To get "warm" with a quarter watt, compare the tiny volume and tiny surface area of a typical quarter-watt power resistor to an iphone
The poster assumes that the reader is familiar with the size of a typical.25 watt resistor... and for the people who will actually read his (somewhat technical) post, he's probably right.
Nowhere else is technical knowledge brought together with goatse and GNAA trolls so seamlessly.
And what happens when I sell the car with only 50,000 miles on it?
Do I have to assess the tax and remit? Do I get to recover the 'unused' portion of the tax?
I think it should be at time of vehicle registration. Make it an annual or biennial fee, instead of at first purchase. Call it the "gas-guzzler surcharge" and explain that it helps offset the cost of road maintenance, subsidies to the oil and ethanol industries, and military spending to protect oil industry assets offshore.
OK, maybe the last one is a bit too much to ask for, but as long as I'm wishing...
Who says that the GPS system won't be tied to the make/model of the car and thus weight the taxation by road wear?
But that doesn't factor in passenger/cargo load, etc. It doesn't factor in variability due to tire pressure, aftermarket tire and shock models, etc. It doesn't factor in driving style (which affects road wear & tear).
It can't be a flat tax on road consumption unless road consumption can be accurately measured.
Besides which, it's still a regressive tax due to disproportionately higher proportion of tax to income for the poor -- that was my point.
Hello? ... Sorry, wrong number. The Jevons Paradox does not apply well in this case.
The demand curve for fuel is relatively inelastic. The impact on increased efficiency on demand for fuel is smaller than the gains from increased fuel efficiency.
Furthermore, the Jevons Paradox requires that supply is not limited (since limited supply will stop the Paradox due to increase in price). Fuel supply in the US *is* limited, and will only become more so as time goes on. Especially in light of the growing markets for automotive fuels in Asia... and the very fact that fossil fuels are, indeed, a finite resource -- and expensive-to-extract sources require high prices for profitability.
There are quite simply too many factors affecting price significantly to make the Jevons Paradox apply to the current market for automotive fuel. I know that the oil industry likes to trot it out every once in a while in the hopes that people will be misled. But please don't allow yourself to fall for it. The Javons Paradox only applies in limited circumstances, and this is not one of them.
What ever happened to good ol toll roads? If you use the hwy it gets taken care of, if you dont, then by by.
Tolls are very inefficient.
(1) increased congestion is wasted resources (fuel, time, etc). (2) Toll roads disproportionately tax those who use toll roads instead of alternative routes. You're taxing people who use *certain* roads, rather than taxing usage of roads in general.
No, this is a *flat tax* on road consumption. Everyone pays the same amount per mile of road. One could argue that a mile of bridge is more expensive than a mile of plain road, but this closer to even taxation.
A flat tax on road consumption would factor in vehicle weight, tire condition, tire model, suspension type, etc.
Besides, a flat tax is regressive by nature (the poor pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the wealthy).
Also, lower-income people *do not* tend to drive small fuel-efficient cars. They tend to drive older cars, which may be less fuel-efficient. Older cars save thousands of dollars over a few gallons of gas.
Lower-income people tend to drive *less expensive* cars, not older cars. Smaller, more fuel efficient older cars are *less expensive* than large inefficient older SUVs.
I became 16 (and not rich) in the late 1980's and all the 5 to 10 year old cars were small fuel-efficient ones due to the 1973 gas crisis. Today, those 5 year old cars are SUVs.
But it's not mostly lower-income people driving those 5-year-old SUVs. They're driving the 5-year-old Civics, Corollas, etc.
This concept stinks like crude oil. Probably because it's heavily supported by the oil industry.
A 'miles driven' tax is exactly the kind of problem that allows people to completely externalize a lot of the public the cost of their fuel-inefficient vehicles (pollution, dependence on foreign oil, etc). We need to force people to pay those costs, in order to provide a disincentive to buying inefficient vehicles.
If we're going to switch to a miles-driven tax instead of a gas tax, then let's put a surchage tax on the purchase of inefficient vehicles. Let's make it $100 per rated mpg under 50.
