I disagree entirely. One question when dealing with the operations of a nuclear missile site is not statistical error if that question involves verification procedure for a launch order, or anything else that involves a life or megadeath decision.
tl;dr: Make your professional opinion known politely to the client in writing, with your advice, them let the client decide, and have records of this decision.
While I agree with you that security should be paramount, in reality, it is often trumped by adhoc business needs and costs. The owner/C-level want this or that to be able to happen, even tho you know it's bad security. You explain it, recommend alternative, then go with what they decide, no matter how asinine, provided you like receiving money. Document the decision so that when the inevitable happens, you've covered your posterior.
From the outset, it doesn't seem like the client is taking things too seriously when it comes to data, they are using sql express after all. The client typically doesn't want to be bothered with our techno babble of how they are doing it wrong, they want it to just work and on budget. They purchase service contracts and warranties so that when something does go wrong, they pick up the phone to get it fixed or point fingers of blame towards when legal gets involved. It's all about passing responsibility. That's why you document and get signed off that the client is aware of these shortfalls and that you work doesn't cover any breach due to the shortfalls. The client sure as hell doesn't need or want a pissing match between you and another vendor, even if you are correct.
Don't piss off the client. Call it a day, cash your check, have some beer.
If that is all one aspires towards, so be it. Being able to enjoy one's free time is a wonderful thing.
I, however, was instilled with an ethic to "always be better than the other guy in what you do". It's served my family well for many years, even in hard times.
Your last paragraph raises valid points, however, it's based on insufficient information of the promotion process on both our parts. Provided everything else is equal in qualifications for promotion, then yes, 95 is better than 93 when selecting for a limited supply of promotion.
However, this does not exist in a vacuum, and in your example, the lazy disorganized book retention specialist would be passed over for their disorganization if it hindered there performance in other areas.
Additionally, not toward you, but in general, I call Bull on people dismissing that the difference between 95 and 93% being a single question as not that crucial to the selection process. If that question happen to be order of procedures for verification protocols for a launch command, I want the person who got that correct promoted. If it's about security protocols, base operations, food or launch fuel logistics, targeting calculations, etc, I want the guy that got the right answers.
When nuclear missiles are involved, I want to be certain the most knowledgeable are being promoted.
I get that, I'm not commenting on that fact. I'm commenting on the 90% or better is an unrealistic expectation in the summary.
Now, as to 95 vs 93% affecting promotion speed? I don't see the problem there either. The person who studied harder (or better) than his rival should definitely have their higher score have more weight when considered for promotion.
Did both pass the test? Yes, but candidate x passed better than y. If all other things are equal, then X should get the promotion.
Are you kidding me? 90% competency in protocol is unrealistic? When it comes to a nation's nuclear weapons, I don't want a B or less, I want the person with the A managing the switch.
Has this country become so lazy and apologetic towards 'bad grades hurt feelings' pansies that they will pass everyone? If I recall from ye olde school days: A = 94-100% B = 84-93% C = 74-83% D = 64-73% F = 64%
C shouldn't even be a passing grade. It was never acceptable in my house. C's wait tables. D's are garbage collectors, F's live in government housing and vote for the people that continue to favor teacher's unions over children's educations and to take money from those the paid attention and succeeded to support them.
Everyone should be striving to be top in their desired field, whatever that be, from software dev to mechanic to entertainer. And if one isn't in their desired field, then they should be spending their free time to improve themselves to get into their desired fields.
90% is not unrealistic, it's a MINIMUM requirement for success.
I'm not talking about OS, i'm talking applications, like games, like big data. A good game engine is heavily optimized with different code for the most popular hardware, or the hardware vendors adjust their specs to meet a specific standard. When you draw your polygons, you call make a (relatively) simple function call, but that function call packs the vertices for your triangles in vector arrays that are byte aligned to the hardware that will be processing them. The same thing is done when processing very large data in "big data" if you want your algorithms to complete in a reasonable time frame, where cpu time is rented and costs money. You first optimize your algorithms to be generally efficient, then anyone that wants to save lots of time and money, optimizes to take full advantages of the hardware they are running on. Are you running in a MIC (many integrated core) architecture? How big are the registers? Etc, all these things need to be taken into consideration when writing software for the HPC environment. Write once, run anywhere doesn't cut it when you have to pay for time.
Has little to do with hand optimizing asembly language, tho that definitely can be a benefit.
