Strange country you live in when you do 40k and can't afford to rent a flat. What the fuck are you spending your money on?
I live in Germany, work at a food joint and earn about 8-9k netto per year. I can afford to share an appartment with a university student in the downtown of my city (high rent). I have health care and don't need to eat packaged noodles. I can't really afford going on vacation somewhere far off though. I upgrade my computer once in a while and don't buy expensive sneakers. But, I am living. If I was in your country I'd probably have no health care and live in my car. And why is that? Because rich sods like Bill Gates pay low to none taxes. So, please, hunt those assholes down. Not your neighbours.
It is really simple:
Republicans want low taxes so the big business can divert all the money to the few top earners. Of course, which such low taxes you can't afford a good educational system or good health care. This is exactly the problem. Your educational system is among the purest (quality wise) on the whole planet. If everyone payed high enough taxes and your country stopped invading a new country every week everyone could afford a good education and wouldn't need to go to work to go to school. What you call "college" is basic education in my country. It is part of the regular school system, not set apart for those who can afford it. People here live good but the overall taxes + social insurance are somewhere inbetween 40 and 60 percent of the income. At my low level of income I pay about >15 percent taxes and another 20-25 percent go into health insurance, into the pension system and the compulsory long term care insurance.
So, my overall pay off to the state is about 35-40 percent. And that is at entry level income. Still, my life is not too bad. And if I hadn't completely gone bored at the university I'd probably make some 50-80k Euro net per year. But that's my fault and another story.
One question though:
If your dad or your uncle can do the same amount of work with less people why do they employ surplus people?
Combined income is
under 40k. Around here the housing is really bad right now, its more there is hardly any decent homes around here and also I'm not going to spend a large majority on rent since I wont ever see anything if we sell the house.
Secondly, I'm perfectly fine with taxing indivudual incomes. That is not obama's plan though. It does indeed tax any income, business or personal of 250k. Income is gross, gross is before ANY costs are made.
I make personally almost 12k a year. My dad is lucky if he gets 25 to 30k. Since I pay for college and personal stuff, I only pay 200 a month rent. This mobile home is techincally cemented and considered a flat house, but it still was a mobile home. It appraises at 110. So its payments are fairly high. I don't know the exact number but its about 800 a month I believe.
The ramen comment was a little harsh, I don't actually eat ramen for every meal, I eat fairly well because I worked my ass off to get over 7 dollars an hour. Since the wages in utah are the some of the worst in the nation. There have been times though like the week after paying tuition that I pretty much only eat ramen.
I entirely agree with increasing taxes on people who's indivudual income is high. To try and help redisdripute weatlh. If he do it to much though, it entirely defeats the purpose of freedom and capitilasm. It means someone can't become succesfull for themselves. Only for everyone else. It is one thing to have a fair increase since they defintely have no problem surviving.
I do agree our health system is horrid and I wish I could afford decent medical coverage. Around here though its 40 bucks a month for 600 dollar coverage.(which is nothing)
Businesses grossing 250k are hardly top earners though. Since business costs are often 75%+ of their gross. Where as an individual spends maybe 50 to 60% of their gross on needed costs like rent and food. Businesses have labor, supplies, and product replacement to worry about.
A business grossing 250k actually sees about the same profit as a person grossing 60k. So businesses under 500k gross should if anything see a decrease in taxes so they can surplus more labor.
About the dad and comment uncle. They don't hire surplus people, everyone of my uncle's employees and both of my dad's employees work 40 hours a week if their schedule allows. My uncle works 60 hours a week and my dad pushes 90. Thats the joy of starting a business. Hire help when you can afford it so you dont' have to work 100 hours a week. If it comes down to it though, you have to pay your bills first, since thats the whole reason you started a business. So if he has to work 100 hours a week he will. Neither of them have a surplus of labor, its actually pretty moderate and my uncle was looking to possibly bring in a couple more staff members since a few people have been having to work over 50 hours. Not to mention, the more labor a company puts out far better for the community. The community strives on jobs, if you see a community where every job opening gets 10+ applications, that community is struggling and unemployment is high. Its generally because companies have less labor to use. Wasting labor they have to use is bad, if they can afford to bring in more employees, its a positive thing to do such. As not only does it help the business become more productive and the owner work more reasonable hours instead of the 60 to 90 most starter business owners work, but it feeds an extra family that was surviving off hand outs before.
Bottom line, no matter how you look at it and no matter who wins this election, american economics are still rather pathetic. I just see things personally as getting a lot worse in the future if obama wins.
This is just my opinion, call it ignorant or pathetic or whatever. Part of being free is being entitled to be ignorant I guess. Either way as I stated before, it doesn't really matter at all who I vote for. Since mccain had utah wrapped up before he was born. Got to love partyship dedication. Lets not vote for who we think is best, lets vote for what color their party is. This country is rather messed up all around, especially politically. There are still people who will only vote for obama because he is black and will only not vote for him because he is. There is people that wont vote for mccain cause he's old and old people are old or other such stupid reasons. Ignorance is everywhere and 75% of voters generally don't even know why they're voting. They're just voting for what their friends and neighbors or their favorite rock star is.
That is another reason I didn't rush to register, I feel personally that I am only moderately aware of the candidates policies as I've been to busy with school to pay a lot of attention. I'd rather not make an "educated guess" on something as important as how my country is ran. At least though, regardless, in the end. I wont bitch over who wins, since I didn't earn that right by doing something about who wins. Cheerios and live life the best ya can.
