Reinke Faces Life

Taxes

Mark Twain is attributed as saying “The only thing that is certain is death and taxes”. Smart fellow! Liberty dies when someone discovers taxation. I would like to call everyone’s attention to some “interesting” facets about taxation:

(1) Taxes are ill-defined

Everybody know that the money extorted from us that we send “voluntarly” to various strange places. Washington DC. One or more of the various state capitals (Yes, NY taxes NJ residents!) Posibly multiple counties and local municipalities. And any mob of policiticans that can figure out an entity to futher mug us. In this list, I would include: “income” (whatever that is), sales and use, and others of such ilk. We can quibble among our selves that “fees” can be taxes if the are unavoidable (i.e., DMV) and / or if they just go into the general fund (i.e., taxes on gasoline for the roads that don’t get “dedicated” to road construction). Personally I woudl assert that to be “user fee” regardless of how absurd is a tax UNLESS it can be avoided AND it is unarguably dedicated.

But I would assert that there are other forms of taxation that we lose sight of:

(A) Mislabeled “insurance” — social security, unemployment, disability, etc etc etc ARE taxes. Anything you get from them should be considered “lottery winnings”.

(B) Inflation is a hidden tax on assets. If you put a c note in your wallet in 1970 and left it there til today, it’s puchasing power declined 95%. You have paid a 95$ tax. It has the interesting effect that it escalates other taxes. You pay high real estate taxes on inflated property values. You pay higher estate taxes on the inflated assets in your portfolio when you die.

(C) Regulation is a hidden tax. Every business makes you pay more to cover the added costs. It can also mean certain goods and services are unavailable at any price.

(D) Estate taxes are hidden. You get stuck after your dead. And, everyone talks about inheritences coming to the beneficiary “tax free”. My tush! The estate paid a fortune in taxes and “fees”.

(X) Cost of compliance is a hidden tax.

(Y) The opportunity cost of all this is a hidden tax.

(Z) Note that I don’t consider the state lottery a tax, despite its description as a “tax on the poor” or a “tax on stupidity”.

(2) Only individuals pay taxes.

Companies merely markup their prices to cover the cost of taxes that the company pays. So, the price in the market place is the true economic cost and a large glump of accumulated taxes. The problems is that we can not differentiate the dividing line. So, if anyone says, included the hosts of FTL, that they pay X per cent, then you shoud quibble because no one can know EXACTLY how much they pay.

(I’m tired for now!)

I don’t know who else to gripe at, so I’ll share my gripe with you. Maybe you can form it up into something rational.

Bought IBM’s ViaVoice for a doc I know who wants to speed up writing a book. (You’ve seen various doctors’ penmanship so I think you can see that part of the problem. They don’t do technology nor keyboarding very much better.)

He’d gotten himself a brand new dell that some one gave him a hand setting up.

So, he knew I did “dictation” so he asked for my help.

Bought the software. Oh excuse me, I “licensed” it.

No problem, I’ve installed my copy before on a succession of machines over the last two years.

Argh. The install hangs! Reboot , restart hang, reboot, restart hang.

Look for some support. IBM did something and now support is Nuance aka ScanSoft.

(That’s not good news. I don’t like their non-support of Paperport. So already I’m in trouble.)

I look around their web site. There’s nothing in the “knowledge base” to shed any light on my problems.

I do find that there is a $10 charge to ask a question M-F 9-5!

That really annoys me.

There’s a restocking fee of 20% and a doc who is depending upon my skill, so I am committed.

I spent four hours tinkering with it. Just clear, install, fail, and reboot. After countless times, some error messages and uncountable just plain hanging unresponsively, one install worked!

Now I am not sure that we are out of trouble or that it will work for him, but at least it is installed!

I think we have arrived at a time where brand (i.e., IBM) doesn’t matter, vendor doesn’t matter, promises (implied or explicit) can not be relied upon.

Personally, I am getting off the Windoze express. I’ll be going to Linux as fast as I can. If it isn’t Open Source freeware, then I am not going to buy it. Professionally, I am going to recommend the same thing to any business that will listen.

I’ll pay for service but not for vapor- or abandon- or any other crud-a ware.

You may wish to ammend your “love fest” with the 401k just slightly. No argument that it is the pension plan of the future. But, it is like catching a falling knife. Some may grab the handle and others the blade.

Contribution to a 401k must be IMHO should be part of an overall financial plan. I would quibble as follows (1) Taxes are theft and don’t overlook that fact. We are getting royally screwed and this small break doesn’t make up for it. (2) Tax deffered money is oh so easy to get in and yet so tough to get out. The 10% penalty and taxes on 401k loans are two “knife blades” that often catch the unaware. (3) 401k choices often carry obscene fees which over a long time can erode the benefit. (I have seen plans with .065 load. It’s a heavy drag to overcome.) (4) 401ks tend to get “left behind” when one changes employers and get “lost” in the shuffle. (5) If your employer forces your 401k into company stock, then think Enron. (6) There is not much help if you have a problem. Look for arbitration clauses. (7) What happens if your employer goes Chapter 7-11? You may lose your 401k. At the very least, that coveted company contribution can be recaptured.

Again. 401k may be your best choice in a rigged game But, eye open for the falling knives.

IMHO FWIW YMMV,

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=021706H

This story just points out what is wrong with the new Amerika. UW is a “state school”. Paid for by federal and other taxzes. Your wealth stolen so that a bunch of young snobs can insult someone who did what the country asked him to do. Makes me ask the question “why”. Why does the federal government have any role in education? Why does any government have any role? Why are state colleges different than a McDonalds?

We have deluded ourselves into thinking that the Government is our friend. Or, that is the only way. Or the best way to do “stuff”.

To have government run education makes no sense.

The failed Communist empire demonstrated that centralize planning dooms everyone. I could go on at great length about the systematic failure it represents.

Bottom line, as a Catholic with no kids, I object to the whole process. Faith based education can NOT compete when the government gives it away “free”. If I had kids, I probably would have to pay twice to get my kids educated the way I wanted — once for the government schools and once for where I wanted to send them. Since I have no kids, I object to overpaying to educate other people’s — I don’t pay to house, clothe, or entertain them — They are not mine, so why do I have to pay for them.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/08/BAGPDGKAG41.DTL&hw=joan%2Bryan&sn=003&sc=242
A woman, a batterer and a gun
Joan Ryan
Sunday, January 8, 2006
=== begin quote ===
Rebecca took out a life insurance policy on herself four years ago. She made her daughter the beneficiary. She was 51.
She believed that her husband was going to kill her. It was just a matter of time. She believes it still, even though she left him in 2001 and went underground through the California Confidential Address Program. She uses a phony address in Sacramento provided by the program (and is not using her real name for this column) to remain hidden.

Last summer, there were signs he had found her.

So Rebecca started carrying a gun inside a pouch in her purse.

What happened next is a sobering reminder of how the legal system is still struggling to understand the complex and vulnerable lives of battered women.

Rebecca had owned the gun since escaping from her husband. She bought it after the required 10-day waiting period and registered it in her name. She knew the police couldn’t always be around to protect her. A gun leveled the playing field against a man bigger and stronger than she was. Maybe it would save her from becoming one of the 1,300 people killed in the United States each year in domestic violence attacks.

One evening last August, Rebecca was making the long drive home from Mill Valley, where she had to drop off some papers for a client. She stopped at an Albertsons supermarket in Half Moon Bay. She paid for her groceries, picked up the shopping bag and her wallet but left her purse at the end of the checkout counter.

=== extraneous deleted ===

More important, the conviction leaves Rebecca more vulnerable than ever to her abusive husband. For one, the district attorney’s office mistakenly included her actual street address on all its documents, which are public record. The office was scrambling on Friday to delete the information.

And two, she now has no protection. (I wonder whether San Francisco voters considered domestic violence situations when they voted in November to ban all handguns and what consequences women like Rebecca might pay.)

=== extraneous deleted ===

Rebecca knows she made a big mistake in leaving her purse with a loaded gun at a public place. Her lapse was a potentially dangerous one; it should not be minimized. But how do we balance her mistake against the danger she faces every day from a violent man who left her crushed and fearful, whose beatings and threats drove her into hiding?

The law against carrying concealed guns makes good sense. But so many women every year are killed by their abusive boyfriends and husbands. Restraining orders, as we know, can’t stop them. The police often can’t stop them. I don’t know what the solution is. But something’s wrong when, in trying to keep herself alive, the terrorized woman becomes the criminal.

E-mail Joan Ryan at joanryan@sfchronicle.com.

=== end quote ===

As you can gather, I don’t agree with just about anything in this article. BUT most especially the writer’s conclusion, “The law against carrying concealed guns makes good sense.” Aside from the fact that it abridges everyone’s second amendment rights. The dead old white guys recognized that it’s a dangerous world out there. It’s probably more dangerous now. Sam Colt made men and women equal. Aren’t we learning the lesson that criminals don’t obey laws. Make all the laws you want. It doesn’t’ stop squat. If the gummamint can’t keep drugs, weapons, and guns out of its own prisons, then how do you expect it to protect you? Don’t you see the protection you get from concealed carry even if you don’t carry? The criminals now have a target rich environment of unarmed people. They can attack the weakest and everyone else just is weaponless to stop them. If even just few of the weak are packing, then it becomes a guessing game. Hmm, I try to mug the wrong old lady and I wind up dead! Bad choice. If we keep eliminating criminals like that, then pretty soon we will either be out of criminals or they will have to take up a new line of work. Either way, I trust women to make good decisions. And, if by some chance they make a bad one, (i.e., some thug scares them), then I’ll give them the benefit of  the doubt. There are two mottos in the gun community: (1) shoot, shovel, and shut up; and (2) better judged by 12 than buried by 6. Besides as Heinlein taught us “an armed society is a polite society”. It’s still a dangerous world out there between criminals and government. But then I repeat myself.
=== end ===

http://www.michigansthumb.com/site/news.asp?brd=2292&pag=460&dept_id=472763

Always happy to read about our “cousins”. Would like to know more, see a pic, and recruit her. People don’t understand, (to use a Heinlein scifi term … “grok”) the web.

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