Tuesday, November 22, 2011

What Percent Are You?

Enter your household income here and find out.

HT: Steve Bartin 

Update: At the Political Calculations blog, you can enter your individual income here and find your percentile, or enter your household income here

12 Comments:

At 11/22/2011 8:11 AM, Blogger Ironman said...

And if you want to find out where you stand among individual income earners, as opposed to households, enter your personal income here and find out!

(P.S. We also do households!)

 
At 11/22/2011 10:41 AM, Blogger Buddy R Pacifico said...

From Political Calculations:

"For a median household income of $49,455, the typical American household can only afford for the U.S. government to spend, at most, $20,794 per household. To be able to afford a federal government that spends $29,121 per U.S. household, the median household income of the United States would have to rise to just over $68,250."

Yikes, $8500 in overspending by the federal government, per household affordability for 2010. Because our household is over average then we can expect more taxes in the coming years.

 
At 11/22/2011 10:56 AM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

Buddy-

Your household, if it has four people, can expect tp spend $13,000 a year alone on Defense, Homeland Security-VA. That is if your household is average.

If you are above-average, congratulations, and you can expect to spend much more.

At $1 trillion a year on Defense, Homeland Security and the VA, we spend $3,333 for we very man, woman and child in the United States.

That is a figure never heard in right-wing echo chambers, although Pat Buchanan, and Ron Paul sometimes make note. The Cato Institute also.

I would love to cut federal spending too--but across the board.

 
At 11/22/2011 11:11 AM, Blogger morganovich said...

bunny-

i find your figures a bit dubious.

that's over a trillion dollars a year.

defense is 690bn. the entire rest of the federal budget other than interest and entitlements is about a trillion. so you are claiming that homeland security and the VA are 31% of all other money spent?

seems doubtful.

further, if you want to see where the untenable part of the budget is, look at entitlements.

there, a family of four is paying $19.5k (using your odd math).

cutting milspend by half will not make a sufficient dent until that is handled.

it would only cut 1/3 of the deficit and such gains would be rapidly eroded by ballooning entitlement costs already in place as unfunded liabilities. there is a lot of fictitious "trust fund" to plow through before paygo kicks in.

 
At 11/22/2011 11:58 AM, Blogger Marko said...

I like this line from the calculator, attributed to the 99%ers:

"we are the 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%"

So, I guess they are willing to tolerate the greed and corruption of the 99% then? Believe me, there is plenty!

 
At 11/22/2011 12:37 PM, Blogger morganovich said...

marko-

their greed is fine, it's SUCCESSFUL greed that they hate.

the whole thing does seem like a self defeating ideology.

we oppose your greed! why? because we are greedy and want more of your stuff.

this reminds me of a OWSer that was interviewed. he said he opposed private proprty. the interviewer then asked him if it was OK for someone at the south end of the camp to use the ipd2 he was holding. our ersatz communist said, literally horrified at the idea, well, no, that's PERSONAL property.

i wish the interviewer had drilled down a bit more and asked him to define the difference between personal and private.

 
At 11/22/2011 1:42 PM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

Morgan.

You are wrongo-, again-o.

Federal outlays:

$141 bil VA
$768 bil Defense
$79 Homeland Security

$988 bil.

 
At 11/22/2011 2:59 PM, Blogger Marko said...

Morganovich, I think I have an idea as to why many of these folks hate successful greedy people. Here goes:

I have had plenty of low paying low skill jobs (earlier in my life). I found my co-workers were often very greedy and corrupt. In the fast food business, for example, I saw that most workers frequently steal food (at minimum) from their employers, lie about everything and think nothing about cheating customers if they can get away from it.

Because of this, I think most people stuck in that tier assume that the only way anyone gets ahead is by stealing and cheating more than they have. Sort of like the concept of psychological projection - in which "I steal and cheat and lie, so everyone else must be doing it." What they may not realize, is the reason they may be stuck in low paying jobs is that they frequently cheat and lie. They can't imagine a high integrity individual that works hard their whole lives, forgoes much free time to advance their career, and then eventually makes much money.

I always like to point out that throughout my business career, I have noticed that the cars that are in the lot late at night of the big business where I have worked have been the Mercedes, BMWs and other luxury cars. Wealthy people generally work hard. These rats have no idea what goes on behind the curtain, and just assume the wealthy have stolen the money from others more successfully then they have.

 
At 11/22/2011 3:55 PM, Blogger morganovich said...

marko-

i think you may be on to something.

i have always though of it like this:

if you are a moocher, living off others and have never created value, wealth, or jobs, you assume that there is X amount of stuff out there and that anyone who gets more than you do in this zero sum game must be mooching better than you can, so you cry foul.

the notion that wealth comes from creation is totally foreign to you. you have never done it.

they say "bill gates is too rich" like he has harmed them in some way instead of helping them by driving software development forward and paying a mountain of taxes.

the reason these people get so bitter is that they are competitive (they care about their relative wealth and position) but not willing to do the things need to compete.

they are like some crybaby receiver who always blames the quarterback or the play calling or the refs or the cornerback, but is not willing to train hard, practice hard, learn the routes, and put in the time.

 
At 11/22/2011 4:02 PM, Blogger morganovich said...

bunny-

1. i note you do not source that VA number.

i'm still doubtful.

2. your "family of 4" metric is ridiculous. you can't take a cost, divide it by population, multiply it by 4, and call it the family of 4 number.

30%+ of federal taxes are not paid by individuals.

even if your data is correct, as ever, your calculations are ridiculous.

you turn 9 into 13 by ignoring other funding.

 
At 11/22/2011 5:46 PM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

Morgan--

The family of four is a reasonable way to look at anything.

As for corporate income taxes, they are paid ultimately by all of us. Almost all American either buy goods or services, or own stock (through mutual funds and pensions etc).

The fact is, we pay $3,333 for every man woman and child into the defense megaplex every year, and that number is rising rapidly. It has doubled in real terms since 2001.

Only a fatuous blowhard, a nincompoop, a mule that got kicked in the head by another mule, would not know the US taxpayer is being leeched by parasites.

 
At 11/23/2011 9:13 AM, Blogger morganovich said...

bunny-

also:

note that milspend as a % of gdp is way down over the years.

it's half what it was in the 60's.

you harp on this endlessly while missing the key fact that the reason federal outlays jumped from 18 to 14% of gdp is not military.

it's entitlements and transfer payments.

 

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