Yeah that typo or not clicking next fast enough is not life or death.
Unless you are on a PRODUCTION system, for a hospital or other real time health care institution, or possibly banking, airlines..etc.
A typo or fumble fingered rm -rf (or something drastic) can cause people to die, planes to potentially crash, and payrolls or accounts to be emptied or something.
Well, if they are indeed safe, then there should be NO objection to labelling foods as GMO or not....I'd think since they are so great, they'd want this to show the foods they say are working for us.
I just want to know what food I'm buying, and make my own informed decisions...what's wrong with that?
We already have ingredients on most prepared foods at the grocery store, we already label seafood with place of origin....why not GMO labeling?
I'm not surprised. How many times has she pleaded with you to stop 'ruining her life'? How many times has she confessed that her 'life is over'?
Those are some pretty dramatic consequences! You must be some horrible tyrant who 'never lets her do anything'.
In the old days (not THAT long ago, say 20+ years back), this used to simply referred to as being a parent.
A parent is NOT there to be a child's friend.
I became great friends with my parents when I was in my mid-20's or 30's or so....but when raising kids, you have to sometimes be unpopular and be the rules maker and enforcer.
Ok, so, how am I going to be able to transport my boat...drop it in the lake, park with the trailer, so that I can pull my boat out at the launch and drive it back home and park it?
What do I use to haul my stuff to the camp site and set up? Usually camping is a bit remote, so you need your vehicle WITH you there.....
So... Get ready to keep all your old electronics as it suddenly becomes VERY expensive to have it removed.
What expense?
I throw it out in my trashcan like everything else I have that is waste, and the city picks it up for me for free....easy peasy!!!
Actually, in the NOLA area, if you set it outside the can so it is visible, chances are someone will grab it overnight before the garbage men even come....I get rid of all monitors (even old CRTs), and computers past their prime, etc...and someone grabs them before the trash men come.....I guess that's one form of un-intentional recycling....?
I don't smoke pot, but I do know that the ONLY time I bother to look at or worry about the speed limit, is when I've had a few drinks and making my way back home...usually on the back routes away from traffic.
Hey, as long as those self-driving cars will get the fuck out of my way, when I'm coming up behind them on the highway wanting to pass them....I'm cool with it.
Better than that one slow asshole staying in the left passing lane the whole way....ugh.....
Increasing percentage of blacks in commercials has been shown that commercial viewership has decreased. While this also coincides with an increase in total commercial time we believe this is due to the inherent racism within the viewing audience.
I don't really care about the race or sex of the person(s) on the commercials, I try to watch as few as possible.
I have, however, been noticing trends:
1. Do people no longer marry within their race? ON SOO many new commercials, they are mixed race, usually black guy with white girl. Strange that you don't see many variations other than that, but it seems if commercials are representing the spread of a demographic across the US, that no one is marrying within their race any longer at all...?
2. I'm seeing more gay couples portrayed in commercials than what seems to be representative of their population in the US....that's what, 15% tops?
3. The ONLY demographic you can freely make fun of in commercials, is the dumb white guy...usually dumpy, and married who is always messing up much to the derision of his wife. I don't see very many hispanic or black women on the side of the "dump" jokes or escapades, although I'm sure by mathematics alone, that they and other racial/sexual categories are likely equality represented as less than brilliant or just accidentally pulling their share of dumb acts....?
Except the US with its brainwashed masses driving themselves rapidly to third world living status all so they can have the 'freedom' of no job protections, the 'freedom' to get ripped off by corporations, and of course the 'freedom' to give up all the actual freedoms that not only soldiers but also regular workers fought and in many cases died for.
Funny...that the US got to where it is today for the most part, in many areas of finance, tech, etc....without overbearing Govt regulation and mandates.
But things have SLOWED a great deal in those areas, coincidentally enough...with the trend over the recent couple decades of increased Govt oversight, regulation and its "picking winners" actions.
