Ehhh.... not really. Don't get me wrong. It seems pretty dick that she's still taking the money, but going off that video she only received $700,000 and paid approximately $300,000 in taxes. $300,000 covers over a century of food stamps.
Oh man look at her extravagant lifestyle where she spits in the face of hardworking americans buy buying a modest sized house and renting a u-haul with her (taxed) lottery money! Give me a fucking break. Also that sure was classy of someone following her around with hidden cameras to see if she was still buying groceries with benefits she had already been on before winning! That report seems like.. i dunno dehumanizing someone who just happens to have more money now, and maybe.. a lack of empathy on their part too.
While it's questionable for her to still be taking the food stamps (as deebaser said), the thing to keep in mind is these kinds of benefits usually don't work in a way where, if someone is using them, someone else is missing out.
Ehhh.... not really. Don't get me wrong. It seems pretty dick that she's still taking the money, but going off that video she only received $700,000 and paid approximately $300,000 in taxes. $300,000 covers over a century of food stamps.
That also happens to be fraud. Michigan has an asset test for food stamps, and I'm pretty sure that having $700k in cash makes you ineligible.
I'm totally fine with reasonable asset tests for food stamps.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Yup, that fringe case of an unemployed youth that received a windfall and doesn't understand the system is a great reason to a) get up in arms and b) clamp down further on those receiving any kind of public assistance.
Ehhh.... not really. Don't get me wrong. It seems pretty dick that she's still taking the money, but going off that video she only received $700,000 and paid approximately $300,000 in taxes. $300,000 covers over a century of food stamps.
Or one year for a hundred people. 99 now, of course.
Of course, I knew posting that would get the snarkers out, and adytum delivers. I didn't say, or suggest, either of those things! It is baffling, but very predictable, that some folks in here would try to defend her. She is the 1%. She has nearly three quarters of a million dollars in the bank!
She's The Rich, guys. You said so yourselves a few pages ago.
Im comfortable asserting that if you're in the top 1% of either income or wealth then you're rich. I just don't think there are many people that have high wrealth without high income, and I don't think there's any need for OWS to alter their rhetoric to separate the two.
Did you actually read the article that you posted? Including the part about the bill being put forward to crosscheck anyone that wins money from a lottery- even a trivial amount- against those receiving public assistance?
Maybe you should read the article you posted before wringing your hands about everyone being so snarky.
edited because Spool's not worth an infraction, no matter how much of a goose he is.
Oh man look at her extravagant lifestyle where she spits in the face of hardworking americans buy buying a modest sized house and renting a u-haul with her (taxed) lottery money! Give me a fucking break. Also that sure was classy of someone following her around with hidden cameras to see if she was still buying groceries with benefits she had already been on before winning! That report seems like.. i dunno dehumanizing someone who just happens to have more money now, and maybe.. a lack of empathy on their part too.
While it's questionable for her to still be taking the food stamps (as deebaser said), the thing to keep in mind is these kinds of benefits usually don't work in a way where, if someone is using them, someone else is missing out.
Tabloid journalism like this needs to die in a fire.
It's a dick move. She'll get cut off when bureaucracy catches up (honestly, they don't check your assets constantly, just when renewal time comes around, let's be realistic), and then at the very least she'll have to pay back what she used fraudulently, if not more.
This is a case for why we need to better funded public schools, and require civics and home budget courses for graduation. One bad apple does not a bushel ruin.
Oh gosh, I posted something, had someone take wild potshots at me that ascribe a bunch of nonsense to me that I don't believe, called him out on it, and I'm the goose eh? Please.
I did read the article. The bill's probably a great idea. She's still the 1% though, and you shouldn't alter your rhetoric. Not unless you want to either disagree with pi-r8 and others who feel there should be a bright income or wealth line between Rich and Not Rich, or be a giant hypocrite.
She's rich. So rich. You guys should be against her now! Soak her income, she deserves it for being rich.
Meanwhile I can growl at her for bilking the public when she doesn't need to. We can all be angry together!
What wild potshots? What are you talking about? What possible point do you think you have? It's not worth caring about, because it's a fringe case, and further regulation is completely unnecessary because what she's doing is already illegal, and it will catch up with her.
