Fixing Inequality through Taxes

1) That in no way disproves anything I said in my post.

And, 2) Simply false, as you've been shown repeatedly. Take off your greed glasses.

Year - Realized C/G - Tax rev.
1996 $260,696 $66,396 [Cap gains tax rate 28%]
2002 $268,615 $49,122 [Cap gains tax rate 20%]
2009 $263,460 $36,686 [Cap gains tax rate 15%]
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=161

 

Simply true, take off you cherry picking gloves and don't compare a robust economy with one in a recession.

2007 $924,164 $137,141

Are you really ignorant as to how tax rates affect economic activity and realized gains? The lower rates produce more of each. But then the amount of revenues is not your concern is it, it's sticking it to the 1% of whom you are so envious.

 

I compare periods that have equivalent realizations, comparing apples to apples.

You pick one year when the realizations were far higher.

And you claim *I'm* the one cherry picking? Not that I'm surprised.

You think?

Realizations:
2002 $268,615 [Cap gains tax rate 20%]
2009 $263,460 [Cap gains tax rate 15%]

I'll let others decide whose ignorant.

But then the amount of revenues is not your concern is it, it's ensuring that the richest continue to get those special low tax rates and sticking it to the workers. Because for the greedy, more is never enough.

 

Only leftists are objecting to the assertion I'm making. Perhaps it is you which has created that problem.

Such a grade-school level comment - as if decades of policy, taking into account multiple variables, could possibly be boiled down in such a way. Without you even having to tax your brain to truly think about (a] what policies, and (b] what effect they had.

Offer more detail.

Your whole post has no substance. No policy; no details; no reason or explanation.

I could have found it on the back of any leftist's car.

 

Yes. It. Does. Didn't you notice that this phantom "income inequality" also existed prior to 1947?

So your whole ideology rests on the claim that the income ratios after WWII/The Great Depression are the norm - and not the exception.

You haven't established that whatsoever. Since your claims don't focus on pre-1940's whatsoever, I am left to assume that you have no way of explaining those income percentages.

Nonsense. We had the Great Depression and WWII back-to-back. There was plenty to recover. Many fortunes were lost, and along with them a lot of the structure that led to higher incomes as a ratio of all incomes.

You continue to argue for a metric which is meaningless. You have yet to address what I'm saying, which is that expanding the money supply INEVITABLY leads to a greater spread between rich and poor.

And because the rest of your response is so long as to prevent anyone from reading these posts, I'll stop here.

 

It isn't about "more is never enough".

But since you're the one constantly wailing about "greed" and "too much"...what is "enough"? Since you've chosen to take issue with it, you're responsible to DEFINE it.

And with your definition, we'll see your Marxism exposed. So go ahead.

In addition: this whine that the wealthy's "percentage of income" has doubled, what I see it doing is returning to normalcy, since those levels - using your own chart - were at that point before WWII.

 

This response post indicates that you're AWARE that there is only so much money in circulation - so now explain how that amount continually expanding WOULDN'T result in a constant increase in spread between richest and poorest.

 

You don't think?

Tell us, the 1% now get about 20% of the nation's income and have about 40% of the nation's wealth. Doubled since the Reagan "trickle down" revolution.

How much more of the nation's income and wealth do you think the 1% should get?

 

As much as the people of the nation choose to give to them.

 

See Meta's response above. The same way it DIDN'T result in an increase in inequality from 1945-1981.

 

There has always been some inequality and I have no problem with that. But there is no valid reason, and it hurts our economy, when virtually all the gains go to such a small segment of the population.

What "phantom" inequality? Do you deny that inequality exists?

They were the norm for 45 years corresponding with the greatest period of expansion for all income classes of Americans.

The percentages show the amount of the the nations income going to a particular segment. For example, in the decades prior to 1981, the richest 10% got about 35% of the nation's income, and the bottom 90% got 65%. Since then those percentages have changed to 50%/50%.

Top marginal tax rates were raised from 26% in the 1920s to 91% by 1950.

I completely disagree it is meaningless. The fact that the middle classes have been gutted has far reaching ramifications. First, it means that about 90% of American families have not shared in the prosperity they helped produce over the past 35 years. Second, it means that the great engine of spending, the middle classes, now do not have proportionally the same spending power the used to have to drive a robust economy. Which we are seeing with the anemic economic growth since 2000 and the GR.

 

Then you both have a problem, because that is exactly what it is. Notice that the top squiggly line is more volatile?



You said "PROPORTIONATELY". I agree. So what do you think that chart demonstrates?

PROPORTIONALITY.

If you graph a 20% spread between 5 numbers of a certain range that are equally spaced, that's the kind of chart you see. You make the certain range 100,000, you'll have a tight spread, if you want to comparise to a range of 4 TRILLION on the high end - and everything in between will form the rather smooth exponential curve.

