What is a Fair Distribution of Income? [Archive]

Utah

07-30-2004, 09:58 AM

I think that is fairly easy. Income should be distributed equally among all people (adjust for some sort of age curve), all else being equal.

The problem with this is that there is a tradeoff to equal distribution - overall wealth. This is the essence of capitalism, which forces inequality of income.

Lets say we run a nation of equal distribution. The graph would look like this

(wealth measurement)
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
2
1
___1___2___3___4___5___6___7___8___9___10
(percentile distribution of population)

total wealth = 3x10 = 30

Now, lets say we run it with a capitalistic model

10_____________________X (then heading off the charts)
9
8__________________X
7
6______________X
5
4__________X
3
2______X
1__X
___1___2___3___4___5___6___7___8___9___10

Overall wealth is some insanely high number relative to the equal distribution model.

In the second chart, people at the 30 percent distribution might complain very heavily that the inequality is completely unfair to them. However, they are better off than in the equal distribution model.

You cant have both. either you have equal distribution or inequality and high overall wealth. No one wants to recognize this reality.

To taxes: While high taxes are a bad idea, there is inherently nothing unfair or wrong with taxing the hell out of the rich (contrary to what the republicans say). Think of it as contigent rent in retail. In contigent rent, you pay for store square footage on a base rate + a percentage of future sales. This allows you to pay low rent when the store is not doing well but you pay higher if the store sales go through the roof.

eLROY

07-30-2004, 10:10 AM

Some people get enjoyment from watching their favorite team win. Other people will pay extra for a clear diamond over a blurry one. Still other people look at other people, and take pleasure from whether their income is equal or unequal, and from meddling in it.

As such, equalizing incomes, creates extra income for those who enjoy equality. To equalize this, extra income must be given to people who enjoy income inequality. If the ability to meddle in other people's business is valuable to you, then you should have to compensate them when you get this gift. For some people, they see other people and suddenly it's like they have furniture to rearrange. To equalize income, you have to give people who want unequal income an equal ability to decide (and curtail) the activities of the equalizers.

Whoever takes the most pleasure in a given pattern of activities observed in society at large, should have the least cash income. People who watch TV shows, and get their enjoyment there, shouldn't get unfair excess enjoyment from also watching a favorable income distribution.

If equality is a good, of value to some people, then shouldn't the people who want that good have to pay for it? If equality is not a good, then why bother? Should people who enjoy equality realize their dreams on the backs of others? What if some people - all those idiots in Europe who buy magazines about "royals" for example - love inequality? Are they to be left out in the cold?

How much are you willing to pay to have your own aesthetic whim of "fairness" catered to instead of somebody else's? Or do you want some pleasure which others will be denied at the same price? Should andyfox, who is so rich and has all his healthcare whims fulfilled, also have his demands for fairness fulfilled while I am left with nothing?

Cyrus

07-30-2004, 10:23 AM

"What is a Fair Distribution of Income?"

Rich people know their way around money. Poor people obviously don't. So, it would be an elementary and belated move towards justice in the American tax system, to, at last, send tax money from the poor to the rich.

Example: A guy is making $350,000 a year and another guy is making some $8,500 a year (don't ask). I submit that the latter's fortune carries way more probability to get squandered, while the former's (especially if helped to grow even more) will act as a multiplier in the economy.

So I would lower the tax rate of the guy making $350,000 a year to around -3% (yes, that's a tax refund) and raise the tax rate of the guy making $8,00 a year to something like 75%. This would be a fair distribution of income possible.

Note that the depleted resources afforded to the lower-earnings guy will also act as a strong stimulant towards him getting more work! The whole country's productivity will rise.

...I have a thesis based on the above ready to be written, in case anyone has a grant or two to spare.

Utah

07-30-2004, 10:35 AM

Well, there is some truth to your analysis.

However, you are peddling in class warfare.

The guy making the $350,000 probably worked his ass off and made tons of sacrifices while the guy making 8k a year is probably unwilling to take the neccessary steps to better his lot in life.

Ray Zee

07-30-2004, 10:35 AM

everyone needs to think they can make it or the desire to get ahead in life is gone. so the system needs to be designed that way. ours is somewhat.
an amount equal to the average yearly cost of living should be decuted from the tax role and taxes paid on ther overage. that still lessens the desire to improve but gives everyone an opportunity to get ahead without the constant struggle to just pay bills.
the best system is m's where we pay as we spend.
as it stands now the govt. waistes so much of the tax money most remain poorish just because of that.

eLROY

07-30-2004, 01:36 PM

To say everyone has a right to an equal income, is to say everyone has an equal claim on everyone else's labor.

