# Duhbya's legacy. Corporate profits way up. Private income down. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 10, 2004, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474 "2004-10-10T15:35:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![LilShieste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/81 "2004-10-11T00:08:51Z")
> [@milroyj](#): > > You sure are fond of raising other people’s taxes, why is that? I’m going to respond to this (even though it wasn’t directed to me), and then I’m leaving all of these strawman arguments alone. When my wife and I start making enough money, to put us in the higher tax bracket (i.e. the top 1%), I will have no problem paying the higher taxes. According to [this site](http://www.ctj.org/html/gwbfinal.htm): The average tax cut of someone making $50,000 was $1,026. The average tax cut of someone making $200,000 was $2,744. The average tax cut of someone making $400,000 (actual top 1%) was $28,722. Do you actually not see something weird about those numbers? LilShieste ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/82 "2004-10-11T00:13:11Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > - The class warfare aspect of the “tax the rich until they bleed” philosophy bugs me as well. When did working hard and making money become something that is deserving of scorn or make one an acceptable target for extra fiscal penalties?\* > > This is empty rhetoric. Nobody around here (except maybe **Reeder** with his “crony” theories) is advocating class warfare or saying that we should “scorn” the rich. All we’re pointing out is that the current tax policies are bleeding the Treasury white, our national deficits and debt are unsustainable, and we can most painlessly and most efficiently restore some of the revenue by a modest tax increase on the segment of the population whose incomes have been increasing the most lavishly. See, I disagree. Where Bush fucked up was not in his tax cuts, they did indeed pull the counry out of the recession, it was in not cutting the spending of government at the same time. He increased spending. Some of that is allowable because 9/11 was an unplanned for and unforseeable event, but not nearly all of it. Now John Kerry tells me that he’s going to increase Government spending on things like health care and other social programs, while also compensating for Bush’s excess spending and bring the budget back into balance simplky by taxing the rich? Excuse me if this sounds like pandering to the middle class by saying “Don’t worry, we are going to go screw those rich guys, they deserve it, they’re rich”. ---
**Author:** ![LilShieste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/83 "2004-10-11T00:15:25Z")
> [@LilShieste](#): > > The average tax cut of someone making $50,000 was $1,026. > The average tax cut of someone making $200,000 was $2,744. > The average tax cut of someone making $400,000 (actual top 1%) was $28,722. Actually, before anyone accuses me of misleading people with these numbers, let me restate it to: The average tax cut of someone making $44,000-$72,000 was $1,026. The average tax cut of someone making $147,000-$373,000 was $2,744. The average tax cut of someone making $373,000, or more (actual top 1%) was $28,722. LilShieste ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/84 "2004-10-11T00:17:52Z")
> [@](#): > > Excuse me if this sounds like pandering to the middle class by saying “Don’t worry, we are going to go screw those rich guys, they deserve it, they’re rich”. Which is analytically different than pandering to the rich by offering them “tax relief” precisely how? ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/85 "2004-10-11T00:20:04Z")
> [@Mockingbird](#): > > Weirddave loves to criticize and talk out of his ass. He will speak the Bush party line as if it was reality. His delusions are so fucking deep, they could be mistaken for oceans. Hey, I finally made the Mockingbird snipe list. I feel so privileged to now be one of the posters whom you follow around just to insult. Maybe one of these days you can, you know, actually add something to the topic being discussed. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/86 "2004-10-11T00:23:53Z")
**Weirddave:** _Excuse me if this sounds like pandering to the middle class by saying “Don’t worry, we are going to go screw those rich guys, they deserve it, they’re rich”._ I’m afraid I can’t excuse you for that, because it makes no sense. **Nowhere** is anybody (certainly nobody in the Kerry campaign) saying “The rich deserve to be screwed”. Hell, Kerry himself is rich, by tax-cut-rollback standards! His wife is super-rich! They are suggesting hitting **themselves** with more taxes, not because they think they deserve to be screwed, but simply because we need to get the budget out of the desperate deep red, and the highest-income, most flourishingly prosperous people can best afford to bear the increased tax. As for your concern about health care spending, well, I see what you’re saying. But the fact is we **do** have a health-care-coverage crisis at this stage, with more and more people not being able to pay for insurance, and it’s bad for our health, medically as well as economically. You