Interestring scenario of how tax cuts really work

[tobee43]

At least msm and daylate know bull$hit when they see it. Do you people understand how the rich get where they are? Here's a hint, it ain't from "paying 59% of a daily bar tab". For those of you that think this story has any correlation to real life I have some oceanfront property in Nebraska I would like to discuss with you. The rich get rich through inheritance, or through exploitation. If these rich people were so altruistic they wouldn't have been shipping jobs overseas for the last 30+ years, and sitting on trillions in cash while millions of people are unemployed. In the real world, the rich person would figure out a way to have everyone else pay the tab while they drank for free. Or is nobody paying attention to the links that were on this very forum showing the tax breaks/bailouts/refunds that these people are getting.

I know that some people here will defend these rich Aholes stating that it's their money and their choice. Fine. Then let's have these rich folks tell the truth instead of bull$hitting us. These are the same folks that tuck tail and run to other countries to produce their goods due to excessive regulation. Yet when questioned about the specifics of these regulations they, and their supporters get very quiet. Additionally, I find it strange that they are able to lobby congress for all kinds of loopholes to maximize profits, but are unable to nut up and repeal these excessive regulations they say are causing them to ship jobs overseas. I smell a rat. A giant, trillion dollar rat.

wait houston....where's MY name on your first line...LOL!!!! i know bull$hit too when i see it...i have even been accused of being full of some myself, on only the MOST RARE of occasions ....LOL!!!!!!!!!!

[daylate]

Tobee-I agree wholeheartedly. The right has fearmongered and sound bited (how are those for new words?) the general public into believing that taxes on the wealthy are the biggest drain on this country's economy. If they get their way to privatize Medicare you might as well just start shooting old folks when they turn 65 because they sure as heck won't be able to afford health insurance. Mine (if I had it) would be in the neighborhood of 2k a month for me and the mrs. and this is for people who don't get sick-just don't fit the actuarial tables (or size small-LOL) very well.

[tobee43]

Tobee-I agree wholeheartedly. The right has fearmongered and sound bited (how are those for new words?) the general public into believing that taxes on the wealthy are the biggest drain on this country's economy. If they get their way to privatize Medicare you might as well just start shooting old folks when they turn 65 because they sure as heck won't be able to afford health insurance. Mine (if I had it) would be in the neighborhood of 2k a month for me and the mrs. and this is for people who don't get sick-just don't fit the actuarial tables (or size small-LOL) very well.

love your new words....kinda like eleventeen.....LOL!!!

really, it's so scary...remember...you might be too young.. there was a movie with jane fonda..."they shoot horses don't they"?.....that might be this generations "brave new world". now...that's really scary!

[houston7]

Now, onto those of us non uber rich, the high 5 figure and solid 6 figure crowd.

I will reinforce what was posted earlier. This story shows how money is pooled from a group of people for one resource, beer, that everyone partakes in. Is it really necessary to explain to you people that the money that is pooled is spent on more than one item, and that not everyone gets the same type of benefits? Really? It appears to me that the author of this article is the one who doesn't get it. Oversimplification at it's finest.

The next most common complaint I see and hear is "I don't like my taxes going to_____".
Get over it. Newsflash, we are not all going to agree on how our taxes our spent. Ever.
And, this is very important... Do you people think that if there were no wars, no need to repair infrastructure, no problems whatsoever, the world was perfect, that the government would close up shop and stop collecting taxes? If so, please tell Santa and the Easter Bunny hello for me.

Another point to reinforce is basic math. If you are paying more in taxes that means, wait for it.... you made more money!!! If you are really that jealous of the poor people then why don't you trade places with them? Somehow I don't think that there is going to be a long line for this trade.

It's articles like this one that I am referring to when I speak of capitalism as a mindset, instead of a type of economy. Every man for himself. We as Americans are doing a bang up job of finding any reason we can to look down on each other. Meanwhile, our government and corporations are robbing us blind and sending our country over a financial cliff.

But it's their money and their choice, right capitalists?

[StrawberrySu]

I guess I will through my hat in the ring now, I proudly state that I voted for President Obama, and even worse, that I think he is doing the best job he can (although I only state that in my head or on anonymous message boards.) I read Huff Po and NYT and watch CNN and Jon Stewart. Even so, I can understand why the rich do what they do. I don't like it, or think it's fair, but who knows, if we were all uber rich we might do the same. They are going to protect what's theirs, and everyone's political mindset pretty much revolves around "what's best for me and my loved ones."

