THESE DARK THOUGHTS I HAVE...

TRIGGER WARNING:

Below the cut I will be asking rhetorical questions and writing conceptually about the nature sexual assault and/or violence which may be triggering to survivors. The descriptions themselves will not be graphic in nature but I thought I should include this warning as a courtesy.

ROBIN HOOD WOULD APPROVE

Wealth Inequality in America"
     Now I don't know what the best solution to this problem is but it seems clear that even the best-designed progressive taxation system would do little to fix this enormous disparity. If you haven't watched that infuriating video, this is a screen cap showing wealth distribution presented in the forms of what people think would be ideal wealth distribution; what people think the wealth distribution is; and what it actually is in the United States of America.

Pictured: how little you actually matter

     It's a shocking bar graph to say the least. How frightening is it that the Top 1% in reality have more wealth than the idealized Top 20%? or that the Top 20% have almost twice as much wealth as people even thought they had? How sad to realize that the lower 40% barely show up on the top graph at all? Odds are that's where you lie.

     Now remember, this is wealth quintiles, not income. This is a measure of ownership or how much of a slice of the American pie you have. As a result, you can actually be considerably more wealthy than your income indicates, even if much of that wealth is fairly non-liquid like a house or car. Your wealth can even be negative if you owe more than you have in assets (like when you first buy a home, the bank is the primary owner...you just have a slice - or when you first get out of college, you'll have a ton of student loan debt crippling your net worth) Income quintiles can be found here as well as other data. I'll quickly list the quintiles by income so you can see where you fit:

• First Quintile (0-20%): $0 - $18,500
• Second Quintile (20-40%): $18,501 - $34,738
• Third Quintile (40-60%): $34,739 - $55,330
• Fourth Quintile (60-80%): $55,331 - $88,029
• Fifth Quintile (80-100%): $88,030 and up

    Anyways, I'm having trouble locating a simple chart that shows wealth distribution by quintile (or any percentage). If this tool found on this page is worth its salt, then the thresholds of wealth for the individual quintiles are as follows (and remember, you can have a negative net worth):

• Bottom 20% : $6 or less
• Second Quintile : $6 - $22,500
• Third Quintile: $22,500 - $119,000
• Fourth Quintile: $119,000 - $390,000
• 80-99%: $390,000- $1,460,000
• Top 1%: $1,460,000 or higher

    I find data like this interesting because while I am in the Second Quintile for income, I am in the Fourth Quintile for net worth mostly due to my lack of debt. It also wouldn't surprise me if the majority of the poor in this country are actually in the Second Quintile for wealth and that most of the bottom 20% are actually freshly educated but saddled with student loan debt or are recent purchasers of homes. It's also weird to think that if you are debt-free and have $20 in your pocket, you're worth more than 20.8% of all American households.

    Okay, the point of this stupid meandering entry was what to do about this horrific wealth inequality. Progressive taxation helps with some of it but as the charts have shown, it is now so out of whack that even if the ultra-wealthy were levied 99% taxation levels on their income, they'd still make money and wealth faster than the bottom 80%.

     I'm thinking the only way to deal with this problem is a wealth tax. I believe France already does this but not necessarily for the purpose for which I would support it. Wealth redistribution seems necessary and it doesn't have to reflect the ideal. Even as the narrator in the video agrees that the way we THINK wealth is distributed in this country is still pretty fair. So what if a wealth tax existed in order to bring the distribution of wealth in line with that of what those surveyed thought it was? The money raised would not go to fund government operations, it instead would be redistributed slowly over decades like the Earned Income Tax Credit until the distribution mostly matches that middle bar graph. Then the wealth tax would fade away as it would no longer be necessary but able to be resurrected should wealth inequality stray too much again.

     I hear the cries of socialism and blah blah blah. I don't care and also, I don't want pure socialism because that would be stupid. I want fairness of opportunity. If you squander that opportunity then fuck you. You get nothing! You lose! Good day sir!

