Is much of the criticism of cheap food actually class snobbery?

[skp]

GS. In your example of the basketball players.  If both were the same height and the same ability.  Do you think the poorer person would always loose out and the richer person would always "win:. I think ability matters more than class.  I grew up working class, dad worked in steel mill, mother stay at home mom.  My sister works as a secretary.  I work as a nurse.  I make twice as much as she does.  I did better in school.  I'd say we are both happy.  We both have "enough".

[nereo]

Andrew Jackson was born in 1757, died in 1845.  His experience doesn't seem relevant to the issue of economic mobility in the 21st century.

It is not equal opportunity if it's only available to those willing to take risks.

I think you missed the point I was trying to make.

1) There are various standards for success, but to meet your criteria, I googled billionaires raised in poverty: https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaires-who-came-from-nothing-2013-12?op=1#born-into-poverty-oprah-winfrey-became-the-first-african-american-tv-correspondent-in-nashville-6.

2) "Fortune favors the bold." Everyone must take risks in life.

?!?
You googled "billionaires raised in poverty" and discovered ... people who were born in poverty to become billionaires?  That has absolutely no bearing on the topic at hand.  All it does is show that it's possible, not that whether it is more or less likely than someone from better circumstances.  You could try looking at the list of billionaires and determining how many of those came from well off families.

Likewise, the Andrew Jackson is just bizarre.  You can't take someone born >250 years ago to make a point about equality and opportunity today.

[AlexMar]

I am a firm believer in land of equal opportunity, not equal results.  If you start poor, oh well.

Do you believe that the opportunity for a rich kid born in the lap of luxury is equal to the opportunity for a poor kid born to a single working mom?

There are vanishingly few people (certainly I wouldn't count myself among them) who believe that all people deserve equal results for different efforts in life.  Yet, you appear to be arguing that the poor should have to work harder to achieve equal results.  If the poor kid has to work harder than the rich kid to get the same result, how is their opportunity the same?

Look at it a different way.  Let's say I have $5M.  Is it fair that I have to work so much harder to have $100M or $1B?  I see the logic the same way when comparing poor and middle class.

There's little difference between being rich and being super rich.  There's a huge difference between being food insecure and middle class.  I'm not sure that the comparison you're making here is valid for this reason.

There is no such thing as equal efforts.  Human beings are far too different and dynamic.  Equal opportunity has to do with government interference, not who your parents happen to be.  In fact, that's the point of equal opportunity.  It doesn't matter who your parents are or where you started.  No monarchy or government imposed caste system is going to stop you from succeeding.  It's illegal to discriminate in this country.  That is equal opportunity.

How could you ever get equal opportunity of lifestyle and upbringing?

[GuitarStv]

GS. In your example of the basketball players.  If both were the same height and the same ability.  Do you think the poorer person would always loose out and the richer person would always "win:. I think ability matters more than class.  I grew up working class, dad worked in steel mill, mother stay at home mom.  My sister works as a secretary.  I work as a nurse.  I make twice as much as she does.  I did better in school.  I'd say we are both happy.  We both have "enough".

The whole point of the example was that ability at playing basketball should not be correlated with success at a job.  Just as wealth that you're born with is not correlated with success in life.

If a trait that someone is born with (such as great wealth or great height) guarantees them a better standing in our society, there is a problem.  As mentioned, it is a perversion of the capitalist system and prevents it from working property - the best will be hindered from rising to the top while this inequality exists.


I'm glad that you've found your niche and are happy with what you've got.  Don't get me wrong.  Of course ability matters.  Of course hard work matters (in some cases much more than ability).  Of course perseverance matters.  In North America we have built up a ruling class of ultra rich little different from the nobility of feudal Europe.  This is not good for our society.

[AlexMar]

*Note that many aspects of being rich suck too. In order for us (Mustachians) to get rich, we've had to generally work hard and delay gratification. Additionally, the universal advice I've received from every single well-off person is to work hard. The people who are not well off, but started from the same station, almost invariably desired the outcome but didn't study, respect, or implement the process to get there.

A medical doctor is a prime example of this.  I know many (certainly some must be on this forum, too).  It's the ultimate in hard work, sacrifice, and delayed gratification that so few of us are willing to do.  I know I could never do it.  But every doctor I know who has been at it for some years is killing it.  I know 2 that have Ferraris.  FIRE folks are trying to retire when MD's are just getting started.

[AlexMar]

It is not equal opportunity if it's only available to those willing to take risks.

Everyone has the opportunity to take those risks.

[AlexMar]

I'm glad that you've found your niche and are happy with what you've got.  Don't get me wrong.  Of course ability matters.  Of course hard work matters (in some cases much more than ability).  Of course perseverance matters.  In North America we have built up a ruling class of ultra rich little different from the nobility of feudal Europe.  This is not good for our society.

I disagree.  Our system of government doesn't allow for nobility and the type of control and power wielded in feudal Europe.  We have a representative democracy that can and does confiscate the wealth of the ultra rich and distributes it to the poor.  It's simply not comparable.  I'm not bothered by billionaires.  In fact, recently, these billionaires have improved the standard of living for nearly everyone on earth in immeasurable ways.  I want more of them.  More billionaires, less bureaucrats.

[Cool Friend]

It is not equal opportunity if it's only available to those willing to take risks.

Everyone has the opportunity to take those risks.

I disagree, but even if that were so, everyone has a different ability to manage the consequences of those risks, with financial and socioeconomic advantage being major influencing factors.

[AlexMar]

It is not equal opportunity if it's only available to those willing to take risks.

Everyone has the opportunity to take those risks.

Everyone has a different ability to manage the consequences of those risks, with financial and socioeconomic advantage being major influencing factors.

I would agree with this.

[nereo]

Tax rates and wealth transfers most certainly do not benefit the rich in this country.

Could not disagree with this statement more. The entire tax code - particularly within the last decade - is designed to allow the rich to retain and accumulate their wealth.  Just because they pay a large portion of taxes does not mean the tax code does not benefit the rich.  THe rich have more money - that's why they pay more.
A core foundation of the entire FIRE movement is predicated on being able to live indefinitely on your assets via passive earnings once you hit a critical threshold (i.e. your "FI number").

[AlexMar]

Tax rates and wealth transfers most certainly do not benefit the rich in this country.

Could not disagree with this statement more. The entire tax code - particularly within the last decade - is designed to allow the rich to retain and accumulate their wealth.  Just because they pay a large portion of taxes does not mean the tax code does not benefit the rich.  THe rich have more money - that's why they pay more.
A core foundation of the entire FIRE movement is predicated on being able to live indefinitely on your assets via passive earnings once you hit a critical threshold (i.e. your "FI number").

The rich don't pay a "large portion of the taxes" - they pay nearly all of the taxes.  How does that benefit the rich?  Because the tax code doesn't confiscate enough?  That's not a BENEFIT... that's the rich being rich despite the tax code.  I don't think you can show how the tax code can possibly benefit the only people who have substantial sums of their money confiscated by it.  The rich don't just pay more because they have more money, that's misleading.  That is almost a suggestion that we have a flat rate tax for everyone.  But even still, if they are paying more - then how could that possibly be a benefit?!  The rich get the same military protection, schools, roads, etc.  And use far less government resources.  But pay the most for it.  That's a system that is designed to benefit them?  I don't understand how you can think that.

The rich also use virtually none of social services for which they fund.  It's fine, but I don't see how you can possibly suggest the tax code favors the rich.  It clearly favors people who take more than they pay in, which is nearly 50% of the population.  And how can paying money in taxes be a way to retain and accumulate money.  That makes no sense. I'm not arguing whether the rich should pay in or not, just pointing out that this is just basic math.

[Kyle Schuant]

As I have said before, I have always found it amusing that one group of people whose stated goal is to live in idleness on the earnings of others wag their fingers at those who live in idleness on the earnings of others.

Anyone can become well-off in a capitalist country, but not everyone can become well-off. That's what happens when you turn an economy into a competition. It need not be so.

By measures of money, we are better off deliberately spilling oil from rigs and having gulags, because oil spills and gulags cost money to clean up or run, and thus add to the GDP; they certainly add to the wealth of the people running them! So we need other measures of quality of life.

To my mind, one of those measures is being able to eat tasty nutritious food with friends and family. This requires policies encouraging (or at least not stopping) tasty and nutritious food, and communities and families. I would argue that both the extremes of competition and of welfare states erode community and family ties; competition by setting man against man in a "winner takes all", and welfare states by having people say, "that's not my job, the state does that." A more sensible approach is a mixture of the two.


I would measure part of the success of a society by how many people are sitting down around tables with family and friends for a tasty and nutritious dinner.

[Just Joe]

The rich don't pay a "large portion of the taxes" - they pay nearly all of the taxes.  How does that benefit the rich?

The wealthy certainly benefit from the taxes. Their employees are educated by the public schools. Their factories benefit from cheap energy, roads, waterways, police/fire/military/medical services, airlines.

Even where the wealthy aren't directly benefiting from these things - their employees are which enable the employees to be better employees.

I wonder how far we can cut taxes and thus public funding before we risk pitchforks and mobs in the streets? I hear the Davos wealthy would like to cut their employees and replace them with automation...

[Linea_Norway]

I would measure part of the success of a society by how many people are sitting down around tables with family and friends for a tasty and nutritious dinner.

A nice conclusion.
We can add that these people should feel safe in their house and are taken good care of when they get sick, however that is organized.

[AlexMar]

The rich don't pay a "large portion of the taxes" - they pay nearly all of the taxes.  How does that benefit the rich?

The wealthy certainly benefit from the taxes. Their employees are educated by the public schools. Their factories benefit from cheap energy, roads, waterways, police/fire/military/medical services, airlines.

Even where the wealthy aren't directly benefiting from these things - their employees are which enable the employees to be better employees.

