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On November 09 2017 02:05 Velr wrote:
No middle class lives there anymore and i am not talking about combined earnings.
so i guess this is interesting to me if anyone else is interested in discussing. i consider myself pretty ultra typical middle class, but you’re claiming essentially because i was willing to move to a city to pursue my career that i’m not. My opinion is that the scale of ‘middle class’ has to move with the cost of living. do you not? or perhaps you’re not familiar with how extremely the cost of living varies in our cities?
and wrt my earlier post and GH’s confusion of relevance, i was trying to tie in exactly my opinion that the ‘middle class’ is subjective relative to the cost of living. if someone out there making 20k/year considers themselves middle class, i can attest on the opposite side of the spectrum that people living at least around DC are pushing the 200k/year household and still on that middle class line. and certainly, DC isn’t the most expensive area out there, so there will be even more extreme examples for other perspectives. but this is
mine.
certainly they are close to the line, and have more expendable cash than most, but they are definitely not rich.
ticklishmusic has more succinctly and accurately conveyed what
i’m feeling down below.
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On November 09 2017 01:24 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2017 15:55 IgnE wrote:
I appreciate your taking the time to read and think about what I wrote and acknowledge a certain open-mindedness on your part.
That being said my opinion here is that you are thinking about sovereignty and "the social contract" in the wrongs ways. Let me get around to reading Leviathan before I try and flesh out exactly why that is, though. Sovereignty is a tricky thing. I'm still trying to work it out. I'm pretty sure that Leviathan is not going to give you the answers that you're looking for. As I was digesting your original post and considering a response, one of the things that struck me is the degree to which the cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School rejects (expressly or implicitly) the core liberal precepts of Enlightenment thinking. If you think about it and consider the vastly different conclusions that Marxism and classic liberalism reach, this makes perfect sense. But here's the key point that I think that you should take some time to consider: do we really want to reject and destroy the intellectual foundation for the argument that individual liberty is an absolute? Show nested quote +I will note two things that caught my eye as needing immediate correction.
1) You said that both fascism and communism were totalitarian. It is true that both Fascism and Communism were totalitarian. But those were only historically contingent political formations. I would argue that only one social structure necessarily tends towards the herd instinct, and the desire to have someone else legislate life. A communistic social structure demands active participation in the political sphere, in the truly Greek sense, as action among equals. What the revolutionary communists of the 20th century carried with them was the fascizing elements carried by the man of ressentiment. Well, we're still waiting for someone to figure how to safely and equitably get to communist utopia. Until someone figures out how to circumvent the seemingly necessary period of tyranny (which never goes well), I'm not sure how useful appeals to this utopia are. Show nested quote +2) You say that "values" are often at issue in American politics, and choose abortion, as the exemplary "value" issue. On the one hand, there is some sense in this. The religious fervor of the pro-life crowd does not seem directly tied to economics as disciplinarized by the university. On the other hand, however, state intrusion into abortion is a prime example of the exercise of sovereign power on "bare life." It is police power (broadly conceived here as the networks of institutions, laws, social codes, and actual policemen) exercised in the matter of abortion/birth control that is one of the most clear examples of state biopower, dictating what individuals can and can't do with their bodies, how they are to conduct their sexual lives, and to whom or to what they owe certain kinds of legal obligations. Keep in mind here that economics comes from oikos (household) and nemein/nomos (distribute, dwell, possess, law). Abortion is a biopolitical issue in the sense that it's the intrusion of sovereign power into private household ways of life, and it is an economic issue, in the Arendtian Greek sense, in that it is the expansion of a private household issue that would have been prepolitical into the public realm, where administration of the national household (demographic control, birth rates, ensuring a female population of caretakers) has subsumed the properly political. If you're going to take this broad of a view of "economics," then yeah, every political question does become one of economics because you have effectively eliminated the dichotomy between economic politics and non-economic politics. If we accept that exercise of the police power is an "economic" issue, then it is rather hard for me think of what political issue is not an economic issue.
I know its hard for you to think of a political issue that is not an economic issue. I made that a key point in my first post. But in the case of abortion, where it's about state control over individual bodies, I think you see the point, at least in relation to the concept of biopolitics and the reduction of human beings to bare life. You know what's not an economic issue? Display of confederate statues.
