Stingy Is As Stingy Does — Or Is It?

Yeah, it is

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

The current economy sucks. The privileged get paid well, the rest struggle. Children suffer, families are under stress from worry and lack of money — it just sucks.

Many underpaid people work multiple jobs. I’m 73, from the age of strong unions and higher taxes on big earners. My wife did not have to work and did not when our kids were young. Later she did work, but that was extra money. We lived in an upscale town and lacked for little. Boy, has that changed!

If you see someone with three cats and two dogs, you see a normal person. Someone with fifty cats is abnormal. So is someone with billions in assets.

I saw a meme on Facebook this morning pointing out that if you ask a billionaire for a million dollars, that’s the same as asking for a hundred dollars from someone earning $100,000. Either way, it’s just 1%.

So, we’d like to tax the big boys and girls more.

But is that realistic?

That 1% meme has truth to it. Except:

The billion is net worth, not income, and not much of it will be cash. It will be tied up in stocks and other assets like homes and boats and airplanes…