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The Declining Wealth of the Bottom 90%

Horn Under a Bad Sign

By Horn Under a Bad Sign
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MaybeACoordinator

MaybeACoordinator 8,349

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On 12/21/2018 at 10:31 AM, Incredulity said:

The path to wealth is not through earned income.  The bureaucratic regulatory state makes it much harder for start ups to enter markets and create wealth.

Who do you think runs / set up bureaucratic regulatory state? Dems usually get the blame, but generally it's just bigger businesses pulling up the ladder behind them. Like why do you need a license to fry hair as a beautician? Because the other hairdressers want to hassle you. It's not because there is some pointy-head in DC who wants to make you get a license for public safety or just to be a dick. It's because trades take care of their own and form de facto guilds. The Pubs have been good at sticking this on the Dems but this is a #bothsides deal. 

On 12/24/2018 at 10:49 AM, horn4life said:

I understand that a LOT of people do not understand the macro effects of cutting top tax rates for the wealthiest Americans.  It is nothing more or less than a reallocation of wealth to those with the greatest ability to shoulder the financial burden of funding our government.  There is a reason that Deficits have skyrocketed under Republican Presidencies.  Because the POLICY itself does not work!!!!  My "team" is the American people, I was a card carrying Republican, I began to move toward the Dems simply because while their economic policies are far from perfect they are simply not a redistribution of wealth to FURTHER enrich the richest.  The Dems err in trying too much to help the poorest in some cases, I will give you that.  HOWEVER there is a VASTLY greater economic and tax benefit via the effects of money multiplying in making this error.  It's simply math.  You give a poor or lower middle class person additional dollars they spend every single penny, and mostly in their local economy.  I will move toward the GOP when facts, and actual fiscal conservatism become something the GOP again cares about.

IT is also a fallacy to point to California's extremely high cost of living as your "evidence" when pointing to Texas in the same breath.  Unless you do not understand cost of living?  I could give you a tutorial here is you would like? 😉

The biggest problem for the middle class is a tax policy that has shifted to placing more burden on the middle class, in order to remove burden from the most wealthy in the class. There is a reason that the GOP always pretends to twilight these gifts to the wealthy with a future expiraiton date in their legislation. A date that never comes for the wealthy but always comes for the middle tax relief.  The reason? Because the scoring on plans without an expiration clearly show the monsterous holes in the budget caused without the fake expriation.  It sells the flawed tax poliy much better than using honest numbers.

It's like listening to GOP congressmen criticize the "Obama Stimulus" package that was necessary to help boost the economy after the Bush's destruction of the economy. This happened after years of nearly singularly bragging as a GOP talking point about home ownership gains.  WOnder why the mortgage industry was not properly supervised and regulated? It would have removed this singular talking point. The "Obama Stimulus" was a necessity ONLY because the GOP controlled congress PUNTED the costs of funding the recovery into Obama's Presidency.  Obama cleaned up the mess, and yes there were massive deficits that came with it.  Of course the GOP's man contribution was the insistence of adding... you guessed it... tax cuts for the wealthy into the bill. From Memory I believe nearly half of that massive stimuls package was tax cuts.  INFRASATRUCTURE building would have been a much, much better stimulus, but the only way to get stimulus in the GOP mind is... yep you guessed it... tax cuts.

It is also important to note that while Obama did preside over a masisve increase in the debt and deficits, he also provided an economy strong with massive job job creation.  Something Trump inherited. Yet Trump has been unable with the help of complete control of the GOP of all levers of the Federal Government to match Obama's employment numbers. (now don't get excited here ding dongs) you don't get to compare Obama's first days in office after inheriting the Republican orchestrated disaster of not regulating the banking and mortgage businesses (that was their one economic talking point). You compare Obama's last 21 months (or now 22 months) with Trump's 21 months after taking office.  

It is impossible to find a Trump supporter than believes Obama created more jobs in the same about of time at Trump has.  But it's the truth.

Overall the biggest problem is the embrace of one party of a tax policy that simple does not, and never has worked.  It's an expensive policy that adds to the debt, while at the same time moving nearly all the burden for funding Social Security, medicare and medicaid onto the middle class.  Because as I pointed out the rich don't pay into those systems as their income is not catagorized as income the way it is for the working class.

You could actally fix the problem and fund the goverment.  Simply call ALL increase in annual wealth as income, and tax it the same way the overly burdened middle class does.  THEN guess what... with the wealthy sharing this burden, the lower in middle classes burden would be reduced.  Then they lower and middle classes could actually stimulate the economy with each and every dollar given back to them by making the wealthy pay their way like the middle class does

 

Amen, and Mister, we could use a man like Dwight D. Eisenhower again. 

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hpslugga

hpslugga 4,062

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38 minutes ago, Loch Ness Monster said:

US is projected to decrease education spending by 3 billion next year, and increase defense spending by a cool 70+ billion.

70 billion is more than our entire education budget.

Purposely making Americans as ignorant as possible is working.

