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 Post subject: The Rich Pay All
PostPosted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 6:59 pm 
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Really simple here. Took data from the IRS and US Census Bureau, found the following interesting facts.

The top 10% of tax payers earn 37.8% of the total wealth generated each year by citizens of the USA.
The remaining 90% generate 49.86% of the total wealth generated each year by citizens.
The remaining 11.44% of wealth generated in the united states is not taxed, as the people making it are not in any tax bracket.

Taxes, however, are a bit different. The top 10% paid 64.89% of the income tax revenue generated in 2001. The remaining 90%, who generate as a whole more than the top 10%, paid only 35.11% of the income taxes.

Discuss.

-MiB

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 7:50 pm 
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Fifty bucks says that your data was collected before Bush had much of a chance to change many Clinton-era economic policies.


Also, where did your data come from? Those sound like some interesting stats to play around with.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 8:15 pm 
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IRS and US Census Bureau. If you wish to challange those stats, you are welcome to, but you will fail horribly. And I didn't 'play around' with them - I will send you the data and show you the process I got this conclusion with myself, if you wish.

-MiB

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 8:17 pm 
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The Man In Black wrote:
IRS and US Census Bureau. If you wish to challange those stats, you are welcome to, but you will fail horribly. And I didn't 'play around' with them - I will send you the data and show you the process I got this conclusion with myself, if you wish.

-MiB


But is it based on the 2000 census, or taken after Bush had been in office for a while? I think that's what Sako was getting at.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 8:59 pm 
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Quick look shows that data from 1998 from both the IRS and the US Census Bureau shows no significant differences.

Stop being fucktards please, if you want to accuse the stats of being messed with come to the table with some statistical data showing significant differences, THEN you can make a case for messing, just "speculating" is cowardice tho, and I really hate when people try to cop out of doing work.

-MiB

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 9:21 pm 
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It is true that the wealthy get taxed the most. Well, the wealthy without the tax shelters. I think this is our lottery winners giving back to us.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 10:02 pm 
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I laff everytime I think about how the US gov taxes lottery winners.

The US GOV WINS TEH LOTTERY!!!!

AGAIN!!


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 10:23 pm 
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krylex wrote:
It is true that the wealthy get taxed the most. Well, the wealthy without the tax shelters. I think this is our lottery winners giving back to us.


Er, its kinda impossible to completely shelter *your entire income,* and the top 10% mean that there are 300,000 of them each year, don't think there's that many lotto winners.

You're taxing teh CEOs and such still, no matter how much the popular perception is that they pay like $0.01 in taxes.

-MiB

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 1:54 am 
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A good friend of mine's Uncle helped found TI and a number of other large businesses. He's a hell of a businessman and is extremely wealthy. You know how much income he has last year? One dollar. It is possible to hide almost all of one's income, but it depends on how far they are willing to go. People with public incomes, IE sports players and such don't have as easy a time at hiding things, as its all 100% public. People like Ken Ley of Enron have ways they can hide things with little way to trace, or so I would think.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 5:48 am 
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The Man In Black wrote:
IRS and US Census Bureau. If you wish to challange those stats, you are welcome to, but you will fail horribly. And I didn't 'play around' with them - I will send you the data and show you the process I got this conclusion with myself, if you wish.

-MiB


Oh, I'm sorry. I meant "Linky?" Not that I don't trust you to be honest with stats or anything...




...


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 11:28 am 
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however, you know you'ee going too far when you actually own books of pure government census statistics...

*sneaks off*

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 1:37 pm 
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*joins Ollie in sneakage*

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 4:32 pm 
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Screw "wealth produced". What about other figures such as actual income? I'm almost certain the two terms aren't synonymous, since I'm fairly sure the top 10% gets a much larger share of the income than only 40%... More like 60% if I remember correctly.

Also, I don't see why the rich being taxed proportionately more than the poor is a bad thing. The rich are, after all, the ones least hurt by having a large portion of their income taken. Taking half of a billionaire's income still leaves him with more than enough money to live off of for the rest of his life; taking half of a lower-middle-class family's income would be disastrous. Thus, taxing the rich much more greatly than the poor and middle-class makes Utilitarian sense, in that it results in the least net suffering. If lowering the income tax of the rich means shifting the burden to the middle and lower taxes who actually need most of their money for survival, then forget it.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 4:54 pm 
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IcyMonkey wrote:
Screw "wealth produced". What about other figures such as actual income? I'm almost certain the two terms aren't synonymous, since I'm fairly sure the top 10% gets a much larger share of the income than only 40%... More like 60% if I remember correctly.

