Dear Street Carnage,
When my friends ask me if I’m voting for Barack Obama, I ask them if they’ll pay me for the additional taxes I’ll be paying. They usually laugh and say Obama is only going to tax the richest five percent of the population.
UPDATE / NOTICE: WE PRINT EVERY LETTER WE GET.
Dear Street Carnage,
When my friends ask me if I’m voting for Barack Obama, I ask them if they’ll pay me for the additional taxes I’ll be paying. They usually laugh and say Obama is only going to tax the richest five percent of the population. Since I live in a cramped Brooklyn walkup and I’m a writer, they figure I can’t be in the richest 5%. They imagine that’s just people with millions of dollars.
The truth is there aren’t all that many millionaires. The top 5% of the country includes just about everyone who makes over 200k. That might seem rich but it sure doesn’t feel that way.
If you live in NYC, taxes take you down to around 110k. That works out to around 9000 a month. Take out 3000 (at least) for a two bedroom apartment.
Now we’re down to 6000k. That’s 1500 a week. Divide that by two, assuming that we’re talking about a married couple filing jointly, and you’re down to $750 a week for each person. That gives them $107 per day.
Let’s add some normal expenses. $4 each to take the subway from work and back home. A cup of coffee and a paper run another three bucks, because at this stage you aren’t drinking Statbucks. Lunch runs another $10.
Welcome to $90 a day. Let’s give the couple a kid. Diapers. Food. Each parent’s now down to $85. Dinner, breakfast. Let’s say they scrimp and only spend $15 on meals. They’ve got $60 a day.
They probably need health insurance, health insurance, right. That’s at least $5 a day. Oh, the kid needs insurance too. So now they’ve each got around $52 a day.
Utilities and other incidentals take them down another $2. Cell phones another $3. Cable runs them $1.50 each.
So here’s your top 5% family. Living on $45 dollars a day each. A cab ride or a couple of beers after work means they’re nearly living beyond their means. Dinner out at a nice place puts them under for days.
Did they go to college? Take another $8 bucks a day off to pay back the loans.
$37 a day. How much of that do you take from these Richie riches? Remember we haven’t bought clothing, music or sent them to a movie yet.
Can they get by? Of course they can. They may not be poor. But they sure won’t feel rich. Unfortunately, Obama thinks they are, wants to raise their taxes and calls them by a misleading number: 5%.
So, yeah. Maybe we should have a more realistic view of who we’re proposing to tax when we say the rich can pay more. A lot of the rich have less money than we think.
whether we like it or not, it’s going to take a chunk out of everybody’s pockets to subsidize the trillions of dollars in debt that Bush has so graciously given this country. in addition to increasing taxes on those who make 250,000 grand a year or more, spending cuts have to be implemented across the board.
Listening to somebody making at least 200k a year bitch about money: fucking pathetic/hilarious.
cry me a fucking river.
You honestly think that not being able to get that third beer at the bar after work is an infringement on your ability to live your life? Talk to the people that work 2 jobs at $6.25 an hour just so they can feed their kids, or the people that have to make a decision between food and medication so they skip dosages. You disgust me with your over privileged bull! You’re a writer, you can do it from anywhere. There, I just saved you $2000 a month cuz you don’t need to live in your New York apartment. Problem solved douche bag.
wouldn’t a couple of 200k/year-earners have 400k/year?
“the trillions of dollars in debt that Bush has so graciously given this country.”
Why does everyone always forget to blame Congress, too?
“They probably need health insurance, health insurance, right. That’s at least $5 a day. Oh, the kid needs insurance too. So now they’ve each got around $52 a day.”
Maybe if the US wasn’t one of the only Western Countries without universal health care they would realize that people like you making 100k a year each who live in, say, Canada, do not have to worry about that extra few hundred dollars a month for health insurance.
income redistribution is socialist fucking bullshit and it is wrong but i’m still going to vote for o cuz i want a black guy even if that is racist
i think this was just posted to get a rise out of people.
ride your bike to work, bring your own lunch, and take some fucking deductions on your tax forms, you fucking dumbass crybaby bitch.
Socialism seems to work in Denmark
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/07/02/nations.happiness/index.html
But in the US instead of using socialism for health you use it for bail-outs.
