"I never got a job from a poor person."
-- Sean Hannity
"I've been on food stamps and welfare. Did anybody help me out? No."
-- Craig T. Nelson
Or, as Hamilton Nolan at Gawker put it, "'Sure, it's an objectively large sum of money,' they say. 'But it is far smaller after I spend it.'"
Anyone who gripes and moans towards the guys that truly earned their success and riches can get stuffed.
True words.Originally posted by v2kai
Anyone who gripes and moans towards the guys that truly earned their success and riches can get stuffed.
I have friends who went to school and didn't get big paying jobs right out of school and complain...
Some of us worked our asses off to get where we are...
You guys didn't read the article, did you? Because you're kind of making its point (well, point 5 at least.)
Coming from a humour website, I am surprised by how insightful this article is and how solid its points are.#5. "Hey, I Worked Hard to Get What I Have!"
This will be the entry that prompts many a reader to skip right to the comment section after only reading the entry header ("I'm tired of these hippies saying the rich just got lucky and don't work hard!"). So let's get this out off the way right now, and make them look like assholes for not reading far enough:
Most high-income earners do put in a ton of hours. Bill Gates seemed to never sleep (an employee once said that putting in 81 hours in four days still couldn't keep up with Gates' schedule). So yes, it's unfair that we tend to think that "being rich" means "lounging by the pool while an albino tiger massages our feet with his tongue." So, "Hey, I work hard for what I have!" is perfectly true. It's also insulting.
It's insulting for the exact same reason "Hey, I love my country!" is insulting: It implies that the listener doesn't. Otherwise there'd be no reason to say it.
...
So, mister rich person who clearly is not reading this, when we say you're "lucky," we're not saying you're lucky in the way that a lottery winner is lucky. We're saying that you're lucky if you were born in a time and place where the hard work you're good at (say, stock speculation) is valued over the hard work that other people are good at (say, landscaping, or poetry).
...
Or, if you don't believe me, let billionaire investor Warren Buffett tell you: "If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil ... I work in a market system that happens to reward what I do very well -- disproportionately well."
So to sum it up: If you make good money, but have to work 80-hour weeks to get it, you're still lucky. Just swallow your pride and fucking acknowledge it.
we who? you rich now?Originally posted by ekguy
True words.
I have friends who went to school and didn't get big paying jobs right out of school and complain...
Some of us worked our asses off to get where we are...
i was thinking the same thingOriginally posted by Supa Dexta
we who? you rich now?
^X3... Kind of forgot to read the rest of the thread past that.
To quote what Warren Buffet said;
I've always believed this about truly successful people. One of my favorite quotes from him.Or, if you don't believe me, let billionaire investor Warren Buffett tell you: "If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side"
...
Last edited by Sugarphreak; 07-09-2019 at 02:57 PM.
(basically a post I did elsewhere, reproduced here)
I actually don't mind it when people say #2 of "being punished for success" - but only so long as they truly, honestly rich. As in, they would be the people who are truly being limited by overtaxation and what not. As far as I know, was there not a time in the UK where their rich and famous moved to Switzerland and other parts of Europe because taxation with the Wilson government was quite high? Anyone with some self interest and who've weighed the options would certainly have seen the benefit of relocating to relative tax havens. As much as I hate Ayn Rand, the point when you start driving away your wealthiest to the point that you end up collecting no tax at all is when you've probably gone too far.
However, people rarely estimate themselves honestly. For the most part, there is a lot of self flattery involved, especially with the petty bourgeois and or the pretend rich as a someone pointed out (I think it was Antonito pointed out in a thread with similar topic... gotta give credit where it's due). These are people who, just because they have 2 cars, a house in the upmarket suburbs and can afford an overseas vacation or two per year think that they are rich that they are rolling with the richest of them all. Those same people probably think they are like the exalted heroes of Rand, when in truth they've invented nothing, contributed nothing of substance, and whose position is largely replaceable and forgettable. Sure, they may be in a higher paying field, probably do well in their profession, but in the end, they still are EMPLOYEES. Cogs in a system, as it were.
The saddest part is that they think they matter a lot more than they do, and would rather align themselves with the very elite few who do make any nation run. So they go and defend those who's in a totally different league from them...
To Quote George Orwell:
"...Very few cultivated people have less than (say) four hundred pounds a year, and naturally they side with rich, because they imagine that any liberty conceded to the poor is a threat to their own liberty. Foreseeing some dismal Marxian Utopia as the alternative, the educated man prefers to keep things the way they are. Possibly he does not like his fellow-rich very much, but he supposes that even the vulgarest of them are less inimical to his pleasures, more his kind of people, than the poor, and that he had better stand by them. It is this fear of a supposedly dangerous mob that makes nearly all intelligent people conservative in their opinions."
Orwell, George (Eric Arthur Blair). (1933). Down and Out in Paris and London (1940 ed.). London: Penguin Books.
Last edited by randedge; 03-16-2012 at 10:41 PM.
haha eff no but I'm definitely very comfortable with what I have at the momentOriginally posted by Supa Dexta
we who? you rich now?
And who cares how "insightful" the article is...Anyone has it in them to work hard and get a good job...People who complain that they don't should shut their traps and work harder...
Pssst...hey dummy:Originally posted by ekguy
haha eff no but I'm definitely very comfortable with what I have at the moment
And who cares how "insightful" the article is...Anyone has it in them to work hard and get a good job...People who complain that they don't should shut their traps and work harder...
It implies a bizarre alternate reality where society rewards you purely based on how much effort you exert, rather than according to how well your specific talents fit in with the needs of the marketplace in the particular era and part of the world in which you were born. It implies that the great investment banker makes 10 times more than a great nurse only because the banker works 10 times as hard.
lol
I heard Jim Treliving say this in his documentary and ever since I heard it, I loved it and completely agree with it.
He was talking about how people come up to him and tell him how lucky he is all the time, to be able to make it and get where he is now from his humble background. To which he says, 'what I found was, the harder I worked, the luckier I got'.
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Last edited by Sugarphreak; 07-09-2019 at 02:56 PM.
"Rob Anders stop kissing my ass." heh.
Cocoa $11,000 per tonne.
You obviously missed my point. Is there anywhere where I said I hated the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs? Dude, they're my personal heroes too.
I'm not among those who bitch that the rich are rich, nor am I one of those who want in on the cut without contributing. For me, to each and everyone a reward for their effort and worth. Read it again, there's a part about nation building, not pushing away those of worth overseas to tax havens (because if you have enough money, you have enough money to go offshore anyway should a place prove hostile enough).
It just really annoys me that those who are most vehemently defensive against the smallest of 'concessions', if you will, to social prgrams, public works, and anything that would make life better for a great number people, don't realize that they are among those who'd benefit most from such things, but be inconvenienced least by it.
"Cogs" was strong, I agree, but is there any other way to put it? Really, unless you're upper management (in fact, even then), you are entirely replaceable, disposable and substitutable for someone else. And even those job security measures, employee protection etc. cannot necessarily be credited to corporations. Sure, they compete nowadays to give you benefits and guaranteed security and what not, but that's just because it's hip and cool nowadays to be like that, and in part because it's legislated. But this is getting long. Bottomline: The richest of the rich aren't usually the ones who really whine so loudly about a miniscule amount of taxation, and then chastise and cut down those who disagree with their right leaning tencencies. If the richest of the rich say that, fine, I could understand. Yet instead, I hear it all the time from those who fantasize about how self made and individualistic they are.... yet in truth was born in a public hospital, lived in a neighbourhood which without the zoning and control of a municipal government would have turned into something shittier long ago, educated via relatively inexpensive education (public K-12, and a post secondary that is still a bargain what with government subsidies), now pays auto insurance which had it not been held back by public controls would be way higher... oh and in the Albertan context - probably is in an industry that, as of late is recognized by this province's cash cow and is being safeguarded agains the feds... bla bla bla and so on and so forth. The real rich are better protected against the failure of such public institutions - they already rely on exclusive, private, and one off services and amenities. You and I however totally feel it the moment it even starts faltering.
Last edited by randedge; 03-17-2012 at 03:46 PM.
Two books you should read:Originally posted by ekguy
...Anyone has it in them to work hard and get a good job...People who complain that they don't should shut their traps and work harder...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_%28book%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point
Originally posted by scat19
I have a BMW so im not stupid.
...
Last edited by Sugarphreak; 07-09-2019 at 02:56 PM.
I guess I'm a centrist. As thankful as I am to live in a this sweet country, it is still possible to go too far to the left as it sometimes does. But that's another rant
So what's your definition of rich?
My definition is:
A. Gross $500K.
or
B. Paid off house $500K+. Gross $200K.
Gross $200K will put you in the top 1% of the country.
Balling. rage2/89coupe/benyl/xrayvsn/redline/m.alex/etc.
I am user #49Originally posted by rage2
Shit, there's only 49 users here, I doubt we'll even break 100