Riddle me this

[Undertoad]

At this very moment, I have no health insurance. But it's not rich people's fault, it's mine.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

At this very moment, I have no health insurance. But it's not rich people's fault, it's mine.

Would you be more likely to have health insurance if it was easier/cheaper to get?

[Undertoad]

Not really, no. 100% my fault.

[lookout123]

ok, i have been really busy so no time to produce a really well documented post but here goes:

The economy is consistently better under Democrats. And one goal of Republican lawmakers is to allow businesses to pay lower wages and benefits.

historically the markets have a 1% difference in performance between democrat and republican presidents. you are right though, the D's get the extra 1%. economic cycles and the coincidence of politics have as much to do with that as anything else. none of these guys are really working FOR us, remember?

Minimum wage? i'm open for the discussion, but if we raise minimum wage for an unskilled, entry level job by X%, what should we do for the pay of the people who are a little more trained and thus more valuable? and right up the line for you computer gurus, teachers, etc... when someone on the bottom gets a payraise, that invariably must move up the chain. so the bottom level moves up, but so do the top levels - and we are still exactly where we started - with a great big gap in incomes with some people on the bottom barely getting by. if you can figure out a way around that, let me know. i think it would be cool to make 5 or 10% more next year even if i can't really buy anything more with it.

taxes? higher taxes do discourage production. i spend 5 hours today with a CPA, Attorney, and our mutual client. this guy just crossed over making $135,000 for the year. (yes, i know that is obscene) they looked at his tax situation and told him that he has to either A) lower his production and relax for the rest of the year, or B) incorporate so they can shelter his income from taxes. So he incorporated so that he can continue at his current pace and make even more obscene money and now pay effectively $0 in taxes. if his tax bracket was 15% then he would pay @ $40,500 in taxes. - oh yeah, that is federal only. because his tax bracket is above 35% - instead of that $40K he will walk away paying @$5,000. sure he has to pay the CPA and attorney, so that is good for the economy - but would $40,000 have been better than $0? or does it feel good knowing we have a "progressive" tax system?

tax dodges piss me off, but why should someone who works 60 hour work weeks after finding a career that hurts no one have to payout more than 1/3 of their income? because they are financially more successful than someone who works 60 hour work weeks to make $40,000? this stupid effing progressive system designed to get more out of the rich only encourages the rich to not pay anything, so that the burden goes back on the middle class.

and FYI - the rich do in fact pay 80% of the taxes received by the federal gov't, even after setting up their shelters.

[BigV]

--continued--

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

Closing the gap, indeed. Shove a potato into the gap between your liberal fangs [/breathes deeply, imagines a cigarette].

*mute*

Dude, I'm not a liberal. I'm not insulted, but since we're gettin all honest with each other, I thought you should know. I'm a progressive. But the liberals, they're cool too! They're the people that brought you The Weekend.

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

Oh yeah, the hypocrisy thing. Why does the zero-sum idea apply to the potato farmer and not to the country as a whole? I'm no economist, so I can't answer in a way that will immunize me from jabs from intellectuals and arrogant pricks. But I know that the potato farmer is concerned about a far smaller set of economic factors than "the country" is. Raising the minimum wage to, say, $10/hour will run him out of business, and it really won't do the employee much good to win some kind of moral victory, yet still be out of a job.

No problem, I never mistook you for an economist anyway. Just be a man. Yourself. If it's cold outside and your hands are freezing, but your pockets are warm, why would you deny your hands the comfort of those warm pockets? Of course you wouldn't . But if you're out in the cold and you have a knit cap but no shoes, you have a problem. Sure, you might redistribute your cap to your feet, but now you have a cold head. And if you have only shoes, your head's just out of luck. If you need it and you have it you'll use it.

Now imagine you're a father and a husband. You have plenty of money coming in, would you let your children and your wife go shoeless cold and hungry? No, you'll share. Duh. I mean, they don't make the money, but all share.

Do you require the scorekeeper of your beer league softball team to count the runs you score as yours or the team's? You have surplus ammo and the other guy in your recon patrol is out? Share? Probably. Would you carry some of the items from the too heavy pack of one of your hiking buddies or leave the dope behind? Man, you share the burden all the time.

It's in the interest of the producer to have consumers that are able to complete the deal. Absent other motivating factors, why would a business pay a cent more for labor? How does starving a necessary aspect of the whole work toward the good of the whole?

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

...sorry, back to the media bias thing.

Right. On the whole, you'd be far healthier if you smoked enough cigarettes that you could no longer see FOXNews on the tv across the room.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by BigV

Now imagine you're a father and a husband. You have plenty of money coming in, would you let your children and your wife go shoeless cold and hungry? No, you'll share. Duh. I mean, they don't make the money, but all share.

And yet, if that wife had an affair and left the husband, taking the kids with her, he would all of a sudden feel really pissed off at having to still give them money for shoes and food. Charity and sharing only works when it is not required.

There have been tons of studies on the different types of incentives. Social and moral incentives rank way, way higher in people's minds than financial and punitive incentives. People would prefer to give because it feels good, not because they have to. Tell them they have to, and all of a sudden the social and moral incentives that might have been there in the first place are taken away from them.

[jaguar]

Then remove the numbers that bother you and answer the basic question.

Then ask the basic question and avoid trying to puff up your argument with spurious bullshit your made up because you thought it'd help your case.

To answer, I don't remember defining the minimum wage at a level that allowed someone to feed a family of four and put some back for college tuition. it should however be a living wage and I think that is doable without hyperinflation.

Maybe I would rather use my skills to better myself and my situation, and not suck off the teat of big government. Maybe I want to start my own business.

Hard to do that when you have no money, who's gonna lend you money? You have no assets. A government-subsidised small business loan might help. This is my point about social mobility you never addressed.

noodle - I challenge you to find me one person who said 'well, I could start a successful business, become wealthy and pay one arseload of tax which i'll do with by platinum card while on my yacht in the carribean but no, darn that progressive tax system! I'll work 60hrs a week in an office instead.

lookout - very, very few would pay more if they could get away with less no matter how low their tax burden. Secondly - surely the problem there is the holey tax system not the progressive system. I call bullshit on this whole idea that people would give more if they didn't have to. Sure, some people would but the vast majority would give nothing, particuarly to something as large and opque as government. Whether that is a problem in itself is another issue.

[mrnoodle]

I'll grant all your points about social mobility, and take my lumps on using unverified numbers. But we're still left with very basic questions that you still haven't answered. I'll reword them: Why should the federal government increase the percentage of income it takes from you to offset the costs incurred by its inability to wisely use the money it has already soaked you for? Why does "society," with all the grand implications of that term, owe anyone a living? What is the incentive for someone who manages a small business on family income to succeed in that business when they know at some point, they will be punished monetarily for it and that which they have honestly earned will be stolen and Robin-Hooded out to those who did not earn it? Furthermore, if they know this is to happen, what's the point of charitable giving on a personal level?

The people fanning the flames of class warfare are ultra-rich Boston trust fund Democrats, and the only reason they're doing it is for votes. Someone as smart as you should see that. Like I said, I know lots of poor people, and am almost poor myself. Any of us with any pride feels marginalized by the idea that some fat cat is telling his fellow fat cats that they owe us crumbs from their table. We'd far rather buy our own damn table with money we earned. That's not everyone, of course. The lazy ones are lazy at any income level. Don't fool yourself into thinking that everyone at a certain income level is some bluecollar hero who just can't get by because "the rich" took all the available money and left none for the lower classes.

As to your point about social mobility: it's damn hard to break out of a rut where you're not making any money and don't see any money coming in in the foreseeable future. Extremely hard. And nearly impossible if you have mouths to feed. But social mobility is not enabled by handouts. The gap between rich and poor doesn't close when you take away incentives for small business.

I know 2 people personally who owned small businesses in my town. One of them had such a tiny tiny profit margin that when the city came in and ordered him to dig a new septic tank, it took him 2 years to come up with the money. Luckily the second year was really good for him.....except it put his personal income into the next tax bracket, and he couldn't afford the CPA to tell him how to get around the loopholes. We're talking an ADDITIONAL $5,000 owed to the government, for making about $12,000 more.

