Bill Gates’s Fortune Isn’t Going Anywhere
Money: It’s a concern. But the problem it poses is different for the wealthy than it is for ordinary folks—or even for just plain rich people. When most Americans worry about money, we’re worrying about income: Will I make enough money this week, this month, or this year to cover my expenses—let alone to sock some away for vacation, a down payment, retirement, college?
Modestly rich people face the same issue, but at a different scale. A family making $350,000 might feel like they’re just getting by, because so much of that income goes right out the door again—into private-school tuition, fancy clothes, or other trappings of upper-class life that seem necessary, even if those expenditures look like luxuries from a middle-class perspective.
Yesterday, at the , Bill Gates criticized Elizabeth Warren’s to levy a 3 percent wealth tax on billionaires. “I’ve paid over $10 billion in taxes. I’ve paid more than anyone in taxes. If I had to have paid $20 billion, it’s fine,” Gates said. “But when you say I should pay $100 billion, then I’m starting to do a little math about what I have left over.”
