The top 1% of wage earners pay one third of all income tax collected in the US.

The top 50% of wage earners pay 96% of all income tax collected in the US.

Consider this when you think about "tax cuts."

http://www.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=542

An exerpt:

"So let's say you're a married couple, household income of $50,000. You're going to be paying up to $6,900 in taxes. Of course, that assumes you have no deductions. Throw in some kids and other deductions and that $6,900 largely disappears.

Let's say, however, you make $350,000. That's 7 times as much in income. I think most people would consider it fair that they pay 7 times as much in taxes right? Of course, how many people think that they should pay 7 times as much for their phone? Or their cable bill? Or electricity? Probably not as many. Yet, does this family get any additional federal services? No. But guess what? They don't pay 7 times as much in taxes for making 7 times as much in income. No, they pay 14 times as much in taxes! That's right, on $350,000 of income they'd pay $96,000 in federal taxes.

Now, some people will say "Yea, but those rich people have all kinds of deductions." No, they don't. And as we shall see later, for all the claims of "the rich" finding "loopholes", they sure aren't doing a good job because people who make $350,000 or more are paying nearly all the federal taxes."

I vote for a more balanced tax system. But Bush is the next best thing. Thanks for the cut GWB!

Oh boy, here we go with another political thread...

Why don't we just skip the arguing that's sure to follow and accept the fact that Republicans like the good doctor here are for flat taxing or slightly graduated taxing and Democrats such as myself believe in strongly graduated taxing. It's a difference of philosophy - nobody here is going to change anyone else's mind.

well i am in favor of a flat or slightly graduated tax but i have another plan in mind also.

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States, projected to 2/2/2004 at 6:09:23 PM EST is

292,506,172


would it be so difficult to take @ 1 billion from foreign aid or Iraq building and write a everyone who made less than say $50,000 last year a nice fat check?

Originally posted by zoom44
well i am in favor of a flat or slightly graduated tax but i have another plan in mind also.

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States, projected to 2/2/2004 at 6:09:23 PM EST is

292,506,172


would it be so difficult to take @ $293 million from foreign aid or Iraq building and write a every man woman and child in the U.S. a nice big fat check?

A nice big fat check of $1? Yeah that'd be amazing!


Actually I'm in favor of abolishing income tax and instituting a national sales tax. This would tax people in a more balanced manner according to what they spend - which usually correlates to what they earn. Of course this would also encourage saving, which is a positive thing. In addition, this would finally start reaping taxes from illegal trades ie. drugs. This is a billion dollar untaxed business - they'd finally start paying their fair share.

Here are the incomes to be in each percentile:

Top 1% above $ 292,913

Top 5% above $ 127,904
Top 10% above $ 92,754
Top 25% above $ 56,085
Top 50% above $ 28,528
Bottom 50% below $ 28,528

Source: IRS

Originally posted by noahprtlnd
Democrats such as myself believe in strongly graduated taxing. It's a difference of philosophy - nobody here is going to change anyone else's mind.

I just want you to understand the ramifications of your philosophy. Everyone thinks they pay too much taxes, but some of us really DO.

I think these numbers will surprise a lot of people, but as you said, probably not change their minds. At least you can see what you are supporting, in real terms rather than abstractions.

Lets see, I have an employee that makes about $12 per hour, he drives a decent car, so does his wife, they have 6 kids, she doesn't have time for a job, we deduct almost nothing from his check each week, oh yea, they just bought a $125K house, and he brags about getting a lot moremoney back each year than he put in???? He has no clue where that comes from!

I have no problem paying taxes but I am tired of being treated like I owe everyone else because I make a little more than the 'average' guy. I work hard for my money, like most people, I just would like to keep whats mine.

Off the soap box.

Originally posted by Sea Ray
......Off the soap box.

No, get back on! I like the support!

Originally posted by noahprtlnd
A nice big fat check of $1? Yeah that'd be amazing!




thats what i get for thinking and posting in a hurry. i have amended my previous statement. and i agree that a national sales tax instead of an income tax makes alot of sense.

Gettum guys. Then throw in something about us self-employed people who get doubled up on Social Security.

I'm just sick and tired of the whole country waisting money on people who refuse to help themselves. Maybe ALL of us could pay less taxes with fewer senseless programs in place.

Take worker's compensation for example. In the medical field I see so many worker's comp patients stagger in the door with some lame excuse of how they got hurt like, "I was walking down the stairs at work on the way to lunch and I tripped and fell, spraining my ankle in the process." First of all, It's not your employers fault! Watch where you are walking! But instead of sucking it up, this poor sap refuses to work and racks up all kinds of medical bills and lost wages expenses. Who pays for all of this? All of us other hard working American's.

With policies like that in place, I'm afraid out country is not going anywere anytime soon.

Whew...that's off my chest now :p

Its a shame but when I interview someone, I try and figure out if they are the type of person that might make a false comp claim. And if someone admits that they have had a back injury before, legit or not, I can not take a chance to hire them because if it reoccurs on my clock, I'll have to pay.

Its like we are held hostage by our employees.

I have a friend that got sick of all the associated problems with his small business, so he got rid of everyone. Now he picks and chooses his jobs, less headaches, more money, happier.

Income taxes are one thing, or maybe two or ten thousand, and property taxes are another.

I have a little shack way up in Colorado. I ain't much -- hell, My Dear Wife won't even go up there because of the deprivations (no Wal-Mart, cell phone doesn't work, snow on the floor, etc.), and the most recent "improvements" are 120 years old.

My property taxes increased about 1,100% last year, and I'm told that they'll take a similar jump next year. Think about that for a moment. More than 2,000% increase in tax in two years. Sheesh, wars have been fought over less!

The local folks in charge of such stuff claim that it's necessary because of decreased Federal funding of things that they can't figure out how to cut, like plowing the roads to the school down in the valley, and paying a ranger to talk new homeowners out of shooting the bears.

After strident discourse bordering on insurrection, they got rid of the ranger, but had to add a supervisor and two technicians in the name of, but scantily funded by, Homeland Security.

I'm thinking of asking the Homeland Security cops how they feel about bears, but I'm afraid of the answer.

{{{{

I'm more concerned with losing my job to Indian offshore outsourcing. I'm 23, graduated from college last December and have been working for 6 months. Now I have to worry about losing my job. Can you imagine what that is like?

Well yes, sort of. I have to worry about keeping my business profitable so that I can continue to keep paying and providing expected benifts to my employees.

My taxes, materials, utilites, insurance, everything keep going up but my customers won't buy my products if the prices are increased in relation to my overhead. So somehow I must juggle and balance to find just the right mix.

An example,My shop insurance was about $5k 3 years ago, now it is $14K for basically the same coverage! Sucks from my end too. But we have to work thru it. I'm sure every small business has many similar stories as well.

I have a loyal group of guys that I want to pay well but the most important thing I can do is make sure they have a secure job to come to today, tomorrow, and next year. One way of doing this is to get more productivity from each one by using hi tech equipment and outsourcing what we can't do proffitably ourselves. The more healthy the company is, the better for all of us. And of course for me, win win situation.

If I was an employee I would become as indespensible as possible. Learn to do as much as you can, as good as you can. Take on a lot of reponsibilty and be an asset to the company. It is hard to let go a profitable asset.

Sounds good in a perfect world but the corporate giant is a monster that isn't always understood. Good luck, hang in there.

Originally posted by Speed-ER doc
Yet, does this family get any additional federal services? No.


I disagree with the above. For example, people with higher incomes travel a lot more than people on limited incomes. I don't know off hand how much of the Federal budget goes toward the highway system and the FAA, but people with higher incomes benefit more from the mobility these systems offer. That said, I don't think the return on taxes is equal, higher income people receive less benefit per dollar paid than lower income people. The point is there is some incremental government benefit.

Originally posted by red_rx8_red_int
... people with higher incomes travel a lot more than people on limited incomes. I don't know off hand how much of the Federal budget goes toward the highway system and the FAA, but people with higher incomes benefit more from the mobility these systems offer. That said, I don't think the return on taxes is equal, higher income people receive less benefit per dollar paid than lower income people. The point is there is some incremental government benefit.

Yeah, that's definitely worth the extra $90 K per year of taxes. Good example.

Speed-er, you obviously make a lot of cheddar, so why don't you look into banking with an offshore bank :D And I'm curious, what kind of doctor are you? I think I'll end up selling my rx8 and going back to damn college. I hate greedy executives.

edit: nevermind, just saw your profile: ER Physician. I should have gone into medicine...

Just food for thought.....

There is no argument that higher income individuals pay more in taxes (and a higher percentage of their income), or that the amount of services that they recieve per dollar they pay is disproportionate to those of lower income.

BUT

While there is a large difference in absolute dollars, people at lower tax brackets will miss that money more than those at larger tax brackets. By "miss", I mean in the sense of need. When you consider cost of living, housing, kids college, retirement, etc etc etc, those at lower tax brackets can easily be riding the edge between having enough and not.

By contrast, those in the higher tax brackets usually (or should) have much more disposable income. Is it unfair? Absolutely! I am a doc as well and am in the top 5% of incomes. I hate giving up the money as much as anyone. BUT, I would not feel right doing that at the expense of those less fortunate than me.....who do not have the financial reserves. While a flat tax seems to make sense, I don't think it would work. If you kept the rate what it is for those at the bottom (so as not to hurt them financially), then our country would have significantly less tax revenue to work with.

Let's look at this one more way. Assume that the goverment is spending X amount of dollars. And to get X amount of dollars in tax revenue, they have to tax the population Y percent. But, if they were to tax the population at Y percent, then a portion of the individuals of the country would be taxed below or close to the poverty line. Can't have that. So, to compensate, they raise the rate for higher wage earners. Because income and wealth are disproportionately spread amongst the population, the income tax must also be disproportionately spread.

One more thing that will really show my liberal roots: Because I have one of the top 5% incomes, I feel it is my civic duty to pay more and help those less fortunate.

Now if you want to talk about a tax that is completely unfair to everyone, let's discuss property tax! :)

I think it's fair that people making $350,000 a year pay 14 times as much as people making $50,000 a year, BUT I think we all should be paying less than half of what we pay now.

I see red when I think of the billions of dollars spent each year by the government and the US public to handle taxes. A simpler tax code, even one with graduated taxes only slightly lower than the ones we have today, would probably save an unbelievable amount of money per year.

We have troops stationed in dozens of foreign countries and dying in Iraq while trying their best to help lots of people who will never accept us. Bring the troops home, and let the foreign countries do what we want. We spend money on Israel in a conflict against Palestine that won't end until one side is genocided. Cut off the aid, let them kill each other without involving us.

Instead of giving school money directly to the local school board, where the local parents can have a say, it goes to the department of education. The department of education sets ridiculous and abstract standards and then spends a fortune managing regions, which spend a fortune managing states, which spends a fortune managing counties, which spend a fortune managing districts, while parents watch their children learn in pitiful conditions and have no control beyond their votes for US Congress. The estimated annual expenditures on public education in the US is over 740 billion a year - almost twice as much as the military budget. I refuse to believe the problem with our education system is a lack of funding.

People sit in prison wasting $40,000 a year in tax money because they were caught with a "three strikes and you are out rule" for shoplifting stereos while other people who only raped and murdered a child once go home after a few years. We spend billions on a drug war that we obviously can't win, just like prohibition.

After 9-11, in my personal opinion, the families of the victims should have sued the responsible airlines out of existence. It was their job to provide security, they f---ed up, and they are responsible. Instead, the government gave the airlines $20 billion in a bailout that will more than cover the costs of any lawsuit AND the government is paying for airport security out of pocket. Our tax dollars are paying for something the airlines should provide, and if the terrorists do get through to hurt someone, we can't sue the government for their mistake. They should have left security in the hands of the airlines and had them increase ticket costs to cover the expense. That way the only people paying extra are the ones flying, and if the terrorists got through again the airline could still be sued for the mistake.

The amount of time and effort spent to handle useless tasks and deal with pointless bureacratic red type is mind boggling. If you add up all the taxes my wife and I pay and include the additional Social Security payments our employers have to make, we are taxed at over 40% of our income. If we didn't have one kid and tax breaks out the wazoo for just buying a home and artificially low property taxes, it would be close to 50%. That's insane.

Good points all, thanks for adding to the discussion.

I agree the flat tax probably wouldn't work, as the reduction in tax collected would make running the country difficult if not impossible.

I also agree that most people need an extra few bucks than me and I don't want to appear whiny or greedy. I really don't mind paying more than most, it is just painful to look at the total when all is said and done.

I just don't think most people realize where most of the tax dollars come from, and wanted to share this info. I was surprised at the distribution of taxation.

Hope all of us make it through April 15 unscathed.

