Texanadian

Where to begin, where to begin....

Just about every law starts out with good intentions. The long term results are that the laws grow and turn into bad laws. Let's take environmental laws as a perfect example.

Every US car from 1975 and on has come from the factory with a catalytic converter. Cats don't work with leaded gas, so we got unleaded gas. The results being that cars are cleaner. This is good. On the other hand, it's illegal in California of all places, to put a catalytic converter on a pre 1975 car that didn't originally come with one. It's considered "tampering with the emissions system" and carries a large fine. A vehicle that originally came with a single exhaust system can't legally be converted to a dual exhaust system (federal law)....A dual exhaust system will give you better fuel economy....But it's legal for a car company to switch from a single exhaust system one year to a dual exhaust system the next year on the same car model.

Many states have emissions tests on cars on a yearly/bi-yearly basis. You would think a simple testing of the exhaust would determine if the car passes. But instead states also have visual inspections. So two identical cars can come in. One has an A.I.R. pump, the other one is removed. Even though the one without the pump may put out less pollution than the car that has the pump. The car without the pump will fail the visual even though it burns clean out the tailpipes. Why??? Why not a simple put the probe in the tailpipe and if it passes, it passes. Simple.

Laws stopped car companies from putting R-12 air conditioners in cars due to ozone layer worries. R-134a was the replacement chosen by lobbyists and government to convert old cars to. R-134a is incomptabile on the whole with R-12. The oils don't mix. You can't get all the old oil out. The performance is worse. And it's expensive to switch over. Lots of labor and new parts are needed. Future breakdowns are common after converting. (The newer oils used in 134a can't have all the moisture boiled out like the old oils used in R-12 systems. Thus you get corrosion and expensive repairs)

Propane air conditioners use a combination of propane and butane (or isobutane). The conversion is cheap. About $1 worth of refrigerant. (How much does 6 oz of propane cost? About the same as a Bic lighter) The oil is compatible. Nothing needs to be changed. Performance is as good if not better than R-12. And it's light years better than R-134a. It has essentially zero ozone or global warming problems... But it's illegal to convert an R-12 car to a propane based A/C system. Nevermind that it's legal in Canada, Australia, and much of Europe.

It's illegal to vent propane from a car. Legally it needs to be captured and recovered. But shops don't want to capture it because it wrecks their two capturing tanks (one for R-12, one for R-134a). But it's legal to light a propane BBQ with a butane lighter. A 2 lb R-12 car would have about 6 oz of propane in it if it were converted. It's illegal to vent R-134a to the air from your car. But those cans of dust off that you use to clean your computer have R-134a in them.

Many big cities have banned wood stoves. But wood stoves today are as clean and efficient as a natural gas or propane fireplace. And wood is a renewable resource that is carbon neutral. Nutural gas and propane aren't. Wood heat is also VERY cheap in comparison.

In an effort to clean the air, we have ethanol in gasoline. Ethanol gets worse gas mileage than non-ethanol treated gasoline. It's supposed to be "green" for the environment. Yet it's better for the environemnt to simply plant trees on land rather than grow corn to make ethanol. Ethanol is also expensive.

Let's get away from fuels and talk about cars themselves. A 1973 Honda Civic weighed 1500 lbs and got 40 mpg. It was a cheap car. A 2010 Honda Civic weighs 2700 lbs and gets 34 mpg. The government instituted a national 55 mph speed limit in the 1970's in order to save fuel. Automakers came up with a much better idea. More gears. The days of 3 (and even 2) speed automatics are gone. Ditto the 4 speed manual. 5 speeds and 6 speeds are common. Consumers wouldn't want the old lack of gear choice. The ratios are wider. The mileage is worse. It's noisier. When the Federal government made Montana institute a speed limit on their roads in the 1990's, the death rate among drivers went up. (prior to this, the Montana highway speed limit was "reasonable and prudent" during the daytime. No number was given)

Want to talk about illegal drugs and the troubles with them? Under our current system, it makes being a drug lord a very lucritive profession to be in. Supply is incredibly tight. Demand is high. Governments can't reduce demand. But they can and do cut down on supply. This only makes drugs more expensive. Why did crack become popular? Because the government worked to cut down the supply of cocaine. As a result of this, cocaine got more expensive. People switched to crack because it was cheaper. Why is there no huge underground market for tylenol, beer, or apples? Because there is a small profit margin in it. Since there is relatively little money to be made on it, it's not worth gangs risking their lives by killing other people in order to sell the product. There's simply too much competition.

The international drug rings make gobs of money. So it's easy for them to bribe police. It's also very hard for the average joe to become an international drug king pin. How are you going to get the product from one part of the world to another? If you're caught, you have nobody to plea bargain against. But the big drug king pin has a stack of names to name.

Why do prostitutes work the street? Why do people break and enter homes? The high cost of drugs. People who are addicted to cigarettes and spend $10 a day on it don't do this stuff. People who drink a bottle of vodka every day don't do this stuff. But people with $300/day coke habits do. Crime goes up when drug prices rise. What makes drug prices rise? The government sanctioned black markets.

But instead, we have the simple notion that banning a product in demand will make the demand disappear. Bars didn't vanish during prohibition. They simply went underground. Respect for the law went down as people didn't see the logic in banning it. Just as people don't see the logic in putting pot smokers in jail.

This is getting long, so I'll keep the financial stuff to a minimum. Federal bailouts of banks and car companies will NEVER be supported by Libertarians. The freedom to fail is equally as important as the freedom to succeed. There wouldn't be any Fanny and Freddie to fail because they wouldn't exist in the first place. No taxpayer should be made to pay to prop up an unsuccessful company.

Rand isn't against the 1964 Civil Rights act as a whole. Just the one part of it related to private businesses. People are forgetting that the '64 Civil Rights act was to prevent GOVERNMENT from denying blacks the same rights as whites. It was government that was enforcing the Jim Crow laws in the south. It wasn't an issue in the northern states where governments were more moderate.

One need only take an example of fast food hamburger joints. Let's take McDonalds, Burger King, Arbys, Wendy's, and Jack in the Box. Five restaurants that all serve cheap hamburgers. If Burger King decides to say that they won't sell food to black people but the other four do, it's not just a matter of Burger King losing out on black customers. It's also that the other four would gain black customers due to their non-racist business practices. They would also gain white customers who didn't agree with Burger King's blocking of serving black people......Under a national law that says that all companies must serve everybody, this only makes the other four companies lose out on sales that they would have gained from Burger King's racist business practises..... Imagine if a Texas restaurant chain today decided to not allow latinos to eat there. The business would be boarded up and closed within a month.

Libertarianism is actually the biggest opponent of racism. Because libertarianism doesn't gather people in groups to be deemed better or worse. Libertarianism is about the individual. It's extremely difficult to be racist against a person. It's very easy to be racist against a group.

Bartlet mentioned that the free market didn't solve segregation. But he also noted that it was government laws that prevented the free market to solve segregation.... Free markets are actually amazing at benefiting people who you normally wouldn't like and religions who you normally wouldn't support. The coffee cup you're drinking out of. It could have been made by a white person, a black person, a Chinese person, an Indian. Anybody. It could have been made by a Catholic, a Protestant, a Muslim. You simply don't know. But the simple act of the trade being made by the buyer and seller allows other people to benefit the same as it benefits you.

The fact is, even among those who have equal opportunity, equal outcomes cannot be guaranteed.

Nor should it be. Equal opportunity is great when the starting point is equal. It's terrible when the end results are equal. A 100 m track race works best when everybody leaves the start line at the same time. It works terrible when the fastest runner has to slow down in order to finish at the same point as the slowest runner. Same goes for a basketball game. Where is the motivation to achieve the greatest results if you have to throw away part of it to equalize the end result?

Some financial means are better and some are worse for black people. I have to generalize here since not everyone is the same. But I notice at work that a lot of my black co-workers don't put in the amount needed to their 401K plan to maximize the company's match. In fact, many put in less than what the default amount is set for when you first start working there....This defies all common sense.... I maximized the company match before I even received my first paycheck.

On the other hand, many blacks choose to stay in poorer neighbourhoods even when they have the money to move to a richer neighbourhood. This makes great financial sense. Why pay 200K for a house when you can get the same house for 100K in the poorer (black) part of town? Even when asked if they won the lottery where they would move to, they say the same area they're in. The trouble is that you're likely to end up getting the same crummy school districts that way.

