.
In this game, we take the money away from those that are rich and ban them from making money. They now have to live on the median income amount that the average individual (or household) makes. Let’s identify those rich folks as people who have more than 20 million.
This destruction of this level of rich folks makes angel investors practically disappear! Luxury purchase that eventually trickles down to the masses are gone. Thinks like automobiles will not be invented, same goes with new medicines. And obviously, tax revenue that the government uses for most of their spending get hit hard! So naturally the tax increases across the board by 50% or more.
Next now we have a new problem, those that have 2 million to 20 million are now the rich and need to be treated the same as the first wave of rich destruction. Those that have (now had) 2 million to 20 million will have their money seized by the government. , This fixes the tax problem, and now these individual are paid the median income amount.
I’m going to stop here because we all know that to continue the destruction of wealth (those that still have 1 million) leads to a communist state and that doesn’t work (look at China and Russia and how they did change to allow capitalism in their society). North Korea is a great example of a system that doesn’t work, especially when compared to South Korea.
Back to the point that the higher rich levels have been redistributed, what does that mean for society?
- We all need to pay, oh maybe 60 to 80% in taxes (and in the worst cases all) to support the government (we all know that when the government spends money it’s hard to make them stop spending money).
- Inventions that are expensive to initially make like Refrigerators, Cars, TVs, Computer, etc… are no longer created because nobody can afford to buy them because the first models are so expensive that only the rich can buy them initially. But at least we get to play plenty of frisbee now!
- Medical advances stop!
- Mortality rates climb, because new drugs are being made since the government show down those over priced drug companies.
- Disaster money disappears
- Crime increases
- Businesses stop
- Society devolution starts.
The thing about being rich is it’s relative. Unless you are a Gates or Buffett, there is always someone richer than you that makes you feel not poor. This may be why people like John Stewart and other media performer act that way. Or perhaps it’s because they get paid to do so. Perhaps they (the media giants) are all playing us for the fools, because they earn money for doing so.
Thinks of a third world country when you want to see a country without any rich folks. Shoot, our founding fathers in the US were rich! If Benjamin Franklin hadn’t gone over to France to woo the French, we would have had the support of the French Army to help us fight the British.
Without rich people, the world would be a much darker place.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like without any rich people in the country?
MR
Eliminating the rich would not be a good idea as like it or not they do spread their wealth around in various ways. In the end the rich need everyone else to do their stuff which balances out the economy nicely.
Yeah, the rich create what I like to call a surge effect in innovation. Without money, innovations don’t get invented these days (unless they are made of wood and nails)…
I think we need both in our society, the rich and the not so rich to keep a balance. However, I think we need to reduce the spread. There is way too much of a gap between classes at the moment and the situation just keeps getting worse. How things are now is not sustainable.
I like your comment about societal devolution. That’s exactly what would happen, we would devolve into smaller and smaller groups, where communal property is more feasible. In any large society, whether capitalist or socialist, there are always the elite who are better off, regardless of how they come about their “rich” status. In the worker’s paradise that was the former Soviet Union, it was the Communist party apparatchiks that enjoyed wealth and privilege, from private stores stocked w/ Western goods to country dachas.
Good point. It’s kind of ironic that the countries at are socialist are really the countries where there are very few, very rich individuals and the rest of the population is poor. Is that what we really want?
While I don’t think that a world without rich people is a good idea, I do take issue with several of the things you mention. At the very least, “the media (whom all are rich themselves, don’t be fooled)” is a sweeping generalization that’s completely untrue. The “media” includes reporters for newspapers — and at least the ones I knew — were certainly not rich.
True, by media I should have said those outlets that are at a national level, not backyard newspapers…
I’m sure nobody reads my local newspaper from my city 🙂
The ones that brainwash us into not thinking and researching matters for ourselves or even looking around, realizing that our friends and community leaders are rich and a huge plus to society. The ones that have the most reach are the ones the rich ones that I’m talking about …
I like the anecdote, “have you ever gotten a job from a poor person?” – Snarky, sure, but outside of inexperienced CEOs starting companies, can you think of any examples?
You mentioned China and Russia, but Chile is actually the best example of a company that went from poor to rich by switching to a free market. Unfortunately, it was under Pinochet, so the economic gains were great but the human aspect was a disaster. Still, Chile is a vibrant economy today.
People just like to complain. Poor people will complain about rich people. Rich people will complain they don’t have enough money. Dumb people will complain that smart people are jerks… people will ccomplain no matter what the situation or circumstances are. It’s just our nature.
Very true….
As long as it’s not disruptive, I don’t mind so much…
We need both. But we also need to make sure that the gap between poor and richer is still filled with the middle class. 🙂
The funny thing is that’s exactly who is rising to the rich class… the middle class that is… Isn’t that the goal? Work hard, get ahead, become rich, help others?
This is an interesting spin on the class-warfare argument. My suspicion is that people really don’t want what they claim they want. It may sound good to forcibly redistribute wealth, but the consequences of doing so are bigger than financial. Like you suggest, I believe it would literally bring about a radical change in societal values that we’re not even prepared to deal with.
