Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

Knuckledragger!

I know that if I were to get laid off, I'd collect unemployment until it ran out. I may have morals and ethics, but I'm also not stupid enough to pass up something free.

yeah, whatever.

You realize that your wages are deflated because your employer pays for the unemployment insurance, right?

That's part of the problem with being middle class. If you're rich insurance isn't that necessary and is highly affordable. If you're middle class or lower insurance is everything.

 

[unofan]

Knuckledragger!

I know that if I were to get laid off, I'd collect unemployment until it ran out. I may have morals and ethics, but I'm also not stupid enough to pass up something free.

Right. Cause living on half your former wages will be an oh-so-easy adjustment.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

Right. Cause living on half your former wages will be an oh-so-easy adjustment.

Actually, it would.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

Unemployment insurance is not "free." Your employer pays for it. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Ask your comptroller how much your company pays each month in unemployment insurance premiums.

Let's clarify, then: at no cost to me at the time of payment.

 

[Almington]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

Let's clarify, then: at no cost to me at the time of payment.

At no direct and apparent cost to you at the time of payment, odds are that you are receiving lower pay than you would have without the company having to pay that amount so you do pay a cost.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

let's clarify, then: At no cost to me at the time of payment.

bs

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

bs

Still more than zero, is it not?

 

[unofan]

Actually, it would.

Bullshiat. Even presuming you're truthfully claiming you save 50% of your income, you don't think you'd be upset about leaving that 50% on the table? Especially considering things like healthcare would probably double in cost, at the least, if you take the cobra option.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

At no direct and apparent cost to you at the time of payment, odds are that you are receiving lower pay than you would have without the company having to pay that amount so you do pay a cost.

Hence why I said at the time of payment. That intentionally does not take into account the prepayment scenario you described.

You know what's funny? I expected most of the loony lefties on this board to bash me on that.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

Bullshiat. Even presuming you're truthfully claiming you save 50% of your income, you don't think you'd be upset about leaving that 50% on the table? Especially considering things like healthcare would probably double in cost, at the least, if you take the cobra option.

Not at all; that's why I save it, in case something like that happens. Gotta stay a step ahead.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

Hence why I said at the time of payment. That intentionally does not take into account the prepayment scenario you described.

You know what's funny? I expected most of the loony lefties on this board to bash me on that.

Is no prepayment scenario. The money comes out of your pocket. Just like any other insurance premium.

 

[Rover]

(lots of nonsense)

Fishy I don't know if this is the desperate lament of a tired old knuckledragger or a cry for help, but I have one question: Do you make this bull$%^& up as you go along or do you actually read it somewhere? If so please let me know because I always get a good laugh reading conservative web-sites, especially the day before the election when they were sure of winning the Presidency and the Senate. In fact, I still go back and read that stuff for a good laugh. You sir sound like Dick Morris.

My knowledge of working class slobs wanting to work is from personal experience. Having washed dishes for a living in high school and college, my workplace was filled with people who could have dedicated themselves to welfare or unemployment scams but were happy to bust their butts at a job every day. Maybe you personally would be happy to do nothing and live off the gubmint as many a conservative in states like MS, AL, KY, and WVA do, but don't tag us with your lack of ethics.

You do serve a useful point though, which is to prove how stupid conservatism is. Yeah, I can really see an laid off investment banker not trying to find a similar job so he can collect 400 bucks a week from the state. Ooookaaayyyy. Throw in some nonsense about govt payoffs to unions (which if it was happening one would think they'd be a lot more successful) and all that's missing is something about how tax cuts for the rich pay for themselves! Don't disappoint us Fishy...

 

[joecct]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

Fishy I don't know if this is the desperate lament of a tired old knuckledragger or a cry for help, but I have one question: Do you make this bull$%^& up as you go along or do you actually read it somewhere? If so please let me know because I always get a good laugh reading conservative web-sites, especially the day before the election when they were sure of winning the Presidency and the Senate. In fact, I still go back and read that stuff for a good laugh. You sir sound like Dick Morris.

My knowledge of working class slobs wanting to work is from personal experience. Having washed dishes for a living in high school and college, my workplace was filled with people who could have dedicated themselves to welfare or unemployment scams but were happy to bust their butts at a job every day. Maybe you personally would be happy to do nothing and live off the gubmint as many a conservative in states like MS, AL, KY, and WVA do, but don't tag us with your lack of ethics.

