Do you know any truly rich people (someone who consistently maked $500+k per year)?

This is awesome because its so true. I am not a Wall Street guy... but I am pretty well educated, make about 250k a year, and live a nice life. I recognize what Wall Street does for this country. Those who don't really aren't that intelligent.

When the credit markets dry up, you can't get a car, a student loan, a home. You can't pay your people, buy another company, merge with one. What does "Wall Street" do? It makes it possible for us to have 401ks, investment portfolios, and a higher standard of living. It allows insurance companies to match its assets and liabilities, it allows manufacturing companies the ability to buy manufacturing equipment.

Without Wall Street, NONE of us would be working. Like it or not, it is the MOST vital and important industry in this country.

DocLove wrote:

'I don't have a need to project success with my vehicle'

But you do need to project your success on here!

INCORRECT! Many of you make more money than I do, and knowing how to save and invest the money you make is not talking about your success at all. Any of you can find a way to put 15-20% of your income away so that you will have a nice retirement. I talk about it because I KNOW it can be don, and if you have two incomes and no kids, there's just no excuse at all for not ending up stinking rich (and in a short amount of time too).

goldman wrote:

not all the poor are lazy (just most). But more importantly, in the end I'm still making bank. I still have money in excess of what the materialistic side of me desires.

goldman you seem like a reasonable enough guy and I don't disagree with much of what you say. If you would just remove "I'm making bank" from your vocabulary, you would be a little less annoying. I don't normally root against people, but you make it so hard.

Someone wrote:

This is awesome because its so true. I am not a Wall Street guy... but I am pretty well educated, make about 250k a year, and live a nice life. I recognize what Wall Street does for this country. Those who don't really aren't that intelligent.

When the credit markets dry up, you can't get a car, a student loan, a home. You can't pay your people, buy another company, merge with one. What does "Wall Street" do? It makes it possible for us to have 401ks, investment portfolios, and a higher standard of living. It allows insurance companies to match its assets and liabilities, it allows manufacturing companies the ability to buy manufacturing equipment.

Without Wall Street, NONE of us would be working. Like it or not, it is the MOST vital and important industry in this country.

Sure, Wall Street serves a function. But in the carrying out of their function, they always realize how they can game the system to skim the most off it as possible. They don't even mind nearly destroying the system in doing so. Like Goldman Sachs selling mortgage-based products while placing bets against them.

You know, plumbers also serve a function, but the unscrupulous ones install really crappy hardware into new developments knowing full well they'll be hired a few years later to clean up the mess.

'INCORRECT! Many of you make more money than I do, and knowing how to save and invest the money you make is not talking about your success at all. Any of you can find a way to put 15-20% of your income away so that you will have a nice retirement. I talk about it because I KNOW it can be don, and if you have two incomes and no kids, there's just no excuse at all for not ending up stinking rich (and in a short amount of time too).[/quote]

Started off well, then went down hill. I think you just can't help yourself!

That isn't the definition of savings rate. When they talk about american savings rates things like 401ks, stock market portfolios and investment property don't count. You might not like the definition but it is the one that is used when you see things like americans have negative savings rates or we save less than asia.An most companies don't get money for day to day operations from wall street. They get it from their income. Companies do issue bonds occassionally or do secondary offering but those are a small fraction of the trades. Most stock trades are between 2 parties and the company get zero dollars either way.

My fiance and I will come very close to earning $500K a year once our respective incomes are combined. It certainly makes life easier, and provides us with a sense of security. Presuming we continue to work hard, stay focused and manage our assets, we should be ok in the long run. We go on modest trips, have nice cars, but make every effort to stay grounded and aware that not everyone is in the same position economically as us.

The best part is that neither of us came from wealthy families. We both put ourselves through college and graduate school, and pursued challenging, yet successful professions. Whatever we have, we earned ourselves.

my dad makes about 400k I don't know the exact figure. its enough so that my brothers and I didn't have to take out student loans and we share a used ford focus. we went to public elementary and high school. other than that theres nothing about us that you would point us out as being rich. my dad works real hard and he's gonna get slammed when the bush tax cuts expire.

