...to encourage investing in the long term, something that is not limited to the wealthy (and if it is, how do you think they got that way?)
I think the capital gains tax on long term investments should be lower than the income tax rate, but not that much lower. Instead of strengthening the middle class, it weakens the middle class and strengthens those that are already rich.
I'd rather be able to choose not to contribute at all, and handle my own retirement planning
The problem is, the people that need Social Security the most in their old age just plain didn't make enough money to have a reasonable saving rate. You and I could do tremendously better managing our Social Security contributions as investments, but even if someone making $20,000 a year knows enough about investing to do well they just can't save enough to retire unless they spend 40 years in a cardboard box.
Badnarik doesn't have much on the topic on his official website. According to this transcript of an interview he supports intellectual property for the life of the creator but doesn't give much detail. (What about something from a corporate employee? Does it last for the length of his employment, his life, or the existence of the corporation?)
It's a very important question. Ayn Rand was generally looney, but I very much like her suggested 7 year limit on all forms of intellectual property ownership. On the other hand, many libertarians supported unlimited ownership of intellectual property.
No, but according to the Libertarian party platform: "In particular, we would eliminate special limits on the liability of corporations for damages caused in non-contractual transactions."
I would think that could mitigate at least somewhat the damage corporations would do with reduced government oversight. Whether it would reduce it enough to matter... I don't know.
Personally, I think Big Government and Big Business have their hands so far down each others' pants that any division between the two is artificial. The public should consider whether corporations that have to operate without government oversight but also without the benefit of pork might be preferable. It's not an easy question.
1. The long term capital gains tax rate is 15%, substantially lower than the 25, 28, 33, and 35% tax brackets that affect people making $29,000 and up.
2. The Social Security tax, and the hidden employer contribution, is capped at $87,000 income. The people making over $87,000 a year pay proportionately the least to Social Security, will require its benefits the least, and stand the collect the most in payout.
I'm not a flat tax advocate - I'm just pointing out that thanks to long term capital gains and Social Security our current system often taxes the middle class proportionately more than the rich.
If the car bounces off whatever it hits, you rattle around the interior like marbles in a coffee can.
Crumple zones exist on new cars for a reason. The more kinetic energy absorbed by warping the car's frame, the less remains to transfer between the occupants and the rest of the car in a bloody impact.
It's good to question assertions presented without evidence.
However, research the automotive industry. Ford and GM recently spent several hundred millions of dollars on a joint plant to make 6 speed automatic transmissions, which offer less than 20% fuel economy enhancements over 4 speed automatics.
BMW dropped untold millions in its new valvetronic technology, which in their next generation inline 6 cylinder engine gives a 12% boost to economy. They also have a gasoline direct injection technology on their 760 executive sedan, which improves fuel economy about 20% and may be incorporated into their lower end models.
Chrysler has (or will soon) release a version of their 'hemi' V8 engine that deactivates some cylinders under light loads for an 8% fuel economy increase. GM is reintroducing the same technology on their V6 and V8 engines.
Supposedly, until this year Toyota was selling the Prius gas electric hybrid at a financial loss, in order to stir interest in the concept and serve as a marketplace sign of their cutting edge position in automotive technology.
Before you assume the automakers are too cheap to implement truly efficient technologies, you have to ask why they would waste billions developing relatively modest improvements. If they could double mileage in a straightforward fashion, why haven't they done it already? The first company that does do it would have a tremendous marketplace advantage.
The parent poster wasn't the one making an unjustified assertion that GM can make cars 2-2.5 times as efficient more cheaply than current models.
Why don't you back up your own statements before condemning someone else for theirs?
And Ultralite implies very low weight. Below a certain threshold, any car not made out of extremely strong (and expensive) materials will fare poorly in a crash. I'd rather not get my wife and son killed when a deer jumps out in front of us?
Hybrids are great for the environment, but cost-wise they are still more hype than substance.
