"Maybe I don't want to give up my hard earned cash?"
The problem is not what you earned over your lifetime, it's the massive differences across the population in what you started out with.
How would our society change with a 100% tax on inheritance over XXX? With XXX being set as appropriate, say $200,000 to $300,000? No grand legacy for your children? No obscene concentration of wealth within small groups? I wonder if some people would work noticeably less over their lives? Of course the wealthy would work around it and just give their wealth to their children before they die. So I don't know if this is possible to implement at all...
I know my previous comments were a little caustic, and I'd like to apologise for that.
"and most other people are simply not important enough for anyone else to want to pay attention to "
This claim is generally made by people who have not yet had a run in with the police or the state. What happens is you get involved for something minor, or unrelated, and as part of the shake down that the cops do, they look at every aspect of your life. Here in the UK they just passed a law that everyone's internet traffic is to be logged for 12 months. A lot of people are making comments like yours. What will happen is you end up in police custody and the difference now is that in the past only the "incident" in question would be investigated. Now, the police have access to: all of your financial records, your entire internet history, all of your travel history from the immigration department, and whatever else can be scraped from databases... The police are not your friend. Their job is to hit you with a charge. Period. And they will go over everything you've done. Sure, in some cases it won't make a difference, but this level of scrutiny is (in my opinion) disproportionate to the line of inquiry most people are subjected to by the cops. And of course, it's ripe for abuse. If you don't think the police abuse your power then I can only deduct that you are young and have not yet lived long enough to see it happen.
Ah, we just disagree on pretty much everything here. I don't agree that removing cash makes anything safer at all. Your phone is still valuable, as are your clothes. In areas with *real* street crime you may be beaten up just for the hell of it. Even if all you have are cards, that doesn't stop someone frogmarching you to an ATM at gun/knife point and forcing you to withdraw the max/daily limits from all of your cards. Hell, some street thug may just want a blow job from you or just rape you for the hell of it.
So no, going cashless will not improve safety at all.
This is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. I hit the limits and run afoul of money laundering laws all the time.
Why hasn't this been updated to match inflation?
Was there a larger plan in play all along? Impose the limits knowing that over 50 years the effective value of the limits would drop to the point where more and more individuals would be caught in the drag net?
Or do people just not care?
How does one find out *who* exactly is responsible for these kinds of rules and regs with the banking industry? In my experience the bank always blames them on the government, yet we have a shady interplay between the bank (a private company), the government, the federal reserve (an anointed private company) and "industry groups" which are set up to give the impression of control and restraint when it's really just self regulation.
"Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity."
It was pure deduction based on the poster's attitude. I only lived there for a couple of years, but that was enough to suss out the vibe of the place. In addition, and what made me comment in the first place, I found a lot of the locals almost "anti cash" to quite an extent, and it just didn't make sense. It was as if cash was "uncool".
He will probably find, sadly, a rash of contractual obligations prohibiting him from doing any such thing. What, you thought Microsoft paid good money [no amount available] for a ***name*** ??? Get real, their legal team would have done a total number of the entire operation. Fuck those guys.
You have no idea how the world works. There are very clear definitions of "employer" and "emplyee" in the modern western civilisations. **You** my friend, do not get to redefine them as you see fit.
Now the joke is (am going to add "millenial hipster douche" here since I think that describes you the best) that those laws are there to protect your rights as an employee [no, don't argue the toss, I know you don't employ anyone]. Yet, today's generation seem quite willing to vote or move against their own interests on these matters. Crazy I say!
"but in no way is anyone who chooses to hire an independent contractor actually *obligated* to negotiate with the independent contractor simply so that the person will not somehow be considered an employee."
This is just wrong. Go read some law, or find a really good HR staff member, or failing that, go talk to a lawyer in your country. You will be ?pleasantly? surprised by what they tell you...
He/she is a Vancouver hipster douche. It's rather obvious from the wording of the post. You, my friend, are absolutely correct, the Interac system is fucked.
Fuck off "mark-t" you won't be happy in Vancouver for long. It's a soul-destroying place.
But in terms of electronics payments, what, you think Interac is a guiding light to the future of a cashless society? Why exactly is that Wikipedia page only 289 words long?
Canada is the only country in the world where I opened a bank account, put a few tens of thousands of Canadian dollars in it, and then proceeded to go about my business. Only to discover a few weeks later that I was unable to *receive* any Interac payment over $100 in value because of my "limited relationship with the bank". Fuck you RBC, you're the most user-hostile banking institution that I have ever known, and that includes the Australian banks, who are absolutely a bunch of right cunts.
