That's because there's a rumor floating around that they're going to follow Carly's advice and recruit overseas, thus cutting the cost of the CEO position by 90%.
Given that the accuracy of non-militarized GPS is 10 meters at best- I'd think killing the lighthouses WILL kill some German Sailors who don't have the backup method of rekoning position. Heck, my GPS unit can't even tell which side of the street my house is on from position alone.
I filed for myself, using a tax program that guarantees accuracy. If I had been audited, it would have been their problem, not mine.
I filed with turbotax too- how did you miss the question about how much the check was, complete with the $600 deduction in your running total?
That is correct, the Bush refund that I received in 2001 was based on a retroactive cut for the previous year's earnings.
Current year's you mean- The question I refered to in turbo tax was in the 2001 version.
I can print my own money, if I want to. I could make Kano Dollars in every denomination that I choose.
And you would go directly to jail the moment you tried to use them- counterfieting carries a 15-25 year sentence in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass-prison.
I could print 100 Kano 1$ bills and each one would be worth 1% of my networth. Anyone who chooses to could accept them as currency with the understanding that the bill is backed up by my assets.
Actually, no- private currencies became illegal back in the 1800s.
Of course no one would be interested in a bill that is only backed by my diminutive assets when there are bills that are backed by the US Government. I can't reproduce US Government currency and attept to pass it off as genuine, as that would be fraudulent. The crime of counterfeiting is more one of fraud than of stepping on the government's toes.
And since those bills are backed up by the assets of the US Government- not by your own assets- who retains ownership of the money? The entity that owns the ASSETS.
That worldview failed in Eastern Europe.
No- that worldview was never tried in Eastern Europe. What was tried in Eastern Europe was a foreign occupation, with all assets owned by right of conquest by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Just as the assets of Cascadia and the First Nation are now owned by the United States by right of conquest.
It won't succeed here either.
Been more successfull here than it was in Eastern Europe- you don't see any T'linket Chiefs claiming their right of birth and a section of downtown Seattle, do you?
What would happen then? People WILL adapt, if you raise the divident interest rate to the point where it's higher than the payroll rate, know what happens then? They will stop paying dividends and give big shareholders token positions and pay them out of the company payroll.
Good- that would be a BIG improvement from the current situation- especially if they had to earn a wage.
Whether the money comes through dividends, payroll or capital gains, people with money will find the path of least resistance.
Yes they will- but by forcing them to work side-by-side with the laborers, and come in every day, any injustice would be met with swift violent retribution. A BIG improvement on the current situation indeed.
How many of these people can you name?
Well, two off the top of my head- Warren Buffet and Bill Gates (which is why Bill can't spend more than 289 days a year at his Seattle digs anymore- not that he was anyway). Plenty of other corporations and individuals do this yearly- like you said above, give them a loophole and they will adapt. Personally, I prefer closing the loopholes with extreme prejudice- but that's just me.
Thanks, I'll give it a shot. I really think it's just dirty rollers- and only seems to be the top set of rollers right where the paper comes out (if I get a paper jam, it's always accordoning in the back panel).
Got any suggestions for cleaning the rollers on a 4+ that has an unknown history? Mine always jams unless I'm standing right in front of it holding down the left two rollers with my fingers until the sheet starts feeding.
I'm not saying that CompUSA wasn't cheap- I'm saying that I priced off them to be competitive. 99% of the time with home machines it isn't a hardware problem- it's a software problem, a virus/spyware detection and elimination job. The WORST I've ever gone was 2.5 hours for one of those, a spyware infestation so bad that it required a google search for a removal techinique and 4 reboots, with password protection, into Windows (6 EXEs that had to be removed in a certain order- with immediate removal from memory for 4). Second worst took 2 hours- a virus infestation so bad that Windows wouldn't boot, so I had to do a DOS-level virus scan and reload of Win98. Reinstall, oh what fun! They say it helps you get things done! Now everybody, everyone, is REINSTALLING WINDOWS!
But then you will get someone who is new to the OS, and you probably know what is worse;-).
They're new to computers anyway- teach them Windows or Debian, it's the same damned learning curve.
And you must also understand why there aren't that many spyware sites targeting Linux: not main-stream.
Yeah, so? We're talking about home machines, not business machines. Doesn't matter what OS they are running.
Take for instance the recent developments of spyware targeting firefox.
True enough. It's rising in popularity, and has a big damned gaping hole in the Netscape Add In browser helper scheme.
