If you saved a dollar a day starting the day you were born

[maxrandb]

it would take you 3000 years to save $1,000,000.

If you saved $10 a day, starting on the day you were born, it would take you 275 years to save $1,000,000.

Even if you were able to save $20 a day, starting the day you were born, it would take you 130 years to save $1,000,000.

Of course, those number are if you did nothing but put the money under a matress, but it does show the disconnect between those that have incomes in excess of $1,000,000 and the rest of us.

The next time some "wingnut" tries to play that "well, if you just work hard and save your money, you too can be a millionaire" crap on you...pull out a calculator.

The bottom line is that top 1% is a very exclusive club, and it's exclusive for a reason. It's exclusive because they want it that way...and "you aren't on the invite list".

In the past 30 years, we've given tax-cuts to those folks in amounts that you couldn't save in 3000 years. That's "tax-cuts" by the way. We've lowered the taxes they pay in sums that 99% of us would never see, even if we saved every penny we made for 10 lifetimes.

AND That's just how much their taxes have been lowered. If you look at the amount that their income has increased, it makes the above numbers look paltry.

You're damn right there is Class Warfare going on in this country, and 95% of us are losing.

When is it time to fight back?

[liberal N proud]

1. Yet there are those who think they will get rich one day

[Fumesucker]

2. The L Curve..

http://www.lcurve.org/

The US population is represented along the length of the football field, arranged in order of income.

Median US family income (the family at the 50 yard line) is ~$40,000 (a stack of $100 bills 1.6 inches high.)

--The family on the 95 yard line earns about $100,000 per year, a stack of $100 bills about 4 inches high.

--At the 99 yard line the income is about $300,000, a stack of $100 bills about a foot high.

--The curve reaches $1 million (a 40 inch high stack of $100 bills) one foot from the goal line.

--From there it keeps going up...it goes up 50 km (~30 miles) on this scale!

[vanlassie]

8. +++++

[a simple pattern]

19. Wow

thanks for that, i know some people who need to have a look

[JuniperLea]

24. We aren't reminded of this enough...

Thanks for resurrecting this!

[reggie the dog]

43. holy shit, no wonder i have had problems with my relatives in the past

the 2 uncles in my family who are at the 99 yard line were total dicks to everyone in the family even to each other, they mocked my father and the other men who married into the family for not being able to buy snowmobiles, dirtbikes and the like for their children as the 2 top 1 percenters were able to do for their families. the rest of us would probably fall into the 40 to 60 yard mark and we all pretty much got along despite voting dem and republican, despite being pro and anti pot, war ect, the rest of us managed to always be civil at family events and did not think we were better than everyone else wherease the 2 99 yarders..... shit they thought they were the best shit in the world.

[Mimosa]

73. ^ EXCELLENT LINK, Fumesucker! ^ n/t

[dkf]

3. One public pension with health benefits is worth more than $1,000,000.

[yurbud]

15. so we should do away with them?

[leftstreet]

23. One B-52 Stratofortress Bomber costs $53.4 million. What's your point? n/t

[we can do it]

35. Which One?

[Nostradammit]

41. Your ability to make ludicrous observations is astounding.

Matched only by your mastery of the non sequitur.

[durablend]

58. Anyone noticing...

In most every one of these 'class warfare' threads there's at least one "concerned" poster?

[leveymg]

48. That's paid in over 30 or more years, and paid out over less than 20 on average.

So, what's the point?

[MADem]

4. Look at the people who vote for these laws that favor the rich.

In the Senate, they're almost all millionaires. In the House, they either are, or they are "aspiring."

'You' or 'I' may not be invited to that exclusive club of which you speak, but those lawmakers sure get an engraved invitation, from lobbyists, from contractors, from insiders, from donors who give nudges and winks. There's gold in them thar hills!

The old "What side is your bread buttered on" thing is happening in the legislature--that's why we have these usurious, unfair laws in the first place.

[William769]

5. If I saved a dollar a day up to my next birthday, I would have $17,520.00

ON EDIT: On my next birthday I will be 48.

[FarCenter]

57. If you saved a dollar a day for 48 years at 8%/annum, you'd have $199,268.

Use "=FV(2%, 192, -91, 0, 0)" in Excel for 2% / quarter interest/dividend, 192 quarters, $91 dollars per quarter.

Over the last 48 years, 8% would be reasonable for a balanced bond/stock portfolio.

