The New Gilded Age

HungryJoe

So, the top two percent own something like 98% of the wealth and have for a while. (I'm just estimating the numbers, and writing fast, so I don't have time to get the actual numbers. They're close.)

The rest of us haven't seen any real growth in wages for years. The infrastructure is collapsing, government services are being suspended or modified, the middle class seems to be vanishing and now the top people are doing outrageous things they know they can get away with because they're almost a law unto themselves now. An example that touched me recently was the stupid F1 race through Baltimore. No one in the middle or working classes wanted it and we were all very, very inconvenienced by it, but the wealthy put it on anyway, because they knew there was really nothing we could do about it.

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch is caught red-handed doing all sorts of unethical shenanigans. Will he pay for it? Unlikely. Instead, will they execute a guy who every person who can read believes is innocent of the crime for which he was convicted? Sure - and then the rich, like Ann Coulter, will make jokes about it.

Also - students can't get jobs although they're saddled with 100s of Ks of debt that is nondischargeable in bankruptcy, the bankruptcy law has been rewritten to make it harder for a middle class individual to file even if his debts were all due to a sudden catastrophic illness, but the banks and big corporations can always get money from the US government even while they export most of their jobs overseas.

Interesting article clarifying some of my rant.

What do you think?

Rym

Agreed. So what do we do?

Neito

Agreed. So what do we do?

Ignore the fucktards and tax the rich, like most people (even those who would have their taxes raised) want?

Oops, class warfaire!

GreatTeacherMacRoss

HungryJoe

Violent revolution? Bloody constraint?

I believe this student loan thing might lead to some violence if there's no relief.

What I wish would happen is that we could elect some people who were not already corrupt and/or owned by corporations who would then actually enforce regulations we already have, maybe draft some new ones, and return the tax code to a structure that had, like 90% brackets for people making a million per year.

Rym

Ignore the fucktards and tax the rich, like most people (even those who would have their taxes raised) want?

They claim not to want that. They also vote.

Neito

Eh. I can't think of any reasonable solutions that aren't "raise taxes on those who can afford it". Everything else is either Mad Max or sarcasm.

Matt

Are you serious about 90% or are you just venting? What do you see below that, a sliding scale leading up to 90% that leaves nobody really taking home more than 100k per year unless they make multi-millions?

Apreche

There is no F1 race in Baltimore. Are you talking about the Baltimore Grand Prix? That isn't even close to F1.

Neito

Are you serious about 90%

In the 50s, the top tax rate was just barely under 90%.

Apreche

Are you serious about 90%

In the 50s, the top tax rate was just barely under 90%.

That can't possibly be true.

The solution to tax brackets it to get rid of brackets. Instead, it should be a logarithmic scale.

HungryJoe

There is no F1 race in Baltimore. Are you talking about the Baltimore Grand Prix? That isn't even close to F1.

Grand Prix, F1, it didn't matter to the people who were terribly inconvenienced by it.

It's not only inconvenience. Business was disrupted, people couldn't get to work or school, hospitals were closed. That's not to mention all the govt spending that could have been better spent fixing blight. It was a little nightmare for those of us who were here. No one wanted this but the rich fucks who profited from contracting work and the rich fucks who could afford tix that were reportedly hundreds of dollars.

Apreche

Grand Prix, F1, it didn't matter to the people who were terribly inconvenienced by it.

It would have mattered. Had it actually been F1 your inconvenience would have been multiplied tenfold.

SquadronROE

Are you serious about 90% or are you just venting? What do you see below that, a sliding scale leading up to 90% that leaves nobody really taking home more than 100k per year unless they make multi-millions?

We don't simply need more taxes, we need more tax revenue coupled with strong social programs that support a good quality of life and can help bring people into a large middle class. However, with the way things are now I'm pretty sure most of the tax money would simply be wasted or funneled into ways to create incentives for corporations to somehow magically bring jobs here, which may not be the wisest strategy.

Maybe an easier fix would be to simply outlaw lobbying by corporations?

EDIT: fixed grammar, wordiness.

zehaeva

Are you serious about 90%

In the 50s, the top tax rate was just barely under 90%.

That can't possibly be true.

Here's a table with the marginal tax rates through history. I'll note that those rates are not adjusted for inflation. Maybe if you made that adjustment it'd make more sense?

Linkigi(Link-ee-jee)

Are you serious about 90%

In the 50s, the top tax rate was just barely under 90%.

That can't possibly be true.

It was levied primarily so that America could refinance after the war.
Here's a list of tax brackets from every tax year since 1913.

SquadronROE

Here's a table with the marginal tax rates through history. I'll note that those rates are not adjusted for inflation. Maybe if you made that adjustment it'd make more sense?

Woah! In 1913 the tax rates were in single digits? Also it's kind of crazy how much things changed SEVERELY starting in the 70s.

HungryJoe

Are you serious about 90%

In the 50s, the top tax rate was just barely under 90%.

That can't possibly be true.

Tax Brackets from the Good Old Days
Tax Brackets Now

Grand Prix, F1, it didn't matter to the people who were terribly inconvenienced by it.

It would have mattered. Had it actually been F1 your inconvenience would have been multiplied tenfold.

Inconvenience would have been worth it had there been some benefit. In our case, the only benefit accrued to rich fucks.

Twenty five percent of people in Baltimore live below the poverty line. We don't need any sort of race at all. Grand Prix, F1, or whatever. We shouldn't have even had a soap box derby.

Edit: Ninja'd on brackets, but doesn't that make sense? If you make something like a million (top of head adjustment between 1960 and 2011 dollars) a year, you should goddamn well pay 70%.

