Voting Behavior

[GrigoryRasputin]

There was a post that may have been deleted by the admins/mods but I have no idea - it could have been deleted by Cassie so I'll just pretend that she did it and I'll start my own without violating the rules. If the mods/admins care to delete this one as well - go for it.

Attempting to define voting behavior by gender or income is accurate to a point - wealthy individuals tend to vote Republican, yes - however only by about a margin of 5-10% which means there are 45-47.5% of wealthy people voting Democrat (that is IF they vote).. Women its the same deal. And of course there are overlaps in both of these samples - so comparing them separately is inaccurate.

Now of course your intro to Gov prof or HS teacher simplifies things by saying "women vote for the Dem and rich people vote for GOP" This stereotype is brought to you by the parties themselves. Dems try to claim they are the party of the working/middle classes and show GOP as a bunch of coporate elites. However teh GOP hits the heartland with their moral "superiority". They claim that the Democrat ranks are filled with latte drinking volvo driving "limousine liberals".
The truth is - there is NO absolute truth about these groups. Every election the campaigns target all groups - with 2 exceptions... the GOP knows they will not make much headway with African Americans (12% of the population) and the Dems know that coporate elites (less than 2% of the population) are a lost cause.
Everyone else is a pretty well mixed... even by region - EXCEPT for certain states... the Dems even outnumber the GOP in the South by registration.

As for being able to tell someone's social class by the car they drive - thats just silly... there are rich people and then there are wealthy people... the rich have nice cars, nice houses, and nice jewelry. Wealthy people may have these things or not, but also have a lot of money in investments and the bank.

The majority of millionaires drive a car that is worth less than 20,000 bucks.

[Skapimp]

"The majority of millionaires drive a car that is worth less than 20,000 bucks."

That's bs, I want to see proof.


wealthy individuals tend to vote Republican, yes - however only by about a margin of 5-10% which means there are 45-47.5% of wealthy people voting Democrat

...


Now of course your intro to Gov prof or HS teacher simplifies things by saying "women vote for the Dem and rich people vote for GOP" This stereotype is brought to you by the parties themselves

How is that a stereotype if you yourself say it's true?

[GrigoryRasputin]

Originally posted by Skapimp:
"The majority of millionaires drive a car that is worth less than 20,000 bucks."

That's bs, I want to see proof.


wealthy individuals tend to vote Republican, yes - however only by about a margin of 5-10% which means there are 45-47.5% of wealthy people voting Democrat

...


Now of course your intro to Gov prof or HS teacher simplifies things by saying "women vote for the Dem and rich people vote for GOP" This stereotype is brought to you by the parties themselves

How is that a stereotype if you yourself say it's true?

If you dont believe me thats fine, Im not going to spend time figuring out where and in what text book I read it - but it was during a sociology class I took sophomore year. However, lets just assume Im not just making something up and work with that as a fact.
Many MANY people with nice cars buy them as status symbols and live ABOVE their means.
Next, people who have a lot of money didnt aquire a lot of money by spending it all on cars that lose value - they aquired it by spending it on things that make money. Therefore they might spend a lot of money on a car, but they keep it so long that its WORTH less than 20k

Old people make up a majority of the rich - they both do not spend as much money on cars and they keep the cars tehy have longer.

Also, since this is an average - you must take into account that every millionaire that doesnt have a car lowers teh average significantly... millionaires dont have cars? some dont - seniors that cant drive anymore, maybe in nursing care. Young urban living professionals may have a lot of money but no need for a car...
Think about something before you jump at calling BS


As for the second part of your post - if you read what I said, you'd understand why the 2 statements you pulled out do not contradict each other.

[Skapimp]

I think you're trying to quote the book The Millionaire Next Door but your figure is still off. Also, most millionaires drive domestic cars. Again, you have to realize that being a millionaire isn't that hard to do... wealthy is a lot more than just having 1 million dollars in assets... normally for these surveys wealth it's 1,000,000 dollars in assets not including your primary house, which would take away a lot of millionares that drive "20,000" dollar car since their house is probably half of that, or a good majority of the million.

[Skapimp]

I don't see your logic, you call a stereotype false, by saying there is a small majority, but even though the majority is small, it's enough to swing the vote.

I'm actually going to go study now, I'll get back to this thread later.

[GrigoryRasputin]

Ive never heard of that book - so Im not "trying to quote" anything.

I think you need to read over what "net worth" is again.

Houses are only part of an individual's networth if there is no mortgage on it - otherwise its a liability.

[GrigoryRasputin]

When something is 52.5% you cannot say "so and so votes" one way or the other.

[imported_admin]

Originally posted by GrigoryRasputin:
Houses are only part of an individual's networth if there is no mortgage on it - otherwise its a liability.

Almost correct.

Remember, net worth is used to calculate how much you are worth if you were to sell everything you own and pay off everything you owe money on. It is your liquidation book value.

The full value of a house is not calculated as part of net worth. But home equity is.

