Forum Post: 6 Things rich people need to stop saying.
Posted 12 years ago on March 15, 2012, 8:04 p.m. EST by toukarin
(488)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
6. "Well, $500,000 a Year Might Sound Like a Lot, but I'm Hardly Rich."
5. "Hey, I Worked Hard to Get What I Have!"
4. "If I Can Do It, So Can You!"
3. "You're Just Jealous Because I Made It and You Didn't!"
2. "You Shouldn't Be Punishing the Very People Who Make This Country Work!"
1. "Stop Asking for Handouts! I Never Got Help from Anybody!"
Read more: 6 Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-things-rich-people-need-to-stop-saying_p2/#ixzz1pFl0ZOVG
LOL, I'll have to remember this link anytime a troll says one of these things :p
lol
http://occupywallst.org/forum/forum-topics/#comment-679385
Yep. I love how they rip em apart on #1.
Our trolls should sue!!!
They've used everyone of those here!
I hope they were smart enough to "chose" to copyright their material.
Then they would be too busy suing each other. Cause they all say the same things. Heck they would probably enjoy it too...
It would be at least as much fun as watching a dog chase it's tail........:)
i make a little over 500k a year. i think i'm rich, but not really wealthy. most "rich" ppl probably draw that distinction in their mind, which is dumb. 500k/yr means net worth in the millions if its a sustained income, meaning you'll have more money than you'll truly need.
i agree with this, i believe it too.
disagree to a point. working hard is only one half of the game, the other half is luck and circumstance. whether it be family/friend connections, being in the right place at the right time, becoming self actualized in time to make the right decision at a given time and so forth. looking back, if two or three lucky breaks/key life decisions didn't happen for me, i'd be unemployed right now probably.
i agree with this. just from talking to ocuppy ppl in real life and on here, a lot of it boils down to petty envy and jealousy. as in they didnt get the lucky breaks or family connections or inheritance that others did and they dont think its fair and want to throw a tantrum about it. that in itself i dont really have a problem with, the honesty is refreshing really. it amuses me how such public outbursts are tolerated now.
disagree, to a point. the rich should carry a heavier burden and our progressive tax code does that, for the most part. rich folks dont have a monopoly on hard work.
agree to a point. i never received a handout, but i'm not naive enough to want to impose my life experience and expectations for myself onto others, no matter how misguided or childish i think they are.
Go to the link provided and read the whole article. All that was posted here was the header to each point explained.
Gee, that all sounds familiar! LOL!
This is great for the movement - let's keep this up there too can we just get the six though ?
Most people dont like to follow links off this website so I tried posting the entire content of the article... but those are the 6... and the cracked article takes those quotes fro the rich apart with ruthless efficiency and hilarious results...
It is true that teachers are some of the most important people in our society. They do what they do because they want to educate and help. If teachers made a lot of money people would become teachers for the wrong reason. After college i'll be joining the Marines and I know I won't get paid massive amounts of money. I'm not joining for the money but to serve my country and protect my country. Rich people do have the right to say that. If I worked from the bottom up and created a business and really got it going then I absolutely deserve that right. I hire people and make jobs available. I worked hard for the money and if you don't try and what the gov to pay for everything then that's you're own fault!
Re posting this because I couldn't find the response comment to this.
Its not wrong to say I worked hard to get what I have, if I went to Law school and graduated and make 350,000 a year that is because I worked for it. Rich people should not have massive taxes just because they make more. Sure there are people who were privileged and got to cheat butt that is not everyone!
The implication is that people who don't make big bucks don't work hard enough. A public school teacher works almost as grueling hours as a trial lawyer, including massive piles of home work, and they get a mere pittance by comparison. Migrant farm workers do some of the most back-breaking labor on Earth and they get a pittance of the teachers. By accident of birth, some people can reach the pinnacles of the economy and others can only hope to survive. We can't correct every injustice in the world but the implication that the working poor just aren't working hard enough is behind that statement and it's flat wrong.
Most non-lawyers don't think lawyers are worth more to society than teachers. But because the stakes involved are so high and immediate, lawyers get more. But in the long run, teachers really are worth more, because they launch the engineers and inventors of the future. Lawyers just take their cut from the patent search. In a world that valued long-term goals over instant gratification, lawyers wouldn't earn half as much as they do now. Think about that next time you decide to condescend to your fellow humans.
On the contrary, this should be said again and again. And that article, is the most horrendous piece of self righteous BS i have ever read. I like cracked but this was just crap.
