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Anyone else fit into this demographic? I know I do.

The 53%: We are NOT Occupy Wall Street (http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/26/news/economy/occupy_wall_street_backlash/)

I'll go out on a limb and say about 53% of Americans fit that demographic.
/me ducks and runs away before Red throws something.

Proudly pinheaded fat white guys like the one pictured in the article taught me that people who work two minimum wage jobs for 80 hours a week and STILL don't make enough to pay taxes are the laziest pricks in the world.

Ask the prick. He will tell you it's not about laziness. Its about usefulness.

Hippies that weave baskets work pretty hard at it. Even if they are stoned while doing it. But that doesn't mean I have to give a crap they made a basket. I prefer buckets.

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Throws bucket at Hawker!

Oh, okay. The guys who serve you at basically every business you patronize aren't lazy - just useless, and are best compared to a stereotype of a '60s hippie that you dredged up and dusted off just now. Thanks for the clarification, Nixon.

Not me, I'm down with the 99%. The republicans were quick to bring up the specter of "class warfare".  I say bring the rain. 8)

They are useful and compensated for their utility.

Do I want to pay $10 for a Big Mac. No. Will I pay $10 for a Big Mac. No. Will McDonald's replace all those folks with a fascinating Krispy Kreme Machine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=iMjNdxAGuGw) before they ask me to pay $10 for a Big Mac. Well, they had better or they'll be shit out of luck.

Will I shed a tear that people can't burn their hands on McDonald's grills like I used to? Not a single one.
But I will marvel at the work of the engineers!

You can give your workers a living wage without tripling your prices. Costco employees average $17 an hour and get health insurance, yet somehow they still manage to successfully compete with Sam's Club.

Costco is just more customer-oriented and hires better employees. Sam's Club and Costco differ in terms of markets. Costco happens to be more profitable.

I've honestly never shopped at either, but Sam's and Costco have been direct competitors for many years according to every article I ever read.

Sam's Club is failing like Wal-Mart in general. Wal-Mart's management needs to be updated. It goes to show that paying your employees better can lead to greater profits.

I'm not arguing that people *must* make minimum wage and not receive insurance. I've been pretty clear about that.

It also seem pretty clear that Costco is on the ascendancy and Sam's in stagnating. I don't know the cause, but most likely it is related to stupid employees at all levels. (Sometimes a brilliant founder dies and leaves the place to idiots.) I imagine Costco employees would be highly offended by your comparing them to Sam's employees. Similar job descriptions do not similar people make.

If Costco hirers better people, pays better salaries and out competes Sam's... Yay verily! That is a vote for innovation.
If they hire the same people, pay more and go bankrupt... Well that would be less clever.

For the record. I'm in favor of the former not the latter.

@herzmeister That's bloody brilliant.  :D

Neat, but I must have missed that original pict. Is there a full scale meme? The article was the first I heard.

That is the funniest thing I've seen all day.  Nice trick.

It's been circulating, it's not by me ofc.

The post seems to be deleted by now but it was there (URL is in the picture), I verified myself.

It seems here is the source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/15/1026620/-We-Are-the-53-is-Using-Fake-Images

I have had jobs and payed taxes since I was 13 all the way until now in my mid 20s. I am the 53%.


I will also likely work until the day I die, since the 1% have taken away all social safety nets, lobbied for lower taxes on themselves and higher taxes on me, and increased the price of goods while never upping wages for me and the rest of the 99% over the last 30 years.


I am the 53% and still very much the 99%.

Woot! Another tax payer! If only we were 99% tax payers!



As someone whose worked for more than 30 years. Salaries have gone up. I started working for the minimum wage of $3.15 an hour. I was ecstatic when it went to $3.25.



I'm not anti-99%. But clearly I have no idea what the OWS people are asking for. Except to be in charge. I'm not in favor of that.

