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South Dakota wants everyone else to obey their sales tax laws, whether or not they're located in South Dakota, while at the same time benefiting from usury laws not being enforceable across state lines. There's a reason most credit cards in the U.S. are issued from child corporations in South Dakota: South Dakota allows effectively unlimited interest rates on credit cards. They're perfectly fine with state-by-state enforcement when it benefits them.

I just did some research on your claim, because it sounded absurd. Turns out it is both absurd and false.

Not exactly absurd or false. There's some truth to the parent's assertion:

https://www.marketplace.org/20...

We have to go way back to when the oil companies were selling gas for, let's say, 15 cents, and then the state and federal boards decided they wanted a piece of that to keep the roads going, so they added 3/10 of a cent. And the oil companies said, "Well, we're not going to eat that,' so they passed that on to the public."

Raising prices a penny would have been disastrous when gas only cost 15 cents. But why did it stick around?

"They found out that if you priced your gas 1/10 of a cent below a break point, let's say 40 cents a gallon, '.399' just looked to the public like 39 cents..."

The Wall Street Journal, in researching how easy it is to make their own phone, got one built for $70: https://www.marketplace.org/20...

You can imagine how much care goes into the apps and ecosystem and security when you spend all of $70 on a phone.

"Seriously, how is this joke of a company still allowed to do business?"

Some links, if you haven't been following the story:

Equifax hired a music major as chief security officer and she has just retired.

Equifax Faces Mounting Costs and Investigations From Breach.

The Equifax Breach Was Entirely Preventable

Equifax's data breach sins live on to this year's tax season

Equifax, Fox, NFL top report of most-hated U.S. companies

You Can't Fire Equifax, but Your Employer Can. Mine Just Did.

Senators want 'massive' fines for data breaches at Equifax and other credit reporting firms

Thanks to Equifax, the risk of fraud is higher this tax season

This Will Make Equifax Think Twice About How They're Protecting Your Data
"If this policy had been in place during the Equifax breach last year, Equifax would have paid at least a $1.5 billion penalty, half of which would be returned to consumers affected by the breach."

From Marketplace Tech:

Wood: What are the regulations? What is the biggest thing holding back ISPs right now?

Pai: I think the biggest thing is simply the regulatory barriers that stand in the way of broadband deployment. For example, if you want to lay fiber over a federal highway out in the west, first of all, you have to get approval from the requisite federal agency that might have title to the land. There might be state and local regulations that stand in your way. If you want access to the utility poles to string that fiber, you might have to get an agreement from the utility on reasonable rates and time for the attachment. And that's just for fiber companies. For wireless companies, there are other barriers that stand in the way. Satellite companies have to also negotiate the rights to the spectrum that is used. So I think it's very difficult in a lot of cases to get some of these regulatory barriers streamlined, such that we can preserve the public interest, but also to give these companies a chance to promote more access in parts of the country that often find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide. And the FCC, a lot of the work that we have done, I would say the lion's share of the work this year, has been focused on closing that divide by modernizing our rules.

---

I am reading this as, "We no longer consider ISPs to be common carriers." Now anyone can start attaching their wires to the utility poles!

Amazon pays sales tax on total revenue, not profit, in all 50 United States. And presumably (correct me if I'm wrong) pay the applicable VAT on all items sold in Europe. This, by the way, is one major way to stop companies from playing silly games. Let's compare for a moment:

(1) Tax consumption: reasonably straightforwards. If an item is sold for X, the tax is some rate time X, perhaps depending the category of goods. A VAT is almost as simple and can be considered in the same category. There is less[1] scope to be creative about numbers because the tax is derived straight from the purchase price. There is much less scope to be creative about geography because the location of consumption is usually super-evident.

(2) Tax profits: horrendously complicated because you don't know how to attribute the total profits of the company to each input and output. I think it's fairly clear, for instance, that there is no "scientific" way to figure out how much of the profit on (e.g.) an iPhone is due to the various inputs: software engineering, hardware engineering, IP, marketing, copyright, brand loyalty, etc. I don't even think it's a meaningful question, to be honest. The subjectivity allows for creativity in answering it, both in the numerical and geographic sense.

It's also complicated because for companies with an ecosystem of many integrated products, the total profit is more than the contribution of each individual parts because they are meant to work together. The profit from buying an IBM storage solution might be partially attributable to their success in the HPC division if customers of the latter have an easy path to adopting the former.

