Jenksismyhero

Keep in mind that's a Cleveland writer...

How is God bless America even on there? That's a 100 guarantee.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 03:36 PM) Interest on student loans could very well fall into education-related expenses. And the child care deduction also only covers up to $5000 a year. Not sure about other cities, but in Chicago, $5000 (which is a little over $400 a month) doesn't begin to touch the cost of typical day care centers. Where do you get the 5k? I thought it was 20% of total costs? Edit: nm. You're talking about the FSA. I gotta do the math to see if it's better to take the child care tax credit. We're going to end up spending 19,500 on daycare a year. F'n ridiculous. Anyone want to be a nanny?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 02:16 PM) The poor play plenty of taxes and fees: You're college-educated with an advanced degree in law. You own a home and have a retirement fund. That's not average. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not average. I meant generally. The majority of people own their home (not outright, but have their name on the title). Most people in my generation have some college debt. Most people in my spot in life (married, settled) start having kids, etc. I don't see why we need to get rid of those small incentives just so the tax code becomes more clear. It's a simple check list like I said before. Do you have X, then Y.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:54 PM) This. I hate the fact that everytime Terrence Mallick makes a movie, he has to get nominated. I don't watch his stuff after he hacked up Thin Red Line and feel his movies are slowly paced and dull. Wonderfully shot, but not very watchable. The New World was also a great piece of poop. Great idea, terrible execution. Bored me to tears (and i'm an early America's/general history nerd)

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 02:02 PM) You said that your money earned you an additional $3000, not that your initial capital was $3000. That $3000 that you now have has never been taxed, only your original investment money was. That original already-taxed money isn't subject to another tax. Ok I see what you meant.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:53 PM) Jenks, do you see how everything you're proposing is blatantly self-serving? edit: That doesn't mean it's wrong, necessarily, it's just that every deduction you can take should be kept, your rates should be lowered, and others's rates should be increased. Oh sure I do, but I think I represent the average American for the most part (albeit slightly young) - I'm married. I own a home. I have college/post-college debt. I'm about to have a kid in 5 months. I have a car. I pay for my own insurance. I contribute to my own retirement fund. I'm not anywhere near "poor" and i'm not anywhere near "wealthy." Etc. Etc. On average I'd say I contribute the most to the "economy" and so I should get those various deductions to assist paying a third of my income to the government, along with every other fee and tax I pay in my daily life that others don't pay (the poor) or the others that are able to dodge it/have no beef paying it since it's such a small amount compared to their overall income (the rich). I'd have no problem putting those deductions into some kind of tax bracket requirement btw. In fact that might even be best.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:50 PM) It's a tax on earned money. You can phrase "selling your labor" as "being smart with your time" and get the same results. But that $3000 was never taxed before. I think this is a good opportunity to post this again: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_589.pdf The bottom 90% of Americans hold a whopping 10.6% of stock value in this country (pg 51). The bottom 90% owns 18.8% of direct/indirect stock e.g. 401k's, but those are already given preferential tax treatment. Both yours and NSS's plans explicitly exclude the top brackets from further cuts, so I don't have a huge problem there. It wouldn't amount to much of a hit against revenues, but again it's a cut that wouldn't much at all for 60% of the country (pg 58 for breakdown of stock ownership by wealth category). Yes it was. I earned money. I invested that money. It's been hit with both state and federal income tax before I put it to use. It gets taxed again if that money makes more money. I'm all about RAISING taxes on the top bracket. I'm also all about REDUCING middle tax brackets and shoring up spending (from subsidizing the poor/old to worthless defense spending)

