The Glade 4.0

I appologize. Taskiss is correct. I completely misstated myself, and in the process bungled the efficiency data anyway. It has been awhile since I researched this, and apparently I remebered what I wanted to, instead of what actually was.

The data point I was looking for was the cost of compliance with the tax code, which is estimated conservatively at $500 billion. Which is a quarter to a fifth of revenues collected, not the fifty percent I had indicated prior.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/topic/96.html


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24112908/


An Open Letter to the President, the Congress, and the American people by advocates of the FairTax Plan. (linked from http://www.whitehouse.gov)


The numbers are not exact, and I'm a bit skeptical of putting out a cost estimate that includes how many hours individuals spend filling out their tax forms as a cost, but there you have it.

Personally, it seems the FairTax Plan provides many benefits and I'd like more national discussion concerning that and other tax reform opportunities.

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In time, this too shall pass.

I am holding the FairTax hard copy in my hand. It reads $500 billion. I suppose your millage may vary.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Here's the one on their site:
http://www.fairtax.org/PDF/Open_Letter.pdf

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In time, this too shall pass.

I saw that, and am not disputing it, but as I said, I'm litterally holding a hard copy in my hands, and it says $500 billion.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I'm just going to the source, Rynar. I thought it interesting that the document didn't have a date on it, but be that as it may, both the PDF on the whitehouse site and the PDF on the fairtax site are in agreement.

I'm just a numbers freak. If there is a clam that "$X amount" or "X number of folks" or "X degrees of warming" is claimed, my eyes glaze over and I find myself possessed by some anal retentive spirit (probably a bookkeeper who died 'cause he couldn't quit trying to resolve a 2 cent discrepancy in his books) that forces me to google the claim.

Please contribute to my therapy! It'll cost MUCH less than the IRS budget, I assure you. Probably only half as much.

www.savetaskissfromhimself.org

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In time, this too shall pass.

ALOL.

There are worse things than a love of and a head for numbers.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Whoever wrote that is absolutely smoking crack. That's 2/3 of the defense budget!

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That is the estimated cost of compliance with the US tax code presented in Rep. John Linder's FairTax book.

In fairness, estimates tend to range between $170-$700 billion. Taskiss has presented other numbers, possibly more credible.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

At least be more fun. Lex, if everything you've told us is true, and you devoutly believe it,then at least be true to yourself. Engage yourself in better conversation. Embrace the best part of yourself.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Labor has value; it only becomes wealth with a fiat currency.

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I've heard that's bad for your eyesight and grows hair in embarrassing places.

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In time, this too shall pass.

That is the best part of you?

Well, yes, you, probably.

Not that I ever plan to try Taskiss Tenderloin, you don't know where its been.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

No, the best part of Lex. The best part of me is just behind and a little above the crook of my left elbow.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Sure. But you kind of have to weigh that against things like the Johnstown Flood. Not that Carnegie, Frick, Mellon, etc. were deliberately responsible for it, per se, but it was certainly the negligence of their private club that caused the disaster.

At least to hear McCullough tell it, it was Carnegie's guilt over the Johnstown disaster that would spark much of his philanthropic work later in life. That may be to his credit; however, neither Carnegie nor any of his associates in the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club ever accepted any responsibility for the disaster. They took a "vow of public silence", so to speak, about the whole affair, and fought tooth and nail against the various lawsuits alleging (quite correctly) that the club's slip-shod engineering and maintenance of the South Fork Damn and its irresponsible overfilling (solely for the sake of creating nicer fishing...) were directly responsible for the flood.

I don't think there any easy answers when it comes to men like Carnegie. I don't think the rose-colored "Great Philanthropist" POV is any more realistic than the "evil robber-baron" POV. The uncomfortable reality is that both are true, to an extent. Most of these men were both.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

How was that book?

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It's been a few years since I've read it, but pretty good, as I recall. He's even-handed about it, and I think he did a good job of exploring all the terrain.

It's really hard to imagine, from a present-day point of view, that someone could just privately dam a public waterway like that without any kind of oversight, much less regulation. And equally amazing that despite years of concerns about the dam's safety, people were largely content to just trust that the club knew what it was doing and wouldn't actually recklessly endanger them. A lot changed in American culture and law after Johnstown.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

It wasn't privately built, though it was sold to a private group after the fact. From your source (emphasis mine):