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Walter posted:Of course the folks who actually make enough to be in the higher brackets understand this, right? If you make that much money and believe you could potentially be subject to a higher rate, you would do the research to find out if that's true or not, right? Yep. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/26/foxs-gretchen-carlson-mangles-tax-policy/191512 Gretchen Carlson doesn't understand how taxes work, and I'm guessing she makes more money than anyone posting in this thread.
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Nov 30, 2012 12:19
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Walter posted:So am I correct in assuming that the people who don't understand marginal tax rates believe that the way it works is, once you hit a higher bracket, all of your earnings are taxed at that higher rate? Even if you make enough money to be affected, if you just plug your numbers into TurboTax or the equivalent and it files your return and tells you your tax rate, there's no way to know how marginal rates work if you don't look into it. Most people are not plugging different numbers into their tax program to see how their taxes would work out if they made 250K PLUS ONE dollar versus 249,999 dollars. And I'd venture to say most people don't bother to research the topic.
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Nov 30, 2012 12:20
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Typical Pubbie posted:Yep. Since almost every person talking about "reducing their income to avoid paying more" is a doctor, can we just start saying doctors are rock stupid at finances and bar any criticism by them against any single payer system?
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Nov 30, 2012 14:04
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Typical Pubbie posted:Its only problem with it is the brackets, which haven't been updated in... 70 some odd years? I remember reading a chart that showed how $250,000 back in the 30s or 40s was worth around $2 million in today's dollars. I've never seen this point made. Conservatives could win on this. I'd agree with bumping the brackets.
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Nov 30, 2012 15:34
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On taxes, Nate Silver had this piece. The nice part of the article is that the first part explains marginal taxation: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/congressional-proposal-could-create-bubble-in-tax-code/#more-37645
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Nov 30, 2012 15:45
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Nimmy posted:I've never seen this point made. Conservatives could win on this. I'd agree with bumping the brackets. A lot has changed besides that, though. Like the marginal tax rates themselves. I'd be fine with bumping them to $2M+ for the highest earners if we go back to the tax rates from the late 50s. With 90% marginal tax rates, it'd be a race as to whether we'd fix our deficit before we scared all our high-earners to try their luck in other countries.
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Nov 30, 2012 15:46
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I find this blog post a bit more readable than Silver's piece. It covers basically what we've just discussed. http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2012/03/top-marginal-tax-rates-1958-vs-2009.html
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Nov 30, 2012 15:48
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The best part about the marginal tax rate thing is that it very cleanly debunks any and all right wing superstitions about rich people actually knowing anything about money. I don't know how any of these people could possibly run their businesses efficiently without knowing how marginal tax rates work. They just leave the entire thing up to their accountants, and then kvetch about how unfair it all is on the golf course. This is why they're constantly clamoring for tax reform and simplification. For someone that can't be bothered to understand marginal tax rates the entire thing must feel like pulling the lever on a slot machine. I almost sympathize with them. It must be hard going through life with so much money but so little sense.
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Nov 30, 2012 16:05
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I'm scared. I heard an ad during Glenn Beck's show that promises me Obama WILL have a third term because he's just that badass and can do what he wants. This is the link I was told to visit: http://pro.stansberryresearch.com/1210THIRDLIA/OPSINB00/ http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/21/1163715/-Obama-s-Third-Term quote:It's possible because the economy is going to be good. Really good. So, so good, that even though Obama will be "terrible socialist" and the worst "tyrant in American history" while gutting 401K accounts to fund government debt, that he will still become "an idol" and an unstoppable force at the polls. And apparently an unstoppable force with the Congress and all the states required to toss that irritating 22nd Amendment. Put it all together and Obama will become a president clothed in really, really snazzy jackets and super immense power for a really long time. I kind of remember Stansberry Research from something else.
