Should US wealth be redistributed?

[abowers]

I don't make a lot of money, as I just graduated from college with a degree in psychology and am just working as a preschool teacher until I start grad school... but I don't know that the wealthy should be taxed anymore -- they already pay a HUGE portion of the taxes, and some have legitimately earned their salaries! I.e. my significant other's dad -- who has worked at the same company for 25 years as an engineer and is making 6 figures. he pays a RIDICULOUS amount in taxes. Our taxes already go to pay for a lot of services for the less fortunate. Even with my low salary, I'm losing 20% of it to taxes!! The government needs to use money from taxes more efficiently.

[VJW]

Originally Posted by Bruce Wayne

I thought I'd do a little research into this assertion of yours to the current top 10 of the Forbes rich list.

Bill Gates - He may have had assistance by his family but I doubt you'll find an entrepreneur who hasn't had this in some form. It doesn't take anything away from their achievement because his wealth has been earnt, not inherited.

Warren Buffet - Infamously started as a newspaper delivery boy and has since become a self made billionaire.

Paul Allen - Dropped out from uni with Bill Gates to form Microsoft. Has since invested in a range of other businesses and is a regular philanthropist.

Michael Dell - Started selling computers from his university dorm room, has since gone on to head the worlds best selling PC company.

Larry Ellison - founded Oracle in 1977 and has grown it to become the largest enterprise software company in the world.

So none of the top five so far have inherited the wealth they now have.

The next five are all members of the Walton family, so in that sense their wealth is inherited but remember that WalMart began as one solitary store before it grew into the behemouth it is today so the family wealth was created if not by the individuals currently in the Top 10.

Doesn't really support your argument too well VJW.

Well, since I had presented facts and not an “argument”, and the reference was to 86% of 400, not 86% of 10, your assertion is rather silly.

Not to mention that Buffet, as well as many others, have clearly stated that it was the many benefits of American society which supported their success. The very kind of benefits that you oppose.
.

[VJW]

Originally Posted by abowers

I don't make a lot of money, as I just graduated from college with a degree in psychology and am just working as a preschool teacher until I start grad school... but I don't know that the wealthy should be taxed anymore -- they already pay a HUGE portion of the taxes

Because a huge portion of the nation’s income flows to them. The wealthy still don’t pay their fair share of the tax burden proportionate to their share of the income.

Our taxes already go to pay for a lot of services for the less fortunate.

Actually not.

Unless you consider welfare to corporations as “services for the less fortunate”.

Even with my low salary, I'm losing 20% of it to taxes!!

You have obviously calculated incorrectly. Almost 80% of taxpayers pay 5% or less in federal income taxes.

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[dealsaver]

Originally Posted by abowers

I don't make a lot of money, as I just graduated from college with a degree in psychology and am just working as a preschool teacher until I start grad school... but I don't know that the wealthy should be taxed anymore -- they already pay a HUGE portion of the taxes, and some have legitimately earned their salaries! I.e. my significant other's dad -- who has worked at the same company for 25 years as an engineer and is making 6 figures. he pays a RIDICULOUS amount in taxes. Our taxes already go to pay for a lot of services for the less fortunate. Even with my low salary, I'm losing 20% of it to taxes!! The government needs to use money from taxes more efficiently.

They just need to use less of it to begin with.

Few people are bright enough to figure out how much they actually pay in taxes every year. Payroll taxes, Federal and State income tax, sales tax, gasoline tax, real or imputed property tax, etc. add up. Even on a modest salary people often underestimate their total tax liability. Wealth is redistrubuted in this country way too much. Most people don't even realize how much they are paying to enrich others at their own expense because of the all the different ways in which they are taxed. If people recieved a year end summary of all the taxes they paid, there would be more momentum behind tax and spending reform.

[abowers]

Originally Posted by VJW

Because a huge portion of the nation’s income flows to them. The wealthy still don’t pay their fair share of the tax burden proportionate to their share of the income.





