Where is the US economy headed?

@plainoldme,

You get your info from reliable websites, and NOT word of mouth???
Oh really???

You posted a few days ago...

Quote:

The irony is that some of my colleagues have been talking about how many of us live in Western MA and work in Central MA.

So you didnt talk to some of your colleagues?
Or you did get some of your info thru word of mouth?

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@plainoldme,

You do realize that the average income in Mass is $36,767 and it is even lower in cities like Springfield ($30,281.00), Pittsfield ($29,000). That comes from here...
http://www.cityrating.com/costOfLiving/city.asp?state=MA&city=Lawrence

So apparently there are many people where you live making $23,000 or less, because the AVERAGE is only 6 to 7 thousand $ more then that.
Are all of those people living in poverty, or do they all have food to eat, homes or apts to live in, and vehicles to drive?

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@cicerone imposter,

Yes, it is implied.

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@mysteryman,

Your thought processes are neither strong nor complete. I can't imagine anyone asking your advice on anything.

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@mysteryman,

Again, you just don't know how to reason.

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@plainoldme,

Besides, mm, you're wedded to strawman arguments.

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@plainoldme,

So quoting you means I dont know how to reason???

Since I am quoting you and using your statements, what does that say about you?

1 Reply

Back on topic,

Quote:

Warren Buffett Tells ABC Rich People Should Pay Higher Taxes
By Juliann Neher - Nov 21, 2010 9:00 PM PT

Warren Buffett, chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Billionaire Warren Buffett said that rich people should pay more in taxes and that Bush-era tax cuts for top earners should be allowed to expire at the end of December.

“If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further,” Buffett said in an interview with ABC’s “This Week With Christiane Amanpour” that is scheduled to air on Nov. 28. “But I think that people at the high end -- people like myself -- should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to take up President Barack Obama’s plan to extend some of the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush when the House returns after Thanksgiving. The legislation would retain lower tax rates and increased credits that apply only to the first $250,000 of a married couple’s gross income or $200,000 of a single person’s.

Unless Congress acts, marginal income tax rates will rise across the board, tax credits that benefit families will be slashed, and tax rates on capital gains and dividends will increase. In addition, a federal tax on estates worth more than $1 million will be resurrected after expiring for 2010.

“The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we’ll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you,” Buffett, chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said in the interview. “But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.”

House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer yesterday didn’t rule out backing a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts for households earning more than $250,000 a year. He said he plans to discuss the matter with Obama.

“I’m certainly going to talk to him about how we move the ball forward,” Hoyer said on the CBS “Face the Nation” program.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-21/warren-buffett-tells-abc-rich-people-should-pay-more-in-taxes.html

I've always found it funny, how ACTUAL rich folks don't even believe the bullshit that the Republicans regularly spout on their behalf. They know very well that trickle-down doesn't work and never has.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

I think the issue is how - in the tax code - you define rich. Warren Buffet and others with similar in hand assets - not subject to the income tax - can certainly afford to pay a higher tax rate without materially altering either their lifestyles or their investment strategies. However, a working couple with children who together make (say) $280,000 per year are in a very different situation. Many are paying off mortgages and college loans and saving for their children's educations without any realistic expectation of the financial aid available to others.

The generally unstated issue is that the real tax revenue gains to government don't come from raising the marginal income tax rates on the relatively small number of folks with earned incomes of over (say) $1,000,000/ year, but rather from the vastly larger number of those in the $200,000 - $1,000,000 range. Moreover this range also includes a very large number of single proprietor businesses that are a key source of economic growth and employment for others.

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Good evening. We talked last week about inflation, with the argument being advanced that "moderate" inflation can be our friend. That discussion might have been here or on the Obama thread.
There was a flurry of articles today triggered by word that the inflation rate for food in China is up sharply in October and prices are up 10% over a year ago. The overall inflation rate for the same period is 4.4%.
In China, as in the U.S., there is skepticism about the official numbers.
The government is responding to the food price increases by releasing reserves of food in storage, reducing tolls on trucks carrying food and talking about price controls.
The bigger culprit is the 56% increase in the money supply over the last 2 years, resulting in wage inflation of as much as, perhaps 40% in some sectors.
The central bank has taken no substantive steps thus far to control the inflation.
The U.S. quantitative easing (QE2) will complicate matters for the Chinese.
The articles I read (I am using numbers from Bloomberg) focused on the economic rather the social challenges China's leaders face. Not only are millions being squeezed in their ability to buy food, but the increasingly educated young professionals are seeing the opportunity to -for example- buy an apartment slipping away as inflation in property values surges.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

I think the issue is how - in the tax code - you define rich. Warren Buffet and others with similar in hand assets - not subject to the income tax - can certainly afford to pay a higher tax rate without materially altering either their lifestyles or their investment strategies. However, a working couple with children who together make (say) $280,000 per year are in a very different situation. Many are paying off mortgages and college loans and saving for their children's educations without any realistic expectation of the financial aid available to others.

