The best, the slower drive can accomplish is keeping up if they are lucky. The faster driver on the other hand, has a chance at every light they hit to gain a couple of minutes over the slower driver. 8 miles is also very short difference
The slow driver often doesn't waste time accelerating and decelerating at lights. Generally if I'm going the speed limit I catch every light and only have to stop if the guy in front of me had to stop because he was in a hurry to get there first. I'm not much of a speeder but I often arrive at destinations before my friends that do speed do. It's amazing how much time you loose accelerating/decelerating in an attempt to go faster. Not to mention what hitting your brakes constantly does to the flow of traffic behind you.
Because oil is fungible that still wouldn't make any difference. Even now It's not like a gallon of gas made from oil from the U.S. is any cheaper than when it's made from oil elsewhere. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration the U.S. imported 51% of the oil consumed in the U.S. in 2009 It follows that the U.S. already produces half it's own oil.Even if we invaded Canada and 'took' their oil, the consumer would still have a price based on the world market. I suppose the government could try to dictate the price of oil. But I don't think that's even possible (never mind constitutional) with our insatiable demand. In all reality supply has some debatable limit and is beyond our control.
Also according to the E.I.A. we get our oil from all over the world. In other words, it takes the world to feed our demand. You have a big field, we want some. You're close, we want some.
Gas goes up, the economy goes down. Gas goes down, the economy goes up. There are more factors, but gas is fundamental to modern life. Cheap energy means lots of cheap stuff and cheap distribution.
I found many of these reports full of information .
Perhaps you might argue that I should not be inebriated when I reply, as I do not think my post is directed towards you but I'm going to hit post anyway because I've already typed all of this out.
Cars offer more flexibility than trains do (you can hop in your car in the middle of the night - can't do that with a train).
You could replace trains with planes but that doesn't mean planes are useless. I'm not saying that makes high speed trains useful, I'm just saying your argument doesn't preclude a place for them.
Yeah because coal doesn't get any subsidies. Please do give us your solution, since nuclear is not an option, what do you suggest we do for our energy needs? BTW burning coal concentrates elements like thorium and uranium in the ash, making it more radioactive than before it was burned. This ash exposes people who live near coal plants to more radiation than those that live near nuclear plants. Not to mention the mercury and hundreds of other carcinogens released from burning coal.
A few years ago I forwarded my friends email to hisnumber@txt.att.net when he didn't have internet so he could still get his emails. Not my geekiest moment, but still no points?
It wasn't just the poor couldn't pay for their houses, it was that the value of the mortgages were substationally higher than the value of the houses. Subprime borrowers typically pay a higher interest rate because they are more likely to default (what happened to that money that was supposed to cover the higher rates of foreclosure?). The loss of trillions of dollars was the result of over valued loans being brought back in line with the value of the houses more so than trillions of dollars in mortgages forfeiting.
Let's say
I sell my Nissan Sentra for $100,000
I provide a loan for the buyer
I sell that secured loan to a third party(on the basis that my Sentra is worth $100,000)
The buyer stops making payments
The loan defaults
There is a much greater 'loss of money' than if the buyer had stopped paying for a loan secured with collateral valued correctly. People shouldn't pay $200,000 for a house worth $100,000 and banks shouldn't secure $200,000 loans with a house that's worth $100,000. I wonder whose interest it was in to overvalue houses.
Rather than vague complaints in comments of unrelated articles have you tried providing feedback to Slashdot? I see a lot of people complaining and thinking that because something is broken for them it is broken for everyone. I fail to see how your criticism would lead to change as you sight nothing specific. BTW this isn't just directed at you, but as soon as I saw the redesign my first thought was great, now all of the comments will be complaints about the redesign (before I formed my own opinion I dreaded these predictable comments). If something is broken report it with the browser and OS you are using. If you don't like a design change be specific. And tell them, I don't care.
You're absolutely right. I was using them interchangeably and didn't even consider that income encompasses more than payroll. This got me thinking though. Why shouldn't every individual be taxed at the same rate regardless of their source of income. If there is double taxation on dividends and corporate profits perhaps the corporations should be the ones to get the tax break. This might (I haven't given full thought yet) keep more money invested in the company and create a greater sense of equality under the tax code in this country. Whether someone chooses to earn income by labor or by asset investment it's all income to the individual in the end. Each person should at least start at the same income tax rate whatever the source and let deductions from there be another debate.
