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The 1%

ei.sdraob

This recent "1%" rhetoric coming from the Occupy Marxism 2.0 movement
when being applied to Ireland and its economy is getting rather silly considering that our [income] taxation system is very progressive, excludes a large chunk of population, and also comes with a large range of entitlements and benefits that people in US would not even dream of or comprehend how they could be afforded (hint, they still cant be afforded)

A cursory glance at the latest available report from Revenue for 2009 (2010 report should be out soon as returns are received this month) paints quite a picture, keep in mind that since 2009 the tax bands went down somewhat, USC was introduced which in itself is progressive and so on. But anyways since all we have are the 2009 figures lets look at them.

* Top 1% (200K+ a year) have 10% of total income and pay 22% of total tax
* Bottom 36% (under 20K year excluding all sorts of benefits they would be entitled to) have 9.2% total income and pay 0.28% of total tax

I myself do not come anywhere near the top half of that table (running own business means getting shafted for bothering) but its obvious that this whole 1% rhetoric is very silly in the Irish context.

How about a third if income earners actually start paying something? anything??

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hatrickpatrick

SupaNova wrote: »

I don't see an issue. The protests contain large numbers of openly anti-capitalist economic illiterates spouting Marxist rhetoric. This should be highlighted and put down for the silliness that it is.

You clearly haven't actually been to the camp, have you?

Is anything which doesn't favour the social elite clique automatically dismissed as "Marxism" now? I haven't seen much Marxism down there at all. Kindly point out to me exactly what it is about demanding justice which is pure Marxism?

hatrickpatrick

SupaNova wrote: »

I said large numbers, not all the protestors are economically illiterate. Its perfectly ok to be illiterate regarding some subjects. I'm illiterate and ignorant when it comes to physics or art, but if i was going to protest about something i would make an effort to understand it. If some are protesting, calling for an end to capitalism, or greater redistribution, with no understanding of the affects of either, they should be made fun of and scolded. Some of these people's definition of a level playing field seems to be that everyone should be equally wealthy.

As long as people accept that its ok for government to have the power to direct resources, to favored industry, through favorable taxation and subsidies how can there be a level playing field? If government didn't have these powers, big business wouldn't waste large sums of money lobbying politicians.

So how about the IMF and others calling for redistribution? Do you oppose that too as equally economically calamitous?

You know, redistributing hard earned money from ordinary people like you and me, and giving it to speculators who chose to invest in companies which then f*cked up and had to be bailed out, again by ordinary people like you and me?

Is this not "redistribution"? Or does it only count as redistribution when the cash is flowing in the opposite direction?

MeisterG

The trouble is this redistribution is going in circles now. The state bailed out the banks. The IMF bailed out the state. The Germans help as well - though to get their money back. We could tell them to feck off - "burn bondholders" - but we still need these guys to pay our bills. What do we do then? Is that when we get our oil out?

hatrickpatrick

MeisterG wrote: »

The trouble is this redistribution is going in circles now. The state bailed out the banks. The IMF bailed out the state. The Germans help as well - though to get their money back. We could tell them to feck off - "burn bondholders" - but we still need these guys to pay our bills. What do we do then? Is that when we get our oil out?

We need banking speculators to pay our bills? We need Seanie Fitz and his band of criminal cronies to pay our bills?

No? Then why don't we start with them?

How much of a pension are Seanie, Drumm etc enjoying - paid for by the IRish taxpayer?
What of the Golden Circle? They still have their ill gotten millions I presume?

When will we see the Fraud Squad and the Criminal Assets Bureau chasing these people?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

MeisterG

The amount that could ever be seized from the golden shower is next to nothing now. They borrowed to buy a racehorse with the aim of repaying with it's winnings. They should be pursued to the fullest extent - personally I would re-constitute the Seanad to address the issues that need tackling from the past and have the dail focus on today and tomorrow. But the today and tomorrow is that we need money from outside to survive or we cut cut cut.