If they want to be in charge, they should build an alternative to banks, or wall street, or whatever. As a famous queen once said, "Let them eat Bitcoins."

Wages have only gone up for the upper quintiles
https://i.imgur.com/oSb6e.png

Neat graph. It doesn't seem to fit me. And you know what. It is not supposed to fit any body.

Taking my example as a real world use case, I started working just before 1980 way below the bottom line. I was working part time at McDonald's making $3.15 an hour. Then I took a job with the same wage but more hours at a grocery store. I did part-time work as a photographer. (No company, just me) Then I worked in a Target using my photography skills to sell cameras. While doing that I taught myself about computers. Then I invented a better job teaching a small business how to use them. But really I'm too lazy for that kind of work so I went to the university. I had no money and there was a recession so I took out loans to get a degree in computer science. I could have gotten a lamer degree with much less work. I know, I had lots of roommates. But I decided not to throw my money away. After school, I got a better job and paid back my loans. After that a better one. Then a better one because my skills kept growing. So after 30 years I fall between the top two lines.

I'm not exactly Steve Jobs, but then again I didn't re-invent several industries either.

Now, if I was still working the grill at McDonald's doing the same damn thing I was doing 30 years ago, I'd be making about $7.25/hr. That would be more than a 100% increase over those 30 years. Now of course you'll claim that 100% increase hardly matches inflation. Shouldn't I have gotten much better raises over time having 30 years of burger flipping experience. Clearly, after 30 years my burger flipping skills are way more valuable than those of a high schooler starting his first job.

I can only reply, No. Indeed they wouldn't be. I was a pretty fucking good burger flipper. There was very little room for improvement in my burger flipping skills. If I was still doing exactly the same thing, it would be worth exactly what it is worth today. But at least the job would be easier. I watch them, their equipment is way better now.

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Feel free to tell your own tail if you wish.

Gosh who knew?

What is it about this forum and the inability to know the difference between data/statistics and anecdotal evidence?

Apparently everyone who thinks "53%" are taxpayers while the rest somehow aren't

Your statistics display that minimum wage has basically matched inflation over time. Woot! Insightful! Why don't you graph that social security "cost-of-living" adjustments match inflation over time as well. Those are both well know relationships, because they are intentional relationships. These are only earth shattering concepts to the intellectually challenged.

But if they amuse you, let me give you some other relationships that will blow your mind. Those five lines can *never* cross! Ever! It's like magic. No matter how you change the world those five lines will always remain in exactly the same order. Not really parallel, but never crossing either. Doesn't that blow your mind!

The crazy thing is that absolutely anybody's life trajectory can cross any or all of those lines. But taking together scientifically and statistically that has NO EFFECT at all on those five lines! That is why it makes such a great graph! I told you mind blowing! Even if everyone the bottom line represented became the richest people in the country... There would still be a bottom line! Right at the bottom. And it would never cross any of the other lines! In fact the chart would hardly change at all! That's what makes it such a cool illustration! It's like one of those Escher optical delusions!

Of course the lines can never cross. What are you even arguing against?

If the that top line wasn't reaching into the stratosphere while the bottom ones stayed flat, there wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem. If worker productivity hadn't increased by leaps and bounds without commensurate wage increases, there wouln't be much of a problem there, either. But those things did happen. And you're arguing against - hell, I don't even know what you're arguing against.

Also, the fact that worker wages have mostly kept pace with inflation doesn't mean shit when the cost of many essentials (food, health care, education) has vastly outstripped inflation.

He was taking great pains to point out the bottom line is almost flat. I'm trying to take great pains to point out the bottom line is always almost flat by design. The two largest groups of low income people are those making minimum wage and those living off social security. Both are adjusted for inflation, one regularly one less so. There is also another group with low income, those retired and living off their savings. We ignore those lucky bastards.



The point is, if in truth, the folks on the bottom line had killed off the folks on the top line, you would still be bitching. The graph doesn't change at all. I hear you saying you want the lines more parallel, because...