Before you can say everyone has an equal claim on everyone else's labor, you have to say that anyone has a claim on anyone's labor.

The only way for such a claim to exist is if you can put people in prison for not working.

This does not even begin to solve the problem of whether you should put them in prison for not digging ditches, or for not filling them in, for making red cars instead of blue cars, or for making blue cars instead of red cars...

Who gets to measure whether their respiration is sufficient to keep them out of prison?

The only way you can guarantee someone an income, is to guarantee them a right to someone's labor. To do that, you need to both A) threaten that laborer with prison, and B) discover specific information regarding what product the "income" will be, since money is just pieces of paper. Or, you can solve both those problems, by enticing the laborer with his own income which might be unequal, but which is proportional to how much the person whose income is his product, likes that product.

MMMMMM

07-30-2004, 01:44 PM

"I think that is fairly easy. Income should be distributed equally among all people (adjust for some sort of age curve), all else being equal."

I am really having trouble understanding where you are coming from on this. It sounds like you are presuming that "fair" means "equal".

I think the "fairest" distribution of income is this: those who earn it, get it.

You get what you earn, not what somebody else earns--and they get what they earn, not what you earn (unless you choose to give it to them). That is "fair" in my book.

Drew M

07-30-2004, 02:30 PM

Wow, what a discussion. Well in my opinion this comes down to eqaulity of process and equality of outcome. It seems fairly obvious that these are different but many people confuse the two. For example if a race is designed to be fair the same person could win every time. This would be equality of process but not equality of outcome. Nobody would argue (should I be so naive) that some runners should start of later than others just to make the race fair. his is attempting to eqaulize outcomes and in my opinion this is not fair.
How does this relate to taxes? Hell if I know just sounded like a good thing to preach about.
Seriously it all stems from the same ideology. I would much rather have an equal opportunity that is determined by my hard work and a little luck, than have some group of people determine what is best for me. This is what happens in income redistribution. The government can control all sorts of behaviors by determining various tax structures.
You would think most people who enjoy playing poker would understand this. Would you want to win only the amount you were "entitled" to win? First off there would have to be a concensus on what was your entitlement. Sorry but I would rather deal with some experience, work, and a little luck than deal with someone elses idea of fair. So to answer the question of a fair distribution of wealth I would have to say there is no such thing.

Great discussion all. I am really enjoying this.

MMMMMM

07-30-2004, 04:43 PM

ThaSaltCracka

07-30-2004, 04:55 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I think the "fairest" distribution of income is this: those who earn it, get it.

[/ QUOTE ] when you say earn, are you referring to how much money people make? or how hard they are working? Because an argument can be made that someone who is working for 15 an hour is *earning* his money, while someone who has a broker making money for them really isn't *earning* it. Maybe this makes no sense or maybe its to philosphical for this discussion, but there are definitely people earning their money, and there definitely people who aren't.

as an aside, MMMMMM or someone else, explain this other tax system you are referring to, because I am fairly interested in that.

eLROY

07-30-2004, 05:19 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Because an argument can be made that someone who is working for 15 an hour is *earning* his money, while someone who has a broker making money for them really isn't *earning* it.

[/ QUOTE ]
What, are you dumb? If you are willing to pay someone $15 an hour to not stop doing what he is doing, then he is earning $15 an hour. If consumers are willing to pay $1 for a can of soda, then you are earning money by hiring a broker to decide to put money in a soda company. If anybody who owns stock can make money because Alan Greenspan will print enough money to prop up the stock market, then you are earning money by putting yourself in a position to buy stock.

So the only chance for an "argument," is when the money is printed, or the soda is purchased, by more than one person in a collective, and those people disagree. But once they stop arguing and decide to print that money or buy that soda or pay that $15 an hour, the person whom they give it to has met their conditions. As such, he has "earned" it.

The only possible argument you could have with this, is when the members of that collective lack the authority to make that spending decision. But in this case, the recipient has still earned it, only the payer has stolen it. As such, when you pay $200 for Windows and make Bill Gates rich, he has earned it by your standards, but you have stolen that money which you had no authority to give to him.

As long as you were paid by a person to do something he wanted to do, and as long as he had the authority to pay you to do it - to the extent it did not violate somebody else's property rights or authority for the disposal of an asset - then you have earned it. "Earning" is simply making choices that please other people, to the extent this can be measured by an evolved self-financing price system.

