The Flat Tax Returns

[CPL.Luke]

a list of things you could do without a degree,

 

-construction work, the wages for that are around $20 an hour

 

-open your own shop (although this takes money to begin with)

 

-waitering (is that the right word) I know people who make around 200 in as little as an hours work

 

-getting a management position at a shop (can be a bit difficult though)

 

-bartending

 

-auto mechanic

 

-plumber

 

-<insert trade position here>

all of these can be quite well paying, or at least enough to do slightly better than get by. Now I'm not saying that you should have to get a degree to get by in life, but if your still flipping burgers when your 30, then I would have to say that you can't blame it on anyone other than yourself.

 

and of course companies are going to make the lives of their workers as miserable as possible, they wouldn't be profitable otherwise, and if you want to get paid a huge amount of money for factory work or some such than your going to quickly find that the company has to close the plant down because its no longer turning a profit.

 

Anybody can get a good trade position and make money at it, the only problem today is that trade jobs have developed a stigma. It used to be that a number of people out of every graduating class just went into positions like this and it was considered very acceptable.

 

Companies must always be exothermic in revenues, part of the problem with communism is that without the price system and the like a number of their production ventures were endothermic and used more resources than they gathered.

[mike90]

Most of those are jobs that require training or experience to have a shot at getting the job, and have high turnover. And most jobs cut wages far below what is needed for profability, simply out of greed. The " stigma" doesn't seem to apply when you try to apply for one of these jobs and find yourself against dozens of people, most of them with years of experience.

[CPL.Luke]

they have training courses, my cousin worked in a shop for a couple of years changing tires starting at 18, he's 20 now and just went to a school that trains you in how to maintain bmw's.

 

My sister just got her bartenders license, that took all of 5 days, and the people who certified her find her jobs for the first 3 months so that she could build up a resume to find jobs on her own.

 

she can make $200 in tips alone (per hour) as a bartender in NYC.

 

bartending school cost $800, there are schools that are moderatly affordable for every kind of job

[Pangloss]

Here your making a lot of rather large assumptions.

 

So are you. Allow me to demonstrate a few of them.

 

 

First off not everyone has the aptitude or the opportunity to go to college.

 

Everyone has the opportunity, thanks to government-backed student loans, which are indescribably easy to get. Not everyone has the apptitude, I agree.

 

 

your point assums everyone has the same chance at success, which is untrue.

 

I tend to agree, but everyone does have some chance at success, and whether or not they succeed is based primarily on their level of effort, not the government's level of hand-outs.

 

 

Second a college degree is no guarantee of finding and keeping a good job, the job market is very competitive in today's world.

 

And yet we have 95% employment, a rising standard of living, a rising median income, a housing boom, a spending boom, and an entertainment boom. Yes, personal debt is outrageously high, but not high enough to account for these surges and our general level of prosperity. How do you account for this discrepency?

 

 

Third a lot of the large corporations fight to keep wages as low as possible , and to keep employees from unionizing. They employ both lobbyists and " campaign contributions" ( bribes) to see that wages stay low.

 

Nonsense. Wages are based on what the market will bear, not collusion between corporations. If you don't like what you're making at one company, you shop your skills to another one -- that's called freedom. Ever read about something called the wage-price spiral, and what it meant to this country? Wages are going up, not down. This is especially obvious if you look at a 10, 20, or 50-year timeline. That statement is just ridiculous. Yes, of course, individual companies try to pay the lowest amount they can for a given employee. But there's no evidence of collusion between companies about wages, nor would it matter even if there was.

 

As for unions, that's the funny thing about freedom and power. The moment they started forcing people to join unions, unions became about power, not helping the working man. Not surprisingly, the moment they stopped forcing people to join unions, people stopped joining them. If unions were such a great deal for the working man, how come that happened? Answer: People wised-up and realized that unions were a bad deal.

 

(Just another one of the many reasons why I keep saying that nobody despises freedom like the far left of American politics.)

 

Personally I think that's a shame to some extent -- we need a voice for the working man in our society, that stands against the dangers that do exist from corporations that are looking out for their bottom lines, not their employees. But that's the job of corporations, and lamenting about it doesn't do any good, nor does giving people a false impression about unions.

