U;tra- Rich are screwing the middle class and the poor

Because the only way to become successful is to screw people, right?

 

350K a year is not rich at all. About half of it will go towards taxes. After that, you have living expenses and probably a mortgage. What's left over? Not much, especially if you have a family. Real "rich" people don't even talk about how much income they make in a year. They talk about things like "net worth". But this kind of nuance goes way over the head of the typical leftist. They are just bitter and resentful towards just about anyone who is doing better than they are, unless, of course, you agree with their politics, then you get a pass.

 

According to progressives and socialists, yes.

 

Sorry, I don't see where you are even close to being correct.

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Wonderful. Yet, not everyone can or must be you.

 

In the corporate world? ABSOLUTELY.

 

The rich never consider themselves rich. If you're making 350K, I'd say you're rich .What the right wing like to say? Stop buying all those toys and you'll have more than enough to thrive, and live quite well off with 350K.

You DO realize that food stamp recipients (the ones republicans always want to cut), don't make 350K, right? The way you guys talk, they're all 'living high on the hog', but people making 350K aren't anywhere near rich. I got it.

 

Educate yourself before you spout. Only 10% goes to the physician's personal income.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/04/03/whos-to-blame-for-our-rising-healthcare-costs/

No wonder things never get better, the little plebes are always more than willing to cut their fellow citizens' throats at the suggestion of a politician.

 

I grew up in the 1950's and 1960's where both of my parents worked full time and they could "pay the bills" with both of them working. From time to time my father did work a second job to get ahead financially. Today with both parents working full time as well as one of them having a second part time job they often can't pay the bills. Over the last 10 years "real income" has declined for American families and a person can only work so many hours a week.

I've always been a "workaholic" but even I've found that about 60 hours a week is the maximum number of hours I could work before reaching physical and mental exhaustion over time. There is a limit and simply saying "work more" has severe limitations.

Where there is a mistake in the OP is that it misrepresents the actual problem. Workers are discriminated against regardless of their income so it isn't an issue of the "wealthy v poor" but instead it's problem of "workers v non-workers" in America. It's the workers in America, from the lowest paid burger-flipper to the highest paid CEO, that produce the wealth of American. The "non-workers" produce no wealth although in a very small percentage of cases they do provide capital that allows the workers to produce wealth. The highest paid CEO in America that is actually creating wealth with their labor pays double the tax rate (i.e. 39.6%) when compared to the non-worker (investor) not actually producing any wealth that pays 1/2 that tax rate (i.e. 20% maximum).

The issue is that the 99% of Americans that overwhelmingly are workers pay basically twice as much in taxes than the small percentage of "non-workers" that dominate the top 1% of income earners. In the last 53 months of continuous economic growth in the United States the top 1% have received 95% of all the income from that growth with their incomes ballooning by well over 30% and they haven't produced any of that economic growth. The bottom 99% have only seen an anemic 0.04% increase in income with most of that going to the top 95-99 percentile group.

Everyone else is losing real income in America with the bottom 50% often losing about 25% of real income since 2007.Millions are working for lower wages that won't purchase as much due to inflation. I personally know many people that are now earning 50% of the wages that they earned in 2007 because they became unemployed and could only find work at 1/2 the wages they previously earned and these were "upper-middle" income individuals prior to the Recession.

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I couldn't disagree more.

You mind telling me what bills these people can't pay for working a minimum wage job 40-60 hours a week? At 40 hours a week they're making $30,160/year. At 60 hours a week that's $45,240. What kind of bills do these folks have that they can't pay for?

Where is that economic growth coming from? It sure isn't coming from the 47% of the population who doesn't pay income taxes or the record tens of millions of people on food stamps. 70% of the taxes in this country are paid for by the top 10% of the population. Those people are the producers. While you categorize many of them as "non-workers" they are putting their MONEY to work. And how do you come to this conclusion that the 99% are paying more in taxes than the 1% at the top? They pay FAR more in capital gains taxes than those other people pay in income taxes.

And why is that? Are those people doing anything to improve their income? Are those people learning new skills that are more marketable in a different economy? Are those people putting their money to work or are they spending that money on rims, cars, clothes, shoes and their hair and nails? I'm going to bet that the vast majority of them are not putting their money to work. While those top percenters are ALWAYS putting their money to work, investing and earning more money. You would expect those people to earn a much larger piece of the pie than those people who are essentially wasting their money.

 

If both parents can work full time without paying for child care that is true but unlike when I grew up where the neighbors provided care for me and my brother at no cost that is very unlikely today.

That is the "average" cost which isn't the maximum cost that would be incurred with both parents working full time. Two children and that can be over $15.000 per year in "disposable" income, not gross income, that goes for child care alone. Add to that the probable expense of two cars instead of one just for the parents to go to work and it's often unaffordable for low paid workers to afford child care at all limiting the income to one parent and not two.