ThaSaltCracka

07-30-2004, 05:29 PM

I am not sure how paying someone else to do something equals you earning something. Yeah its true that you may receive something for that payment, or that you may be entitled by law to something, but does that really mean you earned it? I would say that you in fact didn't earn anything, you simply just received something. After all your not doing anything but giving money to someone. Like I said, you may remember, maybe this is to much of a philosophical principle for this argument, because it can be argued that people in the middle class are earning their money, while some rich people are simply collecting their money. Again this probably has little to do with the argument at hand, so I digress.

eLROY

07-30-2004, 05:39 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I am not sure how paying someone else to do something equals you earning something. After all your not doing anything but giving money to someone.

[/ QUOTE ]
One definition of wealth, is "the opportunity to make investment decisions." It is earning, because you are paid to make choices. People who drink soda, are happy that you did not instead spend your money to fill cans with dog urine, or "New Coke." So what you're doing, is choosing whom to give money to. And you're also recording patterns of consumption, not in molecules in a hard disk, but in patterns of production capacity. And by doing this in a way that is successful - that pleases other people - you are earning their money. People wish more people would do what you do, rather than choosing to get a massage or something.

If you notice, the planet Earth had at least as many "natural resources" 5,000 years ago as it does today. As such, what must have been scarce then, that we have now, is knowledge of which ways to interact with those resources. It is not resources which are scarce, or even the ability to convert organic molecules into kinetic energy which is scarce, but local decision makers with the unique knowledge to choose in which direction to steer the machinery which are scarce.

Machinery under the supervision of a decision maker with no track record of pleasing people is as useless as mud in a hole. So by transferring the opportunity to steer it, you are destroying it.

MMMMMM

07-30-2004, 06:07 PM

"Earning", whether by the sweat of one's brow or by some other means, is basically providing a service or goods that another(s) is/are willing to compensate you for. Want to earn more money? Find a way to provide something for which people will compensate you more largely in sum--or else plug away more hours at the same thing you are doing now--or both.

Check out www.fairtax.org (http://www.fairtax.org) and click around on the links. It is very readable and will explain more thoroughly that which I was referring to.

The basic idea is that federal government revenue can be raised through consumption taxes rather than income taxes. Since it costs a minimum to live, for basic necessities everyone would be entitled to an exemption or rebate for that amount.

The advantages to this system would be many. First, poor people or those struggling to get ahead would pay no or little tax. Those wishing to scrimp and save and get ahead that way would not be penalized in their efforts to better their lots in life (a graduated income tax makes it especially hard for someone to really get ahead. So does the payroll tax or F.I.C.A.). Saving would be easier under such a plan, and investment would be easier too (which of course is good for the economy in the long run).

The IRS would be eliminated along with the incredibly vast tax code. Both as they currently stand are very wasteful and burdensome. The savings involved could be passed on to the consumer in the form of lower tax burden.

It seems pefectly fair to me: no tax at all on your basic necessities, and a tax after that. Right now one problem with the current tax code is that the standard deduction and standard exemption are really not enough to live on, so lower-middle and middle income people still end up paying an income tax on money that is really not surplus or discretionary to them. By the way I think the Libertarian Party is in favor of abolishing the IRS and creating such a consumption tax system as advocated on www.fairtax.org (http://www.fairtax.org) , but I'd have to research further to be sure on that.

The current graduated tax system makes it hard for people to get ahead or even get rich. Rich is not truly defined by income but rather by assets, but the tax code and politicians more or less define it as income. As Thomas Sowell puts it, high income taxes do not soak the rich, high income taxes penalize people for becoming prosperous. Of course those like Kerry and Kennedy don't give a hoot what the income tax rate is from their personal perspective, since they could live off their assets and investments for the rest of their lives anyway. The graduated tax code truly makes it much harder for someone to raise themselves up by their own bootstraps, whereas a consumption tax with exemptions for necessaries would make itr easier. The sad part of it all, too, is that far more tax revenues are raised than are really needed by the government, because so much of that money is wasted. Thus the overall average standard of living in America is much less than what it could otherwise be, due to overtaxation and waste.

ThaSaltCracka

07-30-2004, 06:11 PM

...

eLROY

07-30-2004, 06:17 PM

The truly fair system, is one in which

1) people operating under the right incentives but with no knowledge of economics, as well as

2) people operating under the wrong incentives,

are given no authority to decide how other people's income should be disposed.

