Quote:
Originally Posted by Just a guy
My take. I have had the opportunity to know people from welfare families to ultra rich (>$1B) and many in between. How I see the differences.
Everyman:
• Target quality of life
• Enjoy family and friends
• Work within specified times/norms
• Want equality of outcome
• Satisfied with being successful within your station
Billionaire:
• No concept of quality of life (They have toys and time, but are always working)
• Every ultra rich person I know have almost no family life and very dysfunctional relationships
• If they are awake, they are working.
• Believes in personal responsibility and consequences/rewards
• Does not see barriers. Sees opportunities
Everyman wants to enjoy the benefits of the sacrifices the Billionaire without making the same sacrifices. “Billionaire makes too much money and I should have some of it”. Even if you say you don’t, taxing them higher than yourself means you get the benefits of government programs disproportionately.
I believe it is ridiculous to say that once you have achieved a certain arbitrary amount of wealth, that you should ultimately lose control of what you spent your life building and ultimately by giving up what Everyman holds dear.
Does anyone think that limiting growth (taking control away from the founder) for a particular company would be good? Think what brand of vehicle you drive. All started by an eventual ultra rich person. No personal brand names will get you Lada’s or Yugo’s (Yay Communism!!). How about the computer or phone you use? Where would the world be without Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? Both great examples of what I point out above, but allow Everyman to enjoy life better than before they intervened.
Of all the people on this board, I would guess the majority work for someone else. I would guess that they are fine the owner making money off of their efforts. If not then they should start their own company and charge what the market will bear and suffer the down times and enjoy the up times. The issues seem to be that one person needs to have an arbitrary limit on the number of people they can make money off of. Even though each and everyone makes the decision to work for someone else as mentioned above.
For clarity, I was raised in a very poor family and worked hard and taken risks to achieve a reasonably comfortable life. I am related to a person that is among the 100 wealthiest people in Canada and have personally seen what they have given up to get to that place. Not for me! End rant
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Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did do something great in the 70s/80s when they created their companies. After that point - there is a decent argument that their companies huge wealth stifles innovation because you can't compete with them. Is iOS the best phone operating system we could have? Probably not - but no company outside of Google and other huge tech companies have any chance to compete in that market.
Joe Schmo could build the next huge innovation in his garage right now - he'd either immediately get bought out by one of those huge companies or get crushed by them when they copy what he does and then uses their massive capital to make him unable to compete in the market.