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curiousity Member Profile Member Since: 2007-12-04 Last Power Points used: 2009-09-01 • Available: now Max Power Points: 1 • Get More Power Points Now Comments 1 |
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Videos Submitted by curiousity
I think Warren Buffet was including payroll taxes -- until your wages get pretty far up there, folks pay 7.65%. I'm not 100% sure though -- the law is, as has been noted, horribly complex.
I don't know what the answer is. The truth is, any system is going to hurt some people more and benefit others. Nothing is perfectly fair. To me, you set the guidelines as best you can to minimize the disparity.
A flat tax and a sales tax I believe are inherently unfair -- unless you start bringing a load of complexity into it. Clothing is exempt -- but what about haute couture? Clothing bought in Europe and brought into our country? You start to create a new level of complexity on that.
Although I have done taxes for a million years, I am not a policy wonk who understands all the ins and outs. I only know what I have seen grow over the years.
Here is one thing that I didn't say before.... it is because of the increasing power and mobility of computers we have the tax laws we have today. If we professionals had to do taxes by hand with the current laws, we could never get them done. Our industry would have screamed bloody murder before the laws would have been brought into practice.
But since we now all have computers on our desks, an embarrassing percentage of professionals don't really understand the law anymore, I think. Certainly when we get new clients and look at the work from prior accountants we see enough evidence of that.
And we worry in our office about what we don't know -- and don't even know it.
It's scary out here. Let me tell you.
Well, I am not that up on how much tax you would have to collect. According to the Senator in the video, he said that a national sales tax would have to make up the difference.
You still have the problem of RELATIVE tax. So you have a deductible that everyone gets. That would solve the problem of truly poor people. The vast majority of our taxpayers are middle class, however. It's still the same problem, as far as I am concerned. 10% tax to a middle class family is still relatively huge compared to the uber-wealthy.
I live in the State of Washington. We don't have an income tax. I can't quite get my mind around Bill Gates. The only tax he pays to the State of Washington is property tax. Granted, it is something like $25K per year or something, maybe more. But as a percentage of his income? It is laughable.
Gates' personal saving grace is that he "taxes" himself through his Foundation, and helps support a huge number of communities' libraries and schools and what-all.
I am one of those nasty liberals that thinks that a progressive tax makes sense -- to share the relative PAIN. Progressive tax rates are there so that all "suffer" the same. 10% at even $100K income is not the same as 10% at $1 million income.
By the way, I really appreciate your respectful tone in the discussions that I have noticed you in on this thread. It is such a relief to read someone disagree without the personal attacks and angry characterizations of others. Thank you.
In reply to this comment by curiousity:
>> ^bareboards2:
lot o' stuff
Thanks for the comment bareboards2.
Do you think that a flat tax would work if it include a deductible? This deductible would be based somewhat on the poverty line and every single person would get it. This way it keeps the simplicity of a flat tax (everything applies to everyone), while also trying to account for low income people and families.
With your experience, does that sound like something that could actually work?
In reply to this comment by curiousity:
>> ^quantumushroom:
Liberals should be joyous America responded so milldly.
On September 12th, 2001, Afghanistan should've been a glass parking lot.
I agree.
This is why whenever I see a person jaywalk, I shoot everyone within 100 yards of that person. They allowed that person to jaywalk and deserve to die. Then I hunt down their families - by not properly raising them, they are supporting lawbreakers! It keeps me busy, but anything less of a response would mean that I'm a "qm liberal"... and I couldn't face that.
In reply to this comment by curiousity:
Are there any videos of David Frum talking to a conservative host about the same issues?
In reply to this comment by curiousity:
Umm... Did you watch this clip?
It's the Penguin, not the Joker and that is repeat multiple times in the clip.
just saying.
In reply to this comment by curiousity:
Some people really get their panties in a bunch (no offense ladies) because celebrities use fame to promote a particular cause.
How is using one's fame any different than using one's inherited or earned wealth to promote an idea?
Money, fame, time, etc are just tools that people use to promote their ideas.
>> ^Trancecoach:
>> ^volumptuous:So, depending upon your job dictates whether you can have an active role in politics or not?
Wrong. A person's job does not dictate the value of their opinions. These celebrities can vote in a democracy in any way they choose. When they speak out, with absolutely no basis from which they're speaking, and influence public policy is where I have a problem. If you want to take your political cues from how the Dixie Chicks, Spike Lee, Matt Damon, or Bono tell you to think, that's up to you. For journalists to cover it -- well that's relying on a crutch instead of doing real journalism and is a waste of the public attention.
Umm... Obviously there is a bit of frustration there. Seems you personally dealt with people that have based their opinion on a celeb's, etc opinion and hold onto that frustration. I do sympathize, but I think you are attacking the wrong thing here.
Maybe your real fight should be promoting civic and logic classes for people.
Security is a fun place for the grey hats.
In reply to this comment by curiousity:
ahh... I didn't realize you meant it as a joke.
No problem, its cool to talk about these things.
Have you looked at the way that ZRTP (VoIP protocol by Phil Zimmermann) handles Man in the Middle attacks? Seems like it would be effective.
Of course, most of this is new to me. I'm working my way into the field. Getting down basic knowledge and skills while trying to get familiar with the security community.
Thanks for your response!
In reply to this comment by NordlichReiter:
All software is victim of Obfuscation in network security, and in cryptography it is better to obfuscate the passphrase. AES Encryption works, thats been proven its a government standard. However no encryption is safe from Man in the Middle. No software that you distribute is safe from reverse engineering.
Security through obscurity is a joke, ( i meant it as a joke). Once the application has made it to the testing phase it can be broken. As for as the Encryption you have to have the pass phrase to decrypt it. A 20 character pass phrase may take a while to brute force. Even though you know how the program works you still have to know the pass phrase, considering the hash is in someone else's memory.
In reply to this comment by curiousity:
I don't know C# yet. It's in the plan though.
I'm not a big fan of "security through obsurity." I'm not saying that your system is insecure just that I'm not a fan of the obsurity method for security in matters like this.
Kerckhoff's Principle
Bruce Schneier, author of Applied Cryptography, "if the strength of your new cryptosystem relies on the fact that the attacker does not know the algorithm's inner workings, you're sunk. If you believe that keeping the algorithm's insides secret improves the security of your cryptosystem more than letting the academic community analyze it, you're wrong. And if you think that someone won't disassemble your code and reverse-engineer your algorithm, you're naive."
In reply to this comment by NordlichReiter:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Philip-Zimmermann-on-PGP-Pretty-Good-Privacy#addcomment
hey do you know any thing about c# ?
I wrote an windows form that does basically the same thing as PGP, but its not as user friendly.(security through obscurity) I use an SMTP Server, AES encryption, creatable passphrase. This was a private project, that I havent uploaded to the creative commons area yet, I'm lazy.
Its really very easy, I used a couple of methods from C# friends to mash it together. Only problem is, some email banks.. (AOL
Security through obscurity is a joke, ( i meant it as a joke). Once the application has made it to the testing phase it can be broken. As for as the Encryption you have to have the pass phrase to decrypt it. A 20 character pass phrase may take a while to brute force. Even though you know how the program works you still have to know the pass phrase, considering the hash is in someone else's memory.
In reply to this comment by curiousity:
I don't know C# yet. It's in the plan though.
I'm not a big fan of "security through obsurity." I'm not saying that your system is insecure just that I'm not a fan of the obsurity method for security in matters like this.
Kerckhoff's Principle
Bruce Schneier, author of Applied Cryptography, "if the strength of your new cryptosystem relies on the fact that the attacker does not know the algorithm's inner workings, you're sunk. If you believe that keeping the algorithm's insides secret improves the security of your cryptosystem more than letting the academic community analyze it, you're wrong. And if you think that someone won't disassemble your code and reverse-engineer your algorithm, you're naive."
In reply to this comment by NordlichReiter:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Philip-Zimmermann-on-PGP-Pretty-Good-Privacy#addcomment
hey do you know any thing about c# ?
I wrote an windows form that does basically the same thing as PGP, but its not as user friendly.(security through obscurity) I use an SMTP Server, AES encryption, creatable passphrase. This was a private project, that I havent uploaded to the creative commons area yet, I'm lazy.
Its really very easy, I used a couple of methods from C# friends to mash it together. Only problem is, some email banks.. (AOL
hey do you know any thing about c# ?
I wrote an windows form that does basically the same thing as PGP, but its not as user friendly.(security through obscurity) I use an SMTP Server, AES encryption, creatable passphrase. This was a private project, that I havent uploaded to the creative commons area yet, I'm lazy.
Its really very easy, I used a couple of methods from C# friends to mash it together. Only problem is, some email banks.. (AOL
Glad you enjoyed it. It's an issue that seems to whimper through the night unless it is your property they are taking.
I never thought I would be interested in eminent domain, but the video was exciting, perhaps it was the personality of the debaters?
I have a housing forclosure crisis playlist here on videosift, and I like CSPAN type stuff.
So do you just browse through the FORA website to find stuff? or what focused you on the eminent domain issue?
if you get anymore like this let me know