The person who released it into the wild is definitely at fault. The writer is also at fault if he distributed it to locales with low expectations.. i.e. Demonstaration in an educational environment vs. putting on a warez site.
Maybe better said via analogy: Whether I put my gun in a locked gun case versus sitting on the table where my kids can play with it determines my level of responsibility.
In the treehouse, the neighborhood kids try to figure out what's up with
the adults.
Bart: So finally, we're all in agreement about what's going on with
the adults. Milhouse?
Milhouse: [steps up to blackboard] Ahem. OK, here's what we've got: the
Rand Corporation, in conjunction with the saucer people --
Bart: Thank you.
Milhouse: -- under the supervision of the reverse vampires --
Lisa: [sighs]
Milhouse: -- are forcing our parents to go to bed early in a fiendish
plot to eliminate the meal of dinner. [sotto voce] We're
through the looking glass, here, people...
If you, as a consumer, get taxed on something, can you pass along that cost to your employer? Hardly.
Where do you live? Where I live, I am allowed to consider the wages offered by an employer when I decide whether I'll work for them. Naturally, I consider my income requirements, of which taxes are a factor. So do all the other consumers where I live. Taxes are, therefore, a factor in the cost of labor which is a cost that employers must bare. This is why wages in large metropolitan areas with high costs of living are considerably higher than less densely populated areas having lower living costs.
1) I live in California. California State Tax law says that it is perfectly acceptable for businesses to pass along sales tax to the next buyer (who can buy at wholesale and pay the state directly themselves, most likely by charging someone else along this chain, or retail, where the original seller is responsible for paying the state.). (See here for FAQ on tax changes.)
I used this example as a very specific case where the costs are
"passed on" directly to the consumer. The consumer
2) What you are talking about is indirect costs. The fact that commerce is a closed system means that I can at any point stop and "prove" that whoever I am pointing at right now has to pay for those costs.
Take, for instance, a single sector, say advertising or IT, and look at the consumer's point of view: If the consumer chooses a firm from NYC, most likely they will pay more than a firm from St. Louis. By your logic, whoever employs that consumer must bear the brunt of that cost differential. Your little lecture about how wages are different in different locations is neither here nor there when talking about passing along costs. The day someone can get directly reimbursed by their employer for a tax is the day your argument is within context.
3) The consumer is NOT NECESSARILY an individual. In many cases the very use of the term "Employer" is moot.
Choose any of these three reasons for my original assertion that the statement that "costs are passed onto the employer" is untrue.
The original assertion that taxes on business are simply passed on to consumers is wildly over generalized drivel. It appears on the right the whole idea of taxes on business is being questioned, and it appears on the left when someone want's to claim some injury to... someone. The fact that both side appear to find it useful does not improve it's credibility. It only demonstrates that it's generalized beyond reality, much like fortune teller claiming that you'll have a bad day at some point in the future, and claiming supernatural abilities. I simply juxtaposed that statement with nearly opposite non-sense. While you seem quite capable of recognizing the failings of my assertion, you still appear to be bamboozled by the first.
At no time have I have validated the assertion that all taxes/costs to a business are passed on to the consumer. I am simply using a specific case (sales tax) to demonstrate a valid use of the term "passed on".
We produce things. We means everything involved in the process, and produce means create value. If we're good at it we create more new value than we consume in the process. Taxes are a means of siphoning off some of that value. Eventually, the value siphoned off by taxes just represents more consumption in the process of creating value. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter where in the process the value gets taken. What matters is how much and, more importantly, why.
Learn the difference between employers and businesses before posting to a public forum. "Passed along" indicates a direct path. The fact that an employee of mine has to pay x% more to buy gum doesn't really affect my business unless I am obligated to make up that cost differential directly. That would be passing along.
You are trying to say that if I spend less money, it affects everyone, and that is simply way too vague a statement to apply the term "pass along" to.
Ok, lets go over your little economic paragraph. Your conclusion is that And the only person that pays the extra money is the buyer. Now, what I said was that it was untrue that taxes on consumers gets passed onto employers.
Point 1: your conclusion supports my statement.
