That's going to be a problem, all right, especially if what's being criticized are policies perceived as unfairly preferential to blacks or other minorities. No one will hear the "unfairly preferential" part of such arguments; they'll be too busy screaming "racist!"
I don't know who he was running against, but it's possible that in the eyes of the average Alaskan, the alternative candidate(s) was worse.
Also, never underestimate the power of name recognition. That's what all those lawn signs and posters and such are really about -- name recognition. People who aren't sure why the candidates differ will vote for a name they recognise (or think they do) rather than for an unfamiliar name.
This goes to point up the fallacy of assuming that everyone who can be nailed for significant capital gains taxes can actually afford to give that money up:
I am also in the low income, little to no tax bracket. But I inherited a few stocks, which I've had for over 30 years now, and which via modest growth are now worth about 10 times what I started with. Those stocks are my entire retirement fund; I don't have any other and I won't get any social security.
If capital gains taxes go back up to their former levels, that means I'll lose almost half of my retirement fund's cash value, and will be forced to continue working roughly another 10 to 15 years past normal retirement age, because what's left won't be enough to live on even in the very modest manner to which I'm accustomed (especially with a family history of living into their late 90s).
So -- raising capital gains taxes STEALS 10 to 15 years of my life. And where does this money go?? at least in part to people who make more than I do, and who will be taken care of by the gov't -- using my money.
My sister was in China last year, and tried to get info on Tienanmin from her native guide.
The guide wouldn't answer directly. What he DID say was quite telling, tho: "One day there were 50,000 people. The next day, there were 50,000 bicycles."
(For those who don't get it... he was referring to EMPTY bicycles. Left behind by dead people.)
I had an acquaintance in Denmark. He had a medical issue that he could not get treatment for, because the Danish social/medical-welfare system didn't recognise it as a real problem (tho it screwed up his life to the point that he couldn't hold down a job). He wanted to emigrate so he could get treatment elsewhere, but because he had that medical issue, he wasn't eligible to emigrate either. When I last heard from him, this situation had been going on for YEARS, with no end in sight.
Yes, I've been that poor. Yet I was never eligible for any sort of public assistance -- because I still worked, and worse, owned a vehicle (albeit well-aged) with which to get to work. If I'd got rid of my car and sat on my ass, I could have collected a welfare check.
Right, but the fact is that sometimes the notification just doesn't happen...
Hmm. One wonders if some of the occasional tales of "But she's dead, dammit, so cancel her credit card [or whatever] already!" are sometimes side effects of such failures that were originally meant as voting stuffers.
I've seen something similar when I poll-watched. In a union town that was overwhelmingly Democrat, the only fraudulent votes were from -- Democrats. (Dead Democrats at that.) It makes no sense, but that's how it was. You'd think since the Republicans were the side that was going to be short on votes, they'd have more incentive to stuff the ballot box -- but it didn't work that way.
I did RTFA, and... yeah, it's not like people just sit down at their keyboards and say, "Today I think I'll get mad!" They're already mad and want to vent, and they're going to do it one way or another. The online venting mechanism is the handiest ever, so they use it -- path of least resistance.
What's lacking is the whap upside the head when they get out of hand or when the rest of the world gets tired of hearing it, like you'd get in Real Life[tm].
But as to the notion that it's getting worse -- not hardly. If you remember the heyday of Usenet, and of BBSs before that, and before that of snailmail arguments -- today's angry venting is a mere puff of steam by comparison; in the olden days we got fullblown geysers.
And that may be because the flipside of not having a "whap 'em" mechanism, is that the online venters can't force anyone to listen to them, either.
The last time I paid attention, the fail stats I saw were about 3% for the Pill (which not everyone can use; it makes some women ill), and up to 10% for condoms alone (tho condoms plus foam were much better, only about 3% fail rate).
Corporations pay no taxes anyway; that expense is passed directly along to customers. It has to be, like all other expenses, or the corp goes in the hole and out of business.
Most wages are PAID, one way or another, by wealthy people, since they tend to own the businesses that *employ the poor*. Poor people don't PAY wages. So here's a thought: instead of taxing the rich, give them a direct incentive: if you use that money to directly pay wages to workers, it can take the place of income tax, and at a lower rate to boot.
That way everyone gains, except the gov't, which would have to find someone else's money to waste.
Subject: redistribution of wealth ======= Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read 'Vote Obama, I need the money.' I laughed.
Once in the restaurant my server had on a 'Obama 08' tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference--just imagine the coincidence.
When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.
I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.
At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application. =======
Birth control fails somewhere between 3% and 10% of the time, depending on method. However, I agree in principle -- plan, dammit, don't just get buggered by surprise. And if a surprise happens, well, at least you'd tried, and that could be taken into account by the system.
See my post above... I actually did the math on one local program that's within my field of expertise, and concluded that it was 75-80% waste both in construction and in ongoing costs.
Sounds like these numbers may well be the norm, rather than anomalies.
But it's more than the broad picture that's hard to pull chunks out of. It's also made up of a lot of relatively small but still very wasteful programs.
One that I've worked out the math for, because it's within my field of expertise -- the new local animal shelter. They built 24 runs plus some workspace for $6 MILLION dollars. For utter contrast, the most lavish facility I could come up with would only cost about $1M to build, and it could be done for as little as $100k using prefab components. Furthermore, they expect to need about 20 employees to maintain it. I figured out that if it were built to be efficient, FOUR employees would be plenty, and that's allowing for one as a supervisor with no hands-on duties, and one as a desk jockey with no other duties. (I maintain a much larger facility all by myself, and it's far from a fulltime job. So I know what I'm talking about.)
In short, about 75% wasted money even at the most lavish construction estimates, and somewhere around 80% wasted as ongoing wages and benefits.
And this isn't the least bit unusual.
Multiply that by thousands of programs throughout every level of government, and what do you conclude now about wasted tax dollars??
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That's going to be a problem, all right, especially if what's being criticized are policies perceived as unfairly preferential to blacks or other minorities. No one will hear the "unfairly preferential" part of such arguments; they'll be too busy screaming "racist!"
I don't know who he was running against, but it's possible that in the eyes of the average Alaskan, the alternative candidate(s) was worse.
Also, never underestimate the power of name recognition. That's what all those lawn signs and posters and such are really about -- name recognition. People who aren't sure why the candidates differ will vote for a name they recognise (or think they do) rather than for an unfamiliar name.
Partisanship need not enter into it at all.
And if the Democrats are *really* against the Patriot act -- well, here comes their chance to repeal it, with at most token opposition.
If they fail to repeal it first thing after Obama takes office, then we'll know they were lying about being against it, won't we...
Bah. I went to bed a citizen, and woke up a komrade.
Invert colour spectrum on porn images. Now all the skin is green or purple or some other decidedly un-skin colour.
Transmit images.
Re-invert colour spectrum. Skin is all skin-coloured again.
.
.
.
.
Okay, so this might not work so well if the images are from after a major S&M session ;)
This goes to point up the fallacy of assuming that everyone who can be nailed for significant capital gains taxes can actually afford to give that money up:
I am also in the low income, little to no tax bracket. But I inherited a few stocks, which I've had for over 30 years now, and which via modest growth are now worth about 10 times what I started with. Those stocks are my entire retirement fund; I don't have any other and I won't get any social security.
If capital gains taxes go back up to their former levels, that means I'll lose almost half of my retirement fund's cash value, and will be forced to continue working roughly another 10 to 15 years past normal retirement age, because what's left won't be enough to live on even in the very modest manner to which I'm accustomed (especially with a family history of living into their late 90s).
So -- raising capital gains taxes STEALS 10 to 15 years of my life. And where does this money go?? at least in part to people who make more than I do, and who will be taken care of by the gov't -- using my money.
My sister was in China last year, and tried to get info on Tienanmin from her native guide.
The guide wouldn't answer directly. What he DID say was quite telling, tho: "One day there were 50,000 people. The next day, there were 50,000 bicycles."
(For those who don't get it... he was referring to EMPTY bicycles. Left behind by dead people.)
I had an acquaintance in Denmark. He had a medical issue that he could not get treatment for, because the Danish social/medical-welfare system didn't recognise it as a real problem (tho it screwed up his life to the point that he couldn't hold down a job). He wanted to emigrate so he could get treatment elsewhere, but because he had that medical issue, he wasn't eligible to emigrate either. When I last heard from him, this situation had been going on for YEARS, with no end in sight.
Yes, I've been that poor. Yet I was never eligible for any sort of public assistance -- because I still worked, and worse, owned a vehicle (albeit well-aged) with which to get to work. If I'd got rid of my car and sat on my ass, I could have collected a welfare check.
Right, but the fact is that sometimes the notification just doesn't happen...
Hmm. One wonders if some of the occasional tales of "But she's dead, dammit, so cancel her credit card [or whatever] already!" are sometimes side effects of such failures that were originally meant as voting stuffers.
I agree it's not the most efficient route. :)
"Democracy: That ultimate triumph of quantity over quality." -- Peter H. Peel
I've seen something similar when I poll-watched. In a union town that was overwhelmingly Democrat, the only fraudulent votes were from -- Democrats. (Dead Democrats at that.) It makes no sense, but that's how it was. You'd think since the Republicans were the side that was going to be short on votes, they'd have more incentive to stuff the ballot box -- but it didn't work that way.
Your post triggered this synaptic cascade:
If people are registered by default just for being born, what do you do about the system's tendency to leave dead people marked as "still alive"??
Also, it follows that the easiest way to determine who is voting in their proper district is by exact tracking of every person's movements.
Why, yes, I am a disturbed person.. thoughts like this disturb me!! I should have other, less paranoid thoughts. ;)
(I've poll-watched. I've caught a few dead people voting.)
"It is not relief that puts an end to it, it's fatigue."
Or more likely, expenditure of adrenaline and other biochemicals.
Which happens a lot faster if you can rave and break things (physically or metaphorically) for a few minutes than if you have to bottle it up.
The "ongoing anger" problem arises when raving and breaking things becomes an end in itself, rather than something that "fatigues" away the anger.
I did RTFA, and... yeah, it's not like people just sit down at their keyboards and say, "Today I think I'll get mad!" They're already mad and want to vent, and they're going to do it one way or another. The online venting mechanism is the handiest ever, so they use it -- path of least resistance.
What's lacking is the whap upside the head when they get out of hand or when the rest of the world gets tired of hearing it, like you'd get in Real Life[tm].
But as to the notion that it's getting worse -- not hardly. If you remember the heyday of Usenet, and of BBSs before that, and before that of snailmail arguments -- today's angry venting is a mere puff of steam by comparison; in the olden days we got fullblown geysers.
And that may be because the flipside of not having a "whap 'em" mechanism, is that the online venters can't force anyone to listen to them, either.
The last time I paid attention, the fail stats I saw were about 3% for the Pill (which not everyone can use; it makes some women ill), and up to 10% for condoms alone (tho condoms plus foam were much better, only about 3% fail rate).
Corporations pay no taxes anyway; that expense is passed directly along to customers. It has to be, like all other expenses, or the corp goes in the hole and out of business.
Most wages are PAID, one way or another, by wealthy people, since they tend to own the businesses that *employ the poor*. Poor people don't PAY wages. So here's a thought: instead of taxing the rich, give them a direct incentive: if you use that money to directly pay wages to workers, it can take the place of income tax, and at a lower rate to boot.
That way everyone gains, except the gov't, which would have to find someone else's money to waste.
found on
http://robertbluey.com/blog/2008/10/25/redistribution-of-wealth-experiment-3/ along with a lot of interesting comments:
Subject: redistribution of wealth
=======
Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read 'Vote Obama, I need the money.' I laughed.
Once in the restaurant my server had on a 'Obama 08' tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference--just imagine the coincidence.
When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.
I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.
At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.
=======
That's because the IRS COLLECTS money, so it has to be relatively efficient.
Other departments SPEND money, and since they're not in charge of acquiring that money, they don't have to be efficient.
Birth control fails somewhere between 3% and 10% of the time, depending on method. However, I agree in principle -- plan, dammit, don't just get buggered by surprise. And if a surprise happens, well, at least you'd tried, and that could be taken into account by the system.
Yeah, but they don't necessarily mean much in undeveloped countries -- and if you're afoot, you don't have to stick to the road.
See my post above ... I actually did the math on one local program that's within my field of expertise, and concluded that it was 75-80% waste both in construction and in ongoing costs.
Sounds like these numbers may well be the norm, rather than anomalies.
But it's more than the broad picture that's hard to pull chunks out of. It's also made up of a lot of relatively small but still very wasteful programs.
One that I've worked out the math for, because it's within my field of expertise -- the new local animal shelter. They built 24 runs plus some workspace for $6 MILLION dollars. For utter contrast, the most lavish facility I could come up with would only cost about $1M to build, and it could be done for as little as $100k using prefab components. Furthermore, they expect to need about 20 employees to maintain it. I figured out that if it were built to be efficient, FOUR employees would be plenty, and that's allowing for one as a supervisor with no hands-on duties, and one as a desk jockey with no other duties. (I maintain a much larger facility all by myself, and it's far from a fulltime job. So I know what I'm talking about.)
In short, about 75% wasted money even at the most lavish construction estimates, and somewhere around 80% wasted as ongoing wages and benefits.
And this isn't the least bit unusual.
Multiply that by thousands of programs throughout every level of government, and what do you conclude now about wasted tax dollars??
Heh, that's about right... perhaps sometimes even "When industry and government have conspired in selling out their country..."
Attributed you are, by the simple method of including the "posted by" slashdot ID header in the copy/paste :)
Great, I'm living in a rerun of a reality show!!