Sharing Wealth in America

[Exquisitor]

If you were telling the truth, then the rich would be paying a LOWER Percentage of the income tax than their share of the income. They would not have a death tax either-though some of the uber rich love the death tax.

First, I would make sure everyone paid taxes while they built their estate, and then they could hand them over whole.

 

[Mircea]

That was precisely my point. Establishing (defining?) the “living wage” as the (federal) minimum wage which is required to lift a 4 person household (well?) out of poverty in Hawaii or NYC would then make a household with two full-time “entry level” workers exceed the current US median household income.

The federal minimum wage was never intended to lift people out of "poverty" because if it was, then it would not have barred 90% of American workers from getting paid the minimum wage.

At the time the federal minimum wage was enacted, 90% of your work-force was in agriculture, which was excluded until 1964.

In fact, as BLS notes, it only applied to 770,000 workers. That doesn't mean 770,000 workers got minimum wage, it means 770,000 workers were subject to the law.

Due to the mechanization of agriculture, by 1964 only 20% of your work-force was involved in agriculture. Today, it's around 2%.

 

[Mircea]

Bragging about pushing natives onto land that white people didn't want! Impressive! Typical Christians, rationalize anything.

I'm stating facts, which is not the same thing as bragging, and for the record, I've been an Atheist probably longer than you've been alive.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I'm stating facts, which is not the same thing as bragging, and for the record, I've been an Atheist probably longer than you've been alive.

And atheists cannot prove any gods' lack of existence than any theists can prove any gods' existence. Since I have been an agnostic since I was 12, which was decades ago, your guesses about probabilities do not impress me in the least.

Dominant cultures that can ignore decades of consumer depreciation are still stupid. How many automobiles trashed since Sputnik?

 

[Felis Leo]

Most Americans haven't even the foggiest notion of what consists "wealth". Just look at the share of wealth (in the graphic below) - how enlarged it is for the rich and how diminished it is for the poor.

It's pure idiocy to think that anybody who works "hard enough" deserves to get "rich" in America. The economy as structured today by taxation is a battleground where the poor get screwed and the rich get "what they want" - that is, Mucho Moolah!

What is not sufficiently stated in America is the consequence that our economic-process works by having two exactly opposite results (due largely to unfair taxation). Mucho-Moulah for the Rich and Mucho-Crapola for the poorest as shown here below:

That economic consequence just aint fair. Welcome to America where the Top-20% GET MOST OF THE WEALTH! And the Bottom 20% get nada ... !

Here is the problem as I see it, Lafayette. I meet poor Americans every single day in my line of work. I am often surprised at their levels of honest, simple ignorance of how basic finances work. The biggest problem facing the poor is not the tax structure and self-dealing by the wealthy, and deference to their wishes by politicians and the wealth-retention industry. That is a problem in every society, whether we are talking about the United States, the People's Republic of China, or Europe. You are a Frenchman. French bankers own the commanding heights of your economy and your society's politicians just as much as American Bankers own ours. Rather, the problem the poor of our nation face is one of continually-perpetuated ignorance.

Without evidence to the contrary, I would argue that the already-wealthy's ability to pull ahead does not affect the poorest's ability to attain wealth, so long as they have knowledge of the tools needed to achieve wealth. I think the solution would be instilling awareness of these facts and in-depth financial education starting in high school to supplement already-existing basic economics courses. The United States has no generalized requirement for states and localities to mandate early financial education for children, which I think is insane for the wealthiest country on Earth. So impoverished children born into poor families whose parents have no financial literacy are expected to be taught by their ignorant parents.

With the exception of those children who manage to find financially astute mentors to guide them, or who are exceptional autodidacts, most will perpetuate the cycles of poverty they learned from their parents, such as relying on predatory payday lenders as creditors of first and last resort. If people were taught practical lessons showing how interest rates worked; what 401(k)/403(b)/457(b), or Individual Retirement Accounts were; how to budget; how to save; how to invest; how to pay your federal and state income taxes (and how income taxes worked); the importance of savings (both emergency savings and "sinking funds"); the pitfalls of debt (including student debt) and how to avoid it among other key pieces of financial knowledge, I think we would see a burst of wealth creation from within the poorer quarters.

