The Retirement Crisis - A Threat That Is Being Ignored

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
It only causes our taxes to reach levels where they can't be paid by the old folk and those on minimum income. When they can't pay those ridiculous rise in taxes, on property they have lived on their entire lives, they either have to sell or they are evicted.

Didn't Trump promise us tax reform? Wonder why he stopped once the Elites were getting taxed less. Hmmmm

Best way to limit government would be to eliminate taxes on family income and taxes on a family's primary residence.

Got a vacation home? You can afford to pay taxes on that.
Got rental properties? You can afford to pay taxes on those.
Got business income? Pay yer damned taxes!!

And ... someone should be looking into why a home costs 3 or 4 hundred thousand dollars (a home that's most air on the inside), but only consists of 20 or 30 thousand dollars worth of materials. And right after that, someone needs to look into the real values of those materials. Sheet rock and pine 2X4s ain't worth their sticker prices.

originally posted by: gb540

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
And those that retired early will do much better than those that retire later, but we are all going to take a hit.

I'm not a sociologist, but what I've observed is large-scale comfortable retirement was unique to the Greatest and Boomer generations. Before then, you worked until no longer able, then your kids took care of you. Three generations under one roof were not uncommon. Somewhere we went from that, to bucket lists and an expected lifestyle. A big improvement but also not sustainable, esp. with a collapsed birth rate.

Not entirely correct... the baby boom was pretty much all over the west at the same time.

But social welfare / healthcare was invented in Denmark in 1934. From that point on, the elderly could rely on the state to take care of them.

Think about what the boom is.....

Its was state persuation to make people have more kids. Because more kids = more hamsters for the wheel and for consumption.
Who has interest in that? Company owners and investors.

This is why you will see liberals now pushing a new baby boom... they are affraid that the elderly will # up the system.

Dont fall for it. We have to ride this one off.... once the 69ers are dead, then we have to be more careful maintaining reproduction in a steady pace.

Chances are we have already lost though. All this staying inside together for so long.
Birthrates may go up this year.

Let it be the last for a while.

a reply to: AcrobaticDreams
Most people intuitively know we have been living lives of convenience beyond the dreams of kings a few centuries ago. It's that splinter in the mind that allows us to embrace doom and apocalyptic visions. Despite living in a matrix some part of us knows it to be illusion and for the sake of survival many never fully embrace it. The great issue of our time is the division of mankind into a 2 class system. Despite all our enlightenment values and philosophy there is a segment of the people who seek to dominate and control the rest. They are the evolutionary stumbling block to any real progress. Until we address extreme disparity in wealth and control we are losing ground.

originally posted by: Snarl

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
It only causes our taxes to reach levels where they can't be paid by the old folk and those on minimum income. When they can't pay those ridiculous rise in taxes, on property they have lived on their entire lives, they either have to sell or they are evicted.

Didn't Trump promise us tax reform? Wonder why he stopped once the Elites were getting taxed less. Hmmmm

Best way to limit government would be to eliminate taxes on family income and taxes on a family's primary residence.

Got a vacation home? You can afford to pay taxes on that.
Got rental properties? You can afford to pay taxes on those.
Got business income? Pay yer damned taxes!!

look at you wanting and pushing for unfair and unequal taxation.

property taxes are actually about the fairest taxes we have. something almost everyone pays their fair hare of taxes on. you own a home, you pay taxes on it, i think most people understand that. but if you rent a home, you also pay that same tax on the home you live in. perhaps you don't pay the tax directly to the government, but it is part of what you pay for rent. so it is a tax that unless you are homeless, or possibly in government owned housing, then you are paying that tax along with everyone else. got a home, you can apparently "afford to pay taxes on that".

income tax is a little more tricky as to how fair it is, because the opinion of what "fair", means to everyone involving it is so very different to different people. after all what is fair? everyone pays the same dollar amount as everyone else in tax, regardless of how much they earn? that everyone pay the same, fixed percentage of what they earn? such as everyone pays 15% of their wages to tax, no matter if they earn $1 or $10,000,000,000. or the way it is currently done (and most unfair of these three), which is the more you earn, the higher percentage of your higher earnings are taken from you on a scaled basis? so that everyone pays the same tax on their first $9,950, but those who make more than that, have to pay that AND an extra 2% as well up to $40,525. where at that point you are now having to pay an extra 12% MORE on everything over that, right up until you have to pay 37%of everything you earn over $523,600, more than 25% more, extra tax owed on that money than someone who only earned $9,000 (plus of course all that extra tax money they pay at each income bracket in between). doesn't really seem all that "fair" does it, since not only are some people having to pay more paying more,because they earned more, but also are having to pay MORE tax ON that extra money they are paying, because they earn more than X amount.

10% $0 to $9,950 10% of taxable income
12% $9,951 to $40,525 $995 plus 12% of the amount over $9,950
22% $40,526 to $86,375 $4,664 plus 22% of the amount over $40,525
24% $86,376 to $164,925 $14,751 plus 24% of the amount over $86,375
32% $164,926 to $209,425 $33,603 plus 32% of the amount over $164,925
35% $209,426 to $523,600 $47,843 plus 35% of the amount over $209,425
37% $523,601 or more $157,804.25 plus 37% of the amount over $523,600

www.nerdwallet.com...

yet because yet again pretty much everyone pays it, it can be said to be reasonably fair or at least partially fair. unlike many other "taxes". taxes are a burden that needs to be equally shared to everyone, since everyone is supposed to equally be benefited by them.

And ... someone should be looking into why a home costs 3 or 4 hundred thousand dollars (a home that's most air on the inside), but only consists of 20 or 30 thousand dollars worth of materials. And right after that, someone needs to look into the real values of those materials. Sheet rock and pine 2X4s ain't worth their sticker prices.

the very basic answer to those questions,are actually answered within them. which is pretty much because they can, and people were willing and mostly able (sometimes being heavily propped up by things like mortgages and loans), to pay it. it is also part of the supply and demand issues involved. if you have something many people want, yet only have a few, people will be willing to pay more to get one. just look at existing housing prices in many areas.i have been seeing things about people offering more than a couple hundred thousand MORE, then the house was listed for, in order to try to get it. that along with high mortgages and loans, and not really taxes (although they do play a part as well), are why housing prices are so out of control. and it is a serious problem,with no easy or even close to easy solution to fix.

a reply to: generik

property taxes are actually about the fairest taxes we have. something almost everyone pays their fair hare of taxes on. you own a home, you pay taxes on it, i think most people understand that. but if you rent a home, you also pay that same tax on the home you live in. perhaps you don't pay the tax directly to the government, but it is part of what you pay for rent. so it is a tax that unless you are homeless, or possibly in government owned housing, then you are paying that tax along with everyone else. got a home, you can apparently "afford to pay taxes on that".

There is something seriously wrong with a person losing their home due to taxes. A home they have lived in for years, paid for it, just to lose it because they fall on hard times. In my case my neighbors lost their homes because they could not afford the taxes, when a multi home development went up four miles away, with houses starting at the prices that are three times higher than what we paid for our homes.

Property taxes, in my view, are not even close to being fair.