Socialism by Increments

Do you know how much tax you pay? Consider this example: to buy a Chevrolet priced at $20,000 in Indiana you must pay a 7% sales tax plus licensing and excise tax. To manufacture your car General Motors, suppliers and dealerships must also pay taxes. These include corporate income taxes, real estate taxes, inventory taxes , employee social security tax and so on. Of course these hidden costs are included in the price of the car. How much does all of this add to the price? According to a Harvard economist the answer is 18% or about $3000.
So to purchase your Chevy you must earn an extra $3000 for the government tax burden. However, your earnings are also taxed. For simplicity let’s assume your net federal income tax rate is 15% after deductions. In Indiana you will also pay state income tax of 3.4% plus a 1% local option tax. Do the math and we find that we must earn about $24,800 to keep $20,000. So, adding it all up, the total tax burden in this case is $7,800 or 39% of the purchase price. Taxation is nearing the point where the USA will soon be a Socialist economy.

The Next Generation of Thugs is on the Way

INDIANAPOLIS — A study shows Indianapolis Public Schools have the lowest graduation rate for black male students among 63 urban districts nationwide.
School leaders say they're working to turn around the statistics. In the 2005-06 school year, just 19 percent of black males graduated from IPS, according to the rankings compiled by the Schott Foundation for Public Education.
IPS has introduced dropout prevention programs and has worked to ease the transition into high school.
"This continues to emphasize what I've been trying to emphasize: the urgency of turning this district around as fast as possible," said Superintendent Eugene White. "I think we have the things in place now to do that."
One reason the district's graduation rates may be so low is the district's high concentration of students from low-income families.
That is a key predictor for which students are at risk for dropping out.
Urban districts elsewhere often encompass larger areas of the city, including more wealthy students in the mix. Only about a quarter of public school students in Indianapolis attend IPS, which has about 35,000 students.
IPS School Board President Mary E. Busch said the 2005-06 statistics do not reflect recent efforts, such as the district's push to connect with students and require alternative schools instead of expulsions.
"We're working hard to bring the graduation rates up," she said. "We have special initiatives and strategies in place to truly address the situation. We're not pleased with where we are."
But Mark A. Russell, director of education at the Indianapolis Urban League, said more work needs to be done.
"There is not a person in the state Department of Education charged specifically with addressing the achievement gap between blacks and whites. Does the IPS board have a committee on it?" he asked. "If we're wanting to save these children, where is the effort?"


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He ventured forth to bring light to the world

The anointed one's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a miracle in action - and a blessing to all his faithful followers

Gerard Baker

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: "Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?"

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the

Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.

From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered "Hosanna" and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.

As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.

And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.

The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.

And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.

Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.

And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.

But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.

On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: "Yes, We Can."

 
 

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Psychiatric hotline

Ring!
Ring!
-click-
Hello, welcome to the psychiatric hotline.
If you are obsessive-compulsive, please 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3,4,5 and 6.
If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Stay on the line while we trace the call.
If you are schizophrenic, listen and a little voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are manic-depressive, it doesn’t matter which number you press…no one will answer.
Beep!

Build It and They Will Come

Back in the 60s the proud liberal sponsors of the great society said that the housing of the poor had to be improved before they could advance. The taxpayers ponied up for huge apartment projects and the keys were handed over per the liberals plan. The new residents were not without support in their new homes. A Housing Authority police force was funded to supplement city law enforcement. The usual array of welfare, Aid for Dependent Children, and so forth was in place.

We all know what happened next. The brand new projects turned into cesspools of crime...giving bad connotation to the phrase "the projects". Notably in Chicago the infamous Cabrini-Green apartments were finally torn down after years of crime and vandalisim. And in St. Louis the Pruit-Igloo project met a similar fate. Once again the liberals get an A for intentions and an F for results.

In the story below notice that the apartment building mentioned is pre-WWII and yet is still a very much desired habitat. I believe the historic Dakota apartments on Central Park West were built before 1900. The point is that it's not the housing...it never was...it's the residents that determine the quality of life. Another obvious point liberals cannot understand.

New York Post June 12, 2008 --

A beloved Park Avenue doorman who won $5 million in the state lottery wants to move on up - and into the elegant, pre-war building where he works.

That way, "I'll have the doorman open the door for me," says Richie Randazzo, 44, a bachelor who lives in a two-story home in Brooklyn.

But the lucky winner will have to wait because the only apartment for sale in the building at 1021 Park Ave. at East 85th Street is out of his range. So for now, Randazzo, who plans to continue working, will be a millionaire who opens the door and hails taxis for millionaires.

The only apartment on the market in his building is an 11-room beauty that is going for a cool $9.95 million. And even though $5 million is nothing to sneeze at, it just isn't enough scratch - even for a scratch-off millionaire.

....But, taking the advice of his parents, Cora and Frank, who live in West Palm Beach, Fla., he decided to keep his job, because "it's too much too soon."

A thoughtful and true quote

“Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people really talk, make paltry human enterprises seem important. Singers and musicians show us human beings making sounds far more lovely than human beings really make. Architects give us temples in which something marvelous is obviously going on. Actually, practically nothing is going on."

Kurt Vonnegut
—“When I Was Twenty-One," Warnpeters, Fama and Granfefloons, 1974

Our wealth goes to OPEC

From and article by Tom Friedman (NYT):
If this huge transfer of wealth to the petro-authoritarians continues, power will follow. According to Congressional testimony Wednesday by the energy expert Gal Luft, with oil at S2oo a barrel OPEC could “potentially buy Bank of America in one month worth of production, Apple computers in a week and General Motors in just three days.”

Woman uses her wiles on Dilbert

Everybody hates me

Our 8 year old Grandson was acting-up so we told him he we were not going to have a 'pity party' and then Mamaw sung this song she remembered from her childhood (Children's rhyme...sing to Polly Doodle tune.):

Nobody loves me, everybody hates me
Think I'll go and eat worms
Long ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones
See how they wriggle and squirm

I bite off the heads, and suck out the juice
And throw the skins away
Nobody knows how fat I grow
On worms three times a day
Ohh...nobody loves me.

How to be Poor

Ever wonder why the USA has so many poor people? After all, being poor while a citizen of one of the richest countries in the world requires some explanation. The secret is making the right choices early in life. First, turn your back on the free education offered through 12th grade. Achieve this by refusing to do your schoolwork and quitting at age 16. Avoid the GED diploma as well. It is also important to stay away from vocational programs and apprentice work. Caution...during this time you will have to endure the concern and advice of relatives and counselors but you can shake this off if you are really determined to be poor. Of course, lack of high school will keep you out of University which should definitely be avoided .

In your mid to late teens it will help to have a child out of wedlock. After all, many teens are having multiple children with multiple partners so don’t hold back. Another touch is to develop a criminal record. It is easy to do, stays with you forever and eliminates being hired for many jobs. If, despite all of this, you somehow find yourself employed and earning money there are still things that can be done. Showing up late for work is effective. Another effective technique is to cultivate a hostile attitude toward management.

Finally, in the unlikely event you still find you have some money, make sure to avoid saving or investing. Impulse spending and debt are the way to go here. Even substantial sums can be frittered away quite easily so there should be no excuse for accumulating any assets. In conclusion, the road to poverty is not as difficult as it may seem even in the USA. There are two simple rules which will often get you through when you have to make life choices: 1)Always take the easiest path. 2) If it feels good, do it.