don’t happen to think the government should spend money to fix problems like this, but many people disagree. ---
**Author:** ![milroyj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@milroyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/milroyj)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/87 "2004-10-11T00:25:06Z")
> [@LilShieste](#): > > I’m going to respond to this (even though it wasn’t directed to me), and then I’m leaving all of these strawman arguments alone. > > When my wife and I start making enough money, to put us in the higher tax bracket (i.e. the top 1%), I will have no problem paying the higher taxes. > > According to [this site](http://www.ctj.org/html/gwbfinal.htm): > > The average tax cut of someone making $50,000 was $1,026. > The average tax cut of someone making $200,000 was $2,744. > The average tax cut of someone making $400,000 (actual top 1%) was $28,722. > > Do you actually not see something weird about those numbers? > LilShieste I don’t see anything weird about those numbers. The people who paid the most taxes got the biggest tax cut, which only makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/88 "2004-10-11T00:25:33Z")
> [@LilShieste](#): > > Actually, before anyone accuses me of misleading people with these numbers, let me restate it to: > > The average tax cut of someone making $44,000-$72,000 was $1,026. > The average tax cut of someone making $147,000-$373,000 was $2,744. > The average tax cut of someone making $373,000, or more (actual top 1%) was $28,722. > LilShieste I think I must be different from most people. I am in the first group. I got a tax break of $1,026. That’s a good thing for me, personally, and I don’t particularly care what type of tax break someone else got. Why should I? I tend to concern myself with me and my family, and I have a hard enough time doing that. Who cares what someone else got? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/89 "2004-10-11T00:32:01Z")
**Wd:** \* I don’t particularly care what type of tax break someone else got. Why should I? \* Because the income level towards which tax cuts are targeted makes a difference in their effectiveness at counteracting recession. Most economists agree that the most effective tax cuts during an economic downturn are those targeted to the middle and working classes, who spend most of their money rather than investing it, and who therefore get more income directly circulating in the economy faster. Nobody’s suggesting that you should be looking at the tax breaks of people in higher brackets in order to slaver over them with envy and resentful greed. But it’s economically smart to have an idea of where their major impact is, and there’s no question that Bush’s tax cuts were overwhelmingly targeted to the highest incomes. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/90 "2004-10-11T00:32:17Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > …I don’t particularly care what type of tax break someone else got. Why should I? I tend to concern myself with me and my family, and I have a hard enough time doing that. Who cares what someone else got? If this is an accurate statement of your beliefs, I have to wonder why you would participate in a thread like this at all. Why try to tell us how you think the economy as a whole is doing? Why not just start your own thread that reads, in its entirety, “Things are going well for **Weirddave**. Fuck everyone else.” ---
**Author:** ![LilShieste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/91 "2004-10-11T00:46:29Z")
> [@milroyj](#): > > I don’t see anything weird about those numbers. The people who paid the most taxes got the biggest tax cut, which only makes sense. Sorry, I think I was ambiguous (if not completely truant) in my point. 🙂 Since Bush keeps touting these Tax Cuts as being so great for the middle class, why is he so staunch in defending them against Kerry, when Kerry continuously says that he’s only going to be rolling back the tax cuts of the top 1%. The reason Kerry is doing this, is because that top 1% of the tax cuts actually account for almost 40% of the total revenue generated from the tax cuts. The problem I have with this is kind of touched upon, by **Weirddave**. > [@Weirddave](#): > > I tend to concern myself with me and my family, and I have a hard enough time doing that. Who cares what someone else got? While _you_ are not conerned about families that aren’t doing as well as yours, I am. Ones that don’t have health insurance, ones that don’t have jobs during this hard time. I understand that people have their own problems that they need to take care of (my family, myself, my bills, etc.), but I feel that the government should play a role is providing assistance to citizens who need it. I see that the government is running a huge deficit right now, while continuing to grant tax cuts. I also see that these tax cuts give a much higher percentage of revenue back to people who are “pretty well off” (that is, they have health insurance, jobs, and - I would bet - decent cars too), than to the “have-nots”. I see that some of this money can probably be used to help assist the people without health insurance, jobs, or _any_ cars. You, of course, see my finishing point. Now, I take offense to the statement “tax the rich 'til they bleed,” because that is _hardly_ what is being done, in a case like this. $500 goes a lot father for a family who makes $20,000/year than it does for a family that makes $200,000/year. If the people who make $200,000/year are taxed an additional $500, for their “higher income”, it more-than-likely will not cost them their mortgage. I concede that this is the “socialistic” side of me emerging, but I tend to think of it more as the “compassionate” side. LilShieste ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/92 "2004-10-11T03:38:35Z")