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:41 PM) See, now you've hit on the big issue in NSS's setup. He's tried to make Congress limit itself to 5 deductions. The immediate response is that getting rid of one of the current deductions is "Ludirous", and you've put in 2 big deductions already. If we're allowing deductions in the first place, and we've got a system where people are regularly buying Congresspeople (as we currently have), then the current deduction mess is pretty much the logical result. even if Congress tried to limit deductions, the next Congress can just discard those limits. I guess I don't have much problem with all the deductions. They're given as little "thanks for contributing positively on society" gifts. What's wrong with that? Turbo Tax does the work for me, I don't find it all that confusing. "Did you do X? Great! You get to do Y now." Pretty simple.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:37 PM) Any tax is a drag on some portion of society...but clearly, I'm of the philosophy that there is substantial societal gains that can be produced by things like an army and quality health care. So the question we're effectively asking is what things do we want to advantage relative to others. If you raise income taxes relative to investment, you are giving a big boon to people who invest a lot relative to people who don't have funds to invest. This can be a good thing if it encourages effective investment, or a bad thing if it destroys every part of the economy that isn't related to investment. And I think you know which of those I'll say we're closer to. There's also a detriment to subsidizing a large portion of our society, including the poor and the old. Maybe if people weren't taxed/fee'd to death they'd be able to provide for themselves a little more.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:26 PM) Here is the NSS tax plan... First, reduce the number of income tax brackets to four, and lower all the rates except the top bracket (you will see why later)... On singles... 0-36k: 5% 36k-90k: 15% 90k-200k: 25% 200k+: 35% Married similar relatively. Throw out the ENTIRE current book for personal deductions and credits, and replace it with a 5-item rule. Congress can have enacted, at any given time, only 5 deductions or credits. If they want to add one, they need to remove one. This not only greatly simplifies the tax code, it also allows the overall rates to drop, while maintaining the SAME LEVEL OF OVERALL PERSONAL INCOME TAX REVENUE (my numbers above are guesstimates, but they should be tuned to that goal). Furthermore, by using this 5-item rule, it prevents the tax code from going right back to where it is now - a convoluted mess. But still allows Congress to make a few tweaks based on current needs. The five I might pick currently, for example, could be: --Deduction for any education or day-care related spending, with no cap --Deduction for mortgage interest on one home only --Deduction for all charitable contributions, no cap, but only at the equivalent effective rate of that bracket of income to the individual --Child credit per child, similar to how it is now --All property, state and local taxes deductible, much as it is now Short term capital gains should follow the income tax brackets, much as they do now. Long term capital gains should be 10% on the first 100k of distributions or realized P&L in a given year, and 20% on all above that level. Business taxes, like personal taxes, scrap ALL current deductions and credits, and again allow for a 5-item rule. Use the total amount of current tax revenue from businesses as your target for total, adjust for the 5 items, and make a flat corporate income tax rate lower as a result. This should decrease the tax burden for most corporations on their income, while preventing a situation like the one GE has. My current 5 items might look like this: --A deduction for each new employee hired and retained in the US for the full year (using a full head count invoice) --Deduction for all charitable contributions --Deduction for any spending directly on facilities or services related to family treatment in the workplace beyond legal requirements: child care, maternity/paternity leave granted, etc. (the etc would need to be clarified of course) --Special credits for employing energy-use-reducing facilities or items, where the credit is a % rate of total spent on the items (alt energy, building retrofitting, HVAC equipment above ratings levels, etc.) --Something else A slight expansion on the definition of income is also needed - things like carried interest and other short term tricks that look like long term gains but aren't, need to be captured under short term gains. Finally, keep the currently lowered soc security tax rate, but remove the cap entirely, with all funds going to shore up Soc Sec fund. This plan keeps the tax revenues neutral, except for shoring of Soc Sec, increased revenue from a stablized top bracket rate coupled with removing some deductions and credits, and the extra income from income definition recapture, which can be used to further reduce the deficit. The spending side then needs to be further addressed to balance the budget, but that is another matter. I'd support the vast majority of this. Though I'm not sure why something like deducting interest on college loans is taken out. That's a good thing. That's providing an incentive for people just like deductions for businesses who hire new employees. And I'd remove the cap. $2500 bucks isn't enough. You reminded me of the day care expense, which i'll be utilizing next year. Only 20% is deductible? Ludicrous. Up that to 50% or more.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:28 PM) Having the tax rate be the same on investments as on labor doesn't "Limit middle class investments solely to retirement"...it just treats that income like any other income. Well, that begs the question of whether there should be any "income" tax. It's all a penalty.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:17 PM) This begs a question..."Is this the most effective way to encourage this class of wage earners to invest in retirement funds". If it is not, then even if it disadvantages that type of investment, it's not punishment, because it'd be better for the country if people went elsewhere. A good comparison would be 401k/IRA style retirement accounts, which are currently given huge tax advantages. But you don't want to limit middle class investments solely to retirement. I just think it's unfair that if i earn 3k on my investments this year i gotta pay 450 bucks. That's essentially a penalty for being smart with my money.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 11:09 AM) Long Term Cap Gains are ZERO if you are in the 15% or lower income bracket, 15% if above. Short Term follow the income rates. Estate tax has a $5M exemption, and above that has a sliding scale up to 35%. Corp Taxes are highly convoluted by credits and deductions, and I won't even list all the credits and deductions for them or individuals. I'd make cap gains zero unless you fall into the top 2 tax brackets. Even at the 25-28%, that's squarely in the "middle class." Why punish those people for being smart enough to invest their left over dollars to earn some more money? It's not like they're making a fortune off that. Increase the top brackets if need be, but leave the middle class alone. On a similar note, i'd drop the 15-28% to 12-23% (or more) and increase the top two brackets. I'd change the credit/deduction system for any domestic corp. dodging taxes here (GE, for example). Heavy tax incentives for domestic companies and especially small domestic companies.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 11:13 AM) Flip Saunders canned. The Wizards are just a mess. When they played the Bulls a week or so ago you could tell the players were ignoring him. Pretty sad.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 09:39 AM) My question is, why exactly are they booing him? -Because he was involved in the "sham" of a wedding? -Did he treat Kim like s*** or come off as an ass? -Or are they just laughing at him for getting involved with that crazy family? From what my wife explained to me last night (she also chimed in that she "hates that guy") he came off as a really big asshole on that show. So, despite Kim Kardashian being one of the worst people on the face of the earth, they (women) all still love her and hate anyone that makes her upset. And apparently he did.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 09:15 AM) A never-ending extension of copyright protections to enable limitless rent-seeking? Absolutely! It's hard to make an argument that these sorts of extensions are inline with the intent behind patents and copyrights. It's not really an extension, it's a new means of enforcement. And even though you're worried about the doomsday prophecy, it's not happening.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 08:27 AM) Of course it is. The only big change was Hamilton over Bogans, which is a massive upgrade. Brewer finding a consistent 15-18 foot jump shot has been a big change too.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 23, 2012 -> 05:31 PM) Then my next question following that would be...why should I believe that current levels of copyright protection are the best ones? They've been changed many, many times historically. They started at 28 years when this country was founded, and now are at 95 years, and will be expanded again before 2023. No one is saying that content creators should have no right to own their own goods...but there have to be appropriate limits in terms of both efforts of enforcement and levels of control...and trying to cite the poor artist working hard for the production of their art as an argument suggests that at present, the person arguing that either believes copyrights should be infinitely protected or that copyright enforcment is currently not strong enough. Isn't that EXACTLY what the entertainment industry is asking for?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 23, 2012 -> 05:24 PM) Let me turn around and ask you this... Should this website be shut down for 2k5 posting the full text of a tweet? If you want it a different way, I'm trying to ask you if you think copyright protections should be effectively infinite, and that protection of copyrights ought to be the largest priority of the government. If you're willing to put any limits at all on how far the government should go to protect copyrights, then the argument needs to be about where to put that line. Everyone in this thread has agreed that this is a bad idea, and given that now both SOPA and PIPA are off the table for the time being, it's looking likely that the whole domestic side that the "internet industry" was worried about isn't going to happen.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 23, 2012 -> 05:10 PM) You can very easily import pirated music into iTunes. Yet iTunes still remains very, very successful. This indicates that, had the music industry not stupidly fought against the trends in the late 90's and early 00's, they'd be doing even better than they are now. Piracy was and is extremely easy in a post-Napster world. Napster was a giant PITA compared to what you can do now. But I still think "piracy" in the form of file-sharing software (free) to itunes (a dollar) was the natural progression which allowed the digital distribution model to work. I don't see how the recording industry having it's own digital "store" would have stopped piracy. They would not have created the .99 model that Itunes did.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 23, 2012 -> 05:02 PM) iTunes seems amazingly successful even though it was years behind Napster. Little to do with the availability of music and 100% due to the little proprietary device called the Ipod that was crazy successful. From that point forward Apple locked in customers to Itunes because it is/was too much of a pain to transfer music to any non-Ipod device (and for a while you couldn't at all). Edit: and it was also after all of the Napster/Livewire file-sharing court cases were in the news and/or decided.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 23, 2012 -> 04:34 PM) Unfortunately, they realized this far too late and after fighting against digitization. If they had realized this years earlier and implemented their own digital distribution systems, they may have headed off a good portion of the piracy. As it is, consumers wanted easy, instant access to their entertainment options and it was provided by Napster, Limewire, torrenting etc. Come on.... assume the recording industry came up with it's own digital distribution system and charged X amount for content. It'd be competing against Napster/Limewire and torrenting sites which offered all of the same content for FREE (and without criminal or civil penalties since everyone thought it was still legal and legit file sharing). Who would have won?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 23, 2012 -> 04:03 PM) Yes, they certainly do. However, what is the end result of that in terms of actual prices of music? Do we actually see things like prices fluctuating depending on sales? Do we actually see prices varying substantially between artists depending on demand? Do we see substantial moves in prices depending on how an artist is selling? Heck, do we see different prices for the early-adopters for an album versus the people who decide to buy an album after hearing it on the radio 50 times? There is uniformity. You pay about the same price per song on itunes that you pay for an actual CD. You might save a dollar or two if you buy an album on an opening week sale, and that's about it. You don't see deep discounting to move merchandise after a CD has been on the market for 4 years (like you do with movies, for example). You don't see variation in prices between bands who sell 50k copies and 5 million copies. Everything is uniform. And even beyond that, the price of music has barely changed since I bought my first CD's back in the early 90's. The prices are totally uncompetitive. They don't go down if music sales go up, they don't go up if music sales go down. The problem is you really can't say one way or the other because of the way it all worked out. Pirating was/is huge for the college crowd, and it was especially big back in the early 00's. The advent of Itunes and the cheap .99 per song price point probably saved the music industry a ton of money (and they knew this) because people were willing to part with a few bucks for a few of their favorite songs and not make the illegal/immoral decision to take it for free. And as for the bolded, there is a movement towards paying more for premium/high demand content. Itunes just recently (last year or two) upped the price for new releases/popular releases to 1.29 and even 1.99 per song instead of the standard .99.

Translation: "Our business is dying and we need to stop chasing potential readers away by being pro-Democrat with our political coverage."