Occupy Wall Street

[LogGrad98]

Are you considering all the hidden taxes we pay. For instance, car registration, gas tax, property taxes, sales taxes, ect? This isn't even considering if you are small business owner or have employees.

So are you saying that rich people don't pay to register their cars, somehow avoid taxes on gasoline, and all property and sales tax? If not then that will raise taxes for everyone, not just the middle class.

 

[Agoxlea]

Your portion of the payroll tax is 7.65%. That is for everybody up to the annual ceiling.

Most economists agree that the full (both the employer's and employee's portion) incidence of the tax falls on the employee.

 

[Agoxlea]

Table 8 is a narrow description of the taxes that most people pay. It accounts for income taxes but fails to account for FICA and payroll taxes, which folks in the middle class pay at a tax rate from 33 to 41%.

In addition to this most of these other taxes such as sales tax are regressive in the sense that, even if they are an equal percentage for everyone , they are still a lower percentage of the total income for the wealthy.

 

[GoJazz]

So are you saying that rich people don't pay to register their cars, somehow avoid taxes on gasoline, and all property and sales tax? If not then that will raise taxes for everyone, not just the middle class.

I was responding to The Pearl's comment that "The way the tax system is structured it is mathematically impossible for a middle class family to pay 33 to 41% tax rate on their AGI." But to anwser your question, No I am not saying rich people don't pay to do all those things. All I was doing was asking The Pearl if he included all the hidden taxes when he said it was impossible for a middle class person to pay 33% or more in taxes. What I would like to point out though is that as a % of income these regresive taxes do end up being a lower % of your income as your income increases.

I have an extremely rich cousin that donated 5 million to UVU. When I asked him if it was hard he laughed. He said it would be harder for me to donate 100 then it was for him to donate that 5 million. I never really understood that comment at the time but as I have started to increase my earnings that lesson has become clearer and clearer. Jesus touched on this same principal in the lesson of the Widows Mite as well.

 

[moevillini]

The first time this issue came up on NPR the representative from the San Francisco group said they were changing their menu because they couldn't afford to feed the extra people that were not part of the protest without higher donations. So donate can mean more than one thing, but no one has proven that it NEVER means money.

I really love NPR, but truly, some of their broadcasts are a bit slanted.

I know I haven't commented much on the OWS people. Part of this is because I have seriously mixed feelings. I understand why they have a lot of unfocused rage and I think they're probably directing it in the right direction (toward the financial sector generally, since Wall Street here is an idea rather than a physical place which is why you have copycat movements in various places)....

...In my mind a major reason the sides keep speaking past each other on this issue can be viewed through the lens of the "myth of hard work." I suspect a large number of OWS people would agree with the idea that part of the reason they're mad enough to occupy something is that they're economically screwed and they feel that they jumped through the hoops and paid the dues that society said they had to in order to at least have a job and a sustainable living without ever getting the "promised" benefit or having that benefit prematurely taken from them. That might be going to college or working 70 hours a week in someone's mailroom hoping to climb the ladder or whatever, but they're demanding that they be paid out on what they perceive as some sort of grand social bargain. We see the other side of this myth from the generally right-wing reaction of "they'd have a job if they spent all that energy trying to get one" or the Herman Cainism about how it's their own fault...

Anyways, kind of a ramble but that's where my thoughts are on OWS at this point and I haven't seen something similar already posted in this thread. Also, I saw some OWS copycat protesters in Phoenix over the weekend and the most offensive part of them was their lack of quality material. That doesn't exactly win me over. Come up with better chants, tell better jokes, etc.

I have similar ambivalent and mixed feelings. For years I've ranted against the income disparities that have grown tremendously over the last few decades. I don't think that such disparities and the perceptions of the differences in quality of life they produce are good for society.

But that's part of it - as I think about it more, it's the "perception" of the quality of life that seems to matter to people, more than the actual quality of life. Suppose a wealthy person has 16 Rolls Royces - - they can only drive one, right? So how does that really make their quality of life that much better than mine as I drive around in my ten year old Ford Taurus? Other examples abound. Most of the "poorest" people I know (such as housekeepers, yard workers, underpaid folks who toil for non-profits and the like) still own at least one flat screen television, they all have cable or satellite TV, they have cell phones, their kids have cell phones, they have computers and internet connections, microwaves, etc etc etc. So in many ways, the actual quality of their life isn't really that much different from those who are much wealthier.

When I was a little girl I remember visiting the family of my mother's college roommate on their farm in central Illinois in the early 60's. They did not yet have running water in the house. Other family friends in Ohio and Virginia also had situations where they still relied on out houses and wells and hand-pumps. A number of kids I knew did not have televisions in their homes. My grandparents and others I knew still relied on a party-line telephones or a neighbor's phone, and my grandparents didn't get a car until the mid-60's. Both my grandmother and grandfather took 2 buses to their jobs - - they finally had to get a car because a mall was built on the outskirts of town and the buses didn't serve that area, and the shops they could walk or bus to all moved to the mall.

At any rate, I'm rambling a bit too, but my point is that even though there's greater income disparity now than in the 50's and 60's, I don't feel the disparity in quality of life issues is as great as it had been back then. I do think there's a greater fear factor now though - - back then, there was optimism, as kicky said, people felt hard work would move them up the ladder and improve the quality of their lives. There was an expectation that children would do better than their parents. I think many of my generation (those of us baby-boomers with adult children, or close to it) feels that we may be the last to do better than our parents - that our kids have little chance of doing better than us.

 

[LogGrad98]

I agree about the NPR slant, but for the most part they are very left-leaning. So it makes it even more interesting how much they have raised the food issue in regards to OWS.

 

[sirkickyass]

I really love NPR, but truly, some of their broadcasts are a bit slanted.

I firmly believe there is no news organization more dedicated to playing fair. Let's just say that if you google Fox News ombudsman the first hit is a discussion from the NPR ombudsman about Juan Williams. There is no Fox News ombudsman, but NPR will do regular articles and stories in which they have frank discussions about the quality of their own reporting (let just say it's not "rah rah" stuff over the course of the last year). MSNBC also doesn't have any standardized internal review practices that are publicly viewable.

NPR is a punching bag for the right (and therefore also for LG, but he's an independant dontcha know) for reasons that have never been entirely clear to me, but I don't think there's any argument that they're by far the best and the fairest in their dominant medium in terms of quality.

But that's part of it - as I think about it more, it's the "perception" of the quality of life that seems to matter to people, more than the actual quality of life. Suppose a wealthy person has 16 Rolls Royces - - they can only drive one, right? So how does that really make their quality of life that much better than mine as I drive around in my ten year old Ford Taurus? Other examples abound. Most of the "poorest" people I know (such as housekeepers, yard workers, underpaid folks who toil for non-profits and the like) still own at least one flat screen television, they all have cable or satellite TV, they have cell phones, their kids have cell phones, they have computers and internet connections, microwaves, etc etc etc. So in many ways, the actual quality of their life isn't really that much different from those who are much wealthier.

When I was a little girl I remember visiting the family of my mother's college roommate on their farm in central Illinois in the early 60's. They did not yet have running water in the house. Other family friends in Ohio and Virginia also had situations where they still relied on out houses and wells and hand-pumps. A number of kids I knew did not have televisions in their homes. My grandparents and others I knew still relied on a party-line telephones or a neighbor's phone, and my grandparents didn't get a car until the mid-60's. Both my grandmother and grandfather took 2 buses to their jobs - - they finally had to get a car because a mall was built on the outskirts of town and the buses didn't serve that area, and the shops they could walk or bus to all moved to the mall.

You're too old, let go, nobody listens to techno.

I also think you're discounting significantly the level of opulence that is the primary difference between even smaller income disparities. Big one right off the bat is simply independance. Many of my best friends never graduated from college or work in low income non-profit sectors. At my age that means roommates. It sounds silly, but that's one difference that is almost exclusively predicted by income that has major life effects on convenience and happiness. It also tends to aggregate wealth towards the type of "material convenience" that you're discussing because you have split possession situations. But, to be honest, if my four friends all have one flat screen tv they're usage and enjoyment isn't the same as my flat screen tv even if it's the same tv. Just ask anyone with kids and the disney channel.

That's just one example, but I think you're bringing the concept of material equivalence too far. The fact of the matter is that the median income household cannot afford as much material wealth of real items (think stuff like houses) today as they could 40 years ago and the material holdings of the top 1% (and especially the top .1%) looks more like the 1920s (in terms of margin over median) than it does like the 1960s or 1970s. That's indisputable. This truly is a new gilded age. However, I suspect that OWS denizens really don't want to go back to that era in terms of economic distribution, but that's another story.

Spend a month on an elite college campus sometime. Pretty much no one there is objectively below middle class. The lifestyle and general expectations of those who come from the top 1% and above and everyone else is so radically different your mind will be boggled.

 

[sirkickyass]

Wait...what?

Ladies and gentleman, an intellectual titan.

 

[larryselbows]

Ladies and gentleman, an intellectual titan.

I like turtles.

 

[moevillini]

thanks kicky, I appreciate your dismissiveness <3

Yes I know NPR is fair, at least overall, and makes a real effort to be fair and show all sides in its specific shows. But its regular broadcasting tends to be slanted to the left, or at least that's their reputation.

My point primarily is that poor today is not like poor 50 years ago. It's ironic that you equate sharing a television with 2 or 3 roommates with not having any television at all. Or not having indoor plumbing....

