Where do you think the top 1% of the wealthiest people got their money? (read Details)?

Question

Okay I was thinking in terms of percents oh like this what percent of those top 1% of the wealthiest people does it come from in terms of percent like 30% INVESTORS 30% ENTREPRENEURS and 40% INHERITANCE (THAT WAS AN EXAMPLE) SO WHAT DO YOU THINK? Also the quote below may be true it comes from the movie WAL-STREET GORDON GHEKKO says that is seems try and how some investors like him are very rich but they are not ENTREPRENEURS they don't provide they OWN OPINIONS?

The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own

Where do you think the top 1% of the wealthiest people got their money? (read Details)



Okay I was thinking in terms of percents oh like this what percent of those top 1% of the wealthiest people does it come from in terms of percent like 30% INVESTORS 30% ENTREPRENEURS and 40% INHERITANCE (THAT WAS AN EXAMPLE) SO WHAT DO YOU THINK? Also the quote below may be true it comes from the movie WAL-STREET GORDON GHEKKO says that it seems true and how some investors like him are very rich but they are not ENTREPRENEURS they don't provide they OWN OPINIONS?

The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own

Answer 1

Investors, obviously. Corporations are predicated on stockholders, also called stakeholders. I could argue, and rightly so, that the corporations who have such a great amount of worth are spread around thousands of stockholders, who, themselves, have partial ownership in the corporation. So, with your numbers, I could argue that the wealth is spread out more evenly, when considering the stock/stake holders. Moreover, though, is even income distribution a goal, or, more directly, should it be? I would say no. Would you argue it should be? And, if so, why?

Answer 2

Probably the better question is: How did the top 1% of the world's population by wealth get there?.

The answer to that is much more productive!

They, on the whole, got there by owning things. Especially the things that create the most value to other people. Microsoft, saved people millions of hours of hand writing drafts, and accountancy tables. PanAm made it possible to work in 3 countries at once. etc.

That may seem a little bit obvious, but let me explain the alternatives:

1) - Social welfare
Someone else, somewhere else decides what you are worth, if anything.
2) - Wages
You exchange your time - your only truly limited asset - in exchange for a level of productivity correlated only to the number of hours you spend.
3) - Salary
You exchange your productivity for consistency, possibly supplemented by a commission or a bonus.
4) - Commission
You get a portion of what you produce.
5) - Investment
You own an asset, and you profit/lose from other peoples' increase in its demand.
6) - Ownership.
a) you get all the proceeds (positive or negative) of your efforts, and the efforts of those you employ (and good on you), BUT:
b) not only do you get a 1:1 ratio of dollars earned, but you also gain the value of a financial asset. Like a Bond: You create an asset that yields $20,000 a year, and for a 10% return, people will be willing to pay you $200,000 for it.

So - set up a few businesses that create $30 - 50k profit per annum, and the bank will look at you with a new light. set up a company that will still produce $1,000,000 a year when you walk away from it, and an investor will pay you between 5 and 15 million dollars depending on how well you've set it up.

So Bill Gates may not actually have $40 billion dollars, he just owns enough assets to produce around 2 billion in profit, and all of a sudden he is made!

Replicate that (start small!), and (bar tax burdens) you will find yourself rising through the ranks!

Answer 3

To get into the top 1% of income you only need a several of hundred thousand dollars a year which many well paid professionals and small business owners achieve, so most of them will get their income from work. However when you go to higher income levels the amount received from investments is the majority with most of the income from work due to celebrities, hedge fund managers, and CEO's. The sources of income for the top .01% over the last century can be seen at
http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2007/06/03/all-sources-of-income-for-top-001-percent/

Answer 4

I am averse to words like top. So please allow me to interpret top 1% as most and wealthiest as wealthy.

Inheritance is definitely one of the major sources of wealth and ofcourse after that money begets money. Circumventing the law after a certain level of affluence becomes the order of the day and thus earns disproportionately undeserved returns and then you are in the charmed league of people where everything else is expressed in terms of wealth alone!

Enrons and the likes are just caught and punished, once in a while, for the general people to think that it is a fair and level playing field and that they are existing in a just environment!

Indulging in Charity is one the the ways for such guys to address their guilt!