You also give your extra money to Walmart and Starbucks, helping create your own Corporate Comrades while funding China’s military.
i don’t understand all you ‘merkins bitching about socialism. you just gave 700 BILLION DOLLARS to bail out wall street. sorry to go all kanye w. on you, but–700 BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS TO BAIL OUT WALL STREET!!! what’s that then, huh? o, that’s not socialist at all? reeeeeealllllly?
this article was not good and i did not enjoy it.
wow someone whining about only making 200k what a douchebag
Just to clarify, Obama’s tax hikes will kick in around $200K for a couple filing jointly. It’s not how much they make individually. The tax hikes kick in much lower for single filers. This is why they talk about the top 5% of households–they mean married couples.
jesus, if it’s that expensive, live somewhere else or quit your bitching.
This is either the worst satire I’ve ever read on Street Carnage, or, if it’s not satire, just the worst thing I’ve read, period.
Boo fucking hoo. I cant afford my $3000 rent and my student loans. I can’t eat out all the time. I can’t always take a cab.
Cry cry cry. Life is tough.
@ Donny’s Restaurant
Because Congress didn’t come up with the idea to spend billions of dollars a week on a war that had nothing to do with our country. They just caved under pressure like the invertebrates they are.
jesus, i thought this article was interesting and informative. seriously. this shit is fair enough. why cant we have people who are affluent enough not to have to worry about money without them being some kind of myserious executive money-genius.
its not bitching and moaning, its just stating some facts. its the truth.
i would like more people like the guy who wrote this to not have to worry about money like the rest of us. do you know why? because it means theres some light at the end of the tunnel. it means we may be able to work our way out of this and at the end of the day, abeit might just macht frie (if thats how it goes)
again, this was an interesting and informative read from an opinion and lifestyle outside that which we are normally drudged down into oblivion with. and i dont want everyone to be the same and i think it sucks if theres no more rich people, or middle-rich people, or whatever this guy wants to be
who’s jacking my good name?
I make a meager 25 a year (in Los Angeles) and I empathize with this guy. What is more pathetic is a college student or a poverty stricken leech pointing the finger at the “wealthy” and chastising them for their lack of generosity. Rob the mother fucker if you want his money, this is America. In any case, once your tax dollar enters the system it becomes a run of the mill ho, and everyone will get their tips wet.
Wull, this just goes to confirm my suspicion: living in New York City IS more expensive than living anywhere else in the country. Aspen & Miami Beach breathe a sigh of relief.
But just think, out here in the hinterlands we still pay for gasoline for our cars. So, tax plan be damned, I’m still gonna vote for the guy who seems (<— operative word) more likely to move toward eliminating that problem incrementally.
None of us can afford beer number three, John– even those of us who live where it’s supposed to be cheaper. (And I won’t pretend that beer 3 doesn’t ALWAYS taste sublime compared to uno & dos.) It’s clear that if anyone is going to feel optimistic once the postcoital glow of the election fades, she’ll have to take the long view. I suggest you do the same. It’s the only thing that gets me through the night.
just think, if you’d have aborted that baby, you’d each have an extra $8 a day!
at 200k a year McCain and Obama’s tax pilicy are viturally identical…..above that Obama’s plan starts to take a little more on the ‘last 30k’ only so at 250k you would have to pay about $600 more per year (oh schucks you get one less ‘night out’ in NYC)…..for those us making anything less than 200K we will benefit from Obama’s plan regardless……………..
having said that VOTE for Bob Barr!!!
My Dad makes 250k a year (mom doesn’t work). They have a million in savings for retirement, own a 500k house, put three kids through college, and have zero credit card debt. Even they are voting Obama! 250k can still be rich, everyone knows that making 200k with a family in NYC is piss. That is the dumbest example I have ever heard in my life. Apples and fucking Oranges my friend. What is your source for A. 200k income will requisite 45% of income goes to taxes and B. What comprises the top 5% of incomes. This is genuine curiosity because I can’t find this information and I have found other info stating that at least 9% of the American population is millionaires.
Also, granted I have no college debt, I get NO help from my parents make 40k, live in NYC, and support my student boyfriend, and I can still afford a third beer (although I can’t get my cavities filled). You can’t complain about a willful choice that you have made. If you choose to have a family in NYC, want to live in a $3000 apt (as if there aren’t other nice options), get a chai mocha latte everyday, take taxis everywhere, and only make 200k a year then suck it the fuck up buddy and realize there isn’t gonna be much left over for savings…or move to ATL stop being bitter and hang with my happy parents.
Well if your doormat wife got a fucking job then you could double your daily spending. No sympathy over here.
Trust me, $200k/year is not at all rich in NYC. You pretty much need to make at least $100k/year not to be better off on welfare. I mean when you are on welfare you get section8 housing and foodstamps. Otherwise your $100k/year is going to basic housing cost and food. A $3000k/month apt. in Manhattan or a lot of Brooklyn is comfortably liveable for 2 people. It’s an expensive fucking city. Priced out most of the interesting people already. I moved because it’s been boring as hell the last few years. No more artists, no more musicians, only bankers left.
However, the premise that voting for Obama will get you taxed more than McCain is incorrect or at least unsure. Clinton was way more conservative when it came to reality than Bush Jr and Sr. Plus everybody was making bank when Clinton was in office. As I’ve said to several McCain supporters, “you gotta make money to worry about taxes.”
“If you live in NYC” There’s the fatal flaw. Also,
$10 for lunch everyday in NYC? ha ha ha maybe if you’re a fucking tourist
This doesn’t make much sense to me either. The national debt will be a crisis soon enough and bitching about taxes is the last of our worries when the almighty dollar becomes the new fucking peso.
How about ending the war on drugs?
Actually come to think about it, how about ending the shit load of bureaucratic socialism that both parties have helped endure in the past century?
You know what? Fuck this guy and the liberals who bitch back along with ‘em.
Seriously, get a fucking grip. I appreciate that you’re referring to the earnings bracket of 250k or above and the taxes that they’d receive. But the lifestyle that you’d enjoy is still infinitely more affable than that of the poorest neighborhoods in and around New York. Idiot.
And if this post is a joke, then such inflammatory statements will do nothing but push readers away. (Otherwise a fan of this page).
You are so spoiled! As a result of your peer group, you may not feel that wealthy, but 5 percent of the population represents a small group of people. If you are in the top 5 percent, you are a member of the financial elite in the richest country in the world. It was your decision to live in the most overpriced city! If you want more spending money, there are so many other options! Higher taxes for the elite benefit the remaining 95 percent of the population, making it a good idea for the country.
Also, don’t you have investments??? Perhaps you should start watching Suze Orman.
It is so weird that you make six figures by WRITING, but maybe this just wasn’t your best work!
Really, 200K you poor, poor boy. How ever do you survive on such a pittance?
Fuck you and your gilded rathole I live in a converted shipping container in a beautiful valley with high speed internet and clean air. I figure for every few decently dressed people you post on here you have to walk next to bump against avoid staring at at least 70 ugly fucking people who live in that vast shitstack FUCK YOU.
maybe someone needs to move OUT of manhattan.
I was just going to say that ^^
Fucking pussies, this site is going to shit. Gavin is a rich old man and clearly he’s getting interested in rich old man stuff. Someone show me a a better more hip website, please. I wouldn’t read what this shitbag has to say at all if it weren’t for some good articles by other contributers.
If I met a guy and he read this website, I wouldn’t think highly of him… that about sums up how I feel streetcarnage.com
If I ever meet “whiners suck”, I will make her marry me. I will show her my good side, and how funny I can be, and I will lick her privates like a baby lamb. My god, she makes sense.
You’re a total fucking dick, dude.
Yall are missing the point. People who are smarter and work harder deserve more and shouldn’t be penalized. Progressive tax systems are bullshit. If you were smart enough to make 200k a year and were having half your shit taken from you, you would change your mind real fucking quick. How can you possibly argue with that?
Hopefully yall are going to be rich old men one day. Or maybe you’re content being a bassist in a shitty band destined to work at Amoeba Records for the rest of your life?
someone’s giving you 200k to write? i have a feeling they aren’t getting there moneys worth
“If you were smart enough to make 200k a year and were having half your shit taken from you, you would change your mind real fucking quick. How can you possibly argue with that?”
If it was inherited wealth, which so much of wealth is. Plenty of people rake in 200K a year and can’t even spell their own names.
If a person who earned less than 200k wrote this, it would go like this:
I CAN’T AFFORD SHIT!
fuck you so very much you whining little piece of ass juice, get a fucking clue!
if you are smart enough to earn 200k a year, you should be smart enough to not spend 3000 per month on a 2 bedroom. or you could do what a lot of people who earn in the 25-50k range do, and live within your means
This whole argument is shit.
