231–240 of 288 posts
"The decline of traditional pension plans and rising education levels, which are associated with less physically demanding jobs, may both help explain why the elderly are working longer." Nice spin there, NYT.
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Or unglamorous jobs would be paid very well, and garbagemen would be able to work a 2-hour day and spend the rest of their time as they please.
Why would that happen? By what mechanism?
It makes perfect sense that you don't know this since you seem completely misinformed about capitalism, judging by what you've said here in other replies:
> "The whole foundation of capitalism is growth"
The foundation of capitalism is savings, which is something current mainstream Economics thinks is evil (it only recognizes investment and consumption as good things to do with money, and saving is bad for Keynesians because they think if you know the price of food will be cheaper tomorrow, you won't eat today).
> "Yeah, [ever increasing consumption and resources being finite are] the inherent contradiction of capitalism"
Capitalism needs resources to be scarce in order to be a coherent system. Communists are the ones to whom resources being finite (and hence creating the need for a system of allocation of those resources, namely the price system in Capitalism) is a contradiction, which is why it never works (without price there's no way to know where to allocate resources).
Seriously, read up on Capitalism.
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> Basically, if you want to do a startup, you had better not be poor or uneducated. Robert Herjavec would disagree with you, as would Sam Walton, Andrew Carnegie, Li Ka-shing, and dozens more who overcame poverty and a lack of education via hard work and common sense (and yes, a bit of luck in some cases) to become successful businessmen.
I wouldn't go so far as the post you're replying too (I think you can do a startup without all the advantages named, but your risk looks different). However, I think you are falling into the trap of identifying outliers and then trying to reason about the general case from it - it's pretty hard to use that to say anything more that "it's possible for X to happen, because it happened here, and here."
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I think the reason they excluded those in the military is to allow an apples-to-apples comparison through time. It could be argued that the large number of draftees through the early 1970's forced some otherwise nonemployed into employment.
I think you are right, but I think they are wrong for doing it given the importance of the military in a lot of regions and the military being a known career path for many young males.
Your warm feelings about it notwithstanding.
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> Basically, if you want to do a startup, you had better not be poor or uneducated. Robert Herjavec would disagree with you, as would Sam Walton, Andrew Carnegie, Li Ka-shing, and dozens more who overcame poverty and a lack of education via hard work and common sense (and yes, a bit of luck in some cases) to become successful businessmen.
The single best advice I ever received is "Think probabilities, not possibilities." I'm not denying that it is possible that an illiterate girl from a low-income family in Mali could overcome every obstacle and build a successful start-up. But how much would you bet on that happening? Do you also think that her success will negate the hardships that other folks in her position face?
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> Basically, if you want to do a startup, you had better not be poor or uneducated. Robert Herjavec would disagree with you, as would Sam Walton, Andrew Carnegie, Li Ka-shing, and dozens more who overcame poverty and a lack of education via hard work and common sense (and yes, a bit of luck in some cases) to become successful businessmen.
I am intrigued by the way you think. Do you play poker? Our monthly tournament is always looking for new players...
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Why would that happen? By what mechanism?
Supply and demand. If no one wants to do a job, that employer will need to offer more, raising the demand, since supply is low. It makes perfect sense that you don't know this since you seem completely misinformed about capitalism, judging by what you've said here in other replies: > "The whole foundation of capitalism is growth" The foundation of capitalism is savings, which is something current mainstream Economics…
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This sounds crazy to me. Maybe you're living in a place with a really high cost of living? What's included in "services, utilities, fees, and taxes that you pay when earning $100k" ?
It's completely bonkers when you lay it all out there. On $100k of family of 4 household income... it's a combination of actively paying taxes, and missing out on credits; Payroll taxes* = $ 15,300 Federal income taxes = $ 6,500 CA income taxes = $ 4,000 ACA Subsidy = $ 12,000 Food Stamps = $ 8,000 EITC = $ 5,000 Disability = up to $30,000 if applicable Energy credits = ??? Housing credits = ??? Waived fees = ??? Som…
- You can't subtract the opportunity cost of not working from your income when you make $115k, because you've made the decision to work and earn that salary. - The EITC is for people who work (hence the "earned" part). If you chose to go exclusively on govt assistance, your max EITC is $11 for a family of 4: http://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/Earned-Income-Tax-Credit-Do-...
- I don't doubt that there is a measurable amount of disability insurance abuse, but the fact remains that you probably have a disability that prevents you from doing child care. The poor still often have to pay for childcare. In any case, the average annual benefit for a family of 4 comes to about $24k, not $30k: http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfacts/stat_snapshot/
Subtracting the opportunity cost of not working from vs working at 115300k muddies the comparison. It's more sensible to compare the two scenarios separately:
115300-15300(payroll tax)-6500(fed tax)-4000(CA tax)-8000(foodstamp equivalent food cost)-2600(typical employee cost for PPO-health program)= 78900
vs.
12000(ACA)+8000(food stamps)+11(per EITC comment above)+24000(per disability citation above) = 44011
Even this comparison isn't apples to apples. In the $100k figure, are you accounting for the employer paid portion of health-insurance (and the lower rates that those in a employer-negotiated plan pay?), any tax-free employer retirement plan contributions, and other pre-tax benefits (DCAP, flex-spending account, employee health insurance contributions?). If you own a home, are you accounting for the mortgage interest and property tax deduction?
I do agree with one sliver of your argument: making financial progress on $100k income is challenging for a family of 4 in VERY high cost-of-living places such as the Bay Area, where that remaining 79k easily gets eaten up by childcare, housing, food, transportation, etc.
Is the standard of living on the $115k salary equivalent to that of a family of 4 on govt assistance? I don't know, but I doubt it, and I would bet on the latter's standard of living being significantly worse. Neither situation is easy street.
EDIT: wording. EDIT2: formatting
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sounds crazy to me. Maybe you're living in a place with a really high cost of living? What's included in "services, utilities, fees, and taxes that you pay when earning $100k" ?
It's completely bonkers when you lay it all out there. On $100k of family of 4 household income... it's a combination of actively paying taxes, and missing out on credits; Payroll taxes* = $ 15,300 Federal income taxes = $ 6,500 CA income taxes = $ 4,000 ACA Subsidy = $ 12,000 Food Stamps = $ 8,000 EITC = $ 5,000 Disability = up to $30,000 if applicable Energy credits = ??? Housing credits = ??? Waived fees = ??? Som…
You can't count it as a cost on you without adding the value of the employer share to your base income.
> Every progressive subsidy is mathematically equivalent to a progressive tax.
Wrong. You've basically made the same error as you did with employer share of payroll tax -- a progressive subsidy is arguably analogous to (but "mathematically equivalent" is still too strong of a term):
1. An addition to your income (whether or not you receive the benefit, maximum or otherwise) equal to the maximum benefit provided, and
2. An additional tax equal to the difference between the maximum benefit and the amount you actually receive.
Its absolutely not even similar, much less "mathematically equivalent", to the latter alone, which is how you presented it.
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That actually sounds like you might be able to back that up - would be interesting to see the actual stats. But I think you're missing a certain qualitative difference though - the services the 100K-income household is getting for their 60k are significantly better than the services the 0-income household is being given. Obviously they're probably spending money on better food than the food stamps would cover, they'r…
In California, Medicaid + MediCal is substantially better than most private insurance, at least for elder care.
Medi-Cal is the name of California's Medicaid program, so "Medicaid + Medi-Cal" is just counting the same program twice. Which, if you could actually benefit that way, would probably be fairly generous, but the state actually makes a significant effort to prevent that.
Did you intend to say Medicare + Medi-Cal, perhaps?