What does the American Conservative stand for anymore?

[AmazonQueen]

You don't get taxed like that anyway, you pay tax on each threshold at that range's rate, and this is something I very often see people get confused about.

I'm going to make a very simple example, lol. Say you get taxed 0% up to $50k, and then 50% up to $90k, and then after that you pay 90%. So if you're earning $100k, you're not paying $90k in tax, but instead you're paying $29. Because you pay 0% on your first $50k, then you pay 50% on your next $40k, and then you pay 90% on your last $10k. So like if your real tax rate is 90% for say more than $1,000,000 of income, you're only paying that much on anything you earn over a million dollars, not on your whole income when you reach that threshold.

Yes, in the past the UK had income tax as high as 98.25% in WWII. Between 1974-79 it was up to 83% on income and 98% on unearned income, but this only applied to income above thresholds way above what most people earned.
Despite this the newspapers ran stories about poor little old ladies who had to move abroad because they couldn't live on the income from their investments. Makes me wonder how all those little old ladies who had to rely on just the state pension managed.

 

[Hrothbern]

Yes, in the past the UK had income tax as high as 98.25% in WWII. Between 1974-79 it was up to 83% on income and 98% on unearned income, but this only applied to income above thresholds way above what most people earned.
Despite this the newspapers ran stories about poor little old ladies who had to move abroad because they couldn't live on the income from their investments. Makes me wonder how all those little old ladies who had to rely on just the state pension managed.

For 1960:

The top marginal tax rate in 1960 was 91%, which applied to income over $200,000 (for single filers) or $400,000 (for married filers) – thresholds which correspond to approximately $1.5 million and $3 million, respectively, in today’s dollars. Approximately 0.00235% of households had income taxed at the top rate.
https://taxfoundation.org/some-historical-tax-stats/

Ordinary people are not going to earn more than a million per year.

ohh
I forgot pop musicians and football stars...
The dream of every back alley kid

I have never understood hoew people spending their last nickles and dimes for that season subscription of their favorite footbalclub, were supportive of their football stars earning mega salaries.

 

[Crezth]

American conservatives stand for having money and killing blacks. So the same as always. You can go ahead and pack up the previous 21 pages.

 

[Senethro]

There does seem to be a gap between the idealized list of what conservatives believe in and explaining why they vote Republican.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

American conservatives stand for having money and killing blacks. So the same as always. You can go ahead and pack up the previous 21 pages.

No you are wrong

they are also for keeping women at home, denying them healthcare, abortions, hormones etc

they are also for keeping lgbt+ people closeted

they are also for putting children into concentration camps because of their ethnicity

 

[Socrates99]

There does seem to be a gap between the idealized list of what conservatives believe in and explaining why they vote Republican.

Yep. Corruption. Conservatives don't get what they want any more than progressives do.

 

[Zardnaar]

How can it be a "tax on the poor" when it applies to everyone (for all goods purchased) ?

And with differing VAT rates, whereby basic necessities like food have a lower VAT rate than for exampler cars, VAT works effectively as a redistributing tool for more financial spending power equality.

GST here applies to everything including food.

The poor pay a larger % of their income on GST, unless the richer person lives a more luxurious lifestyle.

For example if one person earns 40000 a year and another earns 50 000.

They both have the same lifestyle, same street, similar rent.

They both have similar expenses. The 10k difference can be invested after tax and you don't pay tax on it and get a return.

In our 20 for example we lived almost like students with a better diet. Saved,saved, and saved. No foreign holiday double income no kids.

Our friends did the same.

We both bought houses, then they had kids.

Other friends after graduation had kids, went to Rock concerts, and foreign holidays.

Our incomes were similar but a few if them are renting. We almost have the mortage paid. All that money they spent also got taxed more.

Mortgages also fluctuate less than rent which has doubled but our mortgage rate is essentially the same as 2010.

The sooner you do that the better you are off financially. We avoided tax by not spending and saved for an asset.

 

[Zardnaar]

That Maoists bowing up mail-boxes is considered "chaos" but the Klan murdering hundreds of black people is not represents just the sort of selective memory we're talking about.

I mentioned civil rights era murders, Vietnam war etc.

I wasn't there but have watched interviews and read articles about what happened and the aftermath.

 

[Hrothbern]

GST here applies to everything including food.

The poor pay a larger % of their income on GST, unless the richer person lives a more luxurious lifestyle.

For example if one person earns 40000 a year and another earns 50 000.

They both have the same lifestyle, same street, similar rent.

They both have similar expenses. The 10k difference can be invested after tax and you don't pay tax on it and get a return.

In our 20 for example we lived almost like students with a better diet. Saved,saved, and saved. No foreign holiday double income no kids.

Our friends did the same.

We both bought houses, then they had kids.

Other friends after graduation had kids, went to Rock concerts, and foreign holidays.