At $5 / day, you'd be close to a million.

[FarCenter]

6. What rate of return on investment were you assuming?

Compound interest makes quite a difference, especially in later years.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

7. save $3 a day starting the day you're born

at 6% interest you are a millionaire at 65.

sP

[William769]

10. Where do you get 6% interest?

right now my normal savings account gets 0.2% interest. :shrug:

[ProdigalJunkMail]

12. in the same theoretical la-la land that this OP came from n/t

[maxrandb]

26. Yes, and if you saved $600 a year

with compound interest, you might get there is 70 years, longer since there is no "safe" investment that is going to give you 6% return.

I guess in your "la-la land", Middle Class and poor folks just have $600 a month laying around to invest.

:eyes:

[ProdigalJunkMail]

29. $600 a year...

not a month...

roll your web-eyes at someone else. it is just a preposterous to suggest you will never make it to a million as it is to suggest a consistent 6% rate of return on your investments.

sP

[maxrandb]

31. That is the point of my OP

It is preposterous to suggest the average American Middle Class family would ever enter the top 1%.

Your post seemed to be a fraudulent response that "yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus", and that if you scrimped and saved at 6% interest, :crazy: you "could" get there.

If I misunderstood your post, and it was not a rehashing of a "tired-old" right-wing talking point, I apologize.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

33. the 6% was kind of a joke

and the fact that you couldn't enjoy it until you were past a lot of your 'enjoying it years'...

i do think, with a job and some frugality you can save. my parents did and they were VERY working class (they were both teachers). they scrimped and saved but i don't ever really recall going without anything. we ate at home...didn't take lavish vacations...they kept cars for YEARS...and bought a home that i lived in until i was 18 and they lived in it until retirement. and they have done very well...no bills...no mortgage (on their vacation/retirement home) and now have little part-time jobs to keep them occupied. so, even on meager income it CAN be done...but from talking to pops, it surely wasn't easy.

sP

[maxrandb]

34. My wife and I

have done the same on just my income so she could stay home with the kids.

Would be nice to know that Medicare and Social Security will be there so that my kids don't have to pay my medical bills as I get older.

We are comfortable, and part of the reason we are comfortable is the help we have gotten.

Wife was diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast Cancer 6 years ago, and Thyroid Cancer 4 years ago. After surgery and chemotherapy/radiation, she now has monthly treatment with Herceptin that keeps the cancer from growing. Because I am active duty military, her medical care has been covered. We would surely be at the 6-figure, and possible 7-figure amount in Medical Bills were it not for medical care. In other words she'd either be dead, or we'd be living in the street.

My daughters are able to use the Post 9/11 GI Bill to pay for college, but without it, we'd be taking out a second mortgage on the house, or massive student loans to pay.

That's my point. We don't live in a vacuum. All of us, at one point or another, have benefited from the opportunity this country gave us. Maybe someone's parents were able to use Medicare, which ensured their kids didn't go bankrupt paying the bills. Maybe someone's Grandmother was able to stay in the home she and her husband built over 60 years of marriage because of Social Security. Maybe the education we got at the local Public School inspired us to go to college, or gave us the skills to make an independent life.

The list just goes on and on. Our tax dollars support all of those things, and more.

Taxes are an investment...and I still believe America is a damn good investment.

:beer:

[bettyellen]

40. this is the first generation not doing better than their parents.

[reggie the dog]

44. 2rd

Gen X
and
The Mellenials

at least those of us born at the end of gen x, do you know many people born after 1975 or hell even 1970 who are better off than their parents are? there are some but most of us are fucked and will never have as big of a house to live in that we did at our parents house, nor a back yard, nor nice vacations every year, nor benefits like health insurance from work, nor annual raises in salary.

i know, supposedly we in gen x are falling behind because we are just slakers, the fact that more of us have university diplomas than prior generations just shows that we wanted to party for 6 years to get a Master's handed to us and that we don't really want to or know how to work. You have 2 TWO generations now who generally feel like abject failures to their ancestors because they cannot be slightly better off than the previous generation as our families had been since they arrived in the USA. why did armando and Mika move from Italy and Poland if all we can do is fall father behind ???? they could have done that in the old country.....

we on the left target the bankers and wealthy elite for having organized this

on the right the same generations blame gays, immigrants, liberals, unionists, and blacks for the current state of affairs

[Bette Noir]

49. My husband and I are boomers.

At the age when both my parents retired with pensions, we're spending our life savings to start a business, because our savings wouldn't last us the rest of our lives, we can't find jobs, and pensions are a thing of the past.

