And that makes you think someone won't try it how? A solution being a "good idea" has very little relationship to politicians and managers deciding to implement it.
You may think you are jesting but... my husband works in the nuclear industry and the nuclear plant down near New Orleans gets it's water intake that it uses for cooling from the Mississippi River. One summer they had record highs and the electric company was making money hand over fist running the plant because demand was at record highs. It was hot enough that the temperature of the water they were pulling out of the river was getting too high for them to keep running the plant at the current output and they were going to have to cut back on generation (and thus profit).
The solution they came up with was to send all the utility trucks into the city to buy ice and dump it in the river in front of the intake. So yes, making ice and dumping it in the ocean isn't all that crazy of an idea:P
The Wii has had streaming capabilities for years. Go into the wii store and download the netflix app. I can't see how your geographic location hinders that ability.
This is a bad idea. If people know that the email address is "First.Last@domain.tld" they will just type it in without thinking. They will say I want to email John Doe and type John.Doe@domain.tld into the email address and fire off without bothering to check if there are multiple John Does.
The company I work for has an employee in HR that shares my first and last name. We have separate middle initials but because I was first I get First.Last and she gets First.M.Last. I often get rather awkward emails and end up having to explain to a mailing list that I am not who they think I am and would they please stop sending me salary information for other employees. All because users are too dumb/lazy to bother to check who they are sending the email to.
And btw, she even has a different domain than I do and I still get her emails cause I got First.Last@company.com and people don't realize that she is at First.M.Last@hr.company.com.
Just because your system isn't confused, doesn't mean that your users aren't.
I google drive because it works on the iPad and that is my biggest complaint about google drive. I can view the files in offline mode, but I can't edit them. So, why would I pay microsoft for something google gives me for free?
Besides, don't they realize that we all buy one copy of office anyway and just install it on all our PCs? If google would let your edit offline and stopped sucking at formatting, I would never use MS word.
And it takes more to fight. Killing yourself because the fight is hard and are sure you are going to loose is not an act of bravery. It is an act of spite or cowardice.
Civil disobedience often involves going to jail. If you cannot deal with the persecution involved with challenging authority, don't do it. Our actions have consequences. Some are just, some not. If you want to challenge injustice, you have to be willing to put yourself through it first.
How exactly is Jar-Jar supposed to be a black stereotype? Just because a character is portrayed in a negative light doesn't make them a stereotype of ?
Actually the proposal suggests just cutting everyone a check for spending below the poverty line. No reporting. No tracking. Everyone gets a check for the taxes they would spend on whatever the poverty line spending is. So now your guy making $30k a year still goes and checks his box saying "I'm a citizen." and each month he gets a check in the mail to help pay his sales tax for that month.
Honestly ask yourself what would you do if your take home pay increased by 20-30% tomorrow? You would save some of it and then go out and buy something. Most people would go and immediately spend it all.
Also consider that your single biggest expenditure each month is most likely your mortgage. Each item is only taxed once (at initial sale) under Fair Tax, so if you don't buy a new home, you don't pay taxes on it. If you buy a used car, you don't pay taxes on it. If you go to a second hand store, you don't pay taxes. You could, theoretically, never pay any taxes.
Under Fair Tax, the guy who makes $40k and spends every dime isn't paying any taxes because he is getting it all back in the tax rebates. You are spending $50k, not getting taxed on the first $30k so you have $20k left to spend on... your mortgage which isn't being taxed because your house wasn't new, and you aren't really being taxed either. Now you have $50k sitting in the bank. Are you seriously going to just let it sit in a bank account at 1% interest? Or are you going to go out and invest it? Maybe you will donate it to the save the puppies fund. Occasionally people do stash tens of thousands of dollars under the mattress, but most people do something useful with their money.
The studies show that rich people spend significantly more money than poor people. No, they don't spend their entire income. But right now they also don't get taxed on their entire income because they earn it from capital gains or use magic business accounting to make it disappear. For example, if you incorporate yourself as say a consultant and only pay yourself when you need money to spend, the rest of the money belongs to the company and is no longer income. You then start writing off your car, your phone, etc as business expenses. If you are familiar with the tax code, this all can be done legally. Now you only have an income of $50k a year, not $100k because the other $50k isn't technically yours and you are essentially paying the same income taxes as the guy making $40k. It might be pretty sleazy, but it's legal. It's also legal to get paid in stock. Now most of your income is capital gains and taxed at the capital gains rate, not the base income rate. A consumption tax is a lot harder to work around legally.
It gives you a lot more flexibility with your income. You get to choose how and when you spend your money. Personally I abhor the fact that we tax every time money changes hands. Why should I have to pay taxes because grandma wanted to send me some money? She paid the tax when she earned it. Every time I earn money I get taxed. If I die, and that money then transfers to my children, they get taxed on it again. They get taxed on the value of my non-liquid assets as well.
Since the idea of a consumption tax is so radically different from our current convoluted tax system, most people would probably be more comfortable with a hybrid scheme. A hybrid would also give us a glimpse into how a consumption tax would actually impact spending before we go all out.
The math that I have seen regarding the Fair Tax indicates that I would pay less in taxes under it than I do under our current wacky scheme.
Money is only useful if you spend it. If it's not moving, its just numbers on your computer screen or pieces of pretty paper. If it's not letting you acquire something real, then why do you have it? Yes, rich people save money. So do I. Rich people also buy a lot of stuff. When I go to the grocery store I buy ground beef. When rich people go, they buy fillet. When I through a dinner party, I have 4 people over. When rich people throw a dinner party, they invite 100. I buy $10 wine, rich people buy $200 wine. Rich people buy a $5000 dress that they were to one party and then toss out.
The Fair Tax would tax drug dealers. Income tax doesn't, because you don't report illegal income. You don't report the cash grandma mailed you for Christmas and you don't report the $100 you found lying on the sidewalk. You may be an honest, upstanding citizen that reports every dime, but I guarantee you that you are a minority. Consumption tax hits all those income sources equally because when you go and buy your BMW or your new PS3, you pay the tax then.
Consider this. Under an income tax scheme, if I give you $1000, you have to pay taxes on it. If you then go and give it to someone else, they have to pay taxes again. The government takes a cut of every transaction, kind of like PayPal. Under a consumption tax, that $1000 only gets taxed when it gets converted to something useful.
Except under Fair Tax the guy making $30k a year pays no taxes...
Why does everyone stop reading at the words "consumption tax" and ignore the actual facts related to the proposal? The system includes prebates to cover the taxes incurred on necessities. Thus you spend your $30k but also get a check in the mail to cover the taxes you are paying when spending your $30k.
But do you claim the mortgage deduction? Do you go out of your way to pay more taxes then you are legally required? It is not inconsistent to believe the laws should be changed but still follow them.
If we wanted a popular vote, after 200+ years, don't you think we would have abolished the electoral college by now?
It also becomes a question of if you think power should reside with the states or the federal government? Are we one country, or are we a federation of united states? Anywhere else in the world, the world "state" means an independent government. If you believe that the state should hold the power, not the federal government, then you want the electoral college so that each state can speak. If you see the states as little more than an address, then you want a popular vote.
A friend of mine was an architecture student working on a project regarding historical buildings. He needed to do a report on all the historical buildings in a particular city block. What styles, etc. His particular block had a bank on it. Needless to say, after spending a day walking around the area taking measurements and writing things down, he got picked up by the police for a friendly sit down with the bank security.
You are mistaken. The electoral college was created because the founding fathers did not trust the American people to elect the correct person for president. The objective is not and never has been to elect the person the most Americans want as president, but to elect the person the political elite feel should be president.
People have forgotten that the largest school massacre on record was in Bath, Michigan in 1927. He didn't use guns and he killed more children than anyone else as succeeded at killing with thier assault riffles and high capacity magazines in almost a century. You don't even need bleach and chlorine. You can buy propane at your local hardware store. Or steal it since they like to keep it in front of the building instead of inside it.
Slashdot Mirror
And that makes you think someone won't try it how? A solution being a "good idea" has very little relationship to politicians and managers deciding to implement it.
