Also, you'll need to complete 6 months working as a barista in order to fully appreciate the nuances of coffee.
I'm always amused when I'm in Seattle, and I place my usual order at Starbucks: "Grande Nonfat Latte." Then, there's a loooong pause, as the barista waits for me to reel off a whole bunch of customizations, but I don't. Standard temperature, standard coffee/milk ratio, really it's all fine by me.
Using the US as a benchmark (it's not perfect, but the mix of single family homes vs apt buildings and overall density is much closer to Oz than, say, South Korea or Europe), we can compare Verizon's FTTH deployment (FiOS) with AT&T's FTTN deployment (U-Verse). Round numbers, U-Verse has cost about $250 per home passed, vs. about $1000 per home passed for FiOS. So, roughly 4:1.
Not at all - I entirely agree with your point! I was simply citing the best known (and shortest) example of where he made the point you're making.
I'm fully aware Smith wrote more than WoN - I actually suffered through Theory of Moral Sentiments. Such...turgid...prose.
Or if you're just watching Netflix. The advantage may not be as big downstream, but double the data rate still isn't to be sneezed at.
You're joking, right? Netflix in HD runs at a MAX of about 6Mbps. On a phone-sized screen, you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between that and a 1Mbps stream. 300Mbps vs. 600Mbps is like debating whether you need a 747 or an A380 to deliver a 10 pound package.
Nope, not if the state is evenhanded about it, and the Federal government hasn't effectively preempted state regulation. If the state said "Tesla, a CA company, can't sell directly to consumers in OH, but StillWhiningAboutLeBron Electric Vehicles Inc., based in Akron, can," that would be an interstate commerce violation.
This is more irrational pandering to protect existing business interests -- which isn't really what legislatures should be doing (but do anyway).
On the contrary, this is highly RATIONAL pandering, from the POV of the Ohio legislators. Irrational pandering would be sucking up to people who have no social influence, don't vote, and don't make political contributions.
"Rarely do people of the same occupation gather together, even if only for merriment, that it does not end in some plot to defraud the public."
I'm pretty sure that the large majority of people who cite Smith haven't actually _read_ Smith.
The "use tax" is certainly NOT voluntary. It's incredibly widely evaded, but the user of the product is definitely required to pay the tax. The only question is, under what circumstances can a business be required to collect that use tax on behalf of the state in which the user is located, and this brings up the question of what constitutes nexus (which SCOTUS has been wrestling with for some time).
The issue here isn't whether the tax is owed, it's who is required to collect and submit the tax - they're two separate issues. As an analogy, in the income tax world, income taxes are the employee's responsibility, but the employer is required to withhold (collect) them on behalf of the gov't.
The actual obligation to pay the use tax was that of the gift recipient (technically, if you had bought it at a physical store in NH, and given it to the person in state X, they would have been obliged to pay state X's use tax on the item). You were just kind enough to pay the tax on the recipient's behalf, along with the cost of the product. The person being taxed (the recipient of the gift) certainly does have representation. You're just not the person actually being taxed.
If I remember my history, there were 5 Justices for a population of 3.5 million and a very small federal government and now there are 9 justices for a population of 300 million, a monstrous federal government, and a much more complex Constitution.
Failing to review nearly all of the requested cases is not a feature, if the system has any credibility left, it's a failure.
They didn't "fail to review." They reviewed, and determined that there wasn't any reason to take the case.
(*) NH taxes are about 50% of California, but spends proportionally much more than 50% per person [kff.org]. California is simply inefficient at making use of taxes.
The only way this could be true is if CA is running a massive surplus, or NH is running a massive deficit. If NH taxes per capita are 50% of CA levels, then spending needs to be as well, assuming that NH isn't just spending regardless of income.
Look at your credit card bill at some point. Your card is probably issued by a bank subsidary located in North Dakota. It isn't located there because of "strong infrastructure, a strong workforce," or anything of the sort - it's there because ND has historically had laxer laws regarding things like maximum interest rates, etc.
You'd end up with something similar here - a whole bunch of warehouses located somewhere ONLY because of the tax rate, not because of any actual advantages of the state.
Yes, because it's feasible and desirable for the Supreme Court to spend time issuing a detailed rejection of cert for every one of the more than 8000 cases (~99% of the total submitted) where they deny cert.
