Comments by "" (@jmitterii2) on "Thom Hartmann Program"
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US is the same in the sense of all the taxes added up.
Here's our break down for an Idahoan (the state I live in as it varies by state and some states by county as well).
Idaho State income tax which has a funny progressive tax system that tops out at $11,000 at 7.6%... so everyone's effective tax is about 7.4%.
Federal Income tax which has some deductions as all countries do, including Sweden. My effective tax rate for 2017 was 9% after simple deductions.
Payroll taxes that are based on gross income, not adjusted nor based on "taxable income, so your entire gross income is taxed at 6.2% for social security and 1.49% for medicare/medicaid or total combined 7.69%.
If you are an independent contractor or otherwise running your own business you pay the employer match or 12.4% Social Security tax and 2.9% making it 15.3%
So effective tax of 7.4% state + 9% Federal + 7.69% payroll = effective tax of 24.09% that's gross income of $36,000... was not an independent contractor, was an employee, with an employer that matched the payroll.
Otherwise my tax would have been 31.7% however, my deductions might have drawn that down a bit... would have deducted all businesses expenses. As an employee with very few if any business expenses only took the standard deduction.
Then we have a sales tax of 6% in the state of Idaho for all counties.
Gasoline tax $0.18 per gallon Federal and Idaho is $0.33 per gallon summed gasoline per gallon price is $0.51 more gallon due to taxes, and your taxed 6% on top of that for sales tax for whatever amount you buy.
Property taxes in Idaho (again they vary by state and some states by counties, and cities too) are The statewide average urban tax rate is 1.582% while the rural rate is 1.032%. If it is your primary resident, you're living there, you can deduct 50% of that tax... so only pay 0.791% or 0.516%. If its a rental or extra home, you're paying the full amount which is assessed every year based on the market prices... so if you're in a crazy bubble and a house that once was $100K suddenly goes for $150K you're paying more... most people pay this through the year in an escrow account that gets submitted to the state, and certainly if its mortgage it almost always must be paid via an escrow account to the bank you have the mortgage toward as part of your monthly payment, the bank doesn't want to have the state to force auction the house due to unpaid property taxes. So the bank makes sure you pay it by adding it toward the monthly mortgage payment.
Then of course there are smaller fees for licence and registration.
But that's the main gist of our taxes.
It mostly hurts the lower incomes as payroll taxes particularly the 6.2% social security stops being taxed above the gross income of $128,700... so your effective tax declines significantly on gross income above that for 2018.
Dividend and capital gains taxes are 0% for incomes 0 to https://www.corporatemonkeycpa.com/2018/02/22/taxes-on-dividends-and-capital-gains-under-the-tax-cuts-jobs-act/ $38,600 for single filers and $77,200 for joint filers. taxes are 15% for $38,601 - $425,800 single and $77,201 - $479,000 joint, and income above that margin tax is 20% top.
And is not subject to payroll or any other tax.
Hence why many rich effective taxes are about 17% to 20% while workers taxes are as mine 24.09% or high wage/salary earners like doctors effective taxes can easily be in the 30%. And that's not including all the other taxes mentioned and medical insurance premiums and co pays and deductibles.
We're a tax the worker and especially the poorer worker the most. The most poor do get substantial deductions and with children some credits. Those just treading water $30K or higher workers, get hosed hard. Hence why so many that start a business, if it picks up good income, make it an LLC and issue their wages as dividends.
Website below can give you a nice feel for basic taxes in each state.
https://smartasset.com/taxes/idaho-tax-calculator
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sanekabc Depending if its just a small contractual, can you carry my stuff in the house, or shovel snow, or mow my lawn, then sure.
If its an actual 8 hour a day or other such regular full time or part time employment, no.
Because that laborer has achieved a certain value via education usually paid by society in general, together we are attempting to achieve a good and ever better standard of living. So that minimum value should reflect a minimum labor compensation value.
Otherwise, you get the same situation you have in places like Taiwan and other such places that have no mechanism to provide a basic minimum standard of living. Higher suicide rates, very poor prospects to increase wages, and overall poor standards of living. We're talking about people living in dog cages and living in dorms the size of 10X10 or smaller with 6 or more roommates.
So yes, markets will find a standard of living. But for most, without some market guidance, that standard of living the market provides for the majority is most likely to end up being a living nightmare.
Fortunately, Taiwan officials are starting to invoke various welfare mechanisms to increase their dismal standards of living. But it's slow moving. While Mainland China was radical communist despotism, Taiwan became radical laissez faire capitalism ended up being a plutocrat. Both regimes are now eating crow and changing their extreme ways because they simply didn't work. A mixed market system works the best basing that on evidence of the USA, western Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, etc.
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Bingo. Two major effects of inflation: Labor shortages like we saw in the 70's, or really bad monetary policy allowing; massive borrowing either or both public and private as this provides a massive boost to money supply; in the case of borrowing for capital expenditures; it takes a while for that extra supply to produce productivity and its usually to one sector of the economy, it doesn't increase supply in all goods and services to offset the new money supply increase, and consumer spending simply adds to the money supply without any extra productivity/supply.
Debt is immediate add to the money supply and effects all sectors immediately upon its spending.
Most sectors of the economy have total employee compensation and payroll tax as about 5% to 10% of the costs of the business.
Since labor is calculated as a cost it's tricky calculate labor's share of revenue aka profit because then you have to add their costs back to revenue and minus all other costs to get profit before labor costs; and in that case most sectors labor is about 3% to 15% of the profits.
Literally, most sectors owners or shareholders get 97% to 85% of profits.
Retail grocery and apparel, fast food, and non-franchiser restaurants are the primary exceptions.
Those sectors can run as high as 10% to 25% for labor costs; just a quick google search can reveal; costs to profits range from 10% to 40% depending on the size of the business... there's an economy of scale if multiple stores are opened that draw labor share of profits down toward the 10% range.
Most sectors labor is among the smallest costs.
The reason labor is the first to get hit the difficulty negotiating with supplier contracts, and to have good supplies that work on your machines or with your sunk cost established processes. Its more difficult to cut utilities like water, sewer, trash, electricity, recycling, etc. And its more difficult to change distribution.
So first to take the ax is usually the employees; pay cuts directly, or increase their share of insurance premiums, or freeze pay, or make do with skeleton crews etc.
Most sectors, the equipment, rent/mortgage, utilities, and supplies are all individually the highest costs. They're the most difficult to bring down too.
Min wage so long as its not overly burdensome on start ups and smaller scale businesses would touch inflation figures.
Profits no matter what are still generated and sent to shareholders and spent adding to velocity in the market no matter what.
Its money creation via borrowing and extremely tight labor supply that ultimately effect inflation. With global economy the tight labor supply hasn't been much of a factor over the past 40 years. We should be in a massive deflationary period, but extreme borrowing in all sectors of the economy has kept inflation rising at least 3% on average over the past 40 years.
Accumulative 398% increase from 1978 to 2018. Which isn't much compared to the 1940 to 1980 accumulative inflation of 568% tight labor supply. But still 398% increase is due to huge borrowing. Lots and lots of it.
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
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Total compensation hasn't not followed productivity, studies that compute productivity is based on total compensation including wages, salaries, bonuses, uniforms, shoes, medical insurance, pensions, retirement contributions including 401k, etc. and inflation over time.
The raw cost of an employee is lower per productivity.
And as a share of income its decreased significantly in most sectors.
1987-2015 BLS report reveals even adjusting using different deflators to normalize real income CPI, and even with the more conservative output deflator 77% of all industries saw an actual decline in share of income per productivity.
The reasons they suggest are globalization, automation, and faster capital depreciation in some sectors.
Income literally is the total compensation of employees adjusted for inflation. Depending what one uses to compute deflation CPI or output price index demonstrates still a very significant misalignment with productivity; a very wide gap has developed and remained since 1987 to 2015 of their study.
