It's comments like this that lazy people on the Internet write in order to project intelligence, but it's the logical equivalent of "it's time for people to recognize that the sky is blue."
No one in the whole entire US disagrees with you; it's just pretty much impossible to accomplish because we're a nation of many ideologies and goals. Want to encourage business development in underperforming areas with crumbling economies? (Michigan politicians sure do.) So give tax breaks to companies building factories in MI. Need to encourage green tech so it doesn't get offshored to China for low labor costs? Create tax subsidies. How about when the latest research indicates a two-parent household results in lower crime (as children reared by two parents tend to commit violent offenses less often)? Then give tax breaks to two-parent households with children. What about when 70% of Texans et al. think expenditures need to be cut (but not those in Texas!), but 70% of New Yorkers think taxes need to be raised to cover the expenditures we cannot afford to cut? It's time for another compromise that complicates the tax code!
If you really want to impress people, provide a method of reforming the tax code, not just "tax code complicated, bad!"
(PS the "complicated" tax code has nothing to do with what this guy did.)
This is not legal advice, and I'm not your lawyer.
Generally, the tax laws are such that you have to pay yourself a "fair salary" if you're the sole shareholder of an S-corp that is basically just a shell for yourself.
Now, what is a "fair salary"? The answer is "who the hell knows," but a good rule of thumb is "a typical, reasonable salary in the industry." I was once at a meeting with a financial planner, and he said a 50-50 split seems to be fair, but I'm not so sure about that.
My guess is that since you have a fixed salary every year, you're probably not screwed, unless your "fixed salary" is $25K/yr in an industry where the average consultant at your level pulls $90K/yr.
Those are some interesting stories. One time, I actually got quasi-kidnapped by a Belizean taxi driver and forced to go to a Nicaraguan whorehouse owned by a Chinese man.
I'm not mocking you--that actually happened. Couldn't happen in the US, though.;)
My wife and I have, indeed, looked back at almost all the video and pictures we've taken on vacation multiple times. Maybe you just go to boring places.
since I believe corporations should have no influence on government, I can't simultaneously justify to myself wanting to tax them.
This is why the beautiful symmetry of theory fails and cold, ugly pragmatism is necessary.
Under a system of "can't tax corporations since they can't vote/whatever," I would just create a corporation with myself as the sole shareholder and also employee, have the corporation buy office space in the form of a very nice building with sleeping and dining facilities (just like Google), provide food to its employees (just like Google), and have the corporation act as the employee of whomever I formerly worked for. Pay sole employee a "fair salary," issue a bunch of dividends to the sole shareholder, and reinvest the rest as "infrastructure improvements," meaning the corporate income is severely reduced by these new liabilities. Oh, and the infrastructure improvements could be upgrades to the corporate car fleet, upgrades to the corporate offices, corporate-sponsored retreats to Saint Barthélemy, etc.
Many private doctors already do something similar to this:
create an S corporation with a sole shareholder and employee (the doctor)
S corporation pays no income taxes itself because it is taxed on a pass-through, not double-taxation, basis
pay self 50% of corporation's earnings as salary
pay self the rest of the S corporation's earnings as stock dividends so self pays capital gains tax at a lower rate than if it were taxed as income
Profit! (no missing step here)
Also, I presume you have a big problem with non-citizen immigrants to the US paying taxes (since they haven't the right to vote)?
I think the real devastating reference would be to Whitehead & Russell's Principia Mathematica, the philosophical tome that set forth a large number of mathematical propositions in the most rigorous manner ever done. Most famous among them is that 1+1=2.
Something similar did happen to me. My first real experience with reading philosophy (used loosely) was Rand's oeuvre in high school. In undergrad, I moved on to Locke, Rousseau, Hart, and others (obviously I was interested in jurisprudence as a hobby). But Rand was my first. I never thought about writers expressing philosophy through narrative until then, and it had a great effect on the way I myself write.
