America - Sliding Down The Shitter

[Chad32]

We're not a rich nation. We just have a few rich families who happen to live here.

[Minimalist]

Yeah.  If there is one problem in this country it is that rich motherfuckers don't have enough money!

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/trump-a...-ny-times/

Trump administration eyes capital gains tax cut for wealthy: NY Times

The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut to wealthy Americans by allowing taxpayers to account for inflation while determining capital gains tax liabilities, the New York Times reported on Monday.

The newspaper, quoting from an interview with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, said the administration could change the definition of “cost” used to calculate capital gains, allowing taxpayers to adjust the value of an asset for inflation when it is sold.

Tell me again how we are not a banana republic?

[The Grand Nudger]

Well...we also sell tractors.

[John V]

The fact that we (as a nation) have so much money is the most frustrating thing about our income inequality and the disgusting lack of respect for the working poor.*

Because things are worse other places we shouldn't be addressing the problems here? How fallacious.

*The working poor includes a TON of people who mistakenly believe they are middle class

What's the income level or other defining traits of these people who are poor but think they're working class?

As I was reading this thread, I was thinking that the main problem might be differing thoughts as to what is or isn't middle class.

---

https://money.cnn.com/infographic/econom...ss-anyway/

Everyone's talking about saving America's middle class. But just who exactly falls into this group?

That's actually a much more difficult question to answer than it seems. While some experts define the middle class by income, others define it by lifestyle. Still others say it's a state of mind.

Here are five different ways that economists, federal agencies and even the White House measure and characterize the middle class.

[downbeatplumb]

I recently faced a scare in which I thought I might end up homeless.  Naturally, some practical questions came to mind.  Most prominently, where I would go to the bathroom if that happened.  Is that problem less of a problem in a supposedly first-world country, by CapnAwesome's criteria, or is it still pretty shitty?  (No pun intended.  Well.  Maybe just a bit.)

Here they have closed down most of the public toilets to save expense and cut down on drug use. So the homeless shit in stair wells.
My son cleans housing estates for the council and cleans up the consequences every day.

[Aegon]

The fact that we (as a nation) have so much money is the most frustrating thing about our income inequality and the disgusting lack of respect for the working poor.*

Because things are worse other places we shouldn't be addressing the problems here? How fallacious.

*The working poor includes a TON of people who mistakenly believe they are middle class

What's the income level or other defining traits of these people who are poor but think they're working class?

As I was reading this thread, I was thinking that the main problem might be differing thoughts as to what is or isn't middle class.

---

https://money.cnn.com/infographic/econom...ss-anyway/

Everyone's talking about saving America's middle class. But just who exactly falls into this group?

That's actually a much more difficult question to answer than it seems. While some experts define the middle class by income, others define it by lifestyle. Still others say it's a state of mind.

Here are five different ways that economists, federal agencies and even the White House measure and characterize the middle class.

Classifying the middle class as income between $30ish thousand* to over six figures is pretty laughable IMO. You can separate it into subgroups (lower, middle, upper) but at the end of the day, considering what "middle class" means to most people, it's an incredibly misleading statistic. It tricks American workers who should be demanding more into thinking that income inequality somehow benefits them. Crazy stuff.

Those in the middle middle and lower middle are at serious risk of falling into a lower class because of one, large unforeseen expense. Somebody making close to or more than $100k has more than enough to establish a sizable rainy day fund and create a diversified investment portfolio that will provide them a sizable passive income, so that when that unforeseen expense comes, they will be ready. They will will not have to give up any aspect of their life that they were enjoying prior (for the most part). To me, that is the middle class. Everybody else is one mistake away from being poor. That is the working class. 

But, honestly, the working class and middle class are facing similar problems in terms of income inequality. Regardless of whether or not the economy is booming, only 20% of the population sees 90% of the benefits. Wages have also remain stagnated for quite some time, despite everything else increasing in cost. This is less of a Democrat/Republican issue and more of a problem with American state capitalism as a whole. That's why young people are turning socialist. They're disillusioned with our system and haven't lived through the 1980s (when everybody was conditioned to be content with income inequality.)

Both Democrats and Republicans have made the problem worse, like when Bill Clinton deregulated the financial sector. But nobody has had a worse impact than Reagan IMO. Check out income distribution before and after Reaganomics. 



[Chart taken from this Forbes article]

*I confused numbers from different sources, $46k is what the CNNMoney starts it at.

[The Grand Nudger]

30K?  You have to hit 50k in Kentucky, one of the poorest states, to be middle class.  Hell, 30k is significantly less than the median income of the united states.  Those people aren't middle class..they're halfway to not being dirt poor. As sad as that is, I can't help but laugh at how many of the 30k (and less) trumptards out here think that they're the forgotten middle class.

[Aegon]

I confused two sources I was looking at simultaneously. The article AM posted said $46k. I can't find it, but the other one put the starting number of lower middle class at $34k. I don't know where that link disappeared to.

[Minimalist]

[Minimalist]

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/heres-a...-paycheck/

Here’s why almost 80 percent of Americans say they live from paycheck to paycheck

But the official rate hides more troubling realities: legions of college grads overqualified for their jobs, a growing number of contract workers with no job security, and an army of part-time workers desperate for full-time jobs. Almost 80% of Americans say they live from paycheck to paycheck, many not knowing how big their next one will be.
Blanketing all of this are stagnant wages and vanishing job benefits. The typical American worker now earns around $44,500 a year, not much more than what the typical worker earned in 40 years ago, adjusted for inflation. Although the US economy continues to grow, most of the gains have been going to a relatively few top executives of large companies, financiers, and inventors and owners of digital devices.
America doesn’t have a jobs crisis. It has a good jobs crisis.