I think the macro issue here is that another generation is waking up to the reality that wages have remained stagnant over the past several decades while costs of living has continued to skyrocket. Inflation makes this so much worse.
Of course, the ownership & political classes will do nothing about it - they quite like the way things are, as unsustainable as they may be.
I mean the "ownership & political classes" created the situation. Almost all of this can be traced to massive inflows into cities and a failure to build enough housing in those cities. Construction hasn't been limited by people not wanting to build shit but rather zoning, environmental impact, "social", and a half dozen other excuses.
Maybe mass remote work will fix this by spreading people out over cheaper area's but I have my doubts on how much remote work will last through this next economic cycle.
Whenever I hear someone say "kids today don't want to work", I like to take the opportunity to stroll them down memory lane as to how much they earned THIRTY years ago. I, myself,had a good, paid internship making $10/hr @ 30 hrs/wk (1991 > 1993) & still had to have a roommate to help pay the bills(I did pay most college expenses, as I went). Gasoline has quadrupled, food has tripled, avg rent has tripled/quadrupled and HC insurance has ballooned many more factors since then. Take a look at the non-tech jobs available today, $12-$15/hour is the norm for anything entry-level, with a very low ceiling. I cannot blame anyone for not wanting to break their back to subsist. Something has to change.
I got my first job stacking grocery shelves while in college in 2005, and it paid $8/hr. My rent was $350/mo and college tuition was ~$3000 per semester (and this was at a top ranked public university). A Chipotle burrito (with guac) cost $5.50. Working part time 20 hours/week during the semester and extra over the summer would cover all of my living expenses and most of tuition, and my family chipped in for the rest.
Today that job pays $10/hr. Rent in a similar building is $1000-1200 and tuition is $11,000 per semester. That burrito is $15.
Because things have been trending in this direction for the last 2 decades. Costs of housing, education, childcare, fuel, healthcare have vastly surpassed wage growth, and younger millennials and now Gen Z are facing the full brunt of it.
Then entire reason Generation X was called Generation X, was because it was the first generation for which living standards for the majority of them would be lower than the standards of their parents. It was the crossing point. They even embraced a kind of culture of resignation to their fates. The music, clothes and movies of the time even reflected it.
So this has been going on for a long time.
They found a way though. Millions of out of work college students and, voila, web browsers and dot coms were born.
Who's to say GenZ and the Millennials can't pull something out of their butts like Gen X did?
Disappointed in this reporting that there aren't any tables or charts of data, given the topic. It's a very difficult article to scan as a result.
I would expect that a thesis like "Gen Z are right to be worried about money" would be based in data - something about savings, or forecasts, or macroeconomics. And if it's not based in data, is it a pure human interest piece based on emotions and Gen Z interviews? If that's the case what is the value of it?
I am 35, so not GenZ... Still, I am amazed with how bad the situation is.
1. In my country, I am classified as "rich", yet I still live paycheck to paycheck.
2. A huge chunk of my wages to go rent, the home I am renting is tiny and has a weird shape (it is very long and narrow trapezium, the plot is clearly a "leftover" between two normal square plots, also lots of stairs because steep incline).
3. And then another huge chunk go to healthcare, meds and medics to prescribe the meds. What is crazy is that my and my wife medical costs per month are higher than the country mininum wage, I literally have no idea how people poorer than me take care of their own health.
4. After healthcare, what remains is food, I must admit I actually spend a little more than most people do there because I ensure my food is of reasonable quality, for example when I buy sausages I buy ones made of actual pork, while the most popular ones are made of ground chicken leftovers (bones, organs people don't usually buy, etc...) or soybeans (or both).
My co-workers often are astonished by the fact I don't own an iPhone, and don't own a recent Android either, and thus can't test my own company products properly (the company I work for makes a mobile SDK for indoor location. My phone is an old android hand-me-down that runs Android 9 and can't be updated further).
> What is crazy is that my and my wife medical costs per month are higher than the country mininum wage, I literally have no idea how people poorer than me take care of their own health
Health care must be really expensive if you spend so much on it at 35, unless you have special health conditions. I assumed you don't, since you're comparing it to the national average. I'm in no way criticizing your situation without context, it was something that called my attention.
I used to think this would be... maybe not quite fixed, but certainly improved, when the boomers died off and left their property to their kids and/or grandkids.
After watching my mom die I'm convinced that the boomers' money will mostly go to the billionaires who own senior living facilities, while a small slice will go to the underpaid immigrants who work there.
