Elizabeth Warren Sez!

[Townsend]

From the USA Today.  Obviously a right-wing rag!

Links could do nothing but help your rep.

[we vs us]

This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average 29.1% of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes, payroll taxes and other taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay an average of 15% of their income in federal taxes.

Lower-income households will pay less. For example, households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will pay an average of 12.5% of their income in federal taxes. Households making between $20,000 and $30,000 will pay 5.7%.

The latest IRS figures are a few years older — and limited to federal income taxes — but show much the same thing. In 2009, taxpayers who made $1 million or more paid on average 24.4% of their income in federal income taxes, according to the IRS.

Those making $100,000 to $125,000 paid on average 9.9% in federal income taxes. Those making $50,000 to $60,000 paid an average of 6.3%.


With tax rates that high, why do so many people pay at lower rates? Because the tax code is riddled with more than $1 trillion in deductions, exemptions and credits, and they benefit people at every income level, according to data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress' official scorekeeper on revenue issues.

The Tax Policy Center estimates that 46% of households, mostly low- and medium-income households, will pay no federal income taxes this year. Most, however, will pay other taxes, including Social Security payroll taxes.

From the USA Today.  Obviously a right-wing rag!

Using your numbers above: if you're a household (of 4) making $25k a year say, and your effective rate is 5.7%, you will pay $1425 in federal income tax.  Your yearly net income then is $23,575.00 and your monthly take home is $1,965 for your family of 4.  This does not include any other state or local taxes, or fees of any sort.  

In 2009, the poverty line in the US for a family of 4 was $22,050.00

http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/09poverty.shtml

The only thing "more skin in the game" at that level would accomplish would be to chuck someone's family into poverty.   

[AquaMan]

Tin Men was a great flick!

I don't agree that business has to be amoral, or unforgiving of weakness, unless you are saying on an etherial plane that it doesn't know morals.

Quite the contrary, one reason the company I work for has been here for 55 years is a high code of ethics and morals.  Certainly there are profiteers out there who have benefitted handsomely while putting thousands of others out of work.  That's not the norm in the business world though, IMO.

Weakness doesn't mean failure and it can be forgiven if management sees the weakness and corrects it, then all is forgiven and everyone chants in a group hug.

That is a good attitude you have. I should not speak in so many generalities. Perhaps some day I'll work for a company worth complimenting. And yes, I mean that there are no real morals for companies. They don't understand what sexism, racism, exploitation means. They have to hire people to keep them in line with society's morals. Hence JC Penneys cancels an ad today with a girl in a bikini while porn is readily available and profitable on the internet. Go figure.

As far as weakness in business, I mean when a company is unable to capitalize on opportunities or mismanages its finances there is little forgiveness afforded them by the market place. Someone else will step up.

Thanks for keeping me straight.

[Red Arrow]

Oh, yeah, that "rugged individualism" concept. It worked fine in frontier times. Not so much now.

As a salesman on the road, I spent many years calling on businesses that were in various stages of doing very well, struggling and failing. I saw little difference in their will to succeed. In fact we used to laugh that there certainly was no correlation between knowing what you're doing and success in doing it.

What were you selling?  It might have made a difference in you perceptions.  I'm thinking of something like selling long johns in the South Pacific.

I guess you subscribe to the theory that no one is any better than anyone else in responding to a situation perhaps not of their own making.  It's always luck and nothing more.  Too bad.

[AquaMan]

What were you selling?  It might have made a difference in you perceptions.  I'm thinking of something like selling long johns in the South Pacific.

I guess you subscribe to the theory that no one is any better than anyone else in responding to a situation perhaps not of their own making.  It's always luck and nothing more.  Too bad.

I sold advertising in independent yellow page directories. I sold advertising in newspapers, magazines and direct mail including a large metro publication. It allowed me access to a wide variety of businessmen from lawyers and doctors to retail stores, plumbers and builders. I was pretty good at it. Intangible sales are certainly different than selling long johns.

One of my favorite accounts was a plumber who bought a dozen different listings each with its own phone number but different names. In that county, no matter what plumber you called, it was likely his company. He learned the trick from the telephone company yellow pages. Win/win for each of them. Not so good for other plumbers or consumers who didn't know! In his case it was lucky his yellow pages rep shared with him I guess.

