Personally I think their fees are too high. A lot of people seem to take issue to their fraud policies, but it's really a no-win situation for paypal. If someone steals a credit card and orders goods that you ship, someone is going to get screwed in the end. The credit card holder isn't going to get screwed, they are protected under law. The credit card company isn't going to get screwed, they have a contract with Paypal - fraudulent transactions are voided as a condition of performing credit card transactions. Only two people left to bite the bullet - Paypal or YOU. And Paypal can't afford to get hosed on every bad transaction, their fees are high but not that high.
So in conclusion there's really no good way for an e-bank like Paypal to come out looking like a good guy. I think Google's reputation will suffer if they try and enter this business for the above reasons. Unless they have some new innovation for fighting fraud... maybe drive to fraudsters' houses and beat the crap out of them??
If you can find the link I'd really appreciate it. I'd think it would be impossible to enforce this. Think about it, you make contributions for 40 years while living in different states. Is CA going to keep track of it all??
Actually this would be a logistical nightmare. Suppose I live in CA and put $4000 in my IRA and then move to TX and again put $4000 in my IRA. I buy shares of Microsoft and shares of VA Linux or whatever they are called nowdays, $4000 into each company. 40 years from now my LNUX shares are worth millions but MSFT is bankrupt (heh, just dreaming here). So can I claim that my CA IRA money went into MSFT but my TX IRA money went into LNUX??? Thus I pay CA taxes on $0 and TX taxes (0%) on everything.
Many of the above mentioned changes and reforms were opposed by liberals. Property tax caps (prop 13), no benifits for illegals (prop 187) and definition of marriage (prop 22).
Of course many liberals in city + state government ignored the will of the voters in the last two cases even after they passed, so go figure.
What if I can subsist at a spending level below the poverty line? Then the government would be paying me not to spend. The "fair" tax would certainly discourage consumer spending, which might create some economic problems.
People should take note and shelter their income pre-tax while living in California. For example, contribute to a traditional IRA rather than a Roth. You'll save the 9.3% CA income tax if you're in the highest bracket, and if you're a citizen of Florida at retirement then you won't pay a dime of that to any state.
It's mostly due to our referendum system where any nutjob with a few dollars can collect signatures and get his idea placed on the ballot. That's where property tax caps, no healthcare for illegals, medical marijuana, definition of marriage, stem cell bonds, etc... all came from.
I agree 100% that the tax code needs to be simplified. Off the top of my head I can think of three problems, though I'm sure there are many more.
1) What about Roth IRAs, savings accounts, investments, etc where the money has already been taxed? I already paid income taxes on the money in my bank account, if we switch over then I'll be taxed again.
2) Tax deductions. I know you want to get rid of them to simplify the code, but it's not realistic to do away with the housing interest tax deduction, for example. 70% of American families own their home, so this would be political suicide.
3) This would create a huge black market for tax-free goods. People would be forming fake small businesses and then apply for resale permits to buy their goods tax-free. What about goods sold online? They will have to be taxed. Will you go after every last person on Ebay?
I think we're pretty much stuck with the system we have.
9.3% highest bracket, 7.5%+ sales tax, 32 cents per gallon gas tax. Fortunantly property taxes are somewhat low... if only I could afford property with the above mentioned taxes eating my salary + 33% federal income tax + 15% FICA/Medicare. This concludes my offtopic bitching.
The fact that GM has made a ton of profit since the year 1897 is not relevant right now. Those profits have all been paid out to past shareholders through dividends. Looking at GM's balance sheet today, they are have a lot of debt compared to their cash reserves, unlike Google. In addition, GM has billions upon billions of dollars in future pension liabilities. GM does have about 100x more revenue than Google, however they aren't turning a profit right now. Even if they can turn things around, auto manufacturing is a very low-margin business compared to Google's profit margins.
I'm not arguing that Google isn't overvalued, it may be. But you cannot judge the worth of a company based on public knowledge and perception of their brand. Go out on the street and ask people if they have ever heard of Berkshire Hathaway. Most will be clueless, yet Berkshire's market cap is about 6x GM's. And for good reason.
One of the reasons we removed Saddam from power was to prevent him from getting nuclear weapons and becoming another Kim Jong-il. You seem to ask why we didn't liberate North Korea instead of Iraq. The reason is simple - if we go after North Korea then millions of our allies in South Korea will die. Seoul is very close to the border, and NK has a ton of missiles aimed at the SK capital right now - possibly some nuclear missiles. Right now the only way to deal with NK is to use diplomacy and to isolate Jong-il from the rest of the world. As each year passes, the world advances and becomes richer while NK stays stuck in 1950 forever. We can afford to wait this one out.
