Differences in upward mobility and class barriers exist in all societies, not just the U.S.A. It is a fact of life and playing with tax rates is not going to solve the problem. Even in countries where education is free or heavily subsidized as in Canada, you still see the same phenomenon.

The best example of upward mobility is President Obama himself, look at his background. He comes from a broken home, lower middle class family and now he is ... President.

It would be if that was so, but it isn't.
20% or any% can always be worked down if you have the time money and inclination no matter how stringent the authorities make the "No deductions and no write offs" rules.

Full circle, income tax was seen as a way to simplify taxes the eliminate the evasion on the old goods taxes.

Nonsense.

If you have 1000 dollars and taxes bring you down to 800, you suffer more from that loss than if you have 1 million dollars and are brought down to 800,000. For by those 800 you still need to pay SS, flat, electricty, water, heating, plus food and cloathing. That makes you run extremely low on money. If you have 800,000, and live by ten times as high living costs than the guy in the first exmaple, you still would consume just 8000 dollars on electricity, flat, water, etc etc. That means you are still having 792,000 dollars by the end of the month.

The first guy gets hit extremely hard. The second one does not feel much, if anything at all.

Stronger shoulders can carry slightly more than weaker shoulders, I would say. I hate to use a scoialsit slogan (at least they use it over here), but in principle there is some truth in it. They just exaggerate it with their conclusions.

Progressive tax rates are meant to adress this. The higher somebody's income, the more he pays in. Where to mark the possible maximum tax rate, is subject of debate.

Below a certain minimum income per month, you even do not need to pay income tax at all, at least over here. That mark is called the breadline.

But not everyone is in the same boat. Nor does everone have similiar starting conditions.

And here I can counter with established social psychology. Social psychology and motivation psychology know that if people have more than enough of something, for exmaple cars, the intrinsic motivation to get more of that is dropping, and the appetite for more of the same and the satisfaction from getting more of the same is declining, too. Same is true regarding losses. The easier you can afford losses, the less you care to suffer them, for since you can afford themn, you do not feel them as losses.

If you must count every dime, you think twice about buying an item with a certain expeisnive price tag, even more if you know where to get it cheaper. If you must not think about your fiances, you tend to buy the item more easily, not caring for that you pay more for it than at the other buying opportunity. The difference you can save - is of no real concern to you.

Okay, you know that it is not alway slike this, so do I. But you get the generla line, and you know that it is like this for the vast majority of cases and people - maniacs and passionate collectors intentionally excluded.

That is known since research and experiments done in the early or mid 60s, I think it was.

Just read that the congress statistics bureau said that every seventh US citizen needed food stamps last year, that is 70% more than 2007, before the crisis broke out. They calculate that the number of people needing food stamps will grow steeply until 2014 at least.

More people will need even more stamps when needing to pay the same tax rate like the middle class, and the ultra rich.

Totally agree with Sky on this one.
Tax is a burden. Burden must be shared equally amonf citizens. The percent of tax on income is NOT a measure of burden.

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So screw the laws you dont agree with huh? Everyone can do what they want, because if you don't think a law is "good", then it shouldn't exist?

Yes it has - but we have been spending more than we brought in for decades - its not a left/right issue - both have failed this test and we the PEOPLE need to be about solving it.

Now your just ignoring many of the positions I have espoused and assigning me ones based on the fact that your talking points are good against them. I never suggested we cut spending on women or children - nor did I suggest a tax cut for the "rich".

Your backing an action that is specific to a party platform and defending it - while refusing to answer any questions or deal with any realities abouto it - that is partisan. Then your trying to claim I have a "side" with people who supposedly want to do things I have never suggested. Its easy to debate someone when you can tell them what they think - but that isn't the case here. What a strawman....

No - but if you want to have an actual discussion instead of just parroting bullet points that sound good, when your asked directly a question then yes you should. Refusing to do so in any form shows your not willing to have a discussion. Ask me a question and I answer it - because I am about the discussion - not repeating points and misinformation ad naseum.

Never said it did. But every time I ask you about a solution - or point out why this won't work and ask for a discussion - you instead go off on tangents and refuse to deal with the topic.

Again - strawman. I have not taken the positions you are claiming I have, and challenge you to show me where I have. You can't.

No - I specifically said that was NOT your fault... are you just reacting without even paying attention?????

And I even made a point to state that both sides were wrong - you continue only to point to the mud on the side opposite yourself...