I have a son on SSD, and a daughter & SIL with 4 kids, trying to raise a family of 6 on $13/hour. So they all get food stamps and HEAP. I need these programs so I don't have to pay for all this, lol.

What I don't get, what boggles my mind are those folks I have decided to call "Redneck Republicans". They are either like me or like my kids. They aren't well off, just scraping by. But they get all their news from Faux, believe every nut job wacko out there as long as they are Republican, and vote time and time again against their own interest. Worst of all, most of my relatives are in the fold. I would love to set them straight, but you can't argue with stupid. My sister in law will complain about how Obama is going to do away with social security and medicare. (she also whispered to me right after the election "I can't believe a darky will be in the white house!") These people are so racist, or ignorant, or religious that they have been co-opted by the right and are working hard to destroy America, which they profess to be fighting for.

Speaking of religion, I believe in God but don't attend church. Every one of my relatives who attends church are "reformed sinners". They have done things that should make them be afraid to step into a church, in case God decides to strike them down, lol. But they feel morally superior to me because I don't go to church. And I am the textbook definition of a goody two shoes, don't smoke or drink or go with boys that do, lol.

[daylate]

Su-
"What I don't get, what boggles my mind are those folks I have decided to call "Redneck Republicans". They are either like me or like my kids. They aren't well off, just scraping by. But they get all their news from Faux, believe every nut job wacko out there as long as they are Republican, and vote time and time again against their own interest."

This phenomenon has been observed by me for years. When I was a kid my grandparents, uncle & aunt were hard working lower middle class blue collar types. They hated Kennedy and all liberal Dems. I never understood why. As I have gotten older I believe it was because they were afraid of losing what little they had to those who had less. We as a nation by and large fear those who are different - be they Afro-American, Hispanic, Muslim, etc. And I think those fears combined with the fear mongering by the right and the poor economic situation we face have all made for more and more people buying into the line.

[GWBcasualty]

Su-
"What I don't get, what boggles my mind are those folks I have decided to call "Redneck Republicans". They are either like me or like my kids. They aren't well off, just scraping by. But they get all their news from Faux, believe every nut job wacko out there as long as they are Republican, and vote time and time again against their own interest."

Yup.

They THINK they are rich.

Just like Joe the plumber thought he was an entrepreneur

Wow. I must say I am relieved to see people thinking. It's a good day.

You want to be cynical? Here. The American Middle Class was created after WWII to vaccinate the American society by the dangers of communism.
Once the Berlin wall came down and communism stopped being a real danger, the wealthy elite (and 99% of American are no part of it) could start being greedy again.... hence the destruction of the Middle Class in the past 20 years.

This is a good read:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/257261-which-way-wednesday-happy-crashiversary

<<As you can see from this chart, the top 1% own 33.8% of the wealth and they have, so far, been generous enough to leave 37.3% to the next 9% (because you do still have to pay to get good help). But that only leaves 28.5% of the nation’s wealth to be distributed among the remaining 270M people which they will then use to buy food, shelter, fuel and clothing for their families. >>

[StrawberrySu]

Daylate, I think you are right! What else could explain this relentless march against your own best interest? I think it is all directly related to what effects you personally. One uncle has a gay daughter, so he is okay with gay rights, but rabidly Republican otherwise. One aunt has a daughter married to a Muslim man, so she is okay with Muslims, or at least her SIL One cousin has an African American husband, so her parents and she are okay with that, just not anything else. In our family we have gays, Muslims, African Americans, people on SSD, on SS, on food stamps, on welfare, in the military, Downs syndrome, and a plethora or other situations, and I stand with one cousin as the only liberals!

[chrisdfw]

Maybe those redneck repulicans just have a moral code where they believe nobody ought to have their wages taken to support someone else who did not earn it?

What gives anyone the moral authority to decide that I have to be compelled though the threat of government force to give some of my income to those on welfare? I am all for charity, but charity is voluntary.

The problem in this country is that there is too much government, not too little taxes. It isn't even the amount that makes it bad, its the incentives it creates. If you pay people to not work, they don't work. If you give someone something for free (not really free, they steal from me to provide it) they don't value it. The fact is we have very few truly poor in this country. I don't consider someone living in an apartment, watching cable, sitting in air conditioning, owning a car, with a cell phone and internet to be poor. We have lost all perspective in this country and actually hurt those with low incomes by disconnecting the incentives and rewards in this country.

