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Here's some important information for those who preach a gospel of envy — although, probably most of them won't listen. But you should, so you'll be inoculated against their diatribes against "inherited, unearned wealth." No nation in the world has allowed so many people, through their own efforts, to become millionaires. And no economic system has created more wealth than a free market system. Communism has only ever created stratified societies of the elite powerful few and the impoverished masses, while free markets have encouraged innovation and allowed individuals to retain the fruits of their own labors. And, for you Christians out there, that's biblical. Don't envy, and don't steal what someone else has earned.

Textualization of the meme:

Millionaires Are Made, Not Born
despite what society might believe, only a small number of wealthy people inherited their money.
The overwhelming majority (79%) of millionaires in the U.S. did not receive any inheritance at all from their parents or other family members. While one in five millionaires (21%) received some inheritance, only 3% received an inheritance of $1 million or more.
[Pie chart showing 79%]
Caption: The majority of millionaires in the United States did not receive any inheritance.

For additional information, consult one of these links:

Forbes magazine: [forbes.com]

CNBC: [cnbc.com]

Wordmage 8 May 30
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2

Wanna be rich? Helps to be a psychopath...
[dailymail.co.uk]

you sound so envious and resentful of anyone who has more than you - even those who acquired their wealth from talent, hard work and who have the nerve to take risks.
Envy - its sinful

Well...there is a certain measure of truth that bullies go farther in their careers than agreeable people. And you don't have to think too hard as to why that might be: it's the difference between managers and leaders. Managers keep the peace; leaders set the course and dictate the pace.

So if you're an agreeable person, you might make a great manager. But to be a great leader, you have to have not only a sense of not caring whether people agree with you, but the chutzpah to push your agenda, because of confidence in your plan and the will to see it through.

Near the top of that article, it says that Wilkins is an economist. Then, several paragraphs down, it reports that he has, essentially, made a medical/psychological diagnosis of a whole raft of people he's never met. Mmm-hmmm … Funny that they don't mention when or where he got his degree in psychology. coff
And his evidence is (paraphrased), "everyone who is ultra wealthy has figured out a way to either overcome or circumvent market forces …" Well, duh. Of course they have. Did he find that in the DSM-V? "Anyone who figures out how to make more money than others in markets that can sometimes be difficult to navigate must necessarily be a psychopath."
<eyeroll> 😀

@iThink

LMAO! I posted an article from a Mainstream organization and you attack me personally.

How do you know how wealthy I am? If you knew the pay-scale I work for as consultant, you would not have hit the submit button. The finance industry is filled with the highest levels of greed and immorality

@BubbaLouie oh - so you're a psychopath?

@iThink

...and you are a fucking MORON!!! Blocked!

2

Hello. I've often wondered why rich people, if they worked very hard and have reached where they are now as a result, have to be hated by others and punished for being successful by paying higher rates of tax.

I would imagine that some of it is simply envy; someone has something you want and you're angry about it.

But then it gets complicated because you're forced to ask yourself, "why couldn't I have done what this person did?" But the truth hurts. So in order to soothe the discomfort of self-reflection, you make up excuses. So say things like, "well, they had opportunities that I didn't have," or "they only succeeded because they're white and I'm not."

And people believe this shit, especially when you have activists telling you things that correspond to this narrative. It's not YOUR fault, it's society's fault! Ignore those who look like you who worked hard and succeeded, YOU didn't succeed because of systemic racism. It's not that you didn't study hard enough, or work hard enough, or scrimp and save to invest in a business, it's because of your skin color, or sexual organs, or sexual orientation.

I mean, you could really point at the downfall of society when we stopped stressing the importance of self-reliance. When we stopped holding people responsible for the outcomes of their actions or inaction.

@Alysandir It's not a perfect approach, but if people can perceive one another in a meritocratic way, many identity-related problems will go away.