Her income already was taxed, at an enormous amount. She was "soaked". What more do you think people should want?
I dunno Houn... it's probably apparent to just about everyone that if you've got $700K in the bank, you don't deserve food stamps anymore. That's not a failure of the public school system unless what you mean is that public schools don't teach common sense or integrity.
Her income already was taxed, at an enormous amount. She was "soaked". What more do you think people should want?
Enormous amount? That's the amount you guys are advocating The Rich should always be taxed. I guess I think OWS people should want whatever it is you guys want to do to the rest of The Rich, to also be done to her.
I mean, come on. How can you have any sympathy for her at all? Look at all the money she has!
Yes, she received an enormous amount of income, and was taxed at a high rate on it. Which is exactly what should have happened.
What point do you think you're making?
The same one I was making pages ago - being The Rich isn't about what you have, or what you make - it's about what you can do. She won't be able to do a whole lot, or live terribly extravagantly, on a single $700K lump, and ought not be taxed to hell and gone because she got lucky.
Also, that chick still getting food stamps is p. annoying.
So people with low incomes shouldn't pay taxes? We already have that rule, to a reasonable degree. Winning a $1,000,000 prize doesn't fit into the current framework.
I dunno Houn... it's probably apparent to just about everyone that if you've got $700K in the bank, you don't deserve food stamps anymore. That's not a failure of the public school system unless what you mean is that public schools don't teach common sense or integrity.
Have you ever been on government assistance? Bastions of efficiency and up-to-date information these offices ain't. Now, she was probably required to inform them of the sudden cash influx, and failing to do so is fraud, yes. I fully suspect she'll get punished for it. But I'm realistic enough not to think that the food stamp office was sitting in their secret underground lair, using their BigBrother Spy Computers to monitor the hidden cameras in her home, and up to the second back account balance, so they could instantly leap on anyone that might do something so common as win the lottery.
And yeah, if the bitch'd gotten some decent civics classes, she'd understand better how government works and maybe felt responsible to end her benefits herself, instead of sitting in poverty-induced apathy and ignorance, figuring that "Whatever, they keep sending it to me, I'll keep spending it."
Also, let's get pessimistic here: if she's technically the 1% right now, I give her 3 months, tops, before she spends herself right back into the bottom 1%.
This is a non-story. Society failed her long ago, then expects her to be a noble and caring citizen. And I shit vanilla sundaes.
Yes, she received an enormous amount of income, and was taxed at a high rate on it. Which is exactly what should have happened.
What point do you think you're making?
The same one I was making pages ago - being The Rich isn't about what you have, or what you make - it's about what you can do. She won't be able to do a whole lot, or live terribly extravagantly, on a single $700K lump, and ought not be taxed to hell and gone because she got lucky.
Also, that chick still getting food stamps is p. annoying.
I agree that she did become rich from the lottery. A criminal if the fraud charge is true, as well.
Oh gosh, I posted something, had someone take wild potshots at me that ascribe a bunch of nonsense to me that I don't believe, called him out on it, and I'm the goose eh? Please.
I did read the article. The bill's probably a great idea. She's still the 1% though, and you shouldn't alter your rhetoric. Not unless you want to either disagree with pi-r8 and others who feel there should be a bright income or wealth line between Rich and Not Rich, or be a giant hypocrite.
She's rich. So rich. You guys should be against her now! Soak her income, she deserves it for being rich.
Meanwhile I can growl at her for bilking the public when she doesn't need to. We can all be angry together!
first of all- as Feral pointed out- she's NOT in the top 1% of wealth, not even close. She probably wouldn't even make the top 10% with just $700k. Even if she won that lottery 10 more times, she STILL wouldn't be in the top 1%. Are you starting to see just how obscene the inequality is?
Second, she shouldn't have been able to get food stamps. I think almost everyone would agree on that. She only managed to get them because of some sort of error in the system. So fix the error. There's no point being outraged over a minor error like that when there are far more serious issues to worry about.