TK1451 wrote:

Those of you hating on Wall Street for not serving any purpose, unless you work for the government or are self-employed, where do you think your company gets the funds to conduct it's day-to-day operations (including paying your salary)? The same thing goes for CEOs. If a $3 million/yr CEO wasn't worth $2.8M more than a $200K CEO, then companies would hire a $200K one.

Logically this would seem true, however CEOs are usually hired because they are "in" with rich people. At a small company level, this gives access to capital investors and the CEO is really not "running" the company. At a large company level, this is almost purely cronyism - they know people on the board and have made money for them in the past.

A CEO position is really a payback for previous money made for board members. That is why there are golden parachutes and bonuses that have nothing to do with current or future performance of the company. If companies were really interested in getting the most out of a CEO and long term development of their business, they would pay almost purely performance based, such as X% of quarterly/yearly profits and stock options that vested over 4-5 years. This is not how they operate, so clearly this is not their goal.

If we outsourced the CEO of a Fortune 500 company to India the way they outsource IT, we could have the same stupid decisions at 1/10th the price. But that 1/10th would cut the bottom line the same as laying off 1000s of employees who actually do work to make the products that actually make companies money.

My father-in-law is an ex CEO. Of course Obama wants you to believe that he is evil and we should all hate people like him, but if you actually met him you might be surprised. He did make a lot of money, but he worked his ass off for it and sacrificed a lot to get where he was. He is a loving father and grandfather. He is generous. When we go out to eat it is usually someplace like Applebee's. He doesn't walk around or live with some security team. The last time I was at his house he was doing some drywall repair...like he was doing it himself.

I know many attorneys that make more then $500,000. Some of them get that for a bonus each year :)

My wife and I gross about $700,000. we have been doing that for a few years but before that were in school for a long long time. I am 40 and she is 35. We have two apartments- one worth 1,000,000 and one worth 300,000. we have 1,200,000 saved but owe almost 300,000 on the apartments. Our big expense is childcare. We have a bunch a friends who make much less but we all live a pretty similar lifestyles- working and taking care of the kids. We tend to get together and have dinner- we all seem to eat roughly the same quality food, listen to the same music and read the same books. The biggest difference between our live styles seems to be the amout of savings we have.

No, but do you know any people that truly bullshit on LRC?

Anoid,

I have no allegiance to Wall Street, so I call it like I see it (and know it). You're partly correct. There will always be people gaming the system... just like you say. But to say that Goldman was selling mortgage-based products while placing bets against them, is a HORRIBLE example. That is OK. Goldman, by your own definition, is largely there to originate and distribute... providing markets in securities for willing buyers and/or sellers. They don't have to, nor should they, sit on any risk. In a perfect world, Goldman would go home completely hedged every night... which is what they did with there AIG exposure. I found quite funny how the media and our government hated on Goldman for over a year, saying a bail out for AIG was a bail out for Goldman. In fact, we had Blankfein and others saying a failure in AIG, outside of the obvious ramifications across ALL financial institutions as far as confidence and what not, was largely meaningless to them. They had no material exposure to AIG. People laughed. They scoffed. They said that was impossible. Now, quiet back page stories of the Wall Street Journal talk about how Goldman was actually hedged!

I only mention this because hedging their risk and exposure is what is PRUDENT. Selling mortgage-backed products and then betting against them is not unethical.

WHAT IS UNETHICAL is pitching a deal as safe, when you in fact know it is not. Its Henry Boldget pumping internet stocks that he knew were crap. Its Countrywide originating loans to obviously unqualified buyers. Its a trader front-loading the P&L, back loading the risk... lying about marks when pricing his book to boost his profits.

Hedging, even betting against investors you do business with? I don't consider that unethical or inappropriate.

I really think if you THINK about this from an objective perspective, you will agree. I am NOT disagreeing with your point, but your example is not a solid one. There are plenty of solid examples where you don't have to follow the party line and accept what the media feeds you (which is largely false, though their message may be right).

