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To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (12872)	8/21/2003 6:46:20 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

you think an entrepreneur is among the idle rich. you might as well say that Tokyo is in China. this means you do not understand a basic term of economics. how can you hope to discuss economics effectively with such a handicap? it is unfair to both yourself and the other person to have such a discussion.

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (12872)	8/23/2003 2:12:03 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Respond to of 306849

you obviously conflate high income earners with the so called "idle rich" in your previous post no, they are two separate groups. this would be apparent to you in my posts if you understood the meanings of the words i used. for example, to take your "gotcha" quote from me (which you did not understand): i am suggesting that the approximate 15% payroll (or self-employment tax for the self-employed)/FICA/Medicaid tax be applicable to all dollars of earned income, as well as unearned income. as it stands, there is a cutoff point around 80K for payroll/FICA, and higher (or maybe they eliminated it, i forget) for the lower-percentage Medicaid. this is a huge gift to high income earners, who avoid paying this 15% tax on the vast majority of their income (and on all of it for the rentier class with unearned income), while unfairly burdening the middle class and poor. let me help you understand what i wrote. the point i am making is that this tax on the working poor and middle class is avoided in large part by: 1. the working rich. e.g., a baseball player making $25 million a year--he pays the tax on his first 80K of income, and then doesn't pay it on the next $24.92 million--whereas a group of 312 workers each earning 80K, with aggregate income close to $25 million, would pay this tax on their entire aggregate $25 million. thus the working middle class group would pay nearly $3 million extra compared to the single working rich basketball player. i characterized this (fairly, i believe) as a huge gift to the working rich "on the vast majority of their income". on a macro scale, given that there are in fact probably tens or hundreds of thousands of 80K and below earners for each $25 million earner, the inequity of this situation is apparent. 2. the idle rich (included in the above reference to the rentier class). a group which you mistakenly thought includes entrepreneurs--who in fact are working, whether rich or not--but the idle rich by definition do not work. being idle, the idle rich have no earned income. what they have is unearned income (e.g., dividends, interest income and capital gains). and unearned income is completely free from the entire 15% tax referred to above (this is the meaning of the phrase "and on all of it for the rentier class with unearned income" above, which you did not understand either. thus the current arrangement is also a "huge gift" to the idle rich. i hope this has helped your understanding a bit. alas, in the future i will not provide you with any more basic education. i am very sorry, but time constraints prevent me from helping you further. you will also excuse me if i ignore your posts in the future as i prefer to focus on those who seem more financially literate. good luck. if you do not have time for that introductory econ course, why not buy an economics dictionary and at least read Barron's.