The dame street movement needs to tackle the practical day to day as well. The politics of principle will not sort out our ills

MeisterG

But who will pay the bills - if not the banks, and not the IMF/EU, then who? The golden circle should be pursued but there is nit a meaningful amount left.

hatrickpatrick

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I'd agree with most of that, except that when I say "social justice" I'm not talking about wealth distribution at all, I'm literally talking about justice, in other words, the people who f*ck up pay for their own mistakes rather than demanding a bailout from the taxpayer, AND those wh ocommit white collar crime are HARSHLY punished for it rather than receiving a slap on the wrist and a golden handshake.

The companies did not have to be bailed out. The FF/Green coalition government elected by the ordinary people chose to bail them out.

Read these topics and see all the people claiming that the banks had to be bailed out or it would have caused Armageddon. If that's true then the system must be revamped to ensure no single company will ever be able to become so integral again.

Secondly, motives must be looked into here and established. Why was Anglo bailed out? In all honesty, was it a case of friends helping friends at everyone else's expense?

hatrickpatrick

MeisterG wrote: »

The amount that could ever be seized from the golden shower is next to nothing now. They borrowed to buy a racehorse with the aim of repaying with it's winnings. They should be pursued to the fullest extent - personally I would re-constitute the Seanad to address the issues that need tackling from the past and have the dail focus on today and tomorrow. But the today and tomorrow is that we need money from outside to survive or we cut cut cut.

The dame street movement needs to tackle the practical day to day as well. The politics of principle will not sort out our ills

It doesn't matter. I for one wouldn't be nearly as enraged at having to pay for others if Seanie and co were rotting in jail cells.

Justice is important for humans. This is an undeniable fact. Getting detention in school is bad. It's so much worse if you're in detention for fighting, but the guy who started the fight gets off scott free.

It feels like the attempts to hold them accountable for their criminality are half hearted at best, deliberately protecting these people at worst.

Secondly: How much is the bill for bailing out Anglo's bondholders and continuing to pay salaries and pensions at the company? About €65bn, right?
How many A&E units could be funded with that?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

antoobrien

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

No it's not, look at the effect that Lehmans going under had on the worldwide economy. And why did the US government save AIG, Fannie Mae & Freddy Mac and pour $700 billion into TARP (effectively NAMA in the US).

When it went bankrupt Lehmans had about €540 billion in debts vs €450 billion in assets (exchange rate 1.42 eur/usd on the day).

The banks knew just how much they were lending to each other and Lehmans stopped that in its tracks because they were all afraid of not getting their money back.

The bank guarantee was for 400 billion. Just imagine the utter chaos that would have ensued if Anglo was let go under just two weeks after Lehmans. Another (as we know now) approx €30 billion that would have affected the euro area banks. And then the other banks wouldn't have been able to pay back their debts taking Irelands banks with it.

hatrickpatrick

antoobrien wrote: »

No it's not, look at the effect that Lehmans going under had on the worldwide economy. And why did the US government save AIG, Fannie Mae & Freddy Mac and pour $700 billion into TARP (effectively NAMA in the US).

When it went bankrupt Lehmans had about €540 billion in debts vs €450 billion in assets (exchange rate 1.42 eur/usd on the day).

The banks knew just how much they were lending to each other and Lehmans stopped that in its tracks because they were all afraid of not getting their money back.

The bank guarantee was for 400 billion. Just imagine the utter chaos that would have ensued if Anglo was let go under just two weeks after Lehmans. Another (as we know now) approx €30 billion that would have affected the euro area banks. And then the other banks wouldn't have been able to pay back their debts taking Irelands banks with it.

And so on and so forth until the contagion had been completely eradicated, presumably taking the entire worldwide banking system with it.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. It should have been let happen, then maybe from the rubble we could have built a new system which actually works.

But if everyone's content to keep putting plasters on broken knees, so be it

antoobrien

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Good riddance to bad rubbish. It should have been let happen, then maybe from the rubble we could have built a new system which actually works.