But you're right, I'm old, so who gives a ****. At your age, you have all the answers. But don't worry, you'll probably be my age someday.

And in case you missed it, I think the growing wealth and income disparity is a bad thing for our society.

 

[Gameface]

You're too old, let go, nobody listens to techno.

I also think you're discounting significantly the level of opulence that is the primary difference between even smaller income disparities. Big one right off the bat is simply independance. Many of my best friends never graduated from college or work in low income non-profit sectors. At my age that means roommates. It sounds silly, but that's one difference that is almost exclusively predicted by income that has major life effects on convenience and happiness. It also tends to aggregate wealth towards the type of "material convenience" that you're discussing because you have split possession situations. But, to be honest, if my four friends all have one flat screen tv they're usage and enjoyment isn't the same as my flat screen tv even if it's the same tv. Just ask anyone with kids and the disney channel.

That's just one example, but I think you're bringing the concept of material equivalence too far. The fact of the matter is that the median income household cannot afford as much material wealth of real items (think stuff like houses) today as they could 40 years ago and the material holdings of the top 1% (and especially the top .1%) looks more like the 1920s (in terms of margin over median) than it does like the 1960s or 1970s. That's indisputable. This truly is a new gilded age. However, I suspect that OWS denizens really don't want to go back to that era in terms of economic distribution, but that's another story.

Spend a month on an elite college campus sometime. Pretty much no one there is objectively below middle class. The lifestyle and general expectations of those who come from the top 1% and above and everyone else is so radically different your mind will be boggled.

If opulence is the difference between wealth and poverty then I can't imagine why we'd ever consider changing a damn thing.

 

[LogGrad98]

NPR is a punching bag for the right (and therefore also for LG, but he's an independant dontcha know) for reasons that have never been entirely clear to me, but I don't think there's any argument that they're by far the best and the fairest in their dominant medium in terms of quality.

Show me where I ever punched NPR. I listen to NPR daily. They have great programs and for the most part try to be balanced. I am especially a fan of Neal Conan. He is a great interviewer and has some good comments on the topics and obviously does his homework. They do tend to have a left-leaning slant. If you equate that to bad I guess that is your call.

I still find it funny how hard a time you have getting past your efforts to label me. Wow. I must have made quite the impression for you to continue to harp on it. You ought to get out more or find a friend or something to help you get past that very obvious insecurity.

 

[sirkickyass]

If opulence is the difference between wealth and poverty then I can't imagine why we'd ever consider changing a damn thing.

I laughed, but it says I can't give you reputation again.

I phrased poorly, but the point remains the same. I think the difference in functional living standards between the top 1% and the middle is greater than moe is stating.

 

[sirkickyass]

thanks kicky, I appreciate your dismissiveness <3

I was using an Eminem lyric moe. It's playful dismissiveness of some story about indoor plumbing during the Eisenhower administration.

My point primarily is that poor today is not like poor 50 years ago. It's ironic that you equate sharing a television with 2 or 3 roommates with not having any television at all. Or not having indoor plumbing....

Being "poor" in the United States also isn't like being "poor" in Sudan and being poor in the 1950's wasn't like being poor in the 1300s either. If we set the bar low enough we're all fabulously wealthy. But let's be honest, we're not comparing apples to apples at that point. Your definition of wealth that equates 16 Rolls Royces to one ten-year old Ford Taurus is reductive to the point of meaninglessness.

And in case you missed it, I think the growing wealth and income disparity is a bad thing for our society.

One that could be solved by curing perceptions if I read your post correctly. If we all just realized how well off we are compared to rural farmers half a century ago then we could unite hands and have a great big sing-a-long.

Where you and I sharply disagree is on the idea that the perception of that inequality is the key driver. Much of your post is devoted to the idea that functional equality is actually quite high. I don't think that position is supportable. I believe the real away around the anger and disagreement relies on the deconstruction of a number of cultural myths that prevent both sides from engaging one another and actually tackling the problem. I suspect most of the top 1% believe they have "earned" their money. I suspect more than half would describe their fortune as being a "bootstraps" fairytale. I suspect many OWS protestors believed that they were entitled to some kind of material comfort based upon the work that they've done previously and that wealth has been cheated from them somehow. We're not operating in the same conceptual universe so there's no solution.

Show me where I ever punched NPR. I listen to NPR daily. They have great programs and for the most part try to be balanced. They do tend to have a left-leaning slant. If you equate that to bad I guess that is your call.

That NPR is left-leaning is the right-wing position. You parroted that they are slanted in this thread and repeated it two sentences later. Not exactly the hardest challenge in the world.

Can you name any news organization in the western hemisphere that, as a general rule, plays it more down the middle than NPR? If not, what does that say about the assertion that they have a persistent left-leaning slant?

I still find it funny how hard a time you have getting past your efforts to label me. Wow. I must have made quite the impression for you to continue to harp on it. You ought to get out more or find a friend or something to help you get past that very obvious insecurity.

Actually I'm poking fun at you in reference to an earlier discussion. I'm not certain what insecurity you believe is being revealed by my assertions that you're not an independent, but it's coming out in this thread because you're harping on some pretty weird issues that are total sideshows.

 

[Duck Rodgers]

Spend a month on an elite college campus sometime. Pretty much no one there is objectively below middle class. The lifestyle and general expectations of those who come from the top 1% and above and everyone else is so radically different your mind will be boggled.

Facebook and other social media probably adds to that problem as well. Especially since it has been shown that economic satisfaction is based partly on what you're seeing from other people around you. "Around you" is a lot bigger now. If you get out of college and are faced with a more difficult road and you're logging in every day to Facebook and it seems like everybody else goes to Europe every week or is having some grandiose life adventure while you can't even find a job or really get going toward what you want in life, that has to play with your mind.

 

[LogGrad98]

So to you identifying the "slant" of an organization = "punching bag". Fox News is obviously right-slanted, and way more than NPR is left-slanted. Uh-oh, now I might be a liberal. I better be careful. Wow do you ever reach to get to those labels.

 

[sirkickyass]

So to you identifying the "slant" of an organization = "punching bag". Fox News is obviously right-slanted, and way more than NPR is left-slanted. Uh-oh, now I might be a liberal. I better be careful. Wow do you ever reach to get to those labels.

You know very well that my perception of your viewpoint is based upon a wide range of issues. I even made a list once. This is one you're just going to have to accept. I'm going to poke fun at you for being a functional conservative while claiming independence for as long as you do it. If it hurts your feelings or annoys you, I guess I don't really care. You'll note that you've caused more discussion of it by posting a response to a parenthetical half-sentence than there ever would have been if you would have just let it slide off your back. But someone wrote something about insecurity recently ...

 

[LogGrad98]

You know very well that my perception of your viewpoint is based upon a wide range of issues. I even made a list once. This is one you're just going to have to accept. I'm going to poke fun at you for being a functional conservative while claiming independence for as long as you do it. If it hurts your feelings or annoys you, I guess I don't really care. You'll note that you've caused more discussion of it by posting a response to a parenthetical half-sentence than there ever would have been if you would have just let it slide off your back. But someone wrote something about insecurity recently ...

These include (but are not limited to) comments made solely to provoke reactions,

A trolling mod. Interesting.

 

[Agoxlea]

I'm going to poke fun at you for being a functional conservative while claiming independence for as long as you do it.

I 100% agree

 

[The Thriller]

thanks kicky, I appreciate your dismissiveness <3

Yes I know NPR is fair, at least overall, and makes a real effort to be fair and show all sides in its specific shows. But its regular broadcasting tends to be slanted to the left, or at least that's their reputation.

My point primarily is that poor today is not like poor 50 years ago. It's ironic that you equate sharing a television with 2 or 3 roommates with not having any television at all. Or not having indoor plumbing....

But you're right, I'm old, so who gives a ****. At your age, you have all the answers. But don't worry, you'll probably be my age someday.

And in case you missed it, I think the growing wealth and income disparity is a bad thing for our society.

Couldn't this logic be used in the reverse way as well?

Why have 12 Rolls Royce when you could get just as much enjoyment out of a 10 year old Ford Taurus?

I think we could use this logic of... "Don't complain, things were worse x amount of years ago in x country" to justify just about anything in life.

Why should we complain about religious freedom when people were being slaughtered in Spain a few hundred years ago depending on their religion?

Why should we complain about crime when you were lucky to not have your eyes gouged out by the Vandals?

The bottom line is,

#1 Americans will keep playing this game, as long as they feel like they have a chance to win. Winning is a broad description, which can be described simply as being able to provide for your family to becoming rich (climbing the ladder/earning enough to one day be able to invest into your own company). Unfortunately, for many Americans, this "American Dream" is disappearing. Many are angry at this, since the Dream of WS isn't if they're able to become rich. It's how much richer can one make oneself at any cost necessary?
#2 The biggest contribution to the disappearance of this dream? The rich/wall street/big corporations in bed (literally in some cases) with Congress. The "Corporations are People too" attitude is insulting to many of the OWS peeps. Through favorable tax laws to immigration policy to war mongering, the rich buy off Congress whose decisions have dire effects on the rest of us.
#3 How much longer can this country survive with so much of the nation's wealth owned by so few? This is a legit concern, as that the US wealth distribution looks more and more like a 3rd world country than an industrialized power house. How much longer can we maintain our standard of living with so much of the wealth shifting to the hands of the few?

But that's okay, lets not answer these questions. Lets focus, like LG has, on what's being served for dinner at the protests than any of these issues. Of course, being independent means biases cannot show.