Mr Secretary - While I don’t want to diminish the value of your previous accomplishments throughout your career, the observations and solutions you have posed in this, and all of your videos over the last few years, are among your greatest contributions to a free, safe and and prosperous America. Thank you for your clarity and the effect it has on promoting political, economic and practical sanity during a period of our history when it is most needed.
Why do you not pay enough taxes to pay for the social programs Democrats want we have a debt so big it defies belief our children will inherit a bankrupt shell of a nation because you won't pay enough taxes to pay for the social programs you want makeing you a thief @@llynhunter
Pay your fair share of taxes for the social programs Democrats want stop bankrupting our nation by voteing for handout Democrats Democrats our children should not have to pay the price of Democrat programs
This is a great series. To my mind, one of the most valuable things is that we get to see how neoliberal economics has broken our society. Out of this realization, however, we can see that our current conditions owe to deliberate policy choices. What we broke with deliberate policy choices we can fix with deliberate policy choices.
@@youtubesucks1499 my argument said upward wealth redistribution is breaking our society. Nowhere did I say we should tax businesses into oblivion. In reality, tax rates for the rich and for businesses are near record lows, and people across the spectrum from Trumpers to Fight for $15 advocates agree the economy is rigged in favor of the rich. Widening income and wealth inequality point to the reality of that belief.
@@johnbarker5009 Ok, let's think why be rich if you are taxed into oblivion? Why build an Amazon? There is no reason to. So tax away, and watch the unintended consequences cripple society. I build houses. I will build just enough for my family to live well. There is no incentive to do more. Peter Shift said it best... cap wealth and there is no reason to work.
@@youtubesucks1499 it's funny how the slightest increase in taxes on the rich will make them stop working, while the slightest income boost for the poor will make them stop working as well. I guess if you're demotivated by more because it's not ENOUGH more, maybe you're not the worker you think you are. The gap between the incomes of the rich and the average was a tiny fraction of what it is now in the 1960s, yet our economy was the strongest ever. Explain that.
@@johnbarker5009 Slightest? Bernie Sanders wants to cap wealth at 999 million. So would you keep producing if there was no further compensation? AOC is talking about taxing money at 80% over 10 million. Would you produce over that to be taxed at 80%?
Blows me away this guy does not have a million subscribers yet. Please keep up the great work Robert Reich!!!! Appreciate your work & sharing your knowledge.
This eye opening class on taxes highlighting how the nations most wealthy have benefited from these tax policies, compelled me to think about how the Supreme Court played such an intricate part of this with their 2010 ruling on Citizens United V. FEC. The ruling literally opened the door for the most wealthy and corporations to spend millions to buy politicians who will protect their assets through ridiculously low tax rates and policies. Is it any wonder so many Americans are angry and frustrated as they work often two jobs to make ends meet? Great class, and one we should all revisit several times.
As a writer focused on culture and economics this series has been one of the most valuable resources I have come across in years. Thank you for your work and for investing into all of us so we may assist in change for the good. "People want to reference their rights but not their obligations.". I believe you said that. :)
He lies by withholding information from you he put out a video saying what if we taxed the rich he suggests that the rich don't pay taxes when fact is the top five percent pay over half the federal taxes he never tells you that the top ten percent pay over seventy two per entire of the federal taxes he says the rich don't pay enough ss taxes because of the cap on how much money you pay he doesn't tell you that there is a limit on how much you pay because there is a limit on how much you can draw out he doesn't tell you that the middle class draw more ss and medicare than they pay in taxes he never tells you that the poor get subsidized housing food assistance cash assistance and free healthcare he never tells you that the rich pay almost all the federal taxes and get next to nothing in return vote out handout lying Democrats before it's to late our children will thank you for it
Look at the general accounting office numbers it tells who pays what and where there taxes goes the top ten percent pay over seventy three percent of the federal taxes and get next to nothing in return
He never tells you that the top five percent pay over half the federal taxes or that the top ten percent pay over seventy percent of the federal taxes he never tells you that the poor get subsidized housing food assistance cash assistance and free healthcare he never tells you that the middle class draw more ss and medicare than they pay in taxes he never tells you that there is a cap on how much money you pay in ss and medicare taxes because there is a cap on how much you can draw out in ss benefits he doesn't tell you the whole truth in an attempt to mislead you into thinking the rich pay no taxes when they pay almost all the federal taxes he even has a video saying what if we taxed the rich misleading because he knows full well the rich pay almost all the federal taxes Reich is a very dishonest person and an avowed communist
Thank for a very enlightening series. Worth watching again to pick up nuance. Basic terminology of the tax system is something that every student should learn.
This explains so much. I’ve worked two jobs most of my life… still lower middle class. The working poor- heartbreaking really when you see what wealth and greed has done to our food water and air and our pocket books. This should be taught in the 9th grade through senior years-
This course came up in my feed and I must say I'm appalled that's how much I didn't know or was taught in school. I feel such a sense of despair about the what's the current state of affairs regarding wealth and poverty. I'm trying to be optimistic but it seems such a Monumental task to change the trajectory of this country. Everyday I grow more skeptical of what I was told in my youth. Now in my mid forties I feel like I'm listening with new ears.
It's like "Yvonne, you watched two words and you have already 'liked' this vid". Well, yeah, I know I will like it. It is time to look for the previous weeks; thought they were on substack this semester. Thank you, Professor.
Holy corruption USA! Wow! At my age, it's just way too late to do anything about $$ regardless of my high level of education; my health issues eclipsed my ability to earn the dough so I am highly educated AND at the poverty level. At least I can empathize with all sides!
1:09:19. An easy question to guess right. I right away said Stanford. Why? 1) Stanford is private 2) Stanford primarly caters to wealthy students. 3) Wealthy people have more power. 4) The wealthy use their power to get special treatment 5) The wealthy don't stop at getting special treatment from private institutions 6) Because of the above, the wealthy have a lot behind their demands. They have a lot to back it up with. 7) They wealthy and powerful have turned on the wealth pump in the 70s and it doesn't show much sign of slowing down. That wealth pump redistributes wealth to the top. Where, in what situations, would this not be the case???
Reich says if you work you should have a livable wage healthcare paid family leave vacation time and pension but if you go to college maney years become a surgeon in NYC who works long hours and earns four hundred thousand dollars a year between local state and federal taxes half his money to the government so according to Reich your an idiot to work hard when all you have to do is drop out of school get a low skilled job and live good how can our nation prosper with Reichs proposals
Professor, your classes make me feel stupid... The good kind of stupid. I'm a lawyer and never have i taken into account how dirty the tax deductions on a country with public health (Brazil). Right-wing keeps trying to destroy or privatize our public health, saying it costs too much, but they never mention how our luxurious hospitals charge absurd amounts to rich people that deduct from their taxes and that ALSO slashes money that could make it work... Eye-opening indeed. THANK YOU
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 Bro, all data points to them paying lower mean taxes than blue collar workers. Sure, they may pay shitloads in absolute numbers, but they get so many ways to evade paying that they're able to buy Doomsday Yachts
Sales taxes are not necessarily regressive. They mostly are, but for instance Denmark has increased taxes on expensive cars compared to cheaper cars. (luxury tax) They just happen to be regressive all the time in the US.
Also, whether a sales tax or VAT is actually paid by the customer or seller depends on supply and demand elasticity. Also, a sales tax is notoriously difficult to avoid, compared to corporate and capital gains taxes, which are notoriously easy to avoid.
It also depends upon the propensity to spend. If a population spends each extra dollar it earns, you have a progressive system with the rich paying bulk of the tax revenue.
