What was even funnier (maybe 'funnier' isn't quite the right word) was the excuse used in the UK National Statistics Office for why their number was so HIGH:
Some of the recent increase in mentions of MRSA on death certificates may be due to improved levels of reporting, possibly brought about by the continued high public profile of the disease.
The concept of 'diagnosis effect' (you report more of what is currently the 'hot disease') is actually well established, and can often be demonstrated in epidemiological contexts. Look at mentions of asbestosis on death certificats compared to the medical models' forecasts and compared to the progress of the surrounding litigation, if you would like to see a very clear example.
The folks at Bad Science make a hobby out of debunking this sort of anti-medicine clap-trap. Being sceptical of the efficacy of vaccination (e.g., MMR) is a good way to get on the wrong end of a Darwin Award. Too bad the folks in the third world don't always get a chance to even decide:
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), measles is a leading cause of vaccine preventable childhood mortality. Worldwide, the fatality rate has been significantly reduced by partners in the Measles Initiative: the American Red Cross, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United Nations Foundation, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO). Globally, measles deaths are down 60 percent, from an estimated 873,000 deaths in 1999 to 345,000 in 2005. Africa has seen the most success, with annual measles deaths falling by 75 percent in just 5 years, from an estimated 506,000 to 126,000.
Fear of vaccines is a real public health risk for all of us. Look at the UK experience when the media started supporting the myth that MMR vaccination caused autism: declining immunisation rates in the UK are the probable cause of a significant increase of cases of measles, 2006 being the highest on record, and 2007 already showing an increase on the previous year (from the same wikipedia article, citation in the wiki).
IIRC measures of intelligence (whatever that is) are strongly believed to be symmetrical, nearly Normal distributions,in which case mean = mode = median. GP is correct.
I think the antecedent was "majority" as in "a majority of the population" so in either US or UK styles the noun was singular and so should be the verb.
The difference is that people derive an ethical framework from belief in God There is the implication in this assertion that there is no other way than belief in [a] God to derive an ethical framework. This assertion is easily contradicted:
(1) as the immediately prior posted, there are lots of god-candidates for "God" and since belief in one "God" implies a disbelief in other gods, then all those other folks must be lacking an ethical framework, and we can observe that they do not, in fact, lack such a framework.
(2) one can derive an ethical framework with out any belief in "God" at all, say by consideration of winning strategies in interated prisoner dilemma games and the extension of such strategies into more complex games.
(3) in the world we can observe non-believers in "God" that behave consistently ethically (or at least as consistently as believers). Were this behavior random we would not expect to find many consistent ethical non-believers, but in fact we see many examples, e.g., the 12% who are 'agnostic or atheists' are not collectivley minions of evil.
I think the point is that data on at least a subset of the world contradict the hypothesis as stated. The burden of proof therefore shifts back to the asserter to prove his statement. I suspect this may prove hard to do, as there will be some parts of the world where "What theory?" will be a common answer, which I expect will run neck and nexk with "What supreme being?" in some areas, however the same burden will make it hard for the stated hypothesis.
Lower down you note that most of your clients or customers are small businesses. Mine are exclusively big businesses. My firm would see no benefit from sending a client a document in other than their preferred format (in order of likelihood.DOC,.PDF, No other preferred format).
In the infrequent event that I prepare a document at home it is on OpenOffice, but it always gets saved as a.DOC.
Back when I was just a wee slip of a thing, say 1955 - 1960 or thereabouts, my father, a reasonably bright scientist type (U Rochester PhD in physical chem) described having read a study that said, in essence, that the accident rate caused by a given driver is proportional to the abosolute value of the difference between that driver's speed and the average driving speed of the 'pack.'
That is to say, you cause more accidents by driving faster or slower than those around you than by simply driving any given speed. It seems that high speed, by itself, increases the serverity of accidents, while high delta driving speed increases the frequency (usually for others, by the way).
I conclude from this that the behavior was irresponsible (1) because it increased risk to others than the speeding driver, and (2) had there been an accident involving either the driver and/or others the cost of that unnecessary accident would be taxed through to the rest of us via insurance premiums etc, for no beneft.
