Personally I don't have any problems with energy conservation.
Then unplug your refridgerator right now and leave it unplugged. You'll conserve lots of energy.
Energy conservation is just an artificial form of poverty. You'd normally use some energy to make yourself better off. But you conserve it instead, forgoing the benefits. Instead of making yourself better off, you didn't. Repeat this a million times. Congradulations, you're poor. (You may have lots of money, but there's no energy for you to buy, so you can't really improve your life much at all.)
If you don't agree, unplug your refridgerator. See how much better off you are with the money you save on your electric bill.
Put in the conditions for 50 years ago. Run the model forward 50 years. If the model correctly predicts the conditions today, report that. Then tell us what it predicts about the future.
Until you have a model that correctly predicts the present to a high degree of accuracy, shut up about the future..
Freak weather is normal. Every year, it's either unusually hot, unusually cold, unusually wet, unusually dry, unusually windy, or unusual in some other way.
Think about it. When was the last year when nothing interesting happened with the weather? Wouldn't it be odd to have an entire year of weather when nothing notable happened?
Do you have a link to an analysis that shows this to be true?
Can't find the link. It's true though.
You don't expect your heirs to get money left over from your health insurance, or term life insurance, why do you expect to get money back from retirement insurance?
You get money back from just about every other retirement plan. My dad died when he was 63 and he was able to leave his retirement savings to my brother and I.
Private accounts are too risky
Private accounts are only as risky as the eventual law allows. It'll end up disallowing all but the safest investment strategies. Long-term returns will probably be in the 4-6% range.
The current system is also quite risky. Congress can cut or eliminate benefits at any time. Even you're proposing a benefit cut. How is that not a risk?
you get home, and usually skip dinner because you would rather have your wife and child eat. your wife protests but you fake that you are simply not hungry. both your wife and child get to the dentist regulary but you have a molar rotting in your head that gives you insane pain once every 2 months. you do not go because you can not afford the $80.00 to have that tooth extracted without skimping on something.
There are charities, you know. Food banks are a good example.
Hell, I'm still paying dearly for those 5 years where I made sure my wife and child had their teeth taken care of, most are not as lucky as I am and were able to get a really high paying job in the $40,000.00 a year income level and able to afford to repair the damage after the fact.
Hard-working people tend to eventually get "lucky" this way. Not always, but more often than not.
There's a lot of income mobility in the US. Just because you were poor once doesn't mean that most people are poor their entire lives.
So, care to figure out when we will be able to pay off our deficit out of petty cash?
It doen't matter when. Say it's 1000 years from now. So what? So no taxpayers had to pay it back for 1000 years. And then when they did pay it back, it wasn't a burden on them.
The national debt isn't a scary monster. It was 120% of GDP in 1946 after WWII. It's about 40% of GDP now.
Borrowing to fix the social security system raises it in the short term and lowers it in the long term. So if you're worried debt, you should be in favor of fixing the SS system, even if it involves borrowing.
Somehow, somewhere, the $ to repay the $ which was taken against the social security funds will need to be repaid.
This is simply wrong.
The government borrows $20. It must be paid back in a year. In a year, they borrow $20. They pay off the original $20 creditor. Did the taxpayers have to pay the bill? No.
The taxpayers only have to pay the interest. The principal can be re-borrowed forever.
If the amount borrowed keeps going up, then that could be a problem. But if it goes up slower than inflation, then it's actually going down in real dollar terms. Eventually, it can be paid-off in petty cash.
The borrowing for the social security fix is a one-time amount. Therefore, if the interest is paid each year, the amount borrowed will decrease each year, after figuring in inflation.
The taxpayers never have to pay it back.
There are pluses and minuses to the social security fix plan(s). "The taxpayers have to pay it all back eventually" isn't one of them.
Politicians bought votes in years past by adjusting the cost of living based on wage inflation, versus the previous (more reasonable) way of calculating it based on regular inflation.
I'm in complete agreement with you here. And furthermore, this change alone would make the system solvent therough the baby-boom bubble. Nothing else need be done.
If your objective is to "protect the system", then you may be correct.
But, with this change, young workers will be paying into the system far more than they can expect to receive in benefits. The average young worker will pay more than he will receive.
That's not OK.
Private accounts give the average guy a way to do better. And even if the system works against you (because you died too young to get to the break-even point), the funds in your private account are yours. You can leave them to your children. That's something. It's a lot better than the guaranteed loss that the average young worker gets under your plan.
(The reason it's a guaranteed loss for the average young worker is that he isn't an individual guy. He's the average of all the young workers -- an aggregate.)
I'm not willing. And realistically, if people were actually willing, it wouldn't be a tax would it? People would voluntarily drive down to government offices and leave money there.
You can overpay as much as you want on your income tax you know. The IRS will be happy to keep the money. I suggest you do that and leave the rest of us out of it.
---
Obviously, what you really mean is that you'd be happy take a 2% pay cut in return for deciding where trillions of other people's money should be spent.
I would too. You give up a few thousand dollars to spend a trillion. Who wouldn't?
Bill Clinton said there was a crisis in social securty. He said it when the government had a projected surplus and he wanted to keep the money to "save social security first" instead of giving it back to the taxpayers. It was during the 90s.
For younger workers the social security system will produce a negative return -- unless you live to an extremely old age. And if people start routinely living to an extremely old age, the system breaks.
the Bush tax cuts (both of them) will result in less revenue to the tune of 11.6T USD over the next 75 years
Funny. I looked at my paycheck after those tax cuts and noticed more revenue. I'm receiving more revenue. I can use that revenue to pay for my retirement.
And the best thing is, it was mine to begin with. I earned it by working hard. I didn't get it as a gift from the government -- for doing nothing. It wasn't taken from someone else against their will.
I guess I don't see the problem. Because of the Bush tax cuts, 11.6 trillion fewer dollars will be taken from people against their will. That's a good thing.
Kent: Hordes of panicky people seem to be evacuating the town for some unknown reason. Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?
Slashdot Mirror
Why don't they just take pictures of the backgrounds and draw in the people? That would work out better for everyone.
Run up a 10 million dollar international phone bill.
T(100) = 0x + 11K
T(100) is the temperature in 100 years.
x is the input data.
Personally I don't have any problems with energy conservation.
Then unplug your refridgerator right now and leave it unplugged. You'll conserve lots of energy.
Energy conservation is just an artificial form of poverty. You'd normally use some energy to make yourself better off. But you conserve it instead, forgoing the benefits. Instead of making yourself better off, you didn't. Repeat this a million times. Congradulations, you're poor. (You may have lots of money, but there's no energy for you to buy, so you can't really improve your life much at all.)
If you don't agree, unplug your refridgerator. See how much better off you are with the money you save on your electric bill.
Put in the conditions for 50 years ago. Run the model forward 50 years. If the model correctly predicts the conditions today, report that. Then tell us what it predicts about the future.
Until you have a model that correctly predicts the present to a high degree of accuracy, shut up about the future..
So bridges and gardens are also "pollution" then.
Carbon dioxide isn't "pollution" unless it's harmful.
Freak weather is normal. Every year, it's either unusually hot, unusually cold, unusually wet, unusually dry, unusually windy, or unusual in some other way.
Think about it. When was the last year when nothing interesting happened with the weather? Wouldn't it be odd to have an entire year of weather when nothing notable happened?
There's probably a significant Doppler issue with using WiMax on the move.
They need to followup with the families to make sure none of them get mad cow disease.
Do you have a link to an analysis that shows this to be true?
Can't find the link. It's true though.
You don't expect your heirs to get money left over from your health insurance, or term life insurance, why do you expect to get money back from retirement insurance?
You get money back from just about every other retirement plan. My dad died when he was 63 and he was able to leave his retirement savings to my brother and I.
Private accounts are too risky
Private accounts are only as risky as the eventual law allows. It'll end up disallowing all but the safest investment strategies. Long-term returns will probably be in the 4-6% range.
The current system is also quite risky. Congress can cut or eliminate benefits at any time. Even you're proposing a benefit cut. How is that not a risk?
you get home, and usually skip dinner because you would rather have your wife and child eat. your wife protests but you fake that you are simply not hungry. both your wife and child get to the dentist regulary but you have a molar rotting in your head that gives you insane pain once every 2 months. you do not go because you can not afford the $80.00 to have that tooth extracted without skimping on something.
There are charities, you know. Food banks are a good example.
Hell, I'm still paying dearly for those 5 years where I made sure my wife and child had their teeth taken care of, most are not as lucky as I am and were able to get a really high paying job in the $40,000.00 a year income level and able to afford to repair the damage after the fact.
Hard-working people tend to eventually get "lucky" this way. Not always, but more often than not.
