4 ms·

Unless you have no family, kids, responsibilities or retirement plan then not working is not possible below the 1%, and even then not a great idea. My point is

Unless you have no family, kids, responsibilities or retirement plan then not working is not possible below the 1%, and even then not a great idea. My point is most people not in the 1% and many in the 1% are working to maintain whatever lifestyle they have including their kids and parents which need support as well. If anything the higher someone’s net worth the more they need to work to maintain it. Life gets a lot harder as you get older. Also you don’t need an 8 year degree from an expensive school to work as a highly paid professional as your example suggests. Hell I know tons of people who have earned BS/MS degrees part time while working at from very affordable school. In summary your fantasy of a large upper class sitting around doing nothing while at the same time keeping the poor down is just that - a fantasy. Everyone is just out there trying to live their lives and get by while supporting their kids, family and parents.

grumple 5y ago
You're simply wrong. You can certainly never work well outside the top 1%. Hell, you can live on social services while near the bottom if you really want. But I know many upper class people who don't work or barely work. It's not a fantasy, it's reality. It's not about keeping anyone down, that's a strawman and not even close to something I said. It's just the economic reality; when all you need to pay for are property taxes, utilities, and food, that's covered very easily by income earned from even modest amounts of wealth. This is a flaw in our economic system. As for the other class of people, there simply aren't many avenues for those people. I've watched many 20 somethings and 30 somethings struggle. A small number become programmers, a small number become strippers, and the rest tend to work long hours for little pay even with great educations, let alone without those educations.

grumple 5y ago

You're simply wrong. You can certainly never work well outside the top 1%. Hell, you can live on social services while near the bottom if you really want. But I know many upper class people who don't work or barely work. It's not a fantasy, it's reality. It's not about keeping anyone down, that's a strawman and not even close to something I said. It's just the economic reality; when all you need to pay for are property taxes, utilities, and food, that's covered very easily by income earned from even modest amounts of wealth. This is a flaw in our economic system. As for the other class of people, there simply aren't many avenues for those people. I've watched many 20 somethings and 30 somethings struggle. A small number become programmers, a small number become strippers, and the rest tend to work long hours for little pay even with great educations, let alone without those educations.