Are ALL very wealthy people crooks? I'm thinking about all the dirty deals involving The Con, and

[napi21]

those around him where dirt keeps flowing daily. I'm really wondering if it's even possible for someone to become very wealthy without being involved in some illegal activities along the way.

[ginnyinWI]

1. How about Bill Gates and Warren Buffet?

They are philanthropists.

[JI7]

3. Gates and Buffet are able to show how they got wealthy. but most who can't or wont show it

did it through corrupt means.

[Hortensis]

34. No, silly. We have over 16 MILLION millionaires, over

5000 centimillionaires, over 500 billionaires.

It's entirely possible to become wealthy without being corrupt, or even unethical. The laws are on their side, and there are plenty who disapprove of the funneling effect of those laws and worry, just like us, about what increasing economic inequality is doing to their country.

Btw, wealthy people poll HIGHEST among those who believe political campaigns should be government funded, i.e., no or extremely restricted private money.

[dchill]

4. Don't know about Buffet, but Bill Gates...

Is reported to have sold an early operating system called CP/M to IBM - that wasn't his to sell. It was created by Gary Kildall, who never got paid for his efforts. Microsoft has a long history of questionable dealings with smaller, yet creative and original companies; either by buying them out or copying their products and appropriating them into the Microsoft domain.

It is hard for me to imagine that, outside of the fields of creative output, anyone can become fabulously wealthy without some kind of larceny involved.

Just my opinion.

[TeamPooka]

8. Gates also ripped off Apple' GUI design and other stuff. Microsoft was never the good guy

in their corporate buyouts and acquisitions.
Pirates of Silicon Valley

[dchill]

11. That should be their corporate motto...

"never the good guy"

[Orrex]

17. Didn't Apple rip off the GUI from Xerox, though?

[BruceWane]

24. Kinda true, kinda not

Xerox didn't invent the graphical user interface, but they did refine it a lot - especially the "mouse", and the use of icons instead of a purely text menu-driven interface.

There had been efforts to use various types of pointing devices with a display screen to control computers and/or electronics for decades, so Xerox couldn't really patent the idea.

Apple and Microsoft both took a lot of influence form Xerox's Star workstation.

[Orrex]

25. Interesting--thanks!

I could have Googled, but I always like to hear someone else's explanation.

[JCanete]

7. I'd be careful with bandying about philanthropist. These two are among the RICHEST

two people in the world, and I would suspect that their companies didn't do everything with integrity and human decency in every nation they operated in to get them there. Arguably, they had a lot of power to direct their companies differently.

Gates has consistently lobbied congress since way back to bring in foreign tech workers, which is a far cheaper solution than having our industries do what they used to do, which is to put in the investment to train people at home. I've got mixed feelings about this because I'm glad it has helped to bring other places in the world up into the technological age(I"m assuming)...

but if you will note, every rich person is a "philanthropist," just ask the sycophant PR people on the business networks who tell you so. Yes, some actually give real money back to causes, versus those who set up fake charities and funnel money back to themselves and allied interests, and if Bill and Melinda do actually donate everything they've amassed into charity(depending on what that charity is) when they pass, well that is one legacy that could have a huge impact.

[TeamPooka]

9. My uncle used to say "philanthropy" is an old Latin word for "relieving the guilt of getting rich."

[unblock]

2. behind every great fortune there is a great crime.

[napi21]

5. It's sad that is he case. My guess is even Warren Bufet has SOME questionable dealings in his past.

I hate that fact, but it looks like all of you agree with me.

[KittyWampus]

15. No. We don't.

[Hugo24601]

6. No

[DrDan]

10. of course it is possible

[Bradical79]

12. How are we defining "very wealthy"?

I'd still say no to ALL being crooks. Some were just lucky with stocks, or came up with a product someone wanted to give them a lot of money for (like the creator of Minecraft, for example).

[Lucinda]

13. Nope. n/t

[KittyWampus]

14. No, and frankly the OP is stupid. Are sports figures and artists who are wealthy crooks?

What about the musicians and actors?