Well, this is how I see it as a US citizen, and NOT taking into account what left and right are in the rest of the world, but ONLY as it is perceived in the US.
Americans keep saying that, but I don't think it's actually good idea to calibrate your politics that way.
Well, for the most part, the US doesn't really give a fuck about how other countries think, how they want to govern themselves, or their political slant.
We broke off from Europe long ago, so as to be different and do things our own way without much thought or care for other opinions and lifestyles in other parts of the world.
And since/. is a US centric site, and EU folks are constantly trying to point out their left/right is different than our left/right perceptions, I usually put it out there at first to try to avoid confusion that posters from outside the US try to start off with.....
Again, this is a GOOD thing. If you like it here in the US with these thoughts....stay or come here. If you prefer the EU perceptions of politics and policy....move there.
Always good to have choice in this world and not have every country marching to the same band.
I find that all of them don't report what the really important things. Slashdot at least will often have something important while most of the news is just a pitch for some product. I don't find it slanted to the left at all, MSNBC doesn't have the power that Fox News has. I find the supposed left wing MSNBC a little to the right, but we all have different opinions. We don't read much in the news of South and Central America and what our government has done to those countries. We don't get reporting on why Iran hates us so much because of Eisenhower's interference in a duly elected government back in the 1950s. We hear about Syrian refugees not being welcome but who in the hell caused them to be refugee? What about Iraq? It was our foreign policies that contributed to these problems.
Well, this is how I see it as a US citizen, and NOT taking into account what left and right are in the rest of the world, but ONLY as it is perceived in the US.
I'd put Fox News on the right to far right. CNN is just left of center for the most part I think, they used to be a bit further left, but of late they seem to have move very slightly towards center left. MSNBC is far left. I'd say the main network news (ABC, NBC, CBS) are all middle left for the most part.
So, even though Fox News is, like you said...very large (funny how they grab this whole demographic with no real competition, seems someone would like to challenge this?)....the rest of the main cable and mainstream media in the US are on the left for the most part.
Again, this is by US standards...not something of a EU perception of left. We don't care about that, let them live how they want do, but this is US left/right.
If the Facebook thing is true, I personally fine it reprehensible, but it IS a private company, and perfectly within its bounds to do this type of thing.
I find it sad that there is really no balanced, and truly investigative news source these days.
24/7 cable news pushed things very far to where it is JUST about getting eyes and money for those 24/7, and the news is just a commodity that is taken and rather than being reported, is analyzed and opinionized (is this a word?)....and nothing but opinion pieces are put out by both sides of the political compass....although I still see the balance as being still more left than right with all the media out there for the most part.
But for the social media giant FB, I'd think it would be much more interesting to see what the populace opinons ARE...rather than try to guide them by injecting the owners' own political slant into the trends.
But hey, these are PRIVATE companies, and I don't feel it is the governments business, nor a constitutionally mandated power to have them even question what "news" or news-like products the private sector is putting out....
Prime Video suffers terribly from a very poor selection of titles outside of USA.
The selection INSIDE the US sucks pretty badly too.
I find that Prime Video, has much less than Netflix, and any newer or popular movies, the few that are on Prime, are also on Netflix.
I have Prime due to the shipping benefits and the occasional free ebook rental....and I have Prime all my viewing computers, tablets, phones and TVs....but I rarely watch the Prime option.
That being said, Prime IS one of the pieces I'm looking at for cutting the cord.
I don't have a good OTA external antenna yet, so my first step will be cutting Uverse back to only HD basic...local channels (with DVR on it too). That will be about $30/mo.
I'm then looking to maybe try the Slingtv service, to get the cable channels I'd miss...CNN and Fox news channels (try to get left and right sides, I'll miss MSNBC for the far left slant if I cut the cord tho)....the Slingtv streaming service indeed looks interesting. You have options to get most of the ESPN channels for an extra $5 a month...which I only watch during College Football Season. Anyway, for the most part Slingtv will be only $20-$25mo. Going to this route will save me about $55 a month from my Uverse U200 package I currently have.
Anyway...I already have Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, and maybe soon SlingTV that I can watch on main TVs and other devices.....soon, I look to maybe get a good OTA external antenna and cut even the Uverse Basics package...but I gotta either look to a commercial DVR solution, like Channel Master or maybe look into MythTV again, which I dabbled in awhile back that worked VERY well with OTA stuff.
But, back on topic. I have stuff on YouTube, I might try it on the new Prime system too and see which makes more $$.
So much of what I hear about government ineptitude is due to the underfunding of those people
Nope, the problem is because you cannot FIRE any govt employee that has made it much past the evaluation period, it is basically a job for life.
And God help you, if you are female or a minority, you are even more golden...'cause if you even hint you want to try the multi-year effort to oust them, they will hit you with some sort of racial/sexist lawsuit which will cost them much more money than just simply keeping you on and dealing with you....
That often runs good people out of govt work...and I won't even get into all the red tape that hampers a motivated person to want to try to do good....
Yes, I can. I know the difference between "This is technically allowed and legal" and "This is right and proper" so I can expect others to do the same.
Well, good for you. However, that's not the law. If you wish to change things, you need to have your congress critters change the "technically" to be the same as the "right and proper". Until then, you cannot fault most people for following the law as written. It isn't up to you or the govt to legislate morality on what is right and proper, in terms of money.
Paying taxes has nothing to do with altruism. That's charity. This is payment for services rendered.
Well, I'd dare say most of us, feel that we at this point overpay for what we get in services rendered.
So, perhaps the govt needs to do what most families do....learn to budget, and be able to figure out what they can afford, and what programs within that budget they can afford to do properly, and say "No" to things that can't be afforded.
Remember, this country was built on the concept of individuality....if you want more of a European socialistic society, where everyone pays to support the collective, and where they believe that the govt. knows better than YOU how to redestribute and spend YOUR money better than YOU do...there are plenty of places to live that fit that model.
But that is not historically what led to the US gaining the strength and economic might that it has (had).....and why you see much of Europe having fiscal woes. At some point, there are too many trying to get the free ride on the tails of fewer and fewer worker bees. It's all over once the public learns how to vote themselves money out of the public coffers.
The solution for taxes should be the same. Gross revenue is way harder to manipulate than profit. Taxing revenue is also more fair: If two companies have similar revenues, then they likely use a similar amount of public resources and infrastructure, although one may be much more profitable than the other. Taxing profits just punishes success while subsidizing failure.
Well, it *does* have to be profit I think in some manner with companies.
Otherwise you'd penalize business that might indeed be quite important, but by their nature, run on razor thin margins. For years the airline industry ran pretty thin margins, or maybe a better example would be some restaurants.
They run pretty thin margins, but say gross the same large amount as another company in another market, that might gross as much, but has MUCH less labor, much less overhead...and doesn't invest in their own infrastructure, or pay out many subcontracted parts, etc.
If you did straight gross...you'd not have many restaurants around anymore, at least not ones that hired a lot of employees.....
It's not as simple as lowering corporate tax [americansf...irness.org], since that would cause us to go deeper into debt. Instead we need to make up that revenue elsewhere. The problem isn't just that our corporate taxes are high, it's that our personal taxes our low too. U.S. taxes are catered toward individual wealth instead of "public wealth".
Seriously???
I pay easily in the 33% tax range...not including all the sales tax, gas tax and other essentially double taxation bit of money the city, parish, state and feds add onto everything in daily life.
The Federal Govt is bringing in RECORD levels of tax revenue as it is.
Enough is enough.
I think 33%+ is plenty if not too much already.
Govt spends way too much.
Why are we giving so much money to foreign governments? Stop that.
If we pull back from being the worlds police force, that would help too.
We have tons of fraud and waste in all levels of our government....get in there and seriously cut the crap.
No one should have to pay up to or over 50% of their income in taxes....that kills incentive to work harder, or hire others.
And yes..this is the US.
We were built on individualism, and personal responsibility and growth. That's what made this country great and how it excelled over most every other country in the world to date.
If you want the greater good, socialistic type polices, and you think the govt knows MUCH better than how how YOUR money would be best spend and redistributed amongst the collective, well, like you said, there are other countries out there that are better suited for you politics and lifestyle.
Me?
I want just enough government to enforce contracts, laws, basic infrastructure, national defense, etc.....and then, get the fuck out of my life.
I just want to be free to pursue my happiness and fortune as unabated as I possibly can. Hopefully along the way, I can benefit my family, friends and charities....as "I" think I can best decide to do, rather than have the decision made for me by one size fits all government folks.
"America will compete with the world and win by cutting the corporate tax rate to 15%, taking our rate from one of the worst to one of the best."
Hey, it makes sense.I don't know if 15% is the magic number, but I'm thinking it is likely in that ballpark....
However, if nothing else...you can NOT blame a company or a person, for taking advantage of every legal tax law to save as much of their hard earned money from the tax man.
I mean, do everyone one of ya'll, take every deduction you possibly can, or do you happily give more than you would owe if you took advantage of all deductions you could that are available to you?
I tend to doubt everyone is as altruistic as they think other folks/companies should be....
If you don't like how things are done, then do AWAY with the old tax code.
Make it simple for companies.
You make $x. Your expenses for the year were $y. You owe z% of ($x - $y). Bang...dead simple, no huge inflated tax rates that are just bypassed by loopholes/deductions. Company spends MUCH less on accountants. And Federal Govt has much less control over the citizens. This is especially true if you (as I assume) are also simplifying the tax code for individuals too.
If you don't like tax loopholes/deductions...then get rid of them all.....and simplify the laws. And quit trying to use taxation as a way to manipulate behavior...last I looked, that was NOT one of the few Constitutionally enumerated responsibilities and powers of the Feds.
They need to tax to get revenues to serve the populace, period. Nothing more.
However, the thing I have a problem with is the idea that we still need to go out to the movies or get burgers or any of that other crap to build those things. The methods for how people have met, developed friendship, and created long lasting bonds has always evolved. Note how we don't usually go out on fox hunts with hounds and horseback nonsense to get our monthly get together in. Or how we have a lot fewer formal balls. Etc. We change how we do these things as time marches forward. Am I saying that Facebook is a perfect replacement? Not By A Long Shot.
Well, that your first examples DO have in common, is that they were both putting people you were interacting with, conversing with, BONDING with...in physical proximity to each other. During these events, you physically did things together, physically went new places together, and physically interacted with one another.
You don't do that through FB or the cell phone.
I'm meeting more and more young kids, that just don't seem to have any people skills whatsoever. I'm not talking about just not being polite, I'm talking about being too shy to talk, not knowing HOW to talk or interact with a person or even a small group of folks.
The cell phone and other media is good for helping get folks together to DO something...it is troublesome that the tool is becoming and end unto itself and replacing youth learning how to deal with persons and people in meatspace in a real and meaningful way.
I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept of people not just making a little side money, but actually apparently a few making a decent living by streaming themselves playing fucking video games?!?!?
I mean seriously...people are paying people to do this?
Wow. I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't suffer anyone that making a buck any (legal) way they can, but really...someone can make up to and over 6-figures just by playing video games?
Who the fuck is PAYING these folks to sit and watch them...???
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you are on a PRODUCTION system, for a hospital or other real time health care institution, or possibly banking, airlines..etc.
A typo or fumble fingered rm -rf (or something drastic) can cause people to die, planes to potentially crash, and payrolls or accounts to be emptied or something.
I just want to know what food I'm buying, and make my own informed decisions...what's wrong with that?
We already have ingredients on most prepared foods at the grocery store, we already label seafood with place of origin....why not GMO labeling?
"Yet another reason NOT to be on Facebook".
In the old days (not THAT long ago, say 20+ years back), this used to simply referred to as being a parent.
A parent is NOT there to be a child's friend.
I became great friends with my parents when I was in my mid-20's or 30's or so....but when raising kids, you have to sometimes be unpopular and be the rules maker and enforcer.
Ok, so, how am I going to be able to transport my boat...drop it in the lake, park with the trailer, so that I can pull my boat out at the launch and drive it back home and park it?
What do I use to haul my stuff to the camp site and set up? Usually camping is a bit remote, so you need your vehicle WITH you there.....
What expense?
I throw it out in my trashcan like everything else I have that is waste, and the city picks it up for me for free....easy peasy!!!
Actually, in the NOLA area, if you set it outside the can so it is visible, chances are someone will grab it overnight before the garbage men even come....I get rid of all monitors (even old CRTs), and computers past their prime, etc...and someone grabs them before the trash men come.....I guess that's one form of un-intentional recycling....?
Pssst......Dave's not here man....
Who was deciding that not "enough" people were posting about it to make the newsfeeds....?
I don't smoke pot, but I do know that the ONLY time I bother to look at or worry about the speed limit, is when I've had a few drinks and making my way back home...usually on the back routes away from traffic.
Better than that one slow asshole staying in the left passing lane the whole way....ugh.....
We do NOW.....and it is even more power hungry than ever....
I don't really care about the race or sex of the person(s) on the commercials, I try to watch as few as possible.
I have, however, been noticing trends:
1. Do people no longer marry within their race? ON SOO many new commercials, they are mixed race, usually black guy with white girl. Strange that you don't see many variations other than that, but it seems if commercials are representing the spread of a demographic across the US, that no one is marrying within their race any longer at all...?
2. I'm seeing more gay couples portrayed in commercials than what seems to be representative of their population in the US....that's what, 15% tops?
3. The ONLY demographic you can freely make fun of in commercials, is the dumb white guy...usually dumpy, and married who is always messing up much to the derision of his wife. I don't see very many hispanic or black women on the side of the "dump" jokes or escapades, although I'm sure by mathematics alone, that they and other racial/sexual categories are likely equality represented as less than brilliant or just accidentally pulling their share of dumb acts....?
Funny...that the US got to where it is today for the most part, in many areas of finance, tech, etc....without overbearing Govt regulation and mandates.
But things have SLOWED a great deal in those areas, coincidentally enough...with the trend over the recent couple decades of increased Govt oversight, regulation and its "picking winners" actions.
Well, for the most part, the US doesn't really give a fuck about how other countries think, how they want to govern themselves, or their political slant.
We broke off from Europe long ago, so as to be different and do things our own way without much thought or care for other opinions and lifestyles in other parts of the world.
And since /. is a US centric site, and EU folks are constantly trying to point out their left/right is different than our left/right perceptions, I usually put it out there at first to try to avoid confusion that posters from outside the US try to start off with.....
Again, this is a GOOD thing. If you like it here in the US with these thoughts....stay or come here. If you prefer the EU perceptions of politics and policy....move there.
Always good to have choice in this world and not have every country marching to the same band.
Well, this is how I see it as a US citizen, and NOT taking into account what left and right are in the rest of the world, but ONLY as it is perceived in the US.
I'd put Fox News on the right to far right. CNN is just left of center for the most part I think, they used to be a bit further left, but of late they seem to have move very slightly towards center left. MSNBC is far left. I'd say the main network news (ABC, NBC, CBS) are all middle left for the most part.
So, even though Fox News is, like you said...very large (funny how they grab this whole demographic with no real competition, seems someone would like to challenge this?)....the rest of the main cable and mainstream media in the US are on the left for the most part.
Again, this is by US standards...not something of a EU perception of left. We don't care about that, let them live how they want do, but this is US left/right.
I find it sad that there is really no balanced, and truly investigative news source these days.
24/7 cable news pushed things very far to where it is JUST about getting eyes and money for those 24/7, and the news is just a commodity that is taken and rather than being reported, is analyzed and opinionized (is this a word?)....and nothing but opinion pieces are put out by both sides of the political compass....although I still see the balance as being still more left than right with all the media out there for the most part.
But for the social media giant FB, I'd think it would be much more interesting to see what the populace opinons ARE...rather than try to guide them by injecting the owners' own political slant into the trends.
But hey, these are PRIVATE companies, and I don't feel it is the governments business, nor a constitutionally mandated power to have them even question what "news" or news-like products the private sector is putting out....
The selection INSIDE the US sucks pretty badly too.
I find that Prime Video, has much less than Netflix, and any newer or popular movies, the few that are on Prime, are also on Netflix.
I have Prime due to the shipping benefits and the occasional free ebook rental....and I have Prime all my viewing computers, tablets, phones and TVs....but I rarely watch the Prime option.
That being said, Prime IS one of the pieces I'm looking at for cutting the cord.
I don't have a good OTA external antenna yet, so my first step will be cutting Uverse back to only HD basic...local channels (with DVR on it too). That will be about $30/mo.
I'm then looking to maybe try the Slingtv service, to get the cable channels I'd miss...CNN and Fox news channels (try to get left and right sides, I'll miss MSNBC for the far left slant if I cut the cord tho)....the Slingtv streaming service indeed looks interesting. You have options to get most of the ESPN channels for an extra $5 a month...which I only watch during College Football Season. Anyway, for the most part Slingtv will be only $20-$25mo. Going to this route will save me about $55 a month from my Uverse U200 package I currently have.
Anyway...I already have Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, and maybe soon SlingTV that I can watch on main TVs and other devices.....soon, I look to maybe get a good OTA external antenna and cut even the Uverse Basics package...but I gotta either look to a commercial DVR solution, like Channel Master or maybe look into MythTV again, which I dabbled in awhile back that worked VERY well with OTA stuff.
But, back on topic. I have stuff on YouTube, I might try it on the new Prime system too and see which makes more $$.
Nope, the problem is because you cannot FIRE any govt employee that has made it much past the evaluation period, it is basically a job for life.
And God help you, if you are female or a minority, you are even more golden...'cause if you even hint you want to try the multi-year effort to oust them, they will hit you with some sort of racial/sexist lawsuit which will cost them much more money than just simply keeping you on and dealing with you....
That often runs good people out of govt work...and I won't even get into all the red tape that hampers a motivated person to want to try to do good....
Well, good for you. However, that's not the law. If you wish to change things, you need to have your congress critters change the "technically" to be the same as the "right and proper". Until then, you cannot fault most people for following the law as written. It isn't up to you or the govt to legislate morality on what is right and proper, in terms of money.
Well, I'd dare say most of us, feel that we at this point overpay for what we get in services rendered.
So, perhaps the govt needs to do what most families do....learn to budget, and be able to figure out what they can afford, and what programs within that budget they can afford to do properly, and say "No" to things that can't be afforded.
Remember, this country was built on the concept of individuality....if you want more of a European socialistic society, where everyone pays to support the collective, and where they believe that the govt. knows better than YOU how to redestribute and spend YOUR money better than YOU do...there are plenty of places to live that fit that model.
But that is not historically what led to the US gaining the strength and economic might that it has (had).....and why you see much of Europe having fiscal woes. At some point, there are too many trying to get the free ride on the tails of fewer and fewer worker bees. It's all over once the public learns how to vote themselves money out of the public coffers.
Well, it *does* have to be profit I think in some manner with companies.
Otherwise you'd penalize business that might indeed be quite important, but by their nature, run on razor thin margins. For years the airline industry ran pretty thin margins, or maybe a better example would be some restaurants.
They run pretty thin margins, but say gross the same large amount as another company in another market, that might gross as much, but has MUCH less labor, much less overhead...and doesn't invest in their own infrastructure, or pay out many subcontracted parts, etc.
If you did straight gross...you'd not have many restaurants around anymore, at least not ones that hired a lot of employees.....
Pretty erroneous reasoning there Bufford.....
Rape physically harms people...hence it is against the law and no "loopholes" are there if you are found guilty of it.
I'm talking about tax law, where the laws say you CAN legally do xyz, and pay less taxes.
It was legally put into the code and law, and there is nothing wrong with you taking advantage of this to keep more of your hard earned money.
Thanks for playing, please try again....
Seriously???
I pay easily in the 33% tax range...not including all the sales tax, gas tax and other essentially double taxation bit of money the city, parish, state and feds add onto everything in daily life.
The Federal Govt is bringing in RECORD levels of tax revenue as it is.
Enough is enough.
I think 33%+ is plenty if not too much already.
Govt spends way too much.
Why are we giving so much money to foreign governments? Stop that.
If we pull back from being the worlds police force, that would help too.
We have tons of fraud and waste in all levels of our government....get in there and seriously cut the crap.
No one should have to pay up to or over 50% of their income in taxes....that kills incentive to work harder, or hire others.
And yes..this is the US.
We were built on individualism, and personal responsibility and growth. That's what made this country great and how it excelled over most every other country in the world to date.
If you want the greater good, socialistic type polices, and you think the govt knows MUCH better than how how YOUR money would be best spend and redistributed amongst the collective, well, like you said, there are other countries out there that are better suited for you politics and lifestyle.
Me?
I want just enough government to enforce contracts, laws, basic infrastructure, national defense, etc.....and then, get the fuck out of my life.
I just want to be free to pursue my happiness and fortune as unabated as I possibly can. Hopefully along the way, I can benefit my family, friends and charities....as "I" think I can best decide to do, rather than have the decision made for me by one size fits all government folks.
Hey, it makes sense.I don't know if 15% is the magic number, but I'm thinking it is likely in that ballpark....
However, if nothing else...you can NOT blame a company or a person, for taking advantage of every legal tax law to save as much of their hard earned money from the tax man.
I mean, do everyone one of ya'll, take every deduction you possibly can, or do you happily give more than you would owe if you took advantage of all deductions you could that are available to you?
I tend to doubt everyone is as altruistic as they think other folks/companies should be....
If you don't like how things are done, then do AWAY with the old tax code.
Make it simple for companies.
You make $x. Your expenses for the year were $y. You owe z% of ($x - $y). Bang...dead simple, no huge inflated tax rates that are just bypassed by loopholes/deductions. Company spends MUCH less on accountants. And Federal Govt has much less control over the citizens. This is especially true if you (as I assume) are also simplifying the tax code for individuals too.
If you don't like tax loopholes/deductions...then get rid of them all.....and simplify the laws. And quit trying to use taxation as a way to manipulate behavior...last I looked, that was NOT one of the few Constitutionally enumerated responsibilities and powers of the Feds.
They need to tax to get revenues to serve the populace, period. Nothing more.
Well, that your first examples DO have in common, is that they were both putting people you were interacting with, conversing with, BONDING with...in physical proximity to each other. During these events, you physically did things together, physically went new places together, and physically interacted with one another.
You don't do that through FB or the cell phone.
I'm meeting more and more young kids, that just don't seem to have any people skills whatsoever. I'm not talking about just not being polite, I'm talking about being too shy to talk, not knowing HOW to talk or interact with a person or even a small group of folks.
The cell phone and other media is good for helping get folks together to DO something...it is troublesome that the tool is becoming and end unto itself and replacing youth learning how to deal with persons and people in meatspace in a real and meaningful way.
I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept of people not just making a little side money, but actually apparently a few making a decent living by streaming themselves playing fucking video games?!?!?
I mean seriously...people are paying people to do this?
Wow. I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't suffer anyone that making a buck any (legal) way they can, but really...someone can make up to and over 6-figures just by playing video games?
Who the fuck is PAYING these folks to sit and watch them...???