When we focus on the federal income tax, we miss all the taxes that low-income Americans do pay. The payroll tax, for instance. And state sales taxes. And lots of local taxes. Indeed,Citizens for Tax Justice, a left-leaning tax policy group, produces a study every year showing the total tax burden for different groups once federal, state and local taxes are taken into account. And when you include all the taxes people pay, then, as you can see in the graph atop this post, it turns out that most Americans do pay taxes, and they in fact pay about as much as the rich.
“As economist Mark Thomas points out, government spending under Obama has increased at a lower rate than either Reagan, George H.W. Bush, or George W. Bush. The only president to have a lower rate of spending was, you guessed it, Bill Clinton.” - Jamelle Bouie
You Pay Wall Street Oil Speculators This Much Per Fill-Up
How the United States compares: poverty, healthcare and other variables in comparison with OECD countries. From Charles Blow.
(via pantslessprogressive)
An oversimplified version of what one Occupy protester explained to me yesterday as his ideal monetary system
So this person thought that if we have a resource based economy, survival would no longer be the motivating factor for work. Does this imply some sort of barter system? Leaving this over here to ponder what might become unnecessary and what could evolve out of such an economy. First consideration is the purchase of goods. How many of us have bought something completely useless or worse that we don’t even want to support a friend or family member?
Want to get the skinny on oil? Check this out.
via Annie
(via trippentigger)
We spent a little over $50 billion on Black Friday this year.
We spend a little over $6 billion on healthcare every day.
Context for the defense spending discussion currently going on.
From Ilya Gerner - worth noting.
We’re number one!
