Many praise the new movie In Time for its intriguing premise: Time is money: Everyone is genetically engineered to stop aging at 25; … after that, people will live for only one more year unless they can gain access to more hours, days, weeks, etc. (
Actually if aging and sickness were eliminated the economy would collapse as 18% of the GNP would disappear. Also the funeral business, anti-aging products, cosmetics, exercise and dieting products, healthcare gurus, environmental scare mongers, vitamin peddlers and cryonics centers would go out of business. Likewise life and health insurance companies and many other industries which prosper by promising to stave off or ameliorate health decline and death would disappear.
Good. That way we could do things with our resources other than fixing broken windows.
The person earning minimum wage is already paying 15.3% in Social Security and Medicare taxes. There is also unemployment tax FUTA, of 6.2% of the first $7,000 of income. The person making $14,500 pays $434 in FUTA, $2218.5 in FICA and Medicare for a tax rate of 18.3%.
Then there are sales taxes, but since they are on after tax income, putting them on a before tax basis decreases the rate. In Kansas the sales tax is 7.3% and it covers everything, groceries, prepared food, prescription medicines, non-prescription medicines and clothing, that would be another $865.
That is $3,517.5 tax out of an income of $14,500, a tax rate of 24.6%,
But this person earning minimum wage hasn't paid any income tax, so they are freeloading off those that do pay income tax. If we add the fair income tax of 10% (just slightly higher than Cain's 9%), then that is another $1,450 for a total of $4967.5 for a total tax rate of 34.3%.
If someone earning minimum wage can afford to pay 34.3% in tax, why can't someone who is considered wealthy?
10% tax to someone earning $14,500 per year means something entirely different in terms of well-being than it does for whomever you would classify as wealthy.
Not that I think useless industry should be supported to maintain employment,but that the rich have no monetary incentive to reduce the population. Reduction in human population is the agenda of the environmentalist and social engineer. Why don't they make a movie about that?
daedalus2u, Pareto efficiency is very different from Rawls. There's nothing egalitarian about Pareto efficiency, it just shows how one result can be obviously be superior to another, with no interpersonal utility comparisons coming up.
Anonymous who responded to me above, I didn't say anything about "better" or worse. I'm saying there wouldn't really be any point in the Logan's Run lifespan limitation. I guess it makes for entertaining cinema, but an actual government would have no motive to implement it.
Speaking of Gattaca, Arpit Gupta had an interesting point on how the protagonist deserves our moral condemnation because he is risking the lives of his fellow astronauts by going up with hidden health risks.
Who said there is a limited amount of wealth? Or that it would be distributed fairly?
Why does a society collapse when one sector of it is simply no longer needed? The society has greater resources if resources do not need to be wasted on funerals or life extension stuff that doesn't work. How does a society with greater resources collapse? Only if those resources are misallocated.
Lets suppose that people no longer needed food. Would society collapse because farmers and the whole supply chain from field to table was no longer needed? No, it would not collapse. Those people could start doing other things and what ever they did would be pure surplus because the new economy doesn't need their labor to produce food.
However, if the people who formerly did consume food, and now found that they didn't need to spend resources on food decided that they would hoard resources and not allow the former farmers to have clothing or shelter, then yes there would be difficulties as the former farmers would (very likely) refuse to meekly die of exposure, they would likely resort to violence.
This is sort of what is happening now. There is surplus capacity in the economy to make a lot of stuff, but people can't buy it because they don't have any money (because it got dissipated in a speculative bubble). People who do have money are just sitting on it because there are no productive investments they can make because the economy already has surplus capacity.
The government could put those unemployed people to work rebuilding infrastructure, roads, bridges, railroads, the kind of stuff that has a long useful life and happens to be run down right now. Interest rates are at record lows. Borrowing money to invest in infrastructure has never been cheaper and the need to do so has never been greater. Why isn't it being done? Because the GOP would rather see people starve in the gutter rather than pay them to rebuild roads and bridges.
Well, I confess to not having too much of a clue about what you think, since I am not even sure which one(s) of my points you disagree with. That said, based on your comments about Social Security, you seem to be arguing in contrast to Robin that taxes are indeed regressive, rather than progressive. But the "wealthy" who work for a living (and the vast majority of them do, if you call "wealthy" anyone who earns over ~$200k per year, like Obama does) very definitely pay plenty into Social Security. In fact, they max-out on it, paying more than anyone who doesn't earn enough to max-out. Oh, and regarding your question of "How much tax should people making $14,500 a year pay?" Well, I don't really know... how about 10% of it? That would still be less than the percentages (not to even mention the absolute $) paid by people who earn, say, $75,000 per year, right? Yet in most cases, 10% would be more income tax than they pay now, right?
