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Where did bank bailouts work that way? You know what happened here? Banks needed bailouts. So they needed money, from the state. The state did not have that money, so what did the state do? Lend it of course. Where? Well, banks.

What REALLY happened here is that the state stood as guarantor for banks' liabilities, usually paying more for interest and fees than they got from the banks that needed the bailout. In the end, I don't know of a single state or country that went away with a plus from the deal.

You don't have a clue. Try reading this for a start:
https://money.cnn.com/2014/12/...

Or this if you want more depth
https://business.cch.com/banki...

if it's going to include "benefits" it'd better include the enormously inflated cost of health care! Oh it doesn't?

Health care paid by employers does count under total compensation. If you prefer to gather the statistics yourself and plot them, see the "Employer Costs for Employee Compensation" report, produced quarterly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As of September, 2008, benefits (including health insurance) were 30.3% of worker total compensation, meaning if you had to pay your own 401K, health care, etc. you would see your pre-tax wages rise by 30%.

The leading elements of total compensation are all around 7% to 8% each, include legally required ("employer side" of FICA), insurance, health care, and paid leave. Lesser elements include retirement & savings and supplemental pay.

By the way, you should know that in 1970, FICA taxes (totaling both the "employer" and "employee" side) were 9.6% in 1970, and 15.3% today, so we've lost 5.7% of total compensation (below the FICA max) to the government since then.

And why would tariffs put you out of a job? Tariffs affect imports not exports.

The history of global trade is that if one country raises its tariffs, other countries tend to "retaliate".

That said, my industry also depends on a lot of imported specialized technical equipment (from Canada, Mexico, France, and Japan off the top of my head), so US tariff rises would increase our costs at least in the short run if not the long run as well.

39 years later his son, a white collar computer programmer raising three children and supporting a wife can't afford to buy a house on 100% of his wage in ANY POPULATION CENTRE

The question you should ask is "why?" Why are houses so large now? We know that inflation adjusted price of housing per square foot has been dropping until about the peak of the housing bubble. Is the size of houses just demand-driven, does it reflect a generally richer population, is it due to rises in the minimum wage, or is it due to land use zoning regulations? I'm not sure, but I'd like to see an actual analysis.

On the other hand, housing prices are now down 10-30% post-bubble in most places, with house rent even cheaper.

You are correct that housing and health care costs as a percent of income are higher now then 40 years ago, of course both housing stock and health care is much improved since then. And both are very highly regulated - housing by zoning laws and building codes, with demand driven up till recently by the existance of the government-sponsored enterprises of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Health insurance has a different set of rapidly expanding regulations that are different in every state, demand driven by government provided Medicare and Medicaid, defensive medicine due to nearly unlimited malpractice liability, and IT expenses to comply with Federal medical privacy laws. There also is the fact that it is still difficult for foreign doctors to legally immigrate into the US and set up practice, and we now pay our doctors twice as much as the OECD average.

None of this is related to trade though, with the exception of cheaper wood products coming in from Canada due to NAFTA, which was probably part of the decrease in housing costs per square foot built.

The Real Deal on the Current Economic Crisis

So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working home owners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:

The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.

Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.

Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.

Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.

The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.

Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.

Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.

The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.

An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.

Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.

The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.

The Real Deal on the Current Economic Crisis

So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working home owners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:

The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.

Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.

Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.

Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.

The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.

Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.

Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.

The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.

An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.

Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.

The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.

you mistake correlatiom for causation. The high cost of living in CA, NY, DC, NJ, etc do not necessarily cause high salaries, though they are correlated to high salaries.

It's tangential to my argument. When I'm speaking casually I don't necessarily go through a big effort to make the distinction, but I don't mistake the two.

But, even if we accept your premise that there is no problem here because the differences are due to the progressive tax system... would it not then follow that federal "aid" to these areas should also be higher, since the cost of providing services in those areas is higher?

The whole point of a progressive tax system is to put a disproportionately higher burden on the wealthy, so it doesn't necessarily follow.

Let's look at some numbers. Going by http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html we see that Connecticut was one of the "best" states in 2005, paying $11522 and receiving $8795 per person. Arkansas was one of the "worst" states, paying $5030 and receiving $7364 per person.

So you are right, there does seem to be some effort to make up for cost of living differences, since Connecticut receives more aid per person than Arkansas. Let's see if it's enough.

According to this report, the average salary in Connecticut is $47k versus Arkansas with $26k.

Tax revenue increase is 138% (11522 vs. 5030), but the average salary increase is only 80% (only, heh). The lovely progressive tax system at work.

