How Has The Wall St. Meltdown Affected You? - Page 3

You really think that's how it worked? Wrong. It was the Fed's goosing the economy (loos money and credit policy) and creating the previous (Internet/DotCom) bubble. The bubble they created before the housing bubble.

Goodness! When will this idea that we can tax our way to prosperity ever die.



Sadly you're probably right. Envy cannot be restrained for very long.

The economy did just fine during the Clinton years when the rates of taxation were higher.

No, they were raising rates during that time. The housing bubble was caused by the drops in the interest rates after 9/11 (a decade later).

http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/st...s/fedrate.html

I know when the housing bubble happened. It was an attempt to remedy the bursting of the previous (Internet/DotCom/stock market) bubble the Fed created in the 90's (which then bursted as they always do).

It's ironic isn't it... when people think of animation, they don't think of editors. We're so used to game graphics that we tend not to think of the person crafting the story with cuts, transitions and timing.

I'm with Lucas on this one. The movie really comes together in the editing room.

I agree. I've done some amateur video editing with iMovie in the past and I gained a whole lot of respect for the editing craft for a couple reasons:

1. The sheer amount of work, patience and creativity required, and
2. How much control they have over something being good or bad, and
3. Their ability to tell completely different stories by the way they put things together.

The temptation to steal the smaller class of "someone's" money to fix the problems of the bigger class of "someone" will be eternal. Just like Lucy swiping the football away from Charlie Brown as he tries to kick it.

Oh yeah. Animation is like bowling; editing is like golf.

(That's an old movie-making joke.)

(That I just made up.)

Goodness! When will the idea that the rich can live off the backs of the less well off ever die.

Goodness! When will the idea that the rich do live off the backs of the less well off ever die.

Exactly, its called a balanced tax plan -- and there exists reasons to believe that we have given the wealthy too much over the last eight years.

I think that excess wealth disappeared over the last eight months or so.

Of course everyone should pay their "fair share". What fair?

Them's fighin' words!

Ummm...it's obvious, "fair" means (increasingly) more (higher rates*) for some and less for others.

It's funny the whole "fair" share argument is certainly the weakest argument that liberals have for the progressive income tax. And it exposes their true intentions and motives.

*The rich would still be paying more even if the income tax was flat. A fact conveniently ignored by progressive tax advocates.

Sure, but economic growth has been sluggish over the last eight years suggesting something is out of order with respect to economic controls. My take is that the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor (the disappearance in effect of the middle class) is a byproduct of the same forces that are causing economic growth to be slow -- one of which is the relatively larger burden (compared to what would make economic sense) of taxes on the poor (and I don't actually mean destitute here)...

The middle class is not disappearing.







Huh? The bottom 45-50% of income earners earn about 15-20% of the income and pay about 3% of the income taxes. How is this in any way, shape or form a "relatively larger burden" of taxes on the poor.

It's not ignored, it isn't reasonable to have a flat tax as that would place an undue burden on poorer people due to fixed costs that scale to some extent with social class. This is why progressive taxes make sense.

Remember the progressive tax system is done by marginal rates meaning everyone pays the same amount of money on the first x, first y, first z amount of income. There is nothing unfair about that.

The fact that it scales up with each margin is necessary to ensure that taxation isn't at a rate so high it prevents people from saving etc...

Fixed costs.

and, oh, the middle class is disappearing.

No. It's not. But you're free to try and prove this dubious assertion.

Aces!

An absurd notion. Politicians have become stock brokers with our money. When markets fall, they short and blame the rich. When market rise, they go long and raise taxes.

Either way, we lose.

Ugh. Is this the best you can do?

The day they don't?

America has never quite ended the golden days of slavery, when the hard working plantation owner delegated the whipping of the lazy indolent slaves to shiftless middle men.

Thankfully then the plantation owner was adequately rewarded for his efforts and the government of the day both supported him and made sure the slaves were not overly rewarded for their reluctance to work.

Thanks to present day government interference in this satisfactory management-employee relationship, employers have been forced to turn to paying underaged workers, illegal aliens and the descendants of the slaves.*

The only good thing is that they can keep the payment to a minimum with constant promises that they will get something better.

* If they get difficult, there is always outsourcing to China etc. They'll work for the smell of an oily peanut.

They don't. But the myth persists.



You and tonton should get together and compare notes.

No. It was the first google hit:

http://www.factcheck.org/update_on_k...e_class_-.html

from 2004 election.

Recent Numbers:

lower income 25%
Middle Income 43.09%
Higher income Remainder


Let's see here, is that middle income number shrinking? yup.
(I didn't correct the values to the same base currency rate, so in effect, it gets worse)

I hadn't actually expected it to be so severe...

The bottom 50% of income earners do not pay 3% of taxes. They pay about 15% of federal taxes. You may be able to get to 3% if you exclude everything but federal income taxes, but just about everyone in the bottom half pays more social security than income tax. And that's not including sales taxes and the like.

The wealthy pay about 10% more of their share of federal taxes compared to their share of all income, i.e., the top 1% gets about 20% of the income and pays about 30% of the taxes; the top 5% gets about 35% of the income and pays about 45% of the taxes, etc.

In any case, it's graphs like this one that indicate a sick economy:

Flat by definition is flat, and all pay the same percentage of how ever much they make.

The terms progressive and regressive tax rates are also well defined relative to a flat tax.

The current temporary tax rates are very likely to be fazed out over a 2-4 year period when the current Bush tax cuts expire, where they would revert back to the rates closer to those that were in effect during the Clinton years. But it very much depends on the economic situation at that time.

