Cite? The generation that I grew up in 40 odd years ago didn’t subsidize the poor - we expected everyone to be responsible for themselves.
Thanks Voyager -
I thought it was lower but tax information is dated quickly and I was using information from a book that came out a few years ago. The new ceiling still exempts the highest wage earners with earnings that far exceed $102,000. The 102,000 to 250,000 income range takes a beating in taxes, too. This is the income level I would consider upper middle class, but it is a shrinking wage group and represents the bottom of the top ten percent of wage earners.
Shrug - I don’t know. I was born poor, my parents made it to lower middle class by the time I left them at 18 when I went back into poverty and now I am back to middle class. I’ll take the level of taxes and personal responsibility in the 50’s (tho not a whole lot else) over today. As for who is financially secure, no one is absolutely but there is a huge grey area between that and just blithering thru life without bothering to save, plan ahead, create a retirement plan, etc.
And yet, I raised two brothers.
I don’t care when you have your kids as long as you don’t expect me to pay for them. That is the absolute bottom line. There is no other lifestyle choice in this world that I am required to pay for other than children. You want a boat and can’t afford it? Tough. You want a McMansion, a cruise, a mistress? Pay for them yourself. You want five kids? Oh, no problem, the government will cover it by giving you money from taxpayers. And don’t give me that “we can’t punish the innocent children” stuff. If you all didn’t know that the government would cover your children if something happened, you might not be so quick to have them when you cannot afford them. Or take chances with your finances when you actually can afford them.
What have your kids contributed to society?
Because? This is 2009, not six years ago.
Exactly, and no. Yes, there weren’t any designer label clothes back then, at least not available to the general public. This is something that the clothing industry has created as a “need” today, so that parents are essentially forced to pay much more for their childrens’ clothes than they should have to. Which brings us to your second idea - if you think that everything is designer label now, you have really been brainwashed. I don’t think I own one thing that is “designer” in any form of the word - my clothes are purchased by price and fit and I probably pay less than $500 a year on clothes. In Southern California. And I live right next to South Coast Plaza. Designer clothes are not a necessity.
She doesn’t text? My “family” plan is $70 a month for two phones with unlimited range and minutes - how much is yours? And I actually think that is expensive and I’m going to cut it back if I can.
Oh piffle - I said flat screen TVs. You know, the latest toy that everyone has to have? And why the ignoring of the big expense, the family car? What is up with people spending $30,000 - $50,000 for a car to haul the kiddies around in? When did simple station wagons and mini vans go out of style with the middle class?
Then your experience is much different than mine. When I was growing up, the fast food places had almost an all teenager work force; now it is part retirees, part people who cannot get a better job and a few teenagers. Maybe this is just a S Cal thing.
Long distance phone calls back in the day were a luxury. Cell phones are almost always a luxury.
We still pay every month for our land line, but I don’t remember ever renting a phone.
Yes. How can you say otherwise? Are your glasses so rosy that you are sure that such a child will grow up happy, healthy and to be a productive member of society? I don’t know what the mixed race marriage has to do with it, but without a father and being on food stamps means it is really likely that child isn’t going to go anywhere at all, unless Mom has support from family members who are not also in poverty.
Oh please. Just because you think children are the best thing since sliced bread doesn’t mean that children don’t grow up to be serial murders, slum lords, drug dealers, politicians, ambulance chasers or welfare sucks. And even if you want to look at every baby as if it is going to grow up to cure cancer, why in the world would you want any of those babies to be born in a slum to a drug addicted abusive prostitute? Or to be one of 14 with only a single mother to care for you? Or into a religion that looks on children as either proof of manhood or gifts from God, and not because the parents actually wanted kids?
Hell, look at my own parents - eventually, when I was 9, my father graduated law school and when I was 19 my mother got her MBA. In between all of that was the apartment with the mice in the silverware drawer, the bickering about money, the homelessness (sort of - we lived with my grandmother) when I was 10 and on and on. I should not have been born! It was not in any way fair to bring myself and my first brother into that situation, but back then there was no reliable birth control and I believe abortion was still illegal. OTOH, they had me by accident but my brother on purpose. Why? Even tho the dollar bought more back then, what loving parent brings not one but two children into an apartment overrun by mice and at a time when my father was only barely employed?