If it wasn't getting as popular as it has gotten in the past few year(s) then there wouldn't have been idea's to target it. Some goes for the virusses for Linux.
True enough also- but the point is if you had given grandma a Linux machine to begin with so she could e-mail the grandkids in her retirement, you wouldn't be cleaning it for spyware now. If EVERYBODY had given Grandma Linux- then you probably would, but we'd all be reading accounts of that strange little company that went out of business in the Redmond County Museum.
If they were using Linux and being a part of that community- they wouldn't need the service in the first place because there is no spyware that I'm aware of that targets Linux.
Business Relationship only- $30/hr or $100 for Virus/Spyware Detection & elimination flat rate. $5 off the hourly rate or $25 off the flat rate to family and friends. Seems to be just about right- and it's less than CompUSA charges for the same service, so it's competitive.
No, I recieved roughly the same tax refund that I recieved for years before and after.
Then your accountant commited tax fraud in your name and the only way you got away with it was because you were lucky enough not to get audited.
The Bush tax cut was retroactive. It reduced my tax liability for the year that I filed for.
Which is the next year's refund, if you file taxes in the United States. You didn't get the refund for 2001's taxes until 2002. But that $600 check you got in September 2001 was a loan against your 2002 refund.
I made slightly less in 2000 than I did in 1999. Bush's tax cut ended up putting more money in my pocket than I otherwise would have had.
Lucky you- I made $32,000 less in 2001 than I did in 1999.
Bullshit, even people who make more than $95k in a year STILL pay FICA taxes on the first $95k of income.
Where did I say they didn't? But only those earning UNDER $95k/year paid FICA taxes on ALL their income- thus slowly reducing effective FICA rate above $95,000.
Moreover, tax cuts don't need to be "paid for", it's not the government's money
That's funny- it has the government's seal on it, it has the signature of the secretary of the treasury on it, it sure looks like the government's money to me.
It's ours.
Then why can't you just print up your own money for your own needs and leave the tax man out of it entirely? Oh no, that's called COUNTERFIETING- because it's not your money, it's the government's money.
It may require lower spending on other things, but that's not the same as "paying for" it.
It is when you know the truth- that all money belongs to the government and is only lent to the private individual.
That choice of words indicates a different mindset.
It sure does- it indicates a mindset that knows reality as compared to one that has bought into the fiction that earning something means you own it.
It assumes that all money belongs to the government and it has to justify finding ways to let the people who earn the money keep it.
That's because all money that is legal tender in the United States DOES belong to the government- the money that doesn't is counterfiet (that is, counter to the government's fiat), and is not legal tender.
Something like 50% of all American adults have stock market investments,
The majority of which are losing money on those investments to the con game that is brokerage fees- but hey, it's all fake anyway, just a giant ponzi scheme to make you THINK that you aren't a slave.
any increase in the stock market will increase the personal fortunes of at least 50% of American adults.
No it won't- because there is no such thing as a full stock market increase, and the majority of those Americans are paying for it anyway out of their payroll taxes to keep the ponzi scheme of fiat currency from falling flat on it's face.
Want to help REAL Americans who live off the sweat of their brows instead of fake lazy idiots who live off of investments? Raise dividend taxes and cut payroll taxes.
Moreover, the people with the highest levels of income pay the most in taxes.
That's a lie- the highest levels of income all give up their citizenship and move to the Cayman Islands or the Bermudas specifically to avoid taxes altogether. The Cato Institute is paid by those same people to release fake numbers to fool people like you.
RTFA- it's more like $36 million when you figure it out. My question though- could these guys bid on the project? At least they've got a Roddenbery on staff, and I bet they could do it a hell of a lot cheaper than the studio can. The two direct distribution STOS episodes they've put out so far have been awesome.
You need to reevaluate your tax strategy. I recieved a refund the next year too.
Yes, but it was reduced by the ammount of the "tax cut check" which was really just a loan on the next year's refund.
Some people have to live paycheck to paycheck, and can't afford to lend the government money by giving them extra up front. As usual- refunds are a tax strategy that only affect those who haven't recieved a pay cut in recent years due to horrid federal trade policies.
Near as I can tell- that tax cut was the most successfull wealth transfer from payroll to dividends ever created. It gave money to people earning over $300,000/year, was break even for people between $50,000-$300,000/year, and actively hurt state and county services that depended on federal funds for those earning under $50,000/year. And to pay for it all, they took money out of the Social Security "surplus" which was paid for with increased FICA payroll taxes on anybody earning under $95,000/year- and now they plan to cut SS benefits if you're under age 55 on top of it.
