Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
Published on November 4, 2008 By Draginol In Politics

Vote by Income
 
                                Obama         McCain
Under $15,000 (9%)
74%
24%
2%
 
 
$15-30,000 (14%)
61%
34%
5%
 
 
$30-50,000 (21%)
55%
44%
1%
 
 
$50-75,000 (23%)
54%
45%
1%
 
 
$75-100,000 (13%)
52%
47%
1%
 
 
$100-150,000 (12%)
41%
59%
N/A
 
 
$150-200,000 (4%)
42%
57%
1%
 
 
$200,000 or More
44%
55%
1%
 
 
I have been talking about this for a bit now but with the exit polls still fresh, here are the results from the key state of Ohio (which has been called for Obama).
You'll note that the people who don't pay taxes voted for the guy who is promising to give them goodies paid for by the people who do pay taxes. Look at those margins at the $30k and less, it's extreme. 
As you work your way up the income brackets (i.e. to people who actually produce stuff) the margin narrows and eventually turns in favor of McCain -- mind you, this is a state McCain LOST.
It's pretty clear, even this early on, that Americans are quite willing to vote for people who promise to give them stuff paid for by other people.  Clearly, it's a whole new "everyone for themself" world. I hope in the coming months and years people remember this.
I think one of the first things that will change as soon as taxes go up is that JU will stop being a free site other than for people I decide to give free premium accounts.  The rest should probably find another blog site if they object to paying for a service. There's plenty of free blog sites still.  There's plenty of time as I doubt taxes will go up until the end of next year.

Comments (Page 1)
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on Nov 04, 2008

OK all you users out there, no more free ride!    So your Christmas list will include all those who will be on your premium list?

on Nov 04, 2008

Well, this year is safe. It'll be a year from now we'll have to revisit this.

on Nov 04, 2008

and that's exactly what's going to happen all over the place.

We are trying to sell a house in Maine.  We know exactly what Obama has on his wish list, tax wise should he get in.  Capital gains may be a big problem for us.  We are looking at possibly paying $45,000 in taxes, should we sell our house for what it's worth right now, after Obama gets his capitol gains wish list implemented. 

We need to dump the house now, at a reduced price just so we don't incur this tax.   Think about it.  We may have to give the government $45,000 from the proceeds of our home just because we made a profit after living there for 11 years.  How is this helping America? 

Sad, but I'm afraid people have no idea what they just voted in.  Things are going to get ugly and there's not going to be a Bush to hide behind this time. 

 

on Nov 04, 2008

Hmm...

I suppose that's one way of looking at it.

Another possible way of looking at it would be to view the exit survey data by race as well.

White (83%) - Obama (47%) - McCain (52%)
Black (11%) - Obama (97%) - McCain (2%)

So is it possible that the income data and the racial data are somehow correlated? Could it be that blacks in general make less money than whites? Which of these two effects is causal and which is merely anecdotal? Could there be other unrelated factors about which neither of us understands at work here?

I personally can't say, given that I'm not a trained statistician, but I suppose that you must have some unique expertise or education that qualifies you to make such wide sweeping generalizations.

on Nov 04, 2008

Could it be that blacks in general make less money than whites?

Sorry.  That excuse (blacks aren't equal) no longer flies here.  If Barack can be president, so can all blacks determine their destiny.  White America is rooting for them in case you haven't noticed.

If they don't make money then they'll have to find another excuse besides racism.

on Nov 04, 2008

If they don't make money then they'll have to find another excuse besides racism.
The point wasn't to make an "excuse" or to claim that blacks aren't equal or to even necessarily claim that blacks statistically make less money than whites for whatever the reason (although it's obvious that they do on average make less money).

The point I was making was that I personally don't have the expertise, nor do I believe that anyone else here has the expertise, to extrapolate the raw income data as it correlates to McCain support in Ohio exit polls and thereby make the sweeping generalization that this indicates a dramatic change in an "everyone for themselves" mentality.

If this is such a strong correlation then what is the meaning of the reversal of this trend once income increases above $150,000 per year? This implies that McCain's true support is among "middle managers" and further increases in income actually decrease his support.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. Drawing sweeping conclusions from such limited data is ludicrous.

on Nov 05, 2008

"The rest should probably find another blog site if they object to paying for a service. There's plenty of free blog sites still."

At least Wordpress has an inline login form for logged-out members in the comment area.

I'm jus' saying.

on Nov 05, 2008

Ah!  No mention of Elemental on your blog Brad??!  I hope we see some 

info on the AI coding going into the game as it moves along

 

-Rattasak

on Nov 05, 2008

To be honest It looks like he bought the votes promising stuff he cant actually deliver.

Do these people really think the Rich or corporations within the US will stay within the US if obama follows thru? the US is already loosing jobs to other countries as outsourcing is at an all time high. But yet lets throw more taxes on corporations as well as the rich individuals and see if they stick around. LOL     Hum.. less $$ within the US and less jobs, yeh that will do the economy great.

Any one with half a mind knows this the plan would not suceed, Either it will never be incorporated ( as most campaign promises never are) and if it does get implemented it will just drive the $$ out of the US. Either way the citizens of the US will mostly never see a dime of any monies gained by the new taxes. 

 

on Nov 05, 2008

Say you invent something cool.  Its 10k for a patent attorney, 20k to 100k for a prototype, you need a business license and you are going to incur a fair amount in secondary costs.   Your income is 30k, your rent is 8k (if you are that lucky. Considerably more expensive if an owner), income taxes 4k, Transport to work 3.7k, Food 2.5k, Vehicle Insurance 1k, Clothing .5k, Vehicle Maintenance .8k, Social Security/Medicare taxes 2.4k, Sales Taxes 2.6k.

This leaves you about 5.5k per year, assuming a very minimal existance, shelter, and getting back and forth to work.  If you are a smoker you drop another 2k per year.  If you want health insurance that finishes you.   These funds represent a typical job in the state of Washington at $15/hour and the state of the local economy.  If you are a non-smoker you are fortunate enough to be able to actually pocket about $80 per month of pure joyous profit in exchange for your 160 hours of labor per month.

Guess what, you can forget about contributing to society by releasing your invention, unless you are very good at getting other people to give you money for a startup.  Since your financial situation is borderline and it is likely that you will occaisionally make an unwise expenditure, your credit is probably in trouble anyhow.  Ironically, if your credit is less than stellar things will cost you more.  Most people use this to actually acquire a reliable means of transport, the figures above presume the vehicle is owned outright.

Under these circumstances there is no margin for error.  Chances are you don't have medical insurance since it is a voluntary expense, so you throw the dice every day.  You may dodge your vehicle insurance and car registration fees but that is only a temporary solution, since the fines will cost as much or more when they catch up with you, which they have a high probability of doing so.  That is of course, presuming that you don't wreck your car in which case you are probably unable to get to work and your problem is immediately compounded.

The system is pretty heavily rigged as it stands.

Now, there is the other guy.  The successful one. They generally fall into these categories: 

1. He made all the right choices by the time he was in his early twenties and navigated school and has an income which enables him to make progress, despite outstanding student loans

2. He successfully engaged in black market commerce and has a sizeable chunk of cash for an investment, this presumes of course that he escaped the numerous perils of this career path.

3. He has a rich relative and was basically sponsored into his starting position.

4. He is unusually gifted at sales which enables a higher income than his peers.

5. He possesses another talent which allows him to output saleable merchandise on a piece by piece basis at a significant profit (generally applies to artists and artisans)

The second person is typically characterized by either significant starting advantages or a unique skill set.  He may or may not be more beneficial to society as a whole.  There are many cases where the second person is essentially parasitic in behavior, although he judges himself to be superior and more useful by virtue of his money score.  He tends to forget that society functions and he exists as a result of the labors of a significant supporting cast.

