Monaco Chauffeur Shares Rich People Confessions That Stuck With Him: “Haven’t Laughed In Over A Year”

No, that is not true. For example, does a person who feels REALLY sad because they ruined their favorite shoes when they kicked a kitten to death deserve empathy? I would guess that your answer would be "HELL NO!!!".

I think they're just trying to point out the hypocrisy. To many people it seems obvious that "rich" people should contribute more, but they fail to accept that from many angles they themselves are part of the 'rich'.

I am firmly middle class and I agree that am part of the world 'rich'. I grew up in poverty and now I am responsible for supporting my mother in her old age as well as my brother with a disability and my two kids. I donate monthly to the local food pantry and volunteer every week. I work a full time job with a comfortable salary, live in a modest family home and still have to budget every pay check. I am rich in world standards, but I am still firmly middle class. When we talk about wealthy we are talking about people who earn **millions** and **billions** of dollars a year. We are talking about the top 1% of the population. We are talking about the people who could not possibly spend the amount of money they have, even in 3 lifetimes. They would never have been able to get that obscenely wealthy without exploiting the poor or inheriting it from someone else who exploited the poor. The middle class needs to stop defending the wealthy.

I'm just saying that wealthy people who claim loneliness and sadness because of their wealthy lifestyle can alleviate a lot of that "suffering" through Charitable acts. I know that it helps me. Helping others in the best ways that I can, using my skills, advantages and privilege makes me feel a lot less lonely and sad.

Hit the nail on the head, have an upvote.

I made the choice to stop driving at 20 years of age, nearly 22 years ago at this point. I eat meat once a month, at most, i haven't had fast food in 15 years, my wife and i have a small farm at her families country house, i've turned the garden outside our apartment building (30x150ft) into a micro farm. Vertical farming up the side of the building, the majority of fruit, veg and herbs we consume in any given year, we grow...and we give hundreds of pounds of everything away to family, friends and food donations. I have never bought anything from amazon. Not once. I spend 2 hours a day, at a minimum feeding, medicating, steralizing and sometimes even finding homes for the countless strays in our city. I've detailed on here before, that i stopped counting the number of dead animals i named, loved and cared for when i passed 200...that was more than a decade ago and it hasn't slowed down, but we've placed over 100 cats and 30 some dogs with families....

Food, meds, sterilization, all of it out of my pocket, i don't broadcast myself on social media, i don't ask for donations, i don't ask anyone else to give a d**n....because i do. So i do something about it. I take my 75 year old mother, whom we moved from the US to the EU 4 years ago, shopping twice a week, i run errands for her daily, and my wife and i spend 5-8 hours of every sunday at her place, where i cook some elaborate meal for both of them (almost none of which i will actually eat) All of this on top of the fact that my wife and i run a business that requires both of us to work a minimum a 70 hours each, per week. We pay 50% of our income, to taxes...5% (each) of which is allocated to charities of our choice. That's what i choose to do. Most don't make these choices. The point is, given that fact should i then use that as justification for dismissing and dehumanizing others? Absolutely everyone could play that game, is that the world view that you really want to strive for?

Of course it's relative, but the fact remains the average pleb giving up their Starbucks on the way to work, making just enough to pay the ever inflating bills is going to do f all to stop the kind of poverty you've described. Whereas Jeff Bezos and his ilk could give up the interest on their fortune and literally solve world hunger! Wealthy people used to be Philanthropists, now they just buy super yachts.

The price to "end" homelessness in the US? $20 billion per year. Levied as a tax, applicable to everyone over the age of 18, that comes out to $83 per person, per year, or $0.23 per person per day. Tuition free state university? $328.50 per person, per year. That's $0.90 cents per person, per day. For a total of $411.50 per person, per year, or $1.13 per person per day. That's what giving up a cup of overpriced coffee would result in. Now lets put this into perspective a little bit. Lets just look at the homeless problem. Could someone like Bezos dump $20 billion at that problem and not really notice it? Absolutely....and after 5, maybe 10 years....he would be broke, that problem would still be there...and then what? But somehow it's acceptable to expect someone to go broke, spending $54,794,520.54 per day.....when you won't pony up $1.13? I agree, billionaires should do more. But so should everyone else.

Or the government could shave a few billion off its $700 billion defence budget and fund these things without increasing taxes on anyone but here we are. I’m not in favour of taxing people further who are already in working poverty, living paycheck to paycheck and one unexpected expense away from crisis. How is someone who isn’t in the 50% tax bracket supposed to afford land to grow their own fruit and veg when they can barely cover rent and utilities? That $411 a year might sound small in isolation, but for those who just manage to pay their bills (around 45% of people in the UK, earning under ~£28k) it’s the kind of extra cost that pushes people into debt spiral. I appreciate that you’re in a position to make the difference you do, and that’s admirable, but it's not a realistic benchmark for most.

