Given a choice between income tax (a tax on people WITH jobs) and property tax (a tax on people who may not have jobs), I'd choose income tax (or sales tax).
Property tax is like kicking people really hard when they are down already. They lost their job, now take their house and boot them out on the street.
Yes, the cows would live with all the bulls who were released to the easy life after bullfights as our tour guide for a mexican bullfight told us 25 years ago.
It's really a choice between constant warnings and people coming to ignore them and assurances of no danger to prevent panics.
There is not a winning option until earthquake prediction is reliable.
I really salute that scientist who took his own time to try to warn people and was suppressed. However, if you allow it, then nutcases would be driving around with loudspeakers 24/7. Difficult situation. Difficult call.
Given the easy ability to manipulate "consciousness" with both chemicals, surgery, and electrical stimulation to the brain, it's pretty obviously doesn't require quanta.
Given the obvious emotions displayed by animals, it's obvious you do not need much of a brain to have emotions.
Given the various mental illnesses which have some fairly striking effects on our consciousness (like the ability to see what's to our left but not describe it), it's clear the brain is a set of systems.
If there is a quantum effect- it's likely to be very minor.
A huge, already successful band tried to bypass the concert system a few years ago. Failed.
The only way you can bypass the labels is if you find a new path- the existing ones are all wholly owned top to bottom (distribution channels, record stores, radio stations).
I think it's breaking apart and hopefully the radio stations will not be able to lock up online distribution.
I've watched it 20 times. I can continue to watch it.
That movie took hundreds of people to make. The typical record takes a couple dozen (some involved for only a few hours).
Prices for records reflect the tiny market of the 1950's- not today's market of millions of listeners.
If you sell your self-produced song to 7 million people for a dime, you just pulled in $700k for 5 to 10 people. Not bad for a month's worth of work.
Prices will trend downwards- there is an enormous glut of entertainment. I fall more behind every week. One way I choose is based on price. By watching cheaper now- the price on the other stuff drops and it becomes cheaper to watch in 3-5 months. I have one friend who is now 3 years behind and his entertainment is very inexpensive.
The last "bootleg" disk I got (Blue October) resulted in my spendng about $130 so far on their concerts and T-Shirts.
The following book (written by university profs and heavily documented with references) contains numerous references to high ranking PLA officers referring to the US as the enemy, well at least in internal chinese language publications. http://www.amazon.com/Death-China-Confronting-Dragon-Global/dp/0132180235
Armies and navies don't really matter to the US or China. It's impossible to mass a force when the enemy has nuclear weapons. Any concentration of ships is just a really expensive future coral reef.
But it wouldn't take much to disrupt food transportation and kill millions on both sides. Biological attacks are possible but have the risk of backfiring. Not sure of what form it will take.
As for bonds-- nations can and do just change the terms on bonds. In the past they have arbitrarily turned 20 year bonds into 50 year bonds.
The question is to what degree the american right wing will behave insanely and to what degree the chinese right will will behave insanely. If either side pushes too hard and "wins" economically, it could cause the other side to lash out.
The fact that the chinese have been putting out a lot of chinese nationalist propaganda over the last 15 to 20 years is a warning sign. They could talk themselves into doing something unwise.
So did the game developed by the US Army feature chinese and russian enemies? Of the article is accurate, this game wasn't developed by some third party but was developed by the PLA.
Seems a bit revealing to me.
And folks tell me I'm wrong when I say there will be a significant war with china in the next 50 years. But this is how things start. The chinese have a fairly enormous racial superiority complex laid over a deep inferiority complex due to the 1800's and early 1900's. That kind of thing can boil over in a bad way.
The best thing to happen will be to get them away from the racially pure meme they are nursing. That kind of belief has lead to bad things very reliably over the last several hundred years.
It changes the definition of "Salary" when you don't get the days off you used to get for bad weather. But no bump in pay yet. Sure waiting for the boomers to retire and tighten up the labor market.
Should be about 20 million "extra" retirements over the next 10 years. Hoping that will help.