It is the government that allows the rich to become the super rich. Its all made possible through oppresive regulation. Do you think walmart has a problem with 1099 reporting, no, it punished potential competition. Exxon can afford to meet all the EPA regs, the small independent competitor cannot. We regulate small business out of existence and then complain that the rich get richer. The existence of powerful government gives access to powerful companies. If the government did not have so much power to rape the wallets of the american people, then there would be no reason for huge companies to lobby government for advantages. The two go hand in hand. Monsanto can afford to meet the FDA regs, small farmers can't, so the very system that liberals like to encourage, supports the rich getting richer which they decry.

We need to move to smaller government, but more importantly stop the government from granting favors to big companies and poor people alike. There should be no favoratism in government, no food stamps for the poor unless we give it to everyone. No subsidies to NPR unless I get one too.

True conservatives and libertarians are for freedom, its hard to have economic freedom when the government is intruding into every aspect of our lives.

The government spends the bulk of its money on 4 things (medicare, medicaid, defense, social security). Why should I be compelled to pay for poor people to have health care, old people to eat, why? Why if I refuse to pay should IRS agents come to my house and threaten me with prison? Do the old and poor have greater rights to my money than I?

[msm859]

Maybe those redneck repulicans just have a moral code where they believe nobody ought to have their wages taken to support someone else who did not earn it? I would not call it a moral code. We have collectively decided to form a union and live in this country as a common society -- morally that requires us to consider our fellow countryman

What gives anyone the moral authority to decide that I have to be compelled though the threat of government force to give some of my income to those on welfare? I am all for charity, but charity is voluntary. And living in this country is voluntary along with enjoying all of the benefits and burdens

The problem in this country is that there is too much government, not too little taxes. Except when we had the tax rates placed under Clinton we had a budget surplus so I would say our taxes our too lowIt isn't even the amount that makes it bad, its the incentives it creates. If you pay people to not work, they don't work. If you give someone something for free (not really free, they steal from me to provide it) they don't value it. The fact is we have very few truly poor in this country. I don't consider someone living in an apartment, watching cable, sitting in air conditioning, owning a car, with a cell phone and internet to be poor. We have lost all perspective in this country and actually hurt those with low incomes by disconnecting the incentives and rewards in this country.

It is the government that allows the rich to become the super rich.I agree we need higher marginal taxes and substantially higher estate taxes like we used to have Its all made possible through oppresive regulation. Do you think walmart has a problem with 1099 reporting, no, it punished potential competition. Exxon can afford to meet all the EPA regs, the small independent competitor cannot. We regulate small business out of existence and then complain that the rich get richer. The existence of powerful government gives access to powerful companies. If the government did not have so much power to rape the wallets of the american people, then there would be no reason for huge companies to lobby government for advantages. The two go hand in hand. Monsanto can afford to meet the FDA regs, small farmers can't, so the very system that liberals like to encourage, supports the rich getting richer which they decry. Actually you have it backwards. It has been the reduction of regulations over the last 30 years that has led to the recent economic meltdown and the concentration of wealth in so few

We need to move to smaller government, but more importantly stop the government from granting favors to big companies and poor people alike. There should be no favoratism in government, no food stamps for the poor unless we give it to everyone. No subsidies to NPR unless I get one too.

True conservatives and libertarians are for freedom, its hard to have economic freedom when the government is intruding into every aspect of our lives.

The government spends the bulk of its money on 4 things (medicare, medicaid, defense, social security). Why should I be compelled to pay for poor people to have health care, old people to eat, why? Why if I refuse to pay should IRS agents come to my house and threaten me with prison? Do the old and poor have greater rights to my money than I?

Putting aside the morality of it. What do you think will be the result if we simply let the poor and old starve and die on our streets? I suggest you should be more concerned about the concentration of wealth than the size of our government. Right now the top 400 families have more wealth than the bottom 150 million. At what point will that be too much? When they have as much wealth as the bottom 200 - 250 - 300 million? More than everyone else? Right now the top 1% take home @ 24% of the income. That too is a bigger problem on the horizon. The big problem redneck Republicans (and most people) have with just wanting to talk about taxes is it is only one-half of the equation. Without a strong middle-class EVERYONE'S standard of living is going to go down. So would you rather make $1,000 per month and pay 10% in taxes or $2,000 per month and pay 20% in taxes?

[shark66]

The problem in this country is that there is too much government, not too little taxes. It isn't even the amount that makes it bad, its the incentives it creates. If you pay people to not work, they don't work. If you give someone something for free (not really free, they steal from me to provide it) they don't value it. The fact is we have very few truly poor in this country. I don't consider someone living in an apartment, watching cable, sitting in air conditioning, owning a car, with a cell phone and internet to be poor. We have lost all perspective in this country and actually hurt those with low incomes by disconnecting the incentives and rewards in this country.