These numbers assume the person doesn’t use also tax shelters, IRA contributions, or deductibles (business expenses, charitable contributions) that can significantly lower your tax rate.
Anyone making over 200k that doesn’t have a decent accountant and financial planner deserves to be poor.
p.s. In the fourth paragraph, “6000k” should be “6000.”
dude I can support me, my girlfriend, and my kid all with insurance, a pension, organic food, and own a three story house in seattle, with money left over for hobbies, beer, eating out, nice clothes all on a union trades wages, and no bad credit or parental help what is wrong with people
I hope you read this after posting it and said to yourself: “Uh oh. I sound like a whiny, privileged piece of shit.”
i heard ny is going to be the next detroit. once the banking industry is gone what does it have to fall back on?
plus, taxing the rich even more will only make them send their money elsewhere.
check this out:
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/11/life_in_a_banan.html
here’s the intro paragraph:
“A banana republic is a country where government obligations swamp total wealth. In a typical banana republic, wealthy individuals race to move their savings overseas to safe havens. Those who fail to do so will suffer from taxation, inflation, and currency devaluation.”
Your a retard! Your what’s wrong with NYC. People like you need to be rounded up and dropped into the ocean for sharks to eat. Get out of here!
200 k is more than most people fucking dream about. I hate you.
Taxes are there to give back to the people. High taxes mean great social safety. Thats why countries with super high taxes are rated the best places to live.
So many people are so god damned stupid. And that is why I hate so many god damned people.
this is hilarious.
i live in a two bedroom with a huge backyard in williamsburg for $1600 a month.
my fiancee and I bring in a combined $100,000 a year, have a brand new car, brand new tv, new furniture, student loans with no other debt and manage to be doing just fine.
what a fucking clown. what do you need a third beer for if you’ve got a fucking kid? prioritize, asshole. why pay $3000 in rent when you could leave the city and buy a place. you’re a writer, you can probably work from somewhere else.
Oh Sasha, you flatter me…I loved every second of it. But in all honesty I don’t deserve it because even my down syndrome cousin could poke holes in the ridiculous swill above.
@ Bearface thank you, who can argue with that? Perfect example showing that John has his head in the (rich people) sand. Buried very deeply. I think part of him might actually believe what he’s spewing.
writers are going to be the first to go. he will have it really bad when whatever conde nasty publication he works at fires his ass. thats probably going to be soon.
then suck it up, try to nail your wife every night, and get the fuck over it (the bridge that is…)
“Trust me, $200k/year is not at all rich in NYC. You pretty much need to make at least $100k/year not to be better off on welfare.”
What NYC do you live in? I make 35K and I live like a fucking prince. I spend money on whatever I want, reasonably, and I don’t have to look in my bank account ever. Ride the subway and quit the weekly dinners at Momofuku.
i thought this was a good, frank perspective piece. i just wanted to say that.
i do, however, disagree on these politics and general life philosophy (people have way shittier lots in life–we’re all just humans trying to survive)
This is an interesting perspective piece, in the sense that such a perspective is… interesting. Aside from the error in taxation introduced by retroactively declaring the income to be that of a jointly filing couple, you are left with a couple with $74 of completely discretionary cash every single day, no strings attached – that’s more than enough to entertain themselves ($20 for a movie for two, for example), and the monthly total of over $2000 in completely discretionary funds leaves more than enough room for purchases.
While we’re at it, the example gives them a daily budget of $50 for breakfast and dinner. Either they are never eating at home – which violates any sense of financial responsibility – or they are eating rather spectacular meals at home.
What we’re left with is a couple, each – once we correct from the error of the initial taxation conditions – pulling down less than $100K annually (hardly “wealthy” salaries in any major city) taking care of all their expenses, eating like kings, and still with cash to throw around.
The point I’m trying to get at is that this article is sheer idiocy, dripping with the warped vision of entitlement.
FUCK THIS PUSSY! You ever find yourself in sunny Winnipeg LOOK ME UP. Me and the Indian Posse will tie you up then down till your yelping your p.i.n. number in the frosty air then w’ell sell you to the Ukrainian’s for stewin’ meet. MOANIN LITTLE BITCH
$150 k is the new $48 k.
