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#777 Apr 30 2015 at 1:29 PM Rating: Good
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#778 Apr 30 2015 at 4:59 PM Rating: Default
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#779 Apr 30 2015 at 5:46 PM Rating: Default
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Smasharoo wrote:
I guess the question I'd ask of you guys is: "Who benefits from blacks being disproportionately poor?".

Very rich white people. Almost exclusively.


So wealthy democrats. Got it.

The Democrats have long since become a tale of two economic statuses. The very poor and the very rich (with a smattering of well meaning folks in between). The GOP has largely become the party of the middle class. I get that this doesn't match the "rich vs poor" narrative you want to make things out to be, but there you have it.


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About the worst thing I can possibly think of happening to the modern GOPDemocratic Party is black people becoming a solid part of the middle class. Don't worry, though, the constant push for institutional racismmore welfare to keep them down still works great.


FTFY

You get that if more black people were actually in the middle class, they'd vote Republican, right? Let me also take a moment to point out the flaw in your earlier chart. You said "middle class blacks" were more likely to end up poor than middle class whites, but if you look closely, the chart shows "middle quintile" for blacks and whites. Hate to burst your bubble, but the median black household income is just over $20k/year less than median white household income ($55k to $32k). So while you imply a comparison between two groups of people starting out on an equal economic footing and contrasting the economic outcomes for their children, suggesting that this must be the result of racial inequality somehow, the data is actually comparing the outcomes between two completely different (dramatically different) starting points.

So, I'll go with option 3.
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#780 Apr 30 2015 at 5:54 PM Rating: Good
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#781 Apr 30 2015 at 6:04 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
The Democrats have long since become a tale of two economic statuses. The very poor and the very rich (with a smattering of well meaning folks in between). The GOP has largely become the party of the middle class.

2012 Breakdown by Income (D-R):
Under $30k: 63-35
31k-50k: 57-42
50-100k: 46-52
Over 100k: 44-54

2014 Breakdown by Income (D-R):
Under 30k: 59-39
31k-50k: 51-47
50k-100k: 44-55
100k-200k: 41-57
Over 200k: 42-57

In 2008, Obama won the highest bracket ($200k+) by 53-45 which wasn't too surprising since the sitting Republican president just presided over a massive financial crash and the GOP nominee was responding by "putting his campaign on hold to solve this" and then doing jack-all Smiley: laugh

To use another metric, the top 100 donors to outside spending groups during the 2014 election broke down 50/50 for liberal and conservative donors. While the top liberal donors gave more, I feel comfortable saying that anyone who gives $500,000 during an election cycle is plenty rich, even if he wasn't as rich as the guy who gave $3,000,000.

Edited, Apr 30th 2015 7:17pm by Jophiel
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#782 Apr 30 2015 at 6:20 PM Rating: Good
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#783 Apr 30 2015 at 6:25 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
The Democrats have long since become a tale of two economic statuses. The very poor and the very rich (with a smattering of well meaning folks in between). The GOP has largely become the party of the middle class.

2012 Breakdown by Income (D-R):
Under $30k: 63-35
31k-50k: 57-42
50-100k: 46-52
Over 100k: 44-54

2014 Breakdown by Income (D-R):
Under 30k: 59-39
31k-50k: 51-47
50k-100k: 44-55
100k-200k: 41-57
Over 200k: 42-57

In 2008, Obama won the highest bracket ($200k+) by 53-45 which wasn't too surprising since the sitting Republican president just presided over a massive financial crash and the GOP nominee was responding by "putting his campaign on hold to solve this" and then doing jack-all Smiley: laugh


Yeah. "over 200k" is a massively wide range though. Basically, everything on that chart other than the "below 30k" is still mostly folks in the working and middle classes". Pin a category that starts at $1m/year or "net worth exceeds $50m" and you'll find that the "very rich" are indeed more likely to lean left and vote democrat.

Quote:
An individual’s likelihood of being a Democrat decreases with every additional dollar he or she earns. Democrats have a huge advantage (63 percent) with voters earning less than $15,000 per year. This advantage carries forward for individuals earning up to $50,000 per year, and then turns in the Republicans’ favor — with just 36 percent of individuals earning more than $200,000 per year supporting Democrats.


Supports the limited data you posted, right? But wait! There's more...

