In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:




Dude, it's clear that you're much more up to speed on this stuff than I am.
I've got to read some of your statements 5 times before I follow what you're
saying. Anyone who thinks selecting a Medicare provider is easy hasn't
waded through the miasma that they send my neighbor. This year we're
weighing it because I'm going to write an article on how virtually
impossible it is for anyone but a subject matter expert to wade through it.
But I digress.

And the Part D hooha is even worse, unfortunately, because of the
various formularies. You have to match the provider's plans with your
constellation of medicine.

There certainly IS a distinction to be made between working for your money
and having enough money to have it work for you in addition to your own
labor. The distinction is what the progressive tax code was *meant* to be
all about but moneyed interests have bought changes that continue to favor
them in ways that mean the divide between the richest and the poorest keeps
expanding. I will admit there have been attempts at corrections, but the
bottom line is that the net worth of the wealthiest people has skyrocketed.
But we don't tax on wealth (at least yet, although I suppose the case
could be made that the estate tax comes close). The facts are and always
will be, that on INCOME taxes, the rich payer a higher percentage of
their income on taxes than the poor do. (Okay maybe not always, but
always under the current system). The rate of taxation takes total
income and total taxes which smooths out all of the differing stuff
inside the box.



Krugman claims the inflation-adjusted income of families in the middle of
the income distribution rose 21 percent and that over the same period, the
income of the very rich, the top 100th of 1 percent of the income
distribution, rose by 480 percent. In other words at the very top the
average annual income of that group rose from $4.2 million to $24.3 million.
That's staggering and it's an indication that progressive taxation is
failing from both ends and depleting the middle class.
I don't get how. We, again, are talking wealth and that has nothing
to do with the relative progressiveness of taxes. If you want to
regulate wealth by taxation you have to make it VERY regressive at the
top end. Which is a whole ball of policy wax.




Krugman likes to ignore those stats that disagree with what he wants
to say.

Is it my turn to say "you say you've been watching Washington, DC operate
for how long?" (-:
Never said otherwise, did I? Just making a comment (okay, stating
the obvious).


But none of that is shown by the stats instead of the estimates.

If you're saying he's a liar, you'll have to take it up with him.
Actually I thought it was rather clever that all of a sudden he
brings in AND PAYROLL taxes, including the SS taxes. This, of course, is
going to skew the results to where he wants them because of the cap on
SS taxes. But again, the cap on taxes coincides with the cap on
benefits. If you want to change one of the bedrock principles of the
system from the getgo and not base paying in on what one is getting in
return, debate it out front and don't even begin to pretend it is some
sort of unfairness in the system.
(-: If
it's true, it's more evidence that the middle class takes the lumps, the
upper class gets the lion's share and they give the lower class a break to
keep the bread and circuses flowing. I will agree, however, that estimate
are like opinions are like "hassles" - everyone's got one and no one think's
theirs stinks.

Not really, especially with the SS taxes artificially tossed in.

em.

That is another debate, one we probably would be closer in thoughts on.
Although I would also remind one and all that you have to wade through
the first 15 "tax expenditures" (what the government euphamistically
calls tax breaks) before you get to one that is business related.

I did look that up and spend considerable time trying to shoot holes in it.
You're right. The hoi polloi get most of the joy, tax wise. It's coming
more and more clear that *no one* is paying their fair share, at least when
you consider how much everyone is spending on present and (mostly) future
tax dollars on.

That is one of the most interesting (and annoying) things to look at
each year. It is probably the biggest indictment of the (alleged) system
of taxes that you can find.


They
get theirs, but we get ours too and these end up to be a MUCH greater
burden to revenue. So, we need to keep both in the discussion.

Cain's flat tax could actually work with the right formula - food would be
tax free and other necessities could be exempted to make it somewhat less
burdensome on the poor.

And everybody against it tries to pretend it is rocket science to do
that, conveniently forgetting that pretty much every state sales tax
does exactly the same thing.

The Tax Code has passed the point of what my CMSC
610 prof (who was the retired head of the FBI data operations in DC) said
was ""intellectual control." It has become so vast, arcane and specialized
that only accountants with detailed specializations can understand it or
when it's been violated. I watched my dad struggle for ten years with an
oil and gas partnership that the IRS took a dislike to. That required
energy tax lawyers, CPAs and years of mail tag and finally tax court by
which time the partnership one, but the profits had largely been paid to
lawyers defending the profits.

