airdvr 210 #26 July 8, 2010 You're right Lucky. We should just give all of our money to the government. That'll fix things Please don't dent the planet. Destinations by Roxanne Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #27 July 8, 2010 Quote You're right Lucky. We should just give all of our money to the government. That'll fix things Worked great for the Soviet Union! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
champu 1 #28 July 8, 2010 QuoteQuoteSo if they make 50k gross average, they keep 40k, maybe less. 40k is a goodf round number for AGI. QuoteFirst, what do you mean when you say if they make 50k and keep 40k then 40k is their AGI? Gross 50k, AGI (adjusted Gross income) ~40k, then taxed on that, will keep less depending upon writeoffs. That makes more sense. Your intial statement was confusing because AGI has nothing to do with "keeping" anything. As an aside, I would argue that a 40k AGI is nearer the bottom than the middle of what I'd call "middle class", but then I live in California. QuoteQuoteSecond, please explain what a group's overall contribution to the federal government's tax receipts has to do with what a tax cut means to that group. If you're in the typical 50k gross brkt, as many people are, a tax cut will barely be noticeable since your brkt doesn't pay taxes that are very significant. If you are top 10% then a tax cut will be massively significant. If you're in that AGI percentile then it is true that you and your "peers" don't pay taxes that are very significant to the country, but again that doesn't translate one way or the other to whether the taxes you pay are significant to you. You're whole argument for cranking up the top bracket, in fact for progressive taxes in general, relies on this decoupling of significance between the taxer and the taxee. If a tax cut or tax increase isn't felt across the board then the tax brackets are broken. One other thing that I want to point out is you're doing that classic slimy thing where you start out talking about "the rich" (oh those greedy multi-millionaires that are so easy to loathe) and now suddenly you're talking about the top 10% (half of whom make ~115-160k which, especially if you live in a city, sure as hell ain't "rich") People walk around claiming they want to "stick it to the rich" and wonder how anyone would argue with them and then they go off and vote for polices that start making things pear-shaped at six figures. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mnealtx 0 #29 July 8, 2010 Well said.Mike I love you, Shannon and Jim. POPS 9708 , SCR 14706 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bolas 5 #30 July 8, 2010 Quote Quote Quote Give a poor person 200 bucks, it enters the economy within an hour, give it to a rich person, it sits. Warren Buffet has said the same thing. exactly (you're doing good work here lucky) .... as are you. They're combining forces? Your Buffet quote is also exactly why poor people are poor and additionally why giving them "free" money may briefly stimulate the economy but does not help them break that cycle of poverty so they can become contributors. The answer to fixing this mess is for the government to either do nothing or in a best case scenario, scale back it's size and regulations to only those that apply equally to all.Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hwt 0 #31 July 8, 2010 no one here has touched on why WW2 pulled us out of the depression..It wasn't taxes or spending... It was MANUFACTURING .. you remember what that is?? China produces more and more of our goods every year and this country will never fully recover until we do something about the exportation of our manufacturing jobs.Think about what a Manufacturing company buys from other companies just to make the products that it makes and how many businesses it supports. As for you progressives like Lucky, I know you have never owned your own business until you own a business, you really cannot understand.. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dreamdancer 0 #32 July 10, 2010 QuoteTimes are tough for workers in the U.S. where a recession has a stranglehold on much of the economy, but life is perfectly rosy for those at the top. The riches of the wealthiest North Americans grew by double digits in 2009, primarily from interest their money earned when it was invested in the stock market and elsewhere, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group. Millionaires in the U.S. and Canada saw their wealth increase 15 percent in 2009, to a total of 4.6 trillion dollars, the report found. Their fortune is a stark contrast to the lives of more than 15 million people in the U.S. who are unemployed and searching for work, and the eight million more who are just getting by with a part-time job, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than two million more people were working prior to the recession but have now dropped out of the labour force. Apart from the newly unemployed, about 39 million people in the U.S. are chronically poor and do not have enough food to eat, according to the