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I will say amen to this post.We as older retiree's are o'k.We want to move back to Ct and have purchased a home.One problem is when I die all my retirement is gone,leaving wife on SS.our daughter and husband have worked 15 years at grocery store and income is hardly enough to live on.They trapped themselves
and have no way out due to age and skills.
Exactly what above poster is saying,if we left home to them they could not afford it,Ct does not have meaningful exemptions for seniors.We have $72,000 in exemptions after 22 years in FL.They do not consider SS as income,CT does and can tax it.
As I have said in other posts when we lived in CT in 1950's and earned $1.00 and bought first house at $1.50 per hour,20 per cent down, life was much more balanced,crazy today.
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Why would you move to CT with such a bad financial deal?
Wow, the point of this thread was to explain what makes someone middle class... And it was ownership, not income. And that what you DID with it, was far more important than how MUCH income you have.
And why is the middle class going away? It's because ownership, like the cost of owning a home, has soared out of sight - due to two things government has done - easy lending for real estate and property taxation.
There's still plenty of people who buy their home and come to own it. But nearly everyone merely "rents" their home for half or more of their life from a lender. The same is true of their transportation and much of the trappings of middle class life. Debt and taxes have decimated the "middle class", which is nothing more than the average person who has chosen ownership rather than renting for their life.
These things are undeniable. There are people, however, who will mindlessly blame it on "free trade" or other such rot. As if "free trade" made the cost of owning your home and needs get too expensive? Not at all.
If your 20% barrier was true the curve would be shifted to the left. I agree that taxes can reduce one's desire to gain further. But I disagree with your low level.
Nonsense. Look at your laffer curve. The point where it begins to curve upward, is where it begins to affect decisions. The point where there's a signficant upward slope? That's where it begins to affect very significantly. The peak point is LONG PAST where the majority start making decisions to minimize their tax burden.
The Laffer curve is the RESULT of the effect I speak of, not a measurement of the effect. You can't study the dollar number amounts of tax vs collection to decide where it begins to impact human behavior... You study human behavior to find out where the impact starts - and that's what I refer to - which is the CORRECT research and the CORRECT point.
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Medicare does take some of my taxes, also other people's taxes, along with the patients premiums copays and deuctibles. Those and along with some money creation pays all the bills. And if Medicare saves money through my efficient care, that is a bonus to the program and taxpayers. It is a better return on money for the program and taxpayer.
The taxpayer has 0% return. It is 100% cost with no benefit. Only recipients get benefit.
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Before I was a doc I was a research chemist. And the research group of which I was a part formed the basis for some chemotherapies as well as early research with NMR, eventually evolving into the MRI machine. Some great value and wealth created through these entities.
No, profits. Profit is not the same as wealth. You need to understand the distinction. Creation of wealth is creation of intrinsic value. There is some argument that medicine "creates" wealth, since it enables productivity - and that's a very fair argument. However, it does not directly create wealth. There are actually very few wealth creators, and the rest of us owe our living and our standard of living to them and that.
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Through my provision of medical services the last 40 years I have improved the health, happiness and livlihoods of many thousands of people. And through their longer and more productive lives, my input has been amplified. I have also invested in, built and run medical clinics and offices that have provided for the employment of many people. Through other investment in medical concerns, equipment and property developed businesses that have yielded profits while providing necessary ancillary medical services and more local employment. And other such profits reinvested in all sorts of other more typical and conventional nvestments and entities.
I am not in any way disputing the VALUE of medicine. After all, I'm working this crazy level to enable my wife to become an ND and DC. We DO believe in the VALUE of medicine. One cannot, however, fail to comprehend that wealth must be produced first in order for anyone to afford to use the services of the medical industry.
no jobs. lots of talent and ability but the cheap talent and ability are overseas where they dont sue companies trying to make a product.
lots of people here demanding benefits and not working. a host can only support so many leeches and parasites before he dies.
no jobs. lots of talent and ability but the cheap talent and ability are overseas where they dont sue companies trying to make a product.
lots of people here demanding benefits and not working. a host can only support so many leeches and parasites before he dies.
Nonsense. Look at your laffer curve. The point where it begins to curve upward, is where it begins to affect decisions. The point where there's a signficant upward slope? That's where it begins to affect very significantly. The peak point is LONG PAST where the majority start making decisions to minimize their tax burden.
The Laffer curve is the RESULT of the effect I speak of, not a measurement of the effect. You can't study the dollar number amounts of tax vs collection to decide where it begins to impact human behavior... You study human behavior to find out where the impact starts - and that's what I refer to - which is the CORRECT research and the CORRECT point.
OK. I don't normally stand on my head to view graphs. But I understand where you're coming from.
