Tried XM back in 2005.... it was good until they added commercials. Then more. Then more. I reached a point where I asked my self why I was paying to hear commercials. I remain amazed by their simulcast tech however.

You guy talk about a steep tax curve after 250k.... what the fuck do you think my wife and I make? She's an executive director for a major health insurance company in South Carolina and I work in industrial process control. Honestly we were just discussing tonight how if she wants to move up she'll have to go back to school and get a clinical degree and what's the return on that?? Her comment was "Why do I want to make more so they can tax more?". Pretty fucking tired of hearing soak the rich. Really, are we trying to bring the rich down a peg or two or are we trying to help the poor? answer honestly please. BTW, flat tax is everyone pays $1000 . First derivative, everyone pays a percentage of their income. But what we have is a /progressive/ tax where the more you make the higher percentage you pay. How does this not fall under equal protection in the US Constitution?

It is niave to think you don't loose ground when breaking into a new tax bracket. My wife's employer divides the employees into $120k when they subsidize health insurance. Many years ago she got a raise to 61,000 and we had to pay more for our health insurance... so we LOST money by going from 59k to 61k. Another example is recently I got a 3% raise and lost $16.45 per pay in my take home. I have German friends (he an elevator repairman at 42k euro/year, she a substitute teacher). She had to lay out of work so her income didn't put them over into a new tax bracket last year. So let's not kid each other... there is a penalty for crossing a tax boundary.... it won't take long for people to figure out how to NOT make more that 150k in this scenario.

Then you'll have a bunch of people who make 149,999 per year. In France business with more than 50 employees becomes a large business and subject to different taxes.... not suprisingly there are no businesses with between 50 and 52 employees.