nanook

Happy Birthday!!! It's been a long time!! _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

I wish I had boring _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

The Second Coming. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

11 years!! I was in New Mexico state before I joined up(Navy). Five deployments, a considerable amount of underway time, complications created by 9/11 slowed down my studies. Got my Bachelors in Management, minor in Finance. Starting Masters in Finance in the fall now that my ship is in the yards. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

The quote is broken. Everybody loved Einstein. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

Hate to scare you more. That is only personal income tax that you listed there. That was only one of several subsets. You don't need to comprehend the whole code. What's the need to do that? Most of it doesn't pertain to you. Why change things you don't understand or need to? Nobody knows all of it. Can you quote me every single federal law and 50 other individual state laws? No Lawyer can. Not without references. You can find any tax code on the irs.gov site. Simplifying things make it too black and white. Everybody spends and creates money in different ways. No one person is the same. It's like a fingerprint. The current codes promotes flexibility and fluidity that those other codes can never promise. All those alternative codes are written in the perspective of one type of income reporting. None encompass all like the present code does. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

If you abolish the IRS, who will make sure the Tax is "fair"? State Sales tax board would have to expand exponenitally to cover this. You would then have 50 mini-IRS's. The biggest glaring problem with any of these alternative taxation is it's simple. I get a feeling that the real motivation behind these programs is that people are too lazy to read and research themselves when it comes to tax time. Someone throws out something that is "groundbreaking" and "new" and people assume that these things have never been thought up many times over. I'm confident that this has been thought up before by at least one undergrad student every semester in different forms in U. S. Taxation history but quickly discarded because if it's naiveity and lack of understanding on human nature, money, cost of the U. S. doing businesses. The biggest problem I see with this type of taxation is that it relies on the buying of new goods. You don't have to be a financial genius to understand the repercussions of what happens during "Fear of spending" periods. I see a lot of trading going on between business owners and corporation to curtail these taxes. How is one Bill going to correct what took about a hundred years be near perfection? What's wrong with the current Tax Codes? Too Complicated? Favors the Rich? It better. The rich are the ones that provide the most jobs. They own the companies and majority of the shares of Corporations. They provide the infastructure to employ all non-govt people, providing the resources to be taxed. They may only pay "17%" but they provide Hundreds of billions of tax revenue. Middle class mostly earn W-2 wages. If they save money, they decrease tax revenue. I'm willing to bet that the supporters of this bill are 100% W-2 reported. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

1. We have the largest military. We will always spend the most. Putting all the worlds' military expenditure into a pie-chart will always have 100% total to be subtracted from. When the War is over, the Chart will not change much at all. A lot of those countries are spending on the War too. 2. We are stakeholders in the rest of the world. What happens in any country, even third worlds, affects us greatly. And vice versa. What goods don't arrive after transiting the Malaca Straits has a direct effect on our economy and other countrys' economies. Same with other major canals, seaways, the Gulf, ect. ect. Sea lanes have to be actively managed by us and shit still goes down in them. And that's just the Navy's side. Most countries do not have the resources to protect themselves at all. This makes us step up to the plate primarily for our own interest and secondarily, for theirs(because it affects ours sooner or later) 3. Beaurocracy. BikerBabe gave you an insight of how we spend our money. Truth is, the military is not a for-profit organization. It never will be. A business makes money by making more money than it spends. The military, and Govt, only spends. The funds are purely appropriated, not created by a business plan. Because of this, the most efficent way to keep tab on spending is the Beaurocratic Process. It is impossible to use the Business model to help save money or run the military. The whole infastructure/plan/process is so vastly different. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

Man!! "duplicitous" must be a very powerful word. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

You just destroyed my gullible outlook in life. What do I do about the sound of chainsaws and gutteral New York accented orders spewing out from the background of my "Sounds of the Rainforest"? _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

I have problems sleeping at night sometimes. I went to buy one of those "sounds of the Ocean" CD's and played it last night. Just as I was dozing off, I hear in the background of the crashing waves: "Help ME!!!!" Didn't get much sleep afterwards. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

Maybe if they learned how to spell, their finance d'vizn wouldn't make any mistakes. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

I like to creep out people with my gun collection. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

I say legalize it too. It won't create a slippery slope to MJ legalization. Now, it's illegalization has already caused permanent damage to it as a resource. Maybe research will show other uses in the future. . . _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

did nylon really replace hemp? It was already on a major decline before that patent. U.S Hemp's major killer was Phillipine Hemp and other types of fibers. I figured the illegalization was pushed by loggers. Anyone know if DuPont could have supplied hydrogen peroxide (to hemp producers) vs. chlorine bleach( to logging industry)? _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

True. Cotton requires more TLC to grow. But it cost way more to process hemp. Cotton produces less waste when it is spun and was way cheaper to manufacture regardless of harmful substances. Look into the growing and/or manufacturing processing. . .just because there are more steps involved doesn't neccessairly mean inefficiency. Also, beware of the consumer. In the U. S. the mighty buck talks. It more than likely will all have to be exported to foreign countries to be made into finnished goods before it's cheaper for any consumer to buy it here. That means we have to compete with europe canada and other countries in export. I'm all for legalizing it. I think it's silly banning something out of similarities, but it won't be commercially grown. . .unless those European studies prove fruitful. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

Meh. . .hemp has been falling out of favor since the late 1800's to early 1900's. Highly inefficient compared to cotton and (at the time), jute. It's easier spinning cotton and a lot cheaper too. And with all the other different fibers that were coming out at the time, hemp was becoming obsolete. But today, only fad and nostalgia brings it back. . .by workhorse of the very people that are not synomynous with progress and practicality: hippies. They couldn't see past their artificial causes to realize that the popularity of hemp phased out over decades, not instantaneously, to meet conspiracy needs. By the time it was (accidentally?) banned in '37, hemp was in it's death throes. Before the 30's, imports decreased by 75% since the beginning of the century and home grown stuff decreased by half. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

His answer was not cynic, it's the truth. We were all taught how the electoral college work,how the govt idealically works/should work, in junior high, high school, and had a battle of semantics and ideology in college. Lots of people were not paying attention in any of these schools. Hell, even our Pledge tells us what type of Gov't we have. It's not cynical believing the U.S. is not a true democracy, it's fact. And always was taught as fact. Some people didn't want anything to do with education when they were young and when this information finally got through their heads many years after most other people, it became a sort of conspiracy and they wrongfully think that everybody else was in the dark. This "late-to-get-the-punchline" phenomenon is one of the larger SC subject generators. . .and helps fill consiracy theory groups at one extreme; makes one uninformed at another. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

I see: someone cashed in on an opportunity when it knocked. Sooner or later, everyone gets to date a cutie like that at least once.

that's interesting. In a couple of my Economics classes, there were huge discussions on how oil is unique inelasticity on the demand side. Oil is definitely a good example to use when discussing unique demand curves. This sounds suspicious. If you are increasing output, you are definitely spending more for production. Or if the cost of production is the same at max output as min output, then you are wasting a huge amount of money if you don't produce at its max. As far as gouging. . . There's way too few oil producers to have anything more than an ogliopoly. It is buisness suicide to increase price with too few competitors. They are watching each other like a hawk. forget about collusion. Not with this much publicity. Oil has always been a hot stock. Even back in the Sandard Oil days. We have more than a century of oil trade. This isn't a new phenomenon. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

Exactly. It would permanently reduce gas prices, but that's really due to the reduction of the need for gas. A cheaper (or even a same-priced) alternative would definitely reduce the need therefore price of gas. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

You sure those "public" streets are indeed owned by the city and not by the school? Is the rule saying you have to have a permit to park on campus, or certain designated lots? If on campus, then that would cover the whole perimeter of the campus including streets. I don't think you have a case. You are on private property after all. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

antisocial _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

I've had XOM for a while now. don't forget to look into other energy companies like Barry oil (BRY), Halliburton (HAL) and such. They both are coming out of the stock-split doldrums and starting to come up again. And, Don't forget to diversify. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

Exactly. Sometimes there are slight changes to the class as technology gets better and they are sub-grouped. Example: an Arleigh Burke class Destroyer Flight 1 has no helo hangar, Flight II has a helo hanger, Flight III has no visible stacks. _____________________________ "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln