Under, e.g., Obama's Title IX "guidance" (go read it) "that a man who (with no physician's diagnosis or any physical operation) identifies as a woman is entitled to the same rights under Title IX." This seems to be the position of these companies and the protesters, too, apparently.
The key point here is that a man doesn't have to *actually* identify as a woman. He can merely claim that he does, cannot be questioned on his claim, and can change his mind at any time. Because..."gender fluid". A truck-sized loophole for pedophiles and miscellaneous perverts. Get arrested for setting up shop in the ladies room? Just claim "I identify as a woman."
Apart from real problems of providing cover for miscellaneous perverts , this is a fiasco waiting to happen when hormone-plagued adolescent boys, being adolescent boys with raging hormones, realize--and sooner rather than later they will realize--that they can pop into the girls locker room at will. Just lie and use the "I'm gender fluid and feel like a girl right now." excuse.
The 0.3% of people who are actually transgendered are not the real target of this law. If someone has had hormone therapy and surgery to change their outer sex appearance, they will not even be noticed. Or even if they have not had the works done but are dressing the part.
The smaller fraction of transgendered women who have not yet become men who want to use a men's bathroom are also not really the issue. Women in a men's room pose no significant threat to the men there regarding sexual assault. There are not a lot of "upskirt" photos taken in men's rooms. Heck, even non-transgendered women who use the men's room are unlikely to even be a problem to the men there vis sexual assault or exploitation, more likely they are placing themselves at risk.
The smaller fraction of transgendered men who have not yet become women who want to use a women's bathroom are certainly being--unfairly, to be sure--told by this law to go along with society and use the men's room instead, in an effort to deny a safe haven to would-be rapists and other deviants.
If the bathrooms and locker rooms are such a problem for transgendered folks, maybe the solution is to have all bathrooms and locker rooms be unisex from kindergarden on up and in all public places. REAL nondiscrimination in the bathroom.
Just let the football team and cheerleaders use the same locker room. Nothing bad could possibly happen there right?
And since urinals would discriminate based on external plumbing, everyone has to use the same toilets. I can hear the lamentations of the women already. Put the seat up, put the seat down!
Also, he should pay his taxes in the various countries he owes them, then book the remainder in the US so he can get the double-taxation whammy and maximize the amount he is paying to help the US government pay its many debts.
It is worth noting that when Mr. Buffet and his friends Bill & Melinda Gates set out to figure out how to improve the world, they created the tax-exempt foundation and donated billions of dollars to the foundation, rather than simply letting the government have that money. We have to ask why? Didn't they trust to government to do the "right thing" with that money?
Also note that both Gates and Buffet, when they donated to the foundation, did so by giving away appreciated shares of their respective companies, thus garnering for themselves the largest tax break possible--not only did they not have to pay GC taxes on the gains (substantial they were, too), but they get to claim the *appreciated* value as a deductible charitable contribution. So, if WB had been granted one share of BH when it sold for $1000, he would owe income taxes on on the $1000. But if he held that share until BH sold for $200,000 per share, he would owe income taxes on the $1000, and CG taxes on the $199,000 difference. But by donating the share to the foundation, he still owes income taxes on the $1000, pays no CG taxes, and gets to claim $200,000 charitable donation (which can go a long way to offsetting any other income he has).
[Understanding Poverty in the United States: Surprising Facts About America's Poor]
“For most Americans, the word “poverty” suggests near destitution: an inability to provide nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter for one’s family. However, only a small number of the 46 million persons classified as “poor” by the Census Bureau fit that description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity.
“Although the mainstream media broadcast alarming stories about widespread and severe hunger in the nation, in reality, most of the poor do not experience hunger or food shortages. The U.S. Department of Agriculture collects data on these topics in its household food security survey. For 2009, the survey showed:
* 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food. * 83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat. * 82 percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.
“Other government surveys show that the average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and is well above recommended norms in most cases.
“Television newscasts about poverty in America generally portray the poor as homeless people or as a destitute family living in an overcrowded, dilapidated trailer. In fact, however:
* Over the course of a year, 4 percent of poor persons become temporarily homeless. * Only 9.5 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or trailers, 49.5 percent live in separate single-family houses or townhouses, and 40 percent live in apartments. * 42 percent of poor households actually own their own homes. * Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person. * The average poor American has more living space than the typical non-poor person in Sweden, France, or the United Kingdom. * The vast majority of the homes or apartments of the poor are in good repair.
“By their own reports, the average poor person had sufficient funds to meet all essential needs and to obtain medical care for family members throughout the year whenever needed.
