Nine Pictures of the Extreme Income/Wealth Gap

[RandomGuy]

Certainly true in a relativistic outlook.

Naturally, a sane society, IMO, would expect that those who can take care of themselves, do so. A sane society would also recognize that some cannot and that even the superheroes among us run into bad luck.

The aspiration to upward mobility, often lampooned, is not a bad thing in American society. It beats the sad reality of widespread self-pitying, particularly among those who aren't anywhere close to fitting into the admittedly rich American view of poverty.

In 2005, The Economist wrote that

evidence from social scientists suggests that American society is much "stickier" than most Americans assume. Some researchers claim that social mobility is actually declining.[5]
A CAP study of 2006 found that:

By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of intergenerational mobility… Among high-income countries for which comparable estimates are available, only the United Kingdom had a lower rate of mobility than the United States.[6]

Upwards mobility isn't a bad thing.

But the US doesn't do as well as more socialistic countries in that regard.

Not saying it isn't possible, just that other countries do it better.

[vy65]

So then you'd abandoned your idea that anything other than a flat tax is moral, correct?

Never was my argument. The whole philosophical aside we had was to establish that I don't really feel comfortable espousing a theory of morals or ethics. Especially when it comes to taxes. I did say from a legal perspective, it is right for a person to pay taxes as they are assessed. But I think that's a question wholly separate from morality.

Could you be slightly more specific? As it is, the "market" (ie. civilians) elect representatives, which make tax laws. So the market is determining tax rates.

Sure, the job market.

Now extrapolate that "I don't know" to the millions of different jobs out there, and figure out how hard implementing a tax code that relies on how "hard" a job is would be to implement.

Don't see why I have to do so.

Didn't you just say that a "harder" job deserves less taxation?

No. I said that the "harder" job deserves to be paid more. And being taxed at a higher rate interferes with this -- essentially penalizing those who deserve to be paid more solely because they are paid more.

So you think there should be a bigger exemption for dependants?

I thought we established that I ain't touching the tax code.

Considering this is all hypothetical, yes I deny said financial stress. Are you saying that a hypothetical couple making 40K with two kids doesn't have financial stress too?

So you're saying that the doctor + his family should subsidize the 40k family?

And all those apply to the person who pays in more, right? In fact, one could say that the person who makes more MIGHT start a business, and therefore, MIGHT take advantage of people education in public schools, MIGHT take advantage of healthy workers, etc etc etc.

Don't see the relevance.

[Marcus Bryant]

Upwards mobility isn't a bad thing.

But the US doesn't do as well as more socialistic countries in that regard.

Not saying it isn't possible, just that other countries do it better.

Then perhaps the change in design is complete and we are a class based society, with exceptions for the truly motivated.

Or, American society is that efficient at separating the wheat from the chaff.

[RandomGuy]

our poor are the best situated poor people on the planet...so, STFU.

Not really. This is something of a myth.

It is much better to be poor in countries with decent social safety nets.

People like you like to think this, because, as I mentioned here before, it lets you rationalize your sociopathic " the poor" apathy.

It is a rather immoral attempt to assert that being poor here isn't *that* bad.

Being poor here is better than living on a garbage dump in Ecuador, but is still not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination. That you always neglect to mention this says volumes.

[vy65]

Now extrapolate that "I don't know" to the millions of different jobs out there, and figure out how hard implementing a tax code that relies on how "hard" a job is would be to implement.

Not all jobs should be paid the same. Varying levels of skill and the interaction of supply and demand produce differing levels of compensation for different jobs. You shouldn't be penalized for having a higher paying job by paying more taxes.

I'm not saying ". . . therefore, flat tax." What I am saying is that higher tax rates for people like our 160k doctor essentially penalizes him for being smart, working his ass off in school, and then working his ass off in his job. As you detailed, the difference can amount to almost 42k/year.

I understand that this analogy breaks down in the context of 20mil-earning CEOs. But there are far more of "my" doctors, then "your" CEOs. So I'm way more comfortable producing some outlying injustice in the CEO example if it ameliorates the doctor's situation.

You're pretty comfortable with penalizing the guy who works harder in a more difficult job simply because he ultimately makes more money. That's pretty ed up in my eyes.

[RandomGuy]

You're pretty comfortable with penalizing the guy who works harder in a more difficult job simply because he ultimately makes more money. That's pretty ed up in my eyes.

It's ed up to you because you view taxes as a "penalty", rather than simply the price we pay for having a large, advanced civilization.

Once you achieve a certain level of income, anything over that is simply gravy.

If your choices in life are "do I want this car or a slightly bigger car" as opposed to "do I pay the ulilities this month or buy new shoes for the kids" then I don't see how paying a higher tax rate is all that penalizing.

I mean if you don't want to be "penalized" for living in this country, Somalia has no income taxes.

[RandomGuy]

CEO pay as a multiple of average worker's pay


Source: Executive Excess 2008, the 15th Annual CEO Compensation Survey from the Ins ute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy.

[vy65]

It's ed up to you because you view taxes as a "penalty", rather than simply the price we pay for having a large, advanced civilization.

Once you achieve a certain level of income, anything over that is simply gravy.

If your choices in life are "do I want this car or a slightly bigger car" as opposed to "do I pay the ulilities this month or buy new shoes for the kids" then I don't see how paying a higher tax rate is all that penalizing.

I mean if you don't want to be "penalized" for living in this country, Somalia has no income taxes.

Everyone should pay taxes. And those who are more succesful financially end up paying more than those who are not. I've never said tha the rich should either a) not pay any taxes or b) should pay less (overall) than the less wealthy. As it stands, the rich end up paying a lot for living in this civilization.

What's shocking is that you don't see how taxes are a penalty. You don't see how someone who makes 200k, who is not on welfare, who probably won't need medicare or social security, or other governmental programs is penalized by paying close to 60k in taxes? For services he will never use? Seriously?

What's even more shocking is you have no problem forcing this person to essentially subsidize the less fortunate. Yes, some people have a rough go around in life, and they should be helped. But to take large sums of money from someone who worked his ass off to attain a measure of wealth is beyond ed up.

[xrayzebra]

How about you just get yourself elected President.
You get your own 747 to run around in, paid overseas
trips for your friends and wives friends, groupie parties
at the big house on Penn ave and servants at your
beck and call at all hours of the day and night.

And the czars of the world to hold your hand when things
are just not what they ought to be. (and all appointed by
you)

Now that is what America is all about now days.

And I forgot to add, doing this all at someone's else
expense, that is getting elected. And want to raise over
one BILLION dollars to keep going in the same mode.
And someone was gripping about Rush. LOL. At least he
is doing it on his on dime.

[RandomGuy]

Everyone should pay taxes. And those who are more succesful financially end up paying more than those who are not. I've never said tha the rich should either a) not pay any taxes or b) should pay less (overall) than the less wealthy. As it stands, the rich end up paying a lot for living in this civilization.

What's shocking is that you don't see how taxes are a penalty. You don't see how someone who makes 200k, who is not on welfare, who probably won't need medicare or social security, or other governmental programs is penalized by paying close to 60k in taxes? For services he will never use? Seriously?

What's even more shocking is you have no problem forcing this person to essentially subsidize the less fortunate. Yes, some people have a rough go around in life, and they should be helped. But to take large sums of money from someone who worked his ass off to attain a measure of wealth is beyond ed up.

Seriously. I do not see that as a "penalty", any more than someone wanting in to see a movie has to pay a "penalty" of $12.00.

Answer this question:

What stake does a person who earns 150,000 per year have in someone who earns 15,000 per year? How are they related in our society?

Draw the connection.

[vy65]

Seriously. I do not see that as a "penalty", any more than someone wanting in to see a movie has to pay a "penalty" of $12.00.