See, if you were right then the country would have descended into irrevocable anarchy when the Great Depression hit.
We were certainly headed that way. Organized crime was huge. Crime across the board was up. Prohibition played a huge part of course (was alcohol part of our moral tradition?). WWII happened. I would guess we were closer to anarchy than any other time.
Can you imagine what would happen if there were 25-30% unemployment today? Many of our cities are a short power failure from anarchy as it is.
WWIII. Ok half kidding, but really unless WWIII happens it wouldn't be worse than the Great Depression.
You mean like the Founding Fathers? Um, I don't think so.
I'm not sure I follow. Can you elaborate (was the 3/5 compromise part of our moral tradition, or explicitly separating moral tradition, usually represented by the church part of that)?
Perhaps not. I'm sure there are cultural aspects there, but is the fact that drunk European teenagers are not getting into cars and careening into a crowd of schoolchildren part of the reason?
There is a chicken and the egg problem here. Do school children here get drunk and crash cars because drinking is taboo and therefore cool to an age group that expresses rebellion in almost every way possible? Or is it purely a cultural difference? If it is a cultural difference, what's at the root?
yet several torrent tracker sites reported it consistently ranked in the top 5 shows
I think that if studios released their shows via torrent with ads included they could monetize it. Of course (IMO) the real problem is probably that Nielson ratings were never right and so now that advertisers know exactly how many people are watching it's not worth as much. I went on CBS.com to watch something the other day and it said I couldn't play it on my device. No wonder the studios can't monetize new media when they refuse to show ads to some people. Watching commercials is my preferred method of payment, but they intentionally choose not to 'sell' me there product. So I can use another browser besides chrome, I can change the user agent id (which I did),I could just pirate the content sans ads, or not watch CBS shows at all. Content producers are their own worst enemy when it comes to monetizing their content on the internet. I would much rather hop online and watch shows/movies instantly with ads than look for torrents and wait for them to download but the Networks seem to want me to download torrents. It's quite idiotic.
Money is more than just medium of exchange. Money is also Unit of Account and Store of Value. So before you spout nonsense, learn the topic.
I have read quite a bit on the topic actually. Initially, economic activity was performed with barter. Then money was developed as an abstract symbol of what those goods are valued at. You can call it a Unit of Account or a Store of Value but it still an abstract symbol dependent on the value we assign to it. Money as Unit of Account or a Store of Value is dependent on the stability of that money. The stability of that money is dependent on my psychological factors. There are many economist that would not call that nonsense. Money whether paper or gold represents value of goods/services it does not in of itself have any more value than what paper is worth or what gold is worth(in terms of using it in electronics as an example). Money, whether described as greenbacks or a number written on a balance sheet to represent the value of a company is still an abstract symbol. What money represent and what we assign to it is very psychological. Brazil is one example where inflation was brought under control by changing the way people looked at money. Partly by first assining a Unit of Value, the URV and then pairing the money with it. I disagree with some of your opinions but I don't say it's nonsense because I will make my argument and you can make yours.
- you are wrong. It's not the rich who need the infrastructure more, they can afford their own infrastructure and modes of transportation that are much more advanced than are afforded by middle-class or poor people. The security? The rich can definitely afford much more security than you can and they can do it privately.
I don't agree. I said they benefit from infrastructure more not need it more. I'm not talking about personal transportation, I'm talking about the infrastructure that allowed for goods/services to be moved around. I'm talking about the tax funded education that made their employees more productive. How well would Walmart function without ports, railways, and highways. The already rich might be able to build an infrastructure (well, actually they wouldn't build it they would have to pay us with money that we accept to build it for them) but to get rich an infrastructure like ours is certainly critical. How would Mark Zukerberg(sp?) have become rich without the tax paid for foundation of the internet. To be fair there are instances of infrastructure being built in the process of getting rich. Carnegie comes to mind. Maybe Utilities too, but when you throw in government granted monopolies your still talking about taxes playing a roll.
Before 2009 the death tax was 35%. Now small business and farms are hurt the most by these taxes but the super rich certainly got around selling all their assets. I can respect your argument that you feel the death tax is morally wrong but I do not accept the argument that it somehow hurts the economy when applied to the super rich. Perhaps it could only apply to assets held in publicly funded companies(stocks). Stock in a company can change hands without any physical assets being sold.
Nobody should be paying any income taxes any payroll taxes any gift taxes, any inheritance taxes at all.