"a five-year school that has been turning out about 100 cyber warfare specialists a year since 1981" -- back in 1981 computers weren't very prevalent and hackers were a minor nuisance at worst. The Internet was limited strictly to research labs and universities, I strongly doubt that NK even had a single internet connection in the whole country back in 1981. Yet they were turning out 100 cyber warriors per year?
This is a joke. If North Korea did try a "cyber attack" on America we could cut off their internet with a pair of scissors. The average cable modem user in America has more bandwidth than their entire country. It's hard to afford computers and network access when 99.9% of your GDP goes to support your military and feed your people.
It's not directed at anyone or anything. Some police officer said that terrorists might be getting funds from pirated software, and then the CNET nutjobs come up with some wild speculation which is then spun even more and posted on slashdot. Now you have half of slashdot up in arms, but over what?
The only NEWS here is that one guy said terrorists might be getting funds from pirated software. That's it, there's nothing more to see folks. You people are being spun and manipulated. How many people here actually read the articles in question?
Some guy claims that Hezbollah might be selling pirated software to fund terror - I wouldn't be surprised if this is true, we already know terror groups conduct other illicit activities to fund their murderous agenda such as drug dealing. That's the entire NEWS part of the story, everything else is just speculation by some dunce at CNET. Nobody is talking about jailing pirates as terrorists, nobody has called software piracy terrorism. Time to chill out.
America is booming, the economy is on the up swing, Iraq is a free democracy, there hasn't been a terrorist attack on American soil in years. All things considered, it's a great time to be an American. Meanwhile people like you are outraged over everything, telling us America is finished, telling us America is doomed, telling us that our country is evil. Time to put the suicidal pessimism away.
America is booming, the economy is on the up swing, Iraq is a free democracy, there hasn't been a terrorist attack on American soil in years. All things considered, it's a great time to be an American. Meanwhile, alarmist doomsday liberals like you are angry as hell. But over what?
You cite the loss of freedom... what loss of freedom? What could you do in the year 2000 that you can't do today?? You can't bring box cutters onto a flight? You can't legally crack software? Oh the horror... please give me one example of how your life has actually been effected.
You talk of a revolution. I don't know if you realize this, but the majority of Americans support the Real-ID act, just like the majority of Americans support the Patriot Act, the DMCA, etc. So why don't you just try that revolution buddy. Don't act like the people opposed to you are idiots either - I've probably done more research on the Real-ID act than you have, and in my opinion it's a good piece of legislation.
The bill was not intended to allow slave labor to fence off the border, you're just being an idiot. If and when any of the horror of horrors in your doomsday agenda come true then you can come back and call me a moron, but it's not going to happen and you know it. The provisions you cite were intended to limit legal action by anti-American pro-illegal activists. You've been watching too much Star Wars if you think that just because some bill is passed, an evil dictator can come and instantly turn America from a Democracy into tyranny. The people would never go for that.
The fact is that the majority of Americans support Real-ID, just like every Senator and the vast majority of Congressmen. It isn't because we're misinformed, it's because we're sick of illegals pouring into our country.
Even if you take for granted that gay "rights" are equivalent to racial discrimination, the only way that the execs in Microsoft should be sponsoring pro-gay legislation is personally - not while representing the company. Shareholders are not in agreement over whether this is a just plan of action, and it does not lead to increased profits.
A corporation held by a single person can obviously do whatever it feels like. Microsoft is publicly held though, meaning thousands of people own stakes in the company (probably more like millions of people in this case). Every Microsoft shareholder is not going to agree with supporting a pro-gay bill like this. Now you can say "too bad, majority rule" but that brings up another issue -- in the prospectus issued by Microsoft to potential shareholders, I see nothing about the company being on a mission to support pro-gay legislation. Since supporting pro-gay legislation is an expense that does not lead to increased profits, shareholders could probably say they have been duped.
This is not a business issue, it's a social one. The mission of Microsoft (and every other publicly held corporation) is to increase profits and to increase their share price. Sponsoring pro-gay legislation doesn't seem to do this. If anything, it hurts their business -- the fact is that many people in America are opposed to pro-gay legislation. These people could very well decide to cancel their relationship with Microsoft because of the company's support for a bill like this.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally I think their fees are too high. A lot of people seem to take issue to their fraud policies, but it's really a no-win situation for paypal. If someone steals a credit card and orders goods that you ship, someone is going to get screwed in the end. The credit card holder isn't going to get screwed, they are protected under law. The credit card company isn't going to get screwed, they have a contract with Paypal - fraudulent transactions are voided as a condition of performing credit card transactions. Only two people left to bite the bullet - Paypal or YOU. And Paypal can't afford to get hosed on every bad transaction, their fees are high but not that high.
