Hmm. I wanted to post a link to one of the comments (currently the second-newest), but apparently his comment system doesn't have permalinks. So here's a copy-and-paste:
Suppose that every evening, 10 men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do. The 10 men drank in the bar every evening and were quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner said "Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20". Drinks for the 10 men would now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share? They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.
Therefore, the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing.
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free.
But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "But he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a buck too. It's unfair -he got 10 times more benefit than me!" "That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy always win!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "we didn't get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
---
The comment id is 75340, if anyone knows how to hack the URLs.
I don't buy this argument. The most prosperous nations have what might be considered "outrageously" high taxation rates on the rich, which the US used to have as well not that long ago. The countries which tax the rich to their favor are mostly tax havens and third-world economies that are plundered for their natural resources and the populance gets nothing in return.
Seriously, there are forms of wealth which don't add value to societies, and if those people aren't willing to get into markets because it hurts their bottom line too much, so be it. "The Rich" are not a universally good group that adds value to all the economies where they do business; they too have their part in fucking up a huge number of locations around the world.
Just as an example, Germany is one of the most prosperous nations in the world, and their economy is as socialist as it gets (in the European, modern use of the world, not the classical Marxist usage). Their labor force is highly skilled and sheltered, and its manufacturing base is strong. I don't see the same thing happening in the dirt-poor Caribbean tax havens.
I have difficulty understanding why any discussion of taxes in the US becomes a conversation about the income tax. There are many, many taxes in the US. A rational discussion of taxes would include all of the taxes together. Most states have a sales tax, and the tax is regressive. Several states (North Carolina, Alabama and many others) make the sales tax much more regressive by putting a cap on it. I recall, when I lived in North Carolina during the 90s, the sales tax had a cap at $100. So the kind of everyday items that poor people have to buy would face the full tax, but plenty of consumer goods that the middle class bought (lots of consumer electronics, for instance) did not face the full tax since the items cost over $100. In essence, the poor were the only ones who had to the full sales tax on nearly everything they bought.
In almost all 50 states, the overall tax code is regressive - the middle classes are taxed more heavily than the rich. The regressive nature of the state taxes is offset by the progressive nature of the Federal taxes.
Imagine re-doing the above scenario of 10 men in a bar, but doing it in an accurate way, where there is sales tax on those beers - then the story comes out rather differently.
Here's the thing: just re-write the end of the story, and it makes the exact opposite point.
--
But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings. "I only saved 16% out of the 20% reduction," declared the tenth man. He pointed to the sixth man, "But he saved 100%" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the ninth man. "I only saved 22%. It's unfair -he got much more benefit than me!" "That's true!" shouted the eighth man. "Why should he get 100% back, when I got only 25%? The poor always win!" The eighth, ninth, and tenth men got together and talked to the bartender, who (because their money was keeping him in business) agreed to no longer serve the group unless they adopted a less progressive schedule.
And that, boys and girls, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest tax rate will naturally get the least benefit from a tax reduction, but they have the most power to explicitly direct a reduction to themselves.
--
Note that however it may seem, I don't mean to argue a particular position by this. I'm only pointing out how changing a little piece at the end completely changes the message of the parable. It's a complete hypothetical either way. I've been calling this the "Fallacy of the Parable": using a parable in place of a reasoned argument.
Suppose the tenth man controlled 99% of the wealth. Would his/her reaction be justified in going to another bar? Would the reaction be justified if at least part of the wealth of the tenth person came from the work of the other nine? If it came from being in a country with roads, education, national defense, and smart worker then is it proper for the tenth person to view all of their wealth as theirs alone with no obligation to other?
Let's add to this hypothetical... assuming a similar distribution of wealth as in the US and these 10 men had a total wealth of $1000. The top 2 would hold $425/each, the next 2 $50, the following 4 around $10, and the remaining 4 $2.25.
"Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier."
Laws could be passed to keep wealth from moving overseas without being taxed first.
"Before you break out the tiny violins for my hypothetical doctor, allow yourself to imagine that he's got a mountain of college loans, his mortgage is underwater, and he's supporting three grandparents (one on his wife's side) who all need some form of senior care, and the doctor's parents, and his wife's parents, have no spare cash. The doctor's parents might also need help in a few years. Oh, and the doctor has two kids of his own, one of whom needs some sort of special care. That's what the real world looks like for the so-called Sandwich Generation. For this imaginary doctor, any extra tax burden takes money from four generations of his family who needs it and distributes the cash to strangers."
