If you are doing 180mph in a 60mph (sorry, I'm American - that's like 300 in a 100 kph ;) I totally agree with you, in fact put them in jail as that would be a much more effective deterrent than money. But if you are doing 45kph in a 35kph you should not be paying a 6 figure (in any currency) fine no matter your income, that's just idiotic.

No, of course they wouldn't. The whole point is that it's an off the record system, endorsed by the union and not the government. Once it's on the record there is a paper trail and instead of silly slashdot conspiracies you get federal indictments.

Actually, as is usual on the Internet, there is some truth and some bullshit in that post.

The sensational examples were a Swedish billionaire speeding in Finland (Sweden does not actually have this crazy fine), and if you are a billionaire, yes, people know how much you are worth. The other example was another billionaire driving *185 mph* on a speed controlled road in Switzerland, which pretty much anywhere in the Western world will get you imprisoned, at which point they are fairly free to make even a rich person miserable until he pays up.

You're right though, I have no numbers to back up my theory, but... ...FFS, cut the 90 year old Pearl Harbor veteran some slack, 'eh?

If you are a 90 year old Pearl Harbor veteran, you are a goddamn hero, no one denies that. But if you are still driving, FFS, get OFF THE ROAD before you ruin it an kill someone.

Yeah, but in AZ probably 1/3 of the plates are "disabled parking" and the drivers generally make up for the speeding by driving at half the speed limit.

Any "big one" in California will have something to do with the San Andreas fault. We pretty much shrug off at 5+ quakes, those are just minor annoyances caused by offshoots of the San Andreas ;) When we talk "big one" we're talking 7+, and whether it's directly caused by the San Andreas or another related fault, the energy for that is almost definitely coming from the movements of the Pacific and North American plates...

IMO the land-based part of the game is pretty repetitive at this point, and the Abstergo sub-plot (super-plot?) is as usual pretty bizarre.

But I think I could just sail around the Caribbean listening to the crash of waves and singing of sea shanties for hours. And the ship combat/boarding mechanics are near perfect - it's what you always wished you could have seen in Sid Meyer's Pirates.

That's absurd. The only reason a low income person would not benefit from a mortgage interest deduction (other than that they don't have a mortgage, which is not your argument above) is if they don't pay taxes. Even if they pay 15%, then it's still a dollar-for-dollar deduction on their income, saving them 15%. You basically argue that the percentages matter instead of the absolutes, and then turn around and argue the opposite.

To say the poor pay a share of people's mortgages because of progressive taxes is also absurd. If someone pays $3000 in taxes they are not "paying the mortgage" of someone who paid $50,000 in taxes instead of a pre-deduction of $55,000. And (as I *already* mentioned) you also have to take into account phaseouts *and* AMT, which both effectively negate many deductions as income goes up - ie. in effect the POINT is to offset the effect you just described, and I guarantee you it does that. If you don't understand how either of those work you should go read up on them, but claiming *I* am "financially illiterate" is a joke...

Aka, you are a hypocrite. Which was obvious.

You are welcome to pay more. I paid over $100k in taxes last year and significant amounts to several charities. Pretty sure I paid for MANY more benefits for others than I have ever received - and I'm ok with that because I am fortunate enough to be financially comfortable (partly made possible by the services the government provides) and feel it's a moral duty to help others in dire straits when you are able. And honestly I'm all for increasing the higher brackets and more specifically restoring the capital gains tax to its previous levels - 15% cap gains for investments that the poor can't afford to make but often comprise most of the wealthy's income makes the mortgage interest deduction look like PEANUTS.

Directed deductions and credits to encourage specific behaviors (whether it's home buying, health care, solar credits, electric cars, tuition/student loans) are nothing new, and (at least in individual income taxes) are NOT the reason for the deficit. The reason is that the top tax brackets have been paying historically low rates, so people making serious money (ie. who could give a shit about a mortgage deduction because mortgages are for middle class schlumps) are paying 15-30% (given cap gains, etc) instead of 50-70% of their million+ dollar incomes. Why do you think we had a record year for the stock market but the government is still in debt?

