In the past week I have had Facebook conversations about taxing people who have higher incomes. Again let me point out that we are not necessarily talking about "wealthy people" or "the rich", we are talking about people with higher incomes. In this case an individual with higher income means anyone who makes an annual salary over $200k. That is a lot for most people, but if you live in New York City that is not much income for the cost of living. Ditto for those living in Washington DC. Also many people who own S- corporations report that much annually, if you include all income like investment income, they report on a S- Corp tax return. But these businesses have to reinvest in their businesses and that comes out of profits so even if they make $200k they actually have much less real income. But that is not the point of this posting, the point of this posting is the question why so many people seem to envy those who have more money or make more money. What do they see that makes them almost crazy with envy and want the government to take it away via taxation of some sort. Do they believe they will feel better or be better off themselves if the government confiscates someone else's money?
Frankly I have never been envious of others who have more, I preferred to find out how they did it and do it myself. I remember years ago when a very successful real estate entrepreneur came to town and was staying the night in a local motel. Several people asked him to TAKE them to supper with him and he declined. I asked him to HAVE supper on me as it was my treat as I wanted to pick his brain and he accepted. We had a interesting evening as he did most of the talking and I did most of the listening. I expect he enjoyed watching me soak up his experience. He also realized I understood the difference between thinking he was rich and OWED me a meal and my wanting to PAY for his meal and get smarter. For the record at the end of the evening he managed to have the meal charged to his room. I later sent him a gift certificate to a nice restaurant in his hometown refusing to have him pay for an evening that was to my benefit.
If the people who were envious of others who have more would look at life in a different way they too might find their way to some wealth as well. I will point this out in a later posting about listening to those who are successful. Frankly the problem with the US government currently is not lack of revenue, but too much spending and way to much waste. Time and again when taxes are raised with the promise of cutting spending, no spending is ever cut and all you get is more spending with the additional taxed revenue. Add in all the incredible waste that occurs at the government level and until that is resolved why should they get more revenue. But that is an argument for another day.
What is interesting to me during all these facebook chats is that everyone who is telling me they want to tax "rich people" more NEVER takes up my personal offer to help them with some things I have learned along the way to achieve some level of wealth. Never do they take the offer to have lunch and chat. My personal thinking is most of these people do not want to be challenged about the mindset they already have about money and wealth. Much easier to complain about how other people have some money. It goes back to grade school when the kids who worked hard and made good grades made it tough on those who wanted to take it easy and not be shown up by those who did achieve. The same thing is occurring in adulthood as many of those same people do not want to change their lifestyles, spending and investing patterns, to accumulate anything. So the best approach is to complain that others who have did so in a unfair way. As one liberal once said some people just won life's lottery so let the government take it away from them and give it to me. Also could be they do not want to take the chance of BUYING me lunch.
Frankly wealth envy is a ugly emotion. It is demoralizing and diminishes the desire for people to want to achieve more. Several years ago we got a new fax machine at my workplace and since I used it extensively I was part of the group trained to use it. Later on someone came by who I knew was a liberal and asked how to send a fax on the new machine. I asked him if he wanted to learn the liberal way or conservative way. He said how could there by such ways. I said well the liberal way is I take your fax and do it for you and next time just ask me to do it again. The conservative way is for me to teach you how to use it and you never have to ask me again and you can use the machine anytime you want to. Frankly he was offended by the offer and that did not surprise me. For the record I ended up faxing it for him.
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