I'm talking about things such as properly aligning vector array data to match the memory alignment of the CPU during loops, knowing when and how to take advantage of installed installed modern coprocessors such as the Intel Xeon Phi series. Hell, even having the code for photoshop use MMX instruction sets when available or utilitzing hardware mpeg encoder/decoders versus standard CPU.
All about knowing the hardware you'll be running on.
No, this is stupid, wasteful, unoptimized software that performs like feces compared to a platform optimized piece of software.
The whole myth I've heard about software portability most of my life has never bore fruit that didn't need tweaks for different platforms.
The whole notion in the first place was to expand programming to the masses by giving the appearance of the elimination of the need of specialists. A good intention, to be sure, except for the specialists. The problem was that a specialist with knowledge of how the hardware operates could write software that took more advantage and/or better performed on a given platform. Things like CPU instruction set options, memory alignment, etc.
There is now a resurgence of platform optimized specialization thanks to big data. Do you want your humungous data sets processed and analyzed in months or years by the average programmer, or do you want it in days and weeks by the programmer that really, really knows how to squeeze the hardware.
Who cares about a computer hard drive, what about the mail server? Surely her mail is archived by exchange or something. I mean, corporate email has to be archived for what, 5-7 years or something? Delicious bacon forbid that a business doesn't backup it's communications. Even IMs are archived via corporate email these days, via Office Communicator or it's successor. Sure, her local PST files are probably lost with drive erasure, but the server archive has to be there. If not, someone needs to be going to prison, and I can guarantee the IT ppl are going to point fingers in the proper direction, they aren't going to take the fall.
I dunno about that. I would classify "voluntary" as indirect taxation. Direct taxation such as income or property tax is significantly less "voluntary". tho granted, until the ACA, I could "choose" not to work or own taxable property and not be taxed simply for existing.
uh... what? what in the name of delicious bacon are you talking about?
You're clearing leaping to ludicrous inferences and conclusions. Money in banks does not sit stagnant. It moves around to create more money to fund the bank and pay interest on accounts.
Anyway, the problem is that it is just not doable to get wealthy people to spend money the way you want them to.
Let's get one thing clear. It's THEIR money. No one has to spend money in a way you believe would be more beneficial or efficient. You have no claim over it. If you want someone of any level of wealth to transition THEIR money in a direction you desire, you must entice them via exchange of goods or services that person believes is equivalent (or better) in value, or show that you can make them a profitable return on their capital investment.
When one tries to force, via seizing or forfeiture of assets, those assets are going to move away from the source of that force very quickly. Taxation of assets is tolerable to a degree until the taxed feel that the services paid for by taxation no longer benefit their interests or exceeds that individual's tolerance level for taxation. Once the threshold has been passed, individuals move their assets to a more tolerable environment. This is why wealth flees heavily taxed states.
The attitude that one is misusing wealth by spending (or not spending) according to another person's desires is arrogant, classist, statist, and morally evil.
Much as I don't like taxation myself, Article 1 Section 8 would like to disagree with you. Of course, this only applies to indirect taxation (which we can both agree is prefer, and is what the Fair Tax is). direct taxation (income/property tax) didn't come until later.
Sigh, you didn't bother to read what I posted in full, did you.
The Fair Tax is 100% voluntary. One only pays taxes when one purchases a *New* good or a service at the retail level. Purchase second hand, and there is no tax collected.
The "Fair" in fair taxes comes into play in that ALL NEW goods and services are taxed at the exact same rate, and that all households receive the prebate regardless of income level. There are no exempt items except second hand. There are no tax loopholes for the wealthy to avoid other than buying second hand. There are no extra "sin" taxes to be manipulated by politicians for things such as sugary drinks or lessened rates for "good" things. It's all flat at the same rate, for everything.
Under this system, the more one spends, the more tax is collected. The hidden embedded tax costs of new products and services due to payroll, medicare, and corporate taxes inflating price no longer exists. Thus the price drops. Then a line item is added to the receipt for a 22-23% Inclusive (as opposed to exclusive) tax. The brings the price of the good or service back to within 1% of it's starting price before such a plan went into effect, only now it is in the open on the receipt, and only collected at retail so an item is only taxed once.
"Now good sir" one might say, "if the embedded taxes disappear, what's to stop companies from keeping the current price and adding the inclusive tax on top of what currently exists and pocketing the difference?"
