When you get 100 applications for ten entry-level management positions, you can't interview everyone. A friend of mine worked for PriceWaterhouseCoopers right out of college. One year out of school, she and another recent grad were set to sort and interview applicants. For three positions, they had 80 applicants. The first round consisted of throwing out everything on flowery paper, anything resume with obvious typos, and anyone with less than a 3.0. That's a general IQ test.
You can't give people IQ tests (or similar) in the US to sort the ones who can hack it from those who can't. You can only give very narrowly-tailored exams regarding the subject of the job itself, which isn't much use when you're hiring apprentice bankers and want to know who will be a good branch manager in a few years. This is a result of Griggs v. Duke Power, which like many other civil rights decisions is a very noble attempt to rectify racism that ended up having enormous undesirable consequences for the country as a whole. The vast majority of jobs don't need a college education; they just need an intelligent person. But since they can't test for general intelligence, companies rely on colleges to do the sorting.
You can have PRK, which doesn't involve a flap. LASIK, I believe, has better outcomes, but anyone without perfect vision already can't fly fighters - so if it's the only chance you have...
When I was 10 I had the run of the neighborhood (about a mile in any direction). I didn't even have to tell my parents where I was going, just that I was going out and would be back before dinner.
nobody in the developed world *needs* a mobile phone, since there are payphones and landlines.
The birth of the mobile phone era has killed payphones. I'm sure they're still there in a few places, but most of them have been removed. Businesses still have land lines, but homes increasingly don't.
People who hate Wal-Mart are people who have never been poor or had to shop in the boondocks. I'd agree with you that the handful of Wal-Mart employees I've met have actually been quite happy with their jobs, thought it was a good company to work for - especially because they promote from within.
There is plenty of money in durability. I buy nice, expensive things when I'm using them all the time, because the investment in durability is worth it. OTOH, there are plenty of times where relatively low quality is more than adequate for the job.
I once bought a food processor for $30 from Walmart. A Cuisinart of the same size would have cost about $250. It would have had more blades, it would have had a more powerful motor, it would have looked better, and it would undoubtedly have been very, very durable. On the other hand, that food processor that my wife just had to have (even though she doesn't cook) has been used a grand total of five times. As far as I'm concerned, they saved me $220. If I had bought the expensive one, it would have been expensive unused crap.
It's a whopping one-minute ride. Methinks he underestimates how long the brain can survive anoxia without permanent damage (hint: close to five minutes). If you physically came through the ride, you'd return to consciousness somewhere in the runout area, feeling like crap.
Recreational drugs - even nitrous oxide - don't produce euphoria via anoxia. Breathing pure nitrogen would probably be exactly like breathing air except you pass out.
The analog equipment is gone-baby-gone from the cell towers, though if you were a sufficiently resourceful enemy you could track the emissions my car is making with your own fleet of aerial drones.
Procedures vary, but a quick Google suggests various ways to turn OnStar off for numerous vehicles (as simple as pulling a fuse, as complicated as tracking down the OnStar module and disconnecting all the wires). I have an OnStar vehicle, but it was never updated from analog cellular (which no longer exists), so it's moot in my case.
If a $20M retainer is a problem for a key component of your business model (and given how aggressively the government has gone after online poker, the lawyers are key), then I'd say you're grossly undercapitalized.
The usual argument here is that they are performing a more useful function by putting that money in new ventures than merely collecting interest on longer-term corporate and muni bonds. There's a different one that I think is more explanatory: rich people will control any form of government, because they have the most to lose. You can have the rich run government directly, as in aristocracy/monarchy. Or you can accept that anyone who goes into government will end up rich, as in the US today. Someone with their hands on the levers of power can and will use their power and knowledge in ways that work to their own benefit, and not all such actions are illegal. Given that, the country as a whole is better off if we figure out how to make their money do good things for the rest of us. Low capital gains taxes are merely one such method.
Although I'd argue that doubling the tax rate (and actually, it's more than that - you may pay 28% marginal rate, but I'm paying 35% and soon to be more) isn't a "minor hit" (it's roughly 1/6 of ROI), that's not the point here. You keep assuming that everything makes money. It doesn't. The unique treatment of capital gains (can be offset by capital losses, e.g.) means that there is an incentive to put money into things (like new businesses) that will result in capital gains (as they get bigger). The alternative is a system in which dividends are tax-favored, which tends to support existing businesses that have already worked out how to provide dividends while harming those new ones that have nothing to offer to investors but equity.
You can't ignore risk, though. It's a crucial part of determining what rate of return you will demand before you invest your money in something. Having lower capital gains tax rates encourages capital investments (as opposed to dividend-paying investments).
Savings where the *earnings* on those savings are taxed as income will still make more money than cash.
Well, unless they lose money. It does happen. Under the current regime, you can carry forward capital losses from year to year but can use them to offset only $3000/year of regular income (though you can use them in toto against any capital gains). Getting rid of the special taxation status of capital gains would encourage enormously risk-averse investing - and we want more money at risk, because those risky new projects are the ones we want to encourage.
New businesses aren't the only ones that need capital, though. You may dislike treating long term capital gains as different from other income, but it actually does encourage investing in companies.
There is also the issue of saving for retirement. Not all money goes in deferred accounts like 401k's and IRAs. Without the lower tax rate for long term capital gains, you're going to take a much worse hit on those savings (35% every time you turn it over, and remember it has to be held for 18 months to qualify for the lower long term rate rather than as ordinary income).
If your primary capital gain is an appreciation in property values, then you're not in the economic group we're talking about here.
Long-term capital gains taxes are kept low in order to make investing in businesses a desirable option. After all, new businesses are riskier investments, considerably more risky than just going out and working a job for someone else. That doesn't mean that this isn't exploited, or that it doesn't induce some of its own disturbances in the economy, but there's the logic.
Yes, but the thing about the Warren Buffetts of the world is that there are just so few of them that they don't matter when we talk about taxation in the US. You could tax them at 100% and it still wouldn't raise that much revenue. The entire Walton family fortune, if confiscated, could run the government for about a week.
Taxes are paid by middle- and upper-middle-class professionals, just like they always have been, because that's where the money is. And they're the ones who are going to take it in the gut.
He sells quite a lot of insurance (and reinsurance) - though a quick run through Google doesn't turn up any hard numbers. Life insurance, of course, isn't subject to estate tax.
No kidding. That email was a spin-fest from the beginning and the executive team should be roasted about it at the next shareholders' meeting. It insulted the hell out of customers. If they had said something like "yes, streaming has gotten a lot more expensive for us to do, if you want to do it you're going to have to pay more - a lot more," then customers would not have been happy - but they wouldn't have been condescended to like a group of fourth graders. (Hint to fourth-graders: they're treating you badly because you're too young to be able to fight back. They're bullies. Remember that when you grow up - people who bully kids are, without exception, assholes. As a corollary, be kind to the teachers who treat you like a young, unwise, but nonetheless real and valuable person, because they're actually looking out for you.)
And, of course, now that people have realized that hijacking may equal being flown into a building, the technique will never work again - it didn't even work against all its targets that day.
Of course you can shop around. If you're in Brooklyn, you're probably going to go for JFK, but someone out on Long Island is going to consider Islip. And your airport authority can shop around, too.
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When you get 100 applications for ten entry-level management positions, you can't interview everyone. A friend of mine worked for PriceWaterhouseCoopers right out of college. One year out of school, she and another recent grad were set to sort and interview applicants. For three positions, they had 80 applicants. The first round consisted of throwing out everything on flowery paper, anything resume with obvious typos, and anyone with less than a 3.0. That's a general IQ test.
You can't give people IQ tests (or similar) in the US to sort the ones who can hack it from those who can't. You can only give very narrowly-tailored exams regarding the subject of the job itself, which isn't much use when you're hiring apprentice bankers and want to know who will be a good branch manager in a few years. This is a result of Griggs v. Duke Power, which like many other civil rights decisions is a very noble attempt to rectify racism that ended up having enormous undesirable consequences for the country as a whole. The vast majority of jobs don't need a college education; they just need an intelligent person. But since they can't test for general intelligence, companies rely on colleges to do the sorting.
You can have PRK, which doesn't involve a flap. LASIK, I believe, has better outcomes, but anyone without perfect vision already can't fly fighters - so if it's the only chance you have...
When I was 10 I had the run of the neighborhood (about a mile in any direction). I didn't even have to tell my parents where I was going, just that I was going out and would be back before dinner.
nobody in the developed world *needs* a mobile phone, since there are payphones and landlines.
The birth of the mobile phone era has killed payphones. I'm sure they're still there in a few places, but most of them have been removed. Businesses still have land lines, but homes increasingly don't.
People who hate Wal-Mart are people who have never been poor or had to shop in the boondocks. I'd agree with you that the handful of Wal-Mart employees I've met have actually been quite happy with their jobs, thought it was a good company to work for - especially because they promote from within.
If retail sales is the only job market in your community, it's already dead.
There is plenty of money in durability. I buy nice, expensive things when I'm using them all the time, because the investment in durability is worth it. OTOH, there are plenty of times where relatively low quality is more than adequate for the job.
I once bought a food processor for $30 from Walmart. A Cuisinart of the same size would have cost about $250. It would have had more blades, it would have had a more powerful motor, it would have looked better, and it would undoubtedly have been very, very durable. On the other hand, that food processor that my wife just had to have (even though she doesn't cook) has been used a grand total of five times. As far as I'm concerned, they saved me $220. If I had bought the expensive one, it would have been expensive unused crap.
It's a whopping one-minute ride. Methinks he underestimates how long the brain can survive anoxia without permanent damage (hint: close to five minutes). If you physically came through the ride, you'd return to consciousness somewhere in the runout area, feeling like crap.
