How do you accidentally spill a soda out the window? At best that's reckless endangerment, and that's if you can convince the jury your drank mysteriously flew out the window. Do that to a cop, and it would be attempted murder
Tailgating is endangerment. That's a fact. If you are rear ended in the USA, it is almost invariably assumed that the driver in the tailgating car is at fault and he will usually be cited for bad driving, whether a cop or not.
The reason for this law is really public safety. You need sufficient time to react to conditions in front of, be it a piece of debris on the road, a deer, an accident, or even an accidental soda spill. Tsk tsk, the poor tailgater behind me, I don't want to see him or her fall ill, but they so clearly and recklessly disregarded their own safety, and honestly, my child in the rear seat, so safely strapped in. What if he or she rear ended me, crumpled the rear of my car, and killed my son? What if it was your child, in the back, with a maniacal driver flashing his brights at you and honking, tailgating, while you were driving safely the speed limit. Do you have children? Think of the children! This person is complaining about a soda spill, while at the same time he's trying to murder my son.
NAFTA is an agreement between Mexico, the US, and Canada though, correct? How do you get "the world's money" from three countries?
Canada and Mexico are countries bordering the USA and thus good relations with both are obviously vital. If Obama is willing to jeopardize trade agreements with those nations, particularly Canada (which, incidentally, landed on the Normandy Beaches along with the USA at D-Day), then it says that he is willing to trash trade agreements anywhere on the planet. Given that these trade agreements are, in fact, agreements that the USA pushed, one could only marvel at how the world will respond with a sudden American about face on trade. Really, what it boils down to is, that Obama would have the USA basically say that it only honors trade agreements when it benefits it, and that can only engender deep mistrust and hostility, far beyond anything Bush's antics could achieve.
This is the same Bush who imposed crippling tariffs on European steel firms to protect American firms?
Yeah, that was considered a mistake even in Republican circles, and the thing is, it wasn't the cutoff of American exports to Europe that drove Bush to change his mind - it was that it turned out that there were more consumers of imported steel in the state PA (where steel is an issue), then there were producers, so he went with what benefited the most workers, and that was free trade.
But that's a limited sanction and its a far, far cry from withdrawing from NAFTA, or saying no to free trade with Latin America, or not expanding trade with Europe, all of which Bush is pretty consistently on the opposite of.
We need Obama in the White House. It kind of pains me to say that, because I disagree with most of his opinions on the big issues, but he is the right one.
If Obama does what he says on trade, the result will be an economic disaster far larger than anything that happened under Bush, guaranteed. Free trade works, closed trade doesn't, and Obama is on course to try and lead America back to the same proven failures that caused the Great Depression. No one around the world is going to care if Obama says the right things about the UN or doesn't say bad things about Europe, when he tells all of those people that he is unplugging their livelihoods in trade with the USA. In the cold calculus of world economics, the world would rather not have the USA invade Iraq or torture people, but, can live with it. But, if the USA f--- with the world's money, that would be unforgivable.
The U.S. is being voted out as relevant to the global economy
Hey, how are those new Airbus gas guzzlers selling? Hmmm, do you have -any- orders yet?
Just checking.
There's plenty of Europeans that want to sell to the USA and if your company doesn't want to do it, there are ten companies from around the world willing to takes it place.
As you crow about how Europe does not need the USA, do not forget, that there is not a single that Europe does that America actually needs. Every technology and cultural item Europe can export to the USA is more than matched by technology and culture that Asia can export.
If you ask any American kid who makes the hot car, they will say Honda, Toyota, GM (Camaro), Ford (Mustang), and they won't even think about Europe. If you ask any American kid who has the best food, they will probably say the Mexico or China. If you ask any American kid who has the best movies, it will probably be America, but you'll also hear a lot about Japanese Anime. Who has the best singing, you might hear about Africa....
Do you notice a pattern here?
Americans are a world wide people, and have been choosing the best from around the world and even when it is at their own perceived expense. Europeans are about Europe first, but Americans live in a world economy, and you Europeans are so stuck on yourselves, you haven't even noticed that everyone thinks all of your stuff sucks. At least we Americans know it about ours, and that is why the USA will succeed while Europe will ultimately fail.