There is a good reason why the SCOTUS refused to hear this: It would be struck down. Article 1, section 9 of the US Constitution states: "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State." To put it simply: If I own a store in New Mexico, and I sell to somebody who lives in a different state... I don't collect any taxes or duties on that item. If I have a store in that state, I will have to collect taxes.
Your knowledge of the appellate process is matched by your understanding of interstate commerce law.
If SCOTUS believes that something will be struck down, it DOES grant cert (e.g. accept the case). Refusing to hear the case means that the court believes the lower court decision was correctly decided.
As for your comment on "no tax or duty," that would only be relevant if a state were placing taxes on out of state vendors that DON'T apply to in state vendors (i.e. NY wants Amazon to collect 20% sales tax, but Best Buy only has to charge 10%). In other words, it prohibits states from placing tariffs on the produce of other states to protect in-state producers.
Again, there is ZERO debate that when a person in NY purchases something from Amazon, sales tax is owed on that transaction. The only question has been whether Amazon is obliged to collect that tax on behalf of the state, or whether the state needs to go directly to the purchaser to do it.
There is no SCOTUS ruling. SCOTUS let a (very bad) state decision stand. Why is it bad? Anything that even *leans* towards someone in state A having to pay taxes to, and which were legislated in, state B, is destructive to the very fabric of the states. Federal taxes are bad enough (for their over-reach and the incredible misuses the money is put to and the inability of the citizen to have actual effective representation in any tax matter) but add my state wanting new highways and taxing your purchase in your state to enable that, or any variation thereto... now you have well and truly screwed the pooch.
1. The taxes at issue here are YOUR STATE'S taxes. It's not you (as a resident of State A) being forced to pay State B's taxes. The question is under what circumstances a business can be forced to collect State A's taxes for purchases made by residents in State A. If you don't like State A's taxes, you can work to get them changed, or move to a state with lower taxes (I hear B is nice this time of year).
2. Technically, sales taxes are paid by the buyer, not the seller. The only issue here is under what circumstances State A can force Amazon to collect State A's taxes - in the absence of Amazon collecting them, you're supposed to submit them yourself.
Most of the pirating going on is due to "region-encoding" or attempts to censor works or not distribute them in certain countries.
If that were true, you wouldn't see high levels of downloading of US cable shows, movies, and music in the US.
Really, MOST pirating/copyright infringement/illegal downloading/whatever term you want to use is driven by a desire to get the content without paying for it. Certainly, there are cases where people use illegal/infringing methods to get content because it's not otherwise offered in their region, but that's not the primary driver.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3001351/us-tops-league-bittorrent-users-says-report
Yea, so I fucked up my math. Honest mistake, happens to me a lot.
If being off by three entire orders of magnitude (3/20=15%, 3/20000=0.015%) constitutes an "honest mistake" that "happens to [you] a lot", how could you possibly function in any part of an industrialized society? Even Walmart cashiers who routinely give change in $1000 bills rather than $1 bills don't last long.
You take your last 10 years of your pitiful understanding of the history and shove it up your butthole, while the rest of us recognize hundreds of years of European banking interests subverting the liberty of every nation on earth.
1 - Written in plain English, no legalese, the layman MUST be able to parse it and understand it
Yes, because all that nasty legalese has nothing to do with the need to make laws precise, and avoid laws with either massive loopholes or massive opportunities for prosecutors or judges to choose whatever intepretation they happen to prefer.
2 - No more that 2 pages at most.
Yes, because no issue being legislated is ever complex.
I'd be fine with dropping right to work laws, if we at the same time dropped the laws that required companies to negotiate with unions
While we're at it, we should drop the laws that require companies to negotiate with their vendors. They should be able to name their price and get whatever they want:)
This is special pleading on your part -- everybody acknowledges that corporations must negotiate with each other, as must individuals, but somehow for you, unions are different and their rights may be disregarded.
Companies are free to tell a vendor: $x per unit - take it, or we find another vendor. They're not free to tell a union - $x per hour, take it, or we find new employees.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, you'll need to complete 6 months working as a barista in order to fully appreciate the nuances of coffee.