The premise of the movie is incoherent. The movie is based on the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth that only needs to be fairly distributed. Actually if aging and sickness were eliminated the economy would collapse as 18% of the GNP would disappear. Also the funeral business, anti-aging products, cosmetics, exercise and dieting products, healthcare gurus, environmental scare mongers, vitamin peddlers and cryonics centers would go out of business. Likewise life and health insurance companies and many other industries which prosper by promising to stave off or ameliorate health decline and death would disappear.
The economy could rebuild, but there would be few profits for the greedy rich unless they allowed the masses to proliferate and consume. The premise of the movie is that the rich already hold all the wealth and would simply hoard it.
If all people were busy saving for their future short future, would they be willing to spend the half million dollars it takes to raise a child? The world would progressively depopulate leaving the wealthy to clean their own toilets, even plant and harvest their own crops.
Nature would reclaim the land and wolves would other wild animals would stalk the forests. Maybe this not a bad idea in the eyes of some Hollywood types.
The Wall Street Journal, an obvious tool of the plutocracy, regularly editorializes that increased population is good for business. Many liberal organizations support birth control as good public policy.
Way to demonstrate you have not a clue as to what liberals think.
I guess the wealthy don't think of Social Security taxes as “real” taxes because the wealthy don't pay them, only people who earn wages pay social security taxes, about 15% of wages.
The “poorest of the poor” who have any income would be those on minimum wage. 2000 hours a year at $7.25 is $14,500 per year. How much tax should people making $14,500 a year pay?
I did a financial analysis of prices in the movie:http://savvybuck.com/2015/1...
What do you think?
Hackers Maxim #2
‘Knowledge is power, but he who controls time, controls the universe’
"Actually if aging and sickness were eliminated the economy would collapse as 18% of the GNP would disappear."
Please Google "Bastiat Broken Window Fallacy"
Actually if aging and sickness were eliminated the economy would collapse as 18% of the GNP would disappear. Also the funeral business, anti-aging products, cosmetics, exercise and dieting products, healthcare gurus, environmental scare mongers, vitamin peddlers and cryonics centers would go out of business. Likewise life and health insurance companies and many other industries which prosper by promising to stave off or ameliorate health decline and death would disappear.
Good. That way we could do things with our resources other than fixing broken windows.
"... shrill class hatred... "
er- what?
I hope it didn't make you weepy.
The person earning minimum wage is already paying 15.3% in Social Security and Medicare taxes. There is also unemployment tax FUTA, of 6.2% of the first $7,000 of income. The person making $14,500 pays $434 in FUTA, $2218.5 in FICA and Medicare for a tax rate of 18.3%.
Then there are sales taxes, but since they are on after tax income, putting them on a before tax basis decreases the rate. In Kansas the sales tax is 7.3% and it covers everything, groceries, prepared food, prescription medicines, non-prescription medicines and clothing, that would be another $865.
That is $3,517.5 tax out of an income of $14,500, a tax rate of 24.6%,
But this person earning minimum wage hasn't paid any income tax, so they are freeloading off those that do pay income tax. If we add the fair income tax of 10% (just slightly higher than Cain's 9%), then that is another $1,450 for a total of $4967.5 for a total tax rate of 34.3%.
If someone earning minimum wage can afford to pay 34.3% in tax, why can't someone who is considered wealthy?
Yes Jason, it does. No argument there.
10% tax to someone earning $14,500 per year means something entirely different in terms of well-being than it does for whomever you would classify as wealthy.
Not that I think useless industry should be supported to maintain employment,but that the rich have no monetary incentive to reduce the population. Reduction in human population is the agenda of the environmentalist and social engineer. Why don't they make a movie about that?
daedalus2u, Pareto efficiency is very different from Rawls. There's nothing egalitarian about Pareto efficiency, it just shows how one result can be obviously be superior to another, with no interpersonal utility comparisons coming up.
Anonymous who responded to me above, I didn't say anything about "better" or worse. I'm saying there wouldn't really be any point in the Logan's Run lifespan limitation. I guess it makes for entertaining cinema, but an actual government would have no motive to implement it.