Seriously, where are you going with this? Do you think OWS should change their motto to "We are the 99%, plus a few lottery winners who are technically in the 1% but they should still count as poor"??? Do you want a special "lottery credit" so that lottery winners don't have to pay taxes?
Im comfortable asserting that if you're in the top 1% of either income or wealth then you're rich. I just don't think there are many people that have high wrealth without high income, and I don't think there's any need for OWS to alter their rhetoric to separate the two.
I think that's interesting, because there are a lot more high income people than there are high wealth people, and if OWS was more focused on wealth disparity than income disparity, you might get more sympathy from members of your hated 99%.
Uhhhhh... I'm gonna go ahead and say that there are exactly as many high income people as there are high wealth people. I'm pretty confident in that assertion.
If you're looking at simple percentiles, then yes clearly there are exactly as many people with wealth in the 99th percentile as there are people with income in the 99th percentile, because that's what "percentile" means.
But that's not really a good way of looking at it.
How much income do you have to make to be in the 1%? $250k-$500k/yr depending on what estimates you're looking at.
How much wealth? About $19m.
Think about that for a minute. If you're in the top 1% of income ($500k/yr), and you're putting away 80% of your income into savings every single year ($400k/yr), and if 100% of your savings was untaxed, it would take you 48 years to break into the top 1% of net worth.
It's entirely possible for somebody who was born poor, got into a good college, and got a decent professional position to end up in (or close to) the 1% of income just from their salary.
It takes a bolt of financial lightning to make it to the 1% of net worth.
I would guess that almost everyone earning more than $500k/year is also getting some sort of stock options or company investment plan to go along with their salary. I don't see how they could do it, otherwise. I definitely don't think they're all saving 80% of their income.
I love how we're having this conversation about whether this person who was on food stamps and then won $700K is part of the 1% or not, on the SAME PAGE as a post from Feral has been quoted like SEVENTEEN TIMES that states that you need about $19M of wealth to be in the 1% (when calculated based on assets, rather than income).
And by love, I mean, I cannot believe how stupid we are, and I think if I were to Godwin this conversation right now, that would still be an improvement in the rhetoric.
I love how we're having this conversation about whether this person who was on food stamps and then won $700K is part of the 1% or not, on the SAME PAGE as a post from Feral has been quoted like SEVENTEEN TIMES that states that you need about $19M of wealth to be in the 1% (when calculated based on assets, rather than income).
And by love, I mean, I cannot believe how stupid we are, and I think if I were to Godwin this conversation right now, that would still be an improvement in the rhetoric.
In a year she made $700,000+. According to some posters that's anywhere between 3-7 years of an income that qualifies you without condition as "rich".
Feral's post was awesome, but on that same page posters claimed 'high income' = 'high wealth' and I don't think we can take it as a given that consensus has been reached there.
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
I would guess that almost everyone earning more than $500k/year is also getting some sort of stock options or company investment plan to go along with their salary. I don't see how they could do it, otherwise. I definitely don't think they're all saving 80% of their income.
No sir. There are a lot of different ways to put together compensation packages. If you're worth $500,000, to a company, that doesn't necessarily mean you're really worth an additional X in additional compensation.
Hell it may mean you're getting 400,000 + a 100,000 'bonus'. The dude's worth 500,000, but the company wants to keep his annual merit increase low, while not making it an insulting % of base pay.
A quarter of a million goes away pretty fast if you're not employed or investing it, by the way. It's also extremely hard to get employed at places other than burger king if you're a lottery winner because of the "fuck you, you're rich now."
I don't begrudge her for it, I'm sure there are unemployed people who were upper middle class on food stamps, who probably have nearly a million in assets they are liquidating to stay above the line.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
A quarter of a million goes away pretty fast if you're not employed or investing it, by the way. It's also extremely hard to get employed at places other than burger king if you're a lottery winner because of the "fuck you, you're rich now."
I really don't think this actually happens all that often. I can't imagine most hiring managers giving half a shit about that sort of thing.
Semi-related anecdote: Someone I work with was a contestant on "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" before he started working here. His boss didn't even know. It only became a thing when I found a list of all the questions he was asked and answers given and needled him about the fail.
