Read it for the third time last week. Great ideas, entirely relevant today (at least, to me), too long by half. For whatever it's worth, Alan Greenspan was a disciple of Rand.
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Read it for the third time last week. Great ideas, entirely relevant today (at least, to me), too long by half. For whatever it's worth, Alan Greenspan was a disciple of Rand.
Here is Greenspan's testimony of shocked disbelief that the system he swallowed so deep eventually crashed so hard.
Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress on Thursday he is “shocked” at the breakdown in U.S. credit markets and said he was “partially” wrong to resist regulation of some securities.
…”this crisis, however, has turned out to be much broader than anything I could have imagined,” …
…”Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder’s equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief,” …
alan greenspan
What I put in BOLD is only true if you're filing Jointly.
If you are single or filing separately there is only a 1% change comparing '57 and '10 tax rates.
Plus in this day and age, most married couples both work. So, their combined salary would put them in the next bracket.
Gerry,
I didn't use inflation adjusted numbers because they are actually irrelevant. The measure I was giving is actually a measure of the extent of income disparity in the country. The traditional measure of this is based on income levels by population quintiles with a specific formula. The measure I provided was much easier to come up with quickly and gives the same flavor. What it basically shows is a country that in 1957, was relatively egalitarian without huge gaps between the highest paid income groups and the lowest paid income groups. By contrast, today we have a society in which the majority of the population earns dramatically less than the top 20% and a much greater proportion of total income is earned by a very small group at the top. Given that one measure of socialism is a leveling of incomes, the 1857 distribution is more "socialist" than the current distribution and your thesis is incorrect. I can think of many ways to refine the analysis. However, if anything, I have understated the extent to which income and wealth have shifted from the lower 80% to the top 20% over the last fifty years in America. This is not a healthy trend when taken to the extremes that we now have and contributes to social unrest in the face of economic injustice. For what it is worth, I actually believe that some of the shift was healthy. The 1957 income distribution reflected the exigencies of the Depression and WWII when it was considered unseemly to earn too much given the great needs of so many. Now, however, we have taken the Adam Smith philosophy and said that if a little bit of greed is good, then an obscenely greedy man is like a god to be worshiped.
In literature one can interpret the author’s presentation based on their life experience and interests. I immediately thought of field trials as I was reading Atlas Shrugged. It starts out with a family, descendents of a railroad baron, running a railroad based in New York with an estate on the Hudson River. I immediately thought of the non-fictitious railroad barons, the Harriman’s, with their estate Arden on the Hudson. The next step is to take the characters in the book and try to find the closest similarities to those I have known in field trials. Certainly I wondered did anyone else when they read the book think of Harriman as the railroad baron when they read Atlas Shrugged?
It certainly is a shame that W. A. Harriman is not in the Retriever Hall of Fame, because he certainly was one of the patrons of our sport. His Arden Kennels are of significant interest in the history of the sport. He imported Labrador Retrievers and made them one of the most popular dogs in America. He also brought over game keepers and conducted field trials at three of his estates. The first FC Labrador of record was owned by W. A. Harriman.
Jack
Have to correct you on this. The Federal Reserve is a "private enterprise". Contrary to popular belief, it is not government owned or controlled. Alan Greenspan has never been a government employee. Here is a good link I found that describes the Fed.
http://www.monetary.org/federalreserveprivate.htm
Can't really dispute that singles really take it in the shorts. However, the top rate that they would ever be expected to pay is much different than it was in 1957.
The fact that both spouses work in most marriages does not change the fact that median household income is $50,000.
Clip from Atlas Shrugged Part II
http://www.atlasshruggedmovie.com/at...II+Trailer+now