Fair enough. What taxes do you support? I'm all for less spending BTW. I don't think we need to tax more, just more equitably.
- the rich in USA are already paying most of the taxes.
I don't think anyone could say that with any confidence. The tax code is ridiculously complex. That alone favors the rich since as a percentage of income they can afford to hire professional accounting services and still come out ahead. No matter how you break it down, the wealthy have an advantage in our tax code. If you are against the death tax and income taxes then it must come from somewhere. What are your solutions? A national s
When I point out that the U.K. doesn't have a problem with guns because the people/culture don't want them you say
Needing a machine shop, and the skills to use it effectively, make it much more difficult to get your hands on a gun (esp. for dumb criminals). Also, unless you have the ability to make forged-steel rifled barrels (not a trivial thing), your homemade gun isn't going to be nearly as accurate or reliable as a manufactured one.
To that I/you say...:)
guns are fundamentally rather simple mechanical devices; it's not that hard for someone with a machine shop to make their own.
How about prisons? Defended borders, a lack of privacy and armed guards are as well controlled as you're going to get. How well do bans on alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, knives, (I've heard but can't find a source for an actual functioning gun made from plumbing) etc. work there? If a prison can't enforce a ban (because obviously criminals don't agree to it), then how effective are bans without the consent of the populace?
One last issue I'd like to take up:)
but not enough to really close the border, even though it's entirely feasible
How do you define feasible? Possible at any cost? Do you know how many cargo vessels, trucks, etc. cross U.S. borders each day. I don't think securing the U.S. border is feasible any more than taking my shoes off at the airport is going to stop anybody.
BTW I've driven around the DFW tarmac after 9/11 because I have a friend that works there. Just make sure you don't drive behind the 747s. One plane was sitting there, door open, stairs, no one around. You should see the security employees have to go through. Duck tape on the metal detectors. No kidding. Guess how many people that clean the planes speak English as a first language. I have another friend who was dishonorably discharged from the military and served time at Leavenworth. He worked at the airport for a month before they finally insisted with no more leeway that he had to provide documentation for his background check. I've even purchased pot at DFW airport behind security. I always take a lighter with me when I fly. Not enough metal on it to set anything off. I always figured if I got caught I'd just say 'oh I forgot about that'. But I always go right onto the plane with it.
Ah yes, faith in security and the control of the government is good for followers. It doesn't mean squat for people who do whatever they want.
So I am still left with the conclusion that bans and laws work great for people who follow them, not so much for people who don't. As the number of people who follow laws and bans grows in a country it becomes harder for those that don't follow the laws, however, bans/laws are still fundamentally dependent on how many people follow and how many people don't.
- oh yeah, the dreaded 'death' tax. Well think about this: to pay the death tax you have to liquidate a lot of investments. You don't actually believe that people with real money have it all stashed under a mattress, do you?
First there's no such thing as real money it's an abstract symbol to facilitate trade. If it's not doing that it's worthless.
The death tax kicks in after $1 million and every other transaction is taxed so why shouldn't it be taxed too. You don't have to liquidate a company just to pay taxes on it. People don't have to sell their houses to pay property taxes. Right now their is a lower tax rate for liquidating stocks than for earning an income so I'm not sure what you're for here. Are you saying liquidating stocks should be encouraged over earning income, because that's the way it's setup now.
Now, on the other hand - why bother working if you can't pass the fruits of your labor, for which you have already paid the taxes to your children?
Arguing that motivation for the super rich is related to the tax code is like arguing that the death penalty is a deterrent to psychopaths. Bill Gates would still become super rich regardless of what you tax him after the first $10,000,000 just like a psychopath is still going to murder regardless of the penalty. The inherited wealthy have done a phenomenal job of arguing that the tax code should favor them by convincing the middle class that it will effect them too when that hard work (never) pays off.
Buffet is paying taxes on dividends, which are taxed by gov't for income before they are paid to the shareholders.
It's not bullshit, it's exactly the point. The rich have forms of revenue that are taxed at lower rates than the forms of revenue that most people have. If you think labor that creates real goods and services should be taxed more than gains made from shuffling money around that's your opinion. It is my opinion that it is bad for the success and longevity of our society.
It's double taxation
Money is taxed at various transactions. The rate of that taxation is what's at issue. Everything is double, triple, infinitely taxed. My employer pays taxes. I pay taxes on my income. I turn around and pay taxes on it again when I buy something. If I buy something from another country it was probably taxed when it came into this country. Everything is taxed at each transaction, why do you defend the rich getting excused from this?