I'm always amused when I'm in Seattle, and I place my usual order at Starbucks: "Grande Nonfat Latte." Then, there's a loooong pause, as the barista waits for me to reel off a whole bunch of customizations, but I don't. Standard temperature, standard coffee/milk ratio, really it's all fine by me.
Using the US as a benchmark (it's not perfect, but the mix of single family homes vs apt buildings and overall density is much closer to Oz than, say, South Korea or Europe), we can compare Verizon's FTTH deployment (FiOS) with AT&T's FTTN deployment (U-Verse). Round numbers, U-Verse has cost about $250 per home passed, vs. about $1000 per home passed for FiOS. So, roughly 4:1.
Clearly, you've never seen Pulp Fiction.
Not at all - I entirely agree with your point! I was simply citing the best known (and shortest) example of where he made the point you're making. I'm fully aware Smith wrote more than WoN - I actually suffered through Theory of Moral Sentiments. Such...turgid...prose.
Or if you're just watching Netflix. The advantage may not be as big downstream, but double the data rate still isn't to be sneezed at.
You're joking, right? Netflix in HD runs at a MAX of about 6Mbps. On a phone-sized screen, you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between that and a 1Mbps stream. 300Mbps vs. 600Mbps is like debating whether you need a 747 or an A380 to deliver a 10 pound package.
Nope, not if the state is evenhanded about it, and the Federal government hasn't effectively preempted state regulation. If the state said "Tesla, a CA company, can't sell directly to consumers in OH, but StillWhiningAboutLeBron Electric Vehicles Inc., based in Akron, can," that would be an interstate commerce violation.
This is more irrational pandering to protect existing business interests -- which isn't really what legislatures should be doing (but do anyway).
On the contrary, this is highly RATIONAL pandering, from the POV of the Ohio legislators. Irrational pandering would be sucking up to people who have no social influence, don't vote, and don't make political contributions.
"Rarely do people of the same occupation gather together, even if only for merriment, that it does not end in some plot to defraud the public." I'm pretty sure that the large majority of people who cite Smith haven't actually _read_ Smith.
Why don't I ever have mod points when I want them? Very well put.
Porches are notorious for "biting your head off" when you make a mistakes (of course not all of them).
Really? Remind me never to visit your house, or at least have you meet me out in the yard.
The "use tax" is certainly NOT voluntary. It's incredibly widely evaded, but the user of the product is definitely required to pay the tax. The only question is, under what circumstances can a business be required to collect that use tax on behalf of the state in which the user is located, and this brings up the question of what constitutes nexus (which SCOTUS has been wrestling with for some time). The issue here isn't whether the tax is owed, it's who is required to collect and submit the tax - they're two separate issues. As an analogy, in the income tax world, income taxes are the employee's responsibility, but the employer is required to withhold (collect) them on behalf of the gov't.
The actual obligation to pay the use tax was that of the gift recipient (technically, if you had bought it at a physical store in NH, and given it to the person in state X, they would have been obliged to pay state X's use tax on the item). You were just kind enough to pay the tax on the recipient's behalf, along with the cost of the product. The person being taxed (the recipient of the gift) certainly does have representation. You're just not the person actually being taxed.
If I remember my history, there were 5 Justices for a population of 3.5 million and a very small federal government and now there are 9 justices for a population of 300 million, a monstrous federal government, and a much more complex Constitution.
Failing to review nearly all of the requested cases is not a feature, if the system has any credibility left, it's a failure.
They didn't "fail to review." They reviewed, and determined that there wasn't any reason to take the case.
(*) NH taxes are about 50% of California, but spends proportionally much more than 50% per person [kff.org]. California is simply inefficient at making use of taxes. The only way this could be true is if CA is running a massive surplus, or NH is running a massive deficit. If NH taxes per capita are 50% of CA levels, then spending needs to be as well, assuming that NH isn't just spending regardless of income.
Look at your credit card bill at some point. Your card is probably issued by a bank subsidary located in North Dakota. It isn't located there because of "strong infrastructure, a strong workforce," or anything of the sort - it's there because ND has historically had laxer laws regarding things like maximum interest rates, etc. You'd end up with something similar here - a whole bunch of warehouses located somewhere ONLY because of the tax rate, not because of any actual advantages of the state.
Yes, because it's feasible and desirable for the Supreme Court to spend time issuing a detailed rejection of cert for every one of the more than 8000 cases (~99% of the total submitted) where they deny cert.
There is a good reason why the SCOTUS refused to hear this: It would be struck down. Article 1, section 9 of the US Constitution states: "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State." To put it simply: If I own a store in New Mexico, and I sell to somebody who lives in a different state... I don't collect any taxes or duties on that item. If I have a store in that state, I will have to collect taxes.
Your knowledge of the appellate process is matched by your understanding of interstate commerce law. If SCOTUS believes that something will be struck down, it DOES grant cert (e.g. accept the case). Refusing to hear the case means that the court believes the lower court decision was correctly decided. As for your comment on "no tax or duty," that would only be relevant if a state were placing taxes on out of state vendors that DON'T apply to in state vendors (i.e. NY wants Amazon to collect 20% sales tax, but Best Buy only has to charge 10%). In other words, it prohibits states from placing tariffs on the produce of other states to protect in-state producers. Again, there is ZERO debate that when a person in NY purchases something from Amazon, sales tax is owed on that transaction. The only question has been whether Amazon is obliged to collect that tax on behalf of the state, or whether the state needs to go directly to the purchaser to do it.
There is no SCOTUS ruling. SCOTUS let a (very bad) state decision stand. Why is it bad? Anything that even *leans* towards someone in state A having to pay taxes to, and which were legislated in, state B, is destructive to the very fabric of the states. Federal taxes are bad enough (for their over-reach and the incredible misuses the money is put to and the inability of the citizen to have actual effective representation in any tax matter) but add my state wanting new highways and taxing your purchase in your state to enable that, or any variation thereto... now you have well and truly screwed the pooch.
1. The taxes at issue here are YOUR STATE'S taxes. It's not you (as a resident of State A) being forced to pay State B's taxes. The question is under what circumstances a business can be forced to collect State A's taxes for purchases made by residents in State A. If you don't like State A's taxes, you can work to get them changed, or move to a state with lower taxes (I hear B is nice this time of year).
2. Technically, sales taxes are paid by the buyer, not the seller. The only issue here is under what circumstances State A can force Amazon to collect State A's taxes - in the absence of Amazon collecting them, you're supposed to submit them yourself.
Acronym Nazi reminds you it's HIPAA.
I wish I hadn't just used my last mod point. Well said.
Most of the pirating going on is due to "region-encoding" or attempts to censor works or not distribute them in certain countries.
If that were true, you wouldn't see high levels of downloading of US cable shows, movies, and music in the US. Really, MOST pirating/copyright infringement/illegal downloading/whatever term you want to use is driven by a desire to get the content without paying for it. Certainly, there are cases where people use illegal/infringing methods to get content because it's not otherwise offered in their region, but that's not the primary driver. http://www.fastcompany.com/3001351/us-tops-league-bittorrent-users-says-report
Yea, so I fucked up my math. Honest mistake, happens to me a lot.
If being off by three entire orders of magnitude (3/20=15%, 3/20000=0.015%) constitutes an "honest mistake" that "happens to [you] a lot", how could you possibly function in any part of an industrialized society? Even Walmart cashiers who routinely give change in $1000 bills rather than $1 bills don't last long.
You take your last 10 years of your pitiful understanding of the history and shove it up your butthole, while the rest of us recognize hundreds of years of European banking interests subverting the liberty of every nation on earth.
Translation: it's the Jews!!!
1 - Written in plain English, no legalese, the layman MUST be able to parse it and understand it
Yes, because all that nasty legalese has nothing to do with the need to make laws precise, and avoid laws with either massive loopholes or massive opportunities for prosecutors or judges to choose whatever intepretation they happen to prefer.
2 - No more that 2 pages at most.
Yes, because no issue being legislated is ever complex.
While we're at it, we should drop the laws that require companies to negotiate with their vendors. They should be able to name their price and get whatever they want :)
This is special pleading on your part -- everybody acknowledges that corporations must negotiate with each other, as must individuals, but somehow for you, unions are different and their rights may be disregarded.
Companies are free to tell a vendor: $x per unit - take it, or we find another vendor. They're not free to tell a union - $x per hour, take it, or we find new employees.