It is good to know that. And I may add Rodale as a new source of information.
But the fact that bugs are resistant to GMO bug resistant crops is both a fact and was expected (at least by anyone that believes in natural selection and the theory of evolution).
If there is a plentiful food source sitting there and any single bug out of the billions of bugs develops a mutation allowing it to eat that food, then it's going to proliferate.
I sort of "retired in place" after a little collapse back in march.
It has helped.
I'm getting all of my medical procedures done this year with the cover story that I've made our high deductible. The pressure to perform is starting to mount again. Started about a month ago. I started coming in early again last week but still under 45 hours a week. Going to let them ramp me up to 50 hours by end of the year and then probably "retire in place" again then until they let me go. That will extend my cobra well into 2014.
See, in the old days they actually *measured* productivity instead of just "defining a new reality" and creating "the right story" as my manager said recently.
And they found that the productivity for working 6 days and 5 days was basically the same. And the productivity for working an 8 hour day and a 12 hour day was basically the same.
And then more recently, about 20 years ago, they found that for most people (not those mutants who only need 3 hours a night sleep), that after two weeks of over 8 hours, the error rate rose and the severity of those errors rose and you had a productivity loss.
And it explains the insane and low quality decisions coming out of the executive and management classes these days. They are exhausted and working stupid. We are now told to write up projects "so your grandmother could understand them" because that's how exhausted and brain dead the executives are.
But they think they are doing fine when they really need to get more sleep.
We've been cutting taxes since Reagan and we started a policy of "guns AND butter" under reagan. We lost the true conservatives.
The closest we have today want to cut taxes- cut all social spending- but for some crazy reason, keep paying more for defense than the next 20 to 25 countries COMBINED.
Cut defense and government by 10%. Then restore the tax rates at the start of the bush presidency.
GDP growth will do the rest.
but it doesn't look like our current republicans and democrats are going to do this and those with money control the media to keep us from forming a third party that would do it.
That's only true if you stop the bar at 1 million... past there the rate drops. By 10 million income, it's down to 22%. At the top it's 17.5%. At Romney's level it's apparently 13%.
-6% Federal + 6% Social Security + 12% state and local taxes (a high % of other taxes from cigarette, booze, gasoline, cellphone, automobile license, fishing license taxes which are fixed amounts.)
vs 18.5% on the top 1% +.8% social security +.03% state and local taxes ( a tiny % of other taxes from cigarette, booze, gasoline, cellphone, automobile license, fishing license taxes which are fixed amounts.)
compare the total tax load for both groups. 12% for the poor. 19.6% for the top 1%.
And it's lower for the top.1%.
You can't take more money from the poor. State and local taxes have already put them below the poverty line. There would be no point in working if you took out income taxes from them and the result would be civil unrest and violence with coresponding increased incarceration costs ($31,000 to warehouse a prisoner vs $18,000 a year for Welfare-- it's literally cheaper to give them money than force them to turn to crime).
while there are exceptions- (helping a sisters child survive).. let's ignore those to make a point.
By and large, it's PROCREATION and survival of the child and it's procreation which matters evolutionarily.
It doesn't matter if you live to 300-- if you do not procreate, you were a dead end.
If you have 15 children who survive then your genes are a 'winning set' until overpopulation makes some other trait more valuable (needs less food, water, not confrontational so isn't killed, good liar/adulterer).
Immunity to malaria only matters if malaria is an issue.
In our current society women with high sex drives and terrible birth control habits have a "successful" set of genes.
Likewise, religious genes tied to a procreation religion is a "successful" set of genes.
Smart people who limit themselves to 2 or fewer children are "losers".
Those genetic trends don't bode well for the future-- a future Harry Harrison predicted waaaay back in the 1950's.
Country 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 United States 4.1 5 0.3 2.45 3.1 4.4 3.2 3.2 2 1.1 -2.6 2.8
Look at the average growth rate since 1999. Under clinton, bush, obama.
In order to get 7% GDP growth, you have to take actions which result in massive inflation- devaluation of the dollar. China can do it because they are coming up from nothing-- and even THEY are now having a problem maintaining 7% GDP growth. Even THEY are being replaced with robots (estimate is 1 million robots will replace equivalent number of human workers in china over the next decade).
This growth rate is not keeping up with inflation. Purchasing power of the bottom 95% has dropped consistently since 1988. That could be addressed and may be the reason for lower growth. I.e., once one side has most of the money and won't give it back- then the other side can't buy more products.