Link below has interesting details.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-6/pdf/understanding-the-labor-productivity-and-compensation-gap.pdf
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Qingeaton This coming election in 2016, I'm going to do just that. I've had it chosing between the same and the other same. So I'm literally going to write him in. Even if he states he's not running. Who cares. He's at this time one of the last ditch moments we have from completely coming economically unhinged. The entire global economy, this weird mercantilism thing, is sputtering out of control. And domestically speaking, we as a country don't have the structures to keep our own country from falling apart in mass riots and a complete wreck. At the rate we're going, in my time near 2030 we'll see tent cities and what will reemerge are the shanty towns once again. Especially considering most will be relying on a 401K most will have already tapped or have completely insufficient funds therein, and no pensions anymore for most people. Everyone I know who are in retirement or about to retire, have a series of pensions or at least 1 primary pension. Otherwise they'd be hosed. And by 2033 from the Social Security Administration themselves, that only enough funding to pay out 75%. So there you go.
I'm writing him in. Saying fuck it. I'm done, but not dropping out completely. Even though a write in means really nothing. Especially if he isn't even running.
But seriously, we don't get someone in there to combat our oligarchs, it will very quickly become violent. Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece may be able to handle 25%+ depression level unemployment with their safety nets. In the US, unemployment insurance runs out after a few months, possibly extended for a year as it was in 2009, but not for decades.
I think violence will happen if things don't change fairly soon.
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And the idiocy we provide them with an unnatural monopoly like drug patents is an insult to injury. Double wammy effect. There are a variety reason we in the US pay over double per-capita of what other nations pay in medical care, and pharma pricing is among them.
1) Get rid of medical patents, they're absurd. And if you are a "let it be" market person you really shouldn't be advocating for an artificial government intervention like a patent.
The biotech to big pharma chain is a price inflating idiocy... biotech spends $10 million to $100 million on trial of a drug then once approved, sells it to a big pharma for $2 or $3 billion or more... big pharma then has to make up for that big expense and wants big profits, so it's per unit cost now goes up.
No more patent protection on medical technology. And institute a proactive FDA that seeks to work with universities and other organizations to approving medical procedures, Rx, and appliances.. then open sourcing all to any organization that wants to produce the new technology.
2) Allow medicare/medicaid to negotiate pricing directly; not via health insurance companies bargaining for their network and out of network nonsense in regions.
3) Regulate pricing on vital medicines and appliances profit margins; no more racketeering.
4) If the private enterprise fails to produce at marginal profits established, allow government to supply at cost the same medicines and appliances to make up for quantity supplied... in particular those medicines and appliances that have too few patients thus no economy of scale to make affordable to produce. Produce them via government operations at cost.... a producer of last resort.
5) Universal healthcare at least a single payer system (medicare for all).
6) Producer of last resort for hospitals, clinics, and dentistry... rural areas that otherwise have to travel hundreds of miles, place small hospitals that otherwise would never make a profit.
Medical prices would be halved as they are throughout the rest of the world.
And quality of our healthcare outcomes would improve tremendously.
And private pharma and appliance makers would still be rolling in the profits... in-elastic demand curve; prices don't influence demand, you pay or die... you're gonna pay any price, they're promised to have customers. And if it's a drug that has no economy of scale, it was never something the private market could handle efficiently anyways.
It just won't be as much of a racket, more modest profit taking.
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There are many countries that lack education. They're all poor in general, and semi affluent are the top 0.1% there is no 20% affluent. Everyone is essentially in poverty, international poverty level defined as a dollar a day.
This comes from prohibition of child labor laws which ended exploitation of children; on the raw economic purpose this disallows young children and teens to be used for servitude instead of an adult that has economic needs to maintain for their own family.
These idiots haven't picked up any history books beyond their own wild goof ball stupid selfish fantasies.
Be a selfish pig, and you what you will get is a dirt floor hovel, a hole in the ground filled with feces as your toilet, and baths... they don't exist, find a river and hope it doesn't have other sewage running through it because it probably does if its in a city area.