Why should "fairtax" even have to have a web-site, to battle the flawed superstitions of a bunch of self-important ninnies with rational explanations, when plenty of useful superstitions would evolve on their own if people could just mind their own business?

There should be no debate, just get your hands off my income. Anybody who thinks a "rational order" can be established is kidding himself. You really think societies can ever be designed by people who understand how they work? Why rely on reason, the most scarce commodity on Earth? Assuming rationality is possible isn't rational, just tell these commies to screw off.

The problem is not that people don't appreciate the dynamics of the consumption tax. The problem is 1) the tribal instinct, and 2) the fact that your neighbors feel the right to feel good in pursuit of it. It's just a bunch of impulsive, feelgood crap from people who grew up rich. It's just the children of the second wealthiest person in town, got bored of depraved sex and decided they wanted to do something beautiful with their lives. And now you have to play along.

ThaSaltCracka

07-30-2004, 06:24 PM

[ QUOTE ]
There should be no debate, just get your hands off my income.

[/ QUOTE ] I know what you mean. I currently in a lower-income tax category because I am still in school, thus I can't get a job that pays well enough to move out of that bracket, and I know I get frustrated every time I look at my paycheck. I work 40 hours a week and really only get paid for 32. Thats nice isn't it? and I am suppose to get most of it back because my state doesn't have a income tax, but I rarely get all of it back because I make to much. How [censored] up is that?

scalf

07-30-2004, 08:26 PM

/images/graemlins/grin.gif..scalf having all the money..

gl

/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

caretaker1

07-31-2004, 03:48 PM

Instead of looking at the back end for a moment (taxes), how about the actual acquisition of income?

1) Who determines how much labor is worth?
2) Is money made from money (stocks, etc.) "earned"?
3) How is the worth of labor determined? Is it really "how hard" you work?
4) Do those who come from wealth have inordinate access to resources to promote their success? (Money, good colleges, etc.)

Unfortunately, our system is front loaded in such a way to favor those who already "have" and that side is frequently ignored. In other words, while the debate about the "redistribution of wealth" is always strong, and how those, particularly with a Republican lean, believe that excess taxes of the wealthy are unjust. However, the systemic advantages that help put (and keep) the wealthy there in the first place are ignored. Just something to chew on.

eLROY

07-31-2004, 04:16 PM

[ QUOTE ]
However, the systemic advantages that help put (and keep) the wealthy there in the first place are ignored. Just something to chew on.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, I can list some of those advantages:
1) being raised in a religious family, preferably Jewish,
2) being brought up by two undivorced parents,
3) attending a religious school, or at least not a public school,
4) growing up in a household with a father who goes off to work each morning,
5) not being told as a child that the world is against you, and Democrat party handouts are your only hope,
6) not being taught that the way to get ahead is to disobey moral standards (the term "hypocrite" implies that people who sin get ahead),
7) not expecting to be as rich as a 60-year-old when you are 20 or being angry that you're not,
8) not believing all the marketing in rap videos that a utopia exists,
9) not falling for such phrases as "getting ahead" - which implies a zero-sum competition,
10) I am sure other people can list plenty more...

Beyond that, I don't fully understand your sentence. Are you referring to the new wealthy, the children of the wealthy, or people who are wealthy for most of their lives? It is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who think that just because some union guy had a good run for a few years, that he has a right to be cushy his entire life.

In reality, people who just live their lives steadily but unambitiously, almost universally are well off by age 30 in this country. Homely, half-bright, single girls who simply avoid making any major mistakes or taking any risks or doing anything illegal - who just do what they're "supposed to" - can own their own homes in the Midwest by age 25. It is mostly stubborn people, rebels without a cause, and people who chase the dream of becoming rock stars or otherwise set their sights too high, who come up short.

If you don't have too high an opinion of yourself - or some alternate agenda - the recipe for success in the United States is simple and easy to follow. You just need a parent who has been there, or someone who cares about you and whom you trust, to tell you what it is. You play it safe, it's just a matter of time. The mission of your life can't be to meet some imaginary benchmark, or to right some past wrong or cosmic injustice.

This myth of the wealthy coupon clipper is a leftover from the 1970's, when it was illegal to start and run a business other than some perverted tax shelter. Nobody could make any money or become rich. But there were still a few Rockefeller widows around from before the New Deal, and their muni bonds were out of reach of the federal tax code.

You telling me a poor black kid couldn't have started Google and become the world's richest man? If he can't, it's not because the man is keeping him down. It's because he comes from a culture, and a set of habits, that is not rewarded in any system. It's not money, it's memetics. These black kids can copy every dance move they see on MTV. Instead, they should be reading the biography of Samuel Goldwyn or Andrew Carnegie or T. Boone Pickens.

In the United States, a poor kid who is raised with the same values as a rich kid, can do everything the rich kid can do given one extra year. In other words, I figure that the poor kid will be at age 23 where the rich kid was at age 22. Parental money can give you a one-year head start. Parental values can give or take away your entire life.

eLROY

07-31-2004, 05:04 PM

You know what it all comes down to, is love. Because if you see that some rich kid is one year ahead of you, your instinct is going to be to gamble to try to make up lost ground. You have to take extra risks to get where he got for free. And then when the gamble goes wrong and you're just another dumb loser in prison, the world is of no value to you. If you can't be the richest, or the luckiest, or the best looking, then you'd just as soon tear the whole thing down. And so you have all these violent sociopathic losers, for whom the success of other people, of children, or of the whole human race in general means nothing. They say the world is my ball, and if I get one point behind in the game then I have the right to take my ball and go home so that nobody can play. But if you love people and the world and life in general and think it's all beautiful, then the fact that somebody is richer or more popular than you, is no reason to stop the game so that your grievances can be enumerated.

Basically, you're just a bunch of angry 15-year-old girls who are angry you didn't get the lead in the school play. And so now you pray for a meteor to come and ruin it for everybody. And socialism is your meteor. And it's something to attach yourself to and make yourself important. And if you succeed in pushing through your agenda, your belief in your own superiority will be vindicated. It's something beautiful for people who feel ugly, and something big for people who feel small.

caretaker1

07-31-2004, 05:09 PM

You didn't answer any of the questions. In your response, you didn't talk about anything systemic, but rather your generalizations about peoples beliefs and demographics. If you decide to respond to actual questions, I am interested in your opinion.

To help clarify:
"Beyond that, I don't fully understand your sentence. Are you referring to the new wealthy, the children of the wealthy, or people who are wealthy for most of their lives?"

The questions could be applied to any one of the groups you mentioned, although most compellingly probably to the last two groups.

eLROY

07-31-2004, 08:27 PM

[ QUOTE ]
You didn't answer any of the questions. In your response, you didn't talk about anything systemic, but rather your generalizations about peoples beliefs and demographics.

[/ QUOTE ]
Your use of the word "systemic" must first be defined, and then defended. More generally, I might characterize your use of it as data invented afterwards, in order to support a conclusion arrived at before the supporting data. And the conclusion, is some nonsensical left-wing notion that you, or man in general, can invent the social system in which he lives, and step into a utopia. It's just nonsense. Don't bother. I laid out the differences between rich and poor people - differences which cause the same system to sort some of them into the poor group and others into the rich group - and it went right over your head. Because you are trapped in some animistic hallucination. If women decide to stay home and have kids, rather than pursue a career, would you say that is a result of the external system "design," or the result of some internal difference between women and men? And suppose you change the "system," and your new system sucks. What price will you pay for having been wrong? Why should I have to participate in your repetitive failed experiments every generation?

If you believe we live in a nation where rich people are that way because they were born rich, then you have bought into a myth. And that myth has been sold to you by people who feel ugly, and need your vote to try to complete their life stories and feel important. There are 6 billion people in the world. There are probably 100 million very rich people. 200 years ago, there were probably not even 100 people in the whole world who had the same standard of living as measured in their life expectancy at birth. Are you saying that all 100 million rich people descended from those 100 people? You need to actually meet a rich person in the US. They're not like John Kerry. They're more like John Edwards and Barack Obama - first-generation rich people. You have been lied to. I guess the grass is always greener somewhere, and politicians have exploited this facet of human nature to trick you into elevating them. Have you even browsed the Forbes 400? Was J.R Simplot born rich? Many of the rich are Jewish people, who have had EVERYTHING taken away and have been run 1,000 miles out of town many generations in a row! Just the other day, I heard a statistic that on average, the children of the baby boomers are already making more a year than their parents.