Say I bought a $500,000 house last week and paid $100,000 down. I have $100,000 in home equity. The $100,000 I have counts as positive net worth but the $400,000 does NOT count against me as negative net worth.

NET I'm ahead $100,000 and the amount that I owe is ignored because it is offset by the asset that I am able to use. If I got sued and was forced to liquidate all of my assets, I could sell the house for $500,000, pay off the $400,000 outstanding balance, and would have $100,000 leftover. Thus, my house's "net worth" is $100,000.

The same is true for other investments.

And regarding rich people always voting GOP--that's bull. I live in a very wealthy region of Washington (Reston), one of the wealthiest zip codes in the number one wealthiest county in the nation (Fairfax). All I see around here is BMWs, Mercedes, Jaguars, etc. all with KERRY bumper stickers. Educated urban voters tend to side democratic regardless of income.

[L32Projekt]

So individuals who vote Republican are the "Great Unwashed Masses" and are uneducated to boot. Great. Tell ya what, I'll just defend my country and let all you "smart" people do all the decision making for me. :rolleyes:

[skorpion317]

Originally posted by Skapimp:
"The majority of millionaires drive a car that is worth less than 20,000 bucks."

That's bs, I want to see proof.

an old boss of mine owns a construction company. he also buys and sells a lot of real estate. he pulls in over $3 million a year. This guy could be driving Ferrari's or other exotics. He could live in a huge house. Does he? No.

he lives in a modest house a few minutes away from me. He drives a used Isuzu Axiom. His kids had to work for their possessions (2 of them drive beat-up Blazers). it's insane. i'd have so much more stuff if i had his money.

[Skapimp]

Originally posted by skorpion317:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Skapimp:
"The majority of millionaires drive a car that is worth less than 20,000 bucks."

That's bs, I want to see proof.

an old boss of mine owns a construction company. he also buys and sells a lot of real estate. he pulls in over $3 million a year. This guy could be driving Ferrari's or other exotics. He could live in a huge house. Does he? No.

he lives in a modest house a few minutes away from me. He drives a used Isuzu Axiom. His kids had to work for their possessions (2 of them drive beat-up Blazers). it's insane. i'd have so much more stuff if i had his money. </font>[/QUOTE]Yeah, I'm not saying they live in huge houses and all that, but most wealthy people at least live comfortably. He doesn't live in a 1 bedroom apt and only eat spam.

One of my advisors has about 13 million to his name, and he actually lives in a 2 bedroom apt with someone else... splits rent, has two cars, one 1998 jetta and a 1985 Chrystler he bought for $100. Just becuase you're rich, doesn't mean you spend all the money, but it also means you invest and live comfortably.

[imported_admin]

Originally posted by skorpion317:
an old boss of mine owns a construction company. he also buys and sells a lot of real estate. he pulls in over $3 million a year. This guy could be driving Ferrari's or other exotics. He could live in a huge house. Does he? No.

he lives in a modest house a few minutes away from me.

He's an idiot.

For 99% of Americans, a house is the biggest and best investment you'll ever make. Housing costs have skyrocketed in the past two decades. Here in the D.C. area it has been at 10% annually--sustained--for over twelve years. Think about that. Buy a million dollar house today and it'll be worth 1.1 million a year from now, 1.21 million two years from now...

Wealthy people are not wealthy because they have large paychecks. They are wealthy because they make smart investments: as much house as they can possibly afford and lots of mutual funds, stocks, and bonds.

People don't buy a Mercedes with money they made from their paycheck. People buy it after they refinance their house and cash out.

[hawgs]

Originally posted by Stefan:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by skorpion317:
an old boss of mine owns a construction company. he also buys and sells a lot of real estate. he pulls in over $3 million a year. This guy could be driving Ferrari's or other exotics. He could live in a huge house. Does he? No.

he lives in a modest house a few minutes away from me.

He's an idiot.

For 99% of Americans, a house is the biggest and best investment you'll ever make. Housing costs have skyrocketed in the past two decades. Here in the D.C. area it has been at 10% annually--sustained--for over twelve years. Think about that. Buy a million dollar house today and it'll be worth 1.1 million a year from now, 1.21 million two years from now...

Wealthy people are not wealthy because they have large paychecks. They are wealthy because they make smart investments: as much house as they can possibly afford and lots of mutual funds, stocks, and bonds.

People don't buy a Mercedes with money they made from their paycheck. People buy it after they refinance their house and cash out. </font>[/QUOTE]wow... way to be blunt about something/someone you don't know.

If he IS making 3 million a year... he is obviously doing something right. Perhaps some people enjoy the simple life... ever think about that? Do you even make a 1/9th of what he does?

[Skapimp]

My dad is retired and makes about 500,000 a year just on real-estate investments... if you can make 500,000 just working maybe a few hours a week.. seems like that's the way to go.

There's a reason why they say "The first million is the hardest to make"...

[Skapimp]

Fun Fact: There are 313 billionaires in the United States