Now, the reason I made my statement in a joking fashion regarding "trickle up" is that certain things work only in one way. For instance, tax law allows the seller to pass along sales tax to the consumer. There is no opposite analogy in this situation.. i.e. you sell it to me, I sell it right back to you, the gov't gets sales tax BOTH times. Trickle down theory works the same way... kinda of obvious by the verbage it is named for, water runs down hill.
If you, as a consumer, get taxed on something, can you pass along that cost to your employer? Hardly. You might use cost of living increases to justify asking for a raise, but that is in no way the same as passing costs along directly.
Point 2: You don't know what the hell you are talking about and your second paragraph has no bearing whatsoever. You need to read your own signature and blush.
That would be a great argument if only if it were true. Unfortunately, it makes no sense. Is that a trickly up theory? If you were trying to be funny, I'm sorry, there, too.
Damnit, you are ruining a perfectly fine thread by adding in "facts" and using "logic". You and your practicality and fiscal responsibility can go to take a flip while we dream of cold fusion powered watches, cause damnit, we need it to last 30,000 years, yet be available in the checkout line at Walmart. Damnit.
"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." -- Robert A. Heinlein
"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. " -- Robert A. Heinlein
Why is it that there isn't a push one way or the other to amend the constitution to clarify the "right to bear arms"? Maybe I should quote Jay Leno, too: "Iraq and Afghanistan should adopt the US Constitution. It served us well for over 200 years, and we're not using it any more"
Just performed an informal poll... There is no frowning upon lesbians that grope each other in public. That would, ironically, be a motivating factor for me to pay $9.50 at the theatre, though.
I disagree. I spent about $2000 getting a decent home theatre... 52" high-definition, digital sound (my point being not that I am so swell but that the cost barrier is so low that many people have similar or better setups) and every time a movie comes out, I think about the costs:
a) In Southern California, a movie costs $9.50 per person.
b) A DVD, which has the same + additional materials costs me around $20
c) Cannot bring in own food/bev, forced to spend $3.50 if you want to quench your thirst during a 2 hour movie
Also, there are quite a few disadvantages to being in the theatre such as:
a) Retarded people that think talking / cell phones / deep breaths of shock when the most obvious thing that has been foreshadowed all movie finally happens.
b) No pause button
c) Groping your girlfriend (for both you female-type slashdot readers, boyfriend) during the performance is frowned upon
d) Advertisements disguised as previews before the real previews
e) Most of the audience laughs about 2.5 seconds after I do at comedies and that makes me sad.
Basically, what I am trying to say is that the viewing experience is BETTER at my house, and if I take a date to a movie, I am paying just about the same if I buy the DVD which I can watch repeatedly. Long gone for me is the anticipation of watching something on the big screen with a couple hundred people.. I'll just wait 6-9 months for the DVD release.
It sure as hell isn't because a friend "saved" me from seeing something 'cause they caught an earlier showtime.
Ok, this post doesn't really reply well to your post, so here is an on topic response:
They're just explaining why their profits are down. It makes sense.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe better said via analogy: Whether I put my gun in a locked gun case versus sitting on the table where my kids can play with it determines my level of responsibility.
be glad that "finger" is obsolete. . . there's a joke about a security hole, but I just can't find it right now.
Because in the future it will be running this. Of course, you'd want to ssh in instead.
While not often called "fine" art, sometime is is tought to tell the difference between art and barcodes. :)
Come on, you know it was an impulse buy. . .
In the treehouse, the neighborhood kids try to figure out what's up with the adults.
Bart: So finally, we're all in agreement about what's going on with the adults. Milhouse?
Milhouse: [steps up to blackboard] Ahem. OK, here's what we've got: the Rand Corporation, in conjunction with the saucer people --
Bart: Thank you.
Milhouse: -- under the supervision of the reverse vampires --
Lisa: [sighs]
Milhouse: -- are forcing our parents to go to bed early in a fiendish plot to eliminate the meal of dinner. [sotto voce] We're through the looking glass, here, people...
I used this example as a very specific case where the costs are "passed on" directly to the consumer. The consumer
2) What you are talking about is indirect costs. The fact that commerce is a closed system means that I can at any point stop and "prove" that whoever I am pointing at right now has to pay for those costs.