The sad part is that there are enough useful idiots who 1) will go to pathetic lengths to rationalize that sort of disparity and 2) stand not to benefit in any way from same.

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Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19,223

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44 minutes ago, Loch Ness Monster said:

US is projected to decrease education spending by 3 billion next year, and increase defense spending by a cool 70+ billion.

70 billion is more than our entire education budget.

Purposely making Americans as ignorant as possible is working.

I don’t appreciate the tone of your post.  Why do you hate our troops?

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Brew

Brew 3,049

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11 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:


Oh bullshit. Let’s put the individual tax brackets back to where they were in 2000 before you people decided you hated surpluses and adjust for inflation.

Done.

You do realize that a large impact in the rate changes from that far back has been to the lower/middle earners correct? The top rate has only just dropped with this tax law change, while the other brackets have changed substantially but also increased in range substantially which would have benefited everyone in the range including the rich guy everyone seems to want to bag on. For a number of years we’ve had a 10/15 bracket with no capital gains on those brackets versus a 15/28 bracket jump pre 2000. The income guy has benefited, but the lower brackets have probably benefited more as a percentage of their overall income.

This new tax law has changed the game substantially though. The 20% pass through deduction along with the rate changes is making substantial differences in tax not even taking into account 100% bonus depreciation. It’s going to be really interesting to see what the revenue numbers are through April as it is going to be a historic drop.

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G650

G650 14,277

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4 minutes ago, Brew said:

 The 20% pass through deduction along with the rate changes is making substantial differences in tax not even taking into account 100% bonus depreciation.

Bonus depreciation is the one thing they got right. It spurs capex like nothing else.

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Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19,223

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8 minutes ago, Brew said:

You do realize that a large impact in the rate changes from that far back has been to the lower/middle earners correct? The top rate has only just dropped with this tax law change, while the other brackets have changed substantially but also increased in range substantially which would have benefited everyone in the range including the rich guy everyone seems to want to bag on. For a number of years we’ve had a 10/15 bracket with no capital gains on those brackets versus a 15/28 bracket jump pre 2000. The income guy has benefited, but the lower brackets have probably benefited more as a percentage of their overall income.

This new tax law has changed the game substantially though. The 20% pass through deduction along with the rate changes is making substantial differences in tax not even taking into account 100% bonus depreciation. It’s going to be really interesting to see what the revenue numbers are through April as it is going to be a historic drop.

The highest tax rate went from 31% to 39.6% in 1993 and remained there until the GOP decided to trickle down on the American taxpayers again in 2001. What happened to the budget deficit during those dark days of 1993 - 2001compared to years before and after?

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Incredulity

Incredulity 11,683

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5 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Who do you think runs / set up bureaucratic regulatory state? Dems usually get the blame, but generally it's just bigger businesses pulling up the ladder behind them. Like why do you need a license to fry hair as a beautician? Because the other hairdressers want to hassle you. It's not because there is some pointy-head in DC who wants to make you get a license for public safety or just to be a dick. It's because trades take care of their own and form de facto guilds. The Pubs have been good at sticking this on the Dems but this is a #bothsides deal. 

Amen, and Mister, we could use a man like Dwight D. Eisenhower again. 

Well, I am glad you agree the bureaucratic regulatory state is a problem.  I fundamentally disagree with your assessment of the causes, but arguing that really isn't productive.  

 

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horn4life

horn4life 3,783

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Just for grins lets also look at who most benfits from low wages? Business owners of all sorts, but mostly the larger corporations.  Smaller businesses as a whole tend to reward their employees slightly better than the overall marketplace.  Simply because a smaller businessman has much greater percentage of his costs in training employees, as well as usually a closer emotional tie to their employees simply because of proximity. 

For example, Walmart is the largest employer in the United States currently.  Walmart sees direct bottom line profits related to low wages (and yes I am aware they recently increased their base wage). Who pays the costs for the low wages? Middle class taxpayers, who pay for social security, medicare, medicaid and pay a much higher percentage of their annual wealth accumulation in income tax than those who have received the most tax relief, millionaires and large corporations.  Because the wages are not so-called "living wages" a variety of taxpayer funded social programs much be utilized by many Walmart employees to simply survive. Food stamps, HUD subsidized housing, healthcare via the emergency room and on and on.

As I pointed out earlier the wealthy simply do not have "income" as the bulk of their annual wealth accumulation and thus do not make any contributions to social security, medicare, medicaid, and other income tax funded programs on the vast majority of their annual wealth increase.  In essence, it is the taxpaying middle class that is further burdened, so that Walmart and other large corporations can see a blacker bottom line by holding wages below the ability for many of it's employees to actually live without taxpayer assistence.

So again the rich get richer, and the middle class shoulders the burden.

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G650

G650 14,277

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7 minutes ago, horn4life said:

Just for grins lets also look at who most benfits from low wages? Business owners of all sorts, but mostly the larger corporations.  Smaller businesses as a whole tend to reward their employees slightly better than the overall marketplace.  Simply because a smaller businessman has much greater percentage of his costs in training employees, as well as usually a closer emotional tie to their employees simply because of proximity. 