And I retired with a back injury 12 years ago. I still have daily pain; wish me luck with the 14 hour days on my feet that will be necessary for at least a year, until it gets going.

[reggie the dog]

72. well that makes 3 generations,

my dad was born in 1950, mom in51 and are about the last of the boomers to be able to live off of one salary and have a retirement they can take at 65. they bought a home in 1975 then the housing market exploded in price and that alone made a 2nd income necessary for those born just a couple of years later than my parents.

[kenfrequed]

56. Speaking of Jokes

How many families do you imagine can easily put aside a lot of money? How many are unemployed? How many are working for poverty wages because that is all there is and they can't afford not to work it? How many children are living in poverty? How many schools are cutting after school programs, the arts, and music? How many people still have access to unions to address their greivances and negotiate on their behalf for better wages?


I'm sorry, but dismissing the thesis of this persons post because you think its silly that some people are unable to save money and get 6% interest on their investment is absurd.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

60. jeesus you're no fun

you might want to go read some of the other stuff I wrote in this same thread before you get all high and mighty...

sP

[kenfrequed]

69. I did.

You didn't say anything all that interesting or likely and the fact that you can't accept there are poor people that having been born into poverty are having trouble clawing their way out of poverty bothers me a great deal.

Moreover the only things you seem to have said other than to claim you were joking (though I have no idea what you were joking about) is to reinforce the ease with which someone can become a millionaire by putting aside a paltry sum of money and earn 6% a year.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

74. yeah...i was JOKING about being able to GET 6% interest

but you seemed to think i was suggesting it was easy somehow. oh well, some people just miss stuff. i guess you're one of them. i guess i will go cry about your inability to see the point...

sP

[Rozlee]

53. Of course you can aspire to be one of the 1% and make it.

If you're a gold-digging gal like my sister's college friend who married the Mexican owner of a chain of investment banks and 30 years older than she was. Then, you have your anomalies like Bill Gates. Again, not every American is a wunderkind with a world altering idea. But, you're right. The "average" Middle class family doesn't possess the cut throat savvy and the often back-stabbing skills required to deal in high finance, clash with the sharks in high places, and leave a swath of bodies in their wake. It's not all about just putting money in an investment portfolio and watching it grow or we'd all be millionaires. Climbing the corporate ladder is a ruthless process. And that's why people that do it can be so uncaring and ungiving. It's unbelievable that these GOP supporters that defend the mega wealthy and who dream of being rich themselves someday, just sit in front of their TVs fantasizing about it, but if asked, couldn't begin to tell you of how they plan on doing it. Probably just by buying the Lotto every Wednesday and Saturday.

[rdking647]

39. i know where to earn 6%.

relatively safely

[Yavin4]

54. Who's Paying Out 6% Interest on Savings????

Unless you have some kind of time machine and can lock in that rate.

My bank pay .7% APY on 2 year CDs. Fuckers want my money for free for two years. Meanwhile they loan it out at 5% on student loans and 21% on credit cards.

[stockholmer]

61. Buy some nice Greek Bonds and Société Générale CDS's, they pay way more than 6%, lolol

cha-ching...........................:sarcasm:


Welcome to the neo-feudal rentier world, serf!

[ProdigalJunkMail]

63. never said it was a saving account...

it was mostly a joke, though...

sP

[stockholmer]

59. you forget one HUGE thing, inflation will rip the buying power of that million apart

[ProdigalJunkMail]

64. nope...just didn't speak to it... n/t

[frazzled]

9. Reminds me of a scheme I had many years ago

After being bugged as a poor working recent college grad by my alma mater for donations, I thought:

I should donate a million dollars. A dollar a year for a million years. I even figured out how much would be needed to deposit in an endowment account to accrue the necessary dollar's worth of interest each year at then going rates. Then they could name a toilet stall in some academic building after me.

[ret5hd]

11. more like a toilet paper roll holder.

[dtexdem]

13. You would have lost it all in either:

1) one of the economic meltdowns, especially that of 2008; or
2) a house fire that burnt up your mattress.

;-)

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. Okay. So if I invest my net worth in the stock market...

