Often those who go out of their way to support their employees and customers and neighbors are the first to fail. I hear “no good deed goes unpunished.”
And the ruthless, greedy SOBs make out like bandits. Which in reality they are.
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The Fed is making unprecedented loans to increase market liquidity. Without this, there would be little to no money to loan and the economy would collapse. Their charter empowers them to do this, and they only undertake extreme actions when really required. For instance, what they are doing now has never been done before. Sobering, isn’t it?
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That “liquidity” has been poured continuously into the Wall St Gravy Train for 13 years now and it has made a few extremely wealthy as it inflated the markets. It’s all been a scam and it may be folding. For the most part America is in a debt crisis as the result of poor regulation and the Fed’s efforts to keep the markets pumped up to give the appearance of prosperity these past 3+ decades. From quarter to quarter Washington has allowed the Fed to make the government appear successful in managing finances by throwing the nations credit cards into deep debt. And most of the public fell for it while those getting wealthier have laughed all the way home from their brokers’ offices thinking of how those simple minded people with dirty finger nails are making them wealthy plus paying their taxes for them.
The data says otherwise…
“Taxpayers with incomes over $200,000 paid 58.9% of all federal income taxes, despite the fact that those high-earners only accounted for about 4.5% off all returns filed.”
From this article and many others. Like this one;
And this,
That dirty fingernail worker making $12 an hour is paying for less than 1.4% of the total federal bill. Federal taxes are very progressive… state taxes less so.
And yet to pass bipartisan legislation, both sides pork up every bill with their pet projects to balloon our deficit spending and increases the federal debt. With this as an example, it is any wonder the average household debt load is about $60,000.
The smoke and mirrors are so effectively used by those who can gain significantly from using them.
https://blog.cheapism.com/why-billionaires-pay-less-in-taxes/#slide=2
Let’s go back to the tax system this country was founded on. My income tax burden would drop to ZERO. Federal taxes were mainly paid by businesses and working land owners. NOT individuals directly.
And yet the facts still don’t change.
You are entitled to your opinion and I respect that.
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Do the math and post it here. You are certainly capable. When was the last time we did that?
How high would those rates need to be to meet the $4 Trillion dollar federal budget. I’m being serious, I’d really like to know.
Working land owners meaning what? Farm land? Manufacturing land? Both?
Business taxes on profit only? A yearly asset tax? Both?
Actually, the original tax structure of the Federal government was based on import tariffs, which were paid by importers and the cost was passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.
There was a temporary income tax during The Civil War, but it was ruled unconstitutional by the SCOTUS. The “modern” income tax did not come about until 1913.
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I’m sketchy on my history of tax law…the point I was making is we as individuals didn’t pay an income tax. That didn’t come about til the first part of the 20th century.
I have no problem with the progressive income tax, and our joint tax filing is well north of $200k. That’s where the money is. The top 10% own 70% of the wealth in the US. And the gap is widening. They should share the majority of the tax burden.
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Regardless of what tax system is used, I have maintained for years that it is dangerous to have a large part of the population not pay taxes. Everyone should pay regardless of how little they earn. Then everyone has skin in the game and less likely to pit one group against another.
What makes you think the lower income people don’t pay taxes?
They buy gas, they buy tires…both of those have Federal excise taxes. And then there’s the local sales taxes. And if any of those products were imported, then those taxes are passed onto the consumer. And lets not forget the wireless taxes for anyone who owns a cell phone.
Then there’s FICA. Lower income people pay FICA on 100% of their income. The top 1% wage earners pay FICA on a fraction of their income since it’s capped at about $130,000
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Well, Detroit got past this
but today they might not turn down a developer
Of course, but so does everybody else. I’m talking income taxes, not license fees, park entrance fees, sales tax, property tax, health insurance tax, and so on. You get the picture.
Saw an ad just now, 0% APR for 84 Months + 120 Days Deferred Payment.
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A four month free ride then 7 years of regret. I’ll hope that Detroit eats most of those sales and fill their lots with un-sellable repossessions.
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7 year loans have become very common. According to NADA, the most common length of a new car loan in South Jersey is 5 years.
Sout Joisy HA HA
Well now I don’t know how big a fools the banks are. We taught them last time, lend all the risky money you want. If it goes south, you’ll get a nice taxpayer bailout 'cause you’re too big to fail.
If I could give out 10-20% loans and my only risk is that I’ll only get all my money back instead of all my money plus 5 grand, I might be in that business too.
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I remember back in the early 2000’s, Mistubishi did a promo where they offered a full year payment-free on a new Eclipse or Lancer. They ended up losing a lot of money, because a lot of customers drove the car for a year for free, never made any payments, and then Mitsubishi had to repossess them and sell them at a huge loss. I can’t believe anyone is stupid enough to offer deferred-payment financing in today’s economic climate.