My wife and I together make a relatively high salary, just a shade over 100K per year. We pay 7.5% Social Security, 1-3% Medicare (I forget the exact amount.), 7.5% Social Security that gets paid by our employer that would be our money otherwise, 2.8% to the state, 1% to the township, 3.5% to the local school district in property taxes, 6% on most purchases except for food, about 35% tax on gasoline, plus our income tax rate which works out to about 20% after deductions. That's around 50% of our income.

I don't begrudge the government the right to tax, and I like a lot (although definitely not all) of the programs in place, but that is a lot of money.

I hear you SpeedER- I'm not in the same ballpark as you, but I'm sick to my stomach looking at my W2 this year. My withholdings are now higher than the average national income... granted I'll get a little back, but if I didn't have deductions of my mortgage interest and children I would be screwed. It's getting so bad I don't feel motivated to earn any more : (

I don't even want to get started on my property tax bill... at least there are good schools to show for it, but man it hurts.

-Sean

Familyguy, you raise an interesting question.

Should our taxes be based on user taxes or more of a blanket social system?

User taxes make a lot of sense. Gas taxes going to energy research, bridge building and EPA funding. Cigarette taxes going toward medicare, stop smoking campaigns, etc. Essentially a tax that comes attached to an action or product.

The blanket system is more of the income/property tax base. It is actually better for things that need an entire society to support. Things like defense, welfare and education (debatable, I know). This type of tax is like insurance. A group or society being responsible for the risk of individuals.....what insurance is supposed to be.

Some say, user taxes are the way to go. Some say more of a social system. I think it makes sense to have a balance between the 2.

Any thoughts?

Originally posted by FamilyGuy
I think it's fair that people making $350,000 a year pay 14 times as much as people making $50,000 a year, BUT I think we all should be paying less than half of what we pay now.


After 9-11, in my personal opinion, the families of the victims should have sued the responsible airlines out of existence. It was their job to provide security, they f---ed up, and they are responsible.

>>Oh great. Right, who needs speedy national and overseas travel anyway? Lousy service, and the food sucks. But more lawsuits and trial lawyers have done so much to improve our economy, who has to go anywhere?

Instead, the government gave the airlines $20 billion in a bailout that will more than cover the costs of any lawsuit AND the government is paying for airport security out of pocket. Our tax dollars are paying for something the airlines should provide...

>>correct! But, overseeing and regulating things as critical as airline security are not something I want left to the people who are cutting costs so much that they call a bag of peanuts a meal. Hey I'm no fan of gov't subsidies, but suing the airlines out of existence won't stop terror, just travel.


... and if the terrorists do get through to hurt someone, we can't sue the government for their mistake. They should have left security in the hands of the airlines and had them increase ticket costs to cover the expense. That way the only people paying extra are the ones flying, and if the terrorists got through again the airline could still be sued for the mistake.

>> I can assume you don't go visiting Aunt Edna in Lake Charles on a regular basis. However, we could have a lawsuit against the terrorists. They've got big bucks, and maybe even could pay more in taxes, and certainly more per airline ticket. Remember, terrorist profiling is racist, but a surcharge on box-cutters might work.

The amount of time and effort spent to handle useless tasks and deal with pointless bureacratic red type is mind boggling. If you add up all the taxes my wife and I pay and include the additional Social Security payments our employers have to make, we are taxed at over 40% of our income. If we didn't have one kid and tax breaks out the wazoo for just buying a home and artificially low property taxes, it would be close to 50%. That's insane.

Insane indeed. That's also known as Europe. And watch out. Not everyone thinks it's fair to subsidize homeownership either... It's a matter of what gov't subsidizes, we get more of, what it taxes, we get less of. I support homeownership, so that one is easy.

FamilyGuy, we can agree that once you work hard for what you have, it is a lot harder to just say that it came easily or belongs to someone else. Great thread SpeedErDoc, and great chatting with you, FG. :)

Originally posted by G8rboy
I hear you SpeedER- I'm not in the same ballpark as you, but I'm sick to my stomach looking at my W2 this year. My withholdings are now higher than the average national income... granted I'll get a little back, but if I didn't have deductions of my mortgage interest and children I would be screwed. It's getting so bad I don't feel motivated to earn any more : (

I don't even want to get started on my property tax bill... at least there are good schools to show for it, but man it hurts.

-Sean

If you're making as much as you claim to be making, your kids help your tax situation very little or perhaps even not at all.

Originally posted by i3man
If you're making as much as you claim to be making, your kids help your tax situation very little or perhaps even not at all.

You're right- compared to the rest of the deductions they're a drop in the bucket. And I need to revisit my exemptions to adjust my withholdings... while I enjoy getting some money back in the spring, it would work better for me throughout the year in my paycheck.

Thanks for the kind words, Icanrel-8.

Aescalapius - I haven't given this a lot of thought, just a few minutes' worth of consideration. I think I prefer the general social system to user taxes. The reason is simplicity. While a user tax system, properly done, would be much more fair, I think the extra administration costs would ruin its effectiveness. If everyone pays the same kind of taxes, whether it's a graduated income tax, a sales tax, or something else, it's simpler.

I also think, as I mentioned, that some of the services provided by the government should be left out of government control entirely. At the very least, I would prefer to see most social welfare, education, transportation, and environmental programs programs managed at the state and local level. I feel like my vote means something when I attend a town council meeting. I still vote in the national elections, but it feels less important to be one of millions of voters.

Originally posted by G8rboy
You're right- compared to the rest of the deductions they're a drop in the bucket. And I need to revisit my exemptions to adjust my withholdings... while I enjoy getting some money back in the spring, it would work better for me throughout the year in my paycheck.

It's not a "compared to" situation. If your AGI is more than about $209K jointly, you get ZERO personal exemptions....ZERO.

Originally posted by i3man
It's not a "compared to" situation. If your AGI is more than about $209K jointly, you get ZERO personal exemptions....ZERO.
Well I'm not there yet... good to know though.

Originally posted by Speed-ER doc
I just want you to understand the ramifications of your philosophy. Everyone thinks they pay too much taxes, but some of us really DO.

I think these numbers will surprise a lot of people, but as you said, probably not change their minds. At least you can see what you are supporting, in real terms rather than abstractions.

So you're a Republican (which I already knew) JUST because of the tax issue?

Racist, too? And I'm not talking about a bit of racial bias, which every person has. I'm talking about flat-out EVIL racism.

Homosexual sex is a DEVIANT behavior, too?

But watching porn isn't? Or going to strip joints? Yeah, I'm talking about you.

Originally posted by ArXate
So you're a Republican (which I already knew) JUST because of the tax issue?

Racist, too? And I'm not talking about a bit of racial bias, which every person has. I'm talking about flat-out EVIL racism.

And you are a hypocrite if all you can bring to the conversation is the racist argument. I am sick of hearing that one used. It is like saying a minority is a poor person and not capable of making something of themselves in this country. Is that what you believe? That offends me.

I am a first generation hispanic who grew up with no money, had my share of discrimination, and who happens to have made something of themselves, still in my 20's, and agrees to a certain degree with Speed-ER. Does this make me a racist? Does it kill you to know that I make really good money before I am even 30?

Again, you over-focus on money, just like Speed-ER doc does.

I'm talking philosophy, not ideology. You do not understand what I'm talking about. You can not understand what I understand about humans and society.

Hypocrisy is EXACTLY what i'm subtly referring to.

I have a little statistic that may explain the popularity of the Republican view on the tax issue. 19% of people think that they're in the top 1% of highest wages, and 39% of people think that they will be in the top 1% some day. This means that 39% of people think that even tax benefits for the top 1% will some day apply to them, so the Republican view would tend to appeal to them.

Let's keep race out of this discussion as this issue is complicated enough without bringing that up. For those of you harping about the waste there is in govt expenditures, how about looking around at other countries and their govt waste? I'm sure there's not a single major country without similar problems. You can't have bureaucracy without waste.

arXate, I could see what you're referring to, but it has nothing to do with the topic. We're arguing over which tax system would be better, not whether Republicans are hypocrites (although I do agree with you there :) ).

Originally posted by rabinabo
I have a little statistic that may explain the popularity of the Republican view on the tax issue. 19% of people think that they're in the top 1% of highest wages, and 39% of people think that they will be in the top 1% some day. This means that 39% of people think that even tax benefits for the top 1% will some day apply to them, so the Republican view would tend to appeal to them.

Let's keep race out of this discussion as this issue is complicated enough without bringing that up. For those of you harping about the waste there is in govt expenditures, how about looking around at other countries and their govt waste? I'm sure there's not a single major country without similar problems. You can't have bureaucracy without waste.

Very good point. I saw the same stuff while living in the UK. Oddly, my taxes have worked out about the same here as there except they have a full health care, which was nice but i dreaded the few trips I made to the hospital. Was not the greatest of care.

The US? I am confused how we have such a massive army yet still need to throw more money at it.

I do not mind paying the taxes I do now if they did a better job of managing the money.

To your last point, why can we just not have less bureaucracy then? :)

It has EVERYTHING to do with the topic.

I know doc from his other posts. They provide me with an internal representation of HIM. Whatever comes out of his mouth is tinged and tainted with what is HIM, his essence, his core self.

When he laughs at the funny things Asians in Houston eat, he fails to laugh at his eating raw coon meat and gator. When he wishes African-Americans in Houston would just get out of his town, he fails to remember they built his town. When he thinks about the weird things gays do (using his "science" background), he fails to be aware of the "deviance" of the gonzo porn he is so fond of (don't get mad at this, doc).

Similarly, when an old and "old school" psychologist from Harvard named Richard Herrnstein and a poiltical scientist from Harvard named Charles Murray got together to write the book The Bell Curve, it wasn't just a book about differences in IQ. It was tinged and tainted with their backgrounds. Aside from a ton of much bigger name scientists attacking their improper use of stastistics (one can't use sociological data to make biological conclusions), Herrnstein was an old, old dude back from the days of Arthur Jensen and others who 50 years ago espoused (incorrect) ideas of genetic differences in intelligence between whites and American blacks. Just like a lot of old people you and I personally know seem to have beliefs that you and I find totally weird and outdated, so too do old scientists. See, they WANT to believe genetic differences in IQ between whites and blacks exist and this DRIVES every aspect of their research. Arthur Jensen is an emeritus at Berkeley who has done nothing of significance for decades. The late Herrnstein, despite being at Harvard, was never known for anything other than the book. In fact, the old farts clog up the nation's best universities (which can't get rid of them because they're tenured) so that new, young intellectual blood can't get in. Stanford and Berkeley's psychology departments have this problem BAD.

Charles Murray is known to be the golden boy of the Republican Party. He offers a viable scientific source for the Republican party to bolster their beliefs that (1) genetic differences between whites and blacks exist, (2) these differences account for the differences in social economic status, and (3) therefore no amount of gov't funding can change the outcome so the gov't shouldn't put money into such programs. If anyone thinks Murray is an objective researcher, just refer to one of his earlier books advising gov't aid be stopped for single mothers (which happen to be mostly comprised of African-Americans) because it only encourages them to have more babies instead of getting jobs. A closer observation indicates Murray is never beyond his political agenda. Funny thing is that his statistics expertise has very little to do with a background in biology and brain that he and Herrnstein (the old psychologists or old "farts" tend to be mortally afraid to get retrained in biology and new physiological technologies) completely lack.

Now take everything I said about Herrnstein and Murray and apply them to Speed-ER doc. Doc leaves something like a comet trail behind his path. How can one ignore that trail? What he says comes from somewhere.

Originally posted by Sea Ray
Its a shame but when I interview someone, I try and figure out if they are the type of person that might make a false comp claim. And if someone admits that they have had a back injury before, legit or not, I can not take a chance to hire them because if it reoccurs on my clock, I'll have to pay.

Its like we are held hostage by our employees.

I have a friend that got sick of all the associated problems with his small business, so he got rid of everyone. Now he picks and chooses his jobs, less headaches, more money, happier.

Interesting. I find I'm always worried about getting a borderline incompetent physician (which is about 90% of physicians, YES REALLY) with an ethics problem (which is about 99.999999% of the world's population) who is only too lucky to have malpractice to cover his incompetent ass yet complains about the expense.

I wonder what Speed-ER doc has to say about this.

Originally posted by murix
And you are a hypocrite if all you can bring to the conversation is the racist argument. I am sick of hearing that one used. It is like saying a minority is a poor person and not capable of making something of themselves in this country. Is that what you believe? That offends me.

I am a first generation hispanic who grew up with no money, had my share of discrimination, and who happens to have made something of themselves, still in my 20's, and agrees to a certain degree with Speed-ER. Does this make me a racist? Does it kill you to know that I make really good money before I am even 30?

