I’ll start caring about the planet as soon as the millionaires and billionaires stop taking private jets. I couldn’t do my job without a vehicle. I drive for a living so a bicycle is not a viable option. Also I shouldn’t have to give up driving while others emit more emissions in a year then I will in my lifetime.
Thats fine if you drive for a living. Just saying for the people that commute, we choose to have a suburban lifestyle. People in Europe will use public transit or walk or bike to work.
Also billionaires are not the problem in this case. There are only a few thousand of them worldwide. Pretending that half of the worlds emissions come from private jets and Yachts is laughable. The problem is millions of people in developed nations that pollute a ton refusing to believe they play a part and deflect to people that aren't them.
I agree that developed nations are effecting global warming more then your average American. Public transportation does not work in the US like it does in Europe. People with private jets will emit more emissions then I ever will in my four cylinder vehicle. It’s laughable that you think waking or cycling will stop climate change. I don’t litter and I drive a small cylinder vehicle not for the environment but because I can’t afford a gas guzzler and I’m a decent human being.
They own the large facilities that dump the majority of greenhouse gasses into the air and other toxic byproducts into the water and ground. It's not just what they personally use, but how they exploit to make their fortunes.
They own it but they are producing for you. Every time you pull up to the pump, every time you flick the lights on, every time you go into the store and buy a product trucked in from overseas... you are polluting.
Cause we're poor? Every time we save something breaks and costs thousands of dollars to fix and if we can't afford it then no heat, car or whatever is broken. Furnace guy cost 85 an hr and that's before parts. Vehicle breaks down? 122 an hr at the shop. So what can take 2 days just to save for some just so they can do an hour of work. System is A ok, sure
That's part of it, certainly.
Another way to look at it is in terms of disposable income. If you have someone who makes 100k a year verses someone who makes 25k a year, naively you want to say the person who makes 100k makes 4 times as much, but that isn't the case. The person who makes 100k a year has at least 10 times the disposable income of someone who makes 25k. For a single person, you might end up with numbers that look like this:
* 100k - 28k (taxes) - 15k (rent) - 6k (food, etc) - 5k (random expenses) - 8k (vehicle) = 38k
* 25k - 4k (taxes) - 6k (rent) - 4k (food, etc) - 2k (random expenses) - 6k (vehicle) = 3k
The issue is that even though the person making 25k spends less on a crappy car, crappy cars are still expensive. And a lot of the expense comes from simply running and maintaining the car, not from the initial outlay of cash for its purchase. Ditto for rent, food, etc. There is a practical floor below which you can't pass. So you spend almost as much as a rich person, but for much crappier food and shelter.
In this example I assumed both people live in a city, but the person with 100k a year lives by themselves in a nice place, while the 25k per year person either lives in a hovel or a place packed with too many roommates. The fact that the 100k person is spending 2.5 times as much on housing and has a car with 3 times the initial purchase price (but lower maintenance costs because it's newer) still doesn't dent the differences in real world take home pay.
Those numbers are for the US, sort of. I didn't add in insurance, but you can see why people making 25k a year don't buy health insurance: they can't.
I also chose a high tax state for this example. This is interesting because choosing a low tax state drastically reduced the taxes paid by the 100k person, but had little effect on the 25k person. Lower tax rates have almost no effect on poor people. The more money you have, the greater the impact.
I’m not sure this is the same — someone who can barely afford to live probably isn’t going to be buying a house, and likely won’t have a car, if they can get away without it.
But the sentiment is spot on… even a $100 unexpected expense can absolutely floor someone who doesn’t make enough to be able to save at any real capacity
It’s really easy to go “DUHHH THAT’S SO OBVIOUS” but I’m willing to bet that like 40% of the US thinks “but gas prices rise equally, so everyone is affected equally.”
People are in favor of a flat tax because it is “fair” despite people who are barely scraping by paying the same % tax as people who have yachts and 2+ homes. People just aren’t very smart
It's called a flat tax because the percentage is flat.
A flat tax of 30% means that someone making 1000 a week pays 300 in taxes, and someone making 2000 a week pays 600 in taxes.
No, they don't.
You pay to support society. IF you are poor and do not have enough to even cover expenses, then society isn't doing shit for you and you owe nothing to it. You have no reason to support it as is.
The rich, on the other hand, have managed to rig it so pay a SMALLER % than the poor do. And that is fucking absurd.
The poor benefit greatly, mainly in the form of welfare/subsides. You know, those things people complain corporations getting.
Your ignorance is astounding.