"or, heck, by then who knows how many planets Mankind will have spread across, "
You're a space nutter. If you think we're going anywhere within the next few thousand years you are grossly mistaken. The physics doesn't allow it.
As for your arguments against leap seconds. I hear you, and I understand your argument. The point is: the correction can be applied on an arbitrary timescale. Do we apply nanoseconds every few weeks? Or minutes every 30-100 years? Or something in between? Unless there is some other compelling reason, the leap-second represents a fair compromise between the timing resolution required and the period of updates.
Windows has always abused Linux bootloaders, but generally only during installs.
So one has to wonder: wtf is a Windows update messing about with the bootloader at all? Perhaps the update damaged the installation, and the mindless "auto repair" features at the next boot mangled the bootloader? What a productivity killer...
I agree with you entirely, but it's a separate argument. It's similar to reflecting on whether scientists should undertake certain types of research. The media loves to ham these arguments up with a "should we study this?" style of reporting. All along, however, such decisions have always been social/political and are entirely separate to whether we should know something or not.
So yes, we should find out whether personalised medicine works and if so, how much more effective it is. Then, as a society, we should choose whether it is worthwhile or not. As it stands, this process happens all the time in medicine at the moment with all kinds of treatments being unavailable due to economic justification. I'm not arguing for any single one either way, but I do think it is important to do.
Of course, if we're going to go off on a tangent, you may want to reflect on the health care system in the US. The actual system there is the fundamental problem with your poor health care (see infant mortality figures) and exorbitant costs. I'm not saying that anywhere else in the world is perfect, but when you're coming last, it makes sense to at least imitate some things from those in front.
I recommend this movie as a good starting point. Love or hate the guy, in my experience he's certainly worth listening to.
If they really cared (and I'm guessing they don't) the narcos as you call them could acquire the equipment they need to shoot these down, and then enjoy a nice game of attrition while they burn through $17 million of US taxpayer's dollars with every single strike.
Even the association between activity and body weight is not conclusive. Are people active because they are slim or slim because they are active? On a population level it is difficult to determine.
This Horizon program from the BBC is excellent viewing for those interested in such things.
I always thought the ultimate threat was that due to the wide ranging powers of HMRC they have the ability to impound the merchandise, as well as the payment.
So yes, I see what you're saying, but they could certainly shut down your operation.
I should have added: in addition to paying duty on imported goods, you may also have to pay "import VAT". This page explains it all.
PS: In my experience while their online documentation isn't too bad, HMRC are completely fucking useless to talk to. I once had a personal semi-complex tax query for them and rang them up, after being on hold for an hour I was connected to a staff member who was completely unable to answer the question in any way, and the only path to resolution was for me to put it in writing, post it in, and wait six months for them to reply with a yes/no answer. I guess the Brits love their bureaucracy!
VAT registration. Basically you must collect VAT on behalf of the UK government if you sell in excess of £83,000 per year.
There is also a very helpful page that outlines what to do if you are selling goods into the UK from outside, which is called "distance selling". Basically, if you sell under £70,000 of goods per year into the UK then you don't have to do anything.
Note that VAT is not duty and is a separate tax. Duty is payable on many items, and if you buy something online and it gets delivered to you, then you are typically responsible for paying the duty on it. Here in the UK it is not uncommon to have your parcel withheld at the post office until you pay the duty. The duty threshold is £20 which is absolutely ridiculous. The Australian threshold for GST is $1000, which "feels" much more reasonable.
I can tell you're quite incensed from your line of questions.
But none of the issues you have raised reflect actual objections to making residency a requirement for voting. If you understood anything about residency you will find that it is already clearly defined in many countries.
But why do you even think that's the "right way" to do it? Surely residents should have a fair say in any election. The problem regarding "illegals" is not whether they can vote or not, it's whether they're in the country in the first place. Actually, I'll go a step further, the fundamental problem is that everyone in the US is so quick to point the finger at illegals, yet I rarely (if ever) hear any talk of prosecuting those businesses that hire them.
Anyway, for what it's worth, I'd rather support a system that allowed anyone living locally to vote, while denying anyone living outside of the country (citizen or not) from voting.
Slashdot Mirror
I think people have just stopped learning about governance, civics, history, and social sciences in school.
It's already a "post truth" world my friend.
"Maybe I don't want to give up my hard earned cash?"
The problem is not what you earned over your lifetime, it's the massive differences across the population in what you started out with.
