Is because actual Jew Hating is non longer socially acceptable.

It gives you a socially acceptable avenue for your hatred. Slip up and say Jew by mistake, and then just insist you meant Zionist.

Odd that only national movements by Jews get labeled with derogatory terms. And only issues of dispositions when it involves Jews get's talked about.

I don't see any tears for the millions of ethnic Germans forced out of the Sudetenland. An area that had always been German, and no other living cultural or identity laid claim to.

Why? Because no Jews were involved. Had the Czechs been Jewish, it people would still be screaming.

Boy, you're jumbling stuff up. No, I intentionally used the word "earning" to INCLUDE investment income.,

In my defense, didn't I acknowledge I could have been reading it wrong and asked you for clarification?

I don't know if there's a good term for "amount of money a person makes over the year through his wages, dividends, rent, and capital appreciation," but that's what I wanted to talk about.

There isn't a good term, because capital appreciation is very different than the others. You can't spend capital appreciation, and it's not usually taxable.

See, because that's a relevant number. There are PLENTY of really wealthy people who "earn" almost zero according to a wage analysis--they don't WORK. So they don't pay INCOME tax, but may be doing very on capital appreciation, and using capital gains as their "effective" income.

I honestly think you're confused here. Capital appreciation is rarely taxable. It's never turned into money.

Yes, very wealthy people rarely have W2 or 1099 wages, but capital gains is taxed as income tax, just at a lower rate.

That's a 15% tax rate vs. the 30% or so for wage-earners--so they aren't paying their fair share, as opposed to the non-rich people who HAVE TO work for each and every dollar they receive.

Yes, capital gains is taxed at 15% vs 35% for the top income tax rate (both are considered income tax).

But capital gains are really the source of income for the exceedingly rich, not the rich.

One of my complaints is that the economic middle class pays around 20%, the upper upper economic class pays around 20%, but people between those brackets pay around 40%. Now, that's not fair.

If we simply raised the capital gains tax to 35%, the problem is revenues go DOWN, and employment goes DOWN. We've already tried that.

Unfortunately, when I read this response I begin to wonder where you're getting any of your information:

It's lower than 64%. It's possible the top 5% generate more wealth in terms of asset appreciation, but for earned and taxable income, the top 5% take less than 60% of the total.

You claim to *know* that "taxable income" earned by the top 5% is less than 64% of the total, but you don't appear to know what the figure is, and what I intended to ask about was not "taxable income" in the first place, but rather the amount of money people GIT during the course of the year. (Let's use the word "GIT" instead of earn, so you won't be confused about wages vs. capital gains vs. rent, for example.)

All those are taxable, I'm not talking about just wages. It also includes certain non earned income such as dividends and interest. I don't know if it includes alimony or child support.

I just wanted to be sure you weren't including things like the increase in value in property. That's asset appreciation. Taking that into account, it is possible that top 5% accumulate more wealth per year than the percentage they pay of taxes, but it would be really hard to know.

OK, so here is the point: YOUR statistic is that 5% pay 64% of "taxes."

Does that include property taxes? Because obviously, wealthy owners of multi-million dollar real estate are going to pay more in property taxes than the homeless and destitute, more than the lower and working-class apartment-dwellers.

It's all revenue generated, so it includes property tax, and things such as the health surcharge tax paid by those that maker over $1 million.

Or let's say that your statistic INSTEAD is that 5% pay 64% of INCOME taxes? To which I ask for the clarification: what percentage of "earned income" as legally defined for the purpose of taxes is going to that 5%?

Earned Income has a specific meaning (http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=176508,00.html), if we limited ourselves to just earned income, this would make it seem like the wealthy were paying a far greater share than they are.

If we just used earned income, the percentage that the top 5% earned would fall dramatically, that's because they have far more dividends, interest and capital gains than other groups.

I'm including all money's received.

See--this is a really important technical detail, and based on the two replies from you I just read, I have zero confidence that you have any IDEA what that statistic means in context.

Let me be clear. The top 5% of California wage earners pay 64% of the total California taxes, but receive less than 60% of the total money, from any and all sources. (Not just earned income, that would severely limit what they were credited as receiving. I doubt it would be 40% if limited to just earned income, but that's just a guess)

That 5% may receive more than 64% of yearly wealth gained if you included gains on property values or increases in stock prices.

Perhaps I should just ask you what book you've read which contains all these facts and viewpoints. Then I can read it and I'll never need to ask your opinion again.

I doubt there's any book available that will give you the information. You can find much of it at specific California State websites.