Death To The Middle Class

In most every society which has ever existed, it eventually divided into the very rich and the very poor. The only way to prevent this is high progressive taxation. How big do you want your middle class to be? The higher your top tax rates, the large will be your middle class. Its a matter of putting the money back into circulation, instead of letting it get bound up in the Real Estate and Securities Ponzi Schemes.

SJG

SJG what the FUCK are you even talking about. Go fuck a goat in the ass.

Lol

Want a society divide into the very rich and very poor, low taxes.

What a middle-class and even a very large middle-class, then high top tax rates. That money creates jobs and business opportunities, as well as government services.

SJG

And don't forget. The IRS is going to have double the number of agents soon so the middle class pays it's fair share too.

Yes, but we need to make the tax code much more progressive. THe people who are not paying are the people who have gotten rich off of the Reagan Tax Cuts.

SJG

It is largely the rich who benefit under the current government. They are the ones who can donate lots of money to corrupt politicians and can get special favors in return. The inflationary policies of the Fed boost stock prices and, since the top ten percent of rich people own ninety percent of all stock, they get richer. Inflation also raises house values and rich people have more money invested in housing, so they also get richer due to that. Working class people who don't own stock and rent instead of owning a house get worse off because the inflation raises the prices they have to pay. There has been increasing income inequality in this country since the Fed started its inflationary policies. This increased income inequality is not due to an increasingly free market economy. It's due to Federal Reserve intervention in the economy.

I agree with DocSavage. ANd the way you fix the problem is tax hikes on large incomes and portfolios.

SJG

"In most every society which has ever existed, it eventually divided into the very rich and the very poor. The only way to prevent this is high progressive taxation."

Which is why high-tax states like California, New Jersey, and Connecticut have the greatest inequality.

SJG is correct, the middle class continues to get fucked by the wealthy.

The top 10% own almost 70% of the country's total wealth.

I guess the states you mention might have higher state income taxes. But their wealth inequality is because wealthy people can live anywhere they want, and that is where they opt to live.

What throttle down or economy is the Reagan tax cuts, which has let the fruits of our productivity go into Ponzi Schemes.

SJG

If you’re smart you keep your head down, make your money and once you figure it out life is good.

I agree I think once you get used to a certain lifestyle most people don’t want to downsize. During CoVid some people were living large, they don’t want to go backwards but they are going to whether they like it or not. That house/car/boat you overpaid for now your underwater on. In the case of the car that’s what I’m hoping you sell to me at low price in the next few months.

And so many lives are spent trying to save up treasure on earth.

SJG

Cover: Promises in the Dark performed by School of Rock Fort Washington Houseband youtube.com youtube.com

@SJG, actually they're fleeing these states hand-over-fist. Look at the top 10 states losing population and the top 10 states gaining population and it's more than statistically significant. Capital goes where it's treated well.

These high tax rates you seem to love from the 50s-60s were actually paid by infinitesimally few people. The functional tax rate is pretty stable over time. If we want the rich to pay more, what we need is fewer deductions, which means we stop trying to socially engineer outcomes through the tax code. The working class, working a W-2 job with only the standard deduction, can't play their games.

We cut down and simplify the tax code, there's transparency on who pays what, no loopholes for the rich (who can take advantage of them), and all the accountants and lawyers dedicated to helping them avoid taxes get repurposed.

When this idea gets proposed, it comes from a handful of renegade Republicans. The rest are addicted to social engineering, and the lobbying dollars it gets them.

Fleeing from states with COVID insanity yes. Otherwise no. Low cost states are gaining people.

People use capital gains to get around the taxes on direct income.

The entire economy has been socially engineered. Has to be that way when you have industrialization.

SJG

@heaving, like you, I did well during COVID. Multiple lines of business booming, and inflation is handily devaluing my mortgage debt.

Inflation most hurts those on a fixed income, and those W-2 based workers whose incomes can't keep up. It causes more misery on the whole than recession.

^ true about inflation.

and caused by those stupid covid bail out payments. We need to make the securities and real estate bubbles eat it, not our currency.

SJG

We live in a kleptocratic plutocracy. Unless weqlth is distributed to the lower and middle classes. This country is doomed. It already feels like a third world country. Rising prices and rents show what the rich are capable of. It's economic terrorism. We need the class war to expand.

"Ford Motor Co just laid off 3,500 white collar workers to trim costs."

