The Limping Middle Class

[thereisnospoon]

Just another neo-conism, change the subject.

Who said anything about harm and who cares if you're pleased?

Nice dodge. Lets rephrase. how does raising taxes on someone better off than you, while not lowering your taxes benefit you, as a middle class person, directly?

It reduces the deficit.

That is not even close to being true.
If the federal government took all of the assets in the US ,it still could not pay off the debt and zero out the deficit.....as projected by the CBO over the next ten years. Yes, that number is estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $14 trillion.
Reduces the deficit. Please stop spewing garbage.

Now, your side keeps insisting the wealthy are that way because they have managed to hold low the income of other. Your side also insists that because the highest paid people are paid their wages because they pay low wages to others. This suggests that if one earns more then another MUST earn less. As though there were some sort of finite amount of available money,
SO based on those comments coming from your side, you will this question..Does it matter if your next door neighbor or the other side of town in the gated community makes ten times your weekly salary?
Just answer the question. Don't screw around. Just a straight answer. Support the answer with facts. DO NOT dig up and post some opinion piece as a response either. That's not acceptable as an answer.

 

[Seawytch]

Why is it only "class warfare" when you're sticking up for the bottom 95%?

 

[Iceberg_slim]

Well written, you can tell by the neo-con responses; attacking the author and attacking the messenger with nothing about the subject which is spot-on.

I'd be pleased if you would entertain the following question:

How does it harm you if your neighbor earns ten times what you earn?

The lib class envy crowd refuse to touch a question like that.
You may get a response such as " if a person made ten times my income he would not be living next door to me" and they would leave it at that. The lib class envy person would consider that an answer to your query.

How about this....the fact that he makes ten times what I do alone does not harm me at all. But if the reason why he makes ten times more then me is that he sold my grandmother on some investment at the same time he was dumping it left and right, told her just to hold on a little longer and the stock would bounce back when he knew the company was about to go bankrupt....Or he bought the local manufacturing plant, fired half the work force while at the same time expecting the workers he didn't let go to do more work at the same rate of pay..... Well, then it kind of hurts me.

 

[Political Junky]

I don't understand why anyone would continue to apologize for Bush's redistribution of wealth.

There can't be that many posters on this BB in the top 5% of wage earners.

You betcha.

 

[Iceberg_slim]

Nice dodge. Lets rephrase. how does raising taxes on someone better off than you, while not lowering your taxes benefit you, as a middle class person, directly?

It reduces the deficit.

That is not even close to being true.
If the federal government took all of the assets in the US ,it still could not pay off the debt and zero out the deficit.....as projected by the CBO over the next ten years. Yes, that number is estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $14 trillion.
Reduces the deficit. Please stop spewing garbage.

Now, your side keeps insisting the wealthy are that way because they have managed to hold low the income of other. Your side also insists that because the highest paid people are paid their wages because they pay low wages to others. This suggests that if one earns more then another MUST earn less. As though there were some sort of finite amount of available money,
SO based on those comments coming from your side, you will this question..Does it matter if your next door neighbor or the other side of town in the gated community makes ten times your weekly salary?
Just answer the question. Don't screw around. Just a straight answer. Support the answer with facts. DO NOT dig up and post some opinion piece as a response either. That's not acceptable as an answer.

"as though there were some sort of finite amount of available money"

For real???? No i guess your right the FED could just keep printing that stuff up!

 

[thereisnospoon]

It reduces the deficit.

How does reducing the deficit, without lowering my taxes help me, and how does it address then inequality stated in the original post?

Also, the increased revenue NEVER goes to reducing the deficit, someone just comes up with another program that gets funded, and the debt keeps rolling.

That is total bullshit.

Clinton raised taxes on the rich and balanced the budget.

The budget was balanced with creative accounting.
It was actually never balanced in real dollars. Just on paper.
If anything, the revenue flow to the US Treasury was increased not by increasing taxes but by economic activity. Wealth was created at levels never seen i the post depression era. Why? Because Clinton was smart enough to heed the advice of people who were much more well versed in economics. Clinton was persuaded to leave the economy alone to flourish on it's own.
Simply raising taxes does one thing. It takes money from the private sector where it is invested earned taxed and spent. Take money away from the private sector and there is less to invest earn tax and spend.
Taxed dollars never end up back in the hands of the people capable of using it to produce wealth. With less wealth there is less to tax. Ergo, a reduction in tax revenues.

 

[kiwiman127]

So, using the Real Dollar formula, the average wage earner made $272.74 a week in 1982, so in 2003 they should have been making $1,505.53 a week or $78,287 a year in 2003!
The Median Household income in 2003 was $43,318 up barely $8,000 from 1967 and that's in Nominal Dollars.