Their selfishness and spite would have themselves living in horrid condition should these typical ass wipes ever get their way. Not only economically, but political ramifications, nobody would support a constitution that has even 5th of the population starving, you would have literal armies of starving desperate people raiding the other 4/5 that aren't.
There literally areas around the world that experience the libertarian dream as we speak.
It's a nightmare.
As for his spite, he should be upset he had to pay and do it over 20 years. That's grossly inefficient and likely during that 20 years his various courses, he forgot most of what was learned, and any text books and documents as he learned a decade ago have likely became outdated. So several courses he took that far in the past were possibly useless.
No, he shouldn't have had to pay much for his higher education as the rest of us should, and especially be provided loans that we cannot declare bankruptcy.
I worked during my first degrees. Went to the military, and my third degree I used the GI Bill. And still accumulated college debt; not as much as some, but its significant. And its absurd. Because we cannot compete with other regions like most of Europe, Australia, etc. that contribute to low to no tuition... some even paying stipends to attend as if they all got the GI Bill to ensure they efficiently get through school and join the workforce either start their own businesses or working in an occupation.
All his wealth and income came from an educated populous regardless if he is just a worker somewhere, a business owner, or inherited his money and assets.
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Go speak to lower educated people. They tend to lack basic understanding on how things work from physics, chemistry, biology, government, to economics... they have wrong concepts.
An example that comes up often: Many don't understand how their income taxes work, they suspect that tax brackets mean once you go into a higher bracket all your money is taxed at the higher bracket, which is utterly wrong.
Example of scientific misconceptions many think gravity of the earth has to do with the rotation of the earth; they fail to realize its the mass; that rotation of the earth actually counters the gravitation ever slightly, and most toward the equator.
Speaking to an uneducated person can be easily swayed toward whatever thesis you want them to walk away. Because they simply don't know any better. And hidden tricks can convince them whatever you want them to think was their idea along, and especially if you agree with their utterly false conceptions on things that have no effect on what you're trying to convince them about, so that they'll accept your spiel whether it's to sell them something or appeal to a particular political policy.
They're gullible rubes.
And its sickening. And worse is they get upset and offended when their misconceptions are challenged; fortunately they're vapidity usually means they have a smart phone with google, so they discover the accurate information anyway... for a while... they're forget the correct information though... usually.
I really don't think it was on purpose. I'm not sure how we have such an uneducated or at least how we have so many people lacking basic knowledge.
I think its in our culture; we focus too much on entertainment: sports, movies, music... most guys want to immediately talk about some sports scores and coach and backstory on some players life. Women tend to talk about actors and musicians and the back stories on their lives, the movies and series they're watching on tv, and home decorating. And many are too concerned with attending their kids sporting events or figuring out why they're flunking or otherwise misbehaving.
Very narrow conversations among most of the uneducated. Their horizons are stunted.
And any intellectual conversation is quickly forgotten. Because a few weeks later should that topic come up again, they'll ask the same question that should have been answered, and get the answer again, and act as if they never heard about the topic. And a few days later will do it again. Really, they just don't care. Otherwise they would remember.
So its a cultural thing, a value issue. Our values are terrible.
Our governments spends billions on stadiums. But neglect hospitals; most state and city hospitals are closed. But we can spend tax money which is rather high, often higher on the lower incomes and even somewhat affluent incomes than in Europe. And we get goofy things from it. Like stadiums. And we don't get helpful things like decent schools, clinics, and hospitals.
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A good description of frational reserve banking complete with example and context.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fractionalreservebanking.asp
Essentially, any borrowing/lending has a temporary effect of "as if" increasing money supply.
Borrowing money means you can buy something now rather than later. And you're using money that otherwise would not have been spent on those or that item(s) or any items.
So borrowing/lending money acts a a temporary increase in money supply, or better stated and defined, it's increasing the velocity money, the number of transactions goods and service in a unit of time.
