My feeling is, only people who own property, who own real estate, should be able to vote. Also, you should not be able to vote unless you have a job. Just my two cents.
Two ridiculous ideas in the one comment! I would start a business and employ dunces on election day, give them a square inch of property and tell them who to vote for.
There is no problem. You can’t buy an inch of property. If you don’t own property, then you can vote for crazy taxes without consequence. I’ve actually seen this happen in the many towns I’ve lived in. Renters vote for terrible bills, because they know they’ll never have to pay for those taxes or those bond measures. So no, it’s not a terrible idea. It’s actually an idea that was used in many of the original 13 states.
Ordinary workers pay payroll taxes from their first dollar of wages, plus federal excises and state/local sales, property, gasoline and other taxes. Tax Policy Center estimates the bottom quintile had an average 6.3% payroll-tax rate in 2023; 60% of those households owed payroll tax even though relatively few owed federal income tax.
Tax Policy Center
CBO's broader calculation includes income taxes, payroll taxes, corporate taxes and excises. Using that measure, the top 1% paid 27% of all federal taxes in 2022, not 40%, while the top quintile paid 70%. The total federal system remains progressive — but considerably less spectacular than St. Onge's chosen measure makes it appear.
Congressional Budget Office
That's an important distinction for a working person whose Social Security and Medicare taxes disappear from every paycheck.
This sounds like someone who doesn’t pay taxes. My federal withholdings as a W2 are already $45,830.. How’s that for a disappearing act? Enough is enough..
Wealth is highly concentrated in the top percentiles in the US.
According to Google AI Overview, the top 1% owns 31.9 fi of wealth, the 90th to 99 percentiles own 36.4% of wealth, 90th to 50th owns 29.2% and bottom 50th owns 2.5% of the wealth.
The income tax structure reflects the wealth distribution of the country. They’re just collecting income tax from those that have something worth collecting.
This basic wealth rundown indicates a serious breakdown of wealth distribution, between extreme wealth and extreme poverty. Such a wealth structure is intrinsically unstable and is likely to lead to political instability.
This overall wealth distribution could be compared to Mexico, with the top 1% owning about 40% of wealth, the top tenth percentile owning about 70 to 78% of wealth, and the bottom 50% owning about 2.3% of the country’s wealth, actually a statistic that’s remarkable close to the US wealth distribution on the bottom 50%. The ultra-rich, about 22 billionaires own about 219 billion in wealth assets.
In China, about 10% of the population owns 68% of total wealth, the top 0.001% owning about 5.8%, the wealthiest 130,000 families own about 58% of total wealth, while there is a large rural and urban divide.
In third world countries, the distribution is concentrated at the top with the top 10% of the population typically owning around 50 to 60 % of income and higher with regard to accumulated wealth. Developing countries typically have wealth concentrated at the top with small middle classes, while rural areas often have large populations living in subsistence poverty.
Information largely from Google AI overview.
If or when there is a more uniform distribution of wealth and income within the US population, then there could possibly be a more uniform distribution of taxable income, however the trend appears to be in the opposite direction, with more wealth concentrated at the very top of the income brackets, the one tenth of one percent with more people slipping into poverty.
This appears to be approaching the wealth distribution of middle income countries with some of the population percentiles actually approaching that seen in what are typically considered to be third world countries.
Certainly initiatives to return manufacturing and industrialization to the United States seems to be the obvious approach, since the only likelihood of improvement is to work our way out of unfavorable financial circumstances, since it will likely take longer to recover wealth than it takes to lose it.
There is folk wisdom, originally attributed to Joe Lewis, but not an official quotation, according to Google AI, “No one helps you up but everyone helps you down”.
Only problem with this format is that Zubstack's video player is terrible, and seems to have no pause button and loses its place if I take it off full screen.
"New IRS data says the top 0.1% of taxpayers — one in a thousand — pays more than the bottom 80% of taxpayers."
This is incorrect. Tax is paid by the customers.
Take the example of a computer programmer called Bill who writes some software, sells 1 million copies for $100 each, collects 60% and "pays" 40% in tax.
Let us examine what has happened:
* Bill wrote some software
* Software buyers paid $100 million
* Bill collected $60 million
* IRS collected $40 million
What did Bill do? Wrote some software
What did Bill get? $60 million
What did the buyers pay? $100 million
Who got the $100 million? Bill and the IRS.
Who paid the $40 million to the IRS? The software buyers.
Did the actions of Bill facilitate/help the IRS collect $40 million? yes.
If Bill had not written the software would the IRS have been down $40 million? Not really. Likely someone else who have sold some other (inferior?) software and the final situation would have been not much different to our scenario.
Who owns most of the wealth? Likely the top 5%. When you have about 45% paying no income tax, what do you expect? Doesn't matter who pays what as the government has never been able to make ends meet....even if you give them more and more.
80%-0.1% = 19.9%...are they invisible? I'd pay more taxes but I can spend my money far better than the government ever could.
My feeling is, only people who own property, who own real estate, should be able to vote. Also, you should not be able to vote unless you have a job. Just my two cents.
Two ridiculous ideas in the one comment! I would start a business and employ dunces on election day, give them a square inch of property and tell them who to vote for.
Do you see the problem?
