Quit worrying about the rich and worry about yourself

I agree to disagree that the wealthiest would not practice better due diligence on the candidates they present to us at elections if they know they are going be burdened with wartime tax rates, even for a War on Drugs.

 

Look at the bright side. The richest 1% are taking proportionate about $1.5 trillion more of the nation's income than they were before "trickle down" began. And paying lower taxes to boot.

So you should feel great that your higher taxes are helping the 1% take more of the nation's wealth and income.

 

I'm not going to worry about things I can't change Iriemon. I have enough to worry about myself.

 

Good for you. I'll try to change them.

 

Exactly why things are the way they are, people not paying attention to how their government is working for a selective few, leaving the rest of the country in turmoil, to the point of bankruptcy. Poor people didn't do this to America.

 

Yes, poor people did do this to america.....

 

Poor people didn't deregulate the banks, or create the housing bubble that has left our economy in ruin.

Poor people didn't outsource the jobs that will never return forcing people to become more dependent on the government.

Poor people didn't even create welfare, but your hatred for poor working class people is showing.

 

You guys got a tax hike on the rich, do you really think your going to change things where things are more even? If you want to lift us up and redistribute the wealth where the average American makes out, it has to be through jobs. It's not going to happen any other way

 

Poor people didn't increase the SS tax the working poorer pay, and didn't not pass laws to weaken unions which increase the pay of workers, and didn't pass tax cuts that put the nation trillions in debt, and didn't cut back the scope of overtime laws.

 

In my opinion, it is more about burdening the wealthiest with wartime tax rates even for a War on Drugs, merely to ensure better public policy choices from our elected representatives in the future.

 

I agree. We need to reverse the redistribution of wealth to the 1% that has happened over the past 30 years. Proportionate to GDP, the 1% every year take $1.5 trillion more of the nation's income than they did 30 years ago, and the 99% get $1.5 trillion less every year.

If that $1.5 trillion was still going into the hands of the middle class instead of the 1%, you'd see the spending that used to drive economies out of recessions.

 

What do you think the income and capital gain rates should be for the 1 % ?

 

You sound like the getaway driver at a bank heist.

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What is it when somebody steals your money and you want it back?

 

I never got a tax hike on anybody, just more slight of hand by the two party scam to keep things on the same down hill trek and keep the political polar opposites fighting over nonsense. You are buying what they are selling.

 

The rich make 90% of the income and the bottom half makes 10% of the income. So, yeah, the rich pay too little. Feck, it's the rich man's country. He should pay all the taxes.

 

The rich got that way by taking our jobs to Mexico, India and China. We got poorer by losing those good paying middle class jobs. You want to change it, we have to do it through jobs. By having our government do everything possible to bring back jobs. We aren't going to do that by taxing business more either.

 

Right, try it and see how many of the rich stay in this country. You guys need to get real and you haven't begun to do that yet.

 

I am betting on getting more "efficient' public servants.

 

Why is it assumed that government spending, as opposed to private spending, is the prime controlling agent in driving economies? Government's redistribution is just that - redistribution of that which already exists. It isn't as if govt were somehow manufacturing wealth out of the blue. Doesn't using more and more taxation as a means of wealth redistribution merely usurp the choices of how a greater portion available resources are distributed?

The RICH don't have their wealth buried in their back yards. That money is normally invested in the economy, and even their "pocket spending money" eventually is spent on various available commodities. It's not as if government were somehow rescuing otherwise stagnant (or even non-existent) wealth and then feeding it into the hands of eager consumers and/or the needy. The wealth of the rich still exists within and flows throughout the economy. But I would agree that only government can effectively divert existing wealth from what would have otherwise been its owners' intended flow to whatever the current batch of politicians and ideologues happen to favor.

It's a matter of who decides what gets done with the available resources - govt bureaucrats or the actual owners of the wealth. Nothing is magically created by government handling the process.

BTW - I'm not unsympathetic to the problem of the ever increasing wealth disparity in the nation. I'm not at all convinced that bureaucrats are better suited for deciding how best to allocate a person's private possessions, nor am I convinced that it even has the right to assume such intrusive usurpation.

 

Nor am I, but I think many Liberals are trying to go about changing it the wrong way. As I said before, the rich got richer and we got poorer by taking those jobs out of the country. There is over a trillion dollars in tax money the rich are keeping out of the country because of our tax on business. You want to bring down what the rich has and bring up the money we have, the only way of doing it where it will really effect the working man, is through jobs. That is where most of our effort should be.

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Nor am I, but I think many Liberals are trying to go about changing it the wrong way. As I said before, the rich got richer and we got poorer by taking those jobs out of the country. There is over a trillion dollars in tax money the rich are keeping out of the country because of our tax on business. You want to bring down what the rich has and bring up the money we have, the only way of doing it where it will really effect the working man, is through jobs. That is where most of our effort should be.

 

Only our elected representatives are actually delegated the power to Tax to provide for the general welfare.

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Why give "cognitive dissonance" a free pass? It is either a time of War or it isn't.

 

How did you possibly get that assumption from my post?

It is not just taxes. Taxes certainly play a role. Raise taxes on the working poorer and cut them for the rich and you get a redistribution to the richer. If the top tax rate on income is 91%, you're going to see less incomes at those levels of taxation.

But there are many other Govt policies that affect how much of the nation's income goes to what group. Weakening unions and overtime laws and minimum wage laws all have the effect of depressing income to the poorer workers, and more to the owners.

Is it really? When a billionaire sticks his extra income in some offshore bank account, and the banks aren't lending the money, how is that invested in the economy? How is that many driving demand for goods and services and production if it is not being spent?

It's a matter of who decides what gets done with the available resources - govt bureaucrats or the actual owners of the wealth. Nothing is magically created by government handling the process.

History teaches us that laissez-faire capitalism can be an ugly thing, and that great income disparaty is not healthy for the economy.

I submit we are seeing that now. The 1% horde their money in offshore accounts, and the middle classes don't have the money to spend to drive a robust recovery. IMO it is not coincidence that this recovery, like the one before it and the one before it, is more shallow and slow than those that preceded the trickle down policies of the Reagan revolution.

Compare the recoveries in 1990, 2001, and the current one with earlier recoveries:



This chart is older, but the differences are dramatic:



All the recoveries before the mid 1980s were sharper and faster.

 

I don't think that is the whole answer, though I agree that is likely part of it.

The problem is not that the nation is making less income, but that it is being distributed far more to the 1%. Their take of the nation's income has grown from less than 10% in 1979 to more than 20% today. That equates to $1.5 trillion per year more of the nation's income going to the 1% and $1.5 trillion less to the 99%.

We need more jobs, agreed. More jobs come when there is more demand for production. More demand for production comes from more spending.

And the great engine of spending, the middle class, is proportionately $1.5 trillion in the hole compared to 30 years ago.

 

The problem I see in this is the fact that most of the goods that would be bought by the lower income and lower middle class would be goods produced overseas.

The money would continue to drain out of this country into others.

I mean really...go to Wal Mart or any major retail outlet and try to find something made in the U.S.

Until this problem is takrn care of we will continue on a downward slide.

 

I think I just got bludgeoned.