Here's the math:
Say a pickup truck gets 20 mpg (generous), and will be driven for only 100,000 miles over its life. That's 5,000 gallons of fuel -- at federal excise rate of 18.4 cents/gal, that's $920 in gas taxes over the life of the vehicle.
Now look at a truck that gets 15 mpg. Fuel taxes over the life of the vehicle are $1380 (again, assuming only 100k miles driven).
A miles-driven tax, where both trucks pay the same amount, completely removes a big incentive to purchasing a fuel-efficient vehicle. And given that the low mpg rating is typical of heavier vehicles that cause more road wear-and-tear, it's only fair that they pay higher taxes.
Why would I or Amazon have to pay taxes twice or more for something? First Amazon would need to pay taxes at whatever locale they're at, then I would need to pay taxes on the same product in my home state, then also every state it goes through as it is getting shipped from Florida to Rhode Island?
Please understand how sales taxes work before you submit nonsense like that.
I'm not going to explain the whole system, but suffice it to say that if I pay sales tax in one jurisdiction, then that tax paid is a credit to my tax due in another jurisdiction. This is Amazon's biggest objection -- the nightmare of calculating taxes paid and taxes due.
If I'm an RI retailer, and I buy directly from Amazon (as a wholesaler to me), I charge sales tax to my customers in RI. Then when I have to pay the sales tax to RI, I deduct what I have paid to Amazon as sales tax on my purchases from them. However, since Amazon has no nexus in RI, I'm not paying any tax to them.
What the new tax structure is saying is that retailers shouldn't be able to escape the tax requirement by only being a referrer to Amazon. So sales taxes are due to RI.
In essence, RI & NC are saying that the referrers are retail outlets, not referrers.
This does not raise any specter of double taxation or worse. It's just a battle over whether Amazon referrers are retailers or not.
You're right that I'm not the most knowledgeable (to put it lightly) about the ecosystem. However, I think it's atrocious that I cannot easily and selectively block scripts from operating on sites I want to view. And not just for the sake of security... also for the sake of performance on older machines.
Given the "loans" they got from the fund, they were beneficiaries. If they were aware of the fraud, then they were complicit by virtue of accepting the proceeds of the fraud.
If you go to a legitimate investor, they're not operating out of their fucking house. Those 5 guys overseeing the fund are 5 guys that work for a huge megabank.
No. Hedge funds are not run by huge megabanks. That's the whole point -- they escape regulation by NOT operating as a large investment house or bank.
The fund I consulted for controlled at least 2.2 Bn when I consulted there, and there were five employees. The principal, a research director, two traders, and an office manager ("VP of Operations"). That's it. Of those five, only two would need to know the whole picture -- the research director and the principal. The traders might have an inkling (probably would).
If you go to a hedge fund, it shouldn't be surprising if they operate out of their house if their in Manhattan (short lag time to the markets) or in a small sublet office.
Madoff could easily pay off anyone who investigated him. The one guy who did his own analysis and kept badgering the SEC to investigate was the estranged lover of Madoff's daughter, AND he worked for a competitor. They didn't exactly give his analysis credence when they found that out...
Besides, one hand washes the other. The SEC overlooks a few irregularities here and there, and then Madoff pulls some strings and that investigator now has a $10 mil/yr gig at a brokerage.
Now the message is, "if you get caught, your life is ruined."
But if you're old, and you've lived a full life, you can rest assured that your kids and your wife will still get to live a life of luxury, while you live a life of leisure in a state-run old age home. And you'll have plenty of influence to ensure you get a comfy life inside prison, since you can pay off anyone you need.
Amnesty saves captives' lives by the very principle of spreading information of their capture, and has been doing so for a very long time.
Captives who are not public figures are very different from captives who are. The reasons for abducting them are different, the gains from how the captivity is ended are very different.
An organisation like the Taliban has little to gain from killing a nobody -- and public attention to the fate of that captive provides a disincentive to spare their life. The threat of reprisal, etc, if there is public attention, is simply too great for them to off some random person. Killing a public persona -- that's a different matter. Then the gains from killing them may outweigh the risk of reprisal, etc.