You can get a Toyota Prius for $21,000 or a Corolla, which is only a bit smaller, for $15,000. If you take EPA numbers, the Prius averages 55 mpg while the Corolla (with a manual) averages about 37. In 200,000 miles of driving, the Corolla uses about 1800 more gallons of fuel than the Prius. Even at $3 per gallon, that still doesn't make the Prius more cost effective, especially when you consider that the Corolla is also cheaper to insure the entire time.
Yeah, but the funning thing is, when Amish people get in serious accidents they use modern hospitals anyway. Maybe that's because if they didn't, they would die.
I'll keep my high tech lifestyle, thank you very much.
It is my understanding that producing enough (m)ethanol to supply all of the US automotive energy needs would require using some outrageous fraction of all of the land in the entire country to grow the plants required in its manufacture.
Sounds good on paper, and I support using at least some because it will help, but it won't work as a general solution.
My wife and I live in a 1900 square foot converted barn on 2 acres of land about 50 miles from Philadelphia. We bought it for $180,000, and the property taxes are less than $3,000 per year. My wife commutes for 10 minutes, but it takes me an hour to get to the Philly suburb where I work.
The commute is a pain. If I could take public transportation, I would. It's still worth it because our house is a dream home compared to what we could afford in or near the city.
If we had one car and car payments instead of two, drove a total of 1,000 miles per month instead of 3,500, and had proportionately cheaper car insurance, it would probably save us about $650 per month. Even with $650 extra towards the mortgage and property taxes, we couldn't afford a home like ours closer to Philly. Hell, we would barely be able to afford the two acres of land.
But this can easily become a reduction to the absurd argument.
Why don't we ban newspapers? Why don't we euthanize everyone diagnosed with a terminal illness? Why don't we outlaw living in any home larger than an efficiency apartment? Why don't we ban flying, and vacations with it? Why don't we ban sports cars? My friend with the 6000 pound Ford Expedition gets better gas mileage than my boss with his G35 coupe and a lead foot. Why don't we make airconditioning usable by permit only, in cases of medical necessity? Why don't we ban booze, and cigarettes, and meat, and pastries, since there are better uses for the resources that make those things? Why don't we ban sedans as well, and make everyone ride bikes or motorcycles?
Americans waste energy and other resources at a staggering rate. Why does everyone so much on the SUVs, when there's dozens of other problems?
98% of the naturally aspirated, 2 liter 4 cylinder engines in the road make much less than the S2000's 240 horsepower, and since they're not in performance cars they also use much taller gearing.
With the arguable exception of the Rotary in the RX8 - which is a quite different engine type - no other unmodified, naturally aspirated car gets the same horsepower to liter numbers.
On the other hand, the engine in the S2000 weighs about 350 pounds. The Corvette 5.7 liter LS6 engine weighs less than 500 pounds. It loses terribly to the S2000 for horsepower per liter of engine displacement, but kicks its ass into next week in horsepower per pound of engine weight.
In 1987 my parents bought a fullsize Ford van with a V6. At the time, the vans weighed around 4400 pounds empty (interestingly enough, most modern minivans weigh that much). We lived in a hilly area of Pennsylvania, and the thing was painfully slow on hills and got abysmal mileage. Mileage on long trips with flat stretches of road were fine.
In 1999 they bought a new fullsize Ford van with the optional V8. The van is about 5400 pounds empty. The performance in the hilly sections is fine, and gas mileage around town is actually 3 mpg better than it was for the old van. Highway mileage is the same, too.
Now if only there was more leg room for the driver, and the floor anchors for the rear seats were in the floor instead of above it. What a pain.
My father in law has a Mustang with 390 rear wheel horsepower and really short
He figures he can pace a Ferrari Enzo until his engine bounces off the rev limiter at 115 mph in 5th gear. After that, of course, the Ferrari keeps right on rocketing up to 200. But since his car and its mods cost less than $25,000, he figures he got a better deal.
