What do you consider the working class?

frenchyd said:

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to frenchyd :

That's a MASSIVELY regressive plan. If you're poor, you have to spend all the money you make, so everything is taxed. If you're welthy, you can afford to save, so you pay much less (percentage wise) in tax. There's a reason we do things the way we do. 

 

Every attempt to make a honestly progressive tax winds up doing just the opposite.  The richest 1% pay 40% of the taxes. But what that doesn't tell you is they have 90% of the wealth. Why don't they pay 90% of the taxes?  
77,000 pages of the tax code will show you. 

Because if you tax them that much, they will take their 90% and leave.

0% of 90% is still zero.

The financial contributions that some rich folks put back into society, not in the form of taxes can be incredible and plenty of them do it.

A couple of my customers bankroll addiction recovery centers.

Another funds a huge kids summer camp for kids who wouldn't be able to afford it.

Another paid for a wing of a children's hospice.

I sure as hell haven't been able to fund a children's hospice.

I've seen the work that these guys put in to be where they're at and I sure don't have the drive to do it. They're not doing it on 50 hours a week.

ShawnG said:

 

The financial contributions that some rich folks put back into society, not in the form of taxes can be incredible and plenty of them do it.

A couple of my customers bankroll addiction recovery centers.

Another funds a huge kids summer camp for kids who wouldn't be able to afford it.

Another paid for a wing of a children's hospice.

I sure as hell haven't been able to fund a children's hospice.

I've seen the work that these guys put in to be where they're at and I sure don't have the drive to do it. They're not doing it on 50 hours a week.

But but but....we are told that we need to punish "those rich people" as they are all evil, and either inherited it or stole it.  While I'm sure there a wealthy folks that inherited multi-generalational wealth, I don't know any of them. The ones that I do know earned it through extreme hard work, mixed in with some talent and skill.  They have net worths in the likely low 8 figure range (peanuts I get in in terms of the uber wealthy) and are extremely generous in terms of charitable contributions and donating their time in terms of mentoring.

In reply to frenchyd :

Each and every day, 10 men go to a restaurant for dinner together. The bill for all 10 comes to $100 each day. If the bill were paid the way we pay our taxes, the first four would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1; the sixth would pay $3; the seventh $7; the eighth $12; the ninth $18. The 10th man – the richest – would pay $59. Although the 10 men didn't share the bill equally, they all seemed content enough with the arrangement – until the restaurant owner threw them a curve.

"You're all very good customers," the owner said, "so I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20. I'm going to charge you just $80 in total." The 10 men looked at each other and seemed genuinely surprised, but quite happy about the news.

The first four men, of course, are unaffected because they weren't paying anything for their meals anyway. They'll still eat for free. The big question is how to divvy up the $20 in savings among the remaining six in a way that's fair for each of them. They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33, but if they subtract that amount from each person's share, then the fifth and sixth men would end up being paid to eat their meals. The restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each person's bill by roughly the same percentage, and he proceeded to work out the amounts that each should pay.

The results? The fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $14, leaving the 10th man with a bill of $50 instead of $59. Outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got one dollar out of the $20," said the sixth man, pointing to the 10th man, "and he got $9!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too! It's not fair that he got nine times more than me!" "That's true," shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get back $9 when I only got $2? The rich get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine outraged men surrounded the 10th and brutally assaulted him. The next day, he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they faced a problem that they hadn't faced before. They were $50 short.

Your story, is not like the economy at all. Bezo's didn't become the richest man in the world by eating a meal, he did it by using the tax code to his advantage.  Paying his employees as little as possible.  And getting his suppliers to pay him for selling their products. 
 If He leaves, America won't wait a nano second before he's replaced. 

frenchyd said:

Your story, is not like the economy at all. Bezo's didn't become the richest man in the world by eating a meal, he did it by using the tax code to his advantage.  Paying his employees as little as possible.  And getting his suppliers to pay him for selling their products. 
 If He leaves, America won't wait a nano second before he's replaced. 

But as you pointed out, they pay 40% of the taxes. When they take their ball and go home, good luck surviving on 60%. 
 

I'm not greedy because I want to keep as much money as I earned, its greedy for someone else to want more of my money they didn't earn. What makes you feel entitled to more of what I made?