You sell stock maybe, ok. You sell your company? Fire some people? Liquidate a business? Is that helpful
Go ahead and tell yourself that if Paris Hilton had to pay more in taxes people would loose their jobs.
I don't think the rich should pay more than their fair share (though the argument could be made that they benefit the most from the countries infrastructure/education) but they should pay their fair share. Why should a self employed small business owner (who produces real value) pay more (percentage) in taxes than someone who buys low and sells high, often manipulating the valuation of the company in the process?
So many rags to riches stories in this country start in a garage with capital from a relative. Very little real wealth is created by stock brokers and the inherited wealthy. What's good for society is what matters in the long term. Regardless of whether some King in ancient times freed England, we eventually told King George to shove it.
Years ago I installed AOL one Christmas day on a scavenged computer so a friend's dad could look at some info about a car. When I called AOL to cancel they wanted the specific number off of the disk that I used to install before they would cancel it. I didn't know which of the 50 disks I had used so I went to my bank, paid a one time stop fee of less than what AOL was charging monthly. That worked just fine. No argument at all.
Also, In a previous.. You state that a gun ban in the U.K. is more effective because they are on an island and can control things better. You also state anyone can make a gun in a machine shop. Therefore I do not believe it is the 'ease' of getting/making a gun that makes the U.K. less armed than the U.S. but rather the culture and agreement of the populace not to have them that makes them less available in the U.K.
Slashdot Mirror
Usual Suspects, great movie the first time you watch it. Not a movie you can watch over and over though.
American Beauty, I saw it once but don't remember much about it
Man from Earth, I really enjoyed it. I should watch it again.
Harrison Bergeron is probably one of my personal favorites though.
The best, the slower drive can accomplish is keeping up if they are lucky. The faster driver on the other hand, has a chance at every light they hit to gain a couple of minutes over the slower driver. 8 miles is also very short difference
The slow driver often doesn't waste time accelerating and decelerating at lights. Generally if I'm going the speed limit I catch every light and only have to stop if the guy in front of me had to stop because he was in a hurry to get there first. I'm not much of a speeder but I often arrive at destinations before my friends that do speed do. It's amazing how much time you loose accelerating/decelerating in an attempt to go faster. Not to mention what hitting your brakes constantly does to the flow of traffic behind you.
Hence the "invade" part, to get it cheaper...
You're probably just kidding, but..
Because oil is fungible that still wouldn't make any difference. Even now It's not like a gallon of gas made from oil from the U.S. is any cheaper than when it's made from oil elsewhere. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration the U.S. imported 51% of the oil consumed in the U.S. in 2009 It follows that the U.S. already produces half it's own oil.Even if we invaded Canada and 'took' their oil, the consumer would still have a price based on the world market. I suppose the government could try to dictate the price of oil. But I don't think that's even possible (never mind constitutional) with our insatiable demand. In all reality supply has some debatable limit and is beyond our control.
Also according to the E.I.A. we get our oil from all over the world. In other words, it takes the world to feed our demand. You have a big field, we want some. You're close, we want some.
Gas goes up, the economy goes down. Gas goes down, the economy goes up. There are more factors, but gas is fundamental to modern life. Cheap energy means lots of cheap stuff and cheap distribution.
I found many of these reports full of information
.
Perhaps you might argue that I should not be inebriated when I reply, as I do not think my post is directed towards you but I'm going to hit post anyway because I've already typed all of this out.
Cars offer more flexibility than trains do (you can hop in your car in the middle of the night - can't do that with a train).
You could replace trains with planes but that doesn't mean planes are useless. I'm not saying that makes high speed trains useful, I'm just saying your argument doesn't preclude a place for them.
Heck Windows NT didn't even have a version 1 or 2 or 3.0 for that matter. It started with 3.1.
Maybe this. I think I first saw it in a PopSci article.
Yeah because coal doesn't get any subsidies. Please do give us your solution, since nuclear is not an option, what do you suggest we do for our energy needs? BTW burning coal concentrates elements like thorium and uranium in the ash, making it more radioactive than before it was burned. This ash exposes people who live near coal plants to more radiation than those that live near nuclear plants. Not to mention the mercury and hundreds of other carcinogens released from burning coal.
You might find this interesting.
SMSing makes you a geek? Not!
A few years ago I forwarded my friends email to hisnumber@txt.att.net when he didn't have internet so he could still get his emails. Not my geekiest moment, but still no points?
Aspiring to be different is basically trying to identify as not-something, which is just asinine.
Kids these days. What's wrong with them?
Your identity should be about who you are or what groups you choose to associate with, not about being different from some other.
Right you are sir.
This also why I think Jesse Jackson is a tool.
I like his reading of Green Eggs and Ham.
It wasn't just the poor couldn't pay for their houses, it was that the value of the mortgages were substationally higher than the value of the houses. Subprime borrowers typically pay a higher interest rate because they are more likely to default (what happened to that money that was supposed to cover the higher rates of foreclosure?). The loss of trillions of dollars was the result of over valued loans being brought back in line with the value of the houses more so than trillions of dollars in mortgages forfeiting.
Let's say
I sell my Nissan Sentra for $100,000
I provide a loan for the buyer
I sell that secured loan to a third party(on the basis that my Sentra is worth $100,000)
The buyer stops making payments
The loan defaults
There is a much greater 'loss of money' than if the buyer had stopped paying for a loan secured with collateral valued correctly. People shouldn't pay $200,000 for a house worth $100,000 and banks shouldn't secure $200,000 loans with a house that's worth $100,000. I wonder whose interest it was in to overvalue houses.
Rather than vague complaints in comments of unrelated articles have you tried providing feedback to Slashdot? I see a lot of people complaining and thinking that because something is broken for them it is broken for everyone. I fail to see how your criticism would lead to change as you sight nothing specific. BTW this isn't just directed at you, but as soon as I saw the redesign my first thought was great, now all of the comments will be complaints about the redesign (before I formed my own opinion I dreaded these predictable comments). If something is broken report it with the browser and OS you are using. If you don't like a design change be specific. And tell them, I don't care.
Not that you should have to, but if you can write anywhere (Documents, Desktop, etc.) you can install FF at least in XP..
You're absolutely right. I was using them interchangeably and didn't even consider that income encompasses more than payroll. This got me thinking though. Why shouldn't every individual be taxed at the same rate regardless of their source of income. If there is double taxation on dividends and corporate profits perhaps the corporations should be the ones to get the tax break. This might (I haven't given full thought yet) keep more money invested in the company and create a greater sense of equality under the tax code in this country. Whether someone chooses to earn income by labor or by asset investment it's all income to the individual in the end. Each person should at least start at the same income tax rate whatever the source and let deductions from there be another debate.
I would not trust a music MP3 from those distribution channels
I'm just asking because I don't know, but can .mp3s contain a virus? How does that work?
You buy the Win 7 laptop knowing that the sound will work. That ain't always true with Ubuntu.
There's no reason a pre-installed copy of Ubuntu wouldn't solve that assuming the manufacturers actually make sure it works like they do with Windows.
See, if you were right then the country would have descended into irrevocable anarchy when the Great Depression hit.
We were certainly headed that way. Organized crime was huge. Crime across the board was up. Prohibition played a huge part of course (was alcohol part of our moral tradition?). WWII happened. I would guess we were closer to anarchy than any other time.
Can you imagine what would happen if there were 25-30% unemployment today? Many of our cities are a short power failure from anarchy as it is.
WWIII. Ok half kidding, but really unless WWIII happens it wouldn't be worse than the Great Depression.
You mean like the Founding Fathers? Um, I don't think so.
I'm not sure I follow. Can you elaborate (was the 3/5 compromise part of our moral tradition, or explicitly separating moral tradition, usually represented by the church part of that)?
Perhaps not. I'm sure there are cultural aspects there, but is the fact that drunk European teenagers are not getting into cars and careening into a crowd of schoolchildren part of the reason?
There is a chicken and the egg problem here. Do school children here get drunk and crash cars because drinking is taboo and therefore cool to an age group that expresses rebellion in almost every way possible? Or is it purely a cultural difference? If it is a cultural difference, what's at the root?
I'm not sure. It's still the hell more than 17.7% :)
yet several torrent tracker sites reported it consistently ranked in the top 5 shows
I think that if studios released their shows via torrent with ads included they could monetize it. Of course (IMO) the real problem is probably that Nielson ratings were never right and so now that advertisers know exactly how many people are watching it's not worth as much. I went on CBS.com to watch something the other day and it said I couldn't play it on my device. No wonder the studios can't monetize new media when they refuse to show ads to some people. Watching commercials is my preferred method of payment, but they intentionally choose not to 'sell' me there product. So I can use another browser besides chrome, I can change the user agent id (which I did),I could just pirate the content sans ads, or not watch CBS shows at all. Content producers are their own worst enemy when it comes to monetizing their content on the internet. I would much rather hop online and watch shows/movies instantly with ads than look for torrents and wait for them to download but the Networks seem to want me to download torrents. It's quite idiotic.
They cannot, as of yet, perform anything resembling problem solving or creative thought.
The same could be said of most humans. :)
Money is more than just medium of exchange. Money is also Unit of Account and Store of Value. So before you spout nonsense, learn the topic.
I have read quite a bit on the topic actually. Initially, economic activity was performed with barter. Then money was developed as an abstract symbol of what those goods are valued at. You can call it a Unit of Account or a Store of Value but it still an abstract symbol dependent on the value we assign to it. Money as Unit of Account or a Store of Value is dependent on the stability of that money. The stability of that money is dependent on my psychological factors. There are many economist that would not call that nonsense. Money whether paper or gold represents value of goods/services it does not in of itself have any more value than what paper is worth or what gold is worth(in terms of using it in electronics as an example). Money, whether described as greenbacks or a number written on a balance sheet to represent the value of a company is still an abstract symbol. What money represent and what we assign to it is very psychological. Brazil is one example where inflation was brought under control by changing the way people looked at money. Partly by first assining a Unit of Value, the URV and then pairing the money with it. I disagree with some of your opinions but I don't say it's nonsense because I will make my argument and you can make yours.
- you are wrong. It's not the rich who need the infrastructure more, they can afford their own infrastructure and modes of transportation that are much more advanced than are afforded by middle-class or poor people. The security? The rich can definitely afford much more security than you can and they can do it privately.
I don't agree. I said they benefit from infrastructure more not need it more. I'm not talking about personal transportation, I'm talking about the infrastructure that allowed for goods/services to be moved around. I'm talking about the tax funded education that made their employees more productive. How well would Walmart function without ports, railways, and highways. The already rich might be able to build an infrastructure (well, actually they wouldn't build it they would have to pay us with money that we accept to build it for them) but to get rich an infrastructure like ours is certainly critical. How would Mark Zukerberg(sp?) have become rich without the tax paid for foundation of the internet. To be fair there are instances of infrastructure being built in the process of getting rich. Carnegie comes to mind. Maybe Utilities too, but when you throw in government granted monopolies your still talking about taxes playing a roll.
Before 2009 the death tax was 35%. Now small business and farms are hurt the most by these taxes but the super rich certainly got around selling all their assets. I can respect your argument that you feel the death tax is morally wrong but I do not accept the argument that it somehow hurts the economy when applied to the super rich. Perhaps it could only apply to assets held in publicly funded companies(stocks). Stock in a company can change hands without any physical assets being sold.
Nobody should be paying any income taxes any payroll taxes any gift taxes, any inheritance taxes at all.
Fair enough. What taxes do you support? I'm all for less spending BTW. I don't think we need to tax more, just more equitably.
- the rich in USA are already paying most of the taxes.
I don't think anyone could say that with any confidence. The tax code is ridiculously complex. That alone favors the rich since as a percentage of income they can afford to hire professional accounting services and still come out ahead. No matter how you break it down, the wealthy have an advantage in our tax code. If you are against the death tax and income taxes then it must come from somewhere. What are your solutions? A national s
Needing a machine shop, and the skills to use it effectively, make it much more difficult to get your hands on a gun (esp. for dumb criminals). Also, unless you have the ability to make forged-steel rifled barrels (not a trivial thing), your homemade gun isn't going to be nearly as accurate or reliable as a manufactured one.
To that I/you say ... :)
guns are fundamentally rather simple mechanical devices; it's not that hard for someone with a machine shop to make their own.
How about prisons? Defended borders, a lack of privacy and armed guards are as well controlled as you're going to get. How well do bans on alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, knives, (I've heard but can't find a source for an actual functioning gun made from plumbing) etc. work there? If a prison can't enforce a ban (because obviously criminals don't agree to it), then how effective are bans without the consent of the populace?
:)
One last issue I'd like to take up
but not enough to really close the border, even though it's entirely feasible
How do you define feasible? Possible at any cost? Do you know how many cargo vessels, trucks, etc. cross U.S. borders each day. I don't think securing the U.S. border is feasible any more than taking my shoes off at the airport is going to stop anybody.
BTW I've driven around the DFW tarmac after 9/11 because I have a friend that works there. Just make sure you don't drive behind the 747s. One plane was sitting there, door open, stairs, no one around. You should see the security employees have to go through. Duck tape on the metal detectors. No kidding. Guess how many people that clean the planes speak English as a first language. I have another friend who was dishonorably discharged from the military and served time at Leavenworth. He worked at the airport for a month before they finally insisted with no more leeway that he had to provide documentation for his background check. I've even purchased pot at DFW airport behind security. I always take a lighter with me when I fly. Not enough metal on it to set anything off. I always figured if I got caught I'd just say 'oh I forgot about that'. But I always go right onto the plane with it.
Ah yes, faith in security and the control of the government is good for followers. It doesn't mean squat for people who do whatever they want.
So I am still left with the conclusion that bans and laws work great for people who follow them, not so much for people who don't. As the number of people who follow laws and bans grows in a country it becomes harder for those that don't follow the laws, however, bans/laws are still fundamentally dependent on how many people follow and how many people don't.
- oh yeah, the dreaded 'death' tax. Well think about this: to pay the death tax you have to liquidate a lot of investments. You don't actually believe that people with real money have it all stashed under a mattress, do you?
First there's no such thing as real money it's an abstract symbol to facilitate trade. If it's not doing that it's worthless.
The death tax kicks in after $1 million and every other transaction is taxed so why shouldn't it be taxed too. You don't have to liquidate a company just to pay taxes on it. People don't have to sell their houses to pay property taxes. Right now their is a lower tax rate for liquidating stocks than for earning an income so I'm not sure what you're for here. Are you saying liquidating stocks should be encouraged over earning income, because that's the way it's setup now.
Now, on the other hand - why bother working if you can't pass the fruits of your labor, for which you have already paid the taxes to your children?
Arguing that motivation for the super rich is related to the tax code is like arguing that the death penalty is a deterrent to psychopaths. Bill Gates would still become super rich regardless of what you tax him after the first $10,000,000 just like a psychopath is still going to murder regardless of the penalty. The inherited wealthy have done a phenomenal job of arguing that the tax code should favor them by convincing the middle class that it will effect them too when that hard work (never) pays off.
Buffet is paying taxes on dividends, which are taxed by gov't for income before they are paid to the shareholders.
It's not bullshit, it's exactly the point. The rich have forms of revenue that are taxed at lower rates than the forms of revenue that most people have. If you think labor that creates real goods and services should be taxed more than gains made from shuffling money around that's your opinion. It is my opinion that it is bad for the success and longevity of our society.
It's double taxation
Money is taxed at various transactions. The rate of that taxation is what's at issue. Everything is double, triple, infinitely taxed. My employer pays taxes. I pay taxes on my income. I turn around and pay taxes on it again when I buy something. If I buy something from another country it was probably taxed when it came into this country. Everything is taxed at each transaction, why do you defend the rich getting excused from this?
You sell stock maybe, ok. You sell your company? Fire some people? Liquidate a business? Is that helpful
Go ahead and tell yourself that if Paris Hilton had to pay more in taxes people would loose their jobs.
I don't think the rich should pay more than their fair share (though the argument could be made that they benefit the most from the countries infrastructure/education) but they should pay their fair share. Why should a self employed small business owner (who produces real value) pay more (percentage) in taxes than someone who buys low and sells high, often manipulating the valuation of the company in the process?
So many rags to riches stories in this country start in a garage with capital from a relative. Very little real wealth is created by stock brokers and the inherited wealthy. What's good for society is what matters in the long term. Regardless of whether some King in ancient times freed England, we eventually told King George to shove it.
Years ago I installed AOL one Christmas day on a scavenged computer so a friend's dad could look at some info about a car. When I called AOL to cancel they wanted the specific number off of the disk that I used to install before they would cancel it. I didn't know which of the 50 disks I had used so I went to my bank, paid a one time stop fee of less than what AOL was charging monthly. That worked just fine. No argument at all.
Also, In a previous.. You state that a gun ban in the U.K. is more effective because they are on an island and can control things better. You also state anyone can make a gun in a machine shop. Therefore I do not believe it is the 'ease' of getting/making a gun that makes the U.K. less armed than the U.S. but rather the culture and agreement of the populace not to have them that makes them less available in the U.K.