In other words, all the extra work he did, all the extra hours and sweat, netted him abou $7k towards a (can't remember the number exactly...$11k?) construction project. Hmm. Who gets the pound of flesh? The city water board or the feds? He's automatically put in a position of having to cheat to get by. So, he sold the only saleable asset he had -- his truck -- and paid for the digging and got his taxes in on time. All this because he was considered "rich" by the standards of the left and therefore owed a greater percentage of his income.

Oh, but selling the truck meant that he couldn't run the delivery part of his business, which had been funding his shop for the past 3 years. Shop closed, land sold to a whitewater rafting outfit. The taxes he paid on the income from the sale must've been impressive, but I don't know what happened to him after that.

He didn't cheat or use loopholes, and was put out of business in part by unfair taxes. Well, he cheated a little. I worked for him part time for a few years and he paid me in fishing tackle and cash under the table. Paying unemployment insurance, payroll tax, workman's comp, and all the other garbage would've sunk him even sooner. This is the environment that liberals create in their lust to punish oil company executives and Republicans.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

Luckily the second year was really good for him.....except it put his personal income into the next tax bracket, and he couldn't afford the CPA to tell him how to get around the loopholes.

Um, when you enter a higher tax bracket, the higher rate doesn't apply to your entire income, just the amount over the bracket cutoff. You don't suddenly owe $5000 more when you enter a higher bracket.

[warch]

Paying unemployment insurance, payroll tax, workman's comp, and all the other garbage would've sunk him even sooner. This is the environment that liberals create in their lust to punish oil company executives and Republicans.

I know many citizens who have been quite relieved to find they have pesky garbage like workers comp and funding as they look for new work, enabling them to keep their homes in the face of hospital bills or outsourcing. That allows them a chance to stay afloat.

Most of the small business owners I know that have struggled and failed (besides just having bad business sense, or faced smarter competition) have been most burdened by the cost of healthcare. Those that have succeeded have been greatly assisted by startup loans, small business grants, local city investments, and tax breaks. Also, having a community that can afford your product or services helps.

As a liberal, it’s true that I feel little, ok, no pity for the weasels at Enron or Walmart. Particularly when good workers of all levels get screwed out of earnings as the executive profits soar. Perhaps I'm silly, but I think that you can have ethical and strong, profitable, creative business. What you see as burden, I see as investment in creating a good place to live for the majority of people. Quality of life. I don’t want to live in the Midwest of Argentina.

“There isn't a single measure in which the U.S. excels in the health arena. We spend half of the world's health care bill and we are less healthy than all the other rich countries... Fifty-five years ago, we were one of the healthiest countries in the world. What changed? We have increased the gap between rich and poor. Nothing determines the health of a population more than the gap between rich and poor.”
— Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, School of Public Health, University of Washington

That Walmart manages to keep so many of their employees on government assisted healthcare that I must pay for, while they work and earn profits for, rather than take that responsibility....that's annoying. So there is a growing underclass, working their asses off, and they get even a little sick, or their kids, just a bit, and end up in the emergency room on my tab, probably far sicker and definitely more costly than if they had the security of care.

Is you state looking into this? From the Mpls Star Tribune:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. does not want Minnesotans to know how many of its workers in this state receive public health care assistance.

The world's largest retailer has denounced as a public-relations ploy legislation -- which some state legislators have dubbed the "anti-Wal-Mart bill" -- that would create a public list of companies whose workers are enrolled in MinnesotaCare and other government-funded health care programs.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retail giant recently sent two executives to St. Paul to lobby against the bill, which the Legislature may vote on in special session this month. Wal-Mart also sent a two-page letter describing its health care benefits to every legislator in the state.

"This is not health care reform," said Nate Hurst, public and government relations manager for Wal-Mart. "This is a campaign against Wal-Mart."

But proponents of the bill, whose chief author is Sen. Becky Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, say the public has a right to know which employers have become a drain on the state's public health care system. They say the bill does not target Wal-Mart in particular but is meant to see how the state can work with companies to provide better health care programs.

In the last fiscal year, the state government spent $270.2 million for MinnesotaCare, a program that provides assistance for people who don't have access to affordable insurance. Yet no one in the state government knows which employers have the most workers enrolled in the program.