Quote:
Ultra-Wealthy

While Democrats lose support as income increases, there seems to be a tipping point where the ultra-wealthy begin leaning Democratic. The most famous example would be the entertainment industry, where star-studded events have become a significant part of Democratic culture.

But this phenomenon is not limited to Hollywood. A review of the 20 richest Americans, as listed by Forbes Magazine, found that 60 percent affiliate with the Democratic Party, including the top three individuals: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Larry Ellison. Among the riches families, the Democratic advantage rises even higher, to 75 percent.



This is what I mean. The very rich are democrats. The very poor are democrats. The folks in the middle are Republicans.
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#784 Apr 30 2015 at 6:36 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
To use another metric, the top 100 donors to outside spending groups during the 2014 election broke down 50/50 for liberal and conservative donors. While the top liberal donors gave more, I feel comfortable saying that anyone who gives $500,000 during an election cycle is plenty rich, even if he wasn't as rich as the guy who gave $3,000,000.


Again though, the "very rich" lean left. Those who have so much wealth that no matter how high you set tax rates, it wont affect their standard of living, are overwhelmingly liberals. They are liberals because they know that the policies of the left don't actually hurt them. It's the folks who are beneath them, and still trying to become wealthy (much less "rich") that those policies hurt. It's presumably about maintaining their own ivory tower of wealth and privilege. They're more than willing to give up a small percentage of their earnings to provide for the masses, as long as it means that those masses can't ever aspire to be their equals.

They know that in a system where the government provides for those masses, and they have the most influence on government, they get to basically run things. The narrative that the GOP is the "party of the rich" is completely false. It's the Democrats who are run by the uber wealthy who use their money and influence over government to buy the votes of the poor with one hand while creating economic policies that ensure a large enough dependent poor population to maintain their position with the other.

But hey. Even if you don't buy that motivation, you do really have to drop the idea that it's the GOP that is the party of the rich. The GOP is the party of the middle class.
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#785 Apr 30 2015 at 6:37 PM Rating: Excellent
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So your argument is that, since Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are Democrats and because there's a 60/40 split among the top 20 richest people (i.e. 12-to-8), the GOP is the "party of the middle class"? Smiley: laugh
Quote:
Yeah. "over 200k" is a massively wide range though

It is outside of "Middle Class" though, right? I mean, you can keep trying to winnow it down to twenty people if you're desperate to make an argument but even by Romney's "The middle class is people making $200, $250k or less" metric you're pretty safely not talking about the middle class going GOP by 15 points.

Edited, Apr 30th 2015 7:42pm by Jophiel
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#786 Apr 30 2015 at 6:52 PM Rating: Good
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Man... here I thought I made decent cash. You'd have to almost quadruple my salary before I was in gbaji's "middle class"...
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#787 Apr 30 2015 at 7:32 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
So your argument is that, since Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are Democrats and because there's a 60/40 split among the top 20 richest people (i.e. 12-to-8), the GOP is the "party of the middle class"? Smiley: laugh
Quote:
Yeah. "over 200k" is a massively wide range though

It is outside of "Middle Class" though, right?


No, it's not. Middle class can have several definitions, but it's generally defined based on self sufficiency. A working class person tends to be hourly, or if salaried, is earning just enough to get by on (which can depend on their family size). Middle class makes up those who earn sufficient amounts of money to be financially comfortable and can grow wealth over time (they're putting money away, have investments, etc). The upper bounds of this in terms of salary can vary wildly. But unless you're just creating a gap with no label, then we have to assume that "middle class" extends all the way up to the bottom of "rich". When do we call someone "rich"? Usually that's defined as having sufficient money to not need to work for someone else (sufficient investment income to live off of, and/or or own your own businesses that earn enough to give you a sizeable standard of living).

Middle class absolutely extends well into the 6 figure income level.

Quote:
I mean, you can keep trying to winnow it down to twenty people if you're desperate to make an argument but even by Romney's "The middle class is people making $200, $250k or less" metric you're pretty safely not talking about the middle class going GOP by 15 points.


Again. The point was that the democrats have a hole in the middle. They have their highest rates among the "very poor" and the "very rich". Just like I said. You're obsessing over where the middle class is, but the bigger question is where the "very rich" is. That's the group that the left loves to demonize and claim is in some kind of evil alliance with the GOP. Yet, when we actually look at the wealthiest individuals and families, they overwhelmingly support the Democrats.