I don't agree with giving away free tuition to university. There is nothing wrong with taking out loans for education. In fact, when you provide free tuition or govt subsadized education, you end up taxing poor people who don't go to school to pay for people who do go to school and have a much greater chance at earning large amounts of money later on. The trade off for school loans vs higher earned income and job opportunity in the future is steeply geared towards the student's benefit. You also find that people who are spending their own (loan) money at university are more likely to spend more time studying and less time partying.

The notion of credit cards and mortgages being different is nonsense. Most people are better off without a credit card. And a mortgage is determined mostly by credit rating and to a certain extent by job longevity.

Food stamps are as abused as school lunch programs are. So I wouldn't put too much stock in the percentage figures.

If you do away with SS, you had better pay all of us back what we put in + interest.

Effectively we need a temporary and completely independent agency to conduct an audit of every aspect of our government

I would gladly get rid of Social Security if it meant losing everything put in. I'll include the Canada Pension Plan money I've put in too. There seems to be a common idea that if SS disappeared, that the money put in would have to be paid back. But your money has already been paid back......to retired people!

Social Security isn't about saving for your future. It's about taxing the young people to subsidize the old people. Taxing job creation to pay for people to not work. Regressive tax too.

No need to audit every aspect of government. We already know what the results will be.

On what their walmart salary?

AUS has no SS, it's all private. Your employer has to contribute 9% of you salary into a retirement account of your choice, that cannot be accessed until 65. Last article I read, they now have the largest retirement accounts per capita.

They do also provide an age pension for people that have no retirement money and have less than x assets.

It would be an improvement over the system now. Wal-Mart salary shouldn't make any difference. A Wal-Mart worker is still paying Social Security taxes today.

If a 5 year old wanted to smoke, should (s)he be able to do that too? Also, did it ever occur to you that the child does not always get to make this decision?

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

the biggest loophole in all our federal wage and hour and worker protection laws is employers that hire illegal immigrants, including children.

why do we shake our head when "American" children are overworked and abused and ignore it when an illegal alien is exploited and abused? Racism?

when will we demand horrifically strict penalties for anyone that violates a labor law? When will we stop employers from abusing and exploiting people for personal profit? When will it NOT be acceptable to treat illegal immigrants like slaves?

We worry that someone will check their ID...HORROR!!! But we don't worry that they work 60 hours per week for $200. We don't worry that if they get injured there is no workman's comp insurance to pay their medical bills or supplement their income for their family.

These kinds of reports only focus the racism that exists, the federal protection laws for white people, and nothing but exploitation for illegals.

STOP the abuse now. Demand your legislators put a huge tax on the employment of illegals. Demand that they seize property to collect the tax. Demand they enforce the laws they pass that apply to employers!

People turn a blind eye to it because illegals chose to come here. Even in the cash under the table/low wage situation they're in, they deem it to be better than where they came from. Or else why would they stay? Why not go back? In the American's case, a standard of living is assumed due to the long chain of events that has occured over time in this country. 250 years ago, everybody was in the same situation as the illegal is in now. Just off the boat. Possibly no skills. Lack of language. Very few friends or relatives here to help. People worked long hard hours for mediocre wages. But they still thought it was a better place to live than where they came from. Over time people got paid more. Learned a trade. Networked with people to get a better job. It's a natural progression.

Is it less hypocritical to pass minimum wage laws and then look the other way while contractors hire (buy at auction) illegal aliens in Home Depot parking lots all over the country every morning for less than half minimum wage? I mean, at least let's be equal opportunity exploiters.

I agree with you.....but you're looking at it from the wrong side of the fence. It only benefits them BECAUSE they're illegal. If they were made legal today, they would lose the ability to work for low wages. Who would hire them for the current min wage?

this is getting lost with all the oil floating in the Gulf

It's because they are mostly white.

It's because they aren't asking for handouts

It's because they are handling their own #######.

See: Iowa in 2006 and the flooding there.

White People don't need FEMA and don't make good news.

If this flooding was in Detroit, you're damn right it'd be all over the news all the time and a government response team would be expected to be handing out free money and FEAM Trailers for everyone!

Mostly white? Have you ever been to Memphis?

The national taxpayer will be paying for this. No doubt about it. Can't say as I agree with it. But that's the way things happen. At least Ron Paul had the guts to vote against federal taxpayers bailing out his own district in Texas after Hurricane Ike came through.

In 5-10 years you won't even understand what all the fuss was about. There was a time when the Rolling Stones' Brown Sugar was deemed too sexual for young kids. Does anybody care that they bleep out Alanis Morrisette? Even Louie Louie got in trouble for it's lyrics.

When Trooper came out with the song Raise a Little Hell, Randy Bachman wanted to change it to Raise a Little Howl.

From the article, I seem to gather that they are putting teachers ahead of hedge fund managers. And saying that hedge fund managers should pay more taxes to subsidize teacher salaries.

First of all, the fact that New Jersey has a large amount of wealthy people benefits New Jersey. States in the mid-west that have a lower share of wealthy people see less investment in their states. Less sales tax revenue, less property tax revenue, less people in general. Businesses don't grow in the mid-west like they do in the north east states or some of the southern states.

A hedge fund manager has less time off than a teacher does. Hedge fund managers are up at 4AM, studying/preparing for the day. Then it's insane stress from market open to market close. Once the market closes, there are after hours trades, foreign markets in Europe and Asia that operate while the average American is asleep. A hedge fund manager will be up until after midnight reading and planning. Who here has had a phone call telling them that the order they placed at 1PM today has gone down in value by $400,000? There's a reason most hedge fund managers retire by age 40. It's just too stressful an occupation to keep up. People are fickle. They'll pull their money from your fund if you have 1 bad year, nevermind that the last 5 years might have been great. You have to consistently beat the market to keep your customers. If you have customers who want their money back, you have to sell large amounts of stock quite possibly at a loss. This doesn't help your other customers. Of course the opposite problem happens when you're too successful. Your activity will start to move the stock itself. And it takes larger and larger bets to make a percentage back than it does for the average VisaJourney person who might be placing a few hundred dollars on a stock.

But more importantly, it's not the hedge fund person who got bailed out by the taxpayer. It's the large financial companies themselves. Who's fault is this? The person getting bailed out? Or the person who bailed them out? If you spoil your kids and buy them new cars when they turn 16, is it the kids' fault for asking for a new car? Or is it the parent's fault for spoiling them?

So what value do traders provide? Answer: The same benefit that somebody saving for retirement does. They're providing capital ($$$) into companies so that the companies can grow. The companies employ people. They make products. They buy new equipment. They update their machinery. If you owned stock in Ford, you helped them build cars and provide jobs. If you owned stock in Wells Fargo, you were helping them loan out money to people who would then try to better themselves or their company with that loaned money. Same way if you simply deposit money into a bank savings account. They pay you a tiny sum in interest and protect your money while at the same time loaning out money to people/businesses for higher interest.

The invisible hand refers to individuals serving their best interests by buying products for the cheapest amount and sellers selling their product for the highest amount. Where the two meet is the sale price. The invisible hand describes how the two parties benefit the entire society as a whole when this happens. Think how computers have gotten cheaper and made our lives easier and more beneficial. How an electronic calculator costs $5. Good businesses survive. Bad ones don't. There is no loser in the sale of goods because if there was, that side wouldn't participate.

Now if you don't want to pay money to companies, you don't have to. If you don't want to support Johnson & Johnson, then don't buy their band-aids or tylenol. If you don't like Wells Fargo, go to some other bank or credit union. Or put your money in a shoe box. You don't have to support them. Of course when government gets involved and subsidizes big business, you have no choice in the matter, other than to vote out the person who voted for it.

To think of it another way, these companies that are paying stupid high bonuses and having lobster/caviar luncheons are hurting themselves in the process. That's money they could have used in a more prudent way. Same way as people who spend lavishly on cars and expensive wine at home rather than eating cheaply and driving a paid off used car.

Traders simply want to make money by investing money into companies that will grow. If you eliminated this, you'd also eliminate 401k's, IRAs, and Roths. And we'd all be stuck with Social Security and personal piggy bank savings as our only means for saving for retirement.

School teachers are in a tough situation. The government has a monopoly as employer. And as such there really isn't much a NJ teacher can do other than move to another state that pays more. But even then, you still have the same government employer monopoly going on. Colleges and Universities can pay more because they have a competitive reason to pay their staff more. At least school teachers tend to enjoy their jobs and want to keep them until retirement. In today's world where we change professions often, it's nice that teachers can stay teachers until the end of their working career. And despite arguments about taking work home and coming to work early, it has to be nice to have the summer off, all the holidays off, weekends off.