I love how we're having this conversation about whether this person who was on food stamps and then won $700K is part of the 1% or not, on the SAME PAGE as a post from Feral has been quoted like SEVENTEEN TIMES that states that you need about $19M of wealth to be in the 1% (when calculated based on assets, rather than income).
And by love, I mean, I cannot believe how stupid we are, and I think if I were to Godwin this conversation right now, that would still be an improvement in the rhetoric.
In a year she made $700,000+. According to some posters that's anywhere between 3-7 years of an income that qualifies you without condition as "rich".
Feral's post was awesome, but on that same page posters claimed 'high income' = 'high wealth' and I don't think we can take it as a given that consensus has been reached there.
Maybe I'm crazy, but if you're on food stamps, and then win the lottery for $700 000, that doesn't make your income $700 000+/year. Cuz... you know... PER YEAR. If I eat a hamburger for lunch today, that doesn't make my consumption of hamburgers 365 hamburgers/year or 8760 hamburgers/hour. That's not how RATES work.
There was a valid, reasonable point being made there, which is that looking at income is a reasonable way to consider wealth. What if I was making $100M per year, but I was spending $99.5M a year, for 20 years, a la Brewster's Millions? Am I not rich?
And of course, taxes typically operate on income, not on assets.
And many people have noted that they're making a generalised correlation between income and assets.
And seriously, who even cares if the definition of "rich" accidentally includes an extra person or not, given that we're talking broadly and symbolically about a "class" of people?
Nobody here's said that that woman should be taxed more than she already was; it was a ridiculous red herring argument, or a straw man if you're being extremely generous.
I love how we're having this conversation about whether this person who was on food stamps and then won $700K is part of the 1% or not, on the SAME PAGE as a post from Feral has been quoted like SEVENTEEN TIMES that states that you need about $19M of wealth to be in the 1% (when calculated based on assets, rather than income).
And by love, I mean, I cannot believe how stupid we are, and I think if I were to Godwin this conversation right now, that would still be an improvement in the rhetoric.
In a year she made $700,000+. According to some posters that's anywhere between 3-7 years of an income that qualifies you without condition as "rich".
Feral's post was awesome, but on that same page posters claimed 'high income' = 'high wealth' and I don't think we can take it as a given that consensus has been reached there.
More like 2-3 years. And um... It's implied that to have an income that high, it's not just going to suddenly stop. People who are poor, then win the lottery, then never earn money ever again are kinda rare. The more common pattern is to gradually earn more and more money their whole lives. If nothing else, $19 mill gets you a lot of interest.
Technically yes there is a difference between earning $500,000 a year for 40 years or just getting 20 million up front. Either way it's a shitload of money and should be taxed at a high rate. That woman who won 700k and paid 300k in taxes? Sounds reasonable. Mitt Romney earning 20 million and paying just 14% is not.
A quarter of a million goes away pretty fast if you're not employed or investing it, by the way. It's also extremely hard to get employed at places other than burger king if you're a lottery winner because of the "fuck you, you're rich now."
I really don't think this actually happens all that often. I can't imagine most hiring managers giving half a shit about that sort of thing.
Semi-related anecdote: Someone I work with was a contestant on "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" before he started working here. His boss didn't even know. It only became a thing when I found a list of all the questions he was asked and answers given and needled him about the fail.
It would around here, though, actually. People in the rural area where I am play the lotto like it's going out of style and practically memorize the people who win. They'd absolutely turn someone down because "you don't need this job like that single mom who works at bk does." You'd have to wait like 2-3 years to fade out of view probably.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Im comfortable asserting that if you're in the top 1% of either income or wealth then you're rich. I just don't think there are many people that have high wrealth without high income, and I don't think there's any need for OWS to alter their rhetoric to separate the two.
I think that's interesting, because there are a lot more high income people than there are high wealth people, and if OWS was more focused on wealth disparity than income disparity, you might get more sympathy from members of your hated 99%.
Uhhhhh... I'm gonna go ahead and say that there are exactly as many high income people as there are high wealth people. I'm pretty confident in that assertion.
If you're looking at simple percentiles, then yes clearly there are exactly as many people with wealth in the 99th percentile as there are people with income in the 99th percentile, because that's what "percentile" means.
