If you make over 75,000 a year, are you rich?

[blackout]

Being rich doesn't necessarily have anything to do with annual income - especially if its from work. Being "rich" to me means having wealth - that is, possessing a sufficient amount of net worth that one could generate enough money from existing assets to live reasonably comfortably without having to work in any substantial way at all.

Exactly.

 

[Reverend Rick]

I'm gonna dress my *** in the latest fashion, get a front door key to the playboy mansion......

 

[tomspug]

I agree with that statement doppelganger, and I know for a fact that an American can achieve that from any background. The current set of rich elites in our country are FULL of people that came from nothing and simply worked hard. How's that for opportunity?

 

[nutshell]

So you disagree with my analogy that to be rich is to be able to afford luxury?

The American definition of 'luxury' is a joke. There is no poverty in America. Anyone, anywhere can find food and shelter for FREE. Not only that, the government PAYS the unemployed and gives them health services, food stamps, education, and provides them with the means to find work.

Give me a break!

So everyone in America is rich because the government can provide for them?

Ridiculous.

 

[Reverend Rick]

I agree with that statement doppelganger, and I know for a fact that an American can achieve that from any background. The current set of rich elites in our country are FULL of people that came from nothing and simply worked hard. How's that for opportunity?

Many came here from another country and are uneducated and barley speak our language and some how can see the opportunities that are some how elusive to native born Americans

 

[blackout]

Guess what, you can get that in America VERY easily. It's called not using credit cards or spending money on things you don't need. Anyone can do it. ANYONE. In fact, it's even more an attribute of how rich everyone in America is that they all HAVE the opportunity to achieve these kinds of luxuries. We are so stinking rich, it's sick!

I'm not complaining mind you,
but until you have hit some major downfall,
like a failed business...
or a lost business/income
(due to illness, death, childbirth, or a spouse leaving)...
and you have four children,
even if you start out before your loss with 0 debt,
one small season of difficulty
can put you under for years and years.
Even when you live as frugally as we do.

Best not to lump everyone together.

Many many many of us live frugally and are struggling majorly.
We did not invite our debt, but we had to buy groceries and pay utility bills somehow.

 

[tomspug]

...However, I still hold that it takes an arrogant and wealthy nation to not recognize this: that you don't have to be "wealthy" to have all of your needs met and to be happy.

"Poverty" is not being able to meet your needs. The only people in America like that are simply bad with money.

 

[blackout]

...However, I still hold that it takes an arrogant and wealthy nation to not recognize this: that you don't have to be "wealthy" to have all of your needs met and to be happy.

"Poverty" is not being able to meet your needs. The only people in America like that are simply bad with money.

Did anyone here say that?
I may have missed it.
I certainly do not have that attitude.

The OP simply asked what made one "rich".

 

[Mister_T]

The point is, 30K is plenty.

Depends on where you live.

You can find apartments under 1K/month in Riverside area, but maybe that's too inconvenient for people who live in LA.

Good luck finding a job in Riverside Valley that pays you 30,000 a year. There's a reason why traffic going to and from cities/counties surrounding Los Angeles is so bad at 5 in the afternoon (Hint: It's not because we have good Mexican food).

So get a better job or move out of California (it's expensive!).

It's hard to get a decent job in SoCal, or California in general. (It's in the news!)

My point was that being "rich" is to be an American in general. Do you have more than one pair of shoes? That means you have a luxury. You do not NEED more than one pair of shoes. Everything you own that is not necessary for survival is a 'luxury'.

And if you actually read what I wrote earlier in the thread, I'm comparing American wages by American economic standards. I'm not comparing American wages to Western African economic standards.

Just because people in America have bought into consumerism and spend all their money on things that most people in the world don't doesn't make them NOT RICH. They are, they are just bad with money.

And once again, we are talking about American economic standards. 30,000 U.S. dollars is rich to a person living in Mexico. 30,000 dollars is not rich to a person living in San Francisco. Just because you have a hard time understanding that people struggle on 30,000 a year doesn't mean they ARE rich. Some people just like applying stereotypes on others to justify their own personal judgements and opinions.

 

[Mister_T]

BTW, Mister_T is extremely grateful for everything that he has at 30,000+ a year.

 

[tomspug]

You're missing the point. It's not about currency. It's about WHAT is available to us. That's what makes us rich. It's not about what 30K can buy you in America or Mexico. It's that IN AMERICA with 30K, you can afford everything you need for life. If you want more, you can get a higher wage.

30K is generally the MINIMUM. In other words, the MINIMUM in America is being able to afford everything you need. Everything else is luxury! Isn't that incredible?

 

[Mister_T]

No one here made that presumption

Nor did I accuse anyone of doing so. Just making a comment about the notion in general.

 

[nutshell]

Tom - I think your knowledge of the working poor is very limited.

 

[tomspug]

Tom - I think your knowledge of the working poor is very limited.

Enlighten me, then. You seem to be the expert.

I used to live NEXT DOOR to the working poor. I know what the bare minimum is.

 

[doppelganger]

I agree with that statement doppelganger, and I know for a fact that an American can achieve that from any background. The current set of rich elites in our country are FULL of people that came from nothing and simply worked hard. How's that for opportunity?

