That's a regressive tax. Poor people spend more of their income on "stuff", so end up paying more tax (proportionally) than the rich, who use tier money in other ways (stock, shares etc).
You say "regressive tax" as though that is somehow morally wrong and shocks the conscience of the Universe. You might choose a cutoff that income tax starts on all income above a basic subsistence rate, but there is no absolute moral authority stating "regressive tax bad, progressive tax good." Besides, many low income people currently pay no income taxes at all. Even if they paid a pittance and had some skin in the game they might start taking a much greater interest in how their tax monies were being spent -- which would be a Good Thing.
A flat income tax with no deductions? Seriously? You know that'd benefit the rich. Right now, a lot of poor people pay no income tax. I pay no income tax. I just have to worry about self-employment tax (equivalent to FICA taxes for employed persons) and that's it. I don't earn enough to pay income tax, and I don't think I ever have. Came close while in college given my grants.
A flat tax that somehow benefits the rich? Wow, how did you arrive at that?
Let me see here. Under a flat tax I make X dollars and pay Y tax on them where Y = some% of X. Another person makes 2X dollars and pays 2Y in taxes. Uncle Money Bags makes 100X dollars (I hope I'm in his will) and pays 100Y in taxes.
You know, that really sounds very fair to me -- although truly fair would be that everybody pays the same amount of tax each year because everybody benefits the same from roads, schools and other provided services.
Anything else is punitive from envious people who hate that someone else had more than they do.
People are weird that way. Take the social experiment where the researcher offers you $50, which you can take or refuse. But there's a condition: If you take the $50 then I get $100. But if you take nothing then I get nothing either. While you'd think that it's a no-brainer that you now have $50 that you didn't have before, you'd be amazed how many people will refuse to take their money because someone else "unfairly" is getting more in the process. And that attitude carries over into other areas.
So ignorant. He probably doesn't even understand Power Factor -- let alone any real complexities in electrical generation and distribution. He seems like a guy who added up all generation and all consumption, said that those numbers are essentially equal, meaning that this is just a question of distributing the power to where it's needed. It it were only so simple.
Because when (I think it was) CBS was in a dispute with the cable companies they didn't let their content be carried over the cable as leverage for insanely higher re-transmission fees. Some desirable sports are only shown on CBS. People got around the CBS action by receiving over-the-air broadcasts. Aereo let everybody in the country who wanted to put it to CBS. CBS didn't like that.
Cable is a one-to-many system. Aereo is 1-to-1. That is a Major difference. It's not "streaming" to download your own data across the Internet. The Supreme Court are a bunch of technologically backward morons!
Who still buys into that garbage that only Republicans protect big business that the nice and friendly, warm and fuzzy, Democrats are the party of the People? (Hint: They're the party of the Union bosses and every corporate lobbyist with a checkbook. At least the Republicans don't lie about it.)
Just because computers can send and receive data very fast doesn't at all mean that they would necessarily comprehend it at a conscious level any faster than we can without hour own highly parallel human brains. Nor is there any reason to believe that an AI would experience boredom. That's projecting human quirks on non-human intelligences, which the author has no basis to validly do.
It requires a shload of heat, which takes energy. The environmental claim is regarding the production of this energy, which Apple has no problem building large solar arrays to get around that.
Also, there is some speculation on several different sites that Apple may not intend to use sapphire for the screen, but instead for the camera lens. They currently use it on the camera lens and the home button. I wonder if it's something they could use in other things that don't currently use Gorilla Glass, like macbook screens?
That's an awful lot of sapphire that they'll be making if it's just for camera lenses and the Home button. And if the MacBook isn't already using GG, then why does it need sapphire? Not making sense here.
If Gorilla Glass is so superior to sapphire, then why is Apple going to such expense for an inferior material? Is it just that people will buy sapphire iPhones over GG iPhones? I doubt that. I expect that there are advantages to sapphire that you're missing. I know of a lot of GG iPhones with cracked/shattered displays, so there must be some room for improvement.
Apple claims that Samsung hurts the market for iPhones. B.S.! If you want IOS and the Apple App Store you have to buy an iPhone today every bit as much as you ever had to do so. The Samsung phone is a different creature in a different environment. Apple couldn't even make enough smartphones to supply the whole world provided that the did have a monopoly on them. Aside from the fact that Apple never should have been granted these patents, I mean really, how long before Samsung -- who still supplies a lot of the iPhone and iPad components because nobody else can -- announces a sudden price increase that more than pays for this judgement out of Apple's own pockets? I hope real soon. And I'm left to wonder if this is taxable income in the USA for the famously tax-avoiding Apple? If not, then they just laundered a giga-buck into the good 'ol USA.
I find it fascinating that as the cost of minting BCs in terms of compute cycles goes up, so does their value relative to the dollar. Is that behavior by design?
Any rise in the value of BitCoins is probably because it's the only way to keep anonymous funds now that the Swiss banks are no longer keeping records confidential.
The flaw in your argument is that the government doesn't have to track every BitCoin. They only have to worm their way into the far less numerous exchanges where you turn your BC to fully usable currencies and demand that they require full identification and keep records of every transaction. Tax problem solved --- and you know that what they're working on exactly that step by step.
In the truest sense BitCoin is commodity, not a currency. You can create, or buy, title to ownership of a piece of information that others have agreed to both recognize your ownership rights, and value it as well. It also, unlike every other currency today, is the ultimate Hard Currency because there is a hard upper limit on its creation. You can mine more gold for your gold backed currency, but the total number of BitCoins under the current rules (a most important distinction) has a hard cap.
It's also the ultimate fiat currency because although it took some effort -- or lucky guesses -- to create, it is not legal tender anywhere. It only has value between 2 people willing to agree on that value. Rather the Esperanto of money. But to try and turn it into a currency so that governments can regulate it under existing laws is absolute Fraud on their citizens.
Of course, when has that ever stopped politicians from "creating" new tax sources, which is the ultimate end of this exercise in case you hadn't realized that yet.
Everyone in government supporting this regulation fantasy should be voted out of office immediately -- although we all know that's never going to happen.
Since Adobe's moron move to the "Creative Cloud" (which may represent a state of mind among Adobe executives rather than a description of the system which is simply Software As A Service) thousands of photographers have been ditching PS. Corel's Paintshop Pro, while commercial software is less expensive than PS. Paintshop even does layers, 16 bit and CMYK output.
I have to question that. All previous DVD versions of CS thru CS6 continue to run as is with no additional money required. Only when you want new features beyond CS6 do you have to start with the Adobe monthly fee or move to an alternative. Like MSWord since probably Word 95, if not 6, PS has been so over-featured for most users that what more do you need that they haven't already thought of and included? So why would anyone dump an already paid-for program to learn a new one? My guess is that they're just not getting new users nearly as much as before.
The favorite boast I hear from many PS users with personal copies (when the company is paying the bill it's a whole different matter, of course) is who is using the oldest version of PS and is still completely happy with it. This week it was a PS5 (not CS5 -- PS5) user. Personally I used PS7 for a long time until I was given a copy of CS1, and am now only on CS3, where I will likely live for a good long while now.
Slashdot Mirror
That's a regressive tax. Poor people spend more of their income on "stuff", so end up paying more tax (proportionally) than the rich, who use tier money in other ways (stock, shares etc).
You say "regressive tax" as though that is somehow morally wrong and shocks the conscience of the Universe. You might choose a cutoff that income tax starts on all income above a basic subsistence rate, but there is no absolute moral authority stating "regressive tax bad, progressive tax good." Besides, many low income people currently pay no income taxes at all. Even if they paid a pittance and had some skin in the game they might start taking a much greater interest in how their tax monies were being spent -- which would be a Good Thing.
A flat income tax with no deductions? Seriously? You know that'd benefit the rich. Right now, a lot of poor people pay no income tax. I pay no income tax. I just have to worry about self-employment tax (equivalent to FICA taxes for employed persons) and that's it. I don't earn enough to pay income tax, and I don't think I ever have. Came close while in college given my grants.
A flat tax that somehow benefits the rich? Wow, how did you arrive at that?
Let me see here. Under a flat tax I make X dollars and pay Y tax on them where Y = some% of X.
Another person makes 2X dollars and pays 2Y in taxes.
Uncle Money Bags makes 100X dollars (I hope I'm in his will) and pays 100Y in taxes.
You know, that really sounds very fair to me -- although truly fair would be that everybody pays the same amount of tax each year because everybody benefits the same from roads, schools and other provided services.
Anything else is punitive from envious people who hate that someone else had more than they do.
People are weird that way. Take the social experiment where the researcher offers you $50, which you can take or refuse. But there's a condition: If you take the $50 then I get $100. But if you take nothing then I get nothing either. While you'd think that it's a no-brainer that you now have $50 that you didn't have before, you'd be amazed how many people will refuse to take their money because someone else "unfairly" is getting more in the process. And that attitude carries over into other areas.
Microsoft employs >40K employees in the Seattle Metro area, while the other 3.6M residents (literally the 99%) get screwed.
So tell me, if Microsoft left and took the 40k jobs with them, they would then NOT get tax breaks in Seattle.
How would the other 99% of the Seattle residents be better off?
Would they somehow be less screwed?
How dare you attempt Logic on Slashdot?
Boeing took Washington State for all they were worth and were the beneficiaries of the 1st & 3rd largest incentives in US history.
Is that before, or after, the $1.2 billion that Nevada is giving Tesla for the Gigifactory?
So ignorant.
He probably doesn't even understand Power Factor -- let alone any real complexities in electrical generation and distribution.
He seems like a guy who added up all generation and all consumption, said that those numbers are essentially equal, meaning that this is just a question of distributing the power to where it's needed. It it were only so simple.
Is it illegal retransmission for my stepson in New York to VCR a program and mail me the tape?
If no, then Aereo should be completely legal.
Because when (I think it was) CBS was in a dispute with the cable companies they didn't let their content be carried over the cable as leverage for insanely higher re-transmission fees. Some desirable sports are only shown on CBS. People got around the CBS action by receiving over-the-air broadcasts. Aereo let everybody in the country who wanted to put it to CBS. CBS didn't like that.
Cable is a one-to-many system.
Aereo is 1-to-1.
That is a Major difference.
It's not "streaming" to download your own data across the Internet.
The Supreme Court are a bunch of technologically backward morons!
I don't want to hear this. I just finished the migration from XP to Win7.
Do not want to go through that again for another 6 years.
Who still buys into that garbage that only Republicans protect big business that the nice and friendly, warm and fuzzy, Democrats are the party of the People?
(Hint: They're the party of the Union bosses and every corporate lobbyist with a checkbook. At least the Republicans don't lie about it.)
Just because computers can send and receive data very fast doesn't at all mean that they would necessarily comprehend it at a conscious level any faster than we can without hour own highly parallel human brains.
Nor is there any reason to believe that an AI would experience boredom. That's projecting human quirks on non-human intelligences, which the author has no basis to validly do.
Exactly.
Now if only we could get the same peer review process in place at certain media outlets that pretend to be news...
CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and especially MSNBC.
Hey, what about Verizon FiOS? I got fiber to my house and get as good of service as you can expect from Verizon....
And how's your Netflix streaming?
It requires a shload of heat, which takes energy. The environmental claim is regarding the production of this energy, which Apple has no problem building large solar arrays to get around that.
They're making it in Arizona.
Arizona has heat.
Also, there is some speculation on several different sites that Apple may not intend to use sapphire for the screen, but instead for the camera lens. They currently use it on the camera lens and the home button. I wonder if it's something they could use in other things that don't currently use Gorilla Glass, like macbook screens?
That's an awful lot of sapphire that they'll be making if it's just for camera lenses and the Home button.
And if the MacBook isn't already using GG, then why does it need sapphire?
Not making sense here.
If Gorilla Glass is so superior to sapphire, then why is Apple going to such expense for an inferior material?
Is it just that people will buy sapphire iPhones over GG iPhones? I doubt that.
I expect that there are advantages to sapphire that you're missing.
I know of a lot of GG iPhones with cracked/shattered displays, so there must be some room for improvement.
The next question to answer is: Can Heartbleed compromise True Crypt?
Apple claims that Samsung hurts the market for iPhones.
B.S.!
If you want IOS and the Apple App Store you have to buy an iPhone today every bit as much as you ever had to do so.
The Samsung phone is a different creature in a different environment.
Apple couldn't even make enough smartphones to supply the whole world provided that the did have a monopoly on them.
Aside from the fact that Apple never should have been granted these patents, I mean really, how long before Samsung -- who still supplies a lot of the iPhone and iPad components because nobody else can -- announces a sudden price increase that more than pays for this judgement out of Apple's own pockets?
I hope real soon.
And I'm left to wonder if this is taxable income in the USA for the famously tax-avoiding Apple? If not, then they just laundered a giga-buck into the good 'ol USA.
You may think that you're an AC, but the NSA likely knows who you are.
I find it fascinating that as the cost of minting BCs in terms of compute cycles goes up, so does their value relative to the dollar. Is that behavior by design?
Any rise in the value of BitCoins is probably because it's the only way to keep anonymous funds now that the Swiss banks are no longer keeping records confidential.
The flaw in your argument is that the government doesn't have to track every BitCoin. They only have to worm their way into the far less numerous exchanges where you turn your BC to fully usable currencies and demand that they require full identification and keep records of every transaction. Tax problem solved --- and you know that what they're working on exactly that step by step.
And you must be an envious, wannabe American.
Posting to undo accidental mod
Apparently your mod is as ephemeral as a BitCoin.
In the truest sense BitCoin is commodity, not a currency. You can create, or buy, title to ownership of a piece of information that others have agreed to both recognize your ownership rights, and value it as well. It also, unlike every other currency today, is the ultimate Hard Currency because there is a hard upper limit on its creation. You can mine more gold for your gold backed currency, but the total number of BitCoins under the current rules (a most important distinction) has a hard cap.
It's also the ultimate fiat currency because although it took some effort -- or lucky guesses -- to create, it is not legal tender anywhere. It only has value between 2 people willing to agree on that value. Rather the Esperanto of money. But to try and turn it into a currency so that governments can regulate it under existing laws is absolute Fraud on their citizens.
Of course, when has that ever stopped politicians from "creating" new tax sources, which is the ultimate end of this exercise in case you hadn't realized that yet.
Everyone in government supporting this regulation fantasy should be voted out of office immediately -- although we all know that's never going to happen.
Since Adobe's moron move to the "Creative Cloud" (which may represent a state of mind among Adobe executives rather than a description of the system which is simply Software As A Service) thousands of photographers have been ditching PS. Corel's Paintshop Pro, while commercial software is less expensive than PS. Paintshop even does layers, 16 bit and CMYK output.
I have to question that. All previous DVD versions of CS thru CS6 continue to run as is with no additional money required. Only when you want new features beyond CS6 do you have to start with the Adobe monthly fee or move to an alternative. Like MSWord since probably Word 95, if not 6, PS has been so over-featured for most users that what more do you need that they haven't already thought of and included? So why would anyone dump an already paid-for program to learn a new one? My guess is that they're just not getting new users nearly as much as before.
The favorite boast I hear from many PS users with personal copies (when the company is paying the bill it's a whole different matter, of course) is who is using the oldest version of PS and is still completely happy with it. This week it was a PS5 (not CS5 -- PS5) user. Personally I used PS7 for a long time until I was given a copy of CS1, and am now only on CS3, where I will likely live for a good long while now.