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Random Politics Thread

Totenkindly

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It's the same thing as with tax brackets, which many people don't seem to grasp -- that the high rates being discussed for people with a high rate of income only apply to the part of the income falling within that bracket. Across one's entire income, the increasing tax percentage increases only apply to the part of income falling within that particular bracket. The max rate is not applied to one's entire income.

So it's not like someone is paying 28% (or 40%, or higher) on all their salary -- it's only for the amount over the minimum for that particular tax bracket. Meanwhile, they are just paying the designated tax rate for each portion below that. Visualized, it's a curved line as income increases.

Much of these tax increases only impact people who earn (or would receive) more money than most people. Maybe it puts it in perspective with what Coriolis says -- Trump basically gave a bunch of people leaving an estate from $3.5 million to almost $12 million a huge tax break... basically rich people. Needless to say, the huge majority of us will not be in that bracket.
 

Jonny

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It's the same thing as with tax brackets, which many people don't seem to grasp -- that the high rates being discussed for people with a high rate of income only apply to the part of the income falling within that bracket. Across one's entire income, the increasing tax percentage increases only apply to the part of income falling within that particular bracket. The max rate is not applied to one's entire income.

So it's not like someone is paying 28% (or 40%, or higher) on all their salary -- it's only for the amount over the minimum for that particular tax bracket. Meanwhile, they are just paying the designated tax rate for each portion below that. Visualized, it's a curved line as income increases.

Much of these tax increases only impact people who earn (or would receive) more money than most people. Maybe it puts it in perspective with what Coriolis says -- Trump basically gave a bunch of people leaving an estate from $3.5 million to almost $12 million a huge tax break... basically rich people. Needless to say, the huge majority of us will not be in that bracket.

Yes, I've also noticed this problem.

Incidentally, several years ago I created an infographic showing the relative tax burden of a few alternative federal income flat tax proposals on various income levels. This took a bit of work because I needed to review DOL and other publicly available data to get counts for the distributions of incomes in order to create an "apples to apples" comparison. Essentially solving for the required tax rates needed if we wanted to achieve the same revenue using a flat tax. The blue part is their take home (ignoring other tax obligations) income on a monthly basis.

af1kXbo.jpg
 

Red Memories

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It's the same thing as with tax brackets, which many people don't seem to grasp -- that the high rates being discussed for people with a high rate of income only apply to the part of the income falling within that bracket. Across one's entire income, the increasing tax percentage increases only apply to the part of income falling within that particular bracket. The max rate is not applied to one's entire income.

So it's not like someone is paying 28% (or 40%, or higher) on all their salary -- it's only for the amount over the minimum for that particular tax bracket. Meanwhile, they are just paying the designated tax rate for each portion below that. Visualized, it's a curved line as income increases.

Much of these tax increases only impact people who earn (or would receive) more money than most people. Maybe it puts it in perspective with what Coriolis says -- Trump basically gave a bunch of people leaving an estate from $3.5 million to almost $12 million a huge tax break... basically rich people. Needless to say, the huge majority of us will not be in that bracket.

so...the equity within this home is not really even hitting a million within estate value, and I don't think our actual estate reaches to 1 million dollars in value.

Should this even mildly concern me?

I'm just scared of losing the house because the cost of purchasing a home here keeps going up and we don't have a lot of savings.
 

Totenkindly

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so...the equity within this home is not really even hitting a million within estate value, and I don't think our actual estate reaches to 1 million dollars in value.

Should this even mildly concern me?

I'm just scared of losing the house because the cost of purchasing a home here keeps going up and we don't have a lot of savings.

basically this wouldn't apply because you haven't met the minimum.

It is definitely something to think about ahead of time, you definitely don't want to lose the house; but I think people not understanding how this works and then reacting online (so the fears proliferate) has caused problems.

These kind of laws are usually just seeking to get more tax from people with more money, while not impacting the average person. The main concern is just understanding where that line is and where you are compared to it.
 

ceecee

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It's the same thing as with tax brackets, which many people don't seem to grasp -- that the high rates being discussed for people with a high rate of income only apply to the part of the income falling within that bracket. Across one's entire income, the increasing tax percentage increases only apply to the part of income falling within that particular bracket. The max rate is not applied to one's entire income.

So it's not like someone is paying 28% (or 40%, or higher) on all their salary -- it's only for the amount over the minimum for that particular tax bracket. Meanwhile, they are just paying the designated tax rate for each portion below that. Visualized, it's a curved line as income increases.

