Inequality much worse than most think

[Raz]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

I am NOT willing to consider FICA as a "tax" comparable to an income tax.
As the Democrats often describe tax and spend as "contribute and invest", in this instance it certainly applies.
And especially so when a worker only contributes half - his or her employer contributes (pays) the other half.

Paying a percentage of one's income for a retirement annuity is not the same as paying an income tax to fund the military,
various federal departments (FBI, Commerce Department, State Department, etc.) or even to "promote the general welfare"

.

[jr429]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Really? You don't understand why someone would give more credence to the views and opinions of a longstanding community member versus that of a relative newcomer? And particularly one with such gifts of congeniality and bonhomie!

When you say relative newcomer are you referring to POZ, you, or myself?

[BadJuju]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

When you say relative newcomer are you referring to POZ, you, or myself?

I think you, sir. Not because of your join date, but your relative lack of posts. Of course, I don't think post count matters too much. I've got a ton and I don't have crap to add much of the time. So don't feel too bad.

[jr429]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Yes, make all the right choices and you may be successful. How many people can attain that in this day and age? What percentage of the U.S. population?

There was a time where you did not have to make perfect choices and you could still be "successful" in the United States. We took better care of our brothers and sisters as well.

We have 5 generations of people alive now. There is a massive disconnect between them.

Throughout human history it has always been difficult for the poor to become wealthy. Most wealth was generational. Today in the US there is real opportunity for the poor to be successful through characteristics that humans have always valued - hardwork, perseverance, and intelligence. With the political policies of the last 30 years coupled with technological innovation has it become harder for the poor to become succesful? Yes I believe it has - but that doesn't negate my belief that it is still easier for the poor to become successful than at any time in previous history. Of course this same mobility also made it easier for those with poor moral values to become successful as well. I think it's fair to say ease of success is diminishing for various reasons but to say that there is not ample opportunity for anyone to become successful is unreasonable.

[Polish_Silver]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

I am not rich, but my guard dog is fed well, and so are my rat-catchers, and are worth their pay.

The true difficulty of the world population is that even if all production of food were distributed evenly, the banditry, drug users and corrupt officials would still be causing the poor in every country to go hungry.

The problem is not that the rich have money, it is that their charity (and taxes) are diverted.

This is not a matter of who has wealth or how much is allocated to the poor, but who has honesty, integrity, and enforces the law.

I think that is correct. In "why nations fail" they make very good arguments that nations are poor because of self serving governments. It is not really "lack or resources" or "lack of warm water ports" that is the problem. It is lack of good governance. What does that bode for the USA? The national government seems unable to solve a single major problem. Fortunately, we still have regional governments.

[Woodsman]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

I think you, sir. Not because of your join date, but your relative lack of posts. Of course, I don't think post count matters too much. I've got a ton and I don't have crap to add much of the time. So don't feel too bad.

Sorry, I was referring to JR as the newbie.

POZ has a bazillion posts, I have about 350 and JR has something on the order of 30+. And yes, I do consider myself a newbie (been here less than 2 years).

Now if you good folks excuse me, there's an Oban and Rocky Patel Edge waiting for me on the back deck. Enjoy the weekend.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Really? You don't understand why someone would give more credence to the views and opinions of a longstanding community member versus that of a relative newcomer? And particularly one with such gifts of congeniality and bonhomie!

Haha bonhomie is an interesting word because it seems like a word that would be made up in today's slang and added to urban dictionary, Yo! Bon-homie!

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

I think that is correct. In "why nations fail" they make very good arguments that nations are poor because of self serving governments. It is not really "lack or resources" or "lack of warm water ports" that is the problem. It is lack of good governance. What does that bode for the USA? The national government seems unable to solve a single major problem. Fortunately, we still have regional governments.

And another reason to actually blame the people in power. Most countries have the ability for self-sufficiency but the people in power usurp all the resources to enrich themselves.

A devastating blow to the human mind and spirit.

At least you know that people like Hitler were evil but the ones in power who sit idly by saying "there is nothing I can do or keeping the status quo" are almost as worse, as most citizens suffer a lifetime of injustice and exploitation.

Better to die a quick death from ones like Hitler or die from a thousand cuts by 99% of the power elite?

[leegs]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

And another reason to actually blame the people in power. Most countries have the ability for self-sufficiency but the people in power usurp all the resources to enrich themselves.

A devastating blow to the human mind and spirit.

At least you know that people like Hitler were evil but the ones in power who sit idly by saying "there is nothing I can do or keeping the status quo" are almost as worse, as most citizens suffer a lifetime of injustice and exploitation.