Banks cannot lend beyond their total deposit holdings. So if they have $100 million in deposits , they must hold a reserve of 10% so $10 million must be held.
If a crunch occurs beyond that $10 million they can lend from each other or the Fed Discount Over night rate which is "printed" into existence short period of time, but repaid (zeroed) by the borrowing bank the next day when they receive payments from loans the next day. They go defunct if they remain insolvent unable to repay the overnight rate, and/or no other bank will end them to cover them for the day or until they get more payments from their existing loans.
This velocity of money which effect which looks at the economy as a whole.
Example:
I borrow $100 to buy a phone from Sam.
Sam deposits the money in the same bank. The bank now has another $100 and if it has a reserve requirement of 10% it can make $90 loan to Jerry. holding $10 in reserve.
Jerry buys a printer cartridge from Becky for $90.
Becky deposits $90. Which then allows 10% to be reserve and the other 90% $81 to be lent out.
And you can repeat this until near $0.
So effectively increase the velocity of money... more transactions are increasing acting as if the amount of money in the system is larger.
Same is true if the money was just spent completely by each person involved, not deposited or lent out given a time frame.
Over the course of a day:
I buy $100 phone from Sam.
Sam then buys a clothes $100 from Jerry.
Jerry buys a printer cartridge from Becky $90
Becky buys some bananas for $5
In this economy the money supply started out as $100. Total purchases / money supply = velocity.
So $100+$100+$90+5/$100 = 2.95 times the original money supply.
Even though the money supply in this entire small economy was $100, in this day it acted as if 2.95 times the amount existed, or $295 existed during the day.
So yes, it does effect prices. The higher velocity of money the more transactions occur and often this means bid of prices goes up.
Fewer transactions (lower velocity) lower prices become.
Interesting fun fact about velocity of money particularly M2 supply.
From 1997 to 2019 the velocity tanked from 2.195 to 1.458 a persistent decline since '97.
This means fewer transactions have persistently occurred.
From 1960 to 1990 velocity stayed in a middle range of 1.7.
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I agree. That's why any uprising would require beating the current police and military to the punch by turning us fellow vets and current active duty both military and police with the overthrow. To minimize the chaos of such an overthrow; keep some sort of law and order while conventions were held and a new government can be created with a new revised constitution; one that should be done openly instead of in secret like the others were done. And like many major laws have and are still being done.
And popular votes on instructions to representatives of various states or districts should be conducted, UN and other outside organizations should be allowed to test the integrity of the voting and the proceedings.
Presently, our elections are so garbled nonsense, even the UN refused and states they would be unable to authenticate our elections in the US, Jimmy Carter's organization that validates the integrity of elections has also refused to do so for the US elections. We're a mix of that idiotic of a system, and potentially that corrupt or able to be corrupted. No wonder very large sample size polls done by many organizations show overwhelming support for better trade policies, universal healthcare, better infrastructure, lesser expense by half on our military goes ignored.
But to begin such a process would require massive coordination to ensure something terrible didn't get put in its place.
Personally, when people start talking of overthrowing the government which is treason, it won't be well thought out, instead it will be done in desperation from economic collapse, with many groups going off on their own direction. And action would be taken swiftly, not in much coordination as fear of being discovered for treason wouldn't allow for much time for such efforts. Would be rather chaotic time.
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Actually, the Roman state did have a welfare program in all Roman and conquered cities. Bread handouts, worker programs, state and oligarch funded games, healthcare, barbers, baths and toilets, roads, ports, etc. were available to all free people of the Roman Empire, and citizenship was rather early on 212 CE by Caracalla was given to all provincial free people, as well as to any eventually freed slaves.
While education was not compulsory nor fully funded in all cities, ludus litterarius (cheap makeshift elementary schools) were available to those of humble means (poor people) to send their children to ensure they learned basic reading and writing and basic math and some logic and literature to assist in critical thought.
Some ass wipes like you were upset about giving citizenship and all it provided to provincials and free foreigners.
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