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INCOME INEQUALITY IS GOOD
- Thread starter Revmitchell
- Start date
I don't even have to watch it to agree.
Spot on; now if only the socialist wannabes in our gov't would listen and HEED! Yeah, I know; but I can dream can't I?
Well, that was simplistic. "Is the gap between the 1% and the rest of us bad? NO." (well, that settles it then. Ha ha.)
We don't have $200 cell phones because the 1% bought $4,000 cell phones back in the 80's. We don't have $800 flat screen HDTV's because the wealthy bought $8,000 flat screens in the late 90's. We have them because manufacturers did market research, determined there was enough demand to mass produce these things if they could get the cost down. The 1% were merely the early adopters. If the manufacturers knew they could never mass produce flat screens and get the price down so the middle class could afford them, they would never have proceeded with their plans.
In a free society there will always be income inequality. There is nothing wrong with income inequality, so long as the government does not make policies that disproportionately favor the wealthy.
We don't have $200 cell phones because the 1% bought $4,000 cell phones back in the 80's. We don't have $800 flat screen HDTV's because the wealthy bought $8,000 flat screens in the late 90's. We have them because manufacturers did market research, determined there was enough demand to mass produce these things if they could get the cost down. The 1% were merely the early adopters. If the manufacturers knew they could never mass produce flat screens and get the price down so the middle class could afford them, they would never have proceeded with their plans.
In a free society there will always be income inequality. There is nothing wrong with income inequality, so long as the government does not make policies that disproportionately favor the wealthy.
Don't you mean "we, the 1%?" Anyone making over $32,000 per year is in the 1% globally.
Bigger campaign contributions?
I had a cell phone back in the '80s. We called it "The Brick." It retailed for $3,995, but we got it free with a 3 year contract. When the cell provider switched from analog to digital service, the Brick was no longer support so they gave me a new phone without an additional contract.
When manufacturers began to move away from plasma tvs to LCDs the cost of plasma flat screens fell rapidly. I paid around $1000 for a plasma flat screen around 1999 or 2000. It replaced a huge rear projection monster.
My latest iteration (LCD) was less than $500.
I don't know.
Because they are big donors to the politicians reelection committees?
Why did the upper brackets get a 20% tax rate reduction under Reagan's tax cuts of 1982 but the middle class only got 3% or 4%?
Why did the upper 2% get a tax rate reduction of 4.6% under George W. Bush's tax cuts and the middle class only got 3%?
Supposedly to give bigger tax breaks to those who are in the upper echelons of income and wealth stimulates the release of their (upper crust) money to invest in the economy.
I personally don't know if that theory has been proven or not.The democrat (JFK Democrat) thinking section of my brain says that it sounds like a ploy to help "the good ole boys" keep more of their money.
I don't have a Republican section anymore, it's been fried.
The Libertarian says Eh, who knows?",
The independent - Does it really matter?"
HankD
I personally don't know if that theory has been proven or not.The democrat (JFK Democrat) thinking section of my brain says that it sounds like a ploy to help "the good ole boys" keep more of their money.
I don't have a Republican section anymore, it's been fried.
The Libertarian says Eh, who knows?",
The independent - Does it really matter?"
HankD
That phrase "invest in the economy" is quite nebulous.
The way to get the economy going is to have an increased demand for goods and services. The best way to do that is to have millions of middle class people keeping more of their money so they can spend it on middle class things like appliances, furniture, electronics, dining out, etc. Better to have millions of middle class people doing this than having a thousand uber-wealthy buying jewelry, country club dues, art work, or some more Apple stock. Middle class people buying goods and services creates demand which creates jobs.
So give the lion's share of the tax cuts to the middle class. The rich should get one too, just doesn't need to be as big as the middle class's.
It's basic economics. More buying and selling of goods and services creates more participants in economic activity which means more jobs. More buying and selling creates a multiplier effect of economic activity. When you buy something from me, I get an income. I turn around and buy something from someone else, and so on...