 

 

there is also quite a lot of outsourcing of jobs so american businesses can pay someone in Mexico or India 3 dollars an hour instead of paying an american 12 or 15 dollars an hour to do it.

 

Which keeps us competitive in a global economy. Those Americans end up getting better jobs doing higher-level work. You can try to poke holes in that argument, but the statistics back it up. If outsourcing were such a bad deal, we certainly wouldn't be looking at 95% employment (and rising), a rising standard of living and a rising median income.

 

Every single job lost due to 9/11 and the Clinton/post-Clinton recession has been gained back, and many more besides. And they're obviously not all at Wal-Mart and Burger King, either. So the problem with this constant refrain from the left of "outsourcing, outsourcing, outsourcing" is that it just doesn't sell, because it just doesn't reflect any semblance of reality.

 

Mark my words, if a Democrat comes to office in 2008, he or she will do *nothing* about outsourcing. That's because it's *good* for the country, not bad.

 

By the way, the trend today is no longer outsourcing, it's insourcing. Bringing those jobs back at more competitive rates. For example, that programming job they sent to India, they'll hire someone here to do it at 40k insted of the 80k they might have paid before. The programmer they would have hired before has gone on to management or some other type of work, and the person they're hiring to do the programming at 40k is graduating from a trade school instead of having a computer science degree -- they have less schooling, because they don't need as much schooling. The job got easier (because the tools have gotten easier), so it doesn't *need* as much pay, and now it's a great way for someone to break into a higher paying job. Someone who might have been working at Wal-Mart before.

 

That sort of thing is happening all over the place. The far left is just too blind to see it.

 

 

They are also working hard to make as much of the job done by machines as possible so they dont have to deal with training people, or paying more for experienced workers. They're basically trying to turn people into numbers that are easily disposable. saying everyone in America should have to have a degree to get a job that pays basic living expenses seems rather absurd, and counter to how things were done until fairly recently. Before anyone assumes that all the working poor are morons or lazy, maybe they should do some research into the subject

 

Ideological nonsense.

[Dave]

I have to agree with Pangloss about outsourcing. One of my relatives is an employee at Ericsson in Ireland. He's been telling me about the work that they'd been doing in India, outsourcing contracts for programming and such things. It's been a great success for them, all things considered, but there are certain problems that need to be overcome: for one, the language barrier is quite substantial. People still have to be hired over here for things like documentation instead of relying on less-than-adequate translations. In fact, the cultural barrier is a far greater obstacle, but talking about this too much would be digressing.

[Pangloss]

I think we also have to look at the benefits of bringing third world nations into the modern, global economy. It's not like we can just give them a percentage of our income and everything will be fine and dandy. Real success, like it or not, is based on economic growth. If you want to stop poverty, there is only one weapon in our arsenal to do that.

 

India is an incredible success story, and will continue to thrive. China as well. The next trick up our sleeves should be Africa.

[mike90]

No its not idelogical nonsense, maybe you should do some reading on the behavior of corporations, and no im not talking about michael moore. A concrete reason that so many are poor isn't due to stupidity or laziness on their part, but greed on the part of the companies employing them. Something as small as the difference between 7 dollars an hour and 9 is the difference between someone being self sufficient and struggling. I'm not suggesting McDonalds should start paying people 15 dollars an hour, a rather small adjustment is all that would be needed. It is a fact that large companies fight to keep wages down, and a lot of industries such as the fast food industry have organized in order to do make it easier to do so. No offense but this level of intellectual superiority simply ignores the facts about what the government has been doing with business subsidies for many years, and about the business model that large companies have made standard in recent years. Maybe you should research the subject just a bit before you call all of what i say idealogical nonsense. And contrary to popular belief, most companies CAN afford to pay people a livable wage. It is simple greed in many cases

[mike90]

Also a large part of that 95% is people working at various low paying jobs because that is simply all thaat is available in their area. Where i live it can be hard to find a job doing anything, and i know several people that have been searching for months, some of them with a lot of experience and education

[Pangloss]

No its not idelogical nonsense, maybe you should do some reading on the behavior of corporations, and no im not talking about michael moore.

 

I need to do some more reading? Ohhhhh I love it when people say that. Like what, Karl Marx? Would you like to cite your sources, so I can do that reading? Let's be specific here:

 

 

A concrete reason that so many are poor isn't due to stupidity or laziness on their part, but greed on the part of the companies employing them.