Our incomes were similar but a few if them are renting. We almost have the mortage paid. All that money they spent also got taxed more.

Mortgages also fluctuate less than rent which has doubled but our mortgage rate is essentially the same as 2010.

The sooner you do that the better you are off financially. We avoided tax by not spending and saved for an asset.

Yes

I myself live like a kind of mendicant. Did not invent that. Just continued living regarding luxuries as I was raised at home. My only luxuries were beer/wine in the pubs and smoking when young, and when I had more side money/regular income my own books (and not the library). And I buy bio food (although that feels more like charity).

What you say is like the fable of de la Fontaine, the cricket and the ant.
I was just thinking about that when you got your post first... not only as individual but also regarding heritage at family and state level.
Not to you but in general (as rhetoric question points):
Do you restrict luxuries to yourself to be able to give your children a head start (like no education debt)... do you save up more ?
Or work justenough hours to get around ?
Do you you have children at all ? How does a society with less children, with more life long singles/couples behave regarding legacy for the future ? Like generating/increasing now our Climate & Environmental debt.
How strong is solidarity between the generations ? How strong when you have yourself no offspring as next generation making that heritage more direct. Not abstract societal, but family level ties.
Some countries made or are making a real mess of there public finances.
(I never mind spending lots of public money as long as it is well spent.. but there are too many examples where older generations made life easy with ill-spent money or tax reductions with little effect to the detriment of their youth).

Maarten Luther is ofc known for his reforming stance on catholic convictions of those days.. but my first association with him is the quote (not accurate and is it really original from him ?):
"even if the world goes down tomorrow... that should not prevent you from planting a tree today".

 

[Patine]

What happens overseas is irrelevant.

What happened in the 60s and 70s had consequences. The stagflation, oil crisis, political violence in the USA.

Artificially declaring comparative and relative arguments from the conservation just because they're "overseas" and thus COMPLETELY irrelevant in any application of comparison is a disingenuous, even cowardly, rhetorical tactic to artificially preserve a flawed argument. It won't work with me.

Not disagreeing with the long term consequences. See why I was agreeing with you about violence in the other thread.

New York also was in bad shape in the 70s.

Now we know better, back then neo liberal trickle down was kind of new. Or at least how they packaged it. Long term gilded age 2.0.

Ah, yes, the people didn't know any better back then, and opposing forces forced the majority's hand on whom to support. Sound like your argument about the Nazis riding to power with the BIGGEST according to you, is that Communists "forced people to take a side." Have you ever looked at election results for the last three contested, multi-party elections of the Weimar Republic? The Communists are sitting at third or fourth or vote-getting parties, and there's five or six who actually get a notable number of seats below the top four. That doesn't look to me like a forced choice between two extremist parties and no other apparent options at the time.

Obviously it wasn't all milk and honey back then.

There never was the milk and honey. That is all fabricated in the revisionist, fairy-tale, magical land of "when things were better, before Progressives and Marxists destroyed it out of malice and hatred for freedom and the American way," that modern Conservatives as part of their rhetoric.

VAT and GST seems to be a tax on the poor. You can avoid them by not spending aka investing.

We got a tax cut but GST went from 12 to 15%

15%!? Oh, my. Our GST here is only 5%, dropped from 7% about a decade ago.

Americans can't. The only way to avoid US taxes is to renounce your citizenship since its one of the few countries that taxes expats.

Yes, the shareholders and proprietors suffer that personally. But they're corporate assets can have the country of registry jiggered almost entirely for tax purposes.

 

[Zardnaar]

Artificially declaring comparative and relative arguments from the conservation just because they're "overseas" and thus COMPLETELY irrelevant in any application of comparison is a disingenuous, even cowardly, rhetorical tactic to artificially preserve a flawed argument. It won't work with me.



Ah, yes, the people didn't know any better back then, and opposing forces forced the majority's hand on whom to support. Sound like your argument about the Nazis riding to power with the BIGGEST according to you, is that Communists "forced people to take a side." Have you ever looked at election results for the last three contested, multi-party elections of the Weimar Republic? The Communists are sitting at third or fourth or vote-getting parties, and there's five or six who actually get a notable number of seats below the top four. That doesn't look to me like a forced choice between two extremist parties and no other apparent options at the time.



There never was the milk and honey. That is all fabricated in the revisionist, fairy-tale, magical land of "when things were better, before Progressives and Marxists destroyed it out of malice and hatred for freedom and the American way," that modern Conservatives as part of their rhetoric.



15%!? Oh, my. Our GST here is only 5%, dropped from 7% about a decade ago.



Yes, the shareholders and proprietors suffer that personally. But they're corporate assets can have the country of registry jiggered almost entirely for tax purposes.

Overseas is fairly irrelevant to the average voter vs domestic violence on the streets.

Same thing in Germany in the 30s.

I know Yemen for example is in a fairly bad way but the shooting on March 15 is going to resonate with voters.

