Regarding food, uncooked rice and beans last quite a while and is very inexpensive. It requires effort to cook, but you’ll be eating much healthier and for far cheaper than the soda and potato chips it sounds like you currently buy. So I disagree that junk food is actually cheaper. If your food is spoiling, you are doing your purchasing wrong.

Here is another way of looking at it. Rich people are paying well more than their fair share of the taxes. They pay in much more than they take out of the system. On the other hand, someone toward the lower end of income spectrum may take out as much as they put in. There are many people earning less money who aren’t paying any taxes and often they use more governmental services than the rich. To me it makes sense that beyond a certain point, you shouldn’t have to pay ever increasing amounts to the government to support other people. Everyone can pay their fair share and that still leaves room to have some type of economy of scale for people who have very high incomes and are paying very large sums of money to the government already.

Whether you like it or not, there is an advantage of having very rich people living in the US. Simply trying to tax them more and more will drive some of them to other countries. This is counter productive.

Also a setup like we have now where some people don’t have to pay anything in taxes while receiving large benefits from the government isn’t healthy because it removes the personal responsibility for ones government. The government doesn’t provide anything for free and it is important that everyone experience this–not just people with higher incomes.

Poor and middle class earn wages. Wages/SS/medicare state plus local tax can amount to 50% all in.
Oligarchs inherit and or make money through capital gains. Recently those types of income taxed as low as 0% with a max long term capital gain sub 20%, when the profits are not kept offshore. Carried forward interest is another great way that high income earners shift the tax burden to high wage earners.

High wages earners, pay most of the taxes not high income earners..big difference. You are too smart to not understand this.
Your site is very thoughtful otherwise.

Now, after starting a business, (after working a full time job at the same time getting my business off the ground), I feel the pinch of paying even more taxes. Instead of hiring someone, I can only outsource on occasion. Instead of relaxing I worry if I have enough to pay the next quarterly tax. My point is, although things are better (a little) neither side is easy. Both work long hard hours, each side gets breaks in one form or another (the poor are given, the well to do have to find ways to keep it). People with money hoard and invest since they most likely have learned that no help comes their way.

Tessa, I agree with what you say, most of it anyway. I’ll start with a story that I was told about (would have loved to be a fly on the wall for it).

My mother in laws neighbor (daughter on welfare who lived with mother) visited on a very bad snowy morning. My mother in law was very worried because she knew her kids were out battling the dangerous snowy roads praying that no one would get into an accident on their way to work when the neighbor girl made the comment… Now what fool would be out in that snow? My mother in became very upset and angry and answered… The fools out there working to support your ^&%&^%.

I’m sure some rich people are just lucky, but a number of them have more money because they work harder than the average person. There is nothing holding you back from being successful yourself if you want to invest the time and energy.

Denmark came top, followed closely by Switzerland and Austria. The UK ranked 41st. Zimbabwe and Burundi came bottom.

A nation’s level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels.

Prosperity and education were the next strongest determinants of national happiness.

Mr White, who is an analytic social psychologist at the university, said: “When people are asked if they are happy with their lives, people in countries with good health care, a higher GDP [gross domestic product] per capita, and access to education were much more likely to report being happy.”

He acknowledged that these measures of happiness are not perfect, but said they were the best available and were the measures that politicians were talking of using to measure the relative performance of each country.

He said it would be possible to use these parameters to track changes in happiness, and what events may cause that, such as the effects a war, famine or national success might have on the happiness of people in a particular country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5224306.stm
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-07/uol-uol072706.php
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The United States came in 23rd.

and on another note:

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya appears the be the smartest country in the world with an IQ of 121.78. The USA ranks #29 with an IQ of 99.

Rich people are lucky to be so selfish. To have good health insurance, a good home, and financial stability. Many live off of larger amounts of money than anyone needs, and many live separately from the other classes.

Live simply so others can simply live.

Part of the problem in the US is that we try to send everyone to college. That last statistics I saw said that something like 45% of high school graduates enroll in a 4 year school. With the economic downturn the amount is probably even higher. Statistically speaking, this means pretty much everyone with an average intelligence or higher is trying to go to get a bachelor’s degree.

I’ve seen suggestions that to do well in college, you really need to have an IQ of at least 115. This is a much smaller percentage than 45%.

There is a role for vocational training and for many it is a good way to get a career without the expense of college. For example, electricians and plumbers are paid well. If they have business sense, they can be paid very well. Their educational experience is usually on the job training–they get paid to learn their skill.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t allow people with average IQs get into college. Hard work can often make up for raw mental abilities. But at the same time, I don’t think trying to get more people into college benefits them personally or society as a whole.

Quite a few of the big universities will basically let you come for free if your family makes less thank $60,000 per year and have good academic skills. Harvard and Standford both do this and I think quite a few other schools are following their lead. I worked during the summer to pay for my undergrad degree at a fairly expensive school and scholarships paid for the rest so it isn’t like people who are highly qualified academically are always graduating with huge college loans.

I don’t know how many Europeans go to the US to get an education… It’s not a trend I have seen. Of course some cross the pond, the big majority doesn’t. And there are movements in the other direction. The small brain drain to the US is mostly in very specialised fields in big name universities.

re:taxing people who don’t go to college: like I said before: they also benefit from having a country with a lot of higher educated people (better economy, more jobs, …). The are also paying for the college education of their children, if any. Not to mention the fact, that maybe they would go to college when it’s only 500 bucks a year. Also: who now pays if someone defaults on his student loans?

re: “Most people succeed through hard work and that option is available to everyone.” I never said that this isn’t true, in general. It does depend on your definition of succeeding, however. To give an extreme example: a 3 foot dwarf can practice what he want, he will never play in the NBA.

