{"id":1385,"date":"2009-12-21T20:00:19","date_gmt":"2009-12-22T00:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theamateurfinancier.com\/?p=1385"},"modified":"2010-02-20T22:31:56","modified_gmt":"2010-02-21T02:31:56","slug":"stop-talking-about-the-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theamateurfinancier.com\/blog\/stop-talking-about-the-rich\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Talking About ‘The Rich’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rich are productive, intelligent, and knowledgeable.\u00a0 They are the driving force behind the economy.\u00a0 They have secret methods to build and maintain their fortunes, little known to the middle and lower classes.\u00a0 They should be taxed less, as they are the source of our country’s fortune.<\/p>\n

The Rich are lazy, greedy, and unproductive.\u00a0 They take more than they deserve, and don’t contribute a fair share of taxes.\u00a0 They benefit from government programs without contributing their fair share to the public good.\u00a0 They should be taxed more, as they’ve only gotten where they are due to help from favorable government programs, created by their rich pals in government.<\/p>\n

If you spend much time reading financial literature, from blogs like this and money-related websites to books and magazines, you’ve probably come across statements like this at one point or another.\u00a0 The first paragraph is the sort of thing you hear from Republicans or personal finance advisers like Robert Kiyosaki<\/span><\/a>, who want you to believe that the rich are special (and that he knows how to pass on that knowledge); the second is the sort of thing you hear from liberals during campaign season.\u00a0 But the fact of the matter is, neither is correct.<\/p>\n

The Truth<\/h2>\n

The problem with talking about ‘The Rich’ is that wealthy people are not a single, homogeneous group that shares goals, methods and techniques.\u00a0 There are numerous people that qualify as rich, who have many different traits.\u00a0 Just as with any group, there are a variety of people who qualify as rich.\u00a0 The only thing they all have in common is that they have a high level of wealth.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Only Thing Connecting All Rich People: Lots of This<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are rich people who reached their current level of wealth due to hard work, personal effort, and years of struggle and preparation.\u00a0 By the same token, there are rich people who did nothing to earn their riches other than being born into the right family (which, although I can’t remember my own birth pretty well, is something that’s usually out of your control).\u00a0 Some rich people build up wealth slowly over a lifetime, skimping and saving to generate riches for themselves while others have one good idea or invention and are catapulted to a high net worth overnight.\u00a0 Some start with little, if anything, in terms of money and create their wealth through hard work, and still others start out with everything and gradually lose it all.<\/p>\n

Even among those who built up wealth from modest means, there’s an incredible number of ways for them to achieve wealth.\u00a0 Some start businesses, others invest in real estate, some simply work and invest over the course of a lifetime.\u00a0 A few find work in professions like Hollywood actors or mainstream singers that provide them compensation high enough to boost themselves up to riches in a short period of time.\u00a0 Once they achieve wealth, they can use their riches in a number of ways, from providing for a charity, to providing for their own future, or even blowing it all on wild parties and ending up as a joke before they reach forty.<\/p>\n

These same points can apply to ‘The Middle Class’ and ‘The Poor’, as well.\u00a0 No social economic group is homogeneous; just as you may have a similar net worth to your friends and neighbors when you have completely different salaries, saving habits, and types of investments, so are other groups a collection of individuals, all of whom are well, individual.<\/p>\n

The Point<\/h2>\n

Why go to the trouble of writing out a whole blog entry to state what (hopefully) is already obvious?\u00a0 Well, there is an unfortunate tendency for people to demagogue by appealing to class distinctions.\u00a0 The rich are idolized and scapegoated, treated as sources of inspiration and as those holding you down.\u00a0 Neither is entirely wrong; there are rich people who should be well-regarded and respected, because of how they got their money or what they choose to do with it (Warren Buffett<\/span><\/a> and William Gates<\/span><\/a> both come to mind).\u00a0 There are also rich people who, well, we would be better off as a society ignoring.\u00a0 *cough*Paris Hilton*cough*<\/p>\n

But that’s the point; assuming all ‘The Rich’ people are the same and equally deserving of any particular reaction is wrong.\u00a0 They are just people, people we group into a particular clump due to the amount of money they have.\u00a0 Building policies or perceptions based on how we view them is not the right way to do things.\u00a0 We should set tax policy based on government needs and economic realities, not whether we think that ‘The Rich’ deserve their money or not.\u00a0 We should follow investment advice based on whether it will meet our needs, not whether rich people do the same thing.\u00a0 Finally, we should remember that there are many different ways to become rich, and that these differences should affect how we view the rich, whether we treat them as role models, sources of entertainment, or examples of what NOT to do.<\/p>\n

Alright, that’s enough preaching from me; remember that ‘The Rich’ are people too, and any claims about them as single, uniform group should be taken with a huge grain of salt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rich are productive, intelligent, and knowledgeable.\u00a0 They are the driving force behind the economy.\u00a0 They have secret methods to build and maintain their fortunes, little known to the middle and lower classes.\u00a0 They should be taxed less, as they are the source of our country’s fortune. The Rich are lazy, greedy, and unproductive.\u00a0 They 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Rich are productive, intelligent, and knowledgeable.\u00a0 They are the driving force behind the economy.\u00a0 They have secret methods to build and maintain their fortunes, little known to the middle and lower classes.\u00a0 They should be taxed less, as they are the source of our country’s fortune. 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