Parallel Universes
We live in this country in two parallel universes. The households of the top 1% of our country’s wealth distribution live in one world. And the rest of us live in another world. This is why Phil Gramm and Cindy McCain can actually believe we are a nation of whiners. So for the benefit of the Top 1%. the New York Times spends more than the top half of the Sunday Style Section, giving tips on how to hitch a ride on a private jet. I have a fairly famous friend who is not quite wealthy enough to afford his own private jet, but wealthy enough to have a house in Sun Valley. He called himself a “jet whore” (I know it’s politically incorrect, I’m telling a story here!). Now the truly rich are upgrading to much bigger jets, so there will be more seats for the hitchhiking rich. The jet owner will write it all off as a business expense as he had to “have a meeting” with his friend on his way home from Sun Valley.
“The big trend is people upgrading to jumbo jets for private use,” said Douglas D. Gollan, the editor of Elite Traveler, the glossy journal that bills itself as the “private jet lifestyle magazine.”
People who once cruised comfortably in a 12-seat Gulfstream G450, Mr. Gollan said, now gaze covetously at a Boeing Business Jet, a 737 reconfigured to accommodate not 150 commercial passengers but 18 to 25 private ones. “In the land of high fliers,” Mr. Gollan said, the talk is of jumbo McMansions in the sky. “Airbus just signed six orders for private A350s,” at a Swiss trade show, he said, referring to a $180-million jet that in its commercial application accommodates 300 passengers.
People used to refer to jumbo yachts as “dick-measuring contests”. I guess that applies to planes too. I sure wish a few of these dickheads with Boeing 737′s would start giving away their money like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. This is nothing but a great ad for why we need to retain the Estate Tax as Gates and Buffet have urged. The last fourteen years since the Republicans took over Congress in 1994, the share if the nation’s wealth going to this top 1% has continued to grow.
I think it’s crucial that these extremes of weath inequality are meliorated. Obama needs to make this an issue.
I’m really curious how you think Obama should “make this an issue”. Is the issue you’re talking about loopholes in the tax code, or just that some people have more money than others?
The US tax code is cripplingly baroque, but the chances that the people are ever going to demand meaningful change are just about nil. I can’t imagine that I’ll ever see, in my lifetime (or the remaining lifetime of the US, whichever is shorter), the entrenched taxation bureaucracy wiped off of the table and replaced with something that’s simple, fair, and accountable to the taxpayers.
I’m really curious how you think Obama should “make this an issue”. Is the issue you’re talking about loopholes in the tax code, or just that some people have more money than others?
The US tax code is cripplingly baroque, but the chances that the people are ever going to demand meaningful change are just about nil. I can’t imagine that I’ll ever see, in my lifetime (or the remaining lifetime of the US, whichever is shorter), the entrenched taxation bureaucracy wiped off of the table and replaced with something that’s simple, fair, and accountable to the taxpayers.
Those who are not in the top 1% have bought the frame that – like Horatio Alger – they are just one step away from riches.
If only the rules that constrain wealth don’t go into effect quite yet, then their newfound future wealth won’t be hindered.
It would be lovely if Obama and other Democrats were able to make a point of the growing distance in wealth. We are fast becoming a Third World country. Today, LA has the same spread of rich-to-poor as Mexico City!
But sadly, too many of us have bought the fantasy that it’s big bad TAXES that are holding us back from wealth.
Only John Edwards has had the courage to talk about this. And his campaign was not a great success.
Still waiting to see if it’s John Edwards (be praised) or a rock conservative like Sam Nunn who accompanies Obama on his journey to the presidency… and either makes these points or does not.
Those who are not in the top 1% have bought the frame that – like Horatio Alger – they are just one step away from riches.
If only the rules that constrain wealth don’t go into effect quite yet, then their newfound future wealth won’t be hindered.
It would be lovely if Obama and other Democrats were able to make a point of the growing distance in wealth. We are fast becoming a Third World country. Today, LA has the same spread of rich-to-poor as Mexico City!
But sadly, too many of us have bought the fantasy that it’s big bad TAXES that are holding us back from wealth.
Only John Edwards has had the courage to talk about this. And his campaign was not a great success.
Still waiting to see if it’s John Edwards (be praised) or a rock conservative like Sam Nunn who accompanies Obama on his journey to the presidency… and either makes these points or does not.
