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Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future (Read 18310 times)
Equitist
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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #15 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:04pm
 

longweekend58 wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:00pm:
||Curiously, tho': the Howard Govt (and probably the Labs since) always made its submissions to the annual Minimum Wage case based on the Median Wage rather than the headline Average (Full-Time) Wage...

Similarly, the determination of Child Support payments has revolved around Median and not the Average wage...
||

yet you are the same person that trumpets the supremacy of median over mean... but apparently your convictions are flexible depending on circumstances...


Again, you stoop low, in seeking to misrepresent me - I really wish you'd stop doing that, ta!
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Lamenting the shift in the Australian psyche, away from the egalitarian ideal of the fair-go - and the rise of short-sighted pollies, who worship the 'Growth Fairy' and seek to divide and conquer!
 
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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #16 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:18pm
 

longweekend58 wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 6:58pm:
||I really wish I could readily find the stats on the relative proportions of people in each tax bracket over time - but I suspect that our pollies have strongly vested interests in making such difficult to find...||

nothing like a good paranoid conspiracy to keep you warm at night.



Sorry ol' man, but you took the cake in today's bake-off with your own smouldering fire and this half-baked conspiracy theory...


longweekend58 wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 3:11pm:
Equitist wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 3:06pm:
mellie wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 2:58pm:
Where has $140 billion gone, can Labor even begin to explain where it went?

And do you suppose Labor will be capable of restoring this $40 billion surplus in the 3 short years it took them to blow a whopping $140 billion?

Think about it.

...  Has anyone thought to ask where it went to begin with?


I heard you the first 5 or 6 times you posted those rhetorical statements - and I need only two words to summarise the answer: 'structural deficit'.

I suggest that you google 'structural deficit costello' or 'structural deficit howard' - but I doubt that you will be inclined to appreciate the relevant commentary that has been debated out there the past couple of years or so...



'structural deficit' is one of those new and convenient terms used by economists and pollies to magically construct bad news out of good news. it is how you turn a surplus into a deficit and no debt into debt without changing a single dollar in the bank. it is one of those trendy new ways of making truth into lie.



LOL...you great big silly ol' conservative conspiracy theorist, you...

Roll Eyes



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freediver
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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #17 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:29pm
 
Quote:
For starters, I know for a fact, that the 'Median Income' of Aussie Adults has been slipping further and further below the headline 'Average (Full-Time) Wage' - it is currently remarkably close to the Minimum Wage - but we rarely hear of that figure from our pollies because it highlights the rapidly-growing inequality in our society and economy...


By how much? Less than inflation?

Quote:
Yup, about 50% of all Aussie adults have annual incomes of the Minimum Full-Time Wage or less - FACT!


What does that actually mean? Maybe it just means the minimum wage is too high.

Quote:
So, do you not find it strange, that we don't routinely hear the headline Median Income and Median Wage as well as the Minimum Wage and Average Wage!?


I don't routinely hear either.

Quote:
Even allowing for inflation and welfare transfers, I am certain that our entire system has become far more regressive over the past quarter century - and that's without the various new and effectively-exclusive WEALTHfare payments introduced over the last decade in particular...


The fact that the middle class is now on welfare (even I get lots of handouts I don't need) is not a sign of regression. It is a sign that we are so geneourous to the lower class we have to shift the handouts up otherwise there would be an extremely high effective tax rate for the poor. You end up with more people in the absurd situation that they get little more in the bank, maybe even less, as their salary rises.

Your certainty means little.

Quote:
There have been a number of commentators (with different perspectives from all sides of politics) who have highlighted these regressive trends, in the past few years - including in recent weeks. I shall try to dig some of their articles up...


I would go for the facts myself. This is the sort of thing you can find commentators saying anything on.

Quote:
actually that is utter garbage. income is still distributed as a bell graph


That would be highly unlikely given the nature of income.

Quote:
Moreover, this has been at the expense of both the living standards of the majority of Australians and the ongoing conservation of our environment and the maintenance and upgrading of First World essential services and infrastructure.


You think our living standards have dropped?
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longweekend58
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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #18 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:43pm
 
Equitist wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:02pm:
longweekend58 wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 6:47pm:
||Yup, about 50% of all Aussie adults have annual incomes of the Minimum Full-Time Wage or less - FACT! ||

actually that is utter garbage. income is still distributed as a bell graph


That is either a lie or an assumption - so I challenge you to prove it if you can!

As for your false claims about the absence of facts - ye and me both know that I have provided them on Yahoo previously and that I can and will find present same here in due course...


of course that depends a lot on your dataset. do you for instance only include people who actually EARN their incomes as opposed to welfare. if you include welfare recipients you distort the figure greatly by including in a distribution of earnings, people who doent actually EARN anything. when you remove non-earned income such as welfare, the distribution is a bell curve withthe median and mean not very different.
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AUSSIE: "Speaking for myself, I could not care less about 298 human beings having their life snuffed out in a nano-second, or what impact that loss has on Members of their family, their parents..."
 
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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #19 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:45pm
 
Equitist wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:04pm:
longweekend58 wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:00pm:
||Curiously, tho': the Howard Govt (and probably the Labs since) always made its submissions to the annual Minimum Wage case based on the Median Wage rather than the headline Average (Full-Time) Wage...

Similarly, the determination of Child Support payments has revolved around Median and not the Average wage...
||

yet you are the same person that trumpets the supremacy of median over mean... but apparently your convictions are flexible depending on circumstances...


Again, you stoop low, in seeking to misrepresent me - I really wish you'd stop doing that, ta!



you have repeateldy trumtped the median over the mean in past discussions because it served your purpose.
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AUSSIE: "Speaking for myself, I could not care less about 298 human beings having their life snuffed out in a nano-second, or what impact that loss has on Members of their family, their parents..."
 
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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #20 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:47pm
 
longweekend58 wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:43pm:
Equitist wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:02pm:
longweekend58 wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 6:47pm:
||Yup, about 50% of all Aussie adults have annual incomes of the Minimum Full-Time Wage or less - FACT! ||

actually that is utter garbage. income is still distributed as a bell graph


That is either a lie or an assumption - so I challenge you to prove it if you can!

As for your false claims about the absence of facts - ye and me both know that I have provided them on Yahoo previously and that I can and will find present same here in due course...


of course that depends a lot on your dataset. do you for instance only include people who actually EARN their incomes as opposed to welfare. if you include welfare recipients you distort the figure greatly by including in a distribution of earnings, people who doent actually EARN anything. when you remove non-earned income such as welfare, the distribution is a bell curve withthe median and mean not very different.


Sounds pretty dubious to me Longy. Perhpas you should stick to the facts rather than making up theories.
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longweekend58
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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #21 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:52pm
 
freediver wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:47pm:
longweekend58 wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:43pm:
Equitist wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 7:02pm:
longweekend58 wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 6:47pm:
||Yup, about 50% of all Aussie adults have annual incomes of the Minimum Full-Time Wage or less - FACT! ||

actually that is utter garbage. income is still distributed as a bell graph


That is either a lie or an assumption - so I challenge you to prove it if you can!

As for your false claims about the absence of facts - ye and me both know that I have provided them on Yahoo previously and that I can and will find present same here in due course...


of course that depends a lot on your dataset. do you for instance only include people who actually EARN their incomes as opposed to welfare. if you include welfare recipients you distort the figure greatly by including in a distribution of earnings, people who doent actually EARN anything. when you remove non-earned income such as welfare, the distribution is a bell curve withthe median and mean not very different.


Sounds pretty dubious to me Longy. Perhpas you should stick to the facts rather than making up theories.


wage statistics basically follow a normal distribution if your data is internally consistent eg you use FULL TIME EMPLOYMENT income. if you add welfare payments which are artificially constrained to a narrow band or you use part-time income you again distart the resultant distribution curve. this is the real challenge in statistics: to get a result which is not only accurate but represents truth. eg you can add in all sources of income for all people - including those not actually working - and you get a distribution that is accurate but is NOT a distribution of earnings. it is something altogether different. plotting fulltime earnings is basically a normal distributiuon.
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AUSSIE: "Speaking for myself, I could not care less about 298 human beings having their life snuffed out in a nano-second, or what impact that loss has on Members of their family, their parents..."
 
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freediver
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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #22 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 8:24pm
 
Quote:
wage statistics basically follow a normal distribution if your data is internally consistent eg you use FULL TIME EMPLOYMENT income


No they don't.
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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #23 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 9:27pm
 

freediver wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 8:24pm:
Quote:
wage statistics basically follow a normal distribution if your data is internally consistent eg you use FULL TIME EMPLOYMENT income


No they don't.


Yup, they don't!

Australia has disproportionately-high levels of both low income earners and non-full-time employees.  So, Longy's suggestion of artificially annualising part-time and casual wages becomes all the more pointless when determining median and average disposable incomes and associated living standards!


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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #24 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 9:51pm
 

Earlier, I promised to post some independent reports - so here's my first link, an international one: -

http://www.lisproject.org/publications/liswps/154.pdf

It is over a decade old, but it confirms my claim that income inequality in Australia rose significantly in the 1980's (and from an already high inequality base).

Now for some more recent reports...


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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #25 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 9:57pm
 
If you didn't realise, the tax-free threshold and lower tax brackets have become larger and moved to a lower rate. It's not only the wealthy who benefit. It includes everyone who can be bothered to work.

Also, even if taxes are becoming more regressive, it's a good thing. The current tax system is shockingly inequitable with almost half of some peoples' hard earned income going to dole bludgers.

And I don't see how income inequality is a bad thing, where living standards have improved for earners of all classes. Income inequality in relatively free economies usually correlates with strong growth. I think this is something we should be clinking glasses to.
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Equitist
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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #26 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 10:11pm
 

Hlysnan wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 9:57pm:
If you didn't realise, the tax-free threshold and lower tax brackets have become larger and moved to a lower rate. It's not only the wealthy who benefit. It includes everyone who can be bothered to work.

Also, even if taxes are becoming more regressive, it's a good thing. The current tax system is shockingly inequitable with almost half of some peoples' hard earned income going to dole bludgers.

And I don't see how income inequality is a bad thing, where living standards have improved for earners of all classes. Income inequality in relatively free economies usually correlates with strong growth. I think this is something we should be clinking glasses to.


LOL, Jeimi...clink all you want - but I point out that a token % tax break on an income of SFA = SFA!

Meantime, perhaps you should consider the long-term benefits of helping children in low income households to have a better education and a higher standard of living - since they could well be the ones calculating your toxic drug doses, driving your taxi, fixing your electrical wiring and rolling you over in bed to wipe your nose and backside...in your dotage...
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« Last Edit: Jul 24th, 2010 at 10:17pm by Equitist »  

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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #27 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 10:24pm
 
I'm sure there are benefits to helping poor people, but I don't believe that it should be the government's responsibility anyway. If people like donating to poor Australians, there are plenty of charities to go to. No need to force everyone to pay up. Generally the wealthier people are, the more generous they become anyway.

Maybe I missed it somewhere in the thread, but what is SFA?
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Equitist
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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #28 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 10:40pm
 

Hlysnan wrote on Jul 24th, 2010 at 10:24pm:
I'm sure there are benefits to helping poor people, but I don't believe that it should be the government's responsibility anyway. If people like donating to poor Australians, there are plenty of charities to go to. No need to force everyone to pay up. Generally the wealthier people are, the more generous they become anyway.

Maybe I missed it somewhere in the thread, but what is SFA?


Err...ummnnn....actually, Jeimi, you appear to be suffering from socio-economic misconceptions/ignorance as well as prejudice - notably "Generally the wealthier people are, the more generous they become anyway" (which, according to Aussie charities does not bear out in practice).

Meantime, SFA = sweet bugger all!

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Re: Progressive Taxation: Back to the Future
Reply #29 - Jul 24th, 2010 at 10:51pm
 

This report might help some of you to understand the nature, extent and broader implications of the inequality in Australia...

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/23905/20100315-0017/evatt.labor.net.au/publication...

Quote:
The distribution of wealth in Australia
A 'fair go'?

By Frank Stilwell & David Primrose

The latest figures confirm the trends to inequality, explain Frank Stilwell and David Primrose.

The National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) was commissioned by Catalyst Australia to conduct a study of the distribution of wealth in Australia. The NATSEM data supplements previous sources and gives us an up-to-date picture of who is wealthy in Australia and who is not.

What is particularly interesting about the new data is the disaggregated analysis of wealth distribution, classified according to a number of overlapping social categories: age, income, gender, occupation, industry and household composition.

This supplements a previous NATSEM analysis that showed that the richest fifth of Australian households each have, on average, forty times more wealth than the poorest fifth of the population.

Analysis of the new NATSEM data confirms that wealth in Australia remains concentrated in the hands of a wealthy few. The minority sitting at the higher end of the income scale have reaped the benefits of the economic growth in recent decades by disproportionately increasing their personal wealth. This has been at the expense of the majority at the other end of the income scale, whose share of personal wealth has declined relative to those high-income earners. Large wealth disparities also exist between different occupational and industry groupings.

The NATSEM data also highlights the persistence of disparities in the wealth of Australian men and women. Average levels of wealth for men and women remain highly unequal across the categories of age, income, occupation and industry. Even when women and men appear to be relatively equal according to some measurements, there are other gendered dimensions of economic inequality. For example, while the wealth levels of those working in high-status occupations are not dissimilar on average, there are many fewer women within those occupations. Such discrepancies often translate into relative poverty for women during retirement, as well as increased reliance on government support and pensions.

These persistent economic inequalities run counter to the ethos of 'a fair go' often assumed as a fundamental characteristic of Australian society. Comprehending the complex dimensions of this problem is therefore an essential first step in remedying the situation and promoting more effective egalitarian social policies.

Wealth & the life cycle

Wealth is typically accumulated over the life cycle. However, people's capacity to get wealthier over time varies according to their socio-economic position, good fortune (such as receiving inherited wealth), thrift, and a host of other factors. Personal wealth is also commonly run down in old age. These patterns are confirmed by the NATSEM data.

Average household wealth increases with the age of the principal household reference person until 55-64 years of age, after which it declines. This decline is particularly rapid in the case of men, falling from an average wealth of $205 500 at 60-64 years to $138 800 after the age of 65 is reached. A slightly less marked decline occurs in the case of women, falling from around $125 300 for 55-59-year-olds to $89 000 for women over 65. Overall, men aged 25-64 and women in the 25-59 range possess the greatest average wealth, while those under 25 years and retirees own the least wealth.

Not surprisingly, flows of income correlate strongly with stocks of wealth. Households with high incomes can more readily accumulate valuable assets, and those assets then commonly generate more incomes. Meanwhile, households with low incomes are less able to accumulate wealth and tend to be locked into a more disadvantaged position, sometimes into a vicious cycle of poverty.

The NATSEM figures show the relationships between wealth and income for both men and women. Men aged 25-64 years who earn $50 000 or less annually have an average wealth in the range $67 800 to $92 000. Fifty-eight per cent of all men are in this category. By contrast, men who earn $100 000 or more annually have average wealth in the range of $236 800 to $534 400. Only 6.1% of surveyed men aged 25-64 years earn this amount.

The strong link between income and wealth applies also to women. Those annually earning $50 000 or below have an average wealth ranging from $45 500 to $61 700, which is less than men's wealth at the same income level. This applies to 85% of women. Women with an annual personal income of $100 000 or above have average wealth in the range of $242 100 to $492 500. While women in these higher income categories possess only slightly less average wealth than men at the same income level, a very small proportion of women fit into this income category (1.3% of all women).

Overall, these figures suggest that wealth is concentrated among a small proportion of the population with high incomes. There evidently exists an intimate relationship between who owns what and who gets what. This confirms earlier studies of the distribution of wealth in Australia.

[...]



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