Obama:America voted for tax hikes on the rich.

[SnakeRanch]

That yearly income is not rich. I live rather economically on $30k a year.

Oh wait, thought you said $25k a year, not $250k...

[blue123]

Originally Posted by aramchek

I see we're talking past one another here. There are two kinds of middle-class.

1. Someone earning, or with wealth-producing assets, somewhere around the median income for a particular region. Give it a plus/minus spread of maybe 10-15% both ways and you have a statistical middle-class based on income. That income will vary between midwest, coastal areas, big cities, etc. Sort of like using the Bell Curve for grading. You'll always get a certain percentage of A's & B's, alot of people in the C range, and people guaranteed to fail -- whether the class is full of Einsteins or morons. But it is useful for judging oneself against the Joneses.

2. A middle-class that is accustomed to a certain sort of lifestyle, maybe even regardless of income. 2.5 kids, 2 cars, 1,800+ square feet single-dwelling residence, college degree, whatever you want to include here in the "American Dream" ideal.

Of course, that lifestyle -- as with the national economy overall -- has increasingly become debt-financed. I completely agree that $80K is insufficient for a family of 4 to realize traditional middle-class values. You will not be able to save for kids' college. You will not be able to get a new car or ever afford newer/nicer home in many areas. You will probably have no cabin or recreational property, etc.

Bottom-line, if you want to go by strategy #2 to define the middle-class, it's facing extinction in America to anyone under the age of 45 or so -- if they have children. Historically speaking, the middle-class were the new rich, the class of post-medieval merchants/etc. who were not entitled/born into wealth (the nobility), but managed to obtain it nonetheless. They climbed ladders, challenged the caste system.

Those days appear to almost be ending, as if we are flirting with going back to debt-serfdom.

yes,....exactly

worst part is half the nation does'nt realize it and or is in denile about it.

[BoycottTheDay]

Middle class income in NYC aint a middle class income in alabama people.

[tobkis]

Originally Posted by BoycottTheDay

Middle class income in NYC aint a middle class income in alabama people.

Yep, Alabama has more class.

[aramchek]

However you approach the definition, it's an inexact science. You can't go strictly by income, since that's relative to cost-of-living (changing over time + place). And you can't go strictly by lifestyle/values, since lifestyle can be debt-financed and.... many people are clearly living in a state of cognitive dissonance when it comes to values.

Probably the corporate media has done a fair amount of class fabrication, just as they somewhat fabricate "left" and "right" and exaggerate differences between the political parties. I suspect one of the goals is to get them to identify with the upper-class, to be optimistic that one day they'll "make it", etc. And there is some historical baggage in which white-collar people tended to make more money (think middle-class) than blue-collar people (think working-class/poor). But that old barrier doesn't hold true any more, since we're in a post-industrial economy and there are plenty of trades that pay better than mindless office jobs.

[RedWoods]

I guess taxing our way to prosperity is the new American dream. As long as its someone else getting taxed.

I'll do my part and let my CPA come up with more asset adjustments to lower my taxes even more. I started my plan to limit taxable income in 2010 and will continue doing my part to make less and pay less tax.

Red

[blue123]

Originally Posted by RedWoods

I started my plan to limit taxable income in 2010 and will continue doing my part to make less and pay less tax.

Red

the hallmark of a retreating consumer economy.

[hak]

Originally Posted by WhyNot

T<snip>

...
January 1, 2013 A 40% excise tax on high cost ("Cadillac") insurance plans is introduced. The tax (as amended by the reconciliation bill)[143] is on insurance premiums in excess of $27,500 (family plans) and $10,200 (individual plans), and it is increased to $30,950 (family) and $11,850 (individual) for retirees and employees in high risk professions. The dollar thresholds are indexed with inflation; employers with higher costs on account of the age or gender demographics of their employees may value their coverage using the age and gender demographics of a national risk pool.
*Guess it will be up to the IRS to determine what a "Cadillac" insurance plan is.

nope, it's unions and public sector groups that have already been exempted from the cadillac tax.

"...So emerging from their backrooms, Democrats have agreed to extend a special exemption from the Cadillac tax to any health plan that is part of a collective-bargaining agreement, plus state and local workers, many of whom are unionized. Everyone else with a higher-end plan will start to be taxed in 2013, but union members will get a free pass until 2018...

source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...410621692.html

So shady.

[hak]

Originally Posted by mcdonnald

I hear all the time about how taxes should go back to the higher levels from the Clinton era, things were "good" then. Well, I'd be all for it if expenses and entitlements went back to that era, too. No Obama phones back then, just to name one thing.

actually that's incorrect. during RR's term, the FCC lifline program (landlines) passed. http://www.fcc.gov/guides/lifeline-a...ible-consumers

Then in 1996, Clinton signed the 1996 Telecommunications Act into law, which offered either cell phones or landline services to low-income Americans.