For example, Walmart is the largest employer in the United States currently.  Walmart sees direct bottom line profits related to low wages (and yes I am aware they recently increased their base wage). Who pays the costs for the low wages? Middle class taxpayers, who pay for social security, medicare, medicaid and pay a much higher percentage of their annual wealth accumulation in income tax than those who have received the most tax relief, millionaires and large corporations.  Because the wages are not so-called "living wages" a variety of taxpayer funded social programs much be utilized by many Walmart employees to simply survive. Food stamps, HUD subsidized housing, healthcare via the emergency room and on and on.

As I pointed out earlier the wealthy simply do not have "income" as the bulk of their annual wealth accumulation and thus do not make any contributions to social security, medicare, medicaid, and other income tax funded programs on the vast majority of their annual wealth increase.  In essence, it is the taxpaying middle class that is further burdened, so that Walmart and other large corporations can see a blacker bottom line by holding wages below the ability for many of it's employees to actually live without taxpayer assistence.

So again the rich get richer, and the middle class shoulders the burden.

This is accurate.

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Incredulity

Incredulity 11,683

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Just for grins lets also look at who most benfits from low wages? Business owners of all sorts, but mostly the larger corporations.  Smaller businesses as a whole tend to reward their employees slightly better than the overall marketplace.  Simply because a smaller businessman has much greater percentage of his costs in training employees, as well as usually a closer emotional tie to their employees simply because of proximity. 

FWIW this is 100% the opposite of conclusions in the United Way report posted up thread.

 

https://www.unitedwayalice.org/connecticut  

Here is a link to that.  That webpage won't allow me to copy its graphical content.  Not sure if operator error or ???

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105,332

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3 hours ago, Loch Ness Monster said:

US is projected to decrease education spending by 3 billion next year, and increase defense spending by a cool 70+ billion.

70 billion is more than our entire education budget.

Purposely making Americans as ignorant as possible is working.

On most every level, we are destroying/neglecting our seed stock.  We are grinding our stored seeds to make more bread today, and the politicians happily point to the bounty on today's table....but we have far less to plant for tomorrow.

Education is perhaps the most important thing that a healthy commonwealth can do.  Right behind that is infrastructure.  Those two things fuel commerce better than anything else.  And we not only neglect those things, we purposefully rob from them to fund distractions.

Your chances of being killed by a scary mooslem terrorist, who we spend billions upon billions to fight?  1 in a kajillion.

Your chances of being killed by a criminal with a shitty education?  A shitload higher.

If we wanted to make ALL of the American people safer and more prosperous, our priorities would be education, basic healthcare, and infrastructure.  Even if you're not a DIRECT beneficiary of those things, you will be an indirect beneficiary: the educated kid won't rob you, end up in jail at a high cost of incarceration, and will be a better and more profitable worker in your business.  The mom working for you won't have to miss crucial days at work caring for a sick kid because he has basic healthcare and easy access to antibiotics for that nasty strep that's going around.  And when mom gets sick, she gets it treated right away, missing only one day of work, instead of letting it turn into pneumonia, and missing 2 weeks.  Improved roads and bridges mean that the widgets you need to finish the order for the Weigelman account won't get held up and delayed.

These things aren't glamorous.  But they are the foundation upon which our prosperity rests.  And we're not only neglecting our foundation, we're jackhammering it away so we can use the chunks to build a neat garden wall for the top 1%.  The stupidity.  It burns.

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formermav43

formermav43 4,606

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20 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Yep.  That's the penultimate chapter of the story.

The final chapter doesn't go so well for the 1%.  They'd be wise to read ahead in the story, as I think they'd be motivated to alter course....

576cb32f05aae_louisette.jpg

That chapter doesn’t go well for anyone, 1% or otherwise.

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NBMisha

NBMisha 224

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True.   And sthe 1789 gig was the best revolution ever  (a remaking of a society - the American revolution was not like that).

But, have we not witnessed the revolution of the moron/1% coalition?  They have taken over society these past 50 years.  I admit to being distracted during this time, with work and shit, accumulating my own pile.  I need to read up on revolutions.

 

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F250

F250 28,818

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35 minutes ago, Bookman said:

There's not going to be any revolution. Jesus, Americans are too stupid to have a revolution. They voted for Donald Trump for fuck's sake.

Too fat, dumb and happy to revolt. It would take Great Depression levels of poverty to create the ingredients for a revolution. Luckily, Trump's economic policy might make that happen. Just kidding, not really.

 

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Nice Guy Eddie

Nice Guy Eddie 13,523

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2 hours ago, ChiTownDoc said:

Lots of good points here but a solid % of the electorate is fooled into voting against their own interests...until that is fixed the rich will only get richer.  

But scary brown people and killing unborn babies...

Very true.  Surprising that many are worried about fairness being applied to the very wealthy but not themselves.   They don’t have the ability to comprehend anything other than simple ideas and talking points.  

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