So what does that mean 'their fair share'? Can someone give me some objective definition w/ evidence of support? Or is it just 'I think they make to much money and I want some of it'?
To me it's the same vague buzz phrase as 'Living Wage'. What exactly is a 'living wage'? Does it include a full cable package, new car and money for vacations every year? How do you define that?
When Illinois jacked up its minimum wage a few years ago, the first effects that I saw was milk went up .25 a gallon and the temp workers at the company I worked for at the time lost two paid holidays. Nevermind the fact that w/o a compensatory raise, my skilled labor was devalued. When I brought that up (politely of course), I was told the equivalent of "Tough Cookies". So I did the equivalent less work.
So when the 'rich' start getting taxed to the point that they become just well off 'Middle Class' (or hide all their money elsewhere), what will be anyone's incentive to try and reach that point? The end result? Economic stagnation as there won't be any new businesses and prices skyrocket to make up for all the losses that will occur. Kind of like we're seeing now w/ banking fees and health insurance.
Are people really that naive/ignorant of basic economics or are they deliberately trying to sabotage the US economy? Those are the only two options.
10 comments:
"Are people really that naive/ignorant of basic economics or are they deliberately trying to sabotage the US economy?"
Yes.
HerrBGone nailed it... both statements are true.
It's funny. I saw this while in high school. First time I ever voted, I voted against raising the minimum wage, because I knew that, despite making the minimum, my life wouldn't be better. Minimum goes up, prices go up to match. Nobody's better off, and anyone making more than minimum is now worse off. Hell, after I got a raise and was finally making more than minimum, they voted it up again, and I was back at the bottom.
I'd like to see it drop a bit. Not much, 50 cents/hr or so. Existing employees can keep their rate, but new hires start at the lower rate. It just might help get the money flowing again, which is really all the economy needs.
"Living wage" means they should be able to fuck-off at some loser no-pressure zero accountability job, and then go home and relax, and then when they decide they're too old to work, they should be able to retire.
Money from the sky is in that equation somewhere...
Archer,
I had the same thing happen to me at my first job. Started at Min., got a raise after 2 months, then 2 weeks later they raised the min. to what I was making so all the brand new people were making the same as me.
What an incentive to improve work skills. *sarcasm*
"Are people really that naive/ignorant of basic economics"
Libtard on the street, yes.
" or are they deliberately trying to sabotage the US economy?"
In the halls of the DNC, yes.
Are people really that naive/ignorant of basic economics
Yes.
And they're misled by others (or simply lied to, depending on one's level of cynicism and the particular source; I know I've seen both).
I recently had someone who I know to not be stupid in general try to argue with me that taxes on the rich needed to be raised because the rich pay no taxes.
Not even "not their share", but "the rich don't pay taxes".
Sadly (and unrelated to the first point), showing the IRS data showing that people making over 200k a year, as a group, pay twice the rate of taxation as the whole (and naturally far more than their share by population), did not change any of that person's views.
Because (second half of the problem) the views are based more on emotional response and ingrained pseudo-knowledge than actual data.
The positions are often literally irrational.
(And in all due fairness such irrational and emotional positions are not remotely limited to that side.
I'm absolutely sure that some people that agree with me do so with no decent basis in their minds.)
"Are people really that naive/ignorant of basic economics or are they deliberately trying to sabotage the US economy? "
Since this regime took over, I've been asking the following question - often several times per day:
"If they were TRYING to destroy our nation - collapse our economy, devalue the dollar, start a civil war - WHAT WOULD THEY DO DIFFERENTLY?"
Nobody has come up with ANYTHING so far!
Dedicated_Dad, they could vote Rick Perry in.
"Their fair share" is nebulous. The fact is that no one makes it to the top without stepping on people. Not everyone can be very wealthy. The idea of taxing the extremely wealthy more, is that it doesn't really affect their lives as much as it does the lives of the poor. A family earning 2 million a year could be taxed 50% of their income and be very well off. A family earning 24,000 can barely survive such a tax rate.
The fact is that looking at burdens by the numbers ignores a certain human aspect of society. Flat taxes DO NOT burden people equally.
Some people are just angry at the wealthy, and are jealous of their success. This is not the majority of the movement. What people are angry about is large corporations poisoning democracy, and getting away with not paying taxes(literally, just google "large corporations that pay no taxes" to find some examples). They are angry about large corporations making great profits and then crying about how much regulation there is and that they can't hire new workers.
I do agree people expect too much, but we have a genuine reason to be angry with the ultra-wealthy of this country.
and Dedicated_Dad, there is plenty they could do to destroy this country. They could push for anti-illegal-immigrant legislation(like the kind in Alabama, which may just destroy the backbone of their economy), force their religion on everyone in a myriad of ways, keep us in wars in the middle east until it bleeds us dry, let corporations get away with murder, squash states rights to determine drug legislation, and destroy civil rights in the name of fighting "terrorism." This of course is the creed of the Neoconservatives...
So again, there's the issue of taking away any incentive to increase your business if the gov't regulates it to the point that there's no way it can survive. At the same time gov'ts like the one in California make it worthwhile for companies to leave, they complain about all the price increases from the regulation they themselves impose.
And by that silly 'Neoconservative' list, there's not a single individual in Congress who doesn't fall under it.
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