Actually, you are technically supposed to report those sales to your neighbor. The government just has considered it not worth the effort to track (tho they will get you once you hit about $6 grand a year of "sales to neighbors"- usually by noticing a ton of checks passing through your account).
Only select business to business transactions have tax exceptions on the logic that they are selling a product that will be immediately resold to the end customer. However, in VAT countries, they tax many products at every level.
While there is a fiction that you don't own the virtual property- it's really akin to ownership and leasing. If you lease vehicles, you frequently must pay taxes on them even tho you don't "own" them.
No- but they do need to "kill" corporations that are criminal. I think we have only killed one corporation. The argument is always that too many jobs will be lost. If you did disincorporate a bad corporation, the investors would lose and the executives of that corporation would probably have a harder time getting employment at other companies. These are the actions that matter. Fines are just a cost of doing business. Arresting a couple executives likewise doesn't really affect the beast that is the corporation.
a) Completely agree. That's what I was saying when I was talking about your public pool and my recycling program. Without a fixed hard limit on taxes, we end up with both (and pay high taxes to have both).
But I guess I was saying with regard to fighting the corporations- citizens are really single issue part time fighters while the corporations have lots of people dedicated to fighting full time for them (and willing to fight dirty with bribes, free trips, etc.)
b) I was more speaking about the ongoing costs of doing their day to day business. We pay for roads they use to transport goods on. We pay for police that protect their property. We pay for a lot of things that the corporations have managed to push off as "public" responsibilities while they get the ability to not pay taxes for 5 to 10 years. Movies such as "The Corporation" and similar books make the point that externalizing their costs is one of the primary efforts of a corporation. The participants are legally bound to try to maximize profits and reduce costs. It's a good point about Johnny Thug tho- same thing with "Pedro Illegal" who we pay schooling and medical care for. I think the middle class is getting to the point of breaking on these issues tho. I foresee higher taxes for the wealthy soon (next 8 years).
So you have two groups of people (citizens and government employees) who sorta, kinda want to tax fairly and one group of people whose entire purpose for existing is to push those costs on to the other two. Who is going to win in this struggle?
Our problem with b) is that if you want a swimming pool and I do not. And I want a recycling program and you do not, we both end up with a swimming pool and a recycling program. Extend that to 300 million individuals and you end up with all sorts of wacky stuff. I think you would get a better result if you fixed the tax rate (which would require a constitutional amendment) and then let everyone scrabble over that fixed amount.
And then we have the problem of words. If we say we tax activity "A", then people doing that activity find a way to change it just a little and then call it activity "A1". That applies in this case. Likewise, if we had a constitutional amendment limiting taxes, they would define a new word (usage fees, service fees.. who knows) instead of the word "tax" to get around the amendment.
You have people working 8 hour shifts to make a product that they sell for real money to consumers. But because it is phrased as "playing a game", they have managed to get away untaxed.
Likewise the gambling issue in S2 where lindens could be won gambling and then sold for real cash.
And let's turn it around... Say I start mowing lawns for 100,000 platinum in EQ? That's $21 value for a lawn mowing but it's just "EQ Plat", not "real" money. It takes me about 120 hours to earn 100,000 platinum so it's a very good deal for me, removes taxable liability.
The more virtual worlds we have- and the more time people send in them- the bigger this issue becomes.
I don't go to a real movie, out to eat, or to a real ball game- instead I spend 30 hours in a virtual world that week. Provided food, a place to live, and a good computer/network connection I could probably go 10 to 15 years doing almost nothing as far as the real world is concerned.
Pirates was a self chosen word by the infringers going wayyyyy back.
First usage was in the 1600's but it was very popular in cracker/hacker culture in the 80's when I was a young pup "pirating" games for our network gaming group. (Usually one or two legit copies but we were so poor we could not afford it. Then the game companies got wise and started making network copies where you could get 2-4 playable copies as long as they could find a legit copy on the network- then we bought the games since we could afford them.)
There is a limited supply of cheap, educated, useful labor.
They are experiencing VERY high inflation rates. Their currencies are appreciating against our currency.
At the current 14% inflation + 4% appreciation (18%), indian rates will *DOUBLE* in only four years. So from a burn rate of 35 to a burn rate of 70 vs an american burn rate of 90. And they don't even have the social benefits we do wrapped into their paychecks. Combine that with americans wisely leaving these fields in droves- I see an incredible opportunity for americans who can weather the next 4-6 years.
Good point there about RIAA (sony/universal/emi/warner). I think I'll refer to RIAA (sony/universal/emi/warner) that way from now on.
And RIAA (sony/universal/emi/warner) is kind of easy to remember. RIAA(S/U/E/ W?) not sure about the W but RIAA (sony/universal/emi) forms a nice mnemonic!
We need national health care for the common stuff like blood pressure and broken legs. Not for stuff like cancer. (as a cancer survivor i know one of us eats up enough to fix 200 broken legs in only five months).
I wouldn't. I'd be happy if I could buy things for the same prices they pay.
$10,000 vs $140,000 for the same heart operation. $1,000 vs $6,000 for the same hair transplate. $2.19 vs $20.00 for the same movie or album. $.10 vs $5.85 for the same blood pressure medicine.
Companies make products for 50 cents and sell them there for 55 cents and here for $5.50.
And they get laws passed making it illegal to import those 55 cent products and sell them here for 60 cents (which would be real capitalism and would quickly undercut the $5.50 price.
I would not mind my salary dropping from $80,000 to $40,000 if the price of things were dropping from $20.00 to $2.19 and $5.58 to $.10 because I would be relatively better off.
And that's ignoring things like the 1/3 of the price of cars for safety features that are not required there and another 1/6 for legal costs that they don't bear because of our runaway legal system (and another 1/6 for some crazy pensions that are being dumped on my tax dollars soon) .
The current inflation rate in rupees is 14+% ( 72/14 =~ 5) so indian programmers will be 100% more expensive in 5 years. They currently are about 1/3 the cost (with very low benefits compared to american workers).
The indian peasants are beginning to get pissed off by the inflation so increased taxes are likely.
Second-- the dollar lost 3.5% against the rupee in the last year alone. So the net inflation rate is roughly 18% (72/18 = 4!). So that mean costs for indian programers will double in only 4 years at the current rate.
Now- infosys reports that *many* companies are bidding for their workers. You might be getting the workers for 1/3 the cost, but if another company bids 50% of the cost, then you lose the workers.
OTH, rumors run rampant where I am of the entire IT staff being replaced by indians. Which opens another can of worms. This company only sells products in the US. Will popular press about them dumping hundreds of americans for indian workers affect their ability to sell product here? It's unclear- folks frequently SAY it matters but then sneak in and buy the bargain anyway.
While I agree, A dollar paid to india is a dollar that doesn't go around the local economy seven times. It goes around india's economy seven times.
We are hemoraging our wealth.
If they paid me $80,000 a year- I will spend 99% of that money in the same state I received it in. That means, that money can be spent on their products.
If they send the same money over seas for two replacements. That's it. Not a dime of the money comes back to their company (unless they are selling to india).
It's a race to the bottom. We know it. I just hope to god we get national health care in so I don't have to have a job. The current health care setup basically makes us slaves.
In part: To start with, the design is laid down, one layer at a time, in stainless-steel powder held in place by a laser-activated binder. You can see the layering on the finished pieces, it is the source of the characteristic texture of my work. Each layer is.004" to.007" thick.
The steel granules are so fine that they feel like very heavy, cool flour. During the build the extra unbound powder supports the piece, so no extra structure is needed to handle undercuts. The powder is very flowable, it's not caky like cornstarch, so removing this extra supporting powder from the finished model is quite easy. It slides off with a little shake and a light brush, and it can be poured out of interior spaces.
Two points. 1) Whether it is right or not- we DO it all the time. (this is my thrust) They used to expose babies all the time. We kill people who are suffering and will die. We passively kill people by taking their resources. Companies kill people by firing them when they require medication to live. Organized health care systems kill people because they are too expensive to keep alive (a rich person with the same disease would live). We kill people because we want a soda (and the 50 cents that would keep them alive doesn't). We kill people who compete with us for food and water. We put diseases on blankets and kill them to take their land. Our morality varies based on what we want and how badly we want it. Christians deliberately ended the life of entire cities- every man and child. All the women who were not virgins and took their stuff. There is strong evidence that we kill at least a few people every year who are innocent under a justice system that presumes innocence until guilt is proven. We allow lots of practices that result in a regular annual death rate. For kids too! Because BEING ALIVE is dangerous. Skateboarding is dangerous. Riding a horse is dangerous. Eating food is dangerous. We have to allow people to freedom to live even tho it means a small percentage are going to drown, freeze, fall off of rooftops, asphixiate themselves, burn themselves to death, crush themselves in cars or even kill each other in fist fights.
