Polls show that about 35% of Americans either strongly or moderately support the Tea Party movement (that's 105 million people). Only 16% are strongly or moderately opposed.
I suspect much of that has only the most simplistic of ideology behind it: things are going badly, and the current people in charge are to blame.
Since a lot of what is currently wrong started happening when a different party was in power, and that party got voted out for exactly the same reason, I don't see that anythings going to get much better any time soon.
I'm not sure about you Americans and your zealous taxman, but generally yes, its the $50k. You then claim the $45k as deductible expenses reducing the bill to $5k.
In the US, that's a big "it depends".
If the sale falls under capital gains, then how the basis is figured varies based on exactly what the stuff was and exactly how you acquired it.
For instance, if you receive something without paying any money for it, when I go to sell it, the basis might be the fair market value of the item (e.g, if the item is a house, depending on how you received it), or $0 (e.g., if you salvage items in international waters).
For sales that don't fall under capital gains, there are rules about what part of the cost of goods sold you can actually write off. In the example given, you likely had to write off the original $45K purchase against income from that year, and when you actually make the sale, you would be charged taxes on the full $50K. If the items do or don't depreciate, then you have even more things to consider.
As others have stated, the US tax law is too damn complicated. My addition to that is that there are too many loopholes that can only be exploited by people with very large amounts of money and very good lawyers and accountants.
If their grocery budget is $50/week (generous for a single person) - they would pay ~$215 a month in food costs.
I hadn't noticed this part before...please tell me where you buy groceries.
I'm an insanely cheap food shopper, where $3 of ground beef, a $1 box of "Hamburger Helper" (or equivalent), and a few cents of assorted condiments will give me the basis for 4 meals. Add in a few veggies and sides, and $2 meals aren't out of the question.
But, I do a lot of this by acting as the warehouse (I can't get ground beef that cheap without buying 8 pounds at Sam's, and you need to stock up on everything else on sale), and that takes some overhead and planning that may not be possible for everyone. In addition, I'm OK with cheap frozen veggies. If you deviate from this super cheap planning in any way (e.g., slabs of meat, fresh vegetables, or veggies that aren't corn, green beans, or carrots), it's tough to eat balanced, healthy meals for just $5/day (which is about where I would guess your "non-generous" number would be).
And I know about the "healthy" part. In college, when I was broke and ate really cheap, there was one point that I was heading down the line towards scurvy due to not being able to afford veggies ($0.25 for an 8-pack of hot dogs, $0.25 for the buns and $0.20 for two boxes of generic mac-and-cheese made two meals for a roommate and I).
The check does nothing for Bill Gates (percentage wise), and makes all the difference in the world for someone living off $20,000 a year.
Since the "prebates" are not tied to actual income but instead are tied to situation (single or couple plus number of children), the amount of difference it makes for a $20K gross income will vary wildly.
Also, as far as I can see, either there is no provision for families outside of the "norm" like a couple, two kids, plus a grandparent, or else it becomes a huge avenue for fraud to keep your parents "alive" and their prebate checks coming to you. And, you can't cut off people from prebate payments just because they aren't active earners...I don't plan on getting a paycheck my entire life, but I'm pretty certain I'll be spending money to pay for my upkeep.
Last, what happens to Social Security? This plan would remove FICA payroll taxes, but I assume that current recipients of Social Security checks would keep getting them. What about me? Would I still be able to collect when I retire? If not, I want all that money back that I paid in, and I suspect I wouldn't be alone in that. But, If I still get paid when I retire, what will the amount be based on, since no more FICA will be collected?
There are some advantages to "FairTax", as well as some disadvantage, but I think the real problem is all the unanswered questions.
Living paycheck to paycheck is a big mistake; the slightest miscalculation, unanticipated expense, emergency, or disaster will break you if you do this. Cars break down, appliances break down, medical bills happen, and generally this is a problem waiting to happen.
Although it may be a "mistake", for many this is unavoidable.
I live in an area where basic living costs (housing, food, transportation, etc.) are higher than the national average (sometimes a lot more). But, there are still many jobs that don't pay enough to survive, even if you spend every penny you earn on absolute necessities.
Some people in these sorts of situations would be slightly better off moving to a cheaper place to live, but without a guarantee of a job in that location, they couldn't do it.
I didn't like it much as a kid, either, preferring C.S. Lewis and Madeleine L'Engle. The story isn't especially thrilling, and there's a distinct impression that the writer is talking down to you.
I never felt that, but it's still better than C.S. Lewis preaching to you.
The 8th would only prohibit excessive fines levied by the government.
Since the government wrote the numbers of "how big can this type of judgement be" into a law, I think a good lawyer could argue that the 8th Amendment applies.
If the law said the maximum was "$100 per infringed work" or "three times the retail price of the infringed work", then although it still could add up to a lot for multiple infringements, it wouldn't be "cruel and unsual". Instead, the number is $30K per work for non-willful infringement, which is grossly excessive for something that retails for $1 and would add around $0.30 to the copyright holder's pocket.
I don't understand power users like that. Do you REALLY need to have ~50 different websites open?
If you have just one website with links that don't deal well with the "back" button, then you end up opening multiple tabs on the same site.
I use a web app that fronts a pretty complex relational database, and it's not unusual that I want to switch between several related query results (e.g., the account details like address and phone, the last few orders, and maybe order details on some of those orders) very quickly.
With 25Mbps dowload, when I'm price comparing, it's easier to use Google Shopping and open a tab for 5-6 of the "best" results and check out if they really do have the price that Google Shopping showed me in the list (i.e., not out of stock, shipping the same, etc.).
And in those 5 minutes you could completely void your warranty on your $350 video card, or spend the extra $20 and keep it.
Since overclocking control (and sometimes even overvolting) is now built into the software drivers/control panel (with approved limits), you don't void your warranty by doing these sort of small overclocks.
If you re-program your BIOS or disable the overclock limit by using a third-party program, you might void your warranty. Since the chips have thermal shutdown built in, you really can't harm them by overclocking, so even some of that may be OK. Intel is an another example of a company that realized this and now offers overclocking of the CPU on Intel-brand motherboards.
At this point it's no more annoying than Unbuntu or OSX prompting for a user password before installing software.
UAC is much more annoying than at least Linux in that it will prompt you for elevation to run something that doesn't really need elevation to run, but might need elevation if you choose to do something within the app.
The classic example is running the "Computer Management" from Control Panel. You shouldn't need any extra privs if you are already an admin (but not the admin) just to see what's there (e.g., current config of hardware, etc.). If you want to change some of those settings, yes, you would need to elevate, but not until that point.
So, it's not really a dig at UAC, but rather at the overall security model that requires your privilege level be associated with the EXE you are running. When that EXE can do a whole range of tasks from innocuous to system destroying, it's not really a good design to require full elevation up front.
The argument is not that the GUI is useless. The argument is that the extra complexity of installing a GUI stack is not worth the minimal benefits it brings.
On Windows, editing the registry is a PITA using the command line.
For one-off "add this registry item" work, the command line programs are fine, but for doing things like "find all mention of 'C:\Users' and replace it with 'D:\Users'", a graphical registry editor is not just the easiest, but pretty much the only way.
First, in order for me to be detained by the S.S., I'd have to be in a pretty precarious situation in the first place.
They're concerned with counterfeiters and threats to dignitaries and the President.
And the best part is that since the Secret Service themselves get to define "threats to dignitaries and the President", there's no way anybody would ever be investigated by them for speech that isn't actually threatening but is political.
Note: please make sure you run the above through the sarcasm detector before replying.
As others have pointed out, there can also be mistakes, like Richard Jewell and the bombing at the 1996 Olympics. It that case, it wasn't the Secret Service, but anyone can screw up.
I was more thinking in the line of privacy: if every frame can have a signature added, then every single copy can be "watermarked" and tracked to an individual.
I was thinking of privacy, too, but not with regards to content from big media, but rather self-produced content. Based on the description, it sounds like some sort of "original creator" information will also be added to the video.
With this technology, when you record a video of your child dancing to some copyrighted song, big media will have 100% proof that you were the one that did it and will be able to sue you more effectively.
The same goes for any anonymous videos of police beating a suspect, etc. Unless there is a way to disable this, it does a lot to remove your privacy.
Use it to produce a indie movie, even with "pro" grade equipment and you're not.
By the time they care about your indie movie, you've made enough money that their fee is irrelevant.
Just because you can afford to pay doesn't mean it's correct.
What if laser printers started coming with the same kind of "license", and after you use a MoneyGrab® printer to print the script for Avatar, the printer company comes after you for a few million dollars in royalties? That would be easily solved by using a different printer, but the problem with H.264 is that it is almost completely impossible not to use a device/software somewhere in the production chain that allows the license to kick in.
If this sort of license term was part of the EULA for Windows (i.e., if you produce anything where the Windows OS is involved in the production chain, you owe royalties), it would be shot down in courts in about 30 seconds, since the end user really doesn't have a choice. The MPEG-LA is just as much a monopoly as Microsoft, yet governments aren't up in arms about it.
And yes, it is negligible. Nobody cares if the i5-750 is 20% faster at X task, when it's only 10 vs 12 seconds.
Gamers seriously care about 20% faster frame rates, especially at the edge cases. The difference between 28fps and 34fps is sometimes the difference between playable and unplayable.
One other advantage to the Intel chips is TurboBoost, which works well compared to the new AMD Turbo Core. You end up with a "have your cake and eat it to" config where you have 4 cores to handle multiple tasks, but a single task gets as much as 666MHz more speed.
I sound like an Intel fanboi because right now I am, since their chips are by far the best price/performance. Previously AMD had that crown, but they let it slip away. Even while Intel was taking over the desktop, AMD was still the best server chip, but even that is now in jeopardy. If Intel ever starts selling slower-clocked, less expensive 6-core Xeons, AMD is done in the server market, too.
The $195 6 core/6 thread chip overclocks to 4ghz too, according to xtremesystems.org.
That puts value quite firmly on AMD's side. Expect price drops for Intel, soon.
Not when the $200 i5-750 can beat either chip in many benchmarks at slower base clock speeds, and can also easily be overclocked to fast enough (3.4-3.8GHz) to beat out the Phenom X6 chips at 4GHz.
If the X6 had solidly bested the i7's and i5's in all (or even most) benchmarks, then I'd say Intel would be dropping prices, but since it actually loses in most, I don't see Intel as being very worried. They might release a non-"Extreme" 6-core i7 at a $400 or so price point to really squash AMD, but I don't see price drops happening on existing Intel chips because of this AMD release.
When "Friends" was on the air, each star (there were 6 of them) wanted $1,000,000 an episode. So based on your model, at $.25 an episode, and only downloads, and everybody pays, you would need 24 million people downloading just to cover the main actors' salaries.
Friends regularly had enough viewing households to cover those costs, and it was the obviously the most expensive TV show per minute in terms of actor salaries.
Current hour-long (42-45 minutes, really) shows getting the same sorts of ratings are only costing about $2-3M per episode to produce, which translates to about 25% the cost.
True, but all the benchmarks show that the i7-920 (and the i7-930 and i7-860) end up doing better on multi-threaded tasks than the 6-core Phenoms. So, it works out that 8 threads really is better than 6 cores in most cases.
As a matter of fact, the 4-core i5-750 (2.66GHz) can beat the 6-core 1090T (3.2GHz) in some benchmarks, and isn't very far behind in the rest. If you overclock the i5-750 to 3.2GHz (which is easy to do even with the stock cooler), it far surpasses the best that AMD offers.
On the other hand, the 890FX chipset is better than anything Intel has out...42 lanes of PCI Express 2.0 is pretty awesome.
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Polls show that about 35% of Americans either strongly or moderately support the Tea Party movement (that's 105 million people). Only 16% are strongly or moderately opposed.
I suspect much of that has only the most simplistic of ideology behind it: things are going badly, and the current people in charge are to blame.
Since a lot of what is currently wrong started happening when a different party was in power, and that party got voted out for exactly the same reason, I don't see that anythings going to get much better any time soon.