Luck is important but only if you're prepared when it happens. Baseball players know that, lawyers know it and so do salesmen.

[Conan71]

Luck is important but only if you're prepared when it happens. Baseball players know that, lawyers know it and so do salesmen.

That is a very good point.  Nothing like walking into a place on a cold call right after the smile hit the fan and they need a solution right away.

[we vs us]

Luck is important but only if you're prepared when it happens. Baseball players know that, lawyers know it and so do salesmen.

Spot on. 

Red, I'm in sales, too, and have been doing it much of my adult life in one form or another.  One of the truest aphorisms I've ever heard was from a boss of mine who said "work breeds luck."  By which he meant:  you can improve the chances of good things happening to you, but you can never fully control the process.  You can make it mathematically and karmically more possible, and you can take advantage of opportunity when it occurs, but it still strikes a bit like lightning. 

Work is always going to be a huge part of success, but being in the right place at the right time is equally as important.   

[Red Arrow]

Spot on.  

Red, I'm in sales, too, and have been doing it much of my adult life in one form or another.  One of the truest aphorisms I've ever heard was from a boss of mine who said "work breeds luck."  By which he meant:  you can improve the chances of good things happening to you, but you can never fully control the process.  You can make it mathematically and karmically more possible, and you can take advantage of opportunity when it occurs, but it still strikes a bit like lightning.  

Work is always going to be a huge part of success, but being in the right place at the right time is equally as important.  

I am not in direct sales like you and AquaMan, but as an engineer I have to sell my designs.  My customer is usually my supervisor or some higher-ups within the company but occasionally I deal with the "real" customer.  "Work breeds luck" sounds similar to (Arnold Palmer?) "the more I practice, the luckier I get" or something close to that.  Being in the right place at the right time is important,  I won't deny that.  In my career,  providing an economically viable, technically correct solution to a problem is more a function of my education, my experience, and attention to details than luck.  I can see how attempting to sell sun screen on a rainy day might have different results.  

Edit:  A truly "lucky" salesman might just happen to have a side line of rain hats.

[Conan71]

Spot on. 

Red, I'm in sales, too, and have been doing it much of my adult life in one form or another.  One of the truest aphorisms I've ever heard was from a boss of mine who said "work breeds luck."  By which he meant:  you can improve the chances of good things happening to you, but you can never fully control the process.  You can make it mathematically and karmically more possible, and you can take advantage of opportunity when it occurs, but it still strikes a bit like lightning. 

Work is always going to be a huge part of success, but being in the right place at the right time is equally as important.   

"Where do they teach you people to talk like that? Some Panama City sailor wanna hump-hump bar?"




Ever dawn on you your boss was telling you to get back to work and if you were lucky you'd have a job tomorrow? 

[Red Arrow]

Ever dawn on you your boss was telling you to get back to work and if you were lucky you'd have a job tomorrow? 

There's that "luck" thing again.

[we vs us]

Ever dawn on you your boss was telling you to get back to work and if you were lucky you'd have a job tomorrow? 

Naw he didn't have to imply it.  He pretty much told me that on a regular basis.  Of course this was during the High Recession period, and no one's job was safe.  

[heironymouspasparagus]

How?

Don't play dense.  That has been gone through here over and over.  If you don't believe that, then check out what Warren Buffet says, since he is saying the same thing.

[Gaspar]

Don't play dense.  That has been gone through here over and over.  If you don't believe that, then check out what Warren Buffet says, since he is saying the same thing.

Yes, but what he says and what is actually true are two very different things.

[Red Arrow]

How?

Just keep telling yourself, over and over and over until you believe it that 15% of anything is always less than 28% of something else. 

Learn to ignore the numbers they are percentage of.  You will sleep better and feel invigorated.

[/channeling for the math challenged]

[heironymouspasparagus]

Yes, but what he says and what is actually true are two very different things.

That's a side point with no relevance to what we are talking about.  What he does is follow the law as written.  What he SAYS is to change the law.

And as always, reiterated here even by Red, 15% is always less intrusive into the life of the person involved than 28%.  Come on - I know you don't like the idea that you have been deceived by the Murdochians for all these years, but deep down inside you know it's true!  I know it has been pissing me off for a LONG time!!