It's closer to 900 billion these days, and to give up...what? Stop giving AID and sending weapons to Gaza and ukraine? Cut the salaries of the already underpaid 3 million active personnel and government contractors? Everyone has been screaming about slashing the defense budget for literally, my entire life.....it's not happening. In the meantime, getting the things they claim to care about is achievable. State university is $10,500 a year in the US, it's not worth raising taxes by $328.50 to abolish that fee? Really? That's not going to create opportunity for those same people? Taxes here START at 45% (10% income tax, 10% health care contribution, 25% pension/unemployment/maternity etc) and 20% sales tax. min wage take home pay after taxes is a bit over $400 per month. My wife and i are paying ourselves $700/m apiece.....because going over that amount would mean paying an additional 15% in taxes. Someone making $30k a year in the US takes home $22k on average....here, $14k.

When we talk about wealthy we are talking about people who earn **millions** and **billions** of dollars a year. We are talking about the top 1% of the population. We are talking about the people who could not possibly spend the amount of money they have, even in 3 lifetimes. They would never have been able to get that obscenely wealthy without exploiting the poor or inheriting it from someone else who exploited the poor. The middle class needs to stop defending the wealthy.

I'm familiar with the narrative. It's a compelling one, but it doesn't hold up. In 2024, the top 1% of income earners (those earning over $560K per year) accounted for 44% of collected federal income tax in the US. The top 10% accounted for 77%. The bottom 54% accounted for 1.9%, and the bottom 50% accounted for 0. People like bezos and musk's reported wealth, is based on the value of stock that they own. Bezos owns a little over 10% worth of amazon stock, you can watch his "wealth" fluctuate with the valuation of the company. With publicly traded companies, Stock sell offs have to be approved by both the SEC and the board of the company....when stock is sold, taxes are paid. Until than, it's theoretical. A couple years ago musk paid $11 billion in FIT because a huge chunk of stock options vested. Top income earners in California pay 37% federal income tax, 13.3% state income tax....and then there's the property taxes, sales taxes...they end up keeping like 40% of what they earn.

Not all of their wealth is tied to stocks, though. They still draw an unimaginably large income from the company predominantly through director's fees and loans. This of course is a tax deduction for the company. Amazon is not the only company Bezos owns - Blue Origin, Washington Post, Whole Foods, Audible and IMDb are just the top five from a list of almost 100 companies. From EACH ONE he draws an income. The wealthy argue that their wealth is not 'real' because it's predominantly intangible i.e. shares, and to a certain extent they are correct. But they are financial resources that can be drawn from if they wish - they just dont because then they would have to pay tax. Even his personal property portfolio is worth more than he can spend in a lifetime. He was able to accumulate that wealth by exploiting workers, by structuring to avoid tax and by lobbying governments to remove regulations and limit corporate tax.

Bezos, like many stock market billionaires take out personal loans, against the value of their shares. This is a personal debt, and debts are not taxable. Much like the mortgage on your home. His Amazon salary is $81,000 a year, and total income from his various companies is $1.6 million. He does not pull a salary from all of them. Blue origin costs him $2 billion in payroll alone, Amazon pays corporate taxes in 22 individual countries. Here's how the tax share in the US works out, the top 1% of earners account for 44% of federal income taxes, the top 10% account for 77%. The bottom 52% account for 1.9% and the bottom 50% account for 0. Musk paid $11 billion in FIT a couple years ago, while bezos paid $1.4 billion. Again, executives, board members, etc are not legally allowed to sell stock on a whim, they require SEC and board approval. Why? Because they're publicly traded companies...if someone attached to the company decided to dump $100 billion in stock, it would cause a panic.

Others would follow suit, stock prices would crater and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people would be out of work, while any of the substantial debts the company held would default...since the collateral for those debts...the stock, would now be worthless. The combined wealth of all 700 odd US billionaires is around $5 trillion. US GDP is $29.18 trillion. If every penny of every billionaires worth was transferred to the government tomorrow, it wouldn't even cover 1 year of the US annual health care spending. If it was redistributed evenly to every individual in the country, everyone would receive a single check, for $14,000. Last year the Government collected $4.65 trillion in revenue, so far this year they've already collected $3.11 trillion.

What does california look like today? Homelessness and crime have been on an upward trend for years, while state government hemorrhages money. They've spent $100 million over 14 years or something...on an environmental impact study (that still isn't finished) on a 200 mile stretch of land for high speed rail....between two cities that don't need or want it. High taxes, horrible situation that keeps getting worse....and what are the rich people, and the businesses doing? They're leaving...in droves. I'm not saying the rich shouldn't pay higher taxes, they should. But it's not the catch all solution to all the problems of the country. Everyone needs to contribute more, and everyone needs to get a bit more objective about the causes, solutions and path to solving problems. Give this a watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YHtFFnUq1g

You talk about homelessness and crime and the states hemorraging money, but you fail to grasp WHY. Above, you have acknowledged that the bottom 54% earners accounted for 1.9%, and the bottom 50% accounted for 0 tax, but again, you fail to grasp WHY. If workers do not earn a living wage they pay no income tax. Bad news for homelessness and bad news for crime and really bad news for income tax. If workers do not earn a living wages, they cannot purchase anything. Again, bad news for the states tax coffers and bad news for the economy. The wealthy have lobbied the government to keep minimum wages low - The wealthy are the reason for the homelessness and the tax deficit. The working class can barely house and feed themselves because of the wealthy, and you want them pay more tax?

