And That's Not a Bad Thing While your definition of may vary, for Cheap Nike Free Shoes the purposes of a financial website, let assume rich to be in financial terms. Why would anyone want to be rich? Why would anyone want to become more rich? After all, if you believed everything you read and heard, rich people are god-awful heathens who do not care about anyone, or anything except monetary riches and they Nike Air Max shoes would step on someone throat if they could make a dollar Nike Free Run shoes doing it. Rather than take a negative view of the rich, let's try to understand the real reasons why the rich almost always do get richer, and see that this is a road we all travel. Whether the road leads to financial independence, or the poorhouse, the actions we choose make determine our own destination. Or, as the economic clich goes, it is a pie we all have a piece of, and most would either like to have larger or more pieces of the pie. The simplest and most obvious reason the rich get richer, not to mention the least talked about, can be understood by anyone who has passed junior high school math. It is really quite simple - the law of percentages and compounding. To keep the math simple, if a "rich" individual earns 10% a year on $100,000 of savings and investments, he or she will have an additional $10,000 at the end of the year compared to an additional $1,000 on someone else's $10,000 of savings and investments. If both individuals chose to let that cash ride for a second year, assuming a 10% growth/interest rate, the "rich" individual will earn another $11,000 compared to $1,100 for someone else. If this continues for several years, the other individual can accumulate significant riches, but the individual will be exponentially richer provided he or she does not squander it, or make bad investments. The same math applies to compensation increases. A 1% increase on $100K is always going to be more than a 1% increase on $50K. It's a powerful truth that renders taxing the rich useless - they will always get richer simply because they have Jordan shoes and continue to accumulate more. This does not mean they should pay MORE than their fair share, they have paid their fair share. As long as they acquired their riches by legal means, it has nothing to do with my financial status. I am not impaired as a result of another success. Most individuals become rich through a mix of several avenues such as education (doctors and lawyers), creativity (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs), hard work cultivating a marketable talent (Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning), and most of all common sense. Whether it is through education, realizing a creation, or cultivating a marketable talent, all successful individuals have to add some level of hard work to achieve. Still, you can have all the education, creativity, or marketable talents in the world, work hard cultivating them, and squander it all if you don't have an ounce of common sense. We have read time and again about athletes, movie stars, financial professionals, and just about anyone who it all and lost it. The road to financial independence and the road to the poor house is one we all drive on and has many paths, but we should be free to choose our own route. Many scenarios can play out between where we start and where we end up. Thomas Jefferson quotation in the Declaration of Independence, hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, still holds true today. We may have different families, attend different schools, live in different places, but we are all born with the Jordan 14 ability to succeed and overcome deficiencies in families, education, neighborhood and most other tribulations. Alternatively, we can choose to give up. We should be free to choose our own route and if most strive to improve, why do only the successful people get most vilified? I am all for helping those who cannot help themselves (some people are born mentally or physically disabled and not all can overcome those limitations) but we should tax those who choose to be a tax on society too. You cannot discriminate against those who are successful, and not those who arguably are not. All of this begs the question, if the rich can not only get richer, but they can also go broke, and the poor individual can stay poor, but could also become rich, don't both types of individuals theoretically have the same opportunity? The odds of some scenarios are higher than others, but all of the scenarios have been accomplished. At the moment I consider my personal situation to be slightly above average with cheap air max great potential to be above average. Hopefully one day I will have enough to easily support a family and easily be able to significantly help others who can help themselves. I am trying to drive the road to success, and will have many clear paths and some dangerous curves along the way, but I do not appreciate those who are trying to create a steep, icy, and curvy hill in my path. Those who financially have more than I do, are either more educated, more creative, make better investment decisions, have cultivated a marketable talent, or inherited it all. Again, what those individuals do still has no bearing on my ability to attain financial independence. Rather than taxing and (recklessly) spending, to hopefully redistribute the wealth (although there is no guarantee because wise decisions have to be made by others), an environment should be created where we all can get rich - if we choose. Even if you are not the materialistic type, most would like to have more financial resources to live the life they dream of. It doesn have to be all about self-indulgence, it could also be for philanthropic purposes. Instead of worrying who has the most pieces of the pie, as a nation we need to take the steps to bake a larger pie so we can all not only have more pieces, but larger pieces too. Since we cannot keep most of the rich from getting richer, and most of us would like to be one of them anyway, let's not make it more difficult for the rest of us.