I live in Brookyn, make six figures, and I’m fucking broke.
The ability to create wealth has been destroyed by a liftetime of student loan service.
“Young Professionals” are indentured servants.
ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE, 200K A YEAR AND YOU’RE BITCHING? YOU MAKE 3 TIMES WHAT I MAKE YOU FUCKIN CLOWN. “OH MY GOD I CANT LIVE ON AVENUE B AND GET FUCKED UP EVERY NIGHT IM LIVING IN SQUALOR”
EAT FUCKING SHIT B…LIVE A REAL LIFE.
GO TO A CUNY, DONT EAT THAI FOOD PREPARED BY WORLD CLASS CHEFS FOR BREAKFAST LUNCH AND DINNER AND LIVE SOMEWHERE THAT ISNT NEXT DOOR TO AN ART GALLERY/”COOL BAR” AND YOU WONT HAVE THESE PROBLEMS.
All of you worthless degenderates complaining about his totally fair point probably EARN less than he pays in taxes in a year. He’s already subsidizing you dumb fucks, and what do you want to do? Punish him for doing it by taxing him more. The only proper tax should be a flat one where everyone pays their fair share. It would probably only be 20% or so. Whiny fucking bottom feeders!
“If it was inherited wealth, which so much of wealth is. Plenty of people rake in 200K a year and can’t even spell their own names.”
Wrong again you socialist fucks, people that inherit their money get fucked on a totally unjust “inheritance tax” of nearly 50% that shouldn’t even be there. Whoever earned the money in the first place got a nice big taxation dick right up their ass when they earned it the first time. The got more dicks up the ass if they grew that fortune by way of “capital gains tax” (another bullshit idea).
“The point I’m trying to get at is that this article is sheer idiocy, dripping with the warped vision of entitlement.”
Entitlement, imagine that somebody that works their ass off to earn some decent money things maybe they should get to KEEP SOME OF IT. How absurd. How all the fucking degenerate bottom feeders, unemployed with 17 kids survive – OH NO!
You idiots should all read atlas shrugged. I can’t wait till all the smart and talented people leave the US completely and you fucking idiots finally realize how much “the rich” were already generously giving you that you weren’t entitled to.
“Pathetic says: Maybe if the US wasn’t one of the only Western Countries without universal health care they would realize that people like you making 100k a year each who live in, say, Canada, do not have to worry about that extra few hundred dollars a month for health insurance.”
Where do you think FREE HEALTH CARE comes from, you dolt? TAXES. If you think health insurance is expensive now, wait till it’s free.
don’t raise your kids in the East Village, dipshit. This is fucking stupid.
It’s not about WHETHER OR NOT everyone is suffering from the recession, it’s at what level. Buy groceries; god forbid you go without a latte for breakfast with a Wall Street Journal and a panini for lunch. Yeah, you may not be able to go out for a nice meal every night. That’s awful. We’re talking about getting families back into THEIR FUCKING TRAILERS in Nassau County so forgive me if I’m not sympathetic to your complaints about trying to raise a child in the most expensive city in America.
This is so fucked up. Please, just consider for a second: Becoming acclimated to higher standard of living does not change the basic necessities for surviving as a human.
In other words, boo-fucking-hoo.
i saw so many flaws in how much money this theoretical person spends. as a lowly broke college student, i have to scrimp and save, but its taught me a lot. okay im also a jew but still. read the newspaper online, switch to diet soda for the caffeine factor (soda is much cheaper, you can buy a 2 liter bottle for the price of 1 small cup of coffee), get an unlimited metrocard, only use cabs in emergencies, have a kid in an outer borough. wamp fucking wamp wamp. don’t fucking buy thirteen dollar drinks, order a la carte from the menu (and eat before you go out to eat, or get dessert somewhere else), pregame before you go out to bars.
also dude NYC is not the entire country. where i am from, $200,000 is dirty rich. dirty effing wealthy. like mcmansion and your kids first car is a brand new jeep. i believe that is obama’s point. that also annoyed me.
this was enlightening, but it annoyed me in a different way everyone else did. this “person” spends irresponsibly and they think manhattan is the only place in the country that matters… if they found ways to be more jew-y, like me, scrimping and living in a shithole room shaped like a capital I, they’d have a little more. remember what jessica simpson said: “a little bit goes a long way”.