 

Source? Examples?

 

I disagree. One of the great things about a free market economy is that it's inherently protected from that sort of thing. Employees are free to leave and pursue work elsewhere. Nobody's tying those people down. It's a free country, they can come and go as they please, and in fact that's exactly what they do.

 

So really when it comes down to brass tacks, complaints about greedy companies exploiting their workers never really seem to pan out. No examples can be given, no specifics can be shown, no facts can be portrayed, because they simply don't exist in any significant numbers.

 

Now I readily acknowledge that there are plenty of unscrupulous people out there who may take some kind of temporary advantages. I'm sure that happens all the time. But like I said, if you don't like it, you walk, and that's what people do. The idea that greedy companies are holding people back, that this is any kind of prevailing trend in this economy, is ludicrous. You might as well be passing out tin foil hats.

 

But like I said, let's hear your evidence. You say I need to do some more reading. Lemme have it. I love to read, and I most love to read OTHER points of view from my own. So I'm all years. Sock it to me.

 

 

I'm not suggesting McDonalds should start paying people 15 dollars an hour, a rather small adjustment is all that would be needed.

 

Actually that's not an unusual pay rate for a McDonald's employee at all. In places where they can't find people to work, they offer to pay them more. That's how a free market works.

 

 

Also a large part of that 95% is people working at various low paying jobs because that is simply all thaat is available in their area.

 

So move.

 

Or take actions to bring better commerce to your area. And you know what's going to happen when you do that? You're going to take actions that are beneficial to those businesses. Tax breaks, incentives, etc. Why? Because those companies are going to help your people. But of course if you demonize them, accuse them of greedy profit motive, guess what? They're not going to be interested, and you're going to have to move after all.

 

See, what you're preaching is about the use of force to create the socialist worker state. Well guess what? It's been tried. It hasn't worked. You really need to find a more successful refrain.

 

So what it amounts to is this: Life sucks in your area. Granted. Now, are you going to do something about that, or are you going to insist that other people use their hard-earned money to solve your problem for you?

[CPL.Luke]

also a company that pays each of their workers a maximum so that they aren't really making money won't grow and if a company can't grow than it will just leave more workers unemployed.

 

as for what pangloss said, I agree fully. When it comes to moving it doesn't cost all that much, especially to move into a city where there is a huge amount of work to be had.

[mike90]

Well Fast Food Nation is a decent book to start with. And in a lot of places everything entry level pays crap wages, so the option of one crap job over another isn't too great. What i feel like is being glossed over is what is a livable, not opulent but livable wage, is affordable to most successful companies. They just prefer to pay people as little as possible. Most of my pov is from reading ive done on the subject, and from my work experience. i've worked for lots of large companies where the business was making a large profit, the mangers were making a decent amount of money, and everyone else gets 7.50 an hour. 15 dollars an hour IS an unusual pay rate for something like a Mcdonalds. What happens when every major company decides to keep wages at/around the poverty level? Should everyone then have to become a lawyer or neurosurgeon to have a job that enables them to afford a crappy one room apartment?

[CPL.Luke]

save up for a trade school, and find a job in another city for said trade. usually the jobs that pull 7.50 an hour are for people who need a bit of money to support themselves until something better comes along.

 

you don't need to become a lawyer or a neurosurgeon to live comfortably. just don't try and make a carreer out of a 7.50 an hour job. its not the hardest thing in the world to aquire a job that you can make 15 an hour at. For instance I've seen jobs at warehouses that pay $10 tax free (under the table). you don't need any special qualifications to work at a warehouse

[mike90]

Maybe i should also state that my comments aren't made out of bitterness due to a current situation. I'm at a job right now that pays 9.50 an hour, and an extra buck after 5, which is when i get most of my hours. I also have the options for 401k , and to buy stock with a matching 15% for all stock i buy. As well as medical and dental. Not superb pay, but i easily support myself and another person on it with plenty of money to spare. Been through a lot finding this job though lol. And i have tried getting in to a lot of the jobs that have been mentioned such as construction, warehouse, etc, but it can be amazingly hard to get into something like that in an urban area. Genereally you find yourself up against dozens of people with years of experience whenever anything like that opens up around here. Don't know if its as hard everywhere, but this is where my life is.

