"You can't professionalize unless you federalize," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
Created a huge new bloc of government union employees, created by a 100-0 vote in the Senate and a similar landslide in the House. Both sides had their dirty fingers in the pie.
I signed up for this just because my wife is a million-miler and got two free signups as a promotional deal. Includes TSA Precheck and lets you swipe a card at a kiosk at most big Customs areas (like ATL's nice new intl terminal, where we fly from).
I also have a passport card, which was like $10 extra when I last renewed. It's only good for travel to Canada, Mexico and some Caribbean islands, but sure makes me feel better having it in addition to a full passport when overseas.
For a long time TSA was using the precheck lanes for overflow, which seemed to utterly defeat the purpose, even knowing that it's 99% theater.
one state, Arkansas, IIRC, having 90% of the population being served by only one (ONE!) health insurance company. Clearly that company was capable of ruining people by jacking up their rates, because they owned the market. Obamacare was going to bring diversity to the market with dozens of non-profit coops to save the people!!
At the time, I looked it up and that 90% insurer was a non-profit BCBS.
The argument is "because I'm rich, I can vacation anywhere I want (anything from Aspen to Bangkok) without worrying about airline or hotel costs, but poor people can only afford to vacation at public parks" Why should only rich people be able to vacation in Aspen?
The argument is "because I'm rich, I can eat anything I want (anything from fois gras to Beluga caviar) without worrying about grocery bils, but poor people can only afford to eat at McDonald's off the dollar menu" Why should only rich people be able to eat Beluga caviar?
The argument is "because I'm rich, I snort as much cocaine as I want, without worrying about how much an ounce costs, but poor people can only afford to smoke crack at $10 a rock" Why should only rich people be able snort high-quality cocaine?
It's one thing to say if I need to use SSL encryption, or some other sure-to-have-been-developed-already function, I should use a library.
But it seems more and more that library developers suck at the fundamentals of API development, and will indeed import some whiz-bango 3rd, 4th, and 5th-party libraries, each for one tiny function. And the extra libraries will always called something like sheboyganMarmoset.
The same holds for applications and package managers. How many RPMs in RHEL carry a dependency on ModemManager, despite the fact the virtually no one still uses modems? Installing one RPM often carries 50 cascaded dependencies on far-flung libraries or applications.
According to this website (https://billionairemailinglist.com/billionaires-list.html), there are 490 billionaires in the US in 2016. Topping the list is Bill Gates, at $78B, followed by Warren Buffett at $65.6B. At the bottom is Fred Chang, Newegg.com Founder - online retailer of computer hardware and software, with a measly $1B.
If you confiscated every penny of their collective wealth, it would not fund the US government for about 6 months. Their collective wealth is $2.273T, while the US government spends about $4T per year.
And, of course, a that point you're plumb out of billionaires until some new ones work their way above that magical line. But how many would work toward that goal if they knew that the minute they get there, their wealth will be "reset" to $0 by taxation.
"They are asking fr a collective arrangement in which all rich people pay more taxes."
No.
In this country we tax based on a notion of "income". Which the truly rich can readily arrange to be $0. See how Warren Buffett's "income" was actually $100,000 for years--he never even paid himself enough "income" from his company to meet the cap on Social Security.
What they are asking for is higher taxes on people with high incomes. People with high incomes probably aren't "rich" in the same sense that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are rich.
[You need to visit the IRS web site to see the actual numbers, but when I last did it in 2012, the data was as shown here.]
In 2008, for example, the top.1% earned 9.96% of the income, and the top 1% earned 20.00% of the income, the top 10% earned 45.77% of the income, while the bottom 50% earned 12.75% of the income (cry about income inequality later).
They paid, respectively, 18.47% (top 0.1%), 38.02% (top 1%), 69.94% (top 10%) and 2.70% (bottom 50%) of all the federal income taxes.
Note that the rich pay twice as much of their share of taxes relative to their income.
As for taxes paid as a percentage of their income, the top 0.1% paid effective rate of 22.70%. The top 1% paid 23.27% (the highest effective rate is this paid by this group), and the top 10% paid 18.71%. The bottom 50% paid 2.59%.
Bear in mind also that some 46 million households have zero or negative income tax liability, and another 15M households do not file income tax returns, and further, that some 12% of filers not only have enough refundable credits to render their income tax liability zero or negative, but to more than cover all of their payroll taxes too.