But any attempt to fix that is going to be artificial. Most human labor is not worth over $20,000 per year. Robots are replacing humans at $15k to $19k in manual labor type jobs. There is a limited demand for higher skill jobs and indians and chinese are replacing those at prices under $20,000 per year.
So really it's about pumping the remaining wealth out of the lower 95% in the US and at some point when we achieve income parity with india and china then a normal economy will resume.
The chinese are retiring too now. Things are going to tighten up- but it's another 4 years before there is a real labor shortage. Just have to hope that robots don't improve much more-- but they are. and fast. Be nice to have a real labor shortage from 2016 to 2020. We are set for it. In china and in the US. It's a race.
Anything above 3% isn't really practical for an economy our size.
Plan for 3%.
The U.S. will never see 7% without huge inflation which would eat most of your double. It would wipe out the debt by paying back with devalued dollars.
Your rates are way too low to pay for the current government.
You need 25% of everything over the poverty line combined with 10% cuts to close the gap.
And then those at the poverty line would still be paying over 12% of their income in state and local taxes, licenses, fees, and excise taxes. Plus more property taxes hidden in their rent.
Exactly, changing the rules to put in a 25% sales tax would be grossly unfair to people who already paid taxes to save money outside of retirement accounts.
The tax code is already simple for most individuals. Only businesses have complex tax returns.
And that's because they have the most power to abuse the tax system.
$900 leather chairs and $300 lunches as "business expenses". It's a constant war between the IRS and businesses as businesses try to define personal expenses and luxuries as "business expenses".
Pretty much the only place you can get tax free munis with 5% is harrisburg and california.
It's more like 2.9% to 3.3% for tax free munis.
You would best balance with some good 6.3% taxable corporate bonds mixed in with 3.3% tax free munis.
However, if you live out of state and make over $7,000 income from tax free munis, you will pay state income tax.
Taxing investment income will not be "starting" but "resuming". It was cut. To 15%. It didn't work-- deficits are higher, there is less investment in america, not more.
Lower taxes no longer works- the money is invested overseas where the real wage slave labor is these days.
Not saying there is a good solution. And ignoring the looming singularity of $15k to $19k robots replacing humans.
But it will not be catastrophe if rates on investment income RETURN to their previous levels.
Companies waste BILLIONs of dollars on completely stupid shit which makes no sense. Then they "fire" the CEO who pushed it- giving them hundreds of millions in "go away" money.
Then they lay off regular workers to pay for it. As soon as the company recovers, they do it again.
Anywhere you have concentration of power- you will find waste. The higher concentration of power- the higher the amount of waste.
2 million dollar parties with young people in togas. 2 year, $1.6 million layoff packages for top executives. (not for them, the 1 week per year- if you are lucky- 2 weeks flat if you are unluck retirement plans for regular workers).
company cars
"conferences" in hawaii, las vegas, and every other party spot in the world.
younger sex partners promoted unjustly who end up costing the companies millions of dollars anyway when things blow up.
Coincidentally, the CBO analysis of the Ryan plan shows a shutdown of the entire government within a decade except defense, medicare, and social security.
What is with this insistance on keeping a defense budget over the total of the next 20 nations combined? Could we perhaps get by on a defense budget over the total of the next 10 nations combined and leave a little money for the SEC, the agencies that prevent massive chemical spills, those who fund the national high way system, perhaps a small space program, etc?
Slashdot Mirror
I had heard that dental work in mexico was 1/10th the price for in the U.S. How did you find a good dentist?
Okay- so I already proposed 100 billion in social spending cuts to.
What do you want?
How much is a fair amount to spend on social spending in your book?
I'd really like to see a video of that. How do the cars adapt.. or fail to adapt.
What's the point of failure or do they all behave prudently as more and more cars are on the track?
Only within a certain time period.
If they said, "good for 24 months" then it's good for 24 months.
It is good to know that. And I may add Rodale as a new source of information.
But the fact that bugs are resistant to GMO bug resistant crops is both a fact and was expected (at least by anyone that believes in natural selection and the theory of evolution).
If there is a plentiful food source sitting there and any single bug out of the billions of bugs develops a mutation allowing it to eat that food, then it's going to proliferate.
I sort of "retired in place" after a little collapse back in march.
It has helped.
I'm getting all of my medical procedures done this year with the cover story that I've made our high deductible. The pressure to perform is starting to mount again. Started about a month ago. I started coming in early again last week but still under 45 hours a week. Going to let them ramp me up to 50 hours by end of the year and then probably "retire in place" again then until they let me go. That will extend my cobra well into 2014.