No, what kills me is that you got totally psyched out in your math and science courses and you didn't even go to a top university, despite the aid of affirmative action.

Why was that? Were you born dumb? No, you were not born dumb.

There are powerful and REAL socio-psychological forces within each of us that the vast majority of people do not understand. Not just Republicans like to wonder, "Why can't that damn minority just get his act together since opportunity exists the same for everyone." These people like to argue that socio-psychological forces is just a bunch of hokey psycho-babble.

But it's not. I knew this even before I found out about the research such as that done by an African-American sociologist from Stanford who found evidence of something called "racial self-threat??????" He had two groups of subjects, each consisting of a bunch of whites and blacks. The experimenter explained to one group that they were about to take a test and that whites tend to do better than blacks on the test. The results indicated exactly this. The other group was told that blacks and whites do equally well, and the results were exactly such.

The socio-psychological force at work here has something to do with how minorities feel others see them. This is precisely connected to the sociological definition of "self," which is not how one sees oneself but rather how one sees oneself through the eyes of others. It is the same force at work when a black kid leaves south central LA and drives any freeway in any direction and sees almost all white faces on the road. It's the same feeling a black person has when he goes to a restaurant with a ton of white people. Or when he takes a college course (ANY course, nevermind math and science courses). Or when he is the ONLY black neuroscientist I uncovered when I researched 60 graduate programs in the country? Does anyone feel this force is not real? Should the individual bear the entire burden when what is in his mind is just an accurate depiction of what is in the mind of others around him? Should he bear the entire burden when this condition was brought on by over 200 years of institutionalized oppression?

This is what the black socio-philosopher Cornel West from Harvard tries to mean when he goes up against the conservative intellectual William F. Buckley, Jr., who can never seem to come up with an answer when West implores, "Is it really that easy? Is it really just that?" I find it hilarious that Buckley easily dispatches the other liberals but can NEVER handle West.

There is a sociological theory called Social Reproduction, which basically argues that society's institutions are engineered to insure that, across generations, the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. The Rhodes Scholar, Jay McLeod, wrote a book, Ain't No Makin' It, which provides evidence supporting Social Reproduction Theory. This book was seminal in that it was the very first study to look at a group (high school age and then an update eight years later) of inner-city Chicago black kids who, along with their families, valued education and got good grades versus a group of white f**kup gang members (previous studies had all pretty much looked at f**cked up black kids). The black group looked positively at their futures and agreed that education would be the key to their dreams whereas the white group pretty much knew they were screwed. The eight-year follow-up found that, although the black kids were better off than the white group overall, they were not THAT much better off and hardly met with success and the fulfillment of their earlier dreams; that based on the objective measures, they should have had much greater success.

You found success for any number of reasons. You most probably had some factors in your immediate surroundings that, unbeknownst to your conscious mind, aided you (e.g., a teacher mentor who took you on or a program like Puente that identifies Hispanics with college potential and gives them the red carpet treatment, etc.). You also probably fell to the "lucky" side on any number of totally random factors.

Your individual success only says what others like you can achieve. It doesn't say anything about WHY others like you don't achieve like you did.

Originally posted by ArXate
So you're a Republican (which I already knew) JUST because of the tax issue?

Racist, too? And I'm not talking about a bit of racial bias, which every person has. I'm talking about flat-out EVIL racism.

Where the hell did that come from?
I see no racism in the previous posts, did I miss them?

Originally posted by ArXate
Again, you over-focus on money, just like Speed-ER doc does.

I'm talking philosophy, not ideology. You do not understand what I'm talking about. You can not understand what I understand about humans and society.


Wow, awfully conceited of you to think you are so superior.

Originally posted by ArXate
No, what kills me is that you got totally psyched out in your math and science courses and you didn't even go to a top university, despite the aid of affirmative action.

Why was that? Were you born dumb? No, you were not born dumb.

There are powerful and REAL socio-psychological forces within each of us that the vast majority of people do not understand. Not just Republicans like to wonder, "Why can't that damn minority just get his act together since opportunity exists the same for everyone." These people like to argue that socio-psychological forces is just a bunch of hokey psycho-babble.

But it's not. I knew this even before I found out about the research such as that done by an African-American sociologist from Stanford who found evidence of something called "racial self-threat??????" He had two groups of subjects, each consisting of a bunch of whites and blacks. The experimenter explained to one group that they were about to take a test and that whites tend to do better than blacks on the test. The results indicated exactly this. The other group was told that blacks and whites do equally well, and the results were exactly such.

The socio-psychological force at work here has something to do with how minorities feel others see them. This is precisely connected to the sociological definition of "self," which is not how one sees oneself but rather how one sees oneself through the eyes of others. It is the same force at work when a black kid leaves south central LA and drives any freeway in any direction and sees almost all white faces on the road. It's the same feeling a black person has when he goes to a restaurant with a ton of white people. Or when he takes a college course (ANY course, nevermind math and science courses). Or when he is the ONLY black neuroscientist I uncovered when I researched 60 graduate programs in the country? Does anyone feel this force is not real? Should the individual bear the entire burden when what is in his mind is just an accurate depiction of what is in the mind of others around him? Should he bear the entire burden when this condition was brought on by over 200 years of institutionalized oppression?

This is what the black socio-philosopher Cornel West from Harvard tries to mean when he goes up against the conservative intellectual William F. Buckley, Jr., who can never seem to come up with an answer when West implores, "Is it really that easy? Is it really just that?" I find it hilarious that Buckley easily dispatches the other liberals but can NEVER handle West.

There is a sociological theory called Social Reproduction, which basically argues that society's institutions are engineered to insure that, across generations, the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. The Rhodes Scholar, Jay McLeod, wrote a book, Ain't No Makin' It, which provides evidence supporting Social Reproduction Theory. This book was seminal in that it was the very first study to look at a group (high school age and then an update eight years later) of inner-city Chicago black kids who, along with their families, valued education and got good grades versus a group of white f**kup gang members (previous studies had all pretty much looked at f**cked up black kids). The black group looked positively at their futures and agreed that education would be the key to their dreams whereas the white group pretty much knew they were screwed. The eight-year follow-up found that, although the black kids were better off than the white group overall, they were not THAT much better off and hardly met with success and the fulfillment of their earlier dreams; that based on the objective measures, they should have had much greater success.

You found success for any number of reasons. You most probably had some factors in your immediate surroundings that, unbeknownst to your conscious mind, aided you (e.g., a teacher mentor who took you on or a program like Puente that identifies Hispanics with college potential and gives them the red carpet treatment, etc.). You also probably fell to the "lucky" side on any number of totally random factors.

Your individual success only says what others like you can achieve. It doesn't say anything about WHY others like you don't achieve like you did.

Clever name, ArXate. Phonetic representation of "RX-8".

Please don't make me close another thread. Whether you meant to or not, ArXate, your posts are coming across as very abrasive and somewhat nasty. Please tone it down a little bit.

Oh goody. I am now the helpess victim. :D

I agree with the Republican party on basically one item: the reduction of taxes. I think the tax rates are unfair, even if I am never in the top 10% of all earners in the US.

Not that it matters, but just for the record I do not vote Republican. I consider myself mostly Libertarian, and in my humble opinion the Republican attitude towards taxes does not make up for their position on civil liberties and the military.

If you're referring to the statistics I mentioned, it's that 19% of people in the US think they are already among the top 1% and a further 20% think they will eventually be among the top 1% of salaries in the US. Sure, a lot of people are turned off by the other Republican positions, but since many people only strongly care about the tax issue, it does mean that many among that 39% will favor the Republican party.

Actually, if you want to look into lots of statistics, check out this site: http://www.allegromedia.com/sugi/taxes/#Head-1.htm

Here are some highlights:
1. An enormous percentage of taxes are payed by a minority of Americans:
The Top 1% of taxpayers pay 29% of all taxes.
The Top 5% of taxpayers pay 50% of all taxes.

2. Our tax system is not so much progressive as it is confiscatory -- Frederic Bastiat called this phenomenon "legal plunder." A progressive tax is based on the premise that those with more income can afford to pay more taxes, and conversely, those with little or no income should pay no tax. However, a quick look at Graph 1A below shows that the U.S. tax system has become far beyond progressive. Fully half the taxpayers contribute almost nothing in individual income taxes.

3. The Top 1% of income earners (comprising about 1 million families) earn about 15% of the total income earned by all wage earners in the United States, yet they pay almost 30% of all individual income taxes. (This is the most significant statistic IMO as it adjusts for the larger income of the top 1%)

4.Furthermore, the Top 1% are shouldering a roughly 50% higher proportion of the overall income tax burden than they did in 1977.

5. The argument most oft used against tax breaks are that they benefit only the wealthy. It is clear from even a cursory look at the numbers below that the 'wealthy' will receive the majority of any income tax reduction because they pay a disproportionately huge percentage of the income taxes! To structure a tax break such that those in upper income brackets are excluded would constitute nothing more than transfer of wealth from those who have it to those who don't (i.e. legal plunder.)

Actually, there's a nice table at the bottom of that page with % of total family income among the different income groups for families(projected numbers for 1999, so it's a bit out-dated):

Top 20% (average $132k/year) make 54% of total income and pay 79% of total income tax
2nd 20% (average $53k/year) make 21% of total income and pay 16% of total income tax
3rd 20% (average $35k/year) make 14% of total income and pay 7% of total income tax
4th 20% make 9% (average $21k/year) of total income and pay 1% of total income tax
5th 20% (average $8400/year - really) make 3% of total income and pay -2% of total income tax (remember that around 12% of people were below the poverty line - 2002 stats from washington post)

Here are the really rich people:

top 1% (average $719k/year) make 15% of the income and pay 29% of the income tax
top 5% (average $276k/year) make 28% of the income and pay 50% of the income tax
top 10% (average $188k/year) make 39% of the income and pay 63% of the income tax

When you look at these stats I don't think the taxes seem that outrageous at all. That page has all the statistics you need to look at, but they're all divided up into different tables so you won't put 2 and 2 together. You have to consider how much of the total income that group makes to really guage the disparity in their tax contribution (setting the cost/benefit analysis for the rich aside).

In my case, I'm actually in the lower 20% now and will jump to the upper part of the 20%-40% range in the near future. I'm also Hispanic, with a PhD in math, so that makes me pretty unusual, in arXate's view. I guess I just didn't listen to the people telling me I was stupid :) I do believe some of the info in your post about those tests with black vs white people.

Personally, I just can't bring myself to believe that so many people are inherently horrible at math. It's so ingrained in people's minds that math is hard from such an early age that, guess what, most people find math impossibly difficult. If you grow up among people with a higher education, then you're less likely to grow up with a math stigma and thus more likely to excel at it.

Originally posted by ArXate
I know doc from his other posts. They provide me with an internal representation of HIM. Whatever comes out of his mouth is tinged and tainted with what is HIM, his essence, his core self.

You don't know me. You may have gotten a glimpse of my essence from my posts, as I have probably been too forthcoming with some opinions and personal info, but from your assumptions and attacks in your posts, you missed even that (especially that).

It was sure tempting to just ignore your posts and gratefully accept the support of others. But you are just so wrong, I can't. I don't mind attacks on my positions if they are ON my positions. But to be attacked for things that don't have anything do do with me pisses me off.

So you're a Republican (which I already knew) JUST because of the tax issue?

Racist, too? And I'm not talking about a bit of racial bias, which every person has. I'm talking about flat-out EVIL racism.
Not a Republican, though their views most coincide with mine (certainly not all of them). I'm not a member of ANY organized group.

Racist? I don't know where you got that. My two best friends in the world are Hispanic. I have more African-American, Asian, and Hispanic golfing buddies than white ones. Most of my patients are minorities. I work in the inner city. I can honestly say that I have gotten to the point in life where I ignore the color of someone's skin. Can you?
When he laughs at the funny things Asians in Houston eat, he fails to laugh at his eating raw coon meat and gator. When he wishes African-Americans in Houston would just get out of his town...
None of the above have ever happened. Get off the crack.
You (murix) found success for any number of reasons...You also probably fell to the "lucky" side on any number of totally random factors.
And you call me racist. I guess, in your world, only "lucky" minorities succeed.

You seem to have some educational background, enough to spray about some useless psychobabble to confuse people anyway. But you, like so many others, have some fatal flaws that keep you from ultimate success and societal acceptance. Go back in your hole.

LOL. Now this IS a thread. Copernicus finally speaks.

I couldn't help but notice that your thread is similar to some of Canzoomer's.;) It's funny.

Yes, I am around more different races than you have ever been. I marvel at how many different ethnicities I've been CLOSELY around for the last four years alone. So you're not racist. What about coon hunting or hunting in general? Guns? Don't make me grab for straws here, doc.