If it was all middle management,they'll swallow hard and eventually hire them back when productivity goes haywire. Kinda like strip clubs don't think they need a house mom until brawls spill out of the locker room and onto the floor.

"and caused by those stupid covid bail out payments."

Caused by bipartisan easy money for 12 years. It was a good idea from maybe 08-10 and 2020 then should have been pulled back. COVID bailout payments were the straw that broke the camel's back.

This is the part where some crank says he knows a club that don't have a house mom and they does fine.

Yeah ppp and corporate welfare ruined the economy

"We live in a kleptocratic plutocracy. Unless weqlth is distributed to the lower and middle classes."

2Icee... I don't know what kind of shit-hole place we live in where a stupid douchebag like you has a platform to spew your mindless crap, and then otherwise intelligent people actually respond to your dumb ass.

“In the case of the car that’s what I’m hoping you sell to me at low price in the next few months.“

THIS is exactly what I am hoping too.

I will say in my town there are a lot of new businesses popping up, several which look promising, I hope people will have money to patronize them…

Social democracy is what we'll eventually end up with. This system is unsustainable

Some say income tax itself shouldn’t exist, only sales tax. Cause nobody really has a right to know what someone else’s income is.

It’s always been more challenging as time proceeds to hit middle class status, yet always the cream rises to the top and more people want to try in the USA than anywhere else. The poor on the other hand have made great strides in standard of living over the past 20 years.

I wouldn't really disagree about the stagnant/declining situation of the middle class, and how bad that is. But we need some proper triage. We've got homeless people, people not getting basic decent health care, people who can't get all the different nutrients they need to be healthy, non-sociopaths left to the mercy of sociopaths in bad neighborhoods. Yes there are too many people who want to freeload. But it's intellectually and morally lazy to assume all these problems are 100% caused by indolence.

We have to be careful about going overboard with taxing the rich. So far, having rich people has been the relatively optimal way of getting the most growth and innovation out of investment capital.

We're made of the same flesh and bone as the people of revolutionary France and revolutionary Russia. It's simply arrogant to assume that we can do better than them with revolutionary change. We have to stop being children and hero worshiping blowhards who claim to have all the answers. We need to elect people who say this is what I think the direction is we should go in, in smaller steps, so we can backtrack if it doesn't work. If it doesn't work, I'll get out of the way and let another leader try a different direction.

You know a lot of great points made here and a few bad ones from the typical idiot.

I bet a lot better solutions would be made if politicians really did enact bills and laws that truly did benefit all citizens instead of doing what they can to stuff their pockets and protect their friends/interests.

It is the redistribution of wealth to the lower classes that is already destroying the middle class and our American society for decades. Lower classes are primarily those illegal immigrants, the chronically unemployed, the abusers of child tax credits, and the long-term recipients of public assistance and other entitlements. The media and duplicitous politicians have successfully focused the attention on the highest earners, while simultaneously funneling perks and gearing laws towards them to maintain their favor and donations. The Republican party does it as well, but it is primarily the democrats who have fooled their supporters while fomenting class warfare and dividing the nation.

People enter the country illegally, gain asylum or other amnesty, and begin receiving food cards, free housing, free medical care, free education, and more. They do not pay taxes because they have no income. There are also natural born citizens who maintain chronic underemployment to enjoy the same benefits without paying anything into the system. The upper class who supposedly "control 70% of the wealth" also pay 99% of the taxes that find those deadbeats and criminals. However, many of those high earners do not feel the pain as acutely as the middle class does. The inflation increase of food, gas, fuel, and utilities does not impact them as severely as it does the middle class. A monthly disposable budget of $5,000 does not have the same impact on a $750,000 annual income as it does in a $65,000 annual income.

The solution is not to increase taxes. The solution is not to spend an additional $500,000,000,000 on entitlements. The solution is, and always has been, to decrease spending. Take the funds that are being used to support illegals and use it to find them, deport them, and secure the border to prevent re-entry. Take the funds used to fund the daytime soap opera fans to retool unemployment services to train skills and guide towards employment. All of this will increase tax revenue and free up additional funds to retool our entitlements for those who cannot be employed.