Anyway, if we use a cost-of-living calculator, we see that the cost of living difference is even less. This tool suggests that $26k/year in Arkansas is about $36k/year in Connecticut, for an average cost of living increase of only 38%. So tax revenue increase is definitely far outstripping COLA.

Connecticut's aid is only 19% more per person than Arkansas, so that doesn't quite make up for cost of living. But it's clear (to me anyway) that the majority of Connecticut's "federal tax deficit" is legitimate since they get *almost* the same amount of aid (cost-adjusted) even though they have 80% higher salaries (58% higher cost-adjusted) on *average*.

Now in reality, the top 10% of Connecticut tax payers probably pay more than the rest of the state combined. In any case, according to this Java tool, a single person who earns $47k (Connecticut's average, remember) pays $6700 in federal income tax (not $11k, Connecticut's average). So the average Connecticut person is still getting a net positive from federal tax spending. (Paying $6700 in tax and getting $8750 back.) This supports my original argument that comparisons between states are pretty much meaningless. The average person in each state benefits. The poor benefit even more.

Also, if the numbers were easily available, I would dig into how that aid is broken down between welfare and wasteful projects versus things that actually improve the state (business development, infrastructure, etc). I would wager that Connecticut receives a higher proportion of "good" aid and that Arkansas receives more welfare aid that, while helping some people, isn't going to do much for Arkansas in the long run.

Most states have laws in place that require your employer to give you time off to cast your vote. http://www.toolkit.cch.com/columns/people/04-070vo ting.asp

Writing software under a Work For Hire type of contract makes you (if effect) a temporary employee of the customer. The customer is the default owner of the created property, ...

Close, but not true.

So-called "work-for-hire" contracts don't make your work into "work for hire" if the facts and circumstances of creating the work are not the facts and circumstances of certain enumerated activities under 17 USC s. 101, definition of "work for hire".

I don't use these so-called "work for hire" agreement because they're dishonest--they imply that a hiring party can accomplish something by written contract with its non-statutory-employee workers (ie, contractors), that it cannot. Nevertheless these are extremely popular with hiring parties and lots of attorneys who apparently didn't bother to read the Copyright Act. ("Work for hire" is a term that only applies to copyright IP--other uses of it are extra-statutory and extra-judicial and just serve to keep those who don't RTFM under control by 'in terrorem' effect.)

It's even more dangerous to imply that a WFH contract can make you into an "employee" of the employer. Whether or not you are an employee or an independent contractor is an extremely complex area of law, involving at least four agencies (IRS, federal DOL, state taxing authority, state-level DOL). Each jurisdiction (federal, and each by state) has its own "facts and circumstances" test that determines whether you, in fact, are an employee, although being hired, compensated and treated as if you were a contractor. (Think about it...if the IRS just let people decide this by contract...no one would be withholding taxes for employment and they would have a massive compliance and enforcement problem on their hands, going after 280 million little contractors.) The IRS uses a "20 factors test" to determine whether a worker is, within a given structure and context, working as an employee or contractor.

In many cases, a worker can be found by the IRS to be a statutory employee, even if the hiring party has made the worker sign a "Work For Hire" agreement and even if the hiring party has 1099'd the worker. Also...in many cases state laws are even more restrictive: it is not unusual for the State of Michigan to find a worker to be an employee (ie, withholding required, IP automatically owned by hiring party) in cases where the IRS has no issues with the classification. (Michigan has one of the most pro-employment, restrictive tests in the nation.)

In fact, one of the reason the "my outside inventions and IP are listed here" clauses in NDAs and other hiring context agreements are used by hiring parties, is to prove that the worker HAS a life outside of the contract position--ie, to defeat a claim by a restrictive state agency that the worker is actually an employee and therefore withholding and worker's compensation insurance and a lot of other entitlements payments are owed. (Misclassification never penalizes the worker, it always penalizes the hiring party--which pays taxes, penalties and interest in the neighborhood of 40% - 200% of the hourly rate paid to the worker).

The accountability they take in the future might be less than inspiring. From the article:

It is certain that AOL will vigorously contest the EFF's complaint, with the linchpin of its defense being that the whole thing was a horrible idea from AOL's new research unit that will never be repeated. Unfortunately, horrible ideas can have real-world ramifications, and even though AOL is "deeply sorry" and swears it will never happen again, there need to be some safeguards in place to prevent a recurrence.

I wonder what would happen to a murder defendant that tried to use that defense. "I'm sorry your Honor....my left hand pulled the trigger without my permission. It won't happen again! I promise!