Answer this question:

What stake does a person who earns 150,000 per year have in someone who earns 15,000 per year? How are they related in our society?

Draw the connection.

Yah that analogy makes absolutely zero sense. How is "I pay for other's simply because I make more than them" not a penalty? What benefit does that person draw from those he pays for?

And I don't see the point of your question. In the abstract, I dunno. Is 15k the employee of 150k guy? I need more facts.

[Spurminator]

Reduce someone's wealth by confiscatory taxation and they buy less stuff made by those who are not so wealthy, employ fewer of those who are not so wealthy, and reduce their footprint in the service industry where most of those who are not so wealthy can be found.

That must be why unemployment was so high when we taxed the top bracket at 90%.

, we should be PAYING the wealthy to create jobs!

[Th'Pusher]

I just read an interesting book on this subject called Winner Take All Politics. Instead of trying to summarize, I'll steal from Booklist.

Vanessa Bush - Booklist

How did the widening gap between haves and have-nots—even worse, the haves and have-mores—come about? In the past 30 years, the top 1 percent have enjoyed 36 percent of all the income growth generated in the U.S. economy. Treating the growing socioeconomic gap like a whodunit, Hacker and Pierson painstakingly detail the gap between the superrich and everyone else. They paint a portrait of a nation that has fallen behind other developed nations in the widening income gap among its citizens. Worse, the wealth gap cannot be explained away by a lack of education or skills. Even among the well educated, a chasm has developed between the middle class and the wealthy. Whodunit? The U.S. government, which details changes in taxation and public policy, particularly regarding the financial markets, which have favored the wealthy at the expense of others over the last 30 years. Finally, they consider the long-term implications of this troubling trend and offer some encouraging signs—health care and financial reform, however anemic—and a growing discontent with the status quo.

And what's up with Joe the Plumber from Dallas?

[LnGrrrR]

Never was my argument. The whole philosophical aside we had was to establish that I don't really feel comfortable espousing a theory of morals or ethics.

What do you think "fairness" is? It's just another way of talking about morality.

Sure, the job market.

How would the job market determine taxation? As it is, there is already a market of citizens that do so.

Don't see why I have to do so.

It's easy to complain about the current tax code without providing any solutions. You can't complain about one unfair method without providing an alternate one in its place. (Well you can but it doesn't do much.)

No. I said that the "harder" job deserves to be paid more. And being taxed at a higher rate interferes with this -- essentially penalizing those who deserve to be paid more solely because they are paid more.

Honestly, the statement above doesn't make sense. As you just said, less taxation = more money, so in essence, you're also saying that the harder job deserves less taxation.

I thought we established that I ain't touching the tax code.

Again, if you're going to complain about the fairness of the current system, you'd think you could at least suggest an alternate.

So you're saying that the doctor + his family should subsidize the 40k family?

I have no idea how you could assume this from my argument. My point was, whatever "financial stress" a doctor with two kids is suffering is at least equal to the same "financial stress" of a couple making less, so it's a moot point when it comes to amount they should be taxed.

Don't see the relevance.

You can see the possible benefits of a person paying for education, SS, and medicare that they won't directly benefit from, but can't extrapolate that to a boss who supervises said people. Why am I not surprised?

You said you thought taxes should be based on usage of said items (police/fire/etc). Then you backtrack and change your answer when I talk about how people RIGHT NOW pay for things they aren't using.

[LnGrrrR]

[QUOTE=vy65;4984992]Not all jobs should be paid the same. Varying levels of skill and the interaction of supply and demand produce differing levels of compensation for different jobs. [QUOTE=vy65;4984926]

Agreed.

You shouldn't be penalized for having a higher paying job by paying more taxes. I'm not saying ". . . therefore, flat tax."

Uhm... yes you are. That's exactly what you're saying. Feel free to explain how you logically split those two statements up.