The true villains in all of this are not eh uber-wealthy. It is the politicians. Cut their benefits IMMENSELY. Return their offices to public services. A representative from Charlotte, NC should live in Charlotte, NC. No condos in DC. Obliterate Washington, DC and return the land to MD and VA. The District of Columbia should be limited to buildings and very limited areas like the White House, the Capitol, the National Cathedral, monuments, etc. The only residents of DC should be the first and second families. They do not need a police force, mayor, etc. When representatives and senators go to DC to vote, they should live in dormitory-style housing. Their pension should be sent private like our 401(k), and their healthcare should come from their state insurance exchanges. Term limits for every office. 10 for reps, 2 for senators, 20 yrs for supreme justices. Senators should be sent by state legislatures, not popular elections. The Senate should be restored to 60 votes to pass bills to restore bipartisan compromise. No more lifelong benefits that are added by office. No more career politicians.

Drop the class warfare and make government work for us again. Until then, this situation will never get better.

Terms like middle class are pretty fluid. In some countries, the middle class have incomes that are low by US standards. People who are lower income today enjoy food, health care, education, travel, and entertainment that would have been typical for the Middle class 50 years ago and unavailable to the 1% about 100 years ago.

As in every area of life, discipline is required. If one spends beyond their means, they are not using discipline, and that can become a source of financial pain.

Nobody likes to hear that, as it’s like telling an obese person that eating an entire chocolate cake isn’t healthy. Financial discipline is necessary, and it generally needs to be learned early in life. Many of us go without the large expenditures, as they aren’t completely necessary.

I scaled back spending during the pandemic. I had one daughter starting college - and another looking at colleges (during 2020). I had funded 529 plans for both - and they will cover undergraduate and most of their graduate school if they decide to continue their education. But, I didn’t buy anything large during that time.

Who knew how long the pandemic would last - or how bad it might get? Who knew if the economy would plunge into a long recession?

Life requires discipline and when one fits into the middle class - buying a fancy new car - or a boat - or a summer house - during a pandemic is a bad idea!

When you think - I’ve worked hard, and I deserve a speedboat and a nice summer house! - but you are barely making enough to afford one car and rent - you need to reconsider what you need - and once that is covered - then you can start thinking about those fun purchases!

The Cloward Piven administration i mean Biden Harris really doing a bang up job for Americans.

Who fucking cares.

Midterms starting to look good for Democrats. I told you this would happen!

pbs.org

SJG

The reason the middle class get fucked over is obvious but very few understand, there's just not a lot of money to be made supporting the middle class, the poor have SJWs, rabble rousing politicians, and community organizers getting rich off them, the rich have lawyers, accountants, and lobbyist's to assist them in getting richer, all the middle class can do is keep your head down and make your money, be as smart as possible with their investment's and eventually many of the middle class can and do, make it into the rich category.

How large a middle-class you have depends on one thing, how high your top tax brackets are. Without high upper income taxes, the rich are able to use social affinities to get all the money. So then it is just the very rich, and the very poor.

SJG

^ Which is why blue states like California, New York, Connecticut are some of the most unequal in the country.

Nice weather draws people, rich and poor.

And the taxes that need to be higher to make for more of a middle class are the federal taxes. The rich can more easily evade state taxes.

SJG

California has by far the greatest income inequality in the country. Progressives are hypocrites who murder the poor with their policies which make them rich.

Its the God damned "poor" who don't pay "their fair share" in taxes. Why anyone is "poor" in the US is a good question but they are not a bunch of pitiful victims. They are lavished with government money and programs. The very rich don't need government money but get it anyway. The middle class get screwed and pay for everything. And noe they are being eliminated entirely.

What made the US unique, great, and free was having a middle class majority. That has been deliberately done away with by the political duopoly and the NWO tyrants.

The New America is a third world shithole by design.

The country would be fine if we had an alternative to the left-wing shithole its' become; but with the rise of Trump; we don't and cannot. I view progressives as the greatest enemy a successful America confronts. More so than the revolting Chinese and Russian scum; however Donald seems to admire both Putin and Xi and as such he is a traitor to this land and an enemy as well. No real American would ever speak positively of our two greatest foreign enemies and their totalitarian regimes, but Donny douchebag does. That makes him no better than Biden and no different. Just as stupid; just as bad for the country and his followers are just as revolting as progressives. He's simply an enemy of the state and there is no doubt in my mind his collection of documents at his home were meant to be sold to foreigners. America has lost her way and we deserve to fail. I find it funny when the young impotent left wingers here try to give me shit about being old. I am fucking glad. Having grown up when America was great, the time spent being an American now is meaningless. Blow it all up and start again.

^ Trump is the boss. He is still president