So it was around, but seems to not have been as known in the public sphere as it is now. After all, the ratio of takers to makers has tilted, and frankly the stigma of being on the dole has simply evaporated from some communities. it's gone from being: "i, uh, needed this free phone while i get my life together" to: "check this out, a phone i didn't pay for!"

rant alert:

I've been drop broke poor twice in my life. both times i refused to go on the dole, just for point of pride. I'm convinced that making the EBT (?) cards look/work like Visa cards (why not have a lane/checkout line in the store dedicated to those on food stamps and on handouts - make them stand out) and phones not being bright green ("i'm a freeloader phone!!!!") are, in my opinion, a lack of a very real deterrent to moochers - being perceived and shunned as such would be a deterrent. sorry, but human nature is real.

If you need a 'hand up' and help at a critical time, so be it (i won't judge you, i didn't have kids during both of these hard stretches so my struggle didn't require feeding more mouths) so i could be more flexbile; but I will judge those who make the dole a way of life. we do them and ourselves a disservice making it 'acceptable'.

/rant off

[merlinfire]

Funny how when a group wins by a small margin they think that gives them the mandate of the people.

[MIL-DOT]

Originally Posted by merlinfire

Funny how when a group wins by a small margin they think that gives them the mandate of the people.

Obama and his leftist idealogues don't care whether they have a legitimate mandate or not, they mean to alter this country into their vision of what it should be, and by any means necessary.

[aramchek]

What is left or right? When I look at my expenses, income, opportunities, etc. I just see dollar signs and a rat-race. Obama's politics, insofar as they've actually affected me, appear to be pretty similar to Reagan supply-side economics. I don't see any evidence of leftism there -- if that's what you'd rather have.

Same NAFTA, same wars, bailouts to cronies, same Fed, etc. I know why the talk show pundits are desperately trying to spin everything as left-right. They're worried that a non-partisan American populist dictator will emerge, so it is essential to divide the people. Cut their frustrations and voice in half. Unfortunately, a dictator is virtually guaranteed to happen -- because we don't have a genuine distinction between the parties and their ideologies. People are coming to realize that there is no real opposition to plutocracy.

[MentalWarden]

The underground economy will always find a way. It is rather ironic in a sense, that a true free market would emerge from such oppressive regulations as those we live under ... yet oddly enough it always does.

[KaBar67]

Originally Posted by MIL-DOT

Pretty close. It was the masses that don't pay taxes, plus some of that wealthy minority that make so much that they won't be hurt if they do.

With all the deductions and creidts on a return, you need to make well over $250,000 a year to pay taxes on $250,000 taxable income. That said, I hate the fixation with taxes "for someone else".

[hak]

Originally Posted by hak

....and frankly the stigma of being on the dole has simply evaporated from some communities. it's gone from being: "i, uh, needed this free phone while i get my life together" to: "check this out, a phone i didn't pay for!"

and my ebt comments above... case in point, you can't make this stuff up:

"Hipsters on food stamps - They're young, they're broke, and they pay for organic salmon with government subsidies. Got a problem with that?

http://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/hips...tamps_pinched/


"In the John Waters-esque sector of northwest Baltimore — equal parts kitschy, sketchy, artsy and weird — Gerry Mak and Sarah Magida sauntered through a small ethnic market stocked with Japanese eggplant, mint chutney and fresh turmeric. After gathering ingredients for that evening’s dinner, they walked to the cash register and awaited their moments of truth.

“I have $80 bucks left!” Magida said. “I’m so happy!”

“I have $12,” Mak said with a frown.

The two friends weren’t tabulating the cash in their wallets but what remained of the monthly allotment on their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program debit cards, the official new term for what are still known colloquially as food stamps.

Magida, a 30-year-old art school graduate, had been installing museum exhibits for a living until the recession caused arts funding — and her usual gigs — to dry up. She applied for food stamps last summer, and since then she’s used her $150 in monthly benefits for things like fresh produce, raw honey and fresh-squeezed juices from markets near her house in the neighborhood of Hampden, and soy meat alternatives and gourmet ice cream from a Whole Foods a few miles away.

“I’m eating better than I ever have before,” she told me. “Even with food stamps, it’s not like I’m living large, but it helps.”

Mak, 31, grew up in Westchester, graduated from the University of Chicago and toiled in publishing in New York during his 20s before moving to Baltimore last year with a meager part-time blogging job and prospects for little else. About half of his friends in Baltimore have been getting food stamps since the economy toppled, so he decided to give it a try; to his delight, he qualified for $200 a month."

Got that y'all? he's delighted! able bodied and college educated and he's delighted to be on food stamps. make it a shaming experience and take the delight out of being a freeloader.

oh, and "food stamps" are a "colloquialism"

parting line:

"At Magida’s brick row house in Baltimore, she and Mak minced garlic while observing that one of the upsides of unemployment was having plenty of time to cook elaborate meals, and that among their friends, they had let go of any bad feelings about how their food was procured.

