I for one am glad to see that congress can come together on such an important bill.

One of the best lines from a movie in recent history that is so true that I think really applies:

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it. -Agent K from Men in Black

and you can't forget number 7, which is size related to football fields.

If only it were just a 50 element array. Using Illinois as an example, each county and sometimes city have their own tax rates. The sales tax on an item if I were to buy it in Cook county would be more than if I were to buy it in Lake or DuPage counties. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but I am sure there are other states which have something crazy like this too.

But this is where the burden comes, is that it would require more research than just what does each state have as its base sales tax.

I am thinking that the gp has the opinion that we are always on the right side of the Laffercurve.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

This is the entire basis of these supply side guys. The problem is, I think we can say pretty certainly that we are on the left side of the Laffer curve for quite some time. I would probably argue that when Clinton was in office, and at the beginning of W's watch is when we were nearly optimized on the curve.

MSU fan by chance? That is my alma matter too, and I feel like we have a pretty crappy reputation with the refs this year. ahem *Nebraksa game* ahem.

For some, the journey isn't always about the final destination, rather it is the journey itself that is the reward.

Enough philosophical crap. While I have not published any apps for android or iOS, I have learned how to start programming for android for fun. If I actually had time to finish some of the ideas that I had, I most certainly would publish them. I would not expect to make a lot of money on it. I certainly would not expect to replace my current income with app development, since as you so eloquently put, the pay off is only a few days of salary. Part of the reason for publishing it however would be just to learn the process and the sense of accomplishment.

Anecdotal story time. Our company recently interviewed a guy who did some amazing professional level FPGA development on his own time. He went so far as to pay for a double sided board that he routed himself, had DDR3 ram, various video codecs, and an FPGA which had a BGA for a footprint. This are pretty complicated things to do and not necessarily cheap to fab, let alone as a hobby when you are paying for it yourself. While he might think about marketing this product in the future, he mostly did it because he thought it would be cool. Sure enough when he showed us the final product, it was most certainly cool. I would tell you who this is, since he has a you tube channel, but we are still trying to hire him.

"Cocaine is a hell of a drug!"

I can see where he is coming from here. I high school I did not want to take chemistry either. And my counselor even thought that for me to complete my 2 science class requirement that I would need to take it. Instead, I took physics which still met the requirement. This almost perplexed my counselor since she thought that chemistry was required to get into the physics class and that pretty much everyone else took the path from chemistry to physics.

The point I am trying to make here is that I can agree to some extent since I didn't want to take chemistry either, but in my case I still took another science class to meet the requirement. And for the love of god, is taking two science classes really too much to ask of someone over the span of 4 years? Certainly some schools will be different, but sheesh.

Perhaps the algorithm goes the other way. Start really low and work your way up if buying from Alice, in the OP example. Once the order goes through, the buyer has found the minimum sell price. Similarly for selling. Start high, and work your way down until Bob is willing to buy.

And you can meet some interesting folks...

Why put the ellipses there? All I can think of now is that something out of 'Deliverance' happened to you.

Good point. I just looked up the marginal tax rate of 15% and did not compute the effective tax rate. Thanks for pointing out my error. Stupid progressive tax systems* ;-)

*Before I get flamed to death, and for the sarcastically impaired, I am a firm believer in progressive taxation.

I would not calling living on minimum wage in the US as surviving, at least in major cities. Take for example Chicago, since I am most familiar with it. For simplicity, lets assume you work 4*40 hrs/ month. this equates to 160 / month. Minimum wage in Illinois is $8.25/hr (which is more than the national minimum btw). this is a net of $1320/month. Looks good, but Illinois now take 5% leaving $1254. The feds will take 15%, leaving $1056. I don't know the exact rates for Medicare and SS, but lets assume that it will put you under $1k.

So you pretty much need a place to live. The rent for a studio apartment, assuming you don't get a roommate, is going to run about $600 - $700 /month leaves you with about $300-$400/ month. Transportation is going to be about another $100/month for a monthly CTA pass. Taking you down to $200-$300 month. Oh, you want to eat too? ~$200/month (granted, you probably qualify for food stamps, but you still need to pay some money out of pocket). An viola, you are out of money. I didn't even mention utilities or other living expenses.

tl;dr version:
Living on minimum wage is hardly a living wage. It is hardly enough to cover the bare necessities in the US. Most likely you will need to get a second job to make ends meet.

That's pretty funny that you would invoke Orwell, who was a known Socialist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_orwell#Political_views

It makes me think you don't actually know what the word means, hmm? Or even what Animal Farm was about, which was more of a statement about the ills Stalinism and communism. But you know, go ahead and carry on about how much you don't know.

Glad I could oblige :D