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Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

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Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#231

Post by psranga »

rsync wrote: post #194
vinhboy wrote: post #17

> Nobody likes paying high taxes, but I don’t mind. How refreshing. I agree with him. Paying my taxes is a point of pride for me. It's a repayment for all those years I was poor and the government paid for me to live and go to school.

"Nobody likes paying high taxes, but I don’t mind." I think there's an important distinction to be made between two different sorts of "high taxes". One is a high absolute amount of taxes - you made millions of dollars in a year and therefore your absolute tax payment is relatively quite high. The other is a high percentage tax rate. I don't mind paying a high absolute rate of taxes - I think that is the scenario in…

Is 50% your ETR if you only look at INCOME taxes (federal and state)? If so, you're probably an extreme outlier.

Or are you including payroll "taxes" (social security, medicare), sales taxes etc also?

IIUC, if you add up health insurance premiums (employer share + employee share) + all income taxes + all payroll taxes of US and compare it to the same quantity of other DEVELOPED countries, the tax burden on the US is not unreasonably high.

Keeping a developed country developed is hard/expensive. :)

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#232

Post by Bartweiss »

hammock wrote: post #219
appleiigs wrote: post #45

Debt conversations always have these weird grandpa rules of thumb and words of wisdom, as you can see in the other comments. The proper use of debt is to match the debt with the asset. If you are buying a house, a 25-year mortgage matches the value of the house. If you are buying a car, a 5-year loan matches the value of the car. If you are buying a sandwich with a credit card, well... you should pay off your credit…

So you are saying secured debt is good for lender AND debtor.

It's bizarre how much debt advice doesn't differentiate secured from unsecured. The two have commonalities on simple things like interest calculations, but they're very different in terms of risk and I get suspicious of advice that doesn't acknowledge that.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#233

Post by kion »

rsync wrote: post #194
vinhboy wrote: post #17

> Nobody likes paying high taxes, but I don’t mind. How refreshing. I agree with him. Paying my taxes is a point of pride for me. It's a repayment for all those years I was poor and the government paid for me to live and go to school.

"Nobody likes paying high taxes, but I don’t mind." I think there's an important distinction to be made between two different sorts of "high taxes". One is a high absolute amount of taxes - you made millions of dollars in a year and therefore your absolute tax payment is relatively quite high. The other is a high percentage tax rate. I don't mind paying a high absolute rate of taxes - I think that is the scenario in…

So don't look at it as percentages. Look at it as a question of how comfortable is your situation. I'm in roughly the same position as you tax wise. We pay slightly less, about 48%, to taxes of one form or another. However we're comfortable. Minus the mortgage we're debt free, our lifestyle isn't extravagant but we rarely can't do or have the things we want due to money. Solidly upper-middle-class (for SF).

I'm perfectly happy to pay more than most to support others, because I make more than most in income. I can't honestly say that in my day-to-day life I work harder than the person delivering the mail, or someone unloading crates. I was given the advantage of good and cheap education and a safe environment to grow up in (Marin) due in part to high taxes on the wealthy. I feel it's important to do what I can to return the favor.

I also strongly believe that those above a certain threshold of wealth, especially those who hoard that wealth, are doing damage to the economy through income inequality. If taxes are the means to undo some of that damage then again, I'm happy to contribute.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#234

Post by Bartweiss »

Theodores wrote: post #124

> I didn’t put anything aside, ever. Money came in, money went out. I was always a paycheck behind, at least. I usually owed my chef my paycheck: again, cocaine. Like I said, until I was 44, I never even had a savings account. Anyone who has ever spent any of their money on class 'A' drugs is not in any position to dispense any type of wise financial advice.

I mean... there's even a note to that effect at the top of the article. Bourdain says like five times that he makes decisions for convenience and security over efficiency.

This isn't advice on how to maximize your wealth, it's a personal account of how he lived and how debt and wealth influence him on an emotional level.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#235

Post by mfringel »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #192
thebooktocome wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sandy Rios, of American Family Radio, has indeed argued in the past that the Interstate Highway System was and is a waste of taxpayer dollars. So no, it's not a straw man. Some conservatives really do believe this.