... how long until I lose $1 million?

[Shandris]

18. Do you want that measured in hours or minutes? =D (n/t)

[deaniac21]

16. You aren't figuring in interest or any gain on investment.

http://www.ncnblog.com/2007/12/10/10-a-day-equals-34-of-a-million-dollars/

[JuniperLea]

25. Or crashes...

It all evens out.

[deaniac21]

68. Maybe with your math but it's pretty easy to invest in something

like tax free municipal bonds and get 4 to 10 percent return. Over the years you can safely sock back a large amount of money. Let us look at 108 years of the dow:


http://forecastchart.com/historical-dow-industrial.html

Hard to screw up a 401k in the long term too. If you don't sell you haven't lost a cent.

[sfpcjock]

17. ...I was going to answer "you'd be insane".

Of course, you'd get 1 1/4% interest on your savings, so that's totally different, LOL.

[Politicalboi]

21. LOL!

Eddie Munster.

[kctim]

20. I don't know one Republican who believes they will ever be a millionaire

[Mnemosyne]

36. My sister actually dared to bitch to me, two weeks after Mom died, that Mom's estate

wouldn't make her a millionaire. She robbed Mom's safe of over a hundred thousand dollars as Mom lay upstairs dying.

And I have three other sisters exactly like her, all repigs and good born again christians.

[Selatius]

46. Were your sisters born this way or they became this way? They sound frightening nt

[Mnemosyne]

71. Nature and nuture, my 1/2 sisters, though they don't claim me at all.

Thanks to the Universe for that these days.

[reggie the dog]

45. i know several who already are

but those who are poor are not in denial about staying poor yet they vote to favorize the rich just the same

[hamsterjill]

22. It is a very exclusive club.

Exclusive but most of its members were born into money. Most did not make it themselves.

Then there's the rest of us...

[hfojvt]

27. well in 2006 it only took $388,806 to make the top 1%

Some people tell me that is only upper middle class in California, Hawaii, New Jersey, NYC and Connecticut.

The average income of the top 1% is over a million, but some members of that group are making far less than $1,000,000.

Now to make the top .1% in 2008 required an income of $1,803,585. (I love how precise that is. I bet the person making $1,803,584 feels like a total failure for not making the top .1%).

However, there still are almost 140,000 such families.

[maxrandb]

28. And

there are 299,860,000 Americans below that line.

I can't believe there are people on this board who "poo-poo" the idea of increasing taxes on the folks that have benefited the most over the past 30 years.

Hell, if we really loved America and were concerned with the strength of this "once great" country, all of us would happily kick in an extra 5%.

5% for me may be $600, and 5% for Cheney might be $750,000, but that 5% would all go to making America solvent and inovative again.

[Uncle Joe]

30. That's why it pays to be a preemie so you can get started early.

Thanks for the thread, maxrandb.

[maxrandb]

32. My youngest daughter got a 6-week head start

and she's now a vibrant and talented 23 year old.

Not close to being a millionaire yet, but with what they charge for college these days, someone is making a fortune.

:beer:

[lonestarnot]

37. Fuckwits would only bring up something now after 30 plus years of

cheating the working class with their trickle down bullshit. Some keep falling for it. :rofl:

[gulliver]

38. Dems should be selling upward mobility too.

People want to believe they have the possibility of upward mobility. It's something you never hear Republicans talk about. The America where you can succeed is the Democratic version of America. Democrats invest in people.

[reggie the dog]

42. but you can work hard and save your money

32.5 years at 80 dollars a day makes you a millionaire, you just need to be able to save 560 per week once you pay your bills, 2240 in 28day months, 2400 per month in 30 day months or 2480 in 31 day months, now this is more than i take home in the whole month but if you have a spouse paying all the bills on their salary and buying insurance and everything and you earn 2400 a month after tax from age 20 to age 52.5 you will be a millionaire, save 29,200 dollars per year for 32.5 years. now having said that i do know people that can do that, they run a business handed over to them by their father and make a quarter of a million a year after taxes, i think they are part of the top 5 to 10% of the country, now the rest of my family and friends spend nearly all they earn just to get by every month, some of our parents manage to save some money and more rarely some of us 20 or 30somethings save some money but most of us have no savings account whatsoever,

now there is a way to make 30 000 a year, grow 12 pounds of weed per year and sell it to one reseller for 3000 a pound, take one pound to pay for your grow op expenses and keep one to smoke. with some practice anyone can grow weed and most of you have people in your own family who could deal it for you so next time you hear that anyone can save to be a millionaire be sure to tell the people that the top 10% of earners can do it legally but that the rest of us must resort to crime to do so and that their argument is actually an advocation of criminal activity.

