This has been interesting, but some of you have no perspective at all on this. I'll try to break it down again, but just this one last time, I hope.
I started a new job in January-I have to work a "job," almost as a condition of my trust. I could do other things, but, for me, a "job" works best right now. I like my job. It'll pay me nearly $130,000 this year. No small salary, but hardly CEO or even mid-level exec. pay in the company I'm in. Out of that salary, I'll pay something close to 40% in income taxes. That's $52,000-and some, like billc, would say, "Isn't that enough?" Of course, that's not all I'll pay.
Years and years ago, now, my accountant, Sy Levy, now long years dead, alas, told me I should invest in a few companies, so I did. It was right after the stock market crash of 1987-my father and grandfather had died earlier in the year, and my uncle, who was only 8 years older than me, was gonna be dead in a month, and I was looking for distractions beyond work at the nuke plant, martial arts and travel, so I was investing in real estate and the market. Sy said I should buy some Walmart stock, so I did.
I bought a lot. It was undervalued because of the crash, and I bought some-I bought a lot, actually.(Look it up: 26 years ago today Walmart opened at about $22 a share, and closed at about $3.50. It was a Friday, and, come Monday-what the Russian fellow in that Direct TV commercial say? You know, the one with the miniature giraffe? I jump in it! :lfao: )
Last year, dividends on my Walmart stock paid a lot. Like, a little bit more than I'll make this year. This year, my Walmart dividends will pay about the same. Of course, those dividends don't get taxed at nearly the same rate as my salary-or yours, whoever you are-so I'll clear over $100000 from Walmart. Money I've done nothing to earn. Money that doesn't represent my work. Money that won't "trickle down" to the poor in any way (and, trust me, I know about trickle down-I run a vineyard, and support lots of people at the poverty level-it has nothing to do with my Walmart stock, though.)
Money, in essence, that is mine, and mine alone, and will remain mine for all time.
There was a lot of fuss during the last election about Mitt Romney having waaaayyyy more money in an IRA than anyone knew to be possible. Of course, it's possible. Would you like to know how?
There's a class of IRA that allows depositors to place stocks in it, and set the value of those stocks themselves. It's that simple, and a little complicated. For instance-my father in law, a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow- (I'm just a physicist; Ivars is an 83 year old retiree who gets paid to come into work and do whatever he wants) helped invent a process that impregnates textiles with chemicals, among other things. Those Dockers that shed spills? Same kinda thing, but a different process. He and some other people got a license to their own patent, and had a start-up company to develop the process for commercial applications. I've got- I dunno, really-something like 600000 shares in their company.
All worth less than 0.1 cents each. That's not "one cent," that's less than 1/10th of a cent. I put them in an IRA, at that value. Should the company get a big government contract, or some other success, I'll have 600000+ shares of tax-free stock in an IRA.
Of course, that might never happen-and I won't starve if it doesn't. If it does, though, well, you know what they say:
The rich get richer.
Of course, as far as the "rich" go, I'm really very small potatoes. Imagine for a minute, though, that I'm, I dunno.....Walmart.
That's right. The same rules apply to almost all of Walmart's income. And corporations are "persons." Persons who don't pay any income taxes. Time was, when I was a lad, that the "tax base" of a community was a direct effect of the corporate entities doing business there. Now, corporations are permitted to evade payment just as all "persons" are. Legally, of course.
And you really think that if you just work hard you'll get ahead? The rules are rigged against you. Hell, the rules are just barely not rigged against me!