The phrase in question here is 'materially altering their lifestyles or investment strategies.' One supposes that you are positing that increasing the tax on the couple in question would materially alter their lifestyle. But, I don't see why anyone should care about that, at all, because taxes materially alter everyone's lifestyle who isn't super-rich. I don't have an ounce of pity for the struggles a couple who makes 280k a year faces. They are not true struggles at all, but instead, invented stresses brought on by a lifestyle of consumption.

Working families everywhere have to make hard choices about saving and spending. Why should those making 280k a year not have to be faced with hard choices? Why should they be insulated from the necessities of society by our tax code? They should not.

In short, your point isn't very compelling. A rise in marginal tax rates of a few percentage points may impact some discretionary spending on their part, but who gives a ****?

Quote:

Moreover this range also includes a very large number of single proprietor businesses that are a key source of economic growth and employment for others.

Snort. We're talking about INCOME taxes. If these so-called proprietors really are funneling their profits back into investments in their company, there exist a variety of devices for them to use to avoid paying taxes on those profits. People who choose not to do this are essentially bitching that their take-home pay will be going down. No sympathy whatsoever.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Your lack of sympathy for them is your own affair as is their interpretation of the situation theirs. However, don't assume the distinction I have made has no economic or political complications. We have already had a glimpse of the political reactions in the recent election. Taxing everyone down to the same circumstances would be a fundamental assault on the economic opportunity that has made this country so attractive to immigrants and such a source of technical and economic innovation for a long time.

Throughout history tax farmers of various types and regimes have learned that going too far either destroys the very thing that sustains them or sows the seed of their political overthrow. That is - in my view at least - already a fundamental element of the rather serious political reversal the Democrats are facing. It could get worse for them.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Your lack of sympathy for them is your own affair as is their interpretation of the situation theirs. However, don't assume the distinction I have made has no economic or political complications. We have already had a glimpse of the political reactions in the recent election.

No, we didn't - the majority of those who voted in that election agree that the tax cuts for the top two brackets should be allowed to expire.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/republican-revival-midterm-elections-poll/

Damn data for screwing your argument!

Quote:

Taxing everyone down to the same circumstances would be a fundamental assault on the economic opportunity that has made this country so attractive to immigrants and such a source of technical and economic innovation for a long time.

Translation: if you don't let rich people feel rich, they'll stop working hard and we'll all go to hell.

I don't buy this either. It's bullshit. People have worked as hard as possible throughout MUCH higher tax rates than we currently experience. You are wildly exaggerating; we sure didn't see an assault on economic opportunity or growth during the last decade in which these rates were in place nor in other decades of higher tax rates. Conversely, recent decades with LOWER rates have seen LOWER growth, in pretty much every way except for the national deficit and debt - than decades in which we had higher tax rates.

I believe that forcing couples who make 280k a year to make choices about what they can invest in, purchase and enjoy, is entirely appropriate and something that shouldn't affect tax rate decisions in the slightest. I repeat that I am not sympathetic towards their problems, for they are problems of over consumption, not existential ones - yaknow, like the rest of us face all the time. If I get seriously sick or in a terrible accident, my family is likely going to be fucked. If I get laid off, similar. It isn't a question of whether or not I will FEEL okay. The problems faced simply are not similar in scale to those who have plenty of money in the bank and two incomes, either of which could comfortably support a family.

Quote:

Throughout history tax farmers of various types and regimes have learned that going too far either destroys the very thing that sustains them or sows the seed of their political overthrow. That is - in my view at least - already a fundamental element of the rather serious political reversal the Democrats are facing.

Well, I've already shown that the polling data disagrees with you - and that's with a heavily-Conservative electorate coming out for the last election. So I'm not sure that your view squares with reality on this issue.

Quote:

It could get worse for them.

There's no reason to believe it will.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

I wouldn't rely on an individual poll about either health care or abstract questions about tax policy. The election clearly sent a message that people are concerned about runaway government growth and spending. If continuing these things are the consequences of a tax increase (and to hear the Administration they will be ) then the public reaction won't likely be consistent with your poll data. I think the public wants a reduction in government spending, and government policies that reward economic investment and growth. I agree the reality of spending cuts will change the minds of some, if and when they come. However, so will the reality of tax increases should they happen.