That is not to say no one should drive, but risks taken for no external benefit are at best selfish, and at worst dangerously irresponsible.
The justification for the lower speed limits in the US was originally fuel economy. It, along with seat belt laws, was later credited with a drop in highway fatalities. Both justificatons still exist. Interestingly, I used to see accident data for a major rental car company that operates both in Europe and North America, and guess what, the accident rate was higher in Europe (France, Italy and Spain much worse, the rest just worse) than in North America.
You should talk to a financial planner. There is a key misunderstanding in your assessment. Not only is the 401K principal tax deferred, but all of the interst and capital gains are too. Having said that, you will be taxed at ordinary income rates once you get out.
Your situation and mine differ - for one thing I am a lot older than you are. My marginal income tax rate (the rate on the last dollar I earn) including US Federal and California State income taxes, but excluding SS and Medicare, is just under 50%. It does not take that much of an income - probably a couple hundred thousand a year - to get to this marginal rate. You might not make that now, but imagine a future in which you do.
I also save more than you do - probably closer to 20% in tax deferred savings alone.
The math is:
I keep 50% (actually less) of 80% of the last dollar of my salary. Of the 20% I save tax deferred, history suggests that I will earn 8% - 9% tax deferred, doubling every 9 years at 8% or 8 years at 9%. If I started at 30 and retired at 62 that is 4 periods of 8, or a factor of around 16 on my initial investment. I probably have a lower tax rate then, too.
You should ask a financial planner for a comparison for your own situation comparing a 401K and plain old after tax savings.
The balance of my savings either throw off interest (5% taxed at 50% unless I buy tax free municipal bonds) or earn dividends or capital gains. Dividends average 1.5% to 2% on the S&P 500, capital gains make up the balance of the 8 - 9%. So I start with half the money, it grows at the same rate, and I get a lower tax rate (if the current rates are not changed), but overall less money. Note that I have a clear preference for equities, given the current tax treatment.
The conclusion is that your 401K is a much better deal than you think it is, and if you really hate it, buy equities instead as long as the tax rate remains low and stop lobbying for changing the capital gains and dividend tax rates!
Finally, I think you are missing something with your 2%/60% statistics. Regardless of whether the 2% is based on wealth or income, you should factor in the distribution of ages. Not many young folks have a lot of income and wealth (Gates having been an exception, as were many of the dotcommers) so in part what you might be seeing is the simple fact that people get wealthier as they age, and the 60% is more broadly distributed than you think. Also, 2% of 350 million is a lot of people. How many of them are heads of households with dependents, and how many dependents are in your 2%?
Now, if you would like to say that all tax shelters should be abolished - including those lucrative 401K's and IRA's, and tax all income equally, that might be fair, but be careful of what you wish. You will be responsible for your own income in retirement, and you would be giving up a powerful tool to attain a degree of retirement comfort that might be hard to replace. You might also be surprised to see your own taxes remain about the same, or if your income is high enough, even go up. You are only taxing income, after all, not the wealth itself.
I remain of the opinion that inheritance taxes that permit nearly unlimited transfer of wealth between generations, are more to blame than the tax rate on dividends and capital gains.
That's not even accounting for the decrease of tax burden that eliminating tax on corporations will cause. Yes this cost is distributed to both employees and customers but employees are still among that burden Last point: I think this is also something that you should run the numbers on. I agree that double taxation of income at the corporate level is not really the right way to do things (but I doubt it has a matieral impact on wages and salaries). However, personal tax rates would, on average, have to increase. I think it is a zero-sum game from the point of view of tax payers.
Charging corporations taxes is a fraud as it does not help the worker, the corporations will simply pass those taxes on to their employees by lowering salaries. Since employees operate in a market that bids prices based on marginal utility, it is at least as likely that the cost of such taxes gets substantailly paid by those who buy the goods and services (e.g., VAT). Because it is complicated, in all likelihood the costs probably get spread across several groups for the most part - buyers, employees, shareholders, etc., depending on the elasticities.
Capital gains tax is the biggest scam in existence whereby the people who *own* the corporations get to pay 10-15% tax on their insanely huge earnings through stock That would include my 100 year-old mother-in-law and her 'insanely huge' earnings? Or me? My earnings are at best 'distubed,' but what savings I have would earn more in mutual funds than in passbook savings even were the tax rates the same. Most stock is held by individuals or funds of individuals - and are more broadly distributed in practice than just a privileged few. If you have a 401-K or equivalent where you work (1) it probably invests in some form of mutual fund - or has a choice for that, and (2) it would be insane (to use your word) not to contribute at least a token to it. Ditto your IRA. Once you maximize those two, the next investments you probably will consider (other than buying a home and paying for more education) will probably be stocks in some form or another. At that point you may come to appreciate the intricacies of the US Tax Code.
Personally, I don't have much of an issue with earned wealth and working wealth. If you really want an cause, go after inheritance taxes (and tax avoidance schemes).
The US Supreme Court disagrees with you: I just read the summary that the court wrote, but it seems to say something slightly different. You have a right to a jury instruction that failure to testify cannot be used to infer guilt in order
to minimize the danger that the jury will give evidentiary weight to a defendant's failure to testify... Note the inference that the jury might well give such weight, which danger is to be minimized as opposed to prohibited.
Personally, I think they overreacted. Seems to be a pastime in that neck of the woods like this 'fake bomb' arrest: http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/N40/simpson.html. It may be that blinking LED's are too flash for that neighborhood.
Here in the US, a lot of us consider California to be a separate nation already LOL. Be careful, though, what you wish for. You might be thinking fruits and nuts, but you are eating our spinach, too.
When you say "pretty local and 'small issues'... state level at the largest...", one of the states to which you refer is California. California is large enough to be a nation in lots of other parts of the world, and in California referenda can be put on the ballot by petition of its citizens and, if passed, can amend the constitution of the state. Most years there are several such referenda, at least some of which get there as a result of popular petition.
Why does no-one in Govt. have any common sense?
Just an opinion, but I suspect it has to do with the other aspects of the personality profile of the typical person attracted to running for political office.
Actually, in all of the places I named it is possible to sit next to someone for an hour and be within several feet of them. Perhaps even several inches.
I dona't know the tech specs, but mine unlocks the car from much furhter away than 5 feet. And as for where would I be sitting for an hour at a time with others next to me and within the range of my keys:
Let's see. Hmmm...
A restaurant?
A movie theater?
A church?
A classroom?
A court room?
A waiting room?
Not to mention at home or in the office.
Speculating here, but assuming some degree of prudence on the part of the managers, there will be one or more professional liability insurance policies that will survive and become assets of the bankrupt estate. If that speculation is correct, there will be someone and something to sue.
Read 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' by [Heinlein] for an envisionment of a moon outpost for materials processing and return... And, of course, the military uses of the Moon.
Slashdot Mirror
Fear of vaccines is a real public health risk for all of us. Look at the UK experience when the media started supporting the myth that MMR vaccination caused autism: declining immunisation rates in the UK are the probable cause of a significant increase of cases of measles, 2006 being the highest on record, and 2007 already showing an increase on the previous year (from the same wikipedia article, citation in the wiki).
IIRC measures of intelligence (whatever that is) are strongly believed to be symmetrical, nearly Normal distributions,in which case mean = mode = median. GP is correct.
I think the antecedent was "majority" as in "a majority of the population" so in either US or UK styles the noun was singular and so should be the verb.
As, for instance, given by the Massachusetts Bay Colony Institute of Technologickal Arts
There is an extention of Pascal's Wager that I have not seen talked about:
If you take the probablity of the existence of God to be zero then any resources expended in furtherence of that belief produces cost with no befefit.
(1) as the immediately prior posted, there are lots of god-candidates for "God" and since belief in one "God" implies a disbelief in other gods, then all those other folks must be lacking an ethical framework, and we can observe that they do not, in fact, lack such a framework.
(2) one can derive an ethical framework with out any belief in "God" at all, say by consideration of winning strategies in interated prisoner dilemma games and the extension of such strategies into more complex games.