I'm not sure about you Americans and your zealous taxman, but generally yes, its the $50k. You then claim the $45k as deductible expenses reducing the bill to $5k.
In the US, that's a big "it depends".
If the sale falls under capital gains, then how the basis is figured varies based on exactly what the stuff was and exactly how you acquired it.
For instance, if you receive something without paying any money for it, when I go to sell it, the basis might be the fair market value of the item (e.g, if the item is a house, depending on how you received it), or $0 (e.g., if you salvage items in international waters).
For sales that don't fall under capital gains, there are rules about what part of the cost of goods sold you can actually write off. In the example given, you likely had to write off the original $45K purchase against income from that year, and when you actually make the sale, you would be charged taxes on the full $50K. If the items do or don't depreciate, then you have even more things to consider.
As others have stated, the US tax law is too damn complicated. My addition to that is that there are too many loopholes that can only be exploited by people with very large amounts of money and very good lawyers and accountants.
If their grocery budget is $50/week (generous for a single person) - they would pay ~$215 a month in food costs.
I hadn't noticed this part before...please tell me where you buy groceries.
I'm an insanely cheap food shopper, where $3 of ground beef, a $1 box of "Hamburger Helper" (or equivalent), and a few cents of assorted condiments will give me the basis for 4 meals. Add in a few veggies and sides, and $2 meals aren't out of the question.
But, I do a lot of this by acting as the warehouse (I can't get ground beef that cheap without buying 8 pounds at Sam's, and you need to stock up on everything else on sale), and that takes some overhead and planning that may not be possible for everyone. In addition, I'm OK with cheap frozen veggies. If you deviate from this super cheap planning in any way (e.g., slabs of meat, fresh vegetables, or veggies that aren't corn, green beans, or carrots), it's tough to eat balanced, healthy meals for just $5/day (which is about where I would guess your "non-generous" number would be).
And I know about the "healthy" part. In college, when I was broke and ate really cheap, there was one point that I was heading down the line towards scurvy due to not being able to afford veggies ($0.25 for an 8-pack of hot dogs, $0.25 for the buns and $0.20 for two boxes of generic mac-and-cheese made two meals for a roommate and I).
The check does nothing for Bill Gates (percentage wise), and makes all the difference in the world for someone living off $20,000 a year.
Since the "prebates" are not tied to actual income but instead are tied to situation (single or couple plus number of children), the amount of difference it makes for a $20K gross income will vary wildly.
Also, as far as I can see, either there is no provision for families outside of the "norm" like a couple, two kids, plus a grandparent, or else it becomes a huge avenue for fraud to keep your parents "alive" and their prebate checks coming to you. And, you can't cut off people from prebate payments just because they aren't active earners...I don't plan on getting a paycheck my entire life, but I'm pretty certain I'll be spending money to pay for my upkeep.
Last, what happens to Social Security? This plan would remove FICA payroll taxes, but I assume that current recipients of Social Security checks would keep getting them. What about me? Would I still be able to collect when I retire? If not, I want all that money back that I paid in, and I suspect I wouldn't be alone in that. But, If I still get paid when I retire, what will the amount be based on, since no more FICA will be collected?
There are some advantages to "FairTax", as well as some disadvantage, but I think the real problem is all the unanswered questions.
Living paycheck to paycheck is a big mistake; the slightest miscalculation, unanticipated expense, emergency, or disaster will break you if you do this. Cars break down, appliances break down, medical bills happen, and generally this is a problem waiting to happen.
Although it may be a "mistake", for many this is unavoidable.
I live in an area where basic living costs (housing, food, transportation, etc.) are higher than the national average (sometimes a lot more). But, there are still many jobs that don't pay enough to survive, even if you spend every penny you earn on absolute necessities.
Some people in these sorts of situations would be slightly better off moving to a cheaper place to live, but without a guarantee of a job in that location, they couldn't do it.
I didn't like it much as a kid, either, preferring C.S. Lewis and Madeleine L'Engle. The story isn't especially thrilling, and there's a distinct impression that the writer is talking down to you.
I never felt that, but it's still better than C.S. Lewis preaching to you.
I don't need a psychology degree to tell you right now what the problem is: religion. Faith makes a virtue out of not thinking.
Do you have any research to back up this claim?
The 8th would only prohibit excessive fines levied by the government.
Since the government wrote the numbers of "how big can this type of judgement be" into a law, I think a good lawyer could argue that the 8th Amendment applies.
If the law said the maximum was "$100 per infringed work" or "three times the retail price of the infringed work", then although it still could add up to a lot for multiple infringements, it wouldn't be "cruel and unsual". Instead, the number is $30K per work for non-willful infringement, which is grossly excessive for something that retails for $1 and would add around $0.30 to the copyright holder's pocket.
Bugatti Veyron 16.4 (2.6s to 60) Lamborghini LP670-4 Superveloce (3.1s to 60) Koenigsegg CCX (3.1s to 60)
The new Audi R8 V10 is in the sub-four second 0-60 as well.
I don't understand power users like that. Do you REALLY need to have ~50 different websites open?
If you have just one website with links that don't deal well with the "back" button, then you end up opening multiple tabs on the same site.
I use a web app that fronts a pretty complex relational database, and it's not unusual that I want to switch between several related query results (e.g., the account details like address and phone, the last few orders, and maybe order details on some of those orders) very quickly.
With 25Mbps dowload, when I'm price comparing, it's easier to use Google Shopping and open a tab for 5-6 of the "best" results and check out if they really do have the price that Google Shopping showed me in the list (i.e., not out of stock, shipping the same, etc.).
I'm not a "50 tab" guy, but 15-20 isn't unusual.
PT Barnum said "there's a sucker born every minute."
No, he didn't.
And in those 5 minutes you could completely void your warranty on your $350 video card, or spend the extra $20 and keep it.
Since overclocking control (and sometimes even overvolting) is now built into the software drivers/control panel (with approved limits), you don't void your warranty by doing these sort of small overclocks.
If you re-program your BIOS or disable the overclock limit by using a third-party program, you might void your warranty. Since the chips have thermal shutdown built in, you really can't harm them by overclocking, so even some of that may be OK. Intel is an another example of a company that realized this and now offers overclocking of the CPU on Intel-brand motherboards.
At this point it's no more annoying than Unbuntu or OSX prompting for a user password before installing software.
UAC is much more annoying than at least Linux in that it will prompt you for elevation to run something that doesn't really need elevation to run, but might need elevation if you choose to do something within the app.
The classic example is running the "Computer Management" from Control Panel. You shouldn't need any extra privs if you are already an admin (but not the admin) just to see what's there (e.g., current config of hardware, etc.). If you want to change some of those settings, yes, you would need to elevate, but not until that point.
So, it's not really a dig at UAC, but rather at the overall security model that requires your privilege level be associated with the EXE you are running. When that EXE can do a whole range of tasks from innocuous to system destroying, it's not really a good design to require full elevation up front.
The argument is not that the GUI is useless. The argument is that the extra complexity of installing a GUI stack is not worth the minimal benefits it brings.
On Windows, editing the registry is a PITA using the command line.
For one-off "add this registry item" work, the command line programs are fine, but for doing things like "find all mention of 'C:\Users' and replace it with 'D:\Users'", a graphical registry editor is not just the easiest, but pretty much the only way.
First, in order for me to be detained by the S.S., I'd have to be in a pretty precarious situation in the first place.
They're concerned with counterfeiters and threats to dignitaries and the President.
And the best part is that since the Secret Service themselves get to define "threats to dignitaries and the President", there's no way anybody would ever be investigated by them for speech that isn't actually threatening but is political.
Note: please make sure you run the above through the sarcasm detector before replying.
As others have pointed out, there can also be mistakes, like Richard Jewell and the bombing at the 1996 Olympics. It that case, it wasn't the Secret Service, but anyone can screw up.
Don't worry...The Doctor has been stopping rogue prime ministers for 30+ years.
I was more thinking in the line of privacy: if every frame can have a signature added, then every single copy can be "watermarked" and tracked to an individual.
I was thinking of privacy, too, but not with regards to content from big media, but rather self-produced content. Based on the description, it sounds like some sort of "original creator" information will also be added to the video.
With this technology, when you record a video of your child dancing to some copyrighted song, big media will have 100% proof that you were the one that did it and will be able to sue you more effectively.
The same goes for any anonymous videos of police beating a suspect, etc. Unless there is a way to disable this, it does a lot to remove your privacy.
By the time they care about your indie movie, you've made enough money that their fee is irrelevant.
Just because you can afford to pay doesn't mean it's correct.
What if laser printers started coming with the same kind of "license", and after you use a MoneyGrab® printer to print the script for Avatar, the printer company comes after you for a few million dollars in royalties? That would be easily solved by using a different printer, but the problem with H.264 is that it is almost completely impossible not to use a device/software somewhere in the production chain that allows the license to kick in.
If this sort of license term was part of the EULA for Windows (i.e., if you produce anything where the Windows OS is involved in the production chain, you owe royalties), it would be shot down in courts in about 30 seconds, since the end user really doesn't have a choice. The MPEG-LA is just as much a monopoly as Microsoft, yet governments aren't up in arms about it.
No, he really did mean a beer hat.
And yes, it is negligible. Nobody cares if the i5-750 is 20% faster at X task, when it's only 10 vs 12 seconds.
Gamers seriously care about 20% faster frame rates, especially at the edge cases. The difference between 28fps and 34fps is sometimes the difference between playable and unplayable.
One other advantage to the Intel chips is TurboBoost, which works well compared to the new AMD Turbo Core. You end up with a "have your cake and eat it to" config where you have 4 cores to handle multiple tasks, but a single task gets as much as 666MHz more speed.
I sound like an Intel fanboi because right now I am, since their chips are by far the best price/performance. Previously AMD had that crown, but they let it slip away. Even while Intel was taking over the desktop, AMD was still the best server chip, but even that is now in jeopardy. If Intel ever starts selling slower-clocked, less expensive 6-core Xeons, AMD is done in the server market, too.
The $195 6 core/6 thread chip overclocks to 4ghz too, according to xtremesystems.org.
That puts value quite firmly on AMD's side. Expect price drops for Intel, soon.
Not when the $200 i5-750 can beat either chip in many benchmarks at slower base clock speeds, and can also easily be overclocked to fast enough (3.4-3.8GHz) to beat out the Phenom X6 chips at 4GHz.
If the X6 had solidly bested the i7's and i5's in all (or even most) benchmarks, then I'd say Intel would be dropping prices, but since it actually loses in most, I don't see Intel as being very worried. They might release a non-"Extreme" 6-core i7 at a $400 or so price point to really squash AMD, but I don't see price drops happening on existing Intel chips because of this AMD release.
When "Friends" was on the air, each star (there were 6 of them) wanted $1,000,000 an episode. So based on your model, at $.25 an episode, and only downloads, and everybody pays, you would need 24 million people downloading just to cover the main actors' salaries.
Friends regularly had enough viewing households to cover those costs, and it was the obviously the most expensive TV show per minute in terms of actor salaries.
Current hour-long (42-45 minutes, really) shows getting the same sorts of ratings are only costing about $2-3M per episode to produce, which translates to about 25% the cost.
More MIPS per watt on the phenom
Nope.
Both the i5-750 and i7-920 use considerably less power at load and both benchmark as good as (or better than) the 1090T.
True, but all the benchmarks show that the i7-920 (and the i7-930 and i7-860) end up doing better on multi-threaded tasks than the 6-core Phenoms. So, it works out that 8 threads really is better than 6 cores in most cases.
As a matter of fact, the 4-core i5-750 (2.66GHz) can beat the 6-core 1090T (3.2GHz) in some benchmarks, and isn't very far behind in the rest. If you overclock the i5-750 to 3.2GHz (which is easy to do even with the stock cooler), it far surpasses the best that AMD offers.
On the other hand, the 890FX chipset is better than anything Intel has out...42 lanes of PCI Express 2.0 is pretty awesome.
You are getting ripped off on that AMD CPU, NewEgg has it for $204 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103851
That isn't the unlocked 1090T you are referencing, this is.