I'm a Philosophy student and I think I can speak with a certain degree of authority when I say that Ayn Rand isn't someone you seriously cite in academic philosophy. She just isn't credible - and I'm not talking in terms of political disagreement - her arguments on topics of philosophical import just aren't very good.
This. I wanted to post the same thing, as I formerly studied mathematical philosophy (logic) and jurisprudence (philosophy of law), but I don't consider myself well-versed enough in epistemology to criticize someone about whom Slashdot is running an article without references, and it is surprisingly difficult to find credible writings online that criticize Objectivist epistemology quickly to show Slashdot readers, while simultaneously streaming Predator motherfriggin 2 on Netflix right now!
You forgot the biggest one: mathematics. Until the 20th century, mathematics was considered a branch of philosophy rather than mathematics. Why, at many universities math was within a college of liberal arts, or college of humanities, until quite recently.
In that case, you need to download the code off the CVS repo and hold onto it. Keep your eyes open if there are any rumblings about a lawyer or someone with a legal knowledge helping out contributors. That CVS code would be very, very strong evidence of a violation of the GPL. Nigh incontrovertible, even.
Except that it is entirely plausible that the US government expects to find evidence of Manning and Assange et al. discussing Manning's alleged plan to raid the document storage before the fact. Since the government wants to prosecute Assange as an accomplice to espionage, this makes absolute sense, and is exactly the type of thing any government would do anywhere in the world, including, for example, the founding fathers themselves. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say the government cannot subpoena your private documents--and, in fact, they can and always have been able to!
The Fourth Amendment merely says they need to have probable cause (i.e., get a warrant). Which, I would hope, any rational person could agree they do have in this case. Defendant allegedly committed crime; Defendant allegedly leaked documents to party X. Is it such a leap to assume party X may have actually conspired with Defendant to commit the crime?
when you should get the hell out
So, may I ask, what is your citizenship, where do you live, and if the US, what are your immediate plans for getting the hell out?
I am certain that an irrational person, who is unconscious and has not too many higher-level thinking processes is disagreeing with you somewhere somehow right now. And no, it's not just W.
No, it is an irrefutable fact that "personhood" is often defined somewhat the way I said it was within the realm of philosophy.
Also, a fallacy you committed in your post is called "begging the question," where you presume "person" means one thing (a human being who thinks irrationally, is unconscious, etc.) in order to argue what "person" means (i.e., a human being who thinks irrationally, is unconscious, etc.).
I think if you re-read my original post, you'll find that I never expressed agreement with what philosophers say. I merely disagreed with people erroneously casting the debate as people arguing about whether a dolphin has "humanity" rather than what is "personhood." It's like when someone says copyright should last X years and a Slashdotter chimes in with SOFTWARE PATENTS ARE UNNECESSARY AND IMMORAL. Depending on your educational background, it's just lazy or ignorant thinking to conflate the two distinct terms of art.
No one is saying dolphins are humans. They're saying they may be persons. In philosophy, for example, "personhood" refers to a being having properties such as rationality, self-consciousness, and other higher-level thinking processes.
If you follow X steps, then you will get the answer, then you will path the class.
And which clath ið thith? Catth the Thweety Birð?
(I hope some Icelandic people or Beowulf fans mod me up for dropping them ðs! English needs more ðs!)
(Funny how Slashdot lets me include the HTML entity for an eth, but not for a thorn...)
The question is: Why are they (government departments or enterprises) deploying Windows and related systems at all in a secure environment, rather than removing it entirely as fast as they can retrain their personnel? They're already known to be the most exploitable and exploited systems by orders of magnitude.
Because when people like me say such people should be fired, people like you say "don't blame the victim"!:)
Excuse me? *runs EXE screensaver advertising Glee Girls Nude!* *reveals nuclear codes* *is upset when is fired for being stupid*
And I fail to see how a network admin is a "victim" when he "engineers" a crappy security system.
And I have worked for the federal government. You aren't even ALLOWED on a computer that can access the Internet until you go through security training. So better to fire the moron who doesn't pay attention to his RIDICULOUSLY FRIGGING IMPORTANT security training than risk him not giving a shit and doing it again.