While the second individual realizes significant income above his baseline costs, the first does not.  This magnifies the level of disparity between both, who are theoretically productive members of society.  The second individual if intelligent, has acquired a good accountant and lawyers as he has the surplus income to do so.  In many cases, that individual creates a corporate shield and effectively pays no taxes, or at least a lower amount percentage wise.   These are the same people who support tax cuts for the wealthy and think it is advantageous to shift burden to the more financially marginal members of society.  This is short term thinking and ultimately creates a top heavy society (particularly when factors such as compounded lending interest rates are brought in).  The upshot is a society where 1% of the populace controls the majority of the wealth, 4 people of 20 are extremely well off in terms of real discretionary income and the others struggle to support them and their appetites.  

The wall street situation represents the collapse of this pyramid and the piper is coming to collect his due.  The Obama victory was nearly inevetible, although McCain made a surprisingly strong stand given the circumstances. 

The exit polls merely state the obvious and are symptomatic of the greater situation.   To the guy that is complaining about making a profit on his home, he should count himself as lucky.   It will not be too long before he is likely to realize how lucky he is to have a home at all.   They sold you a war and a speculation game and if you got out with your shirt and still have a viable means of income, you did pretty good.   Doesn't matter who they put in now, the deferred payment plan of the Neocons is coming due and everyone is going to be paying long and hard for this one.

 

 

 

on Nov 05, 2008

Do you have a link to age-based stats? I imagine most young people would earn in the 0-30k mark, and they traditionally vote for left wing causes. Age is a major factor in conservatism and I wonder just how much it has to do with those figures.

on Nov 05, 2008

So people who make more money are those that "actually produce stuff". The varsity, so to speak.

Interesting to hear whose lives are more valuable than others. Perhaps the republicans should consider the monarchy instead of democracy. That way you could be sure to keep the power in the hands of those who "deserve it because they produce stuff", instead of giving power to representatives from the ignorant masses.

Draginol - that post was way way off.

on Nov 05, 2008

Do you have a link to age-based stats?
I don't know how long this data will stay available but for now it's still all on the cnn web site at http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls.main/. Just go to the "Select" pulldown menu under "President Exit Polls:" for each specific state. You can also get directly to the Ohio data using http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#OHP00p1, again I'm not sure how long this data will remain.

Say you invent something cool ... 
Nice write-up of a reasonable scenario but perhaps unnecessarily convoluted. The way I would go to making a similar point is by making a couple of observations. The first one is to point out the implicit assumption that gets made one way or other in pretty much every political thread on this site and that is the assumption that if someone is poor it's because they're lazy, or stupid or more likely, both. Certainly a common theme is the assumption that in some way or another it's a matter of choice if a person is poor. With this assumption in place it's only a very short step to making the value judgment that the rich are rich because they are smarter and/or work harder and therefore "deserve" their riches while the poor are lazy and stupid and therefore not only "deserve" to be poor actually "choose" to be poor and if they ever wake up and stop being lazy and stupid then their path to being rich will be open.

SolarStandard's story basically outlines one of literally thousands of ways that these assumptions can be incorrect however I believe that any rational person would reject these assumptions once they've explicitly been brought to light. If not then someone that buys these assumptions would also have to conclude that if I happen to make more money then they do then it's only because I am smarter and work harder and therefore "deserve" a superior place in life to them. I doubt this is the case since people are quick to believe that they deserve more than others but slow to admit that someone else is more deserving than they are.

Another point of observation is that "poor" is a very relative term. My own personal definition of what constitutes "poor" is perhaps rather high and would probably include 99% of the visitors to this website. In my humble opinion if you couldn't stop working tomorrow and be set for the rest of your life then you're "poor". A high income is meaningless, you could lose that in an instant just by losing your job and being unable to get another comparable job. In these days of out sourcing that's a very real possibility. Or perhaps you have an accident or debilitating illness.

On this basis you would probably need about 2 million dollars of after tax savings invested in secure FDIC insured CD's or bonds backed by the full faith and taxation authority of the US government in order to be secure for the rest of your life come hell or high water. Anything less than that and you’re poor.