Better to die a quick death from ones like Hitler or die from a thousand cuts by 99% of the power elite?

I've come to the conclusion that most ideologies are useless. There are confluences of times/conditions and ideas that have good results for a while. Eventually the good times come to an end. Attempting to turn the useful idea into an ideology that is applicable for eternity is a fool's game.

In particular I am sure that any successful system/organization/society will become a victim of its own success, even in the absence of external conditions (resource depletion, Barbarians, PCO), due ever-increasing and eventually self-defeating complexity, and due to takeover by sociopaths.

The problem is not the people in power, the problem is the people. All of 'em.

[Forrest]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

And another reason to actually blame the people in power. Most countries have the ability for self-sufficiency but the people in power usurp all the resources to enrich themselves.

A devastating blow to the human mind and spirit.

Yes, very much so. This is the result of common, everyday evil. Every time anyone who is in a position of power through election or appointment, like your basic public servant (Yes, a hilarious title), strays one hair away from doing what is right and good, and instead follows the rules, or the regulations given them to guide their 'public service', you get the first step toward an illicit power structure, regardless of how well it is hidden behind a benevolent face.

It is interesting how sensitive we humans are to what is 'fair', and yet because of some guideline, constantly do harm to one another. The politicians in power, who make the law, and appoint someone else to interpret that law into guidelines, rules, and regulations sit back having made what they think was a good law, and pat themselves on the back, but do nothing to restrain those in charge of carrying out the administration of a law from acting like idiots. It's worse when they make a bad or complicated law, and confuse the regulators further.

How many times do we hear, "It's not good, it's not fair, it's not right, but it's the law," coming from some cop or prosecutor...or the DMV?

And the politicians, now so removed from the knowledge of what their law has wrought on their own constituents, are so afraid of what might happen if they said, "you know, this was not what we had in mind!", that they will ignore the consequences of the laws completely...exempting themselves from that law, of course.

At least you know that people like Hitler were evil but the ones in power who sit idly by saying "there is nothing I can do or keeping the status quo" are almost as worse, as most citizens suffer a lifetime of injustice and exploitation.

Better to die a quick death from ones like Hitler or die from a thousand cuts by 99% of the power elite?

I agree with you on the status quo, but Hitler is a bad example for a quick death. Most people under his regime died from starvation and overwork, not a quick exit from this life, while the those killed by gas at a camp, or from a bullet at the Russian Front did so after much anguish and suffering beforehand. What was left of Germany after Hitler made a quick exit was half crazed and half starved, as well as bombed out, and took years and a lot of our Marshall Plan to reverse the damage. That the Marshall Plan set up the current economic mess we are in is quite a testament to how well our politicians can have a great idea, and then screw it up by letting regulators mess with it. The regulators let the banks loose on an unsuspecting world, and the politicians are too scared of the results to try and undo it.

People are always saying, "the devil is in the details". They are only correct because we allow our legislators to make complicated laws, or even laws that require explanation. Local government tends to work better than central government because of the instant feedback from the populace, and the ability of local legislators to repeal bad laws.

Central government does not have to make laws as they do...they could make them one by one, line by line, and just do a lot of quick voting, but central government these days is all about what one politician will get from the others in the same piece of legislation, and thus, we get stuck with the regulations made by appointees who have no idea what the original intent was, and do not seem to care what is fair or right, but only about covering every eventuality they can think of...generally for the people who paid the politicians to make the law.

I cannot think of another process that so vigilantly guarantees not only bad laws, but inequality of outcome, except a dictatorship...and we are perilously close to that anyway.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

But you've written more recently about some other weaknesses, you could say, of the people's movement, and here's one. And I'll read it back. This is a piece you wrote called "Let's Get This Class War Started", which I guess is a play on Pink's song, is it? "Let's Get This Party Started". The quote is:

"The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults." What are you talking about?

HEDGES: Because we don't understand the pathology of the rich. We've been saturated with cultural images and a kind of cultural deification of wealth and those who have wealth. We are being--you know, they present people of immense wealth as somehow leaders--oracles, even. And we don't grasp internally what it is an oligarchic class is finally about or how venal and morally bankrupt they are.

We need to recover the language of class warfare and grasp what is happening to us, and we need to shatter this self-delusion that somehow if, as Obama says, we work hard enough and study hard enough, we can be one of them. The fact is, the people who created the economic mess that we're in were the best-educated people in the country--Larry Summers, a former president of Harvard, and others. The issue is not education. The issue is greed.

And I, unfortunately, had the experience of being shipped off to a private boarding school at the age of ten as a scholarship student and live--I was one of 16 kids on scholarship, and I lived among the super-rich and I watched them. And I think much of my hatred of authority and my repugnance for the ruling elite comes from having been among them for so long.

JAY: Yeah. People don't understand the elite schools, even at the high school level, that they get--the kids get excellent educations, but they learn the whole culture of hundreds or thousands of years of how to rule.

HEDGES: Right.

JAY: And a deep, rich understanding of it.

HEDGES: Not only that, but they--you know, and George Bush is a perfect example of that.

JAY: Well, not so much an example of deep, rich understanding, but--.

HEDGES: No, but of how--you know, affirmative action for the rich. And I came--certainly my mother's side of the family--from, you know, lower working class. I mean, people--one of my uncles lived in a trailer in Maine, and certainly people with no means. And I would juxtapose the world I was in with that world. And it was very clear that it wasn't about intelligence or aptitude.
The fact is, if you're poor, you only get one chance. If you're wealthy like Bush, you get chance after chance after chance after chance. So you're a C student at Andover, and you go to Yale, and you go to Harvard Business School, and you're AWOL from your National Guard unit, and you're a cokehead, and it doesn't really matter. You don't even really have a job till you're 40 and you become president of the United States.

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item...ch_20131206?ln

[DSpencer]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Here are the best recent comprehensive figures I've seen on the matter. The million+ crowd pays proportionately less than the 100k crowd on average. Not less proportionately than the 50k crowd. Actually, the structure is surprisingly flat from about 50k on.

Thanks for posting. It's just more proof to me that our tax code could be easily simplified. Imagine just using this as a guideline:

Bottom 20% pay 15% total tax rate. Next pay 20%. Next pay 25%. Top 40% pay 30%. No more categories of income with different rates. No more crazy deductions and loopholes. No more paying accountants to do taxes and paying lawyers/accountants to avoid taxes. Just a simple formula that anyone can understand.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

Here are the best recent comprehensive figures I've seen on the matter. The million+ crowd pays proportionately less than the 100k crowd on average. Not less proportionately than the 50k crowd. Actually, the structure is surprisingly flat from about 50k on.

So someone making 60k a year pays about 28% of their income in taxes and someone making 1.2 million a year pays 29% of their income in taxes yet the person making 1.2 million makes 15x the person making 60k....

Sounds like special privileges for the rich. Not to mention they pay less for everything they consume and use as a service.

For example at an RIA that charges 1% fee on all assets a rich person bringing 5mm+ in assets over to the firm will get reduced fees say 50 bps and the guy bringing over 500k has to pay the 1%.

I know one guy who has 330million of his assets managed at one RIA and he pays 34 basis points for that service.

The absurdity continues......

[gwynedd1]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

So someone making 60k a year pays about 28% of their income in taxes and someone making 1.2 million a year pays 29% of their income in taxes yet the person making 1.2 million makes 15x the person making 60k....

Sounds like special privileges for the rich. Not to mention they pay less for everything they consume and use as a service.

For example at an RIA that charges 1% fee on all assets a rich person bringing 5mm+ in assets over to the firm will get reduced fees say 50 bps and the guy bringing over 500k has to pay the 1%.

I know one guy who has 330million of his assets managed at one RIA and he pays 34 basis points for that service.

The absurdity continues......

Clearly taxes tell the whole story too eh....

For example slaves on a plantation slaved away tax free, and it was only the plantation owner that paid a tax.

Consider the modern exploitation of muggers with current tax policy. If someone is mugged who pays sales and excise taxes? The mugger while the victims gets off tax free.

Consider old man Potter in Pottersville. One could imagine as every surplus dollar is collected with everyone driven to subsistence, old man Potter would pay all the taxes, proving he alone is a victim of exploitation. Consider also that the citizens working 16 hour days without a penny to spare would be the most apprehensive at any change in governance that protects their assets and way of life. Old man Potter would love to see a change in the status quo that is forcing him to pay for all taxes.

[DSpencer]

Re: Inequality much worse than most think

So someone making 60k a year pays about 28% of their income in taxes and someone making 1.2 million a year pays 29% of their income in taxes yet the person making 1.2 million makes 15x the person making 60k....

Sounds like special privileges for the rich.

So in this example the rich guy pays 348,000 in taxes vs 16,800 for the average-ish person. So he makes 20x as much and pays over 20x as much in taxes. What is so inherently unfair? How much does a person making 1.2 million have to pay in order to pay their "fair share"? Is it only fair when they have the same amount left over?