Guess what? I do not want my advertizing to be entertaining. I want it to be informative. I am tired of products being advertized as a way to meet some emotional need of mine: No, I do not need a BMW to make my peers envious. I do not need to think of McDonalds as a hip place for youngsters. Seeing Lebron on TV does not make me want to buy his shoes... I'm an uncoordinated white guy... your shoes won't help.
The point of advertizing has morphed from a way to educate to a way to associate it with a feeling or a mood. I think this defines the difference between a capitalist society and a consumerist society. We crossed that a long time ago.
But I won't go along with it. Maybe that is why I am (generally) happy with life.
but that sounds to me like the church enjoys its income, all of it, tax-free
And that is just it. A non-profit is designed no to gain a profit. They are supposed to spend what they take in. They cannot give out a bonus or a dividend like a corporation. Employees still pay payroll taxes. The church still pays property taxes.
501(c)(3) gives donees the ability to right off donations. But as mentioned, the way things are set up, this is of very little value to most. In some cases, they can get around state sales taxes, but I believe this is a state by state decision.
And these "breaks" are available to all non-profits. It is a decision made by our gov't to not meddle in the volunteer activities of anyone -- whether it is the Heart & Lung Association, Bible Thumpers for Jesus, or Wacky Wiccans for Weekend Wiki-boarding. These organizations are voluntary, and gov't considers it an extension of the individual.
No, genius, it is n t. First, the state gov't processes it. I am not sure how many handle, but I bet the majority of the folks in their check processing department otherwise would not know my SSN. Why do they need my SSN to process a check?
The check does not stay in just their hands. It eventually gets handed to someone at a third party bank that I do NOT do business with. Jillian the cashier now gets to see my SSN and all my banking information. She hands that off to someone who does the reconciliation. It goes to a centralized processing place where $8 an hour workers get to see it. If I am lucky the stuff gets scanned in as opposed to manually entered, but that is not guaranteed.
It is then sent to my bank where other people process. Sure, the bank knows my SSN, but that does not appear on general teller screens etc. It ends up being seen by other folks. So how many people now have my routing number/SSN? Three organizations.
You may not care. But there is no reason SSN has to be on every piece of information. A different ID could appear that would suffice. The SSN could stay on the actual tax form only.
It is attitudes like yours that lead to the abuse of the SS identification system.
And what, pray tell, does getting non-profit do for you? It means you cannot distribute and "profits". in other words, you do not get taxed on monies you do not have expenses for (normally considered profit). In a non-profit, those "profits" have to be retained and used toward business services and the like. They cannot go into someone's pocket.
In most Churches, this isn't an issue. More money would get spent on missions, community services, or just keeping the building from falling apart.
This is not a tax scam. Simply that non-profits can have wildly fluctuating income (people stop donating when economy sucks) yet have relatively steady expenses. The purpose of a non-profit is not to generate a profit, so I do not see the issue.
You may have a point about some organizations abusing this, but the original poster was making a "point" that was so incredibly off base that I had to confront it. Government is not subsidizing religion.
How about this one: I misfiled my state taxes and had to send in an additional check to cover difference (phone entry system, transposed a number). The instructions indicated that I had to write my social security number ON THE CHECK!
I wrote them a note stating how irresponsible this was... causing delays in its processing. For those out there who are too young, or haven't been educated on such matters: think about how many folks will get to see that check. Now think... they have your name, financial institution, account number and SSN in one nice convenient spot. They have enough information on one piece of paper to become you. And not only will all the gov't employees have it, but a half dozen low paid employees in whatever bank the gov't uses AND your bank. Brilliant. And if that check gets lost, you are totally screwed.
I love my gov't. It is always watching out for me like this.
Oh, did I mention that huge income they get is tax free?
No. No it is not. Where did you get this idea? Can you cite a source?
And if you are referring to charitable giving being a tax write off, you'd do well to look at the standard deduction on your US tax form. For the vast majority of us, there is no tax incentive to give charitably, because we are well below the standard deduction.