What I am saying is that higher tax rates for people like our 160k doctor essentially penalizes him for being smart, working his ass off in school, and then working his ass off in his job. As you detailed, the difference can amount to almost 42k/year.

Yes, he gets "penalized" more. He also ends up benefitting more.

I understand that this analogy breaks down in the context of 20mil-earning CEOs. But there are far more of "my" doctors, then "your" CEOs. So I'm way more comfortable producing some outlying injustice in the CEO example if it ameliorates the doctor's situation.

Give us a solution to this problem then. What solution would fix the injustice?

You're pretty comfortable with penalizing the guy who works harder in a more difficult job simply because he ultimately makes more money. That's pretty ed up in my eyes.

Because it's a bull example. The fireman who makes 60K a year could be said to have a job that's harder than other jobs that make 60K. And yet, we don't insist he pay less taxes than others that make 60K a year in "easier" jobs, do we?

Heck, YOU sound pretty comfortable penalizing the CEO who makes millions of dollars. Why isn't that ed up?

[LnGrrrR]

What's shocking is that you don't see how taxes are a penalty. You don't see how someone who makes 200k, who is not on welfare, who probably won't need medicare or social security, or other governmental programs is penalized by paying close to 60k in taxes? For services he will never use? Seriously?

Holy VY. Can you keep your stories straight?

That would happen even with a flat tax. Tell me, if you don't have kids in school, do you benefit directly from paying education? How about medicare? SS? If you're a pacifist, do you benefit from paying the military?

I think there are justifications for each. 1) you might have kids in the future, so it benefits you to invest in education now; 2) there is a chance you might need both medicare and social security; 3) you still receive protection from the military even though you might not want it.

So are SS/Medicare taxes justified or not?

What's even more shocking is you have no problem forcing this person to essentially subsidize the less fortunate.

Even though YOU provided justification for the same thing upthread.

Yes, some people have a rough go around in life, and they should be helped. But to take large sums of money from someone who worked his ass off to attain a measure of wealth is beyond ed up.

Explain why it's ed up. Give us a good reason, other than a blanket "It's unfair! "

[RandomGuy]

Yah that analogy makes absolutely zero sense. How is "I pay for other's simply because I make more than them" not a penalty? What benefit does that person draw from those he pays for?

And I don't see the point of your question. In the abstract, I dunno. Is 15k the employee of 150k guy? I need more facts.

You are on the right track.

Setting aside moral questions for now, the ultimate resource of any country is not minerals, oil, or agriculture, it is human beings. Any economy will have a mix of high and low skilled jobs that need to be done.

Upper income people depend to an extent on lower income people for employees for their businesses, and to provide basic services.

If you are attempting to run a business, but can't get employees to show up because their kid is sick, and they can't afford to pay someone to watch them, then that starts to affect your business' ability to function. If you want to run a business in an area with poor educational levels, you have to spend money on training people.

These are among some of the examples of how we get interconnected in ways that we don't generally tend to think about.

[RandomGuy]

Yah that analogy makes absolutely zero sense. How is "I pay for other's simply because I make more than them" not a penalty?

Let's get a couple of concepts here, to show some of the reasons our tax rates are the way they are.

The first is the lesson of the widows mite.

And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. 2And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. 3And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: 4For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.

This concept, that each unit of money to poorer people ends up being far more important to you the less you have of it is an important one.

The basic principle for progressive taxes is that taking 30% of $150K leaves you with 90k, which is quite sufficient to raise a family on.

Take 30% of someone with two kids who is making $25K, and you leave someone with 17.5K

You will not be forced to choose between electricity and food at 90k/per year, but you will be forced to make such difficult decisions at 17.5K.

One requires a certain amount of physical things to ensure physical well-being.
Shelter, food, clothes, etc. In the US shelter tends to include electricity for heating/cooking/cooling etc, especially when it is very cold or very hot.

Deny a human these things and you threaten their physical well-being.

