Of course, I think sales tax conflicts happen because they are an ill-defined problem. If I go across the border and buy a durable good from an appliance store (or any other good), I will pay the sales tax for Illinois even though I am transporting it back to Wisconsin. I can't say I'm taking it to a different state and not pay sales tax..
Interestingly enough, that's not even true in every state. In Washington state, if you are buying a durable good, have ID from a state that charges 3% sales tax or less, and say that you will be using it in your home state, then the retailer is not required to charge sales tax. (They may not be *allowed* to charge sales tax, I don't remember precisely.)
They do this because they have so many neighboring states with low sales tax rates (OR, ID, AK) that retailers would lose too much business otherwise. (Yes, I know Alaska isn't technically 'neighboring' but when Alaskans want to go down to the lower-48 and do some shopping, they generally go to Seattle.)
Companies don't PAY sales tax, they COLLECT it. The people in Texas that order from Internet retailers like Amazon are the ones who pay, or don't pay, sales tax. Amazon just collects the tax from the customer, and then pays it to Texas.
Except if a company doesn't collect sales tax on a taxable sale for some reason (they forgot, or made a mistake and thought it wasn't taxable) they are still responsible for paying the tax. You do a calculation to figure out what portion of the payment that was made was tax, and pay that.
But what is true is that any sales tax that a company collects has to be remitted to the state, even if it's more than what should have been charged. That keeps companies from 'accidentally' charging too much sales tax and pocketing the difference.
Keeping the federal government out of DC government decisions is very different from keeping it out of state government decisions. Constitutionally speaking, they have every right to intervene, because that's how the District was set up in the first place.
Do you know how he stands on statehood for DC?
One of my accounting instructors said that accounting is the language of business.
As one who majored in Linguistics, and is now an accountant, I can say that that is absolutely true. All accounting is is the way that business information is easily (?) communicated.
My father (a doctor who went through his residency in the 70's) was just talking about this the other day, and he said that the excuse used at the time was that they wanted to train you to be able to perform well *while* exhausted, since you would be called upon to do that in your practice.
I played the Middle-Earth PBM game back when it was still run by GSI. It's a great game, especially the 4th age version where you get to design your own country--the 3rd age games have pre-defined setups with only a bit of variation, so it used to be too easy to knock people out in just a very few turns, before they had a chance to react if they didn't know exactly what they were doing. It's worth mentioning that it is very heavily based on ICE's Middle-Earth RPG--having the ICE supplements can be helpful in figuring out things about artifacts and riddles, for instance.
I should also mention Phoenyx.net for people who like to do RPGs by email. It runs a list of games going on and helps match you up with GMs. You can also arrange to just lurk on some games if you don't want to put any time into it. I have one particular game I've geen following for about 6 years now.
but the name recognition Disney has in my generation is due mainly to masterpieces like Beauty and the Beast, the Lion King, and Aladdin--all of which were made under Eisner's watch.
I would argue that the thing that made Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin (and the Little Mermaid) great was the music by Ashman and Menken. Without that they would have lost much of their flair. And they don't have them to fall back on anymore.
Re:This pattern is not just the gaming industry...
on
A College Guide to EA
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· Score: 1
Actually, most retail industries have room for two successful strategies:
Lowest price, low quality is a winner as you said
Higher price, highest (perceived) quality is also a winner.
If you are in between those two (average price, average quality), you are either doomed, or will end up moving towards one of those models.
I could give lots of examples, but the first one that comes to mind is computer hardware manufacturers. The two companies that consistently make a profit are Dell (which follows the first model) and Apple (which follows the second).
As for whether one strategy is more successful than the other, the results tend to be mixed. But, high price, high quality seems to be the more stable of the two *if* you can manage to convince your customers of your quality in the first place, because it tends to be harder for competitors to move into that space.
I dunno, I would have thought that hockey fans might be playing *more* hockey videogames, to make up for the fact that they couldn't watch any actual games.