WIKI: Self-righteousness (also called sanctimoniousness, a holier-than-thou attitudes) is a feeling of (usually) smug moral superiority derived from a sense that one's beliefs, actions, or affiliations are of greater virtue than those of the average person.
Its ironic that the people saying those things are the ones who are the most "self righteous."
Consider the following carefully.
6: Seriously? Tell me you can say that to a man making $30000 a year working a >80hr week and not expect to get punched in the face. Go ahead. I dare you. Say that to a truck driver in the alley behind a seedy bar at night. Or better yet... how about you guys switch lives for a month?
5: Indeed, rich people may indeed be working hard. But you know what it really sounds like? It sounds like you're saying that the dude loading or unloading trucks all day for a living does not "work hard." What you need to be saying is that. "Hey! I worked hard in a field which has a higher per hour pay..."
4: Read the articles Hooch example. You know for damned sure that not everyone can be a millionaire or billionaire. Heck people here are not even asking for that. They are asking for a job which pays them enough to support themselves and their family and maybe save a few bucks for their retirement.
3: Get over yourselves. Seriously. People (or at least me personally) don't hate the rich as a whole. Most people have rich people as their role models. They are people they aspire to be. The problem is there are rich people who are fucking douches. Not all, but a fair few. No one is just jealous of them either. They are mostly angry at them for refusing to accept that with great power comes great responsibility.
2: Fuck you. If the 99% decided to up and leave the fucking country I would like to see you struggle to mow your own lawns, wash your own cars, fix your busted PC's, and do all of the million other things that "make this country work." Heck I would pay for that. Might be the next great reality TV show idea. Donald Trump does the dishes. Lloyd Blankfein changes an oil filter. Robert Koch takes out the trash.
1: Tell that to your parents and your teachers and the dude who gave you your first job. If and when I have children, should they dare say that to anyone. I would beat them till they remembered. News flash. This is NOT Sparta.
I do not claim to be superior to a rich person. But I will be damned if I allow them to claim that they are 'just the same' as me, that they work harder than me, that everyone can be the same as them (or anyone else), that I am just jealous of them, that they are the only ones who make this country work and that they never took any help.
I agree. You can never have enough money. I haven't seen one person so far who is happy with his income, whether it's 60K and year or 6 million
Very true. The guys who work at Goldman (or Google or any other well paying company) didn't just wake up one fine morning and got a employment letter in their mail. They worked hard all their lives for it studying hard in school and then in college and so on. While I do agree that social factors do have influence but even kids of blue collar employees do turn up well academically and then go on to make good money. The reason the trucker is having to work physically hard today is because he did not work mentally hard when he was a kid. This is of course a generalization but the truth is somewhere close to it.
Sure you can't be a millionaire and not everyone can get an admission to Harvard. For every guy that comes first one has to come second and someone has to come last. But the guy who comes last could have done something more to do better.
That has some truth to it. I have seen casual hatred for ibankers or execs for no reason. What gives others the right to be so self righteous? I am not judging others. I am not judging the doctor who would deny treatment because the patient cant pay the medical bills or the lawyer who would falsely accuse an innocent person in court. I am not judging the car salesman who claims that his brand is the best ever. I have seen many of my classmates hating guys who made it into banking.
I dont think rich say that. We all contribute towards the economy.
Everyone got 'help' from their parents or teachers. I and the kid who now works at starbucks both went to the same school and yet we are now at different positions. The person who gave me my first job (my current job) did not do me any favor, he recruited me because it was mutually beneficial contract. He wasn't doing charity and neither would I expect my employers too.
Now we are talking. But its just plain mean and stupid to tell someone with less than one tenth of your income that "Oh.. I am not that rich either." Does not matter what your income is. The point is someone making 500k is richer by far than someone making 50k, plain and simple.
The point is this. Its insulting to tell someone who works hard that they're not working hard. The difference in compensation may be due to any number of reasons and may or may not be justified. But it is still hard work. No one has any business telling them (by implication) that they are not working hard.
Absolutely true, but the problem here is that the odds of a kid born poor getting into a premier institution like Harvard and succeeding are somewhere between non existent and winning the powerball. Whereas the odds of a kid born into an already rich family are (to say the least) significantly better. To say that a guy with a shotgun and another with a peashooter have the same chance at scoring a buck is BS.