There seems to be a prevailing opinion on this board argues that stimulants such as ritalin actually make you better. I would not be so sure that this is the case. Stimulants generally work by tricking the body into firing off flight or fight chemistry, and you are going to get the result that you pay for. Fighting or flighting is not thinking, and thinking is something of a pre-requisite for science.
Over a long period of time, stimulants, over a long period of time, make you edgier, more prone to distraction and eventually more paranoid. It's hard to be possessed with a calm and curious mindset when you are so amped up, and its really these states that leave you feeling locked in and with a lack of imagination.
The bottom line is, that, given the scope of the problem, it is time for the Federal Government to being a program of randomized drug screening for any scientist that receives federal funding. If you want to get high and make yourself less effective than your salary and education would dictate, that's fine, but don't expect taxpayers to foot the bill.
But there is a carrot to this too. The drive for for scientists to produce so much that they need speed to keep up suggests that there is a gross imbalance between the kinds of jobs we allocate to engineers and the kinds of jobs we allocate to scientists. It seems almost that scientists are too much trying to be engineers, and therefor, either the engineers we have need to get smarter, or there are not enough of them, or both.
Regardless of the merits of the proposed EU exclusion of Microsoft sales, I can guarantee that the moment the EU said that Microsoft was barred, the US Congress would immediately find a way to scuttle the proposed USAF purchase of tankers from Airbus, no matter how good they are.
It's an election year, and trade is an enormously demagogued subject in America right now, and, with Presidential candidates even, stupidly, throwing a good trade partnership with Canada up for review, there's no doubt that Europeans would fair well.
Paradoxically, the best hope for Europeans, Canadians, and transatlantic sanity, would in fact be a Republican victory. You Europeans may not like the tone of we Republicans, but it is under us that trillions of dollars in trade flows freely across North America and across the Atlantic between our two parts of the world. I mean, you might like Obama better, but when you start losing jobs in Ottawa, Paris, London and Berlin because of a foolish trade war, then, would you at least miss Bush for his stance on free trade?
So I may shoot him, for self-defense is a recognized legal concept.
For what, spilling a soda accidentally? Now you are driving around aggressively and shooting people the road.. Clearly, its reasonable to for people in the front being tailgated to take pre-emptive action against tailgaters, if they are shooting people and trying to run them over!
Moral of the story is that you shouldn't be driving like a jackass. The roads are a utility for transport and not a convenience for you lack of time management skills. Frankly, every aggressive driver that gets killed deserves it.
Before Microsoft ever even did BASIC, Gates and Co had an abortive project called Traf-o-Data, which was somehow to help city planners with traffic management. Now Microsoft has come full circle. I wonder what's next.. after hearing so much about C# as the language of the future, are we going to get a big deal of BASIC?
Into your food to make you poop yourself and then into your pants so that you can't take your pants off and have to walk around with poopy in them, but, at least, we'll hack into your plants and make them smell like poopy too, so that, in the very least, you'll come out smelling like a rose even if you are walking around in your own poop.
Our prices are increasing due largely to oil speculation, which has become the new popular way for rich people to become more rich (much like the housing bubble and the.com bubble before it). More speculation = artificially higher prices = record-breaking profits for the oil companies for several years in a row. It's true, you can go look up their quarterly reports for yourself.
I would suggest that before you go look at conspiracy theories, you might ponder the petroleum needs of a Chinese and India population that is buying More cars than the USA
Assuming there is no economic downterm, then, consumers can switch to more fuel efficient living in:
a) the payoff time of a car - about 5 years. I'm reversed on my truck and station wagon, and soon as those get paid off, I'm switching to a more fuel efficient vehicle.
b) the payoff of a house - this is a tough call for many people, but living in a smaller house makes a good deal of sense. My wife and I have a McMansion townhouse, which was a total ego thing to buy, and, after a few years of paying $400 a month to heat and cool what consists of 50% unihabited space, we've sold and are getting something smaller.
Oh, so you want to continue to pay 35% income tax on your salary, but allow oil companies to earn tax free profits to the tune of $123 billion a year?
Oil company profits are not tax free. Actually, increases in tax revenue from Exxon and other oil companies were why the federal budget deficit shrank over the last few years. If it wasn't for the stupid war, we would have a balanced budget largely because of the increases in tax revenues from oil companies.
You know what, you would also end up paying a surcharge to "ehlp" the "poor" Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs when their predatory lending goes bust.
Hey, buddy, it was a liberal, Woodrow Wilson, that created the modern Federal Reserve to act as a lender of last resort to investment banks.
BTW, why don't you recommend Social Security invest 100% of its money in JP Morgan or in Wall Street?
Actually, if all of my social security money were invested in the stock market indexed to the S&P 500, I would have a much higher retirement than I do now. As it stands, there will be -NO- money in Social Security for me, when I retire... so, something is better than nothing!
Ok, if these numbers are right, then there is twice the amount of oil sitting in North Dakota as there is in Iraq.... so, maybe, the next time we decide to spend a half a trillion dollars and 4000 lives to go grab someone else's oil instead, maybe we might just spend a billion dollars and hire a few geologists instead.
I suspect we'll see the economy get a boost whenever the next person is elected President in the U.S.
I would agree with that, even though I am one of those 29%er's. Basically, Obama's supporters are all rich liberals. If he gets elected, the media will love it, there will be a big positive buzz, and all of these rich liberals will feel optimistic about america and start buying and investing again. We might have all crappy cars because of CAFE or something, but the economy will roll along...
Too bad about the layoffs, though. I think this is going to get worse (across the whole economy) before it gets better. Business is so slow that my state's tax revenues have plummeted.
People that I have talked to in the transportation business seem to think the recession already took place from around mid last year into this quarter, but now they think the economy is recovering. They are basing this on a rather dramatic falloff in freight shipments and then a recovery.
This followed a similar pattern in the early 1990s.. that is, by the time Clinton said "It's the economy stupid", the recession was already technically over. It's just now the pundits and papers need something to scare people with to sell more punditry and their papers.
That's definitely not true. While there are arguments over how much to cut, even Arnold has said that the state needs to look for new sources of revenue.
I was thinking of the debacle of, I think it was two years ago, where Arnold tried to ram through massive budget cuts and got shot down. Now, he's just facing political reality. Dems aren't going to cut the budget, so therefor, taxes must go up.
Please keep in mind that as I write this, I'm not implying that Democrats are always worse than Republicans fiscally. From strictly a budget perspective, I think the team of Clinton in the oval office and Gingritch / Lott in the Congress did a much better job than anything we've had in the last 8 years.
Oil? Who talked about oil? Those bastards deserve to be taxed at 75% rate.
Why should they be taxed at a 75% rate? Why, because gas prices are so high? What I do not understand is, if you are so imperialistically inclined as to confiscate the wealth of your own countrymen, then why is it so wrong to go and invade Iraq to "steal their oil". I mean, if gas prices are so high and so evil that they are high, that you can go and confiscate Exxon out of business because he's a fat necked CEO, then what's really the crime, in your eyes, of robbing a bunch of muslims that bomb each other unless they are ruthlessly occupied?
So, the only way to prevent their destructive streak and to support the citizens they employ is by taxing the hell out of them.
Actually, no. First off, corporate boards work to ensure profitability while also using the company to advance their social goals. It is the representatives of the shareholders who put the pressure on first the board and then company to perform or else. This is, ultimately, a good thing, because, the shareholders ARE the citizens.
Duh.
So, not only will you screw the people that work at Exxon or any corporation, if you tax the hell out of them, you will also screw the -millions- of citizens that own stock in that company.
And you still haven't answered the question... why would anyone do anything, if they weren't allowed to make any money?
Publish "expert" testimonies from many professors from major universities detailing how such a tax would cause a major recession in the state and also snatch money from schools and education and send it to wall stree
It's my money. If I want to put my money in a 401k, in Wall Street, versus your school, then, that's my choice. I would think that, if the education of your child was so important to you, then might be motivated to earn enough to pay for it. My question is, if health care, education and even food are not important enough for Democrats to earn to pay for, then, what is?
Publish "expert" testimonies from many professors from major universities detailing how such a tax would cause a major recession in the state and also snatch money from schools and education and send it to wall street
Let's look at reality here. Taxation and fiscal policy plays a huge role in where businesses live, consumers shop, and people live. Taxes do make a determination as to whether or not to engage in a business. If your gross profit margin is ten percent, and taxes are fifty percent on that activity, there's a much lower chance of you engaging in that activity, then, if the tax was ten percent.
But really, all you really have to do is compare those areas that follow the standard left formula of high taxes and big public works, versus those states that try to do things on the cheap. Ireland has the lowest corporate taxes of any industrialized nation, and they are booming. In the USA, rustbelt states, in particularly, Michigan, follows the formula of high taxes, and no one in their right mind wants to build a business their either. Cities all across the United States are leaking people because the taxes are much higher their than in the suburbs. Similarly, states with high taxes are gradually losing people to those states that do not have high taxes. Why anyone in their right mind would live in New Jersey is beyond me, and a lot of other people feel the same was as the state is experiencing a net decline in people, and has to sell its Turnpikes to try and make ends meet.
Now, it is always the Democrats that talk about sending money to Wall Street or to Big Oil or Big Computers or Big this or big that, as if, to engage in a business and to make a profit is a crime. I'm always amused by Obama's ads, talking about how he will make sure that Big Oil won't make a profit either, because they don't deserve it when the price of gas is so high. I have to wonder, where were the Democrats when hundreds of thousands of oil workers were getting laid off during the 1990s, and the very survival of Exxon was at stake. Ultimately, oil, like many other companies are boom and bust operations, and they are either booming or busting. But given that, the question is, if you have a President or a political party that sets the tone that for you to get rich is a crime, why would you even bother to invest where-ever that party has power?
California is facing some enormous budget shortfalls and the Democratic controlled state legislature simply will not cut state spending. Arnold (by no means a hard right winger), tried to cut spending but met with a hailstorm of resistance in a state whose politics are dominated by powerful unions.
Democrats in California have already been arguing for a tax increase, and in that environment, saying that sales taxes have to be paid on internet items might be politically the easiest thing for them to do. After all, they could argue, somewhat disingenously - why should everyone else pay taxes, but internet businesses not?
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How do you accidentally spill a soda out the window? At best that's reckless endangerment, and that's if you can convince the jury your drank mysteriously flew out the window. Do that to a cop, and it would be attempted murder
Tailgating is endangerment. That's a fact. If you are rear ended in the USA, it is almost invariably assumed that the driver in the tailgating car is at fault and he will usually be cited for bad driving, whether a cop or not.
The reason for this law is really public safety. You need sufficient time to react to conditions in front of, be it a piece of debris on the road, a deer, an accident, or even an accidental soda spill. Tsk tsk, the poor tailgater behind me, I don't want to see him or her fall ill, but they so clearly and recklessly disregarded their own safety, and honestly, my child in the rear seat, so safely strapped in. What if he or she rear ended me, crumpled the rear of my car, and killed my son? What if it was your child, in the back, with a maniacal driver flashing his brights at you and honking, tailgating, while you were driving safely the speed limit. Do you have children? Think of the children! This person is complaining about a soda spill, while at the same time he's trying to murder my son.
NAFTA is an agreement between Mexico, the US, and Canada though, correct? How do you get "the world's money" from three countries?
Canada and Mexico are countries bordering the USA and thus good relations with both are obviously vital. If Obama is willing to jeopardize trade agreements with those nations, particularly Canada (which, incidentally, landed on the Normandy Beaches along with the USA at D-Day), then it says that he is willing to trash trade agreements anywhere on the planet. Given that these trade agreements are, in fact, agreements that the USA pushed, one could only marvel at how the world will respond with a sudden American about face on trade. Really, what it boils down to is, that Obama would have the USA basically say that it only honors trade agreements when it benefits it, and that can only engender deep mistrust and hostility, far beyond anything Bush's antics could achieve.
This is the same Bush who imposed crippling tariffs on European steel firms to protect American firms?
Yeah, that was considered a mistake even in Republican circles, and the thing is, it wasn't the cutoff of American exports to Europe that drove Bush to change his mind - it was that it turned out that there were more consumers of imported steel in the state PA (where steel is an issue), then there were producers, so he went with what benefited the most workers, and that was free trade.
But that's a limited sanction and its a far, far cry from withdrawing from NAFTA, or saying no to free trade with Latin America, or not expanding trade with Europe, all of which Bush is pretty consistently on the opposite of.
We need Obama in the White House. It kind of pains me to say that, because I disagree with most of his opinions on the big issues, but he is the right one.
If Obama does what he says on trade, the result will be an economic disaster far larger than anything that happened under Bush, guaranteed. Free trade works, closed trade doesn't, and Obama is on course to try and lead America back to the same proven failures that caused the Great Depression. No one around the world is going to care if Obama says the right things about the UN or doesn't say bad things about Europe, when he tells all of those people that he is unplugging their livelihoods in trade with the USA. In the cold calculus of world economics, the world would rather not have the USA invade Iraq or torture people, but, can live with it. But, if the USA f--- with the world's money, that would be unforgivable.
You forget that the USA population is growing, while Europe's population is in decline.
USA - 2050 - 518,903,000
EUR - 2050 - 450,000,000
By the end of the century, the world will have three major population centers - India, China, and the USA, and the rest will be also rans.
What this means though, is that Europeans are going to be struggling through the next century to pay for an aweful lot of old people.
The U.S. is being voted out as relevant to the global economy
Hey, how are those new Airbus gas guzzlers selling? Hmmm, do you have -any- orders yet?
Just checking.
There's plenty of Europeans that want to sell to the USA and if your company doesn't want to do it, there are ten companies from around the world willing to takes it place.
As you crow about how Europe does not need the USA, do not forget, that there is not a single that Europe does that America actually needs. Every technology and cultural item Europe can export to the USA is more than matched by technology and culture that Asia can export.
If you ask any American kid who makes the hot car, they will say Honda, Toyota, GM (Camaro), Ford (Mustang), and they won't even think about Europe. If you ask any American kid who has the best food, they will probably say the Mexico or China. If you ask any American kid who has the best movies, it will probably be America, but you'll also hear a lot about Japanese Anime. Who has the best singing, you might hear about Africa....
Do you notice a pattern here?
Americans are a world wide people, and have been choosing the best from around the world and even when it is at their own perceived expense. Europeans are about Europe first, but Americans live in a world economy, and you Europeans are so stuck on yourselves, you haven't even noticed that everyone thinks all of your stuff sucks. At least we Americans know it about ours, and that is why the USA will succeed while Europe will ultimately fail.
There seems to be a prevailing opinion on this board argues that stimulants such as ritalin actually make you better. I would not be so sure that this is the case. Stimulants generally work by tricking the body into firing off flight or fight chemistry, and you are going to get the result that you pay for. Fighting or flighting is not thinking, and thinking is something of a pre-requisite for science.
Over a long period of time, stimulants, over a long period of time, make you edgier, more prone to distraction and eventually more paranoid. It's hard to be possessed with a calm and curious mindset when you are so amped up, and its really these states that leave you feeling locked in and with a lack of imagination.
The bottom line is, that, given the scope of the problem, it is time for the Federal Government to being a program of randomized drug screening for any scientist that receives federal funding. If you want to get high and make yourself less effective than your salary and education would dictate, that's fine, but don't expect taxpayers to foot the bill.
But there is a carrot to this too. The drive for for scientists to produce so much that they need speed to keep up suggests that there is a gross imbalance between the kinds of jobs we allocate to engineers and the kinds of jobs we allocate to scientists. It seems almost that scientists are too much trying to be engineers, and therefor, either the engineers we have need to get smarter, or there are not enough of them, or both.
Regardless of the merits of the proposed EU exclusion of Microsoft sales, I can guarantee that the moment the EU said that Microsoft was barred, the US Congress would immediately find a way to scuttle the proposed USAF purchase of tankers from Airbus, no matter how good they are.
It's an election year, and trade is an enormously demagogued subject in America right now, and, with Presidential candidates even, stupidly, throwing a good trade partnership with Canada up for review, there's no doubt that Europeans would fair well.
Paradoxically, the best hope for Europeans, Canadians, and transatlantic sanity, would in fact be a Republican victory. You Europeans may not like the tone of we Republicans, but it is under us that trillions of dollars in trade flows freely across North America and across the Atlantic between our two parts of the world. I mean, you might like Obama better, but when you start losing jobs in Ottawa, Paris, London and Berlin because of a foolish trade war, then, would you at least miss Bush for his stance on free trade?
No, it's assault.
So I may shoot him, for self-defense is a recognized legal concept.
For what, spilling a soda accidentally? Now you are driving around aggressively and shooting people the road.. Clearly, its reasonable to for people in the front being tailgated to take pre-emptive action against tailgaters, if they are shooting people and trying to run them over!
Moral of the story is that you shouldn't be driving like a jackass. The roads are a utility for transport and not a convenience for you lack of time management skills. Frankly, every aggressive driver that gets killed deserves it.
Sure if you would just get off your cell phone, get out of the left hand lane and drive the speed limit. I would not have to tailgate?
And, what entitles you to break the law? If someone tailgates me, I have been known, on occasion, to accidentally drop a soda at their windshield.
Before Microsoft ever even did BASIC, Gates and Co had an abortive project called Traf-o-Data, which was somehow to help city planners with traffic management. Now Microsoft has come full circle. I wonder what's next.. after hearing so much about C# as the language of the future, are we going to get a big deal of BASIC?
Into your food to make you poop yourself and then into your pants so that you can't take your pants off and have to walk around with poopy in them, but, at least, we'll hack into your plants and make them smell like poopy too, so that, in the very least, you'll come out smelling like a rose even if you are walking around in your own poop.
Our prices are increasing due largely to oil speculation, which has become the new popular way for rich people to become more rich (much like the housing bubble and the .com bubble before it). More speculation = artificially higher prices = record-breaking profits for the oil companies for several years in a row. It's true, you can go look up their quarterly reports for yourself.
I would suggest that before you go look at conspiracy theories, you might ponder the petroleum needs of a Chinese and India population that is buying More cars than the USA
Assuming there is no economic downterm, then, consumers can switch to more fuel efficient living in:
a) the payoff time of a car - about 5 years. I'm reversed on my truck and station wagon, and soon as those get paid off, I'm switching to a more fuel efficient vehicle.
b) the payoff of a house - this is a tough call for many people, but living in a smaller house makes a good deal of sense. My wife and I have a McMansion townhouse, which was a total ego thing to buy, and, after a few years of paying $400 a month to heat and cool what consists of 50% unihabited space, we've sold and are getting something smaller.
Higher demand -> higher prices. How much fuel do you think all those generators, humvees, tanks, helicopters, fighter jets, etc need
More like, Chinese cars is the problem. China and India are gobbling oil like no tomorrow, as the standards of living improve.
Oh, so you want to continue to pay 35% income tax on your salary, but allow oil companies to earn tax free profits to the tune of $123 billion a year?
Oil company profits are not tax free. Actually, increases in tax revenue from Exxon and other oil companies were why the federal budget deficit shrank over the last few years. If it wasn't for the stupid war, we would have a balanced budget largely because of the increases in tax revenues from oil companies.
You know what, you would also end up paying a surcharge to "ehlp" the "poor" Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs when their predatory lending goes bust.
Hey, buddy, it was a liberal, Woodrow Wilson, that created the modern Federal Reserve to act as a lender of last resort to investment banks.
BTW, why don't you recommend Social Security invest 100% of its money in JP Morgan or in Wall Street?
Actually, if all of my social security money were invested in the stock market indexed to the S&P 500, I would have a much higher retirement than I do now. As it stands, there will be -NO- money in Social Security for me, when I retire... so, something is better than nothing!
Ok, if these numbers are right, then there is twice the amount of oil sitting in North Dakota as there is in Iraq.... so, maybe, the next time we decide to spend a half a trillion dollars and 4000 lives to go grab someone else's oil instead, maybe we might just spend a billion dollars and hire a few geologists instead.
I suspect we'll see the economy get a boost whenever the next person is elected President in the U.S.
I would agree with that, even though I am one of those 29%er's. Basically, Obama's supporters are all rich liberals. If he gets elected, the media will love it, there will be a big positive buzz, and all of these rich liberals will feel optimistic about america and start buying and investing again. We might have all crappy cars because of CAFE or something, but the economy will roll along...
Too bad about the layoffs, though. I think this is going to get worse (across the whole economy) before it gets better. Business is so slow that my state's tax revenues have plummeted.
People that I have talked to in the transportation business seem to think the recession already took place from around mid last year into this quarter, but now they think the economy is recovering. They are basing this on a rather dramatic falloff in freight shipments and then a recovery.
This followed a similar pattern in the early 1990s.. that is, by the time Clinton said "It's the economy stupid", the recession was already technically over. It's just now the pundits and papers need something to scare people with to sell more punditry and their papers.
That's definitely not true. While there are arguments over how much to cut, even Arnold has said that the state needs to look for new sources of revenue.
I was thinking of the debacle of, I think it was two years ago, where Arnold tried to ram through massive budget cuts and got shot down. Now, he's just facing political reality. Dems aren't going to cut the budget, so therefor, taxes must go up.
Please keep in mind that as I write this, I'm not implying that Democrats are always worse than Republicans fiscally. From strictly a budget perspective, I think the team of Clinton in the oval office and Gingritch / Lott in the Congress did a much better job than anything we've had in the last 8 years.
Oil? Who talked about oil?
Those bastards deserve to be taxed at 75% rate.
Why should they be taxed at a 75% rate? Why, because gas prices are so high? What I do not understand is, if you are so imperialistically inclined as to confiscate the wealth of your own countrymen, then why is it so wrong to go and invade Iraq to "steal their oil". I mean, if gas prices are so high and so evil that they are high, that you can go and confiscate Exxon out of business because he's a fat necked CEO, then what's really the crime, in your eyes, of robbing a bunch of muslims that bomb each other unless they are ruthlessly occupied?
So, the only way to prevent their destructive streak and to support the citizens they employ is by taxing the hell out of them.
Actually, no. First off, corporate boards work to ensure profitability while also using the company to advance their social goals. It is the representatives of the shareholders who put the pressure on first the board and then company to perform or else. This is, ultimately, a good thing, because, the shareholders ARE the citizens.
Duh.
So, not only will you screw the people that work at Exxon or any corporation, if you tax the hell out of them, you will also screw the -millions- of citizens that own stock in that company.
And you still haven't answered the question... why would anyone do anything, if they weren't allowed to make any money?
Publish "expert" testimonies from many professors from major universities detailing how such a tax would cause a major recession in the state and also snatch money from schools and education and send it to wall stree
It's my money. If I want to put my money in a 401k, in Wall Street, versus your school, then, that's my choice. I would think that, if the education of your child was so important to you, then might be motivated to earn enough to pay for it. My question is, if health care, education and even food are not important enough for Democrats to earn to pay for, then, what is?
Publish "expert" testimonies from many professors from major universities detailing how such a tax would cause a major recession in the state and also snatch money from schools and education and send it to wall street
Let's look at reality here. Taxation and fiscal policy plays a huge role in where businesses live, consumers shop, and people live. Taxes do make a determination as to whether or not to engage in a business. If your gross profit margin is ten percent, and taxes are fifty percent on that activity, there's a much lower chance of you engaging in that activity, then, if the tax was ten percent.
But really, all you really have to do is compare those areas that follow the standard left formula of high taxes and big public works, versus those states that try to do things on the cheap. Ireland has the lowest corporate taxes of any industrialized nation, and they are booming. In the USA, rustbelt states, in particularly, Michigan, follows the formula of high taxes, and no one in their right mind wants to build a business their either. Cities all across the United States are leaking people because the taxes are much higher their than in the suburbs. Similarly, states with high taxes are gradually losing people to those states that do not have high taxes. Why anyone in their right mind would live in New Jersey is beyond me, and a lot of other people feel the same was as the state is experiencing a net decline in people, and has to sell its Turnpikes to try and make ends meet.
Now, it is always the Democrats that talk about sending money to Wall Street or to Big Oil or Big Computers or Big this or big that, as if, to engage in a business and to make a profit is a crime. I'm always amused by Obama's ads, talking about how he will make sure that Big Oil won't make a profit either, because they don't deserve it when the price of gas is so high. I have to wonder, where were the Democrats when hundreds of thousands of oil workers were getting laid off during the 1990s, and the very survival of Exxon was at stake. Ultimately, oil, like many other companies are boom and bust operations, and they are either booming or busting. But given that, the question is, if you have a President or a political party that sets the tone that for you to get rich is a crime, why would you even bother to invest where-ever that party has power?
California is facing some enormous budget shortfalls and the Democratic controlled state legislature simply will not cut state spending. Arnold (by no means a hard right winger), tried to cut spending but met with a hailstorm of resistance in a state whose politics are dominated by powerful unions.
Democrats in California have already been arguing for a tax increase, and in that environment, saying that sales taxes have to be paid on internet items might be politically the easiest thing for them to do. After all, they could argue, somewhat disingenously - why should everyone else pay taxes, but internet businesses not?
I mean really, who of you knows how to make some crap in your tub that can kill people in a tank?
Two words: Timothy McVeigh.
Defense rests.