“Of course, poor Americans do not live in the lap of luxury. The poor clearly struggle to make ends meet, but they are generally struggling to pay for cable TV, air conditioning, and a car, as well as for food on the table. The average poor person is far from affluent, but his lifestyle is far from the images of stark deprivation purveyed equally by advocacy groups and the media.
“The fact that the average poor household has many modern conveniences and experiences no substantial hardships does not mean that no families face hardships. As noted, the overwhelming majority of the poor are well housed and not overcrowded, but one in 25 will become temporarily homeless during the year. While most of the poor have a sufficient and fairly steady supply of food, one in five poor adults will experience temporary food shortages and hunger at some point in a year.
“The poor man who has lost his home or suffers intermittent hunger will find no consolation in the fact that his condition occurs infrequently in American society. His hardships are real and must be an important concern for policymakers. Nonetheless, anti-poverty policy needs to be based on accurate information. Gross exaggeration of the extent and severity of hardships in America will not benefit society, the taxpayers, or the poor.
“Finally, welfare policy needs to address the causes of poverty, not merely the symptoms. Among families with children, the collapse of marriage and erosion of the work ethic are the principal long-term causes of poverty. When the recession ends, welfare policy must require able-bodied recipients to work or prepa
A Department of Energy Survey [www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2009/#undefined], includes a part of which breaks down appliance use in US homes by household Income.
For example it states that 16.9M households are below the poverty line, and of those 15.6M have microwaves, 8.6M have coffee makers, 10.6M have top-door (top freezer) refrigerators, 1.8M have a 2nd refrigerator, 3,9M have a separate freezer, 4.8M have a dishwasher, 10.9M have a clothes washer in their home.
For TVs, of the 16.9M households below the poverty line, only 0.3M had no TV, while 4.8M had one TV, 5.9M had two TVs, 3.5M had three TVs, 1.6M had four TVs, and 0.7M had five or more TVs. Some 8.9M had TVs between 21 and 36 inches in screen size, and 4.4M had “big screen TVs” of 37 inches or more, with 5.7M being LCD or plasma TVs. Some 6.1M had cable TV boxes connected to their primary TV, and 3.9M had a video game console, and 7.1M had a DVD player.
In addition 5.8M of the 16.9M households below the poverty line had computers, while 1.8M more had two computers (and nearly1M had three or more). Some 7.2M had internet access, of those 2.7M had cable broadband, 3.1 had DSL or fiber. And 5.2M had at least one printer.
8.0M (of 16.9M poverty-level) households have cordless phones, 5.2M have answering machines, 0.8M have fax machines, and 0.8M have photocopiers. 5.8M have stereo equipment.
"Taxes are just our bill for our fair share of government and government services. It pays for military defense, a court system to allow you to file greviences against neighbors businesses or even the government itself, roads and bridges and other infrastructure, inspectors that ensure our buildings are constructed to code and food is safe to eat, and way more than I can list here. You use plenty of government services every day and don't even realize, so yes, you need to pay your bills for those services."
Why does everyone who argues for more government list these and then assume that therefore all the rest of government is good and worth the taxes we must collect to spend on them?
If government stopped at these things, there'd be a lot less griping. For every person who objects to spending on defense, there's people who object to spending on welfare. Why does the federal government hold $5T in mortgages? Why does the federal government fund the NEA ("Piss Christ" anyone?)? Can't Big Bird work without government subsidies? Can't Elon Musk sell electric cars to millionaires without subsidies? Why do we pay private contractors to fight the wars for us? If government is good, why do government employees need unions?
Yale's endowment is $25.41 billion. A 5% annual return (go look up Yale's returns and see that this is not unfair) would produce about $1.25B annually. Yale's undergraduate population is about 5,500 students (about 1400 graduates per year is about right). That's about $231,000 per undergrad per year. Why is anyone at Yale paying anything?
" He does not care if there is a 60% tax rate. Ultra-rich - 60% still equals ultra-rich."
No, he doesn't care about the income tax rate because he can structure his accounts so that he doesn't have any taxable income. Even if it went to 100% he would still have $63B.
His wealth is held in the shares of his company that have appreciated remarkably well since he created the company. He doesn't earn $63B in income, but he *could* sell his shares and face capital gains taxes (not income taxes) on the sale.
