It's been my experience that salaries in competitve fields are set by cost of living, sure. But that means that after covering living expenses, at the end of the day, one has the same percentage of income "left over" for savings and investment whether he lives in say San Francisco or Alabama. Let's just say 20% as an example. Which would you rather have working for your future (or spending on fun now): 20 percent of the high San Francisco salary or 20 percent of the low Alabama salary?
I'm glad you succeeded. But don't convince yourself that because you did it, anyone can. It's similar to the phrase, "Anyone can succeed in America," being misinterpreted as, "Everyone can succeed in America." (usually followed by a phrase like, "if they'd only get off their butts and work hard.") The two are not the same. Our economic system limits how many people can succeed. You need to look at the larger picture and the systematic obstacles which exist. Simple example: you having a job kept another person from having that same job. If you haven't noticed, there aren't enough to go around...
Having said that, signing up to kill people would not be my idea of a solution to lack of educational and employment opportunities.
"Fine, but why do we continue to trade with them? We make up 30% of their GDP, while they wont let our goods into their country fairly (we export less than 1% to China). We allow them to make everything you can think of, yet we aren't going to let google go there? Seems like too little too late. "
The reason this doesn't bother many people is that this imblance hides the fact that it is U.S. companies benefiting from this arrangement. For example, most of those Chinese made goods in your local WalMart are marketed by American companies and they are making the profits (some of which they keep offshore to avoid paying u.s. taxes of course...). So, although the goods are made abroad, the American companies make more money than they would if the goods were made here.
I'm not arguing for using China as our labor force. In fact, the whole situation makes me sick. I'm just explaining why businesses interests here like things just how they are...
Excellent post. Here's how it works in my city. The contractor will mark in white paint the area he wants examined (i.e. the area he wants to dig) and calls it in to a single number 2 days before he wants to dig. Then all utility companies with service in that area are notified and go out and mark where their lines are. Each utility uses a certain color paint. Gas will be yellow, water blue, cable orange (?) etc. If they have no lines in the area, they will just mark their symbol with a circle around it and line through it.
It is not fullproof. The PGE guy forgot to mark a gas service once and we almost took it out with the bobcat scoop. But in general, the system works pretty well when followed.
BTW, 60" water main? Are you sure it wasn't a storm drain? I've never heard of such a large water main. (biggest in my bay area city is 16").
What does Rocky have to do with it? It was Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) who uttered the line "I could have been a contender, I could have been somebody, instead of a bum which is what I am."
These flushless toilets claim to save 25,000 gallons of water, right? That happens to be the amount of water that is spent growing one pound of beef. So instead of changing your toilet, just eat less meat and you'll save more water.
All educated people, and especially sailors, in Columbus' day already knew the Earth was round. (if it wasn't, sailors wouldn't have been able to use celestial navigation). I've never heard the claim that Columbus, Spain, and the Church promoted the theory of it being flat - I've always thought it was invented by Washington Irving in his book about Columbus written in the 1800s.
Since the IRS loves to hand out big fines and push for jail time, one should get their tax advice from their CPA or lawyer. But since you've askes us Slashdot readers to comment, I suspect that LLC owners(partners) can not save money by paying themselves in dividends instead of salary. AFAIK, all LLC income is passed through to the partners as normal income and the tax status doesn't change (e.g. if the LLC made that money by selling stock it owned, the partner pays capital gains, if it made it from selling widgets, the partner pays normal income tax, etc.). There are no "dividends" as there can be with a corporation.
Regarding scenario one: While paying for one's beer before drinking it may not be payment of a debt, is it not a "public charge" that US 5103 also mentions? If not, what exactly is a "public charge" and where can I go to make one and pay it with $2bills and dollar coins?
"The reason you see those "no trucks over XXX pounds" signs is exactly because the amount of wear and tear on the road is proportional to vehicle weight."
I forget the exact figures but a vehicle that is twice as heavy doesn't cause twice as much damage but something many times more than that. I'm sure google will turn up the formula for those curious enough.
Are you saying that there is no right clicking capability on an Apple laptop unless you bring your multi-button mouse with you?
Well, if you hold down the ctrl button when you click the "mouse" button on the laptop, you get your right-click functions. This has been true FOREVER in the Mac OS so I've never understood the idea that one *needs* two buttons on the mouse (though i admit to using a two-button with scroll wheel mouse when at my desk).