You were the one who brought up the Hobbesian "war of all against all," although I admit that it is not far from any discussion of Western sovereignty. As for the line "do we really want to reject and destroy the intellectual foundation for the argument that individual liberty is an absolute?" I think I am making an argument that individual liberty, properly conceived, is the goal of enlightened society. That's why I was attacking your conception of individual liberty.
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In my mind, home ownership (home prices are a rough proxy of the COL) is probably the defining middle class characteristic. The middle class is generally composed of those who CAN own a home (some may choose to rent), but they're going to have to work for it and take out a mortgage. There are exceptions like SF or NY where home ownership is going to be more of a stretch due to a crazy market.
Generally speaking, in most metro areas $100k is going to be decent living for one person. However, if they have some weird expenses or dependents, then they're going to still have to be pretty careful with those dollars. It's unlikely they'll be paycheck to paycheck, but few will be taking an annual trip to Europe.
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On November 09 2017 02:14 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 01:24 xDaunt wrote:On November 08 2017 15:55 IgnE wrote:
I appreciate your taking the time to read and think about what I wrote and acknowledge a certain open-mindedness on your part.
That being said my opinion here is that you are thinking about sovereignty and "the social contract" in the wrongs ways. Let me get around to reading Leviathan before I try and flesh out exactly why that is, though. Sovereignty is a tricky thing. I'm still trying to work it out. I'm pretty sure that Leviathan is not going to give you the answers that you're looking for. As I was digesting your original post and considering a response, one of the things that struck me is the degree to which the cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School rejects (expressly or implicitly) the core liberal precepts of Enlightenment thinking. If you think about it and consider the vastly different conclusions that Marxism and classic liberalism reach, this makes perfect sense. But here's the key point that I think that you should take some time to consider: do we really want to reject and destroy the intellectual foundation for the argument that individual liberty is an absolute? I will note two things that caught my eye as needing immediate correction.
1) You said that both fascism and communism were totalitarian. It is true that both Fascism and Communism were totalitarian. But those were only historically contingent political formations. I would argue that only one social structure necessarily tends towards the herd instinct, and the desire to have someone else legislate life. A communistic social structure demands active participation in the political sphere, in the truly Greek sense, as action among equals. What the revolutionary communists of the 20th century carried with them was the fascizing elements carried by the man of ressentiment. Well, we're still waiting for someone to figure how to safely and equitably get to communist utopia. Until someone figures out how to circumvent the seemingly necessary period of tyranny (which never goes well), I'm not sure how useful appeals to this utopia are. 2) You say that "values" are often at issue in American politics, and choose abortion, as the exemplary "value" issue. On the one hand, there is some sense in this. The religious fervor of the pro-life crowd does not seem directly tied to economics as disciplinarized by the university. On the other hand, however, state intrusion into abortion is a prime example of the exercise of sovereign power on "bare life." It is police power (broadly conceived here as the networks of institutions, laws, social codes, and actual policemen) exercised in the matter of abortion/birth control that is one of the most clear examples of state biopower, dictating what individuals can and can't do with their bodies, how they are to conduct their sexual lives, and to whom or to what they owe certain kinds of legal obligations. Keep in mind here that economics comes from oikos (household) and nemein/nomos (distribute, dwell, possess, law). Abortion is a biopolitical issue in the sense that it's the intrusion of sovereign power into private household ways of life, and it is an economic issue, in the Arendtian Greek sense, in that it is the expansion of a private household issue that would have been prepolitical into the public realm, where administration of the national household (demographic control, birth rates, ensuring a female population of caretakers) has subsumed the properly political. If you're going to take this broad of a view of "economics," then yeah, every political question does become one of economics because you have effectively eliminated the dichotomy between economic politics and non-economic politics. If we accept that exercise of the police power is an "economic" issue, then it is rather hard for me think of what political issue is not an economic issue. I know its hard for you to think of a political issue that is not an economic issue. I made that a key point in my first post. But in the case of abortion, where it's about state control over individual bodies, I think you see the point, at least in relation to the concept of biopolitics and the reduction of human beings to bare life. You know what's not an economic issue? Display of confederate statues. You were the one who brought up the Hobbesian "war of all against all," although I admit that it is not far from any discussion of Western sovereignty. As for the line "do we really want to reject and destroy the intellectual foundation for the argument that individual liberty is an absolute?" I think I am making an argument that individual liberty, properly conceived, is the goal of enlightened society. That's why I was attacking your conception of individual liberty.