Hey, that was a good era for America. The entire first world actually looked up to America back then. Crime was low and you didn't have the ghettos, no-go zones, ghost towns throughout America. The wealthy paid 90 percent in income tax and it was treason to think you could sell out your country or its people for a profit. Entertainers were not idolized or paid 5,000 times the average American. Neither kid or parent had to worry about being kidnapped in broad daylight or some fanatic trying to destroy their government, because they disagree with it. The nostalgia goes on and on. However, this is 2010 and both America and the world has changed. For some it's been an awesome change, while others have severely regressed and turned into crapholes.

The wealthy paid 90%? Not quite....

In 1910, there was no personal income tax. There was a 1% corporate income tax on corporate income above $5,000. Personal income taxes started in 1913. The top tax bracket in 1913 was 7%. And that was on personal income above $500,000.

I can't say as this changes anything for me. I never know when a movie is going to be released for rental anyways. If it's available, it's available. If it's not, it's not.

Besides, I'd rather rent from Amazon/Blockbuster on my Tivo account than pay Netflix money every month even if I don't rent anything. With Amazon/Blockbuster, you don't pay unless you rent something. My movie viewing is sporadic. Might rent 3 movies in a month. Might go 3 months without renting anything.

I've wondered how we're supposed to claim sales tax here in Texas. There is no state income tax, hence no state income tax form to fill out.

Massachusetts got in a tizzy with New Hampshire awhile back. People from MA were going shopping in NH (no sales tax in NH) and thus MA was losing out on sales tax revenue. So they asked one of the tire shops in NH to charge MA sales tax to residents from MA and then send that sales tax money back to MA. It went to court and Massachusetts lost.

Danno this is the biggest horseshit I have read in a while. For starters, DMV is not a customer service agency.

Darn right the DMV isn't a customer service agency. I had to wait 2 hours in their stuffy sweaty lobby the last time I went there.

Here is my favorite "myth" about capitalism.

• Goldman Sachs pays out $16,000,000,000 in bonuses in 2009
• Goldman Sachs is charged with deliberately defrauding investors.
• Goldman Sachs just announces an additional $5,000,000,000 in bonuses.

Yeah, and the NY Yankees have the biggest payroll in all of baseball. But I don't care because I don't have to support the Yankees. I do have to support Goldman Sachs though. It's only because of the taxpayer bailout to Goldman Sachs that people are pissed off about all their high end bonuses. This is anti-capitalism. Nobody cares that Apple makes a ton of money on their I-products or that Samsung or Sony make a lot of money selling TV's. We're not subsidizing them.

What I mean is that free enterprise and competition works to promote improved efficiency, service, value and product quality until there are too few players left and monopolies begin to dominate. When that happens then consumers are taken advantage of and a few become very rich while the losers in the business arena pay dearly. There are examples everywhere - and why most anti-trust legislation is in place. Microsoft is a prime example where no real competition remains. Goldman Sachs may also fit this category. It is much the same in the agriculture industries where huge agronomic companies dominate and farms get larger and larger. Many if these institutions then become "too big to fail" because of their impact on the GNP and on the lives and financial stability of so many.

I am not sure what this all means. But I see it as a serious flaw in Capitalism and free market economies. This system has produced tremendous gains for us all, but at the point of maturity serious problems can develop.

Monopoly exists more often WITH the help of government. If we had a 100% tariff on all foreign made cars, we'd mostly buy American cars. Who gets the most farm subsidies from government? Rich farm owners. Who gets the least? Small farm owners. So government is knowingly working against anybody who wants to get into farming by helping out the big farms.

Microsoft does have a large share of the operating system market. But Apple is just as strong in that area. It's not as big of an issue because most of us use the product every day but only pay for it once. I'm using XP. It's a 9 year old operating system. Microsoft isn't the money machine it used to be. I wouldn't be surprised to see operating systems released for free on a larger scale in the future. It wasn't that long ago that Netscape Navigator had as much domination in the web browser world as Microsoft does in the operating system world. And you had to pay to use Netscape. One need only look at how much money Google makes despite offering free search, free email, free picture viewers etc.

Getting back to Goldman. We watched as their competition went bankrupt and was allowed to fail. But we propped up Goldman with bailout money. This is another example of government induced monopoly.

On topic, a federal GST / VAT would be great for the country. It would eliminate a number of the present loopholes and even ensure illegal aliens paid their 'fair share' of tax. Much like it's implementation in AUS, as the government's debt starts to go down, they could then start to lower income tax. Interestingly enough, it's the conservatives that implemented the GST in AUS, while the left wing opposed it and preferred the US style sales tax they previously used. A 5% rate would be more than enough to begin with here.

In Canada, GST was brought in by the conservatives. The next election, the conservative party was crushed. Liberals took over on the election promise to get rid of GST.

Fast forward 10 years down the road, the federal election had the liberals, who wanted to cut personal income taxes. While the conservatives wanted to lower the GST......The conservatives won.

So I guess the conservatives are the party of the low-middle class while the liberals are the party of the rich.

The "How much more do we plan to 'punish' the rich for being successful?" line is pretty much played when you look at the reality in the good old USA. 20 percent of the population directly controls an astonishing 85 percent of the wealth. The real question is how much more do we feel the rich need to benefit?

The problem with the stats about this group "controls" this much of the money while this group "controls" this much of the money is irrelevant. Nobody controls anything. If Bill Gates walks into the grocery store next to you, he's not controlling your money any more than if Joe Q Public is standing next to you. Just because somebody else has more money doesn't mean you have less.

Check out the "Fair Tax" proposal.

These guys claim we can eliminate income and FICA taxes (and thus the IRS)

completely and replace them with a 23% Federal sales tax. The results are

supposedly tax revenue neutral.

No-one will pay a single dime in taxes until they've taken care of their basic

needs - everyone will get a universal "prebate".

Fairtax isn't a 23% sales tax. It's 30%. They are the biggest sneeks about this. They want to replace an income tax with a sales tax. But then refer to the sales tax rate by using income tax jargon. Example. You buy something that costs $100 before tax. With the Fairtax it will cost you $130. The Fairtax people will say "Well you're paying 23%. Because 23% of 130 is $30."........But we all know what just happened. It was a 30% sales tax that just occured. I don't buy their argument that since you're replacing an income tax system, that you should rate it in income tax terms. The reality is that if you're replacing an income tax with a sales tax, it should follow the same sales tax math as any other sales tax. If your state sales tax rate is 8%, do you think of it as 8%? Or as 7.4%?

Fairtax is interesting. But I don't get why used things wouldn't be taxed. Also, I can see the lobbyists pounding on the doors in DC to get their special interest not taxed. Or taxed at a lower rate. Houses, hybrid cars, energy efficient household goods, university tuition. The list goes on and on. There will need to be a FRS (Fairtax Revenue Service) in order to audit all companies to make sure they're actually charging the tax. The underground market will continue.

At the end of the day, we're still looking at paying 3-4 trillion dollars a year to the federal government somehow. I don't really care if the money comes out of my left pocket or my right. It's still coming out.

Still very similar. The problem with Capitalism is that wealth tends to get concentrated into a small percentage of the population. Progressive tax policies are just like any other tax scheme in the sense that they encourage or discourage some types of behavior. One of main reasons why we had such a large Middle Class in the 50's was because of our progressive tax policies discouraged companies paying out lofty sums of money to their top executives. Now we have a huge disparity between the rich and poor in this country and the free market capitalists tell the working class its simply their fault for not working hard enough.

1950's? Who would want that tax system? In 1955 there were 24 tax brackets and the tax rates ranged from 20% to 91%. The large middle class that we think of back then would be poverty in today's world. 1400 sq ft houses where couples had 5 children. 1 family car. Eat out two to three times a year. Capitalism has improved our living standards over the last 50 years.

Is there anybody who honestly believes that we're undertaxed? And that the spenders in D.C. spend wisely and thrifty on spending projects? The debate shouldn't be Bush vs Obama or 35% vs 39%. The debate should be simply what is a reasonable amount of money to collect on income tax and what should those rates be. What do YOU think YOUR own tax rate should be? Personally I don't think income taxes are a smart thing. They discourage work. They discourage growth. Doesn't matter if you're making 30K or 300K. Ask anybody who puts in the effort to work overtime how much difference their taxes are on their paystub.

In 1999, we spent 1.6 trillion dollars. I don't see what the benefits of spending twice that much now are.

I've got an indoor antenna but it doesn't pick up much except one channel and sometimes there's a couple other channels. We don't get the snow but with digital, we get frozen images or just a black screen. It's gotta be an outside antenna and fairly close to a city. We don't watch much TV so I haven't bothered to stick an antenna outside and we watch Netflix movies which isn't bad at a dollar a movie and can see movies I've never seen before.

