Fair Fines and Flatulence Taxes for the Half-Glass Empty Class

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Saturday January 10, 2009 · 9:23 AM PST

2009/01/10 · 09:23

"I guess it depends if you're a half-glass empty guy or a half-glass full guy."
—George W. Bush

Ever get a parking ticket when you were a half-glass empty guy? Or maybe you were a full-glass full guy, in Bernie Madoff's old neighborhood, and you've had some million dollar months? A $100 equals a tenth of a grand a month, one ten-thousandth of a million. If you make $50,000 a year (a little above the median), that ticket is 0.024% of your monthly income. If you make $12 million per year, it's 0.0001%, approximately 240 times less than the median American's unhappiness over the same violation.

A flat tax would be more fair than a flat fine. At least with flat income taxes, we'd all be paying the same percentage of our income.

Dwindling tax revenues force governments to look for ways to balance their budgets. Draconian nose amputations are showing up in emergency rooms all over America. More are on their way. Regressive taxes are just worsening the pain on the lowest earners.

supak

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Monday January 05, 2009 · 10:48 AM PST

2009/01/05 · 10:48

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.—Robertson Davies

What a crock. Here's a man who's father was a Canadian Senator. He never went hungry or cold. His family owned a media empire. Was there anything he ever had to worry about? Did he have unhappiness to pluck treasures from, or did his treasures just show up via the family bank account?

supak

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Friday January 02, 2009 · 9:55 AM PST

2009/01/02 · 09:55

I'd like to preempt the boo-hoo comments by saying, right off the bat, that I've been lucky. I've never been really destitute, although there have been times, like now, where I've had to eat a lot of beans. My credit has gone from bad to good to back to bad again.

But what I'm facing right now is like no other time, ever. After my disability forced me to stop working as a stagehand, I had some money saved, cashed the 401k, and managed to move out of Los Angeles and up here to ~~upstage~~ upstate NY, where it's cheap and we have family. I was managing to pay the bills with the small income I got from my internet marketing business.

Poll

97 votes Show Results

In the last year have you gotten

97 votes Vote Now!

In the last year have you gotten

happier and richer?

2 votes

happier but poorer?

11 votes

less happy but richer?

4 votes

less happy and poorer?

43 votes

stayed the same and richer?

2 votes

stayed the same but poorer?

20 votes

numb?

13 votes

pied?

2 votes

Fake Bids as Protest: So Shines a Good Deed in a Weary World

supak

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Sunday December 28, 2008 · 1:45 PM PST

2008/12/28 · 13:45

On December 19th, Tim DeChristopher, an economics student at the University of Utah, disrupted the Bureau of Land Management auction for oil and gas leases on environmentally sensitive land. He bid up prices, forcing other bidders to pay more than they think they should have, and he actually won the bids for over 22,000 acres, including parcels near Arches National Park, in Labyrinth Canyon, and Mineral Point. As noted by Clifflyon (Thank You Tim DeChristopher), The Salt Lake Tribune noted:

He didn't pour sugar into a bulldozer's gas tank. He didn't spike a tree or set a billboard on fire. But wielding only a bidder's paddle, a University of Utah student just as surely monkey-wrenched a federal oil- and gas-lease sale Friday, ensuring that thousands of acres near two southern Utah national parks won't be opened to drilling anytime soon.

supak

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Thursday December 25, 2008 · 3:10 PM PST

2008/12/25 · 15:10

I was a lucky guy. For 20 years, I was a successful union stage technician in Los Angeles. I worked my way up from building sets for the Price is Right to running the computer automation for the Los Angeles production of the Lion King. When things were slow in LA one year (after the Northridge earthquake), my family and I cashed everything we had and moved to Hawaii for a year. We lived on Maui, very cheaply, because we didn't have that much to cash out. But we did manage to live on Maui for a year with two kids. Even though we were poor that year, we had our health, our beautiful children, and we were living in Hawaii. Walking to a beautiful beach less than a mile away.

Last year, I was diagnosed with severe osteoarthritis, told never to lift more than 20 lbs again.

supak

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Saturday December 20, 2008 · 7:05 PM PST

2008/12/20 · 19:05

In yet another last minute stimulus measure, undertaken by President Bush in these last days of his administration, the American Executive has begun a stimulus for the Turkish economy that has this worn out Kog thinking, hey, maybe I should move to Turkey.

