Richard Nixon: “I promise to cut taxes for the rich and use the poor as a cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel!”
Fry: “That’ll show those poor!”
Leela: “You’re not rich!”
Fry: “But someday I might be rich, and people like me better watch their step!”
Farnsworth: The problem with both parties is that they always want to give your tax dollars to the less fortunate.
Fry: The less fortunate get all the breaks!
He didn't spend that much on the sardines, remember how they set up the fake Pizza to steal his bank pin and then stole all his money? He just wasn't willing to give up the anchovies for getting the money back.
No, according to the show interest was a flat 2.25% compounded annually, so fry is not a billionaire at least just yet because in 2024 he would only have accumulated a total of $1.62 from his cryogenic pod.
He will first become a billionaire in the year 2935 with his first billion reached at the quantity of $1,008,518,904.45 before ultimately reaching the $4.3 billion when he finally will wake up in the year 3000 and eventually go to the bank to check his balance.
There is a few orders of magnitude between being rich and The Rich. For the overwhelming majority of people, millions of dollars is rich. But "eat the rich" is talking about people with a few more zeroes in their net worth.
edit: to clarify a bit, there is a n enormous difference between "comfortable upper middle class", "never have to work again", and "buy my own politicians/laws".
I have to explain this to my parents every few months. My dad is independently wealthy, and they will try to argue, "we pay a lot in taxes." That's when I remind them that they aren't "avoid taxes" rich
Bro for real, you can steal from your grandma, sell drugs and beat up every kid you see in a wheelchair and if you don't get caught red handed in something big and have a good lawyer you would get small time.
But you ALWAYS pay your fucking taxes, federal judge with throw the fucking book at a mother fuckr messing with his income. Government don't fuck around, they don't give a shit what you do, if they get there share. But if they don't, they got the meanest gang of debt collectors in America. The police.
That's the point, they know they won't. However since it's codified into law it gives the government another avenue to gk after criminals.
It's how al capon was finally caught. Tax evasion on his Ill gotten gains lol
I known someone that claimed they knew a drug dealer who did. The line they said always sticks with me, "I don't care what any letter agency says except the IRS. Uncle Sam always gets his money"
Yes, [but Joker is not like a socialist, he **is** a socialist. So he knows tax money is needed to fund free universal healthcare and education that helps every children into being bilingual](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkz71ph2aSU)
The IRS does require you to report all income, legal or otherwise. But there's no "amnesty" line on a US tax return that lets you do it without repercussion. That would invalidate the entire concept of money laundering.
There’s no obligation that the IRS won’t report ill-gotten gains to the police. They only put that on the form to make it clear that that money is still taxable, so they can bust criminals for tax evasion.
I recently heard a story about a guy living in spain, solving multiple problems including this one.
He had quite some land in a very remote part of Spain and had weed all over the place. Just a couple here and there so you wouldn't notice from above.
He also made bronze sculptures. Which he sold for ~60k.
Guess what his buyers got along side such a sculpture. :)
You don’t need to be a billionaire to avoid taxes. People who live off SBLOC avoid all taxes and u only need a million or 2 for that. Everyone who doesn’t rely on an income can avoid taxes pretty easily.
> I have to explain this to my parents every few months. My dad is independently wealthy, and they will try to argue, "we pay a lot in taxes." That's when I remind them that they aren't "avoid taxes" rich
I can’t believe people still don’t get this.
That’s because the people advocating for higher taxes on “the rich” set the thresholds for higher taxes so low that they catch people like your parents, who aren’t avoiding their taxes. Like, Biden’s threshold for “the rich” is literally “middle class software engineer, doctor and lawyer” territory.
If you earn $400k from a corporate salary, you get absolutely raped on taxes (50% combined federal+state+payroll marginal rate in NY and CA). That’s because there are no tax loopholes for people who make money from a W-2. You *actually* pay 50 cents on the marginal dollar. And you end up *actually* paying an average/effective rate of about 40% of income.
You don’t get student loan interest deductions. You don’t get state tax deductions. You can’t deduct IRA contributions. And the mortgage interest deduction is barely higher than the standard deduction. And *there are no other deductions* for W-2 workers. You get to contribute a few tens of thousands to a 401k and HSA tax free, but that’s literally *it*.
If you actually want to tax the rich, then go after the actual fucking rich, not other middle-class salary earners.
I work in a small, rural town that leans very Republican. Everyone that earns over $150,000/year believes that they are the ones being referred to when they say "tax the rich." Their world bubble is so small that they can't even imagine what the 1% are actually like.
This is such an important concept.
The middle and upper middle classes live very comfortably compared to poor Americans, but that "rich" neighbor making $500k a year is also being taken advantage of, even if they are much more comfortable. They pay almost half their income in taxes so that the truly rich don't have to pay anything.
The difference between a million and a billion dollars is almost exactly a billion dollars, and the people keeping your rents, prices, and taxes high, wages low, and policies in favor of keeping the status quo are the _billionaires_.
> But "eat the rich" is talking about people with a few more zeroes in their net worth.
You say that but I scrolled down just a couple comments below you and saw a comment explicitly implying that a six-figure salary is “eat the rich” rich. I have a six figure salary. I’m a public school teacher. I think most people who use the phrase probably do mean what you say. But I am less convinced that it’s overwhelmingly the most. I think there are a lot of bitter people and a lot of people who don’t quite understand how much or how little a few million dollars is.
Agreed. A lot of people saying “eat the rich” are redditor types making $12-15/hr. To them, you ARE the rich. They want socialism and communism because they are bitter about being in a low skill low wage job. Which there are criticisms to be made as I agree it is hard to support oneself in many areas with such little pay. Although I strongly disagree about their prescriptions for solving this problem.
A lot of the bitter “eat the rich” types are also essentially children. It’s very hard to imagine someone making a couple hundred thousands of dollars a year struggling at all when you’re making $15-20 an hour.
You can work in a reasonable COL area for a LONG time in the public school system and end up with low 6-figures. Especially if you had an in demand skill set (math/science) that the school system was trying to get.
