Nice Polite Republicans. NPR, that is. Of course the execs will make out like bandits.
What? ~$650K or ~$950K is your idea of "making out like bandits?" Really?
Yes, it's very livable salary, but "making out like a bandit" it ain't. Perhaps it's grossly skewed perspectives such as that which have led to people having the extreme POVs that we so often see expressed on USMB?
I don't know what it is in the U.S. these days, but it seems to me that there is a palpable degree of resentment toward rich people. Furthermore, that disdain strangely extends to folks who live a reasonably nice lifestyle, but who aren't rich, who can't and don't live like it, and who, other than by comparison to people who are indeed poor, wouldn't consider themselves rich, yet they're aware, obviously, that they aren't poor or barely making ends meet. But that's the thing. Comfortable folks understand that that's all they are, comfortable, yet remarks don't reflect a similar degree of perspective, of understanding. And one doesn't need to earn those sums to understand it; just doing the math as depicted below is enough to get it.
There are some ~6.5M Americans who earn $500K or more. Yes, for the most part, such workers are part of the 1%; however, the fact of the matter is that
most people in that earnings bracket go to work and rely primarily on their wages just like people who earn less than that.
The same is true for people earning between $500K and $1M per year. People in that range are well aware they aren't struggling,
per se, but they are just as aware that they need to go to work everyday just like everyone else does. People in this bracket aren't living like anyone who "makes out like a bandit."
Quite simply, earning $500K to a million dollars per year are technically 1%-ers means little other than that one shouldn't have to worry about how to make ends meet and one can enjoy a nice upper middle class lifestyle comparable to that of the "Warrens." Nonetheless, one is profoundly aware one isn't remotely in the same league as people earning $5M+ per year. It's nothing more than a comfortable lifestyle that provides a few more trinkets and the discretion to buy higher dollar, but not appreciably different (other than the price), indulgences and necessities. For instance,
- A BMW 5 Series isn't materially nicer or better than a fully loaded Honda Accord, but it costs quite a lot more.
- For a family of four, a 3K square foot home isn't notable less comfortable than is a 5K square foot one.
- One's vacation isn't more fun because one takes it on St. Barts instead of Key West.
- The first, business class and coach sections of the plane all land at the same time.
With reference to the chart above, about all that happens in the transition from the $300K to $500 bracket to the $750 to $1M one is that one buys slightly more expensive stuff -- occasionally, one can enjoy some of the indulgences that rich people daily do -- and sending one's kids to elite boarding schools, camps and colleges become a matter of whether one's kids get admitted, not whether one can afford it. Make of that what you want, but it's not the live of a modern day "
Robber Baron." It's not "making out like a bandit."
A dimension that differs in the transition just mentioned that of the impact on one's kids.
Kids from comfortable families tend to be successful themselves. No surprise, really, as any kid will strive at least to the point of being able to enjoy
the lifestyle to which their parents made them accustomed.
The dimension that shifts as one makes it to the "$1M+ club" and that I can discern is that of network -- it's basically a "birds of a feather..." thing. People who are well insinuated into a network of economically successful others have a much better chance of encountering opportunities that can catapult them to the realms of the rich. Think about Bill Gates or
Steve Jobs and the other folks who were in their circle of friends. If you think for a minute that Bill and Steve's friends didn't get rich too as a result of knowing Bill and Steve, my theory of the impact of lacking perspective may be spot on.