You do serve a useful point though, which is to prove how stupid conservatism is. Yeah, I can really see an laid off investment banker not trying to find a similar job so he can collect 400 bucks a week from the state. Ooookaaayyyy. Throw in some nonsense about govt payoffs to unions (which if it was happening one would think they'd be a lot more successful) and all that's missing is something about how tax cuts for the rich pay for themselves! Don't disappoint us Fishy...

For all the $$ the unions are funneling into the Dem Party, you think that they would get the goodies. By your standards the GOP rewards it benefactors with magnificence. I feel shock that the Dems don't return their favors with equal verve.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

I've criticized the left for trying something, noticing it doesn't work, trying it again even more, noticing it doesn't work, trying even more of it still, noticing it doesn't work, yet continue to insist that they try even more of it. It is weird to me that when you have been trying something for 50 years and it doesn't work, you never once stop and think "hey wait a minute maybe we need to adjust something here." Nope, they are devoted more to ideological purity than practicality, and elevate naivete over clear-headedness.

The right does the same thing too. While I am not "in favor" of prostitution, for example, I have enough sense to notice that laws making it illegal produce worse results than legalizing it and regulating it do. Ideally, in a healthy society, there would be no prostitution due to lack of demand. If men treated women with dignity and respect, and women treated men with dignity and respect, then they could enjoy physical relations in their proper time and place. Instead, people are as they are, and women trade sex for stuff and men trade stuff for sex. Why are some of those trades okay while others are not? If I spend a lot of money to take someone on a week-long trip to the Caribbean, I'd probably expect "something" in return (speaking theoretically, alas, as I never had neither the money nor the "friendship" that would have made this theoretical into something real..); and my companion also would have understood. yet that would be perfectly legal.

Having some forms of "sex for money" be illegal produces all sorts of bad side effects that all could be ameliorated with an enlightened regulatory legal structure: routine health screenings and treatment for STDs; the absense of physical abuse from pimps, a reduction in incentives to kidnap women and subject them to human trafficking, etc.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

I've criticized the left for trying something, noticing it doesn't work, trying it again even more, noticing it doesn't work, trying even more of it still, noticing it doesn't work, yet continue to insist that they try even more of it. It is weird to me that when you have been trying something for 50 years and it doesn't work, you never once stop and think "hey wait a minute maybe we need to adjust something here." Nope, they are devoted more to ideological purity than practicality, and elevate naivete over clear-headedness.

The right does the same thing too. While I am not "in favor" of prostitution, for example, I have enough sense to notice that laws making it illegal produce worse results than legalizing it and regulating it do. Ideally, in a healthy society, there would be no prostitution due to lack of demand. If men treated women with dignity and respect, and women treated men with dignity and respect, then they could enjoy physical relations in their proper time and place. Instead, people are as they are, and women trade sex for stuff and men trade stuff for sex. Why are some of those trades okay while others are not? If I spend a lot of money to take someone on a week-long trip to the Caribbean, I'd probably expect "something" in return (speaking theoretically, alas, as I never had neither the money nor the "friendship" that would have made this theoretical into something real..); and my companion also would have understood. yet that would be perfectly legal.

Having some forms of "sex for money" be illegal produces all sorts of bad side effects that all could be ameliorated with an enlightened regulatory legal structure: routine health screenings and treatment for STDs; the absense of physical abuse from pimps, a reduction in incentives to kidnap women and subject them to human trafficking, etc.

I've actually thought about this one, too, over the past year or so. My ideas are rather simple, not fleshed out at all, but they were all to the point of legalizing it in order to reduce human trafficking.

First, legalize prostitution. Require the prostitutes (and gigolos, I suppose) to get monthly STD testing. Register with the authorities - state or local. Require that registration to be photo documented with both the authorities and to be displayed somewhere within the public portions of the brothel. Require the use of condoms, spermicidal ones.

Second, make punishments for not taking these measures very severe for both the prostitute and the brothel management, to the point where abatement isn't even questioned. Unregistered prostitutes wouldn't want to risk getting caught and brothel owners will do everything they can to ensure adherence.

Third, make punishment for Johns using non-registered prostitutes so severe that, again, they won't consider doing it in the first place. This will do two things. First, it will diminish the demand for hookers on the street. You don't want to pay the $300-400/hr price of a registered lady? Fine, you now risk a minimum sentence of 10 years in jail. Known offender? Add another five. Second, because of the shrinking demand, it would reduce the number of illegal prostitutes, making it financially unattractive for human trafficking to occur in the first place.

There would have to be more put forth than this, but, like I said, it's just something that's occurred to me as I've read some news articles over the past year with regards to human trafficking. So much of it revolves around sexual exploitation that we could as a society put a huge dent into it.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

I don't know if this is [more name-calling with no substance] or a cry for help.

Typical of your style. Create a false dichotomy. The answer is neither.

Weird though that you actually would admit that you don't know something. Are you feeling all right? That is so unlike you. Generally you lecture us on how you know everything!

 

[joecct]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

Remember what it said on the sign into the Yoshiwara -- "Lust will not keep. Something must be done about it."

I think in the legal counties in NV, the prostitute gets a license, and then gets checked regularly. Also, they are not allowed to "freelance", but have to work in a house/ranch/establishment. Some lock the place down, some don't. And I think riding bareback is verboten.

I've heard stories of ladies putting themselves through college and advanced degrees via this method. Good for them.

I'd do the same thing in MD and tax the heck out of it.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

I've heard stories of ladies putting themselves through college and advanced degrees via this method. Good for them.

I'd do the same thing in MD....

You can't say I didn't quote exactly what you said, eh? beware those ellipses!

 

[Rover]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

For all the $$ the unions are funneling into the Dem Party, you think that they would get the goodies. By your standards the GOP rewards it benefactors with magnificence. I feel shock that the Dems don't return their favors with equal verve.

They don't get a return on their investment because unions are as relevant to the Dem coalition as they are to the private sector workforce. They're helpful in certain situations but really aren't a big factor anymore. As I often say, its not 1982 anymore. Most unions are made up of old white guys. Old white guys really aren't a big driving force in lefty politics.

What's funny about this is that for all the GOP efforts to bust unions, if ever there was a small piece of the Dem party that they could chip away at, wouldn't you think an old, white, less educated working class population would be the easiest target? All the outreach to Catholic or Jewish voters has gotten Republicans squat, even as they basically have taken an oath of citizenship to Isreal.

Fishy, keep the stupidity coming. I could continue to point out the absurdity of modern day conservatism but you really make the point for me, unintentionally I'm sure. You should ask yourself something though: if you're so smart why do liberals keep wiping their backsides with you every election?

 

[pirate]

Re: Strands in the Tapestry: the Business, Economics, and Tax Policy Thread

They don't get a return on their investment because unions are as relevant to the Dem coalition as they are to the private sector workforce. They're helpful in certain situations but really aren't a big factor anymore. As I often say, its not 1982 anymore. Most unions are made up of old white guys. Old white guys really aren't a big driving force in lefty politics.

What's funny about this is that for all the GOP efforts to bust unions, if ever there was a small piece of the Dem party that they could chip away at, wouldn't you think an old, white, less educated working class population would be the easiest target? All the outreach to Catholic or Jewish voters has gotten Republicans squat, even as they basically have taken an oath of citizenship to Isreal.

Fishy, keep the stupidity coming. I could continue to point out the absurdity of modern day conservatism but you really make the point for me, unintentionally I'm sure. You should ask yourself something though: if you're so smart why do liberals keep wiping their backsides with you every election?

one purpose of a union is to exert a force greater than the sum of its parts...federal employee unions alone have over 1 million members, they aren't making minimum wage, they vote 90+% democratic and they spend billions in lobbying and other political activities.

If the democrats ever dared say anything other than "yes, may I have another" when the unions make demands, they would be in for far more than just the loss of votes.

Why are there federal employee unions? sweat shops? workplace death and dismemberment? cattle yards? company goons beating them up? Subpar pay and benefits?

That last one is the greatest joke....look up what the quit rates are for private and public jobs...and what the average total comp is for a federal employee...its a miracle any quit.


no idea if this is a union job: https://www.governmentjobs.com/view_job.cfm?JobID=26349

cook, 1 year experience needed, salary range $17k to $33k. Check out the benefits tab. I think the government should pay cooks $33k a year with a benefits package better than any similar job in the rest of the country...because government food is so **** good. Do they still have a McDonald's in the Capital building. wonder what that 'cook' gets paid.


edit2: only 642 jobs on there paying greater than $100k. Saw one job where you can bank your leave and take up to, but no more, than 66 paid leave days in a year.

but the job requires an MBA, unless you have 5 years government or similar experience...like working 5 years for the government would teach you anything about business administration

edit 3: great accounting job on there, 15 vacation days a year, 12 holidays, 15 sick days a year - now, you might say "wow, that is 42 paid days off a year...that is more than any of my friends in the private sector get" but, they prolly don't take 42 because you can carry up to 180 sick days from year to year...however, there is a catch...only 90 of them can be applied to retirement.