Do I detect the memory of a teenager's painful conversation with a parent here?;)
The reality of human culture is that it requires a degree of conformity if a meaningful culture is to exist. The question is whether the network effects of FB justify its adoption, and my instinct is that they do. YMMV. However if you are part of a culture in which FB is a significant means of communication, you need to do FB; we don't live in small villages where we will talk to everyone face to face any more.
It's a way of staying in touch with your friends. It's a way to keep in communication. It's a way to share positive experiences and reach out for support when life kicks you in the face. It allows you to announce things 'safely'; a friend announced the death of his uncle on facebook without having to go through the emotions of telling people face to face.
It's not necessary, but it has become a useful tool in our culture.
The £10,000 is compensation from the state to the victim for the behaviour of the police. This is always coming from the taxpayer. The more problematic situation is when police forces get fined in the criminal courts for doing something illegal - it does happen in England - and taxpayers pay the money to government. The only virtue of this is that it is embarrassing to the force.
On a good day the reprobates who actually committed the offences whilst they were police officers get sacked from the force and deprived of their pension. That DOES translate into the taxpayer getting a nice bonus; police pensions are EXPENSIVE. It's my hope that this might happen here.
"That's why so many small retail businesses support minimum wage hikes on a state and/or national level. It makes it easier for them to pay their workers a decent salary because they know their competition will have to do the same."
Nicely argued. One of the crasser arguments of the pro-undocumented protesters is the unstated claim that illegal immigration is a victimless crime. Of course it's not - but it's victims - other than the obvious ones where the desperate migrant acts to get food by a property crime - are the small firms that are competed out of business by employers of illegals who are paid way below the minimum wage and do a good job for that wage.
The difference is that we specialise from 16, when your subject range falls to 5 areas, and to three at 17, so you end high school with serious (externally examined) qualifications in 3 subjects. If you focus on science, this can be Maths, Physics and Chemistry. Then at university you can do ONE topic, with zero other load. So on the whole our Chemistry BA graduate is potentially on a level with your Chemistry masters.
The only way to nip this dreadful idea in the bud is for a serious hack to occur that proves it is insecure. Thus the system reporting a billion votes cast for Abraham Lincoln would probably do the job...
As a sceptic about the value of CERN, my problem is that it feels like there's little of long term value likely to be found by it, compared with what the same expenditure could achieve in other scientific fields that are far less well financed. It's 'sexy' to be looking at the origins of the universe and ever more fundamental particles but...
The claim that Snowden's act constitutes 'Terrorism' is an example of the abuse of the term - and of legislation if it does - that needs to be highlighted. From first principles it can be argued that Snowden shouldn't benefit from his actions, or not, but the use of 'terrorism' legislation should be unacceptable...
So we are forced to conclude that it's not a diversity issue, it's a failure to find enough of the candidates to tick the boxes to keep the social justice warriors off your backs
In 2010 David Cameron appointed a lot of female cabinet ministers in the UK. A year later a lot of them were sacked in his first reshuffle, and the papers were strangely quiet because they KNEW that they'd proved incompetent...
As a late member of the boomer generation I was able to get a job as a computer programmer that 2 years in enabled me to buy an apartment at 3 times that salary.
25 years on I still live in the apartment. It's worth four times what I paid for it. If I was in the same job, I'd be on about twice what I was then. Therefore I wouldn't have a hope of getting on the property ladder, and wouldn't benefit from inflation to ensure that the real cost of my mortgage payments faded away. And that's before issues of exploding university debt etc.
It's therefore true that boomers like me have benefited from an opportunity that has now gone to gain prosperity, and so it's the next generation that should get the leg up from the grandparents, not the boomers who've already benefited.
One of the less discussed aspects of the 'whole millenials are poor' debate is 'Where did the grandparents' money go?' Specifically we need to recognise that the property does descend through families, and that grandparents should be giving it to the younger generation if their kids are well established. It's not the whole answer, but will reduce the pain for some - as long as the grandparents think this through.
"Young people in the 1950s, when they were asked if you had a sexual partner, [might] say 'oh oral sex, that counts,' whereas young people today might say 'oh no that doesn't count because I didn't actually have sexual intercourse,'" he said.
After all, the honourable residents of the White House never lie, do they?
claims that the total for the whole world for 2013 is 1.25million. Assuming that for the whole period of the 20 years, that's 25 million. For it to be 'millions' implies > 2 million. Therefore over 8% or so are caused by mobile abuse. That seems conceivable; I must admit to assuming a lower rate of death on the roads.
Thank you for making me think - that's nearly the highest compliment I can pay to a person!
The installed cost may have 'crossed over' - but as the increasing problems being revealed over maintaining base load when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing indicates that this is because the real costs aren't being accounted for.
