U.S. Middle Class nearly gone

[BoFox]

I don't know what has happened to the middle class, it's pretty scary actually. Here in Canada the government has resorted to giving the middle class a tax break while hiking taxes on those who earn more than $200,000/year. They're going to have to do more of this if this is going to continue as well.

How many people making $200,000/year employ thousands of people and ship their jobs over seas?

How many people making $200,000/year build cities in China to manufacture their goods?

I'm seriously asking this question-

How the fuck does anyone think taxing the rich helps anyone besides the government? Seriously?

Rich guy can't afford to buy a yacht because of his new tax bill- how the hell does that help you? You know who it does hurt? All those skilled and well paid tradesmen who make those fucking yachts. Those *were* a bunch of solid middle class jobs, but you know, fuck rich people.

Rich guy can't buy that new car down at the car dealership for his daughter's sweet 16 because of his new tax bill. The car that was sold to them by a middle class guy, is serviced by a middle class guy, was shipped by a middle class guy and depending on where it was built, was crafted by a middle class guy.

Straight up serious question, outside of dumping their money into stocks(which the wealthy normally do via options or shielded retirement accounts), what the hell can a rich person do with their money that *won't* help a middle or lower class person out? I've never been able to figure this out.

How is taking their money away helping us? I seriously can not figure it out. The only conclusion I've come up with is people who promote that as sound fiscal strategy are petulant nut job left wingers who could never make themselves rich or the truly vindictive who hate the poor and middle class so much they are trying to trap them in poverty.

IMHO, a family with 3 kids with an income of less than $70K is poor to me, by living standards in the US.

That is *insane*. To give you a point of reference, globally that puts you just under the 1%. One of the young guys I had working for me for a while recently had his first child. They are in their mid 20s, between the two of them they make a bit over $60K a year. Before they are 40 they will have their house paid off and be looking at a six figure retirement fund while having multiple big screen TVs, driving cars new-5 years old(getting a new one whenever the last is paid off) and all of the standards of life normal Americans are used to. That is if they never make any more money then they already are. They don't go out to eat much, they never go to the bar, they do go on vacations regularly(although normally within 1000 miles).

If you suck with money, $125K a year won't be shit. If you are really good with money, $25K would be plenty for a single person(obviously excluding living in Manhattan/SanFran et al).

The Gov't needs tax funds to subsidize factory workers (like with agriculture for decades now..) if we want less outsourcing and more workers here in America.  I think Rollo's idea is a pretty good one, as that would enforce more of the able-bodied adults to actually work rather than suck the government's tits (food stamps, welfare, etc.)...  

As of September, according to the Census Bureau, there were 115,831,000 households in the country. Thus, the 22,867,248 households on food stamps in October equaled 19.7 percent of the nation’s households.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-...ght-months
Most certainly, at least half of all of these households have a fully able-bodied adult capable of full-time work doing something beneficial like cleaning up pollution, installing solar panels, doing some kind of construction work on the roads, etc.  

During the Great Depression, everybody was put to work.  Now, the lower class is discouraged from working or else they lose food stamp benefits if they make enough money by working more than part-time.  Then all they do is watch TV, bum around on Facebook, fool around with dope.... no drug tests needed for food stamps or welfare (but needed if they want to work at Walmart or Target)... 

If a 2% increase in tax prevents the rich from buying his daughter a new car for her 16th birthday, then to hell with that not-quite-so-rich guy.  He'll just have to buy her a used car, while the gov't puts that money to better use by subsidizing employment to 10% of Americans (at least restoring jobs to laid-off blue collar workers who lost their jobs thanks to companies outsourcing jobs overseas).  At least that 2% will completely support America, rather than letting the rich guy spend a good deal of that 2% on imported stuff.

It would help to reduce the flooding Mexican immigration problem. The bottom wage here is so attractive to them, so they go after it like the gold rush.  At the same time, these laid-off American workers simply refuse to flip burgers at McDonalds, because it's too big of a blow to their ego - so they just settle for food stamps, welfare, and 8 hours of TV a day.  My father-in-law, mother-in-law, and COUNTLESS others are perfect examples of this (they want so badly to find a job that's similar to their original career work, but cannot even find anything except for flipping burgers because Target refuses to hire them for full time work due to them being in their 40's and 50's meaning more costly health care). 

The government could put our tax money to better use by encouraging companies to re-employ these mildly skilled Americans (even if it takes a bit more tax funds to subsidize the wages enough to the point where it's highly attractive for both the employers and the employees).  Unsubsidized work would mean even lower wages - especially for these Mexicans crossing the border, thus discouraging the immigration influx problem (while these Mexicans have less money to send back home to their relatives in Mexico and also less to pay for their relatives to move over to America).