You don't acknowledge or, more probably, don't realize the role of random factors in EVERYONE'S successes and failures. There are a certain number of big companies in any one area of commerce. Each has a incredibly highly qualified CEO. Each CEO beat out a ton of other candidates, many probably through viciously subtle infighting that we will never really know about and not because they were heads and away the best applicant. Competition and the law of averages mandates that some of their companies go up and some go down. The media tends to do lifetime "exposes" on the winners, not the losers, which greatly outnumber the winners. We have a bunch of highly qualified Democratic candidates right now. Only one will win.

Everyone, even the most successful people, wins some and loses some. When we win, we need to stay level-headed and acknowledge that, even though we made it through merit to the final five, a bunch of random factors may have pushed us to the final grand prize (e.g., interviewer is the same race or went to the same fraternity, etc).

I learned how to answer each misstatement from Canzoomer, seems to work well.

I work closely with doctors from Pakistan, India, Vietnam, China, Iran, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Africa, Russia, England, Spain, Germany, Phillipines. I have worked in a medical clinic in Jamaica, and travelled to Europe, Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean.

My nurses from the Phillipines are the best! Canadian nurses rock too!

I am a huge believer in fate, luck, whatever you want to call it. Certainly I have been lucky throughout my lifetime. Some of the "luck", however, I have made for myself. One of the quotes I posted, from Osler, was "the best preparation for tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well." I just try to be the best person I can and let things take care of themselves.

What does hunting have to do with anything?

ArXate, PLEASE stop with the attacks. There is absolutely no reason to pick a fight in this thread, and if it doesn't stop NOW, this thread is closed.

Give him a chance, Elara, his last post was more reasonable.
So you're not racist. What about coon hunting or hunting in general? Guns? Don't make me grab for straws here, doc.
Grab for straws for things to attack me about? Great! I have 300+ posts, look through them and PM me, I'm sure the rest of the forum is not interested. Let's have some info about you so I can have the same courtesy. You are new here and have no info in your profile (like many others of your ilk).

Anyone else have any income tax comments?

Doc and I are friends. I hope everyone knows and can tell.

Hey doc, why is your ethnicities list so small?

Doc is kind of like my real-life big brother, who is a pediatric cardiologist. I'm always amazed at how someone with such a small vision of society and the world (I'm talking about my real brother), such limited thinking (I'm talking about my real and forum brothers), can be allowed to tweak an infant's heart.

Hey big bro, I need you to get 10 lbs of fresh crawfish and ship it to me free ASAP.

Originally posted by ArXate
Doc and I are friends. I hope everyone knows and can tell.

Hey doc, why is your ethnicities list so small?

Doc is kind of like my real-life big brother, who is a pediatric cardiologist. I'm always amazed at how someone with such a small vision of society and the world (I'm talking about my real brother), such limited thinking (I'm talking about my real and forum brothers), can be allowed to tweak an infant's heart.

Hey big bro, I need you to get 10 lbs of fresh crawfish and ship it to me free ASAP.

Why aren't you banned yet???? Doc, do you know this person? Most posts make no sense, but some do.

red,

I am an honest intellectual and doc knows that. We're sharing our viewpoints. What's wrong with that?

Screw luck.

Everyone loses. Successful people are those who know how to keep up the good fight and not cry about it even after they lose.

I am not too concerned with what you would like to believe about me and my success, which I have had plenty of in all aspects of life, but you really do need to let it go.

On the other hand, it is some of the best reading I have had all night. Nevermind. I am the helpess minority again. Please continue. :D

Now where were we? Income taxes. :)

My posts ARE good reading, aren't they?

Absolutely, which is excellent since my top goal on the internet is to be entertained and by giving me something interesting to read you have validated this intention.

Cheers for that! :D

Originally posted by ArXate
My posts ARE good reading, aren't they?

So far I disagree. I would point out that suffering does not have a color.

Originally posted by Nubo
So far I disagree. I would point out that suffering does not have a color.

Hmmm. That there is a clever metaphor. Are you talking about getting lynched or getting 14 mpg?

Originally posted by murix
Absolutely, which is excellent since my top goal on the internet is to be entertained and by giving me something interesting to read you have validated this intention.

Cheers for that! :D

Murix, thanks for brown-nosing me (no double entendre intended).

Because of your adulatory comments, I will now completely disregard the illegal alien/border issue when I vote for the next President of the United States.

Man, if you had pressed my knee just a few months earlier, I would have voted for Gray Davis for the California recall.

Originally posted by Winning_BlueRX8
I'm more concerned with losing my job to Indian offshore outsourcing. I'm 23, graduated from college last December and have been working for 6 months. Now I have to worry about losing my job. Can you imagine what that is like?

I'm in the exact same boat man. Except my job in being moved to Canada. The users will soon see that doing the same job with less than half the people causes long wait times and poor customer service. But $$ is all that people see these days.

Originally posted by ArXate
Murix, thanks for brown-nosing me (no double entendre intended).

Because of your adulatory comments, I will now completely disregard the illegal alien/border issue when I vote for the next President of the United States.

Man, if you had pressed my knee just a few months earlier, I would have voted for Gray Davis for the California recall.

I am telling you this is great stuff. :) Keep it coming.

I might as well clear the air a bit and give you some more material to work with.

I went to Texas A&M as a comp sci major, which I was accepted to my junior year of high school being in the top 10% of my class and scoring a 1250 on my SAT (old version - I know many got higher, but that was high enough considering I was a walk in still tired from my late night out and being a last minute decision and the first and only time I took it).

I was born a US Citizen and my parents moved here legally (not to California, which I only just moved to 3 months ago from London, I have lived in a lot of places)

My family tends to vote Republican.

My father has worked his way up pretty far within the government (not politician - he hates most of them)

Gray Davis is a joke.

It is not brown nosing. It is called taking the piss mate. You know, for a laugh, which I can see you are quite good at yourself. ;)

Oh, and one more for you. Most hispanic people are not brown and I am not Mexican.

Cheers

(pardon the thread hijack)

rabinabo,

PhD in Math? Awesome. I only have a BS in math and sometimes I kick around the idea of returning to school for the PhD. I'm no genius, but sometimes it's really cool to wrap your mind around the interesting concepts. How hard is a PhD program? Some of my profs spoke of studying and doing school work 30+ hours a week just so they could understand the ideas, while others say it was just like undergraduate, just a shade more difficult.

arXate why won't you tell us anything about yourself?

Originally posted by murix
I am telling you this is great stuff. :) Keep it coming.

I might as well clear the air a bit and give you some more material to work with.

I went to Texas A&M as a comp sci major........

WHOOOP, Gig'em Aggs!!!!

(BSEE, TAMU '87)

Originally posted by noahprtlnd
arXate why won't you tell us anything about yourself?

Because, noahprtlnd, if you were paying attention, he is an International Man of Mystery. He is here on our little playground to bully us with his superior intellect; failing that, he'll call us names.

I did kinda like the discussion of taxes...

Originally posted by ArXate
Man, if you had pressed my knee just a few months earlier, I would have voted for Gray Davis for the California recall.

Whom else would you have voted for? I think he was the only one "running". The ballot question was either FOR (therefore against Gov. Davis) or AGAINST the recall. Candidates on the ballot were there pending a majority for the recall, and Gray Davis was not listed there for obvious reasons.

Are you sure you're old enough to vote? And please, no more references to pressing your knee. Fails the good taste guidelines here.

Originally posted by Reeko
WHOOOP, Gig'em Aggs!!!!

(BSEE, TAMU '87)

WHOOOP! Class of '88!
TAMU - home of the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library!

Squads left..............

Squads right........

Farmers, farmers, we're all right!

(all together now.....)

WHOOOOOP!

(wasn't that fun?)

WHOOOOP!!!

Ok, now back on topic.....where were we??????? hmmmmmmmm

Oh yeah.
I PAY TOO MUCH TAXES.
The End...

Great cheer section...LMAO :D Got any more? Now I'm thinking it's a better topic anyway. GO AGGIES! (sorry, Buffs)

Originally posted by Icanrel-8
Whom else would you have voted for? I think he was the only one "running". The ballot question was either FOR (therefore against Gov. Davis) or AGAINST the recall. Candidates on the ballot were there pending a majority for the recall, and Gray Davis was not listed there for obvious reasons.

Are you sure you're old enough to vote? And please, no more references to pressing your knee. Fails the good taste guidelines here.

When that whole recall fiasco started, I was confused by the terminology, too. It's kind of like when scientists or attorneys argue that "there is no evidence for..." It's semantics. But this latter phrase is actually quite complicated. The recall thing isn't and you knew what I meant.

Sorry I missed the last two lines of that one, it's been a while.

Here's my favorite, when we get a bad call against the team....

Riffety, riffety riff-raff!
Chiffety, chiffety chiff-chiff!
Riff-raff!
Chiff-chaff!
Let's give 'em a horse laugh!
Sssssssssssssssssssssssss!

Complete list here:
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/4006/yells.html

Here's hoping we don't run out of time as much this year (Ags never lose)!

Originally posted by noahprtlnd
arXate why won't you tell us anything about yourself?

Noah, you don't address me unless I address you first.

I may need a V12 swap in the next few months though.

Originally posted by murix

I went to Texas A&M as a comp sci major, which I was accepted to my junior year of high school being in the top 10% of my class and scoring a 1250 on my SAT (old version - I know many got higher, but that was high enough considering I was a walk in still tired from my late night out and being a last minute decision and the first and only time I took it).

Oh, and one more for you. Most hispanic people are not brown and I am not Mexican.

Cheers

Let me get this straight. You got a 1250 but you didn't get a full scholarship to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, etc.? You've got to be kidding me. The obvious choice for you was A&M? Incredible.

Ok, so you're not brown. You're what? Off-white? Next crazy thing you're going to tell me is you weren't born a world-class swimmer. Geez.

Doc went to A&M? Ok, I have lost all respect for him.

What is it about you, shift_zoom8, that makes someone want to apologize for ONLY scoring 1250 on his SAT, which allowed him to be accepted into the best university in the country?

You are truly a talented antagonizer. And an equally talented thread-hijacker. But you do keep it interesting. Here's a smily for ya. :)

You need to stop calling me spunky and shift_zoom.

I'm getting tired of it. I find it offensive and I am saddened.

Originally posted by Speed-ER doc
Sorry I missed the last two lines of that one, it's been a while.

Here's my favorite, when we get a bad call against the team....

Riffety, riffety riff-raff!
Chiffety, chiffety chiff-chiff!
Riff-raff!
Chiff-chaff!
Let's give 'em a horse laugh!
Sssssssssssssssssssssssss!

Complete list here:
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/4006/yells.html

Here's hoping we don't run out of time as much this year (Ags never lose)!

That's funny. When we were getting our butts kicked in basketball (which was all the time), we'd chant "IQ, IQ, IQ!"

The only time we weren't getting our a**es kicked was when I was playing my sport (not basketball), during which we won all the time when I finally got a team around me.

Until I observed myself and my athletic accomplishments in a team sport, I used to think there was no such thing as a one-man team.

When I observed my academic accomplishments, I was like, "Am I human or what?!"

I am sometimes reminded of when I heard the famous science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury, on the radio saying how he sometimes would open up one of his stories and read it again and marvel to himself, "God, that's amazing writing."

Originally posted by ArXate
Hmmm. That there is a clever metaphor. Are you talking about getting lynched or getting 14 mpg?

It's a line from "Another Country" by James Baldwin. When you get to it you'll understand more than what I can say here.

But of your 2 choices, the metaphor is more concerned with lynching. Since, those murdered by lynching because of race, or killed because of religion, or jealousy, or because someone wanted to impress their peers, or for beer money -- all suffer. Attempting to elevate the significance of some of them due to the motives of their attackers demeans the others and blinds us to the fact that suffering is personal and violations of liberty are perpetrated against individuals. Some would have us believe that the importance lies in their affiliations. "Please tell us what group(s) the deceased belonged to so we might mourn appropriately"?

Originally posted by Nubo
It's a line from "Another Country" by James Baldwin. When you get to it you'll understand more than what I can say here.

But of your 2 choices, the metaphor is more concerned with lynching. Since, those murdered by lynching because of race, or killed because of religion, or jealousy, or because someone wanted to impress their peers, or for beer money -- all suffer. Attempting to elevate the significance of some of them due to the motives of their attackers demeans the others and blinds us to the fact that suffering is personal and violations of liberty are perpetrated against individuals. Some would have us believe that the importance lies in their affiliations. "Please tell us what group(s) the deceased belonged to so we might mourn appropriately"?

Your comments remind me of my favorite author, Philip Roth. In "Goodbye, Columbus," there is a short story called "The Conversion of the Jews," in which a Rabbi laments to a class of Jewish kids the death of a bunch of Jews in a plane crash and a kid named Ozzie wonders if they shouldn't also mourn the death of the other people in the plane. "That was the second time his [Ozzie's] mother came [to see the Rabbi]."