"If it's true what people say, that big multinational companies are outsourcing health care to taxpayers, then it would be good to have a handle on which ones," said Rep. Sheldon Johnson, DFL-St. Paul. "It's just information."

But it's information that Wal-Mart fears, and for good reason. In other states that have compiled such lists, Wal-Mart has come at or near the top among employers with workers enrolled in state medical assistance. Once such findings are made public, they can be used by opponents of Wal-Mart to stir up support for punitive measures against big-box retailers.

In Wisconsin, for instance, the Department of Health and Family Services reported last week that Wal-Mart employees topped the list of BadgerCare recipients, a state health care program for low-income residents.

A Wisconsin state representative has introduced a bill that would force big-box retailers to reimburse the state for providing the health care needs of their under-paid and under-insured employees.

The bill would place a graduated 1 percent to 2 percent tax on gross receipts on any store that exceeds $20 million in sales in a taxable year, and that allocates less than 10 percent of its payroll to health insurance for its employees. The bill applies only if the retailer fails to pay full-time, entry-level employees at least $22,000 a year, or about $10.58 per hour; or if more than 25 percent of the retailer's workforce is part-time. The revenue would go to the state's Medical Assistance trust fund. ...

[wolf]

Walmart does indeed provide health coverage for their full time employees.

You work part time, you don't get benefits, or in some cases, full benefits. That's not unusual.

Yes, I know that Walmart is frequently accused of making sure employees don't get enough hours to make full time ... but you don't have to work there. Retail is pretty much an open field. There's always the KMart. Or Target. Or the local stupidmarket chain.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by wolf

Yes, I know that Walmart is frequently accused of making sure employees don't get enough hours to make full time ... but you don't have to work there. Retail is pretty much an open field. There's always the KMart. Or Target. Or the local stupidmarket chain.

Bwahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

[mrnoodle]

I don't know what other factors might have been present, I only go by what he complained about. As I said, he was utterly uneducated about finance, and I'm sure the line between the money he earned/spent personally and the money he earned/spent on the business was quite blurry. He also worked full time in manufacturing as a support tech.

That does bring up another issue about the tax code, though. It really should be something that's translatable by the average schmo. After all, the average schmo is footing the bill. If the money my friend lost was actually lost somewhere other than through taxes, and he was just an inept businessman, then that's the breaks. But for someone who doesn't have an MBA, and just wants to make a family-run business work, it's quite easy to get bumfuzzled.

So, if he lost $X thousand and saw that a simultaneous increase in his tax rate, there might not be a DIRECT cause/effect relationship, but isn't the outcome the same? I ask in all humbleness, not arguing here.

[Troubleshooter]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/666837/posts

Have we covered this yet?

Profiting from death? Lawsuit filed in Wal-Mart life insurance case
Houston Chronicle ^ | April 15, 2002 | L.M. SIXEL

Posted on 04/16/2002 4:15:37 AM PDT by ValerieUSA

Jane Sims always knew her husband was a valuable employee to Wal-Mart. She just didn't know how valuable. Sims discovered recently that Wal-Mart, the company her husband, Douglas, worked for before he died, had taken out a life insurance policy in his name. When Douglas Sims died in 1998 of a sudden heart attack, Wal-Mart received about $64,000. She got nothing from that policy.
"I never dreamed that they could profit from my husband's death," said Sims, whose husband worked in receiving at Wal-Mart's distribution center in Plainview for 11 years.

Companies routinely take out secret life insurance policies on the lives of their low-level employees and collect thousands of dollars when they die. The families never know the policies are in place and typically receive none of the money.
The policies are called corporate-owned life insurance policies or COLIs for short. But they're better known in the insurance industry as "dead peasant" and "dead janitor" policies.

...more...

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

So, if he lost $X thousand and saw that a simultaneous increase in his tax rate, there might not be a DIRECT cause/effect relationship, but isn't the outcome the same? I ask in all humbleness, not arguing here.

I'm not sure what "lost $X thousand" means. Was his after-tax income actually $X thousand less in his good year than in his bad year? Or was his tax $X thousand more in a year where his income was $X*Y more?