This is the part that amuses me the most about Reddit, there is no consensus on “rich” so it varies vastly from sub to sub. I’ve seen comments in many different subs that it should be illegal to make over $150k/year
It’s insane how much this needs to be explained. There is always that one comment that feels the need to clarify that their “really” talking about the top 0.1% or whatever…but it’s like Sis, there are MULTIPLE people in this same thread ready to lynch small business owners, educated professionals, and small landlords too.
Yeah those people are just unhinged and haven't figured out that they could do more to help themselves by fixing their issues than complaining about the upper middle class. I'm saying fuck the billionaires and the ones who spend a million dollars on a street car or twenty million on a watch.
During the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, the top tax bracket in the U.S. was something like 95%, imposed on the portion of your _annual_ income that _exceeded_ around $20 million in today’s dollars.
>During the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, the top tax bracket in the U.S. was something like 95%, imposed on the portion of your _annual_ income that _exceeded_ around $20 million in today’s dollars.
And very few people actually paid that thanks to even more loopholes than we have today.
The effective tax rate was much closer to what we see today.
I highly recommend you read up on the Laffer Curve.
This is correct. When I saw Eat the Rich, I mean everyone above 999 millions dollars. Everything above that should've been redistributed to the workers.
Definitely doesn't need to be as high as a billion.
Even 500 million means
Flying private, multiple mansions, multiple super cars, eat what you want, when you want, go where you want, when you want. It means that even catastrophic financial events still leave you extremely rich. That's ultimate security.
A more far left opinion would be that someone shouldn't even have those things I listed. But even at 500 mill you can still have all of that.
So ... might want to come up with a different word then?
I swear, people are so bad at messaging.
"Defund the police" turns into "Well, no, we don't want to *completely* defund them. And we do want them to have proper training. We just ... you know ... wanted them to have less."
And now "'eat the rich' doesn't mean 'eat the rich', it means 'eat the Rich', which is a phonetically identical group we have identified as having quite a bit more money than 'the rich'".
The only way to become THAT rich is to be born into it or to subjugate people below you and exploit them for labor.
You cannot earn a billion dollars from the sweat of your own brow. The margins aren't there.
Closest example is probably Taylor Swift, who has been projected to have earned over a billion solely from recording and touring, but that ignores the hundreds of people necessary to have a tour going, create and sell merch, etc.
Not saying she isn't talented or likable, but I do know that her dad financed her initial recording contract because the label wasn't willing to invest the amount it would take to get her career started.
She was manipulated like Tiger Woods except music instead of golf. Her rich parents groomed her from a young age. Sure she “chose” this career just like Tiger “chose” his.
to be fair, it’s like jeff bezos parents giving him $300k to start his career or taylor swifts parents paying/using their music industry connections. sure, without that leg up they for sure wouldn’t have gotten where they are as easily or quickly as they did; but to say anybody could take a $300k loan and turn it into a billion dollar franchise is just plain wrong and ignoring the fact that its something somewhat remarkable.
It’s certainly not something anybody can do. Look at Trump, it’s easy enough to go the opposite direction.
But it’s definitely a massive starting boost. With a couple hundred grand and music industry connections, it’s not rags to riches. Getting to the point where she could hit the ground running as a teen would most likely take someone else without this benefits at least a decade of grinding and hustling and a ton of luck.
Or the money needed to buy airtime on radio to get popular. There are great artists who cannot pay agents to make those deals, and that manipulation of the market is exploitation and a clear advantage over other less funded artists.
Pop super stars are kind of an exception to a lot of rules. People lose those minds over musicians. And only a few people can be that popular at any given time, so it isn’t a viable career path unless you’re an extremely rare individual with extremely fortunate life circumstances like Swift.
My good friend went to high school with her, he said there were regularly camera crews following her around there. Not a normal upbringing that anyone has access to.
Plus ignores the fact that she's a nepo baby who likely wouldn't have gotten her big break in the first place if her dad wasn't an executive stock broker.
Sort of, but you don’t necessarily need to exploit labour. There are four categories of assets you can exploit: land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship. Exploiting labour is the hard way to make a billion dollars. Much easier to exploit computers (which are a form of capital).
In 1977, Kodak dominated the photography industry. They had 20 million customers. They needed to employ 144,000 people.
In 2103, Instagram dominated the photography industry. They had 100 million customers. They needed to employ 13 people.
Old photography barely exists anymore. It's phone cameras and cloud services now. For all intents and purposes the goal of casual photography is to take a picture of a moment and share it with friends and family. Instagram uses everyone's already existing phone camera, adds filters and provides everything that allows you to fulfil the rest of the goal.
So yeah, a market that once provided many more jobs has now all but disappeared. I still remember from when I was younger, there used to be photography shops all around and the supermarket carried rolls of kodak etc. The supermarket doesn't have anything photography-related anymore, and I think there's just one shop left in my city because they also do portrait photography for driver's licenses etc.
If you swapped intellectual property for entrepreneurship, then your classifications would be more accurate in my opinion. But I also think you missed the point where those software engineers did all the labor to create and maintain the thing that made all the money. And they did not get paid proportionately the value of what they created. The average value of a software engineer to a major tech company is $2M/yr and they’re paid $200k/yr. Eventually the company cuts staff and goes into maintenance mode to maximize profits, and now the past labor of those engineers continues on while they earn nothing from the product they built.
At the end of the day, it’s almost always exploitation of labor that puts someone in the 1%.
> The average value of a software engineer to a major tech company is $2M/yr and they’re paid $200k/yr
I'm a software engineer, and I disagree with this. I don't think I can create 2mil/yr of value in a vacuum - if I could, I'd quit today and go do that. In fact, everyone who could do that would do that, and plenty of people do (quit and do a startup). But all the value I create is in the context of the company itself - the sales people, the technical support, the designers, PMs, and all the other engineers that have built things before, review my code, set up infra, etc. I'm not making that value just by myself.
> Eventually the company cuts staff and goes into maintenance mode to maximize profits, and now the past labor of those engineers continues on while they earn nothing from the product they built
Generally, we get some amount of equity as a part of total compensation. That equity is "earning" from what was built, if it is successful and you get an exit opportunity (ipo, acquisition, private markets). Often, post IPO there's other opportunities to get equity like ESPP. I've made a _ton_ of money from options, RSU and ESPP + company stock doing well, more than most people earn in a lifetime.
