How Unequal Are We? Redistribution of Wealth to the Rich

reply to post by tothetenthpower

I made a little over 500K last year, personal income.
I paid throughout the year, about 25K in income taxes.
Another 8K for IE and CPP and those things.
I filed my return and do you know how much I got bacK?
Twenty Two Thousand.

Wow. That is crazy. Thanks for sharing this info. Most people wouldn't do that. You'll find that many of the ATSer's here will probably ignore or overlook this information because it doesn't fit what they are being told.

Warren Buffet himself, one of the richest men in our country, said it himself,

“There's class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.”

reply to post by David9176


That's an excellent point. My sister is a public school teacher and says how most of the students speak no "academic English." I had never heard of the term "academic English" applied to MIDDLE school! haha. There's also a couple kids dead set on ruining the class for everyone else as well -- it's not that they're stupid -- but just need direction, focus, etc. Hell I got bored in class as well.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Yes this is an amazing expose -- thanks for sharing and donating your taxes. I know someone who made 77K retirement but only paid $2000 or so -- plus no state taxes -- meanwhile the working class pays 30% taxes! Sure you get some back but meanwhile Soc Sec is raided for the military budget. And if you're poor enough you get sent abroad to be killed for the rich.

reply to post by tothetenthpower

I felt sick to my stomach. So I left my house with my cheque in hand a brought it straight to the Community Big Brothers/Big Sisters club and donated all of it.

BTW...that was simply awesome of you to do!!! Your tax return was 22,000....I made just under 30,000 in earnings last year.

Originally posted by David9176
I agree with you both.

For example, a personal one:

Both my parents worked when I was growing up. When I got home from school...no one was home. My old man worked till 6pm and my mother was already gone for work when I got home. I didn't do homework...I didn't do much of anything really. My father was always too tired to spend time with us much as he worked ridiculously long hours. My mother was a bartender and didn't get home till the wee hours of the morning. I was the oldest of 3 boys...my younger brothers have had nothing but problems with debts, holding jobs, JAIL, etc.

It's like this for many families now...in fact it's much worse. There is a major disconnect with parents and their children.

But to me this is all just a symptom from the cause....the deterioration of the middle class.

I mean no offense to anyone, but I think this nation has also gotten into the mode of producing, pure, 100% bull$#!t. We are consumers to the insane degree, more and more of wealth is based upon selling crap, promoting crap, protecting
crap...

To me it is clear in the "arts" which says allot too...

Another couple of decades and nobody will even know the world is ALL crap.

I mean no offense GBM but the most lucrative employment in the last couple years has been the creation and sales of crap monetary trades of sorts.

Sad to say; more and more, hard work is for suckers

I am not even 30 and I sound like I am 87

reply to post by David9176


Yeah for the past 10 years I made on average 8K a year -- I've had no car, no t.v., no computer, no watch and no telephone! haha. Of course I only worked 15 hours a week on average as well and I had to live in a really cheap nasty room with a really nasty room mate. Also I ate out of dumpsters a lot. haha.

Originally posted by David9176
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

I felt sick to my stomach. So I left my house with my cheque in hand a brought it straight to the Community Big Brothers/Big Sisters club and donated all of it.

BTW...that was simply awesome of you to do!!! Your tax return was 22,000....I made just under 30,000 in earnings last year.

Cheers

I have yet to break 20

I am going to learn the art of crap creation one day, besides my posts here!

Geezus how do you guys make ends meet?

I'm always broke. I do have the internet and cable tv. I have a truck I can barely afford after losing my job 3 years ago to OUTSOURCING and getting another with little benefits and lower pay. Never again will I get a vehicle with payments. If it wasn't for tax returns I'd be F'd. Helped pay off hospital bills from my kid being born.

Who are we kidding though right? We're nothing but bottom feeders leeching off the rich who sent our jobs overseas to get a boost in their stock prices. No tariffs? No problem!!!

reply to post by David9176


The numbers don't mean anything. I just can't understand this concept of "fairness". What is fair, who decides what is fair and how does "fair" get implemented?

Is it fair that someone should have to pay taxes that go to pay for some gent to sit home and watch TV? Is it fair to have a business owner's income taxed when he receives it and then have the government take a ton of it when he dies to pay for the same joker?

If everyone's wealth was confiscated and everyone got the same money, is that fair? Is it fair that the top 1% of folks in this country pay 40% of the taxes?

Is it fair that a person in a trade who works hard can not afford a decent house, send his kids to a decent school, take a family vacation and be able to put a little money away for his retirement? Yes it is "fair". Is it a serious problem? Yes. Is it something that we should do what ever we need to do to solve? Yes. Fairness has nothing to do with it.

We should get off of the fairness business because it makes no sense. We need to worry about the quality of life folks have and how to make that better, regardless of how much cash folks have.

"poor" people in the US on average have two TVs, cable a car, a computer and a roof over their heads. They get free medical, subsidized housing and utilities, free education, not to mention things like parks, librarys and the rest of it.

The problem we have is that we seem unable to be able to provide a quality of life for many of our citizens despite the massive amount of money that we spend in social programs. In many of these cases it is not the fault of the rich. Rich folks did not trash public housing. Rich folks did not make it such that parks and schools are war zones. The rich did not create a situation where 7 out of 10 black kids in this country are born into single parent homes. The rich folks did not cause any of these problems.

Face it - we have a growing number of totally dysfunctional people in this society who will not educate themselves, abuse drugs and alcohol, engage in risky sexual activity and have children they can not afford to have and raise them poorly. The funny thing is that these folks have well financed pressure groups with stooges like Sharpton who pound the table asking for "more". If you attempt to even discuss these problems you're a heartless bastard, a racist or just about any other ist you can think of. When this group gets larger they expand geographically. They move their dysfunctional lives into neighborhoods that previously did not have that kind of dysfunction. What happens is that the schools in that neighborhood decline, the crime goes up and the tradesman has to move to a more expensive neighborhood where he is on the financial wire. One blip and his life is in the tank.

Trace the problem to its core and it is not that he could not afford the house when he had a period of unemployment. The core problem is that the dysfunction grew and took over a perfectly nice neighborhood and he had to leave.

We also have a culture that is driven by the media where everyone feels that they should have everything anyone else has. There was actually a gal testifying in front of congress last week claiming that her not having broadband in house was a form of neglect. She is claiming this and her son is going to UNC on a full ride. How was the gent disadvantaged so much that we was able to get into a tier 1 college? Congressmen were actually talking about paying for broadband for poor folks. How did we get to this place where everyone thinks they are owed what most folks have had to work to get?

Lets stop worrying about how much certain folks have and how little other folks have and focus on what we need to do to clean up the problems we have - and those problems are not due to the fact that a few folks have a ton of dough.

Of course, the challenge with the current approach to dealing with this problem is to tax, tax, tax. We don't have the guts to deal with the underlying problems that left unaddressed will continue to fester.

I also never got hired or was given a raise by a poor person.

These are complex problems that require serious discussion and some very heavy lifting to solve. Railing about "rich" folks, most of which are small business owners does not do anything but make some folks feel good. If it makes you feel good, by all means, keep doing it. Don't kid yourself that you are proposing anything that will have even a marginal impact on the problems in this country.

reply to post by David9176


Luckily you got a job!

Market is turning around, we will sweat this now but the dark cloud will pass.

This is just a reminder when things are good put some away for a rainy day. Easy to say but harder to put into action realistically.

Originally posted by David9176
Geezus how do you guys make ends meet?

I'm always broke. I do have the internet and cable tv. I have a truck I can barely afford after losing my job 3 years ago to OUTSOURCING and getting another with little benefits and lower pay. Never again will I get a vehicle with payments. If it wasn't for tax returns I'd be F'd. Helped pay off hospital bills from my kid being born.