 

[HangLow]

Here is the problem as I see it, Lafayette. I meet poor Americans every single day in my line of work. I am often surprised at their levels of honest, simple ignorance of how basic finances work. The biggest problem facing the poor is not the tax structure and self-dealing by the wealthy, and deference to their wishes by politicians and the wealth-retention industry. That is a problem in every society, whether we are talking about the United States, the People's Republic of China, or Europe. You are a Frenchman. French bankers own the commanding heights of your economy and your society's politicians just as much as American Bankers own ours. Rather, the problem the poor of our nation face is one of continually-perpetuated ignorance.

Without evidence to the contrary, I would argue that the already-wealthy's ability to pull ahead does not affect the poorest's ability to attain wealth, so long as they have knowledge of the tools needed to achieve wealth. I think the solution would be instilling awareness of these facts and in-depth financial education starting in high school to supplement already-existing basic economics courses. The United States has no generalized requirement for states and localities to mandate early financial education for children, which I think is insane for the wealthiest country on Earth. So impoverished children born into poor families whose parents have no financial literacy are expected to be taught by their ignorant parents.

With the exception of those children who manage to find financially astute mentors to guide them, or who are exceptional autodidacts, most will perpetuate the cycles of poverty they learned from their parents, such as relying on predatory payday lenders as creditors of first and last resort. If people were taught practical lessons showing how interest rates worked; what 401(k)/403(b)/457(b), or Individual Retirement Accounts were; how to budget; how to save; how to invest; how to pay your federal and state income taxes (and how income taxes worked); the importance of savings (both emergency savings and "sinking funds"); the pitfalls of debt (including student debt) and how to avoid it among other key pieces of financial knowledge, I think we would see a burst of wealth creation from within the poorer quarters.

outstanding post...
-peace

 

[psikeyhackr]

Here is the problem as I see it, Lafayette. I meet poor Americans every single day in my line of work. I am often surprised at their levels of honest, simple ignorance of how basic finances work. The biggest problem facing the poor is not the tax structure and self-dealing by the wealthy, and deference to their wishes by politicians and the wealth-retention industry. That is a problem in every society, whether we are talking about the United States, the People's Republic of China, or Europe. You are a Frenchman. French bankers own the commanding heights of your economy and your society's politicians just as much as American Bankers own ours. Rather, the problem the poor of our nation face is one of continually-perpetuated ignorance.

Without evidence to the contrary, I would argue that the already-wealthy's ability to pull ahead does not affect the poorest's ability to attain wealth, so long as they have knowledge of the tools needed to achieve wealth. I think the solution would be instilling awareness of these facts and in-depth financial education starting in high school to supplement already-existing basic economics courses. The United States has no generalized requirement for states and localities to mandate early financial education for children, which I think is insane for the wealthiest country on Earth. So impoverished children born into poor families whose parents have no financial literacy are expected to be taught by their ignorant parents.

With the exception of those children who manage to find financially astute mentors to guide them, or who are exceptional autodidacts, most will perpetuate the cycles of poverty they learned from their parents, such as relying on predatory payday lenders as creditors of first and last resort. If people were taught practical lessons showing how interest rates worked; what 401(k)/403(b)/457(b), or Individual Retirement Accounts were; how to budget; how to save; how to invest; how to pay your federal and state income taxes (and how income taxes worked); the importance of savings (both emergency savings and "sinking funds"); the pitfalls of debt (including student debt) and how to avoid it among other key pieces of financial knowledge, I think we would see a burst of wealth creation from within the poorer quarters.

We here about Adam Smith and Wealth of Nations all of the damn time. But Smith wrote about education. Search the book and you will find:

Read, write, and account

five times in the text. Not arithmetic, account.

Double entry accounting is 700 years old. I don't even know if my high school had an accounting class when I was there. Our schools are designed to produce controlled ignorance. And then the accounting books are written as though the reader wants a career in accounting not manage his own finances regardless of career.

ToxicDrums.com

Former domain of a blog covering articles from a wide range of fields from science to entertainment.

www.toxicdrums.com

When do you hear socialists or capitalists advocating mandatory accounting?