Had people try to sell us cable and they find it hard to believe we don't want 500 channels and on any of their "deals".

Try tvfool.com and see what's available for channels in your area.

Walk into a room full of girls and in your best Beastie Boys impression yell: "HEY LADIES"

That always gets them smilin...

How about Jerry Lewis impression instead?

Next time I'll refer to them as old ladies, just to rub it in.

If the antenna is in an area where others can't get to (like a private deck), there is nothing your landlord can do. It is a federal law that you are allowed to have an antenna in private outdoor areas.

The all channels must be digital rule has done wonders for the over the air antenna world. What used to be snowy and meshed colours is now pure and perfect. I ditched cable and went with an antenna. Get about 50 channels. I bought a Tivo for the antenna and it's worth it's weight in gold. Records all my fav TV shows and movies. Records movies based on actor wishlists. Today I hooked it up to Blockbuster and Amazon online, so now I can rent (download) movies right to the Tivo. It has a Netflix option too, but I don't want to pay a monthly fee. Hence why I like Amazon and Blockbuster. There is no fee unless you actually rent something.

Not enough.

In FY 2008, IRS collected $2.7 trillion in total taxes, of which $1.8 trillion was personal income taxes+FICA.

That's income tax and FICA tax. I was referring to just income taxes.

You know what? I bet the majority of people there still won't vote for Obama next election.

Although I was more inclined to spend 1 trillion by eliminating income taxes on everybody for one year than I was to spend 700 billion on the stimulus, at least there is some good coming out of it. Better than how we spent the money in Houston. Our stimulus money went into converting HOV roads into toll roads.

ehealthinsurance.com

Compare different health care plans and see if it's better to choose one outside your employer provided one. Just don't forget that employer health care is pre-tax while your own separate plan probably won't be. Look into Health Savings Accounts too.

The short term health insurance plans will be cheaper and are usually good for 12 months (most can be renewed). BUT and this is the big but, anything that happens to you while on a short term plan will count as a pre-existing clause if you go for regular insurance in the future. If you're on regular insurance the whole time, this won't/shouldn't happen.

The trouble I have with high deductible/low cost insurance isn't the deductible. I can live with a $3,000-$5,000 deductible. It's the lack of MRI/Xray insurance that they typically don't have. A simple MRI can cost thousands of dollars paid out of pocket.

We have 4 different insurance plans to choose from at my work. The cheapest one has the following rates every two weeks: $80 single/$140 couple/$190 family....... We pay 25%, the company pays the other 75%. So using the family rate that I'm on, I pay $190 and the company pays $570 bi-weekly. That $190 I pay is not taxed.

My wife's old health insurance plan at her job is $900/month for single coverage. Worker pays $85 bi-weekly (not tax deductible). To add me would have been $725/month out of my pocket. And her plan was a 3K deductible. Our/my plan is $200 deductible. (I work for a hospital, hence pretty good coverage)

I almost wish our coverage was worse and cheaper. Some sort of "lite" plan. I could live with a $1000 deductible if it meant I was forking over $100 instead of $190 every two weeks.

What a bizarre twist to go into whiffle ball and tether ball....

I had a good debate with my parents last night. They live in Canada. Dad got a motorcycle last summer. Mom is getting one this upcoming summer. So I had them both on the phone and asked them if they thought people should have to wear a helmet on a motorcycle.

Dad: Should be up to the rider. I went for a drive around the neighbourhood without one and couldn't believe how much more alert I was. Could see more peripheral. And it was a much more pleasant ride.

Mom: Absolutely not! Because if you screw up, we have to pay for it.

At this point I said that in Texas, you can legally ride without a helmet if you meet one of the following criteria.

1) You have $10,000 in medical insurance on your motorcycle insurance plan.

2) You've taken a motorcycle safety course.

It's hard to characterize an entire country's way of thinking when both the USA and Canada are so large and have different areas. NOBODY has ever accused Newfoundlanders of being rude..... Toronto? Hahahaha

I almost find things are too nice in Texas. At work (hospital) EVERYBODY says sir and maam to coworkers in different departments. For me, sir and maam has always been more for use talking to older people or in customer service. But not to co-workers. And everybody is so darned talkative in the morning. Oh hi, how are you!!! (Me: Ugh, it's 6AM. Just nod or say hi). Maybe it's because I used to work for Germans when I lived in Canada. 5AM shift start. You said hello when you walked in the door and then you went to work. Nobody said anything to each other until around 8AM. Partly because it was early. Partly because there was a lot of work to be done. Personally I like this style. I come to work to work, not to socialize. And I want to get on the go and start working as soon as I get there.