It is the government that allows the rich to become the super rich. Its all made possible through oppresive regulation. Do you think walmart has a problem with 1099 reporting, no, it punished potential competition. Exxon can afford to meet all the EPA regs, the small independent competitor cannot. We regulate small business out of existence and then complain that the rich get richer. The existence of powerful government gives access to powerful companies. If the government did not have so much power to rape the wallets of the american people, then there would be no reason for huge companies to lobby government for advantages. The two go hand in hand. Monsanto can afford to meet the FDA regs, small farmers can't, so the very system that liberals like to encourage, supports the rich getting richer which they decry.

Very true altogether.

One quote which I believe sums the entire unfortunate scenario pretty well:

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."

(P. J. O'Rourke)

Good luck to us all.

[chrisdfw]

Putting aside the morality of it. What do you think will be the result if we simply let the poor and old starve and die on our streets? I suggest you should be more concerned about the concentration of wealth than the size of our government. Right now the top 400 families have more wealth than the bottom 150 million. At what point will that be too much? When they have as much wealth as the bottom 200 - 250 - 300 million? More than everyone else? Right now the top 1% take home @ 24% of the income. That too is a bigger problem on the horizon. The big problem redneck Republicans (and most people) have with just wanting to talk about taxes is it is only one-half of the equation. Without a strong middle-class EVERYONE'S standard of living is going to go down. So would you rather make $1,000 per month and pay 10% in taxes or $2,000 per month and pay 20% in taxes?

You can't put aside the morality of it. That is the problem.

But if we do put it aside, the problem of concentration of wealth is due to the government. The government fails to set up a fair playing field, instead favoring big corporations and the poor. The middle class get screwed big government. We probably agree on the problem, but not the solution. Concentration of wealth is enabled by big government. As Shark66 points out,
"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."
The poor and old have an entire group of legislators fighting for them. Corporations have the same. It is the people in the middle screwed by big government.
People won't die in the streets, if we stop subsidizing people not to work, they will work. If we enforce property rights and put shareholders back in charge of companies, we won't have executives raping the shareholders for 60 million dollar salary packages. Its all enabled by big government, or rather by government stacking the playing field in favor of certain groups instead of creating a level playing field. We have too much regulation to interfere in commerce, and not enough to set fair rules that apply to everyone in a fair manner.

People in this country spend too much on stuff they don't need. Look at the average size of an apartment in this country today compared to 100 years ago, and somehow people lived 100 years ago. The reason many are poor is because they spend like poor people, spend too much on housing and utilities. Its not an economic circumstance, its a choice. I have a choice of renting a 600 dollar apartment or a 400 dollar apartment, of turning the air conditioner on or using a fan, having a telephone, internet, etc. People are resilient, or they were before big government convinced them that they are victims and they have no power or personal responsibility.

The fact of the matter is you can all but eliminate your chance of being in poverty through choices.
1. Don't be a criminal
2. Don't do drugs or other addictions.
3. Don't have children if you are not married, and if you are married stay married.
99% of people in poverty break one of these simple rules and then want others to pay. Some poor are truly victims of circumstance, they get sick, or disabled, that is why there is charity. But to subsidize bad decisions is to encourage it. If I gave people money to not work, they won't work, that is not their fault, that is a rational response to stimuli. Its our fault as a country for lacking the spine to make tough decisions and live with the consequences of freedom.

Big corporations and big government go together, and it is big corporations that create the big disparities in wealth. We need some government to enforce property rights, to prevent the misuse of resources and unfair trade. But that is not what ours does, it creates systems that work against new wealth creation in favor of protecting the big corporations.

Our standard of living is higher than ever. The poorest in this country mostly all have plastics to store food, refrigeration, water, sanitation, antibiotics. Luxuries the richest didn't have 100 years ago. The question is not how much income accrues to the top 1%, but rather is the standard of living for the bottom 10% increasing, and it is. We have things never imagined 100 years ago, luxuries the princes 200 years ago could barely imagine, but if someone can't afford air conditioning or a separate bedroom for each child, we shed tears. We have more food than ever, but when a family chooses to eat junk to afford a flat screen, we want to subsidize their poor decision making. It isn't the rich that suffer because of these social programs, it is the poor and middle class, yet we clamor for more. We know that welfare and social security destroys families, yet we want more. Social security has destroyed the family, taking the responsibility of caring for the elderly away from the family, and taking people with something to contribute and telling them they have nothign to offer. There was a time when grandmothers helped young mothers and vice versa, but we have ended that with social security and the idea that government will do it. People scream about the cost of childcare, yet we have effectively marginalized grandparents, a traditional source of childcare, so now we subsidize childcare and the elderly, when they used to take care of each other. We are destroying our country by encouraging immoral behavior, and paying for it, by further immoral confiscatory taxes. Morality matters, capitalism works best with morality, and our government has tried to destroy morality at every turn. If they aren't trying, they are unintentionally.

