Consider all the effort it takes to design systems like this, to hire employees to use and maintain them, to purchase the equipment, to pay for data centers, etc.

The answer is, not much at all.

Computing power and disk are cheap. This isn't even a complex problem. The per-item costs of a system like this are probably on the order of hundredths of a cent.

You've already got to track all your products for inventory and revenue tracking purposes; attaching a "who bought this" token is a tiny addition once the rest of that is already in place.

I honestly don't know why Americans prefer corn-fed meat. It seems fattier than grass-fed

You answered your own question. We're Americans, and we want more fat. Fat taste good, mmmm+e@Ds%*a`v=\|3s};aH

NO HEARTBEAT

You're pretending that he didn't already pay the higher income tax rate on the money he earned and then risked in the investments that, if/when then make money, are once again taxed at the capital gains rate.

Mitt Romney NEVER paid the higher income tax rate. His initial earnings were as carried interest paid at the capital gains rate; he NEVER paid the regular income tax rate on those earnings.

So, first problem, you're wrong.

Second problem:

If "putting your money at risk" for some reason deserved a lower tax rate, why aren't gambling and lottery winnings taxed at the capital gains rate instead of the income tax rate? After all, the money spent on the lottery ticket was ALREADY taxed once, right?

Further, why does income from wages have a special tax that income from other sources doesn't?

First, the oft-touted "47% of tax units pay no income taxes" statistic is wrong. 47% of tax units may not pay the Federal Income Tax, but any of them with any wage income at all DO pay the Federal Payroll Tax of 15.3% on every dollar earned up to about $100k. That's a tax on income.

That's a higher tax rate than the very wealthy pay on their investment / dividend / carried interest income.

As a matter of fact, I personally pay a federal tax rate of about 29%, double the tax rate paid by Mitt Romney.

Most people advocating replacing the Federal Income Tax with a "flat" tax are really advocating HUGE tax breaks for the rich, because they're still going to charge anyone who dares to work for a living the new "flat" tax *AND* the 15.3% payroll tax which they're not going to pay.

Even better are those who argue for a 0% capital gains and dividend tax (Newt, Ron Paul), who don't want the wealthy to pay ANY TAXES AT ALL!

Being friends with a girl you like because you're just waiting for your chance to have a relationship with her is basically stalking.

Suddenly asking a girl out who you've never talked to before even though you've been around her is also creepy, because if you can't talk to her like a normal person, why would you think you should jump into a dating relationship? A girl doesn't want to go out with a guy who feels something about her that makes him unable to talk to her normally.

Think it out... let's say that for the past few weeks, you've noticed this girl in your class/at your job/whatever who is around you a lot, but avoids talking to you, averts her eyes if you look at her, etc, and then one day she suddenly approaches you and says, "Hey, I really like you, would you go out with me?"

Like, WTF? CREEPY!

If you get shot down in enemy territory, you're not going anywhere. You're going to either make friends with the locals, if possible, or hide until someone comes to get you.

What you are absolutely, positively, NOT going to try and do is travel 300 kilometers.

And even if you WERE going to try and do so, you'd probably steal a map while you were stealing food and/or a car.

If "nice" means approaching women who you are interested in romantically as "friends" so that you can get an in, and then after a year of being "friends" you make a tearful confession that you've fallen for her and you just can't take being "friends" anymore, then yes, you are right, that will not work very well.

People who do that think of themselves as nice guys, but what they really are is CREEPY.

Related creepy behavior: Asking out someone you've spent a lot of time around but barely talked to before.

If you're a nice guy, then having a girl who you can raise a family with is exactly what you want.

Or, if you're a nice guy who doesn't want to wait for the attractive girls to get past liking assholes, you could date women lower on the attractiveness scale. Plenty of perfectly nice girls of all ages not blessed with superb attractiveness who will date nice guys.

But if what you REALLY want is to have relationships with young attractive women, but such women are not paying attention to you, then you're really an just asshole who isn't very good at it.

State in your profile that you prefer to meet people sooner rather than later.

People of similar persuasion will be attracted to this, and people who want to talk for weeks on end before meeting will not.

Online dating is all about filtering. So filter!

Not really. Online dating means a few women that photograph well are bombarded by the vast majority of men.

So let's say the top 10% of women by photographic attractiveness get 90% of the attention.

For men, the solution to this problem is simple:

Contact women in the 11th to 15th percentile.