We often make assumptions that simply don't work for low income families. Two parents with $50,000/yr in combined income can probably afford child care while two parents near or at minimum wage can't even afford to have both parents work. They just don't have enough income from the primary income earner to pay for child care typically forcing the mother to stay at home and take care of the children.

 

And whose fault is it that she spread her legs and he ran up in it KNOWING that they couldn't get jobs worth more than minimum wage because most likely they have no skills and no education. Not once BUT TWICE!?!? Whose fault is that?

Is it mine? Is it the business owner? Why should we be punished for the actions of two irresponsible people who are doing what essentially amounts to child abuse by having children that they KNOW they can't afford to take care of?

Not only are you punishing the people who made GOOD decisions and are productive citizens... but you are REWARDING the people who made poor decisions, were irresponsible and are doing what amounts to child abuse by having children that they can't take care of... you are incentivizing them to CONTINUE their poor decision making and relying upon the rest of the populace to take care of them and their children. Why in the hell would you do that?

 

This form of Socialism requires those social morals for free, to accomplish that end:

even under our form of Capitalism.

 

Public policy does not dictate who should be "punished." It's goal is to govern responsibility.

You have some serious bitterness in your posts. Did something happen to you?

 

Hahahaha. Does the money have your name on it? No, it doesn't. It says United States on it. You see taxes as stealing; the rest of the world sees taxes as a required investment back into society.

Typical pure capitalist viewpoint. What you are advocating is pure capitalistic barbarism. It already failed in history. IT DOESN'T WORK. That is why we have a minimum wage and other labor regulations.

 

I am not in a position to cure your blindness.

Not at all, but if I could do it most others can do it too. Graduate degrees are not for everyone, but everyone needs some form of training and it is their choice to get it; or not. The most common reason for failure and dissatisfaction about ones financial place in life is about personal choice. Of course there are some who cannot exercise that choice through no fault of their own. That is why we have social programs.

 

BAH HUMBUG! People who get away with screwing other people in their quest for wealth eventually get stuck by it as well. Those who are most successful do so of their own without screwing over others.

 

Two people working full time at minimum wage earn enough for them to live well here in L.A. Of course it is difficult for them to buy products made by union labor considering how much they make.

 

I'd blame that on the housing industry in California. Maybe they will do something about those rich Asian investors...

 

I would rather be more grateful for any freedoms enabled by state-of-the-art infrastructure.

 

Boloney. Total poppycock.

The rich CEO doesn't get richer by doing good things. He screws over people for make his nest egg. Most super rich DO.

 

I would not let you anywhere near my moral, philosophical or political views; that surely WOULD be the blind leading the sighted in my opinion.

Again, you don't have any universal or perfected answers you are relating here. You may be (in your own view and for your own purposes) a very smart person... but I would not mistake the things you have related here as being THE answers for America. At best, we must disagree, even knowing that neither of us has the only answers there are.

 

Physicians are not going broke. Stop with that nonsense.

 

I want to thank you for all your elitist and derogatory comments against the middle class and poor on these forums because it is exactly that kind of rhetoric coming from the Ayn Rand school of thought cherished by most conservatives that will rally the middle class and poor to ensure that no one from your party will occupy THE WHITE HOUSE for at least the next 20 years. THANK YOU !

 

just where in your little article did it refute that physicians are only bringing home about 10% of healthcare dollars ?

why don't you focus on the real costs instead of displaying your childlike understanding of the situation ?

 

Or they could be one of the millions of families that had better jobs that lost them because of the 2008 Recession and have fallen below the poverty line. Remember that almost 3 out of 4 families collecting SNAP benefits today are because the 2008 Recession drove them below the poverty line.

Or, perhaps, the wife had the children and then, due to spouse abuse, later filed for divorce and is trying to raise the children alone working as many hours as she can but subjected to wage discrimination where women only receive 90% of the compensation when compared to a white male working in the identical occupation.

Or then they might be a member of a minority like African-Americans that are subjected to invidious racial economic discrimination where they're education and job experience has to be superior to a white to gain employment and where they only receive about 60% of the compensation when compared to whites working in the identical occupation with the same education and experience.

Or perhaps the woman wanted to obtain an abortion after becoming pregnant but she lives in one of the "Republican" states that closed down the abortion clinic in her town and she was unable to travel and obtain an abortion. Or maybe she had religious convictions against having an abortion.

Or perhaps the business owner that was profiting from the labor of the employees could have paid them a livable wage so that the taxpayers didn't have to subsidize their enterprise with welfare assistance for their employees. For example we can look at a McDonald's franchise owner in WA that pays $2 more per hour than one in TX (based upon minimum wage) and the WA owner makes a good profit so there's no reason the TX owner can't pay the same wage and still make a good profit.

Or perhaps its because state taxation places a much greater tax burden relative to income for low income families than for high income families. I live in WA where a recent study found that low income families had over 14-times the tax burden relative to income when compared to high income families.

To attempt the argument that a married couple shouldn't have sex because she might get pregnant is rather absurd argument really.