Greed my dear friend, Wonderful Greed. As soon as a competitor figures out that they can undercut others that pocket the difference from the original price, they will start a race to the minimum price to sell more than the competition, which will balance out at the point of not having pocketed the difference in the first place.
The Fair Tax is about equal treatment for everyone and everything under tax law, not what some politician likes or dislikes.
I would presume that yes, that money is invested by the banks that the money is stored in to generate money for the banks and pay interest to clients. In addition, the reason money is stored out of country is to avoid heavy income taxation. Removing income taxation and corporate taxation makes for an attractive environment for capital investment, spurring business creation and economic growth. In such an environment that is welcoming of wealth instead of punishing via taxation, people will repatriate their monies to such markets if they provide the opportunity for greater returns than sitting in some foreign bank. Greed is an excellent motivator in moving money to where it is most suited to making yet more money. No/Low Corporate, Income and Investment Tax friendly environments act as a beacon, places that take advantage of this benefit from an influx of money. All one has to do is look at movement and creation of new companies in states such as texas and florida with inviting tax climates, versus stagnation or worse in states with heavy income and corporate taxation and excessive regulation.
tl;dr version: get the government the hell out of the way let the money flow.
I said get LESS money in politics. Obviously you will still have politicians throwing around our tax dollars at pet projects, wasteful social projects and such, but an awful lot of money goes into manipulating the tax code. Having a balanced budget amendment and not hamstringing the CBO with arbitrary limitations preventing accurate assessments would also go a long way.
I do they same thing. Craptastic router only has 4megs ram for the wifi and shit range. Can't play BF4 in the other room without lagging every 5 seconds. Turned off the wifi and installed a Dark Knight. I don't see how these puny routers could possibly be usable for city wide wifi
What you fail to realize is that the wealthy are not dragons that sit on their piles of money. Money has no value until it is trading hands. The "wealthy" do 2 things: 1) Spend their money 2) Invest their money to... MAKE MOAR MONEY!
Both these actions create jobs and spur the creation of businesses to produce things to be acquired and or consumed, and pay employees to produce or for services. Employees make money, investors try to invest wisely to make a positive return on the money invested, everyone wins with ZOMG! TRICKLE DOWN!
Apparently you are John Snow Know Nothing when it comes to the Fair Tax. Allow me to enlighten you.
The Fair Tax is a 'progressive tax' with 2 key parts.
Part 1: The Consumption Tax
An inclusive consumption tax at a flat rate (at last reading, would be around 22%-23%) placed on all *NEW* goods and all services at the retail level. This can only work if income and corporate taxes are repealed, as those are embedded invisibly into the final retail cost of a product or service along the supply chain. By removing those embedded taxes, the retail price would fall by approx 22-23%. Apply the inclusive consumption tax and the final retail price returns to almost the same as it's present value +- 1-2%. Used or second hand products would not be taxed, as only NEW goods and services. States would facilitate the collection of the consumption tax as they already have in place the mechanisms for collecting sales tax. The inclusive tax would show up on receipts as a line item to make it's cost transparent to the consumer.
Part 2: The Prebate (aka, the progressive portion) Each household of citizens will receive, based on family size, a prebate equal to the poverty limit for a family of that size, divided into 12 monthly payments over the course of a year. This prebate payment is to cover the cost of the consumption tax up to 100% spending of the poverty line for that family size.
Example 1: presuming the poverty line for a single individual is $10,000, a single person household would get a prebate of (23% x 10,000) / 12, or $191.67 each month to cover the consumption tax. Consumption tax spent over the poverty line for that single person household would then be the responsibility of that person.
Example 2: Presume a 5 person family poverty line is $30,000, that household will recieve a prebate of (23% x 30,000) / 12, or $575.00 each month to cover consumption taxes.
Example 3: Lets take that same family of 5, and presume the household has an income of $50,000 (note not payroll, personal income taxes, medicare, etc taxes, they get 100% of check), and that family chose to spend 100% of their income on new goods and services. They would have ended up paying $11,500 in consumption tax over the course of the year. However, they also get their prebate for a family of 5 at the poverty level, which would be $6,900 over the year. This offsets the $11,500 in consumption tax, reducing the amount the household has to be responsible for down to $4,600 over the course of the year, or $383.33 monthly in inclusive consumption tax paid, presuming 100% of income spent on new goods and services.