I'm curious if those are actually owned by billionaires...there aren't THAT many billionaires. To be honest, I'm more expecting that they're run as REITs that are on public markets, in large part held by the asset managers of the world in various funds strewn across 401k plans.
But you're right, they are standing to see a lot of money coming in presently and over the next 10-20 years...guess I have my next bit of research for investing (this is a comment section on a site run by a venture capital firm, right?).
No idea in general, but it looks like the largest(?) one, Brookdale Senior Living, is majority owned by Fortress Investment Group, which was founded by 2 billionaires, Randal Nardone and Wesley Edens, so there's certainly at least some billionaires in that industry.
a related issue that i struggle with is having to choose between high paying jobs which are actively damaging the world vs being unemployed and working on open source software. I have been cycling between the two over the past 5 years.
So i earn a lot of money in a short period of time doing something obviously evil, then spend a year or two living very frugally and enjoying my life.
There just doesn't seem to be an obvious middle ground where you can get paid less to work on stuff that makes you happy. I am aware that these jobs exist, but they are competitive and rare.
I think the main issue is that the things I am good at aren't really of interest in the non profit world as far as I can tell, and when you use them to make money, they almost always are used for what I would consider to be evil.
That’s a good place to be in where you have the opportunity to make that decision. Many, many people would jump at a chance to do some light, legal evil for a few years of work. To be honest, for most that choice doesn’t even exist.
Yeah, i am totally aware that this isn't something that most people have the opportunity to do, but it still doesn't feel right to me. I find the phases of doing evil stuff extremely taxing. They usually end when I have a mental breakdown and am forced to quit in order to save my mental health.
I don't really disagree with anything in the article, but I would say it's the same problem faced by millennials and even late gen Xers getting gradually worse over time rather than some sudden new issue.
They could have picked a better example than the woman in the article too, I think. She's on £38K which is actually fine, it's above the median for London and she's only 25. She can probably save £500/mo even without living in shared accommodation with some lifestyle tweaks - and no I'm not talking about fewer avocados! Property prices in London are crazier than ever, but she could get together a deposit for a £200K studio in Acton or similar in about 3 years. She's in an OK position, comparatively.
I am not sure if this comment is satire or for real. 38k is poverty in london. Also there are no liveable 200k studios in acton according to rightmove. Perhaps in some very rundown areas but i cant find any.
There are many many people in the UK living in poverty, but 38K in London is not it. For those of us lucky enough to be on significantly more it might look it, but anyone in real poverty would be very happy to get that salary.
I was looking at zoopla rather than rightmove. Slightly dodgy area, but I was checking places I've lived and it's definitely not the worst.
Still i dont understand how someone can live on 38k in london considering how expensive _decent_ housing and public transport are. Monthly take home seems to work out at 2400 which is not bad indeed. Oddly enough a 90k per year salary works out at 5100£ despite it being more than double. Unfortunately taxes are real high and take home income is still low even on a high wage.
Many people in my generation (GenX) were put at a permanent financial disadvantage for reasons not under their control. They entered the job market at one of several bad times, they never had a chance to build up a buffer before the next downturn hit, they had that buffer wiped out by a single bad decision (e.g. buying a house) made at the wrong time while others making equally bad decisions at better times cruised through, etc. This never seemed to happen to most people just a bit older or younger, but the phenomenon is back with a vengeance for GenZ. (BTW I personally seem to have been on the good side of such accidental timing, so I'm not saying this out of self-pity or self-interest.)
I think this is why so many younger people subscribe to "lottery thinking" - crypto, meme stocks, other kinds of "low probability but high payoff" choices. Or they go full nihilist and decide to blow whatever they have (or can grab) on transient experiences. There have always been many who do this, and it's not all bad - here of all places we should recognize that the related urge to join startups can lead to good things - but gambling should be a choice not something people feel is their only chance for a good life.
We have failed our young people by allowing real wages to stagnate even during the good times, by putting them through the college/student-loan wringer, by not moving to create a better safety net when the bad times came. And in other ways too, of course. I know through my daughter that GenZ folk are actually very resilient and mutually supportive, in their own ways of course, but the stress we've put them under is a bit unconscionable. Their reactions are natural. We older folks should show a bit more humility and grace.
For starters stop electing conservative governments. The young are forming more and more of the electorate so they should organize, vote and start changing how things work. You want change, you have to control the game.
Progressive taxation schemes can redistribute some of the incredible amounts of wealth that have been amassed by the few to the rest of the population.
Or you could think of it like sharing. Generally speaking people create governments to help solve collective problems and then create laws. Charging tax is not considered a crime; it's one of the functions of government.
Sharing is usually voluntary. If the government levied a 100% tax on your income and assets, kept the vast majority of it, and then redistributed you a year supply of beans, rice, and a tent you would consider that to be a violation of their taxing authority wouldn't you? Should the power of the government to levy taxes be considered limitless?
If the government did such a thing, what power would I have to stop them? And if I don't pay my wealth taxes, the state of Texas will indeed put me out of my house, but they won't bother to give me a tent or any beans. So it goes.
Well this whole thread is regarding whether or not someone ought to vote for a non-conservative government. So the first thing you could do to avoid such a situation is vote to elect individuals who are true to their word and argue against policies that would rob you of all your wealth through taxation and inflation. Another step you might take is to promote a vision of society where we limit the government to a certain degree so that it does not acquire so much power that it can simply rob individual citizens without recourse.
Further, this particular question is whether the government legally ought to be able to tax without limits. You seem to be conflating that with if the government is able to tax without limits.
Well, I agree with you that the wealthy should vote for conservatives if money is their primary concern. I'm however not in the tax bracket that US conservatives are interested in helping though.
> Further, this particular question is whether the government legally ought to be able to tax without limits. You seem to be conflating that with if the government is able to tax without limits.
I fail to see a distinction here. The government defines what is legal. I suppose one can appeal to some higher power as the source of all law or something idealistic like that, but that's not how the IRS or the Texas State tax assessor work.
> I fail to see a distinction here. The government defines what is legal. I suppose one can appeal to some higher power as the source of all law or something idealistic like that, but that's not how the IRS or the Texas State tax assessor work.
Right. That's what I mean by conflating. One can appeal to a higher law. I'd argue that's the only way you can make a moral judgement about the actions of a government, since as you've pointed out they have the ability to create laws. So either there is a law that can be used to judge whether a 100% tax on the individual is justified or there isn't. If there isn't a higher law, then you're right - the government is a law unto themselves. They are totally sovereign and no one can make any moral judgement about their actions since by definition their might makes them right. Alternatively, there is a higher law: a supernatural moral law that transcends the will of men and which the governments of the world and all the people of the world are accountable to. If that's the case then there is a limit to how far the government is able to justifiably tax its citizens - the amount that the transcendent law allows gives them jurisdiction to tax.
It's important to note that if there is no law that transcends the state, then the state is not limited by moral law in any way. In that case it's the source of moral law and nothing that the state does can ever be justified as moral or immoral since under such a worldview the state is the judge of good and evil.
I suppose the problem you run into is that supernatural moral law is ephemeral and probably caught up in some religion or other which means something different to every member of that religion (as far as I can tell), whereas as actual law is written down, and actually exists.
Laws are non-material by definition. You can't eat or touch the law of gravity for example.
Using "caught up in a religion" or "means something different to every member" as a reason to ignore an argument is arbitrary and an a priori dismissal of potential evidence contrary to your beliefs. In other words, you are ruling out a position simply because you are prejudiced against that position.
There are laws which claim to be moral supernatural law which are written down. If these laws are what they claim to be and are truly of supernatural origin then not only do they exist, they exist in a greater capacity than laws written by human hands or instruments.
A transcendant law presupposes a transcendant author and arbiter.
The laws of physics are the same the Earth over through time and geography; moral supernatural law, not so much. Gravity has touched me pretty hard on occasion, and in fact punished me in ways I did not soon forget - unlike human law, it is not subject to capricious human referees.
What does your transcendent/moral supernatural law say the top marginal tax rate should be?
