Actual Wall Street Journal graphic on how much people will suffer in tax hikes (truly bizarre)

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Photo from:
https://www.facebook.com/TheEverlastingGopStoppers

[PoliticAverse]

1. "notice the saddened faces" - more proof that money doesn't necessarily buy happiness I guess. n/t

[UnrepentantLiberal]

3. Angry too.

The Democrats made everyone sad and angry.

[politicaljunkie41910]

31. Just further proof that President Obama hates white people.

Notice the brown people in that picture's taxes didn't go up.

[1983law]

32. I KNEW IT!!!

Well said. Thanks for the laugh...

[Arkansas Granny]

2. It has become so hard to tell, these days but is this real?

looks more like something from the Onion.

[PoliticAverse]

5. Real and online even...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323689604578220132665726040.html

'Interactive' version: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323689604578220132665726040.html#project%3DWEALTH0105%26articleTabs%3Dinteractive

[tavalon]

17. What the hell is wrong with those people?

I mean, other than being comic strip like characters. That would be a bummer but otherwise, who wouldn't want to have their "problem"? Selfish comic strip people.

[valerief]

8. So true! nt

[greiner3]

4. "...poor, poor family..."

I have seen the demographics of this 'family' and 4 children is about double its rate.

Also, this family ONLY put $196,283 into investment income; in one year alone!

[Beartracks]

6. Wow, that is truly a "broad swath" of Americans.

3/4 of those households bring home over $200,000 per year.

Well, okay, I guess taxes aren't increasing for most people *under* $200K, so the graphic just represents, what -- a "broad swath" of WSJ readers?

===================

[aandegoons]

7. Wow what a impressionable bunch of nuts the conservatives are.

I almost haz a sad face for em.

[JustAnotherGen]

9. My husband and I

Fall in these demographics and we are dancing in gleeeeeeee!

Shoring up social security? Check.

Stop there. We are thrilled! Those was faces do NOT represent all high earners. It only reflects selfis high earners.

[Skinner]

10. Also note the sad-faced retirees, who get a tax increase of "none".

Why so sad, retirees?

[tavalon]

18. I think the idea is that the retired people should get a tax break and

we shouldn't be concerned about the amount of money they get each year.

[Flatulo]

20. Gee, investment income of $180,000 a year would mean they have principal of $4.5m,

assuming a market return of 4%.

I wonder how many retirees have that much of a stash? I don't have 1/15 of that, and my financial planner says I'm in the top 10 percentile for savings.

Try as I might, I could never spend $135K in a year when I was working.

[tavalon]

23. Sigh, I wish I could say the same

Then again, last year was my first year to break 6 figures, but with an autistic teenager with many health problems and now, estranged from hubby and paying child support (which I willingly and happily pay), I think it's fairly easy to spend it.

[Flatulo]

25. Unlike most of my peers, I resisted the temptation

to buy a McMansion. I had a pretty small mortgage on my pretty small home, which I paid off 15 years early. Seems like everyone else was counting on their home to finance their retirement.

[Coyotl]

11. OFCS! Don't they know the "broad swath" of single Moms live below the poverty line?

Yeah, let's raise the minimum wage to $230k a year.

[Scootaloo]

14. My jaw dropped. $260,000?!?!

Folks, growing up me, my mother, and my sister would have been ecstatic about $14,000 a year.

Two fucking hundred and sixty fucking thousand goddamned dollars a year for a single mom with two kids?! Is she a goddamned colombian drug lord's widow, is that what's going on here? Jesus christ.

[RedstDem]

12. Aw, the 1%

such a sad lot.
I'm here to tell you all, these people are always sad and angry.

they're called drama queens!

[socalgal58]

13. I know its early, but....

I had to do a double take as I too thought this was from The Onion..... WTF? Really? A single parent wi/$260K in annual income? A retired couple with $180K in annual income? My single parent friends are lucky if they can make $40K a year- and retired couples? My parents are in their 80's and my mother still works part time- $180K? That's a dream for them. Jeezus, where do they get this crap? Better send the waahmbulance to help these poor poor individuals with their "pain".

[Jakes Progress]

38. Shows how out of touch they are.

Like bush not knowing how much loaf of bread costs. He guessed twenty dollars or more. These people have so much money, that eh amount we live on means nothing to them.

Clueless, greedy assholes.

[Demo_Chris]

15. You think it's EASY getting by on only 379K a year?!

You have no freaking idea what it's like to be a middle class person in this country!

Obviously I am not going to live in a ghetto, but that doesn't mean we all live in mansions! We live in a modest 3200 square foot house in a gated subdivision. Did I say house? It's a money pit! Even the little things add up to serious money. Just paying the pool boy costs a fortune and it's not even that big of a pool! The groundskeepers are $550 a month, and that's a bargain I only got when I threatened to call immigration on them. Then we've got the housekeeping service, and that isn't cheap. You'd think for what we pay them they would do the outside third story windows, but no, we have to pay a window company for that as well. It's a scandal.

