Comments on: YAIA (You Ask, I Answer)

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 16:40:26 +0000

Using family income versus individual wages grossly exagerates the gains made over the past few decades. Family income rose somewhat but only because of the transition to two working members versus the single worker that was common previously. Wages have declined during the period and that’s what should be highlighted.

Jim

By: Jim Edwards

Jim Edwards — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 12:17:30 +0000

Thanks for the info. It seems that the markets are creating a self fulfilling prophecy. Dropping Rupee leads to more export of services leading to more inflation leading to more dumping.

By: urban legend

urban legend — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 04:36:44 +0000

People who make the argument that taxing dividends is double taxation want to have it both ways: they want the corporation to be a separate entity so they cannot be held liable for its misdeeds, and then they want to argue that there’s no difference between their income and the corporation’s. Sorry, but by law the corporation is a separate legal entity, and it needs to carry part of the tax load. Failing to distinguish between investors and the corporate entity has led to a multitude of sins, not the least being forgetting that the officers first fiduciary duty is to the corporation, not directly to the shareholders. Letting corporate officer compensation be tied to the fluctuating and manipulable value of stocks — a conflict of interest if there ever was one — has been a travesty.

By: Jared Bernstein

Jared Bernstein — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 01:39:34 +0000

I must have neglected to mention that they’re all indexed to 100 in some base year, so yes, they’re growth rates relative to the base. I’ll fix.

By: Frank de Libero

Frank de Libero — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:24:28 +0000

Jared, thanks for posting this, but the chart is not clear. Perhaps it is mislabeled or something is missing? How, e.g., is the 20th, 50th and 95th percentile the same in the earlier years? That seems like a contradiction. Maybe the chart is of growth rates? You write “Starting in the late 1970s, we see much more inequality..”, I don’t see any in the early years looking at the chart. I don’t mean to be giving you a hard time, just trying to understand. If you could post the CBPP source document or the data source, that may help. Thank you. ..Frank

By: Vicki

Vicki — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:36:55 +0000

In my (humble) opinion, there is only one reason to tax capital gains at a lower rate than “ordinary” income…and that is if the asset in question has been held for a substantial period of time…at least five or more years. Then, the argument can be made that the gain has accrued over those 5 (or more) years making it somewhat unfair to tax all of the accrued gain in one tax year.