Example 4: Let us presume a wealthy individual that makes say, $250,000 a year. If that individual spent 100% of their income on new goods and services as in the above examples, this individual would have paid $57,500.00 in consumption taxes over the course of a year ($4,791.67 monthly in tax paid). However, this individual also gets their pretbate for the exact same amount as the person in example 1, as the poverty line for a single person is presumed in these examples to be $10,000. Thus this individual would recieve $2,300 a year ($191.67 monthly), to cover the consumption tax, reducing their tax to $55,200 yearly ($4,600 monthly).
Consumption tax liability covered by prebate assuming 100% spending on new goods and services: Example 1: 100% covered by prebate, $0 out of pocket monthly tax expense Example 2: 100% covered by prebate, $0 out of pocket monthly tax expense Example 3: 60% covered by prebate, $383.33 out of pocket monthly tax expense Example 4: 4% covered by prebate, $4,600 out of pocket monthly tax expense
Thus, a family living in poverty will never pay the consumption tax as it is covered by their prebate and wealthier households will spend considerably more with the same spending habbits.
Additional benefits include: Tax free second hand market place, only new goods are taxed at retail. No tax loopholes. No more IRS Corporate decis
A better plan to get less money in politics is to remove the biggest impetus for political authority, the ability to decide winners and losers via the tax code. Remove income tax and replace with a revenue neutral consumption tax such as the Fair Tax. Without the ability to offer favorable tax breaks to potential donors, who are seeking to ultimately alleviate tax costs on their interests, a large portion of corporate money will dry up, leaving the ideologues.
On a side note, how much more left leaning can one get than to name one's thing May Day? This guy is, IMO, bad news. According to wikipedia (had to look him up), advancing a populist agenda, removing the representative nature of having a representative republic by getting rid of electoral college and having a constitutional convention with random delegates instead of those selected by elected state governments to represent state's rights and interests. IMO, Lessig appears to be a Statist of the worst kind and I want nothing to do with him or the tyranny he would advance.
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree entirely. One question when dealing with the operations of a nuclear missile site is not statistical error if that question involves verification procedure for a launch order, or anything else that involves a life or megadeath decision.
tl;dr: Make your professional opinion known politely to the client in writing, with your advice, them let the client decide, and have records of this decision.
While I agree with you that security should be paramount, in reality, it is often trumped by adhoc business needs and costs. The owner/C-level want this or that to be able to happen, even tho you know it's bad security. You explain it, recommend alternative, then go with what they decide, no matter how asinine, provided you like receiving money. Document the decision so that when the inevitable happens, you've covered your posterior.
From the outset, it doesn't seem like the client is taking things too seriously when it comes to data, they are using sql express after all. The client typically doesn't want to be bothered with our techno babble of how they are doing it wrong, they want it to just work and on budget. They purchase service contracts and warranties so that when something does go wrong, they pick up the phone to get it fixed or point fingers of blame towards when legal gets involved. It's all about passing responsibility. That's why you document and get signed off that the client is aware of these shortfalls and that you work doesn't cover any breach due to the shortfalls. The client sure as hell doesn't need or want a pissing match between you and another vendor, even if you are correct.
Don't piss off the client. Call it a day, cash your check, have some beer.
If that is all one aspires towards, so be it. Being able to enjoy one's free time is a wonderful thing.
I, however, was instilled with an ethic to "always be better than the other guy in what you do".
It's served my family well for many years, even in hard times.
Your last paragraph raises valid points, however, it's based on insufficient information of the promotion process on both our parts.
Provided everything else is equal in qualifications for promotion, then yes, 95 is better than 93 when selecting for a limited supply of promotion.
However, this does not exist in a vacuum, and in your example, the lazy disorganized book retention specialist would be passed over for their disorganization if it hindered there performance in other areas.
Additionally, not toward you, but in general, I call Bull on people dismissing that the difference between 95 and 93% being a single question as not that crucial to the selection process. If that question happen to be order of procedures for verification protocols for a launch command, I want the person who got that correct promoted. If it's about security protocols, base operations, food or launch fuel logistics, targeting calculations, etc, I want the guy that got the right answers.
When nuclear missiles are involved, I want to be certain the most knowledgeable are being promoted.
I get that, I'm not commenting on that fact. I'm commenting on the 90% or better is an unrealistic expectation in the summary.
Now, as to 95 vs 93% affecting promotion speed? I don't see the problem there either. The person who studied harder (or better) than his rival should definitely have their higher score have more weight when considered for promotion.