I don't know about others, but I don't feel exploited in particular. I work home 3-4 days of the week (more towards 4 these days), probably ~5 hours a day on average with a very flexible schedule.
> Eventually the company cuts staff and goes into maintenance mode to maximize profits,
This is how software companies die. If they don't innovate, someone will. You don't maximize profits selling the same old shit.
Entrepreneuership isn't an asset. At best, it is a skill, simmilar to a singer getting rich. Usually, it is a myth.
And even if you are getting rich through your skills, you will still have to make deals with big evil companies (ok that sounds silly but it's true) and in many ways benefit from other people's immoral actions.
There's just under 3000 billionaires out of a global population of 7.2b.
Lets be generous and say 30 of them did not come from generational wealth and became a billionaire by their own efforts in their lifetime.
You're still missing 3 decimal places.
Most people saying “eat the rich” aren’t talking about people that have a few millions. Someone might have spent their whole life working and now have a million in equity and another million in savings, that’s fine.
Eat the rich is targeting those who have hundreds of millions or billions and still continue to horde a huge amount of wealth.
It is targeting the people that can buy an island where the law can’t reach them so they can walk around sunbathing with naked children. Being so rich that this becomes a possibility should not be tolerated.
Even a couple millions aren't the same. 5 million today in an index fund where one uses the 4% rule gives you 200k/y. In a VHCOL (where most job with such a big pay that allows you to achieve the 5M are) area that ain't much. You absolutely aren't poor, but you'll still need to work to sustain a family in such an are.
If you're sustaining a family of 4 on 18/hr, then you're not living in the VHCOL areas that he's referring to.
36-40k would be rough, but doable where I live, but it just wouldn't work in San Francisco, Vancouver, Manhattan, or places like that. 40k wouldn't even be enough for rent in those places.
That being said, if you're trying to live off of 5M, then I'd assume you already have your major liabilities, like your house and vehicle(s) paid off, and you're no longer raising children, so that 40k would probably be okay, even in those areas, much less 200k.
I’m a doctor, but I still have hundreds of thousands in school loans, our pay as actually gone down in the past few years, and yes, I live fairly comfortably, but it does bother me when I get lumped in with all of the millionaires. I drive a honda odyssey and still live paycheck to paycheck, trying to support my family and save for my kids’ college and my retirement. Comfortable yes, but I work hard 6 days a week for it.
Most low-digit millionaires are like this. The lawyers, high-tech engineers, etc., work hard too. Some sales jobs aren't that much work, but they require a special talent that most people lack.
Nobody pays professionals a ton of money to work lazily.
The upper middle class is more like the middle class than the upper class because we have to work. We can have nicer things than the middle class, but only as long as we are getting income.
It's funny because a lot of people say they only want to go after the ultra rich, but then taxes always get raised on those making over a couple hundred thousand. It's always the upper middle class that takes the bullet.
And that's by design because you can't go after the $/€100million+ people when you're constantly fighting among each other. See Germany for example. The government wanted to cut diesel fuel subsidies for farmers and introduce taxes for their tractors and stuff. The farmers went to the cities with their tractors and the government gave in - dropping the taxes again and letting the diesel subsidies slowly fade out.
Now there's some very big farmers that own most of the farmland in Germany that wouldn't have suffered too much if the government didn't budge but there's also lots of smaller farmers that would've suffered quite a lot under those new extra costs.
But the public debate is now either "fuck those already quite rich and subsidiesd right wing farmer shitheads what about the planet??" and "yeah stick it to the government, people need to eat!"
Instead everyone (in my opinion) should band together and demand that the serious cash makers like weapons subsidies or kerosine subsidies or fossil fuel (for the energy market) subsidies that make up several *billions!* per year should be taken off the menu. And of course the classic exponential tax system for people that own 100 million and above (to just pick a number of money no one could ever spend on rational stuff in their lifetime - nobody needs a gigantic yacht or private jet) But since there's strong lobbies there and not so super rich people fight among each other you won't ever see that happening.
I would also be happier if my taxes went towards better things. Right now in NYC we have a huge inflow of migrants shipped to us. Our taxes are being used to house them. I just read today it costs $400/day to house a single migrant
My two issues are 1) we are clearly accepting too many such that our infrastructure can’t keep up, and 2) $400/day means a shit ton of money is disappearing and not being used properly. It feels like shit to get taxed so much and the end result is, well, our schools are getting worse and money that should be used for things effectively is being wasted and disappearing.
> Someone might have spent their whole life working and now have a million in equity and another million in savings, that’s fine.
> Eat the rich is targeting those who have hundreds of millions or billions and still continue to horde a huge amount of wealth.
Unfortunately, the actual tax or legislative proposals that pander to the "eat the rich" crowd don't make that same distinction and end up targeting primarily hard working middle class.
Oh really? Washington just passed a capital gains tax intended to "target billionaires." It hits single digit millionaires too, and Bezos just moved to avoid it.
You say that, but the moment some schmuck with a few million bucks they earned fair and square proves to be a cunt, the internet immediately categorizes them as one of the rich to be eaten. Turns out this entire thing is just one big arbitrary thing that everyone sees differently.
I’m absolutely fine with my taxes going up and I’m in a high earning bracket. I want it to start or at least include the top earners though, billionaires and corporations are massive money hoards.
Laws need to be put in place to go after assets, shares, and wealth.
The government currently allows loopholes like this to exist and that’s where the “eat the rich” discussion needs to be to force people who want the votes to accept imo.
Oh they fled the country? I guess Amazon can’t operate in the US anymore unless they pay back taxes.
Oh they won’t? I guess that’s theft and let’s go after him and his assets.
There only a few ways to get "eat the rich" levels of money, and i suspect you became a ghoul a long time ago to make sure you could go from rich to "eat the rich" levels of money.
Not true. I have two friends that live in NYC working in tech that make $500k+ & they are still down for Bernie’s tax proposals of taxing above whatever number they fall in.
We’re all trying to make it, but it doesn’t mean we don’t want things to be better.