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Nov 30, 2012 16:07
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ErIog posted:The best part about the marginal tax rate thing is that it very cleanly debunks any and all right wing superstitions about rich people actually knowing anything about money. I don't know how any of these people could possibly run their businesses efficiently without knowing how marginal tax rates work. They just leave the entire thing up to their accountants, and then kvetch about how unfair it all is on the golf course. This is the problem with praising financial success, we assume anyone with money is a genius. I grew up in Orange County, CA, and boy, are those people rich and loving stupid.
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Nov 30, 2012 16:12
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Typical Pubbie posted:Yep. I'm honestly of the opinion that civility in public discourse has already been torn down from one side. There needs to be some pushback from the other side. Comments like this need to be actively described as stupid, and then the person calling them that needs to explain (in simply terms) why it's stupid. The fellow on O'Reilly in the link I posted earlier (Silverman) did a reasonably good job of telling Bill he was nuts, although I think he could have gone a little farther to make the point of what a stupid argument it actually was. The reason these statements are made, and these people who make them don't have the good sense to be ashamed by the bullshit they're peddling, is that no one is calling them on it in ways that are clearly obvious and can get around the "liberals <eyeroll>" response. If someone on a news show says something stupid like this about taxes rates, you say, "I'm sorry, but that's not how it works. I'm surprised that as someone who makes over $250K, you don't understand this. For this $250K tax increase, only the amount that people make above that is taxed at the higher rate. That's how it works. It's that easy." On O'Reilly, Silverman should have just said, "So, Bill, based on those grounds, Islam is a philosophy, too. Is that what you believe? Because that's the argument you're actually trying to sell to your audience." The trick is to make these people look stupid to their target audience, and make it clear that they are bullshitting their audience. You have to appeal to the "common sense, y'all" attitude that saturates them. I'm starting to think that the only solution to the kind of bullshit these people peddle is straight up ad hominem attacks, because the target audience appears to prefer argument from authority to actual facts. If you take away the authority, people might actually start questioning that poo poo. Walter fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Nov 30, 2012 |
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Nov 30, 2012 16:46
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I'm now on the hunt for a truly straightforward explanation of marginal tax rates. The linked Nate Silver and Timothy Taylor pieces are accurate and reasonably concise, but I can't really believe that they would teach the concept to somebody totally ignorant of it. They just get too wonky too fast. What I'm finding is that a lot of definitions are just outright deceptive, like this one from Investopedia: quote:Definition of 'Marginal Tax Rate' Technically true, but they never really come out and say "you will never have a higher tax bill on income in a lower bracket because the rate on an upper bracket has increased." Also, notice how they immediately pivot to the "discourages investment" argument, which is often used hand-in-hand with the idea that you can pay a lower effective rate by choosing to earn less, like the dumbass doctor who wrote in to Fox & Friends.
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Nov 30, 2012 17:04
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If Obama has a nefarious plan to win a third term by making the economy grow explosively and make sure all the poor people are fed and legalizing marijuana then bring on high overlord dictator for life Hussein Obama.
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Nov 30, 2012 17:20
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I like the "you pay 10 cents on your first $8700 regardless how much you make. You pay no more than 16% on the next $20,000, regardless of how much more than that you do or don't make. Then you pay 25% for your next $30k, even if you make far more than that..." and so on. Obviously I just pulled numbers out of my rear end for the specifics. I just prefer the "starting from 0, how much do you pay in taxes for each group of dollars you make" method rather than "starting from the high income bracket your tax rate goes up here". It highlights that everyone receives the same drat tax cuts for the first ~$250k they make. That money's never going to go up to 35%+, no matter how much more money a person makes on top of $250k. Keeping 4% less after taxes for income beyond $250K shouldn't be viewed as this DEATH KNELL OF CAPITALISM. The fact it is can be attributed to branding and marketing.
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Nov 30, 2012 17:52
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Urban Space Cowboy posted:You don't need a graphic. You don't need ten minutes. You don't need a cute analogy about pie. All you need to say is that if your income in a year goes over a certain dividing line into a bracket with a higher tax rate, that rate only applies to the amount in excess of the dividing line. That's it. That's all there is. I do not disagree with you on this. Except for the dismissal of the willfully ignorant. I'm looking at targeting people passively through "local media advertisement". The argument has to be made graphically and to those you dismiss as willfully ignorant. As this thread has shown there are stupid arguments being made by the other side. As soon as you start to use ANY math to explain the argument you have lost to these people. Outreach is important, I seek to reach those I cannot speak to individually.
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Nov 30, 2012 18:13
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LP97S posted:Since almost every person talking about "reducing their income to avoid paying more" is a doctor, can we just start saying doctors are rock stupid at finances and bar any criticism by them against any single payer system? I don't know how often it happens but there are absolutely situations where people can do a little better if they are just under a certain amount of money. Just this year my father asked to not be given his lovely raise so that my little brothers and sisters could remain on the discount lunch program at school. If he would have had his income increased by whatever percent or part of a percent that he could have had then they would have to pay much much more for food every year.
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Nov 30, 2012 18:39
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Miltank posted:I don't know how often it happens but there are absolutely situations where people can do a little better if they are just under a certain amount of money. Just this year my father asked to not be given his lovely raise so that my little brothers and sisters could remain on the discount lunch program at school. If he would have had his income increased by whatever percent or part of a percent that he could have had then they would have to pay much much more for food every year. Yeah, some benefits or tax breaks immediately cut out at a threshold instead of phasing out, that's a problem and should be fixed wherever possible. Speaking generally though, taxes are marginal.
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Nov 30, 2012 18:56
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Pander posted:A lot has changed besides that, though. Like the marginal tax rates themselves. I'd be fine with bumping them to $2M+ for the highest earners if we go back to the tax rates from the late 50s. Worth pointing out that the 50s were before the AMT came into being, meaning that a lot of people in that 89% tax bracket were paying zero or close to zero in taxes due to deductions. That was the whole premise behind the AMT (passed with the Kennedy tax rates where the top bracket had fallen to 70%), the AMT guaranteeing that people over a certain income line could only deduct down before an Alternate Minimum Tax of 28% kicked in. The AMT, like the brackets, wasn't indexed to inflation, which you'd think would be an obvious thing to do.
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Nov 30, 2012 19:19
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I've gotten into the habit of watching the highlight videos on msnbc.com lately. I hadn't seen Morning Joe before and... my god, I thought I was watching Fox for a few moments there. So many smug hard-right bastards. What's up with that, if MSNBC is supposed to be such a polar opposite to Fox?
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Nov 30, 2012 19:45
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Typical Pubbie posted:Because most people in this country don't make enough money for marginal rates to come into play. I don't either. And as for the major media personalities who don't believe marginal tax rates exist, are you sure they're not all lying or being willfully ignorant of them since it helps their narrative? Because if that's the case not a whole lot can be done to stop them from parroting erroneous information again and again. Say they're wrong on their show? You're a loony lib and don't know what you're talking about, obviously! Disprove them on a major media outlet? Any outlet that'll run it probably is discounted as a liberal rag by their fans.
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Nov 30, 2012 20:00
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SedanChair posted:Under a marginal tax rate, tax payers are most often divided into tax brackets or ranges, which determine which rate taxable income is taxed at. I'd say this is the most misleading part of that explanation. Tax payers are not "divided" into different tax brackets. To the layman that makes it sound like people are separated into different brackets based on how much they make, which is the opposite of how the marginal tax works.
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Nov 30, 2012 20:07
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Rush is having another meltdown about women.
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Nov 30, 2012 20:24
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LaserShark posted:I've gotten into the habit of watching the highlight videos on msnbc.com lately. I hadn't seen Morning Joe before and... my god, I thought I was watching Fox for a few moments there. So many smug hard-right bastards. What's up with that, if MSNBC is supposed to be such a polar opposite to Fox? MSNBC has their own corporate masters who want their own corporate agenda passed. They have a few token journalists and moderate liberals like Maddow, but on the whole they just run bullshit centrists like Joe. Remember this is the network where Joe had his hissy fit where "the election is totally a horse race!!!" and "there's no way to tell who's winning!!!" that prompted Nate Silver to  the gently caress out, this is the same network that fired Cenk Ugyhr for being too leftist and advocated for the Iraq war because their previous masters were GE, noted military-industrial magnates.MSNBC is basically Fox if Fox was moderate and pro-corporation, not ideologically conservative.
