Let the Good Times Roll! Or, Tonight We're Gonna Party Like It's 1929

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
And incidentally, those places are where people are forced to move in order to find a job…

Some people. And jobs have reasons to move to and away from those places.

If someone has got a wonferful theory to explain this, I'm willing to hear it. But it seems like housing is exactly that kind of commodity by which the middle class can be held by the balls.

That's wonderful, but what does it have to do with Vanguard's comment?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
I didn't say that, doofus.

You made a statement that, in order to make any sense, had to assume so. I'll admit you backed away from the assertion pretty quickly

[DanS]

A couple of items...

(1) These appear to be pre-tax incomes. Obviously, somebody who is in a high marginal tax bracket will pay a higher proportion in taxes, such that his after-tax income may be less than you imagine.

(2) Corporate profits have been at post-depression historic highs. The rich (and the tax collector) may benefit disproportionately from this. But fear not, my communist friends. This circumstance will not last. In fact, I believe the corner to have turned last year.

(3) The tax collector may not like things as much this year, since the poorer 90% will be getting a bigger slice of the pie. Look at a somewhat more persistent deficit because of this.

[Kuciwalker]

Unless it was a commentary that educated people tend to believe in scientifically verified facts? If so I'd have to agree.

xpost

[Fake Boris]

Here's the quirp, silly boy.

I sarcastically expressed 'surprise' at someone coming from the higher classes of society defending the idea that talent is inheritable.

You don't need to assume anything about my stance on the inheritability of talent in order to understand that.

Philosophy would do you great good — it teaches you to understand statements at their most basic level, without implying anything unless further proof is presented.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
I sarcastically expressed 'surprised' at someone coming from the higher classes of society defending the idea that talent is inheritable.

As I said, if you're implying that it's normal for an educated person to believe scientifically verified facts, I have no quarrel with you

If, however, you are implying that my belief has to do with social status rather than that it's a well-proven fact, I think you are an idiot.

Philosophy would do you great good — it teaches you to understand statements at their most basic level, without implying anything unless further proof is presented.

English doesn't have a non-contextual grammar

[Fake Boris]

Suck it up kid.

You know as well as I do that your background has an influence on what you tend to believe.

I don't care what's the truth in your case. As I said, I was gently nitpicking.

[DanS]

Y'all are seriously in danger of becoming background noise.

[Patroklos]

obviously, the first thing to do is to eliminate all income tax below approx $30,000 per year.

Proles

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by DanS
A couple of items...

(1) These appear to be pre-tax incomes. Obviously, somebody who is in a high marginal tax bracket will pay a higher proportion in taxes, such that his after-tax income may be less than you imagine.

(2) Corporate profits have been at post-depression historic highs. The rich (and the tax collector) may benefit disproportionately from this. But fear not, my communist friends. This circumstance will not last. In fact, I believe the corner to have turned last year.

(3) The tax collector may not like things as much this year, since the poorer 90% will be getting a bigger slice of the pie. Look at a somewhat more persistent deficit because of this.

I thought of the first point, but decided it was not very strong. Taking the following excerpt:

"Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980".

If the tax rates have not changed significantly the point about doubling the gap is not changed by the effects of taxation.

If effective tax rates are 35% on the top end of income, and 0% on the low end, then $4,400,000 becomes $2,860,000 post tax and $10,000 becomes $10,000 post tax.

So a 440 times disparity becomes 286 times. Big ****ing whoop is the response I would expect. Still more than the pre-tax position of 1980 of 220 times (assuming that is the implication of the quote).

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
I am not sure (Spiffor, how often do you read eremitic in your commie newspapers? )

If you call Le Monde a commie newspaper, then the answer is never.

[DanS]

Well, there's no magic to the groups that they chose to compare. I think they chose them to shock and to stoke class envy more than anything. But more relevant to the group here would be a comparison of the average with that of the local doctor, for example -- more in the $200,000 to $400,000 income range.

But in any event, I don't doubt that income inequality has increased since 1980. In large part, I believe that it was a rational trade-off that U.S. policy-makers made. In 1980, the economy sucked the big suckage and was going nowhere, after all.

It was a different world then. The top marginal federal-only tax rate was 70%. I would guess that all the wealthy people would under-report their earnings, or would structure their earnings in order to avoid taxes. I can't quantify the impact, but common sense would suggest that a much larger amount of tax avoidance was going on. This would seem to show up as increased income disparity, when tax returns are examined.

[Dauphin]

Personally, I think that income disparity is only important on a perception level. i.e ostentatious wealth/living is the problem, not earning more money than someone else. No-one gives a crap about statistics. At the mild annoyance end it's whether people next door have a better car or house extension (no one looks to see if you own a tonne of shares in blue chip companies). At the level of social fabric across all stratas you have more serious consequences ('let them eat cake' for a cliché)

[EyesOfNight]

This is clearly evidence of the need for a people's revolution.

[Vanguard]

Originally posted by LordShiva

(originally posted by Vanguard)"You should begrudge other people their wealth. The fact that other people are getting richer inherently means that you are getting poorer.

After all, wealth is really just a measure of your share of the total power to buy stuff. If other people's share is going up, your share is going down."



(LordShiva) QFUtterlyFalse

Feel free to make some sort of argument to go with your "QFUtterlyFalse".

It is true that my original post was somewhat simplistic. But at the same time it was also a simple, but accurate statement of (basic) economic theory. The numerical value of the wealth you own is less important than your percentage of the total wealth that exists in the world.

The best way to think of wealth is as the power to bid on stuff rather than as gold coins or paper rectangles. If someone has more of this power than you do then they can outbid you for whatever limited resource it takes to make the stuff you want ---- whether that resource be oil, labor, capital or dilithium.