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Originally Posted by pnwmdk
The taxpayer has 0% return. It is 100% cost with no benefit. Only recipients get benefit.
With Medicare almost all taxpayers will eventually be beneficiaries. Current beneficiaries are able to depend less on their families and kids, taxpaying or not for support. Most all beneficiaries are taxpayers themselves. As are so many medical delivery providers, systems and entities. So the realities are not 0 or 100%.
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Originally Posted by pnwmdk
No, profits. Profit is not the same as wealth. You need to understand the distinction. Creation of wealth is creation of intrinsic value. There is some argument that medicine "creates" wealth, since it enables productivity - and that's a very fair argument. However, it does not directly create wealth. There are actually very few wealth creators, and the rest of us owe our living and our standard of living to them and that.
I am not in any way disputing the VALUE of medicine. After all, I'm working this crazy level to enable my wife to become an ND and DC. We DO believe in the VALUE of medicine. One cannot, however, fail to comprehend that wealth must be produced first in order for anyone to afford to use the services of the medical industry.
Money of course is not wealth. Money is a means toward or to obtain wealth. Wealth is stuff. My house, car, my stuff. Hundreds of employees houses, cars and stuff. Tens of thousands of now still healthy and still working people's houses, cars and stuff. And on and on.
Medical offices, equipment, part ownership in a Hospital all real stuff.
And now what I don't have in stuff, I have in saved or invested money. And that money can be very easily converted to stuff. And then people can take that money I spend and create more business, transactions, investments and wealth.
It takes money not wealth to use medical services.
And who, to you, is "the middle class"? Provide a description that applies across all the different local economies in our country.
Prior to it American labor could organize for fair labor practices and better pay but after it they just moved it to China where the average worker is literally payed $0.54 per hour. THAT is why decent pay jobs for all but the most specialized has left the country. Why pay low skilled Americans to sew clothing in North Carolina for minimum wage when you can get Chinese to do it for an average of $0.54 per hour? BTW that's the AVERAGE hourly wage in China so low paid workers make much less maybe even as low as $0.20 per hour.
There is no worker's comp, there is no unemployment, there is no disability, there are no OSHA standards. Just $0.20 an hour and that's it. If we had a tariff, as all the founding fathers said we should, then there would be no dodging decent standards and so we would still have those well paying blue collar jobs. It is a direct if, then relationship.
Why didn't Obama change the trade agreements and 'Republican policies' in the first two years of his presidency when he had total control of Congress?
Simple. The American polical system is highly corrupt and only does what those people with money want. Nothing more, nothing less. Democrats will occasionally throw a bone to regular people when they need votes while Republicans don't even bother pretending they care about regular people. The political system is absolutely, 100%, owned by special interests and who ever will pay the most money. It is corrupt.
THAT is the real reason why the American political system is so unresponsive to the will of the American people. It does what lobbyists want and not just any lobbyists but only the ones which pay the most. Thus the 5% who control 60% of the nation's wealth get everything they want while the other 95% get nothing of meaningful value.
Actually no one takes delight in anyone living in poverty. We just don't want the government to drag us into poverty too.
It is not the government that is dragging you....that's what I wish you could understand....so that conservatives could start winning elections again. That is what we both want, but those who insist on continuing to carry water for the traitors that run multi-national Big Business just keep shooting themselves in the foot.
With Medicare almost all taxpayers will eventually be beneficiaries. Current beneficiaries are able to depend less on their families and kids, taxpaying or not for support. Most all beneficiaries are taxpayers themselves. As are so many medical delivery providers, systems and entities. So the realities are not 0 or 100%.
No, not at all.
You're confusing politicians PROMISING future benefits while you pay for current benefits. There are no benefits to what you're paying now. Even later, the money you pay pays bills, and you benefit from someone else's paying into it. Never does it have an actual return.
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Money of course is not wealth. Money is a means toward or to obtain wealth.
Wrong. Money is a medium of trade. It has value ONLY in that it can be traded for things of value.
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Wealth is stuff.
No, it isn't just "stuff". It is things of intrinsic value.
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My house, car, my stuff. Hundreds of employees houses, cars and stuff. Tens of thousands of now still healthy and still working people's houses, cars and stuff. And on and on.
Not close at all.
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Medical offices, equipment, part ownership in a Hospital all real stuff.
No, they have potential value in the form of future profit or being able to sell it, but they are not, in and of themselves, of intrinsic value.
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And now what I don't have in stuff, I have in saved or invested money. And that money can be very easily converted to stuff. And then people can take that money I spend and create more business, transactions, investments and wealth.
Right, but money can be devalued - and it can and does constantly devalue, precisely because government distributes money.
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It takes money not wealth to use medical services.
It takes creation of wealth for there to be money to spend.
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