Paul Ryan's outrageous use of the word "envy"

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Just because you were born poor and die poor doesn't make you of any less worth, either.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Yes, there are lottery winners but it still does not change the odds.

It isn't the cards you are dealt with that determines your life, it is how you play said cards.

Spoken like someone who never puts money on the line for anything unless it's someone else's.

Well practical intelligence is actually a much bigger factor to success in entrepreneurship than academic intelligence:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 153543.htm


Rags to riches isn't guaranteed by how well you did in education, but being able to apply it as well as knowing what is practical and what merely sounds good on paper. Ever heard the phrase wealth doesn't last three generations? This has to do with the fact that the first generation went from rags to riches through hard work, smart work, resourcefulness, and not having a sense of entitlement.

Only about 30% of first generation family businesses survive into the second generation. The second generation grows up with and without the success of the first generation which means they can either develop a sense of entitlement or take the guidance of the first generation. There is a 12% chance the business survives into the third generation. The third generation knows nothing but prosperity and is almost guaranteed to have a sense of entitlement and their idea of hard work is just picking up the phone while laying on the hammock. They are mostly unwilling to be involved with maintaining quality control and overseeing production. This is why 97% of businesses fail past the third generation.
http://www.familybusinessinstitute.com/ ... -Planning/


About 80-90% of business enterprises in North America are family businesses. Another interesting statistic is that 80% of millionaires grew up middle class or lower class.
http://shine.yahoo.com/event/financiall ... es-1370279


Ok I'm not saying somehow always knowing you'll be rich is the key to it. There is no simple formula for wealth (that would be called a get rich quick scheme) and I'm not trying to tell people how to be rich. Ignore all that other stuff, I'm just simply sourcing the statistic.

So the vulnerability of family businesses from generation to generation as well as the fact that most millionaires are self-made leads me to believe that hard work, smart work, social skills, resourcefulness, etc.. etc.. are factors to success rather than mere inheritance or connections. Yes social skills are a factor, but keep in mind social skills also has to do with communication, not just charm. You can have as much charm as a three leaf clover and still be able to communicate concisely.

@ skafather88: What do you mean he never put money on the line for anything unless it's someone elses? I dunno what you're talking about.

Perfect example of the irrational belief that someday you'll be the guy on top so you'd better protect his cookies.

Rich kids may not fully understand how many doors their parents are holding open, but you can bet their parents do, and parents are bears when it comes to protecting the opportunities for their young. The cards are stacked and the fix is in. Sure, a rare few will make it anyway, and oh do we love their stories, but the belief in that fantasy far outstrips the reality. There are actually social economists so fascinated by it that they are studying it.

And while I know too much wealth unearned hurts kid's drive, it's not like they return to the bottom of the pile. They just go back to being upper middle class. Their parents can educate them well enough to guarantee it in most cases. I SEE this.

Bill Gates, Mark Zuchenberg and the like were all children of privilege. Find me people in the US forty or below with a rags to riches story. It is getting more and more rare.

I've worked for or with many people who built their companies from nothing. Today's game just isn't played the same way, as as I can tell. I know many who are trying, but it is a different game. I don't want to kill the dream, but if we don't invest in ALL our human resources, our hubris will quickly send us the way of the Roman Empire - at the end of it's life.

I realized today THAT is why I'm so irked by Donald Trump right now. So full of brag, while forgetting to mention how many billions of debt he has walked away from. All done legally, of course, but his wealth is built on that ability to walk away. I have news for him: US presidents can't call in a team to make half the debt disappear when it becomes too irksome. I helped with one of this man's work outs 20 years ago.

My brother owns a business. I own a business. You can incorporate a business on less than $500 if you're willing to fill in the forms yourself instead of hiring a lawyer. The rest is just hard work - usually, longer hours of work for less pay than the typical employee with similar skills.

The fact is, most people don't have a clue about what starting a business is like. A large proportion of business owners in America own a restaurant and work in it. How many of the would be business owners you know want to work in food service like that?


You don't need investors to start a small business. If what you mean is, your friends want to be internet billionaires without any risk, they are being unrealistic. For every internet billionaire, there were thousands of internet bankruptcies. How many of your friends are willing to plunk down their life savings - remortgage the car, house, max out their credit cards, work for years without pay - to show venture capitalists they are serious, for a one in 10,000 chance of succeeding? If they aren't willing to put their own money on the line, they have no cause for jealousy of those who do it and are talented or lucky enough to succeed.

Of course, the multibillionaires aren't the ones that Obama and the Democrats want to raise taxes on. They're happy to keep Ryan from closing the tax loopholes that those guys use. No, it's the hard working restaurant owners Obama wants to squeeze.


If you're paying money for a high school that's no better than a public school, I think you're wasting your money. Jeff Bezos went to a public high school, and he did okay. Save your money until your son has an invention with dollar potential, then use it to pay a patent lawyer to get a patent on it. Be aware, though, that most great ideas aren't actually good enough to make money on.

It was my biggest problem with Bush: He never grew up with any consequence. He bankrupted numerous companies, ruined the Rangers, and was a D- student (after "donations" were made).

Psycohist, given that 9999 out of 1000 restaurants will never realize more than a middle class income for their owners, I would suggest that this is not the type of business or business owner this conversation has been about. And no one is trying to tax them out of business, at least not when it comes to federal income taxes, although they may get paper worked out of business, and the whole business license / local business personal property tax / payroll tax compliance bucket is pretty huge for a restaurant.

My husband and I have owned a series of small businesses but these are just alternate ways to make a living, a different format for delivering labor to the market. There is no chance of these making us rich and, thus, they also are not relevant to this discussion. We aren't the ones who will benefit from Paul Ryan's plan, just as the normative restaurant owners are not.