Bottom line, respondeat superior says it is their unit, their employees, THE COMPANY is responsible.

I have no idea how accurate this is, but thought you may find the chart on this page interesting, at least as a starting point to find out more info: http://www.toolkit.cch.com/columns/people/02-075vo ting.asp. Depending on where you live, maybe that writeup was illegal?

Two words: contributary negligence.

Everything I see regarding 'contributory negligence' refers to its use in personal injury cases, not in property theft cases.

http://dictionary.law.com/definition2.asp?selected =341
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributory_negligen ce
http://www.lectlaw.com/def/c125.htm
http://insurance.cch.com/Rupps/contributory-neglig ence.htm
http://www.west.net/~smith/negligence.htm
http://www.criminal-law-lawyer-source.com/terms/co ntributory_neg.html

Even in situations of contributory negligence, the injured (suing) party must have been negligent to the point that they could have been injured apart from the injuring (sued) party.

Perhaps if I had left all my car doors standing open and the car parked in the middle of the street, I would be contributorially negligent. If it's parked in front my my house with the windows open and gets stolen, I'm not negligent. Apart from the actions of the person stealing my car, I would not be "injured."

As with Microsoft - apart from the actions of those who take malicious action against computers, those computers would not be compromised.

"Ah, so what you are saying is that most people won't gain anything?"

Please don't put words in my mouth. What I am saying, I have already said; "Read the text of House Resolution 25 and then decide for yourself whether or not it makes sense".

"For most people filling out the tax form should be quick and easy."

Heh. Right. That's why there's a multi-billion dollar a year industry in the USA just to help people interpret the tax code. A tax code that is so complex that even the IRS gives wrong advice more often than not.

"...if the tax is collected at the point of purchase, someone has to spend extra time and money on that process."

You mean like the merchants in 45 out of 50 states already do? Here's a little nugget for you; under the fairtax plan, those merchants get to keep 0.5% of the collected tax for their troubles. Another 0.5% of the collected tax goes to that state to help pay for the state-level administration of the plan. The rest goes to the feds.

"any simplified system will only stay simplified a short time after the ink has dried..."

Wow! Now there's an excellent reason to keep our current system in place!
</sarcasm>.

The taping of the password to the backs of the machines is what I call an "Attractive Nuisance", in my not so humble opinion. Here's a sample definition:

attractive nuisance doctrine

        There is normally no particular care required of property owners to safeguard trespassers from harm, but an attractive nuisance is an exception. An attractive nuisance is any inherently hazardous object or condition of property that can be expected to attract children to investigate or play (for example, construction sites and discarded large appliances). The doctrine imposes upon the property owner either the duty to take precautions that are reasonable in light of the normal behavior of young children--a much higher degree of care than required toward adults--or the same care as that owed to "invitees"--a higher standard than required toward uninvited, casual visitors (licensees).

http://insurance.cch.com/rupps/attractive-nuisance -doctrine.htm

By taping the passwords to the backs of the machines, the school system had created an attractive nuisance, especially considering the "behaviour of normal children". This was like installing a pool, placing a sign saying "Don't Swim", REFUSING to put up a fence, and then disclaiming all responsibility when someone drowns (violates policy).

The school administration in this case is a fucking waste of oxygen.

--
BMO

First, how is it a contract if I didn't sign it? This sounds a lot like a Contract of Adhesion.

Also, I'm a minor, how can I legally "sign" a contract? I'm guessing plenty of kids play games. Hell, you could even get your 4 year old daughter to click through the EULA for you.

This is basically the "same old" stuff. There are laws protecting the consumer from signing away their rights.

In the US, there is an important exception. If the alleged bad activity involves pollution, then the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 ("RCRA": USC 42, chapter 82) applies. It says that a coporate officer will go to jail if the corporation is convicted. Congress had some sense back then.

Sales and Use Taxes in Kansas

Granted it's nto a government publication, but I quote "Use tax. In Kansas the use tax supplements the sales tax. The use tax is levied upon people that are using, storing, or consuming in Kansas any article of tangible personal property that has not been subjected to sales or use tax by any state. Thus, the use tax is also referred to as the "compensating tax."

If you ordered something online from Pennsylvania and didn't pay a sales tax to PA, you owe a use tax to Kansas.

I'm not sure how this would play out, the attractive nuisance doctrine only appears to effect hazards that attract children. I'm not sure if hackers are considered children under the law :-)

However, the car is my private property, and the contents of the computer are not readily accesible to observers (who are not breaking the law). Just as in my home, searching the computer in my car should be protected by the 4th Amendment.