Succeeding as defined in Tessa’s post was defined as: getting through college. No matter how much work you put in, there is a base line of intelligence that is required to get academical succes. And that’s what I meant with ‘talent’ It doesn’t mean that someone without it cannot ‘succeed’ in life (whatever your definition), but it won’t be in academia.

Education isn’t something that is a simple commodity. For some reason, the US educational institutions seem to be in high demand. Trying to pay for it with taxes would likely reduce the differentiation that is keeping that demand high.

Plus, there are some people who aren’t going to go to college. There isn’t a good reason for them to be taxed in order to pay for people who are. People generally value things more when they are paying for it themselves. If a college education were free, how do you think that would impact students academic performance.

Regarding talent and luck: There are quite a few studies suggesting that talent is a very small component of success and often has a negative correlation. Most people succeed through hard work and that option is available to everyone.

If you had taxes that did redistributed wealth, he wouldn’t have those high student loans. Education would be much cheaper when payed for by taxes (like it is in every other first world nation) It basically pays back what you put in in futur tax earnings and it is better for society to have more educated people. There: classic redistribution of wealth that benefits all. What’s unfair here is the financial burden an education is in the US, and the solution is exactly what you’re railing against.

And there is also somthing wrong with your logic:
“And if someone wants to throw out some argument on how a person from a lower income family, bad neighborhood infested by gangs and bad influences and drugs and violence have less chances of becoming successful…don’t even attempt it cuz he’s proven that it can be done. It may be harder than some people, but it’s not impossible and it’s all about hard work”

first of all: 1 example tells us nothing about the frequency this happens.

Secondly: you are skipping two enormous parts of the equation: talent and plain old luck. Even with all the work in the world, you still need those two. If you don’t have academical talent, you won’t get far. If you’re plain unlucky: same thing (fr.ex: getting hit by a stray car.) Work is important, but very unfairly, you also need talent and luck.

Thirdly: the whole idea of wealth distribution is avoiding the existence of those neighbourhoods.

Then after college gets a full time job, while attending grad school for his masters part time at night. He studied and worked so hard that he was able to pay for grad school out of his own wallet. And he slowly paid off his student loans from undergrad. After he graduated with a master with a 4.0 (not because he’s super smart, but because he just studied his butt off at night) he got out a very huge loan (that he must pay back 100% again plus interest) to go to law school.

In law school he studied any chance he had when he wasn’t in class. (first year law students werent allowed to work, that was the rule at his school) so he devoted all his time to school…all this time couldn’t afford a laptop for law school and had to write out everything on a notepad while the entire class had a laptop (and for those who know law school..a laptop is a must have). During this time he still was sleeping on the living room floor because there was no way he can get his own place either… anyways, he ended up graduating law school in the top 10% of his class and was able to get a good job in a law firm. he started out at 125,000 per year and evenually is now at 250,000. But because of the taxes taken off… he is making roughly 144,000 after taxes. Which is fine, but he’s putting in 16 hours a day of hard mentally exhausted work in order to make that much so he can send home to his family that are still considered lower income (mainly cuz his parents are old, his brother has a medical condition etc…) Now how is giving almost half his income to people who are buying soda pop and redistributing money to those who are not working as hard as he is, FAIR? Taxing him is fine, taxing him more than others is fine, but taxing almost half, is UNFAIR especailly because he has family members to take care of.

He pays his taxes, donates as much as he can to charity or people we know who needs money, and we believe that everyone should get healthcare no matter what, and we don’t mind getting taxed more to help people who needs help, but seriously…to just redistribute the money to the middle class or whoever else so that they have more money without working as hard as he did just so it’s “FAIR”!!!!! Is simply very UNFAIR to my husband and to those who’s worked that hard to get there.

We don’t live in a huge house, or drive a reallllly nice car like people think…we just try to live within our means and help out the rest of the family or people we know. We believe that by simply taxing those with higher incomes more isn’t really going to help the people of america….it just makes it so that people who work hard there entire life to get where they are have no motivation to work hard anymore. If middle class or lower class is saying give us money, they don’t appreciate it as much…buying soda and junk food and cable tv is not appriciating the hard work someone else is doing just to end up paying higher taxes. I don’t mind helping lower class, and those who needs it…but i believe that you have to give people an incentive to work harder and eventually they can get to a point where they would understand why taxing almost half your income cuz you worked harder is unfair.

I don’t mind paying more taxes than middle class or lower income, but almost half your paycheck is just cruel when you’ve worked roughly 96 hours a week to earn it. Don’t you guys think that’s just plan cruel? What makes a person want to even work hard then. It makes no sense. 16 hours a day, 6 days a week….so he can pay back over 100,000 worth of student loans and take care of the rest of his family along with his wife and kids. now, how is that FAIR?

And if someone wants to throw out some argument on how a person from a lower income family, bad neighborhood infested by gangs and bad influences and drugs and violence have less chances of becoming successful…don’t even attempt it cuz he’s proven that it can be done. It may be harder than some people, but it’s not impossible and it’s all about hard work….Now tell me, once someone has worked that hard….is it FAIR to take close to half his income and give it away to someone else who didn’t work as hard? Now, i’m not talking about people with disabilities or medical issues that prevent them…. i’m talking about people who have two arms and two legs and a normal brain that can go to school and study and work hard.

It’s pretty sad, when someone who works 96 hours a week get paid the same amount as someone working 40 hours a week or so just because of taxes. People really need to understand that there is no incentive for some people to work hard in school if they are just handed free money….

I know my writing seems all over the place and a lot of misspellings here and there…but forgive me, it’s late where i am. i have a baby that wakes up around this time…lol.