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Nov 30, 2012 20:24
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Paul MaudDib posted:MSNBC has their own corporate masters who want their own corporate agenda passed. They have a few token journalists and moderate liberals like Maddow, but on the whole they just run bullshit centrists like Joe. Remember this is the network where Joe had his hissy fit where "the election is totally a horse race!!!" and "there's no way to tell who's winning!!!" that prompted Nate Silver to It was a long time ago and my memory may be off, but wasn't it MSNBC that really really tried to be a Fox clone early during the Iraq War by actually giving Michael Savage a show?
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Nov 30, 2012 20:28
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Luminous Obscurity posted:Rush is having another meltdown about women. What is it about this time?
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Nov 30, 2012 20:28
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I have another stupid question, why is it called "marginal" tax rates? Is there some reason it's not just called a bracket or just tax rate or something? Does the marginal mean something special when connected to taxes?
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Nov 30, 2012 20:31
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Sephyr posted:It was a long time ago and my memory may be off, but wasn't it MSNBC that really really tried to be a Fox clone early during the Iraq War by actually giving Michael Savage a show? Also Don Imus
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Nov 30, 2012 20:32
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Radish posted:What is it about this time? The War on Men article, "militant" feminism, indoctrinated whores, and how reading a book about rape was a fad. Also he apparently used to read Cosmo to find out where women would go to meet men.
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Nov 30, 2012 20:36
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Pope Guilty posted:Dunno about anybody else, but I file a 1040-EZ and I just compare my income to the chart. Filling out a 1040 won't teach you about marginal utility. Exactly this. Not to get into a taxchat derail too much but this is also the reason that most people (1040EZ, 9-5 types anyway) think their taxes went up. They got a smaller refund. This is because part of the stimulus tax cuts gave people more take home pay ever week so they would up having less taken out and, hence, got less back. But most people just go "poo poo! Fuckin' Obama! I got back $1500 last year and this year it was only $1200!" He thinks his taxes went up when all that happened was he got the other $300 or so spread over multiple paychecks. edit: ErIog posted:The best part about the marginal tax rate thing is that it very cleanly debunks any and all right wing superstitions about rich people actually knowing anything about money. I don't know how any of these people could possibly run their businesses efficiently without knowing how marginal tax rates work. They just leave the entire thing up to their accountants, and then kvetch about how unfair it all is on the golf course. In fairness, if you run a business, taxes can get unfairly complicated. I freelance on the side a bit and just the little bit I do complicates things more than it should. Can we go back to talking about crazy right wing people again though? I'm sorry I started this derail. BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Nov 30, 2012 |
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Nov 30, 2012 20:36
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Paul MaudDib posted:MSNBC has their own corporate masters who want their own corporate agenda passed. They have a few token journalists and moderate liberals like Maddow, but on the whole they just run bullshit centrists like Joe. Remember this is the network where Joe had his hissy fit where "the election is totally a horse race!!!" and "there's no way to tell who's winning!!!" that prompted Nate Silver to I don't watch much cable news but I thought over the past year or so MSNBC has been working to cement itself as a much more liberal/progressive network. Is Maddow really a moderate? From what I've seen she seems pretty progressive, but like I said I haven't watched too much. And isn't O'Donnell a self-proclaimed socialist?