But this is easy to debunk. If those worker's skills were really so much better, they could simply quit their employer, start their own company, and out compete their previous albatross. Everyone loves to invest in a sure thing.


You have to pick. Either it mostly kept pace or it didn't keep pace. If it didn't keep pace then someone who calculates such things at the government can't do math.

But surely you can't be complaining that
1) The cost of education was able to rise because government backed student loans enabled student to pay overpriced tuition.
2) The cost of health care was able to rise because insurance enabled people to pay for overpriced care.
3) The cost of food rose dramatically because the government decided we must burn it in our cars instead of eat it.

It must be nice to live in the meritocracy of your mind. Too bad the world doesn't work like that.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/jan/23/food-speculation-banks-hunger-poverty (http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/jan/23/food-speculation-banks-hunger-poverty)

But hey, as long as you can find some way to link all of your problems back to the government (usually packaged up nicely and sold to you by the same people who are doing the real damage), stuff like this doesn't even have to enter your mind.

Take a look a this: https://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/09/04/opinion/04reich-graphic.html?ref=sunday
And then remember: the last remaining of the gold standard ended in 1971.
Since then, money printing not only raised the price of a gold troy once from 33$ to >1600$, as it also caused what these charts show.

Now who is ducking the issues? How does the world work? Why can't these ultra efficient workers compete?

I'm sorry that the answer is because the machines do most of the work. And that the remainder can be easily taught to a multitude of other who are willing to replace them at a moments notice.



Oh come on, to you seriously not think that cheap loans cause the housing bubble. The flow of money affect prices. (see the bitcoin marketplace)



You are clueless if you don't think speculation enters my mind. Commodities markets were invented for a good reason. Some people were meant NOT to play. That holds for Oil, Corn, Electrical and most of them actually. People who can't take possession of a million barrels of oil shouldn't be allowed to contract for it. That doesn't take a vast regulating army. It just takes common sense.

But speculation is driven by actual scarcity. People don't pay high dollars for the first ear of corn. They pay high dollars for the last one. The less abundance there is, the easier it is to buy up the last one. That held for California electrical prices, Corn prices, and the Oil spike. Everyone was surprised prices fell when congress announce they were going to investigate oil speculation. It didn't surprise me. People took their MBS speculation money and moved it into oil speculation. These folks weren't supposed to be allowed to play.

They cheated. Cheaters like that are bad. They should be hung.

This is some part of it, yes. And that trend will only increase. More and more of the population will be considered unskilled workers, which is a damn good reason to start making sure those workers earn a reasonable living.


The government never mandated those loans, as is the common conservative belief. All their legislation did was prevent the process of redlining, and give the poor an actual chance at the loans.  They didn't force any bank to actually make them. But banks did anyway, and aggressively targeted low-income earners for subprime mortgages:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/us/07baltimore.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/us/07baltimore.html)

I'm well aware of the predatory lending that took place in low income areas. That was awful.

However, it was dwarfed by the lending that took place in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida. Most of those were to middle class, upper middle class, and speculators. They were all made possible because mortgage brokers could make stupid loans, then sell them immediately. My brother worked for one of those companies in California. There business policy was "never sleep on risk". They sold every mortgage by 5:00 the same day they make it. Most of these loans were pre-vetted to be sold to Fannie and Freddie.

It was these mortgages that got packaged back into mortgage backed securities and sold on wall street back to banks. They thought they were buying pre-vetted risk with well defined interest payments. Why? Because that was what Fannie and Freddie were invented to do! Originally they bought mortgages vetted by local banks using traditional banking rules. However, when Fannie and Freddie started to relax the rules, they left the door open for lots of unscrupulous mortgage brokers who wanted cash sales with no risk.

You guys know they don't pay taxes because they're fucking broke right?