Dr. Timo

Are you serious about 90%

In the 50s, the top tax rate was just barely under 90%.

That can't possibly be true.

The solution to tax brackets it to get rid of brackets. Instead, it should be a logarithmic scale.

You realize that tax brackets are effectively the only realistic implementation of a logarithmic tax scale?

That looks very much like a logarithm to me

Apreche

I'm all for graduated taxes, but those old brackets are insane. How did people even buy anything? Let's use the 1960 as an example.

Income / rate / leftover money
$400,000 / 91% / $36,000
$40,000 / 56% / $17,600

Your company pays you ten times as much as the other guy, but you end up with only a little over twice as much money. At rates like that why would I even bother giving my employees a raise? I'd basically be making a humongous donation to the feds just to give my employee a small piece of that. They'd be like, great thanks for the $100, I'd be like WTF you know how much it cost to give you that extra $100?!

Yeah, inflation means that one of those dollars was actually way more powerful than today's dollars, but it's no wonder. Of course a dollar is going to be worth a lot more when the supply is so low due to the government taking them all away from everybody.

Another fundamental problem is that the primary tax is income tax. The richest people don't have income. They don't get salaries. How many of them just have the Steve Jobs $1 salary? They get all their money from capital gains. And when the market goes down, they only have losses, not gains. The problem in the economy is rich people and companies sitting on huge piles of money that aren't moving around. We need to start taxing the hell out of money that is sitting still more than we need to tax wages.

Apreche

You realize that tax brackets are effectively the only realistic implementation of a logarithmic tax scale?

I know they approximate a logarithm, but why not make it just one equation that applies to everyone instead of brackets?

Linkigi(Link-ee-jee)

I'm all for graduated taxes, but those old brackets are insane. How did people even buy anything? Let's use the 1960 as an example.

Income / rate / leftover money
$400,000 / 91% / $36,000
$40,000 / 56% / $17,600

Scott, you've forgotten how tax brackets work. You pay the rate of a bracket up on income to the limit of the next bracket, so even if your top rate is 91%, you aren't giving 91% of your income to the government because most of your money is taxed at various lower rates.

Rym

You realize that tax brackets are effectively the only realistic implementation of a logarithmic tax scale?

I know they approximate a logarithm, but why not make it just one equation that applies to everyone instead of brackets?

Brackets are fine. They just don't continue high enough. I'm personally near the top... (not counting AMT).

Apreche

Scott, you've forgotten how tax brackets work. You pay the rate of a bracket up on income to the limit of the next bracket, so even if your top rate is 91%, you aren't giving 91% of your income to the government because most of your money is taxed at various lower rates.

Oh, right. I knew that at one point. Derp derp derp.

SquadronROE

Your company pays you ten times as much as the other guy, but you end up with only a little over twice as much money. At rates like that why would I even bother giving my employees a raise? I'd basically be making a humongous donation to the feds just to give my employee a small piece of that. They'd be like, great thanks for the $100, I'd be like WTF you know how much it cost to give you that extra $100?!

Very interesting. On $17,600 a year I could afford to buy a house back then, considering median housing prices were $8,300. Not so true today, even for a middle class family.

EDIT: spacing

Cremlian

Scott, you've forgotten how tax brackets work. You pay the rate of a bracket up on income to the limit of the next bracket, so even if your top rate is 91%, you aren't giving 91% of your income to the government because most of your money is taxed at various lower rates.

Don't worry I'm pretty sure MOST people make this mistake.

Apreche

Scott, you've forgotten how tax brackets work. You pay the rate of a bracket up on income to the limit of the next bracket, so even if your top rate is 91%, you aren't giving 91% of your income to the government because most of your money is taxed at various lower rates.

Don't worry I'm pretty sure MOST people make this mistake.

I previously knew it and forgot it.

Cremlian

I previously knew it and forgot it.

It's not really talked about when they talk about the topic I've found. Leading a lot of people to brush over that point to make it sound scarier.

Rym

I previously knew it and forgot it.

It's not really talked about when they talk about the topic I've found. Leading a lot of people to brush over that point to make it sound scarier.

I like the idea of the tax rate actually approaching 100% at some point.

Consider the mechanism design of this. Once you make a certain ludicrous amount of money, you get no further personal money from additional income.

BUT!

Recall that you do not pay income tax on qualified charitable donations. Thus, a person in this situation is heavily inclined toward charity with ALL of their additional income above this point. So, it's not as though the government just takes all of their extra money. They can still decide what they want to do with it: they're simply constrained to altruistic options for that additional money.


Can anyone reasonably argue that an individual person, no matter their job or status, deserves to make more than, say, $10,000,000 a year? What the fuck do you do with that kind of money aside from Hedonism Bot it up?

SquadronROE

Recall that you do not pay income tax on qualified charitable donations. Thus, a person in this situation is heavily inclined toward charity with ALL of their additional income above this point.

Maybe not heavily inclined, as that means they would still not see the money and if all they care about is getting to personally amass income it wouldn't matter where it goes. Unless, of course, the charity they supported was a lobbying organization that would seek to lower tax rates.

SquadronROE

Can anyone reasonably argue that an individual person, no matter their job or status, deserves to make more than, say, $10,000,000 a year? What the fuck do you do with that kind of money aside from Hedonism Bot it up?

I think it gets ludicrous far before then. But I dunno. The only reasons I can think of are greed, really. Like being able to buy your own private business jet or use that money to create more money. Eventually, maybe finance your own immortality.

Edit: I'm an idiot and clicked the wrong quote button.