Ah, the Warren Buffet canard. First of all, Mr Buffet isn't making billions. He holds assets that represent unrealized capital gains in the several tens of billions (primarily shares of Berkshire-Hathaway; if BH were to go belly up tomorrow, his holdings there become worthless). His company pays him a salary of about $100,000 each year, and he "earns" a few million dollars every year in interest and dividends. This income, plus his salary, and whatever CGs he may realize, is what he pays taxes on, much of which is taxed at the lower capital gains rate rather than income tax rate. Quoting his tax rate, based on CG rates compared to his secretaries, based on income tax rates (and not at his or her *effective* income tax rate, at that) is apples and oranges.
Mr Buffet takes full advantage of the tax system to minimize his taxes. He has accountants and tax lawyers. He has clearly structured his affairs to minimize his taxes, as, for example, when he established trusts for his children.
It is further worth noting that when Mr. Buffet and his friends Bill & Melinda Gates set out to figure out how to improve the world, they created the tax-exempt foundation and donated billions of dollars to the foundation, rather than simply letting the government have that money. We have to ask why? Didn't they trust to government to do the "right thing" with that money?
Finally, note that both Gates and Buffet, when they donated to the foundation, did so by giving away appreciated shares of their respective companies, thus garnering for themselves the largest tax break possible--not only did they not have to pay GC taxes on the gains (substantial they were, too), but they get to claim the *appreciated* value as a deductible charitable contribution. So, if WB had been granted one share of BH when it sold for $1000, he would owe income taxes on on the $1000. But if he held that share until BH sold for $200,000 per share, he would owe income taxes on the $1000, and CG taxes on the $199,000 difference. But by donating the share to the foundation, he still owes income taxes on the $1000, pays no CG taxes, and gets to claim $200,000 charitable donation (which can go a long way to offsetting any other income he has).
Buffett told [interviewer Charlie] Rose his 2010 adjusted gross income was $62 million. He implied that most income came from long-term capital gains and qualifying dividends currently taxed up to 15%. Only a small portion of his gross income – a few million dollars for Buffett – is ordinary income, like wages and interest income, taxed at higher ordinary income tax rates currently up to 35%. Buffett [said] that he uses the maximum 30% charitable contribution deduction each year – for appreciated property – and he has a $10 billion carryover of charitable contributions for subsequent use too. Buffett’s 30% charity tax deduction offsets his entire ordinary income, and next it offsets his lower long-term capital gains income. Hence, he pays approximately 15% long term capital gains tax rates only, and – as he likes to say – it’s a lower tax rate than others in his office pay. Buffett also avoids nasty alternative minimum taxes (AMT) of 28%. Charity is a powerful tax savings tool to avoid income, AMT and estate taxes.
It would almost certainly be easier to just pay the UBI to each and every household, even the very rich, and then collect it back in taxes than it would be to have an entire different bureaucracy that approves who gets UBI and who doesn't.
In Star Trek, the Federation benefited from development of matter-antimatter reactions to produce nearly unlimited energy. They used that energy to drive the replicator technology. With replicators capable of providing virtually any and and all food and material goods (consumer goods), essentially for free, there was no need for buying normal consumer goods. So no one had to go without basics. Money, such as it was, was used to buy artisanal works or the odd thing that cannot be effectively replicated. It is also assumed that they had perfected birth control so that over-breeding became an issue. And of course, earth was nearly destroyed several times over, so that helped keep the population down for awhile.
Still meant something. Those were people who didn't *want* handouts, they *wanted* to work, to do *meaningful* work. They were ashamed of their dire straits and went to great lengths to get out of them.
At one of our dinners, Milton [Friedman] recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Milton replied: “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”
"The first part of your statement leads to employers paying minimum wage which is not the definition of basic living expenses."
Incorrect, at least partially. A single person working full-time (40hrs/week for 50 weeks/year) for minimum wage makes more than the federal poverty line, which *is* the definition of basic living expenses.
Charles Murry and Friedman proposed UBI as a far more efficient transfer system as a replacement for welfare. If you are prepared to end 100% of all other welfare system elements: foodstamps, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Section 8 housing, jobs training, unemployment insurance,... then there's a fair starting point for discussion.
Then take Elon Musks and Warren Buffetts. We can work our way down the billionaires list and take it all until there are no billionaires left.
America boasts 540 billionaires, more than any other country on the planet and more than all of Europe combined. In 2016, 221 former billionaires fell off the list, though 198 newcomers joined.
If we take all their money--on average they are each worth $4.44 billion--we would be able to come up with $2.376T, which could pay off about 11% of the national debt leaving us about $18T in the hole.
That's of course a one-time deal, because after that there aren't any billionaires and probably won't be any new ones one the policy of confiscation billionaires money becomes a thing.
