Wheres the beef?

[The Sponge]

Your so right about SS. There is nothing wrong with it if they would get their hands out of it. With all their fiscal irresponsibilities they have to always get their grimmy hands on it to pay for something not related to SS.
Alaska that is the biggest joke around. They can find oil for the next billion years and they will still gough us cause they are thieves. You see the prices dipping now because an election is coming up. These oil companies run the show and im not a big believer of god but man i hope there is one cause these pricks have something coming to them. I saw the oil ministry from Saudi Arabia once say they have enough oil for the next 300 years and nobody should worry. Its all a game and the greedy pricks hold all the cards.

 

[Nick Douglas]

Terryray,

If you would have written that in your initial post, I would have had less of a problem with it. I stand by my claim that your initial post was deceiving.

The problem I have with your latest post (and DTB's as well) is that you ignore the fact that the government by and large benefits the wealthy. Police, military, civil infrastructure, etc. are necessary to allow the wealthy to remain wealthy. The poor will remain poor with or without that stuff. Therefore, I absolutely believe that people with a higher income should pay a greater percentage of their income than people with a lower income.

The other point that often gets ignored is that poor people often pay a higher percentage of non-income taxes. For example, a flat sales tax is going to have more of an effect on a poor/middle class person because a greater percentage of their income is spent on consumer goods. When you get into that top 10% or even top 25% most people have leftover income that can be invested or saved (and therefore taxed at lower numbers in most cases). When you are in the bottom 50% virtually everyone spends almost 100% of their income on consumer goods, thereby increasing their tax burden compared to the wealthy.

 

[Nick Douglas]

In the simplest terms if John pays 50,000 in taxes and Joe 5,000 and each get 10% tax break for some reason many think john is getting over because he saves 5,000 and Joe only 500.:shrug:

I'll admit that you make a great point here. This is the exact reason why ripping Bush on the tax cuts is a loser for us (democrats). I remember when I was broke that extra $236 from Bush was huge to me. I'm sure plenty of other folks in tough financial situations feel the same way.

 

[BobbyBlueChip]

comparing the top 1%, 5%, 10%, etc, from year to year is very misleading because they are not the same people.
some are, but many aren't. There is tremendous vertical up and down movement between income groups in the US economy.
Immigration, divorce, population changes and such stuff change it.

The famous Michigan logitudinal study of income dynamics have charted this since 1968, and it hasn't gotten any worse.

I only see a study that talks about low-income families - so where is the conclusion drawn that there is "tremendous vertical up and down movement between income groups in the US economy?" I don't know if there could ever be a study that proves that only because it's not true.

Here's an excellent paper on how immigrants have been moving up by a Prof. at Berkely. (caution pdf file)


let's look at Berkely profs Saez and Piketty's paper on income inequality in the US (considered by liberals and conservative economists to be the best
on this, or many other things, out there). Income for top 1% shot up in 20s, flat in 30s, grew nicely in 40s, declined in 50s---up and down with the economy. So not surprising it is up both 80s and 90s, declined a bit since then.....

So it is not surprising? Anything funky that you notice in the graph? http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/TabFig2004prel.xls

Anything happen in 1986 that would cause % of income to the top 1% to double in the next 20 years?

Always enjoy getting into the "facts" and by the way, just in case it comes up later, the "hard work is a god given talent" is Nick's and Nick's alone and the liberals nor the centrists on the forum want to hear about it after this post. I really think Nick could bring the entire forum together.

 

[Terryray]

so where is the conclusion drawn that there is "tremendous vertical up and down movement between income groups in the US economy?" I don't know if there could ever be a study that proves that only because it's not true.

:scared This income movement is an established fact, agreed on by all economists at any university---leftist, marxist or conservatives. It is taught as fact in any standard textbook on income economics.

There's enuf studies done on it to choke godzilla.

well, mebbe they don't all use the qualifier "tremendous", but judge for yourself.


Here's a good overview of much of the well-known data presented in non-technical language by the Dallas Fed bank.


some excerpts:

"In the University of Michigan sample, only 5 percent of those in the bottom quintile in 1975 were still there in 1991."

"Covering the nine years from 1979 to 1988, the Treasury study found that 86 percent of those in the lowest income bracket moved to a higher grouping. Two-thirds of them reached the middle strata or above, with almost 15 percent making it all the way to the top fifth of income earners."