Slashdot Mirror
It's comments like this that lazy people on the Internet write in order to project intelligence, but it's the logical equivalent of "it's time for people to recognize that the sky is blue."
No one in the whole entire US disagrees with you; it's just pretty much impossible to accomplish because we're a nation of many ideologies and goals. Want to encourage business development in underperforming areas with crumbling economies? (Michigan politicians sure do.) So give tax breaks to companies building factories in MI. Need to encourage green tech so it doesn't get offshored to China for low labor costs? Create tax subsidies. How about when the latest research indicates a two-parent household results in lower crime (as children reared by two parents tend to commit violent offenses less often)? Then give tax breaks to two-parent households with children. What about when 70% of Texans et al. think expenditures need to be cut (but not those in Texas!), but 70% of New Yorkers think taxes need to be raised to cover the expenditures we cannot afford to cut? It's time for another compromise that complicates the tax code!
If you really want to impress people, provide a method of reforming the tax code, not just "tax code complicated, bad!"
(PS the "complicated" tax code has nothing to do with what this guy did.)
An S corporation is only an IRS designation for federal income tax purposes, so you can have an S corp in any state of the US.
I'll be frank and quote my business law professor from years back:
A sole proprietorship has unlimited liability, and so if your business is sued, the plaintiff can come after your personal assets like your house.
But I'm willing to guess by "sole proprietorship" you meant "corporation with one shareholder or LLC with one shareholder."
This is not legal advice, and I'm not your lawyer.
Generally, the tax laws are such that you have to pay yourself a "fair salary" if you're the sole shareholder of an S-corp that is basically just a shell for yourself.
Now, what is a "fair salary"? The answer is "who the hell knows," but a good rule of thumb is "a typical, reasonable salary in the industry." I was once at a meeting with a financial planner, and he said a 50-50 split seems to be fair, but I'm not so sure about that.
My guess is that since you have a fixed salary every year, you're probably not screwed, unless your "fixed salary" is $25K/yr in an industry where the average consultant at your level pulls $90K/yr.
Those are some interesting stories. One time, I actually got quasi-kidnapped by a Belizean taxi driver and forced to go to a Nicaraguan whorehouse owned by a Chinese man.
I'm not mocking you--that actually happened. Couldn't happen in the US, though. ;)
THE BAHAMAS
One does not simply walk into it.
My wife and I have, indeed, looked back at almost all the video and pictures we've taken on vacation multiple times. Maybe you just go to boring places.
No one expects the Spanish InquiPLEASE UPGRADE your plan to MEDIUM TIER in order to RECEIVE MONTY PYTHON YOUTUBE CLIPS.
I fail to understand how the heck you're able to stream a movie on 800 kilopers bit second
So do your religious friends know you think so poorly of them?
This is why the beautiful symmetry of theory fails and cold, ugly pragmatism is necessary.
Under a system of "can't tax corporations since they can't vote/whatever," I would just create a corporation with myself as the sole shareholder and also employee, have the corporation buy office space in the form of a very nice building with sleeping and dining facilities (just like Google), provide food to its employees (just like Google), and have the corporation act as the employee of whomever I formerly worked for. Pay sole employee a "fair salary," issue a bunch of dividends to the sole shareholder, and reinvest the rest as "infrastructure improvements," meaning the corporate income is severely reduced by these new liabilities. Oh, and the infrastructure improvements could be upgrades to the corporate car fleet, upgrades to the corporate offices, corporate-sponsored retreats to Saint Barthélemy, etc.
Many private doctors already do something similar to this:
Also, I presume you have a big problem with non-citizen immigrants to the US paying taxes (since they haven't the right to vote)?
On the other hand, inflation will greatly help millions of my generation pay off these dern student loans.
I think the real devastating reference would be to Whitehead & Russell's Principia Mathematica, the philosophical tome that set forth a large number of mathematical propositions in the most rigorous manner ever done. Most famous among them is that 1+1=2.
