People cite that tax rate all the time, but that was also before a lot of the tax code was cleaned up. How many loopholes existed back then? Did anyone ever actually pay 92% in tax on those top dollars, or was that default rate only something a fool without an accountant might get hit by? I don't have answers here, I'm just curious. I see articles here all the time about how businesses can work the system to pay $0 in taxes (the actual outcome) despite the fact their theoretical marginal tax rate isn't anywhere near 0%.
I think comparing the stated (but theoretical) marginal tax rates alone isn't necessarily all that useful without taking into consideration the loopholes, deductions, and other changing components of the complicated system.
There is a correlation and a cause... it appears higher rates do in fact vary by browser type and that's caused by the decisions of loan makers not random chance.
Wait, I think this is the problem. Everyone else is arguing whether or not "your riskiness as a borrower" is either correlated to or caused by "the browser you use". You seem to be arguing that the variation in quoted rates is caused by companies choosing different rates. This may be why you think everyone else is crazy, and we're saying you're not making sense.
You are correct that the rates are changing because companies chose to change the rates, and not because they're just random. However, that's not the correlation/causation anyone else is trying to discuss.
I do also want to stand firm on the idea that a statistical correlation specifically means the items really are linked, and it's not just chance. The definition of "correlated" requires that the link between two items cannot be chance. There has to be a real link.
Honestly, I think there's a much bigger factor than this one. Girls don't like to be dateless on Valentine's day. I've seen them do some pretty ridiculous things just to make sure they have a date lined up. If it's even close to that holiday and they're dating, they won't consider breaking up with their boyfriends *before* the holiday. All decisions will be put off until afterwards, when they've got 50 more weeks to hook another guy before the next Valentine's day.
This ought to be easy to determine scientifically -- in my case you'd expect to see a slight decline in breakups during the time leading up to the holiday. If it's just a "you're not romantic enough" backlash, you wouldn't expect to see that dip.
Huh? The correlation/causation argument doesn't apply to what the insurance company does. Correlation/causation arguments apply to the statistics between some variable and accident rates. As Nevo rightly notes, insurance companies don't care if your last name causes you to be a better driver (in fact it almost certainly wouldn't) but even if there's some other root cause, if they can safely know there's a correlation between those things they'll charge accordingly. The insurance company uses that correlation to make their decisions, but that decision is not the "causation" Nevo is talking about.
You're arguing a different scenario, which would be the headline "high accident rates correlated with high insurance rates". In that case, yes, having lots of accidents causes insurance companies to charge more.
Similarly, if your state does ballot propositions, they can be incredibly powerful. California might end the war on pot. Massachusetts might kill affordable housing. These are important things which are up for a yes-or-no vote.
No kidding! Colorado had a bunch of key amendments and propositions and the like. Several items that would completely rework the entire state budget, and even one that attempted to define what "a person" is. Things like that are very much worth voting on, even if you don't care at all about candidates at other levels.
I suppose this is a strong argument for teaching a lot more "practical" math and a lot less theoretical math. I actually enjoyed things like calculus and advanced geometry, but I can readily see most people don't need it. What I never got, and what I think everyone needs, is some basic discussion of practical things like interest, taxes, investing, etc.
I don't think "everyone" does. I certainly don't. A bunch of other people on this topic have said the same thing.
1. I've got broadband, but in bad weather it's spotty. I don't want to lose a connection in the middle of an hours-long game because a wind storm kicked up or the afternoon thunderstorm rolled through.
2. I don't like playing games with strangers. Seriously, I loathe it. Because of this, I also don't have the inclination to play with those strangers long enough for them to become friends. And I genuinely don't have any friends who wanna team up to play Diablo with me.
3. I want everything that drops to be mine. I don't want to have to fuss about trades, or make sure I'm being fair with the loot, or hope the other person is being fair. I just want to know if I see it, it's my loot.
Gah! This is so true! I was always a little sensitive to it, but the recent political season is making me even more aware of it. I had a poll comparing political candidates. They alternated between one party saying "candidate X saves babies from a burning building. Does that make you more likely to vote for him?" Followed by "candidate Y wants to sink this country under overwhelming debt so deep the earth collapses into a black hole. Does that make you more likely to vote for him?"
Examples are of course faked (barely), but the outcome of that survey would make it almost impossible to do anything but favor candidate X over Y, and makes the poll pretty much meaningless except as an advertising method. (which may have been their plan.)
Me, I told the pollsters they were ridiculously biased, but since I didn't like babies, candidate Y now had my vote for sure.
Propaganda machine? Most people don't know what this is about, outside of the poll. If the question is anything like a typical poll, it'll be like: "If part of the internet has a problem, should the President have the authority to stop it?" Of course 61% of the population will say yes to something stupid like that. Possibly 3% said no because they actually know enough to understand the issue. The other 36% said no because they're of the opposite political party from the current president, and are thinking about what powers they want Obama to have, rather than what powers they'd want a generalized American president to have.
(and that's not picking on Republicans; the numbers would be the same the other way around, I'm sure.)
Forevermore? You don't think we could fix this with either a new law or another court case where they could clarify their ruling? I'm pretty sure our system allows for change.
Of course it won't be in time for this election. Possibly not even the next one. But it's hardly eternal.
I'm horribly confused by the summary. Where are these free ebooks? I'd gladly accept a few ads, assuming they're just embedded in pages and I can keep flipping through.
However, despite that being the title and mention of one tiny site I've never heard of that does it for graphic novels, does this invention *actually* exist anywhere? Because I'd go out and download a bunch of those books right now.
And why's that headline blended in with a bunch of details about the leaked product? It implies they're related, when they don't seem to be at all.
I don't know what the author is talking about. Games still take me weeks or months to complete. Of course I usually only have a few hours at a sitting, but I'm still putting more than a single day's worth of effort into the game, total, to finish.
I don't actually begrudge them blocking cheaters, but I hate the idea of having to exercise an internet connection or an online account to play a game single-player on my own computer. I don't ever play online, don't want to ever play online, and wish I could have a simple, self-sufficient game that worked without an internet connection.
THE TAX SYSTEM EXPLAINED IN BEER
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement....
And this is where the analogy breaks down. The math that you cite is reasonably illustrative. What makes this not anything at all like our current tax system is pretending we're at a happy, stable point where everyone is satisfied.
Where's the paragraph where the 10th man is lobbying to have men 1-4 kicked out of the group for being freeloaders? Or accusing them of intentionally making themselves thirsty so they can consume more of the 10th's man's generous beer?
that requires me to either be an expert in that system, which would mean spending the equivalent time to get at least a two year degree, just to pay my taxes
Doing taxes doesn't take the equivalent of a two-year degree to be able to complete them. I paid some schmuck at H&R Block once seven years ago, realized they were just asking me a bunch of simple questions, and in future years simply referred back to the original document. Occasionally there's a few minutes of head-scratching, but I can run through a 1040, a Schedule C, a Schedule SE, and a couple other schedules or attachments in the span of about an hour and a half if I'm being precise, and in about 20 minutes when I'm just fudging the numbers for quarterly estimated taxes. Your situation may be a lot more complicated than mine, but with a day job and freelance work, and a wife who does the same, our setup is more complicated than average.
Well, I'm pretty sure that the Earned Income Credit and the Additional Child Credit would be covered under burning1's "collect some form of social service", which means his statement was basically right. The grandparent's reference to a "refund" as a proof of anything isn't accurate at all. Getting more money out than put in is what the grandparent really wants to object to, and it's not nearly as rampant as he thinks. It does take a social service, like the payments that you mention, to put someone in that position.
As for the first-time homebuyer's credit, that has to be paid back, and is basically just a free loan. Yeah, you'll get more out one year, and then put it back in subsequent years. For the purposes of the rest of the discussion (fairness of tax rates, or whether the poor are getting too many benefits), it doesn't really factor in.
Slashdot Mirror
I think comparing the stated (but theoretical) marginal tax rates alone isn't necessarily all that useful without taking into consideration the loopholes, deductions, and other changing components of the complicated system.
Yes, there are 7 behind this one. You can't see them? Obviously you're not one of the chosen. Sorry.
I think that'd do shockingly well.
Avoid chemicals? Like dihydrogen monoxide?
Would you be talking about coffee there?
There is a correlation and a cause ... it appears higher rates do in fact vary by browser type and that's caused by the decisions of loan makers not random chance.
Wait, I think this is the problem. Everyone else is arguing whether or not "your riskiness as a borrower" is either correlated to or caused by "the browser you use". You seem to be arguing that the variation in quoted rates is caused by companies choosing different rates. This may be why you think everyone else is crazy, and we're saying you're not making sense.
You are correct that the rates are changing because companies chose to change the rates, and not because they're just random. However, that's not the correlation/causation anyone else is trying to discuss.
I do also want to stand firm on the idea that a statistical correlation specifically means the items really are linked, and it's not just chance. The definition of "correlated" requires that the link between two items cannot be chance. There has to be a real link.
This is the far more logical conclusion.
Honestly, I think there's a much bigger factor than this one. Girls don't like to be dateless on Valentine's day. I've seen them do some pretty ridiculous things just to make sure they have a date lined up. If it's even close to that holiday and they're dating, they won't consider breaking up with their boyfriends *before* the holiday. All decisions will be put off until afterwards, when they've got 50 more weeks to hook another guy before the next Valentine's day.
This ought to be easy to determine scientifically -- in my case you'd expect to see a slight decline in breakups during the time leading up to the holiday. If it's just a "you're not romantic enough" backlash, you wouldn't expect to see that dip.
You're arguing a different scenario, which would be the headline "high accident rates correlated with high insurance rates". In that case, yes, having lots of accidents causes insurance companies to charge more.
Similarly, if your state does ballot propositions, they can be incredibly powerful. California might end the war on pot. Massachusetts might kill affordable housing. These are important things which are up for a yes-or-no vote.
No kidding! Colorado had a bunch of key amendments and propositions and the like. Several items that would completely rework the entire state budget, and even one that attempted to define what "a person" is. Things like that are very much worth voting on, even if you don't care at all about candidates at other levels.
I suppose this is a strong argument for teaching a lot more "practical" math and a lot less theoretical math. I actually enjoyed things like calculus and advanced geometry, but I can readily see most people don't need it. What I never got, and what I think everyone needs, is some basic discussion of practical things like interest, taxes, investing, etc.
I created my own game. I've got complete control.
1. I've got broadband, but in bad weather it's spotty. I don't want to lose a connection in the middle of an hours-long game because a wind storm kicked up or the afternoon thunderstorm rolled through.
2. I don't like playing games with strangers. Seriously, I loathe it. Because of this, I also don't have the inclination to play with those strangers long enough for them to become friends. And I genuinely don't have any friends who wanna team up to play Diablo with me.
3. I want everything that drops to be mine. I don't want to have to fuss about trades, or make sure I'm being fair with the loot, or hope the other person is being fair. I just want to know if I see it, it's my loot.
I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Examples are of course faked (barely), but the outcome of that survey would make it almost impossible to do anything but favor candidate X over Y, and makes the poll pretty much meaningless except as an advertising method. (which may have been their plan.)
Me, I told the pollsters they were ridiculously biased, but since I didn't like babies, candidate Y now had my vote for sure.
(and that's not picking on Republicans; the numbers would be the same the other way around, I'm sure.)
Of course it won't be in time for this election. Possibly not even the next one. But it's hardly eternal.
However, despite that being the title and mention of one tiny site I've never heard of that does it for graphic novels, does this invention *actually* exist anywhere? Because I'd go out and download a bunch of those books right now.
And why's that headline blended in with a bunch of details about the leaked product? It implies they're related, when they don't seem to be at all.
I don't know what the author is talking about. Games still take me weeks or months to complete. Of course I usually only have a few hours at a sitting, but I'm still putting more than a single day's worth of effort into the game, total, to finish.
Uh, was that aimed at me? You replied to me, but half the points you cite aren't things I have said.
I don't actually begrudge them blocking cheaters, but I hate the idea of having to exercise an internet connection or an online account to play a game single-player on my own computer. I don't ever play online, don't want to ever play online, and wish I could have a simple, self-sufficient game that worked without an internet connection.
THE TAX SYSTEM EXPLAINED IN BEER The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement....
And this is where the analogy breaks down. The math that you cite is reasonably illustrative. What makes this not anything at all like our current tax system is pretending we're at a happy, stable point where everyone is satisfied.
Where's the paragraph where the 10th man is lobbying to have men 1-4 kicked out of the group for being freeloaders? Or accusing them of intentionally making themselves thirsty so they can consume more of the 10th's man's generous beer?
Ooh! How very Zen! Your book would have a literal nothing to demonstrate the figurative emptiness of the typical stuff spewed onto the internet.
that requires me to either be an expert in that system, which would mean spending the equivalent time to get at least a two year degree, just to pay my taxes
Doing taxes doesn't take the equivalent of a two-year degree to be able to complete them. I paid some schmuck at H&R Block once seven years ago, realized they were just asking me a bunch of simple questions, and in future years simply referred back to the original document. Occasionally there's a few minutes of head-scratching, but I can run through a 1040, a Schedule C, a Schedule SE, and a couple other schedules or attachments in the span of about an hour and a half if I'm being precise, and in about 20 minutes when I'm just fudging the numbers for quarterly estimated taxes. Your situation may be a lot more complicated than mine, but with a day job and freelance work, and a wife who does the same, our setup is more complicated than average.
As for the first-time homebuyer's credit, that has to be paid back, and is basically just a free loan. Yeah, you'll get more out one year, and then put it back in subsequent years. For the purposes of the rest of the discussion (fairness of tax rates, or whether the poor are getting too many benefits), it doesn't really factor in.
It's as real as anything.