Take, for instance, a single sector, say advertising or IT, and look at the consumer's point of view: If the consumer chooses a firm from NYC, most likely they will pay more than a firm from St. Louis. By your logic, whoever employs that consumer must bear the brunt of that cost differential. Your little lecture about how wages are different in different locations is neither here nor there when talking about passing along costs. The day someone can get directly reimbursed by their employer for a tax is the day your argument is within context.
3) The consumer is NOT NECESSARILY an individual. In many cases the very use of the term "Employer" is moot.
Choose any of these three reasons for my original assertion that the statement that "costs are passed onto the employer" is untrue.
At no time have I have validated the assertion that all taxes/costs to a business are passed on to the consumer. I am simply using a specific case (sales tax) to demonstrate a valid use of the term "passed on". I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.Plus, it's lots funnier when you read it my way than the Dilberty method used originally.
You are trying to say that if I spend less money, it affects everyone, and that is simply way too vague a statement to apply the term "pass along" to.
Point 1: your conclusion supports my statement.
Now, the reason I made my statement in a joking fashion regarding "trickle up" is that certain things work only in one way. For instance, tax law allows the seller to pass along sales tax to the consumer. There is no opposite analogy in this situation.. i.e. you sell it to me, I sell it right back to you, the gov't gets sales tax BOTH times. Trickle down theory works the same way... kinda of obvious by the verbage it is named for, water runs down hill.
If you, as a consumer, get taxed on something, can you pass along that cost to your employer? Hardly. You might use cost of living increases to justify asking for a raise, but that is in no way the same as passing costs along directly.
Point 2: You don't know what the hell you are talking about and your second paragraph has no bearing whatsoever. You need to read your own signature and blush.
Congratulations on taking it to the next level by calling dumb people dumb. I am highly entertained.
I wouldn't say so, be you are a terrible speeler ;)
Besides, if we didn't tax smokers, how could we afford all those great social programs? ;)
That would be a great argument if only if it were true. Unfortunately, it makes no sense. Is that a trickly up theory? If you were trying to be funny, I'm sorry, there, too.
Bravo!
Damnit, you are ruining a perfectly fine thread by adding in "facts" and using "logic". You and your practicality and fiscal responsibility can go to take a flip while we dream of cold fusion powered watches, cause damnit, we need it to last 30,000 years, yet be available in the checkout line at Walmart. Damnit.
QA isn't just for spell checking.
That, my friend, is precisely why Matrix Reloaded sucked as a movie. Should have been a short with just the fight scenes... or at least not a "talkie"
"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." -- Robert A. Heinlein
Nope. It is a free broadcast, and Tivo solves the problem of commercials.
Why is it that there isn't a push one way or the other to amend the constitution to clarify the "right to bear arms"? Maybe I should quote Jay Leno, too: "Iraq and Afghanistan should adopt the US Constitution. It served us well for over 200 years, and we're not using it any more"
Just performed an informal poll... There is no frowning upon lesbians that grope each other in public. That would, ironically, be a motivating factor for me to pay $9.50 at the theatre, though.
Me, too.. take solace in the fact that we are not alone. Of course, I'm not going to the movies with you, the movies still suck :)
a) In Southern California, a movie costs $9.50 per person.
b) A DVD, which has the same + additional materials costs me around $20
c) Cannot bring in own food/bev, forced to spend $3.50 if you want to quench your thirst during a 2 hour movie
Also, there are quite a few disadvantages to being in the theatre such as:
a) Retarded people that think talking / cell phones / deep breaths of shock when the most obvious thing that has been foreshadowed all movie finally happens.
b) No pause button
c) Groping your girlfriend (for both you female-type slashdot readers, boyfriend) during the performance is frowned upon
d) Advertisements disguised as previews before the real previews
e) Most of the audience laughs about 2.5 seconds after I do at comedies and that makes me sad.
Basically, what I am trying to say is that the viewing experience is BETTER at my house, and if I take a date to a movie, I am paying just about the same if I buy the DVD which I can watch repeatedly. Long gone for me is the anticipation of watching something on the big screen with a couple hundred people.. I'll just wait 6-9 months for the DVD release.
It sure as hell isn't because a friend "saved" me from seeing something 'cause they caught an earlier showtime.
Ok, this post doesn't really reply well to your post, so here is an on topic response:
No it doesn't.