But yeah, buying a new version of the game, guess that doesn't make any sense.
My recollection is that starting in about the mid-80s, sf became the preferred term for *literary* science fiction. (This was about the time that "speculative fiction" was gaining traction as a term, and sf worked for both of them.) Sci-fi remained the preferred term for TV & movie science fiction.
But all of that was only within the writing community & fandom. The world at large never noticed that little terminology difference, and kept referring to everything as "sci-fi" (which term I remember being mockingly pronounced as "skiffy".) And still does.
It's been so long since I've kept up with fandom, I have no idea what current jargony term is being used to mark the insiders from the outsiders.
Personally, I'm hoping for McCain as the Republican nominee in 2008. I'm figuring he sees that as his reward for playing nice with Bush, even though they can't stand each other.
This only became the case recently in CA, which had had a "blanket primary" (no political party declared, you can vote for anyone you want in the primaries, and the top vote-getter of each party advanced to the final election) until the Democratic and Republican parties took it to the Supreme Court and had it declared unConstitutional on the grounds that it violated their rights to freedom of assembly.
WA state had also had a blanket primary for a lot longer (70 years) and that just got invalidated in the last year.
Personally, I can agree with the reasoning of the court (only members of a group should be allowed to pick that groups representatives), but I think that it caused a bad policy decision. The advantage of a blanket primary is that it keeps you enfranchised on both the state and local level if you live in a Republican region of an overwhelmingly Democratic state (or vice versa). If the local Republicans always win, and the statewide Democrats always win, then having to pick a ballot by party automatically cuts you out of having a say in one set of those races.
Also, the studies that I saw that looked at "malicious cross-over voting" (Democrats voting for the kookiest Republican, so that the Republican would be sure to lose in the general election) concluded that when that happened, it was far out-weighed by voters crossing over to vote for what they thought was the opposite, the more centrist, least-objectionable candidate. (Which I think was the real problem that the national parties had with the blanket primaries--it tended to produce candidates who were less beholden to the party, and less partisan.)
BTW, I think anyone who crosses over to get the opposite party to nominate a crackpot, in order to help out their "real" party is playing with fire, anyway. Once someone makes it to the general election, anything can happen.
Here in WA, everyone was so disgusted with having to only take primary ballots from one party that there is an initiative to change the system to the Louisiana-style primary system, where everyone running for an office is on the same primary ballot, and the top two votegetters advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation. From what I can tell, it stands a very good chance of passing. (Personally, I think it would work better than the "declaring your party" primary we have now, and not as well as the blanket primary. But we shall see.)
Just like we were starting to see the affects of Clinton's policies (or rather lack of action) as he left office.
Bush didn't cause the recession. But Clinton didn't cause it either, he (and the Republican Congress) *delayed* the normal cyclical recession by 2 years or so. I'd call that a plus for Clinton.
It's an old debate. If the politician just does what his constituents want, then he's "pandering" or "just voting according to the polls". If he doesn't than he's "ignoring his constituents".
Calling him our representative means he represents our political power, not that he necessarily represents anything else about us. And that's fine with me. I vote for a candidate based on my opinion of their judgement, because when it comes time for them to vote, they are operating with way more information than I have (and with infinitely more information than the majority of the electorate), so I would be disappointed if they only operate on that lower level of understanding. I expect my elected officials to vote their conscience, not their opinion of what I might want them to do. (In practice, they often vote neither of these things, but based on lobbying and campaign contributions, but that's a different problem.) And I expect them to do what is "best," not "best for their constituents," or "best for their party." Perhaps that's too much to expect, but there it is.
BTW, I know that you are talking about Kerry, but I'm not. I haven't a clue how well his positions and votes match up with the opinions of people in MA, or how satisfied they are with him. I'm talking about the general principle.
Washington state had a blanket primary (all candidates appear on the primary ballot; vote for whoever you want; the top vote-getter from each party advanced to the final ballot)for ~80 years before the R's & D's got it overturned. For the first time, voters had to declare a party, and vote for only candidates within a party for the primary. They *hated* it (80% disapproval).
So on the November ballot is an Initiative to change to a Top-Two style primary--all candidates are listed, the top two vote-getters advance to the final ballot, without regard to what party they are from.
Damn parties don't like how we do nominations, we'll do it without them, thank you very much.
Then again, that's an abuse of his position, now isn't it? Instead of voting in line with what his constituents require, he decides to vote along his own personal views, or his party's views. I'm sorry, but a senator has a responsibility to the people that voted him in, and not to the party that helped dupe them into voting for him.
Not at all. The reason we have a representative democracy is because we don't want to decide everything based on the polls, but because we want someone that we (theoretically) trust to make an informed decision on our behalf. Once we vote someone into office, he *damn well better* do his own thinking. If this means that he acts in a way that the majority of his constituents don't agree with, well then, he'll be voted out of office next time he comes up for election.
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Of course, I think sales tax conflicts happen because they are an ill-defined problem. If I go across the border and buy a durable good from an appliance store (or any other good), I will pay the sales tax for Illinois even though I am transporting it back to Wisconsin. I can't say I'm taking it to a different state and not pay sales tax..
Interestingly enough, that's not even true in every state. In Washington state, if you are buying a durable good, have ID from a state that charges 3% sales tax or less, and say that you will be using it in your home state, then the retailer is not required to charge sales tax. (They may not be *allowed* to charge sales tax, I don't remember precisely.) They do this because they have so many neighboring states with low sales tax rates (OR, ID, AK) that retailers would lose too much business otherwise. (Yes, I know Alaska isn't technically 'neighboring' but when Alaskans want to go down to the lower-48 and do some shopping, they generally go to Seattle.)
Companies don't PAY sales tax, they COLLECT it. The people in Texas that order from Internet retailers like Amazon are the ones who pay, or don't pay, sales tax. Amazon just collects the tax from the customer, and then pays it to Texas.
Except if a company doesn't collect sales tax on a taxable sale for some reason (they forgot, or made a mistake and thought it wasn't taxable) they are still responsible for paying the tax. You do a calculation to figure out what portion of the payment that was made was tax, and pay that. But what is true is that any sales tax that a company collects has to be remitted to the state, even if it's more than what should have been charged. That keeps companies from 'accidentally' charging too much sales tax and pocketing the difference.
I'm trying to figure out how you would even know you needed a defense team before you've been charged.
What if she writes the password down in a notebook that she keeps by the computer that you share?
It wasn't hacking. He knew where she wrote down her passwords.
Costco also manufactures a lot of the stuff it sells. Everything that is "Kirkland Select" brand is made by them.
Keeping the federal government out of DC government decisions is very different from keeping it out of state government decisions. Constitutionally speaking, they have every right to intervene, because that's how the District was set up in the first place. Do you know how he stands on statehood for DC?
As one who majored in Linguistics, and is now an accountant, I can say that that is absolutely true. All accounting is is the way that business information is easily (?) communicated.
I should also mention Phoenyx.net for people who like to do RPGs by email. It runs a list of games going on and helps match you up with GMs. You can also arrange to just lurk on some games if you don't want to put any time into it. I have one particular game I've geen following for about 6 years now.
I would argue that the thing that made Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin (and the Little Mermaid) great was the music by Ashman and Menken. Without that they would have lost much of their flair. And they don't have them to fall back on anymore.
Lowest price, low quality is a winner as you said
Higher price, highest (perceived) quality is also a winner.
If you are in between those two (average price, average quality), you are either doomed, or will end up moving towards one of those models.
I could give lots of examples, but the first one that comes to mind is computer hardware manufacturers. The two companies that consistently make a profit are Dell (which follows the first model) and Apple (which follows the second).
