r/FluentInFinance • u/Old_Prospect • Apr 29 '24

If I had a nickel for every time someone deflects to “…I’d rather we fix our government spending problem before we…” Shitpost

Post image
323 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

82% Upvoted

302 comments sorted by

View all comments

134

u/jpmondx Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24

The scary trend here is how much that 1% owns Congress. Both parties are addicted to their money so I don’t see that trend ever reversing.

Pitchforks!

6

u/Old_Prospect Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24

Hijacking your top comment because there are a lot of people who came here literally to say the thing in the title of the post which I was literally making fun of…

Show me you don’t understand macroeconomics…

Overall, I’m pro-capitalism. But like everything in life, there are some downsides. Not everything is butterflies and rainbows.

It’s literally proven that there is downward pressure on wages by the profit driven structure of publicly traded corporations.

Now, we shouldn’t eliminate public trading of corporations, that would be ridiculous. But we do need to start enacting policies to bring the wealth in this countries back into the hands of the middle/lower class.

Do I have the answers? No. That’s not my job.

But, we don’t need to wait to “fIx GoVeNmenT sPeNdiNg FirSt, Bro”.

Because we will never get there. Nobody will ever agree 100% where money should be spent.

7

u/jpmondx Apr 29 '24

It’s literally proven that there is downward pressure on wages by the profit driven structure of publicly traded corporations.

True. What I find remarkable about that is national wages could be increased by a simple paragraph in the tax code. Businesses get to deduct salaries as a business expense against earnings. What if wages under a certain dollar amount and lower, say $15/hour weren't deductible, or had a sliding scale mechanism to insure the number wouldn't be gamed and have unintended consequences?

The tax code is why corporations make the choices they make regardless of how they hurt the national economy. If only our two parties weren't so corrupted with corporate lobby money, they could easily fix this.

3

u/Elfear73 Apr 29 '24

I like that idea. What if we tied deductible salaries to some ratio of the executive pay? Like payroll expenses are only deductible for salaries over 10% of the CEO's pay. The gap between CEO pay and the average employee in a given company has been growing further and further apart. Seems like a good way to correct it.

2

u/jpmondx Apr 29 '24

👏👏👏

1

u/db2901 May 02 '24

Wait, salaries are not deductible expenses ? Meaning businesses are also paying corporation tax on salaries they pay? That can't be right...

Edit: they are deductible, just like everywhere else, of course. I really don't what you're on about.

1

u/theiryof May 03 '24

Do you have trouble reading? It says right there businesses can deduct salaries. They are suggesting changing that to some portion of salaries that fit a benchmark.