Is this guy correct on giving people money?

[Pet shop boys]

I found this picture in a local community board a lady proudly posted


My reply was " Not true. The rich usually don't ask for free money.. they earn it. They also provide jobs to hard working families and thorough their taxes the non working poor gets welfare."

My comment was deleted....

Am I wrong ?


WoooSSSHHHHHHHHHHH

[WannaBePro]

Yes and no.
Money shouldn't be GIVEN, whether its to the rich or to the poor. Money should be earned, by the rich and by the poor. Very few people actually require welfare and other government programs, the disabled (physically or mentally), and the elderly (who most likely have earned their pensions and health benefits by slaving away for 40+ years). These welfare queens who are just lazy and keep popping babies have no case for financial assistance.
On the other hand you can't just GIVE money to the rich, that's like pouring water into the ocean. Yes, some will go to infrastructure, salaries, etc... but some will also go to offshore accounts to avoid taxes. If I were super rich and had money being thrown at me, I'd do the same... Because with the money I already have I have probably made plans at least a year in advance regarding salaries and infrastructure. The money coming in outside of my own earnings is just a bonus at that point.

[SOMEPARTS]

While what you are saying was once true, at present you are confusing middle class small business owners that pay taxes with the truly 1% rich that do get all the govt funded perks and breaks.

Small business is all but gone, and the middle class has been hollowed out so that is really the only context for the quote.

National level politicians all have big money backing. Even the ones that say stuff like this, haha.

[_aj_]

No, he's just a run-of-the-mill liberal looking to give away other folks money to buy himself votes. The only folks that believe him are the EBT crowd, which occasionally vote when they bother to get off the couch.

[HonestBob]

Don't let the politics of envy creep too far into US politics...all forms of socialism drag us down to the lowest common denominator.

[SOMEPARTS]

An oversimplified concept of liberal economics, but it is true that poor people spend all their money close to home.

The stagflation/biflation coming down the pike after increasing the money supply through QE will continue until they actually start handing out money to keep things moving.

[K1RB]

Fred Risser is a liberal girl who corrupts the minds of uneducated/poor people with this liberal rhetoric...
Uneducated/poor people don't see the absolute truth that welfare is in fact a way of controlling them-
The original thought behind it was that its cheaper to pay them than to jail them...
Not working out, is it FDR?
Liberals have ruined what was the best Nation on this Earth-
Uneducated people should need a license to vote , and a license to have children -

[_bruce_]

There's more than one side to the truth, but I feel the given context it was more of a propaganda ploy.

[Skorp1o]

I think by giving he means increasing their income, not knocking on doors giving out cash  

Truth of the matter a lot of people are severely under paid. if someone makes $30k and you raise them to $40k all of that extra 10k (minus tax) will stay within the economy...this adds up to a significant number when you count the hundreds of thousands of low income earners in some cities.

If someone earns 10 million, gets tax breaks and an extra 1 million is added to his pocket, he is right...it is very unlikely he will spread that 1 million in the economy...or at least not as immediate and direct as the wage increase of the poor folks dollar for dollar.

 

[MisterMagoo]

Yes and no.
Money shouldn't be GIVEN, whether its to the rich or to the poor. Money should be earned, by the rich and by the poor. Very few people actually require welfare and other government programs, the disabled (physically or mentally), and the elderly (who most likely have earned their pensions and health benefits by slaving away for 40+ years). These welfare queens who are just lazy and keep popping babies have no case for financial assistance.
On the other hand you can't just GIVE money to the rich, that's like pouring water into the ocean. Yes, some will go to infrastructure, salaries, etc... but some will also go to offshore accounts to avoid taxes. If I were super rich and had money being thrown at me, I'd do the same... Because with the money I already have I have probably made plans at least a year in advance regarding salaries and infrastructure. The money coming in outside of my own earnings is just a bonus at that point.

when we say 'given' in this case it's a hypothetical, but it can come in whatever form you want, for example:

- tax refund

- lowered tax rates

- mortgage forgiveness

- credit card debt relief

- student loan elimination

- raising the minimum wage (big one here)

etc etc.

what happens with the wealthy, for whom budget isn't an issue, that extra cash flow does nothing beyond go into savings. it's even more true of the 1% of the 1%, the guys at a point where the estate tax actually meant something, because very few of them are living in any fashion where they really are limited by liquid funds. these people have giant bank accounts and other holdings and any extra cash they get is going to go there.

take that in contrast with anyone who is in a "living paycheck to paycheck" position, or even someone with just a small nest egg. if you earn $50k a year and someone just snips away your mortgage payments, that money is actually going to go INTO things. you'll probably buy a new car, get a new phone, or just take a vacation. bump the minimum wage by a dollar an hour and that person is going to start buying food with actual names on the package. that extra money is going to be used. you can see this when what currently passes for the "middle" wins some money off a scratch lottery ticket.

hell you can even scale this if it helps. i know there are a bunch of getbiggers with six figure incomes, myself (barely) included. if you hand me a $100 bill, that's gonna end up in my pocket until i happen to find some situation where i need to pay with cash. hand that same bill to a kid working at starbucks and he's gonna spend it that day. it's just an ass-simple rule of economics that the lower down the ladder you get the greater percentage of their income they actually put back into the economy.

people like to claim that it's the "politics of envy" or that people who talk like this are "jealous" of people who earn more, but they tend to fall into two categories: either greedy shits who treat their bank accounts like a video game high score, and less-affluent people who have been hoodwinked into believing that if the greedy shits are just handed more money then they themselves might get a piece of it someday. the former are dishonest, the latter are deluded.

you want to boost the economy up? do what every intelligent society in the world does: inject some cash into it via the lower class. the upper class already has no problem spending their money on whatever they want. get it moving by enabling the people who CAN'T do that.

look, i'm a single man living alone with no children. my tax burden is literally as high as it gets for a person. after i did all my deductions this past year i had to cut a check to the guv'mint that wasn't a whole lot less than i used to earn a few years ago. but tough shit, that's what happens when you pop up into the higher earnings brackets, and even after all that i still had no problem with some nice purchases (nothing enormous, just a bunch of tech toys I wanted).

if your income is such that buying a new car is more a question of "which luxury packages do i want" than "how many medical experiments would i have to sign up for to afford this" then you really need to step back a second and re-evaluate exactly where you are in life and what money means to you.

[MisterMagoo]

I think by giving he means increasing their income, not knocking on doors giving out cash  

Truth of the matter a lot of people are severely under paid. if someone makes $30k and you raise them to $40k all of that extra 10k (minus tax) will stay within the economy...this adds up to a significant number when you count the hundreds of thousands of low income earners in some cities.

If someone earns 10 million, gets tax breaks and an extra 1 million is added to his pocket, he is right...it is very unlikely he will spread that 1 million in the economy...or at least not as immediate and direct as the wage increase of the poor folks dollar for dollar.

 

ding ding ding, we have a wiener.

it goes the other way as well, when people talk about tax burdens. if you earn $10mil a year and you have to pay 30% of that in taxes, sure that's a $3mil chunk of change going bye-bye, but it also means that afterwards you have seven million goddamn dollars at your disposal.

some schlub making $20k a year might be super lucky in that he earns too little to pay income taxes, but all that means is the poor bastard has to live on $20k for that year.

it just blows my mind when people in the former situation act like it's sooooooo unfair that the latter doesn't have to pay their "fair share" of taxes. 

[Schnauzer]

While what you are saying was once true, at present you are confusing middle class small business owners that pay taxes with the truly 1% rich that do get all the govt funded perks and breaks.

Wrong, the top 1% pay more in taxes than the bottom 90%. The government makes money off them, some of which is redistributed to people with lower income.


http://taxfoundation.org/blog/top-1-percent-pays-more-taxes-bottom-90-percent

Small business is all but gone

Wrong, small businesses are now considered the backbone of the US economy

We often hear that small businesses are the engines of job creation in the United States. Their value and the role they play in our economy is sometimes underestimated because, they are in fact, small. But the truth is there’s nothing small about the impact they have on our economy.

According to Entrepreneur Magazine there are between 25 million and 27 million small businesses in the U.S. that account for 60 to 80 percent of all U.S. jobs. And, a recent study by Paychex, says that small businesses produce 13 times more patents that larger firms.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccabagley/2012/05/15/small-businesses-big-impact/

[Archer77]

Wrong, the top 1% pay more in taxes than the bottom 90%. The government makes money off them, some of which is redistributed to people with lower income.


http://taxfoundation.org/blog/top-1-percent-pays-more-taxes-bottom-90-percent



Wrong, small businesses are now considered the backbone of the US economy
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccabagley/2012/05/15/small-businesses-big-impact/

What about taxes like gasoline, sales and cigarette taxes?  

[Schnauzer]

What about taxes like gasoline, sales and cigarette taxes?  

What about it? Do only poor people pay sales tax and taxes on gasoline?

[K1RB]

The truth of the matter is that rich folks always will contribute more to the local economy than poor folks-period end of story...
In Skorp1o's example the fella that makes 10mm and gets another 1mm through tax breaks contributes much more-(though if he gets the extra million he is most likely to invest it, and local economy never sees it), but think about what that person already has spent money on...
A fella making 10mm a year is spending a few million on his house, has a few cars, is spending a few hundred grand on his childrens education, is eating out a few nights a week, perhaps donates to local charities etc....the lists are endless. All this goes into the local economy, which is why you never see a fella making 10mm living in a bad neighborhood-its because all the wealthy people living there before him invested and made the place desirable...

Now, a poor fella making 30k per year and gets handed another 10k, is most likely to do a few things with the money...
Hes going to buy a TV, a car, or take a trip, or maybe just blow it at the local pubs...
I have to assume that his neighborhood is not that nice, and by him dumping an extra 10k into the local economy, along with every other person in his neighborhood, will not change things that much...

If this ass Risser was correct, why not give everyone in Detroit 10k, and lets watch them turn the city around?
Simple....it does NOT work that way-If you gave everyone in Detroit and extra 10k, there would be more drugs, more violence and perhaps some fires, then things would be back to what it was before,probably within a month, which is how these welfare states are created...
  

[Archer77]

What about it? Do only poor people pay sales tax and taxes on gasoline?

Six cents on the dollar is a larger fraction of someone making twenty thousand income than it is to someone making one hundred thousand.

[MisterMagoo]

schnauzer, the reason the 1% and the 90% have flip-flopped is that their respective incomes have grown so far apart that it's simply a matter of mathematics. the top 1% is enjoying its lowest tax burden in HISTORY. they were taxed at HIGHER rates when they contributed a smaller proportion of their income to the pool.

graphs like that are misleading at best and dishonest at worst. in 2011 you had to earn about $306,000 to be in the top 1% of US income. currently it's a bit under $400,000 to be a 1%'er. income disparity is growing at a goddamn alarming rate.

if you had ten people in a room, all taxed at the same rate, but the lowest earner made 20k and the highest made 50k, their respective contributions would be similar. jack that top guy up to 500k and have his tax percentage cut in half and he's STILL paying significantly more in taxes than the rest simply by virtue of his income being comically higher than the rest.

realize that the median income in the US (the one that matters, mean income is useless), in the last THIRTY YEARS, has gone up about $6,000 a year, adjusted for inflation. for the 90th percentile it's been more like $80,000. take that to the top 1%? we're talking hundreds of thousands.

and that's just gross income! adjust for tax burden and cost of living and median household incomes in the US have actually DROPPED slightly in the past thirty years, meanwhile the upper crust has had their bank accounts absolutely bursting at the seams. so when you're over there bleating and whining about poor people not having to pay their "fair share", it's really important to remember that pretty much every single economic act and action taken in your lifetime has benefited the top, not the bottom, so that tax burden is more of a "you're welcome for helping you double your paycheck" fee.

there is simply no way to justify it. you can use all the misleading graphs you want. the US is so heavily tilted toward the wealthy it's almost obscene.

[MisterMagoo]

The truth of the matter is that rich folks always will contribute more to the local economy than poor folks-period end of story...
In Skorp1o's example the fella that makes 10mm and gets another 1mm through tax breaks contributes much more-(though if he gets the extra million he is most likely to invest it, and local economy never sees it), but think about what that person already has spent money on...
A fella making 10mm a year is spending a few million on his house, has a few cars, is spending a few hundred grand on his childrens education, is eating out a few nights a week, perhaps donates to local charities etc....the lists are endless. All this goes into the local economy, which is why you never see a fella making 10mm living in a bad neighborhood-its because all the wealthy people living there before him invested and made the place desirable...

Now, a poor fella making 30k per year and gets handed another 10k, is most likely to do a few things with the money...
Hes going to buy a TV, a car, or take a trip, or maybe just blow it at the local pubs...
I have to assume that his neighborhood is not that nice, and by him dumping an extra 10k into the local economy, along with every other person in his neighborhood, will not change things that much...

If this ass Risser was correct, why not give everyone in Detroit 10k, and lets watch them turn the city around?
Simple....it does NOT work that way-If you gave everyone in Detroit and extra 10k, there would be more drugs, more violence and perhaps some fires, then things would be back to what it was before,probably within a month, which is how these welfare states are created...
  

by your OWN EXAMPLE if we took all those guys making 30k and gave them 10m their neighborhoods would improve, so at least try to be slightly consistent here.

that's not the focus of the matter, though. the point isn't who contributes more raw money into the economy, it's what they would do with extra. if you give the 10m guy an extra million, it's not going into the economy because his income is high enough that he had no budgetary constrictions. however, give 100 people making 30k an extra $10k and that is going straight back into the economy either by paying off mortgages, clearing credit card debt, paying off cars, or just blowing it on vacations and toys.

the simple rule is this: if you want to shove more money into the economy, you do it from the bottom up. if you want to jump-start a stagnating economy, tax breaks or debt forgiveness on the wealthy will NEVER work. they will do NOTHING useful because those people already have surplus income in savings. when the economy is hurting, the goal is basically force liquidity and the best way to do that is via a tax break or something similar to the people who are most likely to take every dollar you give them and spend it rather than save it.

even if you want to be a racist assbag and say that it's all ghetto rats who buy gold teeth and rims for their busted old cars rather than spending it on rent and clothes for their kids, that's still money in the stream and it's still more useful than watching some guy's bank account go from N to N+10k.

[_aj_]

I think by giving he means increasing their income, not knocking on doors giving out cash  

Truth of the matter a lot of people are severely under paid. if someone makes $30k and you raise them to $40k all of that extra 10k (minus tax) will stay within the economy...this adds up to a significant number when you count the hundreds of thousands of low income earners in some cities.

If someone earns 10 million, gets tax breaks and an extra 1 million is added to his pocket, he is right...it is very unlikely he will spread that 1 million in the economy...or at least not as immediate and direct as the wage increase of the poor folks dollar for dollar.

"Rich" people's money in the bank is money that the banks then have to lend for use as investment, which has a higher much ROI than giving it to the "poor". Certainly higher than poor folks using the extra money to buy skittles and grape drank.

And let's talk about the concepts of "rich" and "poor". In America, the number one health problem for "poor" people is fucking obesity. There is certainly something wrong with our definitions of "poor". Also, in America, the rich man sees the same doctors in the same hospitals and gets the same drugs as the penniless man. Both the rich and the poor man live in houses with TVs and A/C and are certainly not hungry. They both have cars and they both travel the same roads.

[Skorp1o]

"Rich" people's money in the bank is money that the banks then have to lend for use as investment, which has a higher much ROI than giving it to the "poor". Certainly higher than poor folks using the extra money to buy skittles and grape drank.

This will not improve the situation on the ground, sure it will raise the GDP and the rich get even richer....the poor and even the mid income earners will be left behind. Go to some places where the rich is filthy rich and the poor are dirt poor, India and Russia between them have the highest number of billionaires....but their societies as a whole are rotten, disproportionate wealth never amounts to anything good as a whole.

[_aj_]

This will not improve the situation on the ground, sure it will raise the GDP and the rich get even richer....the poor and even the mid income earners will be left behind. Go to some places where the rich is filthy rich and the poor are dirt poor, India and Russia between them have the highest number of billionaires....but their societies as a whole are rotten, disproportionate wealth never amounts to anything good as a whole.

