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“When we all have pocket telephones”

openculture.com

71–80 of 208 posts

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#71
post #60
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking extremes is a strawman. What matters is what most people pay.

"Average federal tax rates for all households, by comprehensive household income quintile. 1979 to 2018" at https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-averag... "Average Total Federal Tax Rate (percent)" is lower for every percentile from 1979 to 2018. Year 1979 2018 Lowest Quintile 9.3 0.0 Second Quintile 15.0 8.1 Middle Quintile 19.1 12.8 Fourth Quintile 21.7 16.7 Highest Quintile 27.1 24.4 All Quintiles…

>This calculation does not consider the growth of expenditures

edit: was meant as reply to a different comment

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#72

what's more interesting to me is at the date of this comic, even the landline phones were not fully adopted :)

It's like how hacking or computer UIs are depicted in 80s/90s movies. When the general public doesn't have a good understanding of a technology or the technology doesn't have a good foothold in peoples' lives, you can make these crazy fantastical representations of what (the future of) these technologies might be.

I'm sure some people had the imagination when they first saw radios and how they were removing wires from some devices to think about what this meant for any device with wires.

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#73
post #60
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking extremes is a strawman. What matters is what most people pay.

"Average federal tax rates for all households, by comprehensive household income quintile. 1979 to 2018" at https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-averag... "Average Total Federal Tax Rate (percent)" is lower for every percentile from 1979 to 2018. Year 1979 2018 Lowest Quintile 9.3 0.0 Second Quintile 15.0 8.1 Middle Quintile 19.1 12.8 Fourth Quintile 21.7 16.7 Highest Quintile 27.1 24.4 All Quintiles…

> "Average federal tax rates for all households

Wait, so you only pay Federal taxes in the US? That's practical if you only cherry pick a part of the data.

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#74
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stand up comedians are saying this while they're...performing standup?

No. They say it in interviews, on podcasts, etc. Most comedians refuse to play shows on college campuses now (once a highly lucrative venue for them) because of the audience

Comedians weren't lining up to do college campuses 20 years ago either.

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#76
post #73
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Average federal tax rates for all households, by comprehensive household income quintile. 1979 to 2018" at https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-averag... "Average Total Federal Tax Rate (percent)" is lower for every percentile from 1979 to 2018. Year 1979 2018 Lowest Quintile 9.3 0.0 Second Quintile 15.0 8.1 Middle Quintile 19.1 12.8 Fourth Quintile 21.7 16.7 Highest Quintile 27.1 24.4 All Quintiles…

> "Average federal tax rates for all households Wait, so you only pay Federal taxes in the US? That's practical if you only cherry pick a part of the data.

If you read down to the end, I wrote "Now, sure, there are state taxes, and sales taxes, and payroll taxes, and all sorts of other taxes."

I used this to ask for source data for the claim.

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#77
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stand up comedians are saying this while they're...performing standup?

I wish I could remember who said this, because it was a standup saying something ... in an interview. Not performing. "It's a sad state of affairs when the most accurate political commentary is done by comedians, while the country is being governed by clowns." Such an apt description of the UK. And while that was said two governments (ie. less than a year) ago, it's only slightly less accurate now.

I've seen Jon Stewart say very similar things.

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#78
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Average federal tax rates for all households, by comprehensive household income quintile. 1979 to 2018" at https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-averag... "Average Total Federal Tax Rate (percent)" is lower for every percentile from 1979 to 2018. Year 1979 2018 Lowest Quintile 9.3 0.0 Second Quintile 15.0 8.1 Middle Quintile 19.1 12.8 Fourth Quintile 21.7 16.7 Highest Quintile 27.1 24.4 All Quintiles…

I don't know if taxes are higher now vs some point in history (probably higher than some, lower than others) but your implicit claim that 'taxes' == 'US Federal Income Tax Rate' is so laughable I can't believe you can make it with a straight face. Not everyone is from the US, and the people from the US know that there are like 5 levels of taxation, from local sales tax to property tax to state income tax, state perso…

"so laughable I can't believe you can make it with a straight face"

Which is why I didn't. I specifically pointed out that there are other taxes.

My point was to get ekianjo to present data to support their claim.

Do you have better data?

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#79
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Average federal tax rates for all households, by comprehensive household income quintile. 1979 to 2018" at https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-averag... "Average Total Federal Tax Rate (percent)" is lower for every percentile from 1979 to 2018. Year 1979 2018 Lowest Quintile 9.3 0.0 Second Quintile 15.0 8.1 Middle Quintile 19.1 12.8 Fourth Quintile 21.7 16.7 Highest Quintile 27.1 24.4 All Quintiles…

>This calculation does not consider the growth of expenditures edit: was meant as reply to a different comment

Where is the data to back the claim "Taxes have never been as high as now in recent history"?

My data is half-assed, certainly. Surely you should be more critical of someone presenting no data, yes?

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#80
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, the highest marginal tax rate for individuals was 70% as recently as 1981. It was 92% in 1952. Today it's 37%. So it's really the other way around — taxes have never been as low as now in recent history.

It's really tricky to compare marginal rates like that. Has the definition of taxable income changed over time? How many people were actually taxed at those marginal rates? And so on.

You didn't bother to interrogate the other poster on these aspects. Why is it only tricky when looking at the evidence against the claim?
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