But that's not really a good way of looking at it.
How much income do you have to make to be in the 1%? $250k-$500k/yr depending on what estimates you're looking at.
How much wealth? About $19m.
Think about that for a minute. If you're in the top 1% of income ($500k/yr), and you're putting away 80% of your income into savings every single year ($400k/yr), and if 100% of your savings was untaxed, it would take you 48 years to break into the top 1% of net worth.
It's entirely possible for somebody who was born poor, got into a good college, and got a decent professional position to end up in (or close to) the 1% of income just from their salary.
It takes a bolt of financial lightning to make it to the 1% of net worth.
Everyone has acknowledged what a great post this was, but it seems like noone is really taking the implications seriously. The bolded statement shows why OWS should change its message, imo. There are lots of people who are in the top 1% of wage earners who have no more of a shot at being in the top 1% of wealth holders than someone in the 99% of wager earners, and they may very well identify with a lot of what OWS is saying, since it is the top 1% by wealth that are by and large buying congressmen, and that reaped the benefits of the mortgage backed securities fiasco. Pitting the $350k-500k (or even $200k) wage earners against the 99% seems counterproductive to me, just like pitting the top of the 99% against the bottom is counterproductive. OWS's grievances are directed at the wealthy, and I can't see what good can come of also protesting against the people who make a good living but can never be in the top 1% by wealth. To me, it seems better to try and recruit this group as allies and backers, instead of attacking them even though they are not responsible for (and cannot change) the problems OWS is focused on.
Im comfortable asserting that if you're in the top 1% of either income or wealth then you're rich. I just don't think there are many people that have high wrealth without high income, and I don't think there's any need for OWS to alter their rhetoric to separate the two.
I think that's interesting, because there are a lot more high income people than there are high wealth people, and if OWS was more focused on wealth disparity than income disparity, you might get more sympathy from members of your hated 99%.
Uhhhhh... I'm gonna go ahead and say that there are exactly as many high income people as there are high wealth people. I'm pretty confident in that assertion.
If you're looking at simple percentiles, then yes clearly there are exactly as many people with wealth in the 99th percentile as there are people with income in the 99th percentile, because that's what "percentile" means.
But that's not really a good way of looking at it.
How much income do you have to make to be in the 1%? $250k-$500k/yr depending on what estimates you're looking at.
How much wealth? About $19m.
Think about that for a minute. If you're in the top 1% of income ($500k/yr), and you're putting away 80% of your income into savings every single year ($400k/yr), and if 100% of your savings was untaxed, it would take you 48 years to break into the top 1% of net worth.
It's entirely possible for somebody who was born poor, got into a good college, and got a decent professional position to end up in (or close to) the 1% of income just from their salary.
It takes a bolt of financial lightning to make it to the 1% of net worth.
Everyone has acknowledged what a great post this was, but it seems like noone is really taking the implications seriously. The bolded statement shows why OWS should change its message, imo. There are lots of people who are in the top 1% of wage earners who have no more of a shot at being in the top 1% of wealth holders than someone in the 99% of wager earners, and they may very well identify with a lot of what OWS is saying, since it is the top 1% by wealth that are by and large buying congressmen, and that reaped the benefits of the mortgage backed securities fiasco. Pitting the $350k-500k (or even $200k) wage earners against the 99% seems counterproductive to me, just like pitting the top of the 99% against the bottom is counterproductive. OWS's grievances are directed at the wealthy, and I can't see what good can come of also protesting against the people who make a good living but can never be in the top 1% by wealth. To me, it seems better to try and recruit this group as allies and backers, instead of attacking them even though they are not responsible for (and cannot change) the problems OWS is focused on.
Who is talking about the top 1% of wage earners?
I was under the impression we have been talking about the top 1% of wealthy people and top 1% of income earners. Capital gains is a form of income. So I suspect they almost entirely overlap.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Im comfortable asserting that if you're in the top 1% of either income or wealth then you're rich. I just don't think there are many people that have high wrealth without high income, and I don't think there's any need for OWS to alter their rhetoric to separate the two.