My point is that if your narrative is that "rich people like the GOP because the GOP policies help the rich", then the data clearly doesn't support that.
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#788 Apr 30 2015 at 7:54 PM Rating: Excellent
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You're the one trying to use this as a basis for "The GOP is the party of the middle class!". Pointing out what "middle class" is isn't "obsessing" about it, it's questioning your metric. Apparently your metric here is to be vague so you don't have to actually defend it. The fact that a handful of extremely wealthy people go Democratic likewise doesn't negate the fact that the majority of wealthy voters in the nation go Republican. You're so frantic to try and flip the narrative that you're not even making sense.

The "self-sufficiency" model for middle class is flawed for this intent since you're REALLY saying "The GOP stands for families making enough to be self-sufficient" when a great many families making the median wage don't feel that way at all. If you have to be in the upper quartile to be self-sufficient (savings, education, health care, taking a vacation and other marks of financial stability) than that doesn't really fall into anyone's definition of "middle class" so much as make one wonder WTF happened to destroy the middle class and force one to be rich to feel stable.
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#789 Apr 30 2015 at 8:01 PM Rating: Decent
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TirithRR wrote:
Man... here I thought I made decent cash. You'd have to almost quadruple my salary before I was in gbaji's "middle class"...


So you make like $20k/year? You guys are obsessing on the high end here. I said that the range in Joph's chart above the $30k/year point mostly includes the working and middle class. I did not say that only people making over $200k/year are "middle class".

If I were conservatively place a dollar amount on it, I'd say that an individual with no spouse or dependents making more than say $50k/year could be considered middle class (that's certainly enough to comfortably provide a home, travel, put money away, grow net worth over time, etc). A family of 4 might need to earn more like $80k/year to be considered middle class.

But that's the bottom of the range. I guess I'm curious where you think the working class sits in there then if that's too high. I don't think it's unreasonable to say a single person is "poor" if they earn less than say $20k/year, "working class" between $20k/year and $50k/year, and middle class starting at $50k/year and extending up to maybe $500k/year or so. Again, the upper bounds for middle class is tricky, because you're really defining the lower bounds for "rich". And that itself is a really subjective determination.


My main issue was with Joph trying to prove that the "very rich" don't favor the Left by presenting a chart that has as its upper category "$200k or higher". That's very very very very very far below anything anyone would ever call "very rich". There is more economic and social difference between someone earning $200k/year and someone earning $50m/year than there is between someone earning $30k/year and someone earning $200k/year. The latter two are most likely still wage earners (working for someone else). While the $200k/year guy probably has sufficient savings to weather a job loss, he's also got much higher living expenses and may find it far harder to find a replacement job if he looses his. Both therefore have some degree of financial stress. The guy earning $50m/year? He's not really worried about anything at all.

It's very misleading to just lump those in the same category, show the ratio of D/R voters within the category and call it a day. It would be just as misleading to put everyone earning "less than $150k/year" in one category and then argue based on the latest election results that more poor people vote for the GOP than vote for the Democrats. In both cases, the range includes a large number of people outside the population we're talking about. If you want to identify the poor, you must look just at people with low earnings (which Joph's table did). Similarly, if you want to identify the "very rich", you have to look just at people with very large yearling earnings and very large net worth. Which Joph's table absolutely did not.
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#790 Apr 30 2015 at 8:08 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
TirithRR wrote:
Man... here I thought I made decent cash. You'd have to almost quadruple my salary before I was in gbaji's "middle class"...


So you make like $20k/year? You guys are obsessing on the high end here. I said that the range in Joph's chart above the $30k/year point mostly includes the working and middle class. I did not say that only people making over $200k/year are "middle class"..


Well, you said the middle class was becoming the GOP class. Going by the numbers the first range of incomes that really begun to shift to the GOP side was when you started hitting the 200k bracket.
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#791 Apr 30 2015 at 8:16 PM Rating: Excellent
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My main issue was with Joph trying to prove that the "very rich" don't favor the Left by presenting a chart...