[Pangloss]

Well Fast Food Nation is a decent book to start with.

 

An excellent suggestion, but I'm afraid I've already read it. Do you have any other suggestions for my education?

 

Er, you're not one of those people who instantly adhere's to anything he reads as the gospel truth, are you? Lordy, I hope not.

 

So what else ya got?

 

 

What i feel like is being glossed over is what is a livable, not opulent but livable wage, is affordable to most successful companies.

 

Just out of idle curiosity, did you know that the average profit margin of a Fortune 500 company in 2002 was only 3%? Source

 

And did you know that around half of all new businesses fail within four years, and that one of the most common factors is high labor costs? Source and Source

 

Just curious if you knew all that. Being so well-read and all.

 

 

i've worked for lots of large companies where the business was making a large profit, the mangers were making a decent amount of money, and everyone else gets 7.50 an hour.

 

Of course. Did you want them to pay everyone the same rate? So the guys who've been there 15 years and have three college degrees and 15 years service to the company should be paid the same as the guys who are just starting out, merely because that's the "living wage" you think is necessary?

 

Whatever happened to working your way up? Shooting for the stars? Making your mark on the world? Getting ahead based on your own hard work? Are these concepts ridiculous and unworthy, merely because some people haven't done what it takes? If we are all to be dragged down to the lowest common denominator, what incentive will anyone ever have to get ahead, to break NEW ground, to IMPROVE the company, to work their way up to the top? Hmm?

 

 

What happens when every major company decides to keep wages at/around the poverty level? Should everyone then have to become a lawyer or neurosurgeon to have a job that enables them to afford a crappy one room apartment?

 

Boy you are just a pyromaniac in a field of straw men! Well, no matter.

 

What happens if a company decides to keep wages too low? We've covered this before. The employees leave. Happens all the time.

[mike90]

Well my point is still if the model is the same everywhere there aren't too many places to go. I dont recall offhand the titles of some of the other books ive read along the same line. Fast Food nation is the latest one ive read. And yes mangers and etc SHOULD make more, but the disparity can be overly ridiculous sometimes. And I've not met a manager yet that had any 3 college degrees, a lot of them are moved up from within with no prior training. And it would sure be nice if moving up in most jobs anymore was about hard work and not politics within the business.

[john5746]

mike90: your not the only one who feels this way. We hear the economy is great, but for who? It is obvious to me that the standard of living in America is going down. Granted, we may have more gadgets and our houses may be worth more, but it takes more education and both parents working to acquire a decent income.

 

Hang in there and work hard and pray nothing bad happens to you. And take a gamble or two while you don't have a family to worry about.

[Pangloss]

I don't have any problem with speculation that the economy is not what it appears to be at face value (that there are hidden problems and issues that statistics don't show). I don't have any problem with speculation that the standard of living may be going down. Those are perfectly valid points of view.

 

It's the sweeping generalizations like these, without any basis in fact or figures, that have to be challenged, lest we just end up making the same stupid mistakes we always make whenever we act without evidence. (Or is this not the SCIENCE board? Hmm?)

 

- "We hear the economy is great, but for who?" (Does ANYONE understand the meaning of the phrase "straw man"?!)

- "Granted, we may have more gadgets and our houses may be worth more, but it takes more education and both parents working to acquire a decent income." (The key phrase being "decent income". Why do idiots put themselves in debt just to keep up with the Joneses? I don't understand.)

 

This kind of thing is just ABB 2.0. It's nonsense, it has to be challenged, and if you post something like that without any kind of support, you're going to get challenged on it, so long as I have something to say about it. And I really don't care how politically correct you're being.

 

So there. Pardon me if I sound a little snippy about it.

[mike90]

Quite snippy lol. I don't have pages full of statistics to back up what im saying, i never said i did. Its a combination of the reading i have done on the subject with the experiences of myself and others i know. If you disagree thats fine, i dont know what experience your basing your views on. It is a bit of a subjective topic, though im sure someone will argue that lol.

[john5746]

1

 

2

 

3

 

These are some relavent links. I can't find up to date information, but I think it shows that while productivity and the economy may be improving, wages for the working class are stagnant. I agree with Pangloss that each individual ultimately has the responsibility for their situation, no one should work harder for you than yourself. But, I think we can reasonably say that more wealth should not be distributed toward the wealthy. I think a flat tax would do this and therefore I don't agree with it.