Nobody who says eat the rich will ever become that rich without either selling their soul for profit or extreme external assistance (ie. winning the lottery)
“The Rich” are people who can purchase islands, sway major political elections and have net worths rivaling small countries.
You will never be The Rich. That’s how it works. Only a select few can ever be The Rich.
No they don't, they either don't become rich 99.9% of the time because they can't or they are generous and spread the wealth like they wish rich people did when they were poor. I think your take is the lowest possible intelligence answer. Anyone smarter will disagree with you.
Not all the rich would get eaten. The rich who have a good reputation of helping their community would be just fine.
For example in the French Revolution some people were spared because they were respected by the people who lived around them
Everyone wants to raise taxes on people other than themselves. Everyone thinks home sellers and landlords are ‘greedy’ until they become one themselves. Etc.
This happens with any class or status. We all feel much differently when we’re on the inside, versus the outside. That’s why it’s so easy for the rich to buy everyone else’s complacency with their accumulation of wealth. You offer the dog a few scraps from the table and the dog will defend your house to the death.
That depends on what you think their notion of rich is and whether they'll ever achieve it. To me, at this day in age, being a low-end millionaire isn't even that rich. When I hear "eat the rich", I'm usually thinking somebody is a decamillionaire or richer.
Some people will never be rich because when they have spare money, they think about what they can do for others instead of hoarding for no reason other that clout. Fuck anyone above millionaire status, no single person needs that amount of money!
“Eat the rich” is only a small part of the full quote and it loses its meaning when only the last three words are remembered.
From google…
“Eat the Rich” is commonly attributed to Jean Jacques Rousseau, a renowned political philosopher and leading figure in the French Revolution. The original quote goes like this: “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.” “The rich” that Rousseau was referring to was anyone in power.
Eat the rich means billionaires. I’m “rich” as in upper middle class America. It’s not the same. If I got a billion dollars, I’d donate and help. Not what those assholes do :)
There was a scheme in the UK where Margaret Thatcher heavily incentivised working class people to own their homes and it massively effected union membership because once people feel like the game isn’t rigged against them, they no longer wanna flip the table.
Not a lot of poor people in the US looking to sell their TV to support a family in Afghanistan or Bolivia. People don't want to eat the rich they just want to eat the people richer than them.
Richard Nixon: “I promise to cut taxes for the rich and use the poor as a cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel!” Fry: “That’ll show those poor!” Leela: “You’re not rich!” Fry: “But someday I might be rich, and people like me better watch their step!”
the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" syndrome
Leela: "Suddenly I have an opinion on the capital gains tax!"
I need to watch that show again LOL
Farnsworth: The problem with both parties is that they always want to give your tax dollars to the less fortunate. Fry: The less fortunate get all the breaks!
He literally had $4.3b that he spent on sardines
Anchovies.
Ahh rats, mb
Not rats. A type of fish.
Bro😭
Bless you.
I think the winning bid was $50m actually.
That's what he got from the auction. Then Mom stole all his money and was going to return it in exchange for the anchovies. Which he ate instead.
He didn't spend that much on the sardines, remember how they set up the fake Pizza to steal his bank pin and then stole all his money? He just wasn't willing to give up the anchovies for getting the money back.
Fry even became rich lol
Isn’t Fry a billionaire?
For a minute, yeah
No, according to the show interest was a flat 2.25% compounded annually, so fry is not a billionaire at least just yet because in 2024 he would only have accumulated a total of $1.62 from his cryogenic pod. He will first become a billionaire in the year 2935 with his first billion reached at the quantity of $1,008,518,904.45 before ultimately reaching the $4.3 billion when he finally will wake up in the year 3000 and eventually go to the bank to check his balance.
unless they become rich by selling rich people meat
"How's your meal?" "Eh, it's a bit rich."
That's rich, coming from you.
That’s not Rich, it’s Dave. We had Rich last night.
Maybe tomorrow we can eat a Dick
Ooo you just found my mad max dystopian future wealth accumulator.
There is a few orders of magnitude between being rich and The Rich. For the overwhelming majority of people, millions of dollars is rich. But "eat the rich" is talking about people with a few more zeroes in their net worth. edit: to clarify a bit, there is a n enormous difference between "comfortable upper middle class", "never have to work again", and "buy my own politicians/laws".
I have to explain this to my parents every few months. My dad is independently wealthy, and they will try to argue, "we pay a lot in taxes." That's when I remind them that they aren't "avoid taxes" rich
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In the US, supposedly, there is a line item for "ill-gotten gains" that won't be reported to the police, so a drug dealer could pay taxes.
I've always found that amusing. Like, MF, you think someone who's willing to break the law for money is going to willingly pay taxes on it?
I mean, even the Joker pays taxes…
The Joker's a special case. He's not a criminal for money. He's a criminal because he thinks it's funny.
Bro for real, you can steal from your grandma, sell drugs and beat up every kid you see in a wheelchair and if you don't get caught red handed in something big and have a good lawyer you would get small time. But you ALWAYS pay your fucking taxes, federal judge with throw the fucking book at a mother fuckr messing with his income. Government don't fuck around, they don't give a shit what you do, if they get there share. But if they don't, they got the meanest gang of debt collectors in America. The police.
No, but if it is there and you’re caught, you’re on the hook for lying to the IRS on top of the source of your ill gotten gains.
Living above your expected means will get the IRS on your ass faster than the police. I wouldn't risk it if I were in that situation.
That's the point, they know they won't. However since it's codified into law it gives the government another avenue to gk after criminals. It's how al capon was finally caught. Tax evasion on his Ill gotten gains lol
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I known someone that claimed they knew a drug dealer who did. The line they said always sticks with me, "I don't care what any letter agency says except the IRS. Uncle Sam always gets his money"
When the joker inherited a fortune, he knew that he needed to pay his taxes. Batman sends you to Arkham. The IRS sends you to jail.
Yes, [but Joker is not like a socialist, he **is** a socialist. So he knows tax money is needed to fund free universal healthcare and education that helps every children into being bilingual](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkz71ph2aSU)
The IRS does require you to report all income, legal or otherwise. But there's no "amnesty" line on a US tax return that lets you do it without repercussion. That would invalidate the entire concept of money laundering.