[bettyellen]

29. I agree- this kind of absolutism is not a good thing.

[Blue_Warrior]

16. Using "ALL" isn't doing you any favors.

[Orrex]

18. Yes, all of them. They all stole my lunch from the fridge in the department's kitchenette.

[Victor_c3]

19. I would say many are

I don't have a problem with wealth or the rich - so long as they actually added something of value to our society.

Inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, etc all add something of value to our society. However people like commodity traders and such are just eating off the fat of our labors and make the world worse off in the pursuit of trying to make their next billion dollars.

[HughBeaumont]

20. Dunno about "crooks", but nearly all of them have a conservative bent of some kind.

Especially when it comes to economic matters. Deep down, they believe in the Reaganomics that got them to where they are.

At the end of the day, they could all work together to change the world's narrative and still be wealthy.

They just choose not to.

Can't really turn to anyone when they're all purchased.

[Hortensis]

21. No. But as Buffet said, "There's class warfare, but it's my class,

the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Lower taxes paid by the wealthy are only one way to stack the deck for the wealthy.

Most hire whole firms, a bunch of them in various fields, to maximize their abilities to make profits, always more and more profits, and many of them have always been paying firms to change the laws to do that legally. So, if you're wealthy, society has been structurally engineered to flow more and more of our national wealth into your pockets--legally. No need to break the law at all.

Like injecting extra liquid into meat sold by weight--perfectly legal up to a point (which we should expect to be raised, if the regulation setting limits is not completely eliminated).

This below was Buffet on taxes back in 2011, but of course the war continues. Obama raised taxes on personal income for the wealthy to pre- Reagan levels, and Hill and the Dems meant to do much more. While some billionaires are liberals and believe that is needed, for those like the Kochs and Mercers, though, ANY tax beyond what's necessary to provide police and military protection to them is unacceptable.

Actually, there’s been class warfare going on for the last 20 years, and my class has won. We’re the ones that have gotten our tax rates reduced dramatically. If you look at the 400 highest taxpayers in the United States in 1992, the first year for figures, they averaged about $40 million of [income] per person. In the most recent year, they were $227 million per person — five for one. During that period, their taxes went down from 29 percent to 21 percent of income. So, if there’s class warfare, the rich class has won.

[Doremus]

22. It's as difficult for a compassionate person to become very wealthy as it is

for a camel to pass through a needle's eye.

Not all wealthy people are evil (many if not most of them inherited their money), but the original acquirers of the fortune are often seemingly bereft of any human soul. A willingness to steamroll over anything in the path and tough crap to the losers is a prerequisite which eliminates all but the sociopaths among us.

[erinlough]

23. I don't know if they all do illegal things but

I do find when working with rich people that some are serial users. They call it "good business" but from the other side, at least for me, it is a pattern of selfishness and an uncaring attitude toward the service provider.

[Alice11111]

30. My observation, many rich, not most, are philanthropists.

I've thought a lot about this, and I've had the opportunity to observe a lot of their practices. I'll define wealthy as billionaires. Not surprising, the philanthropists tend to be Democrats...Buffett, Gates, Jobs, Soros, Zuckerberg, Branson, Carlos Slim...The other set of billionaires, the "mine is mine," mindset believe the non wealthy are trying to take what is rightfully theirs away. They tend to believe that the lazy moochers and welfare cheaters are out to get them, and they will rob their graves for death taxes. They are Repubs like the Kochs, Mercers, Wynns Trumps....

Often, the philanthropist types started with nothing and worked hard- maybe they are not so afraid of NOT being wealthy, because they had a pretty good life, by their set of values, before they were wealthy, and they respect the non wealthy as people.

The very wealthy stanch Repubs often have a huge head start through inheritance, or even believe work is a middle class stigma. Their values include that there is a connection between righteousness and wealth, and they don't much enjoy soiling themselves w the less righteous. These are Generalizations and observations, not categorical statements...exceptions, obviously.