Imagine that instead of a doctor, we are talking about a hard working carpenter who makes about $40,000 a year, and of whom we could say "his mortgage is underwater, and he's supporting three grandparents (one on his wife's side) who all need some form of senior care, and the carpenter's parents, and his wife's parents, have no spare cash. The carpenter's parents might also need help in a few years. Oh, and the carpenter has two kids of his own, one of whom needs some sort of special care."
Why do the woes of the hard-working doctor demand more sympathy than the woes of the hard working carpenter?
If the class he's calling "Suckers", in between the Rich and the Majority, includes Scott Adams -- as he says it does -- then I can't help thinking that this is just the old, familiar gambit where rich people try to redefine a term like "middle class" to include themselves, so that they can portray self-interest as looking out for the poor beleaguered middle classes.
The interesting question isn't whether it's a "gambit", the question is whether it is true. Calling people with large incomes and large unavoidable outflows "rich" isn't necessarily right, and while the stuff Adams said about that guy may mostly not look like unavoidable outflows, we do saddle all our doctors with debt and a lot of small business owners do have a lot of unavoidable outflows like, say, other people's salaries. Just taxing everybody with a high income is not necessarily a good idea for anybody, however good it may feel. He is certainly right that not all rich is created equal and the language here is very impoverished.
It's also worth pointing out that a lot of those outflows are avoidable only to the extent that they are picked up by taxpayers, like taking care of his parents or college grants. We don't win if we grab $10,000 more from that guy, he goes bankrupt, and we incur $30,000 more in liabilities picking up what he now can't carry. (And yeah, I think those numbers do work, as the government frequently picks things up inefficiently.)
I don't think that's a fair assessment; it's completely absurd to categorize people simply into two categories (and I'd even argue that 3 is probably not enough but that's far too long-winded for a HN comment).
A family with an income of $200,000 per year is certainly more well-off than a family with an income of $50,000 per year; but there's absolutely no parallel to a family with income of $5,000,000 per year. I'd contend that the family with the $200k income has far more in common with the $50k income than the $5m family.
And then we look at the $5m per year family and the $500m per year family. There's still no comparison.
I don't think this is a case of Adams trying to push himself into the "middle class," I think what he's getting at is that the "middle class" is really a myth.
The most interesting part there, to me, was the currently first comment by poke111. I'll reproduce it here:
Imagine the government found some way to fund itself without any tax revenue at all. Say, a giant reserve of natural resources were found on federal land, and now tax revenue isn't needed to fund the government. As a libertarian-leaning conservative I personally would be delighted to see all federal income tax go to zero. After all, we've always been told that taxes are needed to fund the government. But somehow I think some people would not be happy that even "rich" people wouldn't have to pay taxes anymore.
And here I think is where the real difference lies: libertarian and conservative type people see taxes as a necessary evil. If the government wouldn't need the money, the ideal situation would be zero taxation. But I think liberals tend to see things in the opposite way: Taxes are a way to acheive fairness, and funding the government is a convenient means to that end, in the absense of which they would find a different means.
Conservatives want to set the level of taxation to match their preferred level of spending (at least in theory), and liberals want to set the level of spending to match their preferred level of taxation. The difference is whether taxation is the means or the end.
Any truth to this technically? It feels right to me but I'm neither an economist or much of a politician.
There is a huge difference between the "wealthy"/"rich" and high income earners. Many high income earners, like young doctors or entrepreneurs, have negative net worth and are not wealthy at all. The progressive tax system is a scam rigged by the true rich-- who control assets and take income mostly as capital gains-- against the next generation of strivers who have earning power but few assets.
Wow, he really had to pile a lot on that doctor to make people feel sorry for him. College loans, mortgage, and 3 grandparents' nursing homes. Plus, his parents and his wife's parents also need support.
It's a good thing normal people never end up in that situation! If he wasn't rich, he couldn't afford it. Wait... I think they do!
He has a good point, but his analogy completely obliterates it. Unfortunately, he acts like we've never heard of the middle class and that he's delivering us news that they exist. They have been part of every tax discussion I've heard in the last few years. It's not news.
In the example scenario, wouldn't the doctor be able to get tax deductions for college loan payments as well as dependent care of seniors? The mortgage underwater scenario sucks, but is he losing his home because it's not worth what he paid? I no tax expert, but wouldn't the increased taxes only apply to income that isn't covered by the deductions? If he's still making $250K+ per year beyond the deductions for those expenses, then I don't see that the sob story of the poor doctor just trying to get by with all the uncontrollable expenses is really valid.
In my opinion an income (or wealth-based) tax systems is not really that optimal in a globalized world. Instead I propose a kind of resource-based tax systems: Instead of taxing income tax the amount of scarce resources used. For example, the amount of land owned, the amount of oil used, or even the amount of CO2 emitted.
I think that such a system would have several nice implications:
* Businesses would automatically look for ways to save taxes, and thereby help the environment.
* It better reflects the true cost of a business or person to the society: If someone earns a lot of money this does not reduce my standard of living. However, if someone destroys the environment it does.
* As a country you can avoid loosing many of the Internet businesses to tax havens, as there is a lesser advantage of moving away.
Unfortunately, in many countries it's exactly the other way around. For example, many South American countries endorse usage of scarce resources by subsidize oil. While this works in the short-term, the consequences in the long-term will be fatal.
Caring for parents and grandparents, paying off college loans and servicing a mortgage are all tax-deductible activities. I'm not saying it isn't hard to make ends meet with all those obligations, but a tax hike would disproportionately affect his _discretionary_ income, not income that ends up being spent on caring for others or paying off student debt.
Am I the only one who thinks "gang rape" is a little extreme here? Granted, I'm on the low end of the "majority" but I find the perspective all sorts of wrong.
My family was left penniless just paying the healthcare bill for our first daughter, and even then I would never compare a broken system to gang rape. I'm not saying we should discount the woes of middle-class America, but I think it's irresponsible to act as though the poor don't have it worse — and even more irresponsible to imply that the poor and the rich are somehow in collusion to "rape" the middle class.
His initial point is a good one, but it strays really far.
The solution to the problem he puts forth is actually a simple one: Go entirely to a consumption tax. Then the doctor with all the family to support gets taxed very little despite his income and the rich guy going out to buy a Yacht gets taxed a huge amount. It's as fair as fair could be.
The problem with a consumption tax is getting the Government to agree to a system that doesn't guarantee them a certain income and getting the people to accept huge price spikes (which are emotionally jarring even if your income tax has been eliminated).
Wow, finally a voice of reason in this argument. Just because you're in the highest tax bracket does not mean you have disposable income like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, etc do. I'd think that most of the assets of people at the lower end of the highest tax bracket are illiquid.
Is there some income level where everyone can agree that nobody is a "sucker", and you're just rich at that point?
I would imagine all but a handful of doctors make less than 2 million dollars (40 times the median household's income), and those that do I'd be fine calling rich. If you create a new tax bracket for the rich at that point, you're losing only 2% of the increased tax income on the 100 millionaires, but not harming the struggling, debt-ridden doctors of the world.
> The number of jobs with pay below the poverty threshold increased to 29.4 million, or 22 percent of all jobs, in 2006 from 24.7 million, or 19 percent of all jobs, in 2002.
Interesting how state-funded health care would prevent his doctor example completely. True, we might need more taxes, but the cost would be evenly divided among the 'suckers' who have ill family members and the 'suckers' who don't.
[+] [-] m_myers|15 years ago|reply
---
MikeStansky (http://dilbert.com/users/MikeStansky)
Dec 27, 2010
I saw an amusing analogy on taxation:
Suppose that every evening, 10 men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do. The 10 men drank in the bar every evening and were quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner said "Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20". Drinks for the 10 men would now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share? They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.
Therefore, the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing.
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free.
But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "But he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a buck too. It's unfair -he got 10 times more benefit than me!" "That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy always win!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "we didn't get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
---
The comment id is 75340, if anyone knows how to hack the URLs.
