Maeglin, whatever. I never said your definiton was esoteric. I don’t think we need to prolong this hijack.
Opinions are not incorrect. Sometimes facts are. You wouldn’t know a fact if it bit you in the ass. The fact is that the government runs off of the social security program, which only taxes up to $102,000. The fact is that the government owes trillions of dollars to the social security trust fund. How Much Money is in the Social Security Trust Fund? | Newsburglar
It is your opinion that everybody is taxed too high, but you have no opinion on the fact that people who make over $102,000 per year pay substantially less marginally in taxes than people making less. That is a fact. Now this calculation definitely includes payroll taxes. But to the little guy, it is a tax. And at least the payroll tax goes to things the non-rich like and need. Trillions are wasted on debt service and military that is far above any level necessary for the defense of the US. Unlike a true libertarian, you never mention this military waste. All your emphasis in on how it is bad to have social benefits: you don’t give a damn about the people those benefits help and the fact that they paid in specifically for those benefits.
You cannot waive it away be simply denying it exists. You are getting your butt handed to you in this thread and in the poor people thread because you know nothing about the facts, ignore that there are vast swaths of the population that have paid taxes all their lives to support benefits that you would like to wipe out because it fits with your fantasy theory of the world. You would prefer the world without these government programs, but the majority has preferred them for 70 years. You are utterly prepared to abandon the will of the majority that enacted these programs (and in fact super majorities were necessary to enact them) and think that it would be swell to sweep aside for the benefit of less than 1 percent of the population. Plutocracy. There are in fact countries that run that way. But you won’t move to them and become a citizen of them because your skill is useless (or next to useless) in those countries. The only reason your skill is useful in the United States is because has a complex tax code. That is utterly at odds with your libertarian self, but I don’t see your libertarian self arguing for eliminating or even reducing deductions so that the less rich can pay less of a share, you want that complexity and your whining about how it is unfair to raise taxes on rich people to the same marginal rate as poor people. You say you support progressive graduated income tax, but you bill eight hours a day in opposition to exactly that. The middle class and the poor not only don’t have the deductions you have, but they don’t have the ability to hire someone like you to help shelter their income because these programs are only for the affluent.
Every dollar that you save one of your clients is a dollar that the US government will still spend, and they will raise it through debt. And every work around the tax system by a skilled tax lawyer means that in the future that debt will fall on people who will be paying taxes in the future and not on the people who legally avoid paying. What you spend your life doing is shifting taxes onto people who can least afford it.
We all make choices as to what we do with our time. My best subject in law school was taxes, as far as grades were concerned. I was well aware that I could make more money with less risk and work in the tax field than in litigation and trials. But there were three reasons I didn’t pursue tax at all: 1) it only helps the rich at the expense of the poor when viewed on the macro level; 2) and tax lawyers have the most boring possible job in the whole damn world; and 3) trial work is where all the excitement is and tax lawyers are just glorified bean counters.
Small-time trial work is for those better at talking than thinking, as you are amply demonstrating in this thread.
Meh, I actually think the way people think about value is pretty important, especially since you assert your value pretty confidently. But if it’s not that important to you, ok then.
Are you trying to make partner, have you made partner already? Whats your billable rate. Is your nanny a live in or out? Was the process hard or long to get insurance to cover yourself and your family in the event of your death or disability to maintain your lifestyle?
From reading your posts (at least from when you first arrived on the board) you appear to believe that, given any circumstances, no matter how impoverished, anyone can pull themselves up to a level of wealth equal to yours through hard work.
To me, this is an ivory tower point of view. Not just slightly ivory tower, but grossly, ethnocentrically, and most importantly ignorantly.
I believe the cure for this is to see the other side: not just where you live - you have said you’re from a relatively impoverished background, albeit in the US, so not that bad really - but in other parts of the world.
So my questions are: do you feel that your strongly held views as paraphrased above are immutable? Have you ever spent any time in a developing country? Have you ever got to know people from truly impoverished circumstances? Finally, if not, would you concede that this knowledge might give you a different perspective?
Are you happy overall? I’ve known people with lots of money who are absolutely miserable.
Do you think that some sort of redistribution of wealth is needed to keep the US from
becoming like Haiti or Mexico, where a few wealthy people live like kings and the most live poverty?
Since the wealthy are just a few percent of the population and you live in a democracy isn’t it inevitable that the masses will vote to take more of your money?
Since you think gov. spends/taxes too much what programs would you like to see cut/eliminated?
Do I ask too many questions?
I absolutely do not believe this. I do believe that almost anyone can at least take care of themselves so they aren’t a drain on anyone else.
Also, on the last part of your post, my wife is from a third-world country and I have visited it at least a dozen times. I don’t wanna say which one.
I am sure your wife is great. But damn, dude, you have got to stop giving us straight lines like this.
Do you see yourself in your current profession or field until you retire or do you have plans to do something else?
Also, good on you for not spending every penny you earn. You could easily have a ZR1 (lust) in the garage, yet you choose to drive a Highlander. Keeping the expenses way below the income helps make you recession-proof. This applies at every income level.
Advice: DO NOT test drive the 2010 Porsche Cayman S PDK or you will likely end up with one in your garage!
I made partner; about $600 per hour; out;no.
Yes I’m happy.
I don’t know whether any redistribution is necessary. I haven’t given much thought to the matter. If it is, that doesn’t mean the government should be the agent of redistribution.
Yes–that is definitely a problem and very much explains the increasing size of government over the years. I mean, can you imagine me trying to give a campaign speech? I would probably incite a riot.
Everything except for what I view as the legitimate activies of the government, which are things like military, police, courts, roads, etc.