To attain a minimum standard of shelter, food, etc, requires a minimum amount of money. Take away money from someone earning this level, and they go hungry, or homeless.

Past this point, you simply "upgrade" to better food, better shelter and so forth. This is the point at which taxation should begin.

[RandomGuy]

As for the "giving money to poor people" schtick, a lot of these wealth transfer schemes like Social Security and so forth satisfy moral principles.

"Be kind to strangers, widows, and fatherless children." Genesis 22:21-22
"It shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow."
Be kind to widows, orphans, fatherless children and strangers. Share whatever you have with them. Deuteronomy 24:17-21
"Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked." Psalms 82:3-4

Someone making $200K per year might never need food stamps, but it is not unheard of.

We have life preservers on boats because we are uncomfortable with letting people drown if they fall off a boat.

We have food stamps because we are uncomfortable with letting people and children starve to death.

These are moral choices.

[Yonivore]

Someone making $200K per year might never need food stamps, but it is not unheard of.

Anyone making $200K, for any amount of time, that doesn't plan for a rainy day, is an idiot and not deserving of my hard-earned tax dollars.

We have life preservers on boats because we are uncomfortable with letting people drown if they fall off a boat.

We have food stamps because we are uncomfortable with letting people and children starve to death.

We have food stamps because you're uncomfortable will dealing personally with those who are hungry, homeless, and poor. Charity is not the government's job; it's yours.

And, I was unaware the government supplied all personal flotation devices on all the boats in the country. I seem to recall buying the ones stored with my John boat.

These are moral choices.

So, you choose to funnel your "moral" dollars though an inept, inefficient, fraud-ridden, and incompetent government when those same "moral" dollars would go much further if you just took them directly to the food bank, soup kitchen, homeless shelter, etc... on your own.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Captain Downer...

Sorry you hate others for being successful. If you hate the American Dream so much, move to a different country.

your dumb ass apparently does not understand what the point of a democracy is.

it essentially says that if the populace does not like something they have the opportunity to vote.

now you can argue that given the current political system, your vote is essentially meaningless thus no opportunity but in the interest of not being a downer we will have hope.

a believer in democracy would say let your voice be heard and vote.

a dumbass minion that does not think for himself will say 'thats just the way it is. if you do not like it then leave.'

you actually think they speak for your blue collar technician ass. i know what category you fit in.

[boutons_deux]

Fuzzy thinkin,

Get back to me when your vote, or millions of votes, make ANY difference to the corruption and paralysis in DC. Barry promised change and all we got was more dubya.

[Marcus Bryant]

As for the "giving money to poor people" schtick, a lot of these wealth transfer schemes like Social Security and so forth satisfy moral principles.

Someone making $200K per year might never need food stamps, but it is not unheard of.

We have life preservers on boats because we are uncomfortable with letting people drown if they fall off a boat.

We have food stamps because we are uncomfortable with letting people and children starve to death.

These are moral choices.

The breakdown of the family, the continued decrease in participation in intermediate ins utions (civic, charitable, religious), the light rootedness of individuals, and the sheer alienation of life in the face of consumerist sprawl and technological innovation lead to the expectation of the state to step into the hole. This is a poor subs ute for traditional civic society, but it is what we are left with. We have moved from social man to completely alienated man in the name of progress.

[Yonivore]

The breakdown of the family, the continued decrease in participation in intermediate ins utions (civic, charitable, religious), the light rootedness of individuals, and the sheer alienation of life in the face of consumerist sprawl and technological innovation lead to the expectation of the state to step into the hole. This is a poor subs ute for traditional civic society, but it is what we are left with. We have moved from social man to completely alienated man in the name of progress.

One might argue just the opposite; the insinuation of the state into areas best handled by society has alienated us from one another, relieved us of any responsibility as members of a civil society to take care of one another or take responsibility for ourselves.

[Winehole23]

(gurning)