"The upper-middle class is also richer; today, those falling within the 60th to 80th percentile in family income have an income range of between $55,000 and $88,000 a year, which is about $24,000 a year higher than 1967."
Ibid.

Yeah, those are feel-good numbers, until one figures in inflation/CPI. Then those numbers look depressing.
Your numbers confirm exactly what I have been posting. Americans are losing by falling behind inflation and it's been happening for decades. Thanks for making my point.
And by the way, the CPI measures inflations sans the increases in the prices for energy and food! Now taking those two expenses only adds to how much the American worker has been losing out to inflation.
The Nominal Dollar to Real Dollar formula is the only way to measure whether a worker is improving himself/herself financially, because it takes in the consideration of inflation versus wage increase.
Here is the historical CPI data and I already gave you a link which has instructions how to use the CPI to figure out monetary growth/wage growth, etc.
Historical Consumer Price Index

 

[Oddball]

I make 100K a year, so don't worry about me....

WASHINGTON, D.C.--The 400 highest-earning taxpayers in the U.S. reported a record $105 billion in total adjusted gross income in 2006, but they paid just $18 billion in tax, new Internal Revenue Service figures show. That works out to an average federal income tax bite of 17%--the lowest rate paid by the richest 400 during the 15-year period covered by the IRS statistics. The average federal tax bite on the top 400 was 30% in 1995 and 23% in 2002.

Richest 400 Earn More, Pay Lower Tax Rate - Forbes.com

Why should the super rich pay a LOWER TAX RATE than the rest of us?

You're basing all this sniveling on 400 people?!?!?!?

Fuck me running.

BTW, nice use of the opportunity to brag about how much money you make.

400 people that hold more wealth than 50% of the country. (155 million)

How is that their fault?

And who says that those 155 million of the lower 50% earnings group will remain in that percentile for the entirety of their lives?....Oh yeah, the class war pimps do.

Rube.

 

[Iceberg_slim]

I seriously doubt everyone who is in the lower 50% now will be there for the entirety of their lives but by looking at the numbers, ten years from now there will be more than 155 million in that lower 50%. The median might also be lower ten years from now.

 

[PoliticalChic]

THE 5 percent of Americans with the highest incomes now account for 37 percent of all consumer purchases, according to the latest research from Moody’s Analytics. That should come as no surprise. Our society has become more and more unequal.

When so much income goes to the top, the middle class doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going without sinking ever more deeply into debt — which, as we’ve seen, ends badly. An economy so dependent on the spending of a few is also prone to great booms and busts. The rich splurge and speculate when their savings are doing well. But when the values of their assets tumble, they pull back. That can lead to wild gyrations. Sound familiar?

The economy won’t really bounce back until America’s surge toward inequality is reversed. Even if by some miracle President Obama gets support for a second big stimulus while Ben S. Bernanke’s Fed keeps interest rates near zero, neither will do the trick without a middle class capable of spending. Pump-priming works only when a well contains enough water.

Look back over the last hundred years and you’ll see the pattern. During periods when the very rich took home a much smaller proportion of total income — as in the Great Prosperity between 1947 and 1977 — the nation as a whole grew faster and median wages surged. We created a virtuous cycle in which an ever growing middle class had the ability to consume more goods and services, which created more and better jobs, thereby stoking demand. The rising tide did in fact lift all boats.

During periods when the very rich took home a larger proportion — as between 1918 and 1933, and in the Great Regression from 1981 to the present day — growth slowed, median wages stagnated and we suffered giant downturns. It’s no mere coincidence that over the last century the top earners’ share of the nation’s total income peaked in 1928 and 2007 — the two years just preceding the biggest downturns.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/o...llow-a-strengthening-of-the-middle-class.html

I have a question. I want an honest answer. I do not want some programmed response or talking point.
Ready?.....Ok.....What is the "share" of "national income"?

Wealth And Inequality In America

I get such a kick out of the conclusions drawn by the ignorant....
...when I stop giggling, I get to show the facts.

As follows:

Income and wealth inequality…or demographics. In Alan Reynold’s “Income and Wealth,” he studied the data, and found the following. Certainly the top fifth of households has a far greater proportion of same, but it also has six times as many full-time workers as the bottom fifth, heavily composed of two-earner couples with older children or other relatives who work. The bottom fifth is heavily composed of aged or younger couples, the retired or the still in school. Also, some in the bottom fifth because they are part of the underground economy, or in crime, so income is not reported. Or suffer addictions which preclude work.

a. In 2004, 56.4% of households in the bottom fifth featured no work by anyone for the entire year.
HINC-05--Part 1

Apropos of that, it brings to mind Tolkien’s line: “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”

 

[PoliticalChic]

The fact is when one person is overpaid, other people are being cheated.

The wealthy are thieves. Their wealth is solely due to other people being underpaid.

The wealth gain their wealth by the economically advantaged taken advantage of the economically disadvantaged.