    I look at the current situation and see one of no hope for those at the bottom. Class mobility was a feature of this country. It has practically disappeared. If wealth distribution were more equitable, there would be greater class fluidity. If America is truly about letting the best idea win, then people's fortunes should rise and fall with those ideas. Instead we have a system set up to protect those who are already wealthy. Wealth should not be a birthright but that's exactly what it has become in the United States. We have now what amounts to the aristocracy of yore and a plutocracy in practice. If you weren't born into wealth, you're practically guaranteed never to achieve it. Once poor, always poor. Take a look at any chart to show the growth in both income and wealth inequality.
     Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was quoted as saying recently that had the minimum wage kept up with the productivity of the American worker, minimum wage would be $22 per hour. It's $7.15 now. Chew on that as you try and stretch ever further those few dollars you do make just to get by and every year you fall a little further behind because inflation goes up faster than does your wages.
     The massive wealth inequality represents more a theft from the American people than it does the destiny of capitalism. I don't like the idea of a wealth tax, but I'm not sure what else would work. I'll stick with that one for now though I have heard of an idea to tax ownership rather than income. It's not like there aren't other ideas out there...

IMAGINING A COMPROMISE...

     I'm a bit of an old-school politician in that I understand that in order to get something, you must also give something. And that process had a word: compromise. Now, as usual, there's a lot of talk about taxes and deficits going on in Washington D.C. but mostly it comes across as posturing. All talk and nothing to show for it, except of course, extreme proposals like Rep. Paul Ryan's budget which of course balances the budget on the backs of the poor and middle classes (a nebulously defined term - I'm actually middle class as per the government...imagine that! Seriously, I have to imagine that because reality certainly doesn't conform to it) and while the Democrats have an idea of their own, it doesn't appear to have much in mind when it comes to ending the idea that the government spend more than it takes in. As seriously flawed as Rep. Ryan's budget is, at least he's trying to balance the fucking thing.

     And seriously, what's wrong with that? That's how we all have to live. Why should the government get a reprieve from living within its means or asking more of its citizens if spending does need to increase? I'm cool with deficits during declared wars (i.e. a national emergency), to help fund infrastructure projects which are designed to last for decades (e.g. the interstate highway system), and to aid in lessening the pain of an economic depression...but I'm not cool with deficits being run any other time. Our excursions in Afghanistan and Iraq were not declared wars so a surtax should've been created to pay for those wars. Recessions are not depressions and they should be paid for with rainy day funds, not deficits. And yearly budgets should be paid for with an appropriate amount of tax revenue, not deficits. If you're spending more than you're taking in you are either spending too much or taxing too little...or both.

     But about the debt. As of now, it stands at 16.7 TRILLION dollars. Click on the link for an update. We should be paying that off, right? But seeing as how it only counts up, clearly we're not. I believe it was President Andrew Jackson who made it a point to pay off our debts...and he did. He even threw a party over the achievement.

     Anyways, I'm blabbing so let me get to my compromise proposal. We have the Clinton-era tax rates which were set up during good economic times and actually resulted in a couple years of surpluses. We also have the Bush-era tax rates favored by Republicans (big surprise, I know). The differences between them are not much and that's where I'd like to start.

(image source)

     The left percentage column shows the Clinton-era rates and the right percentage column shows the Bush-era tax rates.

     My proposal is this. Restore the Clinton-era tax rates but create two tiers for spending. The first tier is for annual government spending. This tier will be based on the Bush-era tax rates. In other words, the money that comes in from taxes up until those percentages is ear-marked for government spending. The revenue that comes in from the remaining percentage (i.e. the Clinton-era rate minus the Bush-era rate) is ear-marked for paying down the national debt only.

      Using the $35,500 - $86,000 quintile for reference (25% under Bush; 28% under Clinton): The revenue brought in from the 25% part is for government spending and the remaining 3% goes toward paying down the debt.

      Once the debt is paid off, the Clinton-era rates disappear leaving the Bush-era rates only and permanent. Having this set-up I feel will allow for both parties to figure out how to balance the budget and get used to spending within the Bush-era rate framework. Plus, there's incentive for both parties to work together because as soon as the debt is paid, taxes go down. It feels like a win-win for everyone.