Who are we kidding though right? We're nothing but bottom feeders leeching off the rich who sent our jobs overseas to get a boost in their stock prices. No tariffs? No problem!!!

Amen

We are getting in the way of peoples success

We are really screwed man

This socialism crap is going to be flung at everything

Tariffs?

"SOCIALISMS!!!!!!!!"

The final layer has been stripped off to reveal pure cut stupid -

BTW I think your thread emits airborne AIDS and we did not get the notice





[edit on 21-4-2010 by Janky Red]

Originally posted by dolphinfan
reply to post by David9176

 

The numbers don't mean anything. I just can't understand this concept of "fairness". What is fair, who decides what is fair and how does "fair" get implemented?

Is it fair that someone should have to pay taxes that go to pay for some gent to sit home and watch TV? Is it fair to have a business owner's income taxed when he receives it and then have the government take a ton of it when he dies to pay for the same joker?

Bill Gates

Glad you could join the piss upons

We have the gimp fetching the lotion for your pleasure sire...

reply to post by GreenBicMan

Luckily you got a job! Market is turning around, we will sweat this now but the dark cloud will pass. This is just a reminder when things are good put some away for a rainy day. Easy to say but harder to put into action realistically.

Well I've been at my current employment for the last 3 years. No raises in the last 2 thanks to the economy. Lucky to still have a job really.

But yes, I've always made a habit with putting money away for emergencies...which is usually my tax return...that money is all gone though as we wanted to get the hospital bills payed off.

reply to post by David9176


Too bad you couldn't have been so "lucky" so predict a certain sector of Wall Street would increase in value (after that bail out)! Wish I could get paid big bucks for such amazing analysis! haha.

reply to post by David9176


If it isn't one thing it is another.

Sometimes I think tax free quasi organised crime is really the best bet.

Lets see..

5000 plants * 10 ounces = 50,000 ounces tax free..

Time to put that underground bunker to some real use... hahahaha

reply to post by GreenBicMan


Tax free -- you mean the largest per capita prison population in the world for nonviolent drug sellers -- paid for by taxes? For what: SLAVE LABOR!

Yes you too can get paid 14 cents an hour to do prison labor for selling medical marijuana.... oops I mean the dollar bill -- oops I mean hemp -- oops I mean Mary Jane wacky taffy.

Tax free -- yep -- prison industrial complex needs a nice excuse to rake in all that tax money don't it?

Originally posted by GreenBicMan
reply to post by David9176

 

If it isn't one thing it is another.

Sometimes I think tax free quasi organised crime is really the best bet.

Lets see..

5000 plants * 10 ounces = 50,000 ounces tax free..

Time to put that underground bunker to some real use... hahahaha

No crap

one place here (cali) nets $100,000 a day, I know because I had a friend working there
a while back...

reply to post by drew hempel


Yeah but if you are white and it's your first time it's no more than a slap on the wrist really.

And no Im not racist, just realistic. This is in no way advocating anything of course.

reply to post by dolphinfan


Well what are you trying to state here?

Society and the middle class is NOT crumbling because there is more money at the top than the bottom? Don't you think there might be some correlation with the deterioration of our society and wealth? Are you trying to state that there is ZERO correlation with the continued increased imbalance of wealth in this country with our current situation?

Were tax rates before Reagan UNFAIR?

You say the numbers I posted mean nothing...yet you posted that the top 1 percent pay 40 percent of all taxes. Are you more worried about the top 1 percent then the other 99 percent???

Somehow those numbers are more important?

The rich do indeed pay all the taxes and if you polled a lot of them they really don't mind either. Most likely because they already do.

There are also investment vehicles for the rich that negate much of this - such as Limited Partnerships (DPP's). So the wealthy plan for this anyway.

Any added burden on the middle class is too much IMO. As someone else stated it's almost impossible to get by.