You're spot on to blame the legislative. I don't know all the details, but the MSNBC folks were saying that ~$10B of the "loss" is a new requirement that USPS pre-fund 75 years of pension benefits over 10 years. Thanks, Congress. The USPS thinks it can make up the rest of the gap with fairly standard cost-cutting measures.
The conspiracy theorist in me thinks one of the political parties is trying to bankrupt the USPS so they can justify privatizing it. Otherwise, I suppose they're just that incompetent? Or they're trying to prove that "government can't do anything right"?
Executive pay has gone fucking apeshit in comparison to worker pay. Its fucking pathetic. BUT...executive pay is NOT really a reason why companies fail. In the overall scheme of things, it amounts to dick/year in expenses.
While executive pay is often an insignificant expense, I do think "massive raises prior to bankruptcy filing" is an indicator of a) terrible management and b) imminent demise. I suspect management has their reasons for all of this, but it's starting to look pretty strongly like their primary goal was not to keep the company afloat.
The union...well, their blame is they ended up with 0% of their original pay instead of 80% of it. I can't say I blame the staff for not wanting to take a pay cut, but I'd also rather have a job.
I'm not familiar with the workers' salaries at Hostess, but this is a bit of a fallacy. Workers aren't always better off taking pay cuts instead of saying "ok, fuck you, close the business then". There are many other businesses in the area, and depending on the pension cuts they were talking about they might actually be better off (although I'm waiting to hear that the pension funds were criminally underfunded)...
In short, the company looks doomed anyway. I don't believe its current management is serious about turning it around, and there's a decent chance most of the workers will find other work.
Cheaper than banging a known porn star is making your own porn. Check craigslist for the "porn star experience" which is a hooker and a video camera. (You keep the video afterwards.)
I've long wondered about the legality of this. IANAL, but it seems like a very strong legal case could be made that it's legal.
I was going to give you a nice long, serious reply addressing all your points, but then you said this:
Bottom line is that the people who conducted this operation, apparently provided weapons used in hundreds of murders and many other crimes in both Mexico and the US.
Not only is that an unsubstantiated claim, it is the lie I was attempting to disprove. The people who conducted this operation failed to interdict the weapons and arrest the suspects in a timely manner. They did *not* provide any weapons. I know that seems like a "tiny detail" to some people, but it is quite significant.
If you won't acknowledge that difference, I don't see a point in trying to discuss anything else.
Ahh, yeah, I knew I was missing something. I'm so used to people talking about corn or soy when they discuss biofuels... I completely forgot about algae.
Agreed on the double standards for coal vs. renewables. Leveling mountains is OK, but I've seen a few wind projects stalled over environmental concerns:|
I *really* hate/. sometime. I had a nice writeup done for you, with bulleted lists and everything. I hit options to change something, hit save, and it refreshed the page and destroyed my writeup.
So instead, here's the ugly version: All that bullshit about F&F that Fox News was spewing has been thoroughly debunked. AG Holder was not aware or culpable. The Federal government did not sell, transfer, give, or transport weapons to anyone. The IG Report on Fast and Furious is available. Feel free to read it.
Agents from the Phoenix Field Division screwed up. They allowed guns to walk in favor of trying to build a case against the entire organization, including drug traffickers on the Mexican side. They failed. These procedures were a carryover from the Bush administration and have been ended.
Do you have a good source on the "not net"? My understanding has been that it's still a huge net emission because of all the petrol used in farming, fertilizer, harvesting, etc. But I don't have solid sources on that and could well be wrong or misinterpreting something.
California's K-12 has been gutted by repeated budget cuts
Spending can vary greatly by area. LAUSD spends $25,208 per student.
For CA Statewide K-12, "Total per-pupil expenditures from all sources are projected to be $10,610 in 2011-12 and $11,246 in 2012-13".
There are indeed huge variances by region. Districts with higher costs of living, high growth (necessitating new construction), and more special needs students will have higher per pupil costs.
But always be careful when citing CATO, they're not exactly...rigorous... in their methodology. See this EPIC review of CATO's per-pupil claims. And I quote: "The report presents large “real” costs per pupil. However, the spending numbers calculated for the report actually double count, adding in both capital construction and debt service. The use of flawed data renders the report to be of limited value in policymaking." (emphasis added).