I am going to redirect your example. And think about what i'm going to say REALLY HARD. Just because oppression on blacks and other minorities has been overwhelmingly greater than oppression on whites DOES NOT mean it should be minimized.

The way I frame your example is more accurate.

Also, please read my post about Social Reproduction Theory.

Man, it's hard being incredibly smart. Sometimes I wonder how hard it would be to be dumb.

So just were do you fit in in the dumb vs smart ??? :)

Funny how some people can be smart and dumb at the same time.

Academic accomplishments are nothing more than qualifying laps in the race of life. They stratify the population, but left to stand alone, they are meaningless. What happens in the real world, after school, is infinitely more important.

I feel sorry for you arXate - you have all this amazing intellect and had so much success in your education, but have nothing to show for it except a series of posts on an internet forum...

Originally posted by Speed-ER doc
Funny how some people can be smart and dumb at the same time.

Academic accomplishments are nothing more than qualifying laps in the race of life. They stratify the population, but left to stand alone, they are meaningless. What happens in the real world, after school, is infinitely more important.

I wouldn't assume that if I were you. I got that covered, too. I'm the best in the world at what I do.

Oh, and I have an exceptionally good personality in real life.

OK, so just what do you do, other than write like a text book?

Inquiring minds want to know :)

I watch porn.

Heck, even smart people can do that, maybe even better.

Come on, tell us something to make us a believer so we don't keep thinking you are a "legend in your own mind".

But I am already a "legend" in YOUR minds.

Originally posted by ArXate
I wouldn't assume that if I were you. I got that covered, too. I'm the best in the world at what I do.


Whats that? Being a pompus A$$ ??

Yea, but even trolls have a "legend" catagory.

Originally posted by ArXate

Also, please read my post about Social Reproduction Theory.

Did that

Man, it's hard being incredibly smart. Sometimes I wonder how hard it would be to be dumb.

Wow! I think you are Cornel West.
;)

Originally posted by ArXate
But I am already a "legend" in YOUR minds.

awww, sounds like somebody needs a hug! Did mommy and daddy not love you as a child or something? I don't understand why you feel the need to constantly remind us of your greatness. Insecurity issues? Need to do a little soul-searching? Do you have any of your own ideas to contribute (uh oh, bring on the pain!), or is everything you post just a rehash of someone else's ideas/book/article/work, etc.?

And for the love of god, please tell me why you edit so many of your posts?!? Are you a perfectionist? But wouldn't that go against your holier-than-thou attitude? In other words, are you not competent enough to GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. Don't want to convey any weaknesses? I'm just curious, really. I just don't like to see edited posts in arguments. At least leave a nice little "edit note" or something. Thanks!

And for the record, I too, am a legend in YOUR minds. I am also incredibly gifted, have 6 patents to my name, graduated from college at 9 years of age, received my PhD by the age of 13, have performed open heart surgery on infants, and am currently working with a team of engineers to create the world's first ego-powered automobile.

Reminds me of a quote I once read here:
"Sarcasm. The weapon of choice for today's Internet Warrior."

I am so humbled to be hooked up to the same internet as you, oh great one!!!! bow, bow bow, :)

Well I have 10 Patents....
Therefore I am clearly superior :)

Would you like me to list them......

Originally posted by Sea Ray
I am so humbled to be hooked up to the same internet as you, oh great one!!!! bow, bow bow, :)

You mustn't worship me, for I am only the messenger. However, today's world is much more taxing on couriers, therefore I will be accepting PayPal donations. Send me a private message for contact information. I will also accept checks or money orders. And cash, too. Or any valuable possessions that you could part ways with. Oh, and credit card payments, too. I am also in the market for nice karaoke machine, so if you have one of those, I'd be grateful.

Originally posted by Reeko
Well I have 10 Patents....
Therefore I am clearly superior :)

Would you like me to list them......

Quality, not quantity, my son.

Originally posted by Winning_BlueRX8
Quality, not quantity, my son.

Hmmmm what was that saying about assumptions :D

At least y'all have done something tangible AFTER your education was completed. :)

Originally posted by ArXate
I'm the best in the world at what I do.



would that make him wolverine?

Originally posted by Winning_BlueRX8
Reminds me of a quote I once read here:
"Sarcasm. The weapon of choice for today's Internet Warrior."

that was me and i have it copyrighted and trademarked. you owe me $8.50 for it's use. i don't accept PayPal, so send cash. that way i don't have to report it on my taxes. 6 patents and 3 pending for me btw. and i didn't even go to college. stop that silly chanting.

edit: for paypal remark and final sentence.

You all owe ME because I am the one who created the internet, not Al whats his name!!!!!

I think his name was Al Looser....

I'm always for a tax cut... but really think we should revamp the entire tax system. I mean start over from square 1, and make all the agencies and PORK that gets our tax dollars now reapply. Then we should put the agencies that want tax money up for a VOTE in front of the ENTIRE AMAERICAN PEOPLE and NOT the buttheads who are in congress. Just my 2 cents.

ArXate reminds me of Dr Lechter from the Silence of the lambs series...
Brilliant maybe but rather ..er.. different.

Originally posted by megauo
ArXate reminds me of Dr Lechter from the Silence of the lambs series...
Brilliant maybe but rather ..er.. different.

I didn't realize that regurgitating psychobabble learned in college was brilliance.

To the original topic:

someone earlier referred to Eourope as the land of high taxes and burocracy. Well I was thinking the same but after reading some of you complaining about your income and seeing the actual numbers now I'm not so sure.

I earn ~$50,000 a year and running my own business pay 15% for tax. That's it. Quite surprised really that living in eastern Europe i can compare my income to the above average level income in the US.

BTW I was leading my grade at the university, had state and company scolarship etc.

Originally posted by megauo
To the original topic:

someone earlier referred to Eourope as the land of high taxes and burocracy. Well I was thinking the same but after reading some of you complaining about your income and seeing the actual numbers now I'm not so sure.

Thanks, that is EXACTLY why I started the thread. So people could see the actual numbers involved. They are eye-opening.

Well, ok, then, can we keep talking about taxes here then, and make the Marvin "brain the size of a planet" thing a thread so I can watch both without getting confused?

-Bear of very little brain.

Regurgitate? That's hardly what I do. Wait til you get a load of what's in MY mind.

Originally posted by ArXate
Regurgitate? That's hardly what I do. Wait til you get a load of what's in MY mind.
I'm sure you'll give us a load (of BS), then WE'LL regurgitate. :D

Originally posted by zoom44
that was me and i have it copyrighted and trademarked. you owe me $8.50 for it's use. i don't accept PayPal, so send cash. that way i don't have to report it on my taxes. 6 patents and 3 pending for me btw. and i didn't even go to college....


8 for me, and 2 pending! <insert raspberry>

I did go to college, but all they did was teach me how to party! :D

those were the days.....

Ya know... I really like my RX-8...

Nice sound.
Fun to shift.
Great in a turn.
Stops like I dropped an anchor.

... and to quote TopGear, "goes like stink"
:D :D :D :D

Originally posted by Speed-ER doc
Now, some people will say "Yea, but those rich people have all kinds of deductions." No, they don't. And as we shall see later, for all the claims of "the rich" finding "loopholes", they sure aren't doing a good job because people who make $350,000 or more are paying nearly all the federal taxes."

I'm amazed you are complaining.

Firstly, hell yes we do have "all kinds of deductions". I earn my money by starting, building and selling companies so I pay little to no wage related taxes but do pay capital gains taxes. This is the same as Warren Buffet who is worth about ~20-30 billion dollars. His effective tax rate is only 3%. I ain't a billionaire but my effective tax rate is less than 10%.

Secondly, in what other nation can a physician earn such a large income? None.

Listen, "doc," you don't make that much money. You live in Houston, where you can buy a beautiful 3500 sq. ft. home at almost half the price of the same home in Los Angeles. We also saw the pic of your "vacation home" and "boat." That "boat" is absolutely disgusting and the "vacation home" looks like a total POS.

You ain't making that much money, loser.

I never said how much I make, that would be rude (but not as rude as your unfortunate post). I just said I pay too much taxes.

I agree, home prices are thankfully less in Texas than on the West Coast. Texas is a wonderful place.

Your other comments are pure evil, but that is your problem, not mine.

Who are you going to come back as next time, shift zoom 8?

I guess politics and religon are best not discussed, they cause too much deep hatred to come out. Sorry to get y'all agitated.

Still love my 8!

LOL. The "doc" concedes.

I concede your mental illness, and that is why I won't attack you back. I pity you.

I pity the person who has to go out on the water in that boat.

Is that squinty-eyed, constantly blinking church dude your pastor (or whatever the hell you call that sh**t)? I KNOW you go to that church. That dude must be making $50 milliion a year.

Doc, I just recently saw Wrong Turn, Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Cabin Fever.

And let me tell you this. YOU are one scary coon hunter. You ain't no doc.

ArXate, I've had just about enough of you. I don't know why you can't behave like a normal human being and be polite, but since you can't, you're gone. You've been warned about this crap many times before. The sad thing is when you're not harassing people, you actually seem like you know what you're talking about. So, off you go. Though I'm sure you'll find a way back again, we'll start this cycle again.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Thank you Elara.

Thanks, Elara.


babylou,
How do you pay such low taxes? From what I understand, if you sell stocks within one year of buying them the gains are counted as income and taxed as income instead of capital gains. (I have stock options are part of my job, and as soon as each batch is worth a net profit I sell them immediately. They are taxed as income because I never hold them for more than a few months.)
Even if you hold the stocks more than a year and then sell them for just capital gains, the tax rate is about 18%, right? That isn't terribly low... how would someone like Buffet only pay 3% in taxes?

Thanks soooo much, Elara.

babylou, my enormous deductions allowed me to only pay 28% of my total income in taxes for 2002.

What's your secret, babylou, I obviously need some (legal) advice!

FamilyGuy & Speed-ER Doc,

Today I realized I made a mistake and mislead you a bit. Let me explain. Firstly, Warren Buffet's 3% tax rate would only have been true if the dividend tax was eliminated, as was proposed by the current administration. Secondly, seldom if ever do we pay short term capital gains since it is tough to build a company and sell it within 12 months.

Guys like Buffet and me earn income through "investments" like the sale of an asset, usually an entire company, or through dividends received from the companies we own. These tax rates are much lower than if this income was considered "wages". Also, we are allowed to deduct all expenses related to creating, maintaining and disposing of the asset. In addition "investment" income is not taxed for Social Security or Medicare. When calculating an equivalent tax rate for an "investment" earner to a wage earner I reduced the taxes the "investment" earner pays by the amount saved by elimination of Social Security and Medicare. This is misleading because I did not clarify this earlier. I am sorry.

All that being said if you are a "wage" earner you are going to get nicked for a much, much larger % tax bill than an "investment" earner. "Investment" earners like the Warren Buffets are typically the wealthiest of the wealthy.

Originally posted by babylou
FamilyGuy & Speed-ER Doc,

Today I realized I made a mistake and mislead you a bit. Let me explain. Firstly, Warren Buffet's 3% tax rate would only have been true if the dividend tax was eliminated, as was proposed by the current administration. Secondly, seldom if ever do we pay short term capital gains since it is tough to build a company and sell it within 12 months.

Guys like Buffet and me earn income through "investments" like the sale of an asset, usually an entire company, or through dividends received from the companies we own. These tax rates are much lower than if this income was considered "wages". Also, we are allowed to deduct all expenses related to creating, maintaining and disposing of the asset. In addition "investment" income is not taxed for Social Security or Medicare. When calculating an equivalent tax rate for an "investment" earner to a wage earner I reduced the taxes the "investment" earner pays by the amount saved by elimination of Social Security and Medicare. This is misleading because I did not clarify this earlier. I am sorry.

All that being said if you are a "wage" earner you are going to get nicked for a much, much larger % tax bill than an "investment" earner. "Investment" earners like the Warren Buffets are typically the wealthiest of the wealthy.

I'm guessing the tax structure is set up that way deliberately. Company building does more for the overall economy than dozens of normal wage earner jobs. I don't begrudge you a low pay scale.

But I have to ask - how do you get started in something like that? If I was single, living as cheaply as I could, and I could get an average 10-15% annual rate of return on investments, I might have enough capital for a startup in about twenty years. That's if I bet everything I had - if my venture tanked, I would be screwed.

Obviously I would like to have lots of money - so how do you get into something like this?

Originally posted by FamilyGuy
But I have to ask - how do you get started in something like that? If I was single, living as cheaply as I could, and I could get an average 10-15% annual rate of return on investments, I might have enough capital for a startup in about twenty years. That's if I bet everything I had - if my venture tanked, I would be screwed.