Still, neither the type of business I've opened, or a restaurant, is available to someone living in poverty. My businesses have assumed there is an expertise to sell, that was born of education. A restaurant requires a huge capital outlay. The later, I might add, may be the riskiest venture out there. So many people think they can do it, all you need is hard work they say, and so many fail at it. I've accounted for an awful lot of failed restaurants.

There is a small business available to someone living in poverty, I suppose: housecleaning and gardening services. These meet the definition of small business, and the capital outlay to enter isn't that big. But, once again, these aren't the type of business that can make you rich, regardless of how hard you work. It's just another way of delivering labor to the market.

FYI in the state of California any corporation must pay an annual minimum tax of $800, upfront, so you can't incorporate for $500 even filling in all the paperwork yourself.

I do feel all of this is kind of a side track, and off the point ... I'd have to go back in to the thread to clarify why, and I can't right now. But I can't help feeling you missed the point, just ... I'm a little tired today to remember exactly what my point was and how I meant to make it

Our businesses are still relevant, because playing it safe and not growing as you do and as I do is a choice. You could choose to take the risk of hiring someone to do some of the work, freeing you to try to get more clients and grow. There is of course more risk that way, but if you were successful, it would be quite easy to get into the $250,000+ range where Obama wants to raise taxes.

A successful family run restaurant, if the family is frugal, can raise the capital to open additional restaurants, which could get them well above the $250,000 range, even above the $1,000,000 range. Ever heard of Boston Market? Bertucci's? They both started as individual family owned restaurants within a few miles of where I live, and they both grew to quite a few restaurants - well into the range where Obama would like to raise taxes - before they were sold off. Sure, there are some great restaurants whose owners prefer just the one restaurant, and that's a valid choice, but the restaurants and other small businesses that choose to take the risks and grow are the ones that generate the most jobs and economic growth. Those are the ones who benefit the most from Ryan's plan and are why Ryan's plan would result in more growth than Obama's plan would.


Education is absolutely available to people living in poverty. Get sufficiently good grades and test scores and you can go to an Ivy League school on scholarships and loans. In some ways, it's easier if you're in poverty, because the university won't demand that your parents take out a second mortgage that they can't afford to pay.

Well, if those restaurant owners have several restaurants, then that's where the money for taxation is - simple. Makes more sense to tax people who have money, rather than those who don't.
Sorry if I'm in such a flippant mood.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Simple but stupid. Tax the growing restaurant chains and you lose the growth.

Choke off the growth by raising the taxes on the owners of 3 restaurants and you get 3 restaurants worth of taxes. Let the chain of 3 restaurants grow to 30 restaurants and you'll get far more tax revenue, even at a lower tax rate.

Why do we get excited about allowing chain restaurants to spread? I don't think of the average chain as a positive factor in a community or for the economy. Sorry, that is a diversion ... a personal thing. Good food doesn't come from chains.

OK, seriously, saving capital to open the next in the chain is not as easy as it used to be and, as a matter of policy, I really dislike this example. Restaurants are the one business I see more failure in than anything else because so much of it involves trend and luck. I would never, ever advise someone hoping to make a better life for themselves open a restaurant. I ONLY encourage it for people who have a strong vision and a strong love of food. I've seen far too often what happens when someone who doesn't eat, sleep, DREAM "restaurant" opens one, because it seems like a way to invest and grow. The failure rate in that industry is astronomical, yet everyone and their brother seems to think they can or should do it. Take it on because it's all you've ever wanted to, fine, better to try and fail than never try. Or take it on because you've got a fantastic instinct for the industry, that is tested and proven by working for one of the chains. But do what I've seen countless people do, and open one because it "seems like a good idea," and you'll lose a small fortune and practically kill yourself in the process. You have to be nuts to think of restaurants as a way up.

Because it's everybody's dream to form a multinational corporation that'll leach money from around the world to feed everyone's avarice.




^The perfect objectivist.

Even if you are successful leveraging the labor, it still isn't that common to get too far into the upper tax brackets. To have a taxable income of 250,000, you will generally have an adjusted gross income of $325,000 - $350,000. A pretty well leveraged service business will generally make just about that (net profit) for each owner; going into $700,000 - $1,000,000 happens, especially in law, but by then the person most likely really is "rich" and can afford to pay tax on the top tier of their earnings, and it is still only on the top tier. I seriously don't hear much grumbling about it.

People forget that 35% isn't 35% on every dollar. Obama had a roughly 1.5m tax return, and paid an average tax of 25% without any fancy loopholes. He says he can afford more. Why do we keep arguing for him that he can't?

And going back to my first point, about no one really doing it on their own, let me give this example. This year I went to work near full time for a CPA I've consulted with for years. He runs a profitable little company, doing a good job of leveraging the labor of others. I am not capable of expanding and growing a company in the way he has, and it has nothing to do with commitment or investment: I lack the social skill, and I'm not even AS. But I am, actually, a much smarter CPA than he is, and he is well aware of that fact. By working together we can leverage our opposing strengths and, yes, he makes the big bucks. But he NEEDS me, and he jumped at the chance to take me on full time for that reason, even if I don't make him any money (let's be blunt, I'm was born on slow motion, I can't change it and I can't help it; my boss, on the other hand, was born on fast forward, and we both know that THIS has a LOT to do with business profit and success, but is entirely unrelated to skill or intelligence). To say he gets ALL the carrots and I get none, that he's the brain and I'm the leach, which is EXACTLY the way the Ayn Rand model sees it, is ridiculous.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 19 Apr 2011, 11:01 am, edited 2 times in total.