Hacker News Reader

Comment by CamperBob2 | Hacker News Reader

No. How about judging people by their actions, instead, rather than by a number in a bank account?

Their actions?

You mean like hoarding wealth?

If you're here, you're richer than 99% of the people on Earth. Enjoy the upcoming class war; it may hold a few surprises for you.

I'll wager if you asked most people what they think "rich" is, the number they pick would not include the vast majority of people posting here on good ol' orange website.

Class war is bad for everyone, yes, but it's a bit silly to generalize and pretend every tech worker is rich just because they pull down high five or low six figures. Doing well, certainly. Not millionaires.

I don't have a yacht with a smaller yacht inside.

I didn't buy a chair at my alma mater.

My brother is deep in student loan debt. I skipped college because I couldn't afford to work and go to school.

I keep a collection of screws because they're expensive otherwise.

I can barely keep the lights on as a software dev.

Sure, I eat better than someone from halfway around the world. But likewise we're both being taken advantage of by people of higher social and economic status and deprived of basic needs. We all desire an end to the hierarchy of abuse regardless of where on the totem of who-has-it-worse we are. Now go eat your rice, there are starving kids in Kentucky.

Am I?

The poorest member of the world's richest 1% has wealth starting from around $800,000 to $1 million USD.

That's about 20 times my net wealth.

This surprise - does it involve another tax cut for the super rich?

In the 50’s (the GOP’s good old days) the top income tax bracket paid 90%+ of every dollar earned above $200k. (Roughly $3m in 2025 dollars)

Billionaires are a policy choice that starves children and stunts economic growth.

I have a feeling people simply found other ways to be compensated instead of W2 income.

That is, in fact, how it worked. Absolutely no one paid 90% income tax or anything close to it.

Anyone who remembers how the Reagan tax cuts were sold to the public probably remembers that a key component of the campaign was a commitment to close countless tax loopholes.

Ah yes, a feeling: even worse than an anecdote.

Yes: they reinvested rather than pocketed revenue.

Anyway, if did the research, you’d see the effective tax rate for the top income earners in US was 40% back then. Substantially higher than it is today.

And that substantially larger portions of revenue were reinvested rather than recognized as profit: high taxes, oddly enough, incentivize investment.

Do the math yourself: $1m in profit, 30% tax rate vs 1% tax rate: which rate incentivizes you to reinvest?

Yes. Amassing obscene wealth is anti-social and immoral. Hording wealth is an action. Anyone with much over $10,000,000 can be assumed to be evil on some level. You don't earn that kind of money, you exploit others for it.

Well, we'll see how you feel once you graduate.

Septuagenarian pastors around the world feel the same way:

  "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

  "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin."

Is hoarding wealth at the expense of everyone else not abusive behavior?

Is paying your workers poverty wages and enriching yourself not exploitative?

Why does "business" get a pass on socially acceptable behavior?

"Oh, it involves money so it must be fair game." /s

Reply on news.ycombinator.com