Actually not.

Unless you consider welfare to corporations as “services for the less fortunate”.

-- I am referring to welfare to people, not to corporations. I did the social worker thing for a couple of years. I saw many families on welfare that miraculously had i.e. - A LARGE plasma TV, -a New Ford Expedition *with* personalized license plates with her name on them (2 different families, same low income ghetto apartment complex).




You have obviously calculated incorrectly. Almost 80% of taxpayers pay 5% or less in federal income taxes.

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-- I am not talking about strictly federal income taxes, I know that is a smaller percentage. I lose 19-20% of my paycheck to social security, state, and federal taxes, and miscellaneous other taxes (there are like 5 different categories).

[Bruce Wayne]

You should come to Britain VJW. Here the average person loses around 30% of their income to taxes, and our government still don't have enough money so will have to raise them even further.

[VJW]

Originally Posted by abowers

-- I am not talking about strictly federal income taxes, I know that is a smaller percentage.

That’s nonsensical, as federal income taxes taxes represent far and away the largest bite, and as I posted, almost 80% of taxpayers pay 5% or less in federal income taxes.

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[jnsaver]

I don't think it will work. Here's why:

"Research suggests that when people grow up in unfortunate social situations--where they're not treated very nicely by their parents or when they experience poverty or even the threat of death," says Kasser, "they become more materialistic as a way to adapt."

http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun04/discontents.html

[jnsaver]

Other factors that contribute to poverty:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun04/maxed.html

1. Locus of control
2. Self efficacy
3. Debt tolerant attitudes

[cercis]

Originally Posted by jnsaver

I don't think it will work. Here's why:

"Research suggests that when people grow up in unfortunate social situations--where they're not treated very nicely by their parents or when they experience poverty or even the threat of death," says Kasser, "they become more materialistic as a way to adapt."

http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun04/discontents.html

I'm not sure how this applies. Are you saying that people who are now "rich" will be violent to maintain their level of materialism? Or that "poor" people will get the money and just spend, spend, spend and never stop?

I don't advocate equalizing wealth completely, but I do advocate some equalization. There is no way I can possibly be convinced that a CEO is worth 100s of times more than the lowest paid employee. The only reason they can half justify it is because they've all gotten together and agreed to pay each other and their friends that much setting up the "standard wage". And the problem is - most very affluent people don't spend their money in the US - they fly to other countries - on non-domestic carriers and buy their goods there, and usually fudge how much they bought when coming back so they don't pay import taxes. So, we have the poor doing more to stimulate the economy in proportion.

[jnsaver]

Another great article detailing the cycle:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr01/sp.html

1) Marketing and social comparison makes poor people unhappy
2) Marketing tells poor people that they can fix the problem with the newest gadget
3) Poor people . . .
a) Run out and buy it, getting further into debt, sacrificing necessities to make ends meet. Not having necessities impacts family relations, self-esteem, locus of control, cognitive and life functioning etc. All of these things contribute to poorer decision making, which in turn make them more vulnerable to marketing and social comparison.
b) Or they don't buy it. Which makes them feel miserable and deprived. They look around at other people who have the gadget and feel more miserable and deprived. So miserable, that they are all the more vulnerable to the next marketing campaign.

[cercis]

I don't get how that applies to this discussion. Period.

I live in one of the poorest areas in the country. Consumerism is not rampant. People are less materialistic here than anywhere I've ever lived. When they get money, they don't run out to buy, buy, buy. They put some toward paying on their house, some toward future college funds and some to buy something they've been wanting.

No, the people I see doing the buy, buy, buy thing is people who should have plenty of money. When I did collections I saw 2 types of people (I did legal collections for citibank) 1) people who made minimum wage and used their card to buy groceries and gas and 2) people who made well over $60k per year who used the card for toys and travel (this was in OK, $60k was extremely comfortable). I rarely saw an in between and when I did see an in between, further research showed a job loss of several months to a year and just starting a new job.