As for whether one strategy is more successful than the other, the results tend to be mixed. But, high price, high quality seems to be the more stable of the two *if* you can manage to convince your customers of your quality in the first place, because it tends to be harder for competitors to move into that space.
Hopefully Meridian will just write a book someday, and I can just read that.
But yeah, buying a new version of the game, guess that doesn't make any sense.
But all of that was only within the writing community & fandom. The world at large never noticed that little terminology difference, and kept referring to everything as "sci-fi" (which term I remember being mockingly pronounced as "skiffy".) And still does.
It's been so long since I've kept up with fandom, I have no idea what current jargony term is being used to mark the insiders from the outsiders.
WA state had also had a blanket primary for a lot longer (70 years) and that just got invalidated in the last year.
Personally, I can agree with the reasoning of the court (only members of a group should be allowed to pick that groups representatives), but I think that it caused a bad policy decision. The advantage of a blanket primary is that it keeps you enfranchised on both the state and local level if you live in a Republican region of an overwhelmingly Democratic state (or vice versa). If the local Republicans always win, and the statewide Democrats always win, then having to pick a ballot by party automatically cuts you out of having a say in one set of those races.
Also, the studies that I saw that looked at "malicious cross-over voting" (Democrats voting for the kookiest Republican, so that the Republican would be sure to lose in the general election) concluded that when that happened, it was far out-weighed by voters crossing over to vote for what they thought was the opposite, the more centrist, least-objectionable candidate. (Which I think was the real problem that the national parties had with the blanket primaries--it tended to produce candidates who were less beholden to the party, and less partisan.)
BTW, I think anyone who crosses over to get the opposite party to nominate a crackpot, in order to help out their "real" party is playing with fire, anyway. Once someone makes it to the general election, anything can happen.
Here in WA, everyone was so disgusted with having to only take primary ballots from one party that there is an initiative to change the system to the Louisiana-style primary system, where everyone running for an office is on the same primary ballot, and the top two votegetters advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation. From what I can tell, it stands a very good chance of passing. (Personally, I think it would work better than the "declaring your party" primary we have now, and not as well as the blanket primary. But we shall see.)
I can understand people who voted for Bush in 2000 voting for him again.
I can see Gore voters voting for Kerry.
I can see Bush 2000 voters voting for Kerry (I know plenty of them.).
I can't for the life of me see anyone who voted for Gore voting for Bush this time around.
If the 2000 election was a statistical tie, and Bush can only lose votes since then...how could he win?
Bush didn't cause the recession. But Clinton didn't cause it either, he (and the Republican Congress) *delayed* the normal cyclical recession by 2 years or so. I'd call that a plus for Clinton.
Calling him our representative means he represents our political power, not that he necessarily represents anything else about us. And that's fine with me. I vote for a candidate based on my opinion of their judgement, because when it comes time for them to vote, they are operating with way more information than I have (and with infinitely more information than the majority of the electorate), so I would be disappointed if they only operate on that lower level of understanding. I expect my elected officials to vote their conscience, not their opinion of what I might want them to do. (In practice, they often vote neither of these things, but based on lobbying and campaign contributions, but that's a different problem.) And I expect them to do what is "best," not "best for their constituents," or "best for their party." Perhaps that's too much to expect, but there it is.
BTW, I know that you are talking about Kerry, but I'm not. I haven't a clue how well his positions and votes match up with the opinions of people in MA, or how satisfied they are with him. I'm talking about the general principle.
So on the November ballot is an Initiative to change to a Top-Two style primary--all candidates are listed, the top two vote-getters advance to the final ballot, without regard to what party they are from.
Damn parties don't like how we do nominations, we'll do it without them, thank you very much.
Not at all. The reason we have a representative democracy is because we don't want to decide everything based on the polls, but because we want someone that we (theoretically) trust to make an informed decision on our behalf. Once we vote someone into office, he *damn well better* do his own thinking. If this means that he acts in a way that the majority of his constituents don't agree with, well then, he'll be voted out of office next time he comes up for election.