I have a PhD from MIT in Electrical Engineering and currently earn $170K per year with approximately $450K of after-tax savings earning about 4% in FDIC insured CD’s or government bonds. But I feel and act poor. I don’t own a home which is actually pretty lucky since if I did it probably would have cost in excess of 1 million dollars and I would be stuck with it for many years to come. I’m not talking living to excess here. In the town of Concord 1 million dollars even today would get you at most a two bedroom Cape in not the greatest condition.

As far as cars both my wife and I drive reasonably priced Chevy Impala’s that I pay cash for and keep for about ten years each. I certainly live within my means but there is no guarantee that I’ll be able to continue working in my field for the remaining ten years that I have before reaching 66 years old and collecting Social Security, assuming it still exists in ten years.

I have been gainfully employed as an Electrical Engineer since I graduated with a PhD from MIT (a little school in Cambridge, MA perhaps you've heard of it) in 1979 with only two periods of unemployment. One period lasted almost a year during the first Bush depression of 1990. The second lasted 15 months during the second Bush depression in 2003. Now we’re looking at a third Bush depression.

The first stint of unemployment cost me a year of lost wages but otherwise did not noticeably reduce my net worth which was probably pretty close to zero anyway, but at least I was not in debt. The 2nd stint of unemployment cost me over $100K of after tax savings, $24K of which was required to maintain my medical insurance while unemployed. Since I had a heart attack in 2002 that left me with 1/3rd of my heart muscle dead, being without medical insurance was not an option. I don’t know about you but it took me quite awhile to save that $100K. Once I did get another job I had to accept a salary that was $30K less than my previous salary. It’s only recently that through some extraordinary luck I was able to go from a salary of $100K per year to my current $170K which I’ve held for about 6 months now.

The point of sharing all this information is to say that I could lose my job tomorrow and never be able to work in my field again due to out sourcing of engineering jobs to India and Pakistan along with a little bit of age discrimination. In that scenario my cash would last me a few years but I would inevitably be destitute. If I can't work in my field then there's not much left but "welcome to WalMart" or "Do you want fries with that". Last time I checked these jobs don't pay $170K per year.

If I worry about this how many others without my education and experience should be more worried than I am?

on Nov 05, 2008

its quite interesting that aside from all the statistical oversimplifications (not accounting for the fact that young people usually earn less just because they are still at college university yet etc.) Obama would have won as well if you exclude all the below 30K voters.

on Nov 05, 2008

I'd gladly pay for my blogsite here if I had more control over what is displayed on it, ie: either no ads, or ads that I choose. JUser becoming a profit making enterprise can only be a good thing, glitches will be fixed sooner, features we've been begging for for years (like an 'ignore user' feature) will be implemented, and, as paying customers, we could expect a little better treatment at the hands of certain gung-ho moderators.
Of course Brad can do whatever he wants because it *is* his site but I suspect that there is no danger of JU becoming a paid for site for a number of reasons.

The first reason is that Brad was simply bummed out about the election results even though he had carefully limited his emotional investment in this election by voting for the libertarian candidate. Still while there's no doubt that he wasn't particularly pleased with the outcome, I'm sure he'll get over it shortly.

But more importantly this site doesn't exist as a free site just because Brad wishes to give predominately like minded individuals a place to express their opinion and even to some minimal extant people like myself that are definitely *not* like minded. Certainly there is some altruistic motivation behind it, however the real reason that folks are here for free is not to give them a platform to be heard but to provide a suitable audience for Brad's obvious desire to Blog. If he makes the site a paid for site he runs the risk of losing his prime audience and I doubt that is something that he would do. Perhaps by pointing this out I'm daring him to do exactly that.

Perhaps.

[edit] Other reasons that the status of the site won't change are the fact that JU is so intertwined with Stardock's 10 other forum sites that it would be virtually impossible to charge for JU without charging for all of the others and *that's* definitely not happening and the fact that if JU were changed to a paid site then everyone could simply move over to Impulsedriven and get exactly the same functionality and the chances of the Impulse site being changed to a paid site are exactly nil. [/edit]

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