Texas? Georgia? Not exactly ideal for cooling costs. What happened to the green data center movement; put it in North Dakota and all the server cooling can be handled by a vent coming in from the outside.
There's a company in china selling supposedly low power tablets and phones for pregnant women so their developing babies won't have any defects from the radiation.
What makes it intrinsically illegal? Just because there is a law?
Well, yes, that is the definition of illegal; because a law says so. Perhaps you are confusing morality/immorality with legality/illegality?
So you believe that business models deserve protection from competition by creating legal loops that do not do anything except protect economic interests? Strange world view.
Where have you been since the 1890's? Millions of people in employee unions believe this quite firmly, to the point of violence and beyond.
Not the same at all. Debtor's prison threw debtors in jail where they couldn't work off their debts. Greece is not being thrown in jail. If they have the political will to radically overhaul their pension system and general government debt spending then they could pay it off. The only restructing needed is drastically renegotiated interest rates because compounding interest makes paying the principle amount nearly impossible. To insist the principle be repaid is not "punishment" by itself. Compounding interest at these levels can be "punishing" so the lesson needs to be learned in a way that is doable.
I think the source of confusion is that you should realize you have two distinct roles in the economy: 1. You are a seller of labor who effectively charges your employer for your expenses including tax and 2. you are an end consumer who buys things that have corporate tax built into the prices which you cannot pass on.
Consider extreme hypethetical case: Joe has inherited a huge pile of cash, literally, and is otherwise unemployed. He has no income, not even interest because it's cash, and just spends as needed. Joe pays corporate income tax as built into prices. He cannot pass it on to anyone.
The opposite extreme example is Mary, who has a job and calculated what take home she needed after taxes and demands salary accordingly. She is such an amazing mooch that she never buys anything. Mary effectively pays no taxes because she's baked that cost into her salary demand (although of course she fills out irs paperwork and whatnot).
The point is that only the end consumer (when acting in an end consumer role) really pays all the accumulated income taxes.
Some people fool themselves as if there was no such thing as income tax they've ever heard about and think that a salary of X means X is what is "theirs" and then they act surprised that the irs is "taking my money". This was true the first year the first income tax law was passed. To any modern person, you should know tax is an expense that is coming, like it or not, and treat it accordingly by baking it into your salary expectation.
I could just as easily argue that I pay my taxes with my employer's money because I've "baked that into the price I charge them for my labor" (aka my salary).
This is exactly what happens. Unless you mean when you negotiated your salary it didn't occur to you that income tax would need to be paid on it. You didn't realise that "we pay X for this job" was going to translate to X-n (n=deductions including income tax) take-home pay? And then you think, hmm, will that take-home amount be enough to pay my bills or did you think will X be enough to pay my bills and got a huge shock when you saw the deductions?
I assure you that I am paying a FAR larger portion of my income in taxes than Microsoft
Yes, you are paying a far larger portion than ANY company. But do you know why? Because no company has ever paid a penny of "their own" income in taxes. Their taxes are baked into their prices. You pay their taxes for them. Estimated taxes are part of the structure determining price: 1: Cost of materials 2: Cost of labor 3: Cost of capital 4: Cost of taxes 5: Cost of profit (the company's own income) 6: Cost of selling 7 - N: etc. Saying companies ought to pay more in income tax is the same as saying you wished they charged more for their products and services. Income taxes at all levels are really just paid by the last level that can't pass it on to a customer downstream.
The two worst offenders I've seen are US phone companies and car dealerships
Yep, I've had a car dealership call me repeatedly about someone else's unpaid car. Not someone I know at all; I think they either made up a number (mine) or it was a data entry error. The people calling from the dealership always took the line of "yeah sure it's not you, you're just saying that to avoid us". I had to call their legal department to get it to stop.
"Ape" is a general language term that can be used by different people to specify quite different groups of creatures; it's more correct to say we're all hominids.
I have a brand new T-series and while the keyboard is mediocre, the truly awful part is the spring loaded touchpad. You can't just use the trackpoint either because the buttons are built into the bouncy touchpad which has a terrible time registering clicks.
For some odd reason I was thinking IPv6 didn't require DHCP. Maybe that's why Google isn't in a hurry to implement it at an extra. But don't let that stop you from having a cussing fit.
Sure, the blown asbestos messes up your lungs when it's blowing around but after it's in place? It makes a good insulator and about the best fire retardant ever. Leave it in place.
Schools are paid for by property taxes. That makes up a tiny, tiny fraction of tax break incentives given out to companies. And the parents who work at a company getting a property tax break buy homes in the area with their salaries.
government subsidies should be used to build an industry so it can be competitive on it's own, not support it indefinitely
Not possible. However, government could refrain from regulating in such as way as to prevent new industries from being created and new competitors from entering existing industries.
some tech pundits have worried that robots and software will gradually replace human workers in key industries such as manufacturing and IT administration
"Some"? WTF??? Absolutely *ALL* the gizelle pundits are worried robots will replace actual cheetahs now.
you can get most of that (SSN & DoB) by looking at someone's Driver License in most States
Are there still states that want to use SSN as driver's license id number? I lived in a state that did that (VA) years ago but you could refuse and have them generate a DL number. The employees at the DMV hated that request and tried to bully you out of it, but would eventually relent. I thought I heard they started generating DL numbers for everyone though, so what's with your assertion?
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Texas? Georgia? Not exactly ideal for cooling costs. What happened to the green data center movement; put it in North Dakota and all the server cooling can be handled by a vent coming in from the outside.
There's a company in china selling supposedly low power tablets and phones for pregnant women so their developing babies won't have any defects from the radiation.
What makes it intrinsically illegal? Just because there is a law?
Well, yes, that is the definition of illegal; because a law says so. Perhaps you are confusing morality/immorality with legality/illegality?
So you believe that business models deserve protection from competition by creating legal loops that do not do anything except protect economic interests? Strange world view.
Where have you been since the 1890's? Millions of people in employee unions believe this quite firmly, to the point of violence and beyond.
Not the same at all. Debtor's prison threw debtors in jail where they couldn't work off their debts. Greece is not being thrown in jail. If they have the political will to radically overhaul their pension system and general government debt spending then they could pay it off. The only restructing needed is drastically renegotiated interest rates because compounding interest makes paying the principle amount nearly impossible. To insist the principle be repaid is not "punishment" by itself. Compounding interest at these levels can be "punishing" so the lesson needs to be learned in a way that is doable.
I think the source of confusion is that you should realize you have two distinct roles in the economy: 1. You are a seller of labor who effectively charges your employer for your expenses including tax and 2. you are an end consumer who buys things that have corporate tax built into the prices which you cannot pass on.
.
Consider extreme hypethetical case: Joe has inherited a huge pile of cash, literally, and is otherwise unemployed. He has no income, not even interest because it's cash, and just spends as needed. Joe pays corporate income tax as built into prices. He cannot pass it on to anyone.
The opposite extreme example is Mary, who has a job and calculated what take home she needed after taxes and demands salary accordingly. She is such an amazing mooch that she never buys anything. Mary effectively pays no taxes because she's baked that cost into her salary demand (although of course she fills out irs paperwork and whatnot)
The point is that only the end consumer (when acting in an end consumer role) really pays all the accumulated income taxes.
Some people fool themselves as if there was no such thing as income tax they've ever heard about and think that a salary of X means X is what is "theirs" and then they act surprised that the irs is "taking my money". This was true the first year the first income tax law was passed. To any modern person, you should know tax is an expense that is coming, like it or not, and treat it accordingly by baking it into your salary expectation.
I could just as easily argue that I pay my taxes with my employer's money because I've "baked that into the price I charge them for my labor" (aka my salary).
This is exactly what happens. Unless you mean when you negotiated your salary it didn't occur to you that income tax would need to be paid on it. You didn't realise that "we pay X for this job" was going to translate to X-n (n=deductions including income tax) take-home pay? And then you think, hmm, will that take-home amount be enough to pay my bills or did you think will X be enough to pay my bills and got a huge shock when you saw the deductions?
I assure you that I am paying a FAR larger portion of my income in taxes than Microsoft
Yes, you are paying a far larger portion than ANY company. But do you know why? Because no company has ever paid a penny of "their own" income in taxes. Their taxes are baked into their prices. You pay their taxes for them. Estimated taxes are part of the structure determining price: 1: Cost of materials 2: Cost of labor 3: Cost of capital 4: Cost of taxes 5: Cost of profit (the company's own income) 6: Cost of selling 7 - N: etc.
Saying companies ought to pay more in income tax is the same as saying you wished they charged more for their products and services. Income taxes at all levels are really just paid by the last level that can't pass it on to a customer downstream.
The two worst offenders I've seen are US phone companies and car dealerships
Yep, I've had a car dealership call me repeatedly about someone else's unpaid car. Not someone I know at all; I think they either made up a number (mine) or it was a data entry error. The people calling from the dealership always took the line of "yeah sure it's not you, you're just saying that to avoid us". I had to call their legal department to get it to stop.
Somehow it is perfectly acceptable to say humans descended from apes
Only a hard core fundamentalist who was deliberately mischaracterizing evolution would say that. You cannot be a decendant of your cousins.
sparkling debate about who is responsible for the accident
The Audi/VW group has waaaaay more money than the robot manufacturer. I bet I know who the deceased's family sues for compensation.
"Ape" is a general language term that can be used by different people to specify quite different groups of creatures; it's more correct to say we're all hominids.
$500 - Invite to a local "We saved Earth!" party on the launch date!
Saved, past tense, on *launch* date? Isn't that a bit optimistic?
I have a brand new T-series and while the keyboard is mediocre, the truly awful part is the spring loaded touchpad. You can't just use the trackpoint either because the buttons are built into the bouncy touchpad which has a terrible time registering clicks.
For some odd reason I was thinking IPv6 didn't require DHCP. Maybe that's why Google isn't in a hurry to implement it at an extra. But don't let that stop you from having a cussing fit.
Outside of deep Antarctica (Dome A, not far east of the South Pole),
What are you smoking? It isn't possible to be *east* of the South Pole. Only north of it.
and removing asbestos
Sure, the blown asbestos messes up your lungs when it's blowing around but after it's in place? It makes a good insulator and about the best fire retardant ever. Leave it in place.
If the people pass laws
Actually, the people's representatives get together and pass laws after listening to various lobbyists.
Schools are paid for by property taxes. That makes up a tiny, tiny fraction of tax break incentives given out to companies. And the parents who work at a company getting a property tax break buy homes in the area with their salaries.
government subsidies should be used to build an industry so it can be competitive on it's own, not support it indefinitely
Not possible.
However, government could refrain from regulating in such as way as to prevent new industries from being created and new competitors from entering existing industries.
"We value all of your ideas equally, so all decisions will be made by randomly drawing employees’ proposals out of a hat."
This one actually has high entertainment value!
some tech pundits have worried that robots and software will gradually replace human workers in key industries such as manufacturing and IT administration
"Some"? WTF??? Absolutely *ALL* the gizelle pundits are worried robots will replace actual cheetahs now.
Materials science has progressed to the point that a space elevator is a matter of "when" and is no longer wild-eyed sci-fi.
the cost of panels for my house is estimated at $40K, which I cannot afford
You do realize you don't have to go completely off the grid with a $40k array? Why not just a few panels to supplement?
you can get most of that (SSN & DoB) by looking at someone's Driver License in most States
Are there still states that want to use SSN as driver's license id number? I lived in a state that did that (VA) years ago but you could refuse and have them generate a DL number. The employees at the DMV hated that request and tried to bully you out of it, but would eventually relent. I thought I heard they started generating DL numbers for everyone though, so what's with your assertion?
Isn't Hot Topic the store in the mall where all the teens go to buy stuff that makes them unique, just like all the other teens?