Minimum wage here, is $9600 a year. 45% of that, goes directly to the tax man. Throughout almost all of europe it ranges from 36% to over 50%. For minimum wage. What is the natural consequence of that? Wages...are forced to increase, in fact doing so is beneficial for the programs being supported by those taxes....because a livable wage, is factored by how much money YOU actually have to spend after paying your taxes. Minimum wage has nearly doubled here in the past decade. Denmark, land of $22/hr McDonalds workers, has no minimum wage, a base tax rate of 36% and a cost of living higher than that of the US. If you earn $1, 36 cents goes to the government. That's how you fund years of maternity leave, health care, tuition free university. Not by looking to the 10% of the population who already accounts for nearly EIGHTY PERCENT of tax revenue and demanding they give more, while most contribute nothing.

There is a whole lot of false and incorrect information about Europe tax rates in your post. But lets start with US minimum US wage. Where the hell did you get $96k from? The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. If a person works 40 hours a week, for 52 weeks a year (without a sick day or holiday) they earn $15,080 a year.

You need to work on your reading comprehension skills. I didn't say $96k...i said $9600 is the minimum wage HERE, in Romania, where i have lived for the past 15 years. At that minimum wage, the tax rate is 45% (10% income tax, 10% health care contribution, and 25% pension, maternity, unemployment fund) PLUS 20% VAT on everything that isn't staple foods or baby related items! https://dk.talent.com/en/tax-calculator Go ahead and plug 1000 kr into the annual calculator. That's a bit shy of $150 US.

You think the wealthy have lobbied the government of california to take 60% of their income? No...that's the democrats. Who make grand plans, with good intentions that come bundled with bureaucracy so convoluted they burn through tens or hundreds of millions in tax dollars to accomplish nothing while the streets are covered in human $hit. When reagan took office, the top tax rate was 70%, he dropped it to 50%, and then 28%....and the public assumed that the deficit would skyrocket, that social programs would go bust in a year. What actually happened? Tax revenue increased by 6%, GDP increased by 30%. Why did the housing market collapse? Because the government insisted that owning a home was a right, so banks gave out countless loans, to people who would never, ever be able to pay them back, that's why investment groups were able to buy up the market. Why has inflation skyrocketed over the past 5 years? $6 trillion in "covid relief" 4.5 of which, was fraudulent.

There are 620 companies who have lobied congress, and paid billions specifically in relation to labour, wages and workplace laws this year alone. Google and Amazon being the biggest financial contributors. Amazon spend $4,580,000 in lobbying expenditures SO FAR for 2025. Imagine if it spent that money actually paying its employees a living wage? You cant tax people who dont earn enough to survive.

In california, any fast food chain with more than a few hundred locations nationwide, is now required to pay a minimum wage of $20 x 2080 = $41,600 per year.....including federal, state and all other deductions that will result in 16.85% tax rate for a single filer with no dependants. https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#INs9ZTWncv If that same worker was earning the same amount of money a minimum wage worker is payed in romania, they would 8.08%, for a california worker to hit the same tax rate that minimum wage workers in romania pay, they would need to earn in excess of $800,000 per year. Cost of living for a family of 4 in romania is $2400 per month, average household income, $1700 per month. Again, the only way that americans are ever going to get universal health care, tuition free university, months or years of maternity leave....is if the MAJORITY start contributing enough to obtain those things, as evidenced by all the countries in the world that do just that

The US forced Ukraine to sign over natural resources for aid, Israel buys arms to turn rubble into dust and commit genocide. This isn’t defence in any moral sense, the US is profiting from these wars. Comparing EU tax to US is disingenuous, I’ll have a guess at you’re in Romania or a similar, your figures are again misleading. Romania’s flat taxes and lower living costs don’t reflect the broader EU, where progressive systems are the norm. let’s be honest, you likely set up your lifestyle in advance from the US; and $1,400 is 3.5 times the minimum wage (closer to $400). In countries like the UK, someone earning £28,000 pays around £4,200 in tax and National Insurance, taking home £1,970/month; an effective rate of 15%, not 45%. In Norway, it’s closer to 30%. Crucially, that includes healthcare, pensions, and public services that Americans often pay extra for. You don’t need employer-linked insurance or a padded bank account just to survive illness.