There's a lot of income mobility in the US. Just because you were poor once doesn't mean that most people are poor their entire lives.
So, care to figure out when we will be able to pay off our deficit out of petty cash?
It doen't matter when. Say it's 1000 years from now. So what? So no taxpayers had to pay it back for 1000 years. And then when they did pay it back, it wasn't a burden on them.
The national debt isn't a scary monster. It was 120% of GDP in 1946 after WWII. It's about 40% of GDP now.
Borrowing to fix the social security system raises it in the short term and lowers it in the long term. So if you're worried debt, you should be in favor of fixing the SS system, even if it involves borrowing.
Somehow, somewhere, the $ to repay the $ which was taken against the social security funds will need to be repaid.
This is simply wrong.
The government borrows $20. It must be paid back in a year. In a year, they borrow $20. They pay off the original $20 creditor. Did the taxpayers have to pay the bill? No.
The taxpayers only have to pay the interest. The principal can be re-borrowed forever.
If the amount borrowed keeps going up, then that could be a problem. But if it goes up slower than inflation, then it's actually going down in real dollar terms. Eventually, it can be paid-off in petty cash.
The borrowing for the social security fix is a one-time amount. Therefore, if the interest is paid each year, the amount borrowed will decrease each year, after figuring in inflation.
The taxpayers never have to pay it back.
There are pluses and minuses to the social security fix plan(s). "The taxpayers have to pay it all back eventually" isn't one of them.
I don't know how someone can live with $1250 a month coming in.
If you consider that most retirees have paid off their mortgage and are living rent-free in their own homes, it becomes easier to imagine.
What are the other expenses? Food, tax, pills, utilities, etc. I think I spend about $1200 on that stuff each month.
Politicians bought votes in years past by adjusting the cost of living based on wage inflation, versus the previous (more reasonable) way of calculating it based on regular inflation.
I'm in complete agreement with you here. And furthermore, this change alone would make the system solvent therough the baby-boom bubble. Nothing else need be done.
If your objective is to "protect the system", then you may be correct.
But, with this change, young workers will be paying into the system far more than they can expect to receive in benefits. The average young worker will pay more than he will receive.
That's not OK.
Private accounts give the average guy a way to do better. And even if the system works against you (because you died too young to get to the break-even point), the funds in your private account are yours. You can leave them to your children. That's something. It's a lot better than the guaranteed loss that the average young worker gets under your plan.
(The reason it's a guaranteed loss for the average young worker is that he isn't an individual guy. He's the average of all the young workers -- an aggregate.)
That 0.4% is a better return than the very young will get on their social security "contributions" using the current system.
I'm not willing. And realistically, if people were actually willing, it wouldn't be a tax would it? People would voluntarily drive down to government offices and leave money there.
You can overpay as much as you want on your income tax you know. The IRS will be happy to keep the money. I suggest you do that and leave the rest of us out of it.
---
Obviously, what you really mean is that you'd be happy take a 2% pay cut in return for deciding where trillions of other people's money should be spent.
I would too. You give up a few thousand dollars to spend a trillion. Who wouldn't?
Bill Clinton said there was a crisis in social securty. He said it when the government had a projected surplus and he wanted to keep the money to "save social security first" instead of giving it back to the taxpayers. It was during the 90s.
For younger workers the social security system will produce a negative return -- unless you live to an extremely old age. And if people start routinely living to an extremely old age, the system breaks.
the Bush tax cuts (both of them) will result in less revenue to the tune of 11.6T USD over the next 75 years
Funny. I looked at my paycheck after those tax cuts and noticed more revenue. I'm receiving more revenue. I can use that revenue to pay for my retirement.
And the best thing is, it was mine to begin with. I earned it by working hard. I didn't get it as a gift from the government -- for doing nothing. It wasn't taken from someone else against their will.
I guess I don't see the problem. Because of the Bush tax cuts, 11.6 trillion fewer dollars will be taken from people against their will. That's a good thing.
Kent: Hordes of panicky people seem to be evacuating the town for some unknown reason. Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?
Professor: Mmm, yes I would, Kent.
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/1F09.html
Businesses with 200 - 400 people are considered small businesses still. A business with 350 people can afford a $5000 box for search.
Ach! My eyes! The goggles do nothing!
The parent is flamebait, but EQ2 is a fun game. It's also commercially successful, so far.
I hear WoW is also fun and commercially successful.