We've got to reform our tax systems to adopt the kind of rules that simply don't allow for creative accounting. In the meantime, we pretty much actively encourage this sort of nonsense (and doubled down in many cases) by insisting on this structure.

[1] And amusing discussions about whether Jaffa cakes are biscuits or cookies or whether a Snuggie is a blanket or a robe.

Hydro electric power used to be one of the darlings of the energy sector. It was clean, it was safe, it was renewable. The only draw back was the local environmental effects of the dam, changing the river flow, creating a lake; but those were deemed acceptable.

Now the environmental damage caused by building a dam is an all but insurmountable hurdle.

Not to mention labour costs and standards increases that price such megaprojects out of reach.

Oh... you probably wanted some cites right?

https://www.marketplace.org/20...

http://wizbangblog.com/2012/07...

http://thehill.com/regulation/...

https://www.marketplace.org/20...

CEO Bill Phelps says his thoughts on minimum wage have evolved. In 1994, Phelps co-founded the fast food chain Wetzelâ(TM)s Pretzels, which has almost a hundred outlets in California.

âoeLike most business people,â Phelps said, âoeI was concerned about it a couple of years ago when California started raising the minimum wage."

The state increased the minimum wage in mid-2014 and raised it again Jan. 1 on its path to reach $15 per hour by 2022.

Phelps worried increasing wages for his employees would cut into profits and that if he raised prices to compensate, fewer people would come eat and sales would drop. But something else happened entirely. Sales at his California stores immediately shot up.

âoeI was shocked,â Phelps said, âoeI was stunned by the business.â

The same exact pattern happened in 2016, Phelps said: A wage increase by the state led to a bump in business. Now Phelps is convinced that minimum wage increases arenâ(TM)t bad for the fast food business. Theyâ(TM)re great. ...

Do we get much tourism from those countries?

The "Trump Slump" is affecting all international tourism to the US.

http://time.com/money/4687114/trump-slump-foreign-tourism-us-immigration-travel/

Two things -

First, You didn't answer the question that was posed. If you had answered it I think we would find remarkably little tourism from Syria and Yemen to the US, for example. Second, the answer that you did give "somehow" omits a long running important factor in the outcome. I'll give you a hand:

2015 - Will a Strong US Dollar Scare Away International Tourists?
2016 - How the strong dollar is hurting American tourism
2017 - Strong dollar, travel ban threaten California tourism, UCLA forecast says

Your "moderate" setting seems to be calibrated a little too close to "anti."

There was an interview about very thoughtful report by the Guardian's Chris Arnade about the impacts to income to people who are unwilling to relocate for work. The relevant takeaway is that you are at a substantial financial disadvantage if you are unwilling to relocate. It is also talked about here.

There was an interview about very thoughtful report by the Guardian's Chris Arnade about the impacts to income to people who are unwilling to relocate for work. The relevant takeaway is that you are at a substantial financial disadvantage if you are unwilling to relocate. It is also talked about here.

There was an interview about very thoughtful report by the Guardian's Chris Arnade about the impacts to income to people who are unwilling to relocate for work. The relevant takeaway is that you are at a substantial financial disadvantage if you are unwilling to relocate. It is also talked about here.

Estrogens also result in increased strength and muscle mass, same fashion testosterone does. But unlike testosterone, it doesn't give rise to unstable emotions, it actually reduces them. And also unlike testosterone, it increases lifespan by 3 years over women who aren't on HRT for menopause. Studies done on male volunteers with just a single 4mg estrogen patch showed a calming influence without any increase in emotional instability.

The "well-documented effect on all manner of behaviours" is bullshit if you're implying a negative effect. It's down to women having to put up with bullshit like having to do an unequal share of work around the house despite supposedly being "equal partners" (20 hours for women each week, vs 8 hours for men) and putting up with job and pay discrimination.

Yes, there is a difference between the sexes - women do a better job. If you want to live longer, get a woman for a doctor. Women doctors are statistically better listeners. Being a better listener means getting more information before making a judgement call. Male doctors also tend to take complaints of pain from women and children less seriously than from men. And let's not forget the "man cold." Suck it up the same as women do, buttercup.

They already did a basic income experiment back when Prime Minister Trudeau was called Pierre.

In short... Most everyone kept working or didn't start working as early but stayed in school longer.
Also, hospitalizations went down, particularly for mental health problems.

But if you want a real Twilight Zone mindfuck - look up Nixon's basic income experiment.
Run by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.
Granted... they saw it as a way to eliminate social programs instead of to expand them. But even they found that there was no change to "work ethic" - everyone still kept working.
Apparently, being "at or just above the poverty line" is simply not enough for most people.

This isn't a new idea.

"The initial results are striking: the vast majority of Mincome participants kept working."

http://www.marketplace.org/201...

Daily as I make and eat breakfast, workout and shower:

1. NPR Hourly News Summary

2. Marketplace Tech by American Public Media (APM)

3. The Writer’s Almanac

4. NPR Story of the Day

Weekly on my 30 plus minute commute each way:

1. The Moth Podcast

2. StoryCorps

3. Two Guys On Your Head

4. RadioLab

5. This American Life

6. Risk!

7. Improv Nerd

8. On Being

When they have shows:

1. Serial

2. Codebreakers

2. NPR Technology Podcast

....better yet, outsource. If something goes wrong, the consultants are to blame (but you can take credit for successes). Salaried employees are a liability on the banksheets, them with their sick days and office space and benefits. Can't be hired and fired easily, dead-weights on shareholder value, and since the 80's came along, the shareholder is LORD you tiny little worker man.

....better yet, outsource. If something goes wrong, the consultants are to blame (but you can take credit for successes). Salaried employees are a liability on the banksheets, them with their sick days and office space and benefits. Can't be hired and fired easily, dead-weights on shareholder value, and since the 80's came along, the shareholder is LORD you tiny little worker man.

You're assuming that Tesla's *only* business model is to sell cars. Well, Elon Musk is a smarter businessman than you are.

Tesla's profits come from their sale of carbon credits and other "green" state and federal regs to other car companies who continue to pump out gas-guzzling SUVs.

http://www.marketplace.org/201...

Also for a while, Tesla was licensing their patents to other manufacturers, but I think that's over now as they opened up the patents.

The numbers here indicate that the US economy is already incapable of creating sufficient full time jobs, let alone keep up with the growth in the labor force:

http://www.marketplace.org/201...

Labor is a small component of that. In terms of labor time, we are talking roughly 10-13 hours (studies in 2012 demonstrated this).

Cripe, I could have given you a pretty good estimate of the labor required. (I'm an industrial engineer and an accountant and I do this for a living) The labor costs are meanigful but they would be 4-5X larger here in the US. What is FAR more important is that the product is made almost literally right next door to the companies that make the components. There is NO equivalent supply chain here in the US and developing one isn't going to happen. Having your suppliers nearby is a big deal.

With a US wage differential, one adds roughly $150 dollars in cost.

So you are suggesting Apple add 25% to the cost. Are you aware that Apple's net margins are approximately 25%? Basically you are suggesting Apple sell this product for breakeven prices. Remember that the vast majority of the profit in that supply chain goes to Apple so you are (intentionally or not) suggesting Apple take a huge reduction in profits on their most important product. To say that is a bad idea is to state the obvious.
By the way, people have looked into the cost of an All American iPhone and the results aren't pretty. You'd possibly be looking at an iPhone that might cost $2000 retail.

2. The $150 in cost is not borne entirely by consumer. Rather, it is split by everyone in the transaction including investors and other suppliers.

Since Apple takes almost all the profits in the supply chain you are either suggesting Apple take a bath or that consumers pay more. Neither of those are likely. I can assure you that the margins at Foxconn and the others aren't fat and there isn't a lot of room for them to accept smaller margins if they want to stay in business. It is highly unlikely their net profits are above 10% - very typical for manufacturing companies.

3. Competitive effects would be muted by tariffs and tax incentives against foreign or offshoring competitors.

So you are suggesting protectionist taxation to enable inefficient US companies to compete? That is a stupid and ultimately counterproductive idea. We did that with steel during the Bush presidency and all it accomplished was to raise prices on products that use steel like cars. Raising tariffs on any product ultimately forces the consumer to bear the added cost. It also has all sorts of detrimental effects on companies in affected areas not to mention the fact that it would likely violate all sorts of WTO and other trade agreements. Tariffs and tax incentives to prop up companies that cannot compete are generally a hugely bad idea.

I heard the same story on the Marketplace Morning Report on NPR. Here is a link to it: http://www.marketplace.org/201...

I googled the sentence the poster above you wrote

http://www.marketplace.org/top...

http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/2...
"In the first quarter, Tesla sold nearly $68 million of the zero-emission credits to other automakers. That represented 12% of its overall revenue. "

So really, Telsa is not helping the climate - they are just outsourcing (selling) their percentage of climate damage to the competition. If they really cared, they would not sell or use these credits and actually help save the environment.

