I'm not sure why you are being downvoted. All we see is bubbles, inflation, inequality, record low interest rates and stagnant wages, but apparently printing trillions and and not having a gold standard has nothing to do with it. Sure.
Printed trillions because of Covid-19. It would have been grim situation without the stimulus. 12-14% unemployement, no stimulus would have closed thousands of business, and would have increase unemployement. People who has money (Silicon valley engineers) is not going to invest in rural Ohio.
Wages are stagnated because of policies and misinformation. Federal minimum wages should be raised at least $12 and tied to inflation with universal health care.
Inflation is record low. Not sure what you talking about.
Its time to be robin hood. Tax high income, tax stock buy backs, higher capital gain taxes etc.
Its pathetic that people making $500k/year pays less than $75k in Federal income tax (14%).
The 32% bracket begins at $160k and at $500k AGI you’re paying $150k in taxes (30%).
- For example, if it’s paid as carried interest, they only pay a 20% tax rate.
- They could itemize deductions.
- A farmer could buy a brand new truck and call it a business investment.
- If you’re a pass-through entity you only pay a 20% rate
That is a business expense. 500k is after all the business (Non-personal) expenses, depreciation and deductions .
It’s an inefficiency in the tax code which allows a person to have income of $500k and pay less than 31% in taxes.
The AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) phases out itemized deductions for higher incomes.
That’s government’s job. We should have universal healthcare, expand the earned income tax credit and make it easier to distribute throughout the year and increase taxes to fund it.
But I noticed that you called out people making $500K instead of $200K. Why? Maybe because $200K is not considered “rich” by most people on HN?
Why not raise taxes on everyone that has a household income of $130K since that puts you above 80 percentile of households income or $184K since that puts you in the 90 percentile?
“Tax the rich” often translates to “tax people who make more than I do.
Are Socialists correct, than our society depends upon a slave class to function? Because so often a suggestion that people earn a humane wage, is met with blanket resistance and dire predictions that the economy will be ruined.
Also, you did see the part about expanding the earned income tax credit and providing universal healthcare didn’t you? I’m not saying let anyone starve. I’m saying that’s society’s responsibility through taxation and redistribution.
This is going to happen anyway. Walmart is planning to go cashierless. Taco bell has kiosk for ordering. New PlayStation manufacturing plant is fully automated.
Universal Basic Income is the solution. I don't even think 20% of the population is doing even a simple task.
>This is going to happen anyway.
Changes that occur more slowly are easier for everyone to adapt too. Why do you think we should force this trend to accelerate?
The original federal minimum wage was .25 in 1938. If it had only kept up with inflation it would only be about $4.55 today.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart
If you are actually concerned about helping the poor, then as user scarface74 points out, increasing EITC is a better approach than a minimum wage increase.
Granted it would be a bit of a pain and call for other measures for remediation after the spread of automation but the goal of a job is productivity in the first place - we don't dig ditched with spoons.
And if automation does in fact cause harm the way you suggest it will, and it might, then we do what we must as a society to alleviate that issue. Trying to hold back the inevitable is a bad economic strategy.
It doesn’t take any additional people if MS sells one copy of Windows or Office than if they sell a million. The same is true for Facebook, and AWS (of course the retail side needs more but that’s even becoming more automated). As I said below, Apple and Amazon are the only two of the five big tech companies that have products or service that requires a lot of people as they scale and Apple’s “employees” are contract workers overseas.
That also means that the modern “factory workers” - software engineers, product managers, etc. produce an outsized value, are a larger multiplier and get paid a lot more.
Why can't there be a million times more software and services available? It doesn't have to be just MS and Apple and Amazon providing jobs.
There is also nothing stopping many of the three billion people in India and China from producing these services and now all of the protectionist policies in the world won’t protect “good American jobs”.
But as far as Amazon and Apple, that’s just the point. Apple’s “manufacturing employees” are overseas and Amazon is trying to automate more so that they don’t need as many FCs.
Someone should. Instead of taxing industry, and transferring wealth to poor, its best way to increase wages for the bottom 20%. They will spend that and increase economic activities.
> I noticed that you called out people making $500K instead of $200K. “Tax the rich” often translates to “tax people who make more than I do.
I didn't call anyone, nor I said: "tax people who make more than I do". I used to work in silicon valley. Now a business owner. I said it's pathetic that people (like me) who make $500k/year pay less than $75k in federal taxes.
Increasing the minimum wage and paying someone more than their market value is a tax.
Increasing minimum wage is a one size fits all solution. “A livable wage” doesn’t take into account the different needs of my teenager living at home flipping burgers for some pocket change and that same burger flipper standing beside him who is a single mom of three. The EITC does take that into account.
If we increased the EITC, and raised taxes to fund it, we wouldn’t have to worry about food stamps.
How does someone making $500k pay less than $75k in federal taxes?