So yeah, I pay a lot of taxes, donate a lot more, and encourage a tax increase that will make me pay even more. I am so greedy and love taking handouts, right. What does that make you? (besides a hypocrite)

*We*? I don't know how your AC flamebait of a post qualifies as being part of the "the discussion" in the first place, but the first post I made - which was near the top of this thread - was "please give examples". The rest of the thread has more or less been one guy stating the same thing without examples, and one other person providing a couple bad examples.

And a time lag is the difference between "directly paying" and "indirectly paying". And speaking of time lag, I and a large fraction of the population now spend almost no time on advertisements due to DVRs. One of the big problems with network TV is they really have little idea how much their commercials are reaching customers as it's now so hard to measure. Also makes it very indirect/questionable. And if you really want to get obscure, many game shows don't directly pay prizes themselves, anyway. They pay insurance and the insurance company pays prizes (especially shows with huge variation like Who Wants to be a Millionaire). Like a point to a pointer to a pointer indirect!

Ok, this thread has officially become silly, I think we all generally know how advertising-based network TV works anyway :)

Except apparently he's a PhD who was making $40k+ while he was saving his money, which is modest but WAY above minimum wage. A combination of intelligence, help, luck, and good health means he was able to save enough to use that as a base for investments.

That's kind of the POINT of the widening wealth gap and lack of mobility. He grew up in a wealthy socialist democratic county with everything provided to him for free (health care, higher education, etc). He moved to the US, had no debt and made a modest but reasonable salary. He did not start out disadvantaged in the US and unable to afford all of the things that helped him get to where he was. It's a HELL of a lot easier to save money when you are born and raised with all of those privileges.

And that doesn't even go into health insurance. Apparently he pays for a minimal plan with a huge deductible, but has never had to use it. One bit of bad luck that ended him (or his wife) in the hospital and the high deductibles and co-pay (and lifetime max of current plans like that before the ACA) and he could be out $50-100k, and there goes all of his hard work. And since medical expenses are now largely responsible for over half of all personal bankruptcies, it's a real issue.

No, that's just not remotely true. And if couldn't be true be unless the government actually taxed people *more* because of it, and that has not happened - tax rates are at some of the lowest they have been in many decades.

And even if they did, it also makes no sense, really. Since I'm in a high tax bracket, raising taxes means I would be taxed *more* so I would pay more on the incremental income (and AMT would reduce the saving of any deductions further anyway, of course) instead of less. That's how progressive taxes work! And the base mortgage deduction is the same in absolute terms regardless of income - you don't get *more* deduction if you make more money, so it gets incrementally *smaller* compared to your income. For someone who argues so much about taxes you don't seem to know how they work very well.

So, for like the 4th time, can you provide ANY concrete examples? Because the above attempt was kind of a disaster. I'm sure there *are* some disadvantages, too, just haven't heard any real ones yet. (If I wanted to put words in your mouth I'm sure I could come up with some, heh).

If no one watched the show but ABC decided to keep airing it anyway, the prize money would still be paid. That's definitely not in a rather *direct* way. Very indirect, really.

I think you replied to a comment I made to someone *else* who was providing examples (you didn't provide *any*, very true!) In fact you didn't in your latest comment, either, just used ad-hominem and restated the same thing instead of providing examples.

Well, even if it's anecdotal, I know several people (including *myself*) who were encouraged to purchase a home due to mortgage deductions. You of course can argue there are problems with them, as well (and I'd agree), but you can't argue that they don't encourage any home buying. When you speak in absolutes it just takes one counter example to be wrong...

Anyway, this isn't even a real argument or debate. Those involve facts to back up statements and I haven't seen any yet. Oh well.

Don't think I'm conflating anything. Your position is the Republican Way. Nothing surprising there. Calling yourself a "Conservative Independent" is just a copout, sorry.

And yet they didn't MAKE those decisions. They were made by a few people in political office. In Arizona and Florida (your primary examples) the Republican voters are mostly retirees who somehow think the Social Security benefits they live on don't come from the government. They may not care who else gets benefits, but try to take them away and see how fast they turn on those who want to reduce their months payments.

So, at least another poster has tried to post specific examples, but you haven't yet... how SPECIFICALLY is encouraging home purchases and proactive health care a bad deal for *everybody*? Vagaries do no good here.