Big Run up in Heating Costs this winter - No urgency?

[brenndatomu]

And the middle class are stuck footing the bill for more than their fair share

Bingo

 

[begreen]

So the lowest income earners get tax breaks, rebates, grants, social assistance, etc. The rich hide their wealth in corporations, paying tax only as capital gains, if even that. And the middle class are stuck footing the bill for more than their fair share.

And as a result, the middle class is rapidly disappearing.

 

[Ashful]

And as a result, the middle class is rapidly disappearing.

I've recently gone through a pretty abrupt change in income and situation that confirmed what I believed before, and shone even more light on some problems I had suspected but never really had direct visibility:

1. Upward mobility from the middle class is hampered by our tax system. The truly wealthy, the 0.1%'ers, are not paying nearly as much as the 5%'er's or even the 1%'ers, due to the structuring of our tax code which penalizes salary income at roughly double the rate of investment income.

2. The upper middle class is paying the bulk of the taxes in this country. If you're a lawyer, doctor, engineer, or any highly-compensated employee of a company, you are hosed with regard to tax burden.

3. If you want to escape this, the only path is reducing your Form 1040 income and increasing your profit sharing distributions. This is usually only an option to business owners.

 

[old greybeard]

Just ordered propane, still 2.29 a gallon. And that’s my camp price, delivered 6 miles off road on top of a mountain. Only getting 80-90 gallons topping off. Thank goodness for fracking, propane by product. It must not be being sold on the global market. Yet our natural gas is, and prices are up well over 100%.
And now we’re selling oil from our strategic reserve overseas, including China who supposedly is stockpiling it.
We are still producing more oil than we use. Selling at global prices, good for my 401k, bad for my wallet.
Too bad we didn’t have leaders that avoid encouraging the current war, as opposed to a secretary of state who said during confirmation that we would welcome the Ukraine into NATO, and a president who told the Russians that a limited incursion in Ukraine would be okay. Supposedly we voted for this, so live with it.

 

[begreen]

And with that political non-sequitur, another thread bites the dust. Surprised it made it to 4 pages.