This Just In - Top 10% Paid 70% of 2010 Federal Taxes

[DC Tom]

and you demonstrate where the previous minimum wage increases meet my criteria and i'll refrain from considering you an arrogant, ignorant simpleton...which i consider a worse designation.

 

In other words, you know you're full of ****, but won't admit it. Thank you.

[birdog1960]

In other words, you know you're full of ****, but won't admit it. Thank you.

well, um, no.

[Dean Cain]

If tax was based upon property vs labor we'd see a marked improvement in our economy.

 

The bottom 80% share of total net worth has dropped from 18.7% in 1983 to 11.1% in 2010. http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

 

As Marco Rubio said today at CPAC these people go to work everyday, they pay their mortgage, and other bills. I believe Rubio is on to something with his rhetoric but is holding back.

 

The Neoliberals in charge of the Democratic & Republican Party policies are both to blame.

[OCinBuffalo]

In other words, you know you're full of ****, but won't admit it. Thank you.

I wonder if he understands things like ratios?

 

For example if milk costs $3.80 now, and dude makes $8.00 working at the store, he has to work 1/2hr to buy it. Under the Omnipotent Idiot Plan(OIP), Ominpotent Idiot(OI) raises dude's wage to $16.00, which fits the criterion re the poverty line, but then... OI doesn't realize that every store will raise its milk price to $7.60 to compensate for having to pay dude's increased wage. (How this simple cause/effect can elude OI's omnipotence? Did I mention he was also an idiot?)

 

So now, the "more moral" solution = dude still has to work 1/2hr to buy milk. In fact, OI and his plan are a waste of time.

 

1/2 = 1/2. And the reason is: the market value of the work done by dude is: 1/2 of his hour = 1 gallon of milk. F'ing about with prices and wages doesn't change the ratio, nor does it change the market value of the work dude does.

 

......

 

Now, let's talk Google. Rather than hiring lots of Americans, or 5x as many Indians, Google hires hardly anybody. Google is the perfect example of why income '= is going to only get worse under Obamacare, or the OIP. In fact, Obamacare couldn't be more irrelevant to a company like Google, and what business doesn't want to run a model that makes the government irrelvant?

 

Since their business model is to automate everything and literally live off software, they don't need to hire people. Since they are turning a great profit, they could self-insure their entire staff having cancer, without batting an eye. They don't need the OIP to make them pay more, they are already paying 30-40% higher than average, because they only want a very few, elite people.

 

Thus, the incomes of the elite workers at Google go up even higher, and the non-elite must seek life elsewhere. This is the automated response to idiocy like OIP and Obamacare. It will produce even more income inequality, and literally destoy the middle class. This is already happening.

[Nanker]

well, since you asked....i'd first mandate a minimum wage that provided for income for a full work week higher than the federal poverty level. then i'd mandate basic health insurance coverage either through employers or the gov't -preferably the govt via single payer. i'm sure you're happy that i'm not omnipotent.

 

i almost always choose to vote for the candidate who i perceive to place the most relative import here, all other issues being equal.

Really? It's already higher than that. Person earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour earns $14,500 for working 2,000 hours per year - 40 hours a week for 50 weeks. My link shows the feds say that the poverty level for a single person is $11,170 in the lower 48 states, and $13,970 in Alaska, and $12,860 in Hawaii.

[TPS]

How many times and how loudly must I SCREAM that tax rates don't matter? The goal is tax revenues. If anything, your data proves supply side works, as even as tax rates (marginal and effective) have fallen, revenues grew in normal economy and the rich paid more in taxes.

 

Thanks for doing my homework.

You can scream all you want, but it's pretty clear from the data that the effective average tax rate paid by the top 1% is positively related to the top marginal rate. When the marginal rate declines, their average tax rate declines; when the marginal rate goes up; their average tax rate goes up.

 

This shows up in the aggregate data too, as we've covered ad nauseum--total personal revenues as a share of gdp are lower the first couple years after supply-side tax cuts. Scream away...

[GG]

You can scream all you want, but it's pretty clear from the data that the effective average tax rate paid by the top 1% is positively related to the top marginal rate. When the marginal rate declines, their average tax rate declines; when the marginal rate goes up; their average tax rate goes up.

 

This shows up in the aggregate data too, as we've covered ad nauseum--total personal revenues as a share of gdp are lower the first couple years after supply-side tax cuts. Scream away...

 

I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT RATES. OF COURSE EFFECTIVE AND MARGINAL RATES WILL HAVE A HIGH POSITIVE CORRELATION.

 

The issue is tax revenue, not scoring points with the feebleminded. Even your data proves that if you lower tax rates, the rich start to pay a greater proportion of taxes because it's more advantageous for them to recognize discretionary income. Tax revenues are highly elastic to tax rates.