Which is 2-4 years down the road, I believe.

I was referring to income taxes: http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6

What's interesting to observe in those tables is that the top 1%'s share has actually gone up (33.89% to 39.38%) under Bush and the bottom 50%'s share has gone down (3.97% to 2.99%). The top 1%'s share of the income has risen from about 18% or 19% to about 19% or 20% over the same period.



True. You can thank FDR for that. I'm in favor of dumping it.



Graphs that show that everyone's income has risen?

I know what you were talking about, because it's what you guys always do: Switch it to one aspect of taxes - the most progressive tax we have - and ignore all the others.


Their share of the income has risen more than that.

Look at share of after-tax income. The bottom 60%'s share of after-tax income went from 52% in 2001 to 49% in 2005, while the top 10% went from 34% to 37%. That's after-tax income, so it takes into account all tax changes.



Maybe my standards and expectations are higher than yours, but not everyone's incomes grew as much as our economy was capable of growing. To see a growth of 6% is pathetic for the richest country in history. The wealthy were just fine to begin with. I'd like to see the people who had the lower incomes grow 176% and the upper incomes grow 6%, if it's going to be so uneven.

I didn't switch at all. I assumed we were discussing income taxes. Mostly because that's what varies by "rich" vs. "poor". Most other taxes (sales, social security, etc.) are pretty flat. And in many cases the rich would pay more than the poor of these anyway for two reasons. First, they would hit the social security "cut off" income (about $98,000) so that would pay the maximum amount payable under that tax, while the poor would likely not hit that income level. As for sales taxes, the rich are also likely buying more and more expensive things on which they'd pay such taxes.



Speaking of switching...I was referring to the top 1% and the bottom 50%. Now you're talking about the top 10% and the bottom 60%. I don't know how we can possibly compare numbers given this.



How do you know? Exactly how much was the "economy was capable of growing"?



Glad to hear your opinion on this.



Glad to hear your opinion on this.



I wouldn't mind seeing that myself.

What's interesting about editing animation versus narrative live-action is that they're two completely different disciplines. And I'm currently doing both. My day job is the animation gig. At night I'm finishing post on our first feature film. Two different disciplines.

Animation editing is most influential in the pre-production/animatics phase. This is where the director, storyboard artists, and the editor build the visual sequence as a collaborative team. Once all that is figured out it goes to production. Post-production for the editor is simple assembly.

Feature narrative work is the exact opposite. Compared to animation, the editor really makes his/her impact at the end of the production process. And it's really a process of reduction. You're really shaping a film from pre-existing material (which can often be compromised by the realities of physical production). In a lot of ways, the editor is the final writer on the project whereas an animation editor is a member of the original writing team.

[sorry about the off topic stuff][/mybad]

OnTopicButSeeminglyNot [ie: OTBSN]:

You are not alone. Even if you get your billion dollars, like every Republican secretly believes they will, you will still not be alone, you are part of a civilization. Be a part of it. This why Warren Buffet deserves some respect: he actually finds it absurd that he pays less percentage in taxes than his secretary. It isn't about 'fairness' its about systems and balance.

VAT Germany 32% (Value added tax = sales tax) still not enough to pay for anything. people are still taxed up to 65% of their income. Social Security tax is also very high.
Business can write off VAT when purchasing for business use.

If people don't have $$ there is no consumption tax income.
How do you propose to payback the 11 Trill. debt with a consumption tax?
How high will this consumption tax be?
How will it be administered and what will this cost?
How will it be split between states?

If you put out a theses, please add a few numbers, math is truth.

Then maybe it's time to cut spending.

What's so often assumed is that spending must stay the same. The question is begged.

Personally, I want everyone to pay less taxes (have that money to spend on what they think is best for them and their families). I also want the government to spend less (this never seems to be an option). I also want the government to pile up less (none) debt (this never seems to be an option).

I'm in the minority.

Would you agree that if the progressive income tax truly paid for itself there wouldn't be an 11 trillion dollar debt with an additional 40-50 trillion in unfunded liabilities called Medicare and Social Security?

How can the system that generated the debt be considered sound?

Nick you are ignoring the fact that that is only one side of the puzzle...

Hardee. Accusations without explanations might be considered ad-homs. If you are going to accuse, please explain otherwise it is just a very convoluted way of declaring I don't get it.

Are accusations of ad homs ad homs?

Only because of the extremism and the belief in a one size fits all (extra small, in this case) model of government.

Different states have different social, political and economic issues they are dealing with. What is right for Switzerland is not necessary right for Norway and is not necessarily right for Taiwan is not necessarily right for Somalia and not necessarily right for the US.

Really, the dogmatic libertarian movement has more in common with dogmatic socialists and communists than they are able to recognize. In both cases the gross ignorance of the extremist dogmatic ideology is hidden behind layers of quasi-intellectualism that churns out single-perspective, one-sided arguments to bolster their agenda.

It's really unfortunate, too, since what could be a set of good arguments are hijacked and turned into simple-minded rhetoric.

Personally, I'm bearish on the US in the long run. It'll probably bounce back from this mess and the shock waves will likely dissipate, but the US is already trailing many other places in standard of living and there are serious ongoing social and political problems (inner city and rural/exurban anti-intellectualism, crime, widespread political support for abuse of power by police, increasing christianism, to just name few) that likely won't be resolved any time soon. Shifting power from the federal government to the states probably holds the most promise to help parts of the country, but the only people pushing it are extremists who gloss over all of the major issues that absolutely will (and, throughout history, have) come up, which indicates they won't be addressed and will, therefore, result in regional instability.