I've found many places that are better than Starbucks for coffee, but only a bare handful that make tastier versions of the other coffee-related drinks in a timely fashion. I can walk into my local Starbucks with ten people ahead of me in line, order an iced Venti Non-Fat Decaf Soymilk Caramel Machiato with a shot of Espresso and still exit with my drink in under three minutes.
On the other hand, it's just too damn expensive and I rarely go more than once a week. If I took my Starbucks small frappaccino budget to Dunkin Donuts, I could drown myself in iced coffee on a daily basis. Plus, Dunkin Donuts' plain old coffee tastes much better in my humble opinion.
To get a car that handles superbly around curves, the traditional requirement is either rear wheel drive with LSD (That's Limited Slip Differential, not the drug) or else all wheel drive. Giving the Scion either would probably cost more than selling it and replacing it with a car that already has one of those setups, like a Lexus IS 300.
I don't mean to discourage you. With the right modifications almost any front wheel drive car can be blazingly fast in a straight line and respectably quick around curves. But making a tC keep pace with, say, a $23,000 Subaru WRX on a twisty road course would be a real challenge.
A few suggestions:
How Stuff Works has a good section on auto technology explaining the basics.
There are tech talk discussion forums where you can ask questions at many magazine websites. My current favorite is the 'Combustion Chamber' at Auto Week, and aside from the registration it is free.
(If you find anything better, please let me know.)
One thing to remember about Horsepower TV is that they focus on a lot of muscle cars with pushrod engines. I personally am a big fan of pushrod engines (there are lots of pushrod vs. over head camshaft discussions on various forums), but the valvetrain layout is different enough from overhead cams that you can get confused comparing the two.
A lot of the hot rod magazines have free tech articles that give explanations on the magazine website.
I think it's partially a size issue. The modern Playboy (and porn in general) idealized girl is quite thin. I wouldn't say emaciated or necessarily anorexic, but definitely skinny.
With a few lucky exceptions, women that thin will have tiny breasts. Hence the reliance on implants.
I much prefer the sex symbols of the 60s or 70s, who were naturally curvaceous and feminine without being unhealthy or obese. If you dressed the modern sex symbol in casual clothes and removed her implants, you could mistake her for a teenage boy. No thanks!
For me it's a size issue. Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch, etc... etc... were all at least 20 pounds heavier than your average modern Playmate of the same height. They had curves.
When I look at modern Playmates, it looks like a 13 year old boy with breast implants and his genitals airbrushed away. *shudder* No thanks.
As others have said, in the average Playboy you're lucky to find 10 pages of nudie pics. If you spend your $3-$5 on a magazine for 10 pages' worth of pictures, you're an idiot.
Juggs, Hustler, etc... provide much more picture for your dollar. (Let alone websites.)
Incidentally, I agree that the Playboy chicks generally aren't that attractive. The pictures are so perfectly smooth, blemish-free, and artificial it looks like someone just posed the toys from realdoll.com. No thanks.
You probably don't, as a rule, do much city driving in your motorhome. (You don't use it as a day driver, right?) So you're comparing mostly highway mileage on your motorhome to mostly city mileage on the H2. It still gets 10 mpg or better on the highway.
As we already established, AWD can sap power. The motorhome doesn't have it, the H2 does.
The H2 has a curb weight of 6400 pounds. I don't know the weight of your motor home, but unless it's positively monstrous I doubt the whole thing weighs 32,000 pounds.
You are talking about gasoline fuel, right? The H2 uses gas, while diesel is at least 30% more power dense. (e.g. a fullsize pickup with a gas engine typically gets 10-12 mpg, while a fullsize pickup with a diesel usually does better than 15).... but it doesn't matter anyway. I'm not trying to defend the H2's performance or existence, just that the engineering that went into it is not tremendously substandard.
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I think the capital gains tax on long term investments should be lower than the income tax rate, but not that much lower. Instead of strengthening the middle class, it weakens the middle class and strengthens those that are already rich.
I'd rather be able to choose not to contribute at all, and handle my own retirement planning
The problem is, the people that need Social Security the most in their old age just plain didn't make enough money to have a reasonable saving rate. You and I could do tremendously better managing our Social Security contributions as investments, but even if someone making $20,000 a year knows enough about investing to do well they just can't save enough to retire unless they spend 40 years in a cardboard box.
A good summary is here
Badnarik doesn't have much on the topic on his official website. According to this transcript of an interview he supports intellectual property for the life of the creator but doesn't give much detail. (What about something from a corporate employee? Does it last for the length of his employment, his life, or the existence of the corporation?)
It's a very important question. Ayn Rand was generally looney, but I very much like her suggested 7 year limit on all forms of intellectual property ownership. On the other hand, many libertarians supported unlimited ownership of intellectual property.
I would think that could mitigate at least somewhat the damage corporations would do with reduced government oversight. Whether it would reduce it enough to matter... I don't know.
Personally, I think Big Government and Big Business have their hands so far down each others' pants that any division between the two is artificial. The public should consider whether corporations that have to operate without government oversight but also without the benefit of pork might be preferable. It's not an easy question.
1. The long term capital gains tax rate is 15%, substantially lower than the 25, 28, 33, and 35% tax brackets that affect people making $29,000 and up.
2. The Social Security tax, and the hidden employer contribution, is capped at $87,000 income. The people making over $87,000 a year pay proportionately the least to Social Security, will require its benefits the least, and stand the collect the most in payout.
I'm not a flat tax advocate - I'm just pointing out that thanks to long term capital gains and Social Security our current system often taxes the middle class proportionately more than the rich.
Yeah?
:)
I can't stand Electronica, though.
Must explain why I suck at Linux.
If the car bounces off whatever it hits, you rattle around the interior like marbles in a coffee can.
Crumple zones exist on new cars for a reason. The more kinetic energy absorbed by warping the car's frame, the less remains to transfer between the occupants and the rest of the car in a bloody impact.
It's good to question assertions presented without evidence.
However, research the automotive industry. Ford and GM recently spent several hundred millions of dollars on a joint plant to make 6 speed automatic transmissions, which offer less than 20% fuel economy enhancements over 4 speed automatics.
BMW dropped untold millions in its new valvetronic technology, which in their next generation inline 6 cylinder engine gives a 12% boost to economy. They also have a gasoline direct injection technology on their 760 executive sedan, which improves fuel economy about 20% and may be incorporated into their lower end models.
Chrysler has (or will soon) release a version of their 'hemi' V8 engine that deactivates some cylinders under light loads for an 8% fuel economy increase. GM is reintroducing the same technology on their V6 and V8 engines.
Supposedly, until this year Toyota was selling the Prius gas electric hybrid at a financial loss, in order to stir interest in the concept and serve as a marketplace sign of their cutting edge position in automotive technology.
Before you assume the automakers are too cheap to implement truly efficient technologies, you have to ask why they would waste billions developing relatively modest improvements. If they could double mileage in a straightforward fashion, why haven't they done it already? The first company that does do it would have a tremendous marketplace advantage.
Research?
The parent poster wasn't the one making an unjustified assertion that GM can make cars 2-2.5 times as efficient more cheaply than current models.
Why don't you back up your own statements before condemning someone else for theirs?
And Ultralite implies very low weight. Below a certain threshold, any car not made out of extremely strong (and expensive) materials will fare poorly in a crash. I'd rather not get my wife and son killed when a deer jumps out in front of us?
Hybrids are great for the environment, but cost-wise they are still more hype than substance.
You can get a Toyota Prius for $21,000 or a Corolla, which is only a bit smaller, for $15,000. If you take EPA numbers, the Prius averages 55 mpg while the Corolla (with a manual) averages about 37. In 200,000 miles of driving, the Corolla uses about 1800 more gallons of fuel than the Prius. Even at $3 per gallon, that still doesn't make the Prius more cost effective, especially when you consider that the Corolla is also cheaper to insure the entire time.
