Tax changes / proposals - discussion

Yes, but another factor is the risk-free rate – which would also be taxed.

Probably, but that’s not new investment created as a result of the bill; that’s just shifting timing around a bit.

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Gibberish.

Of course it is. Having one of the worst cases of income inequality in the developed world stunts GDP and increases Poverty.

Indeed you did, and it’s still zoomin’ right over your head that the CBO switched their metric to ‘Active’ to reflect the corporations that make tons of money, but because of manipulation, show no “profit”, and pay no taxes.

Oh well, perhaps someday you’ll grasp the concept.

Tim Cook sure tried like hell to make it sound like it was somethin’ though, didn’t he ? I mean, prior to 2017, we were creating more than double that many jobs every WEEK.

Oh geez. What a load.

This is why failed RightWing economic policies are dismal, miserable, failures. We are a DEMAND economy, which is why so-called “supply-side” schemes are disastrous.

Sooooo, one of the worst on the planet is not extreme.

WOW.

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Except it didn’t happen.

Just look at the last year, with the administration and their minions in the business community predicting great outcomes from all the ‘deregulation’, but instead we got the weakest job growth since 2010 (and BTW when the Jan numbers were released, the Dec & Nov job numbers were revised DOWN even lower), and business investment rose at a paltry sub-par rate of 6.2%.

Absolutely pathetic.

I think other factors contribute more to our GDP and poverty numbers than income inequality does. It’s also like comparing apples to oranges. There is no other developed country in the world with a similar geographic and demographic makeup to the USA.

We don’t have one of the worst on the planet. We have one of the worst in the developed world. Big difference.

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IRS released the 2018 early witholding tables.

For a hypothetical working making $3300 biweekly, single/1 personal exemption, and hoping I got it right:
2017 Withholding: $600.10
2018 Withholding: $503.40

Don’t know about you, but an extra Benjamin every paycheck in this example isn’t bad.

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Tax foundation has a calculator showing 2017 v 2018

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According to what metric ?

Eh, guess you missed I had already made that qualification. Helps to actually read what others post.

When we’re talking about poverty and income inequality, I think it’s more of a chicken vs. egg type conversation. Do we have higher inequality because of our poverty numbers or do we have higher poverty numbers because we have a lot of inequality? Personally, I think it is the former more so than the latter. Then the question becomes, what is driving the poverty. I think Brookings gets it right. If you finish high school, get a job, and wait until at least 21 to get married THEN have kids, you are very unlikely to be poor. So in that sense, life choices are the biggest determining factor of poverty.

Yes, you made that qualification, but then didn’t, and your statement followed the unqualified, so forgive me. So yes, my point stands, we DON’T have extreme income inequality. There are dozens of countries that are worse. And, considering how wealthy our poor are relative to dozens of countries that have less income inequality than us, I don’t think the measure of income inequality is really that important. So to your point that ours is extreme, I could just as easily argue… “so what?”

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Note that income inequality measurements and poverty measurements aren’t really the same thing. Income inequality is mostly just a measure of how much of the wealth is concentrated at the top.
You can theoretically have a society with low poverty yet high income inequality. e.g. A bunch of millionaires and a handful of billionaires would have high income inequality.

Income inequality is lower in India than the USA but there are more poor people in India.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Gini_Coefficient_World_CIA_Report.svg

Theres really no direct causal link between increased income inequality and increased poverty rates. When Amazon stock skyrockets and makes Bezos super duper rich that actually increases our income inequality but it really doesn’t cause poverty.
OTOH a huge jump in the # / % of poor people will also show in an increase of income inequality.

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In other words, you have no metric, you just wish your unsubstantiated belief is true.

It’s not.

Wrong.

OF COURSE we have shockingly extreme income inequality relative to the developed world.

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There’s more to it than a simple metric. I think you know that too or else you would be using a metric yourself to argue my point that it can’t be boiled down to a metric.

Again… qualification. We’re in agreement.

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It’s always funny to see Oxfam trot out the same old spiel, railing against income inequity and calling for ever higher taxes even as capitalist successes have raised living standards for the average person in poverty dramatically (in contrast to the socialist successes). Here’s a WSJ piece that calls them to task on that.

WSJ: A War on the Rich Won’t Help the Poor

The an­tipoverty char­ity Ox­fam re­cently pub­lished a 76-page re­port, “Re­ward Work, Not Wealth,” that ad­vo­cates tax­ing the rich to re­duce in­equal­ity and help the poor. But the re­port’s con­clu­sions con­tra­dict its em­pir­i­cal find­ings.

Early in the doc­u­ment, the au­thors write: “Be­tween 1990 and 2010, the num­ber of peo­ple liv­ing in ex­treme poverty (i.e. on less than $1.90 a day) halved, and has con­tin­ued to de­cline since then.” A few sen­tences later, they add: “Un­less we close the gap be­tween rich and poor, we will miss the goal of elim­i­nat­ing ex­treme poverty by a wide mar­gin.” It’s a cu­ri­ous as­sertion, given that the au­thors just ac­knowl­edged 20 years of enor­mous progress, de­spite per­sis­tent in­equality.

Still, you can’t fault the vigorous efforts of Oxfam directors and staff to stimulate the local economy in many poverty stricken third world countries.

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Isn’t bad? Are you completely crazy? It’s a disaster for America’s leftist statist liberal communist wannbes who wish for our country to go over to their way of doing things.

Learn this and deal with it: Venezuela worship EXISTS, right here in America. And Europe worship is widespread as well.

Those same people, BTW, will also remove Franklin, whom you mentioned, from our hundred dollar bill soon after they come into power again, replacing him with one of their heroes. They’ve already tried with the twenty. They seek to blow up the hated old order at every opportunity, images, symbols, constitution, everything. It reminds one of the way ISIS operated . . . . before Trump.

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WHO claimed it was a “simple” metric ?

No we’re not, as that’s not what you posted.

Which has what to do with the discussion in this thread of the developed world ?

You asked me for a metric. I claim there is no simple metric (because there is more to it) and that you can’t provide a metric either.
Your response, claiming you didn’t ask for a “simple” metric, proves my point. Provide your own metric or move on.

I am actually willing to grant you the claim that we have extreme income inequality relative to the rest of the developed world. I just claim that its not that it’s not bad enough (in an absolute sense) that we really need to do anything to combat it. That’s why my secondary reply is, “so what?”

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What would income equality do?
How do you see it solving the country’s problems?

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Joe won’t even agree that you agree with him.

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