ShawnG said:

Beer Baron said:

A bigger question is why the people living below middle class think of themselves as middle class. Perhaps it's a pride thing - at least in the US.

I remember a quote, someone once said: "The United States is a country full of temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

Everyone in my neighbourhood in B.C. Canada has a new truck or two in the driveway, new RV, new boat or motorcycle and a mountain of debt.

The only debt payment I have is my mortgage and my monthly credit card bill because I use it for everything. I didn't start out this way. I wasted WAY too much money in my 20s and spent all of it in debt to somebody because I was stupid with money.

My house insurance company was surprised when they asked me for a void cheque and I asked "what for?". It was for the monthly payments. I wanted to pay in full and they were very surprised. 

I'd rather pay everything I can as soon as I can and deal with a month or two of suck than 12 months of suck plus interest.

Shawn.  Is your home an investment or a cost?  If an investment how do you remove the value of the shelter it affords?  Food/Clothing/Shelter.   Do you calculate what a minimum shelter would cost?  Do you calculate a comfortable shelter would cost?  Do you calculate what a shelter with your current benefits would cost?  
      I suppose we could confuse things by asking about Food and Clothing. But let's discuss the shelter portion.  
      Unlike investments shelter isn't something typically paid for with cash up front. Instead you put a down payment down and pay monthly for 30 years or so.  ( As a Vet, I paid nothing down $0 ) so I differ from 98% of Americans.   

My home is an investment.

A mortgage is a loan on an appreciating asset, it's awful hard to lose money on dirt.

Actually, according to my assesment, my home is worth SFA, the land it's on is a different story.

I don't really understand why you're on about shelter cost. Everyone pays for shelter whether you rent or own. I pay less for shelter because I own my house.

Back to the tax thing. Ask Tesla why they moved to Texas. It's been proven over and over again, raising taxes doesn't increase revenue, it just re-distributes the taxpayers. There's a reason people move companies, money and assets to other countries. Heck, it's part of the reason the dollar value fluctuates. The government in my country is busy being very unfriendly to business through higher taxes and increased regulation. Guess what? Canada is closed for business, companies are pulling out of major projects and going elsewhere.

So, Frenchy, how much of your hard earned money is everyone else entitled to? How much would you feel is fair? 

Do you have to get up every weekday in order to go to work?  Working class

Does the economy crap itself in fear if you don't actually get up every weekday and go to work, such as during a viral epidemic? Working class

Do you buy things not with money but with chunks of your time that a job doesn't pay you well enough for?  Working class

Did you join the military solely so you could get a college education, then end up so berkeleyed up from your time in the military that you couldn't go to or complete college?  Working class.

Do you live in fear that a single medical emergency will bankrupt you?  Working class.

Did you pay more in taxes than most corporations, or billionaires?  Working class.

Has your cost of housing quadrupled over the past two decades, while your pay has remained the same?  Working class.

Did you BERKING WORK on labor day?  Working class.

No matter what you do, are you never going to not have to worry about money?  Working class.

I was once told:

If your name is on your uniform, you're working class.

If your name is on your desk, you're middle class.

If your name is on the building, you're upper class.

Good times.

40% of taxes on 90% of the wealth doesn't equate; you pay taxes on what you MAKE not what you have (discounting property that is taxed and disbursement from retirement). So we would need to know INCOMES of those people rather than worth  to see what that breakdown is.

Steve_Jones said:

frenchyd said:

Your story, is not like the economy at all. Bezo's didn't become the richest man in the world by eating a meal, he did it by using the tax code to his advantage.  Paying his employees as little as possible.  And getting his suppliers to pay him for selling their products. 
 If He leaves, America won't wait a nano second before he's replaced. 

But as you pointed out, they pay 40% of the taxes. When they take their ball and go home, good luck surviving on 60%. 
 

I'm not greedy because I want to keep as much money as I earned, its greedy for someone else to want more of my money they didn't earn. What makes you feel entitled to more of what I made?

What makes me personally feel entitled to it is when you and 99 of your friends have more than the next 180 million people combined. When your family is worth more than entire nations, I expect you to contribute like entire nations. Especially when you, your family, and your 99 friends got your money by destroying countless millions of jobs, lives, and businesses to open direct pipelines to the cheapest Chinese garbage 4 year olds can slap together.