Did both pass the test? Yes, but candidate x passed better than y. If all other things are equal, then X should get the promotion.
no, it's Technologist.
Get off your PC thought control horse and watch War Games to get his reference
Are you kidding me? 90% competency in protocol is unrealistic?
When it comes to a nation's nuclear weapons, I don't want a B or less, I want the person with the A managing the switch.
Has this country become so lazy and apologetic towards 'bad grades hurt feelings' pansies that they will pass everyone?
If I recall from ye olde school days:
A = 94-100%
B = 84-93%
C = 74-83%
D = 64-73%
F = 64%
C shouldn't even be a passing grade. It was never acceptable in my house. C's wait tables. D's are garbage collectors, F's live in government housing and vote for the people that continue to favor teacher's unions over children's educations and to take money from those the paid attention and succeeded to support them.
Everyone should be striving to be top in their desired field, whatever that be, from software dev to mechanic to entertainer. And if one isn't in their desired field, then they should be spending their free time to improve themselves to get into their desired fields.
90% is not unrealistic, it's a MINIMUM requirement for success.
You forgot about the pr0n and cats. I will say, faster pics of cats is probably worth some merit.
I'm not talking about OS, i'm talking applications, like games, like big data. A good game engine is heavily optimized with different code for the most popular hardware, or the hardware vendors adjust their specs to meet a specific standard. When you draw your polygons, you call make a (relatively) simple function call, but that function call packs the vertices for your triangles in vector arrays that are byte aligned to the hardware that will be processing them. The same thing is done when processing very large data in "big data" if you want your algorithms to complete in a reasonable time frame, where cpu time is rented and costs money. You first optimize your algorithms to be generally efficient, then anyone that wants to save lots of time and money, optimizes to take full advantages of the hardware they are running on. Are you running in a MIC (many integrated core) architecture? How big are the registers? Etc, all these things need to be taken into consideration when writing software for the HPC environment. Write once, run anywhere doesn't cut it when you have to pay for time.
Has little to do with hand optimizing asembly language, tho that definitely can be a benefit.
I'm talking about things such as properly aligning vector array data to match the memory alignment of the CPU during loops, knowing when and how to take advantage of installed installed modern coprocessors such as the Intel Xeon Phi series. Hell, even having the code for photoshop use MMX instruction sets when available or utilitzing hardware mpeg encoder/decoders versus standard CPU.
All about knowing the hardware you'll be running on.
No, this is stupid, wasteful, unoptimized software that performs like feces compared to a platform optimized piece of software.
The whole myth I've heard about software portability most of my life has never bore fruit that didn't need tweaks for different platforms.
The whole notion in the first place was to expand programming to the masses by giving the appearance of the elimination of the need of specialists.
A good intention, to be sure, except for the specialists.
The problem was that a specialist with knowledge of how the hardware operates could write software that took more advantage and/or better performed on a given platform. Things like CPU instruction set options, memory alignment, etc.
There is now a resurgence of platform optimized specialization thanks to big data. Do you want your humungous data sets processed and analyzed in months or years by the average programmer, or do you want it in days and weeks by the programmer that really, really knows how to squeeze the hardware.
Don't be a fool, Jesus is obviously a velociraptor!
Look forward to the Velocirapture!
Thor has been in a dress before, a wedding dress, at the behest of Loki:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I loved that movie as a kid!
I should dig out some old DIY robot kits....
Who cares about a computer hard drive, what about the mail server? Surely her mail is archived by exchange or something. I mean, corporate email has to be archived for what, 5-7 years or something? Delicious bacon forbid that a business doesn't backup it's communications. Even IMs are archived via corporate email these days, via Office Communicator or it's successor. Sure, her local PST files are probably lost with drive erasure, but the server archive has to be there. If not, someone needs to be going to prison, and I can guarantee the IT ppl are going to point fingers in the proper direction, they aren't going to take the fall.
I dunno about that.
I would classify "voluntary" as indirect taxation.
Direct taxation such as income or property tax is significantly less "voluntary". tho granted, until the ACA, I could "choose" not to work or own taxable property and not be taxed simply for existing.
uh... what? what in the name of delicious bacon are you talking about?
You're clearing leaping to ludicrous inferences and conclusions.
Money in banks does not sit stagnant. It moves around to create more money to fund the bank and pay interest on accounts.
Anyway, the problem is that it is just not doable to get wealthy people to spend money the way you want them to.
Let's get one thing clear. It's THEIR money. No one has to spend money in a way you believe would be more beneficial or efficient. You have no claim over it. If you want someone of any level of wealth to transition THEIR money in a direction you desire, you must entice them via exchange of goods or services that person believes is equivalent (or better) in value, or show that you can make them a profitable return on their capital investment.
When one tries to force, via seizing or forfeiture of assets, those assets are going to move away from the source of that force very quickly.
Taxation of assets is tolerable to a degree until the taxed feel that the services paid for by taxation no longer benefit their interests or exceeds that individual's tolerance level for taxation. Once the threshold has been passed, individuals move their assets to a more tolerable environment. This is why wealth flees heavily taxed states.
The attitude that one is misusing wealth by spending (or not spending) according to another person's desires is arrogant, classist, statist, and morally evil.
Good DAY, sir.
Much as I don't like taxation myself, Article 1 Section 8 would like to disagree with you.
Of course, this only applies to indirect taxation (which we can both agree is prefer, and is what the Fair Tax is). direct taxation (income/property tax) didn't come until later.
Sigh, you didn't bother to read what I posted in full, did you.
The Fair Tax is 100% voluntary. One only pays taxes when one purchases a *New* good or a service at the retail level. Purchase second hand, and there is no tax collected.
The "Fair" in fair taxes comes into play in that ALL NEW goods and services are taxed at the exact same rate, and that all households receive the prebate regardless of income level.
There are no exempt items except second hand.
There are no tax loopholes for the wealthy to avoid other than buying second hand.
There are no extra "sin" taxes to be manipulated by politicians for things such as sugary drinks or lessened rates for "good" things.
It's all flat at the same rate, for everything.
Under this system, the more one spends, the more tax is collected.
The hidden embedded tax costs of new products and services due to payroll, medicare, and corporate taxes inflating price no longer exists. Thus the price drops. Then a line item is added to the receipt for a 22-23% Inclusive (as opposed to exclusive) tax. The brings the price of the good or service back to within 1% of it's starting price before such a plan went into effect, only now it is in the open on the receipt, and only collected at retail so an item is only taxed once.
"Now good sir" one might say, "if the embedded taxes disappear, what's to stop companies from keeping the current price and adding the inclusive tax on top of what currently exists and pocketing the difference?"
Greed my dear friend, Wonderful Greed. As soon as a competitor figures out that they can undercut others that pocket the difference from the original price, they will start a race to the minimum price to sell more than the competition, which will balance out at the point of not having pocketed the difference in the first place.
The Fair Tax is about equal treatment for everyone and everything under tax law, not what some politician likes or dislikes.
I would presume that yes, that money is invested by the banks that the money is stored in to generate money for the banks and pay interest to clients. In addition, the reason money is stored out of country is to avoid heavy income taxation. Removing income taxation and corporate taxation makes for an attractive environment for capital investment, spurring business creation and economic growth. In such an environment that is welcoming of wealth instead of punishing via taxation, people will repatriate their monies to such markets if they provide the opportunity for greater returns than sitting in some foreign bank. Greed is an excellent motivator in moving money to where it is most suited to making yet more money. No/Low Corporate, Income and Investment Tax friendly environments act as a beacon, places that take advantage of this benefit from an influx of money. All one has to do is look at movement and creation of new companies in states such as texas and florida with inviting tax climates, versus stagnation or worse in states with heavy income and corporate taxation and excessive regulation.
tl;dr version: get the government the hell out of the way let the money flow.
I said get LESS money in politics.
Obviously you will still have politicians throwing around our tax dollars at pet projects, wasteful social projects and such, but an awful lot of money goes into manipulating the tax code. Having a balanced budget amendment and not hamstringing the CBO with arbitrary limitations preventing accurate assessments would also go a long way.
I do they same thing. Craptastic router only has 4megs ram for the wifi and shit range. Can't play BF4 in the other room without lagging every 5 seconds. Turned off the wifi and installed a Dark Knight. I don't see how these puny routers could possibly be usable for city wide wifi
What you fail to realize is that the wealthy are not dragons that sit on their piles of money. Money has no value until it is trading hands. The "wealthy" do 2 things:
1) Spend their money
2) Invest their money to... MAKE MOAR MONEY!