Much of these tax increases only impact people who earn (or would receive) more money than most people. Maybe it puts it in perspective with what Coriolis says -- Trump basically gave a bunch of people leaving an estate from $3.5 million to almost $12 million a huge tax break... basically rich people. Needless to say, the huge majority of us will not be in that bracket.

Exactly. But it's really hard to get people to understand this. Same with the very poor. They don't file taxes as there is no reason for them to file taxes in the current system. That means they're ineligible to receive the tax credits that the Dems love to implement because they adore their means tested bullshit. This was all done deliberately btw so that the very poor with children are invisible from labor numbers, from unemployment and also any kind of help.
 

ceecee

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Jackson, Mississippi, water crisis brings to light long-standing problems in city

After more than two weeks without clean running water, Katasha Johnson saw a slow trickle dribbling down a faucet in her home on the west side of Jackson, Mississippi, on Tuesday.

But the brown drip didn't feel like a reprieve for Johnson, 38, who lost water after back-to-back winter storms slammed the city and its century-old water infrastructure last month.

"It's not enough to do anything with, and it doesn't even look safe," said Johnson, the mother of children ages 9, 6 and 3.
 

Red Memories

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yesterday grandpa was saying how the new stimulus unfairly distributed the state money, saying our state would receive a lower amount than New York and etc. and he didn't like it when I gave him some common sense counterarguments.

1. I feel like anyone with a brain could put this together but NY and CA and such have way more people to care for and manage than Idaho.

2. Our state is mostly open. Most people are at work and doing their thing. We don't need as much funding as a state still heavily closed down.

Isn't??? that common sense???
 

ceecee

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yesterday grandpa was saying how the new stimulus unfairly distributed the state money, saying our state would receive a lower amount than New York and etc. and he didn't like it when I gave him some common sense counterarguments.

1. I feel like anyone with a brain could put this together but NY and CA and such have way more people to care for and manage than Idaho.

2. Our state is mostly open. Most people are at work and doing their thing. We don't need as much funding as a state still heavily closed down.

Isn't??? that common sense???

Yes of course. I don't think there are even 2 million people in the entire state of Idaho. NYC itself has like 8 million people. LA I think close to 4 million. He is really getting his head filled with a lot of disinformation but you are doing the right thing by questioning it.
 

Virtual ghost

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yesterday grandpa was saying how the new stimulus unfairly distributed the state money, saying our state would receive a lower amount than New York and etc. and he didn't like it when I gave him some common sense counterarguments.

1. I feel like anyone with a brain could put this together but NY and CA and such have way more people to care for and manage than Idaho.

2. Our state is mostly open. Most people are at work and doing their thing. We don't need as much funding as a state still heavily closed down.

Isn't??? that common sense???



The first one is evidently a common sense, but the second one can be tricky depending on all of the circumstances.


1. Just if you are open that doesn't meant that your income is normal (or even close to normal).
2. Having too many things open can visibly rise infection numbers. Therefore at this point it can be better to have some things closed and bailed (if too many people are passing through).
3. US was fairly broke even before this mess, so giving every person money probably isn't a bad thing however you turn it. Especially since after a few hands pretty much all of this money will come into some hands that actually need it at this point.
 

Jaguar

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I actually never read dr. seuss as a child. this may shock some people.

man that last one is...in a children's book?

No, it is not. The drawing posted in this thread appeared in the satirical magazine, Judge. In 1929. He was 25 years old when he created that cartoon.

Michelle Obama read Seuss books to children as first lady and Barack Obama once stated: America loves its doctors, from Dr. Kildare to Doc Watson to Dr. J. However, no doctor earns more affection than Dr. Seuss, author and illustrator of such children’s classics as “The Cat in the Hat” and “Horton Hears a Who!” But of course someone with a bizarre sense of humor and a political agenda could come along and suggest the Obamas need schooled on racism.
 

Lark

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I recently got a new device and have been updating some of my apps and clearly my old device was very old as I've seen nothing like the cloud, networked, interconnected tech that is operating on the new one, so many authorizations that are required to actually make things work which appear to give corporations complete access to my information, data, photos, name it.

I tended to think anyone worrying about this was stressing about nothing but then I was using out dated tech which did not appear to even interface with all of this. Now I think I can tell what was concerning people. Like its not enough to make me want to stop using devices but the struggle is real.
 

Totenkindly

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It gets kind of old to hear "cancel culture" bitching from a cultural niche that has always been about canceling things.

Amy Grant is going more commercial on her "Unguarded" album (1985)? She's crossing over without the cross! Don't buy her albums! Amy Grant is divorcing her husband after a decade of marriage counseling and her husband's drug problems? Don't buy her albums! Sandi Patti gets a divorce? Cancel her! (Let's not get started on what artistic music, shows, films, and whatever else are typically blacklisted by the evangelicals.)