And then as we got older, why have two more kids? There was no money to send any of us to college, so I never went, my eldest brother went when he could afford to pay for it himself @ 30 years of age, my second brother went to trade school @ 25, and brother number three has just a GED. My parents now have a nice home on Lake Sammammish and go on vacations overseas every year. Brother one is doing well finally, at 50 years of age. I married up, and the other two brothers are doing “OK”. Not all parents think their children are “precious possibilities” and we were raised in the days when people were encouraged to be responsible for their own children and choices.
Have you forgotten that as a child, you cost other people money for some 12 years?
Children aren’t a lifestyle choice, they’re a national resource.
Yes, my parents, who made the choice to take on that expense. I’m not talking about general taxes that cover things like schools, I’m talking about all of the tax money that goes to provide food and shelter for children whose parents can’t take care of it, or cannot be bothered. Whether or not I should have to pay thousands of dollars a year to support my local school system was done in another thread and is not the subject here. All I am talking about is the money I pay to keep other peoples’ kids alive and reasonably healthy.
No, they are not, particularly in the case of people who have more than one child. We are very overpopulated and are having trouble supporting the number of people we have here already, both in the physical and financial sense. Children, while they are children, are a burden on society and their parents, and there is no guarantee that any given child will grow up to be a worthwhile contributor to society, to pay back what they took out while growing up.
Having children is a choice, and an extremely selfish one at that. It is also not only the only lifestyle choice I am required to pay for, it is also the only one that people freak out about if I don’t want to pay! I have been run (almost literally) into the ground by people having as many children as they please no matter what their financial or emotional state is, and I need to get a break. Nope, no break, I gotta keep feeding and clothing and putting roofs over the heads of very poor children and now you want me to provide medical care for them and those of working parents who don’t have insurance for whatever reason. When all of my retirement funds and that of my husbands are gone and we are living on Social Security and Medicare, will you be happy then? After all, it was for the children…
Sorry to be so long in returning to this discussion, but…just wanted to respond anyway.
Our family provider for many years was a Naturopath (and an osteopath, Chiropractor, and an MD). I liked him because we got on well, both personally and in our general approach. He was actually a lot more “medically” inclined than I was, but always willing to work with me and respect my opinions and able, at the same time, to offer alternatives. He was actually educated about herbal and homeopathic approaches, unlike most MDs but also able to do the medical thing as needed. He could say, well, I can prescribe an antibiotic for that ear infection or something homeopathic or we can do nothing and just monitor it.
As for the “placebo” effect (or is that the “gazebo” effect, I forget…either way, if it works, what’s the problem? :D) I have found personal, emphirical evidence to support homeopathic remidies in some cases, so I don’t poo-poo them. This same Dr. prescribed me some killed staph homeopathic nosodes for a recurring skin condition I’d had on and off for a decade and seen several Drs for to no avail and even though I failed to take them as prescribed and had absolutely NO faith they would work (why I didn’t take them as often or long as prescribed) they knocked that shit out in 24 hrs anyway and it NEVER came back! This was like, 15 yrs ago. A few other examples I won’t go into, having already done so on some other thread here.
My midwife (this same Dr’s wife, ftr) was a “lay” midwife, not “properly trained” by some standards, but she was fantastic. More than 1,500 deliveries under her belt (well, actually under someone else’s…only 5 under her own, lol) and pretty conservative medically speaking compared to many lay midwives. She taught midwifery and ran her own birth center. I liked and trusted her and like him, she always respected my preferences UNLESS she felt strongly they posed some serious risk, in which case she would advocate strongly/insist. But she was more educated about and open to many things that so many are not, ime, so it worked out. 
