[OT]America. The land of the not-so-free (economy)

[James A. Kuzdrall]

On Saturday 08 January 2005 11:52 am, Randy Edwards wrote:
>  >  About 4% of Americans have $1M in net worth, only a
>  > fraction of a percent have $2M.
>
>    This is interesting.  In a previous post I noted that if we kept
> the estate tax (the so-called death tax), we could fund social
> security out past the end of the century.
>
>    The estate tax impacts only people with more than $1M.
>
>    Thus we can say the administration wants to sacrifice the gov'ts
> most popular social program, one that benefits tens of millions of
> people, all to save money for the wealthiest 4% of the population so
> that those rich people can pass unearned wealth to others.

   Unearned?  Many of the people I know in the $1M-$2M class are 
professionals (engineers, scientists, accountants, etc.) who worked 
long hours and lived frugally - by American standards.  Those people 
had no employees, so exploitation was not a factor.

   Others are small business owners.  Most worked their butts off to 
keep their 5 or 10 employees sheltered from the uncertain income 
stream.  Almost invariably, the business was worth nothing when they 
got too old to run it.  What they had was what they could save from 
salary.

   You have to get to the $3M net worth to meet people who inherited or 
got money from the efforts of others.  $1M is not much money any more.  
People talked of rich people as millionaires in the 1920s.  Inflation 
has taken its toll.

   An average New England engineer earns $90K/yr (Bureau of Labor 
Statistics).  Since there is a lot of salary compression, a 40 year 
career grosses $3.6M.  The average US income is somewhere around $40K.  
So, living at average consumption level, $1M in savings is readily 
attainable.

Jim Kuzdrall   
>
>    A gov't "for the people" -- which class of people?
>
>  Regards,
>  .
>  Randy