Indeed. APM's Marketplace did a radio segment about this a while back.

http://www.marketplace.org/top...

In truth, our power system already has a helluva lot of capacity built to accommodate variability from energy USERS (supply = demand at all times or system crashes), and it can also be used to manage variability from energy PRODUCERS, like wind. It's not an extra cost, it's built in until the level of variability far exceeds current situations (except in isolated geographic areas of the grid, or island power networks).

In the long run, we will need a power system with more flexible sources of generation or storage to manage higher levels of variability associated with wind and solar power. But for now, on most power grids? Not even close.

And guess what, fossil fuels aren't without variability, either? What if you can't get a coal train to a coal power plant? http://www.marketplace.org/top...

Citation coming up.

Of course, the AC is wrong in most respects.
1. They're not selling 'carbon credits', they're selling ZEV credits(Zero Emissions Vehicle).
2. The price isn't $30k per car, the penalty itself is only $5k per missed ZEV, so logically Tesla has to sell them for less. Maybe $4k each.

It's not small change, but it's only about 5% of the vehicle.

Printing it is the same thing. It devalues everyone's currency a little bit, which is no different than taxing except that it is not at all progressive.

Sadly, it actually is progressive. The net worth of about half of Americans is negative, so inflation actually makes them better off!

Ending prohibition didn't kill the mob. They just switched from bootlegging to trafficking narcotics, and they reached the height of their power in the 50s and 60s, long after the prohibition ended.

Well... by this thinking, the mob continued because prohibition didn't end. They moved from one prohibited product to another, but always a product the people wanted, but couldn't get because of a prohibition, and the mob was in a particularly good position (with their organization and international reach) to supply.

In the same way, while legalizing marijuana might reduce crime here in the US, cartels in Mexico are Too Big to Fail. They won't pack up their things and head home quietly if marijuana is legalized; they'll just start peddling something new.

What might happen if the cartels' market dried up is, at best, speculation. Could be risky, change is scary. But doing nothing and maintaining the status quo is worse. The cartels continue to get better and better at smuggling (they got submarines for fuck sake) and much, much richer while turning Central and South American countries into murderous hell-holes from which children flee to the U.S. on foot, and that ain't no shit.

I don't see how decriminalizing them good possibly be a good idea. The addiction rate for these drugs is 2.5 to 3 times that of alcohol.

I'm also nervous about cocaine and meth easily getting around (like, more than it already is). But the fact is, drug addiction and mental illness is just gonna have to be something that this country has to shut up, knuckle-down and deal with. It's not going away, and prohibition doesn't help. Prohibition only has power to do one thing... throw people in jail. It doesn't cure addiction (drugs make their way into prisons all the time), and distracts everyone from the larger issue of mental illness. It's like taking out the garbage: nobody wants to do it, nobody gets credit for doing it, but it's gotta be done or shit just piles up and gets worse.

Companies should not be permitted to profit from the sale of addictive substances for recreational purposes.

like tobacco in cigarettes?

or the 200 other ingredients in there to get you addicted?

The poster is saying what's typically said. You would think that selling a highly addictive substances for recreational purposes would make you rich and invincible, entire nations hopelessly enslaved by your product. Addict-zombie attack. But you'd be wrong.

Sometimes, the answer isn't the easy one. The lesson painfully learned from prohibition is that prohibition raises demand, not lowers it.

On the other hand, education and regulation, not out-and-out bans, really work. Tobacco smoking in the U.S. used to be around 50% in the Don Draper years. Now it's under 20 and still dropping. Tobacco companies are having to merge to maintain market share.

The difference is between people politely, but firmly, told to take their habit outside or into a (dirty) designated area or else you'll get a fine, and police breaking down doors and throwing flash-bombs that kill your grandma with a heart attack (because the Informant lied, and the Chief gave the green-light because the Politician wanted to go on the news that evening with pictures of drugs on the table.

It isn't just movies it is all media and it is a cultural perception as well. Check this out: http://www.marketplace.org/top...

Heard a story on NPR recently about colleges manipulating waitlists:
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/education/waitlisted-college-heres-why/

Imagine if the Exxon CEO had been there, saying "I'm not a U.S. company, and I don't make decisions based on what's good for the U.S."

> replacement parts for these machines are in short supply

Sounds like a job for 3D printing.

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/typewriters-somehow-still-demand

At the end of the day piracy should be called what it is, taking a free sample. Obscurity is a far greater threat to any business than piracy. If your product is of high quality then your paying userbase will vastly outnumber your freeloaders. If you consider the infringers as "unauthorized brand promoters" and consider those lost sales as the cost of raising brand awareness, then you'll see piracy is actually a very good value relative to what you pay for ineffective advertising that most users will simply ad-block.

Piracy is estimated to cost only $50 billion a year according to some of the staunchest anti-piracy advocates.

Internet advertising alone cost almost double that at $99 billion in 2012.

If companies would stop advertising, stop punishing filesharers, and simply rely on piracy to raise their brand awareness, then they could literally turn their imagined losses to piracy into financial gains on the balance sheet.

Piracy is the result of people wanting your product but not being able to buy it, don't punish them for loving you.

Sorry, I do not see the machine gun nests set up around the American border

Not looking very hard...


with the intent to KEEP PEOPLE IN

A fence can keep people in or out. Just a matter of which way most people want to go. When the banking system really goes down in flames in the next decade, when SS collapses from all those little "loans" we've taken against it, when the welfare state starts requiring over a 100% tax rate on those actually earning a living to sustain itself - You can bet your ass that, just like US oil pipelines today, the direction those guns face will do a 180.

The taxes on gas and diesel fuel seems to dwarf any subsidies that the oil companies receive. According to wikipedia it is on average almost 50 cents per gallon . Not that I agree with subsidies, I think we should get rid of them, but I think the oil industry subsidies is a small thing trumped up by both sides for for political purposes. I don't think the oil companies would notice if we got rid of them, other than raise fuel prices a couple cents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/if-oil-subsidies-went-away

A little googling gets you the following links:

http://www.worldsalaries.org/china.shtml
An engineer or a programmer makes $252/month on average. Are you shitting me that a factory worker making $275/month AT ENTRY LEVEL is worse off?! Entry Level. Starts at $275/month. Makes *more* money than a programmer or an engineer.

Please stop it with your assumptions and "$700 is the median wage" bullshit.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/30/apple-foxconn-workers-idUSL3E8EU4I820120330
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/apple-economy/reporters-notebook-both-sides-gates-foxconn

Better articles with wage information.

An interesting note - in addition to being able to send US$250/month back home (equivalent to a programmer's monthly pay), the worker had also saved enough in 3 years there to start his own construction company once he leaves. The average American has 10% to 30% credit card debt alone, much less think about doing anything other than continuing to work day in day out.

Who is actually worse off?

Aren't these companies partly owned by the People's Liberation Army?

According to Is China's Huawei a threat to our national security? "Huawei is not China. Huawei is Huawei," said Sykes. "We are an independent commercial company. Zero percent ownership by the Chinese government."

"We are covering too many businesses, your responses are flawed in that they focus on one element "profits", "

So is profit not the main goal of a publicly traded company?

"[Software is something I argue they should do] is that maintaining its profitability without expanding its market(exactly what you criticise Amazon for) is short sighted."

Besides the dedicated media player market -- Apple is increasing revenues and profits much faster than the industry in every single one of its markets.

"Googles revenue is up this year 9 month period http://investor.google.com/earnings.html from $19,087,000 to $27,632,000 Their profits are up $8,235,000 and $9,328,000 (they were down last quarter with half a billion restructuring of Motorola, but they sold off their set-top box this quarter for $2.5 billion), "

Of course their revenue was up after adding Motorola, but Motorola is still losing money. Motorola is causing an increase in revenue but a decrease in profit. Not a winning combination

Google's ad revenue is weak.

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/weak-ad-revenue-pulls-google-down

"(they were down last quarter with half a billion restructuring of Motorola, but they sold off their set-top box this quarter for $2.5 billion"

So they bought MMI for 12.5 billion, MMI had about $3 billion in cash at the time so that was a net cost of 9.5 billion and now they are selling the settop business for $3 billion. So that is still a net cost of about 6.5 billion on a company that is still losing money. On top of that, Google as part of the deal, is assuming most of the liability for patent infringemenr claims that are being brought by Tivo -- a company who has a track record of winning in court.

"but as I said with Google Docs they already make $1 Billion from Google Docs, and are making a massive push against Microsoft, there on-line store is reportedly selling 400% more in a year,"

The Apple app store is barely above break even profitably and has much higher revenues than the Google Play store. Up 400% from barely anything is still barely anything.

"....but the short version is your view of google is not based in reality...heard about the xPhone :)"

Yes because a rumored phone from a division who hasn't been able to compete for years is definitely a sure fire hit......