Back to Texas....I got my head chewed off the other day. I walked in and said "hi girls" to a group of females that I work with every day. They turned to me in disgust and said "don't call us girls, we're ladies."

Now where I'm from (BC), girls is a friendly saying towards co-workers. A youthful happy way of describing a group. Ladies is more for senior citizens and separate groups of people that you don't really belong to. Same with males. I liked it when my boss would come in and say hey boys, hows it going today?

It's really a mistake to refer to it as an "income" tax. It's really more of a family tax. Except that the bigger your family, the less you pay. I don't think there should be any deduction for children. This is a personal choice and it's not related directly to your income production (ie your job).

I do find it rather backwards when a co-worker of mine who's wife stays at home, have two kids, and got $4500 back from the IRS. Meanwhile my wife and I (both working) owe nearly $1500. Co-worker bought a 50" TV a few months back. Meanwhile I'm using a Craig's List 27" TV that we bought for $25. I pay for family health care at work (wife's grown son is nearly to the cut off point in age). Co-worker has single coverage and medicaid for his wife and kids. So even though we do the same job, I pay more for health insurance and more in income taxes. I work overtime every week.

Ever notice that poor people with multiple kids often are unmarried? They get a better tax deal if both people file Head of Household and then each deduct children.

Friedman can take part of the credit for the EITC. But his idea was for a negative income tax. Similar but different. He also was for getting rid of welfare, government subsidized housing, medicaid etc. The idea being that the extra money gained by low income workers by the negative income tax could pay for things like traditional health care.

Or the third option - support children's health care and make smokers like you pay for it.

I think people with Ronald McDonald avatars should pay more tax to support kids.

So, what we're saying here is that Toyota was perfectly within their rights to sell cars that accelerate as they wish and happen to have failing steering and breaking systems. Ain't the governments god damn problem what Toyota sells as perfectly safe vehicles, is it?

As a privately owned company, it's within Toyota's best interests to sell vehicles that are safe. Hence why they're opening dealerships 24/7 top fix the problems. If Toyota simply did nothing, they would/will lose future sales. Just as people expect that Marlboro and Winston will sell cigarettes that aren't laced with broken glass, motor oil, cyanide etc. In fact that's one of the primary reasons people are for legalizing drugs. That it would lead to safer drug use due to standards being involved. Nobody is afraid of buying Tylenol. But you'd think twice before buying a homemade pill from somebody's vehicle trunk that is supposed to get rid of a headache.

This thread has taken multiple different arguments. As far as the topic of smokers causing costs to healthcare, there are already solutions at hand. Smokers pay higher health insurance premiums and higher life insurance premiums already. High taxes on cigarettes exist *supposedly) to pay for future health care costs. Smoke 1 pack a year? You pay a small amount in taxes. Smoke 2 or 3 packs a day. You pay more in taxes. But smokers have no more business paying for children's health care than immigrants should if the government decided to raise green card fees to $5,000 in order to pay for children's health care. Heaven forbid that we actually put the responsibility towards the parent for paying for their children's health insurance.

Plenty of things in society cause others's to pay for costs. A 16 year old is more likely to get in a car accident (thus causing other's to pay through insurance) than a 40 year old person is. People who drink wine or beer or eat ice cream or drink anything other than water are more likely to be unhealthier. But the food vs smoking vs drinking debate is for another topic. If you have 8 brothers and 5 sisters, your family is causing a greater burden on society to pay for their schooling.

The absurdity of not being allowed to smoke outside in certain sections always amazes me. Whether it's the 25 ft rule outside a door or whether it's not being allowed to smoke outside at a restaurant. Take the restaurant example. First they say you can't smoke inside. So the smokers go outside. Then the non-smokers complain because all the nice outside seats on the deck or street areas are taken by the smokers. Quit being greedy! I'm more annoyed by the smell of diesel buses and the stench of gridlocked traffic than I am somebody sitting outside smoking a cigarette.

My wife's solution is to arm all the women over there with guns.