Let's call that Bush tax cut for what it was- a reverse socialist policy to redistribute wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest.
I did just as the IRS suggested you do, since the check was just a loan on next year's tax return. I put it in a savings account, and the next January it got spent on my taxes. Anybody who really fell for that "tax cut check" was an idiot who didn't understand tax law.
No. There is another option. What other countries have done is instigate a hyper-inflation of their currency, pay off the debt and then allow the currency to crash again. It'll ruin a bunch of IRAs and 401ks, but it'll eliminate the debt and we all start over again. It's like bankruptcy for governments.
At which point, how will personal private investment accounts for social security, basically a bunch of IRAs and 401ks, help? My point is, this is a damned if we do, damned if we don't scenario- either they'll inflate the currency making the debt to SS not worth a damn and making the private accounts worthless *as well*, or they'll just drop the ball and not pay back the trust fund. *Either* of those two scenarios will be disasterous for American retired people- and just giving up Bush's irresponsible tax cuts will mean we don't have to worry about either of the worse options.
Only a small minority of customers cares about open source and interoperatability- the grand majority couldn't give a damn. Therefore the greater profit is in closed source and cheap labor- so that's what the behemouths will do.
You really think I have access to fake superweapons based on current technology and would use them?
Here's the truth in three points of why this is fake:
1. These weapons don't exist. Even if they did exist, they would require ownership of a missile silo and about $5 million worth of rocket fuel to even launch- who would waste $5 million to blow up an office building worth maybe $5000 tops?
2. The real villians aren't the poor people working on the call center line- they're the C-level executives in the business here in America that hired them.
3. If I really wanted to get revenge on the call center, the best way to do it would be pretend to buy with a fake credit card number and address, thus wasting their time looking it up to deny the sale.
Let's see, the current Social Security 'deficit' is $1.8 trillion--all tied up in US Treasury Bonds. Now, I've owned bonds and I can tell you that, printed right on them is the phrase, "backed by the full faith and credit of the United States." Interestingly, I don't own bonds any more because their rate of return was too low. They are, however, regarded as one of the safest investments anywhere.
Agreed. Therefore Social Secuirty should NOT be in crisis.
Maybe I'm crazy, but I just want to believe that the old US of A is good for it...
But smilin' George W. Bush, who also has most of his own money in bonds, is insisting that social security is in crisis- that the $1.8 trillion (hey, that's up from a couple days ago, $1.5 trillion- but as expected, still far short of the $5 trillion in bonds SS is supposed to have in that trust fund in 2018)- what does he know that we don't? I say that it's a POSSIBILITY that he knows that the $5 trillion won't be repaid by 2018- thus triggering the crisis (demographics have enough baby boomers retired by that time to have one retired person for every two people working- definately a bad sitiation for the original pyramid scheme without taking the trust fund into account).
Ah, but there is free money in the social security program. Large numbers of people have gotten more than they paid in. Some people got a bit less- but the point of the progam is to insure Social Security, not to pay a dividend.
Mmmm...yeah. So maybe we shold all buy gold and silver and let it gain 2% per year. That sounds great.
Better than giving it to some lying CEO type who thinks he's 400x better than everybody else and writes that into his golden parachute. Or worse yet- to some broker who eats it all up in "brokerage fees" and invests it in a lot of garbage (which is all stocks are, garbage).
The financial stability of our whole country is based on the financial stability of our whole country. Sounds crazy, and maybe it is, but yo...you have to believe in something.
Anybody who believes in anything done by human beings is insane.
Who is to say that gold is going to mean a shit in twenty years. I mean...it's a piece of metal.
It's a piece of metal with certain very interesting physical properties that makes it usefull for a large number of electronics items. If nothing else- that's where the value of gold lies. Oh yeah, and there's also jewlery, but it's value waxes and wanes, though it has always had value as such for the last 7000 years or so.
A note: By "control" I mean, let me decide what roulette table I place it on.
Interesting- even you agree with me that the stock market is nothing more than gambling.
I trust the ups and downs of the Stock market more than I trust the ups and downs of the government budget.
Social security isn't in the budget. And while companies often go bankrupt leaving behind worthless stock, the US Government has NEVER failed to pay on a Treasury Bond- even if it meant borrowing money from somebody else to pay that bond. If they did, your stock market would be worthless anyway, because the dollars those stocks are based on are little more than treasury bonds themselves.
I mean a couple of votes in florida can mean the difference between a couple billion in surplus and a couple trillion in the hole.