Recreational drugs - even nitrous oxide - don't produce euphoria via anoxia. Breathing pure nitrogen would probably be exactly like breathing air except you pass out.
The analog equipment is gone-baby-gone from the cell towers, though if you were a sufficiently resourceful enemy you could track the emissions my car is making with your own fleet of aerial drones.
Procedures vary, but a quick Google suggests various ways to turn OnStar off for numerous vehicles (as simple as pulling a fuse, as complicated as tracking down the OnStar module and disconnecting all the wires). I have an OnStar vehicle, but it was never updated from analog cellular (which no longer exists), so it's moot in my case.
If a $20M retainer is a problem for a key component of your business model (and given how aggressively the government has gone after online poker, the lawyers are key), then I'd say you're grossly undercapitalized.
The usual argument here is that they are performing a more useful function by putting that money in new ventures than merely collecting interest on longer-term corporate and muni bonds. There's a different one that I think is more explanatory: rich people will control any form of government, because they have the most to lose. You can have the rich run government directly, as in aristocracy/monarchy. Or you can accept that anyone who goes into government will end up rich, as in the US today. Someone with their hands on the levers of power can and will use their power and knowledge in ways that work to their own benefit, and not all such actions are illegal. Given that, the country as a whole is better off if we figure out how to make their money do good things for the rest of us. Low capital gains taxes are merely one such method.
Although I'd argue that doubling the tax rate (and actually, it's more than that - you may pay 28% marginal rate, but I'm paying 35% and soon to be more) isn't a "minor hit" (it's roughly 1/6 of ROI), that's not the point here. You keep assuming that everything makes money. It doesn't. The unique treatment of capital gains (can be offset by capital losses, e.g.) means that there is an incentive to put money into things (like new businesses) that will result in capital gains (as they get bigger). The alternative is a system in which dividends are tax-favored, which tends to support existing businesses that have already worked out how to provide dividends while harming those new ones that have nothing to offer to investors but equity.
Savings where the *earnings* on those savings are taxed as income will still make more money than cash.
Well, unless they lose money. It does happen. Under the current regime, you can carry forward capital losses from year to year but can use them to offset only $3000/year of regular income (though you can use them in toto against any capital gains). Getting rid of the special taxation status of capital gains would encourage enormously risk-averse investing - and we want more money at risk, because those risky new projects are the ones we want to encourage.
New businesses aren't the only ones that need capital, though. You may dislike treating long term capital gains as different from other income, but it actually does encourage investing in companies.
There is also the issue of saving for retirement. Not all money goes in deferred accounts like 401k's and IRAs. Without the lower tax rate for long term capital gains, you're going to take a much worse hit on those savings (35% every time you turn it over, and remember it has to be held for 18 months to qualify for the lower long term rate rather than as ordinary income).
If your primary capital gain is an appreciation in property values, then you're not in the economic group we're talking about here.
Long-term capital gains taxes are kept low in order to make investing in businesses a desirable option. After all, new businesses are riskier investments, considerably more risky than just going out and working a job for someone else. That doesn't mean that this isn't exploited, or that it doesn't induce some of its own disturbances in the economy, but there's the logic.
Yes, but the thing about the Warren Buffetts of the world is that there are just so few of them that they don't matter when we talk about taxation in the US. You could tax them at 100% and it still wouldn't raise that much revenue. The entire Walton family fortune, if confiscated, could run the government for about a week.
Taxes are paid by middle- and upper-middle-class professionals, just like they always have been, because that's where the money is. And they're the ones who are going to take it in the gut.
He sells quite a lot of insurance (and reinsurance) - though a quick run through Google doesn't turn up any hard numbers. Life insurance, of course, isn't subject to estate tax.
The neural tube closes at day 27 post fertilization. That's about two weeks after the mother misses her period.
No kidding. That email was a spin-fest from the beginning and the executive team should be roasted about it at the next shareholders' meeting. It insulted the hell out of customers. If they had said something like "yes, streaming has gotten a lot more expensive for us to do, if you want to do it you're going to have to pay more - a lot more," then customers would not have been happy - but they wouldn't have been condescended to like a group of fourth graders. (Hint to fourth-graders: they're treating you badly because you're too young to be able to fight back. They're bullies. Remember that when you grow up - people who bully kids are, without exception, assholes. As a corollary, be kind to the teachers who treat you like a young, unwise, but nonetheless real and valuable person, because they're actually looking out for you.)
And, of course, now that people have realized that hijacking may equal being flown into a building, the technique will never work again - it didn't even work against all its targets that day.
What exactly do you get in the high-tax areas other than better schools (which are largely locally-funded anyway)? Slightly better roads?
The attractiveness of low-tax places is that you have more of your own money to buy what you care about, instead of what everyone else cares about.
Of course you can shop around. If you're in Brooklyn, you're probably going to go for JFK, but someone out on Long Island is going to consider Islip. And your airport authority can shop around, too.