Deep reflection time: what's "rich"?

[jmowreader]

We all want to tax the rich? What IS that?

There is "rich" and "wealthy." Wealthy just means you have a high net worth.

I believe you need three things to be rich.

First, you need enough money that it's not a controlling factor in your life. This is a hard number to pin down because everyone is different. Some people can be here making $25,000 per year. Other people could make $250 million a year and still be controlled by their money; Mitt Romney and Donald Trump come to mind.

Second, more than half of your income is from investments.

And third, your lifestyle wouldn't be diminished if you stopped working.

This doesn't take a huge amount of money. And high income could preclude you from being rich - earn $1 million from work, $500,000 from investments, and your lifestyle would radically change if work went away.

[limpyhobbler]

1. Certainly the top 1% of the wealth distribution is rich. And wealthy.

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

[jmowreader]

4. I wonder how many of those are paper rich

Romney is paper rich. Most of his wealth is in stock. Mitt Romney is worth between $250m and $1b but he probably couldn't put his hands on $20m without selling a lot of stock. Remember when Ann said they had to scrape by in college by selling stock? Scraping by is right; Romney, in the final analysis, has no money. What he has is paper worth what someone says it is, and it could be worth $100 a ton if an exact set of catastrophes happens.

One of America's big problems is the overabundance of paper rich.

[rabid_byter]

2. the richest 20% hold 95.4% of the Financial wealth in the USA, poorest 80% have 4.6%

sorry, but this is a little easier to understand..

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

actually... the richest 20% hold 95.4% of the Financial wealth in the USA, poorest
80% hold 4.6% of financial wealth and the poorest 50% hold 2.5%

SO THERE IS NO MIDDLE CLASS.!! QUIT USING THAT TERM.!! makes you a slave to ignorance

it is a mind control trick to make you think you aren't being SCREWED every second of your life.!! by the rich who are so taped out they cant afford to PAY TAXES. the reason there is a recession.. and only in the underclasses is there a recession..is because they tie up all the cash in their mentally ill OCD cleptocratic plutocratic quest to acquire more needless wealth and power at the expense of the underclass. humm isn't that the definition of Fascism.??

[HiPointDem]

3. +1

The so-called middle class actually = the top 20% - 1%.

1% = the beginning of hailing distance of the rulers of the universe in the top .01%.

The top 19% serves them. Like courtiers in the time of Louis XVI.

[slackmaster]

5. Anyone who has significantly higher income or accumulated wealth than you do is rich

HTH

[CincyDem]

6. Chris Rock has a point of view on this. NSFW but very funny

http://www.hiphopflix.com/video/0000001001-

[NightWatcher]

7. Shaq is rich, but the white man who signs his checks is wealthy

[geckosfeet]

8. It's relative. Relative to where and how you live.

All three of your "criteria" could be true for someone with a net worth of $10.

[jmowreader]

9. Maybe not $10

One important thing about soaking The Rich: seriously rich people have relatively low incomes. They incorporate their wealth and only draw off what they need to live. Reinvestment is the key to grand riches.

Go after the high income earners. And soak the rich too.

[geckosfeet]

11. I am inclined to use net worth as a measure as well.

If net worth grows year over year but income does not keep pace with the growth, you know something is going on under the covers.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. I think "your lifestyle wouldn't be diminished if you stopped working" is a bogus measure

That means that people who currently spend more than their investment income cannot be rich, even if their investment income is huge. Yes, someone with half a million of investment income is rich, whether or not they have a job too, and whether or not they spend more than that half million.

You appear to want to redefine "rich" as "content about the amount of money they own". If you want that re-definition, then you have to throw away the claim that "we all want to tax the rich".

[laundry_queen]

14. +1 nt

[Zax2me]

12. Pretty much everyone I saw at the Oscars.

I'll start there.

[laundry_queen]

13. Rich

if you could stop working tomorrow and still have income higher than the median income, then you are rich.