U.S. Census and U.S. Department of Agriculture. http://www.alternet.org/economy/147492/wealthy_are_cashing_in_huge%2C_while_workers%27_salaries_keep_shrinking/stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hwt 0 #33 July 10, 2010 Quote Quote Times are tough for workers in the U.S. where a recession has a stranglehold on much of the economy, but life is perfectly rosy for those at the top. The riches of the wealthiest North Americans grew by double digits in 2009, primarily from interest their money earned when it was invested in the stock market and elsewhere, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group. Millionaires in the U.S. and Canada saw their wealth increase 15 percent in 2009, to a total of 4.6 trillion dollars, the report found. Their fortune is a stark contrast to the lives of more than 15 million people in the U.S. who are unemployed and searching for work, and the eight million more who are just getting by with a part-time job, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than two million more people were working prior to the recession but have now dropped out of the labour force. Apart from the newly unemployed, about 39 million people in the U.S. are chronically poor and do not have enough food to eat, according to the U.S. Census and U.S. Department of Agriculture. http://www.alternet.org/economy/147492/wealthy_are_cashing_in_huge%2C_while_workers%27_salaries_keep_shrinking/ _______________________________________ Quoting a leftist journalist i see. I bet you have never owned a business.. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dreamdancer 0 #34 July 10, 2010 i've worked and operated businesses in the skydiving industry for many years now. i remember back in '85 putting a camera on my head (and a vhs recorder on my chest) and going to film early aff and then tandems (you'll never be able to make a living some said) stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #35 July 10, 2010 QuoteQuote Millionaires in the U.S. and Canada saw their wealth increase 15 percent in 2009, to a total of 4.6 trillion dollars, the report found. You've posted this before. But again, both you and the source didn't say how people did for 2008 and 2009 combined. The vast majority of these people who gained 15% last year lost more in 2008. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dreamdancer 0 #36 July 11, 2010 QuoteBack in December 2008, the former OECD economist Gerald Holtham pointed out in Prospect magazine that after exchange controls were abolished in the 1980s, labour was weakened relative to capital, as capital flowed freely to wherever it could find the highest profit – "a change reflected in the relative share of profits and wages". He added that this produced the central problem of the globalised economic system: "If profits and output rise persistently faster than wages, who will buy the output?" Or, as Tim Lankester, former president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, put it in World Economics last year: in the run-up to the crisis "real wages were not growing fast enough to underpin final demand without excessive borrowing by wage earners". The conclusion that the growth of inequality contributed to the borrowing spree and the crisis is endorsed by Raghuram Rajan, a distinguished Chicago-based economist not known as a "leftie". When the crunch came and the private sector cut back, government deficits were the natural counterpart of the private sector's "de-leveraging". They still are. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jul/11/william-keegan-cuts-class-warstay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
champu 1 #37 July 12, 2010 Quote...blah blah blah marxist ramblings... Again, your complaints and your [historically] proposed solutions are incongruous. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dreamdancer 0 #38 July 12, 2010 QuoteQuote...blah blah blah marxist ramblings... Again, your complaints and your [historically] proposed solutions are incongruous. ...The conclusion that the growth of inequality contributed to the borrowing spree and the crisis is endorsed by Raghuram Rajan, a distinguished Chicago-based economist not known as a "leftie"... (even henry ford understood the concept)stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
champu 1 #39 July 12, 2010 QuoteQuoteQuote...blah blah blah marxist ramblings... Again, your complaints and your [historically] proposed solutions are incongruous. ...The conclusion that the growth of inequality contributed to the borrowing spree and the crisis is endorsed by Raghuram Rajan, a distinguished Chicago-based economist not known as a "leftie"... (even henry ford understood the concept) My "marxist ramblings" remark was in response to your other post. But my other comment applies to both. To be clear, minimum wage increases are a simple and wrong response to the complaints you have. Also, you should read some of Rajan's articles to get a better idea of what he endorses and what the Guardian apparently meant by "contributed". Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