I understand that this is your goal, but do you not see the danger in defining individual liberty as being dependent upon the State as opposed to being an inalienable right?
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I agree the term "middle class" is pretty meaningless in the US, other than everybody thinks of themselves as it (except the owners).
But I lean more towards Velr's take that you just have a city of (something higher than) middle class incomes rather than adjusting "middle class" to describe lifestyles and QoL amenities simply unavailable to people who can't afford to live there.
To put into perspective, you could just fly to and from work in some cases and still come out with 5x the income of someone making $20k who lives and works in the lower CoL area.
Also let's not forget that 200k put's you in the top ~6%.
That we see so much stratification even above 200k (those of you near this income thinking "I'm not rich!?") is an account to just how wealthy the uber wealthy are.
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On November 09 2017 02:38 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 02:14 IgnE wrote:On November 09 2017 01:24 xDaunt wrote:On November 08 2017 15:55 IgnE wrote:
I appreciate your taking the time to read and think about what I wrote and acknowledge a certain open-mindedness on your part.
That being said my opinion here is that you are thinking about sovereignty and "the social contract" in the wrongs ways. Let me get around to reading Leviathan before I try and flesh out exactly why that is, though. Sovereignty is a tricky thing. I'm still trying to work it out. I'm pretty sure that Leviathan is not going to give you the answers that you're looking for. As I was digesting your original post and considering a response, one of the things that struck me is the degree to which the cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School rejects (expressly or implicitly) the core liberal precepts of Enlightenment thinking. If you think about it and consider the vastly different conclusions that Marxism and classic liberalism reach, this makes perfect sense. But here's the key point that I think that you should take some time to consider: do we really want to reject and destroy the intellectual foundation for the argument that individual liberty is an absolute? I will note two things that caught my eye as needing immediate correction.
1) You said that both fascism and communism were totalitarian. It is true that both Fascism and Communism were totalitarian. But those were only historically contingent political formations. I would argue that only one social structure necessarily tends towards the herd instinct, and the desire to have someone else legislate life. A communistic social structure demands active participation in the political sphere, in the truly Greek sense, as action among equals. What the revolutionary communists of the 20th century carried with them was the fascizing elements carried by the man of ressentiment. Well, we're still waiting for someone to figure how to safely and equitably get to communist utopia. Until someone figures out how to circumvent the seemingly necessary period of tyranny (which never goes well), I'm not sure how useful appeals to this utopia are. 2) You say that "values" are often at issue in American politics, and choose abortion, as the exemplary "value" issue. On the one hand, there is some sense in this. The religious fervor of the pro-life crowd does not seem directly tied to economics as disciplinarized by the university. On the other hand, however, state intrusion into abortion is a prime example of the exercise of sovereign power on "bare life." It is police power (broadly conceived here as the networks of institutions, laws, social codes, and actual policemen) exercised in the matter of abortion/birth control that is one of the most clear examples of state biopower, dictating what individuals can and can't do with their bodies, how they are to conduct their sexual lives, and to whom or to what they owe certain kinds of legal obligations. Keep in mind here that economics comes from oikos (household) and nemein/nomos (distribute, dwell, possess, law). Abortion is a biopolitical issue in the sense that it's the intrusion of sovereign power into private household ways of life, and it is an economic issue, in the Arendtian Greek sense, in that it is the expansion of a private household issue that would have been prepolitical into the public realm, where administration of the national household (demographic control, birth rates, ensuring a female population of caretakers) has subsumed the properly political. If you're going to take this broad of a view of "economics," then yeah, every political question does become one of economics because you have effectively eliminated the dichotomy between economic politics and non-economic politics. If we accept that exercise of the police power is an "economic" issue, then it is rather hard for me think of what political issue is not an economic issue. I know its hard for you to think of a political issue that is not an economic issue. I made that a key point in my first post. But in the case of abortion, where it's about state control over individual bodies, I think you see the point, at least in relation to the concept of biopolitics and the reduction of human beings to bare life. You know what's not an economic issue? Display of confederate statues. You were the one who brought up the Hobbesian "war of all against all," although I admit that it is not far from any discussion of Western sovereignty. As for the line "do we really want to reject and destroy the intellectual foundation for the argument that individual liberty is an absolute?" I think I am making an argument that individual liberty, properly conceived, is the goal of enlightened society. That's why I was attacking your conception of individual liberty. I understand that this is your goal, but do you not see the danger in defining individual liberty as being dependent upon the State as opposed to being an inalienable right?
well in what sense is it inalienable if you said earlier regarding refugees that basically "shit happens" and rights can be broached?
this all goes back to the physis/nomos divide, right? what separates man from animal? what is man outside of the plurality of others? i dont know that it even makes sense to talk of rigthts in the state of nature, so it is only within the realm of social relations that we can talk about it. i havent explicitly said that such rights therefore flow from the State, i dont think. as I said, this sovereignty business is tricky. and how does "the rule of law" fit into this?
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On November 09 2017 02:06 Danglars wrote:I can't wait to see how they delineate what is and isn't an assault weapon.
You don't have to wait, we had an assault weapons ban for years, if they are "reintroducing" it then its those exact same weapons.
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As some person once said.. If you can't do gun prohibition after a shooting in a elementary school and therefore agree that dead children are A OK, you never will.
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On November 09 2017 01:19 mozoku wrote:![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/TjeHEGF.jpg)
Source As a percentage of income, the middle class (20k-200k annual income) is by far getting the largest tax cut.
The numbers are not per capita.
And the estate tax removal is excluded.
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What i truely love about graphs/statistics lika that is, that they just stop at 1 mio.+...
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It's the Wall Street Journal, the last bastion of popular wealth worship aside from the bad writers at The Economist; it's to be expected 
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On November 09 2017 03:19 farvacola wrote:It's the Wall Street Journal, the last bastion of popular wealth worship aside from the bad writers at The Economist; it's to be expected
They got Murdoch tamping down any journalist integrity left in that publication.
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Also how is a decrease of 500& for someone that makes 10k "fair" if the guy with 1mio gets 11k? One is using his money for food/stuff he needs.. The other for the new porsche.
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Politico's article on tribalism is pretty great.
...All this, perhaps, is not so surprising, considering polling continues to show that—in spite of unprecedented unpopularity—nearly all people who voted for Trump would do it again. But as I compared this year’s answers to last year’s responses it seemed clear that the basis of people’s support had morphed. Johnstown voters do not intend to hold the president accountable for the nonnegotiable pledges he made to them. It’s not that the people who made Trump president have generously moved the goalposts for him. It’s that they have eliminated the goalposts altogether.
This reality ought to get the attention of anyone who thinks they will win in 2018 or 2020 by running against Trump’s record. His supporters here, it turns out, are energized by his bombast and his animus more than any actual accomplishments. For them, it’s evidently not what he’s doing so much as it is the people he’s fighting. Trump is simply and unceasingly angry on their behalf, battling the people who vex them the worst—“obstructionist” Democrats, uncooperative establishment Republicans, the media, Black Lives Matter protesters and NFL players (boy oh boy do they hate kneeling NFL players) whom they see as ungrateful, disrespectful millionaires.
And they love him for this.
“I think he’s doing a great job, and I just wish the hell they’d leave him alone and let him do it,” Schilling said. “He shouldn’t have to take any shit from anybody.”....
And farther along
...But even this optimistic stance highlights some of the deep-seated troubles here. “Right now, if I could find 150 people, I’d put them to work,” Polacek said. He needs machinists. He needs welders. “But it’s hard to find people,” he said—people with the requisite skills, people who can pass a drug test.
“We just don’t have the workforce,” said Liston, the city manager. “If they are employable, and have a skill set, basically they already moved out of the area.”
Some of the later-in-life blue-collar workers who are still here can be loath to learn new trades. “We’ve heard when working with some of the miners that they are reluctant because they’re very accustomed to the mining industry,” said Linda Thomson, the president of JARI, a non-profit economic development agency in Johnstown that provides precisely the kind of retraining, supported by a combination of private, state and federal funding, that could prepare somebody for a job in Polacek’s plant. “They really do want to go back into the mines. So we’ve seen resistance to some retraining.”...
The Article
My favorite part is steel and coal workers telling NFL players they can't protest and bosses should fire them for protesting. That part is real rich.
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On November 09 2017 03:27 Velr wrote:
Also how is a decrease of 500& for someone that makes 10k "fair" if the guy with 1mio gets 11k? One is using his money for food/stuff he needs.. The other for the new porsche.
Because taxes are based on percentages?