And asdfasdfasdasdfasdfasdfa, you're wrong. Roughly 2000 of the most important companies in this country issue commercial paper. There is over a TRILLION dollars in Commercial Paper outstanding. I don't know the stats, but I would guess a large portion of the population is employed by those 2000 companies.

wow, you REALY, REALLLLLY love yourself, huh?

And it's pretty funny how sure you are that you are will be worth 10 million in no time. Did you learn ANYthing from the recent economic crash??? Lots of people as rich of you lost nearly everything and don't even have a job now. If there hadn't been the bailouts, you might have been in that boat too. It could happen again.

And you do come off as douchebag.

(and no, this is not jealousy, I am worth a lot more than you. I married $. Yeah, me and the guy who posted before you, and many, many more are rich through no "merit or hard work" of their own. Just luck. You might need to re-calibrate your figures on what % of rich people got riches their through hard work. Some, like you, had a combination of luck ( face it, your family environment and genes played a role in your success, and probably some twists of fate that you got into certain positions), had work, and exceptional drive to become rich. And it looks like you are on your way to achieving that goal while looking down on the lazy poor. Bravo. Now go drive off a cliff on a segway.

Short and confused wrote:

My wife and I gross about $700,000.

Our big expense is childcare.

taking care of the kids

your kids can spend that money on therapy to deal with being raised by parents who put money first

Someone wrote:

What does "Wall Street" do? It makes it possible for us to have 401ks, investment portfolios, and a higher standard of living. It allows insurance companies to match its assets and liabilities, it allows manufacturing companies the ability to buy manufacturing equipment.

Without Wall Street, NONE of us would be working. Like it or not, it is the MOST vital and important industry in this country.

Fine-- answer this question:

What does Wall Street do today that it didn't do in the 1970's?

The Venetians invented insurance. Jewish bankers in medieval Europe provided capital. Mutual funds started in the 1800's in the Netherlands.

Why all the sudden did financial services go from 20% or so of GDP in 1980 to 30% or so in 2005?

Wait a second-- a couple of posts ago people in Wall Street were the most talented, intelligent, and ambitious people in the world and that justified their salaries.

Now they are just "strongly motivated by lifestyle" and have some "requisite intelligence."

Which is it?

So what? There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be young, healthy, and physically attractive, either.

This doesn't mean that society should spend a disproportionately large fraction of its resources supporting those desires...

So now we are back to to the salary being justified by "talent, drive, and intelligence."

I still find it amazing that you don't know any people outside your given profession who are brilliant, talented, driven, and intelligent. Do you not talk to other human beings?

They are just be untalented, lazy, and stupid doctors, lawyers, professors, mechanics, and engineers...

Sorry-- I couldn't help myself...

So why doesn't capitalism work in the banking industry? Maybe because it is not exclusively based on merit? Maybe the banking industry has erected barrier to entry that stop capitalism from reallocating labor to drive down those salaries?

If this isn't the case-- then please tell me what it is...

Have you never met anyone with a health issue? Have you never met anyone who came from a broken home? Whose parent was an alcoholic? Even someone whose parents didn't make them sit down to study and help them with their algebra? How about someone who trained for a profession that disappeared? Someone who stopped school to care for a parent but never got a chance to get back in? Never met a woman who grew up in a rural neighborhood where women were expected to stay home with the kids?

Is your world really as simple as "anyone who doesn't make a ton of money is unable or incompetent?

4runner wrote:

How about someone who trained for a profession that disappeared?

This is exactly what I was thinking when I read goldman's obnoxious post. My brother studied film photographer for 4 years with the goal of working for a major newspaper. He accomplished his goal. Until the entire industry basically rolled over and died. He tried to adapt - he learned digital photography (which is actually quite different) - he even learned digitial video and posted them on the newspaper's internet equivalent. But ultimately, his profession just sort of crapped him out. At 34 now he's switched careers because he got sick of salary stagnation and working in a dying industry. BTW, he was top 3% in Glenbrook North High School (Illinois) and had a 4.0 at Penn. SAT was over 1300. Has never made more than $40k per year.