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[synaesthetic]

What kind of state uni are you going to where it costs $15,000 per semester?! That's almost as expensive as the snooty private schools!

UC Berkeley is $4500 a semester (going up to $5200 soon though), and it's one of the most expensive public unis in CA. Even international students don't pay $15k a semester to go to school here!

[Xion Valkyrie]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

What kind of state uni are you going to where it costs $15,000 per semester?! That's almost as expensive as the snooty private schools!

UC Berkeley is $4500 a semester (going up to $5200 soon though), and it's one of the most expensive public unis in CA. Even international students don't pay $15k a semester to go to school here!

All the other UCs are on the quarter system, and I think the last quarter I was on I paid $3500. (3 quarters per school year). However, that was in-state. I believe out of state students pay almost double. They're raising fees by 20% too.

Also, there's the cost of rent. It'd run you anywhere from $600 to $1000+. I'm paying $1500 a month right now (thankfully I'm movnig to a $850 a month place in a week).

So that does add up to about $20,000 to $30,000 a year. The $40,000 to $50,000 private universities do include room/board into their costs.

Edit: Here's a cost estimation chart for the UC's for in state and out of state:
http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/budget.htm

[synaesthetic]

Well, yeah, I didn't count my rent, groceries, internets, phone, etc. My living expenses as part of tuition, but yes, it is around $30k a year for me to be going to school if you count everything.

[Decagon]

There's also the interest on student loans and other debt lower income folks will have to shoulder, especially if they have poor or haven't had a chance to establish a credit rating. People who began in a higher bracket can pay more out of pocket and avoid taking on debt in the first place.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

People keep saying this, but the people in the $80,000 to $200,000 actually pay a very heavy amount of tax already. Everyone in that range would be paying 28% to Federal Income taxes and depending on state, an additional 5-8% to state.

They also generally have to pay straight out of pocket for higher education for their children, because their income is generally too high to quality for financial aid.

Even at 100k a year, 35% of that to taxes would leave you with 65k. Public university tuition is running about 20 to 30k a year now (UC's are getting another 20% fee increase this year). Private universities are running from 40-50k per year. That'd leave you with about 25-45k depending on public/private. Throw in a $2000-3000/month mortgage payment and you're left with maybe $10-20k to spend on living expenses, gas, utilities, etc. Whatever left you'll probably need to divert some to entertainment and then if you have any left, savings.

There's definitely a significant gap between people in $80,000 bracket and those in the $120,000+ bracket, and then another significant gap between those them and those in the $200,000 bracket.

Of course, you also have to take into consideration the family size. A single unmarried guy can easily be very well off with an $80,000 income, but a family with 3 kids with 2 kids in college might actually be penny pinching on a $200,000 income.

Trust me, no one is pinching pennys on $200,000 a year! You'd have to have like 10 kids before that would happen. Even 2 kids would spend 40,000 (on your numbers...) in college, and that discounts what they can save, and that still leaves a post tax income of ~$80,000. The University tuition thing is a seperate matter (yes it's too high). Inflated University tuition is another problem to be solved at the same time. In most countries the tax rate on those earning >80,000 can range into low 40% so I still think the US can sustain more income tax on the upper middle class. 28%-35% is quite low. Furthermore the US has very low Sales tax/VAT, but those sort of things vary across the country.

There is a rate of tax at which you cease to collect more money, but the US is way below it. The only tax I might consider the US cutting is corporate tax, which the USA has a bit high. I also think it's absurd that the US double taxes citizens who live abroad who earn over ~100,000. While it's not a pressing humanitarian concern, I think it's wrong. No other country does it either, if they did it would seriously screw us dual citizens/expats...

The big expense is healthcare, but I've already said on earlier occasions that the US just needs to implement Universal healthcare and rid itself of it's problems.

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

I think I'd rather have old, inept and impotent old men out of touch with reality in government than active, hyper idealistic youths with a straight, self-serving agenda.

I fear the idealists more then the selfish. You can always depend selfish people being short sighted and, well, selfish. It's the idealists that do things like genocides and purges...

