Petty
 

they are already making noise for basic cable.

I'm solo now. And I plan on retiring my ass as soon as I gets my "fuck you" money.

Petty
 

Really? Where did you read that? Got any cites?

Petty
 

Saw it on TV last week I think. One of those "family advocacy groups." They are initially targeting Sex in the City reruns on TBS.

Union Jack-ass
 

We've discussed this.

British libel law is a joke, and the verdict never stated the accusations were false.

Union Jack-ass
 

No, but the piece I linked to did:

• The Monitor put the documents through a rigorous series of forensic tests and decided that they were fake.
  
  On June 22, 2003, the Monitor retracted their story and explained how they obtained the documents in a lengthy front-page spread. The Monitor's retraction is worth a read as it offers a fascinating insight into the cryptic, if lucrative, underground market of forgeries that were distrubuted to reporters as pro-war propaganda.

(eta the quote)

No Comment Dept.
 

• In Washington, President Bush weighed in on the alleged foreign interference, warning Iran and Syria against "meddling" in Iraq.

WaPo

Union Jack-ass
 

So?

No it isn't. No it did not.

Maybe There's Hope
 

• The FCC declined to open a proceeding on whether satellite radio is indecent, saying that it is a subscription service and that the agency has already ruled that such services "do not call into play the issue of indecency."

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/CA488198.html

Kinsley's SocSec conundrum
 

Here's a response:

http://www.techcentralstation.com/121504H.html

(a) update martindale. (b) if you are solo, to whom are you saying "fuck you"? your clients? nice.

Kinsley's SocSec conundrum
 

It is a "response." It does not, however, "refute" Kinsley's logic. Is there any portion of it you find particularly compelling?

Kinsley's SocSec conundrum
 

No, I just came upon it so I thought I'd post it.

smoke & mirrors
 

It is welfare, and they didn't "earn" it.

You seem to have missed the fact that the money that will trickle down will be some subset of my the taxes I paid.

Of course, I also believe in inheritence taxes....

Petty
 

Didn't we just have this conversation with me saying exactly this and you saying, "no, satellite is different?"

Petty
 

Do you have evidence of this, or can you just imagine how it could be true?

smoke & mirrors
 

1. They paid into it, no?

2. ...and the taxes the recipients paid.

3. Morally and legally, I can't justify inheritence tax. Practically and pragmatically, it seems sensible for the truly insanely rich to return a portion of their estate. I say that for two reasons: (1) they don't need the money, and (2) their massive wealth has allowed them to utilize tax avoidance mechanisms not available to the average Joe, so an inheritence tax works as a sort of catch-all to grab the taxes they avoided for so m,any years. I am uncomfortable with both of these weak justifications, but can't come up with any others. The truth is that it really is an unfair tax.

Maybe There's Hope
 

That is encouraging, but I'm concerned that the FCC chose to state that it only regulates indecency on mediums "indiscriminately available to children". There's enough wiggle room in that statement of jurisdiction to allow some fucking Jesus Freak lawyer to argue that satellite radio is indiscriminately available to children once the medium becomes widespread a few years from now.

That said, I don't think the FCC can ever get its claws into a subscription service, but in a few years you will see some pack of assholes in some backwater make the argument that satellite radio is everywhere, and therefore children are indiscriminately exposed to it.

The censors' biggest problem, however, is technology itself. There is no way to stop people from getting what they want 24/7 as new varieties of delivery mechanisms pop up every year. We'll be watching perfectly pixilated porn on our wristwatches during meetings in 2010.

Caption Please
 

Actually, according to everyone I know sho's made it, the beauty of haing fuck you money is that it largely eliminates the urge to say it to anyone.

smoke & mirrors
 

Once you're dead, you have no rights. No one -- especially not rich people -- likes the idea that you can't go on controlling things after your death, but that's the way it is.

The inheritance tax is about the rights of the children of rich people to collect their parents' wealth after their parents die.

smoke & mirrors
 

Your kids, or whomever you bequeath it to - not the government - have the equitable, legal* and moral right to your money.

I trust you're not suggesting a policy whereby once a person dies, his money, or any part of his money, reverts to the state's ownership. Thats a scary fucking concept right there.

* Well, I guess this is according to how the intestacy statutes in your state work.

smoke & mirrors
 

Than why do we enforce wills?

smoke & mirrors
 

You have a moral issue with the government imposing any kind of a tax on the guy who gets a bunch of money free because he won the genetic lottery, but you don't have a moral issue with the government imposing a tax on the income earned by a guy who spends 8 hours a day digging a ditch? That is seriously fucked up.

smoke & mirrors
 

Bob, are you a communist?

smoke & mirrors
 

Well, until about the 12th Century, that's the system that existed. Furthermore, as long as their has been a common law, it has provided that property belongs to the individual only during life, and the state can place imposts or restrictions upon its transfer.

I'm not suggesting that we return to the 12th Century. But it is worth remembering that the right to pass one's property to one's heirs is a relatively recent development, and it there is no natural inherent right to receive the property of your ancestors.

smoke & mirrors
 

Well than we really don't own our property outright, do we. There is always a reversionary interest to the state.