It is amazing that this professor extensibly speaks about the question of who pays a determined tax without mentioning the elasticity of demand and supply. For example, it is the respective elasticities of labor supply and labor demand which determine in what proportion workers and employers pay the payroll taxes.
Concerning disincentive to invest. Why would higher marginal tax rates disincentive investment? If I donate to a charity or if I put my money back into my company INSTEAD of keeping it as income, then I will not put myself into a higher marginal income tax bracket, correct? Can't many other investments reduce your tax burden?
Two things: 1-Higher marginal tax rates on non-income taxes can directly discourage investment. i.e. Capital Gains and Business profit. 2-If the taxes are so high that you will never realize the profit, your incentive to work goes down. This is because a major reason most people work is so they can realize the monetary gains from said work.
“Marginal” tax rates apply to income above (excess) of the stated “margin.” However, many income taxes are multi-margined. I.e. Federal income tax 0-$x tax = 10%, then 12%, then 22%, and up to 32%. (Trump tax reduction).
Question 1: All those things should be "free" - if it can be afforded. That said, I think that those things should be priority spending so "if" mostly means if we can't afford it, what do we have to do to afford it because these should be priority.
Q2 The rich should pay more because the arguments that have been made to defend the rich are largely irrelevant. The "over half" argument is honestly what we'd expect from an "equal pain" concept, but also income tax is not the only form of taxation (GST has been mentioned and there are others) and these other options fundamentally alter the equal pain question. The fewer incentives argument is totally irrelevant because it assumes that ONLY the fabulously wealthy will do this job. As opposed to middle income earners. And the wealthy may have "less incentives" if there are greater taxes, but that only means they have less incentives to do so WITHIN this country - which is important consideration but it's a different argument to what has been stated. The baseline incentive is to make money, higher taxes only matter if you're already making a lot of money and it doesn't reduce the incentive to make more money (in fact it can increase it because you need to aim higher) but what it DOES do is incentivise people to invest their money elsewhere into other things. That matters, but that's about OTHER regulations not taxation. For example, encouraging wealthy people to invest in housing, big deal. Encouraging people to invest in charity is a big deal. One option that I don't see talked about much is allowing the wealthy to have a tax break by investing directly into government departments (so instead of investing into a charity and getting a tax break that ultimately benefits the charity, they could invest directly into the welfare department and perhaps get a bigger tax break). But here's the thing, those OTHER incentives exist regardless. So long as another country exists that has a stable economy, offers lower taxes, protects the wealthy and less red tape, then there will always be a pre-existing incentive to invest elsewhere. America resolves this by taxing their citizens even if they live and work overseas, the same can and should be done to corporations, but coming back to the point, the incentive to create jobs exists so long as there is money to be made - taxes reduce the maximum money that can be made but does not remove the incentive so long as money can be made. They will ALWAYS use ways to avoid paing tax. Always. But now we get to tax evasion. It is always more efficient to go after the wealthiest for tax evasion, than to try and go after a million people for tax evasion. A million low-income workers performing tax evasion will often cost MORE to pursue than they're worth, and if the statement "everyone will always try to pay the least tax" is true, then it is always worth taxing and pursuing the high wages for their tax because it is the most efficient option.
Marginal Tax rate, woo! I knew this one! Although I didn't actually know the threshold questions because I only knew the Australian threshold which is a different number.
Okay, payroll tax is new to me. In Australia it appears to function in the opposite manner. Payroll tax is owed on any wages of your total taxable Australia-wide wages that exceeds a threshold amount. Payroll tax rates and thresholds vary between the states and territories. Maximum annual deduction entitlements also vary between the states and territories. Most states have no maximum (and the only state that does is South Australia with a threshold of $600,000). But yeah. I knew a lot of other taxing mechanisms existed, some were more wtf than others, but this is a new one for me. Wow.
So we've definitely entered into the America Specific territory. But I'm going to keep guesing. I guessed 30% for total from state and local, teetering between that and 40%.
Q9 I definitely prefer Income Tax, but honestly it depends highly on the overall economic environment. I prefer corporate tax over income and I dislike sales taxes in general, but I do think multiple taxation streams are important and I'm not inherently opposed to one tax type or another depending on how it's implemented.
0:30: 📚 The second half of the course focuses on the integration of different topics and the relationship between them, transitioning from description and explanation to policy. 7:44: 📊 The video discusses the importance of market organizing, redistribution, and government efforts to redistribute income and wealth. 15:13: 🔍 The video discusses the responsibility of the rich and poor in achieving greater equality through progressive taxation and regressive spending. 22:03: 📊 The video discusses the fairness and efficiency of higher tax rates for the rich. 29:43: 💰 The video discusses the lowest and highest tax rates in the US and the concept of effective tax rate. 35:43: 💰 The video discusses the regressive nature of Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. 42:52: 📊 The video discusses the regressive nature of taxes and the collection of money for public services. 49:18: 📈 The video discusses the Laffer Curve and the importance of considering wealth when determining tax rates. 55:50: 💰 The video discusses the impact of involuntary conversion, the decrease in estate tax, and the unrealized capital gains at death. 1:03:06: 📉 The corporate tax as a percentage of total revenues is shrinking, despite increasing corporate profits. 1:09:57: 💰 Berkeley receives a direct subsidy of $350 million per year from California, while Stanford receives $500 million more than Berkeley in philanthropy and donations. Recap by Tammy AI
Are you implying that the borrowed $2million can be set off against the $2 million income? If your income is $2 million and you borrow another $2 million at 10%, you dont get a tax benefit of $2 million. You get a tax benefit of $200k. Assuming you spend all the income plus borrowed money, you generate $200k in sales tax. Assuming a 15% effective tax rate, you're still obliged to pay $100k in income tax.
At [10:30] what do we we think should be "free", options A, B, C, D. I will offer my own option "E": The only thing "free" should be national defense and the securing of our borders. Yup, that's it. No services for anybody. We'll find a way to pay for the roads, the schools, the police. but on a pay-as-you go basis. Whatever worked in 1789 with our Founding Fathers is good enough for me.
Some thing (like roads) are a major driver of economic activity. As much as I dislike the attitude that the government should provide everything for "free", I do want the government to take actions to allow the economy to grow.
When is Reich going to talk about federal government deficit spending and the modern money theory explanation. If your mind is blown by what he is describing, don't even ask about the part he is leaving out. Even with MMT, the discussion is the money flow between government and the public. It does not pay much attention to whom in the public is getting most of the money.
The Republicans (before Ttrump)- that was their line'" the deficit." - it's BULLSHIT Unless the GOV comes to me and say, I will give you 1000.00 a month if I help lower the deficit - then, then, I have a pony in the race, Other than that the deficit is bullshit.
25:49 The marginal tax rate is often discussed rate is misunderstood in part because so often it is just called tax rate or top tax rate. Up until 25:00, you, professor Reich, have been saying, tax, tax tax rate, taxes and were not saying the marginal tax rate. I think if you want people to understand that these are marginal tax rates you should really say it every time: marginal tax rates. At the least you should lay that out in front. I do understand that you are trying to guage your students current understanding before your explanations, but I think this laziness in communicating the currect term is widespread. Of course, much of this omission is intentional. I had been paying income taxes for years before I heard the term marginal tax rate. Upon hearing it, I knew I was not clear on what was meant and I looked it up. Now when I hear all the bruhaha about taxes, I realise it is not so burdensome on the upper crust as they would have you believe.