[I first wrote this in 2012, so the "In the last year for which data is available" is wrong, and I could take the time to update the numbers, but the picture painted will not change...]
In the last year for which data is available, 2008, the highest marginal tax rate was 35%. This rate was paid on AGI above $357,700. Certainly someone with AGI over that value is in the well-to-do category, but may not be "millionaires and billionaires" (OTOH Mr. Obama seems to think income of $250,000 equates to "millionaire", but this is immaterial to my point). According to the IRS, the number of returns that were in this highest marginal rate was 971,510. So there's nearly a million households in this country that are, at least by the IRS bracket definition, "rich". Not too shabby, it seems the USA is indeed the land of opportunity.
According to the IRS, the cumulative amount of AGI subjected to this highest rate was $622,765,389,000, so let's round up to $622.8B. The taxes generated on this money is therefore $218B (the IRS reported $217,967,886,000). The overall effective rate for these returns (taxes paid / income) was 28.9%.
Let's assume for a moment (no matter how unrealistic the assumption is) that no one affected would change a lick of their income-generating behavior as a result if we raised the top marginal rate to 100%. How much revenue would that generate? Why, all of $622.8B, if no one modified their behavior in any way that affected their income and tax impact. That is, it would generate an additional $404.8B in revenue relative to the current 35% bracket.
If you added that $404B to the revenue pot, our deficit this year would still be over $1T...
[CBO report "THE INCIDENCE OF THE CORPORATE INCOME TAX"]
"A corporation may write its check to the Internal Revenue Service for payment of the corporate income tax, but that money must come from somewhere: from reduced returns to investors in the company, lower wages to its workers, or higher prices that consumers pay for the products the company produces."
Although economists are far from a consensus about exactly who bears how much of the burden of the corporate income tax, the existing studies highlight the significant types of economic mechanisms as well as the empirical estimates necessary for further quantifying the burdens. CBO's review of the studies yields the following conclusions:
o The short-term burden of the corporate tax probably falls on stockholders or investors in general, but may fall on some more than on others, because not all investments are taxed at the same rate.
o In the context of international capital mobility, the burden of the corporate tax may be shifted onto immobile factors (such as labor or land), but only to the degree that the capital and outputs of different countries can be substituted.
o In the very long term, the burden is likely to be shifted in part to labor, if the corporate tax dampens capital accumulation.
steam shovels replaced men with picks and shovels? How many secretaries in typing pools were displaced by desktop computers and xerox machines and laser printers?
Any number of jobs have been lost over the years to automation large and small, but do you really think we'd be better off returning to the pre-automation way of doing those jobs?
States like Florida, plus the Federal government, seem intent on keeping as many people living in beachfront or oceanside or riverfront living as possible by subsidizing against *inevitable* flood losses. Some places have been flooded and restored multiple times at taxpayer expense. Take a hint!
If you can afford to build a $1M house on the beach, then you can afford to watch it float away on your own dime...
In a dystopian near-future America (is there any other kind in pulp SF?), psuedo-evangelical Christians have assumed power and made the USA a theocracy, of the Ayatollah sort. The populace is largely kept in line by a Brotherhood of brownshirts, who keep up with everyone via their "Personal Jesus" confessionals, which are nothing more than surveillance engines, and the elaborate, massive religious-themed productions (think 4th of July fireworks shows on the DC Mall) helped entertain the masses.
Anyway, one "cult" that even the theocracy knows not to mess with: The Elvii. The Elvis worship was strong...
In 2012, there were 2,363 gang-related homicides (2103 data not provided yet it seems), but it seems fair that around 2,000 gang-related homicides occur every year. In other words, about 40% of all murders in the US are gang-related homicides. With an estimated 770,000 gang members accounting for 40% (about 2300) of all murders, the rest of the population (314.8M) produced about 3360 murders, or about 1.06 murders per 100,000 non-gang people. This is clearly on par with other countries who do not have similar gang problems.
From the FBI numbers above, it also seems that black-on-black murders are quite disproportionately represented. At about 17% of the population, black-on-black murders were also about 40% of the total (2245). White-on-white murders were higher the same as an absolute number (2,509) but there are 195.6M whites compared to 53.6M blacks. The numbers say that blacks murder blacks at 4.1 per 100,000; whites murder whites at about 0.77 per 100,000. Blacks also murdered 409 whites; whites murdered 189 blacks.
On the other hand, men committed about 5000 murders in 2013, and women committed about 500.