If humans could live forever, or several hundred years, we'd see a great increase in laws that attempt to preserve life. Compare the difference between an injury robbing you of the last 20 years of your life or robbing you of another 1000 years and you'll see why I believe that.
I happen to believe we have already been legislated into being sissies and already put to much stress on the quantity of life over the quality of it and if we increase our lifespan it'll only get worse. I bet we'd have to wear helmets just to walk down the street. Motorcycles would surely be outlawed. And so on.
Screw that! It's better to burn out than fade away!
I think your post shows a misunderstanding of how tax brackets work. There is no benefit to "dropping down to a lower tax bracket." It sounds like you assume that if you are just into a higher bracket that you pay that rate on all your income. This is not true. You would pay that rate on just the amount of income that puts you over the limit into that bracket.
For example, $70k is in the 25% bracket. $80k would be in the 28% bracket. One would only pay 28% on that last $10k and then pay 25% on about $10k and then pay 15% on about $40k and then nothing below that.
Using stock losses to increase deductions and save taxes is a good idea that may work for some people. But it's not because it drops them down to a lower tax bracket.
If it hits water, tidal waves will cause massive destruction.
If it hits in a heavily forested area, it will start a fire that will burn so much that it will create clouds of smoke and ash that will block out the sun for a very long time. That would suck.
Rheingold: "If I was a Nokia (NOK) or a Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), I would take a fraction of what I'm spending on those buildings full of expensive people and give out a whole bunch of prototypes to a whole bunch of 15-year-olds and have contracts with them where you can observe their behavior in an ethical way and enable them to suggest innovations, and give them some reasonable small reward for that. And once in a while, you're going to make a billion dollars off it."
Companies do this all the time. Everyone from Pepsi to Motorola to vacuum cleaner companies to newspapers (to name a few of the projects I've worked on since the mid-90s: in the early 90s I experienced it in Japan with high school girls, the all-powerful force driving product development and marketing in Japan).
As is usual, the "gurus" are either behind the times, clueless, or purposefully making suggestions that are already in action so that they look good once the existence of these things become more commonly known by the population: "hey, that Rheingold guy suggested that..." Yeah, right.
I have a 2.4 virgin wireless phone that I got for less than $30 at target (with built in answering machine). I have an ibook with airport card and a 802.11b microsoft wireless router. Have never had a problem. I can sit in the same room and use the phone with no loss of connectivity.
>If you think that those prices overvalue Google,
> don't buy.
This way is more savvy: if you think that the rest of the investors out there will feel that those prices overvalue Google, then don't buy.
In other words, many people have made lots of money buying stocks at prices they personally thought were crazy considering the financials of the company, but they bought it anyway because the knew there are a lot of crazy investors out there to drive the price up further anyway. I know it's not 1999 anymore but...you never know.
Are there any examples at all of current cell phones that are simply great phones? Or is it simply that all phones have the best "phone" part anyone could make considering the size/weight restraints of the phone and so there is no way for a manufacturer to come along and distinguish themselves in the market with the quality of the phone-ness of their phone?
What could be done to improve the reception and usefulness of the phone part of a phone? Is there something they could do that is being ignored by developers now as they chase new features to add to the device instead? Anything?
We all get your point (and largely agree I'm sure) but your Levis example might not be a good one:
1) the real Levis clearly are better in material quality and variety of cuts available to fit one's particular body shape than the cheaper sub-brand levis sold at walmart
2) the ones at walmart also broadcast to the world that you are a cheapskate, something that I, "from a practical point of view", would like to avoid.
Thanks for the explanations guys. I guess I'd counter by pointing out that it is common usage to express one's body weight in kilograms (watch the olympics next month and you'll see) and that such a common practice while apparently technically incorrect, shouldn't be considered "absurd".
This is ancient but I just logged in and saw the reply. On the off chance that K2r will get an email notification and therefore see this I'd like to clarify.
Yes, most kids by 2nd grade can and do write their names in Kanji. The addresses are another thing though. They should be able to do it by 2nd grade: even if they haven't learned those characters in normal curriculum they've probably learned them as part of their address (if their mother bothered to teach them).
