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Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

nytimes.com

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Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#221

Post by learc83 »

dreww wrote: post #138
webXL wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes low to middle income people are single issue voters and that issue happens to be the effective tax rate of billionaires. What's dumbfounding is that there are people who believe that wealth is zero-sum, and that by taking from the rich and giving to the poor, "justice" would be done, never taking into account what produces wealth or the fact that living standards have improved despite the rich getting ri…

living standards have improved despite the rich getting richer. Citation needed. Please explain how the living standard in the US can have improved if real wages have fallen. Oh wait, the answer is an incredible increase in consumer debt. That seems to be working out. Keep calm and carry on.

Look at the amount of time the average American has to work in order to by food. It's much less than it used to be. The only reason it feels like we have less money is because we have more stuff to spend it on.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#222

Post by yummyfajitas »

wpietri wrote: post #210
yummyfajitas wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scalzi's article about "Being Poor" is definitely not a description of poverty in the United States. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1713461

Yes, I am certainly going to believe your hazy handwaving over his direct statements: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/#comment-64... Of course, I didn't need that to know where he went wrong: I know actual poor people in the US. Maybe you should go meet some.

Do you disagree with any of the statistics I've cited?

Or are you merely dismissing them as "handwaving" because they don't fit your preconceived notions?

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#223

Post by yyyyyyy5 »

wpietri wrote: post #213
lotharbot wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you actually know anybody at the bottom? yummyfajitas lives in Pune, India. Read through his comment history for comparisons of the rich in India to the poor in the US; it's eye-opening.

I'm not asking for his generalizations; I'm asking if he personally knows actual poor people in the US. E.g., a single mom, an elderly widow, a recovering alcoholic, a laborer whose back is shot. Also, I utterly refuse to accept third-world conditions as a baseline for "poor enough". You might as well use the 15th century for all the relevance it has.

This is getting absurd. Poor people in America aren't as poor as you think. I absolutely hate it when people like you generalize how poor people live. Reading a blog post does not make you an expert on the poor or the bottom 1%. Try living it, like my family has. None of us are starving (a lot of us are fat in fact), and we all have smart phones and game consoles.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#224

Post by eftpotrm »

callmeed wrote: post #197
eftpotrm wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree there's a big distinction between someone earning $250k/year and $10m/year, are you aware that if your family is earning that much then you're earning over eight times the median household income?

You're wrong. First, the median income in the US is now at or slightly above $50K per year. Second, assuming earned income (which is fair even for $250k earners), a median income household will be in either a 15% or 25% tax bracket (depending on if married). A $250k household will be in a 33% tax bracket.

My statistic was showing $31k, but if we say $50k, fine - it's now merely five times the median, not eight. That's still a comfortable situation by almost anyone's standards.

Now, if your $50k household is in a 25% tax bracket, they're paying $12.5k so leaving a net income of $37.5k. Your $250k household at 33% are paying $83k, net income $167k, 4.4 times the net income of the $50k household. So what was your point exactly?

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#225

Post by wpietri »

tomjen3 wrote: post #200
keithnoizu wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And i'm talking percentage of income and percentage of income after deducting cost of living.

That is a stupid way to measure how much one should pay in tax, honestly. You rent, electricity, food and clothing doesn't go up because you double your income (unless you move, but then you presumably get better housing too). Why should your tax?

Because a) you can afford it better, and b) you have benefited more from the society that taxes help pay for.

As a business owner, I am perfectly happy to pay more as my income goes up, because my business depends on a well-run society in a million ways.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#226

Post by wpietri »

yyyyyyy5 wrote: post #223
wpietri wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not asking for his generalizations; I'm asking if he personally knows actual poor people in the US. E.g., a single mom, an elderly widow, a recovering alcoholic, a laborer whose back is shot. Also, I utterly refuse to accept third-world conditions as a baseline for "poor enough". You might as well use the 15th century for all the relevance it has.

This is getting absurd. Poor people in America aren't as poor as you think. I absolutely hate it when people like you generalize how poor people live. Reading a blog post does not make you an expert on the poor or the bottom 1%. Try living it, like my family has. None of us are starving (a lot of us are fat in fact), and we all have smart phones and game consoles.

Suggesting the bottom 1% has game consoles and smartphones is a) ridiculously wrong, and b) irrelevant.

Regarding wrong, The bottom 0.2% don't even have housing, which is going to make a game console hard to use. The I was talking just this morning with somebody doing financial literacy programs, and they decided against doing a web or smartphone tool because most of the people they are trying to reach don't have regular web access. And that's in the San Francisco Bay area, where tech adoption is very high.

It's irrelevant because having a few hundred dollars worth of consumer electronics says nothing about whether they have important basics like physical safety, a sound education, decent medical care, regular dental care, reliable transportation, clean water, and healthy food. All of which are necessary for people to reach their full economic potential. That shit costs a lot more than a game console.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#227

Post by scottjad »

Umofomia wrote: post #194
yummyfajitas wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have data showing that including payroll or state taxes change this picture, feel free to post it. I gave the best data I have access to.

The link that he gave already adjusts the numbers for payroll taxes (but it's obvious from looking at how the tax is collected that it's regressive -- i.e., flat rate up to $106k and then no tax on wages above that). With regard to state taxes, this report gives a pretty thorough analysis for all 50 states: http://www.itepnet.org/state_reports/whopays.php It's pretty evident from the data in this report that state ta…

Three major problems with this study:

First, it omits estate (inheritance) taxes.

Second, the use of the federal itemized deduction offset is very misleading, given that the deduction's purpose is to avoid double taxation in the first place, and that the money states get from the federal government comes almost exclusively from progressive sources.

Third, the intersection of the previous two. Most of the difference between brackets regardless of states is accounted for by the wealthy paying very little sales tax. They pay very little sales tax because they consume very little of their income. What they don't consume ends up being taxed in the estate tax mentioned earlier or given to charity neither of which are included in this report but both of which pay for similar things to state taxes (helping the poor, schools, libraries, parks, etc)

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#228

Post by wpietri »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #222
wpietri wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am certainly going to believe your hazy handwaving over his direct statements: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/#comment-64... Of course, I didn't need that to know where he went wrong: I know actual poor people in the US. Maybe you should go meet some.

Do you disagree with any of the statistics I've cited? Or are you merely dismissing them as "handwaving" because they don't fit your preconceived notions?

I notice you've dodged my question three times in a row.

I don't agree or disagree with your statistics. They're irrelevant, because Scalzi is describing things he has seen, and that match things I have seen. In the lives of actual poor people. In the US.

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#229

Post by chc »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #25
dwolfson20 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe take a look at Buffett's charitable record sometime.

Why does Buffet donate to charity rather than the treasury? Does he believe that the government will use his money less efficiently than the organizations he donates to?

There are any number of possible answers to that question that don't fall into the false dichotomy you've set up. Why are you not a plumber? Is it because you believe that plumbing is worthless?

Re: Warren Buffett: Stop coddling the super rich

#230

Post by yyyyyyy5 »

wpietri wrote: post #228
yummyfajitas wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you disagree with any of the statistics I've cited? Or are you merely dismissing them as "handwaving" because they don't fit your preconceived notions?

I notice you've dodged my question three times in a row. I don't agree or disagree with your statistics. They're irrelevant, because Scalzi is describing things he has seen, and that match things I have seen. In the lives of actual poor people. In the US.

Are you serious? You're dismissing statistics because you believe your anecdotal evidence holds more weight? You're now an expert on poor people because of the things you have "seen" and someone else has "seen"?

Please quit it with the BS. You're not poor. You're not around poor people. Stop describing how poor people live.

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