Who are the top 1% income earners in the US

[Gustaf]

I'd be interested to see how much of it comes from ownership of companies, and how much from Wall Street deal making.

Looking to make a little scratch working from home, are you?

According to the IRS data, the top one percent (AGI above approx. 400K per year), earns about 23% of the aggregate.  Apparently the peak was in 1928, when the top 1% earned about 24% of the income, then fell off gradually till about 1980 to about 9%, then began to rise, topping 20% by around 2007.  Note that the top 1% also pay about 37% of the taxes.

Wall Street tycoons are the richest of the rich, for your list.  More than a hundred of the richest 400 gringos are in finance or investments, according to Forbes.  And 25 top hedge-fund managers got an average of $1 billion each.  Most of the rest are either Chief executives of successful companies or they got their money the old-fashioned way.

Ain't but one way to be super-rich, hoss.  Or stay super-rich if you got it the old-fashioned way.  You got to get yerself a new god.  Eisner, Walton, Morgan, Rockefeller, Gates, and all the rest are probably hard workers, but then so are you.  And so am I.  Well, maybe they're smart.  But then so are you.  And so am I.  What we don't have is a deep, profound worship of the almighty dollar.  I think you can't fake that or force that.

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed."
— Mohandas K. Gandhi

Wealth comes mostly from two sources in Western countries - either being very good at something people are willing to pay for or by working hard at becoming wealthy. Investment bankers are in the latter group. I'd argue that someone like Bill Gates or Tiger Woods are in the first.

Of course, you can also inherit, so that would be a 3rd.

[Gustaf]

Wealth comes mostly from two sources in Western countries - either being very good at something people are willing to pay for or by working hard at becoming wealthy. Investment bankers are in the latter group. I'd argue that someone like Bill Gates or Tiger Woods are in the first.

Almost a perfect restatement of what I posted, but not quite.  (Replace "something" with "acquiring wealth" and you're spot-on.  Every one I know is very good at something, but few are super-rich.)  And according to Forbes, about a third are in the latter group.  The actual IRS data takes more digging.  I was able to quickly come up with dollar-figure delineators for brackets, and some other data, through their website, but the exact number of investment bankers, country music singers, all-star hitters, lottery winners, and chief executive officers doesn't appear on the IRS web page in an obvious way.  It may be there somewhere, but patient linking is not one of those things I'm very good at.

Of course, you can also inherit, so that would be a 3rd.

Of course.  We call that "acquiring wealth the old-fashioned way."

We're almost in agreement but not quite.

You seem to negate the group of people that are wealthy due to ability. I don't really think Bill Gates was mostly in it for the money, for instance. And the same goes for all those sportsmen, inventors, artists etc.

I thought you were going a bit too far in thinking that those people only differ from you and me in that they want money more. I don't think I have the kind of talent to become that rich, anyway. In a manner of speaking I might think that I'm as smart as some of those people but not in a way that would yield me as much money.

[Gustaf]

If those people weren't in it for the money, they wouldn't have that money to begin with. They'd be rich maybe, but not obscenely. 

I don't get what you mean by "to begin with" Or maybe you're not referring to something I said?

Opebo has no idea what he's talking about as usual.

Angus: now that you elaborate your point does appear to be a lot stronger. I agree that there is a level where some people with similar skill-sets to, say, me might get rich because they have more of a drive to get money. But I don't think demand is a simple function of marketing. I don't think you can just market anything to get money from it (and before someone links to something, this doesn't mean that someone somewhere hasn't been able to make money by marketing something really stupid - I've studied marketing, I know the examples).

A marketing skill in itself is a kind of skill, regardless. I maintain though that if I'm a great singer or a great football player, etc I won't need a drive for money or any marketing skills to become rich. If I'm merely good at playing marbles it will require a lot more from me if I'm to make money out of it.

Again, I don't think it all comes down to money-love and marketing-skills and that we're all equal in all other aspects.

[Gustaf]

As far as I am concerned, there is no such thing as "standard left-wing stuff". You might have something in mind, but, to the best of my knowledge you are asking me to guess, whether flying crocodiles are red or blue in color )

I'm not going to attempt to rectify your ignorance - try google.

You're very testy all of a sudden?

[Gustaf]

The idea that top income earners are necessarily bad people is pretty prejudiced in my opinion. I understand that you can consider the system that gives rise to such inequalities to be rotten but the people themselves are not necessarily bad. I've met many people with very high incomes - some are bad and some are good, but I've certainly seen no indication that they are on average any worse than people who are unemployed or work for low wages.

[Gustaf]

The idea that top income earners are necessarily bad people is pretty prejudiced in my opinion.

Not necessarily, but mostly; the distinction is important. And I don't necessarily mean in their personal lives (I'm sure that many people who do things that are borderline evil at work are very nice people in a domestic setting), I'm just judging them based on what they do. Sacking thousands of people to boost profit margins is pretty bad as far as I'm concerned, as is, say, selling tobacco products to children in the third world. And so on.

Related to this, amusingly enough, are the very points you raised upthread...

It's not as if most of the top income earners are sacking people or selling tobacco though. And to the extent that they sack people it's not as if they do it out of spite or because they're evil people. Typically it's not, at the core, a management decision anyway.

It isn't as if no one can ever get laid off either. I'm not saying all those people are great but I don't see how they're the scum of the earth for earning money. Plenty of poor people are bad persons too.

[Gustaf]

It's not as if most of the top income earners are sacking people or selling tobacco though.

No, they just profit from it. Yes, obviously this is a systemic issue. But in order to get to that point a degree of - as you rightly called it - talent is needed. That's the issue to me, actually.

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I don't know. The main part of the Llanwern steelworks was shut down nearly a decade ago mostly in order to boost the share price of the company that owned it (Corus). I'm using this example because it was clear-cut and because I know the area well (my Nan grew up nearby). Now that wasn't done out of spite, but was it not an evil - or at least morally dubious - thing to do? To an extent I suppose it depends on how you view the world, but from my point of view it's clear enough.

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Yes, that's true. But I've never suggested otherwise.

They're not necessarily benefiting from sacking people or selling tobacco either.

Most of the richest people are people who come up with good ideas of various kinds. The richest Swede, last time I saw a list, was Ingvar Kamprad who came up with a concept for selling furniture that basically allowed people with lower incomes to get decent furniture for their homes. I don't think he's an evil person. In fact,  a lot of people probably have him to thank for making their lives at least a little bit better. This goes for most of the richest people (ignoring for a while those who are the heirs of other such people).

Of course there are some who are definitely not likeable. But that exists in all income groups.

When it comes to your example I obviously don't know about it. Generally, I'd say that if the people providing the capital for a company aren't willing to do so, that's their right. I definitely think society can have a role to soften the effects of such decisions, but I don't really view that as the company's role in the process.

When you invest money in a company you take a risk of losing the money and if people are to make such investments they need to be paid a return on their invested capital. Otherwise they won't do it.

You can think there are problems with this system but I can't really see people as evil for functioning in it.

(And before someone Goodwins me, I don't think it's comparable to being a Nazi camp guard... )

My point is that people might have other reasons for wanting to be a CEO than that they take pleasure in sacking people. And they will have to sack people occasionally so it doesn't really prove their evil nature either, imo.

[Gustaf]

They're not necessarily benefiting from sacking people or selling tobacco either.

No, but how many would feel as much as a twinge of guilt if they were? Because if there's one thing that is obviously true about the top 1% or so is that they are - for the most part - completely out of touch with the world that exists outside the circles in which they live in. Of course this can easily be applied to other settings; I don't think that many people in the West (regardless of income, class or anything else) know much about the people that make most of our clothes, fancy electronics and so on, to say nothing of the people who extract the raw materials that... etc.

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Most? Nonsense. Some? Of course. Though I suppose 'good idea' is subjective.

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Legally it is their right, of course. Morally? Over a thousand good jobs lost in an area not exactly noted for its vibrant economy, so that the directors could buy themselves second yachts? I can understand that you approach this from a different position to me (and that's fine), but wouldn't you at least accept that to do that is, at the very least, perhaps a little morally dubious?

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No, of course not. But who cares about their intentions? Especially as we all know from a very early age that if you want to 'get on'  f***ing people over makes things so much easier. The intention to become very rich is not really a pure one in the first place.

'Bad' is a weaker word than 'evil', btw. It's one thing to argue that 'the system' (such as it is) is evil or to point to specific actions as being so, quite another to argue that individuals are (though, as I'm sure everyone would acknowledge, some certainly are), which is why I've done no such thing.

I have to say that I find the argument odd to say that since you assume those people would not feel bad about doing certain things they are bad. That strikes me as a weak way of reasoning.

Of course many of them are "out of touch." That still doesn't make them bad people, imo. Most people don't see things from other perspectives than their own. We tend to think of this as worse when you're rich and in some ways it probably is but I don't really see it as a moral fault.

As for good ideas, again it depends on definitions of course. My point is that people do not, in general, just get rich by walking around and being mean. Lots of people want to be rich and lots of people are mean, after all. Lots of rich people come up with something. It may be an invention. It might be a realization that there is a demand for some product or other. And so on. And some inherit other such people. And some do focus on making money (although even then you do need certain qualities, I believe).

I understand where you're coming from about the lay-offs. I appreciate the personal tragedy involved there. I just don't really think that someone who happened to invest in a company has to pay for that mistake by endlessly supporting those dependent on it. That's for society to handle, imo. After all, there are other rich people who could pay for those people having jobs. Ultimately, that is why we have democratic states rather than systems of patronage in modern societies.