We've been doing this for the last 24 months.
Two people under 55 have died this year.
Heart attack and a cancers.
Last friday, they wheeled out a guy in his 40's found unconcious at his desk with a heart attack. Don't know if he will make it or not.
Just realize the ultimate cost of no rest and constant stress.
See, in the old days they actually *measured* productivity instead of just "defining a new reality" and creating "the right story" as my manager said recently.
And they found that the productivity for working 6 days and 5 days was basically the same. And the productivity for working an 8 hour day and a 12 hour day was basically the same.
And then more recently, about 20 years ago, they found that for most people (not those mutants who only need 3 hours a night sleep), that after two weeks of over 8 hours, the error rate rose and the severity of those errors rose and you had a productivity loss.
And it explains the insane and low quality decisions coming out of the executive and management classes these days. They are exhausted and working stupid. We are now told to write up projects "so your grandmother could understand them" because that's how exhausted and brain dead the executives are.
But they think they are doing fine when they really need to get more sleep.
Wow I wasn't aware that 4 years from now was today.
Reread the post. Try again.
It's both.
We've been cutting taxes since Reagan and we started a policy of "guns AND butter" under reagan. We lost the true conservatives.
The closest we have today want to cut taxes- cut all social spending- but for some crazy reason, keep paying more for defense than the next 20 to 25 countries COMBINED.
Cut defense and government by 10%. Then restore the tax rates at the start of the bush presidency.
GDP growth will do the rest.
but it doesn't look like our current republicans and democrats are going to do this and those with money control the media to keep us from forming a third party that would do it.
Looks pretty hopeless for now.
That's only true if you stop the bar at 1 million... past there the rate drops. By 10 million income, it's down to 22%. At the top it's 17.5%. At Romney's level it's apparently 13%.
Your link doesn't agree with this one:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/key-elements/poor/households.cfm
I am talking about the total tax load.
-6% Federal + 6% Social Security + 12% state and local taxes (a high % of other taxes from cigarette, booze, gasoline, cellphone, automobile license, fishing license taxes which are fixed amounts.)
vs .8% social security + .03% state and local taxes ( a tiny % of other taxes from cigarette, booze, gasoline, cellphone, automobile license, fishing license taxes which are fixed amounts.)
18.5% on the top 1% +
compare the total tax load for both groups.
12% for the poor.
19.6% for the top 1%.
And it's lower for the top .1%.
You can't take more money from the poor. State and local taxes have already put them below the poverty line. There would be no point in working if you took out income taxes from them and the result would be civil unrest and violence with coresponding increased incarceration costs ($31,000 to warehouse a prisoner vs $18,000 a year for Welfare-- it's literally cheaper to give them money than force them to turn to crime).
And with increasingly effective robotics and automation, you really don't need that many drones to do actual work.
while there are exceptions- (helping a sisters child survive).. let's ignore those to make a point.
By and large, it's PROCREATION and survival of the child and it's procreation which matters evolutionarily.
It doesn't matter if you live to 300-- if you do not procreate, you were a dead end.
If you have 15 children who survive then your genes are a 'winning set' until overpopulation makes some other trait more valuable (needs less food, water, not confrontational so isn't killed, good liar/adulterer).
Immunity to malaria only matters if malaria is an issue.
In our current society women with high sex drives and terrible birth control habits have a "successful" set of genes.
Likewise, religious genes tied to a procreation religion is a "successful" set of genes.
Smart people who limit themselves to 2 or fewer children are "losers".
Those genetic trends don't bode well for the future-- a future Harry Harrison predicted waaaay back in the 1950's.
What so crazy about those is that you can point to multiple science fiction movies which have similar looks and fields going back 50 years.
Because we are mature economy, china is not.
Review the CIA data here:
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=us&v=66
I'll copy the relevant section.
Country 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
United States 4.1 5 0.3 2.45 3.1 4.4 3.2 3.2 2 1.1 -2.6 2.8
Look at the average growth rate since 1999. Under clinton, bush, obama.
In order to get 7% GDP growth, you have to take actions which result in massive inflation- devaluation of the dollar. China can do it because they are coming up from nothing-- and even THEY are now having a problem maintaining 7% GDP growth. Even THEY are being replaced with robots (estimate is 1 million robots will replace equivalent number of human workers in china over the next decade).
