Obama's job failure in visible terms

[soundforbjt]

When the top 20% owns 80% of the wealth, they should be paying 80% of the taxes.

The bottom 80% owns 20% of the wealth, so I doubt that the bottom 50% owns very much if any of the wealth in this country.

They're just living paycheck to paycheck and trying to survive.

 

[ShawnD1]

The bottom 80% owns 20% of the wealth, so I doubt that the bottom 50% owns very much if any of the wealth in this country.

They're just living paycheck to paycheck and trying to survive.

Yep. That bottom 40% works at McDonalds. I've worked there before, and I don't recall having a whole lot of extra money at the time :'(

 

[Jhhnn]

You're ignoring the fact that American rules also change at the whim of government. While China might be worse, China also offers a significantly bigger ROI. If we want to keep our expensive wages, benefits, and regulations - and we do - we have to be much more stable than China. Not as stable, not nearly as stable, not a bit more stable, but a LOT more stable.

Otherwise you can keep on whining about evil corporations and encouraging government to loot them for you until there is no private sector base capable of supporting government. At that point, we're going to look a lot like Greece. But hey, at least you'll have punished those evil richers. Be sure to keep back some good rocks so you can punish the government when it can no longer cut you a check with any value to it.

Nice dive- straight into the Bunker O' Denial, with appropriate snarling & innuendo.

Corporate profits are near all time highs, but the poor darlings are being starved to death by teh ebil govt, "terrified" to expand, to hire, to do anything more than make excuses-

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/profit-chart.JPG

So, go ahead- believe, believe, believe in whatever confirms your own bias...

 

[Jhhnn]

D/P

 

[werepossum]

Nice dive- straight into the Bunker O' Denial, with appropriate snarling & innuendo.

Corporate profits are near all time highs, but the poor darlings are being starved to death by teh ebil govt, "terrified" to expand, to hire, to do anything more than make excuses-

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/profit-chart.JPG

So, go ahead- believe, believe, believe in whatever confirms your own bias...

This is going to come as quite a shock to you, but a sizable portion of our population still does not believe that our government's purpose should be to make sure American companies are not too profitable. It's like they never even heard of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Weird, huh?

What you'll surely find even more shocking is that a small but growing number of management don't believe in hiring or investing just because they have some money. Nope, these callous puppy kicking baby eaters actually want to make even MORE profit if they are going to invest money or hire new people! (I'll give you a moment to crawl under the table before I continue.)

Now, when members of this small group of capitalist wackos happen to have a majority of non-Marxist stockholders, all hell breaks loose. If they cannot project a profit from their new hires or investment, they don't hire new people and/or invest in American projects!

I'll let you clean yourself up and find some clean pants now.

 

[her209]

I don't believe it's a mathematical impossibility. Re-read what you posted. Your number include on people with positive AGI. How many people are in the group that had negative AGI?

I.e., it is mathematically possible that the amount is greater than 50% when including the group with negative AGI.

Fern

How do you end up with a negative AGI?

I doubt a large majority of the "no-income-tax" filers are itemizing tax deductions. If anything, they're filing using 1040EZ or 1040A tax returns.

The 1040EZ doesn't allow you to deduct anything off your gross income to arrive at your adjusted gross income.

The 1040A does allow you to take some deductions off your gross income. Specifically:
Educator expenses
IRA deduction
Student loan interest
Tuition and fees

The 1040 allows you to take more deductions off your gross income. There's a lot (13) of them but include the ones from the 1040A.

 

[ProfJohn]

When the top 20% owns 80% of the wealth, they should be paying 80% of the taxes.

The bottom 80% owns 20% of the wealth, so I doubt that the bottom 50% owns very much if any of the wealth in this country.

They're just living paycheck to paycheck and trying to survive.

That is how it works.
2005 the bottom 20% made 4% of all income and paid .8% of all taxes
The top 20% made 55% of income and paid 68.7% of taxes.

The top 10% make 40% of income and pay 54% of taxes. Half the taxes in the county are paid for by 10% of the workers. What more do you want?


http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/12-11-HistoricalTaxRates.pdf

 

[SparkyJJO]

When the top 20% owns 80% of the wealth, they should be paying 80% of the taxes.