Most rich people earned their money. A lot of those are first-generation rich.
Forbes says that 30 percent of the Forbes 400 members inherited their wealth and the remaining 70 percent are entirely “self-made.”
United for a Fair Economy breaks down the Forbes list using a baseball analogy. It says 35 percent of the list was born in the “batter’s box,” with a lower-middle class or middle-class background.
That includes people like Larry Ellison of Oracle , who was born in a lower-middle class part of Chicago. It also includes Harold Hamm, a one-time gas-station attendant who built an oil and gas empire.
The report says 22 percent of the list were born on first base: they came from a comfortable but not rich background and might have received some start-up capital from a family member. This group includes Mark Zuckerberg and hedge funder Louis Bacon, who started Moore Capital Management with help from a small inheritence.
Only 11.5 percent were born on second base, the report says. Second base is defined as people who inherited a medium sized company or more than $1 million or got “substantial” start-up capital from a business or family member.
The report says 7 percent were born on third base, inheriting more than $50 million in wealth or a big company. The report includes Charles Koch and Charles Butt on third base.
The report says 21 percent were born on home plate, inheriting enough money to make the list.
Depends on similar "magic" of free energy in the form of matter-antimatter conversion and the advent of replicator technology. Essentially unlimited energy driving replicators that can fashion virtually any and all food and consumer goods means a general lack of want for the basics and even the luxuries.
The poverty threshold, poverty limit or poverty line is the minimum level of income deemed adequate to cover total cost of all the essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year. In the US, this is presented as an income level based on household size (number of dependents). For a single person household, the poverty line is $12,060 (2017).
Perhaps worth noting is that a single person household working a full-time minimum-wage job exceeds the poverty line (50 weeks time 40 hours times $7.25 is $14,500), so by definition a full-time minimum wage worker is not living in poverty. But if that same person has a child, then both are living in poverty, as the poverty line for a two-person household is $16,240. In a very real albeit statistical sense, children cause poverty.
An assumption of a UBI is that it provides sufficient income to survive on, so let's use the poverty line as the basis for the UBI. That is, a single person household would receive a UBI of $12,060; A two-person household would receive a UBI of $16,240; and so on. Note that even this basic assumption leads to perverse outcomes (e.g. two adults living separately would get $12,060 each, but if they live together they "lose" $7,880 in UBI), so at least some will avoid getting married, or even living together (or lie about living together, thereby defrauding the system) just to maximize their free money.
Using census data, there are 124.5 million households. The average household size is 2.54 people. Let's interpolate the poverty table to get an average expected UBI of about $18,497. Multiplying that out we can get the tab for providing UBI based on these assumptions, a total of about $2.303 trillion.
Coincidentally, that is almost exactly the amount of money we currently spend on all social welfare benefits programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, foodstamps, etc. A reasonable idea--indeed, this was put forward in a WSJ essay by Charles Murray--would be to eliminate all those programs in favor of the UBI. Of course, this ignores the howls that would arise from a populace deprived of their SS checks and foodstamps.
Exploring the notion of replacing the most basic welfare programs, e.g. foodstamps, section 8 housing, while not disrupting the SS and Medicare that the elderly view as an earned right. After all, the UBI based on poverty level should by definition cover those sorts of expenses. There will still be screams from people concerned about drug addicts not buying food for their kids and that sort of thing. So it seems unlikely that the overhead of those programs, let alone the programs, would be completely done away with.
So it seems almost a certainty that a UBI would be adjacent to at least SS/Medicare. Those totaled about $1.473T of the welfare expenditures, so add the $2.303 to the SS/Medicare $1.473T for a total cost of $3.776T. Perhaps the UBI reduces SS income dollar-for-dollar in an either-or situation reduces this cost a bit.
A worst-case cost would be adding UBI on top of all the existing programs, for a total cost of about $5T. Or perhaps the UBI in lieu of all other programs can actually be rammed through so that the cost remains a minimum of $2.303T.
Total federal revenues collected from all sources (taxes, royalties, etc.) in 2014 (last year available) was $3.27 trillion. So UBI would consume somewhere north of 70% of all federal revenues. And the math here assumes that no one receive UBI drops out of the workforce or reduces their taxable income at all--i.e., that revenues stay constant.
Slashdot Mirror
Under, e.g., Obama's Title IX "guidance" (go read it) "that a man who (with no physician's diagnosis or any physical operation) identifies as a woman is entitled to the same rights under Title IX." This seems to be the position of these companies and the protesters, too, apparently.