The steps that have been taken so far is to facilitate the rebuilding you're talking about, not preventing it. Whether it will go far enough is another story.

Just look at our own banks. They are (with the exception of BOI) almost totally reliant on loan books for their retail funding - instead of acting like businesses and charging their customers for the services they provided. They're in a worse state now than they should be because in a recession credit tightens up - so no new income stream other than hiking the interest and penalties on existing loans. Either way the customer takes the hit for poor business practices.

No I'm not saying I want to pay bank charges, but I see them as being necessary to some degree.

Debtocracy

New Ted Talk video out yesterday systematically detailing the effects of relative inequality. Ireland is featured in the data. As expected, inequality is correlated with a range of negative physical health, mental health and social capital outcomes, independent of the underlying wealth of the society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw&feature=channel_video_title

The underlying cause is the positive relationship between inequality and chronic levels of social stress (and therefore higher cortisol levels).

The Nordic countries and Japan seem to have struck a good range of inequality, with the latter achieving it without high tax rates (income is closer pre-tax).

SupaNova

Debtocracy wrote: »

New Ted Talk video out yesterday systematically detailing the effects of relative inequality. Ireland is featured in the data. As expected, inequality is correlated with a range of negative physical health, mental health and social capital outcomes, independent of the underlying wealth of the society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw&feature=channel_video_title

The underlying cause is the positive relationship between inequality and chronic levels of social stress (and therefore higher cortisol levels).

The Nordic countries and Japan seem to have struck a good range of inequality, with the latter achieving it without high tax rates (income is closer pre-tax).

Why do some charts leave out Singapore which was only second in inequality to the US? Perhaps it doesn't correlate with what is being claimed so the author brings in Singapore when it correlates and leaves it out when it doesn't?

Since imprisonment is part of the social problem index shown in one of the charts, that can really throw the US off compared to say , the Netherlands. The US takes a much harder stance against drugs which swells the prison population massively. Looking at the same graph Australia has almost identical index of social problems to Austria but has a far greater income inequality, Likewise with Italy and denmark and again comparing Switzerland and Finland. Does this not warrant any discussion at all? Maybe if the speaker speculated why it might lead him to getting at other possibilities that show far greater correlation.

Thinking about crime, do you honestly think people care about somebody earning multiple times what they earn, if what they earn gives them a decent living? Do the bottom 20% in Australia who have a good life look at the mega wealthy and descend into health and social problems because of this?

Lumping health and social problems into one statistic doesn't make great sense. The biggest and most logical thing that correlates to health is diet and lifestyle. I am sure if this was plotted on a graph there would be a perfect correlation to health problems with no exceptions to gloss over and not talk about.

As for crime, it would seem most logical that crime is correlated with actual poverty rather than income inequality, again does a person in the bottom 20% with a good standard of living turn to crime just because someone earns multiples of what they earn? Also measuring crime is going to be very difficult because of wide differences in law and its application, the speaker briefly mentions this and quickly moves on. He mentions that more unequal societies are more likely to retain the death penalty, without any evidence, wtf?

The mental illness chart suffers from the similar problems as the one measuring crime and even still it doesn't show much correlation at all. Perhaps the aim of this chart is just to show America as most unequal and most mentally ill rather than show a correlation. America's insane prescription culture guarantees this correlation, how about attempting to chart the actual logical correlation, than the illogical correlation that people are mentally ill because there is large gap in incomes.

Then the speaker singles out the US and Canada perhaps because he can make a correlation using these two countries. Why not Canada and Singapore, or why not Singapore and Japan which would probably spin the correlation claimed on its head?

Recommended reading:
How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff
Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell

Alternatively watch Sowell discuss his book:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERj3QeGw9Ok

ianuss

Forget the 1%, blame the old people http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/10/generational-warfare?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/occupygrandmashouse

Idbatterim

how about taxing the first 20k at 10% and after that, 20% or so on the remainder? now I havent done the sums on this to see what it would bring in v the current system, but it would seem alot fairer to me and also promote working instead of the system we have now!

