Yesterday I was talking (off the top of my head) about personal economics and was referring to hundreds and thousands of dollars. That is "chump change" (what you pay a boxer to lose a fight on purpose); the real issue is in Millions and Billions of Dollars. Can you count that high? Personally I think it is pretty exciting when someone can earn this kind of money and I would like to think they worked really, really hard for it. If I just weren't so lazy, then maybe I could get into this part of the American Dream too! Maybe if I slept less and got another job? Or went back to school and learned something useful? I realize that a million bucks isn't what it used to be. It is, after all, only $500 per hour! Some CEO of Google just received $100,Million dollar bonus for this past year. It was a good year for him and I am sure he worked extra hard.
That would be $50,000 dollars per hour! Doesn't sound like a lot when put that way. I saw on the news last night that a Wall Street Banker made FIVE BILLION DOLLARS last year, a huge improvement from last year when he only made $4,000,000,000 Dollars. Five billion would be about $125,000 PER HOUR, maybe anyway, I get lost in the zero's.
It takes 100 thousand people, each earning $50,000 a year to make Five Billion, that is a whole city full of people each making pretty good money.
The difference in Tax Revenue is pretty big. This "city worker" would be taxed at about 35% and to that you would have to include his Social Security Tax, his share and his employers shared being about 15%.That would be about (this math is killing me!) 650 MILLION DOLLARS!!! for the City Workers. The guy who made five billion paid NOTHING!!! and he didn't pay 35% either, only 15%
I think making Millions and Billions, maybe even a Gazillion Dollars would be pretty cool. This is America, right? and if you can figure out how to do this without going to jail, well then more power to you!
But I am in favor of the same tax rate for everyone for everything. This is no kind of punishment or a tax on the wealthy. I am sure they have expenses, legitimate reasons for their deductions. I am only saying that if they were taxed at the same rate as everyone else then we wouldn't have a National Debt and the Social Security Fund would have a surplus.
In order to reduce the National Debt you only have two choices: Reduce Spending or Increase Taxes.
The Wars are our biggest expenditures and if you add to that the cost of taking care of our men and women in uniform who return broken and in pain, you are talking trillions of dollars there. Taxes are simple and you can get this money from wherever you want to. We could tax bread so even the poorest of the poor would have to pay. Or, we could make taxes more equal, say, after the first $30,000 everyone would pay the same percentage on everything. Or, we could admit that it is only in our society where we have a certain reverence for greed and wealth, that it is even possible to make FIVE BILLION in ONE YEAR, and just bump these people a little tiny bit, say a 2% extra for wealth tax. Then the country would have a surplus.
We live in a Democracy and these issues are up for voting all the time. The Social Security Tax applies to the fist $116,000 of earned income, that means wages. The guy who made $5,000,000,000 paid NOTHING because his money came from "Capital Gains". The google guy who only made $100,000,000
paid NOTHING for the same reason. Their tax rate is 15% and our tax rate is 35%.
The National Debt has to be paid down or China will own us, it is that simple. All of this is simple math.
The guy at the corner store buying his dinner with food stamps or who is on public assistance is the "chump change" to all of this. He is irritating because we work so hard and maybe he doesn't, but he is a diversion and represents pennies to this problem. We see him every day and it is a thorn in our side but he is not the issue. On a pie chart he is not even a slice. The biggest piece of this pie is the servicing of our National Debt, like making minimum payments on a Visa card, it just gets bigger and bigger.
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That would be $50,000 dollars per hour! Doesn't sound like a lot when put that way. I saw on the news last night that a Wall Street Banker made FIVE BILLION DOLLARS last year, a huge improvement from last year when he only made $4,000,000,000 Dollars. Five billion would be about $125,000 PER HOUR, maybe anyway, I get lost in the zero's.
It takes 100 thousand people, each earning $50,000 a year to make Five Billion, that is a whole city full of people each making pretty good money.
The difference in Tax Revenue is pretty big. This "city worker" would be taxed at about 35% and to that you would have to include his Social Security Tax, his share and his employers shared being about 15%.That would be about (this math is killing me!) 650 MILLION DOLLARS!!! for the City Workers. The guy who made five billion paid NOTHING!!! and he didn't pay 35% either, only 15%
I think making Millions and Billions, maybe even a Gazillion Dollars would be pretty cool. This is America, right? and if you can figure out how to do this without going to jail, well then more power to you!
But I am in favor of the same tax rate for everyone for everything. This is no kind of punishment or a tax on the wealthy. I am sure they have expenses, legitimate reasons for their deductions. I am only saying that if they were taxed at the same rate as everyone else then we wouldn't have a National Debt and the Social Security Fund would have a surplus.
In order to reduce the National Debt you only have two choices: Reduce Spending or Increase Taxes.
The Wars are our biggest expenditures and if you add to that the cost of taking care of our men and women in uniform who return broken and in pain, you are talking trillions of dollars there. Taxes are simple and you can get this money from wherever you want to. We could tax bread so even the poorest of the poor would have to pay. Or, we could make taxes more equal, say, after the first $30,000 everyone would pay the same percentage on everything. Or, we could admit that it is only in our society where we have a certain reverence for greed and wealth, that it is even possible to make FIVE BILLION in ONE YEAR, and just bump these people a little tiny bit, say a 2% extra for wealth tax. Then the country would have a surplus.
We live in a Democracy and these issues are up for voting all the time. The Social Security Tax applies to the fist $116,000 of earned income, that means wages. The guy who made $5,000,000,000 paid NOTHING because his money came from "Capital Gains". The google guy who only made $100,000,000
paid NOTHING for the same reason. Their tax rate is 15% and our tax rate is 35%.
The National Debt has to be paid down or China will own us, it is that simple. All of this is simple math.
The guy at the corner store buying his dinner with food stamps or who is on public assistance is the "chump change" to all of this. He is irritating because we work so hard and maybe he doesn't, but he is a diversion and represents pennies to this problem. We see him every day and it is a thorn in our side but he is not the issue. On a pie chart he is not even a slice. The biggest piece of this pie is the servicing of our National Debt, like making minimum payments on a Visa card, it just gets bigger and bigger.
Here is my Other Blog
5 comments:
Wow! What a blog! Have you ever considered a career change ... say politician!
Well said indeed!
Thanks, Ruby, I would hate to be a politician and would be the first to admit that I don't have the answers! I could be a discussion facilitator and maybe help get some of these issues talked about.
The China issue...it just irks me to no end that some idiot put us into debt to China! It is amazing what the US government allows themselves to do with money or more accurately the lack of money. Like a child with a credit card. Individuals who do the same thing are in jail or prison. Same as a parent making all the rules, but their example is the total opposite. The US government is an extremely crappy role model. I think the government should be held accountable to the law just as each individual is.
Oops! Deleted due to typo.
StonePost we have allowed the Chinese to buy some of the best real estate Australia including farms and vineyards. We contine to borrow for unnecessary spending and are now indebted to them. I cannot imagine where we are going with this. We have a Government that does not know how to stop spending.
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