Anyway, the primary lameness I see with the argument is that the spam filters no doubt are filtering out bulk email, that is, those with a truckload of cc: and/or bcc: addresses. If they simply sent out individual emails--which I would prefer as I scream bloody murder at people who stick my address in a visible CC: line with 987 of their closest friends--I'm betting it'd pass the filters, no problem. I just can't see how a true "newsletter" format could otherwise be reliably identified...unless it involved l33t$P34|<, V14GRA and pr0n.
That, and it's not like taking an Advil. Most of these drugs are absolutely _awful_ to take, especially the first few weeks. If condoms caused shingles the first 100 times you used them and then after that would randomly make you throw up and break out in hives, people wouldn't use them either, even if they were free.
Hell, I know HIV-positive people who can't keep on their meds because they just get sick of all the side-effects. So, how they think people who aren't infected are going to stick to them "just in case" is pretty astonishing.
They are pure raw ideas and usually can lead the way to making a lot of money.
Oh, I think "pure raw ideas" is being rather kind. Most of them are pure, overcooked, reheated and recycled ideas. How many times have you parused a pile of books on the latest-greatest-whiz-bang language to find them all 80% filled with practically verbatim copies of every other damned book out there? Invariably, every one of them spends a whole friggen chapter clowning on how cute it is that everyone does a "hello world" application. Yes, we know, can we move on to the perennial "Pet Store" now? Gack.
Without an expansion on what the "algorithm" actually IS, this could be equivalent to a Piet Mondrian...or merely a Keith Boadwee.
I sense that the "algorithm" in question is sadly more akin to the techniques of the latter and, really, if for that you can answer in the affirmative the question "but, is it ART?" I can't imagine that anything would fall outside that box...well, a splash or two maybe...
I'd rather people use the transliterated version that they have a prayer of sounding out. I mean, my grandmother's name was Guðbjörg, but in kindness to Anglo tongues--and eyes--in the U.S. she simply went by Byerg. Not anglicized per se, but more along the lines of my going as John rather than Jón, since hardly anyone is going to see that and get "yown" anyway.
"My original point was that very very few high wage earners get their money because someone earns less."
Very, very few high wage earners are self-sufficient operating without equipment, staff or service industries. If that equipment was made by, or those offices staffed by or those services provided by people with the same or higher incomes, those high wage earner's wages wouldn't be worth much.
As you've so appropriately pointed out, yes, most of the world is very, very low-income. Cheap labor is absolutely required for creating wealth. Without dollar-a-day labor in China, most Americans simply couldn't afford to have the trappings of wealth that they do. As you've so pointedly recognized, income and wealth disparity isn't just between the upper, professional and working classes of Americans, it's global. Just because we're wealthier than devloping nations doesn't mean that suddenly wealth differential no longer matters within our own.
...and, unfortunately, a good number of people who go into teaching fall into the "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach" category. Sure, some professors are stellar, but some are there more for their own validation and sadomasochistic power trips. They treat students like primary school children, structuring their courses and their own behavior for maximum scolding potential, and then complain that their students behave like primary school children. So, you get peevy things like not liking laptops or whatever and rather than just structure the class to eliminate the problem, they "make examples" out of anyone who would dare resist their fetishized tantrums.
Why use it as an example? Because for the _same_ purchase (e.g., my home) I am more likely to pay 100% of my salary in taxes when someone making THOUSANDS of times more will pay zilch. That's not "Fair" in any common sense of the word. So, fine, lobby for this tax and get what you deserve. Just don't call it "fair."
It's $8333 per person, or $17k per working adult....yes, the intricacies of tax systems are precisely because, no, someone making $14k per year cannot afford $8k, much less $17k per year, but also, someone making $1.8M per year is earning their income precisely because others are making $14k per year and are taken care of by what that $2.5T per year puts in place in terms of infrastructure, so by all rights they _should_ pay more of the burden since they profit from the proceeds. Duh, eh?