But income earned by those working for a Church is just as taxable as for anyone else. Sorry.
I would alter your proposal to say that the 'base' deductable income should vary based on geography. It's more expensive to live some places than others, and just about everywhere needs to be affordable to some percentage of people in the lowest income ranges.
In principle, I agree. In reality, this would be a political mine field with more schenanigans being played to tilt the field to the big states.
And yea, I tend to be a fiscal conservative. Why I am embarassed by what we have as president and congress right now. No way in hell you spend 2.7 Trillion more than you take in over a six year period and get to call yourself conservative... but I digress.
You mean that progressive taxation is a dis-incentive to work harder? You mean maybe all those fiscal conservatives who call for a flat tax aren't crazy after all?
Not necessarilly. Only the way it is implemented. My proposal? Well, I think you will agree that there is a certain base amount of money you need just to live. A fixed tax rate based on income earned above this mark. If we agree the base is $20,000 per person and you earn $50,000, you get taxed on $30,000. In that way it is progressive, but each dollar earned doesn't keep climbing the ladder.
Run the numbers. It is entirely correct. In order to get to retire, you have to be able to live off of interest for the rest of your life. At the age the question poser proposed, you may as well say it is a perpetuity. Regardless of when the dude retires, he is going to have to have N/i dollars, where N is the desired income, and i is the expected interest rate. To simplify, we will take i to be the rate adjusted by inflation. Regardless of when the guy retires, this will be the same amount. If he needs 50k, and expects a real growth rate of 5%, he will need a cool million.
Compounding shows that he will NOT halve the time. For example, if he puts 1,000 per month away (grow by inflation) at a rate of 5% + inflation, it will take him 34 years. Double it to 2,000 per month and it still takes 23 years. A far cry from halving the time to retirement. In fact, to get it to halve, he would have to go up to around 3,700 per month.
Your numbers may vary based on the assumptions you use, but the principle remains.
Early retirement is not ludicrous. I started a plan to allow me to retire at 45 when I was 25. I am now 33 and could still make the target... worst case is I will be 50 barring something unforseen.
I work forty hours per week. My wife stays home with the kids. My house will be paid off after nine years of mortgage payments. I don't need to keep up with the Jonses. I bought a house that was about one year's gross income (less now)... a fixer upper, but it has also been fun learning to do things. We share a car. Used. Buddy is a mechanic on a car lot... got me a great deal for about half of blue book.
I don't mind working, but don't want to HAVE to work. When I hit fifty, I want to be able to work volunteer, and not have to worry about a paycheck. It means a slightly smaller lifestyle than most of my friends, but frankly when I see a BMW, I am thinking "big money wasted".
Now, would I work eighty hours to make it happen at 40 instead of 50? Nope. Life is too precious, and there is always the law of diminishing returns. I do enjoy my job, but that would cease if it became eighty.
Like anything in life it is about trade offs and moderation.
Even assuming you can get two jobs paying the same, consider:
1) Most good jobs require SOME non-standard time. It happens to me about three times a year where I pull an all nighter. I get comped for it, but if I had a second job, I'd be unable to meet the first's requirements.
2) Two jobs paying equivilant will not double your take home income. Taxes go up as you earn more, on federal and state, and often local level.
3) Part of being able to retirn in 20 years depends on the growth of money, and the miracle of compound interest. Two jobs might bring it down 20-40 percent, depending on growth rates, and original time frame, but will NOT cut it in half. Also remember that you will need some kind of medical coverage. Your $ required to retire will actually go up the early you retire.
4) If you work eighty plus hours per week for ten years, you will be losing the prime part of your life. I would not give up a decade of my life, and miss raising my kids for a million a year. Not worth it.
Lawmakers make laws. That is what they do! Politicians need to be seen as "doing something about the problem"... even if they know that more laws won't help
We should pass a law against this kind of behavior...
I just load it into Photoshop and crop out the section I want!
Step one: Buy x megapixel camera. Step two: Don't bother to frame picture. Step three: Crop picture with photshop. Step four: In effect, get a x * 0.8 megapixel camera Step five: Profit?
1) How is this troll? 2) Microsoft does practically give their software away. For $20, I was able to buy office 2003. Our company gets a deal where if you have Office on your work computer, you get to buy it for $20 plus shipping for your home computer. Normally, I would have been fine with an older edition, but for that price, I could not pass it up.
The only reason I'd use Google is for its online abilities. There are times when it would be nice to access data remotely. But where I work, I guarantee ths service will be blocked as soon as it is up and running, negating that advantage. EditCell (forget the real name) is another online spreadsheet service that has been around for a little while. Still in beta, but functional, and small enough to fly under my company's blacklist radar.
Last time someone loosed their seat, it resulted in an impeachment. Better stick to more innocent things like running up a five hundred billion dollar deficit.
I lose my tools all the time -- "where did that damn socket set go?" I've been forced to use all sorts of things - pliers, my wife's spatula set (don't tell her), and my son's toy dinosaur. Betcha none of those astronauts would have thought of THAT.
Clearly I am much more intelluhgent then those NASA dudes. And don't even get me started on that Bo Villa guy. If I had 527 different types of wood vices like him, I could HAND CARVE my own six bedroom Colonial..
The above post is NOT offtopic. Looking at this guy's posting history, you can see this is the first time he's been moded. This guy is now doomed to post in the zero range unless someone decides to mod him back up. If you agree that this mod is unfair, please spend one of your points on the parent post.
Slashdot Mirror
advertising
Either spelling is acceptable.
I want to be irrelevant! Where do I sign up?
Poland. Everyone forgets about Poland.
Guess what? I do not want my advertizing to be entertaining. I want it to be informative.
Then you're statistically irrelevant to the advertising industry. Thanks for playing.
I think I will go home and cry.
Guess what? I do not want my advertizing to be entertaining. I want it to be informative. I am tired of products being advertized as a way to meet some emotional need of mine: No, I do not need a BMW to make my peers envious. I do not need to think of McDonalds as a hip place for youngsters. Seeing Lebron on TV does not make me want to buy his shoes... I'm an uncoordinated white guy... your shoes won't help.
The point of advertizing has morphed from a way to educate to a way to associate it with a feeling or a mood. I think this defines the difference between a capitalist society and a consumerist society. We crossed that a long time ago.
But I won't go along with it. Maybe that is why I am (generally) happy with life.
Some states make exemptions. Some localities do. There is no federal mandate. If I am mistaken, cite a source.
but that sounds to me like the church enjoys its income, all of it, tax-free
And that is just it. A non-profit is designed no to gain a profit. They are supposed to spend what they take in. They cannot give out a bonus or a dividend like a corporation. Employees still pay payroll taxes. The church still pays property taxes.
501(c)(3) gives donees the ability to right off donations. But as mentioned, the way things are set up, this is of very little value to most. In some cases, they can get around state sales taxes, but I believe this is a state by state decision.
And these "breaks" are available to all non-profits. It is a decision made by our gov't to not meddle in the volunteer activities of anyone -- whether it is the Heart & Lung Association, Bible Thumpers for Jesus, or Wacky Wiccans for Weekend Wiki-boarding. These organizations are voluntary, and gov't considers it an extension of the individual.
No, genius, it is n
t.
First, the state gov't processes it. I am not sure how many handle, but I bet the majority of the folks in their check processing department otherwise would not know my SSN. Why do they need my SSN to process a check?
The check does not stay in just their hands. It eventually gets handed to someone at a third party bank that I do NOT do business with. Jillian the cashier now gets to see my SSN and all my banking information. She hands that off to someone who does the reconciliation. It goes to a centralized processing place where $8 an hour workers get to see it. If I am lucky the stuff gets scanned in as opposed to manually entered, but that is not guaranteed.
It is then sent to my bank where other people process. Sure, the bank knows my SSN, but that does not appear on general teller screens etc. It ends up being seen by other folks. So how many people now have my routing number/SSN? Three organizations.
You may not care. But there is no reason SSN has to be on every piece of information. A different ID could appear that would suffice. The SSN could stay on the actual tax form only.
It is attitudes like yours that lead to the abuse of the SS identification system.
And what, pray tell, does getting non-profit do for you? It means you cannot distribute and "profits". in other words, you do not get taxed on monies you do not have expenses for (normally considered profit). In a non-profit, those "profits" have to be retained and used toward business services and the like. They cannot go into someone's pocket.
In most Churches, this isn't an issue. More money would get spent on missions, community services, or just keeping the building from falling apart.
This is not a tax scam. Simply that non-profits can have wildly fluctuating income (people stop donating when economy sucks) yet have relatively steady expenses. The purpose of a non-profit is not to generate a profit, so I do not see the issue.
You may have a point about some organizations abusing this, but the original poster was making a "point" that was so incredibly off base that I had to confront it. Government is not subsidizing religion.
How about this one: I misfiled my state taxes and had to send in an additional check to cover difference (phone entry system, transposed a number). The instructions indicated that I had to write my social security number ON THE CHECK!
I wrote them a note stating how irresponsible this was... causing delays in its processing. For those out there who are too young, or haven't been educated on such matters: think about how many folks will get to see that check. Now think... they have your name, financial institution, account number and SSN in one nice convenient spot. They have enough information on one piece of paper to become you. And not only will all the gov't employees have it, but a half dozen low paid employees in whatever bank the gov't uses AND your bank. Brilliant. And if that check gets lost, you are totally screwed.
I love my gov't. It is always watching out for me like this.
Oh, did I mention that huge income they get is tax free?
No. No it is not. Where did you get this idea? Can you cite a source?
And if you are referring to charitable giving being a tax write off, you'd do well to look at the standard deduction on your US tax form. For the vast majority of us, there is no tax incentive to give charitably, because we are well below the standard deduction.
But income earned by those working for a Church is just as taxable as for anyone else. Sorry.
Want to really get to the Christian far right? Refer them to this Chapter
It isn't what he said. It's how he said it. The italics made the entire quote.
May Heisenberg will protect us!
I have no idea what direction you are going with this. I have, however, determined exactly how fast you are going with this.
I would alter your proposal to say that the 'base' deductable income should vary based on geography. It's more expensive to live some places than others, and just about everywhere needs to be affordable to some percentage of people in the lowest income ranges.
In principle, I agree. In reality, this would be a political mine field with more schenanigans being played to tilt the field to the big states.
And yea, I tend to be a fiscal conservative. Why I am embarassed by what we have as president and congress right now. No way in hell you spend 2.7 Trillion more than you take in over a six year period and get to call yourself conservative... but I digress.
You mean that progressive taxation is a dis-incentive to work harder? You mean maybe all those fiscal conservatives who call for a flat tax aren't crazy after all?
Not necessarilly. Only the way it is implemented. My proposal? Well, I think you will agree that there is a certain base amount of money you need just to live. A fixed tax rate based on income earned above this mark. If we agree the base is $20,000 per person and you earn $50,000, you get taxed on $30,000. In that way it is progressive, but each dollar earned doesn't keep climbing the ladder.
Run the numbers. It is entirely correct. In order to get to retire, you have to be able to live off of interest for the rest of your life. At the age the question poser proposed, you may as well say it is a perpetuity. Regardless of when the dude retires, he is going to have to have N/i dollars, where N is the desired income, and i is the expected interest rate. To simplify, we will take i to be the rate adjusted by inflation. Regardless of when the guy retires, this will be the same amount. If he needs 50k, and expects a real growth rate of 5%, he will need a cool million.
