Can You Show Me A Timestamp?

Student loan forgiveness is back on Facebook!

"Not paying back a loan made with someone else's money isn't forgiveness, it's THEFT!"

The implication that the person who's in default is the thief.

However, that's not true.

Making a loan with someone else's money is theft.

The borrower didn't steal from you, the loaner did!

So, what I want to see, since this matters so much to you:  Where are your objections to federally guaranteed student loans.  Make sure it has a date stamp that precedes the "student loan crisis."

Because if you were fine with them as long as they were being paid back, you're fine with the stealing of your money.

If you were fine with the loans and them being paid back, then you also have to get OK with the idea that there will be defaults.  There will be circumstances where there will be massive defaults (happens with housing too).  There will be defaults massive enough that the best financial decision for the lender is to erase the loan balances. 

"Wait!  No!  That's different!"

No.  It really isn't.  What's different is a degree isn't repossessed or foreclosed.

You've been led astray and you're blaming the wrong people for the problem.

It's the universities still stuck in the paradigm where having a four year degree, ANY four year degree, led to a decent, white-collar, job.

If the content of your education didn't matter then students were free to pursue anything that interested them and universities were incentivized to provide degrees in those subjects.

I remember when a degree in black lesbian studies led to employment in an office.

A job, by the way, that used to require a high school education.

But that's a topic for a different post. 

Decline To Renew

Got a letter from my house insurer saying they weren't going to renew our policy because we'd failed to respond.

"Respond to what?"  I wondered.

It must have been among the dozens of "don't forget we're here for you" letters they spammed out right after Ian and Nicole.

Called my agent and it's they want us to get an inspection to make sure our roof will last another 5 years.

That will be awkward.  We're still making repairs from Nicole because we can't find a contractor who will show up thanks to rampant new-construction in the area.

We've stabilized the front flashing that was damaged and were planning on putting up new wood as soon as it fails to hit 90 by noon.

I'm not too bad at carpentry.

Um, Yeah, Fuck YOU

Went to pay my car insurance.

$660 a month.

It was $500 for the previous six months.

It was $350 a month the six months before that and about $250 a month for the previous 11 years.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK USAA?

It's hard to comparison shop when hardly any insurance company lists my 2012 Caprice.

BUT!

State Farm threw a quote of $421 a month.

Looks like I'm changing insurance companies.

A Waste On So Many Levels

The Clinton legacy keeps on giving.  Link in case the embedd is broke.

Surplus should be made available to any citizen who wants it rather than being destroyed.

I'm even OK with charging the citizens a nominal fee to get it; though the citizens have already paid for it.

But destroying it...

It's being bad custodians of the taxpayer's money.

Lug that shit back to supply at the very least is what we should be doing.

Deep Scan

When a friend comes down with 4 Trojans and a malware, and you've borrowed a file or two from them...

It's time to do a deep scan.

And that's what my desktop is doing for the next... who knows how long.

Go Go White Privledge!

Apparently Wal Mart is racist.

"Black" beauty products are locked up while "white" products aren't.

The KKK Grandjester (or whatever they're called) didn't call up Wal Mart and say, "You know how we can keep them CENSORED from getting uppity?  Lock up their hair care products and cosmetics and treat 'em like you don't trust 'em by making them pay for their stuff right there!"

I feel your pain Rachel.  That's exactly how I have to buy men's razors at Winn Dixie and ammo and electronics at Wal Mart.

It's not racism.

It's loss prevention.

The locked cases and special registers don't go in until extra control is needed because stock is leaving the store but money isn't staying.

So, in the case of hair care and cosmetics, maybe if someone wasn't stealing these things, they wouldn't be locked up.

And since you've identified the products as only being useful to black people, you've also identified the race of the thieves.  That makes you the racist, Rachel.

I know, you can't be because you're black, blah blah blah.

But, apparently, white people aren't stealing their hair care products, so they don't get treated like thieves.

Don't get me wrong, I've been treated like a thief at Wal Mart too, Rachel, every time the incompetent cashier failed to disable the security thing and the alarm went off at the door I had to prove I'd paid for the item.  I lost count of how many times that happened.

But notice something about this.  Did I blame systematic sexism, racism, ageism?

No.

I blamed the person at fault.  The cashier for failing to disable that anti-theft device.

You might try it sometimes.

Sauce For The Goose

Appropriate my Bull?

I'll just modify your corporately sponsored bronze billboard with a comment of my own.

It's What They Do

Venezuela just nationalized General Motors' plant down there.

And by nationalize, I mean seize.

And by seize, I mean stole.

And GM thinks they can settle this out in court.

You can tell that optimism won out over history at Renaissance Center.

When a socialist government takes over a previously capitalistic democracy, shutter your shit and move your stuff while they're still transitioning.  Call it a "planned renovation" or something, because if you don't get your gear out, it'll be stolen from you.

Staying in the nation that does this makes you an accomplice to the new regime because working with them to keep your plant open just a little longer only prolongs the agony as socialism works its universal misery magic on the populace.

Appropriation

Read this.

Here's my take.

"Fearless Girl" should be removed because it's not part of "Charging Bull" except through appropriating a portion of the sculpture not owned by the people who modified it.

Because "Fearless Girl" is not a complete work.  It requires "Charging Bull" or it loses its meaning.

It also alters the meaning of "Charging Bull", in fact, nullifying it.

Appropriate?  They flat out stole "Charging Bull" to be part of their "Fearless Girl" sculpture.

Theft is wrong.  Even if you're sending a popular message with your thievery.

Corporate Welfare

Saw this cute little picture on Facebook.  Posted by someone called "The Christian Left".  They posted the following warning in the comments.