I see the parallel universes as more the top 10 percent and the bottom 90 percent. However you look at it, it’s not pretty. — Bernie
I see the parallel universes as more the top 10 percent and the bottom 90 percent. However you look at it, it’s not pretty. — Bernie
“The last fourteen years since the Republicans took over Congress in 1994, the share if the nation’s wealth going to this top 1% has continued to grow.”
If you want to know what’s behind the Contract with America, the Earth is Flat, the free markets, the “democritization” of Iraq, the “war on terror”, the “war on drugs”, No Child Left Behind, and just about everything else the hijacked Republican Party (or maybe I should just say the Republocrat Party) has foisted on us over the past 15 or more years, it’s the above quote.
The top 1% has felt slighted, and has convinced itself that it has been robbed ever since 1932, and they want all of their money back, with interest and penalties.
The interesting and sad part of the story is the way they consistently convince 49% of the population that the real story is tree-hugging liberal fascists, and if we’d just clear them out of the way, then a new day of Reaganomic Paradise would dawn over America.
In spite of the fact that there are economic storm clouds (which they created) moving in from all directions and the barometer has dropped so low that it has imploded.
“The last fourteen years since the Republicans took over Congress in 1994, the share if the nation’s wealth going to this top 1% has continued to grow.”
If you want to know what’s behind the Contract with America, the Earth is Flat, the free markets, the “democritization” of Iraq, the “war on terror”, the “war on drugs”, No Child Left Behind, and just about everything else the hijacked Republican Party (or maybe I should just say the Republocrat Party) has foisted on us over the past 15 or more years, it’s the above quote.
The top 1% has felt slighted, and has convinced itself that it has been robbed ever since 1932, and they want all of their money back, with interest and penalties.
The interesting and sad part of the story is the way they consistently convince 49% of the population that the real story is tree-hugging liberal fascists, and if we’d just clear them out of the way, then a new day of Reaganomic Paradise would dawn over America.
In spite of the fact that there are economic storm clouds (which they created) moving in from all directions and the barometer has dropped so low that it has imploded.
You want to see “whiners” reinstate the inheritance tax. I suspect it we used Paris Hilton as the literal poster child for the campaign it could be done.
You want to see “whiners” reinstate the inheritance tax. I suspect it we used Paris Hilton as the literal poster child for the campaign it could be done.
Ken, It’s sure is doable all we have to decide is at what level of income or inheritance the whining starts and who makes that decision.
Are you willing to volunteer?
Ken, It’s sure is doable all we have to decide is at what level of income or inheritance the whining starts and who makes that decision.
Are you willing to volunteer?
Paris’ grandfather cut her down to a mere million bucks from the mega-millions she’d have gotten if she hadn’t flashed her nethers in public so blatantly. She was and is an embarrassment to the Hilton name, and now she’s paying for that. On the other hand, she probably makes a fortune being such a talented celebrity.
Paris’ grandfather cut her down to a mere million bucks from the mega-millions she’d have gotten if she hadn’t flashed her nethers in public so blatantly. She was and is an embarrassment to the Hilton name, and now she’s paying for that. On the other hand, she probably makes a fortune being such a talented celebrity.
I’ll volunteer. Reinstate the law as it was before.
As I recall, it didn’t strip the nation’s superwealthy of all their money and reduce them to penury. As I recall, there were a lot of very, very, VERY wealthy heirs in this country.
I’m an unrepentant believer in the use of the inheritance tax as a sort of brake on the dangerous accumulation of too much wealth in too few hands.
I’m also an unrepentant believer that the wealthy have a more strongly vested interest in a safe, stable, secure nation, because with out it, their wealth is vulnerable. They benefit in a greater way than the residents of the ghetto; they also benefit in a greater way than the middle class residents of the leafy suburbs. They should pay for the benefit accordingly. Saying that, for instance, a flat tax is fair is the same as saying that in a weightlifting contest, it’s fair to start the bench press at 400 pounds whether you’re a 225-pound he-man or an 85-pound teenage girl.
I’m also an unrepentant believer that since 1994 the wealthy have been committed to paying no taxes whatsoever on anything. What they’d like more than anything is no tax other than a sales tax, which effectively reduces their tax burden to a fraction of a percent.
I pay probably close to 50% of my total income in one tax or another, income tax, sales tax, property tax, “fees”, whatever. I don’t like it, but I’m not whining and demanding that my taxes be reduced. I don’t have much patience with people whose net worth is a couple hundred thousand times larger than mine who complain that they’re being bled dry. Try paying FICA on those billion dollar bonuses, Mr. Bond Broker.