Also, I don't see why the rich being taxed proportionately more than the poor is a bad thing. The rich are, after all, the ones least hurt by having a large portion of their income taken. Taking half of a billionaire's income still leaves him with more than enough money to live off of for the rest of his life; taking half of a lower-middle-class family's income would be disastrous. Thus, taxing the rich much more greatly than the poor and middle-class makes Utilitarian sense, in that it results in the least net suffering. If lowering the income tax of the rich means shifting the burden to the middle and lower taxes who actually need most of their money for survival, then forget it.


There's also the fact that our economy tends to expand when we're taxing the shit out of the rich, ala the Eisenhower and Clinton administrations.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 8:32 pm 
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IcyMonkey wrote:
Screw "wealth produced". What about other figures such as actual income? I'm almost certain the two terms aren't synonymous, since I'm fairly sure the top 10% gets a much larger share of the income than only 40%... More like 60% if I remember correctly.

Also, I don't see why the rich being taxed proportionately more than the poor is a bad thing. The rich are, after all, the ones least hurt by having a large portion of their income taken. Taking half of a billionaire's income still leaves him with more than enough money to live off of for the rest of his life; taking half of a lower-middle-class family's income would be disastrous. Thus, taxing the rich much more greatly than the poor and middle-class makes Utilitarian sense, in that it results in the least net suffering. If lowering the income tax of the rich means shifting the burden to the middle and lower taxes who actually need most of their money for survival, then forget it.


Er, "income" etc.

Also, you're a retarded monkey, justifying taking by force because, well, they don't need it.

You don't need that shirt, give it to me, motherfucker.

-MiB

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 9:03 pm 
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The Man In Black wrote:
Also, you're a retarded monkey, justifying taking by force because, well, they don't need it.

You don't need that shirt, give it to me, motherfucker.


Your analogy fails because in that case, you're simply taking the shirt because you want to, and there's no real absolute need for your appropriation. What I'm saying is, given that the government needs X amount of money, it would be better to take that money from those who don't need it. Whether the government needs all the money that it's taking from the taxpayers is another matter entirely, and if you want to argue about that, you can. But what we're talking about here is relative proportion, not amount.

The government has certain budget requirements; if you think they're excessive, then argue for their reduction. However, given these requirements, the best way to fulfill them with the least amount of net unhappiness is to get more of the money from those that would be hurt the least by this appropriation. This would be true whatever scale of spending we're talking about.

Now, if some kind of bizarre disaster occured in which 99% of the shirts in the world were destroyed, and a disease began to spread which could only be cured by shirt wearing, and I owned many shirts and was immune to this disease, so you then ordered that I give you the shirt in order to use it to cure those with the illness, that would be a more accurate analogy.

Oh, and "wealth generated" does NOT equal income. That's like saying the GDP equals the GNP.

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Also, you're a retarded monkey, justifying taking by force because, well, they don't need it.


But all taxing is, by its very nature, the taking of wealth by force. Now, I assume you're not an anarchist, and thus you do believe we need a government, presumably funded by taxes of some kind. Given that you absolutely have to get money from somewhere, would it be better to evenly get money from those who desperately need it as well as those who don't, or to get most (not all) of your money from those who will hardly notice?


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 11:00 pm 
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IcyMonkey wrote:
Your analogy fails because in that case, you're simply taking the shirt because you want to, and there's no real absolute need for your appropriation.


Okay, pretend I'm homeless. You make 50k a year and live in a reasonable comfortable home. I demand your house and half of your wages, and you still have enough to live in a cheap apt and live menialy.

So, I need home, food, etc, you have the money to provide it that you do not need, its my right to take that by force then?

Icymonkey wrote:
What I'm saying is, given that the government needs X amount of money, it would be better to take that money from those who don't need it. Whether the government needs all the money that it's taking from the taxpayers is another matter entirely, and if you want to argue about that, you can.


The govt needs that amount of money...says who?

The govt needs to take that money...says who?

Icymonkey wrote:
The government has certain budget requirements; if you think they're excessive, then argue for their reduction. However, given these requirements, the best way to fulfill them with the least amount of net unhappiness is to get more of the money from those that would be hurt the least by this appropriation. This would be true whatever scale of spending we're talking about.


I'd actually prefer teh govt to work off charging for their services and such, or asking for donations etc., than taxes.

