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Five of a kind
Tax them China style
As a nation we are killing ourselves over the budget and the debt
ceiling. Did you see Obama on TV? He looks worn down. He does not have
the power to craft a solution.
That the USA has a consensual process of creating laws is one of the
things that make the country great. It is also one of those things that
just kills us from time to time. Today it is killing “us”, it may well
kill Obama’s chance to get re-elected.
I wonder if we should do this “China Style”. They do it differently.
There is not much debate or discussion. They just print an announcement
in the newspaper. They did just that the other day. So what are income
taxes in China? The answer is they are very high:
The highest bracket of 45% is for anyone earning above $145,000. Of
interest to me is that anyone with an annual income over $64K pays 35%
tax.
This chart looks at US tax liabilities by income group. The highest earners pay an average of about 25%.
If the Chinese marginal rates were applied in the USA it would generate about $1.5 trillion of additional revenue. The budget would be balanced overnight. Of course if the US did something like that it would trigger a massive depression. Why is that?
On underwater housing and unemployment
Reuters has a story out suggesting that there is a shortage of workers:
There
is ample evidence that unemployment is the critical problem today. With
that in mind I found this story to be interesting. Some thoughts:
A) I wonder how much this is a function of the underwater housing market. I hear this all the time:
“I would move to where I could get a better job, but the house is underwater so I’m stuck”
B) Should this trend continue there will have to be some wage increases in the manufacturing sector. That would be welcome, but also inflationary.
Put A and B together and what do you get? Stagflation. That would be Ben Bernanke’s worst nightmare.
On FX Algos
This web site
produced some interesting charts. Some of this I knew from reading Zero
Hedge. Some of it I was not aware of (the extent of this). I find this
very troubling.
This shows that 56% of all NYSE trading is now a result of Algo activity.
$ volume on the NYSE is all over the lot. I find estimates of about $200
billion a day. So $100 billion each day is being traded by the robots.
That’s not new news.
The FX market is going through the same transition as the equities
market. This chart suggest that over 50% of daily turnover is now
computer generated.
But the FX market is a giant compared to stocks. The estimates
are that the FX market volume is more than $4 Trillion each day. (I’m
not sure I trust all these numbers {I think FX turnover is closer to $8T
a day}).
Cut this up as you like. This look at the numbers suggest that as much
as $2 trillion of algo trading is happening in the FX markets every day!
Ten times more in $ terms than all of the NYSE.
Look again at the chart and note that way way back in 2004 Algos represented only 2% of volume. This is exploding.
I’ve noticed that FX markets have been “spikey” all year. I thought it
was just the backdrop of news that was causing the very rapid price
adjustments. Looking closer at what role the robots have in this makes
me re-think that.
I’m not sure when it will happen, but I think the dominance of robots in
FX is going to cause a “flash crash” one day. I just remind everyone
who plays in this sandbox that there will be no “regulator” who will DK
the millions of trades (trillions of dollars) when (not if) this
happens. The losses will be staggering. If you think you can sleep easy
with a stop loss; you're wrong.
Dumb tax breaks
Don’t worry about the railroads. They’re doing just fine. All the
numbers have been moving higher for this group. Trains now move about
45% of all goods. The industry is looking at 100b in revenues and has a
fat (mid teens) profit margin. Ask Warren Buffet. He owns BNSF. He
bought it in 2009, he’s making a fortune.
So why do I bring this up? I saw this and it pissed me off.
So our ‘friends’ who own railroads and are making a fortune are also
getting a tax break from the Feds for new ties that they lay. The tie
business seems to booming as a result.
My point here: We have the absolutely worst tax code that could exist.
We ought to throw the whole thing out the window and start anew. I
doubt that big shots like Warren B would like that very much, so it
won’t happen.
Let them drink water
OJ trading at a record high today. Who cares? Not the Fed.
I’m not blaming the Fed for the high price of orange juice. But I do think it’s a crime that both food and energy prices are exclude from Ben B’s definition of inflation.
I keep expecting the American people to wake up to the realities. They haven’t, yet.
I have confidence that they will at some point. It will take more
record prices for the things we consume for there to be a significant
collective reaction. It’s likely to be ‘noisy’ when it does happen.
