Ranting to /dev/null

Another reason for fewer children in America?

Regardless of our feelings on the issue, 45 million-plus babies have been aborted since 1973.

...that's where some of the kids went.

True Bill, but I think Ryan is talking about the factors that lead to people deciding they ought to have abortions/not have children.

Yeah, I know. Just pointing out another reason why there aren't "more young people."

Josiah's got it: I think that a culture that feels the need to do away with its own children is a far scarier thing than the actual deaths.

Though I agree that some structural and legal changes need to be made to prevent more abortions, outlawing it is a losing battle. Why not focus on the things that lead mothers to want abortions in the first place, like un/underemployment, regressive tax structures, union-dominated sub-par school systems, and greedy seniors who don't have the grace to die quietly?

Ryan...it's strange, but I almost completely agree with you. I probably would have said it a little different in places (i.e. "greedy seniors who don't have the grace to die quietly"), but you are right. The solution to the abortion problem in our country (there, you heard someone who votes pro-choice admit that there is an abortion problem) is prevention and not restriction. And tax breaks for education make a lot more sense to me than tax breaks for inheritances.

"how about we tax income over $90k instead of under it?"

Now there's an idea.

Just a quick question. Why tax income over 90k? Won't you be punishing the most highly skilled people in our society for being productive?

sure, what's wrong with that? Its not like people are going to stop trying to be rich.

Ryan, Josiah,

Ryan: What do you mean by "greedy seniors who don't have the grace to die quietly?"

Josiah: I'm confused...are you saying that it's okay to tax "rich" people because...?

Feel free to disregard these questions guys. I'm just asking out of curiosity.

Carl

I just think that it's immoral to punish a person whose only crime is to accumulate wealth. In contemporary America, we care far less about helping the poor than we do about punishing the wealthy.

Carl, I'm just saying its ok to tax rich people. I'm not sure why you'd need a reason. It's certainly within the "rule of law" we've got here in America.

The burdon of proof to prove otherwise is with you, or, with whomever thinks its not ok.

But before you play the "fair" card, temporar & subjective definitions of "fair" are a matter of perspective and no way to go about basing our tax policy.

Josiah,

I just didn't understand what you were saying...that's all. I'll have to think about what you've written to see if I agree/disagree.

Thanks.

Carl

Carl: I mean that there are plenty of old people who are so absorbed in their own self-interest that they prolong their lives far beyond their time. My grandfather was a good counterexample of this. In early 2003 he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer. He had a choice about whether or not to opt for chemotherapy and surgery, which would have involved a hemispherectomy at the least. He chose to go with no treatment beyond the management of symptoms to make things easier on the family. It was clear that he had been diagnosed with the disease that was going to end his life, and that treatment could perhaps add six months to a year of life, but at the cost of severely decreased social function and huge medical expenses. I think he made the right choice.

I think if you're diagnosed with a disease that will be ultimately fatal and if treatment beyond management of symptoms will place a burden on your loved ones, then the right thing to do is to die, quietly and with dignity. Don't go out grasping and clutching at your life. Just go.

Ben and Carl: I tend to oppose so-called "progressive" tax structures as being somewhat unjust, and not particularly effective. But I'm really opposed to a regressive tax structure like the one we have now. Ideally, taxes should affect everyone equally, but if that isn't going to be the case, than it's wrong for them to hit the poor more than the rich. I'll take a progressive structure over a regressive one any day.

On a purely practical level, regressive tax structures are one of the few direct causes of the 1789 French Revolution, so there's at least some precedent for thinking they're a bad idea.

Josiah: you're wrong about burden of proof, I'm afraid. You're making the positive claim that "it's okay to tax the rich". As it's impossible to prove a negative, the burden of proof lies with you.

Ryan:

I think you are wrong on so many levels that it is hard to know where to start. You have been raised in a household with an income that is a multiple of the $90K you suggest should be taxed more severely; Whatever you feel might be your financial stresses, they would only have been worse had your father been taxed more than the 43% he is currently. (That's just federal income tax...add another 5% for FICA/Medicare and another 2% for PA state...)

Over 93% of the USA's tax income already comes from the top 5% income group, which is over the $90K you propose. One of the effects of Bush's tax cut was to INCREASE this proportion, ie, an even higher percentage of the tax take now comes from the rich. The reason the media can say that the tax cut gave more money back to the rich is simply that the rich are already paying over 90% of the bill. OF COURSE any tax cut will benefit the rich; for all intents and purposes, the entire cost of government is being paid by the rich already, so ANY cut will benefit those who are paying 90% of the bill more than those who are paying 10%, especially when that 10% is being shared by 90% of the populace. Each individual non-rich family can hardly expect to get a big tax break when they are paying, essentially, a token tax.

You fail to consider that because of our concept of corporation as individual taxpayer, every incorporated business is a "person", a "taxpayer". Hence many of those "rich people" are actually small corporations. Our medical practice, for example. If we wanted to invest in a building, for example, costing say one million dollars (that would go directly into the local economy in building supplies, labor, etc), we cannot save for that building without paying 43% of each year's savings to the government. Year one, we aim to set aside $250K toward this building. April 15th, we pay over $100K of that money to the government, leaving only $150K for this investment. Do you think this is an incentive to invest? So what do companies do? They are forced to borrow, rather than save. If they save, they pay enormous taxes (because of the progressive tax structure and the fact that most corporations have income/expenses that would make them very rich individuals.)