While I don’t agree with the “cradle to grave” medicalized approach so common in the US lately, I DO agree that we need to open routine care, both medical and “alternative” (which represents anything other than drugs or surgery) care to everyone so that IF there is some significant symptom/concern, people can go and have it checked out or treated rather than let it fester. Yes, most things heal on their own, but some require some form of intervention before they get advanced or fatal. And such availability would reduce costs overall. (as long as it went along with education and policies stressing recognition of what constitutes something worth seeing a Dr about…I know SO many otherwise intelligent people who see a Dr for every cold, and many employers demand a Drs note for any sick day, as if every sickness requires a Dr! :smack: So, better I come in with the flu or a cold and infect everyone because I can’t afford a day off w/o pay AND a DR bill for something she/he can’t help me with anyway? When the Dr will just say, go home, drink fluids and sleep? My Granny told me the same for free. STUPID.)
I would settle for a happy medium…freedom of choice and a less invasive, less medicalized approach combined with basic routine, emergency coverage for all. No one should have to die for want of basic health/medical care. They shouldn’t even have to get close to it. Nor should their choice be foregoing care or putting their family into inoperable debt.
I have doubts as to whether such a glorious compromise will ever happen in this country, but I remain hopeful and open to less than perfect proposals.
Not if you had money you wouldn’t. In the 1950s the highest marginal tax rate was 90% (Cite.) Even someone like me, who believes in eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the rich, think this was way too high.
Except for the very richest of us, no one can be sure. You save money for your kids’ education during the 17 years it takes for them to get to college - no one has it when they are born. (Again, except for rich people.)
cough cough A boatload of taxes when my older daughter was 12 and working in TV. My younger one organized a condom give away at college (I’m sure you’d approve.) My older one is in grad school, working on ways of incentivizing people to save energy voluntarily. My younger one wants to spend some time with Teach for America when she graduates. I could go on. (You asked for it. 
)
Evidence that this has changed dramatically in six years? From what I’ve read, the trend is continuing.
The difference is that even store brands are disguised to look like designer labels today, though the are no different from the EJ Kovette’s stuff I bought when I was a kid. Old Navy, for instance, is not expensive. I think my older daughter probably spent more than $500 this year on clothes - but she got married. I doubt if any of us come anywhere near that most years. Sure there are some kids who spend too much, but I think they got their inspiration from Sex and the City.
About $95 for 3 phones, and unlimited free calling to other people on the same network, which is about everyone we ever call. She has unlimited texting, very cheap, which is in the $95. Given the number of free minutes we rack up (our phone bill looks like War and Peace) I consider it a hell of a bargain.
I don’t remember seeing flat screen TVs in 1960. We just bought one, after our old TV conked out after only 10 years - and it was $1100 for 46 inches. Really, not much more relatively speaking than much dumber and smaller TVs when I was a kid. We could have gotten one much cheaper, but someone has to support the economy.
I’m just reporting what the kids do. I don’t doubt you, and I think it is a shame that someone retired has to work in a place like that.
You wouldn’t think so if you had a kid and could feel comfortable that if anything happened she could call for help.
As a former Bell System employee, I can assure that that before divestiture you rented. It was basically illegal to own a phone and connect it to the network up until the '70s, I think.
Only to the White House.
You realise that you sound really selfish when you whnge about supporting poor children? Especially since you make it sound like you take every penny of your own earnings, buy the food personally and bottlefeed the babes yourself.
As to retirement funds - if there are no kids, then there will be no retirement funds. Where do you think that future money’s going to come from? It’s going to come from future investments in businesses run by people who are now children, and from the money they will be paying in. It isn’t a savings account that you can automatically withdraw from - it’s an investment fund. Hell, even the value of savings accounts depends on enough people working to stop inflation running riot. If everyone stopped having kids, you could kiss your retirement fund goodbye and accept that you’ll be working till you drop.
He’s selfish? Surely, then, the people who are actually taking other people’s money without their permission, rather than just resenting getting the short end of the stick, must be even more selfish?
But you are still missing the broad picture. As pointed out, in the 1950s there was a 91% marginal tax rate on the highest wage earners. This not only funded the public sphere, it lessened the tax burden on low and modest wage earners making it easier to provide for children and purchase health insurance. Incidentally, health insurance was nonprofit until the 1970s.
