Read Gorsuch's dissent; he did not support the decision because it did not go far enough.
So instead, he voted to allow the government to continue collecting location data without a warrant. That makes sense. He cares so much about the Fourth Amendment that he voted against it.
Read it again. His point is that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" test which the majority upheld is being used to justify warrantless searches.
The majority decision effectively upholds warrantless searches because the government is just going to collect the data in a different court sanctioned way. The court has a long history of explaining exactly how law enforcement can defeat civil rights and they have done it here again.
So, the liberals on the court voted in favor of your right to privacy and the "conservatives", including Trump's boy Gorsuch, voted that fuck your privacy rights, the police need to track you without a warrant.
Read Gorsuch's dissent; he did not support the decision because it did not go far enough.
ULA STILL charges a lot more. Even with these atlas at 177M, that does not include their yearly ~1B subsidy.
The subsidy is more like a retainer which pays for maintaining capabilities which would otherwise be discarded and unavailable. The alternative would be to pay even more to reconstitute capabilities as required which is unlikely to even be possible in the timeframe required.
Ever notice how there are a lot of industrial capabilities which the United States now lacks? Some of them have national security implications but only the sexy ones like launch capability are addressed.
Or Congress could be using the above as an excuse for rent seeking but how do you tell?
Can't switch back to brush driven motors like have been used for hundreds of years and are still used in lots of places eh?
There is no need for that. With electronic commutation being relatively cheap and already used for permanent magnet motors, brushless reluctance and induction motors are a better choice.
Japan is even worse than America in that whole 'print your way to prosperity'. Their debt levels are astronomical and they government buys stocks and bonds to keep everything afloat (temporarily). You can import a lot of prosperity if other places are willing to take your paper, once that stops though *shrugs shoulders*.
How does Japan's astronomically high savings rate figure into that?
I would be satisfied if the states which wanted to collect tax from sellers were required to entirely at their own expense maintain an online database which immediately returned the tax based on item and address and any mistakes resulted in a minimum of triple damages based on price for the seller.
Also, keeping any permanent record by the state should be a criminal offense.
I think you have this backwards. South Dakota would bring an enforcement action against a business in, say, Pennsylvania for not collecting sales tax on a sale to a resident of South Dakota.
Though called a sales tax it's actually a Sales and Use tax and it applies to all purchases by state residents. It's not a regulation of interstate commerce, it's an application of existing law against state residents.
So then they can apply it to state residents. It should be a piece of cake.
Also note that the Supreme Court hasn't weighed in on any of those overreaches except for healthcare, and even then they only allowed it by saying it was a tax.
You will also need a table that lists every item to determine if it is taxable or not. Every 'item' is not taxed the same in every state/county/city. This table is going to get really, really big...
And when the state gets it wrong, you get prosecuted.
Like that will happen, why would the states want to make it easy?
Ignorance of the law is no excuse and the more people potentially violating tax law means more work for government employees and more fines. This is going to be like printing free money via traffic tickets but now they can persecute people who are citizens of other states who have no representation.
So long as the "patchwork problem" can be handled by standard, easy to use software, it should not add appreciably to even a small retailer's costs. Just don't make them handle any tax differential that affects an area smaller than one zipcode.
Taxing jurisdictions have nothing to do with zip codes.
Even the states cannot keep track of which taxes apply to which items in each taxing jurisdiction yet they expect others to be able to do it under penalty of prosecution if they get it wrong. Software is not going to make it easier; it will make it more complicated.
My guess is that the big money isn't at all opposed to this, in fact, they probably love it, although they would probably prefer it be developed for more consumer-friendly purposes so that it seems benign (ala Alexa) rather than immediately being turned into a dystopian police state tool.
What if it could be completed for half as much money? Would it be a good idea to kill it if instead of $16 billion, it only cost $8 billion?
I ask because that's where we are now - halfway done. $8 billion has already been spent and it's gone. We can't get that back. It'll cost $8 to complete it.
Kill it unless it is recognized as a welfare program and the results are never used.
There's NASA, and then there's congress. Congress is pushing SLS, which is at this point an albatross around NASA's neck, because of its profit production for various companies in the states of various congress people.
The SLS has the virtue of being able to carry all of Congress into solar orbit in one shot. Let's keep it and hope.
Slashdot Mirror
Simple software already exists for computing sales tax due in each zipcode.
Tax jurisdictions are not delimited by zipcodes.
Why do you think that keeping lists of taxable items and jurisdictions is such a difficult task?
Because even the government taxing authorities cannot do it correctly. But when they screw up, it is citizens who go to jail.
So instead, he voted to allow the government to continue collecting location data without a warrant. That makes sense. He cares so much about the Fourth Amendment that he voted against it.
Read it again. His point is that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" test which the majority upheld is being used to justify warrantless searches.
The majority decision effectively upholds warrantless searches because the government is just going to collect the data in a different court sanctioned way. The court has a long history of explaining exactly how law enforcement can defeat civil rights and they have done it here again.
So, the liberals on the court voted in favor of your right to privacy and the "conservatives", including Trump's boy Gorsuch, voted that fuck your privacy rights, the police need to track you without a warrant.
Read Gorsuch's dissent; he did not support the decision because it did not go far enough.
ULA STILL charges a lot more. Even with these atlas at 177M, that does not include their yearly ~1B subsidy.
The subsidy is more like a retainer which pays for maintaining capabilities which would otherwise be discarded and unavailable. The alternative would be to pay even more to reconstitute capabilities as required which is unlikely to even be possible in the timeframe required.
Ever notice how there are a lot of industrial capabilities which the United States now lacks? Some of them have national security implications but only the sexy ones like launch capability are addressed.
Or Congress could be using the above as an excuse for rent seeking but how do you tell?
Like that will happen, why would the states want to make it easy?
Because Congress can force them to make it easy if they want to be able to collect the sales tax.
Congress could have done that at any time in the past decades and did not bother.
If your burger requires "harsh chewing", you seriously need to start frequenting a different burger joint.
Since learning how to use a cast iron frying pan, I find myself disappointed in any burger that I did not make myself.
... eat it for me?
How about a robot which exercises the calories off while you watch?
Can't switch back to brush driven motors like have been used for hundreds of years and are still used in lots of places eh?
There is no need for that. With electronic commutation being relatively cheap and already used for permanent magnet motors, brushless reluctance and induction motors are a better choice.
Japan is even worse than America in that whole 'print your way to prosperity'. Their debt levels are astronomical and they government buys stocks and bonds to keep everything afloat (temporarily). You can import a lot of prosperity if other places are willing to take your paper, once that stops though *shrugs shoulders*.
How does Japan's astronomically high savings rate figure into that?
All of them.
I would be satisfied if the states which wanted to collect tax from sellers were required to entirely at their own expense maintain an online database which immediately returned the tax based on item and address and any mistakes resulted in a minimum of triple damages based on price for the seller.
Also, keeping any permanent record by the state should be a criminal offense.
Amazon already offers sales tax calculation services to marketplace sellers
That will be very comforting to people and companies that Amazon declines to do business with.
I think you have this backwards. South Dakota would bring an enforcement action against a business in, say, Pennsylvania for not collecting sales tax on a sale to a resident of South Dakota.
Federal marshals with guns.
Though called a sales tax it's actually a Sales and Use tax and it applies to all purchases by state residents. It's not a regulation of interstate commerce, it's an application of existing law against state residents.
So then they can apply it to state residents. It should be a piece of cake.
Also note that the Supreme Court hasn't weighed in on any of those overreaches except for healthcare, and even then they only allowed it by saying it was a tax.
That is a tax which does not exist.
Just as in exercise...How would you revise the commerce clause?
I would add, "Every judge, executive, or legislator who held that "interstate" is the same as "intrastate" shall be executed forthwith."
You will also need a table that lists every item to determine if it is taxable or not. Every 'item' is not taxed the same in every state/county/city. This table is going to get really, really big...
And when the state gets it wrong, you get prosecuted.
Like that will happen, why would the states want to make it easy?
Ignorance of the law is no excuse and the more people potentially violating tax law means more work for government employees and more fines. This is going to be like printing free money via traffic tickets but now they can persecute people who are citizens of other states who have no representation.
That is an easy technology fix. Sorry. A simple table with Zipcode and Taxrate.
You add the tax to your final total. Then pay the states the tax.
Tax jurisdictions do not follow zip codes.
So long as the "patchwork problem" can be handled by standard, easy to use software, it should not add appreciably to even a small retailer's costs. Just don't make them handle any tax differential that affects an area smaller than one zipcode.
Taxing jurisdictions have nothing to do with zip codes.
Even the states cannot keep track of which taxes apply to which items in each taxing jurisdiction yet they expect others to be able to do it under penalty of prosecution if they get it wrong. Software is not going to make it easier; it will make it more complicated.
I have seen this movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
My guess is that the big money isn't at all opposed to this, in fact, they probably love it, although they would probably prefer it be developed for more consumer-friendly purposes so that it seems benign (ala Alexa) rather than immediately being turned into a dystopian police state tool.
Their only objection is the publicity.
What if it could be completed for half as much money? Would it be a good idea to kill it if instead of $16 billion, it only cost $8 billion?
I ask because that's where we are now - halfway done. $8 billion has already been spent and it's gone. We can't get that back. It'll cost $8 to complete it.
Kill it unless it is recognized as a welfare program and the results are never used.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There's NASA, and then there's congress. Congress is pushing SLS, which is at this point an albatross around NASA's neck, because of its profit production for various companies in the states of various congress people.
The SLS has the virtue of being able to carry all of Congress into solar orbit in one shot. Let's keep it and hope.