But thats just me.

Icymonkey wrote:
Now, if some kind of bizarre disaster occured in which 99% of the shirts in the world were destroyed, and a disease began to spread which could only be cured by shirt wearing, and I owned many shirts and was immune to this disease, so you then ordered that I give you the shirt in order to use it to cure those with the illness, that would be a more accurate analogy.


Okay, that was funny. But see my above reorganizing of the analogy. For the record, however, I agree with this above scenario, but not quite in the same way you say it. I agree that I would give the shirts out, but more because its in my interest that other people are around and such.

IcyMonkey wrote:
Oh, and "wealth generated" does NOT equal income. That's like saying the GDP equals the GNP.


IRS lists it as "Gross income before taxes," not "taxable gross" or anything like that. So yeah, eat it etc.

But a good question, and I'm happy to clarify this point for more accurate discussion.

IcyMonkey wrote:
But all taxing is, by its very nature, the taking of wealth by force. Now, I assume you're not an anarchist, and thus you do believe we need a government, presumably funded by taxes of some kind. Given that you absolutely have to get money from somewhere, would it be better to evenly get money from those who desperately need it as well as those who don't, or to get most (not all) of your money from those who will hardly notice?


I would not take the money by force. Because, by definition, the taking of wealth by force is immoral, is it not? Except when the government does it. Which is kinda a weird qualifier. OR...

It is only moral to take by force when a) the recipient of the wealth is not yourself and b) the person getting the wealth taken away from them does not need this wealth to survive.

Thus we take away a set of moral principles to act upon, and we get instead a condition: if its not for you, and it doesn't kill them, its okay, no matter what you do with it, no matter how brutally you take it away, its fine.

I would consider this moral imperative *bad* and illogical (punishing accomplishment and rewarding incompetance etc, Ollie has gone over this before and so have I). I hope you do as well.

-MiB

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PostPosted: Thu Apr 01, 2004 9:41 am 
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The Man In Black wrote:
Icymonkey wrote:
What I'm saying is, given that the government needs X amount of money, it would be better to take that money from those who don't need it. Whether the government needs all the money that it's taking from the taxpayers is another matter entirely, and if you want to argue about that, you can.


The govt needs that amount of money...says who?

The govt needs to take that money...says who?


If the government is to exist at all, it needs money. Now, as wonderful as your utopian dream is of making the government some kind of charity which simply operates via donations, it would never work.

If you want to reduce the amount of money the government spends, that's a different issue. We're taling about the relative proportion of that budget, whatever it might be. Even if we were talking about some kind of libertarian paradise without a social safety net, and more importantly without a military and a minimal, unarmed police force (as military expenditures take up about 20 times more of our budget than welfare does), it would still need at least a few billion dollars to operate.

The Man in Black wrote:
I'd actually prefer teh govt to work off charging for their services and such, or asking for donations etc., than taxes.

But thats just me.


I'd prefer that too, but then again, I'd also prefer if property didn't exist and we all lived in a stateless society where there was no racism, no war, no poverty, no violence, and we could all join hands and sing kum-ba-yah by the goddamn fireside while smoking pot and eating granola bars. But that's just me. And, of course, just because I'd prefer it doesn't mean it would work in reality.

Charging for their services? Then the government wouldn't be a government. It would be some kind of weird protection-service company operating in some kind of anarcho-capitalist environment. Let's say I don't want to subscribe to the service, so I don't pay. Then I decide to murder someone, or, alternately, I myself am murdered. If I wasn't a "subscriber", what could the government do?

As for the idea of the government operating on donations... I think I've already addressed that.

The Man in Black wrote:
I would not take the money by force. Because, by definition, the taking of wealth by force is immoral, is it not? Except when the government does it. Which is kinda a weird qualifier. OR...


The government is a special moral case. They can do things that normal citizens can't. The government is a very specialized organization created to prevent anarchy. While one large, democratically elected organization forcibly taking some property from everyone to fund its protection of those same people is bad, a strong person forcibly taking the property of a weak person simply because there's no well-funded organization in place to stop him is worse.

As nice as it is to have clear-cut, unbreakable rules such as "taking things by force is always, always to be avoided", in the real world, ethics can only be matter of choosing which things we want to avoid more than other things.

By the way, what the hell? I'm the one supposed to be defending idealistic, unrealizable dreams involving a stateless society, and you're supposed to be the one pointing out that in the real world, things don't work that way and we have to make compromises - not the other way around.