My point was that the GOP is the party of the rich. It simply is. You're trying to spin this into "No, it's the Democrats who are for the rich!" by using the extreme end of the spectrum because you really, really want to wave the "We're for the middle class!" banner. What's under $200 million a year isn't "middle class" though. Just own the fact that the wealthy in this country vote GOP at a significantly higher percentage than they vote Democratic. It's just true and Bill Gates or Warren Buffet aren't going to change that simple truth no matter how hard you wish they would.

The most common figure you see for defining "middle class" is 50% higher or lower than the median family income and then trimming the ends off that (i.e. eliminating "lower middle" and "upper middle" class). By that metric, you're looking at a family earning between $30,000 and $70,000. But "middle class" is a wonderfully vague term where you can insist that it means whatever you want which I suppose helps when you're grabbing for the banner.

Edited, Apr 30th 2015 9:20pm by Jophiel
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#792 Apr 30 2015 at 8:29 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
You're the one trying to use this as a basis for "The GOP is the party of the middle class!". Pointing out what "middle class" is isn't "obsessing" about it, it's questioning your metric.


If that's all I said, you'd still be wrong, but at least not quite as wrong. My primary point was that the Democrats are a "tail of two statuses". The very poor and the very rich. That was my primary comment, and the fact that your initial responses were all about how many votes Obama or Romney got in the "$200k or above" category shows that you understood the primary point was about who the "very rich" vote for.

I said that the GOP is "largely the middle class". Which is absolutely true. If we ignore the top bracket and look at the freaking charts, we see that the Democrats have a large advantage among those earning less than $30k, a modest advantage with people between $30k and $50k. And the GOP gains a modest advantage that runs from the $50k range up to the $200k range.

Let's not forget that the entire category of "above $200k" only makes up about 5% of the population. So yes, it's not inaccurate to say that most GOP voters are "middle class". Even if we magically decide that the break point between middle class and rich is right at $200k/year, this is true.

And it's still also true that the "very rich" lean overwhelmingly Democrat. So both of the statements I made are factually true. I get that you don't like to have this pointed out to you because it violates the "GOP is the party of the rich" narrative, but it's absolutely true.

Quote:
Apparently your metric here is to be vague so you don't have to actually defend it. The fact that a handful of extremely wealthy people go Democratic likewise doesn't negate the fact that the majority of wealthy voters in the nation go Republican.


So what? The majority of "wealthy voters" aren't the "very rich".

Quote:
You're so frantic to try and flip the narrative that you're not even making sense.


Lol. Yeah. Maybe you need to take a look in the mirror. I'm seeing near panic going on there. I made a pair of absolutely correct statements, and you've been desperately trying to find some way to twist around the numbers to make it seem like it's not true.

I guess what's funny to me is that you'd be perfectly within the realm of sanity to point the tin foil hat at me for my comments about the motivations of the very rich and why they support the Democrats. That's at least a completely subjective (and pretty darn conspiratorial) opinion you could call BS on and no one would bat an eye. But you can't even get to that point because you're too busy denying the completely objectively true part of what I said. Which kinda speaks volumes about the need for maintaining that "rich==GOP" narrative on your part.

Quote:
The "self-sufficiency" model for middle class is flawed for this intent since you're REALLY saying "The GOP stands for families making enough to be self-sufficient" when a great many families making the median wage don't feel that way at all.


Sure. But the median wage (right around $50k or so IIRC) is the bottom of the middle class Joph. The bottom is the point at which "some people" will obtain some financial security (I said the model was "based on self sufficiency", but that's about degrees, not a black or white condition). You do understand the concept of a range of incomes, right? Also, as I clearly stated earlier, the exact number varies based on the family dynamics (and frankly, where you live). So yes, a family earning a dollar amount that I said was the bottom level for a single person with no dependents not feeling self sufficient doesn't in anyway invalidate what I said.

it's like you're just looking for some way to attack the words I'm writing without bothering to read for comprehension. Stop. Take a deep breath. Read what I wrote. Take some time to let it sink in. You'll find that it makes perfect sense.

Quote:
If you have to be in the upper quartile to be self-sufficient (savings, education, health care, taking a vacation and other marks of financial stability) than that doesn't really fall into anyone's definition of "middle class" so much as make one wonder WTF happened to destroy the middle class and force one to be rich to feel stable.