Small businesses actually create wealth and need seed capital to start. That's where the "rich" guys money in the bank comes into play. Will it make the rich guy richer? Yep, if the business succeeds, it will. And the small business owner will get richer too.

Simply dumping money into the economy at the lowest level is Keynesian bullshit. Tried and failed EVERY TIME it's deployed. And that's from a macro economic standpoint, it doesn't even take time to countenance the graft and corruption at the political level every time a Keynesian style "redistribution" scam is put into place.

C'mon Skorp!

[K1RB]

by your OWN EXAMPLE if we took all those guys making 30k and gave them 10m their neighborhoods would improve, so at least try to be slightly consistent here.

that's not the focus of the matter, though. the point isn't who contributes more raw money into the economy, it's what they would do with extra. if you give the 10m guy an extra million, it's not going into the economy because his income is high enough that he had no budgetary constrictions. however, give 100 people making 30k an extra $10k and that is going straight back into the economy either by paying off mortgages, clearing credit card debt, paying off cars, or just blowing it on vacations and toys.

the simple rule is this: if you want to shove more money into the economy, you do it from the bottom up. if you want to jump-start a stagnating economy, tax breaks or debt forgiveness on the wealthy will NEVER work. they will do NOTHING useful because those people already have surplus income in savings. when the economy is hurting, the goal is basically force liquidity and the best way to do that is via a tax break or something similar to the people who are most likely to take every dollar you give them and spend it rather than save it.

even if you want to be a racist assbag and say that it's all ghetto rats who buy gold teeth and rims for their busted old cars rather than spending it on rent and clothes for their kids, that's still money in the stream and it's still more useful than watching some guy's bank account go from N to N+10k.

Lets break it down further: I guess the point I'm trying to make is that giving poor people money does ZERO for the economy over the long haul...Yes, there may be a temporary boost to the local pubs, liquor stores and electronics dealers, but then what after that? Is there any real, permanent effect on the economy? If anything, it's a temporary reprieve, before more of the same sets in...

Using your argument,  lets say we gave everyone in Detroit 10k this week-will one thing be different about Detroit and its economy a month from now? Six months from now? the answer is NO. Why you ask? Because in theory, your argument works-but in reality, it does not, because people that are in need of a 10k hand out from the government are fuck ups to begin with, and fuck ups usually tend to live in fucked up areas, which are the only neighborhoods fuck ups can afford to live in. Giving money/welfare to poor people does not solve any problems. This has been proven throughout history, which is why there are record numbers of welfare recipients today. Giving welfare to anyone has never solved anything.    

[Skorp1o]

Small businesses actually create wealth and need seed capital to start. That's where the "rich" guys money in the bank comes into play. Will it make the rich guy richer? Yep, if the business succeeds, it will. And the small business owner will get richer too.

Simply dumping money into the economy at the lowest level is Keynesian bullshit. Tried and failed EVERY TIME it's deployed. And that's from a macro economic standpoint, it doesn't even take time to countenance the graft and corruption at the political level every time a Keynesian style "redistribution" scam is put into place.

C'mon Skorp!

I am thinking from an ethical point of view.

C'mon _aj_ 

[_aj_]

I am thinking from an ethical point of view.

C'mon _aj_ 

Ethics? You *do* work in finance, right?

[SOMEPARTS]

Wrong, the top 1% pay more in taxes than the bottom 90%. The government makes money off them, some of which is redistributed to people with lower income.


http://taxfoundation.org/blog/top-1-percent-pays-more-taxes-bottom-90-percent



Wrong, small businesses are now considered the backbone of the US economy
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccabagley/2012/05/15/small-businesses-big-impact/

Quoting articles? Okay...

Yes, they pay but the whole thing is unsustainable because we don't generate enough tax revenue to "re-distribute" because we run a huge federal deficit every year. The issue is no middle class to pay like there used to be, and largely increasing lower class paying nothing/taking. As said above if you are making 10 million theoretically you can pay 32%....but you'd be an idiot if you didn't have an accountant, corporation, charity, etc. to pull down that number.

Bullshit on anything that says small business is increasing....more bullshit on an article that "now considers" small business to be anything compared to what it was. Been doing it for 15+ years and there is no new money going into small business. The backbone is broken.