Something similar did happen to me. My first real experience with reading philosophy (used loosely) was Rand's oeuvre in high school. In undergrad, I moved on to Locke, Rousseau, Hart, and others (obviously I was interested in jurisprudence as a hobby). But Rand was my first. I never thought about writers expressing philosophy through narrative until then, and it had a great effect on the way I myself write.
This. I wanted to post the same thing, as I formerly studied mathematical philosophy (logic) and jurisprudence (philosophy of law), but I don't consider myself well-versed enough in epistemology to criticize someone about whom Slashdot is running an article without references, and it is surprisingly difficult to find credible writings online that criticize Objectivist epistemology quickly to show Slashdot readers, while simultaneously streaming Predator motherfriggin 2 on Netflix right now!
You forgot the biggest one: mathematics. Until the 20th century, mathematics was considered a branch of philosophy rather than mathematics. Why, at many universities math was within a college of liberal arts, or college of humanities, until quite recently.
In that case, you need to download the code off the CVS repo and hold onto it. Keep your eyes open if there are any rumblings about a lawyer or someone with a legal knowledge helping out contributors. That CVS code would be very, very strong evidence of a violation of the GPL. Nigh incontrovertible, even.
Well, there's your problem. You intentionally tried to make your remark surreptitiously sarcastic. Looks like you succeeded!
It's funny that some random 7-digit UID Slashdotter would say that about Schmidt, a guy who undoubtedly knows more about computer forensics and security than you unless you're Bruce Schneier or somebody.
Except that it is entirely plausible that the US government expects to find evidence of Manning and Assange et al. discussing Manning's alleged plan to raid the document storage before the fact. Since the government wants to prosecute Assange as an accomplice to espionage, this makes absolute sense, and is exactly the type of thing any government would do anywhere in the world, including, for example, the founding fathers themselves. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say the government cannot subpoena your private documents--and, in fact, they can and always have been able to!
The Fourth Amendment merely says they need to have probable cause (i.e., get a warrant). Which, I would hope, any rational person could agree they do have in this case. Defendant allegedly committed crime; Defendant allegedly leaked documents to party X. Is it such a leap to assume party X may have actually conspired with Defendant to commit the crime?
So, may I ask, what is your citizenship, where do you live, and if the US, what are your immediate plans for getting the hell out?
No, it is an irrefutable fact that "personhood" is often defined somewhat the way I said it was within the realm of philosophy.
Also, a fallacy you committed in your post is called "begging the question," where you presume "person" means one thing (a human being who thinks irrationally, is unconscious, etc.) in order to argue what "person" means (i.e., a human being who thinks irrationally, is unconscious, etc.).
I think if you re-read my original post, you'll find that I never expressed agreement with what philosophers say. I merely disagreed with people erroneously casting the debate as people arguing about whether a dolphin has "humanity" rather than what is "personhood." It's like when someone says copyright should last X years and a Slashdotter chimes in with SOFTWARE PATENTS ARE UNNECESSARY AND IMMORAL. Depending on your educational background, it's just lazy or ignorant thinking to conflate the two distinct terms of art.
No one is saying dolphins are humans. They're saying they may be persons. In philosophy, for example, "personhood" refers to a being having properties such as rationality, self-consciousness, and other higher-level thinking processes.
And which clath ið thith? Catth the Thweety Birð? (I hope some Icelandic people or Beowulf fans mod me up for dropping them ðs! English needs more ðs!) (Funny how Slashdot lets me include the HTML entity for an eth, but not for a thorn...)
Because when people like me say such people should be fired, people like you say "don't blame the victim"! :)
Excuse me? *runs EXE screensaver advertising Glee Girls Nude!* *reveals nuclear codes*
*is upset when is fired for being stupid*
And I fail to see how a network admin is a "victim" when he "engineers" a crappy security system.
And I have worked for the federal government. You aren't even ALLOWED on a computer that can access the Internet until you go through security training. So better to fire the moron who doesn't pay attention to his RIDICULOUSLY FRIGGING IMPORTANT security training than risk him not giving a shit and doing it again.