Gas Prices

[BigMat]

What I don't understand is why people like you think rich people should have to pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. Even if they pay the same percentage as everyone else, they are paying more $$$. Don't you get this?
...
Do you actually think the poor should get richer just because the rich get richer? Damn, I don't even know what to say to that...

I think I was talking quite clearly about trickle down economics, not tax brackets.

If you want to talk about tax brackets, sure, but please, respectfully and you are going to have to read what is written, not what you decide has been written.



As to tax brackets, fairness is unobtainable. I am fine with taxes, as they are needed, and if it was at all possible I would like to privatize as much as possible and have most of it be service based. -as a forward- I think the government is terribly wastefully in many regards, both left and right leaning politically.


Feelings on taxes
-"fair tax"- will destroy small American businesses (both stores and manufactures that have a low profit margin) and create a huge influx of illegal goods from Mexico/Canada/China sold out of the back of vans. There by further destroying profit for legal American businesses. As soem evidence, look at this sites EE. How many of us buy used to get out of taxes/shipping, now imagine if the tax part tripled, the used economy would explode, and we wouldn't head down to Gun Store X ever to buy anything! Tax on services just means unskilled people will learn to do it all themselves, no more handymen or mechanics or oil changes or plumbers.

-"Flat Tax"- the decision of a given percentage was chosen to be fair. everyone pays the same rate concept is most "fair." This is silly, it is not fair, fair would be a flat tax where everyone pays the same amount of dollars, think HOA fee. I get the same roads and the same protection from the military as a poor man, why should I have to pay more for it. Imagine walking into a store and the prices on goods changed based off of how much was in your wallet, this wouldn't last. Sadly, unless the .gov is cut to a less than a tenth of its current bulk, this will/can never happen. Why pick something to be fair, when its just an arbitrary figure as well. The percentage system only seems fair to those getting screwed by the graduated tax. I'm sure if the poor paid more as they use more gov't services by percentage than the rich, they would think it is the way to go, not Steve Forbes.

-graduated tax- current system - too easy to play with politically, one year rich get breaks, next year poor get breaks, every year, the .gov who decides how much you pay, seems to get more overall. That seems unethical. It was created when the gov't needed a ton of money (war time), and for whatever crazy reason, decided they couldn't live without a bunch of money to keep buying votes.


I think you can tell what I would like from this.

[Hoosier]

-graduated tax- current system - too easy to play with politically, one year rich get breaks, next year poor get breaks, every year, the .gov who decides how much you pay, seems to get more overall. That seems unethical. It was created when the gov't needed a ton of money (war time), and for whatever crazy reason, decided they couldn't live without a bunch of money to keep buying votes.

Technically, pure communism is when the graduated tax bracket is such that the increase in tax is 1:1 with your increase in earnings. And if you get here, or even close to it, people will "go Galt" and no longer have incentive to work harder. This is the core of the Ayn Rand / Tea Party argument, and I'd agree.

I just don't agree that from 36% to 39% is going to trigger this. It's been much higher in the past, and is much higher in places like EU, and there you continue to see people striving to earn more. My guess is that somewhere in the 50% range incentive starts to drop, but I bet $10 this is something that is a) a factor of education/upbringing/social pressure on the subject and b) something that could be studied to determine the real values.

As for why I think graduated tax can be thought of as having a valid purpose, there are several reasons:

* Helps maintain the desired bell-curve of income distribution, with most people in the middle

* People who get rich rarely do it solely through their own effort or achievement. They thrive in an environment of security, enforced trade agreements, eliminated monopolies, and available services that was not "the sweat of their brow." In other words, Bill Gates wouldn't be the worlds second richest man if he had to figure out how to get electricity to every computer he sold an operating system for

So when the government is (and has been for decades) running a deficit, both spending cuts and tax increases are the obvious course of action. I know, Sniper7 will tell me I can pay my own tax increase, since I obviously want to pay more taxes. That's a straw man argument. I don't want to pay more taxes. I would, however, rather pay the piper now instead of 50 years from now, when we've accrued far more debt and interest on that debt. We can pretend that spending cuts alone will do it, but I don't think anybody here who cares to do the math can be honest about it working.

I don't live my life in debt (*mortgage excluded) and I expect my government to do the same. There are plenty of countries that manage to build a surplus, and then invest that surplus to reduce their citizens tax liabilities.

My two cents.

H.

[hollohas]

I think I was talking quite clearly about trickle down economics, not tax brackets.

If you want to talk about tax brackets, sure, but please, respectfully and you are going to have to read what is written, not what you decide has been written.

I can see how my post may have strayed from your discussion but all these things are related. You have repeatedly mentioned the Bush Tax Cuts...and that they hurt, but in what regard? Are you saying that if businesses didn't get the tax breaks they would have hired more people or increased wages? Or are you saying that they hurt because the government isn't getting as much money now? Or are you simply saying that business owners just put their extra money from tax breaks in their pockets? What did it hurt?

Maybe this will be a bit more on your topic. You argued that trickle down doesn't work because the rich man's money doesn't make it into the system because he invests most of it. I was arguing that it does, via his increased tax burden. I was also arguing that it does work because the rich man buys more expensive things. He buys a giant new house...he pays lots of tax on said house, people got paid to build said house, people got paid to manufacture materials for said house, etc, etc. The money he spent on the house worked it's way through the system...it trickled down.

Now to use your numbers, lets say somewhat rich man of $1M only spends 20% on hard goods as you say. That's $200,000 that the man who produced/sold the goods gets. Poor man who makes $30k spends 100% on hard goods, that's $30k the man who produced/sold the goods gets. Again, more money from the rich man finds it way into the system, and to other people, than money from the poor man does...some would say it trickled down.