But it's always been companies too. Proctor and Gamble is run by satanists (look at that moon and stars on their bottles!) -- don't buy their products! This store or that store carries a product you don't like? Boycott it!

Hell, even a few years ago, they tried to cancel Target for supporting transpeople in using the bathrooms that aligned with their gender identity.

They've been canceling shit for decades and have been super-quick to jump on the Cancel bandwagon. (One could even argue that current cancel practices are in part a trick picked up from their own particular subculture over the years!) To anyone who has experienced all of their shenanigans for years, this is all just noise. I guess it only is getting traction with people who don't know their history.
 

ceecee

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It gets kind of old to hear "cancel culture" bitching from a cultural niche that has always been about canceling things.

Amy Grant is going more commercial on her "Unguarded" album (1985)? She's crossing over without the cross! Don't buy her albums! Amy Grant is divorcing her husband after a decade of marriage counseling and her husband's drug problems? Don't buy her albums! Sandi Patti gets a divorce? Cancel her! (Let's not get started on what artistic music, shows, films, and whatever else are typically blacklisted by the evangelicals.)

But it's always been companies too. Proctor and Gamble is run by satanists (look at that moon and stars on their bottles!) -- don't buy their products! This store or that store carries a product you don't like? Boycott it!

Hell, even a few years ago, they tried to cancel Target for supporting transpeople in using the bathrooms that aligned with their gender identity.

They've been canceling shit for decades and have been super-quick to jump on the Cancel bandwagon. (One could even argue that current cancel practices are in part a trick picked up from their own particular subculture over the years!) To anyone who has experienced all of their shenanigans for years, this is all just noise. I guess it only is getting traction with people who don't know their history.

Cancel culture is this boogeyman that people have come up with to explain away bad behavior and when their faves experienced consequences.” While this quote from Roxane Gay is totally true, it's even more about certain people and their inability to handle even the smallest change. That doesn't even impact them in any way, it's simply change. That said I think cancel culture should be called what it actually is - consequence culture.

I do have to admit to loving the direction the Dr. Seuss thing is going.

Buy up all the Dr. Seuss books you possibly can to own the left! Post idiot memes and everything else to voice how much I hate change and consequence!

Financially rewarding the publishing company that pulled these books and are taking a more woke approach to things is a great idea! Good job! :D
 

Lark

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Parents encouraging kids to burn masks on Idaho Capitol steps.

https://twitter.com/mrolmos/status/1368261041696632832

But it's just a differing political view....

See to be honest, at this point, if I could be sure that the consequences would not spread far and wide beyond them I'd say let the virus rip, they can all wonder on their death beds if they where mistaken about something.
 

Lark

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It gets kind of old to hear "cancel culture" bitching from a cultural niche that has always been about canceling things.

Amy Grant is going more commercial on her "Unguarded" album (1985)? She's crossing over without the cross! Don't buy her albums! Amy Grant is divorcing her husband after a decade of marriage counseling and her husband's drug problems? Don't buy her albums! Sandi Patti gets a divorce? Cancel her! (Let's not get started on what artistic music, shows, films, and whatever else are typically blacklisted by the evangelicals.)

But it's always been companies too. Proctor and Gamble is run by satanists (look at that moon and stars on their bottles!) -- don't buy their products! This store or that store carries a product you don't like? Boycott it!

Hell, even a few years ago, they tried to cancel Target for supporting transpeople in using the bathrooms that aligned with their gender identity.

They've been canceling shit for decades and have been super-quick to jump on the Cancel bandwagon. (One could even argue that current cancel practices are in part a trick picked up from their own particular subculture over the years!) To anyone who has experienced all of their shenanigans for years, this is all just noise. I guess it only is getting traction with people who don't know their history.

All this stuff is cultural wrangles anyway, I know it matters to a lot of people left and right but honestly it just reminds me of kids arguing in the playground about which pokemon are best.

All of it feels like a huge diversionary tactic and everyone is falling for it. The whole time there's people making a literal killing.
 

Lark

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Cancel culture is this boogeyman that people have come up with to explain away bad behavior and when their faves experienced consequences.” While this quote from Roxane Gay is totally true, it's even more about certain people and their inability to handle even the smallest change. That doesn't even impact them in any way, it's simply change. That said I think cancel culture should be called what it actually is - consequence culture.

I do have to admit to loving the direction the Dr. Seuss thing is going.

Buy up all the Dr. Seuss books you possibly can to own the left! Post idiot memes and everything else to voice how much I hate change and consequence!