 

[danielpalos]

With equal protection of the at-will employment laws for unemployment compensation in the US, we could solve simple poverty and enable the learning of economic principles by simple participation in our economy.

 

[psikeyhackr]

With equal protection of the at-will employment laws for unemployment compensation in the US, we could solve simple poverty and enable the learning of economic principles by simple participation in our economy.

Technology is too complicated for economics to be simple. I worked for IBM. They had three products, the 5100, the Datamaster 23 and the DisplayWriter. The DM23 replaced the 5100 but I wrote my own benchmarks. The 5100 was faster. The DisplayWriter had a better processor than the DM23 but IBM advertised it as a word processor not a computer.

I would have bought an APC computer by NEC but who knew about them?

Economists are mostly technological morons who talk as though everything can be evaluated in terms of money.

 

[danielpalos]

Technology is too complicated for economics to be simple. I worked for IBM. They had three products, the 5100, the Datamaster 23 and the DisplayWriter. The DM23 replaced the 5100 but I wrote my own benchmarks. The 5100 was faster. The DisplayWriter had a better processor than the DM23 but IBM advertised it as a word processor not a computer.

I would have bought an APC computer by NEC but who knew about them?

Economists are mostly technological morons who talk as though everything can be evaluated in terms of money.

You miss the point about practice "making perfect" or teaching principles. Only right-wingers ignore economics and economic principles by only criticizing the Poor who get the least practice under our form of Capitalism.

 

[bluesmoke]

The biggest problem with the “living wage” concept is that it (like the federal poverty level) varies based on household size and other household income.

The LW would not vary based on hshld size nor other income. Such as you describe would be managed by our tax system, via dependent individuals' deduction, etc. The only variance would be based on the COL for the given region and subsequent annual COLA.

 

[bluesmoke]

That's because wealth --like everything on Earth-- is affected by Supply & Demand.



Congratulations on your Göbbels-style Equivocation Fallacy. You just equivocated income with wealth. They are not the same thing.



Wrong. Wealth continues to be distributed to those who have the desire and put forth the effort to create wealth.

What effort do The Poor® put forth?

No effort at all. That's because of Class Attitudes.

The Class Attitude of The Poor® is to live for today and work to satisfy every imaginable infantile urge with no consideration of the Future.

When The Poor® choose to build/create wealth, then they will have it.



Again, you have falsely equivocated income with wealth.

Wealth is not inherently cash. It is assets and as it stands, 98% of the wealth in this country is non-cash assets.

I did not equivocate, nor did I say income and wealth are the same thing, neither of which can you quote what I said that would support such false claims. I’m saying that income is a factor that contributes to wealth, among other things. The higher the income, the greater the likelihood of accumulating wealth more than at a lower income.

Desire and effort are factors that contribute to wealth creation. Like the desire to make the effort to influence govt to pass legislation that favors those with the most wealth.

The poor and many more provide labor at less than a living wage that produces product and service at a profit for others. That effort has increased worker productivity, but wages have not been commensurate since the mid-1970s, hence the increasing wealth gap.

Even with a LW, it’s a paycheck to paycheck living with little left over for the future.

Maybe the poor should choose higher income jobs and the wealth will come. You make it so simple a solution.

Again, quote what I said where I equivocate income with wealth or say they are the same, and in what way. Some clarification would help. “Equivocate” does not mean “make the same”.

Well, wealth does include cash. But what does the ratio of assets (which would incl assets convertible to cash) to cash (coins and notes) have to do with our discussion? Please advise.

 

[ttwtt78640]

The LW would not vary based on hshld size nor other income. Such as you describe would be managed by our tax system, via dependent individuals' deduction, etc. The only variance would be based on the COL for the given region and subsequent annual COLA.

That idea violates the concept of equal pay for equal work. Why should two workers, toiling side by side at the same task, receive different net pay (compensation)? Basing income taxation of equal annual income amounts on how or upon who that income was later spent makes no sense.

 

[Lafayette]

Maybe the poor should choose higher income jobs and the wealth will come. You make it so simple a solution.

Lemme see - you're arguing that really poor who cannot afford a post-secondary degree should find a higher-income job to provoke their wealth?

Wow, what a sense of black-humour ... !