[Fezmid]

Mom is at home with the kids. Can you read? Or just have a problem comprehending what you read?

Dad works 8am-4pm, mom works 6pm-2am. Someone's always home with the kid. What's the problem?

 

Or maybe don't have a kid if you aren't earning more than minimum wage if you aren't willing to sacrifice.

[DC Tom]

I wonder if he understands things like ratios?

 

For example if milk costs $3.80 now, and dude makes $8.00 working at the store, he has to work 1/2hr to buy it. Under the Omnipotent Idiot Plan(OIP), Ominpotent Idiot(OI) raises dude's wage to $16.00, which fits the criterion re the poverty line, but then... OI doesn't realize that every store will raise its milk price to $7.60 to compensate for having to pay dude's increased wage. (How this simple cause/effect can elude OI's omnipotence? Did I mention he was also an idiot?)

 

So now, the "more moral" solution = dude still has to work 1/2hr to buy milk. In fact, OI and his plan are a waste of time.

 

1/2 = 1/2. And the reason is: the market value of the work done by dude is: 1/2 of his hour = 1 gallon of milk. F'ing about with prices and wages doesn't change the ratio, nor does it change the market value of the work dude does.

 

The great thing is that, after your simple and obvious explanation, he's still not going to get it. Because apparently that doesn't apply to his idea, because his suggest minimum wage increase is different.

[OCinBuffalo]

The great thing is that, after your simple and obvious explanation, he's still not going to get it. Because apparently that doesn't apply to his idea, because his suggest minimum wage increase is different.

Oh, it's simple alright, I originally had a part 2 to that, but I figured we should start with the most basic thing. Part 2 includes fun exercises like: what happens when stores raise it to $9.00, instead of $7.60, and blames the Omnipotent Idiot? How do you stop them from doing that? Oh, that's right Mr. Nixon(another wannabe omnipotent, but merely an idiot): install price fixing as well. Or, what happens when you purposely introduce something that makes hiring the average(in every way) employee cost prohibitive? (Ahem, Obamacare?)

 

Or, plese explain why you would purposely introduce a structural unemployment triggering plan, when globalization is already causing massive amounts of structural unemployment, with structural deficiencies being the most difficult/expensive thing to fix in a nation's labor force?

 

In the real world, where I live, and the Omnipotent Idiot, does not, there is no shortage of work for people who automate business processes and in doing so, eliminate low/mid level jobs. EX: Take a look at IBM's balance sheet. Many clients and prospects are looking to kill off as many administrative/white collar jobs as they can before Obamacare hits. They aren't even being coy about it, and nobody, not even the Democrats, is blaming them.

 

The regular, rational Dems are caught in a trap: if they B word about the layoffs, they have to accept blame for Obamacare. Better to say nothing.

 

But, yeah, the far left Democrats are working wonders for the middle class.... They are doing more damage with Obamacare to the middle class, than the dreaded "downsizing" efforts of the 90s(which actually ended up contributing to the boom). They screamed about them incessantly, yet now they support this idiocy, which will do more damage, and cannot be repaired by entreprenuership/consulting, like downsizing was.

 

Again: if you want something done right, put the far-left in charge of doing the opposite.

[Chef Jim]

As a person who has had to work with numerous people who really had to do this while washing dishes in order to keep themselves or their families from going hungry I was a little enraged by this... I guess it was supposed to be a joke.

 

But then I remember that this mentality is on it's way out in the United States and it warms my heart.

 

 

 

Mom is at home with the kids. Can you read? Or just have a problem comprehending what you read?

 

In the "story" she's at home with the kids. In reality she's working. And if mom and dad are both working minimum wage jobs they're too dumb to procreate. And no, that was no joke about washing dishes.

[Dante]

As a person who has had to work with numerous people who really had to do this while washing dishes in order to keep themselves or their families from going hungry I was a little enraged by this... I guess it was supposed to be a joke.

 

But then I remember that this mentality is on it's way out in the United States and it warms my heart.

 

 

 

Mom is at home with the kids. Can you read? Or just have a problem comprehending what you read?

A little heads up for people washing dishes. DON'T pop out younguns unless you can afford to maintain them. Simple low tech solution. If you can't afford them then turn to family to help. Why the f should I have to support someone else's choice to populate the country with offspring they can't look after? Gdamn it's not that complicated.

[Chef Jim]

A little heads up for people washing dishes. DON'T pop out younguns unless you can afford to maintain them. Simple low tech solution. If you can't afford them then turn to family to help. Why the f should I have to support someone else's choice to populate the country with offspring they can't look after? Gdamn it's not that complicated.