That doesn't mean that "poor" people don't have an item that says "making it" to them. Like $100 air jordans (when I was in HS) or cadillacs. But I've never seen the "blow every dime I get because I've been without and now I have it" IRL.

[jnsaver]

Originally Posted by cercis

I'm not sure how this applies. Are you saying that people who are now "rich" will be violent to maintain their level of materialism? Or that "poor" people will get the money and just spend, spend, spend and never stop?

I'm saying that being poor is more than just having an empty wallet and nothing in your bank account. There is also a state of mind and a variety of coping mechanisms associated with poverty. Even if every poor person on the planet won the lottery, the next year they'd be back where they started.

If you don't believe me, look at all the things urban poor people attribute to a lack of education (ie something external that they can't control): the spread of STIs, SIDS, obeisity, drug use, asthma/allergies, low birth weight babies, neglect of seniors, crime, child abuse, exploitation of women. Do you really buy the fact that they just don't "know" about these things? Of course they know. The thing is, they don't want to know, because if they knew, they'd have to do something.

This of course doesn't apply to the newly laid off or the working poor who are doing everything they can to stay above water. I'm talking about the folks who spend more on beer than they do on food, the folks who buy their kids french fries and x-box games with the rent money, the folks that buy Range Rovers at 0% down and put the first payment on the card, the folks that spend a week in Vegas, but don't have enough money to pay the babysitter, the folks wearing $200 tennis shoes, but don't have enough money for the bus. It's the whole never-got-over-being-a-teenager/giant-infant song and dance. These folks are beyond help.

I have no idea what the working poor would do with money. But there are so many folks beyond help, no amount of money could fix those problems.

[cercis]

That's so full of it.

You've gone over to exaggeration. Poor people who win the lottery do not end up back in abject poverty in a year. There have been many lottery winners. Some of them do end up borrowing against the payments (in states where they do structured payouts) but they have a home, etc they never had before.

I also find it insulting to say they don't know because they don't want to do anything about it. For many people it isnt' something they've internalized yet. And many people can't do anything about it if they want to. Low birth weight? That's a function of affording good food and having good prenatal care. Something many people in poverty can't do.

[jnsaver]

Originally Posted by cercis

But I've never seen the "blow every dime I get because I've been without and now I have it" IRL.

Maybe you never see it in OK. It's a different kind of poverty though. In OK, money goes a lot further than it does in a major city or on a coast. Also, isn't OK a relatively good place to be poor? In OK, being poor doesn't mean you grew up in the midst of abuse, it doesn't mean your parents were taking drugs, it doesn't mean you lacked anything other than money.

But pay attention to places where it sucks to be poor. Pay attention to hip hop culture. Pay attention to people who just got out of jail. Pay attention to urban youth. Pay attention to the local drug dealer on the corner, the hippie that lives down stairs, the guy with AIDS at the coffee shop, the prostitute trying not to make eye contact with the dealer on the corner. Pay attention to all the formerly abused college kids with shiny new credit cards, the molested dropout trying to make it big with get rich quick schemes. Redistribution of wealth will never make that better.

[cercis]

Never? Or just not in our lifetimes?

I think poverty can be cured. And so many of the problems you name are a function of poverty.

You want Oklahoma? Methlabs are one of the most reliable sources of income and you never know where a new one is going to pop up. When I was a kid, marijuana was the top money crop and there were places you didn't drive or hike because if you went there you would never been seen again. Even police helicopters had to make forced landings from gunfire.

3 out of 5 Oklahoma kids are chronically hungry. What does that mean? It means their brains will never develop to their full potential because they aren't getting the nutrients they need. It means that when they are in school, they will be concentrating more on their hungry stomachs than the lesson.