> So no, it's not a straw man. Some conservatives really do believe this. Weak man vs. straw man. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweap...

You have found a pattern. Do you have a point you want to make?

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#236

Post by kion »

the_gastropod wrote: post #226
rsync wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nobody likes paying high taxes, but I don’t mind." I think there's an important distinction to be made between two different sorts of "high taxes". One is a high absolute amount of taxes - you made millions of dollars in a year and therefore your absolute tax payment is relatively quite high. The other is a high percentage tax rate. I don't mind paying a high absolute rate of taxes - I think that is the scenario in…

> my effective tax rate is 50% For this to be true, your income must be in the realm of $10 Million / year. If that's the case, congratulations—that is phenomenal. But pardon me for not crying you a river ;-)

Not if you include CA state taxes and property taxes. You can pretty easily hit 50% somewhere north of 250k, which for a 2 income household in the bay isn't outlandish.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#237

Post by coredog64 »

costcopizza wrote: post #227
rsync wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nobody likes paying high taxes, but I don’t mind." I think there's an important distinction to be made between two different sorts of "high taxes". One is a high absolute amount of taxes - you made millions of dollars in a year and therefore your absolute tax payment is relatively quite high. The other is a high percentage tax rate. I don't mind paying a high absolute rate of taxes - I think that is the scenario in…

I guess you could rationalize that with: During my 60 minutes of work I was able to: breath clean air, have potable water, be surrounded by an orderly society, and in the event of danger have access to emergency services.

I'd counter that all of that together represents a very small portion of that 50% overall tax rate.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#238

Post by Draiken »

This is an interesting story and all that, but honestly, he only got to the "debt free nirvana" after becoming rich and famous.

I pay my credit card, pay my taxes and my mortgage, but that takes almost all my money away. So if I look at it my net worth it is basically negative.

Only way I'll get to the debt free nirvana is if I get rich somehow. It's not a real choice. So the entire premise of the article is pretty weak.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#239

Post by lmm »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #184
callmeal wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually they are[1]. And if you want to consider things like roads, railways and other infrastructure -- think about how almost every private institution that built that infrastructure went bankrupt and had to be bailed out by the taxpayers. A lot of the "government is inefficient" talk comes from people who want all regulation to go away for their own benefit. A little searching will also show you a long list of pr…

> think about how almost every private institution that built that infrastructure went bankrupt and had to be bailed out by the taxpayers. Did they really, though? "Have to be" bailed out I mean. They were bailed out, yes, but... just as a thought experiment... perhaps we should have let them go under? Edit: Going bankrupt implies either mismanagement, failure to lower cost and increase margins, or the market does no…

> Did they really, though? "Have to be" bailed out I mean. They were bailed out, yes, but... just as a thought experiment... perhaps we should have let them go under?

Often they weren't bailed out; often their shareholders lost everything or very nearly. Nationalization was more akin to the government picking up the assets in a bankruptcy auction.

Re: Anthony Bourdain on not having debt

#240

Post by rsync »

the_gastropod wrote: post #226
rsync wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nobody likes paying high taxes, but I don’t mind." I think there's an important distinction to be made between two different sorts of "high taxes". One is a high absolute amount of taxes - you made millions of dollars in a year and therefore your absolute tax payment is relatively quite high. The other is a high percentage tax rate. I don't mind paying a high absolute rate of taxes - I think that is the scenario in…

> my effective tax rate is 50% For this to be true, your income must be in the realm of $10 Million / year. If that's the case, congratulations—that is phenomenal. But pardon me for not crying you a river ;-)

"For this to be true, your income must be in the realm of $10 Million / year."

No, the threshold is lower than that.

Of course I don't count assessed property tax, since that is based on assets, not income.

But I do count parcel taxes[1] which occur per-parcel, regardless of value. USA + CA + Marin County.

Note, I am not losing sleep over any of this and I don't identify myself as anti-tax, by any means. I just think it's worth considering that a qualitative change in taxation has occurred once you go north of the 40% number.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parcel_tax

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