@Naomi

I am all for merit, because merit is - more often than not - objective. We know what quality looks like. We know what a job well-done looks like. We have an inherent sense of when someone half-assed something, or worse, did the minimum amount possible.

So it should probably come as little surprise to us that objectivity and merit are two elements that have been denounced by critical race theorists as elements of "whiteness" and "white culture." That is to say, rewarding objectively on the basis of merit is deemed as being racist.

It is then only natural that we have to ask ourselves, why? And the most obvious answer is: when you cannot objectively compete, your only alternatives are to "get better" or denounce the entire system of objective measures as biased. They have chosen the latter strategy. Reward, they say, should not be an objective measure; all should received reward equally in a system of equity.

This is frightening to me on so many levels, that I scarcely know where to begin. I can only keep it brief by saying that you get what you incentivize. And so if you incentivize mediocrity, that's what you'll get. God help us.

@Alysandir I hear you. I don't react to identity politics much. Fear is what political manipulators want to spread. I am a woman. I am non-white (I'm purple! Lol). I am a freelance translator; I am my own boss. I don't mean to brag but I haven't been out of work for many many years. The same clients and agencies keep coming back to me with more work. I must be doing something right. It is important for me that they recognise my calibre rather than my gender, colour of skin, etc.

@Naomi

Sadly, I do react to talk of identity politics, because I am in a vulnerable position. I am white, male, and straight-adjacent. I was born to a single mother living below the poverty line and things were rough growing up. I worked very, VERY hard to build what I have, while I watched people screw-off and make fun of me while I tried to make something of myself. It's not an exaggeration to say that I sacrificed my entire 20s to work and school, followed by a big step backwards in my 30s when I had to leave work to care for my dying wife for several years, followed by a big push in my 40s to make up the lost ground. I have spent the majority of my adult life trying to steer my course and dealing with the slings and arrows of life to the best of my ability.

And now? Now activists say that I don't deserve what I have. That I only have it because of the color of my skin. That I don't know what it's like to be poor. That I am a white supremacist oppressor if I don't agree with them that I'm a horrible racist person by virtue of being born into a system that favors white people...even though it NEVER favored my mother or I.

It's being strongly suggested to me that I need to become anti-racist if I don't want to lose what I have, but critical race theory offends me on a primal level. It is racism and the only reason there is even a debate here is because CRT proponents changed the academic definition of racism to promote their ideology. And frankly, I will probably be put very, very soon in a position where I either bend the knee and get to keep my job for a little longer, or I lose it. I'm not able to retire yet and to be clear, I don't have the strength to start over once more. So I'm scared. Truly scared. That everything I worked so hard for is going to either be taken away or I will have to sacrifice my principles in order to keep what I rightfully earned. And even then, it may not be enough.

So yeah...I keep waiting for sanity to be restored, but with each passing day, I keep seeing more and more signs of us fundamentally turning our backs on everything I was raised to believe is good, and just, and fair. And why? Because we lost our ability to take responsibility for our own lives. We lost our ability to recognize that the consequences of our lives tie directly to the decisions we make.

Which is ironic, because I recognize - for example - that my having to make up almost a decade of time is due to my decision to get married to a woman who ultimately became sick. If I hadn't, I probably could retire today. But that's life; you do the best you can and pick up the pieces when bad things happen.

It's a myth that the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes. A myth!
[icij.org]

Hello BubbaLouie, I get the point, but I can't help thinking that those rich people begin to wonder how they can avoid tax because of super-high tax rates imposed on them. I might consider the off-shore option and others if I'm so rich that I have to pay say 50% income tax. How about a fixed rate? Like everybody pays 10% on their incomes. Fair and square, no?

3

Now, now...who do you think you are, bringing facts to a strictly emotional narrative?

Next you'll be telling me that the wealthy actually pay the majority of taxes, instead of the narrative that they need to "pay their fair share."

Sorry, I lost my head. Mea culpa, mea culpa. 😀

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