Well a flat rate tax would accomplish this. Close loopholes, institute a flat rate tax, and bingo, you've got it.

Example:

$1,000,000 total income (just a simple number for this example).
10% tax rate (easy to work with).

So therefore, 10% of that $1,000,000 is $100,000 in tax revenue. That's the goal.

Now we split that $1,000,000 between 3 people.

Person 1 has $800,000 income, or 80% of the total amount.
Person 2 has $150,000 income, 15% of the total.
Person 3 has $50,000 income, 5% of the total.

Person 1 pays 10% tax rate, equaling $80,000.
Person 2 pays the same 10% tax rate, to the tune of $15,000.
Person 3 still pays the same 10% tax rate, which is $5,000.

All that tax revenue added up from those 3 people gives you $100,000 as we established the total should be. And Person 1, the richest guy, does indeed pay 80% of the total taxes, while making 80% of the total income.

Bingo. Easy, simple, fair. And it meshes perfectly with your requirements in your post.

This can be extrapolated to real world numbers in terms of total wealth, a fitting tax rate, the US population, and the various income levels. And it is much simpler than the current tax code which is overly confusing, screwball, and taken advantage of.

 

[Engineer]

Sparky, he said 80% of the wealth, not 80% of the income. Big difference.

Oh, and the flat tax idea would kick the middle and lower classes in the balls but maybe it could be made up by the top who would have more money now to play "trickle down" with.

 

[Fern]

How do you end up with a negative AGI?

Business losses. There are going to be Sch C filers (unincorporated sole proprietors) and those who have businesses in flow-through entities such as S corps and partnerships.

NOLs (carryforwards etc of past business losses) can wipe out income down to zero.

Rental r/e losses (generally allowed up to $25K).

There are lots of ways to have a zero or lower AGI.

I doubt a large majority of the "no-income-tax" filers are itemizing tax deductions. If anything, they're filing using 1040EZ or 1040A tax returns.

The 1040EZ doesn't allow you to deduct anything off your gross income to arrive at your adjusted gross income.

The 1040A does allow you to take some deductions off your gross income. Specifically:
Educator expenses
IRA deduction
Student loan interest
Tuition and fees

The 1040 allows you to take more deductions off your gross income. There's a lot (13) of them but include the ones from the 1040A.

I don't understand the point of you mentioning the different types of 1040's?

If you have zero or less AGI you can't take any itemized deductions (or personal exemptions etc) anyway.

Fern

 

[SparkyJJO]

Sparky, he said 80% of the wealth, not 80% of the income. Big difference.

Oh, and the flat tax idea would kick the middle and lower classes in the balls but maybe it could be made up by the top who would have more money now to play "trickle down" with.

OK so how do you plan on taxing people over and over on stuff they own already? If they don't spend it all, tax them again? That's... brilliant. Yeah.

 

[Doppel]

Looks like sh*t got real before Obama even took office.

 

[Engineer]

OK so how do you plan on taxing people over and over on stuff they own already? If they don't spend it all, tax them again? That's... brilliant. Yeah.

Wasn't my idea. Ask him.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Wasn't my idea. Ask him.

I suppose I am assuming that he meant income. I sure hope he does. I'll let him respond on that to clarify.

 

[Jhhnn]

This is going to come as quite a shock to you, but a sizable portion of our population still does not believe that our government's purpose should be to make sure American companies are not too profitable. It's like they never even heard of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Weird, huh?

What you'll surely find even more shocking is that a small but growing number of management don't believe in hiring or investing just because they have some money. Nope, these callous puppy kicking baby eaters actually want to make even MORE profit if they are going to invest money or hire new people! (I'll give you a moment to crawl under the table before I continue.)

Now, when members of this small group of capitalist wackos happen to have a majority of non-Marxist stockholders, all hell breaks loose. If they cannot project a profit from their new hires or investment, they don't hire new people and/or invest in American projects!

I'll let you clean yourself up and find some clean pants now.

That's pretty much what I just said... with the inclusion of your own raving bullshit & innuendo. You realize that you just shot the whole "Job Creator!" meme right in the ass, I hope...

Businesses are trying to fatten up right now because they realize that the Cut, cut, Cut! efforts from Repubs will hit the economy like a load of Cheney birdshot hit his hunting partner awhile back... He never apologized, & neither will they. Heck, the guy Cheney shot was the one apologizing, & I suspect righties will act the same when they take a load in the face, too...

I think your bunker needs to be a little deeper, with more sandbags... so you can quit acting so skeered, irrational & all...

 

[Bateluer]

I just want to throw this out there.

The president DOES NOT create jobs. Washington DOES NOT create jobs. Aside from more government jobs, which we all need like a hole in the head as it requires more tax money to pay for more government workers, meaning that much more money taken from the private sector, meaning that much less money available for the creation and sustaining of worthwhile private sector jobs.

Every time you hear a politician talking about how many jobs he created, he's full of crap. They don't create jobs. Certainly not in the private sector, where it counts the most. Government jobs are worth very little over all as far as the economy goes.

Companies, people hiring other people, that's what creates jobs. Politicians can make a hostile or friendly atmosphere towards such things to a certain extent, but that's all.

I'm hardly a fan of Obama, and I don't think his or his cronies policies are helping things much (more government meddling in the economy always screws things up more) but to blame him (or any other president) directly for lack of job creation isn't really fair either.

I'm sure certain people will try to tear me apart, or will come up with some example of how some politician created some job, but that's not the rule, it's the exception.

Oh as a side note, taxing the "evil rich people" doesn't create jobs either. Just moves money from the private sector into the pockets of the politicians.

This post sums it up nicely. Well said.

 

[werepossum]

That's pretty much what I just said... with the inclusion of your own raving bullshit & innuendo. You realize that you just shot the whole "Job Creator!" meme right in the ass, I hope...

Businesses are trying to fatten up right now because they realize that the Cut, cut, Cut! efforts from Repubs will hit the economy like a load of Cheney birdshot hit his hunting partner awhile back... He never apologized, & neither will they. Heck, the guy Cheney shot was the one apologizing, & I suspect righties will act the same when they take a load in the face, too...

I think your bunker needs to be a little deeper, with more sandbags... so you can quit acting so skeered, irrational & all...

I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but there isn't really a cash prize for Most Stupid Person On The Internet. Too bad, you were definitely a contender. From the top:

Businesses only invest in new hires or new capital projects when there is a perceived acceptably attractive return on investment with a perceived acceptably low risk.

If taxes and regulatory costs (including health insurance) are high, fewer new hires and new capital projects are likely to have an acceptable ROI.

If the risk of not making an acceptable ROI or of losing the investment are high, fewer new hires and new capital projects are likely to have an acceptable ROI.

If businesses cannot reasonably extrapolate what taxes and regulatory costs are likely to be, any new hires and new capital projects are more risky and therefore less attractive.

Businesses do NOT exist to provide jobs. Businesses exist because someone (or a group of someones) has wealth he is willing to risk to build more wealth, and jobs are merely a necessary side effect of this. If you reduce the ROI through higher taxes and regulatory costs, the inevitable effect is less wealth risked and fewer jobs created. If you increase the risk that invested wealth will not return a profit or will be lost, the inevitable effect is less wealth risked and fewer jobs created. This is doubly important now that wealth can so easily be invested in other nations, nations with generally lower wages and regulatory costs.

 

[her209]

Business losses. There are going to be Sch C filers (unincorporated sole proprietors) and those who have businesses in flow-through entities such as S corps and partnerships.

NOLs (carryforwards etc of past business losses) can wipe out income down to zero.

Rental r/e losses (generally allowed up to $25K).

There are lots of ways to have a zero or lower AGI.

How many of those "no-income-tax" filers have losses? All of them? No way. Half? More probable but I still think unlikely. Whatever the number, should they be allowed to pay no taxes and have to pay some taxes?

I don't understand the point of you mentioning the different types of 1040's?

If you have zero or less AGI you can't take any itemized deductions (or personal exemptions etc) anyway.

Fern

Listing of the different deductions (different for each type of 1040 form) a filer could take to further reduce their total income to arrive at their AGI.