The key point here is that a man doesn't have to *actually* identify as a woman. He can merely claim that he does, cannot be questioned on his claim, and can change his mind at any time. Because..."gender fluid". A truck-sized loophole for pedophiles and miscellaneous perverts. Get arrested for setting up shop in the ladies room? Just claim "I identify as a woman."
Apart from real problems of providing cover for miscellaneous perverts , this is a fiasco waiting to happen when hormone-plagued adolescent boys, being adolescent boys with raging hormones, realize--and sooner rather than later they will realize--that they can pop into the girls locker room at will. Just lie and use the "I'm gender fluid and feel like a girl right now." excuse.
The 0.3% of people who are actually transgendered are not the real target of this law. If someone has had hormone therapy and surgery to change their outer sex appearance, they will not even be noticed. Or even if they have not had the works done but are dressing the part.
The smaller fraction of transgendered women who have not yet become men who want to use a men's bathroom are also not really the issue. Women in a men's room pose no significant threat to the men there regarding sexual assault. There are not a lot of "upskirt" photos taken in men's rooms. Heck, even non-transgendered women who use the men's room are unlikely to even be a problem to the men there vis sexual assault or exploitation, more likely they are placing themselves at risk.
The smaller fraction of transgendered men who have not yet become women who want to use a women's bathroom are certainly being--unfairly, to be sure--told by this law to go along with society and use the men's room instead, in an effort to deny a safe haven to would-be rapists and other deviants.
If the bathrooms and locker rooms are such a problem for transgendered folks, maybe the solution is to have all bathrooms and locker rooms be unisex from kindergarden on up and in all public places. REAL nondiscrimination in the bathroom.
Just let the football team and cheerleaders use the same locker room. Nothing bad could possibly happen there right?
And since urinals would discriminate based on external plumbing, everyone has to use the same toilets. I can hear the lamentations of the women already. Put the seat up, put the seat down!
Also, he should pay his taxes in the various countries he owes them, then book the remainder in the US so he can get the double-taxation whammy and maximize the amount he is paying to help the US government pay its many debts.
It is worth noting that when Mr. Buffet and his friends Bill & Melinda Gates set out to figure out how to improve the world, they created the tax-exempt foundation and donated billions of dollars to the foundation, rather than simply letting the government have that money. We have to ask why? Didn't they trust to government to do the "right thing" with that money?
Also note that both Gates and Buffet, when they donated to the foundation, did so by giving away appreciated shares of their respective companies, thus garnering for themselves the largest tax break possible--not only did they not have to pay GC taxes on the gains (substantial they were, too), but they get to claim the *appreciated* value as a deductible charitable contribution. So, if WB had been granted one share of BH when it sold for $1000, he would owe income taxes on on the $1000. But if he held that share until BH sold for $200,000 per share, he would owe income taxes on the $1000, and CG taxes on the $199,000 difference. But by donating the share to the foundation, he still owes income taxes on the $1000, pays no CG taxes, and gets to claim $200,000 charitable donation (which can go a long way to offsetting any other income he has).
A tad dated, but...
[Understanding Poverty in the United States: Surprising Facts About America's Poor]
“For most Americans, the word “poverty” suggests near destitution: an inability to provide nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter for one’s family. However, only a small number of the 46 million persons classified as “poor” by the Census Bureau fit that description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity.
“Although the mainstream media broadcast alarming stories about widespread and severe hunger in the nation, in reality, most of the poor do not experience hunger or food shortages. The U.S. Department of Agriculture collects data on these topics in its household food security survey. For 2009, the survey showed:
* 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food.
* 83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat.
* 82 percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.
“Other government surveys show that the average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and is well above recommended norms in most cases.
“Television newscasts about poverty in America generally portray the poor as homeless people or as a destitute family living in an overcrowded, dilapidated trailer. In fact, however:
* Over the course of a year, 4 percent of poor persons become temporarily homeless.
* Only 9.5 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or trailers, 49.5 percent live in separate single-family houses or townhouses, and 40 percent live in apartments.
* 42 percent of poor households actually own their own homes.
* Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
* The average poor American has more living space than the typical non-poor person in Sweden, France, or the United Kingdom.
* The vast majority of the homes or apartments of the poor are in good repair.
“By their own reports, the average poor person had sufficient funds to meet all essential needs and to obtain medical care for family members throughout the year whenever needed.
“Of course, poor Americans do not live in the lap of luxury. The poor clearly struggle to make ends meet, but they are generally struggling to pay for cable TV, air conditioning, and a car, as well as for food on the table. The average poor person is far from affluent, but his lifestyle is far from the images of stark deprivation purveyed equally by advocacy groups and the media.