If you want to stay counting taxes by absolute dollar amounts contributions stratified by income, your position gets immensely weaker so I don't know why you're even going there.
The guy making $10M per year generally makes many times the economic contribution than the guy making $10k. Given that, why should the guy making $10M pay more in taxes? The cost to the government of support to each is probably comparable. Why are we charging the people who make us rich more money to live here, when their cost to us is the same?
The answer is that a progressive tax has little philosophical justification if you acknowledge that someone should pay his what he costs to his/her government and no more.
Granted, there are plenty of utilitarian reasons to argue for a progressive tax system (which is why we have one), but the moral argument that's typically invoked in politics (and is being bandied about here) is intellectually bankrupt from a moral perspective. Unless you're willing to argue that you're morally entitled to essentially steal/shakedown high earners people to increase your own happiness.
You can sort of try to sidestep this reality by assuming a "fair" tax system is one that's based on percentages. Which is the default assumption in our society (probably because of what's above), though I've never heard a compelling moral or philosophical argument for why that is.
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On November 09 2017 03:44 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 03:27 Velr wrote:
Also how is a decrease of 500& for someone that makes 10k "fair" if the guy with 1mio gets 11k? One is using his money for food/stuff he needs.. The other for the new porsche. Because taxes are based on percentages? If you want to stay counting taxes by absolute dollar amounts contributions stratified by income, your position gets immensely weaker so I don't know why you're even going there. The guy making $10M per year generally makes many times the economic contribution than the guy making $10k.
This is simply not true. The amount someone earns is not a 1 to 1 ratio of pay to economic input. Pay has never been and never will be a perfect meritocracy. If it was, there wouldn’t be anyone raking in billions of dollars a year, because no one person can create that much economic activity.
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That tax plan they released looks good for me, but with the current tax plan, I'm getting fucked in taxes. I'm positive this year alone, I've paid 40% easily in taxes some how... And then they wonder why the "middle class" disappeared...
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United States44439 Posts
On November 09 2017 03:44 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 03:27 Velr wrote:
Also how is a decrease of 500& for someone that makes 10k "fair" if the guy with 1mio gets 11k? One is using his money for food/stuff he needs.. The other for the new porsche. Because taxes are based on percentages? If you want to stay counting taxes by absolute dollar amounts contributions stratified by income, your position gets immensely weaker so I don't know why you're even going there. The guy making $10M per year generally makes many times the economic contribution than the guy making $10k. Given that, why should the guy making $10M pay more in taxes? The cost to the government of support to each is probably comparable. Why are we charging the people who make us rich more money to live here, when their cost to us is the same? The answer is that a progressive tax has little philosophical justification if you acknowledge that someone should pay his what he costs to his/her government and no more. Granted, there are plenty of utilitarian reasons to argue for a progressive tax system (which is why we have one), but the moral argument that's typically invoked in politics (and is being bandied about here) is intellectually bankrupt from a moral perspective. Unless you're willing to argue that you're morally entitled to essentially steal/shakedown high earners people to increase your own happiness. You can sort of try to sidestep this reality by assuming a "fair" tax system is one that's based on percentages. Which is the default assumption in our society (probably because of what's above), though I've never heard a compelling moral or philosophical argument for why that is.
What benefit does the man who owns nothing receive from an armed gang punishing thieves? Civilized society has winners and losers.
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United States44439 Posts
On November 09 2017 03:54 ShoCkeyy wrote:
That tax plan they released looks good for me, but with the current tax plan, I'm getting fucked in taxes. I'm positive this year alone, I've paid 40% easily in taxes some how... And then they wonder why the "middle class" disappeared...
A) Fix your withholding (or stop counting payroll taxes)
B) The "middle class" hasn't disappeared. What happened was the working poor got fucked by changing economic conditions.
C) Nobody paying 40% in taxes (incidentally the top bracket is 39.6% and that's marginal rate, not average rate, so even if you're paid a billion dollars in W-2 income you still won't hit exactly 39.6%) is getting fucked, what is happening is they're getting paid a fortune and only keeping half a fortune
D) Cutting taxes can't be looked at in isolation, otherwise cutting taxes would always be good. Cut taxes means cut services, or increased borrowing. Either way you need to weigh that in too. If you gain $1,000 in reduced taxes and lose $2,000 in essential services which you now have to pay out of pocket you did not receive a tax cut.
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EPT