ETA: and if we don't own it outright, shouldn't the taxes we pay on it be discounted to reflect that?

smoke & mirrors
 

Well, actually, there is always a reversionary interest to the state. Look up "escheat" in your Black's. As to your point re: discounting, it's generally very difficult to accurately discount for a contnigent future interest. Where the contingency is highly remote, as it is with respect to the state, that vaulation would be nearly de minimis.

smoke & mirrors
 

Exactly.

Let me guess... back in the pre-12th century days, the "state" (royalty) took the assets of the dead?

I'd say its a natural right that what was your fathers becomes yours, unless he bequeaths it to someone else.

To whoever said "you have no rights when you're dead", the right to inherit doesn't belong to the dead, but the living. Intestacy statutes don't aid the dead - they aid the survivors. The dead guy's got no rights, but the law protects his heirs.

smoke & mirrors
 

The money the heir receives has already been taxed when it was income to the deceased.* It is a double taxation.

The money I get in wages has not been previously taxed.

Yeh, it sounds terribly unfair. So does abortion and at will employment to some people.

* Yes, I appreciate the fact the argument that because it is now going to the heir, it should therefore be taxed again.

Maybe There's Hope
 

The FCC is going to lose it all if it persists in the massive fines against broadcasters. Powell needs to worry not about expanding the scope of indecency regulation, but retaining any authority whatsoever. It boggles my mind as to why he'd push the issue to the front burner, given his desire to censor. Better to issue small fines, that companies won't challenge, and cause the nets to self-censor.

smoke & mirrors
 

This post has lots of large, legal-sounding words. What are you trying to pull here?

smoke & mirrors
 

Why should death be a taxation event at all? The kids will pay taxes on the gains in the pot anyway.

smoke & mirrors
 

Because you're getting a chunk of money that you didn't have before?

Why should I pay federal excise tax on booze? The money I pull out of my wallet to buy the fifth of Old Grandad has already been suject to the income tax.

Whether something like the estate tax is good public policy or not is one thing -- but calling it immoral is (sorry sebby -- I love you, but ...) just stoopid. It's money. (or a bond or a mansion -- whatever) Your mom wouldn't have it but for the government which created and protects property. She wouldn't have had the estate in Westchester when she kicked it but for the fact that some central authority prevented the Visigoths from burning and looting it.

smoke & mirrors
 

No, no, no they won't. They get a tax-free step-up in value. The gain isn't recognized.

smoke & mirrors
 

True, except that under the current estate tax repealer, it also repeals the step-up in basis. If death is irrelevant, then there's neither a realization event nor a step-up.

smoke & mirrors
 

It seems like we are all trying to make rational sense out of the irrational. I can gleam very few underlying principles in our current tax systems, except that it is a negotiated way to feed the beast.

smoke & mirrors
 

But, dude, I want that fucking money. What if I get lucky an my folks' silly investments blow up and they wind up with some major fat cash... I want that shit. I want to be retired early and naked on the beach. And I truly hope to pocket enough in my life to be able to hand over a pretty cushy existence to whatever kid I have. Ideally, I'd love it if I could make enough that the kid never had to work. Life's too short to work. think of how many endless hours we all waste, and we only go round this gig once. Once. I get 70 odd years if I'm lucky and half of them I'm stuck working? Shit, anything to spare my kids the horror of it all.

Being bored senseless and wasting one's hours for money is cruel and unusual. I blame my filthy useless Irish genes for giving me no skills but the ability to prevaricate and twist people's words. I should've been a plumber.

smoke & mirrors
 

Yeah, and note that Bush's/the Rs revenue forecasts for that tax package cut off at EXACTLY THE SAME TIME the estate tax repeal kicks in.

That is a side note. Under current law, there is a step-up in value and no recognition of any built-in gains, but you have the estate tax.

Under the new law, is there really neither realization nor recognition? I would think that they would have to realize the gain -- I mean, they *have* the stuff they inherited. They probably just don't have to recognize the gain until they re-transfer it. Which is kinda fucked up -- the ownership of the asset gets transferred, but it's not a recognition event. Must be nice. And quite, QUITE the incentive not to transfer whatever it is you inherited to someone who could use it better.

I tend to think it's not that bad that the current system encourages transfers (so that the inheritor can pay the taxes). Grandpa's been holding onto that land for no other reason than to avoid paying taxes on the gains, anyway.

smoke & mirrors
 

Read The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America (written by a lawyer). The "beast" is necessary because it creates work for us. What would all the lawyers, accts and consultants do if the beast didn't create busy work for them to sell? Perhaps something productive? Perhaps cure something? Why do that when you can dick around with arcane regs and contort procedure like me. What do I do? I'll tell you what I do. I play procedural games for disgusting business people who don't want to pay bills or want to gain strategic advantage in a deal. I steal from pigs for pigs. Great gig, huh? I feel better losing than I do winning most of the time. A pointless existence if ever one existed.

The only thing lower than me is the people who act as rule custodians in this mess - the useless bodies who remind me about procedure and their little rules, my rote knowledge of which makes my time chargeable at a pretty fat rate.

Manipulating idiotic rules and satisfying clerical minds and reg-custodians. Oh yeh, the beast is great. How many cures for AIDs have been lost because good minds decided to take the fast cash that comes from jockeying with the beast? Maybe Bush is right...