MORE EVIDENCE I DON'T GET OUT OFTEN...

     I went out with The Security Guard and his (our?) friend last night. After a meal at TGIFridays, we went to two Go-Go lounges. The first one was a den of sadness which felt a lot like the one I was taken to last year, possibly two years ago (time's slipping through my fingers at an ever-increasing rate). The second one, however, was much different. The girls there, dare I say, seemed happy to be there or at least didn't come across like they wished their lives had taken different paths.

     What made this experience different is the girls would actually sit down and talk to the patrons. Now, I'm not stupid: I know they're looking to get lap dances which pay considerably better ($20) than the dollar bill alms received after they "perform" onstage. I use the term loosely because trust me, whatever you've seen on television does not happen in these places...girls are not energetically and/or acrobatically dancing on the stage nor are their moves particularly sophisticated (though one girl danced rather seductively). I imagine there are upscale places where the television experience happens but not here.

     But I will tell you this...it's nice that they do that [talk to the patrons]. For a guy like me not used to receiving any attention at all from girls, let alone very pretty ones (another difference between this latter lounge and the first one...the girls were much prettier at this establishment). Even while fully aware they're ultimately soliciting for a lap dance, they will spend a few minutes with you. During that time you get some conversation, eye-contact, and even some flirtatious touching (patrons can't touch the dancers, but the dancers can touch you within reason). I'll even add patience because, for those of you who know me, I'm not exactly the life of any party in any given social situation so that too has an added bonus that my shitty initial talking points don't immediately lead to failure.

     I see its value for guys like me. It has the potential to be confidence boosting which anyone knows I need. I'm smart/cynical enough not to believe that these girls actually like me or are attracted to me so it's not possible for them to take advantage of me. However, I realize they're providing a service even if it's not the one they had intended and make sure they're paid even when I decline the lap dance. And like with a good server in a restaurant, if you get better service, they get better tips and my friend, The Security Guard, has done work in these kinds of clubs for years so he's able to teach me the proper etiquette.

     Unlike my prior three experiences in these clubs, I did this time, accept an invitation for a lap dance. I wasn't planning on it but I allowed peer pressure to overcome my normal cowardly resistance and quite frankly, this girl was sexy as hell.
      That was a very different experience for me. I'm not sure what to make of it. It's sexy as hell, or at least she made it such but considering it takes me about two hours (after taxes) to make $20, it's not something I could ever do with any sense of frequency. But she made my first lap-dance experience worthwhile and gave me a little bit extra, possibly a lot extra (even if I thought my experience was typical, her rapid recoiling from what she was doing when another girl passed in the background to go into the dressing room would let anyone know some rules were being violated). As such, I was sure to tip her on top of the cost of the dance.

     It is amazing how creepy some guys are in these places. In the first lounge of the evening, the discomfort on some of the dancer's faces as they put up with the antics of a drunken patron was palpable. It must suck for the dancers because those patrons end up paying more so they have to put up with it if they expect to pay back the house and make money for the evening. Negative feedback loops. I can't do that. I see no reason to treat a girl differently (in the negative sense) just because she's a go-go dancer.
     And no, I'm not trying to play some asshole nice-guy shtick. These girls would see through that as easily as I see through their flirtatious soliciting. I just feel these girls deserve the same respect one would give a waitress. They are not my playthings and I refuse to talk to them like they owe me their time.

     I wonder if I should return to this establishment? It's not like it's prohibitively far from my home. I couldn't afford to go more than once a month, but I can't help but wonder if repeating these experiences would help me with my confidence issues? Also, I've gone enough times now with experienced patrons to have learned how to properly treat/tip the bartender, staff, and dancers. As a final point I would say just because you know the attention you're getting is not genuine doesn't mean it doesn't evoke the same responses and offer the same benefits that genuine attention does, right? It might confer the same benefits that military training does. Simulated combat is certainly not real combat, but it still prepares the mind and body for the real thing.