Nothing is cheap these days. Not for any of us. My son Prescott came home crying the other day. It seems he wandered outside the walls of our community and was set upon by a gang of hooligans who made fun of the way he was dressed. He ran away, as we have tought him, and these criminals followed -- still yelling insults -- until they were stopped by the security at the gate. Prescott was inconsolable. His hat -- a jaunty bowler he selected himself on his last trip to London -- fell off when he fled, and not being suicidal I wasn't about to venture out there to retrieve it myself, so I had to have a new one sent next day air. So there's that bill, plus the intensive therapy Prescott will need after his ordeal. He graduates from Marbury Academy next year, then it's off to college, so we have that to look forward to as well.

My daughter Penelope adds her own expenses. She too is still in therapy -- we won't go into why. Plus she does dance, gymnastics, and equitation. Her horse alone is setting us back a fortune, never mind the stable fees and the groomsmen, but my little princess is worth it!

Anyway, like I said, it's not exactly easy being middle class. $31,000 a month only goes so far. We are struggling exactly like the rest of you. I am only thankful that President Obama decided not to raise our taxes -- I don't know how we would get by.

[Granny M]

21. Oh, the horror.

The poor mites.

[onlyadream]

22. Very good

You had me going for a sentence or two. Thanks for the chuckle!

[Angry Dragon]

34. +256

[Brigid]

40. You win DU for the day.

[marions ghost]

42. These people really do exist

-------!

[nuxvomica]

16. Words like "suffer" and "pain" don't apply at those income levels

This is the rhetorical trick the right has been using for decades: define suffering applicable to middle class and lower incomes and expand it proportionally to upper incomes. There is no way an upper income person has a greater tax "burden" when their taxes increase 5%. A burden is a weight on the body. A working class person feels taxes as such a weight because they use their bodies in actual labor to generate income and any shortfall of that income affects their bodies and those of their dependents -- less money for food, health care, etc. At some point embodied metaphors have to mean something and if words like "pain", "suffering", "onerous", "burdensome" and "relief" can apply to financial wealth then the rich must be far more sensitive and delicate than the rest of us. Perhaps the expansion of personal wealth actually does expand one's vulnerability to pain. If so, higher taxes could be seen, long term, as a blessing to the rich.

[Demo_Chris]

24. Sir, until you have walked a mile in my thousand dollar Salvatore Ferragamo loafers, do not judge!

Last edited Sun Jan 13, 2013, 11:14 AM - Edit history (1)

[onlyadream]

19. Are they kidding!?

Oh, those poor poor people!!!! I feel sooooo sorry for them!! I guess maybe the will have to cut back and put less money in their secret bank accounts.

[doc03]

26. Damn, retired couple $180,000, I didn't know

us retirees were doing that well. I think I am getting short changed. They didn't get any tax increase, see SS is too generous.

[Demo_Chris]

29. Kidding aside, there are a whole lot of folks doing VERY nicely in this country

There are millions just in the top couple percent, and a whole lot more doing damn near as well.

The problem is the divide between those doing fine, and those who are not. America's largest employer is Walmart. Most of the rest of the largest employers are similar type jobs, all paying as close to minimum wage and zero benefits as possible. Walmart checkers average about 17K a year, and for jobs of this type that's not that bad. Unfortunately, for much of the country that's all there is. You are either wealthy as Midas or you are poor as dirt.

But this is what WE wanted.

Democrats passed NAFTA. And that, as they say, was that. This agreement, and others like it, was the end of unions, prosperity, and the middle class. With the stroke of a pen we became a retail service economy, and we condemned our children to poverty.

I say we, but I am being nice. My generation had nothing to do with it.

[doc03]

30. Something I have noticed is I see a disproportionate

number of senior citizens eating in restaurants especially higher end ones. The reason is not SS pays so much but a large percentage of us worked good union jobs that provided a good pension. I know I have it a lot better in my retirement than my brother 16 years younger than me will have it. I worked a good union job and they are all gone, his whole life has been a struggle trying to live on non-union low wage jobs. My brother is 49 his company doesn't have a pension and he can't afford to put much into a 401k working for those wages.

[greatauntoftriplets]

41. Gee!! If I retire now will I earn $180,000 a year?

It'd be a first for me!!!

[Xipe Totec]

27. First World Problem

[LiberalFighter]

28. Now I wonder who owns the Wall Street Journal?

Could it be News Corporation and the one and only evil Rupert Murdoch?

[TeamPooka]

33. In the WSJ's America no one makes less than $180K a year..... nt

[Festivito]

35. Notice the black couple earns the least and is least affected by Obama's tax.

Just a coincidence I bet.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

36. Boy, talk about being out of touch with reality!

Anybody making THAT kind of income would barely notice those kind of increases in their taxes.

[Jakes Progress]

37. Golly. The Journal is right. We didn't raise taxes enough.

A single person with almost a quarter of a million a year only has to pay an extra 1%. She should be kicking in an extra $10K or so, minimum.

Greedy, out of touch assholes.

[Jakes Progress]

39. The "broad swath" the Journal refers to are less than 2% of the people.

Assholes.