
How The Average U.S. Consumer Spends Their Paycheck - kqr2
http://www.visualeconomics.com/how-the-average-us-consumer-spends-their-paycheck/
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elcron
Full sized imags: [http://www.visualeconomics.com/wp-
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DanielBMarkham
Interesting that they chose not to consider taxes an expense, even though many
things around taxes are decision-based (such as whether to defer income, what
types of investments to make, etc)

If they had shown taxes, by my calculations it would be the second biggest
expenditure, just after housing.

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nazgulnarsil
~25% straight off the top (obviously changes depending on income). In CA
another 10% for sales taxes. The 6-7% the employer pays that you don't even
see.

On top of that the government inflates the currency every year by 3-5%

this isn't even taking into account the fact that producers of goods pay all
these taxes as well, so that tax gets factored into the price we pay for the
item even before sales tax. I'd say that another 5% for this is being
conservative.

all told taxes suck 50% of our productivity out _easily_.

if you got a 50% raise tomorrow you think you couldn't afford private
security, private schools for your kids and replacements for all other
government services with greatly increased quality and lower prices?

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jusob
"On top of that the government inflates the currency every year by 3-5%" Do
you mean the inflation? Is so, this is more around 2%, and not directed by the
government.

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nazgulnarsil
um...the federal reserve directly controls the interest rate paid by banks,
which affects how much money is injected into the system. via the money
multiplier new money disseminates out into the economy, causing inflation.

how is it not government?

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jusob
The federal reserve does not control the price of oil for example. Controlling
inflation is one of its function. Again: controlling it, not setting the
inflation rate. For example, there are/were fear of deflation when the
inventory was high, and the demand low. With a interest rate set at pretty
much 0%, there is not much else the reserve bank can do.

So I stand by my statement, the government does not "inflate the prices by
3-5%" a year.

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nazgulnarsil
interest set to 0% certainly is inflationary since that means real interest is
negative. government doesn't control the prices of commodities directly, but
if the money supply was kept static you'd get continual mild deflation.

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zoba
I don't see any debt factored in, such as paying off student loans and the
interest accrued from credit cards.

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mojaam
Not to mention if you are a current full time student, you have to swap
insurance or housing for education. Heck, I feel like most of that circle
should be education.

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nostrademons
It's an aggregate over all households. People are students for 4 of the ~60
years of their adult lives, so only 1/15 are full-time students. (Perhaps
more, as this doesn't count grad school or two college-educated people getting
married and becoming one household. But it also doesn't count the people who
don't go to college at all, which is an even bigger proportion.)

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lutorm
Given that a very disproportionate amount of the average US income is from a
few people making a lot of money, I'm not convinced that looking at
expenditures averaged over the population is in any way indicative of the
situation of someone making median income. (According to Wikipedia/US Census
Bureau, 2007 _median_ household income was $50k, quite different from their
average of $63k.)

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yason
Interesting. For reference, rough figures from Finland:

\- housing 28% \- transport 15% \- groceries 12% \- culture and spare time 11%
\- personal well-being, extra studies, etc. 11.5%

Personally, I can confirm that living costs (i.e. rent or mortgage) indeed do
chop the most off my salary but food comes already as the second, but then
again I eat well :)

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newsio
America's obsession with cars explains the high transportation outlay
(currently > 17%). So many assume that they have to buy new cars (preferably
luxury brands, which connote status) and change them every x years. They'll
buy them on layaway even if they can't afford the payments.

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xenophanes
Also America's size...

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aristus
Very surprising that people spend 34% of their income on housing. I have
always thought it unwise to spend more than 25% -- a big reason why I still
rent even when people were telling me I was "throwing my money away".

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pmorici
I'm surprised it isn't more. In places on the East and West coast you have to
spend close to half your take home income or else live in a complete crime
ridden run down ghetto.

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Femur
In Wichita and Tulsa (where I have lived) spending half your income on rent or
a mortgage would be considered insane.

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Xichekolas
Interesting thing to note: The average 'consumer unit' spends 4.8% of their
income on gas/oil. So when the price of oil goes up about 20%, it requires
roughly 1% more of their annual income... and yet people still claim that the
price of gas is 'killing them'.