I think that's interesting, because there are a lot more high income people than there are high wealth people, and if OWS was more focused on wealth disparity than income disparity, you might get more sympathy from members of your hated 99%.
Uhhhhh... I'm gonna go ahead and say that there are exactly as many high income people as there are high wealth people. I'm pretty confident in that assertion.
If you're looking at simple percentiles, then yes clearly there are exactly as many people with wealth in the 99th percentile as there are people with income in the 99th percentile, because that's what "percentile" means.
But that's not really a good way of looking at it.
How much income do you have to make to be in the 1%? $250k-$500k/yr depending on what estimates you're looking at.
How much wealth? About $19m.
Think about that for a minute. If you're in the top 1% of income ($500k/yr), and you're putting away 80% of your income into savings every single year ($400k/yr), and if 100% of your savings was untaxed, it would take you 48 years to break into the top 1% of net worth.
It's entirely possible for somebody who was born poor, got into a good college, and got a decent professional position to end up in (or close to) the 1% of income just from their salary.
It takes a bolt of financial lightning to make it to the 1% of net worth.
Everyone has acknowledged what a great post this was, but it seems like noone is really taking the implications seriously. The bolded statement shows why OWS should change its message, imo. There are lots of people who are in the top 1% of wage earners who have no more of a shot at being in the top 1% of wealth holders than someone in the 99% of wager earners, and they may very well identify with a lot of what OWS is saying, since it is the top 1% by wealth that are by and large buying congressmen, and that reaped the benefits of the mortgage backed securities fiasco. Pitting the $350k-500k (or even $200k) wage earners against the 99% seems counterproductive to me, just like pitting the top of the 99% against the bottom is counterproductive. OWS's grievances are directed at the wealthy, and I can't see what good can come of also protesting against the people who make a good living but can never be in the top 1% by wealth. To me, it seems better to try and recruit this group as allies and backers, instead of attacking them even though they are not responsible for (and cannot change) the problems OWS is focused on.
Who is talking about the top 1% of wage earners?
I was under the impression we have been talking about the top 1% of wealthy people and top 1% of income earners. Capital gains is a form of income. So I suspect they almost entirely overlap.
The top 1% for income is $500k if we're being generous. The overlap of 1% wealth and 1% income is only about 50% according to this NYTimes article:
But regardless, please explain what good it is doing OWS to alienate someone making $350-500k who took on signifigant student loans, has a mortgage, and is all around living a "nice" but not crazy oppulant lifestyle? These people were hurt by the financial crisis (whether or not you care, having bonuses cut does affect people) may very well lose their houses if they lost their jobs, and may face uncertain retirements. It seems to me that these types of people have more in common with the 99% than they do with the .1% (or the 1% by wealth) yet they appear to be viewed as the same by OWS.
oh wait nope, this seems like exactly what any reasonable person would do.
I don't understand your issue here.
He assumes the left hate her for being rich and the right hates her for being a moocher by collected food stamps.
I saw on CNN that she lost her benefits, btw.
So in a year or so when she burns through that money she can just get back on them. I don't understand why we allow the lottery to exist, it doesn't fund the shit it says it funds and it just destroys people's lives.
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http://www.wealthandwant.com/issues/income/income_distribution.html
Ehhh.... not really. Don't get me wrong. It seems pretty dick that she's still taking the money, but going off that video she only received $700,000 and paid approximately $300,000 in taxes. $300,000 covers over a century of food stamps.
While it's questionable for her to still be taking the food stamps (as deebaser said), the thing to keep in mind is these kinds of benefits usually don't work in a way where, if someone is using them, someone else is missing out.
That also happens to be fraud. Michigan has an asset test for food stamps, and I'm pretty sure that having $700k in cash makes you ineligible.
I'm totally fine with reasonable asset tests for food stamps.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Or one year for a hundred people. 99 now, of course.
Of course, I knew posting that would get the snarkers out, and adytum delivers. I didn't say, or suggest, either of those things! It is baffling, but very predictable, that some folks in here would try to defend her. She is the 1%. She has nearly three quarters of a million dollars in the bank!
She's The Rich, guys. You said so yourselves a few pages ago.