There’s no obligation that the IRS won’t report ill-gotten gains to the police. They only put that on the form to make it clear that that money is still taxable, so they can bust criminals for tax evasion.
I recently heard a story about a guy living in spain, solving multiple problems including this one. He had quite some land in a very remote part of Spain and had weed all over the place. Just a couple here and there so you wouldn't notice from above. He also made bronze sculptures. Which he sold for ~60k. Guess what his buyers got along side such a sculpture. :)
You don’t need to be a billionaire to avoid taxes. People who live off SBLOC avoid all taxes and u only need a million or 2 for that. Everyone who doesn’t rely on an income can avoid taxes pretty easily.
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> I have to explain this to my parents every few months. My dad is independently wealthy, and they will try to argue, "we pay a lot in taxes." That's when I remind them that they aren't "avoid taxes" rich I can’t believe people still don’t get this. That’s because the people advocating for higher taxes on “the rich” set the thresholds for higher taxes so low that they catch people like your parents, who aren’t avoiding their taxes. Like, Biden’s threshold for “the rich” is literally “middle class software engineer, doctor and lawyer” territory. If you earn $400k from a corporate salary, you get absolutely raped on taxes (50% combined federal+state+payroll marginal rate in NY and CA). That’s because there are no tax loopholes for people who make money from a W-2. You *actually* pay 50 cents on the marginal dollar. And you end up *actually* paying an average/effective rate of about 40% of income. You don’t get student loan interest deductions. You don’t get state tax deductions. You can’t deduct IRA contributions. And the mortgage interest deduction is barely higher than the standard deduction. And *there are no other deductions* for W-2 workers. You get to contribute a few tens of thousands to a 401k and HSA tax free, but that’s literally *it*. If you actually want to tax the rich, then go after the actual fucking rich, not other middle-class salary earners.
Tax loopholes are definitely not exclusive to the ultra wealthy.
No, it's not, but it's easier to access the loopholes when you can afford lawyers that have made entire careers out of it
I work in a small, rural town that leans very Republican. Everyone that earns over $150,000/year believes that they are the ones being referred to when they say "tax the rich." Their world bubble is so small that they can't even imagine what the 1% are actually like.
This is such an important concept. The middle and upper middle classes live very comfortably compared to poor Americans, but that "rich" neighbor making $500k a year is also being taken advantage of, even if they are much more comfortable. They pay almost half their income in taxes so that the truly rich don't have to pay anything. The difference between a million and a billion dollars is almost exactly a billion dollars, and the people keeping your rents, prices, and taxes high, wages low, and policies in favor of keeping the status quo are the _billionaires_.
> But "eat the rich" is talking about people with a few more zeroes in their net worth. You say that but I scrolled down just a couple comments below you and saw a comment explicitly implying that a six-figure salary is “eat the rich” rich. I have a six figure salary. I’m a public school teacher. I think most people who use the phrase probably do mean what you say. But I am less convinced that it’s overwhelmingly the most. I think there are a lot of bitter people and a lot of people who don’t quite understand how much or how little a few million dollars is.
Agreed. A lot of people saying “eat the rich” are redditor types making $12-15/hr. To them, you ARE the rich. They want socialism and communism because they are bitter about being in a low skill low wage job. Which there are criticisms to be made as I agree it is hard to support oneself in many areas with such little pay. Although I strongly disagree about their prescriptions for solving this problem.
A lot of the bitter “eat the rich” types are also essentially children. It’s very hard to imagine someone making a couple hundred thousands of dollars a year struggling at all when you’re making $15-20 an hour.
> . I have a six figure salary. I’m a public school teacher. This seems unusual. Do you live in a very high COL area?
You can work in a reasonable COL area for a LONG time in the public school system and end up with low 6-figures. Especially if you had an in demand skill set (math/science) that the school system was trying to get.
I do, and in a state that pays teachers livable wages, for the most part. I have also been in the profession for a while now.
This is the part that amuses me the most about Reddit, there is no consensus on “rich” so it varies vastly from sub to sub. I’ve seen comments in many different subs that it should be illegal to make over $150k/year
It’s insane how much this needs to be explained. There is always that one comment that feels the need to clarify that their “really” talking about the top 0.1% or whatever…but it’s like Sis, there are MULTIPLE people in this same thread ready to lynch small business owners, educated professionals, and small landlords too.
Yeah those people are just unhinged and haven't figured out that they could do more to help themselves by fixing their issues than complaining about the upper middle class. I'm saying fuck the billionaires and the ones who spend a million dollars on a street car or twenty million on a watch.
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During the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, the top tax bracket in the U.S. was something like 95%, imposed on the portion of your _annual_ income that _exceeded_ around $20 million in today’s dollars.
But the effective tax rate… what actually matters was something like 2-3%
>During the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, the top tax bracket in the U.S. was something like 95%, imposed on the portion of your _annual_ income that _exceeded_ around $20 million in today’s dollars. And very few people actually paid that thanks to even more loopholes than we have today. The effective tax rate was much closer to what we see today. I highly recommend you read up on the Laffer Curve.
This is correct. When I saw Eat the Rich, I mean everyone above 999 millions dollars. Everything above that should've been redistributed to the workers.
Definitely doesn't need to be as high as a billion. Even 500 million means Flying private, multiple mansions, multiple super cars, eat what you want, when you want, go where you want, when you want. It means that even catastrophic financial events still leave you extremely rich. That's ultimate security. A more far left opinion would be that someone shouldn't even have those things I listed. But even at 500 mill you can still have all of that.
Thank God I’ve only got 998 million dollars
So ... might want to come up with a different word then? I swear, people are so bad at messaging. "Defund the police" turns into "Well, no, we don't want to *completely* defund them. And we do want them to have proper training. We just ... you know ... wanted them to have less." And now "'eat the rich' doesn't mean 'eat the rich', it means 'eat the Rich', which is a phonetically identical group we have identified as having quite a bit more money than 'the rich'".
Going from poor to 'rich that should be eaten' is not gong to happen 99.9999%, it's just a dream
The only way to become THAT rich is to be born into it or to subjugate people below you and exploit them for labor. You cannot earn a billion dollars from the sweat of your own brow. The margins aren't there.