I don't think a bland comparison of today's world with that of the 1950s makes a lot of sense. The thresholds for the highest tax rates were then, in real dollars, much higher than they are today and the world around the United States was then in much worse shape. We live in an increasingly competitive world economy and we have fallen behind in adapting to it.

It could indeed get worse for Democrats. The next presidential election is less than two years away, and Obama has a good chance of duplicating Jimmy Carter's term of office. Indeed today's news contained reports of a university poll that showed Obama very vulnerable. However, I am always suspicious of individual polls.

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The Obama government is our enemy. Obama is Soros's employee. Soros seeks "a new world order."

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@mysteryman,

Misquoting, parcelling, the essence of the strawman argument. I screamed at you not to do that but, you don't know how to reason and how to properly argue.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

We live in an increasingly competitive world economy and we have fallen behind in adapting to it.

I believe you have hit the nail on the head there. We need to realize as a nation and as a people that we cannot continue to live opulently, compared to other countries that are out producing us and exporting their goods to us, thus supplanting our manufacturing sector, etc. We continue to pretend that we should be able to live as we always have, yet be able to prosper. I would compare it somewhat like a sports team that gets so used to winning so much that they begin to assume they can win without preparing themselves to do what it takes to win. Inevitably, they will begin to lose, and lose regularly, until they wake up to the fact that they forgot what it took, and they forgot to put forth the effort. They went from being hungry to being fat and lazy. I think that is kind of where we are at now.

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@okie,

Quote:

We need to realize as a nation and as a people that we cannot continue to live opulently,

Oh! Now I see! That's why you hate those hypothetical families of four that live on $25,000/annum. That's why you cheer the fact that the bottom four quintiles of the American work force have not seen a real rise in their earnings since 1979.

Down with them damn dirty lower classes.

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@plainoldme,

How did I misquote you when I posted your ENTIRE comment?

You are falling back on that old saw again, instead of admitting that you got caught by your own argument.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

I wouldn't rely on an individual poll about either health care or abstract questions about tax policy.

Well, you are right, we shouldn't rely on just a single poll.

So let's go look at some others, shall we?

http://www.pollingreport.com/budget.htm

NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll Nov. 11-15

49% either want all the tax cuts eliminated or the cuts on the rich eliminated.
23% want a 1-3 year extension of all of them.
23% want a permanent extension of all of them.

CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. Nov. 11-14

15% want all the tax cuts eliminated
49% want all the cuts over 250k eliminated
35% want all the cuts continued

CBS News Poll. Nov. 7-10

49% think that allowing the tax cuts on the rich to expire is a good idea
44& think that's a bad idea

...

It seems that several different polls, all taken since the election, agree that the majority position is to let the tax cuts on the rich expire. The MINORITY position is to continue them. You are simply incorrect in your assessment of what the electorate wants. This is because you are projecting your own opinion upon them, rather than looking at objective facts. I think this is a poor habit.

Quote:

I don't think a bland comparison of today's world with that of the 1950s makes a lot of sense.

Who said anything about the 50's? Look at the 90's - the most direct comparison to the tax rates under discussion. Nobody wealthy was having a hard time in the 90's, at all. In fact, in terms of real dollars, the wealthy got much richer during that time period - all while we had an explosion of jobs and productivity. This directly contradicts projections that you and others have made regarding what would happen when taxes are raised.

Quote:

It could indeed get worse for Democrats. The next presidential election is less than two years away, and Obama has a good chance of duplicating Jimmy Carter's term of office. Indeed today's news contained reports of a university poll that showed Obama very vulnerable. However, I am always suspicious of individual polls.

Comparing Obama to Carter? Maybe not the best comparison you could make, as the two have very little in common. What more, Obama is still astoundingly popular given the level of vitriol which has been thrown his way; I don't know what you are looking at that tells you the guy isn't going to get re-elected, but it seems rather farcical from where I'm sitting.

Especially given the paucity of candidates on your side. Look at all the candidates being touted as 'top choices' for your side: Palin, Romney, Gingrich. None of them have a shot in hell versus Obama and everyone knows it. Second tier, Mitch Daniels, Thune, Huckabee? They certainly don't seem much more attractive as candidates. I just don't know who you think is going to step up and beat Obama.

Cycloptichorn

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Where is the US economy headed?

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