I’ll volunteer. Reinstate the law as it was before.
As I recall, it didn’t strip the nation’s superwealthy of all their money and reduce them to penury. As I recall, there were a lot of very, very, VERY wealthy heirs in this country.
I’m an unrepentant believer in the use of the inheritance tax as a sort of brake on the dangerous accumulation of too much wealth in too few hands.
I’m also an unrepentant believer that the wealthy have a more strongly vested interest in a safe, stable, secure nation, because with out it, their wealth is vulnerable. They benefit in a greater way than the residents of the ghetto; they also benefit in a greater way than the middle class residents of the leafy suburbs. They should pay for the benefit accordingly. Saying that, for instance, a flat tax is fair is the same as saying that in a weightlifting contest, it’s fair to start the bench press at 400 pounds whether you’re a 225-pound he-man or an 85-pound teenage girl.
I’m also an unrepentant believer that since 1994 the wealthy have been committed to paying no taxes whatsoever on anything. What they’d like more than anything is no tax other than a sales tax, which effectively reduces their tax burden to a fraction of a percent.
I pay probably close to 50% of my total income in one tax or another, income tax, sales tax, property tax, “fees”, whatever. I don’t like it, but I’m not whining and demanding that my taxes be reduced. I don’t have much patience with people whose net worth is a couple hundred thousand times larger than mine who complain that they’re being bled dry. Try paying FICA on those billion dollar bonuses, Mr. Bond Broker.
P, sweet of you to offer me the privilege of setting it, and I accept (though I’m sure you were taunting me to let myself be taxed instead, which I also don’t mind). I therefore decree henceforth the restoration of the old Estate tax formula as it was and henceforth it shall be called the “silver spoon babies” tax. (Take that Karl.)
This country is rapidly passing through second rate on its way to being a third rate thanks to the anti-tax lobby’s extreme “wipe out government stance. Because of all the buy in to “read my lips, no new taxes” the burden has shifted to the middle income folk, and the very rich and even richer corporations (they are individuals just not responsible as ones) take advantage of that by getting the Burdened to support “zero tax increases.” The Burdened buy into the propaganda designed to consolidate power and wealth at their expense. The Burdened buy into it because, hell they don’t want no more burden. It’s all very clever indeed, but ultimately short sighted. But hey, it’s become a religion, so it doesn’t have to be rational, just faith based.
In Oregon, we have two counties that are actually looking at dissolving; i.e. going out of existence as governing entities. This thanks to Grover’s [Corporate] Americans for Tax Reform, and the even more ironically named Club for Growth investing millions into an initiative measure requiring a super majority to pass taxes. It passed big time in the two counties, that are literally bankrupt. No one knows what will happen, but they aren’t “growing” much due to the uncertainty or their future, and lack of basic amenities required to draw new business.
One of them, the County soon to be known as Formerly Curry, has a large retirement community which has helped keep property taxes down to $0.68/1,000, certainly among the national minimums. For years they lived off something called the ONC railroad lands formula which required the feds to pay from timber receipts because the majority of the county was locked in non-taxable Federal forests. When the US Forestry boondoggle to subsidize big timber was stopped by the symbolic Spotted Owl, forest receipts plunged. We Oregonians reacted to this with our long sorry trek to become the Appalachia of the west coast. Became the poster child for the anti-tax advocacy groups. And, thanks to our very loose initiative system the lab for all sorts of strangle government initiatives sponsored and paid for by those advocacy groups.
Now we get to play the scenario out. The fixed income folk in Formerly Curry are stuck, because no one will buy their homes, their only assets, The poor are too poor to leave. The few who have money will flee to places where their kids can have libraries and decent schools, and take the paying jobs with them. Rural America becomes inner city America. Thanks be to Grover. Trouble is, the folks who are stuck in these poverty pockets will never be able to think it through who is really to blame. It’ll be the gov’ment’s fault. The one they wanted to strangle by withholding taxes.
American’s are not intrinsically stupider than the rest of the world, they are just heavily conditioned to respond to a very expensive, well run advertising campaigns. It’s not the Estate Tax, it’s the Death Tax, and everyone dies, right? It’s not like governments need more money, they have plenty of money, they just need to spend it right; who needs police anyway? Right? Set aside the fact that the population has nearly tripled, if you just look at absolute adjusted dollar amounts, Oregon is collecting more taxes than it did in the 50′s. (Isn’t that an interesting way to turn 50% less into 50% more?)
We are hosed unless we stop this myopic, Taxes= Evil is BS.
