Almost like the wealthy should be taxed 90% and healthcare should be free, and rent should be strictly regulated, and everyone should have a labor union.
How about this. If you make it to a net worth of $1 Billion, we get you a nice gold plaque that says, “Congratulations! You have won capitalism.” Then, any income you earn after that is taxed at 100%.
Income and net worth are different concepts though. You can have a car and be too broke to buy gas.
I think you might be failing to envision just how much money a billion dollars is. If your net worth (Assets - Liabilities + Equity) = one billion dollars, you are among the wealthiest of the wealthiest people in the world.
Now, that probably isn’t all just sitting in investments. I’ll be very conservative and say half of it is. If you earned 4% annually on that $500M, which is a pretty decent average, you would gross $20 Million.
I don’t know about you, but if I had $20 Million, I would never have to work another day for the rest of my life. You see where I’m going with this?
Wouldn’t the $20 Million be subject to the 100% income tax at that point, meaning the net worth billionaire wouldn’t be able to earn any income as it’s all taxed away?
Sure, but let’s say they spent 20m. Then their net worth would be under a billion and the next couple of years of earnings would have a lower tax rate.
Even if they never were able to make money again, 20m goes into a billion 50 times. They could overspend for 50 years without making a cent on investments.
I’m sure they’d come up with fun new accounting loopholes though so their assets didn’t appear to increase.
What incentive is there to keep working at a 90% tax burden?
Well if they stop working they make 0. 10% of any income is still more than zero, and this would likely be bracketed so high that there’d be at least a million or two in lower tax bands.
Edit: also strictly, the comment you replied to said “the wealthy” this could refer to a wealth tax rather than an income tax, where stopping working would just remove the income but not affect the tax burden at all—i.e. a pretty terrible idea if you want to remain wealthy
If you consider yourself broke and would like help, please make a post here. I and many others would love to help, but we need some information, such as:
- household income
- monthly expenses - broken down by category, like rent, utilities, groceries, restaurants, etc
- debts - amount owed by account, type of account, interest rate, minimum payment
- assets - value of car(s), cash, etc
- skills/education - in case we want to explore more ways to make money
A lot of people get discouraged and believe that they’re screwed, but I firmly believe there’s always a way to financial stability, it just takes a lot of work and humility.
That’s very noble of you, but in our capitalist systems, those who provide the most needed and valuable services are often paid the least. You may feel that telling someone to get better educated and moving somewhere cheaper will solve their problem, but then someone else will fill their past role. Our most expensive cities will always need janitors, line cooks, laborers, shelf stockers and many other roles that will never pay much. We can’t all be coders making 6 figures working remotely from bumbfuck nowhere. This doesn’t even take into account disabled people who can’t provide much or any value in the eyes of our system. You basically want to tell people to bootstrap, just in a gentler way.
I’m not sure why you got up on your soapbox to put someone down like that. They didn’t say any of the things you said. Their comment isn’t even edited, and yours is…
Because this is a forum where people share perspectives. If you don’t want to hear them then don’t read the comments.
Lol. You wrote a comment in reply to another comment. Usually replies are for responding to what the preceding comment said. Perspectives that follow the preceding perspectives.
If you want to say something about things that nobody has said, you can just make a new post.
The original post is that 50% of Americans consider themselves ‘broke’.
@[email protected] a solution that would be considerate if 0.1% of working class Americans considered themselves broke.
@[email protected] offers an analysis why a ‘pull yourself together’ solution doesn’t work when the issue starts hitting 50+% of a nation. That means there’s something systemically going wrong and any suggested ‘pull yourself by the bootstraps’ solution is going to be met with more and more anger from a larger and larger crowd.That’s a bit reductionist.
A large chunk of the US fritter away their money on interest, and that’s precisely the type of problem that can be solved with careful budgeting. Here’s a report by Forbes about debt, and I’ll highlight this section on credit card debt:
Credit Card debt details
In 2022, 48% of all credit card users carried a balance at least once based on Federal Reserve data. While families with higher income levels were less likely to report revolving a balance, the proportion of cardholders was substantial across all income levels.
According to a Forbes Advisor survey from December 2023, 22% of credit cardholders are either somewhat or very unconfident they can pay their next credit card bill in full.
And some more details from a Federal Reserve report (referenced by the above section), which states that 37% of families making $100k or more carried a balance. That income is well above the level most claim to need to feel financially secure. That doesn’t mean a $100k salary is insufficient, it means there’s more to the discussion than just income.
Personal anecdote about staying debt free in school
My parents helped me with school tuition, but I paid my own rent, food, transportation, etc while making around minimum wage (first job was $0.50 over min wage, second was $2 over). I know it’s possible to live debt free on pretty much any income, provided work is steady, because I’ve done it. Student loan repayments are capped at 10% of discretionary income in the US (so after taxes), with 20% being the worst case (it varies by program). So I don’t think student loans are the main issue either.
Examples of spending problems
I don’t know if careful budgeting can fix all of the problems the 50% quoted in the article have, but it can certainly help with a lot of them, if not most. Issues vary, but a large percentage of problems aren’t income problems, but spending problems, such as:
- gambling - how many “play the market” and lose? Teaching people to buy and hold should reduce the “broke” feeling from investment losses
- keeping up with the Joneses - you don’t really need that flagship phone with unlimited data with a half dozen subscriptions, nor do you need a new car (the newest car I’ve ever had was 8yo when I bought it and I paid cash)
- eating out - this article claims ~30% of people 130% FPL or lower eat out at fast food on a given day, and it skews toward young people (so not the household w/ 4 kids living in poverty)
My point here is that a very large chunk of that 50% could be much more financially stable by making a few behavioral changes. However, it’s a lot easier to claim to be a victim than to make those changes, so that’s why these types of articles get a lot of traction and comments are largely unconstructive.
If you actually want to change your financial trajectory, talking about it can help. Making a post here detailing your income, expenses, debts, etc is one way to do that. A budget isn’t going to help someone living on the streets suddenly afford an apartment, but if you have a steady job, there’s a really good chance that a reasonable budget can end the paycheck to paycheck cycle. And I’m guessing a very large chunk of that 50% in the article would fall into this category.
Explain how it is reductionist to say that when there’s over 50% of a whole nation that’s in financial woes?
If anything trying to blame the each individual’s actions is reductionist.
It paralyzes any political discussion in order to uphold an ever fragile status quo.
How many more people in your own country need to into debt before
you start calling it a systemic issue? 80%? 90%? 99%? 99.9%? 99.99%?Whatever your solution is going to be, people’s incomes are going to go down,
as everything is being automated.
Grocery stores are being automated.
Fast food chains are being automated.
Any brick-and-mortar store is disappearing.
Artists are being replacedYour personal anecdote is worthless.
I delivered magazines, newspapers and mowed lawns when I was a kid.
Good luck telling the Gen Z that!And if you don’t understand why, I’ll try be as reductionist as possible
in how my (and your) personal anecdote doesn’t work anymore:Internet, AI & robots has set up the us the bomb
All your income are belong to FAANG!!
You have no chance to survive make your time
Move Cap Install Com
For great justice!
