Those options aren't affordable anymore. People are getting priced out of higher education and if you go that route you just wind up a slave to tens of thousands of debt, and you can forget about a house, car, family etc. Essentially, the "American dream" nowadays is your choice of a slave wage or crippling debt.
So we should just give up, roll over an die. The American dream isn't free. It takes hard work, a high risk tolerance, and refusing to stay down, no matter how many times we are knocked down. Fortunately, we are the descendants of those that left quiet misery for the chance of a better life.
This is a fib isn't it? Otherwise show me an example. In contrast, your argument that Americans are more feckless is obvious drivel!
Don't know the conversation, but I'm jumping in for debate purposes. The second statement is very opinionated. If you summed it up to an index, Germany would be the most productive great power at the moment. Can you define freedom for me? I want to make sure that your not getting it confused with liberty, which every American I've met does. Fences are indeed useless. A immigrant can hop on a plane or buy a ladder. Who ever had the conception immigrants got in by swimming the Rio is a fool. Or a budget reduced, lets say, 300 billion.
why do you think our military is starting to wane. We still spend as much as the next ten highest spending countries combined? Is it the last three wars.
I don't think our military is waning in it's ability. They lack a definite purpose. My opinion is that we are spreading ourselves too thin and are acting as the world's police. Other countries resent this and we can't afford this forever. We have a great military, but we cannot protect our own borders. I'd like to see our own borders secure before we try to secure the borders of others. You can call me isolationist, but that is how I feel. I have no problem protecting other countries if they ask for it and/or are willing to pay for it. (depends on the circumstance) Csareo - With a reduced role in world security, a reduced budget and downsizing is fine with me. As with government authority, I think security should be as close to the individual as possible.
NATO did an economic study on burden sharing. The US didn't come out as overburdened. The US needs its high military expenditure, given economies of scale effects, to maintain the military industrial complex. However, we have to go further than that liberal analysis. The military sector also stabilises the economy without threatening to increase labour power (unlike more effective civilian expenditures). Its also a means to generate spin-off technologies. This is rather important with US's class system and the subsequent inability to fully exploit entrepreneurial activity
Then we need to work on stabilizing other countries economies. How much are lives worth? I did my time and my son is in now. His life is worth more to me than a soldier from another country who should be defending themselves. I love Memorial Day, but I don't want to celebrate my son today.
First off, Thank You Texan for your service and your son's. Most noble people would be able to appreciate your sacrifice. Most poverty level people that work, don't work full time. They work the bare minimum they can to get by and still get government benefits. They have the maximum amount of kids they can, no matter who with, in order to receive more money, but they know the limit. It's a science they have down pat. So your tax rate of 100% is completely theoretical and far from reality. Most countries it would be considered fraud, but it's not here. The loopholes are there and they maximize them. For that, I applaud. Reiv, you're kind of like one of those politician people that live in their own little world and have no clue what really goes on in the real world. But, everything does sound good on paper.
This makes no sense. I've referred to the reality: high marginal rates of tax are on the poor and low paid. You're the one referring to a right wing textbook world
You didn't read anything about what really happens. They don't pay these taxes at all. They get paid.
Just pasting some statistics below: Notice the first sentance and at the end for a couple with 2 children (many have more than two and aren't married, for a reason) a negative 27 percent tax rate. Damn, they sure have a huge tax burden. Because the earned income tax credit (EITC) is refundable and the child tax credit (CTC) is partly so, the average effective individual income tax rate for the bottom two income quin-tiles in 2011 was negative; that is, the tax credits more than offset positive income tax liabil-ity, so that the average household in these quintiles received a net payment from the gov-ernment. Low-income households face a lower than average effective payroll tax rate because they get less of their income from earnings and more from transfer payments than do higher-income households. In 2011, payroll taxes claimed 6.2 percent of the cash income of tax units in the lowest quintile, compared with 7.0 percent for all tax units. Tax units in the lowest income quintile pay about the same average effective tax rate on cor-porate income (passed through to them as shareholders) than units in the next two quintiles. That outcome occurs because low-income elderly households get a disproportionately large share of their income from their retirement savings. Not surprisingly, low-income households pay virtually no estate taxes. In 2011, the $5 mil-lion threshold for estate tax liability ($10 million for married couples) will exclude taxpayers in all but the highest income quintile from the tax. Effective tax rates on low-income households have changed markedly over the past quarter century (see figure 1). Creation of the CTC and expansion of the EITC both served to lower the effective individual income tax rate for these households from about 0.5 percent in the early 1980s to its negative value more recently. In contrast, the effective payroll tax rate for households in the lowest income quintile increased by more than half over the same period. The effective corporate income tax rate for low-income households has also fallen since 1979, while the effective excise tax rate rose slightly. Low-income married couples with children have seen a marked decline in their taxes since 1970 (see figure 2). For example, the average combined income and payroll tax rate for mar-ried couples with two children and income at the poverty level fell from over 9 percent in 1970 to negative 27 percent in 2010. That decline resulted in large part from the creation and subsequent expansion of the refundable EITC and partially refundable CTC as well as the temporary stimulus measures in 2009 and 2010.
And that would be an exercise in irrelevance! I've referred to effective marginal rates of tax. That has to refer to the combination of all taxes and benefits. Whilst you're looking up that stuff, also check out the 'social wage' literature (proving that redistribution in the US is largely illusionary)
Do they're employees receive a significant amount of transfer payments? Yes they do. The actual question seems to be, do the wages that Walmart pays create the need for expanded welfare? Even if you say the answer is no, it certainly creates a political environment where it's demanded and moreover, if their wages were more generous, it'd have a positive impact on Joe Taxpayer.
Transfer payments come from tax income, mainly paid for by the rich. Increasing wages at Walmart (McDonalds, etc.) would be transferred to their customers, most of which aren't rich. Wouldn't that mean raising minimum wage is a tax on the poor?
That's right, you said the poor paid over 100% in taxes. I stand by my earlier statement. Lets try some simple math...... The US takes in $2.5T in taxes, and has ~130 million tax payers, $19,230 per tax payer on average. The bottom 25% make between $0 and $22,500 a year - assuming $22,500 a year (reality is closer to $12,000), and 100% tax - $731B.
I'm sure they'd like to do that, but it's a competitive market. Anecdotally there are other big box retailers that pay higher wages and still have low prices, that tells me WallyWorld has some wiggle room.
I stated that the highest effective marginal rates of tax are on the low income. Social wage analysis is different. It shows that redistribution is largely illusionary.
Then you would be wrong, no matter how you run the numbers. - - - Updated - - - We will see with Seattle....
Again, mere reality. Effective marginal rates of tax will take into account both tax and benefit withdrawal