(3) in the world we can observe non-believers in "God" that behave consistently ethically (or at least as consistently as believers). Were this behavior random we would not expect to find many consistent ethical non-believers, but in fact we see many examples, e.g., the 12% who are 'agnostic or atheists' are not collectivley minions of evil.
I think the point is that data on at least a subset of the world contradict the hypothesis as stated. The burden of proof therefore shifts back to the asserter to prove his statement. I suspect this may prove hard to do, as there will be some parts of the world where "What theory?" will be a common answer, which I expect will run neck and nexk with "What supreme being?" in some areas, however the same burden will make it hard for the stated hypothesis.
Lower down you note that most of your clients or customers are small businesses. Mine are exclusively big businesses. My firm would see no benefit from sending a client a document in other than their preferred format (in order of likelihood .DOC, .PDF, No other preferred format).
.DOC.
In the infrequent event that I prepare a document at home it is on OpenOffice, but it always gets saved as a
The series of which this is the first book - http://www.amazon.com/Red-Cell-Rogue-Warrior-Promotion/dp/0671019775/ref=sr_1_6/105-7972575-2745241?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192650090&sr=1-6 - was written by a former Navy Seal (see other post) and is the first place I saw BOHICA in print. I don't recall if it was in the first book in the series, but it showed up by number 3. PS I am running, not walking to figure out the syntax for swapping text for the url itself. Wish me luck.
Back when I was just a wee slip of a thing, say 1955 - 1960 or thereabouts, my father, a reasonably bright scientist type (U Rochester PhD in physical chem) described having read a study that said, in essence, that the accident rate caused by a given driver is proportional to the abosolute value of the difference between that driver's speed and the average driving speed of the 'pack.' That is to say, you cause more accidents by driving faster or slower than those around you than by simply driving any given speed. It seems that high speed, by itself, increases the serverity of accidents, while high delta driving speed increases the frequency (usually for others, by the way).
I conclude from this that the behavior was irresponsible (1) because it increased risk to others than the speeding driver, and (2) had there been an accident involving either the driver and/or others the cost of that unnecessary accident would be taxed through to the rest of us via insurance premiums etc, for no beneft.
That is not to say no one should drive, but risks taken for no external benefit are at best selfish, and at worst dangerously irresponsible.
The justification for the lower speed limits in the US was originally fuel economy. It, along with seat belt laws, was later credited with a drop in highway fatalities. Both justificatons still exist. Interestingly, I used to see accident data for a major rental car company that operates both in Europe and North America, and guess what, the accident rate was higher in Europe (France, Italy and Spain much worse, the rest just worse) than in North America.
Your situation and mine differ - for one thing I am a lot older than you are. My marginal income tax rate (the rate on the last dollar I earn) including US Federal and California State income taxes, but excluding SS and Medicare, is just under 50%. It does not take that much of an income - probably a couple hundred thousand a year - to get to this marginal rate. You might not make that now, but imagine a future in which you do.
I also save more than you do - probably closer to 20% in tax deferred savings alone.
The math is:
I keep 50% (actually less) of 80% of the last dollar of my salary. Of the 20% I save tax deferred, history suggests that I will earn 8% - 9% tax deferred, doubling every 9 years at 8% or 8 years at 9%. If I started at 30 and retired at 62 that is 4 periods of 8, or a factor of around 16 on my initial investment. I probably have a lower tax rate then, too.
You should ask a financial planner for a comparison for your own situation comparing a 401K and plain old after tax savings.
The balance of my savings either throw off interest (5% taxed at 50% unless I buy tax free municipal bonds) or earn dividends or capital gains. Dividends average 1.5% to 2% on the S&P 500, capital gains make up the balance of the 8 - 9%. So I start with half the money, it grows at the same rate, and I get a lower tax rate (if the current rates are not changed), but overall less money. Note that I have a clear preference for equities, given the current tax treatment.
The conclusion is that your 401K is a much better deal than you think it is, and if you really hate it, buy equities instead as long as the tax rate remains low and stop lobbying for changing the capital gains and dividend tax rates!