“It’s not a thing people feel ashamed of, at least not around here,” said Mak. “It feels like a necessity right now.”

parasites.


Armacheck, i saw your post and don't know to whom you're responding, and I agree about the result somewhat and some similar distractions (wars and cronyism), but there is a definite difference in now vs. RR's time you mention, the push towards collectivism now.

paraphrasing: “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.” – Margaret Thatcher

[hak]

Originally Posted by KaBar67

With all the deductions and creidts on a return, you need to make well over $250,000 a year to pay taxes on $250,000 taxable income. That said, I hate the fixation with taxes "for someone else".

the AMT hits well below that level and is a very real thing for families living in the more expensive parts of the country.

[merlinfire]

Originally Posted by hak

and my ebt comments above... case in point, you can't make this stuff up:

"Hipsters on food stamps - They're young, they're broke, and they pay for organic salmon with government subsidies. Got a problem with that?

http://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/hips...tamps_pinched/


"In the John Waters-esque sector of northwest Baltimore — equal parts kitschy, sketchy, artsy and weird — Gerry Mak and Sarah Magida sauntered through a small ethnic market stocked with Japanese eggplant, mint chutney and fresh turmeric. After gathering ingredients for that evening’s dinner, they walked to the cash register and awaited their moments of truth.

“I have $80 bucks left!” Magida said. “I’m so happy!”

“I have $12,” Mak said with a frown.

The two friends weren’t tabulating the cash in their wallets but what remained of the monthly allotment on their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program debit cards, the official new term for what are still known colloquially as food stamps.

Magida, a 30-year-old art school graduate, had been installing museum exhibits for a living until the recession caused arts funding — and her usual gigs — to dry up. She applied for food stamps last summer, and since then she’s used her $150 in monthly benefits for things like fresh produce, raw honey and fresh-squeezed juices from markets near her house in the neighborhood of Hampden, and soy meat alternatives and gourmet ice cream from a Whole Foods a few miles away.

“I’m eating better than I ever have before,” she told me. “Even with food stamps, it’s not like I’m living large, but it helps.”

Mak, 31, grew up in Westchester, graduated from the University of Chicago and toiled in publishing in New York during his 20s before moving to Baltimore last year with a meager part-time blogging job and prospects for little else. About half of his friends in Baltimore have been getting food stamps since the economy toppled, so he decided to give it a try; to his delight, he qualified for $200 a month."

Got that y'all? he's delighted! able bodied and college educated and he's delighted to be on food stamps. make it a shaming experience and take the delight out of being a freeloader.

oh, and "food stamps" are a "colloquialism"

parting line:

"At Magida’s brick row house in Baltimore, she and Mak minced garlic while observing that one of the upsides of unemployment was having plenty of time to cook elaborate meals, and that among their friends, they had let go of any bad feelings about how their food was procured.

“It’s not a thing people feel ashamed of, at least not around here,” said Mak. “It feels like a necessity right now.”

parasites.


Armacheck, i saw your post and don't know to whom you're responding, and I agree about the result somewhat and some similar distractions (wars and cronyism), but there is a definite difference in now vs. RR's time you mention, the push towards collectivism now.

paraphrasing: “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.” – Margaret Thatcher

I think what aremcheck is trying to say, and a statement which I agree with, is that people assume that because republicans and democrats are different in theory, then they must be diametrically opposed in fact. Fact is, Obama's so far had an economic policy of spending and crony capitalism, just like Bush, just like Clinton, just like Bush Sr, just like Reagan...........as to collectivism, I don't know what you're talking about. You might want to look up the definition of the word and get back to me. Nobody is being forced off their farms onto collectivist communes, and the supposed Agenda 21 BS is little more than conspiracy theorist fever-dreams.

[9mmMike]

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Never been truer. Need to remove all of them that have been in longer than 8 years from office and ban them from ever being anythign more than a dog catcher for the rest of their life. Term limits for everyone.

[MIL-DOT]

.............................

[MIL-DOT]

Originally Posted by merlinfire

.....and the supposed Agenda 21 BS is little more than conspiracy theorist fever-dreams.

Actually, there's a good bit more to it than that. Everything that follows this agenda 21 BS isn't necessarily labelled as being a part of it, but we're seeing it's proliferation in numerous places, and from numerous directions, and you can rest assured that it's going to escalate.
I've been noticing that the happy-freindly Weather Channel has been really pushing the "global warming is real" thing, in a big way,lately. "We need to act !! We need to act NOW !!" What this means is they want to regulate,tax and fine the average non-3rd world citizen, to the point of insanity. And they're just getting "warmed up" .