But younger kids do not learn any kanji. Kindergarden and early grade school kids wear name tags with their names and school names on them to and from school. In regular curriculumn, kids learn about 100 kanji a year in the early grades and learn the last 1000 or so of the 2000 common kanji in their high school years.
Your points about personal privacy and freedom make sense to us in the "west" but are simply not a concern for adults in japan and so they do not raise their kids to be concerned about the things you mention. They do not teach them "common sense" things like your swimming example either. They rely on signs and recorded announcements to tell people what to do "the train is coming, please be careful and keep behind the yellow line" (to which every american would reply "no shit" but apparently the japanese need to hear this stuff or they'd get hit. It's a wacky society, but a nice one.
" (for example, I've heard people expressing their weight in kilograms, which is obviously absurd)"
Please explain to me since I'm not very good at recognizing obvious absurdities. And neither are many other people I guess, since it is usual to express one's weight in kilograms in many countries (Japan, for example). How are these people "misusing the unit"?
tags with their full name and the school's name on it which must be worn at all times.
>Where I live parents teach there children their name, address and telephone number.
Well, it starts when the kids are too young to properly write their names and addresses in Japanese. Not a problem if your alphabet has 20-something characters like European languages, but a problem in Japan where one needs at least 2000 characters.
When are they supposed to learn to make use of freedom and to make their own decisions if they don't have the chance to do so as a child?
That's the thing: people in Japan are not supposed to learn to make use of freedom! either as children or adult. society is king, individual nothing.
Japan is already a country where the parents do not spy and nag or parent their children in any way familar to, say, American parents.
Also, in many ways, Japan is already a country where the level of personal resonsibility is diminished, though the reason for that is not that the scope of government has expanded - it's just a feature of the culture. Success of the group has always been valued over one's own success and individuals behave in a way that supports that. There is also no expectation of personal privacy or personal "space".
Wacky country, that Japan. But it's been successful, and with only lipservice paid to the things "the west" would consider critical for a free society. Personally it drove me crazy so I left in my late 20s. But as I get older, and priorities change, it becomes more attractive again. I may retire there eventually.
Slashdot Mirror
It's been my experience that salaries in competitve fields are set by cost of living, sure. But that means that after covering living expenses, at the end of the day, one has the same percentage of income "left over" for savings and investment whether he lives in say San Francisco or Alabama. Let's just say 20% as an example. Which would you rather have working for your future (or spending on fun now): 20 percent of the high San Francisco salary or 20 percent of the low Alabama salary?
I'm glad you succeeded. But don't convince yourself that because you did it, anyone can. It's similar to the phrase, "Anyone can succeed in America," being misinterpreted as, "Everyone can succeed in America." (usually followed by a phrase like, "if they'd only get off their butts and work hard.") The two are not the same. Our economic system limits how many people can succeed. You need to look at the larger picture and the systematic obstacles which exist. Simple example: you having a job kept another person from having that same job. If you haven't noticed, there aren't enough to go around...
Having said that, signing up to kill people would not be my idea of a solution to lack of educational and employment opportunities.
"Fine, but why do we continue to trade with them? We make up 30% of their GDP, while they wont let our goods into their country fairly (we export less than 1% to China). We allow them to make everything you can think of, yet we aren't going to let google go there? Seems like too little too late. "
The reason this doesn't bother many people is that this imblance hides the fact that it is U.S. companies benefiting from this arrangement. For example, most of those Chinese made goods in your local WalMart are marketed by American companies and they are making the profits (some of which they keep offshore to avoid paying u.s. taxes of course...). So, although the goods are made abroad, the American companies make more money than they would if the goods were made here.
I'm not arguing for using China as our labor force. In fact, the whole situation makes me sick. I'm just explaining why businesses interests here like things just how they are...
Excellent post. Here's how it works in my city. The contractor will mark in white paint the area he wants examined (i.e. the area he wants to dig) and calls it in to a single number 2 days before he wants to dig. Then all utility companies with service in that area are notified and go out and mark where their lines are. Each utility uses a certain color paint. Gas will be yellow, water blue, cable orange (?) etc. If they have no lines in the area, they will just mark their symbol with a circle around it and line through it.
