patrick.net

Taxpayer says

There is this fundamental disconnect between govt revenues and govt expenditures. The govt collects the majority of the taxes (dollar amounts) from the wealthy. Yet the majority of it’s expenditures (SS and medicare) are aimed at the non-wealthy.

bob2356 says

For someone who makes 500k by age 30 you sure don’t seem to know what you are talking about. SS and medicare are funded by FICA which is only on wages (most of the income of the very wealthy is capital gains) and cuts off at 100k. So how do the “wealthy” pay the majority of SS and medicare? Only 20% of your income is subject to FICA, is that the “majority” in your world?

Taxpayer says

47% of the people in this country pay NO INCOME taxes. A majority of that 47% are the non-wealthy. I agree that there are a few wealthy tax dodgers in that 47%; but the majority of that is non-wealthy people. And those are the people benefiting from medicaid and all the welfare programs.

I feel like I am watching a battle of wits in which one of the sides is unarmed.

Taxpayer says

I am not a dogmatic person. If there was some counter argument in this discussion which was based on facts, I would have accepted that.

Ahhh. Good one.

Taxpayer says

Secondly, if everyone is getting the same medicare benefits, then everyone should pay a flat amount, say $2500 per year (irrespective of income); and not a discriminatory percentage based premium.

This is not a bad idea, actually. "All taxes come out of rents" -- you know the story.

Over $500,000 wage income. This is an odd form of compensation, we can really say that RayTaxpayer is "ballin'" in the current urban patois.

Taxpayer says

That is my point that SS and medicare should be voluntary.

I agree, people holding $1M in pension-fund quality assets should be allowed to stop contributing to SS/MC.

$1M at 5% throws off $50,000 in income, enough to cover the maximum SS benefit of $30,000 plus another $20,000 for medical coverage.

SS/MC doesn't have to be redistributive, really, the contributions of the middle class and upper middle class (people below the FICA cap) are the great bulk of contributors, losing the top 1-3% would not result in much loss of income, and what was lost will be made up by PPACA's premium subsidies anyway.

pkennedy says

Saudi Arabia fully understands that when people are spending $500/month on gas, they will think twice about the next car they buy, the next trip they take, the way they drive. Sure gas is expensive now, but it will almost invariably drop back down in price due to demand dropping.

it never drops back permanently. it will probably go up from here over years until electric cars take over. at least historically gas prices never went and stayed low.

Taxpayer says

Everyone should pay the same dollar amount in taxes.

Can I nominate this for the dumbest thing ever said on pat.net?

It's not a completely terrible idea. We'd need to shift more of government services to pay-for play.

The big problem though is "taxpayer"'s ideal is just your basic libertopia, where everyone has the freedom and rights they can afford to pay for, and not one. drop. more.

It is a joke and a complete non-starter of an ideology, though probably 40-50% of the rabid right argue it.

They're just doing this to pull the conversation to their extreme. Fuck that.

The problem that people have with Medicaid & SSI (cash income for the poor) as well as Direct Assistance is that they don't like paying for other people.

The alternative to leave them homeless & starving, without medical care. In our society, we try not to do that. We don't always succeed, but we try.

If we spent a little more $ on catching fraud, we'd save money in the long run. But Social Security & Medicare are both programs for which people pay all of their working lives, and the majority of people who have a problem with are those who make so much money they don't need the help. They collect it anyway, but they don't need it.

Nader is NOT President. Obama did NOT give us a single payer system.

You think! Therefore it IS!

You Guys remind me of a Political Steven Hawkins who believes in infinite parallel universes, with infinite possibilities, anything from people made out of Cellophane Liquorish, to Gravity flows sideways. Anything but a Universe where there's a God.

You say you don't believe in fairy tales, when every day you write the book.

Hey F**ker,

there you go again.

It's Realtor®, remember?

... and up to half of those 54k 'new jobs' were at McDonalds:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/06/04/2011-06-04_mcdonalds_april_hiring_spree_could_have_accounted_for_half_of_mays_job_growth_re.html

shrekgrinch says

elliemae says

Just curious, how many of these jobs did you create?

What does that have to do with this? It won’t make the facts go away that you’d prefer go away.

Well, one could look at the article and say that many jobs have been created under Obama's administration and last month was an anonomly. One could also look at this posting as yet another piece of information shrek posted in an attempt to start a discussion as to why shrek hates the world.

It's not the facts that I would prefer go away.

What's the point in discussing with these people shrenk?
They'll just distort what you say, post irrelevant anecdotes as proof positive then when you still don't see it there way, they'll attack your character, and mental state. And if you call them anything back they'll just get Patrick to flag your comments.

They get to say what they want with out any limits or constraints.

We have to be nice to Liars and Retards!