Who said "upper quartile"? My range starts right around the median income, which is right where most academics place it.

And again. I did not say that you must be self sufficient to be middle class. I said it was "based on self sufficiency". Meaning that's the yardstick we're using. A working class person is not able to work towards self sufficiency (insufficient earnings to be able to invest/save enough to achieve that condition). Middle class is the starting point at which one can begin to work towards that goal. And it contains the bulk of 50% of the population, so it's not like we're excluding a huge number of people here.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to argue here.
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#793 Apr 30 2015 at 8:50 PM Rating: Decent
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TirithRR wrote:
gbaji wrote:
TirithRR wrote:
Man... here I thought I made decent cash. You'd have to almost quadruple my salary before I was in gbaji's "middle class"...


So you make like $20k/year? You guys are obsessing on the high end here. I said that the range in Joph's chart above the $30k/year point mostly includes the working and middle class. I did not say that only people making over $200k/year are "middle class"..


Well, you said the middle class was becoming the GOP class. Going by the numbers the first range of incomes that really begun to shift to the GOP side was when you started hitting the 200k bracket.


Guess that depends on what you mean by "really begun to shift". Actually, no. Your comment makes no sense by any definition. The point at which the numbers have the largest shift is right at the $50k point. The range before that (30-50) has a 5 point advantage for the Dems, while the one after it (50-100) has a 4 point advantage for the GOP. That's a 9 point shift. In contrast, the shift between 100-200 and 200+ is only like one point.

And lest you think that the 50-100 range is too big (I'd actually agree with you), the source I linked earlier was quite clear about this (I didn't quote the second paragraph earlier, maybe I should have):

Quote:
An individual’s likelihood of being a Democrat decreases with every additional dollar he or she earns. Democrats have a huge advantage (63 percent) with voters earning less than $15,000 per year. This advantage carries forward for individuals earning up to $50,000 per year, and then turns in the Republicans’ favor — with just 36 percent of individuals earning more than $200,000 per year supporting Democrats.

Interestingly, the median household income in the United States is $49,777 — right near the point where the Democratic advantage disappears and the Republicans take over.


That's the point at which the GOP gains support. Right at the middle point income-wise. And that's generally right at the point most people start the middle class. So yeah, saying the GOP is mostly made up of the middle class is completely accurate.

And equally true is my original statement (re-quoting it because Joph apparently forgot what I said that started all of this):

gbaji wrote:
The Democrats have long since become a tale of two economic statuses. The very poor and the very rich (with a smattering of well meaning folks in between). The GOP has largely become the party of the middle class.


The GOP has a relatively smooth progression of support across the "middle" income ranges. Small at the low end, gradually getting larger to become a majority right in the middle, then gradually increasing to larger rates at higher income levels. This makes sense if you're a pro-growth party. But the Democrats do have this odd "hole in the middle" aspect to them. They are massively popular among the poor and again among a very small number of the most wealthy. They lose the middle. That's the point I was making. For a party that claims to appeal to "the people", it's odd that their support falls most at the extreme ends of the economic spectrum

That sort of demographic seem to support the tin foil hat explanation I mentioned earlier. One where a small number of very wealthy people control the party and its agenda for their own benefit, and take advantage of the poor to maintain their power. But hey! I'm open to alternative explanations. But we first have to even agree that the "very rich" do indeed break heavily Democrat. But so far it's like pulling teeth to get folks to acknowledge this basic starting point.
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#794 Apr 30 2015 at 10:30 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
For a party that claims to appeal to "the people", it's odd that their support falls most at the extreme ends of the economic spectrum

The "extreme end" of one side isn't very extreme at all since it includes people making up to the median income. If we were talking people making $1000 on one end and people making $2mil on the other, this might be an argument. Of course, a party that has won the last five out of six popular votes and even won a majority of votes in the last midterm can, in fact, probably say it's appealing to "the people". This isn't any claim that the 2000 election or 2014 midterms were illegitimate but just a statement of fact that more people cast Democratic ballots than Republican ones (even if they're casting them in the 'wrong' districts/states). Probably not all hobos and billionaires, either.
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#795 May 01 2015 at 2:21 AM Rating: Decent
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No, it's not. Middle class can have several definitions, but it's generally defined based on self sufficiency.