Seriously - at this point your just making crap up about supposed stances you want to blame on me when my own words show that I have different positions. I talked about cuts in places other than entitlements. You never asked my view on tax cuts vs reforms, etc. I have tried to open the door for you to come up with ideas for solutions. Instead you rant about stuff I have not suggested.

Really - making stuff up is the best you have at this point?

I have always had a lot of respect for you Mookie - regardless of our disagreements. Usually your willing to discuss stuff - I don't know why your not this time.

The nice thing about being rich and paying high taxes is that afterwards, you are still rich.
:D

Yep. And if you are rich enough, you must not even work! Your stock papers just catch up the cream from other people's work! The money you have, is the money they have not! Then they must lend money, from you. Which gives you interests! Giving you more share of the overall wealth! Wealth that you have, but they have bot. So they must make more debts! Which gives you more interests! That'S why there is the so-called great divergence since the 70s - you know, those 70s that saw the end of the gold standard.

I said it in another thread some days ago. Problem became explosive when money no longer was seen as a calculation unit for real value and material properties, but became a good, an item itself, that can be bought and sold, and can grow in availability although not being covered by material value anymore. When that happened, the snowballing system - which due to the interest system always was there - really accelerated in pace by several factors. The real economy and its real materially existing value, gets overrolled by this madness.

The idea behind it is as idiotic as it is revealing: the idea that seriousl out of nothing can come something, and that paper by modern finance markets' alchemy can be turned into solid gold. :har:

Of course. And there is never a risk in loaning money - its ALWAYS paid back with that interest don'tcha know. And the borrowers - they are always honest about their ability to repay. Let's not forget that massive interest charge that they take on - well that is as high as possible because the rich are out to extort money from the poor. Heck, most of those loans are made because the rich guy loaning the money has a gun to the head of the poor person forcing them to borrow it!

Look - someone is starting a new business - they want a rich person to invest. Rich person invests - business fails - rich person is now out of of the investment. But if the business succeeds - the rich person gets a dividend (a reward) for his sound investment. People get jobs and paychecks from that...

How horrible! Someone should make a law against the rich - or them profiting off of risking their wealth.........

Exactly.

I believe progressive tax rates are nothing more than a way for government to increase it's power.

The amount they want to get is so trifle compared to the amount they keep spending that I have to believe that it's only real usefulness is as a vehicle to set the poor against the rich and divide the middle class. Divide and conquer.

But beyond the class warfare aspect I am against giving the Feds any more money in general. They have repeatedly demonstrated they can't manage it efficiently and if we had just half of what they've wasted or boondoggled away over the years we wouldn't be even having this debate.

At some point a line must be drawn or they will just continue to put us deeper into debt. Letting them do that while also letting them increase our tax burden is just crazy.

One of the guys I work with said it best - "I hope I make enough money that I'm in the position to have to worry about Obama's plan to tax the ultra rich."

What happens when they risk their own wealth, lose, blow up the world economy, and then hold everyone over a barrel looking for a bailout, and then get it and then fight against every bit of regulation in response to the crisis, telling everyone they're entitled to the amount of profit they made by doing precisely what they did to blow up the world economy?

Because it's the same old blah blah..someone floats the idea of a flat tax, as if 20% of a poor person's income is even remotely similar to 20% of a person who could never spend all their money's 20%, and then someone else says we need to cut back on spending on kids and women, but god forbid we ever recognize the fact that Americans are some of the least taxed developed nation citizens in the world or that defense spending is out of hand, and blah buh-blah-buh-blah...the same old song and dance, and at the end of the day, the Democrats and Republicans go to the same cocktail party, and prove everyone who believes there's a damn bit of difference between them to be a fool and a rube.

I get bored with it.

I've yet to hear any flat tax proponent advocate taxing the poor at any percentage, let alone 20% Mookie. Obviously there is a minimum to what can be taxed. You can't squeeze blood from a stone. If the 20% income tax only kicked in once someone cleared say $25 grand a year would you support it then?

As for being the least taxed developed nation you say that like it's a bad thing. How will you feel if we become the most taxed developed nation without any meaningful decrease in the poverty level? That's what I see happening if we keep giving in to these demands for ever more of our money.

Still, it's the same percentage as the rich man, seems fair is fair.


I think that's one of the big problems of this last 30 years, people expect things to be easy. They're not. People need to deal with it.
Anyway, we disagree but we're still friends, right?