So thanks, PC, the Silver Spoon Babies tax is a good start.
P, sweet of you to offer me the privilege of setting it, and I accept (though I’m sure you were taunting me to let myself be taxed instead, which I also don’t mind). I therefore decree henceforth the restoration of the old Estate tax formula as it was and henceforth it shall be called the “silver spoon babies” tax. (Take that Karl.)
This country is rapidly passing through second rate on its way to being a third rate thanks to the anti-tax lobby’s extreme “wipe out government stance. Because of all the buy in to “read my lips, no new taxes” the burden has shifted to the middle income folk, and the very rich and even richer corporations (they are individuals just not responsible as ones) take advantage of that by getting the Burdened to support “zero tax increases.” The Burdened buy into the propaganda designed to consolidate power and wealth at their expense. The Burdened buy into it because, hell they don’t want no more burden. It’s all very clever indeed, but ultimately short sighted. But hey, it’s become a religion, so it doesn’t have to be rational, just faith based.
In Oregon, we have two counties that are actually looking at dissolving; i.e. going out of existence as governing entities. This thanks to Grover’s [Corporate] Americans for Tax Reform, and the even more ironically named Club for Growth investing millions into an initiative measure requiring a super majority to pass taxes. It passed big time in the two counties, that are literally bankrupt. No one knows what will happen, but they aren’t “growing” much due to the uncertainty or their future, and lack of basic amenities required to draw new business.
One of them, the County soon to be known as Formerly Curry, has a large retirement community which has helped keep property taxes down to $0.68/1,000, certainly among the national minimums. For years they lived off something called the ONC railroad lands formula which required the feds to pay from timber receipts because the majority of the county was locked in non-taxable Federal forests. When the US Forestry boondoggle to subsidize big timber was stopped by the symbolic Spotted Owl, forest receipts plunged. We Oregonians reacted to this with our long sorry trek to become the Appalachia of the west coast. Became the poster child for the anti-tax advocacy groups. And, thanks to our very loose initiative system the lab for all sorts of strangle government initiatives sponsored and paid for by those advocacy groups.
Now we get to play the scenario out. The fixed income folk in Formerly Curry are stuck, because no one will buy their homes, their only assets, The poor are too poor to leave. The few who have money will flee to places where their kids can have libraries and decent schools, and take the paying jobs with them. Rural America becomes inner city America. Thanks be to Grover. Trouble is, the folks who are stuck in these poverty pockets will never be able to think it through who is really to blame. It’ll be the gov’ment’s fault. The one they wanted to strangle by withholding taxes.
American’s are not intrinsically stupider than the rest of the world, they are just heavily conditioned to respond to a very expensive, well run advertising campaigns. It’s not the Estate Tax, it’s the Death Tax, and everyone dies, right? It’s not like governments need more money, they have plenty of money, they just need to spend it right; who needs police anyway? Right? Set aside the fact that the population has nearly tripled, if you just look at absolute adjusted dollar amounts, Oregon is collecting more taxes than it did in the 50′s. (Isn’t that an interesting way to turn 50% less into 50% more?)
We are hosed unless we stop this myopic, Taxes= Evil is BS.
So thanks, PC, the Silver Spoon Babies tax is a good start.
Ken;
Two example of where I’m coming from. A friend, 3rd gen. ranch, Grandpa, Pa and Jr. Grandpa dies, shortly there after Pa dies, same year. 100 yrs of family ranch goes away, wealthy on paper. Jr. is now working graveyard at a mine.
Another friends husband died 20 yrs ago. Not wealth by any means but their were assets. To keep her home , she in her 60′s, had to sell off half of their only income producing property and she had to go to work.
Personnely I’m using life insurance as a hedge.
Somewhere between you and me an answer lies.
I’m glad I made the offer and feel free to send the government extra money anytime you are feeling under taxed.
Ken;
Two example of where I’m coming from. A friend, 3rd gen. ranch, Grandpa, Pa and Jr. Grandpa dies, shortly there after Pa dies, same year. 100 yrs of family ranch goes away, wealthy on paper. Jr. is now working graveyard at a mine.
Another friends husband died 20 yrs ago. Not wealth by any means but their were assets. To keep her home , she in her 60′s, had to sell off half of their only income producing property and she had to go to work.
Personnely I’m using life insurance as a hedge.
Somewhere between you and me an answer lies.
I’m glad I made the offer and feel free to send the government extra money anytime you are feeling under taxed.