I think many people don’t look beyond 1 move, but if many of what the so called 99% propose came to be, it would destroy society as we know it and push us all back hundreds of years. It’s amazing that some folks want a society like Russia and China were in the past and what North Korea (and Cuba) is today.
Personally, I don’t want food to be consider a luxury. I don’t think many of us realize how good we have it.
Perhaps if I were 10 or so years younger I would agree with the common views, but I’ve been around enough to see and know how it works…
As a society I think we need to have something to aspire to. As long as the opportunity reasonable exists for us all to improve our situations then income and wealth inequality serve important functions in keeping us all grounded in reality and focused on working.
Great point! That was the problem with communism in the previous form. Who in their right mind would work as hard as they do if there was not a reward in doing so. If I were a doctor and only got paid as much as everybody else… I would stop being a doctor and become something much less stressful.
Nice add!
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We need both rich and poor to make the world go round and keep a balance in our ecosystem of society. Taking out the rich would through off the system 😛
Definitely. Since I’m much more close to being poor than rich, I have to agree 🙂
A world without rich people… kind of like communism.
Anyways, a world without rich people would only drag the average income/GDP down. It would discourage people from working hard.
Exactly! 🙂
I agree that it would cause a lot of financial problems if we didn’t have rich people. Also, what happens when people get rich, do they lose it.
Yep, they spend it helping everybody else! Unless they are Warren Buffett who has really hoarded his money over the years (until recently). Now he’s giving it all away to charity, like all of the other big rich guys…
It’s funny how people forget about that…
All you people think inside the bubble. Fact is that the mere idea of a class of people separate from common society to basically sit on their asses all because they hourde a large amount of resources is bad all the way around.
If there were no rich people, everyone would be reduced to the same level. We are all born at the same level. It is the knowledge and corruption of people that change that. Notice how rich and poor children can play together? They don’t love money and it isn’t instinctive to throw someone under a bus to be selfish. Children are more prone to helping others and throwing away the money.
We don’t need money. Money is there to make the rich get richer. It feeds their selfish greed. For someone to say that it is important goes to show that person could never survive if the whole grid shut down. I could survive because I know how to. Everyone would know how to if they weren’t spoiled with materialism which is what money is all about. If rich people disappeared today, there would be a hard fall in society. But once all the smoke clears, people would have no choice but to revert back to what God intended to begin with. A collective society….one for all and all for one.
I tend to run in the “Real world”, and in the real world, such societies that you mention exists, but instead of a happy middle, everybody is poor. And the are poor because they have no motivation.
You see, money is just a tool, and sort of like a game (if you will). It’s a tool to get you the things you want in life. But the tool is paper, and it’s just a medium for exchange. It’s a game in the fact that some like to accumulate it to vast degrees (look at Warren Buffett).
Without rich people to buy the super high prices merchandise, nobody buy expensive things like VCRs, Radios, TVs, Cars, shirts, shoes, etc… All of those were expensive when they were first created, and over time has been commoditized. But without the rich suckers buying the VCRs (and obviously it’s heir the DVD), nobody would spend a few thousand dollars for them.
Of course I can’t take credit for the paragraph I wrote above, it’s all from Economics 101, and if you think about it, makes total sense. That is why we live longer and have a better lifestyle than those in other more communist countries.
I’m not even going to mention human nature and the fact that communes all fail…
History is a great tool too 🙂
this argument is completely invalid, in this world where the rich control the majority of spending power, a world where money makes more money, the rich become richer, they leech the spending power from the masses, only to further their own superficial power, you argue that inventions would stop being created, that the world would loose the momentum of advancement, if spending power was evenly distributed throughout the world then the rich wouldn’t be the only ones who could invest in new creations, or create them. the world could be a place where any one could become anything, a place where every one can grow to any greatness depending only on their will to work hard and their drive to make dreams become reality, the majority of your argument on why a world without the rich would be dark, is completely biased. its time for a fresh start, its time to destroy the leeches of society, it is time to end the struggle of rich and poor. you make me sick
Wow, I’m honestly sorry for making you sick. Of course if you are not sick and you’re just saying that because you’ve learned that such a phrase is something cool to say… then not so much… (another cool thing to say).
As for you viewpoint, I think you have a simplistic view that’s form based on what you’ve been feed, instead of looking around and coming to your own conclusions.
For what I’ve done from doing the reading, research, and from talking to people that are successful, most are from the middle class or even from poorer classes.
The rick don’t become richer, most give it away (see articles about buffett and Gates and how they are giving the majority of the wealth they have accumulated away).
I may make you sick, but I feel sad for you friend. If you believe that your life is controlled by the rich then it will be. I think money is just a perceived think is just a tool that serves as a medium for exchange. There is no magic in money, just a perception of value. Money is just paper, and gold is just a metal. It’s one’s belief that give paper and metal value, not magic.
Eat the rich if you’d like, but you may find that you are really eating yourself and your chances for advancement in the world with such a viewpoint.
Good luck to you and I honestly wish you the best.