Obviously I would like to have lots of money - so how do you get into something like this?

For me it was maximize savings, minimize expenses,be willing to risk it all and to constantly pay attention to the market to find a business opportunity. I lived off of 25% of what I earned (after tax!) after college for my first eight years. I then invested all of that money plus all of my investment returns. The first time I ever incurred any debt was when I started my first biz. That is risking it all. Seven years later I am on my third business cycle.

Originally posted by FamilyGuy
I'm guessing the tax structure is set up that way deliberately. Company building does more for the overall economy than dozens of normal wage earner jobs. I don't begrudge you a low pay scale.

To be honest I am tired of the "I work hard, I do more....I deserve more" crap. I do create businesses that create jobs. However, I also make more money. I appreciate that I was given the opportunity to build a business and that I have had the good fortune to have good family, good health and some good luck. Unlike the new breed of Republicans I do not believe that these things are my birth right. I am priviledged to return some of this good fortune to my country and to others. I can tell you straight up that Warren Buffet feels the same way.

I just don't get this selfishness and contempt for others that the new breed of Republicans has. We had an earlier post by a medical doctor that was complaining of his tax bill. If he were to work in the same capacity in any other nation his after tax income here would exceed his pretax income there. Why the hell is he complaining? Not to mention that most nations would tax him at a much steeper rate.

I don't think you have read the thread. I am blessed to live in this country, and blessed with many gifts in life. You don't think I have the right to wish for lower taxes? The point of the thread was to show who pays most of the taxes in this country, and to show that tax cuts by definition must favor those who pay the taxes.

You can't make much difference cutting taxes on the lower 50% of income-earners who pay 4% of the taxes. Any tax cut is going to favor the top 50% of income earners.

Are you implying I am selfish? I give more to charity each year than many people earn. I give free medical care every day to people who have no intention or ability to pay, yet can sue me if anything goes wrong (not just if I do something wrong, if they have a bad outcome regardless of the quality of my treatment).

Get a grip Mr. Businessman.

Doc,

Don't be so damn nice! Sooner or later someone is going to scam you and sue your pants off. Ahh...I would probably do the same thing you are doing. Is it possible to have them sign some kind of disclaimer stating they won't sue you, in exchange for free service? I just can't stand seeing everyone sue anyone with money for any little thing. e.g. about 10 years ago, a woman sued mcdonald's when she spilled hot coffee in her lap, because the coffee cup did not say "WARNING: HOT!" on it.

Lawsuits and getting screwed by non-paying customers is not limited to the medical business. Two of my line items in my budgets are "legal expenses" and "bad debt expense". These translate to defense for law suits and write downs for customers that never paid their bills. These two items can total 10% of revenue.

All that said I still do not believe that "I have the right" for lower taxes. Now if we could get our national, state and local budgets in order and were running surpluses then yes, I do feel that I have every bit as much of a "right" to a tax cut as the next person.

Originally posted by Speed-ER doc
I give free medical care every day to people who have no intention or ability to pay, yet can sue me if anything goes wrong (not just if I do something wrong, if they have a bad outcome regardless of the quality of my treatment).

Are you not salaried?

Originally posted by Speed-ER doc
You don't think I have the right to wish for lower taxes?

Get a grip Mr. Businessman.

Yes, I do think you have the right to "wish for lower taxes". Yet I do not think we have the right to lower taxes. Did I explain this well?

Is my grip better now?

BTW, at which hospital do you work? I need to know since I pissed you off and in case I get injured I need to make sure you don't know who I am.:p

Noah: No salary, fee-for-service. Or not, in some cases. In some ER's half the patients are uninsured = don't pay). We do a bit better. What you might not know - I'm not just being altruistic. We are required by federal law to see every patient that presents for care.

babylou: Dude, you're a fellow Ag, I'll take care of ya. You didn't upset me much, just let the keys get away from you a bit. I don't want to say where I work.

Originally posted by Speed-ER doc
babylou: Dude, you're a fellow Ag

How did you know I was a fellow Ag?

BTW I was thinking that all of the freebie work you do should be tax deductible. Am I wrong?

I know where you live....... :eek:

Just kidding, you said you were an Aggie in a previous post!

I don't think I can write off my unreimbursed care. That would be nice though. Doesn't matter, I am happy, and love my work.

I worked at Rural Health Services for a bit - it is a not-for-profit private group that treats anyone regardless of ability to pay. Most patients are migrant workers. Probably 70% no coverage whatsoever, 15% medicare, 15% medicaid. I was working with a GP - patients come in, get treatment, and pay whatever they can, $2, whatever. They also have their own pharmacy which sells drugs at cost. The doctors are all salaried. Many of the patients were people in need of emergency care but didn't want to go to the ER and get stuck with a bill. Either that or the ER wouldn't accept them because their conditions weren't deemed emergent enough to be treated without a way of paying. It is a common occurance for people to come in at the end-stages of terminal illnesses who could have survived with earlier treatment, but didn't receive any.

Sheesh, he was joking with me.

Originally posted by babylou
Sheesh, he was joking with me.


Don't mind him, he's just trolling.

Yup a Troll in its purest form

Looks like shift zoom 8/ArXate came back. Not for long though.....

sorry, had a belly dance class tonight. Just got back. He's gone.

Originally posted by Elara
sorry, had a belly dance class tonight.

following forum ritual let me be the first to say... POST THE PICS! hehehe

Originally posted by zoom44
following forum ritual let me be the first to say... POST THE PICS! hehehe

Sure, if I didn't suck at it :p. I've got a recital coming up, maybe then I'll get some nice pictures taken.

Anyway, sorry for the thread hijack guys!

Actually, to truly capture the moment, a short vid clip would be better......

Taxes are the best thing the government has done, governments throughout history always knew that the best thing they could do is have taxes to keep at least some order. Governments become corrupt when either A, People aren't paying enouhg taxes, or B, Taxes are not high enough.
The reason america is in a slump is a mix of A and B. People in this country are not paying enough taxes, we have way too many write offs, for example, Christians are allowed to pay less per child for their family of 10 than a family of 3 through religious right tax incentives; rich people write off their boats and their nice cars instead of paying the appropriate taxes on them; businesses are allowed to write off business trips and other nonsense like damaged goods and returns and such, if the businesses can't make things right and can't pay their taxes they should go under, we live in a nation of taxes; the poor people in this country get off from paying the income tax and other federal taxes, we should lower the amount to about $10,000, anybody who makes above that has got to pay their fair share of income tax and other taxes; and most of all, the reason why the govenrment doesn't have enough money is the rich just aren't taxed enough for their income, property, and other things they own, that makes it harder on all of us because then the government can't keep all of those great social programs, liberaries, and other things they do going.
And yes we're in a slump because people just aren't paying enough taxes, especially the rich as I've mentioned, their taxes should be somewhere in the area of %90, the government should collect that much from them. Also with all these state taxes and crap i think a lot of the money gets wasted and it gets confusing and some of the money gets lost, taxes are supposed to be a little confusing, that's the fun of it, but I want ALL of the money to go to the federal government where it belongs so they can rule things like they should be doing.

I love taxes and my favorite month is april. Taxes are 10 times better than sex, 15 times better than an amusement park, and 100 times better than movies. I get a rush from taxes.

I hate people who attack taxes though, that's reason C of why govenrment goes bad, people who attack our income tax and the federal government, that leads to both A and B.
If you dont like taxes, get out, move to some other country that doesn't have taxes (probably nowhere, because most people love taxes and every government knows that there should be taxes). People who cheat on their taxes should be put in concentration or something. Hopefully they'll come to their senses and start paying their dues.

By the way what's your favorite type of tax?

So many wonderful options, but i'm going to have to go with the property tax, god i love it, mmmm mm g

Baller,

I like you. What a deliciously warped sense of humor.

Thank you.....

Originally posted by Baller
If you dont like taxes, get out, move to some other country that doesn't have taxes (probably nowhere...

Monaco and the UAE come to mind. I'll take Monaco.

Sounds like Socialism to me. Our country was founded on tax reform. I realize you were joking with a lot of the post, but much of the stuff that needs to be done can occur at the state level.

A socialism vs. capitalism discussion can go on forever, but at the basic level here's how I look at it:

In capitalism, if the business or person that provides a service screws someone (whether they sell a bad product or pollute the land or whatever), they can be sued. If you don't like what the company does, you can purchase a similar product from a competitor or start your own competing business. If a particular service or product costs too much money, you can choose not to buy it at all.

In socialism, the government runs everything and if they mess up, people have no recourse. If you don't like the service the government provides, you have no recourse. If you don't feel a particular product or service is worth the money, it is irrelevant because you are taxed to pay for it anyway.

In capitalism, you can get screwed because power gets concentrated in the hands of a few rich individuals. In socialism, you can get screwed because power gets concentrated in the hands of a few politicians. Neither one is anywhere near perfect - but personally, I think capitalism is inherently superior for the purposes of liberty and freedom.

Here is an interesting take on redistribution of tax dollars:

http://www.politicalusa.com/columnists/brewer/brewer_046.htm

Exerpts...

After initially siding with fairness in passing income tax relief for those who pay income taxes, the bigger government Republicans admitted they were misguided philistines and passed legislation that will dole out multiple $400 checks to low income earners who don’t pay income taxes. In this latest demonstration of compassionate conservatism, the real producers in this country are writing checks to the poorest Americans. Somehow, I find such coercion neither compassionate nor conservative.

Especially considering the fact these low-income families already receive an ‘earned income tax credit’ that reimburses what little payroll and income taxes they pay. Why now do these Americans ‘deserve’ other people’s money?

As it stands, our president and our representatives are channeling our hard earned tax dollars to families that don’t pay taxes. In another age, one would call this ruse socialism.

Here is an outstanding article about socialism vs. capitalism.

http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/onprin/v1n3/thompson.html

Exerpts:

Both socialism and capitalism have incentive programs. Under socialism there are built-in incentives to shirk responsibility. There is no reason to work harder than anyone else becuase the rewards are shared and therefore minimal to the hard-working individual; indeed, the incentive is to work less than others because the immediate loss is shared and therefore minimal to the slacker.

Under capitalism, the incentive is to work harder because each producer will receive the total value of his production--the rewards are not shared. Simply put: socialism rewards sloth and penalizes hard work while capitalism rewards hard work and penalizes sloth.

Sadly, America is no longer a capitalist nation. We live under what is more properly called a mixed economy...a little bit of capitalism and a little bit of socialism.

As a consequence of our sixty-year experiment with a mixed economy and the welfare state, America has created two new classes of citizens. The first is a debased class of dependents whose means of survival is contingent upon the forced expropriation of wealth from working citizens by a professional class of government social planners. The forgotten man and woman in all of this is the quiet, hardworking, lawabiding, taxpaying citizen who minds his or her own business but is forced to work for the government and their serfs.

Originally posted by Speed-ER doc
Here is an outstanding article about socialism vs. capitalism.

http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/onprin/v1n3/thompson.html


Well that's what I was trying to say in a nutshell. In capitalism, if you shirk your responsibility you get canned. If you get burned by an employer you seek another job. In socialism, if you shirk your responsibility your manager can't do anything. If you get burned by your employer you can't seek another job.

Of course, Speed-ER doc, I think you and I are preaching to the converted when we discuss this stuff with each other.

It's the most frustrating thing about politics and economics... if one in five hundred conversations convinces someone to change their views, you're lucky. Most of this is just wasted time and electrons.

Speed-ER Doc, I just finished reading the actual article. I really don't like it.

I think the author is essentially correct in his ideas and thesis. I hate his presentation. It could have been lifted directly from an Ayn Rand book and it suffers from the same flaws that her books have. She starts using the language of condemnation and polarization well before she's explained why such language is appropriate. To anyone that agrees with her before they start reading, this isn't an issue. For everyone else, it's a big turn off.

And just like Rand, Thompson seems to jump to the conclusion that all or even most socialists are just lazy and envious. Most socialist (or mixed socialist) advocates I know are not primarily or even secondarily focused on getting a free lunch out of the hard workers. Their primary concern is protection for the needy.

The usual socialist mistake is believing that the ends (protecting the weak and unfortunate) justify the means (taxation and government intervention in personal and business privacy). Rand and her crew correctly accuse socialists of this flaw in their moral reasoning, and that's good. In the next sentence, she often disregards the point she just made and claims that socialists want to live off of the rich (i.e. their ends is actually being able to be lazy by living off of others' work, and the needy have nothing to do with it). She contradicts herself in this often - and Thompson does the same.

doc & FamilyGuy,

Would you consider public education or a common military socialism? If so, are you for or against these government services?

Public education certainly. I'm sure you are aware of the "Robin Hood plan" in Texas (a nicer name for Socialism: Robin Hood was good, right, that cute fox?):

Texas faces a crisis in financing public schools. Beginning in the 1970s and continuing through the 1980s, school districts with low levels of taxable wealth pursued litigation designed to equalize per-pupil funding of public schools... Finally, in 1995, the legislature passed a plan designed to shift funds from so-called affluent districts to poor districts. The plan also limited school districts’ local tax rate for maintenance and operation.

This so-called “Robin Hood” plan sought to offer all Texas children equal access to education regardless of the wealth and circumstances of their parents and local communities. When a school district’s wealth per pupil exceeds the allowed maximum, the Robin Hood plan reshuffles funding for public schools, first by reducing the state’s contribution to property-rich districts. Then, those property-rich districts must adopt a plan to reduce their per-student taxable wealth to the specified maximum. Most districts must accomplish this by actually sending locally collected funds to the state or to another property-poor school district.

With no new revenue sources and an educational system clamoring for more money, the Robin Hood plan forced more responsibility for school funding on the local property tax base. Consequently, the state-provided share of local schools’ revenue steadily eroded.

from this site : http://recenter.tamu.edu/tgrande/vol9-1/1544.html

Result: everyone is mediocre! Socialism brings the high achievers down to the level of everyone else. It raises the lowest some as well. My kids go to the same school district I did, one of the top in the state. We have the highest school taxes allowable. Now they have to ask for parent volunteers because there aren't enough teachers, they have to ask for donations for library books and playground/gym equipment, it goes on and on.

I don't think pure socialism or pure capitalism works. The trouble is finding just the right slice of socialism without making it unworthwhile to succeed.

Getting back to income taxes, once you are making a lot of money, and have exhausted all of your deductions, the top tax rate is now 35%, down from 38.6% last year. This highest tax rate can get high enough to be a productivity squasher. There comes a point when you might say, I just don't need to work any harder if close to 40% of what I do will be taken from me. That is what is bad for our country, and not consistent with a capitalistic system.

Try adding 9% state income tax on top of that.
Seems like 1/2 of what I make goes to the gov't.
To tell you the truth, it does make me want to work less. I used to put in lots of extra hours (no overtime for salary), but at this point, I would rather have more free time.

Especially since I lose 1/2 of what I try to earn anyway, why should I work my butt off to get a promotion and raise?

babylou,

I think a complete libertarian or free market advocate would support the use of mercenaries instead of a standing army and no public education. I don't hold either position.

I support the maintenance of a powerful military, provided it is stationed entirely within our national borders when it is not actively invading another country (i.e. no bases in other nations unless you are in the midst of conquering them or just finished conquering them - and such an event should be exceedingly rare).

I haven't given it a lot of research, but off the top of my head I would say I support public schools provided that their fund-raising and governance does not go beyond the local level. I'm a huge believer that national scale programs are wasteful and inefficient.

Originally posted by FamilyGuy
To anyone that agrees with her before they start reading, this isn't an issue.

So true, I used to love Ayn Rand, but as I've matured, I've learned that her reasoning is partially flawed. Still a great author nonetheless.

Originally posted by Reeko
Seems like 1/2 of what I make goes to the gov't.
To tell you the truth, it does make me want to work less. I used to put in lots of extra hours (no overtime for salary), but at this point, I would rather have more free time.

Especially since I lose 1/2 of what I try to earn anyway, why should I work my butt off to get a promotion and raise?
My thoughts exactly. High tax at upper income levels can stifle productivity in those who tend to be most productive and creative.

bump.

The Truth about Taxes
by Anonymous


Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner.

The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men - the poorest - would pay nothing;
The fifth would pay $1;
The sixth would pay $3;
The seventh $7;
The eighth $12;
The ninth $18.
The tenth man - the richest - would pay $59.

That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement - until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."
(this is like a tax cut)

So now dinner for the ten only cost $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-the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being *paid* to eat their meal.

So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59.

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth. "But he got $7!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They were $52 short!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the 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 at the table anymore.

Unfortunately, Liberals cannot grasp this straight-forward logic!

bump.

The Truth about Taxes
by Anonymous


Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner.

The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men - the poorest - would pay nothing;
The fifth would pay $1;
The sixth would pay $3;
The seventh $7;
The eighth $12;
The ninth $18.
The tenth man - the richest - would pay $59.

That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement - until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."
(this is like a tax cut)

So now dinner for the ten only cost $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-the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being *paid* to eat their meal.

So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59.

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth. "But he got $7!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They were $52 short!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the 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 at the table anymore.

Unfortunately, Liberals cannot grasp this straight-forward logic!

There are plenty of 'liberals' that realize any tax break automatically benefits the rich the most, because the rich pay the most taxes.

There's four things you yourself are missing.

First, Social Security tax is withheld right from the first dollar you earn up to $87,000 a year, and matched by your employer. Also, benefits depend upon your contribution. So man number 10 may pay the highest federal income tax, but he has the effectively lowest Social Security Tax scale. Also, he will get the biggest paying from Social Security when he retires, despite the fact that he needs it the least. The four poorest men will have the lowest Federal Income tax, but they'll all have a tie for the highest Social Security taxes. It's not likely that they'll have any money of their own for retirement, but their Social Security payout will be quite low.

Second, Capital Gains taxes are lower than income taxes for people in mid range or high income brackets. This makes sense from the point of view that the government should encourage investment in US business, but it gives the rich a tax advantage over the middle class. An annual income of $50,000 from salary will incur much more federal tax than the same income from investments.

Third, taking away the Social Welfare envelope will hurt the rich as well as the poor. Desperate poor people are more likely to turn to crime to support themselves. An able bodied person on welfare is a very bad thing, but it's cheaper and easier than having the same person committing crimes or in prison.

Fourth and most importantly, there are some economic schools of thought which believe that giving tax breaks to people with the lowest incomes is the best way to stimulate the economy. Give the $150,000 salaried individual a $5,000 tax break, and he may buy a good stereo system or a better car. Give 10 $15,000 individuals a $500 tax break, and they may buy CDs, eat out more often, get more clothes, etc... which requires more store clerks, more restaurant staff, and more textile workers. Since those people are needed, there's more hiring. Those new employees start spending, and there's more demand for workers. etc... etc...

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner.

The bill for all ten comes to $100.

Tell me, Doc... where can ten -- TEN -- adult males with normal appetites go out to dinner and eat their fill for a total bill (including tax and tip) of a mere $100? If Republicans would learn to couch their fables in reality, I might actually start listening to them instead of dismissing them as hopelessly out of touch. ;)

Family Guy, didn't take long for you to get back into this thread. :)
Good points, but it is silly to slam the high earners for getting a big SS check.
Pay more into it, and you'd damn well better get a bigger check imo.

Aratinga, I guess you've never eaten at one of those all-you-can-eat Asian restaurants. We have a bunch here where you can get well fed for 8 bucks.
I like Oriental Gourmet myself.

Tell me, Doc... where can ten -- TEN -- adult males with normal appetites go out to dinner and eat their fill for a total bill (including tax and tip) of a mere $100? If Republicans would learn to couch their fables in reality, I might actually start listening to them instead of dismissing them as hopelessly out of touch. ;)


ummm thats easy.. how about in-in-out.. 5 bucks double double combo meal. mm good.. :) :D

wow Doc, you're an archaeologist, too? Digging up threads consigned to the dustbins of history? ;)

I've voiced my opinions on taxes before (10% sales tax) and concluded that it's much more important to reduce the level of spending the government does (since I do balanced budgets are important). A friend of mine recently thought of something, and I wanted to float it here to see what you all think.

Index the tax rate to the rate of unemployment.

Say the top 10% of income earners get a tax rate of 5 times the unemployment rate.
If unemployment is at 5% the top tax rate would be 25%.
If unemployment is at 10% the top tax rate would be 50%.
If unemployment is at 1% the top tax rate would be 5%.

You can mess with the actual numbers - 5x, 10%; 6x, 20%; whatever. My friend is in the top 2% of income earners, and he is a bit of a wingnut, (although I tend to use that term liberally ;) ) but he does come up with some "interesting" ideas.

I don't see why indexing taxes to unemployment would be a good idea.

Here is a good article about "poverty" in America. Some key points:

Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.

Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.


http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/BG1713es.cfm

http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3146724


The poverty line it eventually adopted, a line first drawn by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration, remains in place today, adjusted for inflation, but otherwise scarcely altered. Two parents, bringing up two kids, are judged to be poor if they live on less than $18,660 a year (for an unencumbered individual under the age of 65, the threshold is $9,573).
...
Whatever crude logic it possessed at the time, the Orshansky poverty line is by now quite arbitrary. Its originator calculated the cost of meeting a family’s nutritional needs and then multiplied this figure by three, because families in that era spent about a third of their income on food. The Census Bureau does not repeat this exercise to determine today’s poverty line; it does not recalculate the cost of an adequate diet or remeasure the share of income spent on food. It simply adjusts Ms Orshansky’s figures for inflation.
...
Benjamin Disraeli, a 19th century British prime minister, likened the rich and the poor to “two nations, between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy, who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were…inhabitants of different planets”. As a guide to the less fortunate of these two planets, the Census Bureau’s poverty figures are flawed and anachronistic. But they do show that welfare reform is not by itself enough. Unless the labour market tightens further this year, there will be many more Americans discovering the other planet for themselves in 2004.

Pick out the pieces in here re: foreclosures and mortgages.
----
10 Reasons America's Two-Income Families Aren't What You Think
(According to Harvard Law professor and bankruptcy expert Elizabeth Warren)
1. Two-income families today make 75% more in inflation-adjusted dollars, but have less money to spend than one-income families did 30 years ago.
2. Two-income families today spend: 21% less on clothing, 22% less on food, and 44% less on appliances compared to one-income families a generation ago.
3. Every 15 seconds an American family files for bankruptcy.
4. This year, more kids will live through their parents' bankruptcy, than through their parents' divorce.
5. 1.6 million families will file for bankruptcy this year, 9 million more are already in credit counseling.
6. Home mortgage foreclosures are up more than three-fold over the last generation and car foreclosures have hit record levels.
7. More than 62% of families say that they worry about making ends meet.
8. The average family spends 69% more in inflation-adjusted dollars on their home mortgage than their parents spent a generation ago.
9. The average family spends 61% more on health insurance, than their parents spent a generation ago.
10. Credit card default rates are at a record high.
----------------
The thing about owning a home is, do you actually own it, or are you just paying interest to the bank? How much equity do poor peole really have in their homes?

Family Guy, didn't take long for you to get back into this thread. :)
Good points, but it is silly to slam the high earners for getting a big SS check.
Pay more into it, and you'd damn well better get a bigger check imo.


Should you?

If you're eligible for welfare, how much you used to pay in taxes is irrelevant. The program exists to keep people that are unable (or in some cases, unfortunately, unwilling) to work off the streets. Everyone pays taxes to support Welfare. Your payments are the same from month to month, and the only limit to how long you can collect is how long you live.

An annuity, on the other hand, gives paybacks according to the amount you contributed. Save $1,000 a year, and you'll get much less than someone that saved $4,000 a year. Also, there's only a limited amount of annuity benefit before you will exhaust your savings. Your annuity contributions are yours alone.

Right now, Social Security is taxed like an annuity and pays out in benefits according to contributions like an annuity, but it's basic purpose is to serve as welfare for the elderly and like welfare, how long you live is the only limit to how much you can collect. To me it makes more sense for the whole program to be set up like Welfare.

PS I didn't mean to jump all over you for that. There are plenty of individuals and political parties (e.g. the Green Party) which have these ridiculous fantasies of just raising the highest income and corporate tax rates to 90+% and then spending the resulting revenue on some sort of delusional utopian fantasy. I just want to point out that there are legitimate reasons for the rich to pay more than everyone else.

8. The average family spends 69% more in inflation-adjusted dollars on their home mortgage than their parents spent a generation ago.


8.
I've been wondering about that. Fannie Mae and other partially government businesses were set up to help low and middle income individuals get financing for homes.

In theory it sounds great. In practice, I'm not so sure. As the amount of credit available to everyone increased (i.e. inflated), the value of property increased (i.e. inflated). So while you can get twice the mortgage today than you could thirty years ago, chances are that the house you buy will have cost an inflation adjusted twice as much thirty years ago. Are you any better off?

More on who actually pays taxes. It is fewer of us than you would think.

Let's look at who doesn't pay taxes. According to a study done by Scott Hodge, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation, and his colleagues, 41 percent of whites, 56 percent of blacks, 59 percent of American Indians and Aleut Eskimos, and 40 percent of Asians and Pacific Islanders will have no 2004 federal income tax liability. The Tax Foundation study concludes, "When all of the dependents of these income-producing households are counted, there are roughly 122 million Americans -- 44 percent of the U.S. population -- outside of the federal income tax system."

