Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Fair Doesn't Enter The Equation

at 7:48 AM Posted by Morans With Signs



In conclusion, 101% of taxpayers pay 139% of the taxes.
  

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8 comments:

Nothing Knew said...
January 13, 2010 at 10:34 AM  

While I think the gentleman holding the sign doesn't understand how an advanced society helps the less fortunate, I do think his sign is mathematically correct.

The "top 1%" and the "top 50%" are not mutually exclusive. The top 50% is the top 1% plus the top 49%. Thus the first line cannot be added to the second and third line.

BTW, the answer to his question, at least in my opinion is, 'Yes'.

Braden said...
January 13, 2010 at 1:31 PM  

Yeah, you're the one with bad math here.

Joseph said...
January 13, 2010 at 4:32 PM  

I guess it could be read that the top 1% within the top 50% pays 39% but his sign certainly made no distinction thereof. Read at face value, this protester's math looks bad. For the picky, it's just a humor site! Either way, the guy doesn't know what a progressive tax system is...fair.

Cameron Fox said...
January 28, 2010 at 2:01 PM  

Yeah, absolutely mathematically correct. I think this guy is a moron, but not because he can't work out percentages.

Anonymous said...
March 4, 2010 at 7:30 PM  

I think the "Fair?" at the bottom isn't a political statement, but signifies that his sign is a riddle - he's challenging passers-by to determine whether his reasoning is fair. It's the sort of question one might find on the SAT. Wonderful idea - a lot of these protests can be terribly boring. Nice of him to provide something mentally stimulating.

Unknown said...
March 10, 2010 at 12:13 AM  

So 1% pays 39% of "income" taxes, 49% pay 58% and 50% pay 3%. Income merely comprises 40% of overall "federal" taxation. It's interesting no one ever questions who pays what percentage when it comes to Payroll taxes and everything else.

All that said aside, income is not a deterministic factor in financial well being of an individual--wealth is. You can have a high income but due to debt and possession of meager asset, maintain a very low net worth of wealth. The top 1% hold 23.5% of wealth. Wail on that.

Unknown said...
May 28, 2010 at 5:17 AM  

There's no funny math here and I don't see any reason why this picture should be included on this website.

Durinn said...
July 23, 2010 at 5:50 PM  

The sign is 100% mathematically plausible (although it may be factually inaccurate). To be relevant, however, it should be noted that the top 1% are responsible for something like 98% of the wealth in America. Or more abstractly, that we would not expect the top 1% to pay only 1% or the bottom 50% to pay 50%, etc.

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