Serkan Turk, general manager of the Turkish business Baydan’s said:

Mr. Bush served some good purpose to the economy before he left.

supak

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Thursday December 04, 2008 · 2:07 PM PST

2008/12/04 · 14:07

We all knew the ranch in Crawford was a set. Like Reagan's movie ranch, where he posed for the cameras to make everyone think he was a working man while he was leading the charge on union busting, Bush's Crawford photo op background was all about getting him elected. Now that he's off the public housing teat, he's moving into a $2 million house complete with servant's quarters.

For a photo and a rant from a disabled, unemployed, nearly bankrupt working man, come on in.

supak

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Wednesday November 05, 2008 · 7:01 AM PST

2008/11/05 · 07:01

The longer this theory bounced around in my head, the more the particles collided, bursting into the energetic revelation that John Sidney McCain III has perfectly executed a brilliant plan to destroy the autocratic, authoritarian, even fascist wing of the Republican party. Barack Obama has had a lot to do with it, by offering a "post partisan" brand that has been brilliantly marketed and executed. Obama has run the most organized political campaign in modern history. But, the natural inclusiveness of the Obama Way would have juggernauted past the scattered wreckage of the Bush administration, leaving fetid pools of the worst slime to reassemble itself.

Poll

183 votes Show Results

Did John McCain lose

183 votes Vote Now!

Did John McCain lose

on purpose?

25 votes

because he sucked?

75 votes

because no republican could have won?

24 votes

because no one could have beaten Obama?

43 votes

because he didn't eat enough sweet potato pie?

16 votes

Post This! A Reply to an Invitation

supak

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Friday October 31, 2008 · 3:06 PM PDT

2008/10/31 · 15:06

Seems like almost two years ago I was kicked out of an unofficial group of my union guys, a bunch of stagehands, at Yahoo groups. The group is moderated by two wingnuts, and is supposed to be to talk about all things stagehand uniony. I took that to mean politics, since unions are inherently political. In fact, they're down-right socialist.

Now two years ago, I was pretty mad. We hadn't won the 2006 elections yet, but it was looking good. The group discussion was pretty hot and heavy, and at one point one of the group moderators called me comrade. Calling me a commie makes even less sense than calling them fascist. In fact, I can demonstrate that the Bush administration, indeed conservatives in general, are autocratic if not actually fascist. So I answered the charge of me being a commie by saying "Sig Heil."

For that I was kicked out of the group.

supak

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Wednesday October 22, 2008 · 7:11 AM PDT

2008/10/22 · 07:11

My wife and I applied for welfare yesterday. I was an entertainment industry cog, a stagehand, for 20 years. I wore out. Osteoarthritis. The doctor said not to lift over 20 lbs ever again. Said it was a good thing I quit when I did. For years I just kept working through the pain. When I couldn't take it anymore, they finally took an x-ray.

That was over a year ago, now. Hundreds of tests and doctors later, and I'm only worse. State disability payments from California ended last month. The 401K money is gone, had to use that to move up here where it's cheap and we're near relatives, near Cooperstown, NY (NY-20). The welfare office has the greatest view...

supak

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Tuesday October 21, 2008 · 6:02 AM PDT

2008/10/21 · 06:02

(or, Wasted Away Again in Frame-a-ritaville)

The Paulson Bailout happened so fast, who even noticed that while the "true conservatives" vituperated against this socialist move by the Bush administration, we all bought the political characterization. The negative connotation of Socialism immediately became the framing of the anti-Bush sentiment. We in the left, especially, were eager to tap the Schadenfreude of yet another chance to point out Bush's hypocrisy. Meanwhile, the conservatives call Obama socialist, and presto, they've associated Obama with Bush.

I had a Euripidean Revelation, then, when I stumbled across this nugget: Former Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Reagan and a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, Paul Craig Roberts, made the case recently on Democracy Now that the Paulson plan is, in fact, fascist.

supak

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Thursday October 09, 2008 · 11:44 AM PDT

2008/10/09 · 11:44

I'm a union guy. Dennis Kucinich's union, IATSE. 20 years. Disabled and broke, now. But this sure did my heart good:

Obama up by 8 in West Virginia.

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Fair Fines and Flatulence Taxes for the Half-Glass Empty Class

A Crock Full of Happiness

Unhappiness (with graphs and poll)

Fake Bids as Protest: So Shines a Good Deed in a Weary World

Mele Kalikimaka My Ass (with pictures)

Bush's Stimulus for the Turkish Economy

The Bushes' New House in Dallas

Inside Job: McCain's Secret Plan to Discredit Karl Rove

Post This! A Reply to an Invitation

American Socialism: This Welfare Office Has the Best View

Saying Bush is Socialist While He Implements Fascism

Almost Heaven! Obama up in WV