Who does pay federal income taxes? The top 20 percent of income earners pay 80 percent, and the top 50 percent pay 96.5 percent of total federal income taxes. Given these figures about who does and does not pay federal income taxes, what are we to make of John Edwards' stump speech? He's right in one sense. One group of Americans -- those at the top -- work and pay virtually all federal income taxes, and another group -- those at the bottom -- work and pay little or no federal income taxes.

There's another issue about income inequality. If it's your vision that out there somewhere there's a pile of money to be divided among Americans, the reason the top fifth of Americans have much more than the bottom fifth is that they got to the pile of money first and took an unfair share. Justice, of course, would require that their ill-gotten gains be confiscated and redistributed to their rightful owners. But in a free society, income is mostly determined by one's ability and willingness to produce goods and services that satisfy his fellow man.

The top fifth of income earners (earnings greater than $84,000) are not only more productive and have higher skills and education than the bottom fifth of income earners, they work more hours and have more people in their household working.

There's something else that gets little attention. There's considerable income mobility in our country. According to Internal Revenue Service tax data, 85.8 percent of tax filers in the bottom fifth in 1979 had moved on to a higher quintile, and often to the top quintile, by 1988. Income mobility goes in the other direction as well. Of the people who were in the top 1 percent of income earners in 1979, over half, or 52.7 percent, were gone by 1988.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20040908.shtml

Coming from someone in the mortgage lending business I have some things to say about the info on this website: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/BG1713es.cfm .

-It doesn't address the time that the home was purchased. It could have been purchased when the family was scraping by and later they ran into financial problems.
-A/C is available in most apartments now and is not a sign of oppulance, rather it is a sign of our times. Electronics and appliances are not as expensive (for the low end market) as they used to be.
-Both partners in a relationship are expected to work in order to raise them above the poverty line which is in sharp contrast in the last generation.
-In my area and I'm sure that this is the same for most of the US if someone is making $18k a year that is a very meager existence. I wouldn't be happy with it and I wouldn't be driving around an RX-8... ;)

ER Doc, I have asked myself this question a few times but I haven't gotten around to asking you, were your parents affluent or did you have to work very hard to get through college. The reason I ask is that you talk of the lower and lower-middle class as though they don't have the drive to succeed. Truth be told they don't have the connections it takes to succeed. It is very difficult to get anything done or to get heard by anyone unless you move in the right circles. Going to school is a good way to go but some people aren't assured of success there either. I on the other hand have managed to become successful irregardless of my financial upbringing (it must be my good looks :) ) and have been able to help others achieve success too. My interest is not in my own success but I would rather bring good people with me. I don't see that in your posts. I'm not attacking your position here I'm just curious where you developed it from.

ER Doc, I have asked myself this question a few times but I haven't gotten around to asking you, were your parents affluent or did you have to work very hard to get through college. The reason I ask is that you talk of the lower and lower-middle class as though they don't have the drive to succeed. Truth be told they don't have the connections it takes to succeed.
So are my points more valid if I scraped and struggled working two jobs while in college, or less valid if my parents paid my way through school? I know what its like to shuffle the bills, believe me. My first new car I bought at age 30. After medical school, with an MD degree, you work 80-110 hours/week at a salary of $26,000 for three years. That is a little over $5 per hour.

I think that if people put as much effort into working as they do about complaining, they would be better off. Not everyone is going to be able to finish a college and postgraduate degree and become an engineer, attorney, or physician, and it is not just because they do not have the "right connections." Those professions are difficult, and the training/weed out process is challenging. That is why those jobs pay well, they are relatively exclusive and require special talents and intelligence.

Not everyone is business-savvy either, although that is another way people without the desire/stamina/intelligence/connections/money to get through college can excel financially. I would be living in a van down by the river if I had to depend on my business skills. There are a couple of young hotshots on this forum probably making more than me, from the looks of their rides. Good for them. They must have had unfair "connections" or other advantages too, they couldn't possibly have done well without a priviliged background. :rolleyes:

ER Doc, I wasn't implying the unpriviliged don't or can't get by without connections and sure you can go to a state university and get an excellent degree with the right amount of hard work. It doesn't take a 4.0 to get into the engineering field and do well. My point was more along the lines of how much diversity you saw growing up? I had periods of time in my life where my parents were in the top echelons of our area making good money but I also spent time living in a trailer with my mom and two of my brothers after my parents were divorced. I have seen both sides and know that there is a stark contrast to not only the belief that you can do better but also the belief that you deserve better. I have never attacked your ability to make money (or I would need to do the same for myself) I was just trying to pry into your upbringing. Sorry that I hit a nerve don't feel compelled to answer the previous question since now I know it makes you uncomfortable. Just forget I asked. :o

I don't mind answering the question, I just want to keep my credibility. My father is a physician too, as was his father. I am blessed with many advantages in life, but I have also worked hard. Connections and money can get you in the door, but succeeding is up to the individual. I was completely mediocre in college and medical school, and only began to have true success once I could gain advantage by working harder and longer than anyone else. If you show up early and stay late, people notice. If you are always on time, prepared, and never unavailable, you will succeed. So many people abuse their "sick days," using all they can. If you want to be mediocre, that is a surefire way to do it. I haven't missed a shift in ten years.

Here are some cool quotes from some successful people. I have believed in the power of positive thinking since I was exposed to Zig Ziglar in high school.

http://www.financiallyrich.com/success-quotes.asp

-A/C is available in most apartments now and is not a sign of oppulance, rather it is a sign of our times. Electronics and appliances are not as expensive (for the low end market) as they used to be. That is a sign of our country's opulence, that such things are taken for granted. Ever been to Mexico? Last month, during a Houston heat wave, the local paper showed a picture of an elderly woman whose A/C (window unit) went out. By days end, many people had donated replacements. There is a charity that distributes them to the needy, so many people benefitted.

-In my area and I'm sure that this is the same for most of the US if someone is making $18k a year that is a very meager existence. I wouldn't be happy with it and I wouldn't be driving around an RX-8... ;) That is why it is considered the poverty level. I lived on $12K/year in college and felt rich then (20 years ago), but I was young and just glad to be out of the house. Of course you can't have expensive toys and you have to watch your money, but you still can live pretty well in most parts of the world with that income. As the articles I have posted state, many people who are at the poverty level are young, just starting out, and move upward to greater success.

two things:

First, the school you attend has a lot to do with it. My parents racked up quite a bit of debt putting my siblings and I through a (relatively cheap, 'only' $3000 or so per year) private school in our area because it just blew the local public schools away for pre-college level education. Many middle and low income people in the US don't realize what an edge a good school provides or realize it but can't afford to send their kids to good schools.

Second, for a good chunk of the 20th century the highest income tax bracket in the US was over 50%. Up until 2000 it was 39.6%. Bush's tax cuts lowered the percentage to 35% and lowered the top bracket long term capital gains tax from 20% to 15%. Both changes benefitted individuals with lots of money proportionately more than they benefitted everyone else, and the rich were already paying less than they had in taxes for most of the century. I can support the capital gains tax cut as an economic stimulus, but not the income tax cut.

I'm sorry if that makes me sound unsympathetic to the wealthy, but having a huge budget deficit while a low income family foregoes a monthly evening out to dinner and the rich can budget a second and third Mercedes does not strike me as fair. (Edit) Even if the rich family worked very hard for the money it has.

Here are some cool quotes from some successful people. I have believed in the power of positive thinking since I was exposed to Zig Ziglar in high school.

http://www.financiallyrich.com/success-quotes.asp

Good ol' Zig Ziglar has some good quotes but I prefer books that have more deep substance... (not putting Zig down but I always thought of his work as kind of the icing on the cake). There is a great book out there called The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko. Not only does it de-mystify what wealth truelly is it also paints a very conservative and well thought out set of statistics for who truelly is wealthy. I highly recommend it for your children. They are the ones who would most likely need it. Check it out if you haven't already.

Glad to hear that you understood what I was getting at and not that I was directly attacking your credibility. I don't think you are callous or insensitive but it is hard to explain the way growing up in a poor area can effect the future outlook of most people. There will always be the over-achievers and the people who strive for success but that is the exception even in the affluent households. The difference is that quite a number of people in affluent houesholds have a parent or friend that can carry the extra weight. In a poor household that isn't going to happen and a meager existence is likely the result.

The middle class on the other hand has more opportunity and can easily go either way. I have friends that worked their way through college (parents helped where they could) and they managed to do better than their parents. I have also seen people drop out before their AA degree to "go make money" and hit that glass ceiling pretty early in their careers. So you are right that station isn't everything in life... but graduating from a school like Stanford or Yale can help all on its own.

...I was completely mediocre in college and medical school, and only began to have true success once I could gain advantage by working harder and longer than anyone else.

This caught my eye, Doc... did you mean that your grades were "completely mediocre" as an undergrad? If so, how the heck did you get accepted to med school if it wasn't via the influence of your physician father and grandfather? I mean, if you're a legacy admission it's okay -- that's what gets you to the White House, after all.

First, the school you attend has a lot to do with it. My parents racked up quite a bit of debt putting my siblings and I through a (relatively cheap, 'only' $3000 or so per year) private school in our area because it just blew the local public schools away for pre-college level education. Many middle and low income people in the US don't realize what an edge a good school provides or realize it but can't afford to send their kids to good schools.

This is SO true. There are lots of promising, intelligent kids out there from families where no one has ever attended college (some may be the first in their family to even graduate from high school). Parents like that rarely understand the importance of sending a kid to college at all, much less to a "name" university that is, to their minds, impossibly expensive and much too far from home. Those kids will never have the advantage that having well-to-do, educated parents with connections would grant them.

It's much easier to move up within a social stratum when you're born into it rather than to try to break into it from below.

Good ol' Zig Ziglar has some good quotes but I prefer books that have more deep substance... (not putting Zig down but I always thought of his work as kind of the icing on the cake).

I was exposed to Zig Ziglar in college, by a bunch of people that sold Amway. They were very successful, but what I took away from the experience was that they were rich not because of Amway but because of their attitude. So I tried to keep that attitude (but with less focus on money).

Later I had a girlfriend who exposed me to people like Alister Crowley. (I think we touched on him somewhere - "Do what thou wilt"). Eventually it came to me: it was all about will. Where there's a will there's a way.

I never thought I'd tie those two together, much less relate them to income taxes, but since money is so important in our society, not having any eventually has a real dampnening effect on the will. Self-esteem is related too. If you can re-kindle that fire, you stand a much better chance of lifting yourself out of poverty.

Hmmm... 93rd Current and Alister Crowley... never put those to together before. ;)


J/K yes Alister makes a great case since he went from riches to rags to riches again. He was a self-motivated go-getter who had no patience for self-pity. He was very ill as a child but when he moved into his teens (and after his father died) he decided to get out there and do something with his life. He was an accomplished mountaineer (when that was much more dangerous than today) even attempting K-12 twice, he travelled accross China on the back of a donkey, travelled accross the Savanah desert on camel back, among many other things while being a severe asthmatic. Oh and did I mention that he did all of this while trying to fight a herion addiction he started as a youngster (prescribed for his asthma by his doctor). I can't think of a single account of him where he asked anyone for help or pity. That's not to say that he was perfectly gracious or that he didn't have some social quirks if you will.

He was a brilliant person no matter how you look at it.

This caught my eye, Doc... did you mean that your grades were "completely mediocre" as an undergrad? If so, how the heck did you get accepted to med school if it wasn't via the influence of your physician father and grandfather? I mean, if you're a legacy admission it's okay -- that's what gets you to the White House, after all.
math grades=bad
science grades=pretty good
average grade=average

The year I got accepted into med school was the easiest year in history - 5 out of every 7 applicants were accepted, fortunately for me. Also I had a great MCAT.

No legacy, and I didn't get to check the "underrepresented minority" box either, which still exists btw.

I disagree with the private school issue. Around here at least, private schools usually exempt some (what I consider important) part of the curriculum, like for example, evolution. Peope around here are still upset with the Scopes Trial. The private schools tend to coddle students and attempt to shelter them from the real world. As a result, many people who go to college from the private schools drop out. We could afford to send both of our children to a private school, but we send them to the public school. My son has scored a 5 on Biology, Chemistry, and Calculus AB AP tests (not the "easy" AP tests), and the school has a dual enrollment program where he is taking some classes this year at one of the top 50 liberal arts colleges in the country in addition to high school classes. If everything goes as it has been he will have credit for a whole year of classes at any top college. I for one see nothing wrong with the public school system. Is it that much different in other parts of the country?