I would provide my own analysis of the LAUSD claims, but the CATO report failed to properly cite its sources (it actually indicated an incorrect page number) and methodology. Per the review I am citing, another group was able to nearly replicate the CATO result by double-counting capital construction and debt services (which the author compares to adding the purchase price of a house plus the mortgage payments).
Being a resident of New England, I'm tired of paying for their highways and such while they accuse us here as being Un-American.
Being a resident of California, I feel the same way, only moreso.
I know the feeling. After the Northridge quake (94?), my extremely patriotic military colleagues' family was throwing a celebration party. They were excited about the prospect of California falling off into the ocean. And yes, this was in Texas.
But, per your source, they ranked 45th as a percentage of home value (0.48%), whereas Texas ranked 2nd (1.82%). Median income may be low, and housing values were extremely inflated in 2005 (which your data comes from), but there's no denying that California takes a lower percentage of the home's value than most states. This is primarily due to Prop 13, which capped property taxes and shifted the state towards sales and income taxes.
California's K-12 has been gutted by repeated budget cuts, but I would argue it has much better universities than Texas. As I showed earlier, Texas also has much higher property tax rates as a percentage of home value.
Texas has plenty of revenue sources. Feel free to review the Texas budget, specifically numbered pages 32-33. Their data doesn't provide an easy method of comparison, but it seems they take in some hefty federal "revenues". I don't know if this is from defense spending, assistance with medicaid and HHS, energy subsidies, or what. I can say that both states are reporting around $90B/year in revenue, which would place TX a bit ahead of CA in state revenue per capita.
Then again, it's all moot since those Patriotic Texans are going to secede soon anyways.
I think you touched on the counterargument (that has been very well made): while state money is loose, bank money (the overwhelming majority of the economy) is very tight. Because banks are still recapitalizing, the money supply is very tight. I'm not a fan of CATO or Hanke, but I still have to credit him for making the case on this. He also did a good EconTalk podcast about hyperinflation where he explains this in detail.
I'm not prepared to say whether or not the fed fucked up yet. I think we're going to have to leave that one to the history books and just agree that we don't really have sufficient understanding of all the what-ifs at this time. My gut says they stopped things from getting far worse, but that these policies are simultaneously slowing a recovery and setting a path for a new bubble.
In California, home to a lot of VC-funded companies, high state taxes make this considerably worse.
By the way, CA just raised the top state income tax rate to 13.3%. Even those making $250k of more will now pay 10.3%. Also CA sales tax is now 7.25%.
And yet California has the most billionaires of any state. Many of them are in Los Angeles, a city that would not exist if the local government had not raised massive tax revenues to pay for its utilities (esp. water).
Aside from Hollywood, much of the wealth being created is the direct result of the state's incredible universities. Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD just to name a few public-funded schools. Cal Tech and Stanford on the other side of the house. I don't think it's any accident that California is able to attract or produce such great talent. And yes, these things need to be paid for. Since property taxes are so low, revenues have to come from sales and income taxes.
Joe Scarborough of MSNBC called him a “joke,” while an op-ed in the LA Times accused him of running a “numbers racket.” The Examiner dismissed him as a “thin and effeminate man with a soft-sounding voice.” Even the legendary David Brooks claimed that his work was “getting into silly land.”
I'm sure they will all apologize to Nate for their rude behavior and comments in 3... 2... 1.../sarcasm
TBF, at least one of them did actually apologize. The apology was a bit convoluted, but it's there nonetheless.
Granted, a few articles later he was going on about "riding the Long Black Train" into some financial apocalypse after Obama was re-elected, but hey.
All of those reasons for potential inaccuracies are essentially already accounted for and baked into the prediction model as they are using not just polling numbers but also past elections. Things like the fact that republican voters tend to have higher turnout relative to the polls, etc are already considered.
Not all of them. He can't easily account for huge changes. For example: major storms, changes in early voting, voter ID laws, extremely long lines at polling stations (compared to previous elections), voting machine hacking. I'm not implying that Sandy had an effect, the data really shows that it didn't (although it may well cement Christie as viable in 2016). But the rest were without real recent precedent and in flux in the final days leading up to the election
I have tremendous respect for Silver's work, and generally would place my money wherever his math lands, but I was still worried about this election. Florida, Ohio, and several other states were showing many signs of drastic changes that could significantly impact the ability of some groups to vote. I don't believe Silver accounted for these potential issues, nor that he could have.
Look at Virginia's Republican primary: 4.6% of the Voting-Eligible Population (VEP). Assuming only two candidates, the winner needed 50%+1 of that, so 2.3% of the VEP's support. Wyoming? 0.3% (winner at 0.15%).*
--
*I hope these ultra-low turnout states have some other reason, but I haven't looked into them enough. Maybe the state party just picks the winner without any actual voting by members?
Obama has not exactly reached across the aisle either. The affordable healthcare law..
He didn't reach across the aisle? He didn't need to, he just took the plans the Republicans wrote up in the 90s, that Romney implemented in Massachusetts, and had his staffers replace the title. Or is using the Republican plan not enough? Did he need to bake them cookies too?
People are mad because Obama doesn't show enough respect for Wall Street, say nice enough things about Republicans, or include them in slumber parties. That's all complete and utter bullshit. Obama's policies are extraordinarily centrist and lean more towards Republican than Democrat.
FWIW, there were multiple attempts to include Republicans. The end result was always the same: Republicans filibuster and withdraw their support for the measure after getting everything they say they wanted. And you think Obama was the partisan?
The point is that if they DO NOT register, and you catch them, it's a good way of getting charges on them before they harm a kid again.
Let me fix that for you:
The point is that if they DO NOT register, and you catch them, it's a good way of getting charges on them.
If you want to send somebody on the registry to prison, all you have to do is find one account they have/had on one website and failed to register. Then you can send them to prison. Even if there is absolutely no danger of them "harming a kid again". Although the sex offender registry has VERY little to do with harming children, and, after Prop 35, has even less to do with harming children.
This is just another feelgood self-righteous measure that takes even more rights away from a group so ostracized that few public figures will dare speak out in their defense.
Likewise, what if 'victim' AND 'perpetrator' are 'CHILDREN'?
Even worse: What if the 'victim' is 17 years and 11 months and the 'perpetrator' is 18 years and 3 days old?
Valid point, but... IIRC, perfectly legal in CA. The statutory rape laws have exceptions for adult-minor couples that were already together before one turned 18. I think there is also a 6 month clause or somesuch.
What probably happened is that an expensive vehicle came out with two highly trained professionals
I really wish that were the case, but... Ambulance workers are not paid well. I've known a few, and they weren't exceptionally well trained either. They were doing it while doing other training, etc. (I forget all the details, but it seems a lot of firefighters work as EMTs/ambulance workers early on).
The other part of that is that the health care system in the US is screwed up, and to a large extent has the worst of free enterprise and the worst of government control. Most people who get such health care are largely insulated from the costs, and both the hospital and insurance companies are trying to make money. This really sucks when you're poor, lack health insurance, and need health care. I have great insurance, and was able to look over all the fees without personal shock, but things really did look awfully expensive.
I agree with you entirely. However, I think it's worth noting that "free enterprise" doesn't adapt to ambulances all that well. Prices aren't even discussed or negotiated ahead of time (unless you have insurance, and even then there are often big surprises). Imagine the free market solution: "Your husband is having a heart attack? We have one ambulance 5 minutes away and that will be $1500. There is another ambulance 15 minutes out and we can give you a discount to $750."
Just to expand on "incorporate to protect yourself"... look up "piercing the corporate veil". Be very careful to not commingle personal and corporate assets, or do any of the other things that can cost you your liability protection.
Treat is as a real, separate, independent business. And if you don't know how to do that, hire a good accountant.
No they don't. Oregon, Montana, Alaska, New Hampshire, and Delaware don't have sales tax. You know, a tenth of the country's states.
It may also be a surprise to you that some of the states don't double dip on income tax, either: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wyoming
(If you're observant and knowledge inclined, you may note a pattern/trend amongst these states which is not present in places like NY or CA, where sales and income taxes are high but the states are still completely strapped.)
Is the pattern that the only state that collects neither has massive oil revenues? Alaska forecast a $10B oil revenue in 2012, with another $1B coming from other taxes and fines and $3B in federal revenue. Alaska's 2012 forecast revenue was $17.757 billion. With a population of 722,718 (2011), this works out to a per capita tax of $24,569.75.
For 2011-2012, California's enacted budget forecast revenues of $95.887 billion. CA's population was 37,691,912 (2011). This works out to a per capita tax of $2,543.97.
California's per capita taxes are 10.4% of Alaska's, and the majority of the state's operational expenses go to Health and Human Services and education. For the services it provides, it is amazing that California isn't bankrupt.
If you want to make an anti-tax argument, maybe you shouldn't laud (as your shining example of fiscal responsibility) a tax-loving, socialist state that redistributes wealth from job creators directly to all of its citizens.
Nice try, greedy but unambitious cell phone repair guy.
Funny, but he has a great point. With labor, you don't always get what you pay for... but you rarely get what you don't pay for.
If you're paying near minimum wage, you have to expect that your employees aren't going to be terribly trustworthy, experienced, professional, etc. Paying more is no guarantee, but you're not going to attract great employees who truly value their jobs at those wages.
Now that the Federal Reserve is doing perpetual quantitative easing (they aren't even using terms like QE-2 any more) it is even harder to say what will end up happening with all of that extra money.
The point is that there is no historical comparison to suggest what might happen... other than to look at the Weimar Republic in Germany. That isn't exactly comforting if you are claiming that a substantial increase in inflation won't be happening.
It's getting late so I won't attempt details, but I'd argue the fundamentals are different. Although we have fairly loose policies on state money, we have drastically tightened policy on bank money in recapitalization efforts. The result: not much inflation. State money is only a small portion (IIRC, 15%).
I think the housing-based economy is ridiculous, and that we're setting ourselves up for a few really big crashes... but I don't think QE will be responsible for them. Or that it's likely to lead to hyperinflation. I believe they will be able to ease QE before things get out of hand, and that the US is more than capable of increasing revenues to match current spending. It would be politically unpopular, but they should be able to operate without hyper-inflating.
I can't believe I'm going to refer someone to a conversation between a guy from CATO and another at Hoover, but for a good discussion and explanation of the subject you should check out Steve Hanke's 10/29/12 EconTalk. Hanke is an expert in hyperinflation and definitely worth a listen/read.
Slashdot Mirror
You're spot on to blame the legislative. I don't know all the details, but the MSNBC folks were saying that ~$10B of the "loss" is a new requirement that USPS pre-fund 75 years of pension benefits over 10 years. Thanks, Congress. The USPS thinks it can make up the rest of the gap with fairly standard cost-cutting measures.
The conspiracy theorist in me thinks one of the political parties is trying to bankrupt the USPS so they can justify privatizing it. Otherwise, I suppose they're just that incompetent? Or they're trying to prove that "government can't do anything right"?
Executive pay has gone fucking apeshit in comparison to worker pay. Its fucking pathetic. BUT...executive pay is NOT really a reason why companies fail. In the overall scheme of things, it amounts to dick/year in expenses.
While executive pay is often an insignificant expense, I do think "massive raises prior to bankruptcy filing" is an indicator of a) terrible management and b) imminent demise. I suspect management has their reasons for all of this, but it's starting to look pretty strongly like their primary goal was not to keep the company afloat.
The union...well, their blame is they ended up with 0% of their original pay instead of 80% of it. I can't say I blame the staff for not wanting to take a pay cut, but I'd also rather have a job.
I'm not familiar with the workers' salaries at Hostess, but this is a bit of a fallacy. Workers aren't always better off taking pay cuts instead of saying "ok, fuck you, close the business then". There are many other businesses in the area, and depending on the pension cuts they were talking about they might actually be better off (although I'm waiting to hear that the pension funds were criminally underfunded)...
In short, the company looks doomed anyway. I don't believe its current management is serious about turning it around, and there's a decent chance most of the workers will find other work.
Cheaper than banging a known porn star is making your own porn. Check craigslist for the "porn star experience" which is a hooker and a video camera. (You keep the video afterwards.)
I've long wondered about the legality of this. IANAL, but it seems like a very strong legal case could be made that it's legal.
I was going to give you a nice long, serious reply addressing all your points, but then you said this:
Bottom line is that the people who conducted this operation, apparently provided weapons used in hundreds of murders and many other crimes in both Mexico and the US.
Not only is that an unsubstantiated claim, it is the lie I was attempting to disprove. The people who conducted this operation failed to interdict the weapons and arrest the suspects in a timely manner. They did *not* provide any weapons. I know that seems like a "tiny detail" to some people, but it is quite significant.
If you won't acknowledge that difference, I don't see a point in trying to discuss anything else.
Ahh, yeah, I knew I was missing something. I'm so used to people talking about corn or soy when they discuss biofuels... I completely forgot about algae.