"its strategy of going for market-share over profits is working to its advantage going forward...."

http://web.mit.edu/bwerner/www/papers/Therelationbetweenmarketshareandprofitability.PDF

But if market share were the sure fire way to profitability, then why would HP try to jetison their PC business when HP still had the largest market share? Why is the iPhone still more profitable than the rest of the market combined?

"What I predict is Apples business model is unsustainable, and the market agrees with me with it having 30% of its value wipes of its market cap, "

And the market is always rational....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

"Apple should have gone for Microsoft's throat"

Yes because if it had, it might be growing faster than Microsoft now....oh wait, it is,

"but the short version is your view of google is not based in reality...heard about the xPhone :)"

and you are correct...

bacon isn't too far off... China has a pork reserve: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/bbc-world-service/chinese-government-opens-strategic-pork-reserve

So has our government.

Rather than quibbling about the meaning of a word, why not look it up?

If you read further, you'd see that shutdown and I were approaching this from different economists' definitions. So you're adding yet another definition for us, which is fine, but doesn't really resolve anything.

You're saying dogs aren't mammals because cats are mammals and dogs aren't cats. In short, your definition is incorrect.

Wow, bold and everything — must be true. That, or maybe my definition seems to be used by some people, but not by others. I think now that I've explained it that reasonable people can figure out where I'm coming from.

Perhaps you're listening to the wrong drug-addled sex tourist on your radio? You would do well to broaden your horizons.

Kai Ryssdal is a drug-addled sex tourist? Wow, I learn something new every day....~

It's Microsoft's long established development culture – watch what Apple does... then implement whatever that is in Windows.

Ballmer's previous failed plan for beyond the OS was " last to cool, first to profit." That didn't go over so well.

Microsoft is not entirely unlike the relentless Joshua from WarGames, but unlike Joshua, Microsoft doesn't seem to be able to learn.

Yeah, really. I don't know about you guys, but I kinda like the fact that my employer can't force me to live in a fucking on-site dormitory

So which manufacturer might that be? It isn't Foxconn, that's for sure. http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/apple-economy/reporters-notebook-both-sides-gates-foxconn/ - "240,000 people work here. Nearly 50,000 of them live on campus in shared dorm rooms."

Maybe you are talking about the US Military?

This interview is hilarious:

Verizon Spokeswoman: We think that people need to go to a usage-based model for data and pay for the amount of usage that they're using so that everybody is able to access the network...... And we're charging on the megabytes of data that they use.
John Moe: Why?
Spokeswoman: Uh................... er................... cough............... People have changed the usage of how they're using their devices. They're moving to using more data, and to ensure the speed and reliability and the access to the network, people are paying for the amount of data that they use.

LINK - http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/verizon-trying-stamp-out-unlimited-data-customers

You should listen the Marketplace Tech Report by John Moe about this. He asks the Verizon rep "why?" and there is a 10 second uncomfortable pause followed by a incoherent, rambling, talking point type response.
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/verizon-trying-stamp-out-unlimited-data-customers/n
Laughed my ass off listening to it on the radio.

http://www.worldsalaries.org/china.shtml

You think a pilot or programmer in china does not have a decent living standard? You must be oxygen starved when you were born.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/30/apple-foxconn-workers-idUSL3E8EU4I820120330

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/apple-economy/reporters-notebook-both-sides-gates-foxconn

Oh look - the guy, working for 3 years, can send money back to his family and support them *AND FUCKING SAVE ENOUGH TO START HIS OWN SMALL BUSINESS*.

So, no, this is not about relative living standards you fucking moron, because he obviously has a far better living standard than most americans.

Why not do some research?

http://www.worldsalaries.org/china.shtml

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/30/apple-foxconn-workers-idUSL3E8EU4I820120330

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/apple-economy/reporters-notebook-both-sides-gates-foxconn

There are numerous "balance the budget yourself" website with interactive calculations and so on all over the web.

The one I used last time was the one here: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/budget-hero which uses numbers from the CBO. It allows you to change all sorts of things and it provides projections and calculations for the future depending on what you select.

The biggest thing you notice about these sorts of things is just how expensive the Bush Tax Cuts are - certainly more than twice the cost of "obamacare" for example (which is often held up as "too expensive" by the Republicans, but could easily be paid for by repealing the Bush cuts, but then such is the nature of cut, cut, cut). It also shows how expensive social security is, and the issues affecting the future of the nation given that everyone is living longer - it's something that also needs to be addressed.

Here's the transcript.