Maybe you should read the article you posted before wringing your hands about everyone being so snarky.
edited because Spool's not worth an infraction, no matter how much of a goose he is.
Tabloid journalism like this needs to die in a fire.
This is a case for why we need to better funded public schools, and require civics and home budget courses for graduation. One bad apple does not a bushel ruin.
I did read the article. The bill's probably a great idea. She's still the 1% though, and you shouldn't alter your rhetoric. Not unless you want to either disagree with pi-r8 and others who feel there should be a bright income or wealth line between Rich and Not Rich, or be a giant hypocrite.
She's rich. So rich. You guys should be against her now! Soak her income, she deserves it for being rich.
Meanwhile I can growl at her for bilking the public when she doesn't need to. We can all be angry together!
Her income already was taxed, at an enormous amount. She was "soaked". What more do you think people should want?
Enormous amount? That's the amount you guys are advocating The Rich should always be taxed. I guess I think OWS people should want whatever it is you guys want to do to the rest of The Rich, to also be done to her.
I mean, come on. How can you have any sympathy for her at all? Look at all the money she has!
What point do you think you're making?
The same one I was making pages ago - being The Rich isn't about what you have, or what you make - it's about what you can do. She won't be able to do a whole lot, or live terribly extravagantly, on a single $700K lump, and ought not be taxed to hell and gone because she got lucky.
Also, that chick still getting food stamps is p. annoying.
Have you ever been on government assistance? Bastions of efficiency and up-to-date information these offices ain't. Now, she was probably required to inform them of the sudden cash influx, and failing to do so is fraud, yes. I fully suspect she'll get punished for it. But I'm realistic enough not to think that the food stamp office was sitting in their secret underground lair, using their BigBrother Spy Computers to monitor the hidden cameras in her home, and up to the second back account balance, so they could instantly leap on anyone that might do something so common as win the lottery.
And yeah, if the bitch'd gotten some decent civics classes, she'd understand better how government works and maybe felt responsible to end her benefits herself, instead of sitting in poverty-induced apathy and ignorance, figuring that "Whatever, they keep sending it to me, I'll keep spending it."
Also, let's get pessimistic here: if she's technically the 1% right now, I give her 3 months, tops, before she spends herself right back into the bottom 1%.
This is a non-story. Society failed her long ago, then expects her to be a noble and caring citizen. And I shit vanilla sundaes.
I agree that she did become rich from the lottery. A criminal if the fraud charge is true, as well.
edit: She's rich, not wealthy like the 1%.
first of all- as Feral pointed out- she's NOT in the top 1% of wealth, not even close. She probably wouldn't even make the top 10% with just $700k. Even if she won that lottery 10 more times, she STILL wouldn't be in the top 1%. Are you starting to see just how obscene the inequality is?
Second, she shouldn't have been able to get food stamps. I think almost everyone would agree on that. She only managed to get them because of some sort of error in the system. So fix the error. There's no point being outraged over a minor error like that when there are far more serious issues to worry about.
Seriously, where are you going with this? Do you think OWS should change their motto to "We are the 99%, plus a few lottery winners who are technically in the 1% but they should still count as poor"??? Do you want a special "lottery credit" so that lottery winners don't have to pay taxes?
I would guess that almost everyone earning more than $500k/year is also getting some sort of stock options or company investment plan to go along with their salary. I don't see how they could do it, otherwise. I definitely don't think they're all saving 80% of their income.
And by love, I mean, I cannot believe how stupid we are, and I think if I were to Godwin this conversation right now, that would still be an improvement in the rhetoric.
She wouldn't. 90th percentile is about $870k, IIRC.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
In a year she made $700,000+. According to some posters that's anywhere between 3-7 years of an income that qualifies you without condition as "rich".
Feral's post was awesome, but on that same page posters claimed 'high income' = 'high wealth' and I don't think we can take it as a given that consensus has been reached there.
No sir. There are a lot of different ways to put together compensation packages. If you're worth $500,000, to a company, that doesn't necessarily mean you're really worth an additional X in additional compensation.