Nope. It's the middle three income quintiles....hence the term 'middle'. Not that fucking complicated, really. I'm not sure why you want to argue that the GOP is 'the party of the middle class' or whatever, but moving the goalposts to the point where people making $500k/yr are 'middle class' is an idiotic way to do it regardless.
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#796 May 01 2015 at 2:29 AM Rating: Decent
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Again though, the "very rich" lean left

Yeah, no. As usual we don't need to guess or link random blogs with 'analysis' like 'look, 11 of the top 20 people on this 'rich guy list' voted Democratic!

http://www.gallup.com/poll/151310/U.S.-Republican-Not-Conservative.aspx

This sort of thing aside, though, the very wealthy generally just buy access to the process by supporting both parties. Once you have enough money, ideology doesn't really matter as much as influence unless you're trying to change the world or whatever.
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#797 May 01 2015 at 8:26 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
That's the wrong question. I'll just handwave the question you asked and answer a question I have prepared for.
More accurate.
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#798 May 01 2015 at 6:12 PM Rating: Decent
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Smasharoo wrote:
No, it's not. Middle class can have several definitions, but it's generally defined based on self sufficiency.

Nope. It's the middle three income quintiles....hence the term 'middle'.


Um... No. That's not even close. Where is the working class? You've stretched the "middle class" to basically be everyone. Using household incomes, that would be a range between $30k and $100k. No sane person uses this range for the middle class. It's too low at the bottom, and not high enough at the top to be a useful measurement of relative economic status.

I already linked the freaking wiki page, but you're free to find other sources. It lists three academic ranges for middle class. The first starts it at the 55th percentile. The second somewhere between the 46th and 52nd percentile, and the third between the 52nd and 55th percentile. No one. Let me repeat this no one starts the middle class at the 20th percentile. No one starts it at the 40th percentile. They all pretty consistently start it at or near the 50th percentile.

If you don't do this, you don't have a working class. I get that maybe some people just want to make others feel good by calling anyone with a job "middle class", but that's simply not the case. There is a distinction between working class and middle class. Otherwise, there's no point to having the terms in the first place.

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Not that fucking complicated, really.


And yet, you've managed to get it completely wrong.

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I'm not sure why you want to argue that the GOP is 'the party of the middle class' or whatever...


Because the income percentile where the GOP takes the majority occurs right at the same point where the middle class income range starts? Is it the monumentally simple math that's confusing you?

Quote:
...but moving the goalposts to the point where people making $500k/yr are 'middle class' is an idiotic way to do it regardless.



As opposed to moving the goalpost to the point where people making $30k/year are 'middle class'? Really? The three middle class income models mentioned earlier have the middle class extending to the 99th, 99th, and 94th percentiles respectively. So my range isn't unreasonable at all depending on the model used. Your range? Ridiculous.

Edited, May 1st 2015 5:14pm by gbaji
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#799 May 01 2015 at 6:27 PM Rating: Good
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How about make the bottom wage for middle class be "no longer qualifies for subsidy under ACA guidelines"?

That's about $50K/yr. "Self sufficient", right?

Make the top somewhere around $225K/yr. That's $60/hr at 80 hours a week for a basic doctor, right?

I kind of always thought of the "middle class" as middle management or factory type jobs where you made a decent wage making stuff. Too bad a bunch those jobs went outside the border, eh?
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#800 May 01 2015 at 6:54 PM Rating: Good
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wikipedia wrote:
Households in the top quintile (i.e., top 20%), 77% of which had two or more income earners, had incomes exceeding $91,705. Households in the mid quintile, most of which had one income earner per household, had incomes between $36,000 and $57,607. Households in the lowest quintile had incomes less than $19,178 and the majority had no income earner.[26]


The range for the middle 20% is 36-57k; If you generously wish to expand the middle class upwards, toward but not downwards, you would have the range of 36k to 92k. as a middle class, comprising a lopsided 40% of the population (ie 20% upper class, 40% middle class, 40% lower class).

If you think this is faulty, percentages of the population do you believe should be upper/middle/lower class?
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#801 May 01 2015 at 8:18 PM Rating: Excellent
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Smasharoo wrote:
I'm not sure why you want to argue that the GOP is 'the party of the middle class' or whatever

You're being polite, right?
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Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
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