WHen even the IRS won't stand behind what its own employees tells
you over the phone...



Never said that now did I? I find that especially entertaining
since you exclaim your rights to have an opinion while taking away mine.

It's the new order my friend. Sorry for being so harsh. I should have said
"Do I look like Tax Cheatin' Timmy G? I don't formulate no stinkin' tax
policy." (-"

Happens a lot in political debate any more.

Is that really the right use of any more? (-:
Trying to give the benefit of the doubt (g).



I'm not trying to be a needle-dicked bug raper, but what "IT" do you mean?
I am going to beat proper pronoun reference into you if it's the last thing
I do, and it could easily be. (-:
It was the entire section above it about how revenue plummeted. I
figured that since it was your discussion, you would realize that. I
guess I am underthinking at the same you are overthinking (g).


The dirty little secret that both sides like to ignore is that the
state of the economy is the biggest part of the revenue puzzle.

Agreed. While reducing expenditures is in theory a good idea, in practice
it's an awfully painful one. I don't expect a recovery any time soon and in
fact believe we're seeing 1929 play out in slow motion.

We had one of the longer expansions with (relatively) light
recessions until this one. EVERYBODY (government, consumer, industry)
got caught up in the Euphoria deciding that this time was different
(about the time I automatically start raising cash-g) and that this
particular tree would, indeed, grow to the sky.
Heck, if you bought into the Prevailing Wisdom, even the bad loans
were a great idea since (both sides of the equation thought) the house
HAS to be worth a lot more in a couple of years than it was now. So, the
homeowner KNEW that they would be able to sell the house for more than
the balloon payment or that their salary HAD to keep going up. The worst
case scenario for the lenders was they foreclosed and got a house to
resell on the cheap. (There were similar idiocies on the general
business side)
When that (surprise, surprise) did not happen, the house of cards
collapsed. So, with Everbody leveraged to the eye balls, there was
nobody to lead us out of the recession. Deleveraging is a bear (so to
speak). I also would like to note from a purely statistical aspect,
quite a bit of this is returning to the norm. You have an extended time
of above average growth, you have to have a time of below average.


An explosion like the 2008 debacle every once in a while serves to make
people stop and really examine what's going on. I think the unfunded
pensions and health benefits hand grenade might have really grown in
explosive power if the crash hadn't occurred and sent all the states
scurrying to look more closely at expenditures.

Yet we are ignoring the single biggest unfunded liability, the SS
"surplus"


Obama's job plan would have at least tried to get some segments of the
economy back on track so that growth can resume. I suspect no matter which
side wins in 2012, we're going to continue in our lost decade just the way
the Japanese did.
Largely the union segments. Found it interesting, at least from an
Indiana perspective, that the places in the state getting all of the
green seed money are places like GM, Delphi, etc., that are UAW while a
maker of green police cars and a couple other real start-ups are still
waiting.


There are no accounting tricks that make it look smaller. It is what it
is. Although there is a certain amount of self-fulfilling prophesy about
how the total package is put together. Sorta like Canada does with their
brand name medications. They use a market basket of the countries that
pay the least.

Ah yes, one of the very tricks I was talking about. The statistics about
labor and income from now and 30 years ago require so many adjustments to
draw valid comparisons that I'll bet a good economist could make a case for
the equivalent of economic anti-gravity. When I grew up, most fathers
worked, most women stayed at home and we enjoyed a comfortable standard of
living. Now, to enjoy that same standard, both parents have to work.

Houses are now almost 1/4 bigger than they were in the 50s (although
that might be heading back down). We have internet, A/C, regulations
adding something like $1500 to the cost of a car and around $7500 to the
cost of a house, etc. etc. We are enjoying a better standard and for
that both have to work.


The first $100 million is a struggle, the second $100 million is
inevitable (g).

I know enough millionaires to know that being a millionaire sure doesn't
mean what it used to mean.


I ran a million through an inflation calculator using 1980 as the
base year (rather arbitrarily half way between the start of Standard Oil
and its break up. "RIch as Rockefeller" seems to be about the time
millionaire was brought into the vernacular. You would arond $24 million
to be a millionaire in what I will whimsically call "real money".
Doesn't really add anything to the discussion, but was a mildly amusing
what if game.

--
People thought cybersex was a safe alternative,
until patients started presenting with sexually
acquired carpal tunnel syndrome.-Howard Berkowitz