The Rich: Robber Barons or Economic Benefactors?

Each year, Forbes Magazine publishes the top 400 Richest Individuals in America. (http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/) These are people that, traditionally, have worked their way up to the top.  In true essence of the "American Dream," these people have made sacrifices, risked it all, and had to work their tail-ends off all hours of the day in order to get where they are now.

The 99%
Of course, not everyone sees these individuals in this way.  The 99% movement turns these wealthy men and women into robber barons.  These are people who have used virtual slave labor to work their way to the top--if they worked at all--or have inherited a large fortune and have never worked a day in their lives.  These are selfish, arrogant, individuals that are living like kings and queens while the rest of society starves.  In essence, this is a class war.  The upper class is becoming more exclusive, the middle class is shrinking, and the lower class is continually growing and becoming increasingly more poor.

The main idea behind the 99%'ers (or the Occupy Wall Streeters) boils down to the 1% controlling too much of the world's wealth, getting too many tax breaks, and not paying enough in their share of taxes.  To the 99%'ers, the 1% is too privileged, too wealthy, and too exclusive.  The 1% should have to pay more taxes, have their wealth divided up among the 99%, and should have considerably less tax breaks and loopholes.

Before I go on, let's define the top 1%.  What is the tax amount required to be in this "exclusive" club?  A gargantuan sum of $343,947.  This certainly is a lovely salary to live on, depending on where you are located and the size of your family, but that sum is far from the million dollar mark.  The average earnings for the top 1% equates to about $960,000.
( http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/20/news/economy/occupy_wall_street_income/index.htm) 
Still, this sum is under a million.  Of course, this is an average.  Meaning, there are definitely some extremely rich (see the above link, with Bill Gates weighing in at $59 Billion)

The Tax Rates
Let us take a moment to analyze some information from the National Taxpayers Union, an independent, non-partisan organization:  http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html

A quick analysis from the past 11 years (1999-2009) shows that the top 1% paid an average of  36.982% of the Federal Income Taxes.  The lowest rate being 33.71 in 2002 and the highest at 40.42% in 2007. These rates may not seem to be too harsh, but let's compare it to the bottom 50% of the nation.  The average tax rate for these 11 years is 3.3% with the highest being 4% in 1999 and the lowest being 2.25% in 2009.  Another hitch:  the rates of the bottom 50% have been consistently dropping since 1999 while the top 1% rates fluctuate, currently sitting around 37%.

These are strictly the Federal Income Rates.  This does not take into consideration the additional Federal, State, and local taxes that are also included, driving up the tax percentages.  In addition, there are what I like to call the "rich" taxes, on investments and invested funds,  etc.  These taxes are never seen by the 99%.

Job Creation
However, this is a subject that is not the intended purpose of this post.  The background information is just an FYI as we move forward to my true point:  The benefits of the super rich.  I am defining the super rich, in this post, as the top 10 richest Americans.

A quick rundown of the top 10:
1) Bill Gates
2) Warren Buffett
3) Larry Ellison
4) Charles Koch
4) David Koch
6) Christy Walton
7) George Soros
8) Sheldon Adelson
9) Jim Walton
10) Alice Walton

Charles and David Koch are brothers, having capitalized on their inheritance and growing it exponentially.
The Walton's are a similar situation with Sam's and Wal-Mart.

Now a break down in terms that we can all understand.
1) Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/inside_ms.aspx#Employment Information

Current Employment Headcount
Location	Employees
Worldwide	93,163
USA	55,235
Puget Sound (Washington State)	40,686

(That's 95,921 American employees)
2) Berkshire  Hathaway employed over 260,000 people in 2011.
3) Oracle Corporation employed 111,297 people in 2011
4) Koch Industries, Inc employed over 50,000 people (this does not include the various charities and NGO's the Koch brothers have founded)
6, 9, 10) Walmart employs 1.4 million individuals
7) No specific numbers for jobs created by Soros
8) Roughly 23,000 casino/resort jobs.

Total:  1,940,218

In Conclusion
In summary, the top 9 Richest people (excluding Soros, possibly the most liberal of the bunch) in America create nearly 2 million jobs. These are strictly American jobs, this excludes all of the foreign jobs created and ignores any jobs that are created in relation to each one of these positions (ie, laborers that create products, customer service individuals that sell the products made by the company, etc).  

There are pros and cons of each job that is created, some being more luxurious than others, but in the end, 2 million Americans are working because of these 9 people.  That's a 1:222,222 ratio.  Personally, I would call that one heck of an investment, at least from an economic standpoint.

So, in general, are these 1%'ers the robber barons that they are made out to be by the media today?  Destroying the middle class and not allowing anyone a chance for advancement?  Or are they actually Benefactors to a free market economy that rewards investors (time, money, hard work) for their efforts and allow individuals to move up and out of their situations?  I'm not here to tell you what to believe, I'm simply presenting the argument the way I see it.

1:222,222 seems to be a pretty great thing.   I mean, who wouldn't turn down 2 million jobs?

But what do I know?  I'm just an Intern.