The family took you out of the 'nervous hospital' for the day?

 

[PoliticalChic]

The question is, "Why should the super rich pay taxes at a LOWER rate than the rest of us?"

WASHINGTON, D.C.--The 400 highest-earning taxpayers in the U.S. reported a record $105 billion in total adjusted gross income in 2006, but they paid just $18 billion in tax, new Internal Revenue Service figures show. That works out to an average federal income tax bite of 17%--the lowest rate paid by the richest 400 during the 15-year period covered by the IRS statistics. The average federal tax bite on the top 400 was 30% in 1995 and 23% in 2002.

Richest 400 Earn More, Pay Lower Tax Rate - Forbes.com

Municipal bonds?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Republicans think they are "millionaires without funds". That one day their ship will "come in". That's why they mock the Middle Class. Because that's what REAL millionaires do when discussing Republicans.

That man is richest whose needs are fewest.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

[PoliticalChic]

Why do Republicans support wealthy people who mock them?

…glactically stupid…

OK...I didn't want to tell you this...but you forced me: Republicans and Democrats...Conservatives and Liberals....we all have a secret handshake, and then we sit around smoking big cigars and tell deanie jokes.

Sorry....had to do it.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Why is it only "class warfare" when you're sticking up for the bottom 95%?

You poor thing, living under the constant duress of trying to keep up with intellectual superiors.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I'd be pleased if you would entertain the following question:

How does it harm you if your neighbor earns ten times what you earn?

The lib class envy crowd refuse to touch a question like that.
You may get a response such as " if a person made ten times my income he would not be living next door to me" and they would leave it at that. The lib class envy person would consider that an answer to your query.

How about this....the fact that he makes ten times what I do alone does not harm me at all. But if the reason why he makes ten times more then me is that he sold my grandmother on some investment at the same time he was dumping it left and right, told her just to hold on a little longer and the stock would bounce back when he knew the company was about to go bankrupt....Or he bought the local manufacturing plant, fired half the work force while at the same time expecting the workers he didn't let go to do more work at the same rate of pay..... Well, then it kind of hurts me.

How about this...folks who don't read, study, and left their education up to government school, turn our to be dolts who will believe anything, be easily led, and hypothesize any scenario that allows they to feel sorry for themselves....

...did that seem as though I was detailing a sketch of you?

Yup.


Ill-read, ill-informed, and emotionally ill-equipped to handle this discussion.

 

[PoliticalChic]

So, using the Real Dollar formula, the average wage earner made $272.74 a week in 1982, so in 2003 they should have been making $1,505.53 a week or $78,287 a year in 2003!
The Median Household income in 2003 was $43,318 up barely $8,000 from 1967 and that's in Nominal Dollars.

"The upper-middle class is also richer; today, those falling within the 60th to 80th percentile in family income have an income range of between $55,000 and $88,000 a year, which is about $24,000 a year higher than 1967."
Ibid.

Yeah, those are feel-good numbers, until one figures in inflation/CPI. Then those numbers look depressing.
Your numbers confirm exactly what I have been posting. Americans are losing by falling behind inflation and it's been happening for decades. Thanks for making my point.
And by the way, the CPI measures inflations sans the increases in the prices for energy and food! Now taking those two expenses only adds to how much the American worker has been losing out to inflation.
The Nominal Dollar to Real Dollar formula is the only way to measure whether a worker is improving himself/herself financially, because it takes in the consideration of inflation versus wage increase.
Here is the historical CPI data and I already gave you a link which has instructions how to use the CPI to figure out monetary growth/wage growth, etc.
Historical Consumer Price Index

Wrong again, my 'moderate' friend...

Folks are not stupid, contrary to the opinion of Liberals, and intuitively know whether or not - as the great man said, 'they are doing better now than last year,'...

..." only way to measure whether a worker is improving himself/herself financially," is to look at the headlind on the NYTimes November 3rd, 2012.

No one will be surprised.

 

[bripat9643]

400 people that hold more wealth than 50% of the country. (155 million)

That is simply an outright lie. They hold nowhere near that much wealth.

 

[BoycottTheday]

The fact is when one person is overpaid, other people are being cheated.

The wealthy are thieves. Their wealth is solely due to other people being underpaid.

The wealth gain their wealth by the economically advantaged taken advantage of the economically disadvantaged.

The family took you out of the 'nervous hospital' for the day?

Either that or:

Poor richard has a great case for a lawsuit against whoever was responsible for his lack of a decent edification.

 

[BoycottTheday]

400 people that hold more wealth than 50% of the country. (155 million)

That is simply an outright lie. They hold nowhere near that much wealth.

Well, if "we" are going to start limiting peoples wealth i say we start with hollywood and sports.

Talk about two groups who dont deserve what they have eh what?