TOT signing OFF

type the character string "& reg ;" without the spaces between the "&", the "reg" and the ";"

According to most acceptable standards, it’s okay to post the headline and first paragraph and a link to the article. You may paraphrase articles as well - but if you post the entire article you are opening Patrick to a copyright lawsuit that could actually cost him thousands of dollars and the loss of his site.

Please keep in mind that we are here for free, it’s Patrick’s ass on the line. For further information, please refer to the following link:

http://www.vegastrademarkattorney.com/2010/08/avoiding-wrath-of-righthaven.html

"So legislature passed more taxes without voter approval, which I believe is illegal in CA anyway."

Umm, no it is not. With a two thirds majority, the legislature does NOT need voter approval. Come on Chris, you should be ashamed that someone in NJ knows more about California govt. then you do.

CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE 13 TAXATION

SEC. 2. The Legislature may provide for property taxation of all forms of tangible personal property, shares of capital stock, evidences of indebtedness, and any legal or equitable interest therein not exempt under any other provision of this article. The Legislature, two-thirds of the membership of each house concurring, may classify such personal property for differential taxation or for exemption. The tax on any interest in notes, debentures, shares of capital stock, bonds, solvent credits, deeds of trust, or mortgages shall not exceed four-tenths of one percent of full value, and the tax per dollar of full value shall not be higher on personal property than on real property in the same taxing jurisdiction.

--------------------

Nothing in there about voter approval

Get a Mac, and hold down the option key while pressing R.

Michinaga says

Get a Mac, and hold down the option key while pressing R.

hahaha. My daughter makes fun of my pc all the time.

® Easy on the Mac...®!

Ellie, I love my Mac because I can type *anything*: hačeks, ümlauts*, çedillas; you name it!

¡Viva Mac!

(The word umlaut doesn't actually have an umlaut in it. Büt it shöuld.)

shrekgrinch says

That’s what happens when the country is run on a national policy of pissing on the value of the dollar

This country desperately needs a weaker dollar so we can get some exports going again.

Problem is we can't afford the more expensive oil that comes with a weaker dollar.

Gold *should* be at least $2000 -- that would give our wage labor a 30% comparative boost vs the ROW.

Failing that, we should just start erecting trade barriers against countries with large surpluses against us, relative to the size of the surplus.

Or we could go with a stronger dollar and see productive goods-producing employment continue to crater, and our capacity either going unused or exported to the cheap labor countries.

But these trade deficits are unsustainable. Something's going to have to give here.

Apocolypsefuck, will you please delete the article except for the first paragraph and put a link to the site where you found it?

There's a company called Righthaven that's suing for, and winning, thousands of dollars in damages. We like being here, and would hate to have to help Patrick raise $20k or more to defend a lawsuit.

Thanks.PasadenaNative says

® Easy on the Mac…®!

Michinaga says

¡Viva Mac!

Rub it in! I can take it! But next time I'm buying a Mac. ;)

Troy says

we can’t afford the more expensive oil that comes with a weaker dollar

Baloney. Bubba can just park the SUV in the driveway more often and drive his smaller car instead more often.

And Bubba can carpool. Besides spending less on gasoline, he'll be spending less on wear and tear.

Bubba can lose a little weight so that higher temps will be more tolerable, so he can turn down the AC. Or maybe even turn it off and get some fresh air for a change.

Problem solved.

Hey shrek,

how many voters are you minting?

sybrib says

Problem solved.

except for cross-country airfares.

Maybe airlines should charge by the pound, say $500 plus $2 per pound of stuff you're putting on the plane, including yourself.

I don't think the quality of life in North America was worse when only the elite could afford air travel.

Some people would argue those were halcyon days when a working class family could live comfortably on one income.

Except for medical flights, and an unfortunate sudden need to travel to a funeral, airline transport is discretionary. That'd include business travel, too. Why else do businesses "clamp down" on travel as the first cost reduction measure? Corporations with global reach did very well, thank you very much, in the days of yore when only the very top management traveled by air. And that was before video conferencing.

We could have well over 90% of commercial aviation operations cease and be no worse off for it. Except for the airline employees and leisure travel destinations like Hawaii.

shrekgrinch says

I am not minting any

Ceratinly not enough for the demographics to sustain your politics in the future.

Same for Europe.

We're not too many generations away from knowing it as "The Islamic Republic of Europe".

shrekgrinch says

This entire posting is ridiculous. And who cares what the morons in SF do to themselves? This is only dangerous if enacted at the state level, INMO. The people of SF get what they deserve for being as wacked-up as their politicians.

We all know that legislation at the local level never finds its way to state and federal politics. And that each person in SF supports every piece of legislation there, just as every person who lives in Fremont supports every piece of legislation that emanates from there.

Just curious, shrek. Is it because you aren't directly affected by the proposed legislation that you deemed it to be "ridiculous," or is it because you can't make this a political issue?

The forum is Miscellaneous, and not "What Shrek believes is important."

shrekgrinch says

And last time I checked, many circumcisions don’t have to be performed right after the brat is popped out.

Kudos on your compassion, shrek.

Great find !

Excellent.

Thank you for the change, and for the warning. Perhaps a visual of a maggot gagging would be appropriate here. (kidding!)

Evil fucking Righthaven has set a precedent, altho it's getting it's comeuppance in court I do believe.

That warmed the cockles of my heart.

More, please!

Anybody wanna bet this cash-paid home is probably listed as a piece of some MBS somewhere?

Fight Schmegla Circumcise.

That's gotta be an urban legend.

not according to the interwebs:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/05/homeowners-foreclose-on-bank-of-america_n_871540.html

Guess they shoulda paid up like the courts said to

RightHaven and others can only sue if Patrick were to ignore a DCMA letter or other communication. However, it's best to just paraphrase.

@patrick @thunderlips11 and others

I'm late to this party, and this is off topic, but I need to clear something up with regards to the often misunderstood topic of intellectual property (IP) that was brought up early in the thread.

"In fact, all this IP enforcement is costing the taxpayers untold sums, not to mention the unseen costs of products not coming to market that would make their lives easier/more efficient, due to legal battles."

The government does not spend any money on enforcing IP because the government does NOT enforce any kind of IP rights. That enforcement is the responsibility of the holder of the patent, copyright, etc. The government issues patents (which have a term of only 20 years), but that does not cost taxpayers anything either. The Patent Office is 100% funded by the fees those seeking patent protection pay in the process of obtaining a patent.

Yes, patents give a limited monopoly to an owner. But the public receives in return a disclosure of the technology. The disclosure is valuable, as it can provide a basis for further research and innovation. Without disclosure, the public would not benefit from secret knowledge. A monopoly sounds bad, but it promotes innovation. Without some sort of guarantee that an idea will be protected, what would drive people to invent new things? China has weak IP protection, and while they are good at stealing ours, they do not do much to create new technology.

Anyway, sorry for the off-topic post.

Actually, Righthaven is skipping the letter and going right for the suits. It's rather interesting - they've shut down several blogs and received thousands of dollars in payments. The history of Righthaven, which is an arm of the LV RJ newspaper, is chronicled in the Sun (competing newspaper).

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/feb/12/righthaven-files-first-judgment-motion-demands-cas/

Common practices are to send a letter demanding the offending content is removed, but they skip that part. It's sleezy. And the Denver Post is using them too.

shrekgrinch says

the brat

"ewww picky poo! Children!"

You might like living in SF with all those ChildLess Hipsters who dote on their dogs but "aren't into the kid thing".

This is just the latest in anti-semitic legislation. Sweden outlawed circumcision years ago. Basically in Sweden, the main group of people circumcising their infant male children were and are Jews. Some Muslims practice this tradition too. So the legislation was against all semites, Arab and Jew alike. Swedes would deny this against all evidence to the contrary, chiefly that the practice there is done almost exclusively amongst Jews and Muslims.

I participated in another forum where there was a strong anti-circumcision contingent. They claim that the practice is cruel. They also claim that the health benefits haven't been proven in unbiased research. They claim that male circumcision is equivalent to female circumcision. They choose to ignore obvious differences in anatomy. Also they claim that there is a huge reduction in sensitivity for the boy who will miss it when the "victim" becomes a sexually active man. They claim that the glans which isn't meant to be exposed 100% of the time becomes progressively less sensitive as it scars from exposure over time. Many men who were in that group claim to be victims and that they remember the terrible pain they experienced as an infant and they attribute their emotional and mental problems to having been circumcised against their will as infants. Very few have legitimate anger over having had a botched circumcision and wish to outlaw the practice to prevent anyone else from being disfigured even though there is such a tiny miniscule percentage that are disfigured and that it's always due to medical malpractice. In short, I've heard it all.

Also there are self-hating Jews who are anti-circumcision activists. They claim that it's an unnecessary, outdated, and cruel tradition and they point to the many laws and customs that we Jews no longer observe like stoning adulterers as an equivalent example.

They interviewed a few San Franciscan Rabbis and Mohelim (Jewish ritual circumcisers) who pointed out the fact that many ancient authorities like the Greeks and Romans and Medieval Europeans banned the practice as a way to oppress their Jews into non-existence. Jews have maintained this commandment as a central defining sign of male Jewishness and Covenant for milennia. Do San Franciscans really think that Jews will abandon the practice in the face of a fine or prison time when Jews have faced death for performing their traditions in other cultures?

The anti-circumcision folks want to claim that they are anti-cruelty and not anti-semitic. It's just an attempt to dress up their anti-semitism in modern disguise. Frankly I'm disgusted that this has made it to the ballot but I'm not surprised. San Francisco is a major center for the anti-circ movement. Last time I checked, freedom of religion is protected in the US Constitution.