Atman/Texas Toast: The 90% tax rate actually ENCOURAGED employment

[Ralph Wiggum]

In a DUmmy economic thread (yeah, I'm a glutton for punishment), our ol' buddy Atman opines with one of the stupidest comments seen in a while.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9528647

dawg  (1000+ posts)      Wed Nov-10-10 02:16 PM
Original message
So, I make $300,000 a year ....
 No, not *really*. But for the sake of discussion, let's assume I do. With the tax rates as they are, or even with the Bush tax cuts expired, I would still be hauling in plenty of after tax dollars.

But what would I do if the top marginal rate were raised to 90% on income above $250,000? (This is just a thought exercise - I don't actually advocate doing this)

I'll tell you what I'd do, though. I would hire myself an assistant to help me with all these odd jobs that I normally handle myself. If 90% of my surplus was going to go to the government anyway, then I'd just as soon hire someone - deduct their salary, 'cause salaries are, like, deductible for businesses ya' know, and make my life a little easier in the process.

Think about that, all you guys that worry that higher marginal rates at the top will kill job creation.

Atman  (1000+ posts)        Wed Nov-10-10 02:44 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. THAT'S THE ENTIRE POINT! The 90% tax rate actually ENCOURAGED employment.
 Edited on Wed Nov-10-10 02:44 PM by Atman
The National Gallery, The Guggenheim, on and on --- their construction employed thousands. Why? Because if the Carnegies, The Mellons, the Guggenheims, didn't do something with the "excess" income, then they'd simply have to hand it over to the government. The preposterous 90% tax rate actually encouraged these billionaires to hire more people and reduce their tax burdens. But today's Republicans just want to keep it ALL. Give nothing to no one, no how. IT'S MINE, DAMMIT! Thank you, Ronald Reagan, for bringing about the "Me Generation" of greed and selfishness.

I swear, just reading the DUmmies trying to explain economics makes my head hurt.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Logic issues that entire ships could disappear into. 

[Chris_]

IT'S MINE, DAMMIT! Thank you, Ronald Reagan, for bringing about the "Me Generation" of greed and selfishness.

I thought it was Kennedy that cut the 90% marginal rate.

[franksolich]

Logic issues that entire ships could disappear into. 

Well, one sees Pedro Picasso's getting stupider and stupider in his old age.

[BlueStateSaint]

Well, one sees Pedro Picasso's getting stupider and stupider in his old age.

Alcoholism is a progressive disease . . .

[Tess Anderson]

I thought it was Kennedy that cut the 90% marginal rate.

and I thought the "Me" generation came into age in the 1970s.

So, I make $300,000 a year ....
 No, not *really*

and I can see why he doesn't.

[franksolich]

Alcoholism is a progressive disease . . .

Pedro Picasso's just upset because he had to give up his full-time "art" free-lancing and go to work for a company that sends out mass-mailings for primitive candidates and causes.

Of course, he should have seen it coming, but being an idiot, he didn't.

As you recall, Pedro Picasso's "art" consisted mostly of caricatures of George Bush and other decent and civilized people.  Since there was a "demand" at one time (2001-2009) for this "art," Pedro Picasso did okay.  But once the Big Zero won the presidency, the demand evaporated.

Sort of like those people who dedicated their lives to making fun of Dan Quayle; they did okay 1989-1993, but once the Impeached One came into the White House, their market dried up.

Pedro Picasso could probably be making a mint right now, with caricatures of Sarah Palin, if he'd supported MicCain-Palin in 2008, and they'd won.

Alas! poor Pedro Picasso! alas! never thinks things all the way through, Pedro Picasso! alas!

[franksolich]

In a DUmmy economic thread (yeah, I'm a glutton for punishment), our ol' buddy Atman opines with one of the stupidest comments seen in a while.

I swear, just reading the DUmmies trying to explain economics makes my head hurt.

I'm confused about Pedro Picasso's stance on this.

Near the tail-end of the Bush presidency, Pedro Picasso catastrophized much about how the "Alternative Minimum Tax" was reaching downward into millions of more American wallets.

It was blatantly obvious Pedro Picasso and his wife were about to be hit.

For those who don't know, Pedro Picasso, who grew up in a Levittown somewhere down in Florida--he's nearing 52 years of age--is heir-presumptive (along with his older, Republican, brother, and an older sister) to a good-sized chunk of dough based upon speculation in Polaroid stock during the 1960s; his elderly mother is Old Money and Much Money, from Boston, and one wishes the lady another several decades of life, as the longer Pedro Picasso has to wait for the money, the longer it'll be before he has to pay the "Alternative Minimum Tax."

[JohnnyReb]

dawg should take a hand full of GOODY powders....with that much stupid stuffed in his head, he has got to have a headache.

[USA4ME]

GSLevel9

8. or the other option...

If you work 60 hours per week doing whatever it is that you do to make 300K... cut back to 40 hrs per week and spend more time at home.

If I was going to pay 45,000 tax on my last 50,000 of income, I simply wouldn't EARN that 50k.

Which is what would happen.

Atman
Response to Reply #8

10. You clearly don't understand how that 90% marginal tax works.

Yes he does, Rob, you freakin' idiot.  If the tax rate is 90% on any income above $250,001, then of the next $50K in taxable income,  $45K would be paid in taxes.

Poor Pedro.  Too stupid to have ever heard of the Laffer curve.

.

[jukin]

Me I quit working at $250K. The basic flaw all the DUchebags have is that all people are not interchangeable due to skill sets. If a doctor says I'm only working 6 months a year his staff only works six months a year. If a business man stops working or chasing sales his business stops growing and no more hires. Most like those jobs go out of city/state/country.

To attempt to convey a perspective for our DUmbass lurkers. Eli Manning hits a point where he only receives 10% of his salary. Right around the middle of the second quarter of the first game.  He quits because there are all sorts of guys that can just fill in for him and he is at risk for ending his career each play while earning 10% of what he earned in the 22 minutes of the game.

An update on my buddy selling his restaurant because of city/county/state/federal regulations has gone through. I predict the business to go under in 9-12 months because the new owner is not skilled in running a restaurant. I could be wrong as this is a very well established business and can probably cruise on auto-pilot for longer. But my point being is it will die and then all the jobs that were there are gone...maybe for years as we have 40+ empty restaurants for over a year.

[franksolich]

dawg should take a hand full of GOODY powders....with that much stupid stuffed in his head, he has got to have a headache.

One of the most pathetic campfires--it almost made one feel sorry for Pedro Picasso--was when he described his high school graduating class's 30th-year reunion three or four years ago.

He went there thinking he would be treated as a big shot, and preached to his long-ago classmates about the impending catastrophe of the falling American dollar.

Now, that would have been a sermon worth paying to see; Pedro Picasso explaining economics.

Anyway, although Pedro Picasso tried his best to make himself look good, it was obvious his insight--and perhaps even his physical presence--bored his old classmates to tears; they didn't pay any attention to him.

Alas! poor Pedro Picasso! alas! a preacher without preachees! alas! poor Pedro Picasso!

[franksolich]

Poor Pedro.  Too stupid to have ever heard of the Laffer curve.

It's probably never been on television.

Remember, Pedro Picasso is a poster-child of the Television Age in Suburbia, self-admittedly spending much of his time with his eyes glued to the boob-tube.

This of course is borne out in that most of Pedro Picasso's campfires have dealt with television shows and television celebrities, to the exclusion of all else.

(Actually, one time Pedro Picasso did post something from the print-media, rather than from the visual media--but that was such a rare exception franksolich still remembers it years later.  It was an opinion-piece from the Wall Street Journal.)

If the Laffler curve had been on television, Pedro Picasso would know all about it.  But because it apparently wasn't, to Pedro Picasso, it doesn't exist.

[crockspot]

Logic issues that entire ships could disappear into. 

It is the 35th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald... Must have been a DUmmienomics conference on board.

[franksolich]

It is the 35th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald... Must have been a DUmmienomics conference on board.

Someone here invented a most wonderful word, and I'd like it to gain common currency.

The problem is, I can't remember the word, exactly.

It combined "potatoes" and "economics" to define the primitive understanding of economics.

[JohnnyReb]

OK DUmmie, say you're up there in the high tax bracket in my state. You're paying 35% fed income on the money over SS witholding...you're paying 7% state income tax and 6% sales tax when you spend it. That's 48% of every dollar you make right there. 60% of every early dollar you earn before getting outta SS range.

OMG, HOW MUCH DO YOU LOAFERS WANT!! 

[franksolich]

OK DUmmie, say you're up there in the high tax bracket in my state. You're paying 35% fed income on the money over SS witholding...you're paying 7% state income tax and 6% sales tax when you spend it. That's 48% of every dollar you make right there. 60% of every early dollar you earn before getting outta SS range.

OMG, HOW MUCH DO YOU LOAFERS WANT!! 

You know, sir, both economists and historians figured out a long time ago that medieval serfs paid 33% of their labor to their overlords (the other 67% went for the serfs' own upkeep), and that in colonial and pre-1865 America, slaves paid 50% of their labor to their masters (the other 50% went for the slaves' own upkeep).

Compare those, please, with the % of taxes that the government takes from the people.

Back in 1939, there was some tax bill being discussed in Congress, to which a Nebraska congressman, the (R) Carl Curtis, was opposed.

He alleged that if things kept going the way they were going, soon Americans would be paying a whooping 10% of their income and labor in taxes.

The Dems at the time called the honorable congressman an "alarmist."

[Randy]

Someone here invented a most wonderful word, and I'd like it to gain common currency.

The problem is, I can't remember the word, exactly.

It combined "potatoes" and "economics" to define the primitive understanding of economics.

Potatonomics

My favorite new word. It makes me smile.

[franksolich]

Potatonomics

My favorite new word. It makes me smile.

That was a stroke of genius, sir, "potatonomics;" exquisitely delightful word.

From here on out, I plan to use it.

"Potatonomics."

[Randy]

Miskie coined the term in this thread. I loved it myself.

[franksolich]

Miskie coined the term in this thread. I loved it myself.

Coincidentally, one time Pedro Picasso made a statement that wasn't a fact.

miskie--I think we were still at our old home then--said it wasn't a fact.

Pedro Picasso, screaming over the barrier, the Great Divide that separates Skins's island from the wider world outside, insisted no, it was a fact, and he'd bet on it.

miskie proved it wasn't a fact.

Pedro Picasso never paid his debt to miskie.

[Randy]

Pedro's a DUmmie. He wouldn't know honor if it clubbed him like a harp seal.

[formerlurker]

I'll tell you what I'd do, though. I would hire myself an assistant to help me with all these odd jobs that I normally handle myself. If 90% of my surplus was going to go to the government anyway, then I'd just as soon hire someone - deduct their salary, 'cause salaries are, like, deductible for businesses ya' know, and make my life a little easier in the process.

Dude, you know what I would do?  Hire myself an "assistant"  (meaning buy a fake ssn), pay them a just under $250K to do my work (cough), deduct their salary (wink), and you know, like keep my own money from the feds (nod).  


 

[franksolich]

Pedro's a DUmmie. He wouldn't know honor if it clubbed him like a harp seal.

And it was such a tiny debt, too.

Something Pedro Picasso could whip up in his "studio" in ten minutes or something, given the crudity of his "art."

I suggested a statue of Bill Clinton holding a swan.

That would've been no trouble at all, for Pedro Picasso to make.

But, as you said, Pedro Picasso has no sense of honor.

[delilahmused]

Me, I think I'd just close up shop. I can afford it. What I can't afford is the government the profits I need to put back into my business to grow it. I've started at least one business and I can do it again when the climate for "rich" business owners is better. I feel bad for the employee(s) that will no longer have a job but I have no incentive to keep my doors open. I won't even have enough after taxes to support myself and my family. Sorry, but like those who will no longer have a job, I have to put family first.

Cindie