You can't call me ignorant until you've won the argument. I'm not claiming I've won, but I didn't call you ignorant either.
Chill out: I wasn't calling you ignorant; I was calling myself (and others with the same confusion as me) ignorant.
Everything I've read and seen on the subject claimed that the developers had to treat the x86 BIOS as a black box (black box means they can't see anything going on inside it). They could only see the inputs and outputs, and had to come up with their own logic to ensure that they got the correct outputs to go with each set of inputs. This is NOT reverse engineering. Reverse engineering is opening up the box, examining the machine code inside it, and doing something with that information.
Alright, then I'm mistaken: I didn't know that looking at copyrighted code in your possession could constitute infringement, and I thought (based on the literal etymology) "reverse engineering" could refer to any attempt to reconstruct the object without the original specification.
Remember all the crap the creators of the first x86 clone had to go through to prove that they hadn't reverse engineered it?
Can someone elaborate for the ignorant: aren't you supposed to prove that you *did* reverse engineer it, not that you didn't? Since the copyright only covers duplication of code, not duplication of functionality?
but making a change in the tax code to allow what you desire is essentially turning your mutual fund investment into a traditional IRA.
Not quite. A traditional IRA is (IIRC): your contribution is deducted from your taxable income, but you pay taxes at the end, and there are age restrictions for withdrawls. In what I propose, your contributions come from taxed income AND your withdrawls are taxed as well (if there is a gain); you're just not taxed in between.
Tax-deferred investments are capped at a limit so that the "wealthy" can't just keep all of their investments there.
I don't see this as a bad thing: that means they're keeping it invested longer. Once it becomes income for consumption, then it's taxed. Though I agree there's room for corruption ("Really, my sports car was part of my business!"):-/
You're right. I was only critiquing the principle the GP was using to justify non-taxation, not whether it was currently feasible to evade taxes this way. But as long as it's a potential avenue, the IRS will be interested.
I guess you and I have different definition of what constitutes a "meaningful sense". You claim that having the "opportunity to do whatever I want with the money" counts as realzing it in a meanful way. But when I set my mutual fund on "dividends: reinvest", there is never a single moment when I could do whatever I want with the money without selling. It *never* shows up in any cash accout. I simply have more shares one day later. It is *still* tied up in the investments. It meets, in essense, every characteristic of an unrealized gain.
In fact, since the writeoff of capital losses is limited, it's possible for me to owe taxes, yet have lost everything. Oops.
Well, I'd say the same for "the ban on enslavement of those who can't service debts resulting from their torts", but even so, *should* all silent partners (passive shareholders) be legally responsible for the corporation's torts? Why? Because they contributed money? Because they influenced management? Because you can say the same thing for: banks, bondholders, customers, workers, and suppliers. All of them give things of value to the corporation and, depending on the circumstances, can influence management. Banks sometimes say, "sell off this asset, or we'll call the loan", for example.
Certainly, there are cases where a shareholder is causally responsible for a corporation's torts, but is he *necessarily* so, qua shareholder?
Retained profits is called retained earnings, these result from net income reported to the IRS.
Yes, and if I throw them off as a dividend, an additional tax hits, which does not hit if I had re-invested them. As an individual investor, if I don't throw off a dividend of that gain to my "consumption" money, I... er, still pay the same tax. My point is that since that money is still invested, it has not yet been realized in any meaningful sense.
This was my point. If you sell "virtual" items for real money then you have realized the gain. This is how you rebalance your portfolio.
And as above, I don't think that merely rebalancing is a realization of a gain: I can't yet spend it on consumption!
Isn't that a good thing, a honest appraisal of what you're being taxed for?
Well, yes, but I was referring to an honest appraisal of the necessity of specific government programs to specific economic activities. People typically put up the false dichotomy of "you don't like being taxed at 95%" (the marginal rate in some times and places)? Well gee, I guess you think we should disband the police!" My point was just, that this justification of taxation is flimsy: the tax doesn't need to be that high, and the transaction doesn't require each and every government program that exists. Please folks, just admit that you're using a taxpayer for another purpose, even if it is ultimately justified!
You make a good point about the wastefulness and complexity that attaches to taxation under democracy. But:
a) I think you give citizens and government employees way too much credit. They, too, are self-interested and intend to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.
b) I think your characterization of corporations as being *for the purpose* of externalization of costs, is misleading. Yes, it is possible (though rare) that a corporation can impose costs on others that its current assets can't compensate for, and the victim could be stiffed while wealthy silent partners (passive shareholders) are immune. But this happens all the time with poor criminals. Johnny Thug kills someone and doesn't have to pay a dime (because he's too poor to be worth suing) and gets his incarceration paid for by his victims. To the extent that we can't enslave him to pay compensation to his victims, is that too an externalization of costs?
I would have to disagree with your logic. If the "pseudo-dollars" that are intantly redeemable are never taken out of the game it is much more like a company reinvesting its profits to fund future growth (or holding it for cash reserves) than the investor re-investing dividends.
I don't see the difference. Treat the investor as if here were a company. Now, how do you distinguish retaining profits from re-investing dividends?
Capital gains can be deferred until death under current U.S. law so there is no need to adjust the tax code,
Unrealized capital gains can be deferred. Capital gains resulting from rebalancing my portfolio, cannot. From the standpoint of my investing, setting dividends on "automatic reinvestment" is the same as "holding on to an investment that has appreciated", yet only one is taxed.
If they wish 'invest' their money in WoW gold, it'd be no different than investing in English Pounds or some other foreign currency. The difference is, what happens to the your investment when Blizzard puts in a ladder and ladder seasons like they did when released a patch for Diablo 2.
No, under the principle the GGP set up, those intermediate gains, denominated in WoW gold, should not be taxed, despite performing functionally the same thing as dollars or other currencies.
As for making sense, I don't see how:
"The dividends are payments made to the shareholders. You get taxed on that as a form of income. Companies are not required to pay dividends. They can instead choose to reinvest the money into new projects, to generate new cash flows will should drive the stock price up, having the same end effect (i.e. - more money in the shareholder's back pocket)"
contradicts my point. And what shareholder would keep money in his back pocket? Or were you just trying to dumb down your explanation?
Taxes on activities carried out in the Real World (tm) are taxes because those activities depend on certain services which are funded by tax monies....The truth of course is that there is simply less government involvement [in MMORPGs].
Oh, I basically agree, but this opens up a new can of worms: it commits you to:
a) separating businesses based on how much government they use, and taxing them differently (at least to a coarse approximation)
b) taxing the economy *only* at the rate required for the government provice the services needed for it to exist.
a) isn't so bitter a pill to swallow, but b) means much, much lower taxes, since very little tax revenue is spend on ensuring the necessities for the modern economy to exist, at least when honestly appraised. For virtually every government program, you can find a country that does without it, or has much less of it. (I can't sell items on ebay unless the government has a presence in Iraq? Come on!)
Don't tax me just because I have 10k in gold in WoW... But if I sell that for the $1,600 or so I could get wholesale for it, then it's income and I should give unto ceaser and all that..
The problem is that under that principle, investors could evade taxes. Basically, investors have long salivated at the thought of deferring taxation of all intermediate gains (reinvested dividends) until spent on consumption. (Yes, you can do this with retirement accounts, but I'm talking about once those are maxed out.)
If you exempted those good-as-money gold transactions from taxation, investors could do something similar. Basically, they could set up "pseudo-dollars" that are instantly redeemable for real dollars (and vice versa). Then they would be exempt from dividend taxation until they want to spend the dollars on consumption.
Now, I actually support the idea of allowing deferral of taxation on dividends that are re-invested, but I just wanted to point out the problem (from the IRS's standpoint) of exempting WoW gold.
Anyone here remember what TV was like before cable and the internet? Wasn't most of that stuff barely watchable? (Notice how hosts like Donahue, popular at that time, utterly failed when there was real competition.)
So, couldn't you alternately say that Apple TV is as good as network TV?
(I know, I know, the "unwatchability" is due to picture quality, not content. Still, you have to compare the total experience, not each aspect individually.)
You can preempt that by running the country for the benefit of the people in general rather than for the billionaires.
Yeah. One trick is to nationalize all the businesses and turn them over to the lowest-level workers at those businesses. That'll stave off those Marxist revolutionaries!
I actually largely agree with airlines, but why not just *say* that's the reason? It's like we have to be super-sensitive and never shatter Miss Chatterbox's worldview that she isn't a pain in the ass to everyone else. I'd bet most people would agree with such a ban, too.