If we want more unwed teen mothers, subsidize it. If we want more unemployed, subsidize it. If we want less smoking, tax it more, if we want less sucess, tax it more.

[GWBcasualty]

No.

The middle class has been screwed by the surgical removal of regulators where they mattered the most.

As many you confuse bureaucracy with regulation. There is no doubt that government could be more efficient... that is besides the point and exactly what they want us to keep blathering about.

Just research what happened to the FTC and why corps like Goldman Sachs are allowed to trade oil futures and never-ever required to take delivery, oil should trade below $40 based on demand/production. Or research how Goldman changed the rule in the mortgage market.

A HUGE transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top 400-500 richest has taken place in the past 20 years and accelerated in the past 5.... and while the people talks about taxes and medicare... they transfer $20 from ours to theirs pockets each time we fill the tank.

Read this, and keep in mind that this is written by people that is doing very, VERY well.

http://www.philstockworld.com/2011/04/28/gdphursday-reality-check-how-much-is-that-priced-in-euros/

This is a quote:
Let’s say you are on an island with 10,000 people and 1M fish and all of the people need to eat 1 fish a week to live. That means you have a 100 week supply of fish right? But what if 1% of the people (100) eat 50 fish each per week each (5,000) but they live at the top of the island, on the other side of the pile of fish and the other 9,900 people only read about them in the paper and can’t even fathom their 50 fish per week lifestyles?

What happens after 6 months? Well the 9,900 people eat 257,400 fish and the 100 people eat 130,000 fish and there are still 612,600 fish left so the bottom 9,900 people go about their business and eat their 1 fish per week and the top 100 eat their 50 fish per week and everyone is happy. This can go on for another 6 months and then you have 225,000 fish left. At what point do the bottom 9,900 begin to be directly harmed by the actions of the top 100? Only at the point when there are less than 14,900 fish left because, at that point, the "needs" of the top 100 force some of the bottom 100 to starve.

That’s what we’re doing now. The top 1% of this country are doing quite well with our inflation hedges and our derivatives trading and our commodity speculation and we are sucking all of the capital out of the system while the bottom 99% get less and less every week. Where is the breaking point? Certainly none of us want to take less but, at some point, the huddled masses will rise up – this was my prediction in "A Tale of Two Economies" and we are right on track for the next American revolution but it’s a slow train so grab those fish while you can, my friends – you may need them to barter with down the road!

[msm859]

This reminds me of a line from a movie:
"Justice? If that's justice than the sooner French guns blow the English out of America the better it will be for the people here!"
We need our own French Revolution. Instead of the French guns blowing out the English we need the commoners to blow out Wall Street. It may take a while though. If I believed in conspiracy theories I would say the Republicans are so anti-education because they don't want the commoners to be able to critically think and thus realize how much they are getting screwed. It is amazing how many people will say taxes are too high despite objectively being at historical lows. Or buy into the line that we cannot raise taxes on the "job creators" despite having the Bush tax cuts in effect the last 10 years AND NO job creation! We do need serious tax reform including high marginal rates to curb greed . Say an estate tax of 75% over $100 million. Higher marginal rates on income over $10 million etc.

[IamOld]

MSM a few more things for you (and all) to consider - the top MARGINAL fed income tax rate under Eisenhower was 91%!!!! Yet the economy thrived. The top tax rate was well into the 60's 70'% range into the 1980's...not what you and I pay mind you.

Regarding education - amazing isn't it, that schools are the ones that are always cut first...hmm....one wonders why...

This reminds me of a line from a movie:
"Justice? If that's justice than the sooner French guns blow the English out of America the better it will be for the people here!"
We need our own French Revolution. Instead of the French guns blowing out the English we need the commoners to blow out Wall Street. It may take a while though. If I believed in conspiracy theories I would say the Republicans are so anti-education because they don't want the commoners to be able to critically think and thus realize how much they are getting screwed. It is amazing how many people will say taxes are too high despite objectively being at historical lows. Or buy into the line that we cannot raise taxes on the "job creators" despite having the Bush tax cuts in effect the last 10 years AND NO job creation! We do need serious tax reform including high marginal rates to curb greed . Say an estate tax of 75% over $100 million. Higher marginal rates on income over $10 million etc.