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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GraceZ who wrote (158178)	10/18/2008 1:40:02 PM
From: Dan3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

Re: The tax policy of the last seven years, with reduced marginal rates and cap gains rates raised the percentage of total taxes paid by the top 5% No, it didn't. FICA taxes went up as a percentage of total taxes, decimating the real income of the lower and middle classes and acting to drop their share of total income. It's what caused this mess - the top cohort had more income than they knew what do with, even after buying 2nd and 3rd houses and big yachts, so they pushed intermediaries to loan it out to anyone with a pulse. The lower and middle classes were getting squeezed in aftertax income, but were encouraged by those same intermediaries to exercise offers of near infinite credit, with no questions asked, based upon assurances that assets bought would double in value and "pay themselves back."