 

Well the biggest challenge with dishwashers in many parts of the country is they're not even supposed to be here. The last time I had an American high school kid washing dishes was nearly 40 years ago. The "talent pool" has long disappeared. Hmmm, why is that?

[DC Tom]

Well the biggest challenge with dishwashers in many parts of the country is they're not even supposed to be here. The last time I had an American high school kid washing dishes was nearly 40 years ago. The "talent pool" has long disappeared. Hmmm, why is that?

 

The Republican's War on...something something.

[Magox]

Take a look at the history of the top marginal rate and the average tax paid by the top 1%.

1981: top rate 70%; average tax rate=33.37%

1982: top rate 50%; average tax=31.43% (drop of 2.3%)

1987: top rate 38.5%; average tax rate=26.4% (drop from previous year of 6.7%)

1988: top rate 28%; average rate=24% (drop of 2.4%)

1991: top rate 31%; average rate=24.37% (up 1.1% from 1990)

1993: top rate 39.6%; average rate=28% (up 3% from 1992)

2003: top rate 35%; average rate 24% (drop of 3% from 2002)

 

 

 

Now juxtapose that to the bottom 50%

 

1981: the average rate paid 6.62%

1982: 6.1%

1987: 5.09% which is over a 10% drop from the year before... (Of course the tax reform act of 1986 which changed the definition of AGI had nothing to do with it, naaaa)

1988: 5:06%

1991: 4:62%

1993: 4:29%

2000: 4:6% For Top 1% 27.45%

 

2001: (Bush era begins) 4:09% for bottom 50% ( 13% drop from the previous year) Top 1% paid 27.5%

2002: 3.21% for bottom 50% ( over 20% drop from the previous year) Top 1% paid 27.25%

2003 2.95% for bottom 50% ( over 8% drop from the previous year) The Top 1 % paid 24.31%

2008 2.59% for bottom 50% The Top 1% paid 23.27%

2009 1.85% for bottom 50% The Top 1% paid 24.01%

 

 

In 2000, what the top 1% paid relative to what the bottom 50% paid as far as a percentage of income paid in Federal taxes was 596% higher.

 

By 2003, what the top 1% paid relative to what the bottom 50% paid as far as a percentage of income paid in Federal taxes JUMPED to 824% higher.

 

in 2009, what the top 2% paid relative to what the bottom 50% paid as far as a percentage of income paid in Federal taxes SOARED to 1297% higher.

 

We're not talking total aggregate, we are talking PERCENTAGE. That's what we call comparisons of relativity.

 

The data is clear. The tax code has gotten more Progressive, specially ever since the Bush tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts was the most progressive act we've seen over the past 30 years.

 

There is no way you can rationally spin those numbers. Even if you attempt to spin it, it still doesn't take away the fact that the US tax code is much more progressive than before the Bush tax cuts. Main reason being is become of the child tax credits incentives like child care and income tax credits for the poor have been greatly expanded.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Magox

[DC Tom]

There is no way you can rationally spin those numbers.

 

He's an economist. $10 says he does.

[Magox]

He's an economist. $10 says he does.

 

Which is why I used the word rationally. Making an argument of aggregate totals to justify the progressivity of the code, from my view is not rational. Relative % of income is the best way to measure how progressive a tax code is.

[Meathead]

A little heads up for people washing dishes. DON'T pop out younguns unless you can afford to maintain them. Simple low tech solution. If you can't afford them then turn to family to help. Why the f should I have to support someone else's choice to populate the country with offspring they can't look after? Gdamn it's not that complicated.

 

how wonderfully expansive of you

 

im sorry billy your mom and dad dont have jobs that can keep you fed and healthy and we need to teach people like that a lesson so youre just going to have to go without food and medical care sometimes. good luck

 

dick

[Dante]

how wonderfully expansive of you

 

im sorry billy your mom and dad dont have jobs that can keep you fed and healthy and we need to teach people like that a lesson so youre just going to have to go without food and medical care sometimes. good luck

 

dick

So we just keep enabling bad, irresponsible behavior by subsidizing it with the pittance that is minimum wage increase and or welfare? How very compassionate of you to mandate that they get just enough money to feed themselves and survive but still lead a miserable life of poverty.

Call me a dick if you want but at least I have some semblance of common sense. But I wouldn't expect any more from a leftist liberal. A feel good idea that isn't thought through to it's logical conclusion. But you wouldn't want to do that because thinking might be to much effort.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Dante

[Chef Jim]

how wonderfully expansive of you

 

im sorry billy your mom and dad dont have jobs that can keep you fed and healthy and we need to teach people like that a lesson so youre just going to have to go without food and medical care sometimes. good luck

 

dick

 

Charity.