Koch is far from "benign". Soros is far from "benign" The wealthy are very corrosive to this country. By wealthy I mean the top.5% plus the large corporations.
I think we are in violent agreement that things are wrong and thing are being stolen tho we disagree how and what. The bush tax cuts have basically stolen social security benefits from millions to the benefits of a few thousands. They comprise the vast majority of our deficit. the bush medicare drug benefit is another huge hit. The cost of two wars is a FRACTION of the cost.
Reagan (who I voted for) was the death of the conservative party. He started the policy of "guns AND butter" and spending money we didn't have as a country. The only other times we ran deficits like these were after a major world war.
The role of the conservative party was to hold down spendin, the size of government, and encroachment into our constitutional rights. They abrogated that role under Reagan and grew the size of government and lost respect for our individual liberties on the alter of national security. I want my old conservative party back.
I hope you get to feeling better. Be careful of tylenol.
And there is someone who doesn't give a damn about the good of the country- only themselves. I've seen that grow since Reagan in my life time.
They used to be patriotic- they used to care about the rest of society. Now they don't.
The wealthy have no shame- and it's going to end the same way it has every time in the past. Either a dictatorship and facism or a revolution with lots of murders. Often both.
Our republic died as a functional government sometime during reagan's term of office. Now the wealthy don't even bother to hide writing the laws and handing them to our senators to implement any more.
I love wealthy people. I think there should be MORE wealthy people.
That means there need to be fewer super wealthy people and it means the ratio between wealthy and ordinary people needs to return to historical norms-- about 100 to 1 instead of 500 to 1.
The run away wealth is a danger to democracy on many levels. * Oligarchy * Civil Disorder * Too rich to enforce the laws against them * Unreasonable influence over the government.
Give me estate tax of 50% to keep a new nobility class from starting up and give me a 25% tax rate on all income without any deductions except the first 20,000 dollars and I'm there with you bud.
Yes. That's a very good point. And a similar point would be that some business expenses are costs of doing business.
Wealthy people are extremely good at defining their income. They have a high incentive to do so and the means to pay for legal fees associated with such transmutations.
* If you don't shoot for complete replacement, you can generate about $50 per month of power with a $4000 system (~250kwh/month). Then- in the summer, when you hit the penalty power rates, you are generating $75 per month of power. So about $700 per year.
Where in the market can you invest $4000 and get a safe $700 payout?
But that's $700 *savings*. Which means it's tax free. Which means it's like earning $1000 from investments (or $1250 more in salary).
And power rates have roughly doubled since 1985 (5c/kwh back then except for wierd things like Hydroelectric)
Wow. Just wow. This is some of the most terrible modding I've seen in years.
Disagree sure.
Post facts from the fair tax proposal to argue against the position.
But to erase a non-troll, non flame from existence just because you don't like the viewpoint is abusive and antithetical to the concept of a discussion board.
I don't think down-modding a calculation post is a reasonable use of your modding points... but whatever. I guess the parent post had too many upmods to erase.
Slashdot Mirror
Texas has really high property taxes.
3x California.
Given a choice between income tax (a tax on people WITH jobs) and property tax (a tax on people who may not have jobs), I'd choose income tax (or sales tax).
Property tax is like kicking people really hard when they are down already. They lost their job, now take their house and boot them out on the street.
I was a fan of Kamandi, last boy on earth.
Somewhere along the way the heros stopped being heroes and got all dark and I didn't identify with them any more.
I've seen Heavy Metal floating around online so it's out there electronically.
Sorry to hear you went through some hard times. Seems like life is harder than it was in the 80's too.
The reboots and alcoholic and evil "heroes" drove me away from comics about 10 years ago.
Now I watch the animated Justice League and Batman on netflix.
Every reboot of a character made it harder to stay connected to them. Every repulsive anti-hero made me less interested in the genre.
And now they have sexy human daleks who can sneak in with humans and who wonder about if they are really daleks or humans.
There is this actress who would be perfect for the role, tricia helfer.
Yes, the cows would live with all the bulls who were released to the easy life after bullfights as our tour guide for a mexican bullfight told us 25 years ago.