In reply to Steve_Jones :

Since you floundered the thread, that is a pretty poor analogy of taxes.

The big problem is that it assumes that every person uses the tax benefits equally.  When the guy running the country makes more money on all of the infrustructure (moving stuff around), education (he gets employess that he does not have to train), defense (who protect the trading with other countries), utilities (making money uses more energy to make whatever you are selling) etc.  

Next, it also assumes that they can go anywhere else in the world to make money.  You can make money, but not the money that can be made in this country.  

It also assumes that the middle group can't do math.  Then again, people complain that the 1% overpays when they are paying 40% of the taxes- so I guess there are people in the middle who can't do math.

This thread floundered hard.

About the only thing I'll add with taxes is that people tend to talk in overly simplistic all-or-nothing terms. That things either need to be all one way or all the other. That raising taxes is always good or always bad. When the reality is that you need to find a sweet spot and whether raising or lowering taxes is good or bad really depends on context. That the only adjustment to taxes is whether rates are raised or lowered. Also assuming that Income Tax is the *only* tax being paid or the only one that matters.

Economies and major business decisions are very complicated and multi-dimensional. A lot more goes into them than just income tax rates.

Now... what was this thread about?

In reply to alfadriver :

And the problem with your analogy is that you're assuming that the person running the huge corporation is paying a flat rate for all of those resources, when they are not.

A small business owner with 2 employees gets their employees with free education as well.  A local company with 1 delivery truck pays road taxes by the miles driven. If the giant corporation drives 10,000% more delivery miles then they pay 10,000% more road taxes. If they use 1000% more energy then they pay 1000% more for energy.

The only one of those points that is truly arguable in your favor is defense.

Hey, look!

You guys came down on the same side of the fence you always do.

Maybe we should make up some red and blue banners for everyone so all of us know which posts they are supposed to agree with?

Or even a better idea, we can prewrite one of these so we can just cut and paste. It would save all kinds of time. 

In reply to alfadriver :

Frenchy floundered the thread, your bias towards a username is showing. 

In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :

Or, even better idea, how about we not discuss anything at all?  That way we'll never have to experience disagreement.

Toyman01 + Sized and said:

Hey, look!

You guys came down on the same side of the fence you always do.

Maybe we should make up some red and blue banners for everyone so all of us know which posts they are supposed to agree with?

Or even a better idea, we can prewrite one of these so we can just cut and paste. It would save all kinds of time. 

Plenty of people with money vote blue. It's not a red vs blue thing, but nice try. 

In reply to Duke :

These threads are so predictable it's actually funny. Everyone lines up behind the same team they always do. It comes down to a philosophical difference in how the county is run and whether the government is actually limited. None of us are going to change our minds. The socialist-leaning people that want cradle to grave government care are going to stay that way. The conservative-leaning people that want to be left the hell alone are going to stay that way.

At this point, it's not even a disagreement, it's just the same rote responses we always make, to the same arguments we always have. 

Duke said:

In reply to alfadriver :

And the problem with your analogy is that you're assuming that the person running the huge corporation is paying a flat rate for all of those resources, when they are not.

A small business owner with 2 employees gets their employees with free education as well.  A local company with 1 delivery truck pays road taxes by the miles driven. If the giant corporation drives 10,000% more delivery miles then they pay 10,000% more road taxes. If they use 1000% more energy then they pay 1000% more for energy.

The only one of those points that is truly arguable in your favor is defense.

 

Its all relative.

Just like the level of poverty is very relative to where you live. 

In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :

I think that's only true on a small time frame. I believe that a lot of us have life experiences that help us to grow and change. The US isn't the same as it was 50 years ago. Part of that is new people, but a big part of that is also people changing through that time. 

Steve_Jones said:

In reply to alfadriver :

Frenchy floundered the thread, your bias towards a username is showing. 

Just pointing out that a simple single meal analogy for taxes and the benefits one gets from it isn't a good one.  For some of the reasons I suggest.  Nothing is equal, forcing it into a small analogy does not make it so.

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

In the 10 years I've spent on this forum, I can't think of anyone that has changed significantly. I can't think of anyone in my lifetime that has made a significant shift in their basic beliefs about how this country should be run.

In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :

I have. Not your country, but mine, so the basic ideology is a little different, but since I started voting I've flipped 180 degrees.

Many people do as they age and start to earn more