newbie12

12 ms·

61.
by newbie12 13y ago
The "hoarding" argument has no economic basis. Money that is saved in stocks, bonds, or bank accounts is immediately put to use by companies, banks, or governments.
62.
by newbie12 13y ago
This is false. Nobody claimed or believed an attack on the US was imminent (although another attack on Israel was a concern), the idea was that taking out Saddam could help stabilize the middle east. In official Washington it was well und
63.
by newbie12 13y ago
Honor wasn't satisfied-- the top Taliban Mullah and Bin Laden both got away. And it wasn't just the Bush team whipping up support-- Congressional Democrats almost all voted to authorize force and the New York Times reporting supported WMDs
64.
by newbie12 13y ago
Point is that taxpayers are subsidizing your gain in disposing a car that isn't worth the book value, as well as the process of transporting and selling the car, and KQED might not get much money at all.
65.
by newbie12 13y ago
Actually the cloud's not much in SV. Rackspace is in Texas and Amazon's AWS leaders are in Seattle and their biggest datacenter is in Virginia.
66.
by newbie12 13y ago
Amtrak is actually a creature of the federal government that does own the northeast corridor rail lines. There's no reason Amtrak can't run bullet trains on the NE corridor except that they lack the capital needed for the track upgrades, a
67.
by newbie12 13y ago
The fundamental problem is that the ground experience is managed by the airports, which are usually unionized governmental entities with little concern for the customer's time, and by the TSA. Similarly, despite very compelling economics,
68.
by newbie12 13y ago
Taxpayers still took a huge downside risk with the loan to Tesla, and that loan has to be measured against the overall government loan program's losses, which is a massive failure costing billions.
69.
by newbie12 13y ago
I've been a vocal critic of Tesla and the DoE loan program, and I'm really glad to see Tesla pay off the loan and move into private markets. I want to root for this company to succeed and now I feel like I can do that. Taxpayers still got
70.
by newbie12 13y ago
There was a point a couple years ago when Posterous was really innovating and Tumblr seemed dead-- the Tumblr staff (CEO?) were ranting at their users and there were technical problems.
71.
by newbie12 13y ago
I never, ever would have predicted that Tumblr would beat Posterous in the blogging platform wars.
72.
by newbie12 13y ago
The problem is that the social contract is a lie. Fed policy of inflation is a kind of deliberate taxation. Social Security is a bankrupt fraud. We borrow a trillion dollars a year, a debt that will burden today's children who have no say
73.
by newbie12 13y ago
There absolutely are moral limits on taxation. Otherwise we are all just slaves to the state. "Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become
74.
by newbie12 13y ago
Well put, but the top income tax rate in the US is now nearly 40%. Plus there's 12.4% for Social Security (employer+employee but it is economically all your salary) and state income taxes. And if you invest anything after that, there's ca
75.
by newbie12 13y ago
It doesn't sound like that's the case, and there is NEVER a reason for an employed person to allow a simple speeding ticket to turn into a bench warrant. I've struggled with these kinds issues in the past and the way out is to step up and
76.
by newbie12 13y ago
It is not just a personal matter if someone has a criminal background or routinely doesn't pay their bills. Credit scores are a statistically significant indicator of other kinds of behavior-- for example, people with better credit are als
77.
by newbie12 13y ago
Yes a very good friend working in finance had an offer rescinded at this stage. They won't tell you why, although if the credit score is the reason they are legally supposed to send you an letter. Seriously, though, 400 FICO is appalling,
78.
by newbie12 13y ago
Of course Netflix already abandoned the mail delivery model as their focus, they even tried to spin off that business, and it is only a small portion of their revenue today. There were a lot of factors that went into Netflix's success, incl
79.
by newbie12 13y ago
The US is one of the most energy efficient economies in the world. The US consumes a lot of resources because it still produces so much of the world's GDP. And we're constantly inventing new resources and better ways to extract them-- we'
80.
by newbie12 13y ago
This is HTML! But with tags that you can create, and pass values to, and do things in the browser. It actually empowers developers who don't grasp javascript by encapsulating it.
81.
by newbie12 13y ago
Wow Ezra Klein gets it completely wrong. I think he's confusing 501 c(4) and c(3). c(3) are traditional social welfare charities and donations to them are tax exempt, c(4) are explicitly for political lobbying and donations are taxable. (
82.
by newbie12 13y ago
I don't think any of these groups are involved in tax avoidance or evasion schemes. They are political associations working on tax and budget issues.
83.
by newbie12 13y ago
The audits were in an election year and we are now learning included many conservative budget organizations, not just tea party groups.
84.
by newbie12 13y ago
Miller also lied to Congress and the public about the IRS targeting program.
85.
by newbie12 13y ago
501 c4 organizations already have no tax-exempt status-- all advocacy donations are currently taxable.
86.
by newbie12 13y ago
These are mainstream political groups that are opposed to excessive taxes and spending, they have nothing to do with tax avoidance schemes.
87.
by newbie12 13y ago
It isn't a lack of taxes, it is that Medicaid (a federally mandated program) is out of control and is absolutely destroying state education budgets. "Governments’ general support for higher education 25 years ago was nearly 50 percent great
88.
by newbie12 13y ago
Consumer Reports tested the $89k model.
89.
by newbie12 13y ago
Plus no autoworkers' union, and no inefficient dealer network.
90.
by newbie12 13y ago
Consumer Reports is part of Ralph Nader's Consumer Union, an extremely left-wing operation. It is inconceivable that a $89k car with a top range of just 200 miles gets their top rating without a bias.

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