It's really a choice between constant warnings and people coming to ignore them and assurances of no danger to prevent panics.
There is not a winning option until earthquake prediction is reliable.
I really salute that scientist who took his own time to try to warn people and was suppressed. However, if you allow it, then nutcases would be driving around with loudspeakers 24/7. Difficult situation. Difficult call.
Given the easy ability to manipulate "consciousness" with both chemicals, surgery, and electrical stimulation to the brain, it's pretty obviously doesn't require quanta.
Given the obvious emotions displayed by animals, it's obvious you do not need much of a brain to have emotions.
Given the various mental illnesses which have some fairly striking effects on our consciousness (like the ability to see what's to our left but not describe it), it's clear the brain is a set of systems.
If there is a quantum effect- it's likely to be very minor.
Still less resolution than I had back in 2005/2006. I thought I'd be on a 30" retina display equivalent by now.
"HD" hijacked our improvements.
I have one for you.
My last CRT monitor...
1920 x 1600.
My current monitor
1650x1080.
I'll be buying a 2200x2000 monitor soon. The lack of vertical resolution is irritating.
A huge, already successful band tried to bypass the concert system a few years ago.
Failed.
The only way you can bypass the labels is if you find a new path- the existing ones are all wholly owned top to bottom (distribution channels, record stores, radio stations).
I think it's breaking apart and hopefully the radio stations will not be able to lock up online distribution.
I bought Moulin Rouge for $9.99.
I've watched it 20 times. I can continue to watch it.
That movie took hundreds of people to make. The typical record takes a couple dozen (some involved for only a few hours).
Prices for records reflect the tiny market of the 1950's- not today's market of millions of listeners.
If you sell your self-produced song to 7 million people for a dime, you just pulled in $700k for 5 to 10 people. Not bad for a month's worth of work.
Prices will trend downwards- there is an enormous glut of entertainment. I fall more behind every week. One way I choose is based on price. By watching cheaper now- the price on the other stuff drops and it becomes cheaper to watch in 3-5 months. I have one friend who is now 3 years behind and his entertainment is very inexpensive.
The last "bootleg" disk I got (Blue October) resulted in my spendng about $130 so far on their concerts and T-Shirts.
Or leave your AC on 65 for a month, or say you have SAD and have a ton of lights on in your house for months without pot.
Sort of an investment. But they may not do anything for months before hitting you.
It's odd because with LED and CFL grow lights it seems to me your power consumption should be 1/6th to 1/3rd what it used to be.
This AC is worth highligting...
They said..
The following book (written by university profs and heavily documented with references) contains numerous references to high ranking PLA officers referring to the US as the enemy, well at least in internal chinese language publications.
http://www.amazon.com/Death-China-Confronting-Dragon-Global/dp/0132180235
Armies and navies don't really matter to the US or China. It's impossible to mass a force when the enemy has nuclear weapons. Any concentration of ships is just a really expensive future coral reef.
But it wouldn't take much to disrupt food transportation and kill millions on both sides. Biological attacks are possible but have the risk of backfiring. Not sure of what form it will take.
As for bonds-- nations can and do just change the terms on bonds. In the past they have arbitrarily turned 20 year bonds into 50 year bonds.
The question is to what degree the american right wing will behave insanely and to what degree the chinese right will will behave insanely. If either side pushes too hard and "wins" economically, it could cause the other side to lash out.
The fact that the chinese have been putting out a lot of chinese nationalist propaganda over the last 15 to 20 years is a warning sign. They could talk themselves into doing something unwise.
So did the game developed by the US Army feature chinese and russian enemies?
Of the article is accurate, this game wasn't developed by some third party but was developed by the PLA.
Seems a bit revealing to me.
And folks tell me I'm wrong when I say there will be a significant war with china in the next 50 years. But this is how things start. The chinese have a fairly enormous racial superiority complex laid over a deep inferiority complex due to the 1800's and early 1900's. That kind of thing can boil over in a bad way.
The best thing to happen will be to get them away from the racially pure meme they are nursing. That kind of belief has lead to bad things very reliably over the last several hundred years.
