How Rich People Get Rich

[hfojvt]

19. that's not much of an argument

Do you buy the GDP?

The US GDP is currently $15 trillion. According to IRS estimates the top .1% got 7.8% of all taxable income. The richest 400 only got 1.59% of all income. Which is only .24 trillion. Divide that by the 400 people and you get just .0006 trillion - a mere 600 million.

Even IF you ASSUME that is off by a factor of ten, and then quadruple it because the richest members of the group are making much more than the "poorest" members of the Fab 400. That's only income of $24 billion per year for the richest person. Even if they saved all of it, and spent none of it on lavish living, it would take 42 years to accumulate $1 trillion.

That's not so long, but one other trouble is that 42 years ago - in 1970, the US GDP was only $1.04 trillion. Also, even as recently as 1995, the Fab 400 were only getting .49% of the total income. Thus, their average income would only be .013 billion or a mere $12.7 million. It becomes even harder to accumulate $1 trillion in wealth if you are "only" making $500 million a year.

But even IF, by some financial miracle, somebody, somewhere, somehow has $1 trillion in wealth. Well, I, with a mere pile of 16 (million) can buy a really, really fancy house with, say $2 million, put my remaining wealth in tax free bonds at 1% interest and take home $140,000 a year tax free. Which happens to be more income than 90% of the rest of the country makes.

Which may be too poor to fall in love, but I am too young to know.