This kind of response tells me I've struck a nerve. I don't have these kinds of conversations because I want people to vote for conservatives in the upcoming elections. While I certainly would not mind that outcome, what is far more important to me is the spread of the Kingdom of God. The fact of the matter is that the Bible has plenty to say on the proper function of government and even the levying of taxes and the purposes those taxes are to be used for. But even if the Bible had an entire book dedicated to marginal tax rates it is unlikely that you would care. The reason you would not care is because you, like all mankind, are opposed to the rule of God, because if there is a transcendant standard then you are guilty of violating that standard. I'm not picking on you specifically, this is applicable to all mankind, including me. We are all in rebellion against God's law and we are all guilty of violating it (Romans 3:23). If we were fairly judged according to God's standards we would be doomed. The good news is that the transcendent creator of the universe has made it possible for rebels to be reconciled to Him even though they are breakers of His law. Jesus the Nazarene is the promised Messiah which was prophesied to the nation of Israel (Isa 59). For over 2000 years, word of His death, burial, and resurrection revealed to mankind that the author of the universe gave a revelation of Himself to man through Moses, the Prophets, and Jesus - confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus resurrection is the miraculous proof that he holds divine authority and that His claims are true (1 Cor 15). Those who believe with sincere faith in the capacity and work of the Lord Jesus will be saved from sin, reconciled with the Father of all created things, and be gifted with the presence of the Holy Spirit. I didn't come to these conclusions because I'm smarter than you or because I'm more holy than you. I'm terribly guilty of violating God's laws. It is because of the mercy and goodness of God that I have been saved and that I trust in His word. To know and understand these things is a gift from God. It is a gift I pray he will give to you and to all those who read this.
Ah, yeah I don't really do any of that. If you want a word of advice, I'd say combining the conservative politics of greed with the message of radical social justice preached in the New Testament really confuses non-christians. I think the religion might look a bit more sincere if they'd remove themselves from politics and focus on less worldly concerns. But either way I'm not really buying what you're selling.
The old taxation=theft trope grows a bit tired...and frankly, I say this as someone who leans libertarian. At the end of the day, businesses derive value through infrastructure and in some cases, even regulation, without which the income streams being taxed would not be as readily available. Do I love the systems by which taxes are decided upon, or how the money is often allocated? Absolutely not. But taxes on income that benefits from the caretakers of the environment in which a business operates are no more theft than is operating such a business without compensating those who are caretakers of said environment.
Now, you can absolutely argue that the taxes being imposed or suggested are unnecessarily high, or perhaps that most of the money being levied is being squandered on things that those paying see no benefit from (which perhaps one could argue is theft, but that last part is crucial), and I'd not argue one bit with you in many cases. I'll be the first to say that the use of Western tax dollars in Ukraine is an absolute slap in the face for the taxpayers who see no benefit therefrom, and who had nothing to do with the coups that led to the war in the first place.
But taxation in and of itself isn't theft, any more than property, in and of itself, is theft. As long as the left and right just keep shouting "THIEF!" at each other, we don't really have any hope of getting anywhere.
Not all taxation is theft. However, taxation taken specifically from one person or group in order to benefit another is theft. Taxation for the purpose of maintaining the military, police, roads, and other necessary public infrastructure is not theft. For example, it is not theft for the Senate to pay for reasonable military salaries. It is theft to levy a 100% tax on billionaires in order to redistribute those funds to all non-billionaires whether in cash, benefits, or other property.
The "benefit of the public" is a better standard than no standard - but is in and of itself insufficient to contain the state to its rightful domain.
But the non-conservative governments are also the ones that drove prices so high by preventing building new homes and making it harder to start businesses.
Ironically, most of the largest companies in the world these days are pushing a left leaning agenda of higher regulation, and not really pushing back too much on taxation. Which seems odd, until you remember that higher regulation and taxation means that they're better able to keep out their competition, which means they have more of an ability to dictate exactly what people have available in the way of pay ranges. Sure, every few years at the local level that may mean minimum wage jumps by a dollar or two, but at this point, it's not even keeping pace with inflation; meanwhile, their earnings and C-suite executives are making more than ever before.
Perhaps it's time to actually look at the effects of liberal politics rather than simply the rhetoric.
And no, I'm not saying voting for the conservative side tends to offer much support, except for a few cases. At least in America, both sides seem pretty content to have oligopolies in most industries, as it's a lot easier to serve extra-judicial "requests" for customer information, or for measures to "fact check" or otherwise tailor the flow of information in ways that government isn't allowed to do directly.
By all means, vote, and look carefully at who you're voting for, but during the rest of the year, support your small businesses (including, if not especially, online companies), and find ways in your community to provide services that government and big companies are not providing without a whole net full of strings attached.
Gen Z has a bright future. The American worker will...
The global gen Z is screwed, to be fair. Europe isn't good. China isn't good. The third world is the third world. They may do well, but doing well from a low start is lackluster.
Basically - the American Gen Z is going to be sitting in the hottest economy in the world for the next decade, providing labor where not a ton is available worldwide.