I highly doubt that, like someone making $20k/year, many people making $1M/year are spending 30% of their incomes in restaurants. Honestly, you think it is _common_ at that level of income to spend $904 PER DAY EVERY DAY on FOOD? Yeah, they spend more, but at a certain point, the restaurants just don't get much more expensive.
for example, Howard Stern likes to eat at Nobu. Dinner at Nobu is about $100. He makes that in 30 seconds (24/7). I pretty routinely eat at places, say, half that expensive at about $50. An average dinner tab for me is thus about one twentieth of one percent of my income. 1/20th of 1% of his income would be $50,000.
That's about 500 plates of Nobu goodness. He must be REALLY hungry.
He must spend much more on housing, though. Oh wait, no, his house cost $20M.
That's ONE FIFTH of his annual income. Most people around or below the $100K mark are buying homes worth FIVE TIMES their incomes--and guess what, his was "used." A great number in the $100K mark are forced out into new construction in the 'burbs. So, for a $500k suburban McMansion, I gotta pony up $69k in "Fair Tax." For Howard's $20M manse in the Hamptons, he whistles dixie.
Apologies if expanding the "T" in "GST" confused you given the repetition of the term "goods and services" upthread. But then, I suppose one might just as well come back thinking I was talking about a "Generation Skipping Tax" or "Gold Sodium Thiosulfate."
Two points: First, these taxes are not targeted by the FairTax.
Then, where are these "hidden" taxes again? Payroll taxes? If we eliminated payroll taxes, you'd just see your salary decrease by 15%. End result to the "consumer?" Zilch. Great, I can no-longer deduct my mortgage interest, but I have to pay a 23%/$69k hit on $300k? I can roll that into my mortgage and compound it too? Terrific. If I buy a "used" house I don't have to pay it? Take a wild guess what that will do to new home construction? Not good.
"I think the big point you're missing with FairTax is that it is not meant to be perfect, just simpler and better than what we have now. It meets that criteria splendidly."
If you "simplify" the system like this, all other things will NOT remain equal. There is obviously terrific argument about how "splendidly" it would do this and --yes-- intelligent, informed people disagree on this. I'm not missing the point, I'm disagreeing with it.
At a certain point (generally at about $100k), the vast majority people quickly stop consuming their income and start hoarding it. Oh sure, some will burn through it on booze, drugs and hookers, but most start shoving that capital back into capital. The higher that income gets, the smaller the percentage of it that is consumed. So, your "fair" tax would, dollar-for-dollar, tax someone making $100k the same as someone making $1M...and I got news for you, that "used property" exclusion? Well, they ain't makin' any new land, so guess what will happen to the price of dirt? Well, until we're vacationing on the Moon.
Business purposes = no tax? Again, people nearing or exceeding $100k routinely put their entire damned lives on Schedule C (or into corporations) for exactly this purpose. Even if they _do_ consume above that level, it will surely be claimed as business expense--and that's determined at the point of sale or are we back to filing returns to prove it? Well, guess what, if you can avoid taxes completely by claiming business expense...you're going to find a great number of entrepreneurs and if they have to file returns, what's the benefit again in terms of paperwork and complexity reduction? If they don't, how do we prove it was business-related? Hmm.
A "prebate?" So, everyone gets a monthly check for the taxes on the first $14k of income, assumed to be consumed? Gah... That is going to eliminate the bureaucracy precisely HOW? So, people under $14k will get prebates for whatever % of $14k or will they have to file returns to prove exactly how poor they are? That'll really free up the ol' paperwork and fraud burden, now, won't it? What if it's a family of 12 and all but one are saving every penny. Now do we file returns to prove our consumption of "necessities?" Oy vey....and, come on, this "hidden taxes" routine is just lame. We need 2.5T to keep the proverbial lights on in the federal government. You WILL PAY FOR IT SOMEHOW. You don't need to go through all the individual taxes to know what the government is taking. Just look at the budget. It comes to about $17k per working adult. Yeah, that's a lot of cash--and that's your "fair share." Well, actually, it's about $8333 per person, so if you have a family of four, you really should be ponying up about $33k instead of getting all those child credits while sucking up the education budget.