Uh, no- the couple of billion in surplus and the couple trillion in the hole are BOTH based on a loan, not on revenue, from Social Security, which is a separate entity from the general budget. Once again- if they default on that loan, then there is no safe investment anywhere.
The government budget is far less stable than the stock market has ever been.
Not possible- since the stock market is based on government bonds.
In the end, you either trust the US economy or you don't.
And after the last 4 years- I don't. Not at all.
I would rather take my chances with making > SS even with the 3% bump.
Too bad history doesn't bear you out- there has never been any country whose economy has grown at 9.65%/year for 75 years. Ever. Which is what it would take for you to beat the 6.65% return you get from Social Security RIGHT NOW- assuming that you retire after 2042 with only 80% benefits (if you're going to retire *before* 2042, your rate of return is even higher).
(in fact, I already am)
Really? You've been making a 9.65% profit in this economy? How?
Another thing, if you take everything you pay into SS, or have in your life (take a look at your SS statement every year), don't you think that you can do WAY better??? (even through the last tough year)
No- I don't. I had an equivalent of money in a 401(k)- it disappeared during my 26 months unemployed. During that same period my SS account grew by the ammount of the FICA taxes on my unemployment check.
Are you saying that you are totally satisfied with SS the way it is???
No I'm not- I'm saying that personal accounts don't make sense when you add the numbers up. We could theoretically solv
Hey, I'm all for music that has something to say, whether lyrically or musically, but sometimes it's just great to enjoy a band that simply puts on a great show. The Darkness comes to mind. They're not going to replace my Beatles and Zep collection, but it can refreshing (and fun) to just bang your head.
Yeah- but it's way more fun to do that in concert than to a recording.
Like you, I've got all the 'old' music I could ever want on my fileserver and backed up to CD (the luck of working for a cybercafe during the Napster era), but I've found you can't predict what's going to come out that tickles your fancy. Hell, there's even one Britney song I have a fondness for in my collection! You just never know....
That's scary- especially since Britney is largely considered to be yet another eample of a teen version of Milli Vanili. Ever think of tracking down the person who wrote the song instead?
And hey, thanks for the namechecks, never heard of either band, will definitely check them out.
The second will send you a CD, for free, if you promise to play it publically at an anti-H-1b protest (and they're also willing to come, for expenses, for any pro-worker fundraiser anywhere in the country). Not that the CD is any better quality than you can download from their site to begin with.
Baby Gramps- he's only got one album out, and the only place I can think of for you to buy his CD is at his show. And the only consistent place I know of to find his show is the Oregon Country Fair- if you don't mind the horrid traffic getting there, and all the young ladies with body paintings...He may have a website though- I've yet to look.
Well, if you're stupid, into your own pocket. If you're smart, it'll be used to offer higher salaries to the guys you hire away from the stupid employers.
There are plenty of employees to go around- 8 million of them that the REALLY stupid employers laid off in the last year.
And as increased salaries to your own employees, to keep them from leaving for a 6% pay raise elsewhere.
There are plenty of other fish in the sea to replace them- just let them try to find another job in this economy.
Well guess what...it's the same thing in the context of which I spoke. My life insurance policy is INSURANCE too but it's still MY MONEY.
No- as soon as you pay it in it becomes the insurance company's money and it goes one of three places: to pay current benefits, to pay current overhead, or to save for the day when they get n deaths all at once.
And in case you didn't know...INSURANCE companies ARE investment companies. I can borrow against it and cash it out at will. I also have total control over it.
Oh, no- you've fallen in with one of those fakes. Does your benefit ammount also depend on how much you've already paid in?
So again, my basic point is, I would like to retain control over as much of my money as possible.
Unless it's invested in your own business, you've already given up control to others. Heck, by using the government's fake dollar pyramid scheme- you've already given up control to others. Better have your money in something other than dollars, quick...
If you don't fine...don't use the "personal accounts" plan. Under Bush's plan for personal accounts as I understand it, it's going to be up to you in the end...
No, that's not true- under the current plan, yes, you have the choice whether to particpate or not- but if you're under 55 you will have 3% reduced benefits REGARDLESS of if you participate or not if this is enacted. That 3% will be EITHER taken out of your profits if you choose to participate, or out of your benefits if you don't. And it will go to pay the brokerage fees to set this all up.
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That's because there's a rumor floating around that they're going to follow Carly's advice and recruit overseas, thus cutting the cost of the CEO position by 90%.
Given that the accuracy of non-militarized GPS is 10 meters at best- I'd think killing the lighthouses WILL kill some German Sailors who don't have the backup method of rekoning position. Heck, my GPS unit can't even tell which side of the street my house is on from position alone.
I filed for myself, using a tax program that guarantees accuracy. If I had been audited, it would have been their problem, not mine.
I filed with turbotax too- how did you miss the question about how much the check was, complete with the $600 deduction in your running total?
That is correct, the Bush refund that I received in 2001 was based on a retroactive cut for the previous year's earnings.
Current year's you mean- The question I refered to in turbo tax was in the 2001 version.
I can print my own money, if I want to. I could make Kano Dollars in every denomination that I choose.
And you would go directly to jail the moment you tried to use them- counterfieting carries a 15-25 year sentence in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass-prison.
I could print 100 Kano 1$ bills and each one would be worth 1% of my networth. Anyone who chooses to could accept them as currency with the understanding that the bill is backed up by my assets.
Actually, no- private currencies became illegal back in the 1800s.
Of course no one would be interested in a bill that is only backed by my diminutive assets when there are bills that are backed by the US Government. I can't reproduce US Government currency and attept to pass it off as genuine, as that would be fraudulent. The crime of counterfeiting is more one of fraud than of stepping on the government's toes.
And since those bills are backed up by the assets of the US Government- not by your own assets- who retains ownership of the money? The entity that owns the ASSETS.
That worldview failed in Eastern Europe.
No- that worldview was never tried in Eastern Europe. What was tried in Eastern Europe was a foreign occupation, with all assets owned by right of conquest by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Just as the assets of Cascadia and the First Nation are now owned by the United States by right of conquest.
It won't succeed here either.
Been more successfull here than it was in Eastern Europe- you don't see any T'linket Chiefs claiming their right of birth and a section of downtown Seattle, do you?
What would happen then? People WILL adapt, if you raise the divident interest rate to the point where it's higher than the payroll rate, know what happens then? They will stop paying dividends and give big shareholders token positions and pay them out of the company payroll.
Good- that would be a BIG improvement from the current situation- especially if they had to earn a wage.
Whether the money comes through dividends, payroll or capital gains, people with money will find the path of least resistance.
Yes they will- but by forcing them to work side-by-side with the laborers, and come in every day, any injustice would be met with swift violent retribution. A BIG improvement on the current situation indeed.
How many of these people can you name?
Well, two off the top of my head- Warren Buffet and Bill Gates (which is why Bill can't spend more than 289 days a year at his Seattle digs anymore- not that he was anyway). Plenty of other corporations and individuals do this yearly- like you said above, give them a loophole and they will adapt. Personally, I prefer closing the loopholes with extreme prejudice- but that's just me.
Thanks, I'll give it a shot. I really think it's just dirty rollers- and only seems to be the top set of rollers right where the paper comes out (if I get a paper jam, it's always accordoning in the back panel).
Oh- I missed that one. If you don't want to be competitive, just take my numbers and multiply by 4- that ought to discourage everybody.
Got any suggestions for cleaning the rollers on a 4+ that has an unknown history? Mine always jams unless I'm standing right in front of it holding down the left two rollers with my fingers until the sheet starts feeding.
Stability vs income dude- with less stability, comes more income, but you spend it on the times when you ain't doin nothin'.
I'm not saying that CompUSA wasn't cheap- I'm saying that I priced off them to be competitive. 99% of the time with home machines it isn't a hardware problem- it's a software problem, a virus/spyware detection and elimination job. The WORST I've ever gone was 2.5 hours for one of those, a spyware infestation so bad that it required a google search for a removal techinique and 4 reboots, with password protection, into Windows (6 EXEs that had to be removed in a certain order- with immediate removal from memory for 4). Second worst took 2 hours- a virus infestation so bad that Windows wouldn't boot, so I had to do a DOS-level virus scan and reload of Win98. Reinstall, oh what fun! They say it helps you get things done! Now everybody, everyone, is REINSTALLING WINDOWS!
But then you will get someone who is new to the OS, and you probably know what is worse ;-).
They're new to computers anyway- teach them Windows or Debian, it's the same damned learning curve.
And you must also understand why there aren't that many spyware sites targeting Linux: not main-stream.
Yeah, so? We're talking about home machines, not business machines. Doesn't matter what OS they are running.
Take for instance the recent developments of spyware targeting firefox.
True enough. It's rising in popularity, and has a big damned gaping hole in the Netscape Add In browser helper scheme.
If it wasn't getting as popular as it has gotten in the past few year(s) then there wouldn't have been idea's to target it. Some goes for the virusses for Linux.
True enough also- but the point is if you had given grandma a Linux machine to begin with so she could e-mail the grandkids in her retirement, you wouldn't be cleaning it for spyware now. If EVERYBODY had given Grandma Linux- then you probably would, but we'd all be reading accounts of that strange little company that went out of business in the Redmond County Museum.
If they were using Linux and being a part of that community- they wouldn't need the service in the first place because there is no spyware that I'm aware of that targets Linux.
Business Relationship only- $30/hr or $100 for Virus/Spyware Detection & elimination flat rate. $5 off the hourly rate or $25 off the flat rate to family and friends. Seems to be just about right- and it's less than CompUSA charges for the same service, so it's competitive.
No, I recieved roughly the same tax refund that I recieved for years before and after.
Then your accountant commited tax fraud in your name and the only way you got away with it was because you were lucky enough not to get audited.
The Bush tax cut was retroactive. It reduced my tax liability for the year that I filed for.
Which is the next year's refund, if you file taxes in the United States. You didn't get the refund for 2001's taxes until 2002. But that $600 check you got in September 2001 was a loan against your 2002 refund.
I made slightly less in 2000 than I did in 1999. Bush's tax cut ended up putting more money in my pocket than I otherwise would have had.
Lucky you- I made $32,000 less in 2001 than I did in 1999.
Bullshit, even people who make more than $95k in a year STILL pay FICA taxes on the first $95k of income.
Where did I say they didn't? But only those earning UNDER $95k/year paid FICA taxes on ALL their income- thus slowly reducing effective FICA rate above $95,000.
Moreover, tax cuts don't need to be "paid for", it's not the government's money
That's funny- it has the government's seal on it, it has the signature of the secretary of the treasury on it, it sure looks like the government's money to me.
It's ours.
Then why can't you just print up your own money for your own needs and leave the tax man out of it entirely? Oh no, that's called COUNTERFIETING- because it's not your money, it's the government's money.
It may require lower spending on other things, but that's not the same as "paying for" it.
It is when you know the truth- that all money belongs to the government and is only lent to the private individual.
That choice of words indicates a different mindset.
It sure does- it indicates a mindset that knows reality as compared to one that has bought into the fiction that earning something means you own it.
It assumes that all money belongs to the government and it has to justify finding ways to let the people who earn the money keep it.
That's because all money that is legal tender in the United States DOES belong to the government- the money that doesn't is counterfiet (that is, counter to the government's fiat), and is not legal tender.
Something like 50% of all American adults have stock market investments,
The majority of which are losing money on those investments to the con game that is brokerage fees- but hey, it's all fake anyway, just a giant ponzi scheme to make you THINK that you aren't a slave.
any increase in the stock market will increase the personal fortunes of at least 50% of American adults.
No it won't- because there is no such thing as a full stock market increase, and the majority of those Americans are paying for it anyway out of their payroll taxes to keep the ponzi scheme of fiat currency from falling flat on it's face.
Want to help REAL Americans who live off the sweat of their brows instead of fake lazy idiots who live off of investments? Raise dividend taxes and cut payroll taxes.
Moreover, the people with the highest levels of income pay the most in taxes.
That's a lie- the highest levels of income all give up their citizenship and move to the Cayman Islands or the Bermudas specifically to avoid taxes altogether. The Cato Institute is paid by those same people to release fake numbers to fool people like you.
RTFA- it's more like $36 million when you figure it out. My question though- could these guys bid on the project? At least they've got a Roddenbery on staff, and I bet they could do it a hell of a lot cheaper than the studio can. The two direct distribution STOS episodes they've put out so far have been awesome.
You need to reevaluate your tax strategy. I recieved a refund the next year too.
Yes, but it was reduced by the ammount of the "tax cut check" which was really just a loan on the next year's refund.
Some people have to live paycheck to paycheck, and can't afford to lend the government money by giving them extra up front. As usual- refunds are a tax strategy that only affect those who haven't recieved a pay cut in recent years due to horrid federal trade policies.
Near as I can tell- that tax cut was the most successfull wealth transfer from payroll to dividends ever created. It gave money to people earning over $300,000/year, was break even for people between $50,000-$300,000/year, and actively hurt state and county services that depended on federal funds for those earning under $50,000/year. And to pay for it all, they took money out of the Social Security "surplus" which was paid for with increased FICA payroll taxes on anybody earning under $95,000/year- and now they plan to cut SS benefits if you're under age 55 on top of it.
Let's call that Bush tax cut for what it was- a reverse socialist policy to redistribute wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest.
I did just as the IRS suggested you do, since the check was just a loan on next year's tax return. I put it in a savings account, and the next January it got spent on my taxes. Anybody who really fell for that "tax cut check" was an idiot who didn't understand tax law.
No. There is another option. What other countries have done is instigate a hyper-inflation of their currency, pay off the debt and then allow the currency to crash again. It'll ruin a bunch of IRAs and 401ks, but it'll eliminate the debt and we all start over again. It's like bankruptcy for governments.
At which point, how will personal private investment accounts for social security, basically a bunch of IRAs and 401ks, help? My point is, this is a damned if we do, damned if we don't scenario- either they'll inflate the currency making the debt to SS not worth a damn and making the private accounts worthless *as well*, or they'll just drop the ball and not pay back the trust fund. *Either* of those two scenarios will be disasterous for American retired people- and just giving up Bush's irresponsible tax cuts will mean we don't have to worry about either of the worse options.
Only a small minority of customers cares about open source and interoperatability- the grand majority couldn't give a damn. Therefore the greater profit is in closed source and cheap labor- so that's what the behemouths will do.
Better yet- put it in a concrete box- completely sealed except for power & ADSL connection....
Here's the truth in three points of why this is fake:
1. These weapons don't exist. Even if they did exist, they would require ownership of a missile silo and about $5 million worth of rocket fuel to even launch- who would waste $5 million to blow up an office building worth maybe $5000 tops?
2. The real villians aren't the poor people working on the call center line- they're the C-level executives in the business here in America that hired them.
3. If I really wanted to get revenge on the call center, the best way to do it would be pretend to buy with a fake credit card number and address, thus wasting their time looking it up to deny the sale.
Let's see, the current Social Security 'deficit' is $1.8 trillion--all tied up in US Treasury Bonds. Now, I've owned bonds and I can tell you that, printed right on them is the phrase, "backed by the full faith and credit of the United States." Interestingly, I don't own bonds any more because their rate of return was too low. They are, however, regarded as one of the safest investments anywhere.
Agreed. Therefore Social Secuirty should NOT be in crisis.
Maybe I'm crazy, but I just want to believe that the old US of A is good for it...
But smilin' George W. Bush, who also has most of his own money in bonds, is insisting that social security is in crisis- that the $1.8 trillion (hey, that's up from a couple days ago, $1.5 trillion- but as expected, still far short of the $5 trillion in bonds SS is supposed to have in that trust fund in 2018)- what does he know that we don't? I say that it's a POSSIBILITY that he knows that the $5 trillion won't be repaid by 2018- thus triggering the crisis (demographics have enough baby boomers retired by that time to have one retired person for every two people working- definately a bad sitiation for the original pyramid scheme without taking the trust fund into account).
There is no free money...anywhere.
Ah, but there is free money in the social security program. Large numbers of people have gotten more than they paid in. Some people got a bit less- but the point of the progam is to insure Social Security, not to pay a dividend.
Mmmm...yeah. So maybe we shold all buy gold and silver and let it gain 2% per year. That sounds great.
Better than giving it to some lying CEO type who thinks he's 400x better than everybody else and writes that into his golden parachute. Or worse yet- to some broker who eats it all up in "brokerage fees" and invests it in a lot of garbage (which is all stocks are, garbage).
The financial stability of our whole country is based on the financial stability of our whole country. Sounds crazy, and maybe it is, but yo...you have to believe in something.
Anybody who believes in anything done by human beings is insane.
Who is to say that gold is going to mean a shit in twenty years. I mean...it's a piece of metal.
It's a piece of metal with certain very interesting physical properties that makes it usefull for a large number of electronics items. If nothing else- that's where the value of gold lies. Oh yeah, and there's also jewlery, but it's value waxes and wanes, though it has always had value as such for the last 7000 years or so.
A note: By "control" I mean, let me decide what roulette table I place it on.
Interesting- even you agree with me that the stock market is nothing more than gambling.
I trust the ups and downs of the Stock market more than I trust the ups and downs of the government budget.
Social security isn't in the budget. And while companies often go bankrupt leaving behind worthless stock, the US Government has NEVER failed to pay on a Treasury Bond- even if it meant borrowing money from somebody else to pay that bond. If they did, your stock market would be worthless anyway, because the dollars those stocks are based on are little more than treasury bonds themselves.
I mean a couple of votes in florida can mean the difference between a couple billion in surplus and a couple trillion in the hole.
Uh, no- the couple of billion in surplus and the couple trillion in the hole are BOTH based on a loan, not on revenue, from Social Security, which is a separate entity from the general budget. Once again- if they default on that loan, then there is no safe investment anywhere.
The government budget is far less stable than the stock market has ever been.
Not possible- since the stock market is based on government bonds.
In the end, you either trust the US economy or you don't.
And after the last 4 years- I don't. Not at all.
I would rather take my chances with making > SS even with the 3% bump.
Too bad history doesn't bear you out- there has never been any country whose economy has grown at 9.65%/year for 75 years. Ever. Which is what it would take for you to beat the 6.65% return you get from Social Security RIGHT NOW- assuming that you retire after 2042 with only 80% benefits (if you're going to retire *before* 2042, your rate of return is even higher).
(in fact, I already am)
Really? You've been making a 9.65% profit in this economy? How?
Another thing, if you take everything you pay into SS, or have in your life (take a look at your SS statement every year), don't you think that you can do WAY better??? (even through the last tough year)
No- I don't. I had an equivalent of money in a 401(k)- it disappeared during my 26 months unemployed. During that same period my SS account grew by the ammount of the FICA taxes on my unemployment check.
Are you saying that you are totally satisfied with SS the way it is???
No I'm not- I'm saying that personal accounts don't make sense when you add the numbers up. We could theoretically solv
Ah- ok, that actually DOES fit what I know- because while the country was closed down, Roman Catholicism was banned- underground churches and all.
Hey, I'm all for music that has something to say, whether lyrically or musically, but sometimes it's just great to enjoy a band that simply puts on a great show. The Darkness comes to mind. They're not going to replace my Beatles and Zep collection, but it can refreshing (and fun) to just bang your head.
Yeah- but it's way more fun to do that in concert than to a recording.
Like you, I've got all the 'old' music I could ever want on my fileserver and backed up to CD (the luck of working for a cybercafe during the Napster era), but I've found you can't predict what's going to come out that tickles your fancy. Hell, there's even one Britney song I have a fondness for in my collection! You just never know....
That's scary- especially since Britney is largely considered to be yet another eample of a teen version of Milli Vanili. Ever think of tracking down the person who wrote the song instead?
And hey, thanks for the namechecks, never heard of either band, will definitely check them out.
The second will send you a CD, for free, if you promise to play it publically at an anti-H-1b protest (and they're also willing to come, for expenses, for any pro-worker fundraiser anywhere in the country). Not that the CD is any better quality than you can download from their site to begin with.
Baby Gramps- he's only got one album out, and the only place I can think of for you to buy his CD is at his show. And the only consistent place I know of to find his show is the Oregon Country Fair- if you don't mind the horrid traffic getting there, and all the young ladies with body paintings...He may have a website though- I've yet to look.
Well, if you're stupid, into your own pocket. If you're smart, it'll be used to offer higher salaries to the guys you hire away from the stupid employers.
There are plenty of employees to go around- 8 million of them that the REALLY stupid employers laid off in the last year.
And as increased salaries to your own employees, to keep them from leaving for a 6% pay raise elsewhere.
There are plenty of other fish in the sea to replace them- just let them try to find another job in this economy.
Well guess what...it's the same thing in the context of which I spoke. My life insurance policy is INSURANCE too but it's still MY MONEY.
No- as soon as you pay it in it becomes the insurance company's money and it goes one of three places: to pay current benefits, to pay current overhead, or to save for the day when they get n deaths all at once.
And in case you didn't know...INSURANCE companies ARE investment companies. I can borrow against it and cash it out at will. I also have total control over it.
Oh, no- you've fallen in with one of those fakes. Does your benefit ammount also depend on how much you've already paid in?
So again, my basic point is, I would like to retain control over as much of my money as possible.
Unless it's invested in your own business, you've already given up control to others. Heck, by using the government's fake dollar pyramid scheme- you've already given up control to others. Better have your money in something other than dollars, quick...
If you don't fine...don't use the "personal accounts" plan. Under Bush's plan for personal accounts as I understand it, it's going to be up to you in the end...
No, that's not true- under the current plan, yes, you have the choice whether to particpate or not- but if you're under 55 you will have 3% reduced benefits REGARDLESS of if you participate or not if this is enacted. That 3% will be EITHER taken out of your profits if you choose to participate, or out of your benefits if you don't. And it will go to pay the brokerage fees to set this all up.