"There's further evidence that being in the low-income bracket isn't, for a large majority of people, permanent. Less than 0.5 percent of the sample showed up in the bottom quintile every year from 1975 to 1991"




you can fine at any fine university library most all of the best work done on this, a sample:

one of the standard books is by Mishel, Bernstein, and Schmitt, "State of Working America: 2000-01" (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000),

---were they report nearly 60 percent of Americans in the lowest income quintile in 1969 were in a higher quintile in 1996, and over 61 percent in the highest income quintile had moved down into a lower income quintile during the same period.



other standard studies are Condon and Sawhill, "Income Mobility and Permanent Income Inequality," No. 6723, Urban Institute (1992);

McMurrer and Sawhill, "How Much Do Americans Move Up and Down the Economic Ladder?" Urban Institute, Opportunity in America No. 3, November 1996. this paper reviewed seven studies, the intro, anyway, is available online here (warning pdf) where sez "Large proportions of the population move into a new income quintile each year, with estimates ranging from 25-40%"

Thomas Hungerford, "U.S. Income Mobility in the Seventies and Eighties," Review of Income and Wealth (1993, 403-417)

Maury Gittleman and Mary Joyce, "Earnings Mobility in the United States, 1967-91," Monthly Labor Review (September 1995, 3-13)

 

[djv]

What level is next level. They say many Move up from lower level to a higher level. Witch is what? IN other words a guy starts at a job for 8 bucks a hour. Border line Poverty level. He's lucky because he gets 3% raise every year for 10 years. They say he has now moved up the latter. However with a average inflation number of 3.1% for those 10 years. Has he really moved up. His buying power has not changed. BY the way last 20 years inflation average last chart I saw is 3.1%.
Actually per government standards just about anyone living on only SS are all in poverty.

 

[Terryray]

djv:

djv:

read the section titled "How Much Upward Mobility in Living Standards?" in the Dallas Fed bank piece above, and look at the accompanying charts in the pdf.

they chart changes of income in "constant" 1975 dollars---that means inflation is corrected for.

and notice how many move over two or more quintiles to get some idea of large and absolute changes.



as for gas, the average American spends about the same amount of disposable income on it as they did 30 years ago. Less today than 20 years ago. Even more true when you compare it to hours of work needed for a tank of gas. Article about it here when gas was $2.10 last May (which is what my friend in Jackson, Missouri paid yesterday)...tho even a $3 a gallon it's not so bad, relavtive to the past....that's why folks still driving like crazy----they don't like the prices, but it doesn't kill most folks pocketbooks.


as for poverty and SS. Remember, those poverty statistics just measure income. If you include the in-kind benefits like housing, medical and food subsidies, and the spending they do above income (expressing some assets and such), etc----those poverty rates for elderly in particular (most of the people trying to live on SS)---drop to tiny levels.

 

[Terryray]

on inequality and income quintiles

on inequality and income quintiles

fine piece on some of this stuff in yesterday's Washington Times by Alan Reynolds, some excerpts:

Recent news provided yet another addition to Reynolds' Laws: "If the headline of any major newspaper or magazine article refers to 'inequality' or 'income gap,' you can safely assume the statistics in that story will be at least 65 percent untrue."...

...."Attacking inequality" by Sebastian Mallaby, confuses the number of households with the number of workers. That's 100 percent wrong. He wrote: "Economic growth no longer seems to help the majority of workers; the proceeds flow to the top fifth or so of the work force." Not so. Half the proceeds from work and savings (not counting taxes or transfer payments) flow to the top fifth of households, not the top fifth of workers.

"Work Matters" is a chapter in my forthcoming book, "Income and Wealth," from Greenwood Press. Among much else, that chapter notes that Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys show an average of 0.6 workers per household in the lowest fifth, one in the second, 1.4 in the third, 1.7 in the fourth, and two in the top fifth. This is partly because there are many more singles in the lower-income groups (including students and widows), and many more two-earner couples with older children toward the top. There are 1.8 persons per household in the lowest fifth, but 3.1 in the top fifth.

The Census Bureau found that within the lowest quintile, the number of people who worked full-time all year in 2005 amounted to 3.2 million in the poorest fifth of households, compared with 9.3 million in the second fifth, 13 million in the third, 15.3 million in the fourth and 16.7 million in the top quintile.

That uniquely industrious top fifth -- every couple with an income above $91,705 -- accounted for 29.1 percent of all full-time, year-round workers. The top fifth surely accounts for more than half of all two-earner college-educated families over the age of 25. It should be neither a surprise nor complaint that they collect half of all income -- before taxes. If work did not pay off, the top fifth would not work so hard to produce at least half the U.S. economy's goods and services......