"If you have come to this fb page to verbally attack and abuse poor people who rely on government assistance, your comments will be deleted and you will be banned. First and only warning. We do not tolerate verbal abuse of the least of these on The Christian Left. Go find yourself a conservative hate group to join, you are not welcome here."

Pointing out that social programs are all cost is apparently such an attack, so I am putting my comment here.

I said, "Tax revenue from the poor, $0. Tax revenue from subsidized businesses, $609,700,000,000, Return on investment for subsidizing businesses, 663%. This isn't even hard math." in reply to their graphic.

Never mind that $59 billion isn't near the total on how much is spent on social programs.  The problem is, define social welfare program...  In a broad sense $2.38 trillion got spend on social welfare in 2015.  Social Security, Unemployment, Labor, Medicare and Health are all social welfare programs and they're 60.2% of expenditures.  The matter is muddied because social security and medicare are also taxes, taking in $1.065 trillion.  So welfare is spending $1.315 trillion that comes out of other taxes.  That's a lot more than $59 billion, ain't it?

Considering that $609.7 billion is barely 10% of total revenue, someone should be upset, because the corporate tax rate is a lot higher.  I calculated that from sites giving me the percentages of GDP then percentages of revenue.  It's wrong.

Corporate tax income for fy 2015 was $344 billion, still a 374% return on the subsidy!

But it should not be consumers who are upset they're skating on their taxes!  Taxes are an expense, just like paying the rent and utilities and buying raw materials.  The costs of those expenses are rolled into the price of the final product and passed on to the consumer.  Every penny of that $344 billion is paid by a consumer in the form of higher prices on goods and services.

Consumers like those people being subsidized by social welfare programs!

Sales Tax

When I buy from Amazon, I will now be charged sales tax on the purchase.

Will this affect my purchases?

Well, it's going to make them cost a bit more.

But I don't tend to buy from Amazon with an eye on avoiding taxes, or even getting the item at the cheapest price.  I buy from them when they're cheapest and I don't mind waiting for a week or so to get my item.  Or I buy from them when they're the only vendor who has what I want to purchase.

I'd spend more to buy from Brownell's or Midway on most gun related things because I don't think Amazon spends a penny to support my rights.

I don't see the addition of sales taxes changing my pattern of purchasing.

Taxes Again

Reading this; h/t Mike

The solution is dirt simple.

Since this is genuine interstate commerce, Congress can stick it's ugly head into it.

They can pass a law.

All it has to do is define WHERE the transaction takes place.

The simplest solution is to have the commerce occur in the jurisdiction of the vendor.  That way they only have to learn the tax laws of where they're physically located (just like a brick and mortar retailer). That is both simple and fair.

Demanding the taxes be collected based on the customer's location opens up a sticky wicket.  A tar baby I don't want sitting on the log next to me!

Customer based taxes open the door to collecting those taxes when we're not at home.  Although it might be amusing to only have to pay the 7% sales tax Florida and my county impose while in a place where the state sales taxes are much higher, like Minnesota.

Trickle Down

While we're taxing "the rich" let's not forget something about their "paying their share".

The people they employ also pay taxes.

If the press is correct (oh and they're not) those employees pay more taxes than their employers!

If they don't have jobs, they don't pay taxes.

Avoid

Should someone recommend this shop to you.  Punch them in the balls and run.

That person is not your friend and RC Customz does slip-shod work.

I paid $5,000 to have a paint job that's peeling in thick sheets away from the original, unsanded, paint.

You are better served by going to Maaco.

Flat Taxes and Fairness

For the 9-9-9 plan or a fair tax or a flat tax to work you're going to have to do something extreme.

You're going to have to make those the only taxes and you can't just leave it to mere law.

You're going to have to put the form and rates in an amendment; otherwise we'll end up keeping all the old taxes those are meant to replace and the rates will be subject to the whim of the current crew of thieves in Congress.

Put in a balanced budget clause too.

On whose backs?

I was reading about what a calamity it would be to cut welfare, social security and other entitlement spending to reduced the deficit.

The author even said that it would be wrong to balance the budget on the backs of children and the elderly.

Never mind that the children and the elderly are riding on the backs of the hard-working tax-payers already.

I've been listening to how the solvency of these programs has been in serious doubt for nearly thirty years!

Grampa and grandma were aware of the impending doom and voted in people who would try to fuck me instead of fucking them.  Congratulations you old codgers, everyone is fucked because you didn't take responsibility for your future and expected me to cheerily pay for it.

Tell you what, you get to survive from here out on what you've managed to save.  Not much is it?  Guess what you've left me for my retirement.  Pretty much the same amount.  Since you don't have a problem with me having to live on that, you go first.

On whose backs, indeed.

The Generosity Of House McThag

The IRS is keeping $44k of our money this year. We HA! Thanks Mom!

With the $600 "incentive" that means that my household alone is funding 73 of those refund checks.

You're all welcome!

It's A Thinking Day At McThag's

I do not understand why unions aren't considered illegal cartels. If I wanted to become a subway train driver, I could not do so without first joining the union, whether I wanted to pay the union dues or not. What's the difference between that and being forced to pay protection money to the mafia? In either case, the mob or the union "protects" me (or my job), whether I want the protection or not.

Similarly, if a group of merchants got together to decide that they're going to sell gasoline at $10 a gallon, it would be considered illegal collusion, and the merchants would be prosecuted. So why can individuals band together to fix prices for labor? They are in effect merchants of their work, and they're colluding, via the union, to subvert the free market and set artificially high prices for what they are selling. And they are now effectively extorting the entire City of New York in order to ensure the perpetuation of their monopoly on the transit labor market.

From here: http://brain-terminal.com/posts/2005/12/20/strike-shuts-down-nyc-subways-buses