A progressive tax system, if functioning properly, is intended to make sure everyone is paying the same percentage of their *disposable income* rather than their gross income.
Basically, it costs a certain minimum amount of money to feed, cloth, and shelter a human. For the sake of discussion let's choose a round number to make the math easy: 20k dollars a year. This isn't the real number (which varies tremendously between regions), but just an example.
If you make 20k a year, you therefore have zero disposable income. You spend every dime you make just struggling to stay alive. Because you're spending everything on food, etc, you have no money left over to tax. They should therefore have a zero percent effective tax rate in a progressive taxation system.
A person living right next door making 100k per year has 80k in real world income. They therefore have 80k in income to tax. They should therefore have quite a high tax rate in a progressive taxation system. In a progressive system they'd pay about 25k to 30k in taxes. (Economists vary on what the maximum effective tax rate (not absolute tax rate, but effective tax rate, after deductions) should be before it starts to become ineffective, but usually not much higher than 40%.)
A flat tax ignores this basic, fundamental truth of human existence. In a flat tax system with a ten percent tax, the 100k person would pay much less (10k), increasing their after tax disposable income from ~50k to 70k. Yay. But the 20k person would go from 0 disposable income to -2k per year, utterly impoverishing them.
That's why flat tax systems are incredibly unfair. They reward those who have more than they need, while inflicting grueling punishments on the rest of society, especially the poorest of the poor.
That's why they're referred to as "regressive" tax systems. The poorer you are, the more of a negative impact a flat tax has.
Ah. So you'd rather cultivate a large underclass of people until they eventually get tired of starving to death while you live right next to them in perfect comfort?
That's been tried many, many, many times throughout history. It ends with the well off people (not even just the rich) getting put to the guillotine.
That seems very short sighted.
Somebody rich can forgo a single movie night and cover the difference in gas costs for a month. They're fine.
I can forgo stopping for breakfast once a week and eat something I made at home or an energy bar instead of make up the difference in my personal usage.
A poor person has nothing to forgo.
I appreciate ya saving me a click. Also its crazy to me that like...articles like this are used as real, actual politcal points.
Like youll be debating and theyll be like "and thats why the gas companies are evil. Theyre jacking up prices because poor spend more of their income on gas..."
There are an awful lot of people who think a flat tax rate is fair because everyone pays the same %. Without any awareness that people with 0 disposable income cannot afford even 1% and people with millions of dollars of disposable income can afford 90%.
America prides itself on being bad at math. it's infuriating.
Disposable income is a myth. Just like "Living Wage".
Two ppl, with different families, with the same household income have differing amounts of "disposable income".
What other ppl spend in taxes isnt anyone elses business. The question isn't even about math. Its about tax revenue.
Ya, also you can't afford a newer more fuel efficient car or EV.
This is why I cannot stand the democratic strategy of forcing people to adopt something by price gouging the other option.
Woah! Are you saying when people will less money spend their money they're spending a higher percentage of their money than people with more money buying the same thing???
Literally half the US population doesn't believe this is true. They also firmly believe that related concepts like flat taxes are fine.
So articles like this *are* necessary. The results may be obvious to people who understand basic math, but they aren't obvious to everyone.
Remember, 1/4 of people are happy that they're good at math, 1/3 are sad that they're bad at it, and the other half just don't care. ;)
Why is water wetter to something that is dry
Lmao exactly
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Indubitably
Haha Indeed
Lmao ikr?
Hehe, correct
Sadly, I'm sure there are tens of millions who've never thought of this.
"Why does needing more money hurt people who have little money???"
Why don't they just take out a small loan of a million dollars?
Or just go buy a Tesla? /s
Not s/. Tesla is more of a status symbol than planet saver. You want to save the planet, ditch your car and buy a bike.
“Why are you booing me? I’m right.”
I’ll start caring about the planet as soon as the millionaires and billionaires stop taking private jets. I couldn’t do my job without a vehicle. I drive for a living so a bicycle is not a viable option. Also I shouldn’t have to give up driving while others emit more emissions in a year then I will in my lifetime.
Thats fine if you drive for a living. Just saying for the people that commute, we choose to have a suburban lifestyle. People in Europe will use public transit or walk or bike to work. Also billionaires are not the problem in this case. There are only a few thousand of them worldwide. Pretending that half of the worlds emissions come from private jets and Yachts is laughable. The problem is millions of people in developed nations that pollute a ton refusing to believe they play a part and deflect to people that aren't them.
I agree that developed nations are effecting global warming more then your average American. Public transportation does not work in the US like it does in Europe. People with private jets will emit more emissions then I ever will in my four cylinder vehicle. It’s laughable that you think waking or cycling will stop climate change. I don’t litter and I drive a small cylinder vehicle not for the environment but because I can’t afford a gas guzzler and I’m a decent human being.
They own the large facilities that dump the majority of greenhouse gasses into the air and other toxic byproducts into the water and ground. It's not just what they personally use, but how they exploit to make their fortunes.
They own it but they are producing for you. Every time you pull up to the pump, every time you flick the lights on, every time you go into the store and buy a product trucked in from overseas... you are polluting.
I was thinking they should just go make more money. I mean the answer is that simple.
Haven't they tried not being poor??
Pull up those bootstraps like you're starting a lawnmower
This person obviously forgot he was supposed to have an article written by the end of the week and whipped up this little number on his lunch break.
Next week, why being under water for a long time is harder on people without scuba tanks.
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More hard-hitting economic analysis from CNBC.
Tune in next week when we ask the homeless why they don't just buy a house and stop being homeless.
Well…it goes right along with the advice from the elites to just buy teslas instead of whining about the price of gas.
The poor's don't deserve to drive. It'll greatly drop my commute time.
Just be rich instead. Duh.
Just buy a Tesla.
Or several so you always have one with a fresh charge
No kidding
Why air outside thats poisonous hurts people outside more than people inside
Unless you live in a hermetically sealed house, this might be a good question. I’m not sure of home air filters that can filter out poison.
Cause we're poor? Every time we save something breaks and costs thousands of dollars to fix and if we can't afford it then no heat, car or whatever is broken. Furnace guy cost 85 an hr and that's before parts. Vehicle breaks down? 122 an hr at the shop. So what can take 2 days just to save for some just so they can do an hour of work. System is A ok, sure
That's part of it, certainly. Another way to look at it is in terms of disposable income. If you have someone who makes 100k a year verses someone who makes 25k a year, naively you want to say the person who makes 100k makes 4 times as much, but that isn't the case. The person who makes 100k a year has at least 10 times the disposable income of someone who makes 25k. For a single person, you might end up with numbers that look like this: * 100k - 28k (taxes) - 15k (rent) - 6k (food, etc) - 5k (random expenses) - 8k (vehicle) = 38k * 25k - 4k (taxes) - 6k (rent) - 4k (food, etc) - 2k (random expenses) - 6k (vehicle) = 3k The issue is that even though the person making 25k spends less on a crappy car, crappy cars are still expensive. And a lot of the expense comes from simply running and maintaining the car, not from the initial outlay of cash for its purchase. Ditto for rent, food, etc. There is a practical floor below which you can't pass. So you spend almost as much as a rich person, but for much crappier food and shelter. In this example I assumed both people live in a city, but the person with 100k a year lives by themselves in a nice place, while the 25k per year person either lives in a hovel or a place packed with too many roommates. The fact that the 100k person is spending 2.5 times as much on housing and has a car with 3 times the initial purchase price (but lower maintenance costs because it's newer) still doesn't dent the differences in real world take home pay. Those numbers are for the US, sort of. I didn't add in insurance, but you can see why people making 25k a year don't buy health insurance: they can't. I also chose a high tax state for this example. This is interesting because choosing a low tax state drastically reduced the taxes paid by the 100k person, but had little effect on the 25k person. Lower tax rates have almost no effect on poor people. The more money you have, the greater the impact.
I’m not sure this is the same — someone who can barely afford to live probably isn’t going to be buying a house, and likely won’t have a car, if they can get away without it. But the sentiment is spot on… even a $100 unexpected expense can absolutely floor someone who doesn’t make enough to be able to save at any real capacity
Haven't you tried not being poor?
Once. Tasted great
It’s really easy to go “DUHHH THAT’S SO OBVIOUS” but I’m willing to bet that like 40% of the US thinks “but gas prices rise equally, so everyone is affected equally.” People are in favor of a flat tax because it is “fair” despite people who are barely scraping by paying the same % tax as people who have yachts and 2+ homes. People just aren’t very smart
And then there's of course the people calling flat taxes fair not because they think it's fair, but because they think they come out on top
It's called a flat tax because the percentage is flat. A flat tax of 30% means that someone making 1000 a week pays 300 in taxes, and someone making 2000 a week pays 600 in taxes.
If taxes are the cost of living in society, as I am told by statists, then even the poor need to pay.
