I agree. Working class, sociological definitions aside, normally refers to those who require employment, have to, to provide the economic means necessary to maintain their particular standard of living. Anyone with adequate assets that provide an invested return sufficient to maintain their desired standard of living in a financially independent manner is not working class.

The fact of the matter is that the majority of those members of the working class who earn average incomes will never, unless they adhere to a life of bare existence, accumulate enough assets to provide a comfortable retirement. In looking at the well-identified and researched accumulated assets of baby boomer working class, who worked during the most prosperous period in US history, most not receiving an indexed union or public pension will be unable to afford a retirement standard of living that comes anywhere close to financial independence.

Considering stagnated wages and decreased earning power of the last couple of generations of working class people and the tax burdens they're going to face from years of government fiscal irresponsibility and falling PPP, it's not a rosy looking future for that group. I can't help but wonder what happened to the common sense of the last couple of generations of youth, who are normally the future of any country. Putting the meager assets they are able to accumulate in the hands of commissioned/bonus fund managers to dissipate as gains for big players seems to be pursuing financial suicide.

The self made men I know HAVE to work. Unless they sell their business or retire from their jobs they HAVE to work to pay the bills.

Multi gazillionaire is a class envy word. There are not many gazillioniares out there. The rest of us are working class.

Someone holding a job is a self-made man?

There are nearly eight million US millionaires, net worth calculated without primary residence value, there must be a few near you.

Why hasn't the last 8 years taught people that tax cuts don't help the economy. We've had them, they didn't work.

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Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he’s president he’ll take on, and I quote, 'the old boys’ network in Washington.' I’m not making this up. This is somebody been in Congress for 26 years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign. And now he tells us that he’s the one who’s gonna take on the old boys' network,” he said. “In the McCain campaign that’s called a staff meeting!- Obama, 9/17/2008

Then they aren't self MADE men. They're still working on it.

Pretty much my point. There's them -- the truly rich -- and then there's the rest of us. Two problems arise.

The first is that government policy has been shaped over the last 27 years to benefit those few gazillionaires, at the expense of the rest of us.

The second is that all too many of the rest of us have been bamboozled into thinking that our interests are the same as those of the gazillionaires, merely because we aren't truly poor. And that's just not so. Sure, there are differences between the working class and the truly poor; sure, the truly poor get government handouts that the working class pay (a tiny share of) the cost for -- but the fact remains, there's the truly rich, and then there's the rest of us. And unless you're one of the truly rich, your interests do NOT lie with theirs, ever.

And it's not class "envy" so much as it is class self-defense.

Here's another thing I feel ought to be pointed out. There's no free lunch, and a tax cut isn't always a tax cut.

If the government cuts your taxes, you have a little more spending money, but the resulting drop in revenues will be made up in one of three ways:

1) Another tax will be raised to compensate; or
2) Government services will be cut; or
3) The deficit will increase.

And so you always have to ask yourself these questions:

1) If another tax is raised to compensate, will I end up paying more in net taxes, as happened to most taxpayers in the Reagan years when the Social Security payroll tax was raised to partly defray the cost of Reagan's income tax cuts?

2) If government services are cut, will they be ones I use and rely on, such as financial aid for my kids' college or aid to school districts, so that I end up losing more than the extra spending money is worth?

3) If the deficit increases, am I one of those who lend money to the government, so that I will end up getting paid with interest, or am I one of those who doesn't, so that the deficit means my future taxes transfer wealth from me to the rich?

The hidden costs in any tax cut need to be examined before you get too happy about it.

Approximately 67% of the entire tax base in this country is paid by 1% of the wealthy.

This thread is about a capital gains tax. Capital gains that go from current 15% to Obama's tax of 28%. This tax increase hits "all" Americans who invest for their future. PLUS, it has been proven that lower capital gains tax results in more tax revenue for the government.

It was very clear during the debate, that Obama does not understand this proven fact. He is totally out of touch with middle class Americans.

Again like Obama you don't get it, or you're just a blind & deaf supporter of Obama.

Raising capital gains tax DECREASES tax revenue--period. We could care less what you do with your 401 K.

We want the deficit to go DOWN. We do it by cutting spending & bringing as much tax revenue in as possible, without killing the American middle class. One does that by keeping capital gains taxes low.

You'll have to explain how you arrive at capital gain tax increases decreasing tax revenue. There's a history of tax revenue as a percentage of GDP from page 28 of the White House Budget publication:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget...7/pdf/hist.pdf

1977- 18%
1978- 18
1979- 18.5
1980- 19
1981- 19.6
1982- 19.1
1983- 17.5
1984- 17.4
1985- 17.7
1986- 17.4
1987- 18.4
1988- 18.2
1989- 18.4
1990- 18
1991- 17.8
1992- 17.4
1993- 17.6
1994- 18.1
1995- 18.5
1996- 18.9
1997- 19.3
1998- 20
1999- 20
2000- 20.9
2001- 19.8
2002- 17.9
2003- 16.9
2004- 16.5
2005- 16.3

Note the significant Decrease in total tax revenues after capital gain and other tax rates were decreased by current administration.

As I've noted before, capital gain tax revenue is historically 12% of total tax revenue, a number that normally changes in anticipation of lowered or increased tax rates and only on the year proceeding or following any such change. This is not a significant number in overall tax revenue and generally restricted to higher income individuals.

You don't seem to know what you're talking about. If your desire is to increase tax revenue, you certainly don't accomplish that by lowering capital gain tax rates, you increase them. If you don't increase them, then as another poster noted you're going to have to increase them somewhere else, and income tax on higher income individuals is the most obvious target to achieve increased tax revenue.

Your comment on the American middle class is so far out of line as to be ridiculous. The middle class most often invests for long-term purposes through 401k and other such investments under the control of others, and doesn't take capital gains on a regular basis. Even on declaring 401k close-outs for tax purposes the contribution portion is taxed at existing income tax rate while only the gains (if any as the working class with no control over their investments always bear the brunt of equity market profit taking) are subject to capital gain tax rates.

We were talking about the rich people I know and all HAVE to work.


Yes I live in an area of Atlanta where houses are selling for 500K to 2 million, I am not sure if everyone living in million dollar homes are millionaires, but I do know from 5:30am to 10am the traffic is backed up for miles just to get to I-85, so someone is going to work.

8 million out of 300 million is a very small %.

Then it rolls back to whether or not rich is defined by the ability of not having to work. A net worth of $1M exclusive of residence available for investment would return about $50k/yr in safe bond proceeds, really not enough for a 'rich' lifestyle or to quit work. I know people worth far more than that who still 'work' but as heads of successful companies or as politicians, either occupation not a 'have to'. They certainly don't fight suburban rush-hour traffic and aren't dependent on job sourced paychecks to provide their living expenses. Those, and the people wealthy enough to receive income at a level not requiring or desiring employment, are the people who make big money from declaring regular capital gains, not the commuters having to work for a paycheck and contributing to 401k plans for future retirement.

A $500k home in a prime metro area with an active work force is normally starter level. A $2M home can easily be afforded by one or two working professionals such as successful attorneys, MDs, med/large business owners and until recently, property developers. Again, if they're working, they generally aren't exposing themselves to capital gain taxes to derive income, they're still investing.

Try 218M, US adults over the age of 18. Or use 190M, US adults over age 25.

The point being the working class in most cases do not contribute the bulk of capital gain tax revenue.

So you are saying socking it to the rich then though they are already paying more taxes than any other class, esp the poor who pay none, is going to help the eccomony?

Who creates jobs? Who pays the paychecks? Who gives you that job? The rich? Why yes they do.

When you take that extra tax from them, you are only taking it away from the business owner/company. So we see higher product costs to off set the higher taxes which are passed on to the consumer. So either the consumer buys the product at a higher cost or they don't, then guess who is left out in the cold? The person who made or performed a service, the working class are caught in the middle. They either pay the higher costs or the lose the work.

So anyway you look at it, the working class get it up the ass because when you tax the rich, the shit rolls down hill. You give the rich a tax break, they use the money to expand thus creating jobs.

Now tell me which is better for the economy?

The consumers, without whom the rich would hog their money rather than investing it in job-creating ventures.

What you've stated, LS, is the classic supply-side fallacy, well disproved by the economic history of this country. And while you're at it, you also stated another: the idea that a business charges for its products what it must, and no more. A parallel fallacy is the idea that a business pays its workers what it can.

In reality, it's the other way around. A business pays what it must, in all business expenses -- labor costs, materials costs, administrative overhead, etc., etc. and any way that it can find to cut these costs it will use. And a business charges its customer what it CAN -- which means what its customers are able and willing to pay.

The idea that the economy does better, more jobs are created, and so on the greater the share of the nation's wealth is hogged by those at the top, is nonsense. Investors always have more capital than they are willing to invest in job-creating ventures. Tossing yet more their direction, even if it could be created from nothing by the wave of a magic wand, would not spur investment.

In reality, though, it's actually counterproductive, because that wealth is transferred to them from the middle class, who represent the bulk of the consumers. And with less money to spend, people buy less, which means business is less profitable, which means there is less incentive to invest in it.

The economy does better the more broadly wealth is distributed -- exactly the opposite of what you seem to believe.

I don't understand the general lack of common investment knowledge displayed by many posters, yourself and a couple of other posters excepted, with regard to windfall tax breaks. Some posters actually seem to believe those savings are going back into the US economy in the form of fresh business capital. In this era of capital flight, declining USD valuation and a faltering US service economy driven by consumers with stagnated wages, that's the last place it'll go.

I also recognize many posters are unaware of the ramifications of wealth redistribution heading to the top or the priorities of operating a business. Perhaps they're young, but hopefully sooner or later they'll understand most business entities are not structured for the primary benefit of workers and their futures or consumers.

For you two to think that wealth redistribution is the answer then answer this, Bush and Clinton gave the rich tax breaks, lowest unemployment numbers in history. Carter taxed the hell out of the rich unemployment was high.


I own a small business. When I get tax breaks to help grow my business like the Bush tax cuts, I hired two new employees because I could write off the new equipment (trucks) on my taxes. I created two new positions because of tax breaks. Two more people working at a middle class earnings (50K).

Without those tax cuts, I doubt I would be able to afford to hire nor grow my business.