2) Now- addressing the MORAL point (theory land vs reality). First- I agree with you on the basic moral point qualified this way:
We should not deliberately kill informed rational people who want to stay alive.*
We deliberately end the lives of people who are too sick and in too much pain. It is EVIL to force them to live in screaming agony another 25 hours to satisfy some artificial code against killing. We allow people to die all the time to save others. This happened during Katrina where the horrible choice was forced on caregivers. We pull the plug on people every day who are in a vegetative state (and when we don't we get SICK SICK situations like that hopelessly brain dead lady last year who was forced to remain alive).
* So, once a fetus is judged to be "human", there is no moral way to kill it (except "self defense" where it definately is going to kill the mother) because it will be 18 years before it can make an informed rational decision.
---
The issue is a stalemate because to most people it is clear that 2 cells is not a human and 6 months is. Everything between those two points is VERY arbitrary. When you can't point to a hard fact (It's raining, IT's 32 degrees, ice IS forming), then you are going to have difficulty reaching a conclusion among reasonable people (and certainly among the more extreme unreasonable anti and pro abortion sides).
--- But KEY point. In areas where abortion is outlawed- it continues at the same rate illegally. There are places where it is legal that have lower rates than places where it is illegal under VERY harsh penalties.
I think some of the areas where it is common are very tragic. But why are we wasting so much energy on this issue (and basically letting the rich and corporations rob the country blind) when illegal abortions are going to continue (with all the damage that caused back when abortions were illegal) at roughly the same rate. there are lots of productive issues.
Anyway- moving on. New articles to read and opinionate on.
Allow the class period to develop a thesis in blue books. Allow open discussion by the students to spark ideas. Take up the blue books and note the contents. Pass them out next class to allow another hour (or 1.5 hours) of development. Now- give them a week to develop the term paper from that basis.
The final paper must be recognizably based on that material.
The problem is, you could propose that the sky was blue on a clear day and there would be 20% of the population that would swear it would never be blue.
I've administered groups of people. There are always 10-20% of people who misunderstood, are naturally disagreeable, are stupid, have some social agenda- who knows, maybe genetically random behavior has a certain reward- anyway- often the only way to stop the arguing and prove something will work or fail is to do it.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, you are technically supposed to report those sales to your neighbor. The government just has considered it not worth the effort to track (tho they will get you once you hit about $6 grand a year of "sales to neighbors"- usually by noticing a ton of checks passing through your account).
Only select business to business transactions have tax exceptions on the logic that they are selling a product that will be immediately resold to the end customer. However, in VAT countries, they tax many products at every level.
While there is a fiction that you don't own the virtual property- it's really akin to ownership and leasing. If you lease vehicles, you frequently must pay taxes on them even tho you don't "own" them.
No- but they do need to "kill" corporations that are criminal. I think we have only killed one corporation. The argument is always that too many jobs will be lost. If you did disincorporate a bad corporation, the investors would lose and the executives of that corporation would probably have a harder time getting employment at other companies. These are the actions that matter. Fines are just a cost of doing business. Arresting a couple executives likewise doesn't really affect the beast that is the corporation.
a) Completely agree. That's what I was saying when I was talking about your public pool and my recycling program. Without a fixed hard limit on taxes, we end up with both (and pay high taxes to have both).
But I guess I was saying with regard to fighting the corporations- citizens are really single issue part time fighters while the corporations have lots of people dedicated to fighting full time for them (and willing to fight dirty with bribes, free trips, etc.)
b) I was more speaking about the ongoing costs of doing their day to day business. We pay for roads they use to transport goods on. We pay for police that protect their property. We pay for a lot of things that the corporations have managed to push off as "public" responsibilities while they get the ability to not pay taxes for 5 to 10 years. Movies such as "The Corporation" and similar books make the point that externalizing their costs is one of the primary efforts of a corporation. The participants are legally bound to try to maximize profits and reduce costs.
It's a good point about Johnny Thug tho- same thing with "Pedro Illegal" who we pay schooling and medical care for. I think the middle class is getting to the point of breaking on these issues tho. I foresee higher taxes for the wealthy soon (next 8 years).
And the problems with doing a) and b) is that a primary role of corporations is to externalize their costs.
p oration.html
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Rachels/The_Cor
So you have two groups of people (citizens and government employees) who sorta, kinda want to tax fairly and one group of people whose entire purpose for existing is to push those costs on to the other two. Who is going to win in this struggle?
Our problem with b) is that if you want a swimming pool and I do not. And I want a recycling program and you do not, we both end up with a swimming pool and a recycling program. Extend that to 300 million individuals and you end up with all sorts of wacky stuff. I think you would get a better result if you fixed the tax rate (which would require a constitutional amendment) and then let everyone scrabble over that fixed amount.
And then we have the problem of words.
If we say we tax activity "A", then people doing that activity find a way to change it just a little and then call it activity "A1". That applies in this case. Likewise, if we had a constitutional amendment limiting taxes, they would define a new word (usage fees, service fees.. who knows) instead of the word "tax" to get around the amendment.
You have people working 8 hour shifts to make a product that they sell for real money to consumers. But because it is phrased as "playing a game", they have managed to get away untaxed.
Likewise the gambling issue in S2 where lindens could be won gambling and then sold for real cash.
And let's turn it around... Say I start mowing lawns for 100,000 platinum in EQ? That's $21 value for a lawn mowing but it's just "EQ Plat", not "real" money. It takes me about 120 hours to earn 100,000 platinum so it's a very good deal for me, removes taxable liability.
The more virtual worlds we have- and the more time people send in them- the bigger this issue becomes.
I don't go to a real movie, out to eat, or to a real ball game- instead I spend 30 hours in a virtual world that week. Provided food, a place to live, and a good computer/network connection I could probably go 10 to 15 years doing almost nothing as far as the real world is concerned.
It's a fascinating issue.
Actually, that's not the case.
They can tell you a confidence level or likelyhood of a given sequence after the fact.
You can ALWAYS roll a million sixes in a row or flip a million heads in a row.
Those are also in the realm of probability.
Truly random events can appear non-random for long periods of time before they randomly change.
Pirates was a self chosen word by the infringers going wayyyyy back.
First usage was in the 1600's but it was very popular in cracker/hacker culture in the 80's when I was a young pup "pirating" games for our network gaming group. (Usually one or two legit copies but we were so poor we could not afford it. Then the game companies got wise and started making network copies where you could get 2-4 playable copies as long as they could find a legit copy on the network- then we bought the games since we could afford them.)
Actually... pretty much no one rose from the great depression until WWII.
It was global in scope.
It's not that simple.
There is a limited supply of cheap, educated, useful labor.
They are experiencing VERY high inflation rates.
Their currencies are appreciating against our currency.
At the current 14% inflation + 4% appreciation (18%), indian rates will *DOUBLE* in only four years. So from a burn rate of 35 to a burn rate of 70 vs an american burn rate of 90. And they don't even have the social benefits we do wrapped into their paychecks. Combine that with americans wisely leaving these fields in droves- I see an incredible opportunity for americans who can weather the next 4-6 years.
So worst case, buy one for 80 bucks and bring it in. Or splurge 169 and get yourself a 19" flat screen.
Clearly mark it as your own.
I upgrade my own hardware like this until the company catches up once in a while. It makes my job much easier.
Good point there about RIAA (sony/universal/emi/warner). I think I'll refer to RIAA (sony/universal/emi/warner) that way from now on.
And RIAA (sony/universal/emi/warner) is kind of easy to remember. RIAA(S/U/E/ W?) not sure about the W but RIAA (sony/universal/emi) forms a nice mnemonic!
Lol.
Some days I feel like this place is more Snarkdot than Slashdot.
No more than police, judges, senators, and all other government employees are slaves.
There is no restriction against private police (i.e. security) so you can still have a private practice.
