So, the Medicine winners got it because their work will saves lives. The Physics winners because they helped better understand the origin of the universe.
Can we give like, two Medicine awards next year, and scrap the Physics one?
What the hell is your problem? I'm not advocating any kind of system here. I'd like there to be far less taxes, and far more transparency in it all. My point is just that they already have ways to detecting gambling winnings. I also noticed that in all your talk about income, you -- oops -- missed the vital case of the independent contractor, who clearly hasn't paid taxes on the income before it hit the account.
When you don't report that $600, you do still run the risk of a random audit, and you'll be in deep trouble for not reporting it. And believe it or not, while most of the money you spend from the account is not subject to a tax, very few of the transactions are money coming in. If it's the direct deposit from employer (or physical check) they have a record to match against the payrolls. If you just got a huge chunk of change that didn't make its way to your 1040, you will have to explain it.
They don't have to know if it's "gambling-related". They see "oh, you got a mystery $600 from somewhere". Then, the IRS sees an additional $600 in income you have to pay taxes on. So, Congress is getting its cut (which was the point of this subthread, remember? Er... you did remember that this subthread originated from the allegation that Congress doesn't like these places because it's not getting any tax revenue, right?). Now, you could just not report that and "roll the dice" again, but it's as risky as not reporting independent contractor income.
You'd have to explain how you're planning on tracking all those lottery tickets,
Maybe -- and this is just a guess -- with the same techniques that are now used to track lottery tickets?
when they can just bypass you as the middle man and invest directly.
Maybe -- and this is just a guess -- for the same reason people buy mutual fund shares, even though they could "just" bypass the middleman and buy 500 tiny odd lots of stocks every time they get a paycheck?
For someone who actually understands financial markets, you asked a pretty stupid question there.
Sure they can tax it. The winnings have to be paid out electronically somehow, don't they? The bank that receives it will report the income for tax purposes.
It seems (and I've never used a gambling site before and I don't advocate breaking the law) that to get around this, all you have to do is deposit the money to a "legit" offshore intermediary who then places your bets in your stead. Unless the government wants to audit all offshore businesses for gambling, everything looks kosher and compliant with the law. What am I missing?
It seems there's a lot of dispute (between you and the responders) about the merit of a Ph.D. I think this stems from ambiguity about what exactly is meant by a Ph.D. If you're talking about a Ph.D. in "marketing" or something like that, I can agree. But what the posters meant was that if you're doing some very in-depth, scientific research for your product, you absolutely need a Ph.D. -- to do that part of it. The confusion is in applying a Ph.D. from one area to an area where it doesn't imply expertise. (And even a Ph.D. in marketing doesn't mean you will be a good marketer.)
Honestly? Because it's such a crappy place to live. The worse it is, the more people are going to vote, hoping things will change.
In Brazil, people STILL fight over land. They have a HUGE squatting problem. In the developed world, invested capital has increased productivity to the point where no one cares who has the most land. You know who has the most land? Farmers. Think they're living high on the hog?
Now, there are big real estate moguls, but their land is valuable, not incredibly large.
The point is, all of Brazil's problems look pretty trivial to an outsider.
He probably works for Vonage, and is trying to hurt Comcast's reputation.
Er, I'm not sure this is the best way for him to do it. I mean, he's telling a bunch of people things that only a few of them will be able to recognize as false. Looks like it would backfire:
Troll Employee: "Hi, yeah, I'm from Comcast, and you know, you're really getting a bad deal with Vonage." Customer: "How so?" Troll: "Well, you see, Did you know Vonage is lower quality, and people can listen in on you?" *smirk* Yeah, this'll get them disgusted with Comcast. Customer: "Wow!!! Thanks for telling me this! I'll go cancel my Vonage service RIGHT NOW!" Troll: "No, wait!!!!"
Hey, "Jim", you missed the point of my post. The point I was making (that you missed) was that these climatological studies can't have the certainty of that given to gravity, since they are far more limited in the kinds of studies they can do. You can certainly do studies. You just can't have the same certainty. Read my post again. I'd rephrase the idea in Bayesian terms if I thought you could handle it.
Also, I doubt the specifics of your claim. You have what, 5 outputs and 5 inputs? And you're trying to tell me you can control for all of them with 20 data points? Go finish college. Or better yet, go prove that salt will give you heart disease in 30 years. They need people like you.
Really? In the same quantities? With the same benefits? With the same insulation from competition?
Oh, I know, right -- it *must* have been those poor designs that did them in. Not the exponentially increasing unfunded obligations that their competitors don't have. It couldn't be that.
Is this group going to teach politicians that, unlike the equivalent with the theory of gravity, you can't validate climatological theories by making 1000 copies of the earth, altering emissions for some of them, waiting a thousand years, and then running a regression, and that its certainty is to that extent weaker?
Something I want to add about Google's profitability. A lot of people have tried to compare Google to GM, and basically say, "Yeah, you're doing fine, because you're profitable now, wait until you have retirees to take care of like GM did." The difference though, is that, having learned from the 50's, Google isn't making those mistakes. Google will never have massive pension obligations for the very basic reason that Google does not enter into these obligations. When an employee leaves, Google's "debts" with them are already settled in full. If half their current workforce suddenly retired, they'd have to find replacements, but they wouldn't have to scratch their heads about any pension fund.
That's one sign they have a clue what they're doing.
My sarcasm detector is off, so I'll comment anyway. Those people are *not* poor -- there are many non-poor that want that. But you do bring up a good point with the elitism that drives a lot of this. Like I said in my other post, the "advantage" of an auto-driven lifestyle is that it makes it harder for the rabble to get to you, and harder for your kids to get to the rabble. Simliarly, a lot of parents moved to the suburbs in order to get to the remaining school districts that could satisfy their desire not to have to send their kids to school with undesirable types, and as those inner city schools were forced to admit those types, they had to move farther and farther out to stay the same. Again, it's a mess of contradictory policies.
I agree that we could have in the palm of our hand someday that could do all things that today's PC's can do. That wasn't the point. The point was, we can do that now, if you replace "today's PC" with "top of the line 1995 PC". But we don't. For a consumer's home PC, they always seem to prefer "similiar price, more performance" to "simliar performance, lower price". We could have a ~$10 PC today that could mimic a ~'92 era computer's functionality, and we're still figuring out how to get the Third World a $100 PC. Go fig.
Very good point. A lot of people don't see how these different policies work against each others, giving us all the downsides and none of the ups. They gripe about there not being enough "green space" so they legislate so you can't build densely enough, and then people have to use cars (more) and then they complain about the sprawl, wondering why people want to drive so much, and won't take the nice buses that might dump you a mile from your home. They let crime get out of control in the city and make it near impossible to evict dangerous tenants, and wonder why people (like the GP) want to move to a "crime free" suburb so their kids can play. (Hint: a lot of people view the fact that it's impractical to walk from a store to their house or vice versa to be a feature, not a flaw.)
There is a market for people who want to live densely where they can walk where they want to go, yet not be in a complete drug den -- city planners just need to let it happen!
"It's a big market" does not contradict "the gasoline is taxed into unprofitability". The idea about "market share" being more important than "profits" was only true in 1999;-)
There will never be a $7 PC in the future, for the same reason there isn't one now: when technology improves, people want to spend the same, but get a better computer, and manufacturers cater to this. No one ever says, "Hey, maybe we'll use technology that isn't the latest and greatest, but instead make it much much cheaper and just as good as they were in the recent past."
Yeah, after all of Sony's reps talking about how "price doesn't matter, work a little harder, we're giving you better stuff", it's not clear what to make of the $60 price announcement. It could just be the old tactic of "We've got GREAT prices on keyboards, yeah, just $3 apiece.... OH!!!!!!!! You needed the VOWEL keys to work too! Oh yeah, we can enable that for $47 apiece."
With Sony -- and they've already partly revealed some of this -- it'll be It could just be "We've got GREAT prices on games like Gran Turismo, yeah, just $60 apiece.... OH!!!!!!!! You wanted to drive CARS in it too! Oh yeah, we can enable that for...."
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So, the Medicine winners got it because their work will saves lives. The Physics winners because they helped better understand the origin of the universe.
Can we give like, two Medicine awards next year, and scrap the Physics one?
What the hell is your problem? I'm not advocating any kind of system here. I'd like there to be far less taxes, and far more transparency in it all. My point is just that they already have ways to detecting gambling winnings. I also noticed that in all your talk about income, you -- oops -- missed the vital case of the independent contractor, who clearly hasn't paid taxes on the income before it hit the account.
When you don't report that $600, you do still run the risk of a random audit, and you'll be in deep trouble for not reporting it. And believe it or not, while most of the money you spend from the account is not subject to a tax, very few of the transactions are money coming in. If it's the direct deposit from employer (or physical check) they have a record to match against the payrolls. If you just got a huge chunk of change that didn't make its way to your 1040, you will have to explain it.
They don't have to know if it's "gambling-related". They see "oh, you got a mystery $600 from somewhere". Then, the IRS sees an additional $600 in income you have to pay taxes on. So, Congress is getting its cut (which was the point of this subthread, remember? Er... you did remember that this subthread originated from the allegation that Congress doesn't like these places because it's not getting any tax revenue, right?). Now, you could just not report that and "roll the dice" again, but it's as risky as not reporting independent contractor income.
You'd have to explain how you're planning on tracking all those lottery tickets,
Maybe -- and this is just a guess -- with the same techniques that are now used to track lottery tickets?
when they can just bypass you as the middle man and invest directly.
Maybe -- and this is just a guess -- for the same reason people buy mutual fund shares, even though they could "just" bypass the middleman and buy 500 tiny odd lots of stocks every time they get a paycheck?
For someone who actually understands financial markets, you asked a pretty stupid question there.
Actually, you remind me of this business idea I've had for a while. Basically, sell investments *as* lottery tickets.
For example, options can give very high returns, but this only happens rarely. So what you would do is:
a) Buy a high-risk option (e.g., the right to buy oil in a month at $110/barrel) which is unlikely to be worth anything but will be valuable if it is
b) Sell $1 shares in this option like lottery tickets.
c) If the option turns out to be worth anything, sell it, and distribute proportional to buyers.
You could even liven it up - buy many different kinds of options, and buyers "scratch off" to find what option they're now holding a share of.
They can't say it's illegal gambling, because that would amount to saying that "real investing" is gambling.
What could go wrong?
Sure they can tax it. The winnings have to be paid out electronically somehow, don't they? The bank that receives it will report the income for tax purposes.
I always thought most of EA's projects were a gamble.
*ducks*
It seems (and I've never used a gambling site before and I don't advocate breaking the law) that to get around this, all you have to do is deposit the money to a "legit" offshore intermediary who then places your bets in your stead. Unless the government wants to audit all offshore businesses for gambling, everything looks kosher and compliant with the law. What am I missing?
It seems there's a lot of dispute (between you and the responders) about the merit of a Ph.D. I think this stems from ambiguity about what exactly is meant by a Ph.D. If you're talking about a Ph.D. in "marketing" or something like that, I can agree. But what the posters meant was that if you're doing some very in-depth, scientific research for your product, you absolutely need a Ph.D. -- to do that part of it. The confusion is in applying a Ph.D. from one area to an area where it doesn't imply expertise. (And even a Ph.D. in marketing doesn't mean you will be a good marketer.)
Google's share price has already adjusted to account for those new developments.
All corporations' share prices already have adjusted to account for all public knowledge about them.
Honestly? Because it's such a crappy place to live. The worse it is, the more people are going to vote, hoping things will change.
In Brazil, people STILL fight over land. They have a HUGE squatting problem. In the developed world, invested capital has increased productivity to the point where no one cares who has the most land. You know who has the most land? Farmers. Think they're living high on the hog?
Now, there are big real estate moguls, but their land is valuable, not incredibly large.
The point is, all of Brazil's problems look pretty trivial to an outsider.
He probably works for Vonage, and is trying to hurt Comcast's reputation.
Er, I'm not sure this is the best way for him to do it. I mean, he's telling a bunch of people things that only a few of them will be able to recognize as false. Looks like it would backfire:
Troll Employee: "Hi, yeah, I'm from Comcast, and you know, you're really getting a bad deal with Vonage."
Customer: "How so?"
Troll: "Well, you see, Did you know Vonage is lower quality, and people can listen in on you?" *smirk* Yeah, this'll get them disgusted with Comcast.
Customer: "Wow!!! Thanks for telling me this! I'll go cancel my Vonage service RIGHT NOW!"
Troll: "No, wait!!!!"
Thanks for the heads-up. One more friend, one more foe.
Hey, "Jim", you missed the point of my post. The point I was making (that you missed) was that these climatological studies can't have the certainty of that given to gravity, since they are far more limited in the kinds of studies they can do. You can certainly do studies. You just can't have the same certainty. Read my post again. I'd rephrase the idea in Bayesian terms if I thought you could handle it.
Also, I doubt the specifics of your claim. You have what, 5 outputs and 5 inputs? And you're trying to tell me you can control for all of them with 20 data points? Go finish college. Or better yet, go prove that salt will give you heart disease in 30 years. They need people like you.
Was there an articulate point in there?
Really? In the same quantities? With the same benefits? With the same insulation from competition?
Oh, I know, right -- it *must* have been those poor designs that did them in. Not the exponentially increasing unfunded obligations that their competitors don't have. It couldn't be that.
Is this group going to teach politicians that, unlike the equivalent with the theory of gravity, you can't validate climatological theories by making 1000 copies of the earth, altering emissions for some of them, waiting a thousand years, and then running a regression, and that its certainty is to that extent weaker?
Something I want to add about Google's profitability. A lot of people have tried to compare Google to GM, and basically say, "Yeah, you're doing fine, because you're profitable now, wait until you have retirees to take care of like GM did." The difference though, is that, having learned from the 50's, Google isn't making those mistakes. Google will never have massive pension obligations for the very basic reason that Google does not enter into these obligations. When an employee leaves, Google's "debts" with them are already settled in full. If half their current workforce suddenly retired, they'd have to find replacements, but they wouldn't have to scratch their heads about any pension fund.
That's one sign they have a clue what they're doing.
My sarcasm detector is off, so I'll comment anyway. Those people are *not* poor -- there are many non-poor that want that. But you do bring up a good point with the elitism that drives a lot of this. Like I said in my other post, the "advantage" of an auto-driven lifestyle is that it makes it harder for the rabble to get to you, and harder for your kids to get to the rabble. Simliarly, a lot of parents moved to the suburbs in order to get to the remaining school districts that could satisfy their desire not to have to send their kids to school with undesirable types, and as those inner city schools were forced to admit those types, they had to move farther and farther out to stay the same. Again, it's a mess of contradictory policies.
I agree that we could have in the palm of our hand someday that could do all things that today's PC's can do. That wasn't the point. The point was, we can do that now, if you replace "today's PC" with "top of the line 1995 PC". But we don't. For a consumer's home PC, they always seem to prefer "similiar price, more performance" to "simliar performance, lower price". We could have a ~$10 PC today that could mimic a ~'92 era computer's functionality, and we're still figuring out how to get the Third World a $100 PC. Go fig.
Very good point. A lot of people don't see how these different policies work against each others, giving us all the downsides and none of the ups. They gripe about there not being enough "green space" so they legislate so you can't build densely enough, and then people have to use cars (more) and then they complain about the sprawl, wondering why people want to drive so much, and won't take the nice buses that might dump you a mile from your home. They let crime get out of control in the city and make it near impossible to evict dangerous tenants, and wonder why people (like the GP) want to move to a "crime free" suburb so their kids can play. (Hint: a lot of people view the fact that it's impractical to walk from a store to their house or vice versa to be a feature, not a flaw.)
There is a market for people who want to live densely where they can walk where they want to go, yet not be in a complete drug den -- city planners just need to let it happen!
"It's a big market" does not contradict "the gasoline is taxed into unprofitability". The idea about "market share" being more important than "profits" was only true in 1999 ;-)
There will never be a $7 PC in the future, for the same reason there isn't one now: when technology improves, people want to spend the same, but get a better computer, and manufacturers cater to this. No one ever says, "Hey, maybe we'll use technology that isn't the latest and greatest, but instead make it much much cheaper and just as good as they were in the recent past."
Well, no one except Nintendo.
So his portfolio has outperformed the S&P, I take it?
*ducks*
Yeah, after all of Sony's reps talking about how "price doesn't matter, work a little harder, we're giving you better stuff", it's not clear what to make of the $60 price announcement. It could just be the old tactic of "We've got GREAT prices on keyboards, yeah, just $3 apiece. ... OH!!!!!!!! You needed the VOWEL keys to work too! Oh yeah, we can enable that for $47 apiece."
... OH!!!!!!!! You wanted to drive CARS in it too! Oh yeah, we can enable that for ...."
With Sony -- and they've already partly revealed some of this -- it'll be It could just be "We've got GREAT prices on games like Gran Turismo, yeah, just $60 apiece.