Hell it may mean you're getting 400,000 + a 100,000 'bonus'. The dude's worth 500,000, but the company wants to keep his annual merit increase low, while not making it an insulting % of base pay.
I don't begrudge her for it, I'm sure there are unemployed people who were upper middle class on food stamps, who probably have nearly a million in assets they are liquidating to stay above the line.
I really don't think this actually happens all that often. I can't imagine most hiring managers giving half a shit about that sort of thing.
Semi-related anecdote: Someone I work with was a contestant on "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" before he started working here. His boss didn't even know. It only became a thing when I found a list of all the questions he was asked and answers given and needled him about the fail.
Maybe I'm crazy, but if you're on food stamps, and then win the lottery for $700 000, that doesn't make your income $700 000+/year. Cuz... you know... PER YEAR. If I eat a hamburger for lunch today, that doesn't make my consumption of hamburgers 365 hamburgers/year or 8760 hamburgers/hour. That's not how RATES work.
There was a valid, reasonable point being made there, which is that looking at income is a reasonable way to consider wealth. What if I was making $100M per year, but I was spending $99.5M a year, for 20 years, a la Brewster's Millions? Am I not rich?
And of course, taxes typically operate on income, not on assets.
And many people have noted that they're making a generalised correlation between income and assets.
And seriously, who even cares if the definition of "rich" accidentally includes an extra person or not, given that we're talking broadly and symbolically about a "class" of people?
Nobody here's said that that woman should be taxed more than she already was; it was a ridiculous red herring argument, or a straw man if you're being extremely generous.
Technically yes there is a difference between earning $500,000 a year for 40 years or just getting 20 million up front. Either way it's a shitload of money and should be taxed at a high rate. That woman who won 700k and paid 300k in taxes? Sounds reasonable. Mitt Romney earning 20 million and paying just 14% is not.
It would around here, though, actually. People in the rural area where I am play the lotto like it's going out of style and practically memorize the people who win. They'd absolutely turn someone down because "you don't need this job like that single mom who works at bk does." You'd have to wait like 2-3 years to fade out of view probably.
Everyone has acknowledged what a great post this was, but it seems like noone is really taking the implications seriously. The bolded statement shows why OWS should change its message, imo. There are lots of people who are in the top 1% of wage earners who have no more of a shot at being in the top 1% of wealth holders than someone in the 99% of wager earners, and they may very well identify with a lot of what OWS is saying, since it is the top 1% by wealth that are by and large buying congressmen, and that reaped the benefits of the mortgage backed securities fiasco. Pitting the $350k-500k (or even $200k) wage earners against the 99% seems counterproductive to me, just like pitting the top of the 99% against the bottom is counterproductive. OWS's grievances are directed at the wealthy, and I can't see what good can come of also protesting against the people who make a good living but can never be in the top 1% by wealth. To me, it seems better to try and recruit this group as allies and backers, instead of attacking them even though they are not responsible for (and cannot change) the problems OWS is focused on.
I was under the impression we have been talking about the top 1% of wealthy people and top 1% of income earners. Capital gains is a form of income. So I suspect they almost entirely overlap.
The top 1% for income is $500k if we're being generous. The overlap of 1% wealth and 1% income is only about 50% according to this NYTimes article:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/measuring-the-top-1-by-wealth-not-income/
But regardless, please explain what good it is doing OWS to alienate someone making $350-500k who took on signifigant student loans, has a mortgage, and is all around living a "nice" but not crazy oppulant lifestyle? These people were hurt by the financial crisis (whether or not you care, having bonuses cut does affect people) may very well lose their houses if they lost their jobs, and may face uncertain retirements. It seems to me that these types of people have more in common with the 99% than they do with the .1% (or the 1% by wealth) yet they appear to be viewed as the same by OWS.
Oh man how horri
oh wait nope, this seems like exactly what any reasonable person would do.
I don't understand your issue here.
He assumes the left hate her for being rich and the right hates her for being a moocher by collected food stamps.
I saw on CNN that she lost her benefits, btw.
So in a year or so when she burns through that money she can just get back on them. I don't understand why we allow the lottery to exist, it doesn't fund the shit it says it funds and it just destroys people's lives.