(Keep in mind, by the way, that I'm all for reducing the size of the government - starting with our bloated, money-sucking, inefficient military and intelligence organizations.)


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 01, 2004 12:52 pm 
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The Rich Pay All
Good. Ayn Rand can go fuck herself.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 01, 2004 3:22 pm 
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Nice arguement Icy, but I'd like you to lay out exactly why it wouldn't work.

You have no precedent to go on, but you assume that teh fact is self-evident, which I obviously say it isn't.

Soo...

Icymonkey wrote:
I'd prefer that too, but then again, I'd also prefer if property didn't exist and we all lived in a stateless society where there was no racism, no war, no poverty, no violence, and we could all join hands and sing kum-ba-yah by the goddamn fireside while smoking pot and eating granola bars. But that's just me. And, of course, just because I'd prefer it doesn't mean it would work in reality.


Which has relevance as to whether my own suggestion works in reality...how?

I mean honestly, apply to my arguement instead of making non-comparisons.

Icymonkey wrote:
If the government is to exist at all, it needs money. Now, as wonderful as your utopian dream is of making the government some kind of charity which simply operates via donations, it would never work.

If you want to reduce the amount of money the government spends, that's a different issue. We're taling about the relative proportion of that budget, whatever it might be. Even if we were talking about some kind of libertarian paradise without a social safety net, and more importantly without a military and a minimal, unarmed police force (as military expenditures take up about 20 times more of our budget than welfare does), it would still need at least a few billion dollars to operate.


Hold on, 20 times more? That is, and I like to say this, a communist lie. Data pending, but watch this space.

Also, why not both? I don't see why it wouldn't work, unless of course you assume every human being is going to assume a police force and military arn't worth their money, which is a rather tenuous concept, especially as how "we're cutting police!" is a threat used to cajole people into voting for a tax hike.

Icymonkey wrote:
Charging for their services? Then the government wouldn't be a government. It would be some kind of weird protection-service company operating in some kind of anarcho-capitalist environment. Let's say I don't want to subscribe to the service, so I don't pay. Then I decide to murder someone, or, alternately, I myself am murdered. If I wasn't a "subscriber", what could the government do?


Kill the murderer, be it you or someone else.

Any other questions? Whatever entity it is, I call it government, you can call it swiss cheese, it keeps order. And it would charge on a per-case basis, not like a monthly subscription fee. So in the case whoever wished to get the murderer found would be charged a fee.

Tho the concept IS amusing, "YOU can subscribe to AMERICA(tm) 6 weeks for only 99.99!"

Icymonkey wrote:
As for the idea of the government operating on donations... I think I've already addressed that.


"OMG IT NO WURK" doesn't really count as 'addressing' anything.

Icymonkey wrote:
The government is a special moral case. They can do things that normal citizens can't. The government is a very specialized organization created to prevent anarchy. While one large, democratically elected organization forcibly taking some property from everyone to fund its protection of those same people is bad, a strong person forcibly taking the property of a weak person simply because there's no well-funded organization in place to stop him is worse.


Wait, first you say its a special moral case, then you agree with me and say "Well, sure, its bad...but WITHOUT taking everything by force, there would be no order."

Er, even in a statistical analysis, the govt takes by force 887,880,000,000 or so dollars by force just in income tax, by what logic is that better than getting held up for your lunch money?

And, by what logic does "no taxes" = "no government"? As I have already outlined above a proposal for change, and you have just said "OMG IT NO WURK," assuming I would trust your judgement implicitly (hint: I don't.)

Icymonkey wrote:
As nice as it is to have clear-cut, unbreakable rules such as "taking things by force is always, always to be avoided", in the real world, ethics can only be matter of choosing which things we want to avoid more than other things.


And if I say you're wrong, and its just your ethics that force that?

Icymonkey wrote:
By the way, what the hell? I'm the one supposed to be defending idealistic, unrealizable dreams involving a stateless society, and you're supposed to be the one pointing out that in the real world, things don't work that way and we have to make compromises - not the other way around.


Perhaps because I'm not advocating a society which demands of man impossible feats of so-called morality, like anarchy or communism does?

Crazy thought there.

Icymonkey wrote:
(Keep in mind, by the way, that I'm all for reducing the size of the government - starting with our bloated, money-sucking, inefficient military and intelligence organizations.)


Er, what do I care about that again? No data, no advocacy, no plan, no reason, just...yeah. There.

-MiB

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