They will do alright, but we will be facing a lot of inflation along the way.
The rest of the world. Whoo boy. Buckle up and consider your ability to immigrate to these "golden" shores.
Golden shores is basically a term for the USA. Anywhere northern and inland is pretty safe. Keep near a river for water, transport, and economic activity.
Do you have a hint of reasoning behind these remarks? Why the problem is not global and why the US is an exception? No basic healthcare, a deeply divided society along an unchangeable 2 party system, weakening weight on world markets and economy, huge wealth inequality, massive exposure to upcoming climate change plus apparently the same general problems the rest of the modern world has - in which sense does it fare better?
The US has the luxury of having the reserve currency of the world, which is why it was able to churn out $6 trillion in quantitative easing over the past 2 years, enjoy a blast out of the gate as COVID wound down, and still be sitting on one of the world's top performing currencies in 2022 (behind only a few, including the Russian Ruble and the Israeli Sheckel). To boot, the demographics of the country are showing a labor pool that is growing slowly at best, if not shrinking, leaving labor in higher demand than historically was the case in recent times.
There are some major issues no doubt, but wealth divides, access to quality healthcare, and climate change are hardly uniquely American -- if anything the latter is something America sees less danger from than much of the world (as many like to point out the injustice of, considering how much of a role America has had in fueling the problem).
Of course, if the reserve currency status is lost, all bets are off. We'll see how kicking Russia off of SWIFT and encouraging the BRICS to rally around their own systems really works out over the next few years no doubt. For all those skirmishes fought over the last few decades to preserve the petrodollar, this year seems like the playing field has somehow changed.
You can ignore a whole lot of problems and you don't have war at your borders, an energy crisis, and your do have decades of wealth, self-sufficiency for food, and a history of coming out on top after times of crisis.
The United States isn't good because of our politics, we are good because of our geography.
>As the cost of living and inflation skyrocket in the UK
... more and more people realise that all this value doesn't magically vanish from their salaries; it's just getting legally stolen by capital owners. We've been through this a couple of times
1) yes the financial system of the west (letting private banks print money to gamble on wallstreet) is insane (instead of supporging humans with ideas that might create jobs
2) No matter how much or how little one earns, 10% from the money coming in (at the first day of the month not at the last day) should go straight to savings account or even better: into silver or gold
Still have to find a bank account that can automate this
>> some analyses show that in the US, Gen Z have about 86% less buying power than Baby Boomers did at the same age
Looks like in the analysis they cite for this statistic, census data from the "Current Population Survey" (CPS) is used for incomes. That's going to understate buying power for Gen Z considerably since that income data leaves out many transfer payments. The Earned Income Tax Credit for one, which is a big part of spending for low income households with children. The EITC wasn't introduced until the oldest boomers were 30, and it was much smaller when it was first introduced.
There are many other transfer payments that the census data leave out that either didn't exist for the boomers when they were young, or that are much larger now.
The CPS income data simply does not have the ability to answer the questions, "How much buying power does Gen Z have?" or "How does buying power compare across generations".
74 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 144 ms ] threadOf course, the ownership & political classes will do nothing about it - they quite like the way things are, as unsustainable as they may be.
Maybe mass remote work will fix this by spreading people out over cheaper area's but I have my doubts on how much remote work will last through this next economic cycle.
Full remote positions will evaporate if unemployment gets to the point of hundreds of applicants per position.
Edit: added @ 30 hrs/wk
Today that job pays $10/hr. Rent in a similar building is $1000-1200 and tuition is $11,000 per semester. That burrito is $15.
No shit Gen Z is unhappy.
https://youngandtheinvested.com/passive-income-pay-zero-tax/
Then entire reason Generation X was called Generation X, was because it was the first generation for which living standards for the majority of them would be lower than the standards of their parents. It was the crossing point. They even embraced a kind of culture of resignation to their fates. The music, clothes and movies of the time even reflected it.
So this has been going on for a long time.
They found a way though. Millions of out of work college students and, voila, web browsers and dot coms were born.
Who's to say GenZ and the Millennials can't pull something out of their butts like Gen X did?
I would expect that a thesis like "Gen Z are right to be worried about money" would be based in data - something about savings, or forecasts, or macroeconomics. And if it's not based in data, is it a pure human interest piece based on emotions and Gen Z interviews? If that's the case what is the value of it?
1. In my country, I am classified as "rich", yet I still live paycheck to paycheck.
2. A huge chunk of my wages to go rent, the home I am renting is tiny and has a weird shape (it is very long and narrow trapezium, the plot is clearly a "leftover" between two normal square plots, also lots of stairs because steep incline).
3. And then another huge chunk go to healthcare, meds and medics to prescribe the meds. What is crazy is that my and my wife medical costs per month are higher than the country mininum wage, I literally have no idea how people poorer than me take care of their own health.
4. After healthcare, what remains is food, I must admit I actually spend a little more than most people do there because I ensure my food is of reasonable quality, for example when I buy sausages I buy ones made of actual pork, while the most popular ones are made of ground chicken leftovers (bones, organs people don't usually buy, etc...) or soybeans (or both).
My co-workers often are astonished by the fact I don't own an iPhone, and don't own a recent Android either, and thus can't test my own company products properly (the company I work for makes a mobile SDK for indoor location. My phone is an old android hand-me-down that runs Android 9 and can't be updated further).
Health care must be really expensive if you spend so much on it at 35, unless you have special health conditions. I assumed you don't, since you're comparing it to the national average. I'm in no way criticizing your situation without context, it was something that called my attention.
After watching my mom die I'm convinced that the boomers' money will mostly go to the billionaires who own senior living facilities, while a small slice will go to the underpaid immigrants who work there.
But you're right, they are standing to see a lot of money coming in presently and over the next 10-20 years...guess I have my next bit of research for investing (this is a comment section on a site run by a venture capital firm, right?).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookdale_Senior_Living
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_Investment_Group
https://www.forbes.com/profile/randal-nardone/
https://www.forbes.com/profile/wesley-edens/
So i earn a lot of money in a short period of time doing something obviously evil, then spend a year or two living very frugally and enjoying my life.
There just doesn't seem to be an obvious middle ground where you can get paid less to work on stuff that makes you happy. I am aware that these jobs exist, but they are competitive and rare.
They could have picked a better example than the woman in the article too, I think. She's on £38K which is actually fine, it's above the median for London and she's only 25. She can probably save £500/mo even without living in shared accommodation with some lifestyle tweaks - and no I'm not talking about fewer avocados! Property prices in London are crazier than ever, but she could get together a deposit for a £200K studio in Acton or similar in about 3 years. She's in an OK position, comparatively.
I was looking at zoopla rather than rightmove. Slightly dodgy area, but I was checking places I've lived and it's definitely not the worst.
Official stats indicate you are right about the poverty line not being what i said: https://data.london.gov.uk/blog/poverty-in-london-2019-20/
Still i dont understand how someone can live on 38k in london considering how expensive _decent_ housing and public transport are. Monthly take home seems to work out at 2400 which is not bad indeed. Oddly enough a 90k per year salary works out at 5100£ despite it being more than double. Unfortunately taxes are real high and take home income is still low even on a high wage.
I think this is why so many younger people subscribe to "lottery thinking" - crypto, meme stocks, other kinds of "low probability but high payoff" choices. Or they go full nihilist and decide to blow whatever they have (or can grab) on transient experiences. There have always been many who do this, and it's not all bad - here of all places we should recognize that the related urge to join startups can lead to good things - but gambling should be a choice not something people feel is their only chance for a good life.
We have failed our young people by allowing real wages to stagnate even during the good times, by putting them through the college/student-loan wringer, by not moving to create a better safety net when the bad times came. And in other ways too, of course. I know through my daughter that GenZ folk are actually very resilient and mutually supportive, in their own ways of course, but the stress we've put them under is a bit unconscionable. Their reactions are natural. We older folks should show a bit more humility and grace.
Further, this particular question is whether the government legally ought to be able to tax without limits. You seem to be conflating that with if the government is able to tax without limits.
> Further, this particular question is whether the government legally ought to be able to tax without limits. You seem to be conflating that with if the government is able to tax without limits.
I fail to see a distinction here. The government defines what is legal. I suppose one can appeal to some higher power as the source of all law or something idealistic like that, but that's not how the IRS or the Texas State tax assessor work.
Right. That's what I mean by conflating. One can appeal to a higher law. I'd argue that's the only way you can make a moral judgement about the actions of a government, since as you've pointed out they have the ability to create laws. So either there is a law that can be used to judge whether a 100% tax on the individual is justified or there isn't. If there isn't a higher law, then you're right - the government is a law unto themselves. They are totally sovereign and no one can make any moral judgement about their actions since by definition their might makes them right. Alternatively, there is a higher law: a supernatural moral law that transcends the will of men and which the governments of the world and all the people of the world are accountable to. If that's the case then there is a limit to how far the government is able to justifiably tax its citizens - the amount that the transcendent law allows gives them jurisdiction to tax.