Compounding shows that he will NOT halve the time. For example, if he puts 1,000 per month away (grow by inflation) at a rate of 5% + inflation, it will take him 34 years. Double it to 2,000 per month and it still takes 23 years. A far cry from halving the time to retirement. In fact, to get it to halve, he would have to go up to around 3,700 per month.
Your numbers may vary based on the assumptions you use, but the principle remains.
Early retirement is not ludicrous. I started a plan to allow me to retire at 45 when I was 25. I am now 33 and could still make the target... worst case is I will be 50 barring something unforseen.
I work forty hours per week. My wife stays home with the kids. My house will be paid off after nine years of mortgage payments. I don't need to keep up with the Jonses. I bought a house that was about one year's gross income (less now)... a fixer upper, but it has also been fun learning to do things. We share a car. Used. Buddy is a mechanic on a car lot... got me a great deal for about half of blue book.
I don't mind working, but don't want to HAVE to work. When I hit fifty, I want to be able to work volunteer, and not have to worry about a paycheck. It means a slightly smaller lifestyle than most of my friends, but frankly when I see a BMW, I am thinking "big money wasted".
Now, would I work eighty hours to make it happen at 40 instead of 50? Nope. Life is too precious, and there is always the law of diminishing returns. I do enjoy my job, but that would cease if it became eighty.
Like anything in life it is about trade offs and moderation.
Even assuming you can get two jobs paying the same, consider:
1) Most good jobs require SOME non-standard time. It happens to me about three times a year where I pull an all nighter. I get comped for it, but if I had a second job, I'd be unable to meet the first's requirements.
2) Two jobs paying equivilant will not double your take home income. Taxes go up as you earn more, on federal and state, and often local level.
3) Part of being able to retirn in 20 years depends on the growth of money, and the miracle of compound interest. Two jobs might bring it down 20-40 percent, depending on growth rates, and original time frame, but will NOT cut it in half. Also remember that you will need some kind of medical coverage. Your $ required to retire will actually go up the early you retire.
4) If you work eighty plus hours per week for ten years, you will be losing the prime part of your life. I would not give up a decade of my life, and miss raising my kids for a million a year. Not worth it.
Lawmakers make laws. That is what they do! Politicians need to be seen as "doing something about the problem"... even if they know that more laws won't help
We should pass a law against this kind of behavior...
I just load it into Photoshop and crop out the section I want!
Step one: Buy x megapixel camera.
Step two: Don't bother to frame picture.
Step three: Crop picture with photshop.
Step four: In effect, get a x * 0.8 megapixel camera
Step five: Profit?
1) How is this troll?
2) Microsoft does practically give their software away. For $20, I was able to buy office 2003. Our company gets a deal where if you have Office on your work computer, you get to buy it for $20 plus shipping for your home computer. Normally, I would have been fine with an older edition, but for that price, I could not pass it up.
The only reason I'd use Google is for its online abilities. There are times when it would be nice to access data remotely. But where I work, I guarantee ths service will be blocked as soon as it is up and running, negating that advantage. EditCell (forget the real name) is another online spreadsheet service that has been around for a little while. Still in beta, but functional, and small enough to fly under my company's blacklist radar.
about loosing their seat
Last time someone loosed their seat, it resulted in an impeachment. Better stick to more innocent things like running up a five hundred billion dollar deficit.
I lose my tools all the time -- "where did that damn socket set go?" I've been forced to use all sorts of things - pliers, my wife's spatula set (don't tell her), and my son's toy dinosaur. Betcha none of those astronauts would have thought of THAT.
Clearly I am much more intelluhgent then those NASA dudes. And don't even get me started on that Bo Villa guy. If I had 527 different types of wood vices like him, I could HAND CARVE my own six bedroom Colonial..
I feel it's nuts.
If you think grammar is unimportant, just think what the absence of an apostrophe would do to the above sentence.
The above post is NOT offtopic. Looking at this guy's posting history, you can see this is the first time he's been moded. This guy is now doomed to post in the zero range unless someone decides to mod him back up. If you agree that this mod is unfair, please spend one of your points on the parent post.