Taxing on wealth is a little crappy though. Example 1) If you have a house that goes way up in value then you have to pay more property taxes and then a wealth tax because you can, in theory, go to the bank and take out a loan, buy stocks and make more money. Example 2) You buy gold that goes up in value due to politics. You worked 60hrs a week for 5 years and decide to take a year long vacation and make no money that year, but are taxed on reported wealth based on your gold's value at that moment.... Crazy. Just close loop holes and tax when you actually realize the value. Not some painting you bought 20 years ago.
If they would beincentivized to invest and hire by high tax rates, why did the Fed have interest rates near zero for so long? I thought it was because those at the top were sitting on extra money they weren't investing.
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 Appealing to what super rich college dropouts isn't reallyan answer. High tax rates wouldn't raise investment unless it was assumed lower tax rates are coming - rather it would be the ability for that investment to grow because of high demand from those at the bottom having money to spend. High tax rates may fuel social programs that reduce wealth inequality, but the taxes themselves aren't what would be incentivizing the spending. The argument that someone would rather see nothing than something doesn't hold water and this would be a classic case of correlation without causation in the data.
What does money have to do with anything the low skilled does not produce enough to grow an economy if you take from the ones who produce most of our goods and services and give it to the ones who produce the least you allow thoes who produce a little to consume a lot that destroys economies as people produce less knowing the ones who produce the most will be forced to support them eventually our nation becomes one of low skilled low producing economy with third world liveing standards
We don't need more spending meaning more consumption we already consume more than we produce twenty five trillion dollar economy 32 trillion dollar debt meaning when our creditors cash there bonds in for cash they will be able to buy everything meaning no matter how much money you have it won't matter there won't be any thing to buy leaving our children a bankrupt shell of a nation because of democrat handouts vote out handout democrats before it's to late
You don't really think money means anything at all do you if you do than you know absolutely nothing about economics example what would happen if the government gave everyone one billion dollars
That Reich calls the payroll tax regressive because both the employer and employee pay the same but what he does not say is the employer does not benefit at all
You are an example of how capitalism works.You exercised your freedom to follow your chosen path and found people who were willing to support you.Now you can be critic of the system that allowed to be an elitest living of the tax payers.
A country succeeds when it has a stable, strong government. The biggest difference between, say, Afghanistan/Haiti/Congo or Singapore/Finland/Japan is that the government gets in power, and stays in power. There are loads of other things that help, and toxic ideologies that make things worse, but without a powerful government, those other things won't last long anyway.
Communist Soviet union had a strong government a weak economy china had a strong government under communist leader mao who took from the rich and gave it to the masses and drastically raised low skilled workers wages Result millions starved sounds a lot like democrat policies take from the rich and pay low skilled low producing workers high wages end result won't be good vote out handout democrats before it's to late
I would love to see the research showing most of the corporate taxes are paid by shareholders as opposed to being passed to consumers. I'm skeptical...
Imagine if these so called free things encompassed everything. You walk into a grocery store or a car dealer etc and nothing has a price on it but rather a % symbol on it. You buy the same exact items as the guy in front of you but your cartload costs twice as much his. Is that fair? Back when you were both in high school he decided to drop out. You buckled down and went through the pain of getting a degree. Now it’s time to equalize pain? That doesn’t sound like much of a reward for busting your ass
The 50% marginal tax rate question is poorly worded. As worded the correct answer is there is insufficient information. You mean how much tax would they pay on income over $360,000. I was a teacher. I am not judging you. I know how hard it is to be unambiguous. However, it is important.
Marginal tax doesn’t exist in nature and we don’t teach taxes in high school. The barely even touch on taxes in the first years of accounting school. I took a class on taxes after finishing school, which is where I learned the real good stuff. Tax preparers are required to take 14hrs of annual continued education, which many find insufficient. Basically, it’s made to be that way. Edit: That question was a little misleading, the closest answer to the question on the PowerPoint was 88,000 because of the lower marginal brackets that are also taxed. The $1,000 was only the amount taxed on the amount in excess of the bracket cutoff.
The analysis is based on an unstated assumption that income is evenly divided over time in yearly increments. That may be true for a government "worker", but its not the case for a small business owner. As a simple example, suppose the government "worker" is paid $200K for 2 years and the small business owner earns $0K in year one and $400K in year two. Both earn the same total amount, but the small business owner pays more tax. I am in the innovation business where the timelines are much longer, for me 25 years. Over 25 years a government "worker" would pay at an effective tax rate of 27.62% whereas my effective tax rate would be 48.93% for the same total income (if we were both resident in California). How is that fair? My 38 patents translate into about 4000 high tech manufacturing jobs. How many jobs did the government "worker" create? As Reich said, the system of incentives determines macro economic outcomes. I live in Canada and look at the number of patents per capita in other countries as a measure of how attractive the incentives for innovation industry are (and where I want to live). The US has 4X as many patents per capita and is hence a more attractive place to locate an innovation business. Some European tech havens have 16X as many patents per capita which indicates they are even more attractive places to locate an innovation business. Incidentally, tax rates in Canada on real estate speculation are half the tax rate on innovation and mass immigration is driving demand. Canada is a good place to locate for a real estate speculator.
I doubt anyone grew up more poor than me in these comments. My dad was a sanitation worker in a small town that paid almost nothing. My mother worked odd jobs when she could. We lived in a small 2 bedroom shack that was not fit to keep animals. Well the mice did seem to like it. We had no heat or a/c. But my folks did not pay sales tax. We lived in a state that doesn't tax food. So when people say sales tax affects the poor more I assume the never actually lived poor.
The large capitatist corporations paying all those benefits is how they get buy with it. Those benifits. Just like religious people pay ( tithes ) to play and get favorism. If you been following Vivek Ramaswamy's campaine for president he talks about the ( isms ) cults or religions in this country. GOD is not pleased.
The trend is clear. Corporations should not pay taxes! Sales taxes such as VAT should be levied. And shareholders should pay taxes on their divendends and the added value on their shares . The "dead taxe " is clearly a stupid taxe because the accumulated wealth comes mostly from taxated income... Why should it be taxed twice... Something is really wrong with the education system in the US, absolutely not democratic at all... What a shame for such a wealthy nation...It is not a surprise that a brain drain from abroad to the US has been organised to compensated the disastrous education policy of the US...
The big question is not the integrity of R Reich's information nor its importance to the world. Rather the larger question is how to help disseminate his worldview and merge it with other like-minded folks, assembled into operational action-oriented 'best science based' policy that directs societal actions toward a more human, just, and inclusive world culture. The new book, Planet Earth Citizens, The Missing Component (Converting the impossible to possible) offers an architectural rendering of how to accomplish this based on live observations over the past 75 years. Please read it and reach out to the author. (ME)
I'm inclined to advocate a tax rate on fortunes above 50 million that - assuming it didn't grow at all - would reduce a fortune of 100 billion to 50 million over the time period of one century. And an additional tax rate on fortunes above 100 billion that would reduce it to 100 billion in fifty years. (Thus Richie Rich would be paying the first tax on all of his 1,000 billion fortune above 50 million, and the second tax on all of his 1,000 billion fortune that is above 100 billion. Maybe more details than that, but still: Higher Wealth Pay Higher Taxes, Higher Higher Wealth Higher Higher Taxes.)
Neither capital gains tax nor estate tax are wealth taxes. The both tax income. Capital gains taxes income you receive when selling an asset, and estate tax taxes income received by heirs to an estate. They're done differently than normal income taxes, but they are still of the category of taxing a type of income. Property tax is the only thing you could consider a "wealth tax". Its pretty absurd this guy is complaining that he's been debating Laffer since the 80s and he hasn't changed his mind, when its very obvious Reich hasn't either. Projection at its most obvious.
So to recap: risk your life savings to start a business, work 100 a week to build that business. Become rich so the government can steal your money and give it to lazy people and foreigners.
professor reich is only an economist. if you want to change anything, you must go into politics. not as a politician, but as a revolutionary. the economy reflects the power strucure of the nation. if your aim is wide-spread prosperity, your means must be getting democracy. when the people have referendum and initiative, economics will quickly reflect this new reality.
What Is Wrong With Our Society Today? If we viewed human society a single live organism, then what would we see? We would see that, in its current state of development, its immune system is barely working, and its cells and organs, which should be sustaining the body’s health, are deteriorating. Personal, social, economic and ecological problems are all on the rise, including depression, stress, loneliness, emptiness, anxiety, xenophobia, drug abuse, suicide, income equality, poverty, climate change, and although many people are trying to patch and treat these problems, the efforts fail to solve the problem at its overarching cause. What is the cause of all problems in human society? It is the human ego, i.e., the innate calculative mechanism in human nature that prioritizes self-benefit over benefiting others, which makes society’s individual “cells” each pull to themselves more than giving to others, bringing on the downfall of the entire organism of human society. As cancer takes place when cells take more than they need at the expense of the body, so our society is currently made up of egoists each guided by an enveloping egoistic paradigm that supports the idea of success as becoming individually wealthy, famous and powerful. That we are egoists is a nature-given situation, but the social influence and public opinion that supports egoistic goals and values is what’s wrong with society. Nature functions oppositely to the human ego: altruistically and according to laws of interconnection and interdependence. It thus rejects our growing ego, and the more we develop today, the more we feel pressured between our growing ego that wants to detach from others, and nature’s tendency to connect us all into a single whole. Therefore, the more we develop today, the more we enter into an increasing entanglement of complications, and it is all in order to bring us to the realization that our egoistic nature stands behind all of our problems, that it is an inherently evil quality, that we helplessly follow its demands to try and fill it with self-aimed pleasure at the expense of others time and again, and that any move to improve society requires first diagnosing the ego as the cause of all our problems. Then, when we reach a widespread realization of this common cause to all our problems, we can start fixing it. When we reach such an awakening, we will realize that there is no person, group of people, or political or religious orientation to blame for our problems. There is only our very egoistic nature, dwelling in each and every one of us. How can we then correct human nature, if it is the cause of all our problems? It is possible if we create an environment that supports the ego’s correction, so that instead of receiving for self-benefit alone at the expense of others, we would want to positively contribute and connect to others in order to benefit them, without any “What will I get out of it?” intent. It is against human nature to give and contribute to others, but if we changed public opinion, our social and media influences, and also our education, in order that we learn the nature of humanity’s increasing interdependence today, how the human ego opposes our growing interdependence and also why this is the cause of all our problems, and that the way to resolve our myriad problems today is by correcting our connections to each other-creating an environment that supports giving and contributing to society, prioritizing values of mutual consideration and responsibility over competitive and individualistic ideas of success-then we would be on course to a monumental positive social transformation.
I wonder what this guy sounds like when (if) sober. If the family isn't entitled to an individual's wealth, what makes the government entitled to have it for the bureaucrats to piss away?
Do any of these rich kids really understand the value of a dollar? Why do they even pretend to care about someone like me who makes less than $12,000 a year when they are just going to snub me in person anyway? I hate them. I'm smarter and more talented than them, I speak four languages, I study biochemistry, food science, and art history, but I come from a poor Nebraska family of seven children and I had to be a mom to my younger siblings at the age of 7. Rich kids have no concept of that kind of responsibility. Do you think you can have any sort of childhood, play sports, go to parties, hang out with friends, when you have to take care of three small children? You can not. Rich people are so spoiled an ungrateful and sub me whenever I go to important events wearing a $100 suit and they tell me it is my fault that I'm poor and it must be because I'm uneducated or lazy. I literally hate them so much I'm shaking as I write this. They are such immature 20 year old children and have no concept of hard work or responsibility.
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 Dude, I do not want to hear your bs story about homeless people making millions. What horse crap stories rich people tell themselves to make-believe that anyone can get rich over night. It is hard to build wealth from nothing, I work my ass off for every penny I make, and it will take me decades to be wealthy. But I will get there and when I do I won't even talk to spoiled rich kids like you, or even acknowledge your existence.
Mr Secretary - While I don’t want to diminish the value of your previous accomplishments throughout your career, the observations and solutions you have posed in this, and all of your videos over the last few years, are among your greatest contributions to a free, safe and and prosperous America. Thank you for your clarity and the effect it has on promoting political, economic and practical sanity during a period of our history when it is most needed.
The top five percent pay over half the federal taxes Reich lies
That is such a great statement! I couldn't agree more!❤❤❤
Its all about growing the government huge. Nothing new or ground breaking from typical socialist agendas.
Why do you not pay enough taxes to pay for the social programs Democrats want we have a debt so big it defies belief our children will inherit a bankrupt shell of a nation because you won't pay enough taxes to pay for the social programs you want makeing you a thief @@llynhunter
Pay your fair share of taxes for the social programs Democrats want stop bankrupting our nation by voteing for handout Democrats Democrats our children should not have to pay the price of Democrat programs
I can't believe this class is available to us for free. ❤Thank you professor!
This is a great series. To my mind, one of the most valuable things is that we get to see how neoliberal economics has broken our society. Out of this realization, however, we can see that our current conditions owe to deliberate policy choices. What we broke with deliberate policy choices we can fix with deliberate policy choices.
John, under your economic ideology, why open a business to be taxed into oblivion?
@@youtubesucks1499 my argument said upward wealth redistribution is breaking our society. Nowhere did I say we should tax businesses into oblivion. In reality, tax rates for the rich and for businesses are near record lows, and people across the spectrum from Trumpers to Fight for $15 advocates agree the economy is rigged in favor of the rich. Widening income and wealth inequality point to the reality of that belief.
@@johnbarker5009 Ok, let's think why be rich if you are taxed into oblivion?
Why build an Amazon? There is no reason to.
So tax away, and watch the unintended consequences cripple society.
I build houses. I will build just enough for my family to live well. There is no incentive to do more.
Peter Shift said it best... cap wealth and there is no reason to work.
@@youtubesucks1499 it's funny how the slightest increase in taxes on the rich will make them stop working, while the slightest income boost for the poor will make them stop working as well.
I guess if you're demotivated by more because it's not ENOUGH more, maybe you're not the worker you think you are.
The gap between the incomes of the rich and the average was a tiny fraction of what it is now in the 1960s, yet our economy was the strongest ever. Explain that.
@@johnbarker5009 Slightest? Bernie Sanders wants to cap wealth at 999 million.
So would you keep producing if there was no further compensation?
AOC is talking about taxing money at 80% over 10 million.
Would you produce over that to be taxed at 80%?
Illuminating. Consciousness-raising. First-rate mind at work. Professor Robert Reich is an American treasure.
Blows me away this guy does not have a million subscribers yet. Please keep up the great work Robert Reich!!!! Appreciate your work & sharing your knowledge.
Because there’s not a million people in the country that agree with him.
This eye opening class on taxes highlighting how the nations most wealthy have benefited from these tax policies, compelled me to think about how the Supreme Court played such an intricate part of this with their 2010 ruling on Citizens United V. FEC. The ruling literally opened the door for the most wealthy and corporations to spend millions to buy politicians who will protect their assets through ridiculously low tax rates and policies. Is it any wonder so many Americans are angry and frustrated as they work often two jobs to make ends meet? Great class, and one we should all revisit several times.