 

[ttwtt78640]

Lemme see - you're arguing that really poor who cannot afford a post-secondary degree should find a higher-income job to provoke their wealth?

Wow, what a sense of black-humour ... !

Hmm… would there no longer be lower paying jobs if everyone had a college education?

 

[psikeyhackr]

Lemme see - you're arguing that really poor who cannot afford a post-secondary degree should find a higher-income job to provoke their wealth?

Wow, what a sense of black-humour ... !

Is a post-secondary degree just a matter of money?

But then secondary school is a joke.

 

[American]

Most Americans haven't even the foggiest notion of what consists "wealth". Just look at the share of wealth (in the graphic below) - how enlarged it is for the rich and how diminished it is for the poor.

It's pure idiocy to think that anybody who works "hard enough" deserves to get "rich" in America. The economy as structured today by taxation is a battleground where the poor get screwed and the rich get "what they want" - that is, Mucho Moolah!

What is not sufficiently stated in America is the consequence that our economic-process works by having two exactly opposite results (due largely to unfair taxation). Mucho-Moulah for the Rich and Mucho-Crapola for the poorest as shown here below:

That economic consequence just aint fair. Welcome to America where the Top-20% GET MOST OF THE WEALTH! And the Bottom 20% get nada ... !

"Author's calculations using Federal Reserve Board, "Survey of Consumer Finances" [2017]

Author's calculations.....I wonder what went into them. So how are they able to get most of the wealth, given all this talk by Democrats about wealth distribution?

 

[Lafayette]

Author's calculations.....I wonder what went into them. So how are they able to get most of the wealth, given all this talk by Democrats about wealth distribution?

Here's how, from the Tax Foundation: Top Effective Marginal Tax Rates in 2019 and Their Composition

Note that the US is 32nd in the ranking at only 47% effective average income-taxation ... !

 

[Lafayette]

Is a post-secondary degree just a matter of money?

But then secondary school is a joke.

In the US, yes!

In France (where I live) a post-secondary degree that prepares one nowadays for a much higher income level costs around $700 (in Euros) per year (4 years). And it's just a wee bit more in the other European countries.

Whereas in the US, the cost of that same post-secondary degree is around either $10K (at state schools) and $26K (at private-schools)per year. From here:

According to College Board, published tuition fees for 2018/19 at state colleges are an average of US$10,230 for state residents, and $26,290 for everyone else. This compares to an average of $35,830 at private non-profit colleges.

Post-secondary schooling is no joke! It is the passport to a lifetime higher income-level and thus one's existence ... !

 

[bluesmoke]

Lemme see - you're arguing that really poor who cannot afford a post-secondary degree should find a higher-income job to provoke their wealth?

Wow, what a sense of black-humour ... !

"Dark humor" would have been more subtle and still have made your point quite well, in my well-meaning opinion. Nonetheless, good one!

 

[danielpalos]

The LW would not vary based on hshld size nor other income. Such as you describe would be managed by our tax system, via dependent individuals' deduction, etc. The only variance would be based on the COL for the given region and subsequent annual COLA.

Equal protection of the at-will employment laws is more automatic because it respects Individual Liberty more, and simpler for Congress to in this regard: All laws of a general nature shall have uniform operation.

By ensuring that form of full employment of resources in our market based economy, it is more efficient to raise revenue from general taxation.

 

[Mircea]

And atheists cannot prove any gods' lack of existence than any theists can prove any gods' existence.

Of course we can prove it. Gods were created by ignorant people who had no understanding of the world around them.

Even the Agnostic god is not a god.

 

[bluesmoke]

He has made that clear in multiple posts, thus there is nothing to wait for.

The poster could not give information that would qualify the case for standing in court under any EP clause triggers. I gave some of those qualifications to which he could or did not confirm or give evidence of that his hypothetical satisfied.

 

[bluesmoke]

LW was not mentioned in that post, but MW was. Stop the nonsense of making false assertions.

I was asking for clarification. What assertion did I make that was false and why?

 

[ttwtt78640]

I was asking for clarification. What assertion did I make that was false and why?

That the MW was ever intended to be (or serve as) a LW. The LW concept is based on household size, while the MW is not. Trying to use those two (very different) terms interchangeably is simply time wasting nonsense.