[+] [-] Daishiman|15 years ago|reply
Seriously, there are forms of wealth which don't add value to societies, and if those people aren't willing to get into markets because it hurts their bottom line too much, so be it. "The Rich" are not a universally good group that adds value to all the economies where they do business; they too have their part in fucking up a huge number of locations around the world.
Just as an example, Germany is one of the most prosperous nations in the world, and their economy is as socialist as it gets (in the European, modern use of the world, not the classical Marxist usage). Their labor force is highly skilled and sheltered, and its manufacturing base is strong. I don't see the same thing happening in the dirt-poor Caribbean tax havens.
[+] [-] lkrubner|15 years ago|reply
In almost all 50 states, the overall tax code is regressive - the middle classes are taxed more heavily than the rich. The regressive nature of the state taxes is offset by the progressive nature of the Federal taxes.
Imagine re-doing the above scenario of 10 men in a bar, but doing it in an accurate way, where there is sales tax on those beers - then the story comes out rather differently.
[+] [-] amalcon|15 years ago|reply
--
But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings. "I only saved 16% out of the 20% reduction," declared the tenth man. He pointed to the sixth man, "But he saved 100%" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the ninth man. "I only saved 22%. It's unfair -he got much more benefit than me!" "That's true!" shouted the eighth man. "Why should he get 100% back, when I got only 25%? The poor always win!" The eighth, ninth, and tenth men got together and talked to the bartender, who (because their money was keeping him in business) agreed to no longer serve the group unless they adopted a less progressive schedule.
And that, boys and girls, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest tax rate will naturally get the least benefit from a tax reduction, but they have the most power to explicitly direct a reduction to themselves.
--
Note that however it may seem, I don't mean to argue a particular position by this. I'm only pointing out how changing a little piece at the end completely changes the message of the parable. It's a complete hypothetical either way. I've been calling this the "Fallacy of the Parable": using a parable in place of a reasoned argument.
[+] [-] yequalsx|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luigi|15 years ago|reply
Why can't they use real people and real numbers?
[+] [-] antidaily|15 years ago|reply
/groan
[+] [-] jread|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnosis|15 years ago|reply
Laws could be passed to keep wealth from moving overseas without being taxed first.
It's very simple. All it takes is political will.
[+] [-] TheSOB88|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alf|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lkrubner|15 years ago|reply
"Before you break out the tiny violins for my hypothetical doctor, allow yourself to imagine that he's got a mountain of college loans, his mortgage is underwater, and he's supporting three grandparents (one on his wife's side) who all need some form of senior care, and the doctor's parents, and his wife's parents, have no spare cash. The doctor's parents might also need help in a few years. Oh, and the doctor has two kids of his own, one of whom needs some sort of special care. That's what the real world looks like for the so-called Sandwich Generation. For this imaginary doctor, any extra tax burden takes money from four generations of his family who needs it and distributes the cash to strangers."
Imagine that instead of a doctor, we are talking about a hard working carpenter who makes about $40,000 a year, and of whom we could say "his mortgage is underwater, and he's supporting three grandparents (one on his wife's side) who all need some form of senior care, and the carpenter's parents, and his wife's parents, have no spare cash. The carpenter's parents might also need help in a few years. Oh, and the carpenter has two kids of his own, one of whom needs some sort of special care."
Why do the woes of the hard-working doctor demand more sympathy than the woes of the hard working carpenter?
[+] [-] gjm11|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jerf|15 years ago|reply
It's also worth pointing out that a lot of those outflows are avoidable only to the extent that they are picked up by taxpayers, like taking care of his parents or college grants. We don't win if we grab $10,000 more from that guy, he goes bankrupt, and we incur $30,000 more in liabilities picking up what he now can't carry. (And yeah, I think those numbers do work, as the government frequently picks things up inefficiently.)
[+] [-] bcrescimanno|15 years ago|reply
A family with an income of $200,000 per year is certainly more well-off than a family with an income of $50,000 per year; but there's absolutely no parallel to a family with income of $5,000,000 per year. I'd contend that the family with the $200k income has far more in common with the $50k income than the $5m family.
And then we look at the $5m per year family and the $500m per year family. There's still no comparison.
I don't think this is a case of Adams trying to push himself into the "middle class," I think what he's getting at is that the "middle class" is really a myth.
[+] [-] yummyfajitas|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petercooper|15 years ago|reply
Imagine the government found some way to fund itself without any tax revenue at all. Say, a giant reserve of natural resources were found on federal land, and now tax revenue isn't needed to fund the government. As a libertarian-leaning conservative I personally would be delighted to see all federal income tax go to zero. After all, we've always been told that taxes are needed to fund the government. But somehow I think some people would not be happy that even "rich" people wouldn't have to pay taxes anymore.
And here I think is where the real difference lies: libertarian and conservative type people see taxes as a necessary evil. If the government wouldn't need the money, the ideal situation would be zero taxation. But I think liberals tend to see things in the opposite way: Taxes are a way to acheive fairness, and funding the government is a convenient means to that end, in the absense of which they would find a different means.
Conservatives want to set the level of taxation to match their preferred level of spending (at least in theory), and liberals want to set the level of spending to match their preferred level of taxation. The difference is whether taxation is the means or the end.
Any truth to this technically? It feels right to me but I'm neither an economist or much of a politician.
[+] [-] OstiaAntica|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wccrawford|15 years ago|reply
It's a good thing normal people never end up in that situation! If he wasn't rich, he couldn't afford it. Wait... I think they do!
He has a good point, but his analogy completely obliterates it. Unfortunately, he acts like we've never heard of the middle class and that he's delivering us news that they exist. They have been part of every tax discussion I've heard in the last few years. It's not news.
[+] [-] dlnovell|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gst|15 years ago|reply
In my opinion an income (or wealth-based) tax systems is not really that optimal in a globalized world. Instead I propose a kind of resource-based tax systems: Instead of taxing income tax the amount of scarce resources used. For example, the amount of land owned, the amount of oil used, or even the amount of CO2 emitted.
I think that such a system would have several nice implications:
* Businesses would automatically look for ways to save taxes, and thereby help the environment.
* It better reflects the true cost of a business or person to the society: If someone earns a lot of money this does not reduce my standard of living. However, if someone destroys the environment it does.
* As a country you can avoid loosing many of the Internet businesses to tax havens, as there is a lesser advantage of moving away.
Unfortunately, in many countries it's exactly the other way around. For example, many South American countries endorse usage of scarce resources by subsidize oil. While this works in the short-term, the consequences in the long-term will be fatal.
[+] [-] drags|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keithwarren|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jessevondoom|15 years ago|reply
My family was left penniless just paying the healthcare bill for our first daughter, and even then I would never compare a broken system to gang rape. I'm not saying we should discount the woes of middle-class America, but I think it's irresponsible to act as though the poor don't have it worse — and even more irresponsible to imply that the poor and the rich are somehow in collusion to "rape" the middle class.
His initial point is a good one, but it strays really far.
[+] [-] TomOfTTB|15 years ago|reply
The problem with a consumption tax is getting the Government to agree to a system that doesn't guarantee them a certain income and getting the people to accept huge price spikes (which are emotionally jarring even if your income tax has been eliminated).
[+] [-] known|15 years ago|reply
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1794484&cid=336...
[+] [-] cmelbye|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] luigi|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zdw|15 years ago|reply
I'd love to hear a workable solution to this...
[+] [-] hnal943|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rflrob|15 years ago|reply
I would imagine all but a handful of doctors make less than 2 million dollars (40 times the median household's income), and those that do I'd be fine calling rich. If you create a new tax bracket for the rich at that point, you're losing only 2% of the increased tax income on the 100 millionaires, but not harming the struggling, debt-ridden doctors of the world.
[+] [-] yummyfajitas|15 years ago|reply
Of course, we'd need to create a big exemption for the poor (most of whom choose not to work).
[edit: citation for my assertion that the poor choose not to work: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2008.pdf ]
[+] [-] ceejayoz|15 years ago|reply
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/14/national/main45225...
> The number of jobs with pay below the poverty threshold increased to 29.4 million, or 22 percent of all jobs, in 2006 from 24.7 million, or 19 percent of all jobs, in 2002.
[+] [-] HaloZero|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aresant|15 years ago|reply
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/24/magazines/fortune/tully_henr...
[+] [-] m_myers|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] TheSOB88|15 years ago|reply