The top five percent pay over half the federal taxes what are you talking about
Why should a doctor in NYC pay more than half his income in taxes
@@fritzforsthoefel8031lmao 🤡
Just remember the symbol of the democrat party say it I know you want to
Where am I wrong
Every American needs to see this lecture.
I am loving this course!!! Robert you are the best teacher! I can't thank you, your staff and Berkley enough for posting this on UA-cam!
As a writer focused on culture and economics this series has been one of the most valuable resources I have come across in years. Thank you for your work and for investing into all of us so we may assist in change for the good.
"People want to reference their rights but not their obligations.". I believe you said that. :)
This is such an illuminating class. I wish you had been my Economics professor in college.
Right!!
I wish Reich would pay higher taxes to pay for the handouts he wants
Thank you. We need this to be available to everyone. Thank you for exemplifying leadership.
Every single member of the bottom 90% of America needs to watch this series!
Why listen to lies
What specifically is a lie? Do you have data or sources?
He lies by withholding information from you he put out a video saying what if we taxed the rich he suggests that the rich don't pay taxes when fact is the top five percent pay over half the federal taxes he never tells you that the top ten percent pay over seventy two per entire of the federal taxes he says the rich don't pay enough ss taxes because of the cap on how much money you pay he doesn't tell you that there is a limit on how much you pay because there is a limit on how much you can draw out he doesn't tell you that the middle class draw more ss and medicare than they pay in taxes he never tells you that the poor get subsidized housing food assistance cash assistance and free healthcare he never tells you that the rich pay almost all the federal taxes and get next to nothing in return vote out handout lying Democrats before it's to late our children will thank you for it
Look at the general accounting office numbers it tells who pays what and where there taxes goes the top ten percent pay over seventy three percent of the federal taxes and get next to nothing in return
He never tells you that the top five percent pay over half the federal taxes or that the top ten percent pay over seventy percent of the federal taxes he never tells you that the poor get subsidized housing food assistance cash assistance and free healthcare he never tells you that the middle class draw more ss and medicare than they pay in taxes he never tells you that there is a cap on how much money you pay in ss and medicare taxes because there is a cap on how much you can draw out in ss benefits he doesn't tell you the whole truth in an attempt to mislead you into thinking the rich pay no taxes when they pay almost all the federal taxes he even has a video saying what if we taxed the rich misleading because he knows full well the rich pay almost all the federal taxes Reich is a very dishonest person and an avowed communist
I am learning so much in this class
The whole class is such an improvement over the typical minute or two UA-cam ckipy. Bravo. Way to evaluate the platform.
Thank for a very enlightening series. Worth watching again to pick up nuance.
Basic terminology of the tax system is something that every student should learn.
This explains so much. I’ve worked two jobs most of my life… still lower middle class. The working poor- heartbreaking really when you see what wealth and greed has done to our food water and air and our pocket books. This should be taught in the 9th grade through senior years-
These classes should be mandatory all future politicians.
Reich spreads misinformation
Will you build me a free house if you won't do it who should
Still waiting for you to build me a free house if you wont who should pay for my houseing
Why listen to lies
Still waiting for a democrat to build me a free house that Reich and Sanders say I'm entitled to
This course came up in my feed and I must say I'm appalled that's how much I didn't know or was taught in school. I feel such a sense of despair about the what's the current state of affairs regarding wealth and poverty. I'm trying to be optimistic but it seems such a Monumental task to change the trajectory of this country. Everyday I grow more skeptical of what I was told in my youth. Now in my mid forties I feel like I'm listening with new ears.
It's like "Yvonne, you watched two words and you have already 'liked' this vid". Well, yeah, I know I will like it. It is time to look for the previous weeks; thought they were on substack this semester. Thank you, Professor.
Thank you! You (almost) make me wish I had majored in Economics!!
Holy corruption USA! Wow! At my age, it's just way too late to do anything about $$ regardless of my high level of education; my health issues eclipsed my ability to earn the dough so I am highly educated AND at the poverty level. At least I can empathize with all sides!
1:09:19. An easy question to guess right.
I right away said Stanford. Why?
1) Stanford is private
2) Stanford primarly caters to wealthy students.
3) Wealthy people have more power.
4) The wealthy use their power to get special treatment
5) The wealthy don't stop at getting special treatment from private institutions
6) Because of the above, the wealthy have a lot behind their demands. They have a lot to back it up with.
7) They wealthy and powerful have turned on the wealth pump in the 70s and it doesn't show much sign of slowing down. That wealth pump redistributes wealth to the top. Where, in what situations, would this not be the case???
42:03 There is a mistake: the ratio of state+local to federal is not larger based on the graph. If anything the shit is in the other direction.
I would loved to see your thoughts on the SALT provisions in New York.
Love these lectures, as well as your book 'The Common Good'❤
Reich says if you work you should have a livable wage healthcare paid family leave vacation time and pension but if you go to college maney years become a surgeon in NYC who works long hours and earns four hundred thousand dollars a year between local state and federal taxes half his money to the government so according to Reich your an idiot to work hard when all you have to do is drop out of school get a low skilled job and live good how can our nation prosper with Reichs proposals
Professor, your classes make me feel stupid... The good kind of stupid. I'm a lawyer and never have i taken into account how dirty the tax deductions on a country with public health (Brazil). Right-wing keeps trying to destroy or privatize our public health, saying it costs too much, but they never mention how our luxurious hospitals charge absurd amounts to rich people that deduct from their taxes and that ALSO slashes money that could make it work... Eye-opening indeed. THANK YOU
You are aware that the top ten percent pay over seventy percent of the federal taxes
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 Bro, all data points to them paying lower mean taxes than blue collar workers. Sure, they may pay shitloads in absolute numbers, but they get so many ways to evade paying that they're able to buy Doomsday Yachts
This lecture is sooooooo good 100000/10
1:12:00 Wouldn't this generally hold up for comparing all Ivy League Universities to public universities?
I have learned so much! Thank you.
Riveting. Taxes ARE exciting!
If you vote Democrat you should pay a lot more taxes to pay for the cost of the social programs Democrats want
Is class 8-13 available anywhere?
Sales taxes are not necessarily regressive. They mostly are, but for instance Denmark has increased taxes on expensive cars compared to cheaper cars. (luxury tax)
They just happen to be regressive all the time in the US.
Also, whether a sales tax or VAT is actually paid by the customer or seller depends on supply and demand elasticity. Also, a sales tax is notoriously difficult to avoid, compared to corporate and capital gains taxes, which are notoriously easy to avoid.
It also depends upon the propensity to spend. If a population spends each extra dollar it earns, you have a progressive system with the rich paying bulk of the tax revenue.
. There's probably like separation of church and state except nowadays it's hard to differentiate. They look the same.
What's the tax rate on income less than the marganal limit.
It is amazing that this professor extensibly speaks about the question of who pays a determined tax without mentioning the elasticity of demand and supply. For example, it is the respective elasticities of labor supply and labor demand which determine in what proportion workers and employers pay the payroll taxes.
What's the incentive to produce under high taxes?
Thank you for sharing. ❤
He lies the top five percent pay over half the federal taxes
Thank you Professor… 🖖🏼
Concerning disincentive to invest. Why would higher marginal tax rates disincentive investment? If I donate to a charity or if I put my money back into my company INSTEAD of keeping it as income, then I will not put myself into a higher marginal income tax bracket, correct?