FreudianSlippers

Currently it's 20% on €32,800 and 41% on the balance (single that is with no children)

I haven't crunched the numbers, but roughly I think it'd be fair to say 10% up to €20,000; 20% on the balance up to €60,000; 40% on the balance up to €175,000; and 50% on the remainder.

ei.sdraob

Idbatterim wrote: »

how about taxing the first 20k at 10% and after that, 20% or so on the remainder? now I havent done the sums on this to see what it would bring in v the current system, but it would seem alot fairer to me and also promote working instead of the system we have now!

Thats what they do in several EU countries, we had threads on flat(ish) tax before

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax#Eastern_Europe

Tho that would mean chunk of Revenue staff would have to go and since we have Croke Park....

Godge

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Thats what they do in several EU countries, we had threads on flat(ish) tax before

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax#Eastern_Europe

Tho that would mean chunk of Revenue staff would have to go and since we have Croke Park....

......we could redeploy them to catch dole spongers.

Godge

"The 1%" would make a great title for one of those conspiracy theory X-Files type programmes about an elite that rule the world from their chalets in Switzerland to their villas in the Bahamas.

MeisterG

Godge wrote: »

"The 1%" would make a great title for one of those conspiracy theory X-Files type programmes about an elite that rule the world from their chalets in Switzerland to their villas in the Bahamas.

...... All the time powering their mansions with oil and gas from Mayo.

ei.sdraob

Godge wrote: »

......we could redeploy them to catch dole spongers.

Pffft the unions would demand a "compensation package" for retraining and re-allocation

sure look what happened when they tried to decentralize

Dob74

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

Currently it's 20% on €32,800 and 41% on the balance (single that is with no children)

I haven't crunched the numbers, but roughly I think it'd be fair to say 10% up to €20,000; 20% on the balance up to €60,000; 40% on the balance up to €175,000; and 50% on the remainder.

Not enough loop holes.
What would all the tax specialists do? They would have to get a real job.
The horse racing industry would have to cough up cash too.
Very dangerous proposals

davoxx

Dob74 wrote: »

Not enough loop holes.
What would all the tax specialists do? They would have to get a real job.
The horse racing industry would have to cough up cash too.
Very dangerous proposals

tax is for the poor and stupid ... if they made it easy and cheap to do by yourself, you would do it ...

ianuss

With Revenue's new ROS service it is cheap. And you can't expect the state to spoon feed you all your life. It's your tax, it's your life, go educate yourself. They have a great website and are happy to help with any inquiries I've always found.

davoxx

ianuss wrote: »

With Revenue's new ROS service it is cheap. And you can't expect the state to spoon feed you all your life. It's your tax, it's your life, go educate yourself. They have a great website and are happy to help with any inquiries I've always found.

so i need internet ... that's fine for me, but does everyone have internet access?

nobody said anything about spoon feeding, but what i was pointing out is the needless complexity of tax. it is very simple to make the whole process easier, to make the law simpler, but then people can not hide behind 'loopholes' ...

and to be fair their service has improved drastically in the last 10 years ... it used to be crap, it would take the best part of the day to get anything sorted, now they are a lot better, though they could do with opening saturday

ianuss

I don't know, the Irish tax system is incredibly simple for PAYE workers. It becomes significantly more complicated for sole traders, businesses etc., but I don't think it's unnecessarily complicated. It deals with some accounting issues but I wouldn't say it's overly complex, but I'm open to correction.

What are the loopholes you are referring to?

Agree about recent improvements and Saturday opening

CrystalLettuce

SupaNova wrote: »

Can you tell me where its from? Or is it just a slogan?

It's being in possession of the wealth, not just constant "income". Inheritance is one of the big issues people have with neoliberal economics.

Granted, it doesn't apply in quite the same way over here, however the lower earners are being increasingly attacked while an elite is being protected - so it's the same logic

CrystalLettuce

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

And what about rent/books/cost of living?