But why does it even have to come to a ban? Can't you just have "cell phone OK" parts of the plane and let them suffer with each other?
You know, when you own a home, you throw money into a black pit too; it's just that they call it "interest, property taxes, maintenance, HOA fees, closing costs, and real estate agent's cut" instead of "rent".
(Yeah, yeah, "you're paying the landlord's tax when you rent, too". Sure, but it doesn't show up as a separate expense, and it's a pure loss as well.)
Also, you prevent a large fraction of your investment portfolio from being diversified, and become less mobile.
WAIT, contrary to what I might have implied above, I'm not trying to convince everyone that renting is always the best option. Obviously, it's not always the best option. I just object to your characterization of renting as throwing money down a black pit any more than having a mortgage does.
It's controversial, but a pre-Clovis stone age culture may have colonized North America from Europe well before that.
That's kind of what's always bugged me: the natives that Europeans met in America were basically living in the Stone Age. Europeans didn't get to the America (in the accepted account) until long after they did, and had much better technology. Either the original native colonizers were more advanced, or the idea of pre-Viking European colonizers isn't so crazy.
It's about allowing the Japanese their sovereign right to do what they want in their country, as in their case determined by their own people. Their laws apparently say that political speeches by candidates can only be broadcast by specific means.
Correct. And my point is, that they can go and arrest the people that are broadcasting them. They can stop the YouTube videos from coming into their country (draconian as that may be). What they cannot do is tell YouTube that they can't broadcast those speeches to anyone in places where it's legal. At no point was anyone saying anyone should take action to stop Japan from enforcing laws within its borders.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't call me ignorant until you've won the argument. I'm not claiming I've won, but I didn't call you ignorant either.
Chill out: I wasn't calling you ignorant; I was calling myself (and others with the same confusion as me) ignorant.
Everything I've read and seen on the subject claimed that the developers had to treat the x86 BIOS as a black box (black box means they can't see anything going on inside it). They could only see the inputs and outputs, and had to come up with their own logic to ensure that they got the correct outputs to go with each set of inputs. This is NOT reverse engineering. Reverse engineering is opening up the box, examining the machine code inside it, and doing something with that information.
Alright, then I'm mistaken: I didn't know that looking at copyrighted code in your possession could constitute infringement, and I thought (based on the literal etymology) "reverse engineering" could refer to any attempt to reconstruct the object without the original specification.
Remember all the crap the creators of the first x86 clone had to go through to prove that they hadn't reverse engineered it?
Can someone elaborate for the ignorant: aren't you supposed to prove that you *did* reverse engineer it, not that you didn't? Since the copyright only covers duplication of code, not duplication of functionality?
You mean, like PayPal? They evade the responsibilites of a bank, while hiding real-world transactions within a game.
... YES!*
*come on, don't contest charge, don't contest charge
but making a change in the tax code to allow what you desire is essentially turning your mutual fund investment into a traditional IRA.
:-/
Not quite. A traditional IRA is (IIRC): your contribution is deducted from your taxable income, but you pay taxes at the end, and there are age restrictions for withdrawls. In what I propose, your contributions come from taxed income AND your withdrawls are taxed as well (if there is a gain); you're just not taxed in between.
Tax-deferred investments are capped at a limit so that the "wealthy" can't just keep all of their investments there.
I don't see this as a bad thing: that means they're keeping it invested longer. Once it becomes income for consumption, then it's taxed. Though I agree there's room for corruption ("Really, my sports car was part of my business!")
You're right. I was only critiquing the principle the GP was using to justify non-taxation, not whether it was currently feasible to evade taxes this way. But as long as it's a potential avenue, the IRS will be interested.
I guess you and I have different definition of what constitutes a "meaningful sense". You claim that having the "opportunity to do whatever I want with the money" counts as realzing it in a meanful way. But when I set my mutual fund on "dividends: reinvest", there is never a single moment when I could do whatever I want with the money without selling. It *never* shows up in any cash accout. I simply have more shares one day later. It is *still* tied up in the investments. It meets, in essense, every characteristic of an unrealized gain.
In fact, since the writeoff of capital losses is limited, it's possible for me to owe taxes, yet have lost everything. Oops.
Well, I'd say the same for "the ban on enslavement of those who can't service debts resulting from their torts", but even so, *should* all silent partners (passive shareholders) be legally responsible for the corporation's torts? Why? Because they contributed money? Because they influenced management? Because you can say the same thing for: banks, bondholders, customers, workers, and suppliers. All of them give things of value to the corporation and, depending on the circumstances, can influence management. Banks sometimes say, "sell off this asset, or we'll call the loan", for example.
Certainly, there are cases where a shareholder is causally responsible for a corporation's torts, but is he *necessarily* so, qua shareholder?
Retained profits is called retained earnings, these result from net income reported to the IRS.
... er, still pay the same tax. My point is that since that money is still invested, it has not yet been realized in any meaningful sense.
Yes, and if I throw them off as a dividend, an additional tax hits, which does not hit if I had re-invested them. As an individual investor, if I don't throw off a dividend of that gain to my "consumption" money, I
This was my point. If you sell "virtual" items for real money then you have realized the gain. This is how you rebalance your portfolio.
And as above, I don't think that merely rebalancing is a realization of a gain: I can't yet spend it on consumption!
Isn't that a good thing, a honest appraisal of what you're being taxed for?
Well, yes, but I was referring to an honest appraisal of the necessity of specific government programs to specific economic activities. People typically put up the false dichotomy of "you don't like being taxed at 95%" (the marginal rate in some times and places)? Well gee, I guess you think we should disband the police!" My point was just, that this justification of taxation is flimsy: the tax doesn't need to be that high, and the transaction doesn't require each and every government program that exists. Please folks, just admit that you're using a taxpayer for another purpose, even if it is ultimately justified!
You make a good point about the wastefulness and complexity that attaches to taxation under democracy. But:
a) I think you give citizens and government employees way too much credit. They, too, are self-interested and intend to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.
b) I think your characterization of corporations as being *for the purpose* of externalization of costs, is misleading. Yes, it is possible (though rare) that a corporation can impose costs on others that its current assets can't compensate for, and the victim could be stiffed while wealthy silent partners (passive shareholders) are immune. But this happens all the time with poor criminals. Johnny Thug kills someone and doesn't have to pay a dime (because he's too poor to be worth suing) and gets his incarceration paid for by his victims. To the extent that we can't enslave him to pay compensation to his victims, is that too an externalization of costs?
I would have to disagree with your logic. If the "pseudo-dollars" that are intantly redeemable are never taken out of the game it is much more like a company reinvesting its profits to fund future growth (or holding it for cash reserves) than the investor re-investing dividends.
I don't see the difference. Treat the investor as if here were a company. Now, how do you distinguish retaining profits from re-investing dividends?
Capital gains can be deferred until death under current U.S. law so there is no need to adjust the tax code,
Unrealized capital gains can be deferred. Capital gains resulting from rebalancing my portfolio, cannot. From the standpoint of my investing, setting dividends on "automatic reinvestment" is the same as "holding on to an investment that has appreciated", yet only one is taxed.
If they wish 'invest' their money in WoW gold, it'd be no different than investing in English Pounds or some other foreign currency. The difference is, what happens to the your investment when Blizzard puts in a ladder and ladder seasons like they did when released a patch for Diablo 2.
No, under the principle the GGP set up, those intermediate gains, denominated in WoW gold, should not be taxed, despite performing functionally the same thing as dollars or other currencies.
As for making sense, I don't see how:
"The dividends are payments made to the shareholders. You get taxed on that as a form of income. Companies are not required to pay dividends. They can instead choose to reinvest the money into new projects, to generate new cash flows will should drive the stock price up, having the same end effect (i.e. - more money in the shareholder's back pocket)"
contradicts my point. And what shareholder would keep money in his back pocket? Or were you just trying to dumb down your explanation?
Taxes on activities carried out in the Real World (tm) are taxes because those activities depend on certain services which are funded by tax monies. ...The truth of course is that there is simply less government involvement [in MMORPGs].
Oh, I basically agree, but this opens up a new can of worms: it commits you to:
a) separating businesses based on how much government they use, and taxing them differently (at least to a coarse approximation)
b) taxing the economy *only* at the rate required for the government provice the services needed for it to exist.
a) isn't so bitter a pill to swallow, but b) means much, much lower taxes, since very little tax revenue is spend on ensuring the necessities for the modern economy to exist, at least when honestly appraised. For virtually every government program, you can find a country that does without it, or has much less of it. (I can't sell items on ebay unless the government has a presence in Iraq? Come on!)
Don't tax me just because I have 10k in gold in WoW... But if I sell that for the $1,600 or so I could get wholesale for it, then it's income and I should give unto ceaser and all that..
The problem is that under that principle, investors could evade taxes. Basically, investors have long salivated at the thought of deferring taxation of all intermediate gains (reinvested dividends) until spent on consumption. (Yes, you can do this with retirement accounts, but I'm talking about once those are maxed out.)
If you exempted those good-as-money gold transactions from taxation, investors could do something similar. Basically, they could set up "pseudo-dollars" that are instantly redeemable for real dollars (and vice versa). Then they would be exempt from dividend taxation until they want to spend the dollars on consumption.
Now, I actually support the idea of allowing deferral of taxation on dividends that are re-invested, but I just wanted to point out the problem (from the IRS's standpoint) of exempting WoW gold.
Wah! I'm a geek who loves closing tax loopholes for the rich until I realize that means taxing my nerdy activities too!
Anyone here remember what TV was like before cable and the internet? Wasn't most of that stuff barely watchable? (Notice how hosts like Donahue, popular at that time, utterly failed when there was real competition.)
So, couldn't you alternately say that Apple TV is as good as network TV?
(I know, I know, the "unwatchability" is due to picture quality, not content. Still, you have to compare the total experience, not each aspect individually.)
You can preempt that by running the country for the benefit of the people in general rather than for the billionaires.
Yeah. One trick is to nationalize all the businesses and turn them over to the lowest-level workers at those businesses. That'll stave off those Marxist revolutionaries!
I actually largely agree with airlines, but why not just *say* that's the reason? It's like we have to be super-sensitive and never shatter Miss Chatterbox's worldview that she isn't a pain in the ass to everyone else. I'd bet most people would agree with such a ban, too.
But why does it even have to come to a ban? Can't you just have "cell phone OK" parts of the plane and let them suffer with each other?
Wait, are you the guy in this story by any chance?
Haven't you learned your lesson yet?
Hey! A wooden abacus is every bit as Turing-complete as a PC! :-P
You know, when you own a home, you throw money into a black pit too; it's just that they call it "interest, property taxes, maintenance, HOA fees, closing costs, and real estate agent's cut" instead of "rent".
(Yeah, yeah, "you're paying the landlord's tax when you rent, too". Sure, but it doesn't show up as a separate expense, and it's a pure loss as well.)
Also, you prevent a large fraction of your investment portfolio from being diversified, and become less mobile.
WAIT, contrary to what I might have implied above, I'm not trying to convince everyone that renting is always the best option. Obviously, it's not always the best option. I just object to your characterization of renting as throwing money down a black pit any more than having a mortgage does.
It's controversial, but a pre-Clovis stone age culture may have colonized North America from Europe well before that.
That's kind of what's always bugged me: the natives that Europeans met in America were basically living in the Stone Age. Europeans didn't get to the America (in the accepted account) until long after they did, and had much better technology. Either the original native colonizers were more advanced, or the idea of pre-Viking European colonizers isn't so crazy.
In Soviet Russia, turkey meats[1] you! Or something.
[1]meat: v., to turn into meat. Homophone with "meet".
or the fact that your original post doesn't say "evil" anywhere
Let's review: The original post I responded to said:
"Resident Ewiil ? That will be a nice name for the game."
Then I pointed out that Germans already pronounce it (Resident Evil) that way.
Then you interpreted that reference to Germans pronouncing an English word, as a reference to Germans pronouncing German words.
Then you wondered where I said "evil" in my original post.
See sig.
It's about allowing the Japanese their sovereign right to do what they want in their country, as in their case determined by their own people. Their laws apparently say that political speeches by candidates can only be broadcast by specific means.
Correct. And my point is, that they can go and arrest the people that are broadcasting them. They can stop the YouTube videos from coming into their country (draconian as that may be). What they cannot do is tell YouTube that they can't broadcast those speeches to anyone in places where it's legal. At no point was anyone saying anyone should take action to stop Japan from enforcing laws within its borders.