On Wed, 6 Feb 2008 08:13:16 -0800 (PST), ta <padlrnc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>On Feb 6, 10:16 am, Jerry Kraus <jkraus_1...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>> Oh, I'm not jealous. I''m hostile. The rich are s***. The rich
>> should be publicly crucified. They've generally gotten their wealth
>> through violence, deception and theft.
>
>(laugh) Ah, the voice of reason. I'm guessing the number of "rich"
>people you know is exactly zero.
Well I know, personally, several seriously rich people (assets in 8+
figures). Allow me to enumerate how they got the bulk of their money:
1. Inheritance.
2. Selling shares in worthless companies, none of which ever make a
profit, let alone pay a dividend.
3. Government grants and loans totalling over half a billion dollars
that increased the market cap of a company by two orders of magnitude
in 15 years (and most of the company's profits have been made not in
the manufacturing industry that the grants and loans were for, but by
trading currency and interest rate derivatives).
4. Pocketing the publicly created value of land.
5. Reworking someone else's idea, promoting the heck out of it, then
pocketing the rent of the copyright monopoly.
6. Manufacturing and trade privileges from corrupt officials in China.
Notice that not one of them -- not one! -- obtained the bulk of their
wealth in return for actual productive contributions. This is not a
statistically significant sample, true. But it is a disturbing
pattern. And for more proof that the very rich generally have not
earned their wealth, see this thread from a few months back:
http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.politics.economics/browse_thread/thread/99f69836adc15364/0bc6b300ae4a73a5?hl=en&lnk=st&q=#0bc6b300ae4a73a5
-- Roy L
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