So in conclusion there's really no good way for an e-bank like Paypal to come out looking like a good guy. I think Google's reputation will suffer if they try and enter this business for the above reasons. Unless they have some new innovation for fighting fraud... maybe drive to fraudsters' houses and beat the crap out of them??
Now I can get directions to Fallujah and kick some terrorist/insurgent ass.
If you can find the link I'd really appreciate it. I'd think it would be impossible to enforce this. Think about it, you make contributions for 40 years while living in different states. Is CA going to keep track of it all??
Actually this would be a logistical nightmare. Suppose I live in CA and put $4000 in my IRA and then move to TX and again put $4000 in my IRA. I buy shares of Microsoft and shares of VA Linux or whatever they are called nowdays, $4000 into each company. 40 years from now my LNUX shares are worth millions but MSFT is bankrupt (heh, just dreaming here). So can I claim that my CA IRA money went into MSFT but my TX IRA money went into LNUX??? Thus I pay CA taxes on $0 and TX taxes (0%) on everything.
Seems very difficult to enforce.
Many of the above mentioned changes and reforms were opposed by liberals. Property tax caps (prop 13), no benifits for illegals (prop 187) and definition of marriage (prop 22).
Of course many liberals in city + state government ignored the will of the voters in the last two cases even after they passed, so go figure.
What if I can subsist at a spending level below the poverty line? Then the government would be paying me not to spend. The "fair" tax would certainly discourage consumer spending, which might create some economic problems.
People should take note and shelter their income pre-tax while living in California. For example, contribute to a traditional IRA rather than a Roth. You'll save the 9.3% CA income tax if you're in the highest bracket, and if you're a citizen of Florida at retirement then you won't pay a dime of that to any state.
It's mostly due to our referendum system where any nutjob with a few dollars can collect signatures and get his idea placed on the ballot. That's where property tax caps, no healthcare for illegals, medical marijuana, definition of marriage, stem cell bonds, etc... all came from.
I agree 100% that the tax code needs to be simplified. Off the top of my head I can think of three problems, though I'm sure there are many more.
1) What about Roth IRAs, savings accounts, investments, etc where the money has already been taxed? I already paid income taxes on the money in my bank account, if we switch over then I'll be taxed again.
2) Tax deductions. I know you want to get rid of them to simplify the code, but it's not realistic to do away with the housing interest tax deduction, for example. 70% of American families own their home, so this would be political suicide.
3) This would create a huge black market for tax-free goods. People would be forming fake small businesses and then apply for resale permits to buy their goods tax-free. What about goods sold online? They will have to be taxed. Will you go after every last person on Ebay?
I think we're pretty much stuck with the system we have.
9.3% highest bracket, 7.5%+ sales tax, 32 cents per gallon gas tax. Fortunantly property taxes are somewhat low... if only I could afford property with the above mentioned taxes eating my salary + 33% federal income tax + 15% FICA/Medicare. This concludes my offtopic bitching.
The fact that GM has made a ton of profit since the year 1897 is not relevant right now. Those profits have all been paid out to past shareholders through dividends. Looking at GM's balance sheet today, they are have a lot of debt compared to their cash reserves, unlike Google. In addition, GM has billions upon billions of dollars in future pension liabilities. GM does have about 100x more revenue than Google, however they aren't turning a profit right now. Even if they can turn things around, auto manufacturing is a very low-margin business compared to Google's profit margins.
I'm not arguing that Google isn't overvalued, it may be. But you cannot judge the worth of a company based on public knowledge and perception of their brand. Go out on the street and ask people if they have ever heard of Berkshire Hathaway. Most will be clueless, yet Berkshire's market cap is about 6x GM's. And for good reason.
One of the reasons we removed Saddam from power was to prevent him from getting nuclear weapons and becoming another Kim Jong-il. You seem to ask why we didn't liberate North Korea instead of Iraq. The reason is simple - if we go after North Korea then millions of our allies in South Korea will die. Seoul is very close to the border, and NK has a ton of missiles aimed at the SK capital right now - possibly some nuclear missiles. Right now the only way to deal with NK is to use diplomacy and to isolate Jong-il from the rest of the world. As each year passes, the world advances and becomes richer while NK stays stuck in 1950 forever. We can afford to wait this one out.
"a five-year school that has been turning out about 100 cyber warfare specialists a year since 1981" -- back in 1981 computers weren't very prevalent and hackers were a minor nuisance at worst. The Internet was limited strictly to research labs and universities, I strongly doubt that NK even had a single internet connection in the whole country back in 1981. Yet they were turning out 100 cyber warriors per year?
