--- In [email protected], Bhairitu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > shempmcgurk wrote: <snip> > >Concentrated wealth in the hands of those responsible for creating > >it is a GREAT thing and should be encourated. > > > > Bhairitu, if you tax it, it goes to government which will NOT use > > it wisely. It WILL be used more wisely by those that create the > > wealth. > > > History shows that not to be true at all. Most are just greedy > bastards who care little about their fellow humanity. People like > Bill Gates are a rare exception but as I stated earlier he has > always had a mood of detachment from his wealth which I > particularly noted in a local Seattle interview with him in 1991. > > You still don't get that a progressive tax means people won't try > to earn another dime if they are going to pay more in taxes. So > the government doesn't get anything. They're already wealthy and > anything more is just an ego driven power trip. This lets others > have more of a chance.
I was just reading in the Times about Richard Grasso, who, making $12 million a year, went through all kinds of contortions to obtain his $140 million retirement package. At some point in the accumulation of wealth, money ceases to be a medium of exchange and becomes something entirely different, having to do, as Bhairitu suggests, with ego and power. Your attitude toward it changes in a way that makes it literally impossible to empathize with the person for whom, say, fresh blueberries are a luxury they can't afford. You no longer have to make choices based on what something costs. Money becomes an abstraction with no practical consequences in terms of what you do with it, except those that have to do with how much *more* of this abstraction you are able to accumulate. When rich people talk about money, they're talking about something entirely different from what poor and middle-class people mean when they talk about it. They might as well be on different planets. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Yahoo! Groups gets a make over. See the new email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/XISQkA/lOaOAA/yQLSAA/UlWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