You have a personal connection... that makes you NOT a part of the general public.
I agree, it sucks for people affected negatively, and I wish that proper restitution could be made. It's sad, but the general public doesn't give two shits about your employer, or about you. Not when there are baseball players that use steroids to cheat in a game -- now that's a travesty worthy of constant media attention and Congressional hearings. And not when Kate and John are going through a messy divorce that'll affect their eight little crotch potatoes -- THAT's a real-life travesty. Your employer and your job can't hold a candle to those crises.
Sorry, my sarcasm went overboard there. I do realize that there were people affected by this, that there were indirect victims of this crime. But I think it's obvious that the general public just doesn't care.
And what, after 150 years in prison you think he will say something? Just plain stinking vengeance...
Stinking corpse, not stinking vengeance. Luckily for you I am a ninth-level initiate of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and I have received divine favor in the form of the 4th-level spell "Speak with Dead". So twenty years from now, when we're all enacting "Weekend at Bernie Madoff's" at the Federal Croquet and Badminton Penitentiary, I will be able to hear Madoff's full confession.
On paper he did, but that's just because he had overstated clients' gains from the get-go.
Here's what happens:
Investor A gives you $5 Bn. Investor B gives you $10 Bn. After 3 years, investor A pulls out -- you pay him $10 Bn in earnings & principal. So now you have $0, but you owe Investor B $10 Bn plus earnings. So what do you have left?
Madoff overstated earnings for a long time. This meant for every $1 Bn invested, he had to pay out some n*$1 Bn when that investor called. Eventually he had no money left to pay the investors.
In other words, that $65 Bn isn't squirreled away somewhere (well, I'm sure some of it is) -- it was used to pay off other investors who withdrew their earnings.
The money's not in the Swiss bank accounts. It's in Bob's yacht, and Bill's mansion in the hills. It's in Mary's diamond necklaces, and in Elizabeth's matching Ferraris.
You do know that since he was sentenced for over 30 years, at least part of his time will need to be served in a maximum-security prison, right? That's the law.
I'm just being idealistic. In reality, he will be granted some special exemption and be allowed to serve at Middle-of-Nowhere-Federal-Golf-Resort-Penitentiary.
There must have been dozens to hundreds of people orchestrating this. But it's ok, we'll pin it all on one guy and see how gullible the public is. This guy is up there with the Lee Harvey Oswalds of patsies.
I'm not sure you're aware of how the world of high-finance works. There have been hedge funds handling over $10B with FIVE employees. Seriously.
I think it's very likely that there were others in-the-know. But they probably worked out a plea to provide documentation to nail the case against Madoff, which is why they won't be prosecuted. Or Madoff is looking for redemption after perpetrating this fraud, and decided to shoulder the rap for everyone else involved. I think the last option is the most likely, and I think that his sons were who he was protecting.
But it doesn't really matter, does it? These were the extremely wealthy who were conned. As long as someone gets hanged (or imprisoned forever) we don't care. Hell, look at the swindling by Enron execs... that directly affected the retirement savings of millions of people, and in the end, we didn't really care.
As far as the general public is concerned, it's not a big deal when the wealthy steal from the wealthy. That's business by another name. And it's not a big deal when the wealthy steal from the poor -- that's business as usual. All we really care about is when the poor steal from the wealthy, because we always look down on those poorer than us, we like to imagine ourselves as wealthy, and so when the poor steal, it's an affront to our ideals.
Anyway, I'm rambling a bit... so I'll just sum up by saying: Yes, others were likely involved. Yes, he took the fall. But no one cares, as long as there's a spectacle.
I've thought this since news of the scandal broke:
You know why Bernie Madoff seems to be very complacent about the whole thing? Because his sons got off scot-free. Madoff is quite fine with sacrificing his freedom for the rest of his life... there are few things more [noble? gratifying?] than sacrificing yourself for your children.
I still believe it very unlikely that Bernie's sons didn't knowingly participate in this... or at least were aware of it. The whole way that the story broke... Madoff confessed to his son when he caught him trying to cover it up or something... then the sons convincing him to turn himself in...
