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Re:Businesses are in for a mighty debt hangover by robertlagrant on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @07:14AM (#35973724)
This mindset is backwards to me. Of course we don't tax things people have that have already been taxed. Why should we?

We need to balance the books by not having unsustainable vote-buying policies that cost outsize amounts of money.

> For example the average tax rate paid by the top 400 wealthiest people in the US was just 8.2%

Citation needed. What does "average" mean? What is the denominator on the fraction that generated the percentage?

Thinking if only we could take other people's money forever to pay for things is pointless.

If it's expensive to do things, for whatever reason, then inflation goes up for everyone. If it's pointless to start things, because the government will dip in whenever it likes, then the endless progress-train will stop.

Re:Businesses are in for a mighty debt hangover by RugnirViking on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @08:38AM (#35974416)
> What is the denominator on the fraction that generated the percentage?

100. That's what "per cent" means, percentages are a way of comparing ratios without needing to worry about scaling both numbers. The % sign is shorthand for /100

Re:Businesses are in for a mighty debt hangover by RugnirViking on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @08:47AM (#35974508)
> What is the denominator on the fraction that generated the percentage?

100. That's what "per cent" means, percentages are a way of comparing ratios without needing to worry about scaling both numbers. The % sign is shorthand for /100 .

As for the citation im not the op but it was the 400 richest families and it was the white house itself https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/09/23/...

Re:Businesses are in for a mighty debt hangover by onlyrealcuzzo on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @09:49AM (#35975176)
No.

The numerator is theoretically their tax bill.

The denominator is not 100. It should be their income - but that's complicated to count.

Re:Businesses are in for a mighty debt hangover by robertlagrant on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @10:24AM (#35975611)
The silliness aside, the answer is in the link:

> For the denominator, we use changes in the reported wealth of the Forbes 400 to estimate the income of the 400 wealthiest families.

Re:Businesses are in for a mighty debt hangover by sershe on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @01:51PM (#35978886)
So in other words it's completely bogus, at the very least due to unrealized capital gains, and probably thru few more fudge factors like what is "reported" wealth?
Re:Businesses are in for a mighty debt hangover by robertlagrant on Thursday May 18, 2023 @04:21AM (#35985306)
It does seem disingenuous to use a percentage, when the error bars are likely an order of magnitude either side of the stated figure.
Re:Businesses are in for a mighty debt hangover by imtringued on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @09:55AM (#35975253)
>We need to balance the books by not having unsustainable vote-buying policies that cost outsize amounts of money.

Balanced budgets with perpetual motion machine money is unsustainable. It is simply mathematically impossible.

>then the endless progress-train will stop.

There is no such thing.