99%

[riverc0il]

The scales are different

Yup.

 

[deadheadskier]

Which means 30% of the very small group of 400 got there themselves, a decent chunk of them from pretty modest beginnings. Larry Elliot was born to a 19 year old unwed mother, George Lucas's father owned a stationary store and he went to a junior college, etc.

But how much someone else makes doesn't impact your life. Someone from the inner city can get a job at 15, go to community college and get an ok job, and then work on advanced degrees. Or finish high school and get an apprenticeship for skilled trades. And then live within your means. Someone from the bottom 10% will have a very difficult time getting into the top 10%, but except in a pure communist state, that's a fundamental truth. Economic mobility exists.

The fact that we even talk about economic class is solely due to Marx. In order for classes to exist, there need to be actual divisions between classes. There aren't. The distribution of income in the U.S. is a fairly well behaved Pareto distribution. It's not like there's a gap between people in the middle class earning $100K/year or less and those in the upper class making more than $250K/year.

When it comes down to it, we still have the second highest median income in the world, after Luxembourg. Paying attention to what the 1% has that the 99% doesn't serves no purpose except fostering jealousy and false outrage for the pursuits of political gains by the extremely few.

I'll refrain from taking this down the political OWS road other than to say, from my limited reading on OWS, the wealth of the 1% isn't what's being protested, it's the use of that wealth to buy office and sway policy.

All Rivercoil was saying is that it's easier for someone to be a skibum than it is to work into a job paying $300K+ a year. Not a false statement IMO

 

[darent]

the last time I skied powder their sure was a lot of 1% out doing the same thing, tracked out pretty quick

 

[ctenidae]

Pppppppfffffffft

To crack the top 1%, you need an AGI of $343,927. That's within reach of a lot of people who start their own businesses. ...but to get there, you likely didn't have many days off for 20 years and you likely plowed much of your profits back into the business rather than taking heli-skiing trips.

Not my own business, but I have gotten there myself (no legs up from the genetic lottery, to be sure). And I have missed, and continue to miss (as proven every time someone asks "You ski?"), a lot of powder and regular ski days. That's the sacrifice, and will continue to be until I've hit my number.

 

[mondeo]

Not my own business, but I have gotten there myself (no legs up from the genetic lottery, to be sure). And I have missed, and continue to miss (as proven every time someone asks "You ski?"), a lot of powder and regular ski days. That's the sacrifice, and will continue to be until I've hit my number.

Wait, you ski?

 

[drjeff]

I'll refrain from taking this down the political OWS road other than to say, from my limited reading on OWS, the wealth of the 1% isn't what's being protested, it's the use of that wealth to buy office and sway policy.

All Rivercoil was saying is that it's easier for someone to be a skibum than it is to work into a job paying $300K+ a year. Not a false statement IMO

To be a skibum, yes, but all skibums AREN'T 1% powder people by any means, so IMHO the comparsion is still quite valid.

Plus think of it this way. Lets take Killington for example (just because it seems like so many threads around here ultimately end up with K involved, AND K tends to year in and year out have a healthy population of skibums. Lets say that K does 600k skier visit days a year. There's likely going to be about 100K or so people that will be responsible for those 600K visits. Does K have more than 1000 people who are truely 1%'ers?? That just seek out the untracked and will take whatever steps it takes is to get it (Dawn patrol, all backcountry, etc??) I bet that the 1% is a pretty close estimate. Someplaces like Stowe, Jay and MRG might have a higher percentage, but others like Okemo and Stratton will likely offset those. In the end, I bet that it IS a fair comparison

 

[Dylan]

But did any of that 1% get free snow from the rest of us after they turned a huge hairdryer on the slope????