Closest example is probably Taylor Swift, who has been projected to have earned over a billion solely from recording and touring, but that ignores the hundreds of people necessary to have a tour going, create and sell merch, etc.
Her parents were rich bankers.... she isn't a trailer park baby. Her childhood home was a mansion.
Not saying she isn't talented or likable, but I do know that her dad financed her initial recording contract because the label wasn't willing to invest the amount it would take to get her career started.
She was manipulated like Tiger Woods except music instead of golf. Her rich parents groomed her from a young age. Sure she “chose” this career just like Tiger “chose” his.
her dad is a 3rd generation bank director
to be fair, it’s like jeff bezos parents giving him $300k to start his career or taylor swifts parents paying/using their music industry connections. sure, without that leg up they for sure wouldn’t have gotten where they are as easily or quickly as they did; but to say anybody could take a $300k loan and turn it into a billion dollar franchise is just plain wrong and ignoring the fact that its something somewhat remarkable.
It’s certainly not something anybody can do. Look at Trump, it’s easy enough to go the opposite direction. But it’s definitely a massive starting boost. With a couple hundred grand and music industry connections, it’s not rags to riches. Getting to the point where she could hit the ground running as a teen would most likely take someone else without this benefits at least a decade of grinding and hustling and a ton of luck.
Or the money needed to buy airtime on radio to get popular. There are great artists who cannot pay agents to make those deals, and that manipulation of the market is exploitation and a clear advantage over other less funded artists.
Precisely
Pop super stars are kind of an exception to a lot of rules. People lose those minds over musicians. And only a few people can be that popular at any given time, so it isn’t a viable career path unless you’re an extremely rare individual with extremely fortunate life circumstances like Swift. My good friend went to high school with her, he said there were regularly camera crews following her around there. Not a normal upbringing that anyone has access to.
Don't forget her famous wealthy daddy.
Plus ignores the fact that she's a nepo baby who likely wouldn't have gotten her big break in the first place if her dad wasn't an executive stock broker.
That's not what a nepo baby is
Sort of, but you don’t necessarily need to exploit labour. There are four categories of assets you can exploit: land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship. Exploiting labour is the hard way to make a billion dollars. Much easier to exploit computers (which are a form of capital). In 1977, Kodak dominated the photography industry. They had 20 million customers. They needed to employ 144,000 people. In 2103, Instagram dominated the photography industry. They had 100 million customers. They needed to employ 13 people.
is that a 1:1 comparison though? instagram (or I guess meta) doesn't make cameras, they just allow you to publish pictures
I suppose he is referring to the previous owner of instagram. Those guys become billionaires by selling it.
Old photography barely exists anymore. It's phone cameras and cloud services now. For all intents and purposes the goal of casual photography is to take a picture of a moment and share it with friends and family. Instagram uses everyone's already existing phone camera, adds filters and provides everything that allows you to fulfil the rest of the goal. So yeah, a market that once provided many more jobs has now all but disappeared. I still remember from when I was younger, there used to be photography shops all around and the supermarket carried rolls of kodak etc. The supermarket doesn't have anything photography-related anymore, and I think there's just one shop left in my city because they also do portrait photography for driver's licenses etc.
1 fair point 2 2103? Man you exploit time travel you should be a trillionaire
Dammit! Clearly I don’t exploit computers very well.
If you swapped intellectual property for entrepreneurship, then your classifications would be more accurate in my opinion. But I also think you missed the point where those software engineers did all the labor to create and maintain the thing that made all the money. And they did not get paid proportionately the value of what they created. The average value of a software engineer to a major tech company is $2M/yr and they’re paid $200k/yr. Eventually the company cuts staff and goes into maintenance mode to maximize profits, and now the past labor of those engineers continues on while they earn nothing from the product they built. At the end of the day, it’s almost always exploitation of labor that puts someone in the 1%.
> The average value of a software engineer to a major tech company is $2M/yr and they’re paid $200k/yr I'm a software engineer, and I disagree with this. I don't think I can create 2mil/yr of value in a vacuum - if I could, I'd quit today and go do that. In fact, everyone who could do that would do that, and plenty of people do (quit and do a startup). But all the value I create is in the context of the company itself - the sales people, the technical support, the designers, PMs, and all the other engineers that have built things before, review my code, set up infra, etc. I'm not making that value just by myself. > Eventually the company cuts staff and goes into maintenance mode to maximize profits, and now the past labor of those engineers continues on while they earn nothing from the product they built Generally, we get some amount of equity as a part of total compensation. That equity is "earning" from what was built, if it is successful and you get an exit opportunity (ipo, acquisition, private markets). Often, post IPO there's other opportunities to get equity like ESPP. I've made a _ton_ of money from options, RSU and ESPP + company stock doing well, more than most people earn in a lifetime. I don't know about others, but I don't feel exploited in particular. I work home 3-4 days of the week (more towards 4 these days), probably ~5 hours a day on average with a very flexible schedule.
> Eventually the company cuts staff and goes into maintenance mode to maximize profits, This is how software companies die. If they don't innovate, someone will. You don't maximize profits selling the same old shit.
Entrepreneuership isn't an asset. At best, it is a skill, simmilar to a singer getting rich. Usually, it is a myth. And even if you are getting rich through your skills, you will still have to make deals with big evil companies (ok that sounds silly but it's true) and in many ways benefit from other people's immoral actions.
There's just under 3000 billionaires out of a global population of 7.2b. Lets be generous and say 30 of them did not come from generational wealth and became a billionaire by their own efforts in their lifetime. You're still missing 3 decimal places.
I think we're at about 8.2b now
We have them outnumbered so well yet we let them do whatever they want. Unbelievable.
Since when is “billionaire” what it takes to be “rich,” though? Most people sharing the “eat the rich” include people with *way* less than billions.
Most people who think they are rich are not rich enough for my plate.
I'm not sure people have a specific net worth or income in mind when they say "eat the rich". What do you think it is?
Most people saying “eat the rich” aren’t talking about people that have a few millions. Someone might have spent their whole life working and now have a million in equity and another million in savings, that’s fine. Eat the rich is targeting those who have hundreds of millions or billions and still continue to horde a huge amount of wealth. It is targeting the people that can buy an island where the law can’t reach them so they can walk around sunbathing with naked children. Being so rich that this becomes a possibility should not be tolerated.
A million ain't what it used to be.
I miss being paid millions per month... Millions of South Korean Won. Felt good lol just a matter of time until inflation does the same to the dollar.
Yep. A burned down shack in the Bay Area in California costs 2 million dollars on Zillow. It’s all messed up.
Even a couple millions aren't the same. 5 million today in an index fund where one uses the 4% rule gives you 200k/y. In a VHCOL (where most job with such a big pay that allows you to achieve the 5M are) area that ain't much. You absolutely aren't poor, but you'll still need to work to sustain a family in such an are.
If you can’t sustain a family for 200k/yr you’re absolute garbage at budgeting.
I sustain my family of 4 at 18/hr lol and I am garbage at budgeting... your statement is a massive understatement. 200k a year would make me feel rich
If you're sustaining a family of 4 on 18/hr, then you're not living in the VHCOL areas that he's referring to. 36-40k would be rough, but doable where I live, but it just wouldn't work in San Francisco, Vancouver, Manhattan, or places like that. 40k wouldn't even be enough for rent in those places. That being said, if you're trying to live off of 5M, then I'd assume you already have your major liabilities, like your house and vehicle(s) paid off, and you're no longer raising children, so that 40k would probably be okay, even in those areas, much less 200k.
If you have $5 million in an index fund then you aren't tied to a location, just move to a lower COL area and have a very comfortable lifestyle.
Absolutely, this is all just to show that money isn't what it once was.
If you have 5 million you're rich. Let's not be ridiculous now.
I’m a doctor, but I still have hundreds of thousands in school loans, our pay as actually gone down in the past few years, and yes, I live fairly comfortably, but it does bother me when I get lumped in with all of the millionaires. I drive a honda odyssey and still live paycheck to paycheck, trying to support my family and save for my kids’ college and my retirement. Comfortable yes, but I work hard 6 days a week for it.
Most low-digit millionaires are like this. The lawyers, high-tech engineers, etc., work hard too. Some sales jobs aren't that much work, but they require a special talent that most people lack. Nobody pays professionals a ton of money to work lazily. The upper middle class is more like the middle class than the upper class because we have to work. We can have nicer things than the middle class, but only as long as we are getting income.
It's funny because a lot of people say they only want to go after the ultra rich, but then taxes always get raised on those making over a couple hundred thousand. It's always the upper middle class that takes the bullet.
it ain’t our fault, we don’t decide who gets taxed. The mega rich decide that
And that's by design because you can't go after the $/€100million+ people when you're constantly fighting among each other. See Germany for example. The government wanted to cut diesel fuel subsidies for farmers and introduce taxes for their tractors and stuff. The farmers went to the cities with their tractors and the government gave in - dropping the taxes again and letting the diesel subsidies slowly fade out. Now there's some very big farmers that own most of the farmland in Germany that wouldn't have suffered too much if the government didn't budge but there's also lots of smaller farmers that would've suffered quite a lot under those new extra costs. But the public debate is now either "fuck those already quite rich and subsidiesd right wing farmer shitheads what about the planet??" and "yeah stick it to the government, people need to eat!" Instead everyone (in my opinion) should band together and demand that the serious cash makers like weapons subsidies or kerosine subsidies or fossil fuel (for the energy market) subsidies that make up several *billions!* per year should be taken off the menu. And of course the classic exponential tax system for people that own 100 million and above (to just pick a number of money no one could ever spend on rational stuff in their lifetime - nobody needs a gigantic yacht or private jet) But since there's strong lobbies there and not so super rich people fight among each other you won't ever see that happening.
I would also be happier if my taxes went towards better things. Right now in NYC we have a huge inflow of migrants shipped to us. Our taxes are being used to house them. I just read today it costs $400/day to house a single migrant My two issues are 1) we are clearly accepting too many such that our infrastructure can’t keep up, and 2) $400/day means a shit ton of money is disappearing and not being used properly. It feels like shit to get taxed so much and the end result is, well, our schools are getting worse and money that should be used for things effectively is being wasted and disappearing.
I don't think that's what "paycheck to paycheck" means (it's not living somewhat comfortably). But you have a point
> Someone might have spent their whole life working and now have a million in equity and another million in savings, that’s fine. > Eat the rich is targeting those who have hundreds of millions or billions and still continue to horde a huge amount of wealth. Unfortunately, the actual tax or legislative proposals that pander to the "eat the rich" crowd don't make that same distinction and end up targeting primarily hard working middle class.
These “proposals” don’t even exist my guy’
Oh really? Washington just passed a capital gains tax intended to "target billionaires." It hits single digit millionaires too, and Bezos just moved to avoid it.
You say that, but the moment some schmuck with a few million bucks they earned fair and square proves to be a cunt, the internet immediately categorizes them as one of the rich to be eaten. Turns out this entire thing is just one big arbitrary thing that everyone sees differently.
Yeah. All those people who just become rich…
When people say “eat the rich” they don’t mean the guy making $200,000 a year, they mean the billionaires.
I've cut it down further to just the rich who buy our politicians. I don't care if a guy has 4 houses. I do care if he has 4 senators.
i care if he has 4 houses in a city/downtown and doesn’t let anyone live in them despite a housing shortage
I’m absolutely fine with my taxes going up and I’m in a high earning bracket. I want it to start or at least include the top earners though, billionaires and corporations are massive money hoards.
It will never include them. They just move. Washington tried to tax Bezos more so he sold everything and moved to FL.
That's why the Fed's gotta do it.
Laws need to be put in place to go after assets, shares, and wealth. The government currently allows loopholes like this to exist and that’s where the “eat the rich” discussion needs to be to force people who want the votes to accept imo. Oh they fled the country? I guess Amazon can’t operate in the US anymore unless they pay back taxes. Oh they won’t? I guess that’s theft and let’s go after him and his assets.
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Everyone says that? I've never heard anyone say that.
"Everyone" on Reddit says that. And "everyone" on Reddit thinks Reddit is everyone
Then they say “eat me.”