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paulhart
It's not the 1% that's killing them - it's the fact that they're spending at
their limit and they don't have that 1% available.

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result
happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought
and six, result misery." -- Charles Dickens, 'David Copperfield'

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nostrademons
I think this point doesn't get enough attention from people whose salaries are
big enough to save lots of money. If you make $60K after taxes and spend $30K,
then you can easily eat a $300/year increase in gas expenditures. Your savings
rate goes from 50% to 49.5%, big whoop. But if you make $31K and spend $30K,
and gas goes up $300/year, it's eaten up a whole 30% of your savings rate. And
if you make $30K and spend $30K and gas goes up, you're screwed.

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vaksel
$457/yr for liquor seems pretty small for a family with 2 adults.

And why is tobacco counted for the "average" person? I'd think the average
person wouldn't be a smoker.

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thorax
More families than you think spend $0/yr on liquor.

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Xichekolas
I don't have a 'family', but I only spend maybe $250/yr on alcohol, and my
girlfriend doesn't spend any, and we are in our mid-20s.

It's not for any moral reasons. I only drink beer that I think is tasty, and
then pretty much only with meals at restaurants. She just really doesn't like
the taste of alcohol.

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maukdaddy
I'd like to see this adjusted for higher cost-of-living locations. For
example, in Chicago 34% on housing might be on the low side.

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oPerrin
Can someone from mint.com confirm these figures? Surveys are fine but I trust
transactional records more. The figures don't seem far off as I compare to my
mint.com breakdown, but I'd like a more comprehensive and modern approach to
this data collection.

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gjm11
Two words: selection bias.

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edw519
Any coincidence that this is a government publication and that it doesn't show
taxes?

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dexen
Yes it does. `Income before taxes: $63,091', `AVERAGE ANNUAL EXPENDITURES:
$49,638'.

Computes to $13.453 paid in taxes. That's about 21% of gross income, and
compares to expenditures as about 27%. It is my understanding taxes aren't
considered expenditures or `costs' anyway.

The ring breaks down the expenditures, not the gross income. Whether this is
fair or not is up to a democratic debate ;)

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edw519
"Yes it does."

No, it doesn't. You proved it yourself. You had to do some math to figure it
out.

The reason taxes don't appear on this U.S. government publication is the same
reason that they take withholding out of your check. If you actually saw what
it cost you each year, it would piss you off so much you might actually get
off your butt and do something about it.

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Xichekolas
The less cynical explanation is that people are generally horrible at saving
money, so withholding is the only way the taxes would get paid by most people.
It reduces risk to the government that people won't have the cash on hand at
the end of the year and just declare bankruptcy or otherwise claim they can't
pay. Businesses don't have withholding, but they have quarterly tax payments
for the same reason I'd bet.

This is the reason that withholding is used by individuals to fund their
retirement plans and other rainy day savings accounts. It's too easy to
fritter the money away if you actually get your hands on it.

I would agree with you that it'd be helpful to see taxes as a section of the
pie chart here, but presumably the focus here is what people _choose_ to spend
their money on, and taxes aren't much of a choice.

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bokonist
_but presumably the focus here is what people choose to spend their money on,
and taxes aren't much of a choice._

Taxes are the rent you pay for choosing to live in the USA.

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TheAmazingIdiot
I didn't "choose" to live in this country.

I was born here. And without open borders to make residence in multiple
countries, we are not "free" either.

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bokonist
You choose to stay. A person may be born in an apartment, but that doesn't
mean they can live there rent free for the rest of their life. And yes, you
are not just free to walk into some other country and live there. But nor are
you are allowed to walk onto someone else's property and live on it.

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johnnybgoode
I'm not sure if your reasoning for this is the same as our mutual friend MM's,
but I've been meaning to address it, so I might as well do that here. To take
your position, I think you first have to admit that USG is the _de facto_
owner of all US territory. You, MM, and I would probably have no problem
admitting this, but most people would have trouble with it.

But even after we admit this, we still need to ask if this ownership ought to
be treated as legitimate, and there I disagree with MM.

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bokonist
I think that the principle of Adverse Possession applies (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession> ). If USG is not the
legitimate title holder of middle-North America, who is?