Casual irrational hatred exists for all kinds of things. Some people hate Muslims, others hate Jews, others hate homosexuals. But hatred is not equivalent to jealousy. Not judging others? Then why would anyone say that someone is "just jealous" of them? To be sure, there is jealousy involved, but people are not "just jealous." People are also ANGRY because there are those among the rich who refuse to accept that they are part of a society that includes the poor and that (as people with power) they bear some responsibility for the continued success of the entire society.
There are those among the rich have said that. These people believe that only their money is required for things to be made to work. The fact is that without a framework of services and laws built and supported by society as a whole. That money would be precisely worthless.
Everyone gets help. So acknowledge it. Some of the rich do take subsidies from Govt. They did take bailouts. They do take every tax break and credit that they can get and ask for more. They do lobby the Govt to help them do certain things. The point is that none of the rich got to where they were without ANY help. They did get it. Even as adults. In one way or another.
I think we both agree on it now. Dont we.
The point being working hard alone does not make you rich. The rice farmer does a lot of hard work but it is a hard work that society does not reward well enough due to a host of factors. But when we consider within the same profession, hard work pays. Frankly, a influential drug dealer earns more than most ibankers (including myself) but surely doesnt put in 16 hours of work daily.
Family income academic success are correlated only to an extent. You cant buy grades with money.
People are angry I can understand. But not all of that anger is rational either. Remember the hue and cry over GM CEO arriving to DC on a private aircraft? That was unnecessary and stupid. Mob mentality at it's worst.
I don't know who says such things. I don't think my own profession (banking) is all that important. Sure, we keep the economy well oiled and ensure money goes where it can get the best return but other professions are surely far more important. Banking exists to serve the functioning of those professions. People can live without derivatives and futures but not without food or transport.
Gates and Zuckerberg and the others i mentioned did not get any special subsidies when they were building their companies. The 'help' the got was also available to everyone else in their times.
There are exceptions to every rule. Just as there are a few genuinely good people who managed to do everything just right and got to where they are now, there are people who do despicable things.
The fact is that it is totally silly to generalize and blame an entire group of people on the basis of the actions of the few.
This is true for both sides. The 1% or 99% are nice monikers, but many people then begin to subscribe to the delusion that everyone who is in that 1% is an evil money grubbing ass. It is just not true. Just like saying all of OWS is full of lazy bums looking for a handout or just jealous of the rich is also untrue.
I think we agree on most points.
That said, family income has a big correlation. All other things, effort, IQ etc equal, a poor kid is much less likely to get the admission than a kid with a more privileged background.
"The fact is that it is totally silly to generalize and blame an entire group of people on the basis of the actions of the few." - Exactly. That's why you should not blame every banker or every financial firm.
"That said, family income has a big correlation. All other things, effort, IQ etc equal, a poor kid is much less likely to get the admission than a kid with a more privileged background." - My grandfather was a blue collar worker. My dad is a tenured professor at a rather decent university and I had friends who had shiny fast cars since high school. I turned up pretty well didnt I. So did my dad.
But one example doesnt prove a point. For a family earning say $30k a year, educating even 1 kid well would be tough. But at $50k, things would be better and at say $80k, it would be pretty good.
Did you read the paragraph under that line? Cause I said exactly what you just did. Here it is again:
This is true for both sides. The 1% or 99% are nice monikers, but many people then begin to subscribe to the delusion that everyone who is in that 1% is an evil money grubbing ass. It is just not true. Just like saying all of OWS is full of lazy bums looking for a handout or just jealous of the rich is also untrue.
When I say poor. I mean POOR. I am talking about kids born to parents without jobs. Ones who struggle to make ends meet. 17% live under the poverty line. Those people and their children. Not all public schools were created equal as I am sure you know.
Agree with you on that
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That was a whole bunch of things.
It is true that teachers are some of the most important people in our society. They do what they do because they want to educate and help. If teachers made a lot of money people would become teachers for the wrong reason. After college i'll be joining the Marines and I know I won't get paid massive amounts of money. I'm not joining for the money but to serve my country and protect my country.
Rich people do have the right to say that. If I worked from the bottom up and created a business and really got it going then I absolutely deserve that right. I hire people and make jobs available. I worked hard for the money and if you don't try and what the gov to pay for everything then that's you're own fault!
The point of the article is not about making the govt pay for anything. Its to make some people understand that certain things they say have implications that are insulting and untrue.
By all means. Pat yourselves on your backs some more. But in that process, don't make the mistake of saying that everyone else is just a jealous lazy bum looking to take your stuff and/or asking for a handout.
hmmm? all those things are true...does the truth hurt your feelings?