On a percentage basis, i doubt it's close:
- Everyone utilizes the military for safety. We don't really have a choice in the matter. Rich people don't access or use any more military services than middle-class/poor people do.
- Most people access the public school system. If you're going to say that it benefits the employer, then you have to consider just as much of a benefit to the employee.
- Same as the education system, everyone benefits from the infrastructure system. An employer couldn't benefit from the infrastructure if his/her employee doesn't.
- Student loan programs are generally available to everyone and pretty much fits under the same umbrella as the education system. If the employee hasn't benefitted from the education that the loan and school system provided, then the employer can't.
- Maybe there are some technologies that benefit employers more than employees, like machines or techniques that make an employees job easier, but that's still a benefit to the employee as well.
- Like everything else mentioned, patents are available to anyone, meaning anyone with a patent worthy product can get one and then use it to grow a business. In fact, you might argue that this helps the poor/middle class more in that it prevents an evil rich person from stealing their idea/product.
Ever thought about how the middle-class and pool benefit from rich people? For one, there's actually some tax money to spend on things that everyone accesses. If someone has a multi-million dollar home, they're going to pay higher property taxes which are applied to schools in the area. If there were no rich people in the area, the schools would suffer from less tax money.
Further, if there were no rich people who needed people to work for them in order to get/keep their business running, then those people lose a source of income.
I really can't wrap my head around the concept that rich people are a bad thing. The overwhelming majority of rich people are rich because they're smart/talented and have provided a good or service to the public that is wanted, and in the process, they employ millions of people to provide said good or service. What's so horrible about that?
Never said they were. Excessive richness, maybe. HOrding more and more of the profits while not increasing their worker's salary seems to be not a good thing. T
\
What I can't wrap my head around is people claiming its unfair that billionaires have to pay more in taxes, like they are really suffering for paying more, while having 20 100K cars, multiple houses and vacation homes, and plenty more money for whatever they want.
What I can't wrap my head around is why anyone would think that they have a RIGHT to the money that someone else EARNED. Basically what you're saying is, if someone has 20 $100,000 cars and multiple houses and vacation homes, and money for whatever they want, they couldn't have EARNED that much. Most billionaires earned their money through hard work. They made something of themselves and got paid for it. Why should ANYONE feel that it's their RIGHT to take what someone else has EARNED just because they don't have as much?
So, where do we draw the line? If someone has 5 $100,000 vehicles and 2 $1,000,000 houses and 1 vacation house, that's all they need. The government should take whatever is left over. Heck, who needs 5 vehicles, let's say 2 cars, and who can live in 2 houses and a vacation house besides, let's say one house and a vacation house.
I think the better question is, why is there such an entitlement mentality in this country? Why do people see someone that has more than them and just automatically assume that they don't deserve what they have?
I've worked hard to get where I am today. Now I'm nowhere close to "rich" but I have extra. And I've worked for every bit of it. Where has that mentality gone in the United States?
Rick