The problem is the way the pools are formed. Insurance companies are getting very vicious about cutting out anyone with anything.
A pool formed of the entire population would have predictable risks.
You can cover things like blood pressure, broken legs, and babies. You can't cover things like cancer. You'd need private care for that.
Right now if you don't have insurance you are forced to pay five (to ten!) times as much "retail" rate.
If "everyone" had insurance then everyone would at least qualify for the "negotiated" rate.
You cannot get and keep enough insurance to cover a chronic condition.
Period. So once you develop a chronic condition you have to have a job or qualify for medicare.
I thought everyone knew that by now.
It's a good idea until you get a chronic illness.
We need national health care for the common stuff like blood pressure and broken legs. Not for stuff like cancer. (as a cancer survivor i know one of us eats up enough to fix 200 broken legs in only five months).
The fiber runs through Fremont california I hear.
I wouldn't. I'd be happy if I could buy things for the same prices they pay.
$10,000 vs $140,000 for the same heart operation.
$1,000 vs $6,000 for the same hair transplate.
$2.19 vs $20.00 for the same movie or album.
$.10 vs $5.85 for the same blood pressure medicine.
Companies make products for 50 cents and sell them there for 55 cents and here for $5.50.
And they get laws passed making it illegal to import those 55 cent products and sell them here for 60 cents (which would be real capitalism and would quickly undercut the $5.50 price.
I would not mind my salary dropping from $80,000 to $40,000 if the price of things were dropping from $20.00 to $2.19 and $5.58 to $.10 because I would be relatively better off.
And that's ignoring things like the 1/3 of the price of cars for safety features that are not required there and another 1/6 for legal costs that they don't bear because of our runaway legal system (and another 1/6 for some crazy pensions that are being dumped on my tax dollars soon) .
We do have a two fold movement.
i ves/2006/07/innovation_and_.html
... Last year they had to HIRE 13,000 new employees just to stay at the same number of people.
s p
First.
The current inflation rate in rupees is 14+% ( 72/14 =~ 5) so indian programmers will be 100% more expensive in 5 years. They currently are about 1/3 the cost (with very low benefits compared to american workers).
The indian peasants are beginning to get pissed off by the inflation so increased taxes are likely.
Second-- the dollar lost 3.5% against the rupee in the last year alone. So the net inflation rate is roughly 18% (72/18 = 4!). So that mean costs for indian programers will double in only 4 years at the current rate.
Now- infosys reports that *many* companies are bidding for their workers. You might be getting the workers for 1/3 the cost, but if another company bids 50% of the cost, then you lose the workers.
Likewise, there are limits to growth.
http://edgeperspectives.typepad.com/edge_perspect
"Leading firms like Infosys report turnover rates in the range of 10 - 15%, much more equivalent to what we experience in Silicon Valley."
10-15%
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1991783,00.a
Some companies report 15% per year. Quality issues. Very high job hopping rates.
OTH, rumors run rampant where I am of the entire IT staff being replaced by indians. Which opens another can of worms. This company only sells products in the US. Will popular press about them dumping hundreds of americans for indian workers affect their ability to sell product here? It's unclear- folks frequently SAY it matters but then sneak in and buy the bargain anyway.
While I agree,
A dollar paid to india is a dollar that doesn't go around the local economy seven times.
It goes around india's economy seven times.
We are hemoraging our wealth.
If they paid me $80,000 a year- I will spend 99% of that money in the same state I received it in.
That means, that money can be spent on their products.
If they send the same money over seas for two replacements. That's it. Not a dime of the money comes back to their company (unless they are selling to india).
It's a race to the bottom. We know it. I just hope to god we get national health care in so I don't have to have a job. The current health care setup basically makes us slaves.
Partially subprime loans.
If people with no credit are given 700,000 to buy a house- then that house goes to 700,000 even if it realistically should be 400,000.
That's a hard correction that's coming.
Next- what you allude to. Prevailing wages. As our wages drop, prices should drop.
Finally scarcity. Sorry but california is very pretty/popular so the people who do have money are going to bid the place up.
Not just plastic
.004" to .007" thick.
http://www.bathsheba.com/sculpt/process/
In part:
To start with, the design is laid down, one layer at a time, in stainless-steel powder held in place by a laser-activated binder. You can see the layering on the finished pieces, it is the source of the characteristic texture of my work. Each layer is
The steel granules are so fine that they feel like very heavy, cool flour. During the build the extra unbound powder supports the piece, so no extra structure is needed to handle undercuts. The powder is very flowable, it's not caky like cornstarch, so removing this extra supporting powder from the finished model is quite easy. It slides off with a little shake and a light brush, and it can be poured out of interior spaces.
Two points.
1) Whether it is right or not- we DO it all the time. (this is my thrust)
They used to expose babies all the time.
We kill people who are suffering and will die.
We passively kill people by taking their resources.
Companies kill people by firing them when they require medication to live.
Organized health care systems kill people because they are too expensive to keep alive (a rich person with the same disease would live).
We kill people because we want a soda (and the 50 cents that would keep them alive doesn't).
We kill people who compete with us for food and water.
We put diseases on blankets and kill them to take their land.
Our morality varies based on what we want and how badly we want it.
Christians deliberately ended the life of entire cities- every man and child. All the women who were not virgins and took their stuff.
There is strong evidence that we kill at least a few people every year who are innocent under a justice system that presumes innocence until guilt is proven.
We allow lots of practices that result in a regular annual death rate. For kids too! Because BEING ALIVE is dangerous. Skateboarding is dangerous. Riding a horse is dangerous. Eating food is dangerous. We have to allow people to freedom to live even tho it means a small percentage are going to drown, freeze, fall off of rooftops, asphixiate themselves, burn themselves to death, crush themselves in cars or even kill each other in fist fights.
2) Now- addressing the MORAL point (theory land vs reality).
First- I agree with you on the basic moral point qualified this way:
We should not deliberately kill informed rational people who want to stay alive.*
We deliberately end the lives of people who are too sick and in too much pain. It is EVIL to force them to live in screaming agony another 25 hours to satisfy some artificial code against killing.
We allow people to die all the time to save others. This happened during Katrina where the horrible choice was forced on caregivers.
We pull the plug on people every day who are in a vegetative state (and when we don't we get SICK SICK situations like that hopelessly brain dead lady last year who was forced to remain alive).
*
So, once a fetus is judged to be "human", there is no moral way to kill it (except "self defense" where it definately is going to kill the mother) because it will be 18 years before it can make an informed rational decision.
---
The issue is a stalemate because to most people it is clear that 2 cells is not a human and 6 months is. Everything between those two points is VERY arbitrary. When you can't point to a hard fact (It's raining, IT's 32 degrees, ice IS forming), then you are going to have difficulty reaching a conclusion among reasonable people (and certainly among the more extreme unreasonable anti and pro abortion sides).
---
But KEY point.
In areas where abortion is outlawed- it continues at the same rate illegally.
There are places where it is legal that have lower rates than places where it is illegal under VERY harsh penalties.
I think some of the areas where it is common are very tragic. But why are we wasting so much energy on this issue (and basically letting the rich and corporations rob the country blind) when illegal abortions are going to continue (with all the damage that caused back when abortions were illegal) at roughly the same rate. there are lots of productive issues.
Anyway- moving on. New articles to read and opinionate on.
Assign the paper in class.
Allow the class period to develop a thesis in blue books.
Allow open discussion by the students to spark ideas.
Take up the blue books and note the contents.
Pass them out next class to allow another hour (or 1.5 hours) of development.
Now- give them a week to develop the term paper from that basis.
The final paper must be recognizably based on that material.
So the search algorithm is going to swear the girl was 18?
Companies used to mostly work 9-5 (or 8-5).
Now, our company works from 7am to 7pm (9 hour shifts w/ hour lunches).
Basically, if you get up early, you take a 7am shift- if you get up late, you take a 10am shift.
I don't see why they can't leave the clocks alone and places will just shift their hours if it matters.
The problem is, you could propose that the sky was blue on a clear day and there would be 20% of the population that would swear it would never be blue.
I've administered groups of people. There are always 10-20% of people who misunderstood, are naturally disagreeable, are stupid, have some social agenda- who knows, maybe genetically random behavior has a certain reward- anyway- often the only way to stop the arguing and prove something will work or fail is to do it.