Agreed on the double standards for coal vs. renewables. Leveling mountains is OK, but I've seen a few wind projects stalled over environmental concerns :|
I *really* hate /. sometime. I had a nice writeup done for you, with bulleted lists and everything. I hit options to change something, hit save, and it refreshed the page and destroyed my writeup.
So instead, here's the ugly version: All that bullshit about F&F that Fox News was spewing has been thoroughly debunked. AG Holder was not aware or culpable. The Federal government did not sell, transfer, give, or transport weapons to anyone. The IG Report on Fast and Furious is available. Feel free to read it.
Agents from the Phoenix Field Division screwed up. They allowed guns to walk in favor of trying to build a case against the entire organization, including drug traffickers on the Mexican side. They failed. These procedures were a carryover from the Bush administration and have been ended.
Do you have a good source on the "not net"? My understanding has been that it's still a huge net emission because of all the petrol used in farming, fertilizer, harvesting, etc. But I don't have solid sources on that and could well be wrong or misinterpreting something.
Spending can vary greatly by area. LAUSD spends $25,208 per student.
For CA Statewide K-12, "Total per-pupil expenditures from all sources are projected to be $10,610 in 2011-12 and $11,246 in 2012-13".
There are indeed huge variances by region. Districts with higher costs of living, high growth (necessitating new construction), and more special needs students will have higher per pupil costs.
But always be careful when citing CATO, they're not exactly...rigorous... in their methodology. See this EPIC review of CATO's per-pupil claims. And I quote: "The report presents large “real” costs per pupil. However, the spending numbers calculated for the report actually double count, adding in both capital construction and debt service. The use of flawed data renders the report to be of limited value in policymaking." (emphasis added).
I would provide my own analysis of the LAUSD claims, but the CATO report failed to properly cite its sources (it actually indicated an incorrect page number) and methodology. Per the review I am citing, another group was able to nearly replicate the CATO result by double-counting capital construction and debt services (which the author compares to adding the purchase price of a house plus the mortgage payments).
Being a resident of New England, I'm tired of paying for their highways and such while they accuse us here as being Un-American.
Being a resident of California, I feel the same way, only moreso.
I know the feeling. After the Northridge quake (94?), my extremely patriotic military colleagues' family was throwing a celebration party. They were excited about the prospect of California falling off into the ocean. And yes, this was in Texas.
California property taxes aren't particularly low. They rank 17th out of 50 states as a percentage of median income (in 2005).
But, per your source, they ranked 45th as a percentage of home value (0.48%), whereas Texas ranked 2nd (1.82%). Median income may be low, and housing values were extremely inflated in 2005 (which your data comes from), but there's no denying that California takes a lower percentage of the home's value than most states. This is primarily due to Prop 13, which capped property taxes and shifted the state towards sales and income taxes.
Texas property taxes are lower. Texas also has no state income tax and much lower sales tax than California. Texas public schools rank higher in math and science education than California.
California's K-12 has been gutted by repeated budget cuts, but I would argue it has much better universities than Texas. As I showed earlier, Texas also has much higher property tax rates as a percentage of home value.
Texas has plenty of revenue sources. Feel free to review the Texas budget, specifically numbered pages 32-33. Their data doesn't provide an easy method of comparison, but it seems they take in some hefty federal "revenues". I don't know if this is from defense spending, assistance with medicaid and HHS, energy subsidies, or what. I can say that both states are reporting around $90B/year in revenue, which would place TX a bit ahead of CA in state revenue per capita.
Then again, it's all moot since those Patriotic Texans are going to secede soon anyways.
I think you touched on the counterargument (that has been very well made): while state money is loose, bank money (the overwhelming majority of the economy) is very tight. Because banks are still recapitalizing, the money supply is very tight. I'm not a fan of CATO or Hanke, but I still have to credit him for making the case on this. He also did a good EconTalk podcast about hyperinflation where he explains this in detail.
I'm not prepared to say whether or not the fed fucked up yet. I think we're going to have to leave that one to the history books and just agree that we don't really have sufficient understanding of all the what-ifs at this time. My gut says they stopped things from getting far worse, but that these policies are simultaneously slowing a recovery and setting a path for a new bubble.
In California, home to a lot of VC-funded companies, high state taxes make this considerably worse.
By the way, CA just raised the top state income tax rate to 13.3%. Even those making $250k of more will now pay 10.3%. Also CA sales tax is now 7.25%.
And yet California has the most billionaires of any state. Many of them are in Los Angeles, a city that would not exist if the local government had not raised massive tax revenues to pay for its utilities (esp. water).
Aside from Hollywood, much of the wealth being created is the direct result of the state's incredible universities. Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD just to name a few public-funded schools. Cal Tech and Stanford on the other side of the house. I don't think it's any accident that California is able to attract or produce such great talent. And yes, these things need to be paid for. Since property taxes are so low, revenues have to come from sales and income taxes.
From TFA:
Joe Scarborough of MSNBC called him a “joke,” while an op-ed in the LA Times accused him of running a “numbers racket.” The Examiner dismissed him as a “thin and effeminate man with a soft-sounding voice.” Even the legendary David Brooks claimed that his work was “getting into silly land.”
I'm sure they will all apologize to Nate for their rude behavior and comments in 3... 2... 1... /sarcasm
TBF, at least one of them did actually apologize. The apology was a bit convoluted, but it's there nonetheless.
Granted, a few articles later he was going on about "riding the Long Black Train" into some financial apocalypse after Obama was re-elected, but hey.
All of those reasons for potential inaccuracies are essentially already accounted for and baked into the prediction model as they are using not just polling numbers but also past elections. Things like the fact that republican voters tend to have higher turnout relative to the polls, etc are already considered.
Not all of them. He can't easily account for huge changes. For example: major storms, changes in early voting, voter ID laws, extremely long lines at polling stations (compared to previous elections), voting machine hacking. I'm not implying that Sandy had an effect, the data really shows that it didn't (although it may well cement Christie as viable in 2016). But the rest were without real recent precedent and in flux in the final days leading up to the election
I have tremendous respect for Silver's work, and generally would place my money wherever his math lands, but I was still worried about this election. Florida, Ohio, and several other states were showing many signs of drastic changes that could significantly impact the ability of some groups to vote. I don't believe Silver accounted for these potential issues, nor that he could have.
How does a "small fringe" hold the party hostage?
Your logic is an absurdity.
Not the GP, but the logic isn't absurd. The reality is absurd, but not the logic. The key: Primaries.
Only the most dedicated voters vote in primaries. Here is the voter turnout from the US 2012 Primaries.
Look at Virginia's Republican primary: 4.6% of the Voting-Eligible Population (VEP). Assuming only two candidates, the winner needed 50%+1 of that, so 2.3% of the VEP's support. Wyoming? 0.3% (winner at 0.15%).*
--
*I hope these ultra-low turnout states have some other reason, but I haven't looked into them enough. Maybe the state party just picks the winner without any actual voting by members?
Obama has not exactly reached across the aisle either. The affordable healthcare law..
He didn't reach across the aisle? He didn't need to, he just took the plans the Republicans wrote up in the 90s, that Romney implemented in Massachusetts, and had his staffers replace the title. Or is using the Republican plan not enough? Did he need to bake them cookies too?
People are mad because Obama doesn't show enough respect for Wall Street, say nice enough things about Republicans, or include them in slumber parties. That's all complete and utter bullshit. Obama's policies are extraordinarily centrist and lean more towards Republican than Democrat.
FWIW, there were multiple attempts to include Republicans. The end result was always the same: Republicans filibuster and withdraw their support for the measure after getting everything they say they wanted. And you think Obama was the partisan?
For most of the other 6.7 billion people who don't live in the US, he got it right.
You misspelled "Confederacy".
The point is that if they DO NOT register, and you catch them, it's a good way of getting charges on them before they harm a kid again.
Let me fix that for you:
The point is that if they DO NOT register, and you catch them, it's a good way of getting charges on them.
If you want to send somebody on the registry to prison, all you have to do is find one account they have/had on one website and failed to register. Then you can send them to prison. Even if there is absolutely no danger of them "harming a kid again". Although the sex offender registry has VERY little to do with harming children, and, after Prop 35, has even less to do with harming children.
This is just another feelgood self-righteous measure that takes even more rights away from a group so ostracized that few public figures will dare speak out in their defense.
Likewise, what if 'victim' AND 'perpetrator' are 'CHILDREN'?
Even worse: What if the 'victim' is 17 years and 11 months and the 'perpetrator' is 18 years and 3 days old?
Valid point, but... IIRC, perfectly legal in CA. The statutory rape laws have exceptions for adult-minor couples that were already together before one turned 18. I think there is also a 6 month clause or somesuch.
What probably happened is that an expensive vehicle came out with two highly trained professionals
I really wish that were the case, but... Ambulance workers are not paid well. I've known a few, and they weren't exceptionally well trained either. They were doing it while doing other training, etc. (I forget all the details, but it seems a lot of firefighters work as EMTs/ambulance workers early on).
The other part of that is that the health care system in the US is screwed up, and to a large extent has the worst of free enterprise and the worst of government control. Most people who get such health care are largely insulated from the costs, and both the hospital and insurance companies are trying to make money. This really sucks when you're poor, lack health insurance, and need health care. I have great insurance, and was able to look over all the fees without personal shock, but things really did look awfully expensive.
I agree with you entirely. However, I think it's worth noting that "free enterprise" doesn't adapt to ambulances all that well. Prices aren't even discussed or negotiated ahead of time (unless you have insurance, and even then there are often big surprises). Imagine the free market solution: "Your husband is having a heart attack? We have one ambulance 5 minutes away and that will be $1500. There is another ambulance 15 minutes out and we can give you a discount to $750."
Just to expand on "incorporate to protect yourself"... look up "piercing the corporate veil". Be very careful to not commingle personal and corporate assets, or do any of the other things that can cost you your liability protection.
Treat is as a real, separate, independent business. And if you don't know how to do that, hire a good accountant.
No they don't. Oregon, Montana, Alaska, New Hampshire, and Delaware don't have sales tax. You know, a tenth of the country's states.
It may also be a surprise to you that some of the states don't double dip on income tax, either: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wyoming
(If you're observant and knowledge inclined, you may note a pattern/trend amongst these states which is not present in places like NY or CA, where sales and income taxes are high but the states are still completely strapped.)
Is the pattern that the only state that collects neither has massive oil revenues? Alaska forecast a $10B oil revenue in 2012, with another $1B coming from other taxes and fines and $3B in federal revenue. Alaska's 2012 forecast revenue was $17.757 billion. With a population of 722,718 (2011), this works out to a per capita tax of $24,569.75.
For 2011-2012, California's enacted budget forecast revenues of $95.887 billion. CA's population was 37,691,912 (2011). This works out to a per capita tax of $2,543.97.
California's per capita taxes are 10.4% of Alaska's, and the majority of the state's operational expenses go to Health and Human Services and education. For the services it provides, it is amazing that California isn't bankrupt.
If you want to make an anti-tax argument, maybe you shouldn't laud (as your shining example of fiscal responsibility) a tax-loving, socialist state that redistributes wealth from job creators directly to all of its citizens.
I've had it for almost 2 years and 20,000 miles and it has been flawless.
That's an amazingly low bar.
I'm not saying I think it will be problematic, but 2 years/20k miles of problem free motoring is pretty much a useless statistic in this day and age.
Great indicator that the car isn't a Mercury Sable or a Ford.
Nice try, greedy but unambitious cell phone repair guy.
Funny, but he has a great point. With labor, you don't always get what you pay for... but you rarely get what you don't pay for.
If you're paying near minimum wage, you have to expect that your employees aren't going to be terribly trustworthy, experienced, professional, etc. Paying more is no guarantee, but you're not going to attract great employees who truly value their jobs at those wages.
Now that the Federal Reserve is doing perpetual quantitative easing (they aren't even using terms like QE-2 any more) it is even harder to say what will end up happening with all of that extra money.
No, they're using QE3 now.
The point is that there is no historical comparison to suggest what might happen... other than to look at the Weimar Republic in Germany. That isn't exactly comforting if you are claiming that a substantial increase in inflation won't be happening.
It's getting late so I won't attempt details, but I'd argue the fundamentals are different. Although we have fairly loose policies on state money, we have drastically tightened policy on bank money in recapitalization efforts. The result: not much inflation. State money is only a small portion (IIRC, 15%).
I think the housing-based economy is ridiculous, and that we're setting ourselves up for a few really big crashes... but I don't think QE will be responsible for them. Or that it's likely to lead to hyperinflation. I believe they will be able to ease QE before things get out of hand, and that the US is more than capable of increasing revenues to match current spending. It would be politically unpopular, but they should be able to operate without hyper-inflating.
I can't believe I'm going to refer someone to a conversation between a guy from CATO and another at Hoover, but for a good discussion and explanation of the subject you should check out Steve Hanke's 10/29/12 EconTalk. Hanke is an expert in hyperinflation and definitely worth a listen/read.