“The fact that the average poor household has many modern conveniences and experiences no substantial hardships does not mean that no families face hardships. As noted, the overwhelming majority of the poor are well housed and not overcrowded, but one in 25 will become temporarily homeless during the year. While most of the poor have a sufficient and fairly steady supply of food, one in five poor adults will experience temporary food shortages and hunger at some point in a year.
“The poor man who has lost his home or suffers intermittent hunger will find no consolation in the fact that his condition occurs infrequently in American society. His hardships are real and must be an important concern for policymakers. Nonetheless, anti-poverty policy needs to be based on accurate information. Gross exaggeration of the extent and severity of hardships in America will not benefit society, the taxpayers, or the poor.
“Finally, welfare policy needs to address the causes of poverty, not merely the symptoms. Among families with children, the collapse of marriage and erosion of the work ethic are the principal long-term causes of poverty. When the recession ends, welfare policy must require able-bodied recipients to work or prepa
A Department of Energy Survey [www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2009/#undefined], includes a part of which breaks down appliance use in US homes by household Income.
For example it states that 16.9M households are below the poverty line, and of those 15.6M have microwaves, 8.6M have coffee makers, 10.6M have top-door (top freezer) refrigerators, 1.8M have a 2nd refrigerator, 3,9M have a separate freezer, 4.8M have a dishwasher, 10.9M have a clothes washer in their home.
For TVs, of the 16.9M households below the poverty line, only 0.3M had no TV, while 4.8M had one TV, 5.9M had two TVs, 3.5M had three TVs, 1.6M had four TVs, and 0.7M had five or more TVs. Some 8.9M had TVs between 21 and 36 inches in screen size, and 4.4M had “big screen TVs” of 37 inches or more, with 5.7M being LCD or plasma TVs. Some 6.1M had cable TV boxes connected to their primary TV, and 3.9M had a video game console, and 7.1M had a DVD player.
In addition 5.8M of the 16.9M households below the poverty line had computers, while 1.8M more had two computers (and nearly1M had three or more). Some 7.2M had internet access, of those 2.7M had cable broadband, 3.1 had DSL or fiber. And 5.2M had at least one printer.
8.0M (of 16.9M poverty-level) households have cordless phones, 5.2M have answering machines, 0.8M have fax machines, and 0.8M have photocopiers. 5.8M have stereo equipment.
Try not doing them. The guns will show up.
Yeah, that's a real great deal. 50 years fighting the war on poverty? How's that working out?
"Taxes are just our bill for our fair share of government and government services. It pays for military defense, a court system to allow you to file greviences against neighbors businesses or even the government itself, roads and bridges and other infrastructure, inspectors that ensure our buildings are constructed to code and food is safe to eat, and way more than I can list here. You use plenty of government services every day and don't even realize, so yes, you need to pay your bills for those services."
Why does everyone who argues for more government list these and then assume that therefore all the rest of government is good and worth the taxes we must collect to spend on them?
If government stopped at these things, there'd be a lot less griping. For every person who objects to spending on defense, there's people who object to spending on welfare. Why does the federal government hold $5T in mortgages? Why does the federal government fund the NEA ("Piss Christ" anyone?)? Can't Big Bird work without government subsidies? Can't Elon Musk sell electric cars to millionaires without subsidies? Why do we pay private contractors to fight the wars for us? If government is good, why do government employees need unions?
Yale's endowment is $25.41 billion. A 5% annual return (go look up Yale's returns and see that this is not unfair) would produce about $1.25B annually. Yale's undergraduate population is about 5,500 students (about 1400 graduates per year is about right). That's about $231,000 per undergrad per year. Why is anyone at Yale paying anything?
" He does not care if there is a 60% tax rate. Ultra-rich - 60% still equals ultra-rich."
No, he doesn't care about the income tax rate because he can structure his accounts so that he doesn't have any taxable income. Even if it went to 100% he would still have $63B.
His wealth is held in the shares of his company that have appreciated remarkably well since he created the company. He doesn't earn $63B in income, but he *could* sell his shares and face capital gains taxes (not income taxes) on the sale.
Ah, the Warren Buffet canard. First of all, Mr Buffet isn't making billions. He holds assets that represent unrealized capital gains in the several tens of billions (primarily shares of Berkshire-Hathaway; if BH were to go belly up tomorrow, his holdings there become worthless). His company pays him a salary of about $100,000 each year, and he "earns" a few million dollars every year in interest and dividends. This income, plus his salary, and whatever CGs he may realize, is what he pays taxes on, much of which is taxed at the lower capital gains rate rather than income tax rate. Quoting his tax rate, based on CG rates compared to his secretaries, based on income tax rates (and not at his or her *effective* income tax rate, at that) is apples and oranges.