Eastern Ukraine also violent, but the average American voter won't care.

They seem to be caring about the weekly mass shootings though. That's what I meant about what happens overseas mostly doesn't matter.

Voters will flock left or right based on events. Look at Bush II after 9/11. FDR in the 30s or even here where Labour changed leaders 6 weeks out from election.

 

[Patine]

Overseas is fairly irrelevant to the average voter vs domestic violence on the streets.

Same thing in Germany in the 30s.

I know Yemen for example is in a fairly bad way but the shooting on March 15 is going to resonate with voters.

Eastern Ukraine also violent, but the average American voter won't care.

They seem to be caring about the weekly mass shootings though. That's what I meant about what happens overseas mostly doesn't matter.

Voters will flock left or right based on events. Look at Bush II after 9/11. FDR in the 30s or even here where Labour changed leaders 6 weeks out from election.

And that self-same lack of broader awareness, knowledge, and empathy of the rest of the world is a detriment to any self-improvement in the First World. By cordoning off outside problems as being "irrelevant" and "not to be cared about," such voters have shown that they are unwilling to embrace and learn the lessons of failed regimes and societies that are, contrary to the illusion of such, not IMPOSSIBLE in the First World, nor is the First World INVULNERABLE to them - the lack of accepting comparisons only makes such self-interested voters easier targets and much more easier blindsided when these kind of horrible things come home. This apathy is NOTHING to be praised or defended - it is, in fact, an Achilles' heel.

 

[Zardnaar]

And that self-same lack of broader awareness, knowledge, and empathy of the rest of the world is a detriment to any self-improvement in the First World. By cordoning off outside problems as being "irrelevant" and "not to be cared about," such voters have shown that they are unwilling to embrace and learn the lessons of failed regimes and societies that are, contrary to the illusion of such, not IMPOSSIBLE in the First World, nor is the First World INVULNERABLE to them - the lack of accepting comparisons only makes such self-interested voters easier targets and much more easier blindsided when these kind of horrible things come home. This apathy is NOTHING to be praised or defended - it is, in fact, an Achilles' heel.

It's reality though. Mass shooting USA media all over it. 20 people get blasted in the 3rd world business as usual.

 

[Patine]

It's reality though. Mass shooting USA media all over it. 20 people get blasted in the 3rd world business as usual.

So is what can actually happen, that the First World does not have the TRUE invulnerability to and immunity from, and that can blindside us HORRIBLY, and make these Third World horror zones or monstrous, despotic regimes REALITY in OUR COUNTRIES, not just on the news. But, if only the immediate short-term and vicinity threats are to be taken serious and cared out, and long-term vision is something to be criticized and derided, or at least not viewed as at all necessary, then I would advise you - metaphorically speaking - to see an optometrist!

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You don't get taxed like that anyway, you pay tax on each threshold at that range's rate, and this is something I very often see people get confused about.

I'm going to make a very simple example, lol. Say you get taxed 0% up to $50k, and then 50% up to $90k, and then after that you pay 90%. So if you're earning $100k, you're not paying $90k in tax, but instead you're paying $29. Because you pay 0% on your first $50k, then you pay 50% on your next $40k, and then you pay 90% on your last $10k. So like if your real tax rate is 90% for say more than $1,000,000 of income, you're only paying that much on anything you earn over a million dollars, not on your whole income when you reach that threshold.

I was simplifying because I was trying to keep the focus on the concept of using taxation to influence investment rather than getting bound up in the minutia of marginal rate structures.

 

[Lexicus]

I was simplifying because I was trying to keep the focus on the concept of using taxation to influence investment rather than getting bound up in the minutia of marginal rate structures.

Yeah, I mean, we use the tax code in a bunch of ways to incentivize rich people to do things that are objectively bad like have private jets
It's pretty insane

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yeah, I mean, we use the tax code in a bunch of ways to incentivize rich people to do things that are objectively bad like have private jets
It's pretty insane

Like I said, the rich managed to kill the entire concept of using the tax code to incentivize them into doing things that are good for society, so that's all that is left. But let's not change it, someday I might be in the private jet owning class myself.

 

[Virote_Considon]

The American Conservative stands for whatever the American Liberal stood for 5-10 years prior.

 

[Hygro]

Add another 10-30 years on that.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Don't get me wrong I'm favor of higher taxes. However especially now it would be very difficult to enforce. People can just move to a lower tax country.

people have literally repeated this lie for freakin decades, even though any and all evidence speaks against it. this lie is so ubiquitous I would say it's basically part of the bootlicker starter pack (tm) at this point.

Americans can't. The only way to avoid US taxes is to renounce your citizenship since its one of the few countries that taxes expats.

exactly right. not that America is strong on enforcing tax on the right people anyway though, as long as you're a greedy cleptocrat with the right contacts you should be fine.