The operation of your car is done on PUBLIC roads. So the public has the RIGHT to know what you do with your private property while travelling over public property.

And, just as your license plates are the property of the State, the event recorder will be the State's property as well.

So, as long as you'll be driving over public roads, you can shove your private property into your goatse.

It's not like law enforcement CANT get a court order when necessary. It will just discourage them from routinely snooping where it's not warrented. Want to search my home? get a warrent. Want to search my computer? do the same. If you don't have justification, you won't get a court to allow it. In the case of a high speed crash, I don't see the court having a problem with issuing a warrant.

What you do in the privacy of your home is your business. However, it's a totally different matter when you are in a public road, handling a heavy mass of metal hurled at a great rate of speed that has the potential to do a lot of damage. The RIGHT to privacy you enjoy in your home has a much higher legal standing than your driving privileges, so it is normal that RIGHTS enjoy a higher level of legal protection (warrants, court orders) than the mere exercise of a privilege that is, in fact, legally, an attractive nuisance .

Driving may not be a right, but freedom from unwarranted search and seizure still is, as far as I'm aware.

As long as you are on your private property. However, your PUBLIC ACTIONS (let's not be mistaken, the even recorders allow unrestricted search of your PUBLIC ACTIONS) always have been under the scrutiny of your peers.

What you're describing is called the attractive nuisance doctrine , and really only applies to the situation with the neighborhood kid, not to an adult upon whom different expectations are placed.

One could argue that the real issue is negligence , but proving negligence turns on the phrase (from the referenced definition) "the care of a reasonably prudent or ordinarily careful person in the circumstances".

It's unclear whether or not you'd be able to point to an "average user" and call them "ordinarily careful", in which case you'd definitely be doing about what's average. It might, instead, turn out that the court would say "you're a professional, a sysadmin, and we hold you to a higher standard of "reasonable prudence" by virtue of your knowledge of the consequences. This would be analogous to the trained fighter or black belt getting into a fistfight and whaling on some poor schmoe. Regardless of who "started it", the fighter is going to be held to a higher standard of control and "carefulness".

Of course, that said, you could also use a defense based on trespass, in which you argue that, because the attacker was not authorized to use your system, as long as you weren't specifically stockpiling "munitions" there :-), you're not liable for the attacks based out of your system. I'm not sure what case law in the real world says about this. If you left your front door open and a sniper walked in, sat down in your living room, and started taking potshots at passers-by, would you be liable? Would the court say that, because you failed to lock your door, or deadbolt it, or whatever, you were negligent?

Tough to say, these days.

Thankfully, I'm not a lawyer, so I don't have to worry about such weighty theoretical issues :-)

What you're describing is called the attractive nuisance doctrine , and really only applies to the situation with the neighborhood kid, not to an adult upon whom different expectations are placed.

One could argue that the real issue is negligence , but proving negligence turns on the phrase (from the referenced definition) "the care of a reasonably prudent or ordinarily careful person in the circumstances".

It's unclear whether or not you'd be able to point to an "average user" and call them "ordinarily careful", in which case you'd definitely be doing about what's average. It might, instead, turn out that the court would say "you're a professional, a sysadmin, and we hold you to a higher standard of "reasonable prudence" by virtue of your knowledge of the consequences. This would be analogous to the trained fighter or black belt getting into a fistfight and whaling on some poor schmoe. Regardless of who "started it", the fighter is going to be held to a higher standard of control and "carefulness".

Of course, that said, you could also use a defense based on trespass, in which you argue that, because the attacker was not authorized to use your system, as long as you weren't specifically stockpiling "munitions" there :-), you're not liable for the attacks based out of your system. I'm not sure what case law in the real world says about this. If you left your front door open and a sniper walked in, sat down in your living room, and started taking potshots at passers-by, would you be liable? Would the court say that, because you failed to lock your door, or deadbolt it, or whatever, you were negligent?

Tough to say, these days.

Thankfully, I'm not a lawyer, so I don't have to worry about such weighty theoretical issues :-)

is there anything it *can't* do?

http://toolkit.cch.com/text/P05_1585.asp

"Specifically, RICO is violated if an organization carries on a pattern of illegal activities. A business entity can meet the legal definition of an organization, which usually is defined simply as a group comprised of two or more individuals. A pattern of illegal activities exists if a party repeats the illegal activity as little as two different times. Further, the illegal activities do not have to be criminal in nature, but instead can be in the nature of unfair or fraudulent business practices that may or may not result in a monetary loss to another party."