Mr Buffet takes full advantage of the tax system to minimize his taxes. He has accountants and tax lawyers. He has clearly structured his affairs to minimize his taxes, as, for example, when he established trusts for his children.
It is further worth noting that when Mr. Buffet and his friends Bill & Melinda Gates set out to figure out how to improve the world, they created the tax-exempt foundation and donated billions of dollars to the foundation, rather than simply letting the government have that money. We have to ask why? Didn't they trust to government to do the "right thing" with that money?
Finally, note that both Gates and Buffet, when they donated to the foundation, did so by giving away appreciated shares of their respective companies, thus garnering for themselves the largest tax break possible--not only did they not have to pay GC taxes on the gains (substantial they were, too), but they get to claim the *appreciated* value as a deductible charitable contribution. So, if WB had been granted one share of BH when it sold for $1000, he would owe income taxes on on the $1000. But if he held that share until BH sold for $200,000 per share, he would owe income taxes on the $1000, and CG taxes on the $199,000 difference. But by donating the share to the foundation, he still owes income taxes on the $1000, pays no CG taxes, and gets to claim $200,000 charitable donation (which can go a long way to offsetting any other income he has).
Buffett told [interviewer Charlie] Rose his 2010 adjusted gross income was $62 million. He implied that most income came from long-term capital gains and qualifying dividends currently taxed up to 15%. Only a small portion of his gross income – a few million dollars for Buffett – is ordinary income, like wages and interest income, taxed at higher ordinary income tax rates currently up to 35%.
Buffett [said] that he uses the maximum 30% charitable contribution deduction each year – for appreciated property – and he has a $10 billion carryover of charitable contributions for subsequent use too.
Buffett’s 30% charity tax deduction offsets his entire ordinary income, and next it offsets his lower long-term capital gains income. Hence, he pays approximately 15% long term capital gains tax rates only, and – as he likes to say – it’s a lower tax rate than others in his office pay.
Buffett also avoids nasty alternative minimum taxes (AMT) of 28%. Charity is a powerful tax savings tool to avoid income, AMT and estate taxes.
The lime shovelers earn a wage for their productive labor.
It would almost certainly be easier to just pay the UBI to each and every household, even the very rich, and then collect it back in taxes than it would be to have an entire different bureaucracy that approves who gets UBI and who doesn't.
If you limit the payments to only low-income people, it's welfare and not universal income.
In Star Trek, the Federation benefited from development of matter-antimatter reactions to produce nearly unlimited energy. They used that energy to drive the replicator technology. With replicators capable of providing virtually any and and all food and material goods (consumer goods), essentially for free, there was no need for buying normal consumer goods. So no one had to go without basics. Money, such as it was, was used to buy artisanal works or the odd thing that cannot be effectively replicated. It is also assumed that they had perfected birth control so that over-breeding became an issue. And of course, earth was nearly destroyed several times over, so that helped keep the population down for awhile.
"He who shall not work, shall not eat."
Still meant something. Those were people who didn't *want* handouts, they *wanted* to work, to do *meaningful* work. They were ashamed of their dire straits and went to great lengths to get out of them.
Compare to today's entitle welfare recipients.
At one of our dinners, Milton [Friedman] recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Milton replied: “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”
"The first part of your statement leads to employers paying minimum wage which is not the definition of basic living expenses."
Incorrect, at least partially. A single person working full-time (40hrs/week for 50 weeks/year) for minimum wage makes more than the federal poverty line, which *is* the definition of basic living expenses.
Charles Murry and Friedman proposed UBI as a far more efficient transfer system as a replacement for welfare. If you are prepared to end 100% of all other welfare system elements: foodstamps, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Section 8 housing, jobs training, unemployment insurance, ... then there's a fair starting point for discussion.
Eating shrimp on his yacht with Zuck and Elon Musk. Think these guys are busting hump more hours per day than most people?
Then take Elon Musks and Warren Buffetts. We can work our way down the billionaires list and take it all until there are no billionaires left.
America boasts 540 billionaires, more than any other country on the planet and more than all of Europe combined. In 2016, 221 former billionaires fell off the list, though 198 newcomers joined.
If we take all their money--on average they are each worth $4.44 billion--we would be able to come up with $2.376T, which could pay off about 11% of the national debt leaving us about $18T in the hole.