When I think of how my ancestors came to this country - immigrant refugees, sicilian laborers, Arabs fleeing the inquisition, Ulster Irish drunks, miners, school teachers, and military deserters, you make me sick. They became wealthy doctors, renowned landowners, railroad developers, town promoters, and other types of entrepreneurs. If you think that poor people can't do today what they did then, you might want to look at the difference between "the system" today, and the tax code in the 1890's. These people didn't have free healthcare. These people weren't denied the right to buy and develop land, for the sake of some endangered jumping wamp rat.

caretaker1

07-31-2004, 08:43 PM

You still haven't answered them.

caretaker1

07-31-2004, 09:01 PM

"to support a conclusion arrived at before the supporting data" - Like it's clear you are (see later notes)

"can invent the social system in which he lives, and step into a utopia"-didn't say that

"Because you are trapped in some animistic hallucination"-nice maturity

"And suppose you change the "system," and your new system sucks" - What if it already sucks?

"If you believe we live in a nation where rich people are that way because they were born rich"- didn't say this either, and it has nothing to do with my argument

"not even 100 people in the whole world who had the same standard of living as measured in their life expectancy at birth" - where's your "data" for this?

"And that myth has been sold to you by people who feel ugly" - or "data" for this

"Are you saying that all 100 million rich people descended from those 100 people" - not anywhere near what I said

"Was J.R Simplot born rich?" - Was GW?

"you make me sick" - nice maturity again

So, you've managed to create non-existent arguments, misrepresent what I said, and somehow still fail to answer the questions.

eLROY

07-31-2004, 09:05 PM

[ QUOTE ]
So, you've managed to create non-existent arguments, misrepresent what I said, and somehow still fail to answer the questions.

[/ QUOTE ]
There is no question. You've made an assertion that "the system" is keeping the poor poor and the rich rich. And I've simply asserted that you have no idea what you are talking about.

eLROY

07-31-2004, 09:23 PM

[ QUOTE ]
1) Who determines how much labor is worth?
3) How is the worth of labor determined? Is it really "how hard" you work?

[/ QUOTE ]Sorry, if this is really your question, I apologize for not giving you the benefit of the doubt. I thought you were just trying to be funny, or rhetorical. Anybody who seriously was curious about the answer to these questions - rather than wanting to promote his own answer that he determines it - would certainly have done enough reading to discover that this has already been gone through many times over, more than 100 years ago. The "labor theory of value" in fact was around long before such socialists as Marx, who actually played a large part in discrediting it!

At the risk of insulting you, labor is worth whatever the person who consumes its product thinks it is worth, or is willing to pay. It's completely local and subjective, and measurable only relative to alternate uses of resources.

[ QUOTE ]
4) Do those who come from wealth have inordinate access to resources to promote their success? (Money, good colleges, etc.)

[/ QUOTE ]Your "question" number four was so silly - to the extent that it used the undefined word "inordinate" - that I thought you had to be joking. Obviously, this all depends on who is defining the word "inordinate." I thought you were making fun of people who presume themselves rightful in defining the word "inordinate" on behalf of others! Has anyone ever been born with the wisdom, to decide when one stranger whom he has never met has given an "inordinate amount" to another stranger whom he has never met, in a place he's never been, for reasons he has no knowledge of? You can't even "ask" your question unless you have decided that some "inordinate" amount exists as a constant in the laws of physics, long before even specifying an actor who could discover or set such a number. Are you "asking" whether there is a universal definition for inordinate? If you are simply asking me whether it is okay to point at people and say "you're too rich," then I say NO, it is NOT OKAY, STOP this nonsense at once.

Since when is it any of my business how some rich kid, whom I don't own, pays for college, which I also don't own? Who invited me? Nobody told my parents "Please have a son, so that we can learn from him how much we will be allowed to make!" Rather, they could care less if I was never born, and I have no right to anything from anybody.

[ QUOTE ]
2) Is money made from money (stocks, etc.) "earned"?

[/ QUOTE ]
Given that I had already addressed this in this thread, I thought you were merely being reflective, rather than asking a question. If you wanted to debate, I assumed you would have placed your "question" under my responses to the same question by somebody else.

Can you blame me for concluding that your questions were merely rhetorical, in order to bolster the point you wanted to make, specifically that the system is keeping the rich rich? The answers to these "questions" have long been known. The only people who pretend the answers aren't known, are poverty pimps and political hustlers. Maybe you are parroting these people unwittingly. If so, I apologize for lumping you in with them.

By "asking" these questions, you thought you were putting the discussion on rails to your own answers and conclusions. But I'm not riding those rails, because those "questions" are just worn-out, 100-year-old cliches.