This writer ran a couple of numbers. Let’s say that Elon Musk gets a paltry 3% return on his assets and investments. Let’s say he’s in the 30% tax bracket – highly unlikely, but possible. Based upon those numbers, Elon has a net (after taxes) income of $170 per second! Yes, every second he earns that. In other words, he earns more in one second than the average worker earns in a work day. To make it even more dramatic, he earns more in one minute ($10,000 +), than the average worker earns in 3 + months! Elon earns more in an hour $600,000 than the average worker earns in nearly 20 years. And in just one day, Elon earns more ($14.4 million) than 5 average workers earn in a lifetime! To add to that perspective, Elon could not even figure out how to spend all of the money he has. And yet, if the government took everything that Elon had in taxes, it would only reduce the formally recognized debt by a paltry 0.07%! If you recognize the “off budget” items (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Pensions etc.), Elon’s wealth would reduce the federal debt by an infintessimally small 0.007%!

So, what is the take away message here? Don’t listen to lying, disingenuous, manipulative, Marxist minded, politicians and candidates who say they want the rich to pay their “fair” share (whatever that undefined term means?). For one thing, the people who are paying much more than their “fair” share are the people who are earning $200,000 – $600,000 per year. Those people are paying over 70% of the government expenses, and yet they represent substantially less than 6% of the population, and yet they provide jobs and tax revenues. Take all of their money, and you still wouldn’t make a dent in the Federal budget, but you would surely destroy a lot of tax revenue, businesses and jobs – impoverishing the masses and making them all dependent upon government. Could that actually be the plan?

Lastly, you need to ask yourself, those with that kind of wealth – how much influence do they have on political candidates; let alone those already elected and wanting to become reelected. How in touch with reality are they? If they are not highly principled, will they push for that which is good for all, or just for them?

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