Good as long as we stop shrinking that opportunity for people. The cuts in college financing assistance under the GOP Congress were particularly inexcusable. And, of course, this all requires a lot of luck and no mistakes, too. If you get really sick while trying to get there, that can be the end of your shot at "opportunity" since many people chasing opportunity don't have health care. The wealthier your background, the more mistakes you can make and still get by, too.

Moreover, to get to wealth, one probably has to work unless they are born to it. So the decline in real wages against inflation also shrinks those opportunities. And a tax system that drops an increasing burden on middle class working families working hard to make that transition to wealth is a bad idea. Particularly when spending isn't being controlled and taxation on the most wealthy citizens continues to be cut year after year.

The long-term fiscal implications of the modern GOP and its abandonment of fiscal conservativism are laid out very well by "old school" conservative Ben Stein in an article he wrote for the NYT a year or so back:

It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”
Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare.
“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
This conversation keeps coming back to mind because, in the last couple of weeks, I have been on one television panel after another, talking about how questionable it is that the country is enjoying what economists call full employment while we are still running a federal budget deficit of roughly $434 billion for fiscal 2006 (not counting off-budget items like Social Security) and economists forecast that it will grow to $567 billion in fiscal 2010.
When I mentioned on these panels that we should consider all options for closing this gap — including raising taxes, particularly for the wealthiest people — I was met with several arguments by people who call themselves conservatives and free marketers.
One argument was that the mere suggestion constituted class warfare. I think Mr. Buffett answered that one.
Another argument was that raising taxes actually lowers total revenue, and that only cutting taxes stimulates federal revenue. This is supposedly proved by the history of tax receipts since my friend George W. Bush became president.
In fact, the federal government collected roughly $1.004 trillion in income taxes from individuals in fiscal 2000, the last full year of President Bill Clinton’s merry rule. It fell to a low of $794 billion in 2003 after Mr. Bush’s tax cuts (but not, you understand, because of them, his supporters like to say). Only by the end of fiscal 2006 did income tax revenue surpass the $1 trillion level again.
By this time, we Republicans had added a mere $2.7 trillion to the national debt. So much for tax cuts adding to revenue. To be fair, corporate profits taxes have increased greatly, as corporate profits have increased stupendously. This may be because of the cut in corporate tax rates. Anything is possible.

And while corporate profits were increasing, real wages were not. Giving the very real impression to most Americans of shrinking opportunities.

Report: Most workers not seeing wages outpace prices - Aug. 28, 2006

Add in the effect of the mortgage crisis on the major asset of most working families (their home equity), the unemployment that is starting to percolate through the economy as a result, skyrocketing gas prices as oil companies record the biggest profits in the history of mankind, a national debt out of control (much of it controlled by foreign governments - including China and Saudi Arabia among the top three), and the declining dollar, and you see why people feel we are headed in the wrong direction.

In 2005 and 2006, wages were the lowest in terms of the share of the GDP as they have been since 1947, while corporate profits as a share of the GDP were the highest they've been since the 1960s, yet we continue to push deregulation and tax policy that makes all of these situations worse.

It doesn't make any sense. And it certainly isn't "conservative." More from Stein:

The final argument is the one I really love. People ask how I can be a conservative and still want higher taxes. It makes my head spin, and I guess it shows how old I am. But I thought that conservatives were supposed to like balanced budgets. I thought it was the conservative position to not leave heavy indebtedness to our grandchildren. I thought it was the conservative view that there should be some balance between income and outflow. When did this change?

 

[doppelganger]

Add in the cost of the occupation of Iraq (and the spectre of paying for a war with Iran that the neo-Cons are dead set on) and it begins to border on insanity:

[FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif] "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who most need tax relief . . . [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif]The tax cut is not appropriate until we find out the cost of the war and the cost of reconstruction" - John McCain, 2003

Now he wants to make those exact same tax cuts permanent even though we STILL don't know what Iraq is ultimately going to cost us. Straight shooter, my arse . . .
[/FONT]

 

[Mister_T]

You're missing the point. It's not about currency. It's about WHAT is available to us. That's what makes us rich. It's not about what 30K can buy you in America or Mexico. It's that IN AMERICA with 30K, you can afford everything you need for life. If you want more, you can get a higher wage.

30K is generally the MINIMUM. In other words, the MINIMUM in America is being able to afford everything you need. Everything else is luxury! Isn't that incredible?

But that is your own personal interpretation of what it means to be rich in America. And affording only what you need in America can be accomplised on a lot less than 30,000. It's is feesable on 15,000 in some places. The point you seem to be missing is "Affording everything you need (only) in life" in America is not considered "rich" by American standards. The poverty line in the U.S. is around 30,000 I believe.

 

[Mister_T]

Enlighten me, then.

We're trying.

 

[nutshell]

Enlighten me, then.

Please see excellent post #55.

 

[Draka]

So, there are no poor in america because the government offers benefits? I'm sorry. that's ludicrous. I've gone some years making no more than $8,000. I've somehow made too much to qualify for food stamps, but not enough to afford my electric bill. I've had to let bills get backed up for a month or two just to gaurantee that I would have money for food and to make the rent. then play the "I can pay you this much by this date" game with my utilities. And I'm not talking having cable or satelite dish or anything like that. I'm talking, when I did scrape up enough money to buy a small tv second hand it had rabbit ears on it.

It really sucks when you barely have enough money to live on and yet you still make "too much" to qualify for assistance.

when you live like that...30k a year sounds reasonable. 75k a year is just dreamy.