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johnnybgoode
Why should adverse possession apply? One use for it is to establish who the
_de facto_ owner is, but that is of course unnecessary here. Another is to
provide more security for property owners -- does the most powerful
corporation in the history of the world need that from us? Third, since
adverse possession is based on the doctrine of laches, if it applies here
doesn't England have a stronger claim to ownership?

Also, if we are applying common law principles, I contend that USG has in the
past engaged in massive fraud by pretending it is not the actual owner, and
continues to do so today. When we also consider the violent means it has used
to acquire and maintain ownership, we have force and fraud -- enough to
disqualify USG as a legitimate title holder.

> If USG is not the legitimate title holder of middle-North America, who is?

I admit, the answer is unclear, but it _does_ seem clear that USG is not it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems your reasoning is at least slightly
different from MM's, then -- I don't think MM has much of an interest in this
question or much of an answer to it, since he has criticized the "Rebellion"
but now accepts USG's ownership.

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bokonist
Adverse Possession does not care how the property was acquired. All it cares
is that the owner has managed to maintain uncontested possession of it. The
states originally siezed the territory from the Brits. The Feds then seized it
from the states. Neither usurpation is still contested to this day. No state
government maintains that the New Deal is illegitimate.

Adverse Possession is not about making moral claims. It is a way to prevent
violence by settling who owns what. Groups would try and manufacture claims
and rally groups to regain possession. You see this happen in the Balkans and
Middle East with claims going back hundreds or thousands of years.

Of course, in some ways the question of legitimacy of state ownership is
silly. Law between sovereigns or between a sovereign and its residents is
always jungle law. The strongest wins. By definition, there is no third party
to enforce the law.

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johnnybgoode
I don't think I disputed anything in your first two paragraphs, but let me
know if you think I did. As you say, the strongest wins, so why rely on
something like adverse possession? If you're saying it ought to apply here
solely for the purpose of preventing violence, then, as I said, it doesn't
seem necessary. USG's military and propaganda arms are powerful enough today
as to make this irrelevant.

Of course, if most of the residents are very dissatisfied with their sovereign
and are willing to take extreme measures, they have a chance of winning
regardless of immediately available firepower. This is where the question of
legitimacy matters, because a sovereign will have at least some trouble if its
residents do not accept its legitimacy, even if it wins in the end.

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bokonist
_This is where the question of legitimacy matters, because a sovereign will
have at least some trouble if its residents do not accept its legitimacy, even
if it wins in the end._

There are two things to consider in regards to USG's relationship with middle-
North America: a) property ownership b) management structure

I do not view the property ownership as illegitimate. I do not agree with the
libertarians who view taxation as theft. I think such a view is neither
justified nor constructive.

USG's management structure is awful. It badly needs reform or a reboot. The
goal of a management reboot is not so that us subjects will pay more taxes.
It's so that resources will not be squandered. This would end up being good
for us subjects, but it would also be in the interest of USG itself. Thus I
view a management change as more likely to succeed and less likely to incite
violence.

If a management structure is bad enough, an outside group could be morally
justified ( though not legally justified) in trying to seize the territory
itself. But that would be worst case.

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johnnybgoode
> I do not view the property ownership as illegitimate. I do not agree with
> the libertarians who view taxation as theft. I think such a view is neither
> justified nor constructive.

Yes, there are some libertarians who naively, and incorrectly, believe they
are the _de facto_ owners of property in the US. That is, they would not even
agree that USG actually owns all US property. However, I'm afraid I still
don't see why you view USG's ownership as legitimate, unless you are equating
_de facto_ ownership with legitimate ownership -- i.e., you don't believe
there is any difference between the two.

> USG's management structure is awful...

Agreed, of course.

> ...but it would also be in the interest of USG itself. Thus I view a
> management change as more likely to succeed and less likely to incite
> violence.

I'm not so sure about this. Yes, USG could be run more profitably, but severe
agency problems exist. Would the leaders of the Catholic Church want their
subjects to be told there is no God, even if these leaders were paid large
sums of money? Power and influence are worth something to them as well.

> If a management structure is bad enough, an outside group could be morally
> justified ( though not legally justified) in trying to seize the territory
> itself. But that would be worst case.