The Fed is perpetrating the greatest theft in the history of man. This
will not go un-noticed for much longer. The pendulum is going to swing
the other way for the Fed. Today they have unlimited power and answer to
no one. When the pendulum does swing it will lop off some heads in the
process. I wouldn’t bet on Bernanke’s position in the history books. He
(and the Fed) could end up taking the brunt of the fallout for what is
surely going to come.
»
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Here's the link, http://enc.slider.com/Enc/D9
To Dburn, regarding CAT:
Military applicationsCaterpillar Inc. does not manufacture a military version of the D9 per se, but the attributes that make the D9 popular for major construction projects make it desirable for military applications as well, and in this role – with Israeli modifications and armor – it has been particularly effective for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and later for the United States armed forces (the Marine Corps and the US Army) in Iraq.
Israel
Armored bulldozers are a standard tool of Combat engineering battalions, and the IDF has gained some notoriety for their use of armored tractors for urban warfare in the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Although the Israeli Engineering Corps has used D9 bulldozers since the 1960s (including in the Six Day War and Yom Kippur War), the D9 first rose to public attention in April 2002 during Operation Defensive Shield, later when D9s were used to demolish structures and shrubbery, and through involvement in such incidents as the death of Rachel Corrie. In Israel, the D9 has gained highly favorable reviews — both from the public and from the armed forces — for keeping IDF casualties low and for saving the lives of soldiers.
An IDF Caterpillar D9R bulldozer, nickmamed "????" (teddy bear) in Israel.Its armor allows it to work under heavy fire.
The Israeli Armored D9 – nicknamed Dooby (lit. teddy bear) – is a Caterpillar D9 tractor that was modified by the IDF and Israeli Defense Industries to increase the survivability of the dozer in hostile environments and enable it to withstand heavy attacks. The main IDF modification is the installation of an Israeli-made armor kit which provides armor protection to the mechanical systems and to the operator cabin. The operator is protected inside an armored cabin, with bulletproof windows to protect against bombs, machinegun and sniper fire. The IDF also developed an armor add-on to deflect RPG rounds. The fitted armor package adds roughly 15 additional tons to the production-line weight of the D9. As for many customized packages, individually modified D9s may be found with disparate features, such as crew-operated machine guns, smoke projectors, or grenade launchers. The heavy armor carried by modified D9s allows them to work under heavy fire in dangerous battle-zones and resist mine blasts. The Israeli armor kit has proven to be effective, as no D9 operator was killed during the 4-year long al-Aqsa Intifada.
The Israeli Engineering Corps uses the D9 for a wide variety of engineering tasks, such as digging moats, clearing mines, mounting sand barriers, building fortifications, clearing terrain obstacles and opening routes to Armored fighting vehicles and infantry. On Yom Kippur War the D9s took part in the breaching of the Suez Canal, enabling Israeli forces to go through the canal and surround the Egyptian 3rd Army. In the northern front – an Israeli D9, who opened a route in the snow to elite infantry forces, was the first ever motorized vehicle to reach the highest peak of Mount Hermon. One of the D9's primary roles is to clear landmine fields and booby-trapped areas. It can do it either by the regular heavy blade or by specially-designed mineplows attached in the front.
In urban warfare and counter-terror operations, the D9s has also been used in standoff situations with armed opponents barricaded in buildings, usually rigged with explosives and booby-traps, when no hostages are present. In order not to risk Israeli soldiers, the D9 shakes the house until the barricaded gunmen surrender. After the building is evacuated, the D9 razes the structure in order to detonate and bury any explosives that remain inside. Hamaschief bombmaker and the plotter of the Passover massacre, Case Aduwan, was killed in April 7, 2002, after he was tracked by the SHABAK and the YAMAM and a D9 destroyed the house he was hiding after heavy exchanges of fire. In Hebron, the IDF used the armored D9 to stop the local Hamas leader, Bassal Qawasameh, who shot at the D9 with machinegun, but was killed when the D9 demolished the house where he was hiding. One year after, Imad Qawasameh (who planned the Beer Sheva twin suicide bombing) surrendered to IDF forces, after a D9 started demolishing his house.
