For me the biggest appealing thing about being rich is not worrying what bills you can’t pay or where the money for school clothes is going to come from.
Also there is the ability of going to a person who needs help and making it the happiest day of their life by help them get back on there feet. Help them get off the street and help them find a job and a place to live.
It is me and my husband’s dream to be rich enough to own an apartment build where we only rent to homeless people and we help them get their lives back together.
I think the biggest appeal of wealth is the degree of freedoms it tends to give. To more easily live or seek the life you want, to realize your potential and dreams, to explore and create. To take care of those you love. The freedom from many worries or reduced need to worry about everything from making sure basic needs are provided, to not worrying about losing your job or sudden unexpected expenses- and yes- as both a security and a method of living the life you want- you often don’t have to worry about certain consequences as much or at all.
For some of these guys- including a man I worked for when I was younger- a ticket that is worth a working man’s weekly wage is worth t for them to speed as is a $350 handicap ticket. As the man I used to work for once said: “they rarely catch me, and for the times they do catch me, my time is worth more than that. If I were late all the times they didn’t catch me- I’d lose more money than paying the price to get their faster.” (Paraphrased.)
But.... we constantly complain that rich people don’t pay back to society. Most people won’t pay $16,000 in tickets in their lives- and that money goes back to local governments. If you go down town to large cities where these rich folks work and play- meter parking can be $3-6 an hour. In Silicon Valley and the Bay Area parking can be $20 an hour or more sometimes, and renting a space if you live or work on the city..? Usually averages around $500 or a little more.
So the rules already favor the rich. It’s the same for rent or anything else- if you can afford it and Jeff Bezos can afford it- for him it will be a much smaller percentage of his income than for you. Passes to hip lines at a theme park, medical care, school for the kids, rent, parking, and yeah- tickets.
We COULD do what some other places have already done- make tickets a percentage of income rather than a flat fee- but lots of folks get upset about that- it’s already the case with things like income adjusted housing or medical etc- “why do I have to pay $400 for this ticket, when someone who doesn’t work as hard as me gets to pay $10? I’m carrying their share!”
Perhaps the bigger issue? Jeff Bezos makes about $80,000- for the Bay Area that’s not enough to be considered oddly class. “No he doesn’t. He’s a billionaire. I read he makes a jillion dollars a day!” Look it up. $80k is his salary. He IS a billionaire. He has stocks and investments and all sorts of things that add to his worth- which gives home excellent credit and little risk of defaulting as he can essentially make money appear if he needs actual cash. But there’s an important thing you need to know that this illustrates...
What people “make” is a very contentious thing- usually the more you make, the less you “make.” Confused? Ever hear of this or that rich person paying no tax or very little tax? Ever hear this or that huge company- Amazon being an example- pays little or no taxes? Yet... they make billions? Not on paper they don’t. You see- there are ways to “shield” income. Perfectly legal- a system that is intended to be balanced and fair, encourage people to build jobs and homes and stimulate the economy and do “good” and acknowledge the contributions of people who already paid some “debt” to society through charity and such.
But it is a system that can be “abused” or at least “gamed” to try and keep the most money and benefit you possibly can- and of course most people who want to do well will take every advantage they can get- especially if it is written into the rules as fair game.
So how do you decide what a person makes to charge them a ticket proportional to their income? Well... if you do their “net worth..” that’s probably not a great idea. Asides the fact that can be hard to calculate and take a lot of time and resources to really investigate- it has the same problem as the other popular answer of “use their GROSS instead of net”: namely- that again hurts the less fortunate more than the wealthy.
How do? Well- Dave makes $50,000 a year. Let’s say he takes home $40k- a reasonable “average” of tax for that salary. He also has $800 a month deducted for medical for him and the family- leaving 30,400. So he can retire without living on the street he puts a conservative (you falsely should generally try for 20%..) 15% in his 401- leaving him $22,900- or $1908 a month for rent/mortgage, and all other expenses Dave has.
Off his gross... Dave makes $4166 a month. So a ticket that 1% monthly income for Dave should cost $19.08 cents- but it would cost him $41.66- almost double. A ticket for 10% like perhaps a speeding ticket- should cost him $190 but would cost $410. I hope you’ve never been so tight in money that $20 was make or break- I have. I k is many who have- that $20 can be all you have left until payday. Going off gross hurts Dave.
If we do gross on someone making $500k a year- the numbers all get bigger- well... they may actually manage to keep a larger percent of income after tax than Dave. So they start out with more and end up with more after taxes. But at the end of the day- the “average” person paying tax on $500k is left with about $350k after taxes.
Quite a bit more than Dave. Let’s say we take a fine that is 1% of their income... they pay $5,000. Wow. That stings. But proportionally they should feel the hit the same as Dave did for the $400 right? Well... not exactly. They make $29,000 a month. They are far less likely to rack up 20 parking tickets if those tickets would cost them $100k to pay off... but at $29k a month.. losing $5k will still have you taking home more than double what most folks do. You still aren’t exactly really FEELING this hit quite the same. You also have better lawyers. At $500 a ticket it probably isn’t worth what your lawyer would cost to have them fight 20 tickets. For $5,000 each- you might fight them- and trust me, I e seen rich people with great lawyers walk away from things like DUI, driving with a suspended license, and more.
So now instead of paying the money to the city- they’re just as likely to lawyer up- and quite possibly get off, and now the money goes to a rich lawyer instead of somewhere in the public budget. Not exactly a win...
It can start to get real complex. What happens when someone is making HUGE money- say an athlete- but they get hurt and lose it all? A bad knee and no endorsements, and now they have $50,000 in parking tickets but are making $10-40 an hour.. how does that work? What happens one a person goes bankrupt? Even the president has done that. Several times. Which... coincidentally raises the question- for the ultra wealthy who have people to advise them and who know laws and who use them to their benefit- what makes you think that those people would t find the loopholes and still use them to get our if things, while everyone else was stuck with them? The president can declare bankruptcy as a “smart business decision” and end up still somehow owning lots of property and such- but Dave making $50k? He can’t use bankruptcy and lawyers to get our out of his tickets when he doesn’t have the $400 can he?
Also there is the ability of going to a person who needs help and making it the happiest day of their life by help them get back on there feet. Help them get off the street and help them find a job and a place to live.
It is me and my husband’s dream to be rich enough to own an apartment build where we only rent to homeless people and we help them get their lives back together.