DrewEckhardt

Glory, reality show groupies, and a hat two sizes bigger to accommodate the bigger ego which results.

I'd tax the bottom 40% earning 12% of the income (in 2006 according to the U.S. Census Bureau) enough that they feel the effect of government spending and resist unnecessary increases.

Well Bill everyone knows your a great guy....so the rest of us are uncaring assholes because we don't want to.......ok we get it. The point to me is that +70% is paid by the "rich" and close to half don't pay anything. Just how long do you think this can go ON and UP? When half the population doesn't pay how long is the other half going to want to keep going? When the top 1% owns 42.2% of the financial wealth of the USA, the top 20% owns 93% of the wealth of the USA, leaving the remaining 80% with just 7% of the financial wealth (2007 data) it seems to me that the "rich" are getting off pretty lightly. The top 10% already have a higher ratio of tax share to income share than Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

This is drifting, but what does renouncing your citizenship have to do with it? While other country's citizens can move to avoid taxes, America is unique in taxing its citizens regardless of where they live. When you move to a foreign country you still need to pay US taxes on everything you earn over the exclusion limit of $91,500 plus the housing deduction capped at $27,240. Avoiding that requires becoming a non-citizen.

The point to me is that +70% is paid by the "rich" and close to half don't pay anything. Just how long do you think this can go ON and UP? Until the "rich" renounce their US citizenship (America is unique in our taxation of citizens' income regardless of where they reside) and move elsewhere with lower effective tax rates. That can't happen until our tax rates increase enough since they're currently relatively low even though our tax system is the first (share of taxes paid by the top earning decile) or second (ratio of tax percentage to income percentage in the top decile) most progressive out of the OECD 20. As long as it's the right combination of cheaper and more pleasant to do so here than elsewhere.

How?

Minimum wage (or twice minimum wage half-time) is enough for bare necessities. It'll keep you clothed (you might shop at good will for expensive things like coats), feed you, and rent you a whole room where rent isn't too high (elsewhere you'll need a room mate). A lot of places it'll get you an inexpensive car, and elsewhere it'll pay for a bicycle or bus fare. It'll get you a refrigerator (99.9% of us have one) and color television (98.9%). It'll probably even let you have cable (64% of households earning less than $15,000 a year have satellite or cable). Most families earning under $15,000 a year (57%) have a washing machine so they don't even need to go to the laundromat. You may have to do without a cellular phone though - only 23% of households earning under $15,000 a year have one. Minimum wage is not enough to support what most first-world residents consider to be a pleasant lifestyle.

With machines made in China you don't need any Chinese in Iowa. Most grocery stores and Home Depots have replaced 4 checkers with a set of 4 self-serviced machines supervised by a single employee. The same sort of thing can happen to fast food. There's some amount of money people are willing to spend on "fast food" Where it gets too expensive they'll find market alternatives (making their own lunch, getting tacos for $1.25 from the family owned Tacqueria or Carniceria, or deciding that the price difference for good food is no longer interesting) which put the burger barons and their flippers out of business.

It will last until the real costs of labor decrease in the US and increase in China until they meet. Hopefully we'll still have relatively pleasant living conditions when that happens. "Middle class" means that food and shelter are no longer issues and you're starting to spend money on leisure, owning real-estate, and automobiles. $500-$750 a month is middle class in China, enough to be shopping at places like IKEA. Obviously, food (labor) and housing (labor to build it) have to cost a lot less for those dollar amouns to be sustainable. $150 a month is poor, just like the US $1160 a month minimum wage. Unskilled laborers making $150 a month are pure capitalism - workers selling their services for market value.

Because the American minimum wage laws put a price on un-skilled and sem-skilled labor that's higher than its value while the Chinese don't. You can hire semi-skilled labor in China for $150/month. Minimum wage here is $1160/month and you have to pay overtime on top of that.

Although none of those combine fun-sized main containers with safe-sized reserves. And you're _much_ more likely to need just a reserve than a more effective RSL.

As i said yes i researched it prior to buying. Realestate in OZ has NEVER actually depreciated, growth slows and plateus occassionally but never goes negative. Quote And this is sustainable because over the last seven years salaries have quadrupled in the location you bought your investment properties?

Why should they not be allowed to own guns? Using and growing Marijuana - wonderful. They surely will be fully aware of how to use weapons - softly, silent, full of peace and love Just like 51,000,000 American gun-owners who drink alcohol but hurt no one (I'm assuming that alcohol drinking is uniformly distributed across the population of gun owners and non-gun owners).

Although they're not usually enforced against children, assault statutes don't have a minimum age. Juvenile criminal records can be sealed. If that's what it takes.