I think Bernie is at least partly taking the fall for his sons. I only wish we could find out the whole truth.
Seriously, the reporter is kidnapped. You know what his captors want? Publicity for their campaign. If they get the world's attention, they kill him -- this gives them maximum returns on their actions.
By keeping the secret, they may have kept him alive long enough for him to escape.
You may call it censorship, I call it protecting the life of a journalist.
Or, since I DNRTFA, I could be completely off base. But I did read about this kidnapping previously, and I think I'm on track here. Plus I slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
Slashdot Mirror
The poster assumes that the reader is familiar with the size of a typical .25 watt resistor... and for the people who will actually read his (somewhat technical) post, he's probably right.
Nowhere else is technical knowledge brought together with goatse and GNAA trolls so seamlessly.
Love it!
And what happens when I sell the car with only 50,000 miles on it?
Do I have to assess the tax and remit? Do I get to recover the 'unused' portion of the tax?
I think it should be at time of vehicle registration. Make it an annual or biennial fee, instead of at first purchase. Call it the "gas-guzzler surcharge" and explain that it helps offset the cost of road maintenance, subsidies to the oil and ethanol industries, and military spending to protect oil industry assets offshore.
OK, maybe the last one is a bit too much to ask for, but as long as I'm wishing...
But that doesn't factor in passenger/cargo load, etc. It doesn't factor in variability due to tire pressure, aftermarket tire and shock models, etc. It doesn't factor in driving style (which affects road wear & tear).
It can't be a flat tax on road consumption unless road consumption can be accurately measured.
Besides which, it's still a regressive tax due to disproportionately higher proportion of tax to income for the poor -- that was my point.
Hello?
...
Sorry, wrong number. The Jevons Paradox does not apply well in this case.
The demand curve for fuel is relatively inelastic. The impact on increased efficiency on demand for fuel is smaller than the gains from increased fuel efficiency.
Furthermore, the Jevons Paradox requires that supply is not limited (since limited supply will stop the Paradox due to increase in price). Fuel supply in the US *is* limited, and will only become more so as time goes on. Especially in light of the growing markets for automotive fuels in Asia... and the very fact that fossil fuels are, indeed, a finite resource -- and expensive-to-extract sources require high prices for profitability.
There are quite simply too many factors affecting price significantly to make the Jevons Paradox apply to the current market for automotive fuel. I know that the oil industry likes to trot it out every once in a while in the hopes that people will be misled. But please don't allow yourself to fall for it. The Javons Paradox only applies in limited circumstances, and this is not one of them.
Tolls are very inefficient.
(1) increased congestion is wasted resources (fuel, time, etc).
(2) Toll roads disproportionately tax those who use toll roads instead of alternative routes. You're taxing people who use *certain* roads, rather than taxing usage of roads in general.
A flat tax on road consumption would factor in vehicle weight, tire condition, tire model, suspension type, etc.
Besides, a flat tax is regressive by nature (the poor pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the wealthy).
Lower-income people tend to drive *less expensive* cars, not older cars. Smaller, more fuel efficient older cars are *less expensive* than large inefficient older SUVs.
But it's not mostly lower-income people driving those 5-year-old SUVs. They're driving the 5-year-old Civics, Corollas, etc.
This concept stinks like crude oil. Probably because it's heavily supported by the oil industry.
A 'miles driven' tax is exactly the kind of problem that allows people to completely externalize a lot of the public the cost of their fuel-inefficient vehicles (pollution, dependence on foreign oil, etc). We need to force people to pay those costs, in order to provide a disincentive to buying inefficient vehicles.
If we're going to switch to a miles-driven tax instead of a gas tax, then let's put a surchage tax on the purchase of inefficient vehicles. Let's make it $100 per rated mpg under 50.
Here's the math:
Say a pickup truck gets 20 mpg (generous), and will be driven for only 100,000 miles over its life. That's 5,000 gallons of fuel -- at federal excise rate of 18.4 cents/gal, that's $920 in gas taxes over the life of the vehicle.
