Hey dont forget, with the new supreme court ruling, Exxon is a citizen! LOL Wonder how exxon will vote?

It takes money to make money. The top 1% make a lot more then they spend, so they pump back millions of dollars into investments. its a snow ball affect... They pushing down the hill a big snow ball, we pushing down a snow flake. The majority of the population can't afford to invest tons of money or they simply spend more than they make and never have anything to invest. If they depend on their wages alone (from their jobs) then chances are they will never out beat inflation. But if they make more than they spend and they invest the rest, (their money is working for them) they will have a much better chance to out beat inflation.

There will always be the people at the bottom who don't have enough ambition or intelligence to be anything other than a fast food worker. Then there is people who have the ambition and smarts to make decent money. Of those people you need to find the ones who are willing to not spend all of what they make on crap and invest as much as they could.

Just about anyone with intelligence, ambition, and the ability to live modest and not blow it all, can work their way from the bottom to the top. Will they make it to the top 1%, maybe but it could take many many years to do or even a couple generations. But it is possible. IT COMES DOWN TO THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE CHOICES THEY MAKE.

Even daddy Bush called Reagan's "trickle down" economics "voodoo economics".

Yep, you make a good point.

My post was meant less about why the wealthy get more wealthy faster and more of an illustration. Bestxxxporn had said the rich get richer and the poor get richer and I was just pointing out that this really isn't the case.

It is a lot easier to make a billion dollars if you start with 300 million dollars than if you start with $300, that much is certainty.

Some interesting numbers about millionaires in the US:

* Only 19 percent receive any income or wealth of any kind from a trust fund or an estate.

* Fewer than 20 percent inherited 10 percent or more of their wealth.

* More than half never received as much as $1 in inheritance.

* Fewer than 25 percent ever received "an act of kindness" of $10,000 or more from their parents, grandparents, or other relatives.

* Ninety-one percent never received, as a gift, as much as $1 of the ownership of a family business.

* Nearly half never received any college tuition from their parents or other relatives.

* Fewer than 10 percent believe they will ever receive an inheritance in the future.

Good, I enjoy the jobs and production in industry they provide, why don't you check out the other numbers in money they paid out to other companies in subcontracts ;)

every country has the same shit problems...

We tested out the car that tom hanks has (it's his second electric vehicle), for a new TV show i'm involved in. The car needed an energy top up before it was supposed to be due, and the place we stopped at to charge it had closed down because of lack of funding. We had to abandon the car in the end. Unless there is massive widespread adoption of these vehicles its not going to make sense for most families because you cant do long haul trips and who has room for 2 cars?

There's so much wrong with this argument, I don't know which fallacy to rip apart first.


To begin with, France's corporate tax is a steady 33.33%. Sweden's is 26%. The US is a scaling corporate tax country. You can pay as low as 15%, to the highest at 39%.

If income tax is stupid, tell me how we would fund the services deemed necessary? IE fire, medical, police, etc.


And serious LOLs @ the US being almost entirely socialist. Stop it.

i must be doing something very wrong.. i have a great accountant but how do you guys write off everything to basically have no tax..

let me give you an example..

you make $1mil in 2009
your expenses to make that $1mil are only $120,000 meaning computer, internet, ads, etc, everything..

Please explain how you can avoid paying the IRS tax on at least $800,000 income,

only way i see is to take like 800k and dump it into buying websites, etc... otherwise how else can people who make millions pay no taxes, legally

Here's the problem with you logic. Say Exxon pays 39% on that $45 bilion so aorund $18 billion. Sounds good right? They are paying thier share right? Well except to get that $18 billion back they raises gas prices 25 cents a gallon or cut employee benefits or pay or hours. All of which has negative effect on the economy. Now if you could somehow force them to pay the taxes without doing that then I'd be all for it but you can't.

I have room for a few cars :)

I completely agree with the lack of "charging stations" but I'd have another car for road trips. .. I just want an all electric for in town driving :) No reason to burn the gas if it's not needed :)

The problem with my logic? I proposed no fix to this issue, all I did was state facts. Not sure where you're coming from or going with this.

You can't put exxon in jail for not paying taxes. Only slaves.

By the way your total income tax on that $880K would be about 30% max. Man that would suck having to live on only $616K.

I suspect most Americans would love to be rich enough to have to pay 30% if their income in income taxes.

Great stuff! :thumbsup

:1orglaugh

Yeah because using an electric car means you're saving the world - :1orglaugh

You know the electricity doesn't just magically appear in the socket in your wall right?

not really. you are forgetting SE taxes, and good ol state tax.. u r gonna live on more like $450k

Oh an on topic of cheating the IRS out of tax dollars:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/04/15/...ex.html?hpt=C2

Very interesting read!

they should put that 45Billion into developing electric cars.

Ok if you're going to be technical. SE taxes would be about $125K but since you get to deduct half that off your income it reduces the taxes I mentioned earlier by $22K. So an overall increase of around $103K. State taxes? Good thing I live in a state with ZERO income tax. So I'd "only" have $513k to live on. Even if I did live ina state with an income tax that tax is dedectable on income taxes too.

Also this isn't taking into account personal exemption and dependant deduction. If you were married with 2 kids you're taxes would be lowered even more, but I won't get into that.

So if you have an income of $880K and you only have $450k left over I'd sue your accountant.

other oil companys manage to pay tax and stay competitive.

Btw, if you make more then $85k or so, you can't deduct your wife and kids. The deduction is head of household which is very small.

He's still looking at 300k in taxes which is more then you paid in 20 years he pays in 1 year.

Where are the sources ? While I general believe as you do and the points you are making I think you are swinging way to the extreme.

is t his networth millionaires or people who make million dollars a year in income etc... "millionaires" needs to be defined. Someone can own a million dollars worth of property and only make 50K a year from it or less. If it is just net worth, gathering a million dollars of networth over your life time is not a hard thing to do if you have a decent income and invest money instead of blowing it all.

I've always read and been told that more millionaires are made from:
1. Lotto
2. Inheritance
3. Law suits

than anything else.

Pffft. That doesn't even include the financial subsidies the government gives them, and THAT doesn't even include the tax payer funding of wars to open up new exploration territory and naval protection of shipping lanes to transport the oil. This shouldn't be news. And you wonder why alternative energy finds it hard to compete. Still, it is important to lock up these resources.

So Bill gates should pay a few $$ in taxes because that's what others pay?

Yeah those three things... sure people get money from them but not nearly as many as whom make it on their own...

Those came from NY Times... go research it yourself if you're that interested...

They're the largest company in the U.S. That means they can do whatever they want.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s...llionaire.html

It's about his book "Millionaire Next Door", that NY Times article is a pretty good summary of it...
probably get the book though, the book isn't really that great, but it's filled with interesting, eye-opening facts, worth checking out if you are interested in learning more... :thumbsup

and only idiots make these sorts of statements :2 cents: