Generally routers fiddle with packets all the time, usually not at the application layer though. Firewalls routinely do this as well as intrusion detection and protection systems.

SO... I don't think Verizon is going to be liable for messing with your http packets. Not to mention that if you are downloading a Disney DVD, you are unlikely to be using http anyway, so Verizon isn't likely to do much to the torrent packets, assuming they even care.

Why? Seems to me Verizon is getting ready to dump a lot of coin in their laps..

At least it's not an IPV6 address..

Naw, you where not that sheltered.... I grew up on 130 acres in Southwest Missouri 2 miles from or nearest neighbor, with no TV, no computers, no air conditioning near a town which was population 49 according to the signage (which I think is a huge stretch, unless they did the census on Tuesday night when the sale barn is in operation.) I was very sheltered.

I saw ET in the theater as well as played with various Atari systems regularly...

(groan) Should have just given up waiting..

You are either a youngster, or way too sheltered. ET was/is a classic for it's day and EVERYBODY at least played on an Atari of some kind...

You mean the guy running the small business he owns, who pays corporate taxes doesn't mean anything to you? Or that all the stocks you hold in your 401k wouldn't do better without corporate taxes? There are taxes assessed on nearly every transaction and investment known to man, except perhaps for the money you stuff in the mattress but don't spend.

Yea, I know what's coming next... Well you didn't pay that tax, the corporation did. Yea, but I own stock in that company, and/or I purchase their products so the taxes get baked into the cost cake, so even if they are not a line item on the bill of sale, they are costing me. Then there is the poor small business owner (the backbone of the economy by most measures) who has to pay taxes every which way you can imagine, INCLUDING income and sales taxes who could use the money to pay for more labor, buy more materials or even pay himself more. So yea, corporate taxes matter to the individual a lot more than your average working for a pay check Joe likely imagines, and more than you are likely to admit.

You do understand that I really do not care about the "progressive" or "regressive" nature of taxes persay, they are both bad. Taxes in general are evil and should be avoided. Taxes are sometimes a necessary evil, but any tax on a transaction, discourages that transaction, providing disincentive for economic activity. We tax way to many things in way to many ways and we suffer lower economic activity as a result. We tax in so many ways that your average Joe doesn't realize just how much he's paying... That has to end.

Not even close to "end of story" as I understand it.

Look I'm not saying this wasn't the "issue" only that until we have the FINAL report, any conclusions being drawn are premature and are to be taken with a huge grain of salt. "Pilot error" seems too convenient to me and although that generally IS a factor. The release of this now benefits Virgin so I'm suspicious of this rush to blame a dead pilot. But I don't think there is any tin-foil hat here. I'm saying that we should hold any and all conclusions over what caused this until the NTSB finishes and the dust has settled. All we know is that the Co-pilot (now dead) operated a control. We don't know if it was SOP or not, if that was how he was trained or not, or if it was some kind of mistake or actually part of the planned flight. WE DO NOT KNOW.

I did the same thing when the Asiana flight 214 went down in SF. It was pretty obvious that the pilot got too low and too slow on final approach and landed short, but you never know for sure until the investigation is done. It could have been something like BA 38 which looked almost the same, but actually didn't turn out to be the pilot's mistake.

We have to wait on the NTSB, and not this jumping to conclusions and blaming the co-pilot.

You want to go to Total Tax paid as a basis of comparison of who pays what? You do realize that this is a double edged knife and it cuts both ways.

Yes, I was limiting my discussion to "Income taxes" but as you point out there is a LOT more to this story. Your average guy off the street doesn't think about corporate taxes, inventory taxes, property taxes and sales taxes. Most people don't even know the difference between Federal Income Tax, Medicare and Social Security or even why they are on the pay stub. All they know is that every time they notice a "tax" someplace (on their check stub, or on a receipt for something they buy) it costs them money and they can thus buy less.

Now you want to open the aperture up to ALL taxes and discuss who pays what? You either don't understand how much the average Joe pays in taxes, or you are trying to cherry pick your numbers as suits your argument, even though you end up comparing apples, oranges, grapes and all sorts of varying fruit. Personally, I prefer to keep it simple and just talk income taxes, but I'm game for going whole hog and talking about ALL taxation because it really helps my argument for less taxation.... On everybody....

You didn't address my argument, yet insist on reiterating yours. I don't agree with you. The "rich" pay more in taxes than the "poor" and in many cases the "poor" actually pay negative taxes (They get a check for a "refund" which is bigger than what they paid in deductions).

But I ask you the *real* question here. Do we have private property in this country or not? Is the government's job to act like Robin Hood and take more from the rich to give to the poor or is it to stimulate economic growth and the creation of wealth? Unfortunately, you cannot do both because raising taxes leads to less economic growth and less wealth overall. (In short, the poor get poorer when you raise taxes). But if government's role is that of Robin Hood, taking from the rich to give to the poor, where does it stop? What are the limits of government's power to take? Personally, I don't want to live in a country where my government can just take, even from the super rich. If they can take from somebody else, they can take from you too and unchecked they eventually will.

I'm sorry.. I misquoted my source... It's the top 10% of tax payers pay half of the taxes.... http://taxfoundation.org/blog/... And the Bottom 1% usually pay negative taxes (they get refunds for money they didn't put in).

On the "framing of the question" idea, I've made some suggestions about how to make the tax system more fair, but I'm open to discussing the real impacts on people. I would argue that taxing WEALTH is not a good idea, nor is taxing capital gains. I'm not sure how you would even determine wealth, because just taking x% of cash on deposit won't work very well and asking folks to tell you how much they are worth is going to be as problematic as asking them to tell you how much they earn. Taxing capital gains really amounts to taxing the same money twice, or in some cases taxing paper gains which are due to inflation. Neither of these situations are good for economic activity.

Personally, I think a national sales tax makes sense and is pretty fair. You are taxed on what you spend, not what you earn or make on capital gains. I think if you put exceptions on necessities like food, medicine and possibly housing the impact on the less fortunate would be limited. The rich would pay more because they consume more and the poor wouldn't pay much at all because the bulk of their income is spent on the necessities.

Nothing will be perfect, but I think we can all agree what we have now is pretty broken and extremely complicated.

To get rid of your BitCoin because you can bet the exchange rate will be trending down as they sell...

I'll agree with "quickly" for sure.

What PR departments do is to spin things into the best light they can for the company that pays them. In order to control the spin, you must be quick. Being honest and direct can sometimes fall to secondary status (i.e. get ignored altogether) depending on the moral and ethical stance of the company and people involved. When lots of dollars are involved, sometimes folks think that the short term gain from a quick lie is worth the long term damage it may cause so you will get quick, direct lies from the PR department.

So I agree with you...Everything being said right now by companies involved should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

This is not about the NTSB being taxpayer funded (it simply has to be), Your argument is about class envy and not really who's paying the NTSB.

If you want to argue that the tax system in the USA is unfair, I'm not going to argue that much with you, the system is broken. Personally I think it is WAY too complex and that leads to perceived unfairness. But the fact remains, the top 1% of tax payers in the country pay 50% of the taxes. If anybody has a gripe, it's them, because the bottom 10% don't pay a dime in income taxes...We can argue about numbers all day long, the real question is how can we make it fair?

Do you care to suggest a way we can *fix* the tax system? Say doing away with deductions or perhaps moving to something like a national sales tax or even a flat tax?