This is a joke. If North Korea did try a "cyber attack" on America we could cut off their internet with a pair of scissors. The average cable modem user in America has more bandwidth than their entire country. It's hard to afford computers and network access when 99.9% of your GDP goes to support your military and feed your people.
Sorry, your BAC is 1102%. No way you can drive!!
Just because you say you're doing something doesn't make it true, but it is strong evidence.
More strong evidence: Hitler's nationalization of German industry in the years leading up to the war.
What does NAZI stand for again? Oh yeah, Nationalsozialismus. Translation: National Socialist Party. But Hitler wasn't a socialist, oh no.
And claiming that Stalin wasn't a socialist is like claiming water isn't wet.
They don't use violence against civilians. Sorry, they aren't terrorists.
m
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=terroris
It's not directed at anyone or anything. Some police officer said that terrorists might be getting funds from pirated software, and then the CNET nutjobs come up with some wild speculation which is then spun even more and posted on slashdot. Now you have half of slashdot up in arms, but over what?
The only NEWS here is that one guy said terrorists might be getting funds from pirated software. That's it, there's nothing more to see folks. You people are being spun and manipulated. How many people here actually read the articles in question?
Some guy claims that Hezbollah might be selling pirated software to fund terror - I wouldn't be surprised if this is true, we already know terror groups conduct other illicit activities to fund their murderous agenda such as drug dealing. That's the entire NEWS part of the story, everything else is just speculation by some dunce at CNET. Nobody is talking about jailing pirates as terrorists, nobody has called software piracy terrorism. Time to chill out.
America is booming, the economy is on the up swing, Iraq is a free democracy, there hasn't been a terrorist attack on American soil in years. All things considered, it's a great time to be an American. Meanwhile people like you are outraged over everything, telling us America is finished, telling us America is doomed, telling us that our country is evil. Time to put the suicidal pessimism away.
America is booming, the economy is on the up swing, Iraq is a free democracy, there hasn't been a terrorist attack on American soil in years. All things considered, it's a great time to be an American. Meanwhile, alarmist doomsday liberals like you are angry as hell. But over what?
You cite the loss of freedom... what loss of freedom? What could you do in the year 2000 that you can't do today?? You can't bring box cutters onto a flight? You can't legally crack software? Oh the horror... please give me one example of how your life has actually been effected.
You talk of a revolution. I don't know if you realize this, but the majority of Americans support the Real-ID act, just like the majority of Americans support the Patriot Act, the DMCA, etc. So why don't you just try that revolution buddy. Don't act like the people opposed to you are idiots either - I've probably done more research on the Real-ID act than you have, and in my opinion it's a good piece of legislation.
God bless America.
The bill was not intended to allow slave labor to fence off the border, you're just being an idiot. If and when any of the horror of horrors in your doomsday agenda come true then you can come back and call me a moron, but it's not going to happen and you know it. The provisions you cite were intended to limit legal action by anti-American pro-illegal activists. You've been watching too much Star Wars if you think that just because some bill is passed, an evil dictator can come and instantly turn America from a Democracy into tyranny. The people would never go for that.
The fact is that the majority of Americans support Real-ID, just like every Senator and the vast majority of Congressmen. It isn't because we're misinformed, it's because we're sick of illegals pouring into our country.
100-0. That's a huge loss for alarmist liberals and illegal immigrants, and a big win for real Americans.
Even if you take for granted that gay "rights" are equivalent to racial discrimination, the only way that the execs in Microsoft should be sponsoring pro-gay legislation is personally - not while representing the company. Shareholders are not in agreement over whether this is a just plan of action, and it does not lead to increased profits.
A corporation held by a single person can obviously do whatever it feels like. Microsoft is publicly held though, meaning thousands of people own stakes in the company (probably more like millions of people in this case). Every Microsoft shareholder is not going to agree with supporting a pro-gay bill like this. Now you can say "too bad, majority rule" but that brings up another issue -- in the prospectus issued by Microsoft to potential shareholders, I see nothing about the company being on a mission to support pro-gay legislation. Since supporting pro-gay legislation is an expense that does not lead to increased profits, shareholders could probably say they have been duped.
This is not a business issue, it's a social one. The mission of Microsoft (and every other publicly held corporation) is to increase profits and to increase their share price. Sponsoring pro-gay legislation doesn't seem to do this. If anything, it hurts their business -- the fact is that many people in America are opposed to pro-gay legislation. These people could very well decide to cancel their relationship with Microsoft because of the company's support for a bill like this.