SWAT and Secret Service, and Marines, SEALs, police, etc. that have the training and also happen to side with the 2nd Amendment groups? Not to mention a large number of active-duty members of the same?
I wonder why people make this "outdated" argument? That's like saying the 1st Amendment is outdated, what with the internet and secular society no one needs a free press or freedom of religion.
In the countdown for the Top 30 Murder Capitals of America (http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/), it is pretty clear that one thing many of the cities have in common is strict gun control laws at the state or local level.
Rank City 30 Chicago Heights, IL 29 Baton Rouge, LA 28 Buffalo, NY 27 Hattiesburg, MS 26 East Chicago, IN 25 Birmingham, AL 24 Desert Hot Springs, CA 23 Compton, CA 22 Myrtle Beach, SC 21 Fort Pierce, FL 20 Harvey, IL 19 Bridgeton, NJ 18 Flint, MI 17 Rocky Mount, NC 16 Pine Bluff, AR 15 Petersburg, VA 14 Newark, NJ 13 Baltimore, MD 12 Harrisburg, PA 11 Jackson, MS 10 Wilmington, DE 9 Trenton, NJ 8 Riviera Beach, FL 7 New Orleans, LA 6 Camden, NJ 5 Detroit, MI 4 Gary, IN 3 St. Louis, MO 2 Chester, PA 1 East St. Louis, IL
It may be "gun research", but when the hypotheses are presumed true and data is manipulated to support the predetermined outcomes, then it is bad research no matter which side is doing it. If the NRA produced "gun research" predetermined in its outcome, it would be fair to call it "pro-gun research"; so when a researcher starts from an anti-gun premise and attempts to support it, it is just as fair to call it "anti-gun research".
Same for research funded by Greenpeace or Big Oil, Big Tobacco or anti-smoking groups.
It is possible for research funded by an entity with a axe to grind to be still be good research, but I think I can be forgiven if I am skeptical of such research on its face.
Slashdot Mirror
"You can't professionalize unless you federalize," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
Created a huge new bloc of government union employees, created by a 100-0 vote in the Senate and a similar landslide in the House. Both sides had their dirty fingers in the pie.
I signed up for this just because my wife is a million-miler and got two free signups as a promotional deal. Includes TSA Precheck and lets you swipe a card at a kiosk at most big Customs areas (like ATL's nice new intl terminal, where we fly from).
I also have a passport card, which was like $10 extra when I last renewed. It's only good for travel to Canada, Mexico and some Caribbean islands, but sure makes me feel better having it in addition to a full passport when overseas.
For a long time TSA was using the precheck lanes for overflow, which seemed to utterly defeat the purpose, even knowing that it's 99% theater.
It's just that most of them are located on airport properties.
one state, Arkansas, IIRC, having 90% of the population being served by only one (ONE!) health insurance company. Clearly that company was capable of ruining people by jacking up their rates, because they owned the market. Obamacare was going to bring diversity to the market with dozens of non-profit coops to save the people!!
At the time, I looked it up and that 90% insurer was a non-profit BCBS.
Just about any elective surgery is far cheaper than it used to be. Of course, people pay for elective surgeries out of their own pockets.
The argument is "because I'm rich, I can vacation anywhere I want (anything from Aspen to Bangkok) without worrying about airline or hotel costs, but poor people can only afford to vacation at public parks" Why should only rich people be able to vacation in Aspen?
The argument is "because I'm rich, I can eat anything I want (anything from fois gras to Beluga caviar) without worrying about grocery bils, but poor people can only afford to eat at McDonald's off the dollar menu" Why should only rich people be able to eat Beluga caviar?
The argument is "because I'm rich, I snort as much cocaine as I want, without worrying about how much an ounce costs, but poor people can only afford to smoke crack at $10 a rock" Why should only rich people be able snort high-quality cocaine?
World ends, poor and minorities disproportionately affected...
Why does *everything* have to be filtered through an SJW lens?
It's one thing to say if I need to use SSL encryption, or some other sure-to-have-been-developed-already function, I should use a library.
But it seems more and more that library developers suck at the fundamentals of API development, and will indeed import some whiz-bango 3rd, 4th, and 5th-party libraries, each for one tiny function. And the extra libraries will always called something like sheboyganMarmoset.
The same holds for applications and package managers. How many RPMs in RHEL carry a dependency on ModemManager, despite the fact the virtually no one still uses modems? Installing one RPM often carries 50 cascaded dependencies on far-flung libraries or applications.
Like Ft. Hood?
According to this website (https://billionairemailinglist.com/billionaires-list.html), there are 490 billionaires in the US in 2016. Topping the list is Bill Gates, at $78B, followed by Warren Buffett at $65.6B. At the bottom is Fred Chang, Newegg.com Founder - online retailer of computer hardware and software, with a measly $1B.
If you confiscated every penny of their collective wealth, it would not fund the US government for about 6 months. Their collective wealth is $2.273T, while the US government spends about $4T per year.
And, of course, a that point you're plumb out of billionaires until some new ones work their way above that magical line. But how many would work toward that goal if they knew that the minute they get there, their wealth will be "reset" to $0 by taxation.
"They are asking fr a collective arrangement in which all rich people pay more taxes."
No.
In this country we tax based on a notion of "income". Which the truly rich can readily arrange to be $0. See how Warren Buffett's "income" was actually $100,000 for years--he never even paid himself enough "income" from his company to meet the cap on Social Security.
What they are asking for is higher taxes on people with high incomes. People with high incomes probably aren't "rich" in the same sense that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are rich.
And not "Earned"?
I see.
[You need to visit the IRS web site to see the actual numbers, but when I last did it in 2012, the data was as shown here.]
In 2008, for example, the top .1% earned 9.96% of the income, and the top 1% earned 20.00% of the income, the top 10% earned 45.77% of the income, while the bottom 50% earned 12.75% of the income (cry about income inequality later).
They paid, respectively, 18.47% (top 0.1%), 38.02% (top 1%), 69.94% (top 10%) and 2.70% (bottom 50%) of all the federal income taxes.
Note that the rich pay twice as much of their share of taxes relative to their income.
As for taxes paid as a percentage of their income, the top 0.1% paid effective rate of 22.70%. The top 1% paid 23.27% (the highest effective rate is this paid by this group), and the top 10% paid 18.71%. The bottom 50% paid 2.59%.
Bear in mind also that some 46 million households have zero or negative income tax liability, and another 15M households do not file income tax returns, and further, that some 12% of filers not only have enough refundable credits to render their income tax liability zero or negative, but to more than cover all of their payroll taxes too.
[I first wrote this in 2012, so the "In the last year for which data is available" is wrong, and I could take the time to update the numbers, but the picture painted will not change...]
In the last year for which data is available, 2008, the highest marginal tax rate was 35%. This rate was paid on AGI above $357,700. Certainly someone with AGI over that value is in the well-to-do category, but may not be "millionaires and billionaires" (OTOH Mr. Obama seems to think income of $250,000 equates to "millionaire", but this is immaterial to my point). According to the IRS, the number of returns that were in this highest marginal rate was 971,510. So there's nearly a million households in this country that are, at least by the IRS bracket definition, "rich". Not too shabby, it seems the USA is indeed the land of opportunity.
According to the IRS, the cumulative amount of AGI subjected to this highest rate was $622,765,389,000, so let's round up to $622.8B. The taxes generated on this money is therefore $218B (the IRS reported $217,967,886,000). The overall effective rate for these returns (taxes paid / income) was 28.9%.
Let's assume for a moment (no matter how unrealistic the assumption is) that no one affected would change a lick of their income-generating behavior as a result if we raised the top marginal rate to 100%. How much revenue would that generate? Why, all of $622.8B, if no one modified their behavior in any way that affected their income and tax impact. That is, it would generate an additional $404.8B in revenue relative to the current 35% bracket.
If you added that $404B to the revenue pot, our deficit this year would still be over $1T...
Even the CBO understands that...
[CBO report "THE INCIDENCE OF THE CORPORATE INCOME TAX"]
"A corporation may write its check to the Internal Revenue Service for payment of the corporate income tax, but that money must come from somewhere: from reduced returns to investors in the company, lower wages to its workers, or higher prices that consumers pay for the products the company produces."
Although economists are far from a consensus about exactly who bears how much of the burden of the corporate income tax, the existing studies highlight the significant types of economic mechanisms as well as the empirical estimates necessary for further quantifying the burdens. CBO's review of the studies yields the following conclusions:
o The short-term burden of the corporate tax probably falls on
stockholders or investors in general, but may fall on some more than
on others, because not all investments are taxed at the same rate.
o In the context of international capital mobility, the burden of the
corporate tax may be shifted onto immobile factors (such as labor or
land), but only to the degree that the capital and outputs of different
countries can be substituted.
o In the very long term, the burden is likely to be shifted in part to
labor, if the corporate tax dampens capital accumulation.
steam shovels replaced men with picks and shovels? How many secretaries in typing pools were displaced by desktop computers and xerox machines and laser printers?
Any number of jobs have been lost over the years to automation large and small, but do you really think we'd be better off returning to the pre-automation way of doing those jobs?
States like Florida, plus the Federal government, seem intent on keeping as many people living in beachfront or oceanside or riverfront living as possible by subsidizing against *inevitable* flood losses. Some places have been flooded and restored multiple times at taxpayer expense. Take a hint!
If you can afford to build a $1M house on the beach, then you can afford to watch it float away on your own dime...
In a dystopian near-future America (is there any other kind in pulp SF?), psuedo-evangelical Christians have assumed power and made the USA a theocracy, of the Ayatollah sort. The populace is largely kept in line by a Brotherhood of brownshirts, who keep up with everyone via their "Personal Jesus" confessionals, which are nothing more than surveillance engines, and the elaborate, massive religious-themed productions (think 4th of July fireworks shows on the DC Mall) helped entertain the masses.
Anyway, one "cult" that even the theocracy knows not to mess with: The Elvii. The Elvis worship was strong...
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/c...
In 2013, there were 5723 murders recorded in the FBI stats.
https://www.nationalgangcenter...
In 2012, there were 2,363 gang-related homicides (2103 data not provided yet it seems), but it seems fair that around 2,000 gang-related homicides occur every year. In other words, about 40% of all murders in the US are gang-related homicides. With an estimated 770,000 gang members accounting for 40% (about 2300) of all murders, the rest of the population (314.8M) produced about 3360 murders, or about 1.06 murders per 100,000 non-gang people. This is clearly on par with other countries who do not have similar gang problems.
From the FBI numbers above, it also seems that black-on-black murders are quite disproportionately represented. At about 17% of the population, black-on-black murders were also about 40% of the total (2245). White-on-white murders were higher the same as an absolute number (2,509) but there are 195.6M whites compared to 53.6M blacks. The numbers say that blacks murder blacks at 4.1 per 100,000; whites murder whites at about 0.77 per 100,000. Blacks also murdered 409 whites; whites murdered 189 blacks.
On the other hand, men committed about 5000 murders in 2013, and women committed about 500.
More laws making the penalties for suicide steeper. No one will commit suicide anymore if we just make the punishment steep enough.
SWAT and Secret Service, and Marines, SEALs, police, etc. that have the training and also happen to side with the 2nd Amendment groups? Not to mention a large number of active-duty members of the same?
I wonder why people make this "outdated" argument? That's like saying the 1st Amendment is outdated, what with the internet and secular society no one needs a free press or freedom of religion.
a huge silver mine--his access to silver was essentially unlimited.
Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
In the countdown for the Top 30 Murder Capitals of America (http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/), it is pretty clear that one thing many of the cities have in common is strict gun control laws at the state or local level.
Rank City
30 Chicago Heights, IL
29 Baton Rouge, LA
28 Buffalo, NY
27 Hattiesburg, MS
26 East Chicago, IN
25 Birmingham, AL
24 Desert Hot Springs, CA
23 Compton, CA
22 Myrtle Beach, SC
21 Fort Pierce, FL
20 Harvey, IL
19 Bridgeton, NJ
18 Flint, MI
17 Rocky Mount, NC
16 Pine Bluff, AR
15 Petersburg, VA
14 Newark, NJ
13 Baltimore, MD
12 Harrisburg, PA
11 Jackson, MS
10 Wilmington, DE
9 Trenton, NJ
8 Riviera Beach, FL
7 New Orleans, LA
6 Camden, NJ
5 Detroit, MI
4 Gary, IN
3 St. Louis, MO
2 Chester, PA
1 East St. Louis, IL
It may be "gun research", but when the hypotheses are presumed true and data is manipulated to support the predetermined outcomes, then it is bad research no matter which side is doing it. If the NRA produced "gun research" predetermined in its outcome, it would be fair to call it "pro-gun research"; so when a researcher starts from an anti-gun premise and attempts to support it, it is just as fair to call it "anti-gun research".
Same for research funded by Greenpeace or Big Oil, Big Tobacco or anti-smoking groups.
It is possible for research funded by an entity with a axe to grind to be still be good research, but I think I can be forgiven if I am skeptical of such research on its face.