Originally Posted By ecdc <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/an-investment-managers-view-2013-11">http://www.businessinsider.com...-2013-11</a> Here's a fascinating (to me, at least) article by an investment banker on why the idea of accumulating wealth and striking it rich in America is a complete fantasy. In a nutshell, he breaks out the top 1%. He notes that the bottom-half of the top 1% tend to be hard-working, well-educated people like physicians, attorneys, or successful small-business owners. He points out that even these people, saving and doing all the right things with their 401Ks, etc., will not be left with much for retirement. Certainly, as he notes, wealth is relative and compared to a lot of Americans, they'll do just fine. But most of them will have around $80,00-90,000 a year post-tax income to live off of. Hardly rich, and downright middle-class in coastal cities like San Francisco or Boston. And these are people in the 1%. Compare that to the upper-half of the 1%. These people are overwhelmingly in the banking and financial industry. They accumulate massive wealth through investments, all of which are taxed at a significantly lower rate than traditional income, which is not a coincidence, since these same people have access to corridors of power the rest of us don't. They cause serious market problems that screw the rest of us, then ride it out with overseas tax havens and investments. He concludes: >>The bottom line is this: A highly complex set of laws and exemptions from laws and taxes has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the U.S. financial system. It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the U.S. political and legislative processes. They have real power and real wealth. Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%. Moreover, those at the very top have no incentive whatsoever for revealing or changing the rules. I am not optimistic.<<
Originally Posted By Tikiduck I think throughout history the very rich have found ways to keep the vast majority of wealth in their possession. The Romans did it, the churches did it, (and still do), the robber barons did it, dictators and despots, and of course, the financial industry. It's the story where those with the means will take every advantage, and every little bit of the pie they can, and give nothing back. It's the story of greed, and is as old as the species itself.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>You forgot the US Government in your list.<< You mean the government that provides tons of services to people and mails them refund checks if they overpay? Wait...I thought the debt was the problem, now it's that the government is greedy and hoarding money? Which is it?
Originally Posted By ecdc Here you go, Josh. Just for you: >>The experience of mankind has shown that the people of communities and nations among whom wealth is the most equally distributed, enjoy the largest degree of liberty, are the least exposed to tyranny and oppression and suffer the least from luxurious habits which beget vice.... Under such a system, carefully maintained there could be no great aggregations of either real or personal property in the hands of a few; especially so while the laws, forbidding the taking of usury or interest for money or property loaned, continued in force. One of the great evils with which our own nation is menaced at the present time is the wonderful growth of wealth in the hands of a comparatively few individuals. The very liberties for which our fathers contended so steadfastly and courageously, and which they bequeathed to us as a priceless legacy, are endangered by the monstrous power which this accumulation of wealth gives to a few individuals and a few powerful corporations. By its seductive influence results are accomplished which, were it more equally distributed, would be impossible under our form of government. It threatens to give shape to the legislation, both State, and National, of the entire country. If this evil should not be checked, and measures not taken to prevent the continued enormous growth of riches among the class already rich, and the painful increase of destitution and want among the poor, the nation is likely to be overtaken by disaster; for, according to history, such a tendency among nations once powerful was the sure precursor of ruin.<< --Brigham Young, George A. Smith, Daniel H. Wells, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Orson Hyde, Orson Pratt, Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, Franklin D. Richards, George Q. Cannon, Brigham Young, Jr., and Albert Carrington, July 10, 1875
Originally Posted By TomSawyer Man, the LDS sure has changed its stance on material wealth since 1875.
Originally Posted By ecdc The context is even better. This was written as part of a pamphlet reporting the financial state of ZCMI. Everyone in Utah knows what ZCMI was - a chain of local retail stores once owned by the LDS church. But it stands for "Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institute." The cooperative is the key word. It was created as part of the LDS church's drive for communal living and having all things in common. That's right, the Mormons once basically argued for socialism. Today church members argue adamantly that the United Order (their name for it) was governed under God and was therefore divine and a-ok, and that corrupt national governments have no business being socialist. Fair enough. But that answer doesn't explain the essential U-turn the church has taken to advocating a sort of hyper-capitalism, where making money in just about anyway imaginable is okay so long as it's legal. This is a subtle cultural thing that's hard to define, but you see more and more progressive-type Mormons pushing back against it. There really is a sense in the LDS church that making money, especially through some kind of business venture, is acceptable no matter how shady or ethically questionable it is so long as it's legal.
