Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:43 AM) You do have that option on your tax return. The fact is Trump brags about how much he is worth, how great his companies do, yet doesn't pay taxes. If he doesn't have to pay, why do I? See when republicans point out that the poor pay no income tax either, the response is they pay taxes, just in other ways. So does Trump. I'm sure the amount he spends on sales and property taxes is more than our combined income taxes.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:42 AM) Balta, What you posted actually works into the idea of why unemployment will never be 0. Now there can be argument as to what the floor of unemployment may be, but generally speaking for as long as I can remember that range is between 4-6%. The reason is that while Job A may be available, there are certain workers who just dont want it. Whether its because the pay isnt good, whatever. So lets say they increased minimum wage, that would increase the amount of people who would work Job A, but there also would likely be a decrease in jobs available. So it would likely be a net wash. The only way to counteract this is to give extra incentive to break the cycle. IE You get some sort of tax break if you hire X amount of employees. You get some sort of tax break if you dont lay off X% of employees etc. Unless you create incentives, it will simply be a shell game. I think it would be really tough to create an incentive large enough to offset the costs of hiring employees and providing them the full wages and benefits that people want. Isn't the general rule that you triple an employees wages to get to the real cost of the employee to the employer once you factor in training, insurance and whatnot? (maybe it's double, I can't remember). That's a pretty huge tax incentive you'll have to come up with.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:28 AM) This would at least be directly helping someone. In Jenks' scenario, you should instead take out a home equity loan and then give the cash to The City of Oak Park because you're a hypocrite otherwise. This is akin to people complaining about minimum wage and workers' benefits but balk when companies start to raise prices on their goods. You can complain about the tax cuts favoring the wealthy when they don't need the extra help. But if you're complaining about the poor losing out on certain programs or whatever, and you go ahead and take the benefit of the cut anyway, then yes, you're a hypocrite. If you want to pay more in taxes, do it. Pay more. Don't stick to what you're obligated to pay. Your contribution isn't meaningless if everyone does it.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:18 AM) What do you mean they do nothing? One thing they are doing is trying to change the political structure to help the poor instead of undermine it. Politics is doing something. You know what doesn't do anything? Fishing for hypocrisy on a message board. Hmm...yes this bill is bad, but have you ever passed a homeless person on the street without giving money? Well then you can't complain, you are a hypocrite! If you take the benefit of the tax cut just like the wealthy it is absolutely a double standard to b**** about the fact that the wealthy are being helped. No, you're not getting the same degree of a benefit, but you are getting one relative to your income.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:11 AM) That doesn't do anything to help the poor, though. There's no double standard. The complaint rings a little hollow if you're going to take the benefit of the tax cut and not "give back" or at least continue to pay what you would have paid but for the tax cuts.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:07 AM) An arbitrary number of individuals overpaying by an arbitrary amount is irrelevant to construction of functional and coherent fiscal and social policy. I agree to an extent. By my problem is the double standard here - people complaining about how this tax cut screws the poor while they do nothing. If you want to pay more in taxes, go for it. Take the tax cut you're going to get and give it back to the government. Nothing is stopping you.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 21, 2017 -> 10:05 AM) Do you mean: 1) Pay taxes above what my liability should be? or 2) Pay an effective tax rate that is higher than people making far more than me? Government says you need to pay X. But you pay X and then something additional.

Honest question - how many people here complaining about the tax cuts removing wealth from the lower class pay more in taxes than they actually need to?

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 19, 2017 -> 04:45 PM) There isn’t really anyone to root for. I posted it a few months ago, you should check out this side by side comparison of the actor playing Ed Kemper and the real thing We actually stopped midway through the first or second episode to watch part of his interviews. Pretty disturbing stuff.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 09:05 AM) Just as I was about to buy bitcoin cash they froze it. Insider trading. So obvious. I'm sure Coinbase told its employees not to buy any, so every Coinbase employee told 10 family members/friends to buy instead.

The wife and I are enjoying Mindhunter, but man is it some dark material. Kind of puts you in a bad mood after watching a couple in a row.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 19, 2017 -> 08:11 AM) Fairly. I jumped on a couple of weeks ago and bought some Ethereum, as I feel its a longer play. Also throwing some on the blockchain companies that develop the underlying technology like RIOT and GHAC. That was my thought as well. IF bitcoin tumbles, one of the other is going to take it's place, at least in terms of the next big thing. Bitcoin cash seems like a bust of an idea.

QUOTE (KagakuOtoko @ Dec 19, 2017 -> 08:07 AM) I get 3k weekly, did you guys just recently join? I bought some Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum a few months back but haven't added anything since.

Yikes, want to feel old? Chris Farley died 20 years ago today...

Yeah I used my bank acct since credit cards were limited to like $250 bucks and charged a 4 or 5% fee.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 18, 2017 -> 02:27 PM) Mine didnt take 6 days to go through when I bought. Where did you see that? My last trade was Ethereum on Dec 12th and it posted next dayish Maybe that's just for the first transaction. I've only made one purchase, but it took nearly a week to post.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 18, 2017 -> 09:30 AM) You can get pretty decent returns by just watching Coinbase, hitting on the valleys and dropping on the peaks, they come so fast. Seems like a pretty dangerous gamble with it fluctuating over 1k almost daily. Edit: also transactions take like 6 days to post, so i'm not sure how this could be done anyway.

Also, that was a perfect example of instant replay ruining the game. 100 times out of 100 that is a touchdown without instant replay slowing everything down to a frame by frame shot. In real time, with the naked eye, that was a clear and obvious catch.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 18, 2017 -> 10:33 AM) I very much disagree, he had control with both hands the whole way down and then it moved when it hit the ground. He had made a football move to go into the endzone after having control. Totally agree. My first thought was what a catch. My second thought was, if anything, it was a fumble caused by the ground that he recovered in the end zone. He clearly caught the ball, controlled the ball, made a "football move" with the ball, got a knee down and then "fumbled," which I think is a pretty weak fumble to begin with. The NFL is just terrible. The sport makes no sense anymore. Not only do you have these stupid catch situations, I despise the fumbling forward into the endzone calls that the Bears had earlier this year and Carr had last night for Oakland. When all the rules are skewed towards the offense anyway, why are we penalizing offensive players from making scoring plays? And why should the defense benefit? Everywhere else on the field if you fumble out of bounds you spot the ball where it was fumbled. Why on earth should the endzone, the opposing team's endzone!!!, be any different?

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 15, 2017 -> 02:48 PM) OTOH if I was nominated for a federal judgeship I would have been refreshing pretty hard especially before nominations. This is very true.

As a trial attorney, that was all pretty pathetic and it's sad i'm far more qualified than him to be a judge and i'm 35... However, people are pointing to the wrong things here. Not ever trying a case, never deposing anyone (!), not knowing what a motion in limine is and never arguing a motion before a judge (!!!!!) are the damning parts of his lack of experience. Saying he hasn't read the Federal Rules of Civ Pro or Evidence is not really a big deal. I haven't read either in years and I suspect the vast majority of attorneys/judges out there haven't either. It's a rule book. That's like asking how many professional athletes have read their respective rule books. The answer is virtually none, but you reference it when needed and your experience has provided you with opportunities to read/interpret/use the rules at one point or another. Just because I haven't read it from page one all the way through doesn't mean I don't know or understand the rules more concretely (or that I can't learn through judicial training). I've seen my share of us dist court judges that don't know everything about the law as well as they should, but I also know several absolutely brilliant judges who can spout legal opinions and doctrines like it's nothing (much like Chief Justice Roberts at his confirmation hearings). But a lot of that comes from experience from being a judge, not from being an attorney.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 15, 2017 -> 01:00 PM) This would be a fun discussion in basketball as well. Big Ten basketball is in a weird spot. Lots of movement going on with teams rising and falling.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 15, 2017 -> 01:14 PM) Is there a legit non-throttled plan out there? Seems like all of them throttle once you hit a certain amount of data. I think all are around 22-24 gb's, but who is routinely hitting that mark?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 15, 2017 -> 12:56 PM) The underlying point is that is still not a good result for the consumer So you buy Disney internet or NBC Comcast internet. Both are worse outcomes than a neutral internet. We already see moving carriers, which have a lot more competition than landline ISP's, engaging in throttling or blocking competing services. When you combine the huge hurdles to get into the landline game, it's a complete fantasy that this deregulation will be anything but bad. Or, conversely, the opposite has happened with cell phone carriers. Instead of the companies colluding and getting every dime out of consumers for bad and/or limited service, competition has caused them to open everything up as much as possible. They compete with each other to offer the fastest and most data packages possible. They're not offering you slow, limited data plans, they're offering you fast, unlimited ones. I'm not saying i'm happy about this, i'm just saying I trust the almighty dollar to be more effective than regulation at the end of the day.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 15, 2017 -> 12:43 PM) That means you believe they are a top 3 program in the Big Ten. I disagree. I think they are a solid top 25 program with a good fan base, good facilities, average reputation and below average recruiting base. I do think they COULD be in line to make a few conference title games in that division, but thats about it. I dont think they have a shot in hell at a playoff in the near term. In terms of potential? Absolutely they're top 3. They hit a down period and they're still going bowling every year. IMO right now the big ten is something like (no particular order in each tier): OSU Wisconsin/PSU/Nebraska Michigan St. (though the looming sex scandal is not good) Michigan Iowa Northwestern/Minnesota Illinois/Purdue/Maryland/Indiana Rutgers edit: maybe move Minnesota down to its own level behind Northwestern. Really the last 6 programs are all so terrible it doesn't really matter who is worse at any given time. None are going to do anything special in most years. Each has potential for a once-in-five-years bowl run, but that's about it.