Overnight Open Thread

Rich People Don't Know That They're Rich

When the Obama Rich i.e. those making over $250K a year were asked about whether they personally paid too much in taxes, a majority said yes.

6 percent of Americans in households earning over $250,000 a year think their taxes are "too low." Of that same group, 26 percent said their taxes were "about right," and a whopping 67 percent said their taxes were "too high."

And yet when this same group of high earners was asked whether "upper-income people" paid their fair share in taxes, 30 percent said "upper-income people" paid too little, 30 percent said it was a "fair share," and 38 percent said it was too much.

In fact here is the household income breakdown by quintiles from 2007:

Part of this disconnect is due to the fact that people don't have a good sense for income distribution since they tend to judge their wealth by those above them - the well-off compare themselves to the very-well-off, not to the poor - which explains why people in the upper 1% of all household incomes still refer to themselves as 'middle class'.

But another part comes from the fact that being wealthy ain't what it used to be. Someone pulling in $300K a year lives well, but at best just one or two orders of magnitude better than someone making say $50K. And according to this survey even millionaires don't 'feel like millionaires' until they're worth at least $7 million.

Integrative Complexity

Being richer than 98% of all people and still complaining about the rich. It's a special kind of elite understanding that you don't have the skill for.

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Tonight's post brought to you by ninja turtle:

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posted by Maetenloch at 09:55 PM

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