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Nov 30, 2012 20:37
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Butt Soup Barnes posted:I don't watch much cable news but I thought over the past year or so MSNBC has been working to cement itself as a much more liberal/progressive network. In US terms she's pretty progressive, but American politics are incredibly right-wing. In worldwide terms she's basically just a social liberal, as center of the road as it gets. Thinking the poor shouldn't starve to death and corporations shouldn't be able to get away with literal murder and theft does not a leftist make. I don't see her out there suggesting that we should regulate her parent company's vertical monopoly on cable service (like we do power and telephone) or advocating for democratic control of corporations ala MONDRAGON. e: quote:When asked if she was registered with a particular political party however, she said “sometimes.”7 She describes her political views like this: quote:Distinguishing herself from others on the left, Maddow said she's a "national security liberal" and in a different interview that she's not "a partisan."[51][52] The New York Times called her a "defense policy wonk" Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Nov 30, 2012 |
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Nov 30, 2012 20:45
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Sephyr posted:It was a long time ago and my memory may be off, but wasn't it MSNBC that really really tried to be a Fox clone early during the Iraq War by actually giving Michael Savage a show? Don't forget the most hilariously incorrect title in the history of broadcasting: Alan Keyes is Making Sense! Edit: Although Paul, you didn't mention Hayes - who probably most closely approaches an actual progressive. Probably also the reason that he airs at 8AM on the weekend. 
mgreen42 fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Nov 30, 2012 |
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Nov 30, 2012 21:15
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Ramadu posted:I have another stupid question, why is it called "marginal" tax rates? Is there some reason it's not just called a bracket or just tax rate or something? Does the marginal mean something special when connected to taxes? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_concepts quote:In economics, marginal concepts are associated with a specific change in the quantity used of a good or service, as opposed to some notion of the over-all significance of that class of good or service, or of some total quantity thereof. (It goes on from there. Wikipedia always does. )http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_tax_rate#Marginal quote:A marginal tax rate is the tax rate that applies to the last unit of currency of the tax base (taxable income or spending)...
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Nov 30, 2012 21:26
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Butt Soup Barnes posted:Is Maddow really a moderate? Yes. I picked up her book on a whim after catching some of her show and thinking she seemed smart and had some good poo poo to say. The first parts of her book are a jingoistic, whitewashed portrayal of the US Military pre-Vietnam as a bastion against tyranny, a bulwark of freedom and a pinnacle of moral righteousness. Indian genocide? Eh. Mexican-American war? Whatever. Philippines? Cuba? Haiti? Who cares. She's a pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist American centrist liberal. I'm still glad she's on the air, though. She's about as left as the media will allow and she's solid and persuasive.
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Nov 30, 2012 21:36
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Crossposting from the Republican Rebuilding thread, the "Santa Claus" charge pushed by Rush and pals has apparently not been lost on Obama:quote:Obama struck a playful tone throughout his speech at a toy factory to warn Americans that they could be in for a “lump of coal” for Christmas if Congress fails to extend current middle class tax rates. 
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Nov 30, 2012 21:39
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K'NEX are awesome, I had a huge set of them when I was younger. Surely Republicans will want a set of K'NEX, and we will all come together over building little plastic rollercoasters. 
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Nov 30, 2012 21:53
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800peepee51doodoo posted:Yes. I picked up her book on a whim after catching some of her show and thinking she seemed smart and had some good poo poo to say. The first parts of her book are a jingoistic, whitewashed portrayal of the US Military pre-Vietnam as a bastion against tyranny, a bulwark of freedom and a pinnacle of moral righteousness. Indian genocide? Eh. Mexican-American war? Whatever. Philippines? Cuba? Haiti? Who cares. She's a pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist American centrist liberal.
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Nov 30, 2012 22:22
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Luminous Obscurity posted:Also he apparently used to read Cosmo to find out where women would go to meet men. Probably not the Dominican republic.
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Nov 30, 2012 22:35
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Kiwi Bigtree posted:By the way, for posterity, here is the synopsis It's hilarious how similar the synopsis of this book is to Telemachus Sneezed. Is Harriet Parke writing secret satire or something?
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Nov 30, 2012 22:38
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The only way that Obama quote could have been better would have been if he was not at the K'NEX factory, making the choice to mention K'NEX totally random. I missed the top part at first, so that's the way it paid off for me 
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Nov 30, 2012 23:14
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