How would our society change with a 100% tax on inheritance over XXX? With XXX being set as appropriate, say $200,000 to $300,000? No grand legacy for your children? No obscene concentration of wealth within small groups? I wonder if some people would work noticeably less over their lives? Of course the wealthy would work around it and just give their wealth to their children before they die. So I don't know if this is possible to implement at all...
I know my previous comments were a little caustic, and I'd like to apologise for that.
"and most other people are simply not important enough for anyone else to want to pay attention to "
This claim is generally made by people who have not yet had a run in with the police or the state. What happens is you get involved for something minor, or unrelated, and as part of the shake down that the cops do, they look at every aspect of your life. Here in the UK they just passed a law that everyone's internet traffic is to be logged for 12 months. A lot of people are making comments like yours. What will happen is you end up in police custody and the difference now is that in the past only the "incident" in question would be investigated. Now, the police have access to: all of your financial records, your entire internet history, all of your travel history from the immigration department, and whatever else can be scraped from databases... The police are not your friend. Their job is to hit you with a charge. Period. And they will go over everything you've done. Sure, in some cases it won't make a difference, but this level of scrutiny is (in my opinion) disproportionate to the line of inquiry most people are subjected to by the cops. And of course, it's ripe for abuse. If you don't think the police abuse your power then I can only deduct that you are young and have not yet lived long enough to see it happen.
Ah, we just disagree on pretty much everything here. I don't agree that removing cash makes anything safer at all. Your phone is still valuable, as are your clothes. In areas with *real* street crime you may be beaten up just for the hell of it. Even if all you have are cards, that doesn't stop someone frogmarching you to an ATM at gun/knife point and forcing you to withdraw the max/daily limits from all of your cards. Hell, some street thug may just want a blow job from you or just rape you for the hell of it.
So no, going cashless will not improve safety at all.
This is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. I hit the limits and run afoul of money laundering laws all the time.
Why hasn't this been updated to match inflation?
Was there a larger plan in play all along? Impose the limits knowing that over 50 years the effective value of the limits would drop to the point where more and more individuals would be caught in the drag net?
Or do people just not care?
How does one find out *who* exactly is responsible for these kinds of rules and regs with the banking industry? In my experience the bank always blames them on the government, yet we have a shady interplay between the bank (a private company), the government, the federal reserve (an anointed private company) and "industry groups" which are set up to give the impression of control and restraint when it's really just self regulation.
The guy is right. From the link:
"Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity."
It was pure deduction based on the poster's attitude. I only lived there for a couple of years, but that was enough to suss out the vibe of the place. In addition, and what made me comment in the first place, I found a lot of the locals almost "anti cash" to quite an extent, and it just didn't make sense. It was as if cash was "uncool".
He will probably find, sadly, a rash of contractual obligations prohibiting him from doing any such thing. What, you thought Microsoft paid good money [no amount available] for a ***name*** ??? Get real, their legal team would have done a total number of the entire operation. Fuck those guys.
You have no idea how the world works. There are very clear definitions of "employer" and "emplyee" in the modern western civilisations. **You** my friend, do not get to redefine them as you see fit.
Now the joke is (am going to add "millenial hipster douche" here since I think that describes you the best) that those laws are there to protect your rights as an employee [no, don't argue the toss, I know you don't employ anyone]. Yet, today's generation seem quite willing to vote or move against their own interests on these matters. Crazy I say!
"but in no way is anyone who chooses to hire an independent contractor actually *obligated* to negotiate with the independent contractor simply so that the person will not somehow be considered an employee."
This is just wrong. Go read some law, or find a really good HR staff member, or failing that, go talk to a lawyer in your country. You will be ?pleasantly? surprised by what they tell you...
He/she is a Vancouver hipster douche. It's rather obvious from the wording of the post. You, my friend, are absolutely correct, the Interac system is fucked.
Fuck off "mark-t" you won't be happy in Vancouver for long. It's a soul-destroying place.
But in terms of electronics payments, what, you think Interac is a guiding light to the future of a cashless society? Why exactly is that Wikipedia page only 289 words long?
Canada is the only country in the world where I opened a bank account, put a few tens of thousands of Canadian dollars in it, and then proceeded to go about my business. Only to discover a few weeks later that I was unable to *receive* any Interac payment over $100 in value because of my "limited relationship with the bank". Fuck you RBC, you're the most user-hostile banking institution that I have ever known, and that includes the Australian banks, who are absolutely a bunch of right cunts.
No.
"or, heck, by then who knows how many planets Mankind will have spread across, "
You're a space nutter. If you think we're going anywhere within the next few thousand years you are grossly mistaken. The physics doesn't allow it.