> [@LilShieste](#): > > I feel that the government should play a role is providing assistance to citizens who need it. I don’t, or at least not to any great extent. The Government’s role in life is to make sure that all citizens have a safe community to live in, with opportunity for each person to make as much of him or herself as they have the ability to, while providing a _temporary_ safety net for those who have fallen on hard times. That’s it. Everything else is up to the individual. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/93 "2004-10-11T04:05:56Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > I don’t, or at least not to any great extent. The Government’s role in life is to make sure that all citizens have a safe community to live in, with opportunity for each person to make as much of him or herself as they have the ability to, while providing a _temporary_ safety net for those who have fallen on hard times. That’s it. Everything else is up to the individual. I really do not see the difference between “providing assistance to citizens who need it” and “providing a _temporary_ safety net for those who have fallen on hard times.” ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/94 "2004-10-11T04:48:10Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > Yea, you seem to be trying to rub my face in the dirt simply because I’m not blindly buying into the idea that the economy sucks just because you say so. I’m pretty sure I quoted a government web site, while you’re telling me about your own personal well-being, so I think I come out at least slightly ahead in the cite game. Hell, I make excellent money, but I’m fully aware that the economy sucks eggs for a lot more people than it did 10 years ago, and that’s not anecdotal, it’s documented. To give you an example of how big of a mess we have right now, I have a 6 figure income, and the absolute best health insurance plan my company offers covers a maximum of 15K a year. Shit, I have no need for that kind of insurance, as I can self-insure myself better than that, so even though I have full time employment, and am supposedly covered by company benefits, I have to get private health insurance, and I’m one of those people who do not put any burden on the system, as I haven’t seen a doctor in years. My company health insurance back when I was making 30K a long time ago covered up to 5 million per year. My current employer is able to get away with it because they know that we’re smart enough to know that we’re luckier than shit to still have these positions, as the market is abysmal. For every anecdote you can come up with, I can come up with 10 to counter it. I can also, and did, come up with actual cites to show that it’s not freaking rosy out there. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/95 "2004-10-11T05:35:13Z")
I work for Company X part time. Last year Company X gave the CEO a six figure bonus. This year Company X told me and my fellow workers that wages on one of our projects would be cut by one third because the company was struggling financially. They also told us that desperately needed training would not be introduced. This from a non-profit organization. Taxed? Ha! Forget it. I think the CEO should be tarred and feathered. Those of you who don’t think the wages of your fellow citizens matter just as long as you’re doing well should save of much of your wages as you can. Because if you don’t give the rest of the country a stake in society you will need the money you’re not spending in taxes to finance fences and gates and alarms. Me? I’d rather have a strong middle class instead. And see Bush’s ass booted to South America where the kind of society he’s building is in full ugly sight. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/96 "2004-10-11T16:14:04Z")
> [@milroyj](#): > > Nice ploy, calling tax increases “tax cut rollbacks”, btw. :dubious: We learned it from you conservatives who borrow in lieu of taxes and call it “tax relief”. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/97 "2004-10-11T16:40:56Z")
Too many of these posts are saying one thing - “I got mine so to hell with you”. I wonder how righteous these people would feel and how the song would change, if the bottom dropped out for them too. **Just to invent and play with numbers** , if someone is taking home say $500,000 a year with full benefits and bonuses of every kind, a tax increase of $500 is not even noticed. To someone struggling to make $20,000 gross, with no benefits and one step away from eviction, $50 is a lot. It’s also pretty hard to feel sorry for a “small businessman” or corporate CEO who mismanages the company and then gives himself a new house, stock options and a bonus, and then tells his employees they will take a pay cut and carry their own insurance because “times are bad”, while oozing a take it or leave it attitude. I got mine, but that doesn’t make me blind. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/98 "2004-10-11T18:27:46Z")