Can't many other investments reduce your tax burden?
Two things:
1-Higher marginal tax rates on non-income taxes can directly discourage investment. i.e. Capital Gains and Business profit.
2-If the taxes are so high that you will never realize the profit, your incentive to work goes down. This is because a major reason most people work is so they can realize the monetary gains from said work.
“Marginal” tax rates apply to income above (excess) of the stated “margin.” However, many income taxes are multi-margined. I.e. Federal income tax 0-$x tax = 10%, then 12%, then 22%, and up to 32%. (Trump tax reduction).
Question 1: All those things should be "free" - if it can be afforded. That said, I think that those things should be priority spending so "if" mostly means if we can't afford it, what do we have to do to afford it because these should be priority.
Q2 The rich should pay more because the arguments that have been made to defend the rich are largely irrelevant.
The "over half" argument is honestly what we'd expect from an "equal pain" concept, but also income tax is not the only form of taxation (GST has been mentioned and there are others) and these other options fundamentally alter the equal pain question.
The fewer incentives argument is totally irrelevant because it assumes that ONLY the fabulously wealthy will do this job. As opposed to middle income earners. And the wealthy may have "less incentives" if there are greater taxes, but that only means they have less incentives to do so WITHIN this country - which is important consideration but it's a different argument to what has been stated. The baseline incentive is to make money, higher taxes only matter if you're already making a lot of money and it doesn't reduce the incentive to make more money (in fact it can increase it because you need to aim higher) but what it DOES do is incentivise people to invest their money elsewhere into other things. That matters, but that's about OTHER regulations not taxation. For example, encouraging wealthy people to invest in housing, big deal. Encouraging people to invest in charity is a big deal. One option that I don't see talked about much is allowing the wealthy to have a tax break by investing directly into government departments (so instead of investing into a charity and getting a tax break that ultimately benefits the charity, they could invest directly into the welfare department and perhaps get a bigger tax break). But here's the thing, those OTHER incentives exist regardless. So long as another country exists that has a stable economy, offers lower taxes, protects the wealthy and less red tape, then there will always be a pre-existing incentive to invest elsewhere. America resolves this by taxing their citizens even if they live and work overseas, the same can and should be done to corporations, but coming back to the point, the incentive to create jobs exists so long as there is money to be made - taxes reduce the maximum money that can be made but does not remove the incentive so long as money can be made.
They will ALWAYS use ways to avoid paing tax. Always. But now we get to tax evasion. It is always more efficient to go after the wealthiest for tax evasion, than to try and go after a million people for tax evasion. A million low-income workers performing tax evasion will often cost MORE to pursue than they're worth, and if the statement "everyone will always try to pay the least tax" is true, then it is always worth taxing and pursuing the high wages for their tax because it is the most efficient option.
Marginal Tax rate, woo! I knew this one!
Although I didn't actually know the threshold questions because I only knew the Australian threshold which is a different number.
Okay, payroll tax is new to me.
In Australia it appears to function in the opposite manner. Payroll tax is owed on any wages of your total taxable Australia-wide wages that exceeds a threshold amount. Payroll tax rates and thresholds vary between the states and territories. Maximum annual deduction entitlements also vary between the states and territories. Most states have no maximum (and the only state that does is South Australia with a threshold of $600,000).
But yeah. I knew a lot of other taxing mechanisms existed, some were more wtf than others, but this is a new one for me. Wow.
So we've definitely entered into the America Specific territory. But I'm going to keep guesing.
I guessed 30% for total from state and local, teetering between that and 40%.
Q9 I definitely prefer Income Tax, but honestly it depends highly on the overall economic environment. I prefer corporate tax over income and I dislike sales taxes in general, but I do think multiple taxation streams are important and I'm not inherently opposed to one tax type or another depending on how it's implemented.
Thank you so much!
0:30: 📚 The second half of the course focuses on the integration of different topics and the relationship between them, transitioning from description and explanation to policy.
7:44: 📊 The video discusses the importance of market organizing, redistribution, and government efforts to redistribute income and wealth.
15:13: 🔍 The video discusses the responsibility of the rich and poor in achieving greater equality through progressive taxation and regressive spending.
22:03: 📊 The video discusses the fairness and efficiency of higher tax rates for the rich.
29:43: 💰 The video discusses the lowest and highest tax rates in the US and the concept of effective tax rate.
35:43: 💰 The video discusses the regressive nature of Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes.
42:52: 📊 The video discusses the regressive nature of taxes and the collection of money for public services.
49:18: 📈 The video discusses the Laffer Curve and the importance of considering wealth when determining tax rates.
55:50: 💰 The video discusses the impact of involuntary conversion, the decrease in estate tax, and the unrealized capital gains at death.
1:03:06: 📉 The corporate tax as a percentage of total revenues is shrinking, despite increasing corporate profits.
1:09:57: 💰 Berkeley receives a direct subsidy of $350 million per year from California, while Stanford receives $500 million more than Berkeley in philanthropy and donations.
Recap by Tammy AI
I can learn so much better about the content thanks to the main points you gave. Thank you Tammy AI!
Can tax be adjusted to inflation!?
The internet sucks. This video should have like 975 million views, at least .....mankind is too stupid....we´ll never survive our stupidity.
No. Mr. Reich is dead wrong. Stealing from those that have to give to those who don’t is not the answer!
Reich lies by withholding information
@@douglastovey2685 YT MEN - SMH
Are you implying that the borrowed $2million can be set off against the $2 million income? If your income is $2 million and you borrow another $2 million at 10%, you dont get a tax benefit of $2 million. You get a tax benefit of $200k. Assuming you spend all the income plus borrowed money, you generate $200k in sales tax. Assuming a 15% effective tax rate, you're still obliged to pay $100k in income tax.
This is lovely. Thank you!
At [10:30] what do we we think should be "free", options A, B, C, D. I will offer my own option "E": The only thing "free" should be national defense and the securing of our borders. Yup, that's it. No services for anybody. We'll find a way to pay for the roads, the schools, the police. but on a pay-as-you go basis. Whatever worked in 1789 with our Founding Fathers is good enough for me.
Some thing (like roads) are a major driver of economic activity. As much as I dislike the attitude that the government should provide everything for "free", I do want the government to take actions to allow the economy to grow.
When you sign up for Medicare they charge depending on income. I pay more for healthcare under Medicare than I ever did while working or under COBRA.
Isn't government control great
The portion for those who make over the limit.
Makes me want to search for similar tax data in my country/countries.
I think i understand now how corporations sometimes get money back from the government
When is Reich going to talk about federal government deficit spending and the modern money theory explanation. If your mind is blown by what he is describing, don't even ask about the part he is leaving out. Even with MMT, the discussion is the money flow between government and the public. It does not pay much attention to whom in the public is getting most of the money.
The Republicans (before Ttrump)- that was their line'" the deficit." - it's BULLSHIT Unless the GOV comes to me and say, I will give you 1000.00 a month if I help lower the deficit - then, then, I have a pony in the race, Other than that the deficit is bullshit.
31:48 31:48 31:48 31:48 31:48
I am baffled by the amount of students who don't know what a marginal tax rate is, how do you even do your taxes ?
We pay someone to do our taxes.
32:25
Capital gains is NOT a tax on wealth. It is a tax on transaction of assets. Completely different.
As it is currently implemented.
Some people want to tax unrealized capital gains.
25:49 The marginal tax rate is often discussed rate is misunderstood in part because so often it is just called tax rate or top tax rate.