This method was also employed vastly in Jenin during Operation Defensive Shield after 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in an ambush, resulting in the surrender of dozens of gunmen without further Israeli casualties. D9s were used in Jenin also to clear booby traps and open rigged doors. Palestinian militants who fought in Jenin admitted it was the D9 who won the battle as it was impervious to their attacks – including large bombs and Rocket propelled grenades(RPGs). See more details at Battle of Jenin 2002.
Armored D9 bulldozers are routinely employed in the Gaza strip as well. Their main tasks there are to detonate largeexplosive charges (such as improvised anti-tank landmines,booby traps and IEDs) and clear safe paths for IDFarmored fighting vehicles and troops. The D9s also demolish houses and clear shrubbery that militants can use as shooting, shelling or bombing cover. The D9s are an essential tool in the IDF campaign against smuggling tunnels inRafah, which are used by militants to smuggle weapons, persons and contraband. Armored D9 bulldozers have demolished many structures in Rafah during battles with militants and operations to uncover smuggling tunnels.
The destruction of hundreds of structures in Rafah is a highly controversial issue. The Israel Defense Forces claim that the destruction of buildings and tunnels is a security necessity and that most houses destroyed were used forterrorist activity. However, Palestinians claim that the destruction has left thousands of people homeless, and is done systematically in order to create a cleared "buffer zone" between Rafah and Philadelphi Route. Protests against this destruction have caused further controversy, through such as incidents as the death of Rachel Corrie.
IDF armored Caterpillar D9 bulldozers inRafah during Operation Rainbow.Human Rights Watch has published a report criticizing the mass demolition in Rafah, in which it argues against many of the IDF's justifications for the destructive activities carried out by D9s. HRW supports Palestinian claims that the existence of tunnels in Rafah is simply being used as a pretext to demolish homes in order to create a "buffer zone". HRW believes that instead of using available and effective technologies for neutralizing tunnels where they cross the border, the IDF is instead undertaking unnecessary and highly destructive incursions into the camp. HRW's report also contends that the extensive destruction of roads, water, and sewage networks by D9 bulldozers is not plausible as an antimine technique, as most of the destruction is wrought using the rear blade of the bulldozer, which would do nothing to protect bulldozers from improvised explosive devices. Instead, HRW claims that the IDF destruction of roads, utilities and civilian structures is vindicative, punitive and illegal. HRW has called on Caterpillar Inc. to suspend sales of D9s and related parts and services to the IDF so long as illegal demolitions continue. The Israeli position regarding operation Rainbow described Rafah as the "Gateway to terrorism". The IDF stressed that "... the IDF traditionally does its utmost to avoid harming the civilian population. It employs infantry forces whenever possible – as opposed to air or artillery strikes – to minimize the possibility of doing unintentional harm. At times, this humanitarian concern comes at the price of risking the lives of soldiers – two of whom were killed last week by Palestinian snipers while helping an elderly woman get food" and claimed that most demolition are carried out against houses which are used by terrorists to shot at IDF forces, and were approved by the Israeli Supreme Court of Justice: "Even though these demolitions were the direct result of terrorist activity – and were thus the responsibility of the terrorists themselves – 46 Palestinian families involved exercised their right to appeal the demolitions to Israel’s High Court of Justice this week. In ruling to allow the demolitions, the court noted that they were permissible due to the overriding need to protect the lives of Israelis."
D9s also took part in demolition of houses of suicide bombers. According to the IDF, the policy of destroying the homes of Palestinian suicide bombers has been established in response to terror groups, backed by countries such asIran, Saudi Arabia and Saddam Hussain's Iraq, offering monetary rewards to Palestinian families who have family members die as suicide bombers. Destroying those homes removes monetary gain as a motive to kill. The house demolition role has been executed with much success by D9s, excavators, and the Israeli Engineering Corpsdemolition experts.
Both military armored D9s and civilian non-armored D9s are being used by Israel's Ministry of Defense in the building of the Israeli West Bank barrier. The main D9 contributions to the project are earthmoving and soil-leveling, clearing a path for the security fence, and digging trenches in front of the security fence.
United States
Any U.S. citizen who has sat down and calculated their own taxes by hand knows that our tax code and laws are a scrambled mixture of "War and Peace", Beowulf, a Kindergarten reader, the Old Testament, and Plumbing code.
Then Taiwan took all the jobs to China as $600/month was just too much. Now they are emptying Chinese factories and sending them to Vietnam. The acceptable wage ratio to switch countries is 10 Workers for every one. 10:1 . When China was at $30 a month it was fine although the quality is something the dog may have vomited out, but as the rising tide of the desire for human survival rises with the rate of inflation, than the 10:1 ratio quickly dissipates when Chinese production workers got unprecedented wage increases( except in the smaller factories)from $30/month to $190 -$290. Note America wasn't even in the running. So now another state run economy , a true communist country , will now see the joys of a rise in lower class wages, a consumer based economy until wage inflation rears it's ugly head. Who's next to offer slave labor to American and Chinese CEOs who consider themselves part of the Globe with no loyalty to any one country.
One has to wonder why CAT is able to make products in America with a stock increase of over 70% in the last year and being one of the largest exporters in the country with American labor. One of the few left standing
Yes, we are all doomed. No one, except us at ZH, know a damn thing about real work. Only we at ZH are smart enough to see what is going on in the world. And no one else in the world has the sense to fix any of the problems that we are confronted with. We are truly fucked. Unless us ZHers get out there, roll up our sleeves and pull the world out of its rut.
But we won't do that will we. Because we are the sort that likes to point out the shortcomings of others. We get a kick out of others misery.
So, the world is just screwed. There is no one with any talent to save ourselves. Until we are all starving and cold and living in caves. Then we will all of a sudden change.
Poor stupid humans!!
gh
Five of a kind. What kind? Debt ceiling and tax rate fights, "dumb" tax code giveaways, inflation, stagflation, unemployment, HFT's destabilizing and dominating markets. All symptoms of cancer!
It occurs to me we have multiple economic cancers. The cancers are oversized, bloated, and corrupted government and TBTF overleveraged risk loving banks and monopolistic megacorporations who have captured the government. They are acting as malignant "tumors" whose overgrowth and the toxic debt, fiat paper money, inflation, tax code and market distortion they spew out is killing our economy, markets, and society. We have let these cancers become too big and now they are destroying us in the same way a tumor crowds out and kills the healthy cells. Don't focus on the symptoms. We have to kill the cancers.
Lets see, what was this country in 1913? Answer: Just another country. And we went on to become a superpower. We are the "leader of the free world". We were instrumental in defeating the Nazi's in ww2, not to mention ww1. We defeated the communists. china went capitalist. Who paid for all of that? Taxpayers, that who. Was that all bad? Don't tell me that taxes are all bad. There is a use for collective actions, and the "government" is us. Raise the taxes on the richest 5%, cut spending on the military, establish a national single payer healthcare system with rational benefits. And join the rational rest of the world!!
the "government" is us.
Pure comedy gold. Come election time you get to vote for a Democrat hack or a Republican hack, both of which are selected by political party operatives and wealthy donors. The whole thing is a ruse to make the sheeple feel as though they have a say in the matter. Question: Which party do you vote for if you don't want the Patriot Act? Or if you don't want to be molested at airports? Or if you don't want our tax dollars bailing out Wall St. thieves? Or if you don't want endless wars? The government is us...right.
ya guys need to fix these hacks... it's getting annoying...
I don't care what the "income" tax percentage is what is the overall tax burden as a percentage of GDP.
A better number might be as a percentage of non-government GDP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percent...
US 26.9%
China 17%
Taiwan 12.4%
Oops double post
If I go outside, I might get sick.
Big brother hold my hand.
If I cross the street, I might get hit,
If I drive in rain or ride a train....
Oh, whatever shall I do?
Without a civil helping hand?
Mr Taxman can it be
there really is a money tree
to make my worries melt away
til I dance upon your early grave?
I quit worrying about all of that.
The tax man will get his cut. I keep the rest.
However when mowing grass with a reel mower by sweat and labor without paying for a drop of gasoline (Taxes..) then we are doing better.
Finally but not last. If the Nation is zero income taxes, what shall the Taxman eat? He's out of work too.
...but I think the dominance of robots in FX is going to cause a “flash crash” one day. I just remind everyone who plays in this sandbox that there will be no “regulator” who will DK the millions of trades (trillions of dollars) when (not if) this happens. The losses will be staggering. If you think you can sleep easy with a stop loss; you're wrong.
Oh, absolutely. All the volatility of commodities with no collars. What could possibly go wrong when the robots muscle into the neighborhood?
This whole piece could more appropriately be titled: Five Reasons To Own More Physical Gold.
If the Chinese marginal rates were applied in the USA it would generate about $1.5 trillion of additional revenue. The budget would be balanced overnight. Of course if the US did something like that it would trigger a massive depression. Why is that?
Because generally the more you tax of something the less of it you get and because capital tends to go where it's welcome and stay where it's well treated. Of course you can't really transport private wealth out of China so I guess the Chinese government has an advantage in that respect and can realize more revenue per percentage point increase in the tax rate. Hoo-fricking-ray.
Some of us don't want to find more money to balance the budget overnight. We want the ugly stick of reality to come crashing down on our collective heads and wake us up to the fact that (aside from whatever might be crooked and wrong with corporate America and it's financial system) the government is too damn big, intrusive, expensive and ineffective.
But it's more likely that the U.S. government will simply dig in it's heals and really start confiscating private wealth to feed the leviathan.
I have a problem when people try to compare different country's tax rates to each other.
The USA has their FICA. BUT, then there are seperate SSI deductions. Then medicaid. Then dear old employer is picking up FUI, and SUI, not to mention matching SSI and medi. Then the taxpayer gets to pay state and local taxes. Add in variable state sales taxes, property taxes, phone usage taxes, the tax add on to electricity, license renewal fees, gasoline tax....on and on and on. Then what about reconciling countries with gubmint healthcare/various services, verses those who are required to pay out of pocket?
I for one, have an effective tax rate significantly higher then what my handy IRS chart says. I WISH it was that low. At the end of the year, all that matters is how much came in, verses how much went out to the government, regardless of what scheme was used to relieve you of it.
There is so much more than just official rates that have to be accounted for in order to have any meaningful comparision. I have never seen it done satisfactorily.
I could not agree with you more except that it is incorrect that that the employer pays ss and Medicare. In fact it comes out of the gross salary they would pay you as employers look at total cost not cost before taxes.
I would love to see a study that showed total tax rates by income group and location. I think you would find that actual tax rates are significantly higher.
I for one pay 35% federal, 9% state, 15.3 in ss and Medicare, 20k in property taxes and 9.25% in sales tax. It equates to about 55% of my gross income. Note: ss only goes to 106k.
I saw a quote on this a board a few weeks ago and I really think it somes it up. You either think the govt is the problem or you think it is the solution.
In mho, the past has been an example of the govt trying to solve the problem. Not impressed so far.
The market will go all China bashing soon. The Chinese have a bizarre planning capitalist thing going, they tax, then turn a blind eye to untaxed black/gray money that floods into property. The Chinese then buy property (via debt binging) that they can't afford (per income)...and the property just sits there.
As for HFT's well they have stabilized most FX movements to a degree, no major sudden moves (cept for may 6 2010). But we get a meltdown in equities should send risk trades on FX down PIPS that will make your eyes bleed. how to make cash of that, margin trade you are dead, best is out-of-the money option put. try and time it
Perhaps they should tax all non carbon base trading entities extra for lack of soul; then fine them for trying to monopolize trading and driving the small btaders out of business.
try 750 US military bases worldwide
Should this trend continue there will have to be some wage increases in the manufacturing sector. That would be welcome, but also inflationary.
And $100 Crude + $4 gas at the pump isn't ?!?! Give me a break.
I'd bet most companies would prefer to give 10%-15% raises to their employees than endure the $100 oil price shock and the food price shock.
Middle class in China is 5k/yr, and a lot of the income is off the books--my son worked 2 years there. The high tax rates have little application to what goes on.
Martin Wolf pointed out this morning in his FT column with respect to the debt ceiling debate that republicans in the house "...have no idea how profound would be the shock to their country's economy and society of a repudiation of debt legally contracted by their state." The last part caught me. Congress enacts programs, laws, and regulations without needing the money to pay for them -- and then whines about the cost. Don't let them do it!
I'm reminded of the old joke that the Germans laugh at the Italians for having such high tax rates, and the Italians laugh at the Germans for actually paying such high tax rates.
In many countries of the world, you have one top-level income tax ... in the US you potentially get it at three levels (Fed, State & Local), such that you can have an effective Federal rate of 15% on an income of around the $65k you note (especially when relative purchasing power is taken into account), and if you are unfortunate enough to live in NYC will find your overall income tax burden falling at around 26% or so. Then you start adding in all the extras ... you get nickled and dimed at all levels for all sorts of things.
And of course we should not forget that today's low tax rates are being subsidised by huge borrowing that will one day come home to roost.
Bruce, if you are just up the road from the City and have anything like a decent house and the income required to support it and a family, I would not be surprised if you are already on the hook for a total tax burden already in excess of 70%.
I am an AMT (Alternate Minimum Tax) loser. I'm one of a very small group that get hits with this. That is about to change. They will re index this and soon anyone with income over 125k (family) will get hit.
When that happens you are automatically locked out. No deductions. So I pay the max.
Then there is the state income tax (8%). I also pay a god awful amout of property tax.And then there is that 7 3/4% sales tax I get hit with.
If I do okay in the markets I pay about 50% (total of all taxes). The terrible thing is when investment income goes down I still have all the fixed taxes. So in a bad year I pay more as a percent. There was 2008, not my best year. Lost money overall. So that year my total tax was greater than 100%.
INCOME is taxed like crazy. But assets are not. So I end up working for the government(s), and digging into a piggy bank. That's the way it goes.
Isn't freedom great?
In a nation of BAs, MBAs, JDs, MDs & PhDs, there will always be a shortage of skilled laborers. I'm not talking about the "assembly line" generic laborer, but rather the highly skilled guy that was pushed into 50k of student loan debt.
Where the fuck is the replacement for that skilled laborer today?
Sitting in some "guidance counselor" office filling out FAFSA forms for a life long student loan payment.
You might want to give a real example if you want to know where they are.
Most of the "skilled laborers" I've known and worked with are good people with a good amount of experience doing the work they're hired for. Their work is superior because they've learned (through repetition) the way to get the best final results.
It's *never* been rocket science that the average person can't learn. There are only a handful of skills or disciplines which are out of reach of most people--things like astrophysics and neurosurgery, highly accurate sculpting and charcoal sketch.
ANYTHING else can be learned by the vast majority of human beings. Some folks will have somewhat greater or lesser talents, but we are far more alike than we are different. When "skilled labor" is properly valued by society, there will be no difficulty at all filling the positions.
10,000 hrs of labor is only about 3.5 years at a full-time job--5 years max. That's how long it takes someone to become a true expert.
Don't kid yourself.
I have been trusted with taking prospective hires out on the 18 wheeler and watch how they do on the test.
Some will pass and well done. Occasionally one will excel and that one will be groomed for further and greater work beneficial to the company and to the person.
Others mouth off and pull a attitude and never made it out of the lot.
The iffy ones are tested further and watched closely. A word from any of the trainers that week will send that person home.
100 wanna drive. 60 make it in, half come out of school with license and in debt. 25 get a job. 3 months later 10 are left. 6 months 4 are left. After the year 2 or 3 are left.
Those are the people that keep America rolling doing nothing more difficult than staying alert and avoiding trouble while managing physics and schedules.
Yes, trucking is a perfect example. There are plenty of things human beings can't learn, but driving a big rig isn't one of them. Perhaps 1 out of 10 people would be truly *incapable* of doing the work.
But you know, for reasons which have nothing to do with the work or the business, you don't start from the baseline. You start with the subset of people who are signed up to go to truck-driving school. Somehow, because of the way we organize our society, most of these people are not suited for the work, but have signed up for training as an attempt to fit themselves into the rather limited set of roles we tolerate.
I was in a film program a few years back. One of my classmates was a gentleman with a rather obvious learning disability who'd been bounced through just about every training program anyone could squeeze out of our system of subsidized loans and financial graft. He had a class A drivers license but honestly didn't belong behind the wheel of a rig because he had some real attention issues. If anyone had ever just handed the guy a shovel and told him to dig holes for $5/hr, he would have done just fine. Not a dumb guy, but not well-suited to a lot of current job opportunities. He would have been quite competent as a pastry chef, too.
This was one of those 10% of folks facing some of the more difficult challenges to integrate into our current labor system. For every person like him, there are 5 others more than able to do your job.
And don't take me wrong--I'm not about to pretend any great talent when you get down to it. I'm a "highly skilled" computer technician. I know full-well the stuff I do can be taught to 90% of the population. Worst case, 70%. If I have a knack for the work and some extra talent, that might edge me out over the bottom 20% of those folks, but at the end of the day, they'll all be earning the same paycheck.
The tiniest hint of humility will be a huge benefit when things get a bit rough. Don't neglect it.
The reason the Chinese and the Indians are performing a lot of jobs Americans used to do is because they really are just as good.
Being in a "film program" smashed the rest of your points into tiny shards of rock candy.
If you think the purpose of humanity is to function as an ant-farm, then *any* study of art is a waste.
I'd do it the same every single time, because quite frankly, learning something interesting while working a bullshit job is a much better use of a mind than blowing the paycheck on beer and/or gambling.
To each their own. For what it's worth, I don't think your education (or lack thereof) invalidates your points. I don't see any points that might be valid.
You're right, I aplogize.
And what do all those that don't pass your test do? Give up and go into politics?
I don't think so. They try again somewhere else, using the things they learned from jumping through your hoops and some get hired. And most of the rest keep trying and most will eventually get hired.
Trucking ain't rocket science, even if it seems complicated to you....
gh
career counsellors at high schools are total motherfuckers who tell the students that studying arts, humanities or psychology can get them a related job later in life.
+47. Exactly. I attended my niece's HS graduation and roughly 60% of the students were planning on majoring in psychology or humanities. It made me sick, but not as sick as those youngsters are going to be when they go to all that trouble only to find it isn't the place to be. Dr. Phil is an Oprah product and a crappy one at that.
The rich will rarely pay higher taxes as a result of this debt ceiling debate. Whatever loopholes the politicians eliminate, their backdoor deals will create even better ones. Given the corporate theft in the stock market (e.g. ridiculous stock options, perks, etc.), their shell corporations will be used to hide wealth, squander stockholder equity and shelter income. They are also the ones that can afford the "creative tax accountants" to lessen any added tax burdens.
Also, this BS of reducing spending in the future over a ten-year period, reeks of PT Barnum theory. Like most of these "weinerheads," they won't be around when the math doesn't add up.
Do Chinese have FICO taxes? I don't think so. If you add effective 15% FICO taxes from both employer and emplyee and the US Income tax, that $65K earner won't be paying much less than 35%.....
I have been saying that there are jobs out there for SKILLED workers for years now..Tradesman in the future will be paid doctors wages..Welders,industrial Maint. Plumbers etc. etc. etc... These, I, Me, the sun shines on my ass, I want to work from home, I DESERVE IT,Im going to get mine, group of young adults now are WORTHLESS,Sorry, and just plain lazy...
Its to hot, its too cold, its too windy to work outside..I have heard it all as an Independant contractor for a telecomunications company...I just ended up taking less work and doing the damn jobs by myself instead of babysitting..Whens lunch, whens payday, how much can I make, that isnt enough money for this, instead of taking pride in a job and putting in an honest days work..Im sorry for the rant, I have TRIED TO HIRE 6 guys in the last year and a half to help me increase my production and has ended up costing me more money with training etc. In the long run...I listened to ,Im going back to school and take business management, or what the fuck ever and make alot of money so I dont have to do labor like this..My job IS NOT HARD... I cropped Tobacco by hand, 5 acres a day in the dog days of summer in the deep south through my pre teen up to 19 years old..Thats child abuse now..I made 3 dollars an hour CASH when we got done everyday...Usually 20 bucks..We Got ONE BREAK that lasted 10 minutes and back at it..Fuck these pussies...sorry guys, I done went way off the path here..
Doctors won't even be paid doctors' wages just as soon as the Medicare train derails, and that's coming pretty soon.
No one needs their AC fixed when they can't afford electricity. And flush toilets are a nice luxury for the rich, but no plumber's going to be earning bank from the assholes squatting over catholes.
The reason you've got any opportunity at all right now is because there's still more money than some folks know what to do with, so they'll shovel it your way for nothing. Splicing cables is something any monkey can (and WILL) learn when push comes to shove.
Don't overestimate your importance. That way lies ruin.
the illegal immigrants still do that... thats the problem that needs to be fixed. /s
but i sympathize with most of the younger american generation. they have never known hard work, poverty or hunger in their lives to appreciate what they have and the actual labour that went behind it all. It will change when the value of the $ collapses... as it should.
Until the discomfort of retaining the status quo exceeds the fear of change, nothing WILL change. That is the axiom of the human condition in general. For state molly-coddled, fluoride sodden western societies, it is one hell of an inertia to overcome.
Tax policy being one of those millions of political tendrils strangling the people belongs to that dictum of government, the "Art of the Possible", and as such throws out any argument to change the code.
Too many would be unemployed if the tax code were to be made very simple.
The Coincidence of Interests in making the code even more impenetrable to pad the wallets of Tax "Specialists", is one of the most successful Do-Nothing---Public/Private jobs programs ever concocted by the Federal government since the invention of Gerrymandering. You really think our politicians are going to throw a million or more people out of work in order to have a just tax system?
Elves and Fairies would sooner materialize.
How about we tax all Chinese (and other centrally planned slave ship export economies around the world) imports at a level where it truly levels the playing field with American-made goods. Short-term it would cause inflation, long-term it would bring real jobs back here. So instead of figuring out how to squeeze more from a shrinking tax base, we could all learn to pay a little more for the crap we don't need at Wal-Mart, but have a real (e.g., non-financial, service based) economy.
We need to equalize trade in manufactured goods. If China buys $1 billion of U.S. made goods, then they can sell $1 billion of their goods here. You adjust the tariff until the trade in manufactured goods equalizes.
A country that buys a lot of U.S. manufactured goods (maybe Australia or Argentina), would not have any tariff imposed on their goods.
Balanced trade is the path to growth for the global economy. For order to be restored, Asian mercantilism must be stopped.
I read somewhere there is 17% value added tax on imports into China whereas the US has effectively a 1.4%. And the politicians can't figure out why there are problems with employment. Fun facts to know and tell.
"bring real jobs back here." The only real long term solution. It will be a long time coming. Just how much damage will be done while we wait for reform?
A war with China will solve that problem, no?
Its called a carbon tax, levied on all imports at the same rate domestically. In turn you phase out Payroll taxes.... Win, Win....
Among many reasons why it is good policy:
1) Take advantage of low carbon NG (US endowment)
2) Take advantage of worlds best rail freight system...
3) You can eliminate subsidies to alternatives, let technology and the market figure out the winner
4) Puts to rest the scam of Cap'N Trade, yet another form of Financialization of the real economy...
Carbon tax is a production tax imagined on the back of the non-disprovable theory of global climate change. It is a frontal assault on economic liberty disguised as an economic initiative.
Tax policy is simply a set of incentives and disincentives to shape economic activity and, unfortunately, wealth distribution. Whether the medium of that tax policy is real property, income, wealth, consumption, or whatever, each is just an implement that will shape the distribution differently.
As to the idea of "carbon tax," you've got to get to the root motivation of why that medium is on the table. It has nothing to do with its relative efficacy in shaping economic activity, and everything to do with constraining liberty and leveling some statist's view of equality.
For someone who makes such a strong case for constrianing sociopathic behaviors, I can't figure why you would support such a nebulous and easily-manipulated thing as carbon as a tax medium. Unless of course you have been hypnotized by the hoax of climate change...