Two incomes, more debt?

Christian Science Monitor ^ | September 17, 2003 | Marilyn Gardner

[backhoe]

One word she missed...

Taxes...

[alloysteel]

Something else is at work here. It is like the lottery winners, especially of huge jackpots, going broke within a couple years. The relatively high income that results from both partners working, builds an expectation that the increase in income will continue to rise forever, and obligations are incurred that exceed the growth in net income. Even without income drop, the margin is eaten up, and the working couple is just living in poverty at a higher level.

It is rather like the dieter who has taken out every bit of fat from diet, and still continues to gain weight, because the exercise portion of the regimen was not implemented.

[backhoe]

...like the dieter who has taken out every bit of fat from diet, and still continues to gain weight, because the exercise portion of the regimen was not implemented.

Good analogy- I'll keep that one in mind.

[JZoback]

Major bump

[Cincinatus' Wife]

TAXES! Excellent point. What's it up to, 50%?

BIG government needs to cut back.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The relatively high income that results from both partners working, builds an expectation that the increase in income will continue to rise forever, and obligations are incurred that exceed the growth in net income.

In the Sixties, a family with an income of $10,000 was doing well. Now a family with an income of $100,000 is struggling to pay their bills. I have to agree, that not having a good downpayment required on a home is a good source of money problems. Now-a-days new home buyers take out loans to pay in the 20% to avoid mortgage insurance. Without having to put much down they get into bigger homes. Then they have to furish it, landscape it, heat and cool it, pay taxes on it, etc, etc. The sad part is both parents are working their tails off to pay for all this stuff and the kids are raising themselves in this big, empty house.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[backhoe]

My guesstimate is between 40-60% after you factor in SS, property, fuel taxes, the cost that regulations add to the price of everything, that idiotic Gore Tax on everyone's telephone bills, etc., etc., ad nauseum...

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Unfortunately too many Americans are beginning to believe the government owes them, when in fact they need to understand the government is bleeding them dry.

[UncleDudley]

BIG government needs to cut back.

That's why we elect Republicans. They will cut it back. Bush has proven that in his whooping tax cut.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[proxy_user]

"The consequence is a wealth transfer of tens of billions of dollars every year from middle-class families to a handful of big banks."

The banks don't actually keep this money. They mostly sell off the revenue stream from credit cards to institutional investors, mostly large mutual funds.

But some gets paid out in dividends.

[Jason_b]

Your taxes don't pay for government big or small. Government borrowing from the Federal Reserve System pays for the government you have. All your taxes are for is (1) social engineering, and (2) to vacuum off excess fiat money to keep some illusion that inflation is not as bad as it really is.

how money is created in the US

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Easy credit encourages people to get into debt.

It would be instructive if people were paid in full and then wrote a check each month to Uncle Sam.

[Age of Reason]

Some older caller to a talk show yesterday remarked how his father put three kids through college on a bank teller's salary (and I'll bet he was a teller 'till he retired; no need for mid-life career retraining).

It is nowhere near as easy to make a decent living as it used to be.

[txzman]

"One word she missed... Taxes"

It's the same word THEY ALL miss. Paying ~50% of your combined income in Federal, State, City, County, Property and Sales Taxes (and yes YOU are taxed that much) is killing this country.

[backhoe]

Agreed, and one of the biggest problems is that there is a large group of citizens ( mostly made up of those who also feel they are "entitled" to various benefits ) who thinks the government has a big bag of money lying around that can be dipped into at will.

They have no concept of the concept that government has no money, except what it extracts from others.

It's kind of like Lotto-- people are blinded by the size of the payoff and don't realize ( or want to think about ) the fact that for there to be one winner, there must be many, many losers- or that the money comes out of funds that would otherwise be spent on people's families.

[backhoe]

Property and Sales Taxes (and yes YOU are taxed that much) is killing this country.

No argument from me- the problem is waking up the voters.

[Fraulein]

ping