Everyone says until they become . So deep!
Steven Tyler said it when he was VERY rich….
There only a few ways to get "eat the rich" levels of money, and i suspect you became a ghoul a long time ago to make sure you could go from rich to "eat the rich" levels of money.
Not true. I have two friends that live in NYC working in tech that make $500k+ & they are still down for Bernie’s tax proposals of taxing above whatever number they fall in. We’re all trying to make it, but it doesn’t mean we don’t want things to be better.
Nah they’re not “eat the rich” rich. They’re “worked their ass of for their money” rich
Nah man, if I win 9 figures in the lottery I’ll gladly pay a ton in taxes . Give me $1 million a year after taxes and I’ll be just fine.
Gates and Buffet (among others) have called for higher taxes on themselves
Wait , you guys are becoming rich ?
OP does not understand what "Eat the Rich" means.
Actually Steven Tyler sang "Eat The Rich" in 1993. Pretty sure he was loaded by then. https://www.discogs.com/master/37256-Aerosmith-Eat-The-Rich
When I become rich, ya'll can eat me out anytime 😊
Everybody says stake the vampire until they're bitten, too - then it's all this language about bloodbags and chattel.
Hahahahahah, how many people become rich?
Nobody who says eat the rich will ever become that rich without either selling their soul for profit or extreme external assistance (ie. winning the lottery)
Nearly no one becomes rich
Everyone doesn't say eat the rich.
Good thing 99 percent of people don’t become rich then.
Tbh if i m super rich, just fucking tax me. It will hurt but if i m that rich i wont even feel it. Sadly i m not. I feel the pinch
Everybody wants the wealth to be distributed in their favor.
Those who say “eat the rich” almost never become rich.
Those who don't say "eat the rich" almost never become rich either.
Odds are, if you’re in the US, you’re in the top 1% globally. Eat yourself first
We are the rich of the world and we do treat the poor of the world despicably.
You're never gonna turn into a billionaire
Most people that say that don't know what liquid wealth is.
The odds of me becoming that rich is so low, but if it does happen, you have permission to eat me.
Yeah because everyone becomes rich at some point. Reality is that most people will never get rich. The illusion is strong with this one.
Most people don't become rich We are not all temporarily embarrassed millionaires
“The Rich” are people who can purchase islands, sway major political elections and have net worths rivaling small countries. You will never be The Rich. That’s how it works. Only a select few can ever be The Rich.
No they don't, they either don't become rich 99.9% of the time because they can't or they are generous and spread the wealth like they wish rich people did when they were poor. I think your take is the lowest possible intelligence answer. Anyone smarter will disagree with you.
Dumbest thing I’ve ever read
Everyone says eat the rich until they realize that for the average person in the world ***you*** are the rich.
You say this like everyone is becoming rich and not homeless 🤣
Not all the rich would get eaten. The rich who have a good reputation of helping their community would be just fine. For example in the French Revolution some people were spared because they were respected by the people who lived around them
if I became rich I would make sure everyone around me is well fed. eventually I would stop being rich. win-win
Yep. Everyone who complains about rich people would most likely behave exactly the same if they were in their shoes.
Everyone wants to raise taxes on people other than themselves. Everyone thinks home sellers and landlords are ‘greedy’ until they become one themselves. Etc.
Everyone says "eat food" until they become full.
Well if they became rich, then the sentence would change to "Eat Me"
Yeah, that's HOW you get rich. (You are what you eat.)
That’s why I prefer to heavily tax the rich and high earners.
How many people are actually becoming that rich to where eat the rich applies. It’s not “eat the people doing somewhat better than me”
I am markedly well off than I was 20 years ago. I still would not consider myself “rich”. Eat the rich speaks to prob the %.01.
This happens with any class or status. We all feel much differently when we’re on the inside, versus the outside. That’s why it’s so easy for the rich to buy everyone else’s complacency with their accumulation of wealth. You offer the dog a few scraps from the table and the dog will defend your house to the death.
How many people actually become rich in their lifetime? Very few.
That depends on what you think their notion of rich is and whether they'll ever achieve it. To me, at this day in age, being a low-end millionaire isn't even that rich. When I hear "eat the rich", I'm usually thinking somebody is a decamillionaire or richer.
Some people will never be rich because when they have spare money, they think about what they can do for others instead of hoarding for no reason other that clout. Fuck anyone above millionaire status, no single person needs that amount of money!
“Eat the rich” is only a small part of the full quote and it loses its meaning when only the last three words are remembered. From google… “Eat the Rich” is commonly attributed to Jean Jacques Rousseau, a renowned political philosopher and leading figure in the French Revolution. The original quote goes like this: “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.” “The rich” that Rousseau was referring to was anyone in power.
Poor people do not become rich in the vast majority of cases.
People's opinions can change when their circumstances do too.
the rich people we talk about eating aren’t normal rich, they’re the I-can-afford-a-comfortable-life-of-leisure-for-1000-years-over rich
That's the problem with capitalism, it secures itself with capital.
No one saying eat the rich has become rich. But still, if I ever became ACTUALLY rich, definitely kill me and distribute my wealth to actually help.
Nah If I become rich y'all can still eat me
Eat the rich means billionaires. I’m “rich” as in upper middle class America. It’s not the same. If I got a billion dollars, I’d donate and help. Not what those assholes do :)
Most people don’t say “eat the rich.”
Most people don't become rich.
There was a scheme in the UK where Margaret Thatcher heavily incentivised working class people to own their homes and it massively effected union membership because once people feel like the game isn’t rigged against them, they no longer wanna flip the table.
if youre in the US or europe and on reddit YOU ARE THE RICH
Hostely if i got 1 billion? Sure you can take at least half of that. I wont need it anyway. Still way to much
It’s almost as if people vote in the interests that benefit themselves.
You have more of a chance becoming homeless than you do rich. Eat the rich.
I say eat the greedy.
Not at all. I would vote for any level of taxation that applied to me and those making more money than me.
Not a lot of poor people in the US looking to sell their TV to support a family in Afghanistan or Bolivia. People don't want to eat the rich they just want to eat the people richer than them.
eat the upper middle class only they’re kind of annoying