There is no problem. You can’t buy an inch of property. If you don’t own property, then you can vote for crazy taxes without consequence. I’ve actually seen this happen in the many towns I’ve lived in. Renters vote for terrible bills, because they know they’ll never have to pay for those taxes or those bond measures. So no, it’s not a terrible idea. It’s actually an idea that was used in many of the original 13 states.
Contrary to popular belief, there are two leisure classes in the United States they occupy opposite ends of the income spectrum.
Ordinary workers pay payroll taxes from their first dollar of wages, plus federal excises and state/local sales, property, gasoline and other taxes. Tax Policy Center estimates the bottom quintile had an average 6.3% payroll-tax rate in 2023; 60% of those households owed payroll tax even though relatively few owed federal income tax.
Tax Policy Center
CBO's broader calculation includes income taxes, payroll taxes, corporate taxes and excises. Using that measure, the top 1% paid 27% of all federal taxes in 2022, not 40%, while the top quintile paid 70%. The total federal system remains progressive — but considerably less spectacular than St. Onge's chosen measure makes it appear.
Congressional Budget Office
That's an important distinction for a working person whose Social Security and Medicare taxes disappear from every paycheck.
This sounds like someone who doesn’t pay taxes. My federal withholdings as a W2 are already $45,830.. How’s that for a disappearing act? Enough is enough..
Wealth is highly concentrated in the top percentiles in the US.
According to Google AI Overview, the top 1% owns 31.9 fi of wealth, the 90th to 99 percentiles own 36.4% of wealth, 90th to 50th owns 29.2% and bottom 50th owns 2.5% of the wealth.
The income tax structure reflects the wealth distribution of the country. They’re just collecting income tax from those that have something worth collecting.
This basic wealth rundown indicates a serious breakdown of wealth distribution, between extreme wealth and extreme poverty. Such a wealth structure is intrinsically unstable and is likely to lead to political instability.
This overall wealth distribution could be compared to Mexico, with the top 1% owning about 40% of wealth, the top tenth percentile owning about 70 to 78% of wealth, and the bottom 50% owning about 2.3% of the country’s wealth, actually a statistic that’s remarkable close to the US wealth distribution on the bottom 50%. The ultra-rich, about 22 billionaires own about 219 billion in wealth assets.
In China, about 10% of the population owns 68% of total wealth, the top 0.001% owning about 5.8%, the wealthiest 130,000 families own about 58% of total wealth, while there is a large rural and urban divide.
In third world countries, the distribution is concentrated at the top with the top 10% of the population typically owning around 50 to 60 % of income and higher with regard to accumulated wealth. Developing countries typically have wealth concentrated at the top with small middle classes, while rural areas often have large populations living in subsistence poverty.
Information largely from Google AI overview.
If or when there is a more uniform distribution of wealth and income within the US population, then there could possibly be a more uniform distribution of taxable income, however the trend appears to be in the opposite direction, with more wealth concentrated at the very top of the income brackets, the one tenth of one percent with more people slipping into poverty.
This appears to be approaching the wealth distribution of middle income countries with some of the population percentiles actually approaching that seen in what are typically considered to be third world countries.
Certainly initiatives to return manufacturing and industrialization to the United States seems to be the obvious approach, since the only likelihood of improvement is to work our way out of unfavorable financial circumstances, since it will likely take longer to recover wealth than it takes to lose it.
There is folk wisdom, originally attributed to Joe Lewis, but not an official quotation, according to Google AI, “No one helps you up but everyone helps you down”.
"half the country is carrying the other half"
In context, I think you meant half the taxpayers pay almost all (97%) of the taxes.
But the statement has another truth - remember, half the country pays no taxes at all.
So half are paying, and the top half of that half are paying 97% of the total.
Only problem with this format is that Zubstack's video player is terrible, and seems to have no pause button and loses its place if I take it off full screen.
"Essentially, 210 people drinking but the bartender hands one guy the check."
Not exactly. More like 209 people ordered a glass of water and the 1 rich guy ordered an 8-course meal.
Normally I do really love your stuff. Thanks for all you do.
"New IRS data says the top 0.1% of taxpayers — one in a thousand — pays more than the bottom 80% of taxpayers."
This is incorrect. Tax is paid by the customers.
Take the example of a computer programmer called Bill who writes some software, sells 1 million copies for $100 each, collects 60% and "pays" 40% in tax.
Let us examine what has happened:
* Bill wrote some software
* Software buyers paid $100 million
* Bill collected $60 million
* IRS collected $40 million
What did Bill do? Wrote some software
What did Bill get? $60 million
What did the buyers pay? $100 million
Who got the $100 million? Bill and the IRS.
Who paid the $40 million to the IRS? The software buyers.
Did the actions of Bill facilitate/help the IRS collect $40 million? yes.
If Bill had not written the software would the IRS have been down $40 million? Not really. Likely someone else who have sold some other (inferior?) software and the final situation would have been not much different to our scenario.
You might want to re-consider Coinkite as a sponsor.
Please split the data center off into a separate short video that can be easily shared.
Who owns most of the wealth? Likely the top 5%. When you have about 45% paying no income tax, what do you expect? Doesn't matter who pays what as the government has never been able to make ends meet....even if you give them more and more.
80%-0.1% = 19.9%...are they invisible? I'd pay more taxes but I can spend my money far better than the government ever could.
Whose voice is this….Ai? Peter, do you not talk or have videos anywhere as the voice is brutal to listen to.
Switched over from X but liked your tone and the way you spoke about everything.
Thanks