Yeah, but the funning thing is, when Amish people get in serious accidents they use modern hospitals anyway. Maybe that's because if they didn't, they would die.
I'll keep my high tech lifestyle, thank you very much.
For the difference in cost between my house and a similar house 25 miles closer to work, I could be commuting in a brand new Rolls Royce.
I'd love a shorter commute, but I can't afford a home I would want to occupy anywhere near my place of employment.
It is my understanding that producing enough (m)ethanol to supply all of the US automotive energy needs would require using some outrageous fraction of all of the land in the entire country to grow the plants required in its manufacture.
Sounds good on paper, and I support using at least some because it will help, but it won't work as a general solution.
Absolutely.
My wife and I live in a 1900 square foot converted barn on 2 acres of land about 50 miles from Philadelphia. We bought it for $180,000, and the property taxes are less than $3,000 per year. My wife commutes for 10 minutes, but it takes me an hour to get to the Philly suburb where I work.
The commute is a pain. If I could take public transportation, I would. It's still worth it because our house is a dream home compared to what we could afford in or near the city.
If we had one car and car payments instead of two, drove a total of 1,000 miles per month instead of 3,500, and had proportionately cheaper car insurance, it would probably save us about $650 per month. Even with $650 extra towards the mortgage and property taxes, we couldn't afford a home like ours closer to Philly. Hell, we would barely be able to afford the two acres of land.
But this can easily become a reduction to the absurd argument.
Why don't we ban newspapers?
Why don't we euthanize everyone diagnosed with a terminal illness?
Why don't we outlaw living in any home larger than an efficiency apartment?
Why don't we ban flying, and vacations with it?
Why don't we ban sports cars? My friend with the 6000 pound Ford Expedition gets better gas mileage than my boss with his G35 coupe and a lead foot.
Why don't we make airconditioning usable by permit only, in cases of medical necessity?
Why don't we ban booze, and cigarettes, and meat, and pastries, since there are better uses for the resources that make those things?
Why don't we ban sedans as well, and make everyone ride bikes or motorcycles?
Americans waste energy and other resources at a staggering rate. Why does everyone so much on the SUVs, when there's dozens of other problems?
That's not a fair comparison.
98% of the naturally aspirated, 2 liter 4 cylinder engines in the road make much less than the S2000's 240 horsepower, and since they're not in performance cars they also use much taller gearing.
With the arguable exception of the Rotary in the RX8 - which is a quite different engine type - no other unmodified, naturally aspirated car gets the same horsepower to liter numbers.
On the other hand, the engine in the S2000 weighs about 350 pounds. The Corvette 5.7 liter LS6 engine weighs less than 500 pounds. It loses terribly to the S2000 for horsepower per liter of engine displacement, but kicks its ass into next week in horsepower per pound of engine weight.
In 1987 my parents bought a fullsize Ford van with a V6. At the time, the vans weighed around 4400 pounds empty (interestingly enough, most modern minivans weigh that much). We lived in a hilly area of Pennsylvania, and the thing was painfully slow on hills and got abysmal mileage. Mileage on long trips with flat stretches of road were fine.
In 1999 they bought a new fullsize Ford van with the optional V8. The van is about 5400 pounds empty. The performance in the hilly sections is fine, and gas mileage around town is actually 3 mpg better than it was for the old van. Highway mileage is the same, too.
Now if only there was more leg room for the driver, and the floor anchors for the rear seats were in the floor instead of above it. What a pain.
My father in law has a Mustang with 390 rear wheel horsepower and really short
He figures he can pace a Ferrari Enzo until his engine bounces off the rev limiter at 115 mph in 5th gear. After that, of course, the Ferrari keeps right on rocketing up to 200. But since his car and its mods cost less than $25,000, he figures he got a better deal.