 

I have a pessimistic outlook on America's economic health. Again, I think each individual American can do more than the government by stressing education to their kids, saving - especially in stocks and assets, and not consuming everything in sight.

 

A companies main goal is to increase the coffers of the shareholders, not to take care of their employees. So the government needs to offset this by helping the workers.

[Pangloss]

I don't have pages full of statistics to back up what im saying, i never said i did. Its a combination of the reading i have done on the subject with the experiences of myself and others i know.

 

Ah, in other words you expect people to just take your word for it. I see.

 

 

I can't find up to date information, but I think it shows that while productivity and the economy may be improving, wages for the working class are stagnant.

 

Hey John, just FYI, your first link didn't work for me. Can you double-check it please?

 

The second link went to an 18-page general document about the economy. Was there something specific in there you wanted me to see?

 

The third link was interesting, and I agree that it supports your point. It does not, however, support mike90's much larger (straw man) argument about how horrible and disastrous he believes things actually are. Sure, growth in median income has been slow -- BLS statistics that we've quoted back and forth in various threads around here back that up (we've had this discussion before). Some call it stagnant, others call it slow growth.

 

But while it's a reasonable point, the difference is a matter of opinion, and it's a long way from the bleak picture mike90 paints, which is simply not reflective of reality (which is why he cannot support it).

 

 

I agree with Pangloss that each individual ultimately has the responsibility for their situation, no one should work harder for you than yourself. But, I think we can reasonably say that more wealth should not be distributed toward the wealthy. I think a flat tax would do this and therefore I don't agree with it.

 

I have a pessimistic outlook on America's economic health. Again, I think each individual American can do more than the government by stressing education to their kids, saving - especially in stocks and assets, and not consuming everything in sight.

 

A companies main goal is to increase the coffers of the shareholders, not to take care of their employees. So the government needs to offset this by helping the workers.

 

NOW we're talking -- well said. That's a much more realistic picture, and one I can empathize with. I may not share your vision of ideological distribution of wealth, but I don't have a problem with "you make more, you pay more", and I'm even willing to compromise somewhat on a progressive tax (in the interest of compromise).

 

Having a pessimistic outlook on America's economy is fine, so long as it's based on real economic factors and not ideological political beliefs. I.E. would you feel that way if a Democrat were in the White House? I believe you would, because you're a smart guy who understands a number of issues (such as debt-for-consumption), so while I don't share your pessimism, I respect it, and I think people who ignore the issues you raise are making a huge mistake.

 

I don't think you agree with mike90 as much as you might think. He wants everyone paid that elusive, mythical "living wage", regardless of whether the company can afford it or not, regardless of whether the economics support it, regardless of what other impact that might have. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need -- that is mike90's guiding principle.

 

But I don't mean to slam mike90. Everyone has their point of view, and there's no harm in sharing. Kudos for stepping up and stating your opinion and all that. Certainly better than sitting back and watching.

[LucidDreamer]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a flat tax with a tax exemption for income under 25k improve the quality of life for the poor, decrease the quality of life for the lower middle class and the middle middle class, slightly improve the amount of income that the upper middle class keeps, and greatly increase the amount of money that the rich keeps? So the overall result is that the upper middle class gets to buy the ski boat they have been wanting and the rich get to buy a summer home on the beach while the lower middle class have to make do with just one old car, put grandmother in a cheap government retirement home, and only be able to send one of their kids to college if his earns a scholarship? The quality of life changes little for people on the upper end of the spectrum while the quality of life for the people on the lower end is noticeably affected.

[Pangloss]

And I believe with Steve Forbes' current plan it's actually 40k.

[john5746]

Some info on Forbes plan:

 

Forbes Plan

 

Forbes knocks National Sales Tax

 

Knocking Forbes Plan

 

It would be 36K for a family of Four.

[Douglas]

Some info on Forbes plan:

It would be 36K for a family of Four.

Good find John. A 36K exemption sounds fair to me.

[CPL.Luke]

but then wouldn't you get a gap such as, I would make more money making 36k than if I maid 40k, its sounds like this tax would just prevent the poor from advancing rather than giving them more benefits. In other words it sounds like this tax would in fact help to create the lower working class that it seeks to aid.