Bull Shit. They get a tax return of all their payroll taxes, and get a tax credit on top of that. They basically get more back than they paid in from payroll taxes. They do pay sales taxes (not in all states), gas taxes, and property taxes though. Probably a lot of cigarette taxes, too. How much they actually pay versus how much they get back in tax credits is anyone's guess though.

The government created what was needed so that those loans could take place, by pumping newly created money (inflation) to the credit market. That lowed interest rates. If interest rates were not that low, such loans wouldn't ever happen.


It's impressive how people can think that the financial markets are not regulated enough. They are by far the most regulated economic sector. The most important thing in finance - money - has its supply controlled by a government granted monopoly. Probably the most important price in finance - the interest rates - is centrally planned by this same monopoly. Not to mention the tons of other regulations and monopolies (why do you think there are only two stock markets in US, and only one in most other countries, for ex?)
And, yeah, "free market's to blame".... even if there's no free market at all.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/entitlement-america-head-household-making-minimum-wage-has-more-disposable-income-family-mak

Yeah I really don't think Medicaid/CHIP hands you a roll of bills totalling up to $16.5K, bro


Damn, wish I was poor so a government welfare agent could walk up to my door and hand me some sweet, sweet Medicaidbucks to buy an Xbox with

I've never made more than $30k a year, and the only time I haven't had to pay federal tax on my income was the one year as a teenager when I only made $8k. Am I doing something wrong here? Where do I get all of these awesome benefits of being poor?

Sounds like it. You do have to pay at $30k level, but not at $15k, and it's fairly easy to come up with enough deductions at $20k to $25k level to bring your taxable income down to that $15k (Mortgage? Student loans? Retirement investments like IRA? Personal business running at a loss up to three years in a row?) I make quite a bit more than $30k, but only about 1.5% of each paycheck ends up going to Federal taxes. Then again, I've been doing my own taxes since I was 16, so know about all the deductibles and plan for them throughout the year (using Quicken also helps me estimate my tax bill throughout the year so I can adjust to avoid it too). None of what I am doing is illegal by the way.

Nope, none of those things, and no kids. I went to a tech school cheap enough to pay for tuition with money I'd saved up. I rent. No retirement investments. I've used TurboTax and go with the standard deduction because it always seems to be way more than the itemized stuff. Obviously, I don't know a lot about taxes, but I'm not seeing a way to avoid paying them here, and according to everyone in the media, nobody with my income ever pays any federal taxes, so color me confused as I've paid them all my working life. I mean, it's not exactly a huge proportion of my income, but I do pay.

You'll always have to pay state and SSI taxes (state depending on where you live), but you can at least lower your tax burden a bit. Open an IRA somewhere. Usually you get back in taxes about half of what you put into an IRA (depends on your tax bracket, of course). You are also allowed to put money into last year's IRA up to April 14th of the following year. So if you do your taxes with Turbo Tax, and it says you owe $250, consider dumping $500 into your IRA, and your tax bill will be about $0. Sure it's twice what you'd have to pay for taxes, but it's your money you now get to keep. Also, small business rules allow you to claim a business loss three years in a row. This is a very grey legal area, but you could set up a personal business, say running your own web site service or whatever, do a bit of advertising, and then write off the cost of the server, electricity, internet, and portion of the house dedicated to this server. Since there's little chance this will make you money, you can write off a portion of the internet and apartment you pay for, anyway. Or be creative and come up with your own doomed business ideas that use things you have to pay for, anyway. Just keep in mind that you can claim losses only three years in a row. Fourth year you have to claim gains or nothing business related at all, but then it resets and you get three more years. BUT, as I said, this is a very grey area, so be carefully. As long as it's a legitimate business, it's fine regardless of how much it fails, but it's easy to get caught up and start deducting stuff you shouldn't.

P.S. Don't take tax advice from me! Or at least don't hold me responsible if you do. These are just ideas that are out there. Please do your own research before doing the business thing (IRA thing is 100% legit though)