Thursday, January 30, 2014

Rich still spending money, saving even more, despite warnings against recent tax increase!!!

As it turned out, that "job killing" tax increase on the wealthy didn't decrease their spending at all, and didn't hurt their ability to still put away huge amounts in their savings accounts.
Business Insider: In a new note to clients, UBS's U.S. economics team led by Maury
Harris and Drew Matus (say) people making more money save a bigger chunk of their paychecks. Harris and Matus … believe this buffer will blunt the impact of recent tax hikes. "We believe that the recently legislated higher household sector taxes in 2013 considerably overstate the related negative consumption impacts," they write.

Higher Federal income taxes on relatively wealthy taxpayers should be accompanied by a drop in savings … Saving rates increase sharply at higher income levels…
The Bad News we Already Knew: I received this interesting note from my Wonkblog email:
Obama wants businesses to raise pay. Here's why they probably won't listen. "Companies have discovered that precisely by keeping wages lower, they have been able to boost profits to record levels and fulfill their ultimate goal: rewarding shareholders. In a report released earlier this month, Goldman Sachs chief U.S. chief economist Jan Hatzius noted that the strength in corporate profits is "directly related to the weakness in hourly wages."" Jia Lynn Yang in The Washington Post.

3 comments:

  1. High Labor wages and benefits is now an uncessary expense to Corporations. For the last 30 years they've beaten back most of the Progressive gains of the 20th century.

    There's no reason they'll go back now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. With the decline of Industrial Capitalism, based on war, Franken food, endless expansion based on carbon power sources, a government of corporate Muppets and a population of zombies craving short-term satiation. The idea of salvation through profit is quaint.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Profit and wealth
    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weal
    There is a word ‘weal’ that preceded both profit and wealth. It is what society once sought to attain. It became obsolete in the 12th century when the manufacturing of iron became common and the industrial age was born.

    ReplyDelete