> [@Kimstu:rolleyes:](#): > > Oh, for heaven’s sake, guys! Shall I come over there and peel you a grape, too? Here you go, you poor helpless darlings: Polar bear rug me, don’t bug me… Seriously, **Kimstu** there are quite a few of us out here who are search-engine impaired. I’ve had to bow out of more than one GD thread, knowing I was right, but, after phrasing a search a dozen different ways, and slogging through pages of links that were only tangentally related to my search topic, couldn’t find the actual information I was looking for. So, cut those of us who throw our questions out to the SDMB some slack. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/99 "2004-10-11T19:01:49Z")
Back to the rubbish quoted in the OP: > [@](#): > > The rise in the stock market over the last year reflects spectacular growth in profits but not a generally healthy economy nor sustainable growth. First, the rise in the stock market isn’t necessarily chained in lockstep with corporate profits. The value of any individual stock is determined by what investors are willing to pay to own a portion of that company and a relative measure of the demand for ownership in that corporation. Only one, of a large number of measures, a prospective investor may weigh when considering the purchase of a stock issue, is corporate profits. To make such a sweeping claim, however transparently it may be implied, as this article surely does, that the overall value of the stock market is directly and proportionally linked to corporate profits is an outright falsity. Now that article may be totally correct in its complaints about the massive rise in corporate profits reflecting, but its attempt to link those profits to the value of the stock market in such a bald and simple manner is egregious. Second, when the value of the stock market rises, the _shareholders_ are the winners. And according to what I heard last, over 60% of the households in America hold shares in the companies traded on the various stock markets. To call this phenomena a windfall for coprorations only is yet another falsity. It seems absurd to wail about an increase in the value of the stock market, when that increase also accrues to a large segment of the public. Third, the rise in the overall value of the stock market seen today is a fart in a windstorm in comparison to the internet bubble of the Clinton era. To bemoan a rise of a few percentage points over several years, while hailing the all-pigs-to-the-trough-gluttony of the Clinton era an “economic miracle,” is not only a falsity, but downright ludicrous. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474/100 "2004-10-11T21:31:43Z")
> [@UncleBeer](#): > > Second, when the value of the stock market rises, the _shareholders_ are the winners. And according to what I heard last, over 60% of the households in America hold shares in the companies traded on the various stock markets. To call this phenomena a windfall for coprorations only is yet another falsity. It seems absurd to wail about an increase in the value of the stock market, when that increase also accrues to a large segment of the public. Looks like a lotta rubbish is goin’ round here. Sure, a lot of Americans are officially “in” the stock market, but in many cases their investments are negligible and have little effect on their lives. Frex, a lot of employees own very minimal amounts of stock for the firms they work for … it’s a cheap benefit for the company, since few employees do anything with it. Many others are shareholders only in the sense that their retirement funds are managed by people who put the money in the stock market. Unless the stocks in question fail spectacularly, a la Enron, or succeed fantastically (no examples spring to mind immediately) few of these “stockholders” have much to lose or to gain from the stock market’s gyrations. Your post makes it sound as if 60 percent of Americans’ personal fortunes are directly linked to the stock market – I just don’t buy it. More like 5 or 10 percent at most, I bet. > [@](#): > > Third, the rise in the overall value of the stock market seen today is a fart in a windstorm in comparison to the internet bubble of the Clinton era. To bemoan a rise of a few percentage points over several years, while hailing the all-pigs-to-the-trough-gluttony of the Clinton era an “economic miracle,” is not only a falsity, but downright ludicrous. Yeah, but in the Clinton years, the tendency of the rich to surge ahead of the middle class and the poor was slowed down, and the middle class and the poor’s lot actually improved. This can’t be said of the Republican economy. So once again, you’re not putting the apples with the oranges. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duhbyas-legacy-corporate-profits-way-up-private-income-down/268474.md?page=6)