It’s Basically Just Immoral To Be Rich

Current Affairs ^ | March 30, 2017 | A.Q. Smith

[tet68]

The central point, however, is this: it is not justifiable to retain vast wealth.

You don’t retain vast wealth.
Vast wealth retain you!

[BeauBo]

“the people who have accumulated great wealth in recent decades most definitely caused widespread poverty as a direct result.”

Professional athletes and entertainers caused widespread poverty? Oprah? That’s just racist!

Inventors and innovators, who built companies that employ tens of thousands caused widespread poverty?

The standard of living has rising globally, despite all this purported newly created poverty?

It sounds like more of a bigoted prejudice against wealthy people, than any real cause and effect relationship that can be concretely identified.

[thoughtomator]

Let’s start with one: Jon Corzine.

Know who he is?

[NorthMountain]

Make your case.

[thoughtomator]

“waste your time”

no thanks

if you can’t even Wiki a name and figure it out, I haven’t the years necessary to educate you

[NorthMountain]

I see. So when you’re given the opportunity to drop name after name after name ... you run away. See ya later, Sir Robin!

[ladyjane]

white families in America have 16 times as much wealth on average as black families. This is indisputably because of slavery,

Deep thinker, this author.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with impulse control and delayed gratification. /s

[FredZarguna]

Well, that’s about what the 5 of us live on apiece, and we are content, except on the 15th of April. Then, as a self-employed software developer I have to send my poor uncle a lot of money...

[dfwgator]

"Halt! Halt! ( Gentlemen, ladies, bring out your valuables please. Come along sir, come along. Come along, madam, come along. Oh, is that all you've got ... well, he's got much more than you ... so you'd better have some of his ... (transfers money from one passenger to another, dropping some)... sorry... pick them up in a moment... there's about oh, what, nine down there... so you must have about... oh, he's still got lots... oh you've got what? ... you've got more than he started with... so if I give you some of those (transferring more coins) ... well now, look ... have you got a bit of jewelry? If I give you that one and you have some of his coins ... is that another box? Were you trying to hide it? Well, that's nice!

Right! Now. I've got a tiara ... you've got one... you've got one of the boxes... you've got one... anyone else got a tiara? Take your hat off! (passenger does so to reveal a tiara)... Oh, honestly, it's absolutely pointless trying to do this if you're going to cheat. It really is awful of you...

[FredZarguna]

the ones who scream the loudest about this subject are those that are already rolling in dough.

Or the ones who are making a criminal rationalization for stealing other people's stuff. Since he believes you can live a life of luxury on $100K/year, I'm going to go out on not much of a limb and assume he falls into the latter category.

Note also, that those in the former category, "already rolling in dough," scream about this stuff a lot, but they really aren't all that interested in contributing. There is nothing in the world that stops you from giving a priest, minister or imam a sack of dough, or overpaying on your taxes as much as you want. The US Treasury accepts contributions; but oddly these folks don't lead by example...

[Ted Grant]

$100K a year?

While you’re not hurting, after taxes that means you’re barely getting by in a city like NYC or Chicago.

[TADSLOS]

That’s poverty level in the SF Bay area.

[Ted Grant]

Indeed. The idea that making $100k a year pretax is “rich” is absurd.