Now look at a truck that gets 15 mpg. Fuel taxes over the life of the vehicle are $1380 (again, assuming only 100k miles driven).
A miles-driven tax, where both trucks pay the same amount, completely removes a big incentive to purchasing a fuel-efficient vehicle. And given that the low mpg rating is typical of heavier vehicles that cause more road wear-and-tear, it's only fair that they pay higher taxes.
Please understand how sales taxes work before you submit nonsense like that.
I'm not going to explain the whole system, but suffice it to say that if I pay sales tax in one jurisdiction, then that tax paid is a credit to my tax due in another jurisdiction. This is Amazon's biggest objection -- the nightmare of calculating taxes paid and taxes due.
If I'm an RI retailer, and I buy directly from Amazon (as a wholesaler to me), I charge sales tax to my customers in RI. Then when I have to pay the sales tax to RI, I deduct what I have paid to Amazon as sales tax on my purchases from them. However, since Amazon has no nexus in RI, I'm not paying any tax to them.
What the new tax structure is saying is that retailers shouldn't be able to escape the tax requirement by only being a referrer to Amazon. So sales taxes are due to RI.
In essence, RI & NC are saying that the referrers are retail outlets, not referrers.
This does not raise any specter of double taxation or worse. It's just a battle over whether Amazon referrers are retailers or not.
Except the investors only need to pay capital gains tax when they withdrew the funds. Paper gains are not taxed.
So instead of your inflated calculations, the actual amount paid in capital gains tax was far lower.
I'm glad someone caught the reference :)
And I know that fsdn.com is also a trusted site.
You're right that I'm not the most knowledgeable (to put it lightly) about the ecosystem. However, I think it's atrocious that I cannot easily and selectively block scripts from operating on sites I want to view. And not just for the sake of security... also for the sake of performance on older machines.
Given the "loans" they got from the fund, they were beneficiaries. If they were aware of the fraud, then they were complicit by virtue of accepting the proceeds of the fraud.
You're right, it's speculation. But we'll never know, will we?
I've also consulted for a legitimate hedge fund.
No. Hedge funds are not run by huge megabanks. That's the whole point -- they escape regulation by NOT operating as a large investment house or bank.
The fund I consulted for controlled at least 2.2 Bn when I consulted there, and there were five employees. The principal, a research director, two traders, and an office manager ("VP of Operations"). That's it. Of those five, only two would need to know the whole picture -- the research director and the principal. The traders might have an inkling (probably would).
If you go to a hedge fund, it shouldn't be surprising if they operate out of their house if their in Manhattan (short lag time to the markets) or in a small sublet office.
Madoff could easily pay off anyone who investigated him. The one guy who did his own analysis and kept badgering the SEC to investigate was the estranged lover of Madoff's daughter, AND he worked for a competitor. They didn't exactly give his analysis credence when they found that out...
Besides, one hand washes the other. The SEC overlooks a few irregularities here and there, and then Madoff pulls some strings and that investigator now has a $10 mil/yr gig at a brokerage.
But if you're old, and you've lived a full life, you can rest assured that your kids and your wife will still get to live a life of luxury, while you live a life of leisure in a state-run old age home. And you'll have plenty of influence to ensure you get a comfy life inside prison, since you can pay off anyone you need.
Captives who are not public figures are very different from captives who are. The reasons for abducting them are different, the gains from how the captivity is ended are very different.
An organisation like the Taliban has little to gain from killing a nobody -- and public attention to the fate of that captive provides a disincentive to spare their life. The threat of reprisal, etc, if there is public attention, is simply too great for them to off some random person. Killing a public persona -- that's a different matter. Then the gains from killing them may outweigh the risk of reprisal, etc.
You have a personal connection... that makes you NOT a part of the general public.
I agree, it sucks for people affected negatively, and I wish that proper restitution could be made. It's sad, but the general public doesn't give two shits about your employer, or about you. Not when there are baseball players that use steroids to cheat in a game -- now that's a travesty worthy of constant media attention and Congressional hearings. And not when Kate and John are going through a messy divorce that'll affect their eight little crotch potatoes -- THAT's a real-life travesty. Your employer and your job can't hold a candle to those crises.
Sorry, my sarcasm went overboard there. I do realize that there were people affected by this, that there were indirect victims of this crime. But I think it's obvious that the general public just doesn't care.
Stinking corpse, not stinking vengeance. Luckily for you I am a ninth-level initiate of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and I have received divine favor in the form of the 4th-level spell "Speak with Dead". So twenty years from now, when we're all enacting "Weekend at Bernie Madoff's" at the Federal Croquet and Badminton Penitentiary, I will be able to hear Madoff's full confession.
Praise be to He of the Tangled Forkful, Ramen.
He never really had $65 Bn.
On paper he did, but that's just because he had overstated clients' gains from the get-go.
Here's what happens:
Investor A gives you $5 Bn.
Investor B gives you $10 Bn.
After 3 years, investor A pulls out -- you pay him $10 Bn in earnings & principal.
So now you have $0, but you owe Investor B $10 Bn plus earnings.
So what do you have left?
Madoff overstated earnings for a long time. This meant for every $1 Bn invested, he had to pay out some n*$1 Bn when that investor called. Eventually he had no money left to pay the investors.
In other words, that $65 Bn isn't squirreled away somewhere (well, I'm sure some of it is) -- it was used to pay off other investors who withdrew their earnings.
The money's not in the Swiss bank accounts. It's in Bob's yacht, and Bill's mansion in the hills. It's in Mary's diamond necklaces, and in Elizabeth's matching Ferraris.
You do know that since he was sentenced for over 30 years, at least part of his time will need to be served in a maximum-security prison, right? That's the law.
I'm just being idealistic. In reality, he will be granted some special exemption and be allowed to serve at Middle-of-Nowhere-Federal-Golf-Resort-Penitentiary.
I'm not sure you're aware of how the world of high-finance works. There have been hedge funds handling over $10B with FIVE employees. Seriously.
I think it's very likely that there were others in-the-know. But they probably worked out a plea to provide documentation to nail the case against Madoff, which is why they won't be prosecuted. Or Madoff is looking for redemption after perpetrating this fraud, and decided to shoulder the rap for everyone else involved. I think the last option is the most likely, and I think that his sons were who he was protecting.
But it doesn't really matter, does it? These were the extremely wealthy who were conned. As long as someone gets hanged (or imprisoned forever) we don't care. Hell, look at the swindling by Enron execs... that directly affected the retirement savings of millions of people, and in the end, we didn't really care.
As far as the general public is concerned, it's not a big deal when the wealthy steal from the wealthy. That's business by another name. And it's not a big deal when the wealthy steal from the poor -- that's business as usual. All we really care about is when the poor steal from the wealthy, because we always look down on those poorer than us, we like to imagine ourselves as wealthy, and so when the poor steal, it's an affront to our ideals.
Anyway, I'm rambling a bit... so I'll just sum up by saying: Yes, others were likely involved. Yes, he took the fall. But no one cares, as long as there's a spectacle.
I've thought this since news of the scandal broke:
You know why Bernie Madoff seems to be very complacent about the whole thing? Because his sons got off scot-free. Madoff is quite fine with sacrificing his freedom for the rest of his life... there are few things more [noble? gratifying?] than sacrificing yourself for your children.
I still believe it very unlikely that Bernie's sons didn't knowingly participate in this... or at least were aware of it. The whole way that the story broke... Madoff confessed to his son when he caught him trying to cover it up or something... then the sons convincing him to turn himself in...
I think Bernie is at least partly taking the fall for his sons. I only wish we could find out the whole truth.
SHHHHH! That is supposed to be a secret!
-Rotundo the Corpulent
Seriously, the reporter is kidnapped. You know what his captors want? Publicity for their campaign. If they get the world's attention, they kill him -- this gives them maximum returns on their actions.
By keeping the secret, they may have kept him alive long enough for him to escape.
You may call it censorship, I call it protecting the life of a journalist.
Or, since I DNRTFA, I could be completely off base. But I did read about this kidnapping previously, and I think I'm on track here. Plus I slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night.