I would think a fairly accurate estimate could be ascertained by someone adept at internet searches. And if that number is not too controversial it would probably help both sides of the issue debate without talking past each other.

So stipulating those who are working for less than 15/hr work exactly 40 hours and thus make less than 30K, what percentage of the top 2 million incomes would be needed to bring them up to 30K?

3.50%

That actually might be right. (If there are 20 million workers averaging 25K that's 100 billion shortfall. If our top 2 million average about 1.4 mil a year, there is your 3.5%).

Don't forget to credit me in your next book, Fiddy Fiddy, It's Either Right or Wrong.

Are you talking just income? Or do you include capital gains? And from what I remember about this kinda thing, it would be really difficult to get a good answer, because the top handful of incomes are so astronomically high and no one (other than the IRS) really knows what they are.

Can we just take all the income and put all the 1% in a gulag? They have collective guilt.

Does the IRS even know?

The average income of the top 1 percent is approximately 1.3M (http://www.investopedia.com/news/how...ou-top-1-5-10/).

There are approximately 125M households (https://www.statista.com/statistics/...lds-in-the-us/).

Yes, they're lousy cites. But for a rough estimate, I'm not wasting too much time on this. So approximately 1.25M households making approximately $1.3M.

Approximately 42% of workers make below $15/hour (http://fortune.com/2015/04/13/who-makes-15-per-hour/). There are 153,000,000 employed Americans (http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/laus/us/usadj.htm).

So there are approximately 64M people making below $15/hour. Here's where there's data that I'm missing, but let's say they average about $11/hour (halfway between minimum wage and $15/hr). So we need to find an extra $4/hour. That's $4 * 40 * 50 (two weeks vacation) = $8,000.

There are 51.2 people making less than $15/hr for every one household in the 1%. So each household would need to pay 409,600, or about about 31.5% of their taxable income.

So I think it's reasonable to say the real number is probably between 25 and 35 percent.

But, I just wasted a lot of time Googling and doing math for an utterly pointless question. Why? We aren't going to tax them to provide $15/hr. Their taxable income is not the same as profits for employers, which are divided in a bunch of ways between re-investment, corporate taxes, shareholder profits, take home pay for executives/owners/1%ers, etc. Beyond that, the increase in pay for the workers means more disposable income which then gets pumped back into businesses and stimulates the economy, so they wouldn't lose the full amount they had to pay out and some would likely see net gains.

So .350? Just missed a decimal.

You 1%er's are getting nervous, aren't you Sklansky? You think us lower classes don't know what's going on? You even so brazenly and arrogantly decide to name your elitist publishing company and website 2+2. With the internet we are now able to disseminate Orwell to even the most poverty stricken masses.


"For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.
The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare...
The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed."

Massive public investment in the military industrial complex while the social issues persist create that drudgery by which the Low are crushed, as mentioned in the following quote.


"The aim of the Low, when they have an aim—for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives—is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal.
Ultimately, this is part of the class war. Social programs are defunded in favor of missiles and drones because it preserves the social hierarchy."



That's what all the sudden war drums about Syria, NK, and Afghanistan are really about. The economy has been too strong for too long and created an overabundance of goods. The elite are now looking for a psychologically palpable way to destroy this excess wealth so they don't have to redistribute and shorten the gap on the hierarchical ladder.

#NoWarbutClassWar

Did you include capital gains? I should have mentioned that I was including that. Also notice that if 15 changed to 12 it would cut the percentage by 75%.

The answer to this question isn't relevant because anyone is suggesting a direct tax that makes up the shortfall. Rather it is relevant so that all debaters are on the same page. Too many arguments are doomed to stalemate because the two sides are making different assumptions about something and they don't realize it. There are undoubtedly many people who had no idea that our top one percent aer easily capable of making sure that every worker in the country has a living wage, even if they derived none of the extra benefits you mentioned. Jeff Yass once asked me an eight card stud question even though he knew he would never play that game. He went on to become a billionaire. Einstein asked what would happen if you hitched a ride on a beam of light even though he never would. Answering questions like this are far from pointless.

You'd just be paying them with their own money.




Source: http://nakedkeynesianism.blogspot.co...kouts-and.html

But the 1% own the machines! Clearly they deserve the bulk of the productive gains as they are risking their capital. The workers are low skilled simpletons and are unable to manage precious capital, so we shouldn't dare to give them any.


#privatepropertyistheft

Redistribution sounds great for a lot of things. I'm not too fond of the raising taxes part though. I'm not sold on the long term sustainability either. What percentage of work ethic would we have to redistribute if we were trying not to raise taxes? Intelligence? Being born in better circumstances? Dumb luck? You could probably come up with better long term solutions if you could somehow figure this out.

Government taxes to offset it's own spending, otherwise there would be inflation.

If there is slack in the economy, the government can run higher deficits, because the increased demand from additional money floating around is met by suppliers proportionally increasing their stock of goods. Prices remain stable.

When an economy is at or near full production, demand can outpace supply, and prices increase (inflation). So to answer the question of the thread, taxes should be raised as necessary to ward off inflation, by taking money out of the economy. If there were a government program giving a stipend to make up the difference between what an employer pays and a $15/hr benchmark, we would look to see if this is a situation where demand is outpacing supply, and if so, levy additional taxes. I don't know a % answer because it would depend on the growth of the economy relative to full production, but the goal would be price stability.

What % of Sklansky's income would he be willing to give up to achieve this aim?

3.50%

The problem with people wanting $15/hr is that they only want $15/hr. No amount of taxes from any group fixes this.

That's not true at all. Many of these workers would love to get a college degree, for example, but they feel they can't go into debt when they are already unable to make a living wage. In fact, studies have shown that when you put living wage laws in place, turnover decreases, meaning workers are more likely to stick with a job, get promoted, and eventually make a lot more than that minimum wage.

http://www.epi.org/publication/bp170/

Price fixing is largest fault of Socialism. It shouldn't be up to private sector of self interested profit seekers to insure everyone is provided a base standard of living. That just adds another layer of force and regulations to welfare, cut out the all the middleman and just provide a base standard of living from taxation, then the proletariat won't have to worry where the true price of labor might fall. And the bourgeoisie don't have to account for future wage costs made at the whim of some populist reactionary politician.

Even so, what would $15 buy at that point? A loaf of bread?

No new money has been created.

I believe the correct answer is...


~3.50%

1623, William Bradford, ftw.