On the old-age issue, you should understand that the money saved by your grandfather's decision was minimal. Most expenses for the elderly are not chemo, or anything that dramatic, but are rather activities of daily living costs and chronic disease (congestive heart failure is the largest single cost to Medicare, as a diagnosis, followed by diabetes and, increasingly, other obesity-related conditions). If you are concerned about inheritance, you should commit to caring for your parents in your own home during their old age, as all previous cultures did. But the young will no longer do this, so they lose their inheritance, as you have pointed out. They lose it by choosing to spend it on someone else caring for their elderly family members, so they can drive nice cars now, and have two jobs, and nice audio-video equipment and clothing.

In general, your generation does not know how to defer gratification. You live in your parents' homes because you cannot bear the burden, which they bore, of paying your own ways. To afford a home, you must forego a "nice" car and the myriad of cool gadgets that are, apparently, as necessary as food and shelter. My son in law, with no substantial savings, drives a Mercedes and purchases $600 speakers and $3000 cameras. This we did not do. We were as poor as you are, we just didn't spend money like you do. We saved it, buying the cool stereos years and years after buying the house (I have never yet paid $600 for any piece of electronics, nor even $1000 for a camera. I still have the cheapest cell phone, and only one for the household. 9/10 of our cars were bought used, and mostly Civics...) Ya'll need to stop griping and start doing without, and stop believing that it was so much better in the good ole days...

Ryan (and then Mr. Kearns), I'm not arguing for the ethical justification of taxing the rich, and I'm not making the positive claim that its ok to tax them, what I'm saying is that they are taxed and its within the rule of law in the US.

I was unclear when I used the term "ok", it came off like I was saying it was morally "ok" as opposed to legally "ok". What I am asking is that if you think it is not legally ok, then explain why, and if you think its not morally ok, then explain why.

Mr. Kearns,

While I agree with your overall sentiments (to an extent) which seem to be best summed up as "your standards of living are far higher than what ours were when we were the same age, so lower your standards and live frugally", or something along those lines, I still think you miss that this generation actually makes less than previous generation on average. In an identical situation now to my father at the same age, I'd be making less. Ryan's concern is, I think, why?

Of course, the problem is exacerbated by the higher standard of living etc., but that doesn't change the fact that the deck is slowly getting financially stacked against the younger generation.

And its not like Ryan is all that novel with that idea, I'd have to do some digging but I think it was a cover article on the economist a few months back. Don't hold me to that though, if I can carve out 15 minutes I'll go looking. It may have been an article in the WSJ. I need a Spotlight Search Function for my brain.

Dr. Kearns: your points are well made, and I have in fact made many of them myself in the past. I completely understand the power curve that describes tax income in this country, and have commented about this before. Yes, any tax cut will generally only affect the "rich", because they're the ones paying most of the taxes. I am entirely okay with this.

But I think you're missing a few things. First off, real estate prices have risen at a rate several times that of inflation for the past few decades. Median household income is around $52k. Median home price is just under $190k. In 1980, when you and my dad were looking at buying homes, the median household income was, adjusted for inflation, $42k but median home price was $50k. Income has risen with inflation, but real estate has ballooned far out of control. I think this has to do with lack of school choice, a point I've argued before.

In 1980, most Americans could buy a home that cost in the neighborhood of twice their annual income. This would have been in the $80-100k range. Today, to own an average home, with the ratio of cost/income, you need to be pulling down just under $100k. Most Americans will never earn this much, and the ones that do rarely do so immediately. 40-somethings make six figures, not 20-somethings.

Your point on overconsumption is a good one, but contrary to popular belief, this is not a common cause of financial insolvency. I do not spend thousands of dollars on equipment or electronics, and the only consumder durable I've purchased that cost more than $500 was my 1999 Subaru Impreza with 41k miles on it. But I don't imagine I'll be in any position to buy a home for the next five or six years at the least, my educational situation being what it is, and perhaps a lot longer than that if home prices keep rising.

I do understand that chemo is a fairly drastic procedure and neither as common nor expensive as I seem to have indicated. But in-hospital stays and nursing care are expensive, and I think we're providing that to far more people than required by a reasonable ethical standard. There's got to be something to just dying quietly without drastic expenditures to extend your life by another few years. If you have CHF, manage your symptoms while you can, but at some point it's just time to die.

I would agree that caring for elders in the home is the best way of doing things, but this form of care is in essence a choice to not provide much medical support. There isn't 24 hour support or supervision, there isn't any on-site advanced care facility, and there are no nurses or PAs to monitor medications and life signs. Only what a family can do. I'd be happy to do this for my parents, but what if they get really sick? I can't provide the same kind of care that a hospital or nursing facility can, regardless of my love for them, and it'd actually be cheaper to send them to nursing care than try to provide those things myself. Keeping the elders at home is really choosing to let nature take its course and not go through extraordinary means to extend their lives.