You may think you are jesting but... my husband works in the nuclear industry and the nuclear plant down near New Orleans gets it's water intake that it uses for cooling from the Mississippi River. One summer they had record highs and the electric company was making money hand over fist running the plant because demand was at record highs. It was hot enough that the temperature of the water they were pulling out of the river was getting too high for them to keep running the plant at the current output and they were going to have to cut back on generation (and thus profit).
The solution they came up with was to send all the utility trucks into the city to buy ice and dump it in the river in front of the intake. So yes, making ice and dumping it in the ocean isn't all that crazy of an idea :P
The Wii has had streaming capabilities for years. Go into the wii store and download the netflix app. I can't see how your geographic location hinders that ability.
I think Isreal disagrees with you.
I pretty sure if I was drunk at work I would get fired.
Even in your fireplace? Everyone lights candles...
This is a bad idea. If people know that the email address is "First.Last@domain.tld" they will just type it in without thinking. They will say I want to email John Doe and type John.Doe@domain.tld into the email address and fire off without bothering to check if there are multiple John Does.
The company I work for has an employee in HR that shares my first and last name. We have separate middle initials but because I was first I get First.Last and she gets First.M.Last. I often get rather awkward emails and end up having to explain to a mailing list that I am not who they think I am and would they please stop sending me salary information for other employees. All because users are too dumb/lazy to bother to check who they are sending the email to.
And btw, she even has a different domain than I do and I still get her emails cause I got First.Last@company.com and people don't realize that she is at First.M.Last@hr.company.com.
Just because your system isn't confused, doesn't mean that your users aren't.
Try two 22 inch wide screens with one oriented vertically. You never have to scroll again :P
I google drive because it works on the iPad and that is my biggest complaint about google drive. I can view the files in offline mode, but I can't edit them. So, why would I pay microsoft for something google gives me for free?
Besides, don't they realize that we all buy one copy of office anyway and just install it on all our PCs? If google would let your edit offline and stopped sucking at formatting, I would never use MS word.
I'm with you. I loved Sim City and the Sims until Origin. Now I won't buy another EA game.
And it takes more to fight. Killing yourself because the fight is hard and are sure you are going to loose is not an act of bravery. It is an act of spite or cowardice.
Civil disobedience often involves going to jail. If you cannot deal with the persecution involved with challenging authority, don't do it. Our actions have consequences. Some are just, some not. If you want to challenge injustice, you have to be willing to put yourself through it first.
Actually, I think a big stick would be better. From now on anyone who cries "racist" for stupid reasons gets hit with a big stick.
How exactly is Jar-Jar supposed to be a black stereotype? Just because a character is portrayed in a negative light doesn't make them a stereotype of ?
They did it on Voyager.
If you are looking for consistency in the Star Trek universe, all you need to know is that you can reconfigure the main deflector to do anything.
I live in PA. We don't have sun. :(
Actually the proposal suggests just cutting everyone a check for spending below the poverty line. No reporting. No tracking. Everyone gets a check for the taxes they would spend on whatever the poverty line spending is. So now your guy making $30k a year still goes and checks his box saying "I'm a citizen." and each month he gets a check in the mail to help pay his sales tax for that month.
Honestly ask yourself what would you do if your take home pay increased by 20-30% tomorrow? You would save some of it and then go out and buy something. Most people would go and immediately spend it all.
Also consider that your single biggest expenditure each month is most likely your mortgage. Each item is only taxed once (at initial sale) under Fair Tax, so if you don't buy a new home, you don't pay taxes on it. If you buy a used car, you don't pay taxes on it. If you go to a second hand store, you don't pay taxes. You could, theoretically, never pay any taxes.
Under Fair Tax, the guy who makes $40k and spends every dime isn't paying any taxes because he is getting it all back in the tax rebates. You are spending $50k, not getting taxed on the first $30k so you have $20k left to spend on... your mortgage which isn't being taxed because your house wasn't new, and you aren't really being taxed either. Now you have $50k sitting in the bank. Are you seriously going to just let it sit in a bank account at 1% interest? Or are you going to go out and invest it? Maybe you will donate it to the save the puppies fund. Occasionally people do stash tens of thousands of dollars under the mattress, but most people do something useful with their money.
The studies show that rich people spend significantly more money than poor people. No, they don't spend their entire income. But right now they also don't get taxed on their entire income because they earn it from capital gains or use magic business accounting to make it disappear. For example, if you incorporate yourself as say a consultant and only pay yourself when you need money to spend, the rest of the money belongs to the company and is no longer income. You then start writing off your car, your phone, etc as business expenses. If you are familiar with the tax code, this all can be done legally. Now you only have an income of $50k a year, not $100k because the other $50k isn't technically yours and you are essentially paying the same income taxes as the guy making $40k. It might be pretty sleazy, but it's legal. It's also legal to get paid in stock. Now most of your income is capital gains and taxed at the capital gains rate, not the base income rate. A consumption tax is a lot harder to work around legally.
It gives you a lot more flexibility with your income. You get to choose how and when you spend your money. Personally I abhor the fact that we tax every time money changes hands. Why should I have to pay taxes because grandma wanted to send me some money? She paid the tax when she earned it. Every time I earn money I get taxed. If I die, and that money then transfers to my children, they get taxed on it again. They get taxed on the value of my non-liquid assets as well.
Since the idea of a consumption tax is so radically different from our current convoluted tax system, most people would probably be more comfortable with a hybrid scheme. A hybrid would also give us a glimpse into how a consumption tax would actually impact spending before we go all out.
The math that I have seen regarding the Fair Tax indicates that I would pay less in taxes under it than I do under our current wacky scheme.
Money is only useful if you spend it. If it's not moving, its just numbers on your computer screen or pieces of pretty paper. If it's not letting you acquire something real, then why do you have it? Yes, rich people save money. So do I. Rich people also buy a lot of stuff. When I go to the grocery store I buy ground beef. When rich people go, they buy fillet. When I through a dinner party, I have 4 people over. When rich people throw a dinner party, they invite 100. I buy $10 wine, rich people buy $200 wine. Rich people buy a $5000 dress that they were to one party and then toss out.
The Fair Tax would tax drug dealers. Income tax doesn't, because you don't report illegal income. You don't report the cash grandma mailed you for Christmas and you don't report the $100 you found lying on the sidewalk. You may be an honest, upstanding citizen that reports every dime, but I guarantee you that you are a minority. Consumption tax hits all those income sources equally because when you go and buy your BMW or your new PS3, you pay the tax then.
Consider this. Under an income tax scheme, if I give you $1000, you have to pay taxes on it. If you then go and give it to someone else, they have to pay taxes again. The government takes a cut of every transaction, kind of like PayPal. Under a consumption tax, that $1000 only gets taxed when it gets converted to something useful.
Except under Fair Tax the guy making $30k a year pays no taxes...
Why does everyone stop reading at the words "consumption tax" and ignore the actual facts related to the proposal? The system includes prebates to cover the taxes incurred on necessities. Thus you spend your $30k but also get a check in the mail to cover the taxes you are paying when spending your $30k.
But do you claim the mortgage deduction? Do you go out of your way to pay more taxes then you are legally required? It is not inconsistent to believe the laws should be changed but still follow them.
If we wanted a popular vote, after 200+ years, don't you think we would have abolished the electoral college by now?
It also becomes a question of if you think power should reside with the states or the federal government? Are we one country, or are we a federation of united states? Anywhere else in the world, the world "state" means an independent government. If you believe that the state should hold the power, not the federal government, then you want the electoral college so that each state can speak. If you see the states as little more than an address, then you want a popular vote.
A friend of mine was an architecture student working on a project regarding historical buildings. He needed to do a report on all the historical buildings in a particular city block. What styles, etc. His particular block had a bank on it. Needless to say, after spending a day walking around the area taking measurements and writing things down, he got picked up by the police for a friendly sit down with the bank security.
You are mistaken. The electoral college was created because the founding fathers did not trust the American people to elect the correct person for president. The objective is not and never has been to elect the person the most Americans want as president, but to elect the person the political elite feel should be president.
Don't we do this with stuff from WWII out in the desert already?
People have forgotten that the largest school massacre on record was in Bath, Michigan in 1927. He didn't use guns and he killed more children than anyone else as succeeded at killing with thier assault riffles and high capacity magazines in almost a century. You don't even need bleach and chlorine. You can buy propane at your local hardware store. Or steal it since they like to keep it in front of the building instead of inside it.