It's important to note that if there is no law that transcends the state, then the state is not limited by moral law in any way. In that case it's the source of moral law and nothing that the state does can ever be justified as moral or immoral since under such a worldview the state is the judge of good and evil.
Using "caught up in a religion" or "means something different to every member" as a reason to ignore an argument is arbitrary and an a priori dismissal of potential evidence contrary to your beliefs. In other words, you are ruling out a position simply because you are prejudiced against that position.
There are laws which claim to be moral supernatural law which are written down. If these laws are what they claim to be and are truly of supernatural origin then not only do they exist, they exist in a greater capacity than laws written by human hands or instruments.
A transcendant law presupposes a transcendant author and arbiter.
What does your transcendent/moral supernatural law say the top marginal tax rate should be?
Now, you can absolutely argue that the taxes being imposed or suggested are unnecessarily high, or perhaps that most of the money being levied is being squandered on things that those paying see no benefit from (which perhaps one could argue is theft, but that last part is crucial), and I'd not argue one bit with you in many cases. I'll be the first to say that the use of Western tax dollars in Ukraine is an absolute slap in the face for the taxpayers who see no benefit therefrom, and who had nothing to do with the coups that led to the war in the first place.
But taxation in and of itself isn't theft, any more than property, in and of itself, is theft. As long as the left and right just keep shouting "THIEF!" at each other, we don't really have any hope of getting anywhere.
The "benefit of the public" is a better standard than no standard - but is in and of itself insufficient to contain the state to its rightful domain.
Perhaps it's time to actually look at the effects of liberal politics rather than simply the rhetoric.
And no, I'm not saying voting for the conservative side tends to offer much support, except for a few cases. At least in America, both sides seem pretty content to have oligopolies in most industries, as it's a lot easier to serve extra-judicial "requests" for customer information, or for measures to "fact check" or otherwise tailor the flow of information in ways that government isn't allowed to do directly.
By all means, vote, and look carefully at who you're voting for, but during the rest of the year, support your small businesses (including, if not especially, online companies), and find ways in your community to provide services that government and big companies are not providing without a whole net full of strings attached.
The global gen Z is screwed, to be fair. Europe isn't good. China isn't good. The third world is the third world. They may do well, but doing well from a low start is lackluster.
Basically - the American Gen Z is going to be sitting in the hottest economy in the world for the next decade, providing labor where not a ton is available worldwide.
They will do alright, but we will be facing a lot of inflation along the way.
The rest of the world. Whoo boy. Buckle up and consider your ability to immigrate to these "golden" shores.
There are some major issues no doubt, but wealth divides, access to quality healthcare, and climate change are hardly uniquely American -- if anything the latter is something America sees less danger from than much of the world (as many like to point out the injustice of, considering how much of a role America has had in fueling the problem).
Of course, if the reserve currency status is lost, all bets are off. We'll see how kicking Russia off of SWIFT and encouraging the BRICS to rally around their own systems really works out over the next few years no doubt. For all those skirmishes fought over the last few decades to preserve the petrodollar, this year seems like the playing field has somehow changed.
The United States isn't good because of our politics, we are good because of our geography.
You don't think they would just lie about that, do you?
... more and more people realise that all this value doesn't magically vanish from their salaries; it's just getting legally stolen by capital owners. We've been through this a couple of times
2) No matter how much or how little one earns, 10% from the money coming in (at the first day of the month not at the last day) should go straight to savings account or even better: into silver or gold
Still have to find a bank account that can automate this
Looks like in the analysis they cite for this statistic, census data from the "Current Population Survey" (CPS) is used for incomes. That's going to understate buying power for Gen Z considerably since that income data leaves out many transfer payments. The Earned Income Tax Credit for one, which is a big part of spending for low income households with children. The EITC wasn't introduced until the oldest boomers were 30, and it was much smaller when it was first introduced.
There are many other transfer payments that the census data leave out that either didn't exist for the boomers when they were young, or that are much larger now.
The CPS income data simply does not have the ability to answer the questions, "How much buying power does Gen Z have?" or "How does buying power compare across generations".