Say you invent something cool. Its 10k for a patent attorney, 20k to 100k for a prototype, you need a business license and you are going to incur a fair amount in secondary costs. Your income is 30k, your rent is 8k (if you are that lucky. Considerably more expensive if an owner), income taxes 4k, Transport to work 3.7k, Food 2.5k, Vehicle Insurance 1k, Clothing .5k, Vehicle Maintenance .8k, Social Security/Medicare taxes 2.4k, Sales Taxes 2.6k.
This leaves you about 5.5k per year, assuming a very minimal existance, shelter, and getting back and forth to work. If you are a smoker you drop another 2k per year. If you want health insurance that finishes you. These funds represent a typical job in the state of Washington at $15/hour and the state of the local economy. If you are a non-smoker you are fortunate enough to be able to actually pocket about $80 per month of pure joyous profit in exchange for your 160 hours of labor per month.
Guess what, you can forget about contributing to society by releasing your invention, unless you are very good at getting other people to give you money for a startup. Since your financial situation is borderline and it is likely that you will occaisionally make an unwise expenditure, your credit is probably in trouble anyhow. Ironically, if your credit is less than stellar things will cost you more. Most people use this to actually acquire a reliable means of transport, the figures above presume the vehicle is owned outright.
Under these circumstances there is no margin for error. Chances are you don't have medical insurance since it is a voluntary expense, so you throw the dice every day. You may dodge your vehicle insurance and car registration fees but that is only a temporary solution, since the fines will cost as much or more when they catch up with you, which they have a high probability of doing so. That is of course, presuming that you don't wreck your car in which case you are probably unable to get to work and your problem is immediately compounded.
The system is pretty heavily rigged as it stands.
Now, there is the other guy. The successful one. They generally fall into these categories:
1. He made all the right choices by the time he was in his early twenties and navigated school and has an income which enables him to make progress, despite outstanding student loans
2. He successfully engaged in black market commerce and has a sizeable chunk of cash for an investment, this presumes of course that he escaped the numerous perils of this career path.
3. He has a rich relative and was basically sponsored into his starting position.
4. He is unusually gifted at sales which enables a higher income than his peers.
5. He possesses another talent which allows him to output saleable merchandise on a piece by piece basis at a significant profit (generally applies to artists and artisans)
The second person is typically characterized by either significant starting advantages or a unique skill set. He may or may not be more beneficial to society as a whole. There are many cases where the second person is essentially parasitic in behavior, although he judges himself to be superior and more useful by virtue of his money score. He tends to forget that society functions and he exists as a result of the labors of a significant supporting cast.
While the second individual realizes significant income above his baseline costs, the first does not. This magnifies the level of disparity between both, who are theoretically productive members of society. The second individual if intelligent, has acquired a good accountant and lawyers as he has the surplus income to do so. In many cases, that individual creates a corporate shield and effectively pays no taxes, or at least a lower amount percentage wise. These are the same people who support tax cuts for the wealthy and think it is advantageous to shift burden to the more financially marginal members of society. This is short term thinking and ultimately creates a top heavy society (particularly when factors such as compounded lending interest rates are brought in). The upshot is a society where 1% of the populace controls the majority of the wealth, 4 people of 20 are extremely well off in terms of real discretionary income and the others struggle to support them and their appetites.
The wall street situation represents the collapse of this pyramid and the piper is coming to collect his due. The Obama victory was nearly inevetible, although McCain made a surprisingly strong stand given the circumstances.
The exit polls merely state the obvious and are symptomatic of the greater situation. To the guy that is complaining about making a profit on his home, he should count himself as lucky. It will not be too long before he is likely to realize how lucky he is to have a home at all. They sold you a war and a speculation game and if you got out with your shirt and still have a viable means of income, you did pretty good. Doesn't matter who they put in now, the deferred payment plan of the Neocons is coming due and everyone is going to be paying long and hard for this one.
