Quote:I get it, ideally you don't want the consumption or flat tax to work that way. But the reality dictates that is how it will turn out.

It's not like the underpaid don't want to save money, but it's a reality that it's very difficult to darn near impossible to save money if you're underpaid...


All your money is going out to pay the bills and support your family. That's nothing left for one to save if you're only making 40k a year and have a family of three or four.


I mean I've lived that, I know. And I'm a very frugal person just by my nature... there's no juice left to squeeze out of a rock.

 

Just taking a guess here, but that's really not reality.  Case in point, and this it true.  We have a women that works with us as a janitor.  She doesn't make a huge sum of money, but it's a "living wage" as described by most liberals (more than $15 per hour).  She just recently found out that she has breast cancer.  The problem?  She couldn't "afford" health insurance under obamacare, so she isn't insured at all.  The other problem?  She's used up all of her "personal days" and "vacation days" in order to do "fun stuff", so she has no real time off to take.  She opted out of the life insurance plan as well as the Short Term and Long Term disability plans available to all employees.  She doesn't contribute to the company sponsored 401k plan which matches dollar-for-dollar up to 4% of an employee's contribution.

 

Yet, she does have the latest iPhone.  After all, she is a "twit" that likes to post and read twitter, and she most certainly must update her Facebook status.

 

Quote:The truth is that we've inflated our currency and our lifestyles to unaffordable levels. I read that the housing market is up over the 2005 peak. I went to shop for a new car and the cheapest model was $16,990. I went for a gallon of milk and it was $4.79. Tuition is $500 and hour. Why are these things this way? The reason starts with G and ends with T. The more they intervene the worse it gets.

 

Refer to my comment above.  A cell phone, cable (and/or satellite) TV and computers with high speed internet access used to be a "luxury".  Now many people view that as a "must have".  My bet is that if the consumer had to actually pay tax on that new iPhone or flat screen TV rather than getting something used, they would probably think differently.

 

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