No - I am NOT trying to reduce the burden of taxation on capital - I entirely agree that it is appropriate to tax it, and the present mess over capital gains and all the rest is a disaster. But this is about the damaging distortions that taxing equity investment more harshly than loans does, and it is a problem. Unfortunately the correct solution - increasing taxation on loan payments by companies - would rightly be seen as discouraging investment.
How we get round the perception that companies should be taxed twice - as themselves and as their shareholders - is a clear and persistent problem which the ignorance of the 'Occupy' movements ignore. Capitalism works and does bring benefits to the poorest - as the record of the decline in poverty in China clearly indicates. The free trade that has accompanied this has left victims in the west, and it's their pain that Trump and Hillary are both channelling in a depressing outbreak of selfishness at the present time.
Should 'capital' be taxed more? Certainly dead capital - such as land investments and housing for rent should (nb - I write as a residential landlord!), and the abolition of tax relief on mortgage interest payments is one of the great achievement of the British government over the past 40 years - the US should do likewise. But 'real' investment that creates productive, long term jobs? There's the challenge; if you hit that too hard growth WILL stop...
[I used the word 'potentially' in my earlier post because a lot of tax avoidance is about getting past this sort of mess of taxation. However it's not as available to little people]
We've never abolished paper ballot, and our method of execution - until we stopped doing executions - was hanging. In both cases the USA has abandoned the traditional methods to be 'up to date' and 'modern', and as a result made a pig ear of things; no hanging chads in a British election, and no extended, messed up executions with hanging as long as the rope is long enough when the person drops that their neck is broken by the drop. But no, our rebellious ex-colonists think they know better;)
The idea that an idea in accounting can be explained simply is part of the reason why Trump gets taken seriously by the stupid. They've been told they have a right to understand. No - a lot of them are too stupid to understand a complex line of logic. So they dismiss it. And sulk.
'If corporations are legal 'persons' making profit'
But they aren't. They are a legal entity owned by shareholders who have invested money in the hope of getting a return. When shareholder receive dividends they pay tax on those dividends. Therefore potentially a company pays tax twice on its income - as itself and as its shareholders.
This matters because companies can be financed by their shareholders - whose income stream is variable, dependent on a company's profits - or by bonds or bank loans, which do not allow this control, instead the company pays a fixed rate of interest. THAT payment is before the company has paid tax on its profits. This has problematic consequences: if a person wants to receive income from a company, he's likely to to do better to buy a bond, which is only taxed once, rather than a share. There is thus a tax advantage to borrowing over shareholders' funds. This is destabilising; a company can stop dividend payments when its profits fall, but must keep on paying its bond and loans.
Bottom line: it is totally legitimate to tax the income that people receive from firms. It is irrational to tax firms' profits directly. Unfortunately this is hard to explain, and our democracies don't like what is hard to explain.
Within the meaning of 'wiretap'; gaining access to personalised data that was innocently passed by an individual. If I listen in to a phone call that's not for me, that's illegal. This is surely equivalent.
On the scale of the whole world, the adoption of capitalist style free markets in China, India and Africa have seen the poorest get richer vastly faster than under the state capitalism / communism / planned economies that were the fashion until 1990. It works. It doesn't work perfectly for everyone, and those who lose out do need to receive more compensation. But overall the world economy has been a great success. The fact that we can't see this is a function of lack of knowledge of what is happening in the rest of the world.
That others have benefited is a reality that should be talked about appropriately. In a Christian influenced country, presenting this as a moral challenge to which we should all rise is valid. The problem is finding people who've been hurt by the economy to preach it; those of us who are comfortable will struggle to be credible. Yet the reality that both parties platforms are based on what they will do for those voting for them is, ultimately, unhealthy. It should be better than that.
Income and wealth inequality are non-trivial. The danger is that you kill the goose that lays the gold eggs of growing prosperity in much of the world. And certainly some income differentials are valid. If I'm someone who does earn my employer 5 figure sums, expecting me to accept five figure pay packets is unreasonable. Similarly it is the prospect of birthing a unicorn that makes people take the risk of setting up a new enterprise. Those unicorns are of real value to the wider world; however much we may disdain Microsoft, HP, Facebook and Google, they have objectively improved the world by the things they offer which weren't there before. OTOH destroying monopolies and taxing LAND - as opposed to buildings - as something that individuals shouldn't be able to bid up the price of, is a strategy we should recommend more.
Slashdot Mirror
Do I detect the memory of a teenager's painful conversation with a parent here? ;)
The reality of human culture is that it requires a degree of conformity if a meaningful culture is to exist. The question is whether the network effects of FB justify its adoption, and my instinct is that they do. YMMV. However if you are part of a culture in which FB is a significant means of communication, you need to do FB; we don't live in small villages where we will talk to everyone face to face any more.
It's a way of staying in touch with your friends. It's a way to keep in communication. It's a way to share positive experiences and reach out for support when life kicks you in the face. It allows you to announce things 'safely'; a friend announced the death of his uncle on facebook without having to go through the emotions of telling people face to face.
It's not necessary, but it has become a useful tool in our culture.
The £10,000 is compensation from the state to the victim for the behaviour of the police. This is always coming from the taxpayer. The more problematic situation is when police forces get fined in the criminal courts for doing something illegal - it does happen in England - and taxpayers pay the money to government. The only virtue of this is that it is embarrassing to the force.
On a good day the reprobates who actually committed the offences whilst they were police officers get sacked from the force and deprived of their pension. That DOES translate into the taxpayer getting a nice bonus; police pensions are EXPENSIVE. It's my hope that this might happen here.
"That's why so many small retail businesses support minimum wage hikes on a state and/or national level. It makes it easier for them to pay their workers a decent salary because they know their competition will have to do the same."
Nicely argued. One of the crasser arguments of the pro-undocumented protesters is the unstated claim that illegal immigration is a victimless crime. Of course it's not - but it's victims - other than the obvious ones where the desperate migrant acts to get food by a property crime - are the small firms that are competed out of business by employers of illegals who are paid way below the minimum wage and do a good job for that wage.
The difference is that we specialise from 16, when your subject range falls to 5 areas, and to three at 17, so you end high school with serious (externally examined) qualifications in 3 subjects. If you focus on science, this can be Maths, Physics and Chemistry. Then at university you can do ONE topic, with zero other load. So on the whole our Chemistry BA graduate is potentially on a level with your Chemistry masters.
The only way to nip this dreadful idea in the bud is for a serious hack to occur that proves it is insecure. Thus the system reporting a billion votes cast for Abraham Lincoln would probably do the job...
As a sceptic about the value of CERN, my problem is that it feels like there's little of long term value likely to be found by it, compared with what the same expenditure could achieve in other scientific fields that are far less well financed. It's 'sexy' to be looking at the origins of the universe and ever more fundamental particles but...
The claim that Snowden's act constitutes 'Terrorism' is an example of the abuse of the term - and of legislation if it does - that needs to be highlighted. From first principles it can be argued that Snowden shouldn't benefit from his actions, or not, but the use of 'terrorism' legislation should be unacceptable...
So we are forced to conclude that it's not a diversity issue, it's a failure to find enough of the candidates to tick the boxes to keep the social justice warriors off your backs
In 2010 David Cameron appointed a lot of female cabinet ministers in the UK. A year later a lot of them were sacked in his first reshuffle, and the papers were strangely quiet because they KNEW that they'd proved incompetent...
Apple announces a massive fall in profits
I'm sure it's only a coincidence!!!!!
The belief that we should always be moving is undoubtedly one of the reasons why our society is so messed up; we don't build communities any more.
For the record I've done a remarkable range of things whilst based in this humble apartment - though I will admit the carpet does need replacing... ;)
As a late member of the boomer generation I was able to get a job as a computer programmer that 2 years in enabled me to buy an apartment at 3 times that salary.
25 years on I still live in the apartment. It's worth four times what I paid for it. If I was in the same job, I'd be on about twice what I was then. Therefore I wouldn't have a hope of getting on the property ladder, and wouldn't benefit from inflation to ensure that the real cost of my mortgage payments faded away. And that's before issues of exploding university debt etc.
It's therefore true that boomers like me have benefited from an opportunity that has now gone to gain prosperity, and so it's the next generation that should get the leg up from the grandparents, not the boomers who've already benefited.
One of the less discussed aspects of the 'whole millenials are poor' debate is 'Where did the grandparents' money go?' Specifically we need to recognise that the property does descend through families, and that grandparents should be giving it to the younger generation if their kids are well established. It's not the whole answer, but will reduce the pain for some - as long as the grandparents think this through.
"Young people in the 1950s, when they were asked if you had a sexual partner, [might] say 'oh oral sex, that counts,' whereas young people today might say 'oh no that doesn't count because I didn't actually have sexual intercourse,'" he said.
After all, the honourable residents of the White House never lie, do they?
http://gamapserver.who.int/gho...
claims that the total for the whole world for 2013 is 1.25million. Assuming that for the whole period of the 20 years, that's 25 million. For it to be 'millions' implies > 2 million. Therefore over 8% or so are caused by mobile abuse. That seems conceivable; I must admit to assuming a lower rate of death on the roads.
Thank you for making me think - that's nearly the highest compliment I can pay to a person!
That's just silly. Caused a lot of death - sure. But MILLIONS?