I wonder how far we can cut taxes and thus public funding before we risk pitchforks and mobs in the streets? I hear the Davos wealthy would like to cut their employees and replace them with automation...

My comment was in the context of the tax code being skewed to favor the rich.  Mathematically, that just isn't so.  Yes, we all benefit from "America" and it needs to be funded.  My point was that taking money from people is not a "benefit that favors them over others who pay nothing"

[nereo]

The rich don't pay a "large portion of the taxes" - they pay nearly all of the taxes.  How does that benefit the rich?

The wealthy certainly benefit from the taxes. Their employees are educated by the public schools. Their factories benefit from cheap energy, roads, waterways, police/fire/military/medical services, airlines.

Even where the wealthy aren't directly benefiting from these things - their employees are which enable the employees to be better employees.

I wonder how far we can cut taxes and thus public funding before we risk pitchforks and mobs in the streets? I hear the Davos wealthy would like to cut their employees and replace them with automation...

My comment was in the context of the tax code being skewed to favor the rich.  Mathematically, that just isn't so.  Yes, we all benefit from "America" and it needs to be funded.  My point was that taking money from people is not a "benefit that favors them over others who pay nothing"

Here's what you said, AlexMar -

Look at it a different way.  Let's say I have $5M.  Is it fair that I

Tax rates and wealth transfers most certainly do not benefit the rich in this country.  The rich pay nearly all of the tax in this country and benefit from nearly zero of wealth transfers directly.  Pointing out a couple of football stadium deals is not going to cut it.  Especially when you talk about a government sponsored aristocracy.  If that exists, then I certainly am unaware of it and I'm a "1%er".  I'm still waiting for all of my government benefits because it feels more like I'm a target...  Consider that Nordic countries tax the rich not much more than us, but tax the heck out of the lower and middle classes!  It's not the top tax rates in Sweden and Denmark that are so high, it's the middle class.  Why is that?  Something interesting to think about.

...

The rich don't pay a "large portion of the taxes" - they pay nearly all of the taxes.  How does that benefit the rich?  Because the tax code doesn't confiscate enough?  That's not a BENEFIT... that's the rich being rich despite the tax code.  I don't think you can show how the tax code can possibly benefit the only people who have substantial sums of their money confiscated by it.  The rich don't just pay more because they have more money, that's misleading.  That is almost a suggestion that we have a flat rate tax for everyone.  But even still, if they are paying more - then how could that possibly be a benefit?!  The rich get the same military protection, schools, roads, etc.  And use far less government resources.  But pay the most for it.  That's a system that is designed to benefit them?  I don't understand how you can think that.

The rich also use virtually none of social services for which they fund.  It's fine, but I don't see how you can possibly suggest the tax code favors the rich.  It clearly favors people who take more than they pay in, which is nearly 50% of the population.  And how can paying money in taxes be a way to retain and accumulate money.  That makes no sense. I'm not arguing whether the rich should pay in or not, just pointing out that this is just basic math.

Your repeated use of the verb 'confiscate' suggests to me that you view taxation as theft.


In response to your comment that the 'rich pay nearly all the taxes' I'll (re)state the obvious: the rich control nearly all the wealth in the United States. The upper quartile own 85% of the country's wealth. The bottom 60% (which includes the entirety of the middle class) owns less than 5%.  So yeah, it's not surprising that the reach pay 'nearly all the taxes'.  If you are going to keep saying "it's just math" please share the math that you are using so we can be talking about the same thing.

As for your odd segue into nordic countries and their tax rates, you've overlooked both the benefits received and the taxes payed by various classes.  It's true that tax rates for the middle class are much higher in Norway relative to the US (where I was fortunate enough to work), but in exchange there's government funded health care, pre-K and better retirement benefits for the poor.  At the same time if you have a very large income in Norway you will pay far more in taxes than you would in the United States. Both countries employ a progressive tax structure.

[Davnasty]

The rich don't pay a "large portion of the taxes" - they pay nearly all of the taxes.  How does that benefit the rich?

The wealthy certainly benefit from the taxes. Their employees are educated by the public schools. Their factories benefit from cheap energy, roads, waterways, police/fire/military/medical services, airlines.

Even where the wealthy aren't directly benefiting from these things - their employees are which enable the employees to be better employees.

I wonder how far we can cut taxes and thus public funding before we risk pitchforks and mobs in the streets? I hear the Davos wealthy would like to cut their employees and replace them with automation...

My comment was in the context of the tax code being skewed to favor the rich.  Mathematically, that just isn't so.  Yes, we all benefit from "America" and it needs to be funded.  My point was that taking money from people is not a "benefit that favors them over others who pay nothing"

In 2011 Warren Buffet stated "The 400 [highest earners] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do". Using himself as an example his effective tax rate for the year 2010 was 17.4% while the average for his salaried employees was 36%.¹

His numbers may be more lopsided than the averages but they do show that yes, our tax code can in fact favor the rich. Looking at the progressive income tax rates this may seem counterintuitive but when you consider that 36% of the 1%'s (and likely a higher proportion of the 0.1%'s but I couldn't find that number) income is from capital gains² which is taxed at a maximum of 20% (assuming long term gains) it becomes less surprising. They can also employ tax avoidance strategies which aren't available or at least wouldn't be useful to those making less.

As for Just Joe's point that the wealthy benefit from taxes, I'm not sure this is what he was getting at but I would argue that not only do the wealthy benefit from taxes, they benefit disproportionately to lower earners. you stated:

The rich get the same military protection, schools, roads, etc.  And use far less government resources.

This is not accurate. The rich use more government resources, not less. Business owners use more roads to run the businesses that they own either directly or through stock, they use more police to protect their businesses and other assets, they use more of the court system, they receive more business subsidies, and whether it's legal or not they most definitely get preferential treatment by politicians who want their campaign donations.

¹https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html
²https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-top-1-percent-earns-a-lot-from-cashing-in-on-investments/

[AlexMar]

The rich don't pay a "large portion of the taxes" - they pay nearly all of the taxes.  How does that benefit the rich?

The wealthy certainly benefit from the taxes. Their employees are educated by the public schools. Their factories benefit from cheap energy, roads, waterways, police/fire/military/medical services, airlines.

Even where the wealthy aren't directly benefiting from these things - their employees are which enable the employees to be better employees.

I wonder how far we can cut taxes and thus public funding before we risk pitchforks and mobs in the streets? I hear the Davos wealthy would like to cut their employees and replace them with automation...

My comment was in the context of the tax code being skewed to favor the rich.  Mathematically, that just isn't so.  Yes, we all benefit from "America" and it needs to be funded.  My point was that taking money from people is not a "benefit that favors them over others who pay nothing"

Here's what you said, AlexMar -

Look at it a different way.  Let's say I have $5M.  Is it fair that I

Tax rates and wealth transfers most certainly do not benefit the rich in this country.  The rich pay nearly all of the tax in this country and benefit from nearly zero of wealth transfers directly.  Pointing out a couple of football stadium deals is not going to cut it.  Especially when you talk about a government sponsored aristocracy.  If that exists, then I certainly am unaware of it and I'm a "1%er".  I'm still waiting for all of my government benefits because it feels more like I'm a target...  Consider that Nordic countries tax the rich not much more than us, but tax the heck out of the lower and middle classes!  It's not the top tax rates in Sweden and Denmark that are so high, it's the middle class.  Why is that?  Something interesting to think about.

...

The rich don't pay a "large portion of the taxes" - they pay nearly all of the taxes.  How does that benefit the rich?  Because the tax code doesn't confiscate enough?  That's not a BENEFIT... that's the rich being rich despite the tax code.  I don't think you can show how the tax code can possibly benefit the only people who have substantial sums of their money confiscated by it.  The rich don't just pay more because they have more money, that's misleading.  That is almost a suggestion that we have a flat rate tax for everyone.  But even still, if they are paying more - then how could that possibly be a benefit?!  The rich get the same military protection, schools, roads, etc.  And use far less government resources.  But pay the most for it.  That's a system that is designed to benefit them?  I don't understand how you can think that.

The rich also use virtually none of social services for which they fund.  It's fine, but I don't see how you can possibly suggest the tax code favors the rich.  It clearly favors people who take more than they pay in, which is nearly 50% of the population.  And how can paying money in taxes be a way to retain and accumulate money.  That makes no sense. I'm not arguing whether the rich should pay in or not, just pointing out that this is just basic math.

Your repeated use of the verb 'confiscate' suggests to me that you view taxation as theft.


In response to your comment that the 'rich pay nearly all the taxes' I'll (re)state the obvious: the rich control nearly all the wealth in the United States. The upper quartile own 85% of the country's wealth. The bottom 60% (which includes the entirety of the middle class) owns less than 5%.  So yeah, it's not surprising that the reach pay 'nearly all the taxes'.  If you are going to keep saying "it's just math" please share the math that you are using so we can be talking about the same thing.

As for your odd segue into nordic countries and their tax rates, you've overlooked both the benefits received and the taxes payed by various classes.  It's true that tax rates for the middle class are much higher in Norway relative to the US (where I was fortunate enough to work), but in exchange there's government funded health care, pre-K and better retirement benefits for the poor.  At the same time if you have a very large income in Norway you will pay far more in taxes than you would in the United States. Both countries employ a progressive tax structure.

The tax rates between Norway and the US, in general, are pretty close.  The rich in Norway pay a pretty similar rate to the rich in the US, especially in States with income taxes like California.  It's simply untrue that you would pay far more in taxes in Norway on a high income compared to the US.  Again, these shortfalls are made up by the lower/middle income tax brackets in Nordic countries.  The main difference is that the middle class is getting whacked "for their own good" in these countries.  Which makes FIRE a heck of a lot harder.

Taxes are on income, not wealth.  So you are being misleading by mixing wealth in with income taxation.  The rich (which isn't ONLY the super rich, over $250k) take in 28% of the income and yet pay 55% of the taxes.  The poor (under $15/hr income) have a NEGATIVE tax burden.  The middle class ($50k - $100k income) takes in about 24% of the wages and pays only 16% of the taxes.  It doesn't actually break even until the upper middle class (which is a growing portion of taxpayers) which also takes in about 24% of wage and pays 24% in taxes.

Yes, I do keep calling it simple math.  We aren't talking about "fairness" (I'm fine with a progressive tax system) - we are talking about math.  I don't see how you can argue that the tax system is generally designed to benefit the rich.  Progressive taxes are literally designed to NOT benefit the rich.  That's the entire point of it being progressive.  How can you suggest someone who pays substantial sums of taxes is being benefited more than someone who has a negative tax?  I can't make the numbers work on that.  This isn't a discussion about fairness and wealth, remember.  It's a discussion about the tax system benefiting the rich and screwing the poor.  Arguing that the poor should be redistributed more of a rich persons income is a discussion about fairness and morals.

[carolina822]

Do you believe that the opportunity for a rich kid born in the lap of luxury is equal to the opportunity for a poor kid born to a single working mom?

There are vanishingly few people (certainly I wouldn't count myself among them) who believe that all people deserve equal results for different efforts in life.  Yet, you appear to be arguing that the poor should have to work harder to achieve equal results.  If the poor kid has to work harder than the rich kid to get the same result, how is their opportunity the same?

This wasn't directed at me, but I say yes. The poor kid has the opportunity to be just as happy as the rich kid, and in fact has more opportunity to climb the social class ladder than the rich kid (because the latter has nowhere left to go but down). Granted, the poor kid will have to work much harder, but that is life.

There are countless examples of people rising from utter desolate poverty to the heights of success. I happen to be reading a biography on Andrew Jackson, and he fits the bill:

His destitute parents moved from Ireland (Scots-Irish) a few years before his birth. Dad died while mom was pregnant with Andrew, mom had to move in with relatives. Mother and both brothers died during the Revolutionary War, making him an orphan at 14. Acquired various parasites prevalent in the south that made him skinny and haggard. Was shot twice (once in a duel and once in a skuffle), and suffered significantly from these. How did he fare? Lawyer, judge, representative, senator, plantation owner (granted slavery is an immoral institution), general, governor, president, $20 man.

So I have to say, yes, equal opportunity exists for those willing to take those risks. As former player mentions, you might have to leave things behind if you want to be successful, but again that is life and we are lucky we get to choose whether we want material wealth, power, or closeness to family.

So, how did all that equal opportunity work out for the slaves Jackson owned?

[nereo]

Why are you so stuck on Norway, @AlexMar? It's completely ancillary to any discussion about living, working and paying taxes within the United States. Enough with this duck and dodge.

[Boofinator]

Andrew Jackson was born in 1757, died in 1845.  His experience doesn't seem relevant to the issue of economic mobility in the 21st century.

It is not equal opportunity if it's only available to those willing to take risks.

I think you missed the point I was trying to make.

1) There are various standards for success, but to meet your criteria, I googled billionaires raised in poverty: https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaires-who-came-from-nothing-2013-12?op=1#born-into-poverty-oprah-winfrey-became-the-first-african-american-tv-correspondent-in-nashville-6.

2) "Fortune favors the bold." Everyone must take risks in life.

?!?
You googled "billionaires raised in poverty" and discovered ... people who were born in poverty to become billionaires?  That has absolutely no bearing on the topic at hand.  All it does is show that it's possible, not that whether it is more or less likely than someone from better circumstances.  You could try looking at the list of billionaires and determining how many of those came from well off families.

Likewise, the Andrew Jackson is just bizarre.  You can't take someone born >250 years ago to make a point about equality and opportunity today.

Your response is bizarre, since you brought up the Andrew Jackson thing for a second time after I decided to refute your argument that there isn't class immobility in this day and age, and completely leaving out that specific example.

I never said life is easier for someone raised in poverty (except to point out the obvious, that it is easier to rise in social class for those raised in poverty than for those born at the 'top'). On the contrary, it is a feature of human society rather than a bug that life is more difficult when raised from poverty. Now, as I mentioned earlier, it is important to get the balance right, because on the one side you get a society filled with hereditary nobility and castes, and on the other you get Marxism. Both suck compared to what we have.

But, you tell me how we would achieve this "equality of opportunity". I've already stated in this thread that I feel taxes should be more progressive than what they currently are, so take that as my starting position.

[AlexMar]

The rich don't pay a "large portion of the taxes" - they pay nearly all of the taxes.  How does that benefit the rich?

The wealthy certainly benefit from the taxes. Their employees are educated by the public schools. Their factories benefit from cheap energy, roads, waterways, police/fire/military/medical services, airlines.

Even where the wealthy aren't directly benefiting from these things - their employees are which enable the employees to be better employees.

I wonder how far we can cut taxes and thus public funding before we risk pitchforks and mobs in the streets? I hear the Davos wealthy would like to cut their employees and replace them with automation...

My comment was in the context of the tax code being skewed to favor the rich.  Mathematically, that just isn't so.  Yes, we all benefit from "America" and it needs to be funded.  My point was that taking money from people is not a "benefit that favors them over others who pay nothing"

In 2011 Warren Buffet stated "The 400 [highest earners] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do". Using himself as an example his effective tax rate for the year 2010 was 17.4% while the average for his salaried employees was 36%.¹

His numbers may be more lopsided than the averages but they do show that yes, our tax code can in fact favor the rich. Looking at the progressive income tax rates this may seem counterintuitive but when you consider that 36% of the 1%'s (and likely a higher proportion of the 0.1%'s but I couldn't find that number) income is from capital gains² which is taxed at a maximum of 20% (assuming long term gains) it becomes less surprising. They can also employ tax avoidance strategies which aren't available or at least wouldn't be useful to those making less.

As for Just Joe's point that the wealthy benefit from taxes, I'm not sure this is what he was getting at but I would argue that not only do the wealthy benefit from taxes, they benefit disproportionately to lower earners. you stated:

The rich get the same military protection, schools, roads, etc.  And use far less government resources.

This is not accurate. The rich use more government resources, not less. Business owners use more roads to run the businesses that they own either directly or through stock, they use more police to protect their businesses and other assets, they use more of the court system, they receive more business subsidies, and whether it's legal or not they most definitely get preferential treatment by politicians who want their campaign donations.

¹https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html
²https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-top-1-percent-earns-a-lot-from-cashing-in-on-investments/

The average US tax rate is just 13%.  So Warren Buffet is STILL paying higher than average.  For his "average" worker to be paying 36% would suggest they are earning a 1%'er income.  That's one heck of a secretary job.  Even someone with a $75k income would pay an effective tax rate below 10% when taking common deductions.

You have to be, basically, rich (high income), to pay a higher effective federal tax rate over 20%.  For example, someone earning a relatively high middle class income of $75k would only pay $9,800 in federal taxes prior to any deductions.  That is 13%.  Add in the standard deduction alone for a single earner, not head of household, and the tax rate drops below 10%.  So again, that is one heck of a secretary position.

You have to be a VERY high earner to pay a higher federal tax rate than a Warren Buffet.  It's hard to argue that the tax rates favor the rich when it's only "rich- high income earners" who are paying a higher rate.  And that's not even touching on WHY capital gains are taxed differently - double taxation, etc.

To reiterate, the wealthy benefit from taxes.  Taxes fund America.  Which benefits everyone.  My comments are about the tax system being designed to benefit the wealthy over the poor.  That's simply not true.  It's probably more accurate to argue that the tax system doesn't benefit the poor enough at the expense of the wealthy.

[partgypsy]

You can see the current set of taxes as well as regulations favor the rich. The rich keep getting richer and have a larger slice of the overall pie as time passes. OTOH while productivity has gone up in the US, income and net worth is stagnant below the top tiers. Those trends support that yes, taxes favor the rich. This is honestly not surprising because they are also most of the politicians, as well as the top donors to both politicians and political parties. Money talks, the rest walks. There is even a lot of money spent to convince the rest of us that it's not so bad, and in fact it's the poor wealthy people who have it bad.
 
Alex Mar seems to overlook that investment income, of which millionaires and billionaires disproportionately have, are taxed at a lesser rate than employment income (which is what everyone else lives on), even though that income is passive and unlimited (while you can only work so many hours a week). Another area are inheritance laws and trusts also means that large amounts of money can be transferred to other family members with no or little cost. And yet another area is the whole arena of wall street and bank regulation which also supports the rich becoming richer.

The one thing we do get out of all this, is that Americans do get cheap goods. So we do get things like our big screen tv, clothing, food, and gas for cheap compared to other countries. Education, and healthcare however are more expensive and less competitive than in other countries.

[Boofinator]

Do you believe that the opportunity for a rich kid born in the lap of luxury is equal to the opportunity for a poor kid born to a single working mom?

There are vanishingly few people (certainly I wouldn't count myself among them) who believe that all people deserve equal results for different efforts in life.  Yet, you appear to be arguing that the poor should have to work harder to achieve equal results.  If the poor kid has to work harder than the rich kid to get the same result, how is their opportunity the same?

This wasn't directed at me, but I say yes. The poor kid has the opportunity to be just as happy as the rich kid, and in fact has more opportunity to climb the social class ladder than the rich kid (because the latter has nowhere left to go but down). Granted, the poor kid will have to work much harder, but that is life.

There are countless examples of people rising from utter desolate poverty to the heights of success. I happen to be reading a biography on Andrew Jackson, and he fits the bill:

His destitute parents moved from Ireland (Scots-Irish) a few years before his birth. Dad died while mom was pregnant with Andrew, mom had to move in with relatives. Mother and both brothers died during the Revolutionary War, making him an orphan at 14. Acquired various parasites prevalent in the south that made him skinny and haggard. Was shot twice (once in a duel and once in a skuffle), and suffered significantly from these. How did he fare? Lawyer, judge, representative, senator, plantation owner (granted slavery is an immoral institution), general, governor, president, $20 man.

So I have to say, yes, equal opportunity exists for those willing to take those risks. As former player mentions, you might have to leave things behind if you want to be successful, but again that is life and we are lucky we get to choose whether we want material wealth, power, or closeness to family.

So, how did all that equal opportunity work out for the slaves Jackson owned?

It sucked and blowed at the same time. I explicitly noted slavery is an immoral institution.

[Boofinator]

In 2011 Warren Buffet stated "The 400 [highest earners] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do". Using himself as an example his effective tax rate for the year 2010 was 17.4% while the average for his salaried employees was 36%.

I love Warren, but the effective tax rate of 17.4% is an oversimplification of reality because it ignores corporate tax rates that he was paying as a shareholder. At the time of his article, there was a federal corporate tax rate of 35% (it has since been reduced to 21%). So for every dollar of profit his companies made, he was paying an effective tax of around 45%. (This ignores inflation, which can also be compared to a tax.)

[Boofinator]

If two people have the same opportunity, then they have the same set of circumstances that make it possible to do something.  In our case that means that if they both work roughly as hard, they will both get roughly the same chances to succeed in life.

This is a logical disconnect. I believe that everyone who was born in the United States has the same opportunity to [fill in the measure of success]. But that doesn't translate into how hard they may have to work to achieve it.

Granted, the poor kid will have to work much harder, but that is life.

This is where you're losing me.  If the poor kid has to work harder, then by definition he does not have the same opportunity.  He has a worse opportunity than the rich kid.

Maybe an example will illustrate what I'm talking about.


Let's say I'm three feet tall and uncoordinated.  I work with a man who is eight feet tall and a natural athlete.  My employer has decided that the winner of a game of basketball between me and my coworker is who raises will be handed out this year at work.

While it's possible for me to succeed if I learn the rules of the game, practice every night, start lifting weights, do hand/eye coordination exercises, etc., the deck is stacked against me.  With even a modicum of effort, my coworker will beat me.  While we do both have a chance, we certainly do not have equal opportunity to get the raise.

Sorry, but this is a pretty bad example toward illustrating your point. First, any company that would operate using such a system to reward performance would certainly fail against companies using a system that rewards performance more correlative to actual value added. Second, there is an employer using such a system: the NBA. Naturally, the odds would be stacked against you in that career path if you're three feet tall and uncoordinated.

Why is this important?

Capitalism works by competition.  The best in a field tend to rise to the top.  This motivates people to strive harder, and rewards the best ideas that society has.  When people start from incredibly unequal places though, the best don't always rise to the top.  Sometimes the better idea doesn't make it to market, and we as a society lose out.  By providing services that help minimize this inequality, we can help capitalism to work more efficiently.  Everyone benefits from this.

I mostly agree with this statement, except I don't agree that society should "minimize inequality". What we should instead focus on is maximizing the opportunity for achievement, which is a different concept than minimizing inequality (though not wholly uncorrelated).

[Davnasty]

The rich don't pay a "large portion of the taxes" - they pay nearly all of the taxes.  How does that benefit the rich?

The wealthy certainly benefit from the taxes. Their employees are educated by the public schools. Their factories benefit from cheap energy, roads, waterways, police/fire/military/medical services, airlines.

Even where the wealthy aren't directly benefiting from these things - their employees are which enable the employees to be better employees.

I wonder how far we can cut taxes and thus public funding before we risk pitchforks and mobs in the streets? I hear the Davos wealthy would like to cut their employees and replace them with automation...

My comment was in the context of the tax code being skewed to favor the rich.  Mathematically, that just isn't so.  Yes, we all benefit from "America" and it needs to be funded.  My point was that taking money from people is not a "benefit that favors them over others who pay nothing"

In 2011 Warren Buffet stated "The 400 [highest earners] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do". Using himself as an example his effective tax rate for the year 2010 was 17.4% while the average for his salaried employees was 36%.¹

His numbers may be more lopsided than the averages but they do show that yes, our tax code can in fact favor the rich. Looking at the progressive income tax rates this may seem counterintuitive but when you consider that 36% of the 1%'s (and likely a higher proportion of the 0.1%'s but I couldn't find that number) income is from capital gains² which is taxed at a maximum of 20% (assuming long term gains) it becomes less surprising. They can also employ tax avoidance strategies which aren't available or at least wouldn't be useful to those making less.

As for Just Joe's point that the wealthy benefit from taxes, I'm not sure this is what he was getting at but I would argue that not only do the wealthy benefit from taxes, they benefit disproportionately to lower earners. you stated:

The rich get the same military protection, schools, roads, etc.  And use far less government resources.

This is not accurate. The rich use more government resources, not less. Business owners use more roads to run the businesses that they own either directly or through stock, they use more police to protect their businesses and other assets, they use more of the court system, they receive more business subsidies, and whether it's legal or not they most definitely get preferential treatment by politicians who want their campaign donations.

¹https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html
²https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-top-1-percent-earns-a-lot-from-cashing-in-on-investments/

The average US tax rate is just 13%.  So Warren Buffet is STILL paying higher than average.  For his "average" worker to be paying 36% would suggest they are earning a 1%'er income.  That's one heck of a secretary job.  Even someone with a $75k income would pay an effective tax rate below 10% when taking common deductions.

You have to be, basically, rich (high income), to pay a higher effective federal tax rate over 20%.  For example, someone earning a relatively high middle class income of $75k would only pay $9,800 in federal taxes prior to any deductions.  That is 13%.  Add in the standard deduction alone for a single earner, not head of household, and the tax rate drops below 10%.  So again, that is one heck of a secretary position.

You have to be a VERY high earner to pay a higher federal tax rate than a Warren Buffet.  It's hard to argue that the tax rates favor the rich when it's only "rich- high income earners" who are paying a higher rate.  And that's not even touching on WHY capital gains are taxed differently - double taxation, etc.

To reiterate, the wealthy benefit from taxes.  Taxes fund America.  Which benefits everyone.  My comments are about the tax system being designed to benefit the wealthy over the poor.  That's simply not true.  It's probably more accurate to argue that the tax system doesn't benefit the poor enough at the expense of the wealthy.

First, I do believe Buffet's statement was a bit misleading. In his personal case his "receptionist" is likely doing more than answering the phone and making much more than your average receptionist. I'm also not sure how he worked out the 36% number, I assume he at least included payroll taxes. But your less than 10% number is also misleading. I assume you were using 2019 tax rates, federal only. This would work out to <10% for an income of $75,000, but you should be including payroll taxes (7.65%) which in reality are twice that (15.3%) since employers pay an equal portion which directly results in lower wages.

Including payroll taxes the effective rates on an income of $75,000 would be ~25% in 2019 and ~27% in 2010, the year this quote was taken from. Adding state income taxes and assuming income considerably higher than $75,000 may have worked out to 36%?

[Boofinator]

You're more likely to run a business . . . which means that you depend on transportation infrastructure to get employees/goods to and from your factories.  You depend heavily on the education system to provide you with trainable workers.  You depend on public utilities to provide your factories with power and water.  You depend on the legal system to protect your intellectual property, and to prevent competing businesses from illegally gaining an edge on you.  All of these services you depend on to a much greater level than a sole poor person.

These are all societal benefits. Society as a whole benefits from infrastructure (people receive inexpensive goods and can travel inexpensively), from pubic education (people can contribute to a modern economy and make a living wage), from public utilities (self-evident), from the legal system (who would want to invest in new ideas when they can be stolen without repercussion), etc. Social benefits are not a zero-sum game but are generally intended for the benefit of all. (Needless to say there are exceptions, but these will be proven to be bad policies and will generally be reversed.)

[Davnasty]

In 2011 Warren Buffet stated "The 400 [highest earners] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do". Using himself as an example his effective tax rate for the year 2010 was 17.4% while the average for his salaried employees was 36%.

I love Warren, but the effective tax rate of 17.4% is an oversimplification of reality because it ignores corporate tax rates that he was paying as a shareholder. At the time of his article, there was a federal corporate tax rate of 35% (it has since been reduced to 21%). So for every dollar of profit his companies made, he was paying an effective tax of around 45%. (This ignores inflation, which can also be compared to a tax.)

The corporate tax rate may have been 35% but the effective tax rate paid was/is significantly lower. That's a whole different discussion and I fear we've already gotten way off topic so I'd rather not get into that. I would also argue that corporate taxes are not paid by the shareholder, they're simply a part of doing business for the corporation. Gains in stock value are based on what buyers are willing to pay. You may have a point in terms of dividends, but again, this could be another lengthy conversation which has little relation to the thread topic.

[Boofinator]

In 2011 Warren Buffet stated "The 400 [highest earners] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do". Using himself as an example his effective tax rate for the year 2010 was 17.4% while the average for his salaried employees was 36%.

I love Warren, but the effective tax rate of 17.4% is an oversimplification of reality because it ignores corporate tax rates that he was paying as a shareholder. At the time of his article, there was a federal corporate tax rate of 35% (it has since been reduced to 21%). So for every dollar of profit his companies made, he was paying an effective tax of around 45%. (This ignores inflation, which can also be compared to a tax.)

The corporate tax rate may have been 35% but the effective tax rate paid was/is significantly lower. That's a whole different discussion and I fear we've already gotten way off topic so I'd rather not get into that. I would also argue that corporate taxes are not paid by the shareholder, they're simply a part of doing business for the corporation. Gains in stock value are based on what buyers are willing to pay. You may have a point in terms of dividends, but again, this could be another lengthy conversation which has little relation to the thread topic.

I agree we're way off-topic, but in a good way. Let's say you and I decide to start a corporation together. As co-owners, we can decide to use the excess profits (that don't go into growth) either to pay ourselves through wages or take out capital gains in the form of dividends (selling shares will make this messier due to abstract concepts, so let's avoid). We are all familiar with wage taxation, but if we decide on the dividend approach we would need to pay corporate tax and then pay taxes on dividends. A fair system would make these two approaches roughly equal (which may include setting dividend tax equal to wage tax, but then corporate tax should be zero). Needless to say, this was a simplification of reality, but the concept nonetheless holds.

[Just Joe]

There are many more ways to benefit from taxation than direct money transfer.

If you're rich, you have more money to protect . . . you will therefore rely more heavily upon police services than someone with nothing to steal.  You're more likely to own several properties, and will therefore rely more upon fire protection than someone without land to his name.  In a big picture way, you benefit tremendously by keeping the masses contented enough that they are not rioting and overthrowing the system that you so heavily depend upon.

You're more likely to run a business . . . which means that you depend on transportation infrastructure to get employees/goods to and from your factories.  You depend heavily on the education system to provide you with trainable workers.  You depend on public utilities to provide your factories with power and water.  You depend on the legal system to protect your intellectual property, and to prevent competing businesses from illegally gaining an edge on you.  All of these services you depend on to a much greater level than a sole poor person.

As a rich person you get more service.  Therefore you pay more (assuming we're not counting the many tax shelters and loopholes that rich people take advantage of . . . to lower their tax rates below that of middle class people).  You also get preferential treatment at all levels (courts, police, politicians).

What he said. A writer I am not. ;)

[GuitarStv]

If two people have the same opportunity, then they have the same set of circumstances that make it possible to do something.  In our case that means that if they both work roughly as hard, they will both get roughly the same chances to succeed in life.

This is a logical disconnect. I believe that everyone who was born in the United States has the same opportunity to [fill in the measure of success]. But that doesn't translate into how hard they may have to work to achieve it.

There are two people:
- Person A was born to a super rich/powerful dad.  He has an infinite amount of money to fall back on which allows him to take 'risks' that aren't risky at all  He has attended the best private schools, had all his indiscretions covered up and hidden, and been passed through classes that he shouldn't have by some generous 'donations' that his dad made.  His fathers connections guarantee him good jobs, even if he doesn't work very hard.  Person A will succeed without any work at all because of the circumstances of his birth.

- Person B was born without a dad in the situation, with no money, his mom was an addict who died when he was young and he was taken in by an abusive foster family.  He's broke, with no connections, and a high school education from a crappy school (couldn't afford college).   Person B might succeed with a tremendous amount of work, effort, and at great risk because of the circumstances of his birth.

I don't see how you can reasonably say they have the same opportunity at success.

Granted, the poor kid will have to work much harder, but that is life.

This is where you're losing me.  If the poor kid has to work harder, then by definition he does not have the same opportunity.  He has a worse opportunity than the rich kid.

Maybe an example will illustrate what I'm talking about.


Let's say I'm three feet tall and uncoordinated.  I work with a man who is eight feet tall and a natural athlete.  My employer has decided that the winner of a game of basketball between me and my coworker is who raises will be handed out this year at work.

While it's possible for me to succeed if I learn the rules of the game, practice every night, start lifting weights, do hand/eye coordination exercises, etc., the deck is stacked against me.  With even a modicum of effort, my coworker will beat me.  While we do both have a chance, we certainly do not have equal opportunity to get the raise.

Sorry, but this is a pretty bad example toward illustrating your point. First, any company that would operate using such a system to reward performance would certainly fail against companies using a system that rewards performance more correlative to actual value added. Second, there is an employer using such a system: the NBA. Naturally, the odds would be stacked against you in that career path if you're three feet tall and uncoordinated.

You claim that any company operating using such a system to reward performance would certainly fail . . . and yet, for decades companies would systematically promote people who had dicks over people who had vaginas (that's assuming they even considered hiring people with vaginas).  Having a dick doesn't impact performance or productivity any more than being good at basketball does.

To the best of my knowledge though, not all companies in the 60s and 70s failed . . . even though they uniformly made decisions based upon things totally independent of job performance.

I posit that a similar system is still in existence that tends to overvalue rich people.

Why is this important?

Capitalism works by competition.  The best in a field tend to rise to the top.  This motivates people to strive harder, and rewards the best ideas that society has.  When people start from incredibly unequal places though, the best don't always rise to the top.  Sometimes the better idea doesn't make it to market, and we as a society lose out.  By providing services that help minimize this inequality, we can help capitalism to work more efficiently.  Everyone benefits from this.

I mostly agree with this statement, except I don't agree that society should "minimize inequality". What we should instead focus on is maximizing the opportunity for achievement, which is a different concept than minimizing inequality (though not wholly uncorrelated).

Sure, I can get on board with "maximizing opportunity" vs "minimizing inequality".  It's six of one half a dozen of the other.

[AlexMar]

The rich don't pay a "large portion of the taxes" - they pay nearly all of the taxes.  How does that benefit the rich?

The wealthy certainly benefit from the taxes. Their employees are educated by the public schools. Their factories benefit from cheap energy, roads, waterways, police/fire/military/medical services, airlines.

Even where the wealthy aren't directly benefiting from these things - their employees are which enable the employees to be better employees.

I wonder how far we can cut taxes and thus public funding before we risk pitchforks and mobs in the streets? I hear the Davos wealthy would like to cut their employees and replace them with automation...

My comment was in the context of the tax code being skewed to favor the rich.  Mathematically, that just isn't so.  Yes, we all benefit from "America" and it needs to be funded.  My point was that taking money from people is not a "benefit that favors them over others who pay nothing"

In 2011 Warren Buffet stated "The 400 [highest earners] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do". Using himself as an example his effective tax rate for the year 2010 was 17.4% while the average for his salaried employees was 36%.¹

His numbers may be more lopsided than the averages but they do show that yes, our tax code can in fact favor the rich. Looking at the progressive income tax rates this may seem counterintuitive but when you consider that 36% of the 1%'s (and likely a higher proportion of the 0.1%'s but I couldn't find that number) income is from capital gains² which is taxed at a maximum of 20% (assuming long term gains) it becomes less surprising. They can also employ tax avoidance strategies which aren't available or at least wouldn't be useful to those making less.

As for Just Joe's point that the wealthy benefit from taxes, I'm not sure this is what he was getting at but I would argue that not only do the wealthy benefit from taxes, they benefit disproportionately to lower earners. you stated:

The rich get the same military protection, schools, roads, etc.  And use far less government resources.

This is not accurate. The rich use more government resources, not less. Business owners use more roads to run the businesses that they own either directly or through stock, they use more police to protect their businesses and other assets, they use more of the court system, they receive more business subsidies, and whether it's legal or not they most definitely get preferential treatment by politicians who want their campaign donations.

¹https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html
²https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-top-1-percent-earns-a-lot-from-cashing-in-on-investments/

The average US tax rate is just 13%.  So Warren Buffet is STILL paying higher than average.  For his "average" worker to be paying 36% would suggest they are earning a 1%'er income.  That's one heck of a secretary job.  Even someone with a $75k income would pay an effective tax rate below 10% when taking common deductions.

You have to be, basically, rich (high income), to pay a higher effective federal tax rate over 20%.  For example, someone earning a relatively high middle class income of $75k would only pay $9,800 in federal taxes prior to any deductions.  That is 13%.  Add in the standard deduction alone for a single earner, not head of household, and the tax rate drops below 10%.  So again, that is one heck of a secretary position.

You have to be a VERY high earner to pay a higher federal tax rate than a Warren Buffet.  It's hard to argue that the tax rates favor the rich when it's only "rich- high income earners" who are paying a higher rate.  And that's not even touching on WHY capital gains are taxed differently - double taxation, etc.

To reiterate, the wealthy benefit from taxes.  Taxes fund America.  Which benefits everyone.  My comments are about the tax system being designed to benefit the wealthy over the poor.  That's simply not true.  It's probably more accurate to argue that the tax system doesn't benefit the poor enough at the expense of the wealthy.

First, I do believe Buffet's statement was a bit misleading. In his personal case his "receptionist" is likely doing more than answering the phone and making much more than your average receptionist. I'm also not sure how he worked out the 36% number, I assume he at least included payroll taxes. But your less than 10% number is also misleading. I assume you were using 2019 tax rates, federal only. This would work out to <10% for an income of $75,000, but you should be including payroll taxes (7.65%) which in reality are twice that (15.3%) since employers pay an equal portion which directly results in lower wages.

Including payroll taxes the effective rates on an income of $75,000 would be ~25% in 2019 and ~27% in 2010, the year this quote was taken from. Adding state income taxes and assuming income considerably higher than $75,000 may have worked out to 36%?

I don't include payroll taxes because those fund entitlements.  And as you pointed out, employers match.  Who is the "employer" - the rich, right?  So at best, it's a wash as the employers are funding half the tax that funds the employees entitlement anyways.  Since these are funding entitlements that benefit the employee, I wouldn't call this some sort of reduction in pay - it's clearly a 7.65% increase in pay.  These are more of a forced savings than a tax.  And capital gains doesn't pay this tax, but more importantly, since you don't pay this tax on capital gains, the income/taxes don't count towards your future benefit.  So you don't get the benefits of social security.  Comparing capital gains taxes and payroll taxes is apples/oranges.  Which is why the only real apples to apples comparison is capital gains and the federal income tax.  That's it.

Adding in the employer match to come up with an effective rate... now THAT is misleading!  I also wouldn't include state income taxes because lots of states don't have them.  So it makes no sense to use that as a baseline.  In fact, I'd probably argue that the states that DO have income taxes, and high state income taxes, are the wealthiest states with the most millionaires and billionaires who are disproportionately paying these taxes.  Also consider that many States DO tax capital gains.  CA I believe taxes at the full 13% state income tax.

But yeah, if you add all that together, I guess you could get to 36% even though it's not actually anywhere near 36%.  And when people have to fudge numbers and misrepresent them like that, it makes you wonder...

[Boofinator]

If two people have the same opportunity, then they have the same set of circumstances that make it possible to do something.  In our case that means that if they both work roughly as hard, they will both get roughly the same chances to succeed in life.

This is a logical disconnect. I believe that everyone who was born in the United States has the same opportunity to [fill in the measure of success]. But that doesn't translate into how hard they may have to work to achieve it.

There are two people:
- Person A was born to a super rich/powerful dad.  He has an infinite amount of money to fall back on which allows him to take 'risks' that aren't risky at all  He has attended the best private schools, had all his indiscretions covered up and hidden, and been passed through classes that he shouldn't have by some generous 'donations' that his dad made.  His fathers connections guarantee him good jobs, even if he doesn't work very hard.  Person A will succeed without any work at all because of the circumstances of his birth.

- Person B was born without a dad in the situation, with no money, his mom was an addict who died when he was young and he was taken in by an abusive foster family.  He's broke, with no connections, and a high school education from a crappy school (couldn't afford college).   Person B might succeed with a tremendous amount of work, effort, and at great risk because of the circumstances of his birth.

I don't see how you can reasonably say they have the same opportunity at success.

Person B was dealt some tremendously shitty cards. One of the most important things you can have in life are caring parents. It just goes to show that the parents in this situation set up their children for a tough life by choices they made. This is something to consider when having children.

That being said, Person B could still succeed, and that person would probably consider it a success if they entered the lower-middle class and were able to provide a stable home for their children. Intergenerational social mobility is a powerful motivator for some.

Granted, the poor kid will have to work much harder, but that is life.

This is where you're losing me.  If the poor kid has to work harder, then by definition he does not have the same opportunity.  He has a worse opportunity than the rich kid.

Maybe an example will illustrate what I'm talking about.


Let's say I'm three feet tall and uncoordinated.  I work with a man who is eight feet tall and a natural athlete.  My employer has decided that the winner of a game of basketball between me and my coworker is who raises will be handed out this year at work.

While it's possible for me to succeed if I learn the rules of the game, practice every night, start lifting weights, do hand/eye coordination exercises, etc., the deck is stacked against me.  With even a modicum of effort, my coworker will beat me.  While we do both have a chance, we certainly do not have equal opportunity to get the raise.

Sorry, but this is a pretty bad example toward illustrating your point. First, any company that would operate using such a system to reward performance would certainly fail against companies using a system that rewards performance more correlative to actual value added. Second, there is an employer using such a system: the NBA. Naturally, the odds would be stacked against you in that career path if you're three feet tall and uncoordinated.

You claim that any company operating using such a system to reward performance would certainly fail . . . and yet, for decades companies would systematically promote people who had dicks over people who had vaginas (that's assuming they even considered hiring people with vaginas).  Having a dick doesn't impact performance or productivity any more than being good at basketball does.

To the best of my knowledge though, not all companies in the 60s and 70s failed . . . even though they uniformly made decisions based upon things totally independent of job performance.

I posit that a similar system is still in existence that tends to overvalue rich people.

You bring up sexual discrimination, which was (and according to some still is) prevalent in society. This was outlawed some time ago, which I'm sure you are aware of. Do you posit we should outlaw wealth? Should our motto be "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need"?

Why is this important?

Capitalism works by competition.  The best in a field tend to rise to the top.  This motivates people to strive harder, and rewards the best ideas that society has.  When people start from incredibly unequal places though, the best don't always rise to the top.  Sometimes the better idea doesn't make it to market, and we as a society lose out.  By providing services that help minimize this inequality, we can help capitalism to work more efficiently.  Everyone benefits from this.

I mostly agree with this statement, except I don't agree that society should "minimize inequality". What we should instead focus on is maximizing the opportunity for achievement, which is a different concept than minimizing inequality (though not wholly uncorrelated).

Sure, I can get on board with "maximizing opportunity" vs "minimizing inequality".  It's six of one half a dozen of the other.

I disagree. When one focuses on minimizing inequality, you start entering Marxist territory. Who gets to define what is equality? Since some kids (such as Person B above) might lose their parents at a young age, should all kids be removed from their parents in the pursuit of equality? Should there be a 100% estate tax to heirs and 100% gift tax to progeny, so that we are sure nobody gets an unfair advantage? In my mind there is a large divide between maximizing opportunity and minimizing inequality.

[GuitarStv]

If two people have the same opportunity, then they have the same set of circumstances that make it possible to do something.  In our case that means that if they both work roughly as hard, they will both get roughly the same chances to succeed in life.

This is a logical disconnect. I believe that everyone who was born in the United States has the same opportunity to [fill in the measure of success]. But that doesn't translate into how hard they may have to work to achieve it.

There are two people:
- Person A was born to a super rich/powerful dad.  He has an infinite amount of money to fall back on which allows him to take 'risks' that aren't risky at all  He has attended the best private schools, had all his indiscretions covered up and hidden, and been passed through classes that he shouldn't have by some generous 'donations' that his dad made.  His fathers connections guarantee him good jobs, even if he doesn't work very hard.  Person A will succeed without any work at all because of the circumstances of his birth.

- Person B was born without a dad in the situation, with no money, his mom was an addict who died when he was young and he was taken in by an abusive foster family.  He's broke, with no connections, and a high school education from a crappy school (couldn't afford college).   Person B might succeed with a tremendous amount of work, effort, and at great risk because of the circumstances of his birth.

I don't see how you can reasonably say they have the same opportunity at success.

Person B was dealt some tremendously shitty cards. One of the most important things you can have in life are caring parents. It just goes to show that the parents in this situation set up their children for a tough life by choices they made. This is something to consider when having children.

That being said, Person B could still succeed, and that person would probably consider it a success if they entered the lower-middle class and were able to provide a stable home for their children. Intergenerational social mobility is a powerful motivator for some.

I agree that person B could still succeed in a fashion . . . and that if they managed to get lower-middle class they would be considered a success by most.  You would probably also agree with me that it would be pretty hard for person A to do that poorly in life regardless of the personal choices that they make.

My point was (and still is) that person A and person B don't have the same opportunity at success because they're starting at such wildly different levels.  Their success won't depend on the merits of what they do, but largely on what they were born to.  I'd prefer a meritocracy . . . where the best, brightest, and most industrious get the greatest rewards, regardless of what they're born to.  Implementing that is a difficult task, but we need to stop pretending that the problem doesn't exist before we can move on to finding a solution.

Granted, the poor kid will have to work much harder, but that is life.

This is where you're losing me.  If the poor kid has to work harder, then by definition he does not have the same opportunity.  He has a worse opportunity than the rich kid.

Maybe an example will illustrate what I'm talking about.


Let's say I'm three feet tall and uncoordinated.  I work with a man who is eight feet tall and a natural athlete.  My employer has decided that the winner of a game of basketball between me and my coworker is who raises will be handed out this year at work.

While it's possible for me to succeed if I learn the rules of the game, practice every night, start lifting weights, do hand/eye coordination exercises, etc., the deck is stacked against me.  With even a modicum of effort, my coworker will beat me.  While we do both have a chance, we certainly do not have equal opportunity to get the raise.

Sorry, but this is a pretty bad example toward illustrating your point. First, any company that would operate using such a system to reward performance would certainly fail against companies using a system that rewards performance more correlative to actual value added. Second, there is an employer using such a system: the NBA. Naturally, the odds would be stacked against you in that career path if you're three feet tall and uncoordinated.

You claim that any company operating using such a system to reward performance would certainly fail . . . and yet, for decades companies would systematically promote people who had dicks over people who had vaginas (that's assuming they even considered hiring people with vaginas).  Having a dick doesn't impact performance or productivity any more than being good at basketball does.

To the best of my knowledge though, not all companies in the 60s and 70s failed . . . even though they uniformly made decisions based upon things totally independent of job performance.

I posit that a similar system is still in existence that tends to overvalue rich people.

You bring up sexual discrimination, which was (and according to some still is) prevalent in society. This was outlawed some time ago, which I'm sure you are aware of. Do you posit we should outlaw wealth? Should our motto be "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need"?

No, I don't believe that wealth should be outlawed.  But we can't pretend that it doesn't matter, and we shouldn't do things to further the unequal outcomes that wealth accumulation can cause.  Wealth accumulation in it's extreme breaks the 'best rising to the top' beneficial aspect of capitalism.

I brought up sexism because it disproves that profit motive will solve widespread business actions.  If it did, there would be no need for sexual discrimination laws because they would be self correcting.  As we know from history, there is a need for such laws . . . and business is not self correcting.  Many businesses will happily swallow a potential financial hit simply to maintain the status quo.

Communism is a fundamentally flawed over-reaction to the excesses of capitalism.

Somewhere between a tremendously stratified class divided system created by unchecked capitalism and the 'no motive to do anything' and tragedy of the commons failure that communist systems bring is a better path.  There's no satisfying one liner I can spit out to solve this problem, it's a complex issue and needs a nuanced approach to tackle it.  The sexual discrimination laws are an example of where business must be kept in check by government for the benefit of all of society (including those same businesses).

The truth is that capitalism and socialism are both great ideas that only work well in reality when bundled together.  You need one to keep the excesses and problems of the other in check and vice versa.

Why is this important?

Capitalism works by competition.  The best in a field tend to rise to the top.  This motivates people to strive harder, and rewards the best ideas that society has.  When people start from incredibly unequal places though, the best don't always rise to the top.  Sometimes the better idea doesn't make it to market, and we as a society lose out.  By providing services that help minimize this inequality, we can help capitalism to work more efficiently.  Everyone benefits from this.

I mostly agree with this statement, except I don't agree that society should "minimize inequality". What we should instead focus on is maximizing the opportunity for achievement, which is a different concept than minimizing inequality (though not wholly uncorrelated).

Sure, I can get on board with "maximizing opportunity" vs "minimizing inequality".  It's six of one half a dozen of the other.

I disagree. When one focuses on minimizing inequality, you start entering Marxist territory. Who gets to define what is equality? Since some kids (such as Person B above) might lose their parents at a young age, should all kids be removed from their parents in the pursuit of equality? Should there be a 100% estate tax to heirs and 100% gift tax to progeny, so that we are sure nobody gets an unfair advantage? In my mind there is a large divide between maximizing opportunity and minimizing inequality.

OK.  Then go with 'maximizing opportunity'.  I've got no argument with you on this, your definition for 'maximizing opportunity' is pretty much what I meant when typing 'minimizing inequality'.  I do kinda lean towards support for stuff like a 100% estate/gift tax, but that might be because I strongly believe that you should work for what you earn . . . not have it handed to you by someone else.  Even if that someone else is grandma.  (I also have never, and don't ever expect to receive any money from relatives so that might colour my feelings on the matter.  If I was a trust fund baby maybe I'd be super duper pro-never needing to work very hard for what I have.)

Obviously there are some pretty major kinks to be worked out with the idea before it would approach being feasible though.

[Davnasty]

The rich don't pay a "large portion of the taxes" - they pay nearly all of the taxes.  How does that benefit the rich?

The wealthy certainly benefit from the taxes. Their employees are educated by the public schools. Their factories benefit from cheap energy, roads, waterways, police/fire/military/medical services, airlines.

Even where the wealthy aren't directly benefiting from these things - their employees are which enable the employees to be better employees.

I wonder how far we can cut taxes and thus public funding before we risk pitchforks and mobs in the streets? I hear the Davos wealthy would like to cut their employees and replace them with automation...

My comment was in the context of the tax code being skewed to favor the rich.  Mathematically, that just isn't so.  Yes, we all benefit from "America" and it needs to be funded.  My point was that taking money from people is not a "benefit that favors them over others who pay nothing"

In 2011 Warren Buffet stated "The 400 [highest earners] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do". Using himself as an example his effective tax rate for the year 2010 was 17.4% while the average for his salaried employees was 36%.¹

His numbers may be more lopsided than the averages but they do show that yes, our tax code can in fact favor the rich. Looking at the progressive income tax rates this may seem counterintuitive but when you consider that 36% of the 1%'s (and likely a higher proportion of the 0.1%'s but I couldn't find that number) income is from capital gains² which is taxed at a maximum of 20% (assuming long term gains) it becomes less surprising. They can also employ tax avoidance strategies which aren't available or at least wouldn't be useful to those making less.

As for Just Joe's point that the wealthy benefit from taxes, I'm not sure this is what he was getting at but I would argue that not only do the wealthy benefit from taxes, they benefit disproportionately to lower earners. you stated:

The rich get the same military protection, schools, roads, etc.  And use far less government resources.

This is not accurate. The rich use more government resources, not less. Business owners use more roads to run the businesses that they own either directly or through stock, they use more police to protect their businesses and other assets, they use more of the court system, they receive more business subsidies, and whether it's legal or not they most definitely get preferential treatment by politicians who want their campaign donations.

¹https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html
²https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-top-1-percent-earns-a-lot-from-cashing-in-on-investments/

The average US tax rate is just 13%.  So Warren Buffet is STILL paying higher than average.  For his "average" worker to be paying 36% would suggest they are earning a 1%'er income.  That's one heck of a secretary job.  Even someone with a $75k income would pay an effective tax rate below 10% when taking common deductions.

You have to be, basically, rich (high income), to pay a higher effective federal tax rate over 20%.  For example, someone earning a relatively high middle class income of $75k would only pay $9,800 in federal taxes prior to any deductions.  That is 13%.  Add in the standard deduction alone for a single earner, not head of household, and the tax rate drops below 10%.  So again, that is one heck of a secretary position.

You have to be a VERY high earner to pay a higher federal tax rate than a Warren Buffet.  It's hard to argue that the tax rates favor the rich when it's only "rich- high income earners" who are paying a higher rate.  And that's not even touching on WHY capital gains are taxed differently - double taxation, etc.

To reiterate, the wealthy benefit from taxes.  Taxes fund America.  Which benefits everyone.  My comments are about the tax system being designed to benefit the wealthy over the poor.  That's simply not true.  It's probably more accurate to argue that the tax system doesn't benefit the poor enough at the expense of the wealthy.

First, I do believe Buffet's statement was a bit misleading. In his personal case his "receptionist" is likely doing more than answering the phone and making much more than your average receptionist. I'm also not sure how he worked out the 36% number, I assume he at least included payroll taxes. But your less than 10% number is also misleading. I assume you were using 2019 tax rates, federal only. This would work out to <10% for an income of $75,000, but you should be including payroll taxes (7.65%) which in reality are twice that (15.3%) since employers pay an equal portion which directly results in lower wages.

Including payroll taxes the effective rates on an income of $75,000 would be ~25% in 2019 and ~27% in 2010, the year this quote was taken from. Adding state income taxes and assuming income considerably higher than $75,000 may have worked out to 36%?

I don't include payroll taxes because those fund entitlements.  And as you pointed out, employers match.  Who is the "employer" - the rich, right?  So at best, it's a wash as the employers are funding half the tax that funds the employees entitlement anyways.  Since these are funding entitlements that benefit the employee, I wouldn't call this some sort of reduction in pay - it's clearly a 7.65% increase in pay.  These are more of a forced savings than a tax.  And capital gains doesn't pay this tax, but more importantly, since you don't pay this tax on capital gains, the income/taxes don't count towards your future benefit.  So you don't get the benefits of social security.  Comparing capital gains taxes and payroll taxes is apples/oranges.  Which is why the only real apples to apples comparison is capital gains and the federal income tax.  That's it.

Adding in the employer match to come up with an effective rate... now THAT is misleading!  I also wouldn't include state income taxes because lots of states don't have them.  So it makes no sense to use that as a baseline.  In fact, I'd probably argue that the states that DO have income taxes, and high state income taxes, are the wealthiest states with the most millionaires and billionaires who are disproportionately paying these taxes.  Also consider that many States DO tax capital gains.  CA I believe taxes at the full 13% state income tax.

But yeah, if you add all that together, I guess you could get to 36% even though it's not actually anywhere near 36%.  And when people have to fudge numbers and misrepresent them like that, it makes you wonder...

Technically speaking employers pay 7.65% of their employees salary directly to the IRS but if they didn't they could afford to pay the employee an additional 7.65%. Assuming the free market between employers and employees is working correctly, that money would be going to employees in the form of an increased salary. Or another way to look at it, if employees paid the full 15.3% and salaries increased by 7.65% the outcome would be the same.

Everything you said about state taxes is irrelevant assuming Buffet included them in both figures. Also, Nebraska does have a state tax and does apply it to capital gains.

Payroll taxes are forced savings - that's a fair point although I would argue that it's not that simple and that it's not true of the full 15.3%. That said, you can remove it completely from the equation and Buffet's employees still pay a higher effective tax rate than he does.

Since I don't actually have Buffet's math in front of me I realize this was a bit of an exercise in futility. Now I want to see his work.

[AlexMar]

The rich don't pay a "large portion of the taxes" - they pay nearly all of the taxes.  How does that benefit the rich?

The wealthy certainly benefit from the taxes. Their employees are educated by the public schools. Their factories benefit from cheap energy, roads, waterways, police/fire/military/medical services, airlines.

Even where the wealthy aren't directly benefiting from these things - their employees are which enable the employees to be better employees.

I wonder how far we can cut taxes and thus public funding before we risk pitchforks and mobs in the streets? I hear the Davos wealthy would like to cut their employees and replace them with automation...

My comment was in the context of the tax code being skewed to favor the rich.  Mathematically, that just isn't so.  Yes, we all benefit from "America" and it needs to be funded.  My point was that taking money from people is not a "benefit that favors them over others who pay nothing"

In 2011 Warren Buffet stated "The 400 [highest earners] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do". Using himself as an example his effective tax rate for the year 2010 was 17.4% while the average for his salaried employees was 36%.¹

His numbers may be more lopsided than the averages but they do show that yes, our tax code can in fact favor the rich. Looking at the progressive income tax rates this may seem counterintuitive but when you consider that 36% of the 1%'s (and likely a higher proportion of the 0.1%'s but I couldn't find that number) income is from capital gains² which is taxed at a maximum of 20% (assuming long term gains) it becomes less surprising. They can also employ tax avoidance strategies which aren't available or at least wouldn't be useful to those making less.

As for Just Joe's point that the wealthy benefit from taxes, I'm not sure this is what he was getting at but I would argue that not only do the wealthy benefit from taxes, they benefit disproportionately to lower earners. you stated:

The rich get the same military protection, schools, roads, etc.  And use far less government resources.

This is not accurate. The rich use more government resources, not less. Business owners use more roads to run the businesses that they own either directly or through stock, they use more police to protect their businesses and other assets, they use more of the court system, they receive more business subsidies, and whether it's legal or not they most definitely get preferential treatment by politicians who want their campaign donations.

¹https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html
²https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-top-1-percent-earns-a-lot-from-cashing-in-on-investments/

The average US tax rate is just 13%.  So Warren Buffet is STILL paying higher than average.  For his "average" worker to be paying 36% would suggest they are earning a 1%'er income.  That's one heck of a secretary job.  Even someone with a $75k income would pay an effective tax rate below 10% when taking common deductions.

You have to be, basically, rich (high income), to pay a higher effective federal tax rate over 20%.  For example, someone earning a relatively high middle class income of $75k would only pay $9,800 in federal taxes prior to any deductions.  That is 13%.  Add in the standard deduction alone for a single earner, not head of household, and the tax rate drops below 10%.  So again, that is one heck of a secretary position.

You have to be a VERY high earner to pay a higher federal tax rate than a Warren Buffet.  It's hard to argue that the tax rates favor the rich when it's only "rich- high income earners" who are paying a higher rate.  And that's not even touching on WHY capital gains are taxed differently - double taxation, etc.

To reiterate, the wealthy benefit from taxes.  Taxes fund America.  Which benefits everyone.  My comments are about the tax system being designed to benefit the wealthy over the poor.  That's simply not true.  It's probably more accurate to argue that the tax system doesn't benefit the poor enough at the expense of the wealthy.

First, I do believe Buffet's statement was a bit misleading. In his personal case his "receptionist" is likely doing more than answering the phone and making much more than your average receptionist. I'm also not sure how he worked out the 36% number, I assume he at least included payroll taxes. But your less than 10% number is also misleading. I assume you were using 2019 tax rates, federal only. This would work out to <10% for an income of $75,000, but you should be including payroll taxes (7.65%) which in reality are twice that (15.3%) since employers pay an equal portion which directly results in lower wages.

Including payroll taxes the effective rates on an income of $75,000 would be ~25% in 2019 and ~27% in 2010, the year this quote was taken from. Adding state income taxes and assuming income considerably higher than $75,000 may have worked out to 36%?

I don't include payroll taxes because those fund entitlements.  And as you pointed out, employers match.  Who is the "employer" - the rich, right?  So at best, it's a wash as the employers are funding half the tax that funds the employees entitlement anyways.  Since these are funding entitlements that benefit the employee, I wouldn't call this some sort of reduction in pay - it's clearly a 7.65% increase in pay.  These are more of a forced savings than a tax.  And capital gains doesn't pay this tax, but more importantly, since you don't pay this tax on capital gains, the income/taxes don't count towards your future benefit.  So you don't get the benefits of social security.  Comparing capital gains taxes and payroll taxes is apples/oranges.  Which is why the only real apples to apples comparison is capital gains and the federal income tax.  That's it.

Adding in the employer match to come up with an effective rate... now THAT is misleading!  I also wouldn't include state income taxes because lots of states don't have them.  So it makes no sense to use that as a baseline.  In fact, I'd probably argue that the states that DO have income taxes, and high state income taxes, are the wealthiest states with the most millionaires and billionaires who are disproportionately paying these taxes.  Also consider that many States DO tax capital gains.  CA I believe taxes at the full 13% state income tax.

But yeah, if you add all that together, I guess you could get to 36% even though it's not actually anywhere near 36%.  And when people have to fudge numbers and misrepresent them like that, it makes you wonder...

Technically speaking employers pay 7.65% of their employees salary directly to the IRS but if they didn't they could afford to pay the employee an additional 7.65%. Assuming the free market between employers and employees is working correctly, that money would be going to employees in the form of an increased salary. Or another way to look at it, if employees paid the full 15.3% and salaries increased by 7.65% the outcome would be the same.

Everything you said about state taxes is irrelevant assuming Buffet included them in both figures. Also, Nebraska does have a state tax and does apply it to capital gains.

Payroll taxes are forced savings - that's a fair point although I would argue that it's not that simple and that it's not true of the full 15.3%. That said, you can remove it completely from the equation and Buffet's employees still pay a higher effective tax rate than he does.

Since I don't actually have Buffet's math in front of me I realize this was a bit of an exercise in futility. Now I want to see his work.

This is not how employers pay employees.  That's not how salaries are dictated.  They aren't going to say "Well, here's 7.65% extra" - it could very well be that the price of the products/services the companies offer would be cheaper based on the savings if the company wasn't paying it.  In other words, it could be the customers that are paying that tax, not the employee.  It make no sense to include an employers payroll tax in any way.  Since that tax funds entitlements for the employee, you could even justify calling it a negative tax impact on the employee or at least extra compensation.

If capital gains is 20% plus state tax... that's not 16% and he would have a hard time showing that he is the rule and not the exception.  I am a high earner (1%) with a decent amount of employees, I sure as heck don't pay 16%.  I don't think I pay 36% though.  But his secretary does?  Come on...  Not sure where Buffetts numbers come from.  So I don't even know how to respond.  As for saying his employees still pay a higher effective tax rate than he does, I already addressed that.  A $75k earner pays under 10%.  If his employees are all paid multiple six figures and have 1%er incomes, then he isn't making the point he is trying to make and simply misleading everyone by referring to 1%ers as "secretaries".  Just for fun, I did an income tax calculation and you would need to earn about $4M per year to pay an effective federal tax rate of 36%.... Tell me more about Buffetts secretary...  Lol.

[Sailor Sam]

If capital gains is 20% plus state tax... that's not 16% and he would have a hard time showing that he is the rule and not the exception.  I am a high earner (1%) with a decent amount of employees, I sure as heck don't pay 16%.  I don't think I pay 36% though.  But his secretary does?  Come on...  Not sure where Buffetts numbers come from.  So I don't even know how to respond.  As for saying his employees still pay a higher effective tax rate than he does, I already addressed that.  A $75k earner pays under 10%.  If his employees are all paid multiple six figures and have 1%er incomes, then he isn't making the point he is trying to make and simply misleading everyone by referring to 1%ers as "secretaries".  Just for fun, I did an income tax calculation and you would need to earn about $4M per year to pay an effective federal tax rate of 36%.... Tell me more about Buffetts secretary...  Lol.

Errr, wat there devil dog? In 2018 I earned $73,315 in taxable federal income, and paid $11,283 in FITW.  That's not 36%, but it sure ain't 10% either.

If you want to muddy the waters, I also earned $84,632 in taxable medicare wages, and paid $6,474 in FICA. So if you slice the onion one direction, I paid (11,283 + 6,474) / 73,315, or 24% in taxes. If you care to slice another way, I paid (11,283 + 6474) / 84632, which is still 21%.

I would like to understand how I paid 10%, whilst earning just about your cited $75k

[Kyle Schuant]

America was founded because some people didn't want to pay tax. Well, that and they were worried the Crown was going to stop them snatching Amerindian land and enslaving people. But tax was a big one.

Thus, every discussion of public affairs online ends up with Americans arguing about taxes.

Taxes are unutterably dull. Stop being boring, Americans. I'd rather talk about good food.

[nereo]

America was founded because some people didn't want to pay tax.

No.  You've got that dead wrong.  The revolutionary rallying cry "no taxation without representation" was never about a bunch of British subject believing they shouldn't pay taxes - they were upset because they lacked representation (e.g. their governors were installed by the King).  These same subjects - many of whom became the framers - believed so much in the need for taxation that it was directly addressed both in the articles of confederation as well as the current US Constitution.

They wanted more control over the laws which governed them, not a lack of taxation. Their refusal to pay taxes and boycotts of heavily taxed British goods were always about getting the Crown's attention.  Importantly many of them didn't even want to form a sovereign nation.

[GuitarStv]

It always struck me as ironic that Americans created a territory where people have to pay taxes without representation.

[gerardc]

I agree somewhat. There are a ton of people who sweat the details (organic food, supplements, low sugar, non-processed foods, low chemicals, high amount of veggies, etc.) but they're oblivious to how much they eat and they still get fat. The thing is, they would feel a lot better eating "junk" food but hitting their macros (IIFYM) and leaning down to a low bodyfat... MUCH better. They would feel fantastic and athletic in comparison to their current fat state buying organic at Whole foods. That's just throwing their money away for marginal benefits.

So yes I agree with eating the right amount and getting lean and athletic first and foremost. 90% of the health benefits are right there. THEN, if you feel like spending time and money for optimal health using organic food or supplements, go ahead and get the remaining 10% of benefits. But most people are not there and act all snobbish for no reason. And people who get to the 90% realize they're good enough as is.

[GuitarStv]

Can you guys create another thread for this completely off topic conversation about Trump?

Sorry.

[FrugalToque]

[mod note: no more off topic stuff.  Get back to talking about people being snobby about food.  Thank you]

[Brother Esau]

Alrighty then

[Not There Yet]

I've stopped patronizing one of our local grocery chains (part of the Kroger group) for this reason.  The television ad for their certified organic, non-GMO "clean" products features two young, beautiful actors that could be the poster children for White Privilege eating that damned avocado toast.  The implication is, of course, that people who can't afford to eat this way are "impure" and inferior.

[AlexMar]

I've stopped patronizing one of our local grocery chains (part of the Kroger group) for this reason.  The television ad for their certified organic, non-GMO "clean" products features two young, beautiful actors that could be the poster children for White Privilege eating that damned avocado toast.  The implication is, of course, that people who can't afford to eat this way are "impure" and inferior.

Are you being serious?

[jinga nation]

Down here in FL, if you refused to eat the commonly available avocado (available in multiple varieties), you'll be called a snob.

And if you refused guacamole, especially if not-from-store, you might get kicked out of a host's house. Or at least someone might openly hint.

[AlexMar]

Down here in FL, if you refused to eat the commonly available avocado (available in multiple varieties), you'll be called a snob.

And if you refused guacamole, especially if not-from-store, you might get kicked out of a host's house. Or at least someone might openly hint.

Why would you be called a snob for refusing to eat avocado?  I have lived in Miami for 28 years and really don't know what you are talking about.

[dougules]

Down here in FL, if you refused to eat the commonly available avocado (available in multiple varieties), you'll be called a snob.

And if you refused guacamole, especially if not-from-store, you might get kicked out of a host's house. Or at least someone might openly hint.

Why would you be called a snob for refusing to eat avocado?  I have lived in Miami for 28 years and really don't know what you are talking about.

In parts of the country where avocados don't grow they are or at least were something of a luxury food.  I think they also get associated with left-wing vegan types to some extent.