Oklahoma schools are consistently in the bottom 5 of the states. And the rich schools aren't much better than the poor schools. Most Oklahoma schools are rural schools - with very small budgets. My history teachers were always coaches. Several years so were my science and english teachers. When they had to lay off teachers because of budget cuts, the non-coaches (and more qualified teachers) were laid off first.

In my class of 60, maybe 10 of us managed to get a college degree of any kind, much less a 4 year degree. One person went on to post graduate work (not me). 75% of my class were card-carrying American Indians. Half of my class were kids whose parents were so inept or so poor they couldn't care for them and they were living with grandparents or at a "boarding school" (to be fair, some of the kids at the "boarding school" were there because they wanted to go to a school where they wouldn't be a minority - http://www.choctawnation.com/Program...m?ProgramID=25 - the director, BTW was in a class before me). We didn't go on to college because we didn't have the skills to go to college. I was #3 in my class, tested very high on all the placement tests, etc and I struggled at the JUNIOR college. I'd never had to study before and didn't know how.

Sixty thousand is a wonderful living there. But very few people make it. My mom's worked at the same job for 15 years and makes $7/hour and that's considered a very good salary. The most I ever made, with a college degree and further certification, was $34k (which included the bonuses, etc). We moved from Oklahoma because we were never going to reach that $60k mark.

Can you provide proof that people in poverty who win the lottery end up back in poverty in one year?

[abowers]

Originally Posted by jnsaver

Maybe you never see it in OK. It's a different kind of poverty though. In OK, money goes a lot further than it does in a major city or on a coast. Also, isn't OK a relatively good place to be poor? In OK, being poor doesn't mean you grew up in the midst of abuse, it doesn't mean your parents were taking drugs, it doesn't mean you lacked anything other than money.

But pay attention to places where it sucks to be poor. .

I'm not from Oklahoma, nor am I poor, but I have worked with at-risk children and teens in western NY, a mix of people from the worst areas of Rochester, the surrounding well-to-do suburbs, and even rural farming areas. There is never a good place to be poor. Abuse and drugs are not limited to urban areas: you can also find them in suburbs, as well as rural areas. Just because someone is in poverty in the midwest doesn't mean they have it better than someone in poverty in california.

[VJW]

Originally Posted by jnsaver

These folks are beyond help.

I have no idea what the working poor would do with money. But there are so many folks beyond help, no amount of money could fix those problems.

Then why did the Poverty Rate DECLINE EVERY YEAR from 1993 through 2000, when taxes were raised on the top 1.2% of taxpayers, more than $600 billion of the Reagan/Bush federal debt was paid down, the Federal Minimum Wage was raised several times, and the Unemployment Rate fell to the lowest level in four decades ?

Then why did the Poverty Rate INCREASE EVERY YEAR over the last five calendar years, when there were four rounds of huge tax cuts for the Rich & Corporate, which created MASSIVE record federal budget deficits, the wages of the vast overwhelming majority of American workers went backwards every year over the last five calendar years, and the share of the working-age population working or actively seeking a job is at a nearly 17-YEAR LOW ?

Poverty does not happen in a vacuum.

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[cercis]

Originally Posted by abowers

Abuse and drugs are not limited to urban areas: you can also find them in suburbs, as well as rural areas.

I wanted to point out that I grew up in a rural area. When I refer to methlabs and marijuana, I mean rural.

Also, my county was listed as having one of the highest incest molestation rate and kids living with someone other than their parents because of abuse. We also have one of the highest rates of birth defects caused by drugs and alcohol.

Rural means that you can keep it hidden longer and you spend a lot of time being bored. When I was in HS there were 2 things to do (other than sit at home, which is what I did) booze and sex. With the booze add drugs.

[jnsaver]

80% of people who win the lottery in the US file for bankruptcy within
5 years. Bankrate.com, MSN money, Motley Fool and a whole host of
other respected finance sites have published this. They are highly likely
to be the victims of violent crimes and highly likely to commit
violent crimes. Google it.