It is not fullproof. The PGE guy forgot to mark a gas service once and we almost took it out with the bobcat scoop. But in general, the system works pretty well when followed.
BTW, 60" water main? Are you sure it wasn't a storm drain? I've never heard of such a large water main. (biggest in my bay area city is 16").
What does Rocky have to do with it? It was Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) who uttered the line "I could have been a contender, I could have been somebody, instead of a bum which is what I am."
These flushless toilets claim to save 25,000 gallons of water, right? That happens to be the amount of water that is spent growing one pound of beef. So instead of changing your toilet, just eat less meat and you'll save more water.
All educated people, and especially sailors, in Columbus' day already knew the Earth was round. (if it wasn't, sailors wouldn't have been able to use celestial navigation). I've never heard the claim that Columbus, Spain, and the Church promoted the theory of it being flat - I've always thought it was invented by Washington Irving in his book about Columbus written in the 1800s.
Since the IRS loves to hand out big fines and push for jail time, one should get their tax advice from their CPA or lawyer. But since you've askes us Slashdot readers to comment, I suspect that LLC owners(partners) can not save money by paying themselves in dividends instead of salary. AFAIK, all LLC income is passed through to the partners as normal income and the tax status doesn't change (e.g. if the LLC made that money by selling stock it owned, the partner pays capital gains, if it made it from selling widgets, the partner pays normal income tax, etc.). There are no "dividends" as there can be with a corporation.
Regarding scenario one: While paying for one's beer before drinking it may not be payment of a debt, is it not a "public charge" that US 5103 also mentions? If not, what exactly is a "public charge" and where can I go to make one and pay it with $2bills and dollar coins?
"The reason you see those "no trucks over XXX pounds" signs is exactly because the amount of wear and tear on the road is proportional to vehicle weight."
I forget the exact figures but a vehicle that is twice as heavy doesn't cause twice as much damage but something many times more than that. I'm sure google will turn up the formula for those curious enough.
Are you saying that there is no right clicking capability on an Apple laptop unless you bring your multi-button mouse with you?
Well, if you hold down the ctrl button when you click the "mouse" button on the laptop, you get your right-click functions. This has been true FOREVER in the Mac OS so I've never understood the idea that one *needs* two buttons on the mouse (though i admit to using a two-button with scroll wheel mouse when at my desk).
If humans could live forever, or several hundred years, we'd see a great increase in laws that attempt to preserve life. Compare the difference between an injury robbing you of the last 20 years of your life or robbing you of another 1000 years and you'll see why I believe that.
I happen to believe we have already been legislated into being sissies and already put to much stress on the quantity of life over the quality of it and if we increase our lifespan it'll only get worse. I bet we'd have to wear helmets just to walk down the street. Motorcycles would surely be outlawed. And so on.
Screw that! It's better to burn out than fade away!
I think your post shows a misunderstanding of how tax brackets work. There is no benefit to "dropping down to a lower tax bracket." It sounds like you assume that if you are just into a higher bracket that you pay that rate on all your income. This is not true. You would pay that rate on just the amount of income that puts you over the limit into that bracket.
For example, $70k is in the 25% bracket. $80k would be in the 28% bracket. One would only pay 28% on that last $10k and then pay 25% on about $10k and then pay 15% on about $40k and then nothing below that.
Using stock losses to increase deductions and save taxes is a good idea that may work for some people. But it's not because it drops them down to a lower tax bracket.
If it hits water, tidal waves will cause massive destruction.
If it hits in a heavily forested area, it will start a fire that will burn so much that it will create clouds of smoke and ash that will block out the sun for a very long time. That would suck.
Rheingold: "If I was a Nokia (NOK) or a Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), I would take a fraction of what I'm spending on those buildings full of expensive people and give out a whole bunch of prototypes to a whole bunch of 15-year-olds and have contracts with them where you can observe their behavior in an ethical way and enable them to suggest innovations, and give them some reasonable small reward for that. And once in a while, you're going to make a billion dollars off it."
Companies do this all the time. Everyone from Pepsi to Motorola to vacuum cleaner companies to newspapers (to name a few of the projects I've worked on since the mid-90s: in the early 90s I experienced it in Japan with high school girls, the all-powerful force driving product development and marketing in Japan).
As is usual, the "gurus" are either behind the times, clueless, or purposefully making suggestions that are already in action so that they look good once the existence of these things become more commonly known by the population: "hey, that Rheingold guy suggested that..." Yeah, right.
Mr. Goglia should just outsource himself to India - plenty of job offers will then come his way, without all this complicated lawyerly stuff.
I have a 2.4 virgin wireless phone that I got for less than $30 at target (with built in answering machine). I have an ibook with airport card and a 802.11b microsoft wireless router. Have never had a problem. I can sit in the same room and use the phone with no loss of connectivity.
>If you think that those prices overvalue Google, > don't buy. This way is more savvy: if you think that the rest of the investors out there will feel that those prices overvalue Google, then don't buy. In other words, many people have made lots of money buying stocks at prices they personally thought were crazy considering the financials of the company, but they bought it anyway because the knew there are a lot of crazy investors out there to drive the price up further anyway. I know it's not 1999 anymore but...you never know.
Are there any examples at all of current cell phones that are simply great phones? Or is it simply that all phones have the best "phone" part anyone could make considering the size/weight restraints of the phone and so there is no way for a manufacturer to come along and distinguish themselves in the market with the quality of the phone-ness of their phone?
What could be done to improve the reception and usefulness of the phone part of a phone? Is there something they could do that is being ignored by developers now as they chase new features to add to the device instead? Anything?
We all get your point (and largely agree I'm sure) but your Levis example might not be a good one: 1) the real Levis clearly are better in material quality and variety of cuts available to fit one's particular body shape than the cheaper sub-brand levis sold at walmart 2) the ones at walmart also broadcast to the world that you are a cheapskate, something that I, "from a practical point of view", would like to avoid.
Thanks for the explanations guys. I guess I'd counter by pointing out that it is common usage to express one's body weight in kilograms (watch the olympics next month and you'll see) and that such a common practice while apparently technically incorrect, shouldn't be considered "absurd".
This is ancient but I just logged in and saw the reply. On the off chance that K2r will get an email notification and therefore see this I'd like to clarify. Yes, most kids by 2nd grade can and do write their names in Kanji. The addresses are another thing though. They should be able to do it by 2nd grade: even if they haven't learned those characters in normal curriculum they've probably learned them as part of their address (if their mother bothered to teach them). But younger kids do not learn any kanji. Kindergarden and early grade school kids wear name tags with their names and school names on them to and from school. In regular curriculumn, kids learn about 100 kanji a year in the early grades and learn the last 1000 or so of the 2000 common kanji in their high school years. Your points about personal privacy and freedom make sense to us in the "west" but are simply not a concern for adults in japan and so they do not raise their kids to be concerned about the things you mention. They do not teach them "common sense" things like your swimming example either. They rely on signs and recorded announcements to tell people what to do "the train is coming, please be careful and keep behind the yellow line" (to which every american would reply "no shit" but apparently the japanese need to hear this stuff or they'd get hit. It's a wacky society, but a nice one.
" (for example, I've heard people expressing their weight in kilograms, which is obviously absurd)"
Please explain to me since I'm not very good at recognizing obvious absurdities. And neither are many other people I guess, since it is usual to express one's weight in kilograms in many countries (Japan, for example). How are these people "misusing the unit"?
Well, it starts when the kids are too young to properly write their names and addresses in Japanese. Not a problem if your alphabet has 20-something characters like European languages, but a problem in Japan where one needs at least 2000 characters.
When are they supposed to learn to make use of freedom and to make their own decisions if they don't have the chance to do so as a child?
That's the thing: people in Japan are not supposed to learn to make use of freedom! either as children or adult. society is king, individual nothing.
Japan is already a country where the parents do not spy and nag or parent their children in any way familar to, say, American parents.
Also, in many ways, Japan is already a country where the level of personal resonsibility is diminished, though the reason for that is not that the scope of government has expanded - it's just a feature of the culture. Success of the group has always been valued over one's own success and individuals behave in a way that supports that. There is also no expectation of personal privacy or personal "space".
Wacky country, that Japan. But it's been successful, and with only lipservice paid to the things "the west" would consider critical for a free society. Personally it drove me crazy so I left in my late 20s. But as I get older, and priorities change, it becomes more attractive again. I may retire there eventually.