Speaking of Gattaca, Arpit Gupta had an interesting point on how the protagonist deserves our moral condemnation because he is risking the lives of his fellow astronauts by going up with hidden health risks.
Who said there is a limited amount of wealth? Or that it would be distributed fairly?
Why does a society collapse when one sector of it is simply no longer needed? The society has greater resources if resources do not need to be wasted on funerals or life extension stuff that doesn't work. How does a society with greater resources collapse? Only if those resources are misallocated.
Lets suppose that people no longer needed food. Would society collapse because farmers and the whole supply chain from field to table was no longer needed? No, it would not collapse. Those people could start doing other things and what ever they did would be pure surplus because the new economy doesn't need their labor to produce food.
However, if the people who formerly did consume food, and now found that they didn't need to spend resources on food decided that they would hoard resources and not allow the former farmers to have clothing or shelter, then yes there would be difficulties as the former farmers would (very likely) refuse to meekly die of exposure, they would likely resort to violence.
This is sort of what is happening now. There is surplus capacity in the economy to make a lot of stuff, but people can't buy it because they don't have any money (because it got dissipated in a speculative bubble). People who do have money are just sitting on it because there are no productive investments they can make because the economy already has surplus capacity.
The government could put those unemployed people to work rebuilding infrastructure, roads, bridges, railroads, the kind of stuff that has a long useful life and happens to be run down right now. Interest rates are at record lows. Borrowing money to invest in infrastructure has never been cheaper and the need to do so has never been greater. Why isn't it being done? Because the GOP would rather see people starve in the gutter rather than pay them to rebuild roads and bridges.
A few thoughts on time vs money:http://www.howtolive.com/va...
Well, I confess to not having too much of a clue about what you think, since I am not even sure which one(s) of my points you disagree with. That said, based on your comments about Social Security, you seem to be arguing in contrast to Robin that taxes are indeed regressive, rather than progressive. But the "wealthy" who work for a living (and the vast majority of them do, if you call "wealthy" anyone who earns over ~$200k per year, like Obama does) very definitely pay plenty into Social Security. In fact, they max-out on it, paying more than anyone who doesn't earn enough to max-out. Oh, and regarding your question of "How much tax should people making $14,500 a year pay?" Well, I don't really know... how about 10% of it? That would still be less than the percentages (not to even mention the absolute $) paid by people who earn, say, $75,000 per year, right? Yet in most cases, 10% would be more income tax than they pay now, right?
The premise of the movie is incoherent. The movie is based on the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth that only needs to be fairly distributed. Actually if aging and sickness were eliminated the economy would collapse as 18% of the GNP would disappear. Also the funeral business, anti-aging products, cosmetics, exercise and dieting products, healthcare gurus, environmental scare mongers, vitamin peddlers and cryonics centers would go out of business. Likewise life and health insurance companies and many other industries which prosper by promising to stave off or ameliorate health decline and death would disappear.
The economy could rebuild, but there would be few profits for the greedy rich unless they allowed the masses to proliferate and consume. The premise of the movie is that the rich already hold all the wealth and would simply hoard it.
If all people were busy saving for their future short future, would they be willing to spend the half million dollars it takes to raise a child? The world would progressively depopulate leaving the wealthy to clean their own toilets, even plant and harvest their own crops.
Nature would reclaim the land and wolves would other wild animals would stalk the forests. Maybe this not a bad idea in the eyes of some Hollywood types.
The Wall Street Journal, an obvious tool of the plutocracy, regularly editorializes that increased population is good for business. Many liberal organizations support birth control as good public policy.
Way to demonstrate you have not a clue as to what liberals think.
I guess the wealthy don't think of Social Security taxes as “real” taxes because the wealthy don't pay them, only people who earn wages pay social security taxes, about 15% of wages.
The “poorest of the poor” who have any income would be those on minimum wage. 2000 hours a year at $7.25 is $14,500 per year. How much tax should people making $14,500 a year pay?
There is an editorial that discusses Rawls
http://opinionator.blogs.ny...
which seems to be just a variant of Pareto efficiency
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
That perhaps might help you to understand what real liberals think.
When Warren Buffet says he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary, and says that is a bad thing, are you calling Warren Buffet a liar?
If they earn a little over 24 hours from a day's labor, they will very quickly die because they still have to pay for their food and housing.