[BanTheGOP]

65. We don't just need a Maximum Wage...we need a Wealth Repatriation Act

I have advocated a Maximum Income level in which any income over a certain limit is taxed 100%, so nobody would be motivated to steal more money from the masses through abusive capitalistic methods. However, the vast majority of rich people do NOT make any more money through income, but by their sheer power of the principal of the money they currently possess. To that end, we need to establish a Wealth Repatriation act where we repatriate all the monies that were capitalistically stolen from the vast majority of producers, the working men and women of our planet. In short, we need to reclaim the wealth from everyone who has more than 10 million dollars, leaving them the 10 million and reclaiming everything above that amount for our progressive agenda.

Any idea that does NOT include repatriation of monies already stolen is nothing but tripe. This is something that needs to be done immediately. Unfortunately, this act has no chance in hell of passing with the abusive republican party in Congress. Which is PRECISELY WHY I've advocated banning the republican party for DECADES now. It all ties in. Pure and simple.

[w0nderer]

47. k&r n/t

[handmade34]

50. "It's the Inequality, Stupid"

I really don't know when people will wake up!

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph







“Our inequality materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower class.” –Matthew Arnold, English essayist (1822-1888)



http://www.lcurve.org/



http://inequality.org/

?4c9b33

[carolinayellowdog]

51. A million in *lifetime* earnings is above the median for retirees

In 32 years I earned just under 900k. Of course it didn't help to start out when 10k a year was a middle class salary.

[orbitalman]

52. The time to fight back is NOW...

if not yesterday B4 we go down for the 3rd time and drown. It cannot be too late as long as we can breath.

[stockholmer]

66. unfortunately, its utter impossible to fight back within either the Democratic or Republican parties

Both are simply tools of the same systemic controllers, set up to 'divide and conquer'.

Obama is the perfect corporatist manifestation of this false paradigm. If he did the sames things he does, but with an 'R' instead of a 'D' behind his name, 99% of this board would be ready to revolt. But, as a Democratic POTUS, 75% plus, at the end of the day, will hold their nose and vote for him.

THAT is the true definition of 'slave to the system'.

The system knows exactly what they are doing, that is why they have tens of thousands of these (and similar) little toys, and plenty of psychotic 'fresh out of active battle theatres of empiric wars' coppers to man 'em up, and BEAT you down, if you squawk too much about the raping:


Willowbrook, Illinois, USA

[Evasporque]

55. If you invested that money in 401k....you would lose half of it right before retirement...nt

[Skidmore]

62. Don't forget that they got us to pay for Social Security in advance and

still got laws written to squander those funds and then had the financial system structured so that pension funds were essentially eliminated and replaced with investment schemes for them to rob.

[quakerboy]

67. With interest

Starting the day you were born saving one dollar a day, at the interest my credit union gives on moneymarkets, .25%, compounding monthly, if you retire at 65, you will have saved 23,000

Same deal, only saving $10 a day, and you will have saved 230,700.


The difference between the 4% you can pay on a mortgage, the 20% you can pay on a credit card, and the .25% they will pay on an account is quite substantial.

$30 a day in a matress is 22,890 at age 65.
With common account interest, its 23,000
With a better account, you might get 1%, and you end up with 32,000.
At the 4.5 that I pay for my student loans, the number goes to 131,000.
And at the magic 8% that is proposed in the general "save and be a millionaire" scheme its 712,000.
And at the 16.9 my first credit card was at, it jumps to 92,021,000. Oh to be the poor credit card company, with all those default risks, and don't you feel bad for them?

[saras]

70. It doesn't matter what YOU do with that money...

what matters is that ENOUGH people do it. Sure, if you're the one to think of some way of investing money no one else has thought of, or is doing, then the odds are better than normal that you will make money long-term.

BUT.

If what you do is popular enough that it catches on, and there is a real quantity of money involved, you can rest assured that they will find a way to steal it. Whether it's houses, land, gold, stock, government bonds, whatever - if the kitty gets big enough, the hyenas WILL come sniffing around after it.