Generally, the philanthropic types and the MINE is Mine types don't much like each other, sort of like Dems and Repubs. Many admire Buffett's skill at making money, but they always add a disclaimer if they speak well of him for his skill. Buffett and Gates types, who are not too political, are detested by most of the second category of billionaires, partly because the philanthropist types dislike the wealthy not paying their fair share of taxes, including estate taxes. Blasphemy to the non philanthropist billionaires.

The estate tax does not even apply to couples at all, unless they have over around $11 million (though the MINE group would have us thinking that grave robbers are going to be taking the gold out of your teeth and that of the coal miners on their deaths). The ME or MINE billionaires do not like the philanthropists class because they speak out from time to time about the inequities of the system and how it is structured to make the rich richer...it is supposed to be a closely held secret. Uncouth to speak about. It should never be spoken about, particularly to the masses of working poor or middle class, who have been made to be afraid of the grave robbers who are going to steal their small savings from their kids.

I've represented and worked for all classes. Give me a working class person any day over an entitled billionaire. In fact, I politely make excuses not to work for them. They are so used to people fawning all over them, that they can't stand being politely told, no. The entitled billionaires will often stiff you, if they can, once they have used you beyond respectful, normal boundaries, & been extremely demanding, while trying to make you feel lucky and indebted to them, for working your ass off, on their capricious schedule....just like the DTs, they see their behavior as "smart," & "good business." IMO

[Zambero]

26. Not necessarily

And not all crooks are wealthy, or smart for that matter. Then there is Donald Trump. Everything matches up.

[JustAnotherGen]

27. No

[RKP5637]

28. As with anything, some are, some aren't. It's the outrageous ones we generally hear of on MSM, so

it's easy to assume all are.

[shrike]

31. A lot are.

Don't ask me how I know this.

[wildeyed]

32. They play the capitalist game well.

In capitalism, there are winners and losers. It can be brutal. The rules are fuzzy sometimes. Are they all crooks? I guess it depends on how you see the game they play. Are all NFL football players brutal? I know a few who lead exemplary lives off the field, but when they get their game face on, there is no mercy. They couldn't BE in the NFL otherwise. I guess it is the same for really rich people. They must prioritize wealth in ways that don't interest most of us.

But Trump is a crook and so are a bunch of his associates. That is fact.

[Johnny2X2X]

33. Not all, but most are crooked

I'll leave the huge businesses out of my discussions. Think locally, there are many ways to run a small business, but the ways that leave the owner(s) extremely rich almost always involve screwing over 1 or more of the customer, the employees, or the suppliers.

You can run a small business, pay fair wages and benefits, provide value to your customers, and deal honestly and fairly with suppliers. You can so this and make a great living and set you family up very well, you can be a multi millionaire even operating this way. But to be really filthy rich running a small business, 99% of the time the owners are screwing one group or more over.

And the self righteousness of the super rich small businessman is absolutely sickening. They think they re the masters of the universe because they've played the game in a way that has made them wildly rich at the cost of harming others. And this particular breed of crook will jump through endless hoops to try to clear their own conscious. They'll advertise about their charity (which they only do for the marketing and tax benefits), they'll brag about creating jobs, they'll brag about tithing at church. And they hate the government because the government is what prevents them from being a bigger crook.

The problem is that dishonesty is rewarded and honesty is punished at all levels for business owners. It takes rare character for someone to do what is right when it comes to money and not just what is barely legal.

[jalan48]

35. The better question to me is why do we need a system where a handful of individuals have

the combined wealth equal to that of billions of their fellow citizens? I'm sorry but what is the point of amassing so much money you can never even spend it all? It's obscene.

[Calculating]

36. Most are

You simply don't make it to the very top in our society without stepping on a bunch of little guys getting there. Just look at CEOs like Zuckerberg who've had to settle with people they stole ideas from. Look at Elon Musk. Without getting government aid continually TSLA would have gone nowhere. I'd say that <5% of the very wealthy are genuinely ethical people.