This growth rate is not keeping up with inflation. Purchasing power of the bottom 95% has dropped consistently since 1988. That could be addressed and may be the reason for lower growth. I.e., once one side has most of the money and won't give it back- then the other side can't buy more products.
But any attempt to fix that is going to be artificial. Most human labor is not worth over $20,000 per year. Robots are replacing humans at $15k to $19k in manual labor type jobs. There is a limited demand for higher skill jobs and indians and chinese are replacing those at prices under $20,000 per year.
So really it's about pumping the remaining wealth out of the lower 95% in the US and at some point when we achieve income parity with india and china then a normal economy will resume.
The chinese are retiring too now. Things are going to tighten up- but it's another 4 years before there is a real labor shortage. Just have to hope that robots don't improve much more-- but they are. and fast. Be nice to have a real labor shortage from 2016 to 2020. We are set for it. In china and in the US. It's a race.
Anything above 3% isn't really practical for an economy our size.
Plan for 3%.
The U.S. will never see 7% without huge inflation which would eat most of your double.
It would wipe out the debt by paying back with devalued dollars.
Your rates are way too low to pay for the current government.
You need 25% of everything over the poverty line combined with 10% cuts to close the gap.
And then those at the poverty line would still be paying over 12% of their income in state and local taxes, licenses, fees, and excise taxes. Plus more property taxes hidden in their rent.
Exactly, changing the rules to put in a 25% sales tax would be grossly unfair to people who already paid taxes to save money outside of retirement accounts.
The tax code is already simple for most individuals. Only businesses have complex tax returns.
And that's because they have the most power to abuse the tax system.
$900 leather chairs and $300 lunches as "business expenses". It's a constant war between the IRS and businesses as businesses try to define personal expenses and luxuries as "business expenses".
Pretty much the only place you can get tax free munis with 5% is harrisburg and california.
It's more like 2.9% to 3.3% for tax free munis.
You would best balance with some good 6.3% taxable corporate bonds mixed in with 3.3% tax free munis.
However, if you live out of state and make over $7,000 income from tax free munis, you will pay state income tax.
Taxing investment income will not be "starting" but "resuming". It was cut. To 15%. It didn't work-- deficits are higher, there is less investment in america, not more.
Lower taxes no longer works- the money is invested overseas where the real wage slave labor is these days.
Not saying there is a good solution. And ignoring the looming singularity of $15k to $19k robots replacing humans.
But it will not be catastrophe if rates on investment income RETURN to their previous levels.
That's incorrect.
The poor pay over 12% of their income in state and local taxes while the wealthy pay .03%.
Taxes on the wealthy have dropped continuously since reagan.
Deficits have increased.
And the real income of the middle income and lower has dropped.
The poor you are talking about is mostly
a) poor people with children.
b) poor seniors.
It otherwise doesn't really apply. Poor, childless singles pay close to 10% of their income in federal income taxes.
Lol.
Companies waste BILLIONs of dollars on completely stupid shit which makes no sense.
Then they "fire" the CEO who pushed it- giving them hundreds of millions in "go away" money.
Then they lay off regular workers to pay for it. As soon as the company recovers, they do it again.
Anywhere you have concentration of power- you will find waste. The higher concentration of power- the higher the amount of waste.
2 million dollar parties with young people in togas.
2 year, $1.6 million layoff packages for top executives. (not for them, the 1 week per year- if you are lucky- 2 weeks flat if you are unluck retirement plans for regular workers).
company cars
"conferences" in hawaii, las vegas, and every other party spot in the world.
younger sex partners promoted unjustly who end up costing the companies millions of dollars anyway when things blow up.
Coincidentally, the CBO analysis of the Ryan plan shows a shutdown of the entire government within a decade except defense, medicare, and social security.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3708
Does that seem sane, smart, wise?
What is with this insistance on keeping a defense budget over the total of the next 20 nations combined? Could we perhaps get by on a defense budget over the total of the next 10 nations combined and leave a little money for the SEC, the agencies that prevent massive chemical spills, those who fund the national high way system, perhaps a small space program, etc?
Most current file sharing methods upload while they download.
You know... "ratio".
I would keep cable with a decent channel selection at $40.
But regardless of the starting deal it soars to $90 to $120 very quickly.
Not worth it.
For me it went from "You'll get used to it" to "I use ear plugs at movie theaters because they are too loud".
I agree there are limits on the low side but most people "get used" to music which is much too loud.
For example, if I can hear it inside my closed car from inside your closed car, it's probably too loud.
If I can hear it inside my house, from inside your house a several houses away, it's probably too loud.