Up until 25:00, you, professor Reich, have been saying, tax, tax tax rate, taxes and were not saying the marginal tax rate. I think if you want people to understand that these are marginal tax rates you should really say it every time: marginal tax rates. At the least you should lay that out in front.
I do understand that you are trying to guage your students current understanding before your explanations, but I think this laziness in communicating the currect term is widespread. Of course, much of this omission is intentional.
I had been paying income taxes for years before I heard the term marginal tax rate. Upon hearing it, I knew I was not clear on what was meant and I looked it up. Now when I hear all the bruhaha about taxes, I realise it is not so burdensome on the upper crust as they would have you believe.
I think we need some CONgress-ive taxes. 15:45
Taxing on wealth is a little crappy though. Example 1) If you have a house that goes way up in value then you have to pay more property taxes and then a wealth tax because you can, in theory, go to the bank and take out a loan, buy stocks and make more money. Example 2) You buy gold that goes up in value due to politics. You worked 60hrs a week for 5 years and decide to take a year long vacation and make no money that year, but are taxed on reported wealth based on your gold's value at that moment.... Crazy. Just close loop holes and tax when you actually realize the value. Not some painting you bought 20 years ago.
If they would beincentivized to invest and hire by high tax rates, why did the Fed have interest rates near zero for so long? I thought it was because those at the top were sitting on extra money they weren't investing.
The bill and Melinda gates foundation says otherwise
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 Appealing to what super rich college dropouts isn't reallyan answer. High tax rates wouldn't raise investment unless it was assumed lower tax rates are coming - rather it would be the ability for that investment to grow because of high demand from those at the bottom having money to spend. High tax rates may fuel social programs that reduce wealth inequality, but the taxes themselves aren't what would be incentivizing the spending.
The argument that someone would rather see nothing than something doesn't hold water and this would be a classic case of correlation without causation in the data.
What does money have to do with anything the low skilled does not produce enough to grow an economy if you take from the ones who produce most of our goods and services and give it to the ones who produce the least you allow thoes who produce a little to consume a lot that destroys economies as people produce less knowing the ones who produce the most will be forced to support them eventually our nation becomes one of low skilled low producing economy with third world liveing standards
We don't need more spending meaning more consumption we already consume more than we produce twenty five trillion dollar economy 32 trillion dollar debt meaning when our creditors cash there bonds in for cash they will be able to buy everything meaning no matter how much money you have it won't matter there won't be any thing to buy leaving our children a bankrupt shell of a nation because of democrat handouts vote out handout democrats before it's to late
You don't really think money means anything at all do you if you do than you know absolutely nothing about economics example what would happen if the government gave everyone one billion dollars
All UC Berkeley professors are rich. Let's take their money first.
thanks again!
Reich talks about the payroll tax what he doesnt tell you is the employer pays the tax to fund ss and dies not benefit the employer at all
What's the point you're trying to make?
That Reich calls the payroll tax regressive because both the employer and employee pay the same but what he does not say is the employer does not benefit at all
Wooooo taxes let's gooo!!!!
You are an example of how capitalism works.You exercised your freedom to follow your chosen path and found people who were willing to support you.Now you can be critic of the system that allowed to be an elitest living of the tax payers.
We need a course on why less developed countries can't develop a vibrant economy like USA, Germany, or UK.
A country succeeds when it has a stable, strong government.
The biggest difference between, say, Afghanistan/Haiti/Congo or Singapore/Finland/Japan is that the government gets in power, and stays in power.
There are loads of other things that help, and toxic ideologies that make things worse, but without a powerful government, those other things won't last long anyway.
North Korea has a strong government
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 I would say that it has weak-to-no government.
You would be wrong north Korea has a very strong government very weak economy
Communist Soviet union had a strong government a weak economy china had a strong government under communist leader mao who took from the rich and gave it to the masses and drastically raised low skilled workers wages Result millions starved sounds a lot like democrat policies take from the rich and pay low skilled low producing workers high wages end result won't be good vote out handout democrats before it's to late
NOT ONE DAMN LAW IS BEING PASSED. THEY DO WHAT THEY WANT TO DO , AND WE HAVE NO INFLUENCE
I would love to see the research showing most of the corporate taxes are paid by shareholders as opposed to being passed to consumers. I'm skeptical...
I ain't got no skin left to play the game!
is class 8 on inflation
📈
UA-cam video: "Global Declaration of Independence - Fight the Power"
Imagine if these so called free things encompassed everything. You walk into a grocery store or a car dealer etc and nothing has a price on it but rather a % symbol on it. You buy the same exact items as the guy in front of you but your cartload costs twice as much his. Is that fair? Back when you were both in high school he decided to drop out. You buckled down and went through the pain of getting a degree. Now it’s time to equalize pain? That doesn’t sound like much of a reward for busting your ass
There was a time money hoarders were coerced to employ their hoard. Depreciating system. Lead us to the Appreciating System ........silence
The 50% marginal tax rate question is poorly worded. As worded the correct answer is there is insufficient information. You mean how much tax would they pay on income over $360,000. I was a teacher. I am not judging you. I know how hard it is to be unambiguous. However, it is important.
human society organism LoveLy
Didn't catch the over thanks for the info
I'm a bit shocked, that only 1/3 of the audience understands marginal tax, considering they're college students, presumably of economics?
Marginal tax doesn’t exist in nature and we don’t teach taxes in high school. The barely even touch on taxes in the first years of accounting school. I took a class on taxes after finishing school, which is where I learned the real good stuff. Tax preparers are required to take 14hrs of annual continued education, which many find insufficient.
Basically, it’s made to be that way.
Edit: That question was a little misleading, the closest answer to the question on the PowerPoint was 88,000 because of the lower marginal brackets that are also taxed. The $1,000 was only the amount taxed on the amount in excess of the bracket cutoff.
The analysis is based on an unstated assumption that income is evenly divided over time in yearly increments. That may be true for a government "worker", but its not the case for a small business owner. As a simple example, suppose the government "worker" is paid $200K for 2 years and the small business owner earns $0K in year one and $400K in year two. Both earn the same total amount, but the small business owner pays more tax. I am in the innovation business where the timelines are much longer, for me 25 years. Over 25 years a government "worker" would pay at an effective tax rate of 27.62% whereas my effective tax rate would be 48.93% for the same total income (if we were both resident in California). How is that fair? My 38 patents translate into about 4000 high tech manufacturing jobs. How many jobs did the government "worker" create? As Reich said, the system of incentives determines macro economic outcomes. I live in Canada and look at the number of patents per capita in other countries as a measure of how attractive the incentives for innovation industry are (and where I want to live). The US has 4X as many patents per capita and is hence a more attractive place to locate an innovation business. Some European tech havens have 16X as many patents per capita which indicates they are even more attractive places to locate an innovation business. Incidentally, tax rates in Canada on real estate speculation are half the tax rate on innovation and mass immigration is driving demand. Canada is a good place to locate for a real estate speculator.
You probably filed the patents for your “innovation business” with a government worker, just saying 💁♂️
I doubt anyone grew up more poor than me in these comments. My dad was a sanitation worker in a small town that paid almost nothing. My mother worked odd jobs when she could. We lived in a small 2 bedroom shack that was not fit to keep animals. Well the mice did seem to like it. We had no heat or a/c.
But my folks did not pay sales tax. We lived in a state that doesn't tax food. So when people say sales tax affects the poor more I assume the never actually lived poor.
at $1/second .. $1million=11.5 days .. $1billion=31.5 years .. $1trillion=31,500 years ...
Rick kids not knowing what a pay roll tax is
all the military spending is gotta be regressive
Why?
The large capitatist corporations paying all those benefits is how they get buy with it. Those benifits. Just like religious people pay ( tithes ) to play and get favorism. If you been following Vivek Ramaswamy's campaine for president he talks about the ( isms ) cults or religions in this country. GOD is not pleased.
The trend is clear. Corporations should not pay taxes! Sales taxes such as VAT should be levied. And shareholders should pay taxes on their divendends and the added value on their shares . The "dead taxe " is clearly a stupid taxe because the accumulated wealth comes mostly from taxated income... Why should it be taxed twice... Something is really wrong with the education system in the US, absolutely not democratic at all... What a shame for such a wealthy nation...It is not a surprise that a brain drain from abroad to the US has been organised to compensated the disastrous education policy of the US...
Yes we should get rid of estate taxes.
That said an inheritance is a gift and should be taxed as such.
The big question is not the integrity of R Reich's information nor its importance to the world. Rather the larger question is how to help disseminate his worldview and merge it with other like-minded folks, assembled into operational action-oriented 'best science based' policy that directs societal actions toward a more human, just, and inclusive world culture. The new book, Planet Earth Citizens, The Missing Component (Converting the impossible to possible) offers an architectural rendering of how to accomplish this based on live observations over the past 75 years. Please read it and reach out to the author. (ME)
I'm inclined to advocate a tax rate on fortunes above 50 million that - assuming it didn't grow at all - would reduce a fortune of 100 billion to 50 million over the time period of one century. And an additional tax rate on fortunes above 100 billion that would reduce it to 100 billion in fifty years. (Thus Richie Rich would be paying the first tax on all of his 1,000 billion fortune above 50 million, and the second tax on all of his 1,000 billion fortune that is above 100 billion. Maybe more details than that, but still: Higher Wealth Pay Higher Taxes, Higher Higher Wealth Higher Higher Taxes.)
Government seizing what has already been taxed china did the same thing under mao
The rich already pay almost all the federal taxes did you not know this stop believing in democrat lies
An involuntary conversion 🎉😂
Neither capital gains tax nor estate tax are wealth taxes. The both tax income. Capital gains taxes income you receive when selling an asset, and estate tax taxes income received by heirs to an estate. They're done differently than normal income taxes, but they are still of the category of taxing a type of income. Property tax is the only thing you could consider a "wealth tax". Its pretty absurd this guy is complaining that he's been debating Laffer since the 80s and he hasn't changed his mind, when its very obvious Reich hasn't either. Projection at its most obvious.
Nothing escaped taxation. You should double tax a person lifetime of work or achievement
Forty four percent of households pay no federal income tax
So to recap: risk your life savings to start a business, work 100 a week to build that business.
Become rich so the government can steal your money and give it to lazy people and foreigners.
nice
professor reich is only an economist. if you want to change anything, you must go into politics.
not as a politician, but as a revolutionary.
the economy reflects the power strucure of the nation. if your aim is wide-spread prosperity, your means must be getting democracy.
when the people have referendum and initiative, economics will quickly reflect this new reality.
Vote out handout Democrats before it's to late our childrens future depend on it
What Is Wrong With Our Society Today?
If we viewed human society a single live organism, then what would we see?
We would see that, in its current state of development, its immune system is barely working, and its cells and organs, which should be sustaining the body’s health, are deteriorating.
Personal, social, economic and ecological problems are all on the rise, including depression, stress, loneliness, emptiness, anxiety, xenophobia, drug abuse, suicide, income equality, poverty, climate change, and although many people are trying to patch and treat these problems, the efforts fail to solve the problem at its overarching cause.
What is the cause of all problems in human society?
It is the human ego, i.e., the innate calculative mechanism in human nature that prioritizes self-benefit over benefiting others, which makes society’s individual “cells” each pull to themselves more than giving to others, bringing on the downfall of the entire organism of human society.
As cancer takes place when cells take more than they need at the expense of the body, so our society is currently made up of egoists each guided by an enveloping egoistic paradigm that supports the idea of success as becoming individually wealthy, famous and powerful.
That we are egoists is a nature-given situation, but the social influence and public opinion that supports egoistic goals and values is what’s wrong with society.
Nature functions oppositely to the human ego: altruistically and according to laws of interconnection and interdependence. It thus rejects our growing ego, and the more we develop today, the more we feel pressured between our growing ego that wants to detach from others, and nature’s tendency to connect us all into a single whole.
Therefore, the more we develop today, the more we enter into an increasing entanglement of complications, and it is all in order to bring us to the realization that our egoistic nature stands behind all of our problems, that it is an inherently evil quality, that we helplessly follow its demands to try and fill it with self-aimed pleasure at the expense of others time and again, and that any move to improve society requires first diagnosing the ego as the cause of all our problems.
Then, when we reach a widespread realization of this common cause to all our problems, we can start fixing it.
When we reach such an awakening, we will realize that there is no person, group of people, or political or religious orientation to blame for our problems. There is only our very egoistic nature, dwelling in each and every one of us.
How can we then correct human nature, if it is the cause of all our problems?
It is possible if we create an environment that supports the ego’s correction, so that instead of receiving for self-benefit alone at the expense of others, we would want to positively contribute and connect to others in order to benefit them, without any “What will I get out of it?” intent.
It is against human nature to give and contribute to others, but if we changed public opinion, our social and media influences, and also our education, in order that we learn the nature of humanity’s increasing interdependence today, how the human ego opposes our growing interdependence and also why this is the cause of all our problems, and that the way to resolve our myriad problems today is by correcting our connections to each other-creating an environment that supports giving and contributing to society, prioritizing values of mutual consideration and responsibility over competitive and individualistic ideas of success-then we would be on course to a monumental positive social transformation.
Have a happy retirement
I wonder what this guy sounds like when (if) sober. If the family isn't entitled to an individual's wealth, what makes the government entitled to have it for the bureaucrats to piss away?
Yeah but the road going to the resort was built buy poor people who got jobs to pay for there expensive i phone.
You're gonna give back what you stole too
So this means there idea is everyone should pay Taxes . How much do they really pay ?Bingo
Do any of these rich kids really understand the value of a dollar? Why do they even pretend to care about someone like me who makes less than $12,000 a year when they are just going to snub me in person anyway? I hate them. I'm smarter and more talented than them, I speak four languages, I study biochemistry, food science, and art history, but I come from a poor Nebraska family of seven children and I had to be a mom to my younger siblings at the age of 7. Rich kids have no concept of that kind of responsibility. Do you think you can have any sort of childhood, play sports, go to parties, hang out with friends, when you have to take care of three small children? You can not. Rich people are so spoiled an ungrateful and sub me whenever I go to important events wearing a $100 suit and they tell me it is my fault that I'm poor and it must be because I'm uneducated or lazy. I literally hate them so much I'm shaking as I write this. They are such immature 20 year old children and have no concept of hard work or responsibility.
Why are you concerned about someone else's money who cares stop with the jealousy
Democrats only know two words subsadized and free vote out handout democrats before it's to late
I can name maney formerly homeless people who are now rich
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 Dude, I do not want to hear your bs story about homeless people making millions. What horse crap stories rich people tell themselves to make-believe that anyone can get rich over night. It is hard to build wealth from nothing, I work my ass off for every penny I make, and it will take me decades to be wealthy. But I will get there and when I do I won't even talk to spoiled rich kids like you, or even acknowledge your existence.
So your prejudice against people you don't even know
Send me some of your wealth
Automation an procreation have to be balanced 😊