Both these actions create jobs and spur the creation of businesses to produce things to be acquired and or consumed, and pay employees to produce or for services. Employees make money, investors try to invest wisely to make a positive return on the money invested, everyone wins with ZOMG! TRICKLE DOWN!
Money hidden under the mattress does no any good.
Apparently you are John Snow Know Nothing when it comes to the Fair Tax.
Allow me to enlighten you.
The Fair Tax is a 'progressive tax' with 2 key parts.
Part 1: The Consumption Tax
An inclusive consumption tax at a flat rate (at last reading, would be around 22%-23%) placed on all *NEW* goods and all services at the retail level.
This can only work if income and corporate taxes are repealed, as those are embedded invisibly into the final retail cost of a product or service along the supply chain. By removing those embedded taxes, the retail price would fall by approx 22-23%. Apply the inclusive consumption tax and the final retail price returns to almost the same as it's present value +- 1-2%.
Used or second hand products would not be taxed, as only NEW goods and services. States would facilitate the collection of the consumption tax as they already have in place the mechanisms for collecting sales tax. The inclusive tax would show up on receipts as a line item to make it's cost transparent to the consumer.
Part 2: The Prebate (aka, the progressive portion)
Each household of citizens will receive, based on family size, a prebate equal to the poverty limit for a family of that size, divided into 12 monthly payments over the course of a year. This prebate payment is to cover the cost of the consumption tax up to 100% spending of the poverty line for that family size.
Example 1:
presuming the poverty line for a single individual is $10,000, a single person household would get a prebate of (23% x 10,000) / 12, or $191.67 each month to cover the consumption tax. Consumption tax spent over the poverty line for that single person household would then be the responsibility of that person.
Example 2:
Presume a 5 person family poverty line is $30,000, that household will recieve a prebate of (23% x 30,000) / 12, or $575.00 each month to cover consumption taxes.
Example 3:
Lets take that same family of 5, and presume the household has an income of $50,000 (note not payroll, personal income taxes, medicare, etc taxes, they get 100% of check), and that family chose to spend 100% of their income on new goods and services. They would have ended up paying $11,500 in consumption tax over the course of the year. However, they also get their prebate for a family of 5 at the poverty level, which would be $6,900 over the year. This offsets the $11,500 in consumption tax, reducing the amount the household has to be responsible for down to $4,600 over the course of the year, or $383.33 monthly in inclusive consumption tax paid, presuming 100% of income spent on new goods and services.
Example 4:
Let us presume a wealthy individual that makes say, $250,000 a year. If that individual spent 100% of their income on new goods and services as in the above examples, this individual would have paid $57,500.00 in consumption taxes over the course of a year ($4,791.67 monthly in tax paid). However, this individual also gets their pretbate for the exact same amount as the person in example 1, as the poverty line for a single person is presumed in these examples to be $10,000. Thus this individual would recieve $2,300 a year ($191.67 monthly), to cover the consumption tax, reducing their tax to $55,200 yearly ($4,600 monthly).
Consumption tax liability covered by prebate assuming 100% spending on new goods and services:
Example 1: 100% covered by prebate, $0 out of pocket monthly tax expense
Example 2: 100% covered by prebate, $0 out of pocket monthly tax expense
Example 3: 60% covered by prebate, $383.33 out of pocket monthly tax expense
Example 4: 4% covered by prebate, $4,600 out of pocket monthly tax expense
Thus, a family living in poverty will never pay the consumption tax as it is covered by their prebate and wealthier households will spend considerably more with the same spending habbits.
Additional benefits include:
Tax free second hand market place, only new goods are taxed at retail.
No tax loopholes.
No more IRS
Corporate decis
A better plan to get less money in politics is to remove the biggest impetus for political authority, the ability to decide winners and losers via the tax code.
Remove income tax and replace with a revenue neutral consumption tax such as the Fair Tax. Without the ability to offer favorable tax breaks to potential donors, who are seeking to ultimately alleviate tax costs on their interests, a large portion of corporate money will dry up, leaving the ideologues.
On a side note, how much more left leaning can one get than to name one's thing May Day? This guy is, IMO, bad news. According to wikipedia (had to look him up), advancing a populist agenda, removing the representative nature of having a representative republic by getting rid of electoral college and having a constitutional convention with random delegates instead of those selected by elected state governments to represent state's rights and interests. IMO, Lessig appears to be a Statist of the worst kind and I want nothing to do with him or the tyranny he would advance.