Finally, I think you are missing something with your 2%/60% statistics. Regardless of whether the 2% is based on wealth or income, you should factor in the distribution of ages. Not many young folks have a lot of income and wealth (Gates having been an exception, as were many of the dotcommers) so in part what you might be seeing is the simple fact that people get wealthier as they age, and the 60% is more broadly distributed than you think. Also, 2% of 350 million is a lot of people. How many of them are heads of households with dependents, and how many dependents are in your 2%?
Now, if you would like to say that all tax shelters should be abolished - including those lucrative 401K's and IRA's, and tax all income equally, that might be fair, but be careful of what you wish. You will be responsible for your own income in retirement, and you would be giving up a powerful tool to attain a degree of retirement comfort that might be hard to replace. You might also be surprised to see your own taxes remain about the same, or if your income is high enough, even go up. You are only taxing income, after all, not the wealth itself.
I remain of the opinion that inheritance taxes that permit nearly unlimited transfer of wealth between generations, are more to blame than the tax rate on dividends and capital gains.
That's not even accounting for the decrease of tax burden that eliminating tax on corporations will cause. Yes this cost is distributed to both employees and customers but employees are still among that burden Last point: I think this is also something that you should run the numbers on. I agree that double taxation of income at the corporate level is not really the right way to do things (but I doubt it has a matieral impact on wages and salaries). However, personal tax rates would, on average, have to increase. I think it is a zero-sum game from the point of view of tax payers.
Capital gains tax is the biggest scam in existence whereby the people who *own* the corporations get to pay 10-15% tax on their insanely huge earnings through stock That would include my 100 year-old mother-in-law and her 'insanely huge' earnings? Or me? My earnings are at best 'distubed,' but what savings I have would earn more in mutual funds than in passbook savings even were the tax rates the same. Most stock is held by individuals or funds of individuals - and are more broadly distributed in practice than just a privileged few. If you have a 401-K or equivalent where you work (1) it probably invests in some form of mutual fund - or has a choice for that, and (2) it would be insane (to use your word) not to contribute at least a token to it. Ditto your IRA. Once you maximize those two, the next investments you probably will consider (other than buying a home and paying for more education) will probably be stocks in some form or another. At that point you may come to appreciate the intricacies of the US Tax Code.
Personally, I don't have much of an issue with earned wealth and working wealth. If you really want an cause, go after inheritance taxes (and tax avoidance schemes).
to minimize the danger that the jury will give evidentiary weight to a defendant's failure to testify... Note the inference that the jury might well give such weight, which danger is to be minimized as opposed to prohibited.
Personally, I think they overreacted. Seems to be a pastime in that neck of the woods like this 'fake bomb' arrest: http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/N40/simpson.html. It may be that blinking LED's are too flash for that neighborhood.
When you say "pretty local and 'small issues' ... state level at the largest...", one of the states to which you refer is California. California is large enough to be a nation in lots of other parts of the world, and in California referenda can be put on the ballot by petition of its citizens and, if passed, can amend the constitution of the state. Most years there are several such referenda, at least some of which get there as a result of popular petition.
Intersting, did not know that. However, I never mod AC, so from my point of view it is moot.
Do not look into the telescope with your remaining planet!
Just an opinion, but I suspect it has to do with the other aspects of the personality profile of the typical person attracted to running for political office.
It will be interesting to see how they use those frozen shares as collateral. Since they cannot be sold, who would lend on their 'value?'
Actually, in all of the places I named it is possible to sit next to someone for an hour and be within several feet of them. Perhaps even several inches.
I dona't know the tech specs, but mine unlocks the car from much furhter away than 5 feet. And as for where would I be sitting for an hour at a time with others next to me and within the range of my keys: Let's see. Hmmm... A restaurant? A movie theater? A church? A classroom? A court room? A waiting room? Not to mention at home or in the office.
Speculating here, but assuming some degree of prudence on the part of the managers, there will be one or more professional liability insurance policies that will survive and become assets of the bankrupt estate. If that speculation is correct, there will be someone and something to sue.