That's of course a one-time deal, because after that there aren't any billionaires and probably won't be any new ones one the policy of confiscation billionaires money becomes a thing.
"the best way to avoid taxes is to pay someone else money for something and deduct the income"
I'm pretty sure that's now how any of this works.
Most rich people earned their money. A lot of those are first-generation rich.
Forbes says that 30 percent of the Forbes 400 members inherited their wealth and the remaining 70 percent are entirely “self-made.”
United for a Fair Economy breaks down the Forbes list using a baseball analogy. It says 35 percent of the list was born in the “batter’s box,” with a lower-middle class or middle-class background.
That includes people like Larry Ellison of Oracle , who was born in a lower-middle class part of Chicago. It also includes Harold Hamm, a one-time gas-station attendant who built an oil and gas empire.
The report says 22 percent of the list were born on first base: they came from a comfortable but not rich background and might have received some start-up capital from a family member. This group includes Mark Zuckerberg and hedge funder Louis Bacon, who started Moore Capital Management with help from a small inheritence.
Only 11.5 percent were born on second base, the report says. Second base is defined as people who inherited a medium sized company or more than $1 million or got “substantial” start-up capital from a business or family member.
The report says 7 percent were born on third base, inheriting more than $50 million in wealth or a big company. The report includes Charles Koch and Charles Butt on third base.
The report says 21 percent were born on home plate, inheriting enough money to make the list.
Depends on similar "magic" of free energy in the form of matter-antimatter conversion and the advent of replicator technology. Essentially unlimited energy driving replicators that can fashion virtually any and all food and consumer goods means a general lack of want for the basics and even the luxuries.
Otherwise STFU...
Doing a little math...
The poverty threshold, poverty limit or poverty line is the minimum level of income deemed adequate to cover total cost of all the essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year. In the US, this is presented as an income level based on household size (number of dependents). For a single person household, the poverty line is $12,060 (2017).
Perhaps worth noting is that a single person household working a full-time minimum-wage job exceeds the poverty line (50 weeks time 40 hours times $7.25 is $14,500), so by definition a full-time minimum wage worker is not living in poverty. But if that same person has a child, then both are living in poverty, as the poverty line for a two-person household is $16,240. In a very real albeit statistical sense, children cause poverty.
An assumption of a UBI is that it provides sufficient income to survive on, so let's use the poverty line as the basis for the UBI. That is, a single person household would receive a UBI of $12,060; A two-person household would receive a UBI of $16,240; and so on. Note that even this basic assumption leads to perverse outcomes (e.g. two adults living separately would get $12,060 each, but if they live together they "lose" $7,880 in UBI), so at least some will avoid getting married, or even living together (or lie about living together, thereby defrauding the system) just to maximize their free money.
Using census data, there are 124.5 million households. The average household size is 2.54 people. Let's interpolate the poverty table to get an average expected UBI of about $18,497. Multiplying that out we can get the tab for providing UBI based on these assumptions, a total of about $2.303 trillion.
Coincidentally, that is almost exactly the amount of money we currently spend on all social welfare benefits programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, foodstamps, etc. A reasonable idea--indeed, this was put forward in a WSJ essay by Charles Murray--would be to eliminate all those programs in favor of the UBI. Of course, this ignores the howls that would arise from a populace deprived of their SS checks and foodstamps.
Exploring the notion of replacing the most basic welfare programs, e.g. foodstamps, section 8 housing, while not disrupting the SS and Medicare that the elderly view as an earned right. After all, the UBI based on poverty level should by definition cover those sorts of expenses. There will still be screams from people concerned about drug addicts not buying food for their kids and that sort of thing. So it seems unlikely that the overhead of those programs, let alone the programs, would be completely done away with.
So it seems almost a certainty that a UBI would be adjacent to at least SS/Medicare. Those totaled about $1.473T of the welfare expenditures, so add the $2.303 to the SS/Medicare $1.473T for a total cost of $3.776T. Perhaps the UBI reduces SS income dollar-for-dollar in an either-or situation reduces this cost a bit.
A worst-case cost would be adding UBI on top of all the existing programs, for a total cost of about $5T. Or perhaps the UBI in lieu of all other programs can actually be rammed through so that the cost remains a minimum of $2.303T.
Total federal revenues collected from all sources (taxes, royalties, etc.) in 2014 (last year available) was $3.27 trillion. So UBI would consume somewhere north of 70% of all federal revenues. And the math here assumes that no one receive UBI drops out of the workforce or reduces their taxable income at all--i.e., that revenues stay constant.