This is math. And it's inevitable, considering the expansion of our money supply - but the top squiggly line will always be more erratic than the others. It is simply a MAGNIFICATION of the others, due to higher ratio, and it is also because the top quintile has no upper limit. ALL members of the top quintile contribute to the movement of that line, they CANNOT graduate to any other line.

Are you guys capable of understanding that? If there are members of the 4th quintile, and they succeed beyond their wildest dreams, are they suddenly not in the 4th quintile anymore, are they? They are part of the volatility of the 5th quintile, which has no ceiling, and will BY NECESSITY BE VOLATILE AND WILL PROBABLY OUTPERFORM ALL OTHER QUINTILES.

Even though that chart's vectors STILL show a proportionate exponential increase in ALL of them, doesn't it?



Let me be extremely clear. You guys are making up a problem because of your socialist class envy and warfare goals, and I'm going to be in your ear relentlessly to put you away.

 

I think he means this:



And this:

Family median income 2012 dollars
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/families/2012/F06AR_2012.xls

Year - income
2012 62,241
1979 57,734
1953 31,929

In the 26 years from 1953 to 1979, real median family income (in inflation adjusted terms) grew by 81%.

In the 33 years from 1979 to 2012, real median family income (in inflation adjusted terms) grew by 8%.


http://bea.gov/national/nipaweb/SelectTable.asp?Selected=N

In the 26 years from 1953 to 1979, real GDP (in inflation adjusted terms) grew by 126.4%

In the 33 years from 1979 to 2012, real GDP (in inflation adjusted terms) grew by 137.9%

http://bea.gov/national/xls/gdplev.xls

 

"Some inequality" you say. Your own chart shows "some inequality" roughly equal to what you're claiming is a problem today.

I suggest the problem is with YOU. Because YOUR arrogance thinks that it is deigned to YOU to determine what FAIR and EQUAL is. Pre-1947, the chart shows the SAME thing.

You have YET to demonstrate that it isn't good, normal and RIGHT. You have a chart that screams reversion to the mean, which IS the natural state, and totalitarian socialists are SCREAMING about it, and people like me - FREEDOM loving entrepreneurs - have HAD it with you.

Only NATURE gets to determine the natural state. Only individual effort. Only MY OWN gains for MY OWN effort.

NOT YOURS; NOT people LIKE you. Not people who TAKE. Not people who FORCE compliance.

NOT. YOU.

We are created equal. From there, those who want to force equality are dictatorial thugs. And you'd better look in a mirror as well, because you're also not as good looking as us either. How do you propose to zero sum gain that too?

Uh, no. We were all struggling along, and wealth creation didn't explode again until the Government got a Reagan shoved up its arse. All it appears that you want to do is hold every quintile line A LOT CLOSER TO THE ANEMIC MOVEMENT OF THE BOTTOM LINE.

And that just means that migration from one quintile to the next stopped happening.

Cite for me the ratios in 1943. Then tell me what "equal" is, and what hilariously socialist arbitrary measure you used, other than what you think is right.

And then tell me how much wealth someone inventing a computer in 1943 would have collected, compared to the same invention in the present, with the amount of dollars floating around.

And then tell me how you are not utterly out of your depth in your attempts to control the uncontrollable.

You gonna try to lie with statistics again? I'll call you on it. You see what amounts to a 300% increase in top marginal rate, and you crow that it is real.

Adjusting for inflation and the increase in the M0 from 1920 to 1950, show us what raw amount of taxes were collected from the those who paid the top tax rate.

I dare you.

Causation/correlation fallacy. What you see is the result of failed leftist attempts to control the accumulation of wealth - to keep GOVERNMENT in control; to use CLASS WARFARE to retain control; to keep building a DEPENDENT CONSTITUENCY for DEMOCRATS - and you see the INEVITABLE result of forcing currency expansion, which devalues the worth of those who do not have investments which are placed in vehicles which can at least KEEP UP with the pace of inflation.

You've built in an AUTOMATIC 4% disadvantage for the bottom quintile, because they do not have liquid assets with which to invest, hopelessly dooming them to shrink 4%/annum against the remainder of the field.

So - like a typical leftist - you create the problem to work within chaos, and then you WHINE that the problem isn't controlled so that you RETAIN control.

And so on.

We're. Not. Buying. It.

- - - Updated - - -

You magnify a dip from a Great Depression and WWII, and you actually think it's normal. I've refuted you already. You see now great expansion, and a return to how it was. You ALSO see a POTUS who has done NOTHING for the lower classes, and use them simply to assure the veracity of his bully pulpit.

Disgusting liberals.

 

One more thing:

You whine that it was 35/65 between the top 10% and remaining 90%, and now you complain that is more like 50/50.

Well, here's some simple math. It's going to get worse. On an exponentially expanding quintile chart weighed against total wealth, the distance between the top line and the the second highest line will EXCEED the SUM TOTAL distance between all other lines.