I'm glad they got what they did. Reading some of the 1860's newspapers is really cool.
It changes the definition of "Salary" when you don't get the days off you used to get for bad weather. But no bump in pay yet. Sure waiting for the boomers to retire and tighten up the labor market.
Should be about 20 million "extra" retirements over the next 10 years. Hoping that will help.
I'm sorry you are in pain. Why are you in pain?
Koch is far from "benign". .5% plus the large corporations.
Soros is far from "benign"
The wealthy are very corrosive to this country. By wealthy I mean the top
I think we are in violent agreement that things are wrong and thing are being stolen tho we disagree how and what. The bush tax cuts have basically stolen social security benefits from millions to the benefits of a few thousands. They comprise the vast majority of our deficit. the bush medicare drug benefit is another huge hit. The cost of two wars is a FRACTION of the cost.
Reagan (who I voted for) was the death of the conservative party. He started the policy of "guns AND butter" and spending money we didn't have as a country. The only other times we ran deficits like these were after a major world war.
The role of the conservative party was to hold down spendin, the size of government, and encroachment into our constitutional rights. They abrogated that role under Reagan and grew the size of government and lost respect for our individual liberties on the alter of national security. I want my old conservative party back.
I hope you get to feeling better. Be careful of tylenol.
And there is someone who doesn't give a damn about the good of the country- only themselves. I've seen that grow since Reagan in my life time.
They used to be patriotic- they used to care about the rest of society. Now they don't.
The wealthy have no shame- and it's going to end the same way it has every time in the past. Either a dictatorship and facism or a revolution with lots of murders. Often both.
Our republic died as a functional government sometime during reagan's term of office.
Now the wealthy don't even bother to hide writing the laws and handing them to our senators to implement any more.
I love wealthy people. I think there should be MORE wealthy people.
That means there need to be fewer super wealthy people and it means the ratio between wealthy and ordinary people needs to return to historical norms-- about 100 to 1 instead of 500 to 1.
The run away wealth is a danger to democracy on many levels.
* Oligarchy
* Civil Disorder
* Too rich to enforce the laws against them
* Unreasonable influence over the government.
Give me estate tax of 50% to keep a new nobility class from starting up and give me a 25% tax rate on all income without any deductions except the first 20,000 dollars and I'm there with you bud.
Yes. That's a very good point.
And a similar point would be that some business expenses are costs of doing business.
Wealthy people are extremely good at defining their income. They have a high incentive to do so and the means to pay for legal fees associated with such transmutations.
Two other factors
* If you don't shoot for complete replacement, you can generate about $50 per month of power with a $4000 system (~250kwh/month). Then- in the summer, when you hit the penalty power rates, you are generating $75 per month of power. So about $700 per year.
Where in the market can you invest $4000 and get a safe $700 payout?
But that's $700 *savings*. Which means it's tax free. Which means it's like earning $1000 from investments (or $1250 more in salary).
And power rates have roughly doubled since 1985 (5c/kwh back then except for wierd things like Hydroelectric)
Wow. Just wow. This is some of the most terrible modding I've seen in years.
Disagree sure.
Post facts from the fair tax proposal to argue against the position.
But to erase a non-troll, non flame from existence just because you don't like the viewpoint is abusive and antithetical to the concept of a discussion board.
I don't think down-modding a calculation post is a reasonable use of your modding points... but whatever. I guess the parent post had too many upmods to erase.
If you want a truly fair and simple tax it should be a fixed percentage on everything over the poverty level income.
For example- I've seen it said that highest GDP growth occurs at 23% tax rate. So 24% of everything over the poverty line would do it.
To simplify the math.. let's say it's 20%.
Income - effective Tax rate, annual tax bill.
17k - 00%, $0
34k - 10%, $3400
51k - 13%, $6800
68k - 15%, $10,200
85k - 16%, $13,600
170k - 18%, etc.( still 2% less than the top rate )
This is progressive and simple.
People making low incomes HAVE NO SAVINGS. With this huge increase in taxes on them, they would have even less than they do now.
Sheesh.