I’ll be doing this until retirement.
Living in Chicago helps out in the car department–that Cayman would only really be usable half the year. It does look pretty sweet though (guess I’ll save that one for the mid-life crisis).
You wouldn’t know, you don’t try cases. And I’m not the person who has held up my personal condition as an example for public policy. And you analytical skills are pretty well demonstrated in your two current threads if not past threads. You are unable to come up with citations other than your own experience and unable to understand opinions other than your own. Your entire posting history is ipse dixit.
You don’t address that your work is absolutely contrary to your beliefs. You spend your life shifting the tax burden to people who can afford it less, yet say they and everybody should be taxed less. Your work increases their tax and national debt burden.
You call taxes redistributing. They sure as hell don’t “redistribute” to the middle and poor from the rich. Taxes (when all taxes are put together) are raised at a regressive rate. A fact that you do not bother disputing. The money is spent with wealthy companies and to federal employees. Less than 1 percent of the US budget is money to direct aid. Social security owns more of the US debt than any other creditor, over $4 trillion. Most of the US budget by far is military, going not to salaries, but to weapons manufacturers (the rich) and to service the debt in interest. The debt interest and the military budget go to the rich, not the middle class, not the poor. That is redistributing, but from the poor to the rich. The same why it has been for every civilization that has had taxes. Rich people get tax receipts in the long run, not poor or middle class people.
What you are objecting to is middle class and poor people getting any tax receipts, even those collected under the payroll tax where they were promised the benefits. People should be back in beneficial governmental spending what they put in.
As for your assertion that virtually everyone can take care of themselves, you concede the point with the use of the word “virtually”. We are only arguing about the number of people who need no assistance whatsoever. I concede that there are people who are so wealthy that they need no government assistance and never under any circumstances will. Your argument requires that nobody need that help. Not one. Even you don’t believe that there is not one. Turns out that even Brooke Astor wasn’t one of them. Worth hundreds of millions and over 100 years old she had to rely on the public administrator to get back the money her son stole because she was without money, naked, cold and suffering dementia. Almost all Americans are at risk of this. And the vast majority are far more vulnerable than Mrs. Astor was. They cannot rely on the public administrator and prosecutor to make their case a cause celeb. It happens thousands of times all over the country every day: trustees abuse their authority and people wind up dying neglected. And it is the exception that something is done about it. And that is only one of countless ways that put a typical citizen at risk.
The developmentally challenged? The injured? You are 33 you say. You’ve spent the last several years working hard at being a New York tax lawyer for wealthy foreign real estate investors. You have full benefits and disability insurance. Most people don’t.
But the time line you create means that don’t know anything what it is like to for most people. You’ve been in school or in a law office or library. You’ve spent no time in the real world.
You insist that your view is the one people here should adopt because it is best for them. Most people here disagree, and even fewer agree with you in the population at large. You say that you know what is better for everybody and what is in their best interests, despite having spent all your time in school and a law office. Everybody else should just accept your opinion of what is best for them and adopt your position. The implication is that if people adopt your opinions that they will get rich like you. Most of us (including those of us who are rich) know better. You are asking people to ignore their own opinions on their interests and adopt yours because it will help them. No. It will help you directly. We’ve seen 30 years of trickle down economics of borrow and spend and give public money to the rich and defer the taxes to the future. It has only hurt and made people more vulnerable.
Even Greenspan, Ayn Rand’s personal acolyte, has now said that her prescriptions are mistaken. Most of us recognized when we first encountered the kind of sociopathic narcissim of Rand exactly what it was and why self-regulation would put the economy as a whole and public health and well-being at risk. Randians think caring about the economic and public welfare is evil.
Fucking hell that is funny. I didn’t even read your post and it made me laugh.
That wasn’t really my question. What I was trying to ask is whether you think your particular job requires some exceptional ability compared to other jobs that pay less? Or does it just happen that job pays well?
You’re a big Ayn Rand fan, right? Do you see yourself as some sort of Hank Rearden?
I don’t think it’s really fair to put the burden of saving every third world starving baby on anyone who has the means to buy a cup of coffee or an extra Gap sweater.
Do you mean that I hope that someday they will say that Rand Rover’s small heart grew three sizes this day?
No.
Well, what do you think? Do people generally pay $30 if they can buy the same thing for $20 (all else being equal)? No, they don’t. I get paid more, so I guess I’m giving them more.
No I don’t. Which is the point, compensation is not the same as the value of work done.
I used to work in a quality control lab in a manufacturing plant. People on the floor earned about $25/hr with good benefits. Another factory in town paid about $7/hr with no benefits. Are the labors of people in factory 1 worth 4-5x more than factory 2? No.
So why do I make more than a burger-flipper? Just random luck? I guess any random burger-flipper could apply for my job and then he’d be making as much as I do?
It’s difficult to gage on the individual scale. But generally speaking, a wage is nothing more than a price. It is determined by supply and demand. As it should be.
If we assume a perfectly competitive market, every person is paid exactly what they should be paid. If Rand Rover is paid $500K/year, then that’s what he *should *be paid. If I am paid $10K/year, then that’s what I *should *be paid.
Again, this assumes a perfectly competitive market with perfect information flow. If we believe wages are not what they “should” be, we should fix the problem by making it easier for companies and individuals to compete (e.g. reduce regulation & taxes), *not *redistribute wealth (which is nothing more than plunder & theft).
My friend works in legal aid. Do you think the poor deserve legal representation? In your view is my friend just another drain on the system?
If you open an “ask the” thread, it behooves you to read the posts of the people who are asking you things. Not reading, and laughing at them without reading, is jerkish behavior.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator