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Actually, both of our statistics show that AT BEST, 1/3 of kids overcome anything.
On the other hand, I bet you about 95% of all people in jail came from the lowest income quintile. In fact I will almost GUARANTEE you that a kid born to the lowest income quintile has a higher chance of going to prison then making it past the middle income quintile.
I agree.
Unfortunately, the only solution is to prevent some people from having kids.
Why don't YOU explain reality to us then? Do you believe poor Americans have property rights? Do they have the right to buy real property in increments they can afford?
They have the right to buy anything that somebody will sell them.
Wherever did you get the idea that a willing seller and a willing buyer have the right to make real estate transactions in any increments they want?
Point me to your local zoning code and I will point you to a specific prohibition on said right.
Zoning codes are designed to impose minimum lot size standards and to prohibit the sale of real property in smaller increments.
Where a minimum lot size of 10,000 square feet exists, a willing seller and willing buyer cannot transfer a 3,000 square foot piece of land.
Palo Alto goes further and has written a number of "contextual" requirements into its zoning code. The intent is clear; to prevent people with lower financial resources than existing property owners from buying homes.
Yes, but there are millions and millions of acres of land that have no zoning rights.
Maybe you should leave Palo Alto, or petition to get their zoning laws changed. Some cities, like Houston, have few if any zoning laws.
Ambition is a key factor. Unfortunately it is not a skill, but an innate property, so there is little if anything one can do to boost ambition.
My brother for instance is so much more ambitious than I am, he always was, already as a child. We are just one year apart, grew up exactly the same way in the same environment, still we are like day and night. He studied economics, I never gave a crap about money. Fortunately in Europe that is no problem as I can have a decent life with my low income as well. Nobody expects anyone here to buy a home, unlike in the US. I will rent small apartments for the rest of my life. My brother earns almost exactly 10x as much as I do, and he deserves it as compensation for wasting his life on his job and being unhappy and burned out.
This year, we hit the 33% marginal tax bracket - alternative minimum tax and all of that. We don't own a home or have kids, so we don't really get to deduct anything.
I'm grateful for our income, and I'm not fundamentally complaining about having to work hard for it and pay my fair share. I know that we're very fortunate.
But why is it fair for my personal share to be up to TWICE the rate of the fair share of people with gargantuan incomes like Romney and Buffett who will never have real financial worries again in their lives? We're doing well, but unlike those guys, we do depend heavily on our cash flow to generate our critical savings for future needs as well as to cover our day-to-day expenses. We get hurt by the loss of that marginal dollar A LOT more than the multi-millionaires and billionaires ever would be.
And why is it "class warfare" whenever I point this out? How is it not "class warfare" for me to be reamed porportionally so much more than the super rich - many of whose enterprises I also have to pay to bail out of their bad business decisions?
I'm not saying that the Buffett rule is the way to go, but why can't we have a tax system that institutes some sense of consistent fairness relative to income all the way across the income spectrum? Why is this concept so fundamentally controversial and anti-American for conservatives?
One piece of advice is to move out of California.....
So, you advocate living in a carboard box, or with 5 roommates to a person living at the poverty level, so they can take their couple thousand bucks, and put it in the market, and make a whopping $100 return over the course of a year?
Wow, thats absolutely worth living in a carboard box. Let me jump right on that.
You exaggerated example is why most Americans remain corporate drones. They simply aren't willing to make short term sacrifices for long term gains to achieve a greater degree of financial freedom.
The majority of Americans DO NOT LIVE BELOW POVERTY LEVEL.
However the majority of Americans are woefully and willingly ignorant of how to use the financial markets to their advantage to invest.
A significant number of Americans are leveraged to the hilt with house mortgages, car payments, and credit card payments of big screen TVs, clothing, and other discretionary items.
On another note you'd be amazed with what you can do in 5 to 7 years with $100 dollars a month with compounded interest in the right investments.
A person working full time making $8 an hour, probably working harder then youve ever worked in your life, makes $16,640 before taxes. That is just slightly above poverty level.
Probably every penny this guy makes, and then some, will need to be spent on basic neccessities.
Yet, you think, instead of eating, or paying for his bus pass, he should be paying federal income taxes.
I think all tax brackets should be replaced by a single formula that determines the tax progressively corresponding to the exact income, from 0 to 50%.
And all deductions and other tricks should also be removed.
The whole tax code should fit on one letter page without any small print.
The problem with the present tax code is that it has been used as a proxy to implement social and economic policy. For example:
Want to help poor working families - Earned Income Credit
Want to promote home ownership - Mortgage Interest Tax Deduction
Want to promote industrial growth - Tax credits and Tax subsidies for Business
You keep piling this stuff on for years and years and you have the mess that we have now.
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