As for your arguments against leap seconds. I hear you, and I understand your argument. The point is: the correction can be applied on an arbitrary timescale. Do we apply nanoseconds every few weeks? Or minutes every 30-100 years? Or something in between? Unless there is some other compelling reason, the leap-second represents a fair compromise between the timing resolution required and the period of updates.
Why would anyone upgrade a single day before the long term extended support period ends in 2020?
Windows has always abused Linux bootloaders, but generally only during installs.
So one has to wonder: wtf is a Windows update messing about with the bootloader at all? Perhaps the update damaged the installation, and the mindless "auto repair" features at the next boot mangled the bootloader? What a productivity killer...
Free market ideas don't work when a cadre of professional doctors make these decisions on your behalf.
C'mon, we don't know what he rolled on his dexterity saving throw. He may have escaped with half of that!
I agree with you entirely, but it's a separate argument. It's similar to reflecting on whether scientists should undertake certain types of research. The media loves to ham these arguments up with a "should we study this?" style of reporting. All along, however, such decisions have always been social/political and are entirely separate to whether we should know something or not.
So yes, we should find out whether personalised medicine works and if so, how much more effective it is. Then, as a society, we should choose whether it is worthwhile or not. As it stands, this process happens all the time in medicine at the moment with all kinds of treatments being unavailable due to economic justification. I'm not arguing for any single one either way, but I do think it is important to do.
Of course, if we're going to go off on a tangent, you may want to reflect on the health care system in the US. The actual system there is the fundamental problem with your poor health care (see infant mortality figures) and exorbitant costs. I'm not saying that anywhere else in the world is perfect, but when you're coming last, it makes sense to at least imitate some things from those in front.
I recommend this movie as a good starting point. Love or hate the guy, in my experience he's certainly worth listening to.
It's also extremely expensive.
If they really cared (and I'm guessing they don't) the narcos as you call them could acquire the equipment they need to shoot these down, and then enjoy a nice game of attrition while they burn through $17 million of US taxpayer's dollars with every single strike.
Best comment in the thread.
Even the association between activity and body weight is not conclusive. Are people active because they are slim or slim because they are active? On a population level it is difficult to determine.
This Horizon program from the BBC is excellent viewing for those interested in such things.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01cywtq
"Unless you intend to specifically analyse, combat and treat individual microbiomes in the stomach of every patient"
That's exactly where treatment is heading.
Personalised medicine is a huge emerging field and makes an awful lot of sense once you think about it.
I always thought the ultimate threat was that due to the wide ranging powers of HMRC they have the ability to impound the merchandise, as well as the payment.
So yes, I see what you're saying, but they could certainly shut down your operation.
I should have added: in addition to paying duty on imported goods, you may also have to pay "import VAT". This page explains it all.
PS: In my experience while their online documentation isn't too bad, HMRC are completely fucking useless to talk to. I once had a personal semi-complex tax query for them and rang them up, after being on hold for an hour I was connected to a staff member who was completely unable to answer the question in any way, and the only path to resolution was for me to put it in writing, post it in, and wait six months for them to reply with a yes/no answer. I guess the Brits love their bureaucracy!
In addition, this is all clearly defined by HMRC.
VAT registration. Basically you must collect VAT on behalf of the UK government if you sell in excess of £83,000 per year.
There is also a very helpful page that outlines what to do if you are selling goods into the UK from outside, which is called "distance selling". Basically, if you sell under £70,000 of goods per year into the UK then you don't have to do anything.
Note that VAT is not duty and is a separate tax. Duty is payable on many items, and if you buy something online and it gets delivered to you, then you are typically responsible for paying the duty on it. Here in the UK it is not uncommon to have your parcel withheld at the post office until you pay the duty. The duty threshold is £20 which is absolutely ridiculous. The Australian threshold for GST is $1000, which "feels" much more reasonable.
I can tell you're quite incensed from your line of questions.
But none of the issues you have raised reflect actual objections to making residency a requirement for voting. If you understood anything about residency you will find that it is already clearly defined in many countries.
But why do you even think that's the "right way" to do it? Surely residents should have a fair say in any election. The problem regarding "illegals" is not whether they can vote or not, it's whether they're in the country in the first place. Actually, I'll go a step further, the fundamental problem is that everyone in the US is so quick to point the finger at illegals, yet I rarely (if ever) hear any talk of prosecuting those businesses that hire them.
Anyway, for what it's worth, I'd rather support a system that allowed anyone living locally to vote, while denying anyone living outside of the country (citizen or not) from voting.