re: .

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Hey bubbeluh, people in your income range and beyond that owned business got sweetheart SBA loans beyond the PPP at very advantageous rates.

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So what? People got loans that they now have to pay back. To keep their businesses afloat that the government single-handedly swamped in the first place.

Thanks, government.

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Stop bitching, you are making a lot of money.

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How about frick you?

The poster to whom you are replying is making an income that is attainable by virtually any US citizen with even an average IQ.

The reason everyone doesn't do it isn't because it takes some extraordinary level of talent—it doesn't. I know a guy who went to trade school to learn all about HVAC units, started his own HVAC sales and repair business, and he easily makes that much...probably more. Anybody with an average IQ could have done that.

I know another guy who makes at least that much selling scrap metal.

What it takes to make that much is sacrifice. Everything comes with a price.

It might mean sacrificing social standing b/c you don't have a college degree and people with degrees don't understand that you make literally 6-7 times the amount of money they do.

It might mean sacrificing time and energy grinding through (and paying for) medical school and several years of earnings while your undergrad buddies are out making money in the world while you're still looking at 4 years of med school and 3 years of residency after that.

It might mean clocking 80+ hours a week in a law firm.

It might mean being willing to be responsible for an entire business instead of just clocking in and clocking out.

It might mean forgoing a pursuit that might have been more interesting to you in lieu of one that provides better for your family.

It almost always involves taking more risk.

It might mean lots of things, but I have never met a single person making that kind of money who wasn't willing to sacrifice way more in some way than the average person, and who had done so.

Actually, I just thought of someone...a college dean.

So I shall amend that statement to qualify, "Outside of academia I have never met a single person making that kind of money who wasn't willing to sacrifice way more in some way than the average person."

Those of us who have done that don't really wish to be called upon by the government to sacrifice EVEN MORE than people who already aren't willing to pay a higher price to be better off financially.

Those of you admonishing Diamond Dog do not understand and will never understand unless or until you make those kinds of sacrifices yourself. So "stop bitching?" frick you. You haven't earned the right to tell him that unless you have achieved the same thing he has.

And this...

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that's the way the tax code works, and from a public policy standpoint, probably should

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is wrong on two counts.

1. I don't know if you missed the IRS chart from before, but the middle class pays the most taxes. The wealthier people become, starting just above the upper middle class, the fewer taxes they pay, because the less of their income is generated by ordinary income. So the rich and the poor pay few taxes, the middle class pays more as a % of income. The upper middle class are overwhelmingly the people who are working the hardest and sacrificing the most—why should they be penalized the most?

2. Why do you think the more money people make, the more they should be taxed? What's the logic behind that? And don't tell me the more people make, the more they benefit from infrastructure, etc. Nobody benefits more than the poor from government provision.