It just makes sense that the more people involved in this, the more benefit to the economy.
That doesn't address my inquiry about empirical evidence.
It's OK to say you don't know - neither do I.
It all sounds well and good but empirical evidence through experimentation can and often does bring certain unknown, unthought of entities to the surface.
HankD
The True Story of Taxes
Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, 10 men go out for lunch and the bill for all 10 comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, using the progressive tax formula, the billing would go like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, the majority of the men voted democratically to do that.
The 10 men ate in the diner every day and seemed quite happy
with the arrangement, until one day the diner owner surprised them.
"Since you are all good customers," he said,
"I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily dinner by $20.
Lunch for 10 now cost just $80.?
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes,
so the first four men were unaffected.
They would still eat for free.
But what about the other six men, the paying customers?
How could they divide the $20 windfall so everyone would get his fair share??
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.
But if they subtracted that from everybody's bill,
then the fifth man and the sixth man would each
end up being paid to eat. That didn't seem fair.
So, the owner suggested reducing each man's bill using the US tax formula.
Then he presented the amounts each should pay.
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (savings 33%).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (savings 28%).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (savings 25%).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (savings 22%).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (savings only 16%).
Each of the six was better off than before and the
first four continued to eat for free. But outside the
diner, the men compared their savings without
any sense of thanks.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man.
He pointed enviously to the tenth man,
"but richie got $10!" "That's right," exclaimed the fifth man.
"I only got a dollar back. It's unfair that the richest guy got ten times more than I got!"
"Yeah!" shouted the seventh man.
"Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2?
The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison.
"We did not get anything at all. The US system exploits the poor!"
Then the nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next day the tenth man didn't show up for lunch,
so the nine ate without him. But when it came
time to pay the bill, they discovered something important.
They didn't have enough money from all of them for even
half of the bill!
And that boys and girls, journalists and college
professors, is how our tax system works. The people
who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from
a tax reduction.
Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy
and they just may not show up anymore.
In fact, they might start eating in Canada where the atmosphere is friendlier.
Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, 10 men go out for lunch and the bill for all 10 comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, using the progressive tax formula, the billing would go like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, the majority of the men voted democratically to do that.
The 10 men ate in the diner every day and seemed quite happy
with the arrangement, until one day the diner owner surprised them.
"Since you are all good customers," he said,
"I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily dinner by $20.
Lunch for 10 now cost just $80.?
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes,
so the first four men were unaffected.
They would still eat for free.
But what about the other six men, the paying customers?
How could they divide the $20 windfall so everyone would get his fair share??
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.
But if they subtracted that from everybody's bill,
then the fifth man and the sixth man would each
end up being paid to eat. That didn't seem fair.
So, the owner suggested reducing each man's bill using the US tax formula.
Then he presented the amounts each should pay.
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (savings 33%).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (savings 28%).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (savings 25%).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (savings 22%).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (savings only 16%).
Each of the six was better off than before and the
first four continued to eat for free. But outside the
diner, the men compared their savings without
any sense of thanks.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man.
He pointed enviously to the tenth man,
"but richie got $10!" "That's right," exclaimed the fifth man.
"I only got a dollar back. It's unfair that the richest guy got ten times more than I got!"
"Yeah!" shouted the seventh man.
"Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2?
The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison.
"We did not get anything at all. The US system exploits the poor!"
Then the nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next day the tenth man didn't show up for lunch,
so the nine ate without him. But when it came
time to pay the bill, they discovered something important.
They didn't have enough money from all of them for even
half of the bill!
And that boys and girls, journalists and college
professors, is how our tax system works. The people
who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from
a tax reduction.
Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy
and they just may not show up anymore.
In fact, they might start eating in Canada where the atmosphere is friendlier.
Do I really have to point out the flaws in this story, again? It would be the third or fourth time.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk