I was just witness to a foiled scam. Or to an adult man woefully unfamiliar with the ways of modern commerce. I haven't figured out which yet.
I went to the grocery store, stocked up on fruit and yogurt and picked out a package of the Holiday Oreos.* My minimal needs met I moseyed up to the checkout stand.
The guy in front of me was buying regular groceries - nothing crazy like a barbeque or ninety pounds of meat - nothing odd, nothing out of place. His total came to $39 and change.
Here's where it gets weird. The guy leans in to the cashier and whispers something. She doesn't understand him so he has to repeat himself. Twice.
He wants an $80 grocery gift card. Nothing unusual there, the cards are in easy reach of the cashier. But... he wants to pay for the groceries with the card. And then use the balance to buy gasoline, which this grocery store also offers.
He has not yet purchased the card.
The cashier rings up his purchase, which now comes out to $118, including the $80 gift card. The man starts to become upset. He wants to pay for his $39 of groceries out of the $80 gift card. He does not want to see $118 on the register. And he does not want to pay for the $39 in groceries with the $50 cash in his hand, for some reason. He wants to buy an $80 gift card and pay for the groceries with that.
The cashier is confused, but not so confused she just does what he asks. She calls over a supervisor, who cuts to the heart of the matter. The man cannot pay for groceries with a gift card he has not yet purchased.
At this point the man is upset, though not outraged or even very vocal. The supervisor offers to let him pay for the card first, then he can pay for the groceries once the transaction for the card has gone through. Seems reasonable enough to me, and it seems to be what the man actually wants to do, but by this point he's had enough. He says he doesn't want any of it and storms out, groceries un-bought.
Hmmm...
This man was easily my age, which means he's been buying things at cash registers for well over half his life. I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't get the concept that you have to pay for the gift card first, then pay for your groceries with it. So I'm leaning towards scam.
Yet the optimist in me wants to believe that he just wasn't getting his point across, and when he couldn't explain himself he got frustrated and left. Without the groceries he had shopped for and put through the checkout. And without paying with the cash in his hand.
I think it was a scam, averted by a cashier who refused to be taken in. And yet, you kind of have to admire the guy, trying to get away with something like that in middle of the afternoon. I wonder if this was his first time, or if he's done this kind of thing many times before.
* the creme middle is red, for Christmas. And for one of the days of Kwanzaa, I'm pretty sure.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Nobody Likes A Smarty-Pants
To say there is a strong streak of anti-intellectualism in America is to understate the situation drastically. Just a brief listen to any TV news show, any political debate, or - God help us all - any reality show will reveal just how stupid it seems people have become. We get our information in 5-second sound bites, nothing better than topic sentences to 7th-grade term papers and then it's off to something new. It seems that Americans don't like anything too cerebral, they want to lead with their chin and wear their heart on their sleeve and leave the cipherin' to the few pasty pigeon-chested Melvins who aren't burly enough to make it in a man's world. After all, nobody likes a smarty-pants.
And yet... everybody running for President wants to come across as the smartest person in the room. Without putting on airs or using big words. Or being distracted by facts.
It distresses me. And I don't like to be distressed. How can so many people who want to hold the highest office in the land put so little work into actually THINKING about things? Don't you suppose that our President should put some real effort into understanding the way, say, the world economy turns and how that's tied into multi-national conglomerates and rampant political corruption?
If I hired you to run a bakery, I wouldn't necessarily expect you to be a baker, but I would expect you to discover pretty quickly the details of how a bakery works. You'd need to learn fast, you'd need to be able to move from specifics to generalizations fairly easily, you'd need to deal with ambiguity and yet at the same time be able to employ what you already know to make the kind of decisions a bakery manager needs to make to get the dinner rolls out the door. And to do that you'd need to be a fairly smart person.
Why should our President be any different? It's a much bigger job than bakery manager, with much higher stakes. And it's a job that really has no precedent, there's no apprenticeship for the Presidency. It is sui generis (look it up).
We need one of JFK's 'best and brightest' in the Oval Office, not the 'least offensive of a miserable selection.' We need someone who doesn't pretend to have answers to problems they clearly don't understand. We need someone who is willing to listen and learn and use their brains to solve problems. No more talking heads who get their opinions and policies from focus groups.
I'm old enough to remember when ignorant people were ashamed of their ignorance, now dolts and simpletons wear their foolishness like a badge of honor. It's time to chase the trolls back under the bridge. Our nation's founding fathers were the smartest of the smarty-pants of their generation, and we do them and our country and injustice when we accept anything less for ourselves.
And yet... everybody running for President wants to come across as the smartest person in the room. Without putting on airs or using big words. Or being distracted by facts.
It distresses me. And I don't like to be distressed. How can so many people who want to hold the highest office in the land put so little work into actually THINKING about things? Don't you suppose that our President should put some real effort into understanding the way, say, the world economy turns and how that's tied into multi-national conglomerates and rampant political corruption?
If I hired you to run a bakery, I wouldn't necessarily expect you to be a baker, but I would expect you to discover pretty quickly the details of how a bakery works. You'd need to learn fast, you'd need to be able to move from specifics to generalizations fairly easily, you'd need to deal with ambiguity and yet at the same time be able to employ what you already know to make the kind of decisions a bakery manager needs to make to get the dinner rolls out the door. And to do that you'd need to be a fairly smart person.
Why should our President be any different? It's a much bigger job than bakery manager, with much higher stakes. And it's a job that really has no precedent, there's no apprenticeship for the Presidency. It is sui generis (look it up).
We need one of JFK's 'best and brightest' in the Oval Office, not the 'least offensive of a miserable selection.' We need someone who doesn't pretend to have answers to problems they clearly don't understand. We need someone who is willing to listen and learn and use their brains to solve problems. No more talking heads who get their opinions and policies from focus groups.
I'm old enough to remember when ignorant people were ashamed of their ignorance, now dolts and simpletons wear their foolishness like a badge of honor. It's time to chase the trolls back under the bridge. Our nation's founding fathers were the smartest of the smarty-pants of their generation, and we do them and our country and injustice when we accept anything less for ourselves.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
My Buddy TJ
A short one today, I can't seem to get away from the political stuff.
I hear all sorts of arguments back and forth about the role of government, how big it should be, how small, what a government's role should be. Unless you're advocating anarchy or totalitarianism any of these arguments are just different shades of gray.
But I think people making these arguments are forgetting the first principles of government. When you decide what a government actually is then making the arguments about size and scope and influence becomes much clearer.
So, here's how I see it. The first principle is that the power to govern derives from the consent of the governed. This is the basic idea that the entirety of the United States is founded on. It's the principle that led us to declare independence and it's the principle that our Constitution holds at its core.
Taking that as a given, then, the role of government is to protect the individual liberties of its citizens. That's the beginning and the end of it. Government exists to protect the rights of the people who agree that there should be a government in the first place.
Everything else flows from that. The power of the government to tax is necessary to provide the services that only government should, like roads and sewers and standing armies. The power to regulate business is necessary to protect the government's citizens - you and me - from people and companies who would rather turn a quick buck and hurt people than do things the right way and make a few cents less.
Bureaucracies by their nature do things slowly and inefficiently, we'll never be able to change that. But when those bureaucracies remember their guiding principles - that they're working to serve the people who allow them to exist in the first place - everything can run much smoother.
It is most important to remember that 'government' is not something separate from its citizens. Government IS its citizens. Government is all of us together.
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories."
-- Thomas Jefferson
I hear all sorts of arguments back and forth about the role of government, how big it should be, how small, what a government's role should be. Unless you're advocating anarchy or totalitarianism any of these arguments are just different shades of gray.
But I think people making these arguments are forgetting the first principles of government. When you decide what a government actually is then making the arguments about size and scope and influence becomes much clearer.
So, here's how I see it. The first principle is that the power to govern derives from the consent of the governed. This is the basic idea that the entirety of the United States is founded on. It's the principle that led us to declare independence and it's the principle that our Constitution holds at its core.
Taking that as a given, then, the role of government is to protect the individual liberties of its citizens. That's the beginning and the end of it. Government exists to protect the rights of the people who agree that there should be a government in the first place.
Everything else flows from that. The power of the government to tax is necessary to provide the services that only government should, like roads and sewers and standing armies. The power to regulate business is necessary to protect the government's citizens - you and me - from people and companies who would rather turn a quick buck and hurt people than do things the right way and make a few cents less.
Bureaucracies by their nature do things slowly and inefficiently, we'll never be able to change that. But when those bureaucracies remember their guiding principles - that they're working to serve the people who allow them to exist in the first place - everything can run much smoother.
It is most important to remember that 'government' is not something separate from its citizens. Government IS its citizens. Government is all of us together.
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Friday, November 4, 2011
Setting The Record Straight
I've been hearing 'statistics' repeated over the past few months, intentionally misleading sound bites designed to inflame rather than inform. It's easy to get 'me too' angry, especially when you can't be bothered to check things out for yourself. In our information age, however, it's ridiculously easy to find things out directly from the source.*
Claim #1
Half of wage earners don't pay any taxes.
Truth:
Let me tell you right up front that I am a small business owner. I run a payroll every Wednesday, rain or shine. And I can tell you in no uncertain terms that EVERYONE who draws a paycheck has to pay taxes. It's against the law not to, and if you hire a professional firm to collect those taxes for you (I do), they make all the deductions automatically.
If you get a paycheck, you cannot skip paying taxes. It's out of your hands.
I believe what people mean when they say this is that half of American taxpayers get a net refund, they get back most or all of what they paid in during the preceding year. But the fact of the matter is that the US Government used those funds for months before returning them. Kind of like a bank where you earn no interest. Which is most banks these days.
Fact: Half of all American taxpayers make less than $30,000 per annum*. You're a total son of a bitch if you would begrudge these people their tax refunds.
Fact: these numbers ignore the FICA deductions, which everyone who gets a paycheck also pays - and which no one gets back at the end of the year. Also, FICA tax has a limit which most Americans never reach. In 2011 it's $106,800, at which point you stop paying FICA tax. Which means with every dollar after that amount the rich get 7.65% richer.
Fact: saying 'half of all Americans get a net refund' - the truth - doesn't sound nearly as outrageous as 'half don't pay taxes.' This is why rat bastard asswipes never say net refund.
Claim #2
A flat tax is a better tax option for most people.
Truth:
It most definitely is not. The plain hard fact is that 48% of American taxpayers already pay 9% or less on their income tax* and this is after the standard deductions that all of us get. So 9% flat tax is a substantial increase for most people, especially when a flat tax usually means eliminating the standard deduction.
But let's assume you're more attracted to the 20% option. Who benefits there? Almost 98% of all wage-earning Americans pay 16.3% or less of their taxable income. So this means the 20% option is attractive only to the top 2% of wage earners, who pay about 24%. Maybe a few people reading this are in that bracket, but I can guarantee most of you aren't.
Fact: we have a graduated tax structure because we have a flat price structure. A loaf of bread costs the same for me or Bill Gates. But it's a much smaller percentage of his income than mine.
Fact: flat tax proposals are the professional wrestling of politics, it's fun to watch for a while, but no one who knows anything about the real subject takes it seriously.
Claim #3
The top 10% of wage earners pay 50% of the collected income taxes.
Truth:
This one actually is true. And it's more like the top 10% pay over 75% of the collected taxes*.
Fact:the top 10% also take home 75% of the country's adjusted gross income.
Let's say that again. The top 10% of wage earners in the United States earn 75% of the taxable income. They also take the lion's share of the deductions, so they're actually making at least 30% more just in gross wages.
Fact: if you and I are hungry for pizza but you eat 75% of the slices, I would expect you to pay for 75% of that pizza. Same thing with income taxes. If the top 10% of earners make 75% of the wages they should pay 75% of the taxes. Seems perfectly fair to me.
All right, I'm done for now. Numbers are boring to most people, which is why it's so easy for a few right-sounding but completely wrong 'statistics' to be repeated so often people take them as fact. You need to use the brain God gave you and figure this stuff out on your own.
* for much of this post I used the 2009 IRS tax stats file. Yes, they do provide this information - free of charge - on their web site. It's up to you to go get it.
Claim #1
Half of wage earners don't pay any taxes.
Truth:
Let me tell you right up front that I am a small business owner. I run a payroll every Wednesday, rain or shine. And I can tell you in no uncertain terms that EVERYONE who draws a paycheck has to pay taxes. It's against the law not to, and if you hire a professional firm to collect those taxes for you (I do), they make all the deductions automatically.
If you get a paycheck, you cannot skip paying taxes. It's out of your hands.
I believe what people mean when they say this is that half of American taxpayers get a net refund, they get back most or all of what they paid in during the preceding year. But the fact of the matter is that the US Government used those funds for months before returning them. Kind of like a bank where you earn no interest. Which is most banks these days.
Fact: Half of all American taxpayers make less than $30,000 per annum*. You're a total son of a bitch if you would begrudge these people their tax refunds.
Fact: these numbers ignore the FICA deductions, which everyone who gets a paycheck also pays - and which no one gets back at the end of the year. Also, FICA tax has a limit which most Americans never reach. In 2011 it's $106,800, at which point you stop paying FICA tax. Which means with every dollar after that amount the rich get 7.65% richer.
Fact: saying 'half of all Americans get a net refund' - the truth - doesn't sound nearly as outrageous as 'half don't pay taxes.' This is why rat bastard asswipes never say net refund.
Claim #2
A flat tax is a better tax option for most people.
Truth:
It most definitely is not. The plain hard fact is that 48% of American taxpayers already pay 9% or less on their income tax* and this is after the standard deductions that all of us get. So 9% flat tax is a substantial increase for most people, especially when a flat tax usually means eliminating the standard deduction.
But let's assume you're more attracted to the 20% option. Who benefits there? Almost 98% of all wage-earning Americans pay 16.3% or less of their taxable income. So this means the 20% option is attractive only to the top 2% of wage earners, who pay about 24%. Maybe a few people reading this are in that bracket, but I can guarantee most of you aren't.
Fact: we have a graduated tax structure because we have a flat price structure. A loaf of bread costs the same for me or Bill Gates. But it's a much smaller percentage of his income than mine.
Fact: flat tax proposals are the professional wrestling of politics, it's fun to watch for a while, but no one who knows anything about the real subject takes it seriously.
Claim #3
The top 10% of wage earners pay 50% of the collected income taxes.
Truth:
This one actually is true. And it's more like the top 10% pay over 75% of the collected taxes*.
Fact:the top 10% also take home 75% of the country's adjusted gross income.
Let's say that again. The top 10% of wage earners in the United States earn 75% of the taxable income. They also take the lion's share of the deductions, so they're actually making at least 30% more just in gross wages.
Fact: if you and I are hungry for pizza but you eat 75% of the slices, I would expect you to pay for 75% of that pizza. Same thing with income taxes. If the top 10% of earners make 75% of the wages they should pay 75% of the taxes. Seems perfectly fair to me.
All right, I'm done for now. Numbers are boring to most people, which is why it's so easy for a few right-sounding but completely wrong 'statistics' to be repeated so often people take them as fact. You need to use the brain God gave you and figure this stuff out on your own.
* for much of this post I used the 2009 IRS tax stats file. Yes, they do provide this information - free of charge - on their web site. It's up to you to go get it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