I fail to see the benefit of protecting extremely vile and offensive speech. I fail to see the benefit of the right of the WBC to spew what they spew. There are plenty of things we accept now that were once offensive. Some things will become more or less offensive with changing political power. You can't draw a line that would always be correct and anything left to interpretation is open to abuse by whoever takes power. God made Earth the center of the universe. People who think otherwise should be put to the question and burned at the stake when convicted. A women's place is in the home, baking pies and babies not at the voting both. Women's suffrage is offensive. Blacks and whites interbreeding are an abomination. No one should be endorsing the crime of miscegenation.

Most drug testing looks for use, not current intoxication. The commonly used tests for Marijuana are specifically looking for metabolites that don't have physiological effects.

Blood levels can be measured and impaired driving recorded on police video the same way as with alcohol. Every state I've looked at already has driving while intoxicated laws that apply to all drugs - prescribed or otherwise. The same laws will continue to apply once marijuana is legal. They can measure blood levels the same way they do with alcohol and apply the same driving while intoxicated laws they do now. The breathalyser saves a lot of people a trip to the county jail to get their blood tested for intoxicants but isn't necessary. Probably cause can be established with pupil characteristics and tracking. Police officers with narcotics training get descriptive cards to help them out. That can be confirmed with a blood test. While you're allowed to refuse to have your blood drawn (or even to blow into the tube), most states have informed consent laws that turning over your license on the spot goes with that choice. One of my friends got picked up for driving while on prescription pain medications, and another got busted for public intoxication after he left the hospital with whatever they put in his system. The laws don't differentiate much based on what sort of drug you're on.

I agree. However it also illustrates that the HC industry has lost sight of the purpose of health care. Nope. To the health care INDUSTRY the purpose is to make money. Billions of dollars in fact. That's easier when they don't write new policies for people who are already sick or injured.

The point I'm making is that houses aren't investments since the real rates of return are usually negative. Case-Schiller shows a 3.4% annual growth in resale price of the same home from 1987 to 2009. Since inflation was 2.9% over that period, that's .5% after inflation before costs. After the big recurring costs that's negative. The US census data shows a 5.4% increase in the price of new homes from 1963 to 2000; but after you remove the 1.6% annual increase in square footage you have 4.2% increases in price per square foot. Subtract the inflation rate of 4.4% over the same period and you're at -.2% before you add the recurring costs. You have a lot more latitude in what you do with property you own. It's a slow forced tax-advantaged savings plan that will cut your housing costs in retirement. In some cases renting (borrowing) the money costs less than renting the property would. While all that's good, it doesn't make houses investments. This makes perfect sense. Logically house prices can't increase faster than wages. Real wages in the US have been decreasing since 1974.

Recent years is close to pointless when you look at long term strategies. Have you actually seen the data to back that up? In the US, if you look at the CS index from 87 (the time the index was started) to the top of the market (December 2005), the average return on a property is only 3% annually, when taking into account inflation. Looking at a well diversified portfolio (say the Wilshire 5000) over a 20 years period, you should see at least 6% return when accounting for inflation. That ignores maintenance which can run 1-4% annually, property taxes with a 1% national median over 2006-2008 with high cost areas reaching 3%, home owner's insurance (including flood and/or earth quake coverage where appropriate), etc.

State law often requires companies to pay out for unused vacation at your current salary. That can be a big liability on the books. The sick leave policy is probably cheaper than paying for short-term disability insurance.

Depends on the industry - most companies do what they need to in order to be competitive. In theory I get 14 days of paid vacation each year plus 5 floating holidays and the 10 fixed holidays. There's a week of sick leave too. In practice I've taken a couple long weekends plus the holidays over the last two years and will probably get paid up to the 168 hour cap when we have a liquidity event, go out of business, etc. I last took real vacations week-long vacations in 2005.

Government health care does not cost more. Out of the OECD countries the United states has the lowest government share of health care spending (45% in 2007), spends the highest percentage of its GDP (16%), and spends the most per capita ($7290, 2.5X the average). The OECD includes Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The thing that gets me is that other countries are able to insure their entire population for what we spend on the governments' share of Medicare and Medicaid. We should be able to have the same thing for no more than we're spending now and keep our private insurance if we want more.

It's a gamble. Cashing out now limits your losses if things get worse in the future (banks get around to foreclosing on delinquent accounts and selling the property, interest rates go up in the future, there's more job loss, Baby Boomers retire to smaller homes, etc.). I sold my last property at a small loss ($10 or $15K) and was glad I didn't stick around to realize a much bigger one.

Your company may also be failing to game the system in the right way. The big thing for smaller companies these days is Professional Employer Organizations which allow small companies to outsource the employer/employee relationship including benefits. Companies like ADP (market cap 22.67B) can do a much better job getting good benefit deals than Mom & Pop Co. Limits on group sizes vary with the specific PEO. Trade organizations may also be an option for group insurance. For example, I can get insurance for small businesses through the Microsoft Alumni Network.