The installed cost may have 'crossed over' - but as the increasing problems being revealed over maintaining base load when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing indicates that this is because the real costs aren't being accounted for.
I hope it makes the points I was trying to make clearer.
http://www.economist.com/news/...
No - I am NOT trying to reduce the burden of taxation on capital - I entirely agree that it is appropriate to tax it, and the present mess over capital gains and all the rest is a disaster. But this is about the damaging distortions that taxing equity investment more harshly than loans does, and it is a problem. Unfortunately the correct solution - increasing taxation on loan payments by companies - would rightly be seen as discouraging investment.
How we get round the perception that companies should be taxed twice - as themselves and as their shareholders - is a clear and persistent problem which the ignorance of the 'Occupy' movements ignore. Capitalism works and does bring benefits to the poorest - as the record of the decline in poverty in China clearly indicates. The free trade that has accompanied this has left victims in the west, and it's their pain that Trump and Hillary are both channelling in a depressing outbreak of selfishness at the present time.
Should 'capital' be taxed more? Certainly dead capital - such as land investments and housing for rent should (nb - I write as a residential landlord!), and the abolition of tax relief on mortgage interest payments is one of the great achievement of the British government over the past 40 years - the US should do likewise. But 'real' investment that creates productive, long term jobs? There's the challenge; if you hit that too hard growth WILL stop...
[I used the word 'potentially' in my earlier post because a lot of tax avoidance is about getting past this sort of mess of taxation. However it's not as available to little people]
We've never abolished paper ballot, and our method of execution - until we stopped doing executions - was hanging. In both cases the USA has abandoned the traditional methods to be 'up to date' and 'modern', and as a result made a pig ear of things; no hanging chads in a British election, and no extended, messed up executions with hanging as long as the rope is long enough when the person drops that their neck is broken by the drop. But no, our rebellious ex-colonists think they know better ;)
Every time I talk to my bank they look askance at me for not banking online. This is why I don't.
And that can be explained so easily?
The idea that an idea in accounting can be explained simply is part of the reason why Trump gets taken seriously by the stupid. They've been told they have a right to understand. No - a lot of them are too stupid to understand a complex line of logic. So they dismiss it. And sulk.
'If corporations are legal 'persons' making profit'
But they aren't. They are a legal entity owned by shareholders who have invested money in the hope of getting a return. When shareholder receive dividends they pay tax on those dividends. Therefore potentially a company pays tax twice on its income - as itself and as its shareholders.
This matters because companies can be financed by their shareholders - whose income stream is variable, dependent on a company's profits - or by bonds or bank loans, which do not allow this control, instead the company pays a fixed rate of interest. THAT payment is before the company has paid tax on its profits. This has problematic consequences: if a person wants to receive income from a company, he's likely to to do better to buy a bond, which is only taxed once, rather than a share. There is thus a tax advantage to borrowing over shareholders' funds. This is destabilising; a company can stop dividend payments when its profits fall, but must keep on paying its bond and loans.
Bottom line: it is totally legitimate to tax the income that people receive from firms. It is irrational to tax firms' profits directly. Unfortunately this is hard to explain, and our democracies don't like what is hard to explain.
Within the meaning of 'wiretap'; gaining access to personalised data that was innocently passed by an individual. If I listen in to a phone call that's not for me, that's illegal. This is surely equivalent.
On the scale of the whole world, the adoption of capitalist style free markets in China, India and Africa have seen the poorest get richer vastly faster than under the state capitalism / communism / planned economies that were the fashion until 1990. It works. It doesn't work perfectly for everyone, and those who lose out do need to receive more compensation. But overall the world economy has been a great success. The fact that we can't see this is a function of lack of knowledge of what is happening in the rest of the world.
That others have benefited is a reality that should be talked about appropriately. In a Christian influenced country, presenting this as a moral challenge to which we should all rise is valid. The problem is finding people who've been hurt by the economy to preach it; those of us who are comfortable will struggle to be credible. Yet the reality that both parties platforms are based on what they will do for those voting for them is, ultimately, unhealthy. It should be better than that.
Income and wealth inequality are non-trivial. The danger is that you kill the goose that lays the gold eggs of growing prosperity in much of the world. And certainly some income differentials are valid. If I'm someone who does earn my employer 5 figure sums, expecting me to accept five figure pay packets is unreasonable. Similarly it is the prospect of birthing a unicorn that makes people take the risk of setting up a new enterprise. Those unicorns are of real value to the wider world; however much we may disdain Microsoft, HP, Facebook and Google, they have objectively improved the world by the things they offer which weren't there before. OTOH destroying monopolies and taxing LAND - as opposed to buildings - as something that individuals shouldn't be able to bid up the price of, is a strategy we should recommend more.