I assume a group of subjects would also count as an "outside group"? If we are
using common legal principles, then for the reasons I mentioned earlier, I
suggest they would be legally justified as well, even if this might not matter
all that much in the real world.

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bokonist
_However, I'm afraid I still don't see why you view USG's ownership as
legitimate, unless you are equating de facto ownership with legitimate
ownership -- i.e., you don't believe there is any difference between the two._

I think the concept of adverse possession is a necessary concept to avoid
violence and enable us all to get along with each other. So if de facto
ownership exists for long enough, it should be considered legitimate.

 _Would the leaders of the Catholic Church want their subjects to be told
there is no God, even if these leaders were paid large sums of money? Power
and influence are worth something to them as well._

Any Moldbuggian plot to reboot the U.S. would require a critical mass of
mandarins to acknowledge the intellectual bankruptcy of the current regime.
Well, either mandarins or soldiers.

The other option, which is perhaps more plausible, is that perhaps break away
republics can form as the U.S. continues to weaken. Those break away republics
could innovate new forms of government and provide examples of how to reform
USG.

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johnnybgoode
> I think the concept of adverse possession is a necessary concept to avoid
> violence and enable us all to get along with each other.

If possession is established and maintained violently, I'm not sure
legitimizing this is a good way to avoid violence. MM does tend to confuse
_order_ with _peace_.

Example: Jack kidnaps John and forces him to work as his slave. John soon
attempts to escape but is prevented from doing so. Under Jack's brutal rule,
John eventually gives up trying to escape. Years later, Jack's crime is
discovered, but Jack is allowed to maintain ownership of John due to adverse
possession. _Order_ is preserved, but the violence continues.

> Any Moldbuggian plot to reboot the U.S. would require a critical mass of
> mandarins to acknowledge the intellectual bankruptcy of the current regime.
> Well, either mandarins or soldiers.

If that's true, then yes, a reboot seems about as likely as the Pope declaring
his atheism. Well, maybe less likely, because the Pope is just one person.

> perhaps break away republics can form as the U.S. continues to weaken

Perhaps, but a total collapse of USG or even the formation of the fabled NAU
conservatives keep droning on about would surprise me less.

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bokonist
_If that's true, then yes, a reboot seems about as likely as the Pope
declaring his atheism. Well, maybe less likely, because the Pope is just one
person._

Well, the reformation did happen. And the Soviet Union did fall. And Deng
Xiaoping did say, "It matters not the color of the cat, but whether it catches
the mouse". The problem is, that the leaders of these states all had positive
examples to follow. The U.S. has no positive example of what a good management
structure looks like.

 _Perhaps, but even a total collapse of USG or the formation of the fabled NAU
conservatives keep droning on about would surprise me less._

I'm not familiar with the concept of NAU conserveratives. Mind explaining?

So do you have any ideas about what should happen? Or what will happen?

~~~
johnnybgoode
> Well, the reformation did happen. And the Soviet Union did fall. And Deng
> Xiaoping did say, "It matters not the color of the cat, but whether it
> catches the mouse".

Agreed; I wouldn't say it's impossible.

> The problem is, that the leaders of these states all had positive examples
> to follow. The U.S. has no positive example of what a good management
> structure looks like.

Maybe you're right. The changes required for USG seem more drastic to me than
those that were applied in the Soviet Union or China, though. After all,
Protestants are still Christians.

> I'm not familiar with the concept of NAU conserveratives. Mind explaining?

Sorry, I was referring to this:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Union>

This scares some conservatives to death, particularly the ones who worship the
Constitution. I think the biggest change we'd see is different text on some
signs, and I'm exaggerating only slightly.

> So do you have any ideas about what should happen? Or what will happen?

My ideal looks somewhat similar to "Patchwork", but without the joint stock
corporate management structure, which I believe has some fatal flaws. As for
what will happen, I can't say I'm sure, but I'd guess some sort of
catastrophic financial collapse and associated instability. As we know, the
worldwide financial system is horribly engineered. We can try to be optimistic
about what comes after that, but realistically things could get pretty ugly.
The parts of the world that are mostly disconnected from the financial system
will be relatively okay; spontaneous order could arise in small pockets of the
developed world as well, but much of the West could plunge into violence and
chaos for some time.

