9 ms·

I assure you that people would happily trade paying some taxes for owning any assets whatsoever.

• nerdponx 5y ago
  And having functioning public services like healthcare.
• Aunche 5y ago
  If this were true, they would spend more of their discretionary money on assets rather than consumer purchases.
  • nickthemagicman 5y ago
    'discretionary income' At a median wage of 50k a year...is there discretionary income or are large amounts of people living paycheck to paycheck in America?
    • Shared404 5y ago
      What is the mode wage in America though?
      • solveit 5y ago
        Probably minimum wage of some suitably populous city or state. Why in the world would the mode be relevant though?
        • Shared404 5y ago
          Is not the most common wage more relevant to the issue than the middle? Though I should've asked about the mean, I'm still waking up.
          • kapp_in_life 5y ago
            No. For example you could have 10 people making the minimum wage and 50,000 people making a salary of $50,000 -> $100,000(1 person for each salary in that range). Mode would say the most common wage is minimum wage.
  • thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
    That's not how it works in reality. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marginalpropensitytoconsume.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marginalpropensitytocon...
  • valeness 5y ago
    This is true only for those of us privileged enough to have discretionary income. Which is not all of us :)
  • ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Lower classes spend 100% of their discretionary money' on assets, 'it's just that their 'discretionary money' is 0.
    • JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > Lower classes spend 100% of their discretionary money' on assets Assuming you mean non-discretionary expenses. If so, that describes a third of Americans, down from half in 2002 [1]. A strong majority of Americans (a) get more money from the government than they put in, (b) own assets or (c) route discretionary income to consumption over asset accumulation. We have an inequality problem. But the facts paint a more moderate, and thus addressable, picture than the pundits. [1] https://www.marketingcharts.com/industries/financial-services-2340 https://www.marketingcharts.com/industries/financial-service...
      • RNCTX 5y ago
        Yeah, the addressable part is where you take the wealth that has accumulated among people who don't spend it, and distribute it among people who do. It's very simple.
      • whakim 5y ago
        > If so, that describes a third of Americans, down from half in 2002 [1] Your source is from 2007. I don't have that particular figure; but in 2019, the bottom 50% of the wealth distribution continue to own almost nothing, the top 10% of the wealth distribution own 71% of all assets and the middle 40% own about 28% [1]. > A strong majority of Americans get more money from the government than they put in This is literally the point of taxes: to redistribute resources. > (b) own assets See above, but ownership of assets is distributed incredibly unequally. > (c) route discretionary income to consumption over asset accumulation This argument that poor people remain poor because they make bad choices (formally called "culture of poverty") has been heavily criticized. Most economists and sociologists now reject it and have done so for over 30 years. [1] https://wid.world/share/#0/countrytimeseries/shweal_p50p90_z;shweal_p90p100_z;shweal_p0p50_z/US/2015/eu/k/p/yearly/s/false/0/80/curve/false/1962/2019 https://wid.world/share/#0/countrytimeseries/shweal_p50p90_z...
  • mb7733 5y ago
    Let them eat cake?