I've found many places that are better than Starbucks for coffee, but only a bare handful that make tastier versions of the other coffee-related drinks in a timely fashion. I can walk into my local Starbucks with ten people ahead of me in line, order an iced Venti Non-Fat Decaf Soymilk Caramel Machiato with a shot of Espresso and still exit with my drink in under three minutes.
On the other hand, it's just too damn expensive and I rarely go more than once a week. If I took my Starbucks small frappaccino budget to Dunkin Donuts, I could drown myself in iced coffee on a daily basis. Plus, Dunkin Donuts' plain old coffee tastes much better in my humble opinion.
To get a car that handles superbly around curves, the traditional requirement is either rear wheel drive with LSD (That's Limited Slip Differential, not the drug) or else all wheel drive. Giving the Scion either would probably cost more than selling it and replacing it with a car that already has one of those setups, like a Lexus IS 300.
I don't mean to discourage you. With the right modifications almost any front wheel drive car can be blazingly fast in a straight line and respectably quick around curves. But making a tC keep pace with, say, a $23,000 Subaru WRX on a twisty road course would be a real challenge.
A few suggestions:
How Stuff Works has a good section on auto technology explaining the basics.
There are tech talk discussion forums where you can ask questions at many magazine websites. My current favorite is the 'Combustion Chamber' at Auto Week, and aside from the registration it is free. (If you find anything better, please let me know.)
One thing to remember about Horsepower TV is that they focus on a lot of muscle cars with pushrod engines. I personally am a big fan of pushrod engines (there are lots of pushrod vs. over head camshaft discussions on various forums), but the valvetrain layout is different enough from overhead cams that you can get confused comparing the two.
A lot of the hot rod magazines have free tech articles that give explanations on the magazine website.
I think it's partially a size issue. The modern Playboy (and porn in general) idealized girl is quite thin. I wouldn't say emaciated or necessarily anorexic, but definitely skinny.
With a few lucky exceptions, women that thin will have tiny breasts. Hence the reliance on implants.
I much prefer the sex symbols of the 60s or 70s, who were naturally curvaceous and feminine without being unhealthy or obese. If you dressed the modern sex symbol in casual clothes and removed her implants, you could mistake her for a teenage boy. No thanks!
For me it's a size issue. Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch, etc... etc... were all at least 20 pounds heavier than your average modern Playmate of the same height. They had curves.
When I look at modern Playmates, it looks like a 13 year old boy with breast implants and his genitals airbrushed away. *shudder* No thanks.
As others have said, in the average Playboy you're lucky to find 10 pages of nudie pics. If you spend your $3-$5 on a magazine for 10 pages' worth of pictures, you're an idiot.
Juggs, Hustler, etc... provide much more picture for your dollar. (Let alone websites.)
Incidentally, I agree that the Playboy chicks generally aren't that attractive. The pictures are so perfectly smooth, blemish-free, and artificial it looks like someone just posed the toys from realdoll.com. No thanks.
Okay, I was wrong. :P~~~~
You probably don't, as a rule, do much city driving in your motorhome. (You don't use it as a day driver, right?) So you're comparing mostly highway mileage on your motorhome to mostly city mileage on the H2. It still gets 10 mpg or better on the highway.
... but it doesn't matter anyway. I'm not trying to defend the H2's performance or existence, just that the engineering that went into it is not tremendously substandard.
As we already established, AWD can sap power. The motorhome doesn't have it, the H2 does.
The H2 has a curb weight of 6400 pounds. I don't know the weight of your motor home, but unless it's positively monstrous I doubt the whole thing weighs 32,000 pounds.
You are talking about gasoline fuel, right? The H2 uses gas, while diesel is at least 30% more power dense. (e.g. a fullsize pickup with a gas engine typically gets 10-12 mpg, while a fullsize pickup with a diesel usually does better than 15).