[Xion Valkyrie]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Trust me, no one is pinching pennys on $200,000 a year! You'd have to have like 10 kids before that would happen. Even 2 kids would spend 40,000 (on your numbers...) in college, and that discounts what they can save, and that still leaves a post tax income of ~$80,000. The University tuition thing is a seperate matter (yes it's too high). Inflated University tuition is another problem to be solved at the same time. In most countries the tax rate on those earning >80,000 can range into low 40% so I still think the US can sustain more income tax on the upper middle class. 28%-35% is quite low. Furthermore the US has very low Sales tax/VAT, but those sort of things vary across the country.

There is a rate of tax at which you cease to collect more money, but the US is way below it. The only tax I might consider the US cutting is corporate tax, which the USA has a bit high. I also think it's absurd that the US double taxes citizens who live abroad who earn over ~100,000. While it's not a pressing humanitarian concern, I think it's wrong. No other country does it either, if they did it would seriously screw us dual citizens/expats...

The big expense is healthcare, but I've already said on earlier occasions that the US just needs to implement Universal healthcare and rid itself of it's problems.



I fear the idealists more then the selfish. You can always depend selfish people being short sighted and, well, selfish. It's the idealists that do things like genocides and purges...

Well, post tax on that $200k combined salry would be something like $130, if they're sending both kids to private university or even an out of state public, that's $80,000-100,000 on tuition alone. Leaving $30k to pay for the mortage and other living expenses. In the US tuition is not tax deductible, so they are paying the full amount after taxes. Living expenses and housing costs vary quite a bit by region too.

Of course, if you're making $200,000 a year and not sending any kids to college, then you'll be pretty well off.

If they want to raise taxes on the $80,000 to $200,000 bracket, then they'd need to make higher education tuition tax deductible. As of right now they're basically paying for other people's tuition fees through taxes, then paying full out of pocket for their own tuition costs.

If you lower corporate taxes, you'd need to raise corporate taxes on offshore profits, as well as close a ton of tax loopholes they use. Otherwise, they'd just pay less tax on the profits they are making domestically and continue abusing offshore profit loopholes.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

Well, post tax on that $200k combined salry would be something like $130

That's assuming a flat 35% tax, with no deductions or adjustments, which is neither realistic nor sane.

In the US tuition is not tax deductible, so they are paying the full amount after taxes.

It's not deductible, but if you pay it straight to the university it also isn't taxable. Most people can't afford to pay it straight to the university, but a $200k household probably can.

[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

The United states can definitely sustain higher income taxes, on all earners, barring the very poor. Most European states have income tax in 30-40s, while the US it's 20-30. In particular I think the upper middle class of people who make 80,000-200,000 could easily afford higher income tax. Meanwhile with people who make more then that it's enough to try and plug significant loop holes they use.

Maybe in the EU they can but not here in the USA.
Combined total tax burden is already too high.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/

Adding more will simply shrink the size of the middle class and thus increase unemployment and more importantly joblessness.
We need jobs here in the US and incentives for business to higher.
Higher taxes will not do that, in fact they will do the opposite.

I don't think protectionism is the solution. It will only cause prices on consumer goods to increase, and also spark off trade wars with other countries which will harm everyone, and benefit no one. Furthermore, I think in the long run the problem of jobs going abroad will peter out. Every country that american jobs are exported to start to see wage rates go up, and eventually we'll get to a stage where industrial wages worldwide are harmonised. I doubt it will really prevent that many jobs going abroad anyway, as it will still mean companies will go to other countries to sell internationally. Coca Cola is always going to be manufactured close to their consumers. Meanwhile the US benefits from the fact it can export advanced products (EG electronics) worldwide. If they put up Tariffs, bye bye exports.

Protectionism is a loaded term.
I prefer the term fair trade.
Why?
Because in order for governments to be able to garner sufficient taxes from business they have to protect those businesses from being put out of business due to foreign goods that are made via slave-labor (yeah I'm talking about places like China).
It also helps to have your citizens getting payed higher wages so they can pay for the higher priced domestically made goods and thus more sales tax is collected on those goods.

Free Trade zones often work quite well. Usually in the short term it benefits the poorer country, but what's wrong with that? I'm all for policies that benefit less developed places, better then giving them aid, as this way they develop based on their own efforts. And in the long term it benefits the advanced country as it provides them with a market for their goods. The success of the EU is largely based on the fact it's a free trade zone. The Currency zone may have had issues, but the Free trade zone was extremely succesful.

The Eurozone is not working.
http://www.caef.org.uk/d115edtrl.html

Better people then me can probably extoll the qualities of Free Trade zones further. But consider the US as a Free trade zone in itself. It allows people to sell goods and services on a pan US basis, and it leads to a more stable economy. Imagine if each state applied tariffs to the products of other states? Suddenly there'd be a fully fledged car industry in every state, but with all of them lacklustre and unable to make gains from economies of scale. Meanwhile a foreign competitor manages to take the global market.

Look, I know Ron Paul and many Libertarians like the idea.
Ludwig VonMises supported it as did VonHayek, but the truth is another matter.
It's not working, not under the current economic system of fractional banking and questionable cross-continent financial investments.
While some see the loss of American wages and jobs as "factor price equalization" the impact on the lives of people is what actually matters.
Lowering our standard of living for no other reason than to line the pockets of megacorporations is not a good excuse for "Free Trade."
The poor people in the countries being exploited by "Free Trade" will see a small increase in their living standards, but that is nothing compared to the few who are bringing in the profits at the expense of both groups of working citizens.
"Free Trade" isn't free, it's cost is the livelihood and happiness of people who are on the loosing end: i.e. the laborers and small business owners.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

Well, post tax on that $200k combined salry would be something like $130, if they're sending both kids to private university or even an out of state public, that's $80,000-100,000 on tuition alone. Leaving $30k to pay for the mortage and other living expenses. In the US tuition is not tax deductible, so they are paying the full amount after taxes. Living expenses and housing costs vary quite a bit by region too.

Of course, if you're making $200,000 a year and not sending any kids to college, then you'll be pretty well off.

They don't need to send their kids to the fancy-shmancy Yale, they could send their kids to the pretty much as good local public college for 10,000 a year each. That extra cash they're spending on college is a luxury they can afford to not pay. Besides, each kid is only going to be in College for 4ish years MAX. The rest of the time that expenditure isn't there...

If you lower corporate taxes, you'd need to raise corporate taxes on offshore profits, as well as close a ton of tax loopholes they use. Otherwise, they'd just pay less tax on the profits they are making domestically and continue abusing offshore profit loopholes.

One of the reasons they go through all these loopholes is that the corporate taxes are unreasonably high. I also don't think they should necessarily tax all offshore profits. For instance, the US should only tax Coca Cola's US based profits. The profits it makes in China should be taxes by the Chinese etc.

The issue is that they shunt their profits using artificial wrangling to other countries with almost no taxes, so it appears that the US operation makes no money. That kind of thing isn't on. We're getting to the stage where almost all the worlds companies are being based out of the bahamas!

Perhaps we should abandon taxing companies directly altogether, and instead focus on the stockholders and employees. And if wealthy individuals want to have their residence listed as in another country, well that's another problem! But I suppose you could start by taxing their american assets, and also tax stuff like Stocks a bit more...

[Xion Valkyrie]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

They don't need to send their kids to the fancy-shmancy Yale, they could send their kids to the pretty much as good local public college for 10,000 a year each. That extra cash they're spending on college is a luxury they can afford to not pay. Besides, each kid is only going to be in College for 4ish years MAX. The rest of the time that expenditure isn't there...

Community college sucks!

Joking aside, if their kid gets into Stanford/Ivies, then shouldn't they get the same opportunity to attend as the super rich and the super poor? Tuition is a drop in the bucket for the super rich, and financial aid covers full tuition for the super poor. Basically the current system punishes people who make just enough to not qualify for financial aid but still have the fees take up a sizable portion of their income.

Anyways, it's in the government's interests to send more people to school. A family who's sending 2-3 kids through college earning $200k should not be taxed as much as someone who has no kids earning $200k.

So yes, you can raise taxes, but it'd have to be a lot better than just a blanket tax bracket based increase.

One of the reasons they go through all these loopholes is that the corporate taxes are unreasonably high. I also don't think they should necessarily tax all offshore profits. For instance, the US should only tax Coca Cola's US based profits. The profits it makes in China should be taxes by the Chinese etc.

