DrewEckhardt

Seems reasonable to me since it's producing publicity comparable to a national advertising campaign that'd cost a lot more.

yup - 'some people' just might be better off - at the cost of everyone else Some important investors and banks will have fewer walk aways and be better off when the GSEs pay off home owners' underwater mortgages and assume the risk of default on behalf of the tax payers. As side-effects some home debtors benefit and keeping those potential foreclosures off the market means property values will take longer to revert to their inflation adjusted mean thus keeping young people and others out of the market longer.

Yeah, the west coast doesn't know shit about BBQ. Though I do remember trying a BBQ joint in Issaquah, WA (suburb of Seattle) based on some online reviews. I considered it a good sign that the UT Alumni Club was having an event there. (And it was some pretty solid BBQ). Dixie's BBQ in Bellevue was standing-room-only good before its proprietor Gene Porter (creator of "The Man" hot sauce) died.

The largest part of that is housing which can be worked around if you don't insist on conforming to the American dream. $1500/month buys you a 4000+ square foot house some places in Texas, buys a town home around Seattle or rents a 2-bedroom apartment, and buys a nice mobile home in a good location or rents a one bedroom apartment in Silicon valley. I choose less living space and better weather. You always feel like going out for a ride/run/whatever when it's sunny nearly all the time, average daytime highs are 58 in the coldest months of the year (overnight lows do hit 40), and average high temperatures are 79 in the warmest months.

We won't. Long term our average wages will be the same. With over a billion potential customers in India versus just three hundred million here that's not too unlikely.

Fixing the taxes would just be a foot note. Labor costs dominate and you won't fix anything until you fix those. As of 2009, it cost $150/month to hire a Chinese autoworker versus $28/hour to hire a UAW worker (before overtime). It cost $10K/year to hire a software engineer in China and $7500 in India versus $ 80K/year in America. Getting rid of corporate taxes which allow corporations in tax-free countries to do business at 26% less cost won't help when our labor is over 4300% more expensive (assuming the Chinese only need to work 20 hours of overtime a week). Being competitive requires total costs (productivity divided into the sum of wages + transportation + taxes) for a given output to line up. That can happen because our wages drop to match theirs (in real dollars) or theirs increase to match ours. It can happen when our costs of sustaining an "American middle class lifestyle" drop to match theirs or because American workers start living in corporate dormitories or cage apartments.

+1 That's not entirely true. The federal government has acted on behalf of corporatist interests resulting in price increasing far faster than inflation in key industry products. Housing in high cost areas with jobs is still over-priced by 40% in real dollars. From 1985-2005 medical costs were up 251% in real dollars. Education cost increases have quadrupled inflation totaling 439% of where they were in the same period. The companies (and their lobbyists) and government have rigged the game against the working classes (any one who doesn't make the majority of their income from investments which includes the bottom 90% and most of the top decile in this country). Emerging markets (formerly called "developing countries" or "the third world") are producing increasing amounts of accessible labor that costs a fraction of what it does here. Whether you're a lawyer, auto-worker, or engineer it's hard to compete with people working for 1/10th of what you need to sustain a somewhat comparable middle-class lifestyle in the United States especially when those guys outnumber you up to 10:1. This is natural but if you're suffering under the current system you're unlikely to attain the resources to work around it.

Real income will drop among the working classes until wages and the cost of living they support match what they are in emerging markets. The current situation is not sustainable where (as of 2009) Chinese autoworkers average $150/month versus $28/hour for UAW workers at GM and software engineers average $80K/year versus $10K/year in China and $7500/year in India. The situation will resolve by work going to areas with lower total costs (insurance, taxes, shipping), wages increasing there as labor supply doesn't keep up with demand, and real wages dropping in high-cost areas to compete. For example, with Chinese labor getting expensive Foxconn bought a factory in Juarez where the minimum wage is under $4.17/day. Hopefully we'll meet at a point where doing some form of skilled labor gives you the option to buy a single family home, health care, education for your children, a car or two, and eventual retirement. That would be nicer than a world where we get cage apartments with eleven unrelated people, third world health care, and work until we die.

I don't know where you go that math, but you don't need a 21" MLW. Doesn't sound unreasonable to me. I'm 5'10 with a 30.5" cycling inseam (stand against a wall, wear tight shorts, put a book in a compromising position wear a bicycle saddle would go, measure) and my custom rigs are 19-20" without being tight or leaving me hanging. Three of some measurement got taken for one because the dealer couldn't believe the tape measure was right.

Remove. You want the weak points in your legs to be in the middle of the long bones which can be screwed back together without long lasting effects not the joints at the end which are likely to become arthritic when they heal with lumps. Decreasing the severity of re-injury had more to do with my decision to get my tibial nail out than the discomfort.

It's because the canopy is different. In steady flight the forces on front risers, rear risers, and brake toggles must add up to your weight. Different canopies split the load differently.

I had my own gear as of jump #13 and would have come out ahead financially over making the same number of jumps renting if I threw it in the dumpster after four months although if I was renting I probably wouldn't have made the same number of jumps since AFF students had priority over rig renters. In the end I sold the parts (first the main and then container + reserve) for close to what I paid so I did a lot better than that. Rigs are commodities. Most of them built in the last fifteen years are going to be safe for whatever sort of skydiving you do. Any of them built for your size body and canopies are going to be comfortable. There are differences in canopies although you're not going to hurt your skydiving career my making the next eighty on an arbitrarily selected modern example (Sabre 2, Spectre, Storm, Safire, etc.). You'll even do fine under a rectangular canopy (Sabre/Monarch/Turbo ZX) although the openings are nicer under more modern designs.

Income tax is not the ONLY form of taxation. In practice Medicare is pre-paid health insurance for when you become old, Social Security is a retirement savings plan plus disability and life insurance, and FUTA taxes buy you unemployment insurance. Income tax (including non-wage sources like capital gains, dividends, and interest) is what's covering the lion's share of government not paid for by debt. I don't care how much better off some people are than me as long as I have food, shelter, medical care, transportation, education for my children, and some middle class comforts like hobbies and occasional vacations. In fact I'm very happy that there are billionaires some of whom are willing invest millions of dollars (with $10M/year not an atypical burn rate prior to revenue neutrality that will probably never happen) in the sort of companies that I like to work for. I do worry about the federal government acting on behalf of corporatist interests which jacks up the price of essentials like housing, education, and medical care far faster than the rate of inflation. Addressing those issues will do more for people (let blue collar workers buy houses, kids to pay their way through college on part time jobs, etc) than getting taxes raised on the wealthy while the government helps corporatist interests take even more of their pay checks.

It's a real problem with the resulting political pandering allowing 47% of working Americans to pay no federal income tax and have no skin in the game when it comes to out of control government spending. America has the most progressive income tax system out of the OECD 24. The ratio between share of tax burden and share of income is higher among working professionals here than in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, The Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, The Slovak Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, and The United Kingdom. In many situations renting is the smart move, like when it costs twice as much to rent the money to buy a property as it does to rent the property directly, or in careers where mobility helps advancement. People shouldn't be punished for that and I wouldn't support land ownership as a pre-requisite for voting. I do think that only people paying income tax should be allowed to vote for the politicians spending the money collected from them and their fellow voters. You work a minimum wage job as a single person with no dependents and you get to vote as a productive member of society. You earn a middle class wage, breed a lot of expensive exemptions, become a debt slave to a huge mortgage with its deduction, don't have a federal income tax liability, and don't vote.

Probably although 1) Your drop zone is free to impose whatever requirements it wants. 2) As far as the USPA is concerned you'd be required to have an AAD and be jumping main and reserve canopies "suitable for students" which seems open to interpretation.

I prefer which ever system results in me paying the lowest total tax + compliance costs (buying H&R block Tax Cut Pro, paying accountants, time that I can't spend on something) in normal years and if I manage a positive liquidity event in a startup business. The devils there are in the details. Assuming the income tax covered all income (including 401k contributions and employer provided health insurance) with no deductions or exemptions, sales tax all spending (including health insurance and costs currently paid via flexible spending accounts), and my employers' savings on FICA/Medicare/FUTA aren't passed on to me at 9/9/9 I'd save about $2000 I might be for it. At 10/10/10 I'd spend $600 more a year and be against it. If I were in the market to buy a house which would be subject to a $90,000 sales tax I'd be against it unless the tax came due over a reasonable interval like 20 years. The devil is in the details.

Although we can all join group plans. One class at a local community college gets you into their group where insurance rates can run $200/quarter. Corporate alumni networks and professional organizations are other non-employer group plan sources. Given the ludicrous costs of US medical care (speaking from personal experience, a tibia/fibula fracture with complications can generate bills totalling six figures not including the $7000 (after insurance discount) for your warranty return to the ER because you're leaking too much blood following your last surgery) every skydiver with issues getting individual insurance who doesn't qualify for medicaid or their states indigent care discounts needs to find a group plan of some sort.

I've seen: Too much experience (implying that you'd be bored and not work as hard, go elsewhere when the opportunity arose, butt heads trying to provide leadership, etc.), not broad/deep enough tangential experience for years in industry, the job doesn't exist but they want to have some names for when it does, the job no longer exists but the responsible people don't care enough to update the web site/job board, they need to advertise the job to meet government regulation, you worked too short (job hopping, likely to leave) or long (implies insufficient skill or initiative to tackle bigger roles within the company or elsewhere if that failed) at previous positions, you worked at companies that were too big/mature and might not be a good cultural fit, if the job description got the interest of a purple unicorn they'd opportunistically hire but otherwise won't, the text of your resume rubs people the wrong way, some one at the company doesn't like you personally, the positions are being filled by personal references from employees (I don't think I'd ever take a chance on some one my team didn't know over some one they did), and the job posting is from an office which corporate is going to close so the branch office is doing some level of resume screening/phone screening/in-person interviews but aren't being allowed to go farther in the process.

Because it's "income" tax and not "wealth" tax. Thank you, Captain Obvious, for pointing out a most basic and fundamental flaw in our system of raising revenue. It's based on the wrong thing. The current depression is a direct result of corporatist interests getting Americans to spend more and save less with the US government protecting the companies from the inevitable losses (the GSEs guaranteeing and buying up privately issued mortgages with ever increasing conforming loan limits, laws prohibiting the discharge of student loan debt in bankruptcy, etc.). We don't need tax laws which make the situation worse.

1. The top decile only earns 48% of the income, suggesting that we should pay much less. 2. It's not our fault that other Americans prefer to leverage themselves with debt to buy expensive cars, houses, and consumer crap so they're instead of saving and investing. That behavior led to the current depression and should be discouraged. So what? Income isn't a zero sum-game.

If you clicked on the "classifieds" tab and followed the "post an ad" link you'd end up here: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/classifieds/page.cgi?page=post_ad;d=1 Decide whether you're selling a "complete system" or "main canopy" by itself and do the right thing. People will want sizes, numbers of jumps on the gear (and current lineset if that's been replaced), dates of manufacture (especially important for AADs which are life limited), etc.

Better than they can from countries south of the American border. With two minimum wage jobs ($7.25/hour for 40 hours a week - $290 a week, $580 for two jobs) they're making $500 a week more than they would someplace like Mexico (minimum wage of just $80/week) which lets them live here with enough left over to send some back home to support family in their home countries. 1) We already do with the top earning decile paying 70% of Federal income taxes but 47% of other American workers paying no income tax. In fact America already has the most progressive (defined as the ratio between the top earning decile's share of taxes to share of income) federal income tax system out of the entire OECD 24 which includes Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, The Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, The Slovak Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, and The United Kingdom. 2) Many of us are already paying a 40% marginal tax rate. 28% in Federal income tax, 1.45% in Federal Medicare, 1.45% employers share of Medicare, 9.55% California state income tax. This is worse than in other countries with similar tax rates because our taxes don't cover medical insurance (can be $14,000 a year for a family), a pension (our "social security" can replace just 1/3 of a person's working wages below the income cap which means saving an additional 10%+ a year to retain one's standard of living once past working age), or higher education (can be $10,000 a year for a public school in your state not including room and board or $30,000 a year for public schools in other states) 3) In high-cost areas where the jobs are $120,000 is poor enough to qualify for government moderate income housing programs (the cut-off in San Mateo county, CA is $150,000 a year).

There are three classes in this country 1. Those who pay to elect the government. 2. Those who pay for the government. 3. Those who barely matter. It costs about $8.5M per term or $1,417,000 a year to land a US Senate seat paying $174,000 for a net pay of -$1,243,000 a year. It costs about $1.5M per term or $750,000 a year to become a US Representative with the same pay for a -$1,152,000 return on your investment. To make the arithmetic work Congress Critters pay for their election with hard-money contributions to their campaigns and soft money contributed to the party. Only .4% of Americans contribute over $200 to a candidate, with some candidates receiving the majority of their hard money from people donating the $2500 per individual/$5000 per couple legal maximum. That less than .4% and various companies + PACs pay to elect our government. The legislation which actually passes is mostly on behalf of this group. America has the most progressive tax system out of the OECD 24. By 2008 the top 1% were paying 38% of federal income taxes, top 5% 59%, and top decile 70%. These people pay for the government. Government policies are structured to keep that money coming in, with things like state board certifications limiting mobility and downward price pressure on wages within the country and immigration controls keeping out foreign professionals who'd work for less money. The bottom half pay 2.7% of federal income taxes with the average tax rate negative for the two bottom quintiles. These people pay for neither elections nor government and therefore barely matter. Government policies favor the top two groups at their expense, with things like porous borders keeping wages down. Teachers don't matter, most fire fighters don't matter, the American public doesn't, and as long as poverty comes with color television and cable TV that's not going to change. The motivation and intent of the fuckwads in congress is to stay in Congress where they can exercise power. They do that by throwing bones to the people paying for their re-election campaigns.

confusion.....are you anti-toilet seat? due to the dangers outlined? or pro-toilet seat? due to the ability to screen out dangerous children and their potential terrorist activities Yes. It's clear that lots of things need to be banned. So we need to prioritize according to just haw dangerous they have proven to be. Using that criterion, coat hangers, Ford Pintos and toilet seats would come right after guns. Using your criteria fast food would be first (with deaths from obesity an order of magnitude worse than automobiles), then cars, then guns (firearm murders are about 1/3 traffic fatalities). I'm suggesting a much more rational balance between utility and danger to the public. While terrorists have mixed Ryder trucks with ANFO they're also useful for self-service moves. Toy planes are dangerous weapons for terrorists that lack practical use and belong at the head of the to-be-banned line.

A single web forum post does not constitute an official platform. It could even be from a conservative operative looking to discredit the movement.