Maybe the poor man is the one who produced the lumber for his house or who put the drywall up. Rich man's money made it's way into the poor man's wallet and the poor man will spend 100% of it again...continuing the trickle.

Money from rich wallets makes it's way into the system at a higher rate than anyone else, no matter how you shake a stick at it.

[BigMat]

deleted for the sake of space

Agreed, a man in a castle has spent much more than a man in a hovel. That said, do men in castle provide more to the economy (especially concerning jobs and small business) then men in hovels, simply put, probably not.

Americans who make more than $250,000 (not even $1 million) constitutes about 1% of the US population. whereas the percentage of Americans who make less than $35,000 constitutes about 40% of the population. So running our random numbers-

Rich man, making $250,000 spends, lets say 75% of his income on goods and services, supporting small business and jobs, this comes to $187,500

Poor man making $35,000 spends 100% (paycheck to paycheck) on goods and sevices, supporting small business and jobs, this comes to $35,000.

man to man, the rich man gives more- however, for every rich man there are 40 poor men. meaning the poor men give $1,400,000.

This means that by demographics, the people making $35,000 or less are contributing ~7.5 times MORE to their local economies. There is a reason Walmart is the worlds largest retailer, not Nordstroms.


*the demographic numbers are pulled from the the US census bureau
**I made up the numbers about the percent spent on goods and services vs invested in a bank but I feel it was reasonable.

even if my math is fuzzy, 7.5 times the volume is very significant leaving a lot of room for flex.

A small business may be started by a rich man, but it exists because of its customers.




As to the Bush tax cuts part-
in general, the rich are paying lower taxes now than in the 90s. Now for simplicities sake, compare the pre-tax cut economy to today's, 10 odd years later. Seems to me America is doing vastly worse economically today than it was in the 90s. Is it just the tax cuts, of course not, but they don't seem to be a miracle pill that has pulled us out.

[hollohas]

Walmart is big because everyone likes cheap stuff, even rich people want the best deal.

I can see how I may have over simplified things when comparing 1:1 and how this changes as you consider the larger population. I'm not convinced it works out to 7.5 times if you were to consider people that make more than $250k but I see your point. Considering taxes though, we know that the top 10% of earners share about 70% of the total income tax liability so it certainly doesn't apply there. (Edit to include source CBO) (Edit #2: just noticed the lowest quintile actually has a negative 2.3 tax liability...wow)

I think you have over simplified as well considering the tax cuts. Yes, the economy may seem worse now than before the cuts, but taxes have been much higher at times in the past with the economy much worse too. During the 20's the top tax bracket bounced around between 73% and about 30%(the bottom bracket being around 1-4%)...much of the 20's were a recession economy and you know what happened at the end of the 20's. During the 60's and 70's the top tax rate hovered around 70% and there was a big recession during the mid 70's and early 80's. Top and bottom tax rates started falling during the 80's and much of the rest of that decade was recession free.

The top tax bracket has only changed a few percentage points in the last 20 years and the lowest tax bracket has fallen more than the highest. I don't see how a few percentage points can effect the overall economy in such a large way.

Like you said, it's not just tax cuts. We agree on that. It's such a dynamic system that there is no one reason why things are bad now.

[BigMat]

Like you said, it's not just tax cuts. We agree on that. It's such a dynamic system that there is no one reason why things are bad now.

Exactly, That's why just tax cuts are not going to fix it either.

and of course I over simplified! I'll have you know that this is the INTERNET! Economic theory must be expressed in 200 words or less, with a lot of breaks and slang.


Also, rich people HATE Walmart- The People of Walmart are what their nightmares are made of.
There are more Whole Foods in Boulder than Safeways, King Soopers and Walmarts combined.

Rich people spend money on what they want to, not what they need too.

-I had to add the Safeway and King Soopers, as there are no Walmarts in Boulder. You won't find any in Highlands Ranch or Cherry Creek either-

This concludes our study on Walmart locations as it relates to your gas prices- Sorry about your thread.

[Geology Rocks]

did someone say girls in short skirts or naked in here?













my favorite is when people go out and trade in their paid off tahoe for a $35,000 prius because its going to save them so much in gas. really?

joe

[DOC]

There is a wally world in Highlands Ranch. e470 and University I think?
Girls should car pool so they can talk about how cool the bikes are. And while they are talking about how cool the guys are wouldn't it be nice if they all had low cut shirts so they can see each others cleavage and kiss? But that's just me.

[William]

I understand the theory, as its very simple, however, I have yet to find a single example of this working on a Macro scale. Things just don't work this way in the real world. Educate me if you have something, I just can't find the realities of it. Please don't just say "your boss is rich." This is evidence of capitalism, not trickle down theory.

My sister works for a small manufacturing company that was established around 20 years ago. The owners are so called rich people ie combined income over $200,000 a year (they were not rich before starting this company). Currently this company employs over 100 people. They want to start another venture but are concerned about regulatory conditions and corporate taxes under the current administration. This has kept them on the fence and they have not started the new venture.

[William]

-graduated tax- current system - too easy to play with politically, one year rich get breaks, next year poor get breaks, every year, the .gov who decides how much you pay, seems to get more overall. That seems unethical. It was created when the gov't needed a ton of money (war time), and for whatever crazy reason, decided they couldn't live without a bunch of money to keep buying votes.

Since 40% of all households pay no income taxes taxes, that seems the most unfair. http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/1410.html