Financially rewarding the publishing company that pulled these books and are taking a more woke approach to things is a great idea! Good job! :D

I dont like the ranting and raving about this because, like all the other times and broadly similar topics its almost like its all carried out to a highly predictable script, its a totally tired charade. Just how ridiculous the alternate ramping up of things will get isnt even amusing or diverting anymore.

The only thing I would say is that while there may be a certain sort of consequentialism at play, in part, questions about whether or not consequentialism of this kind should exist is often missed out altogether. I dont like censure and both the left and right seem to be huge fans of it right now, in the US and globally, its just different things that they would like to censure. Honestly, I think some of the flaming liberals and raving conservatives are liable to have more in common with each other than the average "disinterested" individual.

I do agree, in some ways about what you say in terms of "doesnt even impact them". A lot of the issues which become incendiary do seem like they only relate to a small or shrinking minority of persons. Less and less of public life and public discourse seems to involve anything resembling a universal/social. I find that disappointing. I dont care about a lot of these niche politics and I dont think I should have to, whether its the left or the right telling me its something I should be losing sleep about and really, I wont. Though, I do wonder how long its going to go on until politics gets back to being about the distribution and creation of wealth instead of all this desperate diversionary tactics.
 

Virtual ghost

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Youtube offered me a video.



I mean this is obviously sad and the disgrace at the same time.


But the state of genuine social collapse isn't something that will fix itself (and I am saying this as the guy from the country that got leveled by war a number of times).
Therefore for me the right approach would be that the central government makes a budget of 100 million for every neighborhood or rural town that is in genuine state of collapse (or you can make the math based on how many people live there). While the government should also define the worst 1000 neighborhoods country wide (what makes a 100 billion bill in the end). For the government that isn't that big money but for the locals it would be a game changer. However the budget shouldn't just be handled to the local authorities or people since those will almost surely make a large mismanagement. In other words since there are gazillion of half needed departments in the government you may as well have one specialized for rebuilding completely collapsed parts of the country (if you don't have it already).



Therefore the money must be pumped into concrete projects locally:
Rebuilding of local schools, police, fire department, hospitals and the basic infrastructure like the ones for water and electricity.
You should hire a number of locals, equip them properly and give them the task to gather all the trash that is around the place.
Also you should make sure that the garbage has systematic solution and that it doesn't pile up again (educate people if needed).
Make sure that police has what it needs to remove the worst of the people from the place, what includes "scanning" of the local authorities as well.
You should make a push to convince people to spend at what is left of local economy in the terms of ownership, so that people give money to each other (in order to start investment cycle).
Whenever it is possible spend your budget for the area in a way that locals get a job and get paid. Since that directly regenerates the area and returns it into the bloodstream of the country.
Make sure that 10-20% of the budget ends up in the infrastructure of local businesses that are kinda on the edge.
Through local media and community organizations you should start the campaign to reduce all kinds of addictions. Since in the end the locals have to sort this out in implementation.



I mean the problem is that these kinds of areas are basically infectious by nature, therefore socio-economic problems usually quickly spread to the surrounding areas. Therefore the best solution is to actually fix such areas. While the neighborhood that is back on track will eventually repay this through taxes, as well as surrounding areas that probably wouldn't fall into the hole. After all this is basically for what taxation exists.
 

ceecee

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I dont like the ranting and raving about this because, like all the other times and broadly similar topics its almost like its all carried out to a highly predictable script, its a totally tired charade. Just how ridiculous the alternate ramping up of things will get isnt even amusing or diverting anymore.

The only thing I would say is that while there may be a certain sort of consequentialism at play, in part, questions about whether or not consequentialism of this kind should exist is often missed out altogether. I dont like censure and both the left and right seem to be huge fans of it right now, in the US and globally, its just different things that they would like to censure. Honestly, I think some of the flaming liberals and raving conservatives are liable to have more in common with each other than the average "disinterested" individual.

I do agree, in some ways about what you say in terms of "doesnt even impact them". A lot of the issues which become incendiary do seem like they only relate to a small or shrinking minority of persons. Less and less of public life and public discourse seems to involve anything resembling a universal/social. I find that disappointing. I dont care about a lot of these niche politics and I dont think I should have to, whether its the left or the right telling me its something I should be losing sleep about and really, I wont. Though, I do wonder how long its going to go on until politics gets back to being about the distribution and creation of wealth instead of all this desperate diversionary tactics.

I hear this frequently and I'm pretty convinced the people saying it do so for their own comfort. As in - I'm not part of either of these groups. I'm center/moderate. I'm good. They're bad. While I think it could be fear of getting involved or fear what others might say - I believe they are terrified of taking a position of any kind.
 
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