They are doing this gradually. When a customer get FiOS installed Verizon clips their copper POTS line.
A friend who had FiOS installed in his home in NJ said that they absolutely refused to leave the POTS line intact in case he wanted to go back to it at a later date. I have read that they don't like that the law requires them to let other companies use their copper cables and there is currently no such requirement for fibre.
After they deducted a slew of stuff that their accountants decided would slip through IRS audits they ended up with a gross income of $63B.
Then they deducted "expenses", leaving $18B in net income.
Part of those "expenses" were:
Income Tax - Current Domestic - $6.3 B
Income Tax - Current Foreign - $7 M (not B)
Income Tax - Deferred Domestic - $3.5 B
Income Tax - Deferred Foreign - $9 M (not B)
The above looks like a total of just under $10B paid on paid on a $63B gross income, with a reported net income of $18B. That's approximately a 15 percent tax rate. Not 35 percent. Still better than Apple though, I'll grant you that.
Firstly, your anecdote actually claims that union guys do "have it good", but you didn't have it good - instead you had to scurry around and wait for hours to finish your work. You describe them though as "lazy", a term that implies disapproval.
Secondly, that rule is in place to discourage hiring of non-union workers; didn't you realize that?
Probably because if they are going to compare the distribution rates of different methods of hand drying, they realized that they would need some sort of tracer, the presence of which could be quantitatively measured.
Their result isn't that blowing air over one's hands is a bad thing, just that it spreads what's on your hands around the room a lot more than wiping them on a towel would. As someone here noted earlier, flushing the toilet does the same or worse. So flush your crap, thereby aerosolizing your shit, and then use a Dyson Airblade to blow whatever is left on your hands around the room for good measure. It's a dirty world but we can pretend that we are clean.
Street sweeping machines follow a similar logic: blow the dirt into someone's face when they walk by. I've noticed that in NYC the street sweepers no longer even spray water on the road before scouring it with their giant rotating brushes; no fun to be standing on the sidewalk when one of them scoots by.
I think it's still difficult to offshore or automate cable installation.
Verizon has been dragging their feet making FiOS available throughout NYC because they don't want to pay cable installers. Unless you live in a handful of high-end locations Verizon offers only crappy DSL, not FiOS. But "don't worry" they say, it's "coming soon".
Verizon had agreed to have fiber-optic cable for FiOS pass all three million homes in the city by the end of last year. Lawyers for each side, however, are arguing about the definition of “pass.” The company says it has met the deadline. The city’s response: not even close.
Verizon: We passed. We passed all of those homes. Nobody said "connect".
On the bus ride to this first assignment (in Marion, VA), Katherine says she had her first experience with racism. She says when they crossed from West Virginia into Virginia, the bus stopped and all of the Black people had to move to the back, which Katherine did. Later, they had to change buses. All of the white passengers were allowed on the bus, but the Blacks were put into taxis. Katherine says the driver said “All you colored folk, come over here.” But she would not move until he asked her politely. Katherine also said her mother warned her, “Remember, you’re going to Virginia.” And that she said, “Well, tell them I’m coming.” Katherine says the racism was not as blatant in West Virginia as it was in Virginia.
Some films they offer are available only on DVD, not streaming. I've encountered several that I wanted to watch but couldn't because I don't pay extra for their DVD subscription service.
According to an FBI affidavit Ciccolo was planning on attacking a college campus with a pressure cooker bomb similar to the one used in the Boston Marathon bombing and several guns. Ciccolo allegedly planned to broadcast some elements of his attack, like executions, live over the internet. His focus areas were what security experts often describe as soft targets: cafeterias and dorms. It’s unclear exactly where or when the attacks were to occur.
Other reports state that he has a history of mental illness.
The point is, you can incorporate if you want. Hire yourself as a sub-contractor and pay you to go to your day job. It might be worth it, if your tax burden is high enough.
Yes, they monitor lottery results for atypical events. An entertaining description of one such event involving the "Powerball" lottery, which occurred on March 30, 2005 and which was not due to anybody's illegal actions is described in the Prologue to Jennifer 8 Lee's book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles. And yeah, her middle name really is "8".
Amazon's "Look Inside This Book" allows viewing of the pages describing this:
While Apple earns more from all areas of the world added up than it does in the U.S., its largest sales by far come from the Americas. And one of the company’s most notable tactics for lowering what it owes in taxes is using three subsidiaries it headquartered in Ireland, which has a corporate tax rate of 12 percent and where Apple has been accused of inking a sweetheart deal where it only has to pay a 2 percent rate, and routing most global revenue through them. While those subsidiaries pay royalties to the U.S.-based headquarters that it pays taxes on, most profit is left in Ireland. The tax analysis group Citizens for Tax Justice has calculated that the company would owe $59.2 billion in U.S. taxes if it didn’t hold so much profits offshore.
So where are all of the slashdot complainants about offshoring now? Why are they all silent? Is it only offshoring of labor that they dislike? Only H1B charades that get you angry?
There was once this couple that got carjacked by some niggers, and then they were both raped, tortured and murdered.
There was this white supremacist who with his girlfriend murdered his own father and stepmother, a 19-year old kid whom they mistakenly believed to be Jewish, and a Black man. The two were finally stopped and apprehended by a police officer.
And this piece of work who murdered one person and wounded five others during a shooting spree that included a carjacking and a home invasion (all of which were perpetrated by him).
Britain has a gun murder rate that's like...5% of ours, but their plain old murder rate is a lot closer, what does THAT tell you?
The butler did it?
Seriously though, where did you get your figures? This article puts the United Kingdom at 653 intentional homicides in 2011 and the US at 12,253 in 2013 (i.e., the homicide rate was 1 per 100,000 inhabitants for the UK and 3.8 per 100,000 for the US):
If we must have a car analogy here, then let's have one that isn't so contrived as yours. Nobody's going to make your car's brakes "render your vehicle completely immobile" unless you're getting brake work done at the Bastard Mechanic From Hell's auto shop.
The design (federal emission and safety regulations), ownership (state and local registration) and operation (state driver's license) of a motor vehicle is a generally accepted area in which the government asserts regulatory control. A manufacturer is required to produce vehicles that are at least somewhat crashworthy and emissions reduced. Someone who operates their vehicle on public roads without first registering the vehicle can be fined. Someone who operates a registered motor vehicle without possessing a valid driver's license can be fined or arrested. A licensed driver who operates a registered motor vehicle while intoxicated can be fined or arrested for doing so.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2013, firearms were used in 84,258 nonfatal injuries (26.65 per 100,000 U.S. citizens) and 11,208 deaths by homicide (3.5 per 100,000), 21,175 by suicide with a firearm, 505 deaths due to accidental discharge of a firearm, and 281 deaths due to firearms-use with "undetermined intent" for a total of 33,169 deaths related to firearms (excluding firearm deaths due to legal intervention). 1.3% of all deaths in the country were related to firearms.
And lest you incorrectly believe that I'm "pro-car" and "anti-gun", please note that in that same year, 2013, there were 32,719 motor vehicle deaths reported. There are a lot more folks driving cars than shooting guns though.
So motor vehicle regulation is not working all that great either, but a lot of that is due to the failure of our governing bodies to modify the roads to calm traffic and the refusal of many law enforcement agencies to arrest and prosecute reckless drivers (I'm looking at you NYC -- from DOT to DAs to NYPD).
TFA (I just had to read TFA, sorry, I couldn't resist) references a previous incident exactly like this one, at the same nuclear power plant, that was reported in 1989:
So maybe it's not quite so clear cut as the power plant representative(s) make it out to be.
Power company spokesman Gary Mehalik said the 16-foot pipe has a concrete cap suspended near the ocean opening to cut down on the suction and prevent fish from being sucked in as well as divers, but Lamm said it obviously does not work.
and
Mehalik said there also is a buoy nearby marking the pipe. Lamm said he saw it but didn't know what it meant.
Slashdot Mirror
They are doing this gradually. When a customer get FiOS installed Verizon clips their copper POTS line.
A friend who had FiOS installed in his home in NJ said that they absolutely refused to leave the POTS line intact in case he wanted to go back to it at a later date. I have read that they don't like that the law requires them to let other companies use their copper cables and there is currently no such requirement for fibre.
According to http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/vz/financials Verizon's sales revenue in 2015 was $132B (I'm rounding to the nearest billion, no need to worry about a few hundreds of millions here and there).
After they deducted a slew of stuff that their accountants decided would slip through IRS audits they ended up with a gross income of $63B.
Then they deducted "expenses", leaving $18B in net income.
Part of those "expenses" were:
The above looks like a total of just under $10B paid on paid on a $63B gross income, with a reported net income of $18B. That's approximately a 15 percent tax rate. Not 35 percent. Still better than Apple though, I'll grant you that.
Firstly, your anecdote actually claims that union guys do "have it good", but you didn't have it good - instead you had to scurry around and wait for hours to finish your work. You describe them though as "lazy", a term that implies disapproval.
Secondly, that rule is in place to discourage hiring of non-union workers; didn't you realize that?
Probably because if they are going to compare the distribution rates of different methods of hand drying, they realized that they would need some sort of tracer, the presence of which could be quantitatively measured.
Their result isn't that blowing air over one's hands is a bad thing, just that it spreads what's on your hands around the room a lot more than wiping them on a towel would. As someone here noted earlier, flushing the toilet does the same or worse. So flush your crap, thereby aerosolizing your shit, and then use a Dyson Airblade to blow whatever is left on your hands around the room for good measure. It's a dirty world but we can pretend that we are clean.
Street sweeping machines follow a similar logic: blow the dirt into someone's face when they walk by. I've noticed that in NYC the street sweepers no longer even spray water on the road before scouring it with their giant rotating brushes; no fun to be standing on the sidewalk when one of them scoots by.
No need. Just blow away the corpses with a Dyson Airblade.
And make the damn aliens pay the bill for building it also!
Verizon has been dragging their feet making FiOS available throughout NYC because they don't want to pay cable installers. Unless you live in a handful of high-end locations Verizon offers only crappy DSL, not FiOS. But "don't worry" they say, it's "coming soon".
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/27/nyregion/new-york-city-and-verizon-battle-over-fios-service.html
Verizon: We passed. We passed all of those homes. Nobody said "connect".
Some films they offer are available only on DVD, not streaming. I've encountered several that I wanted to watch but couldn't because I don't pay extra for their DVD subscription service.
How should anybody have known that it was against the law to kill people; it's up to the FBI to tell them that.
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2015/07/13/isis-inspired-son-of-boston-police-captain-arrested-as-part-of-counter-terrorism-sweep/
Other reports state that he has a history of mental illness.
Intriguing. Please tell more.
Yes, they monitor lottery results for atypical events. An entertaining description of one such event involving the "Powerball" lottery, which occurred on March 30, 2005 and which was not due to anybody's illegal actions is described in the Prologue to Jennifer 8 Lee's book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles. And yeah, her middle name really is "8".
Amazon's "Look Inside This Book" allows viewing of the pages describing this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446580074?ie=UTF8&tag=thefortcookch-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=044658007
You could call that "Surge Pricing". Sounds catchy. They might go for it.
Well the better prisons do offer meals, a library, and an exercise yard in addition to a cot, a toilet, and a gang rape.
Agreed. Here we would never want people to die because they are overworked:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/greyhound-bus-crash-kills-2-injures-18-article-1.2501658
https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/48bb2x/nyc_uber_driver_fell_asleep_at_the_wheel_and/
http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/05/garbage_truck_crashes_into_west_new_york_building.html
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/nyc-engineer-apologizes-train-derailment
Because I will no longer be able to supplement my income by picking up pennies dropped on the pavement.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/12/21/3734218/apple-taxes-tim-cook/
So where are all of the slashdot complainants about offshoring now? Why are they all silent? Is it only offshoring of labor that they dislike? Only H1B charades that get you angry?
There was this white supremacist who with his girlfriend murdered his own father and stepmother, a 19-year old kid whom they mistakenly believed to be Jewish, and a Black man. The two were finally stopped and apprehended by a police officer.
http://newportnewstimes.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&story_id=44700&page=86
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/crime/2014/08/04/white-supremacist-sentenced-carjacking-deaths/13598589/
And this piece of work who murdered one person and wounded five others during a shooting spree that included a carjacking and a home invasion (all of which were perpetrated by him).
http://news.sky.com/story/1447897/white-supremacist-charged-with-gun-rampage
So, yeah, if we can't get these white supremacists under control maybe all right-thinking citizens ought to arm themselves after all.
The butler did it?
Seriously though, where did you get your figures? This article puts the United Kingdom at 653 intentional homicides in 2011 and the US at 12,253 in 2013 (i.e., the homicide rate was 1 per 100,000 inhabitants for the UK and 3.8 per 100,000 for the US):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
The design (federal emission and safety regulations), ownership (state and local registration) and operation (state driver's license) of a motor vehicle is a generally accepted area in which the government asserts regulatory control. A manufacturer is required to produce vehicles that are at least somewhat crashworthy and emissions reduced. Someone who operates their vehicle on public roads without first registering the vehicle can be fined. Someone who operates a registered motor vehicle without possessing a valid driver's license can be fined or arrested. A licensed driver who operates a registered motor vehicle while intoxicated can be fined or arrested for doing so.
The situation with guns is not similar and the result could be easily predicted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States
And lest you incorrectly believe that I'm "pro-car" and "anti-gun", please note that in that same year, 2013, there were 32,719 motor vehicle deaths reported. There are a lot more folks driving cars than shooting guns though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
So motor vehicle regulation is not working all that great either, but a lot of that is due to the failure of our governing bodies to modify the roads to calm traffic and the refusal of many law enforcement agencies to arrest and prosecute reckless drivers (I'm looking at you NYC -- from DOT to DAs to NYPD).
Doesn't Hulu already do that? (Splicing ads into the video stream)
The solution then it to turn on the speakerphone.
http://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/06/08/Diver-sucked-into-nuclear-power-plant/1273613281600/
So maybe it's not quite so clear cut as the power plant representative(s) make it out to be.
and
I have an idea for a third patent: Drill two holes in the storage box under the seat in front of you to make room for your feet.