I have always talked about the Macro Economy in abstract terms of how the mechanism worked which exactly did not translate into personal terms of the effect that it had on you personally. For the most part the ripple effects of the macro were being muted. When the store shelves became empty now it became personal. It effected you directly.

With the proposed 25% surtax on the Privileged...well they out of desperation are reaching out to touch you personally. You have become "THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE" and must pay your tithes to the government to help sustain the underprivileged. They must make you into a villain for the moral justification of touching you for everything you have. You out of your evilness deserve to be taxed as atonement for your sins.

Do you get it? It has become real!

When private business can be shut down on a whim and without any kind of due process, the concept of private property simply does not exist anymore.

You put up everything you have as collateral and didnt even know you were doing it.

Do i have to remind you..in 3/20.
I said a QUASI NATIONALIZED ZOMBIE SUBSISTENCE ECONOMY.

And it does not matter if you have debt to the eyeballs or no debt...when so many cant pay..

Socialism won in order to maintain stability in society...and that meant giving people money for nuthin.

You have seen the reality of it. Everything i talk about is reality..couched in the terms of an analytical dialectic. I tell you how these systems work.

People of means have become the new Jews..especially if you are of the white persuasion.

Years agoi said the world had changed and it was no longer wise to display wealth rather it became advantagous to poor mouth your status..now you know why. A privledged wealth tax. Now they are going tk impose a 15% corporate income tax on international profits..dont you think they can impose that on individuals as well. They are tightening.the net.They are desperate for revenue.

Tax the rich till they aren't rich no more.

Years ago.i joked about CA imposing a wealth tax if you wana leave.
Doez that sound so far fetched now?

What is your definition of “of means”?

Compare to tax proposals.

If “person of means” denotes roughly the top 1.5% to 2.0% of income, then you’re right.

Way down the food chain...it may not be a direct income tax..but they will nickle and dime you for every thing to get revenue. Call em fees.

How bout a flush the toilette tax..for water conservation..we are in a drought ya know!

Shhhh dont mention this it might give em ideas.

Defining 'rich' is necessary.
Even welfare slackers have smartphones and cable here.
The disparity between the definable classes is increasing exponentially.

A million bucks used to be Dr Evil's ultimatum to not nuke the world.
But now it won't even buy a shack in some places.

(this thread is another parfy in ppoty)

Realistically, for most people the "nickel and dime fees" are minor irritants, financially unimportant, and aren't controlled by the federal govt anyway - they are a state and local govt thing.

FYI here is a table of 2020 income percentiles.

https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-household-income-percentiles/#:~:text=Household%20Income%20Percentiles%20for%20 the%20United%20States%20in,%20%2014.83%25%20%2040% 20more%20rows%20

If your total household income is $350K/yr, you're about 98th percentile. $150K, about 83rd percentile. 50th percentile (median) is about $66K.

The US is a rich country with a hell of a lot of low-income people. About 25% of US households have income around $32K, or about $2,667/mo.

Yep, many of the poorest in this country are very rich compared to middle class in other countries.

I vividly remember the days of living off of rice, potatoes, and macaroni and cheese. Friday was special because I could pour some hungry man soup on my rice and have a big meal. To mange to make my mortgage payment and utilities was a tough nut, but I owned a house and was building equity. Very slowly as I had a really great mortgage rate that was cheap for the time of only 12.5%. Working two jobs finally got me out of debt.

I did not even own a TV for most of that time as I was too busy working to watch TV. So no cable bill, no 60 inch flat screen, no internet, no cell phone for me. Not one cent in government subsidy of any sort. No free cheese, no food stamps, just work.

Note though that today no cellphone and no internet means little or no ability to find jobs, use services, get information, communicate with anyone, do schoolwork, etc. Smartphones and home internet are not the unnecessary luxuries that they were even a decade ago - they are almost as vital as electric and water. I would expect even low-income households to do everything they can to keep those things.

this happened under capitalism.

Everything they can to keep those things? They get all that and more for free here in California.

You must be allot younger than you look or really got screwed interest-wise.

When rates were 12.5% (Carter) as far as I know there were no such things as flat screens, internets or cell phones. Cable TV as we know it today, didn't become widespread until the early 80's.

Back when I was poor the second time the Burger King near campus had Whoppers for $.35 apiece on Wednesdays. For a little over a buck you get stuffed and set yourself on a good pace for heart disease, too!

They can go to a public library and use a computer for free, and free internet. That might be difficult if you live in a very rural area, but city residents can find a library.

At the time, 1982, the banks were charging 18% for a 30 year mortgage. I honestly got a great rate because I bought a house that the owner financed. He made 12.5% on his money. I looked at the house and said I would buy it on Nov. 1st, 1982, we shook hands. 10 days later I woke up in my house, broke as hell, but no more renting.

Getting the utilities, set up and physically moved used all my cash and some credit card debt. It is a long story on why I really had to move then and irrelevant. I had a choice rent again or buy a house. I think I made the right choice, even if I did have to live of off of rice and beans.

FYI, public libraries have been closed for over a year.

Jobs (the sort that low income people get) are posted on Craigslist and similar online sites. Communication is by webform, email and increasingly text. Good luck applying, sending your info, getting contacted, etc without web access, email, a phone. How many employers will look at a job app with no phone # and no email?

Same for housing. Would you rent to someone who doesn’t have a phone or email? “Please leave me a message at the public library”. Yeah right.

When you get that minimum wage job, it’s going to be shift work and your hours may change weekly. Which you find out about by email, text, phone. “Please leave me a message at the public library” again?

Do you need to know about any public services or assistance programs? Likely would be helpful, if you’re living on $2,500/mo and maybe raising a kid, whose dad skipped out years ago. No internet, no phone? You won’t know about anything and won’t be able to apply for it anyway.

The world has changed. Internet and cellphone are as vital today as bus tokens and quarters for the payphone were 30 years ago.

Could you, or others on this forum, if cast onto the street with no internet, no phone, no money, figure out how to use the local library and hard work to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps? Probably yes - except in 2020 when the library doors were locked - but that’s because we’re all successful, with a lifetime of education, experience and skills, and frankly I think this group is mostly in the top 5% or 10% of Americans as far as smarts, resourcefulness, and other personal attributes go.

I mean, when the Guardian of Forever sends Kirk and Spock to a slum in New York during the Great Depression, you’re not worried that they’ll end up homeless, you know it’s only a matter of time before they own the joint (“City on The Edge of Forever”).

But we’re talking about Americans who are in the bottom 20-30% in education, skills experience, etc. Will they all be as resourceful and successful as you or hopefully I would be? Not likely. The ones that aren’t - should they just live in their cars or in tents on the street? Because that’s what’s happening, more and more.

The people who are just a rung or two above that, they know how fragile their situation is, and that not having internet and smartphone - at absolute minimum the latter - is one step toward ending up in a tent. You may think those are luxuries that poor people shouldn’t have, but in the real world it’s a lifeline and they will do everything possible to have it.

Well this is frightening. I read the actual proposed text of the bill, and it literally kept me up last night. I don't know if it's the 25% tax, or the fact that it literally uses the word "priveledge" derogatorily throughout the text.

And as landlord's raise their rents to make up for the lost revenue, it will actually increase homelessness.

how about a tax on internet blather?

Read the bill carefully. The excise tax applies to "Qualified Taxpayers" which is defined as "“Qualified taxpayer” means a person or entity that owns 10 or more qualified properties that are single family dwellings or 25 or more qualified properties that are either single family residential dwellings or multifamily dwellings in this state during the calendar year."

The target of the bill is large "institutional" type landlords - the ones who own whole fleets of rental houses/units. I think, for that target, the cutoff (10 units if they are all single family houses, or 25 units if they are a mix of houses and apartments) is too low - the big guys own hundreds and thousands of houses and apartments in a metro region, not 30 or 50. I also think the bill is ambiguously drafted because sec (2)(g)(1) doesn't make it clear if it is counting each apartment unit or each apartment building.

A 25% excise tax is punitive, of course. I think that is indeed the bill's intent: to cripple/force out the large institutional landlords (e.g. the private equity funds that are buying houses by the hundreds of thousands) and to favor small mom and pop type landlords. I'm not saying if that's good or bad, but that is probably the intent.

Anyway, if you own dozens of rental houses or a larger apartment building, this will be a problem. If it passes, which I doubt.