The issue is that they shunt their profits using artificial wrangling to other countries with almost no taxes, so it appears that the US operation makes no money. That kind of thing isn't on. We're getting to the stage where almost all the worlds companies are being based out of the bahamas!

Perhaps we should abandon taxing companies directly altogether, and instead focus on the stockholders and employees. And if wealthy individuals want to have their residence listed as in another country, well that's another problem! But I suppose you could start by taxing their american assets, and also tax stuff like Stocks a bit more...

Well, this is basically a super complicated issue that's a lot harder to use as a slogan than just 'lower corporate taxes!', or 'raise taxes on the wealthy!'.

[synaesthetic]

Federal financial aid alone cannot send you to a private uni like Stanford, Harvard or Yale. Pell grants are miniscule and barely pay for community college, much less state uni, and what you get from federal loans is capped based on tuition and is intended to send you to public unis.

If you go to an expensive fancypants private school, you are going to be taking out private student loans. From a bank. That is not federal financial aid, and you have to have good credit in order to be approved for those loans.

[DonQuigleone]

I think private universities are overpriced. There's not a whole lot of difference between high quality public Universities like Berkeley, UCLA, UVa, VTech or NYU and prestigious universities like Yale or Harvard. They're not losing anything by attending a public University. And they can easily get "in-state" tuition by just staying in the state for a while and switching residency.

I would characterize an Ivy League education as a luxury that should not in any way be subsidized by anyone. They should get as much financial aid as students attending public Universities. Let the rich rip themselves off by sending their kids to Ivy. But I don't think they should expect the rest of us to pay for their priviledge.

Even Public Universities are a bit too expensive in the US, but a college education is easily affordable to a household makind $100,000+. And besides, the whole argument is a red herring, as most people will never attend an Ivy league college anyway.

I will also note that I don't think the state should finance the poor to go to Ivy league schools either. There are far cheaper alternative that are nearly as good.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

So were is the Progressive Republican Party these days? Or just the Progressive Party (Bull Moose style I mean).

I think me and maybe two or three other people might qualify as members of the Bull Moose variety any more .... the rest were run over by the neo-con clown bus and the hordes of crypto-fascists and theocons I think Bob Dole was the last candidate I could tolerate before I dropped my registration.

On private uni:
The trick is if you get accepted to a private university ... its likely they will *find* the money buckets to let you go (scholarships, grants, etc). Many of them (e.g. Rice U., USC, etc) are sitting on buckets of money to help students attend. In California, you're actually better at the moment in a private university since the public system is in a chaos spiral (no one can *get* the classes they need to graduate).

[synaesthetic]

I'm feeling that for myself right now... the classes I need for my degree are not easy to organize.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I'm feeling that for myself right now... the classes I need for my degree are not easy to organize.

Up here in Oregon, we're getting a spillway of California students who have given up on getting classes down there. Oregon students are now having to actually compete for slots in the Oregon system (before it was almost the case of if you graduated from an Oregon high school it was an auto-accept to OU or UO).

[synaesthetic]

Fortunately for me all the discipline-specific classes I need are available, even if the scheduling is a bit crazy. The problem was/is the lower-level stuff and prereqs--some of the classes "recommended" for my degree are not available anywhere. I'm taking a class in assembly language this fall to satisfy degree requirements for data structures and algorithms--combined with my semester in Java programming, it should fill the slot, even if it's not exactly what I need.

The more generic math and physics, fortunately, is so ubiquitous I don't really have any issues with that. It was the compsci classes that were hard to nail down, oddly enough. But I've got a wide-open field for all my calculus and physics classes, and surprisingly enough the discrete mathematics course I can take right here in Berkeley.

[ganbaru]

Italy under fire in widening euro debt crisis
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7712HB20110802
Is there a country than don't have much of a debt crisi/problem ?

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Italy under fire in widening euro debt crisis
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7712HB20110802
Is there a country than don't have much of a debt crisi/problem ?

The news media would like you to believe there isn't one.

[RandySyler]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Italy under fire in widening euro debt crisis
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7712HB20110802
Is there a country than don't have much of a debt crisi/problem ?

Well, theres always Sealand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

The news media would like you to believe there isn't one.

I am asking because, beside Canada and China, all the big player seem to be stuck in either debt problem or the Euro crisis, but it could justbe my mistake...