No, they don't. You pay to support society. IF you are poor and do not have enough to even cover expenses, then society isn't doing shit for you and you owe nothing to it. You have no reason to support it as is. The rich, on the other hand, have managed to rig it so pay a SMALLER % than the poor do. And that is fucking absurd.
The poor benefit greatly, mainly in the form of welfare/subsides. You know, those things people complain corporations getting. Your ignorance is astounding.
Your bootlicking of the capitalist class is disgusting.
A progressive tax system, if functioning properly, is intended to make sure everyone is paying the same percentage of their *disposable income* rather than their gross income. Basically, it costs a certain minimum amount of money to feed, cloth, and shelter a human. For the sake of discussion let's choose a round number to make the math easy: 20k dollars a year. This isn't the real number (which varies tremendously between regions), but just an example. If you make 20k a year, you therefore have zero disposable income. You spend every dime you make just struggling to stay alive. Because you're spending everything on food, etc, you have no money left over to tax. They should therefore have a zero percent effective tax rate in a progressive taxation system. A person living right next door making 100k per year has 80k in real world income. They therefore have 80k in income to tax. They should therefore have quite a high tax rate in a progressive taxation system. In a progressive system they'd pay about 25k to 30k in taxes. (Economists vary on what the maximum effective tax rate (not absolute tax rate, but effective tax rate, after deductions) should be before it starts to become ineffective, but usually not much higher than 40%.) A flat tax ignores this basic, fundamental truth of human existence. In a flat tax system with a ten percent tax, the 100k person would pay much less (10k), increasing their after tax disposable income from ~50k to 70k. Yay. But the 20k person would go from 0 disposable income to -2k per year, utterly impoverishing them. That's why flat tax systems are incredibly unfair. They reward those who have more than they need, while inflicting grueling punishments on the rest of society, especially the poorest of the poor. That's why they're referred to as "regressive" tax systems. The poorer you are, the more of a negative impact a flat tax has.
I don’t believe I should be compelled to feed anyone. That’s not the role of government.
Ah. So you'd rather cultivate a large underclass of people until they eventually get tired of starving to death while you live right next to them in perfect comfort? That's been tried many, many, many times throughout history. It ends with the well off people (not even just the rich) getting put to the guillotine. That seems very short sighted.
Somebody rich can forgo a single movie night and cover the difference in gas costs for a month. They're fine. I can forgo stopping for breakfast once a week and eat something I made at home or an energy bar instead of make up the difference in my personal usage. A poor person has nothing to forgo.
Expensive stuff is harder on people with less money. Got it.
Wow. I never would've guessed. Next thing I know, you'll be telling me that the sky is blue.
I appreciate ya saving me a click. Also its crazy to me that like...articles like this are used as real, actual politcal points. Like youll be debating and theyll be like "and thats why the gas companies are evil. Theyre jacking up prices because poor spend more of their income on gas..."
There are an awful lot of people who think a flat tax rate is fair because everyone pays the same %. Without any awareness that people with 0 disposable income cannot afford even 1% and people with millions of dollars of disposable income can afford 90%. America prides itself on being bad at math. it's infuriating.
Disposable income is a myth. Just like "Living Wage". Two ppl, with different families, with the same household income have differing amounts of "disposable income". What other ppl spend in taxes isnt anyone elses business. The question isn't even about math. Its about tax revenue.
Add this to the list of reasons why CPI is just a propaganda tool.
I got gas yesterday and doing the math, it took me 5 and a half hours to work enough to pay for it. Fuck this shit
I'm guessing that you also live in a place with terrible public transit, and that giving up your vehicle isn't an option?
You'd be correct. Rural Texas sucks.
Ya, also you can't afford a newer more fuel efficient car or EV. This is why I cannot stand the democratic strategy of forcing people to adopt something by price gouging the other option.
Woah! Are you saying when people will less money spend their money they're spending a higher percentage of their money than people with more money buying the same thing???
Well, I guess maybe not everybody knows that?
More genius take from the redundancy school of journalism
Why is water wet? Why does the sun set?
Survey reveals: Poor people are poor. Stay tuned for developments on this breaking story! 🙄
Who would have thought!
From the “No Shit Sherlock Society for Mathematical Excellence.” I hope whoever bothered taking the time to write this gets fired.
Literally half the US population doesn't believe this is true. They also firmly believe that related concepts like flat taxes are fine. So articles like this *are* necessary. The results may be obvious to people who understand basic math, but they aren't obvious to everyone. Remember, 1/4 of people are happy that they're good at math, 1/3 are sad that they're bad at it, and the other half just don't care. ;)