Towards the end of your post you seem to be agreeing with what I said earlier - I understand opposing the system but calling the individuals in it psychopaths or bad human beings is a bit strong imo. To be honest, I think I know those kind of people better than you do - at my university most people aspire to belong to these circles. Many of them are pretty uncultured and some are right down unpleasant, sure. Then again, when I did philosophy at another university there were plenty of those people too. And many of my co-students are actually pretty kind people. They care about the environment and the poor more than many self-styled radicals that I've come across.

Again, I'm not after the glorification of success that seems to be common in the US, for instance. Many of those people are undeniably bad people and some are probably not very deserving of their riches. But I think the notion that being rich in itself is an indication of bad character to be a dangerous prejudice.

I've met many good and bad people but I can't say that I've ever noted much of a correlation between income. This guy I did philosophy with who proudly announced over a late beer that he had finally managed to get sick leave benefits and that it had done him so much good (he had never felt better) certainly wasn't rich and had no aspiration to be so. That didn't really make him a particularly moral person though.

[Gustaf]

I've actually come across plenty of people who are likely in the top % in Sweden (or at least close enough to that to be representative). I'm not saying met because I don't have personal friends making that kind of money but several such people come and lecture at my university and some of the people attending come from such families. I never seem to become friends with those people, but oh well.

And my general impression is not that they're bad people. Some are, but that goes for any group.

I'm even reminded of some of those guys who came to speak to us students. One guy had been an swimmer in the olympics. He had then gone into business, and had during one period been the head of the Swedish state-run liquor company. A student asked him if this was ethical. His reply was that you always had to think about those things and that his standard had always been whether he would be comfortable with his 14-year old daughter coming into contact with what he worked with (and I think the strict age limits of the state-run liquor stores here kept his conscience safe). I'm not saying that's the best philosophy or anything, but it doesn't strike me as evil, really.

Al: I think the difference between acting and non-acting is the main dividing line between us here. I guess that is your prerogative, but to me it would seem that we're all part of the capitalist system in that case. Top income earners, IIRC, actually donate more to philanthropy which, in a manner of thinking, goes against the system of capitalism.

Oh, and when it comes to doing things differently...the topic I originally came in to discuss was what makes people rich. As in what makes them different. It was contended that the only difference between average income-earners and rich people was that the latter really loved money. Were greedy to use a less euphemistic word. You and Lewis then seemed to elaborate on this definition to define them as bad people. So, the difference between rich people and non-rich people is that that former are bad while the rest of us are regular humans.

This, as I said, strikes me as prejudiced class-hatred, to be completely frank. Of course many people do different things differently. But not all these differences are worth as much on the market. Being good at wiring is worth something and your dad presumably would have an easier time finding work as an electrician than someone like me who knows nothing about it. Coming up with an innovative way of picking your nose is not worth much. And, of course, some skills are more easily acquired than others. To make it in the investment banking industry you have to pass mathematical tests that few people can handle for instance. You must be ready to work 80-hour weeks and few people can handle that kind of stress.

For an economist it is actually simply put as a function of demand and supply. A service such as doing dishes is not in high demand because most people can do their dishes themselves. Handling capital transactions is in higher demand because fewer people can perform that sort of task.

Now, I don't think the difference between me and Warren Buffet is that he wanted money more than I do. It's a comforting thought,  of course, that the reason I make less money than someone is because I'm a morally superior person, but I don't see it as convincing. I don't think anyone here can just drop their conscience and moral principles, venture out into the world and join the top 1% income earners by virtue of them being ready to  people over. It takes something else, imo.

In contrast to your mining story, I would say that thinking that constitutes not knowing how the world works...

(I suspect some of this may be strawmanning - I'm not solely debating you here but all the people who voiced opinions on the subject. So I'm not necessarily claiming that you believe all the things I'm going against here, but it at least wasn't clear that you didn't to me)

[Gustaf]

Oh, and when it comes to doing things differently...the topic I originally came in to discuss was what makes people rich. As in what makes them different. It was contended that the only difference between average income-earners and rich people was that the latter really loved money. Were greedy to use a less euphemistic word. You and Lewis then seemed to elaborate on this definition to define them as bad people. So, the difference between rich people and non-rich people is that that former are bad while the rest of us are regular humans.

This, as I said, strikes me as prejudiced class-hatred, to be completely frank.

No, it isn't prejudice, Gustaf, it is recognition of what makes the rich different - they are rich because others are poor.  In other words they are using the rest through their power.  It doesn't matter if they are 'greedy' or have any other personal character flaws, or are by contrast personally very sweet.  The fact remains that they are the beneficiaries of a social organization which holds the non-rich in a state of servitude.  Thus, the top 1% is the enemy of the bottom 99%. 

Oh dear. Really? Tell me more about this intriguing new theory of yours.