That's MATH. That's what the definition of EXPONENTIAL...IS.

 

Until we reverse "trickle down" pampering the richest as the predominate objective of our economic system, I have no doubt you are correct.

But its not MATH. It's POLITICS.

 

My chart is from the US Census. Please tell me how what you see is not normal, expected - and INEVITABLE when the amount of money in circulation is expanded to 4 TRILLION.

If there was - say - a $2000 gap between the average low and high income individual in 1920 with 4.3 BILLION in circulation, why wouldn't the gap between the average low and high income not be near an exact multiple proportionate to the expansion of currency to 4 TRILLION?

That's 1000x monetary expansion, rounding up. That makes a $2,000 spread in 1920 equal to $2,000,000 today.

Your ideology is wearing no clothes.

 

Not at all. It shows that inequality if far greater than it was today from the 1940s to the Reagan "Trickle down" revolution.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. Just out of curiosity, since you have no problem with just 1% of the richest Americans getting about 20% of the nation's total income and having about 40% of the nation's wealth, just how much larger of a portion of the nation's income and wealth do you think the 1% should get?

What does NATURE have to do with the trickle down policies that have helped redistribute so much of the nation's income and weatlh from the middle class to the richest?

Where did I say anything was mine?

Where did I say I wanted to force equality? My, you are on a rant.

Simple false. GDP grew faster in the 50s and 60s than anytime since the Reagan "trickle down" revolution.

.

No, it means that virtually all of the growth and prosperity since the Reagan "trickle down" revolution has gone to the wealthiest.

do you own homework.

Since there was a 91% top tax rate in 1943, considerably less.

What is uncontrollable?

Accusations of lying are against the rules, I could surely do it too. I'll let this one go. Next time you get reported.

Do your own homework. I'm not your (*)(*)(*)(*)(*).

I didn't rely on correlation at all. Spending drives the economy. That is a fact. The middle classes spend almost all their income, the richest don't. That is a fact. The bottom 90% of Americans are proportionally getting about $1.5 trillion less every year since the Reagan "trickle down" revolution. That is a fact.

Therefore, the conclusion that the gutting of the middle classes with the Reagan "trickle down" revolutions would hurt overall spending and thus the economy is not based on causal correlation at all, but application of fact.

And here are the results, black and white:


Year - % chng real personal expenditures
1982 1.4
1983 5.7
1984 5.3
1985 5.3
Average: 4.4

1992 3.7
1993 3.5
1994 3.9
1995 3.0
Average 3.5

2002 2.5
2003 3.1
2004 3.8
2005 3.5
Average 3.2

2010 2.0
2011 2.5
2012 2.2
2013 2.0
Average 2.2

Source data: http://bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=9&step=1#reqid=9&step=1&isuri=1
Table 2.3.1. Percent Change From Preceding Period in Real Personal Consumption Expenditures by Major Type of Product

You keep repeating this silly point. The middle classes have not kept up because their wages have stagnated. Simple as that.

I certainly did not create the problem.

I would never expect you and your fellow 1% apologists to acknowledge the obvious.

You've refuted nothing.

I appreciate how you 1% apologists get your panties in a knot when someone points how the truth of how the richest are taking more and more of the nation's income, wealth, and prosperity.

 

See 1945-1980. The money supply expanded then too but when didn't have skyrocketing inequality like in 1981.

No, something else happened that year.

You apparently have a fundamental ignorance in statistics and data.

It's not the fact that the dollar amount of the gap has increased. It's the fact that the richest 1% are now getting 20% of the nation's income and about 40% of the nation's wealth, double since the Reagan "trickle down" revolution. The percentage of what they get of the total pie dramatically increased, and conversely, the percentage of the pie going to the middle class has dramatically decreased.

So what?

The facts I produce are naked for all to see for themselves.

 

Notice the equivocation in the use of the word "redistribute". It gives the impression that someone has taken money from the middle class and given that money to the rich. Obviously nobody has done any such thing.

Notice the use of the word "taking". When one makes an income one is not taking anything from anyone. One is being given money.

This is the kind of loosey goosey use of inflammatory language that the class envy crew use to justify their wealth redistribution schemes.

 

Looks to me that is exactly what happened.

This kind of denial is exactly the tactics employed by the 1% apologists to justify the fact that they have taken double the share of the nation's income and wealth since the Reagan "trickle down" revolution.

 

I do not think you can do away with inequality or make people equal by robbing Peter and giving it to Paul. That my treat some of the symptoms, but is not even close to a cure. I am not sure what is, but I think it is better for everyone to improve their life station and better their standard of living.

Who care if person A improves a 100 times and you only two times, the important thing is everyone is improving.

 

You should tell that to your employer.

That way, he/she can give most of any future raise to someone else who might appreciate it.

 

How about if a very tiny group A which was already far better off than everyone else improves 100 times and everyone else not at all? You OK with that to? If your in Group A I'm sure you would be.