The tax structure we have now is designed to induce certain behavior in many sectors. It is also designed to pay for certain _types_ of consumption, like gas taxes paying for the interstate pavement based on use. You consume pavement, you pay for the pavement. This sort of all-encompassing tax would shift the bureaucratic burden, it wouldn't eliminate it.
Really, I think the "Fair Tax" crowd has critically examined the current problem, which is certainly well due and admirable, but I don't think they've critically examined their solution, which on even first sight is fraught with all the same problems as the existing system -- and totally ignores a number of problems that the existing system deals with quite extensively.
It will sell oodles of CDs for whatever whoring record label will saturate the non-stop teenage angstfest.
Any fan that has put up with the last three flicks and is still clinging on any announcement of--gack--MORE, is clearly so devoted that Lucas could air 42 hours of whitenoise and they'd still dutifully watch every second of it waiting for an easter egg to tell all their friends about.
People either support a project or they don't. Please to come to the rescue give a false sense of value. Sure, you may get a temporary injection of funds, but then people will go back to ignoring it. If a project is dying from lack of funds, maybe the community really doesn't value it and perhaps it just needs to die.
There seem to be those who won't be satisified with any hand-held device priced at several hundred dollars until said product provides the same service as for which one might be required to spend several hundred dollars per hour, room and minibar not included....it seems, though, that it is all functionally equivalent to just using your hand.
How does stacking processors affect Moore's law? That doesn't increase IC complexity, otherwise we might as well claim we've far surpassed Moore's law because Livermore's BlueGene install has 6.8 trillion transistors...
...seriously. I suppose I should have known clicking on "plentyoffish.com" was probably not a good idea at work, but honestly, a bit of warning that is was more like pussygalore.com would have been nice.
They are the only ones to have used the term "SuperHero" to describe their characters. It IS pretty generic. Sure, Superman and Batman are obvious superheros that they do own the rights to, but unless they own every single character in this file, I call shenanigans:
It was just a speculative explanation of the possible and the OP implied that it was a definititve proof in the positive of the actual. My point was precisely your point. What's the problem?
"The team ran computer models of such giant impacts, estimating that each would send about 600 million boulders into space to orbit the Sun. Some of those launched at relatively high speeds - faster than 6 kilometres per second - got as far as Jupiter and Saturn in about a million years.
In the simulations, about 100 of the boulders from each impact reached Jupiter's moon Europa. "
UNFOUNDED I TELL YOU!!! They're just pulling these numbers out of thin air!! Ludicrous!!!
The whole thing was a simulated what-if, something made abundantly clear from start to finish. They "Know" these impacts happened and at precisely what speed because IT WAS A FEKKING SIMULATION, DAMN IT!
Dude has a pile of documents, spreadsheets and diagrams, no support staff and basically no budget. Sounds to me the first order of business should be to properly tool the _existing_ system and a "database" is obviously the biggest piece of that.
At a former company, we built our asset management system into our LDAP database and put a pretty web interface on it. If you wanted to know where anything was in the company, be it a telephone, a server or a secretary, voila, go to the "directory." Duh, right?
Certain things need to be thought of in simple, broad terms like that in order to come out with an elegant solution, rather than looking for a shrink-wrapped product that will increase your duplication of information rather than streamline it.
Slashdot Mirror
Hell, no doubt even Canada has a few.
Anyway, the primary lameness I see with the argument is that the spam filters no doubt are filtering out bulk email, that is, those with a truckload of cc: and/or bcc: addresses. If they simply sent out individual emails--which I would prefer as I scream bloody murder at people who stick my address in a visible CC: line with 987 of their closest friends--I'm betting it'd pass the filters, no problem. I just can't see how a true "newsletter" format could otherwise be reliably identified...unless it involved l33t$P34|<, V14GRA and pr0n.
That, and it's not like taking an Advil. Most of these drugs are absolutely _awful_ to take, especially the first few weeks. If condoms caused shingles the first 100 times you used them and then after that would randomly make you throw up and break out in hives, people wouldn't use them either, even if they were free.
Hell, I know HIV-positive people who can't keep on their meds because they just get sick of all the side-effects. So, how they think people who aren't infected are going to stick to them "just in case" is pretty astonishing.
They are pure raw ideas and usually can lead the way to making a lot of money.
Oh, I think "pure raw ideas" is being rather kind. Most of them are pure, overcooked, reheated and recycled ideas. How many times have you parused a pile of books on the latest-greatest-whiz-bang language to find them all 80% filled with practically verbatim copies of every other damned book out there? Invariably, every one of them spends a whole friggen chapter clowning on how cute it is that everyone does a "hello world" application. Yes, we know, can we move on to the perennial "Pet Store" now? Gack.
Without an expansion on what the "algorithm" actually IS, this could be equivalent to a Piet Mondrian...or merely a Keith Boadwee.
I sense that the "algorithm" in question is sadly more akin to the techniques of the latter and, really, if for that you can answer in the affirmative the question "but, is it ART?" I can't imagine that anything would fall outside that box...well, a splash or two maybe...
I'd rather people use the transliterated version that they have a prayer of sounding out. I mean, my grandmother's name was Guðbjörg, but in kindness to Anglo tongues--and eyes--in the U.S. she simply went by Byerg. Not anglicized per se, but more along the lines of my going as John rather than Jón, since hardly anyone is going to see that and get "yown" anyway.
"My original point was that very very few high wage earners get their money because someone earns less."
Very, very few high wage earners are self-sufficient operating without equipment, staff or service industries. If that equipment was made by, or those offices staffed by or those services provided by people with the same or higher incomes, those high wage earner's wages wouldn't be worth much.
As you've so appropriately pointed out, yes, most of the world is very, very low-income. Cheap labor is absolutely required for creating wealth. Without dollar-a-day labor in China, most Americans simply couldn't afford to have the trappings of wealth that they do. As you've so pointedly recognized, income and wealth disparity isn't just between the upper, professional and working classes of Americans, it's global. Just because we're wealthier than devloping nations doesn't mean that suddenly wealth differential no longer matters within our own.
...and, unfortunately, a good number of people who go into teaching fall into the "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach" category. Sure, some professors are stellar, but some are there more for their own validation and sadomasochistic power trips. They treat students like primary school children, structuring their courses and their own behavior for maximum scolding potential, and then complain that their students behave like primary school children. So, you get peevy things like not liking laptops or whatever and rather than just structure the class to eliminate the problem, they "make examples" out of anyone who would dare resist their fetishized tantrums.
Why use it as an example? Because for the _same_ purchase (e.g., my home) I am more likely to pay 100% of my salary in taxes when someone making THOUSANDS of times more will pay zilch. That's not "Fair" in any common sense of the word. So, fine, lobby for this tax and get what you deserve. Just don't call it "fair."
Yeah, "selling stuff" like "stock." You know, in "companies." You know, "companies" that do things like "manufacture."
Honestly, who do you think MAKES the stuff they sell? Or do you think that stocks have intrinsic value because they're printed on really snazzy paper?
It's $8333 per person, or $17k per working adult. ...yes, the intricacies of tax systems are precisely because, no, someone making $14k per year cannot afford $8k, much less $17k per year, but also, someone making $1.8M per year is earning their income precisely because others are making $14k per year and are taken care of by what that $2.5T per year puts in place in terms of infrastructure, so by all rights they _should_ pay more of the burden since they profit from the proceeds. Duh, eh?
I highly doubt that, like someone making $20k/year, many people making $1M/year are spending 30% of their incomes in restaurants. Honestly, you think it is _common_ at that level of income to spend $904 PER DAY EVERY DAY on FOOD? Yeah, they spend more, but at a certain point, the restaurants just don't get much more expensive.
t y_real_estate_wrap_howard_owns_the_hamptons.php
for example, Howard Stern likes to eat at Nobu. Dinner at Nobu is about $100. He makes that in 30 seconds (24/7). I pretty routinely eat at places, say, half that expensive at about $50. An average dinner tab for me is thus about one twentieth of one percent of my income. 1/20th of 1% of his income would be $50,000.
That's about 500 plates of Nobu goodness. He must be REALLY hungry.
He must spend much more on housing, though. Oh wait, no, his house cost $20M.
http://www.curbed.com/archives/2005/11/14/celebri
That's ONE FIFTH of his annual income. Most people around or below the $100K mark are buying homes worth FIVE TIMES their incomes--and guess what, his was "used." A great number in the $100K mark are forced out into new construction in the 'burbs. So, for a $500k suburban McMansion, I gotta pony up $69k in "Fair Tax." For Howard's $20M manse in the Hamptons, he whistles dixie.
Get it yet?
http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?Acronym= %22goods+and+services+tax%22&Find=Find&string=on
= gst&Find=Find&string=exact
Apologies if expanding the "T" in "GST" confused you given the repetition of the term "goods and services" upthread. But then, I suppose one might just as well come back thinking I was talking about a "Generation Skipping Tax" or "Gold Sodium Thiosulfate."
http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?Acronym
Honestly...
Two points: First, these taxes are not targeted by the FairTax.
Then, where are these "hidden" taxes again? Payroll taxes? If we eliminated payroll taxes, you'd just see your salary decrease by 15%. End result to the "consumer?" Zilch. Great, I can no-longer deduct my mortgage interest, but I have to pay a 23%/$69k hit on $300k? I can roll that into my mortgage and compound it too? Terrific. If I buy a "used" house I don't have to pay it? Take a wild guess what that will do to new home construction? Not good.
"I think the big point you're missing with FairTax is that it is not meant to be perfect, just simpler and better than what we have now. It meets that criteria splendidly."
If you "simplify" the system like this, all other things will NOT remain equal. There is obviously terrific argument about how "splendidly" it would do this and --yes-- intelligent, informed people disagree on this. I'm not missing the point, I'm disagreeing with it.
Enough is enough...of calling a GS tax "fair."
...and, come on, this "hidden taxes" routine is just lame. We need 2.5T to keep the proverbial lights on in the federal government. You WILL PAY FOR IT SOMEHOW. You don't need to go through all the individual taxes to know what the government is taking. Just look at the budget. It comes to about $17k per working adult. Yeah, that's a lot of cash--and that's your "fair share." Well, actually, it's about $8333 per person, so if you have a family of four, you really should be ponying up about $33k instead of getting all those child credits while sucking up the education budget.
At a certain point (generally at about $100k), the vast majority people quickly stop consuming their income and start hoarding it. Oh sure, some will burn through it on booze, drugs and hookers, but most start shoving that capital back into capital. The higher that income gets, the smaller the percentage of it that is consumed. So, your "fair" tax would, dollar-for-dollar, tax someone making $100k the same as someone making $1M...and I got news for you, that "used property" exclusion? Well, they ain't makin' any new land, so guess what will happen to the price of dirt? Well, until we're vacationing on the Moon.
Business purposes = no tax? Again, people nearing or exceeding $100k routinely put their entire damned lives on Schedule C (or into corporations) for exactly this purpose. Even if they _do_ consume above that level, it will surely be claimed as business expense--and that's determined at the point of sale or are we back to filing returns to prove it? Well, guess what, if you can avoid taxes completely by claiming business expense...you're going to find a great number of entrepreneurs and if they have to file returns, what's the benefit again in terms of paperwork and complexity reduction? If they don't, how do we prove it was business-related? Hmm.
A "prebate?" So, everyone gets a monthly check for the taxes on the first $14k of income, assumed to be consumed? Gah... That is going to eliminate the bureaucracy precisely HOW? So, people under $14k will get prebates for whatever % of $14k or will they have to file returns to prove exactly how poor they are? That'll really free up the ol' paperwork and fraud burden, now, won't it? What if it's a family of 12 and all but one are saving every penny. Now do we file returns to prove our consumption of "necessities?" Oy vey.
The tax structure we have now is designed to induce certain behavior in many sectors. It is also designed to pay for certain _types_ of consumption, like gas taxes paying for the interstate pavement based on use. You consume pavement, you pay for the pavement. This sort of all-encompassing tax would shift the bureaucratic burden, it wouldn't eliminate it.
Really, I think the "Fair Tax" crowd has critically examined the current problem, which is certainly well due and admirable, but I don't think they've critically examined their solution, which on even first sight is fraught with all the same problems as the existing system -- and totally ignores a number of problems that the existing system deals with quite extensively.
It will sell oodles of CDs for whatever whoring record label will saturate the non-stop teenage angstfest.
Any fan that has put up with the last three flicks and is still clinging on any announcement of--gack--MORE, is clearly so devoted that Lucas could air 42 hours of whitenoise and they'd still dutifully watch every second of it waiting for an easter egg to tell all their friends about.
People either support a project or they don't. Please to come to the rescue give a false sense of value. Sure, you may get a temporary injection of funds, but then people will go back to ignoring it. If a project is dying from lack of funds, maybe the community really doesn't value it and perhaps it just needs to die.
There seem to be those who won't be satisified with any hand-held device priced at several hundred dollars until said product provides the same service as for which one might be required to spend several hundred dollars per hour, room and minibar not included. ...it seems, though, that it is all functionally equivalent to just using your hand.
How does stacking processors affect Moore's law? That doesn't increase IC complexity, otherwise we might as well claim we've far surpassed Moore's law because Livermore's BlueGene install has 6.8 trillion transistors...
...seriously. I suppose I should have known clicking on "plentyoffish.com" was probably not a good idea at work, but honestly, a bit of warning that is was more like pussygalore.com would have been nice.
They are the only ones to have used the term "SuperHero" to describe their characters. It IS pretty generic. Sure, Superman and Batman are obvious superheros that they do own the rights to, but unless they own every single character in this file, I call shenanigans:
http://www.superherodb.com/
It was just a speculative explanation of the possible and the OP implied that it was a definititve proof in the positive of the actual. My point was precisely your point. What's the problem?
It is proof of possibility, not proof of actuality. The article was quite clear about this.
"Would," "Could," "Possibly," "May Have." PERHAPS they MIGHT be saying that this is POTENTIALLY SPECULATIVE.
"The team ran computer models of such giant impacts, estimating that each would send about 600 million boulders into space to orbit the Sun. Some of those launched at relatively high speeds - faster than 6 kilometres per second - got as far as Jupiter and Saturn in about a million years.
In the simulations, about 100 of the boulders from each impact reached Jupiter's moon Europa. "
UNFOUNDED I TELL YOU!!! They're just pulling these numbers out of thin air!! Ludicrous!!!
The whole thing was a simulated what-if, something made abundantly clear from start to finish. They "Know" these impacts happened and at precisely what speed because IT WAS A FEKKING SIMULATION, DAMN IT!
Sheesh.
Dude has a pile of documents, spreadsheets and diagrams, no support staff and basically no budget. Sounds to me the first order of business should be to properly tool the _existing_ system and a "database" is obviously the biggest piece of that.
At a former company, we built our asset management system into our LDAP database and put a pretty web interface on it. If you wanted to know where anything was in the company, be it a telephone, a server or a secretary, voila, go to the "directory." Duh, right?
Certain things need to be thought of in simple, broad terms like that in order to come out with an elegant solution, rather than looking for a shrink-wrapped product that will increase your duplication of information rather than streamline it.