Who does that again? The same people who take my money without permission for Iraq? Oh, wait, we’re in a democracy and because the bill you don’t like doesn’t pass doesn’t mean you are being oppressed.
I’d have had to made $400,000 to get that high of a percentage, and that was a heck of a lot of money in the 50’s!
What does college have to do with it? I’m talking about people who cannot be bothered to save any money, who have children knowing they are living on the edge, who go out and buy a bunch of stuff on credit without any real idea how they are going to pay that debt off.
Do you think your children are average then?
Later marriage? Nothing conclusive, just that there are so many extremely young parents around here. Maybe they aren’t married!
I don’t really care where the inspiration is from, the children here wear things like DKNY & $90 Guess jeans, little kids have pierced ears with lots of earrings as well as necklaces and bracelets (now that I think of it, the issue seems to be mostly the girls). And, for some reason, the charities more and more are requiring the donations be new, as if the people they serve would be insulted by wearing used clothing or their kids playing with used toys.
It is still a luxury.
The point I am making is that in the 50’s and 60’s, a TV of any kind wasn’t a “requirement” for happiness. At first it was a luxury, then it was something that the middle class purchased when they could afford it (ie, not on time). The first one my parents had was a hand me down from my grandparents, when I was about seven. Nowdays, not only does everyone “have” to have a TV, they generally have more than one, they put them in their kids’ rooms and they buy all the latest gadgets and upgrades like that flat screen, HD, DVD players, and cable with all the bells and whistles. Mostly on time.
I don’t know if they have to or not - they may just want to get out of the house, or earn a bit more money for extras. The thing is, around here we cannot get the teenagers to take those jobs any more, our fast food places are frequently hiring.
She is frequently someplace with no phones at all?
Ah. Well, I didn’t go out on my own until 1975, and didn’t have a phone for a couple of years after that, so I missed the joy of renting a phone.
Uh huh. Happens all the time.
I see. It’s selfish to want to be able to use the money that I and my husband have worked for lo, these past decades rather than hand it to other people who have done zero to earn it?
Bull. We do not in any way intend to live on Social Security. I have two pensions, my husband has two pensions and he is working on number three. We also have investments that we will draw on after we retire - provided we don’t have to draw on them before then to pay our taxes. Children have nothing to do with any of that, other than the ones we are supporting thru our taxes.
Poor people’s children? Uh huh.
Did I say “everyone” stop having children? Did I even insinuate it? Of course not.
No, I’m not missing the broad picture. It doesn’t matter how much tax the rich paid back then, none of it went to support me directly.
And even if it did, we should keep making the same mistake over and over?
Don’t you understand how pensions and investments work? I wasn’t talking about social security, I was talking about private pensions. They’re going to be affected by a lower population just as much as state pensions are.
OK, you explain it - without trying to claim that the population will suddenly drop by hundreds of thousands in the next 10 years. Do it using realistic projections not “you say to quit having so many children, this is what will happen if no one has any”.
Who said it was a mistake? (Besides you). It is a benefit to society to ensure everyone has access to a minimal level or care, be it food, housing or medicine. Would you rather homeless people be living on your porch on in shelters? How about the poor mugging you instead of collecting welfare?
For the most part, I actually agree with the idea that people should take responsibility for themselves, and letting the market sort things out. That said, shit happens and you can’t always plan for it. That’s why I believe in having a social safety net. Some might abuse it, but I consider that better than letting the unfortunate fall.
I keep flashing to this image I saw in Bern, where a literal safety net had been attached to a wall because of people killing themselves by jumping off. I suppose an argument could be made that they should be allowed to fall, but then the people on the street below would get to wake up to a dead person outside their front door. I see Medicare and Welfare the same way–I’d rather help people climb back up than clean the splat off the sidewalk.
I see. Instead of poor people working their way up in life the hard way, they are going to mug me unless I give them more and more of my money thru taxes?
Right now, everyone does have access to a minimal level of care, food, housing and medicine. The problem is, it’s never enough. It’s never been the idea that people live for long periods of time on government assistance, but that is what has happened and now, during yet another recession, we are supposed to give more.
UHC isn’t a social safety net.