Who are the rich? Who are the poor?

  • Thread starter Thread starter JHC
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
OK.

Let’s say you have a farmer in Nebraska. He owns a couple thousand acres of land on which he plants and harvests corn every year. The land has been in the family since the 1880s and is valued at several million dollars.

However, the farmer is heavily in debt to pay for his farming equipment, drives a 15-year-old pickup truck because he can’t afford anything newer, his children wear second-hand clothes bought from a thrift store, and despite all his efforts, he’s lucky if his hard makes $50,000 a year in profits before taxes.

But his personal worth is several $million due to his land assets.

Is he “rich”?
 
Lost_Sheep said:
OK.

Let’s say you have a farmer in Nebraska. He owns a couple thousand acres of land on which he plants and harvests corn every year. The land has been in the family since the 1880s and is valued at several million dollars.

However, the farmer is heavily in debt to pay for his farming equipment, drives a 15-year-old pickup truck because he can’t afford anything newer, his children wear second-hand clothes bought from a thrift store, and despite all his efforts, he’s lucky if his hard makes $50,000 a year in profits before taxes.

But his personal worth is several $million due to his land assets.

Is he “rich”?
Click to expand...
He is definitely rich in my opinion.

This would basically be the same as some person having a few million in their bank acct, (in other words, available to them if they choose to sell the land/ use or access the money)

He is only living as a poor person so to speak because he has not ‘withdrawn’ the money…but it IS available for him to do so.

I have an uncle in this same situation, he bought a small farm when he got out of the Navy in 1940s, he paid $15K, due to its location, its now worth about $4 million.
 
mikekle said:
He is definitely rich in my opinion.

This would basically be the same as some person having a few million in their bank acct, (in other words, available to them if they choose to sell the land/ use or access the money)

He is only living as a poor person so to speak because he has not ‘withdrawn’ the money…but it IS available for him to do so.

I have an uncle in this same situation, he bought a small farm when he got out of the Navy in 1940s, he paid $15K, due to its location, its now worth about $4 million.
Click to expand...
I respectfully disagree with you, but thank you for your opinion.
 
mikekle said:
He is definitely rich in my opinion.

This would basically be the same as some person having a few million in their bank acct, (in other words, available to them if they choose to sell the land/ use or access the money)

He is only living as a poor person so to speak because he has not ‘withdrawn’ the money…but it IS available for him to do so.

I have an uncle in this same situation, he bought a small farm when he got out of the Navy in 1940s, he paid $15K, due to its location, its now worth about $4 million.
Click to expand...
Perhaps it would be helpful to distinguish between “rich” and “potentially rich.”

What if the estimate of $4 million were discovered to be inaccurate? What if, during the transition from farmer, some people breached their contracts and the farmer had no home to go to? A farmer who no longer owns land, and who is waiting for the sale transaction to be completed, and who has no occupation because he cannot practice farming without a farm, and who has no home … is that a rich person?

If you can argue that an individual farmer in that situation is rich, then it would seem inevitable that such status of being rich would have to be assigned to all farmers in that situation. However, if they all try to liquidate at the same time, then it may take many years to complete a given sales transaction, and the prices obtained might deviate far from the initial estimates.
 
JHC said:
According to the calculator on givingwhatwecan.org:

If my wife and I live in the USA with a combined $20,000 income, we would still be in richest 14.1% of the world’s population

A combined income of $10,000 a year would still be the richest 23.6% of the world’s population.

So how do you not be rich living in the USA with any sort of income?

Thank you
Click to expand...
In the US, the rich must be the middle class, because every time Democrats say they will tax “the rich” to help “the poor”, they tax the bejeebers out of the middle class.
 
Deus_tecum said:
In the US, the rich must be the middle class, because every time Democrats say they will tax “the rich” to help “the poor”, they tax the bejeebers out of the middle class.
Click to expand...
Most people in the US who are middle class are rich, they are just not smart enough to know it. They have no concept of how most of the world lives.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
Most people in the US who are middle class are rich, they are just not smart enough to know it. They have no concept of how most of the world lives.
Click to expand...
You just insulted most of the country. Do you feel good about that?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top